the rear entrance. I sheathed dauda-dagr and waited uncertainly until he returned a few minutes later, his pupils normal and a pair of cold Budweisers in his hands.
“Sorry about that.” Cooper handed me a beer. “Needed a little something to take the edge off.”
Somehow, I didn’t think he meant the beer. I was pretty sure he meant one of the mortal barflies and hangers-on inside the Wheelhouse. “That’s . . . okay.”
He eyed me as he took a pull on his beer. “Makes you a mite squeamish, does it?”
“A mite,” I admitted. “My first experience with, um, an Outcast’s appetite wasn’t a good one.”
Cooper looked surprised. “Himself?”
I shook my head. “No, not Stefan. It was a guy named Al. He’s gone—Stefan banished him. But he . . . tasted me against my will, and it sent him ravening.” The memory of it still made me feel dirty.
“Ah, well. It’s different when you’re willing,” he said, taking another swig of beer. “But then, you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” I’d given Stefan permission to drain my anger when I was on the verge of losing my considerable temper and causing an ungodly scene at a funeral. The fact that it had felt as good and shockingly intimate as it had was almost as unnerving as being coerced against my will. “I do.”
Cooper changed the subject. “You did well today. You’ve got the knack for this.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate your help.” I took a sip of beer. “Would you be willing to do it again?”
He considered me. “Yeah, I would. You know, I thought my little speech would scare you off. But I reckon you’re tougher than you look.”
“It was quite a speech,” I said.
“I hope so,” Cooper said in a flat, dispassionate voice. “Because I meant every sodding word of it.”
Twenty-two
After leaving the Wheelhouse, I swung by Sedgewick Estate to visit my mom. I’d call it a whim, but the truth was, after everything that had happened in the past few days, I was in need of some maternal sympathy.
As it turned out, I was totally in luck. Mom was just putting a pan of lasagna in the oven, and there was plenty of time to fill her in on my latest trials and tribulations—although I didn’t tell her the part about Emmy’s charm sending me to Doc Howard’s office—get some quality Mom-style commiseration regarding my breakup with Sinclair, eat a home-cooked meal, and still get back to my place well before sunset.
In the bedroom of my apartment, I went into my narrow closet to retrieve the iron casket I’d stashed on the top shelf, then fetched the key from its hiding place in the jewelry box on my dresser.
The casket wasn’t much bigger than a jewelry box, but it was heavy as hell, ancient and battered and inscribed with intricate Norse knotwork designs. Hel had given it to me the first time she’d summoned me into her presence and offered me the position of serving as her liaison to mundane authorities.
I took it into the living room to unlock it and examine its contents. Everything was in order: the little copper bowl, the packet of scaly pine bark from Yggdrasil II wrapped in soft wool, the box of wooden kitchen matches I’d added.
Whether or not it would work, I couldn’t say for sure. In the few years that I’d served Hel, I’d never had occasion to attempt to contact Little Niflheim. It had always been the other way around.
Truth be told, I was curious.
Lee Hastings appeared on my doorstep at exactly ten minutes after eight, looking like death warmed over and wrapped in a black leather duster. I bet he was one of those guys you could set your watch by.
“I’m here,” he announced, proclaiming the obvious in a magisterial tone. “Shall we go?”
“Hold on, cowboy.” I tucked the iron casket under my arm. “You don’t just waltz into Little Niflheim uninvited. Besides, I don’t have a dune buggy.”
Lee frowned. “A dune buggy?”
“Jeep, four-wheel drive, all-terrain vehicle, whatever. I don’t have one, and it’s not a route I’d risk if I did. How else did you think we were going to get there?” I asked him. I might have been the only citizen in living memory to visit Pemkowet’s underworld, but everyone knew where it was, more or less. Yggdrasil II is the entrance, and it’s tough to miss a pine tree the size of a skyscraper jutting out of the sands that swallowed the old lumber town.