Page 163 of Hell Bent

“Oh yeah?” said Turner.

“Yeah,” said Alex. “This town has been fucked from the start.”

Darlington actually smiled. “I’ll be listening for the signal.”

They moved on to the next door and the librarian’s office. When Alex looked back, Darlington stood framed by darkness, his head bowed, as if in prayer.

Turner took up his post by the sundial door. “Keep your head straight,” he said, the same words he’d used on their first descent. “And don’t drown.”

Alex thought of Tripp clinging to the railing of the boat, of the phantom ship sinking to the bottom of the sea. She met Turner’s gaze. “Don’t drown.”

She followed Dawes through the secret door to the Linonia and Brothers reading room.

It was quieter in this part of the library, and Alex could hear every scuffle of their shoes on the carpeted floor.

“Darlington thinks he’s not coming back,” Dawes said. Alex could feel her eyes on her back.

“I won’t let that happen.”

They stopped in front of the original entrance to the courtyard emblazoned with Selin’s name in gold letters.

“What about you?” Dawes asked. “Who’s looking out for you, Alex?”

“I’ll be fine,” Alex said, surprised by the wobble in her voice. She’d known Dawes couldn’t bear the thought of losing Darlington again, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Dawes might give a damn if Alex came back too.

“I’m not leaving you down there,” Dawes said fiercely.

Alex had said the same thing to Darlington. Promises were easy in this world. So why not make another? “We’re all coming back,” she vowed.

Alex slapped her bloody palm on the archway, and Dawes daubed her blood over it. The door dissolved, and the gold letters of Selin’s name unraveled, replaced by that mysterious alphabet.

“I…” Dawes was staring at the writing. “I can read it now.”

The scholar. What knowledge had Dawes brought with her from the first descent? What new horrors might she learn when they walked the road to hell this time around?

“What does it say?” asked Alex.

Dawes pressed her lips together, her face pale. “None go free.”

Alex tried to ignore the tremor that passed through her at those words. She had heard them before, during the first descent when she’d seen Darlington’s demon half, the torturer in his element.

Alex hesitated. “Dawes … if this doesn’t go the way we planned … thanks for taking care of me.”

“I’m fairly sure you’ve almost died several times since we met.”

“It’s the almost that counts.”

“I don’t like this,” Dawes said, her eyes darting again to those golden letters. “It feels like goodbye.”

Was I ever here? Alex wondered. Had she died alongside Hellie? Had she ever been more than a ghost passing through this place?

“Don’t drown,” she said and made herself walk on, back down the nave where she studiously avoided looking at the Alma Mater mural, then to the right where the circuit had begun. It was time to close the loop.

She studied the stained glass image of Daniel in the lions’ den. Was she the martyr this time? Or the wounded beast with a thorn in its paw? Or just a soldier after all. She couldn’t get her cut to well, so she slashed her arm again and smeared blood onto the glass. It vanished, as if the library was happy to be fed. She was staring into the empty.

She waited, and in the silence, Alex felt as if she could sense something racing toward them. A moment later, she heard the soft hum of the pitch pipe. She took her first step into the courtyard.

This time she was ready for the way the building shook, the shuddering of the stones beneath her feet, the hiss and bubble of the water overflowing the basin, the stink of sulfur. Straight ahead she could see Turner marching toward her, Dawes to her right, Darlington to her left.