“Stand down, priest,” Anselm said with a laugh. “The Wheelwalker has my protection. You have no authority here.”
Darlington gripped Alex’s arm. “This was your plan? To give yourself up? This isn’t meant to be your sacrifice, Stern.”
Alex almost smiled. “I’m not sure that’s true.” Her life had been built on lies and stolen chances, a series of tricks, and evasions, and sleight of hand.
She already knew the language of demons. She’d been speaking it her whole life. A little magic. The stones to take a beating.
“Come forward and meet the punishment you deserve,” Anselm said. He held up the yoke. It was different from the one Darlington had been forced to wear, inlaid with garnets and black onyx. It was beautiful, but there was no mistaking what it meant.
“Alex,” Darlington said. “I won’t let you do this.”
She let fire bloom over her body and Darlington yanked his hand back, his horns emerging. “It’s not your call to make.”
“I liked our game,” Anselm crooned. “There are so many more to come.”
But Alex was only half-listening. She was watching the reflection in the mirrored fountain. Tzvi stood behind Eitan. He had taken Mercy’s salt sword.
Eitan had a gun in his hands.
And Mercy had a bottle in hers. Datura. She hurled it at Eitan. The bottle of oil smashed against him, and before he could recover, Mercy shoved him toward the basin.
Alex seized the yoke from Anselm and leapt toward the water, jamming her other hand beneath the surface.
She heard shouting around her. Anselm was lunging at her and he wasn’t in his human form anymore. She didn’t know what he was—a goat with spiked horns, a red-eyed rabbit, a hairy-legged spider. He was every horror all at once. But Dawes and Darlington and Turner had arrayed themselves around her.
“Protect her,” Turner shouted. “No one gets through!” His feathered cape looked less like a costume than actual wings, spreading wide. Dawes had raised her hands and words had appeared on her scholar’s robe— symbols, scrawl, a thousand languages, maybe every language ever known.
Darlington’s horns glowed golden and he drew his sword. They had enacted their little play for Anselm’s benefit and now they were ready to defend.
She had baited Eitan, telling him she was going to work for Linus Reiter, that she knew his secrets, that she would share every one in return for the vampire’s protection. She’d had Turner call him up with all of the authority of the NHPD to question Eitan’s connection to her, to make it clear she was talking, becoming a liability. Alex knew Eitan would move to deal with her himself. After all, he knew exactly how to locate her. She’d realized that when he’d sidled up to her outside of Blue State Coffee. She’d made sure her phone was on and left it with Mercy in the courtyard so that he could find her tonight.
Now she could feel his soul fighting her, slippery and screaming, scared for the first time in a long time, struggling to remain in the mortal realm. She thought of Babbit Rabbit’s heart pounding against her palm.
She pulled his spirit to her, just as she drew Grays, just as she had drawn Darlington’s soul to her to bring him home. He fought, but Alex had hold of him. Eitan’s spirit rushed into her. She saw a city of skyscrapers and sun-bleached stone, tasted bitter coffee on her tongue, heard the roar of the 405
in the valley below.
She spat him out.
“You want a murderer?” Alex said as Eitan emerged, gasping, his clothes wet, his body ablaze with her blue flame. “Here.”
“It’s not for you to decide who breaches the doors of hell,” Anselm sneered. “You cannot—”
“I’m the Wheelwalker,” Alex said. “You have no idea what I can do.”
“What is this?” sputtered Eitan. The Chai around his neck disintegrated to ash.
Alex yanked the golden yoke over his head and watched the jeweled clasps fasten. The emaciated demons leashed to Anselm shrieked and whimpered.
“Heretic!” Anselm seethed. “Whore!”
Now Alex laughed. “I’ve been called worse in line at Rite Aid.”
Anselm had dealt too long with the genteel, blundering boys of Yale. He didn’t know how to recognize one of his own kind.
“Go!” Alex shouted, keeping her hand in the water. One after another they leapt into the fountain, passing through her to the mortal realm— Dawes,
Turner, Darlington last. She was the Wheelwalker, the conduit. She felt them all, bright, terrified, furious, alive. Dawes like the cool, dark hallways of a library; Turner, sharp and glittering as a city at night; Darlington, gleaming and triumphant, ringing with the sound of steel on steel.
“What is this?” cried Eitan. “You try to fuck with—”
“You get to take your own beatings now,” Alex said. “Hell’s price must be paid.”
She leapt into the water. But Anselm seized her arm.
“You are destined for hell, Galaxy Stern. You are destined for me.” He bit down on her wrist, and Alex screamed as pain lanced through her.
Blue flame erupted over her, over him. But he didn’t burn.
You are destined for hell.
He was drinking from her in great gulps, his cheeks hollowing with every draw. She could feel her blood being pulled out of her, feel her strength lagging.
You are destined for me.
“Okay,” she gasped. “Then come with me.” She tightened her own grip on his arm. “Let’s see how you fare against us in the mortal realm.”
She reached out to him with her power, drawing his spirit into her. It was like sludge, a river of misery oozing into her, a profound agony coupled with obscene pleasure, but she didn’t stop.
