Page 148 of Dead Beat

They stood in the silence of the chapel. Then Dawes put her arms around Alex. Darlington followed. Turner was the last.

“We are the shepherds,” Alex said shakily.

“We are the shepherds,” they replied.

It was almost like praying together.

“Come back to us,” Dawes whispered, her eyes full of tears.

“Give ’em hell,” Turner said and clapped her on the shoulder.

Darlington touched her cheek once, briefly. “’Til the end of days,” he promised.

“And after,” she replied.

She would call to him. She had promised she would and he would be there to serve as her second in victory or defeat.

“Be ready,” she said.

He slung the bag holding the Voynich Coffin over his shoulder. “I will.”

Alex turned and opened the door to the stairwell. It looked ugly and modern compared to the chapel—nothing but brick walls, concrete. She stepped through the threshold and the building gave the faintest tremor. Dawes gasped.

When Alex turned back to them, the armor had changed. This was the armor she’d worn in hell, the soldier’s armor: gleaming black metal emblazoned with snakes.

She raised her hand and he remembered her standing on the curb outside Turner’s mother’s house when Mercy left, alone and still hoping. He lifted his own hand in what he prayed was not farewell.

High above, the bells of Harkness began to strike midnight. The door slammed shut.

54

The chime of the bell never ended. The sound simply sustained, a long, vibrating note that seemed to make the air shimmer around her.

Alex stood staring at the door. All she wanted was to push back through, tell them she’d changed her mind. They could just keep hunting demons. And when Golgarot came, she’d hide under the covers with Darlington, safe behind the wards of Il Bastone, and let the world fend for itself.

She looked up. And up. Harkness was over two hundred feet tall, 284 steps to reach the roof and whatever might be waiting for her there. The armor felt as it had when they’d made the descent, heavy, sturdy, but as if it had been made for her. She supposed it had. What did you wear, Hector? she wondered. How had he appeared as a soldier in hell? Dressed as a New England lobsterman? A Yale Bulldog?

There was nothing to do but start. The stairs were stone, and when her boot struck that first step, it clanged. The sound echoed back to her, folding in on itself, growing instead of fading, joining that ringing chime. She didn’t want to take the second step. Right now she stood between two worlds, the mortal realm and the demon sphere. When she lifted her foot, when she placed herself fully on that staircase, there would be no turning back.

But if she had intended to run, that chance had passed.

The Bridegroom was waiting to help her to the other side. And if she had to spend a thousand years haunting every girl Darlington tried to date and listening to a Victorian ghost mope, there were worse fates.

“I’m so fucking scared,” she said to no one.

Me too. It was a quiet voice, the smallest whisper, the same voice that had warned her to be careful when she’d faced the demon at the day care. Deja de chingar, he’d said. Stop fucking around.

“Theo?”

A funny little flutter passed through her and she knew the voice belonged to Kittscher’s final victim, the last bit of him rescued from oblivion. She was grateful not to be alone.

I’ll take you with me, she promised. We’ll both cross over to the Veil. And one day, when Theo’s mother passed and later his sister, she’d go to meet them. She’d tell them what really happened to Theo; she’d bring that last spark to them cupped in her palms.

Or maybe you’ll win, Theo whispered.

She laughed and that terrible thrum swallowed the sound. You’re new here, kid. You’ll figure it out. The good guys don’t win in these stories. And that made her laugh even harder because she wasn’t a good guy at all.

She took the second step. Nothing changed. But when she looked back at the door to the chapel, it was gone, the wall a smooth expanse of perfectly laid bricks. She had made her choice without making it. How much of her life had been just like that?