Hellraisers

by Alexander Gordon Smith

  Marlow tuned out, lulled into a stupor by the warmth and motion of the car. He’d not slept on the plane—it was hard to sleep when you were too busy screaming and puking in a tiny room—and the exhaustion was like another hood pulled down over his consciousness. He dozed, waking when he sensed that the vehicle had stopped. The world was a pit of silence, only the sound of his breathing echoing back from the sack. He reached up and pulled it off, seeing that the car was empty. There was nothing but darkness out of the windows, like they’d driven right off the edge of the planet.

  “Hello?” he said. “Herc? Pan?”

  He fumbled with his seat belt but his fingers didn’t work properly, everything moving like he was underwater.

  “Hey? Guys?”

  “They’re lying to you,” said a voice from the front of the car, a whisper. Marlow jumped, his heart almost stalling. Somebody had materialized in the passenger seat, staring out of the windshield at the darkness beyond, a face shrouded in shadow. Even his reflection in the rearview mirror was inscrutable, two eyes as black as pitch, unblinking. A crawling sense of unease skittered down Marlow’s spine.

  “Where are they? Who the hell are you?”

  “They’re lying to you,” said the man again, and his whole body seemed to shake for a second, too fast, the way an image flickers when you pause a VHS.

  “Who?” Marlow said, trying to push the button on his belt. He reached for the door handle and pulled but it came off in his hand like a strand of warm licorice, sticking to his fingers. He yelped, trying to shake it off. The whole car was losing its shape, like it was melting in some immense heat. “What’s going on? Let me out!”

  “It’s too late for that, Marlow,” said the man. “There is no way out. It knows who you are.”

  “It?” Marlow was panicking now, feeling his windpipe begin to fill. He coughed, snatching in a half-breath that stank of death and decay. “I don’t understand.”

  The man raised a finger, pointing into the darkness outside the window. Marlow looked but there was nothing there, just an impossible void. Couldn’t he hear something, though? A distant rolling wave of thunder. He wheezed in another breath but there was no oxygen in it, like he was drowning. He pulled his inhaler out of his pocket and put it in his mouth, only to feel it squirm between his lips. He screamed, spitting it out, seeing a fat, orange slug writhe in the footwell. Bile burned up from his stomach, choking him.

  “No,” he said, punching the window, feeling the glass melt around his fist. He was sinking into his chair, the whole car trying to fold over him, smothering him. And still that sound of thunder grew—no, not thunder, but the pounding of hooves, like something was galloping this way, fast. Marlow struggled, but the more he moved the more the melting car sucked him in, burying him alive. “Please, stop it!”

  The man in the front began to wail, the desperate sob of a dying man. The noise got louder, rising in pitch, becoming a scream, a rattling shriek. Marlow screamed too, the fear filling him from head to toe like ice water. Something was appearing out of the darkness, an impossibly huge shape that bore down on them with gut-wrenching speed. The scream from the front was still growing, so loud now that Marlow felt a gout of blood erupt from his ear, so loud that the car was shaking. The man’s head began to turn, rotating as smoothly as an owl’s, twisting too far, like his neck was about to snap. His eyes were as big as saucers, dripping black, his mouth a gaping wound, blasting out that ear-shattering howl of despair.

  “No!” Marlow shouted. “Nonononono!”

  The shape outside rose up in his window, traveling too fast, darkness flooding from darkness, a freight train about to crush them. Marlow held up his hands against it, screaming.

  It hit him like a slap, wrenching him up out of the car, out of the dark. He punched the air, kicking, trying to fight it, but the shape was holding him down, stopping him from moving. Gradually the world swam into focus, three faces staring down at him, etched with concern. Marlow struggled for a second more until he recognized Herc, Pan, Truck. He lay there, sobbing with the relief of it.

  “Whoa,” said Truck. “That must have been some nightmare, bro.”

  “Nightmare?” said Marlow, snatching in an airless breath. Herc handed him his inhaler and he shook it, feeling how close to empty it was. He took a couple of hits and lay there, his whole body trembling. Already the dream was leaking out of his head, dissipating like salt in water. He was more than happy to let it go.

  “Happens to us all,” said Herc, offering him a hand.

  Marlow took it and hauled himself up, holding on to it for a fraction longer than he needed to. They were in a narrow cobbled street next to the SUV, quaint, old-fashioned buildings on both sides. A large gate stood open right in front of him, big enough to get a car through. He caught a glimpse of a courtyard beyond, swimming with yellow light. He stood there for a moment, everything aching. His knuckles were sore, like he’d punched a wall.

  “Got a pretty good right hook for a scrawny kid,” said Truck, grinning. He had a split lip and sucked the blood from it with a noisy slurp. Marlow blushed.

  “Oh, hey, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Truck said. “If I had to travel all this way with an ass rag over my face I’d wanna punch someone too.”

  He walked through the gate, laughing, and Marlow stood there.

  “The nightmares, they’re normal,” Pan said, appearing by his side. He looked at her, at the way her face caught the light, hard and yet perfectly soft at the same time. Even though his heart had taken a beating he still felt it wobble. She turned to him, and the look she gave him wasn’t quite a smile, but it wasn’t quite a scowl either. “It’s because we’re here.”

  “Here?” Marlow said.

  “Yeah, here,” she said. “We’re at the Engine.”

  THE BOOK OF DEAD ENGINEERS

  Pan walked into the courtyard of the Nest, feeling like it had been a million years since she’d last been here, not a month. Brick walls that had seen better days surrounded it on three sides. The fourth was made up of a building, one that had once been a church. It, too, was dilapidated, its windows boarded up, tiles missing from the roof, a short, squat tower bent at an angle. Only the door—big and red, perfectly lacquered—appeared new. Pan didn’t look at it, though. That door was an evil piece of work.

  The courtyard was full of people. Herc was in one corner, arguing with Hanson. Truck and Night leaned against each other, both looking exhausted. Being under contract did that to you, sapped everything except whatever it was you’d traded for. Bullwinkle and Hope sat on a crate, Bully picking his nose so enthusiastically it was like he’d found treasure in there. She started to look for Forrest, then caught herself.

  He’s not here, is he? Because he’s in hell.

  The light in the yard came from a couple of halogen lamps and she hated it. It was yellow and sickly, and it turned everyone it touched into walking corpses. Every time she was here she had the impression that she was in a graveyard where the dead had decided to start living again.

  “Who are all these people?” Marlow asked. The kid was the color of wet ash, his body stooped and weak, his eyes red-rimmed and raw. Every time he breathed he made a sound like a broken accordion. She still didn’t know what Herc saw in him, other than the asthma. It was always easier to turn someone when there was something they wanted. Or rather, something they didn’t want.

  “They’re roadies,” Pan said, nodding at the guys unloading the cars. “They do the donkeywork. You can trust them.”

  Marlow nodded. He was still in shock, she guessed. She couldn’t blame him, she’d not been right for weeks after she’d first seen the Engine. She watched him as he studied the courtyard, the walls, then the door, and she saw the exact moment it hit him, that feeling. He staggered a couple of paces, groaning, thumping into Truck, holding on to the big guy like he was a life raft in the middle of a cold, dark ocean.

  “Somebody’s getting his first
taste,” Truck said. “Just ride it out, bro, it gets better, eventually.”

  “What is that?” Marlow said, putting his hands to his ears. Pan knew what he would be hearing, the voices, the sounds, those infernal scratchings. Barks that didn’t come from any dog, screams that couldn’t be human, a dozen whispered voices tickling the inside of his skull like cold, wet tongues. She could hear them too, although she’d been here enough times now to know how to tune them out. There were smells as well, rotting flesh, excrement, and sulfur, always sulfur. It didn’t matter how clean they kept the yard, how many times they scrubbed the door, those smells never went away.

  “Ignore it,” she said as he reached into his pocket again, taking a blast of his inhaler. “It’s just messing with you.”

  “The Engine?” he asked, wincing.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked like he was going to ask another question but she didn’t have the patience for it. She pushed past him and walked up to Herc.

  “Waiting for anything special?” she asked. “Or do you just enjoy standing around like ducks in the rain?”

  Herc’s eyeballs bulged with rage but he gritted his teeth, swallowing noisily.

  “You think we’re going to let your new boyfriend in without a test?” Hanson said, leering at her behind those sunglasses. She was grateful that he was wearing them, because she knew what he looked like underneath.

  “So test him, then,” Pan said. “I’m freezing my ass off here.”

  “And you’re boring mine,” Hanson said, walking away.

  She wrapped her hands around herself, stomping on the wet ground and cursing him under her breath. She knew there was no way around it. Given that the Circulus Inferni would try anything to find out the location of their Engine, it made sense to ensure that they weren’t letting a spy through the door. Marlow looked like a dope, but appearances could be deceptive.

  She glanced at him, stooped over in his wet clothes, his brow furrowed and his bottom lip quivering. Yeah, not that deceptive.

  Hanson placed a hand on either side of Marlow’s head and lifted it until he was staring right into his eyes. The boy struggled a little but only the way a beaten dog struggles when it knows it can’t escape.

  “What’s your name?” Hanson asked.

  “Marlow Green.” He shivered. Hanson always dealt for mind reading—among other things—so he’d know if the kid was lying.

  “Are you working for Mammon? For the Circulus Inferni?”

  “No,” he said. “No way, man, I—”

  “Do you have any plans to infiltrate the Engine, to destroy or otherwise damage the Engine, to cause harm to anyone working for this organization?”

  “I’m feeling like I might want to kick you in the balls sometime soon, does that count?” Marlow said, and a spluttered laugh actually escaped Pan’s lips before she managed to catch it. Hanson gripped Marlow’s head harder, making the boy wince.

  “Do you have any plans to infiltrate the Engine, to destroy or otherwise damage the Engine, to cause harm to anyone working for this organization?”

  “No,” he said. “Of course not.”

  Hanson tilted his head back, his nostrils flaring like he was sniffing for a lie. He let go, pushing Marlow away and wiping his hands on his trousers.

  “He’s clean,” he said. “Holding a pretty big torch for you, though, Pan. Just about all I could see in that simple little excuse for a mind.”

  “Wait, no, what?” Marlow spluttered, and Pan turned away before he could see her cheeks boil.

  “Close up!” Herc yelled to two of the roadies near the gates. They obeyed, slamming them closed and pulling a bar down to lock them. It wasn’t exactly secure, but Pan knew they could leave the gates wide open and intruders still wouldn’t be able to find their way through that big, red, evil door. This place was protected by something else, something older and vastly more powerful.

  “I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about,” Marlow said.

  Herc put his hand to his collar mic and yelled, “Crack it.”

  Pan steeled herself, taking three deep breaths, blowing each one out slowly. This part of the process always sucked. The door uttered a series of clicks, soft and wet and chittering, like there was a giant cockroach on the other side. Then it hit her, a sudden, thunderous chaos of light and noise, right in the center of her brain. She groaned, clenching her fists as hard as she could, trying not to see but unable to switch it off—corpses, toothless mouths twisted open in horror, maggots spilling out of empty eye sockets, limbs flailing inside an inferno, and something else, something worse than the demons, worse even than Mammon. A sculpture of bone and shadow that sat above it all, watching her with a cluster of fat, black spider eyes.

  The door clunked again, swinging open, and the images vanished like a projector in her brain had been turned off. She swayed unsteadily, shaking her head like she could somehow dislodge what had been in there. She hawked up a wad of acid and spat, feeling the blood trickle down from her nose into her mouth. Every frickin’ time. She glared at the door, wondering if—when all this was over—she’d be allowed to take an ax to it, carve it into splinters.

  Not that she’d dare.

  She marched toward it, her stomach churning. Behind her came Truck, holding Marlow like a sack of groceries. The kid looked close to passing out, his breathing shallow and ragged. It was always worse the first time, feeling the Engine inside your head. She’d thrown up over Herc and Hanson. One recruit had died on the spot.

  “Age before beauty,” Herc said, flashing his monstrous, gap-toothed grin.

  Pan walked to the door, seeing the inside of the church, the rotting pews, the holes in the roof where the rain dripped through, the vines that had taken root and were climbing the pillars. She took a deep breath, then crossed the threshold, feeling that familiar twist and tumble deep inside, her guts protesting as she passed over. Everything fizzed, bolts of bright white agony flashing across the front of her brain. She took another step, forcing herself to, knowing that if she paused here she’d be stuck here forever, in the space between. The pain fluttered away like a startled bird and she was standing in a narrow corridor, shivering against the sudden chill.

  She walked a few steps, then looked back, seeing the same open red door, and beyond it a view that never failed to take her breath away—a field of snow, as crisp and unbroken as a blank page, ridgeback mountains faintly visible through the blizzard. A face appeared from nowhere, a yellowing skull, almost invisible against the vista beyond. It pushed into the space, changing, growing a sheen of red, strands of muscle, a layer of skin and hair. Then Truck was in the corridor, Marlow materializing alongside him. The kid stood for a moment, then opened his mouth and retched, a dribble of sick hanging from his chin.

  “This way,” said Pan, leading them down the corridor, trying to ignore the unpleasant tickling in her skull, the half-whispers that danced against her eardrums. Insignias decorated the walls, recognizable even though somebody had tried to scratch them away. A swastika, an outstretched eagle. They made her stomach churn just as much as the vibes that blasted up from below.

  After thirty yards or so the passageway ended at an elevator. The doors stood open, the mouth of a predator waiting for her to walk right in. She did. Truck and Marlow followed, making the elevator wobble, and she tried not to think about how deep the shaft stretched beneath them, the thousands of feet of empty space between her and the pit below.

  “Here we go again,” Herc said as he strolled inside.

  The elevator rumbled, then started to clatter down. The first time she’d used it Pan had felt like she was on some kind of reverse rocket, one that was blasting down into the earth rather than up into space. Even now, after so many trips, her stomach did loop-the-loops as they picked up speed. She ignored the need to hold on to something, her hands balled into fists, closing her eyes for the forty-eight seconds it took the elevator to slow.

  She heard the noise of the bullpen before t
hey’d come to a halt, a clamor of voices and machinery that tripled in volume when Herc wrenched open the gates. He ushered them out into the first level of the complex, a room easily as big as a couple of basketball courts. It had been carved out of the rock, the gray walls and ceiling rough-hewn and uneven—all except for a section above the elevator, which displayed a huge swastika. It had been covered up with a dozen tarps but it still seemed to burn up there, scorching a hole right into the past. Under it, somebody—an Engineer from the eighties, apparently—had painted the words Nazis Suck, Hellraisers Rule!

  Everything else in the space was brand-new. Banks of hard drives lined the far wall, humming. There were more than a hundred of them, each the size of a fridge, cased in three layers of transparent plastic so the damp and the cold wouldn’t get to them. Their lights blinked warily, making her think of caged animals at the zoo.

  Next to them was a whole wall of monitors, the two outer ones as big as cinema screens, the other sixteen mounted in between. Each one showed the usual display of numbers and countdowns and infograms, like a NASA control center. One of the big ones, though, was playing a Harry Potter movie. Four women and three men sat on swivel chairs in front of it, rapt, scoffing popcorn from a couple of saucepans. Herc strolled halfway across the room, almost on his tiptoes, waiting until he was close enough before clapping his hands together. The noise was like a rifle shot, echoing off the walls, and the Lawyers just about fell out of their chairs.

  “Jesus Christ!” yelled Seth in his heavy Austrian accent. Nobody really knew how old he was—sometimes he looked sixty, sometimes eighty. Right now he looked about a hundred as he clapped a liver-spotted hand to his chest. “You would really do this to me, an old man who has had four heart attacks already in his life? You are a bad guy, Herman Cole. You will be the death of me.”