“You and I need to talk,” I said to Jamie.
I reached for the collar and slid it off his neck. Icy atrum slicked my soul, coating my fingers. My thoughts scattered.
Jamie had always made sure I could safely touch him. Always.
I stared at the black energy smearing my fingertips, struggling to wrap my head around his betrayal. The pooka turned away and padded to the car.
15
Long Live the Queen
Jamie morphed into a pasty human the moment he crawled into the backseat. I jerked my gaze away from a full white moon and wrenched my door open. By the time I had my seat belt buckled, Jamie had stuffed his legs into his pants and latched himself in on the right side of the car, as far away from me as he could get. I watched in the rearview mirror as he rubbed his throat with cold-pinkened fingers. A faint dark smudge of a budding bruise cut across his throat.
I winced in sympathy but reminded myself it’d been his fault, his decision to run, his call to keep going while dragging me across the patio.
The ignition caught, and I revved backward out of the parking spot, taking the turn onto Sierra College Boulevard fast enough to screech the tires. Anger built inside me, screwing a lump in my chest tighter and tighter. I plowed around the corner onto Eureka Road, the steering wheel creaking in my grip. The light turned red and I slammed on the brakes. The seat belt slapped my chest, and my anger erupted.
“What the hell was that back there?” I shouted.
Jamie yanked on his sweater and glared out the side window like a petulant teenager.
“What’s going on with you?” The light turned green and I peeled across the line, most of my attention on Jamie in the rearview. “You smeared me with atrum! Alex too! And that stunt with your soul at the table? What were you thinking? We had a deal. You said you’d never use atrum on me.”
Jamie whipped around to glare at me in the mirror. “You said atrum and lux lucis were equal. You said neither belonged on nonliving things. What happened to that?”
“How does that even compare? I’m a living thing. I’m a pure lux lucis living being, and you still mucked me.”
His cheeks turned bright red, and he glared at me, nostrils flared. “I’m half muck. I couldn’t help myself.”
“That’s a lie and we both know it.”
“Then I finally did something right.”
“What’s that mean?” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, waiting in a left-hand turn lane before darting through an opening in front of oncoming traffic and barreling down a side street.
“Everyone says you’re supposed to teach me to behave,” he said. “I’m just following your example.”
What did that mean? How had we gotten so far off point? “Fine. You want to take your grump out on me, that’s one thing. But you changed Alex. He’s a norm—”
“He likes you,” Jamie spat.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Was he jealous?
“You kill everything that likes me. Why shouldn’t I do the same?”
My jaw dropped. Jamie’s scowl should have cracked the mirror.
“Because Alex never did anything to you!” I yelled when I found my words again. “Everything that likes you tries to eat my soul and kill me.”
Jamie shrugged. His dismissive attitude spiked my fury to new heights, choking off any reasoning argument I might have formed.
I screeched into the Maidu Park lot, bouncing over the speed bumps. We barreled past the paved parking spaces and jounced along the gravel road that wrapped four empty baseball diamonds. I selected an unmarked spot close to the back half of the park and hit the brakes. We slid to a stop. I unsnapped my seat belt and twisted to face Jamie.
“Wait here. Don’t feed anything, don’t use atrum, don’t change shapes. Got it?” There. I’d covered all the bases and I hadn’t shouted, despite my blood boiling hot enough to melt the car around us.
“You’re not my Brad.” Jamie launched out the far door, pulling his shirt over his head.
“What?” I shoved my door open and jumped out, tangling Val in the seat belt.
Jamie glared at me across the top of the car. “We’re bonded, not coworkers. You’re not the boss of me. I don’t have to do anything you say.” He yanked his pants down. Still bent over, his body blurred and reconfigured into a Great Dane.
I gave myself whiplash looking for witnesses. Midday on a Monday, with the temperature resting near freezing, few people had bothered to venture out to the park. None were close enough to have noticed Jamie’s freakish transmogrification.
Jamie stalked to the back of the car, golden eyes burning. His lip peeled back and he growled, soft and low. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“Jamie.” I loaded the word with warning, but we both knew it meant nothing. I’d lost control of the situation—of Jamie—long before today.
He spun and galloped into the preserved open space beside the park.
“Jamie!”
I sprinted two steps and slammed against Val’s strap. The thin leather cut into my neck and knocked the wind from me. Spinning, I yanked Val free of the seat belt. The buckle ricocheted around the door panel and cracked against the passenger door, leaving a dent and a deep scratch in the green paint. By the time I turned back toward Jamie, he’d disappeared.
I cursed and kicked a tire for good measure, the reciprocal sharp pain in my big toe only elevating my anger. I’d never catch up to the pooka now. Holding still, I strained to hear sounds of his progress. A lone car cruised by on the road outside the park. Birds chirped. A remote-controlled plane climbed toward the clouds with a whine more piercing than a child’s shriek. Otherwise, a peaceful quiet wrapped the park, undisturbed by the crashing sounds a monstrous dog should have made tearing through the bushes and crunching through dried leaves. Even Primordium failed me.
I paced the length of my car and back, thoughts spinning.
Wait until Pamela heard about this. She’d probably go straight to Brad and demand he fire me. Or better yet, she’d call up the Triumvirate and have me jailed. At the very least, she would strip me of my title as enforcer and give my region to someone else.
Oh, hell, my region. The amount of evil one angry pooka could dole out was mind-boggling. He could defile everything and everyone I protected if he chose. The thought should have terrified me, but the bond distorted my emotions, funneling them into a different worry: What if Jamie got hurt? He didn’t understand the world, not completely, and his time with me had been so sheltered he might not recognize danger until it was too late.
“Who am I kidding. If anyone gets hurt, it’ll be because of Jamie.” He hadn’t shown an ounce of empathy for anything other than atrum creatures.
And Mr. Bond. And Dame Zilla, my traitorous conscience chimed in.
“Great. Two cats in the entire region are safe. I can go home and call it a job well done.”
I braced my hands on the hood of my car and took deep breaths. Arguing with myself—out loud—in the parking lot didn’t solve anything. I needed to get a grip. Jamie wasn’t gone for good. He’d come back to me after he blew off some steam. In the meantime, I had work to do.
I swung open the passenger door and retrieved my palmquell, lighter, and pet wood from my purse, then dropped the emptied bag on the floorboard and tossed Jamie’s clothes on top of it.
Replaying our conversation in the car, I stomped down the paved pedestrian path away from the baseball diamonds. Where the front half of the park had been groomed and gridded into sports fields, the back half had been left wild. My route took me along an elevated trail that followed the natural twists and turns of a creek, and I looked down on the surrounding marshes and thick oaks. Up until last week, this open space had been a haven for native flora and fauna. Then a salamander had been set loose among it, burning more than half the landscape before I could kill it.
I searched for signs of Jamie as I walked, peering into the dense brambles and trees, but he’d si
mply vanished.
If pookas could become invisible, someone would have mentioned it, I assured myself. I swallowed the urge to yell for him. Pamela had been right: I should have been a lot stricter with him. I wanted a do-over. If the inspector had shown up even two days earlier, she would have seen a happy, well-behaved pooka, and she could have stopped me from making the mistake of allowing him to use atrum.
A frigid breeze swept across the path, leeching the last of the heat from my jeans. My hair blew into my eyes, and I shoved it behind my ears, tugging my coat’s collar up to cover my neck. I’d forgotten my beanie and scarf in the car, but I didn’t want to waste time going back for them. Neutralizing the frost moths, then finding Jamie, took precedence.
The cold deepened with each step, and after I slipped on a patch of invisible ice, I stepped off the pavement to the dirt beside it and shoved my hands deep in my pockets. Maybe the cold would chase Jamie back to the car for me.
I rounded a bend in the trail, and the lux lucis–filled landscape bled to gray. Twisted charcoal trunks melded with the mud-churned hillside, the underbrush little more than charred tufts. Spindly burnt twigs, the leftover scraps of once-dense bushes, speared the slopes, but nothing had survived in the hollow where the salamander had tread. My steps slowed. Frost moths coasted through the gully on the ash-scented breeze, so numerous their electric-blue bodies created the illusion of a fluttering river of ice suspended in the air. A handful drifted over the far bank, flapping their way toward homes in search of people to feed on.
Brad had been putting it mildly when he’d called this an “issue.”
Before diving in, I scanned the devastated grounds for Jamie, spotting nothing resembling the pooka in any form. Just as well. In his current mood, Jamie would probably let the moths feed off him just to watch me stumble as if punch-drunk.
But at least I’d have known where he was.
Sighing, I backtracked to the nearest trail leading into the hollow, mincing down the slope. Halfway to the bottom, my right foot slipped out from under me and I crashed to my butt and slid the rest of the way. Scrambling to my feet, I brushed mud from my pants, but not before the icy moisture sank through my jeans to chill my long johns and underwear. Just perfect.
I trounced to the edge of the frost moth swarm, sinking to my ankles in mud limned with ice. The suction wreaked havoc with my balance, and I stumbled against an ashy stump and righted in time to net seven moths in one sweep. After chasing away the rest of the flock with the lighter, I shoved the flame through the captured moths, pulsing lux lucis into their mouths for the final kill as they shrank. Then I staggered forward a few steps and repeated the process. Those moths died and the next batch took their place, but not before they sipped from my soul, adding their trademark emotional accelerant to my burning rage.
My thoughts spiraled around my utter impotence. I hadn’t been able to stop Jamie from bolting, and it had nothing to do with my inexperience as an enforcer. No one could have stopped him, but I would still be blamed for my loss of control. Brad would lecture and yell. Pamela would claim me incompetent. As long as Jamie was acting out, I’d be viewed as a failure. What complete and utter ridiculousness!
My jaw ached, and I yawned to stretch the cramping muscles. Where was Niko when I needed him? One look at him, and all this frost moth–fed fury would transform into lust.
Oh, real classy, Dice. You just finished your date with Alex, but bring on the man meat so you can forget about your failings. I’m sure Niko would appreciate being given such an important assignment.
All my anger imploded, consuming me in my own self-hatred.
You kill everything that likes me. Why shouldn’t I do the same? Jamie’s words rang through my head.
Five more frost moths died as I wrapped my thoughts around that memory and flipped my ire back toward Jamie. How dare he threaten—
A blur of white blasted through the frost moths and rocketed up the slope to the tall oak standing alone at the top. A prajurit! Not just one, either. A handful of them darted among the low-hanging branches of the oak. I abandoned the frost moths and scrambled up the slope.
Brad hadn’t known how long it would take for the local wiped-out population to be replaced by newcomers, but seeing some this deep inside our region had to be a sign of good fortune. Finally. I could use some positive news.
As I jogged closer, the speed of their movements and their jagged flight patterns didn’t look quite right. The flash of a sword spurred me into a run. I broke off the trail and dashed through thigh-high weeds, heedless of the icy moisture soaking my pants. Drawing my pet wood, I extended it with a flick, then fumbled for my palmquell in my left hand as I ducked under the low outer branches of the oak’s massive canopy. My boots slipped on the acorn-strewn ground and I stumbled to a halt.
A cage of white branches arched overhead, dipping to the ground in several places and turning the world around me into a prism of white lines. I lifted my palmquell and pet wood, searching the lux lucis–laced environment for black-bodied enemies, finding none.
The prajurit weren’t fighting evil; they were fighting each other.
Two six-inch-tall duelers strafed past my head, swirling my hair against my cheek. They plunged almost to the ground before spearing upward to fight in the empty space in front of me. Both wore elaborately detailed jackets and pantaloons, with thick woolen wraps spun around their feet and ankles. Both fought with a sword in each hand, and both wore tiny woven crowns that glowed faintly. One was familiar.
“Lestari!” I cried, rushing forward. “What’s happening? How can I—”
“This is a prajurit matter!” Lestari declared, speaking on top of the other queen’s, “Keep out, human!” Neither woman’s assault slowed, and neither looked my direction.
“Hang on. No one’s the enemy here. We’re all on the same side, just—”
Lestari barked a word I didn’t understand, the other woman repeated it, and they flared apart. I had a moment to relax before they dove for me from separate directions, swords leading their charge.
I dropped to my knees with a yelp, thrusting my arms up to protect my head. Those swords might be the length of toothpicks, but they were scalpel sharp!
Satisfied I’d been cowed, the queens clashed back together in the air above my head. I remained kneeling, stunned by the assault. Now that I knew what to look for, I spied more prajurit fighting vicious skirmishes above and around the queens, zipping through the branches too fast to track. None of them came to the aid of their rulers; in fact, they seemed to go out of their way to give the women space.
The queens fought in a blur of wings and swords. Never more than an inch separated them as they spiraled through the air, their intensity and skill mesmerizing. My breath caught when the foreign queen slid through Lestari’s defenses and sank her sword’s tip into Lestari’s thigh. Lestari dipped, falling away from the stab. The other queen rushed after her in a flurry of strikes, pushing Lestari backward until she hovered near a tangle of twigs at the end of a low branch.
I scrambled to my feet, a protest on my lips. Lestari faltered, swords wavering. I surged toward them, but the foreign queen struck too fast, one sword swinging high, the other low. Lestari blocked the upper strike as she exploded upward, spun on the fulcrum of their connected blades, and slashed her opponent’s wing. The foreign queen fell, her piercing shriek spiking through my skull. I clapped my hands to my ears, stumbling forward with the intent of catching her before she hit the ground, knowing I’d be too slow.
Three warriors disengaged from the fight and dove over my shoulders, catching their queen between them. Her injured wing hung by a thread of muscle. Blood welled from the wound and fell in viscous lux lucis–charged drops to splatter the ground beneath her. A flurry of prajurit blasted past me to surround the wounded queen, and she wasn’t the only one supported by comrades. Two swooped low, and my hand flew to my mouth when they lifted a dead warrior from the ground. Then, in a swarm, they buzzed through t
he oak’s branches.
With a war cry loud enough to do the Vikings proud, Lestari’s people chased the retreating prajurit, Lestari at the forefront. I remained frozen in shock until their tiny bright bodies were out of sight.
What had they been fighting over? What had been worth killing for?
A chill seeping up my forearms woke me from my trance. Lifting my arms, I examined my coat. Razor-smooth cuts split my sleeves, two per forearm. One had cut the sweater beneath. I stuck my fingers through the holes, dazed. The queens had been willing to hurt me to keep me from interfering, so willing that the apparent mortal enemies had teamed up in their effort.
Lestari and her warriors threaded back through the oak’s canopy, flying in formation. The queen lit upon the branch nearest me and the warriors fanned out to nearby limbs, their bright bodies a subtle hue different than the white of the oak. I counted, surprised to find only six. They had looked a lot more numerous earlier. Oddly, all the warriors were male. Most were injured.
A small prajurit, shorter than Lestari by almost an inch, knelt in front of her and dug into a pouch at his waist. He retrieved a jar fit for a doll and a roll of cloth. After using his hand to slather the contents of the jar over Lestari’s thigh wound, he pulled out a needle so tiny I could barely see it and stitched her flesh back together.
“I will forgive your interference this once,” Lestari declared, hands on her hips. No part of her demeanor indicated she felt the medic’s ministrations, though she did hold statue still. “But only this once, and only because you are Madison Fox.”
My name sent a wave of reaction through the warriors, and even the medic paused to shoot me a glance. Having seven pairs of disproportionately large prajurit eyes focused on me made me shift in my boots.
“That’s, um, very kind,” I said.
A Fistful of Frost: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox Adventure Book 3) Page 21