The world was coming apart.
Literally.
Pan propelled herself away from the truck, knowing that if she stayed still she was finished. Not dead, but something infinitely worse. The air above her was sparking wildly, fingers of sulfurous white lightning ripping past close enough to burn her skin. The parking lot was a mess of fire and noise and smoke and there was something up there, in the darkness between the steel beams. Something that thrashed and squirmed.
“I told you to stay in the truck!” yelled Herc. He didn’t wait for an answer, pulling the trigger on his combat shotgun. The ceiling exploded into concrete dust. Forrest was there too, his shotgun clenched in one white-knuckled hand but his bulging eyes fixed on his watch. She didn’t have to see it to know that the display read 00:00:00:00. The demons were here. His time was up.
Pan hefted her crossbow, scanning the space around her, everything drenched in red, liquid light from the glow sticks. Other than the truck there were maybe half a dozen cars down here, two SUVs, a Corvette that had seen better days, a—
Halfway across the parking lot, she spotted a red Ford. Tongues of fire licked across the vehicle, fierce enough to shatter the windshield. One of the tires hissed, then popped, the car bouncing. But Pan was looking at the hood, the way it seemed to be peeling away from the rest of the car. A thin strip of metal curled up, followed by another, and another, then the bulk of a body, like a camouflaged spider, was finally revealing itself. It stretched, a living sculpture of red metal and engine parts, then ripped free from the rest of the car.
“There!” Pan said.
“Pan, wait!” yelled Herc behind her, his voice lost in the thunder of gunfire. She ignored him, sprinting toward the Ford. The creature pounced, landing on the floor with a crunch, its metal legs skittering. It stretched up to its full height, all four feet of it. The metal folded and refolded like it was paper, jaws opening and snapping shut, lined with scalpel-like teeth. It had no eyes. It didn’t need them. It knew exactly where to find its prey.
“Protect Forrest!” she yelled at Herc, but he was already by the boy’s side pumping another shell into his gun. The demon opened the bear trap of its mouth and shrieked, a noise that grated down her soul, making her want to curl into a ball and cry. Instead she ran, flicking the safety off the crossbow. The demon moved too, its clumsy legs finding their form, picking up speed, demolishing the distance between them. Twenty yards, fifteen, five. It leaped, the force of it punching holes into the concrete floor.
Pan pulled the trigger. The demon might have been made of steel but the bolt that flashed from the bow was forged out of the heart of the Engine itself. It slammed into the beast like a wrecking ball, stopping it dead. The creature crumpled to the ground, slashed at its own metal skin. It had time for one hellish scream before the bolt exploded like a grenade, sending both halves of the demon spinning across the car park.
“Move!” yelled the driver, running her way. Both halves of the demon were wriggling, trying to reassemble themselves. The driver aimed his shotgun at the head end and fired, blasting it into metal splinters, filling the air with shrapnel. Its movements slowed, pieces of broken metal moving like jumping beans as they clung on to life. He fired twice more. Then, just like that, it was still.
“Got to—” he said, then his mouth opened in horror, unleashing a scream that almost deafened her. By the time Pan had worked out what was going on the driver was staggering back, his left foot missing. The floor where he had been standing had opened up like a mouth, barbs of concrete gnashing and grinding at the air, slick with his blood. The ground split as the new demon pulled itself free. Its body was a chunk of masonry, the white lines of the parking bay still etched over it. It tried to find its balance on five stunted concrete legs.
Pan stepped back, jamming the crossbow on the floor in order to reload it. The weapon was powerful but it was just about the most awkward thing Ostheim could have given her. She wound the handle, yelling as she did, “Somebody shoot it!”
The driver was on the floor now, jets of blood spraying from the stump of his leg, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. But Herc was there, jabbing the end of his shotgun against the bulk of the concrete demon and pulling the trigger. Pan threw up her hands, feeling shards of floor embed themselves in her face, the pain lost in the thunder of the adrenaline. She finished winding the bow, fumbling for a bolt and jamming it into the gutter. Herc pumped, fired again, and the demon was gone, just a concrete shell left behind.
“Hang in … re…” said Ostheim through her earpiece, his words faint and in pieces. “They’ve al … broken … contract. Five min—”
Five minutes. That was an eternity. She scanned the parking lot. The metal demon and the concrete one were both gone, and a pile of rubble by the side of the truck made it clear that Herc had finished off another. But the air was still full of sulfur. She could almost see that paper-thin line between this world and theirs straining, the countless demons that teemed on the other side, all trying to break through. All trying to get to her.
But where the hell was Forrest?
Herc swore, pointing up the ramp.
“Kid’s doing a runner!” he roared. “Goddammit! Forrest!”
Stupid. Really stupid. You couldn’t run from them. There was nowhere to hide. Pan opened her mouth to call the boy’s name but it was too late. Something wrenched itself from the wall that formed the side of the ramp, a dog-like shape with concrete skin and a steel spine. Forrest never even saw it coming. It pounced onto his back, crushing the boy in a spray of blood and jelly. Even past the howl of the demon Pan heard him scream, a rasping, desperate, haggard cry that echoed off the walls.
Turn away, something in Pan’s head told her. You don’t want to see.
But she kept looking, seeing the floor beneath the dead boy grow soft, melting like licorice. The air began to shimmer, the way it does over a barbecue, and with a soft pop Forrest’s clothes ignited. The whole ramp was growing red, dissolving in the heat, but the dead kid was still howling—even as his hair caught fire, even as his skin bubbled.
She didn’t look away. She didn’t blink. Not even when she felt Herc’s hands on her, trying to pull her around. The demon’s head snapped forward like a viper’s and Forrest’s head exploded, scraps of bone and brain skittering across the molten ground. But she could still hear those screams as the boy’s twitching body started to sink into the ground.
He’d be screaming for the rest of time.
Forrest vanished slowly, as if he had fallen into a tar pit. Then the demon crumpled to the floor, like its batteries had run out. Through the smoke and the haze Pan watched the ground start to heal, cooling.
Not for long, though.
She looked at her watch. Less than a minute and she’d be pulled under too, the fast track to hell. She felt Herc’s hands on her again, pulling her close.
“We’ll do what we can, Pan,” he said, his voice shaking like a leaf. “I … I’ll try.”
She shrugged him away. She didn’t need his pity. She knew what she was getting into. You play the game, you take the pain. She checked her crossbow, choking on that gut-churning stench of sulfur seeping out between the cracks in reality. There was another smell too. She looked back at the Ford, seeing gasoline spurting from the ruptured tank, pooling around the tires.
She checked her watch.
Five, four, three, two, one …
It emitted a soft, chirping alarm. Somehow it didn’t quite have the gravity she expected it to—an air-raid Klaxon would have been more appropriate. She lifted the crossbow, the whole thing shaking.
Here they come.
“The wall!” Herc yelled, and she followed the barrel of his gun to see a shape pull itself free from a pillar. This one was bigger, almost human shaped, exploding outward in a plume of dust. The whole parking lot groaned, cracks appearing in the ceiling, the weight of the building above threatening to crash down, bury them all alive.
Herc lifted his gun and fired, the demon pushing through a hail of buckshot. It swiped a huge fist before Herc could reload, sending him flying. Pan fought her panic, lifting the crossbow and firing. The creature twisted at the last second, the bolt burying itself in the wall behind. Pan swore, slamming down the crossbow and winding the handle.
It pounced, its fingers gouging trenches in her armor, knocking the air from her lungs and the crossbow from her fingers. Herc appeared by her side, shoulder charging the demon, forcing it back. He raised his gun and fired, again, again, each blast punching the demon across the parking lot. Too late Pan noticed where they were heading.
“Herc, no!”
The demon slipped and fell into the puddle of gasoline from a car’s ruptured fuel tank, Herc firing one last shot. The world went white, burning like a supernova, a silent explosion that lifted Pan up and hurled her backward. By the time she’d hit the floor the noise had caught up, a wave of rolling thunder that felt thick enough to drown in. She fought against the heat, against the boiling tide of smoke and vaporized blood, feeling like she was drowning.
“… zzzttt … okay?… ing hell, Pan!”
She tried to push herself up onto her elbows, her whole body made of pain. Everything was red, glowing, and she realized her eyes were closed. It seemed to take an age for her to remember how to open them. The parking lot was a lake of fire. Everything danced in the heat, nothing quite real. It was almost as if the fire were a living thing, lumbering toward her …
Oh no.
The burning demon was made up partly of a charred corpse, partly of something that might once have been a car seat. The whole thing was an inferno, but it wasn’t slowing it down. These were demons, after all. Fire was like silk to them. It lurched through the wreckage, bounding right for her.
Pan grunted, ignoring the agony as she lifted herself up. Her leg wasn’t working properly, and when she looked down she saw a shard of bone poking from her shin. She stumbled, crunching against a pillar. Where the hell was the crossbow? The demon was halfway across the lot when another parked car exploded, the force of it lifting the Corvette up and crunching it against the ceiling. Pan ducked behind the pillar, feeling the fist of the shock wave buffet past her.
She hobbled around, flanking the demon. There, a dozen yards away, her crossbow. She pushed herself away from the pillar, limping toward it, hearing the howl of the demon on her tail. She collapsed next to the weapon, swinging it around just as the creature was reaching for her. The wire twanged and the bolt buried itself in the creature’s eyeless face. It had time to grunt, almost like it couldn’t believe its luck, then it exploded into dust.
A shotgun blast behind her. Herc calling out a word that might have been her name. Pan turned to see him limping her way, clouds of smoke billowing around him. His face was a mess, smeared with angry burns. She couldn’t see what he was shooting at, the truck was in the way. At least part of the truck.
Part of the truck that unfolded into a demon the size of a grizzly; which opened its mouth and roared.
Pan swore, lifting the crossbow even though it wasn’t loaded. One of the demon’s long front legs curled around her chest. It squeezed and she heard a rib snap, a supernova of pain detonating inside her. The crossbow fell, clattering to the floor.
Herc’s gun roared again, the creature’s head tinkling like a tuneless music box. Clouds of shot tore past her, stinging her skin. The demon didn’t even seem to feel it, lifting another leg, angling its bladed foot in her direction. Its head was made up of part of the bumper and the license plate—SKI UTAH!—serrated teeth still pushing themselves free of the metal. Even though it had no eyes it seemed to look at her, and she knew exactly what it was thinking.
Finally, after all these years, we can collect.
She almost felt the relief of it, until she remembered what would happen next.
“Pan!” Herc cried out, too far away, too slow. The creature squeezed again, her bones splintering. Pan closed her eyes, hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as they told her, hoping that Ostheim had been wrong when he’d said she’d be begging for death if they ever caught her. She’d be begging for death for the rest of eternity.
“Go on, then,” she spat, half words, half blood. “Do your worst.”
And it did.