The Devil's Dreamcatcher

by Donna Hosie

  Mitchell and I have no choice but to return to work. We don’t know where Alfarin is. His cousin, Thomason, said he got arrested after smashing up his dorm, but when Mitchell and I ask the HBI, they plead ignorance.

  We barely see Septimus, either, and I know Mitchell is as worried about that as he is about Alfarin going missing. Without Septimus’s presence to influence The Devil, we can’t bear to think about all of the horrible things The Devil is thinking, and that just makes Elinor’s imprisonment even worse. Septimus knew Mitchell and I could never be Dreamcatchers, and that was why he allowed us to try, to make us feel better. He just didn’t realize until it was too late that Elinor could.

  “I hate him!” yells Mitchell on the fourth day. He throws his calculator across the room, where it smashes into the opposite wall, breaking into several pieces. I know he’s trying to immolate. We both are—but we can’t.

  We’re back in Hell, and it’s mocking us.

  I don’t know what to say, so I keep quiet. I want to ask questions, but I don’t know who will give me the answers. Mitchell, Alfarin and even Septimus are dealing with their grief and guilt by turning away from me.

  Then the door opens, and Septimus walks in. His red eyes look unnaturally bloody and much larger than normal. He’s lost his swagger. In fact, he’s walking differently. More heavily. He has the weight of the Underworld on his shoulders.

  “The master has instructed me to invoice Up There for the cost of the medical treatment Team ANGEL is receiving,” says Septimus. There’s no intonation in his voice—it’s even lost some of its southern twang.

  “I hate him,” repeats Mitchell. “I hate him.” It’s all he says these days.

  “Medusa, would you prepare the invoice?” asks Septimus. He stopped calling me Miss Pallister on my first day in the office. I nod. If I open my mouth to reply, I’ll start screaming, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.

  “Private Jones has been released from the quarantine unit,” continues Septimus. “I understand from Healer Travis that Miss Jackson will have her final assessment today. I have suggested to the housing section that they be moved into segregated quarters for their own safety until they have acclimatized.”

  Mitchell and I swap looks, but he moves his gaze from mine first. Sometimes I want to kiss him like I kissed him on the shores of Lake Pukaki. Not with passion, but because I think it will revive me from this death. I know Septimus wants us to feel compassion toward the angels, and I do, but it’s hard to feel sorry for them when Elinor is trapped in a nightmare that has no end.

  Still, the cruelty that has been forced on Owen, Jeanne, Angela and Johnny is desperately unfair. They were sent out to “save” the Dreamcatcher, too, and like Team DEVIL, they were duped. The authorities Up There knew the Dreamcatcher could be used as a weapon, and they wanted to capture it to use against Hell.

  But the search party ended up getting infected, and because of that, Up There won’t take them back. Owen and Angela have apparently taken the news better than Jeanne, who screams in a nonstop fit for twenty-four hours a day. And as for Johnny, the moment he found out that Elinor had replaced the original Dreamcatcher, he fell into a catatonic state and hasn’t moved. He refuses to talk. I haven’t seen him—no one is allowed to see him—but Septimus has spoken to the healers, and they say Johnny’s in shock.

  No shit. How the Hell did they expect him to react to the news that the sister he’s only just found is being perpetually tortured by The Devil? The idiots in this place make me sick. They’re just vessels. There’s no soul or humanity in anything anymore.

  I can’t concentrate. The figures and words written on this invoice just swirl into one amorphous mass. I pick at the toxic scabs on my arms and make them bleed, just to see the lumpy red gravy that is dead blood, because—for a second—it makes me feel like I’m sharing Elinor’s fate.

  We have to get her out of there. There must be another way, but I’m out of ideas. Which leads me to realize that I’m going to have to do some research.

  In the vast arena of books that make up Hell’s library, there just might be a tome that will give us enough information to figure out how to get Elinor back. But I’ll need help to find it, and unfortunately, the only person I know who works in the library is Patty Lloyd. She won’t help me—but she might help Mitchell.

  I shake my head and manage to print up the final invoice. I leave it in Septimus’s in-box for approval and clearance. Mitchell is watching me, and his eyes look so fierce with contempt, it’s a wonder the paper doesn’t burst into flames.

  “Wanna go for a walk?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head.

  “What’s the point?”

  “I want to go to the library.”

  “I hate that place. It makes me feel stupid. And I used to ask Elinor to get books from there for me, so being there will just remind me . . .”

  He trails off, but before he can turn away, I grab his fingers, which are sweaty and covered in ink. I don’t care. Interlocking them in a cradle, I pull until they crack.

  “I can’t sit here thinking,” I whisper. “I have to do something, anything.”

  “If Septimus can’t get her out of there, what hope do we have?”

  “That’s no reason not to try.”

  If Septimus overhears us, he doesn’t say. He appears to be absorbed in his work. Lately, when The Devil’s accountant is at his desk, he just types and types, but the spreadsheets don’t make sense.

  Mitchell told me that the first time he took the Viciseometer, he was worried that Septimus was about to start a celestial war against Up There because of the horrendous overcrowding in Hell. But now I think Septimus has a bigger target. He’s been duped and lied to by The Devil—made to look a fool. Even the HBI is mocking Septimus—albeit behind his back.

  I’m pretty sure Septimus is plotting something, and as a senior devil who’s been in Hell for over two thousand years, that doesn’t bode well for the person he’s plotting against.

  There’s a knock at the door, and in walks Aegidius. He’s still wearing a toga, and his horrible hairy feet still squelch on the ground. Some things don’t change around here.

  “General Septimus, this just arrived,” says Aegidius. He hands over a black envelope that is gently smoking with pale puffs of gray steam.

  “About time,” mutters Septimus. “Thank you, Aegidius. I take it the protocols I instigated were observed?”

  “They were.”

  “And if any more arrive?”

  “The same routine, General. I am overseeing it myself.”

  “Thank you, Aegidius. I won’t forget this.”

  Without another word, Aegidius turns about and squelches out of the office, leaving sweaty footprints on the ground behind him.

  “What’s that, boss?” asks Mitchell. “Interdepartmental letters don’t usually smoke.”

  “I will let you and Medusa know when the time is right, Mitchell,” replies Septimus. “Now I need you both to do something important.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “Find Prince Alfarin,” says Septimus, and his bloodred eyes flash quickly, as if someone has flicked a light on and off behind his irises. He rises from his seat, tucks the black envelope into the inside pocket of his pinstripe suit and enters the Oval Office through the side door.

  The handle doesn’t burn his skin with an imprint of The Devil, but Mitchell and I have been scalded so many times in the last few days, I doubt the scars will ever heal.

  The Devil didn’t just take our friend. He’s branded us with a permanent reminder that we were stupid for thinking we could stop him.

  “I can’t work in this place anymore,” says Mitchell. “I don’t care what they do to me. All I can think about is Elinor, and I hate myself, because while she’s in there”—Mitchell jerks his thumb toward the connecting door to the Oval Office—“it means M.J. is safe. So what kind of sicko does that make me? This place is turning me into a monster. We’ve lost everything,
Medusa. Everything.”

  “Then help me,” I plead. “I think The Devil took Elinor because she was the easy option. We—I—handed her to him on a plate, Mitchell. There has to be another way. What did The Devil use to catch his dreams before children? There must have been something, and we need to find out what, because that’s our best chance. That’s why I want to go to the library. There has to be a book, or records, or something that will help us save Elinor. Sitting here feeling sick and sorry and angry isn’t going to help her. We need to get Alfarin like Septimus said, and the angels, and we need to tear that library apart.”

  The truth is, I’m prepared to do much more than that. I will tear Hell apart if that’s what it takes to get Elinor back.

  28. Secrets in the Labyrinth

  Mitchell and I head out of the accounting office. Before we leave level 1, we press our ears up against the large doors to the Oval Office. It’s habit now. We’re listening for signs of Elinor, but what would we do if we heard her? We can’t get in there.

  So for a split second, I’m grateful for the quiet, because the thought of hearing her in pain terrifies me. And then I feel guilt and shame for wanting that silence.

  I take Mitchell’s hand in mine as we push through the crowds toward the library. He crushes my fingers, but he doesn’t speak or even look at me. We still haven’t discussed what happened down by the lake. Maybe that’s because kissing Mitchell became the prelude to a nightmare.

  But sometimes, when I’m falling asleep, I think about it, hoping it might save me from the visions of a bleeding Elinor. And sometimes I think about it when we’re alone in the office together, and I see him looking as sad as I feel.

  I’ll admit it: I liked kissing Mitchell. But after everything that’s happened, I have to wonder if it’s wrong for me to even be thinking about it. Because I should only be thinking about Elinor, shouldn’t I? Why can’t I manage to do that?

  I never deserved what Rory Hunter did to me, but maybe he was onto something when he said I’m not quite right.

  “Medusa.”

  “What?”

  Mitchell raises our interlocked fingers. His have swollen to the size of sausages because I’ve been squeezing them so tightly.

  I let go. We’ve reached the library, anyway.

  “Do you have any idea where we should start looking?” asks Mitchell, massaging his fingers.

  The library in Hell is gigantic, even bigger, apparently, than the room where The Devil’s annual Masquerade Ball is held. Millions and millions of books line the shelves, and the dark, musty rows are patrolled by teams of librarians, some armed with whips.

  I don’t understand the filing system—I don’t think anyone does—but if you dare put a book back in the wrong place, you walk out of the library with welts on the back of your legs.

  “You need Patty Lloyd,” I reply. “We have to find the section that deals with the history of Hell, and she’ll be able to help us—or rather, you. I’ll hide behind the shelves while you talk to her, because if she sees me, she’s less likely to help.”

  “And how do I find her? There are thousands of devils in here.”

  I snort. “Trust me, we won’t need to. From what I hear, she has finely tuned Mitchell radar, fully primed. She’ll find you.”

  I duck behind some nearby bookcases, and sure enough, it isn’t long before Little Miss Wet T-shirt is sashaying toward Mitchell. She’s barely managed to squeeze her breasts into her tiny top, which I’m betting was left over from when the cherubs departed Hell without their belongings.

  “Mitchell,” she says, sticking her hands in her back pockets, just to stick her boobs out even farther. “Fancy seeing you here. Bored with that crazy-haired Medusa Pallister already?”

  She laughs, and I repress the desire to give her a close-up of my hair—via a head-butt. I need to stay back, hidden from sight. The sooner we get to the books we need, the sooner we can start making plans to save Elinor.

  “Actually, I need your help, Patty,” mumbles Mitchell.

  Her pink eyes light up and she steps in closer to Mitchell. Too close.

  “What do you want?” she asks.

  “Can you show me where the section on the history of the immortal domains is?”

  “I’ll take you there personally,” she whispers, and from my position behind a small bookcase, I see her hand move out and sweep across Mitchell’s stomach. At least I think it was his stomach, because he has his back to me.

  The library is packed with devils, although most of them aren’t reading. Several are rocking to and fro, muttering wildly to themselves. Others are asking for the way out, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t talking about the exit from the library. I keep my distance from Mitchell and Patty as they wind their way through the rows of dusty books. Thankfully, Mitchell is tall, and with his blond spiky hair, he’s easy to keep in my line of sight.

  The deeper into the library we walk, the darker the rows become. More than once it crosses my mind that Patty isn’t taking Mitchell where he wants to go at all, but I don’t say anything. Not even when some jerk with deep-pink eyes sidles up to me and puts his arm around my waist. I know what devils come down here for—and it isn’t books. It’s why Patty Lloyd and her friends are so at home here.

  I shove the devil with wandering hands into a shelf filled with rolled-up scrolls. No one touches me without permission. As he makes contact, a cloud of dust mushrooms into the air, and I hear the angry shouts of an elderly librarian. The cracking whip and screams fade behind us as Mitchell and Patty go deeper into the labyrinthine library.

  I stick close by, but I’m running out of devils to conceal me. They’re thinning out. On the other hand, the place is now so dark that I don’t think Mitchell and Patty would see me if I stood on their toes.

  Where the Hell is she taking him?

  Left, right, left again. My overactive imagination, which has experienced the absolute worse that Hell has to offer now, is waiting for the Minotaur to come roaring out of a passageway. We are so far into the depths of the library that the dust on the shelves is worse than the layers of flour in the kitchens.

  Finally, Patty stops. She pulls out some matches, and her hourglass figure is illuminated in an orange flare as she lights a torch that’s hanging from an iron bracket on the wall. Thankfully, Patty doesn’t see me crouching down nearby. Suddenly, she pushes Mitchell backward into a bookcase. He’s so surprised he falls onto his ass. Patty immediately straddles him.

  “What the . . .” swears Mitchell.

  “Don’t pretend, Mitchell baby,” says Patty, kissing his neck. “I know why you really wanted to come down this way.”

  “I want the history section, Patty!” cries Mitchell, and his voice is so high I imagine the Skin-Walkers and their wolf heads can probably hear him.

  “No one comes down this way,” murmurs Patty. She slides her hands up his T-shirt eagerly but then gasps as she feels the lumps and scars left by the toxic virus unleashed by Rory Hunter and the Dreamcatcher.

  “What’s wrong with your skin?”

  I seize my chance and jump out from my hiding place.

  “The Devil Pox,” I call out. “It’s really contagious, apparently. The effect in female devils isn’t known yet, but for guys, it makes parts of their bodies shrivel up and fall off.”

  “What?” exclaims Mitchell.

  “What are you doing here?” snarls Patty. She’s already clambering away from Mitchell.

  “Septimus asked me to see where you were, Mitchell,” I reply. “He really needs us to go through those history books as soon as possible, but he was worried the itching and the you-know-what on your you-know-what might distract you. But don’t worry, the healers have found a cream that might help it grow back again.”

  “What?”

  “Help what grow back again?” Patty asks worriedly.

  “So, those books, Patty. A history of Hell and anything on the Highers are a good place to start. And also anything of the personal
history of The Devil, because . . . because it’s his birthday soon and we want to check . . . we want to check on his past gifts, because we don’t want to replicate anything.”

  “Are you telling me you really did want a book?”

  “Yes!” cries Mitchell.

  For the first time since coming back to Hell, I actually smile.

  Patty, still in shock, is staring blankly at Mitchell.

  “Patty, the books?” he prompts.

  She removes the flaming torch from its bracket and uses it to indicate a hallway beyond us.

  “Keep walking until you get to the rock with seven heads. The historical documents are down the third aisle.”

  “That’s way too vague. We need you to show us,” I say. “It’s important, Patty.”

  “And why should I help you?”

  “Because that’s your job,” replies Mitchell, standing. “I do shit every day that I don’t like doing, Patty, but I get on and do it. Now I’m asking you—no, I’m telling you, I don’t want to get laid, I want a damn book.”

  “My friend, you seriously have me doubting your sex at times,” booms a deep voice from the dark.

  And out of the shadows steps Alfarin.

  “Where the Hell have you been?” cries Mitchell. “We’ve been going out of our minds. We thought the HBI had locked you up!”

  I’m so relieved I can’t speak. Instead, I just run forward and hug Alfarin. He pats me awkwardly on the back.

  “I am sorry, my friends. Losing my princess has been a blow to my soul. It is as if a barbarian has taken my axe and my manhood. I needed time alone, to grieve, to think.”

  “So you’ve been hiding out here?” I ask.

  “Hiding? I am a Viking prince—I do not hide, Medusa,” replies Alfarin crossly. “I came here for answers. And after much research, I believe I have found them.”

  I can’t believe it. All this time when I was worrying that Alfarin was getting into trouble or wandering Hell in despair, he was down here, thinking. Studying. He’s been ten steps ahead of us this whole time.