Wish Bound

Book 3: A Grimm Agency Novel

by J.C. Nelson

Genres: Urban Fantasy; Action & Adventure; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Even when she's not starting it, trouble follows Marissa everywhere. First there was the incident with the homicidal Fairy Godmother. Then there was the time she accidentally started Armageddon. But the problems that always seem to arise on Marissa's birthday take the cake.



This year, her annual bad-luck presents include an army of invading goblins, the resurrection of two vengeful enemies from hell, and the return of the Black Queen, the evil sorceress whose reign of terror still haunts Kingdom and who happens to have claimed Marissa as her servant.



As Marissa's friends try to save her from the Black Queen's clutches, Marissa fights to end a bitter war that started before her birth. But her quest for peace is about to bring up some inconvenient truths about her own past-ones that might cost her the happily ever after she's always dreamed of . . .

Release date: August 25, 2015

Publisher: Ace

Print pages: 304

Sample

For Allison, who makes the decision every day

Acknowledgments

One

WHEN I WAS a little girl, my mother used to say, “A little birthday party can’t hurt anyone.” She stopped saying that after my seventh birthday, when the ponies they rented stampeded. Then it was “How bad could a birthday party be?” which lasted until my tenth birthday, when the microwave oven exploded, coating everyone in melted frosting. Then it was “Let’s get this over with,” followed the year after by “You know, this year let’s let Marissa celebrate her own way.” Which meant I spent my birthdays reading alone while my parents went out for drinks.

And that’s how I planned to spend my twenty-eighth birthday, which fell on a Monday, which, statistically, it does once every seven years. Mondays, in my experience, are lousy, and birthdays are even worse.

I ran to work that day, keeping my girlish figure looking slightly more girlish than trash-can-ish, and Liam ran with me. Liam. Almost six feet, built like a barrel, with arms like tree trunks. My fiancé. My other half. The man who’d stood by me through the end of the world. Also, a man in lousy shape.

“Marissa, could we take a break?” Liam limped along a few dozen feet back.

I learned to run earlier in my life. Run to get away from things that wanted to kill me, run to get away from things I couldn’t get away from. Technically, these days I could eat the buffet and the table it came on, and still not gain a pound, thanks to the gift of a harbinger of the apocalypse, Famine. Being the apocalypse bringer had its benefits, but I wasn’t taking chances, so we still ran.

In case you’re imagining a romantic run through the city, two lovers getting an endorphin kick to keep us ready for work, stop. We had company. A few feet behind Liam came a bombshell blonde, curvy and pale, with brilliant blue eyes and a figure that stopped hearts.

“You can run on. I will stay with my liege.” Svetlana, the aforementioned beautiful disaster, waved to me. I wasn’t about to leave her any more than she ever left us. Which was never. It wasn’t just devotion to my fiancé; it was a form of contract. Thanks to the machinations of an evil queen and her team of assassins, Liam wound up holding a stake in, well, everything Svetlana’s people owned. Given that they were all vegetarian vampires, they objected to stakes of any flavor.

I jogged in place, waiting for Liam to gain his breath.

“This is a lot easier when I have four feet,” called a six-foot-eight man with curly brown hair. The head of our shipping department and full-time Big Bad Wolf, Mikey, never passed up a chance to chase people, even if he wasn’t allowed to devour them. The crowd parted for him in a way that would have made Old Testament Moses envious. Crowds in the city don’t move for anyone, but even city folks had a healthy self-preservation instinct. “I’ll see you at the office,” Mikey shouted. He loped off, nearly sprinting.

We took another forty minutes to arrive, mostly due to my fiancé, partially due to a flower vendor who insisted I wanted a dahlia. What I really wanted was to shove the dahlia somewhere he’d find painful.

When we arrived at the Agency, I left Liam and Svetlana to take the elevator. I, on the other hand, sprinted up the stairs for a final calorie-burn burst, and exploded through the front door, ready for a Monday.

Our receptionist, Rosa, hunched over a man, shocking him repeatedly with a stun gun.

I nodded to her. “Morning, Rosa.”

She made the sign of the cross with her middle finger, blessing herself and telling me off in one pass, and muttered under her breath.

Since Rosa obviously had the morning crowd under control, I checked the schedule. In my office, a six-by-four mirror pulsed, glowing orange in the darkness. I used masking tape to divide the mirror into slots for each day and hour, keeping a schedule that Grimm couldn’t claim to not see. Monday morning. Liam had an appointment in the sewers, where a group of mud men awaited the “Final Flush.” I hoped Svetlana brought her muck boots.

Mikey needed to be down at the docks, where something on a container ship kept eating the night watchmen. If you are what you eat, something had a cholesterol count that might kill it.

I looked at my name, and saw the whole day blocked out without explanation.

The column next to mine looked identical.

“Morning, Marissa. Does this outfit make my eyes look more or less yellow?”

I recognized Ari’s voice, and couldn’t help but smile. In the doorway to my office, Arianna Thromson stood, dressed in a yellow tracksuit. The yellow made her red hair look two shades lighter, and it made the diseased yellow of her eyes look even more diseased and yellow.

Arianna Thromson, my best friend. Also, princess, and witch. Don’t hold those last two against her—the first you could blame on her parents, the second on an evil queen who forced Ari to use too much magic at once.

“Looks better.” I looked at her dead-on, to remind her that regardless of how other people treated her, she was still just Ari to me. Witches didn’t get many smiles, and most folks would stare at the ceiling rather than meet her gaze. “You and I have some sort of all-day engagement.”

“I’m meeting Wyatt for lunch. I wish it were an engagement.” Ari narrowed her eyes at me, then looked past me to the board. Despite the fact that her eyes had neither pupils nor irises, she could see perfectly well. In fact, if what you were looking for was a spirit, spell, or curse, she saw better than me.

Ari read the schedule, then put one hand to the bracelet on her wrist. A simple gold bracelet, the key to our communication with the Fairy Godfather. “Bastard Grimm, you come here this instant.” Using Grimm’s first name was something even I avoided, and I outranked Ari.

The calendar faded from the mirror, and Grimm swirled into view. He adjusted his coat, looking every bit the English butler I always imagined him as. “Ladies, how may I assist you?”

“I was going to have lunch with my prince.” Ari crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

Grimm took off the heavy black glasses he wore, revealing eyebrows like a yeti. “Young lady, I’m sorry. We require your assistance. I’ll make it up to you. Reservations to anywhere in the city.”

“What exactly are we supposed to be doing?” I went around to my desk and opened my ammo drawer.

“Marissa, you always say I never let you travel for business. I think today I’ll correct that. You are going to visit another realm.” Grimm’s calm smile left me worried.

I’d traveled to other realms. Inferno, a few times. It was better than the department of licensing. I’d been to a fairy’s realm as well, and would rather not go back. “Which one? Avalon? Say Avalon. Or Atlantis.”

Grimm looked down. “Nowhere near as extravagant. We’ve suffered an influx of goblins for the last few weeks, and I believe it prudent to check the health of the realm seal.”

Of course. The realm seal, if it looked like the others, was a giant ball of lightning that acted as a barrier between realms. Part magic construct, part physical creatures, the realm seals required constant attention to keep them healthy. Grimm couldn’t go himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send others. “I don’t want to go to the Forest. I want to go to Avalon.”

“You don’t have enough frequent-flier miles built up, but we’ll talk about it afterward. Meet me at the portal in fifteen minutes.” Grimm faded out.

“Look at it this way: You’ll get to shoot at least one goblin, and I’ll be that much happier to see Wyatt tonight.” That was Ari, always trying to salvage a bad situation.

“There’s no point in shooting goblins. They’re dumber than the bullets in my gun. As a matter of fact, in a trivia contest, I’d bet on the bullets—”

Grimm reappeared in a burst of light, in every reflective surface in my office. He spoke from all of them at once. “Code Mauve, Marissa. I need you in my office immediately. Alone.” Grimm kept his tone calm, his eyes fixed on me. Not good.

I ran down the hall, threw open the door, ready for murder, mayhem, or destruction. The air conditioner’s hum competed with the murmur of the crowds in the waiting room for loudest noise. “Yes?”

Grimm appeared in his mirror, his regular gray silk suit changed out for black, his look stern. He ignored me, keeping his eyes on the high-back chair, where I noticed two feet in penny loafers.

“Ah, so good of you to come at once.” I knew the voice. Knew the man, if you could call him that.

I shut the door behind me. “Nick.” Nickolas Scratch. The Adversary. King of demons, ruler of Inferno, and first-order paper pusher.

He rose from his chair, barely as tall as me, with heavy wrinkles around his eyes and a bald spot that could blind a girl. “I hate to bother you here, Marissa. I really do, but I have a problem, and you only lose your driver’s license every couple of weeks, so I couldn’t just wait for you to come in and replace it.” The Adversary’s second job, at the department of licensing, allowed him to be truly evil.

Since offending the commander of demon armies could have immediate impact on my life span, I chose my words with care. “Anything that’s bothering you is way out of my league. I’m trying to pick on things my own size.” Refusing the Adversary directly could be bad, but not, in my book, as bad as agreeing to help him.

Nick walked over and put one hand on my shoulder. “I know. I wouldn’t ask, but I don’t have anywhere else to turn. There’s been a theft.”

Grimm disappeared in a flash, leaving me alone. And for once, I didn’t feel abandoned. Grimm had mastered the art of foretelling the future in a dozen ways, all of them bloody enough to make me lose my lunch. I was convinced he secretly made no effort to evict the rabbits that haunted his home, because they came in handy when a quick fortune needed to be told. Right now, I needed the knowledge he’d gain from slaughtering a few bunnies as much as he did.

“Where?”

“The Vault of Souls.” Nick’s eyes glowed like fireside embers as he spoke. “Think of it like a bank vault, only instead of your mortgage papers, or some certificates of deposit, I keep valuable things. Mass murderers. Tyrants. Genocidal maniacs.”

“Who broke out?” I slipped around the desk and sat down in Grimm’s chair.

Nick’s hands clenched, turning white, and he trembled with barely contained rage. “There’s never been a breakout. Someone broke into Inferno and took three souls from the vault.” With each word, the lights in the office flickered, as if each shadow siphoned away the light. I’d stood face-to-face with demons and dealt with the harbingers of the apocalypse, including Death himself, but the Adversary was so far out of my league, my best hope was to let him rant and hope Grimm had a plan for how to contain the damage when his temper exploded.

“The angels did it?” The angels were the only creatures I could imagine being dumb enough to mount an attack on hell itself. Now would be a great time for Grimm to make an appearance. The Adversary could squash me like a bug if I said the wrong thing.

He rumbled like a thunderstorm. Anger or laughter, I couldn’t tell. “Are you kidding? They want most of the souls in the vault locked up just as much as I do. You know, most of those souls are mine by agreement. And those three were mine by right. Given to me freely.” Blood dripped from Nick’s hands as his nails cut into his palms. It burst into flames that licked the edges of his fingers.

For just a moment, my curiosity got the better of me. “Don’t you have armies? You know, the sort that you’d need to bring about the end of the world?”

The Lord of Destruction looked at me over his bifocals, his eyes round. “I can’t admit there’s been a lapse in security. My own children would rise up against me. So, you are going to retrieve those souls. If they’ve been lashed into another body, you have my permission to take them apart in any way you find convenient. Death will take care of bringing them back to me at that point.”

The friendly grin on Nick’s face made my spine tingle. “I’m sorry. I’m your girl if you need a pair of slippers returned, or a library book, but souls? Maybe Fairy Godfather can find them and—” The words strangled out in my throat as Nick began to belch black smoke and sulfur.

“You will do it. If I don’t get them back, I’m going to start killing random people on the off chance that one of them has the soul I’m looking for. And you won’t have to find the other two. They’re going to come for you, Marissa. I’d bet on it.”

I think his final words scared me more than his threats. “Who?”

For just a moment, Nickolas Scratch looked almost concerned. “An ex-queen and her son. Both of whom have issues with you.”

Where two seconds earlier I could have baked bread just by setting it on my desk, now beads of sweat formed on my head and I shivered. I knew who he meant, and had barely survived the last time she tried to kill me. Maybe they hadn’t meant to get her. Maybe—

“Marissa, don’t kid yourself.” The Adversary crossed his arms and shook his head. “That was no accident. There were murderers in that vault a thousand times more deadly; hell, Rip Van Winkle’s soul was in a Mason jar two shelves down.”

I nearly died at the hands of Rip Van Winkle, Kingdom’s own boogeyman. “Who was it that broke in? And who else did they take?” I couldn’t have moved from Grimm’s seat if I had to, wrapped in a spell of fear as I waited for an answer I dreaded.

“You should probably have that discussion with your Fairy Godfather.” He rubbed his hands together, extinguishing the flames. “I’ll see myself out, assuming that receptionist of yours doesn’t shoot me again. If she ever wants a night job, send her over. She’ll fit right in below.” Nick put his clipboard under his arm and marched out, leaving scorch marks on the carpet with each step.

I can’t tell you how many minutes passed until my skin tingled from Grimm’s presence in the mirror at my back. I didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Prince Mihail and his crazy mother were some of the few people who truly deserved their spot in Inferno. The thought of them out and about, watching, waiting—that I couldn’t stand.

“Marissa, I listened in on your conversation. You have a special rapport with the Adversary, and I felt it wiser to allow you to deal with him.”

“Is he telling the truth?”

“Yes, my dear. I’m afraid he is. I know in the past you’ve been reluctant to use deadly force, but in this case, I want you to shoot first, reload, and shoot again. Leave the question asking to me.” The concern in Grimm’s voice only amplified my fear. The Fairy Godfather feared nothing.

“We have to take care of Ari. Prince Mihail might come for her.” Mihail had meant to marry Ari. Then murder her.

“His mother won’t waste time on Ari or anyone else. I would comfort you, but fear will keep you alert. Alive. I confess I’m considering having Jess released from the hospital to accompany Arianna. Anywhere you go in this realm, Liam must remain with you at all times.”

The thought of half-djinn Jess roaming the streets of my city worried me almost as much as the Adversary’s threats. Once one of Grimm’s agents, Jess was violent death given flesh when her bipolar medication wasn’t working, or when she wouldn’t take it, which was most of the time. “We can’t do that. Too many innocent people might get hurt. What if, for once, you actually did some form of magic? Can’t you influence fate to keep her safe?” Grimm had a way of influencing events that worked best when the person being influenced didn’t know what was happening. He could bring two people together in a crowd of thousands—or, hopefully, keep them apart.

Grimm ignored my dig at his stinginess, his eyes unfocused. “I could, Marissa, but I can’t do so for two people at once. That means, my dear, that I can’t provide the same protection for you if I’m doing so for Arianna.”

“Then there’s no decision. You keep both Mihails away from Ari. If the Mihails want revenge, they can take it up with me.”

“Marissa—” Grimm stopped for a moment, his forehead wrinkled and lips pursed. “You shouldn’t endanger yourself so lightly.”

“Better me than anyone else.”

Grimm just shook his head and faded from the mirror, leaving me alone. Which meant I could spare a moment to worry for myself.

•   •   •

AN URGENT KNOCK on Grimm’s door roused me from my worry. Grimm himself disappeared half an hour before, saying he needed to spend quality time divining the future. There’d be a food bank receiving donations of hasenpfeffer for days.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.” I recognized Mikey’s voice through the oak door.

“Oh, all right.” I rose and unlocked the door, looking up to meet his eyes. “What?”

Mikey grabbed my arm, a move which would have earned him a silver bullet two years earlier, and dragged me along. “Emergency in the kitchen. You’re in charge.” He let go and sprinted off, rounding the corner like he’d just spotted a whitetail deer, or a cheerleader.

I followed him to the kitchen, throwing open the door and marching in, ready to lay down the law.

Darkness engulfed me, absolute darkness, as the door swung shut behind me, and the sounds of shallow breathing made my heart race.

“Surprise!” a hail of voices shouted, and the lights flickered on. A shiver ran from my feet to my ears. In the center of the table sat a cake with “Happy Barmitzvah, Joshua” written in pink gel frosting.

“I got it on clearance at the bakery.” Mikey reached out and lit a candle on the cake, oblivious to the terror in my eyes.

The kitchen door opened, and Liam shouted, “What idiot brought a cake? Grimm, we need you.” He banged on the wall so hard, it shook the door.

The patter of light feet meant everyone was leaving. I clenched my teeth and tried to look away. “It’s going to be okay, M.” Ari stepped forward. “Everyone out of the building. Move, people.” She barked orders while I struggled to contain a wave of nausea that made the world spin.

Grimm flashed into the microwave door, glanced around the room, and glowered at Mikey. “What exactly do you think you are doing?”

“Stairs.” Ari cupped her hands and shouted. “Only use the stairs. Remember what happened to the elevators last time?”

“Marissa, take a deep breath. Close your eyes.” Grimm’s voice calmed me, though the panic still swirled in my stomach like a gallon of cheap rum.

Liam snuffed out the candle and threw his jacket over the cake. “It’s fine, M. Nothing to see here. We’re all going to just go for a walk down the stairs, out onto the street, and take the day off.”

That’s when the sprinklers went off.

Then every light in the building went out at once.

Then a bubbling noise like some monster from the depths gurgled up from the sewers, and a stench like rotten sheep entrails stung my nose. From the floors above and below, cries of terror and disgust echoed from vents.

“Deep breaths. Eyes closed.” Liam put a rough hand on my face and pulled me toward him. “Mikey didn’t know.”

Mikey didn’t know. Didn’t know that I avoided every birthday, anniversary, wedding, or funeral for exactly the same reason. They all ended in disaster. If we were unlucky, it required the hazmat squad. If we were lucky, there’d only be a couple feet of raw sewage spilling into the building.

“Grimm, you’ve got to help me with this.” I pushed away from Liam as the emergency lighting came on, flooding the Agency with a dull red glow.

“Marissa, everyone has situations in which things do not go well. Little things, where the universe reminds them they have better ways to spend their fleeting days.” Grimm spoke like a schoolteacher.

“Do you remember what happened when Ari baked me cupcakes for my birthday?”

Ari tromped back into the room, wearing yellow muck boots and carrying a matching parasol. “Asps. There were no asp eggs in the batter, Grimm. None. Would you like to guess how many cupcakes had asps in them when Marissa cut into them? What does that tell you?”

“It tells me cupcakes are bad for your figure. Now, if you don’t mind—” Grimm cut off, his eyes losing focus, then snapping wide open. “Ladies, I need you to check on that realm seal immediately. There isn’t a moment to waste.”

I followed Ari to the back of the Agency, where Grimm kept portal runes ground into the concrete, having long ago given up any pretense of getting his security deposit returned. This birthday was turning out as bad as the rest.

“Proceed directly along the path to the Seal, contact me when you arrive. Do not waste time shooting goblins.” Grimm stood in the full-length mirror, waiting. He looked to Liam. “Sir, I need your assistance as soon as the ladies have departed. We have a minor invasion to deal with.”

“You got it.” Liam rubbed his hands through his hair, wringing it out.

The portal lit up like a rainbow and solidified, revealing a land that looked like a barren fall landscape.

Grimm waved his hand like a host. “This is your stop. Please keep your hands and feet inside the portal, or a team of surgeons will be required to reattach them. I will reopen the gate once we have inspected the realm seal and understand what is wrong.”

Ari stepped through, appearing on the trail visible through the portal. The portal rippled and shook, like it was made of cold, clear water.

“That normal?” I studied Grimm’s face.

“Not exactly. Hurry, Marissa. There’s a tremor in the fabric of magic itself coming, which might strand Ari.” Grimm concentrated, his eyebrows arched.

I dashed forward, ducking down, and stepped across. As I did, the building shook again, and it felt like my insides twisted like a pretzel. Then a grip like iron seized my hand. Ari screamed. Liam cursed, and I disappeared into darkness.

Two

I OPENED MY eyes to absolute pitch black. Nothingness, no sound or smell. Only the iron grip on my arm kept me from fleeing into the void.

“Happy birthday, Marissa. You’re one day closer to dying.” The voice came straight into my head, a voice like dried leaves and cracked bones rattling in the October wind.

“Death. That’s you, right?” A few years earlier, Death, a harbinger of the apocalypse, spent quite a bit of time hanging around my apartment. “I didn’t see it coming.”

“You aren’t dead yet. I came to give you a present. You know, I never did get you a proper present for almost ending the world.”

I looked around, but couldn’t see. Movement, eyes open or closed, nothing mattered.

In the inky black, a match struck and flared with the stench of sulfur. Before me, a single candle glowed to life, planted on a cupcake. I stared across it into a skull, its empty eye sockets leering back at me.

His grip held me fast, stifling my involuntary attempt to flee. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have time to change skins. I’m very busy, and I have the feeling I’m headed into a holiday season of sorts.” Death placed the cupcake in my hands. Then with a bony claw, he reached toward my left eye.

Scream? Hell yes, I did.

His claw tips met a gnat’s width above my eye, and a sound, a feeling of tearing, ripped through me. With a puff of air like the gust of a coffin lid closing, he blew out the candle, and darkness wrapped itself about me once more.

“I’m sorry, Marissa. You need to be able to see to understand.” His voice began to fade out.

The darkness seeped into me, freezing me to my core. “What did you do?”

“I’ve made a hole in the veil for you. So you won’t be fooled.”

A pinprick of light in the darkness caught my eye, the only light in the world. Rushing toward me, growing larger by the second, moving like a train. At the last moment, I saw forest, leaves, and then I went flying into the light.

“M?” Ari’s voice, soft and sweet, distant. I tried to open my eyes, but after the darkness of the void, even the gray light of the Forest seemed to stab me.

“Ari.” My own voice came from a distance.

Something clicked, and Ari spoke, “She just arrived. The portal opened on its own and threw her out face-first.”

With my hands over my eyes, I sat up. “I’m fine.”

“My dear, you were gone for nearly half an hour. I feared we lost you.” Grimm’s voice trembled.

“Death spoke to me.” I opened my eyes, squinting. “Said I needed to see through the veil.”

“What?” Grimm practically roared. “That’s completely illegal according to the celestial laws, and not good for your health. Cosmic radiation, and so on.”

Ari jerked her hand back, almost dropping the compact.

“He said it would help me understand. Why? And what?” I stood and dusted rotten leaves out of my shirt. The remains of a smashed cupcake said I’d landed on my birthday present.

“Arianna, please find the realm seal and return quickly. I need to examine Marissa.” Grimm faded out.

Ari took my hand and stared at me. At one time, her dead eyes made my skin crawl, but these days, I just saw my best friend. She was using her spirit sight, for sure, looking down through my skin to see if there was damage inside.

“Well?” I arched one eyebrow.

“You look like you always do. Come on, let’s get this over with.” She started down the path, and I followed her.

The Forest Realm certainly wouldn’t win any tourism destination awards if I were handing them out. It’s not just the fact that every goblin, ever, made their homes there. The thing that really killed it for me was the endless array of brown, gray, and black. Not a green leaf or yellow flower for as far as the eye could see.

Combine that with the perpetual October-evening twilight, and I needed a beach vacation just to recover. Still, any realm visit was one worth remembering, if only so I could remember I didn’t want to come here again. As Ari followed the path through blistered trees, I stopped her. “I never get to travel to other realms. Take a picture?” I handed her my phone.

Ari shook her head. “You have to come with me to Fae next time I tend my Seal.”

A seal, in this case, was neither a small, furry aquatic mammal nor an imposing navy warrior. Seals, magical entities that served as barriers between realms, resembled living thunderstorms. Attempting to club one might get you electrocuted.

“Grimm says no. Actually, he doesn’t say no. He just always has some emergency for me to handle. ‘Marissa, I need you to find this missing child,’ or ‘Marissa, you have to prevent them from poisoning the city’s water supply.’ It’s always something.” I made a mental note that next time, I was going, no matter what. “This dump’s the first place he’s let me go on my own.” I gave her a fake smile for the camera.

“Say cheddar.” Ari waited. And waited.

I glared at her. “That’s not funny.” She knew darn well why. In the office fridge lurked a wheel of cheddar, which arrived of its own accord the day Grimm threw me a “welcome to the Agency” party. The number of interns who a