Light seemed to bloom from the stones at their feet and Dawes gasped.
When Alex looked down, there was no paving, no grass. She was looking into the water, and it just went down and down.
Dawes cast a desperate glance at Mercy and handed her the silver pitch pipe. “Watch over us,” she pleaded.
“Run if you have to,” Alex said.
Three.
Their eyes met and they clasped the sides of the basin.
The Descent
Alex didn’t remember falling, but suddenly she was on her back in the water, sinking fast, the river closing over her. She tried to push toward the surface, but something grabbed her wrist, an arm wrapped around her waist. She screamed, felt the water rush in. Fingers pushed into her mouth, trying to dig into her eye sockets, clawing into the skin of her arms and legs, their grip cold and unrelenting.
Buried alive. This wasn’t supposed to be what it was like. It was supposed to feel like falling, like flying. She tried to shout for Dawes, for Mercy, for Turner, but there were fingers shoving into her throat, making her gag. They were in her ears, pushing between her legs.
What if Dawes and the others were still up there? The thought sent a fresh bolt of terror through her. She’d thrown herself into hell, but what if they were still in the courtyard? Or they were soaring into some better realm while she alone was torn apart? Because she was the problem. She had always been the problem. The only real sinner in the bunch. Turner had, what? Brought down a bad guy in the line of duty and it still tormented his Eagle Scout conscience? Dawes had killed Blake to save Alex’s life. Muddleheaded Tripp had no doubt bumbled into something he couldn’t handle.
But Alex was the real thing. She’d taken a bat to Len, to Ariel, to all the rest, and she’d never lost a minute of sleep over the things she’d done.
Something on the other side was waiting to claim her. It had been waiting a
long time, and now that it had hold of her, it wasn’t going to let go. Those hands were hungry. She’d felt the pull of that appetite drawing her across the city to Black Elm. She’d told herself it was because she was special, the Wheelwalker, but maybe the real reason she’d been able to pierce the circle of protection was because she didn’t belong among the mortal, law-abiding citizens of this world. She’d never been punished for her crimes, never felt remorse, and now she’d plunged right into a reckoning.
The fingers seemed to press straight through her, hooks lodging in her skin and bones. She struggled for a gulp of air, hot and stinking of sulfur. She didn’t care. She could breathe again. The water was gone. The fingers weren’t clogging her throat. It ached to open her eyes, but when she did, she saw black night, shooting stars, a rain of fire. Was she falling? Flying? Shooting toward something or drowning in darkness? She didn’t know. Sweat dribbled down her neck, the heat coming from everywhere, like she was being cooked in her own skin.
She hit the ground hard, the impact sudden, driving a short, broken sob from her chest.
She tried to sit up. Slowly, she began to see shapes emerge in the dark … a staircase, a high ceiling. She put her hand on the floor to try to push to her feet and felt something warm and squirming. She recoiled, but when she looked down, there was nothing there, just the rug, a familiar pattern, the polished boards, the coffered ceiling overhead. Where was she? She couldn’t remember. Her head hurt. She’d gone to open the door and Alex had screamed at her, told her to stop. No, that wasn’t right.
Pam tried to make her legs work. She touched her fingers to the back of her head, to the aching spot on her scalp where she could feel her pulse, then snatched her fingers back, gasping at the pain. Why couldn’t she think?
She was supposed to order pizza. Maybe she should cook instead. Alex had been heading upstairs to shower. They were grieving. Together. She remembered Dean Sandow speaking those horrible, final words. No one will be made welcome. Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want Alex to find her weeping—it was only then that she really grasped
where she was: at the base of the stairs at Il Bastone, shards of stained glass scattered around her. She touched the back of her head again, ready for the pain this time.
Someone had knocked her into the wall when she’d opened the door. An accident. She was clumsy. She’d gotten in the way. Wrong place, wrong time.
But hadn’t she locked the door? And why was it still open? Where was Alex?
Music was playing. A song she knew by the Smiths. She heard voices somewhere in the house, footfalls, someone running. She made herself stand, ignoring the wave of nausea that flooded her mouth with saliva.
Pam heard something howl outside and then a flood of hairy bodies crowded through the front door. The jackals. She’d seen them only once before, when Darlington called them. She cringed against the wall, but they rushed right past her, a pack of fur and snapping teeth, the wild animal scent of dust and dung and oily fur rising from them in a cloud.
“Alex?” she ventured. Someone had broken in, pushed past her. Alex was okay, wasn’t she? She was the kind of girl who was always okay. “A survivor,” Darlington had once said, admiration in his voice. “Rough around the edges, but we’ll see if we’ve mined a diamond, won’t we, Pammie?”
Pam had done her best to smile. She’d never liked that phrase, diamond in the rough. All that meant was they had to cut you again and again to let the light in.
She hadn’t been sure if she wanted Alex to fail. She’d felt a certain consolation when their new Dante arrived and she got her first look at this scrawny girl with her bowstring arms and hollow eyes. She was nothing like the cultured, poised girls who had come before. Pam’s first impulse had been to feed her. But the way you’d feed a stray, carefully, coaxingly, never from your hand. Darlington hadn’t seemed to understand that Alex was dangerous.
Although she never asked anything of Dawes. She never gave her orders or made demands. She cleaned up her own messes and skulked around like a rat who was afraid of being noticed by the barn cats. There was no Could you do me a huge favor and whip up something so I can surprise my roommates? No Can I throw a few extra things in the wash?
Pam had felt restless, useless, and grateful all at once. Darlington had muttered his complaints about the girl, but then that night when they’d gone
to Beinecke, everything had changed. They’d come back and smashed half the glassware and gotten roaring drunk, and Pam had fastened her headphones over her ears, put on Fleetwood Mac, and done her very best to ignore them. She’d found them passed out in the parlor the next morning, but to Alex’s credit she’d stayed and tidied up right alongside Darlington.
And then he’d disappeared, and Dawes hadn’t been able to forgive this girl who charged through the world like an unintended consequence, a calamity for everyone and everything around her.
I have to move, she told herself. Something is happening, something bad.
She had the sickly feeling she’d had when her parents argued. The house didn’t feel right. It’s okay, bunny, her mother would say, tucking her in at night. We’re all okay.
For a second Pam thought she might be hallucinating or about to black out, but no, the lights really were flickering. She heard dishes crash from the kitchen, then a cry from above.
Alex.
Pam grabbed hold of the banister and dragged herself up the stairs. Dread made her feet heavy. She spent every day afraid, of saying the wrong thing, asking the wrong question, humiliating herself. Standing in line, scrambling for change, she felt her face flush, her heart race, thinking of all the people behind her, waiting. That was all it took to flood her body with terror. She should be used to fear. But God, she did not want to climb these stairs. She heard men’s voices, then Alex. She sounded furious, and so scared. Alex never sounded scared.
Suddenly the jackals were rushing past her again, whimpering and yelping, nearly knocking her from her feet. Why were they going? Why had they come at all? Why did she feel like a stranger in this house she’d spent years in?
At last she reached the landing, but she couldn’t make sense of any of what she saw. There was blood everywhere. The musky stink of animals hung thick in the air. The dean was slumped against the wall, his femur jutting from his leg, a sudden white exclamation point in search of a sentence. Dawes gagged. What was this? What had happened here? Things like this didn’t happen at Il Bastone. They weren’t allowed.
Alex was on her back on the floor and there was a boy on top of her. He was beautiful, an angel with golden curls and the loveliest face she’d ever seen. He was weeping, trembling. They looked like lovers. He had his hands in Alex’s hair, as if he meant to kiss her.
And there was something in Pam’s hands too, warm and softly furred and squirming, a living thing. She could feel its heartbeat against her palms. No.
