The Devil's Dreamcatcher (3 page)

“Will ye get down from there, Alfarin?” begs Elinor. “Ye cannot kill a fly with yer axe. Ye will fall and hurt yerself, ye big oaf.”

“I will make this pestilent creature rue the day it decided to buzz around my princess,” says Alfarin grimly.

Seconds later there's an almighty crash as Alfarin topples off the stool and breaks the table where Elinor is sitting. Glass shatters. The unharmed fly buzzes past my ear and is then caught and swallowed by another Viking about to take a large swig of beer.

“
Alfarin!
” roars a bald man from the other side of the room. He
has a golden moustache and a long, matted beard that reaches his stomach. He's clutching a black mace, which is swinging like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

“My apologies, father brother,” calls Alfarin. He is trying to extricate Elinor from shattered glass, which is glinting like a pool of fire in the torchlight. “I will gladly repair any damage.”

“Who's the Viking with the mace?” I whisper to Mitchell. “And what's a father brother?”

“That's Magnus, Alfarin's uncle. That's what Vikings call a father brother. And the Viking behind the bar is Alfarin's cousin, Thomason. He owns this place. And see the guy with the long dark hair and short beard, throwing darts at that guy tied to the spinning board? That isn't a guy at all. It's actually Alfarin's great-aunt Dagmar.”

I stick out like a sore thumb in this sea of enormous people and weaponry, and it isn't long before everyone's eyes—deep bloodred, of course—start drifting from the puffing Alfarin to the girl who looks like she has snakes for hair.

“Mitchell!” squeals Elinor. “Alfarin, look. Mitchell has brought someone to meet us. And it's a girl!”

“Mitchell, my friend,” booms Alfarin. His heavy boots crunch through the glass as he scoops Elinor up and over his shoulder. He's still carrying her as he makes his way over to us.

“Put me down, ye fool!” she cries.

“Alfarin, Elinor, this is Medusa,” says Mitchell, ignoring the mess. “She's going to be working with me in the accounting office as the other intern.”

“Lovely to meet ye.” Elinor beams and then kisses me on both cheeks. It's the first time a devil has ever done that to me. Actually, it's the first time
anyone
has done that to me, alive or dead.

I want to like it, but trusting people in Hell is as difficult as trusting people in life.

“Alfarin, son of Hlif, son of Dobin,” says Alfarin very formally. He isn't smiling, and I'm a little alarmed as he swings his axe upward, catches it in his right hand and then drops to his knee.
“Your devoted warrior from this day forth,” he continues. “You need only say the name of any foul devil who has slighted your person, and my faithful axe will slice open his entrails, which shall be tied around his neck until he is throttled—”

“Get up, Alfarin,” scolds Elinor. “We don't want to frighten Medusa off before she even knows us.”

“Yeah, let her get to know us first, and
then
she can make a run for it,” says Mitchell.

“It's nice to meet you all.” I try smiling at them, but my top lip sticks to my teeth and then my bottom lip starts to betray me.

Stop it, Medusa, I say to myself. My hands are in my pockets, so I pinch my leg—hard. I am not a crybaby. I've never been a crybaby. Life made me tough; death made me tougher. I will not lose it because I've finally found the three angels who were outside my house that day.

Devils, I correct myself. They were devils. They only looked like angels.

“Ye frightened her, Alfarin,” says Elinor, and she rubs the back of her neck again. “I'm so sorry. He is lovely once ye get to know him. Please don't be worried, Medusa. It will be so nice to have another girl on the team.”

“It isn't that,” I say quickly. “It's just . . .” But I can't quite bring myself to say it aloud.

Mitchell steps in and explains for me in a hurried whisper. “Guys, I know this is crazy, but Medusa has seen Team DEVIL before. When she was
alive
.”

Elinor and Alfarin exchange worried glances.

“How is that possible?” asks Elinor softly.

“Remember San Francisco?” Mitchell says quietly.

“What? San Francisco!” Alfarin exclaims.

“Shhhhh,” hisses Elinor, frantically flapping her hands. She looks about wildly to see if anyone has heard us.

“Elinor is right. I am sorry, Mitchell,” says Alfarin. Then he pats my hand awkwardly. “And I apologize for the throaty manliness of
my voice, Medusa. I do not possess Mitchell's ability to whisper like a girl.”

“Thanks for that, Alfarin,” says Mitchell. “Look, Septimus gave me some money, so let's go get something to eat. Somewhere quiet, so we can talk without being overheard.”

Alfarin, Elinor and I all turn and make a quizzical face at Mitchell. Somewhere quiet? In Hell? You can't go to the bathroom without an audience. Privacy is left with your pulse back in the land of the living.

“You know what I mean,” says Mitchell, rolling his pink eyes.

The four of us leave Thomason's. Vikings are still watching us. Watching me.

The boys follow their stomachs, and Elinor and I follow the boys.

As we walk, I can't help thinking how strange this all is. I'm just not used to devils being so nice to me. I can't help worrying that I'm not going to be very good at being a friend—if that's what they eventually want me to be. I
hope
it's what they eventually want me to be. It's lonely sometimes, being on the outside of a crowd.

Yet there's something about Team DEVIL that seems so . . . nice. They give me this feeling of familiarity that's warm and snuggly, like clean sheets.

“So, how long have ye been in Hell, Medusa?” asks Elinor. She's wearing a long white dress and satin slippers, and she appears to float above the floor as we push through the bustling crowds of devils.

“Over forty years,” I reply. “I died in 1967.”

Elinor opens her mouth to say something, but she catches my eye and quickly closes it again. I know what she's going to ask—it's what every devil asks—but I appreciate the fact that she doesn't.

“How long have you known Alfarin and Mitchell?” I ask.

“I searched for Alfarin for nearly one hundred years after I arrived in 1666,” she says. “Mitchell was easier to find, once I knew which logbooks to read.”

“Why were you looking for them?” I ask, intrigued. “You lived
too late for Alfarin and too early for Mitchell to have known them in life, right?”

Elinor gasps, and her pale hands with their long, delicate fingers fly to her mouth. Mitchell and Alfarin stop walking when they hear her, and she and I bump right into them.

Okay. Clearly, Elinor feels she's revealed something to me that she shouldn't have, and Mitchell and Alfarin know it. I have no idea what their issue is, but I do know there's definitely more to Team DEVIL than meets the eye.

Rumors have been flying lately that Hell is running out of food, but not for people like me who know where to look. I guess there are some benefits to having worked in the kitchens for so long.

A little while later, after I've managed to swipe four pizzas and a strawberry cheesecake from the kitchen prep area, we all head back to level 1 and the accounting office. Elinor is biting her nails, and Alfarin is actually attempting to tiptoe as we make our way through the corridor where shadows are fighting on the walls.

I want to make a good impression for many reasons, so I keep quiet, even though the shadows freak me out.

“I don't like this,” whispers Elinor. “What if security finds us? What if The Devil is still in his office? I don't like being up this high.”

“I would agree with you, my princess,” replies Alfarin. “But, alas, my need for a meat feast pizza is greater than my worry of meeting the Overlord of Hell. If he should find us, know that I will sacrifice myself, so you may flee.”

“Once you've eaten the chicken and spinach pizza first, you mean,” says Mitchell, catching my eye. He's very funny for someone who's only been dead for four years. Most new devils spend their first ten years in a state of total hysteria, but Mitchell is pretty stoic.

We reach the thick stone door of the accounting office and I notice that something creepy and dark is dripping down its center. Mitchell puts his finger to his lips and we all stop dead in our tracks. We're holding our breath, which is ridiculous because we're dead and we don't need to breathe.

A feeling of recklessness comes over me. I want to get into the accounting chamber. I need to know why these devils were outside my house, and why
then
. The evening I saw them was the evening that Rory—the evening that
he
—was taken away. Forever.

That was the evening that should have changed my life for the better, but it didn't.

I gently push past Mitchell and open the door. The chamber is bathed in a strange, pale haze as sparks from blue currents zap and splinter along the walls.

“Get in quick,” says Mitchell urgently, and he pulls Alfarin and Elinor inside behind me.

“What are those, Mitchell?” I ask, pointing to the electrical bolts that crack like whips.

“It's a sign that The Devil is in a foul mood. It happens all the time these days. Let me just listen in on the Oval Office. If he's still in there, we need to run. Don't worry, Medusa. You'll get used to the crazy stuff up here—eventually.”

But it isn't the fact that The Devil might be in the Oval Office that's worrying me at the moment. It's the fact that I'm going to be working in an office that has electricity moving along damp walls. If I come into contact with one, my hair is going to explode into its own mushroom cloud.

Mitchell puts his ear up to another door and closes his eyes in concentration. Alfarin has his axe clenched tightly between his plate-sized hands, and Elinor is shaking so hard she looks as if she's about to drop the box with the strawberry cheesecake.

I take it from her trembling hands. “Save the cake first” is my motto. Gingerly, I step over discarded coffee cups that have clearly been thrown
at
the recycling bin instead of
in
it, and I place the cheesecake box on the messiest desk I've ever seen. And I thought lawyers were disorganized.

“Thank ye, Medusa,” whispers Elinor. “Can ye hear anything, Mitchell?”

“All quiet on the Devil front,” he replies. “Now, who has the pizza?”

Alfarin has placed the boxes on a chair, so we all sit on the warm stone floor, and it isn't long before we're munching away in silence.

Their quietness is companionable. Mine, I'm not so sure. I don't make friends easily. I've always been suspicious of strangers, even in Hell. If I couldn't trust people in life, who can I trust in death? The way the girls in my dorm turned on me with a pack mentality that wolves would be proud of was proof to me that the answer is
no one
. Yet I have to admit that the four of us make a very comfortable square as we all stretch out our legs and rest our backs against a wall, a safe, a desk and a dark oak wardrobe that's covered in symbols and runes.

“So, Medusa,” says Mitchell, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Since we need to get to know each other, and since you're the newbie, it's only fair that you should get to ask us the first question.”

I swallow my last mouthful of strawberry cheesecake and wipe my fingers on my black shorts. My questions tend to be blunt and awkward, and I'm always being told by other devils in the kitchens that I ask too many. I'll ease into this slowly, I decide.

“Why do you call yourselves Team DEVIL?”

“It's the initials,
D-E-V-I-L
,” replies Elinor quickly. “It stands for Dead but not Evil Vanguard in Life. Mitchell thought of it.”

“And it's just the three of you?”

“Yeah,” says Mitchell, but there's a strange, abstract look on his face, as if he isn't quite sure. He looks to the others for support, but they all have the same confused expression.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“It's just . . . well . . . we . . .” stutters Elinor.

“What my princess is attempting to say, Medusa,” says Alfarin, “is that there were three of us who returned to Hell after our journey back to the land of the living. Yet there are shadows in our recollections of our time away. Empty spaces that do not make sense.”

Aha. Here's the opening I've been waiting for.

“How did you get back to the land of the living in the first place?” I ask. “No one can leave Hell.”

“We took—borrowed—something from the safe, in this office, that helped us,” replies Elinor.

“Well, technically I did,” adds Mitchell sheepishly.

“But what?” I ask.

“Have you ever heard of a Viciseometer, Medusa?” asks Alfarin.

A Viciseometer? I thought that was just another urban legend in Hell. You hear all sorts of crazy myths and stories down here, but the Viciseometer is one that's stayed with me. It's a time-traveling device, supposedly used to introduce new inventions to the earth. So
that's
how Team DEVIL got back to the land of the living. I try to wrap my head around the idea that Viciseometers are real and these three devils managed to get a hold of one.

“So why did you come back to Hell?” I ask. “I don't get it.”

“Neither do we, Medusa,” says Mitchell. “I mean, we know we came back because we found out we couldn't control our fates the way we thought we could, but there's more to it than that. Something happened to us back on earth, and we don't know what it is. It's like we're being haunted, but we can't see or hear what it is. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I believe you might be able to help us.”

“I still don't get it.”