Armageddon Rules (25 page)

“Sorry, still wearing my last skin. I was in Nairobi, making sure that people don’t forget someone from one side of the river killed someone from the other side of the river two hundred years ago.” He sat in my office chair, fitting much better than Mikey had.

“So what now?”

He flashed me those teeth again and laughed, a deep, hearty laugh. “I will wait for the other harbingers to make themselves known. Then, you provide my mount, and I can get to work.” His skin began to wrinkle, and turn pale. He shrank, becoming thinner, shorter. His skin became taut, the dark brown of a Latino man. “In the meantime, I’m going to go put on some gang colors and shoot someone. Gang wars are almost as good as tribal feuds.” He left my office, whistling a hip-hop tune and adjusting a bandanna.

The buzzer rang again, and I didn’t bother getting up. Sure enough, the door opened, and in walked a young man with sandy brown hair and pale skin that his white lab coat made even whiter. He flicked the stethoscope around his neck as he walked.

“Let me guess. Pestilence?”

He nodded and smiled, showing silver caps on each of his teeth. “You’re catching on.”

I offered my hand, but he kept his folded.

“You have any idea how many germs there are on the average human hand? I’d sooner shake your—”

“I get the point. Seriously though, a doctor? Wouldn’t you want to be a biologist, or working on some sort of disease?”

He sprayed down my chair with antibacterial spray and took a seat. “I’m no longer interested in only making people sick. I want to keep them that way. Long-term illness is the new black plague. Though thanks to you, handmaiden, I doubt there’ll be a long term for this world.”

Some people, you start an apocalypse even once, never let you live it down. “So you shuffle out, someone else shows up, then you go kill people until I get you a horse?” I reached into my drawer and pulled out a surgical mask. Didn’t make sense to take risks around him.

“Nah. That’s War’s gig. I’m going to go volunteer in the emergency room. Maybe leave a sponge, or spread some staph. I’ll see you around. Has that ass hat shown up yet?” He looked over his shoulder.

“Fairy Godfather isn’t available at the moment.” That’s all I was going to say on the matter.

“I’m talking about Death. You’ll understand.” He rose and took a tissue from his pocket, using it to open the door to my office.

When he’d gone, I buzzed Rosa. “When Famine gets here, send him on in.”

“Get out here.” Rosa sounded worried, and I took that quite seriously. I headed for the door at a run.

In the lobby an obese man sat. His grotesque arms gripped a steel walker, taking turns shoveling corn chips from a messenger bag.

“Famine. I get it. Get the hell out, and send in Death.” I shuddered at my own words, but resolved to ignore the manifestation of hunger and starvation. Pestilence came across as reasonable. War was downright friendly. It’d be a cold day in Inferno before I tolerated the mockery of Famine.

“He’ll see you when he sees you,” said Famine. As he spoke, bits of chip flew from his mouth.

When I approached the door to my office, I swung it open with my foot. No one waited. I walked inside, then hesitated before I sat down, sure there’d be someone waiting in my chair when I looked up. I was still alone. So after a few minutes of looking around, and flinching every time someone misspoke a spell and broke a window, I settled down and finished up another round of paperwork.

When I looked up, it was nearly seven in the evening. I took a bus home, leaving my new Agency car at work rather than fight evening traffic. After walking seven blocks, I finally made it home, and took the stairs to my apartment.

Inside, I opened a can of cat food for blessing, one for curse. As I dumped it out, a chill swept through the apartment, like I’d left the door open. I reached for my purse, and the pistol inside.

“You don’t need that, Marissa.” The voice cracked like clay in a drought, and rasped like bleached driftwood or dry bones.

“Death?” My fingers trembled, and my stomach churned.

“Yes.”

When I finally mustered the courage to look over my shoulder, I met the gaze of a wizened Chinese man. His hair, where he still had hair, was white and thin, and liver spots covered his sallow yellow skin. He sat at my table, his hands folded before him. “You can stop quivering. I’m Death, not Destruction. Come, sit.”

I approached the table, wondering if it wouldn’t make more sense to run and keep running, anywhere but here.

“I’ll show up wherever you go.” He folded his hands together. “You know, I’ve meant to get around to you, ever since you became the handmaiden.”

“Agent.” I didn’t take well to that term. Handmaidens gave manicures and pedicures. I handed out bruises and bullets.

“Not Fairy Godfather. The Black Queen. Normally, she’d mark a whole slew of you, and I’d just wait it out to see who survived. You’re the only one this time.” He unfolded a single finger to point to the mark on my hand.

“The Black Queen isn’t alive. And even if she was, I work for the person who arranged to kill her last time.” I met his gaze, empty black eyes staring through me.

“She might be dead. She isn’t gone. Like your wraith friend. Dead doesn’t mean gone.” He spoke without emotion, as if showing a simple math problem.

“Yeah, well, I blame both of them on you. Maybe if you’d done your job, they’d actually be dead and gone.” You can only put up with so many supernatural beings in one day, and I was about three past my limit.

Death scratched his head and glanced around my apartment. “That’s not what I do. I don’t kill people, Marissa. When they are dead, I give them a choice. Move on, or stay. Most of them I can persuade. Some of them, I can force. Sometimes, they aren’t ready. Or they’re too powerful.”

Too powerful for Death? I focused on him now. If Death could be beaten, perhaps demons could be too.

“Not beaten. Delayed. Love, hate. They have something that keeps them pinned here. Love’s easy. Lasts until whatever they love dies, then they go along for a group tour. Hate, on the other hand, can pin a soul down. Get enough of it, and it can last forever.”

“Like Larry?” I glanced to my purse, wondering if Larry could text.

“Not really. He didn’t build up nearly enough hatred. Sooner or later, he’ll have to let go, and when he does . . .” Death’s voice trailed off without menace or anger.

“You’ll punish him?”

“That’s not what I do. I’ll take him, like I should have sixteen years ago. Like I will everyone that dies in the apocalypse.”

I got up and got a bowl of cereal. If I had to tolerate the ramblings of an entity beyond time and space, it might as well be with a full stomach. “Well, I hate to spoil your fun, but I have no intention of completing the apocalypse any sooner than necessary.”

“I don’t desire for anyone to die. I don’t kill people. I’m there when their life ends, waiting. You think I want people to die. You think that I get upset when your Fairy Godfather resurrects someone.”

At this I nearly spat out my cereal. Grimm never resurrected people.

Death nodded. “I finally convinced him.”

Again with the freaking mind reading. “Convinced him of what?”

“It doesn’t change anything. You die now. You die in eighty years. I’ve seen stars born, Marissa. You could resurrect a thousand times and it would still be like today. Keeping someone alive doesn’t change anything, because for them, it’s just a phase. Your Fairy Godfather understands that better than most.” Death rose from his chair, and picked up the cereal box I’d knocked over.

“You say that you aren’t her handmaiden. I’ll bet you a year off your life you’ll claim that title yourself. And when she finally comes, you’ll go to her willingly.”

I almost threw up at the smug, calm attitude. I understood now why the other harbingers couldn’t stand him. “I’ll take your bet. And I’ll win.”

He ran gnarled fingers across his temples, like he had a migraine the size and age of the universe, and shook his head. “No, Marissa. You won’t.”

Twenty-Two

I BLINKED, AND in that moment, he was gone. While I like to consider myself prepared for almost everything, being visited by the harbinger of death pushed the edges, even for me. I stayed up late reading, wondering what I’d do. When the alarm finally blared, it felt more like mercy than anything else.

There’s a reason I don’t eat breakfast most mornings. I swung the fridge door open, and a gout of flame burst from the doorway. The interior of my fridge, where I’d meant to snag a hard-boiled egg, belched smoke and sulfur fumes.

Malodin’s face took shape in the smoke, looking part hawk, part insect. “Handmaiden.”

Demons in my fridge. That’s why I don’t eat breakfast. I reached through the smoke, disrupting his image, feeling around for the eggs. All I found were stalactites. “I summoned your harbingers.”

The gleam in his eyes was like a child tearing open a kitten he found under the Christmas tree. “Now, I demand my first plague. Something horrible. Something to make the people of your city miserable. Make them flee, and lock their doors, afraid to step into the sun. You have until evening, handmaiden.”

I slammed the door, opened it to slam it again, and found only the regular interior of my fridge, a yellow monster manufactured a few years before I was. Flies and maggots squirmed on every bit of food, and the interior smelled like I’d set off a stink bomb. Never eat breakfast. It might start the day off right, or open a portal straight to Inferno.

When I got to work, I found Mikey down in the loading bay, sitting with our other cargo workers in a circle.

Mikey stood and waved. “Hey, Ms. Locks. Just attending my support group.” He raised a beer to me.

I preferred wine, and I also preferred not to drink until at least eight thirty. I climbed the stairs to the Agency and found Beth sitting outside our door. On either side, a poodle crouched, like tiny, evil Sphinxes.

“Ms. Locks? Look what I can do!” She took out her kazoo and gave it a hum that made the lights flicker. In unison, the poodles rose, turned toward me, and bared red-stained fangs. Beth mumbled something that I think was “Sit.” The poodles advanced, growling with the voices of the damned.

“What did you feed them? Did you let them eat someone?” I pulled the pistol from my purse. I could kill one, no problem. The other would take a bite or three out of me with those razor teeth.

Beth hummed again, so strong the lights above us exploded.

The poodles stopped, their hackles raised, their eyes glowing red in the shadows.

“Down,” she said, and they circled back to her, tails wagging like nothing had happened. Sweat rolled down Beth’s face, and her hands trembled. “I think they ate the housecleaning service at the motel.”

“What possessed you to take them home with you?” I opened the door to the Agency and watched with a mixture of fear and amazement as the hell spawn with white fur followed her in.

“I’m getting it. I can do it, most of the time. I need to practice.” Beth led her tiny terrors back to the room I’d assigned her, hopefully to lock them in the cage.

Rosa came in the front door.

“Listen up.” I walked over to her, blocking her path to the front desk. “I need to do some research in Grimm’s library. You are going to handle the kobolds. You are going to give Payday George money to go away. If either of our enchanters steps out of line, you have my permission to shock them.” I stared at her, wishing for the world I had a rolled-up newspaper to swat her on the nose with.

For a moment, I thought Rosa might take a swing at me. Then she lowered her gaze and stepped around me to the desk. I figured that I might not be a piper, but Rosa could at least show me the same amount of respect she did the plastic ferns.

So I headed back to the library. It looked like a book closet, if one combined a library and a janitor’s supply room. One that stank of mildew and something unsavory, like a sack lunch left out in the sun for the last century. I stepped in, looking at the row of books that lined each side. With a click, I shut the door behind me, then turned off the light. When I turned it back on, the book closet was gone.

I still can’t say exactly where Grimm’s library actually existed. Could’ve been another planet. The room was as wide as a cathedral, fancy arched ceilings disappearing into the darkness where a second and third level of books waited. Vast stained glass windows covered two ends, but I’d never seen a sunrise light them.

I had come here once, in search of a gnomish cookbook Grimm had someone snag at a garage sale. It took me six days wandering through the stacks to find it. When I came back, Grimm was furious. Anger, or worry, I couldn’t quite tell.

This time, I’d do things right. I stepped to the center counter and rang a copper bell. Above me, in the darkness, something began to move, to shuffle through stacks. The shelves trembled, and the candles guttered to and fro.

I picked up a candle from the top of a stack, and lit it again. “I command you to show yourself, librarian.”

In answer, the carpet rose in a bubble, like something swimming through it. Then the bubble raced toward me.