Poison Fruit

Even so, it made my skin prickle. “How many did you kill?” I whispered.

Stefan’s gaze didn’t waver. “Three.”

“Were any of them born of innocents?” I asked him. “You said they weren’t like me, but . . . were they?”

He hesitated. “Two were part of an intricate occult conspiracy, conceived under circumstances rather, I suspect, like this lawyer Dufreyne. Perhaps its legacy is where his knowledge of our history comes from. And one . . . one was not.”

“Tell me about him,” I said. “Or was it a her?”

“It was a boy,” Stefan said. “He was a boy.”

“You killed a child?” I pushed my plate away, my appetite gone. “Jesus, Stefan!”

“We followed the report of rumors in the countryside,” he said. “We found a simple unwed peasant woman, her mind shattered beyond repair. We brought the woman and her ten-year-old son to the hospital in Prague. We gave her the best care possible and took in her son as a ward of the order. We watched and observed as he grew toward maturity.”

“Oh, so you didn’t slaughter him outright?” I said with bitter sarcasm. “Bravo. That could have been my mom, you know. That could have been me.”

“Your mother’s mind is very much intact, Daisy,” Stefan murmured. “This woman taught her son to believe he was the new Messiah and that he must claim his heritage and his birthright when he came of age.”

“So you killed him?”

“We watched him,” Stefan repeated. “We attempted to educate and guide him. And we failed.”

“Did he claim his birthright?” I asked, gesturing around me. “Because as far as I can tell, the world’s still standing.”

Stefan looked away. “When he was thirteen years of age, he slaughtered every horse in the hospital’s stables in a fit of rage, with a cleaver he’d stolen from the kitchen. I was the one who found him. I heard the horses screaming in panic, but I arrived too late. Outside of a battlefield, it was the worst scene of carnage I had ever witnessed. The boy was covered in blood, laughing. He told me that now that he’d been baptized, he meant to claim his birthright, and that we would all be sorry for it. And then he began the invocation.” He looked back at me, his pupils steady in his ice-blue eyes. “So yes, I killed him.”

I swallowed hard. The sight of my prime rib swimming in red meat juices had gone from unappetizing to sickening. “I don’t know what to say, Stefan. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I told you it was not a fit topic for dinner conversation,” he said.

“What made you think it would be better suited to brunch?” I’d raised my voice, turning heads.

“I thought it would be better suited to daylight,” Stefan said quietly. “It is not a memory I care to revisit.”

“Okay.” I grabbed my champagne glass and downed half its contents. “So what happened to make you go from executing hell-spawns to dating one?”

“There were great scholars in the Church in those days,” he said. “Great thinkers, great humanitarians. But in certain matters, their doctrine was rigid. When I became Outcast, I became anathema, shunned and reviled. And I began to perceive that God’s plan for humankind may be more vast and complex than we can comprehend. Perhaps one of the Outcast could have helped that boy.”

“Like you offered to help me the first time we met?” I asked him. “Jesus! Is that what you think I need?”

“No.” Stefan’s expression was grave. “I offered my services unknowing. I have encountered few of your kind since I was Outcast, and none like you. Until I made inquiries, I was uncertain of your nature.”

“And now?”

“Daisy . . .” He sighed. “No, I do not think you need my help. You are a grown woman capable of managing your emotions. But I think that the methods you have learned so well prevent you from being your truest self.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s a good thing,” I said. “What with the existential threat I represent and all.”

“Do you believe that?” Stefan asked.

“I’m not sure what I believe.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Okay, here’s a question for you. Would you be interested in me if I wasn’t a demon’s daughter?”

“We cannot separate who we are from what we are, Daisy,” Stefan said. “I suspect the hell-spawn Dufreyne has his own reasons for wishing to sow doubt in your mind. Perhaps in becoming your truest version of yourself, you pose a threat to his goals. You have powerful emotions that you yearn to express.” His pupils flared. “And I have powerful needs. What we can offer each other is . . . unique.”

Stefan and I regarded each other in silence for a moment. The background murmur of voices in the restaurant increased in volume. The clumsy busboy made a careful exit with his reloaded tray of dirty dishes.

I had a feeling we’d just provided the patrons of the Brookdale Country Club with a month’s worth of gossip.

I cleared my throat. “Would you be offended if I asked you to take me home?”

“Of course not.”

It was a silent drive through the gray drizzle back to my apartment. I didn’t quite know what to think about Stefan’s past. I felt like a vampire who’d just learned she was dating Van Helsing, although that wasn’t entirely fair. As he’d said, it had been a different time and he’d been a different man—a mortal man.