Page 7 of Hell Bent

“Neither. It was built as a necromanteion, a house to welcome and commune with the dead.”

And Alex had laughed because by then she knew how much Grays hated any reminder of death. “So they built a big mausoleum? They should have built a casino and put a sign out front that said Ladies drink free.”

“Crude, Stern. But you’re not wrong.”

That had been almost a year ago exactly. Tonight she was alone. Alex climbed the steps and knocked on the big bronze doors. This was the second ritual she’d observed this semester. The first—a rite of renewal at Manuscript—had been easy enough. The new delegation had stripped down to nothing and rolled a grizzled news anchor into a ditch lined with rosemary and hot coals. He’d emerged two hours later looking red-faced, sweaty, and about ten years younger.

The door swung open on a girl in a black robe, her face covered by a sheer veil embroidered with black snakes. She pulled it up over her head.

“Virgil?”

Alex nodded. The societies never asked about Darlington anymore. To the new delegates, she was Virgil, an expert, an authority. They’d never met the gentleman of Lethe. They didn’t know they were getting a half-trained pretender. As far as they were concerned, Alex was Lethe and always had been. “You’re Calista?”

The girl beamed. “The delegation president.” She was a senior, probably only a year older than Alex, but she seemed like a different species—smooth-skinned, bright-eyed, her hair a soft halo of curls. “We’re almost ready to start. I’m so nervous!”

“Don’t be,” said Alex. Because that was what she was supposed to say. Virgil was calm, knowledgeable; she’d seen it all before.

They passed beneath a stone carving that read, Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Everything changes, nothing perishes.

Darlington had rolled his eyes as he gave the translation on one of their visits. “Don’t ask me why a society built around Greek necromancy thinks it’s appropriate to quote a Roman poet. Omnia dicta fortiori si dicta Latina.”

“I know you want me to ask, so I’m not going to.”

He’d actually smiled. “Everything sounds more impressive in Latin.”

They’d been getting along well then, and Alex had felt something like hope, a kind of ease between them that might have grown into trust.

If she hadn’t let him die.

Inside, the tomb was cold and lit by torches, the smoke gusted away by small vents high above. Most of the rooms were ordinary, but the central temple was perfectly round and painted with brightly colored frescoes of naked men in laurel crowns.

“Why are they climbing ladders?” Alex had asked when she’d first seen the murals.

“Not Why are they all naked? Symbolism, Stern. They’re ascending to greater knowledge. On the backs of the dead. Look at the bases.”

The ladders were propped on the bowed backs of kneeling skeletons.

At the center of the room stood two towering statues of veiled women, stone snakes at their feet. A lamp hung from their clasped hands, the fire burning a soft blue. Beneath it two older men were huddled in conversation. One wore robes of black and gold, an alum who would serve as high priest. The other looked like someone’s very strict dad, his gray hair in a tight crew cut, his button-down tucked neatly into pressed khaki trousers.

Two more robed figures entered, carrying a large crate. Alex doubted it was a couch from Ikea. They set it down between two brass symbols on the floor—Greek letters that fanned out in a spiral over the marble slabs.

“Why did you lobby so hard to have a ritual sanctioned this week?” Alex asked Calista, eyeing the crate as the Lettermen used a crowbar to jimmy the top open. Most of the time societies took the evenings assigned to them in the calendar or occasionally petitioned for an emergency dispensation that invariably threw the whole schedule into upheaval. But the Lettermen had been very clear that Book and Snake needed this Thursday night for their ritual.

“It was the only day…” Calista hesitated, torn between pride and the demand for discretion. “A certain four-star general has a very tight schedule.”

“Got it,” said Alex, glancing at the stern-faced man with the crew cut. She took out her chalk and her notes and began to draw the circle of protection—carefully, precisely. She didn’t realize how hard she was gripping the chalk until it snapped in two and she had to work with one of the stubs. She was nervous, but she didn’t have that panicked, never-studied-for-the-test feeling. She had reviewed her notes, drawn the symbols again and again in the shadowy comfort of Il Bastone’s parlor, New Order on the tinny sound system. She’d felt like the house approved of her newfound diligence, its doors locked and secured, its heavy curtains drawn to keep the sun out.

“Are we ready?” The high priest was approaching, rubbing his hands together. “We have a schedule to keep.”

Alex couldn’t remember his name, some alum she’d met the previous year. He’d oversee the ritual with the new delegation. Behind him, she saw the Lettermen lifting a corpse out of the crate. They laid it on the floor, naked and white. The smell of roses filled the air, and the priest must have seen Alex’s surprise because he said, “That’s how we prepare the body.”

Alex didn’t think of herself as squeamish; she’d been too close to death her whole life to shy away from severed limbs or gunshot wounds—at least when it came to Grays. But it was always different with an actual body, stiff and silent, more alien in its stillness than a ghost could ever be. It was as if she could feel the void where the person should be.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“No one anymore. He was Jacob Yeshevsky, Silicon Valley darling and friend to Russian hackers everywhere. Died on a yacht less than twenty-four hours ago.”

“Twenty-four hours,” Alex echoed. Book and Snake had requested this night for their ritual back in August.