Page 51 of Dead Beat

“To see into the mystery of everything?” Darlington nodded once. “Yes.”

Dawes sucked on her lower lip, then said, “I think so. I would have been scared, but I think I would have gone. The opportunity for research alone—”

“Nope,” Tripp said and took a long slurping drag on his blood box.

Alex rose and grabbed up the glasses to take into the kitchen. She knew the others were waiting on her answer, but she had nothing to say. For the right price, for the right person, she would cross any line.

18

“We need to be cautious,” said Darlington as they approached the gray rock mansion on York Street. The Wolves called it the Hall, but it was just as forbidding as the other society tombs, even if it blended into the surroundings a little more seamlessly. When he saw the security gate had been wedged open, he scowled. “What is the point of a wall and a gate if you’re just going to leave it open?”

“They’re not afraid,” Alex said. “The show of security is enough for them.”

“I suspect you’re right. They still think this is … fun.”

Alex shook off the heady rush of Daniel Arlington telling her she was right. “You sound a little jealous.”

“I am.” He pushed on the gate, then hesitated. “If something goes wrong with me tonight, with the ritual … If the demon—”

“I’ll be watching. What are our chances?”

“Good,” he said, then added, “I think. They have a portal. The enchantment shouldn’t need to go looking for more power.”

“If you start to slip, I’ll be ready.”

“It might be better for you to supervise on your own. You’re used to it now.”

She knew it cost him to say that. Darlington had loved being Virgil. He had taken pride in the office, in the chance to show her the hidden magic of their world.

“I want you there,” she said, not looking at him. “The stakes are too high for me to go alone. Besides, I didn’t do the reading.”

“Stern—”

“I did skim.”

“Did you?”

“I may have glanced.”

Darlington rolled his eyes. “The research on these rituals is actually very engaging.”

“I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

“The Wolves are going to be on edge tonight,” he warned as they used bone chalk to mark the stones set around the Hall. They looked like ordinary pavers, but they’d been cut from old tombstones to reinforce the circle of protection against Grays. The Wolf’s Head temple room was built around a river, so to protect the ritual from intrusion they had to set the runes outside the building.

“Why on edge? Are they turning into gators or something?”

“Bees. And only a few of them. But it’s an incredibly delicate transformation. It’s not just the change in size; it’s the lifespan. Bees live for one to two months, depending on the species. If the ritual and aftercare aren’t handled correctly, the consequences can be ugly.”

She had the feeling she’d regret asking, but she did it anyway. “Ugly how?”

“Eight years ago, after an apiary transformation, all the Wolves came out of the ritual just fine. Or so it seemed. One of them stayed awake for six days straight until he finally collapsed from exhaustion.”

“Because he was a bee for a few hours?”

“It’s complicated. Writing on therianthropy is rare because the magic is so hard to accomplish without a nexus. But the theory is that when a human being spends time as a creature of such an abbreviated lifespan, the experience forces the subject to confront his own mortality.”

“Did he die?”