Chapter 59
“He’s going to try to break the bells!” Dawes shouted.
“Keep his familiars at bay,” Darlington yelled. He tore free of his coat and pushed off his boots. He needed to be able to move. But he kept the bag with the Voynich Coffin in it slung over his hip. He wanted it near for when Alex called.
He let rage course over him, the same fear and fury that had possessed him when he’d seen Reiter threaten Alex on the beach. The gentleman had no place here. Let the demon rule.
He threw a salt chain over his shoulder, dug his claws into the stone, and began to climb.
He was clumsy at first, the smooth stone betraying him.
But he knew the bricks of Yale too well, every corner and crevice.
Here the surface gave way to slats—better for finding purchase, quick work too.
Now the brief balconies, an easy place to find his footing.
He could see the shape of Harkness in his mind and he leapt, reaching for the stone railing, delicate in its arches. He swung inside.
Reiter was already climbing over the bells. He would try to find the oldest among them, the first to be hung. The thing who had been Lionel Reiter would know exactly where to aim to break the ritual.
Darlington jumped onto the spiral stairs that faced the bells, ignoring the steps themselves, climbing over the railings, higher, higher. Alex walked these steps. She hadn’t called for her second. That had to mean she was alive, that she was still fighting. They still had a chance.
“Reiter!” he shouted, trying to fracture his attention.
But the vampire just laughed. “Can you not hear the bell that rings beneath that sound? We are at the eleventh chime, the final moment. They have entered the arena.”
“Golgarot awaits you,” Darlington threatened, seeking some advantage.
Reiter hissed at the sound of his prince’s name. “I will never kneel to Golgarot again. I will eat my fill and share nothing. If you think I will give my fate over to the flailings of a young girl and her pet, you are much mistaken.”
“What is your true name?” Darlington shouted in his demon tongue.
Reiter startled. Good. He needed him distracted.
“You are not Linus Reiter. You are not anyone. You are a trespasser here. Thief,” he said, remembering the way the wolves had spoken in hell. “You will return to your prince and serve him for eternity.” Darlington knew what that threat meant better than anyone. “Hell’s price must be paid.”
For the first time, Reiter looked truly terrified.
Darlington seized his opportunity. He wasn’t sure if he would survive a fall from this height, demon or not. It didn’t matter. He leapt and landed on Reiter’s back.
Reiter bellowed in rage. Darlington slipped the salt chain over his neck and pulled.
The vampire shrieked, trying to keep his grip. Darlington pulled tighter.
“You’ll kill us both,” Reiter choked out.
“Alagnoth grorroneth.”
Reiter’s long fingers slipped.
“You have an aristocrat’s hands,” Darlington said on a laugh. “Can you not remember what it is to be a demon?”
“Let me go!” he cried.
Reiter shoved off from the bell and they crashed into the back of the clockwork. No. Darlington couldn’t allow that. The vampire would use their weight to smash the workings if he could.
He yanked harder on the chain and Reiter scrabbled at the links, screaming.
They plummeted to the metal grating below.
Darlington felt the wind go out of him. He was still mortal and Reiter was not.
But he had to keep his grip and he had to get the vampire out of this tower.
He forced himself to rise. His chest ached, but he still had the demon’s strength.
He dragged Reiter along the floor and looped the chain around the stonework.
“You have no right!” Reiter shrieked. “Half-formed weakling! Stunted failure. You will watch her die! Golgarot will make you fuck her corpse!”
“There’s the demon lurking beneath all that pretension.” Darlington hurled Reiter’s body over the side of the stone railing. It jerked and wriggled at the end of the salt chain as he attempted to free himself. Below he could see the tide of familiars surrounding Tripp and Dawes and Turner.
Reiter didn’t need air, so Darlington didn’t think he could actually die this way. But he could see the links of the salt chain burning through the flesh of the vampire’s throat. Maybe it would cut all the way through and take his head off. “Let’s find out.”
He’d been forced to release Reiter once before. It would not happen again.
But then the tolling of the bell changed.
Darlington felt a sudden ache in his chest.
He could see Alex standing over him, a sword in her hands.
It would have to be up to the others to finish Reiter.
The soldier had called out to her second.