JC fought his way into the midst of them, never dodging or ducking, always pressing forward, right into the teeth of anything they could do to him. He struck the demons down and stamped on their heads and sides, forcing his way through the whole pack of them. All the way down the car, to the next door, then through the door and into the next car, where a whole new host waited for him. JC fought on, opening up a path through the demon horde using sheer brute courage and tenacity, and a simple dogged refusal to be stopped or turned aside while Kim still needed him.
They hurt him horribly, but he kept going. Jagged claws sliced and tore through his flesh and grated on the bones beneath. Heavy blows knocked him this way and that, but he wouldn’t fall. Sharp-toothed jaws buried themselves in his flesh, and even found his face more than once. Blood-stained and terribly injured, he kept going, ignoring the pains that threatened to drain his strength and resolve, ignoring the blood that poured from him and dripped down to steam on the hot floor. JC threw himself at the leering demon faces before him, giving blow for blow and hurt for hurt, and never once allowed himself to be stopped, or slowed. Claws came at him from every side, teeth buried themselves in arms and legs and had to be jerked or shaken free. Overlong arms tried to wrap themselves around him and drag him down. But still, he went on. Sometimes he cried out, and sometimes he sobbed, and sometimes he roared and cursed and spat at the snarling faces before him; but none of it meant anything. He had a thing to do, and he was going to do it.
Despite everything he did, and everything that was done to him, he thought only of Kim. And what the demons might be doing to her. Being dead was no defence against the torments of Hell. He went on, and not all the demons on the hell train could deny him.
Until finally JC fought his way through to the last car but one; and there, at last, they stopped him. Because in the end, he was only a man, with a man’s limits. The demons blocked the way to the next car through sheer strength of numbers, their horrid shapes packing the car from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. They surrounded JC, coming at him from every direction at once. And so, finally, he was forced to a halt and stood swaying in the middle of the car: a ragged, tattered, and bloody mess of a man. His wonderful cream suit was ruined, soaked and stained with his blood and that of the demons. He had been cut and gouged and torn open, and a long trail of blood lay behind him. He had to keep spitting out blood because it kept filling his mouth. He could feel broken and splintered ribs grinding against each other with every breath, tearing into his lungs; and he was tired, so terribly tired. Every movement hurt him, and lifting his savaged arms was an effort that would have made him cry out if he’d had any voice left. But he’d worn it out screaming, several cars back.
The demons blocked his way, but still he lurched forward and struck out at them with stubborn fury. Because they stood between him and Kim. He was close by then; he could feel her presence. He was damned if he’d be stopped. Not after he’d come so far. He called out Kim’s name, a single breathy rasp of sound; but the demons howled and shouted him down, mocking him by yelling out her name in their sick and rotten voices.
JC swung his silver blade, and missed, and a demon surged forward. Its vicious jaws snapped together and bit off three of JC’s fingers. He hardly noticed the pain; it was one more, among so many others. He looked down stupidly as the silver blade fell from his mutilated hand, and blood jetted from the stumps of his missing fingers. And while he hesitated, thrown off-balance for a moment, a clawed hand came sweeping round and sliced clean through both his eyes.
Blood filled his view, then darkness, and a sudden agony roared inside his head. He howled in rage and loss, and lashed out blindly with his knuckle-duster and his maimed hand. It didn’t feel like he hit anything. He could feel viscous tears running down his face, blood and vitreous fluids from his ruined eyes. He could hear mocking demon laughter all around him. Claws cut at him from every side at once, darting in and out again, taunting and mocking him. A set of heavy jaws fastened on to his right hip, worrying right through to the bone, and he couldn’t shake them off. He staggered and almost fell, blind and alone, flailing helplessly around himself, shouting incoherent defiance; his only regret was that in dying he had failed Kim.
I’m sorry, Kim, he said, or thought he said. I’m so sorry.
And then, incredibly, he could see again. A great Light blazed up within him, filling him from top to bottom, and burst from his eyes. The demons screamed in rage and horror to see it, and fell back, unable to face the terrible Light that blazed from JC’s miraculously restored eyes. And still the Light blazed through JC, growing stronger and more terrible, building and building until it seemed impossible one small mortal frame could hold it all. The Light healed and restored JC, repairing all his wounds in a moment and filling him with incredible new energy. JC stood tall and strong in the middle of the car, surrounded by weeping, terrified demons, crouching and shrinking away from him; and he laughed in their terrified faces.
He hadn’t called for the Light, or expected it; but he had heard of such things. That sometimes, on very rare occasions, there was a Light that would come as a gift from Outside, from some great Force in the afterworlds . . . but it was rare, so very rare. Certainly he had never thought of himself as worthy. But the Light was there, and it was his to use, and he was strong and whole again. He looked about him, and thought he’d never seen so clearly before. He raised his hands, and they were both whole again. He dropped the pitted and scorched knuckle-duster. He didn’t need it any more. He strode forward, towards the end car, and Kim.
Some of the demons tried to fight him, only to quickly learn they couldn’t. They couldn’t face the Light that shone from his restored eyes or match the new strength that filled his arms. He beat them down, shattering their bones and tearing their foul bodies apart with his bare hands. His touch was enough to blister and burn demon flesh; and even their strongest blows couldn’t hurt him any more. The Light blazed ever more fiercely within him until all he had to do was touch the demons, and they burned up in a moment, leaving nothing behind but ashes.
Most of the remaining demons disappeared. They ran away, falling back into Hell rather than face what he had become. By the time JC reached the end of the car, the light from his eyes was enough to make the last few demons fade away into nothing, like the final remnants of a bad dream.
JC looked at the closed door before him, and it melted and ran away in streams of molten metal. The door beyond, into the next car, exploded inwards under the pressure of his gaze. And so he came at last to the end car, and there, waiting for him, was Kim Sterling. No more demons, no hell light. Only Kim; crucified against the end door. Glowing ectoplasmic nails hammered through her ghostly hands and ankles. Her head hung down, her long red hair covering her face. She didn’t move. But when JC said her name, her head came up and she saw him, and she smiled. Their eyes met, and the Light in JC’s eyes blazed so very brightly.
The glowing nails disappeared under JC’s gaze, and Kim’s ghostly flesh repaired itself at once. She flew down the car towards him, her long white dress billowing in some unfelt breeze, and JC walked in glory down the car to meet her. They came together in the middle, and the whole of the car was full of their love, a force so powerful it seemed to beat on the air like great wings.