The Devil's Intern Read online

  THE

  DEVIL’S

  INTERN

  Donna Hosie

  Holiday House / New York

  Text copyright © 2014 by Donna Hosie

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  ISBN 978-0-8234-3265-3 (ebook)w

  ISBN 978-0-8234-3266-0 (ebook)r

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hosie, Donna. The Devil’s intern / by Donna Hosie. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Seventeen-year-old Mitchell discovers a time-travel device that will allow him to escape his internship in Hell’s accounting office and return to Earth, but his plans to alter the circumstances of his own death take an unexpected turn when his three closest friends in Hell insist on accompanying him back to the land of the living”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-8234-3195-3 (hardcover)

  [1. Hell—Fiction. 2. Future life—Fiction.

  3. Death—Fiction. 4. Time travel—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.H79325De 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014002402

  For Beth Phelan and Kelly Loughman,

  for loving Team DEVIL

  as much as I do

  Contents

  1. Welcome to Hell

  2. The Masquerade Ball

  3. Septimus’s Plan

  4. The Peasant and the Warrior

  5. The Viciseometer

  6. Blood Oath

  7. Practice Makes Perfect

  8. Friends Like These

  9. Skin-Walkers

  10. The HalfWay House

  11. The Chill of the Big Apple

  12. Sleepy Sheep

  13. 9 Harpa 970

  14. Death of a Viking

  15. There were two in the bed and the little one said . . .

  16. 4 September 1666

  17. Blade and Flame

  18. Fight, Fight, Fight

  19. Paradox

  20. Evil Among Us

  21. Secrets and Lies

  22. Bridge to Nowhere

  23. The Other Thief

  24. Resourceful Devils

  25. The Replacement

  26. M.J.

  27. Fault Line

  28. Mom’s Loaded

  29. Can’t Remember

  30. The Other Intern

  Acknowledgments

  It takes one person to write a manuscript but a whole army to take that manuscript out into the world. So, here is the love for my Team DEVIL.

  First, to my wonderful agent, Beth Phelan, because no one worked harder: thank you for constantly supporting me and Mitchell on our journey through time—and for Americanizing this English writer’s spelling before her editor needed to do so!

  Thanks to my amazing editor, Kelly Loughman. From our first introduction you have blown me away with your enthusiasm and attention to detail, picking up little things that the rest of us missed. Working with you has been a joy. Team DEVIL, and especially Alfarin, have no greater champion.

  Thank you to Kelly Bohrer Zemaitis, Peggy Russell, and Charlotte Evans for your erudite critiquing skills.

  To Mike Weinstein (and Bear, of course!), thank you for the supportive e-mails and Middle Earth/Sherlock YouTube links! You’ve been a tower of strength throughout my publishing journey, and I’ve learned more from you than anyone else, although those pesky dashes still kill me. . . .

  Sincere thanks to Jennifer Azantian for your advice and support.

  Thanks to my husband, Steve. You’ve never once complained about the hours and hours and hours I’ve spent typing away. You just kept me supplied with wine and chicken fajitas! Best. Husband. Ever.

  Thanks to my gorgeous kids: Emily, Daniel, and Joshua for just being proud of Mum, and to my mum and dad, Lorraine and Peter Molloy.

  And last, but definitely not least, thanks to my Devilish Degenerates of Doom who get onto social media and talk up my books to death. Gina Anstey, Kristin Weiss Devoe, Charlotte Evans, Madeleine Henderson, Connie House, Jennifer Jones Bragg, Anne Fetkovich Ehrenberger, Maria Dotson, Julie Elizabeth Seay, Denise Dowd, and Athena Stewart, I would be nothing without you.

  P.S. Raj Khanna, no, you can’t retire!

  1. Welcome to Hell

  “How did you die?”

  That’s the first question you’ll be asked in Hell. Four years ago it was certainly the first question I was asked. I had just walked into a holding area cramped with the recently dead—the processing center I know now to be the HalfWay House—when I was thrown against a wall by another dead person demanding to know. It’s a question I’ve been asked a million times since.

  I was too shell-shocked to consider lying. So I told him the truth.

  “I—I was hit by a bus,” I stammered.

  Big mistake. Huge. Rule number one in Hell: if you have a crappy death, don’t tell other dead people about it. You’ll be mocked for all eternity if you do, and apparently that’s a long time.

  It was a Greyhound bus that did the dirty deed. I was visiting my father in Washington, DC—my parents are divorced—and . . . splat.

  Here is the thing I can’t quite get my head around, though. I wasn’t crossing the road when it happened, or at least I hadn’t intended to. I was just walking down the street, listening to my iPod, minding my own business.

  Something distracted me. Something major. I can’t remember what it was, and it drives me crazy when I try to think back. For some stupid, dumbass reason, I ran out into the road. I couldn’t hear the bus, or the squealing of the brakes. All I could hear was Radiohead through my headphones.

  At least my death was instant; I should be thankful for that. Down here, devils wear their demise like a badge of honor, but I bet if they had to relive it, not one of them would choose to bleed to death on a muddy battlefield, or slowly asphyxiate by hanging.

  My death may have been stupid, and I may not like talking about it, but at least I can’t remember the pain.

  A bus, though, I ask you. Of all the ways to snuff it.

  I’m seventeen and always will be, but being dead for four years has made me a little more experienced. You can make your death as heroic as you want in Hell, because nobody checks up on you. The only way to know for sure is to look in the devil resources files, which no one ever does because the photographs freak everyone out. So now I say I died doing something brave. Animals, that’s the key. Say you died saving an animal and . . . well, if you end up here—and you almost certainly will—you try it. See for yourself how much love you get.

  I work in the accounting department of Hell under the supervision of Septimus, The Devil’s accountant and civil servant number one. I’m The Devil’s intern so I get a desk in here with The Devil’s right-hand man. Like me, Septimus is tall and thin. Unlike me he wears the sharpest pinstripe suits. His dark skin has a reddish tinge to it, like a sunburned glow. He wears small golden hoops in his ears, and his head has been shaved to the scalp. But I think Septimus’s most awesome feature is his eyes. They are bloodred. They weren’t originally like that, of course, but Septimus has been here so long, he can’t remember their original color.

  One day I’ll have eyes like that. Right now mine are pink. Pink! As soon as a devil enters Hell, their eye color changes. At first the irises turn opaque, the color of foamy warm milk. Eventually, after a year or so, the color starts to reflect the heat that has built up inside, and a hint of rose appears. This intensifies over time, and the spectrum of eye pigment changes from pale pink to magenta to cherry, until finally the irises are bloodred. The only exception to this rule is The Devil himself. His irises are black.

  I’m on my
way to work right now—and I’m late. Again. Septimus isn’t the kind of boss who will rant and rave, because he knows I work my butt off in his office, but I’m just no good with time. Hell is so overcrowded it takes hours to move from one end of the corridor to the other.

  I was sure I was wearing a watch when I died, but somewhere between getting hit by a bus and getting checked in at the HalfWay House, I lost it. At least I got to keep my cell phone and my iPod.

  And now I’m really late because the alarm is going off for The Devil’s morning tea. The alarm is actually a recording of Chopin’s “Funeral March.” The Devil thinks it’s funny.

  Yeah, right. My sides are splitting.

  What’s even worse is that the recording is actually me. When The Devil found out I was a musical prodigy I had to spend a week playing Chopin for the Grim Reapers while they recorded it. I could hardly say no to The Devil, but I was so depressed afterward that I completely lost my appetite. All that recording session did was remind me of what I’d lost. I’m still not used to the fact that I’m dead, and I don’t think I ever will be. I breathe on reflex, even though I don’t need to. I still feel pain, though nothing can ever kill me again. I never really appreciated living until I stopped doing it.

  And do you have any idea how unpopular that music makes me with some of the other devils? They have to hear the “Funeral March” every single day. Talk about rubbing our dead faces in it.

  I—along with millions and millions of other devils—work in the central business district, or CBD, of the Underworld. There are nearly seven hundred floors, each with its own balcony and elevator. Flaming torches hang from the walls, so at first glance it looks like the façade of an enormous cruise liner docking in the dead of night. It freaked me out the first time I saw it, but pretty much everything freaked me out back then.

  Each floor in the business hub of Hell deals with a specific area of administration or maintenance. The higher up the cave you are, the more important the office. So The Devil’s Oval Office—not that he’s a democratically elected demon, he just likes irony—and the busy accounting department tower above everyone else on level 1; the heating department is on level 2; and The Devil’s fabric selection team has recently been promoted to level 3. Those in true torment work on level 666. This is a new department, reserved for reality TV stars. They clean out the ground-floor toilets.

  The rest of Hell is separated into zones, connected by thousands and thousands of tunnels. Our dorms are near where we work, so there are enormous swaths of the Underworld that most of us never get to see.

  Now I’m really late, because the recording of me playing Chopin has finished. I’d better reach the office by the time “Abide with Me” reminds everyone it’s lunchtime.

  Finally, I get to the elevator. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m an astronaut flying into space. I wanted to do that when I was little: walk in space. Then I was going to be a paleontologist. Finally I settled on rock star. Not like Jon Bon Jovi or even Hendrix, but more alternative rock, like Chris Martin. Someone who plays the piano like a madman.

  But then I died and became The Devil’s intern. They don’t tend to give you that option on career night.

  I’m actually walking on tiptoes as I inch toward the accounting office. First I need to get past the Oval Office, and even though I walk past this door several times every day, it still makes me anxious.

  I’m at the door when I hear raised voices. It’s The Devil and Septimus. I can tell The Devil is in another foul mood because sparks of blue electrical current are zapping across the damp outer stone walls.

  The Devil has been throwing tantrums all week, and from the sound of it, he’s finally reached the end of his patience. Heaven—or Up There, as most of us call it—has sent another notice, making The Devil scream and rant until he set fire to his gold throne (the seat he extorted from King Louis XVI in return for his head). Septimus must have gone to try to calm Sir down.

  I don’t know why I listen in on their conversations. It’s hard not to be inquisitive when you’re this close to power, but most of the stuff they talk about in there gives me nightmares.

  “Septimus!” shrieks The Devil. “I am vexed, Septimus. One could claim I am in despair.”

  “What’s He done now, sir?” asks Septimus. His accent, which apparently was once Roman, has now transformed into a deep southern American drawl. A lot of accents and languages change in Hell. I guess it depends on who you hang with. All dead people are implanted with a communication translator as soon as they arrive at the HalfWay House. So regardless of the mother tongue, all of us can understand one another. With all the scary stuff that gets screamed around here, I sometimes wish I didn’t have the translator.

  “He!” cries The Devil. “I’ll tell you what He has done, Septimus. He has threatened to stop funding the HalfWay House. That is what He has done. He really has gone too far this time.

  “And,” says The Devil, continuing to wail, “to compound my misery, Septimus, His letter exploded into rainbows and destroyed another set of my drapes. He is such a vile show-off. Why can’t He send a messenger like the rest of us? It’s getting to the point where I’m considering the removal of all my furnishings, and you know how much I cherish my drapery.

  “Up There is conspiring against me, Septimus,” sniffs The Devil. “Without the HalfWay House to triage the dead, our reception area will soon be swamped with poets, librarians, vegans, and charity workers. It’s no good, Septimus. It’s getting absolutely out of control. Hell is already bursting at the seams. Soon we’ll be overrun, and our costs are already astronomical. The Highers created Hell and Up There for a good reason—these dead people have to go somewhere. He can’t simply refuse to take His fair share.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly, sir. In fact, I was thinking it might be time to bring the Viciseometer out of storage,” says Septimus. “I have been formulating a plan.”

  “The Viciseometer? That’s an excellent idea,” replies The Devil. The hairs on my arm suddenly lift with a chill I don’t usually experience in Hell. The Devil’s voice has dropped. It sounds much deeper, menacing. “You know, I was thinking we could unleash Operation H as well,” he adds.

  There is silence.

  “You don’t think that might be a little too hasty, sir?” says Septimus. “We have yet to explore all alternatives. Every scientist who saw the infection spread in those poor dead souls is still traumatized. . . .”

  “But isn’t that exactly what we want, Septimus?” whispers The Devil, and although I can’t see him, just the tone of his voice is making me feel sick. The words tumble from his mouth, as if he has waited a long time to say them.

  “I thought you and I were in agreement here. I want Up There so scared, so beyond fear, so traumatized at just the thought of what I can do to them that they will go down on bended knee and beg to take more of the dead.”

  “I do understand, sir,” says Septimus gently, “but perhaps you would like to see my plan for the Viciseometer first? I just have a couple of extras to add, but it should be ready within twenty-four hours. Just leave it to me. I have never failed you.”

  “Then I should allow you to get back to your plan. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  My desk—now.

  I run into the accounting office and throw myself into my chair. I grab a stack of papers and try to look busy as Septimus’s shoes clip along the marble floor toward our connecting door.

  Then a high-pitched voice calls out, “Send in the cherubs on your way out, Septimus. I need amusement to take my mind away from the torment.”

  I hear Septimus sigh on the other side of the door. “Sir, we don’t have the cherubs anymore. Remember, you lost them in a game of chess several thousand years ago. He has them now.”

  The Devil starts wailing again.

  “Perhaps you would like me to send for the chimeras?” says Septimus hurriedly. “I understand they have been learning the art of Irish folk dancing from one of the witch covens.”


  Septimus walks into the office.

  “Make the call, Mitchell.”

  “Send for the chimeras,” I say into the handset, “and better have the leprechauns on standby. Sir is having a very bad day.”

  Septimus slumps into his office chair and puts his feet up on the mahogany desk.

  “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” I ask.

  “He’s proving to be rather troublesome,” replies Septimus, “but then He knows exactly which buttons to push and Sir rises to the bait every single time. This time He’s threatening to close the HalfWay House.”

  “Can He do that?”

  Septimus shakes his head. “I don’t believe so—although I know Fabulara would find it very funny. But even then, He knows that if the dead aren’t sorted properly we will have anarchy in administration on both sides. However, it is an undeniable fact that more of the dead are crossing our threshold than theirs.”

  “So what will you do?” I’m fishing for information, and judging by the narrowing of Septimus’s red eyes, he knows it. We rarely mention Fabulara, the Higher who is responsible for Hell and Up There. The Devil is paranoid about the name being said aloud. He thinks it’s cursed. But it isn’t Fabulara I’m interested in. I want to know what a Viciseometer is, and what Septimus plans to do with it.

  “It’s going to be yet another long day, Mitchell,” drawls Septimus, ignoring my question. “Now, file the laundry receipts and then pop down to maintenance and ask Geronimo if he has a quote for furnace number eight yet. When you’ve done that, send the quarterly figures to Augustus for double-checking and then ask IT to come and look at my computer—another virus has gotten into it, the Black Death I think, judging by the pus oozing out of the hard drive. Take my suit to the dry cleaners, and then send the ledger for the Masquerade Ball costs to Heather in accounts five.”