Chapter 15
Dusk was falling when they finally left Kittscher’s house, the streets already crowded with parents picking their children up from school, the traffic on the highway sluggish with people trying to return home from work.
They’d locked the door behind them. Not Kittscher was now safely trapped in the Voynich Coffin.
When one of Kittscher’s grandnieces called in a wellness check or someone from Rhode Island Care came calling, they would find an old man wasted away in a quiet bedroom, dead from natural causes.
Theo Alonto would never be heard from again.
Darlington wondered if there might be a way to contact his family, to offer them a story that would bring them some measure of peace.
But there was no lie that could correctly fill that absence.
Alex looked radiant, and he kept his eyes on the road because if he let himself steal a glance, he would stare and he’d drive them all off the road. She was like a prism, light pouring through her, glinting when she shifted this way or that.
Somewhere around Norwich, Alex finally spoke. “You said something to Kittscher in Latin when you were talking about hell.”
Queaque ipsa miserrima vidi. “So many terrible things I saw. It’s Virgil. From the Aeneid.”
He had known Kittscher could finish the quote: And in so many of them I played a great part.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, and somehow Turner knew to honor that silence when they arrived back at Il Bastone.
Darlington lit a fire in the parlor grate while Dawes heated a pot of lentil soup and Tripp set the table.
Only when they were helping themselves to steaming bowls of soup and homemade sourdough did Turner say, “Well?”
Darlington had assumed he’d dive into what he had learned from Kittscher, but it was Alex who spoke first.
“Alban Reed knows I’m a Wheelwalker.”
Dawes gasped. Darlington set down his wineglass hard enough that he cracked the base.
“That seems bad,” said Tripp.
Turner shook his head. “Bad doesn’t cover it.”
“He was threatening to get my scholarship scrapped and my mom evicted one minute, then offering me protection the next.”
“How could he have found out?” Darlington asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But he wants me to create a new nexus.”
“He wants you to murder someone?” Dawes squeaked in disbelief.
“You just asked me to kill someone.”
“For good reason!” Dawes sputtered. “Because it was what Theo wanted!”
“I know,” Alex said, tearing her bread into small pieces. “I know. I just feel shitty about it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Darlington said quietly. “You gave him a gift.” By the time Alex had found him in hell, Darlington had long since given up real hope of escape. He had only wanted the pain to stop. He understood the choice Theo had made.
“Does anyone want to fill me in or should I start guessing?” Turner asked.
Darlington did his best, explaining what they’d found in that house by the sea and the fate of the demon that had been Rudolph Kittscher now imprisoned in the puzzle box, tucked safely back into the linen closet. It had felt wrong to abandon Theo’s body in a place where he had endured so much.
“Someone is going to realize that’s not Kittscher’s body,” Turner said.
Alex pushed back from the table. She was still bright with light, her face gleaming, the dark circles beneath her eyes gone. But her grief was just as visible.
“So let them,” she bit out. “Let them wonder what happened to Thomas or Rudy or whatever the fuck he wanted to call himself. Let them figure out that it’s Theo’s body.
At least his family will be able to bury him.
Why are we still trying to keep secrets for Lethe and the societies? Why are we covering up their bullshit?”
All reasonable questions and the only answer Darlington had was habit.
Duty. Tradition. They’d spent years as caretakers and custodians, following a protocol written over a century ago that pretended to noble service but cared more about order and silence than any kind of fairness.
It was easy, really, until people started dying.
Turner raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not arguing. I just want to make sure you were careful.”
“We were,” Dawes said firmly.
Alex folded her arms. “No theft, no mess, no signs of foul play.”
Tripp leaned forward. “Do you think,” he whispered dramatically, “that AR is listening in on us?”
“I’m pretty sure if Alban Reed is listening, he won’t be fooled by your clever code.”
Tripp gave Turner an elaborate wave as if to say, Suit yourself.
“I don’t think there’s a magical bug at Il Bastone,” Alex said. “He didn’t know anything about what we’re doing and there’s no way he would have missed the opportunity to threaten all of you and let me know he was even more loaded on leverage. The man is not subtle.”
“Then what do we do?” asked Dawes.
“I stall,” said Alex. “I stall until … I don’t know. Until we find a way to make sure Golgarot stays stuck in hell and I figure out how to scare the shit out of Alban Reed so he leaves me and my mom alone.”
“Why didn’t you tell us he threatened you?” Darlington asked.
Alex shrugged, the movement abrupt, as if she couldn’t control it. “We have enough enemies already. I figured I could handle it.”
“We don’t do this alone,” said Turner. “That’s how we lose.”
Again Alex shrugged. Let us help, Darlington wanted to say. Let me. But Alex had been fighting with no reinforcements for so long, she didn’t know how to ask. Fear was unacceptable to her, but anger might do the trick.
“He’s counting on you to stay quiet,” Darlington said. “Why do you think he had this chat one-on-one?”
Alex’s head snapped up, and she frowned. “Maybe … he thinks you all don’t know what I can do?”
“He thinks you’re the same lonely scholarship kid who walked onto campus two years ago. But you’re not, are you?”
Alex gave a single shake of her head.
“So stop acting like it. We’ve been to hell and back. We’ve seen things Alban Reed never dreamed of.”
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?”