Ninth House

²⁵ Winter

“How’d it go?” Mercy asked, as soon as Alex entered the common room. She sat cross-legged on the couch, surrounded by books. It took Alex a moment to remember she was supposed to have been on a job interview.

“I’m not sure,” she said, heading back to their bedroom to change. “Maybe good? It was interesting. These pants are too tight.”

“Your ass is too big.”

“My ass is just right,” Alex called back. She pulled on black jeans, one of the last of her good long-sleeved shirts, and a black sweater. She considered making up an excuse about a study group, then opted for brushing her hair and applying some dark plum lipstick.

“Where are you going?” Mercy asked when she caught sight of Alex’s look.

“I’m meeting someone for coffee.”

“Hold up,” said Lauren, poking her head out of her bedroom. “Is Alex Stern going on a date?”

“First Alex Stern had a job interview,” said Mercy. “And now she’s going on a date.”

“Who are you, Alex Stern?”

Hell if I know. “If y’all are done, who stole my hoops?”

“What college is he in?” asked Lauren.

“He’s town.”

“Ooh,” said Lauren. She placed Alex’s fake silver hoops in her hand. “Alex loves a working man. That lipstick is way too much.”

“I like it,” said Mercy.

“It looks like she’s going to try to eat his heart.”

Alex stuck the hoops in her ears and blotted her lips with a tissue. “Just right.”

“Feb Club is almost over,” said Mercy. Every night in February, some group or organization hosted an event, a protest against the deep gloom of winter. “We should hit the last party on Friday.”

“Should we?” Alex asked, wondering if Mercy was really ready for that.

“Yeah,” said Mercy. “I’m not saying we should stay long or anything, but… I want to go. Maybe I’ll borrow your lipstick.”

Alex grinned and took out her phone to request a ride. “Then we’re definitely going.” If I’m still a Yale student tomorrow. “Don’t wait up, Ma.”

“You beautiful slut,” said Lauren.

“Be careful,” said Mercy.

“Tell him to be careful,” said Alex, and locked the door behind her.

She had the driver drop her off at the stone columns of Black Elm and walked up the long driveway on foot. The garage was open, and Alex could see Darlington’s burgundy Mercedes parked inside.

Lights shone from the first and second stories of the house, and Alex saw Dawes through the kitchen window, stirring something on the stove. As soon as she entered, she recognized the lemony smell. Avgolemono. Darlington’s favorite.

“You’re early,” said Dawes over her shoulder. “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, feeling suddenly shy. Had the earrings and the lipstick been her version of lemon soup?

Alex stripped off her coat and hung it on a hook by the door. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the night, but she wanted a chance to search Darlington’s office and bedroom before the others arrived. She was glad Dawes had turned all the lights on. The last time she’d been here, the loneliness of the place had overwhelmed her.

Alex checked the office first, a room of wood paneling and packed bookshelves located just off of the pretty sunroom where she’d written her report for Sandow on Tara’s death. The desk was fairly well organized, but its file cabinets just seemed to be full of documents pertaining to Black Elm. In the top drawer, Alex found an old-fashioned datebook and a crushed pack of Chesterfields. She couldn’t imagine Darlington taking a drag on a bargain smoke.

Her search through his monk’s chamber on the third floor was equally fruitless. Cosmo followed her inside and stared at her judgmentally as she pulled open drawers and thumbed through stacks of books.

“Yes, I’m violating his privacy, Cosmo,” she said. “But it’s for a good cause.”

Apparently that was enough for the cat, who twined through Alex’s legs, pressing his head against her combat boots and purring loudly. She gave him a scratch between the ears as she flipped through the books piled closest to Darlington’s bed—all of them devoted to New England industry. She paused on what looked like an old carriage catalog, the paper yellowing and torn at the edges, sealed in a plastic baggie to protect it from the elements. North’s family had been carriage makers.

Alex removed it carefully from the bag. On closer inspection it seemed to be a kind of newsy trade magazine for the various carriage makers in New Haven and the businesses that supported them. There were hand-drawn pictures of wheels and locking mechanisms and lanterns and, on the third page, an announcement in large bold type of the construction of North & Sons’ brand-new factory, which would be fronted by a showroom for prospective buyers. In the margin, in Darlington’s distinctive scrawl, was a note that read: the first?

“That’s it? Come on, Darlington. The first what?”

Alex heard the sound of tires on gravel and looked down to the driveway to see headlights from two cars—a slightly beat-up Audi and, close behind it, a shiny blue Land Rover.

The Audi pulled into the garage beside Darlington’s Mercedes, and a moment later Alex saw Dean Sandow and a woman who had to be Michelle Alameddine emerge. Alex wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but the girl looked perfectly ordinary. Thick curls in a tangle around her shoulders, an angular face with elegantly manicured brows. She wore a well-cut black coat and knee-high black boots. She looked very New York to Alex, though Alex had never been to New York.

Alex slipped the carriage catalog back in its bag and hurried downstairs. Sandow and Michelle were already hanging up their coats in the mudroom, trailed by an older woman and a gawky-looking boy with a Mohawk and a huge backpack slung over his shoulders. It took Alex a long minute to recognize them out of their white robes, but then the memory locked into place: Josh Zelinski, the president of the Aurelian delegation, and the alumna who had led the ritual last fall with that novelist that had almost gone so wrong. Amelia.

Darlington had convinced Aurelian the fault had been theirs and not Alex’s. And on that same night, much to Dawes’s confusion, Alex and Darlington had gotten very drunk on expensive red wine and smashed a cupboardful of innocent crystal to bits—along with a tacky set of china chafing dishes that had probably deserved to die. She remembered standing in a room full of broken glass and crockery shards, feeling better than she had in years. Darlington had surveyed the damage, topped off his glass, and blearily said, There’s a metaphor in this, Stern. I’ll figure it out when I’m sober.

Now introductions were made and Sandow opened a bottle of wine. Dawes set out a plate of cheese and sliced vegetables. It felt like the prelude to a bad dinner party.

“So,” Michelle said, popping a slice of cucumber into her mouth. “Danny got himself disappeared?”

“He could be dead,” Dawes said quietly.

“I doubt it,” Michelle replied. “Or he’d be haunting the hell out of her.” She hooked her thumb at Alex. “You were with him, right?”

Alex nodded, feeling her stomach clench.

“And you’re the magic girl who can see Grays. Has he been hanging around?”

“No,” said Alex. And North hadn’t seen him on the other side. Darlington was alive somewhere and he was coming home tonight.

“Such an extraordinary gift,” Amelia said. She had thick honey-brown hair that fell just below her chin and wore a navy twinset over starched jeans. “Lethe is lucky to have you.”

“Yes,” said Sandow kindly. “We are.”

Josh Zelinski shook his head. “Crazy. They’re just all floating around? Are there any Grays here right now?”

Alex took a long sip of her wine. “Yup. One has his hand on your ass.”

Zelinski whirled. Sandow looked pained.

But Michelle laughed. “Darlington must have been pissing himself when he found out what you can do.”

Sandow cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “All of you. This is a difficult situation and I know you’re all busy.”

It’s not a fucking board meeting, Alex wanted to shout. He disappeared.

Michelle refilled her wineglass. “I can’t say I was surprised to get the call.”

“No?”

“I feel like I spent most of Darlington’s freshman year making sure he didn’t kill himself or set something on fire. Wherever he is, he’s probably thrilled things finally got exciting around here.”

Sandow chuckled. “I’ll wager.”

Alex felt a stab of irritation. She didn’t like Sandow and Michelle sharing a smile over Darlington. He deserved better.

“He’s a sensation seeker?” asked Amelia, sounding a little thrilled herself.

“Not exactly,” said Michelle. “He’s just always ready to jump in. He fancied himself a knight, a boy standing at the door to the underworld with a sword in his hand.”

Alex had scoffed whenever Darlington described himself or Lethe that way. But it didn’t feel silly now, not when she thought of Tara, of drugs like Merity, boys like Blake. The Houses of the Veil had too much power, and the rules they had put in place were really about controlling access to that power, not limiting the damage it could do.

“Isn’t that kind of what we are?” Alex said before she could stop herself. “We are the shepherds and all that?”

Michelle laughed again. “Don’t tell me he got to you too?” She looped her arm through Sandow’s as they strolled out of the kitchen, followed by Zelinski and Amelia. “I wish I’d been able to come earlier and see this place in the daylight. He did so much work to it.”

Dawes’s hand brushed against Alex’s, startling her. It was a little thing, but Alex let her knuckles do the same. Darlington had been right about the need for Lethe, about why they were here. They weren’t just mall cops keeping a bunch of unruly kids in line. They were supposed to be detectives, soldiers. Michelle and Sandow didn’t get it.

Do I? Alex wondered. How had she gone from barely getting by to holy warrior? And what was going to happen when they pulled Darlington back to their world from wherever he’d been cooling his heels?

Maybe her work on the Tara Hutchins case would be a mark in her favor, but she very much doubted he was just going to say, Way to take the initiative; all is forgiven. She would tell him she was sorry, that she hadn’t known what Hellie intended that morning at Ground Zero. She would tell him whatever she had to and hold on to this life with both hands.

“Where do we think he is?” Michelle was asking as they took the stairs up to the second floor.

“We don’t know. I thought we’d use a hound-dog casting.” Sandow sounded almost pleased with himself. Alex sometimes forgot that the dean had actually been in Lethe, and had been pretty good at it too.

“Very nice! What are we using for his scent?”

“The deed to Black Elm.”

“Was it bound by Aurelian?”

“Not that I know of,” said Amelia. “But we can activate the language to summon the signatories.”

“From anywhere?” asked Michelle.

“From anywhere,” Zelinski said smugly.

They went through a long description of the mechanics of the contract and how the summoning should work so long as the commitment to the contract was made in good faith and the parties had some emotional connection to the agreement.

Alex and Dawes exchanged a glance. That much at least they could be sure of: Darlington loved Black Elm.

The second-floor ballroom had been lit with lanterns at the four compass points. Darlington’s exercise mats and gear had been set off to the side.

“This is a good space,” said Zelinski, unzipping his backpack. He and Amelia drew out four objects wrapped in cotton batting.

“We don’t need someone to open a portal?” Alex whispered to Dawes, watching Josh unwrap the cotton to reveal a large silver bell.

“If Sandow is right and Darlington is just stuck between worlds or in some kind of pocket space, then the activation of the deed should create enough pull to bring him through to us.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Then we’ll have to get Scroll and Key involved at the next new moon.”

But what if the Locksmiths had been the ones to create the portal in the basement that night? What if they wanted Darlington to stay gone?

“Alex,” called Sandow, “please come help me make the marks.” Alex felt strange warding the circle, as if she’d somehow fallen backward through time and become Sandow’s Dante.

“We’ll leave the northern gate open,” he said. “True north to guide him home. I’ll need you to be on the lookout for Grays on your own. I would take Hiram’s elixir but…. I’m at an age when the risk is just too high.” He sounded embarrassed.

“I can handle it,” said Alex. “Is there blood involved?” She at least wanted to be ready if a flood of Grays came on.

“No,” said Sandow. “No blood. And Darlington planted the Black Elm borders with protective species. But you know strong desire can draw Grays, and strong desire is what we need to bring him back.”

Alex nodded and took her position at the northern compass point. Sandow took the southern point; Dawes and Michelle Alameddine faced each other at east and west. With only the candlelight to give shape to the space, the ballroom felt even more vast. It was a big, cold room, built to impress people long since gone.

Amelia and Josh stood at the center of the circle with a sheaf of papers—the deed to Black Elm—but they would have nothing to do unless Sandow’s casting worked.

“Are we ready?” he asked. When no one answered, Sandow forged ahead, murmuring first in English, then in Spanish, then in a whispery language that Alex recognized as Dutch. Was that Portuguese next? Mandarin followed. She realized he was speaking the languages that Darlington knew.

She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination or if she really did hear the patter of paws, panting. A hound-dog casting. She thought of the hounds of Lethe, the surprisingly beautiful jackals Darlington had set on her that first day at Il Bastone. I forgive you, she thought. Just come home.

She heard a sudden howl and then the very distant sound of barking.

The candles flared, their flames gone vibrant green.

“We’ve found him!” cried Sandow in a trembling voice. He sounded almost frightened. “Activate the deed!”

Amelia touched a candle to the papers lying at the center of the circle. Green light kindled and rose around the piles. She tossed something into the flame and it ignited in bright sparks like a firework.

Iron, Alex realized. She’d seen an experiment just like that in a science class once.

Words seemed to hover in the green flame over the document as the iron filings sparked.

The words curled in on themselves, rising in the fire and vanishing like smoke.

The candle flames shot even higher, then sputtered. The fire covering the deed banked abruptly. They were left in darkness.

And then Black Elm came alive. All at once, the sconces on the walls flared to brightness, music blared from the speakers in the corner, and the halls echoed with the sound of a late-night newscast as somewhere in the house a television came on.

“Who the hell left all the lights on?” said an old man standing outside the circle. He was frighteningly thin, his hair a wisp on his head, his bathrobe hanging open to reveal an emaciated chest and shriveled genitals. A cigarette hung from his mouth.

He wasn’t sharp and clear the way Grays usually were to Alex; he looked… well, gray. As if she were viewing him through layers of milky chiffon. The Veil.

She knew she was looking at Daniel Tabor Arlington III. A moment later he was gone.

“It’s working!” shouted Josh.

“Use the bells,” cried Amelia. “Call him home!”

Alex lifted the silver bell at her feet and saw the others do the same. They rang the bells, the sweet sound rolling over the circle, over the din of the music and the chaos of the house.

The windows blew open. Alex heard a squeal of tires and a loud crash from somewhere below. Around her, she saw people dancing; a young man with a heavy mustache who distinctly resembled Darlington floated past, dressed in a suit that looked like it belonged in a museum.

“Stop!” shouted Sandow. “Something’s wrong! Stop the ringing!”

Alex seized the clapper of her bell, trying to silence it, and saw the others do the same. But the bells did not stop ringing. She could feel her bell still vibrating in her hand as if struck, hear the peals growing louder.

Alex’s cheeks felt flushed. The room had been icy moments before, but now she was sweating in her clothes. The stink of sulfur filled the air. She heard a groan that seemed to rumble through the floor—a deep bass rattle. She remembered the crocodiles calling to each other from the banks of the river in the borderlands. Whatever was out there, whatever had entered the room, was bigger. Much, much bigger. It sounded hungry.

The bells were screaming. They sounded like an angry crowd, a mob about to do violence. Alex could feel the vibrations making her palms buzz.

Boom. The building shook.

Boom. Amelia lost her footing, clutched at Zelinski to keep her balance, the bell tumbling from her hands, still ringing and ringing.

Boom. The same sound Alex had heard that night at the prognostication, the sound of something trying to break through the circle, to break through to their world. That night the Grays in the operating theater had pierced the Veil, splintered the railing. She’d thought they were trying to destroy the protection of the circle, but what if they were trying to get inside it? What if they were afraid of whatever was coming? That low rumbling groan shook the room again. It sounded like the jaws of something ancient creaking open.

Alex gagged, then retched, the scent of sulfur so heavy she could taste it, rotten in her mouth.

Murder. A voice, hard and loud, above the bells—Darlington’s voice, but deeper, snarling. Angry. Murder, he said.

Well, shit. So much for him keeping his mouth shut.

And then she saw it, looming over the circle, as if there were no ceiling, no third story, no house at all, a monster—there was no other word for it—horned and heavy-toothed, so big its hulking body blotted out the night sky. A boar. A ram. The rearing, segmented body of a scorpion. Her mind leapt from terror to terror, unable to make sense of it.

Alex realized she was screaming. Everyone was screaming. The walls seemed lit by fire.

Alex could feel the heat on her cheeks, searing the hair on her arms.

Sandow strode forward to the center of the circle. He tossed down his bell and roared, “Lapidea est lingua vestra!” He threw his arms open as if conducting an orchestra, his face made golden in the flames. He looked young. He looked like a stranger. “Silentium domus vacuae audito! Nemo gratus accipietur!”

The windows of the ballroom blew inward, glass shattering. Alex fell to her knees, covering her head with her hands.

She waited, heart pounding in her chest. Only then did she realize the bells had stopped ringing.

The silence was soft against her ears. When Alex opened her eyes, she saw that the candles had bloomed to light again, bathing everything in a gentle glow. As if nothing had happened, as if it had all been a grand illusion—except for the pebbles of broken glass littering the floor.

Amelia and Josh were both on their knees, sobbing. Dawes was huddled on the floor with her hands clasped over her mouth. Michelle Alameddine paced back and forth, muttering, “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.”

Wind gusted through the shattered windows, the smell of the night air cold and sweet after the thick tang of sulfur. Sandow stood staring up at where the beast had been. His dress shirt was soaked through with sweat.

Alex forced herself to stand and make her way to Dawes, boots crunching over glass.

“Dawes?” she said, crouching down and laying a hand on her shoulder. “Pammie?”

Dawes was crying, the tears making slow, silent tracks down her cheeks. “He’s gone,” she said. “He’s really gone.”

“But I heard him,” Alex said. Or something that sounded very much like him.

“You don’t understand,” Dawes said. “That thing—”

“It was a hellbeast,” said Michelle. “It was talking with his voice. That means it consumed him. Someone let it into our world. Left it like a cave for him to walk into.”

“Who?” said Dawes, wiping the tears from her face. “How?”

Sandow put his arm around her. “I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”

“But if he’s dead, then he should be on the other side,” said Alex. “He isn’t. He—”

“He’s gone, Alex,” Michelle said. Her voice was harsh. “He’s not on the other side. He’s not behind the Veil. He was devoured, soul and all.”

It’s not a portal. That was what Darlington had said that night in the Rosenfeld basement. And now she knew what he had meant to say, what he had tried to say, before that thing had taken him. It’s not a portal. It’s a mouth.

Darlington had not disappeared. He had been eaten.

“No one survives that,” said Sandow. His voice was hoarse. He took off his glasses and Alex saw him wipe at his eyes. “No soul can endure it. We summoned a poltergeist, an echo. That’s all.”

“He’s gone,” Dawes said again.

This time Alex didn’t deny it.

They collected Aurelian’s bells and Dean Sandow said he would make calls to have the windows of the ballroom boarded up the next morning. It was starting to snow, but it was too late in the evening to do anything about it now. And who was there left to care? Black Elm’s keeper, its defender, would never return.

They made their slow way out of the house. When they entered the kitchen, Dawes began to cry harder. It all looked so impossibly stupid and hopeful: the half-full glasses of wine, the tidily arranged vegetables, the pot of soup waiting on the stove.

Outside, they found Darlington’s Mercedes smashed into Amelia’s Land Rover. That was the crash Alex had heard, Darlington’s car possessed by whatever echo they’d drawn into this world.

Sandow sighed. “I’ll call a tow truck and wait with you, Amelia. Michelle—”

“I can take a car to the station.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” she said. She seemed distracted, confused, as if she couldn’t quite make the numbers tally, as if she’d only now realized that in all her years at Lethe she’d been walking side by side with death.

“Alex, can you see Dawes home?” Sandow asked.

Dawes wiped her sleeve across her tearstained face. “I don’t want to go home.”

“To Il Bastone, then. I’ll join you as soon as I can. We’ll…” He trailed off. “I don’t know exactly what we’ll do.”

“Sure,” said Alex. She used her phone to request a ride, then put her arm around Dawes and herded her down the driveway after Michelle.

They stood in silence by the stone columns, Black Elm behind them, the snow gathering around them.

Michelle’s car came first. She didn’t offer to share it, but she turned to Alex as she got in.

“I work in gifts and acquisitions in the Butler Library at Columbia,” she said. “If you need me.”

Before Alex could reply, she ducked inside. The car vanished slowly down the street, cautious in the snow, its red taillights dwindling to sparks.

Alex kept her arm around Dawes, afraid that she might pull away. Until this moment, until this night, anything had been possible and Alex had really believed that somehow, inevitably, maybe not on this new moon but on the next, Darlington would return. Now the spell of hope was broken and no amount of magic could make it whole.

The golden boy of Lethe was gone.