The rasp of frigid air on my esophagus quieted as I caught my breath. I tried to keep my thoughts away from visions of home and my bed. Running for my car if I was struck by a drone would be a waste of energy, and it would fuel Summer’s prejudicial opinion of me.
Four houses from the tyv, we stopped. My hand strayed toward the soul breaker at my neck. Summer’s did the same, but when she caught me looking, she dropped her hand.
“Stay close,” she ordered.
“Back atcha.” I deflected her disdainful glare with a saccharine smile.
Side by side, we strode for the nearest drone outliers. Seven peeled away from the tyv and bore down on us, agile and hungry. I sighted and fired, exterminating the lead drone before ducking behind a Prius. Summer dodged in the opposite direction, and we circled back together at the front bumper, streaks of white bullets fanning across the dark sky. The drones died. More replaced them.
The individual skirmishes ran together, but no matter how many drones we killed, we made no tangible dent in the invading mass. A steady trickle of dark drones departed from the tyv’s escort party, most ignoring Summer, me, and even Jamie in favor of the wide-open expanses of my region. For every drone that left, another replaced it, most approaching from the north, but more than a few returned from deeper in my region, no doubt reporting about the cornucopia of unprotected chimneys ripe for the taking. The incoming drones always glowed bright, their thoraxes and abdomens full of pieces of soul fragments stolen from my norms.
The tyv migrated without rhyme or reason. She laid eggs all the way down one street, skipped the next, hit every chimney but two on the following street, then hopscotched up the adjacent row of houses. Her pattern wasn’t that of a creature attempting to flee or even evade us. If she’d felt threatened, she could easily have flown out of our range, or she could have banded all the drones against us. In a singular, focused attack, the drones could have easily overwhelmed a dozen Nikos and Pamelas; two enforcers at a perpetual state of half energy wouldn’t have stood a chance. Yet, the tyv deployed just enough drones to hassle us and keep us occupied. Whatever the tyv’s intelligence, it didn’t extend to strategies of annihilation. Or maybe giving birth to fifty eggs an hour and coordinating the minds of another fifty living drones took up most of her attention.
Not having wings, Summer and I had to cover twice as much ground to follow the tyv’s erratic path, and every street seemed to slant uphill. Given the tyv’s size and the sheer number of drones orbiting her, it should have been impossible for her to fly out of sight in the scant minutes it took us to wipe out a handful of drones, but she did it more than once. Fortunately, we had Gusti, our own aerial scout, to point the way.
Other members of the Hujan Gembira clan flitted from chimney to chimney, dropping blazing white beads into the infected fireplaces. During one respite, while I leaned against a sturdy oak absorbing much-needed lux lucis, I asked Val about their activities and learned the beads were a sticky concoction of sap and sage leaves coated with lux lucis–rich hellebore pollen, all handmade by the prajurit. The strong lux lucis in the pollen countered the tyv eggs’ atrum, the sage served as a fire retardant to deprive the eggs of the heat they needed for metamorphosis while the pollen worked, and the sap acted as the glue to hold everything together and was an additional form of fire suppressant. The prajurit could carry only so many beads at a time, and despite how fast they worked, they fell behind until only Gusti remained close, scouting and marking the tainted chimneys.
My thoughts spiraled toward self-pity as the night wore on. I wanted a smaller region, maybe one limited to just this hilltop, just these three hundred or so people. Then I’d stand a chance at saving my region from the tyv, or at the very least, after tonight, she’d move on to the next region and I could be done with her entirely. Instead, I’d be out again in the dark and cold tomorrow, whittling away at a never-ending army of drones, chasing a giant bug that could kill me if she ever looked up from laying eggs. More than once I wished the tyv would attack so I could kill her and go home and sleep. Then I’d remember I wasn’t suicidal and I’d wrangle my thoughts back to the safer kill drones, kill drones mantra.
I should have felt a sense of pride in my work. I was keeping up with Summer, an experienced enforcer. I was chipping away at evil, defending my region as best I could. I’d killed more drones than I could count, which vindicated my poor performance the night before. In every way, I exemplified an enforcer in charge of her region . . . except when it came to control over Jamie.
He ran wild, and after hours of denial, I forced myself to admit he’d gone beyond testing his boundaries to openly helping drones, repeatedly enticing them out of range of our palmquells. He didn’t seem to care that whenever the drones grew bored with him, they struck at me or that they fed the tyv looming above us, the same tyv that would happily consume my soul and turn my body into a brainless husk.
His ambivalence to the pain the drones inflicted on me and the danger they presented hurt and infuriated me. We were supposed to be a team, tethered together by the bond he initiated.
“Pamela was right. You’re not in charge of the pooka. I don’t think he even respects you,” Summer said as Jamie galloped away for the umpteenth time, drones merrily strafing him.
I hated that I agreed with her. Whatever part of our bond that had kept Jamie in line and listening to me had worn thin. This was the dangerous pooka everyone had warned me about, and a squirming feeling in my gut told me his actions were only going to get worse.
Yet Pamela expects me to assert dominance? How?
At least when Summer reported my failures to the inspector, she wouldn’t be able to relay the suffocating betrayal I endured every time Jamie chose a drone over me. That pain I locked down tight beneath layers of anger.
Eventually even the bitterness numbed, frozen by the temperature and my exhaustion. My world narrowed to Summer and the drones, keeping up with one, shooting the other, and doing my best not to confuse the two. When the latest batch of drones harassing us turned tail and tightened around the tyv, I slumped forward to brace my hands on my thighs, and not even my curiosity perked up. Earlier in the evening, Summer would have harried the retreating drones, but the hours had stripped away her initiative, and she slouched beside me. The drones clustered in a familiar formation, preparing to lift the tyv a greater distance than a single house. The preponderance of dark limbs and soul-rich bodies of well-fed drones heaved its combined bulk into the sky and swept away from us straight down the street along the ridgeline of the homes. Summer and I stayed put, waiting to see which direction they’d veer. If they went right, we would follow; if they went left, we had to backtrack to circle the block.
The tyv and her sleigh of slaves didn’t slow. I squinted dry eyes, my vision blurry with fatigue, but it wasn’t an illusion. The tyv surpassed the final house in the subdivision, and at her current rate, she and her convoy would be over the freeway a few miles to the west before I could pinpoint the direction of my car.
“Crap. Now what?” I asked.
14
I Don't Have a Short Temper, I Have a Prompt Reaction to BS
A tiny speck of white raced through the sky, bobbing and weaving like a sparkler held by a running child. The light coalesced into the shape of a prajurit as Gusti back-winged in front of us.
“She’s out of my range,” he said.
“Call Brad. See if we need to relocate.” Weariness stripped Summer’s voice of its usual derision.
I tugged off my glove and fumbled under my jacket, fingers clumsy from the cold. The clock on the display read 3:13 a.m. No wonder gravity felt extra strong—I’d been up almost twenty-four hours, nearly all of it on my feet.
Brad answered on the second ring, his voice loud against my ear.
“She’s going to ground,” he said, skipping a greeting.
“Where?”
“Hard to say. It’s one of those fizzle stick aspects of tyver. How did you do tonight?”
&nb
sp; “I have no idea.” It sounded better than telling my boss I thought events would have unfolded exactly the same if I hadn’t been present. No need to advertise my uselessness.
“Get some sleep. See you at the office tomorrow afternoon.”
I hung up. “We’re done for the night.”
“I heard,” Summer said.
Gusti saluted and zoomed off to find his clan. I watched him go, envious of his perennial energy. Summer trudged toward the nearest cross street. Jamie and I followed. No imps rode him; no drones drafted off him. His tongue drooped from his mouth, and he walked with his head and tail down, not deviating to sniff anything. He’d finally run out of energy. We paused together on the corner of Sandhurst Court and Yarrow Way. Sandhurst ended in a cul-de-sac behind us, but Yarrow curved out of sight in both directions.
I pulled my phone back out of my pocket, blinked to normal sight, and opened a map app. When I plugged in our location and Galaxy Lane, a little blue line zigzagged across the screen and the bottom of the picture said we were over a mile from our cars. If Summer hadn’t been looking, I might have cried. My legs didn’t feel like they had another mile in them.
“This way.” I pointed, willing my feet to budge. We both stared down Yarrow. Fog cocooned the street and houses, muffling the rest of the world. A light dusting of snow blanketed the asphalt, tiny ridges of powder outlining the cracks, and the only tracks marring it were our own. No one moved inside the homes, all the windows dark and still, all the inhabitants asleep and blissfully unaware of giant flying soul thieves or eggs incubating in their banked fireplaces. Nothing left to do but head home.
My feet remained rooted in place. The little map on my phone mocked me.
I pictured my bed.
My foot lifted.
Nothing looked familiar on the trek back to our cars, but then again, I hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery before. Summer and I split the street, trailing our fingers along the plants growing tall near the sidewalks to recharge our lux lucis. With how much energy I’d expended tonight, I suspected I’d need a solid meal—or a tub of yogurt—before mine stabilized.
When our cars came into view, Summer kicked in a reserve of energy I didn’t possess, climbing into her car and pulling from the curb before I got the passenger door of the Civic open for Jamie. She didn’t say good-bye or even toss me a wave. I expected nothing less.
I fell into the driver’s seat and forced myself to immediately turn the key and put the car in gear. If I paused to savor the sensation of being off my feet, I wouldn’t start moving again. The air gusting out of the vents felt warm against my face, though it had to be as cold as the car. Adjusting the heater to low so I wouldn’t lull myself to sleep, I widened my bleary eyes and drove home. Jamie panted quietly in the seat behind me.
Not even the cats cheered our collective mood. Mr. Bond must have assumed we’d abandoned him to starve to death, his dinner having been delayed by almost seven hours. He greeted us with piercing yowls and twined between my legs until I dumped a cup a dry food into his dish. Dame Zilla blinked sleepily from her perch atop the cat tree, and when I deposited her food bowl next to her, she scarfed down the wet food, purring between each bite.
I sent Jamie to shower first and braced myself against the kitchen counter while I shoveled yogurt into my mouth. My stomach cramped and gurgled, unused to dinner at four a.m. The pooka emerged in human form, dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, his face drawn in unhappy lines. I tried not to read anything into his decision not to wear the pajama set that matched mine. Dame Zilla tore through the house, hopping and leaping down the hallway after a fake mouse. Jamie’s morose expression didn’t alter as he watched her.
I ignored the bond’s pressure to cheer him up. If Dame Zilla in all her adorable kitten glory couldn’t get a smile out of the pooka, I didn’t stand a chance. Especially since I didn’t care that he was upset. I didn’t want to see him smile. I wanted an apology. He should have been the one trying to cheer me up.
I opened my mouth to say as much, then shoved another bite of yogurt into it instead. If I started talking to Jamie, it would devolve into a fight, and I didn’t have the strength for it. Pushing from the counter, I set the half-empty tub of yogurt in front of Jamie and headed to the shower. When I emerged, warm for the first time in what felt like years, I circled the house, turning off lights and setting the wards. Jamie slumped in the middle of his bed, still in human form, and I ignored him, clicking off the bedside lamp and sinking the room in darkness.
Just how he should like it.
The rustle of clothing informed me Jamie had changed into a Great Dane. Exhaustion swamped my bitterness, and I dropped off to sleep before Jamie finished circling on his bed.
When I climbed out of the Civic and opened the passenger door for Jamie the next day, the sharp rays of sunlight cutting through the puffy clouds insisted it was almost eleven, but my brain wasn’t convinced. Six hours of sleep had been just enough time to petrify every muscle in my body without giving me any sense of rejuvenation. It had also unleashed a string of nightmares from my subconscious, in which Jamie in Great Dane form flew among the drones, morphing into a tyv and stealing my soul. I’d begged and pleaded with him to spare me while he’d jabbed a sharp proboscis into my abdomen again and again. Waking to Mr. Bond tromping on my stomach hadn’t helped.
Jamie dropped to the pavement beside me, his black coat glossy in the sunlight. He squeezed between the parked cars and stopped at the bumper, his back to me. Our interactions this morning had been stilted, made more so by the deadline of my lunch date with Alex.
“You can accompany me as a human or a dog,” I’d informed Jamie twenty minutes ago in our front room.
“I don’t want to go. I’ll stay here.”
I’d been tempted, so very, very tempted. The restaurant sat within the tether range of the bond, so it could have worked. Pretending to be normal around Alex would be so much easier without Jamie present. But I didn’t trust the pooka to be on his best behavior, especially not alone. I might return to find Mr. Bond and Dame Zilla turned evil and the place overrun by imps and vervet. Or worse, I might return and find Jamie gone.
“Where I go, you go,” I said.
“Then let’s both not go. It’s not like you have to. It’s not work.” He didn’t bother to look at me when he spoke, staring sullenly at the string he twitched for Dame Zilla.
“I want to go. I like Alex. I want to see him again.”
“Fine. I’ll go as a dog.”
“Then you’ll have to wear a collar and a leash. You have to look like a normal dog.”
“Whatever.”
Now, holding the collar out for Jamie to put his head through, I thought his whatever was going to backfire. He tilted his wide head back and forth, dark nose lifted to breathe in the scents of the parking lot, and he took a step toward the nearest tree, ignoring me.
“You agreed to this,” I said.
Jamie swiveled to pin me with hard golden eyes, his lips closed tight. I couldn’t read his Great Dane expressions as well as his human ones, but his hostility came through loud and clear. Keeping my reciprocal irritation from my face took effort, and I didn’t break eye contact as I held the collar at arms’ length. We hadn’t had time to stop by a pet store for a real collar, so I’d improvised, knotting together the ends of a white cloth belt I’d found in the back of my closet. At last, Jamie slid his head into the loop and the dangling ends of the belt hung across his chest like a crude, limp bow tie.
I picked up the end of the leash—another cloth belt tied to the collar—and held it loose between us. The collar we could pretend was an adornment, one no less weird than the soul breaker resting against my chest. The leash added a whole new disturbing level to the getup. It made it seem like Jamie was my property, a thought that made me squirm.
“Ready?”
Jamie looked away. I took two steps before he fell in at my side, tail down, shoulders stiff. My fingers on the leash felt d
irty. Maybe I should have canceled. This wasn’t fair to Jamie.
He could have come in human form, I reminded myself. I shifted Val to the opposite hip and pretended everything was fine.
Alex stood inside the windowed foyer of the meal-in-a-bowl chain restaurant, a coat draped over his arm, and when he spotted me, he stepped outside. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been dressed in slacks and a button-up, and he’d looked divine. Today he wore work apparel: navy blue scrubs adorned with his veterinary clinic’s logo on the breast pocket and a white flannel shirt layered beneath the short-sleeve top. Nary a single dog or cat hair marred the entire ensemble, which meant he must have changed before walking to the restaurant. The loose garments drew attention to his shoulders and his biceps, and I suspected they did great things for his butt. Sunlight shimmered in his bright blue eyes, and his welcoming smile elicited a flutter in my stomach that banished my lingering drowsiness.
My mood lifting, I brushed my hair back from my face and returned Alex’s smile.
“I hope you don’t mind eating outside,” I said when we stopped in front of him. I regretted starting with that immediately. I sounded absurd. The temperature hovered near freezing, the chill made apparent by each fresh gust across the nearby pond. No one in their right mind wanted to eat outside.
Persevering, I picked my words carefully so I wouldn’t offend Jamie or come across as completely batty. “I’m temporarily in charge of this guy”—I flipped my hand to indicate the pooka—“while my friend sorts out his life.” If Alex assumed my friend and Jamie were not the same person, who was I to correct him? “It’s sort of a last-minute arrangement, but this place has heat lamps on the patio, right?”
“It does. So, who’s this handsome fellow?” Alex bent and roughed up Jamie’s ears.
A Fistful of Frost: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox Adventure Book 3) Page 19