As soon as Damien reached the bottom of the stairs, he knew something was amiss. He could feel it, as though his blood had been turned to ice. Look frantically around, he could see nothing with his eyes. A few seconds passed, and Damien cursed himself.

"Damnit, I have more powers now! Why aren't I using them?"

Damien centered his conciousness, and then expanded it outwards, searching for something, anything that was different from what it should be. Almost immediately he located a huge dispersal of powers, but it appeared to be behind a wall.

Running quickly to the wall, he listened, and could hear muffled explosions and grunts. Moving his hand over the old stone wall, he found a seam. Following the seam with a finger, he located a niche in the wall after what seemed like an eternity. He slipped both hands into it and pulled. It gave way quicker than he expected, and Damien almost fell back from overbalancing. Ducking in, he soon saw the problem, but his mind refused to believe it.

It was Moktel, fighting with some human wizard. But that wasn't what Damien couldn't believe. It was that Moktel was actually losing the battle. His sire would never show weakness, but Damien could tell. After the year he had spent with Moktel, he knew when the old vampire was in pain. He quickly slipped into the shadows to try to avoid being seen until he thought he could help.

"Hold STILL so I can kill you, you monster!" the human screamed.

"You didn't say please!" Moktel growled back.

Damien watched in awe as Moktel ducked under a crimson blast from the wizard and ripped a hole in the human's side. The mortal responded by raising both hands over his head, and then firing a huge ball of blue power at his master. Moktel tried to roll to the side, but he was too close for the wizard to miss. Damien could hear his master's screams as the ball burnt through the left side of his body.

"NO!" Damien screamed in anguish.

He regretted saying anything as the wizard snapped his head towards him.

"Ahh, you must be Damien, this fool's protégé." The wizard said. "I've been expecting you, you know."

"Then you've been expecting to die." Damien tried to make it sound intimidating, but he could tell it wouldn't work on this human.

"You idiot. You know that you are no match for me. I can see it in your eyes."

"No you can't. You're only human, you can't even see your own death staring at your face."

"Oh stop bluffing, we both know it won't work. I'll tell you what though. Since I'm somewhat tired right now, instead of killing you, I'll just send you to the Shadow Planes."

Those words sent a chill racing down Damien's back. He had heard of the Shadow Planes only in legend, but what he had heard was dreadful. The Shadow Planes were several planes of existence where only the shadows ruled. A person sent there was trapped in the utmost darkness forever, to be a slave to the nightmares that lurk in the dark.

Damien tried to move, to turn, to run. But, as he did, he realized that he had already been enchanted.

"Yes, that's right, boy, I've got you trapped already. Now, say hello to your new masters for me."

Damien could only watch in horror as the wizard began to move his arms in complex patterns and mutter arcane words under his breath. He saw a black orb, so dark that it could be shown only in relief, appear out of nowhere and float towards him.

"NO! YOU WON'T SEND HIM THERE! I WON'T LET YOU!"

Out of nowhere, Moktel flew into the sorcerer, disrupting his casting. Damien saw the orb shift in color, until it was a rapidly changing rainbow.

"Stupid vampire, you'll share his fate!"

Damien's eyes were shifted from the orb to his master as the sorcerer threw him into the orb. Seconds later, Damien was absorbed by the orb as well.

A split second later that seemed like an eternity, Damien was lying down in a forest, with his master by his side.