Poison Fruit

You know that thing in sitcoms where a character pulls a “Who, me?” face and looks around to make sure it isn’t someone else being spoken to? Yeah, I actually did that before determining that it was in fact me that Stacey Brooks was addressing with animated enthusiasm. “Figured what out?”

“The Sphinx’s riddle.” She lowered her voice, twisting a lock of highlighted ash-brown hair around her fingers and giving me a significant look. “It’s hair.”

I stared at her. “Hair?”

“Some pass through the gate at dawn crowned, some do not, right?” she said. “She’s talking about birth.”

“And hair?”

“Haven’t you ever heard that saying about a woman’s hair being her crowning glory?” Stacey asked. “And the gate at nightfall, that’s death, right? Well, some babies are born with hair, and some aren’t. And some men go bald before they die, right?”

Now that I dredged my memories to recall Mr. Leary’s old Myth and Lit classes, it did echo the original—or possibly simply the younger—Greek Sphinx’s riddle, which was something about what goes on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs at night, the answer being man, who crawls as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and uses a cane in old age.

But . . . hair?

“You know, that’s great,” I said to Stacey. “I think you might really be onto something with that whole birth and death thing. I’m just not sure how I’m supposed to use hair to catch a Night Hag.”

She shrugged. “Look, that’s your department. I’m just trying to help out.”

“Thanks,” I said, striving for sincerity and managing to get pretty darn close. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

We had a vaguely uncomfortable frenemy moment, which was broken by Amanda Brooks poking her head out from her office and inviting me inside to wait for the lawyer Dufreyne.

I’ll say one thing for the mysterious Mr. Dufreyne—he was prompt. He showed up at eleven a.m. on the dot, and Amanda’s new assistant ushered him into her office.

My tail twitched in an involuntary response.

At a glance, Daniel Dufreyne appeared innocuous. Average height, early thirties, a decent build. It’s fair to say that he was handsome in a bland, upper-middle-class Ivy League white-guy sort of way, and he looked like money, with an impeccably tailored charcoal-gray suit, expensive loafers, expensive briefcase, and a hundred-dollar haircut.

But then, there were those black, black eyes, which shouldn’t have been disconcerting, since I saw the same thing in the mirror every day. Yet they were.

And then there was the smell. Except it wasn’t a smell, not exactly. It was a sense like a smell, the olfactory equivalent of someone striking a hideously discordant note on a piano or screeching fingernails over a chalkboard.

All I know is that it made my skin prickle in a distinctly unpleasant way.

Dufreyne paused in the doorway, his too-black gaze skating over me. His nostrils flared slightly, and he permitted himself a faint smile.

“Mr. Dufreyne,” Amanda said briskly. “I do apologize for bringing you here under false pretenses, but I understand you’ve been avoiding returning Ms. Johanssen’s calls, and frankly, I’m a little curious myself about what the company you represent is planning to do with the property you’re acquiring on their behalf.”

“I’m sure you are.” He had a smooth, mellifluous voice. I could see Amanda Brooks relaxing visibly at the sound of it, and if it hadn’t been for that smell, which apparently was undetectable to mundane mortals, it might have worked on me, too. “I assure you, the party I represent has nothing but Pemkowet’s best interests at heart.”

“Which are?” I said bluntly.

His gaze lingered on me. “Daisy Johanssen, I presume?” He offered his hand. “A pleasure.”

I didn’t want to shake his hand. I really didn’t. But my mother had raised me to be polite, and there was a part of me that was just plain curious, so I did. It felt like shaking any ordinary human’s hand, but there was something about the press of his flesh against mine that gave me the creepy-crawlies. He smiled again without any warmth, and I had the impression of something unpleasant lurking behind his black pupils, like the flicker of a shark’s tail in dark waters.

When he let go of my hand, I had to fight the urge to wipe it on my skirt. “So tell me about Pemkowet’s best interests.”

“All will be made clear in due time.” Dufreyne took a seat uninvited. “Business deals are complicated. My employers are under no obligation to divulge their plans prematurely.”

Ignoring a disapproving look from Amanda, I hiked my butt onto the corner of her desk so I could keep him in view. “Elysian Fields?”

His eyelids flickered with annoyance. “Yes.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “Mr. Dufreyne, I must say, the sheer amount of property—”

Dufreyne held up his left hand to forestall her, then lowered it quickly, but not before I caught a glimpse of a symbol etched on his palm, the lines a golden shimmer. It was similar to the silvery lines of the Norse rune etched on my own palm, although it didn’t look like any rune I’d ever seen. “Again, I assure you, there is no cause for concern,” he said in that velvety voice. “I have no doubt that Pemkowet will be delighted when the plans are unveiled.”

“I do,” I said.