Wish Bound (A Grimm Agency Novel Book 3) (14 page)

And began to climb.

Not that I waited around. I leaped and pulled down an escape ladder, raced up it, and hauled the ladder up behind me. Below, a clang told me the abomination had reached the fire escape. With three times the climbing equipment, it would beat me to the roof handily. So I stopped.

I waited.

I listened as it clambered over metal railings, grunting and huffing. When it climbed onto the landing beneath me, I was waiting. When it pulled on the ladder, I jumped. Not up. Down, landing with all my force on the edge of the ladder.

The fire escape ladder swung like an axe, crashing into the metal, cutting the fingers off the abomination like a meat cleaver. It screamed a cry that echoed in the city streets, flipping backwards, pulling mangled flesh from the metal floor.

I charged straight at it, knowing this would be my one chance. I’d seen Liam tackle people before, his shoulder lowered, his legs acting like pistons. Liam weighed twice as much as me, but I had adrenaline and surprise on my side. I hit it in the chest, knocking it back to the railing, and pushing it over the edge.

It tried to grab the fire escape as it fell, but its weight tore its last fingers off. It hit shoulder first into the ground, and didn’t rise.

After a good twenty minutes on the fire escape to catch my breath, I finally climbed down, and followed the churning in my stomach through the streets of Low Kingdom until I arrived at the castle. From outside, her presence called to me like a beacon.

Going in didn’t really seem like a good idea. In fact, the longer I stood outside, the more it seemed like this was a horrible idea, and that if I pinched myself enough, I’d wake up to find the smoke alarm going off, or something normal.

Instead, from the darkness behind me, a thunderstorm of feet echoed. On the moat bridge, I looked back. Abominations lined the street by the thousands, in grotesque shapes and sizes that suggested each came from at least three different people.

Though the streets of Low Kingdom seemed empty, the people weren’t gone.

With a chorus of gurgles and strangled hissing, the crowd surged forward, but I didn’t look back. I lunged past the sleeping troll, hurtling into a tunnel of darkness.

OUTSIDE, THE TROLL
roared, swinging his club so that it thudded against the ground. Maybe he was angry with me. Maybe he was angry at the crowd of abominations setting foot on his bridge. I wasn’t going back to ask. Instead, I made my way with ease through the labyrinth of the castle, that alien feeling of joy growing stronger with each step.

When I walked down the wide staircase to the main banquet hall, I should have felt fear. Instead, I could barely keep myself from dancing. Isolde sat at the head of the room on the carved wooden throne. Before her, two women knelt.

One I recognized, and my anger overrode the forced joy. “Gwendolyn Thromson. I thought I might find you here.” Ari’s stepmother kept showing up wherever disasters went down.

I didn’t miss the surprise on Isolde’s face as I approached. She didn’t know everything.

Isolde beckoned to me. “Handmaiden. Come and bow.”

“No.” I’d sooner bow to a statue of myself at the post office than the Black Queen. Grimm said not to provoke her, but some things were nonnegotiable.

Isolde put one fingernail to her arm, tapping it against her elbow. “Bow.”

“Never.”

Her fingernail turned black and lengthened, taking on a purple sheen as it grew into a hooked thorn. She plunged the thorn-nail into her own flesh, and my arm tore open. Now, the number of times I’d been crucified, burned, or nailed with a pneumatic nail gun should have left me whistling, but along with the tearing, a burning like poison coursed down my arm.

I fell over, curling up in a ball, desperately fighting for breath. When the pain subsided, I opened my eyes to see her standing over me. Her own arm had no traces of a wound, and her fingernail no longer resembled an eagle’s claw. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Rise, handmaiden, for tonight we celebrate. While I didn’t require your presence, I assure you, one more is an easy accommodation.”

She put her hands together, forming a triangle, and hummed a tone filled with power. Vines grew from the center of the table, blossoming out into domed silver platters and goblets of wine. “Come.”

Gwendolyn rose and took a seat at one side of the rectangular table.

The other woman rose, and I couldn’t squelch the gasp that escaped me. Kyra’s hair, once blond, hung in a braid that reached to her toes. What really got me wasn’t the hair, as much as her face. I’d memorized her features, chasing her from store to store one New Year’s Eve. Her face, too, had changed, both familiar and beautiful in a way that left me amazed.

Kyra waltzed over and curtsied. “Greetings, sister. Do you like our queen’s gift to me? I am a vision unlike any other.” Before I could comment on how long that hair was going to take to wash and brush, she walked to the table and took a seat at the Black Queen’s right hand.

I didn’t want to sit beside her. I didn’t want to sit in the same
castle
as Gwendolyn Thromson. Isolde turned toward me, her brown eyes lit with a sparkle that said she enjoyed the flavor of my discomfort more than any wine. “Since you invited yourself, don’t be difficult.”

Far as I could tell, difficult was the only thing I knew how to be. Liam always said that what I lacked in height I made up for in pure stubbornness. I reminded myself of why I was there, and took a seat.

Isolde held out her hands, gesturing to our plates. “I’ve taken the liberty of conjuring you a meal to remind you of your loyalty. Eat, and remember: There is always more I can take from you.”

I took the silver dome off my plate and my stomach convulsed. Before me sat a heap of spaghetti in a worn yellow bowl. The silverware had spots that were either unwashed food or soap scum, and the drink, a bottle of cheap beer.

Liam’s favorite meal, from his favorite restaurant.

Across the table, Kyra’s look of horror told me I wasn’t the only one surprised. On her plate sat an array of chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and carrots. The sippy cup on her platter held what looked to be apple juice.

Gwendolyn’s place setting was empty, without as much as a glass.

“Eat.” The Black Queen sliced her own food, a steak drowned in butter and garlic.

Leaving the silverware on the table, I picked up a handful of spaghetti and slurped it into my mouth. Slimy and cold, it might have just been served from the bowl at Froni’s.

“How do you know what the meal should be?” Kyra chewed a chicken nugget, the edge in her voice unmistakable as she stared at Isolde.

“I don’t. I simply told the platters to remind you of what you stand to lose if you fail to serve me.” Isolde continued with her steak, as if we discussed the weather. “Continue to eliminate princes, and I’ll have no reason to question your loyalty.”

“As you command, my queen.” I’d seen that look on Kyra’s face. Worn it myself on more than one occasion. The sort of determination that says “I will do what I have to, and pity the people who stand in my way.”

I glanced over to Gwendolyn, who sat with her hands folded before her on the table, and spoke to keep myself from spitting. “You’re on one hell of a diet.” I strangled the urge to shove my fork into her eye.

“Jealous? I have nothing to lose, but if I waver, I get nothing.” Contempt dripped from Gwendolyn’s lips like spittle from a rabid dog. “I cannot be threatened. Only rewarded. How is that insolent stepdaughter of mine doing? The one who challenged our queen?”

“She’s fine. Training harder. Getting stronger.”

Gwendolyn nodded. “When the matter of High Queen is settled, the first edict I will give is to have all witches put to death. We’ll see how strong she is then.”

Without a pause I flipped my fork over and drove it through the flesh between her thumb and forefinger, nailing her hand to the table. Wyatt once told me that applying pressure there would help with headaches. There was probably a fine line between “helping” and “causing,” a line I burst across without ever looking back.

Gwendolyn screamed, but the rage that filled me, the desire to tear her heart out and feed it to the dogs in Low Kingdom, made it the sweetest of music. I delivered a right hook across her cheek, then rose and seized my chair, swinging it like a baseball bat. As I did, the air around me boiled in a feeling that told me a spell had activated nearby.

The chair exploded against a body like a brick wall. My eyes followed the wall of flesh and muscle upward. Another abomination, this one humanoid, loomed above me. Far too large for a normal man, it looked like someone had fashioned it from an ogre, then wrapped the body in human skin. On top of shoulders as wide as a table hung a mockery of a human skull, twisted. Then it spoke. “Marissa.”

I struggled to keep the spaghetti I’d swallowed down, because I knew the voice, a monster of a person whose outside now nearly matched the hideous person inside. “Prince Mihail.”

He shook the head, causing pink slobber to swing from the jaw. “Not anymore. You poisoned me.”

Technically, I’d like to point out the apple poisoned him. I threw it, but not at him. Convenient that he forgot that tiny detail. “You tried to kill Ari and me. You had it coming.” I couldn’t hide the shaking in my hands or the fear that crawled up from the depths of Inferno to make its home in my spine. “I have it on good authority you pulled a prison break.”

Monster Mihail leaned over, bending for what seemed like an eternity to bring his face to my level. “When I have a proper new body, we’ll talk again. When I’ve killed everything and everyone near you, we’ll talk.” With a hand the size of my head, he tore the fork from the table and lumbered to stand behind Gwendolyn.

Obviously Gwendolyn hadn’t lived through enough pain, because a simple stab through the fleshy part of her hand left her shaking. She spat on the table. “My guardian will tear your arms off if you lay a hand on me again.”

“The souls,” I whispered, more to myself. And the rest of the situation clicked into place for me. I turned back toward Kyra. “Where is Irina Mihail? Step-bitch here got the prince. I’m guessing you have the Queen of Crazy as your pet.”

“She’s been looking forward to meeting you again.” Kyra narrowed her eyes at me, then closed them, concentrating.

This time around I recognized the spell activating. Most spells came with aural or visual hallucinations. This one smelled like burned fish, which I usually associated with some form of summoning. When a hulk the size of Prince Mihail’s modern monster lumbered from the shadows behind Kyra, I wasn’t at all surprised. I stepped up onto the table so that I could at least look her in the eye.

Irina Mihail’s fresh body had the same basic semblance as the one that her son wore, with the addition of gargantuan breasts that resembled bowling balls in leather sacks and served absolutely no purpose. The hatred in her eyes burned like a coal fire, and her lips cracked as she drew them back to smile, revealing rows of pointed teeth.

I wasn’t impressed by the twelve-foot-tall psycho ex-queen. I’d sent her to hell once, beating a demon at his own game, and I could do it again. “I figured you’d be hanging out with step-bitch, not following a low-class thief.”

Irina-monster worked at it, mouthing the words over and over again, but when she spoke, the clear Russian accent sounded like she’d never died and gone to hell. “I chose this. Remember, when the culling comes, I will be there to defend her, and to end your miserable life. Wrath, Marissa. I have it stored up for you.”

Kyra whistled, calling her pet back. “I have work to do. Tonight we will finish the fourth and fifth houses.” She looked back to me. “What about you? Did you receive a guardian?”

Guardian. I finally made the connection to the creature from the Agency. I didn’t exactly want to bring up that I might have destroyed my guardian on account of not knowing it was mine. Also on account of not keeping monstrosities as pets, unless you counted the cat I once owned.

“Marissa declined my generous gift.” Isolde spoke, her voice commanding I turn and look back to her. “So I have selected a different one for her. Something she needs more. Go, my servants. Make ready my way.”

At last, I knew where the missing souls were. And I knew why they hadn’t come looking for me like the Adversary expected. Now the question was whether or not the news would appease him long enough for me to figure out a way to kill them.

Kyra rose with a bow and stalked off down the tunnel, her nightmare guardian following. I can’t say where Gwendolyn went, because I couldn’t take my eyes off the Black Queen.

When their footsteps faded to silence, she released me. “A man’s meal. You fear the loss of your boyfriend most.”

“Ari loves that place.” As I spoke, the thorn near my heart shifted, and my blood ran cold. But this lie was my own, not Grimm’s.

“A good lie, but a lie nonetheless. Remember, I am the Root of Lies, you cannot fool me. You love a man, though I cannot divine even his name. Does my father interfere?”

“I hope so.”

“Did you like my guardians? I’ve been practicing here on the denizens of this miserable plane. My father can form bodies so wonderful they look natural. My efforts are but a shadow of his. That’s all I ask of him. A body, a perfect one, made as only he can.” The pain and eagerness in Isolde’s voice gave her away.

“He won’t ever do that. Grimm says your mother has to move on.”

A blast of elemental magic tore the carpet from under me, sending me rolling across the floor.

Isolde’s voice came out a shriek. “Sticking Mother in purgatory for my sins was not letting her move on. When I master the secrets of flesh, I will make her new bodies forever. She will never grow sick, never die, and never leave me.” Her hair stood out from her head the way Ari’s did when Ari cast spells.

“You shouldn’t have stolen souls from the vault. The Adversary knows what you did. He’ll—”

“Do nothing,” said Isolde, “beyond order some servant to retrieve them. Did he threaten to take out his anger on innocents? I cannot be threatened so. And I care nothing for the queen and her son, but their hatred for you was too delicious to resist. Now, let us arrange for your gift.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“No, but you do want something.” Her words hit me harder than any fist. When she spoke, Fairy Godmother’s voice echoed, the same words she’d said to me when I first met her. “You are unpresentable, unfit to be my proxy.” For a moment, I thought she meant to remove the queen’s ring I wore. A ring only she could remove.

She paced toward me, and I couldn’t help shrinking back. “Where is the brave Marissa I heard so much about?” She cast her hand at me, throwing a wave of glitter at me, and I flinched.

Nothing. Nothing happened at all. Well, not quite nothing. My clothing transformed into an old-style ball gown. Taking a single step required more effort than walking a marathon. The dress featured enough fabric below my waist to act as an emergency flotation device. I looked up to see Isolde walking away, returning to her throne. When she’d taken her seat, she folded her hands before her. “Go home, handmaiden. Return to this man of yours, and find out if he truly loves you.”

•   •   •

I MADE IT
out of Low Kingdom and back to my apartment in record time, terrified that she had cast some spell on Liam, or kidnapped him. When I threw the apartment door open, he jumped from his recliner, spilling beer all over the carpet.

Relief swept through me. “Thank Kingdom you’re here.”

Liam looked at me sideways and took a step away. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment?”