“Let me take your coat,” he said, helping me out of my leather jacket. Yes, it was freezing outside, and no, I hadn’t worn the Michelin Man coat. “Come inside. I’d like to introduce you to a dear friend.”

Aside from an impressive array of edged weapons hung on one wall and a museum-quality fourteenth-century Bohemian parade shield on display in a Plexiglas case, Stefan’s condo featured sleek, minimalist furnishings, high ceilings, polished wood floors, and a big picture window with a great view of the river.

Today, there was a wheelchair parked in front of the window. The man sitting in it gazed at me with dark, luminous eyes, an indecipherable yearning in his expression.

“Daisy, this is Janek Król,” Stefan said. “Janek, this is Daisy Johanssen, who serves as liaison to the goddess Hel in Pemkowet.”

“It is a pleasure,” Janek Król said in slurred, softly accented English. Reaching for a pair of forearm crutches, he began struggling to rise.

“Oh, please!” I said quickly. “There’s no need to get up!”

“Please.” He gave his head a dismissive shake. “Sometimes manners are all that stand between us and the end of civilization.”

So I waited while Janek Król completed the arduous task of levering himself upright and taking a step away from his wheelchair, his feet dragging reluctantly. At least it gave me time to study him. He had a thick crop of bushy gray hair and a gaunt, lined face, those dark, expressive eyes set in deep sockets. It was hard to place his age; he looked to be in his mid-sixties, but I had a feeling he was younger. I realized with a shock that he was one of the Outcast. It shouldn’t have been a shock—after all, he was a friend of Stefan’s—but I’d never considered the fact that an Outcast could be disabled.

“There.” With a lopsided smile, Janek extended one hand. His ring and pinky fingers remained folded back against his palm, unable to straighten. “It is not a good handshake, but it is a handshake. A proper greeting for a beautiful American girl.”

I shook his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Król.”

“And you, Miss Johanssen.” His pupils waxed briefly as he drew a sharp breath, but they steadied just as fast. His body might have been compromised, but it was obvious that his willpower and discipline were strong—as strong as Stefan’s or maybe even stronger. “Please, call me Janek.”

“Daisy,” I said in turn. “How can I, um, help you?”

Janek glanced at Stefan, who gestured to a table in the dining space. A tray sitting on it contained a clear glass bottle of amber liqueur and three shot glasses. “I procured a bottle of nalewka for the occasion,” Stefan said. “Traditional Polish spirits. Let us sit together and drink while Janek tells you his story.”

Janek nodded in agreement. “Then you may decide if you are willing to help me, young Daisy.”

My tail twitched reflexively. “Okay.”

With another prodigious effort, Janek returned to his wheelchair. He set the forearm crutches aside and allowed Stefan to maneuver him to a seat at the head of the table where a chair had been cleared. I took the chair to his left, and Stefan sat opposite me. It all felt very formal, which didn’t help settle my nerves. My thoughts skittered all over the place. I found myself wondering if it was a regular thing for Stefan to hold councils at his dinner table. Somehow, I didn’t think so. Hell, I didn’t even know if he ever used his dinner table—the Outcast can eat and drink, but a lot of them don’t bother, since they can’t take any sustenance from it.

Then I tried to recall if I’d ever seen Stefan eat or drink anything other than a parsimonious sip of water, and finally remembered that yes, we’d had coffee together at Callahan’s after Thad Vanderhei’s funeral, which didn’t seem like a particularly good omen. Stefan had commented that it was dreadful—the coffee, that is, which was true, but it was cheap and refills were free. Although Thad Vanderhei’s funeral was pretty dreadful, too. That was where I’d been on the verge of totally losing my temper and causing a major scene—as well as possible structural damage—and had voluntarily consented to let Stefan drain my fury, which had averted the crisis but forged the bond between us.

And thinking about that made me wonder how many other people Stefan was bonded to—if the bond was as powerful, or if that was a dubious side effect of my super-size emotions—and why I hadn’t seriously wondered about it before.

Yeah, those are the thoughts that flashed through my mind in the time it took Stefan to fill three shot glasses with traditional Polish spirits and distribute them. Did I mention that I was nervous?

Janek Król raised his glass, holding it carefully in his crabbed hand. “Na zdrowie!” he said. “To your health.”

Unsure whether to sip it or slam it, I watched and waited. Sip, apparently. It tasted sweet and faintly herbaceous, a bit like cough syrup. Not that I’d ever had a cough—I never got sick—but Jen and I had dared each other to drink a bottle when we were teenagers in search of a legal buzz.

“You will be wondering about my condition.” Janek set the glass down. “In English it is called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” He pronounced the foreign words with care, struggling not to slur. “I believe in America you call it after a famous player of baseball, Lou Gehrig.”

I nodded. “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“It is a bitch of a disease.” He spat the word. “And I have endured it for almost three-quarters of a century.”