FORTY-FOUR

Runaway Train

“This is the end of the line.” Kingsley stepped from the train as the subway doors opened in front of them. Mimi and Oliver followed him to the platform. Mimi noticed it was the same one they had taken when they’d first journeyed to Tartarus.

“What now?” Oliver asked, peering around the empty station. “It looks like the tracks loop back into the city.”

“Exactly. Hell’s a closed circuit. None of its paths lead to the surface.” Kingsley explained that they would have to find their way out of the tunnel and locate the above-ground train, which followed the only path that led out of Hell.

Mimi looked at Kingsley questioningly, wondering why he was so nervous all of a sudden. It was just a matter of catching a train, after all. “Let’s go. What are we waiting for?”

Kingsley hesitated. “This is what I meant earlier when I said it was complicated. You can’t just walk on. The train’s crawling with a hundred trolls, and demons guard every door.

It’s Charon’s line. The only way souls are taken to the Dead’s kingdom, faster than the old ferries. The train arrives full, but always leaves empty. I think they’d be a little suspicious if they saw the three of us hijacking our way back to the surface. Once you’re down here, you’re supposed to stay down here.”

“Great!” Oliver said, smacking his forehead.

“Helda never mentioned this!” Mimi fumed.

“Why would she?” Kingsley said amiably, not the least bit disturbed.

“So we’re stuck here!” Oliver grumbled. He’d had about all he could take of Hell. He was ready to get back home, back to earth.

He was going home, right? Mimi had been acting odd that morning…. She hadn’t met his eyes when he’d said something about looking forward to sleeping in his own bed again.

“Not quite.” Kingsley walked the length of the platform and found a staircase at the far end of the tunnel. “We’re going up. Come on, we need to move quickly.”

The stairs took them to an empty sidewalk on the edge of the city. There were no cars on the street, and the buildings looked empty and abandoned. metal screens were drawn across the storefronts, and black bars covered the upper-story windows. Right above them was steel scaffolding that stretched three stories into the sky, casting a web of shadows across the street. The structure housed a platform on either side, and railway tracks that disappeared far into the north.

“That’s the train we want.” Kingsley pressed his back to the cold metal grille that covered the closest store window.

Mimi and Oliver followed his gaze. The black tower was covered in dense barbed wire, and a mountain of trash clogged the bottom half of the tower, closing off all of the stairs.

“How does anyone even get in or out of that thing? It looks impossible,” Oliver said.

“The trolls just bash through, pulling the souls with them.

Like I said, it’s a one-way train. No one boards from this end, and the return train is always empty.” Kingsley glanced up as a train roared into the station, its engine releasing a billowing cloud of black smoke. It lurched to a stop, the wheels sending red hot sparks flying into the air.

Oliver watched as the doors opened and a crew of trolls popped out, carrying the dead with them. Suddenly the platform was filled with guards and their captives; the place went from ghost-town empty to rush-hour jammed in only a few seconds. The trolls kept walking straight down, disappearing into an underground stairway. meanwhile, the train sparked into motion, its ancient engine firing a second dark cloud into the air as it powered out of the station, speeding forward underneath the thick black smoke.

The three of them watched it leave.

“What now?” Oliver asked.

“Hmm, not quite sure,” Kingsley said, scratching his chin.

“I think Hell’s starting to rot your brain,” Mimi said, shielding her eyes and peering down the line. “See how it’s passing through that building?” She pointed to a dilapidated brick building a few blocks from the station. “We can hop on the next train once it’s outside the station. It’s only a few blocks out; the train won’t yet be at full speed.”

“Did you see that thing leave the station?” Oliver asked her. “There’s no way I can run that fast.”

Kingsley smiled. “Let’s do it.”

Oliver shook his head. “You know I can’t move like that.

Got any other ideas?”

But Kingsley was already running ahead, and Mimi glanced back at Oliver as they dashed down a side street.

“Don’t worry. I’ll hold your hand.”

Oliver grimaced for a moment, then fled after them.

They ran across a pair of abandoned lots covered in junk and overrun with weeds. Mimi held her nose as they leapt over the wrecks of rusted-out cars and refrigerators. “Hurry, Oliver!” She looked back. The next train was just about to rumble into the station.

Kingsley disappeared ahead of them through a broken opening in the side of the building. Mimi followed him up and over an iron fire stair to the third story, Oliver lagging behind.

Kingsley picked up a chair and threw it so that it shattered the glass of a tall window, bursting the pane. “Come on, it’s time to jump the train.”

Mimi and Oliver gathered behind him at the window.

Oliver turned to Mimi. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can. You have to,” Mimi said. “I can’t leave the underworld without you,” she said, which was the truth, but not in the way Oliver thought. There was still the matter of paying Helda.

Ahead of them, the sound of the approaching train grew louder as a gust of air pushed its way toward them. Kingsley poked his head out the window to look. “You jump first, I’ll take Oliver,” he told Mimi.

The train was upon them; there was no time to argue.

Mimi leapt from the window onto the roof of the train. She glanced up and saw Oliver shaking his head. “JUmP!” she yelled. “HURRY!”

Kingsley pushed off from the brick, grabbed Oliver squarely by the shoulders, and propelled them both through the air until they landed not too far from where Mimi was crouching. To Oliver’s eyes it was all a blur, a quick flash of metal and brick, and then they were on top of the speeding train.

“We’ve got to move—look behind you!” Mimi yelled, the wind tossing her blond hair into her face. “Oh god, I think they’re Hellhounds.”

Oliver turned to see. Mimi was right. Those weren’t trolls.

The three massive wolflike creatures that were chasing them were far too large and frightening to pass for the troll underclass. The hounds moved swiftly and silently, running up the empty building to where the trio had made their jump. Oliver cursed as he scrambled behind Mimi and Kingsley, who were shinnying down the side and entering the train car through a window. He had no choice but to follow, and Kingsley and Mimi pulled his legs through the window to safety.

“What now?” Mimi asked. “If they get on this train, they’ll take us back to Tartarus for sure. We’ve got to run.”

Kingsley drew himself up to his full height, and his voice was angry. “The Duke of Hell isn’t about to run from a few mangy hounds. They will heel.”

Heavy thuds echoed from the roof of the train. Mimi backed herself up against Oliver, shielding him. Kingsley might not fear the hounds, but they could easily snatch Oliver.

The air seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then a pair hounds passed through the roof of the train and stood in front of them.

The hounds grinned at the three escapees. They had lupine faces, and unlike the lumbering trolls, they were sleek and swift and handsome. They wore the silver collars, but the chains attached to them were broken. Oliver thought he had never seen a creature as frightening. They were man and wolf, and their smiles were vicious.

“Going somewhere?” one of them asked.

“Go back to Leviathan and tell him I’ve left.” Kingsley’s nostrils flared, and his voice was commanding and thunderous, armed with the full power of his position.

“Left? But we’re here to fetch you,” the Hellhound replied.

“You’re to come back with us.”

Mimi noticed that doubt had begun to creep into their rough, barking speech. They were still in Hell, and Kingsley was still their master, but they stood their ground.

“GO!” Kingsley roared. “NOW, I SAID!” The Duke of Hell unleashed his sword from his sheath and sent it flying through the air, where it struck the wall a hair’s breath away from the nearest hound. “Take that as a warning,” he said. “Mimi, hand me your blade.”

This time the hounds trembled, and they vanished, glim-mering through the walls of the train like ghosts fading from the light.

Kingsley threw himself down onto a bench and smiled at Mimi, who was glowing with pride from his performance.

They held hands across the seat. Oliver was just happy to be in one piece.

“Well, I think we just earned our one-way ticket out of here,” Kingsley said. “But Leviathan’s not going to be happy to know I’m leaving. I know too much about what’s going on down here.”