Poison Fruit: Agent of Hel

by Jacqueline Carey

  Okay, fine. Against the restraint of my seat belt, I leaned over and kissed him, sliding one hand into his black hair. I felt a faint shudder run through him. So, this wasn’t easy for him. Good.

  Settling back into my seat, I took a deep breath. “Good night, then.”

  “Good night, Daisy.” Stefan’s pupils were dilated and glittering, but he opened the car door. “Shall we do this again next week? You may choose the time and place.”

  “Mom and I are driving up north to spend Christmas with my grandparents,” I said. “How about the following week?”

  “Christmas,” Stefan murmured, half to himself. “Yes, of course. Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?”

  “No.”

  He smiled, and got out of the Honda. “You do now. And I’ll make them.”

  It sounded like a promise, or maybe a warning. Probably both. I didn’t think this particular tiger was content to stay on a leash for long.

  Between the general malaise that gripped the town and my complicated love life, it seemed like it might be a relief to get away for a few days—might being the operative word. Visiting the grandparents wasn’t exactly a chore, but there was always a certain awkwardness. I know they couldn’t help but feel guilty that they hadn’t been able to give Mom unqualified support and reconcile themselves to having a half-demon grandchild. I couldn’t find it in my heart to blame them. My grandparents were salt-of-the-earth types, hardworking descendants of Scandinavian immigrants. Growing up in hunting and fishing country, Grandpa had learned his trade from an early age. He was considered one of the best taxidermists in the state, and his business was his pride and joy. Up until his semiretirement a few years ago, Grandma helped run it and kept the books.

  My mom was supposed to be the first one in the family to earn a college degree, not drop out to raise her hell-spawn daughter. And to say that I was a challenging child is a massive understatement. Lots of things spontaneously broke or blew their circuits when I had temper tantrums. I’m pretty sure that Grandma went through seven or eight toasters during my terrible twos.

  It’s odd, but it never occurred to me to wonder about why that happened in a perfectly ordinary mundane setting. Conventional eldritch wisdom held that magic only worked in the presence of a functioning underworld occupied by a deity; as below, so above. I hadn’t thought of the supernatural side effects of my childhood tantrums as magic.

  I guess they were, though.

  All things considered, it was a nice visit. My grandparents were solicitous hosts in their own taciturn way. On Christmas Eve, we went to a candlelit service at the Lutheran church where they were members. It was a service I’d attended plenty of times before, but it was always reassuring to know that lightning didn’t strike me down when I crossed the threshold of God’s house, my tail curled discreetly between my legs. I’m pretty sure Grandma and Grandpa found it reassuring, too.

  Afterward was my favorite part, when we drove around town in Grandpa’s SUV to look at the Christmas lights on our way back to their ranch house. It had been a family tradition since before I was born.

  This year, it felt different.

  Oh, the Christmas lights were the same. If anything, they were more spectacular than ever. Now that anyone could buy giant inflatable snowmen or pre-strung illuminated Santa’s sleighs complete with eight reindeer at their local Lowe’s or Menards, the ante on holiday displays had been upped.

  And yet it felt hollow. No, that wasn’t quite right. I felt hollow, disconnected. This wasn’t my town, my place. I hadn’t fought for it, put myself on the line to defend it. I may have carried my own underworld inside me, but it made me feel alone and lonely, and longing for home.

  In the morning, we celebrated Christmas and exchanged gifts. I already had the coat that Mom had bought me, but I’d purchased perfume for her, and fancy knitting yarn that Mrs. Meyers had recommended for Grandma, and a pair of shearling-lined leather slippers for Grandpa, who beamed when he opened the package.

  “Well, won’t these just keep my old dogs cozy in the winter!” Grandpa declared, donning them right away. He smiled at me. “Thank you, Daisy.”

  I smiled back at him. “I’m glad you like them.”

  It felt like a genuine family moment. I wanted it to be real. No, that’s not fair, either. It was real. Of course it was real. I wanted it to be enough.

  It wasn’t.

  It’s not that I didn’t care for my grandparents. I did. Seeing them age between visits filled me with a sense of terrible tenderness. Somehow that made it seem even more bizarre that I was dating someone whose life span eclipsed theirs six or seven times over. Which, by the way, came up at Christmas dinner. Apparently Mom had mentioned something to Grandma in the kitchen.

  “So I hear you’ve got a young man, Daisy,” Grandma said in a chipper tone as she passed me the cabbage. “What’s he like?”

  I choked on a bite of ham and shot my mom a look.

  She gave me a helpless shrug in reply. “Your grandmother asked if there was anyone special in your life.”

  Oh, Stefan was special, all right. “It’s nothing serious,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. We’ve just been on a few dates.”

  “Is he a local fellow?” Grandpa asked.

  “No,” I said. “He’s not originally from the area.”

  “Oh.” He seemed disappointed. “One of those transplants from the east side? Or is he from the Chicago area?”

  It made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sitting in my grandparents’ dining room over Christmas ham, potatoes, and boiled cabbage, I really, really couldn’t imagine myself explaining that I was involved with a six-hundred-year-old immortal Bohemian knight and former hell-spawn hunter who’d been cast out of heaven and hell for murdering his uncle.

  “No,” I murmured. “No, he’s, um, European.”

  That didn’t sit well with the grandparents, who expressed immediate concern that Stefan was after a green card, but my mom managed to play the diplomat and reassure them before changing the topic.

  By the time Mom and I headed back home the following afternoon, I was more than ready to return to Pemkowet. It had been good to spend a few days away, but a few days was enough to remind me that even with the specter of a lawsuit hanging over the town, Pemkowet was where I belonged.

  This was my home, and whatever was coming, I meant to defend it.

  Assuming I survived my New Year’s Eve date with Stefan, anyway.

  Thirty-eight

  On New Year’s Eve, I had no idea what to expect.

  All I had to go on was a cryptic message from Stefan saying that I should come to his condo at nine thirty and plan on a late dinner. So I did, wearing the midnight blue shantung silk cocktail dress that Mom had finally finished for me.

  “Daisy.” Stefan greeted me at the door. I was glad I’d gone semiformal. He was wearing a dark suit with an immaculate white dress shirt beneath it, no tie, collar unbuttoned, but crisp French cuffs fastened with ornate cuff links. He helped me out of my coat. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too.” Hearing music, I peered around him. His condominium was strung with a tasteful array of white Christmas lights and there was a young man playing a cello in the living room. “You decorated. And hired a musician to serenade us?”

  “I did,” he confirmed. “And a caterer.”

  I caught my breath in a half laugh. “Stefan, you really didn’t need to go to this much trouble.”

  His eyes gleamed. “Oh, but I wanted to. Is that not my proper role in such a scenario? To dazzle a young ingénue such as yourself with an ostentatious display of wealth and sophistication?”

  I eyed him dubiously. “Oh, my God, what have you been reading?”

  Stefan laughed and led me over to the dinner table, where a bottle of champagne was chilling in an ice bucket. “Don’t worry. You make a rather uncooperative ingénue, and I do not think you will be overly dazzled by the lengths to which I have gone.” He poured a glass of champagne an
d handed it to me. “The young cellist is Dylan Martinez. I made his acquaintance through his mother, Luisa, who is a nurse at Open Hearth.”

  “I remember,” I said. “I met her on the Night Hag case.”

  “Yes, of course. Dylan is saving money to attend college in the fall on a musical scholarship. I promised to pay him handsomely for tonight’s entertainment and release him in time to attend a party with his friends.” Stefan nodded toward the kitchen, where two women in aprons were working quietly and efficiently. “That’s Maureen Capaldi, and her sister, Meghan, assisting her. Maureen was a regular at the Wheelhouse.”

  “I’d heard,” I said, which was basically a polite way of saying I’d heard Maureen Capaldi was a total meth-head, at least before Stefan banished the drug trade among the Outcast.

  “Maureen is attempting to start a new business after taking part in a rehabilitation program,” Stefan murmured discreetly. “I’m told she was once a rather promising young chef. I offered her a chance to demonstrate it.” I contemplated Stefan for a moment. “What is it?” He looked uncertainly at me. “Forgive me, but have I somehow offended you with these arrangements?”

  “No.” I was touched by his uncertainty. “Quite the opposite. You’re trying to help people whose paths have crossed yours. Tikkun olam, right? Believe me, I like it a lot more than if you’d flown in Yo-Yo Ma and some private chef to impress me.”

  “Yo-Yo Ma?” Stefan raised his eyebrows. “I fear you vastly overestimate my resources.”

  “It’s possible.” I had no idea what the extent of Stefan’s resources were. “Can we apply your resources to dinner?”

  “Of course.” He smiled. “Let us see what Ms. Capaldi is capable of.”

  It was a beautiful meal served by candlelight on bone-white china that I suspected Stefan had purchased for the occasion. Young Dylan Martinez played classical music I didn’t recognize on his cello in the background, his eyes closed in a private reverie as his bow danced over the strings. For a recovering meth addict, Maureen Capaldi had put together an ambitious menu: oysters on the half shell, vichyssoise, endive salad with blue cheese, a roasted rack of lamb, and a panna cotta infused with cardamom for dessert.

  It was a far cry from the homely comfort of Christmas dinner at my grandparents’ house, and I couldn’t help but compare the two. Not the meals themselves so much as the atmosphere. I wondered what meals had been like in Stefan’s ancestral home, and felt the centuries stretch between us.

  I wasn’t the only one aware of the strangeness of it. The Capaldi sisters served every course with a nervous attempt at formality that I was pretty sure they’d learned from watching Downton Abbey.

  And okay, fair enough. Cooking for and waiting on a six-hundred-year-old ghoul had to be approximately as intimidating as serving the Dowager Countess. Stefan ate sparingly, but it was clear that as he’d said, even if he couldn’t enjoy food and drink like a mortal, he took a great deal of pleasure in the ritual. At his request, I described each dish as I found it, drawing on a vocabulary honed by hours of watching the Food Network, and causing him to laugh softly when my descriptions got a bit florid.

  “Is the texture truly . . . silken?” he asked in a low, teasing voice as I dug into the panna cotta.

  My blood rose, my cheeks flushing with heat. “Hey, your palate may be cursed, but your sense of touch works, doesn’t it?” I challenged him. “How would you describe it?”

  Stefan took a lingering bite. “Silken.”

  It’s funny how laden one word can be. With that one word, the mood shifted from Stefan and me enjoying an elegant private dinner to Stefan and me playing a dangerous private game.

  Stefan felt it, too. “Ah,” he said, glancing at his watch. “The hour grows late. Allow me to thank our guests for their service, and then you and I may finish our desserts in time for the fireworks display. The view from the balcony should be very good.”

  What came after that was the unspoken part.

  I waved my spoon at him with a jaunty insouciance I didn’t feel. “Please, go right ahead.”

  Ten minutes later, we were alone together.

  I’ve never gone skydiving, but I imagine this was what it would feel like the first time you go up in that plane and the door opens. I hadn’t jumped yet, but I was staring at the prospect of free fall, and the window of opportunity to change my mind was narrowing. Once I’d finished my panna cotta, I couldn’t think of anything to say, and Stefan didn’t offer any conversational gambits. We gazed at each other across the dinner table. The candle flames were reflected in his pupils, flickering in time with my pulse.

  The thunderclap of the first fireworks made me jump. “It must be midnight,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “Yes.” Stefan rose gracefully. “Shall we venture onto the balcony or would you rather stay inside?”

  “Outside, please.” The thought of cold air on my skin was appealing.

  Stefan fetched my coat and opened the sliding door onto his balcony, following me. He was right, the view was excellent. Across the harbor, mortars thumped, launching their contents to burst in the night sky above the water.

  Usually, I love fireworks, but tonight the sight of a great golden chrysanthemum blossoming above me made me shiver.

  “Are you cold?” Stefan said behind me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his body. It was tempting to lean back against him, but I didn’t. Not yet.

  “No.” I watched trails of sparks fall from the sky. “Stefan . . . do you remember how I told you I caught the Night Hag?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You summoned her with a nightmare and bound her with a strand of her own hair.”

  “It wasn’t just any nightmare,” I said. “It was my worst nightmare. That was the nature of the hex Sinclair created for me.” Two more starbursts exploded overhead. “In the dream, I invoked my birthright.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “For a minute, it felt good. It felt great. And then the sky cracked open above me, and I knew I’d broken the world.”

  “I see.” Behind me, Stefan’s chest rose and fell in a long, slow breath. “No wonder the revelation regarding my past troubled you so.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not that boy, Daisy,” he said. “You’re nothing like him.”

  “But I am,” I said. “I’m capable of it.”

  Stefan slid his arms around me, and now I did let myself lean backward into his strength. “I won’t allow it to happen,” he murmured against my hair. “I suspect that is what the hell-spawn Dufreyne dislikes about our union. If I had been Outcast, I could have helped the boy. I could help you. Perhaps that necessity is what brought us together.”

  “Maybe.” Despite his warmth, I shivered again. “Because I can’t shake the feeling that something’s coming, Stefan. Something bad. Worse than what happened at Halloween. Way worse.”

  “Is it this business of the lawsuit that disturbs you?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It’s whoever’s behind it, whatever’s behind it. Not just Dufreyne. It’s Elysian Fields. It’s Hades, or whoever’s behalf he’s acting on.” I was starting to get worked up, my tail lashing as my sense of furious helplessness rose. “It’s the reading my mom did for me. It’s the fact that one of the goddamned Norns told me that the fate of the world might hinge on the choices I make.”

  “Daisy.” Stefan turned me around to face him, putting his hands on my shoulders. “I’m here for you. As the leader of the Outcast. As your friend. As your lover, if you’ll allow it. Let me help.”

  “How?” I whispered.

  His eyes were filled with reflected fireworks. “Whatever battle is coming, it lies in the future. For tonight, just one night, let me take your fear and anger away.”

  I hesitated, then nodded. “Do it.”

  Stefan drew on the connection between us. I felt the unnerving intimacy of my jagged emotions spilling out of me, spilling into him—into the cool, still place of discipline within him, into the endle
ss yearning and hunger that lay beneath it. I felt the terrible pleasure that he took in it, how it sated and stoked his hunger at the same time. For the Outcast, this desire was one that could never be truly slaked.

  It worked for me, though.

  I felt cleansed—purged of anger, of fear, of worry. All that was left was a tug of powerful attraction and a sense of reckless abandon.

  And of course, Stefan knew it.

  He smiled at me, and it was a predator’s smile. “Happy New Year, Daisy.”

  Reaching out, I grabbed his belt buckle and yanked him closer. “Happy New Year to you.”

  Wrapping one arm around my waist, Stefan pulled me tight against him. His other hand rose to cup the back of my head and hold me in place as he kissed me, his tongue exploring my mouth with six hundred years’ worth of accumulated skill as a final barrage of fireworks burst in the sky behind us.

  Yep, I was definitely in free fall now.

  “Inside.” Stefan’s voice was rough with desire as he reached behind us to wrench the sliding door open, propelling me through it.

  “Bedroom?” I asked breathlessly, shrugging out of my coat and tossing it on the nearest piece of furniture.

  “Yes.” Placing a hand between my shoulder blades, Stefan shoved me in the right direction. It should have been off-putting, but it wasn’t. The master bedroom was up a flight of stairs. Halfway up, Stefan pinned me against the wall and kissed me some more. I kissed him back, biting his lower lip until he made an inarticulate sound, pried himself off me, and pulled me up the stairs after him.

  There were white Christmas lights strung in the bedroom, too; just enough to illuminate it. There were unlit candles. And there was a bed, a big one, with a pewter-gray duvet cover that had a faint satin sheen.

  “Daisy.” Stefan whispered my name like a prayer. Positioning himself behind me, he kissed the nape of my neck before undoing the hook-and-eye fastener at the top of my dress, his breath warm against my skin. “Enough haste. I want to take this slowly. Very slowly.”