The Devil's Dreamcatcher (18 page)

“I don't understand . . .” he says uneasily.

“Mitchell, your brother's name has been added to the top of the list,” says Septimus. “M.J. will replace the Dreamcatcher if it's not found in time.”

A wall of flame hits Septimus. Only it isn't fire—it's Mitchell.

Melded together, their bodies smack into the opposite wall. Bricks crumble and topple onto them, covering both in dust and stone. They stay entombed for less than a second before an explosion sends a volcanic eruption of debris flying in all directions. I duck and shield my face with my arm, but it isn't enough. A thick, vile, salty liquid fills my mouth, and I know I'm tasting my own dead blood.

The small backyard is on fire. I feel strong, muscular arms around my middle and I'm pulled upward. At first I think it's Alfarin, but then I realize that the person holding me is wearing a suit, because I can feel a vertical line of buttons pressing into my back. I wipe at the blood that's trickling into my eyes and see that Septimus has Mitchell swung over his shoulder.

Mitchell looks dead.

Mitchell is dead.

“What happened?” I groan.

“My intern behaved in a way that was entirely human,” replies Septimus. “I should be thankful that his hidden inner rage has only been simmering for four years. Any longer and his untrained anger could have blown apart the entire street.”

Septimus has taken us back out into the cobbled alley. I feel his body twist left, right, and then left again.

“I can walk, Septimus,” I say. “Please put me down.”

“Mitchell received the brunt of my response, Miss Pallister,” says Septimus, “but I apologize if you were also hurt. I had no choice but to restrain Mitchell immediately, or he could have combusted. Now tell me, do you still have the Viciseometer?”

Septimus places me back down on the cobbles. My knees buckle, but he catches my arm before I fall. My head is swimming and my vision is foggy. It's still dark, but the explosion in the back street has woken most of the neighbors. We need to get away. Now.

“What about the others?” I say, pulling the Viciseometer out of my pocket.

“You understand now, don't you?” says Septimus. “You understand exactly what is at stake if the Dreamcatcher is not returned to Hell?”

I nod. Salt from my tears mixes with my toxic blood. It seems right somehow. For forty years, I thought vainly, aloofly, that I was too good for Hell. That I wasn't evil.

But I am. Because to save Mitchell's little brother, I will have to send another little boy back into Hell to filter the perverse dreams of The Devil.

“Take Mitchell to a place in your past, Miss Pallister. Someplace that was important to Rory Hunter. Find him and you will find the Dreamcatcher.”

“What about the others?” I repeat. “I can't do this without Alfarin and Elinor.”

“You do not need to, Medusa,” calls a deep voice behind me. “We are coming.”

Alfarin, Elinor and the four angels are running along the alley. They are covered in black soot.

“What happened here?” asks Jeanne. “We heard . . .”

Then she sees the fire, which is spreading rapidly into the unoccupied house. She screams and falls back.

People from neighboring properties are now coming out to look at the commotion. A small old man with a bent back starts yelling. He's quickly joined by another, even older, man, but they
aren't shouting about the fire. They want to know why young men are standing in the streets instead of fighting for king and country on foreign fields.

“A place in your past, Miss Pallister,” repeats Septimus. He lowers Mitchell onto the ground, and Elinor and I both cry out. Half of Mitchell's face is charred, blackened skin.

Behind me I can hear dry retching. It's Jeanne.

“You said before that two of the Skin-Walkers would be joining us,” I say quickly as my fingers start to manipulate the red needle of the Viciseometer around the clock face. I'm stressing out. I need to calm down, but I don't know how. And the thought of Skin-Walkers coming with us isn't helping. This is a nightmare that none of us can escape. And why isn't Mitchell moving? What did Septimus do to him?

“The Skin-Walkers will find you,” says Septimus. “Remember, they only want the Unspeakable, and you are the best chance Hell has of finding him. Now hurry.”

“Mitchell,” says Angela, bending down. “What's wrong with his skin?” She strokes his face, and I am overwhelmed by the urge to punch hers in.

Instead, I smack my head in frustration. Concentrate, Medusa, I tell myself. You need to find Rory. Think. Where in the past would Rory go?

I've already fixed in a generic time: ten o'clock. I will aim for evening. I turn over the red face as the shouts from the neighbors become threats. Several women, armed with brooms, are striding up the alleyway toward us. Other people are yelling for buckets of water. They are torn between wanting to help save their neighbor's house and their desire to kick our asses.

Finally, a response from Mitchell: he groans and rolls over onto his side. The cobbles underneath him are scorched black and coated in a sticky, tarlike substance. Alfarin hauls Mitchell to his feet. Jeanne is still retching, and Owen is shielding Johnny from the stones that are now raining down on us from the neighbors. But just
as quickly as the stones appeared, they stop as the neighbors catch sight of us. They're inching back. They're scared.

They've realized we aren't quite right.

Rory Hunter once told me I would never be special. He used to taunt me, saying there was something wrong with me. He even used those words, that I wasn't
quite right
. The memory comes clearly to me as I hear the insults from the terrified people. They want us away from their homes and their lives and their children.

I wasn't
quite right
, Rory said. No one would want me . . . except him. It was the first time he ever touched me. A stroke of the face. He waited until I was sixteen; it was my birthday. That touch lasted a second, but the memory has stayed with me for more than forty years. I remember his callused fingertips, and I can still smell the cigarette smoke. It would get worse, a lot worse, but that was the first time my stepfather scared me.

And that's where he'll be now: at the first moment in time when he, a weak and twisted man, became powerful. He'll want to watch it. He probably already has. Rory could be watching it over and over again while he waits for me—this me, the real me—to come to him.

I couldn't stop him then, but I can try to stop him now.

“If you're coming, hold on!” I cry to the group, although it's a question that doesn't have to be asked of Team DEVIL. I look down at the red face of the Viciseometer just as the hands on the timepiece dissolve from the stationary time of February 28, 1967. The face of the Viciseometer starts to swirl with a crimson fire. Tiny particles of flame reach out and caress my skin. I can see the rain coming down, and I shiver. Not with cold, but with dread. We are traveling to Stinson Beach, where Rory will be ready to haunt me once more.

Elinor grabs my spare hand; I see Alfarin and Mitchell on her other side. I feel Team ANGEL's freezing hands grabbing my waist and clutching at the fabric of my shirt. Septimus is shouting something to me, but his voice is smothered by the sound of time rushing around us.

As we travel forward in time, I can feel Jeanne beside me, still
shuddering in terror because of our close brush with fire. She buries her face in my neck, and as we hurtle along, all I can sense is her fearful body nestling into mine. I try to comfort her, but time has frozen me.

We land in soft sand. The rain is pelting down. There's no moon, but the sea is reflecting a greenish-silver sheen that gives us just enough light to see one another.

“Ye are bleeding, Medusa,” says Johnny. “Yer head is a mess.” He spits onto his T-shirt and dabs it at my head.

“That's disgusting, Johnny,” says Angela.

“Why here?” whispers Jeanne. “What is this place?”

I look down and see that she's still holding my waist. She quickly lets go.

“This is Stinson Beach. We're just outside San Francisco. The first time Rory Hunter took me and my mom out for a day trip, he took us here. This day in history, in fact.” I don't tell them it's my birthday. It's not a day I want to share.

“What makes you think the Unspeakable is here?” asks Alfarin. “And what has happened to Mitchell?”

“Rory will be here—I know he will,” I reply. “For the same reason that he was at my old house: because he's haunting me. Remember? He said I'd find him when and where he wants to be found, and I think that means he's going back in time to places that mean something—to him and me. Not in a good way, but in a bad way. And this day is where it all started. It's burned into my memory. It's the next most obvious place he would come to after the house.”

Mitchell is groaning; he's kneeling on the sand.

“What if the old you and the old Rory see you now?” he says in a croaking voice. “We'll create a paradox.”

“No, we won't,” I reply, looking around for Rory. I know he's here. Watching us. Watching me. Every nerve ending I possess is prickling. “When I came here forty years ago, we had left by this time. The alive me is back in my bed in San Francisco, and the alive Rory . . . he's in the house, too, but the Unspeakable Rory, he'll be
here—this date was too important for him to not have come back and waited for us into the evening.”

“So are we just going to stand here in the rain until he decides to make himself known?” asks Alfarin. He glances worriedly at Elinor, who looks cold.

“Do you have a better plan, Alfarin?” I reply. “Septimus said we have to find him, and my gut tells me he's here.”

“I did not mean to—”

But whatever it is that Alfarin plans to apologize for goes unsaid, because at that moment, two wolves howl in the darkness, and the all-too-familiar smell of the Skin-Walkers quickly envelops us, smothering the salty smell of the beach.

With just a few bounds, the Skin-Walkers are upon us. They straighten up, although the animal heads on top of their own continue to growl.

“You are favored by Septimus, child,” says one of the Skin-Walkers slowly. His black eyes bore into mine. “And by the Unspeakable, too. You are wasted in such company.”

“You will not take Medusa again!” roars Alfarin, placing himself in front of me. The rain bounces off the blade of his axe with a metallic ping.

That one gesture inspires me, because Alfarin—my friend—is doing exactly what Mitchell tried to do. He's trying to protect me.

But the two Skin-Walkers laugh.

“The Viking prince is not afraid of us, and yet two dogs, two of our mutated kind, sent him to his doom after ripping out his throat,” mocks a Skin-Walker. “Yes, we have seen your deaths, all of them,” he sneers at a gaping Alfarin. “So be careful, Viking. We are afraid of no man—mortal or otherwise.”

“But you're afraid of the Dreamcatcher, aren't you!” I shout back, recognizing this Skin-Walker as Cupidore, the one who tried to touch me in the cemetery. This fuels a fire in my chest, because no one touches me like that anymore. “We saw you cowering and whimpering. You need us way more than we need you.”

The two Skin-Walkers fall forward onto all fours. Cupidore stretches his neck back and howls at the moonless sky. The other arches his shoulders, and the pelt on his back ripples. His black, cracked lips curl back over his gums. The rotten stench takes on a metallic edge. It's the smell of blood.

Then we hear crying. My stomach lurches with fear, but there is a triumphant pulse in my chest, too. I knew he was here. I always knew when he was near.

The wind has picked up, but the sound of the child is carried and magnified around us. I push my soaking-wet hair out of my face and cup my hands to my ears. I can't tell which direction the crying is coming from.

“The little boy, the Dreamcatcher, is here,” I say. And suddenly the Skin-Walkers are no longer my concern. I already know they're scared of it, and they need me.

“M.J.,” groans Mitchell. “Not my brother. I will kill anyone who touches my brother.”

He starts shaking. His entire body is convulsing.

“He's burning up!” screams Angela.

“
Not my brother!
”

“No, not again. Not now!” I cry, realizing what is about to happen. “Alfarin, help me get Mitchell into the sea. Septimus said he might combust.”

Mitchell is starting to smoke. Both Jeanne and Elinor are screaming, but I don't have the time to worry about them. All I can think about is dragging Mitchell into the freezing ocean before he becomes ash on the wind.

“Stop screaming and see if you can spot the Unspeakable!” I cry. “I'm not alone, I'm not alone,” I keep repeating to myself. He can't hurt me.

Alfarin, Owen and I drag Mitchell across the sand and into the sea. Small flames begin to ignite on his body, and they singe my skin as I help guide him into the water. All four of us are suddenly lost in an enormous cloud of steam that is unleashed as we fall into the breaking waves.

“Immolation,” I hear Alfarin say through the fog. “I have heard of such an event, but never in all my dark days in Hell have I seen such a thing. Is this what happened when you were with Lord Septimus?”

Mitchell is now on all fours. The surf breaks over his back.

“It's what happened with Septimus, but immolation—that's self-inflicted, isn't it?” I ask. “Are you telling me Mitchell's doing this on purpose?”

“Not on purpose, Melissa,” says Owen. “But if Mitchell can do this, just imagine what we all could do under similar circumstances if we learned to control it.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Quiet,
angel
,” growls a Skin-Walker from the beach. The two of them are sniffing the air.