Page 146 of Dead Beat

“And after. Alex, do you know the word that Dante used to finish all three parts of the Divine Comedy?”

“Never had a taste for the classics.”

“You read the Iliad.”

“Boring and overrated. One star.”

“Heathen.”

She kissed his neck. “Snob.”

“It’s stars, Galaxy,” he said softly as he drifted into sleep. “The last word is always stars.”

While Darlington slept, she crept to the bathroom and gently shut the door. Then she filled the sink with water and whispered the Bridegroom’s full name.

“Bertram Boyce North.”

He appeared almost instantly, as if he’d been on the other side of the Veil awaiting her summons. “Miss Stern. It’s late for a call.”

“Sorry, did I wake you?” she asked, and he scowled. The dead didn’t sleep. “I need a favor. A big one.”

“Another errand? Do you really wish to multiply your debt?”

“There’s a good chance I’m going to die tomorrow night.” He was silent. “So the bad news is you’re probably not going to get to collect.”

“And the good news?”

“Short on good news these days.”

“What is it you want?”

“Help me find my way to the other side. Hell is going to try to claim me. I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He studied her from the basin, the image of his face blurred with her own reflection in the water. He knew what she feared, the same thing all the dead feared, the thing that had driven Theo to choose oblivion over the chance that he might find himself at the mercy of another demon.

“I’m not sure that’s something I can prevent,” North said.

“But you can try, right?”

“I could.”

She held up her hands, a magician with nothing up her sleeves. “I don’t have anything to bargain with. I’m out of cards to play.”

“You think you can stop this … demon?” She understood he did not want to speak Golgarot’s name. To name a Gray was to know it, to remember it, to be bound to it. Maybe the same was true for the creatures who preyed upon the dead as well.

“I’m going to do what I can.”

“Then let that be your offering. Many of the dead have loved ones whom they watch and worry over. They do not wish to see them made food for demons. If you give your life to stop him, I will do all I can to make sure you stay free in death.”

“Sold,” Alex said, relief unspooling inside her.

“But if you live—”

“I know, I know. If I live, I owe big. Do you even know what you want from me?”

“No,” he admitted. “But a favor from the living is a precious thing.”

Alex decided not to think too much on that. Don’t buy trouble, Mira always said. Especially when Alex was so good at finding it for free.