by J. C. Diem
“Not yet, trickster god,” I replied. “But if you pull a stunt like that again, your name will become branded in my memory.” I nodded at the hound that he’d created and had ordered to attack my kind.
True fear flickered in the depths of his usually mischievous eyes as he realized just how close he was to suffering from my wrath. I’d let him know he was only a few steps away from pushing me too far. “I hear your words, Xiara Evora,” he said.
“Don’t just hear my words, little man,” I warned him and gave him a shake before putting him down. “Stop hurting people for your entertainment. Find another way to get your fun that won’t force the Immortal Triumvirate to order me to end your existence.”
A variety of emotions flashed crossed his face. He was a god and he’d never had to conform to anyone’s rules before. “I will try my best,” he said in a subdued tone. With a wave of his hand, he dissolved the hound and the horse. They turned into sand and when I looked back, the jester was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
AFTER MY ORDEAL WITH the hound, I kept watch for Crowmon and his tricks. I saw him occasionally as I patrolled the city, but he avoided me. The power he’d gained from Halloween had waned again, but this was just his first year in Nox. Our leaders would be keeping watch to make sure the deity didn’t overstep himself again.
I had a lot of time to think as I made my nightly rounds of each District. There were subtle signs of unrest in each sector that I travelled through. The uncursed were wary of my kind. Thanks to Azazel using us as his puppets, they didn’t trust us. To them, we were a constant danger. Little did they know that there was only a small number of Night Cursed beings who could be possessed.
With the addition of Crowmon to the city, tension was growing. Whispers that a trickster deity had moved here were spreading. Not even the Triumvirate could quash the gossip about him. “Maybe that’s why the jester pulled all those pranks,” I murmured to Chesi.
The dragon roused long enough to look up at me, then put her head down on my shoulder again. She was depressed and not even my cryptic remark could snap her out of it. I knew she was missing Inilvian and stroked her scaly head.
My thoughts returned to the god and his reasons for causing such a stir. There were enough discontented folk in the city that some of them might seek him out. Only the powerful garnered respect in Nox. The rest of us were treated like worker drones. Lesser fae, shifters and vampires weren’t happy about their lot in life. They’d expected things to be different here. While they didn’t have to hide what they were anymore, they’d found they didn’t quite have the freedom they’d expected.
The Guilds that had formed were trying to improve things for their people. One day, they might even make an impact. For now, they were too new to be of much use. The unholy trinity could overrule any decisions that were made by the Guild Masters, which rendered them fairly obsolete.
Each week on games night, my boyfriend and friends swapped any gossip they’d heard. Travis was a font of information. Thanks to his unique backstory, he heard far more rumors than the rest of us. Women couldn’t help but spill their secrets to him. No matter how loyal they were to their masters, the females he treated divulged all sorts of gossip to him.
We filed everything we learned away, still unsure about what we were supposed to do with the information. It was obvious that different factions were forming. Not everyone was happy with the way Nox was being run. It wasn’t the utopia the uncursed had been promised, at least not for the ordinary citizens. Rising to power wasn’t easy. Everyone had their place and it wasn’t just the Night Cursed who were stuck in a rut. At least my kin had no idea that their lives were meaningless. Their memories were wiped clean each night, leaving them with a false sense of calm and wellbeing.
Sometimes, I almost envied the zombies, ghouls and skeletons. Their sole objective was to try to escape from their cemeteries and to hunt for food. Then again, they remained perpetually unsatisfied, so their existence wasn’t all that great.
“Now I feel bad for the undead,” I said to my elemental friend. Chesi let out a sigh at my remark.
“Ugh, it’s talking to itself like a moron,” a snarky young female voice said from behind me. I was in the Shifter District and turned to see a trio of uncursed teenage shifters. One was a weretiger, another was a werebear and the one who had spoken was a werewolf. The werewolves were always the worst to deal with.
“I’m not an ‘it’,” I said coldly. Dressed in almost identical miniskirts and skimpy shirts, the increasingly chilly weather didn’t bother them. Their body temperature ran hotter than most shifters.
“All Night Cursed are ‘its’,” the werebear said contemptuously. “You’re all monsters.”
“So are you, princess,” I said with a sneer. “At least I don’t turn into a furry animal at every full moon and chase down helpless rabbits for food.”
None of the girls were old enough to shift at will yet, but their cheeks reddened at the insult. “How dare you!” the weretiger snapped. “You’re just a pathetic idiot like all your kind! You can’t speak to us like that!”
These spoiled little girls reminded me strongly of the teenage boys I’d run into a few months ago. I’d been careful to avoid them, but it seemed hatred of my kind was spreading. “You’re a rude, obnoxious little brat and I’ll treat you how you deserve to be treated,” I retorted. “You have to show respect to others to be able to earn it for yourself.”
“Ugh, now it’s lecturing us!” the werewolf said and rolled her eyes. She planted her hands on her slim hips and looked me up and down with all the derision that only a thirteen year old could master. “Do you know how ridiculous your outfit is?” she asked, eyeing my ripped jeans, long lacy black shirt and cropped jacket with a sneer. “Those feathers around your neck look mangy,” she added. “It looks like you got them from roadkill.” Her friends cracked up and she snickered along with them.
I couldn’t remember where I’d gotten my clothes from, but I wasn’t about to put up with her snarky attitude. “I got them from a bird shifter who annoyed me,” I shot back. “I stripped them off her dead body until she looked like a plucked chicken.”
Horror stole over their faces. “You killed a werebird?” the werebear said shakily and seemed on the verge of tears.
“Of course not!” I snapped and it was my turn to roll my eyes. “I was being sarcastic.”
“We knew that!” the werewolf said unconvincingly and with a sniff of disdain. “Come on, girls, I don’t want to get Night Cursed cooties on me. Let’s go.” With that, the trio stalked off.
Chesi roused herself enough to flick air at the girls when they were halfway down the block. Jumping when it felt like they’d been switched, they spun around to glare at me. I’d already turned away and was trying hard not to burst into snickers. “Have I told you how much I love you, Chesi?” I whispered.
The dragon purred and rubbed her face against mine. Her mood had perked up slightly after teaching the spoiled brats a lesson. I could always count on my little guardian to watch out for me. She did her best to protect me, even if it was from the sarcasm of girls who were half my age.
“How old am I, exactly?” I mused out loud. Jardine had broken the news to me that Nox had only existed for a decade, yet I felt as if I’d been here for an eternity. I looked as ageless as the rest of my kind, so I had no idea what my true age was. It would remain a mystery along with many other questions I would probably never get an answer for.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I WAS ABOUT TO STEP over to the curb and wait for a carriage to arrive when a small winged being fluttered to a stop in front of me. Chesi sensed her before she appeared and flew off. “Xiara Evora?” the tiny creature asked. Her iridescent wings fluttered so quickly that they were a blur. She was an uncursed sprite and she wore a light blue gown that matched her long hair.
“Yes?” I said cautiously.
“There’s trouble in Tournament Town,” she informed me. “Y
ou need to get there and stop a Night Cursed knight before he can kill an uncursed fairy.”
“Can you take me to them?” I asked. Even at full speed, it would take at least a couple of hours for a carriage to reach the town. I had a feeling I didn’t have that much time.
“Brace yourself,” the sprite said, then swirled her wand in the air. She cast a spell on us both and we were transported to Tournament Town.
The crowd that was crammed into the wooden stands was roaring with bloodlust when we appeared in the middle of the arena. Magical globes perpetually hung overhead, lighting up the entire structure. An uncursed fairy was lying on the dirt ground, bleeding from a few shallow cuts. He had a nasty lump on his forehead and it looked like he’d been hit with the pommel of a sword. “You will pay for daring to lay your filthy fae fingers on one of my women!” the knight who was looming over him said, pointing his sword at the fairy’s face. He lifted the weapon above his head and prepared to skewer the prone man to death. I was pretty sure he was the same knight who had slain the stone hound for me.
“Stop him!” the sprite urged me and gave me a shove with a blast of magical wind to get me moving.
I sprinted as hard as I could and my brooch changed into a shield in mid-step. I dove towards the prone fairy and held the shield above him, blocking the sword just in the nick of time. The knight was in full shining armor, including a helmet that hid everything except for his eyes. He snarled at me and I saw a flare of scarlet through the eye slits. My staff’s brightly flaring holy glow was another sign that I was dealing with a hell spawn.
“Azazel, I presume?” I said as the knight backed off a few steps. I glanced down at the fairy and felt demonic magic bamboozling him. It had dazed him enough that he couldn’t easily shake it off.
“Xiara Evora,” the demon I’d encountered far too many times by now hissed through his latest puppet’s mouth. His voice was deep, guttural and unpleasant to listen to. “Yet again, you manage to turn up and ruin my plans,” the hell spawn added. There was no point pretending I didn’t know who he was. Not now that Raum had told me his lackey knew I remembered him.
“Leave now and go back to the catacombs, or I’ll force you out of this knight’s body,” I said. So far, I hadn’t been ordered to kill any of the other puppets that Azazel had used. None of them had actually killed an uncursed being. The fairy he’d targeted would heal, but he would remember this night forever. Most of the witnesses in the stands were Night Cursed and their memories would be wiped soon enough.
“How are you going to make my puppet eat a holy wafer while he’s wearing this?” Azazel asked slyly and rapped his knuckle against the helmet. He was wearing gauntlets and metal rang on metal.
“I won’t use a wafer this time,” I said and pulled a flask of holy water out of my pocket. “I’m sure this will work just as well.” I flipped the lid off, then had to leap backwards when the knight’s sword whooshed towards me.
Azazel had chosen well this time. The warrior was covered from head to toe in metal armor and there were barely any openings that I could exploit. Wrath could have easily put an end to the battle, but I hadn’t been given a kill order. All my staff could do was continue to blaze brightly enough to make the demon squint in pain.
The crowd went wild at seeing the Guardian of Nox and a knight going toe to toe. I held the flask in my left hand and trusted Wrath to fight for me. He swung to block the blade and I let him do his thing. It was lucky he was unbreakable. A normal wooden staff would have been chopped to pieces within seconds.
I finally saw an opening when the knight swung too hard. His blade connected with Wrath and I tossed holy water at his face. Some of the blessed liquid splashed into his eyes through the narrow slits. Azazel bellowed in agony and was expelled from the body in a rush of black fog. He materialized a few yards away and glared at me in hatred. “You win this round, huntress,” the demon said. “But there will come a time when I will prevail. I will strip the flesh from your bones and fornicate with your corpse.”
“Eww,” I complained, wrinkling my nose at that unpleasant threat. “Once the Immortal Triumvirate hears about this, they’ll order me to kill you, so you won’t be fornicating with anyone’s corpse,” I told him.
That made the demon chuckle darkly. “The Immortal Triumvirate will do nothing,” he told me scornfully. “They have an arrangement with our leader.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have an arrangement with Raum, so eat this,” I said, then tossed holy water on him.
Steam boiled from the wounds that appeared on his skin and he shrieked in agony. Holy water acted like acid when it was used on demons. I hadn’t used enough to kill him, but it would take time for him to heal.
The crowd went wild when Azazel fled. Surging to their feet, they chanted my name. I held Wrath up in victory, but all I felt was dread. The demon would get away with his crimes again, just like he had every other time we’d clashed. The Triumvirate had an uneasy alliance with the demons. For reasons that I wasn’t privy to, their hands were tied when it came to punishing Azazel.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I TURNED TO SEE THE knight Azazel had used as his puppet was down on one knee. His head was hanging and he was swaying slightly. The fairy that he’d injured snapped out of his stupor as the demonic spell wore off. “What happened?” he asked in a daze. “I’m wounded!” he added in a near shriek. His injuries were superficial at best and not worth his hysteria. He was lucky the knight’s sword was made from steel. If it had been made from iron, he would have been in a lot more pain.
“Can you take him to the nearest hospital?” I asked the sprite. I wanted him gone before he accused the bamboozled knight of trying to murder him.
“You need to do something about that demon,” the sprite told me solemnly. She cast a spell to teleport herself and the injured fairy to a hospital.
“Are you okay?” I asked the knight.
He tilted his head back and I saw that his eyes were blue rather than red. “I think so,” he said. “What happened?”
“You were possessed by a demon and he used you to try to kill an uncursed fairy,” I told him.
“What?” he asked in bewilderment.
“I’ll fill you in, but we need to leave the arena,” I replied.
He staggered to his feet and accepted the cheers of the crowd, then we headed for the exit. Ladies wearing pretty dresses and too much perfume flocked around the knight, giving him handkerchiefs and blowing kisses at him. He fended them off with polite murmurs and followed me to a carriage that had just arrived. They were acting as if he’d just won a bout against a dragon rather than an unconscious fairy. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“To a church,” I said. “We’ll talk when we get there.”
We subsided into silence as the magically propelled carriage took off. A church was just a few minutes away and we pulled up next to it. I nodded in thanks at the skeleton, then led the knight into the holy building.
As always, the church was packed with priests, monks, nuns, sexy nuns and other religious folk. One of the priests approached us with a benign smile. “How can I help you, Guardian of Nox?” he asked.
“I was wondering if you had a spare cross for my friend, father,” I replied, gesturing at the knight. “He needs holy protection.”
The priest looked at the knight, then frowned. “I sense the evil presence of a demon,” he said in disapproval.
“I was recently possessed by one, father,” the knight admitted.
Several of the other holy men and women heard him and gathered around us with disapproving expressions. “You allowed a demon to take possession of your body?” a nun asked. Her glare warned us that she was gearing up to unleash harsh punishment on him.
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” the knight replied, still in a daze. “I don’t even remember it happening. One second, I was about to fight my opponent, then I was suddenly kneeling in the arena with Xiara Evora standing over me.”
; “He’s telling the truth,” the nun said and their hostile expressions cleared.
“Wear this at all times, my son,” the first priest who had approached us said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver necklace with a cross on it.
The knight took his helmet off and revealed a pleasant, yet ordinary face and dark brown hair. He took the necklace and put it on, then waited for the priest to bless it so it would remain with him at all times. “Thank you, father,” he said. “I feel better already.”
“No demon will be able to possess you now, my child,” the priest said. He blessed the knight for good measure and the faint traces of evil from being possessed faded away.
With that task done, we headed outside again. I waited until we were half a block from the church before I spoke. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“I’m Sir Francis, or Frank to my friends,” he said in surprise. “None of the Night Cursed ever ask me my name,” he added with a small frown. He was carrying his helmet beneath his arm and he clanked loudly with each step.
“Not many Night Cursed have names, but I figured you would have one,” I replied.
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“Because only a few of us have backstories,” I said.
“What’s a backstory?” he asked in confusion.
“It’s linked to our identities,” I struggled to explain. “For instance, I’m Xiara Evora and I hunt evil monsters and bad guys. What’s your backstory?”
He answered by rote now that I’d prompted him. “I’m Sir Francis, the legendary knight. I win all of my fights and I bed a different beautiful woman every night.”
“That’s a backstory to be proud of,” I said dryly.
He grinned in response. “It works for me.”
“So, you’ve never lost a fight?” I asked.
His reply was matter of fact rather than boastful. “Nope. Not once.”
