Page 120 of Dead Beat

“It’s okay,” Darlington said, holding up the silver ball he’d found neatly tucked away in a cabinet, precisely labeled in Dawes’s tidy handwriting.

Instantly the jackals quieted and sat, their tails wagging. As Alex had learned, summoning the hounds without the means to control them could be disastrous. But with the right constraints in place, they were quite useful and only moderately bloodthirsty.

Turner placed his hands on his hips. “When this is all over, I am taking a week off and going to the most normal, magic-free place I can find.”

“Lovington, Iowa.”

“What?”

“It has the lowest concentration of magic anywhere in the United States.”

Turner stared at him. “Maybe I’ll take two weeks off.”

Darlington removed the ghost lead from his pocket and held it beside the ball. One of the jackals slinked forward and ducked its head into the loop. He waved off the other Lethe hounds.

“This will work?” Turner asked.

“It should. If there’s some remnant of Kylie in that tomb, the hound should find it.” He hesitated. “But it might not be pleasant.” The Bonesmen sometimes kept viscera from their rituals, and the jackal might well return with one of her kidneys or a spleen.

“I’m not taking that thing in my car.”

“Not a dog person?”

“I don’t like mess.”

“It’s a phantom hound from the temple at Asyut,” Darlington noted. “It isn’t going to pee on your upholstery.”

“It better not.”

He glanced up at Alex’s window. He didn’t like leaving her but hovering by her door wasn’t going to do anyone any good. It was only then that he saw the owls perched on the roof of Il Bastone, a line of them silhouetted against the late-morning sky.

When he and Turner arrived at Bones, they didn’t bother with the main entrance—the delegates never did. Darlington coaxed the jackal out of the back seat, and they cut through a narrow alley to the side door that led to the lower level of the tomb and the kitchens. They were only a block from the quadrangle, where the pilgrims had made their plans.

Darlington kept the lead tight to his leg. The jackals weren’t visible beyond the boundaries of Il Bastone, but a leash hanging from his hand was bound to raise questions.

Montrose Gallo opened the door with a beaming smile. He was a tenor who sang with the Whiffenpoofs and who had already performed at Carnegie Hall. He was handsome, but his charm had a glib polish to it, like a 1940s film star who was always cast as the fiancé the heroine ended up jilting for the rugged hero.

“Hello, Montrose. I hope we’re not early.” They were, deliberately so.

“Not at all!” He called over his shoulder, “Our visitors are here, everyone. Get out the good wine!”

He was sounding the alarm of their premature arrival under the guise of a warm welcome. And he was still blocking the door.

“We’re going to need to have a conversation with the delegates,” Darlington said. “We’ll be out of your way just as soon as possible.”

“And this is?” Montrose inquired. Darlington had told him that he needed to address minor security concerns with the Bonesmen before the end of the semester, but he hadn’t mentioned they would have company.

“Turner.”

“Are you Lethe?”

“I’m New Haven PD and rapidly losing patience. You knew we were coming.”

Montrose paled. “I knew Virgil was coming. If you’ll just wait a moment—”

“I won’t.”

Turner somehow stepped directly past Montrose without making any contact.