Poison Fruit (36 page)

“Did you hook up?” Jen asked.

“No,” I said. “We’re taking things slowly.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said. “Are you going to see him again?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “We’re having brunch next Saturday.”

“Brunch?”

“Yep.”

“Something about the idea of Stefan the hot ghoul doing brunch just seems . . . wrong,” Jen commented.

“I know, right?” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to say about the throw pillows.”

“Okay, well, I want a full report next Sunday,” she said. “Sinclair said to let you know that the coven’s working on the charm. He has something else he wants to talk to you about, but they need to do more research.”

“Okay.”

On Monday, I was called in to the station to cover the front desk for Patty Rogan, who was out with the flu. Chief Bryant gave me a long, appraising look, the expression on his face unreadable.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Daisy,” he said to me.

Most of the time I appreciated the paternal interest the chief took in me, but today it rubbed me the wrong way. “Duly noted, sir.”

He gave me a slow nod of acknowledgment and didn’t push the issue, for which I was grateful.

Other than my debut with Stefan as Pemkowet’s premier eldritch power couple, the pending lawsuit was still the main topic of conversation in town. The big news was that the tri-community boards had voted to accept Lurine’s offer, and her high-priced celebrity lawyer, Robert Diaz, was coming to town to consult with the defendants and
their lawyers. Since Diaz wasn’t licensed to practice in Michigan, he couldn’t actually represent us, but he would be providing counsel every step of the way, starting with a formal request that the judge replace Dufreyne due to conflict of interest.

Under normal circumstances, I thought, that seemed like a no-brainer. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

I had an hour to go on my shift when Cody entered the station, bringing the scent of snow and pine trees with him. Without a word, he tossed a folded sheet of thick stationery, battered and dirt-smudged and sealed with a blot of red wax, on the desk in front of me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I was supposed to give this to you a week ago.” Cody’s tone was flat. “Open it.”

I broke the seal and opened the paper to find an official invitation to attend a gathering of the Fairfax clan on Sunday, January 19, in my capacity as Hel’s liaison. It was signed by Cody’s uncle Elijah, who was officially the head of the clan.

It wasn’t quite a punch to the gut, but it hurt. “I see.” I folded the invitation. “Why did you wait so long?”

Cody shrugged. “Guess I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. But now I hear you’ve moved on.”

Okay, that was a low blow. “Not by choice,” I reminded him.

His upper lip curled, revealing eyeteeth that were a bit too long. “You could have chosen anyone but Ludovic!”

My temper stirred. “Don’t go there,” I said to Cody. “Just . . . don’t. You have
no
right.”

“I can’t help—” He cut off his sentence as Chief Bryant poked his head out from his office.

“Everything all right?” the chief asked, glancing back and forth between us.

“Fine, sir,” Cody said stiffly. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

“I see.” The chief’s gaze was shrewd. I had a feeling Cody and I had just blown our cover, but the chief didn’t pursue it. “Don’t forget to swing by the Chandlers’ place,” he said to Cody. “They’re in the
Bahamas this week and I promised we’d keep an eye on it. They had a break-in when they were on vacation last year.”

“Right.” Cody nodded. “Will do.”

Chief Bryant waited for Cody to leave, then ambled over to my desk. “This business with you and Ludovic,” he said, without looking directly at me. “Does it have anything to do with Officer Fairfax?”

“No.”

“Good.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “These are difficult times. Try not to make them harder, all right? We really can’t afford distractions that affect morale in the department.”

I wanted to say that it wasn’t my fault; that Cody had made his choice and he had to live with it. But I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to openly admit that we’d had a relationship, sort of. “Understood, sir.”

The chief clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Glad to hear it.”

Thirty-five

T
he following Saturday, Stefan and I had our second date.

As promised, he took me to brunch—a fancy, upscale buffet brunch at the Brookdale Country Club.

I’d only ever driven past the place. If the weather had held, the snow-covered grounds would have been picturesque, but the cold snap had broken, and the golf course was a vast expanse of sodden, patchy turf.

As before, our appearance was greeted with excitement and consternation, gray-haired patrons whispering as Stefan and I were seated. The Brookdale Country Club definitely catered to an older demographic.

At least they put on a good spread. And yes, the sight of Stefan standing in line at the buffet and meticulously placing smoked salmon, paper-thin slices of red onion, and capers on blini with a schmeer of herbed cream cheese was . . . bizarre.

“You know, you don’t have to do this,” I said to him when we returned to our table.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “I gave you my word, Daisy.”

“I mean the food thing.” I gestured at his plate. “You don’t actually derive pleasure from it, do you?”

Stefan paused. “Not exactly, no. But I enjoy the ritual of dining and
the sense of communion it evokes.” Wielding his utensils European-style, he cut his blini in quarters. “So.” He speared a piece with his upside-down fork. “I promised you candor. You wish to know my history with others of your kind. Is there more?”

I sliced into my own first course, a thick slab of prime rib that was
just shy of medium rare. And yes, I realize it wasn’t even noon yet, but, hey, it was offered at the carving station. “Well, that’s the big one. But of course, there’s more.”

“Such as?” he inquired politely.

Chewing a succulent bite of prime rib, I studied Stefan. The overcast daylight filtering through the windows alleviated the impact of his unnatural pallor, making him look almost mortal. Twenty-nine. I’d been sure he was older; but then, I suppose twenty-nine in the fifteenth century was a more mature age than it was in the twenty-first. Still, I could see it now that I was looking.

“The thing is, I’m not sure where to draw the line between getting to know you and prying into painful topics,” I said. “I mean, there are the obvious questions.”

“Of course.” He gave a faint, wistful smile. “You wonder if I had a wife and children.”

Actually, I wondered if there had been multiple wives and children over the centuries. “Did you?”

“A wife, yes.” Stefan reached for the bottle of champagne in the freestanding ice bucket beside the table and topped off our glasses. “No children. She miscarried twice, and the third was stillborn.”

“I’m sorry.”

“At the time, it was cause for great sorrow. Since then . . .” Stefan shrugged. “I do not know. It may have been worse to become anathema to my own flesh and blood, to watch them age and die at a distance, while I endured.”

I took another bite. “Did you ever marry again?”

“No,” he said. “Never. There have been women, women I have loved. But it seemed unfair to wed them, when I could give them neither children nor the comfort and solace of growing old together.”

“So the Outcast can’t have children?” I murmured. That was
something I’d wondered about. Not that I was considering it or anything, but I’d wondered.

Stefan shook his head. “Those of us who have been touched by death can bring no new life into the world.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Forgive me,” he said gravely. “I did not know you were unaware. I did not mean to mislead you, Daisy.”

“You didn’t.” I fiddled with my fork. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, obviously, I was aware that there were, um, drawbacks to any relationship we might have, what with the fact that you’re immortal and I’m not.”

“Does it frighten you?” Stefan asked.

“Of course it frightens me!” I said. “I’d be crazy if it didn’t. But honestly, right now, it doesn’t frighten me as much as what I
don’t
know, like why you were so reluctant to talk about your past with hell-spawns.”

“Why does it concern you so?” He sounded genuinely interested. “It was a very long time ago.”

“Because you’re avoiding the issue!” I said. “And, um, someone implied that I ought to know.”

Stefan frowned. “Someone?”

I sighed. “Daniel Dufreyne, okay? I saw him at the Market Bistro the other night. And no, I don’t trust him, but frankly, I don’t know what to think. So just tell me, all right?”

“Very well.” Bracing himself, Stefan took a deep breath. “When I was mortal, we hunted and dispatched hell-spawns.”

Yikes. Okay, not what I expected. “We?” I asked in a small voice.

“The Knights of the Cross with the Red Star,” he replied in a quiet tone. “It was part of our mission. There were more of them in those days, when faith was a simpler matter.”

I didn’t say anything.

“It was a different time, Daisy,” Stefan said. “And I was a different
man. And they . . . they were unlike you. Creatures of chaos and destruction, bent on bringing about the end of the world.”

A resounding crash made me jump in my seat and glance involuntarily upward, half expecting to see the dome of heaven cracking, but it was only a busboy dropping a tray full of dishes.

Even so, it made my skin prickle. “How many did you kill?” I whispered.

Stefan’s gaze didn’t waver. “Three.”

“Were any of them born of innocents?” I asked him. “You said they weren’t like me, but . . . were they?”

He hesitated. “Two were part of an intricate occult conspiracy, conceived under circumstances rather, I suspect, like this lawyer Dufreyne. Perhaps its legacy is where his knowledge of our history comes from. And one . . . one was not.”

“Tell me about him,” I said. “Or was it a her?”

“It was a boy,” Stefan said. “
He
was a boy.”

“You killed a
child
?” I pushed my plate away, my appetite gone. “Jesus, Stefan!”

“We followed the report of rumors in the countryside,” he said. “We found a simple unwed peasant woman, her mind shattered beyond repair. We brought the woman and her ten-year-old son to the hospital in Prague. We gave her the best care possible and took in her son as a ward of the order. We watched and observed as he grew toward maturity.”

“Oh, so you didn’t slaughter him outright?” I said with bitter sarcasm. “Bravo. That could have been my mom, you know. That could have been
me
.”

“Your mother’s mind is very much intact, Daisy,” Stefan murmured. “This woman taught her son to believe he was the new Messiah and that he must claim his heritage and his birthright when he came of age.”

“So you killed him?”

“We watched him,” Stefan repeated. “We attempted to educate and guide him. And we failed.”

“Did he claim his birthright?” I asked, gesturing around me. “Because as far as I can tell, the world’s still standing.”

Stefan looked away. “When he was thirteen years of age, he slaughtered every horse in the hospital’s stables in a fit of rage, with a cleaver he’d stolen from the kitchen. I was the one who found him. I heard the horses screaming in panic, but I arrived too late. Outside of a battlefield, it was the worst scene of carnage I had ever witnessed. The boy was covered in blood, laughing. He told me that now that he’d been
baptized, he meant to claim his birthright, and that we would all be sorry for it. And then he began the invocation.” He looked back at me, his pupils steady in his ice-blue eyes. “So yes, I killed him.”

I swallowed hard. The sight of my prime rib swimming in red meat juices had gone from unappetizing to sickening. “I don’t know what to say, Stefan. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I told you it was not a fit topic for dinner conversation,” he said.

“What made you think it would be better suited to
brunch
?” I’d raised my voice, turning heads.

“I thought it would be better suited to daylight,” Stefan said quietly. “It is not a memory I care to revisit.”

“Okay.” I grabbed my champagne glass and downed half its contents. “So what happened to make you go from executing hell-spawns to dating one?”

“There were great scholars in the Church in those days,” he said. “Great thinkers, great humanitarians. But in certain matters, their doctrine was rigid. When I became Outcast, I became anathema, shunned and reviled. And I began to perceive that God’s plan for humankind may be more vast and complex than we can comprehend. Perhaps one of the Outcast could have helped that boy.”

“Like you offered to help me the first time we met?” I asked him. “Jesus! Is that what you think I need?”

“No.” Stefan’s expression was grave. “I offered my services unknowing. I have encountered few of your kind since I was Outcast, and none like you. Until I made inquiries, I was uncertain of your nature.”

“And now?”

“Daisy . . .” He sighed. “No, I do not think you
need
my help. You are a grown woman capable of managing your emotions. But I think
that the methods you have learned so well prevent you from being your truest self.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s a good thing,” I said. “What with the existential threat I represent and all.”

“Do you believe that?” Stefan asked.

“I’m not sure what I believe.” I raked a hand through my hair.
“Okay, here’s a question for you. Would you be interested in me if I
wasn’t
a demon’s daughter?”

“We cannot separate who we are from what we are, Daisy,” Stefan said. “I suspect the hell-spawn Dufreyne has his own reasons for wishing to sow doubt in your mind. Perhaps in becoming your truest version of yourself, you pose a threat to his goals. You have powerful emotions that you yearn to express.” His pupils flared. “And I have powerful needs. What we can offer each other is . . . unique.”