by J. C. Nelson
“It takes nine months of hard work, or so I’ve heard. And you don’t need magic. There are plenty of people who don’t want their children, and plenty of people who do. We try to hook the two up.” A lump formed in my throat as I spoke. I wanted a child to love. One to cherish, more than anything I’d wanted in years. I would be the family I wished I had, and love my son or daughter the way my parents should have loved me.
Beth’s voice came out hollow when she spoke. “You don’t know what it’s like, not knowing where you come from.”
“I do.” I wasn’t much of one for self-pity, or pity of any type. Compassion, I could do, because it came with action. “My first mom and my dad came to Fairy Godfather for a child. Odds are, I was born in one of these, probably this one, based on what I’ve found.” I held up a report paper.
“You ever wonder about who your real mother was?”
“I know who my real mother was. She was the woman who was there when I was sick. When I had six hours of homework. When I got my first period. I never knew my dad’s first wife, but his second one raised me.” I didn’t mention that Mom had traded me for a miracle to Fairy Godfather. Or that we still weren’t on speaking terms.
“Do you think I might turn out to be a long-lost princess?”
I spat coffee out in a spray, burning my nose as I laughed. “Listen. Did you ever think that maybe there’s a reason the lost princess stays lost? It’s because people don’t really want to find them. If I lose my car keys, you can bet I’ll figure out where they are. Then again, I like my car keys and would feel bad if someone took them.”
“What is your problem with princesses? Jealous?” Beth tried giving me a sassy, taunting look. She really needed to work on it because her “sassy” looked a lot like my “ate too much curry” look.
“I’m not jealous. It’s just frustrating. Princesses get everything easy. Luck goes their way. Men swoon over them. Cops let them off with a warning, and robbers say please and thank you when they take their wallet. Princes don’t work for anything, and they expect you to fall into their arms and onto their bed at the blink of an eye.”
“I think it might be fun.”
I assembled my papers and rose. “I think I’ll get more done in my office. If you get to the point where you can put your hand in the cage without needing stitches, call me.”
* * *
BY LUNCHTIME, I’D signed every single report, issued only six warnings, and been called out to the lobby to personally deal with a man who insisted he had seven dwarves living in his house. Turns out, he had seven cats, and what he needed wasn’t a princess (I was fresh out of those) but animal control. Animal control was an acceptable solution in my mind if it turned out to actually be dwarves as well.
While I ate tuna salad, I wished more than anything that I could talk to Liam. Even after he’d been cursed, his calm and patient nature continued to act as a balance for me. I knew what he’d say. That I’d find a way. That I could buy, borrow, or steal something to put an end to this mess.
He’d say he loved me, and I wanted to hear that more than anything.
The last thing I wanted was for Liam to come home and find out I’d destroyed the world. So it was time to hire some new legal counsel. I checked on my enchanters, found them painting their toenails instead of cursing parking violators, then checked on Beth. She sported several new bite marks to her face and had a look that said if I brought it up, she’d offer me some unconventional piercings on the spot. So I left the Agency and headed out to meet my new lawyer.
When I walked through the door of Ari’s apartment, he slithered out, his skeletal form materializing from the black vapor. I opened my purse and took out a present I’d picked up on the way over. A phone with text-to-speech capabilities, which meant I wouldn’t have to read his responses. “Larry, I’d like to make a business proposition.”
He picked up the phone with one skeletal claw and clipped it to his sternum. “It’s a bit late for that. If you asked before you signed the contract, I could have helped.”
The only good thing about making a deal with demons was that I had learned to ask about conditions first. “How do I pay you? Check? Card?”
His jaw creaked open in what I hoped was a smile. “Souls. I haven’t eaten since Ari moved in.”
He wasn’t supposed to be eating the garbage or postmen before that, but I didn’t feel like arguing the point. “I’ll find you someone. Last night I took the express elevator down, and I’m in danger of defaulting on the contract if I don’t get started. I’m supposed to be unleashing some harbingers to start. Any idea how?”
The look of contempt he summoned from an empty skull left me envious. “What do they teach in public schools these days?” He drifted over to the coffee table, where my contract sat. “You have to summon the harbingers, provide them with their mounts, and let them go to town on the city. They set the stage for the demons. Think of it like a housewarming, where you set the house on fire.”
“These harbingers; Malodin said they’d come when I called.”
He spun so quickly the rags on his skeleton flew outward. “Don’t do it here.”
“I’ll wait until I’m back at the office. What exactly are they going to do?”
Larry drifted to a bookcase and levitated out a tome. “I slept through a lot of my History of Fallen Civilizations class, but basically they’ll ride around the city twice, then begin the carnage.”
“So how do I get out of this?”
Larry moved his hand, and the contract swelled to its full size, becoming several feet across. “If there were an escape clause, I’d have found it by now. They get revised every time someone finds a way to avert the apocalypse. This one looks pretty good.”
“There’s no way out?” I sat on Ari’s couch, sinking into the worn fabric.
“Not if you want to delay the end of the world. You have to do what you are obligated to do. As your counsel, I can’t advise you to break the terms of the contract. But don’t do anything voluntarily.” Dust flew from the corners of the room, and the stench of blood and decay flooded my nose as he began to chant.
A cloud of darkness formed before him, then slowly cleared, leaving a piece of paper. Larry drifted over to me. “Take this.” I looked at it. It looked like a normal contract—that is, absolute garbage, but at least it was in English. “Do nothing you don’t have to.”
“I found Ari’s boyfriend.”
Larry’s eyes lit up with a green glow I hoped meant excitement. “Send him over. I won’t eat him until after he wakes her.”
“He didn’t agree to wake her yet. And I think she’d object to you devouring him.”
His shoulder blades clattered as he dropped them in disappointment. “What kind of person wouldn’t want to help Ari?”
I tucked the contract into my purse and rose. “He’s a prince.”
“Figures. If he says no, can I still eat him?”
“If he won’t help Ari, I’ll tie him up and douse him with barbecue sauce, then put him in a chest freezer. Speaking of which, I need to change the baking soda in Ari’s, umm, chamber.”
Larry waved his hand. “I’ll get it later. I’ve got nothing but time.”
So I left Ari in the care of a spirit of evil, and headed back to the office to call down destruction.
Twenty-One
I THINK IF I’d hit one more traffic light on my way back to the Agency, someone would have died. I intended to check on Beth. Instead, I interrupted something that would have constituted a human resources violation even by my limited standards. In the kitchen, Mikey held my enchanter pinned to the wall. The enchanter’s feet hung a good six inches off the ground, while Mikey’s muscles bulged and the hair on his arms seemed thick and long. He leaned over into the enchanter’s face and growled. “Go ahead and say it.”
“Not—” the enchanter choked. “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.”
“Mikey?” I didn’t bother going for my gun. If anything, I wanted
to make sure I could make an impression on the intern without making a bullet hole.
He looked back like a little boy sent to the principal’s office. “He said, I mean, he called me—”
“A big bad wolf?” I kept my tone calm, then motioned to my witless spell slinger. “If you don’t mind?”
Mikey dropped him into a heap on the ground and gave a warning growl.
“Come on.” Holding open the kitchen door, I waved him back toward my office. I sat at my desk while Mikey completely dwarfed his chair. “You have to learn to let things go. This is my business. I don’t terribly like the Enchanters either; I mean, they’re nearly incompetent, they smell—”
“Not as bad as you. You reek of brimstone.” Mikey caught himself too late and went back to staring at the floor.
“This isn’t about me; it’s about you getting along with my other employees. I’ve said worse than them.”
Mikey looked up at me. “Yeah, but Fairy Godfather said not to kill you. It’s always the same thing. The big bad wolf. What’s wrong with being the big bad wolf? When I was a pup, Dad always said if I ate my meat and got big and strong, I could be like the big bad wolf.”
“The big bad wolf got cooked by the pigs. Down a chimney, not Santa, things didn’t go well. Though honestly, from what I’ve seen, if Santa comes down your chimney, you’re screwed.”
Mikey put his elbows on my desk. His eyes looked off at the ceiling, his mouth turned slightly up. “Maybe in your version. The way I hear it, the pigs never saw him coming. He made bacon for his entire family, two hundred pounds of sausage, six whole hams, and a football for every one of his pups. Then, he rented out the third pig’s house and lived off the occasional bad renter.” Mikey’s eyes gleamed with wild pleasure. “Maybe one day, I can be a landlord too.”
I made a mental note to look up my building’s ownership and see what exactly my lease allowed them to do. “I need you, Mikey. I’m holding the Agency together until I can find a way to bring back Grimm. I’m sorry that folks don’t understand. Wolves aren’t exactly popular.”
Mikey focused on me for a moment. “How come you smell like demons?”
I sighed. “When I went back to close off a poodle leak, I had a close encounter with one. Now it thinks I’ve agreed to do something I haven’t.”
Mikey’s eyebrows arched and his eyes widened. “You need anything killed, you come to me first, okay?”
“You got it. If it makes any difference, I’ll make our enchanters take sensitivity training. Got any good books on wolf history?”
He practically bounded from the chair. “You bet. Next time I’m back at the village, I’ll bring you something worth reading.” Then he loped out of the office, closing my door behind him.
In the empty room, I took out my contract and skimmed it. Harbingers. “The party will summon harbingers and provide them mounts.” What had Malodin said? Call, and they would come?
I cleared my throat. “Harbingers of the apocalypse, I call you.”
Nothing happened. I slumped back in my chair, wondering what I’d done wrong.
Then the buzzer on my desk went off. I clicked the intercom.
“Visitor,” said Rosa.
Before I could get up, my door opened, and in walked a stunning black man. He stood easily six feet, with wide shoulders and long, thin legs. His broad smile showed shining white teeth. “Handmaiden, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve been waiting for your call.”
I shook his hand, surprised to find a strong, warm grip that matched the smile.
“I’m War, Harbinger of the Apocalypse.”
“You’re not exactly how I pictured you.” In truth, I’d imagined a biker with racist tattoos and a baseball bat.
“Sorry, still wearing my last skin. I was in Nairobi, making sure that people don’t forget someone from one side of the river killed someone from the other side of the river two hundred years ago.” He sat in my office chair, fitting much better than Mikey had.
“So what now?”
He flashed me those teeth again and laughed, a deep, hearty laugh. “I will wait for the other harbingers to make themselves known. Then, you provide my mount, and I can get to work.” His skin began to wrinkle, and turn pale. He shrank, becoming thinner, shorter. His skin became taut, the dark brown of a Latino man. “In the meantime, I’m going to go put on some gang colors and shoot someone. Gang wars are almost as good as tribal feuds.” He left my office, whistling a hip-hop tune and adjusting a bandanna.
The buzzer rang again, and I didn’t bother getting up. Sure enough, the door opened, and in walked a young man with sandy brown hair and pale skin that his white lab coat made even whiter. He flicked the stethoscope around his neck as he walked.
“Let me guess. Pestilence?”
He nodded and smiled, showing silver caps on each of his teeth. “You’re catching on.”
I offered my hand, but he kept his folded.
“You have any idea how many germs there are on the average human hand? I’d sooner shake your—”
“I get the point. Seriously though, a doctor? Wouldn’t you want to be a biologist, or working on some sort of disease?”
He sprayed down my chair with antibacterial spray and took a seat. “I’m no longer interested in only making people sick. I want to keep them that way. Long-term illness is the new black plague. Though thanks to you, handmaiden, I doubt there’ll be a long term for this world.”
Some people, you start an apocalypse even once, never let you live it down. “So you shuffle out, someone else shows up, then you go kill people until I get you a horse?” I reached into my drawer and pulled out a surgical mask. Didn’t make sense to take risks around him.
“Nah. That’s War’s gig. I’m going to go volunteer in the emergency room. Maybe leave a sponge, or spread some staph. I’ll see you around. Has that ass hat shown up yet?” He looked over his shoulder.
“Fairy Godfather isn’t available at the moment.” That’s all I was going to say on the matter.
“I’m talking about Death. You’ll understand.” He rose and took a tissue from his pocket, using it to open the door to my office.
When he’d gone, I buzzed Rosa. “When Famine gets here, send him on in.”
“Get out here.” Rosa sounded worried, and I took that quite seriously. I headed for the door at a run.
In the lobby an obese man sat. His grotesque arms gripped a steel walker, taking turns shoveling corn chips from a messenger bag.
“Famine. I get it. Get the hell out, and send in Death.” I shuddered at my own words, but resolved to ignore the manifestation of hunger and starvation. Pestilence came across as reasonable. War was downright friendly. It’d be a cold day in Inferno before I tolerated the mockery of Famine.
“He’ll see you when he sees you,” said Famine. As he spoke, bits of chip flew from his mouth.
When I approached the door to my office, I swung it open with my foot. No one waited. I walked inside, then hesitated before I sat down, sure there’d be someone waiting in my chair when I looked up. I was still alone. So after a few minutes of looking around, and flinching every time someone misspoke a spell and broke a window, I settled down and finished up another round of paperwork.
When I looked up, it was nearly seven in the evening. I took a bus home, leaving my new Agency car at work rather than fight evening traffic. After walking seven blocks, I finally made it home, and took the stairs to my apartment.
Inside, I opened a can of cat food for blessing, one for curse. As I dumped it out, a chill swept through the apartment, like I’d left the door open. I reached for my purse, and the pistol inside.
“You don’t need that, Marissa.” The voice cracked like clay in a drought, and rasped like bleached driftwood or dry bones.
“Death?” My fingers trembled, and my stomach churned.
“Yes.”
When I finally mustered the courage to look over my shoulder, I met the gaze of a wizened Chinese man. His hai
r, where he still had hair, was white and thin, and liver spots covered his sallow yellow skin. He sat at my table, his hands folded before him. “You can stop quivering. I’m Death, not Destruction. Come, sit.”
I approached the table, wondering if it wouldn’t make more sense to run and keep running, anywhere but here.
“I’ll show up wherever you go.” He folded his hands together. “You know, I’ve meant to get around to you, ever since you became the handmaiden.”
“Agent.” I didn’t take well to that term. Handmaidens gave manicures and pedicures. I handed out bruises and bullets.
“Not Fairy Godfather. The Black Queen. Normally, she’d mark a whole slew of you, and I’d just wait it out to see who survived. You’re the only one this time.” He unfolded a single finger to point to the mark on my hand.
“The Black Queen isn’t alive. And even if she was, I work for the person who arranged to kill her last time.” I met his gaze, empty black eyes staring through me.
“She might be dead. She isn’t gone. Like your wraith friend. Dead doesn’t mean gone.” He spoke without emotion, as if showing a simple math problem.
“Yeah, well, I blame both of them on you. Maybe if you’d done your job, they’d actually be dead and gone.” You can only put up with so many supernatural beings in one day, and I was about three past my limit.
Death scratched his head and glanced around my apartment. “That’s not what I do. I don’t kill people, Marissa. When they are dead, I give them a choice. Move on, or stay. Most of them I can persuade. Some of them, I can force. Sometimes, they aren’t ready. Or they’re too powerful.”
Too powerful for Death? I focused on him now. If Death could be beaten, perhaps demons could be too.
“Not beaten. Delayed. Love, hate. They have something that keeps them pinned here. Love’s easy. Lasts until whatever they love dies, then they go along for a group tour. Hate, on the other hand, can pin a soul down. Get enough of it, and it can last forever.”
“Like Larry?” I glanced to my purse, wondering if Larry could text.
“Not really. He didn’t build up nearly enough hatred. Sooner or later, he’ll have to let go, and when he does . . .” Death’s voice trailed off without menace or anger.
