“Get used to it. Wolves are like that. I didn’t use silver bullets, so it’s not like it will kill him.” I cut across lanes to take my exit.
“No, the pain. How am I going to sleep tonight? What if I turn into a werewolf?”
You can guess what color her wound wrapping was. Best twenty bucks I’d spent in a while. “This whole business is pain. When it goes well, there’s less, and when it goes bad, there’s more. There is always pain, it’s just a question of who is hurting.” I glanced down at my own wounds, still traced in pink scars. “And the whole wolf-to-werewolf thing is an urban legend. If it makes you feel any better, he’s probably panicking about turning into a were-princess.”
I pulled into the Agency parking lot and didn’t even bat an eye at the security guard. I had to act like I belonged there, and Ari was with me. I wasn’t surprised when my bracelet didn’t open the service door, so we went through the lobby like the plebes.
I gave Rosa a smile and she gave me the stink-eye like always. “Hey Rosa, buzz me in. I need to talk to Grimm.” If I had walked through the door with wolf blood splattered on me from head to toe and a severed arm in my mouth I wouldn’t have gotten a worse reaction.
She hit the buzzer. Not the door buzzer. The emergency one we had installed after a wraith attempted to devour Rosa’s soul. Poor wraith took one bite out of her and died.
“What in Kingdom are you doing here?” said Grimm from the lobby mirror. “And why is she not safely at home with you? And what happened to her?”
Before I could answer, Evangeline came bursting through the front door. The moment she saw me she stopped cold.
“Evangeline, I told you not to call her,” said Grimm. “We had this discussion. Friend, yes. Call, no.”
“She’s not my friend. I didn’t call,” said Evangeline.
Then things became a lot clearer. Behind her came Jess, wearing a blue silk outfit that should not have looked that good on someone her age, and behind her, Liam.
I simultaneously felt sick and happy and dizzy. That’s quite a few feelings to have at once, but I’ve had practice.
He saw me, and everything flipped over. First it was recognition, and then surprise, hurt, and anger. I tried to smile at him, but all I could remember was how I had left him. He looked bad, scraped and cut, like he hadn’t slept in a year. He reeked of wood smoke.
“Get her out of here,” said Grimm, “and take him to my office.”
I watched Liam as he walked past and through that white staff door. “Grimm, we have to talk.”
“We have to do no such thing, Marissa. You have zero appreciation for what it has taken to find him, and I can’t risk you upsetting him right now.”
“No, you and I have to talk, but I need to see him afterward. A wolf found me at my apartment.”
“Did you teach him to heel or play dead?”
“The fae killed the wolves. Most of them, at least. Whole village is dead, more or less.”
I knew the look he gave me. It was the “Don’t you dare say another word here” look. I’d gotten it a lot. “Rosa, buzz her through.” He turned that gaze back to me. “Watch yourself, my dear. You are on one misstep probation. I will toss you out of this office for a year at least. You go where I tell you to go, you be silent when I say to be silent.”
Liam was inside, and so I did what Grimm said. “Ari, stop picking at the stitches and come on.” We walked down the hall.
Evangeline blocked the way to Grimm’s office. “Conference room, M. Please?”
Evangeline had always been there for me. She got me my first sutures, and bought me ice cream to celebrate the first time I broke my leg. When I couldn’t sleep for a week after that shaman went on a rampage she came over, stayed up, and turned out the lights. She’d also always made it clear that she didn’t understand why Grimm took me in the first place. It wasn’t all that surprising that she got along better with another half-djinn than me. So I went to the conference room.
Grimm appeared in the conference room mirror. “Tell me everything, princess.”
I was screwed.
So I listened as Ari started with breakfast, and how we ran every day, and about how I was always reading the books, and about how my front bathroom has only plain white towels. Eventually she ran out of boring things to talk about and explained about our wolf visitor. She moved on to my attempt to teach her to shoot, and I could see how this was going downhill the whole way. By the time she got to the wolf town part (after describing my driving as “almost as crazy as Evangeline’s”), Grimm had his eyes set in that glower that said he was going to yell at me for a few hours. Since he didn’t have a throat, it didn’t get sore.
Ari explained about the bodies. The children. The wolf, and the fae. That part she handled well, since I sounded like a crack shot and a commando and scout all in one.
When she finished, Grimm stepped back and crossed his arms. “You are to tell no one about this. Marissa, we’ll discuss later how taking your charge to the wolf town was keeping her safe.”
“The wolf said the servants of the mirror took something. You send Evangeline or Jess out there to do bargaining?” Grimm had a habit of getting things done, and if that meant extortion or blackmail, well, sometimes it worked better than bullets.
“No, Marissa, and neither did I send Clara, since you are going to ask.”
“Pity. I’d pay money to watch her beating off wolves with a walker. She’s practically jerky already, so the wolves might pass on eating her.” The moment I said it I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
He glared at me and I knew I was about to be royally chewed out.
That’s about when the shouting started. It was Liam, and I think Evangeline. Liam pushed his way through the door. His fists were clenched, his jaw was set, and even in the refrigerator cold Grimm insisted the office be kept at he was sweating. The longer I looked at him, the warmer I felt myself.
“I’m done with this,” he said. “I’m going home, and you two ladies can go—” He stopped, looked around. Looked at Ari. Glared at me. “Where is he? I heard the son of a bitch in here.”
“I’m right here,” said Grimm.
Liam approached the mirror, his hand held out like he wanted to touch it. “Some sort of hologram?”
“Indeed, sir. Most people can’t tell, but obviously you are too clever for me to fool. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to run a few tests.”
“I do mind,” said Liam. His face turned purple and sweat poured off him. “I’ve had a hell of a month, you know that? Every time I go to sleep I wake up somewhere different, in the middle of a fire. Then those two show up and offer to take me home. This is not home.”
Grimm crossed his arms and nodded. “Sir, would you mind humoring me with a request? I promise it does not involve needles.”
“Will it get me out of here? “
“It would certainly be a step in the right direction. I have a medical bracelet of sorts I would like you to wear. It allows me to monitor your affliction.”
Evangeline stepped forward with it. The bracelets, as I understood it, were a piece of Grimm. Thing about it was they couldn’t be forced on you. You had to choose them. Since Liam didn’t have a contract it wouldn’t be binding, but I was sure it would give Grimm a better understanding of what we were up against, and maybe a little control over it.
Liam clipped the bracelet into place. In the next few seconds, he seemed to deflate. His face cooled and he relaxed his shoulders. “Can you, can someone tell me what is going on? I want to go back to my house.”
“It is gone,” said Grimm. He was never one to take the bandage off slow. “As are the other places you’ve slept. The police are looking for a serial arsonist.”