“Mr. Pitt would be happy if I went?” I wasn’t going to cancel my date and piss off my boss just because Niko said it was a good idea.
“Yes.”
“Why does Mr. Pitt need my support?”
“Does that mean you’re going?”
My chest hurt, and I rubbed my breastbone. My neck was stiff when I nodded. This had better make Mr. Pitt happy.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at your place at six and fill you in on the way.”
My brain crossed wires, making it sound like I had just agreed to a date with Niko. Worse, I’d betrayed Alex, swapping him with Niko. I opened my mouth to protest, but Niko was already striding away. He stopped and spun on the ball of a foot.
“Treat that handbook like gold. You don’t even want to know how much Brad paid for it.” He spun back toward the parking lot, whistling as he walked. I recognized the tune instantly: “Sexy Back.”
Blinking back tears of frustration heaped on embarrassment, I stomped back into the office. Tonight’s date was ruined, but that didn’t mean my entire shot with Alex was sabotaged.
I crossed my fingers that I was right.
3
Late but Worth the Wait
By the time I reached my desk, my eyes were dry and I’d unclenched a jaw gritted tight with cold and frustration. I yanked my jacket from my chair, stuffed the handbook in my purse, and stalked out through the back. I really needed to slam something, but the door’s self-closing glider hinge eased it back to the frame with an aggravating soft whoosh of air.
I held myself together until I’d slid into the driver’s seat of my Civic and closed the door. Then I screamed, stomped my feet, slammed my hands on the steering wheel, and embraced a hissy fit that could have taught two-year-olds everywhere a thing or two. When I finished, I brushed my hair out of my face and took a few deep breaths before opening my eyes.
A woman sat in a maroon Mercedes parked in front of me, a water bottle poised in front of her open mouth. She averted huge eyes and fumbled with her door handle. In seconds, she scurried across the pavement on pencil-thin high heels toward the office building.
Sighing, I fished my cell phone out of my purse. There was nothing for it but to call Alex and pray like crazy he didn’t think I was flaky and would still want to go on a date with me.
My stomach roiled. This was going to look awful. I was canceling only five hours and forty-two minutes before our date. I was a flake. Why would Alex want to take another chance on me?
I tucked Medusa in my pants’ pocket and got out of my car. I paced behind the Civic’s bumper, working through what to say. Everything sounded lame. Everything was lame.
“Stupid meeting. Stupid me for prioritizing work above Alex. Stupid Niko for making it impossible for me to say no.” I circled around those thoughts a time or two, savoring my frustration before acknowledging its pointlessness.
I will get information in this meeting. It will be useful and good for my career.
For Niko’s sake, it better be.
Rubbing my nauseous stomach, I dialed the Love and Caring Veterinary Clinic. The receptionist put me on hold when I asked for Dr. Love. A moment later, his smooth, deep voice greeted me.
“Hi, uh, Alex. It’s Madison.”
“Hi, Madison.” I could hear the smile in his voice and grinned in response. “You’re not canceling on me, are you?” He was teasing. My heart plummeted.
“Um.”
“Oh. You are.” The smile was gone.
Crap. Make this right, Dice, I pep-talked myself, using my best friend Bridget’s nickname for me for extra luck. I resumed pacing, my steps quick and sharp. “I am, but I don’t want to. God, if it was up to me, we’d already be on our date.” I smacked myself in the forehead. Now I sounded too eager. “It’s just this meeting came up at work at the last minute. There are some problems with our . . . production, and we need to address it before Black Friday.” It was the truth, but so carefully bent it felt like a lie.
“I see.”
No. Not with that tone of voice, you don’t. “The meeting doesn’t matter,” I hurried on. “The important thing is I was really, really looking forward to tonight, and I can’t even express how bummed I am that I need to postpone it.”
“Oh?”
Was that hope in his voice? Or was I hearing what I wanted? “I feel awful for calling you at the last minute like this. Can we move tonight to another night?”
“It sounds like you’re going to be very busy.” He was giving me a way out. Oh, yes, there was hope! It was coated with a healthy dose of caution, but that was understandable. Butterflies boxed in my stomach. I about-faced and paced the other direction, running my shaking free hand through my hair. If I could say the right thing, I could make this right, right now.
“I have been counting the hours until tonight since you asked me out,” I confessed. “I have talked about it with my friends until they were sick of hearing about it.”
That earned me a chuckle. “You really do have a meeting, don’t you?”
“Yes. I tried to get out of it, but I’m so new here, no one is cutting me any slack.”
“What time is it?”
“Six o’clock.” I hadn’t asked what time the meeting was, but that was the time I’d agreed to Niko picking me up. My stomach twisted at the datelike image that evoked.
“Figures. Do you want to meet afterward?”
I froze, everything inside me screaming yes, but I forced myself to think before I spoke. “I want to, but I’m not sure when the meeting will end, and I don’t want to call you later, canceling again.”
“Ah, good point.” He sounded disappointed. Was that a good thing? “We were crazy to try to plan anything so close to Thanksgiving anyway. When should we reschedule?”
I pumped my fist—a move I’d never done before, and I was thankful no one saw me do it now.
I had no idea what my schedule at the mall would be, or even what I’d be doing. However, I didn’t want to push our date out too far. There was only so long Alex could be expected to wait for me. “What about Sunday evening?”
“Sunday. Hmm, let me check.” I heard a few clicks of a keyboard. “That works for me.”
I danced in place.
“Great! And, Alex? I’m really looking forward to our date,” I said, infusing my voice with unedited earnestness.
“Hey, Madison?”
“Yeah?”
“So am I.”
When we hung up, my whoop of joy echoed off the buildings and made the smokers near the lobby jump and stare. I didn’t care. I still had a date with Dr. Love!
I slid back behind the wheel and did a seated Snoopy dance. I’d made it work. I’d saved my date and I was going to learn more about my region, all while getting on Mr. Pitt’s good side.
I turned on the car and headed back to the hotel.
Just four days until my date. I’d survive.
* * *
At the hotel, I swept through the upper two floors, unearthing and exterminating a nest of imps and a half dozen vervet that had escaped my first dozen passes. Cleaning up after a demon was worse than taking a demon head-on.
My gut constricted, calling me on my lie. Confronting a demon had been the most terrifying experience of my entire life. It was idiotic to claim being bored was worse than being scared witless. I’d taken the job believing the most deadly weapon I needed was the charmingly nicknamed pet wood, or petrified wood wand. After I’d almost died as a result of my ignorance, Niko had loaned me his knife. I hadn’t left home without its comforting weight in my purse since, especially not after killing the demon. I hated the knife, but I hated being vulnerable more.
Since I hadn’t thought I’d see Niko again so soon, I hadn’t felt much urgency to rush out and spend my hard-earned money on a knife of my own. But with Niko back in town, it’d be unprofessional to keep his knife.
Motivated to maintain possession of something sharp and deadly at all times, I rushed through my final
sweep of the hotel and wrapped up with enough time to stop by Accessories and More for a replacement knife before getting ready for tonight’s meeting.
Twenty minutes later I sat trapped on Douglas Boulevard when it abruptly turned into a parking lot just beyond the last crossroad. At the edge of Roseville’s city limits, the boulevard squeezed down to two lanes each way and typically jumped from forty miles per hour to sixty. Large swaths of undeveloped tree-filled land swept up one side of the road, a long wall of a subdivision barricaded the other, and the landscaped meridian made U-turns impossible.
The reason for today’s standstill fast became apparent: Against the sky’s cerulean backdrop, smoke billowed in an angry column close enough to smell through my heater vents. Two fire engines barreled down the shoulder, kicking up gravel against the side of my Civic, sirens deafening through my rolled-up windows.
The Cadillac in front of me crept forward, and I eased up to it again. Inch by inch, we crawled around the bend. Flashing lights and temporary barricades came into view, snaking the backlog through the turn lane and up the opposite side of the road, the two lanes temporarily divided by orange cones. Traffic oozed in both directions under the watchful eye of fluorescent-vested police.
It was impossible not to be a looky-loo. The fire raged through a roadside Christmas tree stand. Rows of display trees ready for tomorrow’s sales burned from crown to base like gigantic candles, but it was the bound trees stacked like a bonfire that shot flames higher than the fire trucks. Passing by, even with a meridian, two lanes, and an extra twenty feet of open space between me and the fire, muted warmth pressed against my right side. I breathed a sigh of relief when I crept past the final fire truck.
With the show behind us, traffic picked up. A mile later, when cones and flares directed us back to our own side, the road opened up before me. Jacob might have the larger portion of Roseville under his enforcer domain, but my region included the drastically more expensive suburb of Granite Bay, a sprawl of expensive, spacious housing divisions and horse properties stretching from Roseville’s eastern city limits to the shores of Folsom Lake. Out here, stoplights were a rarity, and few people bothered to notice the speed limit. I surged back to freeway speeds with the rest of the cars around me and rocketed to Accessories and More.
The convenience store crouched in a battered parking lot at the edge of my region. A dozen neon signs behind the window’s iron bars invited customers inside, but I was the only taker. Sharing a barren lot with a liquor store and situated off the lake access road, Accessories and More catered more to visiting boaters than it did to the wealthy locals, with everything from car oil and cell phones to Doritos and highlighters. It also had a glass-front counter where pet wood wands lay alongside a variety of weapons for enforcers and violent normal folks.
“Wow. She still lives and breathes,” Muhamad said in a stage whisper to his business partner, Musad. Or maybe it was Musad who spoke. I couldn’t tell the twins apart.
“Look—all of her limbs are still attached, too, Muhamad,” Musad said, confirming I’d guessed correctly.
“Hardy-har-har. You know, some might not think it’s wise to mock the woman who watches over the region they work in.”
“Meh,” Musad said.
“You’re going to have to try harder to scare us.”
“I only have a week’s experience.” I wriggled my fingers at them like a witch in a B flick.
Both men’s heads fell back in identical laughter. Watching them clasp their belts beneath small beer bellies in the exact same gesture was like watching a man beside a mirror. The only difference between them was the colors of their shirts.
“Oh, good one, Madison Fox,” Muhamad said when he caught his breath.
“Well played, young enforcer. What can we do for you today?”
I pulled Niko’s knife from my purse. I’d had to buy a bigger purse once I started carrying it around. With an eight-inch blade and another five inches for a hilt, the sucker had stuck out of my previous bag like a red flag. I unsheathed the knife and laid it on the glass counter. The wide double-edged blade shone a flat gray, the hilt a flat black. Even in Primordium, the knife looked plain. Invisible in either sight was a bone shaft running the length of the blade. Left to its own nature, lux lucis flowed through living creatures and plants. The second-best conduit was a previously living substance. Hence my extend-O wand made of petrified wood. Regular wood would have worked, too, but the hollowed, expandable-collapsible wands only came in petrified versions for structural strength. In the blade, the bone acted as the conduit for lux lucis.
“Whoa!” Musad backed up, hands raised. “This is all you, Muhamad.”
“What’s a tiny woman like you doing with this half-pint sword?” Muhamad asked. His gaze flicked to the door.
“Niko loaned it to me.”
“Ah.”
Musad stepped back up to the counter. “Ah.”
“I need a knife just like this.”
“No.”
“What?”
“First, this isn’t a knife. It’s a dagger. Second, it’s too much blade for you. Third, you’ve got it stuffed in your purse, where Niko carries it strapped to his belt. Did you know it’s illegal to carry a blade this length concealed in California?”
I shook my head. I’d ranked it as “more deadly than pet wood” and had tried not to think too much about it.
“Why didn’t you mention this last time you saw me with the knife?” I’d dropped into the shop to replace my pet wood the day after Niko had given me the blade. My original wand hadn’t survived its first encounter with a demon.
“Call me a sucker. I wanted to see you live through your first week.”
“I’m touched.”
“These you can conceal.” Muhamad ignored my sarcasm and pointed through the glass at a fan of folding knives and tiny blades.
“They’re all so small.”
Musad snorted. Muhamad opened the back of the case and pulled out a silver-handled folding knife, unfolded it until it locked open, and laid it on the glass. “Give it a try.”
With a short three-inch blade, the knife was featherlight. Unlike Niko’s dagger, the blade held an edge on only one side. Lux lucis slid easily into the blade but backed up into my palm just as fast. The weak bone shaft could barely hold enough lux lucis to disintegrate an imp. I set the knife down before I burned it out. If I was committing to carrying a knife, I wanted something stronger than pet wood.
“Keep in mind knives are not meant to hold lux lucis. They are designed to be conduits once you’ve stuck the knife in something.”
“I know.” I wiped my hand on my leg. “Got one stronger than a needle?”
“Try out this Bowie.” Muhamad reached into the case and pulled out a black knife a smidgen longer and wider than the folding knife, but solid. The back side was curved and sharp from halfway up the blade to the tip, and lux lucis fell into the blade almost as fast as it did Niko’s dagger.
“This is more like it.”
The brothers shared a look, and Musad slipped from behind the counter.
“Why don’t you put this monster away and we’ll pretend we never saw you carrying it,” Muhamad said.
I set down the Bowie and hefted Niko’s dagger into my purse. It took some wedging, but I got it to the bottom and settled my pet wood, handbook, and wallet on top.
“A purse is a clumsy place for a weapon,” Musad said, coming up beside me. He set a leather case on the counter next to the knife, then slid the Bowie into the sheath. A small snap locked the blade inside. “This attaches to your belt for a horizontal carry. On you, I think the small of your back.” He held the blade up to me, measuring it against my body.
“No way. It would scare people.” It scared me. The odds of accidentally cutting myself on a knife in my purse were low. If I strapped one to me, I’d be lucky to have all my fingers by the end of the week.
“Good thing evil creatures politely wait for you to scrounge up your we
apon before they attack,” Muhamad said.
“If I may.” Musad lifted the hem of my sweater with his thumb and forefinger, pressed the flat sheath to my hip, then lowered the fabric over the knife. “Voilà. Problem solved.”
Goose bumps spread across my stomach from the touch of the cool leather. Musad pulled his hand back.
“When you don’t wear it, you can stuff it in that piece of luggage you’re carting around,” Muhamad said. “It’s legally concealable.”
I liked the sound of that. If I were honest with myself, I’d brushed aside qualms about the clumsy location of Niko’s knife more than once. Plus, I would be able to downgrade to a normal-size purse again. “I’ll take it.”
Both men were all smiles as Musad swiped my credit card. The smell of melting plastic must have been in my head. The tiny Bowie was cheaper than a knife the size of Niko’s, but not by much.
The column of smoke from the Christmas tree stand rose black against the red-tinged sunset. As I headed back into Roseville, bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged Douglas all the way from the lake, so I took a left on Auburn Folsom Road and opted for a more circuitous route home. Half the population had the same idea. By the time I pulled under my apartment carport, I had twenty minutes to spare. I ran for the stairs.
Mr. Bond greeted me with a yowl. I pushed the door shut and bent in half, panting from jogging up two flights. The obese Siamese mutt twined between my legs, tromping on my toes and meowing very pointed, crisp words.
“I think I’m glad I can’t understand you.” He chirped in agreement. Straightening, I tossed my purse onto the dining table, hit the play button on my answering machine, and fed Mr. Bond. He quieted in time for me to hear Bridget’s dramatic whisper.
“Your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to ascertain Dr. Love’s kissing skill.” My best friend was almost as excited about my date as I was—or had been. The reminder I wouldn’t be getting up close and personal with Alex’s lips tonight put a slump in my shoulders.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 3
