Hellraisers (38 page)

“Pull over a sec.”

He did and she climbed out, grunting against the pain. She dialed the operator, giving her name and asking for a collect call to a cell phone in Europe, a number she knew by heart.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
Please, Herc, please pick up, please be alive.

“Do you want me to continue?” asked the operator.

“Yes,” Pan snapped.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

He's dead. He's dead. He's—

“This better be you, Pan.”
Herc's voice was like a golden ray of light cutting through the night. It cracked the floodgates and Pan broke down, sobbing, just so relieved to hear him, so relieved.
“Pan?”

“I have a collect call from Pan in New York City,” said the operator. “Do you accept the—”

“Yes, dammit, piss off,”
growled Herc.
“Pan, Jesus, I thought you were dead.”

“What's going on?” she said, barely able to fit the words past her choking sobs. “The Engine…”

“It's gone,”
he said.
“The bastards had a Trojan Horse, Charlie. He must have dealt for something immense when he used the Engine because we couldn't stop him, none of us. He opened the door and Mammon was there. We couldn't fight them, not without you.”

“It was a lure,” Pan said, wiping her eyes. “Patrick baited us away so we couldn't fight it. Jesus, Herc, how did we miss this?”

“You guys okay?”
he asked.
“Any casualties?”

“We made it,” she said. “Patrick's dead. Brianna too, again. Where are you?”

“I got out,”
he said.
“Just. It was chaos. They're dead, Pan.”

“Who?”

“All of them. Bully, Hope, the Lawyers. Mammon butchered them. I think Hanson made it out, but I lost him.”

“Oh god.” She had to cling on to the phone to stop herself collapsing. Her whole body was shaking. “No.”

“I can't get hold of Ostheim,”
he said.
“And they're after me, Pan.”

“Where are you?”

“I don't know. The Red Door spat me out somewhere, I didn't have time to see where.”

A car drove past, full of guys, huge beats blasting from the stereo.

“Herc,” she said quietly. “They've got both Engines, they're going to unlock the gates.”

“We can stop them,”
he said, although his words sounded hollow.
“We've got time, Pan.”

She checked her watch, those digits counting down relentlessly, plunging toward zero.

“Actually,” she said. “
I
don't.”

He grunted, a noise that might have been a sob. She heard the sound of his feet pounding, the click of a door, and when he spoke again his voice was a whisper.

“I gotta go, Pan. Get out of the country, head back to Europe, if you can. I'll get hold of Ostheim, we'll figure out what to do.”

Shouts from the other end of the phone, a pop that might have been a gunshot.

“I gotta run,”
Herc said.
“Pan, be okay. I … Just be okay.”

Then he was gone.

She stood there for a moment, listening to the static on the line, wishing she could reach through and grab him, drag him into New York.

Be safe,
she thought, then she replaced the phone in the cradle and turned back to the car. Truck, Night, and Marlow were leaning against it, all of them watching her.

“That sounded like bad news,” said Night.

She opened her mouth to lie to them, to tell them it would be okay, but the sobs were like caged birds finally being set free. She couldn't stop them. She wasn't sure who it was who carried her back to the car, who sat with her in their arms. She just leaned into them and cried, hugging them with everything she had, her body no longer hers but a broken machine that heaved and sobbed and shook as they drove out of Manhattan.

 

BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

The stone he sat on was cold and uncomfortable, slick with algae. A few bright stars burned through the permanent smog of light that hung over New York. Even though it was summer, the air had cooled. The truth was, though, that Marlow had never felt more relieved to be anywhere in his life. Compared to the molten heat of a soul being dragged to hell, cold was good. And he was just grateful that he could still feel anything at all. After the day he'd had, that was no small mercy.

But the relief was short-lived. He couldn't believe what had happened, what he had done. It couldn't have been Charlie. Surely he wouldn't have done that in a million years.
Not unless they got to him, not unless they forced him.

He shivered, chewing his knuckles for a second before the taste of blood and dirt made him spit. They were sitting by a small wooded lake somewhere west of New York, somewhere quiet. Truck had driven them through the Lincoln Tunnel and then gunned it for Pennsylvania, although Marlow had no idea where they were now. Truck and Night were off scouting for another car. Better safe than sorry. The blast doors had slammed down over Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, Homeland out in force. They'd listened to the radio on the way down and it had been full of terror—a series of coordinated attacks on St. Patrick's, on Rock Center, on Staten Island. Everybody was shouting terrorists. Even witnesses to the scene spoke of bombs exploding, gun battles in the streets. Nobody mentioned demons, or people with superpowers. No, it was much easier to believe in a convincing lie than an impossible truth.

Better the devil you know.

Pan sat a short distance away, lobbing stones into the unsettled water. Even in the bruised dark he could see how broken she was. The physical wounds were clear enough. Her body was wrapped tight in linen bandages that Night had looted from a drugstore downtown, but blood still seeped through her chest and stomach, turning her into a Rorschach inkblot. Marlow kept staring at it, wondering what it would tell him about himself. Nothing he didn't already know, he suspected.

It was the mental wounds that were most obvious, though. Before today, Marlow had thought Pan's emotional core had been iced over, her tear ducts frozen shut. But she'd wept for the whole journey, over an hour, her racking cries softening to soft sobs, then hitched, whimpering breaths. Although she was quiet now, her face was deeply lined and she chewed her nails like she hadn't eaten in a month. Every other second she checked her watch and Marlow knew what she was thinking. The demons were coming for her, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

He had injuries of his own, too. His chest radiated pain and he was drenched in blood. How much of it was his, though, and how much belonged to other people, he had no idea.

Still, what was it people said? Scars were just proof that you were stronger than whatever tried to kill you.

Pan sniffed, her chattering teeth the loudest thing in the night. Marlow stood up, then lost heart and sat down, then stood up again, stumbling over the loose shingle and sitting next to her. He had no jacket, but he pressed himself against her, putting an arm around her shoulder.

Smooth, Marlow.

She pushed him away, almost hard enough to knock him off the rock.

“Sorry, you sounded cold,” he said, knowing full well that the night had nothing to do with it. These were the shakes you got when life sucker-punched you.

“I could be sitting naked in the Arctic and I still wouldn't want you near me,” she said, hugging herself. “You did this. I'll never forgive you.”

“I didn't,” he said, the guilt like a knife sliding into his stomach. “I didn't know, Pan. I don't get why he did it.”

Charlie. It was still impossible to understand what had happened. The Circle must have brainwashed him, used some kind of mind control. It was the only explanation, right? And he saw Charlie lying on the ground near Fresh Kills, injected with alcohol, pleading with Marlow to bring him. Pan was right, this was all his fault.

I'm sorry, Charlie,
he thought, wrapping his arms around himself, against the tremors that rocked his own body, against the night, against the world.

“What happens now?” Marlow said. “We find it, right? We find our Engine and we take it back.”

Pan shook her head.

“It's impossible, Marlow. We'll never find it.”

“They found ours,” he said. “It can be done. If I can just get hold of Charlie, if I can just speak to him.”

“Don't you think you've done enough damage?” she spat at him. “They're dead because of you. I'm dead too.”

He swallowed down his reply alongside a mouthful of bile. He coughed, his airways still held open by the Engine. Not for long, though. Once the Circle had canceled his contract the asthma would be back, and somehow he knew it would be worse than ever—the way a cell seems smaller to a prisoner who has escaped for a while. The monster would have its claws well and truly around his throat again.

“I want to help,” he said. “I need to. I know Charlie, I know he wouldn't do this unless he was forced to. I can find him, Pan.”

She reached down and grabbed another stone, but instead of throwing it she held on to it, looking at it like it was engraved with the answer to everything.

“Did he say anything to you?” she asked.

“Charlie? No, nothing.”

Wait, didn't he?
Marlow thought back, Charlie in the infirmary bed, the last words he whispered.

They're lying to you.

“No,” he said again, the word surprising him. He wasn't sure why he was keeping it to himself. “How long do we have until the Engines are united?”

“I don't know,” Pan replied. “Nobody has ever done it before. Nobody really knows how it works.”

“So that's a good thing, right?” he said. “They might not figure it out.”

“They will,” Pan said. “It's Mammon. He'll figure it out.”

“Then we find him before he does,” Marlow said. “I promise you, Pan, it will be okay.”

“Okay?” she said, spitting out a bitter laugh. “It's over, everything is finished. You've seen it, when you were in the machine. You've seen
him.
”

Marlow could see him now, a mess of rot and decay who watched the world with insect eyes. Something so horrific that he made the wormbag look as harmless as a hamster. He could almost sense that longing, the desire to be unleashed. Whatever was down there—Devil or not—it wanted to be free. And what then? Marlow thought of Staten Island, pictured his mom at home with the dog. Saw his neighbors, his classmates. Saw them trying to fight the demons when they tore through. It was too much and he had to force the image from his mind before he drowned in blood.

“He's there, Marlow,” Pan said. “He'll take us all.”

This time, when he put his hand around Pan's shoulders and pulled her close, she didn't resist. He held her tight until the soft purr of an engine rose up behind them. Marlow turned to see an SUV trundling down the path, its lights off. It pulled up to them and Truck rolled down the window, leaning out. He looked tired but he was doing his best to smile.

“You two wanna get a room?” he said. Pan grumbled something under her breath and pushed herself up. Truck beamed. “It's no trouble, there's a Motel 6 up the street.”

“Shut it, you perv,” Pan said as they walked to the car. But Marlow thought he saw a glimmer of a smile there too. That was the weird thing about life, he thought. No matter how bad the injury was, laughter could fix it. It had powers of its own, laughter. An Engine of a different kind.

“You know where we're going?” Marlow said.

“There's a private airfield outside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” Pan replied. “We head to Europe, find Herc and Ostheim.”

“And then what?” Night asked. She was curled up in the passenger seat like a bird in its nest.

“And then we take back the Engine,” Marlow said. “We take ours and we take theirs and we end this war for good.”

“You're forgetting something,” said Truck.

Marlow paused, then nodded. “Yeah, we crush some serious ass.”

“My man,” said Truck with a fist bump.

Marlow waited for Pan to climb in the back, taking one last look out across the lake. For a moment he thought he saw a silhouette against the water, a blurred shape against the drifting dark. For some reason, he thought of his brother, long dead, and his stomach loop-the-looped. In his tired mind's eye Danny lifted his hand in a salute. Marlow smiled, feeling the prickle of tears in his eyes. He saluted back but the illusion had gone, the water just water, full of night.

Miss you, bro,
he said.
Wish you were here.

Yeah, right,
Danny replied in his head.
Chasing the Devil while demons try to devour my ass. Sure, Marly, I'd love to be there.

And Marlow was laughing to himself as he climbed into the car. He slammed the door shut behind him.

“I'm glad someone finds this funny,” said Pan. She was glaring at him from the other side of the car but it somehow made her look even more attractive. That was one good thing, he supposed. At least he got to spend a little more time with her. She may have hated his guts but surely the thought of being dragged to hell in twenty-five days or so would make any girl lower her standards.

“I just know we can do this,” he said. “I think things will be okay.”

“Wish I shared your optimism,” said Truck, putting the car in drive and rumbling slowly out of the park. “Four of us—three without powers once the Circle cancels our contracts—against two Engines.”

“They'll be recruiting more Engineers, too,” said Pan. “They'll be gunning for us.”