A Fistful of Evil: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyrights

  Dedication

  1 Don’t Follow Me: I’m Lost, Too

  2 I Didn’t Sell My Soul, but I Did Hammer Out a Rent-to-Own Deal

  3 I Brake for Firemen

  4 Cleverly Disguised as a Responsible Adult Since 2007

  5 Welcome to the Dark Side. Are You Surprised We Lied about the Cookies?

  6 If Found, Please Return Me to Reality

  7 I ♥ My Cat

  8 Got Toys?

  9 All Your Base Are Belong to Us

  10 Earth First; We’ll Log the Other Planets Later

  11 Keep Calm and Carry On

  12 Honk if You’re Hot and Horny

  13 Have You Hugged Your Dog Today?

  14 Stop, Drop, and Roll Doesn’t Work in Hell

  15 Guns Don’t Kill People; Bullets Do

  16 Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body

  17 Spay and Neuter Animal Abusers

  18 Don’t Worry: There’s Enough of Me for Everyone

  19 Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make History

  Current and Future Releases

  About the Author

  Note to Readers

  Acknowledgments

  A Fistful of Evil

  Madison Fox, Illuminant Enforcer

  Rebecca Chastain

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, dialog, places, and incidents either are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental. Any resemblance to an actual cat is 100 percent intentional and approved by Mack Fu, who shamelessly insisted on being immortalized in the pages of this novel.

  Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Chastain

  Cover design by Damonza

  Author photograph by Cody Watson

  www.rebeccachastain.com

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Mind Your Muse Books

  PO Box 374

  Rocklin, CA 95677

  ISBN: 978-0-9906031-0-8

  To Cody, whose support and encouragement makes all things possible,

  all dreams achievable.

  1

  Don’t Follow Me: I’m Lost, Too

  The interview was a catastrophe. It started out fine—better than fine. Kyle, the sales manager for the bumper sticker company, Illumination Studios, met me in the warm confines of a nearby Starbucks, purchased me a grande green tea, and selected a table in the corner, away from the door and the cold blast of November air every customer brought in with them. Soft music, cappuccino-machine clacks and whirs, and the murmur of conversation created a cocoon of privacy.

  I handed Kyle a copy of my resume, determined to prove myself the mandatory employee for the boring junior sales associate position. I wasn’t particularly qualified and I would normally have rather peeled hangnails than perform cold calls—which is what I strongly suspected the position was—but four weeks of unemployment, seven failed interviews, and escalating credit card bills proved very strong motivators.

  Strong enough for me to ignore the desperate reason I’d applied for the job in the first place. Never trust your soul-sight, I told myself for the thousandth time. But my imminent eviction trumped mistrust of my bizarre, mutant vision.

  Kyle dropped my resume to the table without glancing at it. He scrutinized me over the top of his dry cappuccino. Kyle exuded salesman, from his maroon button-up shirt and khaki trousers to his thinning brown hair with its frosted tips. His face was pinched, as if someone had pressed his baby flesh between their hands and pulled, extending his nose and pulling his lips and eyes in tight. He couldn’t have been much older than me, despite the sullen brackets around his mouth and deep grooves between his eyebrows. Maybe his expression fell into disapproving lines naturally.

  “How many years’ experience do you have, Madison?” Kyle asked.

  “Specifically in the bumper sticker business, none, but I believe my time at Catchall Advertising will—”

  “I don’t care about the bumper sticker crap. I care about your experience in the field.”

  My weirdo radar, dulled by the overpowering mix of desperation and determination, flickered to life now.

  “I honed my sales skills while working as a saleswoman at Sundage Cars. My experience there taught me how to connect with people from all walks of life.” Though it hadn’t taught me how to sell a car. In the six months of my employment as a used-car saleswoman, I sold a grand total of zero cars, which is why David Sundage, my cousin-in-law and owner of Sundage Cars, had fired me at the beginning of September. But I wasn’t going to concern Kyle with that minor detail.

  Kyle set his cappuccino down on the table and leaned back in his chair. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure I understand the relevance—”

  “What regions have you worked in before this?”

  Regions? “I’ve worked mainly in Roseville since I—”

  “With who? Not with Brad or Isabel.” Kyle leaned forward, his dark eyes intense.

  Who? I eased my tea to the table and ran my palms down the sides of my black knee-length skirt, telling myself it was only nerves that were making Kyle seem so volatile.

  “Um, most recently with David Sundage,” I said.

  “Where are his headquarters?”

  Headquarters? What is this, the FBI? Hadn’t he bothered to read my resume?

  “Down Douglas,” I answered, pointing vaguely west toward Douglas Boulevard and the car lot.

  “Before that?”

  “Also in Roseville, at Catchall—”

  “Look, we can both stop playing this game. I don’t care about what jobs you’ve had to take between IE positions.” Kyle deflated into his chair with a gusty sigh. “To be honest, you’re the only qualified person to apply for the job—my job. I’ve been ready to transfer for months now, so I’m not going to make this interview hard on you. I want you to take this job as much as you want it. I just need to make this interview look good so Brad signs my walking papers, okay?”

  I nodded and tried to look like I understood more than the English words he used. I didn’t know what he meant by “IE positions” and I knew I wasn’t qualified for his sales manager position. I wasn’t even qualified to be a junior sales associate, but who was I to argue? Managers probably didn’t have to make cold calls, which automatically made the job more appealing. Plus, a management position would pay better, and I was pretty sure I could fake it until I got caught up on my bills. By then, I could find a more suitable job. Something more Indiana Jones and less Bridget Jones.

  “Okay, let me make this perfectly clear,” Kyle continued. “Which wardens have you worked with?”

  “Wardens?” As in prison?

  Kyle leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. “What’s the largest evil you’ve e
ver tackled? A wraith? A pissed-off dryad?”

  I cast a quick glance around for a candid camera, noting the nearest exit in case I needed to make a run for it. I’d been nervous on interviews before, but never because of a mentally unstable interviewer. Was that why Kyle had insisted we meet away from the company office? Did he even work for Illumination Studios?

  I eased my hand through the strap of my purse and slid it onto my shoulder, careful not to make any sudden movements that might spook the deranged man. “I don’t think I’m the right person for the job, after all,” I said, and pushed away from the table.

  This is why I never used my soul-sight, never followed its false leads. I shouldn’t have made an exception for this job. To the marrow of my bones, I knew soul-sight was untrustworthy.

  “Hang on, Madison,” Kyle said, grabbing my arm as I started to stand. I froze. “You’re definitely the right person for the job. You’re the first enforcer to walk through that door in nearly two weeks.”

  “I don’t even know what that means. I’m going to save us both some time and leave now.” I tugged to free my arm.

  “Holy crap! You’re a rogue.” Kyle jerked away from me, shaking his hand like I’d given him cooties. Unbalanced, I fell back into my chair.

  “That explains your age,” Kyle said, speaking more to himself than me. “And your job history. You haven’t been playing games with me—you really don’t know . . .”

  I stood again as he trailed off, and his gaze snapped to focus on my face. “It was nice to meet you,” I said by rote. “Good luck with—”

  “One question.” Kyle stood, cutting off my escape. He towered over my five-feet-ten by a good eight inches. Despite his wiry frame, the odds weren’t in my favor that I could knock him down before he could grab me.

  Taking a deep breath, and reminding myself that I was in a safe public place filled with people, I said, “Okay. One more.”

  “Did you apply because you thought you could pretend to be qualified for a sales position or because the ad glowed?”

  My breath caught. The fact that the job description in the Help Wanted section had glowed in soul-sight had been an inexplicable anomaly. Dead, mashed pulp couldn’t glow. It wasn’t alive. It didn’t have a soul. But the fact that Kyle knew about the glow set my arm hairs on end. No one knew about soul-sight except my best friend, and that was only because I’d told her. Soul-sight was my own personal aberration.

  Seeing my hesitation, Kyle plowed on.

  “Three decades as a rogue has got to be a new record. I’m not sure why you chose to come out of hiding, but I’m not letting you get away now, not when I’m this close”—he pinched his forefinger and thumb together—“to escaping this puny region for some real action.”

  “I haven’t been hiding. I think you’re mistaken—”

  “Come on. We both know you’re not qualified for a sales position even if it did exist,” Kyle said, flicking my resume. The crisp white paper skittered off the table to the floor. “But if you could see the glow, you are qualified to be an enforcer. Hum, let’s see, how to explain this to a thirty-year-old rogue?”

  “I’m twenty-five,” I corrected softly, wondering why I was still standing there, why I hadn’t stepped around Kyle and walked out the door.

  “You have the ability to see the world differently than this ‘real world,’ right? Black and white? Plants and animals glow all pretty and clean. People look like they’re wearing snowy-weather camouflage. Is this ringing any bells?”

  There was definitely a ringing in my ears. He’d just described soul-sight. My knees wobbled and I sank disjointedly into my chair.

  Kyle sat across from me, shaking his head with amazement. “I can’t believe you’ve maintained a rogue status for so long. I mean, I understand the appeal of not having a boss, but you’re also not on anyone’s payroll. Why not become a real enforcer and get paid for it?”

  Paid to use soul-sight? Has he infected me with his insanity?

  “I, um—”

  “Trust me, this region’s not hard at all. It’s a good place to cut your teeth, but it gets monotonous real fast. Still, let’s see what you’ve got. Tell me what you see here.”

  “A coffee shop,” I said, not quite willing to believe he and I were talking about the same thing.

  “Fine. I’ll go first.” He twitched his long, pointy nose and grinned at me. “You’ve got great color. Very pure. Which is how I knew you were an enforcer. No atrum in sight.”

  I shifted in my chair, irrationally pulling my suit jacket tighter to cover myself, but Kyle had already turned away.

  “Now that guy behind the counter, he’s not the honest type. Look at the way atrum coats his fingertips and wrists. Disgusting.”

  Kyle grinned at me. I tried to remember to breathe. He was truly talking about soul-sight. I wasn’t the only person with the ability. All brain activity got jammed up between that thought and his statement that people—he—got paid to use soul-sight. Once I could formulate a complete thought, I was going to have a lot of questions.

  “Go ahead, look around in Primordium. I’m going to see if I can attract us a little fun,” Kyle said.

  For the first time in ten years, I intentionally blinked in public.

  I gripped the edges of the table for support against the wave of dizziness that broadsided me whenever I switched between visions, then I purposely examined my surroundings. The coffee shop was slate gray, all color nonexistent in this vision. From the floor (which I knew was tiled white) to the wooden tables to the chrome espresso machine, every inanimate object was shades of charcoal. The overhead lighting didn’t exist in soul-sight—in Primordium, I corrected myself. Shadows didn’t exist in Primordium, either, not traditional light-created shadows. Something worked in this vision to give depth to objects, but trying to focus on it was a recipe for a migraine. The only bright spots in the room were the people.

  I forced myself to examine the man behind the cash register to verify Kyle’s description, fighting against soul-sight-avoidance instincts honed over the last ten years. My fingers tightened on the table. The barista’s fingertips and wrists were smeared black, like he’d had a run-in with a dirty chimney. The rest of his arms were pale gray, as was his face. I knew from experience, those dark patches represented some immoral choices and actions. Light gray was normal for a human; black was pure evil. Only animals and plants were pure white in Primordium. The barista’s smudged wrists meant he’d made some bad choices, but I couldn’t tell what. That was only one of the flaws of soul-sight.

  The only person’s soul I’d ever seen that was as pure as an animal’s was my own. Since I was far from perfect, I figured I couldn’t see my own flaws. That was fine by me. Seeing my soul felt like looking inside myself, and it was a sure way to induce stomach-churning vertigo.

  I swiveled my head to look at my companion, fully expecting him to look like a variation of every other human I’d ever seen.

  Kyle, the plain-looking salesman, glowed brighter than most searchlights. I lifted my hand up to shield my eyes, but it was as impractical as shining a flashlight in my eyes to shield them from the brightness of the sun.

  “Aha! There are a few curious imps. Figured there would be with the traffic in here,” Kyle said. He was too bright to see his facial features, almost too bright to see a solid outline. When he talked, I couldn’t tell if his lips moved. It was one of the creepiest things I’d ever seen.

  I had a thousand questions for this man—why had we never met before? why did he refer to me as a rogue? could he please dim himself?—but what came out was, “A curious what?”

  “Imp.” His glowing head swiveled toward me. “You have killed evil creatures before, right?”

  I shook my head. “What evil creatures?”

  “Amazing. Truly amazing. It’s like you’ve been hiding under a rock, invisible to both sides.” He shook his head in wonder. “You’ve not imploded a single imp? Not even a
small one?”

  “Maybe I have,” I said, belatedly offended and not sure why. “What do they look like?”

  Kyle laughed loud enough to draw several stares. “No shit. A rogue with zero experience.” He chuckled again. “The best Brad can attract to his puny region is an untrained nobody with no clue. I’d love to see his face when—” He raised his hand to forestall my next question. “Never mind. You’ve got the ability; you’re trainable. Brad won’t turn you away, not when he’s so desperate for an IE. Ah, that stands for illuminant enforcer, which is the job I’m leaving to you. So let me give you your first demonstration of what a true enforcer does. Watch carefully.”

  I tore my eyes from his shining aura. There was no after-image like with real light, which was a good thing, because I’d have been blind for a half hour after how hard I had stared. Logic said the bright light of Kyle should have cast shadows all over the room, but in this strange sight, logic didn’t apply.

  I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to look, so I scanned other customers.

  The coffee shop was busy but not full, with groups of two and three people scattered around the free-floating tables—mostly college students or business people escaping the office. People firmly rooted in reality, not looking at dirty souls and talking about illumi-something enforcers and Primordium.

  I focused on the group of four people to my right. Like everyone else in the room, they had gray dollops peeking through the V-necks of their shirts and flecks of black soot defiling their hands and wrists. I could see their features faintly through their bodies’ natural light, and I flushed with embarrassment when all four turned to stare back at me. I rarely let myself use my soul-sight around people; despite my discomfort, it was heady to use it so blatantly now. Of course, to them it just looked like I was staring rudely.

  “Do you see the imps?”

  I swiveled back to Kyle and blinked against his brightness. Unobtrusively, I leaned against the table while the world spun back into color.