Annalise turned and looked at Arlene. “If I knew for certain that you would, you’d already be dead.”
“The silver hurt them,” I said. “Regular bullets didn’t do anything. And one of them had a sigil on his back. He turned into a human when I broke it.”
Annalise didn’t respond.
“Please,” Arlene pleaded. Her voice was small. “Can’t you tell me anything?”
Annalise turned and looked at her. “I can tell you this: if you’re one of them, I’ll make it quick, because Ray seems to like you. There’s nothing more you need to know.”
That was the end of that conversation.
We pulled up to the Dubois brothers’ house a few minutes later. It was a large wood-frame house with a long front yard and a high chain-link fence around it. Behind the house, the ground sloped upward into wild terrain.
Arlene pointed to it. “Their grandfather bought that house. The men have always shared it. When you marry one Dubois brother, you marry them all. Not that any of them are married at the moment. Luke’s first wife never left the house until she’d boozed herself to death. That was years ago, before Wilma. Emmett’s wife-well, she disappeared one day with her kids. If anyone is there, it’s one of the brothers.”
Annalise opened her door and stepped out of the van. “Boss?” I called. “Do you need me, boss?”
“I doubt it.” She slammed the door shut and walked toward the front gate.
“I brought this,” Arlene said, holding up a slender letter opener. The blade was silver. “I stole it off the desk at the emergency room. Shouldn’t I give this to her, just in case?”
I turned back to Annalise. She unzipped the front of her jacket, then stepped up to the padlocked gate. She grabbed the chain link and tore it off the frame. Beside me, Arlene gasped. Annalise shook her hands at her sides. They must have hurt her very much. She stepped through the gap and walked casually toward the front door.
“She doesn’t need it,” I said. “We’ll keep it in case one of the brothers makes a break for it.”
Annalise kicked the front door down. She entered the darkness of the house.
While we waited, Arlene laid the flat side of the letter opener against her wrist. I could see that the edge was pretty dull, but that wasn’t surprising. Silver was not a metal for weapons. The tip seemed sharp enough, though.
Arlene lifted the blade from her arm. Welts had begun to form. She looked at me. “Are you going to tell her?”
“I have to,” I said.
“Good.” She held up the opener and stared at it. “I can’t do it myself, you understand. That’s a terrible sin.”
“Under the circumstances-“
“It’s a sin,” she said with finality. “I won’t let my last act in this world be a sin.”
“If you could choose, how would you want it?” I asked. I knew Annalise could take Arlene’s life quickly and simply.
Arlene stared at the silver blade. “Fighting. I want to go down fighting.” Then she knelt on the dirty floor of the van and began to pray.
A few minutes later, Annalise emerged from the house. She walked down the front path and climbed back into the van. “They weren’t there, but we already knew that.”
“Then why did you go in?” Arlene asked.
I glanced at the house and saw orange firelight flickering in one of the windows. If there was a spell or spell book hidden there, it would soon be ashes. I started the engine and pulled away. “The police station, then.”
“Don’t you think they would want to find a doctor for Sugar?” Arlene asked.
“They were already at a hospital,” I said. “They could have charged into the emergency room with their guns drawn and gotten what ever they wanted. I don’t think they want doctors or drugs or stitches. I think they want their magic.”
We drove the remaining two blocks in silence. All three pickup trucks were parked in front of the station, along with the Bentley and two police cars. One of the patrol cars was parked at an angle, as though it had skidded to a halt. The blinds on all the windows were closed.
I drove around the corner and parked a full block away. “What’s the plan?”
Annalise glanced at Arlene, then turned to me. Her expression was unreadable. “You’re my wooden man. I’ll go around the back and wait for you to draw their attention. When you have, I go in through the back door and start doing my work. If you survive, that’s nice, too.”
“You know what would be nice?” I said. “Some gloves. I’d like some latex gloves or something. My fingerprints are already on file with the police. If I do survive, I don’t want to spend the rest-“
“If you needed gloves, I’d have given them to you already,” she said.
“What about me?” Arlene asked.
Annalise glanced down at the welts on Arlene’s forearm. “I’ll take care of you later.” She got out of the van.
Arlene gripped my shoulder. “I’m coming with you. Is that okay?”
It wasn’t, but I couldn’t find it in myself to tell her so.
“Come on,” I told her. Guess I wasn’t going to die alone today.
