Page 128 of Dead Beat

Ma kicked the dog hard and it whimpered, vanishing into nothing.

He tried one last time. He used the telephone in the Hall to place a call to Mr. Harkness, but the man who answered said that no one was in. Whom should he say is calling? My name is August Hektor Nygard. They call me Hec. It seemed like a good joke at the time. I went to hell and I need help from the man who sent me there.

The words had gotten stuck in his throat, and he’d stood there in silence until at last the operator asked, “Sir, would you like to make another call?”

Ma was still waiting by the gate. “You know what you have to do,” his mother said. “You know what you deserve.”

The Wheel spun and he was standing in the shallows out at Savin Rock. The pier had burned up in a fire just last year, but he and the boys still liked to come down to visit Bluebeard’s Castle or ride the Devil. He stood in the dark, the glittering lights behind him, the fun houses and fortune tellers. He could hear people laughing and screaming. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

For a while he sat on the sand and then he collected as many stones as he could from the seawall. He wasn’t supposed to die on the ocean. He was supposed to be better than the farmers and fishermen, the oyster shuckers and lobstermen. But in the end his good grades and his way with a run didn’t matter. The sea would take him anyway.

He walked and kept walking. He was cold, but that was okay. He could rest when he reached the bottom. He would float on down and Ma would forgive him. Everyone would forgive him. And Rudy and the others? Well, Rudy was clever enough to figure it all out.

Ma was beside him now and she took his hand and her fingers didn’t feel right. Ma’s hands were always rough from work, but now they were soft and slick like kelp. She was pulling him down deeper, into the waves. She was helping him the way she always had.

“That’s my good boy,” she said, and her mouth filled with water, but she was still smiling.

He smiled too.

Alex gasped, gulping cold air as she shoved Hector out of her.

Turner and Dawes were holding her up as she coughed and spat salt water.

“I had to go,” Hec said, staring at her with sad eyes. “I couldn’t fight him on my own.”

“Tell me how to beat him.”

“A little thing like you?”

“You might be surprised,” said North.

“Put on the armor. Open the door. At midnight, the soldier makes the ascent. When the bells ring the arena opens. But he has to climb too.”

“Who?”

Hec looked around as if afraid of being overheard. “Golgarot. He has to survive the climb.”

“What’s so hard about the climb?”

“I don’t know. I never got to that.”

“And at the top?”

“You have to beat the devil at his own game.”

“Do I get a golden fiddle out of it?” Both Hec and North frowned in confusion.

“You get to have a second and so does he.”

“A second?”

“They can’t enter the arena unless you call out, but then they’re stuck too. Danny was supposed to be my second.”

“But he didn’t come,” Alex said, thinking of Black Elm, of the demon in its walls.

“You understand, don’t you? I couldn’t do it on my own.”

She did and she was terrified.