Poison Fruit

by Jacqueline Carey

  Wrong.

  Dufreyne turned it against him with sly digs about how the powers that be in Pemkowet thought they could buy their way out of trouble using a slick Los Angeles attorney. And that did play well in living rooms across west Michigan. It was a conservative area and there had always been a strain of fear and resentment toward Pemkowet with its underworld and eldritch community. Hell, just last summer, we’d had protestors picketing the town hall, chanting, “No sanctuary for Satanism.”

  Ironic, given the fact that a hell-spawn was prosecuting the case, but it meant that the seeds of resentment Dufreyne planted fell on fertile ground. Sensing a rising tide of bloodlust in their audience, reporters took savage glee in describing the cavalcade of eyewitness testimony for the prosecution in the days following the opening arguments.

  It was an impressive array. I was right—it included the victims of Cooper’s ravening, but there were dozens of others, too, and those dozens represented more than five hundred additional claimants.

  The majority of them had been present at the fateful Halloween parade, but some claimed to have been scarred by gruesome hauntings that they witnessed after Stacey Brooks’s footage went viral. With the exception of two nonfatal heart attacks and one case of broken ribs and a punctured lung, most had suffered only minor injuries—scrapes and bruises, a few sprained ankles. But each and every one of them was claiming severe emotional and psychological trauma, and court reporters described the witnesses as “haunted,” “fearful,” and “hollow-eyed.”

  No cameras were allowed in the courtroom, but that’s pretty much what the sketch artists’ work reflected. Then again, the sketch artists were vulnerable to Dufreyne’s powers of persuasion. All he had to do was plant the suggestion during the course of his questioning.

  It pissed me off. I may have had sympathy for Cooper’s victims, but those idiots who flocked to town, bought copies of Bloody Pemkowet from the historical society, and staked out likely sites for grisly ghost uprisings didn’t have the right to blame us when their macabre curiosity was rewarded.

  It wasn’t fair.

  But all I could do was pray that the judge would realize it. And that was only going to happen if our plan to offset Dufreyne’s influence with the coven’s charm was implemented.

  To the naked eye, the charm wasn’t much to look at—just a plain silver cross pendant. But it had been consecrated in holy water, dedicated on an altar beneath an entire moon cycle, and imbued with the combined magic of the entire coven. When Casimir strung it on the chain I wore around my neck, I could feel the subtle vibration of power in it.

  Lee, who had been granted coven privileges, promised us that the mechanism was in place to deliver a highly credible nerve gas bomb-scare warning via an untraceable phone call, although he wouldn’t provide any details, saying that the less we knew, the better.

  “All I need to know is exactly when you’ll be on the witness stand, Daisy,” he said to me. “It’s going to take some time for the, um, relays to function.”

  “I don’t know exactly,” I said. “I have to be there by eight thirty, but when I actually testify depends on how the trial progresses. Hell, I could end up having to go back the next day.”

  Lee frowned in thought. “Right. Okay, text me as soon as you’re called to the stand . . . oh, shit. It’s a federal courthouse.”

  I followed his train of thought, my heart sinking. “Which means I won’t be allowed to bring in a cell phone.”

  All of us sat in glum silence, realizing our already harebrained scheme had a fatal flaw.

  “What about Cody Fairfax?” Kim McKinney ventured. “Aren’t you both scheduled to testify on Wednesday?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Along with Chief Bryant and Amanda and Stacey Brooks. All five of us. Why?”

  “Because Cody’s a police officer and he’s sort of your partner, right?” Kim said. “At least on eldritch cases. I’m pretty sure cops are allowed to have cell phones in the courthouse. My brother’s gotten in a lot of legal trouble,” she added. “I’ve spent a fair amount of time in courthouses because of it.”

  The Fabulous Casimir raised his eyebrows at me. “Yes, but would he be willing to do it? Or perhaps Chief Bryant?”

  “Not the chief, no. But Cody might. Not if he knew why,” I said slowly. “But if I asked him as a favor, asked him to trust me . . . maybe.”

  Casimir looked around the room. “Do we have any other options?” No one answered. “Then I think you’re going to have to try it, Daisy.”

  I sighed. “Great.”

  As if that wasn’t enough of a curveball, before the coven’s meeting disbanded, Sinclair presented me with the wolfsbane amulet that he and Warren Rodgers had developed to enhance the unobtrusibility spell. It was another small leather pouch filled with herbs, a dried chameleon skin, and God knows what else.

  “No dry runs with this one,” Sinclair warned me. “It’ll lose potency every time you use it.”

  “How can you be sure it will work?” I asked him.

  “Sandra helped us test and refine the recipe,” he said. “It’ll work. But, um, don’t get caught with it. Wolfsbane’s not illegal, but . . . well, it’s extremely poisonous. Not the kind of thing you want to get caught carrying in a federal courthouse. If I were you, I’d hide it in my underwear.”

  I sighed again. “Good to know.”

  Later that evening, I tracked Cody down on a coffee break at Callahan’s Café. His expression brightened as I slid into the empty seat across from him, then settled into something more complicated. “Hey there, Pixy Stix,” he said quietly. “Everything okay? You’ve been keeping a low profile.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I’d managed to avoid him since the afternoon of the werewolf mixer. “Cody, I have a favor to ask you.”

  “What is it?”

  I took a deep breath. “When we’re at the courthouse on Wednesday, I need you to text Lee Hastings when I get called to the witness stand.”

  Cody tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at me. “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you,” I said. “I just really need you to trust me on this one. Please?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t answer, and I felt sure he was going to refuse. Cody wasn’t stupid. He knew I wouldn’t ask this way if there wasn’t something illegal involved. But he also knew I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important. After a small eternity, he gave me a brief nod and pulled out his cell phone. “What’s Lee’s number?”

  I gave it to him. “Thank you.”

  Cody pocketed his phone. “I don’t know what you and your friends are up to and I don’t want to know, but if there’s a chance that it might help level the playing field, I’m for it. This trial’s as crooked as hell.” He gazed steadily at me. “And when I told you I’d always have your back, I meant it.”

  My eyes stung. “Thanks,” I whispered again, hoping I hadn’t just gotten Cody involved in something that would end with Homeland Security on his doorstep. “It means a lot.” I coughed and wiped my eyes surreptitiously. “So, um . . . everything all right with you?”

  “Fine.” He hesitated. “Fine.”

  We shared a moment of awkward silence before I exited the booth. “Okay, well, I’ll see you in court.”

  Forty-three

  On Wednesday, I presented myself at the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids with a protective charm in the form of a silver cross strung around my neck beside the Oak King’s token, a leather pouch full of poisonous wolfsbane tucked into my brassiere, a small roll of electrical tape—at the last minute, it had occurred to Mark Reston that duct tape might set off the metal detector—and a rigid square of double-sided industrial-strength mounting tape in my purse.

  I felt sick. I passed through the security checkpoint with my heart in my throat and my tail clamped between my thighs, terrified that a cursory pat-down would give me away.

  It didn’t, though.

  After being directed to the witness waiting room, I ducked in
to the adjacent bathroom. Sitting atop the toilet, I unclasped my necklace and slid the silver cross charm free. I wrapped it in electrical tape and stowed it in my right front pocket, transferring the square of mounting tape to my other pocket. That part went smoothly enough, but my hands were trembling and slick with sweat, and it took me multiple tries to refasten the clasp of my necklace.

  By the time I reemerged, Cody and Chief Bryant had arrived. The latter greeted me with a nod and wished me a good morning before settling in a chair with a fly-fishing magazine.

  Cody took a seat, too, but he was restless, slouching in his chair with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, his foot jiggling. I wondered briefly if I should have tried the chief instead, then dismissed the thought. I’d been right to go with my gut on this one. Chief Bryant was a by-the-book kind of guy. There’s no way he would have agreed to my request without knowing why, and no way he would have allowed us to go through with it once he’d heard it.

  No, Lee’s involvement notwithstanding—and the hacktivists of Anonymous, for all I knew—this was eldritch business.

  We waited.

  There was a clock mounted on one of the walls, and I swear it seemed like its hands moved backward. Time would have passed slowly anyway, but the dread I felt at the prospect of pulling off my stunt in the courtroom made it positively crawl.

  At an hour and a half into our wait, Amanda and Stacey Brooks arrived. “Do we know anything?” Amanda asked tersely.

  “Nope.” Chief Bryant turned a page in his magazine. “Still waiting.”

  Stacey caught my eye and made a series of exaggerated facial contortions meant to ask if everything was in place for the plan—to which she’d obviously been privy as a new member of the gang, a development about which I had mixed emotions—to take effect. I put on a stoic look and gave my head a slight shake, willing her to back off. I had a feeling her mother would do everything she could to throw Stacey under the bus in the courtroom, and I felt bad about it, but I really, really didn’t need her drawing attention to our little conspiracy. I’d never thought I’d miss the old days, but it would have been a lot safer if she’d just stuck out her tongue and flashed devil horns at me.

  A little over two hours had passed when Cody heaved himself out of his chair and began pacing the waiting room. When he paused at the water cooler, I went over to talk to him.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He poured himself a cup of water and downed it with a shudder. “Just feeling trapped in my skin.”

  “Oh.” Of course, I hadn’t thought about how uncomfortable it would be for a werewolf to be stuck in mundane territory for a prolonged period of time. I’d never spent more than an hour with Cody outside of Hel’s demesne. “I’m sorry.”

  “No big deal.” Cody gave me an unconvincing smile. “It’s not like I’ve never had to testify in court before. Comes with the job.”

  “It sucks, though,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Funny, I feel better with you beside me.” Realizing what he’d said, his expression changed. “Sorry, Daise. I didn’t mean—” He paused. “It’s just that . . . well, it’s true, but I didn’t mean to be thoughtless.”

  “It’s okay.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, fingering the wrapped charm and the square of mounting tape. “It makes sense. Apparently, I carry my own personal underworld inside me.”

  “Huh.” Cody glanced toward the courtroom. “So that’s what enables Dufreyne’s powers to function?”

  “Mm-hmm. His, um, infernal battery’s probably stronger than mine, since he’s claimed his birthright and all,” I said in a light tone. “Care to put it to the test when you take the stand?”

  Cody grinned at the thought of shifting in the middle of the courtroom—a real grin, fierce and wolfish, one that made my pulse quicken. “It’s an incredibly bad idea, but it would be a hell of a way to come out, wouldn’t it?”

  I smiled ruefully. “Yeah, it would.”

  The damned thing was, I felt better, too. I missed the partnership and genuine rapport that Cody and I had. This was the most civilized conversation we’d had in a long time, and it helped to ground me, helped settle my nerves.

  That lasted all of another ten seconds, before the bailiff came and called me to the stand. “Daisy Johanssen?”

  The courtroom was smaller than I’d expected and the atmosphere more ordinary. Given the scope of what was at stake, it should have felt . . . I don’t know. Bigger? But I could smell that not-actual-smell reek of wrongness that announced hell-spawn lawyer Daniel Dufreyne’s presence, and it took an effort not to lash my tail in response. Dufreyne was glancing over some papers and didn’t bother to look up as I was sworn in and stated my name for the court. Neither did members of the Pemkowet legal defense team, conferring in quiet murmurs. Judge Martingale, an innocuous-looking man in his late fifties or early sixties, gave me an absentminded nod as I took my seat on the witness stand, then adjusted his glasses and stroked his thinning gray comb-over. In the jury box, members eyed me with mild interest, hoping my testimony would alleviate their tedium.

  Then Dufreyne lifted his head, meeting my gaze with his own too-black eyes and a bland smile.

  I stared daggers back at him, wishing I had dauda-dagr on my belt, not safely stashed at home. I felt unprotected without it.

  “Miss Johanssen.” He rose. “You’re a part-time file clerk for the Pemkowet Police Department—is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  He arched one manscaped eyebrow. “But you have another title and a greater role in the community, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Not on paper.”

  The other brow rose to join its fellow. “Please state your unofficial title for the court.”

  “Hel’s liaison,” I said.

  Dufreyne consulted his notes. “To clarify, that would refer to Hel, Norse goddess of the dead, yes?”

  Members of the jury perked up. Yep, they were curious now. “Yes.”

  “And Hel presides over the underworld known as . . . Little Niflheim?”

  “Yes.”

  He checked his notes again. “And what do you do in your capacity as Hel’s liaison?”

  “I’m, um, a diplomatic liaison between Little Niflheim and the Pemkowet Police Department,” I said. “I work to ensure that the eldritch and mundane communities coexist in peace.”

  Dufreyne gave me a significant look. “And do they?”

  “Most of the time, yes.”

  “What happens when they don’t?” he inquired.

  “I do my best to deal with it,” I said. “That’s my job.”

  Daniel Dufreyne turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I’d like to revisit the video footage previously introduced into evidence.” The monitor displayed footage of Cody’s and my ghostbusting forays from last autumn. “Miss Johanssen, can you describe in your own words what we’re seeing here?”

  “Officer Fairfax and I are in the process of laying a ghost to rest,” I said.

  “Can you explain this process for the court?” he asked. “Exactly how does one lay a ghost to rest?”

  I wondered where Dufreyne was going with this and how long it would take for Lee’s untraceable call to go through. “You cast a ghost’s shadow using a spirit lantern, then drive a nail into it.” I pointed at the screen, where Cody was executing a knee slide on the parquet dance floor of the S.S. Osikayas, hammer in hand. “Like that.”

  “And where does one obtain a spirit lantern?” Dufreyne inquired.

  “Hel provided it.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “So Hel herself, the Norse goddess of the dead, was concerned about this ghost uprising and took measures to quell it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “As did the Pemkowet Police Department.”

  Dufreyne glanced at Judge Martingale, who gave his gavel an officious little tap. “The witness will confine her responses to the question.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” Dufreyne t
urned back to me. “Miss Johanssen, can you explain the cause of the ghost uprising to the court?” I gave a brief account of Sinclair’s mother setting her father’s spirit loose on the town and stirring up the restless dead. “I see. And this . . . duppy . . . resulted in the monstrosity that terrorized East Pemkowet at the Halloween parade?” Dufreyne asked, clicking the remote to show footage of the Tall Man’s axe-wielding skeleton rampaging down Main Street, spectators shrieking, shoving, and attempting to flee.

  “Yes.” I wished Lee’s call would come through. I was beginning to sweat and I could smell a faint odor of acrid herbs and warm leather rising from my cleavage.

  Dufreyne consulted his notes again. “Miss Johanssen, isn’t it true that on October twenty-ninth, you and Officer Fairfax met with Police Chief Bryant and Amanda Brooks of the Pemkowet Visitors Bureau and asked them to cancel the Halloween parade?”

  Oh, crap. So that’s where he was going with this. I wondered how he’d found out about it. “Yes,” I murmured.

  His gaze bored into mine. “What were your reasons for the request?”

  I wiped my sweating palms on my pants. “We were concerned.”

  “Can you be more specific?” he asked. “What, exactly, were your concerns?”

  “Well, Officer Fairfax and I were concerned because we hadn’t managed to catch the duppy,” I hedged.

  “You were concerned for the public safety?” Dufreyne pressed me. “Is that fair to say?”

  I gestured at the screen, where the image of the Tall Man was frozen in midrampage. “Look, we didn’t expect that!”

  Judge Martingale gave his gavel another tap. “The witness will answer the question.”

  Dufreyne raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Yes,” I said reluctantly. “We were concerned for the public safety.”

  “So.” Daniel Dufreyne smiled his bland smile, but his voice took on that weird note of reverberation as he exercised his powers of persuasion for the first time since I’d entered the courtroom. “In your authority as Hel’s liaison, you asked the chief of police and the director of the visitors bureau to cancel this event in the interest of public safety, and they refused?”