Poison Fruit

I stood, brushing the dampness from my knees. “I’ve come—”

“I know why you have summoned me, Hel’s liaison.” The Oak King met my gaze. “War comes to Pemkowet, does it not?”

“Yes.” I shivered. “The Greek Persephone—” God, now I was doing it. “The goddess Persephone is establishing legal title to Hel’s demesne and means to claim it as her own.”

“Legal title.” He echoed the words as though bemused by them. “That such a thing should come to pass.”

“Hel has no choice but to stand her ground and fight,” I said. “She seeks allies. And, um, you should know that if Persephone succeeds, she’ll only be in residence six months out of the year.”

“Yes,” the Oak King said. “Her story is known to me, and I am aware of what her victory would betoken. My people and I would be unhomed.” His gaze shifted onto the distance in that staring-at-the-unknowable way of deities and eldritch royalty. “If that be so, I fear that there may be no further sacred places in the world with enough wilderness left to sustain us,” he murmured with regret. “Mortal cities have swallowed the demesnes of the gods. Even here, I am diminished, and our numbers dwindle. And yet it is the way of the world. Perhaps our time is upon us.”

My tail lashed with anger. “So you’re just giving up?”

Beneath the shadow of his antlers, his eyes glimmered like a deer’s, dark and liquid. “No, Daisy Johanssen. I do but weigh a grave choice.”

I thought about Jojo being cut down by the Tall Man’s axe, and envisioned a horde of fairies with slingshots mowed down by gunfire. My shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“Ah.” The Oak King inclined his head toward me. “You think of the little one who sacrificed herself.”

I nodded. “Hel thinks Persephone will raise a mortal army. With, um, state-of-the-art weaponry.”

“The joe-pye weed fairy’s sacrifice was valiant, but foolhardy,” the Oak King mused. “It is tricks and mayhem at which the least of my subjects excel, not warfare. They may be of aid, but there are others more suited to battle.”

A spark of hope kindled in me. “Others who could help?”

“It is aid that would come at a price, Hel’s liaison,” he cautioned me. “It is the Wild Hunt of which I speak, immortal riders who strike terror and madness into the hearts of mortal men. The Wild Hunt owes true allegiance to neither the Seelie nor the Unseelie Court, but there is a bond of long standing between us. They will answer my summons. But once unleashed, the Wild Hunt cannot be constrained until a day and a night have run their course. Not even by me.”

“But you could unleash them on Persephone’s troops?” I asked him.

A cold breeze sprang up, stirring the Oak King’s cloak. It rustled with a sound like dry leaves rattling in the trees. His dark eyes gleamed, and it was a hard gleam now. “Yes.”

“Your majesty . . .” I paused. I’d read a lot of fairy tales in my life. “If I ask this of you in Hel’s name, will I have cause to regret it?”

“It is possible, Hel’s liaison.” There was still a sense of deep quietude to his resonant voice, but it was a different hush—a cold midnight hush, the hush a rabbit might hear before the owl struck on silent wings, leaving nothing but bloodstains on the snow. “It is always possible. Do you ask it?”

I took a breath. “I do.”

“Then it shall be granted.” The Oak King smiled, and there was a joyful wildness to his smile. “I do not wish to fade and vanish without striking a blow against the men who come with iron weapons to destroy all that is wild and free in this world. I do not wish to accede without a whimper to the whims of a goddess who uses such men and their weapons to her own ends.”

“I’m guessing she wasn’t always that way,” I murmured.

“No.” He shook his head. “I do not believe it to be so. But it is so now.” Reaching out, he laid a strong, sinewy hand on my shoulder. “Tell your mistress Hel that I will join her forces. Tell her that the Wild Hunt will ride on her behalf.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” I said. “I will.”

Once more, the Oak King’s antlered crown dipped toward me. “I will see you on the battlefield, Daisy Johanssen.”

Shit.

This was getting real.

      Forty-nine

I spent the following weeks marshaling forces to fight a war.

A war.

“You know that the Outcast stand beside you, Daisy,” Stefan said to me in an unofficial war council meeting. “We will do what we can.”

“I’m thinking we need weapons, big man,” Cooper said bleakly. “Real weapons. Firepower, do ye ken? Not just swords and the like.”

“Which you wouldn’t use unless it was necessary to defend your lives, right?” Oops, wrong question to ask one of the Outcast. “Or, um, the lives of your comrades?”

“If there are mortals on the battlefield, we will do our best to prevent casualties, but you are speaking of war, Daisy.” Stefan nodded at Cooper. “Look into it.”

“I will.”

I didn’t ask for details. I didn’t want to know.

It did give me ammunition—no pun intended—to meet with the mayor and the city council in a last-ditch effort to get them to back out of the deal with Persephone. The good news was that I was able to get through to them. Confronted with a scenario of warring goddesses and the eldritch population giving battle to a possible mercenary army, they finally realized the magnitude of their decision, and that they might really, really have cause to regret it.