Free Agent

by J. C. Nelson

  “Get used to it. Wolves are like that. I didn’t use silver bullets, so it’s not like it will kill him.” I cut across lanes to take my exit.

  “No, the pain. How am I going to sleep tonight? What if I turn into a werewolf?”

  You can guess what color her wound wrapping was. Best twenty bucks I’d spent in a while. “This whole business is pain. When it goes well, there’s less, and when it goes bad, there’s more. There is always pain, it’s just a question of who is hurting.” I glanced down at my own wounds, still traced in pink scars. “And the whole wolf-to-werewolf thing is an urban legend. If it makes you feel any better, he’s probably panicking about turning into a were-princess.”

  I pulled into the Agency parking lot and didn’t even bat an eye at the security guard. I had to act like I belonged there, and Ari was with me. I wasn’t surprised when my bracelet didn’t open the service door, so we went through the lobby like the plebes.

  I gave Rosa a smile and she gave me the stink-eye like always. “Hey Rosa, buzz me in. I need to talk to Grimm.” If I had walked through the door with wolf blood splattered on me from head to toe and a severed arm in my mouth I wouldn’t have gotten a worse reaction.

  She hit the buzzer. Not the door buzzer. The emergency one we had installed after a wraith attempted to devour Rosa’s soul. Poor wraith took one bite out of her and died.

  “What in Kingdom are you doing here?” said Grimm from the lobby mirror. “And why is she not safely at home with you? And what happened to her?”

  Before I could answer, Evangeline came bursting through the front door. The moment she saw me she stopped cold.

  “Evangeline, I told you not to call her,” said Grimm. “We had this discussion. Friend, yes. Call, no.”

  “She’s not my friend. I didn’t call,” said Evangeline.

  Then things became a lot clearer. Behind her came Jess, wearing a blue silk outfit that should not have looked that good on someone her age, and behind her, Liam.

  I simultaneously felt sick and happy and dizzy. That’s quite a few feelings to have at once, but I’ve had practice.

  He saw me, and everything flipped over. First it was recognition, and then surprise, hurt, and anger. I tried to smile at him, but all I could remember was how I had left him. He looked bad, scraped and cut, like he hadn’t slept in a year. He reeked of wood smoke.

  “Get her out of here,” said Grimm, “and take him to my office.”

  I watched Liam as he walked past and through that white staff door. “Grimm, we have to talk.”

  “We have to do no such thing, Marissa. You have zero appreciation for what it has taken to find him, and I can’t risk you upsetting him right now.”

  “No, you and I have to talk, but I need to see him afterward. A wolf found me at my apartment.”

  “Did you teach him to heel or play dead?”

  “The fae killed the wolves. Most of them, at least. Whole village is dead, more or less.”

  I knew the look he gave me. It was the “Don’t you dare say another word here” look. I’d gotten it a lot. “Rosa, buzz her through.” He turned that gaze back to me. “Watch yourself, my dear. You are on one misstep probation. I will toss you out of this office for a year at least. You go where I tell you to go, you be silent when I say to be silent.”

  Liam was inside, and so I did what Grimm said. “Ari, stop picking at the stitches and come on.” We walked down the hall.

  Evangeline blocked the way to Grimm’s office. “Conference room, M. Please?”

  Evangeline had always been there for me. She got me my first sutures, and bought me ice cream to celebrate the first time I broke my leg. When I couldn’t sleep for a week after that shaman went on a rampage she came over, stayed up, and turned out the lights. She’d also always made it clear that she didn’t understand why Grimm took me in the first place. It wasn’t all that surprising that she got along better with another half-djinn than me. So I went to the conference room.

  Grimm appeared in the conference room mirror. “Tell me everything, princess.”

  I was screwed.

  So I listened as Ari started with breakfast, and how we ran every day, and about how I was always reading the books, and about how my front bathroom has only plain white towels. Eventually she ran out of boring things to talk about and explained about our wolf visitor. She moved on to my attempt to teach her to shoot, and I could see how this was going downhill the whole way. By the time she got to the wolf town part (after describing my driving as “almost as crazy as Evangeline’s”), Grimm had his eyes set in that glower that said he was going to yell at me for a few hours. Since he didn’t have a throat, it didn’t get sore.

  Ari explained about the bodies. The children. The wolf, and the fae. That part she handled well, since I sounded like a crack shot and a commando and scout all in one.

  When she finished, Grimm stepped back and crossed his arms. “You are to tell no one about this. Marissa, we’ll discuss later how taking your charge to the wolf town was keeping her safe.”

  “The wolf said the servants of the mirror took something. You send Evangeline or Jess out there to do bargaining?” Grimm had a habit of getting things done, and if that meant extortion or blackmail, well, sometimes it worked better than bullets.

  “No, Marissa, and neither did I send Clara, since you are going to ask.”

  “Pity. I’d pay money to watch her beating off wolves with a walker. She’s practically jerky already, so the wolves might pass on eating her.” The moment I said it I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

  He glared at me and I knew I was about to be royally chewed out.

  That’s about when the shouting started. It was Liam, and I think Evangeline. Liam pushed his way through the door. His fists were clenched, his jaw was set, and even in the refrigerator cold Grimm insisted the office be kept at he was sweating. The longer I looked at him, the warmer I felt myself.

  “I’m done with this,” he said. “I’m going home, and you two ladies can go—” He stopped, looked around. Looked at Ari. Glared at me. “Where is he? I heard the son of a bitch in here.”

  “I’m right here,” said Grimm.

  Liam approached the mirror, his hand held out like he wanted to touch it. “Some sort of hologram?”

  “Indeed, sir. Most people can’t tell, but obviously you are too clever for me to fool. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to run a few tests.”

  “I do mind,” said Liam. His face turned purple and sweat poured off him. “I’ve had a hell of a month, you know that? Every time I go to sleep I wake up somewhere different, in the middle of a fire. Then those two show up and offer to take me home. This is not home.”

  Grimm crossed his arms and nodded. “Sir, would you mind humoring me with a request? I promise it does not involve needles.”

  “Will it get me out of here? “

  “It would certainly be a step in the right direction. I have a medical bracelet of sorts I would like you to wear. It allows me to monitor your affliction.”

  Evangeline stepped forward with it. The bracelets, as I understood it, were a piece of Grimm. Thing about it was they couldn’t be forced on you. You had to choose them. Since Liam didn’t have a contract it wouldn’t be binding, but I was sure it would give Grimm a better understanding of what we were up against, and maybe a little control over it.

  Liam clipped the bracelet into place. In the next few seconds, he seemed to deflate. His face cooled and he relaxed his shoulders. “Can you, can someone tell me what is going on? I want to go back to my house.”

  “It is gone,” said Grimm. He was never one to take the bandage off slow. “As are the other places you’ve slept. The police are looking for a serial arsonist.”

  Liam put his hands on his head, and I saw steam rising where the sweat glistened on him. “I don’t, I don’t remember. I woke up and it was hot, and everything was burning. Even the metal. That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “I can help you, Mr. Stone,
and I will. I believe the bracelet will control your episodes for the time being. First we will find you housing.”

  “He can stay at my place,” I said.

  It just slipped out, and Liam skewered me with a glance. Grimm got there second, but his death stare didn’t feel like much. “Marissa, your guest room is occupied. And of course, Mr. Stone, how would you feel about spending time with Marissa?”

  Liam looked at me full-on, the first time he had done anything but glare at me since I first saw him, and it made me shiver and want to cry at the same time. “I’d rather be roasted on my own forge. I’d rather have my hand nailed to this table. Do you have any idea what you put me through? I had the best days of my life with you, and I felt like I could share with you, and you didn’t look through me, you looked at me. Then you take me to that restaurant—why couldn’t you do it in private?”

  I was struck into silence. I knew this was coming, and yet every word hit me harder.

  “You had to do it in public. Tell everyone how I made the mistakes. How I misread the signs, and you leave me there in a room full of people and they whisper.” He kept clenching and opening his fists, like he was barely in control.

  “You know what the worst part was? It wasn’t the end. It was the beginning. That’s the thing I keep going over. I went down to the pier to be alone, and I look up and there you are, and the sun hits you, and I keep thinking you’re glowing.” Liam looked down at the table and hung his head.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  He snapped his head up, his jaw set, his mouth square. “Don’t you dare say that. I spent the better part of a week waking up and wishing you’d call me and do it all over again just so I could be with you. Now I’m having blackouts. I’m waking up miles from where I went to sleep and I think I’m setting fires.”

  “Mr. Stone,” said Grimm, “I do not believe you are directly responsible for these fires, and as I’ve stated, I believe I can help with your problem. I’ll arrange appropriate housing.” Grimm’s eyes flashed to me. “And a treatment protocol.”

  “Why?” said Liam, his voice suspicious.

  “I feel for your predicament, Mr. Stone, and I know that Marissa would demand I help you anyway.”

  He could have left that last part out. Without warning, Liam seized the stapler at the end of the desk and hurled it at the mirror, shattering it from top to bottom. “I don’t want your help if it has anything to do with her.”

  I spun my chair to the door. “I’ll go. Stay and I’ll go. I won’t come back, I promise. I swear.”

  I hit the lobby door so hard it broke, rushed into the hall, and cursed the elevator that never seemed to come.

  Ari stood behind me, silently waiting. We rode down to the parking lot without speaking. When the door opened she finally asked. “Who was that?”

  “My most recent professional mistake.”

  “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t look at any of them the way you look at him. What did you do?” She followed along behind me to the car.

  I put the car into gear and swung out of the lot. “Let me tell you exactly how we get a prince and a princess together.”

  Twenty

  ARI STARED AT me the whole way home as I explained. “And you do this all the time?”

  “It works. At least it does when I get things right. I meet Mihail, break his heart, you show up at the right time and put it back together. You’re holding his heart already at that point. Love is easy. Love is cheap.”

  Ari shook her head. “I don’t buy that. Love is something special that happens when the world aligns just right.”

  I pulled into my building’s garage and turned off the car. “Well, in that case, I’ve spent the last six years aligning people. Except this time I screwed up. I saw Liam, and I thought for sure I saw the magic on him.”

  Ari looked at me like I had a third eye. I knew a doctor in Kingdom who specialized in removing third eyes, but had never had the occasion to use him. She raised one eyebrow. “You saw the what?”

  “Magic. Prince magic? Princess magic? I swear, you folks look like magical snow globes when the sun hits you right. I saw it on him. I thought I did. Grimm figures I was looking for a boyfriend.”

  Ari spent a moment waving her hands wildly around her head and looking at them.

  “Settle down. Any more shaking and you’ll have a seizure. You can’t see it?” Admittedly, Ari was hardly a first-string princess, but she had enough magic about her to look like a disco ball at times. That was the seal bearer in her at work.

  She shook her head. “How many boyfriends have you had?”

  “Counting Liam, one.”

  “How many friends do you have?”

  “Counting you, one.” I looked at her and was relieved to see a smile. That feeling down inside me, like autumn sun, was new and different. Then I remembered: This was what it felt like to be happy.

  That evening, as we ate dinner, I thought about what Grimm had said. I wasn’t to talk to anyone about the fae. That meant he didn’t want me scaring anyone, and that meant Grimm didn’t know what was going on with them. The fae had killed the wolves and looked for something. Something the wolves thought we took.

  “I was thinking,” I said, “maybe I can help you. I’m not sure I understand magic. Grimm says if I were any less magically inclined I’d start cancelling spells out, but I got an A plus on my English lit projects. Might as well have gotten my degree in deciphering strange languages.”

  “You know as much as I do about using magic.” Ari ran her fingers over the spine of her book as if doing so would extract knowledge, or give her a spell to wash the dishes. It didn’t, so she put down the book and picked up a sponge.

  When the dishes were done, we studied in earnest. It turned out I wasn’t terrible at magic. I just lacked any ability with it. Of course, if magic tomes were written in plain English, things would have been easier.

  Salaium bound in round, for instance: Why not say “Pour a circle of salt around the princess like she’s a slug?” Not that I ever poured salt on slugs. Once Grimm showed me what slugs were actually here for, I loved those little slimy monopods. Every time I turned over a board and saw them crawling back and forth, part of me was happy knowing at least that day there wouldn’t be a demon apocalypse.

  I admit I considered trying to shrivel up Ari until she went away. The problem was I had grown used to having someone to talk to. So I poured the table salt in a circle around her, and I only sprinkled a little on her hand. Just to see what would happen. Getting the circle set up, of course, led to the more difficult part.

  Ari drew in her energy for the thousandth time. I felt it when she did, and I’ve got to say if this is what the witches in legends were like, I bet they could tear things apart. The dishes in the cupboard clinked and shook as if we were having an earthquake.

  Ari brought her hands together and whispered to herself, “Now focus.”

  A tiny light glowed, like a firefly, and that’s about when the first lightbulb exploded.

  “More focus,” I said. I had a bag full of broken lightbulbs from the day’s practice already.

  She bit her lip and the firefly became a match, glowing soft orange. Pictures flew off the wall, flying across the room to bounce off the circle’s edge. Ari cupped her hands like she was holding a baseball. “Now, take form.”

  She drew her hands out, and I held my breath. The book said this would simply conjure a foxfire. Given that we were only a few hours from sunset, a night-light creature wasn’t going to do much. What appeared between Ari’s hands crackled and hummed like an electric sun.

  Every dish in my cabinet broke at once.

  Every light in the apartment went out. Through the walls I heard angry yells and the sounds of feet shuffling. Apparently, Ari had not only broken the bulbs, she’d blown out the power to the whole building.

  Ari’s eyes snapped open and the foxfire blinked out like yet another bulb. “Crap.”

  “I’m o
ut of bulbs, out of power, and we’re eating on plastic tonight.”

  “It’s not my fault.” Ari’s voice trembled with frustration.

  I brought out a flashlight, because the single window in my apartment didn’t let in nearly enough light. “It’s not mine either.”

  “Actually, it kind of is.”

  I swung the flashlight to her. Sweat rolled down her head from the effort, and her hair clung to her face. She rubbed her palms together and glared at me.

  “Go on,” I said, taking a seat.

  She stepped out of the circle. Regardless of what anyone tells you, princesses aren’t slugs. “Those things with you go crazy every time I get started, and they start bouncing everywhere. Closer I get to doing a spell right, the angrier they get.”

  Great. My blessings didn’t like it when my only friend did her stuff. That kind of ticked me off. Somewhere along the way I’d started thinking of her as my princess. Kind of like my cold sore. And nobody picked on my princess except me.

  “I think they’re eating the spell power and converting it into, well, I don’t know. Destruction,” said Ari.

  I was completely frustrated. Then an idea came to me. I looked at my hillbilly bookcase (pine boards and cinderblocks) and found it: Spellwork and Curses. If there’s one thing I’d learned about apartment maintenance, it was that it might be hours before we had electricity again. I once watched the building supervisor throw the same breaker over and over, in hopes that it might restore power. “Let’s head to the park and see what we can do. We can at least study until sundown.”

  Ari looked over the book. “Curses? You said they were a blessing.”

  “It’s kind of a gray area from what I gather.”

  We spent the rest of the day at the park and came back to an apartment building with power. I read late into the night, and in the morning I had a plan. The only problem was it required something I didn’t have a way to buy: Permission.