Raising her eyebrows a fraction, Lurine turned her gaze on the bartender.
He returned it impassively, mopping the bar with a dingy-looking rag. “What are you lookin’ at, Goldilocks?”
“I’m not sure.” Her tone was thoughtful.
Stefan Ludovic chose that moment to make his entrance, coming forward from the shadows with loose-limbed grace. He paused briefly at the sight of Lurine, and then circled her, his head slightly cocked, his longish black hair brushing the collar of his leather vest. His ice-blue eyes were curious, their pupils waxing and waning. She remained where she was, looking sublimely unconcerned.
Definitely some kind of predator face-off. Or a mating ritual. Possibly both.
Detective Wilkes consulted his notes. “Um . . . Mr. Ludovic?”
Stefan ignored him. “Have we met before?” he asked Lurine. “Perhaps in Prague . . . some time ago? Or somewhere else?”
Lurine smiled at him. “Oh, I don’t think so, sweetie.”
His nostrils flared, and he said something in a foreign language.
She replied in kind.
And then he said something in another foreign language; or at least that was what it sounded like to me. Lurine answered him in that one, too.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” My impatience got the better of me. “We’ve got a few issues to discuss. Can we talk, please?”
Stefan inclined his head. “Step into my office.”
His office was surprisingly luxurious and well-appointed, a back room in the bar with lots of dark wood paneling and leather-upholstered furniture. Nice recessed track lighting, too.
Stefan took a seat behind the desk, indicating a pair of chairs in front of it. “Ladies, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”
Lurine sat, crossing her legs. After an uncertain glance at Cody and the detective, I took the other seat. “First off, one of your ghouls attacked me last night,” I said. “I came home to find him waiting in the stairwell of my apartment. He tried to . . . um, feed on me.”
His pupils contracted to pinpoints. “I’m very sorry to hear it,” he said in a clipped tone. “That is unacceptable. Can you identify him?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Al. The big guy with the mustache.”
“Ah.” A complicated expression crossed Stefan’s face. “When you were here before, he tasted you, did he not?”
“Um . . . yeah.” Ick.
He nodded. “As a result of your, shall we say, mixed heritage, your emotions are unusually powerful, Miss Johanssen. For one of our kind . . .” His pupils expanded in a rush, giving me an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Possibly lower, too. It was creepy-gross on Al the Walrus, but creepy-hot on Stefan. Yeah, fine, call me shallow. “For one of our kind, I fear it is rather like a strong drug.”
“I thought the nectar of chemically induced emotions was poisonous,” Cody observed in his most laconic voice.
Stefan raised one eyebrow. Of course he was one of those guys who made it look effortless. “You have a good memory, Officer. But there is nothing artificial about Miss Johanssen’s emotions.” His pupils did that wane-and-wax thing again. “Indeed, I suspect they are a singularly pure nectar. And having tasted it, Al is ravening.”
“Ravening?” I echoed.
He inclined his head. “Like an addict craving a fix, only more dangerous. It is a condition to which the undisciplined among us are vulnerable. Usually it is triggered by exposure to extreme emotion, and causes the afflicted to seek to provoke further extremity in . . . unfortunate ways.”
“Like murder?” Cody asked bluntly.
“No.” Stefan turned his ice-blue gaze on him. “There is no sustenance to be gained from the dead. Only the living.”
My skin felt cold and prickly.
He looked back at me. “But that is not the case here. Your ordinary emotions are provocation enough. At any rate, do not be concerned. I will attend to the matter.”
“Mind if I ask how?” I said.
Apparently, he did. “You have my word. I will attend to it.”
Cody shook his head. “Not good enough. I want details.”
For the first time since I’d met him, Stefan Ludovic looked irritated. There’s a whole hierarchal thing that goes on in parts of the eldritch community, and he didn’t like being challenged. “This isn’t a matter that concerns mundane—”
Lurine interrupted him. “Oh, now, a little detail or two couldn’t hurt, could it?” She took a compact out of her purse and checked her lipstick in the mirror. “Daisy’s practically my goddaughter.” She gave him a winsome smile. “I’d take it as a personal favor, Mr. Ludovic.”It was a face-saving measure, and it worked. “Oh, indeed?” He eased. “I didn’t catch your name, Miss . . . ?”
“Hollister,” she said. “Lurine Hollister.”
“Is that the name you were born with?” Stefan asked. Not a fan of B-grade horror movies or tabloid gossip, it seemed.
“Is yours?” she countered.
He laughed. “Actually, yes. Very well. I’ll have Al picked up this afternoon and confined under guard until the ravening passes. He’s only had a couple of brief tastes. It shouldn’t take more than ten days. You’ll want to avoid accidental contact with him afterward,” he added to me. “It could retrigger him.”
Oh, great. “Not a problem.”
“Does that satisfy you?” Stefan asked Lurine.
She closed her compact with a snap. “Thank you, yes.”
He looked at me. “You said a few issues.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at Detective Wilkes and Cody in case either of them wanted to take the lead, but the detective was clearly overwhelmed, and Cody gave me a go-ahead nod. “Okay, here’s the deal. We’ve got a dead boy who was in this bar looking for Ray D two weeks before he died, and we’ve got eyewitnesses who saw two ghouls, one male and one female, dump the boy’s body in the river. Like it or not, your people are involved in this, Mr. Ludovic.” I held up my left hand, flashing Hel’s rune at him. “Last night I was summoned to Little Niflheim. To put it mildly, Hel is very concerned.”
“I see.” His pupils contracted again, giving him a blind, inward-looking appearance. “I will look deeper into the matter. But I assure you, no one you spoke to the other day lied.” His nostrils flared, and his pupils expanded. “I would have known.”
Lurine idly jiggled one stilettoed heel. “What about the bartender?”
“Jerry? It’s possible,” Stefan admitted after a pause, a frown creasing his pale brow. “He’s a blank.”
I felt ignorant. “What’s a blank?”
“He has no sense of empathy.” Stefan was silent a moment. “Condemn us as you will; call us ghouls.” He spoke the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth, and I remembered Hel calling it an unkind name. Briefly, I wondered what they called themselves, and wished I’d thought to ask her. “We are what we are, victims of our own passions. But we could not exist without being attuned to the emotions of others. This gift is not without its uses.” His unnerving gaze settled on me. “One such as you, a skilled and compassionate ghoul could assist. One could allow you to safely experience the emotions you fear, Daisy Johanssen.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Sheesh, was it that obvious? I cleared my throat. “Yeah, um, this isn’t about me. Back to the blanks?”
He shrugged. “Because they lack empathy, we cannot attune to them. So yes, in theory it is possible for Jerry to lie in my presence.”
“He’s a sociopath.” Detective Wilkes had found his voice. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
Again with the arched eyebrow. “Is that the correct terminology? Yes, I suppose so.”
“Can we subpoena the bartender and bring him in to testify under oath?” Cody asked Wilkes. “Maybe hook him up to the polygraph?”
The detective shook his head. “Based on this? Hell, no. I read the file. He’s already given you a statement. You want me to go to a judge and claim he’s an uncooperative witness because some, some . . . ghoul . . . says he has no sense of empathy?” He shook his head again. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
Stefan Ludovic laid his hands flat on the desk. “Speak, Hel’s liaison. My services are at your disposal. What will you?”
“Umm . . .” I glanced at Cody.
“The victim was found with a matchbook from the Wheelhouse in his pocket, and there was a phone number written on it,” Cody said. “Unfortunately, it was illegible. But someone here gave it to him. We want to know who and we want to know why.” His voice dropped an octave, a hint of a growl in it, a reminder that he was a predator, too. “And we want to find Ray D and question him. Badly. Very badly. You claim to be in charge here. Is that too much to ask?”
They had a brief staring contest and it was the ghoul who looked away, although I had the feeling it was more about maintaining self-control than any sense of intimidation. “I assure you, every effort will be made.”
For now, it would have to do.
Remembering Hel’s warning, I wondered what would happen if he failed.
Eighteen
Knowing what I did now, I couldn’t help but check out Jerry the bartender as we left the Wheelhouse.
Bracing his hands on the bar, he fixed me with a long, flat stare. “You gonna blow up my kegs again, blondie? Or do you like what you see?”
In fact, I most definitely didn’t like it, because what I saw was La Araña, the spider from my mom’s reading. An intricate tattooed web covered Jerry’s right shoulder and upper arm, the spider squatting amidst it.
Oh, crap.
“Yeah, um . . .” I made myself smile. “Sorry about that.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
I opted to keep quiet about this discovery for the time being. I wasn’t sure how much stock Cody put in Mom’s reading, and I was definitely sure Detective Wilkes wouldn’t approve.