Dark Currents: Agent of Hel

by Jacqueline Carey

  “No, ma’am,” Cody said. “It’s nothing like that. We’re actually looking for this Raymond. We think your sister may be with him.”

  A measure of tension went out of her body. “Oh, I’m sure of it. She said he would provide for her, for both of them. She said she knew what a burden she’d been to me, and that it wouldn’t go on any longer.” She smiled with sorrow, gazing into the distance. “It’s true; it got harder and harder as I grew old and Mary remained unchanged. I worried terribly about what would happen when I was gone. And yet, now that it’s Mary who’s gone, I fear and worry nonetheless, and there is no one to take the fear away.”

  “You took a heavy burden on yourself,” Stefan said to her. “One no one was meant to bear alone.”

  “She was my sister,” Emma Sudbury said simply. “And there was no one else. It wasn’t her fault she was broken.”

  “No,” he agreed. “It wasn’t.”

  Cody cleared his throat. “Any information you have might be helpful to us, ma’am. Any detail, no matter how small. Do you have any idea where Mary is now?”

  “No.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Mary cut off all contact with me. She said it was for the best.” Her tears gathered, spilling over the reddened lower lids. “That she was finally able to set me free.”

  “And when was that?”

  She looked at him, seemingly unaware that she was weeping. “April, I believe.”

  “And there’s been no contact since? Letters? Phone calls? Has anyone reported seeing her?”

  “No.” A tear etched its way into a wrinkle. Finally registering her tears, Emma pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at her cheek. “We kept to ourselves, Officer. No one in Pemkowet knew Mary’s story. We wanted to keep it that way.”

  “I understand,” Cody said, circling back to an earlier question. “About this Raymond—do you know where she met him?”

  “Oh!” She dabbed at her other cheek. “Yes, I’m sorry. She met him at Our Lady of the Lake.”

  “The Catholic church?” Cody couldn’t keep a note of surprise from his voice.

  “They have a youth ministry,” Emma Sudbury said, as though it explained everything. “There were children there. And it was the anniversary.”

  “What the hell would Ray D be doing at a Catholic church?” I wondered aloud. It didn’t exactly seem like the haunt of choice for a meth-dealing ghoul.

  “Our relationship with faith is a complicated one, Daisy,” Stefan said quietly. “Raymond would not be the first of his kind to seek to reconcile it. And I have spoken with Father Domenico. He strikes me as an enlightened fellow who is sympathetic to the unique needs of his parish. Indeed, given your particular circumstances, I’m surprised you have not sought him out.”

  Again, huh.

  “My mom was raised Lutheran,” I said. “I think she was afraid the Catholics might try to exorcise me or something.”

  “Some might,” he admitted. “Not all.”

  “Is there anything else you can remember, ma’am?” Cody asked Emma. “Anything at all Mary might have said?”

  She shook her head, then reconsidered. “She said Raymond meant to keep her like a queen.”

  “But not where?”

  “No.” She regarded the damp tissue wadded in her hand. “No, Mary didn’t want me to know. She is in trouble, isn’t she? Something bad has happened.”

  “It’s possible,” Cody said gently. “But we don’t know the extent of your sister’s involvement.”

  Emma Sudbury took a deep breath, releasing it in a long, shuddering sigh. Her gaze shifted to Stefan, and her voice took on a note of bitterness. “You’re like her, aren’t you? Why aren’t you broken?”

  Stefan met her gaze without flinching, his pupils fixed and unwavering. “We remain what we were, my lady. I fear your sister was broken before her death. My circumstances differed. I was not.”

  “But you died?” she asked him. “Died, and came back?”

  He inclined his head to her. “I am Outcast, yes.”

  There was a terrible hunger in her lined face: an addict’s hunger. “I miss her, you know. Oh, God, I miss her! It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I should have become dependent on her to ease my misery, is it?”

  “No.”

  Emma knotted her hands together, shredding the tissue, a look of desperate cunning creeping into her eyes. “You could help me, couldn’t you?”

  Stefan hesitated. “In the greater scheme of things, I would be doing you no favor, my lady.”

  She made a cracked sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Do I look like someone with the luxury of thinking about the greater scheme of things in the years to come, Mr. Ludovic? Please. You would do me a kindness.”

  He nodded. “So be it.”

  Cody and I exchanged a quick, uncertain glance as Stefan rose and stooped on one knee to cradle Emma Sudbury’s head in his hands. His lips parted and his pupils waxed alarmingly as he drank in her fear and worry.

  Her expression eased, her face softening. In a totally creepy way, it was sort of like she was receiving a benediction.

  Stefan closed his eyes, hiding his own reaction. And yes, I was grateful for that. After a long moment, he released her and took a step backward, his hands loose and open at his sides. He opened his eyes, his pupils steady, dilated, and glistening. “You should embrace your freedom, my lady. Lay down your long burden. You belong to the world of the living. Return to it.”

  “After so long?” Emma Sudbury murmured. “I’m not sure I know how.”

  “You will find a way,” Stefan assured her. “I promise you.”

  She gazed trustingly at him. “And Mary?”

  His ice-blue eyes were grave. “There, I make no promises.”

  Thirty

  It’s fair to say that at least two of us breathed a sigh of relief on the sidewalk outside Emma Sudbury’s cottage, free of its dark, frowsty confines and the weight of fifty-some years’ worth of accumulated suffering, misery, and guilt.

  Cody shuddered and shook himself all over like a dog, his service pistol, flashlight, portable radio, and various other items on his officer’s utility belt rattling in their respective holsters. “Damn!” he said fervently. “It’s just so . . . awful.”

  Stefan’s expression was indecipherable. “Yes.”

  I might not be able to read his face, but there was something new in his voice. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”

  He glanced at me. “I had not realized Mary Sudbury’s case would prove so . . . extreme. For an infanticide to be Outcast is rare.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Cody said. “I’m a little hazy on how this whole business works. Mary Sudbury killed her child and committed suicide. So why does hell give her a pass? Not guilty by reason of insanity?”

  “In a sense.” Stefan’s voice was somber. “Over the years, I have spoken to priests and philosophers alike. And I spoke the truth when I said no one fully understands the how and why of our existence. Not even we ourselves. This I will tell you: Due to Mary’s madness, she committed a mortal sin as an act of profound faith. Heaven does not admit unrepentant sinners, and hell does not welcome true believers. Like all of the Outcast, Mary fell between the cracks.”

  I cleared my throat. “Hel . . . I mean Hel the goddess . . . said that gh—” Damn, I felt guilty saying it now. “That the Outcast were mortal beings slain at height of great passion. I have to admit, I don’t get how this fits.”

  Stefan’s gaze rested on me. “Despair is a passion unto itself, Daisy,” he said softly. “Do not doubt it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what does it all mean?”

  His phone rang, chiming with a baroque phrase of classical music I couldn’t even begin to identify. Reaching into the front pocket of his jeans, Stefan gave me an apologetic look. “Excuse me.”

  Cody and I exchanged glances again, both of us still thinking about the haunted figure of Emma Sudbury.

  “My mom’s got a friend who volunteers at th
e senior center,” I offered. “Sandra Sweddon. Mom’s doing the dresses for her daughter Terri’s wedding. I could ask her to ask Sandra to look into contacting Emma Sudbury. They’ve got an outreach program for seniors living alone. Whatever happens, I have a feeling poor Emma’s going to need it once this is over.”

  “Good idea.” Cody raised his eyebrows. “Terri Sweddon’s getting married? I hadn’t heard.”

  “Yes, you did,” I reminded him. “You were right there when Mom told me.”

  “I must not have been paying attention,” he admitted. “Who’s she marrying?”

  “Cory Dalton.”

  “Really?”

  “I think so.” I counted on my fingers. “Curtis, Cameron . . . Cory’s the youngest Dalton boy, right? He was a year behind you.”

  He nodded. “And Terri was a year ahead of you? She has a sister who’s younger, too. What’s her name?”

  “Sherri?” I hazarded. “Yeah, I think that’s right. Terri and Sherri. She was a couple years behind me.”

  Having concluded his discreet conversation, Stefan Ludovic, who was already several centuries old when Cody and I were attending Pemkowet High with the Dalton boys and Sweddon girls, strode back down the sidewalk, his bootheels ringing against the cement. “That was Johnny,” he announced. “He says that the place that Jerry Dunham was renting appears to have been abandoned.”

  Oh, crap.

  “What about the bikes?” Cody demanded. “He wouldn’t leave without them.”

  Stefan shook his head. “Gone. All gone.”

  “He checked the garage?”

  “Yes, of course.” Stefan tilted his head, narrowing his ice-blue eyes. “He is an Outcast. The garage was the first thing he checked.”

  It took me a few seconds to realize he meant biker-gang Outcast, not heaven-and-hell Outcast. The overlap was a little confusing.

  “Shit.” Cody hit his palm with his fist. “We spooked him.”

  “Yep.”

  “It is as I said,” Stefan said in a matter-of-fact manner. “The unfeeling have strong senses of self-preservation. If Jerry Dunham was involved with some nefarious scheme, I do not doubt he had an exit plan in place.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure it was nefarious, all right.” Within the confines of my jeans, my tail lashed with righteous outrage. I stilled it with a conscious effort, curling it between my thighs. And in case you were wondering, yes, it does feel kind of good there. I try not to think about it at inappropriate intervals. “So what now?” I asked Cody. “Do we try to bring in Matthew Mollenkamp for questioning or interview the priest?”

  “I pick up Mollenkamp.” He pointed at me. “You call Amanda Brooks at the PVB—remember?”

  Double crap! I’d managed to forget that particular assignment. “Don’t you think the chief would think this was more important?” I asked hopefully.

  “No.” Cody squashed my hopes without a trace of remorse. “I don’t. And I think it would be better to spring you on Mollenkamp after we’ve had a chance to question him for a bit. I don’t imagine he’ll be a particularly cooperative witness, since he’s not going to be eager to implicate himself in this. Let the element of surprise work for us.”

  “Okay, fine.” With a sigh, I fished my phone out of my purse.

  Despite my fondest wishes, Amanda Brooks took my call immediately and asked in a brisk, no-nonsense tone if I could meet with her in her office in half an hour, and despite my deepest reluctance, I agreed.

  And in the midst of our brief discussion, Stefan Ludovic took the opportunity to make his exit.

  “Damn.” Ending the call, I gazed after the vanishing taillight of his Harley. “Where’s he going?”

  Cody shrugged. “Places to go, people to feed on. Does it matter?”

  “It might.” I gave him a sharp look. “I would have liked to know more about why Mary Sudbury has him worried.”

  “I have a feeling the word ravening plays into it.” Cody allowed himself another brief shudder, shaking off the last remaining dregs of Emma Sudbury’s misery. “Come on, Pixy Stix. I’ll give you a ride to your car. I want to swing by Jerry Dunham’s and confirm it for myself before I head up to Appeldoorn.”

  Approximately half an hour later, I pulled into the little parking lot of the Pemkowet Visitors Bureau.

  It was a quaint, shingle-sided building situated on riverfront property along the main entrance to the downtown. Inside, the decor was modern and streamlined, everything designed to suggest a tasteful degree of wealth and sophistication unusual for your average small Midwestern town. Glossy magazine-size visitors’ guides were spread across the low table in the reception area, featuring a darling blond toddler in a sun hat engrossed in building a sandcastle, the sparkling waters of Lake Michigan beckoning in the background.

  On the downside, my old high school tormentor Stacey Brooks was seated at the sleek front desk, speaking ostentatiously into a wireless headset perched atop her cascading ash-brown curls, a little blue light blinking on the earpiece. She glanced at me with a look of disdain, raising one finger in a dismissive wait-a-minute gesture.

  On the plus side, there was a visitor seated in the reception area, and he was cute. Short dreads, high, roundish cheekbones, cocoa-dark skin, maybe a year or two older than me. Definitely not a local or I would have known him. He nodded at dauda-dagr with a cheerful grin and greeted me in a Jamaican accent. “Nice cutlass, sistah.”

  My hand fell to the hilt. “Thanks.”

  “You have much call to use it, do you?” He sounded amused, and I felt self-conscious. Funny how a cute guy checking out your magic dagger can have that effect.

  “I hope not.”

  “Oh?” He tilted his head back, appraising me, his grin giving way to a curious look. I felt the slightest tingle of otherness, so slight it was barely there. He was human, all right—there was no glamour to see through—but there was definitely the faintest hint of the eldritch, like shadow cast from afar, the way it did with certain people.

  Behind the front desk, Stacey Brooks cleared her throat. Apparently she’d concluded her important call. “Hel-lo? Daisy, my mother’s ready for you. She’s very busy, you know.”

  I leveled a stare at her. “Look, I didn’t ask for this meeting.”

  Stacey sniffed through her pert, perfect nose. “Do you actually think she did?” she asked in a snide tone. “Chief Bryant passed her on to you when she called him. That man is so going to lose his job. You’re lucky there are people like my mother who truly care about this town.”

  I bit my tongue. “I’m sure—”

  She tapped her headset, her voice turning chipper. “Pemkowet Visitors Bureau! How can we brighten your day?”

  Oh, gah.

  Amanda Brooks emerged from her office. She was one of those whippet-thin older women with clavicle bones that looked sharp enough to cut glass. Actually, she reminded me a bit of Thad Vanderhei’s mother, only instead of brittle fragility, she radiated a tightly wound intensity. Her hair was the same ash-brown hue as her daughter’s, augmented with blond highlights, but like Sue Vanderhei’s it was drawn back in a bun so tight it had to tug on her scalp. Maybe it served as a temporary face-lift. She regarded me through a pair of chunky, retro-chic, expensive-looking glasses, looking me up and down. “Daisy Johanssen?”

  You would think that since her daughter was responsible for getting me suspended from school, she might remember me, right? I mean, there were forty-seven people in my graduating class, and the other forty-six were fully human. But I made myself answer politely. “How can I help you, Ms. Brooks?”

  Her expression suggested she doubted I could. “Come into my office, won’t you?” She turned toward the cute guy. “I’ll be with you in a short while, Mr. Palmer. Thank you for your patience.”

  He shrugged, tapping a fist to his chest and giving her a charming smile. “No haste, mother. All respect.”

  Amanda Brooks flushed slightly before ushering me into her office and closing the door behind u
s. She took a seat behind her desk.

  I took a seat opposite her, facing the river. If it were my office, I’d have arranged it to have the river view myself, but I suppose it was all the better to impress visitors. Amanda Brooks was clearly willing to sacrifice on behalf of her job.

  She leaned forward, bracing her forearms on the desk. “Let me cut to the chase, Daisy. We’re in the midst of a publicity crisis here.”

  “I know.”

  She gave me a tight, grim smile. “I’m not sure you do. We’ve had cancellations. Bookings are down. Business owners are panicking. There’s a growing perception that Pemkowet isn’t a safe destination for paranormal tourism.”

  “That’s because it’s not,” I said. “It never has been.”

  “With a little more cooperation, it could be.” With laserlike focus, Amanda Brooks studied me through the lenses of her chic glasses. “According to Chief Bryant, you’re the designated liaison to the eldritch community, and unlikely as it seems, it appears that it’s you I need to talk to.”

  For that, I could have throttled the chief. “He may have overstated the case,” I said. “I’m Hel’s liaison. It doesn’t mean I represent the entire eldritch community.”

  Her gaze was unblinking. “But you represent Hel’s authority?” she asked. I nodded. “Do you have credentials? A license?”

  “No.” My tail twitched. “Not one you can see, anyway. But I have a dagger no one else can wield. Hel gave it to me herself with her left hand, the hand of death.” I drew dauda-dagr and reversed the blade, proffering the hilt. “Would you care to try it?”

  Dauda-dagr’s blade shone in the sunlight angling off the river, silvery runes shimmering, its edges glinting blue. It felt pleasantly cold against my palm. Little wisps of frosty mist rose from it, hovering in the bright air.

  Amanda Brooks shivered and shrank back, gooseflesh rising on her bare arms. “No.” Picking up a gilded letter opener, she poked at dauda-dagr like she was poking at a snake with a stick. “Put it away, please.”

  I sheathed it.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” she said without preamble, recovering effortlessly. “The young man in the lobby, Mr. Palmer, has filed a request for a license to operate a tour bus in Pemkowet. A paranormal tour. And I think it’s a good idea. I think if we could guarantee sightings, benign sightings, it would do the town a world of good. It would help us weather this storm.” Her intense gaze fixed on me. “Do you agree?”