Poison Fruit (46 page)

“No,” I said.

“Did you consult with any members of the township board or either of the city councils?” Cheryl asked.

“No.”

“So you made the decision to have ghouls—excuse me, Outcast—present entirely on your own?” she pressed me.

“Objection!”
Dufreyne thundered, his voice making the rafters tremble. “Leading the witness!”

Judge Martingale scowled at him. “Overruled!”

“Yes,” I said. “I did.”

Cheryl Munz looked slightly delirious at the prospect of actually being allowed to continue this line of questioning. “And again, just to be perfectly clear, that includes the, um, member of the Outcast who attacked the Blumenthals?”

“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely. All of the Outcast, including Cooper, were there at my request.”

She conferred briefly with her colleagues, then asked to revisit the video footage of the parade, fast-forwarding to a sequence of Stefan
and his broadsword battling the Tall Man. “In fact, as we see in this footage, it was one of those very Outcast who engaged the, um, revenant, and prevented it from harming spectators, wasn’t it?”

Oh, that was a good angle. The jury murmured with interest.

“Yes,” I said. “It was.” I made deliberate eye contact with each member of the jury. “I’m very sorry for the unpleasantness that the Blumenthals endured, but if it wasn’t for the presence of the Outcast that night,
in particular the man you see defending innocent bystanders there, there would have been near-certain fatalities.” I expected Dufreyne to object or the judge to rebuke me, but neither did. Emboldened, I continued. “I take full responsibility for that decision.”

“Thank you, Miss Johanssen.” It sounded like Cheryl Munz was ready to cry with relief. This had probably been the first break the defense team had gotten during the entire trial to date. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Dufreyne?” Judge Martingale inquired.

Narrowing his eyes, Dufreyne fixed me with a long, speculative look. He knew something had happened to nullify his powers of persuasion, but he didn’t know what or how. Taking a page from his book, I returned his gaze as blandly as possible. “I have no additional questions, Your Honor.”

The judge dismissed me. I exited the courtroom with my head held high, feeling Daniel Dufreyne’s gaze boring into my back the whole way.

Granted, it was a limited victory. Dufreyne’s infernal influence over the jury and members of the media was still in full effect. But any settlement would have to be approved by the court, and Judge Martingale was now a neutral party. By the time the local news aired that evening, it was obvious that while the media remained biased in favor of the plaintiffs, the tone of the proceedings had shifted.

Oh, and it appeared that Lee’s untraceable bomb threat was proving to be well and truly untraceable.

I was willing to call that a win.

So was the coven. The Fabulous Casimir hosted an impromptu victory celebration at his place.

“It’s far too soon to break out the champagne,
dahlings
,” he announced to us. “But I think the occasion deserves at least a passable merlot.” Casimir hoisted his wineglass. “To a job well done.”

“And to never having to do anything like it again,” I added fervently before drinking.

On my way home, I noticed Cody’s cruiser parked in front of Callahan’s again, and stopped to tender a more formal apology.

“That thing I asked you to do yesterday?” I said. The waitress was nowhere near us, but I figured it was best to be oblique. “I just wanted to say that I’m really, truly sorry, Cody.”

He sipped his coffee and eyed me. “You should be.”

“I am,” I promised him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you never trusted me again.”

“Ah, well.” Cody’s mouth quirked. “I thought Judge Martingale was evenhanded while I was on the stand. I did my best to push back against Dufreyne’s narrative. Whatever you did, it sounds like things went better in court today for our side.”

“Yes,” I said. “They did. And anyway . . . thank you.”

Cody took a breath as if to speak, then let it out in a long sigh. “It’s okay, Daise. I’ve still got your back.” He slid out of the booth and shrugged into his uniform coat. “Look, my break’s over. I’ve got to get back on patrol. I’ll see you later.”

I watched him go, feeling like I’d missed something. Or maybe that was just the way it would always be with Cody and me.

It was the one detail I didn’t tell Stefan when I reported on the success of our venture to him. It’s funny, but since his ravening, we were both more relaxed and more careful with each other. He was right; the worst had happened, and we were both still standing.

We were also both very, very aware that we didn’t want it to happen again.

“Are you feeling better about the business of this lawsuit?” Stefan inquired, stroking my back as I lay against him in bed that night, cautiously testing the limits of postcoital cuddling.

“A little,” I said. “It felt good to
do
something, anyway. Terrifying, but good.”

Stefan smiled at me, eyes glittering. “I’m glad.”

“Me, too.” Stretching, I leaned up to kiss him. “I should go, shouldn’t I?”

“Probably,” he said with regret.

Including the weekend, the celebratory phase of our victory lasted approximately four days.

It ended at around a quarter past five on Monday. I was passing Mrs. Browne’s Olde World Bakery on my way home when the warm aromas of bread and cinnamon wafting through the door as a patron exited mingled with something foul and rank, a smell that wasn’t a smell. Reaching into my messenger bag, I eased
dauda-dagr
from its sheath before I rounded the corner and entered the alley, where a sleek silver Jaguar was idling.

And there was Daniel Dufreyne, leaning against it, his hands in the pockets of his long charcoal-colored wool coat, his breath frosting in the cold February air.

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and I tightened my grip on
dauda-dagr
. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Dufreyne smiled—his sharklike smile, not the bland one he used in court. “Why, hello to you, too, cousin.”

“I’m not your cousin!” I spat at him.

“Tsk-tsk!” Removing one gloved hand from his coat, he wagged a finger at me. “And here I made the trip just to congratulate you in person.”

I was confused. No decision had been reached in the trial yet, and from what I knew of Dufreyne, it didn’t seem like him to accept a setback as a defeat. “What do you mean, congratulate me?”

“It was an outstanding effort,” he said. “Really, it was. In fact, I was lucky to figure it out in time. But in the end . . .” Turning his hand over, he opened it to reveal the silver cross lying in his palm. Tendrils of smoke rose from it as it slowly seared a brand into the expensive leather of his glove. “Nice try.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It wasn’t until this morning that it occurred to me to cook up a pretext to have a word with Judge Martingale in his chambers,”
Dufreyne continued conversationally. “That’s when I realized that whatever you’d done to render him immune to my charms, shall we say, it was only in effect when he was on the bench. So I asked for a brief recess and had a look. That was quite ingenious, affixing it to the underside of his chair.”

Ingenious, hell. It had been inspired by a prank Kim McKinney’s brother used to play with a fart machine. I stared at the smoldering cross, thinking that should have been my first tip that this whole thing had been a very, very bad idea.

“Cat got your tongue?” Dufreyne inquired.

I pointed to the cross on his palm. “That’s got to hurt.”

“Not yet, but it will. Soon, if I don’t do something about it.” He bared his unnaturally white teeth in another feral smile. “I bet it didn’t bother you one bit to hold this little charm, did it? Born of an innocent and all. But
you’re
not so innocent, are you, Daisy?” He tsk-tsked me again, this time without the finger wag. “Calling in a bomb threat? That’s a federal offense. Do you know what kind of sentence it carries?”

“No,” I said. “Why would I?”

Dufreyne ignored me. “Ten years and a quarter of a million dollars.” He paused, frowning. “I’ll admit, I can’t quite figure that part out yet. You had to have had help, and very sophisticated help at that. But no matter.” He shrugged. “I’ll save that for later. At the moment, I’ve far bigger fish to fry.” His voice took on a low, velvety, reverberating note. “Once Pemkowet’s affairs are settled, I’ll make it a point to find out who your friends and connections are and
persuade
them to talk.”

A wave of fury washed over me, lifting my hair, making it crackle with static electricity. “What the hell do you want?”

“From you, cousin?” Dufreyne asked, sliding his other hand from his coat pocket. “Nothing you’re willing to give. Not yet, anyway. But here’s what I think of your little town’s magic.” Stripping off his glove, he transferred the silver cross into his bare left hand and closed his
fingers over it, closing his eyes with a slight wince. That sense of
wrongness
intensified as he concentrated hard. An acrid scent of hot metal arose, and molten silver dripped from his clenched fist, hissing as it puddled and cooled on the wet concrete.

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat, staring at him with hatred, filled with helpless rage.

“Ah, that’s better.” Dufreyne sighed with pleasure and opened his eyes, opened his hand to show me his unmarked palm. “See? All gone.”

“Fuck you!” I said with impotent fury, tears stinging. “Fuck you and everything you stand for!”

“Do you know what’s funny?” Daniel Dufreyne leaned toward me, his reek surrounding me. “What I just did? That’s nothing to the power you stand to inherit.” He snapped his fingers. “
Nothing
. You could reign over what’s left of this mortal plane. All these petty pagan gods in their twilight years would bow to
your
will. And all you have to do is ask for it.”

My right hand came up hard and fast, and I planted
dauda-dagr
’s tip in the hollow of his throat. If we hadn’t been in public . . . I don’t know what I would have done. I honestly don’t. Fear flickered in Dufreyne’s eyes, a wisp of frost rising from his skin where the dagger’s point dented it.

“Get out,” I whispered. “Tell your master Hades that Hel’s territory is
not
for sale, not at any price. And if he tries to take it, Hel intends to defend it with every weapon she has.”

Backing away, Dufreyne raised his hands. “Oh, we’ll see about that,” he said smoothly. “And I told you, Hades has no interest in Pemkowet. By the time this is over, you’ll wish he did. At least
Hades
is reasonable.”

“Well, who does, then?” I shouted at him. “Goddammit! Who’s behind Elysian Fields?”

Reaching behind him, Dufreyne opened the door of his Jaguar and eased himself into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be seeing you, cousin,” he said before closing the door between us.

Seething with helpless anger, I watched him drive away.

Then I went inside and called Casimir. “We’re in trouble.”

Forty-five

T
wo days later, the trial concluded. According to reports, the jury took all of about ten minutes to find in favor of the plaintiffs and award them the entire forty-five-million-dollar settlement.

Judge Martingale approved the settlement in record time, and gave the Pemkowet tri-community governments a hundred and eighty days to pay the entirety of this impossible sum.

It’s not like the writing hadn’t been on the wall for most of the trial’s duration, but the verdict unleashed a firestorm of acrimony and recrimination. Residents of Pemkowet Township complained bitterly about the unfairness of being dragged into the lawsuit in the first place, and officials from Pemkowet and East Pemkowet pointed fingers at one another. Chief Bryant got his fair share of criticism, but the worst vitriol was reserved for Amanda Brooks, who in turn blamed her daughter.

Of course, everyone knew the entire trial was a farce and that in a sane world, the verdict would be overturned on appeal. But that’s not what happened.

The town hall meeting—actually a tri-community meeting—that turned our lives upside down was scheduled on short notice to discuss
the situation. If it hadn’t been for Lurine, I’d have been in a state of near despair, but she remained surprisingly upbeat about the state of affairs, even after I confessed the whole fake-bomb-threat-slash-protection-charm caper to her.

“No offense, cupcake, but I really think your little coven could have come up with a less, um, dangerously illegal plan,” she said mildly.
“Don’t worry about this Dufreyne and his threat. One way or another, I’ll take care of him.”

I eyed her. “Not that I’m entirely opposed to the notion, but is there a way that doesn’t involve squishing him?”

Lurine shrugged. “Well, he’s guilty of tampering with a federal jury, not to mention interfering with a judge. Now that I know magic will function in his presence no matter where he is, I’m sure I could persuade him it would be in his best interests to recuse himself from the case when it’s appealed and let the legal process take its course. You should have told me sooner about hell-spawns carrying their own underworlds inside them,” she added. “I could have paid him a visit weeks ago and laid this whole business to rest.”

Oh, gah! Yes, I should have. I had a strong urge to stab myself in the eye with a fork. “It didn’t occur to me.”

“Sometimes the best defense is a strong offense, baby girl,” Lurine said. “If you’re going to protect this town, you might need to take the fight to your enemies instead of waiting for it to come to you. Right now, we just need to make sure Pemkowet’s willing to go forward with the appeal. Once that’s in play, I’ll deal with Dufreyne.”

“Are you sure you can handle him?” I asked. “After all, he’s invoked his birthright.”

Lurine gave me a sidelong look. “You don’t think
my
powers of persuasion are a match for his?”

I flushed. “I’m just asking.”