Cody leaned forward. “You know we’re not looking to get anyone in trouble, right? We’re just trying to verify these kids’ story.”
Rosalind gave him a world-weary smile. “Honey, you don’t need to whisper sweet nothings to me. I understand there’s a boy dead.” She took another look at Thad Vanderhei’s photo. “Twenty-one years old, probably still excited he could get into a bar legally. But I’m sorry; I honestly can’t say.”
“Thanks for trying.” Cody gathered the photos.
“Anytime.” This time, her smile had more wattage. “You’re Caleb Fairfax’s younger brother, right? I went to school with him. How’s he doing?”
“Good.”
“Married?”
Cody nodded. “Married, two kids.”
“Ah, well.” Her wattage dimmed. “You tell him Rosalind says hi. We dated for a month or two, you know.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him.”
We got the same story when we questioned the rest of the bartenders, waitstaff, and bouncers on duty, and I didn’t have the sense any of them were lying. Truth was, there was nothing especially distinctive about the trio. Three average-looking white boys in college T-shirts, board shorts, and flip-flops. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one of those in Pemkowet in the summer.
The lack of resolution was frustrating, and by the time we finished, I felt like throwing a rock at someone.
“Why couldn’t one of them have flaming red hair?” I muttered. “Or a birthmark, or a distinctive tattoo, or . . . or six fingers on one hand or something.”
“Is that from a movie?” Cody sounded tired.
“Don’t tell me you never saw The Princess Bride.” I stifled a yawn. “I swear, when this is over, I’m going to make you come over to watch a movie marathon with Mom and me.”
“I can think of worse fates.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, it’s been a long day, and we’re both operating on a few hours’ sleep. You’ve got your . . .” He gestured at the strand of freshwater pearls still looped around my neck for the sake of convenience. “Your naiad summoning at dawn?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You want to meet me in the parking lot of the nature preserve? We can hike from there.”
Cody hesitated. “No, I trust you to handle it on your own. That’s the kind of thing the chief brought you on board for. Go home. You can type up your notes later in the morning. I’ll meet with the chief and give him a verbal rundown.”
“Okay.”
I had a feeling Cody was reluctant to venture any deeper into the eldritch community than he already had; although he’d been quick enough to suggest going to the Wheelhouse, a known ghoul hangout. But then, that was only following the evidence.
Oh, hell, who knew? I didn’t pretend to understand men.
Maybe I should ask my father, I thought, and the thought almost made me giggle. The ironic thing was, I did have the means. Belphegor, lesser demon and occasional incubus, had made a pact with my mother. If I summoned him, he would answer.
I knew; I’d done it once, when I turned eighteen. I won’t do it again, not ever. I just had to know whether or not it was true. And it doesn’t summon him to the mortal plane, in case you were wondering. I’m not that stupid. It’s more like . . . Skyping with the infernal realm.
The problem was that Belphegor’s idea of fatherly advice consisted of attempting to convince me to invoke my demonic birthright, at which time great powers of temptation, seduction, and destruction would become mine to wield, and men would fall at my feet in supplication and adoration.
He kind of glossed over the whole part about it causing a full-blown breach in the Inviolate Wall, leading to Armageddon.
I still hear his voice sometimes. When the wall that divides us is especially thin, my not-so-dear old dad likes to show me what I call temptation scenarios.
“Daisy?” Cody snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Lost you there for a minute. See you at the station?”
“Huh?” I shook myself out of my reverie. “Yeah, right. Sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can tomorrow.”
I walked the few blocks to my apartment, where I was surprised and pleased to find Mogwai waiting for me. I spent a few minutes scratching under his chin while he purred and regarded me with a cryptic look; then I filled his bowl. Too tired to bother with cooking, I microwaved a bowl of ramen noodles for myself—hey, when you’re in your twenties, that’s a perfectly acceptable dinner—then sat down with Mogwai on my futon to watch some mindless TV.
At a little after nine, my phone buzzed. I glanced at it and picked up. “Hey, Jen.”
“Hey, Daise.” My best friend’s voice was listless. “I just wanted to call and see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” Tucking the phone under my chin, I picked up the remote and muted the TV. “What’s up? You don’t sound good.”
There was a silence on the other end. “I don’t want to bother you. You’ve got a lot going on.”
“You heard?”
She gave a faint snort. “Are you kidding? Who didn’t?”
“Well, then you know I can’t talk about it, so you might as well tell me. What gives, girl?”
“Nothing.”
I stroked Mogwai. “Jen.”
She sighed. “Cody Fairfax called to apologize for leading me on last night. He actually gave me the whole ‘it’s not you; it’s me’ shtick. Can you believe it?”
“Maybe it’s true,” I said.
Another silence, longer than the first one. When she spoke, there was an edge of suspicion in her voice. “Did you say something to him?”
“Jen—”
“Don’t fucking ‘Jen’ me! I know you’re working with him now.”
“It’s just . . .” I made a face. This would have been a lot easier if I could have told her the whole truth. “Yeah, okay, I told him you needed someone stable, someone you could depend on. And that if he wasn’t going to be that guy, if he wasn’t interested in a real relationship, he shouldn’t mislead you.”
“You don’t know what might have happened! You had no right!” Her voice dropped. “But you’re not exactly a neutral third party, are you? You’ve got your own reasons for warning him off me.”
“Don’t—”
“Oh, fuck you!” She hung up the phone.
I tried calling back, but she wouldn’t pick up. Guilt pricked my conscience. I cared a lot about Jen. She’d been my best friend for a long time, my only real friend in the ordinary mundane community. Ever since I’d helped her out with her sister, Jen had had my back, defending me through thick and thin. She’d put herself on the line for me more than once. In the cutthroat world of teenagers, that was a big deal. There were times in high school when I might have gone full-blown Carrie-at-the-prom if it hadn’t been for Jennifer Cassopolis; and yes, that’s another movie Mom and I watched together. Call it a cautionary tale if you will.
Crap.
Jen was right: I wasn’t neutral. She knew me too well, and I hadn’t kept my secret as well as I’d kept Cody’s. And it was stupid, because based on what he’d said today, even if he were interested in me, it could never go anywhere. I thought he was a serial dater because if he got too close to anyone, they’d start to realize he vanished once a month during the full moon.
Hell, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t know how much of my attraction to him was because he wasn’t a full-blooded human. I’d dated a few guys over the years . . . Well, no. Even that wasn’t really true. I’d never had an actual boyfriend. I’d hooked up with a few guys over the years, but there had usually been a fair amount of drinking involved, at least on their end. Ultimately there was always a spark missing, a level of passion I hungered for that went beyond the mere mortal. And yes, there was usually a point where they freaked out on me, and yes, it had a lot to do with the tail. Well, that and what it represented, I guess.
At least a guy who turned into a wolf once a month wasn’t likely to freak out over one small posterior appendage. But that was no reason to throw my BFF under the bus. For all I knew, Cody and Jen might have dated for a month and parted amicably. Or maybe they would have fallen in love, and he would have bucked clan tradition.
I doubted it.
More likely Jen would have ended up like the bartender Rosalind who dated Cody’s brother, still wistful and pining fifteen years later.
I sighed and turned off the TV.
I could tell myself that all day long, but even if it was true, I hadn’t done the right thing. My loyalty should have been to Jen, not to Cody and an unspoken eldritch code. I shouldn’t have interfered. I should have told her the truth and let her make her own choices.
Too late now.
I poured myself a couple inches of scotch and put Nina Simone on the stereo. She sang in a lower octave than most women, deep and soulful. Throughout her life, she’d struggled with the mortal demons of mental illness. Tonight, the sound of her voice soothed an ache in me. “It’s nobody’s fault but mine,” Nina sang, commiserating with my guilty conscience.
Wandering onto the porch, I watched the afterglow fade in the west, and listened to the sounds of Pemkowet on a summer evening.
It sounded just like last night.
A young man was dead, and most of the world went on, oblivious. I went back to the living room, flipped open my own case file. Thad Vanderhei stared up at me from his DMV photo, a bland smirk on his face and a faint impression of a circle flattening his hair, suggesting he’d taken off a baseball cap to have the photo taken.
On the stereo, accompanied by a spare, haunting piano arrangement, Nina confirmed in a mournful tone that if she died and her soul was lost, it was nobody’s fault but hers.
I brushed Thad’s face with one fingertip. “What did you do?” I murmured. “What were you up to, and whose fault was it?”