“I’ve seen your evil with my own two eyes! There is no mistaking it! This burn on my hand is proof of everything! Now show us who you really are!”
He pulled the trigger and Xavier gave a flick of his finger. A dull clicking was heard and the blood drained from Thane’s face.
‘Unfortunately, I am too powerful to be forced into a corner by a mere human.’ “What did I tell you? You’re crazy. You were so excited about painting me as a monster that you forgot to chamber a round when you reloaded. Students at a Catholic boarding school never watch enough action movies to know how a gun works.”
Thane staggered back, looking at the gun. Was it possible? Had he used his powers to move the bullet out of the chamber? “You son of a bitch! I did chamber a round! I know I did!”
“This is your last chance! Just put the gun down before you hurt someone!”
“Never!”
He reached out to pull back the slide, but Xavier tackled him before he could grab it. The two men tumbled to the floor and Xavier delivered a skull-fracturing punch to the eye, knocking Thane out and letting him pry the gun out of his hand.
He stood up, pointing the weapon at him. “Nice try.”
All the students watched as the police took Thane away in handcuffs, with his gun in an evidence bag. He was locked in the back of a squad car with an ice pack over his eye. Teachers and students were talking to the police, giving their statements. From what Xavier could hear, no one had seen Thane chamber a round. It was an easy movement for them to miss in the loading process. Those situated around him would have been too focused on getting out of his way to watching him, and anyone who did see it would have been too hopped up on adrenaline to remember. Helena stood by his side, wanting to hold his hand. She was reminded of back when the two of them fought those muggers and one of them pulled a gun on him. She had no clue if a gun would even work on Xavier, but it terrified her nonetheless, and she was grateful that he was still with her.
“It’s a real shame,” Xavier said. She looked up at him. “He would have made an excellent nemesis.”
In the days that passed, rumors swirled around Xavier that he could not suppress. Forcing the bullet back into the clip had been his best choice, but Thane had thought this through. As rational an explanation as it was, for him to be so lucky that Thane “forgot” to chamber a round was nothing short of a miracle. Had it really been human error? Had God saved Xavier’s life? Or was that the work of the Antichrist?
Father Brian sat in an interrogation room with Thane. The student was handcuffed and let his head hang. It was the early morning, just before the fieldtrip. In Father Brian’s hands was a folder with Xavier’s name on it. “You should have spoken to me before doing something so reckless. Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in?”
“I couldn’t tell you! I couldn’t tell anyone! That bastard put some kind of seal on me that stopped me from talking. Every time I tried, my throat would close up and I would nearly suffocate.”
“Alex, don’t you know how you sound right now? The Antichrist isn’t in the school and he certainly is a student. None of the signs of the Apocalypse have manifested. Besides…” He tossed the file onto the steel table and let the contents slide out. They were Xavier’s grades, medical history, and family background. “He’s squeaky clean. He was a hyperactive little kid, misbehaved once in while as he grew older, and straightened his act in the years before coming to the school. He’s had all of his vaccinations and I have a transcript of his grades from earlier years, some high and some low. I’ve even spoken with his parents over the phone. He’s completely normal.”
“A little too normal, maybe? How do we know he didn’t forge all of those documents? You said you spoke to his parents over the phone, but have you ever met anyone in person who could confirm his existence before coming to the school?” Father Brian stared at him, unsure of how to respond. “I faced him. He destroyed my rosary and burned my hand in the process. I will admit, my plan had room for error, but I assure you that I did chamber a round. His powers are beyond belief and the Vatican must be warned! They’re the only ones with even a chance of beating him!”
“I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry that you were put under such strenuous conditions all these years and weren’t properly looked out for. Maybe if you had gotten the help you need, you wouldn’t be in this mess. I will pray for you.”
Cleaning up the contents of the file, Father Brian knocked on the door and it was opened. He stepped outside and was met with the chief of police and a woman he didn’t recognize.
“You know the perpetrator, don’t you? Do you know what would make him snap like that?” the chief asked.
“Yes, I do. I helped him get his name out to the Vatican as a talented exorcist. For the past couple months, he’s been obsessed with finding some kind of evil presence in the school. He thought that there was a demon of some sort, but we never found any evidence to back it up. Why? What is this about?”
The chief motioned to the woman at his side. “This is Malinda Tameo, head of forensics. There is something she needs to show you.”
Father Brian, the police chief, and the scientist stood in the forensics lab of the station. There was a table in between them with light fixtures under a foggy screen. The pistol was set out.
“Now according to reports, Thane fired seven shots when he entered the building, using up all the bullets in his first magazine.”
The woman activated the table and red light shone on the gun, illuminating several fingerprints. The prints caught the light like fiber optics and displayed the depths of their detail.
She laid out a scan of the collected prints, digitally copied off the gun. “These are the fingerprints he would have left when he loaded the first magazine. As you can see, his hand makes the right shape to pull back the slide and chamber a round. The reason why they’re so clearly visible is because when he fired all his bullets up, he coated the gun in powder residue, a lot of it. That residue clung to the oils his hand left behind, just like the dusting powder we use to lift prints. Now, I assume he cleaned the gun before using it, probably to make sure it worked perfectly and wouldn’t cause problems. That would explain the lack of prints older than these. However…” She flipped a button on the table and a blue light shone up, this time revealing a different set of prints. “These prints came after. See, there is significantly less residue in these prints, as it was removed from the gun.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“The residue clung to the oils of the prints from the first time he loaded the weapon, but the second prints remove the residue, meaning that he put his hand on the gun again and pulled it away with residue on his fingers. The first prints came before the first firing, the second prints came after. He did pull back the slide after he reloaded.