Page 8 of Dead Beat

Lethe had been instrumental in constructing the Gauntlet and four Yale students chosen from the societies had used it to visit hell back in 1933. Rudolph Kittscher had been Lethe’s representative. Skull and Bones had sent Lionel Reiter, who had become the vampire most recently known as Linus Reiter. But that was all Alex and the others had been able to learn. They had speculated that the other candidates had been selected from Scroll and Key and Book and Snake, but they had no way of knowing who the other two pilgrims had been or the specifics of their journey or exactly what bargain they’d struck with Golgarot nearly one hundred years ago.

“We need those diaries,” Alex said. “And I don’t see how Mark or any of the other apostles are going to help us close the door to hell.”

Turner was studying Darlington. “That’s not why you were interested in that passage from Mark, is it?”

“No,” he admitted. His gaze shifted to Alex. “When you were tapped by Lethe, I made it my business to learn everything I could about people with your gift, people who could see Grays. We had knowledge of others who had the same ability, but most of them ended up like the man described in Mark.”

“Completely batshit?”

“I might choose a less colorful turn of phrase, but yes. Now pay attention to the way they describe his strength. He tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Remind you of anyone?”

Alex thought back to the night she’d first used Hellie’s strength, to the men she’d left behind in her bloody wake. She’d almost gotten used to it now, how easy it was to borrow a Gray’s strength. Only once had a ghost invaded her mind without invitation: the Bridegroom. He’d shoved his way into her head and yanked her strings like a marionette. She never wanted to feel that way again.

“You think Grays got hold of them?”

“I think so, and I think it looked very much like possession. But you and Belbalm and maybe other Wheelwalkers are different.”

Turner refilled his glass. “Different how?”

“In their ability to use Grays and hold demons. The rest?” Darlington lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. But it may be important. According to Golgarot, it’s Alex’s presence in hell that would unlock the door to our world and keep it that way. He drank her blood so that he could prop it open.”

Alex knew where this was going. She could feel the expectation in the others.

“We’ve been over this,” she said. “I’ve tried talking to my mom about my father. It never goes anywhere. And I’m not going to compel her.”

Dawes tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “It doesn’t have to be anything … invasive.”

Alex had lied to her mother, stolen from her, but somehow this felt worse. And she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the truth about whatever was lurking in her genetics. Her father was a gap, a void. Even the word father didn’t quite line up to anything in her understanding. She had a handful of facts: He surfed. He was handsome. He liked Joy Division. Stars in a constellation. You were supposed to see a shape in the absence: a scorpion, a bear, a woman running, but Alex could never fill in the blanks.

“Maybe,” she said.

“We could bring her here,” said Dawes. “Or even do it over the phone.”

“We’re not bringing Mira to New Haven. I’m not putting a target on her back.”

Alex had pulled every string and called in every favor to get her mother settled in a new spot that Eitan’s old buddies couldn’t find if they came looking. A check had arrived: a settlement from a lawsuit from one of the many MLMs Mira had been suckered into over the years. Most people would have raised a brow at such remarkable good fortune, maybe dug a little more. But not Mira, who believed in fate and faeries and the planets aligning, who had a postcard pinned beside her bed that said, Miracles happen if you let them.

But when her mother sent Alex the photo of the new bungalow she’d just put a deposit on, it had felt like stepping in front of a city bus. Alex had been to that house. They all had—Turner, Dawes, Darlington. The porch, the garden full of silvery sage and purple spikes of salvia, the arched entry to the kitchen. They’d seen it when Golgarot had offered them all their dearest wishes and Alex had dreamed of this house, a place of peace and plenty where Mira would have lived if her daughter hadn’t drained away her youth and emptied her bank account for psychologists and scared-straight programs, if Alex had done everyone the courtesy of dying young.

“We need answers,” Turner said. “We can’t keep on like this. The balance is going to change, and we need to make sure it shifts in our favor.”

Alex shoved back from the table and slid on her coat. “We’re supposed to be on Lynwood before midnight to get the circle in place for St. Elmo’s.”

The duties of Lethe didn’t really matter tonight. St. Elmo’s practiced weather magic, but they’d lost their crypt years ago and the nexus beneath it when the university had claimed the elegant red towers of Rosenfeld Hall for itself. The society had been all but obsolete since. The new St. Elmo’s delegates would wave their arms around and it might get a little muggy, then they’d look sheepish and apologize and everyone could go home. Still better than sitting here debating messing with her mother’s mind.

“Alex,” Darlington said gently, “we’re running out of options.”

“Then find some new ones,” she said. “Do your job and I’ll do mine.”

Alex jammed a second piece of bread in her mouth and turned her back on them. She was tired, hungry, and sick of swallowing demons and spitting them back up again for the sake of saving a world that had never been particularly kind to her. If they wanted nice on top of all that, they could find another Wheelwalker.

4

The walk to Lynwood would have taken them a half hour so they drove.

Darlington’s old Mercedes was still sitting in the garage at Black Elm. No one could bear to look at it, let alone drive it since they’d found Michelle Alameddine’s body in the trunk. Instead, Dawes had brought her parents’ old Subaru up from Westport for them to use. Alex knew it was more practical than the glamorous Mercedes, but she always felt a little like she was carpooling to damnation.

“Go on,” Alex said when they parked a few blocks from the squat brick house. “Tell me what’s at stake.”