Columbine

“My, my, isn’t this sweet?” Charlie leered when he opened the door to his new room. I tried my best to ignore his false woots of fascination as he pretended to be impressed.

He’d followed me down into the lab, where I’d hastily introduced him to Sarah and Scarlett. They’d both looked ever-so-slightly bewildered, but Scarlett had managed to scrape up enough understanding to give Charlie a place to sleep.

And now as he walked around the room and surveyed his new living quarters, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly awkward. A vampire was not ten feet away from me, the ability to kill me before I even knew it fully within his range of abilities.

Contrary to how it has been perceived by countless movies and books, vampires didn’t typically dress in black. Their hair was not shoulder-length, and they could even look exactly like twenty-year olds that had recently had a late growth spurt.

That was Charlie as he’d looked before he’d contracted a virus so rare that it was almost laughable to think of creating a cure. Only about five percent of people bitten by vampires get infected, and an even smaller percentage survive past the first two days.

The only thing I knew about Charlie besides the fact that he was a vampire was that he was almost three hundred years old. I’d have thought that someone with that many years below his belt would be a bit less pretentious, but then again, life is packed full of surprises.

“I just love this wallpaper!” Charlie sneered at the paisley-patterned wall. “Seriously, who designed this place? I think I’ll give them a call.”

I didn’t bother defending the decorator’s choice of wallpaper or reminding him that phones, like all other electronics, no longer worked. I just didn’t have enough energy left in me.

After the huge fight I’d had with Valentin, I just wanted to crawl into my own bed, bury myself under the many layers of sheets, and never get up. If Charlie at all sensed my weary and worn-down attitude, he showed no sign of it.

“So,” He said, having finally surveyed the room completely, “How long have you been staying here?”

“Since yesterday.” I yawned.

“Wow.” Charlie exclaimed. “So the Demataxt waited maybe a few hours before slapping a price on your head.”

I instantly came awake. I had to hear this.

“How much?” I asked, my heart beating erratically all of a sudden. After all, it’s not every day that you find out how much your life is worth.

"They're more interested in the witch than in you, but I guess they'll take anyone they can get." Charlie said.

"How much?" I repeated.

“A thousand.” Charlie said. I stared at him as the excitement was suddenly discharged from the air.

“Haha.” I said. “Very funny. But seriously, how much?”

“Well, there was also some kind of bicycle promised if you were turned in this week.” He said, scratching his head.

I felt my half-smile go slack as a terrible, cold notion entered my head.

“Wait a minute.” I said. “You’re saying that…that…” The feeling began to leak from my legs. “That I’m worth a thousand dollars?”

When Charlie shrugged, I took that to be the anvil with the word ‘yes’ on it falling on my head. I started to teeter, but Charlie grabbed me before I fell. If I weren’t reeling from the fact that I was a thousand-dollar priority for bounty hunters, I might have actually been afraid of Charlie as he propped me up on his arm.

The room swam around me and the beginnings of vomit were bubbling in my gut. God, I was going to be sick.

“Columbine?” Charlie asked. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

And how the hell was I supposed to know if I was asking you? But I didn’t say the words out loud. I was afraid to open my mouth, knowing that if I did, I’d puke all over myself.

Charlie sat me down on the bed and examined me, probably checking to see if I’d slipped into a coma. Even if I hadn’t suddenly gone comatose, I might as well have. Why did I have to consciously experience the terrible knowledge that I was going to live in hiding my entire life, because if I ever got caught, there was just no way that I was going to live? Even for me that was miles over the line.

“Wake up!” Charlie urged, reluctantly slapping me. He obviously didn’t feel comfortable being around barely conscious people. I, meanwhile, continued to visualize myself being tortured to death by a team of Demataxt agents specifically trained to make me feel more pain than physically possible.

“I guess it can’t be helped.” Charlie sighed.

By the tone of his voice I’d have thought that he was going to leave me alone, but instead he did that absolute last thing I would have expected. He put both his hands securely over my breasts and squeezed.

I blinked, suddenly way more conscious than I would have liked at that particular moment. With a yelp, I slapped his hands away from my chest and jumped off the bed, grabbing the hat stand and brandishing it at him like a spear.

Charlie’s face possessed a grin that could only be described as demonic. I wanted very badly to attack him, but I knew he’d just break the sad wooden object that I was holding faster than I could say ‘gross’.

“You goddamn pervert!” I screamed.

If I could have shed body parts like a lizard, my undersized tits would have fallen right off. But unfortunately, I was stuck with my sad excuse for a bust for life.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Charlie asked, grinning. Oh, what I would have given to chop his goddamn hands off and burn them before his eyes.

But as it was, I didn’t have the power or the tools necessary to pull that off.

“Besides,” Charlie continued, “You have nothing to be ashamed of! I found them quite…” I saw his fingers flex in a way that made my anger flare. “Perky.”

That was my last straw. I immediately jabbed him with the hat stand, the sharp wooden tip snapping in half on his shoulder. I let out a triumphant whoop when I saw the damaged that I’d managed to inflict.

Charlie’s enthusiasm fell a bit while he massaged the afflicted spot. The spike hadn't gone straight into his arm, as I'd wanted it to, but had simply broken in two.

“Ha!” I yelled. “That’ll show you.”

“Oh, please.” Charlie sneered. “Like that’ll stop me next time.”

The words ‘next time’ were particularly ominous coming from him. The very notion of his too-big, too-violently capable hands anywhere near me again made me shudder. And on top of it all, he was the first person ever to intentionally feel me up. That thought made yet another fountain of puke threaten to come up.

I forced it back down, and soon Charlie’s diversion wore off, reminding me of why he’d felt me up in the first place. Yes, I had a thousand-dollar sum hovering above my head. My life would never be the same unless the Demataxt suddenly decided to pardon me, and obviously that wasn’t going to happen.

I put the hat stand down and collapsed into an armchair. After the initial shock of it wore off, I began to think. The only consolation I found was the reminder that at least I wasn't alone in the disaster I was in.

“Oh, come on.” Charlie said, sitting down in the armchair next to mine. “I’ve had a price on my head almost my entire life, and I turned out all right!”

I looked at him and smirked. He pretended to be insulted, comically turning his nose up and his head away from me. I realized that he was talking to me like one would talk to a small kid. The odd and embarrassing thing was that his somewhat condescending approach was working. I was actually feeling less awful.

“Yeah, but you’re untouchable, remember?” I reminded him. “I, on the other hand, am not.”

“That’s why you’ve got that clever head of yours.” He grinned.

I knew perfectly well he wasn't serious, so I just went along with it. The truth was, to him I was probably another passerby in a long journey of immortality. In a few years I’d most likely be dead and he wouldn’t even remember me.

“Whatever.” I sighed. “I’m going to go get some dinner. You go ahead and sleep.” I paused.

“Wait.” I said. “Do vampires sleep?”

Charlie looked at me like I was crazy for a moment. Then he forced the expression from his face and exhaled.

“No, honey. We don't.” He finally answered.

When I got to the kitchen, only Scarlett was there. She was quietly brewing some sort of soup over a fire that she’d cultivated on what had once been a gas stove. I took one of the bottles of water from a shelf, opened it, and began to gulp it down.

Scarlett looked at me for a moment, then back at the pot of soup.

“You never told me you’d have people coming here to meet you.” She said nervously.

I realized that I’d pretty much forced Charlie on everyone without really explaining the situation. I at least owed Scarlett the facts, given how good she’d been to me. The fact that she’d taken in a known and wanted criminal should have been enough to make me confide in her.

“That’s because I didn’t know they’d let Charlie out.” I said, once I’d downed almost the entire bottle of water.

“Out?” Scarlett all but squeaked. “Out of where?”

“The mental institution.” I said, fully aware of how ridiculous it sounded coming out of my mouth in a perfectly calm and normal tone.

“So…he’s crazy?” Scarlett asked, the fear evident in her voice.

“No, not exactly.” I elaborated. “He was in there because he was catatonic.”

Scarlett appeared to think about this for a moment. I took advantage of her silence to finish off the bottle, sating myself to completion.

“I guess he got arrested and didn’t get his dose of blood in time.” I shrugged. “No one could tell that he was a vampire, so they put him in my room.”

“Wait.” Scarlett said. “You never told me he was a vampire! Or that you were in a mental hospital!”

I froze as I realized that I’d opened the door to a conversation that I’d never had with anyone except my now-dead grandmother. Only Valentin had the vague awareness that I’d been in a mental facility sometime in the past three years, but now that we weren’t speaking to each other, he didn’t really count.

There was also a bigger problem concerning Charlie’s species. Even if I had somehow decided in my sick, twisted mind that out of all the deadly, morally questionable people in my life, Charlie the vampire was the one to trust, that didn’t mean everyone else would reach the same conclusion.

“Um…” I choked. “Charlie’s okay, really. He wouldn't hurt anyone.”

Scarlett stared at me in disbelief.

“And as far as the mental institution thing goes…” I took a deep breath. “Not really my fault. It was my grandmother’s idea.”

Scarlett seemed to take a minute to digest all the information that I’d unloaded on her. I took advantage of her silence to scavenge the kitchen for some more food. My gaze fell upon an open bag of tortilla chips. I grabbed a handful and munched. Even though the chips were stale, I savored them. At least we still had chips. I knew that in a few more years, people probably wouldn’t even know what chips were.

“So…Charlie’s a vampire that’s going to be sleeping in the room next to all of ours?” Scarlett elaborated.

I nodded, popping the last fragment of tortilla into my mouth.

“Look, Columbine,” Scarlett said, “I’m sure that while he’s sated, Charlie seems normal, but when he gets hungry enough, I’m telling you he won’t hesitate to hurt any of us.”

“What are you saying?” I frowned.

“I’m saying we need to secure our safety.” She said. I swallowed, preparing myself for the inevitable.

“How?” I asked.

“Well…it used to be that I’d get a doctor to perform a minor brain surgery to keep him from having violent outbursts, but I don’t think this will work this time.” She mused.

Here it was coming. I could feel it. I was going to have to tell Charlie that he wasn’t welcome.

“Maybe Sarah could do something. She told me she can put up excellent barriers.” Scarlett said.

I finally dared look at her, still not completely convinced that I’d heard her right.

“You…you mean he can stay?” I asked.

“Provided that Sarah can put barriers around all of us, yes.” Scarlett nodded, bending down to sample the soup she was making.

“Oh.” I exhaled. “Fine. No problem.”

I found Sarah in the library, bent over an enormous atlas that I’d put on a separate shelf for geography earlier. She looked up from it when she saw me.

“Um…hi.” I said, feeling unusually awkward.

“Hello.” Sarah chirped back.

“I, uh…well, I was wondering if you were up for a little spell-casting.” I fought the urge to wince at these words. I never thought I’d say them in my life, and here I was doing the unthinkable.

Sarah seemed to catch on to my discomfort.

“This must be pretty serious.” She said, closing the atlas and standing back up. “What happened?”

“Well, nothing’s happened yet. It’s more about what could happen.” I elaborated.

Sarah raised an eyebrow.

“It’s about Charlie, the guy I brought in.” I said.

“Oh.” Sarah said, as though it explained everything. “The vampire, you mean?”

I nodded, not even bothering to ask he how she knew he was a vampire.

“Could you maybe put barriers around us that would keep him from doing any damage if things get complicated?” I asked.

“Duh!” Sarah assured me. “I was going to anyway. I was just going to wait until he was sleeping, but since you asked, I guess I don’t have to wait.”

On that note, Sarah and I went and asked Scarlett and Valentin to come watch and make sure everything went smoothly. I ignored Valentin as much as I could as all four of us took a trip to Charlie’s room.

Sarah knocked on his door, instead of just bursting in and starting her spell. I must admit, I found that a little strange.

“Come in!” Charlie yelled from inside the room.

Sarah and Valentin went in. Valentin relaxed in the corner, obviously not too worried about Sarah’s safety. Charlie looked up from the book he’d been reading and saw us. I don’t know if he found our presence suspicious, but if he did, he didn’t show it.

“Hello.” Sarah said, offering her hand to Charlie. He shook it, a smile spreading over his face.

“I saw you earlier when I walked through your establishment.” He said, eyes sparkling with a fire that even I couldn’t mistake for anything but lust.

“It’s not my establishment.” Sarah said. “I just live here.”

“Do you sleep here too?” Charlie asked, smile growing wider.

Sarah didn’t answer that. Instead she murmured something under her breath and Charlie found himself tossed onto the bed by some invisible force.

Before he could say or do anything, Sarah had leaned over him and put both palms a foot in the air over his body. I couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing, but I could hear the mattress groan a little too loudly than normal.

Charlie’s eyes widened as he sank a few inches lower, along with the mattress that had somehow flattened itself. Suddenly I realized that Sarah was somehow putting pressure on his body to keep him from moving.

“Wha – what are you doing?” Charlie wheezed from the bed. Sarah stood over him, her hands held a foot over his body, as if she were pressing something heavy down onto him.

“Just a little charm.” She said. “Something to keep you from stepping out of line.” And she continued the spell, quietly murmuring something that only she could hear and understand.

“Then how come demon boy gets to walk around without a leash?” Charlie sneered. “You should have seen him go to work on her!” He pointed a struggling finger at me.

“Hey, good point!” I told Sarah. “Can you charm Valentin, too?” I pointed my thumb at Valentin, who just stood arrogant in a corner with a permanent smirk on his face.

“Look,” Charlie choked at Sarah. “I get it. You’re scared of the big bad vampire next door. But this is ridiculous!”

“Hardly.” Sarah smiled. “Think of it as an insurance plan. That way if we’re ever in a sticky situation, you won’t be able to use us as a snack.”

“Oh, I would never eat you, darling.” Charlie grinned maliciously at Sarah. “At least not right away, if you catch my drift.”

Sarah did catch his drift. She also moved her left hand until it hovered a foot over his groin, and then she pressed her hand down on an invisible solid a couple more inches. Charlie yowled as his privates took on more invisible pressure.

I couldn’t help but watch in fascination. If I had ever doubted that Sarah couldn’t fend for herself, those doubts were long gone now. She was single-handedly keeping a centuries-old vampire down with hardly a twitch in her brow.

“I don’t think you’ll be in the mood for pre-snack jollies anytime soon.” Sarah told him, adding a sweet note to her voice that made her seem all the more sadistic. And who knows? Maybe that was just her normal style of doing things.

As her incantation continued and Charlie lay sweating beneath god knew how much pressure a vampire could take before whimpering, the rest of us watched with wide eyes. Well, Scarlett and I did, anyway. To us it was like an amazing circus trick.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s how circus performers made sure their lions wouldn’t attack them during a performance. It would certainly make sense to recruit witches for that kind of job.

Maybe there had been a lot more witches and mages working dangerous jobs than I’d considered. Maybe the “supernatural” inhabitants of the world had been involved with human society long before they’d made it official. If that was true, just how many of them had I met without knowing it?

Sarah finally finished her spell and stepped back, releasing all the pressure that she had summoned to keep Charlie down. He sat up and sucked in as much air as he could, chest heaving, face speckled with beads of cold sweat. Sarah looked almost too proud of herself

After Charlie had taken a moment catch his breath, he turned and gave Sarah a glare that should have incinerated her where she stood. But instead all it did was make her adopt an even smugger smile.

He jumped from the bed with as much cat-like grace as he normally would have. Suddenly I was afraid that the spell hadn’t worked. Maybe it hadn’t done anything but make him angry! If that was the case, Sarah was as good as torn into bite-sized bloody pieces.

“You’re going to pay for that, witch.” Charlie snarled. My heart began to hammer in my chest. He’d dispensed with the come-ons and had moved on to promises of revenge – not a good sign.

Before any of us could make a move to stop him, he’d become a blur. One moment he was next to the bed, and the next he was staggering away from Sarah. It almost looked like he’d run into something next to her. He then swung a fist at her head but hit something else. And then it hit me. It was a barrier! I should have known better than anyone that what Sarah did best was put up invisible walls. The way she’d obliterated the bowling ball in the tunnel had been proof enough.

Sarah smiled at him and stuck out her tongue. Charlie looked like he was ready to murder her. I guess I couldn’t really blame him – he’d practically been castrated. I snickered before I could stop myself. Charlie’s face was contorted with rage.

“Well, I guess that settles that.” Sarah chirped. “My work here is done.”

She turned to leave, but Charlie darted in front of her. She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised quizzically. He grinned down at her.

“Don’t worry, darling.” He said. “Just because I can’t touch you doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”

Sarah let out a sigh, almost as if she were dealing with a demented kid who was after a piece of candy. She took another step, but Charlie darted out in front of her again. He wasn’t so close as to be repelled by the barrier, but close enough to slow Sarah down considerably.

She didn’t even wait for the process to repeat itself. She lifted her hand and gently flicked her fingers in Charlie’s direction. He flew backwards and crashed into the wall with enough force to cause a man-shaped dent. Sarah took the opportunity to leave the room, leaving me, Scarlett, and Valentin to deal with the pissed-off vampire.

Charlie scrabbled out of the hole he’d formed in the plaster, completely covered in white dust and his clothes a little torn, but otherwise unharmed. Valentin was the first one to take a step forward and offer a hand.

“I’m sure deep down somewhere you understand why she did it.” He said, slapping Charlie on the back. A cloud of dust formed where Valentin had shown his condolences.

“She’s afraid of me.” Charlie shrugged, brushing dust from his clothes. “What can I say? I’m an intimidating man.” He grinned.

I had to say, I felt considerably safer knowing that even though Charlie could get close to me, he couldn’t actually touch me. A good thing, too. If he’d touched my breasts again, I would probably have been driven to amputate them.

“Shall we retire?” Scarlett asked me.

“Sure.” I said, realizing just how I sleepy I really was. I yawned as my eyelids steadily began to droop.

Valentin closed the door to Charlie’s room once Scarlett and I were in the hallway. I found Sarah leaned up against the wall, face raised to the dim glow sticks. When she saw me, she walked over and put an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into a half-hug.

“Was I bad-ass, or what?” She grinned.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “That was really something.”

As Sarah and I went to our end of the hall, I shot a quick glance behind my back at Scarlett and Valentin. They were talking about something, but I couldn’t hear them.

Valentin coincidentally looked in my direction and saw me looking at him. I quickly turned my head back around, hoping he had miraculously mistaken my looking in his direction as a general eye sweep of the hall. Somehow I doubted he would.