“You could bake a pie on the countertop in here.” She forced the window up. It groaned the whole way.
I pointed to the side. “Your room is the one to the right of the front bathroom.”
“Is that the guest room?”
“Don’t know. Never had guests.” It was true. While I once did have a nasty infestation of gremlins, I’d never had anyone human visit. It was still a point of debate in my mind if Ari broke that record or not.
She went into the room to drop her bags, and I decided to check the fungal levels of the food in my fridge. We’ll say I had enough mold in there to cure an epidemic of tuberculosis, and my milk had gone through puberty and turned into yogurt.
Ari waited for me to complete my scan of food that had more hair than Bigfoot. “Do you have a bed?”
“Yes. I have a nice memory foam one. You can sleep on the couch.”
“There’s nothing in the guest bedroom but a litter box.” Ari didn’t whine, but she was awfully good at complaining.
“I’ve never had guests. I always hoped my parents or my sister would visit, but it’s never happened.” At the thought of my family, my stomach turned. Babysitting a princess wouldn’t get me any closer to free. The only thing I’d be at the end of the day was older.
I ordered takeout, and we ate in silence, her on the couch and me at the bar. At least, we tried to eat in silence. She yapped the whole time. I’d crushed the necks of poodles that were less annoying.
“Why didn’t you paint the walls?”
I looked around, I think for the first time in six years. The walls were a pale green like the color of my counter. A loaf of bread sat there, camouflaged and waiting to attack the first person who attempted to make toast. “This is temporary.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Five and a half years.” I was in no mood to play twenty questions. I didn’t like the thought of having Ari in the apartment, but I didn’t dare cross Grimm. “I get you’re trying to be friendly, but I’m tired. So far today, I got threatened by a queen, yelled at by a senior citizen, demoted by my boss, and I walked out of my job. While I appreciate the whole family drama aspect you are wrangling, I’m going to bed.” I left her on my couch and went to bed, dreaming about a day I’d give anything to do over.
WHEN I WOKE up, I did the best I could to boil my skin off. The shower raked me, leaving my skin bright red, but I wanted to scour the film of that day off me.
As I dried, I felt it: the bracelet on my wrist. My hand went to my throat, where the vial hung. I wrapped my towel around me and walked out into the bedroom. On my pillow sat a small gift box, mint green with a gold ribbon. I untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside were my gun and a couple of extra clips. The card was written in calligraphy.
Stay safe—G.
“What’s that?” Ari poked her head into my bedroom.
It was a good thing the gun wasn’t loaded; I’d have had a princess with a higher than average number of holes in her. “I need a towel,” she said, “and some toilet paper would be nice.”
“A jerk left a gift on my pillow.” I put the gun in my purse anyway. “Get dressed. We’re going to the track.” I’d spent the better part of six years running, whether I was sick or well, rain or shine. When I emerged in my tracksuit, I found Ari in the front bathroom, repeating her shopping list to the mirror. I peeked in the door, which I told myself wasn’t snooping, since she’d done it to me earlier. “Grimm?”
Ari sighed. “I called the Fairy Godfather, but I guess he’s too busy to show up. So I just told him what I needed and why.”
“Who do you see in the mirror?”
Ari mistook it for some sort of test, scanning each section of her reflection. She squinted, her eyebrows furrowed. “Me. A little bit of you.”
“If you have a problem, the only people you can count on to help are the ones you see right now. We’ll check the alleys around here, find you something to sleep on. Now get dressed.”
So I went running, Ari in tow, and we ran for miles.
We stopped only because if I didn’t, I’d need an aid car to drag her home. She gasped for air, hands on her knees. “Why are you so obsessed with running?”
“I figured you would understand wanting to run away from something.”
“Yes, but when I run, I go somewhere.” She pressed her hand to her side as she stood.
“Part of the business. I’m not bad in a fight, and Evangeline is downright deadly, but there are still a lot of uglies you would be better off running from than fighting. Ever watch a horror movie?”
Ari sat in the grass and rubbed her ankles.
“Those girls make it a quarter, maybe half a mile and they trip or start wheezing. When you’re being chased by something with more heads than teeth, you want to be able to look over your shoulder and say ‘I can do this all day.’”
So we ran some more. Good for the soul. I also went to the store, and I’m proud to say I bought food that was neither past its expiration date nor preserved with more chemicals than ingredients. When the elevator door opened to my apartment floor, I was still introducing Ari to reality. “You need to lower your standards. There was nothing wrong with the last two mattresses.”
Ari almost dropped her bag of groceries as she spun to glare at me. “One had bedbugs, and the one before that had a dead crocodile in it.”
“Alligator. You can tell by the shape of the nose—” I stopped, staring down the hall.
Packages and mail lay in heaps beside my apartment door. A gnarled old postman dumped another bag at my feet and glared at me. “You don’t deserve this, killer. I hope they all contain anthrax.”
“You know, after the trial I was told I’d never get a package from Kingdom again.” I let a smug grin spread across my face. I’d won after all. “And you’re not even a gnome. What does it matter to you?”
“We’re members of the same union.” He looked at Ari and smiled, then scowled at me. “If we had any say in it you wouldn’t get so much as a postcard, but we’re not picking a fight with the Fairy Godfather.”
Ari looked at the tags with me. “Who is A. Locks?”
I almost punched a hole in the wall. “You are. That bastard.”
“This stuff came from Delaware. I thought he’d just, I don’t know, conjure what I needed.”
I helped her drag a brand-new mattress in through the door along with a dozen other boxes. “You don’t know Grimm. Never spend magic on what you can buy. Cash is cheap.”
She dumped a bag of mail out on the couch. “You’ve got like six jury summons here, and a letter from the district attorney.”
“Never saw a point in showing up for jury duty. I already know I’m going to vote guilty.”
Ari’s mouth made a tiny O, and she put her hand to her heart. “What about justice?”
“It is justice. Whoever they are, they’re guilty of making me show up for jury duty. Also, whatever that letter says, I had nothing to do with the murder. Get pulled over with one little dead body and it takes years to sort out.”
I left her in her room attempting to insert nightstand dowel peg 12 into hole 234 and went to my laptop. There sat another package from Grimm, mint green, with a bow. A big one. A heavy one. I opened the box and slid out a book. A large, black book with thick skin binding, though what animal it came from I can’t guess. Spellcraft and Curses, read the title. Under that it had the words A Pop-Up Book.
Ammunition for the most dangerous weapon you carry—G
I walked into the bathroom and grabbed the bracelet. “Grimm, send whatever you need to by post. Anything else is a waste of Glitter.” I knew he heard me.