Page 172 of Dead Beat

“A little.”

She knelt beside Golgarot. He spat in her face, and Darlington kicked him hard in the side.

“You can’t win,” she said. “Do you know why?”

“Because you are filth.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You expected the gilded boys of Yale, but you got me instead. Trash. Dirt. The things no one can ever quite get rid of. I’ll just keep coming. I’ll just keep getting up.” She nodded to Darlington. “Put him on his feet.”

“I will have what is rightfully mine,” Golgarot cried, and she remembered the creature in the box, mewling and whimpering. “I will be full again.”

She touched her hand to Golgarot’s burning skin. It felt like scales beneath her fingers. She took hold of his soul, reaching down the spokes of the Wheel to the demons that remained in New Haven, calling them back to their master, all those who had slipped through, who had evaded the hunt, some strong, some weak, some human in their form, some monstrous, and finally, the thing in overalls, the playground demon, wailing her rage. All of them vanished into the gate, and from the other side, she heard screaming.

“I waited a hundred years for you,” said Golgarot. “A thousand. This world was meant to be mine.”

“All that time and you never learned no one gets what they deserve.” She released him. “Go home, lick your wounds, yell about how you were robbed. But this gate is closed to you.”

They all are. Alex saw the spokes of the Wheel ablaze with blue fire, seven bright doors illuminated by flame. One by one she turned the spokes and let those doors swing shut.

“Soldier,” she said to Golgarot. “Your hour is ended.”

She lined up her shot and swung.

Golgarot lurched backward. As he passed through the threshold of the gate, she saw his true shape. Countless faces, countless arms, countless eyes, so many hungry mouths. She didn’t know if what she felt was fear or awe, but that brief glance was enough.

“The box!” she shouted.

Darlington seized the Voynich Coffin and tossed it between the columns.

From somewhere in the vast darkness she heard shouts of rage and confusion and then a high, serrated keening, a howl of regret, the sound so forlorn, so full of betrayal, that despite everything, she felt an answering echo in her own heart. She knew what it was to lose everything, to stand forsaken and alone, at the end of all hope. She was sorry for every lost thing that would never find its way home.

The gate itself seemed to catch fire, the flames spreading outward.

“Now what?” she asked Darlington.

He drew her to him. “We hold on and hope we don’t burn too.”

Bendichas Manos

Little research exists in relation to gauntlets and successful expeditions to hell. But all documents reference some kind of “restorative” in the aftermath of a journey or attempted journey. We might think of contact with hellfire as exposure to an alien atmosphere—not necessarily lethal but taxing to our systems, and some people may be able to endure it better than others.

There are sources that claim Asclepius prescribed marrow broth for soldiers who had survived Greek fire at the siege of Delos. Maimonides, Galin, and the Huangdi Neijing all extol the virtues of chicken soup. Hildegard von Bingen wrote of viriditas, the divine force of life, and claimed this renewing sap ran through our veins like blood. How was it to be restored? By eating.

But for any of these substances to work, whether they be soup or broth or stew, they must be made from scratch. Why? Of course this guarantees strict control of the ingredients and their freshness. But if we understand that demons feed on our emotions, might we not require such nourishment as well? The grinding, chopping, stirring, steeping effort of the maker? “Kitchen magic” has long been sneered at for its association with the domestic—i.e., it is understood to be women’s work. But I would argue this: Healing is the most transgressive magic because it denies death.

—Notes from the Grimoire of Pamela Dawes (unpublished)

64

The trip down the Harkness steps was the longest of Darlington’s life. When the flames had cleared, they’d found themselves on the roof of Harkness Tower, beneath a starless sky. Alex was no longer bleeding. She had fed from hundreds of souls and she was stronger than she’d probably ever been. But he could tell she was also weary. She had nearly died. Because of him. It was not a pleasant memory.

They pulled up the hatch and began the slow descent down the staircase. When they reached the base of the lantern, they sat for a few minutes, looking out at the darkened campus. Yale seemed peaceful. No sirens, no shouts, no sound but the pigeons fussing and cooing in the eaves.

“What time is it?” Alex asked.

“No idea. I think my phone is in my coat.”

They forced themselves to make the rest of the trek down and finally emerged into the chapel at the base of the tower. Darlington had the unsettling sense that, despite the bruises and blood, he had imagined all of it.