When that didn’t happen, I forced myself closer to the porch.
I hesitated at the sagging steps. The weathered wooden boards looked like they’d creak loud enough to rouse a slumbering demon. I set a foot softly on the first step and eased my weight onto it, leaping backward at the sudden raucous cry of a blue jay. It repeated its obnoxious call, then flew off through the trees. I waited, willing my heartbeat to slow, and strained to hear anything that might provide a clue about what lurked inside the house. The house and grounds remained quiet. Shouldn’t I at least be hearing Jamie? Where was he and what was he getting into? What if he’d followed the prajurit and the danger wasn’t in the house but somewhere near it? Cursing, I skulked around the side of the house, trying to look every direction at once.
“Jamie?” I pitched my voice low. “Prajurit?”
I checked and rechecked the curtained windows of the spooky charcoal house, unable to shake the hair-raising sensation of being watched. Nothing moved inside, and when I scanned the weed-studded pewter yard and the smattering of large white oaks, I didn’t catch sight of Jamie, either. My footsteps on the gravel-strewn dirt crunched loudly as I minced down the side of the house, knife clutched in my right hand, pet wood in my left.
I reminded myself I was an enforcer. I had magical powers. Some had even called me a superhero.
A bright white lizard shot from the shade of the house past my feet, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to squelch a scream. The extended tip of pet wood grazed the siding, screeching like nails on a chalkboard. I jumped away from the wall, spinning to check for enemies sneaking up on me. My heart hammered against my ribs. No one materialized, including Jamie.
A whiff of decay hit my nose, then disappeared. I took another deep breath, catching a faint undercurrent of rot. On leaden feet, I sidled up to the back of the house, and the smell grew stronger. Please, not a dead body. I peeked around the corner.
A huge glass greenhouse easily twice as large as my apartment squatted in a bleak gray yard. The packed interior glowed with lux lucis, a radiant nature-made light box. Beyond the greenhouse, a barren charcoal hill sloped into dense vegetation growing along the creek, screening the backyard from neighbors.
A man-shaped swirl of atrum moved in the center of the greenhouse. Jamie. Without his dichotomous soul, it would have been easy to miss him amid the floor-to-ceiling jungle. In normal sight, he would have been invisible.
I rushed forward, remembering at the last second to check the back of the house. Like the front, all the windows were blanketed. My paranoia spiked. This was too easy, but I couldn’t turn away, not with Jamie inside. Damn the pooka for rushing ahead!
Cold wind swirled across the greenhouse and I snorted. The foul odor emanated from the plant-packed enclosure. The rumble of Jamie’s voice filtered out of the propped-open windows at the top of the glass walls, but I couldn’t make out his words.
Bracing myself against a gruesome discovery, I tugged open the door. Moist heat spilled over me, carrying a coiling reek of decomposing manure. I rocked on my heels. Wall-to-wall plants pressed white limbs to the glass, searching for an escape. I considered calling Jamie to me, but I didn’t want to bring attention to myself—from whatever was in the house or in the greenhouse.
Pushing enormous fronds aside, I squeezed into the mass of plants, unzipping my jacket as sweat instantly popped out on my forehead. The tight, humid confines amplified the odor, and I took shallow breaths, refusing to envision possible sources of the rotting odor coating my nose and tongue. I attempted to move stealthily through the tight path, but after slinking two feet, wincing at every scuffle and scrape of leaves against my clothing, I gave up on a secretive, quiet approach. Though I couldn’t make out his words, Jamie sounded urgent, suggesting that I didn’t have time to sneak. I embraced my inner rhino, barreling through aggressive vegetation and trampling thorny vines.
“There’s something wrong with it,” Jamie said, clear and close.
A higher-pitched voice answered him, the words inaudible above my racket. I strained to see Jamie. Was the greenhouse the lux lucis ring Mr. Pitt had felt, not the house? Plants this dense could hide a pack of hounds. Hounds who’d rolled in dirty diapers. The nauseating odor coiled in my throat. Did I really want to find the source?
Flies buzzed my face, and I brushed them aside, catching my arm on a sticky vine. I hacked myself free with the knife, raining tiny white petals atop my sweaty head. Through the last layer of foliage, I could see Jamie’s liquid soul. I readied my weapons, heart hammering.
Pausing, I blinked to normal sight to make sense of the scene. Isolated in a small clearing of plants sat a knee-high black plastic pot. A single flower grew in it, but it was a flower unlike any I’d seen before. The base, thicker than my neck, sprouted into an enormous sturdy yellow-green petal easily three feet tall, like a pleated Easter lily petal on steroids. The top of the petal folded in a soft ruffled collar, revealing a velvety purple-maroon interior. Flies crawled into the heart of the flower, disappearing deep inside the enormous blossom. From the center of the flower, a grayish green, tonguelike column rose to the roof. The flower was too big for me to wrap my arms around, several feet taller than me, and smelled like death warmed over.
I blinked back to Primordium. The elephantine flower glowed with lux lucis. I glanced around in confusion. The carrion stench emanated from the flower, yet the flower wasn’t evil. In fact, there wasn’t a speck of atrum in the greenhouse, not counting Jamie. This couldn’t have been what Mr. Pitt sensed.
Batting flies from my face, I stepped into the open and circled the stinky plant as I headed toward Jamie, hugging the jungle perimeter. I still couldn’t understand the high-pitched voices, but I realized now it was because they weren’t speaking English. However, the tones of an argument were universal.
I stopped beside Jamie. Tense lines bracketed his mouth, and he reached for my hand, settling on holding my shoulder when he saw I held a knife.
Two prajurit stood on the lip of the purple petal. Both were dressed in outfits similar to those worn by the prajurit who’d attended Jamie’s hatching, though the fabric hung ragged on the woman. In Primordium, with them standing still, their wings stretched like gossamer kites behind them, almost too perfect and fragile to be believably functional. Neither acknowledged my existence. The man stared down into the flower, his face yearning, but the woman clung to his arms, pulling him back.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“He’s ending,” Jamie said.
“What?”
The woman screamed and slapped the man. He shoved her over the edge toward the floor with a harsh yell, then dove into the flower. The woman dropped a foot before catching herself. She fluttered drunkenly back to the petal’s lip, tears dripping down her perfect triangular face. Her voice lifted in a broken song. I didn’t understand the words or the reason for the woman’s sorrow.
I glanced at Jamie. Grief hung heavy on his face.
The male prajurit climbed out of the flower on hands and knees, his luminous wings limp. Black flecks coated his shirt and pantaloons and smeared his face. He rolled to his back atop the petal, a blissful smile on his tiny face.
“That looks like atrum powder. We can’t let—”
The prajurit spasmed, clutching his stomach and twisting into a ball. With a soft groan, he twisted and plummeted from the flower. I yelled and jumped to catch him, but his wings unfurled. For a moment, he coasted; then his body went limp. His wings folded back and he crashed the last two feet to the concrete floor.
“No!” I leapt forward, too late to catch him. He landed in a heap, his body already fading to gray. I crouched helplessly over the minuscule dead warrior, staring at his mangled corpse. I almost missed the body of another prajurit coated in atrum and crumpled atop a wide lux lucis–white leaf. This one hadn’t fallen; she had curled up and died.
I blinked to normal sight. Yellow pollen replaced atrum powder on both prajurit. The flower had poisoned
them.
Brushing aside tears, I rose.
“Wahyu, you’ve abandoned me. Bereft of home and clan, I shall cast myself upon titan’s mercy and drink its sun-drenched nectar one last time. Then to fair days’ end I go, to be reunited under the eternal sun.” The female prajurit clung to Jamie’s ear, wings flapping as she swayed on his shoulder despite his statue-still stance.
A jolt of surprise pinged through me. I knew this prajurit. She’d been the first to kiss my forehead after Jamie had supercharged me in the parking garage.
“Why did he kill himself?” I demanded. Anyone with a nose could tell this flower was toxic. “Was he forced?” I needed to be pointed in the right direction. I needed to take action.
The prajurit tilted her head back and released a shrill wail that bounced down octaves until it became a song, the foreign words interrupted by hiccups and sniffles.
Frustrated, I turned to the plant. Hoisting myself up to stand on the enormous pot, I grabbed hold of the purple petal. My fingers crushed a velvety fold five times thicker than a rose petal. Tugging, I pulled the petal wide open. Inside, a honeycomb of pollen stamens wrapped the thick stalk. Delicate veins of atrum overlaid the pollen, sifting down to sprinkle across strange bulbous tubers at the flower’s base. I blinked to normal sight, unsurprised to find the tainted pollen a cheerful yellow. Death floated up my nose. I fell headfirst into the flower and caught myself with wobbly knees. The stuffy building continued to spin, and I planted a knee in the dirt, stabilizing myself with a hand on the rim of the pot.
“Remember me, Lestari Suryawijaya, last of the Suku Dari Matahari, unfit for this world.”
“Sunan, no, you must stay,” Jamie said.
Lestari lifted from Jamie’s shoulders, her wings beating barely fast enough to keep her aloft.
“Sweet, sweet poison, take me from this cursed existence.” She angled for the lip of the flower. I spun, standing in a dizzy rush. Breathing shallowly through my mouth, I waved a hand in front of the prajurit.
“Wait. Lestari, please.”
She veered out of reach. “I told them not to taste it. I ordered them.” She planted fists on her hips, but her arms slid limp after a few seconds. “No one listened. Batari, Slamet, Mega. No one. I am unfit to rule. Unfit to live.” Tears spilled from her large brown eyes. “Let me die. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You’re not alone,” I said.
“Never alone,” Jamie said.
Lestari wobbled left as if to go around me, but I stepped into her flight path again. I couldn’t grab her without hurting her, but I couldn’t let her near the flower, either.
“Sunan Lestari. Rest on me awhile.” Jamie waved a hand, and the prajurit turned, her eyes tracking his fingers like he held her under a spell. I blinked to Primordium. Jamie’s hand radiated lux lucis so bright I could barely see the definition of his fingers. The rest of his soul clouded with atrum, but Lestari didn’t seem to notice anything but his hand. She settled her feet on his palm, then sat, unhampered by her insectlike abdomen.
Jamie’s eyes spun with angry energy. “The queen and I will be outside.”
I swallowed and nodded. Had his face always been so angular? Jamie shoved through the path I’d carved, gently cradling the prajurit.
When the greenhouse door closed behind them, I jumped to the ground and opened Val.
“This plant is poison to the prajurit. How do I get rid of it? Will chopping it down be enough?”
Looping text spiraled around the page in an unfamiliar, ribbonlike font filled with long sweeps and diacritic notations above curved letters. Slowly, the words faded. Long live the Suku Dari Matahari. I’d like a chance to speak privately to Sunan Lestari.
“Sunan?”
It’s an honorific title for a revered queen. She is strong to have resisted the poison this long.
“I don’t want to test her resolve any further. How do I destroy the flower?”
You shouldn’t have to. This is a grievous crime against the prajurit. The flower, Amorphophallus titanum, titan arum, corpse flower—whatever you call it—is sacred to the prajurit. A titan arum might bloom only once a decade, if that, but it turns the prajurit political system on its head every time. Blooms are times of celebration, and usually the only peaceful meetings between clans and the only time alliances shift without bloodshed.
“Without bloodshed? They’re all dead!”
The poison is not part of the flower. Prajurit cannot resist the siren scent of a titan arum.
“It smells like warm roadkill.”
Not to the prajurit.
“So you’re saying someone poisoned the flower knowing they were murdering prajurit.”
Sadly, yes.
Bile churned in my gut. I dropped to the concrete beside the flower and lifted my sweater to breathe through its filter. This wasn’t the big, bad enemy I’d expected; it was worse. How long had this plant been releasing its intoxicating scent, drawing prajurit to their deaths? How many more tiny bodies lay among the plants?
“Would a demon do this?”
Poison is seldom used by creatures of pure atrum. It’s too remote. It doesn’t give power the same way feasting directly on a soul does.
“This is an inside job, isn’t it?”
More than likely.
My shoulders slumped and I gently closed and stored Val. It was no longer speculation. We had an evil rogue enforcer in our midst, and Jacob was the only enforcer who fit the profile. He had the characteristic meteoric rise in power and skill. His region sat four blocks and a freeway overpass to the west. His region was overrun with evil. He’d tried to kill Jamie.
My gaze fell on the crumpled body of Jacob’s latest victim and I pushed to my feet with a cry of anger.
I pulsed lux lucis into the flower. It washed back into me. Good energy suffused the plant; the addition of mine made no difference. Grabbing my knife, I hacked at the base of the titan arum. The expensive blade wasn’t the best saw, but I made it work. Sticky sap sprayed my hands and knife as I methodically decapitated the murderous flower.
The titan arum crashed to the concrete. A smell of carrion washed over me. Panting, I half fell from the pot and collapsed against its base, legs rubbery with insidious weakness. My hands fell limp on my thighs, the muscles in my fingers refusing to contract, and my knife clattered to the concrete. Lassitude sank into my limbs, drawing my head to my chest. If I closed my eyes, I could nap.
Tiny dots danced in my vision, settling to the floor, falling across my feet, the concrete, the tiny prajurit body. A cough racked my body. I tipped to my side and the plants bounced in my vision. Something was wrong with me.
Poison. I was poisoned. I needed fresh air.
I couldn’t see the door or even tell which direction to look for it. I crawled to the closest plant, and with clumsy hands, I picked up a small ceramic pot and threw it high at the few feet of visible greenhouse wall beyond the jungle of plants. The pot bounced off the glass and shattered. I grabbed another pot, supporting myself on a sturdy stalk, and heaved it. This time, glass shattered. Sharp winter air whistled through the jagged opening, chasing poisoned pollen through the greenhouse. I sucked in crisp lungsful, holding on to the plant until my vision stabilized.
Marching to the collapsed flower, I tugged my sweater over my nose. The entire titan arum gleamed with hearty lux lucis; it was too soon for it to show the effect of being cut down. Slicing through the petal, I peeled it down to reveal the atrum and swiped a finger over the poisoned cluster of stamen, pushing lux lucis into it. The atrum disappeared. I smiled until I turned my finger over. The poison clung in a black smear to my fingertip. I shoved lux lucis against it, trying to erase it. My finger lit up twice as bright as the rest of my body, but the poison remained. Grimacing, I wiped my finger on the inside of the petal. The poison transferred to the more porous substance.
I opened Val. “Why can’t I cleanse it?”
The poison is a physical substance. It has to be countered with a
physical substance.
“That’s not how it works. I remove atrum from physical things all the time.”
That’s different. You’ve cleaned the metaphysical elements of physical things—people’s souls. This chemical’s only purpose is to kill, making it evil, atrum, on a molecular level.
I paced away from the titan arum and back. I didn’t need a biology lesson; I needed to take action. “How do I get rid of it?”
The same way you get rid of anything permanently. Burn it. The pages shivered.
I looked around for convenient lighter fluid or matches. Finding neither, I tucked Val back in his strap and picked up the base of the flower. I couldn’t leave the flower unattended while I gathered flammable material. Until it burned, no prajurit in the area was safe.
I knew the titan arum was big, but its weight staggered me. Tugging it through the jungle left me sweaty and limp. When I pushed through the glass doors, Jamie waited near the house, Lestari in his hands, weeping heart-wrenching sobs. Tears tracked down the pooka’s face, too.
Wind chilled the sweat on my scalp and neck and washed away the last of the poison’s lethargic effects. With fresh strength, I jerked the enormous plant through the door and onto the dirt.
The house remained silent, the curtains undisturbed. We’d been here almost an hour. If someone were inside, they should have come out by now.
As if on cue, a car door slammed shut and an engine revved in the driveway. Someone had come home while I was in the greenhouse and was already leaving. Someone who grew a titan arum so he could poison prajurit. Someone who would leave rather than confront me and be exposed for a rogue.
Jacob was getting away.
I dropped the titan arum and sprinted for the front of the house. By the time I rounded the corner, the driveway and road beyond were empty.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 35
