Hellraisers (14 page)

“Truck, nice of you to turn up,” she said.

“Wish I could say the same,” he grunted, squeezing his obese frame halfway into the van, the whole vehicle tilting with his weight. “Herc, we got two agents inside and they're blowing the place to hell. Do we engage?”

“Engage,” said Herc, nodding. “Of course you should engage, you dufus. We got a chance to kick the Circle where it counts here. Try to take one alive, okay?”

Truck nodded, his chins jiggling, then he pushed away hard enough to make the van rock on its suspension. Pan watched him go. He didn't look like much, for sure, but she could almost smell the Engine's power inside him—blood and iron, age and power. He would have gone for strength, the way he always did when he forged a contract. It was a safe bet, the Lawyers had brokered that one so many times they could break it with their eyes closed.

The big guy reached the gates, the kids backing away from him like they could sense something different, something
wrong
. A small figure danced up beside him, casting a nervous look back and lifting a hand to Pan in greeting.
Nightingale.
Pan didn't wave back, just nodded at her. Night would have gone for something else, speed maybe. It was impossible to tell until Pan saw her in action.

She sat down, then pushed herself up again, pacing like a caged animal. God, she hated being out of contract, being
human.
The word caught in her craw, making her feel like choking. When she was human she was weak, fragile, pathetic. The Engine made her whole, made her real. With the Engine, she wasn't human at all, she was something so much more.

Being human didn't mean she had to sit here like a lemon, though.

“Don't,” Herc said, squinting suspiciously at her.

“Don't what?”

“Don't do whatever it is that you're thinking about doing,” he said. “Let Truck and Night handle it, kiddo, you'll be like a sitting duck out there. A duck with no legs or wings or … superpowers.”

“That's probably the worst analogy I've ever heard,” she muttered back, sliding the crossbow out of the pouch on her back. She'd lost three bolts in the hospital parking lot but she had two left, each one forged from the Engine. They were designed to stop the demons in their tracks, but they did a pretty good job of putting holes in Engineers too.

“Pan, I'm serious, Ostheim wouldn't want you out there.”

“Ostheim can kiss it,” she said. “You want to take down the enemy, you're gonna need more than a fat guy and his shadow. Give me that.”

She nodded at the pistol holstered at Herc's waist. He shook his head, but it was more in resignation than denial, because he popped the stud and held it out.

“Safety's off,” he said.

“Just the way I like it,” she replied, grinning. Then, before he could say another word, she was out of the van. The sun was fierce, drumming on her skull as she ran across the street. People pushed past her but she ignored them, crossing the parking lot, the pistol cocked in her right hand and the bow held tight in her left. There was a soft explosion, a set of windows to her left detonating into shrapnel. She jogged toward them, seeing a classroom drenched in shadow. It was so dark inside that she could only make out an outline. No,
two
outlines, next to each other.

“That's enough,” she heard one of them say. “Time to talk.”

She lifted the gun, finger on the trigger. The man who had spoken saw her—his eyes glinting in the dark—and a second later both figures vanished, blasting out a shock wave of heat and air. Pan swore, jamming a finger to her collar radio.

“Contact, we've got a 'Porter. It's Patrick Rebarre. I lost him.”

She looked right and left, waiting for them to reappear. Teleporters never went far, it was too draining, especially when they were carrying a passenger. There was another
whump
above her and she backed away, staring up the huge brick tower that made up the corner of the school. There, at the top, over the clockface, a figure dangling precariously over the edge. Pan swore again, clambering through the window into the school, blinking the last of the sun out of her eyes. She bolted across a classroom into the corridor beyond. To the right was the lobby and she could hear shouts inside, Truck's voice booming. She ignored it—the big guy could handle himself—cutting up a flight of steps, then another. The halls were deserted now, the fire alarm still screaming. She reached the top floor, her injured heart beating like a hummingbird's.

“Come on, come on,” she growled, running one way then doubling back, finding a door with
CLOCK
stenciled on it. It was locked, but she aimed the pistol and fired off four shots, splinters of wood exploding. A solid kick forced it open and she ran up three more flights of stairs, bursting through the door at the top.

Patrick and Marlow were there, dark silhouettes against the day. She squeezed the trigger, the pistol bucking in her fist. Too slow. Patrick blinked out of sight with another concussive thump, leaving Marlow hanging there, his arms cartwheeling manically, his mouth open in an expression of terror as gravity reached up and grabbed him.

Leave him,
her brain said.
He's trouble, he knows too much.

But before she could even acknowledge what her head was saying she was halfway across the roof, diving like a fielder as the boy tumbled over the side. She skidded on her stomach, stretching as far as she could, thinking she'd missed him before his hand caught hers. He felt like an anchor, his momentum pulling her over. She dug in everything she could, the nails of her other hand gouging into the dust and filth of the roof, catching the bricks and holding her.

She screamed, the boy hanging from her arm, heavy enough to rip it from the socket like a turkey leg at Thanksgiving. Beneath them people swarmed like insects, so far down. Marlow struggled, swinging back and forth, his sneakers scuffing the brickwork as he tried to pull himself up. She couldn't hold him, no way.
Stupid stupid stupid,
she told herself, knowing that if she didn't cut him free he was going to drag them both to their deaths. But his hands were on hers now, clinging like barnacles. He looked like he was having trouble breathing, his face turning purple.

“Let go,” she grunted.

“No way!” Marlow shot back. “Pull me up!”

She tried, the fingers of her left hand slipping on the roof, her body sliding closer to the edge.

“I
can't,
you have to let go.”

Pop
, a current of warm air. Pan looked back to see Patrick reappear on the roof. He tucked a strand of long blond hair behind his ear and grinned at her.

“That was stupid, Pan,” he said.

Pan tried to shake Marlow loose but his fingers were a vise around her wrist. She scanned the floor. The crossbow was by the stairwell door, the pistol closer, but she had no hands to reach with. Patrick knew it, too, walking closer, never taking his eyes off her.

“The irony is we wanted him”—he nodded over the edge at Marlow—“to get to you. We thought he might be able to lead us to where you were hiding. You're so damn good at hiding.”

He squatted down next to her, picking up the pistol and studying it like it was the first time he'd seen one.

“But here you are, you plonked yourself right in the palm of my hand.” He sniffed the air. “And you don't even have a contract. Killing a kitten couldn't be easier.”

“You'd know,” Pan spat, fat beads of sweat dripping down her forehead, into her eyes. She didn't blink, though, didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she was afraid. “What are you waiting for, anyway? Not got the guts to pull the trigger?”

“Oh, I don't want you dead,” he said, pointing the gun at her stomach. “That would be a waste of an asset. I know how much information you've got in that pretty little head of yours.”

This was bad.
Better to die than let them take you,
she told herself.
They'll torture you, then kill you anyway. Let go, just drop. Three seconds, four at most, then it will all be over.
She was out of contract. If she died now, then the demons could never take her.

But she'd been too close to death too many times, and that gaping absence scared her almost as much as hell did. She tightened her grip on the bricks, the pain sharpening in her cramping fingers.

“Where's Ostheim?” Patrick asked, pushing the barrel of the gun into her ribs.

“With your mom,” she said.

The boy laughed but there was no humor in his cold, blue eyes. He pushed the gun in farther, his finger twitching on the trigger.

“Not good enough,” he said.

“Yeah, that's what Ostheim said.”

“Last chance, Pan.”

She laughed. Not because it was funny but because she wouldn't be able to tell him even if she did know. She had no idea where Ostheim was. Nobody did. Not even
Ostheim
knew where he was half the time. He traveled on a remote unit, never stopping for more than an hour, never broadcasting his location. It had been like that for as long as she'd been a Hellraiser. She'd never even met Ostheim. None of the Engineers had. What better way to protect the guy at the top than to keep the whole operation blind?

“Fine,” the boy said, all trace of a smile now wiped clean. “You don't deserve to live anyway. One less piece of vermin in the world. Just remember, you—”

A streak of light blazed past and Patrick's head lurched back with a
crack.
He toppled onto his ass, spitting blood, the gun clattering away. There was another splintering crunch as something hit Patrick in the mouth. The blur skidded to a halt, taking the slim shape of Nightingale. She was panting, out of breath, which wasn't surprising, really, given she'd been running too fast to see. The boy was groaning, clutching his broken teeth. He lifted a hand and Pan felt the air twist and bubble as he prepared to teleport Night—probably into the middle of a tree, or a hundred yards into the air.

“Night!” Pan shouted, and the girl became a blur again, running in a circle around the roof and blasting up a whirlwind of dust. With a look of pure fury, Patrick snapped out of existence. Night reappeared as she stopped running, staggered, looked for a moment like she was about to pass out, then walked to the edge of the roof. She grabbed Pan's arm, pulling hard. Pan grimaced, swinging Marlow up. The kid reached for the roof, missed, but on the second attempt he caught hold.

She almost didn't have the strength to pull herself up, but Night's skinny arms helped. She hauled her body onto the bricks and lay there for a moment, everything aching, feeling like she'd been stretched on the rack.

“Chu okay?” Night asked in her thick Spanish accent.

“Yeah, fine,” Pan said, pushing herself up with arms that felt like tissue paper. “Thanks.”

“De nada,”
Night said, bouncing back and forth from one foot to the other. Nightingale couldn't stay still for more than a millisecond. “Where'd the
hijo de puta
go? 'Porters, always cowards.”

“Anyone want to tell me what's going on?” said Marlow. He was sitting on the floor looking like he'd just gone ten rounds with Truck, his face drenched in sweat, his whole body trembling. He had his inhaler in one hand and was squeezing off shot after shot into his mouth. “You drugged me, right? This is … this is just some joke.”

“Ha, ha, yeah, you got us. So funny!” she replied, deadpan. She turned to Nightingale. “Where's Truck?”

“Downstairs, other one's a Reader but he knocked her out cold.”

A Mind Reader. They were brutal if they wanted to be, could control your thoughts, could make you strangle your own mother, then run under a bus. Pan set off across the roof, picking up the crossbow as she headed for the stairwell.

“That douche has probably 'ported down there, we'd better go help.” She jammed a finger on her mic. “Hey, Truck, you there? I think the 'Porter's heading your way.”

There was a hiss of static in her ear, then Truck's voice—
“You think?”
—almost lost in the rumble of an explosion. Pan could feel it in her feet, like the whole school was about to collapse. She broke into a run.

“Hey, what about me?” Marlow yelled behind her.

“Stay here if you want,” she shouted over her shoulder. “But if you're planning on living out the day, I suggest you follow me.”

 

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

Marlow scrabbled to his feet, wondering for a moment if his lungs had fallen out while he'd been hanging over the roof. He'd pumped seven shots of his inhaler but he was still struggling to breathe. Some situations were so bad that even Ventolin couldn't help.
Yeah, like being thrown off the school tower by a guy who can teleport and then being saved by a girl who's just come back from the dead.
His mind must have fallen out, too, because he was pretty sure he'd lost it.

He wasn't crazy enough to stay here by himself, though. The girl might have looked like she wanted him dead, but she had risked her life to save him. The guy called Patrick had been about to homicide his ass.

He set off after the girl—
girls
, although the petite one seemed to have vanished again. He stumbled into the stairwell, clutching the banister hard because he didn't trust his shaking legs to hold him. By the time he reached the deserted ground floor hallway he could hear noises spilling out of the lobby, shouts and something that might have been a gunshot or an explosion. He turned, ready to flee, only to thump into somebody running the other way.

“Hey!” he yelled, panicking until he recognized Charlie's face. The relief of seeing him alive was almost overwhelming and before he even knew what he was doing he'd thrown himself at the boy, hugging him tight.