Just like that, she was gone.
Marlow staggered up the train until the heat was bearable. He collapsed to his knees and craned over the edge. Night and the Magpie were two silhouettes shrinking into the tinfoil glow of the river, falling, fading. Somebody skidded down next to him—Truck, struggling to pull in a breath before howling Night’s name into the darkness. He was holding his own face with those big hands, his eyes wider and brighter than the moon.
It’s okay, he thought. They’ll land in the water, she’ll be okay.
Below, they hit the river, a silent splash that looked no bigger than a dime. Truck howled again, a sound so full of rage that it took Marlow’s breath away. Pan had staggered to his other side, and he looked up, saw her standing there with her hands in her hair, her face a phantom’s. She met his eyes and he knew instantly. He knew there was no hope.
“Oh God,” said Truck, sobbing now. “Oh God, no. No. Night! We have to … We have to…”
It was too late. Far below, the silver heart of the river was starting to foam. It was as if the sun were rising down there, a soft glow pulsing out of the water, bringing it to a hissing boil that Marlow could hear above the roar of the fire. The earth split, revealing a molten core that burned a pocket of day into the darkness. And Marlow knew what it meant, he knew the horror of it.
Night was dead.
She had died under contract with the Engine.
They were coming for her right now, pulling themselves out of the soil, out of the rock, out of the water. The demons were coming for her, and they would drag her down through the melting rock, through that suppurating hole in reality. They would drag her straight into the depths of hell.
And even now, even above the fire, above the hiss, above the shouts from the bridge, above Truck’s gasping, heartbreaking cries—even though Night was dead—he could hear her.
He could hear her scream.
He turned away, blinking fire from his vision, as if everywhere he looked, the world was burning. That’s when he felt it, felt it like somebody had rammed a knife right into the heart of him, had drawn that blade from his sternum to his gut. He opened his mouth and groaned, then he turned and wrapped his arms around Truck—just to anchor himself, to stop himself from slipping away into oblivion—felt the big guy’s whole body tremble with the force of his cries. He pushed his face into him and let it out, because there was simply nothing else he could do.
A hand on his arm, gentle but insistent. Pan was there, her face set in stone, her teeth clenched so tight that her jaw bulged Magpie-big. Her eyes were red raw and filled with something that Marlow couldn’t identify—something he didn’t want to identify.
“Let’s go,” she said quietly. Her hand hovered in front of him, and after another eternity he managed to take it, letting her lift him to his feet. They each took one of Truck’s hands and he rose like a child, his body sagging, his head tucked into his chest. His cries were silent now, but no better because of it. Only when they were sure he wasn’t going to topple off the edge did Marlow let go, Pan leading Truck up the train toward the bridge.
Goodbye, Night, Marlow said without looking down. His fists were clenched so hard, his nails had gouged trenches in his palms. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
He followed Pan and Truck up the train, squeezing between the severed railings and dropping down onto the tracks. There had to be a hundred people here, two hundred, all of them sobbing and crying and holding one another. Marlow pushed through them, seeing wounds, missing limbs, seeing children howling for parents and parents crying for their children, seeing men and women so covered in blood that they might have been skinned alive. They were still pouring from the cars, some of them carrying the wounded and others carrying worse. The train was a dead thing that lay half on, half off its tracks, snaking into shadow, its head hanging limply over the side of the bridge. The fire was spreading, too, cremating it and everything that remained inside.
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.