“Good day, Ms. Johanssen.” Daniel Dufreyne closed his car door, cracking the window. “I’m sure our paths will cross again.”

I watched him pull out of the parking lot. “No shit.”

      Twelve

I ducked back into the PVB office.

“Wow, way to throw yourself at Mr. Brooks Brothers, Daisy,” Stacey observed. “Not exactly subtle.” I shot her a glance, and she had the grace to look abashed. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Don’t have anything to do with that guy,” I said to her. “He’s bad news.”

“Like what?”

I hesitated, then flashed her the devil-horns sign with my right hand. As far as I was concerned, Daniel Dufreyne wasn’t protected by the eldritch honor code. “One of my kind gone to the dark side.”

Her face paled. “Are you serious?” She cast an involuntary glance upward, as though the Inviolate Wall were hovering above us. “I didn’t think you could do that without . . . you know.”

“I can’t,” I said. “But he can. Apparently, not all hell-spawns are created equal.”

I knocked on Amanda’s office door and went in to retrieve the sketch I’d made, apologizing for my hasty departure.

“That’s quite all right.” Amanda Brooks sounded shaken, which was disconcerting in and of itself. “Did you learn anything further from him?”

“Not really.” Well, that whole only-one-conceived-in-innocence thing was a pretty big bombshell, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. “I asked him what he meant by circumstances changing, and all he’d say was that a lot of people had been busy since the events of Halloween.”

She frowned. “Meaning what?”

“I wish I knew.” I held up the piece of paper with my sketch. “He had a mark on his palm. Like mine, only different. You wouldn’t have been able to see it,” I added. “It’s an eldritch thing. It could mean that he’s sworn to someone’s service like I’m sworn to Hel’s. Or it could be something altogether different. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“You don’t know?” Amanda’s voice took on an accusatory tone, which was annoying, yet reassuringly familiar.

“Look, it’s not like my job came with a training manual,” I said. “I’m just doing my best to figure it out as I go along, whether that means doing a Google search like everyone else, or bargaining with fairies and hunting bogles . . . Oh, crap.”

She raised an inquiring eyebrow. Okay, so can everyone but me do the one-eyebrow-raise thing?

“Sorry,” I said. “Just thought of something.” I tucked the sketch into my messenger bag. “Thanks again for setting up the meeting. I appreciate it.”

Amanda gave me a brusque nod. “I don’t know where this is going, but I don’t like it. Keep me in the loop.”

“Will do,” I promised.

Outside, I called Cody.

Investigating the suspicious purchases of large tracts of land in Pemkowet was something Hel had specifically asked me to look into, and it had occurred to me that since Dawn and Scott Evans were safely warded and there were no rumors that the Night Hag had struck elsewhere, reporting to Hel had to be my top priority.

And unfortunately, that could only be done after sunset, which meant our bogle hunt would have to wait until tomorrow night.

“Goddammit, Daise,” Cody grumbled into the phone after I’d explained it to him. “I had to call in a favor from Ken Levitt to cover my shift tonight.”

“Well, can he cover it tomorrow instead?” I asked. “I mean, I’m sorry if it inconveniences him, but it is a request from a goddess, after all.”

Cody laughed. “Good point, Pixy Stix.”

I sighed inwardly. “Well, let me know. If you can’t get off tomorrow night, maybe we can go when I get back from Little Niflheim.”

“Or I could go alone,” he said. “I can track the bogle without you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have Hel’s authority to question the bogle,” I said. “Believe me, it’s hard enough to get answers out of the fey with it. Without it, you’re screwed.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

I headed over to the Sisters of Selene to see if Casimir recognized the symbol, waiting while he assisted a couple of middle-aged shoppers poring over his selection of crystal pendants.

“Hey, I know you,” one of them said to me as Casimir rang up the other’s purchase. Her eyes widened, and she mimed a stabbing gesture. “You’re the ghostbuster girl from those YouTube videos, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted reluctantly. I’d tried to keep a low profile after the Halloween parade debacle, but a number of spectators had gotten footage of the incident, including me using dauda-dagr to dispatch the Tall Man’s reanimated remains. “Guilty as charged.”

The shopper shivered. “I have to say, that looked absolutely terrifying. Claire and I even considered canceling our annual holiday shopping trip, didn’t we?” she said to the other woman.

“We did,” Shopper Claire agreed. “But Pemkowet has the cutest boutiques with the most unusual items.”

“Thanks ever so much, dahling,” Casimir said to her, wrapping up the pendant she’d purchased and tucking it into a little cardboard box. “We do appreciate it, don’t we, Daisy?”