We followed Molly through the maze of steel corridors, and down into the deepest part of the underground bunker, until we were in a great steel-walled chamber directly under the standing Stones of Stonehenge. And there it was, sunk deep into a pit hollowed out of the bare earth; tall and complex and unnaturally shaped, the last tower of the Loathly Ones. There wasn’t room to build it high, so they’d sunk it deep. We could only see the top twenty feet or so, a jagged structure of alien technology combined with flesh and blood. Metal and crystal seamlessly fused with living parts. We all circled slowly around the exposed top of the tower, our feet sinking into the wet earth. This close, there was no doubt the thing was alive, in its own awful way. It was alive and it was aware. It knew we were there . . . and it didn’t care. It was complete and it was activated, We’d arrived too late.

Already a gateway was forming, an opening to another place. I couldn’t see or hear it, but I could feel it on some deeper, primal level: like a great eye watching me, like a wound in the world, like a door into Hell. Like a great cold wind blowing right at me from a direction I couldn’t name, chilling me down to the soul. Slowly I became aware of sounds too. I don’t think I was hearing them with my ears. Voices; howling, screaming, laughing, coupled with the sounds of tearing flesh and great siege engines slamming together forever. All the sounds of Hell on earth.

Molly grabbed me by the arm and shook me fiercely, and I came to myself again. Harry and Roger and Giles and even Mr. Stab were still staring wide-eyed and entranced at the forming gateway, as strange energies swirled and coalesced around the tower.

“We’ve got to do something!” said Molly. “The gateway’s opening! They’re coming!”

“I guess Jacob and Jay never got through after all,” I said numbly.

“Eddie . . . !”

“I know,” I said. “I know.” I looked at her. “How do you feel, Molly?”

“I’m still me,” she said, meeting my gaze squarely. “But I don’t know for how much longer.”

“Then let’s do it,” I said. I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out Janissary Jane’s weapon of last resort, the Deplorable End. It still didn’t look like much.

“Do we have the right to destroy our whole universe, just to wipe out the Hungry Gods?” said Molly.

“Hell no,” said Roger unexpectedly. He’d torn his attention away from the tower and was now looking at the thing squatting on my palm. “Is that what I think it is? Eddie, you can’t use it. Not while there’s still a chance, any chance . . .”

I had to smile. “A demon who still believes in hope. Now I’ve seen everything.”