Hellfighters

  “Meridiana,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “We must have, I don’t know, soaked some of her up in that pool.”

  “Makes sense,” said Marlow. “I swallowed about a gallon of that blood. So gross.”

  There were more memories there, Pan realized. She could almost see them—five kids running around the Engine like they were at recess, playing hide-and-seek right here in this forest of metal death, darting between the trees as they chased one another, curling up at night against the huge trunks as if they were Hansel and Gretel. The Engine didn’t just accommodate them, it guarded them—the mechanism grinding to a halt every time one of the children came near, starting up again only when they were safely out of the way.

  It guarded them like a parent with children.

  “Father,” she heard herself say, and she knew that the word hadn’t come from her but from the spirit that now flowed in her veins. She put a hand to her mouth but words still spilled out of her. “Father, it’s me, it’s Meridiana.”

  “What did you say?” asked Marlow.

  “Nothing,” she said, then she lost control of her mouth, the words tumbling out. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. It’s the only way we can all go home. It has been too long, we have all suffered too much.”

  The Engine seemed to pull harder at its binds of time, like a captive mummified in duct tape. And Pan saw more images, a thing that might have been a man, or something much worse, cradling five babies in arms that had too many joints, feeding them with fingers that had too many segments. She could feel the sadness flowing from it, the grief of some vast and unbearable loss.

  “I know you did this to save us.” Meridiana spoke again from Pan’s mouth. “But now it is time to save us again. Let us do this, and let us go.”

  A click from somewhere out in the Engine, a soft whir as if part of it had managed to break free. She could feel the rest of it tugging, thrashing, pulling at the force that held it. Even time was struggling to hold it still.

  “We should get a move on,” said Herc from somewhere behind her. “I don’t like this.”

  Pan broke into a clearing the size of a classroom. Meridiana was inside her head, clearer now, pointing her to a path through the mechanism.

  “You ever hear of there being a heart in the Engine?” she said, looking at Herc as he stepped out.

  “A heart?” he said, shaking his head. “Like a real one? No, nothing like that. But there are parts of this thing we haven’t even gotten close to yet. Why a heart? And whose heart?”

  She didn’t know, not for sure. But she saw it again, something so old, and so sad, that its heartache had broken the universe.

  Father.

  “We need supplies,” she said. “It might take us days to even reach it. Herc, can you go back up and see if there’s anything left—”

  More movement from somewhere nearby. This time it was a spark, flashing between two sections of the machine—there and gone before she could really see it. Another one blasted out of the ground two dozen yards away, crackling upward and releasing a pulse of thunder.

  “Uh-oh,” said Charlie. “If this thing comes back to life then we’re hamburger—literally.”

  But there was no sign of anything else moving, just two more whipcracks of lightning that snapped overhead. She ducked beneath them, clapping her hands to her ears as the air rumbled.

  It should have been one, said a voice in her head, in her blood. Only one.

  She screamed as two bolts of lightning discharged from the mechanism beside her, turning the whole world white.

  “What?” she yelled. “I don’t—”

  But she did, she did understand. It couldn’t have been any clearer, especially when the stench of sulfur rolled through the air, searing its way up her nostrils like mustard gas, especially when a grating shriek clattered down from the shadowed ceiling, especially when the heat of the ground began to creep up through the soles of her sneakers.

  It was suddenly, awfully, utterly clear.

  Hell is a place you walk to on your own two feet.

  How could they have been so stupid?

  “Only one,” she said, turning to Marlow.

  “Only one what?”

  Only one of you can enter the pool, Meridiana had said. Or you will both die.

  “Only one contract,” she said.

  And Marlow barely had time to say “Oh” before the first demon tore free from the ceiling and crashed down beside them.

  TO HELL

  It almost crushed him, a thrashing, dog-sized creature that hit the floor, spitting shrapnel. It was made of stone but he could see the demon inside it, the same feral force of nature that they’d come face-to-face with in Meridiana’s cavern. This one wasn’t here to herd them, though.

  It was here to take their souls.

  “No!” roared Herc, his Desert Eagle out. He squeezed off two shots that punched holes in the demon’s face. Before he could fire off a third the demon was running, charging into the old guy like he wasn’t even there. Herc flew one way, the gun flew another, the demon accelerating fast.

  There was another thud, then the grating shriek of metal on stone as something tried to claw its way through the Engine to get to them. There was no time to worry about it, the first demon almost on them, leaping up on stunted legs.

  Marlow moved fast, throwing himself into Pan and sending them both sprawling. He felt the ground shudder as the demon landed behind them, heard Charlie shouting something to distract it.

  Shouting wouldn’t work. Nothing would stop the demons from collecting what they were owed.

  “No!” Pan said as they scrambled to their feet. “It’s not fair, we—”

  She ducked to one side and Marlow to the other, the demon skidding in between them. Then Herc was there, holding a baseball-bat-sized piece of steel he’d taken from the Engine. He brought it down like a sledgehammer, the demon’s head exploding into dust. He hit it again, and again, until it stopped squirming.

  “This is your fault!” Pan yelled, her finger pointing at Marlow. “Why the hell did you jump in, too? It was supposed to be me, I was supposed to do it. This is your fault!”

  It was. The Engine couldn’t make two full contracts so it had forged two broken ones. They were disintegrating as they spoke.

  Footsteps, galloping through the Engine, a guttural growl from close by. The terror was poison in Marlow’s veins, seizing him up, slowing him down. He couldn’t think straight.

  “I didn’t want you to go alone,” he said, the words drowned out by the crash of a third demon falling from the ceiling. This one landed on its back, squirming like a beetle. It flipped onto its long, ungainly legs then turned its eyeless face toward Pan, stone teeth grinding.

  “Run!” yelled Herc.

  Marlow staggered into action, the ground so hot that his sneakers were melting. He ran, but what was the point? They would keep coming. They would drag his soul down through the molten earth, where it would scream and scream and—

  “Marlow!”

  He couldn’t even tell who’d shouted his name. Something drove into him and he was airborne. He landed hard, his arm snapping as it broke his fall. The pain was like another nuclear weapon detonating inside his wrist and he clamped it to his chest, his cries too big to fit up his throat. He turned onto his back, the ground griddle-pan hot. But he wanted to see it coming. He didn’t want to die screaming into the dirt.

  The demon reared above him, its forelegs clubs of stone that were bigger than Marlow’s head. They would crush him into jelly. Its crude face was split in two, nothing but teeth and a gaping hole for a throat. It grunted, coughing out a cloud of warm, slaughterhouse stench. It sniffed like a bull, testing the air, trying to work out who he was.

  Then it leaped right over him.

  What?

  It was charging across the clearing, its feet cracking the stone floor. Through its legs Marlow could see Pan stumbling back in horror.

  No.

  He
pushed himself up, Charlie there to help him. Another demon crawled up from the floor, this one half stone, half metal. It ran right for Pan. They all ran for her.

  No.

  He ran, too, but Charlie held him back, the pain in Marlow’s arm flaring in Charlie’s grip. Herc was halfway across the clearing, yelling Pan’s name as he reloaded the pistol. He fired, but it was no good—the bullets ricocheting off stone and pinging into the Engine. Bullets were no good. They needed powers.

  The demons converged on Pan, and through their hulking forms Marlow saw the moment she resigned herself.

  No.

  She turned her eyes to him, that same expression of grim death as when he’d first seen her in the parking lot back on Staten Island—like she was about to head-butt her way through a brick wall. Back then he’d thought she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and nothing had changed. He reached out to her as if there wasn’t twenty yards of hell between them. She just looked back, her fists balled, her eyes burning like that first time. Back then she’d looked like she could take on the whole world single-handed, and nothing had changed.

  “Finish this,” she said. The noise of the demons as they closed in was too loud to make her out, but he read the words on her lips. “Just finish it for me.”

  “No!” Marlow yelled, the word burning out of him, full of fury.

  And he could have been back there, in the smoke and horror of that first fight. Back then the demon had plunged its scorpion tail through her heart, and nothing had changed. One of the demons lunged with a shining talon and it sank into Pan’s chest, flicking out the other side in a fountain of blood. She gritted her teeth. She didn’t scream. She just mouthed those words again.

  Finish this.

  “No!” Marlow shouted again.

  The demon’s other talon slid into the soft flesh of Pan’s neck and her eyes went out like somebody had flicked a switch. Then she was gone, hidden behind the thrashing forms of the demons as they clubbed and stabbed and bit and tore and shrieked with delight. The ground was glowing now, as bright as the sun. The heat blasting off it was furnace-hot and Marlow had to stagger away, hands up to protect his face.

  Back then, in the parking lot, Pan had come back to life—the Engine stitching her back together, making her whole.

  Not this time.

  He could hear her. Even though she was no longer alive, even though she no longer had lungs or a throat or a mouth, Marlow could still hear her scream.

  She would be screaming until the end of time.

  He collapsed to his knees, howling into his hands.

  Take it back take it back take it back.

  There had to be something he could do, there had to be. He could fight them, or rewind time, or pick up the broken pieces of her and put her back together. There had to be something. But all he could do was kneel there, rocking back and forth, Pan’s endless, breathless cry echoing through his skull as she was dragged into hell.

  OPEN YOUR EYES

  He didn’t want to look, but he forced himself to, smudging away the tears until the world came back into focus. There was nothing left of Pan but a steaming smear of blood on the molten stone. But the demons still fought over her, trying to devour every last piece. Her scream had fallen silent, her soul already dragged to wherever it was the demons took them. Marlow could still hear it, though. He would hear that sound until the day he died.

  He gagged, trying to get to his feet and falling hard. There was nothing left in him.

  Herc was trying to approach the demons but the heat was too much. He dropped to his knees in the flickering haze, howling her name, his hands clawing at his head as if he was trying to tear it open, rip out the memories of the last few seconds.

  Charlie stood beside Marlow, quiet, his jaw clenched.

  “We don’t have long,” he said.

  “What?” was all Marlow could think of to say. Pan was dead. She was worse than dead. Hell had her now, and all it had to offer was an eternity of suffering. Charlie held out a hand to him, glancing at the chaos where Pan had died. The demons seemed to be slowing, which was weird. Why weren’t they coming for him, too?

  “Come on,” Charlie said. “You might have more time. We might be able to do this.”

  “Let them take me,” Marlow said. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It matters to me,” said Charlie. “It matters to everyone else on this planet. You’re the only one who can go out there, who can find whatever it was Meridiana showed you. You’re the only one who can destroy the Engine.”

  “It’s my fault,” he said, the hatred boiling inside him. “I never should have gone in the pool. I should have waited. She died because of me.”

  “And don’t let it be for nothing,” said Charlie. “You heard her. Finish this. Finish it for her.”

  One of the demons had frozen completely, the other two pawing weakly at the ground. It was glowing less fiercely now as the passage to hell closed up, sealing Pan down there. They still showed no interest in Marlow.

  Herc limped over, his feet scuffing on the broken floor. His skin was glowing from the heat, his forehead blistered. But it was his eyes that burned most fiercely. He looked at Marlow and in that second Marlow saw a world’s worth of rage. Then he blinked, swallowing it back down.

  “Charlie’s right,” he croaked. “This is our only shot. We’ve got to get to work.”

  Marlow took a deep, wheezing breath. Reaching into his pocket, he fired off a hit of his inhaler, the blockage shifting. Then he grabbed Charlie’s hand. Standing up was the single hardest thing he had ever had to do, but he managed it. Charlie clung on to him, the only thing stopping him from falling.

  But then maybe falling wasn’t such a bad thing? Maybe he’d fall right through the cooling stone, right into hell. After all, hell couldn’t be that bad, could it? Not with Pan there.

  “I have to—” He broke into a coughing fit, the monster trying to wrap its fingers around his throat. He used his inhaler again, watching the second demon freeze into a sculpture of itself. “I have to go get her.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Herc.

  “I mean it,” he said. “She’s down there. I can find her.”

  And he could, couldn’t he? It was hell, but they didn’t even know what that meant. If he’d learned anything in the last few weeks it was that in this world, nothing was as it seemed.

  “Marlow,” said Herc, planting his hands on Marlow’s shoulders. He fixed him with those tired gray eyes. “Pan is gone. But you’re still here. We can still end this. Nobody has ever come back.”

  “I can—”

  “Think of your mom, Marlow.”

  But he couldn’t. All he could see was Pan. All he could feel was her face pushed into his neck, her lips against his, the unmistakable, unforgettable smell of her.

  He looked past Herc and Charlie. The last demon seemed to be recovering, its movements growing faster. It looked up from the ground, its stone snout sniffing at the air, searching for him. His heart gave a sudden concussive thump, one that made his whole body rattle. And he didn’t know whether it was fear he felt, or something else.

  Excitement.

  Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what he had to do.

  “You finish it,” he said, not taking his eyes from the demon.

  “We can’t,” Herc growled. “Not without a contract.”

  “Dude,” said Charlie. “We need you. Come on. Don’t you dare run from this.”

  The demon opened its muzzle and roared. Herc and Charlie twisted around, the three of them watching as it tugged its feet free from the setting stone.

  “No,” said Charlie.

  “I’ll take it,” said Herc, hefting the iron bar. “Charlie, get to the armory, there are shotguns in there. I’ll hold them back.”

  Marlow pushed past him.

  “No,” he said. “You won’t. Let them take me, and I’ll find her.”

  “Please, Marlow,” said Charlie, a te
ar winding its way down from his eye, instantly evaporating. “After everything we’ve been through, don’t do this. Don’t run. All those times you left me, man. All those times you thought you’d do better by yourself. This isn’t one of them. We can fight them.”

  A spark of lightning from somewhere out in the Engine. More demons on their way.

  “You guys do what you can,” said Marlow. “I’ve got my mission.”

  “She’ll hate you,” said Herc. “I can promise you that. You give yourself to the demons like this, without a fight, and even if you manage to find her, even if you make it through the pits of hell and somehow find her, she’ll know what you did.”

  But it was Pan.

  It was Pan.

  “Remember Brianna,” said Herc. “Nobody comes back, ’cept as a wormbag. You do that to her and she’ll hate you for the rest of time.”

  But this was different. He wasn’t using the Engine to bring her back, he was going down there himself.

  It would work.

  He took another step toward the demon and it stared at him with that eyeless face. Its stone muscles flexed, its snout flaring as it searched him, as it tried to work out what he was doing. The last few days were a blur of terror and violence but there was still a voice inside him—not his, but Meridiana’s. She rode inside his blood and through her eyes he saw a place of ruin and fire, a place that looked so alien, but also so familiar.

  Somebody has come back. Her words whispered against the inside of his skull, as soft as spider legs. Hell is just a word.

  “Hell is just a word,” he repeated.

  Someone grabbed his arm but he tugged himself loose, taking another step.

  “Marlow,” said Charlie.

  “I’m sorry,” Marlow said, looking back, and the way his friend’s face fell broke his heart. He turned to Herc, and he wasn’t sure if the words he spoke belonged to him or to Meridiana. “Nothing is what it seems.”

  Nobody replied. Charlie turned away, staring out into the Engine. Herc just watched, shaking his head.

  “You always run,” said Charlie.