Live water had been mentioned at the meeting, but I still didn’t know what it meant.
It’s lux lucis–enhanced water, Valentine said when I asked.
“Lux lucis enhanced how?” Pure water wouldn’t hold lux lucis.
The water has to have something living in it.
“Like swamp mold?” Ew.
I would have said yogurt, kefir, probiotics, anything with living bacteria, but if you’re a fan of slimy things, head to your nearest swamp.
I made a mental note to pick up probiotics tomorrow. And to restock my refrigerator with yogurt.
“What else can you tell me?”
I’ve said plenty. Now it’s your turn to prove you can keep your word. I don’t want to be stuffed away somewhere.
I considered pressing for more information, but I recognized the fragility of our partnership. Considering I now knew how to kill salamanders and what prajurit looked like in case I came across any in the mall—sigh—I counted tonight a success.
“If I leave you out tonight, Mr. Bond is going to be all over you.”
Okay. Stuff me somewhere tonight. The pages rippled in a sigh.
* * *
Five a.m. came way too early. Mr. Bond yawned and stretched when I got up and dressed, but the traitor didn’t bother to get out of bed even when I filled his food dish. I prepped for battle, stuffing my lightest purse with a small water bottle, aspirin, a granola bar, pet wood, the Bowie knife, a credit card (there might actually be good deals), my ID, a hair tie, and lip balm. I wasn’t nervous about the citos—I could handle evil creatures. It was the shoppers and my mom and aunt who made me long to hide under my bedspread. Grabbing a bagel and Valentine, I marched out into the chilly, dark morning.
I drove to Illumination Studios in record time due to the fact that I was one of three fools up before dawn. I parked between the only two cars in our office complex lot: Mr. Pitt’s bright-orange Fiat and a late-model boxy BMW the color of baby poop.
I jogged into the building, a sharp breeze cutting through my thin green sweater. I’d dressed for an overpopulated mall, not for the outdoors. Inside wasn’t much warmer; either the lobby heater didn’t kick on until a reasonable hour, or it’d been turned off. Most offices in the building would be making this a four-day weekend. I tried to shake off the budding pity party, but at five thirty in the morning, its claws were firmly embedded.
Sharon perched behind her tall desk in a halo of light, her hands-free headset and forbidding glare in place. I wondered who she expected to call this early.
“Good morning,” I croaked, my voice still warming.
Sharon made no pretense of acknowledging my greeting—or to acknowledge she breathed. Her stout body remained as still as a wax replica, all except her unfriendly brown eyes, which tracked me as I scurried past her desk. The woman gave me the creeps.
I navigated the darkened office using the bright light spilling from Mr. Pitt’s office. In the hushed shadows, the office felt foreign. I yawned. Maybe this was a dream, one where Warden Brad Pitt had a chiseled jawline and soft dimples. He’d be young and single and—
“Good morning, Madison.” Mr. Pitt’s owlish eyes lifted to the clock mounted above the door, one meaty hand swiping across a forehead that ended well past his crown.
“Happy Thanksgiving.” I didn’t turn to look at the clock. I knew I was on time.
“Humph. Never have gotten used to these American holidays.”
He motioned me to sit. I perched on the edge of a leather chair. Designed for casual lounging, the slanted seat sank occupants beneath Mr. Pitt’s eye level. The furniture was either a subtle power play or a bargain buy. Up until two days ago, I would have sworn my short boss’s ego had driven the purchase. After seeing Liam’s office, the discount-furniture theory made as much sense, especially if the size of the region equated to the size of a region’s budget.
I squeezed my purse beside me and set Valentine on my lap.
“I’m glad to see you’re using the handbook.”
“He’s been helpful.”
“Were you at the Quarry Ponds yesterday?” Mr. Pitt asked.
The abrupt topic shift caught me off guard. “The shopping center? No. Oh, you mean the Christmas tree stand next to it? Yeah, I was there.” I relaxed against an armrest and smiled. He’d noticed my hard work.
“Did I tell you to go there?”
“Nope.” I beamed. Mr. Pitt frowned. It wasn’t the expression of a man planning on praising my take-charge attitude. Masking a groan, I sat up straight. It was a month too early for a Christmas miracle anyway.
“Did you think about checking in with me first?”
“I hoped you’d be pleasantly surprised.” Which sounded better than, I didn’t feel like asking your permission to do my job.
“I might have been if I hadn’t already coordinated to have Rafi clean it up.”
“I’m sure he didn’t want to be working our region on Thanksgiving.”
“You made me look out of touch with my region and my enforcer. If we’re going to get through this, you need to stop doing things on your own initiative.”
“That’s a crappy way to be an enforcer.” The words were out before I fully processed them, proving parts of me were still asleep.
A heavy flush suffused Mr. Pitt’s cheeks. “Oh? And you know this thanks to your decades of experience?”
“I know it in my gut.”
“Your gut. Bubble gum on a turd, Madison! You’re a tutti-frutti enforcer. I am a warden. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
I hadn’t gone to the burned Christmas tree lot because I didn’t trust Mr. Pitt to do his job. I’d gone because I thought I could prove he could trust me to do mine. But now, with his words hanging between us, I found it hard to meet his gaze. What dark event lurked in his past? Why had he been demoted to this tiny region? And could his past mistakes hurt me?
7
Shop ’til You Drop
“If, in the future, you get a hankering to dart off on one of your harebrained notions, you’ll think about this little conversation and stick to the plan, right?” Mr. Pitt asked. “No matter what your organs say.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded.
“Okay.” He released a heavy breath. “Take six and I’ll see you back here this evening for tomorrow’s batch.”
Mr. Pitt gestured to one side of his desk where the glass vials Rose had been working with on Wednesday were clustered inside stacked boxes. They looked like tall lipstick tubes or oversize perfume sample bottles. Picking one up, I blinked to Primordium and examined it. The clear tube glowed a creamy pale haze that shifted when I shook the bottle.
“What is it?”
“Positive emotion.”
I glanced at Mr. Pitt in surprise. His boxy soul shimmered like sunlight reflected off a still pond. I blinked to normal vision to check his expression more closely. He’d never joked with me before, but he was well versed in sarcasm.
“I don’t follow.”
“Citos feed on negative emotions. Didn’t your handbook tell you?”
I shook my head. Explaining the delicate balance of my relationship with Valentine wasn’t going to impress Mr. Pitt.
“They’re countered with positive emotion. These vials hold the tiniest particulates of aerosol lux lucis. Very expensive stuff, but useless without an empath to infuse it with the right energy.”
That’s what Rose had been doing. Her comments about using my date-happy emotions made more sense now.
I stood and removed the water bottle from my purse, followed by my knife, pet wood, and granola bar. Mr. Pitt’s eyebrows lifted with each item I lined up on his desk. Selecting six bottles, I shoved them into my purse, wedging my ID and credit card between them to prevent their sides from clattering together. The knife and pet wood also served as barriers between the glass, and the granola lay on top. The zipper barely closed. Together, the spray bottles were lighter than the water bottle had been.
I of
fered the water bottle to Mr. Pitt, and he silently took it.
“Isabel tells me Jacob is meeting you at the mall, so he’ll walk you through your first kill. It’s simple enough.” Mr. Pitt picked up a bottle and placed his finger over the spray trigger. “Point and spray.” A soft hiss escaped the bottle.
I blinked to Primordium. A fine mist of lux lucis fell like sifted flour. Mr. Pitt dipped a hand to catch it, and it landed on his palm and absorbed into his soul.
“That’s it.” Mr. Pitt stood. “I’m not trying to quash your instincts, but now is not the time for lone-wolf actions. Stick to the plan. Take out the citos. Don’t deviate.”
“Yes, sir.”
I deviated from the plan the moment I left the office. If Mr. Pitt got mad, he could explain to Mom that she needed to stay away from the mall so I could hunt citos.
* * *
“This is going to be so much fun! We’ve got it all mapped out,” Mom said, marching toward Nordstrom. I locked the car and hurried to catch up. She fluttered a handful of newspaper ads in my direction, then consulted the list on top. “We’ve got the Nordstrom shoe sale first, but we can’t linger; Sears has sales that last only until eight.”
“It’s at the opposite end of the mall,” I protested.
“Don’t forget See’s Candies,” Aunt Evelyn chimed in. She had the same small-boned frame as Mom, though Evelyn’s unnatural enjoyment of marathons had left her without an ounce of extra body fat. Thanks to Dad’s genes, I towered over both of them and didn’t look like I’d snap when hugged too tightly.
“Did we decide between Pottery Barn or Chico’s?”
“If we hurry, we can hit them both.”
Zombie shoppers staggered to cars around us, red-rimmed eyes unfocused, arms already stiff under the burden of bags. A sharp, freezing gust sliced through the thin weave of my sweater. I huddled around Valentine. This wasn’t fair. I should be in bed, then spending the rest of my day drinking and gossiping with Holly and Bridget. I shouldn’t be attempting undercover enforcer work with my mom and aunt—and a thousand sales-crazed shoppers—in tow.
My pity party strung a few droopy streamers.
“Tell us more about this vet,” Evelyn said, tugging my elbow.
“Oh no. We can’t. I promised Madison we wouldn’t talk about it today.”
“Why not? Did he dump her?”
Cue the confetti. The pity party was in full swing. “No. He didn’t dump me.”
“Is he hideous?”
“No.”
“Really old? Married?”
“No and no.”
“Oh, dear, he’s not a cousin, is he?”
“A cousin? Whose child would that make him?” I asked, amused despite my annoyance. Dad was an only child, and Evelyn was Mom’s only sibling.
“Oh, right. Good point. When’s the date?”
“Sunday.” We crushed into a people-clogged funnel through the double set of doors and popped out in the men’s section of the department store.
“But you have to work on Monday.”
“Aunt Evelyn, I don’t know what you’re implying,” I said.
“Don’t give me that, Madison. What if this date leads somewhere? Like the bedroom?”
“Evelyn!” Mom tried to appear appalled, but the effort fell flat. Without looking, I could tell she was eyeing my hips. I had childbearing hips, she’d told me, though I think it was something she said to put the idea into my head. My hips were no different than a thousand other women’s hips—a little bit rounder than they needed to be, but I liked them that way. “Well?” Mom prompted.
“Well what?”
“They’re young,” Evelyn said. “They can go without sleep if need be.”
“I remember when I was in college, before I met Oscar. There were some nights I didn’t get any sleep.”
“Mother!”
Mom and her sister burst into laughter.
“No more. Or I’m leaving you both here and going home.”
The usually tidy store looked like it’d been overrun by gorillas during its all-night sales extravaganza. Clothes hung haphazardly on racks or cluttered the floor beneath them, and half the kids’ shoe section had migrated across the aisle to the somber safety of men’s suits. Overly enthusiastic marketers or deranged elves had bombarded the floor with Christmas, Christmas, CHRISTMAS: the pillars, counters, walls, floors, display racks, and ceiling dripped red and green, silver and gold, trees and jolly fat men, and enough glitter and shimmer to start a disco. At the heart of the store, a two-story Norway spruce pulled straight from Times Square towered beside the escalator, while “Little Drummer Boy” pounded through the speakers, the tempo sprightly and festive.
“First on the list? Let’s see. Boots,” Mom said.
“Do we have to?” Evelyn whined.
“Seventy-five percent off. You’ll be thanking me the rest of the year.”
Medusa vibrated and I checked her screen. Jacob was in the parking lot. I texted back to let him know where to meet me. Which meant I needed to distance myself from my mom and aunt. “I’m going to take a look around. Come find me before you leave, or call me.”
“Okay. Hang on, Madison. Why are you carrying that book? Do you want me to put it in my purse for you?”
Glancing down at Valentine, I shook my head. “It’s my notebook. I’ve got all kinds of important information in here.” I gave Mom a conspiratorial wink, then slipped into the crowds before she could question me further.
I blinked to Primordium and hunted for an unoccupied three feet for privacy. Primordium erased the overdone red-and-green décor but emphasized the mass of people. Everywhere I turned, bright souls shopped, walked, and chatted. At least the crowd didn’t include roaming imps and vervet.
“Sheri, the dreaded ding-a-ling droop has nothing to do with you,” a woman near me counseled her friend on the phone as she flipped through a rack. “These things happen to men. Especially if they’re cheating. Debra told me her friend’s husband’s brother was a complete water weenie until he confessed to an affair. No, no, I’m not saying Zach is cheating on you. It’s just—”
The lady roamed out of earshot. I questioned her consolation skills but silently thanked her for solving my problem. Pulling out Medusa and putting her to my ear without turning her on, I opened Valentine and spoke without feeling overly self-conscious.
“Hi, Valentine. I need to know what citos look like.”
Hi, Madison. Don’t you love this music?
“Not particularly.” On the overhead speakers, Mariah Carey crooned her longing for Santa to bring her true love. You and me both, Ms. Carey.
It needs more flute.
“More flute? Valentine, I need to work.”
You’re so busy you can’t have a quick, polite chat with me?
I sighed. I was developing a new appreciation for reference books without personalities. “How are you liking the way I’m carrying you?”
Much better. He paused before writing, Thank you.
“You’re welcome. Now about those citos?”
You’ll find what you need now.
“Thanks.” I crooked Medusa between my shoulder and ear and flipped through the pages. My thumb landed on the cito page and I tossed Valentine to the floor with a shriek. Medusa clattered on top of him. After a frozen moment of shock, I dropped to a crouch and snatched Valentine up, hugging him and pretending to not see the stares I’d attracted. Avoiding the first page, I slowly fanned the pages, then used the corners to hold the correct spread open. A giant spider wasn’t squished between pages. It was a drawing. Of a cito.
Oh, crap. This just got icky.
* * *
I skimmed the text next to the disquieting sketch.
Citos are attracted to strong emotions, especially greed and envy. In the United States, citos swarm yearly from Thanksgiving to a little after Christmas in tandem with the capitalistic frenzy and corresponding stresses of the human population. Forming a parasitic relationship with
their host, usually feeding at the shoulder, neck, or head, they consume negative emotions and amplify them back to the host. They can be as small as an inch across and as large as a baseball. Usually green or red.
I shuddered. I’d seen a tarantula once in a zoo; I didn’t want to see one without the glass between us. Plus—green or red? In Primordium?
“Whatcha doing?”
I jerked and slammed Valentine closed. When I looked up, it was into the bright white face of a pure soul. Jacob.
“Uh. Dropped my phone,” I said, collecting Medusa. I slipped her back in my purse, then petted Valentine, hoping I hadn’t ruined what little rapport we’d developed by throwing him to the floor. I blinked to normal vision and cast about furtively for my mom. I found Evelyn’s red head first, then my mother’s taller dark head, both half obscured behind a rack of red-tagged boots.
“You see something fishy?” Jacob asked, scanning the store. In an army-green corduroy jacket, thick black thermal shirt, plaid scarf, and tight jeans, Jacob was overdressed for the mall’s warm environment. Of course, he wouldn’t be staying. He’d be gallivanting around my region, pretending it was his.
I crushed the uncharitable thought. Jacob was just doing the job his warden asked of him, not angling to take over my region.
“Just checking on Mom.”
“You brought your mom?” Jacob’s sandy brows lifted.
“Yeah.”
“Seriously? She’s not an enforcer, is she?”
“She doesn’t even know they exist.”
“Then why?”
“She wanted to go shopping. I couldn’t talk her out of it. I’m pretty sure it won’t be too hard to distract her and my aunt—”
“Your aunt’s here, too?” Jacob’s grin became a snicker. I planted my hands on my hips.
“It’s really not funny.”
“Actually, it kind of is. But you’re in luck. It’s possible to do this while escorting your mom and aunt around the mall.”
At his inflection, I reassessed Jacob’s age downward. He was young enough to still believe it “uncool” to be seen in public with a parent. I rolled my eyes.
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 10