by Donna Hosie
“Rory Hunter is in here,” says Medusa.
Mitchell steps forward and takes her hand.
“Alfarin has his axe, Medusa,” he says. “And I have my fists. If that bastard comes anywhere near you, there’ll be nothing left of him. I promise you.”
And I believe him. To destroy another in battle is a warrior’s bane and glory. It is a feat that results in terrifying nightmares and magnificent dreams. Mitchell arrived in Hell a very different soul than the devil who stands before me today. Hell has made Mitchell Johnson into a devil who is to be cherished and also feared.
For now, when it counts, he will step up first to take and deal the blow.
“How are we to proceed through this circle?” asks Jeanne. She and Phlegyas are standing side by side, waiting for orders. Neither appears to be afraid, but that is not necessarily a good state of mind. Fear keeps the mind alert and senses primed.
“How violent is the storm in this circle?” I ask Virgil.
“It is one of the nine,” replies Virgil, rubbing his eyes.
“That does not answer my question,” I say.
“I think that’s Virgil’s poetic way of saying on a sliding scale of craptitude, we’re in for a dumping,” says Mitchell.
Even the corners of Jeanne’s mouth raise a fraction. The end is so close. We cannot fail now. Optimism and hope must be our allies—finally.
“ ‘But to that Second Circle of sad Hell, / Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw / Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell / Their sorrows—pale were the sweet lips I saw, / Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form / I floated with, about that melancholy storm,’ ” recites Elinor.
“I know it . . . I know it . . . ,” I say, stroking my beard. “That is Keats, is it not?”
“Ten points to Alfarin,” says Elinor. She turns to Jeanne, who has quickly lost the rumor of a smile. “Alfarin and I quizzed each other on poetry one Valentine’s Day. Keats has always been my favorite.”
“And nothing says I love you more than a passionate quickie in the Circles of Hell,” mutters Mitchell. “I think this place has finally addled Elinor’s brain.”
“I never thought the day would arrive when I agreed with Mitchell Johnson, but I do,” replies Jeanne. “Forget your poetry points, Viking. Tell us how we are to proceed. Beatrice Morrigan is still our goal, and she remains out of sight.”
“If Keats is correct,” I say, ignoring Jeanne, “we can expect whirlwinds, rain and hail. We need to stay in close formation, all seven of us. If someone is taken by the wind, then the other six can act as anchors. Virgil is to lead the procession once more to guide us through the circle. We will follow in pairs. Jeanne, you and Mitchell next. Medusa and Phlegyas to take the fourth and fifth places, followed by Elinor and me at the rear.”
“Boy, girl, boy, girl,” says Jeanne sarcastically. “How quaint.”
“Strategic,” says Phlegyas. “Males are naturally heavier and stronger than most females. That isn’t a slight to your abilities or bravery or character, Maid of Orléans. It is simple fact.”
“Are you ready, child?” asks Virgil to Medusa.
“Beatrice Morrigan . . . Beatrice Morrigan . . . ,” says Medusa, shaking out her limbs as if preparing for a race. “Let’s go.”
Virgil takes us on a short walk, but it comes to a dead end. We do not question his guidance. Instead, we wait patiently for him as his gnarled fingers trace circular patterns over the rock wall.
It starts to shake. Fragments of stone fall from the roof.
“Help me to push!” cries Virgil.
Phlegyas, Jeanne and I step forward, and the four of us press our heels into the ground and propel a door of sorts away from us. It does not come away in one clean square or rectangular shape. The edges are jagged and sharp. It is more of a lightning bolt than a door, but it is an entrance nonetheless.
And the moment it opens onto the Second Circle, Jeanne is sucked through by a vortex of wind.
I grab her ankle, but I, too, am lifted off the ground. Phlegyas holds on to my waist as Mitchell and Medusa rush forward to assist. Elinor swaps places with Mitchell and he jumps up, wraps his arms around Jeanne’s body and drags her downward.
The whirlwind passes and we fall into a heap on the ground.
“Thank you,” says Jeanne quietly, pushing herself up. “Your strategy worked, Viking. That is wind like I have never felt before. It was like hands, furiously tearing me away from the ground.”
“Hail and rain we can deal with,” says Virgil. “But you will have to keep a sharp eye on the wind funnels as they pass through the circle. The angel is correct. The storm is a tempest of hatred and anger. It wants to claim you.”
My eyes adjust to our new surroundings. The elements are harsh in here, and I have to keep one hand over my face to see just a few steps ahead.
“Keep to the edge, Virgil,” I call. “Even if it takes longer to circumnavigate the perimeter, it will be safer.”
We start our slow procession through the Second. I can hear the howls of Skin-Walkers behind us, and the lone howl of the one hidden by the storm in this circle. I could help Medusa with supportive words from here—even though Elinor and Phlegyas are between us—but I do not. She has Mitchell. Medusa is not a devil to be smothered.
Unspeakables loom to our left like trees bent double by the wind. Their feet are encased by the stony ground, but their legs and backs are exposed to the viciousness of the elements. It should not be possible for bones to bend like theirs do, but this is not a realm that plays by the normal rules of nature. As we get closer, I can hear their bones shattering as they try to right themselves after the passage of the tornado. Each Unspeakable has its mouth open in a relentless scream of agony, but, like the Unspeakables in every circle, with no tongues to form the noise, they cannot voice their pain.
The worst of the worst are punished here, but for the first time, an Unspeakable has an actual face and a name.
Rory Hunter. The Unspeakable who was allowed by The Devil to escape the Circles of Hell with The Devil’s Dreamcatcher in tow. Rory Hunter thought he was smart, but The Devil manipulated him like a marionette. The master of Hell tricked him into wielding the Dreamcatcher to let loose a terrible virus on angels to test its efficiency.
And his four victims just happened to be the members of Team ANGEL—with Team DEVIL thrown into the mix just for fun.
There is so much for which I will never forgive The Devil, and Operation H, the name he gave his experiment, is one of them. My anger toward Rory Hunter, for all he did to Medusa in life, and for all he did to her—and us—in death, burns just as hotly, even though he was recaptured by the Skin-Walkers and returned to his rightful place here, in the Second Circle of Hell.
A thought suddenly occurs to me. I lean forward as we continue to trudge through the hail and rain.
“Elinor, move forward and swap places with Jeanne,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because it is not just Medusa we need to watch out for in this circle.”
My princess does not question me further; she just does as I ask. I pick up the pace and fill the gap she creates when she passes the others to the front of the group. I can only just make out her form in the blur of precipitation.
Suddenly Jeanne breaks free from the singular formation. I hear Medusa scream out, and our friend quickly follows the Maid of Orléans.
“Stop them!” cries Virgil, but we do not have to be told. Elinor, Mitchell and I are already running after the two girls. We catch Medusa quickly, but Jeanne is gone. A quick burst of light is all that remains before it dissolves on the wind.
“Jeanne has gone after Rory Hunter. She blames him for her predicament!” I yell as hail the size of golf balls beats down against our exposed skin. Mitchell’s naked torso is already pockmarked with huge red welts. Medusa wraps her arms around him to try to protect his body with hers, but the hail is getting larger. We cannot stay here.
“Did she imm
olate?” shouts Mitchell.
Medusa nods. The wind is getting so violent my tongue is being pulled from my mouth. I can feel the pressure pushing out my eyeballs.
“We cannot leave Jeanne!” yells Elinor.
“Another wind funnel!” cries Phlegyas. “To our left!”
Elinor’s feet are whipped away from beneath her and she is dragged into the vortex. I slam my axe into the ground and push Mitchell and Medusa down onto the handle.
“Hold on!” I cry as I hurl myself into the storm.
I am immediately thrown around like a rag doll, with no sense of up or down, left or right. The violence of the screams contained within shatters my eardrums, but a sickening sixth sense tells me that these are not the cries of the tortured Unspeakables, but are instead the voices of their living victims.
And one voice is pleading above them all.
I can hear the abuse of the living Melissa Pallister within the wind funnel.
Prír Tigir
Alfarin, Elinor and Mitchell
Mitchell Johnson was seventeen years old when he died. One year older than I was when I met my end, and two years younger than Elinor. He could never remember why he ran out in front of that bus on the eighteenth of July in 2009, but it was a decision he wanted to change—right up until the moment he time-traveled back to that day and saw the event unfold from a different perspective.
After visiting Elinor’s death, we had used the Viciseometer to go to the busy American city of Washington, DC, on Mitchell’s deathday. By this point, Team DEVIL was having problems. Our journey seemed strange, and fuzzy somehow, and our group of three felt an absence among us. Later on, we would discover that our befuddled brains were trying to cope with a hole that had been ripped into our timeline and our memories. Our friend Medusa Pallister, whom we had yet to meet, had been amongst us on this journey—but had disappeared from our midst in a paradox.
We did not know any of this at the time, of course, and the true consequences of that paradox were about to be revealed to us.
Elinor and I tried to stop Mitchell from changing his death, but the decision in the end was his alone. I watched my friend walking toward his living self with the intention of alerting him to the oncoming bus. Elinor was sobbing on my shoulder. The Mitchell we knew and loved in Hell was about to disappear. In a strange sense, death was coming to one who was already dead. It was a reversal of the natural order.
As I watched, I realized that the living Mitchell was the one who didn’t seem real to me. He was the shadow, not the dead, corporeal soul closing in on him. And he seemed so oblivious to the fact that he was living.
Then the living Mitchell glanced up and saw his dead self across the street, just as the Greyhound bus approached.
My death was the result of my own naïveté. Elinor’s happened because of her selflessness. She put her two little brothers’ lives before her own.
But Mitchell’s death was caused by . . . him. The living Mitchell saw the dead Mitchell and, shocked at the sight of his own soul, ran out into the road to get a better look—and just like that, he was crushed. And now that the moment had been fixed in time by the Viciseometer, it could never be undone.
That was the moment when I first sensed that something far more powerful than Team DEVIL was steering us down a path from which we could not deviate.
A final, final fate.
We were puppets. And we had no clue who was holding the strings.
30. Weapons of War
The ghost of Melissa Pallister is in my head. She is begging Rory Hunter not to hurt her. Begging him to think of her mother. There is no cessation to this terrified voice of a child who had her soul torn from her heart while she was living.
And it makes me angrier than ever before.
How dare Unspeakables take what is not theirs to own? A life, a soul, a heart, a body. Melissa Pallister was an innocent, and she was violated by someone who should have wanted to do nothing more than protect her.
The heat of rage is burning in my chest. I can sense it spreading through the congealed dead blood in my useless veins. Awakening every inch of me that once lived.
But I am not the only one starting to immolate in the vortex, for my princess can hear the voice, too, and it tortures her just as much as it pains me.
Elinor and I explode into a firestorm of flame and smoke. Elinor never tried to learn how to control immolation as I did on the shores of Lake Pukaki, and the force of her explosion propels us both out of the tornado and through the wide expanse of the Second Circle. The icy rain and hail help to keep fire from blistering my skin, but the pain I still feel is exquisite agony.
We drop to the ground, knocking over Unspeakables like skittles. Their brittle, wind-whipped bodies continue to bend and snap. I reach for Elinor and fall back. The trauma of immolation has morphed her features into the face of The Devil once more. Her black eyes are bleeding bloodred tears and she is laughing with maniacal energy.
“Beatrice!” screams The Devil Elinor. “My Beatrice. Come home to me!”
Virgil and Phlegyas are running through the rain toward us. At first, I think the ferryman is dragging the guide by his tattered red robes, but Virgil is several steps ahead of Phlegyas, and it is our newest companion who is being led by the blind man.
“The girl speaks with the voice of The Devil!” cries Phlegyas. “How can that be?”
“Beatrice . . . I know you can hear me!” cries The Devil Elinor, convulsing on the ground. “Long have I searched for you. Come home! Your place is at my side!”
Virgil is hit on the head by a large hailstone. He collapses to his knees and crawls along the mud toward Elinor. The bones of an Unspeakable some ten steps away from us crackle as another vortex of wind hurtles toward us. I cannot see or hear Mitchell and Medusa. They are unprotected in this tempest, as is Jeanne—wherever she is now.
The Devil’s face fades away and Elinor is returned to us once more. Hail assaults her burned, smoking body. I am no longer registering my own pain from immolation. I need to gather my warriors and get us the Hell out of here.
The funnel of wind veers to the right. It pulls at Phlegyas’s legs, but I throw myself down on Elinor, Virgil and the ferryman all at once, and all three are spared from the passing tornado. Completely sodden, I am heavy enough to anchor them to the ground.
At this point, I have no sense of where we are or how deep we have been taken into the circle. There is no torchlight here—it would be snuffed out in seconds by the rain—but there is a kind of natural light, like a late-afternoon sun, that hides everything on the far periphery but affords me clear tunnel vision to see what is directly ahead.
“We must find Mitchell, Medusa and Jeanne!” I cry. “Virgil, use your senses. Jeanne has immolated. Can you smell her flesh? Mitchell and Medusa may be calling for help. Can you hear their cries?”
“I can hear M,” chokes Elinor.
“That is not our Medusa!” I cry. “That is the stolen echo of the living Melissa Pallister, and is the reason we immolated, Elinor. You must force the voice from your head.”
But Elinor shakes her head. Her soaking-wet hair is caked in mud and is singed and broken from the fire.
“It is M, our M!” she yells, pulling herself up. “See?”
Elinor is pointing to a long, swirling shadow moving across the ground that has two fires lit within it, at least fifty feet in the air.
Mitchell and Medusa. And like Elinor and me, both have immolated. The Second Circle of Hell has managed to create weapons out of all of us.
“Follow it!” I cry. “And hold on to one another.”
The fires continue to blaze, each equally bright. Mitchell has already immolated once in this monstrous place, but this is the first time in the Circles of Hell for Medusa. Team DEVIL is now truly an army of warriors, and our weapons come from the very hearts that no longer beat.
Phlegyas stumbles on a length of wood lying on the ground and pulls Elinor down with him. Virgil and I slide int
o a pile of hailstones and send them scuttling in all directions. An Unspeakable is lying on the ground with its arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. Flesh hangs from its body where it has been flagellated by the elements. It twitches, rises and then snaps back up as if it has been inflated. I was hoping never to see this scum again, but even in his wretched state, I recognize him. The Unspeakable is Rory Hunter. My gag reflex is strong and the acidic taste of bile rises and falls in my throat. Our eyes meet. For a split second, the agony and fear in his eyes give way to familiarity as he recognizes me. But I do not allow myself to wonder what is going through his mind as he sees us here. I will not waste any more time on this miserable wretch of a soul. Rory Hunter defiled an innocent girl. He shattered her to her core. And in so doing, he also defiled the gift he was given to lead an honorable, productive life. For so many reasons, he deserves this eternal agony.
I turn away for the last time, glad that Medusa is high above us and unable to see the disgusting creature at my back.
“Your axe, Viking,” says Phlegyas, handing me my blade. The handle is scoured with the scraping of fingernails. A torn nail is embedded in the wood. It is too large to be Medusa’s. It must be Mitchell’s.
“They’re falling!” cries Elinor. “Look, the fires in the wind funnel are dimming. M and Mitchell are dropping. Quick.”
The four of us find our feet and run toward the descending Mitchell and Medusa. They are falling through the funnel in slow motion, buffeted by the winds of Hell. We reach Mitchell first as the vortex dissipates around them—his pink eyes are rolling in their sockets—but like mine, his skin is not as cindered as Elinor’s.
Medusa is a mess. Her entire body is smoldering with gray smoke as the rain beats down upon what is left of the heat within. The mass of hair is missing in chunks, and her skin is as red as blood.