Columbine

Alice’s veins had been throbbing with adrenaline for hours. Her foot tapped uncontrollably, and her hands, finding nothing else to do, were busy with some dead skin around her fingernails. She could have picked her fingers to the bone, if given the opportunity.

She looked at her watch one more time. They showed thirty minutes to one. She tried to picture how the plan would play out. She’d pictured it over and over in her mind. She’d ravaged every possibility, every hint of a variable. But despite all of that, the plan remained the same.

She and two other agents were gathered around the arena that had been created on the roof of the building. Valentin was standing a few feet away, head bowed low, as if in contemplation. Alice hadn’t had a chance to tell him that there was a plan, but hoped that things wouldn’t escalate before the allotted time.

Alice swallowed a fresh bout of fear, the saliva hitting her empty stomach most unpleasantly. She’d forgone eating anything for fear of getting sick. She was anxious enough as it was. She’d never exactly done something like this before.

“Goddamn it, how much longer do we have to wait?” One of the agents complained.

“It’s supposed to start soon.” His friend said, sounding fidgety.

Alice couldn’t get used to the fact that she had a gun strapped to her waist, hidden under the black Demataxt coat. Demataxt agents weren’t supposed to carry guns. They were only used for killing outlaws, but that was because it was the most convenient form of execution.

Finding herself unable to be left to her own thoughts for a moment longer, she walked up to Valentin.

“Do you think you’ll be fine?” She asked, almost stammering like a little girl.

“I’ve been forced into these fights before.” He admitted, finally looking up. “Just never to the death.”

Alice nodded, is if to show she understood. But she didn’t, and she knew it too well. There was so much wrong with the situation they were in to be understood by her. Why a demon lord would be so interested in a single individual was incomprehensible, even if that individual was his son.

More incomprehensible still was why Asmodeus wanted Valentin to bring out the demon part of himself. There was nothing to gain by that, making it an ultimately pointless endeavor. But then again, most of the things demon lords did made no sense to anyone.
Suddenly the person they’d been expecting walked up onto the roof.

“It’s about time!” One of the agents said.

The man said nothing. Alice knew that the person who’d just walked in was nothing close to human, though he did look exactly like one. He was the demon Asmodeus had picked out for Valentin to fight.

Alice wished that she could intervene before the fight could begin, but she hadn’t been able to get in contact with Damien or Elizabeth. They’d agreed that one o’ clock was when they’d act, and not a minute sooner. That had been before Asmodeus had shown up. Practically every person in the building had keeled over the moment they’d felt his presence.

It was usually humans that could be within inches of him without feeling much more than a chill down the spine, and particularly thick humans could even touch him without feeling a thing out of the ordinary. The more supernatural the being, the harder they suffered around demon lords.

Alice had found herself unable to walk, her back erupting in agony. The demon’s hollow in her back acted up, as it always did if there were eminent forces nearby. The hollow was where a demon had made a last ditch effort to keep itself from getting sucked back into the dimension it had come from after getting killed.

The enormous patch of dead, discolored skin on her back was the entry wound the demon had left behind, before she’d somehow managed to resist it and keep it from taking her body over entirely.

Even with so much that mages could do, the damage was still irreversible. That was why she suffered the worst of anyone and anything in the building.

“Let’s get this over with.” The demon muttered, and marched briskly into the arena, which had been marked by a spray-painted border.

Valentin looked at his chosen opponent, his face void of any expression. His eyes were hard, and Alice’s toes curled in anticipation. She wasn’t sure how the fight would go. Valentin didn’t strike her as someone who would just do what was expected of him. No, he’d hold off on the inevitable for as long as possible.

With a deep breath, he stepped into the arena.

“Right, let’s get to it.” One of the agents motioned for the rest of them to surround the arena. Alice awkwardly joined the pair of them in making a barrier where the spray paint indicated, so as to keep either opponent from flinging the other off the roof, or to hurt the agents themselves, who had volunteered as referees.

Alice had never been good at group spells, and her own skills were somewhere in the intermediate level. She could tell that the other two agents were maybe a little more skilled than her. The odds would obviously be in their favor, seeing as there was only one of her. The element of surprise was all she had, and she willfully reminded herself of the gun strapped to her waist.

“The fight will begin at the sound of the whistle!” One of the agents announced, pulling the flash of silver to his mouth. Alice could feel her blood pound in her ears, still harder. It was as if she were the one about to fight. She remembered that she would be in her own battle soon. In just twenty minutes.

The shrill sound of the whistle interrupted her thoughts so suddenly, she almost screamed.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected to happen at the whistle’s shriek. Possibly an explosion of instant violence. But it didn’t happen like that. The beginning of the fight was like a very slow introduction to a concert.

The demon circled Valentin, who didn’t move from his chosen spot. All he did was turn his head to make sure the demon hadn’t made any significant moves.

“Squeamish?” The demon asked, cracking his knuckles. “I’d tell you I’m gentle, but I’m not much of a liar.” He grinned.

Valentin said nothing back. He was stalling, just as Alice had suspected he would. He’d be unwilling for as long as he could, until he couldn’t afford not to defend himself.

“Well, come on, mate!” The demon said exasperatedly. “Give me something to work with here. I’m not here for my health, you know.”

When Valentin did nothing again, the demon got mad.

“Come on!” He yelled. His voice was suddenly deep and frightening, almost like a carnivorous roar.

This time he attacked, throwing himself at Valentin and kicking him in the ribs before he could even think of dodging. He fell to the ground, while a fearsome noise still reverberating through the air from the blow he’d suffered. Alice was shocked to see him get up not a second later. He didn’t even stumble.

“You’ve been around those damn humans so long, you’ve forgotten how to fight!” The demon roared.

He lashed out again. Alice was relieved to see Valentin dodge with astonishing speed.

“Prove that you’re your father’s son!” The demon screamed, lashing out still harder.

Valentin did nothing but continue to dodge his attacks. Alice bit her lip, despising the reluctant anticipation of watching him get hit again. There was no reason to expect otherwise, because Valentin wasn’t doing anything but dodging a demon who was getting madder with every shot he missed.

Alice looked at her watch. Fifteen more minutes.

And then the demon finally hit Valentin -- punched his face so hard, Alice could hear something break even from where she was standing. It may have been the demon’s knuckles or Valentin’s skull. She prayed for the former even as she saw Valentin fall down a second time. He didn’t recover nearly as fast.

He got shakily to his feet. After a dragging, breathless moment, he regained balance. Alice silently cheered him on for not going down easily, though she doubted that it made a difference.

An unspoken second round began. This time it was Valentin who lashed out. With shocking speed and precision, he knocked the demon in the chin so hard, he flew backwards. He didn’t go down like Valentin had, however. He remained standing, chuckling to himself while he massaged his face. Had he been human, he’d have been knocked out cold with a concussion.

“Warming up?” He smirked. “Or was that your best shot?”

Without waiting for an answer, he blinked out of existence. Alice stared, confused. She caught sight of him again when he dove straight for Valentin, blinking back into her line of vision. In the single second that she’d lost sight of him he’d withered away too great a distance for her to have any confidence left.

What happened next seemed to freeze time for one small but fateful moment. The demon’s hand grabbed Valentin’s throat, lifting him from the ground. The demon then threw him down into the cement floor, bringing his foot down hard onto his chest. Blood erupted from Valentin’s mouth.

The foot came down again, and Alice heard ribs break. She looked at her watch -- ten minutes. She no longer cared what the original plan was. She was jump-starting it. Ten minutes wouldn’t matter. If she took out the two agents first, there’d be no one left but the demon, and she’d have to take her chances.

Just as her hand, numb with adrenaline, went to the gun strapped to her waist, something unexpected happened. Valentin had grabbed the demon’s leg and thrown him over to the side, jumping up with unexpected stamina. For someone who’d been having his insides pounded to a pulp, he was surprisingly virile.

Alice’s hand froze just in time.

The demon got back up, but this time Valentin didn’t wait for him to take advantage. His fist collided with his face, coming away flecked with red. The demon stopped for a moment, as if confused by what was happening.

Valentin was suddenly too fast for Alice’s eyes to keep up with him. He’d managed to match the demon’s speed exactly, making any normal pace appear sluggish in comparison. But it still boiled down to the fact that Valentin was reluctant to let his demon half take over, whereas his opponent would have only welcomed more strength.

Five minutes were left. There were only three ways that the situation could possibly end: Valentin could lose and perish, Valentin could win and give Alice one demon less to worry about, or the fight wouldn’t end soon enough and she’d have to end it herself.

Alice breathlessly watched them exchange blows, neither one winning, but both of them managing to damage each other in perfect proportion. She remembered how it used to be years ago, sitting in a warm house, in a warm bed, watching television with a pint of ice cream for company. If she happened to come upon a fight on TV, she’d merely eat more ice cream and imagine how well she’d handle it if she were one of the opponents.

How anyone could stand by and watch something like that was beyond her now. Now that she was witnessing a real fight, fists and cartilage make too much contact for her comfort zone, she only wanted it to be over. She couldn’t bear watching Valentin get hit so much, because he’d taken more punches than he could have possibly survived. If something wasn’t broken before, it almost certainly was now.

The demon shoved Valentin down onto the ground and knelt over him, fist raised and ready to pulverize his brain.

But before anything else could happen, Valentin plunged his hand through his opponent’s chest. The hand went in, tearing flesh, breaking bone, and grasping the still beating heart. He tore it out of the demon’s body.

An oozing heart was in Valentin’s hand, still quivering. The demon lay on the ground, staring blankly into nowhere. It was finally done.

“Fuck me.” One of the agents swore hoarsely.

Alice didn’t wait now. She snatched the gun from its holster, and fired it into one agent’s leg. He fell with a scream of pain. Alice fired into the other agent before he could find time to realize what had happened. The bullet hit his knee.

“We have to go!” She yelled at Valentin, trying not to see the demon’s body lying on the ground, or the glistening heart lying next to it. She instead focused on Valentin’s face, which looked so horrified, she almost asked him what was wrong. She knew it wasn’t necessary. It became painfully clear that he’d had as little idea of what he was capable of as she did. Maybe even less.

“I didn’t know what I was doing.” He said, more to himself than to Alice.

“It was either you or him. Know that.” She said forcefully. Maybe partly to reassure herself of that fact.

“I can’t believe I--…” He trailed off, unable to bring himself to say it. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

“We have to go.” Alice reminded him, grabbing his hand for emphasis. “Now.”

It was only when they’d finally broken into a run that she realized she’d taken the hand that had pulled out the heart -- the hand that was drenched in blood. She swallowed, trying to ignore the idea of blood getting on her. It was too late to change what she’d started -- better to let him think she didn’t care.

“We’ve set up a rendezvous point in an empty warehouse not far from here.” She explained as they rushed down the stairwell. “Your friend Scarlett is already there.”

“Have you looked outside recently? There’s a mob surrounding the building.” He said, already sounding less horrified.

“There’s more than one way to get out of here.” Alice informed him. “There’s an emergency underground exit that leads up to the river.”

There was nothing to be heard except the sound of their feet hitting the stairs. The blood pounding in Alice’s ears had finally subsided, having found a sufficient use. For once, she found herself pleased that phones were a thing of the past. Had they still worked, there’d be an entire team of agents waiting for them at the emergency exit.

“I didn’t know was even capable of something like that.” Valentin suddenly said. Alice didn’t have to ask what he meant.

“You had no choice.” She reminded him. This, at least, was partly true. “I know you feel terrible, but you need to pull yourself together.”

“That’s what bothers me, Alice. It’s that I don’t feel anything.” He confessed.

“That it bothers you that you don’t feel anything is enough.” Alice said. “It was life or death, and you chose life. Case closed.”

He didn’t say anything more on the matter. Alice wondered if it was because he’d believed her, or because he’d just figured out that she couldn’t help him. But that he was disturbed by what he’d done was still a good sign. It showed that he was still more human than demon. Maybe Asmodeus’ grand scheme had been a failure after all.

But even as they made their way through the emergency tunnel, Alice wondered if Valentin might already be unraveling. From his continued silence, she couldn’t tell.