“Yeah, we’ll all pay for this. Goddammit what is that?”
The sensation was getting stronger, a tremor that seemed to fill up the whole corridor. What little glass was left in the windows was rattling, the rest trembling across the floor like a river of ice. It was more like a subway than ever, like there was a train hurtling their way. Only whatever was coming was worse than a train. Marlow could feel it in his gut, a sickness born of fear, some primal instinct demanding that he run, run and never stop. Everybody seemed to be feeling it, whatever it was, Pan and her friends casting nervous looks at each other. Marlow glanced at Charlie but he was wearing a thousand-yard stare, lost in the horror of the last twenty minutes.
Patrick started to back away, then his hands shot up to his head, clutching it like he was trying to stop it popping off his shoulders. He seemed to go three shades paler in as many seconds.
“No no no no,” he muttered, staggering back. “No no please no no not yet no no no.”
He looked back at Pan and this time his expression was one of pure horror.
“Get my sister out of here, please,” he yelled. He turned so quickly he almost tripped on his own feet, pushing through the doors, his shrieks echoing back to them down the corridor.
“He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming!”
His fear was contagious, Marlow’s skin growing cold, his scalp tightening. He stood up, turning to Pan. She too was shaking her head, and when she looked back at him her eyes were wide and full of fear.
“Herc,” she said, speaking into a radio on her collar. “Please tell me he’s wrong.”
She listened to a reply and collapsed against the ruined bank of lockers. The whole school seemed to be shaking now, like a giant steamroller was about to crush the building into dust. There was more buzzing inside Marlow’s skull, a thousand bluebottles feasting on his brain.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Pan?”
She pushed herself off the lockers, stumbling away, her eyes never leaving Marlow’s.
“He’s coming,” she said, her voice that of a child who hears something beneath her bed in the middle of the night. She looked about half her age, a little lost girl. “Oh god, he’s coming.”
“Who?” asked Marlow. The ceiling cracked overhead, filling the corridor with billowing clouds of dust, like it too needed to find a way out fast. “Pan, who?”
“Him,” she said, the word just a sob. “Mammon.”
MAMMON
Pan had never felt fear like this before. Not even her first time in the Engine, sinking into the infernal blackness of the pit and not knowing whether she’d make it out alive. Not the first time she’d seen it, the creature that lived inside the machine, the one that craved her soul. Not the first time she’d seen the demons, hefting their bulk from the shattered remains of the world they possessed. Not even when she was a kid, watching her parents arguing, seeing her drunken father bunch up his fist and unleash his fury on her and her mother.
This fear was something else, something so unfamiliar that it was almost alien. It was a physical thing, a cold fire inside her stomach, a painful tickle like somebody’s dirty fingers were burrowing between her vertebrae. Her head was a mess of white noise.
He was coming.
She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, but even that was a struggle. Her body—her mind—was on the verge of a complete breakdown. All it wanted to do was lie down and die, because anything—literally anything—was better than seeing him. Her vision went dark, hallucinations of moldering flesh flashing up against the ruin of the corridor.
She tried to ignore them. Ostheim had warned her it would be like this, if she was ever close to one of the Five. The Pentarchy were freaks, monsters who had used the Engine too many times. They weren’t human, not anymore. They weren’t Engineered, and they weren’t demons. They were something horrific that lay in between. And Mammon was the worst, a force of utter wickedness who corrupted everything he touched. All he had to do was smile at you, Ostheim said, and your soul would rot.
Mammon.
Just thinking his name made the corridor shake more violently, the floor vibrating so hard that she almost lost her footing. She braced herself against the wall, screaming when she felt something soft and wet there, something moving. The plaster was crumbling away, a solid mass of maggots squirming beneath, like the building was made of them. She recoiled, watching as more of the façade fell away, unleashing a torrent of insects and spiders that poured to the floor. More dropped from the ceiling, pattering down onto her head like big, fat drops of rain. Something squirmed its way down the back of her suit and she almost gagged. It couldn’t be real and yet it was—the Five made a mockery of physics.
“Pan?” A voice behind her, but she was panicking too much to care who it was. Herc was barking into her ear but the line was drenched in static. She ran, spiders crunching beneath her boots. The floor was growing soft, as if it was melting beneath the weight of so many moving bodies. Her feet began to stick and she had the awful feeling that she was trapped inside a nightmare, that soon she would be completely paralyzed.
“This way!” A hand under her arm, pulling her so hard that she was lifted off the ground, swung toward the window. It was Truck, with Brianna unconscious over one shoulder. A bead of blood wound its way down from his eye. “Move, Pan!”
He gave her a shove that almost catapulted her through the broken glass. She jumped onto the dying grass. It was too hot out here, the paint on the window frames blistering.
Somebody was screaming close by, an unbearable, endless shriek. She didn’t blame them, whoever they were. The world was literally crumbling, dissolving. The school building was falling into pieces around them, bricks toppling from the tower, walls caving in like cardboard in a rainstorm. The ground was changing, creatures that might have been worms or leeches oozing up from the grass, from the soil, even from the concrete, wriggling pathetically as they roasted.
Pan.
Something said her name and the force of it almost knocked her to her knees. The word conjured up more visions of dead things, cadavers that lifted their skeletal fingers to point at her. She recognized her dead, the ones she had killed, or left to die, and she covered her face with her hands. It was too much, too much.
A hand on her back, guiding her. She opened her eyes to see Marlow there, and his friend. They ran, soft bodies erupting into pus beneath their feet. They turned the corner of the school—now nothing more than a column of crumbling brick—to see Herc there, standing beside the van waving them on manically.
“Do you want to die?” he yelled, and there was a madness in his eyes—a lunatic terror—that was somehow even worse than her own fear.
Why are you running, Pan? His voice, Mammon’s, injected into her ears by a long, sharp needle. It was disjointed, the voice changing pitch from an adult’s to a child’s, a man’s to a woman’s, like a hundred people were speaking to her. We have so much to talk about, you and I.
“No,” she said, digging her fingers into her temples. The pain was good. Better to have a head full of agony than a head full of him.
“Ignore it,” said Herc, running forward. He and Marlow hefted her into the van and she collapsed into a seat. The vehicle was shaking, the whole street rattling. “Get in, now!” Herc bellowed, waiting for the others to scramble inside before sliding the door shut. He jammed his foot on the gas and the vehicle lurched, the tires screaming on the asphalt.
The van didn’t budge.
There’s no need to hurry, said the voice, louder now, like it was whispering into her ear. Pan had to swivel around in her chair to make sure Mammon wasn’t right behind her. She was almost relieved until she looked out of the rear window.
The street that led up to the school was changing, widening, like an invisible force was pushing the buildings to one side. No, not an invisible force. She could see something there in the center of it, a ball of blinding darkness that ground slowly up the street.
There was a silhouette inside it, the vague shape of a man. And even though his face was obscured by impossible light, she could still see it, burning into her retinas—a cruel face, a joker’s grin, and two lunatic black eyes overflowing like toppled ink pots.
There’s nowhere to run, he said, that voice like a record being played at the wrong speed. Come to me, I have so much to offer you.
“Herc,” she said, tasting blood in her mouth. “We need to go. Now.”
“Take off the parking brake!” Truck boomed, the van shaking but still rooted to the ground as the tires spun.
“It’s off!” yelled Herc. He was crying, his foot stamping on the gas like he was trying to kick a hole through the bottom of the van. He swore, smashing his hands on the steering wheel.
Pan looked back. Clouds of black smoke plumed upward from the burning tires but through them she could see Mammon, so much closer now, hauling himself up the street like a leviathan. The buildings seemed to step out of his way, as if they would rather shake themselves into oblivion than block his path. Windows shattered, bricks exploding as they were forced sideward, the sidewalk shaking to dust and rippling like water. The sight made Pan think of an icebreaker shattering its way through reality.
There is nothing I can’t do, he said, and there were sounds in her head, somebody licking their lips, a burst of insane laughter, a scream, a baby crying, all played at once like some sadistic sound track, threatening to deafen her. There is no need to run.
“Herc, please get this van moving,” she said.
The engine was howling, threatening to blow. Through the back windshield Mammon was closer, that orb of light taking up the entire street. Somebody ran past the van, bumping into them, then staggering off into the cloud of dust. He had no eyes, Pan saw, just two holes in his head where they had been gouged away. She looked around her, saw the terror inside the van—Marlow and the other boy clawing at their own faces, trying to get Mammon out of their heads. Night was curled up into a ball beneath one of the chairs, sobbing. Truck was sitting there looking like he was about to have an aneurism, his eyes bulging, blood dripping from both of them.
“Herc, please!” she said. Because if they didn’t start moving, then Mammon would be on them, and it would all be over. Ostheim was right: he could rip their souls apart with a touch, send them to the deepest, darkest parts of hell. Compared to him, the demons were old friends, almost gentle in their mindlessness. Mammon was pure, undiluted evil. Pan realized she was crying. “Please, Herc. I can’t stand it.”
I am your savior, Pan. You may not know it yet but you will. You will come to me.
“No! No!” she screamed into her hands, clutching her face and wishing wishing wishing for them to move. She heard feet, felt something pull at the harness on her back. When she opened her eyes she saw Marlow there, fumbling with her crossbow. He pushed past her, using the butt of the weapon to smash a hole in the rear windshield. Then he thrust the bow through, taking aim.
He was too low, it would fall short.
She reached out, slapping his arm up just as he took the shot. The bolt soared out and up, looked for a second like it was going wide. Then it punched through Mammon’s bubble. Just a sliver of iron, no bigger than a pen. But the metal had been harvested from the Engine itself and it was powerful. There was a sudden flare of negative light, everything going black, like the sun had been turned inside out.
The van lurched forward, throwing Pan off her chair and into Marlow, both of them crumpled into a heap. The acceleration took her breath away and she held on to him as they skidded around a corner, then another, the van groaning as it shunted smaller vehicles out of the way.
You can’t run forever, said Mammon, a hundred voices screaming from a madhouse. I’ll find you.
They barreled around another corner and the voice faded, burned up by a burst of static.
I’ll find you, and you will burn …
She burrowed her face into Marlow’s chest, felt his arms lock tight around her, his chest heaving, wheezing, both of them sobbing into each other as they left the madness behind, that voice just an unbearable, whispered echo in the very center of her brain.
You will burn …
FRESH KILLS
Marlow didn’t know how much later it was that the van shuddered to a halt. It might have been minutes, it felt like days. He lifted his head, the world gradually coming into focus. Pan lay beside him, her head resting on his chest, and she stirred too, blinking like she’d just woken. It only took a couple of seconds for her expression to harden and she scowled as she pushed him away. She looked in shock, though, her whole body trembling, her chattering teeth the loudest sound in the sudden quiet.
Marlow struggled up, groaning. He felt like he’d just run an Ironman race, every single muscle aching. He eased his head left, then right, the tendons so tight they might snap. He couldn’t make out much from down here but he could see blue skies and he could hear seagulls, the soft lap of waves. Warm, musty air seeped in through the van’s broken windows and he inhaled deeply, doing a good impression of bagpipes. He reached for his inhaler, pressing it until the tightness began to ease. How many shots were left? Ten, twenty at a push.
“Everyone okay?” Herc said softly, like he didn’t want to give anyone a fright. He looked around, his pale face catching the light that streamed in through the windshield.
“Yeah,” spat Pan. “I’m great, just dandy.”
She pushed past the others, grabbing the handle and pulling hard. The van must have taken a beating on the drive because the door was wedged tight.
“Truck?” Pan said. “You think you might want to make yourself useful for a change?”
The big guy didn’t reply, just stared at something only he could see, his eyes crusted with dried blood, making it look like he was wearing clown makeup. Pan kicked him, and not gently.
“Hey, Truck, I’m talking to you.”
He snapped out of his trance and it seemed to take him a moment to work out where he was. He lumbered to his feet, ducking low to stop his head going through the roof. Grunting, he gave the door a shove and it snapped off like it was made of plywood and clattered across the asphalt. Pan jumped out, standing in the sun, a breeze kicking up her short hair.
“You’re welcome, Truck,” said Truck, speaking in a falsetto that was still deeper than most men’s voices. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Truck. Man, you’re so strong, Truck. You’re my hero, Truck.”
The van rocked wildly on its suspension as he followed Pan. Night was next, taking Truck’s outstretched hand as she skipped nimbly onto the pavement. Marlow wanted to go too—the van stank of smoke and sweat, reminding him of what he’d seen outside the school.
Yeah, said his head, and what was that?
It had seemed like the end of the world. Something unimaginable—literally, even now, knowing what he saw, he couldn’t picture it. When he tried to look back all he could make out was a black hole in his memory, like somebody had gone at it with a pair of shears. He clamped his teeth around the skin of one dirty knuckle, chewing, grateful to the pain for distracting him.
“That was … something,” said Charlie beside him. When he turned to his friend now he barely recognized the boy. Charlie’s face was drawn and haggard, his eyes so bloodshot they didn’t look human. “Please tell me I was high.”
Marlow would have laughed if he could remember how. Herc leaned over the back of the seat, studying the girl from the school—who was still out cold—and then them. His scarred brow creased into a frown.
“Please tell me I’m still high,” said Charlie.
“You in one piece?” Herc asked Marlow. Marlow didn’t know what to say, just nodded. As an afterthought he patted his legs, his chest, his crotch, just to make sure. Everything seemed to be where it was supposed to be. Herc coughed, wiping his mouth with his fist. “You know this guy.”
“Who, Charlie?” Marlow said. “Yeah, of course. He’s a friend.”
“Sha
me,” said Herc.
“Huh?” Marlow and Charlie asked together.
“Nothing. Come on.” Herc rubbed the back of his neck, grumbling, then he popped open his door and stepped out. Marlow could hear him talking about a helicopter as he strode across the lot.
Marlow stood, gritting his teeth against the pain. He hadn’t gone far before Charlie’s arm shot out, grabbing his wrist. In the half-light of the van his eyes looked huge.
“Marlow,” was all he said, but there was a question there. Marlow put a hand on top of his friend’s, holding tight.
“It’s okay,” he said, then he snorted. “Actually, it’s not okay, not even close. I can’t explain it, but these guys can.”
He helped Charlie up and they crept across the van, jumping down into a small parking lot. His nose told him where he was before his eyes, the instantly recognizable bittersweet aroma of the Fresh Kills landfill. The van was parked by the river, shielded by a platoon of bulldozers and a mountain of warehouses beyond. On the other side of the water were the rolling hills, trees, and wildflowers of the Island of Meadows, and just looking at them made Marlow’s chest feel a little looser, like he was standing in the countryside and not on the ass end of Staten Island. He took a deep breath through his nose, held it, then exhaled through his mouth—something his mom had taught him to do when he felt an attack coming on, when he needed to calm down. It sounded a bit like he was playing a kazoo.
Everyone was milling around, a collective unwinding. Pan stood right on the edge of the dock, hands on her hips, staring at the horizon, and even after what he’d seen, even though everything he thought he knew was falling apart, he couldn’t help but admire the sight.
“Yeah, now I know how you got embroiled in this mess,” said Charlie. The smallest of smiles danced around his mouth, a butterfly looking to land. Marlow felt his cheeks heat up and he waved his friend’s words away. Charlie breathed a laugh through his nose. “Always told you chasing tail would land you in trouble, just didn’t imagine it quite like this.”