Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey

  The memory made me wriggle my tail a bit.

  At last the Sphinx did blink once with great deliberation, crepe-skinned lids closing and opening over those unusual eyes. She rattled off a string of numbers in her surprisingly deep voice, and went back to filing DVDs.

  Luckily, I’d been braced for the possibility. When you asked the Sphinx for advice, she either posed you an impenetrable riddle or directed you toward the appropriate research materials.

  I retained enough of the sequence of numbers she’d recited to plunge into the stacks in search of a particular volume. And yes, that does mean the Sphinx has the library’s entire catalogue memorized by the Dewey Decimal System call numbers.

  Unfortunately, the volume in question was a book on sleep disorders. I went back to the counter. The Sphinx ignored me. Her head, wrapped in a paisley scarf, remained bowed over her task.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Ms. Smith? I’m sorry, I’m actually looking for Night Hags in folklore.”

  Her head came up. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I’m trying to catch one. A Night Hag, that is.”

  “Ah.” The Sphinx nodded sagely. “Some pass through the gate at dawn crowned; some do not. Some pass through the gate at nightfall crowned; some do not.”

  I waited to see if there was more.

  There wasn’t. Just a long, unnerving stare from those round, luminous brown eyes that set my tail twitching.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I was halfway across the library when the Sphinx called my name. “Daisy Johanssen.”

  I turned. “Yes?”

  The power of her stare didn’t lessen over distance. “Learn to see with the eyes of your heart as well as your mind,” she said, tapping her chest with one gnarled forefinger. “When the time comes, you will need it.”

  I hesitated. “Um . . . is this still about the Night Hag?”

  The Sphinx made a shooing gesture. “When the time comes, you will know.” She paused, then added, “Or not.”

  One of the library patrons, a portly gentleman who looked to be of retirement age, strolled past me to approach the checkout counter holding a book from the New Releases shelf. Pemkowet’s resident oracle took his book and scanned it while he pulled out his wallet and fumbled for his library card.

  Ohh-kay.

  Clearly, I’d been dismissed. Well, as far as encounters with the Sphinx went, that wasn’t entirely unproductive. At least I’d gotten a riddle and a piece of soothsaying out of it, even if I had no idea what either meant.

  Next up, Sinclair’s ritual tattooing.

  If you’re wondering what that’s all about, Sinclair is apprenticed to the local coven. He’s actually descended from a long line of obeah practitioners, but until recently, he’d been avoiding claiming his heritage—which, now that I think about it, is something else we had in common. Well, except for the part where claiming it could breach the Inviolate Wall and unleash Armageddon.

  At any rate, he’s claimed it now, on his own terms. The tattoo isn’t mandatory or anything, but according to Casimir, having a seal tattooed on your own skin is one of the most powerful protection wards you can obtain. And conveniently enough, two of the members of the coven, Mark and Sheila Reston, happened to own a tattoo parlor. Since the events of Halloween, they’d been working with Sinclair to develop his own personal sigil.

  There were a fair number of people crowded into the tattoo parlor when I arrived. I wasn’t surprised to see Casimir, since he was the head of the coven and his shop was right across the street, or Warren Rodgers, who owned a nursery and landscaping business and had taken Sinclair on as a mentee and part-time employee during the off-season when tourism was slow. I was a little surprised to see Jen and Lee—but then, Jen and Sinclair had become fairly good friends since she’d sublet a room in his rental house last fall.

  Stacey Brooks, though . . . that I was not expecting. At all.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” I greeted Jen. “What are you doing here?” I lowered my voice. “And what the fuck is she doing here?”

  Jen grimaced. “Yeah, um . . . Sinclair invited me, and since Lee and I were going for coffee, we figured we’d stop by. And . . . okay, they’ve been spending time together, but I was really hoping it wouldn’t last and I’d never have to mention it to you.”

  “Son of a bitch!” My tail lashed, and the atmosphere in the crowded tattoo parlor crackled with rising tension. A set of chimes hanging over the front door, probably part of a protection ward, shivered and clanged unhappily.

  “Daise, be cool,” Jen warned me.

  “I’m cool, I’m cool.” I visualized stuffing my volatile mix of jealousy and profound irritation in a box, tying a bow around it, and setting it aside for later. Above the door, the chimes quieted.

  “Hey, Daisy!” Sinclair threaded his way through the parlor to greet me with a hug. “Thanks for coming. Sorry about the short notice.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I need to talk to you anyway. It’s a professional matter. Will you have a minute later?”

  “Sure.” Sinclair nodded, the beads in his short dreadlocks rattling. “Stick around.” Stacey Brooks came up behind him to slide a possessive hand around his arm. “You two know each other, right?”

  I want to say Stacey gave me a simpering smile that did nothing to mask her gloating look, because that’s what the Stacey Brooks I’d known since kindergarten would have done, but the truth is, she looked nervous—possibly because the last time we’d seen each other, I’d been dispatching the zombie skeleton that was trying to hack her into pieces, possibly because we were getting too old for all this adolescent bullshit. My money was on the zombie.

  “Of course,” Stacey said in a tentative voice. “Hi, Daisy.”

  “Hi,” I said. “I saw your mom the other day. Congratulations on the new position.”

  “Thanks.” She looked relieved. “I’m looking forward to taking on more responsibility.”

  “That’s great.” I turned back to Sinclair. “I didn’t know you were allowed to let, um, civilians attend this.”

  “Oh, it’s fine as long as they stay outside the ritual circle,” he assured me. Flashing his infectious grin, he gestured at Jen and Lee. “Plus, they’re your Scooby Gang, right? Of course they can be here.”

  I sort of wished I’d never made that joke, or at least never explained it to Sinclair, especially now that Stacey was apparently making a bid for the role of unlikely mean-girl ally.

  Oh, well.

  “People!” The Fabulous Casimir clapped his beautifully manicured hands for attention. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

  The ritual itself was simple. Sheila Reston drew a chalk circle on the floor of the parlor large enough to encompass her husband’s tattoo station and sufficient room for the other members of the coven who were present. The rest of us squished ourselves into the outskirts while the coven called the four quarters and invoked the blessing of the Lord and Lady, bringing a charged sense into the space. The chimes hanging above the front door stirred and sounded again, this time on a harmonious note.

  “This is fascinating,” Lee murmured. Jen nudged him with her elbow to silence him. For being on a sort-of first date, they seemed more comfortable together than I would have expected.

  After the invocation, it was pretty much just a matter of Mark Reston giving Sinclair a tattoo while the rest of us watched.

  I have to admit, I drew a sharp breath when Mark applied the stencil to the upper part of Sinclair’s left pectoral and I saw the details of the sigil. When we’d talked about it earlier, Sinclair had said he couldn’t wait for me to see it, but he wanted to keep it a secret. The outer circle of the sigil incorporated the curving lines I associated with the split-tailed figure of Yemaya, the orisha to whom Sinclair was dedicated. I recognized some of the squiggly talismanic glyphs in the inner circle from the Seal of Solomon that Casimir had given me for protection. I wore it on
a silver chain around my own neck, right next to the Oak King’s token.

  But nestled in the innermost circle of Sinclair’s sigil was a stylized rendering of a stalk of joe-pye weed in full bloom.

  Across the parlor, Sinclair caught my eye. I nodded my understanding, and he returned my nod with sorrow and regret.

  Jojo.

  Jojo the joe-pye weed fairy had been a foulmouthed, sparkly little bitch with a wicked crush on Sinclair. When the Tall Man cut her down, Jojo had been trying in her own ridiculous way to protect Sinclair from the death-magic his own mother had unleashed on Pemkowet.

  The tattoo needle buzzed steadily as Mark Reston etched ink onto Sinclair’s skin, until at length he announced, “Done.”

  The sigil didn’t stand out vividly against Sinclair’s cocoa-brown skin, but it was beautiful; and hopefully, effective. With one last invocation and a chorus of “So mote it be,” the four members of the coven in attendance called a ceremonial end to the ritual. Sheila Reston swept the chalk circle away briskly with a broom while her husband swabbed Sinclair’s chest with antibiotic ointment and applied an adhesive bandage.

  “Cas!” I called to Casimir as he made his way toward the exit. “Hey, did the Evanses come in this morning? Were you able to get them set up?”

  The Fabulous One pursed his carmine lips. “They did and I was, although I had to offer them most of it on account, which, I might add, I did for your sake, Miss Daisy, since you seemed so concerned.” He shrugged. “Mr. Evans is strung awfully tight, dahling. You’re sure he’s not . . . ?” He raised his plucked eyebrows and circled one manicured finger in the vicinity of his temple.

  “No,” I said honestly. “He’s pretty fucked up, and I don’t blame him for it. But he’s right about the Night Hag.”

  The shrewdness that lurked behind Casimir’s false eyelashes surfaced. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “Do you have a lot of whatever charms and wards you sold them in stock?”

  He shook his head. “Not a lot, no.”

  I laid one hand on his shoulder, which was draped in a vintage brocade kimono. “Time to order more.”

  Ten

  Jen and Lee’s sort-of coffee date that afternoon turned into a group affair.

  It wasn’t my fault. Sinclair invited me to get a cup of coffee with him to discuss whatever was on my mind. Stacey decided to join us—and by us, I mean Sinclair—and Jen jumped in to suggest that we all go together. Lee looked a bit crestfallen, but I didn’t want to take the time to argue.

  Which is why the five of us were sitting at a table across the street at the Daily Grind—okay, not the most original of names, but since they do roast their own beans and grind them fresh to order, I guess they’re entitled to it—making awkward conversation while we waited for our orders to be called.

  “Why do you always carry that clunky old thing?” Stacey asked me as I adjusted my messenger bag over the back of my chair. I actually think she might have been trying to make small talk, not slam me, because she flushed and backtracked, fidgeting with her ash-brown hair; which, of course, had expensive blond highlights. “I just mean . . . if it’s about money, you can get really cute designer knockoffs these days.”

  Across the table, Jen raised her eyebrows at me.

  “It’s not about money,” I said to Stacey. “I keep my magic dagger in here.”

  Her flush deepened. “I was being serious.”

  “So was I.” I patted my messenger bag. “You ever try to find a purse that can hold a dagger the length of your forearm? This clunky old thing was custom-made. It has a hidden sheath.”

  “Oh.”

  The barista called our order and Lee jumped up with alacrity, not to mention more physical coordination than I would have given him credit for. Joining the gym was definitely having a positive impact on him. “I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll help,” Sinclair added hastily.

  Cowards.

  “Okay,” I said when the guys had returned and distributed our assorted beverages. “As long as you’re all here, I actually could use your help with this. We’ve got a Night Hag on the loose.” I told them what had happened, omitting the Evanses’ names, and what I’d learned since from Lurine and the Sphinx, omitting Lurine’s name.

  “So you’re looking for me to hook you up with one of the fey?” Sinclair asked.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “It’s a starting place, anyway. Can you do it?”

  “Sure.”

  Lee frowned. “What about the Sphinx’s riddle?”

  “Knock yourself out,” I said. “Got any theories?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Well, let me know if you do. In the meantime . . .” I shrugged. “Keep your ears open. Ask around. If you hear of any likely Night Hag visitations, let me know. Oh, and send them to Casimir. He’s going to lay in a stock of protection charms.”

  “Maybe you should write a letter to the editor, Daise,” Jen suggested in a pragmatic tone. “Get the word out and warn people.”

  “Oh, please don’t!” Stacey said quickly. The PVB’s new head of online promotion looked pained. “It’s just . . . after the fallout from the Halloween incident, we really, really can’t afford any more negative press.”

  “Which is soooo much more important than the public safety of us ordinary citizens,” Jen retorted. “Right?”

  Stacey appealed to me. “You did say the Night Hag couldn’t actually kill people in their sleep, didn’t you? Just scare them?”

  “Um, yeah. Possibly scare them to death.” I sighed, turning to Jen. “Look, it’s a good idea and ordinarily, I’d agree with you, but there are a couple of problems. One, Casimir doesn’t have a whole lot of inventory yet. If there’s a run on it, someone who really needs protection could be left in the lurch. Two, I don’t want to start a panic. Apparently, this whole Night Hag thing is sunk deep in humanity’s collective unconscious, and I’m afraid if people knew, it would trigger a lot of false alarms.”

  “And you just want to catch the bitch,” Jen observed.

  “Exactly.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Stacey Brooks watching our exchange with a slightly wistful expression, and it occurred to me that she hadn’t known what it was like to have a BFF since high school. The rest of the mean-girls coterie—which, by the way, was one of the vocabulary words Mr. Leary had drilled into me—had moved on without her, taking jobs outside of Pemkowet after college. All Stacey had left to cling to were the remnants of our juvenile antipathy, which was also another one of Mr. Leary’s vocabulary words.

  Well, that and apparently my ex-boyfriend. The clinging, that is, not the vocabulary word.

  I finished my mocha latte. “Is now an okay time?” I asked Sinclair. “I’d like to keep moving on this.”

  “Absolutely.” He glanced at Stacey as he rose. “I’ll text you later, all right?”

  Stacey lifted her chin. “Absolutely.”

  Oh, yuck. Just shoot me.

  During the off-season, Sinclair only ran tours on Saturdays and Sundays. Since it was a weekday, the fairies were off duty at his regular stops, so he suggested that we rendezvous at his house instead. Mercifully, Stacey had to get back to the PVB, so it was just the two of us. After accidentally crashing Jen and Lee’s sort-of date, I’d insisted on buying them another cup of coffee—or more accurately, another short cappuccino and another cup of chai tea. Jen shot me an evil look behind Lee’s back, which I ignored. I had the feeling she actually was interested in Lee, but she just needed a push to admit it to herself.

  And if I was wrong, it was fair payback for the UR HAWTT! text.

  I followed Sinclair out to his place, where the old double-decker tour bus he’d bought on craigslist was parked in the driveway, advertising PEMKOWET SUPERNATURAL TOURS in vivid red, green, and yellow.

  “Come on out back,” Sinclair said, heading around the corner of the house.

  Since he’d begun working part-
time for Warren Rodgers at the nursery, Sinclair had discovered an affinity for herbs and he had big plans for the backyard come spring, but right now, it was pretty sparse, mostly hard-packed dirt with brittle patches of dead grass and some weeds along the back fence.

  “Ellie!” Sinclair called softly. “Ellie, can you come out for a minute?”

  A clump of straggly dark green weeds stirred, and a fairy emerged from it. Her skin was a pale chartreuse, and a cape of pointy dark green leaves hung from her shoulders, trailing on the cold ground and concealing the translucent wings folded on her back. She narrowed cat-slitted yellow eyes at me with disdain. “Who is she and why hast thou brought her here?”

  When it comes to Sinclair, fairies get a little possessive.

  “Hi,” I said, holding up my left hand so she could see Hel’s rune etched on my palm. “I’m Daisy.”

  The fairy sniffed. “Thou most certainly are not.”

  Fairies also have a tendency to be very, very literal. “Not a daisy,” I said to her. “It’s a human name, too. I’m Hel’s liaison. Will you answer a few questions for me?”

  “Why?” Her yellow gaze darted back and forth between Sinclair and me.

  “Please, Ellie?” Sinclair said. “It’s just a few questions.”

  She hesitated.

  “I’ll record it in my ledger,” I said. “One favor owed to Ellie the, um . . .” I had no idea what in the world kind of fairy she was.

  “Hellebore fairy,” Sinclair supplied.

  “Right,” I said. “One favor owed to Ellie the hellebore fairy, recorded in my ledger.”

  Ellie’s yellow eyes glowed with avarice. I’m telling you, that ledger was a useful tool. “Very well. Ask.”

  “I’m trying to catch a Night Hag who’s preying on humans,” I said. “I was told to ask the fey. Do you know how I can do that?”