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

  “They’re the smallest of the evil creatures, little blobs of pure evil. Hardly enough brain matter to function. Just enough to recognize food and attack it.”

  Not good. This is so not good. I wished I were back at home with my cat, Mr. Bond, and a good book or a TV show. Something ordinary. I did not want to be talking with the only other known person with soul-sight who kept insisting there were evil creatures visible to only us. I felt like a character in a horror movie right before they turn slowly around and come face-to-face with a monster. Seeing evil on people’s souls was bad enough. I didn’t want to see—let alone come into contact with—something purely evil.

  And yet, how could I not look?

  I blinked, carefully focusing away from Kyle first.

  I scanned the room again. Baristas. Customers. Books and CDs. Coffee bags. “What am I looking for?” Kyle didn’t answer me. Movement under the nearest table caught my attention. An inky black chinchilla-like blob sat on the table’s base, its glowing eyes watching me.

  “What the hell is that?” Anything with life was always a version of white. Even the sullied souls of the sadistic still glowed with light undertones. Nothing living was all black—it was life that made everything glow. Furthermore, animals were never tainted by ambiguous moral choices like humans; animals were always white. The tiny fluff ball of blackness was darker than the inanimate objects around it. It was black—solid black. Impossibly black. Either there were varying degrees of life I’d never encountered, and this was the zombie equivalent of life, or this creature—this pile of dust with bright eyes—was pure evil.

  “Madison, meet your first imps,” Kyle said.

  The imp cocked its head at me, clearly curious. Curious meant it could think. Curious meant it was trying to puzzle me out. A thinking evil creature was interested in me. Abandoning my job hunt and moving back in with my parents suddenly seemed like a great idea.

  The imp hopped toward me.

  I lurched to my feet, sending my chair careening into the people behind me. Scrambling around the table, I put distance between myself and the creature. Its eyes tracked me. It hopped out from under the table until it was less than two feet away from me. I tensed to flee.

  Kyle waved his radiant hand in front of the imp the way a matador waves a cape for a bull. Like a bull, the imp charged. I squealed. The imp disappeared.

  He’d said imps, right? With an s? I spun around, looking for more.

  I spied three behind Kyle’s chair. Like the first one, the dark creatures were fixated on him. In a group they lunged. I jumped back, tripping over a chair. Windmilling my arms, I fought for balance while trying to keep the evil creatures in my sight, but gravity won. In a cacophony of wood and metal and flesh, I crashed to the floor. When I looked back at Kyle, the imps were gone.

  “Miss? Are you okay?”

  Reality popped like my ears had just unplugged. I blinked. The world swam. I rolled to my side. From my position on the gritty floor, I could see a circle of black-clad feet, and more approaching. Baristas. Everyone in the coffee shop had gone deafeningly quiet, making the cheerful jazz sound like it was blaring. I realized three things simultaneously: everyone—from the patrons to the dishwasher—was staring at me; I must look like I had gone absolutely, raving insane; and my skirt was hiked up to my hips. Shit. Can you die from embarrassment? Please?

  I untangled myself from the rungs of the chair I’d tripped over, stood faster than I should have, assisted by the adrenaline of embarrassment, and yanked my skirt down so that it covered me to my knees. I patted at my hair, pulling a bit of muffin out of a clump and wiping my hand on a napkin. And I assured everyone that I was fine, convincing no one.

  How could I be fine? I’d just learned that I wasn’t the only person with soul-sight—or the ability to see in Primordium. Worse, there were evil creatures who lived alongside us, visible only in Primordium. Creatures who gazed upon me and Kyle with the same loving look I reserved for triple chocolate fudge cake. Somehow Kyle had made them disappear, but for all I could tell, it was magic, because how did you use a sight to make something vanish? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t just seen it. It was the equivalent of a person using their normal sight to move and object; it just didn’t happen.

  Only it had.

  2

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

  There was more to soul-sight than judging people’s souls. Something proactive. Something that involved thinking evil fluff balls. My mind stuttered over the next logical thought: Did I want to know more about it?

  Kyle assured everyone that I was fine, that I’d seen a spider and had been frightened, and they believed him. The employees went back to work and the patrons pretended to ignore us once more, though they cast frequent nervous glances at me—and a few at the floor in search of the mysterious spider.

  I righted my chair and sat. Sitting meant I was less visible to everyone’s curious eyes.

  “No,” I said softly, then more resolutely. “No, I don’t think I’m interested in becoming an illumination enforcer after—”

  “Illuminant enforcer,” Kyle corrected.

  “Right. Well. I’m clearly not cut out to do this. You said that was the smallest, ah, evil creature, right?”

  “Yes, but you saw how easily it was killed.”

  I thought he’d made it disappear. No. He’d killed it. Fabulous. “It may have been easy for you, but I don’t have what it takes—”

  “Nonsense. I’m leaving you a spotless region. You simply need to practice . . . while you get paid.”

  “But—”

  “It is imperative that you assume the role as the region’s IE. The position cannot be vacant. Illumination Studios needs you. Otherwise, the region will succumb to evil.”

  The absurdity of the situation was catching up with me. I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. “You’re saying that I need to take this job, and if I don’t, the world is doomed.”

  “Hardly doomed. There are other people with the ability to use lux lucis; it would just take time to find them. In the meantime, you and everyone else in Roseville would be helpless fodder for unchecked evil.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of responsibility.” Translation: I’m not sure I believe this isn’t a delusional dream. I wasn’t even going to bother to ask what lux lucis was.

  Kyle dusted his hands together, shrugging his shoulders in good-natured defeat. “Fine. You are free to leave, but just so you know, once the darkness has noticed you, it doesn’t forget. You’ve been coasting up until now, with no region to protect and no need to engage the enemy. But today you did. Tell me, did the imps seem interested in you?”

  There was no menace in the question, but his eyes were knowing. I thought of the imp’s glowing stare as it crept closer, head cocked to the side in curiosity, and I shivered.

  “You killed all the imps who saw me,” I reasoned, standing and glancing eagerly toward the door, my ticket back to reality.

  “I killed all the ones who saw you today. You have the soul of an enforcer, which is very attractive to evil. You’ve survived this long with no formal training only because I’m incredibly good at keeping my region clean. And you’ve been lucky. I don’t expect you’re going to make it much longer. Despite their diminutive size and strength, imps are dangerous. They’re the messengers and lackeys of more powerful dark creatures. If they see someone who interests them, they’ll be sure to report it.”

  “Report it?” I sat down heavily. I pictured a large “mommy” imp the size of an elephant, able to leap small buildings to attack to me.

  “Just as our side has a hierarchy of . . . people with different and stronger abilities, so too does their side. They’re not fond of enforcers, with good reason: You can destroy them.”

  I let that absorb. “Are you telling me my life’s in danger?” Was I actually believing all this? The answer, u
nfortunately, was yes.

  “Maybe not yet, but it will be soon. Unless you protect yourself.”

  I’d been successful over the years in convincing myself that I chose not to use soul-sight because I wanted to be normal, or at least not be a metaphysical peeping tom. Confronted with the possibility of actively using soul-sight, I could no longer pretend what I felt was anything but fear. It was an ugly truth, and one I didn’t want to scrutinize. Especially now that I had a bigger problem.

  Kyle must have seen me weakening, and he pressed his point. “You might as well get paid while you learn, right?”

  I didn’t know if following Kyle back to the office of Illumination Studios was one of the smartest or stupidest things I’d ever done. The final straw that convinced me to take the job—if only until I could figure out how to eradicate my soul-sight, which looked like the only conceivable long-term option—was seeing the sleek two-door Mercedes Kyle drove. I liked everything that implied about my future salary and very little about what it said about my priorities.

  Illumination Studios was located in one of the plethora of two-story, two-tone beige office buildings that had spawned across the Roseville landscape in the early nineties. It came complete with traditional blue-tinted windows that worked like mirrors in the day and turned the building into a fishbowl at night. I discreetly checked my reflection as I walked toward the lobby doors where Kyle waited. I’d brushed the majority of grit from my black skirt during the drive to the office and had done a decent job fixing my shoulder-length walnut brown hair, readjusting the clip that held the top half back from my face.

  My green eyes still looked a little wide around the edges and my hands trembled, but if I tucked one hand around the strap of my black purse and made the other stop fidgeting with my suit jacket, I could fake calm.

  Kyle led the way across a tiled lobby and down a long carpeted hallway. We passed the doorways to a temp agency and a mortgage company, both bustling with quiet office energy behind tall cubicle walls. The hallway dead-ended at Illumination Studios, with double doors opening to the left into a modest lobby complete with the requisite tall receptionist desk and the company’s name spelled out in large, top-lit silver letters across the wall behind the desk. It looked like a normal office, not like the front of some mysterious evil-fighting organization.

  “Good day, Sharon,” Kyle said, nodding a greeting at the high counter of the receptionist desk without pausing.

  When I passed the desk, I spied the short lady seated behind it. Limp brown hair hung in sheets on either side of Sharon’s thin head, and the florescent lighting made pasty lines of her homely face. She tracked our progress past her work station with only her flat brown eyes. Her body remained perfectly motionless and she did not return Kyle’s greeting or my overly bright, nervous smile.

  The office was modest, with a wide hallway defined by beige and rose high-walled cubicles on the left and a glass-enshrouded unlit conference room on the right. At the end of the hallway was a bank of offices, their glass fronts closed off by mini blinds. Kyle stopped in front of the middle office and knocked on the closed wooden door. I stood discreetly to the side and read the plastic name placard beside the door.

  Brad Pitt.

  Even as I told myself it couldn’t be the Brad Pitt, I gleefully ran through several scenarios in which the hunky actor greeting me with a warm handshake, our conversation an easy flirtation followed by his insistence to introduce me to his younger, long-lost, even-more-handsome brother, or possibly his proclamation that I had a face that must be seen on the silver screen, or—

  “I think you’ll be very pleased with Madison Fox,” Kyle said, interrupting my ludicrous fantasies. He held the door half open and remained in the doorway, filling the space so I couldn’t see around him. “She’s eager and capable. I feel confident handing the enforcer reins of the region over to her.”

  Brad Pitt’s response was muffled by the glass between us. I edged forward to peer around Kyle, but the meat of his words registered, freezing me in place. Eager? Capable? Had we been at the same interview?

  “Sure thing. Let me leave you to it,” Kyle said. He started to turn away from the office, but then spun back as if he’d just remembered something. “Would you mind sending my approval off first, though? It’s—well, if I can leave today, I’ll be able to get this flat in the Marina District I’ve had my eye on.” Another response from the unseen Brad Pitt. This one made Kyle grin. “Thanks! We should have drinks next time you’re in Frisco.”

  Kyle turned and shook my hand. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Madison. I’m sure you’ll be up to speed in no time. Best of luck.”

  I opened my mouth to point out that I was in no way capable or eager, but Kyle was already striding away.

  He ducked into a cubicle, hoisted a messenger bag over his shoulder, and strode out of the office with a cheery wave in my direction and a farewell nod at Sharon. There was a touch of urgency behind his steps. In fact, it looked like Kyle was fleeing—in a controlled, businesslike manner, but fleeing nonetheless.

  With dread pooling in my gut, I pivoted to face Brad Pitt’s doorway.

  “Please come in.”

  I stepped into the office. My gaze went immediately to the man sitting in the guest’s chair near the door. If ever Brad Pitt had a dark-skinned, more attractive younger brother, this was him. My brain stumbled over itself to admire him—his broad shoulders and bare forearms, his perfectly rounded and smooth-shaven head, his roasted-almond skin and even darker eyes that swept over me with an almost tangible caress, his lips firm and sculpted, begging for a closer, physical inspection.

  “As long as you’re not basing your decision on strength, this could work,” he said.

  I had almost gathered my wits enough to introduce myself when he moved. He stood fluidly, and my eyebrows rose with him. He was over six feet tall, and a lot of that was leg. All of it was muscle.

  He stalked out of the office with a single nod to me. I inhaled as he passed; he smelled delicious, like something I hadn’t known I’d been craving. I turned to watch his firm ass disappear.

  He moves like danger, I thought. A small voice in my head scoffed at the idiotic description; the rest of me made nummy noises in agreement. Why is he leaving?

  A throat cleared behind me. I spun, cheeks flaming, to notice the man seated at the desk for the first time. He stood and extended his hand across the clean surface to me. I rushed across the small office to pump Mr. Pitt’s hand.

  His hand in mine was small and meaty, much like the rest of him. The top of his shiny balding head barely cleared my shoulders. What hair he had left was gray and clung around the edges of his blotchy white head like a fallen halo.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Fox. Please have a seat,” he said with a smile that stretched red lips wide across a pasty face.

  I sat in the chair Mr. Dark and Deadly had just vacated. It was still warm from his body and smelled delicious. None of which helped me concentrate on gnomelike Brad Pitt. Pretending that I wasn’t blushing bright enough to put Rudolf to shame and that I hadn’t been thinking about sex, I set my purse beside me and tried to exude confidence.

  “I imagine Kyle went over the particulars of the job, right?”

  “Um, yes, the illuminant enforcer position.”

  “Good.”

  I opened my mouth to explain that Kyle had misled him in regards to my actual skills, but Mr. Pitt pushed a small stack of papers across his desk, saying, “This outlines the starting pay and benefits. We, of course, need you to begin work immediately.”

  I glanced down at the top sheet and my mouth clicked shut. The starting pay was more than any of my previous salaries, and definitely more than I’d expected as a junior sales associate. It was more than enough to keep a roof over my head, my car in my possession, and expand my wardrobe substantially.

  I knew I should give the job more thought, but if I were honest with myself, I’d alre
ady made my decision when I’d left the coffee shop with Kyle. I’d found people who knew what soul-sight was. If there was anyone who could teach me how to eliminate my unwanted ability, it was these people. Kyle had spoken of protecting myself, but the best protection I could think of was not having soul-sight. Without it, evil creatures wouldn’t be curious about me and I could lead a normal, oblivious life. And, yes, I’d happily get paid while I learned how to eradicate it.

  “You’ll find that I’m very fair with my raises, but what you’ll be most interested in are the bonuses,” Mr. Pitt continued. “I understand the risks that you’ll take and the danger that you’ll be in. This salary covers the basics. Anything more dangerous gets you a bonus. It’s my form of hazard pay.”

  My doubt, briefly squelched, rose to a fever pitch again. I drowned it with visions of paying rent and a promise to myself that I’d be free of soul-sight long before there was any call for hazardous, bonus-worthy work. “What are ‘the basics’?”

  “Your daily duties. The basic cleansing of the region.”

  “What qualifies as more dangerous?”

  Mr. Pitt gave me a small smile. “Does this means you’re interested?”

  I was well aware that he hadn’t answered the question. He hadn’t answered either question, really—not to my understanding.

  I should have been walking for the door by now. I should have thought the whole experience was some loony joke. I should have gone back to pretending that Primordium didn’t exist. Instead, I said, “Kyle already left. You need me. I need to pay rent. I’ll take the job if you can offer me a starting incentive.”

  “Five thousand dollars, and you’ll start today.”

  I reached across the table and shook Mr. Pitt’s hand. “Done.”

  There was all the usual mundane paperwork to fill out and photocopy. It was so ordinary, it made my previous conversation with Kyle seem like a fanciful daydream.