Dark Currents (Agent of Hel #1)

But if they weren’t looking for Ray D to score drugs, what the hell were they looking for?

I had a feeling Detective Wilkes was right: We needed to look into this Masters of the Universe angle. I also had enough sense to know better than to tackle it on my own, which is why I decided to look into spider mythology instead. Maybe Jerry’s tattoo symbolized a connection.

For that, I had two choices. I could take my chances at the library with the Sphinx. Depending on her mood, she would either direct me toward the appropriate research materials or pose me an indecipherable riddle. Or I could ask Mr. Leary. Depending on his level of sobriety, he would either treat me to a long series of rambling anecdotes or give me a succinct answer in a lot less time than it would take to do the research. All things considered, I decided on the latter option.

Mr. Leary lived in a charming little cottage in East Pemkowet, and in case you’re wondering, yes, Pemkowet and East Pemkowet are technically two separate towns. Because Pemkowet proper is divided by the river, their boundaries overlap in a crazy-quilt fashion. Every other decade, someone proposes combining them into one entity, and every time it happens, one side or the other votes it down.

Anyway.

The shade garden in Mr. Leary’s front yard was looking good, which was a hopeful sign. I made my way up the walk past the arching fronds of ferns so tall they looked almost prehistoric, and immense broad-leaved hosta plants in every hue of green imaginable, some of them sending up narrow shoots of pale blue flowers.

“Daisy Johanssen!” Mr. Leary greeted me with delight when I rang the doorbell. He had a drink in hand, but he was steady on his feet and he sounded lucid. “How is my favorite little eschatological time bomb?”

For the record, no, I don’t know exactly what that means. It happens a lot with Mr. Leary. But I always appreciated the fact that he never, ever talked down to his students. A lot of teachers did, especially if you happened to have a single mom who waited tables and took in sewing for a living or an abusive handyman dad. Not Mr. Leary. Jen and I had always liked that about him. We might not have been his best students, but we studied hard for his classes. I was proud of those B-pluses.

“I’m good, thanks,” I said.

“No,” he corrected me. “You’re doing well, thank you very much.”

I hid a smile. “I’m doing well, thank you very much. And you?”

“I’m doing splendidly, thank you kindly.” Mr. Leary hoisted his drink in response. He was tall and lean, in his late sixties, with a long, mobile face and a leonine head of white hair, kind of like a more benign-looking Donald Sutherland. “Come to pick my brain, have you?”

I nodded. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.” Stepping back, he gestured. “Come in, come in. Can I offer you a gin rickey?”

“No, thanks.”

“Ah.” Mr. Leary gave me a broad conspiratorial wink. “Of course, you’re on the job.” He shook his glass, half-melted ice cubes tinkling. “I hope you don’t mind if I refresh my own. Can I offer you something else? Club soda?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “But please go ahead.”

Watching Mr. Leary make a drink was like how I imagine watching a Japanese tea ceremony must be, every movement precise and ritualized. He emptied his glass, washed it under the tap, and dried it with a tea towel, then folded the tea towel just so and placed it on the counter. Three ice cubes were plucked from an ice bucket with a pair of silver tongs and placed one by one in the glass. Half a lime was squeezed with a fancy little juicer and poured atop the ice, followed by an exactly measured one and a half ounces of gin, topped with club soda until it fizzed to the rim.

I waited patiently, knowing there was no rushing him. Actually, it looked pretty damn refreshing.

“Ahh!” He sighed in bliss at the first sip. “There’s no finer libation on a hot summer day. Are you sure I can’t tempt you?”

“I’m sure.”

In the living room, he took a seat on the overstuffed sofa, the arms and back covered with old-fashioned antimacassars. I sat opposite him on a matching chair. “Is this about the Vanderhei boy?” he asked me.

“You know I can’t comment on that,” I said.

Mr. Leary’s wide mouth curved in a saturnine smile. “It’s always worth a try. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. What can I do for you, Daisy?”

“I’m looking for a spider.”

“A spider.” He didn’t ask me to elaborate; he didn’t have to. I’d come to him with this kind of puzzle before. He simply set his glass neatly down on a coaster, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes in thought.

Despite being a regular full-blooded human, Mr. Leary knew more about mythology, religion, and folklore than pretty much anyone in the eldritch community except the Sphinx, and he was a lot more loquacious. And yes, that’s another one of his vocabulary words. According to the folk wisdom of Mrs. Browne, madmen, poets, and drunkards all have half a foot in the eldritch world. I figured Mr. Leary qualified on at least one count, and I had a suspicion he might write poetry, too.

Beads of condensation formed on the glass containing his gin rickey, trickling slowly down. “There’s Arachne, of course,” Mr. Leary said without opening his eyes. “I should hope one of my students would have thought of her.”

“I did,” I said. “It’s not her. It might be something more literal.”

He steepled his fingers. “There’s Argiope aurantia, also known as the writing spider, rather fetching specimens with bright yellow and black markings. I had one in my garden a few years ago. I named her Agatha.”

“Not Charlotte?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Mr. Leary cracked one eye open at me. “The full name of the eponymous heroine of Charlotte’s Web was Charlotte A. Cavatica, a reference to Araneus cavaticus, also known as the barn spider.”

“Oh.”

He closed both eyes again. “Argiope aurantia’s web has a distinctive jagged vertical lattice pattern in the center, and legend has it that the writing spider weaves the name of a member of its human household into the lattice as a warning of said member’s impending demise.”

I shook my head. “Not that literal, I don’t think.”

“Fascinating how many local superstitions revolve around our own mortality, isn’t it?” he observed. “I’m thinking of writing a book.”

This time I kept silent, hoping to keep him from pursuing that particular tangent.

“Very well.” Mr. Leary sighed. “West African folklore gives us tales of the trickster Anansi, tales which spread throughout the Caribbean in various permutations. I believe the Lakota people have a similar deity whose name escapes me at the moment, while the Navajo creation myth features Spider Grandmother. In Islamic lore, there is a tale of a spider that spun a web across the mouth of a cave to protect the prophet Muhammad. Additionally, I suspect there may be some farther-Eastern spider lore with which I fear I’m unfamiliar. I’d have to consult my library.” His eyes snapped open. “Is any of this of assistance?”

“I suppose we could be talking about a trickster,” I said. “Can you think of any likely reason for one to be in Pemkowet?”

“No.” Picking up his gin rickey, he took a long sip, eyeing me. “But then, there are a good many unlikely creatures in Pemkowet.”

“True.”

Mr. Leary took another drink, easing one of the ice cubes into his mouth, crunching it with relish, and swallowing. “And yet, since you ask, I must confess that I do think it quite unlikely.” He set his glass back down on the coaster with the careful, controlled motions of a practiced drinker. “By and large, it appears that lesser deities retain a measure of cultural affiliation. That being the case, I cannot see why an African or a Lakota trickster god would venture into the domain of a Norse goddess.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “Pemkowet’s a bit on the homogenous side.”

“Alas, our lack of diversity is one of the few shortcomings of our fair community, at least in terms of ordinary mortal culture and ethnicity.” He regarded me with an owlish look, or the way I imagine an owl might look if it were wise and slightly drunk. “And although you most pointedly did not ask, I will say that I am wholly unaware of any connection between mythological spider lore and drowned young men. If I were you, I’d be looking for a naiad.” His voice deepened, taking on an oratorical resonance. “Think ye of Hylas, the noble companion of bold Heracles—charming Hylas, whose hair hung down in curls!”

I smiled. “Thank you, I will. I appreciate it.”

Mr. Leary saw me to the door. “You’re welcome to visit anytime. In the meanwhile, may you continue to be well, Daisy.” He hoisted his glass to me. “Indeed, given your particular ontological dilemma, may you continue to be good.”

That one, I think I got. Stretching on tiptoes, I kissed his cheek. “I’ll do my best.”

Twenty

Outside Mr. Leary’s cottage, I checked my phone. No messages, and it was only a bit after four thirty in the afternoon.

Okay, so spider deities were a probable no-go. Mom had said her reading was likely to be pretty literal.

Mr. Leary’s writing spider might be a little too literal, but we had a literal bottle, and a definitely involved bartender with a literal spider depicted on his literal shoulder. We had missing but implicated ghouls, and according to the cards, we were still looking for a pair of crossed arrows and the elusive mermaid La Sirena, an alluring woman in distress.

Right now, none of it added up.

And speaking of ghouls . . .

I was in serious need of some girl talk. I really, really wanted to talk to Jen. If I could get her to accept my apology, at least it would be a start. I thumbed my keypad, composed a message, then changed my mind and deleted it.

Instead, I called her mother. “Oh, hey! Hi, Mrs. Cassopolis. It’s Daisy.” I cradled the phone under my ear. “Is Jen still at work? Can you tell me where she’s working today? I need to talk to her, and she’s not picking up.”