Page 103 of Dead Beat

“You all right, buddy?” Turner said.

“I…” Huilca looked around him, then bobbled on his feet.

“You dropped your license,” Darlington said, handing Huilca his identification and his ticket. Seeing his own photograph, his address, his name would help to root Luis Huilca back in his own consciousness. “Are you okay?”

“Maybe we should get someone from security,” said Turner.

“No,” Huilca said slowly. “No need. I … I think I’m just … dehydrated or something.”

“You should get some more water,” suggested Darlington.

Huilca looked at the empty bottle in his hand. “Right. Yeah. Thanks.”

They watched him drift into the crowd.

“You think he’ll get on the flight?” Turner mused.

“If we’re lucky.”

Huilca had his ticket. He would look through his phone, maybe make some calls to see if he could account for the last day and night. Magic had brought him to New Haven, the attempted disruption of a prohibition he had placed more than twenty years before. It was possible he had vanished from the spot where he was standing, that his wife and his son had been looking for him since, that he would wonder if that was what had brought him so far from home. But hopefully no clue would lead him back to Connecticut and Alex.

Darlington was glad to see Huilca move past the checkpoint and vanish into the terminal. A metronome had been ticking in his head for the entirety of the drive, a voice that whispered, Kill him. Kill him. It was the command of both demon and man, the knowledge that Alex would be safer if Huilca never took another breath.

He was beginning to understand the fundamental truth that she wasn’t meant to survive any of this. The structure of Lethe, of Huilca’s brotherhood, of the societies, and Yale itself weren’t built to allow her to survive. He had fought Alex’s inclusion in Lethe. He hadn’t felt she belonged, and he’d been right. He just hadn’t understood that he didn’t belong either.

“Come on,” Turner said, heading back out to the street. “We’ve got a long ride home and I want to talk to you about Kylie Sanz.”

“Who?”

“My murder victim. The one who didn’t drown at Savin Rock.”

“You said they found water in her lungs.”

“After our run-in with Reiter, I went back to the ME. He didn’t like being second-guessed. But I had him look at her stomach contents and test the water in her lungs. It was fresh, not salt water.”

Darlington halted, ignoring the flow of busy travelers around them. “Even though she was found in the Sound.”

“Exactly. And her stomach didn’t have any of the fried crap they were serving on the boat. Just parsley and geranium root.”

Herbs of purification. They were used in prognostication rituals—and those were only performed by one society.

“If you start rattling cages at Skull and Bones, they’ll come after you, after all of us. They are the oldest of the societies and without question the most powerful.”

“How powerful?”

“Three-US-presidents-as-alumni powerful.” Bones had produced multiple world leaders, publishing moguls, secretaries of state, and one of the best directors currently working in Hollywood. If Lethe took them on, their alumni would not stay quiet about it.

Turner smiled. “Only three?”

Darlington knew if he went down this road, it would be the end of his future at Yale and possibly far worse. He glanced back to where Huilca had disappeared into the crowd. He thought of the knife protruding from Alex’s shoulder.

“Okay, Detective,” he said. “Let’s rattle some cages.”

The Draught of Lethe (Banks/Waters)

Both versions of this tonic use henbane, euphorbia, and datura, as well as a species of nepenthe developed in England around the early sixteenth century. The variety is more mild than its Greek and Egyptian counterparts (not to be confused with the pitcher plants bearing the same genus) and may have been referenced by Spenser. (See also Meng Po’s soup or tea of oblivion.)

The distinguishing ingredient between the formulas is black vitriol derived from mummia. Originally developed as a purifying substance, it quite literally corrodes memory. But its reach is impossible to predict. For this reason, application of the Waters of Lethe as opposed to the Banks—i.e., true submersion—is extremely hazardous and risks compromising the subject’s understanding of both the world and himself.