The Phoenix's Fire

Chapter 7

Avol:

Dead silence. Complete and unbroken. I rushed through the explanation, "He was found this morning hanging from the catwalk in the auditorium. He had been missing for about a week. We thought that he abandoned his post. He didn't. The past week he was being drained of every last drop of his blood." Phoenix stilled, making her spine ram rod strate. She knew what is meant as much as I did.

"There is a set of sweats and a shirt in my room," I tell to her, pointing to the open door to my right. She flew off with no squawks about it.

"Why drain all the blood?" Aku asked, the blood from his face draining. "What would you do with it?"

"Magic." Core muttered with a very filthy curse after wards, "Phoenix can do it. Who else?"

"I'm not sure. Blood mages stick mostly to themselves and stay away from other blood mages. They can feel each other."

The door to my room swung open, and Phoenix walked out dressed in my sweats and one of my smallest shirts. It was still baggy on her, and through her jostling I could see she snached one of my boxers as well. "I haven't felt another blood mage since leaving the castle." She pulled at her hair out of the shirt and let it flow down her shoulders. It took more will than I thought I had to pry my eyes off her, and look to the brothers in the room. They were both drooling. The beast inside me cracked an eye. I looked away, staring up at the ceiling, willing the beast back down.

"Can you track down a blood mage if one is here?" I ask, rallying myself.

I barely saw her shrug, "Don't know. For me to feel the blood mage, I'd have to be in the same room with the blood mage. And it can't be a too crowded room. Classrooms are just fine, but at an assembly I wouldn't be able too. The good part about that is, it is the same for the other blood mage."

"You know any spells that could locate another one?" Core asked.

I could feel Phoenix's glare, "Yes I do, but they wouldn't help."

"They're all defence spells." I explain to the open air, "They locate the closest blood mage in the vicinity. Not who it is or where they are. There just has be be one around, and since Phoenix is one, it would be pointless."

Core made an annoyed sound. "How do we find a blood mage then? Make Phoenix meet everyone one on one?"

I peered over at Phoenix raising an eyebrow, "That," I said slowly, "just might work." Phoenix opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, but I held up my hand to let me finish. "I think the princess should make a surprise appearance to check on the school and greet each class."

Phoenix pailed, growling out, "I hate you at this time and anytime I have to do this."

"That also means turning back into you true form," I prompted with a sly smile. She bared her teeth at me, but I won.

"Do you have a blood drawing kit?" She grumbled.

I shrug, "Yeah, but it's old and I don't know if it is sanitary."

She peers over at the two brothers, "Can either of you boil a pot of water properly?"

"I can." Aku says before Core could and went to work in the kitchen.

I slipped into my room to see that all my cloths that were on the floor previously were now thrown into a laundry basket I kept in the back corner of my closet. I huffed a laugh before digging through the bottom drawer in my dresser. It was right where I had left it the year I got it. It was a beautiful carved wooden box with two intertwined snakes on the cover. It was an anomanice gift the year I had gotten the acceptance letter for the trails to become a Fire Elder. I still had no idea who gave it to me. Reaching in, I pull the box out of the drawer, a coat of dust fall off.