The Devil's Dreamcatcher Read online

  The aura around Perfidious is moving again. The dark shadow is dancing around his body. It swirls and stretches to form the black outline of eight other wolf heads with wide-open jaws and bared teeth. They are shuddering.

  No, they aren’t shuddering, they’re laughing.

  “I reserve the right to question Miss Pallister again,” blusters Baumwither, but Septimus is already herding Mitchell, Elinor and me to the door. Alfarin edges around Baumwither to retrieve his axe from the table. On our way out, we pass the HBI investigator returning with my glass of water. I ignore him and keep walking as fast as I can.

  “HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. FAILURE TO COMPLY IS UNWISE. HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. . . .”

  Septimus takes us back to the accounting office.

  “Prince Alfarin,” he says, “we will need to push these desks back against the wall. You may be here some time, and I would like you all to have as much space as possible.”

  “It will be an honor, Lord Septimus.”

  “I can help,” offers Mitchell.

  “Ye can move the pizza boxes and the chairs, Mitchell,” says Elinor. She is already starting to tidy up as Septimus and Alfarin drag a desk into the corner. “The chairs have wheels to make it easier for ye.”

  I want to laugh at the indignant look on Mitchell’s face, but I don’t. And I don’t want space. I want to be uncomfortable. I’ll be less likely to sleep then.

  Septimus moves toward the door. “All of you, listen carefully. Do not leave this room,” he says. “I will send blankets and food for the evening in a while, but for now I must attend to Sir, who is very distressed at the loss of his Dreamcatcher.”

  “They won’t come for Medusa, will they? If you leave us?” asks Mitchell, voicing exactly what I was thinking.

  “They will not,” replies Septimus, “but you must prepare yourselves for the possibility that Miss Pallister’s usefulness in this disturbing incident is not yet over.”

  “We will stand by her until it is,” announces Alfarin.

  “She’s part of Team DEVIL now,” says Elinor with a weak smile. “And Hell knows I need another girl to help keep these two boys under control.”

  Before my brain has caught up with my legs, I’m at Septimus’s side.

  I hug him.

  “Thank you, Septimus,” I whisper. “Thank you for believing me.” I quickly let go.

  Septimus seems stunned, as if he hasn’t been hugged in a long time. I immediately regret doing it, but he smiles, displaying brilliant-white, very crooked teeth.

  “Good night, Medusa,” he says. And then he’s gone.

  5. A Severing of Ways

  A small man dressed in a white toga appears at the accounting chamber door not long after Septimus leaves. His eyes are so round and so red that they look like brake lights. He doesn’t blink once as he unstraps four pillows and four camping mattresses from a belted contraption—like a backpack without a cover—from his hairy back. He’s also carrying a square box filled with bread, fruit and what looks like a small plastic bucket of chicken drumsticks.

  “Thanks, Aegidius,” replies Mitchell.

  The Roman doesn’t reply. He pads away on bare feet that make a sticky, squelching sound. I’m totally grossed out because even his stubby toes are covered in thick black hair. Alfarin shuts the accounting chamber door behind Aegidius with a solid thump and moves Mitchell’s desk in front of it as a makeshift barricade.

  Elinor deals out the bedding. I take my pillow and mattress and lay them down in the corner farthest from the door to the Oval Office. If that alarm starts going off again, I want to be as far away from the blood as I possibly can.

  The tension in the room is palpable. I know that everyone wants to talk about what we’ve just seen, but no one wants to be the first. So the elephant—or should I say Unspeakable—in the room isn’t mentioned.

  I don’t actually know what an Unspeakable is, but if my stepfather is one of them, I have a good guess. But what are Skin-Walkers? I think Perfidious is human, even under the guise of a wolf, but his irises are black. Black! Everyone knows the only devil in Hell who has black irises is The Devil himself.

  It sounds strange, but I had never been really terrified in Hell before today. Nervous? Yes. Scared? Occasionally. Pissed off? Always. But now I have a twisting, churning feeling in the pit of my stomach that’s making me sweat and shiver at the same time. I can taste a metallic bitterness. I know this sensation. It is the feeling of deep fear.

  And it reminds me of living.

  “I cannot stand this silence,” Elinor finally says. “We are all thinking it, so we should talk about it.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” replies Mitchell. He has a drumstick in his hand, but he hasn’t taken a bite.

  “We need to be careful, Elinor,” says Alfarin. “We do not know who could be listening in.”

  “Is this room bugged?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so,” replies Mitchell. “We get it swept every week, and there isn’t a devil in Hell who would dare bug Septimus, anyway.”

  He looks over at me. “I think we need to pick up the conversation where we left off when Hell went into lockdown. This is all because of San Francisco. We need to remember what was going on that day. If we remember, we can help Medusa.”

  “But we’ve tried, Mitchell,” says Elinor. “Not one of us can remember why we were there that day.”

  “But we saw him, didn’t we?” says Alfarin solemnly. “That man—Rory. We saw the Skin-Walkers, and what they did to him.”

  “What are Skin-Walkers?” I ask. “What do they do?”

  “The Skin-Walkers were the first murderers, the first evil,” replies Elinor. “They are the gatekeepers of the final dwelling of the Unspeakables: those who are so heinous in life, they cannot be left to mingle with others in the afterlife. The Unspeakables are the true tortured souls in Hell.” Her voice has grown so monotonous, it’s almost as if she’s reading out of a guidebook. I wonder if that’s because she’s scared, or if her brain is just a scary repository of knowledge. Maybe it’s both.

  “The Skin-Walkers rip out the tongues of rapists, child abusers and murderers who kill for kicks,” adds Mitchell. “No one knows where in Hell the Skin-Walkers are kept, and apparently they can track their victims—future Unspeakables—while they’re still alive.”

  “We saw two Skin-Walkers take away your stepfather, Medusa,” says Alfarin. “That evening, in San Francisco.”

  “There was a struggle with a gun,” I whisper. “Between Rory and my mom. I didn’t see what happened. They—the doctors—said he had lost too much blood. He died that night in the hospital.”

  “Did he hurt you?” asks Mitchell. “Your stepfather?” His pink eyes are glistening in the torchlight.

  There’s no point in hiding anything from them, so I nod. They don’t ask for details, and I don’t offer any. But I see deep sadness in their eyes. They understand without needing an explanation.

  “And now he has escaped,” says Elinor, leaning back against the wall. She yelps as a shadow pulls at her long red hair.

  “How, though?” asks Mitchell. “And that message he left—what was that all about?”

  “ ‘You can have it back when I get my life back,’ ” says Alfarin, quoting the message scrawled in blood. “It must mean this Dreamcatcher.”

  “It sounds just like him,” I said. “As if he’s the victim of an injustice.” Rory would see himself as the victim. He always did.

  “What’s a Dreamcatcher?” asks Elinor. She’s slowly turning a bright-red apple between her pale hands. Like Mitchell with his drumstick, she hasn’t taken a bite.

  “They’re Native American objects,” I reply, trying to describe one with my hands. “You get a hoop, I think made of willow, and then you weave a web in the middle of it. Then the Dreamcatcher is decorated with feathers and beads. I’ve seen some before with little bells attached, although I’m not su
re if that’s considered very respectful to the culture and legend.”

  “But what do they do?” asks Alfarin. “Elinor and I are learned, but in all the years I’ve spent reading in Hell’s library, I have never heard of such a thing, either. From your description, this Dreamcatcher is very small. Why is Hell in lockdown over such an object? If it were a mighty weapon I could understand, but for feathers and beads, it does not make sense to me.”

  “If I’m remembering this right, I think some cultures believe that when you’re sleeping, Dreamcatchers will filter out nightmares and trap good dreams,” replies Mitchell.

  “So, this Rory has stolen something with The Devil’s good dreams in it?” asks Elinor.

  “It looks like it,” I reply, “but I have to agree with Alfarin. Why put Hell in lockdown? Why can’t they just make The Devil a new one? It doesn’t make sense.”

  We all look at Mitchell, who now has his head in his hands. The chicken drumstick is lying on the floor next to his sneakers.

  “What’s wrong, Mitchell?” asks Elinor. “Ye are closer to The Devil and Septimus than any of us. Do ye know something?”

  “Think about it, Elinor,” replies Mitchell. His face is deathly white. “A good dream for one of us probably involves eating food, or hanging out together or even living our old lives. . . .” He trails off. All three of them are suddenly interested in the floor.

  “But The Devil’s good dreams are probably our worst nightmares,” I finish quietly.

  Mitchell nods.

  “The dude is nuts, completely cuckoo crazy,” he whispers. “All he wants to do is get revenge on Him and the angels. The Devil’s good dreams would be filled with blood and screaming and torture and probably war against Up There. His idea of Heaven would be way worse than anything in Hell. This Dreamcatcher is going to be filled with the worst things imaginable.”

  “So The Devil’s Dreamcatcher is actually the opposite because of who he is,” I say. “It still captures good dreams, but his good dreams are so twisted. . . .”

  “Exactly,” replies Mitchell.

  “Could the Dreamcatcher serve as a weapon?” asks Alfarin. “If it holds The Devil’s good dreams, as vile as they are, could these dreams become reality?”

  “Yeah,” I answer slowly. “I’m guessing the Dreamcatcher would be a physical manifestation of evil.”

  “Conquest, war, famine and death,” whispers Elinor. “The apocalypse in a nice, neat package for anyone crazy enough to take it.”

  “It’s the only explanation for the panic,” says Mitchell. “I don’t think Perfidious and the Skin-Walkers care—they just want Medusa’s stepfather back with the other Unspeakables. But the HBI and that Baumwither dude are scared about the Dreamcatcher. Septimus is, too, and that’s the really terrifying thing, because the boss isn’t afraid of anything.”

  “What if the Unspeakable has escaped Hell?” gasps Elinor. “Medusa’s stepfather has to be stopped if he’s gone back to the land of the living with a weapon from The Devil.”

  “No one can escape Hell, Elinor,” I reply, but my eyes widen as I suddenly remember that I’m sitting with three devils who have done exactly that.

  “You all got out of Hell with a Viciseometer,” I say. “What if Rory got out the same way?”

  “If he did, the HBI might think we were all involved!” cries Elinor.

  But Mitchell and Alfarin are vehemently shaking their heads. “Septimus knows we had nothing to do with this, Elinor,” says Mitchell. “Plus, as far as I know, the Viciseometer we used is still locked in the safe, and I still don’t know the new combination.”

  I shake my head. This morning, when I woke up in my crowded dorm, the only things worrying me were the fact that someone new was sleeping at the bottom of my bed because we’d run out of space, and the fact that I couldn’t find my favorite sneakers to wear to the interview. I eventually located them hanging from a torch out on the balcony—and I’m pretty sure my feet don’t smell so bad they walked out on their own.

  But now everything has changed, in no more than the space of a day. Because now I’ve found out that my hated stepfather has been tortured in Hell by man-wolves called Skin-Walkers for more than forty years, and the bastard has retaliated by stealing a weapon from The Devil himself.

  “Are you okay, Medusa?” asks Mitchell. He crawls over to my mattress. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Probably because I’m dead.”

  I don’t know why I use sarcasm and one-liners when I’m stressed. But unlike other devils, Mitchell doesn’t seem to mind, which is another reason I’m really starting to like him.

  “They’ll find Rory, Medusa. The Skin-Walkers will track your stepfather down and take him back to where he’ll rot.”

  “What if they don’t, though?”

  Just the thought of Rory being on the loose in the Underworld . . . I’m not so worried about the missing Dreamcatcher right now. I’m worried about him. Finding me.

  “They will, M,” says Elinor firmly. “The Skin-Walkers will find him, somehow.” She turns and tries to fluff up her thin pillow. “Now, I think we all need to try and get some rest. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow, and Mitchell gets very cranky if he doesn’t get his beauty sleep.”

  “What?” exclaims Mitchell.

  “You may have my pillow, my princess,” says Alfarin. He throws it to Elinor, but he’s so strong, it hits her full in the face and sends her toppling backward over Mitchell’s chair.

  Full of remorse and apologies, Alfarin rushes over to help her, tripping over the discarded pizza boxes.

  “Still up for joining Team DEVIL?” whispers Mitchell into my ear. A tickling sensation swoops down my back as I feel the brush of his hot skin against mine. “We’re a classy and coordinated bunch, as you can see.”

  “Do you still want me? This mess is all my fault, you know.”

  “I don’t think any of this is your fault, Medusa. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life isn’t fair, and death is even worse. So, once more, are you up for joining Team DEVIL? I need a girl around the office to fetch coffee and stuff, and plus, if we turn you upside down, you’ll make a handy broom.”

  I elbow him. Hard.

  “Ow.”

  “Fetch coffee? Get off my mattress, you gross boy. You’re sweating on my bed.”

  “You think I smell?” asks Mitchell darkly. “We’re in an enclosed space with Alfarin, and he’s eaten two meat feast pizzas. If you weren’t dead already, you would be by morning. Suffocated by farts.”

  “Ye should not use language like that around ladies, Mitchell,” calls Elinor. “And Alfarin does not fart, he exudes manliness.”

  I don’t remember falling asleep. I never can. I can always remember the fight that goes on with my eyelids beforehand, though, and never more so than tonight. Mitchell and Alfarin and Elinor may have happy dreams about their past lives, but not me. A Dreamcatcher would be wasted on me. I only ever have nightmares. They’re all I’m capable of having. What’s worse is that I don’t just see them, I feel them. And I can’t fight off the terror they bring. Ever. The only thing that helps is waking up.

  “Medusa . . . Medusa!” someone calls.

  It’s Mitchell’s voice, but my fear from tonight’s dream is still too close for me to answer. This one was a nightmare I haven’t had before. There was a small child, a boy, with a thick mop of blond hair that looked like straw. He was crying, but not wailing like most children his age would when they’re throwing a tantrum. His tears were streaming silently down his pink cheeks. Then I saw his ruby-red eyes, and I noticed that his tears were no longer clear. He was crying blood. It was slowly dripping from his nose, too. He held his arms out, as if he wanted to be picked up. Then Alfarin was there, holding someone back. I realized it was Mitchell. I couldn’t see Elinor, but there were another two people in the nightmare. They had a halo of light around them. One was a guy, maybe a couple of years older than I am, and he was dressed in an old brown a
rmy uniform. The other was a stunningly beautiful girl with light-brown skin and long, wavy hair as dark as coal.

  “Jeanne, you can’t help him,” called the army boy.

  That’s when I started to scream.

  “Medusa!” Mitchell calls again. I feel strong hands holding my wrists. I stop fighting, not because I think I’m safe, but because I don’t have the energy to battle the nightmare anymore.

  “Were ye having a bad dream?” Elinor wraps her arms around me and strokes the curls away from my sweaty face. No girl in my dorm has ever done that before. I feel safe.

  “I saw a little boy,” I pant. “He was crying blood.”

  I drink some water from a cup. It’s Septimus who passes it to me. When did he come back?

  “I do not have words of comfort for you, Miss Pallister,” he says. His deep voice sounds like a double bass being plucked. “Considering the events that transpired yesterday, and unfortunately, those events that may yet come to pass, I fear the nightmares that plague your sleep may only intensify.”

  “Have you found him? Have you found Rory and the Dreamcatcher?” I ask.

  Septimus shakes his head. “Alas, they have not been recovered. I understand that Perfidious and the Skin-Walkers have now severed all communication with the HBI and The Devil’s office and will act of their own accord. There will be meetings all day today about the recovery of the Dreamcatcher, and in the absence of Sir Richard Baumwither, I have been asked by The Devil to chair. It is apparent, however, that Mr. Hunter has departed Hell.”

  “It had nothing to do with us, Septimus,” says Mitchell quickly. “I don’t have the combination to the safe anymore, not since—”

  “Mitchell, if I were to unlock the safe now, I have no doubt that Hell’s Viciseometer would still be sitting on the shelf,” interrupts Septimus. “No, I do not believe the Unspeakable left Hell with either our travel timepiece, or indeed the one from Up There. He wouldn’t need it. The Dreamcatcher absorbs immense powers from The Devil, and it won’t surprise you to learn that that includes his ability to travel to any place, to any time, at will. I believe the Unspeakable left Hell via the power of the Dreamcatcher.” He pauses, and a frustrated look crosses his face. “How the Unspeakable knew the way to wield it, though, is something I have yet to ascertain.”