“Try this one,” said Pan, pointing up the hill.
Truck steered the stolen car around the corner, honking the horn at a delivery van blocking both lanes. Tired of waiting, and not wanting another Budapest incident, they’d driven to Staten Island in search of Marlow. She was planning to throw him in the trunk as soon as they found him, keep him there till this whole thing was over. Luckily Marlow wasn’t exactly clever or subtle. She figured he’d probably head straight home.
“You guys found him yet?” Herc barked in her ear, speaking through the open channel from the Pigeon’s Nest.
“Dammit, Herc,” she spat back. “Do you have to ask every thirty seconds?”
“That him?” Night asked, leaning between the two front seats and pointing. Pan looked to see Marlow up ahead, staggering down the hill, his expression vacant.
“That ain’t Marlow,” said Truck, pulling the car to the curb. “That’s a zombie.”
“Truck,” said Pan, “I seem to remember that when you got your first contract you were so upset you ran away and broke into the Empire bakery.”
“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “Not me.”
“Yeah, we found you curled up in the corner, crying like a baby.”
“Must have been somebody else,” said Truck, squirming in his seat.
“You’d eaten fourteen doughnuts.”
“It was eighteen doughnuts,” he grumbled. “And it still wasn’t me.”
Pan popped the door and stepped into the cool evening air.
“Circle the block,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Just try not to kill him,” Night said as they drove away.
Marlow stomped toward her, his eyes red and puffy, his chest heaving. He was close enough to touch before he noticed her, and when he did he turned away sharply, wiping his face.
“What do you want?” he asked, sniffling like a baby.
“Came to check on you,” she said. “See if you needed your diaper changed.”
He spun back, fists clenched, and she took a step away. Marlow could probably knock her head clean off right now if he wanted to—and if she defended herself she’d turn half the street to dust.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said.
“Oh yeah, I’ve never, ever been in your shoes.” She tried to swallow the rest of her sarcasm, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. “Marlow, we’ve all been here. Come on, let’s get off the street, we can talk.”
“Yeah?” he snapped back. “Talk about how my mom doesn’t recognize me, how my dog tried to chew my throat out?”
Count to ten, Pan, she thought, reaching five before she ran out of patience. She grabbed Marlow’s arm and pulled him into an alleyway between two rows of houses. The sun had all but disappeared, just a smudge of dirty orange against the horizon, and there were no lights down here. Marlow was two dark, sad eyes blinking in the twilight. He shrugged himself free and stood sniveling. There, in the darkness, he could have been any of them. He could have been her. She almost hated him for it.
“Look, Marlow, it’s part of what the Engine does, it doesn’t—”
“I might have killed them, Pan,” he blurted out.
“What? Killed who?” she asked, keeping her voice to a whisper. Somebody in one of the houses flicked on an upstairs light, casting a sickly yellow glow across the alley.
“Some guys, in a car. I…” He sniffed, scuffed the ground with his sneaker. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Anyone see you?”
“What?” He looked away and she took that as a yes.
Dammit.
“Any cameras?”
“No, no I don’t think so. How the hell would I know?”
“Because you could use your eyes?” she said, biting her tongue too late. “Look, you know the first rule, Marlow. Nobody can know.”
“That’s all you care about?” he said. “Nobody knowing. Christ, Pan, I could have killed somebody.”
“Look, Marlow, I know what it’s like, how bad you feel.”
“Yeah?” he shot back.
“Yeah.” She took another deep breath, then opened her mouth and let the words tumble out before she could stop herself. “I was in care, a few years back. Some guy decided he liked me, wanted me, and there was nobody around to make him stop. So I made him stop. I made him stop everything.” She choked, remembering the soft, brittle crack of his skull, remembering the way his eyes had filled with blood, the way his whole body had twitched like he was being electrocuted. “I killed him, because it was the only way of making it end.”
Marlow was studying her intently, the alleyway suddenly quiet and still, as if the whole world had frozen. She gripped the fence, clutching the wire so hard she could feel it biting into her skin. Better to feel pain there, though, than the crushing agony in her chest.
“I know how much it hurts,” she said.
“Guy was a creep,” Marlow said after a moment, chewing his knuckles. “Had it coming. Not them, though. I didn’t even know them. I shouldn’t have lashed out.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Pan said. “But you did. And you can’t take it back, but you can make up for it.”
He looked at her and she could see the desperation there, the need to make everything right. Marlow was a mouthy, rebellious idiot, no doubt about it, but he had heart.
“Herc chose you for a reason,” she said. “What we’re doing, it’s about more than just saving one life. We’re trying to save everybody. Everybody. If it wasn’t for us—for me, you, Truck and Night, Herc, Ostheim, every single Hellraiser, even that turdblossom Hanson—then there would be nobody left. The Engines will be united and the whole world is on a fast train to hell. You get that?”
Marlow nodded, taking a deep, shuddering breath.
“One life, Marlow. It sucks, but it’s done. You know the best way to get over it? Save a million more. A billion. We’re the only ones who can.”
“Yeah,” he said, sucking in a ragged breath. “We’re the good guys.”
The alley lit up as a car pulled to a halt at the end of it, the engine purring.
“What about my mom, though?” Marlow asked. “What happened to her?”
“Not to her,” she said, pressing a finger against Marlow’s chest. “To you. It’s the Engine. When you use it … you change. You’ve got to remember, Marlow, got to remember what it is. You made a deal with the Devil, or at least something as old as the Devil, as old and as evil.”
She closed her eyes, seeing the pit inside the Engine, the darkness, the creature who sat there, watching, every time she made a contract.
“It’s inside you now, and it changes you. In good ways…” She looked at him, shrugged. “And bad ones too. Sometimes it’s worse than others. Some people feel it more, especially if they know you, if they love you. Animals too, like your dog. Their senses are a lot sharper than ours. But it does go away.”
“When the Lawyers break your contract?” he asked, his face full of hope.
“Yeah.” Truck flashed the high beams and she looked away, blinking smudges of light from her vision. “Y’know, provided they can break it.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Marlow said, almost smiling. “Provided the demons don’t get you first.”
The smile took her by surprise and her face ached as she tried to clamp her jaw shut around it. She punched Marlow hard in the shoulder.
“Ow,” he said, pouting. “You don’t have to be such a bitch.”
“You don’t have to be such a baby,” she said. He grinned at her.
“As sweet as this is,” said a voice in her ear, making her jump—Herc, on the open channel, she’d completely forgotten about him. “Can you two get your asses in the car? We’ve found him.”
“Where?” she asked, putting a hand to her ear.
“St. Patrick’s, Fifth Avenue.”
“The cathedral?” Pan said, walking to the car.
“No, the strip joint,” Herc said. “Yeah, the cathedral. Get a move on, we can’t risk losing him.”
Pan didn’t think that would be a problem. She had the awful feeling that Patrick wanted to be found.
“He alone?”
“You’ll find out, won’t you, if you ever get there.”
Pan muttered beneath her breath, opening the car door and letting Marlow enter first. She clambered in next to him and he looked at her.
“We’re the good guys?” he said. She nodded.
“Yeah, Marlow, we’re the good guys. Now let’s go do what good guys do.” Truck floored it, the car burning rubber before lurching away. “Kick some evil goddamned ass.”