Poison Fruit (50 page)

The bad news was that they’d signed a binding agreement with penalties that would send the town and the tri-community area straight back into crippling bankruptcy if they tried to get out of it. That’s what comes of letting a hell-spawn lawyer with powers of persuasion handle the paperwork.

“It would destroy the entire community, Daisy.” Jason Hallifax looked sick. “Literally. And I’m sorry, but I’m not convinced that isn’t a worse outcome. I mean this war . . . it only affects the eldritch, right?”

“I can’t say that for sure. Definitely not if Persephone brings in her own private militia,” I said. “If Hel’s right, we’re talking about ordinary human mortals. Do you want
their
deaths on your hands?”

Marian Warner, one of the council members, shook her head. “No one wants anyone’s death on their hands, Daisy, but we have to act in the interest of the community, not the members of some hypothetical militia.”

The discussion went on a lot longer, but in the end, the result was the same. It still wasn’t a battle I was ever going to win.

The galling thing was that if
I’d
had powers of persuasion, I could have gotten them to change their minds in a heartbeat. Actually, if I’d had powers of persuasion, none of this would have happened in the first place. I tried not to think about that, but it was hard. God, I was just so sick of being so fucking
helpless
! It didn’t seem fair that Persephone or Hades, whichever one had done it, could basically commission a surrogate mother to get knocked up by a demon to breed the living embodiment of every lawyer joke ever written, and that Dufreyne could claim his birthright and wield power with impunity, when all I was trying to do was keep the peace and protect my community.

And it didn’t seem fair that I had to live with the knowledge that power was mine for the asking when I needed it the most. Power;
El Mano
in my mom’s reading. My greatest desire . . . and my greatest fear.

All I had to do was break the world to get it.

Needless to say, my nightmare returned during the days leading up to the vernal equinox. More often than not, I woke up sweating with terror, the crack of doom ringing in my ears.

Meanwhile, the deal went through, and Elysian Fields officially claimed ownership of Hel’s territory.

But at least my recruitment efforts were paying off.

When I paid a visit to the House of Shadows, for the first time in our acquaintance, Lady Eris treated me as an equal, possibly because she
was well and truly pissed off at the notion that her vampire brood would have to find a new haven.

“We have made our home here for more than fifty years,” she said grimly, holding audience in the ballroom. “Abiding by Hel’s order and dwelling in peace alongside mortals and immortals alike. We will not be forced out of our home at the whim of some obsolete goddess.”

Dwelling in peace might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I wasn’t in a mood to argue with her.

“Of course, any aid we might provide must be given by stealth under the cover of night.” Lady Eris gave me a cunning sidelong look. “Hel’s liaison, you speculate that Persephone’s army will be composed of mortal humans. Do we have your mistress’s permission to treat them as lawful prey?”

A soft sigh of indrawn breath went around the perimeter of the ballroom, where the members of her brood were watching and listening.

“Ooh, I’ve never had the chance to drink a mortal dry!” Jen’s sister, Bethany, whispered with creepy delight.

“No.” I held up my rune-marked left hand.
El Mano
. I pushed that thought away. “Sucking blood and enthralling mercenaries against their will, yes. But they probably have no idea what they signed up for. So no drinking dry, not unless your own lives are, um, at stake. Agreed?”

Lady Eris—I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that
Eris
was actually her real name—rolled her eyes. “Agreed.”

The same sentiments were echoed throughout the eldritch community. No one wanted to be unhomed.

“I’ve got nowhere else to go, mamacita!” Skrrzzzt said in a plaintive tone when I brought a six-pack out to the abandoned Presbyterian camp to talk with him. He gestured around with one thorny, long-fingered hand. “I mean, look at this. A bogle needs a proper haunt. I’ve
got over a hundred acres here! You think I’m going to find a hundred-acre haunt in a major metropolitan area?”

“There’s Central Park in New York,” I said. “That’s huge, right?”

The bogle snorted. “If you think there’s an acre of Central Park that hasn’t already been claimed, you’re kidding yourself.”

“I just want to be sure you’re making the right choice,” I said. “I don’t want you to feel pressured because we’re friends.”

“Friends.” Skrrzzzt mulled over the word, then spread his leathery lips in a gaping smile. “Hell yes, we are!” He chugged a beer. “You can count on good ole Skrrzzzt. I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll put you down for the night brigade.”

He shot me an offended look with his molten-lava gaze. “What, you think I’m not good enough to fight in the light of day?”

I was confused. “I thought bogles only came out at night.”

Skrrzzzt waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, that’s a personal choice. I’m not a freaking vampire, mamacita! Hey, if you’ll give me a lift, I’ll introduce you to a couple of trolls who live under a bluff down on the lakeshore.”

I recruited the trolls, who were large and shaggy, and appeared to relish the idea of a good fight.

I recruited my mom’s neighbor Gus the ogre, who was equally large and imposing and equally ready to give battle. “Anything for you and your mother, Daisy,” he said in a voice like rocks grating, squaring shoulders the size of boulders and baring teeth like, well, smaller boulders in a terrifying grimace. “And this is
my
home, too!”

My mother was less sanguine. “I don’t like this, honey,” she said to me in the kitchen of her double-wide. Her blue eyes were troubled. “It scares me. It scares the hell out of me.”

“Me, too,” I admitted.

She searched my face. “Are you
sure
there’s no way to stop this?”

You have but to ask . . .

I shuddered. “I’m open to suggestions. Got any?”

“No,” Mom said in a rueful tone. “It’s just . . . this shouldn’t be your fight, Daisy.”

“It shouldn’t be any of our fights.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “But I’m Hel’s liaison. I accepted that responsibility.”

“You didn’t have any idea it would lead to this,” she said quietly.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think Hel did, either. I don’t know if anyone did. Maybe the Norns.”

“As in the Norn who told you the fate of the world might hinge on
your decisions?” Mom asked. “The Norn who told you to trust your heart?”

El Corazón
, my heart.

“Yep.”

“And what does your heart tell you?” she asked.

I sighed. “It tells me I can’t back out of this responsibility. Especially not now, now that I’ve recruited practically the entire eldritch community. Other than that, nothing.”

Mom kissed my forehead. “Keep listening.”

Fifty

T
he Fairfax clan were the last significant members of the eldritch community to commit to the battle.

Cody stopped by the police station on his day off to tell me. “We’re in,” he said briefly. “Elders and adult singles only. No teenagers, no parents with small children.”

I nodded. “That’s more than fair. Does, um, that mean you’re including yourself among the fighters?”

“Yeah.” He raked a restless hand through his bronze hair. “You know, I was always afraid I’d have to make this choice someday. But one of the reasons I became a police officer was to be in a position to protect my clan.” He fished his badge out of his coat pocket. “Right now, I can’t do both. I have to choose one or the other. And I choose my clan.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re turning in your badge?”

Cody shrugged. “Better than waiting to get fired for disobeying orders, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” I said. “I was going with the whole ‘it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission’ thing.”

Cody gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, well, if we lose this war, I
won’t have a home to return to, so the job doesn’t really matter, does it?” He shuddered. “God, it’s scary, Daise! Where would we go? You heard the wolves at the mixer. They’ve barely got room to breathe. The world’s getting too small for us.”

“I know,” I whispered. “Believe me, you’re not alone. It’s all that I’ve been hearing out there.”

Chief Bryant opened the door of his office and poked his head out. “Oh, good. Fairfax, a word? You, too, Daisy.”

Exchanging uncertain glances, Cody and I entered his office.

“Have a seat.” The chief gestured to a pair of empty chairs across from his desk, settling his bulk into his own chair. He laced his hands across his ample belly, regarding us with his heavy-lidded gaze. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that mermaid we rescued last summer. You remember the one?”

As if anyone could forget. “Yes, sir,” I said.

The chief cleared his throat. “Recent events have made it easy to, ah, lose sight of the fact that the nonhuman members of the community deserve the protection of our fine department, too.” He raised one thick finger. “Now, my hands are tied. The law is the law, and I’m sworn to enforce it.” Swiveling in his chair, he glanced at the calendar on the wall behind him. March 20, the first day of spring, was circled in red marker. It was three days away. “But I’m thinking it’s for the best if the two of you are put on administrative leave for the rest of the week.”

“So you’re saying . . . ?” I let the question dangle.

Chief Bryant leaned back, his desk chair creaking. “I’m saying I’m on your side, Daisy,” he said quietly. “There’s nothing I can do to help you, but I’ll try to stay out of your way as long as I can. And if Pemkowet survives this war, you’ll have jobs to come back to.”

It mattered more than I would have expected. A ragged half sob of gratitude escaped me. “Thank you, sir!”

Rising from his chair, Cody extended a hand across the chief’s desk. “I won’t forget this.”

Chief Bryant clasped his hand. “See that you don’t, son.”

Three days.

Three days.

Crap, they went so fast.

The news of the impending battle had spread throughout Pemkowet, and the mood in town was strained and sober. The initial exhilaration that Persephone’s offer had evoked had given way to a horrified seller’s remorse at the realization of the repercussions. Everywhere I
went, people asked me what I thought was going to happen, and all I could do was say I didn’t know.

In an effort to get insight from the one person who might, I visited the library and asked the Sphinx for advice, but all she did was stare at me with those odd, luminous brown eyes of hers until I began twitching my tail with discomfort, at which point the Sphinx informed me that she’d already given me all the counsel I needed.

Right. Learn to see with the eyes of the heart.
El Corazón
again, no more helpful than before.

In a surprising show of support, Amanda Brooks agreed to let Hel’s ragtag army set up a base camp on the old Cavannaugh property, the wedge of undeveloped land adjacent to Little Niflheim that had been in her family for generations. Between the lawsuit and the purchase of Hel’s territory, Dufreyne hadn’t bothered to pursue the acquisition of the Cavannaugh property, no doubt confident that Amanda would be willing to accept a much lower offer once her slice of untrammeled wilderness was overshadowed by a hulking resort complex.

I hoped that was a decision he’d have cause to regret.

If nothing else, the campsite gave us a great vantage point. We set up our operation on a long ridge of dune dotted with cottonwood trees and gnarled jack pines, high above the basin from which Yggdrasil II emerged to pierce the heavens and tower above the landscape. The formidable figure of the hellhound Garm appeared and disappeared as he patrolled the area in a tireless circuit, padding on paws the size of tractor tires. Garm glanced up a few times when Stefan and I first scouted the place, but apparently it was at enough of a remove that the hellhound would tolerate our presence.

Hel’s army was a motley crew. Members of the Outcast arrived on modified dirt bikes and ATVs, armed with assault rifles; members of
the Fairfax clan churned across the sand in Jeeps and pickup trucks, armed with hunting rifles and camping gear.

My bogle pal, Skrrzzzt, arrived on foot with half a six-pack of beer, armed with a baseball bat and a deck of playing cards. He got a game of poker going with Gus the ogre and the two trolls, who arrived armed
with clubs. Mrs. Browne arrived armed with a broom and a basketful of fresh bread and pastries.

There were a number of hobgoblins who arrived and promptly disguised themselves as shrubs, so I never did get a head count.

There were fairies who came and went on whirring wings, scouting and reporting—Ellie the hellebore fairy, and some of the early spring flower fairies, crocuses and snowdrops and delicate blue hepatica.

The sight of so many members of the eldritch community in one place was wondrous and amazing. It made my heart ache with love and terror, because so many of them looked so goddamn vulnerable.

The campsite wasn’t without its tensions. As the leader of the Outcast, not to mention a six-hundred-year-old knight, Stefan had assumed command of the operation, which didn’t sit well with the Fairfax clan. With less than twenty-four hours before the first day of spring was upon us, those tensions erupted.

“I don’t care how many battles you’ve seen—you can’t tell a man to lay down his gun!” Elijah Fairfax snarled at Stefan. “And you sure as hell can’t tell a wolf pack how to
hunt
!” Other members of the clan uttered low growls of assent.

Stefan’s eyes glittered. “The only access road across Hel’s territory leads them there.” He pointed to the far side of the vast bowl. “And right now, we don’t know for a surety what kind of army we’re facing. We don’t know whether you’ll be of more use as humans or wolves.”