A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2)

by Rebecca Chastain

  HOUND was written in bold letters. Beneath it lay a small block of text in a precise font.

  Dogs converted to evil by excessive atrum. Semiharmful. Avoid being bitten.

  Scoffing, I flipped a few more pages before finding the next entry.

  IMP. Name derived from human mythology and misplaced on these small collections of live atrum. Herd animals. They gravitate toward greater evil. Mostly harmless unless left unattended.

  A final entry capped off the book’s useless bestiary.

  VERVET. Previously called simia before early American enforcers adopted the French vernacular. Four-legged, scorpion-tailed, semi-intelligent. Pranksters. Mostly harmless. Avoid being bitten.

  “This is helpful? What about which weapons work best or how to kill each creature? You don’t even mention a net for hounds. I know more than this already. What imbecile put this book together?” So much for Mr. Pitt’s expensive training tool. Maybe Mr. Pitt was slipping as a warden.

  I returned to the first page, now blank.

  Then, it scribbled faster than I could keep up with: That hurt. Just because I’m paper, doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. You’d best keep that in mind as well as the fact that—it switched to all caps to fill the rest of the page—YOU’RE JUST AN ENFORCER. The angry words pulsed before fading into the white page like ink drying into invisibility. In normal-size font, and at a calm, deliberate speed, it wrote, I am a creature of infinite wisdom. I know what you need to learn, when you need to learn it. The font size bumped up several points. You’re not ready for further instruction. These words remained prominent on the page.

  “I’m more than ready—”

  Tiny writing scrawled across the bottom. All apologies must be heartfelt to be considered.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Let it be noted the that time was exactly 10:29 on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I officially lost my sanity. I was yelling at a book.

  “What about prajurit? What about salamanders? What about wardens’ souls? Citos? The history of enforcers? The science behind lux lucis? Anything?” I thumbed roughly through the book, but even the three entries it had previously revealed were now missing.

  “Fine. I don’t need more useless crap in my life. I’m going to bed.”

  Mr. Bond leapt for the TV tray when I stood. It wobbled precariously when he landed, knocking the book to the floor. He dove off the tray, officially toppling it, and pounced on the book, throwing his substantial weight against its cover and grinding his entire side into the book.

  “At least one of us likes it.” I reached for the book; Mr. Bond swiped at me. “Okay. That’s it; no more book for you. Even if it deserves a few claw marks in it, you’re not behaving very nicely.”

  I distracted Mr. Bond with a tossed mouse, then snatched up the book, stuffing it back in my purse. Mr. Bond raced to my side like I had a treat.

  “This is too bizarre.” I crammed my purse into my filing cabinet and shut it. Mr. Bond sat in front of the drawer as patiently as he might have sat in front of a mole hole. “Good luck with that one. Let me know if it gets out.”

  I tossed in my flannel sheets, unable to quiet my thoughts. A sentient book sounded fun in principle until it turned out to be a total pain. Rather than instructional, the handbook appeared designed to sabotage any chance of my success. At a time when I needed knowledge, it gave me halfhearted, misleading information about creatures already familiar to me. In the meantime, I’d been shuffled off to the mall so “real” enforcers could face the mysterious upsurge of evil without me bungling the process. Mr. Pitt might have worded it differently, and Summer might have sugarcoated it, but I understood the real sentiment behind my new responsibilities.

  Every time I circled back to my banishment, it stung my pride and spiked my anger.

  Just be a good little enforcer and do as you’re told, I taunted myself. Well, I’d been told to keep my region free of evil, and that’s what I’d do. I wouldn’t ask for permission, either.

  When I woke the next morning, I dressed for my parents’ get-together, then drove down Douglas in the opposite direction. Five minutes later, I reached my destination and hunted down Bill, owner and mourner of the cremated tree stand.

  “This is our biggest sales day of the year. We’re pulling in another truck, but it’s going to be a tight year for us now.”

  Between the roar of steady traffic down Douglas behind us and the hammering of new temporary fences to hold the forthcoming trees, I had to lean close to hear the soft-spoken man.

  “Are there any suspects?” I asked, breath misting in the cool air. Bill had been reluctant to talk to me until I told him I was doing a community-outreach piece on him. It wasn’t my fault he mistook my careful wording to mean I was a reporter. It saved time and meant he didn’t dismiss me as crazy—two positives.

  “Not that they told me.”

  “That’s frustrating.”

  “You’re telling me. If I could get my hands on the imbecile responsible . . .” Bill’s hands clenched to fists.

  “Mind if I take a look?” I gestured toward the muddy patch of ash beyond their new fence lines.

  “Aren’t you a little overdressed?”

  “Overdressed and underwarm. But when the boss gives me an assignment, I go.” I wouldn’t have time to change before going to my parents’, so I stood next to the blustery road on this chilly fall morning in a cocktail-length teal and black dress and an even shorter black peacoat. Between the bottom of the dress’s fluttering hem and my leather boots stretched a good foot and a half of exposed blotchy-white skin coated with heavy goose bumps.

  “I don’t know what you expect to see, but go ahead.”

  In a way, Bill had been fortunate. The area designated for the Christmas tree stand—and for all manner of other roadside vendors throughout the year—was large. Even factoring in parking, the dirt plot provided ample room for Bill’s new sales lot, without infringing on the charred remnants of his burned trees.

  I traversed the puddle-strewn lot with care, trying to look graceful while mincing. Heavy fire trucks had left channels in the soft dirt, which had filled with rainwater and sooty runoff overnight. I hopped the last of these narrow ponds and paused a few feet from the ash heap. Rummaging through my purse, I pulled out my pet wood for one hand and my knife for the other. After a quick check to make sure Bill wasn’t going to protest—he was too busy painting a bold new sign—I tiptoed closer to the waterlogged ashes.

  I blinked to Primordium and let out a tight breath.

  No human-size salamander waited to bathe me in flames. There weren’t even vervet. In fact, despite the monochrome of Primordium, the atrum residue made the extinguished fire look a lot like it did in normal sight: a black smear over an otherwise forgettable patch of dirt. This, I could handle.

  Before I got to work, I surveyed the gray landscape around the charred patch. This much atrum was bound to have spawned imps. None lurked on the ground, but I wasn’t surprised to find a handful feeding off Bill’s staff. Unfortunately, imploding an imp attached to a person was nearly impossible without (1) invading the individual’s personal space and (2) looking like a deranged nutter grabbing at empty air. They’d have to wait.

  I slid the pet wood and sheathed knife into my peacoat pockets, measured the distance to the edge of the atrum pool, and blinked back to normal sight so I could walk through the mess without falling on my face. Five steps later, I blinked back to Primordium and put my experience cleaning up the hotel to practice. With a little concentration, I looped lux lucis around my hand, adding more energy gradually until my control started to wobble. Then I crouched and touched my hand to the atrum.

  Lux lucis rolled from my fingertips and kept going, eating through the evil energy and leaving a giant shell of clean ground. Gritty ash and mud stuck to my palm when I stood; otherwise I would have planted my hands on my hips with pride. This was how a real enforcer took care of her region. I hid my smile after noticing the scowls
Bill’s crew directed at me. Attempting to explain that my pleasure came from exterminating evil would have made matters worse, so I kept my back to the men and my grin to myself.

  I repeated the process three more times, blinking to normal vision each time I moved to a new location, before I attracted the imps’ attention. I’d expected nothing less. The brainless bundles of atrum had a fatal attraction to lux lucis. With my clean hand, I pulled my pet wood from my pocket and flicked my wrist. A quick press of lux lucis filled the extended wand with deadly energy.

  The first imp bounced up to me on tiny feet, its round little body similar enough to a chinchilla’s to qualify as cute—until it opened its maw and exposed a double stack of teeth, like a tiny round shark’s mouth. I poked through its insubstantial body with the tip of the pet wood and pulsed a little extra lux lucis down the wand. The petite evil fluff exploded into a glitter of atrum.

  Despite having witnessed their herdmate’s fate, the remaining imps hopped toward me, eager to snack on my delicious, untainted soul. One by one, I extinguished them, keeping my flourishes to a minimum; then I swept the final swath of atrum with a sluggish roll of lux lucis.

  None of the imps had been larger than a grapefruit, but combined with all the energy I’d exerted to clean up the atrum puddle, my vision darkened when I straightened. I braced myself on the pet wood—and stumbled when it collapsed beneath my weight.

  I blinked to normal sight. Mud and ash coated my boots to the ankle, and my right hand matched. Miraculously, the hem of my skirt remained clean. I wobbled to my car, tossing Bill a parting wave and smile. After laying down a reusable grocery bag to protect my carpet and scraping as much gunk as possible from my palm with a handy twig, I collapsed into my car. Grabbing a Chipotle napkin from my glove box, I wrapped it around my dirty hand and put my car in gear.

  I suffered no more fatigue than I had after cleansing a few hotel floors. If that’s all cleaning up after salamanders took, I was more than capable. Sticking me in the mall was the wrong decision. It was my job to protect the people of Roseville, not Jacob’s or Summer’s or Rafi’s, even if they were stronger and more experienced enforcers. It was possible the citizens of Roseville might have preferred another enforcer if they understood the amount of evil lurking in their backyard, but they didn’t understand and they didn’t have a choice, did they? They had me; I was more than good enough, and I would do whatever it took to keep my position.

  Gosh, is this how dictators think of themselves?

  I drove two blocks, pulled into the library’s empty parking lot, and stumbled to the nearest tree. Lux lucis gushed into me from its trunk. I savored the feeling for a count of five before moving on to the next tree, spreading the energy drain among several sturdy crimson maples.

  All flesh between my ankles and hips was numb by the time I jogged, fully charged, back to my car. I used a few more napkins to clean the bulk of the mud and ash from my boots and hand. I would have done a more thorough job, but a glance at the clock had me peeling out from the lot. I was late, and I still needed to pick up food.

  6

  My Family Tree Is Full of Nuts

  Three months ago, after years of coercion, cajoling, and out-and-out begging for me to return to Berkeley where I’d grown up, my parents retired, sold my childhood home, and relocated a mere twenty minutes from me in an active-living retirement community in Lincoln. With flabbergasting ease, they embraced their new life, hosting parties, participating in badminton tournaments, and taking art and dance classes. There was even talk of buying a golf cart to putt around with other cart aficionados in the sprawling community. Drumming my fingernails on the steering wheel, I crept along behind one such couple in a lemon-yellow golf cart and worried about the negative influence of retirement on my parents’ decision-making abilities.

  Mom was waiting on the front porch when I pulled into their driveway, though for the cotton-top couple in the golf cart, not me. She hustled to the cart, a box of brown sugar in hand, and tossed me a wave. With hair dyed a few shades lighter than mine and far better styled, trendy glasses, and a few extra pounds rounding out her frame, retirement looked good on Mom. I eyed the only other car in the driveway, a silver Prius, with unjustified malice. Trust Bridget to beat me to my own parents’ house, emphasizing my tardiness with her punctuality.

  “Couldn’t you be late once in your life?” I asked Bridget when she opened the Civic’s passenger door to grab my groceries.

  “But then who would have painted the face of the man driving Oscar’s newest model train?” she asked.

  “Oh no. Dad’s made another toy train scene?” I let myself into the house, holding the door for Bridget.

  “Honestly, I can’t tell if it’s the same one as last time I was here,” she whispered as she passed me.

  “Check out those tiny hands, Son,” Dad said, greeting me with his favorite truncation of my name. He lifted Bridget’s free hand to display her dainty fingers against his blunt digits. “The Union Pacific just acquired the most handsome conductor on rails. Come see.”

  I dutifully followed Dad to his office, where a gigantic circular toy train set sprawled across a worktable. A miniature landscape enveloped the tracks, complete with plastic trees, an acrylic glaze river, a tiny handcrafted cabin, and a baking soda–dusted mountain tunnel. My unfortunate familiarity with my dad’s train obsession meant I knew with one glance that this model was all new. While I obediently examined Bridget’s fine facial-painting skills on the fingernail-size human figure seated in the caboose, I wondered how heavily trains had factored into my parents’ retirement relocation. Dad was a nut about trains. Roseville was a railroad town. Add in Mom’s social nature and refusal to live trackside, as Dad would prefer, and this community less than a half hour from Roseville’s rail yard fit in their ideal-home Goldilocks zone.

  My proximity had probably only been a bonus.

  Mom came back inside and whisked us all into the kitchen to set the table, arrange the flowers, and pen the place cards. I protested over the place cards, since a whopping ten people—all local family—would be attending.

  “When you host, we’ll do things your way,” Mom said. I shut up and transferred my store-bought potato salad to one of Mom’s crystal serving trays without protest.

  As soon as we could, Bridget and I slipped into the backyard, champagne glasses in hand.

  “How was it?” Bridget asked.

  “How was what?”

  “The warden meeting, silly.”

  “Shh. Keep your voice down.” I glanced at the cracked kitchen window and nudged Bridget farther around the side of the house. I’d mentioned my ability to see souls to my parents once as a teen, and they’d sent me to a psychologist. If they heard me talking about killing evil creatures, they’d organize a drug-addiction intervention. Bridget, however, found the whole secretive world fascinating, like a TV show she was peripherally involved in.

  “Is everyone a Calvin Klein model in their spare time?”

  “Sadly, no. Most are pretty average, though Rafi . . .” I paused to take a sip of champagne.

  Bridget pounced. “Who’s Rafi? Is he a warden?”

  “He’s an enforcer in Orangevale.” With her red hair, porcelain skin, and sharp intellect, Bridget attracted men like catnip called to cats. She remained single because she was a workaholic, picky to a fault, and insisted any man she dated pass my soul inspection. Most didn’t make the cut. If I hooked Bridget up with an enforcer, I’d know for a fact she was dating a good guy. So would she. Plus, enforcers worked weird hours, so he would understand her long days.

  “Enforcer is good. No, enforcer is great. What’s he like?”

  “Scruffy, though you’d call it manly. Yea tall”—I gestured above our heads—“with a soft Middle Eastern accent. Dark, intense eyes. Lashes for miles. Early to mid thirties. He seemed nice, but we talked for only a minute or two.”

  “Sounds nummy. Anyone else I should know about?”

  “Not as
date material.” I described the other enforcers and wardens in broad strokes. While I talked, I blinked to Primordium. The meeting and its purpose of ferreting out a pattern behind the evil uptick seemed surreal while standing in my parents’ backyard, but I’d be remiss to not guarantee their safety. Thanks to an expensive landscaper and my mom’s continued diligence, the enclosed space could have been photographed for Sunset magazine, with its vine-covered archway, winding brick path, small water fountain, and perfectly pruned shrubbery and flower beds. It looked just as good in Primordium, and a quick scan confirmed the area was clear of any traces of atrum.

  “So was the meeting worth postponing with Dr. Love?” Bridget asked, putting a pant into Alex’s name.

  I checked the back window again and shushed Bridget. “It was but it wasn’t. I learned some important stuff.” I decided on the spot not to tell Bridget about the increased evil. It didn’t seem fair to concern her over something she could do nothing about. I added too much melodrama to my next words to compensate. “Like the other wardens want to force Mr. Pitt out of his position and disband my region.”

  “What? That’s outrageous! On what grounds?” She slugged back her champagne, and I could see her lawyer brain engage.

  “Something happened in Mr. Pitt’s past, and he got booted to my small region. They think he’s making bad decisions, like hiring me as his enforcer.”

  “They’re lucky to have you!”

  “I think so, too. Trust me. And if Mr. Pitt is booted, I’ll have to transfer if I want to remain an enforcer, and I do. Niko says the closest openings are in Southern California.”

  “But that’s so far.”

  “It’s that or the East Coast.”

  “Well, that’s not going to work. What are you going to do?”

  “Not much. As of tomorrow, I’m working in the mall—don’t ask me doing what, because I still don’t know—and other enforcers will be splitting the duties of my region, with everyone reporting to Liam.”

  “So they’re hamstringing Mr. Pitt. Does he see what’s going on?”