CUPID 101: HOW TO BE A MODERN-DAY CUPID.

The words glared on the walls across the dining table at which Cammy still sat, staring, her waffles half-devoured and nearly forgot.

The soft, cursive, candy-floss pink font shone brilliantly fluorescent—almost hypnotic—dancing slightly like mist over the wall.

Moments earlier Aziz had happily scooped the last of his berry ice cream waffles with diced fresh strawberries, saying, "We will begin with a few quick classroom rules before starting your first lesson on how to be a modern Cupid."

He'd stood as serious as a doornail and as polite as a monk. He'd picked up his plate and asked her parents, "Where shall we set up the classroom?"

Her dad had risen hastily. "You can stay right here and we'll get out of your way." Then he'd rushed off to his meeting with a kiss on Cammy's beguiled head and a soft whisper of, "Break a leg, sprout!"

Her mum was next to abandon Cammy, excusing herself to the shed-turned-into-a-fabulous office in the backyard with a frown. Her phone was ringing off the hook this morning. "Last minute wedding disasters to mitigate..." she was last heard muttering as her heels clipped the parquet flooring.

Cammy hadn't finished her birthday waffles before Mr Sultan had placed an odd-looking gadget on the end of the table, and the fluro-pink words had bloomed happily across the custard-coloured walls.

Pink and yellow weren't exactly complimentary, everyone who took creative art knew it, and Cammy sat gawking at the words.

CUPID 101: HOW TO BE A MODERN-DAY CUPID.

Seriously?

When she peeked at Mr Sultan, he was serious indeed.

"Now, let's begin." Mr Sultan slid thin, gold-framed glasses with bifocal lenses onto his long nose, and pushed it up. "Don't ask questions I've already answered. Don't attempt spells and magic until I've covered the consequences. Don't shoot people randomly. We have a list. Or more so, we will assign you your targets. Much like a hit list, except we don't kill people. You just have to have a good aim for your targets only. Much like assassinations, things can go so very wrong if you shoot the wrong person."

Cammy's phone buzzed with incoming messages from Becca: Where are you?

Mr Sultan glared at the device in her hand, his glasses sitting on the tip of his nose. "No phones and gadgets when I'm teaching, so turn it off. Now."

He waited with hands on his hips and a frown upon his face till Cammy killed her phone and slid it on the table.

"Where was I? Oh yes, and you can only take notes in a standard-issue notebook, none of this human stuff. And I expect you to write. Don't think I'll be lenient just because you are Krishna Kamdev's only offspring..."

He then pulled out a gilded, bound notebook from his satchel—where in the world was he fitting these giant books?—and slid it towards Cammy as she absently cut a piece of her waffle with her fork.

Above the book, Aziz placed a thick quill with an iridescent white feather that dazzled in an indescribable blend of pinks, purples, lavenders—catching light that wasn't even there.

The quill was unlike anything Cammy had seen before.

What kind of feather is that? What if it's a feather from a... Cupid?

Mesmerized by the feather, she absently brought the piece of waffle on her fork to her mouth. After all, no one had waited for the poor birthday girl to finish her breakfast before they'd decided the day had begun.

"And don't eat in my class." Aziz eyed her waffle with disdain.

Within a blink of an eye, the waffle, the plate in front of her and the fork in her grasp vanished, reappearing next to the full sink with a slight clatter.

Cammy's eyes went wide. "How did you...?"

"We're Gods—for better or worse," Mr Sultan said as if that was the right answer to her question, pushing the notebook and feathered quill further towards Cammy. His small torso stretched over the unnecessarily wide table in order to reach her. The book nudged her arm.

Cammy turned to eye the items. The leather-bound notebook had an odd-looking crest, and below it, 'Property of Camille Kamdev. Return to cupid HQ if found' gleamed in gold foil.

Cammy looked up from the gilded notebook. "I have notebooks."

"Yes, well, human notebooks are forbidden in our line of work, as I already said. Can't have them falling in the wrong hands—human hands. And first warning. Don't ask a question I've already given you an answer to," Aziz replied.

Cammy opened her mouth like a fish out of water. When had he answered a question? Instead, she asked with a frown, "Why?"

"Why can't you use your human notebook?" Aziz reiterated her question.

She nodded. Her stomach rumbling quietly to remind her she still hadn't properly broken her fast.

"Well." Aziz reached into a pocket, pulled out an odd-looking thing Cammy could only describe as 'some kind of remote', though it only had one button she could see on what looked like a short staff of sorts.

On the wall images flickered, still doused in that sickly pink colour. A video.

Don't tell me the sound comes out of that thing too! Cammy stared at the small pen-like projector on the table in front of her.

Instead, the sound boomed around her, loud and reverberating. The type of reverberation one imagines being God's voice if she/he were suddenly talking to her as a spirit in the sky.

The air buzzed and danced around Cammy as if the people from the video were around her themselves.

A girl bumped into a guy—in that cliche scene Cammy could see happening in soaps or gooey movies. The guy's book flew out of his hand in a tiny moment of role reversal. The girl, in the role of the beautiful and normally self-absorbed male, assisted the guy with his notebook and accidentally read some of its definitive 'Cupid' content in a terribly done exposition and badly shot scene.

Cammy wanted to laugh, but her teacher seemed to enjoy it.

Perhaps he directed it! She giggled quietly.

On the screen, the girl asked the boy, "You're a Cupid, Ashley?" and the guy turned to the camera in that OMG-I'm-in-deep-sh*t kind of way.

Even the dialogue was cringe-worthy!

Next thing, he eyed something down the hallway, past the girl, and lost all his cherub colours from his cute face. The girl glimpsed behind him, saw nothing more than students milling about before class, and shrugged. "See you in class." She walked off after—completely unbothered by the Cupid thing—leaving the guy gawking at two tall, lean figures in hooded cloaks no one else seemed to see.

"Agent 103, you are under probationary hold for breaching Privacy code 113."

Poor Ashley, he hung his head in shame and dragged his feet as they escorted him off the school premises. "I'm sorry. I misplaced my assigned notebook and had to find a fill-in until they issued a new one."

"He got arrested because he wrote on a 'human notebook'? That's stupid." Cammy scoffed as the image fizzled like smoke from a fireplace. Not only was that infomercial not very informative, but it really did nothing to teach her why she couldn't really use her own book... not that she ever wanted a visit from dowdy death-like figures.

What am I saying?! Cammy bemoaned inside. A day ago she'd been a normal teen, and now, she sat in her home, at her dining table, learning how to be a Cupid—or not learning. She should have been at school trying not to be jealous of Becca holding Reggie's hand.

It had been more than a week since Reggie had apparently asked Becca out. A moment she'd share with Cammy over lunch, with the widest grin plastered on her face.

"Oh my God, guess who just asked me on a date?"

"Who?"

Cammy hadn't enjoyed the answer to that question. Perhaps as much as she would not enjoy the next thing Mr Sultan was going to say.

"Not as stupid as allowing humans to gain knowledge about us. Do you know what happens to Cupids who flout the Privacy rules?"

"This is what happens to them." Mr Sultan pressed the button on his remote, and a glimpse of a dark hell splattered across the wall. A horde of people demanding, shouting, begging a poor, drained Cupid to find them love, give them who they want, fulfill their demands.

"They get so overwhelmed by impossible demands that it drains them of their joy, their essence. They become husks of their former self. They become assistants, new soul processors, they work in reincarnation belts, anywhere but with subjects. Or worse. They choose to become human... mortal."

"Why do you mean by impossible demands? Why can't we just give them what they want, or who they want?" Cammy asked, fiddling with the quill he had issued her. Her question was more for herself than anyone else, for a sly thought had taken a hold in her mind.

I'm a Cupid?! Maybe I can make Reggie fall for me.

"Our job is to facilitate THE plan." Mr Sultan went rigid as a wooden board. A clear signal meant to warn her. This was dangerous grounds.

"We're not the ones that write everyone's fate, that is Goddess Bhagi's job. You know her commonly as Lady Fate..."

Cammy was tempted to shake her head. No. She had not heard either name before. But Aziz was still talking. A head shake opportunity long gone.

"... we cannot go against what's already written in her book. Her word is done. How do humans say it? Set in stone? Yes. Her word is set in stone. It cannot be undone. Believe me, many young Cupids have tried before you, to find shortcuts, make new connections where one wasn't meant to be, and it never goes well—for you or your charges—but what's written will always happen. No matter how long it takes. Your charges will find each other, but you? Well, let's not get into the dark stuff just yet."

Mr Sultan brought out what looked like a small gold letter opener and held a hand out for Cammy's. She obliged, dubiously watching the implement as Aziz cradled her hand in his. He brought her hand above the crest on the leather-bound book. A crest that looked like a bow and arrow, but the slogan was in a language Cammy had never seen.

"What are you doing?" She nearly screamed as Aziz Sultan brought his shiny little sword—for it was a sword and not a letter opener he held in his hand—closer to her skin.

Mr Sultan said as a matter of fact, "How else am I supposed to assign and lock this book and quill's properties to you? I have to tie it to your blood. Otherwise, this or that, they are all just paper and pen."

As the small sword inched closer to her outstretched index finger held between his grip, Cammy tried not to squirm like a worm, but it was hard not to.

"You're Krish Kamdev's daughter, Miss Kamdev! Stop. It will be over in a moment." His voice, exasperated.

But he didn't know, did he? That Cammy and blood weren't good friends. Perhaps this was the moment to tell Aziz Sultan, a.k.a Agent 777-slash-Cupid 777, that she was prone to fainting around blood. But that would mean she'd get another disappointing look from her new teacher. A look that said, 'You're Krish's daughter, but that's as far as his legend gets with you.'

Cammy remembered how proud her dad had looked this morning. She had come of age. She could do this. She could handle a bit of blood. She could do it for dad. Yes, that was it. She was doing it for dad.

She fought hard against her instincts then, refusing to make a scene on her first day as a Cupid-in-training.

However, when the blade touched her skin. As it sliced through the top layer of the epidermis, smaller than a paper cut, a line of blood oozed.

Cammy swooned.

Damn it!

The pink of the walls turned to the dark of the night.

So much for being brave in her dad's name. Cammy-Kamila was out like a light.

Aziz pulled his hand away in shock. "Oh dear, that's not supposed to happen."

And no, it wasn't supposed to happen. In all of his hundred and twenty years of training Cupids, Aziz had learned Cupids were brave, they were warriors, fighters, each willing to lay down their lives for their charges—not that they'd lost a single Cupid in the last millennium, but—they were meant to be hard, resilient. Brave.

Not faint at the sight of blood.

"Hmm. This complicates things a bit." He poked at the languid arm of the teenager who'd passed out over her book on the table. A bit of her drool dribbled onto the crest on the cover.

The crest changed to a language that was legible then and it read: Brave are those who love. Braver are those who seek love for others.

The book unlocked with an audible click, and the tip of the quill moistened with ink.

They were 'assigned'.

Aziz Sultan's eyebrows rose high. Not at the crest. Not even at the words he'd read many times, nor at the quill. It was the drool having acted as the key.

"Well, that's new. Saliva works too." He mused, dropping into a chair to wait. "Who would have thought?"

WC: 2274         TWC: 7032