Parking next to the Owl Club, I turned off the Civic’s headlights and blinked to Primordium; the gray on gray of asphalt, sidewalks, and streetlights made using Primordium too dangerous while driving. Flickering yellow light from the streetlamps and the neon in the club’s window disappeared, replaced by a uniform directionless light; day and night were indistinguishable in Primordium.
A dozen beady black eyes surrounded us. I squeaked. Four imps bounced onto the hood of the Civic, and beyond them, two vervet dangled from the Owl Club’s protruding sign. I twisted to check behind us. Vervet hunched, vulture-like, on the two-story rooftops. A ball of imps scuffled across the road like an atrum-soaked tumbleweed. When they bounded atop the trunk, the car remained motionless beneath their weightless hops. Every single eye focused on Jamie.
“Can I go play?”
“Yes. Great idea. Out you go. Stay human. Wait. Promise not to feed them.”
“I promise.”
I shooed Jamie from the car. The pooka emerged as if through a sheet of atrum, shifting his soul’s energy as he stepped out. The imps mobbed him.
I pulled the door shut and grabbed Medusa.
“Mr. Pitt, I might have a problem,” I said when he answered.
“Not that I see. At least for the minute, our region’s clear.”
“I’m not in our region.” I explained the imps at the food truck event and the greeting party surrounding the car. “Aside from last night’s hatching, I haven’t seen a concentration of imps and vervet like this since ground zero. Before I killed the demon.”
“I’m looking at Liam’s most current map, and Isabel didn’t report anything where you’re at.”
“Can I take care of it?” I was outside my jurisdiction, in the territory of a warden who’d been none too pleased I hadn’t defected to her region. I wasn’t sure what the rules were.
“Yes. I’ll notify Liam so he doesn’t send Summer. Come by the office when you’re done.”
I tucked Medusa back in my purse. I would have liked a chance to talk to Summer in person. I’d decided against calling her today; my “sorry I stole part of you region” conversation was going to be awkward enough without adding on the lack of expressions and body language clues of a phone call. Setting the problem aside for later, I stepped from the car.
The vervet swiveled to watch me. I don’t know how they looked away from Jamie. I couldn’t. He juggled imps.
They climbed his body or leapt from the roof of the Civic to his hands, and he spun their fluffy bodies through the air. Some he caught, while others landed unfazed beside him and climbed back up for another go. He should have looked ridiculous. He did to people who couldn’t see Primordium. I struggled to wrap my brain around imps who clearly enjoyed being catapulted into the air, using Jamie like some indulgent uncle at a family gathering.
A vervet sprang from the club sign and latched on to my soul through my hip. I jumped, trance broken, and shoved lux lucis down its throat. Atrum sparkles drifted to the ground. A trio of imps on the hood of the car spun to sink teeth into my soul at my forearm. They died in one quick pulse.
“Are you going to kill them all?” Jamie asked.
He’d stopped juggling, and imps crawled over him, falling from his shoulders in easy tumbles. I shuddered. The pooka’s eyes whirled with a spiral of lux lucis and atrum, sadness unmistakable. I hardened my heart. “Yes.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“I have to. If they’re left alone, they’ll harm people and cause people to harm others, too.”
“You’re killing them. That’s the ultimate harm.” Jamie scooped up a handful of imps and cradled their chinchilla bodies to his chest. A few took bites from his soul, but true to his word, Jamie didn’t allow them to feed on his energy. “Do you only like lux lucis creatures?”
Up until yesterday, I would have said yes. But looking at Jamie, I knew it wasn’t true. I liked him as he was, even half atrum. I would have preferred he was solidly lux lucis, but his dark half didn’t repel me. In a way, he was a more extreme version of a normal person, partially tainted but still a lot good.
I hadn’t expected to have to explain why good was good and evil was evil, especially not to someone who could see it. I searched for a simplified rationale.
“I like individuals who don’t seek to feed off or hurt others, whatever species they are.” I felt that covered my parents, with their tarnished souls, and Jamie with his half-and-half soul, while excluding everything coated in atrum.
My answer satisfied Jamie. For now. I was sure this wouldn’t be our last conversation on the topic, but it seemed like a good start.
“Do I have to kill them?” He gazed at the imps the way I’d looked at the tabby kitten at Alex’s clinic. My heart cracked.
“Not unless you want to.”
I walked to the sidewalk, and the vervet perched above us dropped on me. I killed them all, intentionally using too much lux lucis so patches of my soul flared. Like moths to a bug zapper, imps peeled away from Jamie and sank teeth and claws into me. In deference to Jamie’s sad face and the few pedestrians, I didn’t use the pet wood, letting each creature land on me before disintegrating it. Jamie played with the remaining imps until the last one leapt from his hands to die on my soul.
I took a deep breath and shrugged off a pang of regret. Just because the imps enjoyed playing with the pooka did not elevate them above brainless evil varmint. They were small trouble but still important to exterminate before they cultivated a larger problem.
Jamie didn’t say anything, and when I started down the block, he fell into step beside me. Vervet followed us, diving from the rooftops and swinging from balconies to bury their claws in my soul. Jamie watched two tear into my soul, a small frown between his eyes. The vervet were all normal size, and it was no more difficult to kill them than it was to do a sit-up: I flexed a metaphysical muscle and exerted energy in its rawest form. It was repetition that tired me. I rested against trees more and more frequently to regain my lost strength as we traveled.
The ninth leaping vervet died before it reached me. Jamie’s soul flexed above my head in a glowing umbrella of lux lucis, and the vervet puffed out of existence.
“You didn’t have to do—”
“They all want to eat you.” He glowered at the rooftop. The vervet paced, agitated by the pooka’s action.
I smiled. Score one for the good side.
Jamie took care of the majority of vervet after that. I moved on to cleansing the standing atrum.
“Why do you do that?” Jamie asked after I rolled lux lucis up a brick wall to the atrum-smeared balcony above.
“Because the atrum doesn’t belong.” I avoided saying, And it’ll hatch more imps if allowed to remain. Likely, Jamie knew that. “The balcony is inanimate. It’s not meant to hold energy. So I negate the residual evil to restore it to its natural state. Do you want to try?”
“Okay.”
When he swept a patch of lux lucis from the front of the donut shop with looped atrum, washing away the positive energy and leaving a gray doorstep, I shuddered and fought to keep fear from my expression. Technically, the lux lucis didn’t belong on the inanimate surface any more than atrum did, and rather than risk undermining Jamie’s growing trust, I focused on my goal: making lux lucis fun for the pooka.
We made a game of who could cleanse the most atrum from each clump we found. Jamie never repeated the amazing radar-sweep move he’d wowed me with earlier, but he still won every contest. Seeing as it was the first game he’d ever played and the first time he’d won anything, he found the entire experience thrilling, racing from one black patch to the next. I did my best to keep up, then made sure he recharged. I didn’t want his expended good energy to free up room in his soul for atrum to creep in.
I drove to the office pleasantly tired and proud. If we could keep this up, Jamie and I were going to make an unstoppable team.
“Before we get out, which form do you want to take?” At night, the
parking lot in front of Illumination Studios contained only a few empty cars. Mr. Pitt’s bright orange Fiat was one of them. “No one’s here to see you change, so now’s a good time if you want to.”
“There’s not enough room to change in here.”
“Okay. But stick close to the car when you do.”
Jamie shrugged out of his clothes. I didn’t look away. He shifted fluidly, like his bones and muscles were a reshapable illusion. His metamorphosis seemed slower this time, though, or maybe it was the weak lighting. Maybe six shifts in one day took its toll.
Giving his tail a wag, Jamie tottered over to a nearby bush and lifted a leg, making me wonder if getting to freely pee on the great outdoors was the reason he’d changed. He trotted at my side as I walked to the office, close enough to brush my hip with his shoulder. Lux lucis coated his head and shoulders, giving way to uneven patches beyond my reach. I scratched my fingers through the short hair between his shoulder blades. Was it weird I felt okay with petting him in this form knowing he wasn’t really a dog? Probably, but since he seemed to take comfort from it, I didn’t think about it too hard.
Sharon locked eyes on the pooka when we entered. Jamie sniffed the corner of her desk.
“Jamie, no!” I grabbed his shoulders before he could lift a leg. “No peeing inside except in a toilet, okay?”
He lolled his tongue at me before curling it back into his mouth on a yawn. I nudged him down the hall toward the light spilling from Mr. Pitt’s office. For once, I felt I deserved the censure in Sharon’s glare.
Jamie preceded me into my boss’s office. Mr. Pitt held a phone to his ear, but he waved me to a seat. In the quiet office, I caught a few murmurs from the person on the other end of the line, but I couldn’t make out any words.
Jamie clambered into the second chair, circled on tall legs, and tried to curl into a ball on the seat. He overflowed in every direction. In squeaky increments, his feet slid along the cushion. Grunting, he shifted back to the center of the chair, only to start sliding again. His head dipped, eyes closing. When his front paws flopped off the chair, he jerked upright. The chair tilted backward. He yipped and tipped forward to compensate. I grabbed for the arm to stabilize the chair. Jamie’s front feet slipped to the floor, and the chair landed on all four legs with a thud.
Jamie harrumphed, his cheeks flapping on the exhalation. I sat back in my chair, holding in my smile. He looked ridiculous with his rear end perched on the chair and his front paws on the ground. Almost immediately, his head bobbed, eyes drooping closed. His hind paws slid toward his armpits, and he tipped forward in a nosedive. The chair scooted back into the window blinds with a clang, and Jamie sprawled onto his side. I clapped a hand over my mouth to hold in laughter. Jamie shoved to his feet, not looking at me, and headed back to the chair. When I looked up, Mr. Pitt had his forehead resting in his free hand and he was shaking his head, the phone still to his ear.
I pointed to the space previously occupied by the chair. “Why don’t you lie down there?” I couldn’t keep the chuckle from my voice. Jamie gave me a hard look, then walked to my feet and flopped across them. “Or there.”
Mr. Pitt hung up the phone without saying more than ten words. He seemed as subdued as the hushed office. It occurred to me I could “forget” to tell Mr. Pitt about Jamie sullying Princess’s soul. Since the incident, he’d been a model pooka—or far better than I’d expected—and I didn’t want to tattle on him. But the main reason I wanted to avoid relating the experience to Mr. Pitt was because I didn’t want him to blow up at me and my lack of control.
At the moment, Jamie’s soul twisted calmly, soft waves of lux lucis and atrum circulating through his upper body, his belly a clean white against my toes and shins. He looked harmless, but only his own volition stopped him from overpowering my soul as easily as he had Princess’s.
I wanted to cleanse Jamie’s soul, to teach him to be a pooka of pure lux lucis and use all his amazing power for good. Making sure I achieved my goal was far more important than getting in trouble with my boss, so I explained the incident to Mr. Pitt, keeping an eye on Jamie while I spoke. The pooka snored into the carpet. Mr. Pitt took it in stride.
“He’s a pooka. It’s up to you to make sure he fixes things when he blunders in the wrong direction.”
No vein throbbed in Mr. Pitt’s temple. He didn’t even raise his voice. Not wanting to push my luck, I left out Jamie’s playful interactions with the imps when I recounted cleaning up the tiny section of Isabel’s region.
“I never found a source. Maybe it was in the back of a bar where I couldn’t see.”
“It’s possible. It could be as random as what cropped up here today. Isabel will follow up on it.”
“How’s our region doing?”
“Fine, for the moment. Rafi took care of another small demon today as well as five of those unexplained pockets of evil. Our region is getting hit hard, more so than the areas around us.”
“Any theories yet?”
“I’ve seen something like this before.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “Really?”
“Years ago. When I worked in LA.”
“Is that what got you demoted?” I regretted the question before the last syllable escaped. Mr. Pitt sat back, setting his elbows on his armrests and steepling his fingers in front of him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“No. Tell me what you know.”
I squirmed. “Just that you used to have a larger region and then you got stuck with this one.”
Mr. Pitt dropped his eyes to his desk and nodded. “I had a region with five enforcers working under me in the heart of LA. That’s about as high brass as you can get in this state, and I got the position shortly after finishing my training. I didn’t even work the city as an enforcer.”
“An enforcer?” Jamie lifted his head at my shocked outburst, then settled back down, rolling to put more of his weight against me.
“There was a time, a short time, when I held your position.”
“That’s possible?” I’d figured wardens were like enforcers, born with the skill set.
“It’s a career choice a lot of enforcers make in their later years. More stability, fewer physical risks.”
“But how?”
“What’s the handbook say?”
“I’ve never asked.”
“Go ahead.”
Miffed, I pulled Val free. I wanted Mr. Pitt to explain it, but I had a feeling he was making a point. I needed to be asking Val more questions.
“Hi, Val. I’m here with our warden, Mr. Pitt. What can you tell me about wardens?”
Oooh, sitting down with the boss. Got to be on our best behavior, right?
“Darn tootin’.”
“You have a most peculiar approach to everything, Madison.”
I waited for Mr. Pitt to explain, but he waved a hand for me to continue my conversation with Val.
“Whatcha got for me?”
I’ve been listening, so the relevant passages are highlighted.
He gave me the page number near the back of the book, and I flipped to it. By highlighted he meant only certain text was visible.
WARDEN. A human or humanoid working for the CIA in charge of a defined section of land or sea. Wardens monitor evil within their region and coordinate and dispatch those under their command to combat any atrum or atrum-based creatures.
Like illuminant enforcers, wardens can work lux lucis. However, more than minor lux lucis use is frowned upon, as using lux lucis decreases a warden’s awareness of his region by softening the shape of his soul. The less defined his soul, the less precise his knowledge of his region. Similarly, if an enforcer does not regularly use lux lucis, her soul will harden into the shape of her region.
“What’s it say?”
“Wardens are dormant enforcers.”
“We’re a little bit more than that.”
I pulled my gaze from Val’s pages at Mr. Pitt’s wry tone. “Of course. It’s just, I
thought we were different.”
“We are, Madison. Very, very different. Just not when it comes to lux lucis.”
I closed Val and set him on my lap. I couldn’t wrap my brain around a young Mr. Pitt chasing vervet or netting a hound. My mind stuttered on picturing him young and got stuck. I cleared my throat. “So you were in LA.”
“My region wasn’t huge, but the population was dense and it kept my enforcers busy, and they strengthened fast. My region became the most requested transfer in the state. There was talk of expanding it by almost double. It would have made me the most powerful warden in the western United States.” He lapsed to silence, eyes focused on empty space between us.
I held still, barely breathing. This was the most Mr. Pitt had ever shared about his past, about himself. I didn’t want to blurt out a stupid question and ruin it.
“I thought I was talented. The best. I was wrong. One of my enforcers was a rogue.” His jaw bunched, and his eyes focused on me. “I can tell from your blank stare that you don’t understand. A rogue is an enforcer who works both sides.”
“Like, they manipulate atrum, too?”
“Maybe eventually, but at first Cheryl just made bad decisions, then covered them up. Like you did with our latest hire, Sam.”
“I’m not working both sides!”
“I know. No one could fake your ignorance. Otherwise . . .” He sighed. “The rogue enforcer, she did bad things intentionally, cultivated evil, if you will. Then she’d go in with lux lucis and clean it up and be a hero.”
“And you couldn’t sense that?”
“I should have, but Cheryl was careful. She cleaned her soul before each meeting. She confined her evil actions to places that didn’t set off my alarms and spread it around to all the enforcer regions under my domain.”
A shiver slid down my spine. I’d never considered the implications of my ability to cleanse my soul of atrum’s taint. Conceivably, I could commit all manner of crimes, do untold evil, then walk up to a tree and wash away the evidence with lux lucis.
“Then she got greedy,” Mr. Pitt continued. “She hunted down evil in other people’s territories and carted it to hers for big scores. I should have seen what Cheryl was doing long before then. If I had, Lupe would still be alive. She was my second-strongest enforcer and thought she was strong enough . . .” Mr. Pitt chaffed his hands and refocused on me. “After that, I was lucky to get this small region.”
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 32
