Page 161 of Dead Beat

“Alagnoth grorroneth.”

Reiter’s long fingers slipped.

“You have an aristocrat’s hands,” Darlington said on a laugh. “Can you not remember what it is to be a demon?”

“Let me go!” he cried.

Reiter shoved off from the bell and they crashed into the back of the clockwork. No. Darlington couldn’t allow that. The vampire would use their weight to smash the workings if he could.

He yanked harder on the chain and Reiter scrabbled at the links, screaming. They plummeted to the metal grating below. Darlington felt the wind go out of him. He was still mortal and Reiter was not. But he had to keep his grip and he had to get the vampire out of this tower. He forced himself to rise. His chest ached, but he still had the demon’s strength.

He dragged Reiter along the floor and looped the chain around the stonework.

“You have no right!” Reiter shrieked. “Half-formed weakling! Stunted failure. You will watch her die! Golgarot will make you fuck her corpse!”

“There’s the demon lurking beneath all that pretension.” Darlington hurled Reiter’s body over the side of the stone railing. It jerked and wriggled at the end of the salt chain as he attempted to free himself. Below he could see the tide of familiars surrounding Tripp and Dawes and Turner.

Reiter didn’t need air, so Darlington didn’t think he could actually die this way. But he could see the links of the salt chain burning through the flesh of the vampire’s throat. Maybe it would cut all the way through and take his head off. “Let’s find out.”

He’d been forced to release Reiter once before. It would not happen again.

But then the tolling of the bell changed.

Darlington felt a sudden ache in his chest.

He could see Alex standing over him, a sword in her hands.

It would have to be up to the others to finish Reiter.

The soldier had called out to her second.

60

When I see the door, I know I should not approach. Nurse has told me so, but I have always been curious, and so I go, in little steps I go, first left, then right I go, then left again. I dance so no one can follow. I dance because it gives me joy. What pleasure is there in a straight line? What anticipation? I make myself a maze, I make myself a labyrinth, and finally I arrive.

I crane my neck, the smallest peek, and at last I see this world I’ve heard so much about. Here, a shape I know to be a man, built so squarely, so symmetrically. I could draw a line from pate to toe and cleft him in two, split him right down the middle so pleasingly.

“Spirit,” he whispers, “are you there?”

His pleasure courses through me, and his need—the look upon his face, the wonderment I have wrought there. The room he works in has a symmetry too, shelves, books, scrolls, and tiny suns sparking atop wax stalks. Candles. I pull the word from his head along with his hope.

“What can I offer, spirit?”

I long for so many things. But right now, more than anything, I want to lick the walls. They’re rough stone and beaded with moisture. Rain? Dew? I don’t know. My mouth is greedy.

He has drawn upon the floor, a marvelous shape, all crossing lines and loops. A knot for me! I look back once at the dry place I know and slide a little farther into the cool dark of this glorious puddle. A black bird paces outside his window, and so I take its shape. I tuck my many legs, my many arms, my many selves inside its feathered body.

“Spirit!” he gasps.

“Yes,” I say, preening in my feathers. His awe is all deliciousness. I was warned, yes, but no one told me how splendid this would be. “What can I offer?” I mimic his words and feel his rush of exultation.

“I have here this rough material and over it I have worked so many formulas and charms.”

Disappointment. Cold as clay. It’s gold he wants. I was warned of this too.

“Speak your words again,” I say, bored now.

He chants his spell and dull lead is filled with sunlight. I wish he’d asked for a lump of honey instead, a field of wheat, a ship, a potato, something I might put my mind to. But he is weeping, overwhelmed with happiness and pride, and all of that floods into me and I am dizzy, giddy, drunk on glorious reward.