Page 38 of Dead Beat

“You could do it,” he said. “You can fix it.”

“He’s right,” Dawes said quietly. “You could offer him oblivion. You can make sure it all ends here.”

Alex stared at her. “You want me to eat his soul?” Dawes winced, but Alex didn’t relent. “That’s what you’re saying, right, Dawes?”

Dawes tucked her chin. “I guess.”

So much for someone else doing the hard thing.

Alex didn’t want any of this. She had seen Marguerite Belbalm eat Sandow’s soul. She had nearly had her own soul stolen away by that woman. It had felt like unraveling, her memories snagging on Belbalm’s teeth, the good and the bad, everything that made her Galaxy Stern snatched away by Belbalm’s hunger.

And she could admit this too: When she had held Darlington’s soul cradled against hers, she had struggled to give it up. She could still feel the crest of elation, the whole of his life carried within her, the bright reverberation of steel against steel. For a moment, she had understood that she might capture eternity, that she might understand everything, that with this kind of power, she need never be afraid again. She had never felt more free. Alex had forced herself to release him, but the temptation had been overwhelming. There was no other high like that, and she didn’t want to feel it again, didn’t want to itch for it again.

“I can’t.”

Dawes laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “You’re the only one who can.”

For a long moment they stood in quiet, the sole sound Theo’s labored breathing. Then Alex gave the smallest nod. It was all she could manage. She let Dawes steer her back to the bed.

Tripp rose and she took his place.

“I don’t think I should do this.” What if I don’t want to stop with Theo? What if a taste makes me a glutton like Belbalm?

“Please,” Theo whispered.

“You’ll be gone,” she warned him. “Really gone. No afterlife, no nothing. Just … erased.” That wasn’t quite the right word. Subsumed. The soul couldn’t truly be extinguished, but all of his memories, all of his life force, at least everything Kittscher had left would become a part of Alex.

And what would that make her? Was a Wheelwalker really just another type of demon? Stealing dead souls, using their strength for a while was one thing. But a living being? Taking that life … It was a little too close to what Reiter and Kittscher and all the demons they had shoved into the box had done.

Alex had never wasted a moment of regret on Len or Betcha or Ariel or Eitan. She knew she would be sorry for this. “It’s oblivion … It’s…”

“It’s Lethe,” said Dawes. “The river that takes your memories.”

“Please,” Theo repeated.

Now Alex understood. Oblivion didn’t frighten him because he didn’t want to remember. There had been too much pain. He wanted to be washed clean of knowing, and how many times had she dreamed of the same thing? To be purged of every bad memory, every mistake, every scar, to be made new, even if that meant being made nothing?

She sat down beside him. Her throat ached and she wasn’t sure why she wanted to cry. She took his hand. His fingers felt like kindling, weightless against hers.

“I can’t undo it,” she said. “Once it’s done.”

He nodded.

“We could wait. We could try to contact—”

His grip tightened and she knew he was using every last bit of his strength.

“Now,” he managed.

She glanced at Dawes. “It might create a nexus.”

Dawes took Tripp’s hand. They looked like mourners at a graveside. “No one will know. We owe him.”

God, she was tired of paying other people’s debts.

Theo’s eyes darted to the corner of the desk and he blinked rapidly.

“This?” Tripp asked, holding up a key chain, some sort of California souvenir, a brown bear cradling the outline of the state.