Page 123 of Hell Bent

“Probably.”

He had a family. He had a life. But Alex felt uneasy. It had been two days since he’d shut down their trip to hell, and they hadn’t heard a word from him. No formal dismissal or follow-up, and Il Bastone hadn’t been barred to them. Anselm had interrupted the ritual at Sterling. Alex didn’t know what rules governed demons, but what if they’d set their sights on him too?

She glanced back at Il Bastone, watching the smoke rise off the building in soft clouds, a warning flame, a ritual fire.

She trailed behind the others and laid a hand on the wall, as if she were placing her palm against the flank of an animal to soothe it. She thought of her mother’s apartment, scarves thrown over the lamps, crystals and faeries in every corner. She thought of Ground Zero, its walls spattered in blood, of Black Elm rotting around Darlington like a tomb. Alex felt the stones hum.

Turner would fight in his own way, with law and force and all the power his badge afforded him. Dawes would use her books, her brains, her infinite capacity for order. And what tools did Alex have? A little magic. A talent for misfortune. The ability to take a beating. It would have to be enough.

This is my home, she vowed, and nothing will take it from me.

The Salt Pearls of Emilia Benatti; salt and silver wire

Provenance: Mantua, Italy; early 17th century

Donor: Unknown, possibly gifted from the secret collection at the New Haven Museum

The mechanism by which salt protects against demons is still largely a mystery. We know that salt is understood as a spiritual purifier and is used to ward against evil in many cultures. Its more pedestrian uses also spark the imagination—as a scouring agent, a catalyst for vinegar used in cleansing, a natural preservative that wards off decay, a restorative for failing flowers and fruit. Soldiers were paid in it. Gifts of it were once offered between friends. But what is the significance of Elisha pouring salt into Jericho’s waters to restore them at God’s command? After a funeral, why do some Japanese households scatter salt over their floors? And why do all of our records indicate that salt, above all other substances, is most effective in the dispatching of demonic bodies—both immaterial and corporeal?

Whether Emilia Benatti enchanted the pearls herself or simply acquired them, we also do not know. But she and her family were some of the few to survive the demon plague that struck Mantua in 1629. Her descendants immigrated to America around 1880 and settled in New Haven, where they became prominent members of the Italian community and can be seen at the St. Andrew Society Feast photographed in 1936. The pearls may have been discarded along with other superstitions of the Old World, but how they came to be documented and preserved in the New Haven Historical Society’s secret collection is unknown.

—from the Lethe Armory Catalogue as revised and edited by Pamela Dawes, Oculus

32

They all squeezed into Turner’s Dodge like a gloomy, soot-covered carpool—Dawes up front; Tripp, Alex, and Mercy jammed into the back. No one was walking home alone tonight.

They dropped Dawes at her div school apartment first. Turner and Alex escorted her to the door, and they warded the whole building with salt knots.

“We’ll meet up tomorrow,” Alex said before Dawes shut the door on them. “Check in on the chat every hour.”

Tripp was next, and he leaned forward through the gap in the front seats to give Turner directions to a big block of apartments not far from the green.

The building was nice. Exposed brick, warm faux-industrial lighting. Tripp’s dad might have cut him off, but Tripp had to be drawing on some kind of trust fund. Hard times looked different to a Helmuth.

They warded the exterior and then drew a salt knot atop Tripp’s welcome mat for good measure.

“You, uh, want to come in?” Tripp asked. All of his excitement had ebbed away, the fear creeping back in.

“You can crash with us,” Alex offered. “We have a couch in the common room.”

“No, I’m cool. I’ve got my seabird, right?”

“Check in on the chat,” said Turner. “And don’t go out if you don’t have to.”

Tripp nodded and offered up his knuckles for a fist bump. Even Turner obliged.

On the way down the stairs, Turner said, “I’m going to Black Elm when we’re done. I want to know Darlington is still corralled in his pen.”

Alex nearly stumbled. “Why?”

“Don’t act the fool with me. You saw Marjorie Stephen. She had the life drained right out of her. Nothing natural about it.”

“That doesn’t mean Darlington had something to do with it.”

“No, but he might know if one of his kind did. If there’s something running around out there wearing Marjorie Stephen’s face.”

“He’s not a demon,” Alex said angrily. “Not like they are.”