J. Nelson - Free Agent

“They’re both odorless, tasteless, and deadly, M. Sooner or later you’re going to learn to forget things on purpose.”

She had a point. I considered forgetting to order Ari steel-toe slippers. That way she and Liam could bond over him helping her with crutches after he broke those toes in about a dozen places while dancing.

We worked our way down off of Kingdom’s Main Street, through narrower roads, older roads. The bracelet thrummed less here, which meant we were not so tied to reality anymore. This was Middle Kingdom. While the High and Low Kingdoms overlapped the city like ghosts, Middle Kingdom didn’t connect to our reality except at the edges of the High and Low Kingdoms. All the old fairy tales played out in Middle Kingdom hundreds of years ago. According to Grimm, it resisted any efforts to modernize, so the government built a new palace and renamed the road it was on “Main Street” but the old palace was still around. Kind of like an old sports stadium after it’d been replaced. One of these days I figured they’d implode it and build the world’s largest yogurt-plex where it used to be.

We were in Dwarf Town, I knew by the buildings. Old buildings, heavy wooden buildings made of beams and planks, with second-story windows and crazy leaning sides. The other key hint was that I’d have to crawl on my knees to get through the doors. Evangeline knew where we were headed; she could read dwarvish. She read the scrawled writing on one door—it looked more like someone had let a rabid raven dance on the sign than it did actual writing. After a moment she gave the door a kick so hard it bent. A dwarf came barreling out.

He shook his fist. “You’re late, and you owe me a new door.” I think it made dwarves happy to be angry. If the dwarves ever got tired of forging swords and armor, they had a sure thing lined up as talk-radio hosts.

“There was a line at the post office,” said Evangeline, and handed him the box.

The dwarf tore it open and took out an old-style bottle of what looked like mercury. With a tug he opened the lid and a smell like boiled cat bit my nose. The fact that I knew what boiled cat smelled like was a sad testament to my life.

I covered my face with my sleeve. “What is that?”

He scowled at me. “Fleshing silver, suspended in cat broth,” he said and went back inside.

As we walked through the side streets and back toward Main Street, Evangeline cocked her head, listening. “This way,” she said, pulling me toward an underpass.

Heavy feet tromped by overhead and stopped. Then, in the quiet of Middle Kingdom, my purse began to sing. Liam was calling on my disposable cell phone. Evangeline glared at me, as the muffled tones of “It’s a Small World” echoed. I held my breath. I heard a strange creaking noise, and one by one the owners of the heavy feet jumped over the side of the bridge, landing on the path before us.

“Give us the box,” said the largest one. I recognized the guttural voice of a goblin. Stupid muscle, but cheap. “Give us the box and do not scream.”

Evangeline walked forward toward the group, a sway in her hips. “Oh no, I don’t think people will hear me if I scream,” she said, holding her hand to her mouth.

I giggled, knowing how this was going to go. The goblins advanced on her, surrounding her. Evangeline put her hands on her hips. “Oh, wait. I meant, nobody will hear you if you scream.” Then she attacked. If all the women in the city fought like that, muggers would take up safer occupations, like wrestling rabid tigers.

“Graaabbaaaragggh” said the lead goblin as Evangeline kicked him in the crotch. The longest piece of literature in goblin language was only ten syllables long, so for a goblin that was practically a soliloquy. Evangeline tripped the next one and broke his arm.

I had my own problems of course. Two of the beasts decided they’d have better luck with five foot eight, hundred- and-fifty-pound me. I didn’t carry a nine millimeter for nothing, and I hit the lead one in the leg three times as he approached.

“Always shoot in the feet,” Grimm once told me. “They’re so heavy it cripples them.” Evangeline preferred to break their knees, which worked equally well. The remaining one made a lunge for me, closing his leathery hand around my wrist. It crushed my arm under its fingers and tore the gun from my hand. “Die.”

I felt into my pocket with my free hand and grabbed a tiny object the size and shape of a walnut. Grimm said we should always be polite. “No, thank you.” The only thing I detested more than Jehovah’s Witnesses were goblins, so I sank my fist into his stomach with every bit of force I could muster.

The shell in my hand disintegrated, and lightning shot through him, making his ears steam. If I had even a shred of magical ability I could have fired it like a bolt from a distance, but given my past history with magic I was just happy it shocked him and not me.

“Come on,” said Evangeline, and we hurried back toward Main Street. “We’d have been fine if your phone hadn’t given us away. Why do you even have that on?”

I took it out of my purse and pulled up voice mail. “I’m not built like you. I have to talk to them to get their attention. You just have to walk by.” I listened to Liam complain about sitting through a tax meeting with his accountant and grinned at his frustration and the sound of his voice.

Evangeline looked through me, her face blank with boredom.

I snapped the phone closed. I knew Grimm would want confirmation that the delivery was done. Inside Kingdom it was hard to get a hold of him. Too much interference, I think, like too many cell phones in one area. The moment we passed the gates, he waited in an oily puddle.

“Trouble?” It wasn’t a question.

Evangeline dug bits of goblin flesh from under her fingernails. “Not until after the drop-off. We left a bunch of goblins under the Eleventh Street Bridge. Might want to call animal control and let them know.”

“Ah yes. Well, they may have been misled about where they would find you,” said Grimm. “Are you hurt, Marissa?”

My arm had a bruise like an ink blot on it where the goblin had grabbed me. The shape reminded me of a tattoo I’d considered getting to celebrate surviving my first year at the Agency. If I was going to draw on myself with permanent markers, it wouldn’t be Asian characters that meant “Free Fried Rice” or Celtic writing that said “Riverdance Sucks.” It’d be the thing that best represented my life: a bruise. “I got squeezed, but I’ll live. I fried the bastard for it.”

Grimm frowned. “That was completely unnecessary, wasting magic. Haven’t I trained you in self-defense? I want you to stop by the emergency room and get that x-rayed. Is this going to delay the prince’s send off?”

A chill shot through me, making the hairs on my neck stand up. I’d managed to forget for a bit about that. “Won’t be a problem.” My arm throbbed, sending waves of pain through me, but I knew it wouldn’t be the only thing hurting by the end of the night.

THE LAST BIT of the prince setup is simple and easy, so long as you haven’t deluded yourself about your chances with a prince. He’s shared a kiss with you, and called you (and called, and called) and can’t wait to see you again. All you have to do is seal the deal. You take him out in public and shred him like last year’s credit cards.

Then Grimm knows where he’s going to be sulking, and arranges it so the prince bumps into a princess. She’s coy but charming, gentle, and quiet. She is a friend to talk to, and a hand to hold. Finally, it’s her lips he kisses, and by that time my name isn’t spoken between them. It’s cold, manipulative, easy, and damn near magic. Unless you’ve made the mistake of getting involved.