He waved the Hand of Glory sharply to put out the flames and stuffed it back into his jacket pocket. Only then did he use both hands to grab the open door and haul himself forward into the car. The door slammed shut behind him, and JC took a moment to crouch on the rocking steel floor and get his breath back. His head was spinning, he was shaking all over, and his heart felt like it was trying to leap out of his chest. It was at times like this that JC really wished he went to the gym more often. Or at all.

He forced himself back onto his feet, and looked around. The car was empty, its light surprisingly normal. And then a bitterly cold wind blew up out of nowhere and slapped him bluntly in the face. The cold soaked into him, biting at his bare hands and face, stealing away all sensation even as it numbed his brain and slowed his thoughts. This was the cold of the space between worlds, untouched by the warmth of suns, cold enough to blast the soul. One of the many faces of Hell; a taste of what was to come. A slow certain knowledge came to JC then—that if he insisted on going on, if he persisted in his attempt to rescue Kim . . . he would die. And his soul would be trapped on the hell train forever, or at least until such time as the Institute sent a team to exorcise it and him. JC knew that, as surely and certainly as he knew anything, and didn’t give a damn. It might be true, or it might not; you couldn’t trust anything on a hell train. But even if someone he trusted had told him he was doomed, and damned, he would have gone on anyway. Because Kim needed him. So he thrust his face into the bitter cold wind, stamped his frozen feet, and forced himself down the length of the car, one hard step at a time. Forcing himself on, against everything the train could throw at him.

Because in the end that’s what love is. To go on, despite everything, driven by hope and faith alone.

The door at the end of the car opened abruptly before him, then the door into the next, and he stepped through into the crimson hell glare of demon territory and the company of Hell. Dozens of the creatures filled the car from end to end, packed in tight, facing him with anticipatory smiles, with teeth and claws and long, barbed arms with too many joints. Foul, horrid things with inhuman needs and appetites made clear in their misshapen flesh, all the better to inflict suffering upon the living. They laughed in JC’s face and stamped their cloven hooves upon the steel floor.