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.