Page 171 of Dead Beat

“I will wear it,” she said, reaching for the exaggeration spell Dawes had created, letting hellfire course over her, wild and bright. “But not around my neck.”

She remembered the way she had used hellfire on the beach, the sense that it had substance. Then she had used it to forge a shield, bending it to the shape of the Wheel, but she had felt that it could be made into anything at all. She thought of poor dead Tara hanging scarves around her apartment, of Hellie buying plants to put on the windowsill, of her mother with her gems and geodes, her seashells and bound herbs, using every bit of her hope to make the garbage heap of their life into something beautiful. That was the gift of coming from nothing. You learned to work with what you had.

The metal of the yoke collapsed in her hands, turning molten and liquid. She had held Darlington’s soul inside her. She had seen herself through his eyes, a girl made of night, a queen on a throne. She remembered the shape of the crown in his mind and she forged it now, turning it as she turned the Wheel. A well of hellfire erupted through her, fed on the stubborn anger of every soul in this cursed town.

A city’s worth of grievance had mended Alex’s wounds, but Golgarot’s look of astonishment was almost as healing.

“No!” he shrieked. “You can’t! That isn’t allowed! Kill her,” he commanded. “Run her through!”

Darlington lowered his head and bellowed. This time she would not survive him.

She lifted the golden crown, studded with garnet and onyx, forged for her in hell and reborn in her hands. What made a queen? She didn’t know. But she hoped she was about to find out.

Alex set the crown upon her head.

Golgarot screamed. “Pretender! Usurper!”

Darlington skidded to a halt. He stumbled, lost his footing, went to his knees.

Alex stood over him. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “If your vow is to serve hell, then serve me.”

The bands on his arms and neck flashed. His eyes shone bright and gold as coins. Horror came into his gaze, understanding of what he’d been made to do.

“Alex—”

“Danny, you can wallow in guilt later. Right now, we have a job to do.”

Again his face changed, rage overtaking him. He turned toward Golgarot and roared into the winter air. He lowered his horns and charged straight into the demon’s torso, tossing him high.

Golgarot hit the ground and scuttled backward. He was losing his human shape now, and Alex glimpsed the form of something otherworldly in him, maybe something beautiful.

But mercy was for benevolent queens. She was the soldier, and she and Hec had some debts to make good on.

Alex took the crown from her head. It had served its purpose, and she had another use for it now. She called on hellfire to form it in her hands.

Darlington shook his head. “Really, Stern?”

She shrugged. “I prefer to play to my strengths.”

She reached out to Hellie’s spirit, somewhere in the arena, rooting for her to the last.

Come with me, she asked, just once more.

Hellie’s strength was inside her, the memory of her mortal days on sun-drenched fields, the crowd cheering her on.

Alex lifted the golden bat and swung. It cracked against Golgarot’s skull. He shrieked and stumbled away from her.

“You know the people of your world are corrupt,” he seethed.

“I’ve heard.”

“You were meant to be our queen, our messiah. You may not wear the yoke, but you are their slave.”

“Better to serve in New Haven than to reign in hell.”

“Alex,” Darlington sputtered. “Did you just bastardize Milton?”

“Impressed?”