“We have to—” She had meant to say something about Sterling, about completing the ritual. But she was staring into the yellow eyes of four wolves.
They were blocking the path between Black Elm and the highway.
“What do they want?” Dawes quavered.
Turner squared his shoulders. “What do wolves ever want?” He drew his gun, then yelped. He held a bloody rabbit in his hand.
The wolves lunged.
Alex screamed as jaws closed around her forearm, the wolf’s teeth sinking deep. She heard the bone snap, felt bile rise in her throat. She fell backward, the creature on top of her. She could see its filthy muzzle, the blood and drool matted around its teeth, the crust of yellow pus around its wild golden eyes. But she still had hold of the box. The wolf shook her as the flames on her body caught on its oily coat. She could smell its fur burning. It growled low in its throat. It wasn’t letting go. She could see black spots in her vision. She couldn’t pass out. She had to get free. She had to get to Sterling. She had to get to Mercy.
“I’m not letting go either,” she snarled.
She turned her head to the side and saw the others wrestling with the rest of the pack, and the rabbit, white fur spotted with blood, nibbling at a beige blade of grass, bloody handprints on its sides, ignored by the wolves.
She gripped the box harder, but she could feel herself starting to fade out of consciousness. Could she outlast this monster? The wolf was on fire now,
its flesh roasting. It was whimpering, but its jaws remained clamped on her broken arm. The pain was overwhelming.
What did it mean if they died in hell? Would their bodies rest easy above, unbattered and whole? What would happen to Mercy?
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who to save or how. She couldn’t even save herself. She’d promised Darlington she would get him out. She’d believed she could keep them all alive, that this was one more thing she could bluff and bare-knuckle her way through.
“I’m not letting go.” But her voice sounded distant. And she thought she heard someone, maybe some thing, laughing. It wanted her here. It wanted her broken. What would hell look like for her? She knew damn well. She’d wake up back in their old apartment, back with Len, as if none of this had ever happened, as if it had all been some wild dream. There would be no Yale, no Lethe, no Darlington, no Dawes. There would be no secret stories, no libraries full of books, no poetry. Alex would be alone all over again, staring into the deep black crater of her future.
Suddenly the wolf’s jaws released and Alex screamed louder as the blood rushed back to her arm. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing. Darlington was fighting the wolves, and he was neither demon nor man but both. His horns blazed golden as he wrenched one of the beasts off Turner and hurled it into the rubble. It yelped and fell in a heap, its back broken.
The box. It was still in her hands, but it was empty now, that bright, victorious vibration gone. He’d slipped free. To save them.
He tore another monster off Dawes and his eyes met Alex’s as he snapped the wolf’s neck. “Go,” he said, voice deep and commanding. “I’ll keep them at bay.”
“I won’t leave you.”
He tossed the wolf that had been tormenting Tripp into the desert sand, and it ran, whimpering, tail between its legs. But there were more coming, shadows slinking between the crooked silhouettes of the Joshua trees.
“Go,” Darlington insisted.
But Alex couldn’t. Not when they were this close, not when she’d held his soul in her hands. “Please,” she begged. “Come with us. We can—”
Darlington’s smile was small. “You found me once, Stern. You’ll find me again. Now go.” He turned to face the wolves.
Alex made herself follow the others, but all the fight had gone out of her.
This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She wasn’t supposed to fail again.
“Come on!” Turner demanded, dragging Tripp and Dawes down the desert highway.
There were more wolves waiting, blocking the road.
“How do we get past them?” Tripp cried.
“This isn’t how this works,” Dawes said, her voice raw with fear. She had blood on her forearm and she was limping. “They shouldn’t be trying to stop us from leaving.”
Turner stepped forward, hands held up as if hoping the wolves would part like the Red Sea. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”
One of the wolves cocked its head, like a dog that didn’t understand a command. Another whimpered, but it wasn’t a sound of distress. It sounded almost like a laugh. The largest of the wolves padded toward them, head lowered.
“For thou art with me,” Turner proclaimed. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies—”
The big wolf opened its mouth, its tongue lolled out. The word that emerged from its jaws was low and growling, but unmistakable: “Thief.”
Without thinking Alex took a step backward, terror rising like a scream in her head at the wrongness of it. Tripp’s mouth hung open, and Dawes groaned, panic overtaking them both. Only Turner stood fast, but she could see he was trembling as he shouted, “Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me—”
The wolf’s lips split, showing its jagged teeth, its black gums. It was smiling. “If a thief is found breaking in,” it said, the words rolling like growls,
“and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him. ”
Turner dropped his hands. He shook his head. “Exodus. That fucking wolf is quoting scripture at me.”
Now another wolf was creeping forward, head low. “All who came before me are thieves and robbers. ” Alex caught movement from the left and right.
They were being surrounded. “But the sheep did not listen to them. ” The last word was little more than a snarl.
“It’s because we tried to take Darlington,” said Dawes. “We tried to take him home.”
“Back-to-back!” Alex cried. “Everyone with me!” She had no idea what she was doing, but she had to try something. Tripp was crying now and Dawes had squeezed her eyes shut. Turner was still shaking his head. She’d warned him this wasn’t some grand battle between good and evil.
Alex slapped her hands together, rubbing her palms against each other as if she were trying to keep warm, and sure enough the flames leapt. “Come on,” she muttered to them, to herself, still unsure of what she was asking for or who she was pleading with. The unwanted magic that had plagued her from her birth. Her grandmother’s spirit. Her mother’s crystals. Her absent father’s blood. “Come on.”
