Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)

by Leigh Bardugo

But … he talked.” “He talked to you?” Dawes’s voice was too loud. “Yeah.” “I see.” Dawes seemed to close in on herself, the concerned friend receding, the mother hen emerging. “Let’s get you warm.”

Stories were immutable. And what was a library but a house full of stories? “It’s Sterling,” Alex said. “The library is the portal to hell.”

If I must be a prisoner I would desire to have no other prison than that library.

She touched her hand to the floorboards and they seemed to hum. “Did you do that?” she asked Il Bastone, staring up at the coffered ceiling and the pendant lamp that hung high above her from a brass chain. The bulb flickered softly behind its frosted glass globe. The house had known she needed rest. It was looking out for her. At least, that was what it felt like and maybe what Alex needed to believe.

Dawes cooked to soothe herself and that meant the news was very bad indeed. Alex piled her plate with two of everything and called Dawes, but she didn’t answer. You’re freaking me out, she texted. And everything is fucking delicious.

On her way out, she patted the door jamb and briefly wondered if she was making friends with a house or losing her mind.

Sterling at noon. We need four murderers. Alex stared at Dawes’s message and replied, I’ll stop at the store. Should I get half a dozen to be safe? Her phone rang. “This isn’t a joke.”

From the moment they’d met up in the cemetery and Alex had floated her wild theory of the gentleman demon,

they’d known they couldn’t turn their backs on the chance that Darlington was still alive.

“We save him,” she said. “And if we can’t save him, we stop him.” “What … what does that mean?” Dawes asked, her fear like a spotlight searching for answers. It meant that if they couldn’t free Darlington, they couldn’t risk freeing the demon, and that might mean destroying them both.

She didn’t want Grays to know she could hear their stories and complaints. It was bad enough having to listen to the living.

“Darlington isn’t my cousin. And he isn’t in Spain. And I need to talk to you about what happened last year.”

Mercy ate most of a pancake and Alex made coffee for both of them, and then she started talking. About the societies, Darlington, the mess of their freshman year. Mercy’s eyebrows rose slowly higher as Alex’s story spilled out. Occasionally she would nod, but Alex wasn’t sure if she was just encouraging her to continue or actually taking it all in.

“Not where I got them, but Darlington helped me hide them for a while.”

“I don’t know how to forgive,” Alex admitted. “And I don’t think I want to learn.”

I’m … glad he died scared.” She looked up, her eyes full of tears. “Why am I like this? Why am I still so angry?” “I don’t know,” said Alex. “But I’m like that too.”

“He didn’t see you at all,” Alex said. “People like that … they don’t see us. They just see opportunities. Something to grab.” Michelle was right about that at least.

“Is Darlington why you don’t date?”

Mercy asking the correct questions

“What does he have to do with it?” “I mean, he’s not your cousin and he’s one of the more beautiful humans I’ve seen.” “He’s a friend. A mentor.” “So?” “He’s … expensive.”

Darlington was too beautiful, too well-read, too well-traveled. He wasn’t just cut from a different cloth; he w...

She’d been too busy trying not to die to think about dating or even hooking up.

Darlington had nothing to do with it, no matter how good he looked with his clothes off.

Alex felt an unwelcome rush of guilt. Dawes wasn’t made for this kind of work. She was supposed to stay safe at Il Bastone, tending to her thesis like a slow-growing garden.

Alex wanted to tell her to go home and get some rest, that she could handle this herself. But she absolutely couldn’t, and she didn’t know how much time they had before the bomb that was Darlington went off.

“It is. Unless you want to try breaking into Scroll and Key and opening another half-baked portal, this is all we have. We do it or we have to destroy him. There aren’t any other choices.”

One of the open books read U R A JOKE. Alex had just walked right by them without noticing, focused on the papers she had to write, the reading yet unread.

Until Darlington had pointed them out. “I feel like he’s here with us,” she said.

“I wish he was,” Dawe...

Would that I did. But I am just a man, heir to nothing. He’d wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t.

So show me the next step, Darlington.

“In the records of the Gauntlets I could find, four pilgrims enter together—the soldier, the scholar, the priest, and the prince. They make a circuit, each locating a doorway and taking up their posts. The soldier is the last and completes the circuit on his—or her—own.”

“That barely gives us any time to find two more killers, Dawes. And the new Praetor will be installed by then.” “I’m not a killer.” “Okay, two more reluctant but efficient problem solvers.”

The societies don’t share secrets. They hoard their power. The only time they worked together was to form Lethe and that was only to—” “Save their own asses.”

It was one thing to hurl yourself headfirst into the dark. It was another to feel like someone had deliberately turned off the lights.

“Tell me I’m jumping at shadows, Stern, and you can go back to lurking in that haunted house on Orange.” Il Bastone was one of the least haunted places in New Haven, but Alex didn’t see the point of getting into that discussion.

“Turner,” Alex asked. “You ever kill someone?” “What kind of question is that?” “So yes.” “It’s none of your goddamn business.” But it might be. “How long do you have to be here?” Turner gave an exasperated snort. “Why?” “Because I want to show you something.”

All Alex could offer was, “I told you he was different.” “Different is you lost a few pounds. You got a haircut. Not … this.” At that moment Darlington’s eyes opened, bright and golden. “Where have you been?” Turner started at the sound of Darlington’s voice, human but for that cold echo. “You reek of death.”

“Stay,” said Darlington, and Alex couldn’t tell if it was a plea or a command.

“Do you?” Alex felt her anger rising. “Did you know Dean Sandow was a killer? Did you know Blake Keely was a rapist? I showed you what’s behind the door. You can’t just shut it and pretend you never saw.” Turner rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I sure as hell wish I could.”

“What happened to him? What is all this? Why the fuck is he naked?”

Somewhere far below the doorbell rang at the same time that Dawes’s phone buzzed. They all jumped, all but Darlington.

“Those are Darlington’s parents.”

Alex’s mind sped through possible strategies, excuses, elaborate lies. “Both of you stay out of sight until I take care of them.” “Alex—” “Just let me handle them. I’m not going to punch anyone.”

She was running through the halls, chasing a white cat out to the garden. It couldn’t be Cosmo, this was too long ago, and yet … the cat turned to look at her with one scarred eye. Bowie Cat.

He was holding a child in his arms, his son … no, his grandson, a second chance to get it right, to forge this boy from factory steel, a true Arlington, strong and capable, not like his fool of a son, weak-willed, flitting from one failure to the next, an embarrassment.

But he wouldn’t make the same mistakes with Danny.

“Kill me, Danny. Do this for me.” Danny was crying, and for a moment, he saw the boy as he was, not the Arlington paragon, but a child really, lost in the caverns of Black Elm, endlessly tending to her needs.

“They’ll take the house, Danny. They’ll take everything. They’ll keep me alive and drain it all away, saying it’s for my care. Only you can stop them. You must be a knight, just take the morphine and inject it. See, it even looks like a lance. “Now go,” he said as the boy wept, “they mustn’t find out you were here.” He regretted only that he would die alone.

Why had he cursed this child to serve this place the way that he himself had? But Danny was a fighter, an Arlington, galvanized, resilient. He wished he could speak words of comfort, encouragement. He wished he could take it all back.

Just give me the strength to save him.