Poison Fruit

I closed my eyes, blocking out the sight of those iridescent coils and trying to ignore the fact that they were still firmly wrapped around my waist, smooth scales sliding against the leather of my jacket . . . damn.

“I’m here on business, okay?” My voice sounded feeble.

“Oh, fine.” Lurine deposited me effortlessly on the shore. I cracked open one eye and watched her shift into her human form. She waded out of the lake, wringing the water out of her hair. “What is it?”

Now that I wasn’t warm with inappropriate thoughts and embarrassment, I realized that my knee-high black leather boots—which had been a splurge purchase, dammit—were filled with icy lake water. My feet were freezing and my teeth were chattering. “Can we talk about it inside?”

“Of course.” Lurine stepped into a pair of baby pink Juicy Couture sweatpants. “Hand me my jacket, will you?”

      Eight

Up at the mansion, Lurine turned maternal on me, wrapping me in a blanket and insisting I drink a cup of hot tea. She even sent my sodden boots off with her butler to be dried with one of those fancy Sharper Image–type appliances. I didn’t know anyone actually bought those things. “What were you thinking, Daisy?” she chided me. “You shouldn’t have been out there.”

I sipped the tea. “Edgerton said you’d be delighted. I assume he didn’t know I’d be crashing some sort of sirens’ dawn choral practice?”

“True,” she admitted. “My bad. But in all fairness, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I didn’t know you sang,” I said. “Not like that.”

Lurine gave a modest shrug. “A girl’s got to have some secrets, cupcake. So what’s up?”

I told her about Scott Evans and his dilemma. “So what’s your verdict on Night Hags? Real or not real?”

“Oh, they’re real,” Lurine assured me. “They’re also part of humanity’s collective unconscious, which is why mortals anywhere might think they’ve experienced an attack. But here in Pemkowet, yeah, it was probably an actual hag.” She shuddered. “Nasty, smelly creatures.”

“Cody said there was no scent,” I said. “Which seems odd.”

Lurine waved one hand. “Oh, you know those dreamwalker types. They have a complicated relationship with corporeal reality.”

I did not, in fact, know those dreamwalker types. Being Hel’s liaison came with a steep learning curve and a lot of on-the-job training. “Meaning . . . ?”

“Meaning the Night Hag only exists physically for the person whose dreams she enters, cupcake,” she said patiently. “Or nightmares, I should say. That’s what they feed on.”

“Okay,” I said. “So Night Hags are basically the Freddy Kruegers of the eldritch community?”

You might think a pop culture reference like that would be lost on someone whose origins date to the Bronze Age, but in Lurine’s case, you would be wrong. In the current incarnation of her identity, she left Sedgewick Estate when I was in my late teens and attained B-movie fame starring in a couple of cult-favorite horror films. After that, she married an octogenarian real-estate tycoon who died within a year, leaving her the bulk of his massive fortune.

Hence, the mansion and the boot-warming appliances. Although to be fair, Lurine’s probably thrown away as many fortunes as she’s gained over the course of centuries.

“More or less,” she said. “As far as I know, Night Hags don’t have the ability to actually kill people in their sleep.”

“Just to make them think they’re dying,” I said. “Or crazy.”

Lurine nodded. “All good fodder for nightmares.”

“Or suicide attempts,” I noted.

“That, too,” she agreed. “The mortal human mind’s at once a powerful and fragile thing, baby girl.”

“Okay,” I said. “So how do I find and catch the bitch?”

“No idea, cupcake.” Lurine shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, not my area of expertise. If I were you, I’d ask around among the fey. Night Hags are kin to bogles, if I’m not mistaken. I have a hard time keeping track of them all.” She eyed the pendant around my neck. “You could ask him.”

My right hand rose to close over the silver acorn-shaped whistle. “The Oak King?”

“Well, you might not want to start by pestering eldritch royalty,” she said in a pragmatic tone. “But it’s something to keep in mind.”

“I’ll think about it,” I promised. “Thanks, Lurine.”

She smiled at me. “Anytime.”

Okay, so that boot-warmer thingy? Totally awesome. Plus, Lurine’s butler/manservant Edgerton had waxed and shined them, so that they not only felt toasty warm but looked completely undamaged and as good as new when I put them on. He seemed embarrassed when I thanked him profusely.

Lurine escorted me to the foyer. “Hey, how’s your love life, cupcake?” she asked me. “Any less complicated?”

I hesitated. “You might say so.”

“Cody?”

I shook my head, my heart aching a little. “Taking himself out of the picture.”

“So who’s still in the picture?” Lurine’s gaze sharpened. “Stefan Ludovic?” I didn’t say anything. She frowned at me. “You’re walking on thin ice with that one, Daisy.”