Poison Fruit (41 page)

In the alley, Cooper looked me up and down. “Nice coat.” He thrust the ribbons anchoring the balloons at me. “Here. The finest the dollar store had to offer. It was meant to be a dozen red roses, but it comes with the big man’s apologies.”

I gazed in bemusement at the assortment, which included a number of birthday wishes, Spider-Man, a football, various Disney princesses, and a bright yellow SpongeBob SquarePants. “Um . . . thank you.”

Cooper shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

“Just out of curiosity, did Stefan approve the substitution?” I asked him. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing and get you in trouble.”

Cooper flashed a quick, feral grin at me. “Oh, that he did. I think the notion quite tickled him.” He touched two fingers to his brow in a mocking salute. “Happy New Year to you, m’lady.”

“You, too, Cooper.” After he left, I tugged the unwieldy bunch of balloons up the narrow stairwell and into my apartment, where I set them free to roam at will. A dozen Mylar balloons drifted and bumped gently against the ceiling while Mogwai stalked their trailing ribbons.

I was making coffee when Jen called.

“Okay, girlfriend,” she said without preamble when I picked up. “What’s the scoop on your New Year’s Eve date with the hot ghoul? And don’t hold out on me. I know it was a big romantic shindig.”

I poured another scoop of coffee into the filter. “Oh, yeah?”

“I ran into Greta Hasselmeyer at the grocery store the other day,” Jen said. “Her niece Michelle is a junior in high school. Michelle’s dating a senior named Dylan Martinez who’s some kind of musical prodigy, and she told her mom that some spooky-hot ghoul hired Dylan to play his cello at a private party on New Year’s Eve. Which, I’m thinking, was for you. So yeah.”

“Touché.”

“Daise!” Jen sounded aggrieved. “C’mon.”

Once upon a time, not very long ago, it would have been hard to imagine that I might be involved in a relationship that I wouldn’t want to hash over in detail with my BFF, but for the first time, I found myself hesitating.

There was just so much that Jen wouldn’t understand. Then again, there was a lot I wasn’t sure I understood myself. The desire to dish won out. “Can you come over?”

“On my way.” She hung up.

Ten minutes later, Jen was batting her way through the hanging forest of balloon ribbons in my apartment. “What the hell, Daise?” she asked me, eyeballing SpongeBob SquarePants. “Are you having a kids’ party I don’t know about?”

I handed her a cup of coffee. “It’s an apology.”

“For what?”

I gave Jen an abridged version of my night with Stefan, glossing over the actual sex and skipping to the part where I had to make an unplanned early exit. “Hence the balloons,” I explained.

“At least he’s got a sense of humor,” Jen commented. “So . . . how are you with all of this? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” I sipped my coffee. “It was . . . intense.”

Jen gave me a shrewd look. “Funny, that’s exactly what you said about hooking up with Cody.”

I’d managed to avoid thinking about Cody, because thinking about Cody included thinking about how easy and comfortable we’d been together in the aftermath of lovemaking and how nice it had been waking up in his bed that last time, all of which made my heart hurt. “Yeah, well, it’s a different kind of intense.”

“Where do you see yourself going in this relationship with Stefan?” Jen asked. “I mean, do you have a future together? Do you
want
a future together?”

“I don’t know! Do I have to figure it out at this stage?” I asked. “Can’t I just enjoy the good parts?”

“If you were dating an ordinary human being, I’d say yes,” Jen said. “But under the circumstances, you might want to put some forethought into it.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m well aware of the whole immortal vs. mortal issue,” I said. “It’s not something you lose sight of.”

“It’s not just that.” Jen’s voice was gentle. “Hot supernatural sex is all well and good, Daise, but at some point, you just want to be with
someone who you can fall asleep with on the couch watching TV together.”

“We’ll see.” I changed the subject. “What did you and Lee do for New Year’s Eve?”

She smiled. “Drank too much champagne and fell asleep on the couch watching TV together.”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was a little jealous.

But things with Stefan
were
good, and continued to be good in the
weeks that followed. By mutual accord, we backed away from the intensity of that first encounter and kept things light for a while before scheduling an official date to attend a performance by a visiting bossa nova band at the Pemkowet Center for the Arts.

When we went back to Stefan’s place afterward, I was hoping that it would be different this time. Not the mind-blowing sex part, obviously, or the profound connection that took place during it, but the aftermath.

It wasn’t.

At least this time I was prepared for it. “Does being with a woman always drive you to the edge of ravening?” I asked Stefan as I put my clothes back on.

“No.” He smiled, but it was strained. “Only with you, Daisy. You and your outsize emotions.”

“Could you, um, refrain from sampling them?” I inquired. “At least during the deed itself?”

Stefan’s eyes glittered. “Then? No. At other times, yes. But then, no.”

He didn’t explain, but he didn’t need to. I understood. It was part of what I saw in him when he was inside me and the connection between us worked both ways. Stefan was Outcast, and that was what it meant to make love with one of the Outcast.

“Okay,” I said. “You don’t need to send Cooper over with balloons this time.”

Stefan laughed, his swimmingly huge pupils dwindling a bit. “Very well, then. I won’t.”

The fact that he could laugh about it was an encouraging sign. We could work on this, Stefan and I. I could continue to work on
controlling my aura. Stefan could continue to hone the self-control and discipline he’d developed over the course of centuries. I didn’t envision us dozing off on the couch together anytime soon, but I thought a little postcoital cuddling and conversation was a realistic expectation.

And if it hadn’t been for the goddamned werewolf mixer, maybe it would have been.

Oh, yes, I’d agreed to go.

I didn’t want to be there any more than Cody wanted me there, but it was a matter of status. If I hadn’t accepted the invitation, I would have insulted the Fairfax clan and lost face in the bargain. I was Hel’s liaison. I couldn’t let my love life compromise that authority.

The weekend got off to a bad start before it had even begun. On Friday afternoon, a process server visited the police station and presented both me and Chief Bryant with subpoenas to testify in the upcoming trial. Dufreyne had warned me I’d be called as a witness, but receiving the actual document brought it home. It was a jarring reminder that the trial date was approaching all too soon. I’d been practicing my unobtrusibility skills diligently, but the thought of putting them to the test in the courtroom still made me want to throw up.

On Saturday evening, there was an unexpected fracas at the Wheelhouse, and Stefan had to cancel our plans when Cooper called him for backup in sorting it out. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it left me in a more disgruntled frame of mind on Sunday afternoon when I drove out to Cody’s uncle’s place to attend the mixer.

The Fairfax clan owned a big tract of land out in the countryside adjacent to the county game preserve. It was secluded and heavily wooded, perfect werewolf territory. I pulled into the long driveway and had gotten about halfway to the house when Cody’s cousin Joe, a tall figure clad in a bulky tan Carhartt jacket and pants, a shotgun held casually in one hand, stepped out from behind a pine tree to bar my way, pointing at me and mouthing something I couldn’t hear.

I rolled down the window. “What?”

“I said roll down the window!” Joe came over and stuck his head in the window, nostrils flaring as he sniffed me. “Daisy, right? You were with Cody the night he borrowed my
Saw
videos.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m here representing Hel, who probably wouldn’t appreciate your detaining me at gunpoint.”

Joe looked apologetic. “We’re just being careful. This isn’t the kind of gathering you want curious neighbors to drop by, you know?” He waved me on. “Go ahead, everyone’s out back.”

“As in . . . the backyard?” Foolishly, it hadn’t occurred to me that
the event would be held outside in the dead of winter. Of course it would. It was a freaking werewolf mixer. “Never mind.”

I parked on an expanse of hard-packed snow beside someone’s rental car and followed a well-trodden path around the ranch house to the backyard, where twenty or so young men and women ranging in age from teens to early thirties were having . . . well, a mixer.

At a glance, aside from the fact that it was the middle of winter, it looked like any ordinary backyard bash. There were picnic tables. On the deck, there was a keg with a half-empty plastic bag of red Solo cups beside it, as well as a charcoal grill with a variety of meat products sizzling away. Some of the younger teens were racing back and forth and hurling snowballs at one another in a complicated game of tag, and members of the older cohort were playing volleyball on either side of a sagging net that had probably been erected in the summer, laughing and lunging and diving for the ball.

The bearded older gentleman manning the grill caught my eye and set down his tongs. “Daisy Johanssen?”

“Yes.”

Approaching me, he held out his hand. “Elijah Fairfax, clan patriarch.” His tone was reserved. “Thank you for coming.”

I shook his hand. “Of course.”

There was a glint in Uncle Elijah’s eyes that suggested he knew it wasn’t that simple. Well, he should know, since he’d called for this mixer to set Cody on the path toward finding a suitable mate. But he didn’t say anything, just released my hand, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and uttered a short, shrill whistle.

And . . . it was at that point that it ceased to resemble an ordinary, mundane gathering.

All across the backyard, heads turned attentively, phosphorescent
green flashing behind myriad eyes. Conversations were put on hold, games of tag and volleyball were abandoned. The out-of-town visitors converged on me with careless athletic grace, forming a greeting line of sorts, nudging and elbowing, snarling and snapping their strong white teeth playfully at one another in a bid to gain position.

In the woods on the far verge of the yard, a pair of young wolves
broke cover, racing to join us. One wolf planted a stiff foreleg and shoulder-checked the other, sending it tumbling.

From the cloud of snow and fur that ensued, a naked young woman arose. Shaking out her hair, she laughed and called, “No fair!” before trotting over to one of the picnic tables to retrieve her clothing.

Yep, definitely not a mundane keg party.

One by one, the dozen visiting werewolves introduced themselves to me by first name, clan name, and city. They’d come in groups or pairs—four from Seattle, two from Denver, four from Montreal, and two from New York. Although I hadn’t actually met all the members of the Fairfax clan, especially the younger ones, they hung back. Apparently this formality was for the benefit of the visitors, each of whom shook my hand with a solemn politeness that was somewhat undermined by the way each one leaned in to get a good whiff of my scent. Werewolf etiquette—go figure.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Cody in the background, his hands shoved into the pockets of a heavy, shearling-lined suede jacket that hung open to the cold, a studiedly neutral expression on his face.

I recognized Stephanie from Seattle—Clan Hawthorne, by the way—in the greeting line. She looked just like she did in the profile picture I’d seen on Cody’s laptop, only prettier—tall and sporty-slim, blue-gray eyes sparkling in the cold air, a healthy pink flush on her cheeks. I bet she was a great volleyball player.

“Thank you for inviting us to visit,” Stephanie said cheerfully after leaning over to sniff my hair.

“You’re very welcome,” I said as though I’d had any choice in the
matter, suppressing a violent surge of jealousy. After all, it wasn’t her fault that my relationship with Cody was a nonstarter. “I hope you enjoy it here.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, it’s
wonderful
!” She made an expansive gesture. “So much territory to roam! Just to see it is worth the hours spent confined in mundane airspace.”

“Isn’t Seattle, like, the hiking capital of the United States?” I asked.

“Outside of the Yama King’s territory, it is,” Stephanie said, looking wistful. “Oh, there are miles and miles of wilderness! But we can’t shift there. Only in the city, above the underworld.”

“That must be frustrating,” I said.

Stephanie’s upper lip curled in an unself-conscious half snarl. Oddly enough, she still looked wholesome doing it. “It is.”

Once I’d met the whole visiting contingent, it appeared that my official duties were done. I wasn’t sure if Cody was going to ignore me, but he manned up and came over to greet me as the receiving line dissolved and hungry and thirsty young werewolves headed for the keg and the platters of rare steak, underdone burgers, and half-cooked sausages stacked around the charcoal grill.

“Hey, Daise,” Cody said quietly. “Thank you for doing this.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“I know.”

It was awkward. I didn’t know what to say, what to do with my feelings. By the look on his face, neither did Cody. “So how long am I expected to stay at this thing?” I asked him.

He glanced at the horizon. “Not long. Until the sun sinks below the tree line. Come dusk, there will be a hunt.”

“I bet these city-slicker werewolves are looking forward to
that
,” I said. “So much territory to roam!”

“Daisy.” Cody squared his shoulders. “Don’t.”

I sighed. “She seems very nice, Cody. They all do. It’s just—”

“I know!” He raised his voice, then lowered it. “I know. Sorry. I’m in a shitty mood. On top of everything else, I got a subpoena Friday night. I heard you and the chief got served earlier. Any idea why?”