by J. C. Nelson
PRAISE FOR
Free Agent
“What begins as a deceptively cutesy urban fantasy soon ups the ante with the gathering darkness and sharp details of the ongoing price of magical servitude. This is a fireball of a start to Nelson’s Grimm Agency series.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Nonstop action, an awesome cast of characters . . . an excellent opening to a new series!”
—All Things Urban Fantasy
“The plot moved quickly and the pacing was steady, keeping me well entertained, and the characters, specifically Marissa, were fantastic . . . A good read.”
—A Book Obsession
“There is a dark edge to this intriguing tale, lending a sense of gravity to the fantastic happenings taking place. Keep an eye on Nelson!”
—RT Book Reviews
“The twist on our world, on fairy tales, on society in general, is great fodder for some fantastic escapism . . . [Nelson] has obvious talent.”
—Bookworm Blues
“An exciting, action-packed debut that will have you up till the early morning and laughing out loud till your inside[s] hurt.”
—Short & Sweet Reviews
Ace Books by J. C. Nelson
FREE AGENT
ARMAGEDDON RULES
WISH BOUND
Specials
SOUL INK
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
WISH BOUND
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2015 by Jason Nelson.
Excerpt from The Reburialists by J. C. Nelson copyright © 2015 by Jason Nelson.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
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eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14783-6
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / September 2015
Cover art by Tony Mauro.
Cover design by Danielle Abbiate.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
For Allison, who makes the decision every day
Contents
Praise for Free Agent
Ace Books by J. C. Nelson
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Special Excerpt from The Reburialists
About the Author
Acknowledgments
This book is the product of several years’ worth of work, many long nights and quiet weekends, but it’s also the product of several other people’s hard work. First off, my agent, Pam Howell, whose patient advice helped keep me on target. Secondly, Leis Pederson, my editor at Ace. Without Leis’s help, this book wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
Thanks once more to Andy, Leslie, Laurel, Chris, and John at critiquecircle.com. You stuck with me through seven books, a novella, and a Christmas short story. That’s world-class dedication, and as always, I’m grateful.
Finally, my intense gratitude to my wife and family, who put up with me as I obsessed with a set of stories that kept me up at night and woke me early in the morning. It’s been an adventure. Now, on to the next one.
One
WHEN I WAS a little girl, my mother used to say, “A little birthday party can’t hurt anyone.” She stopped saying that after my seventh birthday, when the ponies they rented stampeded. Then it was “How bad could a birthday party be?” which lasted until my tenth birthday, when the microwave oven exploded, coating everyone in melted frosting. Then it was “Let’s get this over with,” followed the year after by “You know, this year let’s let Marissa celebrate her own way.” Which meant I spent my birthdays reading alone while my parents went out for drinks.
And that’s how I planned to spend my twenty-eighth birthday, which fell on a Monday, which, statistically, it does once every seven years. Mondays, in my experience, are lousy, and birthdays are even worse.
I ran to work that day, keeping my girlish figure looking slightly more girlish than trash-can-ish, and Liam ran with me. Liam. Almost six feet, built like a barrel, with arms like tree trunks. My fiancé. My other half. The man who’d stood by me through the end of the world. Also, a man in lousy shape.
“Marissa, could we take a break?” Liam limped along a few dozen feet back.
I learned to run earlier in my life. Run to get away from things that wanted to kill me, run to get away from things I couldn’t get away from. Technically, these days I could eat the buffet and the table it came on, and still not gain a pound, thanks to the gift of a harbinger of the apocalypse, Famine. Being the apocalypse bringer had its benefits, but I wasn’t taking chances, so we still ran.
In case you’re imagining a romantic run through the city, two lovers getting an endorphin kick to keep us ready for work, stop. We had company. A few feet behind Liam came a bombshell blonde, curvy and pale, with brilliant blue eyes and a figure that stopped hearts.
“You can run on. I will stay with my liege.” Svetlana, the aforementioned beautiful disaster, waved to me. I wasn’t about to leave her any more than she ever left us. Which was never. It wasn’t just devotion to my fiancé; it was a form of contract. Thanks to the machinations of an evil queen and her team of assassins, Liam wound up holding a stake in, well, everything Svetlana’s people owned. Given that they were all vegetarian vampires, they objected to stakes of any flavor.
I jogged in place, waiting for Liam to gain his breath.
“This is a lot easier when I have four feet,” called a six-foot-eight man with curly brown hair. The head of our shipping department and full-time Big Bad Wolf, Mikey, never passed up a chance to chase people, even if he wasn’t allowed to devour them. The crowd parted for him in a way that would have made Old Testamen
t Moses envious. Crowds in the city don’t move for anyone, but even city folks had a healthy self-preservation instinct. “I’ll see you at the office,” Mikey shouted. He loped off, nearly sprinting.
We took another forty minutes to arrive, mostly due to my fiancé, partially due to a flower vendor who insisted I wanted a dahlia. What I really wanted was to shove the dahlia somewhere he’d find painful.
When we arrived at the Agency, I left Liam and Svetlana to take the elevator. I, on the other hand, sprinted up the stairs for a final calorie-burn burst, and exploded through the front door, ready for a Monday.
Our receptionist, Rosa, hunched over a man, shocking him repeatedly with a stun gun.
I nodded to her. “Morning, Rosa.”
She made the sign of the cross with her middle finger, blessing herself and telling me off in one pass, and muttered under her breath.
Since Rosa obviously had the morning crowd under control, I checked the schedule. In my office, a six-by-four mirror pulsed, glowing orange in the darkness. I used masking tape to divide the mirror into slots for each day and hour, keeping a schedule that Grimm couldn’t claim to not see. Monday morning. Liam had an appointment in the sewers, where a group of mud men awaited the “Final Flush.” I hoped Svetlana brought her muck boots.
Mikey needed to be down at the docks, where something on a container ship kept eating the night watchmen. If you are what you eat, something had a cholesterol count that might kill it.
I looked at my name, and saw the whole day blocked out without explanation.
The column next to mine looked identical.
“Morning, Marissa. Does this outfit make my eyes look more or less yellow?”
I recognized Ari’s voice, and couldn’t help but smile. In the doorway to my office, Arianna Thromson stood, dressed in a yellow tracksuit. The yellow made her red hair look two shades lighter, and it made the diseased yellow of her eyes look even more diseased and yellow.
Arianna Thromson, my best friend. Also, princess, and witch. Don’t hold those last two against her—the first you could blame on her parents, the second on an evil queen who forced Ari to use too much magic at once.
“Looks better.” I looked at her dead-on, to remind her that regardless of how other people treated her, she was still just Ari to me. Witches didn’t get many smiles, and most folks would stare at the ceiling rather than meet her gaze. “You and I have some sort of all-day engagement.”
“I’m meeting Wyatt for lunch. I wish it were an engagement.” Ari narrowed her eyes at me, then looked past me to the board. Despite the fact that her eyes had neither pupils nor irises, she could see perfectly well. In fact, if what you were looking for was a spirit, spell, or curse, she saw better than me.
Ari read the schedule, then put one hand to the bracelet on her wrist. A simple gold bracelet, the key to our communication with the Fairy Godfather. “Bastard Grimm, you come here this instant.” Using Grimm’s first name was something even I avoided, and I outranked Ari.
The calendar faded from the mirror, and Grimm swirled into view. He adjusted his coat, looking every bit the English butler I always imagined him as. “Ladies, how may I assist you?”
“I was going to have lunch with my prince.” Ari crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
Grimm took off the heavy black glasses he wore, revealing eyebrows like a yeti. “Young lady, I’m sorry. We require your assistance. I’ll make it up to you. Reservations to anywhere in the city.”
“What exactly are we supposed to be doing?” I went around to my desk and opened my ammo drawer.
“Marissa, you always say I never let you travel for business. I think today I’ll correct that. You are going to visit another realm.” Grimm’s calm smile left me worried.
I’d traveled to other realms. Inferno, a few times. It was better than the department of licensing. I’d been to a fairy’s realm as well, and would rather not go back. “Which one? Avalon? Say Avalon. Or Atlantis.”
Grimm looked down. “Nowhere near as extravagant. We’ve suffered an influx of goblins for the last few weeks, and I believe it prudent to check the health of the realm seal.”
Of course. The realm seal, if it looked like the others, was a giant ball of lightning that acted as a barrier between realms. Part magic construct, part physical creatures, the realm seals required constant attention to keep them healthy. Grimm couldn’t go himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send others. “I don’t want to go to the Forest. I want to go to Avalon.”
“You don’t have enough frequent-flier miles built up, but we’ll talk about it afterward. Meet me at the portal in fifteen minutes.” Grimm faded out.
“Look at it this way: You’ll get to shoot at least one goblin, and I’ll be that much happier to see Wyatt tonight.” That was Ari, always trying to salvage a bad situation.
“There’s no point in shooting goblins. They’re dumber than the bullets in my gun. As a matter of fact, in a trivia contest, I’d bet on the bullets—”
Grimm reappeared in a burst of light, in every reflective surface in my office. He spoke from all of them at once. “Code Mauve, Marissa. I need you in my office immediately. Alone.” Grimm kept his tone calm, his eyes fixed on me. Not good.
I ran down the hall, threw open the door, ready for murder, mayhem, or destruction. The air conditioner’s hum competed with the murmur of the crowds in the waiting room for loudest noise. “Yes?”
Grimm appeared in his mirror, his regular gray silk suit changed out for black, his look stern. He ignored me, keeping his eyes on the high-back chair, where I noticed two feet in penny loafers.
“Ah, so good of you to come at once.” I knew the voice. Knew the man, if you could call him that.
I shut the door behind me. “Nick.” Nickolas Scratch. The Adversary. King of demons, ruler of Inferno, and first-order paper pusher.
He rose from his chair, barely as tall as me, with heavy wrinkles around his eyes and a bald spot that could blind a girl. “I hate to bother you here, Marissa. I really do, but I have a problem, and you only lose your driver’s license every couple of weeks, so I couldn’t just wait for you to come in and replace it.” The Adversary’s second job, at the department of licensing, allowed him to be truly evil.
Since offending the commander of demon armies could have immediate impact on my life span, I chose my words with care. “Anything that’s bothering you is way out of my league. I’m trying to pick on things my own size.” Refusing the Adversary directly could be bad, but not, in my book, as bad as agreeing to help him.
Nick walked over and put one hand on my shoulder. “I know. I wouldn’t ask, but I don’t have anywhere else to turn. There’s been a theft.”
Grimm disappeared in a flash, leaving me alone. And for once, I didn’t feel abandoned. Grimm had mastered the art of foretelling the future in a dozen ways, all of them bloody enough to make me lose my lunch. I was convinced he secretly made no effort to evict the rabbits that haunted his home, because they came in handy when a quick fortune needed to be told. Right now, I needed the knowledge he’d gain from slaughtering a few bunnies as much as he did.
“Where?”
“The Vault of Souls.” Nick’s eyes glowed like fireside embers as he spoke. “Think of it like a bank vault, only instead of your mortgage papers, or some certificates of deposit, I keep valuable things. Mass murderers. Tyrants. Genocidal maniacs.”
“Who broke out?” I slipped around the desk and sat down in Grimm’s chair.
Nick’s hands clenched, turning white, and he trembled with barely contained rage. “There’s never been a breakout. Someone broke into Inferno and took three souls from the vault.” With each word, the lights in the office flickered, as if each shadow siphoned away the light. I’d stood face-to-face with demons and dealt with the harbingers of the apocalypse, including Death himself, but the Adversary was so far out
of my league, my best hope was to let him rant and hope Grimm had a plan for how to contain the damage when his temper exploded.
“The angels did it?” The angels were the only creatures I could imagine being dumb enough to mount an attack on hell itself. Now would be a great time for Grimm to make an appearance. The Adversary could squash me like a bug if I said the wrong thing.
He rumbled like a thunderstorm. Anger or laughter, I couldn’t tell. “Are you kidding? They want most of the souls in the vault locked up just as much as I do. You know, most of those souls are mine by agreement. And those three were mine by right. Given to me freely.” Blood dripped from Nick’s hands as his nails cut into his palms. It burst into flames that licked the edges of his fingers.
For just a moment, my curiosity got the better of me. “Don’t you have armies? You know, the sort that you’d need to bring about the end of the world?”
The Lord of Destruction looked at me over his bifocals, his eyes round. “I can’t admit there’s been a lapse in security. My own children would rise up against me. So, you are going to retrieve those souls. If they’ve been lashed into another body, you have my permission to take them apart in any way you find convenient. Death will take care of bringing them back to me at that point.”
The friendly grin on Nick’s face made my spine tingle. “I’m sorry. I’m your girl if you need a pair of slippers returned, or a library book, but souls? Maybe Fairy Godfather can find them and—” The words strangled out in my throat as Nick began to belch black smoke and sulfur.
“You will do it. If I don’t get them back, I’m going to start killing random people on the off chance that one of them has the soul I’m looking for. And you won’t have to find the other two. They’re going to come for you, Marissa. I’d bet on it.”
I think his final words scared me more than his threats. “Who?”
For just a moment, Nickolas Scratch looked almost concerned. “An ex-queen and her son. Both of whom have issues with you.”
Where two seconds earlier I could have baked bread just by setting it on my desk, now beads of sweat formed on my head and I shivered. I knew who he meant, and had barely survived the last time she tried to kill me. Maybe they hadn’t meant to get her. Maybe—
