The Devil's Dreamcatcher

by Donna Hosie

  Both appear to work the same, he said to Team DEVIL’s confusion.

  “Do you have a Viciseometer?” I blurt out.

  My question takes the angels by surprise, which is enough to confirm to me that they do have another time-traveling device. That’s how they got here. Of course. It’s so simple.

  “What do you know about the Viciseometer?” demands Jeanne.

  Again, I ignore her.

  I look straight into Owen’s tired, bloodshot eyes. “Show me.”

  Owen pulls a silver pocket watch from his breast pocket. He doesn’t even try to feign ignorance. The Viciseometer hidden on me is now surging with heat. I take it out and let the red face hover above my open hand. The burnished gold rim is lit up with tiny sparks. Owen’s Viciseometer is reacting in the same way, but instead of a red surface surrounded by tiny flames, its face is a deep sapphire blue, and it’s surrounded by tiny diamonds glinting away under the darkening November sky.

  “Are those stars around the edge?” asks Elinor, inching closer.

  “They are,” replies Owen. “Melissa, how did you guess we were using a Viciseometer?”

  “Because you need to jump through time, just like we do,” I reply. “And a Viciseometer was the most obvious way of doing it.”

  Owen and I are moving closer together, but it isn’t intentional. We are being physically pulled by the Viciseometers.

  Our hands are inches apart. Both Viciseometers start to rotate clockwise, millimeters above our hands. The flames tickle, but they aren’t painful. The watches are mesmerizing, hypnotic. I know I should pull away, but I can’t.

  Then our fingertips graze.

  The red face of my Viciseometer connects to the blue like two magnets pulled together. Our hands join as well; Owen’s skin is warm, nowhere near as cold as Angela’s was.

  Almost immediately, the others start screaming.

  “Where did they go?” shouts Mitchell. “What did he do with Medusa?”

  “Owen would do nothing!” screams Jeanne. “He is a pacifist, not a warrior. That devil woman with snake hair has taken him.”

  Alfarin is swinging his axe like an inverted pendulum. He narrowly misses Johnny, but Elinor doesn’t notice. She’s arguing with Angela about where we’ve gone.

  “They can’t see us!” I exclaim to Owen. “We’ve become invisible.”

  “Did you know this would happen?” Owen asks softly. Our hands are still joined, and the sensation of flame and stars is sending aching spasms through my arm.

  “No. I knew about the legend of the Viciseometer, but only because I’d read about it. I hadn’t even seen one before today.”

  Then a hazy thought, like the memory of a nightmare, drifts across my mind. A shadow. I can taste tears and strawberries.

  Owen bites down on his bottom lip. His top lip is so thin it’s barely visible. My grandmother once told me not to trust men with thin lips.

  That turned out to be bullshit. Rory Hunter’s lips were like swollen fingers.

  “Can you trust me, Melissa?” Owen asks, as if reading my mind.

  “That depends,” I hedge. “What can you tell me that will help me trust you?”

  Owen smiles, but he doesn’t look happy.

  “I can tell you that I was made aware of the Skin-Walkers’ involvement in this search before we left Heaven. I didn’t tell the others because I didn’t want to frighten them—or at least scare Angela and Johnny. I even argued against their coming here. Jeanne and I have seen death in a way most of the dead have not. In my case, I saw men, younger than me, cut down in a hail of machine-gun fire. If they passed quickly, they were fortunate. Death does not always come quickly on the battlefield. I know that Skin-Walkers have no regard for anything but death. They enjoy it. What Jeanne and I have seen would be a feast for them. So I was opposed to bringing two innocents within their grasp, but I was overruled.”

  “What else do you know about the Skin-Walkers, Owen?” I ask. “I need to know as much as possible if I’m going to protect the others. They have no connection to the Unspeakable whatsoever. They’re here because of me, and I can’t—I won’t—let anything happen to any of them.”

  “Apart from their love of death and pain, I know little about the Skin-Walkers. I have heard there are nine in total: one for each circle of Hell, or so I was told. I don’t know if this is true. He who rules Heaven is not what you would expect.”

  I came here for information, for help, and I’m finally getting it, but I don’t want to stay invisible like this. The sound of the others yelling is being muffled somehow. We can still see them, but I’m starting to feel like I’m fading away.

  “Owen, we should let go,” I say.

  “Wait. There’s something else,” adds Owen urgently. “Something you need to know about yourself, Melissa. I know more about your task than you realize, and I want to warn you, because you’re being used. The Unspeakable who took the Dreamcatcher is your stepfather, and you’re being used as bait to lure him. Those who sent you out here are using you in the same way I was used back in 1916.”

  “I already know this, Owen. Now please let go.”

  “Do you? Do you really understand what they are prepared to sacrifice to get the Dreamcatcher back in Hell? Septimus is a Roman general who fought and made sacrifices in some of the bloodiest campaigns in history.”

  “Septimus was a Roman general, but he’s worshipped in Hell. He’s a good guy.”

  “I said the same about my commanding officers. I believed the same up until the moment I was hit by a hail of bullets. I thought they would come for me to help, but they didn’t. They didn’t come to help any of us.”

  “Septimus is different. Now let go.”

  “They are all the same, Melissa, but Septimus has given you a gift. You have a Viciseometer. So use it. Run away. Leave the others and go, before it’s too late.”

  Owen’s eyes are wide and pleading. The skin around them looks pinched and bruised. Unlike his angel comrades, Owen actually looks dead.

  “You think I should desert the others?”

  “Yes. You said yourself that you wanted to protect them. By leaving them, you will do that.”

  “I can’t.”

  “It’s because of Mitchell, isn’t it? Already I can see that the way you look at him is different from the way you look at Alfarin, or Elinor.”

  “You know nothing about me, Owen. You’ve only just met me, and I don’t care anymore what information Up There has given you, or what you’re keeping from Jeanne, Angela and Johnny. . . .”

  But Owen has a fire in him now. I can smell it. It’s wood and mud and rain and blood.

  “Listen to me. Your name is Melissa Olivia Pallister. You died on the second of December in 1967, at the age of sixteen, after you fell from the Golden Gate Bridge. The Grim Reapers marked you down as a suicide, but you wouldn’t sign the form to accept that declaration, so they sent you to Hell for your defiance. But there’s another date of death, Melissa, one in June of 1967, that was listed in your records above December second. And then it was crossed out.”

  “What are you talking about? How have you seen my records?”

  “You all trust Septimus. Well, you’re fools. You’ve died twice, Melissa. Did Septimus tell you that?”

  “A person can’t die twice. Now let go of me.”

  “Something happened to you. In life and death. You have an entire parallel existence that’s been wiped out. I think you’re in danger.”

  With a wrench that almost pulls my arm from my shoulder socket, I drag my hand away from Owen’s. Mitchell, Alfarin and Elinor immediately rush toward me, but at the last second, Mitchell veers away and grabs hold of Owen’s jacket.

  “Do that again and I swear I’ll drag you back into Hell with me,” he growls.

  “It was an accident,” replies Owen. “My thumb must have pressed down on the Viciseometer.”

  The fire in Owen has gone. Did I just imagine all of that? He’s telling the rest a blatant
lie, and I feel complicit in it, even though it doesn’t come from my mouth. My head feels foggy. What was that nonsense he was just spouting about two deaths? I must have hallucinated that. I was probably overwhelmed by the Viciseometers’ connection.

  “We should remove ourselves from this place,” says Jeanne. “Separately.”

  “Not now, Jeanne,” says Johnny. “Please. I’ve only just found our Elinor.”

  “We have a task, given to us by the great Lord Septimus,” says Alfarin. “We must locate the Unspeakable and reclaim the Dreamcatcher. That is our purpose. However, if we do not find food soon, I will be forced to eat my friend Mitchell, and as you can see, he is but skin and bone. I will choke on him. Food, then foe. Together or separate is of little consequence to my stomach.”

  “I bet I’d taste pretty good, actually,” replies Mitchell. He glances at me and then quickly looks away.

  “You can still eat?” asks Angela. “No fair. I never know if what they tell us in Heaven is truth or rumor. Jeez, I’m so jealous. I would die—again—for one last pizza.”

  “Up There isn’t crowded, though,” says Elinor. “Ye could not swing a mouse in Hell without hitting another devil.”

  “But ye get to sleep,” says Johnny. “I haven’t slept for over three hundred years. I’m bloody knackered—and starving.”

  They can’t eat or sleep Up There? Suddenly it makes sense why Owen looks so tired, and why he talks such incoherent nonsense. I’m beginning to wonder if Up There is as great as we devils have been led to believe.

  “What do you think, Melissa?” asks Owen calmly, still acting as if nothing happened. “Do we stay together and pool our resources, or do we part?”

  “A meeting of Team DEVIL,” I say, and with a jerk of my head, I motion to a mausoleum several yards away. Owen’s calmness is unnerving, and my head is hurting. The soldier was just talking utter bullshit and complicating everything. All I want to do is save the Dreamcatcher from Rory. The Skin-Walkers can take him back to wherever it is he escaped from, and then I can go back to existing.

  The Viciseometer is back in my pocket, but there’s no sense of urgency pulsing from it. Like Owen, it seems placid—for now.

  The four members of Team DEVIL close into a tight circle against the mausoleum. We’re all different shapes and sizes, yet we fit together perfectly. Alfarin swings his left arm over Mitchell’s shoulder, and Mitchell wraps his arm around my waist. His skin is hot; I had never noticed just how hot before the ice-cold angels touched me. Elinor is picking at the skin around her fingernails and leaning into Alfarin. She looks really nervous, and I know why. It isn’t because of Skin-Walkers or Unspeakables or even crazy French angels.

  It’s because she thinks we’re going to separate her from her brother.

  Elinor smiles at me. Her smile is almost pathetic in its sadness. And I know in that instant that we have to stay with the angels, at least for the time being. I can’t do to Elinor what we’ve done to Mitchell by coming here.

  “I do not trust Jeanne,” says Alfarin. “She would sooner steal my blade and lodge it in my back than assist us.”

  “I don’t trust that Owen dude, either,” mutters Mitchell.

  “What do ye think, M?” asks Elinor.

  I glance back at the angels. “I think they might have information and resources that could help us, but I agree that we need to be careful around them,” I reply, trying futilely to tuck my hair behind my ears. “But I’m not going to split Elinor and Johnny up while we’re back on earth. We’ll stay together, but just be cautious, okay? Especially around Owen and Jeanne.”

  “Thank ye, M.” Elinor hugs me and beams over at the angels. I hear a whoop from Johnny, who has interpreted his sister’s smile. We break our huddle and start walking back to the angels.

  As we get closer, I see Owen pulling a sheaf of folded papers out of his jacket. The papers are bound with brown leather laces. He beckons us over.

  Jeanne has the look of someone sucking a lemon, but at least Angela and Johnny seem happy we’re joining forces—for now.

  “Do you have money?” asks Owen.

  “We have nothing,” I reply.

  “Then you can have this,” says Owen, and from inside the folded sheaf of papers he draws out a thin wad of bills. Mitchell and Angela both make a sound of longing.

  “Food!” exclaims Mitchell.

  “Shopping,” moans Angela.

  “This is money, from this time,” says Owen. “It will be very similar to what Angela and Mitchell used before they passed over.”

  “I’ve changed my mind about these angels,” mutters Alfarin. “If we stick with them, we dine like kings.”

  “Do we stay here in this time and find food, then?” asks Johnny glumly. “Not that I can eat anything.”

  “No,” says Mitchell quickly. “My mom and little brother are here. They can’t be allowed to see me.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” says Angela. “Why don’t we travel to New York in the spring? We could head for Central Park and lie on the grass. No one will look twice at us.”

  “The people will certainly look twice at the beast with the axe,” mutters Jeanne.

  “And if they hear you talking, they’ll look twice because they’ll think they’re about to be attacked by a swarm of bees,” I snap, fed up with this saint who has done nothing but put down my friends since we met her.

  “New York?” says Alfarin eagerly. “That is the land of glorious wenches with fried chicken, is it not?”

  “Alfarin, ye cannot call the women that!” cries Elinor. “I’m sorry, everyone, but he cannot be trusted in New York. There are just too many large backsides for him to slap.”

  The hairs on my arms suddenly rise as the bickering continues. Shadows have started to creep around the walls of the mausoleums. They look like snarling dogs, and the others are so busy talking about food that they haven’t noticed.

  But I do, because I notice when things are lurking.

  We’ve been tracked.

  And we’ve been found.

  12. Running from Shadows

  Alfarin sees the shadows next; his axe immediately goes into a nine o’clock position. I see a quick glint of silver—so bright it’s almost white—to my left. Jeanne has pulled out a small knife with an ivory handle.

  “Did you think because I’m an angel I would not be armed?” she says to Mitchell, who is staring bug-eyed at her. “I remember the cruelty of this world only too well.”

  “What’s making those shadows?” asks Angela, her voice breaking with fear as she sees them next.

  We all take another four steps back as the shadows continue to stretch out along the white stone. One throws back its head and howls. The black mouth splits apart and the shadowy outline of a man stretches out of it.

  We start running.

  I still have sneakers on, so my footing is solid, unlike Elinor’s and Angela’s. They’re both slipping and sliding around in ballet flats.

  “Leave us behind!” cries Elinor.

  “Alfarin, can you carry Elinor?” I shout.

  “It would be an honor,” he booms. As he shouts, an invisible weight bears down on me and my knees buckle. My head threatens to burst open with a sudden, blinding pain. Then I recall a haunting image, ghostly and pale, of Alfarin sweeping Elinor over his shoulder and the four of us—Team DEVIL—running from a hot wind that comes screaming at us through a cave.

  “Medusa, you have to run.” Strong hands grab my arms, and I’m pulled to my feet by Mitchell and Owen.

  “Which way?” shouts Johnny.

  “Put me down, Alfarin,” says Elinor. “I will run quicker without shoes on my feet.”

  I twist around and see the distinct outline of nine Skin-Walkers on the walls of the mausoleums. Are they really here with us, or is this some kind of projection designed to scare the crap out of us? If it’s the latter, it’s working. Alfarin has dropped Elinor and he’s now by my side, sweating. His thick, trunklike legs are bent, read
y to launch into battle against enemies we cannot possibly hope to defeat.

  “Go with the others, Medusa,” he says. “I will hold them back.”

  I spot the rest of the group running together. If we all had somewhere to hide, I could get us away with the Viciseometer. There must be something more substantial in this sprawling graveyard than headstones and mausoleums, like an office or small visitors’ center, but if there is, we’re too far away for it to be any use.

  Even if we weren’t, though, I wouldn’t leave Alfarin alone.

  “We have to stick together, Alfarin.”

  Then, as if a light has been switched on above us, the shadows disappear. All nine outlines of the men with the wolf pelts have gone.

  The smell hits.

  “Oh, shit, oh, shit!” I cry as I spin around. “The Skin-Walkers are here. They’re actually here. Where are they? Where are the others?”

  Alfarin and I are completely alone.

  “Elinor!” he cries.

  “Mitchell!” I yell.

  Our voices drop like dead weights. I look down and see that the grass beneath our feet is dying.

  “Look, Alfarin,” I pant, grabbing his forearm. “The grass has been poisoned just by us being here. We can follow the others’ footsteps.”

  My great plan immediately unravels as we stumble across a large patch of blackened grass that has footprints leading in two different directions. The others have already split up.

  “Which one is Team DEVIL and which belongs to the angels?”

  Alfarin falls to his knees and spreads his plate-sized hands across the damp grass.

  “These are Mitchell’s footsteps,” he says. “He has feet the size of a longboat. The ones next to them are dainty, the feet of a princess. It is this way, Medusa.”

  We hurtle down a tightly packed row of crosses and stone tablets. Then I catch a glimpse of blond hair. The head is bobbing and weaving directly ahead of us. It’s like an albino hedgehog on steroids.

  “There!” I point the way to Alfarin, who is grunting and groaning with every step. The muscles in my neck and shoulders ache as I continue to run while twisting to watch our backs at the same time. I can no longer tell if the shadows around me are cast by some of the ornate gravestones, or whether there is something far more nefarious on our tail.