The Devil's Banshee

by Donna Hosie

  I run at the beast. He is quick, far quicker than me, and I slam into the rock wall as he sidesteps me. Yet while I am cumbersome in weight, I have the reflexes of a cat, as any warrior should, and these do not desert me. Pain does not even register as I swing my body clockwise and my fist connects with razor-sharp teeth. Instinctively I grab a handful of coarse fur and pull my quarry toward me. My flesh burns as Cupidiar’s burning knife connects with my forearm.

  “Fool!” cries Cupidiar. “I will hack your body into pieces and leave only your eyes intact, so they can watch as I feed your friend’s tongue to my wolf!”

  Suddenly the Skin-Walker crumples to the ground and howls in misery.

  Virgil has his hands on either side of the Skin-Walker’s face.

  “When will you listen to me!” Virgil roars at me. “I said free your friend and I would deal with the Skin-Walker!”

  I do not understand how an elderly, feeble being such as Virgil can have such power to make a Skin-Walker cower, but I run to Mitchell with Cupidiar’s blade and hack through his bonds. I cannot help myself, and as I tug the gag from his mouth, I check to see if his tongue is still in place.

  “Ge-hoff, Atharin,” chokes Mitchell as I wiggle his tongue around. “Ith’s slill there.”

  I embrace my friend like I have never hugged any Viking, man or devil before.

  “I knew you’d come for me,” he whispers, clutching at the back of my tunic.

  “No friend gets left behind.”

  I have something in my eye. Something big and terrifying and very, very wet. So does Mitchell. We wipe our eyes with the backs of our hands, suddenly more interested in the decor of the torture chamber than in looking at each other.

  “Are you ready to listen, Viking?” calls Virgil. He still has the cowering Skin-Walker between his hands. I can see ghostly swirls of red and white mist floating around his fingers, which are definitely no longer gnarled and decrepit. The Skin-Walker is jerking and whimpering in misery.

  “I am,” I call back.

  “When I release Cupidiar, we must run. You and your friend must not leave me behind. Do you understand? You must follow my directions to the letter.”

  “We understand,” I reply.

  “Virgil isn’t any ordinary guide, is he?” mumbles Mitchell.

  “No, he isn’t,” I reply. “Indeed, I no longer believe he is a guide at all.”

  “Run!”

  Tuttugu ok Sjau

  Alfarin, Elinor and Mitchell

  Team DEVIL was born in Hell and named at the HalfWay House. The Grim Reapers treated the dead as names on a piece of paper, but my friends and I had the last word. With the Viciseometer that Mitchell had procured from Lord Septimus’s office in our possession, we traveled through time to the moment of our deaths. Mitchell wanted to stop his demise; Elinor wanted to ensure that hers happened—not because she wanted to die, but because she wanted to choose the path of least suffering; and my death was one I simply wanted to witness. And Medusa . . .

  Even now, we will never truly understand what we did to Medusa, but when she eventually came into our existence and we learned of her experiences both on earth and in Hell, the facts of her life and death were a constant reminder that time is not something to take for granted.

  Time is a movable state and should be treated with respect.

  I knew watching my death would be hard on my friends, but it was Mitchell who was most affected by what we saw that day. I found the peace that I had not known I craved until the moment I saw my father carrying my lifeless body, wrapped in a red shroud, to the shoreline. Respect and honor were mine. I watched from a copse of trees, with my friends at my side. In the state Mitchell called a paradox, I knew that while my body burned, my corporeal soul had arrived at Valhalla. Yet it was also present to witness the scene. It made me think of the shadows in Hell. What were those shadows that followed me, really? Were they just manifestations of darkness, or were they actually more Alfarins, waiting, watching?

  A universe of shadowy Alfarins . . . what a glorious thought.

  27. Question Time

  Heat.

  Relief.

  Fire.

  Fear.

  Blood.

  Questions.

  Flesh.

  Screaming. Howling. Screaming. Howling. Heat. Relief. Fire. Fear. Blood. Questions. Flesh.

  My mind has stopped working and I have become a slave to single words.

  Mitchell. Virgil. Mitchell. Virgil.

  Medusa.

  Elinor. Elinor. Elinor.

  Am I holding Virgil, or is he holding me? Our hands are entwined—not like lovers, but like captive and captor. Desperate, clinging.

  Do. Not. Let. Go. Do. Not. Let. Go. Do. Not. Let. Go.

  Our blind guide is running with me and Mitchell trailing behind him, clutching his hands like strings attached to a kite. He is leading us away from the Skin-Walker he overpowered so effortlessly.

  Who is this devil, really? A charlatan, a fraudster? Lord Septimus knew who Virgil was, but the most powerful servant in Hell has been tricked once by a mind more devious than his.

  Perhaps The Devil has an equal in deviousness. If Virgil is that equal, he would be wise to keep his trickster ways hidden from the master of Hell. Virgil is not what I thought.

  “Can you guide us back to Medusa and Elinor?” gasps Mitchell. He is struggling, but still his concern is for our friends. Mitchell is all heart, even in the depths of permanent torment.

  “I must take you to the Third Circle,” calls Virgil. “Passage through the Nine Circles is your only option now, and it has been since the beginning. You know this. Death cannot be cheated, especially if you want something from it.”

  “Alfarin, will the girls be there, waiting?” asks Mitchell.

  “I do not know,” I reply. “I left Elinor, Medusa, Jeanne and Phlegyas in the connecting tunnel. My last words to Elinor were to continue without me—us. I left her the Viciseometer and my axe.”

  “You came looking for me without your axe?”

  “Yes.”

  If Mitchell could read my mind, he would see more in my answer than one word. He would see that I said good-bye to Elinor, not knowing if I would endure in this existence. For as she turned to me and begged me not to leave her, I did not just see the loveliness in her face, but I saw her once more on the fields of battle, alongside Lord Septimus.

  And in my chest I felt the loneliness of my own impending doom, and also that of Mitchell.

  For we were not in that vision from Valhalla.

  I left Elinor my axe not for protection in the Circles of Hell, but for protection on the fields of Ragnarök. Time has permitted me to see her future. I am yet to be afforded the honor of seeing my own.

  It still has to be earned.

  Running blind, Virgil leads us on through a path of flesh and blood. It drips from the roof, it slides down the rugged walls. My boots squelch through the tortured castoffs of Unspeakables left unable to scream.

  Yet I can hear them with every step.

  It is hard to not think of the sheer amount of evil that has walked the land of the living when you are treading on its remains, yet as the ground becomes firmer and the walls begin to glisten in the firelight with crystals instead of blood, it becomes easier to think of the good in mankind above the horror. Billions and billions of dead souls must have transferred through the HalfWay House. Good, decent, hardworking souls. Numbers that far outweigh the number of Unspeakables in the Circles of Hell. Some are sorted into Up There, most arrive in Hell. The destination is irrelevant in the end. Death comes to all, but fate is in one’s hands. Not even the businesslike Grim Reapers can strip the dead of that.

  I just wish there were a way to show the living this, for when one is on one’s deathbed, one will only have regret for what one has not done.

  “Do you not think the living deserve to exist without the knowledge of what is to come?” asks Virgil suddenly, breaking the claustrophobic silence that has co
cooned us since we escaped Cupidiar. “Knowledge of an unending Afterlife filled with toil and hardship would not be welcomed by most.”

  “I think devils who have the power to see into another’s thoughts should mind their own hearth first,” I retort. Virgil’s question has made me uneasy, as he has suddenly reminded me of The Devil, who gave me the impression back in the accounting chamber that he, too, could read my thoughts. Virgil has no right to intrude into any part of my death, least of all my mind.

  “What are you really thinking, Viking?” asks Virgil, slowing to a halt at a fork in the tunnel.

  “I want to know who you are,” I reply.

  “An answer for a question.”

  “Riddles?” asks Mitchell incredulously as he gingerly touches the deep lacerations across his chest. “Really? Oh, this is fantastic. Our girlfriends are in who knows what kind of Hell right now, with only a naked ferryman and a psychotic witch for company, but screw that, let’s play a game! Hey, as long as we’re at it, I think I have Monopoly hidden in my boxers! We could ask the Skin-Walkers to join in! I think Perfidious should be the banker, don’t you? He seems like a fair guy. And instead of jail, we’re sent to a Circle of Hell!”

  “Pain has been known to make my friend hysterical,” I say. “Is there anything we can do to quicken his healing?”

  “Hysteria makes him hysterical,” replies Virgil, pointing to the left side of the fork in the tunnel. “Trust me, I know. It is not far to the Third Circle. I can smell the excess of gluttony. It is rank. Now will you indulge me?”

  “Ask,” I reply.

  “I am fascinated by your devotion to this quest. You have come all this way, and you may still have far to go, to find The Devil’s Banshee. Yet she clearly does not want to be found. You of all devils know the pain of love. Why not leave her be? Does The Devil even miss his original Dreamcatcher?”

  “That’s two questions, Virgil,” Mitchell says menacingly.

  “I have only the words of Lord Septimus to fall back on,” I say. “But he told us that The Devil loved Beatrice Morrigan very much.”

  “Septimus would know, of course,” replies Virgil. “He, too, was married once, but unhappily. Sometimes it is one’s own unhappiness in a relationship that shines a brighter light on true love in others.”

  “My turn,” I say. “Who are you?”

  “You know who I am. I am Virgil, guide to the foolish, the brave and the lovelorn.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  “My turn,” says Virgil, ignoring my statement. “How long was the girl you pine for a Dreamcatcher?”

  “Days, weeks. I do not know,” I say. “What I do know is that it was a continuous horror from which she could not escape.”

  Mitchell is pulling on my arm. His entire body is turned back to face the way we have just come.

  “Alfarin, we’re being followed,” he whispers. “The shadows.”

  “It will be the Skin-Walkers,” says Virgil. “There are six trailing you at the moment.”

  “You were able to beat back Cupidiar,” I say. “Can you teach us how?”

  Virgil laughs, but it is more the hacking, phlegmy bark of an old man than an expression of humor.

  “It is not something that can be taught! It is a gift, if you choose to look at it that way. A gift that is—”

  “The girls aren’t here,” says Mitchell, looking around frantically. “Where the Hell are the girls?”

  We have come to an entrance, but one that is far smaller than any we’ve seen so far. It is a set of bars, packed tightly together. Human teeth are fused to the black metal like miniature gravestones.

  “Your traveling companions will have gone on ahead,” says Virgil.

  “What exactly do we find in the Third Circle, Virgil?” I ask.

  “The Unspeakables here are those who murdered for addiction and want,” replies the old man. “They lie sightless in the vile slush of their making, victims to the ceaseless icy rain.”

  “Rain?” asks Mitchell. “In Hell? Golly gee, this is quite the field trip we’re having, isn’t it, Alfarin? The Devil should run tours. He could call it Seasons of Sin. I’ll sell tickets from the accounting office—help pay the bills.”

  “Hysteria,” I whisper to Virgil. The old man simply does not know what to make of Mitchell. His mouth is gaping as it tries to form the words that do not do my friend’s twisted humor justice.

  “The ice rain might heal his burns from the immolation,” says Virgil eventually. “I do not think there is a cure for such madness, though. I certainly never found it.”

  Virgil pushes the bars and we step through into yet another cave. There is light, but it is not from fire. The temperature plummets as scenes like colorful rainbow-filled shadows play out over the walls, as if they are being projected from within the rock. They are glimpses of the living world left behind: blue waves crashing against the shore, children playing with jump ropes, couples kissing, a table filled with food, blood, blood, a knife slashing down on exposed skin, blood . . .

  “I hate this! Get us the Hell out of here, Virgil!” cries Mitchell.

  A rumble, like thunder, causes the three of us to turn our heads upward. A crack appears in the roof of the cave.

  “Hold on!” cries Virgil. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of small white balls, with just a blob of color in their centers, cascade down on top of us. My first instinct is to grab Mitchell; his first instinct is to grab me. We both snatch for Virgil as another crack, this time in the wall, appears in front of us.

  We slide through the opening, spinning and turning on an avalanche of human eyeballs to the Third Circle of Hell.

  Tuttugu ok Átta

  Alfarin and Elinor

  After we had visited my death, I knew I needed time to be alone. Mitchell had decided that our home base in the land of the living would be the opulent palace known as the Plaza Hotel in New York. Pleasant as it was, it was not a place to clear my head. So I ventured outside and walked amongst the gleaming metal beasts called cars to the great green park across the way.

  I knew I was being watched, by the living and the dead. Those with beating hearts were obvious about it; I could see their eyes widen as I stopped traffic with the mere manliness of my figure as I strode to the park. The dead were but rumors on the biting wind, yet I sensed their presence all the same. I did not know it then, but I was picking up on the faintest trace of Skin-Walkers, who in another timeline had been stalking Team DEVIL because of Medusa, right here in New York City. Her participation in this adventure to the land of the living had been erased in a paradox, but the evil of the Skin-Walkers permeated all timelines. Medusa was not with Elinor and Mitchell back at the Plaza while I took my walk on this day, and yet she had been—once. And so had the Skin-Walkers . . . who left an indelible trace of wickedness wherever they went.

  I still wrestle with the complexities and consequences of this paradox.

  Fortunately for me, one constant that not even time could change was Elinor. She had followed me out of the hotel. We sat on a bench in silence at first, if one could call it silence. There was so much noise and color around us, even in the dead of night. How did the living in that city ever sleep?

  “My death should be next, Alfarin,” said Elinor suddenly. “And ye must promise me ye will do exactly as I ask of ye when we are there.”

  “I will not let you down,” I replied.

  “I know. And I will never let ye down, either,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. “I have waited for so long, but I am not scared. This is fate and meant to be.” She shivered. “Come. It is starting to rain, and I am still so cold. Can we go back?”

  I stood up and offered Elinor my hand, but at that moment, three people appeared out of the darkness and blocked our path. A male, a female and a child who was adult in height and yet had the pustulant skin pox of an adolescent. The adult male and female wore thick-rimmed glasses; he also had two cameras around his neck, while she was carrying a tome titled
The Rough Guide to New York City.

  Elinor and I were about to be accosted by that which dead New Yorkers still bemoaned in the Afterlife.

  Tourists.

  “Take a picture, mate?” asked the older male in an accent I recognized as English.

  They wanted a picture of me mating? I was not happy about this question, but before I could refuse, the woman pushed the pox-ridden adolescent toward me and grabbed my arm, looping hers through, although her fingers spent too much time groping my biceps for comfort. Then the other started clicking away with one of the contraptions called a camera.

  The female then seemed very interested in my broad shoulders, as she kept putting her arm across them.

  The silent adolescent looked as if he wanted a one-way ticket to Hell via a hole in the earth.

  Elinor stood with her hands on her hips and did not know what to say when they pressed green paper with numbers on it into her hands. Professing their thanks, the man and the woman stumbled away, dragging the boy-man with them.

  “Ye are going to end up on the Internet, Alfarin!” hissed Elinor. “I have heard all about it. There is a new thing called a meme. Mark my words, there will be pictures of ye with the words Keep calm and hug a Viking written underneath.”

  I puffed up my chest in delight. This was a grand journey indeed. I had witnessed my death, seen my body burned with ritual honor, and been accosted by Internet tribesfolk who paid for the privilege.

  “Do you think there is enough money there to buy a bucket of chicken?” I asked.

  Judging by the tight line Elinor’s mouth had created, there might have been, but I wasn’t about to get it.

  28. Cerberus

  It is almost impossible to stand. The ground is wet and slippery, as if covered in a film of decaying leaves. The eyeballs roll to the sides of the passageways and are swallowed by holes in the rock floor.