Pan ran, stumbling over the loose stone. The ceiling was still raining chunks of plaster, the whole thing coming to pieces. Worse still, she could hear sirens from outside, closing fast. The place would soon be flooded with cops and firemen and Herc would be chewing her a new one.
If she lived, of course.
She heard shouts, glanced to the side to see Marlow and Night bursting in and out of real time as they attacked Patrick. She left them to it. She had bigger things to worry about. The back of the cathedral was a wall of flame, like the building had been sculpted from fire. She had to squint at it because it was so bright, holding up her hand against its heat. Something shimmered there, a shape scuttling across the broken ground. She opened her fingers and felt the energy build up, the air crackling as she fired off a painful burst of electrostatic discharge. It thumped into the fire, fighting it, creating a storm of light and flame. Brianna had long gone, moving impossibly fast on those broken bones.
“Where are you?” Pan muttered beneath her breath, ignoring the agony in her hands. Sweat dripped into her eyes, blood too, although she didn’t remember getting cut. She wiped it away, moving sideways across the width of the cathedral, trying to make sense of the fluttering shadows behind the remaining pillars. Brianna was a wormbag, the worst of the worst. She was capable of anything, but she had no soul, no mind. A madness of cruelty and horror that Patrick had wound up and let loose.
There. Something scuttled between pillars and Pan ran for it, vaulting an upturned pew. The shape reared in the shadows, stretching up, too tall to be human. As Pan got closer she saw that Brianna’s body was unraveling, her spine stretching. The girl’s skin tore, her top half ripping free, rising like a cobra out of a basket of ribs. Guts slopped to the floor, the stench of ruptured intestines making Pan gag.
Brianna screamed and Pan threw herself to the side as a solid fist of noise blasted past. She rolled to her feet, dodging to the side, keeping the pillar in between her and the girl. Brianna’s crushed head peered around the side of it. Her neck was a snake’s, four times longer than it should be, the skin pulled taut and torn in places to reveal the slick cords of muscle beneath. Her drooping jaw shook and fragments of words dropped like spilled teeth. Her eyes had been burned out, just gaping holes in her ruined skull, but she still looked right at Pan.
“Yeah, make the most of it,” Pan said. “You’re going right back to hell.”
Brianna’s top lip—what was left of it—curled up, the closest thing she could manage to a smile. There was definitely life in those eye sockets, but Pan understood it didn’t belong to Brianna. Something else was looking at her, something much, much worse than a wormbag.
Pan jabbed both her hands out. Lightning burned from her fingertips, carving through the pillar, so bright that even though she screwed her eyes closed the world still blazed white. She kept it going until it felt like her fingers had been burned to stubs, then she snapped it off, staggering back.
There was a hole in the side of the cathedral, darkness pouring in through the gap. She could see the street outside, the gaping hole in the building opposite. Sparks flew from ruptured cables, brick dust crumbling. There was no sign of—
Something moved overhead, a spider clawing over the remains of the ceiling. Brianna was missing one leg but she was still quick, a tangled mass of sinew and skin that spasmed toward her.
And dropped.
She landed on Pan, a wet, stinking bag that thrashed and squirmed. Pan grunted, pushing against it, feeling Brianna’s fingers drill into her chest, into her neck, feeling the girl’s flapping jaw rub against her face. Something sliced through her stomach and the world was suddenly made of cold fire. The stump of Brianna’s leg bone was lodged in her flesh, pushing deeper. Her fingers, too, had pierced the skin of her chest, like the girl was trying to climb inside her, trying to wear her like a coat.
“No!” she grunted, punching up. Her fist ripped off a loose fold of cheek skin and it stuck to her knuckles, but Brianna didn’t notice, her body rocking, her bones grating against Pan’s.
She placed her palm against Brianna’s face and unleashed a burst of energy. There was a sound like a watermelon exploding and Brianna’s head vanished in a spray of blood and bone. Her body twitched violently, a spasm rocking through her. Pan pushed it away, shrieking as the girl’s dagger bones ripped free of her flesh. The one in her stomach stuck and she grabbed it with both hands, pulling it until it came free with a sucking sound.
The Brianna thing was a mound of flesh, twitching its way toward the hole in the cathedral wall like a headless chicken. Pan pushed herself up, trying to get to her feet. The world spun and she dropped to her knees, blood leaking out of her wounds, pattering to the ground and steaming on the hot stone. She backed against a pew and sat there, trying to find her breath. The fire was everywhere now. Death couldn’t be far away. At least the demons would feel at home when they came for her.
“Bring it on,” she told them, wondering if dying in a cathedral would give her soul a fighting chance in hell, knowing that it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference. She put her hand to her ear. “Truck?”
Nothing.
“Night?”
Nothing but static. Dammit, why do I have to do everything? The wormbag was almost out and something else was happening to it. The remaining scraps of skin seemed to be bulging, like somebody was inflating Briana’s corpse with a pump. A wet, red bladder was pushing its way out of the stump of her neck, a clutch of pus-filled eyes bulging open in the mess. Pan swore, gritting her teeth as she staggered to her feet. She held her stomach like she was holding in the last few scraps of life, wondering if she had it in her to make it outside, and knowing what would happen if she didn’t.
“Come back here, you goddamned wormbag,” she said, wiping the blood from her mouth. “I’m not done with you yet.”