Page 2 of Dead Beat

But will it happen to me? This was the matter that haunted Darlington’s days and nights. The question of who he was and who he might become had ceased to be a purely philosophical one.

Again he reeled his thoughts back to the dark work before them.

The call had come from Turner that morning, when Darlington had been sanding down and restaining a portion of the sunflower staircase. Il Bastone was well over a hundred years old, and it was always crying out for repair. He knew he was lavishing the care on it that he couldn’t give to Black Elm, but staying busy helped keep the demon in check. Idle hands and all that.

“Dawes was right,” Turner had said over the phone.

Dawes was usually right, but Darlington still felt weary hearing the words. Almost three months had passed since they had made it out of hell, alive but not unscarred. Bruises and nightmares aside, they had also managed to leave the door open behind them. Since then, demons had been trickling through and with each day they grew smarter at staying hidden.

Clever, not smart, Dawes reminded them again and again, though Tripp always took offense.

But clever was enough to survive.

Turner called them parasites; Darlington knew that wasn’t quite accurate. If a parasite killed the host, the parasite died too. But a demon simply slid into the dead host’s life. In death the demon thrived.

Ron Keep looked like he was thriving. His wife could barely lift her fork.

“He’ll be strong,” Darlington warned.

Blue hellfire ignited over Alex’s skin. “I’m stronger.”

For how long? he wondered. She had always been skinny; now she was jutting bones held together by determination and delusions about her own limits.

It had snowed last night, and the silence of the park felt thick and cold, as if the world had gone dormant, trapped in a slow-moving river, all of them sleeping under ice. Only Alex burned bright. She was already moving toward the front door.

Then he heard it. He touched Alex’s sleeve. “Wait.”

The sound was high and piercing. A baby crying.

“Janie—” Ron said, his voice muffled through the glass.

The little boy with the toy truck reached for his mother. “Mama, stay,” he begged.

Janie Keep yanked her hand away. “Would you just fucking give me a minute?”

The boy shrank back in his chair, clutching the truck to his chest.

“She doesn’t mean it,” Ron said, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder.

Janie pushed away from the table, hurrying down the hall and toward that high cry.

“I thought they only had one kid,” Alex said.

Turner’s face was bleak. “They do.”

Something cold crept over Darlington, raising the hair on his arms. The flames around Alex banked.

Her eyes met his, dark water, an unknown sea. “Come on.”

They moved in unison, three figures creeping toward the back of the house where they could see the pale blue walls of a nursery, a mobile of clouds and stars turning gently above a crib.

“Damn it,” muttered Turner.

“Tell me we’re wrong about this,” Alex said, and Darlington could hear the raw pleading in her voice.

Janie bent over the side of the crib. “What is it, sweet boy?” she crooned, cradling the infant to her. “Are you hungry?” The baby’s scream was too loud, and beneath that high, frantic sound, Darlington thought he could hear a counterpoint, a terrible harmony, the low thrum of a growl. “No, no, it’s okay. Mama’s here.”

Janie lifted up her blouse. Her ribs were the shadowed furrows of a field awaiting planting; her breasts were shrunken pouches. Bruises bloomed like unfurling petals around her nipples, dark blotches radiating from swollen red punctures. Bite marks.