J. Nelson - Free Agent

There’s always plenty of time for tears.

I went through the front door of the Agency and plowed through a crowd of people who didn’t get the meaning of the term no appointments . In the conference room, Ari stood at the head of the table, the box of papers beside her.

She looked at me and the fierce expression on her face softened. “M, I’m sorry to bother you. I thought you would want to know. In the office I started going through their files, trying to figure out how long it had been shut down. No bread baked there for over a month.”

She passed around an order form. “On the other hand, they’ve gotten sixteen shipments like this.”

Liam looked at it a moment. “Someone’s got an aversion to doctors.”

I snagged the paper from him. Apples. Thousands of apples. I looked to Grimm. “They doing what I think they’re doing?”

“Yes. Someone is preparing for a war.”

“Run down the owner of the bakery, and you’ll find out who,” I said.

Ari gave me that smile of hers. She pulled out another paper. “I can help there.”

“‘Health inspection schedule for part C,’” I read.

Ari shook her head. She tapped the company letterhead, and Evangeline let out a low whistle. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked, though I was certain she was right.

Ari traced the letterhead with a finger. “My family crest.”

LIAM TOOK THE report. “That’s the symbol that appeared in the smoke when you did your hocus pocus on the man.”

“She’s her family’s seal bearer,” I said. “All her magic has that mark, or it will.” Everyone stared at Ari. At least for once it wasn’t me.

Grimm cleared his throat. “Did I hear that wrong? Or did Mr. Stone say the princess was using magic?” He kept his tone soft and calm, but I’ve heard him speak like that before.

“So what did you find?” I asked Evangeline, hoping for a quick topic change.

Ari had this worried look on her face. “I’ve been learning it myself from the books you sent.” I needed to work with that girl on when to keep her mouth shut. Come to think of it, I needed help with that myself. Perhaps we could take a class together.

“We found nothing,” said Evangeline. “We searched three blocks in every direction, and there’s nothing. I don’t know where the troll was headed, but it wasn’t going to a portal. Maybe they were going to pick it up with a dump truck or something.”

“You are not to use magic,” said Grimm. The building trembled slightly, and a corner of his mirror split. “Magic can be deadly, young lady, particularly wild magic.”

Ari shook her head, but her voice stuttered as she spoke. “I’m not using wild magic.”

Grimm’s face was bright red, and splits appeared in the mirror from the edges as he screamed, “ Of course you are ! Those books were meant for Marissa. They were training lessons for an entire generation of witches. Seal magic is impossible to learn on your own. Training takes years and it must be learned from one who already knows how to control it.

“You have taken the first step down the path of the witch, princess. Think long and hard about how far down that road you wish to go.” He turned that gaze on me, like a school principal and cop in one. “What on earth possessed you to share those with her?”

Desperate to divert him, I brought up what I’d wanted to tell him, meant to tell him the moment we got a bit of privacy. “Clara,” I said. “Clara was at the bakery. She’s dead.” It stopped him in mid-rant, and I heard a tiny squeak I knew had to be Jess. “What was she doing there?”

Grimm looked shocked. He wavered in the glass, his image becoming fuzzy, and then sharp again. “She was visiting with Queen Mihail when last we spoke,” said Grimm.

Jess and Evangeline stood up together. “We’re going to go see her,” said Evangeline.

“I’ve got a few enhanced interrogation techniques that will have her telling me anything and everything,” said Jess.

“You will not,” said Grimm. “I share your desire for blood, but I require proof. Since it is trouble you desire, I would like you to accompany the Kingdom Police to see Queen Thromson. It is her company who was manufacturing these weapons, and she knows full well what they were meant for.”

Liam raised his hand like he was in school. “I actually don’t know what they were meant for.”

“Mr. Stone, they are weapons nearly perfect for killing the fae,” said Grimm. “Someone wants a war. Marissa, you will go and revisit Queen Mihail. Ask her what Clara was looking into. I will not rest until her killer is in the ground.”

Not justice, I noted, revenge. Given how Jess looked at the moment, wherever she went off, there’d be more bodies than the city morgue could hold.

“Princess, no more magic. We will discuss this matter more when time is not of the essence.”

Ari wiped her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“Grimm, can you tell me if Queen Thromson was the one who mugged me? The curse came in her pie box from her factory. Also, I need something to keep Ari in Kingdom,” I said.

The dais at the head of the table glowed as Grimm invoked his power, and a tiny gold band dropped onto the table. A ring.

“I will research Queen’s Thromson’s whereabouts. The ring will last until midnight,” said Grimm.

Typical. I flipped it to Ari and we headed out.

“I’m coming with you,” said Liam as we rode down to the garage. “I’d like to meet the man who was supposed to get my curse.”

I thought of Mihail. “Trust me, you don’t.” I wondered if he would ever trust me.

I knew I should head into Kingdom immediately, but I sat behind the wheel, drumming my hands. An idea kept flitting in the corner of my mind. The more I looked, the more it retreated to the periphery.

“Are we going to actually, I don’t know, go somewhere?” asked Ari.

I put the car in gear and drove out in a way that would make Evangeline proud. We hit the interstate and I pushed the pedal down to the floor.

“Where exactly are we going?” asked Liam as the yellow stripes flew by in a blur.

“Back. Back to where this started.” The more I thought about it, the more certain I was.

“How do you know where it began?” asked Ari. She’d called shotgun and forced Liam to fold himself into a pretzel to sit in the backseat.

“Simple.” I caught my exit. “It’s where my life went crazy.”

“You jumped out of a window after a troll,” said Liam. “Crazy you’ve got.”

“Troll’s nothing,” said Ari. “Tell him what you told me about the shaman. Or the orphans. For that matter tell him about the beanstalk.”

I let the miles roll away in silence, working up the courage to speak. “I jumped out after you.” We pulled off at a gas station and bought four bags of supplies. I believed in being prepared.

Ari had waited in the car, reading a magazine. When we hit the road again, she wouldn’t leave well enough alone. “From what Grimm tells me, your life has only gotten better this year.”

I shook my head, confused. “What do you mean, ‘from what he tells you’? What did he tell you?” Grimm knew most of my secrets. He probably knew them all, but was too much of a gentleman to mention it.

“We talk from time to time, but like I said, I don’t think you had it too good to start.”

I smacked my hands on the wheel. “I was Grimm’s most trusted agent. I had my own office. I was almost halfway done paying off my debt, and even the freaking gremlins stayed out of my way when I went into Kingdom.”

Ari turned the page of her magazine. “You had an empty apartment. You had a phone in your apartment that never rang. You had four forms of life in your fridge that could probably survive on Mars. I think what I found in my closet was a cat.”