by J. C. Nelson
The heat of his skin made the asbestos-weave sheets Grimm got me glow white-hot. My hand stopped above his heart, feeling it beat beneath my fingertips.
I opened my mouth to whisper “I love you,” and what came out sounded like I swallowed a garbage disposal.
And Liam answered, mumbling in his sleep, in that same language.
I fought the nightmare, my own limbs sluggish. I could jerk my hands, but not control them, flinch, but not look away. Again, I spoke words, guttural, inhuman, and again he answered, this time, clearly.
I focused on the tips of my fingers, and the nails turned black, growing outward. They twisted, curled, until my index finger ended in a thorn the length of a steak knife. And my shaking hands turned back to him, sliding along his skin, the razor edge so sharp he would never know what cut him.
And right then, I stopped believing it was a dream.
While my hand worked its own magic, carving in red, my brain screamed in terror, because the cuts weren’t some lazy torture attempt. They formed an engraving, the basis for a binding.
With a flick, I cut the last crossbar into the sigil and watched as blood seeped to the edges. Spell power gathered around me, and I fought to close my eyes, winding up squinting. Unlike Grimm’s control of me, this I could almost overcome.
Inch by inch I warred with my own flesh, pulling my hand back from Liam. With the last of my will I forced my fingers to brush the golden bracelet on my wrist. The word that came from my mouth sounded like “gruaaahham,” but the intent was what mattered. I meant to call Grimm.
A beam of white light blasted from my bathroom, bounced off of the makeup mirror on my desk, and hit me in the chest, throwing me back onto the headboard.
My ears rang with the Black Queen’s laughter as her presence receded.
Liam sat up, throwing off a tangle of covers and shielding his eyes from the spotlight. Blood ran in trails down his skin from the cuts on his chest. “What in Inferno is going on here?”
“Mr. Stone, remain calm.” Grimm’s voice came from everywhere.
I remained unable to move, barely able to breathe, until at last the wave of light snapped off, letting me sink to the bed. My fingers crackled when I moved my right hand, thorns crumbling like broken leaves. “She tried—” My voice caught in my throat. “Was that a command?”
Grimm appeared in the makeup mirror, his gaze locked on Liam. “No. You wear her signet ring. The phrase used in the Court of Queens is ‘present by proxy.’ I suspect she was present.”
Liam looked down at his chest, just noticing the blood. “She was going to kill me.”
“No. She was going to bind you to her will.” Grimm spoke in the tone of gravediggers and undertakers. “It is time for the contingency plans we discussed.”
Liam shook his head. “No. I didn’t agree to that.”
“We are past the point of agreement, Mr. Stone. My daughter did not seek your agreement. I ask for your cooperation. It is no longer safe for you to be in Marissa’s presence.”
“What?” I tried to think of something better to say, but that one word was pushing it for the moment.
Grimm closed his eyes and looked down. “Isolde had no reason or desire to watch or act through you, until she saw you as access to Liam’s curse. Now there is no way she will stop. Her army of abominations is a second choice at best. She would rather she commanded a dragon.”
“Take it off. Please.” I pulled at the signet ring for the millionth time. Like always, it remained both loose on my hand and impossible to remove.
“My dear, I would, were it in my power. Mr. Stone, I can keep my daughter’s attention away only as long as I am present here. By the time you reach the curb, I’ll have a cab waiting to take you somewhere safe.”
Liam shook his head, but I knew that shake. I’d seen it when we fought and I won, when we argued and I won, when we discussed, and I won. He’d go. Instead, he turned to me, coming so close I could smell the woodsmoke on him. “Tomorrow. Ari will challenge the Court of Queens tomorrow. Just this once, I want you to do something for me.”
I blinked away tears. “Anything.”
“Stay here. Stay away. For once, let me rescue you.” He didn’t wait for me to answer, slinging a T-shirt over his shoulder, and stepping into a pair of pajamas. “I’ll come for you the second Ari takes over.”
Moments later, the front door opened and closed, and he was gone.
“I need your help, Fairy Godfather.” I sat up on my bed, my hand to my bracelet, ignoring the swirl and pop that told me he’d appeared in the mirror.
“I’m sorry, Marissa.”
“You should be. Why don’t you just give her what she wants? What is one life, if it saves millions more?” Tears came to me, and I didn’t try to hold them back.
“Out of love for my wife, I will not break my oath.” Grimm put his hand to his forehead. “This world is not meant to be a long-term destination for humans. Think of it as a bus stop with an eighty-four-year layover. Humans are born, they grow and learn, and they move on.”
“Does it even matter to you that people live or die? Isolde asked me something. She asked me what her first lie was. The lie by which she knew she had power. She’s promised to give me anything but my freedom in return.”
“If you believe I do not care who lives or dies, then my daughter has already managed to convince you of one lie.” Grimm crossed his arms. “But I don’t know the answer to her question. I don’t know what my daughter’s first lie was.” He looked up at me, and shook his head.
I threw a pillow at the mirror. “The Fairy Godfather does not admit to not knowing. He says, ‘I can find out.’ You want to tell me you could figure out ‘Rumpelstilskin’ as a name, but not your daughter’s first lie?”
“Yes, that’s precisely what I mean to tell you. And truth be told, Marissa, I couldn’t figure out that odious little goblin’s name either.”
“I’ve read the file. She came to you and asked for his name.”
“And I attempted to determine it. I was able to rule out so many options. Mary, Thomas, Jason.” Grimm ticked off names on his fingers to himself. “So many names I could be certain were not the answer.”
“So you sent her in there blind? Random names from a hat?”
“Yes. No.” Grimm conjured an image of the girl, her golden hair and tan complexion giving her a beauty marred by the fear in her eyes. “I gave her a list, narrowed down the choices for her, and told her to listen. Sometimes, all we can do is make an educated guess and hope for the best.”
“You’re not helping.”
Grimm’s exasperation boiled over, making his image tremble. “I’m doing what I can, my dear. Listen to my daughter. The human heart yearns to speak truth, and her actions might tell you as surely as her words.”
“Do you ever do any magic? You know, for a Fairy Godfather, you seem allergic to actually working a spell or two.”
“I am doing something right now. Something I’m about to devote all my attention to. Arianna and Liam are now the focus of Isolde’s attention. Liam because of the curse; Arianna, because my daughter has deduced her involvement in killing the lie.”
I thought I couldn’t feel any worse. I thought wrong, so wrong. “You have to keep both of them safe.”
“I will do what I can. But it will take all of my attention. I appreciate the situation, your solitude, and desire to have someone to speak to. I will not be responding to summons of any sort until this is resolved. The auguries say that if you remain in the apartment, no harm will come to you.”
“And if I leave?”
Grimm flickered for a moment, and returned, his face gray and sweaty. “I am a fairy. I may ask questions and receive answers, yes or no. I know only that if you stray, you will command a massacre. You will commit a murder.”
Twenty-Three
I CA
N’T SAY Grimm’s predictions that leaving my apartment would make me a murderer did much for my peace of mind. “You didn’t ask if I stay or not?”
Grimm shook his head. “I don’t believe in asking questions that can only lead to frustration. Stay calm. Be patient, and I assure you, deliverance is close at hand.” With that, he faded out of the mirror, leaving only an afterimage.
I crawled back into an empty bed, heaped covers over me, and tried to sleep.
• • •
TWELVE YEARS OF routine woke me before the alarm could, then refused to let me go back to sleep. Gray dawn light barely lit the brick wall outside my window. I couldn’t help worrying. The list of questions I worried about ran longer than Ari’s credit card bill. When would Isolde hand over control to Kyra? How would Ari and Liam handle a hundred of Isolde’s abominations when one nearly killed Ari last time?
I rolled out of bed, went out to eat breakfast . . . and froze.
On the kitchen table sat an empty bowl, a spoon, and a box of cereal. Running all the way back to the bed for the gun under my pillow would leave my back exposed, so I took one careful step after another backwards to the bed, felt around until I came up with my gun, then worked my way back to the kitchen. No one in the living room, so I padded over to the guest bedroom, where Svetlana slept in her coffinatorium. The crystal coffin still showed what was either a rotten corpse or a six-foot-long, 135-pound tuna fish sub sandwich.
“Marissa, breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” said an old man’s voice, from my kitchenette.
I spun, ready to fire.
The harbinger Death, manifesting as a Chinese senior citizen, sat in one of the two remaining chairs, waiting at my table.
I set my gun down on the counter, safety on. “You here to take me?”
“I wish.” Death rose, took a carton of milk from the fridge, and poured it into my bowl. “I heard the Black Queen has agreed to cull her handmaidens, and War wants to have a word with you.”
The harbinger War once tried to turn me into a killing machine. At least, that’s how I interpreted his gift, which I put on layaway. “I’m not interested.”
“He’s giving pointers to the other handmaiden. You’d be foolish to refuse him.”
I took a seat and poured my cereal. “Kyra might be interested in killing everyone. I’m not. And we have a plan to kill her army.”
“Marissa, in that history of the Black Queen you read so much, it never says anything about the armies.” Death turned to look at my bookcase, where one of the few surviving copies of a book on Isolde’s reign rested. Written by the mad historian Ian Brachus. Rumors of how it was printed in blood or bound with human skin surrounded the book, but from what I could tell, this was simply clever marketing. The faded black ink didn’t match any of Ari’s grimoires, most of which were printed in blood, and thanks to the first car I owned, I knew exactly what tanned human hide looked like. But I thought I owned the only copy remaining.
“You’ve read Brachus’s account of her reign?”
“No.” Death blushed slightly, turning his pale yellow skin a slightly darker shade. “But I witnessed many of the events firsthand. Those I missed, I caught up on by reading over your shoulder many nights. After learning what happened last time, I figured you’d put a blade through the other handmaidens at the first opportunity.”
I stowed away the urge to ask why Death had spied on me, in favor of a more urgent question. “Why would I do that?”
“The culling is meant to make sure only the most terrible of her servants is rewarded. After each culling, the surviving handmaidens received abilities far beyond mortal power. And this time, the Black Queen has the power of a fairy with which to bestow gifts. Forget her abominations. It’s Kyra herself you should be afraid of.” Death stared at me. “Your cereal is getting soggy, Marissa.”
“Does Grimm know?”
“Of course the elder fairy does, but I suspect, like everything else to do with his daughter, he underestimates. Don’t make his mistakes. Don’t underestimate Isolde or her servants.”
“I’ve faced Kyra before. I can handle her. Hell, Ari could handle her without using spells.”
Death shook his head. “Not once Kyra claims her title as the only handmaiden. If you run away, she wins by default. You can’t let that happen if you want your friends to survive, and I can only think of one way to prevent it.”
“I can’t fight her. I can barely use my sword. And she’ll have control of an army. And all those powers.” My frustration mounted, fueled by my inability to find a way to fix this.
“She doesn’t get the title or the powers until after the culling, if you challenge her. Talk to the harbinger War. Accept his gift. People are going to die anyway, Marissa. I suspect you’ll be a kinder, gentler overlord than she will.”
Death disappeared with a pop, leaving me alone with a bowl of mush. As I slurped my way through a breakfast I wasn’t really interested in, I couldn’t help wondering if at any moment Isolde might be peeking through my eyes.
If so, I hoped she liked looking at the dregs of milk and sugar.
The signet ring formed a link, allowing me to act as a proxy for her. The gold bracer on my wrist, no doubt, would let me call to her. Why on earth I’d want her here wasn’t a question I had a good answer to, since even Grimm wouldn’t take time off to answer me.
That’s when it hit me. Carefully putting my hand on the bracer, I thought of her and her perfect face, ageless beauty. “Isolde.” After a moment, I spoke again. “Isolde, are you there?”
Her presence crept into the mirror, draining down it like oily sludge, then she faded into view, wavering like an old television. “By what right do you disturb me?” The anger in her voice confirmed my theory. Like Grimm, she wasn’t omnipresent. To deal with me, she had to focus her attention my way.
And that kept her from wherever else and whatever else she might want to pay attention to.
“What is your command, my queen?” The disrespect in my voice left no room for misinterpretation.
“I have no command for you at this moment, only suggestions. You could relax, enjoy yourself. Or perhaps you’d like to visit the Court of Queens in my stead?”
My hopes sank, knowing I couldn’t trick her into a halfhearted command. But I still had one chance to make a difference. I could keep her distracted. “Grimm told me what your first lie was.”
“You cannot know . . .” Her eyes widened. Her power reached out, streaming up my arm like a swarm of ants, and she nodded. “You do lie. When the matter between my father and I is settled, I will deal with you. Until then, take care of yourself, handmaiden. I do have a suggestion, but of course, the choice is yours. I suggest you stay far away from Kyra. Her eagerness to obey is commendable. Her desire to kill you is all-consuming.”
With that, she slipped out of the mirror, not a controlled disappearance, but almost like falling out.
“Isolde.” I continued to summon her, pushing for her attention.
What hit me next was a flash of vision. A burst of consciousness. I’d reached her, through the handmaiden’s bond or my deal with Fairy Godmother, I couldn’t say which. Isolde could ignore me, but she couldn’t shut me out.
She moved through a forest, dark oak trees like giants shrouded in fog. And everywhere, abominations loomed. These made the ones we faced in Kingdom look like puppies and kittens. From the bone armor covering them, to ropes of muscle bulging from their backs, these things were built to annihilate.
Isolde—we—moved out of the forest, and behind her, the abominations came, shaking the ground as they lumbered forward after their creator and owner. She glanced back, then turned. As far as the eye could see, abominations lumbered among the trees. Not a dozen of them. Hundreds.
I shuddered, and Isolde shivered too. Her hands reached up, touching her cheeks, and a bolt of lancing pain
ejected me from the vision. I don’t know if I fell or was thrown off the chair, landing in a pile in the kitchen.
She knew I’d been watching. What I’d seen.
“Grimm!” I screamed, holding on to the bracelet, begging him to answer. Again and again, until my voice became hoarse and the neighbors pounded on the walls. If someone ever killed me, so long as he did it quietly, they wouldn’t intervene. Heck, given the number of problems I’d had with the neighbors, they might take up a collection and send my killer a gift basket.
• • •
I LEFT THE apartment without looking back. Thoughts of Grimm’s warnings didn’t so much as slow me down. Not because I’d forgotten. I couldn’t forget. Because I’d rather risk my own death than that of the people who mattered to me.
They had to know what was coming.
I drove to Liam’s workshop first. His bachelor’s bedroom there had hosted many a warm night where we lay in bed, drinking wine and talking. My key still worked, but inside the hearth was cold as ice, the forge unfired for days. Liam’s bed, as well, stood neatly made, with no sign of him.
A dresser drawer stood slightly open, and a glint of gold inside caught my eye. I’d always lived by the rule that I couldn’t, wouldn’t pry too deeply in Liam’s pre-me days. I expected to find a copy of “Busty Babes from ’Bama.” Instead, I drew out a single gold coin, thick as my hand, as big around as a dinner plate. Hieroglyphic-like characters ringed the edges. Vampirese characters.
I’d seen the coin once, right after Svetlana moved in. Liam did some contract work guarding vampires, and as a reward, gained that coin.
The coin that represented their debt to him, a debt that by all rights should have included everything they owned. The vampires objected to this, and so for now, Grimm continued negotiating on Liam’s behalf.
I’d made him hide it after watching Svetlana drool at it more times than I could count. The thing was, while Svetlana might be undergoing reconstructive surgery, she had ways of finding Liam that bordered on supernatural. I knew, because I’d made a few efforts to lose her over the years.