Ninth House

¹⁵ Winter

Alex hadn’t been back to Manuscript since the Halloween party. That night, she’d stayed with Darlington at Black Elm, trying to keep warm in his narrow bed. She’d woken to dawn light trickling through the room and Darlington curled behind her, asleep. He was hard again, the ridge of him tucked against the curves of her ass. One of his hands was cupped over her breast, his thumb moving back and forth over her nipple with the lazy rhythmic sway of a cat’s tail. Alex felt her whole body flush.

“Darlington,” she had snapped.

“Mmm?” he murmured against the back of her neck.

“Wake up and fuck me or cut that out.”

He froze and she felt him wake. He rolled off the bed, stumbling, tangled in covers. “I didn’t… I’m sorry. Did we?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“Those assholes.”

A rare swear but a deserved one. His eyes had been bloodshot, his face haggard. It would have been worse if he’d known that the report she showed him over breakfast bore no resemblance to the one she’d actually sent to Dean Sandow.

The Manuscript tomb looked even uglier beneath a noon sun, the circle hidden in its brickwork seeming to appear then disappear as Alex approached the front door. Mike Awolowo waved her inside. The big room and the yard beyond looked airy, safe, all signs of the arcane buried deep beneath the surface.

“I’m glad you reached out,” he said, though Alex doubted that was true. He was an international studies major and had the intense, friendly poise of a daytime talk-show host.

Alex glanced over his shoulder and was happy to see the place seemed empty. Now that Kate Masters was on Alex’s suspect list, she didn’t want to complicate things.

“Time to settle up.”

Mike’s expression was resigned, the look of someone sitting in a dentist’s chair. “What do you need?”

“A way to call back something. A video.”

“If it’s gone viral, there’s nothing we can do.”

“I don’t think it has, not yet, but it could tip any minute.”

“How many people have seen it?”

“I’m not sure. Right now maybe a handful.”

“That’s a big ritual, Alex. And I’m not even sure it would work.”

Alex held his gaze. “The only reason you’re even up and functioning is because of the report I filed on Halloween.”

The night of the party, she and Darlington had stormed out of the tomb, or done their best to, Mike and Kate trailing after in their Batman and Poison Ivy costumes. Darlington was wobbly on his feet, blinking at everything as if it was too bright, clinging hard to her arm.

“Please,” Awolowo had begged. “This wasn’t sanctioned by the delegation. One of the alumni had a bug up his ass about Darlington. It was supposed to be a joke.”

“Nothing happened,” said Kate.

“That wasn’t nothing,” Alex retorted, dragging Darlington farther down the block. But Awolowo and Masters had followed, arguing and then making offers. So Alex had propped Darlington against the Mercedes and made a deal, a favor for a softening of the report. She’d described the drugging as an accident and Manuscript had faced nothing but a fine, when otherwise they would have been suspended. She’d known eventually Darlington would find out, when harsher sanctions never materialized. If nothing else, she’d get a stern lecture on the difference between morals and ethics. But then Darlington had disappeared, and the report had never been an issue. She knew it was a punk move, but if she survived her freshman year, Lethe would be her show to run. She had to do things her way.

Awolowo crossed his arms. “I thought you did that to save Darlington’s pride.”

“I did it because the world runs on favors.” Alex rubbed a hand over her face, trying to shake a sudden wave of fatigue. She held up her phone. “Look at her tongue. Someone’s using one of your drugs to mess with girls.”

Mike took the phone in hand and frowned at the screenshot. “Merity? Impossible. Our supplies are locked down.”

“Someone could be sharing the recipe.”

“We know what the stakes are. And we all have strong prohibitions placed on us. We can’t just walk around talking about what we do here. Besides, it’s not a question of knowing a formula. Merity only grows in the Greater Khingan Mountains. There’s literally one supplier, and we pay him a very steep fee to only sell to us.”

Then where had Blake and his friends gotten it? Another mystery.

“I’ll look into it,” Alex said. “But right now I need to fix this.”

Mike studied Alex. “This isn’t Lethe business, is it?” Alex didn’t answer. “There’s a threshold for media. It varies for music, celebrity, memes. But if you pass it, no ritual can call it back. I guess we could try to reverse the Full Cup. We use it to build momentum for projects. That’s what we did for Micha’s single last September.”

Alex remembered Darlington’s description of the society members gathered naked in a huge copper vat, chanting as it filled gradually with wine that bubbled up from some invisible place beneath their feet. The Full Cup. It had been enough to get a very mediocre single to number two on the dance charts.

“How many people would you need for it?”

“At least three others. I know who to talk to. But it will take a while to prepare. You’ll need to do everything you can to stanch the bleeding in the meantime or none of it will matter.”

“Okay. Call your people. As fast as you can.” She didn’t like the idea of Kate Masters being involved, but mentioning her name would only raise questions.

“You’re sure?”

Alex knew what Mike was asking. This was a violation of every Lethe protocol. “I’m sure.”

She was already at the door when Mike said, “Wait.”

He crossed to a wall of decorative urns and opened one, then drew a small plastic envelope from a drawer and measured out a tiny portion of silver powder. He sealed the envelope and handed it to Alex.

“What is it?”

“Starpower. Astrumsalinas. It’s salt skimmed from a cursed lake where countless men drowned, in love with their own reflections.”

“Like Narcissus?”

“The lake bed is covered in their bones. It’s going to make you really convincing for about twenty-five to forty minutes. Just promise me you’ll find out where that creep got the Merity.”

“Do I snort it? Sprinkle it over my head?”

“Swallow. It tastes awful, so you may have trouble keeping it down. You’re going to have a brutal headache after it wears off, and so will everyone you came in contact with.”

Alex shook her head. So much power just left on the mantel for anyone to seize. What was in the rest of those urns?

“You shouldn’t have these things,” she said, thinking of Darlington’s wild eyes, of Mercy on her knees. “You shouldn’t be able to do this to people.”

Mike’s brows rose. “You don’t want it?”

“I didn’t say that.” Alex folded the envelope into her pocket. “But if I ever find out you used something like this on me, I’ll burn this building down.”

The house on Lynwood was two stories of white wood and a porch sagging beneath the weight of a moldy couch. Darlington had told her that Omega once had a house in the alley behind Wolf’s Head, a sturdy stone cottage full of glowing brown wood and leaded glass. Their letters were still worked into the stone, but Alex found it hard to imagine parties like Omega Meltdown and Sex on the Beach in what looked like a cozy tea room for Scottish spinsters.

“Fraternity culture wasn’t quite the same then,” Darlington had said. “They dressed better, dined formally, took the ‘gentlemen and scholars’ bit seriously.”

“ ‘Gentleman scholar’ seems like a good description for you.”

“A true gentleman doesn’t boast of the title, and a true scholar has better uses for his time than downing flaming Dr Pepper shots.”

But when Alex had asked why the frat had been kicked off campus, he’d only shrugged and underlined something in the book he was reading. “Times changed. The university wanted the property and not the liability.”

“Maybe they should have kept them on campus.”

“You surprise me, Stern. Sympathy for the brotherhood of keg stands and misplaced aggression?”

Alex thought of the squat on Cedros. “Make people live like animals, they start acting like animals.”

But “animal” was too kind a term for Blake Keely.

Alex took the plastic packet from her pocket and downed the powder inside. She gagged instantly and had to pinch her nose shut, covering her mouth with her fingers to keep from spewing the substance back up. The taste was fetid and salty and she desperately wanted to rinse her mouth out, but she forced herself to swallow.

She didn’t feel any different. Jesus, what if Mike had been messing with her?

Alex spat once in the muddy yard, then climbed the stairs and tried the front door. It was unlocked. The living room stank of old beer. Another busted couch and a La-Z-Boy recliner were arranged around a chipped coffee table covered in red Solo cups, and a banner with the house’s letters had been hung above a makeshift bar with two mismatched stools in front of it. A shirtless guy in a backward baseball cap and pajama pants was picking up scattered cups and shoving them into a big black garbage bag.

He startled when he saw her.

“I’m looking for Blake Keely.”

He frowned. “Uh… You a friend of his?”

Alex wished she’d been in less of a hurry back at Manuscript. Just how was the Starpower supposed to work? She took a breath and gave him a big smile. “I’d really appreciate your help.”

The guy took a step backward. He touched his hand to his heart as if he’d been punched in the chest. “Of course,” he said earnestly. “Of course. Whatever I can do.” He returned her smile and Alex felt a little ill. And a little wonderful.

“Blake!” he called up the stairs, gesturing for her to follow. He had a bounce in his step. Twice on the way up he turned to look at her over his shoulder, grinning.

They reached the second floor and Alex heard music, the thunderous rattle of a video game being played at full volume. Here, the beer smell receded and Alex detected the distant whiff of some very bad weed, microwave popcorn, and boy. It was just like the place she’d shared with Len in Van Nuys. Shabby in a different way maybe, the architecture older, dimmer without the clean gilding of a Southern California sun.

“Blake!” the shirtless boy called again. He reached back and took Alex’s hand with an utterly open smile.

A giant poked his head out of a doorway. “Gio, you fuck,” he said. He wore shorts and was shirtless too, cap backward like it was some kind of uniform. “You were supposed to clean the toilet.” So Gio was a pledge or some other kind of lackey.

“I was cleaning downstairs,” he explained. “Do you want to meet… Oh God, I can’t remember your name.”

Because she hadn’t said it. Alex just winked.

“Clean the fucking toilet first,” the giant complained. “You cockshiners can’t just keep shitting on top of shit! And who the hell is—”

“Hi,” said Alex, and—because she never had—she tossed her hair.

“I. Hey. Hi. How are you?” He tugged his shorts up then down, removed his cap, ran a hand through his tufty hair, set the cap back in place. “Hi.”

“I’m looking for Blake.”

“Why?” His voice was mournful.

“Help me find him?”

“Absolutely. Blake!” the giant bellowed.

“What?” demanded an irritated voice from a bedroom down the hall.

Alex didn’t know how much time she had left. She shook off Gio the Lackey’s hand and forged ahead, making sure not to look into the bathroom as she passed.

Blake Keely was slouched on a futon, sipping from a big bottle of Gatorade and playing Call of Duty. He was at least wearing a shirt.

She could sense the other boys hovering behind her.

“Where’s your phone?” Alex asked.

“Who the fuck are you?” Blake said, tipping his head back and assessing her with a single arrogant glance.

For a moment, Alex panicked. Had Mike’s magic powder worn off so fast? Was Blake somehow immune? Then she remembered the way the powder had burned her throat. She yanked the cord from the wall and the game went silent.

“What the—”

“I’m soooo sorry,” Alex said.

Blake blinked, then gave her a lazy, easy smile. That’s his panty-dropper grin, thought Alex, and considered knocking his teeth in. “No worries at all,” he said. “I’m Blake.”

“I know.”

His grin widened. “Have we met? I was pretty wasted last night, but—”

Alex shut the door and his eyes widened. He looked almost flustered but utterly delighted. A kid on Christmas. A rich kid on Christmas.

“Can I see your phone?”

He stood and handed it over, offering her his spot on the futon. “Do you want to sit?”

“No, I want you to stand there looking like an asshole.”

He should have reacted, but instead he just stood smiling obediently.

“You’re a natural.” She gave the phone a shake. “Unlock it.”

He obliged and she found his gallery, pressed play on the first video. Mercy’s face appeared, smiling and eager. Blake stroked the wet head of his penis against her cheek and she laughed. He turned the camera back on himself and gave his stupid, shit-eating grin again, nodding as if to the viewers at home.

Alex held up the phone. “Who did you send this video to?”

“Just a couple of the brothers. Jason and Rodriguez.”

“Get them in here; make them bring their phones.”

“I’m here!” said the giant from behind the door. She pulled it open. “I’m Jason!” He was actually raising his hand.

While Blake scampered off to find Rodriguez and Jason the Giant waited patiently, Alex found the texts he’d sent, deleted them, then deleted the rest of his messages for good measure. He’d obligingly named one of his photo albums Pussy Vault. It was full of videos of different girls. Some of them were bright eyed and had purple tongues, some just looked wasted, drunk girls with glazed eyes, their tops off or pushed to the side. One girl was so far gone only the whites of her eyes were visible, appearing and disappearing like slivers of moon as Blake fucked her, another with vomit in her hair, her face pressed into a pool of sick as Blake took her from behind. And always he turned the camera back on himself, as if he couldn’t resist showing off that star-worthy smile.

Alex wiped the photo and video files clean, though she couldn’t be sure they weren’t backed up somewhere. Jason’s phone was next. Either he had a shred of a conscience or he’d been too hungover to send the video to anyone yet.

She heard panting from down the hall and saw Blake dragging Rodriguez along the filthy carpet. “What are you doing?”

“You said to get him,” said Blake.

“Just give me his phone.”

Another quick check. Rodriguez had sent the video to two friends, and there was no way of knowing who they’d passed it along to. Damn it. Alex could only hope that Mike had succeeded in gathering enough members of Manuscript and that reversing the Full Cup would work.

“Did they know?” Alex asked Blake. “Did they know about the Merity? That Mercy was drugged?”

“No,” Blake said, still smiling. “They just know I don’t have a problem getting laid.”

“Where did you get the Merity?”

“A guy from the forestry school.”

The forestry school? There were greenhouses up there with regulated temperature gauges and moisture control, designed to re-create environments from all over the world—maybe one just like the Greater Khingan Mountains. What had Tripp said? Lance and T had the lushest, greenest shit you’ve ever seen.

“What about Lance Gressang and Tara Hutchins?” she asked.

“Yeah! That’s them. You know Lance?”

“Did you hurt Tara? Did you kill Tara Hutchins?”

Blake looked confused. “No! I would never do something like that.”

Alex really wondered where he thought he was drawing a line. An ache had started to throb in her right temple. That had to mean the Starpower was going to wear off soon. And she just wanted to get out of here. The house made her skin crawl, as if it had absorbed every sad, sordid thing that had happened within its walls.

She looked down at the phone in her hand, thought of Blake’s girls lined up in their galleries. She wasn’t done just yet.

“Come on,” she said, glancing back down the hall to the open door of the bathroom.

“Where we going?” Blake asked, his lazy grin spreading like a broken yolk.

“We’re going to make a little movie.”