As a child, Love would be openly ridiculed by those her age for having such a strange and dumb name. Her parents named her Love because that’s how they felt when they first saw her fresh little face. Ironically, it caused her misfortune.

Whenever she was being bullied, Love kept smiling. Whenever she was in pain, she smiled. When she was sad: smile. It would help her bear her adolescence into adulthood.

When her father was murdered casually by a Chime who’d done it out of boredom, Love smiled as she held her father. A man approached her while she grieved and gave her a card with a phone number. She became a Dowser and avenged her father.

After that, Love left her city and moved to O’Landra with the task of setting up a line between the Dowsers of O’Landra, and the other major cities. Love was disarmed when she discovered how wonderful O’Landra was compared to her birthplace. The relations between the Chimes and humans were solid, and the Bearer, Maiden Sympha, was kind and peaceful.

Love was quickly well received, thanks to her constant upward-curved pink lips. Not long after settling, she crossed paths with a young man working with his father in a humble, cottage-looking store. After some awkward chatting, he admitted that he liked her name, and the blonde, gorgeous woman with lake-blue eyes gave the man a chance. Many years later, Klev Bekkan was born from a sweet, dangerous woman who lived two lives.

***

Klev and his mother would go to an ice cream shop outside the city every month. His mother would exchange a box full of vanilla-colored letters with the man who owned the place. They would chat for a while, so Klev would take his ice cream outside and watch the world as he licked a berry blue treat.

One day, while Klev was sitting on a swing bench, a side snapped, and both Klev and the swing collapsed. Klev smashed his ice cream and injured his hand. He cried, and Love and the owner bolted outside.

“Where does it hurt?” she asked, kneeling. Klev presented his red and swelling hand. She smiled. “It’s not that bad.”

“It hurts.” Klev frowned at the smashed ice cream. “And I made a mess.”

“Don’t worry about the mess, lad. I’ll grab something to clean it.” The owner vanished into the shop.

“There’s no need to cry, Klev. It’ll get better.”

Klev peered at his mother with a combination of tears and expectance. “Yeah…?”

Klev’s mother took him back inside and iced his hand. “There were many times when I hurt growing up, and few people were caring. But I smiled, regardless, and everything became much better. If you’re ever in pain, just smile. It’ll go away quickly.”

Klev sniffed and smiled. “Okay… I will, Mom.”

***

Before Love and Klev could leave the town and return home, their HC popped a tire. It took several hours to get it swapped, but they went with the setting sun once they did. Love was nervous about driving at night. It made her antsy.

They were surrounded by woodland on a winding road. Love had this sense of dread creeping on her shoulder. After driving for thirty minutes, Love looked in the rearview, gently pulled the shallow of the woods, and turned off the HC.

Klev knew the unease in his mother. “Mom? Are you all right?”

Love popped open the center console, popped open another compartment and pulled out a receiver. She said into it, “Thirty-nine. Minus seven. Need pickup. One Y B. May be with N Twenty-One.” Love hung up the phone, turned to Klev in the back seat, smiled, and rubbed his cheek with her thumb. “Klev, honey, I want you to listen to me.” She pointed out the window into the woods. “I want you to run that way—straight ahead—quickly and quietly.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Mom? What’s going on?” he asked with a quivering voice.

“It’ll be okay. Just run that way and don’t turn around. There will be a cabin not too far from here. Bang on the windows and doors until a man called Twenty-One lets you in. He’s a friend. It’s okay,” she comforted. “Just smile, and it will be okay. Like this.” She gave a big grin. “Go now, go.” Klev opened the door and looked back many times before running away. When she vanished into the dark, Love whispered, “Sorry, I couldn’t be a good mother….”

Love banged the roof of the HC with the side of her knuckles, and a lever-action rifle dropped into her hands. Love then put a black mask on her face with a white, full-lips smile decal. She shoved her hand into the center console again, wielding some silver key, and twisted it into a lock. She strolled out of the HC into the middle of the road. The HC erupted into flames.

Love began ever so lethargically cock the lever of her odd rifle. It clicked rhythmically with a great distance between each sound. Click… Click… Click… Rings of light appeared on the cobblestone, and four Chimes followed, but Love kept her head tilted to her toes.

“Not even bothering to run away?” asked a burly-looking Chime. “Brave. What I expect from one of the Ten Drowned.” When the woman gave him no attention and kept clicking her gun, he became more forceful in his voice. “Which one are you then? Kindler Gretgle has studied you more than you believe. The lower the number, the greater the skill. So, on a scale from one to ten, how sinful are you?”

Click… Click… Click…

“Why bother with the questions?” A female Chime pushed the male aside. She held out two fingers in a V shape, and her ebony fingernails glowed. “I’m just killing her.”

Click… Click… Clank.

The lever reached its end, and before Love snapped it back, she replied sweetly, “It’s nice to meet you all. I’m number Three.”

“I don’t care” was what the female Chime planned to say before her shoulders-up area was blown off like a cannon ball passed through. The blood in and out of her body became dark and rusted, and she fell forward. The other Chimes separated.

“You’re not even Kindlers. That’s a shame,” Love comforted while backflipping to avoid the many swings of a blade from a Chime who took a more direct approach.

When that Chime lifted his arm to cast divinity, a hole was punched in his chest from Love’s shot. While she did that, the other two ambushed her from behind. Love twisted her body and flew between them like a missile, slicing their bodies with sharp blades. They fell, their brass blood now rust.

Many more symbols of divine steps appeared on the road, followed by an army of Chimes. Love’s acrobatics and Fallite weapons brought up the number of Chime corpses. Then only a single circle appeared and out stepped a Chime with his head wrapped in chains. Love reloaded her rifle and slowly cocked the lever again while Hasmed examined the situation.

“What a complete mess. Chimes can be so hasty and loud.” He walked to an ivory body, kneeled, and stuck his gloved fingers into rusted liquid brass. He rubbed it between his digits and said, “It’s depressing that you’re one of the ten….”

Click… Click… Click…

Hasmed shoved his hands into his pocket. “I have no command in this. I’m just seeing what my fellow Kindler is up against.”

A horn sounded in the distance. There were wails of tortured souls coming from the forest. The sounds, growls, howls, and screeches came closer to Love.

“She’s brought her pets,” Hasmed said casually. When Love aimed her unique rifle at him, he took a divine step and appeared at her side. He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. “It ruins my mood that such talent and drive couldn’t be used to help Ruth. Farewell, Three.” His image vanished entirely into the air.

An army of Soot came from between the rods of bark—all kinds of abominations. Love saw a figure in the sky. It was small and shadowy. She could not make the being in the sky out, but that Kindler was the one impossibly controlling the feral Soot.

***

Klev ran as his mother demanded. The child, in tears and fear, ran for a while. He was leaving his mother alone, his mother who was in trouble. His body rejected the idea in every fashion, but he had to go back. He slid in some dirt while turning around. He saw smoke in the air, so he went at it.

The smoke got closer. Then fire was seen flashing against the rocks and trees. Then the road could be seen. There were Soot on the road. Dozens of them, all dead. Standing in the center was his mother. She was panting toward the night sky. She was bleeding, and her clothing was torn.

Klev heard a horn and looked at the sky. Something unrecognizable was hovering above. Seconds after the musical note flew out into the wild, a horrible rumbling thundered the earth.

Klev went for his mother, but she heard the rustle of leaves, aimed an eye toward him without moving her face from the sky, and that blue eye alone told Klev to “stay away. Stay hidden.” He obeyed that look.

A massive shadow blocked the moon; a Soot beyond anything Klev had seen before stood over his mother. Its black silhouette had the shape of a gorilla. He watched his mother shoot many bright blue blasts from her gun while bouncing around with acrobatics, but everything was useless against the gigantic.

The Soot stopped attacking at the sound of the horn, and Klev’s mother panted and held her ground in pain. But, as the blood dripped off her face, her lips curled upward, and she beamed. She side-eyed Klev, unable to look at him directly without causing endangerment, and inaudibly said, “If you’re in pain, just smile.”

A bright spear of brass pierced through her ribcage at blinding speeds, and she fell. Klev cried out but was grabbed from behind by and man and silenced. An army of masked individuals stormed past them, and complete chaos followed.

Klev was taken away from his mother; Love was taken away from her son.