PART II
RETALIATION
BIENVENUE
“Herc, we got a problem.”
The helicopter banked hard, the ground lurching up in the port windows and the sun burning through everything starboard. Pan could feel the pulse of the blades inside every cell of her body, a roar in her blood that might have been the Engine itself. She gripped the edge of her seat until her stomach had stopped doing somersaults. Truck was sitting on the seat opposite her and he leaned over his shoulder, yelling to Herc.
“Herc, I mean it, a big problem. We’ve got ten seconds, maybe less. It’s gonna blow.”
“I’m doing the best I can.” Herc’s reply was fed into her ears through a giant pair of headphones. The chopper leveled and through the window Pan could make out the Eiffel Tower, a single finger rising toward the heavens, like Paris was flipping them the bird, saying, Go away, you’re not welcome here. “We can’t land for another five. Can you hold it off?”
“I ain’t holding nothing,” Truck said.
“Pan?” Herc pleaded.
Pan turned to the seat next to her. She didn’t think it was possible for anyone to actually turn green, but Marlow was doing his best Grinch impression right now. He was gagging like a cat about to cough up a hair ball.
“Sorry, Herc,” she said. “Detonation imminent.”
“Goddammit!”
Marlow doubled up and sprayed the contents of his stomach across the chopper floor and over Truck’s shoes. Truck screamed in an impressive falsetto, pulling his legs up like a cartoon elephant that’s seen a mouse. Marlow hurled again, just a dribble this time.
“Marlow!” yelled Herc. “You’re cleaning that up before we go.”
Marlow crunched back against the seat, his face slick with puke and sweat. He looked at Pan with an expression that said, Just kill me now, and she almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Her own guts squirmed again as the helicopter descended, the streets and trees and houses and people zooming into focus below. Herc steered them over a wide gray river, all the while speaking to somebody on the radio. There was a gold-and-black skyscraper up ahead, standing alone in a sea of smaller buildings.
“Man, these were my favorite sneakers,” said Truck, doing his best to scrape off the sick against the edge of the seat. He opened his mouth, turning to the seat next to him, whatever he was about to say dying in his throat.
Pan could see it, the moment he remembered Night wasn’t sitting there.
Truck glanced over at Pan, then turned to the window, jaw clenched. Pan had to swallow something huge down her throat. Night would have loved this. Yeah, they were on a mission, yeah, they would probably all be dead in a couple of days. But Night loved the traveling, loved the adventure. Seeing a new city was the thing she got most excited about—she’d have had her hand on the door already, jiggling impatiently, ready to spring out and breathe in a big lungful of somewhere new.
And instead she was burning up in hell, a demon’s plaything.
“Hold on to your hats,” said Herc as the apartment tower vanished beneath them. The chopper dropped, rotating slowly. “And, Marlow, if one more thing comes out of your mouth before we land then I’m going to eject you into the Fifteenth Arrondissement, okay?”
“Got it,” croaked Marlow, swiping the back of his hand over his lips.
The helo bumped as it landed, the thrum in Pan’s body fading as the rotors slowed. She breathed in deeply, the stench of vomit overpowering. Grabbing the handle, she wrestled the door open, stepping into the heat and the wind of a Paris afternoon. She ducked beneath the rotors, walking as close to the edge of the building as she dared. The vast city sprawled out before her, sparkling in the sun and shimmering in the haze that rose from the roof. It didn’t look real. Her insides still hummed, and it was nothing to do with the helicopter. Her Engine was out there, somewhere. Both the Engines.
And they were calling.
“Whoa,” said Marlow as he joined her. He had some of his color back but she still didn’t trust him not to simply wilt over the side. “Nice view.”
She didn’t reply, turning to see Herc and Truck clamber out of the helicopter. Ostheim wasn’t with them. The old guy had gone to speak to some friends in high places in order to get them into Paris unseen. Pan still couldn’t get over how ordinary he had seemed—the guy who turned up at the door to sell you replacement windows, or who did your dad’s taxes. The sight of him in the flesh hadn’t exactly boosted her confidence, but then this was Ostheim, he was legendary. Whatever his secret was, he kept it well hidden.
Herc was on the edge of the landing pad, talking to someone in a suit. They shook hands—a heavy white envelope passing from Herc to the man—and the other guy walked off with a big smile. He shot them a glance as he went and she wondered what he was thinking—three kids and an old guy rocking into Paris on the sly. He probably thought they were pop stars.
Pop stars that had just been in a bar fight with a herd of rhinos.
“You ready?” Herc bellowed over the whine of the chopper.
She nodded, skipping between the air-conditioning units and joining Herc by the stairs. He held the door open for her and she jogged down a couple of flights into the main body of the building. There was an elevator dead ahead and she jammed her thumb on the button. Behind her, the others stepped out of the stairwell.
“So, we’re here,” said Truck. “What now?”
“Now we hunt,” said Herc. “Like Shep said, the fact that the Engines are closer than ever means they’ll be louder than ever. You guys feel anything?”
“Nope,” said Truck. “Got diddly.”
“You won’t,” said Herc. “Your contract’s popped, the Engine isn’t in you anymore. Pan, Marlow, how about you guys?”
“Feeling pretty sick,” said Marlow as the elevator doors opened. “Does that count?”
“No, that’s just you being the whiniest landlubber in history,” said Herc. The elevator car wobbled as they stepped inside, the doors sliding shut. Herc pressed the button for the lobby. “Pan?”
Her body answered for her, a shudder passing up her spine. The electrostatic energy was boiling up her veins, making the inside of her skin itch. One wrong move, one twitch or sneeze, and she might just bring down the whole tower. But she felt strangely vulnerable, too, like she was made of glass—that infinitesimal hum she felt inside her at just the right pitch and frequency to shatter her into a million pieces. Being under contract had made her feel a million different things, but she’d never felt this before. This was new.
“Yeah,” she said. “I got something.”
“Good,” said Herc. “Good. You just keep focusing on whatever that something is and we stand a good chance of finding wherever it is we need to go.”
“Wow, specifics, I like it,” muttered Pan. The elevator counted down the last few floors then eased to a halt, opening up at the end of a large lobby. It was packed with a muddle of office staff and what looked like tourists lining up behind a red rope. The rush of voices and movement was overwhelming and the anxiety of it hit Pan like a physical blow. She shrank away, backing into Marlow, felt his hand on her shoulder—and the weight of it anchored her, held her still for long enough to draw a shaky breath.
You can do this.
She followed her thoughts out into the lobby, heading into the crowd. Somebody in the queue shouted something in a New Jersey twang and she looked to see a family there, all four of them wearing baseball caps, the perfect cliché. And God, didn’t it make her feel homesick? She wanted to run over and join them, go see the sights of Paris, eat frog legs and snails and Royales with cheese or whatever it was they served here. She didn’t want to have to go find an Engine, fight a bunch of Engineers and Mammon and demons and worse. It felt like the whole weight of the tower was pushing down on her and she had to gulp at the air again, everything underwater.
Then they were out, pushing into the muggy heat of the city. It hit her like
New York did, that rush of traffic and people and noise, so much noise—the air swam with sirens and a ceaseless crescendo of horns from the cars; shouts and barks and the thump of their departing helicopter as it soared away overhead. She bit her lip, hard, following Herc as he strode across a wide stone plaza toward the road.
“First things first,” he said over his shoulder, and she lost the rest because a couple of men on the far side of the square suddenly started swinging punches at each other, great big haymakers that hit nothing but air. They were both yelling in French, their eyes wide with rage. A fist connected, a nose exploded, then a couple of security guards from the tower were there, blocking her view.
Nice, she thought, and would have said more except the world started to tilt, a rush of vertigo like she’d just stepped off a roller coaster. It lasted only a second but it was enough to send her staggering to the side. She blinked and everything was normal again, all except Truck, who was staring at her.
“Hey, I didn’t see the minibar on the chopper,” he said with a soft smile. “You could have shared.”
There were more shouts coming from the street, a couple of taxi drivers slinging insults at each other from their vehicles.
“I thought you said this was the City of Love,” Marlow said as they walked toward the cabs.
They reached the sidewalk and Herc rapped on the window of one of the taxis, the driver spinning in his seat and grunting something at them.
“Rue Saint-Paul,” Herc said. “Tout de suite, oui?”
The driver looked at them like they’d just spat on his windshield, then he reluctantly waved them in. It was a tight squeeze, Truck taking up most of the backseat, Marlow almost perched on his lap, but soon they were moving. The traffic crawled, made worse by the fact that at least three other fights broke out on the way—one between a couple of teenage guys, one among a group of girls, and one between an old man and what looked like a nun.
“Did you guys see that?” Pan said as they tore past.
“Never pick a fight with a nun,” said Truck, one hand rubbing his temples. “Those gals got magic powers. Hey, Marly, you wanna move up maybe?”
The big guy shot Marlow a .44-caliber scowl and Marlow tried to shuffle to the side, his elbow hitting Pan in the ribs. Again that rush of panic flooded her, like she was an empty bucket held in a cold river.
“Get off, Marlow,” she said, elbowing him back. She felt like putting her hand to his face and unleashing a blast of lightning, see how much he shuffled then.
“You kids stop fighting back there,” Herc roared. “I swear I’ll rip your…”
He paused, massaging his head.
“Jesus,” he said. “Anyone else feel that?”
Pan swallowed down a mouthful of bile and the city lurched again, barely noticeable but definitely there—the subtlest of buzzes, like a fly trapped in your fist. She looked out the window and the street shimmered, the lines blurring for a fraction of a second. And she could almost see it, everyone’s faces changing—smiles and chatter suddenly all angry eyes and gnashing teeth—and changing back in a heartbeat.
“They’re here,” Pan said.
The Engines. This had to be them, didn’t it? Kicking out their putrid signal, corrupting everything around them. It meant they were close. That was the good news. But the flip side was that Mammon was close, too, and his Engineers could be anywhere—the redhead and whoever else he had working for him. More Magpies, maybe. Pan glanced at the driver, wondering when he’d start pulling off his own face. But the man was just steering through traffic, barking out what sounded like French swearwords at anything in his path. They were going over a wide, tree-lined river, the spire of Notre Dame visible to the left. There were half a dozen police boats in the water, lights flashing, but she couldn’t see what they were doing.
“Hey,” said Herc, and she saw that he was on his cell. “Five minutes. I want to be in and out, okay? Taupe there? Yeah, good. And make sure the big girl is out, I want her.”
Big girl?
Herc hung up, turned to the window.
“Jesus,” he said again. The Right Bank of the Seine was worse, flashes of violence wherever she looked. A car lay crumpled around a lamppost, a sunburst of blood on the windshield. An ambulance was struggling up the street, too many vehicles and people in the way.
Herc looked over his shoulder, met Pan’s eye. She could read his thoughts like they were carved on his forehead.
If it’s like this now, then how bad is it going to get when the gates are opened?
It took them ten minutes, in the end, to navigate a handful of narrow streets. The taxi pulled to a halt outside a bakery, brakes squealing. The driver just about had his hand in Herc’s face, demanding the money. Pan left him to it as she clambered out into the street, which was almost empty, although she could hear angry shouts from nearby.
“Well, here we are,” said Herc as he joined her.
“A bakery?” said Marlow as he hopped up onto the curb. “Wow, Herc, you’re really bringing out the big guns. What are we going to do? Beat Mammon to death with a baguette?”
“Lob croissants at him?” added Truck. He frowned. “Man, I want a croissant.”
“No,” said Pan, ignoring the way the city seemed to flicker and shift, another wave of anxiety snatching at her guts. “We’re going to buy a batch of cookies and convince him to change his ways, right?”
Herc turned and smiled at them, all scarred lips and missing teeth.
“You have no idea how right you are,” he said, leading them through the door.
HERC’S BIG GIRL
The aroma of baking bread grabbed Marlow like a hug, pulling him into the store. He’d never experienced anything quite like it—this was the smell of home. At least he imagined it would be, if his mom had ever baked bread. The closest she’d ever really come to cooking was burning frozen pizzas in the oven or adding an accidental flambé to her martini while drinking and smoking at the same time.
The shop was busy, three men behind the counter and three times as many customers lining up. The display stands were full of things Marlow had never seen in his life, breads in all shapes and sizes and colors. Cakes, too, in a case to the side that Truck was already drooling over. He turned to Herc with an expression that belonged to a hungry puppy.
“Aw, man. Herc, you know I love you, right? Just one, okay? Just that cream bun there. And an éclair to keep it company.”
Herc ignored him, nodding to one of the servers, a hulking guy whose shiny bald spot was compensated for by a shaggy beard that stretched to his sternum. He looked more like a biker than a baker. He handed a customer some change then walked out from behind the counter, cleaning his flour-covered hands on his apron.
“’Errrrman,” the big guy said in a heavy French accent. It took Marlow a moment to notice he’d spoken Herc’s full name. “I would say it was good to see you, but we both know you wouldn’t be here if things were good, non?”
Herc grunted a reply and shook the man’s hand.
“Come, mon ami, Taupe is waiting for you.”
He led them past the counter and through a door in the back of the shop. Beyond was a short corridor that led into the heart of the bakery itself. The heat back here was intense, like they’d walked into a furnace, and Marlow had to wipe the sweat from his forehead. There were two industrial-sized ovens against the far wall and the man walked to the farthest. He grabbed the handle, opening the large door. Inside was not an oven but a corridor that stretched into darkness.
“I am sorry to hear what happened, ’Erman,” the man said, clapping a big hairy hand on Herc’s shoulder. “We never thought we would see the day that Mammon took the Engine. Our city, it is eating itself. Be quick, friend. Find him.”
Herc nodded curtly, then walked into the oven. Pan followed, then Truck. Marlow hurried after them, finding himself walking down a set of steep stone steps. They doubled back on themselves into a cellar, small and softly lit. There was one room, and one
man in it. He was in his twenties and looked like he’d just walked off a movie set—Gallic good looks, perfect dark hair, and a smile that seemed spotlight-bright, especially when he turned it toward Pan.
Five seconds in and Marlow already hated him.
“Taupe,” said Herc.
“Herc,” the guy replied as they shook hands. His accent was more subtle, his English better. He was standing in front of a table that had been draped with a dustcover. Marlow couldn’t make sense of any of the shapes beneath. “Ostheim said you would come, and he said you would need help.”
“He was right on both counts,” Herc said. “You got what I need?”
“As always.”
The guy grabbed the dustcover and pulled it away, revealing an assortment of weapons that would keep a Special Forces unit in business. Marlow counted half a dozen machine guns, twice as many pistols, a box of grenades, a couple of crossbows, and something that he thought existed only in action movies.
“Is that a bazooka?” he asked before he could stop himself. Everyone turned to look at him, and the French guy smiled even harder.
“You will have to fight Herc for it,” he said. “This is his big girl.”
“Shut up, Taupe,” said Herc. “Got rounds?”
“Three,” said Taupe. “Enough?”
“It’ll have to be. You got the other thing, right?”
Taupe shuffled uncomfortably, wiping a hand over his mouth.
“Taupe, tell me you got it.”
“I did,” he said after a moment. “I do not like it, Herc. It is fighting fire with fire. It could do more damage than Mammon.”
“No,” said Herc. “It couldn’t.”
Taupe considered it, then nodded. He reached under the table and wrestled out a large green rucksack that looked like standard army issue. He dragged it across the floor and straightened, a sheen of sweat on his face.
“Use it wisely,” he said. Herc grunted, a noise that could have been a thanks or a laugh.
Hellfighters: The Devil's Engine Series, Book 2 Page 9
