“You just said you know how untrained Madison is. You should never have allowed her to be put anywhere near a creature as powerful as a pooka, even one not yet risen. She didn’t even know not to approach it.”
“I agree,” Liam said. “You don’t have a right to back a poaching claim.” Kathleen, Margaret, and Mr. Pitt nodded, a signal that apparently ended the discussion. Isabel shoved her hands into her pockets and glared at Liam. Not all was peachy between the wardens; it almost made me smile, until Liam continued. “The extremes of the current situation dictated Madison be stationed at the mall. But linking an untrained enforcer to a powerful pooka may prove more dangerous than any evil we’ve faced. Leaving that enforcer under the guidance of a weak warden would be gross negligence on all our parts.”
“What are you proposing?” Kathleen asked.
I clutched the pooka’s trunk. Crap on toast. Liam was going to use this to push Mr. Pitt out of his region. I waited for Mr. Pitt to protest, but my warden merely watched Liam, arms crossed, familiar vein bulging in his forehead.
“Brad’s tiny region is too small to contain the effects of a pooka this size. Even if it were penned in the very center, we would all still suffer a ripple effect of its influence on our regions. The pooka needs to be moved to the largest available region.”
“Yours, of course,” Mr. Pitt said.
“Yes. I will place Madison in the center of my region. With my three enforcers around her and the pooka, we can contain its influence and protect Madison at the same time. She is weak, vulnerable. The pooka will use that against her. If we’re not careful, and if we don’t act quickly, the pooka will overrun her.”
Overrun me? The only person here trying to use any weakness or vulnerability against me was Liam, yet no one protested. Sheila looked away when I met her gaze, but not before I saw her undisguised hate. For me? For the pooka? Isabel ran hungry eyes over the pooka, but she was nodding to Liam’s words. Kathleen looked contemplative and Margaret impatient. Did they all think I’d be overrun, too? Or was this simply a convenient excuse to force Mr. Pitt out?
“What a shocking proposal,” Mr. Pitt said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Almost as if you planned the whole thing.”
“Saddling myself with an incompetent enforcer and the most dangerous creature we’ve encountered in the last decade? Yes, that was my plan all along,” Liam said, matching Mr. Pitt’s tone. “I’m not clinging to my job, throwing my clueless enforcer into situations far outstripping her abilities in the desperate hope it’ll keep me employed another month or two. Of course, you’ve always been careless with your enforcers.”
Mr. Pitt’s fists tightened and he stepped toward Liam. “I’m never careless with anyone’s life.”
“Right. Unless you need to look important. Having a pooka in your region would sure look good to the Triumvirate.”
“Which never occurred to you when you decided to steal Madison,” Mr. Pitt said.
Liam threw up his hands. “Listen to yourself, Brad. I don’t need to look good to the Triumvirate. I’ve got three enforcers and three wardens training and working under me. My region is four times the size of yours. I can absorb a pooka into my region, and you’d never know. You can’t even keep ahead of the vervet in your region. For once in your life, think of the safety of your enforcer, Brad. Madison will stay in my region—”
“No.”
I think they’d forgotten about me, because the wardens all looked surprised at my protest. I released the pooka’s trunk, and he let me go, shifting restlessly, with the lux lucis and atrum beneath his woolly coat swirling in agitated whirls. I understood the feeling. My hands shook and my heart beat too fast.
“I’m not moving, and neither is the pooka.”
“Fresh off an imprint, you’re not thinking clearly, Madison,” Liam said. “Let us decide—”
“No.” I didn’t have to raise my voice to cut him off; my tone did it for me. If the imprint had any impact on my thinking, it was that it had cleared away my confusion. It was obvious that of all the people at this meeting, only Mr. Pitt had my best interest at heart. Liam was wrong: Mr. Pitt had never endangered me. Every single time I’d gotten in trouble, my impulsiveness was to blame. If anything, Mr. Pitt coddled me too much. Whatever secret lurked in Mr. Pitt’s past, that’s where it remained. He was a dedicated warden who’d taken a chance on me. I wouldn’t repay him by jumping to work under a more powerful warden.
“We’ve played along, followed your advice,” I said. “I gave up my region and worked in Isabel’s, just as you wanted. And look where that got us.” I started to pat the pooka’s trunk, but atrum coated the mammoth’s face, so I turned the move into a gesture. “If your enforcers are good enough to contain the pooka’s influence if I was inside your territory, I’m sure they’re more than capable of dealing with the same influence on the fringe of their regions.”
The pooka curled his trunk to his forehead and bugled. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears, but it would ruin my stare-down with Liam. The pooka swung his tusks back and forth over my head, feet stomping restlessly. The council shifted but only Sheila backed up a step before catching herself.
I crossed my arms, knowing how imposing the pooka looked behind me. I didn’t understand how, but the pooka gave me power, and Liam wasn’t going to take it from me.
“If you’re all done yelling, let’s get back on track,” Margaret drawled. “An enforcer imprinting a pooka is not grounds for transfer without the enforcer’s consent, and it never has been. If you have a problem with the arrangement, take it up with an inspector.”
“As always, it’s good to have your sound mind in attendance,” Mr. Pitt said. Then he turned a bland expression to Liam. “Shall we continue?”
Liam’s sharp smile chilled me. “I’m sure my next meeting with the Director of Inquisitions will be informative.”
“I know the rules and so does the head of the inspectors. I’ve done nothing wrong, and neither has my enforcer,” Mr. Pitt said with a shrug, all earlier anger hidden behind a new calm. I tried to absorb some of his confidence. Burrowing my chilled hands into my coat pockets, I surveyed the others. Sheila looked as if she’d happily decapitate Mr. Pitt and me. Isabel looked frustrated; she hadn’t expected her accusations of me poaching the pooka to be so quickly dismissed. Summer appeared wary, Rafi unreadable. I couldn’t get a read on Kathleen and Margaret, either.
I’d hoped to see a friendly smile or encouraging gesture from Niko, but he studied me with as much wariness as Summer, if not more. I’d convinced myself he was on Mr. Pitt’s side, but my doubts resurfaced. I shrugged them aside. Niko had told me to make up my own mind, and I had.
When Liam addressed me, I snapped back to attention.
“Madison Fox, of sound mind and pure soul, do you accept the full responsibility of the pooka, including resolving all disturbances caused by it? Are you committed to molding the pooka into a creature of lux lucis and overseeing its growth and progress until such time the imprint is no longer valid?”
I stilled, eyes wide. Liam’s words carried the formal weight of ceremony, and I realized the rest of this council had been political preamble. This was the purpose, to formally bind me to the pooka in the eyes of my peers and the CIA.
Did he say I was responsible for turning the pooka into a creature of pure lux lucis? I twisted to take in the massive frame of the pooka. I couldn’t just shove lux lucis into the pooka and call it a day. A month of feeding the pooka lux lucis wouldn’t cleanse his soul.
What if I said no? What would they do to me? To the pooka? I wouldn’t let them harm him; my conscience wouldn’t allow it. At least I was pretty sure that was my own impulse. I couldn’t distinguish my normal emotions from those influenced by the pooka. I hadn’t forgotten the overwhelming rage that had made me ambivalent to Jacob’s injuries, including those I inflicted on him. But even if I weren’t emotionally attached to the pooka, I couldn’t let a creature this powerful roam through my region witho
ut doing my best to exterminate his atrum.
I swallowed my questions. No answer would change my mind. I’d figure out the details of this arrangement later.
With false confidence, I said, “I accept the responsibility of my pooka.”
Liam pivoted on a heel to Mr. Pitt. “Brad Pitt, of sound mind and pure soul, do you accept full responsibility for Madison Fox and agree to report any maleficent influence the pooka exerts over her?”
“If the pooka controls her, yes.”
Liam’s lips tightened. “Do you agree to engage in all known precautionary procedures and agree to the appropriate oversight?”
“As warranted and as necessary, yes. Madison will be safe with me.”
Liam wasn’t the only warden displeased with Mr. Pitt’s qualifiers, but no one objected.
“Then we need to discuss the relocation of Madison.”
“What?” I thought we’d settled this.
Liam turned to me. “You cannot live in my region with a pooka. You must move. If you’re centralized in Brad’s region, we’ll all suffer your foolishness less.”
“But I live on the border,” I protested. Technically, my apartment sat on the upper fringe of Summer’s region, but so close to the border it hadn’t mattered. Until now.
“Which means the pooka will be in my territory as much as yours.”
“Only while I sleep.” I still had no clue how I was supposed to control, let alone hide, a mammoth anywhere, but I decided to stick to the point at hand. I loved my apartment. I wasn’t letting it go without a fight. Especially not on Liam’s say-so.
“The pooka’s tether will stretch, and I doubt your control will improve. He’ll be roaming through Summer’s region, causing her trouble she didn’t sign up for.”
I glanced at Summer, expecting her to protest on my behalf. She didn’t meet my gaze. I gritted my teeth. Obviously our tentative friendship didn’t hold weight against her boss.
“Technically, our region should now include the pooka’s hatching grounds,” Mr. Pitt said, drawing everyone’s attention.
“You can’t be serious,” Isabel said.
“The pooka will feel an affinity to its birth location,” Mr. Pitt continued. “It will return there whether it is within our region or not. We are within our legal rights to claim a league around the birth grounds.”
No one moved. A league was at least three miles long, right? If Mr. Pitt was right, by imprinting the pooka, I could take almost a fourth of Jacob’s region—the good fourth, the one with all the people and activity. I was pretty sure a league would stretch into Margaret’s region and possibly to the upper corner of Liam’s, too. It also overlapped with some of our region, but in one swoop, we could expand our region by nearly a third its current size.
“You can’t manage what you have now,” Liam said.
Mr. Pitt shrugged. “So you say.”
Isabel looked like she wanted to hit something, or someone. Liam folded his arms and glared at Mr. Pitt.
“Now look here,” Margaret said. “You can’t just—”
“I can,” Mr. Pitt interrupted.
Margaret closed her mouth into a thin line. Kathleen shook her head, disapproving but not saying anything.
This was going to turn into a lynching. If any of these wardens had been on Mr. Pitt’s side, they were rethinking their loyalties. Plus, something more heinous occurred to me: If we took control of the hatching grounds, I’d be responsible for the mall, too. A series of future holiday seasons unfurled before me, each filled with endless rounds of citos and shopping madness.
Praying Mr. Pitt would understand, I spoke up. “Or you can give us my apartment.” We had leverage, and I pushed. Mr. Pitt wasn’t the only ruthless person in this region. “Of course, to prevent future problems for Summer, Rafi, and you, Liam, we should take over a little extra room to give the pooka space. Say from—”
“Twin Oaks,” Mr. Pitt said. “Twin Oaks to Sunrise to Old Auburn to East Roseville Parkway to Barton. The freeway to the west, the lake to the east, as before.”
The area Mr. Pitt defined spread our region over a mile deeper along our entire southern border. It was a smaller swath of land than the league around the mall’s parking garage, but it meant we overtook only one warden’s region—the one warden who already hated Mr. Pitt. It seemed like a good compromise to me.
Liam’s jaw bunched and relaxed.
“I approve of that compromise,” Margaret said, her tone dry.
“Of course you do,” Liam spat.
“I approve as well,” Kathleen said. Liam ground his teeth. Our proposal would increase the acreage of the border we shared with Kathleen. If anyone was going to protest, it would have been her.
“I approve,” Isabel said.
They backed Liam into a corner for Mr. Pitt and me, and for a moment, the wardens were united with Mr. Pitt against Liam. It felt pretty good.
Liam spit out his words. “I approve.”
“You can’t,” Sheila said, only to be shushed by her boss. The woman’s pixie face tightened with embarrassment, but she didn’t bother to disguise her hate when she glared at Mr. Pitt.
My boss stepped forward and Liam matched him. The two men clasped forearms. Even in Primordium, I could tell Liam’s fingers bit into Mr. Pitt. Lux lucis flared from Liam to Mr. Pitt, and then they parted. From a few feet apart, their souls rotated to flare around their middles. I rubbed my stomach. The move looked nauseating and uncomfortable, but Mr. Pitt’s expression remained neutral. The edges of their puzzle-piece souls connected and lux lucis flared along the connecting border. Mr. Pitt’s soul brightened and popped, reshaping its southern line to follow the new roads delineating my region from Summer’s. Liam’s soul contracted, and he flinched.
“Witnessed,” Kathleen said, and everyone in the circle echoed her.
I got to keep my apartment and my job, and my region was larger. Three wins for team Pitt-Fox. Liam should have had steam escaping his ears. I was surprised I couldn’t hear Isabel’s teeth squeak with how hard she clenched them. Kathleen frowned at the pooka, and I wondered if she regretted the council’s decisions. For my part, I hoped we’d done the right thing.
“Council closed,” Liam snarled. Isabel jerked like he’d jabbed her. The slender lux lucis strands connecting the wardens snapped apart.
No one spoke as they departed. Summer gave me a cold glance before driving away. My heart constricted. I’d been so focused on Liam, I’d forgotten my new territory had carved into Summer’s region, too. My play for a larger region had ruined our budding friendship.
A caravan of cars departed, leaving the parking lot empty of all but Niko, Mr. Pitt, myself, and a mammoth-shaped pooka.
The pooka wrapped his trunk around my arm, holding only lux lucis against me. He’d calmed with me and now looked sleepy again. Finding a bed sounded spectacular, but first I had to figure out what I was supposed to do with a mammoth.
“We should be close,” Niko said. He glanced at his watch. “Its control has become more defined, and I think it’s tiring.”
Mr. Pitt studied the pooka and nodded.
“If Isabel could have waited, this would have gone smoother,” Niko said.
Mr. Pitt nodded again.
“You probably wouldn’t have gotten any of Liam’s region, though.”
Mr. Pitt’s nod was accompanied by a self-satisfied smile.
“You’re not upset?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a bad compromise.” My boss shrugged. He was playing it cool, but he kept having to rein in his grin. Beside him, Niko snorted and shook his head.
“So how am I—”
The pooka released my arm and shuffled backward, tusks swaying above me. I ducked and stepped out of range.
“What are you doing?” My question ended with a squeak.
The pooka’s energy contracted, all his wild lux lucis and atrum condensing. It pulled away from the mammoth’s skin, dwindling beneath the surface only to reappear in stutte
rs. The mammoth’s long tusks retracted. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. It wasn’t my imagination: The pooka was shrinking.
In halting increments, the mammoth reduced to the size of an elephant, then a hippo. His shoulders narrowed, his leg shortened. The woolly fur disappeared. In moments, he was eye to eye with me, then shorter. His torso thinned and his trunk retracted into a muzzle. Atrum and lux lucis pushed within him like pudding, thick and slow.
My knees wobbled and I dipped, then gave up and landed on my butt on the cold pavement. Fumes of old oil puddles caught at the back of my throat. My injured ankle protested, and I flopped it out straight, not looking away from the pooka.
A creature who could change shape and size—that was magic, plain and simple.
I pushed loose strands of hair out of my face with shaking hands and tried out a little reasoning. I’d killed a demon. I’d seen wardens with souls shaped like their regions, not like their bodies. I carried around a sentient book. I’d met prajurit. After all that, what’s a little shape-shifting?
Impossible, of course, but with a pooka around, I had a feeling I needed to strike that word from my vocabulary.
Where moments before had stood the only living mammoth now shivered a Great Dane. He gave himself a vigorous shake, then wagged his tail, turning to watch the movement. The wound on his hip had healed during his transformation, but with his liquid, mixed soul, there was no mistaking he was still the pooka.
“I take it no one told you it could change shapes?”
I tore my gaze from the dog and looked up into Niko’s laughing eyes.
“That failed to be mentioned.” Thanks, Val. I blinked to normal sight. A cone of light from a lot lamp haloed the pooka, setting his glossy black coat shimmering. Golden eyes blinked at me; then the dog trotted to me. From where I sat, he still towered over me. He sniffed my shoes, crotch, and hands, then licked my face from chin to part.
“Ew! No, bad pooka.” I used my jacket’s sleeve to wipe the slime off. The pooka sat on my lap with a doggy smile and a cloud of horrid breath. One hundred plus pounds ground my thighs into the gritty pavement. “Seriously, this isn’t working for me. I need to get up.”
A Fistful of Fire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 2) Page 25