It's super hot, there's sweat coming down in waves off my back and my forehead, my feet are killing me, and I haven't eaten in over eight hours. If our loud footsteps in the sand don't give us away my grumbling stomach will.

"Can't you like magic us up some food or something?" I ask through pants as we trudge on in the dark. Well, as I trudge on. Nekozawa's doing just fine up ahead, parting leaves for us and holding a little glowing flame in his hand to guide us along with the moonlight. I'm guestimating it's about eleven or twelve at night. The moonlight helps a bit, but there isn't much once it gets through the thick trees. "Isn't there anything useful about magic?"

"Now you're speaking with your stomach," he said with that hint of laughter that drives me nuts. "Magic is very useful. Do you remember the history book I assigned you when you first joined? If you've been reading it, you would know of how much black magic has done for the world, both good and bad." I gritted my teeth in frustration, anger, hunger. That book was like a foot thick. I have absolutely no time for that. "In fact you would know who the people who inhabit this island are."

This piqued my interest. "Who are they?" Maybe I really should be reading some of that book.

"Well," he began, slowing so that I could catch up with him. His black hair was unnaturally smooth and not-greasy, like mine was without a shower in the past day, and that smile was still plastered onto his face, teeth glimmering in the flame's light. "Many peoples, from the Aztec to the Islamic, involved themselves in both Black Magic and White Magic. First we must make the distinction between the two." Here he turned to look behind us, muttered some Latin, and blew softly down to the ground as he did about every half hour. Immediately our footsteps disappeared, and we turned to walk again. "The old definitions are as such: magic in general was the calling upon or growing closer to a spirit or spirits, and Black Magic is practicing magic for selfish or morally wrong reasons whereas White Magic is the opposite. Now the two are usually grouped together by many, and there is no real difference."

"But there's a lot of other stuff that you've taught me that magic does," I interrupted, lifting my foot high over a log in our path. "Why was the definition just interaction with spirits?"

"Because that's all they could do at the time," he said matter-of-factly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Geez. He continued, "Because so many people during so many different time periods believed in such practices, it is thought that divine intervention was involved, specifically two angels, or 'beings', named Harut and Marut. They are often viewed as tricksters, for they would come down to test humans with magic but tell the humans not to imitate them. However we did, and here we are," he gestured to the dark, sandy, jungle-y forest of palm trees like this was some accomplishment. Pffft.

"Now there were and are many different 'denominations', if you will, of groups who practiced the different types of magic. It is much like the Protestants Churches of Christians." He stood still for a tense moment and looked around us as though he'd heard something. Did someone find us? But then he continued, and I released my breath. My gosh this sweat is making my robe stick to my skin. "Basically every group focuses on some different aspect or type of magic, whether it be Black or White. Our group is focused on general magic, however there is another group that practices specifically the ancient traditions to keep them alive. Another is devoted to magic involving water, one to that involving air... You understand." I nodded and wiped a sticky piece of hair from my face. "There are some practicing explicitly animal magic or human magic. The denomination we have seen this afternoon puts the last two together."

He just stopped talking. What? "They combine human and animal magic?" I asked, uncertain if this is a bad thing.

He sighed heavily, turning to erase our footsteps again before speaking. "Yes. It would be alright if they practiced both separately, but in this case they put both together to form a whole new type of magic. This is acceptable. Remember something is only truly 'Black Magic' if it is used for selfish reasons, if it is morally incorrect. It can be called Black Magic without really being either of those things. Because it is so loose a term, there is much debate if something is Black Magic or White Magic, or Natural Magic, which is usually a happy medium of 'neutral'. However this denomination mixes those two types against the wills of the victims." The smile was gone from his face as he shields his tiny flame from the slight wind that's picked up. I can tell how serious this is from the low pitch of his usually jumpy voice. "The animals are treated well, otherwise they become faulty test subjects. On the other hand the humans do not have to be taken care of. They are often malnourished, dehydrated, tortured to no end, before they are used for the purposes of their combined magic."

I almost stop in my tracks, I am so appalled. How can stuff like this go on in a world as cultivated and matured as this? "Isn't there some sort of Magic Council or whatever that can take care of these guys?" I ask. The anger is seeping out of every word.

"Unfortunately not," he sighs. "These people suffer each day, none escape, and those who try are punished-" he accents very heavily on this word, "-or killed. They are used as guinea pigs from the day they are captured to the day they die, mutated into a lesser being without their consent."

I am really, really wishing he'd remembered to bring that stupid battery. Hopefully we don't run into these guys.

"Just as you shall be."

Nekozawa and I looked up to see the owner of the voice, the same black haired man in the white robe that we'd seen earlier that day, standing in front of us. He was partly hidden by the thick wall of leaves, but the menacing smirk on his face was clearly visible.

Crap.

"Stay behind me," Nekozawa whispered into my ear, touching my wrist. So I shift behind him, peering over his shoulder at the strange man. Now that I know what could happen, the fear starts to set into my bones. I don't want to be a human-animal hybrid!

"I can smell the fear in the little one's sweat," the white-robed man said. His voice is deep and heavy and resonant, like I can almost feel it in the ground. Everything about him just reeks of power, confidence. I'm instantly freaked out, kinda like immobilized. Is this his magic? What can this guy do?

"Let's take the easiest first, shall we?" the man says, widening his smirk.

I heard Nekozawa say urgently, "Get back!" But that was the last I remember before I found myself staring into the canopy above, and then darkness.