“Pleased to meet you, Madison. I’m Musad,” the man in the red shirt said.
“And I’m Muhamad, the good-looking twin. You must be here for some goodies. What can I help you with today?”
“This girl needs everything,” Rose said.
“Everything? Where did you transfer from?” Muhamad asked.
“Transfer? She’s fresh off the boat.”
Both men turned to give me a once-over, then they shared a quick look.
“You better not mention my age,” I warned them. Identical right eyebrows quirked, silently voicing their unfavorable opinion of my delayed initiation to my career and my subsequent limited abilities. There was a slight possibility that I was feeling a tad defensive and reading too much into their facial tic. No, not me.
“I’m a quick learner,” I added, feeling obligated to defend myself. Speaking of things I’m supposed to be learning . . . I blinked. I examined the twins first, surprised to see that even though they knew about IEs, appeared to be trusted by Rose, and dealt in “goodies” that I could use, they were not purely good. In fact, there were a few construction workers who could teach these two men a thing or two about soul cleanliness. I peered around the shop. No imps. No other life. Everything was as it should be. I blinked back and steadied myself on the counter.
“You’ll need a flashlight,” Musad said.
“And some pet wood,” Muhamad said.
“Excuse me?”
“Pet wood,” Muhamad repeated, looking at Rose in askance. She gave him an “I told you so” shrug. “And a knife. You probably haven’t settled on a favorite weapon yet. Do you have a cell phone?”
“Her first ever,” Rose said helpfully. She was enjoying my discomfort.
“Let me guess: most expensive on the shelf?” Muhamad asked.
“Oh, yeah. Those salesmen saw ‘sucker’ written all over her.”
“Hey! I like Medusa.”
“Medusa?” all three asked at once.
I blushed and pulled out my pretty green phone, wishing I were anywhere but there. Rose gave me a very eloquent eyebrow raise. Musad snatched Medusa from my hand.
“Hum. At least it’s not an iPhone.” He flipped it on and began pressing buttons. Muhamad rolled his eyes at him.
“Take a look at these.” He gestured toward the end of the glass case, and I obligingly peered through the glass at several yard-long rods and a fanned array of knives. “You can’t get more simple than pet wood. Stick some lux lucis in it, stick the wood in an imp, and voila! Disintegrated imp!”
Based on that description, pet wood equaled wand. I was in the right place.
“How exactly do you know about these things?” I asked.
Muhamad tapped the side of his nose. “We’ve seen a few things in our time.” I glanced at Rose. I wanted to demand more of an explanation from Muhamad, but Rose shook her head. “Now the knives are obviously shorter, but they have the added benefit of causing physical injury along with”—he fluttered his hand, looking for the word—“spiritual injury.”
“Physical injury? No thanks!” I thought about Rebel Boy. He really would have freaked out if I’d started stabbing the air around him with a knife.
“But, Madison, you’ll need—”
“No. Thanks,” I repeated firmly. “Let me see the, uh, pet wood.”
“She’s only worked with imps,” Rose said from behind me.
“Oh dear.”
I ignored them. I wasn’t going to get a knife, and that was final. I hardly trusted myself with my kitchen knives; there was no way I was going to start carrying a knife as a weapon. I’d probably end up hurting someone, and it would most likely me.
“Why is it called pet wood?” I asked.
“It’s like petrified wood, only not as old. Unlike dead wood, which can hold a bit of lux lucis, the lifelike plant properties in pet wood make it highly conducive for lux lucis.”
That made a certain amount of sense. The wood around my windows and door had held the lux lucis wards, but it was as if the energy sat on top of the surface. I couldn’t have pushed lux lucis through the wall if I’d tried.
Muhamad placed an array of rods on the glass countertop. They ranged in thickness and length. I hefted a few of them, not knowing what I was looking for. In Primordium they looked the same: like dead wood. I experimented with lux lucis, gathering it in my hands, then touching my hands to a rod like Doris had shown me with wards. The wood retained a faint glow. I picked up a rod and pushed lux lucis into it like it was an imp. It began to glow as bright as my hands. I continued to feed it lux lucis, fascinated. Suddenly a pressure inside the rod that I hadn’t even realized I was aware of broke, and the lux lucis dissipated, leaving the pet wood black.
“That was stupid,” Rose said.
I blinked and looked at the rod I held. Its soft brown color was now charred black.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to charge you for that one,” Muhamad said cheerfully. “Good to see that you’ve got it in you, though. Try this one: It’s a favorite of the local enforcers.” He placed in my hand a rod I’d been avoiding because it was no longer than five inches, then he grabbed my wrist and flicked my hand. The rod expanded like an antennae to about four feet long.
“Nice.” I blinked to Primordium and pushed energy into the wood, paying careful attention to the pressure pushing back against me. The rod held a lot of lux lucis. I poked at the ground with it. It’d be really nice to not have to get so close to the imps. “I’ll take it,” I said.
“Excellent choice.”
“You said you have Primordium flashlights?”
“More than you’ll find anywhere else,” Muhamad said with pride. He led me to the back of the shop where every flashlight ever invented was displayed on shelves and hooks. Gesturing, he said, “This row works only in Primordium. This row works in both worlds.”
I checked the prices. The flashlights that served double duty were triple the price. Since I could find a regular flashlight anywhere, I opted for the ones that shone in Primordium only. It took double-A batteries, so I grabbed a packet hanging from a display near the counter.
“Are you sure you don’t want a knife?”
“Very sure.”
“If knives aren’t your style, we have swords, staffs, spears, canes—I think we even have some arrows around here, and we could order you a custom bow.”
“Uh, no. Thanks, though.”
Muhamad shrugged at Rose. Rose shrugged back. “I tried,” he said.
“Yep. She’s as thickheaded as every enforcer.”
“With no experience?”
“Zip.”
Muhamad shook his head. I frowned at them.
Musad set my phone on the counter.
“I’ve made a few necessary modifications, added an app. Now you can take pictures in Primordium.” He showed me how to navigate the menu screen and switch the camera from regular light to “Pri pics.” Then he had me take a few pictures of the shop to make sure I knew how to use it. I took a picture of Rose and let her see how she looked. It obviously was not the first time she’d seen herself in Primordium. She was more interested in pictures of me, and she played with Medusa while I paid for my new toys.
“One thousand six hundred twenty-five dollars,” Muhamad announced.
I tried to keep my face neutral when I handed him my ATM card. I looked at my three items—well, four, if you counted the rod I’d burnt out. Enforcer business wasn’t cheap.
“Are they human?” I asked Rose when we were back in my car.
She shrugged. “As far as I know.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. “Did you pick up anything from them? You know, empathically?” I wiggled my fingers at my head and she gave me a dark look.
“They were very pleased with the sale. They would have been more pleased if you’d gotten a knife. I would have been, too.”
“What about how they’re going to
die?”
“Muhamad and Musad? No. I didn’t get any feelings from them.”
It seemed callous to be disappointed, so I said nothing.
Rose waited in the car when I parked at my complex and ran up to my apartment to check on Mr. Bond. I found him curled up on my pillow. He cracked an eye at me and stretched when I scratched his chin. The lump of liquid between his shoulder blades had gone down in size, but it still looked like a grotesque growth. I checked his food bowl and saw that he’d eaten a little. Reassured, I gave him one last pat before leaving.
“As your official babysitter, I decree it’s time to get some food,” Rose announced when I returned to the car.
My stomach grumbled in agreement, so I decided not to take exception to the babysitter comment.
“At least Mr. Pitt will be happy when we get back,” I said once we’d settled at an orange plastic table at a nearby taqueria. Things were looking up: Mr. Bond was doing better, I had successfully completed an assignment, I was equipped for the next challenge, and I was about to consume a huge burrito loaded with guacamole and sour cream.
“What do you mean?”
“At the construction site. I took care of the evil, and it was even easy.”
“You think a few mad Tae Bo moves cleaned up the area?”
“It didn’t?”
Rose snorted. “If that boy was the evil Brad felt, then I’m Sofia Vergara. More likely, there’s something else going on there, and those imps just saw some easy food.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t go getting all depressed on me. You’ll figure out what the real issue is. I’m sure your initiative and enthusiasm will win you a few points with Brad.
I ate my burrito in silence, my good mood punctured.
We reported immediately to Mr. Pitt when we got back to the office. I was determined to put a good spin on the outing and took the lead.
“We tried to take a look at the area, but it’s a construction site, and we got kicked off by the crew,” I said. “I’ve got a few ideas of how to get around them.” I had no ideas, but I’d think of some.
Mr. Pitt waved his hand dismissively at my words. “Sit. Both of you. We’ve got a bigger problem. It’s at the Roseville Hotel off North Sunrise. Something cropped up in the last two hours that wasn’t here yesterday.”
“Sounds big,” Rose said.
“This much activity this fast—Yeah, it’s big. If Madison were Kyle—” He shrugged. “If Niko were here, I’d send him.”
“Where is he?”
“Emergency in Shasta.”
“Shoot.”
“Hey, give me a chance, guys,” I said. “I’m not completely useless.”
Mr. Pitt and Rose didn’t look at me. Mr. Pitt sighed.
“At least she’s enthusiastic,” Rose said. “Look at her. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s up against, but she doesn’t let that stop her. She’s fearless.”
“I got pet wood today,” I said, since Rose’s argument didn’t seem to be doing me any favors.
“You hear that, boss? She’s got pet wood. What more could she need?”
Mr. Pitt dropped his head into his hands with a groan. “Okay.”
Rose gave me a thumbs-up. The burrito churned in my gut. I was pretty sure we’d just talked me into a situation I was completely unprepared for.
9
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
“Don’t do anything,” Mr. Pitt said for the third time. “Assess the situation. That’s it. You got your phone’s camera fixed to work in Primordium, right?”
I nodded.
“Good. Take pictures. But don’t do anything else.”
“What about Joy and Will? Why not send them?” I didn’t want to seem like a coward, but if there were more qualified people, it seemed wiser to send them.
“They’re Illuminea. They’re like walking lollipops for creatures of the dark. If they get too close to whatever it is, they’ll be mobbed by the underlings.”
At my confused look, Rose explained: “They don’t fight back. They influence people. They’re no good against the creatures of darkness. They’re strictly people-people.”
That sounded like a personal flaw.
“Which is why you’re necessary, Madison,” Mr. Pitt said. “You can fight back. Not that you’re going to. This time you won’t attract attention, right?”
“But what if there are imps—”
“Yeah, I know: the imps find you fascinating. They find a lot of light, bright souls fascinating. Try not to look right at them in Primordium, and they won’t know you can see them.”
I scowled at him. That wasn’t what Kyle had told me when I took the job. “And if they bite me?”
“Be discreet.” Mr. Pitt fixed us with a serious, bug-eyed stare. “This is strictly a recon mission. Once we know what we’re up against, we’ll formulate a plan.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Rose said. I stood when she did, and we headed for the door.
If they think I can do this, then I can, I encouraged myself.
“Madison,” Mr. Pitt called. I turned around. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
I’d fully restored my self-confidence by the time we got back to my car. After all, I’d been able to handle all the imps I’d encountered so far (the first one by the fire station didn’t count), I had a new pet wood full of lux lucis, and I was doing what I was born to do, which surely was a plus on my side. Playing spy at a hotel would be a piece of cake.
What I didn’t account for were all the nerds.
The Roseville Hotel boasted what no other hotel in the county could claim: enormous conference halls at a reduced rate, or so I assumed. Most conferences in the area were hosted in Sacramento, which was fifteen minutes away with a population triple the size of Roseville. Yet the Sixteenth Annual Gamers’ Fan-tasy Land Convention had set up camp in the High Sierra conference hall on the second floor of the Roseville Hotel. The geeks, however, swarmed the entire grounds.
Rose and I were swept along in a gaggle of pasty, overweight, pubescent boys as we neared the entrance. We funneled through the lobby doors behind an obese teen dressed as some sort of Pokémon character and his scrawny Darth Maul friend. A clutch of pimply boys in matching Luigi outfits darted around the main crowd and ran, backpacks jostling, toward the elevators.
“Are you sure we haven’t found the source of the evil Mr. Pitt felt?” I asked Rose
“You’d think so, right?”
Through the lobby and to the elevators, we swam with the herd, deciding to postpone the floor-by-floor check we had previously planned in lieu of following the masses. Gamely, we crammed into an elevator that was filled over capacity, and I did my best to hold my breath: Not only had someone failed to teach these boys the value of outdoor activities, they’d also failed to teach them about personal hygiene. Fortunately, the ride was short, and we burst out of the elevator into the busy floor of the convention center, taking deep breaths of clean air.
I stepped to the side of the elevator to avoid being trampled by a trio of business men in slacks and ties, and paused to take it all in. All the moveable interior walls had been removed so that a single, enormous room the width and breadth of the hotel was filled to bursting with gamer nerds. A clear grid of booths had been mapped out—there were even brochures at the entrances to help the foaming fans navigate. Every booth had a huge banner hanging from the ceiling over it and an enormous logo prominently displayed on the port-a-cube walls. Businessmen and a few businesswomen manned the booths, along with a collage of costumed characters, and the aisles swarmed with men and women of all ages and sizes, dressed in everything from homemade costumes and fanwear T-shirts to business attire. To add to the chaos, the conference center displayed more TVs, gaming consoles, flashing lights, and booming sound systems than most large electronics stores sold in a year.
“I heard the booth babes aren’t as hot this year as they were last year,” a spike
d-hair, pimply faced teenager complained to his friend as another elevator-load of eager geeks rushed past us. “They made their clothing PG-13.”
“But that’s not accurate to the games!” his friend whined.
“Booth babes?” I asked Rose.
She pointed. At the entrance to the closest booth, a lanky young woman sauntered back and forth wearing little more than a bikini and some leg armor. A small crowd of men swelled in front of her, which she deftly formed into a line to enter the booth. A frenzy of cell phones and cameras centered on the woman, like the nerds were paparazzi in training. The bravest got a picture with her.
“That’s sad. Sick. Degrading. And so not PG-13,” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the spectacle.
“At least her legs won’t get hurt if she has to fight her way free.”
“Always gotta make sure the vital body parts are covered before going into battle,” I agreed.
Rose snorted. “Come on. This is definitely the place. My skin wants to crawl off.”
“Oh, goodie.”
All the open-door entrances were roped off and monitored by hotel staff, who checked tickets and bags. We were directed back to the lobby, where the attendant informed us that it would cost us seventy-five dollars each for the privilege of spending the day with video game dorks.
“This is extortion,” Rose complained. “Why don’t you pay for the both of us. It’ll be easier for Mr. Pitt to reimburse only one of us.”
I eyed her suspiciously and handed over my ATM card.
We suffered through another odorous elevator ride. I tried to be charitable: maybe the smell wasn’t my current companions but the residual stench of previous occupants seeping from the metal walls. Either way, I held my breath.
After handing over our tickets, being subjected to a pat down and a purse search by security, and getting our hands stamped with a design that looked vaguely like a H with a stylized circle around it, we were admitted into the heart of the convention.
A Fistful of Evil: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 1) Page 11
