Page 164 of Dead Beat

“We can be done,” she said. “Let me close the door. The pilgrims were children like you, foolish and reckless and curious and arrogant.”

“Liar! They wanted to put me in a cage.”

“They didn’t understand the bargain they were making. Let me close the door.”

“Never!” the demon shrieked.

Alex drew the salt sword now resting at her hip. “Then you will die here and the door will close anyway.”

“Think so?” Golgarot lifted his head and he was smiling.

He looked up at the raised sword. It was only then that she saw his face was free of tears.

He wasn’t sobbing. He was laughing. “Hag seed, imbecile, mongrel whore.”

Alex backed away, sword still raised, trying to make sense of how she’d failed.

“You think you know this game?” Golgarot crawled toward her in a deep crouch, fingers dragging on the floor. He didn’t look human anymore. His skin was gray, and his claws had the sheen of pearls. His face was only teeth. “Demons do not play by human rules. You should have called out to your second while you could. You should have known this was not a fight to win alone. But that, Galaxy Stern, is the lesson Hector understood and that you refused to learn.”

Now Alex saw her mistake. Hec had warned her. Both she and Golgarot would have to make the climb. Both could cry out in their need. She swung her sword, but she knew it was too late.

“Daniel Arlington!” Golgarot shouted. “I call upon you to serve as my second.”

61

Darlington stood before her in his demon form. She remembered asking him about the golden bands at his wrists and neck. These marks mean I am bound in service. Forever. I’m bound to you, Stern. To the woman who brought me out of hell.

But now those bands had turned black and so had his eyes. His clawed hand seized Alex’s wrist, stopping the momentum of the sword. He squeezed, and she yelped, releasing it. The blade struck the ground and disintegrated into nothing.

They were back on the field, but now all was black stone and fire. The sky had filled with heavy gray thunderheads. The crowd was screaming and chanting.

When the sons of Eli break through the line! That is the sign we hail!

Golgarot was on the ground, his laughter high and shrill, rolling back and forth, holding his stomach as if he’d heard the funniest joke of his long life.

“Humans always make the same mistakes. Poor Alex. The lonely girl. The martyr. I knew you wouldn’t call to him!”

Alex let hellfire bloom over her.

Golgarot laughed harder. “Hellfire can do nothing to me or to him here.”

“Danny. Please.”

He squeezed and she felt her wristbones bend. She screamed.

“I will have you both in service,” said Golgarot. “Two fine hounds to wear my yoke.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Alex bit out. There had to be a way out of this. There was always a crack to slip through, an angle to play.

“Show her,” Golgarot said.

Darlington backhanded her. The force sent her sprawling.

Alex made herself get up. She spat blood—and something else. He’d knocked one of her teeth loose.

“Big deal,” she said to Golgarot. “He’s not my first bad boyfriend.”

But Darlington was not like Len. He wasn’t like any of the rotten people who had come into her life and left her feeling sadder, stupider, angrier. He had insisted on taking her seriously. He treated the world and everything in it as worthy of his interest.