The Devil's Dreamcatcher (32 page)

At this, Angela bursts into tears. She buries her head in Johnny's chest, but he doesn't help her. He stands completely still, like a statue.

“Johnny?” I say quietly, reaching out to him.

“He still has my sister, doesn't he? That Devil bastard.”

“We're getting her back, Johnny,” I say quickly. “We've got a plan.”

“We had a plan, too,” says Johnny bitterly. “We were supposed to get The Devil's Dreamcatcher. We were told to rescue it from evil. We were told ye were evil. But Heaven just wanted it as a weapon, too. And now that bastard has my sister and he's going to destroy her. There'll be nothing left of her, Medusa. And it's all yer fault.”

“Johnny!” says Angela.

“
No!
” exclaims Alfarin.

“How can you blame Medusa?” cries Mitchell.

“Owen has told me all about ye!” yells Johnny. “I knew there was something strange about ye the first time I met ye. I'd seen ye
before, I was sure of it, but I didn't know where or when. And then Owen told me ye had died twice and yer records have marked ye down as a freak. And because ye are not right, my sister's been taken by The Devil. It should have been ye—not our Elinor.”

“That's enough, Johnny,” snaps Mitchell. He steps forward and his arm is drawn back. “She did everything she could to prevent this. You keep talking to Medusa like that and I swear I'll put you back in quarantine.”

“Died twice?” says Patty. “How can someone die twice? Are you even human?”

I'm not right
. I keep hearing those words in my head, and now they seem to be coming from countless voices, screaming down on me in a cacophony of doubtful noise.

I'm not right. I'm not right. I'm not right
.

I push past the devils and angels and start running. My nose prickles with the sensation of oncoming tears, but I fight back against the feeling. Life made me tough; death made me tougher. That's my mantra, and I say it over and over again, trying to block out the voices that hate me and what I was and what I have become.

Left, right, right again. I just run. I have no idea where I'm going, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

“Elinor Powell matters.”

I skid to a stop. The voice isn't male. It isn't female. It sounds fake, almost synthetic, as if the speaker is trying to copy what it thinks a person sounds like.

Before me stands the seven-headed statue of the Highers, and it's talking to me. Or at least the head of Fabulara is. It's hideous, but I can't look away. The oversized mouth is moving, and even though the other six heads are completely still, I can see the wavelike ripples through its grotesque, overweight stomach.

It can move, walk. I'm sure we didn't come this way before, yet here it is, standing directly in front of me.

“I see through you, Medusa Pallister. Into the depths of your tortured soul and beyond,” whispers the strange voice. “You have a choice before you, but neither path will be easy.”

I have a choice, all right. To stay here with this monster, or to run.

Its mouth stretches even farther and a noise, like a perverse sickening laugh, barks out of the monster.

“You will not get far, devil.”

The creature can read my mind.

“I am beyond the entities of this world, but I know everything in every one of you. The guilt you feel over the fate that has befallen Elinor Powell seeps through your skin like blood. I can taste your tears on my tongue. Your cries are heard above all of those that scream from the Underworld.”

As it speaks to me, its long neck swings from side to side. The motion is hypnotic. I turn my head and look back up the row of ancient manuscripts and papers I've just run down, but I see and hear nothing. At this moment in time, I am the only devil in Hell, and I am face to face with the Higher that rules all of the dead here.

Elinor. I have to be brave for Elinor.

“What choice?” I dare to ask.

“You can leave Elinor Powell to her fate. The Devil's dreams will eventually overpower her, and she will become nothing but atoms in the air. He will resume his use of the Dreamcatchers.”

“Not an option,” I reply as confidently as I can. My stomach has tightened into such a painful ball that I want to double over.

“Then you must carry on and seek that which left The Devil. It will not be easy. The Viking is brave, yet even he will quail from the horrors you will face on the journey.”

“Nothing is worse than knowing that Elinor is suffering.”

The monster lurches forward with a speed that defies its size. Fabulara's gaping mouth splits apart, and teeth the size of knitting needles snap inches from my face. I fall back into a bookcase and scream from the depths of my soul. I never knew I was capable of making such a primal noise. It's beyond fear and pain and helplessness. My body is turning to fire and ice. I can see people drowning in filth; bodies being stripped of skin by wind; the condemned trapped in flaming tombs.

The monster's head pulls back and I am left a shaking mess on
the floor. My stomach heaves violently, and what comes out of my mouth is vile and green and tastes like bitter fruit.

“That is but a glimpse of what you will face if you choose not to leave Elinor Powell to her fate.”

“But we only want to find the Banshee,” I choke. “Then we can have Elinor back.”

“Three of the nine is all I have just shown you, but there are a further six.”

“I don't understand.”

“You will find the Banshee in the nine.”

The seven-headed monster is disappearing, melting backward into the shadows. I can't walk, so I start to crawl toward it.

“In the nine of what?” I cry.

“
Medusa . . . Medusa . . .
”

It's too much. I faint dead away.

When I wake up I find I'm back in the accounting chamber. Mitchell and Alfarin are there, staring at me with concerned faces. Mitchell is stroking my hair. I can feel his fingers bouncing around my forehead.

“Hey there,” he says softly. “You've been out for hours.”

“That monster . . .”

“Gone. We heard it, and that was how we found you. Scared Patty Lloyd shitless. She didn't realize it was real. Apparently she takes dudes down there all the time. You should have seen her running, you would have laughed.”

Somehow I doubt it.

“Johnny says he is sorry, Medusa,” says Alfarin. He's leaning forward, arms crossed, balancing precariously on his axe. “You should forgive him. What he said was done for the love of Elinor, not his anger at you.”

“Where are the angels?”

“With Jeanne, trying to calm her down. Septimus reckons she's getting close to immolation. I think he's quite impressed, actually. If she manages, she'll be the only one in Hell who's ever accomplished it.”

“The monster—Fabulara—she told me how to find the Banshee.”

“We heard that as well.”

“Do you know what she meant? ‘In the nine'?”

Mitchell swears. Not at me. Not at anything. He just swears, shakes his head and swears again.

“What did you see, Medusa?” asks Alfarin. “What did you see when the monster roared its bile at you?”

“Dead people. Their skin was being torn from their bodies by wind. And their faces, Alfarin. They were screaming, and they didn't stop, but they had no tongues and so I couldn't hear it, but I knew the noise was there, just waiting to get me. And even when the wind stopped, and their skin grew back . . . they knew it was coming again. The wind was like knives. It just kept tearing at their skin . . . again, and again. And the smell . . . there were others, and they were being submerged in this brown filth.”

“It is as I thought,” says Alfarin. “I will go alone, Mitchell. I cannot ask you to follow me.”

Follow Alfarin where? What am I missing? I prop myself up on my elbows. A stabbing pain shoots through my head, from left to right, and it's quickly followed by a large black shadow that swims across my vision in the same direction.

Then I hear the howling of wolves.

Nine.

Nine wolves.

Nine Skin-Walkers.

Nine circles of Hell.

Nine.

You will find the Banshee in the nine
.

Alfarin doesn't look scared, or even confused. Determination just glows from his huge body.

“Oh, no!” I cry. “This isn't happening.”

“You understand already?” asks Alfarin. “Medusa, you are truly the wisest of us all. Mitchell and I have gone through the papers we collected in the library. We brought them back here with us. The written word, and those spoken by Fabulara, all match up.”

Finally we're all on the same page. We know what we have to do and where we have to go.

The Devil's Banshee, the original Dreamcatcher, is with the Skin-Walkers. If we want to save Elinor, that's where we'll find her.

“We're going into the worst part of Hell,” says Mitchell.

“I will do this alone, my friend,” repeats Alfarin.

“There's no way you're doing this alone,” I say. “We're a team.”

The three of us look around the small, cluttered office. We're a team that is one woman down, but we have a plan.

We're heading into Dante's circles of Hell. Together.

Septimus has his fingers locked in a cradle beneath his chin. His face doesn't betray a flicker of emotion. He did hear me, right?

A single bead of sweat travels down the side of my face. I no longer feel shock over what we have to do. My spectrum of emotions has been stretched like a rubber band, nearly to its breaking point in recent days, and what I feel now is exhilaration. It's almost perverse, but I want to hold on to this gloriously terrifying feeling.

Somehow it's empowering, knowing how we can get Elinor back.

This accounting chamber really isn't big enough for Septimus, Mitchell and me, but now there's an amped Viking prince in the office, too, and Alfarin has enough nervous energy to fire up Hell's furnaces. He's like a pinball waiting to be unleashed. In a moment he'll start bouncing off more than the balls of his enormous feet.

I kept calm when I told Septimus our plan. That we knew where the original Dreamcatcher was, and we were going to get her back for The Devil. Now we just need Septimus to get us—me—into that Oval Office to explain it to the master of Hell.

Septimus is staring at something, but I'm not sure what. His red eyes are flickering with the reflection of the candle wick burning in front of him.

“Septimus, please,” I say, breaking the sweaty silence. “Just get me in to see The Devil. I'm not scared. I know I can do this.”

Septimus leans back in his chair. He drums his chin with his fingertips.

“Medusa,” he says in his long, deep, drawling voice. “I am astounded at your bravery and loyalty. It is an ingenious plan, but one that is fraught with more danger than I could possibly explain. I will give you one chance to walk out now, and no one will think any less of you for it. Least of all me.”

“No,” I reply defiantly. “Elinor is the best girlfriend I've ever had. I'm getting her back, and I will do anything—
anything
—to make that happen.”

“I cannot allow all of you into the Oval Office,” says Septimus, taking in the remainder of Team DEVIL one at a time. “This must be Medusa's proposition. Her task will have come full circle, and she will have to go in to see the master alone. You will have but one chance, Medusa. Decide now how you wish to play this.”

Play?
Septimus's word flares up in my chest like a lit fuse, burning me with righteous indignation. This isn't a game. This is real and horrifying.

But then he rises from his chair and nods to me, and suddenly
play
seems like exactly the right word. I have to play to my strengths and The Devil's weaknesses. Like anyone in a position of power, he will want to be seen to be holding on to that. A puppet master holding the strings.

I need to make him think that this is all his idea. That he's still in charge.

“You need to beg The Devil to let Elinor free,” suggests Mitchell. “Cry if you have to.”

“Demand that he set our princess free,” counters Alfarin. “Threaten him if you have to. You may have my axe.”

I bite my tongue to help center my thoughts. The guys are wrong. I can't play to fear, or to anger. I need to confuse The Devil. But how? What emotion will cause the most bewilderment to a madman?

The one emotion that makes wrecks of us all, I think, suddenly recalling Septimus's words to me by the stone wall when Mitchell first immolated.
Do not underestimate the power of love, Miss Pallister. It can blind us all, for better and worse
.

“Did he love her?” I ask Septimus. “The Devil, I mean. Did he love the Banshee?”

“Yes, very much,” replies Septimus. “They were married, you know, and they were actually rather well suited. He took her leaving very badly.”

“You don't say,” mutters Mitchell. “The sick bastard.”

“What was her name?” I ask.

“Medusa, what does it matter?” asks Mitchell. “Her name is irrelevant.”

“Names are important, Mitchell,” I reply. “Think about it. When my name changed to Medusa, I was able to start gaining a new sense of self. You share your name with your little brother, and I know you wouldn't change that for the world. Alfarin, son of Hlif, son of Dobin, is so proud of his name it takes a week to say it, and Septimus's name strikes fear and admiration into every dead soul, whether it's Up There or here in Hell. Names aren't irrelevant. They're personal. They can mean everything.”

“Beatrice Morrigan,” says Septimus quietly. “Her name is Beatrice Morrigan.”

Beatrice Morrigan. That's a pretty name. Its normality makes me smile. In my head I see a slender woman with long blond hair. She's floating with her arms outstretched. Her eyes are black, like The Devil's and the Skin-Walkers. It's not a vision like the one I shared with the Dreamcatcher; what I'm seeing is just my imagination. It's nice to use it and not to be scared for once.