Time snapped back and he hit hard, sinking, the cold like a kick to the gut. Marlow tried to breathe and inhaled a lungful of freezing water. He kicked upward, bursting out of the surface in time to see Patrick swing a punch. It connected with his temple and for an instant there was nothing but black. When the world swam back he realized he was beneath the water again, hands on his head, pushing him down.
Something dark and cold was creeping into the edge of his mind—nothing to do with the river. He choked, lashing out, but the water slowed him down, made it impossible to see where to punch. The hands on his head were squeezing so hard he felt his skull creaking, about to splinter, his vision sparking. He would have screamed if there was anything left in his lungs.
Distant pops, then something streaked through the water like a shaft of sunlight. More followed, one coming so close to Marlow that he felt a cold burn on his skin. He heard a thud, then the grip on his head came loose. He clawed his way to the surface, snatching in as much air as he could. Patrick was there, clutching his shoulder with one hand, looking like he was struggling to stay afloat.
More gunshots, bullets tearing through the water, too close. Marlow looked toward the bank to see a cop there, an old guy, a pistol in his shaking hands. He was yelling something that Marlow couldn’t make any sense of. He fired again and Marlow heard the whistle as the bullet seared the air beside his ear.
He swam, trying to make the world speed up again. But he couldn’t get his feet on the ground, couldn’t run. Patrick was panicking too, too tired to ’port, both of them trying to get to the opposite side of the river. The guy was hurt, though, blood oozing from the wound in his shoulder.
The cop was shouting, over and over, squeezing off more rounds. Then his head erupted into a fan of crimson and he crumpled to the ground. The girl with red hair dropped casually from the bridge, turning her gun out into the river.
“Patrick?” she yelled, barely audible over the rush of water. “Where are you?”
“Here!” came a reply from the darkness. “He’s that way, by the bridge.”
Pop pop pop, more bullets tearing into the water. Marlow snatched in a breath and dived into the murk, paddling manically, the current dragging him along. He was a sitting duck out here. He swam for as long as he could, until he felt the slimy riverbank. Bursting back out he clung to it, choking, snatching at anything he could to try to root himself in place.
A hand. He snatched at it, holding as tight as he could, silently yelling, Please please please, pull me up! Because there was nothing left in him.
Then Patrick’s head appeared above the hand, pale and exhausted but still smiling.
“Beat you,” he said, then he pushed Marlow back beneath the surface.
PROTOCOL CAN KISS MY ASS
“Follow the sirens, sounds like World War Three out there.”
Truck was driving the Defender, Herc in the passenger seat bellowing out orders. Pan, Night, and Hope were crammed in the back, clutching at each other every time the car skidded around a corner. They didn’t have a mobile tracking unit with them but it wasn’t hard to guess where Marlow was—gunshots and explosions ringing out from the direction of the river.
“Can this piece of crap go any faster?” Herc yelled again. “Come on, Truck, put your fat foot down!”
They shot across a junction so fast Pan thought they were taking off, narrowly avoiding a police car traveling the other way. It squealed to a halt, its tires smoking as it spun after them. Truck hand-braked around a narrow corner, the SUV demolishing a bus shelter as it bounced off it. Pan could see the bridge, and beyond it the walls of the capitol building. The whole area was swimming with red and blue lights, at least six squad cars parked along the far bank.
“For the love of all things holy,” Herc growled. “Could this be any more messed up?”
Apparently it could: a SWAT van was now skidding from a road ahead, accelerating hard toward the chaos.
“Take that out,” said Herc. Truck stomped on the gas and they roared up behind the van, pulling alongside it. Truck waved to the startled cops inside, then punched through his window, giving the SWAT vehicle a massive shove. It tipped onto two wheels, balanced perfectly for a moment, then crashed down onto its side, the cop car smashing into the back of it. Truck wiggled the wheel until the Defender settled, Pan just about ready to barf up her internal organs.
“We gotta get him fast,” Herc said, stating the obvious. “Park it, and find him.”
Truck slammed on the brakes and the SUV skidded to a halt. Pan popped her door and jumped out, seeing the river through a break in the buildings. She didn’t have a contract but she had her crossbow, a fresh load of bolts taken from the armory inside the Pigeon’s Nest. The cops were mainly on the far side, yelling as they fired randomly into the water. It was too dark to see if there was anything there. She followed the flow, making out a figure a few hundred yards downstream. He was crouched at the water’s edge looking like he was reaching for something.
Reaching for something, or drowning something.
She ran, Truck bounding along by her side, grunting like a bear. Night was a streak of light blazing past them, heading right for the shape. He must have sensed her coming because he looked around, his face catching the moonlight.
Patrick.
He ’ported and Pan hefted her crossbow, just in case he appeared right next to her. Truck stormed past, crouching down by the river and fishing for something in the murky flow. A second later he pulled out a limp bag of rags, laying it gently on the path. Pan ran to it, recognizing Marlow.
“He breathing?” she asked, crouching down beside him. Night appeared, panting, her eyes darting left and right.
“Hijo de puta,” she said.
Pan put her fingers to Marlow’s neck, feeling a faint pulse.
“Hold his arms,” she said to Truck. He did as he was told and she slapped Marlow on his face, hard, then again, and again, until his eyes opened and he vomited water all over himself. He struggled, his unnatural strength matched by Truck’s.
“Calm down,” Pan whispered. “And shut up, we’ve got to go.”
“Charlie,” Marlow spluttered. He shook free of Truck’s grip to point toward the far bank, the one the cops were lined up on. “Charlie, he’s over there, they had him.”
“What?” Pan stood. This was bad news.
There was the crack of a gunshot, closer this time, and Truck suddenly reeled back, clutching his arm. A spray of blood misted over Pan’s face and she gagged, wiping it away. Another shot, a bullet grazing her head. This time she saw the muzzle flash, a redheaded girl on the bridge.
“Get her!” Pan yelled, passing Night the crossbow. Night took off, becoming a blur of color that snaked up the steps and along the walkway. The girl unloaded the rest of her magazine but Pan knew Night would be too fast, the bullets like paper airplanes to her. Night snapped back into real time and leveled the crossbow at the girl’s chest. There was a flash as Patrick appeared on the bridge, popping into existence for long enough to grab hold of the girl and ’port them both away. The crossbow bolt carved through the space where they’d just been and embedded itself in the metal of the bridge.
Dammit.
“You okay?” Pan asked Truck. He nodded, obviously in pain. “We need to go.”
“Charlie’s over there,” said Marlow. “He’s hurt, we have to help him.”
“No way,” said Pan. It was too risky, too many cops.
He sat up, groggy, saying, “Let me go, I can get him.”
Marlow didn’t look like he’d be able to fetch a stick, let alone a person. Pan offered him a hand, helped him to his feet. The cops must have spotted Night on the bridge because some were running her way, shouting at her in Hungarian. Somebody fired off a panicked shot and it ricocheted off the railing beside her. She ran, reappearing beside Truck in the blink of an eye.
“I saw him,” she said, panting. “Your friend. He’s over there on the grass. They’re trying to help
him, looks like he’s hurt bad.”
“He won’t live,” said Marlow. “He’s nearly gone. He needs the Engine.”
Pan shook her head.
“Please, Pan,” Marlow said. “I don’t want him to die. He can’t die.”
“You have to let go,” she said. “These things happen.”
“No,” he said, giving her a shove. He must have checked his strength but it was still like being charged by a bull. She staggered back, watching him go, swearing under her breath. She turned to Night.
“Can you grab his friend?”
The other girl smiled, handing back the crossbow. “Do you even have to ask?”
“Go,” Pan said. “I’ll get them back to the car.”
Night became a streak of light, her footsteps drumming across the river, churning up plumes of water behind her. Pan ran after Marlow, grabbing him.
“We’ll fetch Charlie, you come with me.”
An engine growled, the SUV gunning around the corner and up onto the grass. Herc’s face grimaced behind the wheel as he squealed to a halt beside them. Pan wrenched open the door, ducking when she heard another shot, something pinging off the roof of the car. She wasn’t sure if it was the cops or the redhead, and she wasn’t interested in finding out.
“Get in!” she yelled at Marlow. He looked like he was about to argue and she raised her foot, booting him in the ass and sending him tumbling into the rear footwell. She climbed in after him, the vehicle groaning as Truck got in too.
“Where’s Night?” Herc asked, the SUV tinkling as bullets tore into it. Pan ducked down, cradling her head as chunks of glass rained down into her hair.
“Just drive!” she screamed at Herc. He slammed his foot on the gas and they lurched forward, the car rocking as they bounced over a flower bed and through a barrier. They swerved around a corner and Herc pulled on the hand brake, bringing them to a halt. He looked back.
“Where’s—”
Something hammered on the window, making them all jump. Night looked exhausted, holding Charlie by the scruff of the neck. Pan reached over Truck and opened the door and together they wrestled the boy in. He already looked dead, drenched in blood and encrusted with dirt.
“He took a pounding on the way, sorry,” Night said as Herc floored it again, the acceleration pushing everyone back in their seats. “He was too heavy for me to carry so I had to drag him.”
That obviously hadn’t helped, the boy’s clothes torn to shreds, the skin beneath ripped and raw. Pan tried for a pulse, didn’t find one, tried again, found something fluttering in his neck, as weak as a butterfly’s wings. Marlow pulled his friend’s head onto his lap, weeping openly.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. Then, to her, he said, “We can save him, we just need to get him to the Engine.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. It was a moot point anyway, the odds were the boy would be stone-cold dead before they got there. Herc must have thought the same because he leaned back, yelling over the roar of the engine.
“We’ll do what we can with him but we can’t go straight back. It might be a trap, they might be following us. There’s protocol to follow.” They screeched around a corner onto a wider road, the sound of gunfire fading. “Your choice, kid, you wanna drop him off at a hospital or you wanna hold on to him?”
Pan sat back, grateful that the call wasn’t hers. It’s why she didn’t like to make friends, why she tried to keep her emotional distance from Truck and Night and the others. In this line of work, sooner or later, your friends got shot, or stabbed, or pulled to pieces. How many had she already lost? She didn’t have enough fingers to count them, but she’d already filled too many pages of the Book of Dead Engineers. Marlow had his hands over the gaping wound in Charlie’s stomach. The blood had slowed to a trickle but there were other things coming out, the car full of the sickening smell of ruptured intestines.
“Please,” said Marlow, his expression so full of love, so full of fear, that something began to swell in Pan’s throat. She turned to face the broken window, the wind whipping at her hair, at her face, drying the tears before they could fall. “The Engine can save him, right?” he said. “He can wish for his injuries to heal, right? Pan?”
“We’ll do what we can, Marlow,” said Herc. “Just keep him breathing.”
They were on a highway of some kind now, Herc keeping them at a steady eighty, weaving in and out between the other cars on the road. She could hear sirens but they were distant, over to the east where the molten dawn was just starting to spill over the horizon.
“Hang in there, Charlie,” said Marlow, holding the boy’s hand, his thumb stroking gently. There was blood everywhere. Two police cars blazed past on the other side of the road but they didn’t look over, didn’t slow.
“Everyone else okay?” Herc asked, easing off the gas.
“Um, hello,” said Truck. He had his hand to his shoulder but there was just a trickle of blood. “I got shot.”
“Oh shut up, Truck,” said Pan. “You probably didn’t even feel it through all that blubber. Anyway, your contract will patch you up.”
“I’ll have you know it stings,” he grumbled, poking at the wound with a giant finger. “A little bit. It might get infected.”
Pan and Night rolled their eyes at each other. Herc was speaking again but he must have had Ostheim on the line.
“Yeah, we recovered the lost dog … He’s okay, two enemy agents, possibly more.” He looked into the rearview mirror. “Nothing obvious but they might be tailing us from the sky. No way of knowing … Yeah, okay, let me know, boss. Oh, and we recovered another lost puppy, hurt bad, requesting directives … Yeah, they pretty much finished him off, left him to die…”
They passed a freeway sign and Herc slowed, squinted at it. He pulled off at the next exit, heading down the ramp. Pan looked back—no headlights following them. Patrick might have chased them for a while, but this was too far for anyone to ’port—he’d blitz himself right out of existence.
“Your decision, Ostheim,” Herc said. Then he nodded, sighed loudly, and killed the call. “Hanson’s gonna meet us about a mile away, we’ll zigzag back to the Nest. Looks like we’re clear, though.”
“That easy?” Truck said. “Not like them to give up a chance to pop one of us.”
“They didn’t give up the chance,” said Pan. “They shot you, nearly drowned Marlow. If we’d got there one minute later we’d be dragging him home in a body bag.”
“Least I’d have gotten out of my contract,” said Marlow, hissing a laugh through his nose. Pan frowned at him.
Whoops.
“Oh, yeah, I might have forgotten to mention something,” she said. “Dying doesn’t release you from your contract. If you die, they come collect you. Sorry.”
She wasn’t sure if the look he gave her made her want to laugh or cry. He shook his head in disgust, looked back at his friend, stroking his hair. And once again she was grateful that she had no friends, no family, nobody to love. Because wasn’t that one of the indelible truths of life? If you love someone, sooner or later they end up bleeding out in the back of a car while you drive away from demons.
Or maybe that was just her life.
She turned to the window, not laughing, not crying, not anything—just watching the world slowly turning from black-and-white to color as the sun seared its way through the dying night.
YOUR MISSION, IF YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT …
Marlow paced back and forth in the dorm, utterly exhausted. His head was a storm of dark clouds, thick with fog. He couldn’t sleep, though, not until he knew Charlie was okay. Not until he knew that he hadn’t murdered him.
He checked his watch, no time there just those numerals, 659:34:15:52. The power of the Engine still thrummed inside him but it no longer felt good. It felt more like a poison, something slipped into his drink—a toxin that would take twenty-seven days to turn his insides to rot. He wanted to snatch up a knife and drain his ta
inted blood. His skin was raw where he’d scratched at himself, like he could scour away the stench of the machine.
It was hopeless, though. It was inside every cell, every fiber of his being. It was inside his soul.
He walked back and forth, his feet drumming on the floor. Truck was asleep in the far corner of the room, his snores and snorts sounding like drum and bass through a subwoofer. It had taken them hours to get back, zigzagging across half of Budapest before Herc was confident they weren’t being trailed. They’d entered the Nest through a red door that was identical to the one in Prague—literally identical, it was the same door. This one had been set into a section of the ancient city wall, but it still made Marlow’s guts feel like they were being tumble dried as he stepped through.
Marlow wasn’t sure where the others were now—he hadn’t exactly been Mr. Popular on his return—but he knew they’d taken Charlie down to the Engine. Hanson had thrown a hissy fit but he’d been overruled. Not that there was much point, of course—Charlie had been unconscious for the last thirty minutes of the journey, and, as Pan had pointed out, the Engine didn’t work unless you were awake.
“Come on, Charlie,” he said. “Please be okay.”
He sat on his bed, chewing his knuckles. He’d spent over an hour in the shower—most of which curled up beneath the spray sobbing his eyes out—but he could still smell blood on his hands. He pushed himself to his feet again, pacing like a caged animal. That wasn’t too far from the truth, he supposed. He’d been ordered not to leave the room. Truck had been left to watch over him and Marlow supposed he could sneak out now, just run for it—he was faster than sound, after all—but where would he go? And who would he get killed this time? No, better he just stayed here, that way nothing else would turn to crap.
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