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rinds as I completely fuck up the undercarriage. I’m never going to get my deposit back.
I reach Tartarus just after Bill hits the brakes and the train screams to a stop.
Guess he found the right lever.
The exit to the pit is a circle of Hellion steel, sort of like a big manhole cover. I manifest my Gladius and cut away a section big enough for people to get through, but not too big for me and Bill to move.
The crowd below must be pretty shocked. Most haven’t seen even Hellion daylight in a while. It takes a few minutes before the first faces nervously appear in the hole.
We help about ten of them out, then give them people-pulling duty while I run around asking everyone if they happen to know how to drive a train. I get a lot of funny looks, but most of them are so dazed and happy that they don’t waste time asking stupid questions. While I play Alex Trebek, Bill hustles the crowd onto the train.
We get several hundred people out of the ground before I recognize the first Wormwood face. I don’t know his name, but he’s one of the pricks I killed back in Griffith Park. He gets it that he’s persona non grata when I wave my Gladius in his face. Other souls and Hellions come out while he crawls back into the dark.
I must have asked a couple of hundred damned souls about trains when one of them says, “I can.”
“You can drive a train?”
“Sure. When I was alive I was a conductor on the Norfolk Southern line.”
“Congratulations. You just got your job back.”
He looks at the Hellion engine.
“I don’t know if I can run that.”
“Sure you can. Anyway, you’re not going far.”
“How far?”
“Around Long Beach. Basically, you keep going south until you see a shitload of souls and Hellions. It’s like Woodstock, but instead of a stage, you’ll see Heaven.”
His expression brightens.
“You mean we can get in?”
“Not quite yet, but you’ll want to be there when the gates open, right?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then get up there, Casey Jones. Once we get everyone out, you’re in charge.”
He seems a little confused by the whole thing, but he heads for the train engine and that’s all that counts. Me, I hang around Tartarus, happily kicking every Wormwood face back into the pit. It takes hours to clear everybody out.
Me and Bill are pushing the metal slab back into place when one last face appears.
“Hello, James.”
“Hello, Mason.”
“I don’t suppose . . .”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“You always were the smart one.”
“Who are my new roommates?”
