Rose pulled me into the crowds. The air inside the room was dank. There’s no ventilation system yet invented that’s capable of dispelling five hundred or more sweaty, excited men’s body odor. Between the smell and the visual bombardment of so many moving screens and people, it was enough to make a woman sick. On top of that, the clamor of the crowd and competing sound systems battered against me at a level that was almost physical. I blinked to Primordium, hoping against hope that we were in the wrong place.
Imps scampered everywhere. I would have screamed, but that would have meant inhaling first. Instead, I settled for a death grip on Rose’s arm.
“What’d you find?” she shouted.
“Imps. Everywhere,” I whispered. It was harder than I thought it would be not to look at them. They bounced along in dark, seething clumps, following the whim of whatever thoughts entered their puny brains.
Rose must have read my lips, because she asked, “Are they feeding?”
I watched the herds discreetly. They ran along the aisles, passing around and partially through the feet and legs of all the fans, but only a few stopped to snack.
“That’s strange. Most aren’t taking a nibble.” Maybe it was too large a feast for them to pick just one victim. Maybe it was a commentary on the food selection.
My hand twitched for the pet wood in my purse. It’d be so easy to kill the imps.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Rose said, grabbing my elbow. I hadn’t even realized I’d taken a step away from her.
I looked back at her in time to see a herd of imps bound down our aisle. Helplessly, I watched them come. It was one thing to be able to kill them. It was entirely another thing to watch impotently while the imps had their way with a defenseless crowd. I shuddered as the tangle of evil bounced closer.
“One or two?” I pleaded with Rose.
“You take out even one with that pet wood and the rest will know.”
She was right. Even if I used my hands and was discreet, avoiding overcharging and creating a lux lucis flare out of myself, the odds against my kill going unnoticed were slim.
The imps were almost past me when I made eye contact with one. It froze. I froze. It cocked its head and bounced slowly toward me.
“Shit, you’re looking at one, aren’t you?” Rose demanded, giving me a small shake.
Grimacing, I forced myself to tear my eyes from the adorable, horrible little creature, though I tried to keep it in my peripheral vision. “Not anymore.”
“You look like you’ve got bad gas. Smile.”
I thinned my lips, which was the best smile I could muster. From the corner of my eye, I watched the imp hop nearly to my feet before it bounded away to catch up with the rest of the herd.
A pair of booth babes walked by, so scantily clad I felt everyone should be able to see their souls as easily as I could. Women, not booth babes, I reminded myself.
“If one of them bites me, I’m destroying it,” I warned Rose, gesturing vaguely down a crowded aisle at some imps.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. We’re practically invisible with all these pesky clothes on.”
“Not the men. The imps.”
“Oh. No, you won’t. Not here.”
“What if one gets on you?”
“Vaporize it. Covertly.”
I rolled my eyes at her back.
My skin felt twitchy as I followed Rose through the aisles. I switched back and forth between Primordium and normal sight nearly as often as I blinked, trying to see everything in both realms. If I staggered a bit more than I should have as I fought off the dizziness between visions, no one noticed in the jostle of the crowd.
Rose and I circled the outer perimeter first, looking for the main attraction, so to speak. I purposely avoided all speculation about the exact source of all these imps. It was clearly not the questionably sane masses of people. As bizarre and juvenile as I found the fans that filled the conference room, they weren’t evil. Not at this scale. Whatever had attracted the imps, or whatever was allowing them to breed, was far worse than a few hundred horny men. I double-checked my assumption with Rose, and she agreed. Something larger was at work here. Since I didn’t know what I was looking for, I concentrated on taking stealthy pictures of the imp herds and any door or booth they were attracted to. Maybe Mr. Pitt could make more sense of it than me.
The competition for the notice of fans was fierce, and the booths used every gimmick in their arsenal. Nearly naked women, I decided by the end, were the least annoying. They, at least, didn’t assault my eardrums or, for the most part, my vision. I could even escape the flashing lights of all the monitors and displays in Primordium. The sound, however, was impossible to tune out. Each vendor was so close to the next that there was never just one song playing but a cacophony of songs that pounded against my skull. Somehow above all that noise was the drone of hundreds of voices. Though they all spoke English, it was not an English I understood, and it seemed to consist mostly of acronyms and excited squeals. Rose and I stopped trying to shout back and forth at each other after a few minutes and concentrated on pushing through the masses.
I think it was worse for Rose. Primordium, I could turn on and off. It didn’t seem like empathy had a switch.
“Do you feel anything suspicious?” I asked Rose after we’d finished our first circuit.
“Nothing noteworthy, but if I start looking interested in these games, slap me. It’s like all these boys are on a high. And if I turn into a horn-ball, it’s not my fault, either. There’s way too much testosterone in here. I can practically tastes it.” She smacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and grimaced.
“Horn-ball?”
Rose puckered her lips and blew me a kiss, batted her eyes at me, and ran her tongue over her upper lip.
“Got it. Horn-ball is bad. We’ll rush you out of here.”
A flash popped in our face. I glared at the guy holding the camera. He grinned at me and winked.
It took us over two hours to thoroughly investigate the entire floor, and by the time we were done, I felt like I’d been at an atrocious rock concert. I’d certainly seen enough leather, glow-in-the-dark apparel, and breasts that the ringing in my ears made the feeling only more authentic.
We stumbled back to my car in sunlight that was too bright in a world that had gone silent while we were inside. My nerves were frayed. I’d found myself reaching for an imp more than a dozen times before I remembered to stop myself. I’d had the pet wood out and fully extended no less than five times, and each time Rose had shoved it back into my purse. Against my body, it was invisible to the dark creatures of Primordium. In my hand, with me brandishing it like a sword, it looked exactly like what it was: a weapon.
Rose rubbed her arms and legs vigorously when we got in the car.
“Are there any on me?” she demanded.
I shook my head. I needed a shower.
Rose called Mr. Pitt while I drove.
“The place gave me the major heebie-jeebies. Madison says there are imps everywhere.” Pause. “No. She was well behaved. Exactly what I wanted to see in an enforcer.” Pause. “Yes. Many times. Which is my point. I don’t want someone passive.”
Back at the office, Rose showed me how to send the pictures from my phone to Mr. Pitt’s email through my company email address—an account I hadn’t known I’d been given.
“This is it?” Mr. Pitt asked when we reported to his office. “Pictures of imps?”
“They were everywhere.”
“You didn’t see anything larger?”
I shook my head. “Maybe if you’d let me kill some.”
“And then what? What would you’ve done if the imps had mobbed you? Or better yet, if you’d fallen into a turbonis or attracted the attention of a demon?”
A demon or a what? I wisely kept my mouth shut.
“This was a waste of time. Go home. I’ll figure something out. I want both of you back here
at eight thirty tomorrow.”
“Babysitter again, boss?” Rose asked.
Mr. Pitt nodded.
“Damn. Okay.”
I slumped out of the office after Rose. I might not be sure I wanted this job, but I didn’t like feeling like I was letting everyone down. Rationally I knew I wasn’t capable of handling all the evil I’d seen at the hotel. I simply didn’t have the experience. It was frustrating, even without Mr. Pitt’s obvious disappointment.
I glanced in the direction of the hotel. Though I couldn’t see it, it was almost like I could feel the swell of evil beyond the horizon. Evil that I’d done absolutely nothing about. What was the point of being an IE if I didn’t get to save people from having their souls turned into snacks?
What good would you have done if you’d announced yourself as the tastiest snack of all? Killing a few dozen imps last night had wiped me out; I wasn’t sure what attempting to kill a hundred or more would do to me.
“Hey, don’t be hard on yourself,” Rose said when we were in the parking lot. “It’s only your second day. No one expects you to be able to do it all yet.”
“Mr. Pitt does.”
“He’s just used to having Kyle. It’ll do him good to have to do a little work. Anyway, I’m still horny. If I’m going to have to do this two days in a row, I need to spend some quality time with my main squeeze. See you tomorrow.”
I shuffled to my car and slid behind the seat. The convention hadn’t left residual feelings of anything good for me. My nerves were in tatters and my pride was bruised. The day had started bad and it’d only gotten worse. What little confidence I’d gained while out with Doris had all but evaporated. Mr. Pitt clearly didn’t trust me with any big jobs, and every job was looking big at the moment.
I considered going straight home and calling it a night, but I was too restless. I grabbed a sandwich at Subway, which helped stabilize my shaking hands, but my insides still felt like they’d gone through the dryer with a pair of tennis shoes.
“Tomorrow’s going to be better,” I assured myself. “I’ll make sure it is.” Waking up tomorrow to Mr. Bond prancing on my stomach would make the day ten times better than today.
The thought reminded me of all the dead plants on my balcony. “There’s a problem I can fix.”
Feeling a little better now that I had a goal, I headed down Douglas toward Granite Bay, feeling like my whole life revolved around Douglas Boulevard lately. I peeled away from the homeward-bound commuter traffic and into the one-way loop parking lot at Bushnell Gardens Nursery, and some of the day’s tension lifted from my muscles. The nursery sprawled across several acres just outside of Roseville, and though it was designed more for people with houses and yards to landscape, it still had plenty of indoor plants. It also had an enormous cage of tiny birds. It was to this cage that I went first.
In the midst of oriental plants, bridges, and yard decor, the huge round cage swirled with activity. The racket of the birds’ calls and the flutter of wings was oddly soothing. I blinked to Primordium and watched the beautiful light shapes flutter around the aviary like a kaleidoscope. When I finally tore my gaze from their hypnotizing mass to look around, it was like looking at a winter wonderland. Plants of all shapes and sizes glowed with iridescent life. I wandered through their midst, admiring the beauty of so much pure, good life. After all the evil and darkness I’d seen today, it was a balm for my eyes and soul.
I roamed through aisle after aisle until the last of the day’s tension ebbed from my shoulders. Only then did I get a cart and start piling it full of plants. In the end, it took three carts of plants and over four hundred dollars to achieve a sense of security. I was not going to take another chance with Mr. Bond’s life.
An older salesman with a kind smile helped me spread the emergency blanket I kept in the trunk over the Civic’s backseat, then we stuffed in plants where they would fit. They filled the trunk, backseat, and floorboard, and dangled out the windows. Two more tall plants fit on the passenger floorboard, with the foliage bent back toward the backseat. The seat itself we covered with ivy plants and smaller pots. I wedged my purse in the middle of them. The salesman gave me a jaunty wave as I backed out, and I drove off into the sunset feeling like I was part of a moving rain forest.
The combination of soothing plants and the pensive time of day put the final restoring touches on my self-confidence. Just because Mr. Pitt had dismissed me didn’t mean I had to stop doing my job. Any practice would help, and I was definitely going to need it if I decided to keep this job after my savings account was restocked. I turned off Douglas into a quiet older neighborhood and blinked.
Nausea mixed with vertigo, and I lifted my foot from the gas pedal, belatedly checking my side mirror. Luckily, I was alone on the suburban street. Even at fifteen miles per hour, seeing the white lawns, bushes, and trees sweep by on either side with only a black road and empty, black sky before me created a tunnel effect, like moving through a vortex. In Primordium, I no longer had the headlights to point out things like stop signs and the sides of the road. I had to focus intently on the subtle shades of gray to see the difference between the asphalt of the road and the concrete of the sidewalk. The brilliance of the plant-filled interior of my car made it harder than it would have normally been, too. I couldn’t see anything out my right window or rearview mirror. Of course, I couldn’t see anything in those directions with regular sight, either.
My head nearly hit the roof and my teeth snapped together when I jostled over a speed bump I hadn’t seen. I lurched to right a tall plant on the floorboard, which had bounced to obstruct my vision. A horn blared to my left, and the dark bumper of a car jerked to a halt just short of hitting me in the middle of an intersection. I swerved, bouncing the right tires up the dark curb.
“Eeek!” My elbow knocked into the door as my abused Civic canted to the left. I jerked the wheel, and my brain rattled in my skull as the right tires bounced back to the road. My vision cleared in time to distinguish the faint outline of a tall black plastic garbage bin against the charcoal black of the asphalt.
“Gnaah!” My reflexes weren’t fast enough to save the trash. The plastic container bounced off the front bumper with a crack like a gunshot, falling to the sidewalk, then scraping down the side of my car. I fumbled for the brake. Another invisible speed bump tossed the contents of my car. When I landed, I blinked to normal vision.
A couple walking their dog on the opposite side of the street had stopped to huddle near a large tree trunk. I ducked my head down and, with the assistance of those oh-so-helpful headlights, took the next right and fled the neighborhood.
“Way to go,” I congratulated myself. Perhaps I needed a little more experience before I tried Primordium while operating heavy machinery.
Disheartened, I considered my options. There really was only one. I couldn’t afford to ignore or put off learning about my ability. I’d been passive long enough, and it had nearly gotten Mr. Bond killed. It cheered me a little to think that I was no longer merely a spectator in the world of soul-sight; I could take action against evil. I just had to figure out how to do it.
Figuring Mr. Bond would be okay by himself for a few minutes longer, I decided there was no time like the present to kick a little evil booty. I turned onto Sierra College Boulevard, made a U-turn at the top of the hill, and ignoring all the “Trucks Only” signs, cruised into the construction site turnout and cut the engine.
I grabbed the Primordium flashlight from my glove box where I’d stuffed it earlier, and pocketed the pet wood, Medusa, and my keys. Before I could think too much about trespassing alone in the dark and abandoning my illegally parked vehicle, I strode purposefully up the main road.
It was harder to navigate at night. I opted for Primordium since I had a flashlight that worked in that vision. As I moved away from Sierra College Boulevard, the quietness of the night settled around me until all I could hear was the crunching of my own steps on gravel and the muted
rush of cars. I tried to keep my mind away from replaying horror movies and scary stories.
“The frames are just frames,” I told myself of the looming half-erect houses that littered the landscape. “That’s only my footstep echoing, not another person.” Just in case, I thought I’d better stop talking out loud.
Come on, you’re a big, bad illuminant enforcer. You can do this. Mr. Pitt’s disappointed expression surfaced unbidden from my memory. I wasn’t the failure he thought I was. I may not have done anything amazing yet with my life, but that didn’t mean I lacked potential. I just hadn’t had the right motivation—like getting paid to use my soul-sight, and using it to fight evil.
I crested the top of the construction site’s main hill and could see down the backside to the greenbelt. All the bright plants and soft arching lines of the trees looked far more inviting than the bleak, plundered construction property. I spun in a slow circle, looking for imps. The grounds were empty.
I took a dirt side road that led toward the greenbelt, systematically checking every house, peering through the two-by-four frames, shining my light in every nook. I was pleased with my purchase but rapidly getting bored when I stumbled on a nest of imps. They were huddled on the backside of the last house in the row, one of the few homes that had sheet wood up. I had circled the building with the intention of heading back to my car. Now I found myself grinning at the swarming mass of imps.
“Come to mama,” I said softly.
As a group, the seething pile swiveled their heads, and dozens of glowing eyes stared at me. The hairs on the back of my neck raised. Slowly, I pulled the pet wood out of my pocket and flicked my wrist to extend it. The imps felt no compulsion to take their time. In mass, they charged. One moment, they looked like a bouncing flock of chinchillas, cuddly and fluffy black. The next, they opened their mouths, and it was like staring into the jaws of land sharks.
I forced lux lucis into the wood. It flared to life, and I jabbed the nearest imp. It popped and sparkled to glittering dust. There was no uncontrolled flare with pet wood. I simply had to keep feeding the wand lux lucis, mindful of its threshold containment, and the weapon did all the work. Two imps jumped for me at once. I caught one with a slash of the pet wood. The other landed on my stomach. I grabbed it around the throat and pulsed lux lucis into it. It exploded into sparkles of white and black. Grinning, I looked at the remaining imps. They watched me with identically cocked heads and curious glowing eyes.
A Fistful of Evil: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 1) Page 12
