Squelch!
The Patrol Van rolled over a pile of sticky sludge, and the road beneath its wheels suddenly felt smooth.
"Aaaah! I see the light!"
Wilson roared as he floored the accelerator, charging out of the encirclement right behind the Batmobile. Ahead, instead of an endless rain of severed demon limbs blotting out the sky, there were black rocks and gray-white ground. "Hahahaha! I never thought I'd miss the scenery in Hell this much!"
"They're retreating!" Li Jie shouted, wiping something unidentifiable off his face. He hadn't ducked in time earlier, and something had smashed against his helmet. It hadn't felt particularly hard, but his head was still swimming a little.
"No, they're not retreating. They're recoiling..."
Zatanna sounded hesitant, but none of them could spare much thought for that now. The demons' howls, the screech of claws scraping metal, the shriek of bullets-all the mad cacophony of the Greed Plains was cut off as though by a knife the instant they charged through the narrow mouth of the canyon.
Covered in dents and blackened stains, the E-350 and the Batmobile limped into an eerie silence.
Outside the canyon entrance, the seething tide of demons seemed to hit an invisible wall. They piled up, shoved against one another, and roared in frustration, their burning eyes fixed on the canyon, but not one dared cross that clear boundary.
"Stop."
Batman's voice came over the communicator. Both vehicles braked almost simultaneously, kicking up a cloud of fine dust.
"Fuck!"
Li Jie pushed himself up from the scorching PKM gun position, sweat and blood dripping together from his chin. "Did anyone bring a change of clothes?"
The Batmobile's door opened. Batman jumped out, then turned to catch the unsteady Zatanna.
"Where are we?"
The canyon was wider inside than they had expected. Smooth,