quite another to have it literally give you the finger.
Alex wondered how much Lethe had shared with Centurion. Did they hand him the
same Life of Lethe booklet? A long file full of horror stories? A commemorative mug that said Monsters Are Real ? Alex had spent her life surrounded by the uncanny and it had still been hard to let in the reality of Lethe. What would it be like for someone who had
grown up in what he believed was an ordinary city— his city—who had been an instrument of order on its streets, to suddenly know that the most basic rules did not apply?
“She need a doctor?” A woman stood in the hall, her cell phone in her hand. “I heard a commotion.”
Turner flashed his badge. “Help is on the way, ma’am. Thank you.”
That badge was a kind of magic too. But the woman turned to Alex. “You okay,
honey?”
“I’m good,” Alex managed, feeling a pang of warmth for this stranger in a bathrobe, even as she cradled her phone to her chest and shuffled away.
Alex tried to raise her head, the pain spiking through her like a whip crack. “You need
to take me somewhere warded. Someplace they can’t get to me, understand?”
“They.”
“Yes, they. Ghosts and ghouls and inmates who can walk through walls. It’s all real, Turner, not just a bunch of college kids dressing up in robes. And I need your help.”
Those were the words that woke him. “There’s a uniform out front, and I can’t carry you past him without answering a whole heap of questions—and you sure can’t walk out
on your own.”
“I can.” But, God, she didn’t want to. “Reach into my right pocket. There’s a little bottle in there with a dropper.”
He shook his head but dug into Alex’s pocket. “What is this?”
“Basso belladonna. Just put two drops in my eyes.”
“Drugs?” asked Turner.
“Medication.”
Of course that placated him. Turner the Eagle Scout.
As soon as the first drop hit her eyes, she knew she’d made a bad miscalculation. She
felt instantly energized, ready to move, act, but the basso belladonna did nothing to ease
the pain, only made her more aware of it. She could feel the places where her broken bones were pressing that they shouldn’t, where the blood vessels had burst, the capillaries
ruptured and swelling.
The drug was telling her brain that everything was okay, that anything was possible, that if she willed it, she could heal herself right now. But the pain was shrieking panic, banging on her awareness, a fist against glass. She could feel a splinter starting, her sanity like a windshield that wasn’t meant to break. She’d been called crazy countless times, had
sometimes believed it, but this was the first time she’d felt insane.
Her heart was thundering. I’m going to die here.
You’re fine. Through how many late nights and long afternoons had she said that to someone who’d smoked too much, swallowed too much, snorted too much? Breathe
through it. You’re fine. You’re fine.
“Meet me on Tilton,” she told Turner, pushing to her feet. He was beautiful. The basso belladonna had lit his brown skin like a late-summer sunset. Light bounced off the short
stubble of his shaved head. Medication, my ass. The pain screamed as her broken ribs shifted.
“This is a terrible idea,” he said.
“The only kind I have. Go on.”
Turner blew out an exasperated breath and went.
Alex’s hyped-up mind had already plotted a route down the back hall and out onto the
rickety landing. The air was cool and moist against her fevered skin. She could see every
grain of the weathered gray wood, feel sweat blooming on her cheeks and turning cold in
the winter air. It was going to snow again.
Down the little row of steps. Just hop them, said the drug lighting up her system.
“Please shut up,” gasped Alex.
Everything seemed to be coated in a smooth, silvery sheen, painted in high gloss. She
forced herself to walk instead of run, her bones scraping against each other like a violin
bow. The blacktop of the alley behind Tara’s apartment glittered, the stink of garbage and