Poison Fruit: Agent of Hel

by Jacqueline Carey

  Clearly, this little exercise had been planned in advance.

  I stayed seated while everyone else rose, watching intently as Sandra Sweddon’s lips moved in an invocation.

  “Excuse me, dear,” Mrs. Meyers apologized, passing between us en route to the cheese tray.

  That was all it took. One moment of lost visual contact, and I had a hard time locating Sandra. It’s not that she wasn’t there—she couldn’t have made it out of the living room in the time it took Mrs. Meyers to place a slice of cheddar cheese on a Ritz cracker—but my gaze skated over and past her.

  I got up and paced the room, counting the members of the coven as they moved to and fro. Sandra moved unobtrusively with the flow, drifting from one place to another, periodically obscured by others. I kept losing sight of her, and if I hadn’t known she was there, I’m not sure I would have seen her at all. My mind simply refused to register her presence. No matter how many times I counted the people in the room, I kept coming up short.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Sinclair said behind me.

  It was.

  “Okay,” I said to the room at large. “I’m in. Sign me up for invisibility lessons.”

  Sandra Sweddon appeared as a solid presence in Casimir’s living room, standing next to a sleek Art Deco–looking bronze sculpture and beaming in my direction. “Wonderful! We’ll start tomorrow afternoon.”

  So that was decided.

  The following afternoon, I reported to Sandra’s house for my first invisibility—unobtrusibility?—lesson.

  The Sweddon place was a big old farmhouse on the outskirts of East Pemkowet. We sat in the breakfast nook in the sunlit kitchen. Outside the windows, chickadees, juncos, goldfinches, and cardinals vied for birdseed at a welcoming array of feeders while Sandra taught me the basics of invisibility.

  In theory, it shouldn’t have been that difficult. The visualization exercises I’d done since I was a kid provided me with a solid grounding in the concept. The problem was that for the past several months, I’d been assiduously applying those methods to the shielding technique Stefan had taught me, which was essentially the exact opposite of what you needed to do to make yourself unobtrusive.

  “You need to let go, Daisy,” Sandra explained patiently for the umpteenth time. “Allow your aura to disperse.”

  “I’m trying!” I protested.

  “You’re trying too hard,” she said. “Every time you do, you gather energy. Let it go. Imagine that you’re insubstantial, inhabiting only your etheric body. Envision particles of light passing through your physical being.” She extended one hand into a sunbeam, offering an invocation. “Light pass through me, gaze pass over me.”

  At point-blank range, the effect was subtle. Sandra didn’t vanish before my eyes or anything, she just turned . . . vague. When I tried to look directly at her, my eyes prickled and my brain felt skittery.

  “Light pass through me, gaze pass over me,” I echoed, willing myself to relinquish the energy Stefan called pneuma.

  It didn’t work.

  The harder I tried, the more present, immediate, and solid I felt, aware of my heart beating steadily in my chest, the air moving in and out of my lungs, my pulse sounding in my ears, the hard surface of the kitchen chair beneath my butt and my neatly tucked tail. I stared at dust motes swirling in the wintry sun until my eyes dazzled, and didn’t feel one iota less substantial.

  “Let go, Daisy,” Sandra repeated. “Let go of the notion of self. Let yourself be of the world and in it. Let yourself be everywhere and nowhere.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” I said apologetically. “I’m sorry. Maybe I don’t have an, um, etheric body.”

  “Of course you do.” She gave me a thoughtful look. “You’ve got the skill to do it, honey. It’s taking the leap of faith that’s hard. To achieve invisibility—pure unobtrusiveness—is a trade-off. There’s a considerable measure of protection in it, but you have to lower your guard entirely in order to attain it.”

  Okay, that might be the problem.

  I made a face. “Is the lowering-your-guard part a deal breaker on the whole invisibility thing?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Sandra said. “But if you can find a way to give it a chance, you might be surprised. There are strengths you can only find by embracing vulnerability.” Rising, she went to peruse a shelf on the wall opposite the breakfast nook, which held a handful of books and bric-a-brac including decorative antique butter molds and an oven mitt in the form of a gingham-covered chicken. She selected a slender, dog-eared paperback and handed it to me. “Try this. It might help.”

  I glanced at it, expecting something Wiccan and New Age-y, maybe with a feminist slant. Maybe Our Etheric Bodies, Ourselves. Instead, I found that what I held was a reprint of the original 1855 edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

  “Poetry?” I asked. “No offense, Mrs. Sweddon, but do you think that’s going to help?”

  Sandra smiled at me. “It worked for Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham, didn’t it?”

  Bull Durham was one of Mom’s favorite movies, and I knew exactly what Sandra meant. In an ongoing effort to get her seasonal hookup and protégé, rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, to stop psyching himself out, Susan Sarandon ties him to her bed and reads Walt Whitman to him.

  Well, among other things, like convincing him to wear one of her garter belts under his uniform and to breathe through his eyelids like a Galapagos Islands lava lizard. Anyway, that’s how it worked in the movie. I wasn’t exactly optimistic that a dose of poetry would have the same effect in real life.

  Sandra saw the doubt in my expression. “Oh, give it a try, Daisy. It can’t hurt. Spend tomorrow with Whitman, and we’ll try again the day after.”

  I slid the book into my messenger bag. “I’ll do my best.”

  To say that Walt Whitman’s poetry was over my head was an understatement.

  It’s not that I don’t like poetry; I just don’t entirely get it. Not this kind, anyway. Lacking any kind of discernible rhyme or structure, it assailed me like a verbal deluge.

  I tried reading aloud at home and quickly discovered that I was drowning in a sea of words while Mogwai stared at me with profound disinterest. And somehow it didn’t seem like the kind of poetry that should be read in the comfort of a living room. A grassy hillock above a babbling brook probably would have been ideal, someplace where I could meditate on what Whitman meant when he said grass was the handkerchief of the Lord, or a uniform hieroglyphic, or the uncut hair of graves . . . okay, actually, I got that last one. But it was too damn cold to sit outside and read poetry.

  Instead, I went to the Daily Grind, treated myself to a mocha latte, and plowed doggedly onward.

  At least for the first couple of hours, I was able to enjoy relative peace and quiet while I wrestled with Whitman’s endless observations of the world and its glorious multitude of inhabitants, interspersed with ruminations on the nature of self and existence, trying to figure out how on earth this was supposed to help me learn to become invisible. After a while, I gave up and just started skimming the pages, letting the words wash over me.

  I was beginning to think it might be easier to start trying to breathe through my eyelids like a Galapagos Islands lava lizard.

  Shortly after three o’clock, the coffee shop was hit with an influx of high school students released for the day, bringing the scent of cold air and the sound of myriad competing voices with them.

  So much for concentrating. And yet I found myself looking at the scene through different eyes, wondering how good old Walt Whitman would have viewed it. He certainly described the world like an unseen observer, filled with immense tenderness. And words. Lots and lots of words. I thought Whitman would have loved the lanky, broad-shouldered boys in varsity jackets jostling for position at the counter, strong-boned wrists protruding from leather cuffs; the pretty girls snapping chewing gum and flipping their glossy hair; the stoic barista with the tattoos and the pierced nose taking their orders
, drawing hissing spouts of espresso into a cup, foaming steamed milk in a pitcher . . .

  . . . and something clicked.

  Let yourself be of the world and in it, Sandra had said to me. Let yourself be everywhere and nowhere.

  “Light pass through me,” I whispered beneath the exuberant jumble of chatter. “Gaze pass over me.”

  Taking a deep breath, I let go.

  It was a strange sensation, at once exhilarating and unnerving. I felt porous, there and not-there at the same time, the essence of myself diffusing like mist to fill the space contained within the coffee shop.

  Everywhere.

  Nowhere.

  With a solid thump, a heavily laden backpack landed on my table. I startled in my seat, coming back to myself.

  “Whoa!” A teenaged boy with floppy bangs and a smattering of acne on his chin blinked at me. “Sorry,” he apologized, sweeping his bangs to one side with a toss of his head. “I didn’t see you sitting there.”

  “That’s okay.” I smiled up at him. “More than okay, actually. You can have the table. I was just leaving.”

  It’s amazing how one simple breakthrough changes everything. Poetry—who would have thunk it? Well, Sandra Sweddon, I guess. Plus the screenwriter of Bull Durham, and probably every literature professor everywhere, not to mention poets themselves since the dawn of time. And it probably didn’t have to be poetry. It could be anything: a garter, a song, a lamia’s kiss.

  Outside, I murmured the invocation again, willing my aura to disperse in the crisp winter air. I circled the block, flowing down the sidewalk. Pedestrians passed by me without seeing me, their absent gazes skating past me. I felt immensely powerful and extremely vulnerable, invisible yet exposed.

  Casimir’s shop, the Sisters of Selene, was adjacent to the Daily Grind. Upon completing my circuit of the block, I pushed the door open, closing it gently behind me, letting the chimes sound with a faint tinkle.

  Behind the counter, the Fabulous Casimir looked up, an uncertain expression on his face. His gaze hovered over me, then sharpened. He muttered something under his breath and made a banishing gesture with one hand, and I felt myself solidifying beneath his gaze, coming into focus.

  “Well, well!” He arched his eyebrows. “Not bad, Miss Daisy.”

  I was a little deflated that Casimir had banished my unobtrusibility spell that quickly. “Really?”

  “For a neophyte who doesn’t even practice the craft?” he said. “It’s an impressive start.”

  “I owe it to Walt Whitman,” I informed him.

  The Fabulous Casimir shrugged his shoulders, which were clad in a replica of a quilted Chanel jacket today. “Whatever it takes, dahling.”

  Thirty-seven

  Despite my abiding love of the holiday season, even I had to admit that this was a particularly unfestive December in Pemkowet.

  The prospect of that damned lawsuit hung over the town like a massive gray cloud, dampening everyone’s spirits. A date—February 10—had been set for the beginning of the trial. In the meantime, there was nothing anyone could do about it, but it was still all anyone could talk about.

  Well, there was almost nothing. The lawyers were preparing their case, advised by Lurine’s celebrity hotshot attorney, Robert Diaz. Lurine admitted in private that his confidence had been shaken by the whole hell-spawn angle and the judge’s refusal to replace Dufreyne, but her outlook remained sanguine.

  “Even if we’re talking about a worst-case scenario, forty-five million dollars isn’t that much money, cupcake,” she said to me.

  “Yeah, well, it’s a lot more money than all three communities have in their rainy-day funds. Like, thirty-eight million dollars more, I hear.” I gave Lurine a speculative look, trying to remember how much her octogenarian husband’s estate was rumored to have been worth. “Are you offering to make up the difference to cover the damages?”

  “Well, not the whole amount,” Lurine said. “Do you have any idea what the property taxes are on my place? But I’d be happy to spearhead a fund-raising effort.” She cocked her head thoughtfully. “You know, that would make for great PR if I planned on a third act in the public eye.” She struck a pose and read an imaginary headline. “Can’t you just see it? ‘Gold-Digging, Trailer-Trash, D-List Celebrity Uses Ill-Gotten Fame and Fortune to Save Her Hometown!’”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Let’s,” Lurine agreed. Then she added, “But I’ll update my contact list just in case.”

  If it hadn’t been for the shadow cast by my mom’s reading, I might have found Lurine’s assurances more, well, reassuring. After all, Lurine was hella wealthy, at least by ordinary mortal standards. But Mom’s reading had indicated that wealth was part of the problem in the brewing war, not the solution.

  I was not reassured.

  All things considered, a worst-case scenario was best avoided, and so I practiced the art of unobtrusibility, scheduling regular sessions with Sandra Sweddon, slowly mastering the craft of diffusing and gathering my aura at will, trying not to think about the day when I’d face the ultimate test of putting it into practice in a courtroom in Grand Rapids, because it still made me feel sick to my stomach. Sinclair promised me that the wolfsbane charm he and Warren were assembling would augment the effect, though they didn’t want me sapping its power by testing it beforehand.

  I did attempt the unobtrusibility spell outside the boundaries of Hel’s territory, though. That was something I needed to know. Did I carry enough of the underworld inside myself to make magic function in the mundane world?

  As it happens, I did.

  I drove twenty minutes north and spent a day in downtown Appeldoorn, wandering up and down the sidewalks, my aura as vague and insubstantial as a winter breeze. I browsed my way around various boutiques and department stores, slipping through the crowds of holiday shoppers, overlooked and unseen deep in the heart of the mundane world.

  I owed that revelation to Daniel Dufreyne, which was an uncomfortable thought. I still didn’t know what his ultimate angle in this whole business was.

  And I still didn’t know who was behind Elysian Fields.

  Since that was beyond my control, I concentrated on things that weren’t. That pointedly did not include Cody Fairfax and his clan’s upcoming werewolf mixer, a prospect that still made my heart feel bruised.

  However, it did include dating Stefan.

  It was probably a gross exaggeration to suggest that I was in control where anything involving Stefan Ludovic was concerned, but at least for the moment, he seemed content to let me establish the pace of our evolving relationship.

  As far as dates went, our outing to the Bide-a-Wee Tavern was the most successful one, well, to date.

  It was one of my favorite places in town, and I hadn’t been there since I’d taken Sinclair and his sister there on Labor Day. To be honest, the Bide-a-Wee with its cheap wood paneling, worn carpets, and outdated decor had seemed a little shabby to me when I looked at it from the perspective of the very composed and Oxford-educated Emmeline Palmer, and I was a little bit worried that seeing it through Stefan’s eyes would have the same effect, but I didn’t have any cause for concern. Stefan saw what I saw in it, a place where an unlikely assortment of professional, semiprofessional, and flat-out amateur musicians and singers gathered to share their love of jazz and blues.

  Okay, the quality varied, but the house band was always solid, and the harmonica player I’d heard about was outstanding.

  I watched Stefan as I listened. He lounged in his chair, jeans-clad legs stretched out before him, motorcycle boots crossed at the ankle, longish black hair brushing the collar of his leather vest. In the dim light, there was no mistaking his ghoul’s unnatural pallor. Stefan’s eyes were at half-mast, pupils gleaming beneath his lids. I had the feeling he was surfing the wave of complex emotion coming from the bar’s patrons, and maybe siphoning off just a hint in the process. Strictly speaking, that was agains
t the unwritten code of the Outcast, but I trusted Stefan.

  I also had the feeling that the band was playing to Stefan, sensing in him an audience that appreciated the emotions they evoked on the deepest possible level.

  “They’re good,” Stefan said when the band took a break. He smiled at me, flashing those unexpected dimples. “Thank you. I’m enjoying this.”

  I smiled back at him. “I’m glad.”

  There were things I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know if I was right about his siphoning emotion from the audience. I wanted to know what that felt like. I wanted to know if something Cooper had told me was true for Stefan, too: that it was more painful to devour positive emotions than negative ones.

  But instead, I kept my mouth shut for once. Right now, it was enough that we were actually enjoying ourselves together.

  Afterward, I drove Stefan home to his condo. Since this excursion was my idea, I’d offered to drive and he’d taken me up on it with only the slightest hesitation, allowing me to maintain my illusion of control.

  “Would you like to come inside for a drink?” Stefan asked when I pulled into his parking space, his voice courteous and neutral.

  There was a part of me that did, a reckless part that wanted to throw caution to the wind, stop being careful and controlled, and dive into this dangerous affair that we both knew we wanted. Despite Stefan’s courtesy, the amused glint in his eyes gave away the fact that he knew what I was feeling. Hell, of course he did. Stefan always knew what I was feeling.

  Well, unless I raised a shield against him, which wasn’t exactly a polite way to end a date. And the truth was, there was another part of me that was enjoying the prolonged suspense and the sense of being in control.

  It might be an illusion, but it was an illusion I liked. Probably in the same way a lion tamer enjoys the illusion of control right up to the point that a big cat goes all Siegfried-and-Roy on his ass.

  I shook my head. “Not yet.”

  “As you will.” Stefan didn’t make a move to get out of my Honda, but he didn’t make a move to kiss me, either; he just sat there with that infernal look of amusement on his face.