Armageddon Rules (22 page)

I couldn’t say if it was “Arianna” or the threat of a strongly worded letter that made me laugh harder. “Come on, prince-boy. Got to get you someplace safe.”

He looked at me like I’d called him dead-fish boy. “What did you call me? My name is Wyatt, not Prince, and Mum has given me quite clear instructions. In the event of any sort of danger, I am always to return home immediately.”

“Fine. Come on back to my car, and we’ll take you home.” I looked at the remains of the demon, which still sizzled and twisted.

Wyatt drew himself to his full height, which was only a few inches taller than me. “I take the bus. In order for a city with so many people to work, we need to cooperate, and shared transportation resources are a key element of city life. Come, I’ll introduce you to the transit system.”

“I know about the buses.” I fumed at him, wondering if I could drag him to the car and use a stun gun on him there.

The remains of the demon began to smoke, and the pile of entrails moved, worming its way back into the sliced-open stomach cavity.

“You do not want to be here when that thing gets up and starts walking around.”

Wyatt looked at me and swallowed. “Could we call a cab?”

“If it will get you out of here.” I headed toward the door, keeping an eye on the corpse. The edges of the wounds flickered with flame, but instead of burning away the flesh, it seemed to heal it. “Come on.” I gave the demon a few more squirts, then looked back. “Any day this century would be good.”

Wyatt continued to pack his backpack. Then he pulled it on, adjusted his Windbreaker.

We met a second demon in the stairway. The thing looked like a Great Dane mixed with a parrot. Long, lithe dog legs and a beak covered in black blood. Like the first, a few squirts of my ill-gotten holy water left it in a smoldering heap, letting us leave the building.

“This happen to you often?” I kept an eye on Wyatt as he stepped around the demon remains and then continued to follow me toward the curb.

For most folks, meeting a demon would rank high on their “reasons I’ll spend the rest of my life in therapy” list. Wyatt calmly stepped to the curb and whistled for a cab. “No, but Mum has been quite clear that the world at large can be dangerous.”

A cab pulled up, and as Wyatt reached for the door, glass shattered above me. I yanked him by the collar, pulling him away as the demon from the classroom smashed onto the roof of the cab. The number of people struggling to find some rational explanation for this went up by about two hundred in the space of a few seconds.

The last of my holy water reduced it again to a pile of gore, and this time I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I grabbed Wyatt by the wrist and dragged him after me to my car. “We can make a donation to a home for puppies or something later,” I said as I shoved him into the front seat.

I tore two parking tickets from the windshield and peeled out, leaving the area as the first set of police responded. That was the primary reason Grimm let agents carry guns—when seconds mattered, police were minutes away.

“Reach in the back and get one of those water guns,” I said, as I ran traffic light after light.

Wyatt fumbled around in the backseat and came up with one. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Anything scaly shows up, you shoot it.” I swung around a corner, narrowly missing a clot of pedestrians.

“And how would I do that?”

If I could have taken a moment to look at him, I would have. I needed every bit of my attention on the road. “Point and click. Pull the trigger. Like Cowboys and Indians.”

“Native American history is not a game.”

I finally hit the last corner, and slammed to a halt, blocked by a horde of people making their way up from the waterfront. “Once we’re past the gates, we’ll be in Kingdom. The police there will be prepared for this sort of problem.”

“Where?”

I glanced over to Wyatt, and he looked at me with those pale blue eyes, his eyebrows arched.

“Kingdom?” Nothing. The word meant nothing to him. “Your ‘Mum’ doesn’t live this way, does she?”

He shook his head. “She lives close to the college. You went the wrong direction, but I was worried that if I complained, you might commit a violence against me.”

“Violence. Not ‘a violence.’”

About then the windshield shattered as another Great-Dane-demon smashed into it. I flicked on the washers and hit the accelerator, leaving a heap of demon meat in the street. Wyatt screamed in pain, flopping back and forth in the seat.

“Did it cut you?”

“My eyes. I can’t see.” I glanced over; yellow liquid covered him.

“Don’t worry. It’s mustard, and a little vinegar. Left nozzle is holy water, right one is mustard. Takes care of most of the things that attack me.” I handed him a cup from the console. “Rinse your eyes with this.”

A moment later I looked over, and despite being stained with stale coffee and doused in mustard, he didn’t look wounded. “This way?”

“Right in six blocks, number 113. This is never going to come out of my shirt.”

I continued to speed, continued to use the curb as a lane, knowing that at any moment, we could find ourselves faced with more demons. Most of the time, they wouldn’t dare attack outside of Kingdom. Inside of Kingdom, the cops carried bullets blessed by almost every religion on earth, up to and including jazz band conductors.

One block from the house, the trunk of my car exploded in a shower of metal. In my rearview mirror, a pair of yellow eyes glowed. I slammed on the brakes, throwing the demon over the car, then hit the accelerator, running it over. Steam shot from my radiator, and the engine sputtered. “We’re running from here,” I said, and threw open the door.

Wyatt followed my lead, and we took off at a sprint for number 113, a narrow town house tucked into a wall of taller buildings. From the sky above, the swoop of wings gave me a second’s warning. I tackled Wyatt just in time to keep a demon-Dane from soaring off with his head.

Behind us, my car flipped over as our assailant from the college threw it off him like a bag of laundry and began to run, impossibly fast for something that large. I made sure Wyatt got to the gate first, and followed inside, straight to the porch, where I slid to a halt.

Wyatt fumbled with keys, while I looked at the floor of the porch, cloudy-white stone that looked surprisingly familiar. In the yard, the demon crushed the gate and lumbered ever closer, walking with cloven hoofs up the stairs to stand inches from me.

“No soliciting.” I tapped my foot.

It thrust a claw up to reach past me, and an orange light like a camera flash exploded in the air. When my eyes cleared, the demon’s claw ended in a bloody stump.

Behind me, the door unlocked, and by the time I looked back, Wyatt had disappeared into the house. With a snort, the demon lumbered away into the darkness.

From the doorway, a woman’s voice spoke, older, softer. “I always knew one day I’d get a visit from you. Demons or dragons or something. It had to be something.”

I got to my feet and looked back to find the speaker, a woman with hair of gray and black. Wrinkles ringed her eyes, her face was thin, and her skin’s tone looked pale, but I couldn’t mistake the shine of magic that came from her.

When I first came to work for Grimm, I spent months memorizing the government and who’s who of Kingdom. Though the woman before me had at least twenty years on the last picture I’d seen of her, I had no doubt. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

She looked down at the ground. “I am not High Queen anymore. I am not queen of anything anymore, young lady. Would you like to come inside?”

I dusted myself off and followed her through the door, wondering how on earth the Queen of the First Royal Family had come to live here.

*   *   *

IF SHE’D LEFT an inch of wall without pictures, I couldn’t find it. Not that I knew any of the people. Once inside, she waved toward a green-and-orange couch. “Sit. I’ll make us tea.”

“Wyatt—”

“He’s upstairs, bathing. Mustard may be poisonous only to brownies, but it is harsh on the skin.” She disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me to stare at the decorating. In one corner, an ancient upright piano sat, covered in pictures of Wyatt as a young boy.

The windows drew my attention the most. Not glass, but fine lead crystal, engraved in runes that I recognized as protection sigils, despite the fact I couldn’t empower one at all. The window frames too held dozens of trinkets, bottles of brick dust and other items. In essence, the house was a fortress of wards.

“Forgive my decoration. I’ve worked quite hard to keep my son safe,” said the queen.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I was trying to keep him safe as well.” I bowed, remembering my formal manners.

She frowned and looked at me over her bifocals. “Girl, I’m no longer High Queen. Indeed, I’ve renounced my throne and Kingdom. You may call me Mrs. Pendlebrook.” She brought over a tray with tea and sat across from me. “Now, you have my thanks for protecting my son, but once you’ve rested a bit, it will be time for you to leave.”

“Wyatt is the reason I’m here. I got a tip that demons might be coming after him, and I barely got him out of the college. I need to talk with him.” I sat up and sipped the tea, savoring the taste of lavender.

“Out of the question. I know what you are, if not who. The gold bracelet. The holy water and mustard. You work for the Fairy Godfather.” She set down her teacup.

“No. I’m his partner. Marissa Locks.” The look of surprise on her face brought warmth to my heart. If she had read a copy of the
Kingdom Enquirer
from the last year, she’d know I was his partner. She’d also know that I negotiated with Aliens at Area 51 (true), met Elvis in the sewers (also true), and was personally responsible for burning down a bingo hall (no comment). “I need to speak to Wyatt. My best friend got attacked by a queen, and I think he might be able to wake her.”

“I’ve worked long and hard to shield my son from the realities of Kingdom. The politics, power, and backstabbing. Ms. Locks, I appreciate what you did for him, but I don’t want him dragged into a conflict with another queen.”

I slammed down the teacup, rattling the table. “I didn’t ask your permission. I’m here for your son. He’s the only one who can help Ari.”

We glowered at each other.

“Something’s happened to Arianna?” Wyatt stood at the top of the stairs, dressed in a fuzzy green bathrobe. He walked down the stairs and over to me. “Tell me, is Arianna all right?”

I shot a triumphant glance to his mother, then fixed my eyes on him. “That depends a lot on you.”

Nineteen

MRS. PENDLEBROOK GAVE me a look of death, then turned to her son. “Now, Wyatt—”

“Mum, I want to hear what she has to say. Ms. Locks, is it? I believe Arianna mentioned you. The accountant who owns a bookstore, right?” Wyatt sat beside his mother and poured himself a cup of tea. The two of them together made it hard to look that way, with the sheer amount of magic pouring from them.

“Bookstore. Right.” I made a mental note to remind Ari to leave me out of her lies, assuming I could convince Prince Charming here to wake her up. “Ari got”—I glanced at Mrs. Pendlebrook—“hurt. She’s in a coma, and the doctors think that hearing the voices of people she’s in a ‘special relationship’ with might help.”

Mrs. Pendlebrook practically spat on me. “She means she wants you to kiss the girl, son.”

Wyatt’s face drained of color, a look of sheer terror on it. “Never without Arianna’s permission.”

“She isn’t going to wake up to give you permission if you don’t.”

He sat back on the couch, then looked over to his mother. “Mum, can you tell me what those things were?”

“Demons.”

He nodded, not the least bit shocked or surprised.

“And why exactly would a metaphysical creature have any argument with me, let alone desire to harm me?”

His mother looked at me for a moment, the pain in her eyes unmistakable.

I cut in before she could answer. “Ari. They know you could help Ari, and that’s why they were after you. To prevent you from helping her.”

He nodded. “So a kiss would possibly help her?”

“It’s as good a theory as anything else I’ve got.” I waited in the silence, trying to figure out what his answer would be.

“Son, it’s not just a kiss. Generally speaking, the prince—the person who wakes the young lady is committing to a long-term relationship with her.” Mrs. Pendlebrook put her hand on Wyatt’s, drawing his eyes to her.

He shook his head. “Kissing is a simple courtship or attraction ritual, not related to relationship bonds, legal, or otherwise.”

His mother took his other hand, and squeezed them until her knuckles turned white. “Not for princes.”

In the moments that passed, I counted the ticks from the grandfather clock in the hallway. When he spoke, I nearly jumped.

“I don’t make any decisions in haste, Ms. Locks. I prefer to meditate on matters and consider the long-term consequences of major decisions. Anything beyond breakfast is worthy of contemplation.” Wyatt stood, brushing the wrinkles from his robe.

I took a business card from my purse and placed it on the coffee table. “Please. I’ll do anything for Ari.”