Free Agent (11 page)

EVANGELINE WENT BACK
to the site of my mugging to get the pie box, while I was tasked with a more mundane problem: a lich. They're what happens when a warlock dies before his time. I believe it ought to be a requirement that every warlock attend weekly mortality counseling sessions, because I've never met one yet who thought it was time for him to go.

As usual for this kind of assignment, I brought backup, though more of the staple-slinging than the gunslinging sort. He was a by-the-hour, by-the-book sack of slime named Frank. We approached the brownstone and I felt it right away. It wasn't the subtle shift of my Agency bracelet. The place actually looked creepy. From the swing out front that kept rocking itself to the wind that played with my hair at the entrance to the courtyard and nowhere else.

“You ready?” I asked Frank.

He straightened his black-and-white suit. “Not entirely, but one never is. Remind me sometime and I'll tell you about the first one of these I ever did.”

“Not while you are on the clock. Grimm's orders.” Like most of the contractors, Frank worked hourly, which was nice, since Grimm didn't have to give him medical and dental. I knocked on the front door and it swung open slightly.

“I'm Marissa Locks, here on behalf of the Fairy Godfather. I'd like to talk this over,” I said to the empty hallway. “Give you a chance to go peacefully, uh, wherever it is you need to go.”

The building gasped as if it were waking up and taking a few breaths.

“Into the light. Tell it to go into the light.” Frank gave me a thumbs-up for encouragement. The estate management firm we were handling this for didn't care where it went, so long as it stopped gobbling up anyone who stepped inside.

I glared at Frank until he looked away. Once he shut his mouth I turned my attention back to the task at hand. “All right. You had your chance, now we do it the hard way.”

The door swung wide, inviting me in. I stepped away. Grimm and I had played “spot the horror movie goof” for the first eight months I worked for him, and one does not ever go through a door that opens on its own. For that matter, if your cat is down in the basement, you don't go looking for it either. The cat has four legs with which to climb out on its own.

“Sic 'em,” I said.

Frank approached the door, stapler in hand. He pinned a dozen papers to the doorway and stepped back.

I signed the summons and stuck it to the door frame. “I'll see you in thirty days.”

As we started to leave, every window in the building opened and slammed shut. The doorway flung itself wide and out of the darkness rushed a form of blackness wrapped in rage, clothed in bitterness. “What?” That one word took at least five syllables. That's long enough for the entire goblin constitution.

“Those papers constitute legal notice that I am beginning the eviction process. I had them notarized, and since I don't think ghosts sleep, you've got plenty of time to review the terms and conditions. Should you decide to accept a peaceful transition, contact Fairy Godfather by ether-net.” I finished the usual spiel and started to walk away. Beyond the threshold of its house, it couldn't do much more than yell at me.

It put a claw to the dried jawbone that formed its chin and thought for a moment. “Exorcism,” it said, hissing as it did.

I'd had this argument before. “Eviction. Cheaper and faster. Meet Frank Cole. Frank's under retainer and specializes in property law. So, take your time, read up on your rights, and when I come back in thirty days, we'll work this one of two ways. Method number one,” I drew a line in the air for emphasis, “you leave voluntarily. You go wherever it is liches go when they aren't haunting property that isn't legally theirs. I hire a hazmat team to come in and clean up the mess you left behind. Trust me, judging from the smell, it's a mess.”

It reached out for me with skeletal fingers, cold seeping off of it.

“Method number two involves accidentally delivering a truckload of salt to the place, accidentally burning the whole damn thing down, and salting the entire lot all the way up to where those nice surveyors placed the pretty little flags.”

The lich slowly withdrew its hands, fixing me with glowing eyes that were meant to induce nightmares. I waited, humming softly to myself, until an exasperated groan whistled through its jaws.

“I've gotten scarier things than you from carnival games. Move out.” When I last looked back it was haunting the doorstep, probably trying to figure out what “rights of remainder” meant. Frank wasn't a priest, but he passed his bar.

Grimm didn't mind working with the odd hangman or executioner. You know, respectable professions. Lawyers, on the other hand, Grimm couldn't stand, so it always fell to me. Frank was fine in my book. He worked for greenbacks, and he knew his way around the property code. In my book that made him not only magical, but damn near a wizard.

 • • • 

BACK AT THE
Agency, Evangeline had struck gold, if an empty pie box fished from a Dumpster could be considered gold. It was a sad comment on my life that I was excited to see it. Grimm already had it put into the Visions Room. The Visions Room was weird even by Agency standards. For those of us without the Sight, it worked like a little window into the spirit world. Prisms covered each wall, and I couldn't go in there without getting nauseous. Grimm checked for traces of what had been in the box.

“Curse.” Evangeline mouthed the word so as not to bring down the wrath of Grimm.

“I can read lips in sixteen languages, you know,” said Grimm.

I looked through the window. “Fifteen. Pig Latin is not a language.”

“Tell that to the Three Little Pigs. If I can deliver Christmas Mass in it, it's a language.”

I gave up. “So what is it? And don't bother saying a pie box.”

Grimm gave me a look of contempt. “I'd say it's a pie box, but that's because you asked the wrong question. The right question, my dear, is ‘what was in it?' Be precise.”

“A curse,” I said.

He shook his head. “A curse shell. So a curse can move about in daylight and even cross the midnight boundary without evaporating.”

“You said there aren't any real curses anymore,” said Evangeline, “and any time I thought I was working against a curse, all I had to do was remember people are clever, people are resourceful, and people are a thousand times nastier than curses.”

“That's sound advice, my lady,” said Grimm, “and you would do well to keep it in mind, but there is no point in pretending it is not what we believe. It is a curse. Even more, it is an old curse, of a type rarely used even when they were common.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “the fae blessings, they're like a curse, right?”

Grimm nodded.

“So why don't they need a shell to follow me around? Why don't they evaporate at midnight?”

“Marissa, didn't I send you to college for four long years?” asked Grimm.

He knew the answer was yes, which meant he wasn't interested in the answer. They did need a shell to keep safe, they had to. Then it hit me. “They've already got one.” Me.

“Clever girl,” said Grimm.

I think I should have asked the Fae Mother about the fine print before I accepted.

“Enough pining about bad decisions, my dear,” said Grimm. “I consider the question of what was aimed at the prince closed. The next order of business is to determine exactly what was aimed at the prince.” If this was another of Grimm's “think it throughs,” he'd lost me, or maybe I'd slept through that lecture.

“Why are we doing this?” I asked, “You don't usually do things out of the goodness of your heart.” Thing was, I was certain there was goodness at times.

“I haven't trained either of you in spell craft, you know,” said Grimm, turning away from the mirror. The bald spot on the back of his head reminded me of a bowling ball. “And that was not an accident on my part. I believe magic is most powerful when it supplements your natural strengths, not when it replaces them.” He didn't bother adding that magic-and-Marissa was almost always a disaster. “This kind of curse, this method of delivering it, is beyond even the Black Queen. It bears the mark of another fairy.”

I tangentially knew other fairies existed. I mean, Grimm wouldn't work much out of state, and even then, it was at rates designed to make people choose more mundane methods of solving their problems. I'd never talked with another fairy, or even talked to another fairy's agent. “Or the fae. Another fairy wouldn't have mistaken me for the princess.” Grimm didn't deal with fae often, or if he did, he didn't involve me. We had the occasional customer who confused fae with fairies, which was similar to confusing a birthday candle with a volcano. The fae had their courts and kings and queens, politics and intrigue. Fairies, on the other hand, created the fae for entertainment, if you believed what Grimm let slip.

Grimm crossed his arms and shook his head. “My dear, I am certain another fairy is involved. When we read the future, it's the intents we are looking at. I intended Ari to carry the bottle of wine to the prince, and so that is what would have shown clearly. Our last-minute change would have been almost impossible to foretell. Reading intents is something not even the fae would attempt.”

This made sense. Grimm had tried once to explain how he influenced events, and the closest he could get to it was describing it like making a path in tall grass. Sure, someone might stray, but odds were strong they'd stick to the path. Grimm was good at leading people. I decided to take the opportunity to ask something that had been bothering me for a while. “Grimm, how's my debt looking?”

Definitely caught him off guard. He glanced around the room. “Evangeline, would you be so kind as to check on the princess?”

“Doing something else, somewhere else.” She put down her nail file and walked out.

When she was gone, I shut the door.

“That kind of question doesn't come up out of nowhere,” said Grimm, his voice stern.

“Answer the question, please.”

“Look at your vial, Marissa. What do you see?”

I pulled it out of my shirt and felt it grow in my hand. It was barely half full. I closed my eyes, unable to stand to look at it.

“What did you expect, my dear? It's only been six years.”

Anger poured through me, mixed with fear, and I snapped my eyes open and looked at him. “I expect I work my ass off. I work nights and weekends and every holiday known to man and magic. I walk into war zones and hostage situations with only a gun and a few spells, and most of the time I do a damn good job. I expected more.”

“A lifetime of Glitter takes time to build up, but that's not what this is about.”

“Evangeline has been here fourteen years in May. Clara and Jess, how long did they work for you full time?” I said, the frustration rising in me. “Did Clara actually pay you off, or did you demote her to part-time because she got too old? And Jess has so many brain injuries she ought to be collecting disability. I'm never getting out, Grimm. I'll be doing this when I'm sixty, and I'll still be alone.”

He held up one hand as if to stop me. “Clara has done favors for me for fifteen years. She has a grandson who has a condition I'm happy to help with in return. Jess I only call in emergencies, which this is. And if you will keep my confidence, Evangeline spends Glitter as fast as she earns it, and has ever since the accident. If you want a different life, make different choices.”

“I want to go see Liam.”

“No.”

“I sent a curse in his direction, I owe it to him to make sure he's all right,” I said, trying not to let the desperation show through.

Grimm shook his head. “Most curses, particularly against high-value targets, are of a ransom nature. The most popular of the heart-seeker era was sleep. The prince rides in, kisses the maiden, and revives her. They live happily ever after because while the prince paid to have her cursed, he didn't pay to have her killed. Your accidental prince is most likely having the afternoon nap of his life.”

“I want to be sure. You said you wanted to know exactly what was used against Mihail. I say Liam's the answer.” I was on fire now, I knew I had him.

“He's more like the problem where you are concerned, my dear. I will send Evangeline to check on him tomorrow. If he's sleeping I'll arrange a guard to make sure nothing improper happens to him.”

“I want to go,” I said, sounding more like a little girl than an adult.

Grimm leaned in as if getting a better look at me. “I think you underestimate your skills, Marissa. You are exceedingly good at what I ask you to do. For that reason, it is likely you are the last person he would want to see.”

I WAS IN
Upper Kingdom, and it should have been fantastic, but my heart was in a speeding convertible breaking every traffic law available on its way to visit Liam. Liam Stone. He had a last name, and I got it from Evangeline before she left. I didn't usually collect last names; they got to be a liability. I sat in a bus moving ever closer to the heart of Kingdom, only a few blocks from the palace itself.

Evangeline was checking in on my accidental prince, and I was doing homework on Ari's almost one, trying to figure out how something as basic as a potion could have failed. The bus finally got to within a few blocks of my stop, and I walked without fear on the high streets of Kingdom. Here you were more likely to meet a king in his convertible or a queen returning from the spa than a dwarf or a witch. Everywhere I looked, I saw police. Some stood on street corners, some rode white horses through the crowds as they made way for yet another royal procession, completely fouling the bus schedules.

I walked up to the doorman and presented my Agency card. “Marissa Locks, here to see Queen Mihail. I have an appointment.” The Second Royal Family was orthodox. When the prince took the throne, he'd never use a first name again. It probably made telling whose coffee mug was whose more difficult.

In the old days each royal family built a castle. These days they owned skyscrapers. Somewhere at the top of that building I hoped I'd find answers to our princess problem. The doorman looked at my card, glanced at my Agency bracelet, and waved me in. I understood the look of disdain that he gave me. I was a fairy's hired help, but at least I was human.

Truth was, Upper Kingdom was almost all humans. We pushed the dwarves and the elves and most all the other friendly creatures out to Middle Kingdom centuries ago. They could check our bags or deliver the mail, but actually live near the palace? No way. All the nasty things got to live in Lower Kingdom, kept in their own private slum.

Inside Mihail Tower, the lighting was clear and magical, giving the lobby soft shimmers that made the marble floor swim. The last time I saw an effect like that was when I mistakenly drank three Dixie cups of dwarvish liquor. That stuff tasted like cherry soda. Grimm said I proposed to the marble lion outside my apartment building and passed out in an ethanol coma. I never drank dwarvish liquor again.

I approached the elevator. No buttons, just a smooth, steel panel. As the minutes passed by, I waited and the elevator neither opened nor came. In frustration I slapped the steel panel. For my trouble I got a static shock that left my hand tingling. I heard the elevator coming from far above, a rattling hum that echoed through the metal. While I waited, a piano player tickled out a tune that echoed in the empty lobby. At last, the door opened and I stepped in. There was no elevator man, and no buttons.

It shot upward like a rocket. Gravity tried to pull my stomach out through my feet as I rose. The elevator doors slid open to reveal a suite entirely of windows, wide open. All around me was the city by day.

“Finally,” said a woman. I recognized her immediately as Queen Mihail. No flowing gowns or high crowns. She wore a clean-cut business suit and handed her tablet to an assistant as she strode across the marble to meet me. She wore flats, not heels. “I was wondering when the pawn would arrive.”

I'd have been upset, but I'd gotten used to how royalty spoke and acted. The princes and princesses were a bunch of worthless brats, but I kept my tongue in check around their parents. As we moved across the building, a man followed. I had thought him an assistant, but he was too wide, too heavy. Bodyguard or personal assassin.

“Pawn, that's Shigeru. You needn't fear him.”

Shigeru bowed to me, and I returned it, hoping I remembered the correct angle and length for an honorary bow.

“Don't be afraid, girl, he's not magical, he's Asian.” I had two Korean girls in my class at community college, and I knew Asian magic—it was hard work and high expectations. The tattoo on his arm matched that of the ninja assassins Grimm occasionally hired for government work. That meant Shigeru wasn't dangerous. He was deadly.

“You are late,” said Queen Mihail, taking a seat on a couch edge by a window. “Sit.”

Now, I wasn't afraid of heights. It doesn't pay to be—too many ledges, ladders, and crevices—but sitting on the edge of the couch I could look down the building. The farther down I looked, the more dizzy I got. “I'm sorry I'm late. I couldn't figure out how to call the elevator.” I actually thought I was fifteen minutes early. Grimm has this theory that me showing up early was actually a harbinger of the apocalypse. If he was right, every time I showed up late, I actually saved the world. You'd think he would thank me for it.

“My elevator isn't called. It's sent. I told it to pick up the head of the investigation and only the head of the investigation. I called Fairy Godfather five minutes ago, and you just showed up.”

Something was wrong. I'd accidentally stepped into a mystery, and all I had to go on were Saturday morning cartoons with a talking dog and monsters in masks. Something had gone wrong in the time it had taken me to bus through Kingdom and get here, and I was going to be damned if I let her throw me off. I'd look like an idiot. I'd make Grimm look like an idiot.

“Show me where it happened,” I said, taking a stab at it. She rose and I followed her up a sweeping staircase to another floor. She placed her hand on the door. It glowed for a moment, and opened. Huge, messy but recognizable: I stood in the middle of a bachelor pad. Mihail's apartment.

My bracelet tingled against my arm. That meant they had enough Glitter to put cancellation wards over the whole top floors. Grimm wasn't going to be watching over my shoulder. “I need to look around,” I said. Then, drawing on many Saturday mornings' worth of TV, I added, “We need to search for clues.” Only problem was, I was an agent, not a private investigator. In Kingdom, if you tried pulling the mask of a monster, it would probably pull the skin off your head.

“Shigeru will watch you. Don't try to take anything.” She left us alone.

“You are not an investigator.” He came over and stood behind me.

“No. I'm the messenger girl, errand girl, that sort of thing. I was supposed to be filling in a questionnaire about the prince's magical tolerances. We had a basic love potion fail on him.”

“You assume the prince is capable of love. May I have your gun for safekeeping?” I hadn't put a hand on my purse or looked at it once, but he knew. “It would make me less, how to say? Tense.”

It wasn't like shooting him was an option anyway, so I took it out, pulled the clip, and handed it to him.

“Thank you.” He tucked it into a deep pocket in his loose black pants. “I assist the royal family in all positions, so I will answer your questions.”

“Is there someplace we can sit? Trust me, I'm not going to take anything he's touched.”

I think a smile almost made it out, but he stifled it. “You have met the prince.”

“Yeah. We've talked more than I'd like.” I was actually glad I had met Liam instead. Three dates with Mihail would have triggered my gag reflex. His apartment was actually decorated with paintings: paintings of himself.

“Look, when I get back, Grimm's gonna want to know what happened, and I don't want to look bad. I'm a messenger, but even a messenger wants to do good by their boss. What'd she call Fairy Godfather about?”

Shigeru leaned back and blinked, his eyes getting wider. “The prince, Mihail. He is missing. Kidnapped.”

That did it. I took pride in knowing when to call for help, and when to handle things myself. “You get bracelet reception anywhere in here?”

“That corner. Wards are weakest there. You're above most of the normal interference, anyway.”

I wandered to the corner, stepping over discarded laundry and avoiding anything that had so much as touched the prince. The moment I hit the corner my bracelet shook like it was going to tear my arm off. The wall was all glass and the view made me want to hurl, so I took out the compact and focused on the tiny mirror.

“Grimm?” When I saw him I knew things were bad.

“Marissa, where are you?”

“Mihail's apartment. Don't worry. I showed up and the queen figured I was here to look into it. I need an investigator and the cops. This isn't my area of expertise, Grimm.”

“There's a secondary team on their way already and I've contacted the police, as they should have to begin with. Simply tell the queen you don't believe her son's case is getting enough attention, and you've dispatched a squad to handle it.”

“I dispatched them?”

“Let her believe what she wants to.”

I heard Evangeline's voice, distant and broken. “Let. Me. Talk to her.”

“Not now,” said Grimm, but I could feel her reaching through him.

I had this horrible feeling in my stomach and needed to lean against the window. “What's wrong?”

“We'll discuss it when you return,” said Grimm.

I felt Evangeline reaching out again. “Tell her.”

Grimm dropped his eyes. “There's been an accident at Liam's house.”

“Show her,” said Evangeline.

Grimm didn't usually connect us like that, and while his magic reached into our ears he almost never did anything with our other senses. “You need to trust your own eyes,” he always said, but I felt my vision slipping away. I stood, too tall, and at the wrong angles. I was looking through Evangeline's eyes. It had been a house, or a barn, or a house with a workshop, I don't know. Everything left was charred chunks of wood and twisted bits of wrought iron.

Evangeline strode across the charred ground, each step so foreign I was sure she'd fall over. She reached down and shook the ashes from something. A silver snake—the curse shell. Its eyes were lifeless; it rattled and clinked as she picked it up. Grimm cut the link to Evangeline and I sagged against the window.

“He's not dead, I already checked,” said Grimm. “I can't seem to find him.”

“I gotta go.” I snapped the compact closed. My gaze wandered out over the city and the world spun, slick with tears and fear and pain. Hands seized me and led me from the window, and I was unwilling to resist.

“Sit,” said Shigeru, and I collapsed onto a couch by a king-sized bed. “Bad news.” He sat on the edge of the bed.

I nodded. I struggled to find my voice, to focus on my job. “Team of investigators coming. Cops too. Some of them are friends, sort of.”

“I will restrain myself. I do not believe you will take anything. When you are ready, the doors beside the elevator lead down.” He put his hand on my shoulder as he spoke. “Bad news and good news are brothers. Where one is, the other is never far behind.”

My eyes ached, my head pounded, and I blew my nose on a tissue and tossed it in the trash by the bed. That's when the dressing mirror caught my eye.

It was long and narrow and ugly, obviously a family relic from a time when fine copper mirrors couldn't be had. The thing was a silver mirror, the old kind, with a silver platter painted and polished until it held a dim reflection. The polish had long since worn off it and the silvering looked like sludge that had run down the mirror, leaving lumps. What bugged me was the feeling I got when I looked at it. It's the same feeling I got when Grimm watched during an assignment. For a moment, the desire to touch it seized me. The thought of Mihail's hand doing the same washed over me like cold water, and the moment was gone.

I met the queen on the way down, Shigeru close behind.

I looked her straight in the face, always the best way to lie. “I've decided this case deserves more attention. I've ordered a team of investigators, and contacted my most trusted detectives. I made it clear there was no higher priority.”

A speaker chimed, and the doorman spoke. “My lady, a group begs admittance.”

“I will send the elevator. Allow them in,” the queen said. “Pawn, come with me.”

Shigeru followed along behind us, padding softly on the carpet, so close he almost brushed me. She led me to a granite serving room separated by low marble walls.

“You'll take care of the investigation, won't you?”

Grimm had told me to let her believe what she wanted to, but the look in her eyes made me worried. “Yes, Your Highness. I'll be overseeing it personally.”

She popped the cork from a wine bottle and poured rich red merlot into a glass. “It always falls to us when trouble comes. A man may make money, and earn Glitter, and make a thousand decisions. When trouble comes, it is a woman who deals with it.”

“I do what I'm told.” It was a somewhat truth.

“Then listen to what I'm telling you. My son has done something, or offended someone. I do not know what or who, but I will be the one to deal with him. When you find him, you will contact me. My gratitude will be impressive. I can give you rewards your Godfather cannot.”