Hence, the reputation as ghouls.

I admit, I’d found ghouls—the Outcast—pretty damn creepy myself before Stefan Ludovic came to town. If I’ve changed my tune, it’s in part because I’ve gotten to know him, and realized that you don’t get kicked out of heaven and hell without one heck of a tragic backstory. I’m not exactly sure how it works—even the Outcast themselves aren’t certain—but essentially, a human soul becomes Outcast by dying in a state of commingled sin and faith and transcendently powerful emotion, which creates some sort of theological loophole that thrusts them back into their bodies in the mortal plane . . . over and over and over again.

Oh, they can die, all right; but they come back. Cast out again. It happens in the space of a heartbeat. I’ve seen it and it’s profoundly unnerving. As far as I know, there are only two ways one of the Outcast can end his or her existence. One is to be starved of human emotions for a prolonged and agonizing period of time, until they consume their own essence and fade into the void of nonbeing.

The other is if I kill them, because I just so happen to possess a magic dagger that only I can wield and that’s capable of killing even the immortal undead. It was given to me by Hel herself, and its name is dauda-dagr, which means “death-day” in Old Norse. Right now, it was in a hidden sheath in the custom-made messenger bag hanging from my coatrack. So far, I’d only had to kill two ghouls and dispatch one zombie skeleton with it.

“Daisy!” Jen snapped her fingers at me. “Daise?”

“Um, yeah.” I poured myself another shot of tequila and downed it without bothering with the salt or lime. “Stefan’s uncle killed his father and married his mother. He—”

“Wait.” She interrupted me. “Isn’t that the plot—”

“Of Hamlet,” I agreed. “Only Stefan wasn’t indecisive. He killed his uncle outright, and his uncle’s guards stabbed him to death.”

Jen shivered. “Damn.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Honor thy father and thy mother,” she murmured. “That’s the element of faith, right?”

“Right.”

We sat in silence with that for a moment. On the stereo, Snoop Dogg advised us to drop it like it’s hot.

“I think you should do it.” Jen poured another shot for both of us. “One date. What do you have to lose?”

I held up my shot glass and squinted at the tequila it held. “Well, there is the small matter of one of the Norns warning me that the fate of the world might hinge on the choices I make.”

She did her shot with salt and lime. “Do you really think the Norn was talking about your love life?”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

“So?”

I pointed at her. “I can’t believe you of all people would suggest I date an eldritch predator.” That was because Jen’s sister Bethany had spent eight years as a blood-slut in thrall to a vampire. Okay, she proved to be a surprisingly badass vampire in her own right when he finally turned her, but for eight long years, no one would have guessed it. Plus, her blood-bonded vampire mate was an insufferable prat.

“I know, I know! But . . .” Jen hesitated. “Daise, sometimes I forget that you’re not human. If all you really wanted was a nice human guy—”

“I’d still be dating Sinclair,” I finished for her, downing my shot.

She nodded. “You know what brought it home to me? When you told me that first time with Cody, he was a little . . . wolfy.”

“Sorry.” I grimaced. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“I know.” Jen refilled our shot glasses, her shiny black hair falling forward. She tucked it behind her ears. “I’m just thinking, you’ve spent your whole life trying to repress your inner nature. Maybe it’s time to explore it.”

Okay, this definitely wasn’t a conversation we’d be having sober. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Jen was right. I had spent my entire life trying to contain my outsize emotions, especially anger and anything linked to the Seven Deadlies. I had an array of visualization techniques that my mom began teaching me at an early age. It kept me safe—safe from the prejudices of mundane humans, safe from the temptation scenarios my father, Belphegor, whispered to me when my unruly temper weakened the Inviolate Wall dividing us.

Too safe, maybe? After all, I’d recently indulged in some serious lust without any apocalyptic consequences. And when I’d nearly gotten myself killed using the pneuma as a weapon, it was my anger that had turned the tide.

On the other hand, unleashing Armageddon really wasn’t something you want to take a chance on.

“You’re the one I count on to keep me grounded,” I said to Jen. “This is not exactly helpful.”

She shrugged. “Look, the Norn said to trust your heart, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But you don’t know what your heart wants.” Jen pushed the full shot glass toward me. “How the hell else are you supposed to find out?”

I picked up the shot. “You have a point.”

“And you know what else?” She was warming to the topic. “Stefan’s interested in you, Daise. I don’t know . . . I don’t know exactly what that means for a ghoul, um, Outcast, and a hell-spawn, but . . . he’s being upfront about it, you know? He’s not dicking you around. What did he say when he kissed you?”