Page 170 of Dead Beat

An eternity of torture. Of servitude.

Well, then she’d have an eternity to make Golgarot miserable too.

She seized hold of the Wheel, grasping the spokes, reaching across them, drinking from that vast, nourishing ocean of resentment. Why not more? Why not me? When is it my turn? She knew she could consume a whole soul like Belbalm had, take it all for herself like Kittscher. But a good con knew to just skim a little off the top. She let all of them feed her, even the Bridegroom, still mourning Daisy, still wondering what might have been. Even Golgarot, forever railing at the unfairness of it all.

“What are you doing?” North demanded.

“Taking more than my fair share,” she admitted. She let go of his hand.

She fell, fast and heavy, back into her body. Golgarot had hold of her ankle. He was dragging her toward the gate. He had the form of a minotaur now, his pointed horns shining, a burning crown suspended between them. The gate was maybe twenty yards away. Darlington waited obediently beside it, and between the black columns she glimpsed shapes that writhed in anticipation, eager for the opportunity her blood would buy. The door to hell was opening.

Alex touched her chest. The wound was gone. So was the pain. She dug her hands into the black soil of the arena, using every bit of her new strength.

Golgarot whirled on her and she kicked out, scrabbling backward, putting distance between them. He roared and she saw the yoke gleaming in his hand, the one that had been made for her, that had been waiting for her, maybe since the Gauntlet had first been built a century ago.

“Soldier,” he bayed. “Your hour is past.”

Maybe so. Hellfire bloomed over her body.

“You know that can do nothing to me,” he said. “Greet your fate with dignity in this, the final act.”

“Dignity is for the weak.”

Alex let her flames scorch the circle of grass around her, testing. An idea had formed in her head, one born on the beach near Savin Rock when she faced Reiter, made solid when she had fed on Golgarot.

“Do you mean to burn the stadium down around us? A last act of destruction from a girl who built nothing in her life?”

“You make a good point.” She was a wrecking ball, after all, not an architect or an engineer. Maybe it was time she learned to forge something new.

“There’s nowhere left to go,” he continued. “No more friends to call upon. Take the yoke as you were born to. Or…” He gestured to Darlington, who stood at the ready. “Let your lover finish you off and I’ll place the yoke upon you myself. What’s a little more pain in a life full of pain?”

“Here’s the bargain—” she began.

“To bargain, you need leverage.”

“I’ll take the yoke. I will serve you ’til the end of days. But give my friends one hundred years.”

“No.”

“One hundred years of freedom and peace. A chance to live their lives.”

“Why would I offer you anything at all?”

“A gift for your new pet,” she proposed. “Be magnanimous in victory.”

“I will give them one year.” She knew he was lying. She had been there when Golgarot learned the skill. “A single year as a boon for you, who will become my most treasured hound. Wear the yoke and it is yours.”

A year to escape. To build some kind of magical boundary. To marshal the powers of the alumni. It all sounded logical. At least she hoped the demon thought so.

“I accept your offer.”

Golgarot smiled, and his form flickered—a mantis, a many-eyed spider, the head of Babbit Rabbit. He held the yoke aloft. How many times had she seen it in her nightmares?

“Then take the yoke, Wheelwalker. Pass through the gate and fulfill the promise that was made.”

She took a few steps forward and let hellfire leap from her hand, looping around the jeweled collar. It did not dissolve, but snared it like a lasso. The second test. Good. The rest … Well, she’d done stupider things.

Alex gripped the yoke. It felt almost alive between her palms, as if it were imbued with Golgarot’s hunger and yearned toward her throat. He had made it, forged it through hellfire.