A bright orange Fiat gunned down the aisle toward the exit. With the sunroof open and the interior lit by overhead fluorescent lamps, I couldn’t mistake Mr. Pitt’s shiny dome behind the wheel. I would have recognized his fierce froggy scowl anywhere.
“I second that sentiment,” I said, sliding into the BMW. A familiar feeling of impending doom settled on my shoulders. Across the lot, Liam smiled and shook hands with Isabel and Niko. I expected to hear him whistle as he sauntered to his Audi.
I plopped my purse onto the floor and glanced around. Niko was still chatting near the entrance, and no one was looking my way. I cracked open the handbook.
My personalized greeting was absent. In its place, the first page read, I’m not flighty or crazy.
I slammed the book shut and shoved it in my purse.
A patter against the windshield brought my head up. Fat drops flattened against the pane. Niko jogged across the parking lot, swiping drops from his shaved head. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he brought with him the ozone-laden scent of the forefront of a storm, wet pavement, and his own signature deliciousness. I took a deep breath, then swallowed hard. The heater vents whirred to life, pushing the heady fragrance against my face, and my seat belt proved especially difficult to latch, despite a lifetime’s practice.
“What do you want to know?” Niko asked. I cracked my window for some fresh air. Niko waited, car idling, watching me.
“What are prajer eats?” I blurted.
“Prajurit,” Niko said, then spelled it. He put a hand behind my seat and turned to look behind him as he backed out of the space. “They’re a who, not a what. Basically a small but fierce humanlike winged species we have an alliance with. Each hive is led by a queen, not unlike bees. Don’t ever make the comparison to their faces, though.”
“By small, you mean . . .”
“I’ve never met a queen over six inches tall. Most of her warriors are shorter, some no taller than four inches.”
I checked his profile to see if he was joking. In the dim lights from the dash, he looked completely serious. “Fairies.”
“You’d lose an eye if they ever heard you call them that.”
I powered my window closed and drummed my fingers against my leg. I didn’t need fresh air to distract me: The absurdity of this conversation did a fine job. I reviewed everything said about the prajurit in the meeting. It matched what Niko said. He’d never joked with me about the job before, either. Which meant little fairy people existed.
Just when I thought this job couldn’t get any weirder, too.
There’s a lot you don’t know, I told myself in my best sarcastic mockery of Mr. Pitt. Glancing at the handbook where it poked from my purse, I decided I’d rather get my answers from Niko.
“And they’ve disappeared?” I asked.
“Around here they have. There used to be a hive on the northern edge of your region and several others up the hill. If they were still around, we wouldn’t have this salamander problem.”
I skipped over questions about the salamanders. One new species at a time, please. “Has this ever happened before? Maybe they moved or, er, migrated?”
“Prajurit are territorial to a fault. They move only when necessity dictates or a young queen starts a new hive. They don’t abandon territory.”
“Not even because of the increased evil?”
“They don’t back down from a fight.”
They sounded like my kind of (miniature, winged) people. I’d met enforcers, wardens, an empath, and Illuminea since discovering our clandestine CIA. Of those, only enforcers fought evil. Wardens monitored and ordered and strategized, leaving the actual combat to enforcers. Empaths, or maybe only Rose, since she was the sole empath I knew, could not see in Primordium or use lux lucis, so fighting atrum was out of the question. Illuminea were passive; they influenced people to make better decisions and spread lux lucis wherever they went, but they didn’t engage in combat.
Yet, how helpful would a fairy-size person be, especially since anything larger than the smallest evil imp would dwarf them? How much lux lucis could their bodies store and expend in a fight? I opened my mouth to ask, but Niko beat me.
“Did you learn anything at the meeting?”
“Liam’s got it out for Mr. Pitt.”
Niko made a noncommittal sound. “He and Brad have their differences, but don’t let that blind you. Liam is very good at his job. Only the best wardens are selected to teach others.”
“And to take over neighboring regions? How is this arrangement any different than me training under another enforcer? Liam has all the power. The way he set things up made Mr. Pitt a figurehead.”
“Don’t count Brad out. And remember, you’re not tied to Brad’s fate. Keep your nose down, do the work, make a good impression with the other wardens. They’ll see you have potential.”
That word always sounded like an insult: potential.
Niko turned into the entrance of my apartment complex and eased over the speed bumps. I wanted to ask him again if he thought Mr. Pitt should be forced out of his job, but I knew he wouldn’t answer. I wished it were easier to tell which way he leaned. I desperately wanted to keep my job. I didn’t want to have to move, and if I were being honest with myself, it rankled to be expected to take a demotion if I was forced to work somewhere else. I’d been given the title of enforcer, not enforcer-in-training. I wanted to keep it. But if Mr. Pitt were unfit to manage the region, I’d be dooming myself—and all the innocent people living in this region—by trusting him.
I realized Niko had parked and was waiting for me to get out. Flustered, I fumbled with my seat belt, then remembered his knife. I hauled my gigantic purse onto my lap and dug out Niko’s dagger.
“Should I be worried?” Niko glanced at the sheathed weapon. In the yellow light illuminating the parking lot, I thought I caught the hint of a teasing smile.
“Thank you for loaning me your dagger. It was very helpful.” The smooth hilt brought back an unpleasant memory. I shifted the knife to my opposite hand and thrust it toward Niko. “I won’t be needing it anymore.”
His smile disappeared. “Okay, now I’m worried.” He accepted the dagger and laid it across his legs. “You can’t survive with pet wood as your only weapon.”
“I know. But did you know it’s illegal for me to carry that around in my purse?”
“Yes.”
I opened and closed my mouth. “Then why did you let me!”
“Which is worse, breaking the law or being killed?”
“How about neither.” I didn’t check the irritation in my tone. Rifling through my purse, I pulled out the slender Bowie knife, still in its sheath. “See, perfectly legal to carry in a purse.”
“And so quickly retrieved,” Niko said.
“It attaches to a belt.”
“I don’t think you quite grasp the concept of a belt, if you’ve got it stored in there, too,” Niko said, eyeing my purse.
“I just got this today. I don’t have a belt.”
“You’ll get one?”
“Friday. I’ll be at the mall anyway.”
“Okay.” He gripped the Bowie’s handle, testing it. “Good decision. This is a nice size for you.”
“Thanks.”
I took a deep breath, savoring the rich spicy scent of Niko’s cologne. Rain strummed the roof and pattered against the windows, emphasizing the warm seclusion of the car. Maybe it said something about me, but being in a shadowy parked car at night with a gorgeous man brought up all kinds of interesting ideas.
I looked away from Niko. We both held knives; there was nothing sexy about this scene. It was beyond time for me to go.
“Thank you for taking me to the meeting.” I shoved the Bowie back into my purse and popped open the door. Cool air rushed in, along with a smattering of raindrops. “And for your knife last week.”
“It’s yours anytime you need it.”
“Thanks, but it’s so big, I honestly don’t know what to
do with it.”
Dear God, I was staring at his crotch. I sprang from the car, my blush hot enough to heat my eyeballs. “Have a good Thanksgiving,” I said, without leaning down; then I closed the door softly and tipped my face up to the rain. Soothing drops splashed my cheeks.
Sophisticated, professional, collected. Words Niko would never use to describe me.
Realizing the BMW hadn’t moved, I guessed he was waiting until I reached my door before leaving. How very old-fashioned. And annoying.
I trotted up the grassy hill, seeking the fastest way out of his line of sight. The thought of him staring at my backside made me nervous, even if he meant nothing by it. Please let my butt look good in these pants. The parking lot lights weren’t flattering, but maybe they’d cast a good shadow.
Halfway up the hill, something chilly touched my butt. I glanced down. “Oh, frick!” The sprinklers were on. Under the disguise of rain, and in my own embarrassed haste, I hadn’t heard their telltale hiss. Everything from my crotch down was soaked. I ran the last few steps to the sidewalk, cussing the whole way. It looked like I’d peed my pants. Way to be classy, Dice. I peeked over my shoulder, praying Niko had miraculously missed the show. He hadn’t. In the faint light of his car’s dash, I could see the white of his grin.
“Bastard,” I said through clenched teeth, and tossed him a jaunty wave. Pretending my pants weren’t glued to me, I darted up the stairs. Behind me, his car engine revved as he backed out.
Mr. Bond came bounding out of the bedroom, blinking against the bright light of the front room lamp when I stepped inside my apartment.
“I just made an ass of myself.” Mr. Bond sniffed my dripping pants and batted at the stream of water trickling toward his paw, springing backward when he made contact. I tossed my purse aside, kicked off my shoes, and peeled my pants down chilled thighs. Mr. Bond raced ahead of me to the bathroom, where I wrung my pants out in the tub with his acute supervision before hopping into the shower. Mr. Bond waited impatiently by his food dish when I emerged several minutes later, the heat of the water having soothed away the sting of embarrassment.
I slipped on flannel pants and a well-worn Race for the Cure T-shirt I’d picked up at a charity event years earlier. Then I blinked to Primordium, swapping my front room’s bright full-spectrum glow for mysterious, directionless illumination. The colorful spines filling my bookcases, the bright blue ceramic bowl holding my car keys, and the jet-black frame of my TV all became the same shade of gray. In this sight, nothing truly black existed in my apartment, thanks to atrum never having a chance to get a foothold. I soaked in the peace of my sanctuary before gathering lux lucis in my palms and heading for the sliding glass window.
Pressing my hands to the frame, I pushed lux lucis onto the wood. It clung there, bright against a wall of gray. Smoothing my hands along the paint, I applied a thin layer of lux lucis to the entire door frame, creating a ward along the door’s seal. It was Wednesday, so I recharged using the thick-trunked Massangeana by the TV, then repeated the ward around the front door.
While no atrum creatures specifically hunted me—or so I liked to believe in order to sleep at night—placing simple wards over all entrances to my home kept me safe from casual invasion. That I knew of, my wards had never been tested, so I operated on faith. I’d like to keep it that way, too.
Mr. Bond trotted beside me into the bedroom and sat in the middle of the floor while I took lux lucis from a rubber tree before warding the window. His meows grew louder and more insistent as I worked, but I ignored him until after I’d recharged at yet another plant. Before I’d become an enforcer, I’d adorned my apartment with a handful of plants. Now that they’d become an energy source, I crammed plants in wherever they fit and pampered them all. If I didn’t recharge, my body would do it passively while I slept. Plants were the first victims. Anything small and helpless, like a certain obese Siamese, would suffer next.
Nightly ritual complete and fully recharged, I appeased Mr. Bond with some dry food, then collapsed into my gray recliner, with the foot rest kicked up. I eyed the clock on the DVD player. It wasn’t even ten o’clock. If my evening had gone according to plan, I still would have been out with Alex. Perhaps savoring a kiss or two.
Please don’t let me have built this up too much. After all, Alex was still single. Maybe he lived with an ex-wife. Or had a gambling problem. Or didn’t like to read fiction. I shuddered.
Mr. Bond circled my purse and stuffed his head inside, proving he hadn’t been hungry so much as worried he’d never get fed again, since he’d hardly taken two bites before abandoning his full food dish to search through my belongings. With his head deep in my purse, his right paw scrabbled on the outside, trying to touch whatever he saw inside.
He pulled his head out, circled my purse again, and stuck a paw in, then removed the paw to submerge his head, paw batting uselessly against the outside. I giggled.
“What’d you find there, buddy?” His responding meow was muffled. I pushed the footrest closed, startling him out of my purse. He raced for the bedroom, tail flagpole straight. Seconds later, he galloped back to scratch on his post. I opened my purse to see what had set him off.
The handbook lay crumpled under the knife. I cringed, remembering Niko’s admonishment to treat the book like gold. Pulling it out, I smoothed the cover. Mr. Bond trotted over. I held the book for him to sniff. He pressed his cheek to the leather, hooking his upper lip on the cover. His fascination with rubbing his top canines on my books had dented more than one cover.
“No fangs on this one.” I pulled the book away, and Mr. Bond took a swipe at my hand.
“Hey!” He tore off, this time to the kitchen, where he rumpled the throw rug, flopped to his side, and pummeled the wadded fabric with his back legs. “You’re being weird.” Like he’d had catnip. Or not enough attention. Familiar guilt welled up. I’d been extra busy since I’d become an enforcer, and I hadn’t spent as much time with him as he deserved. Apparently he’d decided to lash out.
I threw a fake mouse to him, and he batted it around the kitchen like a hockey puck. I returned to the chair and curled up in it, studying the handbook. Scuff marks and scratches marred the supple leather cover, and beneath a layer of grime, faint bands of color wove across the surface. No title or author’s name graced the cover or spine. The back was a replica of the front and equally as abused. At one time, the handbook must have been beautiful. I opened it across my lap and blinked to Primordium.
I AM NOT A TOY! Don’t let that clawed brute near me again! scrawled across the front page.
“Mr. Bond is harmless.” The book, however, was creepy. I pulled a dinged TV tray table closer and set the book on top of it, then wiped my hands on my legs. Steeling myself for the surreal experience, I settled in for a conversation with a book. “So what exactly are you?”
The words disappeared; then new text wrote itself across the blank page. I’m a book. You’re going to need a lot of help if you couldn’t figure that one out.
Oh, goodie. It knew sarcasm. “What can you teach me? Do you know anything about being an enforcer?”
Normal books know more about being an illuminant enforcer than you do.
Another critic. Lucky me.
Bored with his mouse, Mr. Bond jumped onto my lap. In Primordium, his plump body glistened with lux lucis. I slid my fingers through his fur and consciously calmed my annoyance.
Unerringly, Mr. Bond zeroed in on the book, stretching his neck out to giraffe lengths to sniff it from my lap. When he shifted to bat it, I snatched the book out of his reach. He mewled. I nudged him from my lap. Mr. Bond landed on the floor with a thump and sulked to lie across my shoes. I laid the book down again and wiped my fingers on the arms of the chair. The handbook might look like a normal, if lux lucis–suffused book, but somewhere in it or on it lurked a brain, and the idea of putting my fingertips on it turned my stomach.
I told you that thing is dangerous, scrawled across the page in the book’s distin
ctive printing. Or was it handwriting?
“That thing is my cat, and he’s just curious.”
I believe there’s a saying that applies here: There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
“I think you were looking for ‘curiosity killed the cat.’”
No. I had it right.
I glared at the book. Being a book, it merely lay there. This was foolish.
“So, O great and wise book, teach me something useful.”
Of their own accord, the pages fluttered. I jerked back and eyed the book in disbelief. Had it just sighed at me?
“Am I annoying you?” I didn’t quite get the full load of sarcasm behind the question from my position huddled at the back of my chair. If it could move its own pages, what else could it do? It’s a book, Dice. Get a grip.
I am a book, Madison.
The words on the page so closely echoed my thoughts I stilled like a bunny in headlights, breath held.
Can you hear me? I thought.
The words continued to scrawl across the page without pause. If the book could hear my thoughts, it didn’t respond to them.
You know we’re not just shelving decoration, right?
I leaned closer in case it was nearsighted and gave it my best scowl. The novelty of talking to a book had dissipated.
When have you ever found all a book’s answers on the first page?
Oh. It had a point.
I flipped to the next page. It was blank. So was the next. Trying not to think about what I was touching, I picked up the book and thumbed through it. I was about to accuse it of being as blank as it had been at Liam’s office when I came across an entry.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 7
