Chapter 4 #2
A faint scent of ozone filled the room. A few weak flashes flickered outside, less like lightning than a defective bulb.
Tyler kept pounding on the metal rim, his face getting redder, perspiration dripping from his brow.
The other Weathermen shifted in their cloaks, hope giving way to embarrassment.
There was no rumble of thunder, no patter of rain.
A truck roared past and Alex felt the flimsy walls of the house shake.
They didn’t stop shaking.
Tyler’s fuzzy head popped up, as if he heard a secret song beneath the aimless roll of the Kettle. His eyes were bright blue, sweaty face gleaming.
“Oh my God!” Nell crowed. “It’s working!”
Tyler broke into a huge astonished grin and the other Weathermen joined hands, drawing closer to the barrel.
Alex couldn’t quite believe it, but Nell was right. The sound Alex had mistaken for a truck was quaking through the floorboards in a rising rumble, like a massive pot brought to boil, a swell of thunder.
She turned to Darlington, expecting to see her surprise mirrored on his face, but he was staring straight ahead, jaw clenched. His eyes were shining golden coins.
“Shit,” she muttered, moving to block the delegates’ view of him, but they were all intent on Tyler and the steel drum.
A crack rent the air and the room flashed white—real lightning.
The Weathermen gasped.
“Is it supposed to be that close?” someone asked nervously.
Crack. Another bolt of lightning. This one came straight down through the ceiling and struck the drum. The delegates grouped around it were thrown backward. Another bolt struck the floor where they’d been standing and the ragged carpet burst into flame.
“Darlington!” she shouted over the ceaseless roar of thunder. “Danny!”
The house was shuddering so hard she was struggling to stay standing.
He was feeding this magic somehow. She was sure of it.
Clouds of plaster dust gusted down from the ceiling.
But Darlington was unmoving, as if his body were braced against the storm, his eyes glowing and fixed on some impossible distance.
She took one quick glance at the screaming Weathermen huddling against the walls and crawling on all fours away from the fire. She had to chance it.
Alex sought that bloom of hellfire. It was easy when she was this close to him. She swept her hand forward, letting the blue flame braid together like the tongue of a whip. It hooked around Darlington’s neck. He snarled, his golden gaze locking onto her.
“Snap the fuck out of it,” she gritted out. “You’re going to bring this whole place down.”
Too late. With the sound of a freight train barreling into a brick wall, the ceiling gave way.
In the next breath, Alex was on her back. The world was dark and near silent and the glow of hellfire was gone.
She tried to take a breath and dust filled her lungs. She coughed, feeling the ache in her chest and her ribs. She’d had the wind knocked out of her.
Darlington was on top of her. He’d braced his body above hers to block the fall of debris. His eyes still shone gold.
“Your horns are out,” she rasped.
A low growl rumbled through him.
Around her she heard the Weathermen starting to call to each other. The bright burst of headlights from a passing car flooded over the room and Alex used the moment to let hellfire surge over her again.
Darlington’s gaze met hers.
“Come back to me, Danny.”
She tasted honey on her tongue. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again they were warm brown, human. The horns were gone.
For a moment they stared at each other, and then horror washed over his face, humiliation. He rolled off her and helped her to her feet, shaking plaster and pieces of wood from his back, unable to meet her eyes.
Alex could hear the wail of sirens, the Weathermen shouting at each other to find a fire extinguisher.
“You’re okay?” Darlington asked.
“Fine, but—”
Darlington clapped his hands and shouted. “Everyone out! Now. Nell, get me a head count. I need to know if anyone was on the second story.”
The demon was gone and only the gentleman of Lethe—efficient, poised, unmoved by anything so crass as a roof caving in—remained.
They all shuffled out the door and across the street, counting off names from the St. Elmo roster as the firemen and police arrived. Once all the Weathermen were accounted for, Darlington pulled out his phone, and she knew he was calling Turner.
“What are we going to tell the alumni?” Nell was asking in between coughs.
“I mean, isn’t this a good thing?” another girl asked. She was supporting a boy with locs who had sprained or broken one of his ankles. “Something actually happened for once.”
“We have to figure out what was different this time,” Tyler said.
“This time?” Alex said, summoning all of Lethe’s authority. She needed to shut down this line of thinking immediately. “You say that as if there’s going to be a next time.”
“But it worked, right?” Nell insisted. “We summoned a storm.”
Alex stared at her. “Did you control it?”
“No,” she conceded.
“We were almost killed and you almost burned this pathetic excuse for a tomb down.” Alex lifted her chin.
She’d been on the receiving end of enough I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed lectures that she could produce more than a passing imitation.
“It was one thing when your efforts were harmless failures. But this? Lethe can no longer indulge your delusions.”
“We just need a nexus!” Tyler pleaded.
Alex had been feigning indignation, but she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
It was possible Darlington had caused the ritual to go wrong, but the Weathermen didn’t know that.
People were injured. A house lay in ruins.
Their lightning could have burned down the block.
Their whole delegation could have been crushed, and if Alex hadn’t had a demon by her side, she would have been buried under a pile of rubble.
“Look across the street,” she demanded. “Look. Does that mean anything to you?”
But Tyler wasn’t looking. He was already formulating an argument. “Of course we understand that we’re responsible for this and we will absolutely make amends. The trust will cover all damages. But some type of fallout is inevitable. Alex—”
“Dante. And spare me your listening-and-learning bullshit.”
Nell put her hand on Tyler’s shoulder in solidarity. “You’re not being fair. We did all the right things. This was just an accident. We’re not the villains here.”
“No,” Alex said, touching her fingers to her bruised ribs. “You’re worse than villains. You’re amateurs.”
She turned and limped down the block to where Darlington was keeping one eye on the first responders swarming the St. Elmo tomb while finishing his call.
“Yes, sir,” he was saying. “Of course, sir. We’ll be there.”
“I’m guessing that wasn’t Turner,” she said when he hung up.
“It was the Praetor.”
Professor Raymond Walsh-Whiteley was the faculty liaison to Lethe, and he never called with good news. “What now?”
“The Lethe board wants us to come to New York.”
Alex grinned. “It’s about time.”