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Sniff a head.
    She replied: Intrigued. But not surprised. B there soon.
    Candy arrived, a cream cashmere car coat over her gold and brown tweed pants suit. The werewolf shook her head and a light dust of white fell from her blond hair.
    “Oh, is it snowing?” I asked in delight.
    She ignored my question and stared at the top of my head. “You have road kill in your hair.”
    I reached up a hand. The goo had dried into a stiff mess. “I put the head on top of mine, like a hat. I guess it leaked a bit.”
    Candy curled her lip. “Why in the world would you put a severed head on your hair?”
    “It was funny.”
    Candy shook her head and sniffed.
    “The head is over by the back door,” I directed helpfully.
    “It smells like an orgy at a chocolate factory in here,” she accused.
    Leethu.
    “Uh, yeah. Don’t pay any attention to that. My foster sister is crashing here for a few days and she’s a Succubus.”
    Candy wrinkled her nose.
    “Is that going to affect your ability to smell the head? Should we take it outside?”
    “Probably. It’s going to take me a few moments to get your sister’s smell out of my nose. Someone needs to do an intervention and get her to turn it down. She reminds me of those people that douse themselves with a gallon of perfume. Gives me a headache.”
    We walked toward the back door with Candy pinching her nostrils. I pointed at the head.
    “I’m not picking it up. You’re going to have to carry it and hold it for me. I better not get one speck on my clothes either.”
    I grabbed the thing by the hair and yanked the door open, amused to see Candy carefully avoiding the wet spot on the maple floors. Once outside, she breathed deep, shaking her head to clear Leethu’s smell.
    It was snowing. We never had snow back home in Hel. It was something I truly enjoyed about living here with the humans. A light dusting of it covered the pool furniture, heavy and wet. The ground was too warm to allow it to accumulate much, but my stone patio was coated with a grey slushy sheen. I felt the bite of the flakes on my bare arms and stuck out my tongue to taste it. I loved snow.
    Candy scraped some off a lounge chair and held it up against her nostrils.
    “There. I think I can finally smell again.” She turned to the head in disgust. “So what do you want me to sniff for here?”
    “I think it feels like a normal human head, but Gregory is convinced it’s a dead demon. I wanted your take on it.”
    The werewolf leaned in, as close as she could without risking her cashmere coat, and inhaled. Pulling back a fraction, she scrutinized the head, closed her eyes and inhaled again.
    “It’s human, but it doesn’t smell right. It’s right on the edge of my memory, but I can’t place it.”
    “Demon?” I prompted.
    “Nope. Absolutely not. Not the slightest bit.”
    I had an idea. “Does it smell like those elf guys? The ones who were going to fill you full of arrows when you went through their trap this fall?”
    She looked at me in surprise. “I don’t think so, let me check again.”
    She inhaled deeply, shaking her head. “No. They smell like alfalfa and wild cucumber. This guy smells like a human and something else.” Her eyes popped open.
    “Snow,” she said.
    “Well yeah, we’ve been standing out here and he’s got snow on him. I’d expect him to smell like snow.”
    “Not real snow. When I describe scents to you, I’m comparing them to things you’d be able to smell. When I say you smell like burnt chocolate, that’s the closest equivalent. You smell like you, but that’s the best way I can describe it. Yes, this corpse smells like the snow that’s on his head, but he smells like something else. And it’s sort of like snow.”
    “Have you ever smelled anything similar? Vampires? Angels? Water sprites?”
    “There are water sprites?” she asked, surprised.
    “Not here. Unless they come in through one of the wild gates, that is. So there probably are some here.” I waved