The Devil's Dreamcatcher (6 page)

“No.”

For the first time, Perfidious moves. He leans forward at an unnatural angle, moving his arms in time with his long legs. It's almost as if he is deliberately stopping himself from loping on all fours. And then we hear his voice. It's unlike anything I've ever heard before. Half human, half animal. The words are elongated with a sonorous rumble that vibrates in my bones.

“The Unspeakable has been accounted for—every second, of every hour, of every day,” growls Perfidious.

“Until today,” says Baumwither tartly.

I hear Mitchell swear under his breath; Septimus does, too.

“Sir Richard,” says Septimus. “I believe it would be prudent to show Perfidious a little more respect. He is, after all, the leader of the Skin-Walkers, and The Devil himself would accord Perfidious the deference his position demands.”

“Septimus,” replies Baumwither, “you may be The Devil's number one civil servant, but I am the director of the HBI and have been for nearly a century. Today Hell is in lockdown due to one of the most serious security breaches it has ever seen, which came about as a direct result of one of the Unspeakables escaping from the Skin-Walkers' realm, breaking into The Devil's private chambers and stealing his most valuable possession. So I will show Perfidious respect when Rory Hunter is back where he belongs—in spiked chains with the other vile cretins who once preyed on the living— and when that which has been stolen from the master of Hell is returned.”

“I haven't seen Rory since the day he died,” I repeat, hoping to redirect the conversation. “This has nothing to do with me, and it certainly has nothing to do with the others who came here with me. Please let them go.”

Baumwither picks up the remote control and presses the red button again. I glance at Septimus, but he's watching Perfidious. The wolf-man has closed his black eyes and is standing quietly once more, as still as a statue. Yet there's a wry smile, almost like a smirk, on his cracked brown lips. I don't like that smile. I've seen it before, back in the land of the living. It's the look of someone who's plotting something.

The screen flickers again, and my stepfather's face disappears and is replaced by a black-and-white image of a small dais surrounded by drapes. There are clumsily written words splashed across the flat surface, as if someone had scrawled them in paint.

“Do not panic, Miss Pallister,” whispers Septimus, but he's still watching the immobile, smirking Perfidious.

The words on the dais read:
You can have it back when I get my life back
.

Baumwither presses the remote control again, and the black-and-white image takes on color.

“Is that writing in blood?” asks Mitchell faintly.

My head is swimming. I don't understand any of this. Why am I here? I don't know anything. Rory is dead. He died over five months
before I did. I've done everything I could to forget he even existed, so why am I being punished? It isn't my fault.

“
This isn't my fault,
” I say aloud.

“Indeed. This has been quite enough, Sir Richard,” says Septimus sharply. “It is perfectly clear that Miss Pallister and her new friends have had no contact whatsoever with the Unspeakable. I am taking them back with me, and they will be provided with bedding and food in the accounting office until the lockdown is over.”

“Now look here, Septimus—”

“I am taking them back with me, and that is the end of it. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but I will remind you that I have been dead for two thousand years and my knowledge, experience and authority—excuse my language, ladies—pisses over yours, Sir Richard. Now, instead of interrogating an innocent sixteen-year-old girl, you should be putting your considerable resources into tracking down the Unspeakable, and more importantly, retrieving the Dreamcatcher. You are aware, I am sure, of its enormous power and the danger it could pose in the wrong hands.”

The aura around Perfidious is moving again. The dark shadow is dancing around his body. It swirls and stretches to form the black outline of eight other wolf heads with wide-open jaws and bared teeth. They are shuddering.

No, they aren't shuddering, they're laughing.

“I reserve the right to question Miss Pallister again,” blusters Baumwither, but Septimus is already herding Mitchell, Elinor and me to the door. Alfarin edges around Baumwither to retrieve his axe from the table. On our way out, we pass the HBI investigator returning with my glass of water. I ignore him and keep walking as fast as I can.

“HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. FAILURE TO COMPLY IS UNWISE. HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. . . .”

Septimus takes us back to the accounting office.

“Prince Alfarin,” he says, “we will need to push these desks back
against the wall. You may be here some time, and I would like you all to have as much space as possible.”

“It will be an honor, Lord Septimus.”

“I can help,” offers Mitchell.

“Ye can move the pizza boxes and the chairs, Mitchell,” says Elinor. She is already starting to tidy up as Septimus and Alfarin drag a desk into the corner. “The chairs have wheels to make it easier for ye.”

I want to laugh at the indignant look on Mitchell's face, but I don't. And I don't want space. I want to be uncomfortable. I'll be less likely to sleep then.

Septimus moves toward the door. “All of you, listen carefully. Do not leave this room,” he says. “I will send blankets and food for the evening in a while, but for now I must attend to Sir, who is very distressed at the loss of his Dreamcatcher.”

“They won't come for Medusa, will they? If you leave us?” asks Mitchell, voicing exactly what I was thinking.

“They will not,” replies Septimus, “but you must prepare yourselves for the possibility that Miss Pallister's usefulness in this disturbing incident is not yet over.”

“We will stand by her until it is,” announces Alfarin.

“She's part of Team DEVIL now,” says Elinor with a weak smile. “And Hell knows I need another girl to help keep these two boys under control.”

Before my brain has caught up with my legs, I'm at Septimus's side.

I hug him.

“Thank you, Septimus,” I whisper. “Thank you for believing me.” I quickly let go.

Septimus seems stunned, as if he hasn't been hugged in a long time. I immediately regret doing it, but he smiles, displaying brilliant-white, very crooked teeth.

“Good night, Medusa,” he says. And then he's gone.

A small man dressed in a white toga appears at the accounting chamber door not long after Septimus leaves. His eyes are so round and so red that they look like brake lights. He doesn't blink once as he unstraps four pillows and four camping mattresses from a belted contraption—like a backpack without a cover—from his hairy back. He's also carrying a square box filled with bread, fruit and what looks like a small plastic bucket of chicken drumsticks.

“Thanks, Aegidius,” replies Mitchell.

The Roman doesn't reply. He pads away on bare feet that make a sticky, squelching sound. I'm totally grossed out because even his stubby toes are covered in thick black hair. Alfarin shuts the accounting chamber door behind Aegidius with a solid thump and moves Mitchell's desk in front of it as a makeshift barricade.

Elinor deals out the bedding. I take my pillow and mattress and lay them down in the corner farthest from the door to the Oval Office. If that alarm starts going off again, I want to be as far away from the blood as I possibly can.

The tension in the room is palpable. I know that everyone wants to talk about what we've just seen, but no one wants to be the first. So the elephant—or should I say Unspeakable—in the room isn't mentioned.

I don't actually know what an Unspeakable is, but if my stepfather is one of them, I have a good guess. But what are Skin-Walkers?
I think Perfidious is human, even under the guise of a wolf, but his irises are black. Black! Everyone knows the only devil in Hell who has black irises is The Devil himself.

It sounds strange, but I had never been really terrified in Hell before today. Nervous? Yes. Scared? Occasionally. Pissed off? Always. But now I have a twisting, churning feeling in the pit of my stomach that's making me sweat and shiver at the same time. I can taste a metallic bitterness. I know this sensation. It is the feeling of deep fear.

And it reminds me of living.

“I cannot stand this silence,” Elinor finally says. “We are all thinking it, so we should talk about it.”

“I don't want to talk about it,” replies Mitchell. He has a drumstick in his hand, but he hasn't taken a bite.

“We need to be careful, Elinor,” says Alfarin. “We do not know who could be listening in.”

“Is this room bugged?” I ask.

“I don't think so,” replies Mitchell. “We get it swept every week, and there isn't a devil in Hell who would dare bug Septimus, anyway.”

He looks over at me. “I think we need to pick up the conversation where we left off when Hell went into lockdown. This is all because of San Francisco. We need to remember what was going on that day. If we remember, we can help Medusa.”

“But we've tried, Mitchell,” says Elinor. “Not one of us can remember why we were there that day.”

“But we saw him, didn't we?” says Alfarin solemnly. “That man—Rory. We saw the Skin-Walkers, and what they did to him.”

“What
are
Skin-Walkers?” I ask. “What do they do?”

“The Skin-Walkers were the first murderers, the first evil,” replies Elinor. “They are the gatekeepers of the final dwelling of the Unspeakables: those who are so heinous in life, they cannot be left to mingle with others in the afterlife. The Unspeakables are the true tortured souls in Hell.” Her voice has grown so monotonous, it's almost as if she's reading out of a guidebook. I wonder if
that's because she's scared, or if her brain is just a scary repository of knowledge. Maybe it's both.

“The Skin-Walkers rip out the tongues of rapists, child abusers and murderers who kill for kicks,” adds Mitchell. “No one knows where in Hell the Skin-Walkers are kept, and apparently they can track their victims—future Unspeakables—while they're still alive.”

“We saw two Skin-Walkers take away your stepfather, Medusa,” says Alfarin. “That evening, in San Francisco.”

“There was a struggle with a gun,” I whisper. “Between Rory and my mom. I didn't see what happened. They—the doctors—said he had lost too much blood. He died that night in the hospital.”

“Did he hurt you?” asks Mitchell. “Your stepfather?” His pink eyes are glistening in the torchlight.

There's no point in hiding anything from them, so I nod. They don't ask for details, and I don't offer any. But I see deep sadness in their eyes. They understand without needing an explanation.

“And now he has escaped,” says Elinor, leaning back against the wall. She yelps as a shadow pulls at her long red hair.

“How, though?” asks Mitchell. “And that message he left—what was that all about?”

“ ‘You can have it back when I get my life back,' ” says Alfarin, quoting the message scrawled in blood. “
It
must mean this Dreamcatcher.”

“It sounds just like him,” I said. “As if he's the victim of an injustice.” Rory
would
see himself as the victim. He always did.

“What's a Dreamcatcher?” asks Elinor. She's slowly turning a bright-red apple between her pale hands. Like Mitchell with his drumstick, she hasn't taken a bite.

“They're Native American objects,” I reply, trying to describe one with my hands. “You get a hoop, I think made of willow, and then you weave a web in the middle of it. Then the Dreamcatcher is decorated with feathers and beads. I've seen some before with little bells attached, although I'm not sure if that's considered very respectful to the culture and legend.”

“But what do they do?” asks Alfarin. “Elinor and I are learned,
but in all the years I've spent reading in Hell's library, I have never heard of such a thing, either. From your description, this Dreamcatcher is very small. Why is Hell in lockdown over such an object? If it were a mighty weapon I could understand, but for feathers and beads, it does not make sense to me.”

“If I'm remembering this right, I think some cultures believe that when you're sleeping, Dreamcatchers will filter out nightmares and trap good dreams,” replies Mitchell.

“So, this Rory has stolen something with The Devil's good dreams in it?” asks Elinor.

“It looks like it,” I reply, “but I have to agree with Alfarin. Why put Hell in lockdown? Why can't they just make The Devil a new one? It doesn't make sense.”

We all look at Mitchell, who now has his head in his hands. The chicken drumstick is lying on the floor next to his sneakers.

“What's wrong, Mitchell?” asks Elinor. “Ye are closer to The Devil and Septimus than any of us. Do ye know something?”

“Think about it, Elinor,” replies Mitchell. His face is deathly white. “A good dream for one of us probably involves eating food, or hanging out together or even living our old lives. . . .” He trails off. All three of them are suddenly interested in the floor.

“But The Devil's good dreams are probably our worst nightmares,” I finish quietly.

Mitchell nods.

“The dude is nuts, completely cuckoo crazy,” he whispers. “All he wants to do is get revenge on Him and the angels. The Devil's good dreams would be filled with blood and screaming and torture and probably war against Up There. His idea of Heaven would be way worse than anything in Hell. This Dreamcatcher is going to be filled with the worst things imaginable.”

“So The Devil's Dreamcatcher is actually the opposite because of who he is,” I say. “It still captures good dreams, but his good dreams are so twisted. . . .”