“I get it, I get it!” I said. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“For one thing, don’t send anyone else my way,” Casimir said. “I locked the door and put up the Closed sign, because all I’ve got to offer at this point is a set of instructions I printed off the Internet for weaving your own Saint Brigid’s cross out of drinking straws.”
I paused. “Will it work?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m doing my best, Cas,” I said. “Has Sinclair been in touch?”
“Not today. Why?”
“He will be,” I said. “I’ve asked him to conjure a hex that will give me nightmares. Spine-tingling, bed-wetting nightmares. It’s the only way I’m going to catch this Night Hag. Can you help?”
There was a silence on the other end. “Are you sure about that, Miss Daisy?” Casimir’s voice had turned gentle.
“No,” I said. “Have you got any better ideas?”
“No.”
“Well, we’re going forward with Plan Hex,” I said. “The only downside, other than the prospect of terrifying nightmares and the fact that I have to somehow manage to overcome the Night Hag, is that it’s going to take a few days. Sinclair thinks he can have the charm ready for me by the night after tomorrow—” I heard a muffled banging sound in the background. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, just an angry villager pounding on my door,” Casimir said dourly. “Demanding that I open for business.”
“Cas, you’re going to have to reopen,” I said. “I need you to do whatever you can to reassure people and keep the peace, even if it’s just handing out instructions for weaving a cross out of drinking straws. Keep sending them to the hardware store—that ought to help. The thing is, this Night Hag phenomenon is wired into the human subconscious. Lots of people have reported experiencing an attack when there’s no possible way they could have. There’s a whole syndrome named after it. If people start panicking—”
“It’s going to be pandemonium,” he finished. “All right, all right. I hate to stake my reputation on the placebo effect, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’re the best.”
“Damn straight,” Casimir said. “Don’t you forget it.”
After calling Cody to give him a quick update on Plan Hex, I headed down to the police station. Pemkowet was a small town and the rumor mill worked fast. It had only been a couple of hours since the news of Mrs. Claussen’s death got out, but the phone was ringing off the hook with people calling in to ask about the danger posed by the Night Hag, and Chief Bryant was seriously disgruntled.
“I’ve got half the town afraid they’re going to be attacked in their sleep!” he thundered at me in the lobby. “And the other half will be by the end of the day! And I can’t promise that they won’t be. What, exactly, am I supposed to tell them, Daisy?”
The chief almost never yelled, but I hated it when he did. It made me feel about six years old.
“Tell them we’re working on it,” I said. “Tell them we expect to have the situation under control in the next seventy-two hours.”
Chief Bryant fixed me with a long, hard stare. “Do we?”
“Absolutely,” I said with a bravado I didn’t feel. “In the meantime, the Sisters of Selene is back open for business, and people can buy steel chain to wrap around their beds down at Drummond’s.”
He looked dubious. “And that will do the trick?”
“It ought to,” I said. “Anyone who’s unsure or thinks they’re at high risk can always leave town for a few days.”
“I’d prefer not to tell anyone to leave town.” Chief Bryant sighed and rumpled his graying hair. “You know, people wouldn’t have gotten so worked up over this before the whole Halloween debacle. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be concerned—a woman is dead, after all—but they wouldn’t have panicked like this.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I know it’s not your fault,” he said to me. “So, seventy-two hours, eh?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The chief returned my nod. “Then I’m going to put you on desk duty today, Daisy. You can give Patty a break, man the phones, and reassure folks that everything’s under control.”
My gut clenched a bit. I hoped like hell it was true. “Will do, sir.”
“Oh, and the official word on Mrs. Claussen is that she died of natural causes,” he added. “Right now, the less fuel we can add to the fire, the better. Doc Howard says that in her condition, she could have gone at any time, Night Hag or not. That’s his verdict and we’re sticking to it. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I spent a long day fielding calls from the anxious citizens of Pemkowet, repeating the same advice and reassurances, praying that they didn’t ring hollow. At least the chief spared me a confrontation with Amanda Brooks, who called to blister his ears with a rant about the fact that all the work she’d done promoting Pemkowet as a destination for the holidays was in jeopardy.
From what I could hear through the closed door of Chief Bryant’s office, he gave as good as he got this time. Yay, chief.
Mercifully, the calls had begun to taper off by the time my shift finally ended, though that eleven o’clock meeting I’d agreed to with Sinclair was looking awfully far away. The last twenty-four hours had been kind of exhausting, and now that I’d accepted the fact that there wasn’t anything I could do to catch the Night Hag tonight, all I wanted to do was order a pizza, open a bottle of wine, curl up on the couch with Mogwai and fall asleep watching some guilty-pleasure TV; something fluffy and girly to offset last night’s Saw marathon.
Well, at least I could do the pizza, couch, and cat part, and I flipped around the TV channels until I found Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, which, while not the girl-power tour de force of the original, was a good antidote to three hours of torture-porn. Instead of opening a bottle of cheap cabernet, I made a pot of strong coffee, which got me through the subsequent feature, Failure to Launch—the programming gods must have decreed tonight mediocre rom-com night, which was fine by me—and over to Sinclair’s by eleven.
I wasn’t exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—no pun intended—but I was awake and coherent.
“Come on in.” Sinclair ushered me into the living room, where his altar was located on a sideboard.
I glanced around. “No Jen?”
“Lee took her out to dinner and a movie,” he said. “I asked them not to come back until eleven thirty or so. This won’t take long.”
Despite the fact that I’d set them up, I felt an irrational surge of jealousy. It was Friday night, after all, and tired or not, I’d rather be out on a date than getting hexed. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Sinclair sat cross-legged on the floor with his back to the altar. “Have a seat across from me.”
I did as he said.
He opened one hand to reveal a small leather sack that looked a lot like the one his sister had used to place a hex on me a few months ago. Hell, for all I knew, it was the same bag. “All right. Tell me your deepest, darkest fear.”
Steeling myself, I told him.
Sinclair’s eyelids flickered. “Yeah, that’s a pretty big one.” Holding the bag cupped in both hands, he bent over and whispered into it, then tied it shut with a length of cord. Rising, he turned and placed it in an empty half of a coconut shell on his altar, which also held a handful of seashells, including a bead-encrusted conch, a dried starfish, and a framed print depicting Yemaya. There were three black taper candles surrounding the coconut shell, unlit, and a single blue pillar burning brightly.
The last time I’d seen Sinclair’s altar, the candles had been white. It was an unpleasant reminder of the line I’d asked him to cross.
One by one, he lit the black tapers from the pillar, setting them carefully back in place. A faint acrid scent arose. “Okay.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“More or less.” Sinclair looked tired. “I ne
ed to let the candles burn down tonight, then another set tomorrow, and another the day after. Then it’s all yours.”
“You don’t need a drop of blood or a lock of my hair or anything like that?”
He shook his head. “No. Put it under your pillow when it’s ready. It’s the same kind of charm Emmy used on you,” he added. “A real practitioner would probably hide it under your mattress.”
“Remind me to start checking under my mattress.” I got to my feet. “Thanks. I owe you.”
He gave me a tired smile. “Put it in your ledger.”
“I know you’re joking, but I will. I’m starting to take that thing seriously.” A thought struck me. “Hey, Thanksgiving’s next week, isn’t it? Would you like to join Mom and me for dinner? I don’t mean to brag, but we throw a mean feast.”
Sinclair hesitated.
“That’s okay.” I backtracked. “You’re probably going down to Kalamazoo to spend it with your dad.”
“No, we never really celebrated Thanksgiving,” he said. “It’s not something my father grew up with. But, um, Stacey invited me to have Thanksgiving dinner with her family.”
“Oh.” I felt stupid. “Well, you should go, obviously.”
“Look, it’s not like this is some big introduce-the-new-boyfriend-to-the-family thing, Daisy,” he said. “I mean, I already know her mother. It’s just . . . Stacey knew I didn’t have any relatives in town, and her brother’s coming in for the holiday, and—”
“It’s okay.” I held up one hand. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a thought.”
“A nice thought.” Sinclair smiled again, this time with genuine warmth. “Thanks, sistah.”
“Anytime.”
“Do you want to hang out until Jen gets back?” He nodded at the altar. “I’ve got to stay up until these burn down anyway.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” Even if I wasn’t exhausted, the scenario had a definite third-wheel feel to it. It didn’t help that Sinclair had used the words new boyfriend in reference to his relationship with Stacey freakin’ Brooks. “I’m pretty beat. You’ll let me know when the charm’s ready?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’ll light the third set of candles as soon as my last tour ends on Sunday.”
“Great.”
On that note, I drove home alone to my couch and my cat, where I fell asleep watching Katherine Heigl agonize her way through 27 Dresses.
At least the programming gods of mediocre romantic comedies were still with me.
Nineteen
The good thing about the following two days was that there were no further Night Hag casualties.
The bad thing was . . . well, pretty much everything else. The chief was right; if it hadn’t been for the Halloween debacle, the town wouldn’t have gotten so riled up. Longtime residents of Pemkowet regarded the eldritch community with a complicated mixture of indulgence, pride, and tolerance. Everyone knew that if you didn’t want to consort with ghouls, you avoided the Wheelhouse. If you didn’t want to consort with vampires, you stayed the hell away from Twilight Manor and declined any offers from unnaturally pallid individuals hitting on you at last call.
By and large, there were places you didn’t go and things you didn’t do. As for the more malicious fey, the pranks they played on humans were considered the province of tourists, or foolish local kids who ignored their parents’ warnings.
Now it was different.
It was different because the Night Hag was doing what the Tall Man had done: going after Pemkowet’s own.
People were scared and angry, and they had a right to be. Even though Doc Howard had ruled that Mrs. Claussen’s death was due to natural causes, which I guess was technically true, the rumor was out there.
Everyone knew.
Everyone was afraid.
And as a result, we got a steady stream of complaints regarding Night Hag attacks, with the majority of calls coming in from around three to six o’clock in the morning. With either me or Cody in tow, Chief Bryant followed up on each and every report personally, using the dwarf-wrought watch I’d given him to check for residual signs of eldritch presence.
Ironically, there weren’t any.
Either the Night Hag was lying low or the precautions Casimir recommended had succeeded in protecting those at the highest risk of an attack. Or the bitch had left town altogether, which I almost hoped wasn’t true, because I had plans for her.
Well, assuming Sinclair’s hex worked, at any rate, and assuming I could manage to overcome the Night Hag. And yes, I know what they say about “assume.” Call it wishful thinking; call it denial; but I figured I’d sweat the details when the time came.
Needless to say, no one in town took the chief’s assurances that their perceived attacks were the products of an over-fevered imagination particularly well. It’s just not a flattering thing to hear. Thank God for the Fabulous Casimir, because if it hadn’t been for him, I suspect we would have had triple the number of complaints. As it was, Drummond’s Hardware ran out of steel chain and Tafts Grocery sold out of boxes of drinking straws.
Anyway.
Suffice it to say that it was a grueling couple of days. By the time Sinclair called me at a little before nine o’clock on Sunday night to say that the hex charm was ready, my nerves were frazzled. I was on edge and ready to be done with it.
“Are you sure about this, Daisy?” Sinclair asked me, the leather pouch in his hand and worry in his eyes. “It’s dangerous, you know.”
Now that the moment was here, there was a part of me that wanted to say no. Hell, are any of us ever prepared to face our deepest, darkest fears? Not to mention the part where I had to subdue the Night Hag.
But there was the memory of Scott Evans, the muzzle of his pistol jammed under his chin; of seven-year-old Danny Reynolds afraid of the night and the terrors it held; of the lingering rictus of fear on Mrs. Claussen’s face, her crabbed hands raised in a futile gesture of defense.
“Yeah.” I held out my hand. “I’m sure.”
Sinclair placed the charm into my palm. “Like I said, put it under your pillow. Make sure there’s no cold iron around you, especially . . . what’s it called? Your, um, magic dagger?”
“Dauda-dagr?”
“Right.” He nodded. “It probably shouldn’t even be under the same roof as you, okay?”
“Good point.” I’d made sure dauda-dagr wasn’t in the bedroom with me when we’d tried the other night, but maybe that wasn’t enough.
“You’re doing this out at Cody’s?” Sinclair asked. I nodded. “Tell him . . . tell him to stay out of your way, to let the nightmare run its course. But to be careful.” He sighed. “Shit, I don’t know what to tell him, Daisy. Or you. Just . . . both of you be careful, okay?”
“Can you be more specific?” I asked him wryly.
He shook his head. “Not really. This is uncharted territory.”
I tightened my fist on the hex charm in its leather pouch and kissed his cheek. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good luck,” Sinclair said. “And when it’s over, bring the charm back. I’ll make sure it’s undone.”
“I will,” I said to him. “Thanks, Sinclair. For everything.”
Hex charm in hand, I drove out to Cody’s place in the countryside.
If things had been a little awkward between us the last time, this time it was ten times worse. Somehow, the fact that working on the case had led directly to our initial attempt made it feel more like a professional undertaking. Even watching back-to-back Saw movies and downing hoagies was part of the job. This time, it was late enough that both of us had already eaten, but early enough that neither of us was ready for sleep, and there was nothing constructive and time-consuming to distract us from the fact that we were alone together in Cody’s house.
“So, um, Sinclair suggested that dauda-dagr shouldn’t be under the same roof,” I said, casting around for a safe topic of conversation. “I thought maybe I could stash it in your workshop.�
��
“Good idea,” Cody said. “I’ll store my duty belt and gear out there for the night.” He frowned in thought. “What about silverware?”
“What about it?” I asked.
“It’s stainless steel,” he said. “It might have a high enough iron content to count.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure none of the Night Hag’s victims had emptied their kitchen drawers,” I said. “On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt.”
“Right.”
So in addition to stashing dauda-dagr and Cody’s duty belt with his service pistol, flashlight, handcuffs, and other accoutrements in the outbuilding behind his house where he had his leatherworking studio, we hauled several drawers of silverware and kitchen utensils and a cupboard full of pots and pans out back, along with a toaster, a toolbox, his off-duty pistol, an ancient metal fan, a floor lamp, and a cast-iron poker.
At least it gave us something to do.
“What about the grate?” Cody eyed the fireplace. “That probably ought to go.”
As far as fireplaces go, it was tidy and well swept, but that’s not saying much. The grate was still encrusted with years’ worth of soot and ash residue. “We might be overthinking this, Cody.”
“Probably,” he agreed. “Do you want to take that chance?”
I sighed. “I’ll hold the door for you.”
To call it a dirty job was an understatement. Wrestling the heavy cast-iron grate out of the fireplace and hauling it to the workshop out back was a filthy job. By the time it was done, Cody had sooty grime smeared all the way up to his elbows, and all over the front of his jeans and flannel shirt. Standing in the doorway of the workshop, surveying the array of household goods we’d dragged into it, both of us recognized the absurdity of what we’d done and burst into helpless peals of laughter.
“Oh, my God!” Cody rubbed tears of laughter from his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Okay, the grate was overkill.”
“You just . . .” I pointed at him, laughing too hard to get the words out. At that moment in time, Cody’s soot-smeared eye sockets were the funniest thing I’d ever seen. “Your face!” I finally managed to gasp. “You look like you lost a fight.”
Poison Fruit Page 15
