Page 156 of Hell Bent

“But you can control”—she waved a hand as if casting a spell over him—“whatever that demon shit is.”

“I certainly hope so. But I think it would be wise for you and anyone else near me to keep a ready supply of salt at hand. We might consider putting prohibitions on Black Elm too, or wherever I wash up, so that I can’t leave without escort.”

How reasonable he sounded. It wasn’t so hard to playact the man he’d been.

He considered the strange and terrible girl before him. Her eyes were black in the firelight, her hair shining as if it had been lacquered. Undine the water spirit, risen from the lake in search of a soul. Darlington hated to think of that night at the Halloween party at Manuscript. He’d been out of his mind on whatever they’d used to drug him. But when he had looked into the great mirror, he had seen that Alex was something more than her mortal self. And he’d understood that he wasn’t the hero he’d always dreamed of being. He’d been a knight, and what was a knight but a servant with a sword in his hand? For the first time he had known himself and his purpose. At least it had seemed that way at the time. All he had wanted was to serve her, to be seen and desired by her. He hadn’t known he was looking into the future.

“You are a Wheelwalker,” he said. “I know that only because you know that, only because Belbalm and then Sandow knew it. I’m going to have to dig deeper than the Lethe library to find out what that truly means. But I do know this: Not all of us will return from the underworld tomorrow night.”

“We made it out before.”

“And you brought four demons with you. One of whom may have taken up permanent residence in our world to feed on people until it’s vanquished. But we won’t all be coming back this time. As long as hell is short a murderer, the door will remain open, and your demons will keep coming through. Hell’s price must be paid.”

Alex scowled. “Why? How do you know that?”

“Because I was one of them. I was a demon feeding on the suffering of the dead.” He’d meant to say it easily, casually. Instead the words emerged haltingly and stinking of confession.

“Am I supposed to be shocked and horrified?”

“That I engaged in a kind of emotional cannibalism to survive? That I ate pain and enjoyed it? I’d think even you might be troubled by that.”

“You’ve been in my head now,” she said. “Did you get a look at the things I did to survive this life?”

“Glimpses,” he admitted. A string of bleak moments, a deep and desperate ocean, Hellie shining like a golden coin, her grandmother glowing like a banked ember, her mother … a disaster, a cloud, a tangle of frayed yarn, a mess of pity and longing and anger and love.

“We do what we have to,” Alex said. “That’s the only job of a survivor.”

A strange benediction, but one he was grateful for. He folded his hands, debating his next words, unwilling to let them remain unspoken. “What if I told you that some part of me still hungers after suffering?”

Alex didn’t flinch. Of course she didn’t. It wasn’t in her repertoire.

“I’d tell you to keep your shit together, Darlington. We all want things we shouldn’t.”

He wondered if she really understood what he was. If she did, she might run from this room. But it wouldn’t be a worry for long, not after the descent. Until then, he could make sure the demon didn’t slip its leash.

“You need to accept that hell is going to try to keep one of us,” he said. “It will be me, Stern. I was never meant to leave.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected: Laughter? Tears? A heroic demand that she take his place in hell? He had lost track of who was Dante, Virgil, Beatrice. Was he Orpheus or Eurydice?

But all Alex did was lean back in her chair and cast him a skeptical glance. “So after we fought and bled to drag you out of hell, you think we’re going to just bring you back like a foster dog who shit on the carpet?”

“I wouldn’t put it—”

Alex rose and tossed back his glass of his expensive Armagnac like it was a dollar shot on ladies’ night at Toad’s. “Fuck off, Darlington.”

She strode to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To the armory to talk to Turner. Then I have some calls to make. You know your problem?”

“A predilection for first editions and women who like to lecture me about myself?”

“An unhealthy respect for the rules. Get some sleep.”

She vanished down the dark hall, there and gone, like some kind of magic trick.

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