Near closing time, I defied Mr. Pitt’s orders and made my way to the employees-only door. It wasn’t unprovoked defiance. It was desperation. My nerves were so frayed my skin itched, and a pulsing headache had long since lodged behind my eyes. My discomfort was only infinitesimally related to humans, too.
I hadn’t thought it possible, but the convention floor looked worse today. While the number of imps seemed to have diminished, the number of vervet had swollen. They no longer confined their activities to the higher positions but now scampered through the crowds, pausing frequently to sink their teeth into unsuspecting victims or crawl over them to choicer parts of their souls. There were no hounds, though, which I took to be a good sign. There might be more evil here than I’d dealt with earlier, but there was nothing as tough.
The guard at the employees’ door eyed me with one cocked eyebrow. “Where’s your keeper?” he asked.
I gave him a blank stare before remembering the embarrassing scene Rose had made when we’d left yesterday. I blushed, which made him laugh. When he finally opened the door, I slithered through, cursing Rose under my breath.
The door closed behind me and I flinched. With the added evil on the convention floor, I’d hoped the more confined behind-the-scenes space would be clear and I could relax. I’d also looked forward to more easily being able to kill any creatures that attached themselves to my soul; out on the floor, I’d either had to surround myself with men—which sounded a lot more exciting than it had been—or I had to find a corner mostly concealed from vervet eyes, which was easier said than done at a convention where every booth was designed for maximum visibility, especially from the rafters.
However, instead of a personal sanctuary, I’d found the missing hordes of imps. Like drifts of dirty snow, they piled in the corners and eddied in the wake of employees striding through the hall. There were more people here than last time, too. Everyone was collecting their personal items and preparing to leave, unaware that they carried seething masses of soul-sucking creatures with them. And wherever the imps weren’t, the vervet were. They clung to the walls and leapt from person to person like it was a game of human hopscotch. Some people seemed to be tastier than others, and the vervet squabbled over them. I stared in horror as a dozen monkeylike monstrosities clung one-handed to the belly of an overweight woman and ate from her soul the way starved hyenas might, tearing into each other when they were jostled. The woman gave me a dirty look and knocked into my shoulder when she passed.
It occurred to me that I looked like a shining beacon of tasty lux lucis amid a depleted group of humans right before the same thing occurred to a clump of imps. They swarmed around my ankles and knees, and hundreds of sharp teeth sank into my soul. I pumped them full of more lux lucis than they could handle, snickering when they popped into glitter. When I looked up, every vervet in the hall was staring at me.
Crap. There goes an entire day’s worth of stealth. Mr. Pitt would be so proud. I prepared myself for a full assault as best I could—how do you prepare to be overwhelmed by lux lucis–leeching creatures when you’re armed with only pet wood, fake breasts, and unloaded guns?—and ignored the strange stares I was receiving from the people in the hall.
After the longest second of my life, when the entire world hung on my held breath, the remaining imps flowed away from me down the hall. A moment later, the vervet scampered after them.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” I straightening from my crouch. Maybe they were scared. And maybe my name was Hilary Clinton.
People gave me wide berth as I eased down the hall. I must have looked like a madwoman, but I was getting used to that. To normal folk, it looked like I was stalking a blank wall where the hallway took an abrupt left beyond the doors of the employee lounge. Of course, if the normal folk could see what I saw, they’d have run screaming in terror long ago.
Not such a bad idea, that little voice of reason said. We could be home, safe in our bed, in less than twenty minutes, and no one would be the wiser.
And how many more animals would be hurt in the meantime? I reasoned with myself. How much more evil would spread through my territory? I replayed Max’s forlorn look as he was led away, and my resolve firmed. I also realized I was having a conversation with myself. Loony bin, here we come. Or is that “here I come”?
Did I just answer my own question?
I rounded the corner, leaving behind all the wary human glances. I was alone in the new hallway—except, of course, for the seething masses of imps and vervet. I stopped asking myself about the wisdom of my actions, and I didn’t attempt to count the evil creatures. If nothing else, all these imps and vervet were no longer feeding on the people I’d left behind. Better, the likelihood that I’d have something useful to report to Niko and Mr. Pitt tipped from zero to hopeful.
The imps swarmed through a set of double doors, oozing through the cracks, defying the laws of physics. The vervet followed after a few jaunty waves, their insubstantial bodies pouring like liquid through the tiny openings. For the first time, I understood why Doris had insisted on the wards in my house. Pure atrum creatures didn’t need an open-door invitation. They’d just ooze their way in.
I paused with my hand on the door handle. I’d been working for Illumination Studios for four days. In that time, I’d trespassed, lied to a police officer, falsified my identity, and was in the illegal possession of firearms. The thought stopped me where I half crouched. This was not a good sign. If I could be persuaded to break that many laws in four days, what would I be doing in ten days? In a month?
I almost turned around. I may not be proud of my job history, but I’d never committed a crime before, let alone a crime in the name of my job. Then again, I’d never done anything as important as battle evil. My other jobs had been meaningless or boring—often both. At least as an enforcer, I was positively influencing the very balance of good and evil. That had to outweigh the minor transgressions I’d made along the way, right?
Isn’t there a saying about hell and good intentions? asked that tiny, annoying little voice.
Contemplation for another time, I answered it. One when I’m not hunting herds of evil.
I eased opened the door marked Hotel Staff Only, then shut it soundlessly behind me. Slinking forward, I rounded the corner and froze. An enormous bull mastiff blocked my path. It was easily large enough for me to ride, and its coat glistened with a familiar wet-blood darkness. The rest of the hall was empty.
The hound growled. A liquid chill of fear slid through my body. I hated for Niko to be right, but Max looked like an emaciated puppy compared to this hound.
I backed up, simultaneously fumbling for my pet wood. I seized upon the hope that it was merely Primordium making this pony-size hound look so scary. For all I knew, it could be as pathetic as Max in normal vision.
I blinked. The sterile hall was blindingly bright, pale beige walls and white linoleum tiles lit for practicality not ambiance. After the dimmer no-source lighting of Primordium, I had to squint through dizzy vision to see the hound. It still looked like it’d had three square meals a day, interspersed with weight training. The only improvement was that with regular sight it had normal fur that was brown with black flecks, like it had run really fast through a black-paint sprinkler. It also had ordinary golden eyes and regular long, white teeth. It was a measure of the growing insanity in my world that I was relieved to see its ordinary bared white teeth. One row. Mostly rounded.
My hand finally found the pet wood. I closed my fist around it and realized I didn’t have a clue what to do next. If I pulled it out, the hound would know for sure that I was an enforcer, or at least someone that should be attacked. I could only guess that the reason it hadn’t charged me yet was because it was still trying to decide if I was a threat. A hound this large wasn’t going to pause at the sight my slender pet wood. I also wouldn’t be able to wrestle it to the ground; if anything, the hound weighed more than me, and it was all muscle. I hadn’t thought to
stop by Accessories and More for a net this morning, either.
The hallway beyond the hound was devoid of potentially helpful humans. It ended in another set of double doors through which the swarm of evil creatures I’d been following had disappeared. If I could make it to the doors, I could slip through, continue my mission, and leave the hound behind.
Okay, Dice. Think action heroine. What would I do if I were a heroine? Well, first off, I’d probably have real bullets, a few more backup weapons, and a black belt in something. Second, I’d have on a lot more protective clothing, especially if I was used to battling against creatures with such sharp teeth. This isn’t helping. Focus.
I blinked to Primordium. The blinding hallway was reversed like a negative to black, only I was beginning to realize that there were many different shades of black. The hallway was heavy-shadow gray. The hound was black. Black-black. Blood black on a dark night.
I pulled the pet wood slowly from my backpack, keeping it tight in my fist to hide it. The hound’s ears twitched. It stopped growling and looked over my shoulder.
I tossed a quick look behind me. The hallway was blank. I whirled back to the hound. A second later, a swarm vervet dropped from the ceiling. I screamed and flailed with my arms.
The monkeylike creatures scurried over my body, and unlike the woman who had knocked into me earlier, I didn’t have the luxury of not feeling them. Tiny cold spots pricked my skin everywhere their claws sank into my soul. It felt like there were thousands of them, though more than dozen couldn’t have fit on my body. I swung at them with my hands. It was as ineffectual as stomping an imp off my leg. They had no physical form, so no physical action touched them.
I backpedaled, instinct kicking in, making my legs retreat from the larger foe while I dealt with the smaller ones. If the imps felt like spiders on my skin, the vervet felt like chicken-eating-size tarantula—with fangs. One of the vervet pressed his mouth into my thigh, and I could feel the razor-sharp teeth like cold pins and needles in my flesh. Shrieking, I grabbed the hideous little creature by the neck. It rolled its eyes up to look at me and I swear it smiled without removing its teeth. A blast of lux lucis created a puffball of glitter out of it.
The hound lunged. Pure luck saved me. I twisted to the side to grab one of the vervet clinging to my shoulder. The hound’s jaws snapped at the air my neck had occupied a second earlier. Its body slammed into me and I careened off the wall. The hound smashed into it face-first.
If I really had been an action heroine like I’d been pretending to be all day, I would have kicked the hound in the side of the head at that moment, maybe even brained it with the butt of a gun. Instead, I ran.
I’m not a sprinter—my body’s built for endurance. Even then, I’m no speeding bullet. But there was nothing like a hound of death on my heels to give me an Olympian-worthy boost.
I pounded down the hallway toward the double doors with the hound’s hot breath panting against my legs. I didn’t have a thought or energy to spare for the vervet that still clung to me. I slammed through the doors a step ahead of the hound, turned at the next corner, and was racing down stairs almost before I saw them. I heard dogs barking behind me, and I hazarded a glance back as I used the railing at a corner to fling myself down several steps. Two smaller Doberman hounds had joined the bull mastiff.
In my terror, I missed the exit for the ground floor and was at the basement door before I knew it. I flung it aside, then slammed it, but the nose of the lead hound pushed through before the door closed. Cursing, I kicked the snout. It fell back with a howl and I slammed the door shut and grabbed the handle to hold it closed. The door bounced as two huge bodies flung themselves against it. Lucky for me, it opened from the inside out. Unless those evil dogs had opposable thumbs, they weren’t getting in.
As the hounds barked and scratched at the bottom of the door, I turned to survey the room.
A hysterical scream lodged in my esophagus. I’d found all the imps and vervet.
The room was large, though it was hard to tell the exact dimensions through the bubbling mass of evil creatures. It was probably the storage room for the kitchens. It looked like a slice of hell. Even if I’d had my back to a one-hundred-year-old oak tree, I wouldn’t have had enough lux lucis to take out all the creatures.
I slid down the wall to sit on the floor. What was the use? I couldn’t make a dent here. I couldn’t get out. I was stuck, and I was either going to die by hound or I was going to leave a very changed person.
I’d forgotten about the vervet clinging to me until one scrambled onto my head and hung in front of my face to look at me upside down. I froze, wide-eyed. Slowly, so that I could see how much pleasure it got out of my fear, it lowered itself toward my neck. One of its claws traced a line down my front, its insubstantial paws going through the fabric and padded bra to trace intimately against my soul. My chest throbbed like a plucked guitar string, vibrating with a chill close to pain, not sound.
I snapped out of my trance with a scream of denial. Using both hands, I grabbed the vervet and disintegrated it. Without pausing, I slid my hands down my body, disintegrating two vervet on my back and a third on my leg. When I was sure I was clean, I glared, panting, at the swarms of evil creatures. What had seemed impossible a moment before while the vervet were feeding on my soul looked merely improbable now.
Miraculously, the pet wood was still in my hand. I sprang it open, stood, and planted my feet wide. The way back wasn’t an option. I needed another exit. Chancing it, I blinked to normal vision, twirling the pet wood in front of me. With any luck, anything that attacked while I couldn’t see it would be snuffed out of existence on the pet wood.
There were only two lights on across the room, lighting up another exit like a beacon. Between me and the other door were three rows of shelving, bins of food and supplies, and more evil than I could shake a stick at. Literally.
I blinked back. Nothing had moved toward me. The imps bounced and bounded in cute little herds around the room, and the vervet swung from their perches and darted around the floor, but nothing approached me. I congratulated myself on my wood-waving tactics.
The door vibrated behind me as a hound threw itself against it.
I reached into my backpack and grabbed Medusa. It was time to admit the truth: I needed backup.
I glanced at the display illuminated in Primordium, thanks to Musad. No signal. Double damn. I snapped three quick pictures of the room, setting them up to forward to Mr. Pitt as I had been doing all day. Still nothing approached me. Maybe I could sneak through. Maybe they were blind to me now. Maybe I intimidated them.
The glittery dust of leftover vervet had vanished. I took a deep breath and headed for the shortest route. The moment I stepped away from the doors, the imps and vervet turned as one to watch me. I almost froze, but once I’d started moving, I didn’t want to stop. With my heart fluttering in my throat, I picked up my pace to a jog. It was impossible to keep the whole room in my sight. Part of me—the part that was fond of my sanity—was okay with the fact that I couldn’t see all my enemies. It made them less real, made my attempt to escape seem more plausible. The other part of me wanted to run, screaming, and never stop.
The creatures parted like a black sea. As grateful as I was, a cold feeling in my stomach told me it wasn’t a good sign. Especially when I noticed how they flowed in to fill the space behind me. I was being herded, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I crossed the storage room and bounded up the stairs on the other side. My fear was dulling. There were too many of them and too much time had passed to maintain elevated levels of adrenaline. I climbed the center of the stairs, constantly scanning both sides where vervet clambered on the railings. A herd of imps hopped up the steps behind me. If it hadn’t been for their sharp teeth and claws, I might have forgotten the danger I was in; the imps reminded me of dust bunnies I’d found under my bed and the vervet made me feel like I was on an Animal Planet show. The
sharp teeth, however, were the reason I kept Medusa out, Niko’s number pulled up, and my finger over the Call button, ready to press it the moment I got a signal.
I cracked the door at the landing to the first floor. A ruckus of barking hounds made me jump. I yanked the door closed and listened to the baying for a moment. Surely someone who worked at the hotel would hear the dogs and come investigate. Unless that person happened to be a hound whisperer, I shuddered to think what would happen to them. I needed to get somewhere with cell phone reception.
I started up the next flight of stairs when a door opened somewhere above me. I paused. The vervet turned and scrambled over one another, fleeing back toward the basement. I watched them go and smiled. If the vervet were scared, then it had to be good.
A quick check of Medusa’s screen showed a single bar. I pressed Call. Niko was going to want to hear about this immediately, not to mention I needed at least five nets for the hounds. Perhaps a little assistance with those hounds, too, if I was being honest.
I listened to the rings, feeling optimistic for the first time all day. I collapsed my pet wood and shoved it in the knife slot in my boot. I was trotting up the stairs again when I saw it, dark as the night sky between stars. There was a vastness to it, or a vacancy. It was disorienting to look at, like I was falling into or toward it. And that was just from the knees down. Oh, yes. I’d found my first demon.
I reversed direction, fumbling with the railing as I backed up, but not quickly enough. It rounded the turn of the stairs to the landing above me. It was human. Or maybe humanoid. Male, taller than me by an inch at the crown of his head, and not particularly bulky. It was the razor-sharp mutated deer antlers that rose like claws from his head that gave him an extra two feet in height and made him overwhelming.
A Fistful of Evil: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 1) Page 20