Columbine

“Well,” Charlie said proudly, “I think this masterpiece is about finished.”

We all stared, open-mouthed in shock, at the monstrosity that Charlie had so inappropriately dubbed a masterpiece. I could honestly say that the ceiling had looked better with a hole in it.

“What’s wrong?” He asked when he noticed the lack of applause.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Sarah gasped. “You’ve ruined it!”

Over the last two days during which we’d all taken part in the fixing of the ceiling, Sarah’s refusal to speak to Charlie had gotten slightly better, escalating to snide remarks and finally to outright insults.

No one could really blame her this time. It had been her unholy task to make Charlie levitate in a way that allowed him to reach the ceiling. The way I figured, two days of making somebody levitate has got to have its toll on even the most levelheaded of people.

“What do you mean, ‘ruined it’?” Charlie snapped. “I fixed it!”

“If you call making little icicles out of cement ‘fixing’, then you’re a real pro!” Sarah snapped back.

I hated to admit it, but she was right. Unfortunately, none of us had any prior experience with fixing ceilings that were made entirely out of cement. I had a feeling that the entire lab was somehow constructed out of just that, only had been covered up with tiles to make it look like something besides an oversized warehouse.

“You could have just nailed a plank of wood over it.” Sarah huffed.

“Do you see a plank of wood anywhere?” Charlie snarled at her. “And we discussed this. The cement reduces chances of breakage should more earthquakes occur!”

“Hey, I put up barriers around this place.” Sarah reminded him. “No earthquake’s getting through to here.”

Everybody knew this argument by heart, and we knew exactly how it would end. Charlie would remind us all that the barriers did not close in around the lab, so we were still vulnerable. Sarah would make a mind-blowing defense of her magical talents. Charlie would make some sort of crack about how she had the witch-warts to prove it. Then Sarah would send him flying across the room and face first into the wall.

Scarlett and I had formed a very special bond over our own level headedness in this particular situation. Every time a fight arose between Sarah and Charlie, we would take that as our cue to go to the kitchen and make tea and sandwiches.

I looked ruefully at the mountain of sandwiches that lay on a plate, covered by a plastic sheet on the trolley that had been provided for the disgruntled workers. The three foot-long thermoses of Early Grey tea had long since grown cold, all proof of approximately twenty-or-so arguments during which the tea and sandwiches had been made.

“Okay, let’s just relax.” Scarlett dared to say in the midst of the latest argument. “It didn’t need to be perfect.”

“Thank you.” Charlie sighed in mock relief.

“We should concentrate on other things now.” I said, following Scarlett’s lead and trusting in the power of our combined authority.

“Like what?” Sarah grumbled, clearly disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to fling Charlie into the wall one more time.

“Like building a stage.” I said. I had trouble keeping the smile from my face as I said those words.

For some reason, the thought of a stage had filled me with maternal love from the moment that I’d had the idea. The very notion of walking across a stage had taken on an entirely new meaning for me.

Years ago, when I’d still been in school, a stage had seemed like a killing ground. I still remembered the one time I’d been forced out onto a stage with much more clarity than I wanted to.

I’d had this really nice English teacher -- the only nice teacher I ever remembered having. She’d had red hair and corpse-pale skin. She’d been funny, too. Unlike most teachers, she didn’t automatically worship the straight-A kids with the two-hundred dollar haircuts and rich parents. She’d been genuinely interested in what the kids were like on the inside, and whether they showed promise as writers.

Anyway, I’d made the mistake of submitting a poem for the poetry contest that had been held that year. I’d been thirteen, and it had maybe been a mere few months before the New Era would begin, but I was already bitter. Bitter enough write a poem that won me a prize.

I’d been forced to read it out loud on a stage in front of all my peers along with all other prize winners. I hadn’t been nervous, exactly, but my poetic skills weren’t received with appreciation by my classmates. In fact, the response that I’d provoked was nothing short of unabated malevolence.

“What do we need a stage for?” Sarah asked, still grumpy.

“You won’t need to make anyone levitate for this, I promise.” I assured her. “But the stage is going to help us communicate to a crowd.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Charlie said.

“If a crowd even shows up.” Sarah said under her breath. I knew that it was more to annoy Charlie than anything else, but it still made me nervous.

Of course, I knew that a crowd would show up. Why wouldn’t they? The main problem was that they might not find the lab. It was a pretty long way from the town, plus there was the underground labyrinth to consider. If any more nighttime-security enormous bowling balls came out to hunt down trespassers, it would not be good.

This was going to take more effort than I’d originally assumed. At least everyone had vague idea of how we were going to get people to come down to the lab. First we’d get maybe five volunteers and show them the way to the lab. Then they’d go back to the town and show other people the way.

“Of course a crowd will show up.” Charlie snapped.

“What makes you so sure?” Sarah snapped back.

“We’ve got the perfect bait, that’s why.” He said.

“You make it sound like you’re going to hunt them.” Sarah observed.

“And what if I am?” Charlie sneered.

“Enough!” Scarlett yelled. “No one’s hunting anybody.”

Sarah and Charlie looked startled by the way Scarlett had momentarily exploded on them, but soon regained their hostility.

“Hey, relax.” Charlie glared. “I was kidding.”

“Well, it wasn’t very funny.” Scarlett said, her voice back to normal now.

“So,” Sarah cleared her throat, “This stage. How big should it be?”

“Not crazy big.” I said. “Few feet tall, few meters wide.”

Charlie didn’t look very happy about being pressured into more manual labor, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. Either he got to building the stage, or Sarah would send him flying into the wall again.

“Do we even have wood to build it with?” He asked.

“Not at the moment.” Scarlett said ruefully.

“Great.” Charlie said.

“But we can always steal some from the marketplace.” I beamed.

Sarah and I exchanged glances. Nobody besides us and Valentin knew that we’d gone outside prior to Halloween, and we intended to keep it that way.

But at least we’d picked up on some good experiences with thievery, and it was sure to come in handy later in life. Apparently, now was that time when it would come in handy.

“Make a note in our schedule, Scarlett.” Charlie announced. “Steal wooden planks from marketplace.”

I could tell that he was being sarcastic. I looked around for some kind of fist-sized projectile to lob at him, but saw only the pile of wilting sandwiches. I’ll admit I seriously considered starting a food fight, but my level of maturity happened to be higher than that.

“That’s not funny.” Scarlett snapped.

“Fine.” Charlie sighed, crossing his arms. “I’ll be dark and serious like you.”

Then he purposefully looked down and massaged his chin with his thumb and index finger, like he was thinking about something important. His eyes were squinted in what I assumed was his parody of a serious expression.

“Don’t be an asshole, Charlie.” I warned, but not to much avail.

“I’m a scientist and I have a theory.” He announced with a comically deepened voice.

Scarlett didn’t bother slapping him. Instead she merely walked up and stomped down hard on his foot. With the shoes the had chosen to wear that particular morning, it was a wonder that Charlie’s foot hadn’t been speared through and nailed to the floor. Maybe that was the real reason Scarlett wore shoes like that on a daily basis.

“Ow!” Charlie yelped.

“Don’t you mock me.” Scarlett growled.

“Are you kidding me?” Charlie choked, his eyes unusually shiny as he collapsed into a chair. He nursed his foot with deep love, occasionally looking up from his mangled appendage to glare at Scarlett.

“Anyway,” Sarah said, “Columbine’s right. We’re going to have to steal the planks ourselves.”

I wasn’t used to so much praise, so I took the opportunity to bask in it while I could. Who knew how long it would be until I said something bitchy again?

“But we’re going to need more than planks.” Scarlett said. “We’re going to need a metal frame, and even paint.”

“Where do we get things like that?” I asked, genuinely baffled by the rapidly growing shopping list. Or, more appropriately, stealing list.

“There’s a small home-improvement shop near where I used to work.” Sarah offered. “We could start there.”

“So when does this operation go down?” Charlie asked from where he was still dealing with his newly-crippled self.

“As soon as we get Valentin’s cooperation.” Scarlett said before anyone could cut her off. She saw my apparently-shocked look.

“I’m not taking this risk until we all agree on it.” She explained. I must still have looked shocked, because she continued,

“I know you and Valentin have a tendency to disagree, but you’ll just have to control yourself this time.”

All I could do was gape.

I was just trying to wrap my head around the fact of what she had said, which was that every time Valentin and I disagreed, I was to blame. I don’t suppose she considered that it takes two to disagree, but I didn’t get a chance to tell her that. At that particular moment, the door burst open and a voice boomed “Hello!”.

We all looked and saw, much to my dismay that Valentin had obviously finished distracting the agents.

Sarah was suddenly overcome with joy at his presence. The rest of us had more self-restraint, namely Charlie and me, with me being the most restrained.

“How was it up there?” Sarah asked, having finished giving him a hug that would have put down a bear.

“Did they suspect anything?” Scarlett gave him a much smaller, much more formal hug.

“Everything’s going to be fine.” He announced, before ploinking his bag on the sandwich-laden trolley and taking out a plastic bag. From the bag, he pulled out two white, foam boxes.

“Anybody hungry for Thai?” He grinned, popping the boxes open to reveal several portions of rice, curry, and noodles.

“Oh, my god, thank you!” Sarah squealed, giving him another grateful squeeze. “I love Thai food!”

I saw Charlie look at me in a way that I did not regard at all as pleasant. He seemed to be telling me to go up and give Valentin a hug, as well, only without the use of actual words. I stuck my tongue out at him, hoping that his foot was too injured for him to get up and come up to me. I was wrong.

He hopped up from his seat like he had never been hurt to begin with. He could put on a hell of a show when he tried.

“Well, if it isn’t demon boy!” He announced loudly, walking up and giving Valentin a slap on the back. “We were just talking about you.”

I glared at Charlie, trying my best to burn a hole in his head, preferably destroying the part of his brain responsible for pretentiousness.

“Were you, now?” Valentin asked, one of his eyebrows inquisitively going up.

“You’ve got impeccable timing.” Charlie leered.

“Thank you.” Valentin said carelessly. Sometimes I wished I could ignore Charlie as well as he seemed to be able to.

Sometimes it’s best to follow the crowd if you don’t want to be noticed, and I’d ever-so-conveniently forgotten that little law of nature. By standing by and not giving Valentin a welcoming pat on the back, I’d become so much more noticeable.

He looked past Sarah, Scarlett, and Charlie, and at me with the same almost playful inquisitiveness that he’d regarded Charlie with, and I had another trademark urge to recoil into the shadows.

“What?” I snapped. Another trademark of mine.

He blinked, seemingly surprised by my obvious coldness. It took him a moment to recover, after which he nonchalantly asked, “Hungry?”

Everyone looked at me. The female portion of the audience were both silently urging me not to fuck this moment up, like the countless other ones that I’d thoughtlessly transformed into great big heaps of shit. Charlie was sneering silently to himself, so I ignored him.

“Not really.” I swallowed. “Besides, there’s something important we have to talk about.”

Everyone turned to stone at this. I don’t know what compelled me to move on to the next best way to mess up a moment of sentimentality. Some madly sadistic part of me had probably become set on making life hell both for myself and everyone else.

“What is it?” Valentin asked, his face still untroubled. That was definitely going to change.

“Um,” Sarah said, “We’ll just let Columbine explain it to you herself.”

She grabbed one of the takeout boxes and shoved Scarlett out of the room, giving me a look of regretful encouragement before disappearing in the doorway, too. Charlie gave me a glance that said ‘It must suck to be you.’ before leaving, closing the door behind himself.

I was utterly speechless. The betrayal was too great, and I vowed that I would make their lives hell until they all died -- even the immortal one.

Valentin looked as surprised as I felt, although probably for different reasons. My fists and teeth were clenched, ready to fight as much as it would take to make things work out. If ally my so-called allies had been too soft to help me in this venture, I would have to be three times as tough.

“What was all that about?” He blinked.

I was still too speechless to begin. What could I even say to him? Hello, Valentin, we’re making the lab into a dance club? I winced at the mere thought of it.

“Traitors.” I muttered under my breath. I had no doubt that they had their ears pressed to the door, listening in on the conversation. Charlie was probably relaying everything that was too inaudible for the human eavesdroppers to hear.

“So what was the important thing you had to tell me?” He asked.

I felt the pressure building over me, one invisible anvil at a time. If I had had a sweating problem, there would probably have been a puddle pooling at my feet already. But as it was, the only thing that gave me nervousness away was my pulse. If Charlie heard it from outside the door, I hoped he was damn happy.

“We…” I started, but couldn’t find more words. “There…” I started again. Valentin looked at me as though I was just mildly insane. I took a deep breath.

“We made some decisions while you were gone.” I announced. “Some pretty big ones.”

He got up out of his chair. I didn’t know what to make of that, so I just continued.

“First of all,” I said, “We decided that we’re not going to just sit around and do nothing while we’re here.”

He continued looking me dead in the eye, not saying or doing anything that might have given away what he was thinking. Damn it.

“We’re turning the lab into a dance club.” I finally said.

Then I held my breath.

It felt like an eternity by the time Valentin finally answered, during which I stayed perfectly still. You could have heard something much smaller than a pin drop in the silence that followed my statement.

“Was this your idea?” He finally asked.

I dared to look up. He didn’t look angry or shocked. He just look mildly amazed.

“Initially, yeah.” I nodded.

He continued to look at me. I was never very good at staring contests with him, so I looked down at the floor. It wasn’t fair. If it had been anybody else, I could have stared them down into the dirt. Valentin’s hoarse chuckle made me look up.

“I can’t say I haven’t thought this might happen.” He said.

My eyes opened wide in shock.

“What?” I asked. He nodded.

“What else would you do with all that music?” He shrugged.

My fists slowly came unclenched. I had not expected this.

“So you’re not against this?” I stammered, hardly daring to believe it. “You’re not going fight me on this?”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck while staring pensively at the floor.

“It’s risky, for one.” He informed me.

“I know that.” I said. He interrupted me before I could say more.

“If we do this, we’re putting our lives on the line.” He looked up at me. I flinched a little out of habit. “Are you sure you want to take that kind of risk?”

“I took the risk with saving Sarah, didn’t I?” I asked. He shook his head.

“This isn’t the same.” He said. “With Sarah, you had no choice.”

“Look,” I said, “My mind’s made up. I don’t care how risky this is. If it works, then it’ll have been worth it.”

He seemed to think it over some more.

While he did that, I couldn’t help but feel some modicum of pride. I’d managed not to screw this over, and it was maybe the first time I’d ever successfully convinced him without the use of countless swear words.

“If you’re sure…” He said, “Then so be it, I’ll help with the dance club.”

Before either of us could take another breath, the door was nearly thrown off its hinges as three traitorous eavesdroppers ran into the room, each one looking too happy for their own good.

Sarah threw herself on me, her arms imprisoning me as she squealed something barely understandable into my ear.

“I’m so proud of you!” She cried directly into my ear. “I knew you could do it, that’s why I left it all to you!”

“Bull…shit.” I managed to choke, one hard-earned syllable at a time.

“Well, demon boy, I’ve got to hand it to you.” Charlie gave Valentin a hefty pat on the back. “You’ve made a good decision today.”

“It won’t be easy.” Scarlett reminded us all. “And it will be dangerous. But if we know what we’re doing, there’s no reason we can’t make it work.”

Sarah finally let me go. I gratefully gulped down air, having thought that I was bound to die from that hug. Death by embrace had never seemed like a good way to die for me.

“So when do we start?” She asked, the excitement practically bursting from her. I had a feeling that it was due more to my sudden heightened level of maturity than to anything else.

“We can start tonight, if we want.” Charlie said. “Maybe we can get volunteers to build the stage for us, as well.”

It seemed like a good idea. At the time, all of us were more concerned about forming a basis for our public status. After all, no one even knew we existed. They didn’t even know what had happened on Halloween. They were probably more confused than we could have imagined.

Charlie explained once again what our plan was, which was basically to go to any bar with lots of people in it, and get a few to come down into the lab. Those same volunteers would later bring more people when the club really got up on its feet. In that way, we could draw a crowd.

The matter of keeping it secret enough so that the Demataxt wouldn’t notice was something else entirely.

“I don’t think we have to worry about the Demataxt any time soon.” Valentin said.

“And why the hell not?” Charlie snapped.

“There’s only two of them, and they have no idea where we are.” He explained.

“Were they the ones you were with during Halloween?” I asked. He nodded.

From what I remembered of their voices, they’d sounded more or less young. That was the most that I could tell.

“How can you be sure that they won’t find us?” Sarah asked.

“To tell the truth, they didn’t look like they even wanted the job.” Valentin shrugged.

“What were they like?” Scarlett asked.

“One was a mage -- not too strong, and her partner was a demon hybrid.” He said.

I bit my lip.

Demon hybrids were always bad news. I’d never met one in person, but what I’d heard was bad enough. Some of them were almost as strong as demon lords, though luckily it was in the region of a mere handful.

Demon hybrids were capable of fooling people that they were human even when inside they were just itching to destroy everyone. Some of the world’s most ferocious serial killers had later turned out to be demon hybrids. Normal demons weren’t nearly as bad, due to the fact that most of them were simply mindless. Demon hybrids, on the other hand, had human minds. Put together with a demonic instinct, the two often spawned a sliver of the hell humanity feared so much.

“They seemed nice enough.” Valentin finally decided.

“No way.” Sarah said. “The Demataxt agents were nice?”

“They can be sometimes.” Valentin said.

I had genuine trouble believing that. Anyone willing to take on a job of hunting down innocent people could never be nice, no matter how well-constructed their façade might be. If the soon-to-be-established dance club somehow made the havoc they’d wreaked seem a little less awful, then, yes, I was willing to take the risk.