Columbine

“Please don’t touch anything.” Charlie warned as we stepped through the metal door that Scarlett had somehow managed to open by herself while we’d all been arguing.

“Why? Are there explosives?” Dennis asked.

This made me think for a moment whether there really were explosives somewhere in the lab. Being myself, I had no idea what a bomb even looked like unless it was in a wooden crate labeled “explosives” or in the form of a grenade. Were bombs square like boxes, or did they come in customized shapes and sizes that could fit in your pocket?

“In your wet dreams, maybe.” Charlie snickered. “But in reality, no.”

Dennis didn’t answer -- probably because he’d already caught on to the fact that Charlie wasn’t strictly human either.

George, unlike his cohort, had been silent for the duration of the trip. It didn’t take as long as it seemed, as I had discovered. If you power walked, it took about ten minutes. It was the walk from the pyramid to the village that was about half an hour long. But at night the sun was not a factor, so it was about forty minutes total of walking.

As we entered the initial hallway of the lab, I noticed that the glow sticks were still somehow alight. Despite the lack of sunlight to heat the alleged power source that they were all connected to, something was keeping them warm. Knowing scientists and their innovative ways, I decided that there was probably a fireplace somewhere keeping the light from going out.

“What is this place?” George finally broke down and spoke.

I saw that he was staring at the permanently blank screens that were built into the walls. There was a screen every twenty feet or so, but that still did not give away what they’d been used for. I’d always assumed that scientists had watched the news on them, or had used them as electronic maps of the lab.

“It used to be a lab of sorts.” Valentin informed him.

“A lab for what?” George asked.

“Mostly for biological study.” Valentin said.

“You mean biological warfare?” George hinted.

“No, I mean for studying disease, infection, and possible cures.” Valentin corrected. “But it’s empty now.”

“Why’s that?” George asked.

“Because there was no point in staying after the equipment stopped working.” Valentin shrugged.

I noticed that George had become braver and started asking questions that were all much smarter than Dennis’s. Despite his rather unsophisticated appearance, George was turning out to be alright.

We entered the main hall, where Scarlett was swiveling in her chair at the table, doing nothing. When she saw us, she perked up significantly.

“What took you all so long?” She snapped, jumped up from the chair.

“Denny-boy wanted to assert himself for a bit.” Charlie said, grinning much the way an alligator grins. “Showed off his gun and told us how he got all his scars during his long, manly life.”

“Shut up.” Dennis growled. “And don’t call me Denny-boy!”

Charlie ignored him, instead joining Scarlett at the table.

“Have a seat.” He commanded, pointing at the empty chairs that were standing in a row at the table’s edge.

We all sat down, Sarah and I sitting next to each other, Charlie and Valentin across from us and Scarlett at one of the far ends of the table. George and Dennis sat at the other end.

“Well, I guess we’ll start by explaining what we’re trying to do here.” Scarlett cleared her throat. “But I think Columbine would be better suited for that.”

“Huh?” I croaked, damn near tilting my head like the dumb squirrel that I was acting like.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?” Scarlett smiled. “You should be the one explaining it.”

“I--I don’ think--”

“Don’t think. Just talk.” Sarah interrupted. “You were good in the pub, you know.”

“What? Really?” I blinked.

Sarah nodded convincingly, although I doubted that she was telling the truth. But, then again, it was probably for the best. If she’d told me that I’d actually sucked in the pub, she’d never forget it. The image of my fist looming closer and closer would haunt her forever. So I ignored it.

“Well…” I started, sounding a little bit like a very old bicycle being pedaled for the first time in ages. “Basically what we’re trying to do is make life less miserable by starting a dance club.” I cleared my throat.

“I mean, there’s more or less hell on earth right now, and I’m sure everyone misses televisions and phones and CD players.” I said. “And no one’s heard normal music in years, so I think it would be wrong to keep music from people if we’re the only ones that have it.”

I paused to check if George and Dennis were paying attention to me. To my relief, their eyes were almost glued to my face.

“That’s where you two come in.” I said. “If you guys can get more people into this, then more people will come and more people can have a good time.” I stopped. “Once we get the club properly started, I mean.” I added.

They were silent for a while, until George spoke. He seemed to be the more intelligent one out of the pair.

“So we’re like messengers for your operation.” He clarified. I didn’t like how he made us sound a little too much like we were the mafia, but I ignored it.

“Exactly.” I smiled nervously. “It would be much easier if we had connections to the outside.”

“Wait a minute.” George paused. “If you’re with that witch friend of yours,” He indicated Sarah, “Would you happen to be that familiar we were also told to look out for?”

I blinked, not knowing how to respond to that.

“Witches having human familiars isn’t accurate at all!” Sarah suddenly cried out, obviously outraged at the previous statement. “The only witches that ever have familiars are evil ones that summon demons to do their bidding!”

Everyone stared at Sarah, who’s chest was practically heaving with outrage at this point.

“Touchy subject, huh?” Charlie grinned.

“You shut up!” Sarah growled. “You have no idea how sick I am of all the stereotypes. And with the Demataxt promoting them just because they think they’re the only ones who can possibly have powers!”

When I looked into Sarah’s face, I saw genuine anger, but I also saw some small shred of sadness. It was understandable, of course. The relationship between mages and witches could easily have been compared to the relationship of black and white people in twentieth-century America.

In both cases, one side decided that they were better, stronger, and more deserving than the other. But there was one aspect to the mage-witch relationship that made it almost logical. Mages were born with their abilities, no questions asked. They couldn’t help it, and so they decided that it was the way things were supposed to be.

Witches, on the other hand, actively sought out their powers. It was unnatural -- wrong, even. Logically, they weren’t supposed to have any powers that exceeded normal human standards. It was the fact that they were able to obtain and keep their powers that bugged the mages more than anything.

Had their new abilities been somehow unfit for them, they would have either died or been unable to hold on to them. Because their powers stuck, it proved that it wasn’t all that bad of a setup. One could understand how badly that disturbed the Demataxt.

“I get what you’re saying, Sarah.” Charlie said. “But we’re in a meeting now. If you can’t hold it in, start a diary or something.”

I could practically see invisible daggers travel from Sarah’s eyes and plunge into Charlie again and again. I swallowed, hoping that the situation wouldn’t escalate to an explosive stage. Valentin, clearly thinking the same thing, decided to cleverly distract everyone by continuing the discussion.

“As we were saying,” He cleared his throat, “We would all appreciate it if you would help us get our business on its feet.”

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, almost as if he were checking to see if I approved. I shrugged, not really knowing what to say to him. He continued.

“I know this isn’t how things usually happen, but this isn’t exactly a normal situation.” He said.

At this point, Dennis spoke for the first time since George had taken the reins of the discussion.

“You said you were starting a club, right?” He asked.

“Exactly.” I said at exactly the same time that Valentin said, “Right.” We looked at each other simultaneously, and I immediately looked away. We both focused our eyes on Dennis.

“What’re you going to call it?” He asked.

“Uh…” I scratched my head.

“We don’t know yet.” Valentin said. “But we’ll be deciding on a name later on.”

“Great.” Dennis said, scowling just the tiniest bit. He obviously hadn’t forgiven Valentin for taking the bullets from his gun.

“Wait, I know!” Scarlett exclaimed, coming alive for the first time since she’d forced me to talk.

“How about the “Blood Bank”?” She grinned.

We all stared at her, each one with a different reason for it. My reason was that it was perhaps the strangest name for anything besides an actual blood bank that I had ever heard -- and that it sort of gave the music’s source away.

Sarah looked like the idea had given her ears enormous pleasure. Charlie looked like he was about to snicker in a very impolite manner. Valentin just looked surprised that Scarlett had provided us with our first option so soon. Dennis looked like he wasn’t quite up to speed with the discussion, and George just looked mildly shocked about the whole thing.

“Seriously?” Charlie gaped. “You want to call it that?”

“You got a better suggestion?” Sarah snapped, clearly eager to channel her anger at him through any means necessary.

“Anything’s better than that!” He urged, eyes almost pleading for someone else to back him up.

And then it dawned to me why he had such a big problem with the name “Blood Bank”. It was practically the perfect club name for vampires, and judging from his initial reaction to Halloween, he had his own problems with stereotypes. But I still didn’t say anything.

“What do you two think?” Scarlett asked George and Dennis.

“I don’t care what you call it.” George shrugged. “And I doubt any one else will, either. It the music that people want -- not a name.”

Dennis didn’t say anything. He just stared down at the table. I took that to mean that he didn’t really care either.

“So “Blood Bank” it is, then.” Sarah smiled. Charlie looked like he wanted very much to object, but the smart part of his brain spoke for the first time in what seemed to me like ages, so he shut up.

“Okay, now that that’s out of the way,” I took a deep breath, “We’re not bringing anyone in on it yet. We still have some work to do as far as the decorations and whatnot, and we also need to build a stage.”

I paused to check if anyone had anything to add. At this point, I was speaking more to George than to anyone else. He seemed to be the one that was actually in charge, despite the macho act that Dennis had pulled earlier.

“Unfortunately,” I said, “We don’t have the equipment necessary to build a stage. So I would like to ask that you might bring some people that could maybe help us build it this time tomorrow.”

George nodded, and seemed to consider what I’d said for a moment. Dennis looked up at me, his face not as warped into a scowl as it had been earlier, but still not quite relaxed. I swallowed, grateful that he didn’t intimade me as much as one would expect. I had an unusually high tolerance for intimidation. I’d lived through enough of it at school to last me a lifetime.

“Well, I’m fairly certain I can get at least three more guys to help you build this stage you’re talking about.” George finally concluded. “But we’re going to need a basic building plan first. Can we get that?”

“Sure.” Valentin said. “Charlie and I will show you.”

The two of them got up and led George over to where we had decided to put the stage, leaving Sarah, Scarlett, Dennis, and me sitting at the table. Dennis looked awkward sitting by himself with the three of us silently scrutinized him with our eyes.

“So…” Scarlett said, breaking what we all thought was going to be an uncomfortable silence. “Isn’t there anything else you’d like to know?”

Dennis looked up from his palms and straight at me, which I found strange. It would have been normal to look at Scarlett, since she’d been the one talking to him. But I still didn’t flinch, which might also have surprised everyone else.

“You have no idea.” He grumbled, still looking at me.

“You can ask, you know.” Scarlett told him.

Finally he turned his gaze in her direction and left me to breathe freely. For the first time in years, I was actually fighting the urge to discreetly smooth my hair and pull my shirt down another inch over my pants. I all but pinched myself to keep that from happening.

“How did we not know about this place to begin with?” Dennis asked, throwing his hand to indicate the obviously enormous lab that we were in. “Why is it even here?”

Scarlett looked like she’d just about rehearsed the answer to that question in the mirror before we’d arrived.

“Well, you see, about five years ago the science research facility that I worked in got offered a lot of money to study a vampire.” Scarlett began. “It was at that time that we obtained some information that made us think of studying bigger things that weren’t exactly safe in Oregon.”
“So this facility was built, and we got paid extra to spend all of our time in here. It was a seven-year contract that offered three million dollars per person, but the money was icing on the cake compared to what we were doing in here.”
“But then when everyone realized electricity was gone, most of them left. Eventually everyone left.” Scarlett mournfully remembered.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Dennis asked.

“I have my reasons.” Scarlett shrugged, which I took to be code for ‘none of your goddamned business’.

But now that we were on the subject, I couldn’t help but wonder why Scarlett did stay. When it became evident that there was a side to the story that she wasn’t letting us in on, I decided to make it my mission to find out. That, if nothing else, would keep me from getting bored while the stage project was underway.

“Fine.” Dennis said. “Then next question: how the hell can she do what she does?” He pointed at me.

I felt a little miffed that he hadn’t just confronted me about it and instead made it feel like we were both four and he was telling on me to the teacher, or some stupid scenario like that. But if we really were both four now, I’d have made a very serious attempt to kill him.

“To tell the truth, I don’t know.” Scarlett sighed. “I’ve studied it as much as I could without the full power of my equipment, but still everything about her looked completely normal.”

Dennis looked at me, luckily not like I was an alien or something, but more like I was the suspect in a murder case.

“Have you ever thought that she might be a mage, or something?” He asked.

“I’m not!” I exclaimed before Scarlett could answer for me. “And I’m nothing but human, you got that?”

He didn’t look insulted, like most people did when I snapped at them. He almost looked pleasantly surprised.

“That’s a damn interesting ability for a human to have.” He said.

“It’s not an ability!” I said. “You can control an ability. What I do just happens.”

“Oh. Really.” He smirked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I glared.

“Oh, please not again.” Sarah groaned.

I saw that she was practically begging me with her eyes to not let the argument escalate any further. I almost heard my knuckles crackle in the process of doing just that, but I somehow found the strength not to lunge wildly at Dennis and attempt to tear off shreds of his skin. But, believe me, I wanted to.

“I know for a fact that she’s human, so nobody has anything to worry about.” Scarlett said.

“And how would you know that?” Dennis asked, voice eminating cycnicism.

“Believe it or not, people such as mages actually have a slightly different quality of bodily fluids than normal humans.” Scarlett informed him, as well as the rest of us. This was real news to me.

“It’s not a big difference.” Scarlett added, “But it’s still really helpful.”

Before Dennis could say anything else, Charlie, George, and Valentin returned. George was holding a slip of paper with little drawings and measurements on it, which I took to be good news.

“Well, we’ve got the building plan straightened out.” George informed us. “And we’ve also been offered the opportunity to spend the night here, Dennis.”

I blinked, which was also something that Dennis did simultaneously.

“What?” He snapped.

“You should be grateful.” George told him. “Here’s better than that run-down dump that they call an inn.”

I wasn’t sure how their relationship worked, but something told me that if George said something, Dennis pretty much follwed it like a dog. It made sense, considering that George was older.

“Excuse me.” Scarlett said. “But who offered you a room without asking me first?”

“I knew that it was what you would have wanted.” Charlie grinned.

“I’m not dead, Charles. You could have just asked me.” Scarlett snapped.

“Does that mean that we can’t sleep here?” Dennis asked, almost hopefully.

“No, it’s fine.” Scarlett grumbled. “I just wish people would check with me before doing god-knows-what to my house.”

No one really answered to that. I had a feeling that it was probably because everyone was guilty of something as far as invading Scarlett’s so-called house was concerned.

“It’s settled then.” Charlie beamed. “Come on, I’ll show you guys your rooms.”

As he and Valentin left to do just that, Sarah leaned over and whispered,

“Do you want to sleep in my room? You know, in case Dennis tries anything funny?”

I paused, ready to shoot her offer down, but somehow found myself saying,

“Sure, alright.”

Sarah beamed, and almost demonic joy occupied her face at the moment she heard my words. I realized a moment too late that I had made a tragic mistake when I saw the evil glint I her eye.

“You too, Scarlett.” She said. “We’re having a slumber party tonight!”

And at that moment, I wanted very much to fall through the floor.