“I could never be so lucky,” Herc said, walking the rest of the way and embracing the man fondly. They looked like a couple of old crusties meeting in the park, Pan thought, smiling.
“Good to see your mind’s on the job,” said Truck. “Nice to know you’re working hard on cracking our contracts.”
Seth waved a hand like he was wafting away a bad smell.
“Oh please, you know I could crack yours as easily as I could crack a fart. You insult me, Gregory, with your pathetic deals. When will you be brave and go for something really fun?”
One of the other Lawyers had paused the film and they were all milling around now like they were actually working. Pan ignored them. She knew a little about each of them, but other than Seth she did her best to avoid them. There was something about knowing the person who had to break your contract that made the whole thing scarier, made it more real. It was better to pretend that some nameless, faceless superhero was trying to save your life, not an old guy with a triple bypass, or some geeky mathematicians from MIT who were still young enough to think that ironic T-shirts were cool.
“It’s good to see you, Amelia,” Seth said, using the name that Pan hated. “We almost lost you then. That was a tough cookie to break. See, Gregory, you should be more like this young lady here, actually giving me some work to do!”
Seth wiggled his huge, bushy eyebrows at her and smiled and she couldn’t help but smile back. Until she thought of Forrest, that was.
“You should have broken his contract,” she said. “We didn’t have to lose another one.”
“Cody.” Seth sighed. “Yes. We should have. I am sorry, Amelia. Ostheim commanded us to keep your contracts active until your mission was complete. And by that time it was too late. We only just managed to break yours in time.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” she said, scratching her chest, her ruined heart. Seth walked to her, placed a warm, leathery hand on her shoulder.
“I truly am sorry, my girl. It was not my choice, but it is my responsibility. I should have said no to Ostheim.”
Yeah, right. Nobody said no to Ostheim. Pan shrugged him away.
“I will write his name in the book,” Seth said.
“Don’t,” she replied. She steeled herself, walking to the corner of the room. There was a desk there, an old, leather-bound ledger the only thing on it. It was open now, and she ran her hand down the list of names written there in black ink. Lucy White (Simmer), Beki Smith (Bluebeard), Sophie Hicks (T-Rex), Wesley Adams (Marathon Man), Tyra Jynn (Spitfire), Ryan Hodapp (Hammer), Hannah Wilkinson (Berserker), Leticia Gallardo (Bookworm), Courtney Webb (Captain Obvious). All the Engineers and their war names. All of them dead. Some of them rotting in the ground, most of them somewhere far, far worse. She did what she always did, flicking back through the book. How many names? A thousand? Those at the front were faded almost beyond recognition, centuries old. And how many more would there be, before it all ended?
Picking up the pen, she wrote Cody, then stopped, racking her brains. What the hell had his surname been? The pen hovered and she felt the shame wrap her up, smothering her. How could she forget it? He was dead, and she couldn’t even remember his name.
It’s better this way, better to forget he ever existed, better to—
Baranowski. It was suddenly vomited back into her head and she scribbled it down, adding (Forrest) afterward. Herc had given him that name because he’d always been going on about how life was a box of chocolates. She ran her finger softly over the name, then closed the book with deliberate slowness.
Job done. Time to move on. I will not think of him again.
“And who is this?” said Seth, getting out of his chair and shuffling over to Marlow. “A new recruit? Oh goody!”
“Seth, meet Marlow,” said Pan. Seth took Marlow’s head in both of his and studied him like a scientist might study a rat. He nodded approvingly.
“Oh, Marlow, how fitting,” he said, putting his head to Marlow’s chest. “Bit of asthma there, I see. Nothing we can’t take care of. A good specimen, Herman, we will have a lot of fun with this one. Have you thought about what you might like, Marlow? Have they filled you in on the possibilities, the endless, wonderful possibilities?”
“Um…” said Marlow.
“He can wait,” said Herc. “It’s been a long day. A long few days. We should rest.”
“Balderdash!” said Seth. “You need no such thing. Please, let’s work up a contract for him. You don’t know how bored I get here. They make me do terrible things, terrible things, when you are gone. These films they make me watch, about wizards and dragons and … and strange elves with socks. I cannot think with such nonsense in my head.”
“He put it on!” said one of the Lawyers, a young woman called Trix. “He’s made us watch it four times this week.”
“Lies,” said Seth, holding up his hands. “See how they slander me. Come, come.”
He took Marlow’s elbow and walked with him toward the elevator. Pan looked at Herc and the big guy shrugged.
“It’s too late and I’m too tired to argue with Seth,” he said. “I’m going to bed. You make sure he doesn’t deal for something unbreakable, all right?”
“Come on, Herc,” she said, wanting nothing more than to crash down on a soft mattress, bury herself in the warmth of her duvet. “I’m—”
“Good night, Pan,” Herc said, flashing her a smile. She looked at Truck and he shook his head.
“Bed for me. Good night, kiddo.”
“Buenas noches, Pan,” said Night before she’d even asked her.
She groaned in frustration then spun around on her heels, following the old man and the kid. Already she could feel that maddening itch, the call of the Engine. She pictured it beneath her—its sprawling insanity, an ocean of moving parts powered by unspeakable evil—and her heart began drumming. The truth was she wasn’t tired. The reason she didn’t want to babysit Marlow was because if she went downstairs, if she saw the Engine, then the desire to forge a new contract would be almost overwhelming. It always wanted her, and she no longer knew how to say no.
“Do not dally, Amelia,” said Seth from inside the elevator. “I don’t want to be another hundred years older by the time you join us.”
She shook her head in resignation, then jogged over to them. Marlow smiled nervously at her and she almost felt sorry for him. Almost. The truth was he didn’t know how lucky he was. Right now he was a wheezing, trembling sack of flesh and bone and worry.
And in a few minutes he’d be a god.
THE ENGINE
Marlow wasn’t sure how it was possible that they could go any deeper, but the elevator rattled downward at full speed for another minute before it began to slow. He could feel the vast pressure of the earth above him, a billion tons of rock and soil bearing down, ready to crush him to jelly. The panic was like a cold fire inside his chest and he had to fight the urge to scream, to beg for them to take him back to the surface. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down but there was no air here. He panted, fumbling for his inhaler, until the old man put his hand on his arm.
“You no longer need it,” he said, patting the back of Marlow’s hand like a father taking his son to the first day of school. “It can be a bit much, I know. The moment that everything you thought you knew about the world is proven to be wrong. But it gets better. Come.”
The elevator shuddered to a halt and Pan opened the doors. Marlow focused on her in an attempt to blot out everything else—the way she walked, like she owned the place; the way her hips moved, it was almost hypnotic. He kept his eyes on her, so engrossed that it took him a moment to notice there was something in his head, something scuttling around the circumference of his skull, buzzing like a fly. He put his hand to his temple, scratching furiously, but the itch was inside him, unbearable. If he’d had a hammer he’d have gladly used it to get at whatever crawled and feasted in there.
“What is that?” he grunted, using both hands now, feelin
g like his brain was full of insect eggs, all hatching into needled feet and bulging eyes. “Get it out.”
He felt hands on his, looked to see Pan right in front of him, close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips. Even with his head erupting he felt himself melt, like the bones had been pulled right out of his legs.
“The Engine will do its best to mess with you,” she said. “You’ll feel its touch in your head, in your soul. It’s trying to understand you, probe you. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, and believe me, it will make you feel like you want to die. Ignore it.”
“Ignore the creepy magic Engine that’s probing my soul with evil stalker fingers,” he said, trying to smile and offering what was probably a grimace. “Okay, cool.”
Pan studied him for a moment more and he had the almost overwhelming desire to lean forward and plant his mouth on hers. It would be so easy, she was six inches away, and those lips were so full, slightly open …
“Do it and you die,” she said, reading his mind. She prodded him hard in the forehead and backed away. “Believe me, the Engine is a mean piece of work but I’m worse.”
“Do what?” he said as innocently as he could. “I wasn’t…”
“Sure.”
They were in a small room, just the elevator on one side and what looked like a vault door on the other. The walls were made of concrete, and the same Nazi decoration covered two of them. Somebody had painted over the swastikas but it was almost as if the poisonous symbol had eroded the paint, causing it to bubble up like diseased skin.
“What’s with all the Hitler crap?” Marlow asked. “There something you’re not telling me? Because I’m really not into all that white supremacy stuff.”
“Us neither, Marlow,” said Seth, gesturing at himself. “Obviously. No, the Nazis found this place when they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. We don’t know why, exactly, but the Engines had been lost for a long time before this, almost forgotten. Fortunately for us, the Nazis didn’t work out how to use the machine before the end of the war. Things could have turned out very, very different.”
“It’s why we call it the Pigeon’s Nest,” Pan said as she typed a code into a pad by the vault door. “Like the führer’s mountain hideout they called Eagle’s Nest, but this place was full of pigeons when the Hellraisers found it. Dead ones.”
The door bleeped and she turned to Marlow.
“Nothing I can say, nothing anyone can say, will prepare you for what you’re about to see. There’s no training you can do, no way of readying yourself. You could have a thousand years to gear up for your first encounter with the Engine and it would still hit you just as hard. So we’re gonna throw you right in. The most important thing to remember is that it cannot hurt you. It will mess with your head, make you feel worse than you’ve ever felt, make you think things you never thought yourself capable of, make you feel like you’re evil, but it cannot hurt you. Okay?”
“Sure,” he said, wanting to add, No, I’m nowhere near okay, please just get me out of here, I don’t want to be part of this anymore. But the truth was he was tired of running. “Sure,” he said, firmer this time. “I’m ready.”
Pan breathed out a laugh, like it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, then she smacked a hand down on the pad. There was a moment of hesitation before the room was full of noise, a siren blasting out the same time as a light began to flash above the door. It felt like they were inside a prison waiting for the gates to release. Why did they need a door this size? Who were they trying to keep out?
Or what were they trying to keep in?
The hydraulics inside the door hissed, then there was a clunk as the locks disengaged. It swung open lazily, and Marlow’s last fingerhold on the rock of reality popped loose, plunging him into the abyss. The onslaught was overwhelming—a feast of rotting flesh and howling screams devoured every thought. He gripped his head, blinking away tears, feeling exhausted, like he’d been crying for hours. He felt Pan’s hand on his arm, and for once her expression had softened.
“Come!” said Seth, pushing past them both. “We must begin, this is so exciting!”
Exciting wasn’t the word Marlow would have used, but there was definitely something inside him—past the churning terror, the maddening horror—that made him giddy. Part of him was still convinced that they were all trying to trick him—They’re lying to you, his dreams had told him—but he’d seen it, seen what they could do.
You’ve seen the price they have to pay, too.
He closed his eyes, tried to force away the image of the girl Brianna, being torn to pieces, her soul dragged into the burning ground. It was okay. That wouldn’t happen to him. They’d look after him.
Right?
Pan led the way through the door and Marlow kept close behind her, his heart pounding so hard at his ribs that it was as if it were trying to break its way loose to be closer to her. A strong, cool breeze blew past him, stinking of something that could have been smoke or rotten eggs. He put his hand to his nose and coughed out the phlegm in his throat. His inhaler was all but empty now but he was trying not to think about it. If he had an attack, he was thousands of miles away from his spares, from his nebulizer. Deep breaths, calm and steady, just don’t panic.
He stepped through the door and the panic hit him like a punch to the gut.
It was like being on a vessel in the dark heart of space. Beyond the door was nothing, just a vast, black emptiness that took his breath away—literally snatched it from his lungs. It was impossible to get a sense of how big it was because there were no landmarks, but somehow he knew it was vast, something in the immense stillness of the air. He felt as if one more step would send him spinning out into that depthless silence and he’d be smothered by it, swallowed whole.
Gasping, he reached out and grabbed hold of the first thing he could find—a cold metal handrail—clinging on as if his life depended on it. Even like this, rooted in place, he felt as if the entire world might flip upside down at any second, cast him off like somebody shaking a bug from their hand. He screwed his eyes shut, but that only made it worse, made him feel like he was already spinning into oblivion.
There was a distant crunch and he opened his eyes to see a microscopic dot of light in the distance, as tiny as a firefly seen from the top of a mountain. Another one joined it, then a third, a row of lights flickering toward them forming a line that could have been a runway. More lights buzzed to life, sparking, and Marlow’s jaw dropped as the size of the space became apparent—bigger even than he’d imagined it, bigger than a dozen football fields, a hundred maybe. The hanging lights blinked on, thousands of them, until the cavern was blazing.
And what they illuminated was almost enough to make him want to shout for darkness, to pluck out his own eyeballs so as not to see.
He stood at the top of a steep, narrow metal staircase that plunged to the cavern floor. Down there was a ledge the size of a classroom, dwarfed by the rest of the chamber. There was nothing there aside from a rectangular pool filled with something that rippled like water, but which gave off no reflection.
It was what lay beyond the ledge, though, that was surely impossible. It might have been an ocean, but one made of mechanical parts. It was hard to get a sense of it from up there, but he could make out cogs and levers and gears and springs and spindles, hundreds of thousands of them—no, millions of them. It looked like a dumping ground for old clocks, for clockwork toys and mechanical oddities. The scale of it made him feel like an insect, something minuscule and insignificant, something worthy only of being crushed. And the thought seemed to make the Engine grow larger still, made it appear to rise up, to tower over him even though it lay below. It was as if a vast wave was approaching from the far side of the cavern, roaring and blasting and thundering toward him.
Then he blinked, and the ocean of parts was once again still, like it hadn’t moved in a thousand years.
He suddenly wanted no part of this thing, this vast and ancient
device. What had Pan told him? That it had been constructed by the Devil? That was impossible, of course, there was no such thing, right? But here now, seeing this abomination sitting fat beneath him, a boundless leviathan of razor-sharp parts, he could easily believe it. It was something that had no right to exist, and he tried to turn, to run back through the door, but found that he couldn’t.
Don’t you want to know? said something in his head, a warm, sour breath like somebody had clamped their cold lips to his and whispered right into his mouth. He put his hands to his ears, but still the words came. I can give you anything you want, anything you desire. All you have to do is ask.
Another image flooded his battered brain, him running down a track. He couldn’t quite figure out why it felt so good until he realized that he wasn’t wheezing, wasn’t fighting for every breath. It was so vivid that when it dissolved he almost mourned it, until another one took its place—Pan, her hands on his chest, her lips parted as she moved in for the kiss.
All you have to do is ask.
Somewhere out in the vast silence of the machine there was an insect’s click, a soft mechanical chirrup. Marlow’s head was suddenly empty again, his cheeks burning with the sheer power of the fantasy. There was a blissful moment of silence before another one took its place, filling his head like he had a home cinema between his ears. And this one almost made him cry out with joy.
He and Danny, walking up the steps to their house, everything drenched in sunlight as they laughed their way through the front door. His mom, hugging him first and then his brother—smelling of dewberry the way she used to, not a single empty bottle in the sink. Danny turned to him, older now, lines on his face, a patch of gray hair by his left ear, but those eyes so full of life, so full of kindness.
All you have to do is ask, his brother said, ruffling his hair.
And then Marlow was dropped back into the cavern, blinking the sun from his eyes like he’d actually been there. The scent of his mom’s moisturizer was still in his nose, his scalp tingling from Danny’s touch. Pan had reached the bottom of the stairs and she looked up at him curiously.