“I told you that’s what we were looking for, Ross,” Chief Bryant said.
The sheriff glanced at him. “Yeah, you did. Frankly, I didn’t believe you. So that’s how the Vanderhei kid drowned? In there? With that?”
My tail twitched. “She’s not a thing,” I muttered. “She’s a rusalka.”
He looked at me. “A what?”
“A Russian mermaid, sir,” Cody offered.
Sheriff Barnard scratched his head. “What in the name of all that’s holy is she doing here?”
“Pull up a chair,” the chief said. “It’s a hell of a story.”
While Chief Bryant related it, Cody and I helped the EMTs shift Jerry Dunham onto a gurney, unlocking the handcuffs behind his back and cuffing him to its frame by one wrist before wheeling it out to the vehicle.
“I’ve got to go with him,” Cody said apologetically to me in the driveway. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, partner.” Cody gave me a hug, resting his chin on the top of my head.
It felt good. Warm, solid, and comforting. I hugged him back, inhaling the scent of pine trees and leather, laundry detergent, a lingering trace of Ralph Lauren’s Polo, and a faint, underlying musk. I wished he didn’t have to leave. Reluctantly, I made myself let go of him. “Hey, we make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Yeah, we do.”
Back in the Locksley residence, Sheriff Barnard looked dumbstruck. Tim Wilkes had recovered his composure enough to begin documenting the scene with a professional-looking camera.
“Are you filing an official report on her?” I asked him.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I doubt it. But there should be a record anyway, don’t you think?”
I placed one hand against the glass of the tank. The rusalka pressed her gray-green hand against mine on the opposite side, webbed fingers splayed. “Yeah. I do.”
Wilkes stared at her in horrified fascination. “The thing I don’t understand is exactly . . . how it worked?”
“The mechanics of it?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s a kind of ventral slit.”
He blanched.
In her tank, the rusalka’s face was grave with sorrow, her dark, floating hair a nimbus around her head.
“I know,” I said. “It makes me sick, too.”
“I wish I could talk to her,” Wilkes murmured. “Tell her how damn sorry I am on behalf of human men.”
I didn’t tell him the rusalka had surfaced and spoken to us earlier. She didn’t show any inclination of doing so again, and after the abuse she’d suffered, if she didn’t want to have dealings with ordinary mortal men, I didn’t blame her. Instead, I patted Tim Wilkes on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Detective.”
He gave me a bleak look. “This job doesn’t make it easy. Are you ready to give me a statement? We’ll need it if we’re bringing charges against Dunham.” He fingered his mustache. “It’s going to be a challenge to figure out how to present the facts.”
Wilkes took statements from the ghouls, too, or rather, he took a statement from Stefan, and the others confirmed the details. I had to credit the guy for being thorough. Even if it didn’t all go into an official report, I was glad there would be a record of this. Hel’s justice had been administered to Ray and Mary, but Jerry freaking Dunham couldn’t even be charged for what he’d done to the rusalka. Maybe someday that would change, and if it did, it would be good to have this on record somewhere.
“I think we’re done here,” Sheriff Barnard said when Wilkes had finished. “I’ll prepare a press release declaring that my office’s investigation has concluded the Vanderhei boy’s death was an accident. When all’s said and done, it was.” He glanced at the tank and shuddered. “And I’ll be in touch about a private conference after I’ve spoken to all the parties involved.”
“Sounds good.” The chief shook his hand. “Daisy, you need a ride home?” His voice was kind and concerned. “Or maybe to your mother’s house?”
I hesitated. “Can you give me a minute here?”
“I’ll be outside in the cruiser,” he said.
Once they’d exited through the gaping hole that had once been a front door, I approached the tank. The rusalka rose to the surface again, dank water streaming over her shoulders.
“Hi,” I said softly, touching dauda-dagr’s hilt in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture. “Would you like me to stay here with you?”
The pale, translucent membranes over her eyes flicked open, and she gazed past me toward the ghouls. “Do you trust them?”
“I trust their leader,” I said, realizing as I said it that it was true. “And he’s given his word to keep you safe.”
The rusalka’s gills fluttered weakly. “Him, then. Not the others. I do not want the others here.”
“Is that okay with you?” I asked Stefan.
He inclined his head. “Of course. If you wish, Rafe will give you a ride home.”
Rafe stepped forward, his dark eyes glittering faintly.
Okay, maybe Stefan’s other lieutenant had proved himself to be loyal, and maybe he had the ravening under control, but . . . no. Just no. I wasn’t ready to climb onto the back of a ghoul’s motorcycle anytime soon.
“Thanks,” I said to him. “But I think I’ll take the chief up on his offer.”
Stefan made a slight gesture with his left hand, still holding the sword in his right. Rafe and the remaining ghouls departed without a word. Outside, a full-throated chorus of motorcycles rumbled to life.
The rusalka sank back into the murky waters.
Stefan came toward me, stopping a few feet away. My chest felt tight. I could see the slit over his heart in his black T-shirt where the sword had pierced it, his skin gleaming pale through the rent. “What you did today took a tremendous effort of will, Daisy Johanssen,” he said to me. “And I owe you a great debt.”
I looked involuntarily at my hands, still feeling the residual chill of dauda-dagr’s hilt, the tremor of death.
“I do not speak of dispatching the Outcast,” Stefan said gravely. “I speak of what you did to quell the battle.”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
He nodded. “You shared a profound glimpse of all that you hold dear. It was a valiant gesture, and I will not forget it.” Closing the space between us, he took my hand and placed it on his chest. Beneath the rent in his shirt, I could feel his heart beating. I could sense the deep stillness within him. He gazed at me with his ice-blue eyes, his pupils stable, calm, and perfectly controlled, centuries of patience behind them. “It is as I have said. There are things I could teach you. Methods to ward your formidable emotions, even from the likes of me. We could help each other, you and I.”
It felt good, too.
Maybe too good. And definitely not comforting. At least what I felt for Cody was familiar territory. What I felt for Stefan scared me.
My tail twitching with suppressed desire, I curled my fingers into the fabric of his torn T-shirt. “There’s a part of me that wants that, Stefan,” I whispered. “But I’m not ready for it. I saw you die tonight.”
“I have died many times,” he said in a formal tone. “The result is always the same. One day, perhaps it will be different. Perhaps it is you and I together that will make the difference, serving notice to heaven and hell alike that matters have changed.”
God, he really was ridiculously good-looking.
I opened my hand, releasing the bunched fabric. “One day, maybe. But not today. Okay?”
Stefan inclined his head. “I can wait.”
Forty-one
In the days that followed, things happened.
The press release from the county sheriff’s office did a lot to put a damper on unrest in the media. Warned by the sheriff that the details of their son’s death would cast Thad in a highly unflattering light, the Vanderheis went silent and ceased to exert their influence. Accordingly, the protesters in downtown Pemkowet vanished.
Everyone breathed easier for it.
Hel summoned me to deliver what felt like unearned praise. When I protested that I’d temporarily lost dauda-dagr and nearly botched the entire affair, she merely fixed me with her baleful ember eye and her compassionate eye alike until I got sort of squirmy.
“You upheld my order, Daisy Johanssen,” Hel said in her sepulchral voice. “In the end, it is all that matters.”
I took the hint and thanked her. Beneath Yggdrasil II’s roots, the oldest Norn winked at me on the way out.
Mogwai was less forgiving, treating me with disdain for ignoring his covert bristle-furred warning not to trust Johnny. Privately, I agreed with him.
Sufficiently intimidated by Lurine’s threat, Jerry Dunham chose to keep his bones intact and pled guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping and assault charges. I breathed a sigh of relief at that, too.
Cody and I delivered the news of Mary’s death to Emma Sudbury, who wept tears of mingled grief and release. I talked to Mom’s friend Sandra Sweddon about the senior center’s community outreach program, and she promised to pay Emma a visit.
Sinclair Palmer’s paranormal tour proved a great hit. Under orders from the Oak King, the pretty, sparkly fairies made regularly scheduled appearances, smiling with their mouths closed. Locals got used to waving to Sinclair’s brightly painted tour bus while he charmed the tourists with his semi-faux-Jamaican patois.
Lurine utilized her contacts with ruthless efficiency. The day after my kidnapping, a team of marine mammal experts from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago descended on the Locksley residence, monitoring the pH balance and other chemicals in the water, examining the rusalka to the best of their abilities, once they’d recovered from their initial bout of disbelief and giddy astonishment. In exchange for the unprecedented experience, they had agreed to legally binding terms of secrecy.