curling, and before it could fall, she threw a handful of iron filings into the blaze. The words began to peel up from the paper and into the air.
Good
luck
you’re
dead
“Stand back,” said Dawes. She raised the trumpet to her lips. The sound that emerged should have been thin and tinny. Instead, a rich bellow echoed off the walls, the triumphant blast of a horn calling riders to the hunt.
In the distance Alex heard the soft patter of paws.
“It’s working!” Dawes whispered.
They leaned over the space where the table had been and Dawes blew the trumpet again, it echoed back to them from somewhere in the distance.
Come home, Darlington. Alex picked up the glass of Armagnac and tipped it into that star-filled abyss. Come back and drink from this fancy bottle, raise a toast. She could still hear that old song playing in her head.
Come on along. Come on along. Let me take you by the hand.
The patter grew, but it didn’t sound like the soft thud of paws. It was too loud and growing louder.
Alex looked around the room for a clue to what was happening.
“Something’s wrong.”
The sound rose from somewhere in the darkness. From somewhere below.
It shook the stone floor in a swelling rumble Alex could feel through her boots. She peered down into nothing and smelled sulfur.
“Dawes, close it up.”
“But—”
“Close the portal!”
She saw flecks of red in the dark now, and a moment later, she understood—they were eyes.
“Dawes!”
Too late. Alex stumbled back against the wall as a herd of stampeding horses thundered out of the table, bursting into the room in a seething mass of black horseflesh. They were the color of coal, their eyes red and glowing.
Each beat of their hooves against the floor exploded into flame. They crashed through the temple room door, scattering salt and stones, and roared down the hall. The herd of hellhorses blew through the lines of salt one by one.
“They’re not going to stop!” Dawes cried.
They were going to smash through the front door and onto the street.
But when the stampede struck the line of salt they’d mixed with their blood, it was like a wave crashing against the rocks. The herd spilled left and right, a messy roiling tide. One of the horses fell on its side, its high whinny like a human scream. It righted itself and then the stampede was clamoring back toward the temple room.
“Dawes!” Alex shouted. She knew plenty of death words. She had silver chains, a rope full of elaborate knots, a damned Rubik’s Cube because demons liked puzzles. But she had no idea how to deal with a herd of horses snorting sulfur that had been summoned from the depths of hell.
“Get out of the way!” Dawes yelled.
Alex pressed herself against the wall. Dawes stood on the far side of the table, her red hair streaming around her face, shouting words Alex didn’t understand. She raised the trumpet to her lips, and the sound was like a thousand horns, an orchestra of command.
They’re going to crush her, Alex thought. She’ll break into nothing,dissolve into ash.
The horses leapt, a black tide of heavy bodies and blue flame, and Dawes hurled the trumpet into the abyss. The horses dove after it, arcing impossibly in the air, less like horses than tumbling sea foam. They flowed like water and dissolved into darkness.
“Close it!” Alex shouted.
Dawes held up her empty palms and swiped them together, as if washing her hands of it all. “Ghalaqa al-baab! Al-tariiq muharram lakum! ”
Then a voice echoed through the room—from somewhere below or somewhere above, it was impossible to tell. But Alex knew that voice, and the word he spoke was clear and pleading.
Wait.
“No!” Dawes screamed. But it was too late. There was an enormous boom, like the sound of a heavy door slamming shut. Alex was thrown off her feet.
6
Alex didn’t remember much of what happened next. Her ears were ringing, her eyes watering, and the stink of sulfur was so sharp, she barely had time to roll onto her hands and knees before she vomited. She heard Dawes retching too and she wanted to weep with happiness. If Dawes was puking, she wasn’t dead.
Robbie ran into the room, waving away the smoke and shouting, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” Then he was vomiting too.
The room was covered in black soot. Alex and Dawes were coated in it.
