Hellfighters Read online

  Marlow walked, not caring where he was going, just another shell-shocked, blood-soaked victim. The wounded snatched at him, pleaded with him, but he didn’t meet their eyes. He just walked, stepping past the injured, stepping over the dead, until the crowd began to thin. He spotted Pan and Truck, two mismatched lumps of shadow standing farther down the line. It took everything he had just to make it to them, and when he did, he found he was capable of nothing more. He turned back to the train and just watched, watched as the fire spread, as it tore its way out the windows.

  From over the side of the bridge came a roar as another car snapped free, plunging into the canyon. Passengers were scattering, some of them on their cell phones. It wouldn’t be long before the place was crawling with ambulances, police, and other first responders, asking questions to which they would never accept the answers. Pan saw it, too, because she wiped a filthy hand over her bloodied face and turned, walking down the bridge. When nobody followed, she looked back.

  “We can’t stay,” she said.

  “We can’t leave her,” said Truck. He was no longer crying but there was nothing left in him, his face a badly fitted mask, his eyes big and unblinking. “She might have made it, the demons might have come for the Magpie. She might be down there…”

  “She’s dead,” said Pan. “She’s gone. We have to move.”

  The look that Truck shot her could have blown the top of her head off.

  “She’s dead,” Pan said again. “You want to stay here and mourn her then you go for it, but that redhead is still out there somewhere. You stay here, Truck, you let them know how upset you are with them while they’re pulling you to pieces. Okay?”

  He seemed to expand with rage, then just as quickly he deflated, nodding once. Pan looked at Marlow, shrugging her shoulders to say, Come, or don’t. Then she spun away, stumbling over the tracks. Truck followed, sniffing. Marlow paused, wondering what would happen if he went the other way, if he blended into the crowd or vanished into the night. What would happen if he just turned and ran? Would the Circle still cancel his contract? Or would he wake up in a few weeks to the smell of sulfur, to the feeling of a demon sinking its teeth into his flesh?

  And what about everyone else? The chorus of sobs and screams and cries echoed off the mountains, like it was coming from all around him. It was as if the whole world was mourning, and it would be, wouldn’t it? Once Mammon worked out how to unite the Engines, once he found out how to open the gate into hell. Everyone on the planet would be carrying their dead into the night.

  But what could they do? Him, Pan, a powerless Truck?

  And then there were three.

  They still had to find Mammon, had to defeat him, had to kill the redhead and every other Engineer he had on his books. Not to mention whatever else he threw their way. The sheer, staggering impossibility of it almost knocked him to the floor.

  Just run, he told himself. Just keep running.

  Because that would be easier, surely. At least then he wouldn’t have to push on, he wouldn’t have to fight anymore, wouldn’t have to make any more goddamned decisions.

  He’d just keep running until the day hell caught up with him.

  And it was the fear of it that drove him forward, that drove him toward Pan. Because one thought scared him more than anything—that he would burn, and it would all be for nothing.

  He jogged after her, casting one more nervous look over the side of the bridge. The ground below glowed as softly as a dying pyre, embers throbbing as the night took control once more. Then nothing. Only the river remembered, its course forever altered by the ruptured ground—now a lake full of moonlight.

  I’m sorry, Night, he said again as he went. I promise it won’t be for nothing.

  He had no idea if it was a promise he could keep.

  PRAGUE

  Pan wasn’t sure how much later it was that they drove over the city limits into Prague.

  She wasn’t even sure she knew how they’d gotten here.

  She could remember walking, stumbling along the tracks in the dark, seeing the helicopters appear overhead like flies. It had been almost dawn by the time they reached a level crossing, scuffing their way onto the road, shuffling along until the sun was peeking over the horizon and they found their first car. The driver hadn’t been too keen on taking them anywhere—and Pan didn’t blame her, because all three of them were crusted with blood and gore—but a quick burst of lightning from her fingers and a scowl from Truck had given the woman a sudden charitable streak. She’d handed them the car and the keys and half a dozen paper bags filled with groceries and waved them on their way.

  Truck had taken the wheel, even though he didn’t seem like he was capable of driving. The big guy wasn’t talking, and that was fine with her because talking was just too painful. She’d curled up in the passenger seat and tried to switch off, only the memories wouldn’t let her. They were too powerful, flooding her head just as the big silver river had flooded the canyon.

  She had watched them against the dark like they were being played on a projector—Night arriving at the Pigeon’s Nest, so frightened that for all the time Herc was introducing her she hid behind him, her face pressed into his back; Night emerging from the pool after making her first contract, a grin on her face that seemed bright enough to reach the surface.

  Only when the memories became too loud against the silence of the road had they started to talk. It was Truck who kicked off, the words exploding from him like he was a can of soda shaken to the point of detonation, like he just couldn’t keep it in.

  “You remember the story about how Herc found her? How she rolled him over?”

  Night had been fifteen and sleeping rough in Hell’s Kitchen, her days spent pickpocketing tourists while they were on Daredevil tours run by her partner in crime. She’d mistaken Herc for a mark as he was leaving a safe house and tried to snatch his wallet. Herc had always claimed he’d sensed her, that he was too sharp to ever be robbed. But Pan knew differently.

  “Only reason he caught her was because of that stupid squeezy toy he keeps in there.” Incredibly Pan had giggled as she said it, a sound that she could barely recognize. “The one that used to belong to his dog. Started squeaking as she was running down the road.”

  And the stories had spilled out of them, riding on a wave of laughter. Night had died, but right there—speeding across Europe in a battered Volvo with a big plastic grinning Jesus mounted on the dash—they had brought her back to life. It was as if she were riding along with them, sitting in the back with Marlow, staring intently out the window with those big brown eyes the way she always did, chewing her nails and jiggling her leg, unable to stay still. Pan could almost feel Night’s grin like a ray of sunshine on the back of her neck, one that made her hair stand on end.

  Yeah, somewhere down the line they had made her immortal.

  “Weird being here without her, though,” said Truck. The Volvo rattled as he pulled them off the motorway, heading into the center of the city. There were cars everywhere and none of them seemed to be following any rules—everyone serenading one another with honks and curses. Truck jabbed a finger at the driver of a delivery truck, swearing at him out the window. “Sorry,” he said to the plastic Jesus. “But yeah, weird.”

  “Weird without all of them,” said Pan. “Seth, the Lawyers, Betty, even Hanson.”

  The Pigeon’s Nest was gone, almost everyone had been killed. This city just didn’t feel whole without them, didn’t feel real. The anxiety crunched her insides in a fist of steel and she pulled her legs up to her chest like she could just fold herself into nothing, fold herself up and out of the world.

  “What are we doing here anyway?” said Marlow from the backseat. “The Engine is gone.”

  “Really?” she said. “Marlow, I had no idea. Thanks for the news bulletin. Next you’ll be telling me it’s your fault, that you led Charlie inside so that he could hand it over to Mammon. Oh, wait, I knew that, too.”

  Silence, un
til Truck whistled softly. “Awkward,” he muttered.

  “I was just saying,” said Marlow. “The Circle will be expecting us, won’t they? They’ll know we’re coming.”

  Pan took a deep, juddering breath then blew it calmly between her lips.

  “The Red Door was connected to a dozen different cities,” she said. “Prague, Budapest, Rome, places all over Europe. I don’t think the Circle would have known every destination. They might be watching, but I don’t think there will be Engineers here, not unless they followed us from the train.”

  “So…” said Marlow.

  “So Herc got spat out somewhere in Europe, right? This is the place we used more than any other, this was home. If he’s…” She swallowed hard. “If he’s still alive then he’d know to meet us here. He would.”

  Believe it enough and maybe it will come true.

  “You remember where it was?” Pan asked, turning her attention to Truck. He nodded, honking at a jeep as they rumbled over the Vltava River. Pan closed her eyes—she’d be happy if she never saw a bridge again. He swung right at the far end and for a while they bumped and ground their way through traffic, Truck doing his best not to run over the swarms of tourists who spilled out into the streets. Gradually the city grew quieter and the crowds thinned, the grand old buildings of central Prague giving way to cobbled streets and tightly packed apartment buildings.

  “This one?” Truck asked, craning over the wheel to stare at a junction.

  “Next,” she replied, nodding down the street. He turned off when they reached it, the Volvo rattling over the uneven surface, past a handful of abandoned buildings, until they saw the crumbling spire of the old church. Truck pulled up in front of the gates and Pan almost screamed for him to keep going. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to see what Mammon and his freaks had done to the place. Instead she clamped her mouth shut and gripped her seat as Truck cut the engine.

  They fell into a silence that was ocean-deep. She coughed quietly, swallowing hard to try to settle whatever was crawling around in her stomach. She felt properly sick, her guts roiling like something was attempting to turn her inside out. The sensation spread, crawling along the underside of her skin, tickling her bones and making the cavern of her skull seem to ring. She half expected to see Mammon stride around the corner again. But this was a different kind of horror, one that she knew well.

  “The Red Door,” Truck said, scratching at his arm hard enough to leave great big welts there. He was right—that same madness of screams and sighs, insect clicks and whispered tongues. It was fainter now, no doubt about it. The door had gone, but there was a stink in the air like an animal had marked its scent. It didn’t seem possible that just a few days ago walking into this church had carried you through space right into the heart of the Engine.

  “We should probably circle the block awhile,” said Marlow. “Make sure we’re not being watched. Right?”

  “Sure,” she said, popping her door. “You can never be too safe, Marlow.”

  She stepped out into the sweltering heat of Prague, instantly breaking into a sweat. Out here the sensation was worse than ever, like a clutch of wasp eggs had hatched inside her and were burrowing their way out. She doubled over and retched, a string of acidic drool hanging from her lips. When was the last time she had eaten? A day? Two, maybe?

  “Marly’s right, Pan,” said Truck as he followed her out, one hand rubbing his enormous stomach. “Got to be careful, after … you know.”

  She’d almost managed to forget the train for the moment, and his reminder sent a bolt of fury through her. Let them come. Let them try again. She’d murder them for what they did to Night. She’d decorate the streets of this ancient city with the filth that flowed through their veins. A burst of static sparked from her fingertips without her permission.

  She shook loose a handful of sparks and tried to will some strength into her trembling legs. Ahead of her the gates were half open and she pushed through them, fingers splayed and full of charge just in case Marlow and Truck were right. The small courtyard beyond was empty of people but full of stuff—crates and Dumpsters, big halogen spotlights on metal poles, plus the cars. One of Hanson’s ridiculous blue BMW Hurricanes sat facing her, waxed and polished and ready to go.

  He’ll never drive it again, she thought, wondering if there had ever been a time when she could have felt sorry for him.

  She finally turned her attention to the Red Door. Or at least the space where it should have been. The church was still there, the tower a stunted thumb with the top joint missing, its roof a collection of rafters jutting up like a dead man’s ribs. There was a perfect rectangle of darkness in the wall, still kicking out that bowel-loosening sensation of pure evil.

  The gates creaked behind her as Truck rolled in, Marlow peeking out from behind him with big, frightened eyes.

  “Doesn’t exactly look like a war zone,” said Truck.

  “Why would it?” she said, not taking her eyes from Marlow. “Our side didn’t even get a chance to fight.”

  She could picture it, Mammon and his Engineers walking through the courtyard—maybe this one, maybe one of the others—knowing that all they had to do was knock. Charlie would have been waiting for them, would have opened the Red Door from inside and ushered them through. It would have been quick. Bullwinkle and Hope were under contract but neither of them would have been able to stand up to Mammon. Not even Hanson, although he would have put up one hell of a fight. No, it would have been a massacre, pure and simple.

  A sound from the church, then an explosion of wings as a couple of doves took flight. Her heart almost leaped up with them and she had to swallow it back. She watched them rise into the big blue sky then blinked away the sting of the sun. When she looked back at the church all she could see was fire.

  “Come on,” said Truck, walking past her and cupping his hands against the window of one of the Land Rovers. He checked them all then made his way slowly to the church, his fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. “Herc? Yo, Herc, you in there?”

  The sensation in her stomach knotted even tighter. Something was screaming for her to run, to turn tail and get the hell out of here. Truck was hovering by the doorless door and somehow, even though the entry was only a couple of inches taller than him, it seemed to dwarf him, made him look insect-small. The darkness inside was more than just dark, she was sure of it. It was the kind of darkness you got when somebody cut a hole in reality; the kind of darkness you could fall inside and never come out of.

  “Truck,” she said, her voice crackling.

  He braced one hand on the frame and leaned in, his head and shoulders vanishing into the gloom.

  “Truck,” she said again. The itch inside her skull was worse, crawling above her eye socket. Was there a voice there, too? A manic whisper that seemed to come from deep inside her but also from far, far away. She pressed a fist to her forehead, squinting at Truck. He looked as if he had frozen, his top half held in a fist of darkness.

  Marlow walked past her, heading for the church, and she reached out and stopped him.

  Truck was moving, but there was something wrong. His hand was dropping to his side but it was like watching a slow-motion replay. His body was twisting, too, impossibly slowly. It took almost thirty seconds for his shoulder to appear from the darkness of the doorway, the same again for his head.

  “What’s wrong with him?” said Marlow.

  Truck’s face was flickering like a video game glitch, his body seeming to move at different speeds as if he were a collection of parts that had come undone. Then the last of his face peeled free and he snapped back, his words racing out of his mouth.

  “… nooooothiiiing, buuut caan’t see much in there.” He frowned at Pan, shrugged his big shoulders.

  “What?”

  The tickling sensation in the front of her skull shifted to her eye. Something was actually crawling in there, something big. She scratched at it, felt movement beneath her fingers—a
fat, egg-bloated bluebottle, peeling its way from her eyelid. Pan’s scream was too big to fit up her throat, reduced to a groan of horror as she pinched the insect between her fingers. Its hairy body resisted for an instant and then popped into mush that she smeared down her pants.

  “Jesus,” she said, the word almost shaken to pieces by her thrashing heart. “We should go.”

  “Yeah,” said Marlow, nodding furiously. “Yeah, that’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”

  “Truck,” Pan said again. “Come on, this is—”

  The darkness behind Truck was changing, the doorway rippling like spilled ink. A long, thin shape was pushing itself free of it, stretching out of the church, snaking right toward Truck’s shoulder. Pan swore, calling out a warning.

  He heard her too late, the shape branching into a hand, fingers landing on Truck’s shoulder, clenching his shirt. He yelped, throwing his bulk away from the door and wrenching free. Pan was on the move, the charge just about burning a hole in her hand. Whoever was in there, they were about to get fried.

  A voice came oozing from the shadows, starting slowly then catching up with itself. “Easy does it, Pan.”

  The face that spoke was taking shape, pushing itself from the dark—a grizzled chin, a broken nose, more scars than a cage fighter, then two gray eyes that radiated so much warmth, Pan couldn’t help herself. She ran right at him, stumbling over the cobbled ground.