Demons don’t have hearts, technically, but we can still love. I love the taste of fresh blood. I love a long, challenging hunt. I love all the ways humans invent to hurt themselves without our help. But most of all, I love Noah. You might think it’d be forbidden for a demon to fall in love with a human, but it happens all the time; as long as you stick to the rules, no one down below really cares. Himself’s not exactly a stickler about these sorts of things. Free will and all of that.

Here is what I love about Noah. I love how much darkness and rage he contains inside his fragile human form. I love how he takes control when we fuck, which is often and everywhere. I love how when he learned what I am, he bared his teeth in a hungry, feral smile I’ve never seen before and asked me what it’s like to kill. I love his arrogance and his cruelty. I love his intensity and patience. I love his fearlessness in the face of certain death and eternal damnation.

I don’t mind playing the high school bad boy; I’d take just about any form to watch Noah enact his grand plan. The roles suit us, anyway, me the dangerous rake everyone secretly envies and he the silent, brooding loner they all detest. After, the survivors will say they always knew he was strange, creepy, a little off, but right now they suspect nothing. I watch him go about his preparations with ease, no teachers noticing his absence from class, no students or administration catching him in places he shouldn’t be. Humans are so stupid.

I find a good vantage point near the main doors. When the final bell rings at the end of the day, I can hear classroom doors opening all around the building and students streaming into the hallways. That’s when the bombs go off, three simultaneous explosions that rock the very air. Suddenly I’m surrounded by shrieking students running in all directions, their panic causing more chaos than Noah’s detonations. The bombs serve to herd everyone toward the main doors, and as they crush each other in their desperation, the gunshots begin. Taller as I am than any of the kids, I easily spot Noah as he wades effortlessly into the crowd, picking off students one by one like he does this every day. Soon he’s surrounded by a ring of limp bodies, and fuck if he isn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, his face expressionless, his hand steady and swift as he chooses targets.

It must seem like forever to the humans before police arrive, their flashing, wailing vehicles forming a barrier around the entrance. By now everyone has either escaped or fallen to Noah’s bullets, and in the sudden calm he turns and favors me with the smallest of smiles. If I did have a heart, it’d probably burst; instead, I resist the urge to kneel down before him and show him just how proud I am. But there will be time for that later, an eternity of it, and for now I only nod in approval and come to stand at his side. Together we step over the bodies of his victims and walk through the shattered glass doors.

“Drop your weapon!” someone yells through a megaphone, a dozen officers crouched behind SWAT shields with their guns trained on Noah. He offers them a very different smile and lazily raises his gun. I don’t count the shots fired; six pierce my lover, shredding internal organs but nothing so vital that he dies immediately. I catch him as he falls, one hand flung out to freeze time. I will have this final moment with him, before we meet again in that other place.

“So?” Noah coughs, blood bubbling in his mouth, obscuring the subtle smile on his beautiful lips. Cradling him close, I run my fingers through his pale hair and grin, letting my fangs show. “You did wonderfully, my dear. Any demon would be proud to have accomplished such a thing. Himself will be very impressed, I know it. He’ll make you one of us.”

“Good,” Noah’s eyes shine, partly from the praise and partly from the pain. “So…” his breathing has become labored, his body heavier as his muscles give up, “I’ll see you… down there… soon?”

“Yes, love,” I kiss him one last time in this mortal form, savoring the sweetness of his blood, and lay him gently down to rest on the concrete. “I will find you.”