Hell bent, p.24
Hell Bent, page 24
Ahead she saw Mercy, her face panicked, trying not to tip over.
They were all stumbling now, the stones of the courtyard buckling beneath them, but still the metronome ticked away.
Maybe the ground would just open up and swallow them. Maybe that was what Dawes had meant by submerged.
“Is this supposed to happen?” Tripp shouted.
“Keep going,” Alex yelled, lurching forward.
“The basin!” cried Mercy.
The square basin was overflowing, water gushing past the cherubs, pooling at its base, and coursing through the crevices between the stones, creeping toward them. Alex felt a weird relief that it wasn’t blood.
The water struck her boots. It was hot.
“It stinks,” muttered Tripp.
“Sulfur,” said Turner.
It’s just a river, Alex told herself. Though she didn’t know which one. All borderlands were marked by rivers, places where the mortal world became permeable and you could cross into the afterlife.
They splashed through, the water level rising, still marching, still in unison. When they reached the fountain, they stood staring at each other as the water boiled and bubbled over the sides. The cherubs sat at each of the basin’s corners, gazing into its center, eyes trained on nothing. But maybe they’d simply been keeping a watch, waiting for the door to open.
Dawes’s teeth were dug into her lower lip; her chest rose and fell in short, shallow pants. Tripp was nodding as if he heard secret music, a psych-up song from some collection of Jock Jams. Turner’s face was stern, his mouth set in a determined line. He was the only one of them with experience in anything close to this. He’d probably kicked a few doors down in his time, without knowing what trouble might be waiting on the other side. But this wasn’t really like that, was it?
They were pilgrims. They were cosmonauts. They were as good as dead.
“On three,” Dawes said, her voice cracking.
They counted together, their voices barely audible over the rush of the water.
One.
A wind rose suddenly, that cold wind they’d all felt rushing through the darkness. Now it shook the courtyard trees and rattled the windows in their casements.
Two.
Light seemed to bloom from the stones at their feet and Dawes gasped. When Alex looked down, there was no paving, no grass. She was looking into the water, and it just went down and down.
Dawes cast a desperate glance at Mercy and handed her the silver pitch pipe. “Watch over us,” she pleaded.
“Run if you have to,” Alex said.
Three.
Their eyes met and they clasped the sides of the basin.
The Descent
Alex didn’t remember falling, but suddenly she was on her back in the water, sinking fast, the river closing over her. She tried to push toward the surface, but something grabbed her wrist, an arm wrapped around her waist. She screamed, felt the water rush in. Fingers pushed into her mouth, trying to dig into her eye sockets, clawing into the skin of her arms and legs, their grip cold and unrelenting.
Buried alive. This wasn’t supposed to be what it was like. It was supposed to feel like falling, like flying. She tried to shout for Dawes, for Mercy, for Turner, but there were fingers shoving into her throat, making her gag. They were in her ears, pushing between her legs.
What if Dawes and the others were still up there? The thought sent a fresh bolt of terror through her. She’d thrown herself into hell, but what if they were still in the courtyard? Or they were soaring into some better realm while she alone was torn apart? Because she was the problem. She had always been the problem. The only real sinner in the bunch. Turner had, what? Brought down a bad guy in the line of duty and it still tormented his Eagle Scout conscience? Dawes had killed Blake to save Alex’s life. Muddleheaded Tripp had no doubt bumbled into something he couldn’t handle.
But Alex was the real thing. She’d taken a bat to Len, to Ariel, to all the rest, and she’d never lost a minute of sleep over the things she’d done. Something on the other side was waiting to claim her. It had been waiting a long time, and now that it had hold of her, it wasn’t going to let go. Those hands were hungry. She’d felt the pull of that appetite drawing her across the city to Black Elm. She’d told herself it was because she was special, the Wheelwalker, but maybe the real reason she’d been able to pierce the circle of protection was because she didn’t belong among the mortal, law-abiding citizens of this world. She’d never been punished for her crimes, never felt remorse, and now she’d plunged right into a reckoning.
The fingers seemed to press straight through her, hooks lodging in her skin and bones. She struggled for a gulp of air, hot and stinking of sulfur. She didn’t care. She could breathe again. The water was gone. The fingers weren’t clogging her throat. It ached to open her eyes, but when she did, she saw black night, shooting stars, a rain of fire. Was she falling? Flying? Shooting toward something or drowning in darkness? She didn’t know. Sweat dribbled down her neck, the heat coming from everywhere, like she was being cooked in her own skin.
She hit the ground hard, the impact sudden, driving a short, broken sob from her chest.
* * *
She tried to sit up. Slowly, she began to see shapes emerge in the dark … a staircase, a high ceiling. She put her hand on the floor to try to push to her feet and felt something warm and squirming. She recoiled, but when she looked down, there was nothing there, just the rug, a familiar pattern, the polished boards, the coffered ceiling overhead. Where was she? She couldn’t remember. Her head hurt. She’d gone to open the door and Alex had screamed at her, told her to stop. No, that wasn’t right.
Pam tried to make her legs work. She touched her fingers to the back of her head, to the aching spot on her scalp where she could feel her pulse, then snatched her fingers back, gasping at the pain. Why couldn’t she think?
She was supposed to order pizza. Maybe she should cook instead. Alex had been heading upstairs to shower. They were grieving. Together. She remembered Dean Sandow speaking those horrible, final words. No one will be made welcome. Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want Alex to find her weeping—it was only then that she really grasped where she was: at the base of the stairs at Il Bastone, shards of stained glass scattered around her. She touched the back of her head again, ready for the pain this time.
Someone had knocked her into the wall when she’d opened the door. An accident. She was clumsy. She’d gotten in the way. Wrong place, wrong time. But hadn’t she locked the door? And why was it still open? Where was Alex?
Music was playing. A song she knew by the Smiths. She heard voices somewhere in the house, footfalls, someone running. She made herself stand, ignoring the wave of nausea that flooded her mouth with saliva.
Pam heard something howl outside and then a flood of hairy bodies crowded through the front door. The jackals. She’d seen them only once before, when Darlington called them. She cringed against the wall, but they rushed right past her, a pack of fur and snapping teeth, the wild animal scent of dust and dung and oily fur rising from them in a cloud.
“Alex?” she ventured. Someone had broken in, pushed past her. Alex was okay, wasn’t she? She was the kind of girl who was always okay. “A survivor,” Darlington had once said, admiration in his voice. “Rough around the edges, but we’ll see if we’ve mined a diamond, won’t we, Pammie?”
Pam had done her best to smile. She’d never liked that phrase, diamond in the rough. All that meant was they had to cut you again and again to let the light in.
She hadn’t been sure if she wanted Alex to fail. She’d felt a certain consolation when their new Dante arrived and she got her first look at this scrawny girl with her bowstring arms and hollow eyes. She was nothing like the cultured, poised girls who had come before. Pam’s first impulse had been to feed her. But the way you’d feed a stray, carefully, coaxingly, never from your hand. Darlington hadn’t seemed to understand that Alex was dangerous. Although she never asked anything of Dawes. She never gave her orders or made demands. She cleaned up her own messes and skulked around like a rat who was afraid of being noticed by the barn cats. There was no Could you do me a huge favor and whip up something so I can surprise my roommates? No Can I throw a few extra things in the wash?
Pam had felt restless, useless, and grateful all at once. Darlington had muttered his complaints about the girl, but then that night when they’d gone to Beinecke, everything had changed. They’d come back and smashed half the glassware and gotten roaring drunk, and Pam had fastened her headphones over her ears, put on Fleetwood Mac, and done her very best to ignore them. She’d found them passed out in the parlor the next morning, but to Alex’s credit she’d stayed and tidied up right alongside Darlington.
And then he’d disappeared, and Dawes hadn’t been able to forgive this girl who charged through the world like an unintended consequence, a calamity for everyone and everything around her.
I have to move, she told herself. Something is happening, something bad. She had the sickly feeling she’d had when her parents argued. The house didn’t feel right. It’s okay, bunny, her mother would say, tucking her in at night. We’re all okay.
For a second Pam thought she might be hallucinating or about to black out, but no, the lights really were flickering. She heard dishes crash from the kitchen, then a cry from above.
Alex.
Pam grabbed hold of the banister and dragged herself up the stairs. Dread made her feet heavy. She spent every day afraid, of saying the wrong thing, asking the wrong question, humiliating herself. Standing in line, scrambling for change, she felt her face flush, her heart race, thinking of all the people behind her, waiting. That was all it took to flood her body with terror. She should be used to fear. But God, she did not want to climb these stairs. She heard men’s voices, then Alex. She sounded furious, and so scared. Alex never sounded scared.
Suddenly the jackals were rushing past her again, whimpering and yelping, nearly knocking her from her feet. Why were they going? Why had they come at all? Why did she feel like a stranger in this house she’d spent years in?
At last she reached the landing, but she couldn’t make sense of any of what she saw. There was blood everywhere. The musky stink of animals hung thick in the air. The dean was slumped against the wall, his femur jutting from his leg, a sudden white exclamation point in search of a sentence. Dawes gagged. What was this? What had happened here? Things like this didn’t happen at Il Bastone. They weren’t allowed.
Alex was on her back on the floor and there was a boy on top of her. He was beautiful, an angel with golden curls and the loveliest face she’d ever seen. He was weeping, trembling. They looked like lovers. He had his hands in Alex’s hair, as if he meant to kiss her.
And there was something in Pam’s hands too, warm and softly furred and squirming, a living thing. She could feel its heartbeat against her palms. No. It was just a piece of sculpture, cold and lifeless, the bust of Hiram Bingham III. They kept it on a cane stand by the front door. She couldn’t remember picking it up, but she knew what she was supposed to do with it.
Hit him.
But she couldn’t.
She could call the police. She could run away. But the stone was too heavy in her hands. She didn’t know how to hurt someone, even someone awful like Blake Keely, even after he’d hurt her. Blake had shoved his way into the house and let her lie bleeding on the floor. He’d hurt the dean. He was going to kill Alex.
Hit him.
She was a little girl on the playground, too tall, heavy-breasted, built all wrong. Her clothes didn’t fit. She got tangled in her own feet. She was huddled at the bus stop trying not to react as boys from the high school drove by shouting Show us your tits. She was choosing the back row of every classroom, hunched up in the corner. Afraid. Afraid. She’d spent her whole life afraid.
I can’t.
She wasn’t made like Alex or Darlington. She was a scholar. She was a rabbit, timid and defenseless, no claws or teeth. Her only choice was to run. But where would she run with Darlington gone, the dean, Alex? Who would she be if she did nothing?
She was standing over them, looking down on the boy and Alex. She saw them from a great height, and she was the angel now, maybe a harpy, descending with sword in hand. She raised the bust and brought it down on the beautiful boy’s head. His skull gave way, the sound wet and soft, as if he’d been made of papier-mâché. She hadn’t meant to hit him so hard. Or had she? Little bunny, what did you do? She watched as he slumped to the side. Her own legs gave way and now she wept. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t sure if she was crying for Blake or Darlington or Alex or herself. She bent and vomited. Why wouldn’t the room stop moving?
Pam lifted her head, felt cool air on her cheeks, salt spray. The floor tilted back and forth, a ship adrift on the waves. She clung to the ropes.
* * *
“Try to keep up, Tripp.”
The storm shouldn’t have been a big deal. They’d checked the weather. They always did. Temperature. Pressure. Predicted wind speed.
But every time he was out on the boat, Tripp felt a twitching sense of panic. He was okay when it was just him and his dad or his other cousins, but when Spenser joined them, he got weird. It was like his brain just stopped doing what it was told.
His feet and hands felt bigger. He got slower. Suddenly he had to think, really think, about his left and his right, port and starboard, which was fucking ridiculous. He’d been sailing since he was a kid.
Spenser was just so good at everything. He rode horses and ATVs. He raced bikes and cars. He knew how to shoot, and he worked for a living, made his own money, and he always had some beautiful girl on his arm. Some beautiful woman. They were all accomplished and silky and Tripp felt like a kid around them, even though he was the one at Yale, and Spenser was only a few years older.
Tripp didn’t even understand why Spenser got to take the helm. They’d both sailed competitively, so had his father, but Spenser just slid into the role with a big white smile. Part of it was the way he looked. Sharp, lean. He didn’t have that Helmuth baby face. He had a real jaw, the look of someone you didn’t want to fuck with.
Spenser always addressed Tripp’s father as sir. “A pleasure to be aboard, sir, she handles like a dream.” Then he’d sling an arm around Tripp’s neck and crow, “Tripp, my man!” before he leaned in and whispered, “How’s it going, shitstain?”
When Tripp stiffened up, Spenser would just laugh and say, “Try to keep up.”
And that was how the day went. Grab that line! Get it on the winch! Is that kite ready? Come on, Tripp, try to keep up!
The storm that came in wasn’t a big one. It wasn’t scary. At least no one else seemed to think it was. Tripp had pulled on a life vest, slinging the thin snake of fabric around his neck, strapping it at his waist as he stood in the companionway. You barely knew it was on—it wouldn’t inflate unless it hit the water—so what was the big deal?
But as soon as Spenser saw him, he burst out laughing. “The fuck is wrong with you? It’s rain, dumbass.”
Tripp’s father just turned his face to the sky and laughed, the wind lifting his hair. “Now this is some weather!”
Tripp hated it. The gray swells like the humped shoulders of some big animal, nudging the ship, playing with it. You could really feel the sea beneath you, just how big it was, just how little it cared, the way it could smash a mast, crack a hull, drown them all with a single shrug. All he could do was hold on tight—one hand for yourself, one for the ship, that was the rule, same as the life vest—make himself keep smiling, and pray he wouldn’t vomit, because he’d never hear the end of it.
Spenser hadn’t been fooled.
“Shit your pants yet, pussy?” he said with a grin. “Try to keep up.”
Tripp wanted to scream at him to fuck off and leave him alone. But that would only make things worse. Can’t you take a joke, Tripp? Jesus.
His only hope was to keep pretending that he was in on it, that he loved Spenser the way everyone else did, that it was all good fun. It was pathetic to be scared of a little storm, or his stupid, cocky cousin. Except he had every reason to be terrified of them both. The storm, at least, was just being a storm. It wasn’t out to hurt him. Spenser was something different.
When Tripp was eight, the whole family had gathered at his family’s house for his birthday. Spenser was a jerk even back then, but Tripp hadn’t cared about Spenser that day. It was his birthday and that meant his friends, and a new PlayStation, and the ice cream he liked even though Spenser had shoved his bowl of cookies and cream away and snapped, “I hate this shit.”
Tripp had eaten cake and opened his presents and played in the pool until his friends had gone home and it was just family. He had a sunburn. They were going to cook out that night. He felt lazy and happy, and when he thought about the fact that he didn’t have school tomorrow, that he still had the rest of the weekend to do nothing, it was like he was taking in big gulps of sunshine with every breath.
He’d been swimming around in the shallow end with his new snorkel when he’d emerged to see Spenser standing at the edge of the pool in his long board shorts, his blond hair hanging in a sun-streaked sheaf over his eyes so that Tripp couldn’t quite make out his expression. Tripp had scanned the yard. He’d learned Spenser doled out fewer pinches and punches when someone else was around. But Tripp’s dad and his younger brother were setting up a volleyball net on the other side of the grass. His mother and the other cousins must have already gone inside.
“What’s up?” he’d squeaked, already moving for the steps.
But Spenser was faster. He was always faster. He dropped into the water with barely a splash and slapped his hand against Tripp’s chest, shoving him backward.
“You have a good day?” Spenser asked.
“Sure,” Tripp had said, unsure of why he was suddenly so frightened, struggling not to cry. There was no reason to cry.
