Furthermore, why make my region the epicenter?
I dropped to sit on the bumper. Of course. Mr. Pitt and I had been thinking about this wrong. This wasn’t about making someone look good; it was about making someone look bad: Mr. Pitt.
The wardens didn’t like Mr. Pitt. Two in particular had been trying to force him out of his region, and their efforts had gained traction as more evil overran our region. What better way to make Mr. Pitt look like a horrible warden than to make it seem like he cultivated evil in his region? If Mr. Pitt hadn’t found these hidden evils today, I could see how it would have played out. They’d “find” the salamander nest, swing around the back of the house, and “discover” the poisoned titan arum, and Mr. Pitt’s career would be over. The turbonis was a bonus, a backup in case the nest wasn’t enough.
We didn’t have a rogue enforcer.
We had a rogue warden.
“Did anyone come by while I was inside?” I asked. It took two tries to get through the sentence between coughs.
“No. What’s going on?”
Medusa played “Hail to the Chief” from my back pocket. I jumped, then bent forward to retrieve the cell phone.
“Mr. Pitt, I need—” My voice rasped and gave out. I cleared my throat, but Mr. Pitt talked over me.
“For the first time in your brief career, listen close and do exactly as I say. Get to the office. Now. Don’t talk. Hang up. Drive. I need you.”
I shoved to my feet. The house burned, flames licking across the roof. Inside, atrum flames ensured it would continue to burn down to ash. With the walls still standing, I couldn’t see the black flames, but I should at least try to clear them before leaving. I took a step, then stopped.
I need you.
Mr. Pitt’s words slid under my skin, tapping against my nerves.
“Get in the car,” I said. Jamie darted to his door. I dialed 911. “I need to report a fire.” The firefighters wouldn’t be able to do anything about the flames fed by atrum, but they could prevent the natural fire from spreading. I slid behind the wheel, put the car in gear, and peeled out, abandoning the house to its unquenchable flames.
* * *
Jamie held Lestari in his hands while we careened around corners, then rocketed down the freeway, my imagination supplying ever-increasing horrors to rationalize Mr. Pitt’s urgent call. When I reached the conclusion that something dreadful had happened to Niko, I shut down my thoughts, driving faster.
The queen woke up halfway to the office. Her enormous eyes were swollen from crying, but her tears had dried. She paced the dash, slashing the air with her sword, cursing her enemies and vowing revenge. I let her words wash over me and concentrated on dodging through traffic.
When I skidded into the handicapped parking spot by the lobby doors, my entourage spilled out of the car with me: a pooka, a prajurit, and a sentient book. I brushed my fingers across Val’s soot-crusted cover as I got out. He deserved an apology; I’d forgotten about him when I’d rushed into the salamanders’ nest. He must have been terrified.
I considered asking Jamie and Lestari to wait in the car, but it would have been a waste of breath. Jamie raced around the car to glue himself to my side, and I feared it wasn’t safe to leave the queen alone. Grief and anger were a toxic combination.
“Stick close,” I said. I didn’t know what we were walking into. At the very least, I was going to get reamed by Mr. Pitt. More likely, it would be something worse. Please let Niko be okay.
I hardly recognized my reflection in the lobby’s glass doors. It wasn’t just the fresh-from-a-chimney look I sported, either. It was the way I walked, confident, like an illuminant enforcer, not a woman pretending to be one. When had that happened?
Warm air swirled through the hushed lobby. Chatter and the clack of keyboards drifted from open doors of offices I passed. A woman coming out of the bathroom stopped on the threshold to stare as I stalked past. In other words, business as normal.
The woman didn’t notice Lestari, who flew along the ceiling tiles. The prajurit were not like imps and vervet: I could see them clearly in normal sight, which meant everyone else should be able to see them, too. How they hadn’t been discovered by normal humans was a puzzle for another day.
The closed doors to Illumination Studios gave me pause. I tapped the handle, half expecting it to be hot. The chilly metal jiggled. I blinked to Primordium. Nothing looked amiss.
Taking a firm grip, I thrust the door open. Lux lucis so thick it was opaque coated the doorway from top to bottom. I peered at the threshold. Powerful lichtwands built into the metal seam radiated lux lucis.
Dread chilled my stomach. Mr. Pitt would have put up a lux lucis barrier only if he were planning on keeping something fierce out.
I stepped through the sheet. Energy tingled through my body, jolting my senses.
I was wrong. Mr. Pitt wasn’t trying to keep out anything. He was trying to keep raw atrum hell in.
23
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
Lestari zipped past my shoulder, loosing a high-pitched battle cry. Jamie stepped through the sheet, then gave himself a vigorous shake more suited for his Great Dane form, atrum painting the surface of his soul. If my feet hadn’t been rooted in shock, I would have stepped away from him. The door latched softly behind us.
Atrum coated the industrial carpet, splattered across Sharon’s desk, and slimed the wall behind it, shrouding the tall Illumination Studios letters. Like an oil stain, it saturated the walls in a slow, inexorable tide. Vervet clung to ceiling tiles and perched atop cubicles, razor claws and scorpion tails piercing our once-pristine office furniture. My eyes locked on Mr. Pitt. He stood at the center of the office, a white beacon amid a flurry of darkness. A gelatinous layer of atrum writhed on the floor in front of him, now-familiar bouts of inky flames bursting above the mass.
Blood drained from my head. What I’d mistaken for raw atrum was a seething pile of dozens of salamanders crawling over each other. More wriggled from a mound of eggs that dwarfed the nest I’d cleared at the house. Atrum flames licked across Will’s and Joy’s cubicles, invisible real flames burning holes into the fabric.
Holding back the swarm of destruction was Mr. Pitt’s soul. Incredibly, it bubbled from his chest to encompass half the walkway and two cubicles. Salamanders clawed at his lux lucis, bathing it in black flames. I winced. Holding the tainted fire with his soul had to be agony.
I thought I’d pictured the worst-case scenarios, but this was unfathomable. Our headquarters had been attacked!
“Mr. Pitt!” I started forward, then leapt sideways to avoid colliding with a vortex of atrum. Thigh high, it spun like a top across the foyer, glittery onyx energy crackling across its surface. A turbonis. It looked exactly as Val had sketched. A vervet hurtled from its depths, fully formed, flying deep into the office. Shallow waves rippled across the smear of atrum beneath the turbonis, lapping against my toes, seeping into my soul.
“Twinkling tootsie toes! What was that for?”
Mr. Pitt’s bellow jolted me into action. I hopped through the atrum, flaring lux lucis into my feet to cleanse the evil taint once I reached the clear strip of carpet left behind Mr. Pitt.
“Scum! Murderer!” Screaming, Lestari drove her sword into Mr. Pitt’s neck. He jerked aside, and a bright line of lux lucis slashed across his throat, fading to gray. His barrier flickered. Atrum flames slipped past his boundary before the white sphere brightened and sliced through the encroaching flames.
“Traitor!” Lestari’s bright sword slashed too fast to follow. Blood soaked into the torn fabric of Mr. Pitt’s sleeves. The warden twitched with each strike, but rather than defend himself, he clamped his wrists to his sides. Sweat dripped down his chin.
I jumped between the prajurit and Mr. Pitt. “Lestari! Stop it!”
“He killed my clan. He dies! Move, spineless human.”
I knocked into Mr. Pitt to avoid Lestari’s dive. My boss grunted, but he still didn’t move. Heat fro
m the pile of salamanders permeated my jeans. As close as he stood, Mr. Pitt’s legs had to feel burned.
“We don’t have time for this, Madison,” he growled. His eyes swiveled to mine, but otherwise he didn’t move.
“Lestari, we were framed!” I shoved a hand between Lestari and Mr. Pitt’s throat. The prajurit’s sharp sword sliced into my forearm. I hissed and jerked back. The cut gouged deep but short. Blood welled to the surface, fading to gray as it ran down my arm. Jamie grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me, setting me down behind him. I yelped in shock at his strength, but the pooka ignored me.
“Sunan, no. You cannot take your grief out on Madison.” Jamie didn’t yell, but Lestari responded as if he had. She flew to the ceiling, sword held before her. Jamie’s soul frothed. I slid around him, closer to Mr. Pitt in case I needed to intervene. My boss’s wide eyes locked on Jamie, but his feet remained rooted.
“Taste him, Sunan. He’s not responsible.”
“Mr. Pitt would never harm a prajurit,” I said, frowning at Jamie’s weird wording.
Confusion furrowed Lestari’s brow. She dipped down to touch Mr. Pitt’s barrier, then licked her finger. Fresh tears shimmered in her eyes. “But . . . but it is his region.”
“I can explain—”
“Why don’t we save our chat until the office isn’t on fire.” Mr. Pitt’s final words set my ears ringing. His soul flickered and shrank, releasing atrum flames beyond his barrier.
Two vervet dropped from the ceiling onto Mr. Pitt. He grimaced but did nothing while they gnawed on his soul. After a moment of shock, I grabbed the closest one, pulsing lux lucis into it. Lestari twirled past me, skewering the second before its stinger pierced her. Despite our size difference, her vervet disintegrated at the same time mine did. Whatever her sword was made out of, it was strong stuff. Or the prajurit was.
“I’ll grab water,” I said, turning to run around the burning cubicles.
“No!” Mr. Pitt’s soul fluctuated. He clenched his fists, easing his breaths in and out until his bubble stabilized. “This takes everything I’ve got. You need to flatten the turbonis. It’s making everything worse.”
The plastic frame of the cubicle bubbled and melted. The bitter stench made my eyes water. I backed away from the heat.
“But the flames—” What was a few more vervet compared to the building burning down around us?
“Think like an enforcer, Madison. The sprinklers will take care of the fire. The more atrum that thing spits out, the harder this is.”
“Can you defend yourself?”
“Stop hovering and get busy!”
He swiped a shaky arm across his forehead, wiping away sweat. His soul dimmed another milliwatt. I stopped arguing. I cleared all the vervet around Mr. Pitt with a sweep of pet wood, but more scampered from the break room and across Sharon’s desk to take their place.
“Lestari, can you protect him?”
She raised the hand holding her sword to her chest in salute, then backflipped into a vervet clinging to the glass conference wall. Her sword slashed too fast to follow, and the vervet exploded in atrum dust. The prajurit zipped to a plant beside my desk just outside the circle of fire. Her feet barely touched the leaf before her soul gleamed twice as bright. The leaf fell brittle and gray to the desk under the back draft of her wings.
“This is for Bulan and her sweet laugh, never to be heard again.” The tiny queen slashed through a vervet three times her size, then dropped through Mr. Pitt’s soul into the seething mass of salamanders. Weaving through bursts of black flames, she sliced into several salamanders closest to him. They floundered but remained strong.
“This is for Suharto; the eternal sun is blessed with his beauty.” Lestari shot straight up. Hovering, she rubbed her wings together in a blur, and a fine dust of lux lucis sifted onto the salamanders. The uninjured salamanders absorbed the minute traces of energy without effect, but when lux lucis contacted the wounded, they shrank as if doused with lux lucis water.
Flames flared around the queen, but she dove free, zipping back to the plant. Already, the empty spaces left by dead salamanders filled with fresh black bodies.
“Hurry, Madison.”
The strain in Mr. Pitt’s voice snapped me into action. I spun on my heel to face the encroaching line of atrum. I would do myself no favors by standing in atrum while fighting the turbonis. Plus, if I could wipe out the enormous pool, it might weaken or destroy the turbonis. Looping lux lucis over my fingertips, I whirled it up to blurry speeds, then released it across the floor. A clean line of carpet speared from where I crouched next to the conference room almost to the turbonis, then atrum closed in, erasing my efforts in seconds.
“Jamie, I need your help.” The pooka hadn’t reacted to our headquarters’ transformation to a battle zone. If asked, he’d probably say he liked the office better now that it had a mix of atrum. But he had jumped in to protect me. “Just like last night.”
“Together?” He crouched beside me, giving me his first smile since we’d found the poisoned titan arum. A tightness around my heart eased, soothing my panicky jitters.
“Together.”
I rolled more lux lucis in my hands and released it. Another swath cut through the pitch-black pool. Jamie’s lux lucis moved in a blur, sweeping through half the atrum while my weaker push succumbed to the tide of atrum. Side by side, we moved into the space Jamie had cleared and released lux lucis again. This time, I went through the motions but reserved my energy, letting Jamie do the work since his strength had an impact. In a few short sweeps, the floor and walls were clean.
“You’re amazing! Thank you.” I beamed with pride; I’d make a good creature of Jamie yet.
Jamie grinned and approached the turbonis at my side. Up close, it looked exactly like a miniature atrum tornado, complete with an erratic path and bulging sides. The top swayed and flopped, then spewed a fountain of imps in all directions. I jerked as they fell on me, tiny sharp teeth sinking into my soul from my neck to my knees. Rapid-fire, I pulsed lux lucis down my body, disintegrating imps like an exploding string of lights. Those that landed on Jamie bounced to the ground and rushed Mr. Pitt. I let them go. If Lestari could handle vervet, imps would be no problem.
Jamie leaned close to the funnel opening. Motes of atrum and lux lucis pulled from his soul into the cyclone. For a terrifying second, it looked like he was being torn apart and sucked in. The pooka jerked back.
“Twinkling tootsie toes!” Jamie exclaimed.
I gaped at him.
When a siren blared in the ceiling, I levitated. A monsoon opened above our heads, and Jamie shrieked like a scared goat, vaulting Sharon’s desk and disappearing beneath it. I clapped my hands over my ears. Water pelted me, drenching me to the skin in seconds, and pain outlined the gash on my arm.
The turbonis spun, unaffected.
I splashed to Mr. Pitt. His sphere held, but it was smaller and weaker. The salamanders within didn’t react to the water—without lux lucis, it fell harmlessly through their insubstantial bodies. The furniture hissed and smoked, and noxious fumes curled into the back of my mouth. Two vervet clung to Mr. Pitt’s back. I swiped a hand through them, and their dust drifted to the floor on a gentle current incongruous with the deluge. Lestari was missing. I hoped the water had chased her away and she hadn’t been injured.
“What do I do?” I shouted.
“Unravel it.” He kept his hands clamped over his ears and paused for the alarm’s piercing BEEP. “Find the end.” BEEP. “Of the spiral.” BEEP. “On top.” BEEP. “Spin lux lucis.” BEEP. “Through it.”
Water funneled through his thick brows down the sides of his face and ran in twin streams off his elbows. I envied his meaty hands. Mine barely blocked the upper vibrations of the shrill alarm.
“Hurry!”
I ran back to the turbonis. He didn’t have to spell out the urgency. The carpet and cubicle wall in the center of his soul’s bubble burned unchecked beneath the water. Coated in atrum
flames, it would burn until nothing but ash remained, no matter how much water fell from the sprinklers. If Mr. Pitt lost control of all the salamanders, we’d face disaster.
I killed four vervet that scrambled up my legs. A few ducked around me, heading for Mr. Pitt. I spun to catch them as a fresh spout of imps catapulted from the turbonis. Gritting my teeth, I turned my back on my boss and focused on the source generating fresh evil.
The shape of the turbonis reminded me of a wraith, only more volatile and without the creepy faces. Reluctantly removing a hand from an ear, I swirled lux lucis into a perfect spiral on the first attempt. Who knew deafening alarms could be motivational?
Unlike a wraith, with a solid, unmoving anchor, the funnel’s mouth danced erratically. I darted forward and jabbed my hand into the center, loosing a spiral of lux lucis. Whirling atrum latched on to my fingers and guzzled energy from my soul. I yanked my hand free, breaking the connection and backpedaling a few steps when the turbonis shifted to follow me. It remained unchanged despite the heap of my lux lucis it’d consumed. Swiping water from my eyes, I prepped my energy again. It moved sluggishly.
Find the end of the spiral.
The next time the turbonis closed in, I let my hand hover above the rim, but I didn’t loose my energy. The vortex passively vacuumed lux lucis from my hand and arm in a dizzying pull as it had from Jamie. I gritted my teeth and used my left hand to steady my right. The alarm drilled into my head, shattering my concentration. I shimmied out of the turbonis’s path, then reached for the top again.
A piece of the rim felt different. I swung my hand above the tornado twice to be sure, then pressed my fingers into what felt like a loose strand and gave my spinning lux lucis a jolt. As before, the turbonis sucked down my whirling energy, but this time lux lucis spiraled down, eating away atrum like fire on a wound fuse. The turbonis jerked away, now barely ten inches tall.
My knees collapsed, and I splashed into a cold puddle, bracing myself with a hand. The walls spun at the edges of my vision. It could have been an afterimage of staring into the spinning turbonis, but I was pretty sure I was dizzy from lux lucis loss. My soul glowed weaker than a 10-watt bulb.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 37
