they originally agreed upon.

they originally agreed upon.

The number of his students gradually increased as word got out and he started to draw on a greater

population throughout the Southwest. However, there was a College of Sorcerers in Dallas, and there

was one at the University of Denver, both more established than Paul's small branch in Santa Fe. He

never had more than a handful of students at a time and the university administration saw no need to

expand the program and hire another professor. It was all he could do to get a fellowship for one

graduate teaching assistant. And with greater opportunities elsewhere, his graduates generally left after

passing their first certification levels. Even as lower-grade adepts, they could get better positions in cities

like New York, L.A., Dallas, or Detroit as apprentices to corporate wizards and sorcerers.

It took a long time for Santa Fe to build up its small population of adepts. As Santa Fe once more

started to become an enclave for artists and craftsmen, students from other areas of the country were

attracted by its relaxed, bohemian life-style. In the pre-Collapse days, it was known as "The City

Different," a city that was more like a small town, yet possessed of a rich cultural ambience rivaling cities

such as Boston and New York. Many of the young people who came to study in Santa Fe chose to stay

and among them were some of Paul's students. Not all of them chose to pursue life in the fast lane of

corporate sorcery. Some stayed on as Paul's apprentices, anxious to continue their studies with him

rather than scramble to be accepted by high-grade, big-city, corporate adepts, who had no shortage of

applicants. They fell in love with Santa Fe, with the beauty of New Mexico and its rich cultural heritage.

A number of them chose to continue working at the college while they served their apprenticeships, even

if it meant accepting teaching assistantships in other departments or working at relatively low-paying

clerical jobs in administration. Others chose to express their talents in more creative ways, either applying

their adept training to some field of endeavor in the arts or joining with thecuranderas to open shops

selling herbs and charms and potions. Some joined in practice with local physicians, each instructing the

other as they treated their patients. The medical establishment did not officially recognize the use of magic

in medicine, but some individual physicians were more progressive than others and less interested in

safeguarding their profits than in successfully treating their patients. In time, Santa Fe was once again

discovered to be fashionable and became a part-time residence and retreat for many wealthy, influential

people, among whom were a number of highly successful corporate adepts.

Santa Fe still did not possess a large airport. Its residents refused to have one. Its small municipal airport

had been converted to a large communal ranch years earlier, its concrete runways broken up and the

weeds plowed under to make room for crops and grazing land. Those wishing to come to Santa Fe had

to travel overland or fly into Albuquerque on planes thaumaturgically flown by pilot adepts. The relatively

few cars in Santa Fe operated on pollution-free, thaumaturgic batteries, and many of the city's residents

still used horses or bicycles as their chief form of transportation. In downtown Santa Fe, buildings that

had once housed elegant cafés and exclusive little shops had been converted into stables for the boarding

and renting of horses. It was a lovely, peaceful city, with hardly any crime more serious than the

occasional burglary or drunk and disorderly offense.

Until now, Paul thought, as the cruiser pulled up in front of his office on the campus. One of the adepts in

town was a vicious, cold-blooded murderer, a vampire who had used black magic to drain that poor girl

of her life force. And Paul knew that he would now have to use his gift to look into the minds of each of

them to find the killer. For years, he had disciplined himselfnot to use his gift, both out of respect for the