Poison Fruit (12 page)

Casimir studied it with a frown, pursing his carmine lips. “It looks familiar, but I can’t place it. It’s not one we use in the practice. Are you sure it’s not a compound glyph? It could be the crescent of Islam combined with a Christian cross.”

“I’m not sure of anything,” I said. “Though I’m guessing he’s probably not a Jihadist for Jesus.”

“Here.” The Fabulous Casimir emerged from behind the counter to peruse a shelf of books. “You can borrow this,” he said, handing me a thick tome titled
Dictionary of Symbols
. “It’s got everything from alchemical notation to hobo signs. Just be careful not to break the spine.”

“Thanks, Cas.”

As long as I was in the vicinity, I took the book over to the Daily Grind next door to get myself a mocha latte while I skimmed through it. With all the tedious investigation I’d been doing, I figured I deserved a treat.

I started out trying to actually read the thing, but it was pretty dense going, although I did learn that a cat chalked on a residence was a hobo sign indicating that a kind lady lived there. Go figure. I guess that was before the crazy-cat-lady stereotype was born. Or maybe crazy cat ladies were kind to hobos back in the day. Halfway through my latte, I gave up and just started flipping pages, looking for anything that resembled the symbol in my sketch.

Amazingly enough, I found it within ten minutes. “Gotcha,” I
murmured with satisfaction, flattening the page. “So what do we have here?”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t
Hades
; and to further confuse matters, the symbol didn’t refer to the Greek deity. It referred to some hypothetical planet that probably didn’t exist.

“Huh.” I sat and thought about that while I finished my mocha latte. Okay, I didn’t know any astrologers, but I did know someone with firsthand knowledge of Greek deities, so I opted to pursue that angle.

“Hey, cupcake!” Lurine answered her phone when I called. “You must have read my mind.”

“I did?”

“I’m over at your mom’s. We’re talking about my spring wardrobe and looking at some
gorgeous
fabric. Can you get away to join us?”

In case I haven’t mentioned it, my mom’s a seamstress. She started sewing when I was a baby, altering my onesies—and probably diapers, too, come to think of it—because I couldn’t stand to have my tail confined. It turned out she had a real flair for it, and years later, she managed to turn it into a full-time business.

“Sure,” I said. “Can I pick your brain while we’re at it?”

“Absolutely.”

After returning Casimir’s book, I drove over to Sedgewick Estate. It’s a little mobile home community, which is a lot nicer than it sounds by virtue of being located right on the Kalamazoo River. I’d grown up there, and it was a pretty cool place to spend your childhood.

“Hey, Daisy baby!” Mom greeted me at the door of her double-wide with an effusive hug, then held me at arm’s length to give me the maternal once-over. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I smiled at her. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too.” She patted my hand. “Come on in and see the embarrassment of riches that Lurine brought.”

Mom wasn’t kidding. The entire place was strewn with bolts and lengths of fabric. That wasn’t unusual when she was in the middle of a commission, but this time the array was staggering.

“What did you do?” I asked Lurine. “Buy out the entire stock of
Mood?” Mood, by the way, is a fabric store in New York where Tim
Gunn always takes the contestants on
Project Runway
to shop. Unsurprisingly, that’s one of Mom’s and my favorite TV shows, right up there with
Gilmore Girls
.

“Oh, I just ordered a few things.” Lurine set a glass of champagne on our old Formica dinette and picked up a bolt of midnight blue silk shantung, beckoning to me. “C’mere, cupcake.”

I let her drape a length of it over my shoulder. It had the subtle sheen and texture of a very, very expensive fabric.

“See?” Lurine cocked her head at my mom.

Mom did the make-a-picture-frame thing with her fingers. “Cocktail dress? Maybe a 1950s silhouette?”

“Exactly.”

“You can’t do that!” I protested. “You bought this stuff for
your
spring wardrobe!”

“Oh, just indulge me.” Lurine tweaked a lock of my hair. “I ordered a lot of fabric that caught my eye for one reason or another. I must have had you in the back of my mind. This isn’t a color for spring, anyway.”

I stroked the silk, feeling the barely perceptible slub of the natural fibers under my fingertips. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

For the next several hours, Lurine and Mom and I delved into the treasure trove of fabrics that Lurine had purchased, fanning out glossy copies of foreign and domestic editions of
Elle
and
Vogue
and
Marie Claire
, sipping champagne and nibbling on canapés.

And okay, yes, I probably should have gotten straight to business, but there was a part of me that needed this. Daniel Dufreyne’s revelation had shaken me, maybe more than I’d admitted to myself.

It made me look at my mother with renewed tenderness. I might have been conceived by accident, a horrible accident, but no matter what, I had never, ever doubted that she loved me. Not once.

I didn’t think Daniel Dufreyne’s mother had loved him. And yet she’d borne him on purpose.

Complicit
, he had said. Complicit in his conception, complicit in his birth. And then she’d done . . . what? Raised him to claim his
birthright? Handed him off to whatever creepy cabal had hired her to serve
as a surrogate mother to a hell-spawn? Were there others? Was there a freakin’
breeding
program? Ick! The whole thing made my skin crawl, and there was no better antidote than an afternoon of old-fashioned girl time with my mom and Lurine.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Before I knew it, it was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and outside the windows of Mom’s double-wide the world was beginning to look gray and murky. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half or so, but it was getting late.

I fished out my sketch of the symbol on Dufreyne’s palm and showed it to Lurine. “Does this mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “No. Why?”

I explained, although I left out the part about Dufreyne’s birth. I didn’t think Mom needed to hear that; not now, anyway. If we had that discussion, it should be just the two of us. “Casimir’s book said it was an astrological symbol representing a hypothetical planet called Hades,” I finished. “Which probably doesn’t exist. So I was wondering if it might refer to the actual deity.”

“It’s possible.” Lurine frowned in thought. “As far as I know, astrological symbolism is a bit of a mishmash developed over the ages. Back in my day, there weren’t any graphic symbols that represented Hades, or any of the Olympians, for that matter. At least none that I was aware of.”

“So Hades might have appropriated it?” I suggested.

“Maybe.” Taking my left hand, Lurine turned it over and traced Hel’s mark on my palm. “After all, this is just an ordinary rune, right?”

“Basically,” I agreed. “I mean, it marks me as Hel’s liaison, but it’s part of the common runic alphabet.”

Lurine shrugged. “So maybe Hades did the same thing. Your guess is as good as mine, cupcake.”

“I was hoping you might have some extra insight,” I said. “You, um, did mention something about keeping the old traditions alive the other day.”

Her gaze turned flinty. “I wasn’t talking about the Olympians, Daisy.”

Oops
. I had the feeling I’d unwittingly crossed a line. “I’m sorry. Did I miss something?”

For a few beats, the unexpected tension between us persisted, and then Lurine sighed. “No, I’m sorry. You touched on a sensitive subject.” She paused. “What, exactly, do you think you know about me?”

I exchanged a panicked glance with Mom, who murmured, “Lurine . . . don’t put her on the spot.”

“It’s all right, Marja,” Lurine said to her. “I’m just curious.”

Of course I’d looked into Lurine’s origin myth. Who wouldn’t? The thing is, there were several conflicting versions, the most common being that Lamia was a beautiful Libyan queen and a mistress of Zeus, caught out by a jealous Hera, who killed her children and transformed her into a grief-crazed monster that hunted and devoured the children of others . . . okay, I guess I was a little dense on that antipathy toward the Olympians. And then there was a whole other tradition regarding lamiae in the plural, casting them as seductive, bloodsucking succubi. Nothing I’d read seemed to depict an accurate portrait of the next-door neighbor and ex-babysitter I’d grown up with, so I’d quit wondering about it years ago.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I mean, I know what the books say, but Mom and I always figured if you wanted us to know the truth, you’d tell us.”

“Touché,” Lurine said in a wry tone. “Let’s just say history is written by the victors, and when the Olympians overthrew the Titans, a lot of their children got screwed in the bargain.”

“So you were never a Libyan queen?” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Lurine said. “But never a
mortal
one. And I certainly never devoured any children,” she added.

“I never thought you did,” my mom offered.

Lurine gave her an affectionate glance. “And I didn’t think you would have trusted me with Daisy if you had.”

“Okay, so about Hades,” I said. “I take it you’re not a fan?”

She shrugged. “As a matter of general principle, no, but I don’t bear him a particular grudge, either.”

“Can you think of any reason Hades would have his minions nosing around Pemkowet?” I asked.

“Honestly, no.” Lurine looked genuinely perplexed. “He’s got his own demesne in Montreal.”

“Montreal?”
Mom echoed. “Why on earth?”

“Oh, it was part of that whole eldritch diaspora of the twentieth century.” Lurine waved a dismissive hand at the passage of time. “Hades probably foresaw the Greek economy tanking in this century. He’s the Greek god of wealth as well as god of the underworld, you know. He must have seen an opportunity there.”

“Yeah, he’s spent the last fifty or sixty years behind the scenes building one of the world’s biggest underground cities in Montreal.” Underworld deities tended to be reclusive and keep a low profile, but I knew about Montreal because that’s where Cody’s late ex-girlfriend—and current sister-in-law—were from. With a pang, I wondered if the Fairfax clan would be importing more Québécois werewolves for the upcoming mixer. “From what I understand, it’s the poshest underworld in existence.”

“Maybe he’s just looking for an investment opportunity,” my mom suggested. “Property values
are
on the rise.”

“It’s possible,” Lurine agreed. “I mean, no offense, but Hades is a lot more worldly than Hel. That’s what comes of being a god of wealth.”

I wasn’t convinced. “Maybe.”

“Do you want me to read the cards for you, honey?” Mom asked. “We can do it right now.”

I glanced out the window, where the murky gray light was dimming. “I’d better not take the time. I need to report to Hel. Can I take you up on it later?”

She smiled. “Anytime.”

At the door, I gave her an extra-long hug. My mom, the innocent. While Daniel Dufreyne’s mother had been enjoying her compensation, mine had been waiting tables and sewing tail-slits into my onesies. I
wished I could go back in time and protect her, even if it meant negating my own existence.

“Be careful out there, honey,” Mom cautioned me. “Down there in Little Niflheim, too. Okay?”

“I will,” I promised.

Thirteen

B
y the time I sent my request for an audience with Hel, it was well after sunset.

The process was a simple one. An iron casket I’d stashed on the top shelf of my closet held a copper bowl, a box of wooden kitchen matches, and six massive scales of pine bark from Yggdrasil II that were densely etched with runic script.

There had been seven, but I’d used one a couple of months ago. Since then, I’d come to consider Lee Hastings a friend, but the initial
price of his aid in developing a database for me was, as he put it, a single glimpse of Hel.

For this presumption, Hel offered Lee a terrifying demonstration of her ability to stop his heart with a thought; and when I took the blame for allowing him to accompany me, she generously included me in the demonstration.

Not that that was on my mind or anything as I took my gear out to the park next door.

Okay, it was totally on my mind, even though I felt a hundred percent confident in making this request. Having a goddess demonstrate her ability to stop your heart will do that to you.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t begrudge Hel the demonstration. I deserved the responsibility I took for Lee’s transgression, and you don’t say something like that to a deity without being prepared to accept the repercussions. You just don’t. A deity will take you at your word. Hel could be cruel and Hel could be compassionate, but she was always fair.

Anyway.

Sitting cross-legged, with my shoulders hunched against the cold November wind, I placed the copper bowl before me, struck a match, and set fire to one of the six remaining scales, dropping it into the bowl. The dry, brittle bark burned briskly, crackling and snapping, flames devouring the runes. A thin trickle of fragrant piney smoke vanished into the darkening sky overhead.

I watched it go. When the scale of bark had burned to ashes in the bottom of the bowl, I retreated to my apartment to wait.

It took about fifteen minutes before I heard the familiar chugging rumble of Mikill’s dune buggy pulling into the alley beside my apartment. To be honest, I’d been hoping Mikill drove something else in the off-season, maybe a nice warm SUV with all-wheel drive and power windows, but I guess that was a vain hope. If there’s one thing a frost giant doesn’t mind, it’s a blast of cold wind blowing through his beard.

So I bundled up in a down coat that made me look like a miniature version of the Michelin Man, wrapped a wool scarf around my neck,
and yanked an old Pemkowet High School knit ski hat over my head, making sure my ears were covered.