Free Agent

by J. C. Nelson

  “Or you could send her back to the nursing home,” I said, and smiled as a look of anger crossed Clara’s face. “I’ve never let you down before. Say the word, and I’ll go get her walker.” The clock ticked the seconds away, and I began to get nervous. “Grimm?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, like he does when he’s trying to read the auguries. “I’m sorry, Marissa. I’ve pushed you so hard, and asked so much of you, and you’ve always delivered. I asked you to deal with Queen Mihail, so this is my fault as much as anyone’s.”

  “And?”

  “I think it is time I reevaluated how I use your services.”

  I bolted upright in the chair, stiff as a board. “You’ve used my services for six years without complaining. Everything you ask, I do. I do it right, every time.”

  “Not every time,” said Evangeline.

  “Go get the Root of Lies, and we’ll do this again. I told you what I saw, I did what he told me to, and now you want to sit there and tell me to be more careful?” She looked away.

  “And you,” I said, turning on Grimm. “You wanted me to deal with the queen and I did. I have nothing outside of this job. I do nothing but work for you, and I do it well. So don’t send me off somewhere like I’m the latest kid whose parents pawned them off on you.”

  Evangeline refused to look at me. Grimm stayed silent for a moment before answering. “Marissa, I know what your life is like. That’s why I’m doing this. I’m taking your company card and removing your access to the Agency. You will not be allowed to work here until I agree you are ready.”

  I felt my purse shift and I knew he’d taken the card. “I pay my debts,” I said, rising to my feet. “I may not have magic, and my mother might not have been a djinn’s whore, but I’m the best agent you’ve ever had. Admit it. You ask me to kill an imp, I shoot it till it’s dead. You ask me to climb a beanstalk, I put on my climbing gloves and climb for days. You ask me to break someone’s heart and I do it every time, even if it kills me.”

  “Marissa,” Grimm said, “I think it is time for you to leave.”

  Tears mixed with white-hot anger. “You can’t kick me out. I have to work. It’s the only way.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “So how does this work? I leave? You just send me away? I’m the first debt slave to get fired?” I swung out of the chair.

  “My dear, you are not fired. I’m changing your assignment to give you time,” said Grimm. “Take Princess Arianna home.”

  My jaw was clenched so hard my teeth hurt as my insides roiled. “What if I say no? What are you going to do to me?”

  He looked out at me, his lip pursed. “You won’t. We have a bargain.”

  “You want to kick me out, at least do it right. Take everything.” I rummaged through my purse, dumped the gun on his desk, and yanked the Agency bracelet off. Finally, I took the vial from my neck and threw it at the mirror, cracking it along the bottom. I walked away. I could lie and tell you I held my head up, but I didn’t.

  Ari was sitting in the lobby, which looked a bit emptier than before. Grimm had obviously told her to wait for me.

  I kicked her bags as I walked past. “Come on. I’m leaving.”

  We got in the car and I drove fast where the traffic let me. I was angry but not suicidal. At the gates of the Avenue, I slammed into the curb and threw the car into park.

  “This is as far as I go. Take your bags and walk.” I’d been crying the whole way there, and she’d at least had the good sense not to say anything about it.

  Her mouth hung open, and fear crept into her eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “Fairy Godfather said for me to take you home, and I am. Get out. Walk.”

  She looked at me again, her face adrift with something between horror and disgust. “I can’t go back.”

  “I’ve heard that a dozen times before, princess. Walk in, say ‘I’m home,’ and you’re back.”

  She grabbed her bag from the back and stopped. “She’ll kill me.” Ari’s lip began to quiver. Something in her tone said that wasn’t a metaphor.

  Ari sat on her bag, staring at the curb. “I ran away from home. I paid Fairy Godfather with every bit of Glitter Father gave me. Fairy Godfather said he would find me a prince. He said everything would work out.”

  “He says a lot of things.” It didn’t make sense. I’d spent enough time listening to people lie in this business that I could see it coming. Ari was telling the truth, and Grimm had to know. He’d never send her someplace that wasn’t safe. I thought about Grimm’s words. “That bastard.” I’d never seen a birth certificate, but I’d put money on that being his first name. I knew this was something I’d regret. “Get in the car.”

  She tossed her bag into the back and slid into the shotgun seat. “Where are we going?”

  “Home. Mine.”

  Sixteen

  I HATED GRIMM some days. It wasn’t the debt-slave thing, because labor laws made that more like a job than a sentence. It’s because he knew I didn’t like Ari. I’d never been able to stand princesses, with their natural luck and expectations that the world revolved around their rose-scented navels. I waited at the apartment door while she carried her bags up.

  She walked into my apartment and wrinkled her nose. “Do you ever open the windows?”

  I walked to the living room and pulled at the window shade. “When I moved in I had this idea I would look out the window and watch the stars at night.” The shade finally retracted, showing my fabulous view of a brick wall.

  “You could bake a pie on the countertop in here.” She forced the window up. It groaned the whole way.

  I pointed to the side. “Your room is the one to the right of the front bathroom.”

  “Is that the guest room?”

  “Don’t know. Never had guests.” It was true. While I once did have a nasty infestation of gremlins, I’d never had anyone human visit. It was still a point of debate in my mind if Ari broke that record or not.

  She went into the room to drop her bags, and I decided to check the fungal levels of the food in my fridge. We’ll say I had enough mold in there to cure an epidemic of tuberculosis, and my milk had gone through puberty and turned into yogurt.

  Ari waited for me to complete my scan of food that had more hair than Bigfoot. “Do you have a bed?”

  “Yes. I have a nice memory foam one. You can sleep on the couch.”

  “There’s nothing in the guest bedroom but a litter box.” Ari didn’t whine, but she was awfully good at complaining.

  “I’ve never had guests. I always hoped my parents or my sister would visit, but it’s never happened.” At the thought of my family, my stomach turned. Babysitting a princess wouldn’t get me any closer to free. The only thing I’d be at the end of the day was older.

  I ordered takeout, and we ate in silence, her on the couch and me at the bar. At least, we tried to eat in silence. She yapped the whole time. I’d crushed the necks of poodles that were less annoying.

  “Why didn’t you paint the walls?”

  I looked around, I think for the first time in six years. The walls were a pale green like the color of my counter. A loaf of bread sat there, camouflaged and waiting to attack the first person who attempted to make toast. “This is temporary.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Five and a half years.” I was in no mood to play twenty questions. I didn’t like the thought of having Ari in the apartment, but I didn’t dare cross Grimm. “I get you’re trying to be friendly, but I’m tired. So far today, I got threatened by a queen, yelled at by a senior citizen, demoted by my boss, and I walked out of my job. While I appreciate the whole family drama aspect you are wrangling, I’m going to bed.” I left her on my couch and went to bed, dreaming about a day I’d give anything to do over.

  • • •

  WHEN I WOKE up, I did the best I could to boil my skin off. The shower raked me, leaving my skin bright red, but I wanted to scour the film of that day o
ff me.

  As I dried, I felt it: the bracelet on my wrist. My hand went to my throat, where the vial hung. I wrapped my towel around me and walked out into the bedroom. On my pillow sat a small gift box, mint green with a gold ribbon. I untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside were my gun and a couple of extra clips. The card was written in calligraphy.

  Stay safe—G.

  “What’s that?” Ari poked her head into my bedroom.

  It was a good thing the gun wasn’t loaded; I’d have had a princess with a higher than average number of holes in her. “I need a towel,” she said, “and some toilet paper would be nice.”

  “A jerk left a gift on my pillow.” I put the gun in my purse anyway. “Get dressed. We’re going to the track.” I’d spent the better part of six years running, whether I was sick or well, rain or shine. When I emerged in my tracksuit, I found Ari in the front bathroom, repeating her shopping list to the mirror. I peeked in the door, which I told myself wasn’t snooping, since she’d done it to me earlier. “Grimm?”

  Ari sighed. “I called the Fairy Godfather, but I guess he’s too busy to show up. So I just told him what I needed and why.”

  “Who do you see in the mirror?”

  Ari mistook it for some sort of test, scanning each section of her reflection. She squinted, her eyebrows furrowed. “Me. A little bit of you.”

  “If you have a problem, the only people you can count on to help are the ones you see right now. We’ll check the alleys around here, find you something to sleep on. Now get dressed.”

  So I went running, Ari in tow, and we ran for miles.

  We stopped only because if I didn’t, I’d need an aid car to drag her home. She gasped for air, hands on her knees. “Why are you so obsessed with running?”

  “I figured you would understand wanting to run away from something.”

  “Yes, but when I run, I go somewhere.” She pressed her hand to her side as she stood.

  “Part of the business. I’m not bad in a fight, and Evangeline is downright deadly, but there are still a lot of uglies you would be better off running from than fighting. Ever watch a horror movie?”

  Ari sat in the grass and rubbed her ankles.

  “Those girls make it a quarter, maybe half a mile and they trip or start wheezing. When you’re being chased by something with more heads than teeth, you want to be able to look over your shoulder and say ‘I can do this all day.’”

  So we ran some more. Good for the soul. I also went to the store, and I’m proud to say I bought food that was neither past its expiration date nor preserved with more chemicals than ingredients. When the elevator door opened to my apartment floor, I was still introducing Ari to reality. “You need to lower your standards. There was nothing wrong with the last two mattresses.”

  Ari almost dropped her bag of groceries as she spun to glare at me. “One had bedbugs, and the one before that had a dead crocodile in it.”

  “Alligator. You can tell by the shape of the nose—” I stopped, staring down the hall.

  Packages and mail lay in heaps beside my apartment door. A gnarled old postman dumped another bag at my feet and glared at me. “You don’t deserve this, killer. I hope they all contain anthrax.”

  “You know, after the trial I was told I’d never get a package from Kingdom again.” I let a smug grin spread across my face. I’d won after all. “And you’re not even a gnome. What does it matter to you?”

  “We’re members of the same union.” He looked at Ari and smiled, then scowled at me. “If we had any say in it you wouldn’t get so much as a postcard, but we’re not picking a fight with the Fairy Godfather.”

  Ari looked at the tags with me. “Who is A. Locks?”

  I almost punched a hole in the wall. “You are. That bastard.”

  “This stuff came from Delaware. I thought he’d just, I don’t know, conjure what I needed.”

  I helped her drag a brand-new mattress in through the door along with a dozen other boxes. “You don’t know Grimm. Never spend magic on what you can buy. Cash is cheap.”

  She dumped a bag of mail out on the couch. “You’ve got like six jury summons here, and a letter from the district attorney.”

  “Never saw a point in showing up for jury duty. I already know I’m going to vote guilty.”

  Ari’s mouth made a tiny O, and she put her hand to her heart. “What about justice?”

  “It is justice. Whoever they are, they’re guilty of making me show up for jury duty. Also, whatever that letter says, I had nothing to do with the murder. Get pulled over with one little dead body and it takes years to sort out.”

  I left her in her room attempting to insert nightstand dowel peg 12 into hole 234 and went to my laptop. There sat another package from Grimm, mint green, with a bow. A big one. A heavy one. I opened the box and slid out a book. A large, black book with thick skin binding, though what animal it came from I can’t guess. Spellcraft and Curses, read the title. Under that it had the words A Pop-Up Book.

  Ammunition for the most dangerous weapon you carry—G

  I walked into the bathroom and grabbed the bracelet. “Grimm, send whatever you need to by post. Anything else is a waste of Glitter.” I knew he heard me.

  • • •

  IT HAD BEEN a long time, at least six years, since my last vacation, and I spent the first month in a haze. At first I couldn’t sleep through the night. I woke up every few minutes, sure I heard Grimm calling like usual. I’d make my way to the mirror like always. He never answered.

  As the days of my forced vacation stretched to weeks I got used to being alone with my thoughts. Every day we ran at the track, Ari and I, and ate a salad lunch in the shade of the park.

  I briefly took up hating Ari as a hobby. Briefly, because Ari didn’t fit the norms for a princess. That and the fact that I didn’t have anyone else to talk to made it hard to do a quality job of hating her. Sure, I might have trapped her in the building basement a few times, and I can tell you that a princess will definitely fit in a five-cubic-foot chest freezer, but you can only do that so often before it gets old. After that, she wasn’t interested in visiting the mausoleum or the bomb shelter. I pride myself on doing things right, even if it’s loathing someone I’m stuck with, so eventually I gave up.

  We sat on a park bench as other runners went past. “So tell me: What’s it like being a princess?”

  Ari gave me a smile and laughed. First time I’d heard her do that in a while. “When I was a little girl it was nice. My dad would take me to High Kingdom on holidays and we’d bow before a greater king, or watch the ogres on parade. When I was older it was uglier. I saw the politics behind everything. I listened to Mom and Dad argue.”

  “Sounds normal from what I remember.”

  “I knew something was wrong when they stopped fighting. I knew it. A few days later, Mom told me she was sick.”

  We stood up to make a few more laps and call it done for the day.

  “How come you never use your, uh, abilities?”

  The look on her face was pure grief. “She never trained me. Mom always said it would be tomorrow, or next month, and then her tomorrows stopped coming. I can feel it, down inside, and sometimes I can see things. Like the things that follow you.”

  I stopped short, hand on my knees. “You can see them?”

  “Sort of. They move around a lot like pixie lights, but faster.” She ran off.

  “Where are they now?” I asked as I caught up.

  “It’s almost noon. They’re inside you, of course.”

  I didn’t ask anything else, but my feet felt heavier with each step. As we walked along the sidewalk from the park, I got worried. For the last few years I’d been hunting things and hunted by things so often that I got used to the feeling. Today though, I knew something or someone was watching me, something considerably more substantial than a couple of blessings. I knew better than to ignore that feeling.

  “Ari, how do your legs feel?”

  “
Tired. Tell me you aren’t suggesting another round.”

  Her water bottle was nearly empty and she looked drenched. I didn’t look much better. “Not suggesting it, but we might have a problem.” I scanned the cars, the people, and I spotted him. A man crouched down behind a car, staring at us. I gave Ari a push and we ran for my building.

  From the moment he leaped over the car, I knew he was a wolf. As he ran, he changed. His hair grew long. His stride changed from footsteps to bounds. I have no idea what the people on the sidewalk saw—probably convinced themselves it was a homeless man who hadn’t shaved, or a rabid dog chasing two women. We hit the entrance to my apartment building, and dashed to the elevator.

  I held the Door Close button as we passed floor after floor. “If he knows where I live he’ll take the stairs and get there first, so be ready when the doors open.”

  The elevator dinged one floor from mine and as it opened I nearly put a bullet into an old man with a beard. He held his hands up. “I’ll wait for the next one.”

  I heard the wolf growling as we approached, and fired before the doors opened, driving it back into the wall. I didn’t have any silver bullets, so the worst I could do was hurt him. My neighbors were calling 911, but the smart ones would keep their heads inside their apartment. The wolf fell backwards, and I put a bullet into each leg.

  “Give it back to them,” he said, oblivious to the pain and the blood. “Give it back or they’ll kill everyone.” His eyes were streaked with red, and spittle ran from his mouth.

  “Give what back? We already returned the child.”

  He shook his head and convulsed in pain as the wounds began to close. “We didn’t take it. You must have. Give it back, please.” He dragged himself away from me toward the stairwell.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I followed him, ready to raise his lead content if he so much as hesitated.

  The wolf rose to his feet, blood dripping as the wounds sealed. The look he gave me wasn’t rage or hunger. It was despair. “Then we are all dead.”