Page 110 of Hell Bent

She never did.

What was this? Why had Michelle lied to her—and to Lethe—about her job at Columbia? Why was she really on campus, and why had she tracked Alex down? And what about the fact that, when Alex had referred to two murders, Michelle hadn’t blinked? As far as anyone on campus knew, there had been only one murder. Marjorie Stephen, a woman Michelle actually knew, had supposedly died of natural causes. But Michelle had no reason to hurt either professor. At least not one Alex knew about.

She couldn’t concentrate on the lecture, though she’d actually done the reading. Part of the reason she’d let Mercy talk her into this class was because she’d covered two semesters of Shakespeare’s plays already. There was plenty more to read, because there always was, but at least she hadn’t had to bluff her way through every lecture.

Maybe there was an upside to all this disaster. No more struggling through classes. No more watching divas swallow bird shit for the sake of a hit album. Alex tried to imagine what life might look like on the other side of all this, and it was too easy to picture. She didn’t want to go back to the hot, seasonless glare of Los Angeles. She didn’t want to work a shit job and make shit pay and get by on scraps of hope, days off, a beer and a fuck to make the month more bearable. She didn’t want to forget Il Bastone, with its tinny stereo and its velvet couches, the library that had to be cajoled into giving up its books, the pantry that was always full. She wanted late mornings and overheated classrooms, lectures on poetry, too-narrow wooden desks. She wanted to stay here.

Here. Where their professor was comparing The Tempest to Doctor Faustus, tracing lines of influence, the words singing through the room. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. Here beneath the soaring ceiling, the brass chandeliers floating weightless above, surrounded by panels of tawny wood and that Tiffany window that had no business in a classroom, alight with deep blue and green, rich purple and gold, groupings of angels who weren’t quite angels despite their wings, pretty girls in glass gowns with halos that read Science, Intuition, Harmony, while Form, Color, and Imagination clustered around Art. The faces always looked strange to Alex, too solid and specific, like photographs that had been pasted into the scene, Rhythm the only figure who looked out of the frame, her gaze direct, and Alex always wondered why.

The Tiffany window had been commissioned in honor of a dead woman. Her name, Mary, was inscribed on the book that one of the kneeling angels-not-angels was holding. The panels had been packed away during the Black Panther trials, in case of riots. They’d been mislabeled and left to molder in boxes, until someone stumbled over them decades later, as if the campus was so sated with beauty and wealth, it was easy to forget something extraordinary, or simply mourn it as lost.

What’s the point of it? Alex wondered. And did it need a point? The windows were beauty for its own sake, for the pleasure of it, smooth limbs, flowing hair, boughs heavy with flowers, all of it hiding in a lesson on virtue, meant as a memorial. But she liked this life full of pointless beauty. It could all disappear as easily as a dream, only the memory of it wouldn’t fade the way dreams did. It would haunt her the rest of her long, mediocre life.

A girl was leaning against the wall beneath the Tiffany window, and Alex had to ignore the twinge she felt at the gleam of her golden hair and honey skin. She looked like Hellie. And no one had a tan like that before winter break.

In fact, she looked exactly like Hellie.

The girl was staring at her, blue eyes sad. She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Alex’s heart was suddenly racing. She had to be hallucinating, another symptom of her literal hangover from hell. She knew better, but a wild hope entered her head before she could stop it. What if Hellie had somehow found her through the Veil? What if she had felt Alex’s presence in the underworld and crossed over to find her at last? But Grays always looked the way they had in death, and Alex would never forget Hellie’s pallid skin, the drying vomit on her shirt.

“Mercy,” Alex whispered, “do you see that girl under the Tiffany window?”

Mercy craned her neck. “Why is she staring at you? Do we know her?”

No, because Alex had erased every bit of her old life, the good right along with the bad. She hadn’t propped a photo of Hellie on top of her dresser. She’d never even spoken her name to Mercy. And the girl standing there beneath all those angels-not-angels couldn’t be Hellie because Hellie was dead.

The blond girl drifted toward the back door of the lecture hall. This felt like a test, and Alex knew damn well she should stay right where she was, pick up her pen, pay attention, take notes. But she couldn’t not follow.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispered to Mercy, and grabbed her coat, leaving her bag and books behind.

It’s not her. She knew that. Of course she knew that. She pushed the door open onto High Street. Dusk was falling, the November night coming on early. Alex hesitated, standing on the curb, watching the girl cross the street. The blacktop looked like a river and she didn’t want to wade in. The High Street bridge seemed to float over it, its winged stone women reclining gently against the arch. The architect had been a Bonesman. He’d designed and built their tomb as well. She couldn’t remember his name.

“Hellie?” she called, halting, uncertain, afraid. But of what? That the girl would turn or that she wouldn’t?

The girl didn’t stop, just crossed into the alley beside Skull and Bones.

Let her go.

Alex stepped into the street and jogged after her, following the polished gold of her hair up the steps, into the sculpture garden where she’d talked to Michelle only a week ago.

Hellie stood beneath the elms, a yellow flame in the blue light of dusk. “I missed you,” she said.

Alex felt something tear loose inside of her. This wasn’t possible. Mercy had seen this girl. She wasn’t a Gray.

“I missed you too,” Alex said. Her voice sounded wrong, hoarse. “What is this? What are you?”

“I don’t know.” Hellie gave the smallest shrug.

It had to be an illusion. A trap. What had they done in hell that could make this possible? There was danger here. There had to be. Wishes didn’t just get granted. Death was final, even if your soul continued on—to the Veil or heaven or hell or purgatory or some demon realm. Mors vincit omnia.

Alex took a step, then another. She moved slowly, half-expecting the girl—Hellie—to bolt.

Her eyes caught a movement in the branches above. The curly-haired Gray, the little dead boy, was crouched there, whispering something to himself, the sound soft, like the rustle of leaves.

Another step. Hellie was California sunshine, clear blue eyes, a girl out of a magazine. It couldn’t be. They’d said their goodbyes in blood and vengeance, in the shallow, murky waters of the Los Angeles River. She’d been carried by Hellie’s strength back to the apartment where her cold body remained. She had begged Hellie to stay, and then she had lain down, halfway hoping she wouldn’t wake up. When she had, the cops had been shining a light in her eyes, and Hellie, the only sunshine in her life, was gone.

“Shit, Alex,” Hellie said. “What are you waiting for?”

Alex didn’t know. A laugh bubbled up, or maybe a sob. She broke into a run, and then her arms were around Hellie, her face buried in her hair. She smelled like coconut shampoo, and her skin was warm as if she’d been lying in the sun. Not a Gray, not some undead thing, warm and human and alive.