The Last Stand of the Tooth Fairies

“Tell me about Daddy.”

Mommy was sitting on the end of Zuri’s bed, in the dark. She didn’t like to talk about him; it made her sad. She always said the same thing. “Daddy was very special. He was different.” She stroked Zuri’s braids. “I know he wanted to meet you so bad. He would have liked you very much.” She bonked her forehead gently into Zuri’s, the way she did when they especially loved each other. “Is your tooth safe under your pillow?”

Zuri nodded seriously. It was her first one, and a second was loose, and she felt very proud.

“Good. The Tooth Fairy will probably leave a dollar for you.”

“That’s not very much.”

“Be nice, Zuri,” Mommy smiled. “She’s just doing her job.” She kissed her again. “Now go to sleep. She won’t come unless you’re asleep, and she can tell if you’re faking.”

Mommy closed the door, and Zuri looked up at the glowing stars on her ceiling. Big ones, little ones. Big ones, little ones. If Mommy wouldn’t tell her about her dad, she would imagine him instead. He was always smiling, in her imagination. He had a dog and he knew magic tricks. He had an earring. He had—

There was a creak, and her window slid open.

Zuri held her breath. She could see out of the corner of her eye: a shadow slipping in. It might be a murderer. Or a ninja. Or a—

“Fuck. You’re not supposed to be awake.”

A small lady was climbing through her window. Not like Tinkerbell small, just smallish. She was wearing all pink. Loose pink canvas pants, a pink vest with lots of pink pockets. She had short pink hair that stuck out all over. She was older than Zuri, but not too much; she seemed like a teenager. She had a lot of muscles in her arms. She didn’t look very fairy-like. She looked tough.

But Zuri guessed anyway: “The Tooth Fairy!”

“Not The Tooth Fairy,” said the tooth fairy. “A tooth fairy. There are a lot of us.”

“There are?”

“I’m not fucking Santa Claus, kid,” she said. “I can’t hit a billion houses a night.”

“Is Santa real too?” Zuri asked, excited.

The tooth fairy looked at her sourly. “Who fucking cares?” she said. “Are you gonna cough up the tooth or not?”

“Can I have a dollar?”

The fairy grunted and felt around her vest pockets. A gun fell out of one of them and made a big thump on the carpet. They both froze for a moment, staring at it, but there was no sound from Mommy’s room. The fairy picked up the gun, stuffed it back into her vest, and produced a crumpled dollar bill.

Zuri squinched up her eyes as she took it. “What do you want my tooth for?”

“Why are you awake?” asked the tooth fairy. “Why are you talking to me? You’re supposed to sleep through all of this. What’s your deal, kid?”

“My name’s Zuri,” said Zuri.

“I don’t care,” said the fairy. “Are you magical?”

Zuri pondered this and then nodded seriously. “Probably,” she declared.

The fairy considered her for a moment, eyes narrowed, and then muttered, “Whatever.” She held the bill out to her. “Gimme the tooth.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Kid, you don’t want to know.”

“Yes I do.”

“Just give me the fucking tooth!”

“I want five dollars now.”

“Jesus ponyfucking—” The tooth fairy stepped forward and made as though to grab under Zuri’s pillow. Zuri, startled, batted at her arm.

There was a tinkling noise, like a thin pane of glass falling on a concrete floor. A series of tiny cracks appeared in the air between Zuri and the fairy, who hissed with surprise and pain and stepped back. She rubbed her forearm and Zuri shrank away, frightened. “I’m sorry!” she yelped.

But the tooth fairy didn’t seem mad. She looked surprised and maybe a little curious. “It’s okay. You didn’t hurt me that bad.” She cocked her head. “That was a cool trick you did. Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t even mean to!”

The fairy sighed. “Amir’s gonna want to meet you,” she said. “Look—okay, you asked what we want the tooth for. Do you want to see?”

“I’m not allowed to leave my room, I’m supposed to be sleeping.”

“No shit you’re supposed to be sleeping,” said the tooth fairy. “Bit late for that now, kid.”

She took a knife out of her vest and traced a circle in the air. A glowing line chased the blade and stayed in place, like a little round frame. She poked at the circle and it fell away. Through the hole was a different place altogether.

Hot air blew through the hole, but Zuri couldn’t see much. Bustling shapes. A lot of red. Everyone seemed to be yelling.

“Is that a magic door?” asked Zuri.

“Something like that.”

“Why didn’t you do that the first time, instead of climbing in the window?”

“Shut up,” said the fairy. “Are you coming or not?”

Zuri climbed out of bed. She was wearing purple pajamas with a unicorn and a rainbow on the front. Her feet were bare. “Promise I won’t get in trouble?” she asked, looking up at the fairy.

“Absolutely fucking not,” said the fairy. “Bring the tooth.”

Zuri reached under her pillow, grabbed her tooth, and clambered through the magic hole.

— # —

She stepped onto red soil in a world of chaos. Pink-haired fairies ran everywhere. In front of her was a gigantic pink crystal spear erupting crooked from the ground. Next to it was another just like it, and more and more, creating a sort of helter skelter wall. It looked like giant rock crystal candies, jammed down into the crimson earth. A shiny red sky stretched above, gleaming like an apple.

Another fairy stalked over, glaring at them both. He looked a lot like the first one—he was small, pink-haired, muscular and grumpy—but he was older. He flapped a hand at Zuri. “What the fuck is this, Sam?” he asked.

“Kid’s weird,” replied Sam the tooth fairy. She was emptying her vest pockets into a bucket. Dozens of teeth clattered in. Tiny teeth, bloody teeth, teeth with unnervingly long roots. Someone came running in and took the bucket when she was done.

Along the crystal wall were guns. Big machine guns, guns on swively turrets, pirate cannons, all peeking over the crystal wall. Tooth fairies darted back and forth, checking things, fixing things, oiling things, carrying buckets full of baby teeth. Zuri self-consciously placed her own tooth into one of them while Sam and the older tooth fairy whispered together.

He came over and shook her hand in a serious way. “I’m Amir.”

“I didn’t know there were boy fairies,” she said.

“That’s sexist,” he replied. “What’s your deal, kid?”

“I’m Zuri and I’m six.”

“Are you magical?”

“Probably.”

Amir squatted down, hands hanging between his thighs. “Six, huh,” he said. He fixed her with a sharp look. “People’s brains don’t work good with magic, kid,” he said. “Back in your world, kids sleep through our visits; we usually slide right off their minds. In here, in the world of magic—well.” He made a little screw-loose motion with his hand, ending with a little explosion noise, and Zuri giggled. “But none of that happened with you. So you can see why we’re curious.”

She nodded, but she was still looking at the guns. “What are the teeth for?” she asked.

Amir squinted at her. He was wearing pink combat boots. He peered right into Zuri’s eyes, like he was searching for something. She looked back for a while but then dropped her eyes, embarrassed and uncertain. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Finally, he shrugged.

“Innocence,” he said. “It’s the only thing that can defeat the evil we’re fighting. The legend is that it takes the blood of innocents, right? Back when the war started, we were shooting whole babies at them. I bet you can guess what the problem with that strategy was.”

Zuri shook her head. “Huh-uh.”

“The problem with a baby,” said Amir, “is that you can only fire it out of a cannon once. It’s inefficient. So years ago, we went up into the people world—”

“You went up,” Sam broke in. “He’s being modest. He went up to find a better way.”

“I went up and did some research, and what we found out is that it could be anything innocent. It doesn’t have to be the whole innocent. It doesn’t even have to be blood. It doesn’t have to hurt at all. So what’s the one thing you innocents lose on purpose?”

“My backpack?”

Amir gave Zuri a pained look. “The thing you were just asking about, kid. Remember?”

She didn’t remember. She had been thinking about shooting a baby out of a cannon.

He reminded her: “Teeth?”

“Teeth!” she cried, triumphantly.

“Right,” said Amir. “The kids go on with their lives, and we get our weapons. The blood of innocents is messy. The teeth of innocents are cheap.”

Zuri nodded solemnly as though she got it. She didn’t really get it—but she also didn’t get escalators, or middle names.

“Who’re the bad guys?” she asked.

Amir shrugged again. “What the hell. I’ll show you.” He reached out toward Zuri, but then dropped his hand back down. “It’s going to be scary. Do you think that’ll be okay for you?”

“Nope,” said Zuri. “I don’t like scary things. My mom let me watch Star Wars because it used to be my dad’s favorite movie, but we had to turn it off because Darth Vader was too scary.”

Amir was still looking at her steadily. “I like that movie too,” he said, and then, out of nowhere: “What’s your dad like?”

Zuri’s face turned down. “He was neato. I never got to meet him though,” she said.

Amir looked down for a moment. When he looked up, he seemed sad. “I’m sorry to hear that, kid,” he said. “That’s tough.”

“It’s okay,” said Zuri.

“Well,” said Amir, coughing briefly into his arm. “I’m sorry for what you’re about to see, too. This might be even scarier than Star Wars.”

“Is it geese?”

“Worse. It’s demons.”

“Gross,” said Zuri. “Like with horns?”

Amir nodded.

“They’re coming here?”

“They’re coming right now, Zuri.”

She peeked over the crystal wall and there they were.

They seemed at first like a storm on the horizon. A dark patch against the scarlet sky, a rustling, a distant clatter. As they neared, Zuri could make out distinct figures in the throng. Deep red demons, black demons. Huge demons and huger ones. Demons with wings, with tentacles, with axes the size of cars, with fangs and tusks, claws and hooves. Demons that galloped and slithered and scuttled and swooped. Zuri stared at them, wide-eyed. They were exactly like in her nightmares. Exactly.

Dozens of pink fairies stared out from the crystal fortifications, grim and nervous. They stood behind their guns, quivering, fingers twitching at the triggers. Their hands reached into the buckets of teeth. “Not yet!” shouted Amir. “Not yet!”

The demons rumbled like drums over the troubled plain, gnashing their fangs, swinging their flaming swords, beating their pitch-black wings.

Sam was peeking over the wall next to her, and Zuri was surprised to see that she had tears in her eyes. She caught Zuri looking at her. “It’s my first battle,” she whispered. “Usually the younger ones just do the tooth collecting.” She tried to smile a little. “I’m really scared.”

Zuri reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m scared too,” she said. “Demons are scary.”

“Look after her,” Amir said to Sam. “She’s important.” Then he turned and yelled, “Fire!”

A thunderous chatter rang out as the fairies aimed their guns into the onslaught, firing hundreds upon hundreds of little baby teeth into the approaching army. Some of the demons fell down. Others kept coming.

A red spider demon, tall as a giraffe, skittered towards them on spindly legs. Eight blazing spider eyes rolled around on its furry face. It lifted one hairy hoof delicately up and over the wall, setting it down close to Zuri. She shrieked, ran forward and kicked it with her bare foot.

A hissing noise came from above and the leg was withdrawn. For a moment she thought it was gone…and then the great red spider head rushed down towards her, all its eyes glaring, fangs clicking together, demon drool dripping onto the red earth at her feet. Zuri squeaked and shrank back.

Suddenly Sam was next to her, tugging her gun from her vest. She howled and emptied it into the spider’s face.

The demon screeched as smoking holes appeared in its head. It reared up, teetered, and then toppled backwards. When it hit the ground, it burst like a water balloon. Mucky black goo spurted out, its body melting away, and soon all that was left was a festering pool.

“You shot it in its grody face!” shouted Zuri. “Good job!”

Sam grinned at her. “You’re pretty tough, for a six-year-old, you know,” she said. But then her eyes went scared. She was looking over Zuri’s shoulder.

Zuri spun around. A pack of ink-black, doglike demons had gotten over the wall. One was perched on the chest of a fallen fairy, gnawing at something. The rest were creeping closer to Zuri and Sam. “I’m out of teeth,” moaned Sam.

“I have another loose one,” said Zuri. “Maybe I can get it out.” She reached in to wiggle it, but it still seemed pretty connected.

The demons crept low to the ground, slinking with slitted yellow eyes. Zuri backed up, holding her fists in front of her face, but the first demon was on her already. It reared up on its hind legs. Its claws gleamed in the dim air…and then its head exploded.

Amir was there, holding an ancient-looking blunderbuss where its head used to be. A single baby tooth was embedded in the crystal wall, where it had landed after blasting a channel through the demon’s skull. Amir turned to them. “Run, you assholes!” he hissed, and then the rest of the pack fell on him.

Zuri was frozen for a moment. She should feel frightened—but instead she felt mad. She didn’t care how many there were. She wanted to fight.

Sam’s hand clutched at her shoulder, whirling her around. “Let’s go!” They turned and ran.

Around them, more demons were breaking through. A five-horned rhinoceros crashed through the crystals just beside them, fizzing teeth already embedded in its hide. “There’s a shelter up ahead!” yelled Sam. “If we can get through the hatch, they can’t get us!” The two ran on, keeping their heads down.

Zuri had short legs, though, and she was having trouble keeping up. Sam kept slowing for her. They weren’t fast enough.

A gigantic black fist slammed down through the wall ahead of them, like a kid wrecking a toy. Splinters of jagged glass flew. Zuri felt one cut her cheek as it zipped by. A big chunk hit Sam in the head and she fell and stopped moving. Zuri looked up, and up, into the coal black face of a demon three stories tall.

The fury of war seemed to quiet as the demon’s fiery eyes met Zuri’s. He bent down, peering at her, a smile of what seemed like pure pleasure on his face. Sulfur leaked out of his mouth and ears; great black horns reared above his head.

“What,” he said in a booming voice, “have we here?”

“I’m Zuri and I’m magical!” Zuri cried, balling her fists up. “You better watch it!”

A pale, human-sized demon flapped down from the sky on hooked inky-black wings, landing on the big one’s shoulder. “She’s from the human world,” he said, in a voice that sounded like forks in a garbage disposal. “Why, Beelzebub?”

“Why indeed, Prince Azazel?” asked the big one, cocking his head so only the higher ear smoked. “What do they want you for, child?”

“It’s a secret!” said Zuri. “And you’re too tall!”

“What’s the secret?” Azazel grated.

“Our teeth!” answered Zuri. “You’ll never get us because we kill you with our teeth!”

The demons looked at each other. “Is that what those jagged little magic bullets are? But why?” asked Azazel.

“Because we’re in nooooo sense!” answered Zuri. “They come in my room and they give me money!”

“Are you saying the fairies pay innocent children for their teeth, so they can shoot us with them?”

Zuri suddenly felt like she might not have kept her secret quite as well as she had planned to. “No?” she said, squinching her nose up.

“This just seems crass,” boomed Beelzebub the giant.

“Exploitative, frankly,” grated pale Prince Azazel. “And they sneak into your bedroom in the middle of the night? That’s it? That’s their strategy?”

“What a bunch of fucking creeps,” said Beelzebub.

They were ignoring Zuri now, talking to each other. She tried to squeeze back against the rock. Her tongue worked nervously against her loose tooth. If she could get it out…

“I can’t believe that was it the whole time,” said Azazel. He flopped down on Beelzebub’s massive shoulder, his wings drooping, sulking. “I almost had it.”

“If you’d managed to not blow your cover, maybe,” scoffed Beelzebub. “You did a bullshit job pretending to be a human.”

“You fucking try it,” said Azazel. “They’re very emotional.”

“Whatever. But it’s easy to fix, now that we know.” He said, “Fly up to the human world. Smash their mouths. Bye bye baby…teeth.”

“Knock ‘em all down their throats,” said Azazel. “Toothless children, toothless army.”

Zuri was imagining demons looming over her friends’ beds. “I’ll knock your teeth out!” she shouted.

Beelzebub crouched down again, hands on his knees, his shadow falling over her, his roiling eyes fixed on her. He grinned—his lips slowly creasing upwards in a delighted arc, his teeth bared. Each of his cruel fangs was as big as Zuri herself. “Will you?” he boomed.

Out of the depths of his throat, a pink serpent lashed. It was forked at the end, and it sliced through the air and wrapped itself around Zuri’s waist. It was his tongue. Long like a whip, sinuous and strong. “Ew!” yelled Zuri, but she was already jerked off her feet and into the mouth of the demon.

She hit her head on one of his enormous yellowed teeth, on her way into the cavern of his maw. It was stifling hot inside. It felt like the time her mom had brought her to a sauna. Too hot. Gross. Wrong. It smelled so bad it hurt.

From the back of the cavern came a pulsing, deafening roar. He was laughing, and his teeth raised up even higher. Muscles tensed in his pink jaws. He was going to chomp down on her. He was going to squish and swallow her. She scrunched her eyes shut and held her fists up above her head, clenched so hard they were almost white. He might eat her, but she would poke him in the gums first.

And just then, Azazel flapped down on his bat wings in front of the giant’s mouth. “No!” he cried. “Haven’t you been paying attention? She’s innocent! She’s full of teeth! She’ll poison you if you eat her, Beelzebub.”

The cavern stood still for a moment, cruel incisors poised above Zuri, a cage of ivory stalagmites around her. Finally, the demon grunted, “Ih,” and his long serpent tongue rolled back out, flinging Zuri onto her back on the muddy ground.

“Enough fucking around. Make us a gate, Beelzebub,” grated Azazel, and flew off over the ruined wall. Without so much as a backwards glance, Beelzebub strode after him.

“That was so gnarly,” came a voice behind her. Zuri looked over her shoulder. Sam was limping over.

“I was in his mouth!” yelped Zuri. “He’s a whole grodeo.” Her feet were wet. She’d been barefoot this whole time, and they were soaked with demon drool.

Off in the middle of the plain, Beelzebub unsheathed a black sword. Muscles tensing, he reached up and carved a great circle in the air. A disc of scarlet sky crashed down and shattered on the plain. Through it, upside down, hanging like bats, were the little roofs of a human neighborhood.

Azazel hovered in the air beneath the portal, his wings flapping, his pale body almost glowing against the dark of Earth. The demon horde paused in their fighting and looked up at him. Panting and bleeding, the fairies looked too. “Find the children in their beds!” he cried. “Smash their teeth out from their heads!” And with that, he shot through the hole ahead of them and was gone.

As one, the demons abandoned the battle and lifted off. Those that couldn’t fly rode on those that could. Slowly, and not without a great deal of confusion and tussle, the demon army began to rise up and into the portal.

Zuri was craning her neck at the hole in the crimson sky. “They could have just done a magic door the whole time? How come they didn’t just do that in the first place? What good even is your big crystal wall?”

Sam’s eyes softened. “Oh, Zuri,” she said. “Did you think we’d been fighting to protect your world?”

“Kinda.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Kid—the fight is between us. They were never attacking you.”

Zuri felt tears in her eyes. “But they are now.”

“I know. They are now.”

“It’s my fault. I told them about the teeth.”

Sam shook her head. “We shouldn’t have involved you humans. I’m sorry. It’s just that nothing else could stop them.”

“Can’t you stop them now?”

Sam gestured around them helplessly. “Look at us.” The crystal wall was shattered. The guns were broken. The buckets were empty. “We’re done.”

“They’re going to hurt my friends,” whispered Zuri.

“Us too.”

Zuri suddenly felt small and tired. She was wet and hungry and grumpy now, and she didn’t like any of this. It had been exciting at first. But then it was scary, and then it was gross, and now everybody was going to get smashed. “I have to go home,” she said.

“You can’t fight all those demons.”

“Can so!”

“I’m sorry, Zuri,” said Sam. “Amir told me to keep you safe.”

Zuri stuck out her lip. “You’re not very good at it,” she said. “And I can do it myself.” She’d seen Sam carve a door, and then Beelzebub did the same thing but bigger, and she was pretty sure she got it. She snatched the knife out of Sam’s vest; before the fairy could stop her, and before she could think too hard about it herself, she scratched a big shaky circle in the air and threw herself into it. With a little tinkling noise, she tumbled through onto the rug in her bedroom at home.

“Wait!” yelled Sam, but the portal closed with a pop behind her. Zuri was already looking around for demons.

A noise came from the kitchen. A crash like a pot being dropped, and then odd shuffles and scuffles. Zuri eased her door open and crept down the hall. Her heart was pounding. What if the demon had come for Mommy on accident?

“What are you doing here?” hissed Mommy’s voice, and Zuri froze guiltily—but a deeper voice answered her from beyond the kitchen door. A voice like forks in a garbage disposal.

“The girl knows,” it grated.

“What have you done?” said Mommy. “You promised you would leave us alone. You promised!”

“It wasn’t me!” came the voice again. “She found her own way.”

Zuri snuck a little closer and peeked around the doorway, and there was pale Prince Azazel. He loomed above Mommy, his bat wings almost touching the ceiling. She had her hands on his chest and she was looking up into his red eyes.

Just for a minute, Zuri’d had an idea that maybe Amir was her real daddy. Maybe that’s why she was magic. Maybe he’d left because he had more important things to do, like fight demons. To find out that she was half right, and it was the bad half…

Zuri only let out a tiny little squeak, but Azazel spun around immediately. “She’s found her way again, I see.” And with a shiver of wings, he was upon her.

Zuri tried to kick Azazel as he gripped her shoulders in his bony white hands and lifted her up. The knife fell out of her hands and clattered on the linoleum. “Azazel, no!” cried Mommy.

He winked an eye and Mommy sank to the floor, fast asleep. “Obstreperous, that one,” he grated. “Always has been. My magic will quiet her. But you and I, child…we need to talk.”

Zuri kept her mouth shut tight, although her lips twisted this way and that as though she was about to say something.

“You have great power, you know,” he said. “You are special. Those silly fairies have been talking, haven’t they? About good and evil? But who’s been sneaking through bedroom windows, hm? It’s the fairies, Zuri, who’ve been lurking in your shadows. Forcing us to respond. You have been told a story, have you not? But it’s a meager one. Money and teeth. My child, you were made for greater—what are you doing with your mouth?”

Zuri’s tongue had been working during his whole stupid speech. Now she grinned at him, showing bloody teeth with a new gap—and one small white thing clenched between them. She’d finally gotten the loose one out. “I don’t care iv you’re my daddy,” she said. “You’re a creep. Make your demonth leave uth alone, or I’ll blatht you in the faith.”

Azazel’s hands clenched harder on her arms. A growling noise came from deep inside him. It took Zuri a moment to realize that it was laughter. He set her down, his body shaking. “You really are a queen,” he grated. “But I’m not your enemy.”

“You wanted to thmath our teef in!”

He shrugged. “I didn’t say we were perfect. But if it means so much to you, I’ll call it off! All your precious friends can wake up with shiny smiles tomorrow. All you have to do…is come with me.”

“What? Ew!”

“Is it so distasteful?” Azazel gestured around him at the little kitchen they were in. “Haven’t you always suspected you were made of greater stuff? Have you not always sensed, deep down, your magic?”

“Probably,” Zuri admitted.

“I will teach you how to use it. I’ll show you worlds and powers beyond imagination. Would you really rather slouch through a tawdry life with these soft, fragile creatures? They call us demons and monsters…but those are their nasty words. We’re so much more than that, Zuri.”

Zuri looked up at him. She ran her tongue over the tooth clenched between her jaws. She did want to…whatever he said. Live here, with Mommy, in this kitchen. She didn’t want to be magical anymore, and she didn’t want Azazel to be her daddy. She wished she’d never found out about fairies or demons. She looked up into his slitted red eyes and breathed in deep through her nose, wondering if she could spit the tooth high enough to hit him in his face.

But when he was gone, his army would attack. All the children in the world would wake up with demon-smashed faces, and it would be her fault. If she could help them, she had to.

She leaned down and carefully spit her tooth out into her hand. “You use a lot of big dumb words. If I come, you’ll leave the kids alone?”

“You have my word.”

“Why do you even want me?”

“Because you’re royalty, Zuri,” said Azazel. “Because you’re my child. You have my power inside you.” He laughed again. “And your mother’s bravery, too.”

Zuri looked way up at him—at his big black wings, his long white hair, the angular cheekbones that looked like hers. She closed her fist gently around her tooth and lowered it. “Okay,” she whispered.

“There’s that courage now.”

Zuri knelt down next to Mommy, peacefully asleep on the kitchen floor, and bonked her in the head, the way they did when they especially loved each other. “I’m sorry Mommy,” she whispered. “I’ll miss you.” Mommy didn’t move, but maybe she smiled a little in her magical sleep.

Then Zuri rose and came back to the Prince. “Keep Beelzebub away from me, though,” she said. “He’s a whole grodeo.”

“It’s true,” he cackled. “He is a whole grodeo.”

He carved a door and Zuri stepped through, back to the red world. One small hand was in Azazel’s bony grasp. Her other hand was clenched behind her back.

© 2023 Sasha Brown

About the Author

Sasha Brown lives near Boston with his wife, child and dog. He has work in McSweeney’s, Prime Number and Tales to Terrify. He can be found on twitter @dantonsix and online at https://sashabrownwriter.com.