by J. C. Nelson
“Here’s the simple version. First, you have to unleash the harbingers of the apocalypse.”
“I must have missed that class in college. How do I do that?”
The lich handed me back my contract. “You’ll figure it out. And you can’t do it here. I’m not on good terms with one of them. Calling down three plagues, starting the apocalypse; it’s simple enough that even you should be capable of doing it.”
The doorbell rang, cutting off any hope I had of a retort, and I rushed to open it. Outside, Mikey stood, with Ari slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
“I said to bring her by aid car.”
“We had some trouble at the hospital. Got attacked while we were waiting to be discharged.” Mikey shouldered past me into the living room.
“Is she hurt?” I rushed over to examine Ari, who hung limp, wrapped in a sheet. The only thing I could tell would be injured was her pride—hospital gowns don’t really get the job done when it comes to covering one’s rear.
“Best I can tell, she’s fine. Then again, I was kinda occupied.”
I looked out at the street, where a two-door lowrider sat at an angle to the curb. “That’s not an Agency car.”
“Nah, some gangbangers dropping off a shooting victim volunteered to let me use it.”
I looked at the claw marks, noted the shattered glass, and decided that whatever else Mikey might be, he was a pretty good employee. “You did good. Help me get her downstairs. Got to grab some stuff first.” I ran up to Ari’s bedroom to get a pillow and a comforter, and then to ransack her kitchen cabinet.
Mikey followed me downstairs without a question, and it was about the time I got down there that I began to wonder where, exactly, our lich landlord was. I opened the chest freezer, arranged the comforter, and helped ease Ari down into it.
The gray life-support block continued to keep the temperature perfect, and as I arranged Ari’s hands, it began to spew a white mist that covered her. Then I took two boxes of baking soda and put them in the freezer with her. That way, she wouldn’t wake up smelling like roses or tuna. Assuming I could wake her at all.
Mikey, on the other hand, couldn’t take his eyes off the freezer. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m sure. You did good. Go home, get some rest. Tomorrow we’re going to figure out how to deal with the woman responsible.” I gave Mikey a pat on the back, and he nearly wagged the tail he didn’t have in response. He bounded out of the basement, and the front door slammed moments later.
“Exactly why were you hiding?” I said to the empty air.
My phone beeped, and I pulled it out. “I am shy.” I looked around the room and found the lich, hovering over his books, carefully reading.
“You’re an undead sorcerer.”
He did his best to shrug, causing his collarbones to creak as they bent. “With very poor social skills. The ritual requirements don’t leave much time for attending parties.”
“Thank you. I know how to wake up Ari. The only good thing to come out of that deal is that I know I need to find her boyfriend and get him to kiss her.”
The lich’s skull whipped 180 degrees, staring at me backwards. Then the lich rushed toward me like a cloud of bitterness. “Did the demon tell you that?”
I nodded.
“Demons never help. If he told you something, it’s because he either already made sure you can’t get it or—”
“He plans to,” I said, staring into the empty bone sockets.
“Anything you receive from one is cursed. Any information you get is wrong, or will lead to worse problems. Demons never help.”
I glanced at my watch. Night classes started twenty minutes ago. “Take care of Ari. They tried to get her at the hospital. Odds are they’ll try to get her here.”
A ripple of power crossed the room, sending the carpet rolling in waves. The lich glowed in a purple-and-green light. “I look forward to it.”
I sprinted up the stairs, out the door, and decided that I was temporarily color-blind in regard to lights. I made a single stop at the toy store and a dash into Mary’s Cathedral to commit yet another sin in a long list. Then I didn’t stop for lights or pedestrians until I squealed to a halt in the loading zone outside the college. I listened for a moment, hoping that what I heard was the sound of a power saw. I knew, however, it was screaming.
Eighteen
IF YOU WANT to find a demon, it’s simple enough. Find the people running away and swim upstream through the crowd, using fists and feet where necessary. In all my years of community college, the only time anything like this happened was when my lit class threw a surprise retirement party for our professor. He opened his presents to find a nest of live wasps, two angry skunks, and a pistol that was later tied to a double homicide. I learned never to pitch in for gifts.
The people gushing down the stairs quite clearly wanted to get away from something worse than a pop quiz, which meant I most likely wanted to be there. I charged through the crowd at full speed and into a lecture room.
In one corner, a cluster of students huddled, trying to work out what it was their brains were seeing, coming up with anything but a demon. Maybe a rock star or an NBA point guard with wings.
At the front of the pack, a lone priest stood in his black robe. Poor guy probably planned on getting his associate’s degree in business, or maybe his mechanic’s certification. Instead, he wound up working off the clock.
He held up a crucifix and a rosary, and chanted in Latin. Really poorly pronounced Latin, on account of his chattering teeth. In fact, I’m fairly sure what he said was “Our Father in Accident.” The demon seemed more amused than repelled. I understood. The phrase he wanted was deliver us from evil. What came out sounded like “deliver us from postmen.” Not that the Postal Service couldn’t be evil.
The demon lumbered forward and reached for the priest. That was my cue. I’d bought a high-power water gun and filled it with holy water on the way over. The holy water worked less like acid and more like a laser, slicing into the demon’s skin, tearing a hole straight through it so that its intestines spilled out, teeming with maggots. I gave it a few more squirts for good measure, then walked down to the front of the classroom.
“Wyatt? Is there a Wyatt here?”
From behind the podium, a timid voice came. “I’m not interested.”
I walked around it and grabbed the cowering young man by the nape of the neck, pulling him to his feet, and then dropped him like a hot coal. It wasn’t the waxy, almost white blond hair I was staring at, or the pale blue, almost gray eyes he kept tightly shut, peeking at me every now and then to see if I’d gone away. Why hadn’t Ari told me? Of all the things she should have brought up, you’d think it would be that one.
Magic ran from him like a river, the “shine” as it was called, and while Ari had a pretty good snowstorm of magic about her most days, he could certainly keep up. If it weren’t for the fact that most royalty were completely blind to the shine, I would have been ticked at Ari for leaving out that detail.
Wyatt did his best to cram himself back into the podium, all of his six feet, bean-pole-thin frame almost fitting.
“You’re not safe here.” I reached for him again, and he unfolded his legs in a halfhearted kick. “One way or another, you’re coming with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I pick up this week’s assignments. My study partner will need them.” He slunk to the teacher’s desk, which had a nasty spray of demon entrails across one corner, and took a copy of the course work.
“Ari isn’t coming back to class anytime soon.” When I said it, his eyes locked onto me, and his mouth turned down sharply.
“If you’ve done something to Arianna, you’ll regret it. I’ll write a letter to your employer.”
I couldn’t say if it was “Arianna” or the threat of a strongly worded letter that made me laugh harder. “Come on, prince-boy. Got to get you someplace safe.”
He looked at me like I’d ca
lled him dead-fish boy. “What did you call me? My name is Wyatt, not Prince, and Mum has given me quite clear instructions. In the event of any sort of danger, I am always to return home immediately.”
“Fine. Come on back to my car, and we’ll take you home.” I looked at the remains of the demon, which still sizzled and twisted.
Wyatt drew himself to his full height, which was only a few inches taller than me. “I take the bus. In order for a city with so many people to work, we need to cooperate, and shared transportation resources are a key element of city life. Come, I’ll introduce you to the transit system.”
“I know about the buses.” I fumed at him, wondering if I could drag him to the car and use a stun gun on him there.
The remains of the demon began to smoke, and the pile of entrails moved, worming its way back into the sliced-open stomach cavity.
“You do not want to be here when that thing gets up and starts walking around.”
Wyatt looked at me and swallowed. “Could we call a cab?”
“If it will get you out of here.” I headed toward the door, keeping an eye on the corpse. The edges of the wounds flickered with flame, but instead of burning away the flesh, it seemed to heal it. “Come on.” I gave the demon a few more squirts, then looked back. “Any day this century would be good.”
Wyatt continued to pack his backpack. Then he pulled it on, adjusted his Windbreaker.
We met a second demon in the stairway. The thing looked like a Great Dane mixed with a parrot. Long, lithe dog legs and a beak covered in black blood. Like the first, a few squirts of my ill-gotten holy water left it in a smoldering heap, letting us leave the building.
“This happen to you often?” I kept an eye on Wyatt as he stepped around the demon remains and then continued to follow me toward the curb.
For most folks, meeting a demon would rank high on their “reasons I’ll spend the rest of my life in therapy” list. Wyatt calmly stepped to the curb and whistled for a cab. “No, but Mum has been quite clear that the world at large can be dangerous.”
A cab pulled up, and as Wyatt reached for the door, glass shattered above me. I yanked him by the collar, pulling him away as the demon from the classroom smashed onto the roof of the cab. The number of people struggling to find some rational explanation for this went up by about two hundred in the space of a few seconds.
The last of my holy water reduced it again to a pile of gore, and this time I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I grabbed Wyatt by the wrist and dragged him after me to my car. “We can make a donation to a home for puppies or something later,” I said as I shoved him into the front seat.
I tore two parking tickets from the windshield and peeled out, leaving the area as the first set of police responded. That was the primary reason Grimm let agents carry guns—when seconds mattered, police were minutes away.
“Reach in the back and get one of those water guns,” I said, as I ran traffic light after light.
Wyatt fumbled around in the backseat and came up with one. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Anything scaly shows up, you shoot it.” I swung around a corner, narrowly missing a clot of pedestrians.
“And how would I do that?”
If I could have taken a moment to look at him, I would have. I needed every bit of my attention on the road. “Point and click. Pull the trigger. Like Cowboys and Indians.”
“Native American history is not a game.”
I finally hit the last corner, and slammed to a halt, blocked by a horde of people making their way up from the waterfront. “Once we’re past the gates, we’ll be in Kingdom. The police there will be prepared for this sort of problem.”
“Where?”
I glanced over to Wyatt, and he looked at me with those pale blue eyes, his eyebrows arched.
“Kingdom?” Nothing. The word meant nothing to him. “Your ‘Mum’ doesn’t live this way, does she?”
He shook his head. “She lives close to the college. You went the wrong direction, but I was worried that if I complained, you might commit a violence against me.”
“Violence. Not ‘a violence.’”
About then the windshield shattered as another Great-Dane-demon smashed into it. I flicked on the washers and hit the accelerator, leaving a heap of demon meat in the street. Wyatt screamed in pain, flopping back and forth in the seat.
“Did it cut you?”
“My eyes. I can’t see.” I glanced over; yellow liquid covered him.
“Don’t worry. It’s mustard, and a little vinegar. Left nozzle is holy water, right one is mustard. Takes care of most of the things that attack me.” I handed him a cup from the console. “Rinse your eyes with this.”
A moment later I looked over, and despite being stained with stale coffee and doused in mustard, he didn’t look wounded. “This way?”
“Right in six blocks, number 113. This is never going to come out of my shirt.”
I continued to speed, continued to use the curb as a lane, knowing that at any moment, we could find ourselves faced with more demons. Most of the time, they wouldn’t dare attack outside of Kingdom. Inside of Kingdom, the cops carried bullets blessed by almost every religion on earth, up to and including jazz band conductors.
One block from the house, the trunk of my car exploded in a shower of metal. In my rearview mirror, a pair of yellow eyes glowed. I slammed on the brakes, throwing the demon over the car, then hit the accelerator, running it over. Steam shot from my radiator, and the engine sputtered. “We’re running from here,” I said, and threw open the door.
Wyatt followed my lead, and we took off at a sprint for number 113, a narrow town house tucked into a wall of taller buildings. From the sky above, the swoop of wings gave me a second’s warning. I tackled Wyatt just in time to keep a demon-Dane from soaring off with his head.
Behind us, my car flipped over as our assailant from the college threw it off him like a bag of laundry and began to run, impossibly fast for something that large. I made sure Wyatt got to the gate first, and followed inside, straight to the porch, where I slid to a halt.
Wyatt fumbled with keys, while I looked at the floor of the porch, cloudy-white stone that looked surprisingly familiar. In the yard, the demon crushed the gate and lumbered ever closer, walking with cloven hoofs up the stairs to stand inches from me.
“No soliciting.” I tapped my foot.
It thrust a claw up to reach past me, and an orange light like a camera flash exploded in the air. When my eyes cleared, the demon’s claw ended in a bloody stump.
Behind me, the door unlocked, and by the time I looked back, Wyatt had disappeared into the house. With a snort, the demon lumbered away into the darkness.
From the doorway, a woman’s voice spoke, older, softer. “I always knew one day I’d get a visit from you. Demons or dragons or something. It had to be something.”
I got to my feet and looked back to find the speaker, a woman with hair of gray and black. Wrinkles ringed her eyes, her face was thin, and her skin’s tone looked pale, but I couldn’t mistake the shine of magic that came from her.
When I first came to work for Grimm, I spent months memorizing the government and who’s who of Kingdom. Though the woman before me had at least twenty years on the last picture I’d seen of her, I had no doubt. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
She looked down at the ground. “I am not High Queen anymore. I am not queen of anything anymore, young lady. Would you like to come inside?”
I dusted myself off and followed her through the door, wondering how on earth the Queen of the First Royal Family had come to live here.
* * *
IF SHE’D LEFT an inch of wall without pictures, I couldn’t find it. Not that I knew any of the people. Once inside, she waved toward a green-and-orange couch. “Sit. I’ll make us tea.”
“Wyatt—”
“He’s upstairs, bathing. Mustard may be poisonous only to brownies, but it is harsh on the skin.” She disappeared into the kit
chen, leaving me to stare at the decorating. In one corner, an ancient upright piano sat, covered in pictures of Wyatt as a young boy.
The windows drew my attention the most. Not glass, but fine lead crystal, engraved in runes that I recognized as protection sigils, despite the fact I couldn’t empower one at all. The window frames too held dozens of trinkets, bottles of brick dust and other items. In essence, the house was a fortress of wards.
“Forgive my decoration. I’ve worked quite hard to keep my son safe,” said the queen.
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I was trying to keep him safe as well.” I bowed, remembering my formal manners.
She frowned and looked at me over her bifocals. “Girl, I’m no longer High Queen. Indeed, I’ve renounced my throne and Kingdom. You may call me Mrs. Pendlebrook.” She brought over a tray with tea and sat across from me. “Now, you have my thanks for protecting my son, but once you’ve rested a bit, it will be time for you to leave.”
“Wyatt is the reason I’m here. I got a tip that demons might be coming after him, and I barely got him out of the college. I need to talk with him.” I sat up and sipped the tea, savoring the taste of lavender.
“Out of the question. I know what you are, if not who. The gold bracelet. The holy water and mustard. You work for the Fairy Godfather.” She set down her teacup.
“No. I’m his partner. Marissa Locks.” The look of surprise on her face brought warmth to my heart. If she had read a copy of the Kingdom Enquirer from the last year, she’d know I was his partner. She’d also know that I negotiated with Aliens at Area 51 (true), met Elvis in the sewers (also true), and was personally responsible for burning down a bingo hall (no comment). “I need to speak to Wyatt. My best friend got attacked by a queen, and I think he might be able to wake her.”
“I’ve worked long and hard to shield my son from the realities of Kingdom. The politics, power, and backstabbing. Ms. Locks, I appreciate what you did for him, but I don’t want him dragged into a conflict with another queen.”
I slammed down the teacup, rattling the table. “I didn’t ask your permission. I’m here for your son. He’s the only one who can help Ari.”
