The Enforcer

By Matthew Leonard

SOMEONE has to rule the world. Thankfully, the mad mage Carol is not that sap. As the Enforcer, she exerts the will of her dark masters through subtle touches on the machinery of the world. She lurks behind the men of mortal power, offering solutions to their woes...for a price.

NOW the Kitsune catastrophe has left the mage Family short on manpower and neck deep in issues. The secret world threatens to buckle, and Carol must bribe, threaten, and cajole to maintain her grip on the rebellious beast Tribes and preserve the work of her unnatural life.

YET some threats exceed even the Enforcer’s power. On a sunny day in Los Angeles, Carol will face her old tragedy reflected in the face of two children who have learned too much. She will face the greatest threat to the Family’s occult rule in generations. The fires will rise, and she will have to answer to herself and to the children...

JUST how much blood will she shed to maintain her power?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Leonard
• Release date: Jun 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996561624

Book preview

The Enforcer

By Matthew Leonard

Cover art by Cody A.J. Simpson. Check him out at: http://www.cajsimpson.com

You can find me at http://www.aetherdrive.com

If you like this story, consider picking up my RPG! You can find Sparks of Light at http://www.drivethrurpg.com

Work copyright 2016 Matthew Leonard. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Lobbying

Carol jerked from the clutches of her usual nightmare to the exuberant knock of a solicitor on her apartment door. She laid a long moment, echoes of the cold Great Plains wind bringing her memories of blackened, charred wood. One hand automatically slid to the hiding spot of her revolver under the headboard. With that weapon firmly in hand, she waited out both shadows and the knocks.

Eventually, the solicitor gave up. If he was like the last five, he was hawking some quick money scheme with obscene interest rates and no money down. Scams like that thrived in this neighborhood, one step above poverty. The folks here had just enough money to be worth tricking them out of it.

She listened intently. A spry man could manage the jump to her second floor balcony. More than one solicitor dabbled in a bit of burglary when no one answered the knock.

Long years in her line of work had taught Carol to assume the worst of others.

The taste of the nightmare lingered sour on her tongue.

Two minutes passed without the shatter of glass. She took five deep breaths and summoned the Lady’s dark calm. Cool, velvet peace enveloped her, numbing fingertips and emotions both. When she breathed out, her breath fogged.

The nightmares will be there tomorrow night, she counseled herself. No need to fuss now.

Sitting up, she looked at her window rather than any clock. The palm tree outside cast its shadow directly onto her blinds. 8:30 AM, then, her usual time. If nothing else, her nightmares were punctual.

As the woman holding Los Angeles together, Carol could use more sleep at night. Recent events kept her working into the wee hours.

Damnable Kitsune…

Problems aside, she had a busy day to come. She kicked out of her sheets and threw open her closet. Inside, a dozen variations of the same outfit waited: long sleeved cowboy shirts, work jeans, Army surplus boots. Supple leather gloved supplemented her thrift store look.

She spent a full minute carefully working the leather over her knuckles and tucking them into her sleeves. As a mage, her life depended on attention to this detail.

A single errant brush on the street, hand against hand, could get her killed. The great river flowed best by flesh on flesh, after all. Aether, source of her power, always waited to betray. It hungered for human contact to unlock its flow. A kiss, a bare handshake, an angry swat…

A mage without aether was little more than a snack for the feral beasts that lurked beyond civilization.

Frankly, Carol would rather wrestle those beasts than save Los Angeles from itself, but she did not get a say in the matter.

As she pulled her greying hair into a severe ponytail, she surveyed her features. Worn, weathered, her crow’s feet pronounced – a hard won forty years. The soft living beach bums around here would think her a grandmother if they bothered to notice her at all. She stood as tall as most men and maintained herself like she was still slinging hay bales with the dawn. Privately, she acknowledged the vanity in a woman of her position pretending to a farmer’s life. Some things could not be surrendered, long after the fires burned out.

The plastic brats strutting along the beach front could pity Carol for her age. She looked pretty damn good for turning ninety one this spring.

Inspection complete, Carol fetched her revolver, slid it into the holster at her hip, and patted the cold metal. Hello, Silence, my old friend. Shall we crush the world beneath our boot once more today?

Only one piece of equipment remained.

She eyed the smartphone on her dresser with distaste. It had run out of power at midnight last night, and she resented vaunted mobile technology that required eight hours a day plugged into the wall. When she turned the thing back on, it presented her with several dozen unanswered text messages and a banner advertisement.

She had an hour until her first appointment, and she spent most of that time wrestling with the annoyances of this modern life. Such soulless drivel. There was no personality to be found in obsequious emails and incessant texts.

Worse, her particular talent was useless without ears to hear and flesh to obey. Her Voice required flesh to obey.

Regardless of distance, the First Family empire required constant supervision. Mages across the global sent her reports and requests. Supplicants begged for favors. Governments vied for power. Idiotic young adults posted whatever strange things they found online for anyone to find. Each required a different touch – a different invisible string.

The fanciful might call Carol the Illuminati or some other such nonsense. Keeper of the Veil, suppressor of the truth, demiurge.

She preferred to think of herself as a dedicated lobbyist. She provided solutions to problems.

Most of those problems involved people asking nosy questions or testing powers they did not understand. Such impatient creatures. Humanity would ascend at the Lady’s appointed time and not a day beforehand.

There would be a promised day for justice and reward both.

At 9:35, a young mage knocked on her door. She admitted him, looking the man up and down. The Lady had sculpted him as a youngster, barely more than a teenager, and he still retained those gangly edges twenty years down the line. He dressed in jeans and T-shirts like practically everyone these days. Both his arms were completely bare from the sleeves down.

My apologies for being late, he stammered. A native of Portugal, his English tended to run together when he was nervous.

Like when Carol stared at him.

She held her dismissive stare until he audibly swallowed. Then she stepped back and beckoned him inside. Welcome, Tomas. How is Mexico City? I heard you had a dreadful winter.

He took a seat at her kitchen table and rubbed his palms, skin grating on skin. Fine. Pollution, drugs, corruption. All normal.

She mentally consulted the reports from his domain. What about the matter with the academics? The paleontologists?

I found a weak point not long after my last report, ma’am. One of the research leaders is a niece to a politician.

Ah. Carol smiled. Though she could guess the rest, she probed anyways. How did you resolve this issue?

I talked to our mutual friend in the government and arranged her to be given a more rewarding dig. Tenochtitlan is rather well trod, after all. He smiled. "He actually owes me now since I was able to point the girl to a new site."

That site being?

Tomas smirked. The only Kitsune shrine left in Mexico.

Carol nodded her approval. She was not worried the archaeologists would stumble upon some secret in the shrine. First, Kitsune magic was useless to humans. Second, the Lady was very thorough in those ancient days when she adjusted the world’s soils to match her new history. Her job would be utterly impossible if she had to worry about somebody digging up Kin bones. If the Kitsune down there give you trouble?

I’m ready. In fact, I don’t even have to be there now that its set up. With the mess up here, I wanted to be ready to help if you needed manpower… He trailed off hopefully, fishing.

She pretended to consider. Yes, the waters are indeed busy.

Last week, a band of frothing Ursa took down a Coast Guard vessel. Understandably, this rather upset the United States government – sixty men and women torn to shreds not ten miles from the port of Los Angeles. Things were…delicate…right now.

Only four of the ancient beast Tribes remained in this world to give Carol grief, but the bear men were still a disaster waiting to happen. They cared little for the rule of law. At least the other Tribes made motions of obeying the Enforcer.

She sometimes fantasized that the Kin would give her the pretext, the spark needed to bring down the Lady’s purifying tidal wave.

We should just wipe them all out, Tomas said. They cannot stand against us!

Actually, they can, she chided. Though she kept her assistants out of the loop as much as possible, she would not tolerate such an ignorant comment.

The young mage stared at her incredulously.

My fellows, Davis and Eli, are dead. First Father has retreated to seclusion. The only two of the Inner Council remaining are myself and Wyatt. Without the Soul Knife, we cannot create the Paths for our newest mages. Tell me, Tomas. Will you be first against the Kin?

He shrank back like a scolded child. I…I apologize, ma’am.

Rest assured that I have the matter in hand. She did not. I will be dealing with this shortly. Unlikely. Despite their recent temerity, the Kin are remnants of the world before, and we will deal with them in time.

Or some dirty Kin would find the Soul Knife before the Family and unmake everything they stood for.

An empire required confidence from its leaders, and so she projected assurance. Simple as that.

He nodded, equal parts mollified and chided. Tomas could reassure himself that he remained, by proxy of his masters, on top of the dog house.

Now. It is not your duty to worry about the Kin. Nor hers, though she had petitioned for it numerous times. Father denied her over and over, citing her history…

She smothered that thought with a blanket of detached calm.

Tell me of the network. He had alluded to it in his report like a nervous pup.

Tomas squirmed in his chair. His fingers grated back and forth like a pepper grinder. It tried to…shift.

To shift, Carol repeated coolly.

Yes. The great river attempted to jump its banks.

"I was not aware that the great river was in the habit of squirming," she purred, leaning forward with her gloved hands clenched.

Neither were we! Tomas excused hastily. Don’t worry! We found a stop gap!

Carol envisioned the mages in Tenochtitlan desperately duct taping the site together, scrambling in that dark cave where the stones glowed an angry violet only a few dozen feet beneath the tourist trap.

We were able to nail the great river down with an act of sacrifice.

Blood, then, spilled in great swirling sigils.

If we lose the network, we lose everything. This is acceptable.

Her stomach clenched anyways. She dwelled a moment, one finger tracing down the barrel of Silence. It remained cold and dormant, a fragment of dark waters and calm.

If it attempts to jump again, do what you must, she said at last. We have no choice.

Yes, ma’am. His hands finally ceased that incessant grinding.

Criminals are preferable.

Of course.

The shadows in her apartment flickered like a flame’s sigh. Her throat constricted, and she strove to quell the rebellious thoughts. Absolutely no children.

Of course not!

Dark, dangerous thoughts receded. Only the deserving, the criminal, would die for this. Was there anything else?

He shook his head.

You are dismissed.

Tomas stood, nodded his respect, and fled the apartment.

***

Twenty new emails waited for her after the meeting. In two hours, she needed to attend a lunch meeting with one of her older contacts and deliver some very bad news. After that, she needed to deal with a floating informant stirring up suspiciously specific rumors on the internet.

This was her life. Babysitting the blind world.

A steady stream of complaints landed on her phone from the rich and powerful. Senators and CEOs were really quite needy. Long accustomed to bossing everyone around, they came to her like petulant children with their demands of favors and secrets.

They stole my intellectual property.

Nuh-uh, we found it fair and square in this laptop left at the conference!

Japan won’t let