“I highly doubt that you killed her,” said a high court leader. “Xin has lived for a very long time in the modern world and only returned at the request of her adoptive mother. Also, destroying her would not prove you strong enough to become a member of this court.”

“You did not send that being into my territory?” Nadiam was in her full gear, black flowing gown with spider web detail along the train.

The court leaders shrugged. “She withdrew from the court several weeks ago. She had no feelings for us, and we didn’t care for her.”

Nadiam’s mouth nearly dropped open before she caught herself.

“What is that smell?” One of the court leaders asked a bit too loudly.

“Fire!” Someone shouted. They would have ran toward the door—if that wasn’t on fire. Smoke was filtering through the gaps between the door and the frame. The edges smoldered angrily before dying out into a muted grey. The door fell open and crumbled to dust. A wind blew the ashes into the court chambers.

“I’m glad to hear I wasn’t missed,” Xin walked into the room in trousers and a tunic. She stared ahead at the court leaders and stepped past the remains of the door.

Nadiam hissed.

“Play nice,” Xin mouthed, and then shouted, “High Court of Light, permission to act and speak freely with no consequences,”

The leaders were flabbergasted, looking from the doorway to the dragon beyond it, to Xin and finally to Nadiam.

“Granted,”

Xin winked at Nadiam. “I suspect that this necromancer has asked for membership in our court.” The leaders nodded. “She claims that distance kept her out of the Dark Court. Not so, I have been there only hours ago.” Nadiam turned pale, then scarlet. “She broke a high law of necromancy. Do you want to explain, or should I?”

Nadiam trembled with rage.

Xin smiled sweetly. “She had a relationship with a subject. A dearly departed subject,” the Godmother licked her lips. “I guess you really like them stiff, huh?”

“You don’t understand love.” Nadiam shouted. “You’re only a demon!” At the last syllable, an energy stream powered by death itself shot Xin out the door. Nadiam turned back to the Court. “An exchange, if I deal with your demon problem, you’ll accept me into your Court.”

The court leaders hesitated.

“Grant it,” Xin said as she covered her mouth to hide the blood there. “The Courts will provide audience and judge, to make sure we fight fair.”

“Courts?” The court officials asked as one.

Xin pointed behind her. From the smallest demon that drifted in the modern world making people lust for smoke, to Aamon who controls forty legions of demons, to Ziz who had kindly decided to hold his wings close to his body so that the sun may shine.

Xin finally had to spit to remove the excess blood from her mouth. The blood soon burst into flames. Xin answered the gazes of the Dark Court, “I trust the Courts, but not its members.”

“The Light Court,” said one very brave leader. “We will accept Nadiam’s proposal if Xin will stipulate her award.”

“Stop stalling,” Xin growled. “You’ll give me membership to both Courts.”

“Granted,” the Dark Court answered in a distant tone, as if their voices were still in the infernos.

Nadiam didn’t wait for the Light Court to agree before calling on the power of the sun, who had sent many to their graves with its absence and its abundance. Ziz chose that moment to stretch its wings, bringing darkness much like night across the Light Court.

“Obstruct--!” Nadiam shouted until Xin flew into her in her demonic form. With her claws, she cut past the fabric of Nadiam’s dress and slashed her thighs. Nadiam drew in the power of the earth, which hold so many of the deceased and have caused a few more, and knocked Xin out of the Light Court. Nadiam held in a scream and staggered outside, hot blood cooling on her thighs as it ran to the ground. The Light Court followed, forming a semicircle while the Dark Court crowded on the other side. The Courts kept a healthy distance of at least five feet between them.

“This is an unfair fight,” Nadiam hissed between clenched teeth. One of Xin’s claws had dug through a leg muscle.

“Ziz is only doing what Ziz always does.” Xin said as she struggled to stand. There were two audible cracks. Xin didn’t show any reaction to the sounds, though several beings around her winced.

“You aren’t fighting to your full capacity,” Nadiam said as she circled. Xin grabbed the walking stick off Baron-Samedi, who scowled that the cane’s absence ruined his undertaker outfit. Xin didn’t pay attention as she circled Nadiam, leaning heavily against the stick.

“Slow and steady,” Xin said. “Well, steadily bleeding,” she wiped the blood from her upper lip.

Nadiam slashed at the air in front of her. Xin understood the spell just in time to jump away. The ground split open, displaying a grave. Between the two fighters, the ground churned, pouring more dirt in yet the opening remained.

“Your fear of being buried alive,” Nadiam said with a grin. Pale white hands emerged, grasping at air.

Xin clicked her tongue. “Tsk, you cannot control the rest of the bodies.”

Nadiam waved her hands elaborately. Skulls appeared, their empty eye sockets focused on Xin. “There,” said the necromancer triumphantly. “Now they can watch the dirt pour into your mouth and nose while they bite at your body and listen to your death rattle. Then you’ll join my army.”

Xin nearly smiled. Gotcha. The succubus drank in the attention from the skulls’ eyes and the counsel. She faced Nadiam and stepped over the edge. Her feet found an invisible bridge over the pit as she walked.

Nadiam staggered backwards several steps before falling from her injuries. When she realized her mistake, she called on the dark night that had held so many lonely souls in its cool, damp arms. The Courts could no longer see the succubus or the necromancer.

Still, Xin advanced.

“You shouldn’t survive without attention.” Nadiam said.

“Yet you look at me.” Xin said as she shifted slowly, letting her succubus form fall. “I am Godmother in the Kingdom of Tales. The underdog succeeds is a popular tale. My powers come from the attention, yes,” Xin hissed through her fangs before they retracted. “I draw strength from the land where tales from the modern world are as real as pain.”

“But my dead outnumber you,” Nadiam’s power surged again and flew at Xin.

The Godmother held the cane in front of her. The wood burned with hellfire, scorching all attacking spells.

“Yes, but tales outnumber the dead. The stories unwritten, unspoken, unremembered, they still exist in my realm.”

“Words are weak,” Nadiam growled. “Bodies are stronger.”

“Truly?” Xin’s wings disappeared. “Then how is it that countless lives have ended and fought over the meaning of words in a book? The modern world values words and stories. Prehistory is a mystery because there was no written word. Some believe that their creator spoke first and that those words led to creation. How powerful indeed!”

Nadiam fell silent as Xin stood only inches from her. Xin’s legs were no longer tipped with talons. “Actions above words,” Nadiam mouthed as she kicked Xin’s knee. It buckled for only a moment before she healed.

“You feed on the quantity of the dead,” Xin said as she brought the cane above her head. “From birth I have wielded the power from darkness and attention. I act justly to those under my domain and wield light and magic. As Godmother, I rid you from this realm and bind you to never return.”

Xin brought down the hellfire cane onto the necromancer’s head. The fire burned through Nadiam’s upheld arm and the rest of her body. The body boiled and cooked in its own fluids. In a moment, it turned to dust.

The necromancer’s cloaking spell disintegrated upon her death. The Courts could now see Xin collapsed onto her knees, poking, with the cane, at a pile of ashes.

“Godmother—” a leader in the Court of Light started but stopped when he felt the pressure of the hellfire cane over his heart.

“I didn’t do this for you.” Xin said, suddenly standing in front of him. “She was the one who brought modern people through the Rift. She allowed them to kill defenseless beings in my realm so that she may become stronger with their animal essence. This kill was for those under my protection, not to rid you of an annoyance.”

Xin swung the hellfire cane to point at all the members of the Light Court. “You practiced deception. It must have taken you hours to figure out how to push me toward the necromancer, and hours more to find a flaw in the spell around my cottage. She didn’t even know someone was sent to stop her, much less that it was me.”

Xin lifted the cane onto her shoulder. She walked to the Dark Court and offered the cane back to Samedi. He shook his head.

“It’s yours. I’ve never seen it summon hellfire and I’d hate it to fire up while I’m scratching myself.”

Xin grimaced then pointed at Draca. “The hellfire is my dragon’s,”

The Spirit of the Dead still refused. Xin shrugged and thanked him. The cane spun lightly on her fingers.

“Who do I apply to for admission into the Dark Court?” Xin asked as she finally stabbed the earth with the cane.

“If I may speak for the Dark Court,” Yen-lo-Wang said, looking around him. No one objected. “I believe there is no reason for you to apply. We welcome you with open arms.”

“I would like to also have membership in the Light Court. I think I have enough qualifications for it.”

There was a round of hushed, frenzied whispers. At last, the Light Court sounded no objection, thus passively agreed to it.

“Good,” Xin said as she walked to Draca who was on the brink of patience. “I am taking leave to tell the wolves of the developments. And I need a long bath. Cat fights make me feel so dirty.”

OOOO

“Oh, I ah—” Minako covered his eyes. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

It was evening, and Xin was reclining in the rocking chair the cottage had thoughtfully provided. She wore a long sleeping shirt that flowed to her knees, showing off her bare legs.

“You’ve seen worse when you walk down the main street in the District of Dreams,” Xin said, not looking up from her work. Several scraps of paper were on the closed book in front of her in varying degrees of pain. Some were ripped and attached to others. Some had scorch marks around the edges. Others had so many crossed out words that most of it was blotted black.

“I thought you had gone to sleep.” Minako said as he removed his hand from his eyes but kept his chin to his chest.

“Tried, but realized a loophole some lunatic genius will find in this spell.” Xin looked up finally and saw the envelope in Minako’s hand. “More mail?”

Minako feigned ignorance for a second but then stammered out that it was going to be tomorrow’s mail.

“I’m awake now, and it’s past midnight so it is tomorrow. Hand it over.”

Minako hesitated, his hand clenching the envelope. “I think it would be better if I wasn’t present when you read this.”

“All right, hand it over and run,” Xin said as she set the papers aside.

Minako didn’t move. Sweat began to form on his forehead.

“Minako,” Xin said as she stood. “Are you all right?”

“Here is my resignation letter,” he held it out at arm’s length. Xin took it with a frown.

“That ruins the surprise, doesn’t it? Why are you resigning?”

“It has been more than a week, and you had said I would be fired. I thought I should go before I am asked to go.”

Xin shook her head with a fragmented chuckle. “I wasn’t serious. I was only upset that you had brought me back, but I understand that it was the call of duty.”

Minako made an uncommitted sound.

“You brought me back because you enjoy seeing me suffer?” Xin guessed. After his silence, Xin spoke again, “You didn’t want to serve under Corali as Godmother? You brought me back to save yourself from Corali’s wrath—though I never saw her angry.”

“She tries not to be angry.” Minako said.

Xin scowled in frustration then finally decided she should open the envelope. As soon as she had ripped the paper apart, Minako stiffened while more sweat beaded on his face.

“If you will excuse me—”

“No,” Xin said. “Stay,”

Xin scanned through the single page letter. When she had finished, she set it aside. “You don’t write why you are leaving.”

“Personal reasons,” Minako said without lifting his eyes.

“You didn’t get some maid pregnant did you? I can hop over to the modern world and handle that.”

“No, no, no.” Minako said, flushing immediately. For good measure, he repeated, “No. I am simply no longer fit to serve you. I will be leaving at dawn. Do not trouble yourself to see me off. Goodnight.” Minako turned and walked into the hallway.

“Wait,” Xin ran after him. “You haven’t explained,” she reached for his arm. As it drew close, a shock, much like the static from wool, stung her fingers. Xin was too stubborn to notice it, or had forgotten its significance after so long an absence from the magical world. As her hand touched Minako’s arm, the shock, like a kick from a boot with a sole of lightning, knocked across her chest. Xin flew to the end of the corridor and stopped only because the cottage had reacted fast enough to put up a stronger wall.

Minako spun around and rushed to her side. As he drew close, he saw strands of light stretch from his body toward her. He pulled back as quickly as he could.

Xin coughed and groaned, sounding generally uncomfortable. “I haven’t felt that in a while.” Xin rubbed the center of her chest with her palm. She grunted in pain. “You could have told me that you were in true love. I wouldn’t have laughed—much.” Xin tasted no blood but could smell it. She pinched her nose. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to become a bloody faucet, she released her nose and sniffed.

“I didn’t know that would be the reaction.” Minako said finally. “I heard it would simply make me immune to your powers.”

“Ha!” Xin laughed aloud, but immediately regretted it. “Not being able to heal you is the last of my worries if you keep working here.” Xin whined as she tried to stand, bracing herself against the wall. “I think true love missed me all those years I was in the modern world. So who’s the lucky woman I can thank for the bruise forming on my ribs?”

Minako shook his head.

Xin paused. “Lucky man? Animal? Genetically engineered sheep?”

Minako flushed, almost violently, and shook his head.

“All right, you go off with this thing, and I’ll promote Tisbe.” An idea struck her, though much more lightly than true love had. “Is it Tisbe? Never mind, I’ll look.” Xin closed her eyes and looked with her mind’s eye at Minako. She saw the deep spiral that was Minako’s spirit. His energies, his essence, swirled and glittered. A fine line of gold stretched between him and herself. Her eyes snapped open with a frown. She cursed, then tried it again. She did this half a dozen more times before she finally stopped.

Minako looked at her with a look of a child about to be struck for setting the house on fire.

“This is …quite a paradox.” Xin pointed to the space in front of him where she had seen the golden thread. “I don’t believe anyone has fallen in true love with me before, at least, not without a spell—but you couldn’t call that true love.”

“True—”

“Not what you think it is.” Xin said as she started to chuckle. “True love is affection in its purest state. It doesn’t mean we are a pair, especially seeing that it’s one sided in this case.”

“Why do you laugh at that?”

“Laughing keeps me from screaming in horror,” Xin threw back her head and giggled. “To think—true love with a succubus. How in the hot Hells did you manage that?”

Minako turned red again. “I thought I had merely become attached to you through my sense of duty, as you said before. But when you tried to remain in the modern world, separated from me, it became obvious to me that my feelings toward you, Xin—I mean, Godmother, were unfit.”

Xin grimaced. “Perhaps if you saw me without my Glamour. Be warned, no one has seen me Glamour-less since I mastered the spell.”

Minako took several backward steps, bringing his hands up to cover his eyes.

Glamour is analogous to make up in the world of the mortal. The only difference lay in the fact that make up can be removed without the mortal’s notice or knowledge. Glamour was a spell that shifted the light between the magic user and those around them to make them seem most pleasing. As a spell, it was nearly permanent once the magic user established it. It was most often used by sexual demons.

“There, look at me now and tell me if you still—still feel for me.”

Minako slowly dropped his hands from his face, lifted his face up, and opened his eyes. The creature that stood before him was by no means beautiful, or ugly for that matter. She was plain, nondescript, and unremarkable. If she stood under a spotlight in a dark room, no one would see her. She was the crayon that went missing and was never missed.

“Nothing?” Xin asked as she blinked rapidly in the sudden brightness.

Minako coughed slightly. He shook his head.

“Damn,” Xin cast back her Glamour with a blink. Xin hissed. “Stubborn goat, you’ve seen my demon form, haven’t you? Doesn’t that strike fear in your heart?”

Minako thought this over. “I have encountered worse things, and I cannot fear something when I understand it.”

“You should stop loving me or love something else, fast. If not, one of us is going to be very uncomfortable, or possibly dead.”

Minako’s face contorted in confusion and pain. “I thought my leaving would be enough.”

“Don’t they teach you anything in guard school? We exist as the modern world’s mirror. What they dream up or write down becomes real here. Why do you think there is a wasteland twice the size of the populated area? They’ve thought up ways to kill themselves more times than they have lives! Their interests are love and death, in all its perversions. They hate love stories with the beings not living happily ever after. But ours isn’t that perfect ending, so we’re only left with death. If you stay, true love will knock me around until I can’t get up anymore. If you go, you’ll die of a broken heart. Literally, I’ve seen it. There’s even that shattering glass sound.”

Xin slumped back down against the wall and pushed her fingers into her hair. “You’d think true love would learn not to zap the other end.”

“What if you loved me?” Minako asked after several moments of silence.

“I’d die. True love captures my succubus powers and I’d be magically starved to death.”

“But you’re a Faery Godmother, what about those powers?”

Xin immediately brightened. “That would work—as long as it understood that I have an identity crisis so it wouldn’t mess with my Godmother powers.” Xin shrugged. “Well, it’s better than one of us winding up dead. I suspect that I’ll come close to dying if I’m supposed to fall in love with you without touching you.”

Minako winced. “I will try my best not to harm you.”

“Naturally,” Xin shrugged. “Don’t charm me all at once. I’m new to this.”

“To love?”

“To longer-than-a-few-hours relationships.”

“But you’re a—um,”

“Glad you noticed that. Sexual demons drain sexual energy, and can get a special handle on it if it is directed at them. In the modern world, I could sit in a restaurant and focus on a couple to take it. But if I was at a bar, I automatically take it when anyone directs their attention toward me. I never got up to the act of procreation. I was told that during that act, the person’s attention turns back to himself instead of me. Self-centered and selfish,” Xin stopped a moment at a strange idea. “You’re probably more experienced than me in this courting ritual than I am.” Her voice deepened slightly. “You love and nuture, I attract and drain.”

Minako swallowed hard.

“Fallen out of love yet?” Xin asked, her voice light and cheerful. Minako hesitated, then shook his head.

“Well, we could always see if Corali kills me in a fit of jealousy. I’m sure her method of killing me will be less painful than love’s method.”

Before Minako could respond, there was a soft knock at the door. Xin smiled finally at Minako and went to the door. As she opened it, she at first thought there was no one there. Then she heard squeaking and looked down.

“Three blind mice, I assume?” There were several squeaks. “I’m lactose intolerant, no cheese here.” Several more squeaks, a bit more irate now. “And why would I care about the death of a stepmother? That’s the local policemen’s work.” Several more squeaks. “Half a dozen? Damn,” Xin looked over her shoulder. “All right, no sleep for us. Call up the others, Minako.” Xin sighed, then brightened.

“How many more days without sleep before I can no longer be held accountable for my actions?”

The End