We sat down, tired and achy, my cuts were already scabbed over and Katrina’s didn’t even seem to exist anymore. “Ok, so, it seems we have a lot to cover before we go to bed tonight.”

Half hanging off my bed she groaned, “Is this going to be an every night thing now? Don’t you get tired? Or do you just sleep really fast when you blink?”

“That would be great, but no, I don’t, and also I will stop doing this when I actually understand what’s going on here. Let’s start with the blood thing.”

“You really don’t want to know about that.”

“I very much want to know about the blood thing. Mainly, how people without actual blood are walking and talking.”

She sighed, “The more demon-like you allow yourself to become, or are forced to become, the thicker and dryer your blood becomes. Eventually, it becomes nothing but sand and stops flowing. You can live forever, as long as you can keep it all in your body. I don’t know why people would want to live like that though.”

“I don’t know either. That doesn’t sound like much of a life,” I sat down on the bed in front of her, “Next question: how do I know you’re not erasing my memories like you did to her?”

Katrina sighed and sat up, back to her normal self with her one bad eye and shy composure. “That’s a good question. I don’t know.”

“Well, what did you mean it’s a little more complicated than that?”

“Ok, so you know these black marks that are on me and every other girl in this town?”

“Yeah, by the way, are the girls in town going to turn into whatever that thing was because of the tattoos?”

She sighed, “You mean Lillian? No, I mean, I never became anything like her. I got these when I got my powers and it seems like the more you have, the more powerful you are. I think there is some sort of demon blood or hell-fire dust in them or something, but the main point is that they rank people Red has collected and marked by importance. I can only use my powers to affect people less important than me, which includes people who haven’t been marked at all.”

“So, you can do it to me?”

“Not exactly. The complication comes in when you take into account how you got your powers. It was a similar process to me, but you only have a scar to show what happened. Your ‘marks’ run through your veins and are most likely from a completely different entity, so I don’t know how it stacks up.”

“You’ve never tried it on anyone with powers from another source?”

“I have never met anyone with powers from another source. Taking on Red and everything he has done in this town was definitely all I could handle at once.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Do you want to try?” I have to admit I was a little curious to know how it felt.

“Not really, because you will never know if it worked or not.”

“Couldn’t you make me just forget like a sentence, or like, five minutes?”

“I’ve never done that and I’m not going to use you as my test dummy, alright?”

I huff, “Fine.”

“Hey, It’s frustrating to me too. But, I promise you I have not tried. Unfortunately, my word is all I can give you on the subject.”

“Well, I’ll take it. Also, her name is really Lillian?”

“Yeah, I think she gave it to herself for the irony,” Katrina chuckled.

“Alright, well what gave you the ‘spirit of dissonance’ title?”

“We all have titles like that. I get mine because my hypnotism powers and environmental control abilities come from my singing, kinda like a siren.”

“What can you do with it? I don’t see you use it often.”

“Minor mind control, and along with the aid of some magical objects which are no longer in my possession, I can manipulate some forms of light into matter. I don’t find a lot of joy in controlling people.”

“Yeah but the light part, that’s a big deal.”

“It was, but I couldn’t hold on to it too long. Red wanted it for obvious reasons and he definitely outranks me.”

“So, he can control you?”

“Something like that, it’s a little different then mine but it’s hard to describe. You have seen it.” She absent mindedly pulled her out of her eyes, showing her fully scared face. Her left eye was pretty mangled, though it seemed less so when she was using her powers.

“I have. What about the title? Sounded pretty official. Does it get you a lot of street cred?

“Not exactly. They are really just for us. I have the spirit of dissonance because I sing to control people and Lillian is the spirit of imitation. She can look normal sometimes, so I guess she’s imitating an actual human being, or at least she tries.”

“That’s a pretty wordy name to call out in a fight. I’ll just say dissonance if I want your attention, or diss. Either way, you should know I’m calling you.”

“I guess we are certainly making a habit of that at this point. Although, I have to say ‘Diss’ is a weird name for whatever weird kind of vigilante I am. Now, can I ask you a question?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you ask me the rest of your questions tomorrow? It is 4 in the morning.”

“Haha sure. Want to spend the night again?”

“Beats being roped into anything that’s going on out there. Or seeing Dave drunk passed out in his chair,” Katrina gestures outside and plops down on the bed beside me.

“Hey, by the way,” I poked Katrina in the stomach, “Diss is a hero.”

She slapped my finger away, “You’re a dork.” She rolls over. It takes almost no time for her to drift off. I linger awake for a few seconds. This was a lot to take in. I mean, not too terribly much, I’m getting used to Katrina’s odd information drops. I was afraid to trust her with most things, but here she is, sleeping next to me without fear. I guess I should trust her like that too, but it’s still entirely too new to me. I have never had someone I was close to like her. It was cool and fun, but something else really bothered me.

Did her parents really not care about her? I know she never really knew them, but she had to have remembered feeling love at some point in her life. It really breaks my heart to think about. But, my heartbreak is replaced with a slight tinge of new fear. She said she has killed, but how many? And why?