“They’ll carve it out of you,” said Grimm. “Strictly speaking, they push your flesh through a soul sieve. What comes out one end is sausage to feed the ghouls and what comes out the other is the curse.”
“I’m no longer interested in volunteering,” said Liam.
Evangeline slammed her hands on the table, her face turning red with frustration. “I don’t think any of you are hearing a word I’m saying. They sent a troll. Big, ugly, and horribly slow. If M hadn’t done a swan dive on it, we could have eaten lunch, driven down to the next block, and still gotten there before it.”
A grin spread across my face as I understood. “Trolls move too slowly. It couldn’t possibly have been meant to get away with him.”
“How do you know it wasn’t going to eat me?” Liam looked at me, and for a moment I saw a glimpse of the man I’d met on the pier. I felt like I’d swallowed the butterfly garden at the zoo.
“Because it could have done that in the office,” I said. “Instead it climbed down with you carefully. And it wouldn’t do it on its own. Trolls have to be told to eat or they’ll practically starve to death. It was taking you someplace close. Or to someone close.”
“All right then,” said Grimm. “Marissa, you may investigate the bakery if you so desire, though I suspect your box may have come from any one of a dozen grocery stores. Evangeline, you may take the others and begin a sweep of the area. You will search for evidence of a portal; that’s the most likely method for removing Mr. Stone.”
Liam put his feet up on the table. “What do I do?”
“You, sir, may watch cable television on my personal HDTV,” said Grimm, “and I will order you pizza, and the beer of your choice.”
Liam stood up. For a moment I thought he would pull his own hair out as he clenched and unclenched his fists. When he looked up, steel resolve replaced the despair I’d seen before. “No. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t work for you, and I’m tired of being poked and prodded and watched like some sort of freak. I’m going to find out what happened to me and who did it. I’m going to get rid of this thing. Then I’m going back to my life, my workshop, and making little wrought-iron butterflies to sell to the tourists.”
“Search is out of the question,” said Evangeline. “I give it a fifty-fifty chance the portal’s still active. You step on it, and you’re wherever they meant to take you in the first place.”
“Fine,” said Liam. “Marissa, you’ll take me with you to this bakery. On the way I want to know everything you know about this curse. Consider it a date.”
“There you go, M. First agent in history to get a fourth date,” said Evangeline.
I knew from Liam’s tone it was anything but. “Okay.” I looked around, wondering where my constant companions were. “Come on, blessings. You and I are going down to check out a bakery, and I’m going to need you to help keep me from blowing my diet.”
“Marissa, were you hit in the head again? The MRI room is available if so.” Grimm peered at me as if I’d started a conversation with a poodle that didn’t involve bullets.
“No. I’ve been working on a relationship with my little friends. If they have to come with me everywhere, it’s going to be by my permission.”
“What did I tell you about feeding those things?” asked Grimm. He shook his head in frustration.
“Since when did I do as I’m told?” I asked, and grabbed my keys off the table. Inside, I knew the answer: always.
Ari grabbed my hand as we walked toward the car. “You want me to drive? You two could sit in the back.”
She was hopeless, in my opinion. “Do you know how to drive?”
The look she gave me was answer enough, like I’d caught her watching the Shopping Channel with my credit card again.
I patted her on the back. “Thanks, but I choose life. I’ll ask Evangeline to teach you. She taught me.”
Ari looked a little queasy at the thought.
Grimm gave me the address from the pie box, and as we drove I could tell Liam was staring at me, waiting. So I gave him the spiel about curses, and did my best to answer his questions.
He slumped back in the passenger seat until I thought he’d dozed off. When he spoke, I almost swerved. “Enough about curses. Tell me what it is you do.”
“I told you already. I work for Grimm. For Fairy Godfather.”
“Granting wishes?”
“Solving problems, more often. Most of the time what people wish for isn’t what they need. They need their baby back from an imp, or they need a pair of deadly slippers retrieved, or they need a troll to stop punching holes in the taxicabs that drive over the bridge. People need things, and I get them done.” I’d rather have crawled into a witch’s oven willingly than had that conversation right there and then.
“What about me?” He still wouldn’t look at me, staring pointedly out the window.
“I made a mistake. Two, actually. I was supposed to be working a prince.” I knew there was no going back now. First I picked the wrong man and dumped him, and then I sent a curse his direction. Lots of women cursed their boyfriends after breaking up with them. Not every ex-boyfriend wound up transforming into a flaming lizard.
“You make it sound so romantic.” His tone had grown cold as the January wind.
“Something went wrong with Grimm’s auguries, and I met you instead.”
“You mistook me for the guy you were supposed to be putting the moves on.” When he said it like that it sounded dirty.
“Yes.”
“So what was mistake number two?”
I didn’t answer until we turned into the bakery parking lot. “I’d done that assignment so many times. I was lonely, and I was sad, and when I met you, it just happened—”
“So many times? How many times have you done that before?” His voice was hoarse, and I felt his anger smoldering.
“At least twelve. I forget sometimes. It’s easier,” I said, knowing exactly how he would take it.
He spoke in a voice cold and dull. “Do you do the same thing with all of us?” His hands gripped the leather seat rest until it nearly bent.
“Yes. Meet at the pier or someplace public. Have an accidental meal I arrange. Walk. Dance.”
“Kiss,” he said, and I could feel the hurt I had sliced so professionally into him.
“Yes. Then we break up, and you are ready for the princess to come into your life and put it back together. Ready to love someone. Someone else.” My sense of professional pride gave way to raw shame. I’d always regarded setups as a game, but never considered that it was one I always lost.
I put the car in park, and he practically leaped out, so eager to be farther from me. “Well, you did it right. I couldn’t be more ready for someone else if I tried.”
Twenty-Six
THE BAKERY LOOKED wrong from the beginning. Everyone thinks of bakeries as little shops where a fat man pulls bread in and out of ovens. Modern bakeries looked like factories, factories that should have been full of workers. As we walked through the empty lot, I knew something was wrong. At eleven o’clock in the morning there should be people everywhere. I didn’t see a single fat man.
Ari checked her map. “Fairy Godfather ever get the address wrong?”
“Fifth Street Bakery” read the sign on the office door. I gave it a pull and found it locked. “Not that I’ve seen, but there’s a first time for everything.”
“Shoot the lock,” said Ari. She’d obviously watched too many television shows.
“Or we could look around. Most deliveries happen at night, and at the big places, they leave supply doors unlocked so you don’t have to let the truck driver in.” I walked around the side of the building, with Liam and Ari trailing. Experience paid off. At the back of the building I found three delivery bays, one standing wide open. From the doorway, a sour stench billowed.