Armageddon Rules Read Online Free PDF Page A

repeat. Take Ari to the emergency room and have those bites cleaned out. Tell them she hid pepperoni in her pockets and tried to run through a dog show.”
    Ari leaned back in her seat as I drove us away, adding yet another layer of bloodstains on my car’s upholstery. Two o’clock on a Monday, and we were already heading in for sutures and shots. Just another day in the Agency business.
    *   *   *
    THE AGENCY, IN case you were wondering, was a normal business. We paid normal rent and normal taxes. We had normal janitors and a somewhat normal receptionist. I say somewhat normal because Rosa was downright awful. She had a look that could turn Medusa to stone and was equally handy with a sawed-off shotgun or a credit card machine.
    As you might expect, the Agency also had agents. We worked for Grimm, handling problems too sensitive to contract out or tasks that had to be done right. In theory, Liam was an agent as well, but since he was a man, we used him for what men were best at. He broke toys, played with fire, and beat the living daylights out of the occasional hard case. Also, I loved him more than anyone I’d ever known. For him, I’d kill any of the things that go bump in the night.
    That’s why I drove to my apartment instead of the hospital. I wanted to see Liam, maybe offer him a ride to work. Mind you, I also planned on fixing up Ari. I kept a full suture kit and bought antibiotic ointment in five-gallon buckets. Came in handy in the Agency business.
    I kicked open the apartment door and yelled, “Honey, I’m home,” at the top of my lungs. The only answer was a slight shimmer in the room. Ari walked past me, looking like a stunt double for a bag of dog chow, and into my guest bathroom. For the better part of a year, Ari lived in my apartment. When Liam moved in, she moved out, saying we never slept, and she couldn’t either.
    While Ari showered, I went to my bathroom mirror to pick blood out of my hair. “Hey, Grimm, Liam out on assignment?”
    He appeared almost immediately. “Your boyfriend is making the usual Monday rounds, now that he’s awake. Didn’t I say to go to the emergency room?”
    “I’ll take care of Ari.”
    Grimm shook his head. “You were a lot easier to deal with as a slave.”
    I studied the golden band I wore on my wrist. These days, it was my choice. “Was I?”
    Grimm thought about it a moment. “No, not really.” Then he faded out of view, off to grant someone else an answer to their problems.
    I picked up one of Liam’s flannel shirts and sniffed it. It smelled like wood smoke and man, a scent I’d grown to know and love. Liam was a blacksmith. When he wasn’t breaking people’s toys or teeth for Grimm, he made iron art at a studio on the south edge of the city.
    The shower cut off, and a few minutes later Ari emerged, dressed in one of the only outfits she’d left at my house when she moved. She wore the frilly tracksuit like a cone of shame. I glanced up at her. “Who’s a pretty princess in pink?”
    Ari tensed like a spring, scrunching her eyes and face. “I wish you’d stop saying things like that. Stop introducing me as ‘princess.’ Stop buying pink bandages. There are other colors, you know. I like blue. Or green.” Ari was so cute when she was ticked.
    “You’ve got to learn to be who you are.” I poured Ari a consolation cup of stale coffee, adding sugar and cream until it congealed into pudding. “Here. Just the way you like it.”
    She slid into a chair at my table, her head in her hands. “I’m not a princess anymore.” This was technically true and false at the same time. Ari’s stepmother threw her out of the house, and in fact cast her out of Kingdom entirely a couple years ago.
    “Grimm says different. Being a princess is like a soul tattoo. Can’t be undone.” Personally, I bet it was a huge, ugly tattoo of Bob Marley’s face. “So what’s going on with school? You breezed through the first two years. You got good grades.