We held a quick conference on the sidewalk in front of the cottage. I still wasn’t sure how much I trusted Stefan, but we were running out of options. He readily agreed to send one of his lieutenants to Jerry Dunham’s house in search of possible hostages.
“I will send Johnny on the pretext of delivering Dunham’s back wages,” he said. “If there is anyone being held captive on the premises, he should be able to sense it at close range.”
I had an uncomfortable thought. “It won’t send him ravening, will it?”
Stefan raised his brows. “The possibility exists. It would depend upon the degree of suffering to which he was exposed. But if it does, you will have your answer, will you not?”
“I guess.” I hadn’t mentioned the suspected nature of the hostage. “What happens to the hostage if it does?”
“Nothing worse than has already occurred,” he said. “Either the captors would share their bounty or there would be a struggle for dominance among those involved, with the winner continuing to feed upon the hostage’s suffering. But I think it is unlikely. Like many of the unfeeling, the blank Jerry Dunham has a well-developed sense of self-preservation. I do not think he would keep a victim hostage under his roof.”
“What happens to the loser if there’s a fight?” Cody inquired.
Stefan glanced at him. “The loser would seek . . . another source, until he or she was contained and the ravening allowed to pass.”
“Does it always?” I asked. “Pass, I mean.”
He hesitated. “No. Not if the exposure was prolonged and sustained. It would take many months of solitary confinement, but it is possible for one of our kind to starve. To succumb to madness, to devour our own essence until nothing remains and the corporeal body vanishes. It is one of the only ways in which our existence can truly be ended.”
Huh.
“Your way is kinder.” Stefan nodded at dauda-dagr hanging from my left hip in its sheath. “Swifter.” A faint, wistful look crossed his face, so briefly I might have imagined it. “And perhaps it may grant us a second chance at heaven or hell rather than the eternal void of nonexistence.”
Well, okay, then. I cleared my throat. “It’s not my way, by the way. I haven’t killed anyone.”
“And yet the dagger is blooded since last we met, is it not?” Stefan asked in a courteous tone. “Or do my senses betray me?”
“Um . . . no.”
“Decision time,” Cody interjected impatiently. “Do we take the risk or not?”
“As I said, I believe the risk to be small,” Stefan repeated. “But the choice is yours. I do have one request in exchange for the favor. I wish to accompany you on the interview of Mary Sudbury’s sister.”
Cody gave me a suspicious look.
“I didn’t tell him!” I protested. “How did you know?”
Stefan pointed to the mailbox with the street address and then held up a cell phone. “I looked up the address. The resident is listed as one Emma Sudbury.”
“Oh.” I felt sheepish. Somehow, a centuries-old ghoul using modern technology seemed like cheating. “How did you know it was her sister?”
He smiled. “Statistically, it was likelihood. But it was a guess, which you have now twice confirmed.”
Oh, great. Good job, Daisy.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Cody sounded disgusted. “Fine. Let’s do it. Call your henchman and send him to check out Dunham’s place. Let’s go see if Emma Sudbury has any idea where her sister can be found. You can serve as our human lie detector, Ludovic.”
He inclined his head. “Of course.”
I hadn’t had time to form any expectations of what the female ghoul Mary Sudbury’s sister might be like, but if I had, I’m pretty sure they would have been wildly off base. We traipsed up the front path of the cottage through a neglected, dying garden. Thick brocade drapes curtained the windows. I saw them twitch at our approach, the narrowest of peepholes drawing closed.
Cody rang the doorbell.
For a long time, there was no answer. At last, the door opened a few inches to reveal a chain-bolt lock and a slice of an elderly woman’s face, haggard and fearful, one red-rimmed eye showing. “Yes?” she asked in a quavering voice. “What is it?”
“Emma Sudbury?” Cody asked politely.
“Yes?”
He showed her his badge. “I’m Officer Fairfax. These are my associates, Miss Johanssen and Mr. Ludovic. May we come in?”
The chain-bolt lock remained in place. “Why?”
Cody kept his tone gentle. “We just have a few questions for you, ma’am. It’s about your sister, Mary.”
The rheumy eye blinked, watering. “Oh, dear God! What has she done now?”
Good question, I thought.
“We’re not sure,” Cody said. “But—”
“Emma.” Stefan’s voice dropped an octave. It was beyond gentle: low, deep, and soothing. Once again, I could feel that calm, cool stillness radiating from him. “It’s all right. It’s been hard, I know. So very, very difficult. And I can tell that you have tried, my dear. You’ve tried so very hard. But it’s all right. You don’t have to carry the burden alone. We’re here to help.”
It shouldn’t have worked, of course. Now, Cody, okay. That I could see. Handsome Officer Down-low looked reassuring in his dark blue policeman’s uniform. There shouldn’t have been anything remotely reassuring about a tall, ice-eyed ghoul with a vaguely European accent clad in motorcycle boots and a black leather vest with outlaw-biker-gang colors turning up on an old lady’s doorstep and telling her everything was all right.
But it did work.
Emma Sudbury’s chin quivered. She closed the door long enough to disengage the chain, and opened it to admit us.
At close range, she looked even worse. Her skin was sallow, her thinning white hair lank and yellowish, plastered to her skull. She closed the door, her gnarled fingers trembling as she knitted them together. “Have you found her? Have you found Mary? Oh, God! What has she done?”
My heart ached for her, and I had an itchy feeling along my shoulder blades. If I’d had wings I would have wrapped them around her. “That’s just it, ma’am,” I said softly. “We’re looking for Mary. What can you tell us?”
Her voice shrank to a whisper. “She’s gone.”
“Can you tell us—” Cody began.
Stefan held up one hand, unexpected compassion in his ice-blue eyes. “It’s all right. It’s your story, too, Emma. Will you tell us? Will you let us help you?”
She did.
And yeah, it was a pretty terrible story.
Mary Sudbury, younger of two obedient daughters raised in a Pentecostal household in southern Indiana, had wed young in the 1950s in an environment wherein women were encouraged to submit to and obey their husbands, even if they were harsh and abusive, as Mary’s husband proved to be. Still, she did her duty. She left her family and moved with her husband to a suburb of Chicago, bore him a son, and did her best to raise the infant until the day her mind snapped and she heard the voice of God telling her what to do to save herself and her infant child.
“She drowned him in the bathtub,” Emma whispered. “Drowned the babe and cut her own wrists. But she came back.”
“She was a true believer,” Stefan murmured. “And neither heaven nor hell would have her.”
She nodded. “She came back.”
He touched her liver-spotted hand. “I know.”
“Why? And how?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “No one does.”
I got angry. And yes, it was predictable, and yes, it’s my go-to emotion, my own particular default mode. But if I was right, someone or something was suffering for Mary Sudbury’s sins. If you ask me, heaven and hell have a lot to answer for. “Do you know where she is now?”
Emma Sudbury gave me a stricken look. “Gone. I tried. All these years, I’ve tried to provide for her. God knows, I’ve suffered.”
“But she met someone, didn’t she?” Cody prompted her. “Someone like her?”
She nodded again. “She said it was love. True love, even though it was forbidden to the likes of them.”
I glanced at Stefan. “Forbidden?”
He shrugged. “Ill-advised, for reasons you and I have discussed. No doubt that is why Ray confided only in a mortal companion. Had I known, I would certainly have done my best to end it.”
“What can you tell us about him?” Cody asked. “Name? Description? Where did they meet?”
“She said his name was Raymond.” Emma shook her head. “But I’m afraid there’s not much I can tell you. Mary was . . . secretive. Most of the time, she was docile. But every year, around the anniversary of . . . of her son’s death, it got bad. I couldn’t control her. I’d find her . . . I’d find her in places where you’d find children. Playgrounds, schools. Staring at them with that . . . that hunger.” She shuddered. “And I was always afraid . . . She didn’t, did she? It’s not a missing child you’re looking for, is it?”
“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.”