“Bullshit!”
Pan’s fury ignited inside her, bursting from her mouth as a scream and from her fingers as a blast of white lightning. It snapped across the room, whipcrack fast, punching into the redhead and sending her tumbling backward into the dark. She aimed her other hand and blasted out a second strike, this one aimed upward.
The lights exploded, a fireworks show of sparks ripping across the ceiling. Then darkness, punctuated by the blinding bark of Herc’s Desert Eagle and the flash of Truck’s shotgun.
Somebody yelled in pain, in panic, the enemy Engineers scattering. A pulse of burning plasma appeared from the shadows, crackling as it tore across the floor—somebody fighting back. Pan fired again, blindly, then felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Get down to the Engine,” growled Herc. “Take Marlow. You two are the only ones with powers, the only ones who can beat him.”
Something swooped through the air above them, a dark shape that cried out with a human voice. Pan could hear Taupe shrieking something in French, the sound of his assault rifle deafening.
“We’ll hold ’em off best we can,” Herc said, firing another couple of shots across the room.
Pan nodded, retreating. She backed into Marlow and he grabbed her arm, both of them running into the open elevator.
“Pan,” Herc yelled, his face a blur against the dark, his eyes two shards of steel. “Whatever happens down there, whatever he says, just remember who you are.” He ducked as another wave of plasma seared its way across the room, igniting somebody. Friendly fire. The enemy Engineers were attacking one another in their confusion. Marlow grabbed the gates and hauled them closed, pushing the button for the bottom floor. “And, Pan,” Herc called after them. “You never forget what you’ve done, yeah? You never forget that the world wouldn’t be here without you.”
Then he was gone, his voice fading behind the grinding roar of the elevator. Pan reached for the button, wanted to drag it back up and join in the fight. She couldn’t leave him, not Herc, not when he needed her.
But her battle was with something else.
Something infinitely worse.
She shook her tingling fingers, breathing hard. Marlow was pacing from side to side like a caged tiger.
“We can’t beat him,” he said. “We can’t.”
She stood in his way and grabbed the scruff of his T-shirt, waiting until his big, frightened eyes met hers. The elevator rumbled downward, ever downward, carrying them right to hell’s front door. The Engine was summoning her, each pulse of sound a clarion call she felt in the flesh of her brain. Her fear was so pure, so bright inside her that it didn’t feel real.
It would, though, she knew, when she came face-to-face with Mammon.
“We can’t,” said Marlow, trying to tug loose. “You’ve seen him, he’s too powerful.”
“Marlow,” she said, holding him tight. “You need to focus.”
“On what?” he shot back. “On the fact that we’re about to get killed? That we’re going to get taken?”
The sounds of battle overhead had almost faded, plunging them into the closest thing to silence she had heard for a long time.
The calm before the storm, she thought, inhaling it, hoping that the sudden quiet would help calm her churning terror.
“We have to go back,” said Marlow, hammering at the button. “We have to go, get to the surface. Someone else will do this, someone else will—”
She leaned in without thinking, and kissed him, pushing her lips against his until his lips stopped moving. She didn’t think it was possible for his eyes to grow any wider but they did, his words drying up in his throat. He tasted of copper and mint, his breath heavy and hot against her tongue. He opened his mouth and she made to pull back, but didn’t. It just felt so good to be close to somebody, even if it was him. She rested her arms lightly on his waist, feeling him tremble, feeling how fragile he was, as if she pressed too hard he would shatter like glass. He put his arms around her, too, his fingers tickling the small of her back. They stood there, connected, for a small eternity.
Then his tongue brushed against her lips and she reared back, wiping a sleeve over her mouth. The elevator was slowing, pulling her back into a world she had almost managed to forget about.
Marlow put his fingers to his lips as if there might still be a piece of her there. He was gulping air.
“You were losing it, I needed to shut you up,” she explained, turning away so that he wouldn’t see her cheeks blaze. “It worked.”
They shuddered to a stop and she grabbed the grate, pausing for a moment. Beyond was the vault room, the last barrier between the world and the Engine. The door was several feet thick, designed to withstand an atomic blast. It could keep out even the strongest of Engineers.
And it was open.
“Maybe he really does just want to talk,” she said, tugging at the stubborn gates. Marlow gave her a hand, wrenching them open. He put a hand on her arm and she shot him a look that made him let go immediately.
“You started it,” he said. But the fear had gone from him, that blind panic. He even managed a smile. “One more, you know, before we die a horrible death and get dragged to hell?”
“We make it out of this,” she said, “then you’ve got yourself a deal.”
It was a safe bet to make. She was pretty sure they weren’t getting out of this one.
She took a step forward, then felt his hand on her arm again. When she turned, though, the smile had gone and he was frowning.
“Look, Pan, I should have mentioned this before.” He cast a look at the vault door, chewing something over. “Charlie, I spoke to him, back when he was in the infirmary. He said something.”
“What?” she said when he didn’t continue.
“He said that I needed to be careful, because they were lying to me.”
“What?” she said. Mammon had told her the exact same thing on the train. “Who’s lying?”
“He didn’t say. That’s all he had the strength for.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Pan. “Mammon is the liar. Ostheim always called him the father of all lies. You shouldn’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth, and if he got to your friend then you shouldn’t trust a word that comes out of his, either. Come on.”
But the doubt followed her into the room, nagging at her. They’re lying to you. And why had Mammon not just killed her there and then, on the train, rather than trying to talk. It just didn’t make sense. She checked her crossbow, the first bolt loaded and ready to fire. If she had a lucky shot, if she buried it right in his rancid heart, then there would be no more lies.
No more lies, no more fear, just relief.
The thought of it was overpowering, propelling her across the room. She splayed the fingers of her free hand, the current dancing between them, waiting for its orders. The Engine spoke to her in the language of hell, those same images flashing across her vision, burrowing into the meat of her brain—death, torture, screams, flames, all so familiar now that she dismissed them with a grunt, forcing herself through the door.
And there it was, the Engine.
She had never seen it like this, every one of its countless clockwork parts in motion. It looked vast, stretching from horizon to horizon and lit by the thousand lights embedded in the distant ceiling of the cavern. And it looked alive, like it might just pull itself up, collect its scattered pieces, and haul its bulk out into the world.
Something exploded deep inside the Engine, a pillar of thick, red flame curling up and pooling in the hollows of the ceiling. There was a pulse of sound, of feeling, and the Engine roared, the collective cry of billions and billions of cogs and gears and needles and springs. It roared loud enough to end her, to end the entire world. It roared so loud that she almost didn’t see the figure standing by the black pool.
Mammon.
He stood with his back to her, staring into the dark water. He could have been mistaken for a normal human being except for the way his body seemed to shimmer, glitching from side to side like she was watching a video in fast-forward. She knew it was him, though, he was kicking out an evil stink that made her soul hurt.
She didn’t hesitate, not for a second, knowing that if she did she would never be able to move again. She started down the stairs, taking them two at a time, the crunch of her footsteps lost behind the world-ending groan of the Engine.
“Find Charlie,” she yelled back, feeling Marlow on her heels. “I got him.”
No time to wait for a reply. She was already close to the bottom, the Engine sprawling out to her side, its deafening orchestra of clicks like an army of insects about to swarm onto the rock and devour her.
She ignored it, ignored everything except for him.
Skidding onto one knee, she placed the crossbow to her shoulder.
One chance. One chance. Don’t mess it up.
Mammon was starting to turn, slowly. The shape of him wobbled and blurred, like he wasn’t really there. But he was there. She knew it. She could feel it in the way she wanted to open her head with a hammer and claw out her brains. She could feel it in every screaming cell of her body as he turned to face her.
Mammon. The man she’d been trained to fear, trained to hunt, trained to kill.
She fired, the bolt humming as it shot from the crossbow, arcing through the air, a flash of iron as it burned toward Mammon’s heart.
He snatched out a hand and caught it.
Pan, he said, his voice a skewer in her ears, puncturing her.
She swore, thrusting out a hand and loosing a raging torrent of electricity. She didn’t wait to see if it hit him, just strafed right, trying to fumble another bolt into the bow with her smoking fingers.
Pan, listen to me.
No.
It slipped from her grip, rolling away, and she left it, pulling the last bolt loose. Mammon was still standing there, sparks rippling over his body like they were trying to find a way in, trying to find a way to hurt him. He lifted a hand and she felt something cold and dark in the air around her, felt herself rise from the ground. The raw sewage stench of him was unbearable.
She twisted against his invisible grip, tilted the crossbow toward him.
Pan, stop, listen to me.
She pulled the trigger. This time Mammon wasn’t quick enough, the bolt slicing past his face. She felt his hold on her loosen and she crashed earthward, pain flaring in her knee as she landed. The crossbow skidded away and she scrabbled for it.
Something wrapped itself around her foot, yanking her back. Her face slammed against the floor, a tooth spinning away. For a moment there was nothing, her vision a series of dark, churning cogs like she’d been thrown into the heart of the Engine. She blinked hard and the world snapped back on. She was still being dragged over the rough stone, something locked python-tight around her ankle.
Grunting with the effort, she managed to flip herself onto her back. Mammon was ten yards away and reeling her in like a fish. His body danced in and out of reality, his face shifting like a collection of photographs being shown at lightning speed.
You do not have to fight me, he said. We are on—
She punched another bolt of energy at him, this one weaker but still enough to make him lift his arm in self-defense. It crackled into him, pushing him back, and she fired another, and another. The grip on her leg vanished and she forced herself onto her feet, loosing another attack. This one hit Mammon in the chest and he staggered away, his cry like a shrapnel grenade had exploded inside her head.
Where the hell was the bolt she’d dropped?
She fired another charge, pathetically small. Her body was running on fumes but it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to fight for much longer. If she could just find it …
There, near the stairs.
She ran for it, Mammon roaring behind her. She could feel the force of his voice like the shock wave of an explosion and she almost fell again, her arms wheeling to keep herself upright. Another pulse howled its way from somewhere inside the Engine, an enormous pillar of fire curling lazily toward the ceiling. There was no sign of Marlow.
More invisible hands trying to grab her. She dived, rolling out of their reach and snatching the bolt from the stone.
No time to get the crossbow.
She gripped the bolt and ran, willing the last few charges from her fingers. The air crackled with thunder. Mammon weaved out of their way, his face—faces—a mask of fury. Then he was moving, too, running right for her, shattering his way through reality. His mouth stretched, too wide, so wide that he might be about to swallow her up. And he roared, a noise that could have broken every bone in her body.
But still she ran, no charge left. She ran and ran, unleashing a scream of her own that had been building inside her for years—since her mom had turned her back on her, since Christoph had tried to take her, since the cops had arrested her and Herc had saved her, since she’d first heard Mammon’s name, since her first mission, since she’d stood by and watched all those people die, all of her friends. She screamed until there was nothing left inside her, and she ran until there was nothing left between them.
He lunged for her but she put her head down and tackled him. There was no air left in her lungs to be knocked away but she still felt it in every tendon, like she’d tried to bring down a bear. They locked in a demented dance. She held the bolt like a knife, jabbing it into his flank. But his arms were around her, crushing. She had no space to move. His touch was cold, turning her blood to ice. His graveyard stench enveloped her, choking her. He squeezed harder and she felt the vertebrae in her back creak, ready to pop.
Just stop! Mammon yelled at her. Just stop!
No.
She dug deep, deeper than she’d ever gone, and found something there. She grabbed hold of a handful of cloth and pulsed the last of her electrostatic energy into his ribs. A direct hit.
Room to breathe, to move. She swung her hand around again and this time the bolt found its target, sticking in the flesh of Mammon’s side. It was like dropping a flare into a canister of gas, the force of the explosion spinning her away on a cushion of heat and noise. She landed on her back, skidding into the rim of the black pool.
Darkness, the overwhelming force of it trying to pull her in, trying to smother her.
Get up, she told herself.
She clawed her way out of it, her eyes bulging, her mouth hanging open. Mammon was right in front of her—no longer a shifting mirage of faces but a man. No, a boy. He looked younger than her, younger than Marlow, curls of blond hair falling over his eyes, his mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. The bolt stuck out of his side and his clothes were smoldering there, tongues of flame licking up.
“Just die!” Pan said. She’d meant it as a scream but it came out as less than a whisper, just a breath. She tried to stand, found that she couldn’t and pushed herself onto the lip of the pool instead. Behind her the black water sat ink-thick and agitated, nothing reflected in its depths.
“Pan,” said Mammon, and the sound of his voice almost sent her toppling back into the waters. It was a young boy’s voice, high and trembling.
Just a trick. Just another lie.
She needed to push the bolt in deeper, right into the bastard’s heart. It was the only way to finish it. She tried to move again, everything inside her drenched in pain.
“Pan, no more,” said Mammon. He collapsed onto his knees, his coat billowing out around him. Gripping the bolt with one hand, he pulled. “You have to listen to me. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She took as deep a breath as her busted lungs would allow.
“I’m killing you,” she managed. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m ending this.”
“You’re ending everything,” he said. “You’re ending the world. Please.” He stopped, panting with the effort of trying to pull the bolt loose. “Please just listen. I have tried to tell you this for so long, but he would not let me. He would never let me. He has poisoned your mind, Pan. He has poisoned everything you believe in, and everything you think is true.”
“Who?” she said, finally managing to stagger to her feet. Out in the Engine another column of flame rose, illuminating the platform and Mammon’s face. The kid looked up at her with big blue eyes. Was he crying?
“Ostheim,” he groaned, spit hanging from his lips. “Ostheim. He has turned you against everything that is right. He has been lying to you. He has been using you. All this time you thought you fought for good, for what was right. But how did you know? How could you know? You took his word for it.”
Despite the fire, everything inside her ran cold.
“No,” she said. “Ostheim is good. He’s trying to stop you from bringing the Engines together, from opening the gates.”
Mammon shook his head, great fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
“No, Pan,” he said. “I never wanted to open the gates. I wanted to bring the Engines together because it is the only way of destroying them.”
“What?” she said. “No, that’s not true. You’re a liar. You’re nothing but a liar and a killer and…”
The words abandoned her. There was no way he could be right, could he? There was no damn way.
Mammon cried out and the bolt came loose in a gout of blood. Pan steeled herself, trying to shake some charge into the ends of her fingers. But he just held the bolt up in one hand and threw it to her. It clattered across the stone, skidding into the raised edge of the pool.
“I am telling you the truth,” he said as he clambered unsteadily to his feet. “I’ve always tried to tell you the truth. Ostheim is the enemy. He has been trying to unite the Engines so that he can bring down the wall between the worlds, so that he can open the gates of hell. He is evil, Pan.”
He shuddered, patting at the flames on his jacket. His face was starting to buzz again, separating into pieces, but he made no move toward her. He just stood there, shoulders sagging, breathing hard.
“He is evil. He has always been trying to end this world. And for years now, you have been helping him do it.”
No.
No.
No.
She turned away from him, hands to her ears.
No.
It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
Ostheim, he’d always been straight with her, always sent her on missions that would help save the world.
But were they?
All those deaths, all those assassinations. What if Mammon was right, what if she’d been killing off the good guys, the ones who wanted to save the world?
Please God, no.
She searched her head but not one single thing, not one single memory, contradicted his words.
No.
And she was crying now, her hands to her mouth. Mammon was wrong, he had to be wrong.
Because if he was right, then she was a monster.
“I’m sorry, Pan,” he said behind her. “I truly am.”
Only one way to know for sure.
Only one way to know the truth.
Pan climbed onto the lip of the black pool, took a breath, and threw herself in.