Hellraisers (33 page)

“No, you don't,”
said Herc.
“You take him alive, so we can ask him some questions. We need him to try to get to their Engine. You hear me? Alive.”

“Sure,” said Truck, forming air quotes with his fingers. “Alive.”

“I saw that,”
said Herc, even though there was no way he could have.

“Just keep your eyes open,” Pan said to Marlow. “Patrick's pissed because of what happened to his sister. It'll make him angry, but it'll make him stupid, too. Anger does that. Wait for him to expose a weakness, then move in.”

“No way,” Truck added. “Not gonna wait for nothing. Gonna crush his ass.”

“Truck!”
Herc yelled, so loud that it hurt Pan's ear.

“Yeah, but what's the plan?” said Marlow. “What do we do?”

“Like the big guy says, crush ass. Oh, and don't die.”

“Crush ass, don't die?” Marlow said, shaking his head. “Great.”

He was still grumbling as they crossed the deserted street. Somewhere in the distance a summer storm was brewing, thunder and lightning stomping the hell out of the Bronx to the north. It was hot here, her skin prickling. It was
too
hot, like some of the layers between this world and theirs had peeled away. For a second she wondered whether she should turn around and go. There was
always
a second where that thought crossed her mind. Then she flicked it away. She'd made a choice, long ago, a choice to do the right thing.

This
was
the right thing.

Besides, where else was she going to go?

“You wanna find a way in through the back?” Night said. Pan shook her head, marching toward the steps that led to the huge bronze doors. They stood open, a soft light trickling out from inside.

“Nah,” she said. “Asshole wants a scrap, let's give him one.”

She climbed the stairs and looked inside. There were no lights on in there but there must have been a thousand candles blazing in the main body of the building, making it look like the cathedral was on fire. Even though it was night, light from the sleepless city streamed in through the huge windows. Pan couldn't see a single sign of life, although with the flickering candlelight it was hard to be sure.

He was here, though, she could feel the presence of the Engine like a knife in her soul.

She stepped over the threshold, a cold sweat breaking out on her skin. Sickness squirmed in her stomach the way it always did when she crossed onto hallowed ground with the Engine in her blood. Every time it happened she half expected to burst into flames, but thankfully it didn't work that way. The cathedral opened up around her, above her, far bigger than it had any right to be. It was like a cavern, the vaulted ceiling lost in shadow, the columns like some vast, primeval forest. The silence was so profound it was almost a physical force and she flexed her jaw to make her ears pop.

Glancing back, she saw the others on her heels. Night nodded to her, moving off to the side, flanking a row of long wooden pews. Truck went left, his big sneakers padding on the polished stone, the only noise in the building. Pan walked straight up the middle, slowly, her heart thrumming like a plucked string. Up ahead in the middle of the cathedral was the raised platform of the sanctuary, shrouded in a cold, gray half-light. Was that a figure there? A pocket of black? Pan blinked, trying to make sense of the gloom.

“Patrick?” she called out, her own voice so loud that it scared her. It echoed around the empty space like a trapped bird.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Marlow whispered, so close behind he was treading on her shadow.

“Patrick,” Pan said, ignoring the kid, “we know you're here.”

A fluttering up ahead, something that might have been hushed laughter. Pan glanced to her sides to see Truck and Night creeping through the dark.

“We've got unfinished business, you and me,” she said.

Something popped at the far end of the cathedral, like bubble wrap. A wave of warm air rippled past her and she recognized the shock wave a 'Porter made when they rematerialized. There was definitely a silhouette up there, standing in front of the altar. It moved, and Pan saw that it wasn't just one silhouette but two. She stopped, flexing her fingers, wondering if she should just attack now, while she still had the chance, burn them both to ashes. She didn't, though. Orders were orders.

“Unfinished business,” said a voice from the twilight dark. “Yeah, I'd say that's a good way of putting it.”

Patrick walked down the steps and stood stooped and weary. He looked like he'd not slept for a decade. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on in Budapest and they were covered in filth. When he looked up his eyes were two pockets of darkness in his face, but they burned into Pan with an intensity that made her want to run. She stood her ground, swallowing hard, sensing Truck and Night and Marlow around her.

“You gonna come quietly?” she asked. “Make our lives a little easier?”

Patrick smiled, a lunatic half-moon of teeth. Then he shook his head.

“So you can torture me too,” he said, “like you did my sister? So you can murder me and send me to hell?”

“Come on, Patrick,” Pan said. “You know the game. You make a deal, sooner or later you pay the price. You can't cheat the Devil forever.”

“No, you can't,” he said, then breathed a long, sad sigh. “You shouldn't have taken her, though. She wouldn't have died if you hadn't taken her.”

“Your Lawyers should have broken her contract,” Pan said. “Don't you dare blame us for that.”

“Yeah, let her live so she could tell you how to find us.” Patrick took a step forward, jabbing a finger. She flinched, fear squeezing a spark of lightning from her finger into the marbled floor. The static crack echoed around the cathedral, acrid smoke rising into her nostrils. Patrick was unimpressed. “Brianna was never strong,” he said. “She would have talked. We had to let her go. You cannot know the location of our Engine.”

“You can't hide it forever,” said Pan. “We'll make you talk. And if you don't, somebody else will. Sooner or later, we
will
find it.”

“Maybe,” Patrick said. “But you won't be there to see it. None of you will. It's over for you. For all of us.”

“This is boring,” said Truck from the aisle. “Let's just crush his ass.”

She opened her hand, feeling the charge building up.

“He's got a point, Patrick, we didn't come here to chat.”

“No,” he said. “You came here so you could pay for what you did to her.”

“That's what this is?” Pan asked. “You brought us here to avenge her?”

“Not me,” he replied, looking over his shoulder to the second figure on the altar. “Brianna,” he called softly. “Brianna, it's time.”

Brianna?

The figure behind Patrick made a noise, a low, throaty growl like a bear. It moved, or at least it was
trying
to move, its limbs as shaky as a puppet's. It twitched, its whole body spasming hard for a moment before staggering into the light.

Oh god
.

It was Brianna Rebarre, Patrick's twin. But there was something wrong with her. Her face was a patchwork doll's, badly stitched together, one side bulging grotesquely. Her body was bent and broken, like she'd just been pulled from a car crash. She was naked, but her skin was so burned and so scarred that she looked like she was clothed in a corpse's flesh. Her hair had all but fallen out, clumps hanging down in thin, greasy strands. Her eyes were glassy and blind. Dead eyes.

“Oh, Patrick,” said Pan, stumbling back, grabbing a pew to stop herself from falling. The last time she'd seen the girl she'd been bitten in half, dragged into the fire. “What did you do?”

She knew exactly what he'd done. He'd traded for her. He'd made a deal to bring his sister back from hell. It was one of the first rules, one of the things you could never ask for.
You cannot bring back the dead,
Ostheim had told her on Day One.
It is impossible
. All you could do was conjure up a memory of them, a wormbag stuffed with rot and jelly, something cold and old and
wrong
.

And you definitely,
definitely
couldn't bring back the dead from hell. Because when you did that, they brought something back with them.

“It was the only way,” Patrick said, smiling. His own eyes had a glassy sheen, the look of somebody pushed way over the edge. Only Mammon would be sick enough to let somebody make a deal with the Engine in that frame of mind. He'd just condemned his own Engineer to an eternity of suffering.

“You know they can't break it,” Pan said. “That contract, it's too hard. You're screwed.”

He shrugged, watching Brianna as she shuffled down the stairs. She missed one and went sprawling, landing with a sound like a garbage bag exploding on the curb. Slowly, painfully, she picked herself up.

“Life doesn't mean much without her,” Patrick said. “We came into this world together, I guess we'll leave it together.”

“You'll spend the rest of time in hell together,” Pan said. “Just so Mammon can have his way.”

“Better than the alternative,” Patrick said. “Better than what you and Ostheim are proposing.”

“Sure,” said Pan. “End of the world, so much better.”

He looked back at her, those oil-black eyes blinking.

“You don't get it, do you? You're so blind to the truth that you can't even see what you're fighting for.”

“Don't you dare,” she shot back. “You're the bad guy in this equation, not me. Ostheim has only ever tried to do the right thing.”

Patrick laughed, shaking his head.

“All this time, fighting for the wrong side. You should have joined us, Pan. The things we could have given you.”

“Yeah, a dead sister and a one-way ticket to the Devil's playground.” She snorted a humorless laugh. “Man, I totally messed up that decision. Just tell us where we can find your Engine. Least that way your last few minutes on Earth won't be spent with me beating it out of you.”

“It's too late,” Patrick said. “You'll never know. You'll never know how wrong you were.”

Impatience was gnawing at Pan's soul and she took a step forward, energy crackling between her fingers, her whole body fizzing. That was the thing about dealing for electromagnetic abilities, it was as uncomfortable as a suit of electric wire.

“Yeah,” she said. “How'd you figure that? Four of us against you and a wormbag. Seems like pretty good odds.”

Patrick just smiled at her. Brianna had stumbled to his side, almost doubled over, her eyes looking like they might roll out and shatter on the floor. Even now Pan could see that they were twins, although Brianna was like a mirror image that had rotted, a twisted shadow that had torn itself free from Patrick's feet. He seemed to know this, because he looked at her with an expression of profound sadness.

“I didn't just bring her back,” he said, quietly. “I made her something terrible.”

Brianna straightened like an old lady, the sound of breaking bones echoing around the cathedral. She uttered that throbbing growl, then without warning she threw her head back and shrieked. The noise was so loud it was a physical force, a fist that punched into the darkness of the ceiling, terrible and unending. Dust and rubble rained down as Pan staggered back, hands to her ears, that scream like a tornado as it churned up the air. It cut out, and Brianna's head snapped down again. Her eyes were burning, literally sizzling in their sockets. The cathedral was full of the smell of cooked meat and sulfur.

“I made her a monster,” Patrick said, wiping tears from his own eyes. “They're yours, Brianna. Take them.”

Brianna screamed again, and hell arrived.

 

CRUSH ASS, DON'T DIE

Marlow screamed.

It was the only thing he was capable of doing. The girl's shrieking howl ripped up the floor of the cathedral, marble and stone rising like a vast wave. The vibrations threatened to shatter his bones, the noise unbearable. He had time to see Pan throw herself to one side, a slab of brick crunching off her skull, then it was on him, a tsunami of dust and debris that thundered forward.

Something thumped into his side, the tackle sending him skidding across the floor. He covered his face with his hands.

“It's easier to fight with your eyes open,” said Night, and he looked to see her there, crouched beside him. Behind her the wave of debris rolled into the wall where he'd been standing, making the whole building tremble. A groaning howl rose up above the crash and it took Marlow a moment to realize the church organ was collapsing, the pipes blowing out curdled notes as they clanged to the ground.

Night helped him to his feet and he had to clamp another scream in his throat. In the middle of the cathedral, Brianna was a statue of fire, burning from head to toe. She didn't seem to notice, taking a step forward and thrusting out her arms. A jet of blue flame tore out, engulfing the first few rows of pews in an explosion of wood. A shock wave of heat burned through the air, hot enough that Marlow could feel his hair sizzle even from thirty feet away. He lifted his hand over his face, blinking away tears.

When he looked again he saw Pan crawling away from the fire, her clothes singed, her head bleeding. She rolled onto her back and shot something at the girl, a bolt of forked white lightning that crackled upward, missing its target and shattering one of the windows in a rain of stained glass. The building shook again, moaned in protest, a crack of thunder almost splitting Marlow's skull open. Brianna reached out, another fountain of liquid fire shooting from her hands. Something slapped into her, a streak of light that could only be Night. The impact knocked the burning girl back, her flames spitting and spluttering like napalm, so hot that it was setting fire to the stone.