How to be Badass (2nd Draft)

In the early evening, Mimi appeared in the doorway of the gaming room. Allen had been watching listlessly as Dustin played, swinging between high and low emotional states as he had been all day. Right now he had about as much motivation as a corpse.

Mimi found them, and then she said, “I’m going to start training you now.”

Allen, with his lack of motivation, had looked up at her dully and said nothing.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Mimi snapped. “You want to fight them? You need training.”

She was right. Allen looked for that spark of anger in him, and fanned it slightly. With a deep breath, and considerable effort, he got up. “Okay,” he said.

Mimi brought him into the demonslaying level of the house. They went to a library, and Mimi sat Allen down and disappeared into the stacks. This library was far less put-together than the other one. Books were piled on tables of all shapes and sizes and heights, scrolls (actual scrolls) rolled out of haphazard pyramids and all light was supplied by a scattering of bulbs shoved in lamps that looked like they’d been scavenged from elsewhere in the house. Some were missing their lampshades. Others were missing their lightbulbs. Most looked like they were moved around to wherever they needed to be at that point in time.

Mimi returned with a scroll and cleared the circular table Allen was sat down at. It was clearly old, but well maintained. She unrolled it and Allen instantly recognized his tattoos. Demonslaying tattoos, he thought. On the scroll were dotted lines of red dividing the tattoo. Allen could see the difference in the shapes in the divided sections, their flow and timbre.

Mimi traced her fingers over the square in the center. “We’re going to start with some underlying theory. Demonslayers are descendents from the demons before they were corrupted. This is the first tattoo you get as a demonslayer. It’s called the binding tattoo, and it binds your power from what it was before—demon power—to demonslaying power. Like all the tattoos, it is sacred.

“Each tattoo after the binding tattoo is a siphon and it shapes your bound power.” Touching the other squares gently, she said, “Banishing demons you get at level two, killing demons you get at level three, and binding a demon to you in dormant possession you get at level five. You don’t use a tattoo for repossession.”

“What tattoos do I have?” Allen asked.

“Level three,” said Mimi. “Now we’re going to see if they work.”

“How?”

“You use your power. I can’t really explain that to you, it’s something demonslayers should be able to find naturally. You used it last night when you repossessed that demon. Nothing should happen, since it only affects demons,” Mimi said.

She was right, Allen didn’t even need to really think about it. It was right there—it had always been there, he just hadn’t known what it was.

“Don’t bother trying to siphon yet,” Mimi suggested. “That’s something that takes practice. Just try to use your power. Stand up, take your shirt off—I want to be able to see your tattoos.”

Allen did, and she walked around so that she was behind Allen. Clumsily, like trying to use a new limb, he fidgeted with his power it until it worked—tangibly interacting with the tattoos like the gears of a machine. There it got stuck, and Allen shoved more power into it until it shuddered and Allen slipped, gasping slightly. He breathed hard, feeling distinctly put out by something.

“Well,” said Mimi. “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen, second only to the first time I saw your tattoos.”

Allen, feeling fatigued, only turned his head slightly so he could see her in his peripheral vision until she explained.

“Your tattoos moved but it was a direct change to another position, not a—a movement.” MImi touched his back lightly, and Allen’s skin prickled. He was sweating. “How did that feel?”

“Awful,” said Allen. He was adjusting now, but it felt like he was a soda someone had shaken and then not opened.

“Hm,” said Mimi helpfully.

“Do you think now that the tattoos have moved the demons won’t be able to possess me?” Hope crept into Allen like acid in his veins. He braced against it, not wanting to be disappointed. He believed on some fundamental level that he was the way he was forever.

Allen couldn’t see Mimi’s face, but she sounded skeptical when she said, “Maybe. Do you want me to try to shove one into you?”

“You can do that?”

“Sure, it’s how they train new level fives to repossess.”

“I guess so,” Allen said. He hated the idea, but he needed to know.

“Brace yourself.” Mimi was silent for a minute, and then Allen felt the slamming of control from his body and when Mimi came back she gripped his shoulder and he felt it return. “So much for that idea.”

Indeed. The acid hope burned its way through him, more malevolent now that it didn’t have a purpose. “Try again,” said Mimi.

Allen did. It was a bit easier to get a handle on this time, but it came with the same sense of frustration, and burst of fatigue. His skin was clammy, and his hands shook. Mimi sat him down and pulled up a chair beside him.

“This isn’t healthy for you,” Mimi said. “I’ve never seen using power make someone sick like this before.”

“I’m not sick,” Allen muttered.

“You’re burning up, you look like you’re about to pass out,” Mimi said. “Do you want food?”

Allen made a face.

“Sick.”

Okay, so she had a point.

“From a combat standpoint, it’s inefficient as well,” said Mimi. “It seems like the only time any power is allowed through is during that flash of change. You won’t be able to fight anything but the weakest of demons that way, and if it always has this affect on you…”

She trailed off. It didn’t need to be said. Allen was useless. He wanted to destroy something. Preferably something demonic. “So I’m a demonslayer but I can’t fight,” Allen managed to bite off through his frustration and trembling.

Mimi made a face that said yes. “I’ll talk to Char about it. You need to lie down and eat something. Fay was going to start training you tonight but if you’re in this state—”

“I’m going to train tonight,” Allen growled. There was no way—if he couldn’t fight like this then he was going to learn how to fight physically.

Mimi raised an eyebrow at him. “Then get your ass to bed and rest.”

Allen did manage to make it to his bed without collapsing. Once he was in bed he found himself caught between his body’s discomfort and his crippling exhaustion. He breathed shallowly, closing his eyes and trying not to focus on the feeling that everything was put together wrong and failing miserably failing.

With time, the feeling faded, and without Allen knowing exactly when it happened Allen slipped off into sleep.

“Up,” the word jarred him awake, along with the startling shake to his shoulder. “Mimi says you aren’t feeling well but you wanted to train anyways.”

It was Fay. Allen sat up quickly and blinked sleepily. He didn’t feel perfect, but he certainly felt better than he had. “What time is it?”

“Time for you to get your ass kicked,” Fay said, walking towards to door. “Come on.”

So Allen did. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, heart pounding from being woken up by Fay. He didn’t like her. She reminded him of his father.

She lead him back up-upstairs, and brought him to a training room he hadn’t been to before.

She opened the door, stood aside, and quite abruptly, Allen stopped.

The room was white.

Before his mind had time to retaliate, his vision was tunnelling and his breath felt like it might have been ripped out of him for all the good it was doing him.

“Go in, dipshit.”

He couldn’t go in. He couldn’t. He blinked, hard, as if he could flinch away from the sight, and when he tried to take a step back Fay pushed him from behind.

He stumbled into the room. Everything was white. He shattered.

Every nerve was on fire, pain flaring through him and the world going dark. Dark. Dark. Blood on the wall. The world was dark, and Allen couldn’t control anything, nothing at all—

His chest burned, his heart clenching like it could stop itself and stop this too. It couldn’t. There was nothing here for him to grab onto, to ground himself, to remember where he was. He was in the white room. That was all.

It had been a long day at work for Mimi. She had had to reassign a homicide case from a detective who had been too close to it, and one of the detectives it had been reassigned to had gotten hurt during the investigation. There was paperwork everywhere. She was tired.

Her cell rang, and her eyes flickered to it distractedly. Fay. Why was Fay calling her? Mimi usually made a point to not be distracted by her phone while she was working, but Fay never called. Getting up, she went to the restroom and answered.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” said Fay. She sounded aggravated. “I’m on speaker. Queri’s here too.”

“Fay’s an ass,” said Queri.

“We all know,” said Mimi tiredly. “What happened?”

“Fay may have broken Allen.”

“I didn’t even do anything! All I did was bring him to the training room, it’s not my fault he’s got the strength of pudding and fell apart immediately—”

“We talked about this,” Queri growled. “You don’t have enough information to be making those judgements.”

“Fine, I know, fine. There might be a reasonable explanation for his behaviour.” Fay’s words were tight and clipped.

“So what I’m getting from this,” Mimi mused, “is that Fay tried to train Allen and Allen had a falling apart? Like the others?”

“I wasn’t actually there, I just heard Dustin cussing Fay out and I came out to see what in the world was making Dustin do that,” Queri said. “But from what I saw, it was decidedly not like the others. He looked like he wasn’t seeing what was really there. His muscles were so locked up that Char and Dustin had to almost carry him out.”

“Sounds dramatic,” Mimi said, frowning. “Which training room?”

“The small one right off the storage room,” said Fay.

Mimi couldn’t think of anything about that room that was frightening. Mimi chewed her lip and then said, “What a mess of a day that boy’s had. First last night, then this afternoon, and now this.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be all soft on him,” Fay said.

“I’m not being soft,” Mimi snapped. “I’m being a fucking human being.” That was harsh unto itself, but Mimi didn’t feel like admitting that she was being sympathetic because it reminded her of when she herself had had her life torn apart by demons. He was even younger than she had been.

“Wow,” said Queri, “I’m surrounded by asses.”

Mimi sighed. “Go find Sparrow or Char or Kidd then.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Queri said. “Well, I made Fay call you to tell you what happened to see if you knew anything that could help us figure out why. Does it have anything to do with what you did with him earlier?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mimi. “He wasn’t doing well but it seemed purely physical.”

“Noted. I guess we’ll just have to ask him later,” Queri said.

“That might just make him upset again,” Mimi pointed out.

“Now who’s the monster,” Fay said, and then heard a more distant “Hey!” as Mimi assumed Queri hit Fay.

“Please don’t fight, children,” Mimi said, tired from a day at work and this new information on Allen. “I have to get back to work. That wasn’t the calming break from paperwork I was hoping for though. Next time only call if you have something nice to say.”

“Fine,” said Queri. “What if I said I just wanted to hear your voice?”

Fay made a noise of derision and said, “Please keep your emotional mushiness out of my vicinity. It taints me.”

Mimi was too busy pretending not to have butterflies in her stomach to answer that, but she was fairly sure Queri smacked her again.

“Anyways, bye,” said Queri.

“Bye.” Mimi hung up and leaned back gently on the wall. Someone knocked on the door. She had paperwork to finish. Thinking about Allen would have to wait.

Dustin hadn’t been this angry since the first time he’d picked up the wallet of a dead man who had allowed himself to be possessed and seen a photo of his daughter, bald and grinning despite the tubes in her nose.

It was a similar kind of anger. His hands shook as he and Char sat Allen onto the bed and he had to stop and take some calming breaths himself before he was able to try to calm Allen. He wanted to storm back and hit Fay. He had given her a piece of his mind already but Allen needed help now, not after he gave her a what for.

Arrogant, selfish, doesn’t even try to think about others—

“Allen?” he said, trying to sound gentler than he felt. “You’re safe. You’re at the demonslayer’s house. I’m here, so is Char.”

“Have you ever seen him like this?” Char asked, crouching beside him. Her eyes were so full of concern. It mollified Dustin slightly.

“Not this bad, but sometimes he has—triggers—that cause a reaction like this,” Dustin said softly, trying to round out his words so that there were no sharp edges on which Allen’s mind could tear itself.

“He has PTSD.”

“I think so,” Dustin said, taking Allen’s hands between his and rubbing them. He found that a mix of tactile sensations and easy words helped Allen to ground himself. “Do you remember that one time you decided to learn the saxophone solo in Careless Whisper after you saw Deadpool? You said that you didn’t really like Wham! or that song, but that the solo in it was good enough to redeem them? I remember you practicing the run at the beginning over and over. Whenever you played a note in the run wrong you’d scowl so deeply and just play it again. The reed would squeak and you’d stop for a moment to cuss it out. The only time I’ve heard you swear as creatively as you do during video games is when you’re addressing your reed. I hope you tell it how much you love it too when it’s doing well or it will have awful self-confidence.”

Dustin felt Allen’s fingers twitch between his and a little breath escaped Dustin in relief. Dustin nudged Char, and she looked at Dustin blankly for a second before smiling a small, private smile, and said, “Here’s a story. In the household that I grew up in I went to church every Sunday. Catholic. Very stuffy. You could spoon feed bible verse it hung so thick in the air, and they did. I didn’t like being spoon fed. One time when I was, oh, six or so, I decided to express these feelings by pick-pocketing the priest’s rosary. Oh, he became so much less holier-than-thou and so much more a regular old man when he chased me. I ran into the cloister and I hid under a bed so that he used a broom to try to shoo me out. I was laughing so hard. I was so afraid and so excited.”

Dustin laughed slightly despite himself, imagining a child Char scrabbling back and forth underneath a bed to avoid a straw broom, holy rosary in her hands and a mischievious smile on her lips. “Only my grandmother didn’t scold me afterwards. She pinched my cheek and called me a little imp, but as an endearing nickname instead of a bad thing. She enjoyed my antics. She was the only one who kept in contact with me after…” Char hesitated, and then cleared her throat, “that part isn’t nearly so lighthearted.”

Dustin was too focused on Allen to think much of it. He was blinking now, too quickly, but at least it was movement. “You’re safe,” Dustin repeated. “You’re safe.”

When Allen was recovered enough that he could move, they brought him downstairs so that they could sit him in front of the fire. He was shivering—or at least Dustin thought it was shivering, not just shaking. Usually blankets helped, anyways. Dustin thought that the white room incident must have happened in the winter.

Char nudged Dustin once they had Allen settled and tucked into a blanket and also Dustin’s arms. He was running his fingers through his hair and telling him more nonsense stories about the library and video games and movies and getting take out. At Char’s nudge he stopped talking, looking up at her with eyebrows raised in inquiry.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked.

“Me?” Dustin asked, bewildered. “Why? I’m fine.” Although he hadn’t really thought about it. He had been so full of caring for Allen that he wasn’t even thinking of himself.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re also a child, and I’m going to take care of you as much as him,” Char said, lightly grabbing his nose for a fraction of a second. “And you need to take care of yourself.”

Dustin shrugged. “Allen has been dealt a really shitty hand of cards. I only want to make it easier for him.”

“Only?”

Dustin hesitated, and then said, “And it makes me feel like I’m doing something to counteract what my dad’s done. And it distracts me from thinking about my own problems.”

“I see,” said Char, all pleasantness. “Who is your father, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Dustin’s stomach twisted and his heart sped up. Fear. Involuntary. That was normal. There were very few demons who didn’t fear him. “Kryos,” he whispered.

Char’s eyes widened. “No shit? The big ice demon?”

Dustin shook his head, suppressing a shiver. “That’s the one.”

“Do you know who your human parent is?” Char asked.

Dustin shook his head. “I would like to,” he said gently. He longed to know his human side. His better side. His heritage in this world. “I’m afraid they would hate me, though. For what I am.”

Char hummed in a way that said she saw his point and kind of agreed with it. “I think you’re worthy of being loved,” she said. “You’re a good person.”

“Thank you,” Dustin said. He smiled down at Allen absently, still running his fingers through his hair. It was thick and dark and fell heavily where it was placed. So different from Dustin’s fine white hair that wouldn’t lie down no matter what he did. Not that he’d ever tried that hard. Allen just mussed it up anyways when he did.

“Of course,” Char said. “I don’t hand out cheap compliments. Do you know anything about your human parent that could help us find them?”

“Only that it was a girl—woman,” Dustin corrected himself. “My mom.” The word was foreign and awkward in his mouth.

“That’s not really much to go on is it.”

“Not exactly,” Dustin laughed slightly. “I think she is—or was—in this country, too. That’s just a hunch, though.”

“You know, there are only one hundred and fifty seven million women in this country mine,” Char said dryly. “A whole six of us are in this house. Odds are it’ll be one of us.”

Dustin barked out a laugh, and said nothing more until Allen cleared his throat slightly. He hadn’t said anything yet. When he did, it was, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to say that,” Dustin said. “Fay does.”

“I second that,” Char said.

Allen fidgeted with his lower lip, something Dustin had only ever seen him do after something like this. “That was bad,” he said. “It usually isn’t that bad.”

“I’m surprised you’re able to cope with that at all without professional help,” Char said. “PTSD is a serious thing.”

Allen shrugged. “Can I have water please?”

Char went to go get water. Allen’s shaking had stilled enough that he was able to drink without spilling anything.

“How are you feeling?” Char asked him.

“Bad,” Allen said, his voice breaking slightly over the word. His voice sounded juvenile, young. He hadn’t even cursed.

“That seems reasonable. Do you want anything to eat? You didn’t have dinner, did you?”

Allen shook his head. “I don’t feel good.”

“That might be because you’re hungry,” Char pointed out.

“I’m actually kind of hungry,” Dustin put in.

“Have you even eaten since you’ve gotten here?”

“Once,” said Dustin. “I don’t need to eat as much as humans. I can withstand colder and hotter temperatures.” He shrugged.

“I’ll make something then. What do you like? I sort of feel like making something greasy,” Char said, tapping that indent below her nose that all humans had. Dustin loved it. He tried to think about food but he ended up thinking about how much he loved that humans were all works of art designed by aesthetic preference in each other as well as survival. What a lovely marriage between the gritty parts of this world and the lovely.

“Dustin? Earth to Dustin.”

“Probably thinking about shapes,” Allen mumbled into his water.

Dustin smiled and bumped his fist gently against Allen’s shoulder. “Shush.”

Allen smiled a bit in response and shook his head, head still bowed to his water glass.

“I like simple things,” Dustin admitted. “I find too much flavour overwhelming.”

“How does grilled cheese sound? With basil. And tomato. If you want,” Char suggested, clearly thinking of things as she went.

“Sounds delicious.”

So they all ate fancy grilled cheeses on the couch, with strawberry milk. Allen drank a concerning amount of strawberry milk, Dustin thought, but Char seemed pleased.

Allen couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t surprising, but tortrous nonetheless. Episodes like the one he had experienced today exhausted him and put him on edge. He’d end up tossing and turning and waking up yelling and with adrenaline pumping through him what seemed like minutes after drifting off before turning over again.

Allen wasn’t sure how long he had been doing this when he threw back his covers and decided to go for a walk down to the kitchen for some water. Hopefully it would clear his mind and his throat, and replace some of the water drying on his skin from the split-second nightmares. He leaned against the fridge, eyes dragging themselves closed as he sipped at his water. He could feel his heart still beating too fast in his chest. Run, run, run, it seemed to chant. The stove read 2:34 in bright green. Fight, fight fight.

Shut up, he told it. I want to sleep.

He didn’t know much about classical literature but he was fairly confident there wouldn’t be anything in them about the heart listening to the mind, though.

He finished his water and refilled it before reluctantly plodding back upstairs. His eyes felt swollen with exhaustion. He didn’t want to go back into his room. It stank of fear.

He hovered uncertainly by his door. When one of the other doors in the hall opened, Allen’s stomach jumped violently and the rest of him followed it, spilling much of his water. “Fucking hell,” he swore, starting loud and quieting himself by the end. Then he felt guilty for swearing, which was stupid. He hadn’t felt guilty for swearing in a very long time.

“What’re you doing up?” Kidd asked. “What did you just do?”

“Spilled water,” snapped Allen, feeling irritable. “Don’t slip. What are you doing up?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I.”

“I was going to ask Sparrow to com meditate with me. Usually it helps. Want to come?”

Allen had never tried meditating. In fact, he didn’t know much about it, except what Hollywood had told him, and he was fairly sure that wasn’t a trustworthy source of information. “Sure,” he said. At this point he would eat horse shit if there was a chance it would get him to sleep.

Kidd went to Sparrow and Mimi’s room and quietly extricated Sparrow, who didn’t seem at all upset at being woken up in the middle of the night.

Since he didn’t know where he was going he let Sparrow and Kidd walk slightly ahead of him. By the time they passed the trap door into the demonslaying portion of the house Allen figured they were probably going to the candle and art room.

They were. Sparrow let them in quietly. It was surreal. He had been here in the morning, but it was completely different in the middle of the night. Even in the suburbs of New York City there was too much light pollution to be able to make out more than a few stars. Sparrow let out a little sigh as she looked up.

“The thing I miss most about living here is the stars,” Sparrow said, quietly. “Help me light some candles.”

“How many?” Kidd asked.

“Maybe one per table.”

Allen helped. There were a lot of tables after all.

“I wonder if they get lonely,” Sparrow said.

“What?” asked Kidd.

“The stars.”

“The stars don’t care if we can see them or not,” Kidd said.

“And they’re so far away from each other that I don’t think it matters anyways,” commented Allen.

“You two are not poetic enough for.”

“For…?”

“For.”

Allen just shook his head, and saw out of the corner of his eye Kidd doing the same. Their eyes caught and Kidd grinned. Allen smiled back, a private, silent laugh moving inside of him.

“Okay,” Sparrow said. “Get comfortable. Sit, lie down, whatever. Choose what’s most comfortable for you, having your shoulders and palms out or in. Out will welcome the energy of the universe into you and share your energy with the universe. In will cause more self-awareness and connection with the Earth.”

Skeptically, Allen sat down with his legs crossed and his shoulders back and palms up. He didn’t feel the need to be more self-aware. He exhausted himself enough as it was.

“Now breathe in for five seconds… one, two, three, four, five… and out for five seconds… one, two, three, four, five. Feel the tension leave your body, from the top of your head, cascading down your neck and shoulders , through your belly and arms to pool in your hip bones and then through your legs. It drips off your fingers and toes.” Sparrow was speaking in a low, soothing voice. Allen tried to follow her instructions as she made Allen uncomfortably aware of his own body.

His mind wandered, trying to construct ways He had a lot of the same problems he had trying to sleep, but having Sparrow’s voice to focus on and ground himself helped. Focusing on his body made him both aware of how tense and vigilant it was and helped it to let go.

“Think of the weight of blankets wrapped around you, and how safe you are here,” Sparrow said. “No one can hurt you. Because we would bash their faces in.”

At first Allen thought that was for him, but then he remembered what Kidd had said about coming from an abusive household herself and wondered if Sparrow said that for her, too. Maybe Kidd had had problems like Allen was having. It made him feel better, because she seemed to be doing well now.

Feeling much more at peace, Allen ended up falling asleep curled on the floor of the candle and art room, a partially-embroidered pillow under his head and a loosely knit blanket over him. Loose threads from the pillow tickled his nose, and he blew at them tiredly.

When he awoke in the morning, Dustin was rifling through the cupboards situated at the back of the room. The sky was vividly blue. He squinted, trying to rub sleep out of his eyes. “What time is it?” he inquired sleepily, words slurring.

“Six of so,” Dustin said. “You scared me when I came in here. Actually you scared me when I woke up and you weren’t there, too.”

“Sorry,” Allen mumbled. “Sparrow did a meditation thing.”

“It’s okay,” said Dustin. “I’m not your keeper.”

“Mmm.”

Allen closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. The silence was punctuated by rustling and short smacks and clicks as Dustin opened and closed the doors. Maybe Allen should go back to his room. At some point the rustling stopped, and Allen angled his head backwards from where he lay to investigate. Dustin was standing on a ladder about midway up, looking at something he was holding in his hand.

Climbing down, Dustin walked over to Allen and placed it on his chest.

It was a tiny angel. Allen snorted at the irony. “What’s this for?” he asked. Dustin shrugged, smiling goofily.

“It seemed like something you needed to have,” he said, and returned to his search.

“I know you’re not my keeper, but I’m sorry for worrying you anyways,” Allen said, having taken the time to figure out how to put that sentiment into words.

“Okay,” said Dustin. “You should go get some more sleep.”

Allen agreed. Wrapping himself in the soft blanket, he shuffled back to his room and fell back into bed. Unfortunately it had been enough that his mind was awake. He remembered how angry he was at his father. He remembered that his mother was dead. He remembered that he hadn’t even been able to start training physically.

Eventually he got up, still burritoed in the blanket, and went downstairs.

He went into the kitchen. At least he was hungry. His nostrils flared at the scent of coffee. He didn’t usually drink it, but he didn’t usually have anything to do with himself. Now he could train.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t played his saxophone as much since coming to live here. Maybe he would do that.

Tentatively, he poured coffee out of the pot and took a sip. It was bitter and strong and Allen instantly loved it. He wrapped his hands around the mug and sat down at the table to drink it.

Sparrow came in a few minutes later, looking perky and fresh. “Are you drinking coffee?” she asked. When Allen nodded, she sighed and said, “I’ve lost another to the dark side.” Peering into his coffee cup, she added, “The very dark side. Not even any cream. Sugar?” Allen shook his head this time, and Sparrow blew her lips dramatically in response. “I’m going to make toast, do you want any?”

“Yes please,” Allen said.

“Peanut butter, strawberry jam, raspberry jam, butter, plain?”

“Strawberry jam?”

“Be confident in your toast-dressing decisions.”

“Strawberry jam.”

“Very good. Orange juice? Oh wait no, that would be gross with coffee.”

“Thanks for that thought,” Allen mumbled.

“You’re welcome. Hey,” her voice suddenly got more serious, and Allen looked up at it. “Do you think you’ll be up to looking for that doctor’s office soon? Mimi wants to get the jump on this operation. If they know you’re informing us they might change things up soon.”

“Oh,” said Allen, looking down at the table. “Yes. Yes. I want to go soon.”

“How soon?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Be confident in your demon-fighting decisions.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Very good.” She put four pieces of strawberry jammed toast in front of him.

“That’s a lot of toast,” he said.

“You are a growing boy,” she said.

Allen ate all the toast. Sparrow left for work. Allen rinsed out his mouth and went to play the saxophone on the front porch, hoping that it wouldn’t wake anyone up out there. He stopped abruptly when he saw Queri there, repairing the top step.

When the door opened, without looking up she said, “Hand me the hammer, please.”

Allen put down his saxophone, and did.

“Thanks.” Her tongue stuck out slightly as she hammered a new step into place. It was considerably brighter looking than the rest of the steps. When it was held into place, she looked up. “Good morning. What are you doing up so early?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Ah,” she said, wiping a bit of hair that had stuck to her face from sweat away from her forehead. “Maybe I should change to cornrows. Are you going to play that?” This last bit was coupled by her pointing at his saxophone case.

“I don’t want to be in the way,” he said by way of confirmation.

“Nah,” said Queri. “Free live music. Sounds good to me.”

He played the solo from Careless Whisper, because he had a vague impression that Dustin had been talking about it while Allen had been lost in a hurricane of memories and thoughts and fear too thick to properly hear through.

“I know that,” Queri said through a mouthful of screws. “What is that?”

“It’s in Deadpool,” Allen suggested.

“That’s probably it,” Queri said. “Kidd and Fay really liked that movie.”

Somehow knowing Fay liked Deadpool made Allen feel strange. Maybe because he liked Deadpool but he didn’t like Fay. Either way, it felt strange to refer to her kindly, but he supposed she was part of the family here. Just because she scared him didn’t mean she couldn’t have regular relationships with other people.

Allen practised until Queri went inside to get ready for work herself, and Mimi came out. “Queri said you were out here,” she said by way of greeting. “Do you want to train a bit? I don’t have to leave for another half hour or so.”

Allen took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Training that day didn’t go any better than it had the last time. Mimi didn’t push him so much this time; it hadn’t escaped her that he had had trouble walking. Char walked in while Allen was recouping, and said, “I think I know why it causes him to get sick.”

“Please tell,” Mimi said. She had trained enough demonslayers at this point that Allen’s negative response to her methods was rubbing on her. Even if it was the tattoos that was causing the issues, she felt like she must be able to do something about it. There was nothing Mimi hated more than having a lack of control over a situation.

“It’s a build up of power,” Char said, spreading her hands on the table Mimi and Allen were sitting at and leaning onto it. “And if I’m right about that, it’s very, very dangerous. You need to stop doing it. Immediately.”

Great. Mimi didn’t look at Allen, but she could see his face setting in the corner of her eye.

“Please elaborate,” Mimi said.

“You know the theory on unexplained vessel death? When there’s no clear COD?”

“Build up of demonic power in the vessel overwhelms and kills the soul and causes multiple organ failure,” Mimi reeled off primly. “Why would that apply to Allen?”

“I think it has to do with the binding tattoo,” Char explained. “Since his is still, it doesn’t work as it’s meant to, so his power is still partially unbound. The bond between the tattoos and the power still forces the power to move through them, but it can’t, because again, they’re not moving. So it gets backed up. It’s an incomplete ritual. Those are very dangerous, very unstable. I wouldn’t touch it again if I were you.”

“I can’t use my demonslaying at all?” Allen asked, leaning forward.

“I’m genuinely afraid for your life if you do,” Char said, and she looked it. Now that Mimi was paying attention, she was out of breath. She must have just figured this out and run to find her.

Mimi was angry again, but that was because she was being forcibly reminded of the bastardization of the tattoos again. Shoving that away, she mused. Allen might not be able to use his demonslaying tattoos, but there was one demonslaying skill that used the power in its natural, unsiphoned form, and Allen had already shown an aptitude for that skill.

“Repossession,” Mimi said.

“I’m sorry?” said Char.

“Would repossession be affected by this?”

Char shook her head, long dark hair shaking with her where it hung over her shoulders. “I don’t know why it would.”

“Perfect,” Mimi said, clapping her hands.

Char looked between Allen and Mimi. Then, slowly, she said, “You’re going to teach a fourteen year old repossession.”

“He’s already done it before,” Mimi said. “Plus, I think it’s really what he needs. That way he doesn’t have to rely on the amulets to protect him. It’s a permanent solution to the problem.”

Allen’s eyes lit up, and Mimi say Char’s disbelief soften. “That does make sense,” she said. “He’ll be even younger than you were when you learned when he gets it.”

Allen smiled. Her use of ‘when’ was inspiring to him. Mimi could learn from that. “Don’t push it,” Mimi said. “I have a delicate ego.”

“You have an enormous ego,” Char said, smirking.

“Enormous and delicate.”

“I’ll stay,” Char proclaimed, sitting herself down and crossing her legs. “I can help with theory if you need it.”

“Right,” said Mimi, snorting. “I taught you everything you know.”

“Incorrect,” said Char. “You taught me some of what I know, and the library taught me the rest.”

“And who collected the library?”

“All of us.”

“But mostly me.”

“Whatever.” Char waved for Mimi to start talking.

“Theory,” Mimi mused. “I told you about tattoos. What do you know about demons?”

Allen frowned at that. “Everything I know I either figured out on my own, or I asked Dustin. I was never really filled in on what was happening any more than I needed to be in order to be where they needed me to be when I needed to be and get out. I know that they need to possess a vessel in order to exist in this world,” said Allen. “And they’re… based off of concepts.”

“Good start. They’re not so much based off of as a manifestation of. There’s a demon for every existing concept we have. The more powerful the concept, the more powerful the demon, or demons that manifest it. There will also be more demons for more powerful concepts,” Mimi said, slipping into her role as instructor.

“What about half demons?”

“About the same, except there will always be a fully demonic counterpart for the type of any half-demon. Usually a half demon’s type will take after its demonic parent’s type.”

“Are there any other big differences between half-demons and demons?”

“Half demons don’t really have anything to do with repossession,” Mimi said.

“My best friend is a half demon.”

“Fair enough.” She made a mental tally of the differences. “Obviously they can move back and forth between the human world and the demonic world without a vessel.”

“Obviously,” Allen muttered.

“Don’t get snarky,” Mimi said. “It used to take a lot more skill and effort, and the locations they could cross over were much more limited. The rifts that appeared nineteen years ago changed that. That was when the guilds were wiped out by half demons.”

Allen didn’t say anything snarky this time. His face was serious. Mollified, Mimi continued on. “Demonslayers can’t sense half demons the way they can sense a demonic soul. They have too much human in them. Similarly, demons can’t tell what a half demons type is in the demonic world the way they can instinctively tell another demon’s. Half demons can spawn either in the human world or the demonic world, and before the rifts this resulted in a lot of half demons that didn’t know what they were. Now their demonic parent just have them fetched at birth.

“Half demons have a sex, usually. Demons don’t. Calling a demonic parent a mother or father is technically incorrect, but is often done anyways to make things easier. Half demons power is much weaker in the demon world than a full demon, but in the human world it is much more potent. Even a very weak half demon can be a threat to humans.” Mimi paused. “I think that’s it. Now if you don’t mind me getting back to actually relevent content?”

Allen nodded. “Thank you.”

Mimi raised an eyebrow. “He has manners. Okay. The skills necessary for classic repossession are as follows: soul vision, entering the demonic realm, and of course, the actual act of repossession.”

“You have to enter the demonic realm?” Allen gaped.

“Please pull your jaw up,” Mimi said. “Yes.”

“You can do that? I thought only demons could go there,” Allen said. His eyes were wide in shock.

“No, only souls can go there,” said Mimi. “That’s all a demon is. So when we go, we have to leave our body behind, but we can do it.”

Allen looked borderline horrified at this. Mimi sighed. “Those are the regular skills necessary for repossession. You’re not regular, so I might switch it up for you. Don’t worry your head over it for now. Moving on, you’ve repossessed once before. Do you have any idea how you did it?”

Allen looked down and worried at the table with his thumb nail. “Not really. I was just really angry and I had this power inside of me and I wanted to be in control again so I used it to—to overwhelm everything else,” he said, frowning at the table.

Mimi said, “That’s not far from what really happens. What you’re actually doing is using your power to overwhelm the soul of the demon that possessed you and take control of it. Hence repossession.

“That’s not the first thing you learn, though,” said Mimi. “The first thing you learn is soul vision.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Don’t you want to know what it is first?” Mimi pointed out.

Allen shrugged. His arms were crossed. “That seems obvious—you see souls.”

“Genius, Watson,” said Mimi, clapping her hands three times.

“That… is so wrong that I don’t know where to start,” said Char.

“You are not being helpful,” said Mimi. “The point is that he needs to know the specifics.” Char rolled her eyes. “Hey, I had very little exposure to pop culture in my youth. I was too busy—”

“Being an ambitious prat?”

“I was going to say kicking ass but you’re not wrong.”

“Hey,” said Allen, “I would actually like to know the specifics.”

“Right you are,” said Char, and then gestured to Mimi to continue.

“Soul vision is when you use your power to see the souls around you instead of your regular vision. It’s the only vision you can use in the demon realm, so it’s mandatory,” said Mimi. “Plus, it’s useful. I just keep it on all the time. That’s how I knew M was a half demon; even if you can’t sense half demons, their souls look different from that of a human, or a human with a demonic soul possessing it. The limitations are that the soul doesn’t always denote the power of the person. It can, but someone can stifle their power or wrap it up so that it appears to be less potent.”

“So your soul… is your power…?” Allen grasped.

Mimi did the thing with her face where the right side of her nose and the lip below in a look that would sound like “eh” if it had a sound. “They’re sort of intertwined with one another. One could say your soul produces the power.”

“Oh,” said Allen.

“Okay, that’s all you get for today,” Mimi said, glancing at her watch. “I have to go in to work. Do you want a ride?” This last bit was directed at Char.

Char nodded. “That would be good.” Turning to Allen she said, “I’ll give you a book for repossession if you want.”

“I’m… not very good at reading,” Allen admitted. His face was red.

“Can Dustin help you?”

“I guess so.”

“Perfect. I’ll get that for you, and then we can go, if Mimi’s not in too much of a hurry?”

Mimi looked at her watch agian. “You have five minutes.”