Poison Fruit

The mayor of Pemkowet blinked at me. “Now, Daisy, you had your chance to speak. Don’t be rude. Let’s hear what Miss . . . Miss . . .” His voice trailed off as he turned his head to stare in adoration at the goddess. “Let’s hear what she has to say.”

There were nods of agreement all around.

“Thank you.” Persephone’s voice was soft and lilting, and when she spoke, there might as well have been a background track of birdsong and a babbling brook behind her. Her mouth was as lush as a ripe plum, and her faint Greek accent made her sound like Arianna Huffington dipped in honey. She looked all of nineteen or twenty, with exquisite features framed by shining brown hair in which gold highlights glinted, as though a private source of sunlight shone on her everywhere she went. “I wish to make you an offer. Mr. Dufreyne will explain.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Not him. No way.”

Persephone turned her gaze on me. Her wide-set eyes were green, flecked with more shimmers of gold. She looked utterly beautiful and possibly a little bit insane. “You are the Norse Hel’s liaison Daisy, are you not?”

“Yes.”

Her ripe lips curved into a smile. “Daisy. I adore daisies. I understand that you are angry, but Mr. Dufreyne is not your enemy. He serves me through my husband, and I am here to do what is best for Pemkowet.”

I glared at her. “By instigating a lawsuit against us?”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t have listened otherwise, would you?” Persephone’s voice took on a tone of reproach. “And you brought this on yourselves, did you not?” Heads nodded all around the room again. “I fear that Hel has not ruled you wisely,” she said with regret.

“Are you offering to take her place?” I asked in a hard voice. “Because that’s not up for negotiation.”

Persephone’s sun-flecked gaze shifted back to me. “It would be simpler if you allowed my representative to speak,” she said plaintively. “Will you allow it if I promise his words will be mere words?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “I’d like to hear it in your words.”

She gave a delicate sigh. “Very well. Elysian Fields is prepared to offer fifty million dollars to purchase a large piece of property owned by the city of Pemkowet.” A murmur of pleased surprise ran through the hall. Persephone glanced at Dufreyne, knitting her perfect brows. “That is enough to settle the debt that is owed, with additional funds to be shared for their trouble, is it not?”

He inclined his head. “It is, my lady.”

“So you see,” she said brightly. “It is the ideal solution. Everyone wins!”

“Not exactly,” I said. “That’s Hel’s territory.”

“No.” Persephone gave me a rueful smile. “That is property owned by the City of Pemkowet. Yes, it has been occupied by your mistress for a hundred years, but the Norse Hel does not own it. I fear that is one of her more grave mistakes. Your mistress dwells in the days of yore, when her presence alone sufficed to make a parcel of land sacred and inviolable.” She shook her head, and motes of sunlight scintillated all around her. “Those of us who endure live in a different world, and to survive, we must adapt.”

My tail lashed. “To what end?” I asked her. “Your husband Hades’s territory is in Montreal, and no god or goddess can rule over more than one demesne. So what do you want with Pemkowet?”

Persephone looked into the distance and smiled to herself. “I want a summer home.”

I stared at her. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.” Something subtle shifted in her expression, an ancient darkness surfacing behind her sunlit eyes. Suddenly Persephone looked nineteen going on ten thousand, and I thought about what I remembered of her story from Mr. Leary’s Myth and Lit class years ago. Hades had abducted her when she was a maiden, and for the sin of eating six pomegranate seeds in captivity, she had been condemned to spend six months of every year in the underworld with him.

God, no wonder she was a little crazy.

“I want a summer home,” Persephone repeated, her voice rising. The motes of sunlight surrounding her shivered and vanished with a sound like shards of crystal shattering. “A place to call my own. I have endured and endured and endured, and I want a demesne of my own!”

Beside me, Stefan rose. “Forgive me, Daisy,” he murmured to me, his pupils swallowing his irises. “I cannot stay.”

I couldn’t blame him for being unable to handle a goddess’s fury without ravening. “Go. I’ll call you later.”

“Oh, dear.” Persephone watched him leave. “Well, you understand it wouldn’t be just a summer home,” she said to the hall at large. “I plan to build a resort. A very nice resort. Mr. Dufreyne, will you show them the plan?”

“Of course, my lady.” Dufreyne swapped out the map of Pemkowet on the easel for another piece of foam board, this one with a plan depicting a prospectus for an elaborate resort named Elysian Fields. It included a twenty-story hotel with two restaurants and a nightclub, a marina, a golf course, a stable, and extensive riding trails winding through the dunes.

If you were willing to ignore the fact that it was in violation of pretty much every zoning ordinance in existence in Pemkowet, not to mention a dozen or so Department of Environmental Quality guidelines, it looked nice.

Oh, and it sat squarely atop Little Niflheim.