Hellraisers (2 page)

“You do understand what this is?” the principal asked. “You do understand that you're finished here?”

Marlow ignored him, taking a step back toward the door. He reached down to his pocket, for the inhaler, and Yogi grabbed his hand.

“What you got in there, kid?” he asked.

Nothing,
Marlow tried to say, producing a sound like a broken accordion. He tried to shake his hand free but Yogi's grip was a python's, made his bones feel like snapping. He could hear the cop talking, telling him to calm down, but his heartbeat was loud enough to bring down the walls of the office. He felt like he was being held underwater. Panic made him act before he even knew what he was doing, his hands darting out and slamming into Yogi's chest. The man was made of solid oak but he was unprepared, the push catching him off balance. He staggered back, letting go of Marlow, arms cartwheeling wildly. He crashed into the desk, sending papers flying.

Marlow didn't wait to see what happened next. He turned, shouldering past another of the cops, his lungs running on empty. He burst back out into the sun-filled hallway, skidding toward the metal detectors standing sentry just inside the doors. A quick look behind him let him know that they were in pursuit.

Charlie stood farther down the hallway, back toward the classroom. He waved his arms frantically, mouthing
Go!
Marlow nodded to him, then turned, bolting out one of the doors and across the parking lot. He dug the inhaler from his pocket as he went, squeezing off a few shots and feeling his lungs loosen up, the relief of being able to breathe again so good that he almost didn't hear the doors open behind him, the principal's voice screaming out: “You're expelled! Green, you hear me? Run all you want, there's no coming back!”

Marlow did just that, sprinting past the Prius with its brand-new decoration. He spun around as he went.

“Nice car,
dick
!”

And even though he was well and truly burned, even though he could hear his future being flushed, even though it was probably the worst comeback in the history of comebacks, he was grinning as he fled.

 

SLAUGHTERHOUSE

“We're in trouble.”

Pan didn't need anyone to tell her that. It was pretty damn clear that they were in trouble.
Big
trouble. They were barreling down the Cross Island Expressway at eighty miles an hour, the truck roaring like a jet plane. Most of the cars on the road had the good sense to swerve out of their way, but a couple had been shunted off the tarmac by the Ford F-650's custom grille guard. Pan hadn't looked back to see what happened to them. There were more important things at stake.

Her life, for one.

She checked her watch. There was no time on the display, just a line of bright red numbers.
00:00:32:21.
There were way too many zeroes there for her liking. Thirty-two minutes, counting fast. Thirty-two minutes until they came for her. She checked her black Kevlar body suit, designed to withstand a close-range shot from a .44 Magnum. Not that it mattered. It wouldn't last five seconds against what was coming.

“Serious trouble,” said the guy sitting next to her. His name was Forrest, although Pan didn't like to think of him as something with a name. It made it too difficult. You didn't name cattle when you sent them to the slaughterhouse. His skin was a nasty shade of gray, coated in sweat, and it wasn't surprising. He'd made his contract ten minutes before her so he'd have ten minutes less on his countdown. He wiped his brow, then sat forward in his seat looking like he was going to puke. It was Forrest's first mission and the Lawyers were cutting it fine.

Way
too fine.

“Hold it together, guys,” said the other man in the back of the truck. Herc. He was mission commander but he'd commanded
jack
on this particular mission. The whole damn thing had gone wrong and if the Lawyers didn't hurry up, then all he or anyone else in the van was good for was a midmorning snack for hell's hungriest. He rubbed a hand through the grizzled stubble on his chin. “Take the next exit, we gotta get out of sight. And rack 'em up, we're gonna need 'em.”

Herc pumped a shell into his combat shotgun and Forrest fumbled with his. They were the best defense they'd found against the demons.
Kind of like saying a toothpick was the best defense against a rabid bear,
she thought. Pan didn't have a gun. She reached down, felt the crossbow at her feet. Even that wouldn't do much good. Not unless the Lawyers found a way to end her contract. What the hell was taking them so long?

“Ostheim,” she said into the radio attached to her armored suit. There was a permanent open link between her and her employer, Sheppel Ostheim. “You guys any closer? We don't exactly have a lot of time here.”

There was a hiss of static, followed by a voice with a trace of a German accent.

“They're going as fast as they can, Pan. This is a tricky nut to crack. Just stay alive, they'll get there.”

Pan spat out a bitter laugh.

“Stay alive? You finally developed a sense of humor, Shep? Any chance of backup?”

“Nightingale and Truck are inside the Engine, everyone else is airborne. Until then you're on your own.”

Great.

Everyone jolted in their seats as the truck made contact with something else. The sour stench of fear filled her nostrils, making her want to gag. She and Herc had done this before but Forrest had only heard stories—the way the world is torn open, the way they swarm out from behind the paper-thin shell of reality. He had a hand over his mouth, his eyes wide and white, the brightest things in the truck. She didn't offer him any words of comfort. What would be the point? Chances were that in less than half an hour the only evidence he'd ever existed would be his entry in the
Book of Dead Engineers.

Right next to her own.

“Hang on!” yelled the driver, wrestling with the wheel. The truck lurched off the expressway, thumping into the side of the road hard enough to jolt them all off their seats. Pan was pushed back by an invisible hand as they accelerated, her stomach trying to punch its way out past her spine, the world flashing by outside the tinted windows too fast to see. It didn't matter how fast they were going. They couldn't outrun them. They couldn't escape, they couldn't hide. The only thing that mattered was finding cover, where nobody could see what happened next.

“Get off the street,”
Ostheim said, reading her mind.
“By my calculation…”
He swore.
“Twenty minutes, Pan, and counting, fast. Get out of sight.”

The world cannot know. It's the only thing that counts, it's more important than your own life
. Ostheim had drilled that into her on day one. And every day since.

So why the hell were they heading right into the heart of Staten Island?

“Out of sight, goddammit!” Herc yelled, grabbing the seat as they smashed into the back of an SUV, sending it spinning out toward the side of the road.

Too late,
Pan thought as the driver steered them around a wide bend, so fast that the world outside was just a blur. The screeching tires threw up smoke, and for a second the driver almost lost it. There was a wet retching sound as Forrest puked over his trousers but Pan ignored it. There was something else in the air alongside the smell of vomit. A thick, heavy, sulfurous scent that she knew all too well.

Their smell. The stench of hell.

“Twenty minutes, Pan,”
Ostheim repeated, like she hadn't heard him the first time.

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes between her, Forrest, and an eternity of agony. Twenty minutes before they dragged her kicking and screaming down to hell.

“Those Lawyers better shift their asses,” she yelled at Ostheim, cursing herself—for the hundredth time at least—for ever accepting his offer.

The Engine.

The goddamned Devil's Engine.

She'd always known it would be the death of her.

 

BREATHLESS

Marlow had jogged a block and a half before he dared to slow down. Crossing the street, he tripped into the alley that ran down the back of the expressway, crashing against a fence. He took another couple of puffs of his inhaler for good measure, feeling the last of the blockage shift from his windpipe. His lungs still ached, though, like he'd breathed in a lungful of pepper spray and run a marathon, not a few hundred yards.

He spat out a wad of phlegm and wiped the sweat from his brow. Only here, in the sudden quiet—just the distant rumble of the city and the eerie wail of a siren—did the events of the last few minutes sink in.

What the hell were you thinking?

He was screwed. Not only had he been expelled from the last school that would take him, he'd also committed vandalism and assault—on a
cop
. There was probably an APB out on him by now; the siren he could hear would be a squad car blazing up the street. This was Mariners Harbor, they'd shoot him on sight.

His palms stung from where he'd pushed Yogi, and he rubbed them on his pants, trying to work out a plan. The best thing would be to turn around, head back to the school with his tail between his legs, offer to pay for the paintwork to be redone or something. He could get down on his hands and knees, kowtow his way back to his math class like nothing had ever happened.

Yeah, right.

There was more chance of him sprouting wings and flying into Harvard. He wiped the sweat from his face, sweat that had less to do with running and more to do with the terror of not being able to breathe. He'd been lucky this time. His asthma was a constant threat, always doing its best to kill him.

When he'd been a kid, lying in his bed, writhing back and forth and going blue while his mom called for the ambulance, he'd seen it as a monster, something that wrapped invisible fingers around his throat, whose tongue wormed its way into his windpipe, sealing it tight. Even though he was fifteen now he still carried that beast around with him; it was always on his back, waiting to attack. When it was bad,
really
bad, it was a battle to the death. The inhaler lost its power. Even the nebulizer he had at home didn't work. It had been close today. A couple more minutes, maybe, and the principal would have been calling 911 and giving him mouth to mouth.

Maybe that would have been better. You couldn't exactly expel somebody who was dying on your office floor.

Marlow shook his head. What was he going to tell his mom?
Please, Marlow,
he heard her say, as clear as if she were standing next to him. There had been enough Bacardi on her breath that day to make his eyes sting.
Please, just this once, be good. I can't stand it, I can't stand the trouble. I need you to do this for me, stay in school.

And he had been, he'd been doing okay. It was just that douche bag principal, riding him every day. This was all Caputo's fault. Maybe he should go back and teach the man a proper—

Footsteps, hard and fast, rising up from the end of the alleyway. Marlow pushed himself off the wall, fists clenched.
Please, not the school cop
. He'd half turned, not sure if his lungs could stand another sprint, when Charlie's face appeared. When he saw Marlow he flinched. Then he broke into a sweaty grin, skidding to a halt with his hands on his knees. Marlow swore.

“Jesus, Charlie, where'd you come from?”

“They were all so busy chasing after you, I couldn't resist slipping out behind them.”

Then they were both laughing, sniggering nervously, just in case somehow the cops could hear them half a mile away. “Man, you should have seen it back there, it was utter chaos. I can't believe you punched Yogi!”

“I didn't punch him,” Marlow said. “His fat ass just fell over. What happened?”

“It sounded like all hell had broken loose in there, I had to go look. Yogi was on the desk and the desk was on the
floor
; the whole thing had snapped in two. He was rolling around like a turtle, funniest thing I ever saw. Then they were after you.” Charlie had to stop to catch his breath he was laughing so hard. “Best part is, Yogi came out of the office so hard he nearly knocked me over, ran straight into one of his guys and ended up flat on his face. And he was rolling around all over again. Took the other cops and Caputo to pick him up. Man, I almost died laughing.”

“They come after you too?” Marlow asked.

Charlie shook his head. “Nah. Don't exactly look like a threat, do I?”

Understatement of the century.
Charlie was a year older than Marlow but five foot three and stick thin. The phrase “can't punch his way out of a wet paper bag” was invented for him, although anyone who thought that would be wrong. Charlie was a pit bull. He wouldn't just tear his way out of a wet paper bag, he'd shred it, set fire to it, then stamp the ashes into oblivion. Spending three-quarters of your life in foster care would do that to you.

“Besides, Caputo loves me. I'm one of his model students, turning my life around, getting back on track. They used me in the brochure, remember? You, though…” Charlie shook his head, sighing. “Pretty stupid thing to do, Marlow, even for you. What made you scratch
that
on the principal's car?”

“It was a rocket ship,” Marlow muttered.

Charlie cracked a smile, but it slipped off his face after a second or two. “Seriously, dude, what are you going to do now?”

Marlow didn't answer, just turned and walked down the alley. Best thing to do to a question like that, turn your back on it.

Charlie scampered after him, his feet kicking up gravel. “Marlow, I'm not kidding, you got to start facing up to things.”