Page 94 of Dead Beat

“Not if we all die.”

Darlington might have argued that death wouldn’t diminish the achievement, but he took her point. “Then we’ll have to do what we can to prevent that.”

“Are we going to make it out of this?”

She sounded scared but also matter-of-fact, a woman who wanted to make plans.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not the way we were.”

Dawes’s teeth worried what might soon become a permanent divot in her lower lip. “I could … look for a way to … put you back.”

“You think you can make me human again?” He had done his own searches in the library, carefully inscribing search terms into the Albemarle Book, but they were cursory at best. There simply hadn’t been time to do more, or so he’d told himself.

“I think Alex might be able to do it.”

At the sound of her name, Alex’s head lolled toward Dawes. “No,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to do things. I’m tired of doing things.”

Dawes laughed, but Darlington couldn’t help thinking of what she’d said about Alex on that train. That she was more fragile than she seemed. The only time she ever let herself rest was when she was too bloody and beaten to stand on her own.

“We can worry about it on the other side of all this,” he said. He didn’t know if Alex could use her gifts to separate his demonic self from the person he hoped he still was. Would she even want to? The demon had proven more useful than the man ever had.

“You don’t have to go back,” Dawes said, studying the beaten gold rim of the crucible. “To what you were. I don’t want to.”

“What was wrong with Past Pammie?”

“She was scared. I was scared all the time.”

“And you’re not scared now that we’re facing down an army of demons?”

“I am. I definitely am. It’s more like … all the things that seemed scary before just seem silly now. I was scared to finish my dissertation, to go on the job market, to drive in heavy traffic. This is … I guess it’s a simpler kind of fear.”

“You’re all blue,” Alex said.

Darlington’s panic returned. “I don’t think it’s working.” Alex’s cheeks had more color in them, her eyes looked clearer, but she wasn’t making sense.

It was only then that he realized the crucible was limned with blue flame—and it wasn’t only the tub. Hellfire was washing over the room in a spreading tide.

“I don’t understand,” Dawes said. “This doesn’t usually happen. Maybe she was hurt too badly and—”

Alex’s eyes rolled back in her head. “If the devil knows what’s good for him, he’ll steer clear,” she said. But it was a man’s voice that emerged from her lips, laughing, boastful. “I’ll knock his block off!”

“Alex?” Dawes gently shook her shoulder, then shrieked as hellfire slid off Alex’s skin and up her arm. She brushed it off as if she were scrabbling at spiderwebs. “Something’s wrong.”

The room around them had blurred, as if seen through foggy glass.

“It’s me,” Darlington said. “My … The demonic impacts magic. It disrupted the St. Elmo’s ritual.” They should have told Dawes. He should have predicted this could happen. Il Bastone had no nexus, a check on the potential influence of Lethe. Besides, it would have been considered a waste. Lethe were observers, reporters, the scolds of the societies. They had no need for real power. The presence of a demon changed all that.

“No!” Dawes cried. “Look!”

The flames had gathered around the table where they’d begun to assemble the artifacts beside the blueprints and catalogue pages the first pilgrims had hidden in the staircase. The breastplate, the greaves they’d gotten from Reiter, the enchanted knuckles from their own cabinets—all were glowing, connected by lines of fire.

“I may be the catalyst,” Darlington said. “If I—”

“It’s everything,” said Dawes. “The crucible. Her blood. The plans the first pilgrims left. Your … you.”

Shapes were emerging in the blur of flame. Darlington heard the bellow of a horn, people calling to each other, and then the familiar ringing of bells. Harkness Tower.

“I think she’s Wheelwalking,” he said.