Niko’s confidence that I’d be demoted hardly registered. I didn’t want to relocate, no matter how much I liked or was suited for the position of illuminant enforcer. I’d built a life I liked here. All my friends and family were here. Yet, if Mr. Pitt lost his job, mine would disappear, too. How unfair!
“All this stems from something in Mr. Pitt’s past?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t tell me what it is?”
“It’s not for me to explain.”
Convenient. “Then why bother to tell me?”
Niko waited silently, and the answer hit me a few seconds later.
“There will be people, wardens, at this meeting who want Mr. Pitt removed.” Niko’s smile was my confirmation. “Do all the wardens think Mr. Pitt is inept?”
“Most do.”
“All the wardens who would get his region?”
“Not all.” Niko’s approving glance warmed me.
From what I understood, Mr. Pitt needed to have a clean region now more than ever to prove he was worthy of keeping his region and his job. The last thing he needed was to shuffle his enforcer off to the mall and leave his region vulnerable to a takeover. I said as much to Niko.
He shook his head. “If Brad hadn’t agreed to the arrangement, we might be headed to a retirement party now.”
My mall assignment hadn’t been Mr. Pitt’s idea? That explained the hostile phone call I’d overheard earlier.
“At least with this compromise, he retains some control over you and Rose,” Niko continued. “She’s the best empath in the state, and she’ll keep you guys in business through the cito season. And you might be working outside of Brad’s jurisdiction, but you’ll still be answering to him.”
“Let’s say I believe Mr. Pitt is a good warden. What can I do so he and I both keep our jobs?”
“Exactly what Brad says.”
Niko turned into the lot of a beige two-story office building. A cluster of cars was parked near the entrance, but Niko chose a spot several rows back.
I fidgeted with my purse strap and let out a slow breath. “And if I agree with the other wardens?” It didn’t make me a traitor to ask.
“Then you should talk with a warden you trust. Or I can put you in touch with an inspector.”
“What’s an inspector?”
“Inspectors are the internal affairs agents for the CIA.”
My stomach sloshed with a pizza-topped acidic pool of anxiety. Why hadn’t I stuck with my original plan? I could be sitting across a table from Alex right now, oblivious to inter-regional political undercurrents and my fragile job security.
“No one in there is your enemy,” Niko said. He’d twisted to look at me, and I studied his face for clues. He wouldn’t have warned me about Mr. Pitt’s questionable reputation and shaky hold on our region unless he believed in Mr. Pitt, right? Or was he warning me because he didn’t want to see me hurt by Mr. Pitt’s downfall? Why wouldn’t he just say what he thought?
“They want what’s best for their regions,” Niko continued. “They fight evil, like you. Give them a chance.”
“Even though they want to take my region and my job?”
“No one has it out for you. They’re simply not sure you have the skills you need. That’s very different.”
It sounded the same to me. I followed Niko into the building, feeling like an unloved stepchild.
Illumination Studios and the front for Liam’s region—Searchlight Polling—shared similarities. Both were in office buildings, for example. Both had conference rooms, receptionist desks, and bland carpeting. But saying they were similar was like saying my apartment was similar to Gwyneth Paltrow’s mansion.
With an open floor plan sprawling across the entire second floor, floor-to-ceiling windows occupying three sides, metallic sculptures hanging from the ceiling, and almost a dozen desks, Searchlight Polling looked like a well-funded start-up. In comparison, Illumination Studios looked like a cramped chunk of warehouse outfitted by a third-rate call center’s knockoff furniture.
Even the conference room outshone ours, with a sleek oval table ringed by chairs, adorned by a halo of lights, and flanked by sliding redwood panels for doors. Several people already sat around the table, and I recognized Mr. Pitt’s short, round form. He looked hunched and small, the top of his head a shiny dome under the lights.
Niko skirted the conference room and led the way past high-end computers atop spacious desks to a break room straight out of a Hilton lobby. Plush chairs circled a small coffee table in one corner; in the other, a large rustic-chic wooden table with bench seats served as an area for lunches. A long counter stretched the back wall, with cupboards and a sink, a fancy coffee machine, and an industrial refrigerator. Even with six people milling in front of what looked like a catered spread, the room felt spacious. Illumination Studios had a mini-fridge, a wobbly round plastic-topped table, three chairs, and barely enough room for those three chairs to be occupied at the same time.
I was the enforcer from the ghetto. Good to know.
“Niko!” The enthusiastic greeting came from a sandy-haired man in tight khakis and a long-sleeve T-shirt printed with an eight-bit image of a princess. His eyes bounced to me, full of curiosity.
“Hi, Jacob.” Niko shook Jacob’s hand. “Madison, this is Jacob, enforcer of West Roseville.”
“I have you to thank for sparing me from cito duty,” Jacob said, all white teeth and sparkling brown eyes.
Right. This was the enforcer too valuable to be burdened with the mall this year. If Jacob was old enough to drink, it was by months. I suspected he’d cultivated the short beard defining the line of his jaw in an attempt to add a few years. I shook his hand. His grip was tight and enthusiastic. I wanted to dislike him on principle, if only for the implication that I was lesser than him. But his smile contained no gloating, and my censure withered before it could take root.
“You were smart to come,” a woman with a soft Southern accent and gorgeous olive-black skin said. Niko introduced her as Sheila, a warden-in-training under Liam. I hid my surprised that she wasn’t a full warden, despite being middle-aged. Everyone seemed to think twenty-five made me a late-bloomer enforcer, but wardens must be different.
“About time you met real wardens,” Sheila said.
“Sheila . . .”
“What?” Sheila met Niko’s reproachful expression with defiance. “Now isn’t the time to be in the dark, even if Brad would prefer to keep her there.”
“I’m always eager to learn,” I said, asserting myself back into the conversation. “My boss knows that.”
“You hear that, Niko? She’s eager to learn. She believes Brad will do something about it.”
“He has. I’ve trained with Doris, and I have a handbook. I’ve taken out a demon.” I closed my mouth. My defense sounded pathetic and boastful all at once.
“Bless your heart.” Sheila patted my shoulder. I slid my fists into my jacket pockets. Niko said nothing, and Jacob examined his shoes.
“It was good to meet you. I hope you pay attention.” Sheila left the break room, a limp in her stride.
“We’re all on the same side?” I hissed at Niko.
“And everyone has their own opinion,” he said.
The rest of the introductions went smoother. The other two wardens-in-training were polar opposites: Ashley, a petite blonde in pink who looked like she belonged on a professional cheerleading squad, and Dominic, who radiated hipster from his stretched lobes and black-and-white scarf to his maroon corduroy pants, frayed from the heels of his loafers. Along with Jacob, they drew Niko aside, all three hanging on the optivus aegis’s words.
I got a “hey” from Claire, the sole enforcer-in-training at the meeting. The lackluster greeting came with a perfected look of disdain, though for my wardrobe rather than my status as Mr. Pitt’s enforcer. Or maybe for both. I brushed off Claire’s hostility easier than Sheila’s. Still a teen, Claire could have walked out of the cast of Gossip Gi
rl in her Catholic high school uniform and camera-ready makeup. Everything about her screamed “popular girl,” and I’d stopped caring about the opinion of people like her long before I left high school.
Aside from Jacob, two other enforcers were in attendance, both refreshingly polite. Rafi was naturally tan, with a day-old beard and deep-set dark eyes. He excused himself to talk with Dominic, both men gravitating back toward Niko. The optivus aegis chatted with everyone, appearing oblivious to blatant and subtle idolization. If possible, it made me like Niko more.
Summer, the enforcer of Citrus Heights, resisted Niko’s allure and waited with me while I selected a pile of organic raw cookies and poured myself a green tea. People who could see in Primordium and work with lux lucis were rare—before today, I’d known only six people, including myself, with these characteristics. Four, if I counted only the humans. I marveled at being in the presence of so many people who shared my secret world.
“It’s nice to meet the enforcer sharing my border,” she said. Next to her Native American cheekbones and willowy limbs, I felt boxy and plain.
“I hear you’re new, like, brand-new,” Summer said. “Sit by me, and I’ll fill you in if you have any questions.”
“Thanks. I’ll try not to abuse your offer.”
Summer laughed, and for the first time since I greeted Niko on my doorstep, my shoulders relaxed.
Eight chairs ringed the conference table, though it could easily fit more. The rest of the chairs lined the walls, like theater seating. Or in this case, segregated seating. All the wardens and wardens-in-training sat at the table, as did Niko. The rest of us sat in the back.
“What’s with the seating arrangement?” I asked Summer.
“Standard procedure. It’s a strategy meeting. They’re the planners.” She gestured to the wardens already seated around the table. “We’re the doers.”
It sounded like the kind of elitist thinking to be expected from people who judged enforcers before meeting them.
Okay, I was feeling a tad defensive.
Mr. Pitt glanced up from the paper he held, and his bushy eyebrows climbed his forehead. I grinned and waved with the fingers gripping my teacup. Mr. Pitt closed his mouth. He looked for Niko, who gave him a slight nod before turning back to his conversation with Jacob and Sheila. Mr. Pitt rose and gestured to me.
“I’d like to introduce my enforcer,” Mr. Pitt said, interrupting the other wardens’ conversations at the table.
“Madison, this is Kathleen Fairchild, Isabel Dulat, Ronald Stevenson, and Liam Wu.”
I set down my cup next to my chair and stepped up to the table to shake everyone’s hand. I had the novel experience of feeling small compared to another woman: Topping six feet, Kathleen sprang from Amazonian stock, all of her solid yet fit. Even her hair was big, the gray-streaked brown mane billowing around her head and shoulders. She shook my hand, then turned immediately back to the paperwork spread before her.
“Ah, the brave soul taking charge of my region’s mall,” Isabel said. “I appreciate your sense of teamwork. We need those with the most skill on the front lines right now, not stuck in one place. If this madness continues, I’ll be running Jacob ragged.”
Isabel was Kathleen’s opposite in nearly every way: petite, plump, with short walnut-brown hair, and tiny cold hands. If I’d seen her on the street, I would have guessed her to be a middle school teacher. In other words, she looked nice even as she delivered the backhanded compliment. My smile turned brittle, and I kept my teeth locked.
“Ron,” Ronald corrected as I shook his large hand. “It’s good to see a new face.” Despite looking like a linebacker gone soft, his grip was gentle. I liked him immediately, and not entirely because he didn’t add a disparaging comment.
I finally reached Liam, the object of my curiosity. This was his office and his region, not to mention half the people in the room worked under him. The powerful warden was the oldest at the table and as short as Isabel, with a mostly gray buzz cut and fine lines creasing his tan face. Serious dark eyes beneath heavy epicanthic folds watched me impassively. It occurred to me that Liam, like the other wardens, was judging my soul.
“Welcome, Madison. I hope you find this meeting informative.” His grip stopped just short of breaking my fingers.
“I’m sure I will.”
Rafi pulled an extra chair into the room. After discreetly flexing my fingers, I returned to my seat next to Summer. Rafi sat to Summer’s right, and Claire flounced to the seat beside him.
Conversations died as Liam called the meeting together, and Jacob strode to the remaining chair against the wall. Claire set her phone in her lap, eyes on Liam, but her fingers didn’t stop moving. I tried to imagine what a blind text from me would look like. A senseless autocorrect mess, I was sure.
While no one was paying attention to me, I blinked to Primordium.
We were a fine-looking group. Not a jot of black to be found on anyone’s soul in the conference room, let alone softer gray stains. The differences between enforcer souls were in varying degrees of strength, rather than color, with Niko at the top of the pack and Claire near the bottom. However, defining a distinction between Jacob, Rafi, and Summer was more challenging. I peeked at the creamy-white glow of my hand. I couldn’t tell how I stacked up against these trained professionals, but I suspected it wasn’t a flattering comparison.
When I looked at Mr. Pitt, I forgot any feelings of inadequacy. Mr. Pitt’s soul nearly vibrated with strength, but its shape had me blinking and twisting to get a better look. His soul didn’t hold to his body like an enforcer’s soul or even a normal person’s soul. It protruded at weird angles, shifting around him as he moved.
Had it always been that way? I scanned my memory, only to realize I’d never looked at Mr. Pitt in Primordium. In my preoccupation with all the evil accumulating outside the office, I hadn’t thought to examine the people within the safe confines of our headquarters. What else had I missed?
I jerked my attention to another warden. Kathleen’s soul had the same aura of strength and peculiar shape. Bouncing my gaze between the two wardens, I decided it wasn’t the same bizarre configuration. Kathleen’s soul appeared more like a cube with a nose, while Mr. Pitt’s looked closer to an irregular trapezoid. The other wardens’ souls were similarly misshapen. The souls of Ashley, Sheila, and Dominic closely resembled Liam’s, and I wondered if something in their training shaped their souls.
I leaned in to ask Summer about the wardens’ souls but realized that not only would her answer be longer than she could whisper while her boss talked, but it was also something I should have already noticed and figured out. I glanced down at my purse and the handbook hidden within its depths. Now wasn’t the time to pull it out, either. I added wardens’ souls to the list of topics I’d be looking up later tonight and tried to concentrate on the meeting.
“Thank you for attending,” Liam said to Niko. “I know you’ve spent a disproportionate amount of time in Brad’s region lately.”
I bristled, and Mr. Pitt’s expression smoothed to bland indifference.
“I think you’re all getting sick of seeing me in your regions,” Niko said. His smile elicited strained chuckles from the other wardens.
“Yes, I’d be more than happy to not see you in an official capacity in my region for years to come, as soon as we get to the bottom of this.” Liam tapped a few keys on a laptop in front of him. A projection of his desktop appeared on the blank wall at the end of the room. Rafi dimmed the lights, then resumed his seat. “We’ve all noticed an increase in evil, some of us more than others, especially in the last month or so. Based on the information you all provided, I’ve created a time-lapse map showing the most recent flare-ups. From this, hopefully we can discern a pattern and devise a plan.”
A map of Roseville and the surrounding cities appeared on the screen, with a little October 15 date stamp. Solid red lines sectioned off each warden’s region. Within each, dotted red lines delineated enforcer
territories. Mesmerized, I soaked it in. I’d been too busy with my own problems to give much thought to anything beyond my region’s borders. Seen on this scale, my region looked puny. While the Folsom region to the east also had only one full enforcer for the entire region, it encompassed twice the square miles of mine. Liam’s region, with three separate enforcer territories, covered half the map, and Isabel’s almost as much. When I saw her region extended to Lincoln and my parents’ community, I leaned close to Summer.
“Who’s the enforcer in Lincoln?” I asked, hoping it was Rafi. I wasn’t above asking for a little preferential treatment for my family.
“Grace Patterson,” Summer whispered. “She didn’t come tonight. Too busy with the fires.”
The fires? As in the ones my mom had warned me about in her message? A dozen questions jumped to the tip of my tongue, but the images on the screen forestalled them.
Patches of black appeared across the map, growing or shrinking and disappearing as the date changed. It took less than two minutes for the time-lapse to reach today’s date. Then it looped. I couldn’t tear my gaze from my region. Each day the flickers of black cropped up in new places and disappeared until my hire date. Then the black splotches spread and bled for several long days, first at ground zero of the demon’s appearance, then all across my region, spilling over into Jacob’s territory and flowing down into Summer’s. I squirmed in my chair, no longer needing the hot tea for warmth. In a wave, the black patches receded to sporadic outcroppings.
Thanks to Niko, I knew that many—possibly all—wardens in this room believed I shouldn’t be responsible for a region. Seeing the raw data wasn’t doing me, or Mr. Pitt, any favors.
I stuffed a lemon macaroon into my mouth to disguise my nervousness. Tart citrus jolted my taste buds. The map cycled through the last month again. I forced myself to watch the rest of it. While no other region experienced the same steady black buildup as mine had, the frequency and size of the black patches all over the map increased in the last few weeks.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 5
