Armageddon Rules (33 page)

“I’ve never seen him offer anyone a wish. That’s why he keeps agents.”

She tilted her head to the side, studying me. “He said no. No matter how I begged. No matter what I offered him, he refused. So I went elsewhere. I found someone else who would make my dream come true.”

My voice shook. “A demon?”

Mrs. Pendlebrook narrowed her eyes at me. “Have you not guessed?”

In that moment, it made sense. “You made a deal with a witch.”

“High Queen, in exchange for a son I didn’t even have. A son who wouldn’t be born for a year. Sometimes what you need isn’t a wish, Marissa.”

Now it all fell into place. The wards. The Celestial Crystal. “You reneged.”

“Of course I did. I wasn’t going to give my son to that thing. They can’t have children of their own, so she wanted mine.”

I considered pointing out that only evil witches couldn’t have children of their own, but thought better of it. Occasionally I did manage to rein in my tongue.

“For five years I avoided her, and for five years she became more and more enraged. I don’t know if it was a fault in the wards, or maybe I was careless about the nighttime rituals, but she came for him. My husband exploded the way one pops a balloon, Marissa.” She stared at me, not realizing I’d cleaned up after more massacres than I could keep track of.

“I expected to die the same way, but she ignored me. Went to the nursery. Killed our nanny the same way and tried to take Wyatt from his crib.”

“He was still sleeping in a crib at five years old?” I tried not to laugh. Really, I did.

“The crib was warded. She could not touch him within it, no matter how many spells she summoned or how much power she drew. And I too would have died, were it not for one of Fairy Godfather’s agents. She came bursting through the door, a brilliant young lady armed with a bag of bone dust.”

Grimm had a knack for sending his agents to the right place at the right time. “Bone dust to cancel spells?” I considered my encounter with the Gray Man. Even my harakathin had trouble breaking through.

“And a sledgehammer to break the witch’s legs. My desire to rule led me to make that deal. It cost me my husband, and my son his father. The only move I could possibly make to atone would be giving it up. I left my position as High Queen. The agent who saved me put me in touch with Fairy Godfather, and he arranged discreet wards, made alterations as necessary to the official records.”

“Grimm helped you disappear, and according to our books, Clara Wellington was the agent who handled everything. How did she kill the witch? Sledgehammer?” Clara had been one of Grimm’s agents long before me. She made the mistake of getting caught up in Fairy Godmother’s plans and paid for it with her life.

Mrs. Pendlebrook looked at me with shock. “The witch wasn’t killed. After her trial, she was bound, and forced to serve as a shopkeeper in Kingdom. You want to know why Wyatt is afraid of your friend. The witch’s attack is his first memory.”

All the curse words in an entire battleship worth of sailors wouldn’t have done it for me right then. How was I going to explain this to Ari? I stood, making Mrs. Pendlebrook nervous. Then I got to thinking. Small house. More like a three-level cracker box.

When I spoke, I nearly shouted. “She’s still Ari. I don’t care what she looks like. Still too optimistic for her own good. Still probably incapable of driving. Still trying to see the best in everything.” Any thought of dragging Wyatt back to the Agency was gone. Well, a little thought still remained, but really, it wouldn’t work out.

I went to let myself out and couldn’t quite shake the detail that still bothered me. “If the witch is bound, how come you have to hide here?”

“She possesses a lock of his hair. She asked for it in his stead, and I did not understand.” Finally, it made sense. I always figured Ari would fall in love with a sandwich delivery boy. Instead, she had to pick a promised child with a magical bond on him. It wasn’t about the hair. The hair was a promise, an old one with the power of thousands of years of ritual. If the boy left the protection of his wards for more than a day, the witch could pull him straight to her, bound or not.

*   *   *

ON THE WAY back to the Agency, I passed Beth and Mikey walking in a pack of poodles. The tiny nylon leashes she had clipped to each of them wouldn’t have slowed them down for a moment without Beth’s power.

“Really? Taking them for a walk? And where do you keep getting them?”

Beth had a chain running from one ear, into one nostril, out the other and out to the other ear. “Mikey found me a police scanner. I go wherever there’s been a murder and let out a few bars of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and they come running.”

“How are you going to run them off into the ocean if you’re playing catch and rubbing them under the chin?” Business first, murderous toy poodles second.

“These little bumpkins are special-weshal. They’re my friends.” I liked the rats better, to be honest.

The “Closed” sign still graced the Agency doors, though any of the big hitters, say, the Royal families, would call straight through to Rosa. I went in through the service entrance. Ari’s voice drifted from her office down the hall.

“Ari?” I peeked into her office, where I spent six years working. Oh, I recognized the princess hissy right away. Ari’s cheeks had a bright red flush to them; her hair clung in little tendrils to her face. She shook her fist at Echo’s briefcase.

“M, I swear to you, if I ever see Grimm again, I’m going to break every mirror I see him in for a week. He knew. He knew I wasn’t getting better. And he knew about the Black Queen.” I always thought Ari looked cute. With witch eyes, her temper tantrums were at least moderately terrifying.

“I’m not the first person to wake up with a hangover, a headache, and a tattoo they don’t remember signing up for. I like your attitude. I had some time to think on the way back, and I think Payday George is right. Those runes the enchanters gave me, they’re coordinates. You feed them into a portal, they open it to the right place.” The more I said it, the more sense it made. Almost always a dangerous sign with magic.

Echo sounded tiny and distant without his case facing me. “Marissa, the only fortunate thing about this situation is that you lack the ability to activate a portal.”

“I bet I can do it.” Ari nodded to me. “Seal Magic? Wild Magic? According to you, I can do both.”

“Fairy Magic. You cannot open that portal or empower it without the power of a fairy. Even you, Arianna, are not capable of doing that.” Echo sounded satisfied. “Accept that Fairy Godfather is gone. Take what he’s left to you, and do something magnificent with it. Liam will return in a few short days, and you can live your life together.”

At Liam’s name a wave of joy washed over me. With poodles and apocalypses and murderous queens, I’d lost track of the days that went by. Six days felt more like six years. Then I remembered the reason Liam went in the first place. “And he’ll still be cursed. I need Grimm. He owes me a cure and some answers. I promise the cure will be the easy part.”

“In my opinion, I doubt that even Fairy Godfather can remove that curse. Call it healthy self-doubt; though at the time I was recorded, he was more optimistic.”

“Was he?” That settled it. Lying about my birth control? Lying about being able to remove Liam’s curse? Regardless of the cost, I was going to have it out with the Fairy Godfather. “If Ari can’t punch our ticket to ride, I’ll find a fairy who can.”

The look on Echo’s face nearly stopped my heart. “Marissa. You must
not
involve another fairy. You are used to the Fairy Godfather. You have no idea what the others are like.”

Ari flicked his screen with her fingertips. “Hello. M went three rounds with Fairy Godmother and won.”

Eli’s words came back to me, leaving me queasy. “I get the impression that’s not something to be proud of.” I explained Eli’s comments, without the arrogant attitude. How he’d implied that I hadn’t defeated Fairy Godmother as much as allowed what was left of the Black Queen to consume Fairy Godmother’s power.

Ari watched me with narrow eyes, her forehead furrowed in thought. “That thorn tree always did creep me out. Like it was watching me while I practiced. Echo, how could Grimm let something that dangerous stick around?”

Echo sighed. “If Fairy Godfather believed anything there were a threat to you, he would have destroyed it long ago. I’m happy to see some humility on your part, Marissa, but you fail to grasp your situation. You have killed a fairy. What makes you think any of the others would allow you within ten miles?”

“I used the Root of Lies. Or it used me.”

“And do you think the other fairies know that? Or do they only know what Fairy Godfather told them? Would he tell them the truth, leaving you open to revenge, or allow them to believe what they wanted, and fear you?” Echo closed his eyes.

If I listened, it was like having Grimm back. Except that Echo wasn’t Grimm, at least not all of him. Not enough of him. “I’ll ask Grimm once I free him. Now, about that portal. I almost got frostbite the last time I went to Moscow, so it’s Portland or bust. I hear the fairy there is grumpy, but I bet if I pay with magic up front, I’ll get exactly what I want.”

Ari nodded. “I’m with you.”

I reached to flip Echo’s case shut, and the hinges froze. On-screen, I think Echo was almost in tears, if fairies could cry. “Is there no way I can persuade you to give up this madness?”

“I need answers. I need his help. I need Grimm.”

Echo nodded, as if he’d expected my answer. “I have fulfilled my purpose, my dear, verifying your identity. I would, as Fairy Godfather would, prefer that you honor my advice. But I know you better than you imagine. Take my case to the demesne portal, Marissa.”

I picked up the case and walked to the back of the Agency, to our storage room. Here, beneath orange-and-green linoleum with a floral pattern, Grimm had a block of onyx set into the concrete. I ran my fingers over the stone circle, tracing the runes that lined the edges. Grimm’s demesne portal, capable of transporting me to his home realm, if I dared go.

I set Echo’s case down in front of the portal.

“Listen to me, Marissa. Your presence will attract the guardians of the focus point. Negotiate if at all possible, and please, be careful to change as little as possible. The limits on Fairy Godfather’s powers are for your protection as much as his punishment.” Echo’s screen began to glow.

“How exactly does this work?”

Echo stopped concentrating for a moment. “I am a microscopic sliver of the Fairy Godfather, my dear. Split off to serve my purpose. By definition, I am Fairy Magic. It was a pleasure serving you, Marissa. Whatever you find, whatever answers you learn, never doubt that he acted in your best interest.”

Echo’s screen flashed white, and a beam of power shot from it, illuminating each of the seven runes. The portal activated, tearing into space before us like a rip in my slacks. Echo’s screen went dark, and the briefcase smoked at the edges.

I ran to the hallway and yelled. “Rosa. Get your shotgun, get in here.”

She waddled down the hallway, looking at me like I was something she’d stepped in.

“This portal goes someplace special. I need you to make sure that nothing comes through it behind me.”

Ari stood in front of the portal, staring at it. “M, you won’t believe how pretty this is.” It never occurred to me that portals might look different to people with Spirit Sight.

“Let’s do this.” I briefly considered going through my special ammo. I could punch a hole in an ogre, no doubt; kill a werewolf or head cheerleader, no problem. I didn’t have anything designed to take down fairies. I did, however, have a couple of aces in the hole. “Blessing? Curse? Bus leaves in thirty seconds.”

The foundations of the building shook slightly as my harakathin arrived. Most of the time they slept in their cat beds at home, content that I wasn’t going to try to escape. Taking portals without them had proven to aggravate a couple of creatures with real anger management issues.

Ari flinched and threw up her hands. “Sweet Kingdom, M. What was that?”

“You’re the one with Spirit Sight, and you’re asking me?” I took Ari’s hand and stepped through, feeling that gut-twisting moment when the world shrank to the size of a pinprick. Then we rocketed out the other side, landing face-first in the dirt.

Before I could even pick myself up, the ground shook. Then a voice like bells and thunder shook me. “Who enters the sacred plane?”

Twenty-Nine

I’D BE LYING if I said I didn’t consider running back through the portal. Some people will tell you running from things never helps. I’m guessing most of those people have never met a “thing” with more heads than teeth and a sincere desire to devour your spleen. In those cases, running helps a lot.

Problem was, I needed to be here. Why it is that a portal never ended at a nice walkway like in an airport, I couldn’t say. This one dropped me off on the top of a stone step pyramid. Once I stopped kissing the pale gray dirt, I couldn’t help thinking that the focus point was a real dump.