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“Also, she couldn’t afford a tarot deck back in the day,” I added. “So she made up her own system with these. ”
“Which works very well,” Mom said.
“Okay,” Cody said in a mild tone. “No offense intended. ”
All of us sat at the dinette, Mom and I facing each other. I picked up the familiar deck and fanned it to find my significator, El Diablito, the little devil, placing it faceup on the table. Then I shuffled the deck carefully, holding the image of Thad Vanderhei’s drowned face in my mind. When it felt right, I cut the deck three times and passed it back to my mom.
She turned over the first card, laying it in what would be the center of the spread: La Calavera, the skull.
“This is your victim. ” Her gaze met mine. “I have a feeling this reading’s going to be pretty literal, sweetheart. ”
I nodded. “Anything you can tell us might help. ”
“The underlying influence. ” Mom turned over the second card: La Botella, the bottle.
In his chair, Cody stirred. “Did you talk to her about the case?” he asked me.
“No!”
“Is there a bottle involved?” Mom asked.
Cody sighed. “I can’t comment on it. ”
“La Botella could refer to any kind of substance abuse,” she said pragmatically. “Under the circumstances, I’d interpret it as referring to the victim, not the questioner. But if there’s an actual bottle, it means this reading is uncommonly literal, and you should pay close attention to the symbols themselves. ”
He nodded. “Duly noted. ”
She turned over a third card: La Araña, the spider. “The deeper cause. Your victim was drawn into someone’s web. ”
I tried to recall whether there were any literal web spinners in the eldritch community. The myth of Ariadne came to mind, but wherever she lived, if she yet lived, it wasn’t anywhere near Pemkowet. I thought there might be some Native American myths about spiders, and made a mental note to visit the library or ask Mr. Leary about it. My old myth and lit teacher had retired a couple of years ago to dedicate himself to serious drinking, but he was still one of the best sources of arcane information I knew.
“The destination. ” Mom turned over the fourth card: Las Jaras, the arrows. She frowned at it for a moment, then shook her head. “The arrows generally represent a goal, a target or ambition. It doesn’t tell us much in this context. ”
“Unless the perp was a vampire,” Cody suggested, leaning over the table to study the cards, caught up despite himself. “You said to think literally, and an arrow’s pretty close to a wooden stake. ” He flushed. “Ah . . . assuming, of course, that there is a perp. We’re a long way from making that conclusion. ”
Mom smiled at him. “Don’t worry. All readings are strictly confidential. ” She turned over the final card. “The culmination. ”
It was La Sirena, the mermaid, but the card was upside down, or reversed, as actual tarot readers say.
“An alluring woman,” Mom murmured. “But she’s in distress. ”
I touched the strand of freshwater pearls looped around my neck. “Could it be a naiad or an undine?”
“It’s possible. ” She looked worried. “There’s something bad going on; that’s for sure, Daisy, baby. ” She gathered up the cards, shuffled, and squared them, setting them back on the table. “I’m willing to try, if you’d like me to do a reading for you, Officer Fairfax, but the cards usually only get vaguer when they’re questioned twice on the same issue. ”
He shook his head. “I’ll defer to the expert, but call me Cody. ”
“Cody. ” A hint of a smile returned to her blue eyes. “I’d be happy to do a reading on a more personal matter. ”
He cut the deck and glanced at the uppermost card: La Luna, the moon. Of course, that would so totally be his significator. “Another time, maybe. ”
Her smile deepened. “Anytime. ”
Seven
“Your mom’s not what I expected,” Cody commented on the drive back toward the town.
“How so?”
He gave me a sidelong glance, topaz eyes glinting. “Oh, I don’t know. She’s really . . . nice. ”
I yawned, slumping a little in my seat. “Meaning I’m not?”
“Let me put it this way,” he said, not unkindly. “You’ve got a short fuse. ”
I gazed at his hands on the steering wheel. Cody had good hands, nicely shaped, with long fingers, strong and sinewy. Rather like the rest of him, from what I’d seen. “Tell me something I don’t know. ”
He concentrated on the road. “What we talked about earlier . . . You’re right about Jen Cassopolis. Her sister’s still out at Twilight Manor, right? I’d forgotten about some of the crap she went through. She deserves better. ”
I sat up straighter. “Hey, now! I didn’t say better. ”
Cody shrugged. “It’s what you meant, and you were right. It’s okay. I’ll call her. I’ll do the old ‘it’s not you; it’s me’ routine. After all, it’s true. ”
“Is it because of the whole mating-within-your-species thing?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
I let the silence ride a while, but I couldn’t help being bedeviled with curiosity. “Did you love her?”
“Caroline?” His mouth twisted. “Honestly, I can’t say. Long-distance relationships are tough, and there’s a lot we never got a chance to find out. But I liked her a lot, Daisy. An awful lot. ”
“I’m sorry,” I said honestly.
He gave me another glance, his expression softening. “I know. Thanks, Pixy Stix. ”
My tail twitched with indignation. “What’s that all about, anyway?” I grumbled. “Why the hell did Brent call me that?”
Cody chuckled. “Hell if I know, but it’s funny. ”
We passed the turnoff to downtown Pemkowet and headed for the rural highway. I grimaced. “You’re taking us to the Wheelhouse?”
“Yep. I told you. ” Cody turned onto the highway. “It’s okay. You can stay in the patrol car if you’re scared. ”
“I’m not scared,” I protested. “I just don’t like ghouls. ”
“Who does?”
“Skanks,” I said morosely.
“One man’s skank is another man’s alluring woman in distress,” Cody said philosophically, pulling into the parking lot. “Since you value it so highly, I’m trying to pay attention to your mother’s advice. Are you coming or staying?”
I unbuckled my seat belt. “Coming. ”
Okay, a word about ghouls. Yes, fine, I’ll admit it: They do actually scare me quite a bit. The thing is, with vampires, it’s a straightforward transaction. Vamps provide you with hypnotic pleasure in exchange for sucking your blood. If they deem you worthy, in time, they might deign to change you and make you one of them. If they don’t, like Jen’s sister, Bethany, you’re a blood-slut until they get tired of you and either kill you, which fortunately hadn’t happened to anyone since I’d been working for the department, or cut you loose, at which point in time you’re like any hopeless addict.
Ghouls are different.
By and large, ghouls are as deathless as vampires, but they feed on their victims’ emotions, which is why they’re drawn to the most vulnerable, abused members of society. And that scared me, because in a deep, dark part of me, I could see the appeal of it. I struggled to control my emotions on a minute-to-minute basis. The thought of relinquishing that control . . . Well, there was something sinfully, mindlessly, blissfully appealing in it.
Also terrifying. Because, for better or worse, my emotions defined me.
I took a deep breath before I got out of the car. A handful of gleaming motorcycles were parked outside the bar, mostly Harleys. Because yes, as if ghouls weren’t intimidating enough in the first place, most of them belong to biker gangs.
Although truth be told, the bikes themselves were work
s of art, gleaming and gorgeous. Fighting a perverse urge to try on the nearest for size, I sidled past them, shoving my hands in my pockets.
Cody gave me an odd look. “What are you doing?”
“Didn’t you ever see Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure?” I asked him, envisioning the row of bikes toppling like dominoes.
“No. ”
I shrugged. “Never mind. ”
Inside the Wheelhouse, it was dark and seedy. There were a half dozen patrons: four rough-looking guys wearing black leather vests with Outcast motorcycle club patches, and a couple of . . . well, skanks. The sound of clanking pool balls and gruff banter gave way to dead silence as Cody and I entered the bar.
The bartender exchanged a glance with the patrons, then ambled over toward us. He was a wiry guy with ornate tattoos peeking out beneath his rolled-up sleeves, and full muttonchops, a look he was definitely not rocking. “What can I do you for, Ossifer?”
Cody opened the file. “I’d like you to look at a few photos, let me know if you recognize any of them. ”
Muttonchop gave him a tight smile. “Nope, not a one. ”
Cody’s brows rose. “You haven’t even looked at them. ”
Muttonchop glanced toward the back of the bar again. A fifth guy I hadn’t noticed before, seated in the shadows, nodded at him. He thumbed through the photos. “Nope, sorry. Can’t help you. ”
“No problem,” Cody said pleasantly, moving past the bartender. “I’ll just ask these ladies and gentlemen to have a look. ”
I stuck tight behind him. One of the pool players, a big guy with a walrus mustache, moved to intercept us.
The bartender wasn’t a ghoul, but this guy was. Ghouls don’t have that underlying deathly white pallor that vampires do, maybe because they’re not prone to ignite in sunlight, but you can always tell that their skin tone is a few shades paler than it was when they were alive. And their pupils are always too dilated, their stares too intense. There’s something inhumanly avid about their eyes.