Matthew tilted his head back, narrowing his eyes. “So you think you can handle me, huh?”
She regarded him. “Yeah, I do.”
One of the other Tritons, a doughy, thickset guy sitting on the couch beside me, laughed. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.” He hoisted his cup. “All hail Lord Matt, the original Master of the Universe.”
Someone said, “Hear, hear,” and drank; someone else attempted to hush them. Most of them looked uncertain.
“That’s what Thad said,” I offered. “The last time he texted me. He said he was gonna be a Master of the Universe. I just thought it was, you know, a figure of speech. Is that, like, a thing with you guys?”
There was a little silence, broken by the doughy Triton next to me bursting into low, racking sobs.
Unsure what else to do, I rubbed his broad back.
“Jesus!” Matthew Mollenkamp pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyelids. “Ron, Ronny, man, get it together. Get ahold of yourself. I know, okay, I know. But at least Thad went out trying; he went out a man.”
“It’s just—”
“I know.” He lowered his hands, glaring. “I need a drink. I need a motherfucking drink.”
Lurine slithered upright and beckoned to me. “Come on, baby sister. Let’s go find some glasses.”
I followed her into the kitchen, leaning on the counter to stabilize the spinning room while she ransacked the cupboards. “Ummm . . . I’m not so sure this is a good idea anymore.”
Examining dingy glasses, she glanced at me. “You’re a little drunk, huh?”
I peered at her. “You’re not?”
“Sweetheart, do you have any idea what my actual body weight is?” Lurine asked, buffing a glass with a semiclean towel.
“No,” I admitted. “Not a clue.”
She laughed. “To be perfectly honest, neither do I.” Lurine lowered the towel, her gaze serious. “This was your idea. If you want to leave, we’ll leave, Daise. It’s okay; I can drive. But if you want to stay . . .” She shrugged. “These boys are almost drunk enough to reach the confessional stage. You might not have another chance like this.”
“True.”
Lurine yanked a bag of pretzels out of the cupboard and poured some in a bowl. “Here. Eat.”
I shoved a handful in my mouth. “Thanks,” I said around a mouthful of dry pretzel crumbs. “You’re the best ex-babysitter, sort-of godmother, and pretend sister ever. Seriously. I really, really appreciate your doing this.”
“Oh, gods.” She sighed. “And you’re at the maudlin-drunk stage.”
“Nuh-uh!” I shook my head. “I’m serious!”
“Okay, cupcake.” Lurine patted my head. “Maybe it’s best if you let me do most of the talking for now.”
When we returned to the living room with clean glasses and a bowl of pretzels, the ranks had thinned. I was sorry to see that the doughy Triton who’d burst into tears was gone. If anyone was going to crack tonight, he’d seemed like the best bet. But Lurine zeroed in unerringly on Matthew, solicitously pouring a glass of scotch for him and resuming her perch on the arm of his chair.
His glassy-eyed gaze skated slowly up and down her spandex-wrapped figure. He might be playing it cool, but he wasn’t immune to her charms. Even dialed down a few notches, Lurine was still Lurine.
“How come you’re being so nice to me?” he murmured. “It’s not like I’ve done anything to deserve it.”
“You’re hurting.” She wound her fingers gently through his hair. “People lash out when they’re hurt.”
He exhaled a long sigh, closing his eyes.
“Plus, I’ve never met a Master of the Universe before.” Lurine’s tone was light and soothing, somehow maternal and seductive at the same time. “I thought that meant guys in the finance industry pulling down seven-figure salaries. Is that you?”
His eyes opened. Beneath the sheen of drunkenness, there was a cynical light in them. “Is that what you’re looking for?”
“It wouldn’t hurt.” She bent over and placed a lingering kiss on his lips. “But I’m guessing your answer is no.”
“I do all right.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Masters of the motherfucking Universe.” Matthew leaned his head back against the chair as though it were too heavy to hold upright, his eyes half-slitted. “The true sons of Triton. You know who Triton was, Trask sisters?”
“Some Greek god, right?” Lurine, who was in all likelihood related to the deity in question, hazarded a guileless guess.
“Like in that movie?” I added. “Clash of the Tritons?”
He laughed soundlessly. “Old Triton blowing his wreathed horn, right? Blowing his horn over the waves, summoning all the sea nymphs, every one of them bowing down before him, every one of them hoping to be chosen, every one of them hoping to get fucked by a motherfucking god. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it means to be a Master of the Universe.”
Lurine and I exchanged a glance.
“Is that how Thad died?” I asked softly. “Trying to become a Master of the Universe like you?”
“Yeah.” Matthew’s eyelids flickered, sinking closed, then opening again. “I mean, I don’t know. Hell, I wasn’t there. But I think so.” He hoisted his glass, scotch slopping over the rim. “He died trying, anyway.”
I felt sick.
Twenty-six
Half an hour later, Lurine and I made our exit from Triton House.
We didn’t get anything more out of Matthew Mollenkamp or the other Tritons. Having divulged that much, they retreated from the subject and settled for drinking themselves further into oblivion. But as far as I was concerned, it was a good start.
I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, steadied by Lurine’s hand beneath my left elbow. “You think he was telling the truth?”
“No.” She steered me over an uneven patch of pavement. “But I think he was telling the truth wrapped in a lie.”
“Oops.” Despite Lurine’s guidance, I tripped over a jagged crack. “Yeah, me, too.” I peered into the darkness. “Hey, is that my car?”
“It is.” Lurine held out her hand. “Keys, please.”
Rummaging in my straw satchel, I found my car keys beneath dauda-dagr’s deer-hide-wrapped length and handed them to her. “Thanks.”
“Your mom would kill me if I let you drive in this condition.” Lurine slid behind the wheel. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she eased Stefan’s pendant over her head. The subtle glamour faded, restoring her features to their usual unsubtle beauty. “Ah, that’s better.” She handed me the pendant. “Put that somewhere safe for the head ghoul in town. Been seeing a lot of him, have you?”
I tucked the pendant in an inner pocket of my satchel. “Not a lot.”
“Hmm.” Lurine turned the key in the ignition and began easing the Honda out of the parking lot.
“What does ‘hmm’ mean?”
“Just be careful with him, Daisy.” She gave me a serious look. “I told you, you’re like catnip to these things. He may be older and have more control, but that just makes him more dangerous.”
“Like you?” I asked as she turned onto the street. It was probably a boundary-crossing question, but what the hell. Drunk as I was, I had an excuse.
Lurine didn’t answer right away. The passing streetlights illuminated her face intermittently, and she looked different in their glow. Not older, exactly; for as long as I’d known her, Lurine had looked about twenty-seven or-eight, and assuming I remained resigned to accepting my own mortality, it wouldn’t be all that many years before I’d be able to pass for her older sister, which was sort of an unpleasant thought.
Anyway, it was a sense like age, as though I could see the shadows of antiquity stretching behind her.
“In some ways, yes,” she said eventually. “We do what is necessary to ensure our survival. In others, no. I am no danger to you. That does not mean I’m not dangerous to mankind.” She turned her gaze on me. “Do you really want to know more?”
The streetlights caught a hypnotic glitter in her pupils: not the avid hunger of a ghoul, but the steady predator’s gaze of a snake fixing its prey.
“Umm . . .” I swallowed. “I’m going to go with no.”
She turned her attention back to the road. “Daisy, you’re Hel’s liaison, and I will tell you anything you truly wish to know. But in the eldritch community, it’s not wise to ask questions if you don’t want to know the answers.”
“Gotcha.” The thought occurred to me that if Lurine had shed her borrowed glamour and turned that basilisk stare on Matthew Mollenkamp, he would have peed in his pants, begged for his mommy, and told us the whole unvarnished truth instead of bragging about being a true son of Triton. Of course, that probably would have resulted in half the town of Appeldoorn camping outside the infamous Lurine Hollister’s estate with pitchforks, which was the point of the glamour in the first place. “So what do you think about Lord Matt’s Masters of the Universe story?”
Lurine pursed her lips. “It all comes down to sex, doesn’t it? That’s the one thing that boy wasn’t lying about.”
“Uh-huh.” I attempted to nod sagely, and found my head was still a bit wobbly on my neck. “But with who? Or what?”
“Nothing human.” She pulled adeptly onto the highway. “But there’s no way it was one of the local water elementals.” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t dare lie to me. And there’s no way those boys could catch or lure one.”
“No.” I rubbed my temples, feeling the lurking onset of the hangover that awaited me. “But you’re right. That’s what they were looking for in Pemkowet. Not drugs. It all comes down to sex.”