Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey

  “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.”

  Stefan and I regarded each other in silence for a moment. The background murmur of voices in the restaurant increased in volume. The clumsy busboy made a careful exit with his reloaded tray of dirty dishes.

  I had a feeling we’d just provided the patrons of the Brookdale Country Club with a month’s worth of gossip.

  I cleared my throat. “Would you be offended if I asked you to take me home?”

  “Of course not.”

  It was a silent drive through the gray drizzle back to my apartment. I didn’t quite know what to think about Stefan’s past. I felt like a vampire who’d just learned she was dating Van Helsing, although that wasn’t entirely fair. As he’d said, it had been a different time and he’d been a different man—a mortal man.

  A mortal man who’d executed a thirteen-year-old boy. A sociopathic hell-spawn of a boy bent on bringing about Armageddon.

  “What was his name?” I asked Stefan as he pulled into the alley. “The boy.”

  He parked the Lexus. “Tomik.”

  “Why did
he kill the horses?” I asked. “Why was he angry at the horses?”

  “He wasn’t.” Stefan came around to open my door. “He was angry because one of the brothers had refused to allow him a horse to ride to market that day.”

  “That’s all?”

  Stefan nodded. “That’s all.”

  I shuddered.

  “Daisy.” He reached out and touched my hair lightly, running a few strands through his fingers. “You asked for candor and I have given it to you. I do not think you have extended me the same courtesy.”

  I gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

  “I knew that this matter would be disturbing, but I did not expect you to take it so closely to heart,” Stefan said. “It is more than this infernal lawyer. Something has been troubling you since you dispatched the Night Hag. There is a fear that preys on your mind, something of which you are reluctant to speak.”

  I didn’t deny it. “You know, it’s not fair that this bond only works one way. I don’t know what you’re feeling.”

  “Yes.” Stefan inclined his head to me. “Which is why I have respected your privacy, and have made no inquiries. Which is why I recant the words I spoke on our last meeting. I will not press my suit, Daisy. I am willing to wait.” Leaning over, he brushed my lips in a fleeting kiss, one that left me yearning for more. “You know where to find me when you are ready.”

  Standing on the doorstep, I watched him get into his Lexus and drive away.

  Well, damn.

  Thirty-six

  I did a lot of thinking.

  Stefan was right—I hadn’t been candid with him, but it’s not like I wasn’t planning to be . . . eventually. We were still in the getting-to-know-you phase, and revealing my deepest, darkest fear seemed a little heavy for a second date, especially since that fear was that I would be responsible for the world’s destruction.

  Then again, one could say the same of Stefan’s revelation, although to be fair, I was the one who had pushed for it. Oh, I could blame it on the lawyer, but it was Stefan who brought it up in the first place and then went all cryptic on me. And Dufreyne was right; there was history there that I needed to know. On the other hand, Stefan was probably right about him, too. Odds were, Dufreyne had his own nefarious reasons for wanting me to doubt Stefan.

  Or maybe he just saw a chance to mess with my head and took it.

  I could drive myself crazy thinking about it. I was willing to set aside my doubts and give it a try, I really was, but I didn’t know if I could handle another devastating favor or horrific revelation.

  In the end, I waited three days before calling him. “Okay, here’s the thing,” I said. “Is there anything else in your past that’s likely to freak me out?”

  There was a brief pause on the other end. “I have lived a long life, Daisy,” Stefan said carefully. “There have been times when I was filled with anger and despair. I do not doubt that I have done things that you would find . . . troubling. But I do not believe that there is anything else in my past that would strike such a personal chord with you.”

  “How about your present?” I asked him. “Can you tell me there won’t be another Janek Król?”

  “I cannot promise you that no other Outcast will ask you to end his or her existence,” he said. “I can promise you that I will never ask again on another’s behalf.”

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s take this slow. Do you like jazz?”

  “Yes.” Stefan sounded mildly bemused. “Are you inviting me on a date?”

  “Yeah, but not right away,” I said. “You’re right. I’ve been holding back, but I need more time to figure out how I feel about Stefan Ludovic, Hell-spawn Hunter. Next Saturday? I heard there’s going to be a fantastic harmonica player sitting in with the house band at the Bide-a-Wee Tavern.”

  “I look forward to it,” Stefan said.

  I felt good about the decision. I wished I could say the same about the latest idea Sinclair and the coven laid on me.

  While I’d been absorbed in my fraught pas de deux with Stefan, not only had the coven been working on developing the mother of all protection charms, but they’d been wrestling with the issue of how to get it onto the judge’s person or hidden in his briefcase.

  “There’s one major problem with that plan,” the Fabulous Casimir said after convening a meeting at his house. “Metal detectors. It’s a federal courthouse. Everyone, lawyers and judges included, entering the building gets scanned. The minute they find a strange metal object in the judge’s briefcase . . .” He fanned his hands. “The jig’s up.”

  Oh, crap. I hadn’t thought of that. “Does the charm have to be metal?”

  The eight members of the coven looked at me with varying degrees of pity. Apparently that was a stupid question. “It does in this case, Daisy,” Sinclair said. “Pure silver, consecrated with holy water.”

  “So we’re screwed?” I asked.

  “Perhaps not.” Casimir steepled his fingertips. “You shouldn’t have any difficulty conveying the charm into the courthouse. Jewelry is permitted, and the charm will appear to be nothing more than a simple silver cross on a chain.” He peered at me from beneath his luxuriant false eyelashes. “You can wear a cross without harm, can’t you?”

  “Of course.” Actually, the only reason I knew it to be true was because back in high school, I’d gone to an eighties-themed dance as vintage Madonna, including dangly cross-shaped earrings I’d found at the flea market, but I figured it counted. “But if we can’t risk slipping it in the judge’s briefcase, what’s the alternative?”

  “You’re gonna stick it to the underside of his chair,” said Kim McKinney, who worked at the deli counter at Tafts Grocery. “That way it never leaves the courthouse, but it’ll always be in virtual contact with him. I got the idea from my brother,” she added. “He used to punk us with a remote-controlled fart machine.”

  I stared at assembled members of the coven. “Look, no offense, but I was already pretty wigged out about trying to sneak it into a coat pocket or a briefcase. How, exactly, am I supposed to get past the bailiff, crawl behind the desk, and stick something under the judge’s freakin’ chair?”

  “Two words, dahling.” Casimir smiled at me. “Invisibility spell.”

  “Is that a real thing?” I asked.

  “It’s a real thing,” Sinclair assured me. “Well . . . sort of. It’s really more of an unobtrusiveness spell than full-on invisibility. You’d have to practice. Sandra’s offered to help teach you. It’s mostly about aura manipulation, and she’s got mad skills.”

  Sandra Sweddon gave me a little wave. “At your service, honey.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sweddon,” I said automatically. “Sinclair, what do you mean by mostly?”

  He glanced at Warren Rodgers, who owned the nursery. “We’re looking into old recipes based on wolfsbane and working on an amulet for you. It should intensify the effect.”

  “Already got the wolfsbane,” Warren added in his laconic way. “Just need a chameleon skin to wrap it in.”

  “I can get you a chameleon skin,” Casimir said to him. “Miss Daisy, we just need to know if you’re still on board with this.”

  “Tell her about the distraction, dear,” Mrs. Meyers said, not looking up from her knitting.

  “Right.” The Fabulous Casimir raised his artfully plucked brows. “We thought it would be ideal if we could arrange some sort of distraction on the day that you testify. Something to clear the courtroom, and give you a chance to do your thing in the ensuing confusion.”

  I sighed. “Please don’t tell me you want me to pull the fire alarm.”

  Casimir pursed his lips. “Don’t be absurd. You can’t take that many chances, dahling. No, no. We’re thinking a bomb scare.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I demanded. “Do you know how easily that could be traced these days?”

  “No, but Lee does,” Sinclair said. “Or at least he knows people who do. He’s sure he can make it happen without being t
raced, and you know how paranoid he is. Lee’s really thought this through,” he added. “If we call in a highly detailed threat regarding a bomb releasing nerve gas into the ventilation system, they’ll have to evacuate. And the bomb squad can rule out the threat without conducting an in-depth room by room search that might turn up the charm.”

  I looked blankly at him. “Nerve gas.”

  Sinclair shrugged. “Hey, apparently Lee did a lot of research into it for one of the video games he worked on. Some Splinter Cell knockoff. All I know is that he sounds awfully convincing.”

  I fought the urge to yank my hair out. “Okay, so assuming that works, how am I supposed to stick a silver cross to the bottom of the judge’s chair? Chewing gum?”

  “We’ve got industrial-strength mounting tape we use to hang artwork at the tattoo parlor,” Mark Reston said. “Sheila and I are testing it with a pendant that’s about the same weight. Once you get inside the courthouse, you’ll need to wrap the cross in a piece of duct tape for a more adhesive surface, but so far, so good.”

  “Crap.” That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach had returned. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

  “Did you hear the latest, Miss Daisy?” Casimir inquired.

  “Yeah. I did.” The judge had dismissed the request to assign a different lawyer to the case, citing the fact that Dufreyne had voluntarily recused himself from representing Elysian Fields’s interests in Pemkowet for the duration of the case. I steeled my resolve. “Do you really think you can teach me to turn invisible?” I asked Sandra Sweddon.

  “Unobtrusive,” Sandra corrected me. “I don’t see why not. After all, you’ve been working on visualization exercises since you were a little girl. Would you feel better if I demonstrated it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The Fabulous Casimir clapped his hands. “Break time! Daisy, you try to keep your eye on Sandra as everyone else mills around the house,” he added. “Oh, and people! Help yourself to the lovely cheese tray Kim brought from the deli.”

  Clearly, this little exercise had been planned in advance.