Alex felt her limbs lock up. She didn’t just stop moving—she was glad to do it, thrilled, really. She would be perfectly still, still as a statue.
“Dawes!” she screamed.
“Be quiet,” said Blake.
Alex clamped her lips shut. She was happy to have the chance to do this for him. He deserved it. He deserved everything.
Blake rolled her over and stood, towering over her. He seemed impossibly tall, his golden, tousled head framed by the coffered ceiling.
“You ruined my life,” he said. He lifted his foot and rested his boot on her chest. “You ruined me.” Some part of her mind screamed, Run. Push him off. Do something. But it was a distant voice, lost to the contented hum of submission. She was so happy, so very happy to oblige.
Blake pressed down with his boot and Alex felt her ribs bend. He was big, two hundred pounds of muscle, and all of it felt like it was resting just beneath her heart. The house rattled hysterically, as if it could feel her bones crying out. Alex heard a table topple somewhere, dishes crashing from their shelves. Il Bastone giving voice to her fear.
“What gave you the right?” he said. “Answer me.”
He’d granted her permission.
“Mercy and every girl before her,” Alex spat, even as her mind begged for another command, another way to please him. “They gave me the right.”
Blake lifted his boot and brought it down hard. Alex screamed as pain exploded through her.
At the same moment the lights went out. The stereo went with it, the music fading, leaving them in darkness, in silence, as if Il Bastone had simply died around her.
In the quiet, she heard Blake crying. His left hand was clenched in a fist, as if readying to strike her. But the light from the streetlamps filtering in through the windows caught on something silver in his other hand. A blade.
“Can you be quiet?” he asked. “Tell me you can be quiet.”
“I can be quiet,” said Alex.
Blake giggled, that high-pitched giggle she remembered from the video. “That’s what Tara said too.”
“What did she say?” Alex whispered. “What did she do to make you mad?”
Blake leaned down. His face was still beautiful, cut in sharp, almost angelic lines. “She thought she was better than all my other girls. But everyone gets the same from Blake.”
Had he been stupid enough to use the Merity on Tara? Had she realized what he was using it for? Had she threatened him? Did any of it matter now? Alex was going to die. In the end, she’d been no smarter than Tara, no more able to protect herself.
“Alex?” Dean Sandow’s voice from somewhere down below.
“Don’t come up here!” she screamed. “Call the cops! He has—” “Shut the fuck up!” Blake drew back his foot and kicked her hard in the side. Alex went silent.
It was too late anyway. Sandow was at the top of the stairs, his expression bewildered. From her place on the floor, Alex saw him register her on her back, Blake above her, the knife in his hand.
Sandow lunged forward, but he was too slow.
“Stop!” snapped Blake.
The dean went rigid, nearly toppling.
Blake turned to Alex, a smile spreading across his lips. “He a friend of yours? Should I make him throw himself down the stairs?”
Alex was silent. He’d told her to be silent and she just wanted to make him happy, but her mind was mule-kicking around her skull. They were all going to die tonight.
“Come here,” Blake said. Sandow strode forward eagerly, a spring in his step. Blake bobbed his head at Alex. “I want you to do me a favor.”
“Whatever I can do to help,” said Sandow, as if inviting a promising new student to office hours.
Blake held out the knife. “Stab her. Stab her in the heart.”
“A pleasure.” Sandow took the knife and straddled Alex.
A cold wind gusted through the house from the open door. Alex felt it on her flushed face. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t fight, couldn’t run. Behind Sandow the top of the open door and the brick path were visible. Alex remembered the first day Darlington had brought her here. She remembered Darlington’s whistle. She remembered the jackals, spirit hounds, bound to serve the delegates of Lethe.
We are the shepherds.
Alex’s hand lay against the floorboards. She could feel the cool, polished wood beneath her palm. Please, she begged the house silently. I am a daughter of Lethe, and the wolf is at the door.
Sandow raised the knife high above his head. Alex parted her lips—she wasn’t speaking, no, she wasn’t talking—and desperately, hopelessly, she whistled. Send me my hounds.
The jackals burst through the front door in a snapping, snarling pack. They raced up the stairs, claws clattering and paws sliding. Too late.
“Do it,” said Blake.
Sandow brought the knife down. Something slammed into him, driving him off Alex. The hallway was suddenly full of jackals, trampling over her in a snarling mass. One of them crashed into Blake. The weight of their bodies drove the breath from Alex’s lungs, and she cried out as their paws smacked over her broken bones.
They were wild with excitement and bloodlust, yelping and snapping. Alex had no idea how to control them. She’d never had reason to ask. They were a mess of gleaming canines and black gums, muzzles frothing. She tried to push up, push away. She felt jaws clamp closed on her side and screamed as long teeth sank into her flesh.
Sandow shouted a string of words she didn’t understand and Alex felt the jaws open, hot blood gushing from her. Her vision was turning black.
The jackals retreated, slinking back toward the stairs, bodies bumping against each other. They crouched by the banister, whining softly, jaws snapping at the air.
Sandow lay bleeding on the hall runner beside her; his pant leg was torn. She could see that the jackal’s jaws had snapped clean through his femur, the white jut of bone gleaming like a pale tuber. Blood was gouting from his leg. He was gasping, fumbling in his pocket, trying to find his phone, but his movements were slow, sluggish.
“Dean Sandow?” she panted.
His head lolled on his shoulders. She saw the phone slip from his fingers and fall to the carpet.
Blake was crawling toward her. He was bleeding too. She saw where the jackals had sunk their teeth into the meat of his biceps, his thigh.
He pulled himself up the length of her body, resting against her like a lover. His hand was still clenched in a fist. He struck her once, twice. The other hand slid into her hair.
“Eat shit,” he whispered against her cheek. He sat up, gripped her hair in his hand, and slammed her skull against the floor. Stars exploded behind her eyes. He lifted her head again, yanking on her hair, tilting her chin back. “Eat shit and die.”
Alex heard a wet, heavy thud and wondered if her skull had split open. Then Blake fell forward onto her. She shoved at him, scrabbling against his chest, his weight impossible, and finally rolled him off her. She touched her hand to the back of her head. No blood. No wound.
She couldn’t say the same for Blake. One side of his perfect face was a bloody red crater. His head had been smashed in. Dawes stood over him, weeping. In her hands she clutched the marble bust of Hiram Bingham III, patron saint of Lethe, his stern profile covered with blood and bits of bone.
Dawes let the bust slip from her fingers. It hit the carpet and rolled to its side. She turned away from Alex, fell to her knees, and vomited.
Blake Keely stared at the ceiling, eyes unseeing. The snow had melted on his jacket, and the wool glittered like something far finer. He looked like a fallen prince.
The jackals padded down the stairs, vanishing through the open door. Alex wondered where they went, what they spent their hours hunting.