Soul Ink Read online

  Except that as I gasped for breath, a feeling of power radiated out from my arm. I wrapped one arm around his neck and punched him with the other. With each blow, I felt fire blaze farther up my arm, but the cracking noise when I punched his sternum told me he wouldn’t be fighting back.

  His grip on my neck loosened, and I pushed back, letting him collapse to the floor, right as a ball of purple light blasted from Ari straight into me.

  I’m pretty sure what she said would give Walt Disney a heart attack if he wasn’t in suspended animation. I’m pretty sure what I wanted to say would have given her a heart attack. Problem was, I couldn’t find my feet, my arms, or my lips.

  Grimm roared, shaking the mirror, “Arianna, what have you done?”

  I giggled, because it seemed pretty funny.

  “I was trying to put him to sleep.” Ari knelt over me. “I’m so sorry, M.”

  “You are completely incapable of putting people to sleep. You know that.” Grimm disappeared for a moment, probably slaughtering rabbits to ask the auguries what exactly Ari did.

  “Hold on, M.” Ari patted my cheeks.

  I puked on her.

  “Arianna,” Grimm’s voice came from behind her. “You’ve nearly put her into an ethanol coma.”

  “You’re the one who sent the bad man after her.” Ari rippled with lightning, sending static shocks through my cheeks.

  “I was simply testing a theory. As I suspected, Marissa’s tattoo amplifies her strength. However, it appears to be growing unrestrained. This simply won’t do.” Grimm looked down on me from the light fixture.

  “Stay with Marissa while I figure out an antidote. Don’t let her out of your sight, Arianna, and don’t let her within three hundred yards of a tattoo parlor.”

  Ari took her toes out of the open slippers she’d worn, and dumped them into the trash can. “Some days I swear being a princess was easier.”

  • • •

  “Marissa.” A man’s voice roused me from what was the worst hangover sleep on earth. Ninety percent of me wanted to sink back into a stupor. The other ten percent recognized his voice. “Liam.”

  Liam Stone. My boyfriend. A man with my name tattooed on his back, and whose name was tattooed across my heart. He brushed his black hair back and rubbed my face. “Grimm said we had an accident of some sort. I brought you something to help.”

  He handed me a wineglass filled with orange juice, then dumped the contents of a silver flask into it.

  “Hair of the dog?” I sniffed it and took a sip.

  Liam shook his head. “More like scale of the dragon. I bought this from a witch before our celebration, but it turns out I can’t get drunk. Well, I mean, Grimm says it’s possible, but I’d need a swimming pool filled with vodka.”

  “You shouldn’t have. Magic isn’t—”

  He held up one finger, then the glass. “I got paid Friday.” Liam had taken a part-time position at the Agency. The first male agent in the history of Grimm’s Agency, he’d cost more in renovations than any employee before. We hadn’t needed a men’s bathroom before. And as far as I was concerned, we could share a shower.

  Ari, on the other hand, objected. It wasn’t appropriate for unmarried princesses. From what I could tell, the only things appropriate for unmarried princesses were shopping, online shopping, and night class at the local community college.

  Naked men were definitely not on her list.

  This one was definitely on mine. I sipped the cocktail, nearly gagging at the taste. “That’s not orange juice.”

  “It’s orange colored,” said Liam. “Water, tabasco sauce, tomato juice, black pepper, and lime. My special recipe.”

  Liam’s recipes were as bad as the rest of Liam’s cooking. In other words, the best dieting aid known to mankind. The potion mixed in, on the other hand, had exactly the effect I needed. My blurry vision cleared, the billy goats gruff head-butting my skull bounded away.

  I sat up and wiped my eyes, then put my hand on the gold bracelet at my wrist. Part magic, part metal, and my link to the Fairy Godfather. “Grimm, what’s got you so bothered?”

  “Well, let’s see. Having my partner go missing would be near the top of my list. Having a living tattoo in her body isn’t making my day either, but the absolute top would be a sort of contractual obligation.” He materialized in the mirror.

  For a brief moment, my blood turned to ice. “We don’t have a contract anymore.” Though once my work for Grimm had been less than voluntary, I was no longer anyone’s slave or servant. The only will controlling me was my own.

  “Marissa,” said Grimm. “The contract is my own. A government contract of sorts.”

  “With Kingdom?” Kingdom. Home of ogres, witches. Infested with princes and princesses. I don’t think a single royal family still ruled an actual country. These days, they hung their crowns by a fireplace, traded a throne room for a boardroom, and still ruled the world. The royal families regarded raising seal bearers in each generation as an unfortunate side effect of their status rather than the reason for it.

  Grimm shook his head. “Not exactly. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to discuss this in my office.”

  I wrapped my arms around Liam and whispered in his ear, a private promise to make up for the magic he’d spent, then made my way down the hall to Grimm’s office. With the door safely shut, he’d be willing to speak plainly. “Spill it. This an assassination contract?”

  On occasion, Kingdom’s government would have our agency arrange the removal of someone with major mojo. Usually after they’d left a string of bodies long enough to form a human chain around the palace. And even then, they’d wait until the body of someone blond and beautiful topped the pile.

  “Not exactly. Think of it as pest control. You’ve met the denizens of Inferno?” Grimm’s tone didn’t make it a question.

  Imps, which combined attention deficit disorder and a psychotic desire to kill everyone. Hellhounds, which we relied on to deal with yearly poodle outbreaks. Demons, who I’d managed to avoid thus far, and with any luck would continue to avoid. “Yeah, I’d say we have a decent working relationship. This an extraction trip to Inferno?”

  “Not exactly. Heaven on earth. Are you familiar with the phrase?”

  I honestly thought I’d found a little piece of it. “So it’s nothing from hell?”

  Grimm folded his arms. “I have hobbies to help me pass the time. I call them magical research, the powers that be call them violating the laws of magic. In return for dealing with certain anomalies, I receive no attention in regards to my experiments.”

  The last experiments I’d seen Grimm perform involved animals with six times the normal number of entrails. The result hadn’t been pretty, or even able to hop around. Grimm said reading the auguries with those rabbits was like trying to listen to a whisper in a crowded room. Personally I think he just couldn’t stand bunnies.

  Still, business was business, and Grimm had let slip enough for me to see both the forest and the trees. “Anomalies. As in the heavenly kind?”

  Grimm nodded. “I’m going to bring in Arianna. This will be a good learning lesson for her, and you’ll need her assistance. However, I’d like to keep the business aspects of this matter private.”

  Of course he did. I knew Grimm cooked up some freaky spells from time to time, but violating the laws of magic was a good recipe for a magical disaster that would combine a nuclear meltdown, a hurricane, and a high school dance, without the good parts.

  The door opened, and Ari walked in, having changed her outfit once more, and knowing her, washed her feet. “You called?”

  “Young lady, I believe it is time you learned about denizens of another realm.” Grimm spoke in a deep, sonorous voice, intended to make it an honor.

  “Pffft.” Ari gave me a glance that told me what was coming. “I go to Fae every freaking week,
Grimm. Kansas is more mystical and unknown. I’ve never been to Kansas.”

  That made me laugh. “I was supposed to go once, to return a dog. His name was—”

  “Say Toto. I dare you. Say it and see what happens.” Ari’s tone said now would be a good time to shut my mouth, as did the way her face turned red. “Tell me what I’m up against. I’m the agent to shoot it.”

  “No,” said Grimm. “You’re the princess I need to handle this.” At the mention of her title, Ari’s face turned a shade of crimson I’d last seen when I robbed the blood bank. The term “prince” or “princess” had less to do with authority and more to do with a mark on her soul she inherited from her parents. An agreement between the universe and mankind that her family would care for a realm seal. With the mark came abilities Ari had never quite embraced, and privileges she flat out rejected.

  “My name—”

  “Is not in question, Arianna.” Grimm looked over his glasses. “It is your nature. Accept it and move on, as Marissa has her utter incapability to master even the most rudimentary spell. Also, her inability to file paperwork on time. Or to show up to appointments on time.”

  “Hey”—I flicked a pen at Grimm’s mirror—“get to the point.”

  Grimm breathed a sigh and rubbed his forehead. “Perhaps it would be better if you saw for yourself.” He read off an address, which I plugged into my phone. As I rose to leave, he motioned for me to wait. “Do you have any unholy water?”

  I nodded. “Two liters I pulled from the Hudson last week. That stuff will eat through the carpet.”

  Grimm disappeared for a moment, then reappeared. “I must take a call from the treasury; they suspect we have another golden goose on the loose, but I’d feel better if you brought that water with you.”

  “Why?”

  Grimm pursed his lips and rubbed his chin, but after a moment met my gaze. “In case I’m wrong. If I’m wrong about what you will find, someone will die. Don’t let that be you, Marissa.”

  Two

  Grimm needed to work on his motivational speech. I collected a jar that contained a sludge that technically passed for water and a princess who only technically met the standards for the title, and took a ride across town. I had my driver’s license, but most of the time the bus or the subway worked better.

  On the way, I relayed the gist of Grimm’s concern. Which was, after all, the extent of what I knew. I took two earpieces from my pocket and handed one to Ari, snapping the other onto my ear.

  “Are these connected?” Ari practically shouted.

  I shook my head. “These are so if you are talking to Grimm, folks don’t think you’re any crazier than everyone else on this train. Now”—I put my hand to my bracelet and focused on the subway window—“if you don’t mind, Grimm, fill us in.”

  He appeared in the window, surveying the mob of people who looked anywhere but at him. Normal folks might be able to see him, even when Grimm wasn’t trying to project himself, but most folks saw what they wanted.

  Most people didn’t want to see an English butler reflected from a subway window. Particularly not when the train didn’t contain an English butler.

  “There’s been an incursion. Normally, the realm seals prevent this sort of thing, but when a being of sufficient power travels between realms, a bit of one realm leaks through with them.” Grimm held out his hand and swirls of light formed, oozing and mixing between them.

  “And?” I’d seen what happened when non-Euclidian realms intersected with Earth. People wound up folded into meat origami. Grimm hadn’t bothered acting then.

  “Some of the denizens of that realm remain on Earth. They must be persuaded to move on.”

  Ari narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her face. “Persuaded with . . . bullets?”

  “Yes,” said Grimm. “If your charms have no effect. In that case, I must insist that you deal with them as the pests they are.”

  I’d never had a problem pulling the trigger before. “You want to tell me what you hope we’re going to run into?”

  “Cherubs,” said Grimm. “A creature of Paradisia.”

  “Oh. I’ve seen those.” Ari smiled. “Like a guardian angel?”

  Grimm shook his head. “Cherubs are more like heaven’s pigeons. If you had one, it would only be cute until the first time it relieved itself on your car. Which is why we also do not let cherubs perch on our shoulders.”

  I nodded. “Evangeline told me about them once. She told me to try shoveling steaming mana from the places where cherubs roosted and then decide if I still wanted one.”

  The train came to our stop and Ari and I disembarked. Grimm waited just outside the station, looking up at us from an oily puddle. Which is why Ari didn’t wear skirts most days.

  “Mana is food,” said Ari. “I read about it.”

  “You got the facts right,” I said, “but your tense is wrong.”

  “Mana was food,” said Grimm. “Then cherubs devoured it. A few hours later, it became mana. Cherubs will eat anything, you know. And no matter what goes in, it comes out the other end mana.”

  Ari’s pale complexion took on a tint the color of lettuce. Her breathing came in gasps.

  I put one hand on her shoulder and felt her forehead. “What’s going on?”

  Ari closed her eyes, one hand over her mouth, then whispered. “Mom took me to a ball when I was twelve. They had a platter of mana at the table. I must have eaten—”

  “That wasn’t fresh. It was chilled,” said Grimm. “And most likely strained to remove the usual chicken bones, shoestrings, and broken glass.”

  “Utshay-upay,” I said, giving him my boss stare. I didn’t actually have a boss stare, but I was working on one. “Ari, what did you have for breakfast this morning?”

  “A deep-fried candy bar.” Ari’s voice wavered.

  Grimm rolled his eyes. “And for dinner last night?”

  “Angel food cake— Oh God, it’s made of something disgusting, isn’t it?”

  “Egg whites,” I said, making sure my glare told Grimm to keep his mouth shut. “It’s just egg whites. Listen, nothing we’re going to encounter is going to be as gross as what you’ve already eaten. Let’s go.” I took her hand and pulled her along the street. We came to an intersection and the GPS on my phone beeped.

  The building we stood before radiated a dark menace, like an abandoned slaughterhouse, or an operational day care. Tall vaulted windows covered in plywood reached to the sky.

  I took out my compact mirror and faced it toward the building. “Grimm, was this a church?”

  “Once,” he said. “Then it was a bus station. Then a butcher shop, an adult video store, and finally a day care. Each transformation degraded it further.”

  “So what’s a realm like Paradisia doing in a run-down dump?” I crossed the street to examine the chained front doors.

  “Hold on,” said Ari. She squinted at the doors in a way I recognized as her Spirit Sight kicking in. “There’s some sort of binding on them.”

  “It’s called a chain,” said Grimm. “Made from links of steel, most effective at barring entry. The bracelet you ladies wear is a relative of it, forged in a similar style.”

  “Does he ever shut up?” Ari held out a hand to the chain, and it rattled. “It’s not just metal. I mean, there’s magic in the chain itself.”

  “Well, a great agent is skilled at finding alternate methods of entry,” said Grimm. “Since Arianna is not capable of breaking magic bindings.”

  “I would be, if you’d teach—”

  “Enough,” I said. “Both of you. We are not having this argument right now.” The two bickered endlessly about whether Grimm had actually promised to teach her magic, or only promised he might teach her magic.

  We scouted the building, finding the back porch haunted by two homeless people and a cat. Every door had chains.
According to Ari, every chain sported the same sort of binding. I tried the back door again, pushing it just far enough to not be able to squeeze in. “This isn’t working, Grimm. How about you actually do some magic?”

  He stared out of my compact, his brows furrowed.

  “Come on, Grimm. What’s the point in having all that power—”

  Grimm disappeared from my compact, appearing in Ari’s. “Arianna, I’ve decided it’s time to begin your instruction. For your first lesson, we’re going to perform a simple three-level unbinding with dimensional transference of energy.”

  “Yes!” Ari shouted, nearly jumping up and down. “It’s about time. You tell me what to do, I do it.”

  • • •

  Three hours. Two passing rainstorms. A bazillion failed attempts and at least two minor explosions later, I left Ari on the porch, still trying to “draw across the universe,” as Grimm put it, and walked around the building again. The chains on the doors didn’t bother me. The enchantments did.

  See, I’d evicted people more times than I could count, but I always used standard hardware when I changed locks. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to keep people out. I stopped by the service entrance, studying the high chimney exiting the top of the building. An old-style furnace, it wouldn’t be possible to climb down it.

  But the chimney meant the building had once burned coal for heat. Judging from the tanks outside, they’d converted to oil at some point, then natural gas. But there was this thing about coal furnaces. I put one hand on the building and began to trace the wall, looking at each step along the way.

  “Bingo.” I pulled at a piece of plywood nailed onto the wall. The nails holding it in groaned and gradually gave way, revealing the disused coal chute. I cracked the compact and whispered, “Grimm, if you haven’t gotten it done, tell Ari to come around the side.”

  He looked out from my mirror and nodded. “Clever girl. Not only did Arianna not succeed in unbinding the doors, she’s actually managed to tie the spell up into a Gordian knot.”