Free Agent

by J. C. Nelson

  It took a deep breath in, and I heard the fires rumble inside it.

  “My second mistake was falling in love with you. I won’t ever be sorry for that.” I waited for a flame that would burn without end. Instead, I felt a heavy weight on my shoulder.

  Dragon-Liam’s head rested against me, and from its mouth came the scent of wood fire and smoke. As I tried to hold him, he slipped forward, and curled up in a ball around me, a gentle curl of smoke coming from his nostrils. He began to snore.

  Ari stood in the bathroom doorway, a look of awe on her face. “That was amazing.”

  I disentangled myself from Liam and dragged her to the elevator. Six minutes. “You were supposed to go. And why could I charm him if you couldn’t?” I whispered to avoid waking Liam.

  “He’s not my prince.”

  Her words stung me. “I’m not like you. I’m not a princess.”

  Ari grinned so wide it looked like her face would split open. “To him you are.” She signaled the elevator, which apparently could be called from the inside.

  “We can’t wake Liam. I’m not sure how long it will take the curse to wear off, and there’s no way I’m going to risk leaving you on the street at night.”

  Ari reached into her pocket and pulled out a stamped metal business card. “The Agency,” it read, and below it, our address. “Grimm gave it to me in case you left me somewhere.” She hopped out of her shoes and ran across the floor in socks. She tucked the card into Liam’s curled claws.

  “He’ll be safe here, but first I need to do something.” I tiptoed across the room to where the dressing mirror sat and laid it facedown. Now no one could come through to threaten Liam, and if anyone tried to get past Shigeru it would be a mistake they wouldn’t live to regret.

  As my hand touched the mirror, I heard her voice.

  “You are foolish beyond measure, girl. Few risk my wrath a second time,” said Fairy Godmother.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” My heart was so full of joy it was true.

  “Twice now I return your blow, darling. I give you your deepest desire.”

  “Leave her alone,” said Ari, running toward me.

  I felt a tremble as my blessings raced through the room.

  “My second wish to you is given,” said Fairy Godmother. “Once more and done.”

  Ari grabbed my shoulder. “Are you okay? You glowed for a moment. It was weird, and bad.”

  “I don’t feel so good.” The bracelet on my wrist fell limp and crumbled into the Glitter that made it. Our eyes met for a moment as I realized what it meant. Ari lashed out at my hand, but her hand passed through mine like I was made of smoke.

  I fell.

  I told Ari we were thirty stories above the normal buildings. More like fifty. I’d never considered leaving Kingdom at the top of a skyscraper. After a moment it felt like I was flying instead of falling, except the earth came rushing toward me to give me a big, terminal hug. So this is how it ends, I thought, and Godmother whispered, “Not yet.” The world twisted, and I crashed into what I think was a dresser, smashing it to pieces.

  In the darkness someone screamed. A girl. I stood up and recognized a bedroom. A man came charging into the bedroom, throwing me to the side. “Get away from her.” He pushed her behind him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked at me a moment and turned on the bedroom light. “Marissa?”

  I was in my old bedroom. I was home.

  Dad came walking toward me, looking at me like I was a ghost. He threw his arms around me. “Finally.”

  Mom came through the door in a robe. “Marissa, what are you doing here?”

  That was not what I expected for our six-year reunion. “I’m home, Mom. I think I’m free.” I glanced down, and sure enough, there was nothing on my wrist. I was finally free. My eyes started to fill with tears, but this time it was joy.

  Right about then, the lights trembled and the doors shook. The girl, Hope, my sister, cried out and clung to Dad as the earthquake grew worse. A lightbulb shattered, and then another. I recognized this. Fairy Godmother transported me all the way to my home, but my blessings had been left behind. They were coming. They were ticked.

  I stumbled out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where the plates went flying out of the cupboard and the faucet sprayed like a fountain.

  Dad followed me. “Honey, what’s happening?”

  “It’s the fae blessings. They’re coming to me.”

  Mom’s face went ashen white. “You led a harakathin to our house? You’ll kill her.”

  Part of me felt confused, trying to figure out how Mom knew about blessings. The other part of me knew if I didn’t get them calmed down they might destroy the whole house. “I can calm them. They get upset when they are separated from me, or around spell power.”

  “Magic,” my mother whispered. Her eyes grew round, her mouth opened.

  “They eat it. Beatus, Consecro, calm down.” If anything, the trembling grew stronger as I spoke their names. It sounded like a train was hurtling toward the house.

  “You named it?” screamed my mother.

  “Both of them. It lets me control them better,” I said as the stove caught fire.

  My dad shoved me toward the door. “Get out. Get out before you kill her. What did she do to you? Hurt us, but don’t kill her.”

  “I don’t understand.” It didn’t make any sense. Mom and Dad didn’t know of magic. If they had, Dad would have made a lot more money.

  Mom shoved me past the threshold right as the windows exploded into a rain of glass. As I passed it, I felt a burning sensation. My blessings were home.

  “You came to kill her,” said Mom. “You knew what would do it.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about, Mom. I got transported by accident, sort of.” All my dreams of this day, they’d never included words like this, looks like this.

  Mom fixed me with that look I could never avoid. The one I got when I spilled grape soda on her new carpet. The one I got when Dad caught me with a can of beer, sputtering and choking it down. “Hope. The one we returned you to Fairy Godfather to save. You’ve come to destroy her heart.”

  The words made no sense to me. I tried to work it through and failed. “Grimm said he’d fix it. He’d heal her.”

  “He gave her a new one. A mechanical one,” said Dad. “A magic one.” Hope stood at the doorway. She had Mom’s black hair, and eyes as blue as Dad’s. Dad ran back to scoop her up, and took her inside.

  Mom walked toward me, her face covered in that look of disapproval I had come to take as love. “Don’t you have a life of your own now? Go back to it.”

  “I’ve waited for this day for six years. I missed you so badly I had to have the memories taken. I wanted to come home every day and every hour. What did I ever do to you?”

  Mom looked back at the doorway. When she saw it was empty, she walked over and stroked my hair, pushing it back out of my eyes. “It isn’t what you did, Marissa. It’s who you represent. As long as Roland held on to you, he held on to her. I couldn’t compete with a ghost. And then we had our own daughter, born of our own blood.”

  Through the broken windows, I heard Hope sobbing. I was sure I could keep my blessings in check. Maybe. “You wanted me to make a deal, I made a deal, Mom.”

  “For your sister,” she said.

  “For you. I knew you wanted me to. That’s the only reason I agreed.” Tiny bolts of anger gave my words force.

  “Of course I wanted it. Until you’ve held a child of your own, don’t judge me. I traded your freedom for her life. A trade I would make again any day.”

  I shivered as her hand brushed my shoulder, torn between the urge to hug her and the need to scream at her. “I know what you told Dad that night. I loved you, Mom. Why didn’t you love me?” My voice came out like a squeak. I felt like I was a tiny girl, begging her to pick me up.

  She bent down to look in my eyes. “You act as if I didn’t
try. You were a wild girl, always given to mischief and destruction. Name one of your birthdays that didn’t end in a trip to the emergency room or with a visit from the fire department. Name one party you’ve attended that didn’t end in a fight or an accident. I tried, Marissa.”

  My hands shook and the porch light exploded in a shower of sparks as my blessings drank in my anger. She glanced to the broken light and shook her head. “You have no control over those blessings. For the sake of your sister, go back to your life. I’ve made my choices, and I’ll bear the consequences.”

  Anger flared over my sadness and my hands stopped shaking. “You made mine too. You said I could come home when I was free.”

  She let go of me. “Could you live with yourself if those things harmed your sister? I doubt I could stop you if you decided to go back inside, but the girl I raised was never a killer. Perhaps you truly have changed.”

  I stood in the silence, in the darkness, considering the choices I was finally free to make. I never thought the first choice I’d make on my own would be to give up the thing I’d dreamed about most. “I love you, Mom. Tell Dad and Hope I said I love them too.” I turned and walked into the night, and grief went with me.

  Thirty

  IT TOOK ME two days to get back into the city, hitchhiking. The first person to pick me up was a truck driver with a load of cantaloupe. He spoke only Spanish, and the only Spanish phrases I’d ever heard were from Rosa. Judging from his reaction, Rosa said mean things. My second ride was an elderly couple who explained that Jesus loved me. Jesus had actually kicked me out of his truck for repeating a phrase Rosa had always said meant “Thank you very much.” My last ride was a trio of stoners. I’d eaten casseroles less baked. They didn’t understand that “No” meant “Keep your hands on your side of the car,” “I’m not lifting up my shirt,” and “If you try that once more I’m breaking one of your fingers.”

  When I finally got back to the city, I smelled like the high-altitude seating at a rock concert. I dropped them off at the emergency room to get their fingers splinted, and took a cab to the Agency.

  I almost didn’t see it in time: the building was cordoned off. I had the cab driver stop a block away and let me out. I merged with the flow of people, walked past on the other side, trying to look only when others did.

  The signs said biohazard, the guards posted said magic. I’d been around enough that I could recognize the difference. Rent-A-Cops wear bad polyester uniforms that never quite fit them. Whatever these things were, they wore Rent-A-Cop skins the same way. When they moved, their skin sagged and something evil peered out from their eyes at the people passing by.

  I headed for home, because there was a decent chance Ari would be there instead. I had no way to know if Liam had already followed the card back or not. When I walked into my apartment, I saw the answering machine flashing.

  I ran to it, figured which button actually played messages, and waited. When I heard Ari’s voice my heart leaped in my throat.

  “Marissa, I found Liam at the gates of Kingdom and brought him back with me to the Agency. Grimm says you—” In the background I heard screaming, Rosa shouting something I no longer believed meant “Merry Christmas” in Spanish, and the roar of a shotgun. The message ended. Whatever happened at the Agency, Ari and Liam had been there. I reflexively put my hand to my wrist. And found nothing. My mirrors were glass and silver now, and I couldn’t call Grimm with a word.

  I remembered the words of the Fae Mother. She’d tried to tell me. To warn me. I had my freedom. And that was all I had. I’d dreamed a lot about being free, but never dreamed it would cost me what it did. I’d been up for over twenty-four hours, and as tears blurred my eyes it grew harder and harder to keep them open. I collapsed on the couch and passed out.

  When I got up, I had a headache as determined as I was. I looked again at my bare wrist. I finally had the freedom to do wherever I wanted. To my surprise, I wanted to do what I’d done for the last six years. I unlocked my gun safe and took out my spare nine millimeter.

  I was going to rent a car, head downtown, and run over the first couple of guards. The others, I’d shoot. I didn’t know if Ari or Liam were still in the Agency, but I’d kill anything that got between me and that office. I was still in the shower when I heard the knock. A special knock, one I’d taught Ari when I first brought her home, as a way to signal me when a freezer I’d locked her in was low on air. I’d used the same code with Evangeline when I came to work myself.

  I ran to the door, dripping the whole way, wearing only a towel. I threw open the door and someone tackled me, rolling me onto my stomach and pinning my arm behind me.

  “I’m going to kill you, you bitch,” screamed Evangeline. In any other building, maybe the neighbors would have called the cops, but you can bet mine had learned ignorance really was bliss.

  I felt something pop in my shoulder, and pain flared down my arm. “You’re breaking my arm.”

  If anything, she leaned down harder. “I never thought you had it in you, you know. That plain little face with just enough brains to be deadly. He told me what happened. You two had one little spat, and you went and did this?” She reached for something, and I heard the soft beeps of a cell phone.

  “She’s here. Of course I have her.” She leaned over and said softly, “M, I want you to know something. If you lie to us, she’s not going to kill you.” She gave my hand a squeeze until something cracked. “That’s my job.”

  After a few minutes I heard someone else come in, and Evangeline yanked me to my feet.

  “Sit,” said Jess, “so we can talk.”

  “Listen—”

  She hit me backhand across the mouth like one swats a fly. “I tell you when to answer. Where is he?” She wiped my blood off her hand on the tablecloth.

  “Liam was at the Agency.”

  Wrong answer. Jess grabbed me by my hair and twisted my head. “Grimm. Where is Grimm?”

  “I don’t know, call him.” It was harder to breathe with my head at this angle. When she finally let go I slumped back over.

  Evangeline dangled her broken Agency bracelet in front of me. “We’ve been trying for the last two days. Where was his original mirror?”

  “Something’s happened to Grimm?” I asked, and I think that’s about when they realized something else was wrong. Jess let go of my hair and looked at me.

  “Fine. Grimm had us getting the truth out of people about the Seal. I hear you like this thing.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the Root of Lies. “You know what this is.”

  All I could think of was how desperate Grimm must have been to let them take the Root of Lies out of his office. It was something best locked away, buried and hidden.

  She reached out with it, running the claw down the side of my face. It shifted and moved, but the nails didn’t dig into my cheek. I jerked away as it moved, tickling the skin at my throat, caressing me under the chin.

  Jess shuddered, and looked queasy. “That’s wrong.” She forced my hand up to it. The tangled mass of thorns at the end separated, leaving only finger bones that ended in thorn points. It flexed underneath my hand, tracing a pattern on my palm, and wrapped around me with a grip like steel.

  Jess took me by the hair again. “Did you have a fight with Grimm?”

  There was no point in denying it. The root would literally tear it out of me if I did. “Yes.”

  “Did you betray him?” asked Evangeline.

  “No,” I said, ignoring the thing squirming in my hand.

  “Did you sell Princess Arianna or Liam Stone to that fairy bitch?” asked Jess.

  “No.”

  Jess leaned in to look at me, like she could do a better job than the Root. “Do you know where Grimm’s original mirror is?”

  “No.”

  Evangeline and Jess stood up and walked to the door, leaving me.

  “Hey, hang on. If you’re going to the Agency, I’m going too.” Part of me wanted to check on the delivery staff.
I liked Bill and the other cargo handlers. Rosa, on the other hand, might be gone. There was always a silver lining. I knew that Evangeline and Jess shouldn’t be allowed out in the city like this.

  Evangeline looked at me with that look of scorn mixed with pity. “There isn’t an Agency anymore. We were lucky to be out working when it happened. Last thing Grimm said was that someone dumped a bag full of Glitter off with your name on it. The courier said they’d purchased your contract.”

  I stood up and walked toward her. “Think about it. Am I worth that much Glitter to anyone?”

  For a moment she was my big sister and teacher again. She shook her head. “No. You aren’t.”

  I’d seen Grimm talk Evangeline down out of rages in the past. “It’s the Fairy Godmother. She must have done this.” I’d been able to reason with Evangeline in the past, but I’d always had Grimm to back me up.

  Evangeline looked down. Ever since her accident she only showed anger, if she showed any emotion at all. “You didn’t have to listen to him break. Have to feel it. We’re going to find this Fairy Godmother’s mirror. We’re going to tear through any and everything that gets in our way, and return the favor.”

  “Where are Ari and Liam? They were at the Agency.” I knew now I couldn’t persuade Evangeline to let me come along, and I wasn’t crazy enough to argue with Jess.

  Jess came over, her motions fluid like the rise and fall of water. She exuded an air of deadly confidence without Grimm to keep her in check. “Building’s empty. The guards keep wishers away. They could be anywhere.”

  I shook the Root loose from my hand. “I’m going with you. We can clear out the guards and start figuring out where they went from there.” I struggled to my feet, unwilling to be pushed around any longer. Even though I knew I didn’t stand a chance in a fistfight with her. “I can help you. Let me help.”

  Evangeline shoved me backwards so hard I fell into my table. “When are you going to understand? There are bigger problems than your boy toy and someone’s leftover princess. The fae are coming.”