Free Agent (27 page)

The harakathin rolled in the grass, biting and squealing and screaming until Consecro used the dagger like a club, bashing Beatus. He limped over, the dagger in his hands like a broadsword.

Please
, I thought,
please let it be her. You are mine.
He kept his little snout down, and he refused to look at me as he approached. He raised the dagger, a gleeful smile on his face. And he brought it down, driving it through my palm.

Pain shot through me and up my arm like I had never known. As my blood touched it, the dagger changed back, becoming the claw root again. It clasped my fingers like an old friend, letting my blood dribble onto it.

“I have seen your desires,” said Godmother, “and I fulfill them. I grant you your third wish. You will never be alone again.” I felt her presence descend on me like rain, pattering into my heart and mind, pushing on me, and all the while the claw writhed in my hand. As it did, an idea took form. I pushed it away, refusing to let it take focus.

I shaped my mind, calling on all the need in my heart, to see her as I needed her to be, and she changed. “Yes,” she said, “yes.” Her gray hair became black and her pale skin tan and the smell of the rain became the scent I knew from a hundred nights of reading with her or doing homework. It was the smell when she hugged me when I was sick, and when I opened my eyes, Fairy Godmother was gone. I stood with my Mom.

I gripped the Root of Lies in my hand as she hovered over me, overpowering me. Becoming me.

“Ask,” she said, feeling the question that came to me every time I saw Mom.

I waited, waited until I could feel her taking over my thoughts. I finally asked the question I knew I always had.

“Mom, do you love me?”

She breathed out a scent of warmth and kindness I'd never known. I knew the truth.

“Of course I do.”

There was one heartbeat of peace, one moment of silence, and I felt the Root tear in to me. Touching the Seal felt like electric death, and I thought I'd felt the worst I could. All the pain of six years, all the broken bones and stitches, it was nothing. The Root of Lies shot up through my skin, tearing through my arm and into her. She screamed and fought, but it held her as tightly as I did, and the thorns cut into her lungs, choking her screams into whistles. Still it grew, curling around her and through her. Thorns sliced into my scalp where our heads touched.

She writhed and twisted as the thorns consumed her. Glitter ran from her like blood as the thorns burst through her skin and thickened, blackened. The thorn branches holding me to Fairy Godmother crackled and broke. I collapsed forward, and lay in the grass, alone with pain and blood.

Something bumped into my chest, and I realized Beatus and Consecro stood before me. I willed them to come, and they did. First Beatus, then Consecro, they snuggled up next to me. In this world, I could feel them. I put my good hand on Consecro's head and held him close. The sun set for the final time on this world, and without Godmother I could never leave. I curled up with my harakathin and waited for the end.

 • • • 

I FELT HIM
coming before I saw him, a rumbling like an earthquake, a light shining like the first sunrise on earth. His light swept over me, shining like a spotlight, so bright it blinded me. In the light, I saw Fairy Godmother was gone. The Root of Lies had grown through her, tearing her apart, replacing every piece of her with thorns. Where she had stood, a thorn tree loomed, bent into the shape of a woman. She was dead, and the Root was destroyed. A ball of blazing light settled before me, brilliant like the rainbow, brighter than the sun.

“Marissa, my dear, what did I tell you about mirrors?”

When I looked at Grimm, there was this odd moment. See, I'd never seen him from the waist down, so I didn't have an image of what he looked like. He looked like a butler. He looked at his legs. “I had hoped you would give me a more striking figure.”

“It suits you.” I began to shiver violently, though I no longer felt the cold. Thorns stuck out through my skin in places, and my hand was a pile of ruined flesh where the Root had grown through it.

Grimm reached down and took my good hand. “This is my home now, and in it, you are what I make you.”

I winced and looked away, waiting for the wrenching healing to begin.

“Marissa, here I am not limited in my abilities.” Grimm spoke softly, patiently.

I opened my eyes in time to see a burst of light wash across me. Warmth like fire raced along me, tracing my wounds, numbing the pain. The thorns dissolved like butter and the cuts healed. My skin grew tan and smooth. I wished Grimm would heal like that more often. Only the scars remained on my hand, tracing out in white the handmaiden's mark. “You can't do anything about this?”

“I'm afraid not. Your scars are not something I can take from you.” A table appeared behind him. “You said once I've never had you over for dinner.” Food grew on the table from a vine, with goblets and platters. “It never occurred to me to, shall we say, turn down the volume on my realm. Would you like to have dinner?”

Though I no longer ached, I was tired beyond all knowledge. “I want to go home. Rain check?”

“Out through the mirror is a more difficult task,” said Grimm, “but one I can handle. We'll go through fae to retrieve Ari, and that means you must sleep. I would not have you ruined for your home by the journey.” A portal sliced itself out of the air, and through it came the colors and sounds of fae, pale against the colors here. “Do you trust me?”

A bed appeared, a luxurious four-poster bed with deep satin sheets and silk pillows. As I touched them, all the weariness of six years came on me. I barely managed to climb in before my head became too heavy to keep off the pillow. Grimm leaned over and tucked me in.

“Sleep, my dear, and dream.” Sleep wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and took me home.

I dreamed we traveled down a tunnel made of diamond, but the diamond moved in waves like the ocean, and mighty voices thundered around me as I passed. The Fae Mother came to me, gliding on the wind.

I trembled when she reached out to me.

“Peace. You do not need to fear my touch here. The Princess has restored our Seal. We have ceased our war. But yours is only beginning.”

I remembered her words so long ago when she blessed me. The Black Queen would come. I would drink of a river of pain.

“You must tell her. She must become what she is, if there is to be hope.”

“Who, Ari?” I asked, and she nodded. Behind me, I realized Ari traveled with us, her eyes shut tight. My bed had changed into a box that looked disturbingly like a coffin.

The Fae Mother brushed my cheek. “You will bring the end of the world, and carry its hope.” She drifted away, carried by the wind. We sailed on a river of rainbow, until darkness wrapped me and I truly slept, until I heard his voice.

“Go on, kiss her,” said Grimm. “It is traditional.”

I opened my eyes, and I saw Liam's face. He smiled at me in that way I had waited so long for, and I flung my arms up around him. I was free. He was mine.

I STOPPED BY
the Agency on my way out of town, and of course Liam went with me. Jess asked for one more look at Liam's curse. I watched him through the normal monitor, almost as pleased to see him shirtless as he was to see me.

Jess had him turn around enough times that I figured she was no longer looking at the curse. “That's one hell of an entanglement.” She shook her head.

“I've seen worse,” said Grimm. “It's been a couple of millennia since then, but with two of you working on it, I'm certain you could earn enough Glitter for a cure. I doubt it would take more than a couple of decades.”

I let out an offended gasp. “What happened to the ‘No Men' rule?”

“I'll make an exception in this case.”

“No thanks. I'm looking forward to getting back to doing art.” Liam put his flannel shirt back on, buttoning each row with care.

“I could use the services of a half-dragon,” said Grimm, and he morphed into his temptress form, a lush woman with purple locks of hair. “And you'll love the way we sign our contracts.”

I hooked my arm into Liam's and pulled him toward the door. “Vienna, Grimm. We're taking some time.”

“I'm well aware of that. Leaving me to handle cleanup from the largest war in sixty years. I'll be overseeing reconstruction of Kingdom for the next six months, so don't think you'll get out of it.” I shook my head. “Running DNA tests on the remains of half of Kingdom's army isn't my idea of relaxation.”

Grimm shifted back to his usual self. “Well, I've got offers for work in the old country. In case you get bored.”

I tossed Ari the keys to my apartment. “You'll keep an eye on it while I'm gone?”

She looked at the key ring. “No car key?”

“I want you alive when I come back.”

Jess came over and put her hand on Ari's shoulder. “I taught Evangeline how to drive. I can teach anyone.”

Ari turned a little green. “I don't have anywhere else to go. Mother's banned me from Kingdom, I don't have a job. I was supposed to marry for happiness.”

Grimm cleared his throat. “In light of past events, I've been considering an opportunity for new agents. I offer medical, dental, and employee education plans. You'll need the medical and dental more than the salary.”

“Sorcery?” said Ari, a note of hope in her voice. She practically beamed with excitement.

Grimm crossed his arms and gave her a stern look. “College, young lady. A smart agent is an effective agent. Though were you to excel in your normal studies, we might negotiate access to other training resources.”

I shook my head. “I thought you had a ‘No princesses' rule.”

“Rules are made to be broken,” said Grimm.

Ari sat back in the chair, her eyes closed.

“Of course, young lady, there's the matter of how we sign our contracts.”

“Not gonna happen.” Ari threw a pen at the mirror for emphasis.

We walked out without looking back. Ari would be fine. We rode down in the elevator and caught a cab for the airport. I snuggled up to Liam and put my head on his chest. He put an arm around me and squeezed me so tight my ribs hurt. “Is this the ever after I keep hearing about?”

I thought about the prophecies I'd heard from the Fae Mother. I ran my fingers over the scars on my hand and made a decision. I couldn't get back what I once had. I didn't know what might come. But I could enjoy the now. “I don't know, but at least I've got the happy.”

TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT GRIMM AGENCY NOVEL

Armageddon Rules

COMING SOON FROM ACE BOOKS!

IN MY DEFENSE,
I didn't mean to start the Apocalypse. It wasn't just my personal aversion to oblivion; I had a clear financial motive: The end of the world is bad for business.

Speaking of business, that Monday began the same way almost every Monday had for the last three weeks, with a plague. Last week it was frogs.

I rolled into the office at about nine forty-five, and, as usual, the Agency was pure chaos. Rosa—our receptionist—was opening a fresh container of Taser darts and we'd only been open for forty-five minutes.

“Miss Locks, you gotta help.” A man in an orange jumpsuit with “Corrections Department” stamped in block letters down the side grabbed my shoulder as I walked past, spinning me around. “I gotta get me a wish.”

Strike one: Escaping from a garbage pickup crew. Strike two: Putting grubby fingers on my brand-new tweed top. Strike three: Calling me “Miss” instead of “Ms.” Locks. Far as I was concerned, Miss Locks left the building the day I turned eighteen and hadn't been seen around here since.

“I'll make a few calls.” To the police, if possible. To the morgue, if necessary.

He nodded gratefully and sat down on a bench.

I slipped through the “Staff Only” door, made it to the kitchen, and had almost poured a cup of coffee before the screaming started. One should never face disaster without caffeine. So I got my coffee and headed back out to the lobby, strolling through the door to see exactly what we'd been struck with.

Rats ran everywhere. They scrabbled on the walls, gnawed on the furniture, and covered the floor like a shag carpet from 1973. In the middle of the lobby stood a teenage girl, six feet tall, rail thin, with platinum blond hair. Her clothes hung in tatters from bony white arms, and red blotches surrounded each of her many, many piercings. Her extravagant collection of tattoos spoke of poor impulse control and even worse decision-making skills. She looked up at me with baleful eyes. “Please. I need help.”

I glanced around the room. The couple nearest the door held a cage with a toad, the kobold soccer team waited for Grimm to refuse to help them, and the guy on the end still hadn't figured out this wasn't a payday loan joint. I opened the staff door and waved to her. “Come on.”

Rosa glowered at me, mumbling curses in Spanish. She hated when I picked clients, and if she had her way, we'd take them one at a time, from number one to number six hundred in exactly that order. Even if fifty-three was a starving fungal giant and sixty-two was a samurai with a serious shitake addiction. To her credit, Rosa kept her mouth shut. One does not argue with the boss.

We headed down the hall to a conference room, me, the girl, and enough rats to supply a hot-dog factory running three shifts, seven days a week. I took a seat on one side of the table, she took a seat on the other, and the rats took seats
everywhere
. Flicking one off my knee, I began the interview. “So what exactly do you want me to do for you?”

Tears smudged the sludge of makeup she wore, and she waved her arms around. “Duh. Isn't it obvious?”

Absolutely. Obvious that she needed help. Figuring out which kind first, that was the hard part. I walked over and ran my fingers through her tangled, crispy hair, took a good look at all sixteen rings in her ear, and the tasteful depiction on her shoulder of what was either Bob Dylan as “The Man in the Long Black Coat,” or a velociraptor playing acoustic guitar. “We can help. First, let's take out those piercings. I'll get you some alcohol and a prescription for some antibiotics. Your hair is crunchy from whatever you used to bleach it, and the tattoos are going to take years to remove.”

A rat jumped into my coffee and poked its head out. The girl stared as I fished it out by the tail, set it on the table, and handed it a sugar cube.

“What about the rats?”

I took another sip of coffee, which tasted Parisian, with a hint of rat. “What about them?”

“The only thing I need is for you to get rid of the rats.” She shivered.

I pushed a box of tissues across to her. “What's your name?”

She scratched out a tissue and wiped her eyes. The tissue caught in her makeup and left shreds clinging to her cheeks. “Elizabeth. I like Beth.”

I brushed the rats off the table between us and leaned forward, my mind already made up. “Well, Beth, I have good news and bad news. Good news is I can help with the hair, the piercings, and I've got a lady in my wardrobe department who can teach you how to use less than a pound of cosmetics a day. The bad news, I'm not going to do a thing about the rats.”

She stared at me as her brain tried to process what I said. I leaned across and patted her hand. “You look hungry.” Truth was, she looked like one of those commercials for starving kids.

“I can't eat. Every time I try to eat the rats take it from me.”

I should've asked about her credit. I should've asked Rosa if her application was complete, but one look at her said I'd found my charity case for the week. “I'm going to order a pizza or two. I'll have one of my employees bring a barrel of garbage up from the Dumpster to distract your companions. I need you to sit tight for a bit, okay?”

She nodded and put her head down on the table. Walking out the door, on the way to my office, I made a mental note to have the table cleaned, or burned, or both.

 • • • 

I HAD A
big office, almost the biggest in the Agency, which was only right, since for most things, most days, I was in charge. I was a partner; the junior partner, but definitely not a silent one.

I pulled a towel off the full-length mirror in the corner and made a call. “Grimm, how's it going?”

Grimm snapped into view in the mirror, looking more like an English butler than a sentient manifestation of magic. Grimm was the Fairy Godfather, founder of the Agency, once my boss, and sometimes my friend. He could grant wishes if he wanted to, but most people didn't need wishes. They needed solutions to their problems.

Just so we're clear, I had no magic. I wasn't a princess, witch, half-blood, or anything like that. The only magic I could work was performed with bullets, bacon, or boobs. Anything that couldn't be handled with the big three, I called in Grimm. I didn't call often.

He smiled, making the wrinkles in his face crease together. “Marissa, my dear, it is only Monday. Do you require my assistance already?” His voice always reminded me of some nature documentary narrator.

I shook my head. “Nah. Nothing we can't handle yet. Got a new piper though. She can't be more than seventeen.”

Grimm slid his glasses forward to look at me over the thick, black edges. “What, may I ask, is she piping?”

I shrugged. “The usual for newbies.” New pipers, particularly girls, always started with brainless, easy-to-influence creatures like rats or teenage boys. “If we can get her trained, this year's poodling will go a lot easier.”

He raised one eyebrow and pursed his lips. “And if you can't, my dear?”

“She can supply Kingdom with organic, free-range rats. Can you tell me where Ari is?”

Arianna, my right-hand woman, my best friend, my Girl Friday, or at least Girl Thursday. At her name, Grimm's lips turned down. “I already checked. She slept through her alarm, missed her bus to the Agency, and failed her civics test. On top of her Department of Licensing disaster, she's planning to call in sick.”

Ari had spent the last two years in college. Grimm and I had running bets on what she planned on majoring in. Grimm always said, “Do what you are best at.” From what I could tell, Ari was going to major in failing the driver's license test. “She failed this weekend? Couldn't you intervene?”

“Marissa, I
did
intervene. She mistook the accelerator for the volume control and drove three blocks through the market at full speed. Again. It took every bit of magic I could pull off to make certain no one got more than a little run over.”

“I'll go fetch her.” Ari could've walked into the Agency by that time, so it had nothing to do with the bus. Except another possibility occurred to me. “Did she fail one of your magic tests too?”

Grimm's expression said it all. He wouldn't meet my eyes, his face turned down. “Not exactly. She failed my pretest.”

Grimm had spent the last few years training Ari in magic. He traded passing tests in college for new lessons on how not to kill herself with magic. I remained unconvinced it was a fair trade. Grimm said he was taking his time because he didn't want her exposed to evil. If that were true, he wouldn't have made her take calculus.

I picked up my purse and took my jacket. “I'll be back soon. The piper's in 2A, I suggest nobody opens the door. The kobolds need to be turned down, Rosa will send away Payday George, and there's a frog prince waiting in the lobby.”

Grimm sighed and faded out of view. I wonder at times what he ever did without me.

 • • • 

ARI LIVED IN
a brownstone about twenty minutes from the Agency. Technically she lived alone. I knocked, and she answered without bothering to check the peephole. Her yellow sundress with matching hat made her pale complexion look a lot better, and she kept her red hair pulled back so that it didn't fall into her face.

I pulled my nine millimeter from my purse and pointed it at her. “What have I told you about answering the door without looking first?”

Ari ignored me and shuffled back inside. “I can see through the door, M, and Yeller would take care of anyone who bothered me.” At the sound of his name, a dog the size of a Shetland pony padded forward. Only Ari would keep a hellhound as a pet. He looked like Cujo crossed with an alligator and a zombie. None of those crosses improved his disposition.

He stared at me, the gun in my hand, and began to growl, long and low. I put the gun away, since I'd grown somewhat attached to my hands. “Hey, Yeller. I have a poodle for you in the trunk of my car.” Yeller bared his teeth at me.

Ari left the door open and walked down the hall. “Come on in, M. I'm making tea.”

I
hated
Ari's apartment. She lived there because it was the only thing she could afford. She could afford it because it was haunted, and I don't mean “things that go bump in the night” haunted. I mean “things that devour your spirit.”

Inside, the apartment still looked as if the previous owner lived there (which he didn't) and like he was still around (he was). Ari brought out a teakettle and poured three cups, then sat back on a couch, the cover of which looked like woven hair. She clinked her spoon against the cup, like ringing a dinner bell. “Larry, I'm having tea with Marissa. Are you going to join us?”

The basement door blew open, and a ghastly form made of shadows flowed out.

I nodded to it. “Larry.”

It looked at me with those dull red orbs that passed for eyes, a look that said it would rather be devouring my spirit than sipping tea. “Marissa.”

That one word took five syllables. I didn't have the patience to talk with liches. I was
supposed
to have evicted this one a few years ago. Evictions were cheaper than exorcisms and worked about as often, but the day I went to court to close it, I made a nasty discovery.

I still remember standing there in my business suit with my property attorney at my side, while we waited for the lich to fail to make an appearance. They never showed—being bound to the place of one's death limited mobility options. Right as the judge was getting ready to approve it, the courtroom door swung open.

In lurched a postman, his mailbag still hanging from his side. He moved in awkward, jerky movements like a teenager at his first dance. The postman staggered to the bench and handed a scrawled paper to the judge. A few minutes later, when I
should
have been filing the new deed, I was sitting outside asking our lawyer how we got beat by a possessed postman.

I spent the better part of the next year fighting him. Well, technically him. Whether it was the grandma in her walker, or the hipster on his single-speed bike, they all developed an unholy knowledge of property law when possessed by Larry the Lich. I think the low point was getting hit with attorney's fees by an eight-year-old boy.

At that point we actually did research and discovered that before death, Larry the Lich had been Larry Gulberson, attorney-at-law. That was before he took up a more respectable profession, committing unspeakable acts of evil.

So we negotiated a new contract. Technically, Grimm and Larry did, and Ari sublet the top three floors from an undead spirit of wrath. He wasn't a terrible landlord for someone bound to this plane only by the sheer weight of his hatred and malice. Ari claimed he wasn't that bad, once you got past the glowing eyes, spectral form, and tendency to devour the meter man. She always did find the positive things.

Ari went with me when we needed to hunt uglies. She helped me out when I needed to tame something nasty. Even if she was part princess and part sorceress, I trusted her. It'd always been somewhat of a toss-up as to which I detested more, princesses or sorceresses. In Ari's case, I made an exception.

I stood at the coffee table. “You're late. Work started hours ago.”

“I didn't feel like coming in today. Summer semester tests are next week and I need to study more.” Ari made a terrible liar, her cheeks bright red, her hand over her mouth.

“I need your help with a new piper. She's a mess. Got so many piercings she looks like a tackle box, and more tattoos than the Detroit Lions cheerleading squad. I could use a hand.” I took my tea and sat down beside her. As I did, I winced where the fabric of my pants rubbed fresh burns.

Ari looked at me and nodded. “Liam singed you again?”

“Yeah.” My boyfriend, Liam, burned with more than desire.

Ari stood up. “I'll get you some ice. Where'd he get you this time?”