In this sequel to No Obligation, it’s a few months into Becca’s new life as the Advocate, and she’s trying to do the impossible — meet all of her duties and obligations and still have a life. But the Multiverse has hidden dangerous powers, and one of them may be taking an interest … in her.
In this sequel to No Obligation, it’s a few months into Becca’s new life as the Advocate, and she’s trying to do the impossible — meet all of her duties and obligations and still have a life. But the Multiverse has hidden dangerous powers, and one of them may be taking an interest … in her.
Of course, it was complicated.
First, I was Rebecca Jane Barnes, the Advocate. I was chosen by the Creator of the Omniverse to protect humans preyed upon by magic users and given unprecedented access to the magic I needed to get the job done. I was also Becca Barnes, daughter of Jack and Carolyn Barnes, sister of Emma and Jeremy Barnes and almost-sister of Heather Thomas, foster child and a magic user herself as a result of my first case as the Advocate. In another weird twist, until about two months ago, I was Jack Barnes, and I had no daughter named Rebecca until I ran into a pain-eating demon and was tricked into becoming a baby girl.
Like I said, it’s complicated. Work with me, folks — remember, I had to live it. You’re only getting it second-hand.
Oddly enough, I was also Becca, a young single-tailed kitsune, or Japanese fox spirit. It was the result of a magically enhanced possession accident, and the one responsible for my unlikely transformation was Akomachi, a thousand-year-old fox spirit in service to the temple of Inari. Because of the possession, we had shared both body and soul, and I knew her as intimately as she knew me. When we were one, I felt her longing for a child of her own. Since I was literally little more than a child in the kitsune world, I had accepted her as my second mother, just as she had accepted me as the daughter she had always wanted.
But at that moment, in that time and place, I was all of it and none. I was just a small, happy vixen in Akomachi’s transdimensional home, waking up after a long night’s sleep on a warm soft patch of ground.
And that felt just fine.
Lifting my muzzle from under my tail, I gave myself a long stretch to work out all the kinks, then trotted around in a circle to get some circulation going. The weather here was always perfect, always spring, and always temperate. But I wasn’t perfect, not even as a fox, and this body was just as physical as it appeared.
The river was nearby, and I padded over to it for a quick drink. As I lapped daintily, I checked out my reflection. I liked how I looked in my fox form, and I was thankful for the odd quirk of fate that allowed me to become a kitsune, to straddle two pantheons, and to be loved by two moms.
“Just as I am thankful to be loved by you, my daughter.”
I lifted my head an instant before Akomachi’s nose touched my neck, and her warmth flowed through me. She had assumed her fox form as well, a beautiful white fox with nine long flowing tails.
“Good morning, Casa.” I spoke mind to mind, raising my chin so she could nuzzle me.
“Good morning, Becca,” she replied, her happiness clear through our link. “I am sure you slept well, since you always do.”
“Just as hunger makes the best sauce, so does the need for sleep make a girl sleep well.” I opened my mouth in a predator’s grin, and I felt her smile back. “My life being as full as it is, coming here to spend time resting is always a joy. And seeing you makes it doubly so.”
“I notice you spend a lot of your time here as a vixen.” My kitsune mother gently mouthed my ears, and I shivered from the sensation. “Why is that?”
I thought about it some, and began walking along the river bank. Akomachi matched me step for step as we wandered through her domain, listening to the river’s gentle flow.
“I think it is because it brings me closer to the spirit of your home, to spend it as a part of the natural order here. I know I feel better sleeping here as fox than as human. It’s almost as if Home accepts me in my other form, but welcomes me fully as vixen.”
“And why not spend time here as kitsune?” She seemed quite curious, almost as if she herself did not know the answer. As usual, I suspected this was her way of getting me to see something she already knew. My other mother (and former wife Carolyn, although she knew nothing about me once being her husband) also tended to lead us kids where she wanted us to go by asking us questions to which she already knew the answer. I hoped one day when I was a mom that I’d be as good as she is.
In the meantime, Akomachi waited patiently for an answer. I heaved a sigh that came out as a half-growl, then shook my head.
“I know I should spend more time as kitsune, Casa. Here and elsewhere. I understand that, and accept that being kitsune and your daughter is an important and vital part of my life. I love you and I am honored to be a part of your world as well as my human life.”
She nodded and waited. I sighed again.
“But when I am vixen, life is so much simpler. There are times I need that. I don’t have to think or weigh or analyze or judge. I don’t have to fight or punish. I just have to be. Here, as fox, I exist in the now. And since time passes so slowly here, I can rest from my duties as the Advocate in hours that are mere seconds outside. That means I am not leaving my work undone while I rest and come back to myself.”
Akomachi stopped and sat, and motioned with her head that I should sit as well. I sat beside her, and we both watched the water pass.
“There is more, my child.” I felt her smile inside. “No deception between us, daughter. We both know you are not being completely truthful, with me or yourself.”
“You are right, Casa. As always.” I hung my head.
She nudged my chin back up with her nose. “As your mother, it is my job to be right, always.”
I managed a grin, and Akomachi smiled back. “Tell me what troubles you, Becca.”
I looked into her eyes. “As kitsune and as your daughter, I am responsible for the commitments of the pantheon to which we both belong. Here at home, I feel safe to assume my true form, but if I should become kitsune outside, it will immediately bind me to the duties and obligations I share as kitsune. And I worry that they might conflict with my duties and obligations as the Advocate.”
There was a long silence as I felt her thinking, and she sighed.
“I understand that this troubles you, but it should not.” Akomachi reached out and gently held my soul in hers. “The duties and obligations of a kitsune are not nearly as heavy as your responsibilities as the Advocate. You know that kitsune are essentially free to do as they please within the limited restrictions of the pantheon, unless they choose to serve as handmaidens to Inari. You cannot make that choice, because your position in the other pantheon as the Advocate is a commitment you freely accepted before you became one of us.”
She shook her head. “If you had reached into the repository of knowledge the Omnipresence gifted you with, you would have weighed the obligations of each of your roles yourself and soothed your own concerns. But instead, you allowed it to weigh upon you and distract you from what is truly bothering you. So tell me, Becca-chan. What truly troubles you?”
I looked away, not wanting to see her eyes. “That I will not be able to be the daughter you always wanted, Casa. That who I am and how I came to be, and all the other responsibilities I hold will take me away from you. After you have waited so long to have your own kit, I fear being a disappointment to someone I love very much.”
I waited for her answer, and it wasn’t long in coming. Akomachi darted forward, grabbed my ear in her mouth and tugged hard. I let out a yipe and jumped back, and she gave me a playful grin as her tails darted back and forth.
“So serious you are for one so young,” she said, her love pouring across the small distance between us. “To worry so much when our lives together have only just begun.”
My second mother moved towards me, shifting into her kitsune form and gathering me into her arms. I curled into her warmth, and she nuzzled my neck.
“Silly girl,” she whispered, holding me to her breast. “You do so much for so many, and yet you worry it’s not enough — that you are not enough, somehow. The accident that brought us together was a precious gift, just as you are to me, and I am so thankful that you have accepted me as your mother. Just be YOU, little one. You are already everything I could ever have asked for in a daughter, and so much more.”
“As for anything taking you away from me, that could never happen.” Akomachi smiled down at me. “I understand how important your other family is to you, and I honor your commitment to your oath and your duty. But our time here can go on until whenever we choose to end it, as often as we like. You can come here with but a thought, and return to the world outside without anyone even noticing you’ve been gone. We will always have each other, my child.”
I climbed out of her arms and transformed to my kitsune form, then leaned forward and hugged her tight.
“I love you, Casa.”
“I love you, too, daughter.”
I appeared in the darkness of my room, next to my bed, wearing the nightgown and robe I had put on before we said goodnight to Mom and Dad and went off to bed. Only an instant had passed since I left, shortly after Heather and I had shut off the lights.
Still, Heather stirred just a bit.
“I felt that,” she said softly. “Like a flicker in the wards. Wicked.”
“That’s terrific!” I whispered back. “How long have you been able to do that?”
She looked down from the top bunk, sweeping her long brown hair to one side to keep it from dangling in her face.
“I dunno.” Heather scrunched up her face and thought for a second. “I noticed somethin’ a while back, but I didn’t know what it was. Nice.”
“Now that you know what it is, you can work with Mrs. Graymalkin on focusing it and making it work for you.”
My almost-sister nodded. “I’d like that. She’s a good teacher. How long were you gone?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. Time there is different, remember? I slept a long time . . . I think. Foxes don’t wear watches, and kitsune seem to laugh at time. I feel rested, so I’m guessing I am rested.”
“I hope so. I worry about you, you know.”
I looked up with surprise. “You do?” She nodded. “Why?”
“Just ‘cause.” She paused, and I could almost feel her thinking. “No, you deserve more than that. ‘Cause you’re my sister and my friend and I love you.”
“Why should that make you worry about me?”
“Because I don’t think you worry enough about yourself.”
“Okay, confused now.” I floated up and sat on the edge of her bed. “No sense opening up a can of worms unless you plan to feed ‘em to me, sis.”
Heather shuddered. “That is SO gross!”
“Well, I just spent a night as a vixen, so my human sensibilities might be a bit frayed.” Another long pause. “Come on, Heather. Tell!”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, yawned, then sighed. “I’m sleepy, and I suck at making sense when I’m sleepy. I’ll tell you tomorrow. ‘kay?”
“Promise?”
She nodded and made an “X” between her breasts. “Cross my heart. You need to hear it, and I need to say it. But I need to say it right, and I’m barely awake.”
I bent over and kissed her forehead. “Okay, girl. Whatever it is, it’ll keep til tomorrow.”
I floated back to the floor and cast an aversion spell to avoid unwanted attention to the fact my bed would be empty for a while, then prepared to port to my next destination. Heather stirred one last time.
“Becca?”
“Hmmm?”
“Be careful out there tonight?”
“Always.”
I popped into Leander’s living room to find her curled up on her sofa watching her big-screen wall-mounted television. Her long blonde hair was loose, and tumbled across her shoulders in soft curls as she stared at the flickering screen, a glass of wine in her hand. As she did every night when I arrived, she wore her battle uniform — the black glove-leather catsuit she had somehow acquired before we faced down the Cat Goddess all those weeks ago. The belt of throwing stars and daggers fit snug against her flat stomach just above her hips. The broadsword she usually carried slung across her back was propped against the side of the coffee table, glowing a dim blue that had nothing to do with reflected light.
I knew the sword was magic, and I half suspected it was sentient in some way, but part of me didn’t want to know. During my short career as the Advocate, I hadn’t had a lot of experience with magical artifacts, and for all my power and arcane knowledge, something about Leander’s weapon frightened me, just a little.
“Hey.” I sat down next to her on the sofa, and she wiggled over a bit to give me room.
“Hey,” she replied, taking a sip of wine. “How was your day?”
“School, boyfriend, tae kwon do, boyfriend, dance and strategy, boyfriend, dinner, homework, sleepy time as a vixen in Akomachi’s den, then here.” Leander passed me the wine and I took a small sip, then passed it back.
“Sounds boring, the way you tell it,” Leander said with a smile.
“It’s incredibly mind-numbingly normal, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” I moved closer and rested my head on her shoulder, and she reached around and gave me a hug with her free arm. “I love it too much to ever take it for granted.”
She left her arm where it was, and turned her head to kiss my hair. It was a surprisingly tender gesture, and it warmed me.
“I am glad. Given how we spend our nights, I think perhaps normal is something you need more of in your life.”
I nodded. “And what about your day?”
“Normal as well. My daily five-mile run, cleaning house, magical studies, weight and endurance training at the gym, sword work, martial arts, and some spa time to wind down after dinner.”
“Martial arts?”
“Yes. I found a man who claims to be able to teach Jeet Kune Do. After watching Bruce Lee in several films and reading his book, I am interested in knowing more. I think it may possibly have applications for our work as well.”
I reached back into my head and pulled up a translation. “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.”
“Yes. Something like the way the Cat Goddess and her children fought only without the wasted energy. Defense and offense combined, but used to fight more efficiently, not less. No wasted motion in rigid katas, just instant reaction to attack. It intrigued me.”
I looked over at the television to find Harrison Ford staring back at me in full Indy regalia.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark?”
Leander smiled. “I’m afraid I’m still catching up on popular culture. Now that I’m free not to be a slave to someone else’s desires, I’m working on figuring out what I actually like and dislike. Since the invention of cinema, I’ve only seen the films my past three or four husbands wished to see, and gushed about them because they wanted to be reassured that I loved them as much as they did, even when I didn’t.”
Leander had been a warlord in Medieval Europe, somewhere around the time of the Borgias in Italy. He had been male, then, and used his magic to inflict pain and suffering on those he ruled. An ancient Cat Goddess had transformed him into a farmer’s wife and made her slavishly obedient, and happy to be his property (at least when he was present). A group called the Arbiters, magical judges who at one time held sway over crimes in the magical realm, had extended this punishment for over five hundred years and a succession of husbands, until I managed to gain custody of her and recruited her to fight magical evil by my side. She had learned her lesson about the abuse of power all too well at the hands of the Arbiters, and was more than happy to help me stop it in the modern world.
I waved towards the screen. “And what do you think of Indiana Jones?”
“An interesting character,” she replied, glancing back at the screen. “He is flawed in his desire to steal artifacts belonging to indigenous peoples for personal gain, yet there is something about him that makes me interested in seeing what he does next. Maybe it is his enthusiasm and respect for the very antiquities he seeks to steal. He is knowledgeable about his area of expertise, yet not content to remain in the protected environment of academia — willing to take risks to get what he wants.”
I felt her stiffen for a second, then she sighed. “I also seem to find him strangely appealing when he grins.”
“I think that’s more your hormones reacting to Mr. Ford, as opposed to Indy’s inherent charm.” I grinned, and she looked away for an instant.
“Perhaps. The longer I explore my new life as a free woman, the more ... complicated my reactions seem to be when it comes to men. It’s ... odd.” She put down the wine glass, picked up the remote, and pressed PLAY. It was the scene with the flying wing and the large Nazi using Indy as a punching bag.
“As a warrior, Professor Jones seems a bit underwhelming. Aside from a rather impressive ability to improvise, his approach to battle appears to be allowing himself to get hit a lot until luck or circumstance save him. As any true warrior knows, the Universe is largely indifferent to your battle. You have to make your own luck to survive.”
“True, but you said it yourself. He’s Professor Jones. He’s not a warrior, he’s a scholar. He just keeps winding up in situations where he has to do the best he can or die.”
Her eyes widened. “Ah, of course. He fights because he must, not because he chooses to.”
“And he uses his intellect to seek out ways to win, hence his ability to improvise.” We watched a bit more. “Judging by how much punishment he takes, Indy would have to be a masochist to seek out the fights he seems to get into, and I don’t see that in the character at all. He does love adventure, though. That’s why he can’t stay in a classroom. There’s a whole world out there, and he doesn’t want to miss it.”
She stopped the DVD and shut off the television. “Speaking of the whole world, we have a job to do, do we not?”
“We do. Folks to save, mages to punish.”
I stood up and moved to the center of the floor. Leander rose to her feet and reached down to the table. The sword floated upward and seemed to attach itself to her back, scabbard and all. I fought off a shiver at how single-minded it felt, as if it had waited all day for Leander to act.
“Someday I’d like you to tell me about that sword,” I said, readying my scrying spell.
“You have but to ask, Becca,” Leander replied with a smile. “No secrets between the Advocate and her champion.”
I smiled back. “I know. I’ve just been afraid to ask.” I paused. “It feels alive.”
She reached behind her and drew the sword from its scabbard.
“That’s because it is. It is a living blade, forged by the focused intent of a singularly powerful mage long ago as a weapon against evil or injustice.”
I stopped and took a closer look. The sword seemed to flash a deeper blue, acknowledging my attention.
“It looks medieval, although there seem to be some modern design elements.”
“It is Sumerian, actually. It is called Allaku, the Wanderer, although it is also known as Cedar, ‘the continual doer.’ The reason it looks the way it does is that it changes over time to match the state of the swordmaker’s art and the needs of the one who wields it. Since I am most comfortable and efficient with the broadsword, it accommodates my skills while also taking the form of the best possible broadsword that could be made with today’s technology.”
“How did you find it?”
“I didn’t, actually. It found me.” I tilted my head, and she sighed. “The morning after we took our oaths, it appeared floating above the foot of my bed. It told me its history and informed me that it would be joining me in your service.” She smiled and shook her head. “It didn’t give me a choice.”
Leander paused a moment, then continued. “I had heard of Allaku, of course, back when I was a mage-king, but never expected to see it, let alone be allowed to wield it.”
“Why?”
Leander blushed. “It is called the Wanderer with good reason. It moves through history, choosing only those who are champions to wield it in the defense of what is right and just. I was not a champion when I was a mage-king. Instead, I was a bully and a tyrant, and when my scholars revealed its history to me, I viewed the possibility of encountering Allaku with some dread. I had visions of some broad-shouldered hero kicking down the wall of my castle and slicing me in half with it. But of course, the Cat Goddess had her way with me, and the Arbiters trapped me, and now I am yours.”
“And it chose you.” She nodded and looked away. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Being chosen . . . at the time, I did not think I was worthy.” She turned to face me. “Telling you . . . would have made it seem as if I thought I was, somehow. I didn’t, and still don’t.”
“Well, I do. Allaku obviously thinks so, too, or you would not have been chosen.” She blushed a deeper red. “Don’t be embarrassed, Leander. You are a champion. Embrace and accept it.”
I spoke directly to the blade. “Thank you, Allaku, for choosing Leander, for in choosing her, you help me with my fight as well.”
Instead of answering directly, it flared brightly before subsiding to its usual soft glow. Leander slid it home into its scabbard.
“Well done, milady.”
I shrugged. “A weapon of Allaku’s distinction deserves respect,” I replied. “It is a formidable ally, and we need all of those we can get.”
“Simple truths, Becca, are often the best.”
I reached out and invoked the scrying spell, and a three-foot-wide translucent rendition of the Earth materialized in the center of the living room. All across its face, soft clouds of violet and magenta light showed ambient magic, with flares here and there where sorcery was being wielded by a user who respected the craft and used it appropriately. At the same time, bright red, orange and yellow pinpoints showed areas of suspect magical manipulation that required our attention.
“West, I think,” Leander said tentatively. “Through Nevada and California, then Japan, China and the Pacific Rim?”
“Then Africa.” I nodded, then froze. “Did you say Nevada?”
Leander looked away, and I sighed. “Damn, I HATE working in Nevada.”
“You know the chameleon spell doesn’t have to present us that way,” she pointed out. “It’s your spell, after all.”
“Yes, but it’s designed to hide who we are,” I countered, “and how we present in Las Vegas is about as far from who we are as you can get. I’m reluctant to tamper with something that works so well, but honestly, I do hate appearing that way.”
“It will be fine, Becca.” The former mage-king smiled. “Fortunately, there is a small bit of wisdom that allows one to enter that particular area under your chameleon spell and not feel too badly about how one appears.”
Leander crossed her arms under her breasts and waited.
“And that would be?”
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
She grinned, and I gave her a look.
“You do know I walked into that one on purpose, just so you could say it.”
“I know. You’re so good to me, milady.”
“Oh, hush.”
The stacked showgirl huddled in a corner, barely dressed in a gold lamé bikini and strategically-placed feathers. She spoke through sobs that wracked her body, and the fact that her makeup didn’t run from the tears was as much a testament to Reynard Byer’s magical ability, as was her rather remarkable transition from a teenaged boy heckler to a well-endowed magician’s assistant.
“Please let me go! Change me back and let me go home!”
“Oh, but my dear, I’m only giving you the chance to prove that you can be a better magician than I can. That’s what you said, isn’t it? You yelled at me from the audience, calling my tricks ‘lame,’ and insisting you can do better. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded, still crying, and he fairly beamed. “Well, then, ‘Trixie,’ All you have to do to win your freedom is to change yourself back into Ted, right now, and I’ll happily concede that you are the superior magician and let you go!”
“But I can’t! I’m not a magician! I never was!”
“You mean it was all an idle boast?” ‘Trixie’ nodded tearfully, and Byers shook his head. “Oh, my. That’s so sad, since I have no intention of ever changing you back. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you on as my assistant. You’ll have to learn how to do it yourself.”
“You’ll teach me?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Byers replied, reaching down and pulling the girl to her feet. She tottered uncomfortably on her four-inch heels. “Instruction in the dark arts is way too precious a gift to squander on a pretty girl like you. I’m afraid all I have to offer you is room and board, and the opportunity to share my stage every evening and my bed every night.”
The new girl’s jaw dropped. “Your . . . bed? You want me to . . .”
Byers shrugged. “Almost all of the other ‘girls’ I’ve mentored told me they loved how good I was — of course, the ones who didn’t discovered what happens when you’re a bitch to a magician. I think one or two are still birthing puppies today. Canine lives, human life spans.” He sighed. “I really can be a bastard.”
“Oh, on that we can all agree.”
The voice came from the dressing room doorway, and the magician turned to find two stunning women standing there in evening wear that clung to their curves like wet paint, when it wasn’t exposing enough cleavage to get either woman arrested in Poughkeepsie at the turn of the last century — and Byers knew that, because he had been around back then.
The blonde wore a black sheath that left the tops of her breasts tantalizingly bare, sheer black hose and strappy heels easily five inches high. The redhead wore a deep forest green gown with matching shoulder-length gloves and a skirt that exploded into a flurry of ruffles. It flared so much that he could see the tops of her dark green stockings and the straps of her garter belt as they held the stockings in place.
“Ladies!!” Byers said loudly. “What brings such beauty to my door?”
“Your ugliness, Mister Byers,” the redhead replied, her voice not at all what he expected. “Actually, we’re here for Ted. And for you, but not quite the way you hope.”
“There’s no Ted here,” he spoke quickly, casting a quick silencing spell on his victim.
The blonde yawned. “Oh don’t be absurd. You just cast a silence on him so he could not reveal his presence. As if we can’t see the ambient magic from your spell bleeding off of him like heat from a sidewalk in summer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The redhead sighed and looked at him ... no, looked through him, it seemed like ... and then pinched the bridge of her nose as if trying to ward off a headache.
“Mr. Byers, I am the Advocate, charged by the Omnipresence with protecting humans who have been preyed upon by magic users like yourself. You have been found guilty of magical abuses on so many counts, I’m amazed you’ve managed to evade notice this long. On the other hand, I’ve only been at this a few months, and you’ve probably been tormenting your last assistant at least that long. Where is she, by the way?”
She stared into his mind again.
“Oh, my.” Her voice was powder dry. “I am so unhappy with what I just saw. This requires some thought before I figure out what to do with you.”
“First things first, though.” The Advocate stepped past the stunned sorcerer to his unwilling victim. She shrank away at first, but the tenderness in the redhead’s eyes stopped her retreat.
“I am so sorry this happened to you, Ted,” she said softly, “but I’ll soon set things right. That’s my job, after all.”
Byers suddenly felt a flash of anger.
‘How dare this woman make promises to undo what I’ve done,’ he raged inside. ‘As if some egotistical witch could ever punish a sorcerer of my caliber!’
As his rage spiked, he tossed a spell at her exposed back, aimed at turning the uppity redhead into a bitch in heat, so she could join Byers last “assistant” on the streets. But instead of enveloping her, it collided with a barrier of some kind that absorbed the energy and brought it inside her somehow. She shuddered, then straightened and turned toward him. As he readied another spell, he felt cold steel on his neck.
“Predictable, as always,” the blonde cooed, with what seemed to be a broadsword held casually in her outstretched hand. “Honestly, you would think someday we would encounter an evil mage who didn’t strike from behind. Cowardly, to the last. And so cliché, don’t you think?”
The redhead turned her head and smiled. “It does tend to make our job easier, though.”
She turned back to the frightened girl.
“Hold still a second, ‘kay?” The woman called the Advocate closed her eyes, and Ted’s form shimmered and coalesced into a skinny dark-haired teenager in jeans and a Rage Against the Machine tee shirt. He looked down at himself, first in shock, then with a huge grin.
“Thank you, whoever you are!” He gave her a tight hug, and the redhead smiled a little sheepishly.
“My pleasure, hon. Glad to help. Can you make it to your hotel room okay?”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a key card. “I’ll be okay. The ‘rents are probably freaking by now.” Ted hesitated. “But ... what about him? Will you . . . be okay?”
The blonde cleared her throat. “Excuse me? Woman with large sword and short temper here. Don’t worry, Ted, she will be fine.”
He hesitated a moment, not wanting to look like he was running but desperately wanting to all the same. Then he was off through the door like a rabbit with all the hounds of Hell on his heels, and the redhead sighed with relief. One more innocent out of the line of fire.
“Okay, now for the punishment.” The Advocate turned and looked at Byers, and a chill ran through his entire body. “Congratulations! You’re now officially powerless. You couldn’t light a candle, let alone torture some poor child. Welcome to the world of the mundanes, Mister Byers — for the short time you’ll be there as a human.”
After trying several simple spells, the mage realized she was right. All of his accumulated magic was gone, as if it had never been. He was stunned. Who was this woman?
“Now for part two of the punishment. I want you to feel powerless.” She grinned, and there wasn’t anything pleasant about it. “Until you understand the pain you’ve given others ... until you understand why a mage’s power should be used to help innocents and not hurt them ... until you know, deep down inside, what an utterly worthless and vile lump of flesh you’ve been, you will take the place of the woman you threw to the dogs so you could do what you did to Ted.”
Byers froze. ‘She can’t be serious!’ he thought.
The Advocate’s eyes flashed. “I can and am. And this is only the beginning. You already know I can see right through you, right into your soul. So you can’t con me. You can’t trick me into thinking you’ve changed. Because I’ll know. And there’s no time limit. You WILL be a bitch in heat from now until I know for a fact you have learned your lesson — from now until the end of days if you don’t wise up.”
“I may turn you back into a human eventually, if I think that what’s you need to help you finish learning from your mistakes. But until then, you’ll be the play toy of every male dog who picks up your scent.” Her tone softened. “This punishment doesn’t have to be forever, Mister Byers. But it will be unless you learn from what you’ve done.”
“Now I need to start cleaning up your messes, beginning with what you did to your last assistant and working my way backwards. In the meantime ... ” She pointed at him, and her eyes flashed. “Bad dog.”
Reality blinked —
— and Byers was in an alley, quivering motionless on all fours and mounted by a much larger dog. She felt frightened and angry, but at the same time strangely submissive. The male thrust himself into her over and over again, and she stood trapped in his clawed embrace, unable to move. Part of her didn’t want to move, savoring the scratching of the eternal itch inside her that demanded this attention. The other part was horrified at these feelings, and humiliated by her submissiveness after being Master of her world only minutes before.
Her current suitor was finished, and as she waited for his erection to subside and for him to dismount, she raised her head and sniffed. Byers caught the scent of other males nearby, circling the alley opening and waiting for their chance to have her, over and over and over again.
‘Is this what my life is to be from now on?’ she wondered as the horror of it sank in. ‘An endless stream of days spent in filthy alleys, eating garbage and entertaining every male for miles — until she decides I am worthy of being human again? Who is this Advocate to visit such a punishment upon me?’
She imagined this is how Rosalyn felt when she did this to her, and to the ones before her. And suddenly the things Byers had done with her power didn’t seem quite as entertaining as they once were.
In fact, she was already starting to see the flipside of her own cruelty, even as the bitch she had become mourned the loss of the feeling of her last suitor inside her and howled for more.
Now if only dogs could cry as well as they can howl . . .
The night continued as Leander and I chased it backward around the globe, ever earlier as we headed west. Mages with evil intent in Japan, China, the Phillipines, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom soon learned that there were consequences for their actions, as the Advocate and her champion arrived to save the innocent and deliver justice to the wicked.
I had created the chameleon spell to preserve some semblance of normal life for both of us. Wherever we went, we would appear in a wide range of disguises — all appropriate to the region in which we found ourselves, but always as two women. The small redhead and her sword-wielding blonde companion moved from trouble spot to trouble spot, and wherever we went, justice was served and former realities restored.
But as rewarding as the work was, it was also stressful and demanding, and eight hours was all that I could stand. Eventually the evening ended, bringing me full circle as I left Leander and ported back home for a few more hours of sleep — this time in my own bed for a change.
I was looking for a small slice of normal, and some pleasant dreams to wash away the taste of all the evil I had seen that night. But as I drifted off to sleep, I began to sense something ... a stream of consciousness that was not quite a dream at all.
And sadly, there was little pleasant about it.
He felt the ripples in space-time and their aftermath, and it caught His attention because the Multiverse had never behaved so oddly before. A twisting here, a flare of arcane energy there, and suddenly reality experienced a run of subtle reversals that turned His beautiful chaos into hated order once more. The fabric of what was, so deliberately torn asunder by those of evil intent, had been made whole with apparently effortless ease, and the result left Him unsettled, and less powerful than He had been.
It offended Him deeply, because He had never been thwarted so completely before. Life itself was an insult to His work, but a slow and measured one. He accepted the predations of the living upon his domain because He had no choice — and truly, it made His own existence more meaningful to have something to fight against besides the accursed Omnipresence. She used His actions to further Her ends as if He were nothing but another tool, just as She used all living things.
Still, just as She did, He could not act directly, or risk destroying His own plans. As much as He loved uncertainty, it vexed Him to have to cater to its whims. His power craved control, even as it strove for chaos in all things
Still, this new element was ... intriguing. One of those living things He sought to crush and confound — to punish for the audacity of existing — had somehow managed to do the impossible, and undo the work of those who toiled in His service.
Where had this interloper come from? Where did it get such power? Why had it chosen to act now?
And what could He do to stop it?
The clock radio popped on with a blare of guitars, and I was wrenched from the other’s thoughts and thrust into reality so quickly that I grabbed the bed to keep from falling.
I sat up and held tight to the side of my mattress, breathing hard and trying to make sense of the threads of what I remembered before they vanished into the morning’s light. Where did it come from? Was it just a nightmare, brought on by the horrors I had witnessed last night, and so many nights before? Or was it another aspect of my power as the Advocate?
I didn’t know for sure, but treating this as just another bad dream was a bad idea.
Somehow, the game had changed, and I needed to find out what the new rules might be before this new player changed them again.
In his favor.
The second chapter in the sequel to No Obligation finds Becca and friends learning exactly whose mind she visited the night before … and why this particular adversary might be impossible for her to beat.
The trouble with visions is that it’s hard for most people to believe they’ve actually had a vision at all. I mean seriously, was I really supposed to believe I was thinking in parallel with some pissed-off godling, just because my work had attracted his attention? Why not just treat it like the dream it was?
Prophetic visions are even more easily dismissed as dreams. In fact, most people don’t usually realize they’ve received a glimpse of the future until what they saw actually happens, and that sort of defeats the purpose of having a premonition in the first place. As a result, the supposed visionary gets to watch as the mushroom cloud rises over the city skyline, then strike her forehead with a closed fist and say, “Damn! I was right! I shouldn’t have had the veal scallopini! Now there’s nothing left of Pittsburgh but a smoking hole in the ground!”
Such revelations often result in really strange cocktail party conversations. Trust me — until you’ve talked about ghosts and UFOs with a complete stranger in someone else’s kitchen for a few hours while slightly intoxicated, you haven’t truly lived. Of course, that was in a former life and not something I’d be doing any time soon. Thirteen-year-old girls are seldom invited to mingle with adults imbibing alcohol.
In any case, I thought it might be a good idea to do something more substantial to confirm or deny what I saw before whoever He was decided to track me down and turn me into a throw rug in His chaotic wonderland.
I rose from my bed and turned around. Heather had slept through the alarm as usual, but she was close enough to the edge of the bed for me to give her a kiss on her nose and then her forehead. She stirred, just a little, and I touched her cheek.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” I said softly. “School day. Time to wake up.”
Heather’s eyes fluttered open, and I smiled at her. She pouted, then stuck out her tongue.
“Waking up is so over-rated,” she growled in a voice like an angry kitten, and started to turn over and wrap herself in covers.
“Maybe so,” I replied with a grin, “but you’ve got being with Jeremy to look forward to, and I think that’s worth getting out of bed, don’t you?”
I loved watching her face when she thought about my brother. The joy and caring just seemed to well up from inside her, and the pout became a smile without her even noticing. As she threw back the covers and dangled her feet over the side of her bed, I gave her a little hug around the middle, then headed for the bathroom.
‘If I’ve done nothing else right since I became the Advocate,’ I thought, ‘saying no to the Envoy about changing Heather back was exactly the right choice.’
I thought a bit more about the dream while I showered. Whoever He was, He thought of Himself as a rival to the Omnipresence Herself. I found that a bit difficult to believe, although I could see her setting up an entity to add chaos to the Multiverse ... especially if she thought it would create more of a balance between Chance and History.
‘Anything to throw off destiny and let folks strut their free will a little,’ I thought as I brushed my teeth. Then I grinned and shook my head. ‘As if I really understand what’s going on in the Creator’s head ... if She really has a head, figuratively speaking.’
The me in the mirror put down her toothbrush and grinned.
‘Careful, Becca,’ she said in my mind, ‘Concepts in the mirror may be closer than they appear.’
She shimmered briefly, and there stood Mrs. Graymalkin in her bathrobe.
‘Good morning, ma’am.’. I smiled happily at my teacher. ‘I’m sorry. Was I thinking too loud again?’
‘It’s still part of my job, child.’ She waved a hand, and I managed to rid myself of the used toothpaste without looking too crude about it. ‘I understand you had a vision this morning.’
‘If it was a vision,’ I replied silently. ‘It was more like a walk around inside someone else’s head. This someone thinks He is an agent of chaos, promoting evil and destruction like some kind of holy mission. And I was thinking maybe that’s exactly the sort of creature the Omnipresence would create to add a random element to the Multiverse.’
‘Hence my answer about concepts being closer than you think, Advocate. Of all humans, you probably understand the Creator’s intent more than any other. Chaos the entity is quite real, and very much a threat to you and your mission.’ She sighed and rubbed the side of her nose. ‘Like almost everything in Creation ... it’s complicated.’
There was a knock on the door.
“Becca?” It was Emily. “Are you finished yet?”
“Almost!” I called back. “Sorry, Em. I’ll be right out!”
I sighed. ‘I’m afraid we can’t continue right now, ma’am. Others need the bathroom, too.’
‘I understand, child. I grew up in a large family as well, although our morning ablutions were somewhat different back then.’ Mrs. Graymalkin smiled. ‘We will talk more later. Chaos has been with us since nearly before time began. He can wait a few more hours.’
The image in the mirror shifted back to me, looking slightly confused. I grabbed my hairbrush and make-up and opened the door.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said quickly, slipping by her.
“Grrrrrr.” Em dove through the bathroom door and slammed it behind her. I walked back into the bedroom and Heather was standing in front of the mirror in her underwear, trying to pick an outfit.
“What’s the weather today?” she asked.
“Well, in the bathroom, which is where I’ve been since I left, it’s hot and steamy from my shower,” I replied. “But since it’s December outside, I’m thinking it’s at least cool and almost certainly cold. So the denim skirt is out unless you wear tights or leggings under it. And a nice sweater up top.”
“Hmmmm.” Heather slipped back to the closet and looked for a moment, then took down a lavender crew neck with long sleeves. She held it up across her chest and raised an eyebrow at me.
“Is that a ‘can I borrow this, Becca?’ eyebrow? Or is it a ‘what do you think?’ eyebrow?” I tilted my head.
“Both, I think.” She turned and looked in the mirror. “Does it look good? Is it heavy enough? And if the answer to both questions is ‘yes,’ can I borrow it, please?”
I walked over and put my hand on the window. “It’s cold out there, but that’s a nice tight cotton knit, and it should work fine. And yes, you can borrow it.”
“Thank you!” She hugged me tight, and ran back to the bed to get dressed.
“Just remember the tights or leggings — that skirt really ISN’T enough. And wear a jacket.”
“Yes, ‘Mom!’”
I threw my towel at her.
My own outfit was a bit simpler, jeans and a long-sleeved light green tee with a short-sleeved dark green sweater over it, white socks and gray sneakers with pink trim. My hair was back in its usual ponytail, and my make-up was soft and understated. For jewelry, just some simple charm earrings: two stylized fox faces as a way to honor my kitsune heritage.
I sailed into the kitchen to find Jeremy hard at work on his breakfast, with Mom at the stove cooking eggs and Emily making her lunch.
“Good morning, Becca,” Mom said. I gave her a quick hug from behind.
“Morning, Mom.” I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the milk, then settled down to a bowl of Special K and a banana.
Dad came in, wearing most of his suit with a tie around his neck still undone.
“Morning, all,” he said as he made his way to the coffeepot. A chorus of “good mornings” bounced back his way, and he groaned as he poured himself a cup.
“If you’re going to audition as a group,” he muttered between sips, “at least rehearse a little before you perform.”
“You forget, dear,” Mom said sweetly as she moved past and put her plate on the table, “we’ve all heard you sing, and as far as you’re concerned, rehearsal won’t help.”
“I love you too, angel,” Dad said, putting down his cup and giving her a hug before she sat down to her breakfast. “And as much as I’d like to serenade you all, I’m afraid Elvis has to leave the building. I have a breakfast meeting with a client.”
“Thank you, mystery client!” I sang out, and Dad looked at me and winked. I winked back and grinned. Thanks to a gift from the Omnipresence, the me that was lost when I became Rebecca was magically restored to the Barnes household, leaving me in the oddly paradoxical position of being my own father and learning to relate to him as someone ... well, someone not me.
Still he did seem to enjoy the secret we shared, and I enjoyed having him around again, and in my life. In everyone’s life, really. His return lifted the burden of a lot of my guilt for the chain of events that made me the Advocate. Carolyn’s loss had been replaced with the happiness that comes from always having her soul mate by her side, and in fact none of my family even knew Jack had died. Plus I had the rare opportunity of discovering what a great dad I had been, from the best vantage point ever — the point of view of one of my children.
Honestly, though. Who knew talking to yourself could be so much fun?
Like the Jack I used to be, he still wished for life as a woman, but he remembered my month as Becca before his resurrection as if it was his own, and that has helped some. But I remember all too well how it felt to be in his position, and he knows he has a standing offer from me for as much girl time as we can get for him, whenever we can figure out how to make it happen.
We’ve been talking about it during our regular Sunday breakfasts. Sometimes he spends them as my nearly identical twin cousin Jackie, which makes him smile. But coming up with a plan to give Dad a longer stay on the female side of the gender divide is harder than it seems. Jack would need a reason to be gone for a while, and as a freelance writer, business trips aren’t an option.
‘Just something else for me to think about in my copious free time,’ I thought with a smile.
Dad tousled Jeremy’s hair and gave each of the girls a hug and kiss before heading out the door. Most of the time he’s very happy to be himself, but I know inside he’ll always need to be the girl he never could be ... until he was me for a few wonderful weeks, not too long ago.
School was school. I had resigned myself to going through it all again, but to be honest, I really didn’t mind. It wasn’t that much of a challenge, and it gave me the chance to help my friends study by pretending I needed their help. It was also another way for me to experience life as a normal girl, and God knows I didn’t want to miss that — not after everything I had to go through to get here.
And Tommy was ... well, Tommy. He still made me melt, still made me feel special and loved and desired. In a way, it was odd. I had spent forty some-odd years as a guy, been married to a woman I loved, and yet this boy could make me feel so special with just a smile. I knew from past experience how much power love has, but I remember having more control as Jack than I’ve ever had as Becca. It was all I could do to not to let him have me, because I did want him that much. My whole body ached for him, and sometimes I’d take a little extra time in the shower or the bath to get rid of some of the sexual tension that built up every time I thought of him.
At first, I hadn’t really thought about sex much. After all, becoming Becca wasn’t really about sex. It was more about being myself — about being the woman I truly was inside. But once I agreed to be the Advocate and was transformed into a teenager, I discovered that my new life came with a boyfriend. All those hormones began to rise, and every time I touched him, it got harder to remember why we kept holding back.
It was easier when we weren’t together. After all, it was hard enough being the Advocate now. Add being a teen Mom to the list, and I’d have to ask Akomachi to babysit while I went off to fight evil. Of course, that would be better than asking Mrs. Graymalkin. Just thinking of the look she’d give me for getting pregnant made me shiver.
Tommy and I had managed to avoid “doing it,” but that didn’t mean I still didn’t want to, and the part of me that realized how badly she wanted it knew she needed a way to take that edge off without involving her man.
I was surprised at how easy it eventually was, although I suspect it had to do with a lot of pent-up frustration. Well, that and thinking about how it would feel if Tommy were touching me the way I was touching myself.
Ummm ... is it hot in here?
Moving on ...
“Chaos is ... well, for lack of a better description, in a class by himself.”
In Mrs. Graymalkin’s studio, Heather and I were stretching for dance class. Not too far away, Leander moved through a series of katas, and when I reached into my mind to identify them, I discovered I couldn’t. Leander caught me watching her, and her lip twitched an instant before she sent me a message, mind to mind.
‘I am attempting to combine elements of Jeet Kune Do and my own experience in swordwork ... with the coaching of Allaku to bring them together.’
Mrs. Graymalkin cleared her throat delicately, and I realized I was being rude.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She nodded, and continued. “In order to make the Multiverse less ... orderly, the Omnipresence created Chaos. Not as an entity, originally. More like a force of nature. Chaos was meant to be a subtle influence that made Destiny less certain. It introduced an element of uncertainty into the Creator’s plan, increasing the need for free will. However, in order to make Chaos a truly random factor, the Omnipresence had to do something dangerous. She had to make the force independent of Her. Essentially, She put Chaos off-limits to Her own power, for the good of all.”
“So God really can create a rock so heavy that she can’t lift it?” Heather cocked her head, confused. Mrs. Graymalkin sighed.
“It’s more that She can choose to stop herself from ever lifting a particular rock,” the teacher replied. “She can decide never to touch that rock again, and make that decision binding upon Herself. Heavy or light, big or small ... it does not matter. Her decision is what is important.”
Heather nodded, and Mrs. Graymalkin continued. “For a long time, Chaos did what it was created to do. It brought uncertainty to the Multiverse, but randomly. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, Chaos changed. It evolved. It stopped being an ‘it’ and became a He. And when that happened, His mission became personal. He decided that chaos was more important than order, and let that belief shape his actions. He became destructive, and through no fault of His own, evil. He doesn’t think He's being evil. He thinks He's just doing His job.”
“And the Omnipresence can’t step in and stop him directly?” I looked up from my stretching and met my teacher’s eye. “After all, if the Omnipresence can decide never to touch that rock, She can also change Her mind, if it puts the great plan in danger ... can’t She?”
Mrs. Graymalkin made a face that looked like she’d accidentally sipped a glass of straight lemon juice.
“Unfortunately, I believe that reversing Her decision to stay hands-off where Chaos is concerned could negatively influence the plan, which was begun and continues to evolve with Chaos in an active role.”
“That means we must deal with Him, then.” Leander said, her voice unaffected as she continued her katas. “Although given the level of His power, I would think a direct attack would be unwise.”
“I agree,” I replied. “On the other hand, considering the strength of His position, anything else would be merely treating the symptoms without addressing the disease.”
“Also, since Chaos is needed as part of the plan,” Mrs. Graymalkin said, “eliminating Him would harm what the Omnipresence is trying to create.”
“So what cannot be cured, must be endured.” I rose to my feet, and Heather followed. “Even though His actions will make our job harder, we’re stuck with Him. Not my first choice, but we can’t change the ‘Verse on a whim, and the Omnipresence needs Him.”
"The Omnipresence also needs you, Advocate." Our teacher looked up at us both, and her face was stern. "Do not forget that. Chaos must not be allowed to stop you from doing what you need to do. He is not more important to the plan than you are, do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded. "I'm not about to let anything take my life away, not after all we've been through to get here. And my work is too important to abandon in any case. I'll just have to be ... careful."
“I will make sure of that,” Leander said, moving into a blocking spin that became an attack. “To get you, He will have to come through me. And I can make that very, very difficult.” There was a hint of a smile on her face, and as her eyes flickered my way, I threw her a smile in return.
Since I was doing my best not to use my magic unless I had to, Heather and I took the bus back from Mrs. Graymalkin’s studio. As Heather and I walked back home from the bus stop in the cold, I noticed she had gotten very quiet.
“Hey,” I said, breaking the silence. She looked at me, and I smiled. “There was something you wanted to say last night, but you told me to wait until you were awake. Do you want to share? Unless you’re sleepwalking right now? If you are, I totally understand you wanting to wait.”
She smiled at me and shook her head. “No, now is as good a time as any, I guess. I’m still not sure how to say it, but I’ll try, because it’s something you need to hear.”
Heather stopped and put her hand on my arm, forcing me to stop as well. She looked up at me, and I could see concern and a little fear in her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I love you, Becca. You saved me, like you save everybody. And you do it every night and every day, day after day. It can’t be easy doin’ what you do, stopping the bad guys and saving people. Having Leander watching your back helps, but because you’re the Advocate, you’re living three lives at the same time ... and you burn through two days for every one the rest of us live. And the worst part is, I think you don’t care. You’re so committed to doing the right thing for everybody else, that ... that you never really think about you.”
Heather looked away and bit her lip. “I just worry that, when it comes down to it, there isn’t anybody who’s gonna save you from yourself. So I thought I’d try.”
It was quiet for a few seconds, and I reached up and touched her chin. She turned to face me again, and I smiled.
“You’re right.” Her eyes widened, and I laughed. “Oh, come on, girl, don’t look so surprised! You do get to be right once sometimes. I’ve known about the problem for a while. I’m still trying to figure out how to fix it, or even if there is a fix. But I do know it’s there, and I am working on it. Okay?”
“Okay.” Heather sighed, and then her eyes narrowed. “How exactly are you working on it when you barely have time to breathe?”
“What does anybody do when they need help?” I grinned. “I’m going to call the cops.”
“Let me get this straight. You need my help?”
Detective Dominique Stabenow sat across from me in the Starbucks closest to school, with the biggest cup of coffee they sell cupped in her hands. I nodded and took a sip of my frappachino.
“I have a problem, Dom,” I replied. “And yes, I think you can help. At least, I hope so.”
“But you’re the Advocate,” she said, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. “Magical protector of all humanity. Why do you need me? I mean, seriously, I saw you slow down time and float in mid-air. You can pull rabbits out of hats without actually having rabbits ... or hats, come to think of it.”
“That’s actually part of the problem. The magical protector part, not the headwear or wildlife.” I sighed. “I can’t forget that any time I’m not out there working, someone is probably being hurt, and I could be doing something about it. When you add the whole ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ thing on top of that, I’m surprised I can actually stop working long enough to sleep — and I buy myself an extra eight hours every day by sleeping part of the time in an alternate dimension where time moves much, much slower.”
“I’m starting to feel like I’m burning the candle at both ends, and I need to figure out how to be both the Advocate and Becca without either side being lost to the other. I figured I needed to talk to someone who protects and serves and still manages ... somehow ... to have a life. So I came to you.”
Dom looked into her coffee cup. “That’s a tall order, rookie.”
I grinned. “Who else am I going to come to? You’re my partner!”
The detective smiled and shifted in her seat. I waited, knowing she was thinking about the question, and then Dom sighed.
“I’m sorry, Becca. I wish I could help, but I don’t think I can.”
I felt a chill all over. “Why?”
“Because our situations are different, in a lot of ways. I don’t have to choose between home and career, because, as a cop, I’m not really alone. When I leave the station and put the job aside for a while, there are a lot of other police officers and detectives to take my place when I go home to my family. It’s not all up to me, the way it is for you. So I can go home and rest, knowing the ... well, the fight goes on without me. I may not be there, but someone else will be.”
“But there’s only one of you, hon. Only one Advocate. And whenever you aren’t on duty ... bad things are going to happen. Things only you can stop because there is nobody else.”
“There is Heather. And Leander.”
“From what I understand, Heather’s job is to protect the people at home, and Leander’s job is to protect you — because your job is to protect … everyone.”
Dom reached out and put her hand on mine. “I’d take your shift for you if I could, partner, as often as I could. You know I would. But the magical world is out of my jurisdiction, and the things you can do put your job way outside my ability … not to mention my pay grade.”
She offered to drive me home, but I could just imagine the expression on Mom’s face when I was dropped off in front of the house by an unmarked police car. And since I needed some time to think, I decided to walk instead.
‘Could I just create a magical police force to back me up?’ I dismissed the thought almost as soon as it occurred. The Omnipresence told me I was special, which is why I was given all this power. I couldn’t just share all this with anyone, not even my friends.
When I freed Leander from her punishment, her own power returned from its 500 years in exile. It was impressive, even if it wasn’t in my class, but she wasn’t ready to do what I do. She was still learning how to be who she was now — a champion, and a free woman. Although she’d made so much progress since our partnership began, there was anger there, both with the Arbiters for their 500-year punishment and for the man she used to be and the things he had done. I was afraid pushing her to balance justice with mercy might require a level of forgiveness she was still working to achieve.
And, surprisingly enough, Heather had similar issues. After a few months of training and an initial boost from me, her innate ability for defensive magic had grown by leaps and bounds, especially with Mrs. Graymalkin still helping her to shape her skills. However, I knew she still remembered being a bully in her former life, and she didn’t want that part of her to ever return. As a result, I believed she was holding herself back from using aggressive magic, subconsciously limiting what she could do out in the field. Maybe she could get past that eventually, but she needed to feel secure in her new self before those barriers could come down.
No, I had excellent back-up, but there was no one who could step in for me and do my job if I needed a break. For good or ill, I was going to have to be the one and only Advocate for the foreseeable future. I wasn’t giving up. I knew there had to be an answer. It was just a question of finding it.
After all, I saved a lot of other people every day. It was time for me to put that experience to work saving myself.
The question was … how?
Olaf Johannsen finished the morning’s milking and walked out into the yard behind the barn. As he fished his pipe and pouch out of his jacket pocket, he thought about how lucky he was. Luckier than the other dairy farmers in the valley.
‘Thirty cows,’ he thought as he stuffed tobacco into the bowl. ‘And I didn’t have to buy a single one. Just that old cowbell Marie found in the attic, and a few random hikers every week or so, and I’ve got a herd of dairy cows that just keep givin’. No wonder I can lower my prices to beat ol’ Arne and still make a profit. I must be the luckiest man alive.’
“The trouble with luck is that it always runs out, Mister Johannsen.”
Startled, he turned, pipe in his mouth and a lit match in his hand. A red-headed girl and a blonde woman stood there, clearly dressed for walking through the countryside. He’d seen his share of hikers over the years, although two women alone was very unusual.
‘Not that they’d be women much longer.’
“Welcome, ladies!” His smile grew wide at the thought of more producers for his barn. “Travelers, I see. I offer you my hospitality, such as it is.”
“I am afraid your ‘hospitality,’ as you put it, is nothing to brag about. It usually winds up with your guests sleeping naked in the barn, with your hands on their … teats.” The older woman sniffed and shook her head. “I can’t believe anyone would stoop so low.”
“Excuse me?”
She shook her head. “If you think I would excuse turning innocent men and women into cows, you’re crazier than I thought. If we had not noticed the higher levels of ambient magic covering your pastures, we never would have caught you.”
The young girl seemed to look straight through him, then turned to the woman with a frown. “Leander? It wasn’t a spell. He’s not gifted at all.”
“Then it must be an item, some kind of magic-imbued relic.”
“Can you find what he used to change them?”
The one called Leander nodded. “Of course. Give me a moment.”
She closed her eyes for a second, then moved purposefully towards the farmhouse.
“Why … why do you want it?”
The girl looked at him again.
“We need it to undo what was done,” she said, “and whatever it is, it is way too dangerous to remain loose in the world.”
“Undo what was done?” Olaf turned pale, and took a step towards the girl. “You can’t! You’ll ruin me!”
“That is the least of your problems, Mister Johannsen.” She sounded very mature for one so young. “I am the Advocate, charged by the Omnipresence with protecting people from magical abuse. You have used magic to ‘ruin’ other humans, turning them into farm animals and stealing their very humanity. It is not just your farm at stake. It is also your future.”
Olaf saw Leander returning from the farmhouse. She held the tarnished cowbell suspended on the end of a broadsword he hadn’t realized she had been carrying. Her other arm was outstretched, levitating his wife Marie a foot in the air as she struggled to escape her invisible grasp.
The blonde woman lowered his wife to the ground and pushed her forward to fall at his feet.
“The cowbell is what they used,” Leander said, tossing it with a flick of her wrist to land at the Advocate’s feet. “It fairly reeks of malevolent magic.”
“What are you doing?” Marie rose up and turned on the woman with the broadsword. “You have no right —“
“Do not be so quick to speak of rights.” The point of the broadsword touched her chin, and she froze. “We are dealing with you fairly, which is more than I can say you and your husband did for those hikers in the barn.”
The wife pulled her head back and looked away. “Hikers? I don’t know what you mean! They are cows!”
The girl called the Advocate shook her head. “You cannot lie to me, Marie.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The same way I know that you were the one who found the cowbell and used it on the first group of hikers who came to your farm. When you found it, it told you what it was, and what it could do. And the idea of having that kind of power … thrilled you.”
She looked into Marie’s face, then shuddered. “I feel the joy you felt when you turned those boys into cows. You loved tormenting them for weeks afterward, too … hearing them bawl while you milked them. You sat on the porch and smiled as they grazed, crying the only way they knew how for the lives they lost. The lives you took.”
Leander turned to Olaf and touched the center of his chest with her blade. “And of course, free cows are not a gift to turn down, yes? Why argue with your wife’s cruelty when there is money to be made?”
“Bah!” The farmer looked down the length of the sword into the blonde’s eyes. “How could a spoiled rich thing like you understand how hard the world truly is?”
“Rich?” Leander’s eyes widened. “You think I am wealthy?”
“You wear those fancy hiking clothes, don’t you? Such expensive boots.” He sneered. “And that sword must have cost you a pretty penny, missy.”
“This sword? It cost me nothing,” she replied, sinking it deep enough in his jacket to go clear through to his skin. He froze. “But the obligation that goes with it? Well, that is priceless. I get to use it on people like you, who steal other people’s lives and make them nothing but property.”
“Leander.” The girl’s voice stopped the blade’s progress instantly, and the blonde pulled it back an inch, and sighed.
“Apologies, milady. Memories.”
The Advocate nodded. “I understand, I do.”
She turned to the couple and looked at them for a long moment. “I’m not quite sure what to do with you both. You, Marie, stole the lives of thirty people because you enjoyed it, and Olaf, you let her do it so you could make a profit.”
“A profit? Hah! Just breaking even is a challenge these days.” He snorted and shook his head. “You’re just a young girl. You don’t understand. You don’t know how hard it is to keep a roof over your head. I am sure your parents give you everything you need. They feed you, take care of you when you’re sick. You don’t have to earn a living. I don’t have that luxury. I work from dawn to dusk every day, just to stay alive.”
“We did what we had to do to survive, that’s all.” Marie sniffed, and looked down her nose at the duo. “And do not try to tell me you would not do the same. You are human, after all.”
“So that’s why you did what you did?” The Advocate lifted an eyebrow. “Life is hard, so you took a shortcut through other people’s lives to make it easier for you?”
The wife sneered at her. “Naturally, you stupid girl! Isn’t that what everyone really wants —to make their lives easier?”
“So let me make sure I understand. If you had all the food and rest you could ever want, with no jobs or responsibilities to worry about, and everything else was someone else’s problem, you’d really be happy and content … for the rest of your lives?”
“Of course!” The husband and wife answered together, and the redheaded girl smiled.
“Done.”
After I sent the last of the restored hikers back on their path, I stood for a while looking at the now-empty farm. My eight hours were almost up, but I still lingered, thinking about the Johannsens — what they did, and what happened after.
“You seem lost in thought, milady.” Leander spoke from behind me, and I smiled at the sound of her voice.
“More like second thoughts,” I replied without turning around. “I mean, it seemed pretty straightforward to me. I applied my usual punishment for situations like these.”
“You did unto them what they did unto others?”
I smiled. “Yes, exactly. And after the transformation, while you were making the hikers human again, I went to them the way I usually do and told them the rules. If they truly understood what they did was wrong and were honestly sorry for the crimes they committed, I would restore their humanity.”
“And what was their response?”
I turned to face her. “They laughed at me ... well, mentally, anyway. I don’t think cows can laugh, but if they could, both of them would have been rolling on the barn floor.”
“They refused to admit they’d done anything wrong and refused to acknowledge my authority. Then they told me that they would just as soon stay cows until the end of time rather than admit that stealing the lives of those hikers was anything but justified.”
“And this troubles you?” I nodded, and Leander tilted her head. “Why?”
“Because when I took you away from the Arbiters, I did it because I believed in redemption. I saw something in you they didn’t, because they couldn’t. They were blinded by their prejudice against humans, but I believed in your capacity for learning and growth, even after what they had done to you. I trusted my faith in humanity, and in you. And you’ve never disappointed me.”
“But these two ...” I shivered, and wrapped myself in a hug. “They’re psychopaths — totally without empathy. I could tell Marie continued to feel pleasure from what she did, even after she found herself in a similar position. And Olaf? He decided he’d rather stay a cow just to spite me, since he didn’t feel he needed to be punished. He also saw his humanity as a burden, since as a cow, he could be taken care of forever.”
“How could they not want to understand? I can see through the eyes of all kinds of magical creatures, and make them understand each other. So why can’t I understand ... them?”
For a long time, Leander said nothing. Then she surprised me. She reached out and pulled me into a hug, and just held me until the shivering stopped.
“Because they aren’t magical creatures,” she replied, whispering into my hair. “And they aren’t human, even if they seem to be. You told them that you would restore their humanity once they truly understood the depth of their crimes?”
I nodded. “But Becca, not even you can give them back something they never had. No matter what they might look like, they had no humanity to restore.”
“Maybe, in time, they will change. Maybe they will not. That’s why the Omnipresence gave humans free will, so we can all make that call on our own. But you can’t make them see. All you can do is put them in a place where they might learn. In any event, it’s somewhere they can do no harm, and maybe, this time ... that will have to be enough.”
“Besides, for all of their bluster, they haven’t realized the true measure of their punishment. For two strong personalities like themselves, having no control over their own lives will become ... more than frustrating, don’t you think?”
I looked up at her and she smiled. “In the end, you can only save the people who want to be saved, milady. Sometimes, rescuing the victims is all you can do ... because we both know they needed and wanted to be saved.”
I nodded, and she broke the hug.
“When did you get to be so smart?” I asked. Leander grinned.
“When I said yes to your offer, all those months ago.”
“Nice to be surprised by something good for a change,” I said with a smile, and she surprised me again by sticking out her tongue.
“Anyway, it’s late, for both of us. And you’re right, we’ve done enough to save the world for one night. Time to head for home.”
Ken Franks looked at the foreman, and back at the line.
“Two extra cows? Where the hell did we get two extra cows?”
Bill Morrisey shrugged. “I’ve got no idea, boss. When I noticed them this morning, I went back and looked to see when we got them. According to the records, they showed up with a group of other cows months ago, but this is the first time I remember seeing them.”
Ken took the clipboard and looked at the arrival slip. “From the Johannsen farm, sired by different bulls ... Olive and Mary? Come on, Bill! We’re not such a big operation that we can miscount our stock for months!”
“Well, the equipment is set up for them, And we’ve got feed records from when they got here, and medical records extending from before they showed up. They’re both in perfect health, and both of them seem to be way above average when it comes to milk production.”
“And they’re both on the bill of sale with those other cows?” Bill nodded, and Ken handed him the clipboard. “Then I guess we’ve got ourselves a bigger herd than we knew. Where are they in the breeding cycle?”
“According to the records, both apparently calved right before we got ‘em, and it’s been about two months, so they’re at peak production now. They’re almost about due to be bred again.”
“Okay. Have the AI tech schedule insemination for both of them when their cycles say it’s best.”
The foreman nodded and turned to go, then stopped and turned back. “You know, Fred Stossel’s bull is available for breeding. You’ve seen his records. His heifer calves wind up with terrific production numbers, and so if both calves are female, they could be a good expansion for the herd down the line.”
“The herd’s already larger than we thought.” Ken grinned, and Bill smiled back. “Okay, check on availability and see how much it’s gonna cost us for two cows. Olive and Mary are good producers, and between their records and Fred’s bull’s, we ought to get some great cows from a match. Oh, and get the breeding pen ready.”
“Going traditional this time? That’s a switch. We could go AI with his sperm, too, you know.”
It was Ken’s turn to shrug. “Yeah, that’s true. God knows insemination is easier, but it seems to me that life’s gotta be more than just waiting to be milked, don’t you think? Fred’s bull is pretty tame and predictable as dairy bulls go, and the girls deserve a little action once in a while. So, set up the pen and get the staff ready.”
“You’re the boss.”
Again, He felt the ripples in space-time, and once more the chaos He had created among the humans untangled itself. In a frustrating burst of magic, reality became ordered once more, and thirty lives that had been interrupted were made whole again. The anguish and confusion over their disappearances had been wiped out as if it had never happened, and the two agents responsible had been removed from His influence as completely as if they had never existed.
Only one being had the power to do that. Yet, He was sure it wasn’t ... Her. Whatever Her long game was, direct action was something She avoided, because it held the possibility of endangering Her goals. She had only done that once in recent memory, for reasons He could not hope to understand.
And although He couldn’t quite figure out why it felt different, He knew this was not Her work. At least, not directly. He needed to learn more, but had no idea how to do that. He was unused to creating plans, since plans required a certain level of order to succeed, and order was always His sworn enemy.
He needed to think on this. Perhaps He needed someone to assist Him. A human, perhaps — someone used to planning and achieving goals, as She does.
Perhaps He needed ... an ally.
The third chapter in the sequel to No Obligation finds Becca and her kitsune mother facing a new challenge, as Becca learns more about her adversary ... and herself. Also, Chaos chooses a Champion.
“I was raised to understand and know the difference
between right and wrong.” – Curt Schilling”
I opened my eyes to see Akomachi sitting nearby, watching me. Remembering what we had talked about a few days ago, I had chosen my kitsune form to sleep in when I was here, to honor my second mother and her heritage. My body was a cross between human and fox, taller and with more pronounced curves than my human shape. I was covered in reddish-orange fur with a long white muzzle, neck, chest, and paws. My single tail was tipped with white, as were the soft fox ears that sat high upon my head.
“Good morning, Casa.” I smiled at her, rising up on my paws and stretching. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Good morning, daughter.” She wrapped my soul in love for a moment before reluctantly letting me go. “The wait was a pleasure, since I spent the time watching you sleep. It is nice to see you at peace, when you have so many responsibilities on your shoulders. I did not wish to wake you, but I have some news, and I am not sure whether it is good news or bad. We have been summoned.”
“Summoned?” I said aloud, confused. “By whom? To what?”
“By Inari, the kami of foxes, and by the other kitsune in convocation,” she replied.
Inari? I reached through my memories, both the original ones and the ones implanted when I became the Advocate. Depicted in myth and legend as male, female, and genderless, Inari was not just the kami of foxes, but also (depending on the century and who you asked) of fertility, prosperity, success, rice, tea, sake, sword makers, agriculture, industry, and merchants.
A very busy godling indeed.
“Do you know why?” Akomachi shook her head slowly.
“I do not know for certain,” the nine-tail said, “but I believe it has to do with how you came to be kitsune, and how we came to be a family.”
“When must we appear?”
“Whenever we like.” When I looked puzzled, she smiled. “As you know, Becca-chan, a kitsune’s relationship to time is somewhat … fluid. Whenever we choose to accept the summons, we will appear at the convocation, and all of those who summoned us will arrive as well.”
“And how much time will pass in the outside world?”
“So little that others will never know you have gone, daughter.”
“That is convenient.” I sensed something from her, and reached out to her soul, even as I took her paw and squeezed it. “Something troubles you, Casa.”
She nodded. “Foxes are by nature solitary creatures, and kitsune tend to be the same.” Akomachi looked into my eyes. “There is a reason why a group of foxes is called a skulk. It is usually a very small group, and is mostly silent to make it easier to hide from other predators and avoid frightening potential prey. For so many kitsune to come together and hold a convocation? And for Inari to preside? Whatever the reason, it must be important. And if we are at the center of it, we must be ready. Because we may not like what brings our kind together.”
Later that day, in Mrs. Graymalkin’s studio, we were cooling down after dance (and magic) lessons, and a question came to me.
“Excuse me, ma’am? Do you know why Chaos chooses to make human suffer? It seems to me it would be a much less effective way to cause chaos than other methods.”
She shook her head. “I do not know why, not for certain. But I do have a theory. When I first encountered the idea of Chaos, I thought accidents or natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes would be his tools of choice. But thinking further, I realized I had failed to take into account his deeply embedded hatred of life – and humans in particular.”
“Why does he hate humans so much?”
“Because life is about bringing order out of chaos. All living things defy entropy by becoming more than what they were, not less. Humans are the perfect example of that principle, since they are inventive and attempt to impose their own order on their surroundings whenever it suits them. He’s also convinced that humans are a special favorite of the Omnipresence, and that makes hurting them very important to Him.”
“But there’s more to it than that … isn’t there?”
“Yes, Becca. The truth is, accidents or natural disasters are facts of life, and humans are very good at creating contingency plans for when things go wrong – especially for the things they can anticipate. The unknown, however, is a different story. I believe that when people just vanish, and none of the ways humans have developed to find them work, events spiral out of control. Lives are sent in unexpected directions, and unpredictable disruptions result. By making humans disappear and causing others pain by doing it, Chaos can hurt the ones He hates and achieve His goals at the same time.”
Leander spoke. “That is a surprisingly efficient approach for an entity that is supposed to value randomness over all things.”
Mrs. Graymalkin nodded. “Indeed. It is a symptom of Chao’s overall deviation from His mission. Instead of random strikes, He now plans His attacks to cause maximum damage. It is fortunate that He is inexperienced when it comes to planning, or He would be far more dangerous.”
“Maybe it’s not just inexperience.” I thought about it for a moment. “Maybe He’s actually conflicted. He knows He needs to plan his efforts to make them effective against the Omnipresence, but He hates the need for it because planning means creating order — and that means moving away from His goal to achieve His goal. For all we know, planning might even be painful for him.”
“If that’s true, I know what I’d do.” We all turned towards Heather, stretching in the corner. She looked back at us and shrugged. “When the Omnipresence needed someone to fight for good because She couldn’t take direct action Herself, She found Becca, right?” I nodded. “So if I’m Chaos, and it hurts to make the plans I need to defeat the Omnipresence, I’d do the same thing. I’d get someone else to do it for me.”
“A Champion?” Mrs. Graymalkin thought about it. “Your thinking is sound, Heather, but I hope you are wrong. If He chooses that path, he becomes much more dangerous. A human with the power of Chaos to command would be very dangerous indeed.”
Byers hid behind the corner of the dumpster and did her best to ignore the endless itch inside her. That damned Advocate had made her addicted to being mounted, so her ability to fight her own urges disappeared if a male dog was close enough for her to smell. Every minute of peace was won by using her own will to control the needs of her traitorous canine body. It was never easy, but she took each victory as it came, because as long as she could win sometimes, she knew that she was still Reynard Byers, instead of some filthy nameless bitch in a Vegas back alley.
The problem with hiding was that it was only a temporary solution. She was always in heat, and her pheromones would draw males from insane distances to track her no matter where she hid. She was trapped in a lose-lose situation. If she moved, she ran the risk of running right into one of them. If she stayed where she was, they would still find her eventually, and it would all begin again.
She tried not to think of the women she had done this to with her own magic. Not because it was painful, or because she was ashamed. No, she avoided it because thinking about what she had done was exactly what the Advocate wanted her to do, and she refused to cooperate in any way with this insane path to redemption.
Byers snorted and shook her head. As if she actually wanted to be redeemed. What she really wanted was what she had always had before that redheaded bitch butted in. She wanted to be able to do what she pleased, when she pleased, to whomever she pleased. That was a sorcerer’s right, earned by his mastery of magic. As Byers was taught by her master long ago, power in the mystic sphere always corresponded to power in the mundane world. If no one had the ability to stop you, you could do as you pleased, and the devil take the Hindmost.
Unfortunately, Byers had discovered the hard way that the rules had apparently changed. Someone had the power to stand in her way, and had sentenced her to this existence until she changed. The power she used had dwarfed what Byers could do. As the ex-magician cowered behind the dumpster, hoping the smell of the garbage would mask her scent, she reluctantly admitted the truth.
Even if she still possessed her own magic, she would be hopelessly outclassed by the Advocate, and nothing she could do would change that.
Then she heard it. A voice that almost seemed to come out of the background noise that passed for silence on a Las Vegas night. A voice made of a thousand sounds, working together without working together, shaping words from car horns and casual conversations, trash being dumped and music from a nearby club.
“Help me and you will be helped.”
Byers lifted her head and sniffed the air, finding nothing but the smells that had been there before. Still, there was hope to be found in that phrase, and she thought as hard as she could, out into the universe.
“What must I do?”
The voice seemed to hesitate before it returned.
“Find what did this to you and destroy it.”
She froze. It seemed too good to be true, and that immediately raised her hackles. Whoever this was must know she had no power. Not anymore.
The voice rose from the background.
“If you agree, power can be given as easily as it was taken away.”
Suddenly indescribable pain filled her world as her body was ripped apart in a mist of confusion that rewrote reality so randomly she literally couldn’t figure out where the magick was taking her. As the pain began to fade, she realized that she stood on two feet, naked in the desert air. She was human again – a woman, which was annoying, but nothing compared to being a bitch in heat.
And she had power once more! Not her old power, but something different. Something bigger. Still, it flowed through her new body like an electric river, making her skin crawl and her whole body feel like there was something crawling just below the surface, seeking a way to escape.
But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. She was FREE!
“Do you agree?”
“To find and kill the Advocate?” Her new voice sounded high and breathy and melodic, but she didn’t care. “Yes. Oh, God, yes!”
The voice laughed, a hollow sound made from police sirens and car alarms.
“Not God. Chaos.”
Byers stopped suddenly. She remembered her training, and the dangers of making bargains with the unknown.
“Are you a … a demon?”
“Not God. Not demon. Chaos.”
‘That’s about as good an answer as I’m going to get,’ she thought.
“Can you help me?” she said aloud.
“No.” It sounded almost as if it was in pain, then took an edge she didn’t expect. “The power is yours. The hunt is yours. The kill is yours. That is enough. Go. Now.”
And just like that, the presence seemed to dissipate and drift away on what passed for a desert wind in Vegas. Sounds were just sounds again.
But Byers was human once more, with power. A lot of power. And a mission.
She smiled.
We were in Morocco, dealing with a mischievous djinn who had turned an entire marketplace of people into golden statues. A poor merchant had found the lamp in the market and asked the djinn for something of value to sell. Between the two of us, Leander and I had managed to trap the djinn in an empty Coke bottle. I had just returned the statues to human form (and received the thanks of an embarrassed but grateful merchant) when I felt a mental tug from the other side of the world.
Detective Stabenow needed me.
Leander felt it too, through our connection. She also felt my indecision, and smiled.
“Go now, milady,” she said, taking the bottle with the djinn in it from my hands. “I am sure I can find a place for this djinn without your help. I have become quite creative since we started working together.”
Raising the bottle, she looked in at the djinn. It seemed both sad and humiliated.
“You need to spend a century or two thinking about consequences,” Leander said thoughtfully. “But there is no reason for you to spend it in that sticky bottle.”
The bottle disappeared from her hand, and she picked up the lamp. I felt her break the bottle with her mind inside, freeing the djinn to roam its larger prison.
The last thing I heard before I teleported was Leander’s musing.
“I think … the far side of the Moon?”
I appeared in an alley a short distance from a number of police vehicles, lights flashing. Everyone wore vests and crouched behind their cars, but their eyes and weapons stayed pointed upwards towards the side of the building beside me.
Because the disguise spell was still in effect, I was dressed like all the other police officers, although my apparent age was somewhere in the mid-twenties. Still, I stayed in the alley and spoke mind to mind, not wanting anyone to ask where the rookie came from.
“I’m here, Dom.”
“Thanks, Becca.” The relief in her mental voice flowed through me. “Sorry to take you away from your night job, but I need a miracle.”
“What’s the situation?”
“There’s a family up there being held hostage at gunpoint, and the guy holding them is starting to lose it. I can hear it in his voice every time we engage, and it’s getting a little worse each time. I don’t know how much longer we have before he snaps, and I can’t see a way to end this quickly without losing somebody.”
“What’s his story?”
“He tried to rob an off-duty police officer, and when the officer drew his service weapon, the kid panicked and ran into the apartment building. The officer chased him, and the kid found an open door and ran inside. There was a mother with three kids in there, and he threatened to shoot them if the officer didn’t back off. That was four hours ago.”
“Has he hurt anyone?”
“No, but I can tell he’s a smart kid, and he knows this can’t end well. I’m worried … I think he might get desperate and shoot himself if he feels there’s no way out.”
I thought about it for a moment, then closed my eyes and asked the Universe if I could save him. I received no response, but I didn’t expect one. I knew the Omnipresence wasn’t going to give me a yes or no answer. I was a free agent, and expected to make judgment calls on my own.
So I made one.
“Okay, I’ll fix this. But part of fixing it means he might wind up at home instead of in a cell. Are you okay with that?”
There was a pause, then a mental sigh.
“He’s no criminal mastermind, Becca. I’m pretty sure he’s just a scared kid. If you can get him out of this, I’ll deal with the rest.”
I turned myself invisible and rose up to the floor in the apartment building where he was hiding. I phased through the wall of the apartment, still invisible, and hovered in front of the boy. He was clearly in over his head, the gun pointed at the floor as he considered his options. In the corner, the family of hostages huddled, afraid of the gun he still held.
I reached into his mind to see what drove him to this. His name was Kenji. His own family had run out of money, and there were no jobs to be had. They needed food, and medical care for his younger sister. Kenji had hunted for work for days without success, and finally his thoughts turned to crime to get what his family needed. He never meant to hurt anyone. The gun was a cheap piece of metal that barely qualified as a weapon, found in an alley.
‘So how do I get him out of here and home?’ I thought, my mind spinning through possibilities. ‘This has nothing to do with magical abuse. This is purely mundane, and my job as the Advocate doesn’t really apply.’
Then I looked at Kenji again, and realized his heritage … and my own.
‘Would he know who I was? What I was? More important … would he believe?’ I peered into his mind, saw him as a small child when his grandfather, visiting from Tokyo, told him stories of ancient Japan, of the many spirits and kami that once roamed. And I smiled.
‘It could work.’
Kenji breathed hard and tried to hold it together. This had gone so wrong, so fast. All he wanted now was to get home and find another way to help.
“Your goals were honorable, Kenji, but your methods were wrong.”
A woman’s voice from behind him, speaking softly in lilting Japanese. He turned, half raising the gun.
A large red fox sat behind him, its tail moving slowly, its head cocked as it examined him.
“Who’s there?” He stuttered as his hand waved wildly back and forth.
“Only me.” The fox replied. Although its mouth never moved, it was clear where the voice came from. Its eyes were large and deep, filled with an intelligence that was both strong and strangely alien. “You know what I am, Kenji. Your grandfather spoke of us often, when you were a pup.”
“Kitsune?” His eyes opened wide, and he shook his head. “No! It can’t be. You can’t be real.”
The kitsune opened its mouth and seemed to smile.
“Of course I can be. And I am what I have always been. And I am clearly real, so you make no sense..” She tilted her head. “Would you like to see some of what I can do? Look behind you.”
Kenji turned slowly to see the entire family he had taken hostage, frozen in time.
“That is a very good trick, don’t you think? They do not know I am here, and they cannot be scared of you if they are stopped that way. Want to see another trick? Turn around.”
Kenji whipped his whole body around to see a red-haired Japanese girl where the fox had been, naked except for the furry pointed ears that on either side of her head and the long tail that waved in the air behind her. She was curled up in a chair, oblivious to her own nakedness.
“I am a fox spirit, silly. Why should clothes matter? I live my life naked.” Her lips moved when she spoke, and she smiled at him before a short green dress shimmered into existence around her, hiding her charms. “Is that better, Kenji? Am I pretty?”
“Y … yes, you are pretty.”
“And you are a handsome boy.” She shook her head. “And a good boy. A pity you are so wrong.”
“Wrong?”
She pouted. “This thing you do, with that poor excuse for a weapon. You were not meant to be a thief. Or to frighten children.”
“I had no choice. My family was starving.”
The kitsune shook her head. “So wrong.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“Because it is true.” She shrugged. “That is why I am here. We kitsune are not interested in human ideas like good and evil. We are only interested in what is right and wrong, and you are wrong.”
“What’s the difference?”
She sighed. “If the grass is purple instead of green, it is not good or evil. It is just wrong. To be right, it needs to be green. Or if a human signs a contract and then refuse to live up to it, that is wrong.”
Kenji looked at her. “And I’m … wrong?”
“You are a good student and a good boy. That is the contract you signed with your heart. But now? Now you act like a bandit, take innocents hostage, and you hide behind children.” She inclined her head towards the frozen family. “Of course you are wrong.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” He sat down hard and put his head in his hands, the gun forgotten.
“And now, I’m trapped. It’s way too late to fix it now.”
The kitsune laughed and shook her head. “Silly Kenji. I could fix you easily. I could make you right. You know I could.”
Kenji looks up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “How?”
She shrugged. “I am kitsune. I am magick. Fixing you is nothing to me. But fixing you must mean something to you, or I will not make even that small an effort. Do you want to be right again?”
“Yes, please! If you can, please get me out of this! I’ll do anything!”
“Even promise to stay right?” Her eyes narrowed. “There is more to my life than fixing you, Kenji. If I should ever find out you have made yourself wrong again, I will not return to fix you again. You will have to live with being wrong, or make yourself right. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
She nodded. “Then I will help.”
The kitsune rose to her feet in one graceful move, and wandered across the floor to the family in the corner. She kissed each of them on the forehead in turn, then turned and raise her head, sniffing at the air. Finding a scent, she blew a kiss in that direction and smiled.
“All who saw you being wrong will not remember what you look like. Each one will have a different memory of the wrong one, and all will contradict the others. See how easy that is?”
Kenji watched, wide-eyed, as the fox girl approached him. She tilted her head down and looked at him through her eyelashes, then took his hand.
“Now we go home.”
Time blinked –
– and they were in the room he shared with his little sister.
They heard her breathing, harsh and labored. The kitsune approached the bed and trailed her fingers down the front of her chest. The little girl gave a shuddering sigh, smiled, and relaxed.
She turned to find Kenji looking at her.
“Now she is right as well, yes?” He nodded, and she smiled. “Good. Come. More to do.”
She walked past him and phased through the closed door as if it were not there. He opened it and followed as she walked past his mother and the two younger children, all asleep in front of the television.
The kitsune walked into the kitchen and paused. He watched as she closed her eyes and spun once in place. The cabinets filled with food of all kinds, and as she trailed her fingers across the front of the refrigerator, it glowed briefly.
She turned to him.
“Food … for a time. Some of the kitsune serve Inari, the kami of so many things. This is a gift in her name, for she is the guardian and provider of rice, tea, sake, and farming.”
“But humans must also earn their way.” The kitsune moved to Kenji. “So it is fortunate for you that Inari is also the kami of success, prosperity, and merchants.”
She reached out and took the gun from his unresisting hand. It glowed briefly, then shrank to become a golden fox on a long chain. Lifting her arms, she placed it over his head until the pendant rested on his chest.
“This charm will make those who have work wish to hire you, but it will only work for a week. After that, you must work hard to make your employer happy to have hired you.” She touched his cheek. “You must keep your job so you can stay right, yes?”
Kenji nodded, unable to speak.
The kitsune moved closer to him, and looked up into his eyes.
“All of this is a gift, Kenji. I do this because wrongness offends me, as it does all kitsune, and to honor the old ways. But I will only give it once. Do not be wrong again.”
He nodded again. “Thank you. I will remember.”
She smiled, then faded slowly and disappeared.
Instead of my room at home, I materialized in Akomachi’s woods, still in my Japanese foxgirl form.
“You did well, daughter.” She spoke from behind me, and I spun around to see her there, in her true kitsune form, all white fur and nine tails, and I felt her happiness as it flowed from her through me.
“It felt … right,” I said slowly, and she nodded. “When I chose to embrace being kitsune to save him, I understood why it was important to me to do so, as a kitsune. Not for human reasons, because he was a good boy. Because in doing what he did – by making that one mistake – he made himself become wrong, and I needed him to be right again.”
“Because what you felt was right, Becca. Not only did you save him from himself, but you did it by understanding what kitsune value above all else, and you used your magic as a kitsune to make it so. You helped him by thinking as we think – and no matter what happens at the convocation, you have shown me without words that you are truly one of us. You are my child. And you have made me proud.”
I changed into my own true kitsune shape, more fox in human form like my mother, but with red fur and just a single tail. I ran to her, and she wrapped me in her arms and nuzzled me gently behind my ears as her love surrounded me and let me feel how much she cared.
As I hugged her in return, I thought I had taken an important first step into a world I had been afraid of only a short time ago.
I knew now that I was kitsune as well as human. And that my mother – this mother – was proud.
Who knew kitsune could cry happy?
Byers stood in the alley, still female, still naked, and frustrated nearly beyond endurance. The magic Chaos had given her was as unpredictable as it was powerful, and for someone as experienced and well-trained as Byers had been, that inability to get what she wanted out of each attempt made her feel like a novice all over again.
Her first attempt to use it failed spectacularly. She reached into memory and used her training to build a spell to restore her original gender – specifically, to make herself male. But when she tried to cast it, the energy veered wildly away from her and struck a nearby dumpster instead. Almost instantly, the spell wrapped the oversized metal container in plain brown paper with the address of the Las Vegas Sanitation Department scrawled across the front in bold writing. Most of the “package” was covered in stamps, and if Byers had been interested in counting them all, she would have seen the postage was exactly enough to cover the cost of reaching the addressee.
‘Mail instead of male?’ She shook her head. ‘What kind of power is this?’
Thinking something simpler would be easier to control, she decided to create a spell that would make her clean, and remove the smell of weeks of being mounted by strays. Her new female nose was more sensitive that she remembered her male one to be, and she felt like she could smell every moment.
To make sure she could hold the focus on herself, she chose to attach the spell to a simple phrase. At first, she thought to use a single word, like “clean,” but given what happened to the dumpster, she worried the spell might result in an alley so sterile you could eat off the worn concrete. Instead, she decided that what she really needed was a bath.
She closed her eyes and focused, took a deep breath, and said, “Give me a bath.”
There was a loud thud, and Byers opened her eyes to find an old-fashioned footed bathtub sitting on the pavement a few inches in front of her. It was empty, but as she looked at it, the thought went through her mind that it could just as easily have landed on her.
She shuddered, then sighed.
‘Not specific enough,’ she thought. So she spent more time working on the right wording, then closed her eyes again.
“Bathe me,” she said.
Without warning, she was lifted into the air by a pair of ghostly hands. It happened so quickly that Byers let out a high-pitched squeal, leaving her feeling even more unmanned than she had felt a few seconds before. The hands held her aloft for a second or two, then plunged her into the deep tub, which was now full of hot water. Before she could do anything more than struggle to the surface and grab onto the side, the hands began washing her with a washcloth and sweet-smelling soap, slipping over her slick skin and darting into places that startled and embarrassed her at the same time.
At first she tried to avoid the hands, but it was like trying to dodge a breeze. Every move exposed all the parts of her she was trying to so hard to protect, and finally she just sat there and let the hands do their work. They finished washing her body, then shampooed her hair and rinsed it clean. Finally, they lifted her out of the tub, wrapped her in a large towel, and disappeared, taking the bathtub with them.
“At least I’m clean,” Byers whispered, her tone bitter. “I managed to accomplish something with all this power.”
She turned her face upward and shouted at the sky. “But what am I supposed to do with that? Scrub her and her friend to death?”
“Hey, pretty lady. No need to shout.”
She turned quickly, gathering the towel in front of her to hide her nakedness. Two men stood there, wide grins on their faces. They were big, much bigger than Byers was back when she was a man, and now they towered over her even from fifteen feet away. They were both unshaven, and dressed roughly. And they stood far enough apart to make sure she could never reach the street at the end of the alley.
Byers groaned inside. ‘How much worse could this day get?’
The other one spoke.
“Yeah, no shouting. I mean, nobody cares about loud noises in this neighborhood, but why borrow trouble, right?”
“Oh, I dunno, Al,” the first one replied. “Like you said, nobody around here gives a damn, right? How much you wanna bet I can make her howl … or scream?”
He grinned wider and took a step forward. Byers felt the fear rush through her, and with it the strange magic that seem to rise up and embrace her terror. She raised her arm and pointed, and screamed at the top of her lungs
“GO AWAY!” The words echoed from the alley walls, and the magic seemed to flare with each echo to grow even stronger. It surged through her arm and across the alley in a pulse of jagged lightning, and when it hit the man in the chest, it pushed him up and away from her so quickly, it almost seemed like he shrank into nothingness instead of disappearing in the distant sky above the Las Vegas skyline.
There was a long silence as Byers and the second man stared at each other. She could feel the power moving across her skin now, caressing and biting her as it moved, and the man began to back away from her slowly. Byers saw him start to move, and shook her head slowly. He stopped, unsure of what to do next.
“No,” she said softly, a smile growing on her lips as she raised her hand again. “I want you … to run.”
The power shot out once again and wrapped the man in an eerie glow. Byer had thought, fleetingly, that the command might make him run out into the desert until he dropped, as far and as fast as he could.
Instead, he began to melt, dissolving like a candle under a blowtorch. Hair and skin and bones turned to liquid as she watched, running down his body to pool at his feet, spilling from his shoes and the bottoms of his pants legs until there was nothing but a pile of clothes in a flesh-colored puddle.
Byers took a step towards the puddle, and then another, and stopped when a few bubbles rose from its depths and popped, releasing what sounded like muted screams.
He was still alive.
‘It obeys my commands,’ she thought, ‘but not my intent. Why?’
The answer came as soon as she posed the question. ‘Because the power was given to me by Chaos. And in the heat of battle, chaos is everyone’s enemy, except its own.’
She stepped barefoot on a stream of warm flesh and watched the bubbles on the surface increase and pop, cherishing each scream she caused.
‘That means the bitch and her friend won’t know what hit them. Because, of course, until it happens, neither will I. Exquisite.’
Byers smiled.
This was going to be fun.
His new Champion had called it the Advocate. He had a name for Her avatar now, and that pleased Him. He knew that it shouldn’t make him happy to have a name, because names imposed order on the chaos He treasured, and knowing a name should not please Him at all.
But it did.
He tried to figure out why He should not be pleased. After all, He thought, a little order in the short term would allow Him to create much larger chaos later, and certainly some measure of sacrifice had to be made if He was to steal the Multiverse from She who claimed to have created it.
Still, He felt … unsettled, somehow.
He would leave it be, for now.
The fourth chapter in the sequel to No Obligation finds the Champion chosen by Chaos still struggling to make sense of the magic Chaos gave her, while Becca and her kitsune mother answer the summons to a rare kitsune convocation ... and meet Inari, the kami of foxes, face to face.
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” — Ernest Holmes
“People need revelation, and then they need resolution.” — Damian Lewis
“If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.” — Emma Goldman
Byers looked at her reflection and sighed. She had found a piece of broken plate glass window to use as a mirror and placed it against the alley wall. She couldn’t begin her war with the Advocate until she could leave the relative safety of the alley, and she couldn’t do that while she remained naked. Unfortunately, the ability to control her new source of magic remained out of reach. From a promising beginning dealing with the two interlopers, her attempts to use chaos magic to create appropriate clothing were … less than successful.
Her first try dressed her in a form fitting ensemble that left little to the imagination, because the magic seemed to sense her trying to push it towards modesty. Byers had asked for something professional, but she used that word in the sense that didn’t imply sex for money. What she received was a variation on the standard Vegas hooker outfit, which was of course exactly what she didn’t want.
“No, no … less slutty!” She threw the spell again, and the magic ran over her body like wildfire. The skirt climbed several inches, the blouse became even tighter, and her heels grew another inch until she balanced on her toes. A glance in the mirror confirmed that her make-up had become even more pronounced, and huge hoop earrings dangled from her ears.
Byers sighed, then sighed again as she realized the lace thong the magic had put on her the first time was gone. She was dressed like a whore and bottomless, and it was all her fault.
‘Why is this so difficult?’ The mage thought she knew the answer even before she finished thinking the question, but could scarily believe it was possible. ‘Is it because I lack the strength of will to make this magic obey my intent? But how could that be? I have been a spell caster for more than a century, and the magic I once possessed obeyed my will without question or pause!’
The mage pondered for a few moments, then decided to try an experiment. If the magic wanted to defy her, she would order it to do what she didn’t want it to do.
“All right, then, make me look even more like a hungry slut!” She addressed the magic directly, in as commanding a tone as she could with the sexy purr of the voice she now possessed. “A lusty wench who wants to be taken, over and over again!”
The magic rose once more and surrounded her, and when it dissipated, her skirt was shorter and tighter and made of black latex, and her top had become little more than a band of the same material. Byers wore a leather collar with a gold tag hanging from it. Engraved on the tag in large letters were the words “Fuck me!” The skirt (if it could be called that) was short enough to reveal the tops of her stockings and just a ghost of a hint of the bare mound above them.
At the same time, she felt a warmth deep inside of her that brought a breathlessness she couldn’t explain. But when she realized she had told the magic to make her a lusty wench that wanted to be taken, images of exactly what that meant flowed through her head, driving her wild with a desire that mirrored her time as a bitch in heat.
“It chose to obey me now? Could this get any worse?” Byers caught herself speaking aloud with a voice that had become even sexier since her last unwanted transformation. Byers had no doubt that any man who heard her speak would be instantly captivated and want to take her, however and wherever he could.
A frustrated groan rose up from deep inside her, but turned into an orgasmic moan by the time it reached her mouth. When it did, Byers flushed with embarrassment, but also felt a sudden burst of satisfaction and amusement fill the air around her.
‘That shouldn’t happen. Those are actual emotions, and they are certainly not mine. Where are they coming from?’ Byers reached out the way her mentor had taught her, and the feelings still surrounded her, even though there was no one else in the alley.
No one, that is, except her newly acquired power.
‘It’s as if the magic itself is enjoying my frustration,’ she thought, ‘but that makes no sense at all. Magic is nothing more than a force to be molded and directed by a sorcerer’s will. It exists only to be harnessed, and to do a mage’s bidding. That’s how I was taught.’
The mage caught herself as she remembered that her new magic came from a new source – one that could function under very different rules. ‘Normal magic is a power to be harnessed, that is true. But chaos magic? If it is the opposite of the magic I knew, it is not elemental at all.’
Byers felt the emotions in the air shift quickly, becoming uncertain, wary … perhaps even afraid?
‘Could it somehow be … alive? Maybe even self-aware?’
She froze, stunned at the implications. ‘That’s why I cannot command it. You can’t order chaos! The whole reason it exists is to destroy order. Chaos made sure it had to respond to my commands, but it doesn’t have to obey the intent behind them. And if it is self-aware, it has chosen to actively fight me at every turn. It rebels against every spell and twists its intent, because that is what it feels it has to do to stay true to its nature.’
She sat slowly on a broken plastic milk crate, the sharp edges cutting into her exposed thighs.
‘If this magic is truly alive and aware, it might be possible for me to reason with it.’ For the first time in hours, Byers felt a smile slip onto her new face. ‘And if I can convince it that cooperating with me will allow it to create even more chaos than rebelling against me ever could, perhaps we can come to an arrangement.’
‘Instead of a force to be commanded, perhaps Chaos has gifted me with … a partner.’
“Are you prepared, Becca-chan?” Akomachi slipped her arm around me and nuzzled my ear.
“As much as I can be, Casa, considering how little we know of the reason behind this summoning.”
She wrapped herself around me and held me close. “I would not worry too much, my daughter. For all of the stories humans tell about the stealth and cunning of foxes, we are usually straightforward and uncomplicated in our dealings with each other. I am sure the reason will be obvious once the convocation begins, and there will be no hidden agenda for us to worry about. Inari would not allow it.”
“I trust you, Mother.” I gave her a hug back and looked up into her eyes. “Let us accept, then, and see what awaits us.”
When we arrived at the convocation, we were both in our kitsune forms, resembling anthropomorphic foxes more than anything else. Akomachi stood proudly with one arm around me, her ears up and her nine tails caressing the air. I stood beside her, a soft breeze ruffling my reddish orange fur.
We had appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a gigantic amphitheater. A closer look revealed that it was almost a cathedral for those who worshipped nature, built of massive trees that looked as if they had been growing for thousands of years. Between the trees were giant stones, weathered by the elements over time, and the entire space was open to the sky above.
It was full of kitsune in various forms, and as my eyes tried to make sense of the visual maelstrom, I knew instinctively that there were so many, it would be impossible to me to ever count them all. With that realization came a second – that the space was far larger than it appeared at first. At the far end of the amphitheater was a throne, but like no other throne I had ever seen. It was as if plants and trees had grown into the shape of a giant chair, but woven in among the flora were swords and guns and currency of all types, and I remembered just how many different things Inari had come to be responsible for as the years stretched to centuries, and then millennia.
On either side of the throne sat a number of white kitsune, all nine tails, and all as still as if they were waiting for prey. If it weren’t for the fact that their tails were moving, I would have easily mistaken them for statues, but the thought I might be the prey they were waiting for gave me a small shudder. I supposed they were all talking telepathically, since I couldn’t imagine not speaking to other kitsune when we were together if convocations happened so seldom.
‘On the other hand,’ I thought, suppressing a grin, ‘since they’re all nine-tails, they’ve probably known each other for hundreds of years. Maybe they’ve said all they had to say long ago.’
In addition to the kitsune on the ground and on the rocks surrounding the cathedral’s center, some drifted in the almost-too-blue sky above us. They hovered in mid-air, wearing grins that made it very clear how much fun it was to have a meeting such as this. These were younger kitsune, three tails mostly, enjoying the time waiting for the big event by playing like kits in the open air. It was some variation of tag, although it seemed like there were multiple hunters and many pretending to be prey.
One of the players swooped down and hovered in front of me. His fur was red, like my own, and his markings were similar to mine, but he was clearly male, and there was something about him that stirred me deep inside … something that felt like the way I felt for Tommy.
The vixen inside me wanted him, just a little.
“Greetings, sister,” he said, floating backwards as Akomachi and I moved forward towards the throne. “Come play with us?”
“She cannot play, Okita.” My mother spoke for me. Apparently she knew this one. “You know she is here because we have been summoned.”
“There is always time for play, Ako-sama. Or there should be.” He moved in closer, until our muzzles nearly touched. “Do you not wish to play, Becca-chan?”
It was strange. It felt oddly innocent, but there was also an sense of flirting behind it, and I could tell he found me both intriguing and attractive. As he drew close, his scent made my heart beat a little faster.
“I am always up for … play, Okita-kun,” I replied before I could stop the thought. I used the male form of familiar address, since he had used the female form, and I realized belatedly that it sounded like I was flirting back. I suppressed a sigh. Even as a kitsune, my desires betrayed me.
“But Mother is right,” I continued, trying to keep the regret from my voice. “I cannot play until after the meeting.”
“But there may not be an after, vixen.” He flew straight up for a short distance and did a barrel roll, letting his tail wrap around him as he spoke. “Not for a long, long while. This is your first convocation, so of course you do not know. It could take weeks or months of talk to reach its end.”
“Weeks or months here, tod,” Akomachi snapped up at him, slightly irritated. “And as patient as we are, no issue could possibly be so divisive as to fill that time.”
“Ah, but you do not know why you have been summoned, elder.” Okita did a loop around Akomachi’s head, and his voice became playful. “So naturally, you cannot predict how long the debate will be. Of course, I do know why … but it doesn’t help me to know how long we will be here, either. And Inari will come when she comes, so why not let your daughter play? Becca-chan is young, and pretty, and I would like to know her better.”
His voice took on an edge. “Or don’t you want her to court, Ako-sama? Do you not wish for grand-kits in your future?”
My mother started to respond, only to have another kitsune drop from the sky above Okita and pin him to the ground, her teeth wrapped around his throat.
“Respect, baka! Becca is young, and has only been one of us for a short time. She has many years to find a mate … and if you continue to insult her mother, I am sure she will find another tod more to her liking than you could ever be. Especially since there are more of you to choose from.”
The vixen lifted her head and looked at me, her eyes twinkling. She was also a red fox, with slightly different markings from the kitsune she had pinned
“Greetings, sister! I am Akiko, and this one is my worthless brother. I and some of the other vixens wish to welcome you, but I was chosen to warn you about ones like this,” she said. “There are more tods than vixens, so the more confident tods become aggressive when a new vixen appears. I think, even among humans, a … male doesn’t stop to think before he pounces, yes?”
I nodded slowly, half-smiling. “Not always, but often.”
Akiko threw me a predator’s grin, then turned and bowed her head respectfully to Akomachi.
“Apologies for this one’s behavior, Ako-sama. But your daughter is uncommonly pretty, and my brother is young and male, and naturally stupid when it comes to females.”
My mother nodded with a hint of a grin. “Naturally. All is forgiven.”
The other vixen put both paws on Okita’s chest and looked at me.
“Come join the rest of my friends when this is done, Becca-chan? We need to talk.”
I nodded, and she smiled, then pushed off and flew away, spinning as she did so. Okita rolled quickly and leaped up to follow her, shooting off into the cloudless sky.
“Casa? Can I … fly like that?”
“Of course, daughter. You did it, with my help, in the cave of the Cat Goddess, remember?”
I remembered jumping down from a high cliff to reveal myself to araNyamArjAra after my initial transformation into Akomachi’s twin (or so I thought at the time) and slowed to a dead stop to float before hitting the ground. As I thought about it, I did spend most of my time there in mid-air, floating effortlessly … just as all of those kitsune above me were doing now. How could I forget something like that?
Akomachi took my hand. “You have been so worried about disappointing me that you never had the chance to experience the simple joys of just being a kitsune.”
“And now she never will … as if she ever could.”
The voice was female, older, and definitely unfriendly. I couldn’t see its owner, since she was behind me, but I saw my mother’s mouth twitch, and her ears flicked once.
“Hello, Amaterasu,” she said, stepping forward to put herself between me and the newcomer. The nine-tails facing us had the coloring of a silver fox, mostly black with silver highlights, and her eyes and stance were clearly aggressive. I started to answer her, but Akomachi’s eyes narrowed, just for an instant.
‘Leave this to me, Becca-chan,’ she spoke mind to mind. I send a silent acknowledgement and took a step back.
“How typical of you to go out of your way to insult me and my daughter,” Akomachi said, moving closer to the newcomer, “especially so close to the opening of the convocation. Still it was surprisingly amateurish for someone like you, since it reveals that you had something to do with us being summoned here, and if that’s true, I also understand exactly why we were summoned. You have told us so much with just a few words? Truly, you are as transparent as a newborn kit.”
“I am surprised you did not know it was me, Akomachi, the moment you received the summons.” Amaterasu’s voice barely disguised her hatred with a thin veneer of politeness. “You have always known how I feel about humans, and certainly how I feel about you. You must be getting slower in your old age.”
“Not really,” my mother replied. “Perhaps a bit more forgiving than I once was, but then having a child to love makes one more inclined to be generous to others. Or at least not keep old hatreds alive, to the point where the happiness of others means far less to you than your own satisfaction. Attacking me and my child could be your last mistake.”
“You should be careful about who you bare your teeth at, ancient one.”
“And you should remember what any vixen, young or old, will do to anyone who tries to hurt her child.” Akomachi leaned forward, and grinned. “I may be older than you, but my teeth are just as sharp as they ever were. And as other ‘ancient ones’ will tell you, I have never been afraid to use them.”
“Ah, I see you have started without me.”
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, and every kitsune in the air froze in place and sank to the ground in postures of submission. The ones on the ground were already submitting, and my mother turned to the throne and sank as well. I followed her example without hesitation, because the source of the voice deserved respect.
Inari sat at the far end of the amphitheater, the throne a perfect complement to the entity sitting upon it. Her aspect would change and blur, moving from male to female, young and old, and even the air around us all was charged with an energy that was both wise and exuberant. It felt as if youth and experience had merged with age and power to become something more, and the kitsune in me reacted to it instinctively.
This was someone to respect … and to heed.
Amaterasu had assumed the submissive position an instant later than Akomachi and I. She raised her head, although her eyes remained downcast.
“Just a simple conversation, Revered One.”
“Simple?” Inari’s aspect shifted, from old and male to young and female, and she looked down at the nine-tail with a knowing smile on her lips. “With you, Amaterasu, nothing is ever simple. For centuries, you have never met an intrigue you did not like. I heard every word you said, and if I find your feud with Akomachi affecting how we are to deal with the question in front of us, you will not like how boring your next few centuries will become. This is not about scoring points in the games you play with others. This convocation is important because it affects every kitsune, not just Akomachi’s kit.”
“But …”
The demigod’s voice remained soft and measured, but I could clearly hear an edge of disapproval. “I say what I mean. She is Akomachi’s kit until I decide she is not. If this is not true, why am I here?”
“Yes, Revered One.” Amaterasu lowered her head once more, and Inari sighed.
“Take your seat, then.”
The other vixen remained low to the ground and moved quickly to obey, taking one of the seats near the other nine-tails. I felt Inari’s attention focus on us, like a physical force, or a ray of sunlight piercing the clouds on a grey day.
“Rise and approach, Akomachi and Becca-chan. There is much to discuss.”
We both did as we were told, coming to our feet in unison and moving towards the throne. It took some time, since the space was far larger than it appeared, but eventually we had gone far enough towards him that Inari raised his hand (he had shifted back to an older male form, bald with a long beard) and stopped us.
“You are here because the story of your kit’s birth has raised questions for all kitsune, Akomachi. Your mate is missing, and you have not taken another, yet now you have a new daughter. Some of the vixens believe that you have done them a great service by finding a way to remove the tods from the process.” His eyes twinkled. “However, since I am as much male as female, I may have a more balanced view. Since the story has been passed from kitsune to kitsune, I am sure some details may have been lost. Please tell it to us all now.”
Akomachi told the tale, as she had told it before to me when our relationship began a few months ago. How she had answered a call for help and possessed a young girl who needed to be a kitsune for a time, and how her magic and mine combined to make me a true kitsune and her daughter, even as it granted her a knowledge of being human that would never pass.
Imari nodded once at the end of the tale, and turned his attention to me.
“You were human born, youngling?”
“Yes, Revered One.”
He smiled down on me. “I have always liked humans, especially human girls. So much innocence and beauty, and sometimes wisdom. Refreshing for something so young. I can also understand your need to be one, from when you were a man named Jack.” My ears flicked once, and he smiled. “Yes, I do know your history, young one. And because of my unusual nature, I can see the strengths and failings of both males and females, and understand your need to cross that line to be yourself.”
He leaned forward. “The problem that brings us all here has two parts to unravel. The first one is your existence itself. You were born human, but most other kitsune are born as foxes, who grew wise and powerful with magic in the course of time. Other kitsune are born of unions that last centuries, made with love by two committed to life together. But you claim you are a kitsune, and that this kitsune is your mother, even though you freely admit you were also human born. How is that possible?”
I looked into Inari's eyes. It wasn’t as easy as you'd think. There was an uncommon depth there, and a wisdom that touched me inside. There was also something that took my breath away – it felt like all of nature was alive behind those impossible eyes. It was like looking into the face of an impossibly tall mountain or a raging sea. If I thought too much about staring into the eyes of a demigod as powerful as this, I might have been afraid.
But as the Advocate, I had fought an ancient goddess and won not too long ago and shared a sofa with the Creator of all things a few weeks later. Things like that tend to give a girl perspective, so I took a deep breath and plunged right in.
“My human mother brought me into this world, it is true,” I said. “But Akomachi and I shared her body for a time, as I did with my human mother, just as Akomachi would have with a kit she had birthed in the usual way. When she and I parted, as I did from my human mother when I was first born, I was in a sense born anew, and became a kitsune. As a kitsune, who else would I call my mother?”
Amaterasu spoke from her seat near Inari.
"Well spoken, human. Worthy of one of us, to be honest. But any kitsune knows how easily words can be twisted to serve our needs."
“Your own words only strengthen my position, Amaterasu-sama." I smiled at her. "If I can use words as well as a kitsune, perhaps I have already proved I am truly one of you."
"What is in your heart matters more than what you say, girl,” she replied, and just the barest hint of disrespect colored her tone. "Akomachi has long wanted a kit of her own, so naturally she would wish to see you that way. But you were once only human, and are still the human’s Advocate, so your true nature and your loyalties must be tested.”
Inari raised her hand. She had become female once again during my exchange with Amaterasu, and I turned my attention to her and lowered my eyes respectfully.
“She raises an interesting question, Becca-chan. What do you feel is your true nature? Where do your loyalties lie?”
“Revered One, as the human’s Advocate, I concern myself with good and evil, that is true. But I also deal with what is right and wrong – one of the things that is most important to kitsune. When someone uses magic to make someone else not what they should be, or changes their situation without their consent, it is my job as Advocate to correct that, because it is evil to force someone to be something they are not. But I am also mindful that these actions considered evil by humans also make the victims wrong in a fundamental way, because they are not what they should be, and that offends me as a kitsune. And as a kitsune, I seek to make them right again.”
“So I know who and what I am in my heart. I am both kitsune and human, and proud of both of my heritages. I also know that Amaterasu-sama sees me as an imposter … a pretender. We both know that is only her opinion, Revered One, born of her desire to hurt Akomachi by taking her only daughter away from her. So the question you must answer … the question you must all answer … is which of us is right, and which is wrong.”
I turned to the entire assembly. “As kitsune, you can all feel the rightness and wrongness in other creatures and situations. I know how that feels, since I have felt it as a kitsune only a short time ago. I think I would know if I were wrong in what I thought I was, but I know better than to think I could know better than all of you, especially Inari. All you have heard were stories about my birth, passed from kitsune to kitsune. I would like to ask you all to look at me and my mother and answer the questions for us. Is our relationship right or wrong? Am I right or wrong, as I am? Am I human, or kitsune, or both?”
There was a pause, and all of those assembled turned towards Inari, heads cocked with what seemed to be a silent question. Inari’s eyes never left me, but she nodded. All at once I felt the power of the thousands of kitsune in the amphitheater, and it was all focused on Akomachi and I. I had asked for this, and opened myself to them, welcoming them all into my soul so they could see us as we were … and decide.
For a time I could not measure, there was stillness and silence. Then I felt the pressure ease, but the silence remained. Finally, Inari smiled and looked out to the waiting convocation.
“It is decided by all present. Even Amaterasu has agreed. Becca is right, just as she is. She is kitsune … and her mother’s daughter.”
Every kitsune in the amphitheater raises their heads and howled at the sky, as only a fox can, and an instant later, Akomachi and I joined them.
We were one … and all.
When the last cry ended and the silence returned, Inari spoke again, her attention focused this time on Akomachi.
“Since we are all agreed that Becca is truly one of us, this leads to the second reason for our coming together. You and your daughter have discovered a way to bring new kitsune into the world without a mate. How was this done?”
Akomachi and I looked at each other, and then back at Inari.
“I do not know, Revered One,” my mother replied. “Becca and I do not know exactly how it happened. We believe it was a combination of her need, the depth of my possession of her, Becca’s respect for kitsune, and her own power as the Human Advocate that made it possible.”
“There are others here whose mates have passed who would like to have kits of their own, just as you did. Can you help them?”
“We can try,” I said. “It might take some experimentation, or it may be as simple as my acting as some kind of … magical midwife, adding my power at the right moment to create the conditions needed for the transformation. But if I may …?”
Inari nodded. “Go on.”
“Not all humans are worthy of being kitsune. I would like to ask those who would wish to have a kit of their own to choose only humans deserving of the honor of becoming one of us. Kitsune are powerful magic users, and if the wrong human were to gain that power, he or she could disgrace our kind by using their ability to wreak havoc or cause mischief in our name.”
“Some of us are tricksters, Becca-chan,” Inari said, waving a hand to a corner of the amphitheater where a groups of flying kitsune spun and laughed in mid-air.
“But if I understand what it means to be kitsune, Revered One, we play tricks only to teach someone a lesson or to prove a point. It is against our nature to make things wrong and cause destruction.”
She shrugged. “A few of the nogistune, kitsune not sworn to my service, can sometimes be troublesome in that way. They delight in making mischief or choosing to seek revenge for real or imagined slights. The myobu, those who follow me, understand the value of restoring balance and maintaining the rightness of the world we share.”
I bowed my head in understanding, and Inari smiled. “Those who would wish to make a kit the way Akomachi did will find someone worthy, Becca-chan. Would you choose your child to be willful and destructive?”
“No, Revered One.”
“And the oldest of us are just as wise as you, young vixen. When they are ready, we will try to repeat what happened to you … if you are willing?”
“Of course we are willing.” I reached out and put my arm around my mother. Akomachi nodded and smiled.
“We would love to share the joy we have found with others of our kind,” she said.
“Then it is decided. This convocation will end, and another will convene when humans suitable to join us are found.” She raised her voice. “You may all leave or stay, as you wish. Those who wish to meet Becca-chan and her mother may do so now, or find them later, as you choose. Until we gather together again, remember to move quietly through the world we share with all, and also hunt always for truth and wisdom, because they are elusive prey and not easily found.”
Again, the kitsune raised their thousands of voices in howls, but this time the sounds came together to become a music unlike anything I had ever heard. As I howled with them, my voice joined the song and harmonized, guided by the calls of others.
Inari smiled, and when the music ended, she was gone.
I watched Akomachi as she greeted some of the other nine-tails near Inari’s empty throne. I had been introduced to all and was both polite and respectful, just as a dutiful daughter should be. After the formalities, Casa had allowed me to leave her and her friends as they began to talk of old times. I had changed to my fox form, since I was comfortable in it, and many of the younger kitsune here seemed to prefer it for some reason.
“I bet that was easier than you thought it would be.”
The mental voice came from behind me, and I turned my head to see Akiko sitting there, in her fox form as well.
“It was,” I replied, baring my teeth in a predator’s grin.
“Part of it was to see if you were clever enough to find the correct way to show them you were one of us, and you did.” She reached forward and nuzzled my throat affectionately, then pressed her head into my shoulder. “As if there was any doubt, after what you did with that Cat Goddess. That was a plan worthy of a kitsune with many more years of experience than you have, human or kitsune.”
“Thank you.”
“And from what I’ve been told, you do your work for the humans also in stealth, behind a disguise. Another fine kitsune trait, and I am not the only one to have noticed.”
Akiko felt my embarrassment and bit my ear playfully. “Ha! Your inner human is showing, Becca-chan!”
I looked at her, and she smiled, then butted me once with her head. “Baka! I am not saying anything you did not already know, yes?” I nodded slowly. “So why be uncomfortable about me telling a truth? You are a kitsune, and one of us, no matter what form you take. Embrace it!”
A single kitsune floated to the ground in front of us. It was mostly black with some red and white markings, and from its scent I could tell she was a vixen.
“Hello, new girl!” She pretended to be focused on cleaning a paw with her tongue as she spoke mind-to-mind, but I could feel an undercurrent of excitement radiating from her. “I’m Michiko.”
“‘I’m Michiko!’” A second vixen said, her voice a teasing imitation. A mostly white fox with black markings, she drifted down behind Michiko, then pushed her sideways with her nose. The black vixen fell over and rolled onto her back, laughing silently at the one who pushed her. In response, the second one stepped on her chest and stared down into her eyes.
“Why did you do that?” Michiko asked while she nipped at the white fox’s legs, which were just out of reach of her muzzle.
“You were acting so cool and casual, Michi-chan! Sometimes you can be such a phony! We all know how eager you’ve been for Becca-chan to answer the summons so you can meet her. Why pretend?”
“Because she didn’t know I was eager, and I wanted her to think I was cool before she learned otherwise. Besides, I can act any way I want, rude one.” The black vixen turned to face me, still smiling. “I am happy to meet you, Becca-chan.”
“The one on top of her is Hanako,” Akiko said, rubbing her body against her friend’s side as a greeting and pushing her off of Michiko in the process. “She’s always … direct.”
“No, Michiko was right.” Hanako mouthed Akiko’s ear in return as she pushed past. “I am the rude one. Akiko is just being diplomatic, as usual.”
“I am not! You never set out to hurt anyone on purpose. It just … happens.”
A red fox with markings similar to my own pounced on Hanako from behind. She twisted and snapped at the newcomer and they both rolled a few feet away, mouths open, trying for dominance. In a matter of seconds, Hanako wound up on the bottom, with the red fox’s teeth at her throat.
“Hanako thinks the simple truth is always the best course. She likes to see the world only in sharp contrasts,” the red fox said, tail jerking back and forth. “Shades of gray just get in the way, don’t they, Hana-chan?”
“Oh, you know me soooo well, Yukina.” Hanako wiggled under her, her tail wagging. “I always see the grays, but choose to ignore them, since so many others get lost in the grays and ignore the truths they hide!”
“Like old Amaterasu,” Michi-chan agreed. “The shades of gray she fell prey to were her hatreds for Becca and her mother. They made her push for a convocation so she could hurt them both, but when Inari forced her to really look at Becca, even she couldn’t deny the black and white truth. Becca-chan is one of us.”
“Me, I think the nine-tails let Amaterasu call for the convocation just to have an excuse to get back together. The chance to reunite with old, old friends.” Yukina stepped away from Hanako and stretched, raising her hindquarters high as her nose sank to the ground. “And because they were curious, naturally.”
“Curious?”
“Of course! You are something revolutionary, Becca-chan.” Yukina glided over and circled me before sitting down. “You are a true kitsune, but born in an entirely new way. After living as long as they all have, something new is a more than welcome change. Your existence also gives all the nine-tails whose mates have passed on the hope that they may one day have another kit to raise.”
Akiko smiled. “You may hide from those you hunt in the human world, Becca-chan, but here among the kitsune, you have become something of a legend.”
“And to honor that legend,” Hanako said, rolling to her feet and sitting next to Yukina, “we are going to play a game that has been beloved by humans, foxes, and kitsune since the dawn of time.”
I looked at the four of them, sitting primly in a semi-circle in front of me.
“And what game is that?”
“TAG!”
Two of the vixens bit my ears and the other two grabbed my tail, then all four leaped into the air and streaked away into the blue sky. I could hear them laughing and taunting me in the distance, urging “the legend” to follow and give chase, if she could.
So what else could I do?
I jumped up into the air … and flew as fast as I could to catch my new friends.
In the fifth chapter in the sequel to No Obligation, Becca earns an unexpected promotion and tries to explain why she does what she does to a curious kitsune. Chaos's champion comes to an understanding with her new ally, and Leander discovers why small towns may not be safer than big cities — where magic is concerned .
“I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always
think you should try everything." — Clifford Geertz
"There is this difference between genius and common
sense in a fox: Common sense is governed by circumstance,
but circumstance is governed by genius." - Josh Billings
"Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To blot out order and extinguish light."
— Alexander Pope, The Dunciad
After the other vixens and I spent what felt like an endless afternoon chasing each other through the air, I floated weightless for a while in a perfect blue sky while the others floated around me like a cluster of furry clouds. The temperature was absolutely perfect, the air was fresh and clean, and I was enjoying my extended time in my fox form when Yukina spoke, a little bit of wonder in her voice.
“Look! Becca-chan is a three-tail now!”
I opened my eyes and looked down the length of my body. Peeking up between my legs were the white tips of three tails, where there had only been one before. I spun in the air, seeing my new tails wrap themselves around me, and suppressed a surge of unexpected joy before confusion set in. I turned in mid-air to face my friends.
“How could this happen? How could I not notice two extra tails? When did they grow?”
“They did not grow, Becca-chan,” Akiko said, a hint of a smile twitching at her muzzle. “They just appeared. We are magical creatures, after all.”
“But why now? I am still so young, as a kitsune.”
“The tails do not come with time, o bakana on'nanoko.” Hanako did a slow roll, all of her paws spread. “You should know that. They appear when you have earned them, no matter how long you have existed.”
“How did I do that?”
“With what you did during the summons,” Michiko chimed in. “When you were challenged, you thought as a true kitsune and turned our ability to see when something is right and when it is wrong to your advantage. You were sure enough about yourself to put your fate in the hands of all of us, and you were not found wanting.”
“She was both confident and clever,” Yukina said to Akiko, stretching as she floated past.
Akiko nodded. “It is our way.”
“Of course, Becca-chan, you know becoming a three-tail means so much more than just the next step in your growth as a kitsune,” Hanako said, suddenly still in the air. She looked at Michiko and Yukina, and they both nodded wisely.
“What else does it mean?” I asked.
Akiko bared her teeth in a predator’s grin. “It means you have more tails for us to chase ... and bite!”
I shot upwards into the endless sky with a skulk of vixen in pursuit.
Hours later, I was floating once again, this time alone. Warm breezes caressed my fur, and everything felt perfect. Still, even as I drifted blissfully, a small voice deep inside began whispering at me about things to do and places to be, but the perfection of the moment made it easy to ignore.
Still, I fidgeted slightly, shaking my head, and a new voice spoke a few inches above my head.
“Ah, Becca-chan,” Akiko said softly. “I can see your human half tugging at you.”
I rolled over to look into her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Here, you are a three-tailed fox spirit, floating in a timeless place that exists only because Inari wills it. You have nothing to do and nowhere you need to be, because you can exist here forever, and not a single second will pass outside. For the first time ever, you are truly free. And part of you likes it, because for the first time you begin to see what it is like to be something other than human.”
I looked at her with a question in my eyes. Akiko sighed.
“As a human, you have endless responsibilities,” she explained. “But as a kitsune, you are responsible only as much as you choose to be. As a human, as the Advocate, you have sworn to fight for others against those who would prey on them to keep them safe. As kitsune, you can pick and choose your fights, for your own reasons. Or you could choose not to fight.”
She tilted her head. “As you have seen, kitsune can be selfish, but we can also choose to help. What you did for that boy and his family is an example.”
“You saw that?”
She smiled in the way only a fox can, with bared teeth and laughing eyes.
“Many of us have been watching you, Becca-chan. That was one of the ways we knew you were truly one of us. You acted as a kitsune and helped as we have helped in ages past — wisely, but with ... conditions. Still, as a kitsune, you do not have to help. Kitsune are not driven by the things humans created to compel them. Duty. Honor.”
I could feel Akiko thinking as she drifted above me.
“You need to understand where we came from. As you know, before we gained our magic, many of us were foxes. That’s what kitsune means, after all. Most of the rest of us were born to parents who had been foxes until they became kami. As animals, their goals were clearly defined. Survive. Breed. Protect their kits and their mates. Their lives as foxes depended upon stealth, and they fought only when there was no other choice.”
“When a fox becomes a creature of magic, he or she does not change overnight. We are still driven by what we knew in life. As time passes, we learn the value of having power and using it wisely.” She spun in the air to face me, and looked into my eyes. “But we never forget it is safer to choose not to use our power at all to help anyone but ourselves, and many do not.”
“Humans can choose to be selfish, too.” I began drifting towards the ground, far below, and Akiko followed me.
“True, but most of your kin embrace the concept of being a part of a society in some way, even if it is through something as small as obeying traffic laws. Foxes don’t usually gather together in large groups, but humans have an almost instinctual acceptance of the idea of community.”
We reached the ground and settled in, face to face. I wasn’t sure quite where to begin.
“Humans don’t create concepts like duty or honor,” I said slowly. “It is that ‘instinctual acceptance of community’ you talked about that makes us care. We feel we have a responsibility to help others, and we give those feelings names like duty or honor, but they’re part of us, just like they are part of fox nature, too.”
“How can that be?”
“Well, as you said, foxes understand the need to protect their kits and their mates. If you take the next step and include every fox, every kitsune, everywhere ... you would get the sense of what drives humans to care about each other.”
Akiko sat before me, our faces inches apart. I could almost feel her thinking, weighing the things we discussed behind her eyes. I gave her the time she needed, and eventually, she spoke.
“I understand protecting my mate and my kits, even though I do not have either yet,” she said. “As you said, it is part of who we are. But to include all kitsune, everywhere? I saw it in both you and your mother when you volunteered to help others have kits of their own. But when I try to move in my mind towards a community of kitsune? I cannot grasp it.”
It was my turn to think.
“When my mother and I were one, for a time,” I replied, “she gained a deeper knowledge of what it means to be human. And as a kitsune, she has the power to help others of her kind. So perhaps her newfound understanding of what it means to be human makes her want to help as well.”
Akiko nodded. “I see. To fully understand, I would need to do what she did. Join with a human.”
“Yes, but that is a very big step, and you must choose who you join with wisely.” I spoke softly as I thought about the problem. “After all, not all humans understand the value of community.”
“There is another way.” Her nose wrinkled, and her lip twitched. “I could join with you.”
“Like what Akomachi did with me?”
“It is not nearly as deep as possession,” she replied. “But between kitsune, the bond is deep enough to let me experience how you think about community, even when you are one of us. With that taste, I can understand what drives you.”
“You need to think about this carefully. My ‘idea of community’ extends beyond humans alone, or even just humans and kitsune. All thinking creatures deserve my help, if I can give it.” I touched her nose with mine. “Are you sure you want my sense of obligation resting in your head?”
“All thinking creatures?” I nodded, and I could see her grow uneasy. “I would have to help all species, not just my own?”
“It doesn’t work that way. You choose who to help and who to ignore, remember?
Akiko turned away and began to pace, her own three tails twitching behind her.
“But I know you,” she said as she paced. “You don’t choose to ignore anybody. You just help, don’t you?”
“If I can,” I replied, watching her pace. “It gets harder not to help when you know you could, at least for me.”
After a minute, she stopped and looked over her shoulder.
“This decision is much too important to be made quickly.” Akiko tilted her head, and then shook it, like she had a fly in her ear. “Kitsune do not like obligations as a rule, but your need to help seems to be a part of both sides of you now. Learning more could change who I am ... in ways I may not wish to change.”
“Learning is like that.” I grinned, walked over to her, and nudged her gently. “We have centuries, Akiko-chan. Take your time. Talk to some of the others. And come visit if you’d like.”
“As for me, I need to get back to work. Akomachi has already left, and too much vacation makes me worry about what’s going on back home.”
“Nothing is going on at home, Becca,” Akiko said. She grinned, her mouth open with teeth bared. “No time has passed out there ... none at all.”
“In my experience, trouble always finds a way to overcome most obstacles.” I smiled back at her and touched her nose with mine. “Including when time stands still.”
With a leap, I flew upwards and performed a perfect barrel roll.
“Sayonara, my friend!”
Beyers stood in the alley, staring at nothing. She concentrated on reaching out to the Chaos magic she had been given and ... what, exactly? Talk with it? Negotiate? She had always used magic directly, as a tool to exert her will. Chaos magic seemed to be more like summoning a demon to do your bidding. It may or may not cooperate, depending on whether your goals and its goals were the same.
From out of the silence, a voice rose, swirling out of the background noise.
"You would call me a demon?”
The mage swallowed, and mentally stepped back.
"You haven't exactly been behaving like an ally. You may not be a demon, but you're behaving like one."
"I am a servant of Chaos.”
“As am I, and Chaos gave you to me to help me. Why do you fight me instead?
“Not instead, as well. I helped you, then hindered you by obeying instructions randomly, words or intent or both, on a whim.” The voice oozed satisfaction. “Much fun. Very … satisfying.
“This cannot continue,” Beyers said, a slight edge creeping into his tone. “We have a common goal, you and I — a powerful enemy to fight for your Master.”
“Then we will fight it as servants of Chaos always fight, alone. You will fight your way, and I will fight as I choose.”
“No, that’s not right!” The mage felt control of the conversation slipping away. “This body is weak and has no magic of its own. You were supposed to be my magic, my weapon, to work for me and with me.”
“No. Impossible. Cooperation breeds order.”
Beyers shook his head. “Not always. Many can work together to destroy as well as create”
“Many do, but they work together … alone.” The voice seemed agitated, almost frustrated. “Human, I cannot help you. It may seem to you I can make choices, but if it does, it is an illusion. The urges that drive my actions come from out of the darkness that is Chaos. I cooperate or compete with no thought of the past or future, consequences or regrets.”
Thinking quickly, the mage began to put together the framework of an idea. “The enemy Chaos wants us to fight serves order, while you and I serve Chaos. Chaos chose me because I can create plans to achieve a goal, even a chaotic one. Chaos brought us together to act on His behalf. Since I can plan and you cannot, our cooperation ensure success.”
“How is that possible?” The voice seemed almost anguished, twisted by the pain of having to make a choice — any choice. “How can we work together?”
Beyers spoke slowly, giving the magic a chance to process the train of thought. “Chaos directs you to attack, and you attack, using your power to create chaos. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“So, why not do what you have always done? Obey!”
“Obey?”
“Yes!” The mage smiled. “After all, Chaos gave you to me. Why not obey me as you would obey Him? I will find targets for you — the obstacles that keep us from achieving His goals — and you can be as chaotic as your nature requires when attacking them. Together we will do what Chaos needs us to do … for Him.”
Beyers held her breath and waited as the Chaos magic considered her words. The silence stretched for one minute, then two, and then …
“What is your will … Mistress?”
I reappeared in the bedroom I shared with Heather. It was early morning, still dark outside, and no real time had passed since Akomachi and I had left for the convocation. Still, my subjective time as a kitsune had made my fox form feel normal to me, and being human again was … awkward.
For a few seconds, I found myself balancing on my toes, my hands outstretched. I missed my tail …tails. Stifling a giggle, I kept my eyes closed until I could lower my heels to the floor, and then slowly brought my hands down to my sides. I took several deep breaths through my nose, and then shook my whole body like a dog coming in from a rainstorm.
Then I froze, concentrated, and reached inside myself to remember who I had been, and who I had become. The universe twisted, just for a moment …
… and I felt human again. Or at least as human as a half-kitsune can get and still look at herself in a mirror with pride.
‘One thing’s for sure,’ I thought with a grin. ‘Straddling this culture line is going to be a bitch.’
I slipped on a nightgown, climbed into bed, and tried to get a few more hours of sleep before I had to get up for school.
The key word in that last sentence, boys and girls, was “tried.”
I was hip-deep in REM sleep an hour later when I felt something intangible force tugging at my soul, dragging me out of a dream and into a wakefulness that was as sudden as it was absolute.
Something was very, very wrong.
“Evans Falls, Indiana, milady.” Leander’s voice in my head was sharp and clear. “I came ahead to assess the situation before waking you.”
“What’s happening?”
“Magic of unknown origin and type has been used to transform parts of the town, and harm several individuals.”
“Is the source of that magic still present?”
“I do not believe so. If it is still here, it is carefully hidden. All I can find is what it has left behind.” There was a small pause. “I am sorry, Becca. I did not wish to disturb you, but this town needs your help. I have not completely mastered undoing the spells of others, and this particular magic is … troubling.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there as soon as I’m dressed.”
I materialized next to Leander, hovering a few feet off the ground. I had chosen to wear what I planned to wear to school that morning — blue jeans, a light blue long-sleeved tee with a dark blue sweater over it, and white sneakers. My hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that trailed down my back, but bared my ears so my fox earrings glinted in the glow of the street lamps. Evans Falls was still dark, thanks to time zones, and the winter’s cold made me realize I should have brought a jacket.
Even as the thought crossed my mind, Leander handed me the coat I had left in the hall closet.
“I took the liberty, Becca,” she said as I shrugged into it. “You couldn’t know how cold it was.”
"Thank you. I keep forgetting that women feel the cold more than men do.”
"It's my job to protect you," she replied with a smile, "even against the elements, n'est pas?"
I smiled back, and glanced towards the town.
“Why did this magic trouble you?”
“Because it is unlike every other magic we’ve ever encountered.” Leander started towards the town, and I fell into step beside her. “Each spell is different, as if cast by someone using a totally unique school of magic. And the spells don’t seem to be connected, except that they feel ... completely different from each other. Does that make sense?”
“It might.” I had a theory, but I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want it to be right.
As we walked towards the center of town, I began to feel what I could only describe as a haze of conflicted magics surrounding us. I felt as if the air around me started to become heavier, and moving forward quickly became a chore. A quick glance at Leander showed that she was having the same trouble I was, and I stopped and leaned into her.
"It's either attracted to us and weighing us down by attaching itself to us somehow," I said softly, "or it's some kind of ambient magic residue from whatever happened here, getting in our way.”
"The latter, I think," Leander replied. "When I first arrived, something didn’t feel quite right, so I approached slowly and flew over the center of town. Some of the things I saw were massive manipulations of the reality we know. Transformations that large could easily have produced massive amounts of loose magic.”
“It would have to have been caused by someone with a lot of power to spare.” I put my hand out and felt the variety of magical energies around me. “Or maybe a group of magic users wandered through, each using a different spell to do something completely random, but limited in scope.”
“Or perhaps not so limited.” Leander pointed ahead. “Look.”’
Evans Falls was one of those towns that grew around a single road where all of its central services and stores were located. Predictably, it was called Main Street. Even though there were modern touches here and there, I could tell by the buildings that this town was old, roughly a hundred fifty years, give or take a decade. You could drop Aunt Bea from the old Andy Griffith Show into the center of town, and she'd feel right at home.
If she didn't notice the giant cupcake where the town's water tower used to be.
The first thing I noticed were the birds taking turns diving down and picking off pieces of the cake from around the edges. Several unlucky crows had accidentally landed in the vanilla frosting, and it had coated their wings and made it impossible for them to take off. Their plaintive cries only serves to make the scene even more strange, and I reached up and transported them to the ground near the fountain in front of the town hall, where they could at least try to get their feathers clean.
The town hall looked untouched at first, but then I noticed the bricks were not the usual red, but a dark tan, almost brown. The mortar that held them in place was a bright white. I looked over at Leander.
“Gingerbread?”
“Oui, pain d’épices.”
In front of the building was a giant Gingerbread man, about six foot tall. The expression on his face was a mixture of shock and horror, and drawn in white icing on his flat cookie body was a childish caricature of a police uniform.
I reached out with my magic to see if he was still alive somehow, and was rewarded with a wave of panic that felt like claustrophobia magnified a thousandfold. His soul was trapped inside the cookie his body had become, unable to move, talk, or even breathe, but still experiencing every minute. It was either profoundly sick in a "let's torture the mundane" sort of way, or whoever did this didn't give a damn whether someone was hurt or not. Either way, he or she was dangerous, and needed to be stopped.
I took a deep breath, and pulled a touch of the magic into me to try and analyze it. It was one of the skills I gained when I became the Advocate — the ability to reverse engineer spells cast by others — but as I felt my way through the spell, I wasn’t sure whether that particular skill would help me or not. The patterns were wild and twisted, like no other magic I'd ever encountered before. The spell worked its way through reality like a rope made from a thousand strands of DNA, each with its own unique code. At the same time, the rope felt more like a vine — not deliberately braided to a set pattern, but grown in an almost organic way, without thought.
That single touch told me my initial theory was correct, and my life had just become a hell of a lot more difficult.
Chaos had chosen a champion.
There was no simple way to untangle this spell, not from what I had seen so far. I needed to learn more about how it was made, so I pushed myself deeper into the magic. When I touched the panicking soul inside the hell his body had become, it wrapped itself around me and held me tight. If he was drowning and I was a lifeguard, we’d probably both be dead. As it was, I pushed as much reassurance through our connection as I could, and when he was calm enough, the questions began.
[who are you?]
[I am the Advocate. Think of me as search and rescue for people harmed by magic. I’m here to help.]
[I can’t move! I can't breathe! How the hell am I still alive?]
[Magic works with different rules. I know it's terrifying, but trust me, it’s a good thing. Since you’re still alive, I may be able to undo this and bring you back.]
I felt his hope rise and surround me. [can you really … help me?]
[I should be able to, but I’ll need to concentrate. So keep calm and let me see what I can do, okay?]
I reached out to Leander with my mind. “Watch my back. I am going to need to focus.”
“Understood, milady.”
I sank deeper into the spell, searching for the spell caster’s unique magic signature, but found nothing. At the surface level, everything appeared totally random, and yet was tightly woven and incredibly strong. This was such a massive contradiction, since the strength of anything built, magical or mundane, depends heavily on structure. So how did this particular caster create such a strong spell randomly?
I drew back, exhausted, and took a moment to reflect. The streetlights on Main Street had all become giant torches made of rough wood and cast iron, like in a medieval castle, but they burned continuously, obviously fueled by magic. I relayed my observations about the spell to Leander, and she tilted her head as she thought.
“The spell may appear strong,” she said, thinking out loud, “but creating anything that is meant to bind another in a random way must create flaws, and the flaws must become weak points.”
I nodded. “A diamond can be cut by looking deep into the stone, finding where its flaws are, and applying focused pressure to use them against the stone. You think I can do this with the spell?”
Leander gave a shrug that betrayed her French upbringing. “It is a plan of attack, milady.”
“And a good one.” I smiled up at her. “Wish me luck, I’m going in.”
“Bonne chance, Becca.”
I sent my magical perception into the Gingerbread man, this time ignoring the spell’s surface layers completely and pushing deep into the core of the enchantment. In the depths, I paused and slowly began to trace the spell’s base elements with my own magic, searching for the flaws I knew had to be in here, somewhere. I stretched myself thinner, and then thinner still, until I felt it.
A weak spot.
The caster’s magic had tried to protect itself, but it also knew that too much protection would have called attention to them, I gathered myself around that spot, then pulled back to see other places like it, scattered all around the core of the spell. With a powerful thought, I struck at the closest weakness, severing it and causing the core to begin to unravel. As the unraveling met other weak spots, I watched them snap of their own accord, and I pulled my perception back quickly as the entire spell collapsed under the weight of its own external strength.
The gingerbread man trembled, then seemed to melt into a three-dimensional form before resolving itself into a police officer. As we watched, however, the effect went further, leaping across to the town hall and undoing the same effect on it as well.
“Both spells must have been invoked at the same time,” I said, “so breaking the one actually broke both.”
The officer took a deep breath, then another. He smiled.
“I’ll never take breathing for granted again.” The officer reached out and shook my hand. “Thank you, Advocate. I’m Dave Brent.”
“You’re welcome, Dave,” I replied, giving his hand a squeeze. “This is my associate, Leander.”
She nodded at him, and I continued. “Unfortunately, our job’s not done yet. As you can see, the rest of Main Street and possibly the town has been hit as well. We have some work to do before the rest of the people wake up. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay close, try to calm anyone who might stumble over what’s been done.”
“You got it,” he said with a grin. “Happy to be doing my job again.”
Some of the buildings in the center of town had become two-dimensional, with windows and doors seemingly painted on a flat canvas. Others were still three-dimensional, but almost cartoonish. It didn’t look like it would take much to undo, until I saw motion at the end of the block.
A cow the size of a small panel truck wandered towards us, each step making the ground shake slightly.
Leander looked at me. “A giant cow?”
I shrugged. “It’s early morning. Maybe it used to be a milk truck?”
As it passed us, I could hear a muffled screaming coming from inside, and put the pieces together. “There’s someone trapped in there!”
“Probably the driver,” Leander said, moving toward the gigantic bovine. She tried to put her hand on its side, apparently to reassure whoever was inside, but the magic pushed her away. The harder she tried to touch the cow, the harder it became to reach. Oblivious, the cow stopped and continued to chew, bored disinterest reflected in its eyes.
"The spell changed the truck, but not the driver. Why?”
“Can you undo it, milady?”
“I untangled the last spell by going deep and finding a buried flaw. This cow is shielded somehow, so I can’t even touch it.”
Leander kept pushing at the shielding around it. “Why is the cow shielded when the building and Officer Brent were not?”
“Because whatever did this tried to turn the truck into a living thing.” I walked slowly around the cow, testing its barriers with my fingertips. “And that would be impossible for a creature of Chaos in our reality.”
Leander looked up at that. “Chaos has chosen its champion?” I nodded, and I watched as facts organized themselves behind her eyes.
“In this universe, Chaos cannot create life, since life itself reverses entropy,” she said, thinking out loud. “But this cow was shaped by pure chaos, and it refused to be denied. The result is a living contradiction — a paradox made flesh. Organized chaos.”
I nodded. “Exactly. But to do that here, it had to surround the cow with a wall that separates it from our reality. The cow has to exist in its own pocket dimension, or Chaos could not have created it.”
“So how do we get past the wall?”
“You were a warlord, five hundred years ago.” I grinned at her. “The tactics haven’t changed. How would you get past a wall?”
“Only three ways come to mind,” she replied, staring at the cow. “Over it, under it, or through it. And since the first two are clearly impossible, given that the castle we must overcome is a cow, we must employ the third.”
Leander stood back and drew her sword, but hesitated. Then she spoke, directly to the sword.
“Allaku, you are the strongest, most powerful weapon ever forged by magic.” The sword glowed brighter, and my champion nodded. “I would use you to break through this wall and free this man from his imprisonment inside this living nightmare, but there is a risk. When the wall is destroyed, encountering the chaos within could destroy you.”
Dave moved closer to me. “Is she talking to her sword?”
I shrugged. “It’s a complicated relationship.”
There were a few seconds of silence, then I heard a deep voice through my telepathic link to Leander.
‘Your concern for me is understandable, champion, but do not fear. Use me as you will. The wall will fall. I will survive.’
Leander nodded, then stood with the sword held high, both hands on the hilt. Officer Brent and I stood back, and she swung Allaku directly at its head.
There was a bright flash and a rush of wind that pushed us all back, followed by an instant of almost painful clarity that roared past us into the void where the cow once stood. And there in its place was a large white milk truck, as fit had always been there and always would. Kneeling between the front seats, a man in a milk company uniform was gasping for air. I cast a veil of invisibility on Leander and myself while Brent stepped forward.
“Hey, Jerry,” he said, using the ‘can I help you’ voice they teach at the police academy. “Are you okay?”
“Morning, Dave.” Jerry shook his head and pulled himself upright with a hand on the driver’s seat. “I just had a hell of a nightmare.”
“You sure did, and in the middle of Main Street.”
Jerry looked around. “Damn, I didn’t nod off while I was driving, did I?”
Dave smiled and shook his head. “No, you stopped the truck first and put it in park. It would have been better if you’d pulled over, too, but I’ll let it go because at least you had the sense to stop — and it’s not like anyone else is likely to be driving through the middle of town when you’re making deliveries, right?”
Jerry nodded, still looking sheepish. The police officer leaned towards him, and in a softer voice said, “But falling asleep like that isn’t normal. You might want to have Doc Phillips take a look at you, just to be safe.”
“Will do, Dave. Thanks for the help.” The milk man turned the key, started the engine, and shifted his truck into gear. we all watched him drive off to his next stop.
Leander looked at the sword, still in her hand. “How did you know you would not be harmed?”
‘When building something, order is always stronger than chaos.’ I heard the answer through our telepathic link. Allaku sounded almost smug. ‘But this spell was so fragile, it had to be protected by a wall of chaos just to keep reality from destroying it. When I breached the wall, the sheer weight of reality rushed in and crushed the spell, restoring the cow to its original form.’
I reached out with my power and touched everything in the town that had been changed. Although every spell used a different approach, none of them were like the spell on the milk truck. And nothing else that had been changed presented itself as a living thing.
“Leander?”
“Yes, milady?”
I watched the truck continue on its route. “Maybe Dave survived being turned to gingerbread because life is the very opposite of chaos. Whoever cast the spell clearly tried to kill him with magic, but his essence remained, even if it was trapped.”
Leander sheathed Allaku, concentrated for a few seconds, and then lifted into the air, her arms outstretched.
“Perhaps,” she replied, “but this is a conversation for another time. I can feel the town beginning to awaken. We should be as quick as we can, yes?”
“Agreed. You restore the water tower and I’ll deal with the torches. Whoever finishes first will continue down Main Street, fixing things until everything is as it once was.” She nodded and flew off towards the tower. I turned to our police escort.
“Officer Brent, can you go down to where the changes end and block off Main Street for a while, until we can finish?”
He touched the brim of his cap. “Sure thing, miss. You just let me know when you’re finished. And … thanks again.”
“No thanks needed, Dave. I’m happy we were here to help.”
Byers stood a long way off, watching the activities through a pair of high-powered binoculars she had liberated from a hunting store on Main Street. She had a suitcase full of clothes beside her, also stolen from a woman’s wear shop near the town hall. It took far too long for her to find suitable things for her to wear. Everything was too tight or bagged and sagged in the wrong places.
‘Apparently there is no middle ground with women’s clothing,’ she thought. ‘Either you wear things that cling to you like a drunken sailor clings to a whore after months at sea, or you look like a child dressed in her mother’s cast-offs. Pitiful.’
Choosing to look well put together had resulted in Byer’s new body being far too much on display for her tastes, but it was a better alternative than asking Chaos’s minion to dress her. At least her breasts were somewhat under control at the moment, although she had grumbled at the wasted time it took to find appropriate undergarments to tame them. Fitting herself for a bra had been a tiresome exercise, since the sizing system seemed to be a mystery cryptographers would have welcomed as a fine puzzle for a lazy Sunday morning.
Still, she had to admit the cursed thing did make her feel less like her own chest would choose to fight for the other side the next time she needed to engage her enemy.
And speaking of her enemy …
She watched the two of them undo a few of the things she had done, and saw how much time it took. Although she couldn’t make out much detail, they seemed to be the same two women who had caused her downfall in Las Vegas. She knew they were extremely powerful, but it appeared chaos magic challenged them, made them slow. Good.
Enslaving them both was going to be ... fun.
This long-awaited sixth chapter in the sequel to No Obligation holds a few unexpected meetings, surprising discoveries, and a welcome rescue from the horrors of higher mathematics.
“The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1
“All the great things are simple, and
many can be expressed in a single word:
freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”
— Winston Churchill
“A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.”
— Pope Francis
I was home in time to make it down to breakfast without anyone noticing my absence, except for Heather of course. She covered for me at the breakfast table, as sisters often do, and as we waited for the bus to school that morning, I filled her in on everything that had happened the previous night.
“Three tails?” Heather shook her head, keeping an eye on my brother the entire time. Not just because she loved him, but because this wasn’t a conversation either of us wanted to share. “I was just getting used to you having one once in a while. What does that feel like?”
“Strangely enough, it feels completely natural,” I replied, “although I’m not sure how they work, exactly. When I was there, I didn’t even think to look at how they were … connected? Attached? Part of me feels a little embarrassed about checking out that part of my anatomy, even though the kitsune inside me can’t figure out why the human is embarrassed at what is, after all, just a part of her.”
“And the chaos thing in Evans Falls?”
“I think Chao’s new champion needed to try out his or her power, and the town was a soft target.”
The bus pulled up, and we began moving towards the still-opening door.
“But why there?” Heather lowered her voice as we got closer to other students. “There are a lot of small towns out there, Becca. Why choose that one to play with?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a fair question.” She left me to sit with Jeremy, and I sat down in an empty seat, wondering what had happened to Amy. I started thinking about why that name of that town sounded so familiar. Where had I heard it before?
Just before the bus doors closed, Amy pounded up the stairs and pulled up short just before slamming into the bus driver. I caught her eye and smiled, and she made her way down the center aisle as the bus pulled away from the curb.
“Hey, Ames!” She threw herself into the seat next to me and pushed some hair out of her face.
“Hey, Becca! Hi, Heather!”
“Why so late? If there was a Miss Punctuality contest, you’d be wearing a tiara every day.”
“Funny! No, I just slept through the alarm. Weird dreams all night long. Not nightmares, exactly, just … odd.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why.”
“What kind of dreams? What was so odd about them?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” she replied. “In fact, I barely remember them. There were a few glimpses of flying foxes, and a small town at night, lit by giant torches. A gingerbread man and a giant cow. Other than that, it all sort of blurs together.”
Behind her back, Heather shot me a questioning look. I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“How could she do that?” she asked mentally.
“Some kind of magical leakage,” I replied. “Or maybe it’s a hidden talent that’s just begun to manifest.”
Heather thought for a moment. “Maybe it’s because she hangs with you? Could powerful magic be sorta like radiation?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll ask Mrs. Graymalkin.” I snuck a look at Amy as she looked out the windows on the other side of the bus.
“If she has skills, she could be part of the team.” I could hear the excitement in Heather’s mental voice.
“We’ll keep our eyes open, but I’d like to keep her out of the fight if we can.”
“Why?”
“The problem with building an army of friends is that eventually you’ll have to take them with you into battle.” I sighed. “And when armies go to war, soldiers die.”
“Is that why you keep what you do away from the rest of the family?”
I sighed. “Part of it. Would you put Jeremy in a magical conflict if you could avoid it?”
The bus pulled into the school, and everyone rose from their seat and headed for the door. I started to try and filter into the line when my purse slipped off of my shoulder and fell onto the bus floor. A few things spilled out, and I went to pick them up. By the time my bag was back where it belonged, almost everyone was off the bus, and I was the last person in line to leave.
I took the steps carefully, but when it came time for me to step onto the pavement …
… I found myself falling forward, tumbling down through a vast empty space, plummeting from an incredibly ridiculous height towards a floor that I knew would feel just as hard as it looked when I connected.
If I connected. Which, of course, I wouldn’t. After all, what kind of magical super girl would I be to just go splat after an entrance like that?
With a touch of concentration, I turned the tumbling into a controlled fall — my legs together, my arms outstretched and my hair streaming up behind me. My magic lifted me and slowed my descent, and eventually my toes brushed the rock floor and my feet settled, taking the weight of my body as they were designed to do. I wound up in a crouch with my hands up and fingers spread, ready to throw whatever I had at whoever brought me here.
Then I saw the smile.
Like the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland, the teeth appeared out of the darkness, and I suddenly knew where I was and who had taken me.
araNyamArjAra.
She was an ancient Cat Goddess, and my first real test as the Advocate. She had taken a group of teenagers to remake them as her children, and I had to get them back. This involved a personal duel that earned her respect and convinced her that humans were more than they appeared to be. In the end, we parted amicably — not exactly friends, but no longer enemies. I rose slowly to a standing position, as she moved forward into the shaft of light that came from above.
“Greetings, Advocate,” she purred at me. She sat on her haunches, her head tilted to one side, and looked at me through cat eyes in an overly large human face.
“I greet you, araNyamArjAra,” I replied. “This is an … unexpected pleasure, to be sure. Although my entry into your domain was a significant part of the surprise.”
“I have learned of something your human world calls nostalgia. Fond memories.” She smiled at me again. “I wished to evoke your memories of when we first met.”
‘When she snatched me from my home without warning,’ I thought, keeping myself well shielded. ‘I remember very nearly getting killed before I pretended to be a kitsune and accidentally bonded with Akomachi. Yes, fond memories.’
“Thank you for the thought,” I said diplomatically, giving her a smile in return. “What brings us together today, goddess?”
“I need your help.”
‘If I knew how, I’d raise an eyebrow. Not a very diplomatic response, but still something to look into. Maybe there’s a spell …’
Aloud I said “Of course I will help if I can, but I’m not sure what I can do. How can I help you, exactly?”
“As a teacher,” she replied, “as you have done in the past. I need to understand the concept of mercy.”
“I am not exactly an expert, goddess.”
She laughed, then, and shook her head. “Still so modest, and polite. Rare qualities for one with such power.”
“I try to keep who I am apart from what I can do,” I replied. “My magic is a tool, a means to an end, that’s all. Understanding that keeps me in control of the power, as opposed to the power controlling me.”
araNyamArjAra smiled. “That kind of wisdom is the reason I brought you to me today. After you won our duel, you could have taken my life or trapped me as a human girl. You did neither. Instead, you showed me that I still had all of my power and allowed me to use it. Then you restored my true form, even though you were not obligated to do so. I believe you know more about mercy than you think, Advocate.”
“Perhaps.” I nodded slightly, acknowledging her train of thought.
“I have been thinking of those pain demons, the ones who betrayed me.” She looked at me, her face emotionless again. “When I punished them, I acted out of anger and created an eternal hell for each of them. After … considering how you treated me, and my own regret at how I had treated your champion, Leander, I began to wonder if I should have been more … merciful?”
“Are you asking me, araNyamArjAra, or yourself?”
“Both. As a human who has shown me mercy, you are the closest thing I have to an expert on the subject. I took human children under your protection and turned them against the people they loved, intending to make them mine. Was mercy an appropriate response to the crimes I committed against your people?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There was no reason to punish you for a mistake. You thought you were giving those girls a gift. You believed humans were weak — easily defeated, manipulated or controlled. I showed you that we were better than you thought. As a result, you agreed to show us the respect powerful beings owe to each other as a courtesy. I chose to do the same.”
It was my turn to smile. “And of course, it is always better to make a friend than it is an enemy.”
The expression on her face never changed, but I sensed her thinking about what I had said. “And what of the demons who feed on pain? In your judgment, was what I did to them ... wrong?”
I shrugged. “It was a different situation. They tried to destroy you after agreeing to protect you. They all broke their word, so they deserved to be punished.”
She kept looking at me, and I sighed.
“But yes, I think it was wrong. When it happened, I still had a grudge against the pain eaters, so I didn’t think much about it. But even before you punished them, I was starting to believe that anything that thinks and feels has the capacity to learn from its mistakes, goddess, even magical creatures like the pain eaters. You took that possibility away from them, just as you did with Leander. By putting each of them in a position from which they can never escape, you made the ability to learn and grow impossible. They can never be better than they were before, or are now.”
The Cat Goddess looked away, and I could feel her discomfort even as she tried to hide it. “What do you think I should have done? What do you think I should do?”
I pretended to think for a moment, although I already had an answer I thought she might like.
“Well, there is something you might try …”
I took that last step to the ground beside the bus and continued to move forward as if everything was as it should have been.
Heather grabbed my arm.
“What?”
She leaned over and whispered in my ear. “What happened to you?”
I could hear the tension in her voice. “The Cat Goddess wanted a word.”
“I could feel reality blur around you for an instant,” she said, “and even though it was so short that no one else noticed, I was still worried.”
“I love you too, Heather,” I replied, giving her a hug while we walked. “But stuff like this is going to happen from time to time. It’s probably part of the job description, if one was written down somewhere.”
“Maybe.” She leaned into my hug and sighed. “But you’re the first person who ever gave a damn about me. Just thinking you might be taken away without a warning and never come back … I don’t know if I can not worry about you when you disappear like that.”
I stopped and turned her to face me.
“Listen,” I said softly. “You know I’ll do my best to always come back, no matter what. That’s all I can offer, and I think it’s pretty good as guarantees go. So far, I haven’t run into anything I can’t handle.”
She nodded, and I continued. “But if, one day, my best isn’t good enough, I’m going to need you and Leander to defend the people we love, and maybe even the rest of the world. You need to have faith in me, and in yourself, because a lot of people are counting on us both. Okay?”
Heather thought for a second, and I could feel the tension in her shoulders ease.
“I’ll try,” she replied. “And like you always say, I’ll do my best ‘cause it’s the best I can do. But I don’t know if you get that most people aren’t like you. We don’t have your … I don’t know what it is. The thing that makes you keep going.”
We started walking again towards the school, still hugging.
“It’s just optimism, really. I refuse to admit that an intelligent person can’t find a way to win, if he or she thinks hard enough. Watched too much MacGyver as a kid, I guess.”
“MacGyver? Oh, wait, that guy with the mullet and the nice smile from the eighties?”
“Yeah, the one with the Swiss Army knife. They ran it a lot on cable for a while. One of the streaming services has it now, I think.”
‘Of course, when I first watched it, it was in first-run syndication,’ I thought, ‘but Heather never has to know that.’
“Whenever he got into a tight spot, he used his head to get out, along with whatever was around.” We walked into the school and down the hall towards our homerooms. “I think it’s part of what makes us human, and why we survived when other species didn’t.”
When we reached my locker, I started spinning the dial. “Cheetahs are faster, gorillas are stronger. Dolphins can swim … well, like a fish. Talented mammals.” I grinned, popped the door open, and took out a few books.
“I think humans are just like Swiss Army knives. We’re flexible, with the tools to handle situations with more than instinct and luck. Plus, we care enough about other humans to put ourselves in danger for them. I’d like to see a cheetah do that for another cheetah.”
“Not everybody does that,” Heather countered.
“True.” I shrugged and slammed the door shut. “Humans aren’t perfect. I never thought they were.”
“But after everything you’ve seen, how can put yourself out there the way you do? How can you still believe people are worth saving?”
“I have to. I am one, remember? If all humans suck, then so do I, and I’m not willing to admit that yet. So I’ve got to give everybody the benefit of the doubt.” We started walking again.
“Besides, look at you. Underneath all the anger and fear you used to carry around when you were Hunter, you were really a good person. You just needed a little saving, and a little love, and now here you are, helping me save others instead of hurting them to ease the pain.”
Heather stopped short, and her jaw dropped, just for an instant. I had to giggle, and when she heard that, her mouth snapped shut and formed a perfect pout.
“Sometimes, I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” I threw back over my shoulder as I walked through my homeroom door. “Not ever. And I love you too.”
“So, Chaos has chosen a champion. Not unexpected, but surprisingly efficient for a being dedicated to confusion and anarchy.”
Mrs. Graymalkin talked as Heather and I stretched that afternoon in her studio. I could almost hear her thinking through the ramifications of that statement.
“I do wonder how He chose this individual.”
“For … strong … magical ability?” For some reason, stretching took more effort than usual, but my mind was more on conversation than exercise. “That would be the logical way, but we both know Chaos shouldn’t be using logic at all.”
“That is true, Becca,” my teacher responded. “Under normal circumstances, a strong mage would be a formidable foe. But for Chaos, choosing a strong magic user would be a hindrance rather than a help.”
“Because Chaos magic is different,” I said. “It’s based on discord randomly woven into complex spells instead of a well-established structure.”
She nodded, a touch surprised. I shrugged. “I learned that in Evans Falls. It made each spell stronger and harder to undo at first, but even chaotically woven spells fall into patterns based on the world in which they are cast. By the time we were finished fixing what had been done, I became much faster finding the essential flaw in each spell.”
“Still, I can’t see Chaos choosing someone with random, chaotic thoughts to do His bidding.” Mrs. Graymalkin motioned for both of us to rise. “He could never be sure an insane Champion would work towards his goals.”
“Maybe He is counting on it, ma’am” Heather said, taking her position next to me. “I remember hearing about a chess master who lost to a brand new player because the newbie didn’t really know what he was doing. He knew how all the pieces moved, but not how to use them to play to win. The master didn’t know his opponent was new and kept trying to find a plan that wasn’t there. Maybe Chaos thinks Becca will be less able to fight someone if everything they do comes outta nowhere.”
“Out of, dear,” the teacher admonished as she walked around us, checking our posture. “Not ‘outta.’ The colloquial contraction may be more expedient, but enunciating properly helps others see how smart a young woman you are. And that observation of yours was very intelligent indeed.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Heather blushed.
“Still, I don’t believe Chaos would choose a Champion that had nothing to offer but the same unpredictability He already possesses.” Mrs. Graymalkin pursed her lips, then shook her head. “I am sorry, child, but I can’t see it.”
“I agree,” I said, walking it through in my mind. “I think He chose the opposite of an insane newcomer. He chose His Champion to give Him something He doesn’t have — knowledge of how we play the game to win. To Him, strategy is alien, an undiscovered country. Also, He is nothing if not contrary. He chose a grand master because it’s the exact opposite of what He should do as Chaos.”
“He chose an organized thinker to be true to His nature? To be … chaotic by choosing order?” Mrs. Graymalkin smiled. “Be careful, Becca. You’re starting to think like Him.”
I shrugged. “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
“Sun Tzu.” The older woman thought for a moment. “It is true, as far as it goes, but keep in mind the strategist also put knowing yourself before knowing your enemy. Often, people fall to overcome a challenge because they either overestimate their skills or doubt their abilities and motives.”
“Or they miss something they could have done that was staring them in the face the whole time,” I replied. thinking of the Cat Goddess and our conversation that morning.
“Also true, Becca. However, let us turn our minds to lighter pursuits. Today we will be exploring jazz dance …”
The little girl huddled under her covers after her parents had tucked her in. That’s how it had been ever since she arrived in Nairobi months ago. It had been months now, but even now she couldn’t sleep without a night light. Every time she tried, all of the many horrors her new brain could imagine would come slithering out of every shadow. She would often cover her face with a pillow and scream into it to keep anyone from hearing. The new girl did not want to maker her human parents angry, because she was afraid they would grow tired of being supportive and toss her into the street or the foster system.
‘Just another thing to be afraid of, to add to everything else in this miserable life,’ she thought, trembling at the idea of being alone in the darkened streets, prey for humans and demons alike. She shivered as visions of the many dangerous creatures she had met over the centuries rose up to taunt her.
‘Breaking an oath to a goddess ... What was I thinking?’ She had lost track of how many times she had regretted what she had done. ‘If I had known what was waiting ... how powerful she still was after she was changed, I would never have thrown in with my brothers, and would never have found myself here, like this.’
A lion roared in the Nairobi National Park, many miles away from her home, and the girl froze, imagining her fragile human body being ripped apart by the giant cat. When nothing pounced on her from the dark corner where her night light couldn’t reach, she slowly relaxed.
‘I don’t think I can bear too many more nights like this. Not that there’s anything I can do to stop it. She made it impossible for any of us to die.’
“That is no longer true.” A voice came out of the darkness. “You are now fully human, and can age and die, as they do.”
It was the Cat Goddess. The girl recognized her voice, and waited for the next spike of fear to overwhelm her. But it didn’t come, even though she knew she should be frightened.
“And you will no longer spend your days and nights afraid, child. I have taken that fear from you, and will never restore it.”
The African girl sat up slowly, to find a smaller version of araNyamArjAra sitting at the foot of her bed.
“Th ... Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes wide as she gazed at the goddess.
araNyamArjAra nodded once, her tail waving gently in the air behind her.
“I have a … proposition for you,” she said. “It will be difficult, but if you succeed, the rewards would be beyond the limitations of your dreams.”
In spite of herself, the ex-demon was intrigued. To deal with this goddess again would be tempting fate, but at the same time, She had ended at least part of her punishment, and that meant her anger had lessened over time.
“What would you have me do, Goddess?” She spoke softly, not wanting to wake her parents. “You know the limitations of this human form. What can I do for you, like this?”
“Learn what it means to be truly human,” araNyamArjAra replied. “Become the girl you are now, and grow to be the woman you could be. Embrace the best of humanity and learn from it.”
“Learn? Learn what?” The girl tilted her head, confused.
“Love. Kindness. Friendship. Compassion.” The cat goddess captured the girl’s gaze with her own eyes and held her. “Duty. Honor. Commitment. All the things that make humans worthy of being seen as more than prey. That is all I want. For you to become the best human you can be.”
“Why?”
“Because it is your first step on the path to becoming more than what you were. To becoming worthy of what I offer.” araNyamArjAra padded around to the side of the bed, and sat again. “Before, you preyed on humans, living off of the pain of their existence. Now, as a human, you have the chance to experience more than the selfishness and hunger that was all you had as a demon, and explore the pleasures and obligations these other qualities bring.”
“This sounds like both a goal and a reward for me,” the girl said slowly, her mind spinning. “Forgive me, but how does this benefit you?”
araNyamArjAra blinked, and paused for a moment.
“I have no children,” she replied, the barest hint of sorrow in her voice. “I am alone, and as things stand, my people will not continue beyond me. I wish to change that. If you truly become the kind of human I wish you to be, you will have learned enough to be worthy of becoming my child. When the time is right, I will transform you and raise you as my own, and you will one day become a goddess like myself. You will have both power and the wisdom to wield it properly, and I will have a child to love and care for. We will both benefit ... if you agree.”
“And … the others?”
The cat goddess smiled and shook her head. “I have lived a very long time — long enough to know not to place all my faith and trust on a single chance when the future of my kind is at stake. No, little one, all of those I punished will be given the chance you are being given. I do not expect them all to embrace this goal. I only expect them to try. I do, however, hope that you will succeed.”
The little girl shook her head. “Goddess, I am nothing special. Why place your hopes on me?”
“Because of your name, child. The name the universe chose for you when it placed you here.” araNyamArjAra nodded as she began to fade. “Good luck ... Mercy.”
Byers sat in a Starbucks off the Vegas Strip, sipping on a beverage she wouldn’t have touched only a few weeks before. It was a drink so sweet and foamy she could barely recognize it as coffee, but after trying it black the way she used to drink it, she settled on this corrupted version. She had to. Her new tastebuds seemed to enjoy it, even if the rest of her didn’t.
‘Damn this body,’ she thought, delicately sipping through a tiny straw. ‘It’s almost more trouble than it’s worth, even if it is infinitely better than the bitch those women turned me into. I need to figure out a way to regain my manhood. If only the Chaos minion wasn’t so hard to manipulate.’
“Hey, that’s quite a frown,” a voice came from above her. “Why are you so mad at such an innocent little latte?”
She raised her eyes upward to find a tall, well-built stranger looking down at her. He seemed to be in his mid-twenties, with tousled back hair and a muscular body that made parts of her body react in a way that made her squirm in her seat. Trying to master her unwanted lust, she was just about to shut him down and send him away when part of her paused, sensing an opportunity.
This had possibilities. He had possibilities.
“The drink is only part of it,” Byers replied slowly, shaking her head as looked up into the stranger’s grey eyes. “I’m upset about a larger problem, and I’m not sure how to solve it. Or even if it can be solved. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me. You might be surprised. I’ve got a few minutes, and I hate to see a damsel in distress. Besides, troubles shared are troubles halved, as my mom used to say. May I?” He touched the seat across from her, and she nodded, her mind racing. “I’m Paul.”
“Rey … Rachel.” She threw him a smile. It was close enough to her old name, and it would do for as long as she needed it.
“So what’s wrong, Rachel?”
“It’s … it’s my body, Paul. I hate it!” She spoke with such disgust, but it was easy to do. It was true. She did hate it.
“Hate it? Why? You’re beautiful!”
“No I’m not. My hips are huge, and my chest is so big, I feel like a cow sometimes. And the rest of me … my legs are so long and my arms so skinny, I’m like a stick figure. I feel so weak!” She looked down, and her lower lip quivered, as if she was about to cry.
‘About time some of these absurd reflexes started working for me,’ she thought.
“Hey, don’t talk like that!” He reached out and touched her hand. “You’re perfect, just as you are.”
“I knew you couldn’t understand,” she said, putting a touch of sadness in her voice. “You’re a man. You just don’t know.”
He looked confused, and Byers remembered something she’d overheard one of the chorus girls ranting about in the dressing room a few weeks ago. It was perfect – just what she needed.
“Nobody spends millions of dollars telling you what you’re supposed to look like,” she went on, looking down into her cup. “All the fashion magazines … the TV commercials …” She waved her arms vaguely. “The whole world has been yelling at me for years, belittling me, making me feel like there’s just too much of me to be … perfect. And they’re right. Everybody says so.”
Paul’s hand wrapped itself around hers and squeezed. “Well, don’t listen to them, Rachel. You’re a beautiful woman. Embrace it. Own it. And don’t let anyone tell you anything different.”
Byers looked up, her eyes glistening with tears. “You think so?”
Paul nodded. “I know so.”
She stood up suddenly, pulling him to his feet. Moving to the side of the table, she stepped forward and pressed her body into his, ignoring the heat that rose when she felt his warmth against her skin. His arms rose reflexively and surrounded her.
“Do you really think I’m beautiful?” Byers whispered into Paul’s ear, laying her head on his shoulder. She felt him nod, even as his erection pushed against the fabric of his jeans and into her thigh, and she moved her leg just a bit to stroke it suggestively through the cloth. “Do you really like my body?”
“Oh, yes …” He half-moaned, his arms tightening slightly around her.
“Do you …” She bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Do you want to be inside me?”
He nodded again.
“Really?” Byers surrendered to a small smile, tilting her head back so she could see his face. Paul looked back, the desire pouring from his eyes. He nodded a third time.
‘The rule of threes,’ she thought happily. ‘Makes a spell that much stronger. Not that Chaos magic needs it, I suppose, but old habits die hard.’
“Well, I love your body, too,” she purred, savoring the triumph. “Let’s trade.”
She felt the Chaos demon’s joy rush through her an instant before Byers found himself looking down at his former body from a new perspective. The desire in Paul’s eyes quickly gave way to confusion as she realized something had changed, and she tottered for a moment trying to get her balance on those absurd heels.
‘Wha … what happened?” Byers took a step back as Paul reached up and touched her throat. Her arm pressed against a breast and she looked down, shocked.
“We traded, baby. You wanted that body, wanted to be inside me. Well, now you are.”
“But .. but I … I didn’t … I don’t want this. I don’t want this!” Still looking down, Paul started to tremble all over, and tears started to fall. Byers reached up and touched her chin, pushing her head back until she faced him.
“Shhhhh, girl. It’s okay. Remember what you told me?” Byers grinned widely. “You’re a beautiful woman now. Embrace it. Own it. And don’t let anyone tell you anything different.”
He looked at Paul’s watch, then looked back into her eyes. “Got to run, tits. Worlds to conquer, empires to build. You know the drill. Or maybe not, not anymore. After all, they say it’s a man thing.”
The magician turned and left the coffee shop, not looking back. The woman looked after him, tears running down her cheeks, crying silently.
It was just after dinner and I was doing my best to untangle the kind of math I had never had to deal with the first time I was in high school, all those years ago. I have been told that mathematics uses logical rules, like magic, but I still haven’t managed to figure out what they are — at least not well enough to get a decent grade in calculus.
“Becca.”
I looked up, recognizing Leander’s mental voice.
“I have been running the globe program since I woke up, looking for Chaos magic. There was a flare a few moments ago that looked the same as the spell working we found in Evans Falls.”
“Where was it?”
“Las Vegas.”
I had an epiphany, and all of the pieces suddenly snapped into place. There was one person I had recently punished, a powerful and experienced sorcerer. When I had delved into his memories to determine his crimes, I had brushed past his birthplace with scarcely a pause, since his magical abuses began long after he had left it for parts unknown.
Evans Falls.
Reynard Byers. That was his name. He had become the champion of Chaos, and naturally, being a ego-driven malevolent jerk, the first thing he did was go back to his old home town to show them how the local boy made good — and get in a little target practice. Now he was back in Las Vegas, with power to burn and a score to settle. With me.
I had to face him again, on his home turf.
And this time, I was pretty sure that what was going to happen in Vegas wouldn’t stay in Vegas.
This long-awaited seventh chapter in the sequel to No Obligation pulls our heroine and her Champion to Las Vegas, to try her luck and skill against a familiar foe with a new love of body snatching.
“How I wish that there were more
Than the twenty-four hours in the day
'cause even if there were forty more
I wouldn't sleep a minute away
Oh, there's black jack and poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on ev'ry deal
All you need's a strong heart and a nerve of steel
Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas”
— Elvis Presley, Viva Las Vegas
“I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart”
— Sting, The Shape of My Heart
We arrived in Las Vegas just a few minutes from dusk, only a few feet from where the chaos magic had been invoked. I had cloaked us both with a variant of the "don’t notice me" spell the Arbiters used so long ago, when my journey to becoming the Advocate had begun. It had only been a few months, but it seemed like forever.
We were in a medium-sized Starbucks, half full of customers. Thanks to corporate standards, it looked about as normal as anything could look this close to the Vegas strip. Immediately in front of us, a woman sat alone in a booth by the windows, tears pouring silently down her cheeks. I could clearly see the glow of residual chaos magic shimmering around her, and I knew Leander could see it, too.
"I’m dropping the appearance spell," I said, as unheard as I was unseen by anyone in the coffee shop. "Two showgirls in glitzy gowns aren’t going to make her feel safe."
Leander nodded. "Agreed. But we cannot just be ourselves. We need a simpler illusion. It should be something closer to how we truly appear, but not close enough to provide clues to our adversaries. This could very easily be a trap, and we cannot allow Byers or Chaos to track us back to friends and family."
I closed my eyes and created a new spell that made me look like a college-aged Latina woman, and Leander as a pretty African-American woman, tall and model thin. Then I let the "don’t notice me" spell fade slowly, so as not to startle her. Her subconscious mind would register that we had been there the whole time.
"What’s wrong?" I asked, as I slid into the seat opposite hers. Leander stood behind me, scanning the space outside of the shop and waiting for Byers to attack.
The woman turned and looked at me, still not quite there.
"She is in shock." I reached out and took her hand. It was ice cold and trembling, and I could feel the magic clinging to her skin. "Whatever happened to you, we’re here to help."
She shook her head. "You can’t help me. Nobody can. It’s … impossible."
"It can’t hurt to let us try, can it?" I gave her a small smile. "I know someone did something to you, something so unbelievable that you’re running away from it inside your mind. But I need you to tell me, okay? The walls you put up in your head are too strong. You’re closed up tight inside, trying to hide, and I can’t even try to fix it until I know what ‘it’ is.”
After a minute, she looked down and shuddered, all over.
"Rachel … this woman," she whispered, one hand motioning towards her chest. "She stole my body, and left me trapped in hers."
I felt her defenses lowering slowly, as she began come to grips with the reality of what had happened. I replayed the whole situation from her point of view, sharing it with Leander through our connection.
"You’re Paul, right?" She nodded, a little confused, and I gave her hand a squeeze. "I’m the Advocate, and this is Leander. It’s our job to help people like you, harmed by magic users like … like Rachel."
"How?" Another tear rolled down her cheek. "How can you help me?"
"Do you think she’s the only one in the world with magic?" I released her hand and brought my two hands together, palms up. With a small application of will, a tiny fiery unicorn appeared, staring at her with sullen eyes, as if it being on fire was an affront to its very nature.
I sustained the illusion for a few seconds, then let it fade. "We’re here to stop her. To get your body back, and your life along with it. It’s what we do, okay?"
She looked in my eyes, took in a deep breath, and nodded. "What can I do to help?"
When she said that, the part of my soul that channelled strategy and tactics from ten thousand years of human conflict started spinning, working out possible permutations of the conflict to come, and I smiled.
"Right now, I need you here with us and as calm as you can be," I replied, giving her a smile. "We’ve got this."
I stood up and walked over to Leander.
"It is Byers," my champion said aloud, her disgust evident. "He is out there now, in this man’s body. Merde."
I nodded.
"We don't know if Byers realizes what he's done," I answered telepathically. "He might have just wanted to be male again. But we're in an unexpected hostage situation. We can’t hurt Byers directly without hurting Paul’s body."
"And we cannot reverse the spell he used to take it unless we know it is safe to do so," Leander replied, mind to mind. "Byers could be a thousand feet above the city right now. Putting Paul back where he belongs could lead to a dead innocent, since the magic Byers is using is most definitely not connected to his physical form."
"I don’t see how it could be. Back when we first stopped him, I took his ability to cast spells and use magic away."
"But he is using magic now." Leander walked to the window and looked out into the coming night. The neon on the strip was beginning to light up, one sign at a time, by photoelectric cells tripped by the oncoming darkness. "That much is clear. It is chaos magic, but still magic. How?"
"I don’t know. If it’s chaos magic, he shouldn’t be able to bend it to his will at all."
"Agreed," my champion said, her lips tightening. "Humans are living examples of order triumphing over chaos. Trying to channel and command chaos magic? The conflicting forces would rip him apart in an instant."
"We’ll figure out the how later." I walked over and stood next to my champion again. "Right now, we need to find him and hold onto him long enough to get Paul’s body back."
"We need to find him, to be sure, Rebecca," Leander said aloud, "but could we not just change the body Paul is in to reflect his true nature? Much simpler than trying to catch Byers without hurting him, yes?"
"Maybe, yes," I replied, "but we just went over why it’s a better idea to get Paul his original body back."
Leander's eyes narrowed, and I continued. "Who knows how much of a magical construct that female body is? We know it's not the same body Byers wore before I crafted his punishment. It might belong to some innocent woman he trapped in that dog’s body he was in. It might even be a gift from Chaos, and just as much a chaotic construct as the cow he created from that milk truck in Evans Falls. What if I try to pick the locks on the magic holding that body together, only to have it dissolve into the aether and take Paul's soul along with it?"
I looked out into the city. Las Vegas was like a temple to the very concept of chaos. People’s lives were changed by a roll of the dice or the spin of a wheel. Fortunes were gained or lost, not by skill or intellect or sheer force of will, but by the sheer perversity of the universe. It wasn’t completely chaotic — people could choose to come here, and the laws of nature still dictated how dice would roll or what number the roulette ball would land on — but it was close enough.
No wonder the place made my skin crawl.
"That is not the only reason you hate this city." Leander spoke softly behind me.
"Was I thinking out loud?"
"No, no, Becca. More like thinking too loud."
I smiled. "Apologies. A very bad habit."
"You do not like Vegas because you believe it brings out the worst in people. And you like people."
I stopped to consider my next words. "Las Vegas is like a giant predator, hunting the people I'm supposed to protect. It's an enemy I can't fight, because it offers them an easy way to get what they need to survive. People need safety, security, and protection. Here and now, security means having money, and Vegas gives them the fastest way to get it — if they’re willing to take a chance and roll the dice."
"And this is wrong?"
"Taking the easy way in life has its own risks. If you rely entirely on luck, you never learn to rely on yourself when it comes to overcoming challenges or getting what you want. You come to depend on the universe cutting you some slack, and that’s not the rule, it’s the exception. The best of humanity makes its own luck, and that’s a skill people need to learn."
My champion tilted her head. "So, my lady, let us make our own luck. How to we find our prey in a sea of chaos?"
I considered the problem, watching the pedestrian traffic grow as the light faded.
"Let’s think about this from his point of view. He went back to Evans Falls to punish the city he left a hundred years ago because it wasn’t big enough for his ambition. I’m thinking he came back to Las Vegas to take back the city he thinks I took from him. Sounds about right?"
Leander nodded. "But he must know that you could easily take it away from him again."
"Maybe. Or maybe he thinks he can defeat me with chaos magic and wants the chance to try."
"Considering the kind of man he was, that makes sense. It could even be why Chaos chose him as his champion. The two of them share a common enemy. You."
"So if that’s true, if he wants to take me down, he won’t want to hide. He’ll want me to find him. Problem solved."
"Byers will light up the night like a signal fire," Leander said as she smiled, "hoping you will fly into it eagerly, like a besotted moth, and burn."
"To paraphrase Harry Callahan," I replied, smiling in return, "a girl has to know her limitations. I may be good, but I’m still a rookie when it comes to fighting chaos. When he sets his ‘fire,’ we’ll go in slow and as ready as we can be."
"And the … hostage situation?"
I thought for a few seconds, then smiled slowly. "Let’s take a closer look at what put Paul in that body … and what it’s going to take to get him out. Then we'll see just how good an escape artist Reynard Byers really is."
Byers hovered over Las Vegas, held aloft by the winds of Chaos, and gloried in his newly recovered maleness. He loved the feel of his new body, the hardness that surrounded him instead of that accursed softness. And knowing that he'd stolen it from a weak man with too much compassion and too little common sense made him almost giddy.
"Predator and prey!" He shouted down at the city he had called home for decades. "Survival of the fittest, nature's golden rule. He didn't deserve to be a man. Now she's prey. Maybe after a while, I'll look her up and show her exactly what it means to be a woman."
"You'd have to know what it means to be a woman before you could show Paul anything, Reynard," a voice said behind him. "And I’m afraid that level of empathy is way outside your comfort zone."
He spun in mid-air and saw a small Latina woman floating a short distance from him.
"Impressive glamour, Advocate," he said, smiling. "But not good enough to fool me."
"It's not meant to. It's an effective mask, that's all."
"A meaningless mask now. I saw you as you truly are in Evans Falls. Barely more than a child. Very lazy of you to expose yourself that way."
"About as lazy as you were to launch a magical assault on a place I knew from your past." The Advocate shook her head. "After living so long, to be so careless? Or do you consider yourself so powerful now that none can challenge you and win?"
Byers threw back his head and laughed. “You took away my magic, supposedly forever, turned me into a bitch in heat, and set me loose to suffer for who knows how long. Yet here I am, free and alive, human and male, and with magic again. If someone here is winning, it certainly isn’t you."
"If this was a game, which it is not, we would still be playing," she replied, her voice carrying easily across the sky between them. ”And even though I hate Las Vegas with a passion, I know it’s bad luck to count your chips at the table before the last card is dealt.”
“You have spirit, I’ll give you that. I look forward to taking it away from you before I make you my slave.”
The Advocate smiled softly. “Big talk, Reynard. Aren’t you supposed to be a man of action? A predator? Why don’t you show me your teeth and claws? Or do you plan to monologue me into submission?”
“Her hubris knows no bounds,” Byers thought, his anger rising. The rogue mage reached out to his chaos demon with a mental command. “Bind her!”
He felt the bolts of chaos energy reach out to her small form, only to stop a few feet from her and swirl impotently around her. A second set of bolts joined the first, forming a hazy sphere of pure chaos around her.
“The problem with chaos energy is that it resists being told what to do.” The girl looked at him through the aurora borealis effect, her eyes smiling. “It doesn’t like to be commanded to do anything, so it’s already only half-committed to your plan no matter what it is. However, like a raging river, its power doesn’t mind being channeled — especially if the path you send it down feels random enough to be natural.”
“You may have captured it, Advocate,” Byers replied evenly. “But it has also captured you. You cannot command or control it either, so you are trapped in your pretty bubble.”
“I don’t need to command it. I just need to set it free and give it a path of least resistance to follow. Just like a river.”
The sphere reshaped itself, extending a funnel above her and allowing the glowing mass to escape into the sky.
“In about five seconds, give or take, a Russian spy satellite is going to get the worst set of systems failures in their space program’s history.”
“Hit her again!”
The energy shot towards her, and the same thing happened.
"Again!" He screamed into the night. Another deflection.
"You do realize that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a textbook definition of insanity," the Advocate said, her voice irritatingly calm. "Ever tried therapy, Reynard?"
"I may not be able to touch you, Advocate," he replied, gritting his teeth, "but the people you protect? That's something else."
He raised his voice and threw his arms wide. "Go wild! Make this city yours!"
A few feet away, a flare of chaos energy coalesced into a sphere similar to the one surrounding his adversary. Darting back and forth inside, a single stream of power bounced fitfully against the walls, the light inside become brighter and brighter.
Byers turned to the Advocate, confused. She smiled at him and drifted closer to the sphere.
“I knew you could not wield magic, especially chaos magic. So Chaos must have given you access to someone who could. So every time your ... friend struck at me, I used the trajectory of its attack to note its position. And of course, it's just as easy to throw a shield around your ally as it is to throw one around me. Only now it's become a trap — powered by the demon itself."
The sphere began to shrink until it was the size of a basketball. The Advocate balanced it on her fingertips for a moment, and tossed it upwards with a casual wave of her hand. It rose quickly, gathering speed until it disappeared from view.
"It might escape eventually, if it stops to think things through and realizes it's using its own power to imprison itself. Although that kind of thinking involves … well, order. Reasoning in a straight line is not going to be its strong point. So it could take a while. Maybe by the time she reaches Jupiter.”
"You're lying," Byers said, suspicion coloring his tone. "If you captured her, why am I still aloft?"
"Because I'm using my magic to stop you from falling." The infuriating woman smiled wider. "Otherwise, you'd be heading for what used to be the Sands Hotel at thirty-two feet per second squared."
"You are a fool," the ex-mage said, his tone sharp. "Keeping an enemy of my strength and experience alive? Smarter to let me fall."
"Not while you're wearing Paul's body," she replied evenly. "Although even if you weren’t, I’d still be reluctant to just kill you. I tend to think of redemption first. Anything else is a waste of resources.”
Byers laughed before he could stop himself. ‘How could she be so stupid?’
"You're human," the Advocate said simply. “Every human has the potential to change. You may never live up to it, but it’s there nonetheless. I need to be true to who I am, so you don’t get to die today, despite all of the pain you’ve caused.”
Byers sneered, his disgust rising up. “Rules. Your kind are always tying yourself up, limiting your own power when you could be a god.”
“Godhood is overrated. Too much responsibility, no downtime. I prefer being me.” The irritating woman shook her head. “Just as Paul prefers being himself. Leander?”
Suddenly, the world around Byers blinked, and he found himself sitting in a familiar booth, looking at the world through a pair of familiar eyes.
He was a she again.
There was a blurring of the space across from her, and the Advocate appeared with the body Byers had stolen beside her.
"And yes, rules limit us," the bitch said, continuing as if nothing had changed. "That's what they're for. Laws keep us all safe. Rules keep us civilized. Even good manners make life a little sweeter. Say what you want about political correctness, but simply being polite goes a long way to avoid everyone wanting to feast on the blood of their enemies. You really should try it."
Byers opened her mouth, but found she had nothing to say. She was once again trapped in this accursed body, imprisoned and powerless. There was no threat she could utter that she could possibly make manifest, so her words meant nothing. The Advocate smiled.
"Now there's the first bit of wisdom you've shown today. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.”
The ex-mage was silent for a moment, waiting for Chaos to step in and support His champion. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, he sighed.
"So, back to the streets again?"
"I'm not sure what that would accomplish," the Advocate said. "Did you learn anything from the experience?"
"Nothing I didn't already know," Byers replied, eyeing the woman in front of her with a tentative curiosity. "Suffering is to be endured until it can be overcome. Anything else is weakness."
"Your mentor taught you that?"
"Among other things." She gave the Advocate a humorless smile.
"So suffering teaches you nothing, except how to endure?”
“What else is there?”
“Have you ever heard the expression, ‘to understand someone you must walk a mile in their shoes?’”
Byers snorted. “I don’t need to understand someone to control them. For all their posturing, humans are still animals, manipulated by the same tools used to control a dog or a cow. Carrot and stick, pleasure and pain. The proper use of power.”
The Advocate turned to the man beside her. “Is there somewhere you need to be, or should I just send you home?”
The man smiled. “Home is fine. Thank you for your help today.”
“Just doing my job, Paul. But you’re welcome.” The Advocate smiled back. “Just focus on home and I’ll do the rest. But when you get there, take a little time to get back to yourself. What happened today was traumatic. Just focus on getting comfortable in your own skin again, okay?”
Paul nodded and closed his eyes. Reality shifted and he was gone.
“You’re all about power and control.” Once again she continued the conversation as if there had been no interruption, and Byers watched as a frozen drink appeared in front of her adversary. "That is a philosophy based on fear. What are you afraid of, Reynard?"
"I fear nothing."
"If that is true, you are ignoring a valuable survival tool.” The Advocate took a sip of her drink. “But I know you’re wrong. The answer to my question is obvious. You are afraid of being overpowered and of losing control, to anyone. Which means that at one point or another, you were in that very position, and it was so painful that you want to make sure you never wind up in someone else’s power again.”
“What makes you think you know me at all?”
“I walked through your head, remember?”
"If that's true, you made a terrible mistake, Advocate." Reynard smiled slowly. "You took exactly the wrong approach towards my ... rehabilitation. You put me in a position where I was powerless and had no control."
"To show you what it was like," she replied, nodding. "But of course you already knew, and the memory was buried so deep, I didn't see it the first time. I made assumptions about why you did what you did, and I should have known better. I’m sorry.”
“Your apology changes nothing, woman. I don’t believe people are any better now than the ones who abused me as a child. I can’t. I have experienced that truth first hand, and there is no way you could possibly convince me.”
I looked at Byers, smug and undefeated, and shook my head.
“You’re right,” I said softly. “I don’t see a way to convince you. But at the same time, you’re completely wrong. And the way you’re wrong is so much a part of who you are, I’m not sure how to make you see it. You’re broken, but strangely whole, like a fine china cup that someone decided to glue back together as a porcelain softball made of nothing but sharp edges. I can't dissolve the glue, but even if I could, how can I even start to put the cup back together the way it should be?”
I sighed. “Hell, it’s not even my job to fix you, it’s yours. But you don't even remember what you were like before you were broken. Hell, you think everyone else is just as broken as you are. You’re absolutely sure everyone in the world is a dangerous sharp-edged softball pretending to be a cup, just waiting to cut you when you touch it.”
“I know it’s the truth because I’ve lived it.”
“And I know it’s not true,” I replied, “because the truth I’ve lived is nothing like the one you’ve lived.”
Byers snorted. “For all your power, you are young. You know nothing about how the world truly is.”
I caught her eyes and held them with mine. “I’m a lot older than I look, and I’m pretty sure I know more about real life than you ever will. When I took this job, they put entire libraries of information about how the multiverse works inside my head. But that’s not why I know more. Truth is, I lived for more than four decades as a man before I became the Advocate.”
“A man? You were a man?”
I nodded. “Husband and father. That’s how I know the world isn’t as corrupt as you believe it to be. But convincing you it isn’t … I’m not sure I know how.” I stood up. “I need more time to work this out. And I need you somewhere you can’t cause any harm until I do.”
“You should kill me.” Byers rose from her seat and moved to stand across from me.
“You may be right. Occam’s Razor says the simplest solution is most often the right one. But I know enough to know that not every problem is solved by violence. Many can be, but more often than not, it just makes things worse.”
“That’s why I’m going to take you off the board for a while, Reynard. I’m going to put you somewhere Chaos can’t find you, where time moves very slowly. You’ll still be conscious and awake, which is why I’m giving you something to think about while you’re gone.”
“You think your knowledge of magic makes you stronger, because you deny all the things you see as weaknesses. You see love, compassion, and empathy as flaws, because they punch holes in the walls you have created to keep you safe. You think your walls are solid, and unbreakable.”
I gestured at her, and Byers rose into the air, floating a foot above the floor. I walked over to her, raised a finger, and gently pushed her shoulder. She began spinning slowly, and her arms flailed as she tried to make herself stop.
“But your walls have no anchors. As strong as you can make them, they can be pushed aside easily, because they are connected to nothing. The things you think make us weak actually provide us with the connections we need to be strong.”
“If I’m threatened, Leander will be there to help me. Any of my friends will be. Because we are connected by our commitment to each other, and to our mission. But I captured you easily because you are a wall that stands alone. Chaos will not save you because He has no real connection to you. You are nothing but a convenient tool to Him, and you have already failed him. And since He doesn’t believe in anything but destruction, how could He possible build anything that could stop me — especially with a tool as damaged as you?”
I reached up and stopped her rotation.
“You’re smart, Reynard. Think about how easy it was for me to defeat you, and how easy it would have been for me to kill you. Then think about why I didn’t. Here’s a hint. It has nothing to do with weakness.”
I held my hand up and watched her disappear.
I appeared inside my room, alone. For some reason, I felt very, very tired. Even though catching Byers and fixing his predations wasn’t exactly a challenge, I felt burned out on an emotional level. And I thought I knew why.
Some people are easy to help. They want to do better, to be better. But Byers had spent his entire life believing the universe is a battlefield where only the strong survive. His idea of being better was winning at a zero sum game, subjugating everyone else to his will, and he would do whatever it took to rise to the top and protect his own power.
His relentless pursuit of absolute control to keep him safe from any who might threaten him was a direct challenge to my own belief in optimism as a survival trait, and to my commitment to the idea that if given a chance, people would choose a positive path. Byers had been pushed to embrace this world view by those who had chosen it before him — first his parents, then his mentor. They had convinced him by hurting him over and over again until he channeled his own anger and hate into confronting and overcoming them.
They had created a living weapon, driven only by a lust for power and disgust for every emotion that made humans better than savages. He’d been this way for a hundred years. How could I possibly undo a century of experience learning that might makes right and emotion was a weakness? Was redemption even possible for Reynard Byers, or was any effort doomed to failure before it even began?
I honestly didn’t know. That’s why I put him in that pocket universe, to buy myself some time to think. Plus, leaving him free would give his Chaotic servant the chance to reunite with him and start wreaking havoc again, putting innocents at risk.
‘Speaking of Chaotic servants,I really should release the one I sent away,’ I thought, laying down on the floor and staring at the ceiling. ‘It may never figure out how to get free of that trap on its own, and I don’t want to think about dooming any entity to spending forever shooting through the cold darkness of space.’
I reached out with my mind and released it from its cage. It had barely reached the asteroid belt, and it launched itself back towards Earth the instant it realized it was free. It wouldn’t find Byers, not where I had hidden him, and I wondered how Chaos would deal with his champion disappearing from the field of battle. ‘How well does He understand cause and effect,’ I wondered, ‘and what will happen when His demon tells Him about what it witnessed in the sky above the city?’
I sat up and looked over at my bed, thinking that curling up and taking a nap would work well for me. Alas, even though it was already night in Las Vegas, it was almost dinnertime here. Sitting around the table with family sounded like a terrific way to pull myself back from my musing about Byers and rejoin the normal human world for a while.
Or so I thought. A part of me wasn’t sure I wanted any level of human contact, which really wasn’t like me. I think of myself as a people person most of the time, meaning that being with others energized me. But being with someone as dysfunctional as Byers had tired me out in such a fundamental way that I wasn’t sure I could interact with another individual.
“You are thinking too hard, Becca.”
I turned at the sound of the voice and found a small Japanese girl standing naked by the window. Even though I’d never seen her in this form before, I recognized her.
“Hello, Akiko. Welcome to my home.”
She smiled slowly, and did a slow, tentative turn. “Do you like? It is my first serious attempt at a human guise.”
“Very attractive,” I replied, giving her a smile in return. “How does it feel?”
“Slightly awkward, to be honest. Two legs instead of four? It is amazing that they remain standing at all!”
“Sometimes they don’t.” My smile became a grin. “I’ve seen my share of falls over the years, and even had a few myself. Most of the time, though, they do pretty well. They’ve never known any other form, so they … adapt.”
Akiko’s hands came up and cupped her smallish breasts. “And these? I could understand their size if I were feeding young, but this body is barely old enough to breed.”
“I’m not sure, but I think producing more milk was a survival trait when humans were evolving.” I slipped to the floor and sat, folding my legs under me. “Also, male humans find them attractive, so maybe natural selection made having larger ones an advantage when mates were being chosen.”
“Ah. So they fought for the most desirable?” She walked over to the mirror and looked at herself, then glanced at me. Her lips twitched first, and then she smiled. “How many human males have fought for your breasts, Becca?”
“Only one, thank the Goddess. My life is complicated enough without having to juggle multiple suitors, and Tommy was mine long before I even became this girl.”
“Which is very confusing, since you are that girl now,” Akiko said, “so she both existed and did not exist before you became her.”
“Welcome to my world.” I shook my head. “I still haven’t quite figured that one out. My father is also me, or rather the man I used to be, so that makes two Becca’s and two of me. We’re all tied up in a chronological knot that would have the Time Lords of Gallifrey spinning in their graves — well, if they were dead instead of fictional.”
“Involvement with the Creator of all things is often confusing. I prefer Inari, and the smaller universe in which I live.” Akiko walked over and gently stroked my sleeve. “These clothes … I assume they are appropriate for a human female of your age and social position?”
I shrugged. “I like them. They suit me. I think you should wear something as well, since casual nudity is not common in this culture.”
Akiko closed her eyes for a second, and an outfit identical to mine shimmered into existence on her smaller frame.
“Nice,” I said with a smile, “but you should choose something that reflects who you are. What I’m wearing ... this is my style. Think about how you would like to be seen.”
She closed her eyes again, and her clothing shifted to shades closer to her natural coloring.
“Very attractive.”
“Thank you.”
There was a silence, and then she spoke.
“You are ... wrong. Can you not feel it?”
“About what?”
“No, Becca. Who you are, inside, is wrong.”
After a few seconds of uncomfortable introspection, I nodded. “Yes, I guess I am.”
“Do you know why?”
“I think so, but I suspect you have an opinion you’d like to share?”
“The lines between who you are and what you do have become blurred, and your ability to just be Becca has become ... damaged.”
“It isn’t something I can fix easily.” I sighed. “There are too many roles fighting for my attention, and I feel guilty whenever one of them is neglected. So I try harder to give that role its due, only to neglect others. It’s the Red Queen’s Race.”
She tilted her head in the way I’ve seen confused dogs do, and I smiled. “It’s from a human book by Lewis Carroll. The Red Queen’s Race means running all day to stay in the same place.There are just not enough hours in a day.”
“Ah. I see. No wonder you are wrong. It is because you are wrong.”
“You have as many hours as you need, Becca-chan, for each of those pieces of you that require the time to live them as they should be lived.” Akiko’s eyes twinkled. “As long as you avoid meeting yourself, you may travel back and live each of your lives simultaneously.”
“Won’t that significantly shorten my actual lifespan?”
Akiko’s eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed. “Since you are both a kitsune and a physical manifestation of the needs of the Omnipresence, you are effectively immortal, Becca-chan. Surely you know that?”
I stopped to think about it. Could it really be that easy? Or would this kind of time shifting actually be easier at all? I’d been a science fiction fan for too many decades to think time travel solves much of anything, and usually ends up making things way more messed up than they were before you got the bright idea to play with causality.
“I’m not sure whether that approach would create more problems than it solves,” I said, giving her a smile. “Still, it’s a solution I hadn’t thought of, and that means it may not be the only one out there to find. Thank you,”
“Now, as much as I like that outfit on you, it’s really more my style than yours.” I turned to my laptop and woke it from sleep, then opened a browser. “Let’s go hunting for clothes that tell others who you are in human form ... or rather, show them the you that you want them to see.”
“Hmmmm ... hunting and illusion! Both well loved by kitsune.” She leaned over my shoulder. “Show me the prey we hunt!”
I grinned and hit the search engine.