Page 10 of Dead Beat

But Alex just hiked her thumb at him. “That’s the man in charge.”

“Amazing,” Nell said. “Really great.” She was staring, a common response to Darlington’s ridiculous beauty, but he didn’t seem to notice. Remember that, she warned herself. Beauty is careless. It forgets its own power. “Right this way.”

Nell led them down a hallway cluttered with coats and discarded boots and into a perfectly square living room lined with bookshelves and cleared of all other furniture. The ceiling had been painted dark blue and inscribed with a compass in shiny bronze paint. At its center was the St. Elmo seal they referred to as “the boat and goat.”

The rest of the Weathermen were gathered in the kitchen beyond.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Nell asked. “We made punch.”

“No, thank you,” Darlington said, manners intact, never mind the hidden horns. “We’ll see to the circle of protection. Please watch your step when you return.” But as soon as she was gone, he said, “My God, this is depressing.”

“It’s not so bad.”

“It smells distinctly of foot.”

He enunciated the word as if trying to expel it.

Darlington was a snob, but he was also right. There was something sad about these people in their worn velvet robes, the cheap Ikea bookshelves they’d lined with black-and-white photographs of better times and relics of past prestige. Divorced from the grand architecture of the tombs, it all looked pathetic, like a sad set for a high school play. Alex’s friend Minki had worked at a BDSM club sandwiched between a discount furniture warehouse and an auto repair shop on Lankershim. She’d brought Alex with her on a shift once and it had reeked of the same desperate air of make-believe.

They set a wide circle of graveyard dust around the perimeter of the room and marked four gateways with bone chalk to stave off Grays. All part of the same hopeful pantomime. St. Elmo’s nights were the easiest every semester, and Alex was already calculating that she’d be back in the dorm and in bed by one thirty. She could get six hours, wake up early, and work on her Milton paper.

“Focus please, Stern.”

She didn’t know if Darlington had always been this attentive to her mind wandering or if being bound by hellfire made her easier to read, but it was annoying.

“What is this?” she asked, approaching what looked like a copper barrel set on a stone base at the center of the room.

“The Kettle. It used to be in the basement of Rosenfeld. Here.” He handed her a pair of earplugs. “Put them in once they start. You can thank me later.”

It didn’t take long to understand. Once the Weathermen gathered, Alex and Darlington stationed themselves at either side of the eastern gate by the house’s front windows. She could smell the fruity tang of whatever punch Nell had cooked up. It was probably more powerful than any magic they might make tonight.

The Weathermen began to chant, and based on Darlington’s wince, their Latin was not up to snuff. Then a young man with buzzed brown hair began banging on the rim of the barrel with long metal tongs and Alex wished she could hurl herself through a window.

“Tyler Norris,” Darlington murmured in her ear. “Delegation president. Computer engineering major.”

“I’m glad I brought you back from hell.”

“So I could do the homework?”

“Exactly.” He probably knew the names of everyone in the room, their hometowns, majors, and favorite desserts. Alex wasn’t sure what the point was. The delegations came and went, a fresh batch of seniors every year. Magic took a toll and the young were better able to endure it. But no one really knew what kind of mark these rites left. No one wanted to ask. The results were too precious.

Alex shoved the earplugs in. The din Tyler Norris was making in the Kettle sounded close to a steel drum, but there was no discernible rhythm, just a frantic rolling up and down like a clumsy giant playing in the world’s worst resort band.

A faint scent of ozone filled the room. A few weak flashes flickered outside, less like lightning than a defective bulb.

Tyler kept pounding on the metal rim, his face getting redder, perspiration dripping from his brow. The other Weathermen shifted in their cloaks, hope giving way to embarrassment. There was no rumble of thunder, no patter of rain. A truck roared past and Alex felt the flimsy walls of the house shake.

They didn’t stop shaking.

Tyler’s fuzzy head popped up, as if he heard a secret song beneath the aimless roll of the Kettle. His eyes were bright blue, sweaty face gleaming.

“Oh my God!” Nell crowed. “It’s working!”

Tyler broke into a huge astonished grin and the other Weathermen joined hands, drawing closer to the barrel.

Alex couldn’t quite believe it, but Nell was right. The sound Alex had mistaken for a truck was quaking through the floorboards in a rising rumble, like a massive pot brought to boil, a swell of thunder.

She turned to Darlington, expecting to see her surprise mirrored on his face, but he was staring straight ahead, jaw clenched. His eyes were shining golden coins.