“These things happen,” said the man. “Quiet, very quiet, princess, and you don’t die in an alley. In fact, I need you to do something, something simple.”
“Something natural,” said the woman, and she set down a box beside me. I swear it looked like a pie box, but she opened it and inside slithered a serpent with silver scales. The woman seized my hand, and I gave her the back of my fist, knocking her to the side.
“Just for that,” said the gunman, and he choked me halfheartedly, pushing his forearm into my throat.
“Stop!” said the woman. “Don’t hurt her.” She grabbed my hand in a gloved fist and turned it over. “The fangs of the heart seeker are enchanted, so its bite does not bring you pain as it tastes your blood.” She drove a dagger down into my palm and I screamed, a squelched noise as tears ran down my face. “So we do it like this.” She picked up the snake and held it out toward me.
It flicked its forked tongue. As I strained against her grip, it latched onto my hand, sinking those metallic silver fangs clean through my palm. The bitch lied. It hurt a lot. As it drank, the silver eyes turned crimson, and the scales took on a rose shine. I felt thoughts and memories and feelings running down my arm and into it along with the blood. I don’t know how long it feasted, but when it let go it was fat and warm. Then things got worse.
“Now that it has tasted of your heart, it will know the truth,” said the woman, and the snake slithered forward, wrapping around my arm, sliding along my skin with those warm metal scales. It poked its head into my blouse sleeve, slithered across my back, and then up around my neck, flicking its tongue at my ear. I don’t mind saying I was screaming at this point, but it didn’t come out as anything more than a whine. It coiled upward, wrapping itself around my head like a crown.
“Think of him,” said the woman. “You cannot resist it. Think of the prince. Think of the one who might love you.”
The snake burned my skin where it touched, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, and so many images flashed before my eyes. Dad, Grimm, Evangeline, Ari. I knew I was supposed to think of him, of Prince Mihail, but the harder I tried to force his face into my mind the further away he got. Then I heard the sound of the carousel, or maybe remembered it, and I saw his face: Liam.
The snake uncoiled from my head and fell forward. I watched as it slithered off into a sewer grate.
“It is done. The curse goes for him,” said my mugger. “Now sleep, princess.”
I waited for a spell to hit me. Instead I got a boot to the back of my head.
Twelve
WHEN I WOKE up, my Agency bracelet was burning. “Grimm?” I opened my compact and saw only my face, filthy from lying in garbage. Obviously my muggers laid some sort of damper hex on the area. That meant Grimm couldn’t tell exactly where I was or what was wrong.
I had a knot the size of a golden goose egg on my head and double vision, and the skin on my palm was a lovely shade of purple and red. The moment I left the alley Grimm appeared, in bumpers, rearview mirrors, and finally a showroom window.
“Marissa!” he said, looking me over. “Thank goodness you are alive. Are you injured? Of course you are. Is it life threatening?”
“Unless you have a twin, I have another concussion. I got mugged, but I’ll live.”
He almost managed to hide the look of exasperation. I doubt he’d ever had agents getting mugged before. “Then get back to the Agency. We have a problem.” He disappeared.
It took me the better part of an hour to remember how to call a cab. I had a business card with “The Agency” and our address in my purse. I gave it to the cabbie and tried to doze off. Far too soon the cabbie woke me to say we’d arrived.
I stepped off the elevator with a migraine like an imp was eating my skull and I knew there was something wrong. On a normal day, coming down our hall was like walking into the entrance of a hornet’s nest. There were always a ton of people trying to get in or trying to get out, and none of them were happy. Most of those people didn’t need real magic, but they all had real problems that needed real solutions.
Grimm kept dozens of people who worked for him part-time or full-time, and a few, very few, like me. We handled the important things. The dangerous things. The magical things.
Today the Agency looked like it was on fire. Actually, I had seen it on fire four separate times, and neither looked this busy. People pushed in like it was a Black Friday sale inside. The phones were ringing like a cancer telethon when they put the little bald kid on who sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Most of the crowd was the magic type. That wasn’t unusual; they were more likely to have spare Glitter. Most of Fairy Godfather’s normal business was normal problems, from normal people.
I slipped into the back room and down a crowded hallway and into my office. It wasn’t a broom closet, I’m pleased to say, but it didn’t have a window. Just a computer, a desk, a bookshelf, and of course a mirror.
“Marissa,” said Grimm, “we have a serious problem.”
I winced. Grimm’s voice sounded like he was screaming, and the pounding in my ears felt like a hangover without the pleasure of getting drunk first. “What? Did he pick the wrong girl? Did she drop the freaking bottle? She did, didn’t she?”
Grimm waited for my rant to peter out. “She performed flawlessly, Marissa, flawless, down to the word and gesture. I need you in the conference room, now. There’s a psychotic dwarf barricaded in the MRI room, but once we’ve taken care of him I’ll get you in.”
“Can you at least do something for my headache?” I felt like I had a safe sitting on my forehead. An angry safe that made every noise sound ten times louder than normal.
Grimm smiled warmly. “Of course, my dear. There is aspirin in the kitchen medicine cabinet.”
I tried not to swear, I did. I made it to the kitchen, dry swallowed two pills of indeterminate nature, and stumbled to the conference room. Inside, Evangeline was waiting. Then I saw who was sitting beside her: Ari.
“What is she doing here?” I sat down across from Evangeline. That’s about when I realized Ari had been crying.
“That will do,” said Grimm. “In fact, it’s entirely enough. Now, Ari, you did fine.”
“Then why didn’t it work?” Ari blew her nose. “He poured a drink, and we laughed, and it was perfect.”
Evangeline shook her head. “It was eleven fifty-seven. You had plenty of time.”
“Young lady, we will correct this,” said Grimm. “I give you my word. If your prince is capable of loving anyone, it will be you.” That was a serious promise for Grimm.
“What went wrong?” I asked.
“Potion didn’t affect him,” said Evangeline. “Not at all. Not even a bit. He finished his meal, excused himself, gave the bottle of port to the table behind him, and stuck her with the tab.”
Now that didn’t make sense. No one was immune to potions. There’s a reason people used them—they worked. “Bad potion. I knew something was wrong with it, that witch gives me the creeps.”
Grimm shook his head. “There was nothing wrong with the potion, my dear.”
Evangeline pulled out a digital camera. “There’s an entire table of bishops who will have serious explaining to do if these pictures get out.” She gave it a pat. “Which they will.”
Everything was going wrong. “First there’s the accidental prince,” I said, “then little miss here gets projectile vomiting at the wrong time, and now our potion doesn’t work. She’s cursed.”
Ari let out a little gasp.
Grimm glowered at me. “She means unlucky. We don’t use that word around here.”