Page 88 of Dead Beat

“Would you be kind enough to pour, Dawes?”

He’d thought the routine would soothe her, but her hands were shaking. Darlington took over, passing around cups of tea. Alex refused, but her father accepted, balancing the saucer on the worn right knee of his corduroys. He looked just as Darlington had imagined when Mira was describing him, like he taught yoga or ran an organic farm. But it wasn’t just that. He recognized this man from Alex’s vision in hell, from the photograph on Mira’s shelf of a young, smiling man, a surfboard propped beside him. He had the same pendant around his neck—an owl talon, Darlington realized. But how had Alex’s mind created a photo that hadn’t existed of a man she’d never seen?

Darlington and Dawes bracketed Alex on the couch, as if they were interviewing this stranger in their parlor.

“Let’s begin with introductions,” Darlington said, relying on protocol and manners to see them through this bizarre moment. “I’m Daniel Arlington. This is Pamela Dawes.” He paused.

“Alex” was all she offered.

“Luis Huilca.”

Silence followed. Outwardly Alex looked at ease, but Darlington recognized the stillness in her. This was how she reacted to the presence of danger as she readied for fight or flight. Now her father had spoken his name into the quiet: secret knowledge, long buried, revealed without ceremony over a cup of tea. No thunderclap. No lightning strike. Just a man who had appeared out of nowhere, here as quickly as he had once vanished from Alex’s life.

“It’s a beautiful home,” Huilca said, blowing on his tea. “Where is Mira?”

“Safe,” Alex said, and Darlington knew there was more hope than certainty in that word. “Far from here.”

“But you tried to lift the prohibitions on her.”

“Wondering if we succeeded?” Alex asked. He said nothing. “Why did you mess with her memory in the first place?”

“For her own protection. For yours.”

Alex leaned back against the couch and crossed her arms. “This should be good.”

“How did you have that level of skill?” Darlington asked. “The prohibitions were rooted deep.”

“It’s old knowledge. If you’re aware of prohibitions, then I suppose you know…” He trailed off, unsure of how to proceed.

But Alex waved a disinterested hand through the air. “Yeah. Ghosts. Magic. Demons. We have the secret decoder ring.”

“Then I guess I don’t need to lie. I am part of a … community that studies magic and helps maintain the boundaries of our world.”

“I think you can do better than that.”

He looked back at Alex, as if weighing how much to tell her. “Each of us is descended from the priests and holy men who once held these sacred duties. My particular line is traced through Peru.”

None of them were stupid enough to look at each other, but Darlington felt a shift in the room. Almost directly above them, a golden artifact, the heart of Lethe’s access to the world beyond the Veil, sat in the armory, stolen away from Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham III.

“I didn’t think much about it,” Huilca continued. “It was always an abstract thing, a story my father told. I’ve never been sick a day in my life. I knew my neighbor was going to die the morning before he did. Most things came easily to me—crafting, coding—”

“Surfing?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” he said, either ignoring or failing to observe the edge in her voice.

His gaze never left Alex. She wasn’t looking away. Darlington felt like he was watching a game of chicken.

“Must be nice.”

“It was. It is. In the past our order were guides to witches, protectors who helped them to open portals, so that shamans could walk through those doors in dreams and time. Our communities exist in most places of magic in the world. We share knowledge and ensure that our bloodlines continue uncorrupted.”

Alex crossed her legs. “Uncorrupted by what, exactly?”

But it was Dawes who answered. “There was a taboo, wasn’t there? A different type of prohibition.” It was the first time she’d spoken since Huilca had arrived. Their guest looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Yes.”

“No children,” Dawes said, more statement than question. “Not with witches.”