“Are you going to tell me what it is?” If the out-of-control citos were related to the thing in the garage, it was imperative for me to get my hands on more information, no matter what Mr. Pitt said.
No.
“You’re not going to tell me? Why not?”
If you insist on knowing, I didn’t get a good look before I passed out.
I reread the line. I had a fainting handbook? Familiar with the fragility of Valentine’s ego, I opted to tactfully change the subject.
“What’s your advice?”
For the citos? Take them out quickly, before they can grow bigger.
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
Maybe you should give your shoulders a quick spray, Ms. Snippy.
There was nothing on my shoulders, but I gave myself a full-body spray anyway, just to be sure. I thumbed through Valentine until I came to the entry on citos. Nothing had changed.
I turned back to the first page. “Got anything else for me?”
Proceed with caution.
“No kidding.” I shut Valentine and restrung him from the strap. After dousing a glowering cross-armed couple, I pulled out Medusa and dialed Mr. Pitt.
“It’s a madhouse down here,” I told him when he answered. I sent him pictures and explained the mood of the crowd. The decorations might have been the same as yesterday, and the Christmas music might have been as cheerful, but the atmosphere of the mall had turned hostile.
“There were vervet all over the parking lot. I can see two nests of imps from where I’m standing. I think it all has to do with that pit.”
“Which you’ve kept your distance from, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll look into what’s happening with the citos. Keep up your work, and whatever you do, don’t go near the garage.”
He hung up with his usual lack of a farewell.
I tipped my head back and swallowed a scream of frustration. I wanted to believe Mr. Pitt was a good, competent warden, but he was making it incredibly difficult—and possibly making my job more dangerous than it needed to be.
I should call Isabel. I should check in with Jacob. Maybe one of them knew what was happening at the mall. For sure they knew what lurked in the unfinished parking garage.
My phone didn’t have a long list of contacts. A few friends, a few relatives, a few enforcers, a few wardens. Niko.
My finger paused above his number.
Yesterday, I’d convinced myself Niko’s actions and words had indicated he supported Mr. Pitt, despite trying to appear neutral for my benefit. Now I wondered if his goal had been to plant the idea that Mr. Pitt was a bad warden in my head. If I revolted against Mr. Pitt while Liam held all my boss’s power, it would be a complete coup. Essentially I’d be working directly for Liam, and it was a short step from there to Liam becoming my boss and Mr. Pitt’s region being transferred to Liam, enforcer already in place. In that scenario, there was a strong likelihood I’d keep my job, location and all.
I liked the sound of that far more than Niko’s worst-case scenario in which I’d be looking for a job four hundred to three thousand miles away. It all hinged on who I believed—or what I thought was at the heart of Niko’s message.
Holding on to my faith in Mr. Pitt by willpower alone, I stepped out into mall traffic.
In an hour, I didn’t make it more than fifty feet beyond JCPenney. There, at the center of the mall, Santa had set up shop, ringed by a maze of frazzled parents and screaming, crying children waiting to commemorate the holiday with an overpriced photo with a fat man in a red suit. Invisible in the digital records would be a montage of green and red spiders worn like grotesque Christmas accessories by toddlers and children alike. It was almost unfortunate they wouldn’t show up in photos; the only thing the citos had going for them was their festive colors.
I circled the lines, burning through two spray bottles dousing just the people in reach. The photographer got two passes. If only I could get up to Santa and the ruby cito pulsing like a thundercloud atop his wig—when that man finally lost his patience, it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Eventually, I abandoned Santa’s fans. I could spend the whole day in the same location and never cleanse the area of the overgrown citos. Meanwhile, the rest of the mall had become a playground of emotional extremes. Vervet swung from sign to sign, trotted along the second-floor railing, and bounced from human to human, taking bites of souls along the way. Given the size of the mall and my past experience with vervet, their meager numbers didn’t alarm me. With this amount of people all succumbing to their baser emotions, it was no less than I expected. The problem was accessing the vervet. The crush of people disguised my bright white enforcer soul, or maybe with the buffet before them, the vervet didn’t need the thrill of taunting me. Either way, they ignored me, slipping through the crowds with a dexterity denied to those of us with solid mass.
Three times I pulled Medusa from my back pocket, scrolled through my contacts, and selected Isabel’s number. Every time, I justified the call. This was her territory. She’d want to know about the evil creatures. If I happened to bring up the mass of good and evil energy in the garage and she happened to tell me what it was, that wouldn’t be backstabbing Mr. Pitt, would it?
Three times I put Medusa back in my pocket. Every time, my reasoning was the same. Isabel was a warden; this was her region. She already knew about the evil here. My call would be nothing more than a betrayal.
Or the smartest move I could make.
I did my best to ignore that little doubting voice.
From my vantage at the middle of the mall, everything blurred into rivers of citos. I wasn’t surprised to see a smattering of street cops in uniform mixed in with the crowds. In the small area I’d patrolled, I’d witnessed three arrests for shoplifting and one for assault. I kept my distance during those tussles. I could have helped by removing citos and vervet clinging to the culprits, but I didn’t want to chance getting arrested in the process.
I slumped against a pillar. For all the impact I was having, I might as well go home early and get ready for my date. There was no way I was cleaning this up in time. My knees weakened and my back slid down the pillar until I drooped against it. I wanted to be a good enforcer. I wanted to impress Mr. Pitt and Niko. I wanted to keep my region—and maybe my boss. I wanted to prove to myself I could be good at this one thing—that this special career I’d practically been born to do wasn’t just another in a long line of failed jobs.
But most of all, right now I wanted to be a normal woman getting ready for a date with a man she’d lusted after for years.
My knees quivered, telling me I either needed to finish my collapse or stand up straight. I rolled my shoulders and took a steadying breath. Spritzing my head and shoulders, I dug past my longing to find the nearest exit. I wasn’t going to impress anyone by giving up.
I imagined a ticker on Mr. Pitt’s computer registering each cito I wiped out. The numbers flickered so fast they jumped by double digits as I swept past a cluster of shoppers around a cell phone kiosk. Mr. Pitt couldn’t help but be impressed—and see the cito population was out of control.
If only it were that easy.
I pulled out a fresh bottle of cito spray, then ducked into the long hallway to the public restrooms. Clusters of moms with strollers and dads with children clinging to their legs clogged the stretch to the restrooms. I gave the group a pass, breathing easy when I’d finally created the first cito-free zone in the mall. Planting myself near the hallway opening, I reached for Medusa and called Rose.
“This better be good news,” Rose said.
“I’m alive.” It was the best I could come up with.
“For now.”
“Is Mr. Pitt pissed at me?” Hearing my words, my frustration snapped. If anyone should be pissed, it was me. I was calling Isabel as soon as I hung up. This was her region; she should be updated.
“Not at you, girl. He’s positively chipper about you.”
“What?” I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. “Are we talking about the same warden?”
“Short, balding, looks like he’s going to have a heart attack every time you walk in his office?”
“That’s the one.” Mr. Pitt was happy with me? Had that ever happened before? “Does he look less heart attacky when he’s happy?” Maybe I’d been missing the signs.
“You should hear him yelling at Isabel and Liam. Here. Listen.”
Muffled, I heard, “Lemon balls and sour grapes! Now is not—”
“See?” Rose asked. “If anyone else in the building was here on a Sunday, I’m sure they would have called the cops on us. Now I need deets. What did you find on Friday?”
“I honestly have no idea, and Mr. Pitt won’t tell me.” I shelved my astonishment to describe the crater and its seething lux lucis and atrum. Rose had never heard of anything like it. I forwarded her my picture.
“Does it look like he’s sending me to do something about it?” I asked.
“Girl, you’ve got a death wish.”
“Actually, I’m desperate. If the garage thing is responsible for today’s madness and I could neutralize it, maybe the citos would go back to normal, because right now, they’re out of control.”
Rose groaned. “That’s what Brad said. I’m making more spray as fast as possible, but I’m pretty tapped out.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?”
“I was calling to tell you I need more soon.”
“Soon! You just got there.”
“I swear, I’m being as conservative as I can. I—”
“I know, I know. I saw the pictures you sent. Hopefully what Jacob has will be enough to tide you over until I make more.”
“Jacob?”
“Damn it. I told Brad to call you before he called Liam, but he must have been too worked up after how long it took to convince Isabel to send Jacob as your backup.”
“I’m getting help?”
“Hang in there.”
Discombobulated, I slid Medusa into my back pocket. Mr. Pitt was happy with me. Because I’d avoided the garage and followed his orders? Because I wasn’t mucking up our region? The former made the most sense but hardly seemed worthy of making Mr. Pitt cheery.
More important, I wouldn’t have to tackle the whole mall on my own. With two people, the odds of making my date tonight doubled. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I waded into the fray, following a bouncing pack of imps.
By the time I received Jacob’s text to meet him by the ice rink, my usually buttery soul looked closer to pale parchment and could use a recharge in the tree-filled courtyard. Perfect timing. Avoiding the madness of the food court, I ducked out a side door and into the bracing November air.
Though bursting with people and children, the plant-filled courtyard appeared only marginally affected by the madness inside the mall. Thanking the lux lucis gods for a reprieve, I trailed from one tree to the next, careful to stay on the far side of the courtyard, away from the alley to the garage. No compulsion other than normal curiosity pulled me toward the construction site, but I wasn’t taking a chance.
I spotted Jacob when he was still far across the parking lot. Our gleaming white enforcer souls really did stand out like targets in a world full of sullied norms. No wonder evil creatures found it hard to avoid us, even when they knew the danger we presented to them.
I waited at the edge of the courtyard, my bare hand resting on a tree’s soothing bark. Thin enough to wrap my hand around, the sapling held the same quiet, peaceful energy of a tree three times its age. Timeless serenity was part of every tree’s makeup.
Jacob stalked through a fresh wave of shoppers. Judging by his scowl, he wasn’t pleased to be taken away from his region. That made two of us.
“Hi, Madison.” He greeted me with a handshake, but his polite smile didn’t hide the irritation tightening the corners of his eyes. “I got a call from Isabel. Brad doesn’t believe you can handle a few citos. I have time for a quick sweep; then I’ve got a half dozen more pressing problems to get back to.”
“Did you see my pictures from this morning?” I fell into step beside Jacob, biting the inside of my cheek to avoid telling him to stuff his self-important attitude. I needed his help.
“No need.”
“The citos have gotten large.”
“The citos get large every year.”
“Not like this. I think it might have something to do with the energy in the garage.”
Jacob stopped. People grumbled and veered around us. “What do you know about that?”
“Nothing. What—”
“When did you see it?”
“A few days ago. It’s kind of hard to miss. What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“It’s under control, and it has nothing to do with citos.”
“Seriously? That’s all you’re going to tell me? Maybe we should go check, in case you’re wrong.”
His smile dripped condescension. “I know you think you’re a hotshot for taking out a demon in your first week, but trust me, I know what I’m doing. Leave the garage alone. It’s got nothing to do with citos, and it’s got nothing to do with you. Let’s get this over with so I can get back to important problems.”
He knew about the bizarre, impossible cluster of energy in the garage. That must have been the problem he’d been investigating on Friday. It had looked far from under control when I’d seen it. It had looked dangerous, like the kind of mystery anomaly a fellow enforcer should be informed of, since we were all supposed to be on the same team.
I contemplated the parking lot, weighing the satisfaction of leaving this self-important prick to handle the massive citos by himself against the karma of not assisting all the helpless people hosting those citos. The innocent citizens of Roseville won by a slim margin. Glaring at Jacob’s back, I marched after him toward the mall.
“I don’t see why you got Brad all worked up over this,” Jacob said. He’d stopped to survey the parents cluttered around the ice rink and the normal-size citos crawling on their heads. I stepped to the side to let people behind me pass, swiping a wayward imp with my foot. It puffed into a cloud of atrum.
“Come on. I can help you catch up, but then I’ve got to go.” Jacob headed for a woman with an apple-size cito on her shoulder, pulling a spray bottle from his jacket pocket.
“She’s not worth it.”
Jacob spun and stalked back to me, pointedly spritzing a couple with a golf-ball-size cito apiece. “I think we’ve found the problem. If you don’t take out every cito you encounter, they will grow. No wonder this is out of hand.”
I glanced around the calm courtyard and laughed. Jacob crossed his arms.
“Follow me.”
With a huff, Jacob trailed after me, lagging to take out a handful of baby citos. I conserved my spray, not letting my backup see me roll my eyes at his blatant attempt to school me. I held the door to the mall open for him, and when we stepped across the threshold, oppressive malice settled around us. Jacob slowed, his hand holding the spray bottle suspended before him, forgotten. Parents yelled at children, customers berated the hallway retail kiosk staff, and teenagers and elderly alike shoved their way through the crowd—and atop every person’s head crawled sewer-rat-size citos. In the distance, the line of children and parents around Santa’s chair looked as if I’d never sprayed them.
I pulled Jacob to the side of the doorway so we wouldn’t be trampled and drew his attention to the far wing of the mall. Two stores away, officers led a mother and daughter out of GameStop in cuffs. All four people hosted hen-size citos in shades of pink, green, and red. The crowds swallowed them, and their four citos were obscured by a dozen others sprawled atop people’s heads like brain-sucking parasitic props from a bad science-fiction movie. The citos nearest us turned upon their hosts’ heads, tracking us with beady eyes.
I swung Jacob around by his shoul
ders to face the other direction. As far as I could see, people carried ever-larger citos.
“Impossible.”
“Where does this rank in your priorities?” I asked with false sweetness. It was almost worth the cito insanity to savor the expression on Jacob’s face.
“I’ve never seen citos this large. They’re everywhere!”
“Now do you believe I’m not the new girl crying wolf?”
Jacob’s mouth snapped closed. “Yeah. I thought you were being lazy.”
That didn’t fall anywhere on the apology spectrum, but I let it go. “Still say it’s not the garage thing?”
“Apples and oranges.”
I clasped my hands together so I wouldn’t shake him for more information. Was it possible the wunderkind’s reticence stemmed from ignorance? Or was it more likely he was a self-inflated jerk? “So what’s the plan? Do we split up or stay together?”
“Together. You take one side of the walkway; I’ll take the other. Let’s see what we can accomplish.”
A fresh surge of hope spurred me through the rest of my spray bottle. With two of us working, I could actually see a moderate decrease in citos in our wake. Imps fell between us, having no escape except by latching onto a host. I had to let a fair share get away, attached to knees and ankles of shoppers, but I consoled myself with the dozens I exterminated.
When I got the chance, I watched Jacob to see if I could learn any special tricks, but he was no better at spraying and slaying than I was. Score one for the newbie. Even if we were only performing menial tasks at an overwhelming rate, the only thing the wunderkind had that I lacked was a fierce scowl, as if he were personally affronted by the size of the citos. I didn’t have the energy for that.
Forty-five minutes later, I slid another empty bottle into my purse and gestured Jacob close to a fake potted plant so we could talk.
“I’ve only got two bottles of spray left. What about you?”
“I only brought one.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. Mr. Big Shot hadn’t planned on being much help at all.
“Why don’t I give you what I have left and go pick up more from Rose?” I could have let Jacob go, but I wanted a break from the mall, and I wasn’t above using his guilt against him.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 15
