Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey

  “So . . . what?” I asked him. “Does the Fairfax clan have someone in mind? Are you going to settle down with your second cousin?”

  “No.” He dropped his hands to his knees. “We’re careful about bloodlines. With a relatively small gene pool, we have to be. Even wolves in the wild do their best to avoid intrafamilial breeding.” He hesitated. “Sometime in the next couple of months, the Fairfax clan will host a mixer.”

  “A mixer?” I echoed.

  “Yeah.” To his credit, Cody didn’t look happy about it. In fact, he looked fairly miserable.

  “Okay.” I stood up. “Well, thanks for telling me.”

  Cody stood, too. “Daisy . . .”

  “What?” I spread my arms. “It is what it is, Cody. Like I said, you never misled me. I knew what you are.”

  “I wish I could share it with you, Daisy,” he said to me. “All of it.” A distant, slightly dreamy expression crossed his face. “The call of the full moon rising, all silvery and bright in the night sky, tugging at muscle and sinew and bone. The incredible release of shifting, the incredible freedom of casting off your humanity and hunting with your packmates; howling to each other, howling back at the moon, howling for the sake of knowing you’re alive. The thrill of the chase and the glory of the kill, the scent of your prey’s fear in your nostrils and the taste of blood in your mouth. I wish I could. Because you’d love it, Daise. You’d fucking love it. But I can’t.”

  “I know.” Well, I didn’t know about the whole taste-of-blood-in-your-mouth thing, but I knew what Cody meant. I’d love it if I were a werewolf, but I wasn’t and I never would be, which meant there was an intrinsic part of his life that I could never, ever share with him.

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

  “So I guess . . .” Cody cleared his throat. “That’s all I had to say. I’m sorry, Daisy. I really am.”

  I nodded. “Are you going to be okay if we have to work together again?”

  “Are you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s my job. I’ve been doing it all along.”

  He nodded, too, and held out his hand. “Anytime, partner.”

  I gave him a look. “Jesus, Cody! A handshake? Really?”

  Cody grabbed my hand and yanked me in for a hug, hard and fast enough that I stumbled into the embrace. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling his lean, muscled strength, my fingertips digging into his shoulder blades. I inhaled his scent of pine needles, musk, and a trace of Ralph Lauren’s Polo mixed with laundry detergent from his shirt. He pressed his cheek against my hair, then let me go.

  “Take care, Daise,” he murmured.

  I blinked back tears. “You, too.”

  On that note, Cody made his exit. I waited until the sound of his footsteps had receded to let my tears fall. If he’d just stuck with the unsuitable-mate speech, it would have been easier. Somehow, the fact that he’d admitted to developing feelings for me made it worse. Mogwai wound around my ankles and purred, trying to console me.

  “Dammit, Mog,” I whispered. “It’s not fair.”

  He purred louder in agreement.

  I got up and put Billie Holiday on the stereo to sing about heartache, then ate one of the cinnamon rolls. Neither did a whole lot to make me feel better, so I grabbed my phone and called my friend Jen.

  “Hey,” I said when she answered. “Any chance you’re available to come over and get epically drunk with me?”

  Two

  Everyone should be lucky enough to have a BFF. Jennifer Cassopolis has been mine since we were in high school. We knew each other’s histories and secrets, hopes and fears and dreams. When you need to get good and drunk, that’s the kind of person you want keeping pace with you.

  “Okay, girlfriend,” she announced as I opened the door. “I’ve got a bottle of Cuervo, a bag of limes, and a carton of Breyers cookies and cream, just in case. So go get your saltshaker and—” She cocked her head at my stereo. “Oh, hell no!”

  “What?”

  Jen thrust a shopping bag at me. “Put the ice cream in the freezer and cut some limes. I’m putting on some music from this century.”

  “Okay, okay!” I went into the kitchen. In the living room, the plaintive strains of Billie Holiday’s voice gave way to the stomp-and-clap cheerleading beats of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl.” “Hey, that’s not our old high school playlist, is it?”

  “Yeah. I plugged my phone into your stereo.” Jen came into the kitchen. “Remember when you and I’d have our own dance parties in your mom’s trailer?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled. “Good times.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jen hopped up to perch on the counter beside my cutting board. Her dark, lustrous eyes were shrewd. “So, what’s the damage, Daisy? Officer Down-low or the hot ghoul?”

  I finished slicing a lime into wedges and fetched a pair of shot glasses from the cupboard. “Cody.”

  “Oh, Officer Down-low!” Jen shook her head. “What now?”

  I sighed. “Let’s move into the living room.”

  Over the course of a couple of tequila shots, I laid out my tale of woe. Of course, Jen knew the background.

  “Damn,” she said sympathetically when I’d finished. “I’m sorry, Daise. That’s harsh.”

  I shrugged. “Like I said to Cody, it is what it is. I mean, it’s not his fault. It’s no one’s fault.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” Jen licked the web of skin between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand and shook a judicious amount of salt onto it. “He didn’t have to tell you that he was basically starting to fall for you. That just makes it harder, doesn’t it?”

  I salted my own left hand. “I know, right? It totally does! Do you think he did it to make himself feel better? Or me?”

  By the time we’d finished giving my conversation with Cody the sort of thorough analysis and dissection that it deserved, the level in the bottle of Cuervo had dropped noticeably, and both of us were feeling the effects. Not exactly drunk yet, but sober was definitely in the rearview mirror. On the stereo, Outkast was telling us to shake it like a Polaroid picture, and after one more tequila shot, it seemed obvious that the thing to do was order a pizza, dance around the living room, and flirt with the blushing delivery boy when the pizza arrived.

  Okay, maybe we were more than a little drunk.

  One medium sausage-and-mushroom pizza, two beers I’d found in my refrigerator, and at least another tequila shot later, we were definitely drunk.

  “Okay, Daise.” Jen set down her empty shot glass with an emphatic thud. “What about the hot ghoul? Are we gonna talk about the hot ghoul?”

  “Outcast,” I said automatically.

  She blinked at me. “You want to put it on repeat?”

  I blinked back at her. “What?”

  “Outkast?”

  Oh, right. “Not the band,” I clarified. “I mean Stefan’s kind of Outcast.”

  To be fair, I can’t blame Jen for using the term ghoul. Everyone does it. I haven’t entirely broken the habit myself, though I try to be respectful.

  “Outcast, right. Sorry.” Jen paused. “Did you ever find out what he did to get . . . Outcast?”

  Here’s the thing about the Outcast. The name, which is the name they call themselves, refers to the fact that they’re formerly mortal human beings who’ve been cast out of heaven and hell alike and condemned to an eternal existence on the mortal plane, forced to subsist on the emotions of other humans.

  Hence, the reputation as ghouls.

  I admit, I’d found ghouls—the Outcast—pretty damn creepy myself before Stefan Ludovic came to town. If I’ve changed my tune, it’s in part because I’ve gotten to know him, and realized that you don’t get kicked out of heaven and hell without one heck of a tragic backstory. I’m not exactly sure how it works—even the Outcast themselves aren’t certain—but essentially, a human soul becomes Outcast by dying in a state of commingled sin and faith and transcendently powerful emotion, which creates some sort of theolo
gical loophole that thrusts them back into their bodies in the mortal plane . . . over and over and over again.

  Oh, they can die, all right; but they come back. Cast out again. It happens in the space of a heartbeat. I’ve seen it and it’s profoundly unnerving. As far as I know, there are only two ways one of the Outcast can end his or her existence. One is to be starved of human emotions for a prolonged and agonizing period of time, until they consume their own essence and fade into the void of nonbeing.

  The other is if I kill them, because I just so happen to possess a magic dagger that only I can wield and that’s capable of killing even the immortal undead. It was given to me by Hel herself, and its name is dauda-dagr, which means “death-day” in Old Norse. Right now, it was in a hidden sheath in the custom-made messenger bag hanging from my coatrack. So far, I’d only had to kill two ghouls and dispatch one zombie skeleton with it.

  “Daisy!” Jen snapped her fingers at me. “Daise?”

  “Um, yeah.” I poured myself another shot of tequila and downed it without bothering with the salt or lime. “Stefan’s uncle killed his father and married his mother. He—”

  “Wait.” She interrupted me. “Isn’t that the plot—”

  “Of Hamlet,” I agreed. “Only Stefan wasn’t indecisive. He killed his uncle outright, and his uncle’s guards stabbed him to death.”

  Jen shivered. “Damn.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Honor thy father and thy mother,” she murmured. “That’s the element of faith, right?”

  “Right.”

  We sat in silence with that for a moment. On the stereo, Snoop Dogg advised us to drop it like it’s hot.

  “I think you should do it.” Jen poured another shot for both of us. “One date. What do you have to lose?”

  I held up my shot glass and squinted at the tequila it held. “Well, there is the small matter of one of the Norns warning me that the fate of the world might hinge on the choices I make.”

  She did her shot with salt and lime. “Do you really think the Norn was talking about your love life?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted.

  “So?”

  I pointed at her. “I can’t believe you of all people would suggest I date an eldritch predator.” That was because Jen’s sister Bethany had spent eight years as a blood-slut in thrall to a vampire. Okay, she proved to be a surprisingly badass vampire in her own right when he finally turned her, but for eight long years, no one would have guessed it. Plus, her blood-bonded vampire mate was an insufferable prat.

  “I know, I know! But . . .” Jen hesitated. “Daise, sometimes I forget that you’re not human. If all you really wanted was a nice human guy—”

  “I’d still be dating Sinclair,” I finished for her, downing my shot.

  She nodded. “You know what brought it home to me? When you told me that first time with Cody, he was a little . . . wolfy.”

  “Sorry.” I grimaced. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  “I know.” Jen refilled our shot glasses, her shiny black hair falling forward. She tucked it behind her ears. “I’m just thinking, you’ve spent your whole life trying to repress your inner nature. Maybe it’s time to explore it.”

  Okay, this definitely wasn’t a conversation we’d be having sober. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Jen was right. I had spent my entire life trying to contain my outsize emotions, especially anger and anything linked to the Seven Deadlies. I had an array of visualization techniques that my mom began teaching me at an early age. It kept me safe—safe from the prejudices of mundane humans, safe from the temptation scenarios my father, Belphegor, whispered to me when my unruly temper weakened the Inviolate Wall dividing us.

  Too safe, maybe? After all, I’d recently indulged in some serious lust without any apocalyptic consequences. And when I’d nearly gotten myself killed using the pneuma as a weapon, it was my anger that had turned the tide.

  On the other hand, unleashing Armageddon really wasn’t something you want to take a chance on.

  “You’re the one I count on to keep me grounded,” I said to Jen. “This is not exactly helpful.”

  She shrugged. “Look, the Norn said to trust your heart, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But you don’t know what your heart wants.” Jen pushed the full shot glass toward me. “How the hell else are you supposed to find out?”

  I picked up the shot. “You have a point.”

  “And you know what else?” She was warming to the topic. “Stefan’s interested in you, Daise. I don’t know . . . I don’t know exactly what that means for a ghoul, um, Outcast, and a hell-spawn, but . . . he’s being upfront about it, you know? He’s not dicking you around. What did he say when he kissed you?”

  “He said he couldn’t offer me eternity,” I murmured, “but he could offer me the here and now.”

  “Right!” Jen gestured with her shot glass, tequila slopping over the sides. “He’s not gonna sneak around on the down-low like Cody. He’s owning it.”

  “He’s sexy and he knows it,” I said, paraphrasing the not exactly immortal lyrics of LMFAO.

  For some reason—well, the obvious reason—this struck us both as hysterically funny, and we spent a solid minute laughing our fucking asses off. Which, under the circumstances, was appropriate.

  “Oh, my God.” Jen wiped away tears of laughter. “You know what, though? He really is.”

  “Mm-hmm.” That was undeniable.

  “You know what else?” She fumbled for the saltshaker. “I think Stefan actually respects you, Daise. Unlike some werewolves.”

  “Cody respects me!” I protested.

  “Oh, fuck Cody!” Jen waved the saltshaker. “Because Cody . . . Cody . . . Look, it’s not like plenty of couples don’t struggle with fertility issues. He’s willing to write you off just because you can’t have his were-puppies. Who does that?”

  “Members of a dwindling species fighting for their survival,” I said. “Plus, there’s that whole hunting-beneath-the-full-moon thing I could never share with him.”

  Jen made a dismissive sound. “Yeah, and if I was dating a guy who ran marathons, that’s not something we’d ever share, no matter how much he went on about the endorphin high.”

  Again, she had a point. I’d never thought about it that way.

  “So call Stefan.” Seeing me weaken, Jen put down the saltshaker and looked around for my phone. “Here. Call him.”

  “No.” I folded my arms. “I am not drunk-dialing a six-hundred-year-old immortal Bohemian knight.”

  “Text him?”

  I hesitated. “No.”

  “You want to,” Jen said. “You so want to. Fine. I’ll do it for you.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  Her thumbs danced over my phone’s screen. “Too late.”

  “Jen!” I pleaded.

  She put the phone out of my reach. “You’ll thank me in the morning, Daisy. Trust me on this one.”

  After that, it gets a little blurry.

  I’m pretty sure that Jen and I reached the maudlin stage of drunk, bawling along to a Kelly Clarkson song on our old playlist and declaring our undying friendship for the umpteenth time. I have a vague memory of the two of us digging into a carton of Breyers cookies and cream with a pair of spoons, talking about whether or not Lee Hastings would ever summon the courage to ask Jen out, and an even vaguer memory of ransacking the linen closet and dumping an armful of clean sheets and a blanket onto the futon for Jen before staggering to my own bed, where I collapsed in an unconscious heap.

  All in all, a successful night.

  Three

  I awoke with a hangover.

  Not just any hangover, but an epic hangover—the kind of hangover they make movies about.

  Unfortunately, I did remember the thing I’d rather have forgotten about last night, and it jolted me out of bed and in search of my phone. And when I found it, it was even worse than I’d feared.

>   “Jennifer Mary Cassopolis, what the fuck were you thinking?” I shouted at the figure buried beneath a pile of linens on my futon.

  “Huh?” The pile stirred.

  “The text,” I said grimly. “The text you sent Stefan!”

  “What?” Jen’s head poked out of the covers. Her eyes were bleary and she looked as hungover as I felt. “Why?”

  I showed her the message she’d sent on my phone’s screen. UR HAWTT!! LETS DO THIS!!!

  “Oh, shit!” Jen made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Daise, I’m sorry. Is there any coffee?”

  I glared at her. “Seriously?”

  She sat upright, pushing the hair out of her face. “I’m sorry! It seemed funny at the time.”

  “He’s a six-hundred-year-old immortal!” I said. “You sent him a text from my phone that sounded like it came from a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl!”

  “Look, just explain it to him. If he’s got a sense of humor, he’ll understand,” Jen said. “And if he doesn’t, you might as well find out now and avoid wasting your time . . . Daisy, what are you doing?”

  I’d disconnected her phone from my stereo and was composing a message on it. “I’m returning the favor.” Jen made a futile, blanket-encumbered lunge in my direction, which I dodged handily. “There.” I finished and handed her the phone.

  “Want to get a cup of coffee sometime this week?” she read aloud, then made a face. “You sent that to Lee? I just texted Skeletor for a date?”

  Back in the day, I would have been surprised to find myself considering Lee a friend. He’d been a tall, painfully thin—hence the nickname—geeky kid who’d spent all his time hanging with a couple of other geeky kids, playing World of Warcraft. But things change. Oh, Lee was still tall and too thin, but he’d parlayed his love of video games and genius with computers into a successful career out in Seattle. Now he was back in Pemkowet, doing consulting work and caring for his ailing mother. And since Jen had given him a makeover last month, he was actually looking halfway decent.

  Plus, he’d developed an awesome database that would let me keep track of the eldritch population in town, and he was doing some research on the side into a matter that Hel had asked me to look into.