Armageddon Rules

by J. C. Nelson

  “Beth, I want you to step backwards very slowly.” If she had gone too far, she wouldn’t be able to. There was a day when I chose to walk into Low Kingdom. A day when I had enough pain and sadness to hide any hope or happiness. These days, I couldn’t enter if I wanted to. Having a boyfriend, a best friend, and a boss who actually respected me made getting into Low Kingdom damn near impossible.

  I stepped backwards, and Beth flickered back into view right beside me. Grabbing her hand, I dragged her one step forward. My contact with her would force her to come with me into High Kingdom. The air exploded with color as we passed the barrier and the gates activated, tearing the real world away. I took a few more steps to be sure.

  “I saw . . .” She fixed me with a look of horror, but the words wouldn’t come. I knew what she saw. I’d been there. Then her eyes caught the glint of gold on the streets, and the shimmering facade of magical store fronts. Trumpets blared as a procession of ogres marched past, displaying Kingdom’s military and magical might.

  A squirrel ran up to us, ignoring me and tugging at Beth’s leg. “Please? Take me with you. I’ll be your lifelong friend.”

  “Go away.” Once it latched on to her, it would never leave Beth alone.

  Beth knelt, tickling the squirrel’s chin. “You’re a cute little guy.”

  “Leave her alone and find someone else to pester.” I let my tone imply that I’d eaten squirrel dumplings before and would probably do so again.

  “You’re my friend!” The squirrel began to dance around Beth, the bonding ritual.

  I snagged it by the tail and shoved it headfirst into the post-office box on the corner. With any luck, the postal gnomes would ship it to Cambodia.

  Beth stared at me like I’d crushed it.

  “What? I warned him. Welcome to Kingdom.”

  * * *

  BETH ALTERNATED BETWEEN crying over a talking squirrel and staring at the wyverns, trolls, and princesses for the better part of the next ten minutes. Finally, I led her to a cart where dozens more talking squirrels waited. “I have to make a phone call. You stay here and talk to these little guys, and if you still want one, when I get back, I’ll buy it for you.” I left her there, cooing and giggling as she traded greetings, and went to call Liam.

  Grimm usually acted as a sort of telephone operator for calls between his agents. He soon tired of the sorts of conversations Liam and I had, and set up our own private “chat” line. All I had to do was put my hand on my bracelet and think of Liam.

  “Liam?” I was used to looking in mirrors or anything that can reflect when I called by bracelet, but since neither of us were fairies, Grimm said we didn’t have a data plan, just voice.

  After a moment he answered. “Kind of busy, M. Call you back?” In the background, someone screamed, someone else growled, and then came a crunching sound like chicken bones snapping.

  “What are you doing?” Then I remembered what day it was. “Are you fighting with the bridge troll again? What did I tell you about that? Let it go.”

  “Maybe.”

  Maybe, my ass. “You either are or you aren’t.”

  “I’m not.”

  I so wished I could scowl at him, so I made certain he could hear it in my tone. “Are you telling me there isn’t a bridge troll within ten feet of you?”

  He panted as he ran. “No. Definitely not even within twenty feet. I’m trying to get a few loose ends tied up before I leave.”

  Grimm had spent the last couple weeks trying to persuade a certain troll to stop devouring bicyclists. I don’t actually think Grimm cared about the cyclists, but the troll showed signs of spandex poisoning, and trolls weren’t known for listening to their dieticians.

  “Listen, I’m taking our new piper to lunch at the Mile High Club. Meet me there?” From Liam’s end, the drone of cars passing overhead confirmed what I already suspected.

  “Give me forty-five minutes,” said Liam. I didn’t like it. He could’ve walked there in twenty, which meant he wanted to have another go at the troll before he left. Boyfriend, I reminded myself. Not slave (at least, not all the time), so I let it go.

  Back at the cart, Beth had her kazoo to her mouth and was humming “It’s a Small World” as loud as one could on a plastic kazoo, which wasn’t very loud. In the cages, animals rocked back and forth, enthralled. As I walked up, a look of relief swept through her. She took the kazoo out and dropped her shoulders.

  I smiled. Maybe this year’s Poodling would go better after all. “Looks like someone is figuring out how to control their power.”

  She glared at the stack of cages. “They don’t ever shut up.” Another lesson learned, but I had another to teach, and doing that required a visit to my third least favorite place in the world. Number two was the Kingdom Post Office. Inferno ranked at Four, in case you are wondering. Yeah, I’d rather go to hell than visit the post office. The Department of Licensing was a special case. I hated it worse than the others combined, but as far as I’m concerned the DOL is a province of Inferno.

  We walked down streets, taking our time. Gradually Beth learned to close her mouth, and to look out for wyvern droppings, and not to talk to strange clowns in weird masks. That’s not a Kingdom-specific lesson, but obviously no one ever taught it to her. “Here.” I pointed across the street to a shop. Not the Mile High Club, yet.

  The outside of the shop was your standard Kingdom magical facade. Pink, shimmery, and glittered in the sun. The gold lettering on the door said “Isyle Witch” in large block letters.

  “Does that mean ‘witch’ like warts and cauldrons and spells?” asked Beth. She was actually taking most of this well.

  “Yup. We’re here on business though. Just making a pit stop. This place is like a hardware store. You ever need something magical, you get it here. We use her because her bindings are the strongest of all the witches.” I pointed to an eight-page contract framed in the window.

  “There are more?” Her voice had a tremor this time.

  “In Low Kingdom, yes. You don’t go to Low Kingdom. Ever. You need something magical, you come here.” I’d get her a map of Kingdom before we left and mark out all the bad places to eat.

  Beth stood rock-still, staring at the ground. “Is that where I was going, back where the world went away?”

  I leaned against a newspaper machine. “Yeah. Out of curiosity, how many times have you eaten human flesh in the last year? The limit’s once if you want to enter High Kingdom.” Her stare told me she hadn’t eaten at any hot dog vendors for quite a while. “Okay, no human flesh. So you’ve had it pretty rough. You can be evil, or you can be sad. Either will open the underpass to Low Kingdom.”

  I took her hand and led her inside. Her look said she didn’t really want to go. Even I didn’t really want to go, but business was business. I opened the door to the witch’s shop and motioned her in. Inside, the humidity was at least one hundred percent, and at the temperature inside, I could bake a chicken in my pocket while I browsed.

  “Who enters my home?” asked the witch. The counter wasn’t visible from the doorway, so I took Beth and led her over to the corner where a huge crystal vat held dozens of frogs.

  The witch saw me, Beth saw the witch, and that’s about when the screaming started. I walked over to the counter and nodded. “How’s business?”

  “Is your pet going to do this the entire time?” The witch pointed to an engraved plaque that read “No Screaming.” The one below it read “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Soul, No Service.”

  The witch leaned across the counter. “I’ll make an exception in your case.”

  “Nah, she’s got to get over this. Beth, come here.” Beth didn’t move, so I went and moved her. Also, I might have clamped my hand over her mouth, you know, to move her. And she might have bitten me twice. “Beth, this is the Isyle Witch. Witch, this is Beth. Beth’s going to be a piper.”

  Beth took a break from screaming to stutter, “Her eyes.”

  The witch grinned, wrinkled lips pul
ling back across toothless gums. “I see as well as you do, child. Better, when it comes to the spirit world.” The witch stared at her, showing sickly yellow eyes, like someone had removed her pupil and iris, leaving only diseased white in their place.

  “It’s the witch mark. She’s got the witch mark. I’ve got the handmaiden’s mark.” I held up my hand to show my rose scar. I looked at the witch. “Is there a piper mark?”

  The Isyle Witch shook her head.

  I looked back at Beth, trying to make sure my face said “I care about your problems” more than “gut up and deal with it.”

  “Well, you’ve still got a lovely tattoo of a dinosaur on your shoulder. So we’re all friends with weird tattoos on our eyes, or hands, or shoulders. Now, will you please stop screaming?”

  Beth shut her mouth but did her best to hide behind me.

  Which gave me the chance to actually do some business. “Got any new frogs since Ari was in? I’ll take them if you do.”

  The witch reached behind the counter and brought out a trident.

  “Alive.”

  She sighed and handed me a net and a plastic bag. I took Beth (who maintained a death grip on my shoulder) over and fumbled in my purse until I found a cracker in a plastic wrapper. I pointed to the frogs. “See, some of these are amphibious normalcus. That’s your garden-variety frog. Some of them, however, are most likely royalty.”

  Beth stopped giving me a bruise on my shoulder to look at the hordes of frogs swimming back and forth. “How do you know which is which?”

  “I’m glad you asked.” I unwrapped the cracker and held it over the tank. Most of the frogs dove for the bottom in fear, but four of them floated near the top, beady little eyes fixed on me. I held my hand closer and all but one opened its mouth.

  Beth clapped her hands. “I get it! Frogs eat flies, but those are willing to eat crackers, so you know they were once human!”

  “Hardly.” I scooped the four up and dumped them into the bag in one motion. “There are two key things that tell you I’ve got three princes and probably a businessman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. First off, they weren’t afraid when I came up to the tank. That means they’re too stupid to have lived in the wild. Secondly, three of them opened their mouths when I offered them food, meaning they’re so lazy they can’t even be bothered to flick a tongue. They feel entitled to be fed by hand. Lastly, they’re dumb enough to eat something that would kill them. Stupid, lazy, and entitled. That’s how you recognize a prince.”

  I walked over to the counter where the witch waited and took out my company card. I wanted Beth to see this. “Time to pay.” I tapped the card and it changed into a glass vial filled with glowing gold dust. “This is Glitter. It’s the currency of magic, and while you’ll need plenty of green in the real world, you’ll need this to buy anything in Kingdom.”

  I tapped the vial, and a swirl of Glitter ran from it onto the witch’s scales, exactly paying my bill. Not one speck more or less. Beth looked at the pile of dust with awe and wonder. “I don’t have any of that.”

  “Exactly.” I nodded to the witch. “Thanks again, and have a good one.”

  “Handmaiden,” said the witch, “have you used my gift to you?”

  A few years ago she gave me a potion. A love potion, which I almost used and almost made a horrible mess of everything. I still had it, locked in a safe-deposit box in Grimm’s office. “I found love on my own, thanks.”

  The witch nodded and smiled at me. “Then you are truly ready for our queen’s return.”

  I took Beth and dragged her from the shop as fast as I could, running down the street outside so fast, I almost ran over a group of senior citizens tap-dancing with canes and walkers.

  Beth came running after me. “What was that about?”

  “She’s crazy. Obsessed with the idea that the Black Queen is going to come back.” I looked at my bag of shaken and stirred frogs. “I only go in there on business. Speaking of which, let’s head on over to the restaurant and talk money.”

  * * *

  WITH A STREAM of rats behind us, we entered the base of the building that led to the Mile High Club and waited for the elevator. Places like that were posh enough to afford separate up and down elevators. The up ones only go up, the down ones, well, you get the idea. While we waited, I began my pitch.

  “You’re going to need to make a living. In time you’ll get enough control over your power that you won’t accidentally attract rats or teenagers. Then you’re going to need to decide how you are going to make money.”

  “I need to eat,” said Beth. This was a somewhat obvious statement, since Beth was both skeleton thin and not likely to stop eating anytime soon.

  “You do indeed. Ever been to a concert where it seemed like only one of the band members could play, and everyone else had taken music lessons by mail? Yet their concerts sold out and people lined up to hear them?”

  Her eyes lit up with understanding.

  “So I have to ask, Beth. How interested are you in being beheaded?”

  It took her a moment to be sure she heard me right, and a moment longer to figure out how to answer that question. She narrowed her eyes. “Not at all.”

  “Well, in that case, I need to give you a few ground rules. Pipe teenage boys to music concerts? No problem. Authorities will smile, people will love you. Pipe adult men to follow you to war or elect you to office?” I drew my hand across my neck. “We’ll get to see how you look with about ten inches off the top.”

  “So I can control more than animals?” A dangerous smile spread across her face. One that made me hope she had a good neckline, and no plans for an open-casket funeral.

  I looked her in the eye. “Men are just another species of animal.”

  “Are you talking about me again?” asked Liam, joining me in line. He picked me up off the ground in a huge hug and then kissed me twice.

  Beth looked at him like she’d encountered an ogre.

  “Beth, this is Liam. Liam, this is Beth, our newest piper.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Beth.” Liam gave her that goofy grin of his and took her hand. “What instrument do you play?”

  Beth spent a moment looking guilty, then took her kazoo out of her pocket and waved it at him.

  “No, really. What do you play?” Liam asked.

  I gave his shin a vicious kick.

  “You know,” he said, “I hear that Marissa is looking for help with poodles this year.” I’d make sure he understood his mistake later.

  “I’m still not sure how I’m going to help,” said Beth, giving my boyfriend far too friendly a smile for my tastes.

  If she tried her “follow me” trick with him, I’d introduce her to the business end of a bus in short order. “Beth wants a job where she can earn a little green and a little gold. I was about to tell her that I might have a position opening up.”

  Liam raised his eyebrows at me, but kept his mouth shut, even giving me a hand kicking rats out of the elevator. I figured we’d have plenty of time to eat while the rats figured out a way up, and whenever they arrived, well, that would be our signal that the lunch special just ended.

  Once we were seated, Beth alternated between inhaling platefuls of pasta and staring at the view. I’d brought her to this place on purpose. I needed to impress her, needed her commitment to help with the Poodling, and I figured the view from a restaurant over a mile in the sky would be just the thing.

  It was.

  The longer she stared out the window, the less she ate. When she finally came back she looked completely dazed. “I never thought I’d see something like this.”

  “You never thought you’d be followed by hordes of rats. You never thought you’d need to keep them away with a kazoo, and you also never thought there were at least two additional layers to the city that you’d never known existed.” I figured that if she was going to deal with stuff, I might as well make her deal with it all.

  “I’m a piper.” She turned th
e kazoo over in her fingers, like it was magic instead of a few cents’ worth of plastic.

  “Yes. So tell me, Beth. Will you help me with my poodle problem? I’ll train you to control your power. I’ll teach you to stop calling waves of rats. You will help me send about a thousand tiny monsters to their death before they kill half the people in the city.” I stared at her, knowing what I needed her answer to be.

  “These ‘poodles.’ They’re dangerous?”

  I nodded. “We lose people every year to ‘Oh, what a cute little dog. Does it want a treat?’ What they want is your liver, preferably torn straight out of your chest. You’d be saving people.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a deal,” she said. A grin spread across her face like I hadn’t seen before. “But I want my piercings back. At least a few of them.”

  “Long as you don’t die of lead poisoning, you can va-jazzle yourself to your heart’s content.” At last I could relax. Beth would learn to control the poodles enough for us to run them off into the ocean. Grimm would once again get to say “Marissa, you were right,” my favorite phrase to hear from all the men in my life.

  Beth got up from her chair and looked around. “I, umm, need to use the restroom.”

  “The restroom? Or the restrooms?” Liam pointed over his shoulder at a set of doors. “Those are the restrooms. If you actually need to go to the bathroom, you want that one over there.” He pointed to a much smaller set of doors.

  Beth looked at him like now the third eye had attached to his head.

  “Beth, with a name like ‘The Mile High Club,’ didn’t it occur to you that there might be people having sex almost anyplace private?” I smiled as a look of shock spread over her face. “Small restrooms are for using the bathroom.”

  She shuffled off to the small bathrooms, eyeing everyone else at the tables she passed with suspicion.

  Liam caught my hand, and smiled at me. “Remember the scene in that one film where the lady in brown meets her cousin’s husband? What did she tell him? Il ya un gopher dans mon pantalon. It means ‘Things are going to be fine.’”