"Professor Magdat!" I said, much louder than I intended. "I... err... do you remember me? Winston?" My voice cracked halfway through the word "remember" like the very sight of her had caused me to regress back into shameful puberty.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. Her beautiful, beautiful eyes. I could get lost in them all day. "Winston..." she repeated slowly, licking her soft, plump lips. "Were you the one that I caught looking down my shirt that one time?"

My cheeks burned hotter than any fire in existence. Skip tried to stifle a giggle and failed miserably, making it into a loud snort. "Well..." I sputtered. "I mean..." There had been that one time where my attention perhaps drifted a bit during class, and my eyes may have happened to wander down for a good half hour or so. And as soon as I looked up, our eyes locked. But then she'd just gone back to teaching. She'd never punished me, or said anything... "Maybe, like... I might have accidentally looked or something..."

She tsked knowingly and nodded. "Well, there it is. That narrows it down to every male student I've ever had in my entire teaching career." I didn't think it was possible to blush more than I already was. Somehow I found a way. I was surprised that Skip and Professor Magdat weren't sweating from the heat radiating out from my face. "Now, what can I do for you, Winston and....?"

"Skip," my companion introduced herself with a smile and handshake. "I'm a good friend of Winston's. He's just been showing me around the Academy here."

"Pleasure," Professor Magdat said, putting on her best radiant smile. The sapphire hanging between her breasts swayed gently as the two ladies shook hands, and it took every ounce of willpower for me not to look down. "What do you need, Winston and Skip?"

"We... well..." I really hadn't thought this part out yet. As the head of the Blood Magic department, she was probably the worst person to come to with this request. She knew the power that blood holds, and the innumerable things that we'd be able to do with even a drop of hers. "We need some of your blood, Professor." I produced an empty vial from within my robes and thrust it toward her.

She took the vial in her hands and looked back at me with a look that practically screamed 'no fucking way.' The glass tube danced beneath her nimble fingers as she twirled it absentmindedly on her knuckles. "And what for? Asking for blood is quite the personal request."

I took a deep breath, ready to tell her about Amcerlizar and our quest to defeat him. I was willing to play the 'Skip's dead husband' card for sympathy. "You remember Amcerlizar, right?" She scowled briefly and rolled her eyes. I took that to mean yes. "Well, we're go..."

"There's a plague," Skip interrupted. "A horrible, devastating wasting sickness running rampant through Milotia." She was using the Voice, conjuring images of streets littered with corpses in my mind. Sickly, pockmarked bodies with trails of blood running from every orifice. Hacking coughs and violent sneezes assaulted our eardrums, and even the air seemed to be tainted a dark, hazy brown. Perhaps from the pyres where victims burned en masse. Truly a horrible plague that Skip was making up here. "It's killed so many already, Professor Magdat." Skip's voice was laden with emotion, and I even thought I saw a tear glistening in the corner of her eye. Damn she's good, I thought. 

Professor Magdat gasped and placed a smooth, dainty hand over her heart. "Gods, that's awful!" 

Skip nodded solemnly. "It's really, really terrible. But thankfully, Amcerlizar is there trying to help. He says that he'll be able to brew up a cure. BUT, he told us that he needs your blood." I could practically picture the conversation in my mind: me, Skip, and Amcerlizar in the midst of a packed medical ward with Amcerlizar doing his very best to save those poor, plague-ridden souls. "Only your blood will work because..." She trailed off and searched the ceiling for the reason. "be...cause... oh, because of how long you've lived!"

"I see." Professor Magdat said. She went to her desk and pulled out a vial already full of deep scarlet blood and pressed it into Skip's palm. "Well, whatever I can do to help. Please, take it."

Wow. Far easier than I thought. Thank god for Skip's Voice abilities. "I'm afraid that's not all, Professor Magdat. We're... uh... we're going to need your Sapphire necklace." The jewel, detailed with golden runes, was really unlike any other. Amcerlizar would absolutely recognize it immediately. I pointed to the jewel around her neck, and did my absolute best to keep my eyes off of her perfect breasts. Turns out that my absolute best wasn't very good.

This suggestion didn't go over well. She grasped at the necklace protectively and narrowed her eyes. "What for?"

I looked Skip in the eye and gave a slight shrug. "For... umm...."

"Well he needs to be sure that it's your blood," Skip gleefully cried. "Of course! See, the cure that Amcerlizar is brewing is so complicated that he has to be 100% sure that we've got the right ingredient. And the only way to be sure that it's yours is if we have the necklace, too!" As she spoke, I could picture Amcerlizar telling us that exact same reason for why we needed it. "And we absolutely promise to bring it back as soon as we've shown it to Amcerlizar."

Professor Magdat stared at the necklace uncertainly."That does make sense," she said finally. "I guess I could loan it to you." She looked straight at me with her gorgeous eyes and gave a pleading smile. "You swear you'll bring it right back?"

I tried to smile back and gave a completely dumbstruck nod. There was a groan from next to me, and if I'd been able to take my eyes off of Professor Magdat, I probably would have been able to see Skip's eyes roll.

"Well, alright." Professor Magdat lifted the delicate silvery chain from around her neck, twisted her shimmering hair up into a bun, and took the necklace off. When she let go of her hair, it was no longer blonde: it had become silvery and wiry and frizzy. Her skin seemed to sag suddenly, like someone had been holding it taut and instantly let go. Wrinkles appeared all over, and her straight back suddenly hunched over. Her breasts became shriveled and drooping, though the skimpy red lingerie remained the same. For the first time, I wished that she was wearing something a little less reveaing.

"Here you are," she croaked, dangling the jewel in front of me and grinning. Her smile, formerly straight and white, had disappeared. Well, mostly: a few yellowish, craggy teeth remained jutting out of her old gums.

I recoiled in horror. I really couldn't help it. I didn't want to.

"Not so sexy now, am I?" Professor Magdat crowed. She clutched at her sagging breasts and squeezed them together, shoving them toward me. "Whatsamatter? Don't want to look anymore?"

"I... umm..." I didn't know how to answer. And I didn't really want to look at her. 

"We really appreciate it," Skip broke in. "We know how important the sapphire is, and we'll have it right back to you. Thanks." She reached for the jewel, but right before her fingers closed around it, Professor Magdat jerked it back. 

"One last thing," Professor Magdat said. Her sweet, bubbly tone had grown cold and hard and severe. "As much as I was impressed with your use of the Voice, I'm afraid it was a bit of waste." She gave a cackle that sent shivers up my spine. "You really expected me to believe that Amcerlizar would be trying to help some innocent dying people? No Voice in the world is powerful enough to persuade me of that crap, even without my immunity." Skip's eyes went wide. "So let's just be straight with each other. You're trying to kill Amcerlizar, correct?"

Skip and I traded glances. But the silence was enough of an answer for Professor Magdat.

"Oh please; you might as well tattoo your intentions to your forehead. Blood magic has a way of heightening the senses, and I wasn't born yesterday." She cackled at her own joke that she must have made thousands of times before. "You're just lucky that I'm sick to death of hearing about that smug little brat, and I'm also tired of getting daily messages from him asking me to come be his 'exalted queen' or whatever." She made a disgusted face just thinking about all of his past proposals. "So here's the deal," Professor Magdat continued. "You can take the blood. I've got plenty, and it's clear that I'm not the one you're after. On one condition: you leave vials of your own blood here with me." She produced empty bottles and a knife from her desk. "If Amcerlizar ends up killing you, at least your corpses will be of use to me."

Skip and I traded glances, and I shrugged. We really didn't have any other choice. "How did you know...?" Skip asked. 

Professor Magdat just smirked and clinked the bottles together. "Come on, I don't have all day."

We each took the knife and filled the bottles for her and handed them back. She marched across the room with a surprising amount of speed for a 700-year-old woman and opened up the doors of a massive wooden wardrobe that turned out to be filled to the brim with similar bottles, all full of blood, except for one that was bright, fluorescent green. "All right, then. I'll see you guys back here in two days, dead or alive." The office door swung back open all on its own, and Skip and I headed out with the sapphire and the bottle of her blood.

"As for the Sapphire..." she said, holding the twinkling gem up to her eye, "Well, I'm not so willing to part with it." She looped the necklace around her neck again and instantly transformed into the gorgeous young woman again. "But what I can do is give you a spare." She crossed the room again and cast a spell on a blank section of wall, revealing a hidden cabinet door. The hinges creaked open, showing row after row of identical sapphire necklaces. She pulled one off of its hook, touched it to her own, and muttered a quick incantation. Then she crossed the room again and pressed it into Skip's hand. "Should last you about half an hour after you first put it on," she said with a grin.

Skip accepted the necklace with a confused look, but she wasn't about to question such good luck. We thanked her for her help and high-tailed it toward the door.

"Hey," she called after me. "Give that little bastard hell, eh?"

===================================

I hope you liked it! If so, remember to vote on the chapter and follow me for more updates!