We couldn't get a single coherent answer out of anyone at the murder site. Was he guarding alone? Did anyone see anything? When was he found?

  Everyone was speaking over each other, freaking out.

  I motioned for Kenny to get going. We couldn't waste time here. We had to think of the repercussions.

  "Why would they try to eat each other?" Kenny asked when we were far enough to not get overheard. "We don't even feel hungry."

  "I could think of several reasons," I said. "Best case scenario, that was a ghoul with regular human teeth."

  "What's the worst-case scenario?" Kenny asked suspiciously.

  "People can become ghouls," I said.

  Kenny gave me a skeptical look.

  "Come on, you've seen them. They look like us, with two arms and two legs. They look like mutated people," I argued.

  "So, someone was bitten by a ghoul and turned?" Kenny asked.

  "Or anyone can become a ghoul without even being bitten," I speculated. "We don't eat for several days, then when the hunger strikes, BAM, we lose control and start attacking each other."

  "I think there's even a worse option," Kenny shakily said.

  I waited for him to express it.

  "What if it was a person, but they didn't turn into a ghoul," Kenny said. "The body looked sucked dry. What if it was drained? But not just blood. What if it was drained of life like we're going to do to the ghost?"

  "And now, someone out there knows how to drain other people," I finished for him, "and is ready to kill."

  ***

  We stood in front of the haunted house, trying to summon courage by going over the plan again.

  Kenny looked as scared as I felt.

  "Don't forget, we have to close in the distance," I said. "The spell works best when there's touch."

  "We can do it," Kenny hopped in place, pumping himself up.

  "And, if there's a ghoul there, we run," I repeated. "We're only trying the Drain on a ghost, don't get greedy."

  "Let's do it." Kenny nodded after every sentence.

  We slowly crept through the front wing, inspecting the familiar chambers. Every one of them was empty, undisturbed since our last visit. We even paid particular attention to the ceilings and the upper corners, as we didn't know where the attack would come from, yet none came.

  We took a breather in the inner courtyard, the side entrance calming my nerves with the promise of a fast retreat.

  Again, we readied ourselves and sneaked into the back wing, the handmade charms firmly extended before us.

  We entered from the left corridor and made the whole visiting round, room after room, until we returned to the right passage, not far away from our last attack.

  "It's not here?" Kenny asked.

  "I'm just happy we didn't find anything worse," I said. "Wanna make some noise?

  Kenny kicked a few pottery pieces on the floor, half-heartedly moving them around.

  "Last time, we didn't find it either," Kenny pointed out. "We checked the whole house, but we still missed it then."

  I started picking up the pieces and throwing them at different walls.

  "Come out already," I whispered angrily, my hands busy with the litter on the ground.

  As if on purpose, it chose that moment to appear. The damn thing waited for me to lower my guard.

  I instinctively raised my hands to protect my face as the mass of claws and fangs shot right at me.

  "Aarghh," I screamed. "Kenny!"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Kenny didn't disappoint.

  "Drain!" He shouted, thrusting his charm in the ghost's direction, "Drain!"

  His attacks were comparable to punches. He tried to pull harder for small durations.

  The creature recoiled as if hit.

  I fumbled for my Ankh and pointed it at the creature.

  "Drain," I tried to will my energy into the spell as if betting my life against the creature's resistance.

  Still, it was not enough. The ghost started breaking away from us. It was getting faster the farther it got, while we were getting weaker from the excretion.

  "Closer!" I cried and jumped straight on it, falling through the ethereal body and hitting my knees on the floor.

  I held my charm to its body and closed my eyes. I tried to put every ounce of strength I could muster into the spell, willing every hidden reserve I still had to make this spell work.

  After seconds of futile strain, I finally felt it. The dam broke. Like a burst balloon, the ghost's energy spilled in a bountiful stream.

  I opened my eyes and saw Kenny kneeling near me, holding his charm above the dispersing shreds of an unidentified substance.

  The life force filled me up, suffusing my every part. It was different than the first Restoration I experienced. While I felt full of energy and growing fuller with each passing moment, my body didn't automatically heal. The strains and pains didn't disappear. But that was easy to fix, with all that energy at my fingertips.

  There was a more viscous undertone to it too. When Kenny healed me, it felt like a sip of an energy drink. Light and fleeting. Now, it felt like a hearty meal. Something that will see me stuffed for quite some time.

  "Whoo!" I screamed in exhilaration.

  I never felt more alive. It felt like a whole gallon of coffee went straight to the heart.

  We won.

  ***

  Kenny grinned ear to ear.

  "I couldn't finish. I'm so full," he faux complained.

  I willed a quick healing over both of us and drained as much as possible from the surroundings.

  "Did you feel anything?" Kenny asked.

  "What do you mean?" I asked animatedly, still high from the rush. "I felt a whole lot of things. There were layers to it like the floaty stuff we use for spells is on top, but there was something heavier beneath it. Something more filling."

  "It was more than just energy," he tried to explain. "It had a distinct feeling to it."

  "I don't know," I said. "Are you okay now?"

  "Yeah," He reassured me. "Never better. It was just... strange, so I couldn't ignore it."

  "Good," I said. "Tell me if you notice anything else."

  I sat on the floor, enjoying every moment. Nothing hurt. I was rested and full of energy, both physically and mentally, and I wanted to savor every moment. Finally. All my worries and fears could take the back seat for a while.

  "Want me to give you your birthmark back?" I joked. "I'm in a good mood and already throwing all those healings around."

  "That's a great idea," He replied. "Why didn't I think about it?"

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "Are you serious?" I asked him.

  "No. Not just some birthmark," he corrected himself. "An Ankh-shaped birthmark."

  I tried to follow his reasoning.

  "You want a tattoo?" I asked.

  "Think about it. We were painting it on our bodies when we started out," he said. "This way, it will be permanently painted, and we could lose the stones," he brandished his charm.

  "But how?" I asked.

  "It's just pigmentation," Kenny confidently stated. "We could probably get the same result with some tanning and sunscreen."

  Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his charm, concentrated, and touched a finger to his arm. A dark spot appeared as he lifted his finger. He covered the area again and erased it.

  "So easy," he said. "It costs about as much as healing a scratch, and we could have experimented with this instead of cutting like crazy people."

  I watched in amazement as he rolled his sleeve and traced the symbol on his shoulder. A loopy circle, followed by a vertical and a horizontal line. It must have been the quickest tattoo in history.

  "What do you think?" He asked me.

  "Will it work?" I asked.

  He put his charm to the side, drawing and removing dark lines on his arm.

  "Like a charm," he delivered the pun with a smile.

  "And if I heal you?" I asked. "Will it disappear?"

  He frowned at that.

  "It shouldn't," he hesitated. "Other than the blemishes that were already missing, we didn't lose any when we tried healing."

  I came closer with my charm and concentrated on casting a general healing.

  Kenny showed me his shoulder, still proudly bearing his handiwork.

  "Nice thinking," I congratulated him.

  I pulled up my shirt and slowly traced the same symbol above my heart, concentrating on the idea of changing the color of my skin and using my life energy to do so. It poured in a steady trickle, in step with the gliding of my finger. It took me more time than Kenny, but I managed.

  "You think that's what Claire did?" I asked him.

  He looked questioningly at me.

  "She looked different this morning," I elaborated. "I thought it was makeup, but maybe she did something similar to change her face."

  "I didn't notice anything." Kenny shrugged.

  "Who knows what she's capable of by now," I pointed out.

  I got up on my feet and stretched. Ahhh, how I missed this sweet feeling. The last days felt like a steady decline into a permanent hunch.

  "Ready to continue our original plan?" I asked Kenny. "The arena awaits."