Hellfighters

  “Right,” said Pan, breathing out a long, slow breath. She clutched her head, hard. It felt like the only way to stop it splitting open, to stop her brains slopping out. “So we can throw ourselves into that puddle of blood, hope that we don’t drown, hope that this crazy old woman’s machine works and we can somehow make a contract, then go find Ost—him—and hope that whatever powers we have are enough to kick his fat ass, before coming back here and hoping that this nutjob can crack our contracts before we get dragged to hell.”

  And the thought of it was prison-dark, a metal cage around her soul. It just seemed so much, so impossible. How had she gotten here? A girl from Queens who’d once dreamed of owning a cake shop in the city, of an apartment in Brooklyn and a cat. How many wrong turns had she made for her to be walking into hell like this, on her own two feet?

  “Or we sit it out here for a hundred thousand years,” said Marlow, chewing his blood-caked knuckles. “I bet she doesn’t even have an Xbox.”

  “Call them choices?” muttered Herc with a weary smile. He clapped a big hand on her shoulder, drawing her close. “I’m sorry, Pan,” he said softly. “I really am. I never should have come to you.”

  “What?” she said, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. “And left the world-saving to Marlow and Charlie? Yeah, right.”

  She stood straight, and when the world stopped spinning she nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “Tell us what we have to do.”

  She was answered not by Meridiana, but by a retching sound behind her. She looked to see Claire there, doubled over and holding her stomach. She was sobbing, bile dribbling from her lips.

  “I am sorry,” Claire said.

  “No big deal, kiddo,” said Herc. “Don’t blame you for chucking your guts in a place like this.”

  “No,” she said. “I am sorry.”

  She puked hard, her whole body convulsing with the force of it. Something fat and black dropped from her lips, wriggling like a giant slug. And suddenly the cavern was a hurricane of noise, every face screaming. Meridiana pointed a finger at Claire, her withered face a Halloween mask of terror. She pointed, and she screamed.

  You brought him here.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” said Claire, staggering back, her words almost lost in the storm. “He made me.”

  “Ostheim,” said Pan.

  And the black slug thing exploded.

  KNOCK KNOCK

  The world went from nightmare to chaos in a heartbeat, leaving Marlow reeling.

  Whatever had just fallen from Claire’s mouth was swelling fast, sprouting dozens of beetle-black limbs. They erupted from its flesh in every direction, pushing their way into the Engine, into the eyes and mouths of the faces there, and erupting from the backs of heads.

  You brought him here! Meridiana and her faces howled. You have ended us!

  “He made me!” the French girl cried.

  It had to have happened back in the Nest, Marlow realized, when they’d left her upstairs. Claire stumbled, backing away on all fours like a crab. She wasn’t quick enough, though, those obsidian tendrils worming over her, covering her. “No! You promised me! You promised you’d—”

  Then she was gone.

  “Move!” yelled Herc, driving them across the stone toward the pool of blood.

  Meridiana opened her mouth and howled, a cry so deep that it was almost subsonic. It was answered by a distant scream, then another one. Two demons appeared on the crest of the hill, pausing for a second, then bounding down it. More followed, an avalanche of twisted forms glistening in the torchlight.

  Destroy him, Meridiana ordered.

  The slug thing was now car-sized, its sides bulging. Thick black cords stretched from it like rancid intestines, pouring poison into the Engine. Even as Marlow watched the organic mechanisms began to darken, the faces closest to the pool withering and shrinking, falling still.

  Snarling, the first of the demons pounced. The slug thing saw the attack coming, pushing out a razor-tipped spike that skewered the beast in midair. It screamed, thrashing. The next was luckier, thumping into the side of the abomination and sinking its teeth into the oil-slick flesh. The side of the slug burst like a wormbag, black steaming water pouring out of it. But it was still growing, as big as a van now, bloated and awful. It sounded like the whole universe was screaming.

  Meridiana was on the move, too, running across the bay.

  Marlow held up his hands in defense, waiting for the attack, waiting for that silver blade to puncture his skin. She loomed over him, maybe eight feet tall. She loomed over all of them. She was so close that this time when she spoke, Marlow could hear her voice above its earthshaking chorus.

  “You must be quick,” she said. “Use our Engine before it is destroyed.”

  Jump into that lake of oily blood? It didn’t seem like the best idea in the world. Marlow looked back to where the slug thing seethed with demons, dozens of them writhing on its back and sides, opening wounds in its skin. Spikes sliced upward from it, piercing the demons, holding them upright as they shivered and fell still. It was like a forest of staked, flayed men.

  Maybe the pool wasn’t so bad after all.

  “What do we trade for?” said Pan. “There’s nothing. Nothing can beat that.”

  “You cannot overpower him,” she said. “But you can outsmart him. Trade for the knowledge of how to pass in between.”

  “What?” said Marlow. The noise behind him was like a raging battle between two armies. The slug thing was now thirty feet tall and just as wide, a bloated, cancerous mass whose tendrils pushed out into the Engine. Everything around it was graying, dying. Only a handful of demons were still alive to fight. And when they were gone, Pan knew, it would come for them.

  “Trade for the vision,” Meridiana said. “Trade for the ability to step out of time, to step behind and between the physics of the universe. It will let you open up a pocket of time. Just go. It is our blood. It will show you what to do.”

  “Time travel,” said Marlow, thinking back to his first time in the Engine. “But that contract can’t be broken. It’s impossible.”

  “That word again,” said Meridiana. “So human. So meaningless. Go, child. Go now. But only one, or you will both die.”

  She whirled around, her rags fluttering as she charged toward the beast. Meridiana called out again, the Engine seeming to come to life—those countless heads tugging pathetically at the stone they were fixed to like they meant to roll to her aid.

  “You get any of that?” Marlow said, turning to the pool. The surface of the water was pocked with ripples, as if there was something alive in there. This body of liquid, like the one in the Engine, gave off absolutely no reflection. Leaning over it, he could not see an inch of what lay below.

  “No, did you?” Pan asked.

  Marlow shook his head, looking at her, then at Herc and Charlie. Behind them the slug was building-sized, devouring the Engine like a white blood cell consuming a virus. Its bloated form was spilling out across the stone, maybe forty feet away and gaining fast. It had no face of any kind but Marlow could sense Ostheim there. The rancid, acidic stench of him clawed its way into his sinuses.

  It was either that or the pool.

  “Talk about being caught between a giant, world-ending slug and a hard place,” he said.

  “Who’s going?” Herc yelled.

  “Me,” said Pan without hesitation.

  “Hang on,” said Marlow, but Pan was already stepping over the edge. He grabbed her arm, trying to wrestle her back. Gravity already had her, pulling her in. He let go, arms wheeling, but it was too late. “No!”

  And for the second time in his life, he found himself falling into a pool of pure evil.

  He hit it without sound or feeling, as if the liquid had yawned open beneath him. There was just silence, and darkness, then suddenly the sensation of thick, warm blood against his face. He held his breath for as long as he could but he’d breathed out just before he fell
and his lungs were empty. They screamed inside him, feeling like they were attempting to crack open his chest. And when he could bear it no more he opened his mouth and took a breath.

  The coppery roar of blood filled him, choking him. And it was as if Meridiana had ridden the wave into his soul. He saw her, just a child, her and her brothers. Five of them, playing inside the heart of the Engine as if it were a jungle gym. He saw through the Engine, too, to a world of darkness, a world where they lived. She had been right. These were not monsters, they were gods, long forgotten and full of fury. Marlow could feel the horror of them, and it promised to wring every last drop of goodness from his soul. He saw a man inside a storm, a beast who seemed to inhale whole cities through the tornado of his mouth. He saw a man inside what looked like an orchard whose face was a shifting illusion of forms, whose blood turned children into monsters. There were so many of them, countless unspeakable things, but it towered above them all—the creature he had already seen in the Engine, that mountain of madness that watched through the countless clustered rot holes of its face.

  He closed his eyes but still he saw it, as if the sheer brute force of it had burned through his eyelids. He panicked, the blood gushing down his throat, as solid inside his windpipe as an iron bar.

  What is it you desire? the creature said, a voice that resonated inside his skull.

  Visions flashed before him, visions of the world drowning in blood and fire, demons stalking the streets, visions of Pan and Charlie and his mom screaming to him as they rotted away. Then, when it was too much, when it felt like he could scream himself into oblivion, they vanished—as quickly and absolutely as if somebody had flicked a switch.

  He stood on Staten Island, on the waterfront. The old neighborhood was an oasis of calm, just the sputter of an accelerating car, a distant honk, the ceaseless chatter from the birds and the lull of the water. Across the bay lay Manhattan, sparkling in the sun. The ferry was pulling away from the terminal, a chopper shadowing it.

  “You all right, man?” said Charlie beside him.

  Marlow turned, gulping like a fish out of water. His friend smiled at him. “You zoned out for a minute there.”

  “What?” Marlow asked.

  “You went AWOL,” Charlie said, kicking a stone into the grass. “Anyway, come on, let’s head back. Got homework to do and PewDiePie to binge on. You stopping at mine?”

  Marlow shook his head, feeling the wind in his hair, the sun on his skin. A gull wheeled overhead, crying out. It was all real, it was so real. If he just kept walking then he’d get back to his house, he’d go in through the front door and his mom would wrap her skinny arms around him, would smother him with kisses. Donovan would try to wrestle them both to the floor, the old dog’s tail thumping. All he had to do was wish it.

  All he had to do was ask.

  No, he said. No, no, no.

  “Please,” said Charlie. A bead of blood leaked from his eye, winding down his cheek. More dropped from his nose, pattering on the asphalt. His face was wilting, the meat sliding off the bone. “Please, Marlow. Just take us home, just take us back.”

  “No!” Marlow’s scream bubbled out of him and the scene erupted, fading into blood.

  Another shape floated where Charlie had stood, a dark outline growing closer. Then Pan was there, her face grim with determination as she churned through the pool. She reached for him and they grabbed each other, sinking fast.

  What is it you desire?

  What had Meridiana said?

  No more than one, or you will both die.

  It was a little too late to worry about that so he focused on what she’d asked them to wish for. The ability to travel through time? To travel behind and between. It didn’t make any sense but he said it anyway, beaming the thought out toward the creature that sat there. He could see Pan doing the same, her lips working silently.

  I want to travel through time, I want to travel in between. I want to travel through time. I want to travel in between. He said it again and again, pushing every other thought away.

  It is done, said the voice. And the price is your soul.

  He kicked upward, Pan doing the same. It was too far, he wouldn’t make it, he wouldn’t—

  He exploded from the surface of the pool, clawing in a shrieking breath. Pan was there next to him and they hugged desperately, pulling each other beneath the surface again. Marlow reached, found the lip of the pool. He spat out a mouthful of hot, salty blood. Somebody grabbed his arm but he couldn’t see who through the mucus over his eyes—everything bloodred and blurry. The noise inside the cavern was unbelievable, a million-strong orchestra of screams.

  “Come on!” said Herc, hauling him up. “We gotta go.”

  Marlow wiped his face on his hands until the world came into focus. No time had passed while they were in the pool, Meridiana still charging into battle, the slug thing ballooning ever-outward. Herc heaved Pan up and she vomited a stomachful of blood all over him.

  “You’re alive, then,” Herc said matter-of-factly.

  And Marlow was surprised, too, because Meridiana had told them the pool would hold only one.

  Herc threw Pan’s arm over his shoulders, guiding her around the edge of the pool. “We’ll have to flank it,” he roared.

  Marlow staggered after them, Charlie at his side. He kept looking back expecting to see the freak twist its behemoth body around, to flop and roll after them. But whatever this thing was, it was mindless. It was a weapon, programmed to destroy Meridiana’s creation. She hurled herself at it, her glinting blade unleashing a torrent of black fluid. Then Marlow tripped and turned to face front, using everything he had left to put one foot in front of the other.

  Only when the slug thing was a hundred feet behind them did they cut to the side, scaling the dune of screaming faces. Marlow scrambled upward, not caring where he put his hands and feet, grabbing hold of strands of hair, of wet, open jaws, of ribs and bones and ropy sinews. The faces simply screamed, capable of nothing more than watching as their creator fought.

  Marlow closed his eyes, trying to find his new powers in the confusion. He reached out with his mind, grabbing hold of time. But nothing happened.

  “Not working,” he said, his lungs like bagpipes. He reached for his inhaler and took a shot only to find another gout of blood on his tongue. The monster he’d known since childhood had its hands around his throat again, squeezing hard.

  Pan and Herc had reached the summit of the living dune, vanishing over the top. Charlie offered Marlow a hand, hauling him up the last few feet. They ran down the other side together, hand in hand, tripping and slipping on the wet, roiling, screaming ground. The end of the cavern was a patch of darkness in the trembling reef and they ran for it. Herc ushered Pan through, then turned, waving Marlow and Charlie on.

  Marlow careered through the gap, skidding to a halt and looking back. The slug thing was so big now that it could be seen over the top of the hill, those black tendrils flailing. Whatever Meridiana was doing, it wasn’t working. If it carried on growing like that then it would soon fill the entire cavern.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Pan was there, drenched in clotted blood.

  “You feel anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Maybe it didn’t work,” he said. “I mean, she was crazy.”

  “Worked for her,” said Pan. “She cloned herself a million times. I’m definitely under contract, I feel like crap.”

  So did he, now that she’d mentioned it—the same deep, sapping ache of the Engine. All he wanted to do was sleep.

  Not with that thing still growing behind him, though.

  Herc was on the move again, leading them up the short passageway and back into the vaulted room. The lonely shop sat where they had left it, its red door still open. They sloshed through the puddles and stopped outside. A booming cry rolled through from the cavern, loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling.

  “The mirrors, right?” said Charlie. “That
has to be what she was talking about. Stepping through mirrors. I mean, it brought us here.”

  It made sense. Marlow followed Herc inside, the walls doing nothing to mute the noise from the cavern. They passed through the empty front room into the back. The sole mirror still stood there, Truck and Jaime frozen inside it. Pan put her fingers to the glass. Nothing. She thumped her fist against it, shunting the frame back a couple of inches. Still nothing. Screaming in frustration, she kicked out at the mirror and it toppled, hitting the floor with a thud.

  “Hey, cool your heels,” said Herc.

  “It should work,” she shouted back. “I don’t get it.”

  A tear wound its way through the blood on her face, her body shaking like she was holding in an explosion. When Marlow walked toward her, though, she fired him a look that was more terrifying than the slug thing in the next room.

  He held his hands up in surrender. “If it’s not the mirror, then what?” he said. There was nothing else in the room, nothing else in the building. The hopelessness crept into his marrow, building in his chest. If they didn’t find the answer soon then he was going to lose it again, like back in the stairwell in Paris, start tearing through the walls and the floor. He chewed on a knuckle, the pain helping him focus.

  “There were more archways in the room outside,” said Herc. “Three of ’em. There has to be a way out there.”

  “Why wouldn’t she just tell us?” Pan said. “Stupid, crazy bitch. Why didn’t she just tell us how to do it?”

  She doubled back, retreating out of the building. Herc thumped into the door in his haste and it slammed into the wall, rebounding and swinging shut. Marlow grabbed it before it could close and felt a rush of grief pass through him, the sensation of stepping out of the sun and into the cold, damp shade of a mausoleum. When he let go of the door the feeling passed, and he’d taken a few more steps out into the vaulted cellar before it struck him. He looked back.

  The shop had a red door. Faded, yes, the handle green with verdigris. But definitely red.

  “Hey, guys, wait up.”