Instantly Tzvi backed away, hands up as if gentling a wild animal, eyes narrowed. Alex crouched on the floor, ready to run, struggling for breath. She could see marks from her fingers on his forearm, already starting to bruise.
Eitan was still sitting on the couch, but now he was smiling. “When I saw what happen to Ariel, I think, it’s impossible. This little girl could never do so much damage.”
And Alex understood she’d made a terrible mistake. He hadn’t brought her here to kill her. If he had, Tzvi would have used a knife or a garrote instead of his hands. He would have attacked to kill instead of just punching her in the stomach.
“So,” said Eitan. “Now I know better. You and I have business, Alex Stern.”
It had all been a game. No, an audition. She’d been looking for a trap, just not the one he’d had waiting for her. And she’d walked right into it. The wise fool.
10
October
Alex took a car the short distance back to the dorms from the crime scene.
She probably should have walked, but the area around the med school wasn’t safe and she was too tired for a tussle.
By the time she got washed up and tucked into bed, it was 3 a.m. Mercy was fast asleep, and Alex was glad she didn’t have to answer any questions.
She slept and dreamed she was climbing the stairs at Black Elm. She entered the ballroom, slid past the barrier of the golden circle, its warmth a comfort, like slipping into a hot bath. Darlington was waiting for her.
Alex didn’t remember waking. One moment she was asleep and standing inside the circle of protection with Darlington; the next she was alone beneath an autumn sky at the door to Black Elm. At first she thought she was still dreaming. The house was dark except for the gold light bleeding from beneath the boarded windows on the second floor. She could hear the wind
in the trees, shaking the leaves, a warning whisper, Summer is over, summer is over.
She looked down at her feet. They were covered in mud and blood.
Am I here, or am I dreaming? She’d gone back to her dorm room after she’d left Turner at the psych department, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed. Maybe she was still there now.
But her feet hurt. Her arms had broken out in gooseflesh. She was wearing nothing but the shorts and tank top she slept in.
Real awareness crept in. She was cold, alone, and in the dark. She had walked here. Barefoot. No phone. No money.
She had never sleepwalked in her life.
Alex put her hand to the kitchen door. She could see herself reflected in the glass, bone white against the dark. She didn’t want to go in. She didn’t want to walk up those stairs. That was a lie. She could feel the dream pulling at her. She’d been standing with Darlington inside the golden circle. She wanted to be there now.
She looked up at the windows. Did he know she was here? Did he want her here?
“For fuck’s sake,” she said, her voice too loud, dying too abruptly in the woods that surrounded the house, as if no sound could be permitted to carry to the outside world.
She needed to get back to the dorms. She could try to find a Gray to summon and use its strength to get her home, but her feet already hurt like hell. Besides, after that little incident at Oddman’s place, she wasn’t sure she wanted to invite another Gray in. She could try limping to a gas station. Or she could break a window and use the landline to call Dawes. Assuming the landline worked.
Then she remembered: the cameras. Dawes would have gotten an alert someone was at the door. She waved frantically at the doorbell, feeling like a fool. “Dawes,” she said, “are you there?”
“Alex?”
Alex placed her head against the cold stone. She’d never been more grateful to hear Dawes’s voice. “I think I sleepwalked. Can you come get me?”
“You walked to Black Elm?”
“I know. And I’m half naked and freezing my ass off.”
“There’s a key under the hydrangea pot. Get in and warm up. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” said Alex. “Thanks.”
She tilted the pot up, grabbed the key. And then she was standing in the dining room.
She didn’t remember unlocking the door or passing through the kitchen.
She hadn’t even turned the light on. An old sheet had been placed over the dining room table to keep it from collecting dust. She snatched it up and wound it around her body, desperate for warmth.
Wait for Dawes. She had every intention of doing just that, but she’d also had every intention of staying in the kitchen by the stove.
She felt as if she were still asleep, still dreaming, as if there had been no key, no conversation with Dawes. Her feet wanted to move. The house had opened to her because he was waiting.
Goddamn it, Darlington. Alex clutched the banister. She was at the base of the stairs. She looked back and saw the dark stretch of the living room, the windows to the garden beyond. She tried to anchor herself to the banister with both hands, but she was a bad marionette, yanking at her strings. She had to keep climbing. Up the stairs and down the hallway to the ballroom. There were no carpets to soften her steps.
She knew of only one Gray who frequented Black Elm. An old man, his bathrobe forever half open, a cigarette hanging from his lips. He came and went, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to stay, and right now he was nowhere to be found. She had no salt in her pockets, no graveyard dust, no protection at all.
She willed herself not to push the door open, but she did anyway. She hooked her fingers over the door jamb. “Dawes!” she shouted.
But Dawes wasn’t at Black Elm yet. No one was in the old house except for Alex, and the demon that had once been Darlington was staring at her from the center of the circle with bright golden eyes.
He was still sitting cross-legged, hands on his knees, palms down. But now his eyes were open and they glowed with the same golden light as the markings on his skin.
“Stern.”
