Columbine

“You’re crazy!” Sarah whispered frantically into my ear. “Someone’s going to see us!”

“Shut up.” I whispered back.

There’s one thing to be said about being invisible -- you’re certainly free to do all sorts of crazy things. During the course of the last half-hour, we’d stalked five strangers total and scared three of them shitless.

“That’s it. We’re going back.” Sarah said.

“No!” I said a little too loudly. A few people walking by stopped for a minute and looked around. We held our breath until they continued moving.

“Idiot.” Sarah spat, obviously angry.

I ignored her. As long as the duct tape that was binding our wrists together held, we were invisible as the wind.

“We’re not leaving until we steal some quality food.” I reminded her.

“And what makes you think I’m letting us do that?” Sarah said, hacking endlessly away at my all-too-rare buzz. My toes curled furiously inward.

“Because if we’re wolves heads, we’ve got nothing to lose.” I told her.

She didn’t say anything, which I hoped meant that I’d convinced her. Unfortunately, we were not only invisible to the passersby, but also to each other. Guessing Sarah’s emotions based on the tone of her voice and the force with which she stepped on my feet was turning out more taxing than I’d have liked.

“Okay, first…” I looked around the marketplace, “We need some decent apples.”

The Egyptian man selling apples and grapes was neurotically swatting flies away with a rolled up newspaper. I’d bought apples from him before, and it had never been pleasant. Some Egyptians didn’t take too kindly to the intense immigration of Americans and other ‘stuck up’ nationalities to their beloved, ancient country. This man was one of them. In my opinion, he deserved a proper scare. A few stolen fruits wouldn’t have hurt, either.

“Don’t even think about it.” Sarah hissed.

I thought about it. I thought about it with great pleasure.

“I’m going in.” I said with mock stealth. Sarah had no choice but to follow me on tiptoe. It would have looked a little too strange if sand had been displaced and kicked up for no apparent reason. Eventually people might have started to suspect, and maybe even would have brought a mage in to investigate. Sarah was just as repulsed by the idea as I was. At least we had that small character trait in common.

We were in front of the apple stand now. The burly, bearded Egyptian man was too busy chasing away flies with exaggerated vigor to notice two, panting, invisible girls standing in front of him.

“Distract him.” I commanded Sarah. I didn’t give her time to protest. I extended my arm and grasped one of the firmer, rounder apples that were sitting seductively on top of the pile. With a rush of sudden witch genius, Sarah called up a breeze and knocked the trader’s hat from his head. He bent down to retrieve it, and in that moment I managed to steal four apples. I lovingly tucked them into the bag was slung over my shoulder.

“Perfect.” I complimented Sarah. We crept away from the apples with great stealth, my hands caressing that weight inside the bag. The apples felt supple even through the coarse fabric, the sweet smell somehow finding its way like a faithful friend to my nose. Apparently thievery was a particular calling of mine.

“I can’t believe I did that.” Sarah said. There was genuine shock in her voice.

“You did what you had to.” I said, my feeble attempt at a reassurance failing miserably.

In truth, I was shocked that Sarah was so innocent. I’d expected a witch of her stature, who had fought off mages before my eyes not a week ago, would be tougher than this. Figuring her out would probably take more time than I had to spare. On the one hand, she showed no remorse upon neutralizing vampires and fighting mages, but on the other hand, she turned mushy at a few stolen fruits.

“Next, we need bread.” I announced, eventually deciding that Sarah’s reluctance could go to hell. If there was one thing I didn’t need, it was her sissy behavior.

“You can’t make me.” Sarah warned. “I’m stronger than you are. I can paralyze you where you stand.”

My enthusiasm faltered slightly, and I swallowed. Sarah was right, of course. I’d somehow managed to cleanse myself of that horrible thought earlier, but now that it was being shoved in my face, I couldn’t help but think it.

“You wouldn’t dare.” I said. My voice was far more confident than I was. I didn’t know Sarah as well as I could have. Being who I was, I’d forsaken every real chance to get to know her. I realized with regret that that was exactly the reason that I hadn’t known until recently that Valentin was with the Demataxt. Or not with the Demataxt, as Sarah had to efficiently put it. She had to have been crazy to have any sort of trust in him after finding out his secret. She had even more to lose than I did!

“I’m not letting you become a thief, Columbine.” Sarah cautioned. “Especially at a time like this. It’s just too dangerous!”

I paused. Even if she was right, what was the point of living underground my entire life? From what I’d heard, everybody who’d done that had lost their marbles one way or another. But further more, I couldn’t see myself staying there any longer, stuck with Charlie, who was a stalker beyond compare. Or with Scarlett, who beating her head against the wall until her brains dribbled out of her ears, trying to break into the secret of my blood. Or with Valentin. Especially not with him.

“Being alive is dangerous.” Was my clever and witty retort.

With that, I tore toward the bakery, ignoring Sarah’s cries of protest. When it came down to it, I somehow knew that she wouldn’t hurt me. She could readily fight non-humans without a shred of remorse, but she could never harm a human. In a way, she was like me.

The bakery had no door, which was lucky. It was basically a very convincing tent that had been set up to look like a real store. The heat from the surrounding bread that lay piled on the shelves radiated around the shop like a warm aura. I breathed it in, salivating excessively at the delicious scent. I had to swallow several times before I could start thinking properly again. Now there was the small matter of choosing a specific bread to steal. They all looked delicious enough…

After the death of electricity, including the death of stoves, ovens, and all other kitchen appliances, the cooking industry began relying once more on the talent of individuals. Good cooks were now considered treasured gems. Now that I was smelling their handwork like a lust-riddled dog, I could see why.

“That one.” Sarah suddenly said, pointing at a particularly crispy baguette that was lying innocently on a shelf. I gave her a pat on the shoulder and grinned. Finally she was coming around.

“You know what to do. Distract the cashier.” I reminded her.

With a deep and cleansing breath, I grabbed the baguette. An extremely loud crash startled me enough to make me crush the baguette in my hand, but I quickly remembered that it was just Sarah’s work. I shoved the bread into my bag, where it could rest with the apples.

“What did you do?” I hissed at Sarah.

“Nothing!” She squeaked. “I didn’t do anything! It must have been something else.”

I froze. I looked up from the bread and toward the sound of the crash. I saw, much to my shock, that there was bread strewn all over the floor, because the table that had been holding it had been smashed into by somebody. A crumpled figure groaned from the remains of the table.

“What did you think would happen?” A deep, frightening voice asked from the entrance. I saw that it was another man in a suit, a silver, D-embossed badge pinned to his collar. A mage. Sarah and I stiffened simultaneously. “Did you think that you could escape us?” The mage growled, stepping toward the man he’d sent flying into the table.

Everybody else in the shop had, like us, turned into shriveled trees. No one moved or made any noise. Nobody dared. I didn’t know if it was either of the same mages that had attacked Sarah in her shop. I hadn’t dared to look them in the eye.

“Get up.” The mage spat at the man crumpled on the floor. When the man didn’t obey, the mage’s hand shot out. He didn’t touch him, but sent the man flying up and down into the floor again and again. I saw to my nausea that the shards of wood that had once been the table were spattered lightly with blood.

The man’s tortured, terrified screams echoed around the shop. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew that Sarah’s expression was probably one of the most horrified that she’d ever worn. Her arm had turned ice-cold against mine.

“Stop it!” The shop owner finally yelled. “Please, for the love of god, stop it!”

The mage stopped it, but only long enough to send the shop owner barreling into the wall hard enough to knock the poor man unconscious.

“Do you know what we do to criminals?” The mage sneered at the bloodied man that was lying in a heap on the floor, sobbing. “We execute them. No last meal or any of your stupid formalities. Just a shot to the back of the head.”

My breath caught in my throat. The mage hadn’t explained the half of it. He’d skipped the testimonial procedure entirely. First the criminal was questioned and tortured into confessing. Once the confession was signed and sealed, only then was there an execution. It was horrible. It might as well have been the middle ages again. Back then, there’d been one of two options: attempt to prolong your doomed life under unbearable torture, or skip the messy ordeal entirely and just accept your pre-written fate. We were back to those same, gruesome options once more.

“Get up.” The mage snarled again. This time he didn’t bother with the fancy magical tricks. He just kicked the man, kicked until there was blood pooling through his shirt, until every rib in his body was broken, until the man couldn’t scream any more.

It was at this point that something I hadn’t expected happened. Sarah grabbed the duct tape that had been binding us and tore it off. I yelped, both because my skin smarted, and because I realized that we weren’t invisible any more. We were fodder now.

“Hey scumbag!” Sarah screamed at the mage. He looked up, momentarily distracted from his kicking. A grin broke out on his manic face, and he laughed.

“Well, would you believe that?” He laughed. “I’ve found myself another witch!”

Sarah looked murderous now. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her eyes flashed with an intensity that was both unusual and frightening in her. I realized with despair that she was going to fight the mage. She was going to enter another life-or-death battle with the Demataxt, and she was going to do it in her pink slip-dress. Life can be really strange sometimes, was all my traumatized mind could say to that.

“Well?” The mage taunted. “Aren’t you going to attack me, witch?”

Sarah didn’t need more invitation than that. Her hands went up and she began speaking. Her lips moved too fast for me or the mage to catch any of the words, but the mage suddenly collapsed. His legs had given way beneath him, like they no longer worked. I realized that it was the paralysis that Sarah had threatened me with. Now that I saw it in action, I was glad that she was on my side.

But this victory proved too short-lived. With a laugh, the mage stood up again. Sarah seemed shocked for a minute before regaining her composure. I watched breathlessly as the mage extended his hand and flicked his fingers. Sarah staggered backwards against the cashier’s station, but she somehow managed not to go flying into the wall like the man had. The mage didn’t like this one bit. He showed his lack of appreciation by stepping up to Sarah and grabbing her neck in one swift motion.

Acting entirely on impulse, I stepped out of my coma, picked up the small metal cash register, and threw it at the mage’s head. My aim was perfect. It hit the back of his thick skull with a pointy corner. A small rivulet of blood was visible in the mage’s sandy-blond hair.

He let go of Sarah and whipped around to my direction, massaging his head. His face was contorted into a pissed-off, deathly grimace. I began to shake, suddenly not feeling too good. This feeling was all too familiar. I remembered the incident in Sarah’s shop, and how that had ended up. Hopefully everything would go roughly the same way this time, excluding me getting choked and passing out.

“You!” He yelled, pointing at me. “You’re her familiar!”

He was wrong, but I didn’t bother explaining that. I was busy wracking my brain for anything that could possibly be useful at the given moment. It would have been great if mages had some sort of tell-tale weakness, but no such thing had presented itself in the past. My skin became a garden of goose bumps as the mage walked toward me, eyes menacing and cold.

“N-no!” Sarah rasped, still recovering her ability to breathe. “Don’t you touch her!”

The mage didn’t listen. Of course he didn’t. He sauntered up to me, his hand raised and ready. He brought it down on my face with force enough to make me see stars. I fell, though I didn’t notice it until I felt the floor collide against my back. I blinked away the fireworks that were exploding in my eyes and tried to focus. It was somewhat difficult, because I was levitating.

I realized that I was experiencing the same thing that the mage had done to the man that he’d been chasing in the first place. Oh, god, I was going to die!

Just as I was about to be brought forcefully down to the floor, Sarah exercised enough energy to allow me to merely fall down. It still hurt, but not as much as it would have if I’d been shoved into the floor with enough force to power an army jet. If jets still existed, that is.

“I’d almost forgotten about you, witch.” The mage growled.

I stayed down on the floor. I had aches over most of my body, and considering the trend of events that were unfolding, more aches were coming. I sniffled, scrabbling up from the floor and shakily finding my footing. Sarah and the mage were battling again. The mage was trying as hard as he could to send Sarah flying, but she was managing to block his attacks. I realized with both relief and disappointment that this was probably one of the weaker mages. The problem was that if he was a weak mage and could still hurt me, that meant that I didn’t stand a chance against a stronger mage. I didn’t know about Sarah. She seemed to be having a tough enough time with this mage already. The statistics weren’t good.

“You’ll pay for your crimes, witch.” The mage warned. Sarah didn’t answer. She was too out of breath. I guessed that she was putting up another one of her barriers, since she appeared merely to be resisting the mage’s attacks.

Finally the mage seemed to have had enough. He stopped his futile attack and seemed to move on to the next level. With a roar, he threw a punch into the air. It seemed to travel all the way to where Sarah stood. This time she was knocked off her feet. She flew back into the wall, crashing into one of the last shelves of bread that were standing.

I grabbed a shard of wood from the table into which the man had crashed, and compulsively tried to stab the mage’s back with it. It snapped in two against the fabric of his suit. The mage turned around, snatched the wooden stake from my hand, and pushed me with enough force to make me fall back down to the floor.

This was when things really went down the shit hole. I landed onto the pointy wooden stake. The wood dug fiercely into my arm and I cried out in pain. It was one of those wounds that was going to leave a hell of a scar without stitches. Then the music started, and this time it was deafening. It filled the bakery with all the might of a pair of enormous speakers, and everyone froze where they were.

Sarah took advantage of this stillness to hobble to me and help me up. A look of wonder was plastered on her face -- the same look of wonder she’d been wearing when Scarlett had showed her to tub of bloody water.

“Wow.” She whispered to herself. “It really is true.”

“Of course it’s true!” I choked. My arm hurt like hell, and it was bleeding a little too much to be on the safe side.

It was when she helped me up that I noticed that everybody in the bakery, even the mage, were standing almost totally still, all looking amazed. Nobody moved even when Sarah and I stumbled away, almost like they were afraid that moving would stop the music. With the big blood stain that I’d left behind on the floor, the music would go on for a good half-hour.

I let Sarah work on my wound, sighing in relief as the tissue melded back together and the skin stitched itself back together. Her face was blank now, almost like she was still hearing music.

She grabbed my hand and turned us invisible again, before the mage decided to follow us. We started running back to Scarlett’s underground lab, out pace hindered by bruised legs and sprained ankles.

“Did you see that?” Sarah panted.

“See what?” I asked, also out of breath. We still didn’t dare to stop.

“Their faces!” Sarah elaborated. “When the music started, they were amazed!”

Of course they were amazed. They hadn’t heard a proper rock song in years. The presence of electric guitars and no live band anywhere in sight had probably struck them as odd. On thing was for sure though. I was dead. My secret was practically out. If anyone made the connection between the rate at which the music stopped and the rate at which my blood dried up, I was done for. My only hope was that the utter insanity of such a conclusion would exclude it from everyone’s deductions.

“They looked totally happy!” Sarah joyously exclaimed. “They couldn’t stop listening!”

I remembered the incident on the ship again. A million light bulbs went off in my head at once, illuminating the entire world for me, and in that small instant, everything became clear.

“I’ve got it!” I yelped excitedly. I wasn’t tired anymore. The adrenaline that was coursing through my veins had given me enough strength to power a space shuttle.

“We’re starting a dance club.” I announced.