Page 41 of Dead Beat

To his surprise, she laughed. “He played me.”

Now Darlington nodded. Reed had known the right buttons to push: security, money, respectability. All the things Alex lacked, that she’d come to Yale to acquire, that the rest of them, even Tripp with his blood juice boxes, had at their fingertips. Reed had assumed she was still a girl without resources or allies.

Alex released a sigh. “Well, I don’t know if there was enough of Theo’s soul left to create a nexus, but if I did and Reed finds out, if he’s tracking them somehow—”

“He’ll connect us to Kittscher,” finished Dawes. “I doubt he knows about the Gauntlet or the first descent, but—”

“But we don’t really know what Alban Reed knows,” finished Turner.

Alex picked up her spoon again. “Please tell me Kittscher’s demon gave you something worthwhile.”

He could feel her shame and worry sliding away, the fighter returning. It made Darlington breathe a little easier.

“Maybe,” he said. “There were moments when I felt like some memory of the real Kittscher was trying to tell me more, but he was fighting the demon.” He didn’t miss the look that Dawes and Alex exchanged. “What?”

“That was the way you gave us clues to locating the Gauntlet,” Dawes said. “When you were trapped in the protective circle.” Her cheeks pinked and Darlington was uncomfortably reminded of his very naked state at the time and the fact that his cock had been glowing like the Empire State Building lit up for Christmas. He really did miss dignity.

“You tried to warn us about Anselm too,” Alex noted. “You think whatever was left of the real Kittscher was trying to help us?”

“Maybe,” Darlington repeated. He didn’t like remembering how powerless he’d felt in the protection of that circle, the terror of wondering what Anselm might do and what he himself might do if freed. He didn’t like thinking about how much human might remain in the creature he had just tortured and imprisoned. “There was something Kittscher said early on that I keep thinking about: that the pilgrims had planned for the danger ahead. He mocked us for not doing the same.”

“Maybe he meant the salt guardians,” said Dawes.

“Seabird!” shouted Tripp, raising his hands as if he’d just scored a touchdown.

“Could be,” Darlington said.

“What else?” asked Alex. Her voice was even, but he knew how badly she needed answers. Consuming Theo had taken away the haggard, haunted look of the hunt. But he could only wonder what it had cost her. Alex Stern had taken many lives in the most bloody and brutal ways imaginable. This time she had taken a soul.

“He quoted Dante.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “A little on the nose.”

“Which part?” asked Dawes.

“The bit about climbing out of hell. Keep fast thy hold and all that.”

“Loop us dullards into the conversation,” said Alex.

“It’s an incredibly weird bit of work,” Darlington explained. “They’re basically using Lucifer’s big hairy body as a staircase. Time reverses. Up is down and down is up.”

“Maybe there’s a clue there,” said Turner. “A reference to how the demons are getting through? What else?”

“He said I was pathetic. That I turned to Lethe like a flower toward the sun.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d said, but the fundamentals were correct enough and Darlington couldn’t quite bring himself to speak the whole truth. “Mostly he talked about how Golgarot couldn’t be beaten. He said the first pilgrims knew it and that was why they’d made their bargain, because they knew if they tried to fight him, he would win.”

Turner slumped back in his chair. “Very encouraging. And?”

Darlington threw up his hands. “He said he liked my shoes.”

“He what?”

“I was asking him about the identities of the other pilgrims and what happened to them. He said…” Darlington closed his eyes, remembering Kittscher’s mad gaze, his hungry mouth. He’d been sweating then, his eyes sizzling in their sockets, blood trickling from the corners as the salt water did its work. “Henry learned to kill. I learned how to lie. Nicky hid at home. Hector had to die. Then he looked up at me and said, Nice boots.”

“Gibberish,” said Turner.

But Dawes shot to her feet. “They’re all in Dante!” She bolted for the parlor. “I mean in the cantos. Well, in the afterlife,” she muttered, the rest unintelligible as she vanished from sight.

“Dawes?” Tripp called. “Are you—”