“And that’s enough?” I whispered.
Dunham flexed his hand again, contemplating it. “Sometimes you just gotta let the world burn.”
Let the world burn. . . .
The words echoed in my ears, evoking yesterday’s vision: the lake of fire, the bat wings, the fiery whip.
I shivered. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you could unleash.”
His mouth curled. “I heard the rumors. You gonna call your daddy, blondie? Risk unleashing hell on earth?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,” Mary sang, swaying back and forth in Ray’s arms. “Your house is on fire, and your children are all . . . Oh.” Her voice fell silent.
A wave of despair washed over me, fresh and tasty, by the way the ghouls responded. Al the Walrus groaned with pleasure. It was a disgusting feeling.
“Simmer down!” Dunham said sharply. “Whatever she’s broadcasting, we need it out there loud and clear, long enough for Ludovic to home in on it.”
“Could be a while.” There was a sheen of sweat on Johnny’s face. “It don’t exactly work like a GPS, you know.”
“We’ll wait as long as it takes.” Dunham strode across the room and banged on the side of the aquarium. “Come on, old gal! Muster up a bit of anguish.” Stooping, he picked up an extension cord with a frayed end. “Shall I give you a little jolt?”
The mermaid’s face contorted with fear and she shook her head, hair waving like seaweed.
The ghouls sighed with satisfaction.
Dunham dropped the cord. “That’ll do you for now.”
Oh, God. I was alone in a house full of ghouls and a captive mermaid, serving as bait for a trap to lure in Stefan. Too late to try to rein in my emotions now; I’d already loosed a bolt of sheer terror he couldn’t have missed. I’d sent the police on a wild-goose chase. The Oak King’s token was back home in my jewelry box. I’d lost dauda-dagr, an incredibly dangerous and valuable weapon, to a freaking sociopath. Apparently whatever ancient Norse magic had created a dagger only Hel’s chosen could wield hadn’t taken Kevlar welding gloves into account. I pulled my knees to my chest, bowing my head against them.
There were no good outcomes here.
Daughter . . .
Belphegor’s voice whispered faintly in my thoughts, promising power beyond imagining: powers of temptation, seduction, and destruction. The power to wreak vengeance on my enemies, which sounded pretty good right about now.
You have but to ask.
Yeah, and crack open the Inviolate Wall, paving the way for Armageddon. Turning my head, I gazed at the mermaid. She gazed back at me, eyes a lucent green beneath their nictitating membranes. The scales that covered the lower half of her body were large and gray. A row of gills ran along either side of her torso, starting below the armpit. They fanned open and shut feebly in the murky water, revealing vulnerable-looking inner flesh that was an unhealthy pale mauve color.
I didn’t know a lot about mermaids—or fish, for that matter—but I thought she looked pretty damn sickly. I wondered how long she’d been held captive in that tank.
“So what happens when this is over?” I asked Dunham. “You pack up the tank and skip town again?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “Not worth it to hire an experienced crew. I found that out the hard way.”
“Bringing her from Seattle?”
Dunham didn’t bother to answer. “Just not a big enough market in this Podunk town.” He thumped the tank again. “And poor old Rosie’s on her last . . . fins.” He laughed at his own joke. “My fault for letting a couple of dumb ghouls handle things. I should have kept her in the trailer like I planned.”
“We did our best!” Ray D protested. “It wasn’t our fault that kid panicked and got himself drowned.”
“Sweet, sweet panic,” Mary murmured in a melancholy tone. “My sweet baby boy panicked when I held him underwater, but I held him ever so tight until he went to sleep like a good boy.”
“They all panic,” Dunham said briefly, nudging the extension cord with his foot. “That’s part of your fun, ain’t it? Your job was to keep Rosie in line so she didn’t struggle.”
“So it was an accident?” I asked.
He gave me his flat stare. “You want to play twenty questions, blondie? It was a clusterfuck is what it was.” He pointed at Ray. “You fucked up giving those first Van Buren boys your name. Them others were never supposed to come looking for no Ray D at the bar. Just a phone number.”
Mary hummed and then sang to herself, swaying in Ray’s arms. “Operator, could you help me place this call. . . .”
“Ray, can you shut her up?” one of the ghouls I didn’t recognize said.
Ray glared, tightening his arms around Mary. “Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
Johnny swung his shotgun around the room, aiming at everyone and no one. “Shut up, y’all,” he said genially. “No point in turning on each other now. For the time being, we’re in this together. Once Stefan’s out of the picture, you want to fight, fight.”
Everyone fell silent.
Surreptitiously, I tested the ropes around my wrists and ankles. Yep, pretty tight. But if no one was watching, I thought maybe I could wriggle my arms over my hips and butt and get my hands in front of me.
And do . . . what?
Daughter . . .
“No!” I said aloud. “No!”
“No, what?” Dunham eyed me suspiciously.
I leaned back against the wall. “Nothing.”
“Ludovic’s taking his own sweet time.” Crouching before me, he plucked the pistol out of his waistband, shoving the muzzle under my chin. “You sure you’re plenty scared, blondie?” he mused.
Hyperventilating, I nodded.
“Stefan’s not stupid, Dunham,” Johnny said. “Don’t you make the mistake of thinking so. He ain’t gonna come storming in here. He’s gonna take his time to assess the situation, rally his troops, make good and sure he knows who’s loyal before he makes his move. When he does, you be mindful of what I told you.”
“No kill shots.” Jerry Dunham sounded disgruntled.
Johnny nodded. “You fire off a kill shot, he’ll just reincorporate.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. He’s old and strong, stronger than any of us here. Shoot to maim and finish him off with the dagger, you hear?”
“I hear.”
Thirty-eight
Time crawled.
My head ached; my chin stung. My shoulders and arms were beginning to burn from having my hands tied behind my back. If the Locksley residence had air-conditioning, it was turned off in their absence.
Sweat trickled down my temples.
Daughter . . .
I hunched my shoulders toward my ears, trying to block out a sound no one else could hear. I thought about what the Norn had told me: The key lay hidden in something a vampire had said to me yesterday, and whatever it was, it lay within me.
For the life of me, I couldn’t think what it might be.
In the wide world outside, the sun reached its apex, baking in the sky. I made an effort to breathe low and slow.
“So how did you find this place?” I asked Ray D in a conversational tone. “It’s really nice.”
He looked pleased to be addressed. “Oh, I do a little handyman work from time to time. A guy I met at the bar hooked me up with this gig.”
“Mr. Cassopolis?”
He beamed. “You know him?”
I rotated my aching shoulders. “Yeah, I do.”
“My Raymond’s a very good handyman,” Mary Sudbury said helpfully, reaching up to stroke his jaw. “Very skilled.”
Ray bent his head toward her, and they smiled at each other, a pair of blissful ghouls in love. I might have felt sorry for them if the continued existence of their relationship didn’t necessitate generating incredible amounts of anguish and misery, which I was apparently next in line to provide.
Somewhere out there, Stefan was zeroing in on my location. Maybe, just maybe, Cody had tracked down a lead from Mr. Cassopolis after realizing the address I’d phoned in was bogus. Unfortunately, both would lead them straight into an ambush.
Okay, so it was past time to start using my wits. I just wished they didn’t feel so scrambled. But whatever cards I held, it was time to play them.
“You two seem really happy together,” I said to Ray and Mary. “It’s too bad Hel’s issued a death sentence for you.”
They stared at me. Mary’s pupils dilated fiercely. “You shouldn’t say such things! Liars make the baby Jesus cry! Liars get their mouths washed out with soap, little lady!”
I’d be willing to bet somebody was channeling an evangelical Mommie Dearest. “I’m not lying,” I said steadily. “Read my emotions and see. I’m Hel’s fucking liaison, and I’m here telling you that Hel has decreed you’re both to be dispatched for your sins.”
“For what?” Ray seemed genuinely bewildered.
I nodded at the mermaid’s tank. “What do you think? For that.”
“But we needed her!” he protested.
“No.” I shook my head. “You wanted her. You wanted this—this whole sick Sid and Nancy scenario. And you were willing to overturn Hel’s order to have it.”
“We didn’t do anything!” Mary said indignantly, pointing at Dunham. “He’s the one who did everything. We just took care of her.”
An incredulous laugh escaped me. “Took care of her? Is that really what you’re going to call it?”
Mary might just be crazy enough to believe it, but I saw a slow awareness dawn on Ray’s face. He was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid. “Them boys didn’t really hurt her none,” he mumbled. “She’s a tough old gal.”
I didn’t bother to dignify it with a response, glancing at Johnny instead. “Hel’s prepared to banish Stefan if he can’t administer her justice to his own people. If you take over, these two become your problem.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Dunham advised him.
“Why not?” Johnny cradled his shotgun. “She’s telling the truth. I reckon I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Ray asked suspiciously.
“It means I’ll deal with it.” A note of impatience crept into Johnny’s tone. “Don’t worry about it, man.”
“It means he’ll get rid of you when this is over,” I informed Ray. “You and Mary. Lock you in solitary confinement for months on end until you starve and devour your own essence. Isn’t that how it works? Maybe it won’t take as long with both of you trying to feed on each other. Or maybe he’ll separate you to make it last longer. Do you plan on separating them?” I asked Johnny.
He strolled over, leaned down, and slapped me across the face, wrenching my head sideways. “All right, now, you shut your mouth, ma’am.”
I tasted blood.
Daughter . . .
A spiral of anger rose in me. The pump attached to the mermaid’s tank made an alarming sound, hoses bulging. “Or maybe he’ll have Dunham use dauda-dagr,” I said. “Make it quick and clean. Is that the plan?”
Johnny reversed the shotgun. “Do you want me to use this here stock to smash your pretty little face in?” He was breathing hard, his pupils wavering. “Or do you want me to turn every ghoul in this room loose on you?”
I held my tongue, anger dwindling back to fear. The pump stopped whining and the hoses stopped bulging.
“Ignore her.” Jerry Dunham sounded bored. “She’s just trying to turn us against each other. Don’t fall for it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I managed to whisper. “You’re mortal. You’re not subject to Hel’s authority.”
“She has a point,” one of the unknown ghouls muttered.
“It’s not too late for you to call this off,” I said to Johnny. “You haven’t done anything you can’t walk away from.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Other than kidnap Hel’s liaison? No.” He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. There’s only one way that gets forgiven, and that’s to prove you’re a miserable failure at the job.”
Al the Walrus scratched his head. “Don’t that put it back on you once you’re in charge, Johnny? Hel’s justice and all?”
Johnny gestured impatiently with his shotgun. “I’m telling you, I will deal with it when the time comes!”
“You’d better not try it!” Mary Sudbury called out in an ominous singsong voice, swaying in Ray’s arms, her pupils as black as night. “I won’t let you hurt my Raymond. Never, never, never.” She shook her finger at Johnny. “Naughty little boys get eaten up by the bad monsters.”
As the sun inched across the horizon, the ghouls quarreled among themselves, which was a lot more unnerving than it sounds. On the surface it looked like any ordinary argument, but there were power plays I couldn’t entirely fathom going on in the hidden depths beneath the words, contests of will going back and forth, all of it fueled by an ever-rising hunger that was barely held in check, on the verge of ravening.
I’m pretty sure Rosie, or whatever the mermaid’s real name was, bore the brunt of their emotional ardor. Hour by hour, I could almost see her being drained. But I could feel it, too—feel the shifting tides of power, feel the avid hunger that crawled over my skin like the psychic equivalent of drool.
Ew. Just . . . ew.
I leaned my cheek against the warm glass of the aquarium. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I really, really wanted to rescue you.”
The mermaid flattened one webbed hand against the other side of the glass, sympathy in her anguished gaze.
“Daisy and Rosie,” Jerry Dunham said in his flat voice. “Ain’t that just too precious for words?”
I stared at him with pure hatred.
He chuckled. “You want to do it? Go on, do it. Call your daddy. Let the world burn.”
Daughter . . .
I closed my eyes, picturing my mother’s face. I clamped down on my emotions, wrapping my will around them like a garrote.
Darkness was beginning to fall when the sound of motorcycles rumbling into the driveway silenced the bickering. Stefan and his posse had arrived. Someone shut off the lights, and the ghouls hunkered down in anticipation of the battle to come. Only Rosie’s algae-covered tank glowed, green and murky in the dimness.
One by one, the engines outside cut out.
“It’s go time,” Johnny murmured, aiming the barrels of his shotgun at the front door. “Let bygones be bygones. Let’s do this.”
I drew a breath to shout a warning.
The muzzle of Dunham’s pistol pressed against my temple. “Scream and I’ll shoot you,” he said with calm assurance. “You first, and the fish second. Is that the way you want to die, blondie?”
“No,” I whispered.
The moment dragged on endlessly. I was acutely aware of the silence, of the breath moving in and out of my lungs, of the circle of Dunham’s pistol hard against my temple, of the mermaid undulating helplessly in her tank, her gills fluttering.
The knob of the front door of the Locksley family’s summer home rotated an inch . . . and went still.
“What the fuck?” someone said in frustration.
In the woods outside, a wolf howled, one, and then another and another.
Johnny turned slightly. “Shit—”
The front door burst inward with a great, splintering crash of wood and glass, lashed by the impossible force of vast, muscular, rainbow-hued serpentine coils moving at lightning speed.
Oh, crap!
A jolt of pure panic gripped me. “Lurine, no! Get out of here!”
And then it was all chaos.
Lurine’s coils retracted as fast as they’d struck. Johnny’s shotgun boomed several times and Dunham’s pistol cracked. Heedless of the gunfire, ghouls poured through the shattered door and leaped through the windows, bursting the screens and smashing the glass panes. I caught sight of Stefan, an actual sword in his hand, his pupils
wide and furious in his ice-blue eyes. If he wasn’t ravening, he was damn close to it.
Every other ghoul in the place had gone over the edge. They were fighting hand-to-hand and will-to-will, grappling and pounding wildly. Some had weapons; some were using fists. Unable to reload in the mayhem, Johnny was using his shotgun as a cudgel. The Locksleys’ rec room was a seething maelstrom of raw emotion and naked hunger, and I could feel myself being sucked into it, my essence swirling into it like water down a drain. It filled me with a terror and helpless fury that served only to fuel the madness.
Except for Jerry Dunham, who was as cool as a proverbial cucumber, waiting for a clear shot.
Stefan was holding the others at bay with his sword, which he wielded with the efficiency of long, long practice, his half-mad gaze sweeping the room, searching for me.
“Stefan, get out!” I shouted at him. “It’s you they’re after!”
Of course he didn’t listen, homing in on the sound of my voice; and worse, I saw Cody was behind him.
“That’ll do just fine, blondie.” Dunham pistol-whipped me across the cheek, hard enough that I toppled sideways. “Now shut it.”
Blood filled my mouth. All I could do was watch, lying on the floor with my hands and feet tied, as Stefan came forward, his sword in both hands, looking like a cross between an assassin and an avenging angel.
Until Dunham lowered his pistol and shot out both his kneecaps with calm precision. “Ray, get the cop!”
Stefan went down, his face twisted with pain. Ray D charged Cody, who braced himself in a shooter’s stance. His service revolver fired, and a fine red mist exploded from Ray’s chest. He staggered backward and crumpled. Mary let out a shriek, flinging herself toward Cody.
And then time . . . stuttered. I don’t know how else to describe it. Time stuttered, and Ray D wasn’t dead and shot on the floor anymore. He was on his feet, still charging Cody, wrestling for his gun, aided by Mary.
“Hold him off!” Dunham shouted, putting another bullet in Stefan’s sword arm, turning his biceps into a gory mess. “I just need a minute!” He lunged for the bar, dropping his pistol and scrambling for dauda-dagr and the welding glove.
Dark Currents: Agent of Hel Page 30
