my apartment, I poured Lee a scotch and let him talk and talk and talk, rehashing and reliving the experience, examining it from every angle. As it turned out, words could say a lot. It was okay, though. I understood.
Eventually the conversation came around to mundane territory. I asked Lee about his experience in Seattle. Apparently, he’d been headhunted while he was still in high school and was considered a total wunderkind and a rock star in the gaming industry. And I asked him about his widowed mother, who was suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis.
“I remember her,” I said. “She used to chaperone field trips when we were in grade school.”
“Uh-huh.” Lee contemplated his glass. “She was the chaperone no one wanted to get stuck with.”
I hadn’t planned on mentioning that part, since I’d never actually gotten stuck with her. “Oh?”
He glanced at me. “Maybe you never had the pleasure. Mom never wanted the devil child in her group.”
Well, that explained that particular streak of luck. “I see.”
“Look, I love my mother, but she’s not a particularly nice person. Do you really have a tail, Daisy?” Lee asked me, apropos of nothing other than whatever unfathomable chain of association was playing out in his thoughts.
I set down my drink. “I’ll tell if you will. Which one’s ironic, Lee? The leather duster or the baseball cap?”
“The baseball cap,” he said. “Obviously.”
I shook my head. “Wrong.”
Lee laughed. It was a good sound, free and unfettered. “Are you calling me a poseur?”
I smiled at him. “Hey, if the duster fits . . .”
“I get it.” He finished his drink and levered himself out of the chair. “Daisy . . . thanks. I promise, I’ll build you a kickass database.”
I stood, too. “Good. Because I basically told Hel you were the only guy for the job.”
He looked a bit pale, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. “Right. Let me give you my phone number. I’ll call you in a few days when I’ve got something for you to look at.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure about that? Trusting me with your actual phone number?”
“Yeah.” He gave me a sheepish look. “I’m sure.”
Once Lee had gone, I curled up on the futon, Mogwai purring in my lap. All in all, I thought that could have gone worse. Hel wasn’t thrilled by the prospect, but she’d granted her permission. Okay, she’d given a very convincing demonstration of her ability to kill with a thought, but ultimately, she’d forgiven me for bringing an uninvited mortal to Little Niflheim. If Lee came through, and I was pretty sure he would, it could make doing my job a lot easier. The idea that there was an official ledger in which favors and transgressions would be recorded seemed to carry weight in the eldritch community, sort of like the way administrators used the idea of a permanent record in high school to keep us in line.
Yeah, it definitely could have gone worse.
Over the course of the following day, I jotted down notes on promises or threats I’d made since I’d conceived the notion of a ledger—notes like “Tuggle the hobgoblin + 3 unnamed associates, one warning for cheating tourists w/ a shell game,” and “Jojo (nickname) the joe-pye weed fairy, one big favor owed for identifying a hex-charm created by Emmeline Palmer,” as well as important save-the-date notices like “Labor Day Weekend 2024: Satyr Nicodemus goes into rut. MUST BE CONTAINED.”
Feeling inspired, I talked to Chief Bryant about letting me borrow the hard copies of the Pemkowet X-Files. Those files had a lot of good data in them.
The chief agreed readily, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “Why not? Those reports don’t exist as part of the official record. It’s always been your brainchild, Daisy. Not that I don’t see the merit in it,” he added. “But no reason you shouldn’t utilize them.”
“Thanks, sir,” I said.
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“Actually, yes.” I hadn’t forgotten about Hel’s charge. “Have you heard anything about this lawyer who’s been talking to people in town about selling off big tracts of undeveloped land?”
Chief Bryant frowned. “Ducheyne? Dufreyne?”
I nodded. “Something like that.”
He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head, his desk chair creaking. “I’ve heard a few things. I heard this lawyer fellow talked Bob Ballister into selling a plot along the channel he bought back in the seventies and clung to like a limpet ever since. Bob was planning to build and retire there if a road ever went through.” His