Chapter 7
On Saturday morning, Darlington rose early, went for his run, and met with a boxing instructor for a session at Payne Whitney, then showered and breakfasted in the Il Bastone parlor.
He didn’t mind the quiet of the house in the morning.
He had the sense it was glad of his presence, that it welcomed company in a way Black Elm could not.
He wasn’t reenrolled yet, so he had no classes to prepare for and instead spent the morning trying to repair the old intercom system that seemed to function depending on its mood and the afternoon rereading the relevant debates in Kittscher’s Daemonologie.
He couldn’t absent himself from future rituals, but if he could better understand the influence of the demonic, maybe he could avoid another disaster like the one at St. Elmo’s.
He was also uncomfortably aware that because he might be a portable nexus he could become a target for anyone looking to work magic.
But for now he needed to focus on their meeting with the Lethe board.
This wasn’t an opportunity they’d get again.
It was four o’clock, the sky dense with gray clouds and promising more snow when Dawes knocked on the door of the library.
They gathered the materials they needed from the armory and called a car to take them to Union Station.
The Praetor was waiting for them beneath the clock arch, rosy-cheeked and fizzing with good cheer. Alex and Turner already looked annoyed.
“Very good,” Walsh-Whiteley said, clapping his hands together and ushering them along like a docent at a museum.
He was bundled into an overcoat and a striped scarf in the maroon and gold of Trumbull College, his white hair combed into a shape somewhere between a pompadour and the meringue atop a pie.
As they took their seats on the train, he held forth on Lethe, on the board, on the emails he’d sent over the last decade and how he truly hoped the new board president would be ushering in an era of renewed vigor for the Ninth House.
“This meeting is a step in the right direction. We need greater engagement from the alumni and a proper protocol for oversight. It may not be comfortable, but it is necessary!”
“Absolutely,” Darlington said.
“We can’t go on like this,” Walsh-Whiteley continued in an unconscious echo of Turner’s words only the night before.
“Delegates vanishing and reappearing. Elliot Sandow’s ludicrous tenure as Praetor.
Michael Anselm’s still unexplained disappearance.
We are in desperate need of oversight and more active participation by the board and finally—” He held up a finger as if testing the wind. “They are listening!”
Darlington met Turner’s gaze briefly. Walsh-Whiteley could pontificate as much as he liked; none of them really knew what was waiting for them in New York.
Thankfully the professor had papers to grade, and as the train trundled south to the city, he lapsed into relative silence, slashing away with a red pen and occasionally bleating “Not bad!” or “Preposterous!” He taught Swift and Pope, and Darlington was mildly impressed to see him marking up essays himself rather than leaving the work to a teaching assistant.
They had stashed their coats on the seats or in the rack overhead and Darlington noted that everyone had made an effort at impressing the board.
Dawes wore a pair of dark gray wool trousers and a pale pink sweater, a Christmas gift from the Westport sister that didn’t suit her at all.
She had braided her bright red hair into a crown to keep it under control, and Darlington was reminded disturbingly of the way she’d appeared as the scholar in hell.
She already had her laptop out and her headphones on.
Turner still looked tired, but he was freshly shaven and dressed in a tidy charcoal suit with a burgundy pocket square.
Alex wore a short black velvet dress, high-necked, long-sleeved, her dark hair parted in the middle and drawn into a tight bun.
If you disregarded the plum tights and battered black boots, she looked like a Renaissance portrait.
Even her wary expression, reflected in the dark shine of the window, seemed ready to be caught by an artist’s hand, rendered in candlelight instead of the harsh fluorescents of the train.
He gave himself a mental kick. This was not a woman to demurely pour water from a pitcher or pose stoically with a rosary in hand.
Unless she was preparing to stab you with it.
She was studiously highlighting a copy of Borges’s Labyrinths, but he noted the way she set it on her lap when the tinny voice over the speaker called, “Old Greenwich.” They all paused then, as if in silent prayer—everyone but the Praetor, who had no idea they were racing past a monster’s den.
Was Linus Reiter hunting tonight? Did he somehow know they were near?
Darlington had seen the old photo of Reiter taken at Mory’s, but he had never met the creature who had replaced the man, the thing that had murdered Michelle Alameddine, a woman who had served loyally as his familiar, who had spied on Lethe for him, all for the promise of an immortality he had no power to bestow.
When they finally left the train and emerged into the massive echoing chamber of Grand Central, he couldn’t help but feel an odd sense of portent.
The Praetor pushed forward eagerly into the crowd, heading toward the stairs and the exit without a look back.
For a moment, they stood alone in the eddying mass of commuters, four pilgrims again, on what should be a considerably less perilous journey than a visit to the underworld.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
Turner nodded.
Dawes stuffed her headphones into her bag. “Yes,” she said. “I think so,” though she didn’t sound sure of herself.
Alex’s head was tilted back to look at the golden constellations sprinkled across the vaulted ceiling.
“It isn’t the original,” he said. “There was too much wear and tear, so they built this ceiling right over it.”
“Is it enchanted?”
“Not that I know of, though there’s speculation that the incorrect placement of the constellations was part of a magical binding.
There’s a bespelled fireplace inside the old Campbell Apartment.
It allowed John W. Campbell to send messages to his managers on the railroad.
But that magic is long since dormant.” There were other mysteries he wanted to share, the places in New York where magic could still be found.
The Temple of Dendur at the Met where a ghostly crocodile could be seen crawling down the halls at midnight.
The Ethiopian prayer scroll in the Morgan Library that could only be read in the reflection of a double mirror if you didn’t want to risk hemorrhaging from the eyes.
The door guarded by iron owls that sat smack-dab in the center of Herald Square for anyone to see and that bore the inscription La nuit porte conseil.
It was the French equivalent of You should sleep on it.
But Darlington had always suspected the direct translation—the night brings counsel—hinted at darker possibilities.
The door led to a garden in the middle of Oxford, if anyone still had the key and the courage to take on wobbly portal magic. But this wasn’t a sightseeing tour.
“Well?” Walsh-Whiteley demanded from the base of the stairs, waving them on.
“Can we just leave him here?” Alex asked.
Dawes burrowed more deeply into an oversized parka that looked like it was slowly consuming her. “Maybe he’ll get hit by a bus. One I’m driving.”
The Yale Club was directly across the street from the terminal on Vanderbilt Avenue.
“You look disappointed,” Darlington observed as they entered the modest lobby and checked their coats.
“I’ve never been to New York,” Alex said. “I was hoping we’d at least get to walk around a little. Isn’t that the same Nathan Hale from Old Campus?”
“Yes,” Darlington confirmed, glancing at the statue tucked into a niche in the lobby. “But no one actually knows what Hale looked like.”
“A great patriot,” Walsh-Whiteley said as they climbed the stairs to the third-floor dining room.
“Truly,” Darlington said, but under his breath he couldn’t resist adding, “And a rotten spy.”
“Was he?” Turner asked.
“He worked for General Washington less than a month. And he didn’t bother to create an alias or ditch his Yale diploma when he went undercover. He might as well have worn a sign that read, I love espionage.”
“Good last line, though,” Alex said.
“I don’t disagree. I doubt I’d have the presence of mind to quote bastardized Cato while waiting on the hangman.
” Hale had regretted he had but one life to give for his country, but Darlington had to wonder how many lives would have satisfied.
He had imagined being stalwart in that way, the kind of man who feared neither guns nor gallows.
But now he risked his life multiple times a week without thinking much on the matter.
Maybe that was the secret truth of courage.
You didn’t face danger; you just got used to it.
Why had none of them simply walked away? If they had been individuals instead of this haphazard tribe of willing fools, would they have made the same choices?
A woman with a clipboard and a headset was waiting at the third-floor landing.
She consulted her list and then said, “I’m sorry, I have just four names from the current delegation.”
Turner scowled. “Is this where I have to flash my badge to get past the red velvet rope?”
“No, Detective Turner, you can go on in. But I’m afraid Oculus wasn’t included on our list.”
“It’s fine,” said Professor Walsh-Whiteley. “She can wait in the lobby.”
Alex was already squaring up. “Like a service dog?”
“Miss Stern—
“Dawes comes with us,” Darlington said. “If it’s a problem, we can take it up with Alban Reed.”
“If I wanted her on the list, she would be on the list,” said a voice behind them.
The man standing by the elevator bank wore the new uniform of Wall Street: a dress shirt, khakis, and a fleece with a Yale Y embroidered over the heart, as if he were on his way to a hostile takeover followed by some light rock climbing.
“President Reed,” Walsh-Whiteley said, “I was so hoping we’d have a chance to chat. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this invitation, though the wait has been a long one.”
Reed looked baffled, and Darlington interjected, “Why wouldn’t our Oculus be included?”
“It’s okay,” Dawes said, predictably dismayed at being the subject of any discussion.
Alex folded her arms. “No, it isn’t.”
“It’s a little early in the evening for us to come to blows,” Reed said with a smile.
“Ms. Dawes, no insult is intended, and I’m sorry there was confusion over the invitation.
Ordinarily it wouldn’t be an issue, but we have serious matters to attend to tonight, and the alumni aren’t comfortable with a larger head count. ”
“Sorry,” Alex said, “who are you again?”
He didn’t bristle, and his smile didn’t budge. “Alban Reed.”
Alex stared at him blankly. His smile widened.
“I’m the Lethe board president. Happy to finally meet you, Alex. I’m sorry we’re off to a rough start, but the alumni were clear.”
“It’s okay,” Dawes repeated.
“We need her there,” Alex said. “Why is this a problem?”
“The problem, Miss Stern, is Linus Reiter.”
“Who?” asked Walsh-Whiteley.
Reed ignored him. “The board would prefer discretion in these matters. I understand they’ve been quite generous with both you and your mother, so perhaps you might offer them a little latitude.”
Darlington saw the shift in Alex, watched her calculate her position.
“I didn’t want to go to this thing anyway,” Dawes insisted. She fumbled with the bag slung over her shoulder and half the contents spilled out—a book on Yeats and the tarot, highlighters, a battered compact, a single mitten.
Alban Reed bent to help her retrieve her things.
“You’re sure?” Darlington asked, kneeling to snatch up the mitten, though he knew she was telling the truth.
“Am I sure that I’d prefer to spend the next two hours reading instead of talking to strangers over mediocre steak au poivre?”
“Well,” said Reed, snapping the compact shut and handing it back to her, “when you put it that way, maybe I’d prefer to skip dinner too.”
“Good luck,” Dawes said, and then to Darlington’s surprise she turned to Alex and gave her hand a squeeze. “If the dessert is bad, don’t eat it. I have pavlova at home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alex chided. “You know I’ll eat both.”
Dawes disappeared into the elevator, and they followed the board president to the Saybrook Room.
“I’m surprised you let that go so easily,” Turner murmured.
“I didn’t,” Alex said. “I never do.”
Darlington was very glad he wasn’t Alban Reed.