I glanced at my watch and decided I could hit the bead shop later. “So what do you know about the Vanderhei kid, Cas?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really. I know more about the family in general. Very conservative and very wealthy. The rumor I heard is that Jim Vanderhei was one of the major backers behind the Prop Thirteen resolution two years ago. Remember?”
“Um . . .” I didn’t follow politics closely. “A little help?”
“Oh, girl!” Casimir sighed dramatically. “You can’t afford not to pay attention to these things. Prop Thirteen? The one that would have required registered voters to get DNA testing to prove they are a hundred percent human?”
“Oh, right. But it didn’t pass.”
“Not that time, no. It doesn’t mean they won’t try again.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “What do you want with freshwater pearls, Miss Daisy? I heard the boy drowned by accident.” He paled beneath his artfully applied foundation. “Oh, sweet goddess, tell me a member of the community wasn’t involved! Because that is all the Vanderheis need to turn personal tragedy into a political crusade.”
Oh, crap.
Glancing around, I made sure no one else had entered the store. “I don’t know, Cas. On the record, we’re just covering all the bases. But between you and me, the chief’s watch was spinning like a top.”
Casimir’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed hard. “Best you try to keep that under wraps, girl.”
“I know.” I pointed at him. “You, too. But if you hear anything, let me know.”
He nodded. Casimir might put up a frivolous front, but you don’t get to be the head of Pemkowet Coven without being able to keep a secret. Matter of fact, even I don’t know who all the members of the coven are. “You be careful out there, Miss Daisy. You know there are folks in the community who are none too fond of you and what you do.”
“Yeah, I know. I got hissed at by a milkweed fairy yesterday.” It seemed like ages ago. “But if I hadn’t intervened, we’d be scouring the dunes for a missing child on top of everything else. What can I say, Cas? I believe in the rule of order. A society as mixed as ours can’t function without it.”
He raised his hands. “You’re preaching to the choir, girl. Just remember there are plenty who believe otherwise.” He lowered his voice again. “And they’re not going to worry that messing with you could breach the Inviolate Wall, Miss Daisy.”
I shrugged. “This might turn out to be nothing. I hope it does.”
“I hope so, too.” Casimir looked worried. “Just watch your back.”
“I will,” I promised. “And don’t worry; I’m not working alone. Cody Fairfax is the lead officer on this case.”
“Officer Down-low?” He fanned himself. “Girl, he’s all kinds of fine, but you watch him, too. Those furry clans protect their own. If it gets hot, and he has to choose between having your back and outing himself, I wouldn’t trust him to do the right thing.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “Thanks, Cas.”
The Fabulous Casimir recovered enough of his aplomb to blow me a kiss. “Anytime, Miss Daisy!”
I mulled over his warning on the walk to the station.
Casimir was right about the rumors about the Inviolate Wall not protecting me. In eldritch terminology, the Inviolate Wall is what divides the mortal plane from the divine forces of the apex faiths, the major living faiths: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. In theory, it means that the divine forces of the major living faiths can’t act directly on the mortal plane, only indirectly through their millions of adherents. But in places like Pemkowet, the wall is thinner, not so inviolate. There are cracks, and things slip through them. Kind of like my father slipped into my mother.
And . . . technically, my existence represents one of those chinks. And if I were to supplicate my father, Belphegor, for my demonic birthright, it could cause a full-blown breach and unleash . . . well, hell on earth.
Which in turn could free up the forces of heaven to combat them, unleashing . . . well, Armageddon, basically.
Knowing that, one might wonder why the eldritch community suffers my existence. That’s where it gets tricky. According to Hel—again, that’s the Norse goddess, not the infernal plane—if an immortal deliberately caused my death, it could also bring on Armageddon, because in accordance with ancient laws, my father would have the right to seek vengeance on earth, thus creating a significant breach in the Inviolate Wall.
Like I said, tricky.
In a sensible and orderly world, that would mean no one would ever think it was a good idea to kill me, and it would be in everyone’s interest to keep me happy and complacent, so that I was never tempted to give in to the dark side and invoke my birthright. Alas, we do not live in a sensible and orderly world. Ordinary humans have their sociopaths, terrorists, and anarchists capable of destroying everything around them, and laughing while their worlds fall to pieces.
So do we, and the stakes are considerably higher.
It was good to be reminded of it.
I realized my tail was untucked and lashing in my jeans—I buy them a little loose out of necessity—and wrestled my emotions under control before the tourists on the sidewalk behind me began to wonder why the blond girl’s butt was trying to escape its denim confines.
Officer Down-low was waiting for me at the station. He did indeed look all kinds of fine after a few hours of sleep, a shower, and a shave.
Even though we worked in the same department, I didn’t often see him, since Cody usually worked night shifts. Affinity for the nocturnal and all. It was the first time since grade school that we’d be spending any length of time together. I wondered how long it took his stubble to grow, and whether men of the howl-at-the-moon persuasion had to shave more often than most people.
Or whether, indeed, most bothered. The older members of the Fairfax clan did keep to themselves, but I seemed to remember a couple of them being sort of hairy—not in a Joaquin Phoenix–losing-his-marbles-and-growing-a-long-scraggly-beard way, but more in a sexy Hugh Jackman–as-Wolverine-unexpectedly-rocking-the-muttonchops way.
“Daisy Jo?” Cody waved a file folder at me. “Ready?”
“Huh?”
He thrust the folder into my hands. “Let’s canvass.”
We hit the town on foot. Downtown Pemkowet is small enough that it’s easier to walk than drive. Unfortunately, we struck out left and right. None of the bartenders on duty this early in the day had been working last night. Whether out of genuine disinterest or an instinctive desire to protect their own, everyone we spoke to claimed not to know who had been working.
I staged a detour at the Fabulous Casimir’s retail nemesis, Baubles & Beads, where I bought a long strand of freshwater pearls. Mission pearl, check. The salesclerk eyed Cody and me with mild curiosity as I looped them around my neck. I guess women didn’t usually shop for cheap pearls with uniformed cops in tow.
“I can get reimbursed for this, right?” I asked him.
“Hell if I know,” Cody admitted. “Keep your receipts.”
“I will.”
His stomach rumbled, and he grimaced. “Daise? We’re not getting anywhere at this hour. What do you say we get a bite to eat?”
I smiled. “I say yes.”
Every town has its local cop shop, and Pemkowet was no exception. Callahan’s Café was only a block and a half away from the station. It was one of those places that for inexplicable reasons, or maybe proximity to the police station, proved tourist-averse and attracted a local clientele instead. Their coffee sucked, but they offered a bottomless cup of it in the age of Starbucks, and they did good things with red meat. Plus, I had a soft spot in my heart for the place. My mom waitressed there for years, and I have fond memories of spending long hours sitting quietly at a corner table with a coloring book. That was when the chief first took a semipaternal interest in me.
I ordered the meat loaf special, because who doesn’t love meat loaf? Cody got ribs. And yes, I enjoyed watching him gnaw on them with his strong, white teeth. Most people leave shreds of meat clinging to the bone. Not Officer Down-low.
It gave me a shivery feeling deep in my belly, and made my tail twitch. Those teeth . . . gah!
Focus, Daisy.
I cleared my throat. “So . . .”
“Hmm?” Cody looked up from his plate of ribs.
I willed the most titillating of the Seven Deadlies to subside, casting around for a topic that didn’t involve discussing the case in public. “You never did say whether you like Jen enough to . . . you know.”
“I don’t know her well enough to say.” He gave me a level gaze. “And since I keep my word, I suppose that means I never will.”
I flushed. “I didn’t mean—”
Cody interrupted me. “Look, I respect your wanting to protect a friend. But why are you so sure I’d be bad for her?”
Anger flickered. “Oh, you mean other than the obvious? Because you’ve never dated the same woman for longer than a month or two! I know Jen; she’s got a self-destructive streak. She needs someone stable in her life, someone she can depend on.”
He looked away. “That’s not true.”
“I think I know her better—”
“Not that.” He looked back at me. “I dated the same woman for over a year.”
“Who?” The milk in my coffee curdled as I began ticking his girlfriends off on my fingers. “Sarah Holcombe, Beth Wilcox, Julia Morales—”
“It’s no one you know. She lived in Canada.” Cody nodded at my coffee mug. “Better simmer down there.”
I took a deep breath, imagined myself pouring out a glass of curdled anger. “I don’t like being bullshitted, okay? She lives in Canada? Please. That’s the oldest gimmick in the book.”
Something hard surfaced behind his eyes. “I said lived.”