by Donna Hosie
Death has made me poisonous.
Feeling ill, and not because I’ve eaten so much, I head back toward the room. I’m getting my coat and I’m going to look for Alfarin and Elinor. Team DEVIL is safer together.
But Medusa is on her cell phone talking to Elinor. When she says “El,” it sounds like “Hell” and I get strange pangs of what I think is homesickness. I want to talk to Septimus. I want to explain why I did this. He would understand, I’m sure of it.
I hope I didn’t get him into trouble.
“El and Alfarin are in the park,” says Medusa, disconnecting the call after she has told Elinor she loves her. “They’re talking.”
“As long as they’re okay.”
“El also said she wants to go next.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because Elinor is more . . . more delicate than everyone else, and like she said earlier, we have to go to the place of death to see how to change it.”
“El is tougher than you think, Mitchell,” replies Medusa.
She turns off the main lights in the room but leaves a bedside lamp on. Dark shadows start creeping up the walls. They don’t match the shape of anything in the room. The skin on my arms puckers like a chicken leg as the hairs rise. Medusa plumps the bed pillows and flops down. The shadows look as if they’re reaching for her, so I turn on another lamp to scare them away.
I grab a pillow from the cupboard and pull out a toffee-colored blanket as well. I’m not looking forward to sleeping on the sofa. I’m at least two feet too tall for it.
“We can share the bed, you know,” calls Medusa. Her voice is muffled by the covers. She has buried herself underneath them so that only the top of her head is showing. Curls are splayed over the pillow.
I immediately drop the blanket and pillow on the carpet. “You sure?”
“I think I’ll be able to resist jumping you.”
I slip in beside her.
“Do you want to put a pillow or something between us?” I ask.
“I’ll just use Alfarin’s axe to chop off anything that comes wandering in my direction,” she says, giggling.
We turn off the lamps and are in darkness.
Outside, New York City continues as normal. The noise of the living is back as sirens wail and car horns blare. We can hear music from somewhere: a heavy thumping bass that vibrates in my back teeth. Raised voices and laughter echo all around. Then there is a long howl, but it doesn’t sound right. Not like a normal dog howl. It rises and falls, like howling laughter. Medusa reaches out and grabs my hand, but her fingers grope along my thigh first as she tries to find my fingers in the dark.
I swear I can feel my heart beating. I’m lying on the mattress like a statue in a tomb. I don’t know where to put my hands, legs, or head, so I stay straight and completely still, staring up at the black ceiling.
Medusa rolls toward me and hooks her leg over mine; her arm wraps around my waist. She’s so warm, it’s like having a hot water bottle on top of me. I pull my arm free and move it up toward her head, which is now resting on my chest.
“You were amazing today,” she says. My fingers have spread out a bit and are massaging the whole of her neck. She’s so warm and soft. Her hand comes to rest against my chest where my dead heart lies useless and shriveled.
“It was pretty full-on, wasn’t it?”
“Scary.”
“Terrifying.”
“Are you glad we came with you now?”
“Yeah, I’m glad you came.”
A satisfied sigh escapes her lungs. A devil never breaks the habit of breathing. I feel her body go limp on top of mine, and as I continue to massage her soft neck, contented little purrs sneak out of her mouth.
Medusa has fallen asleep. She doesn’t hear the howling laughter coming closer and closer until I swear it’s right outside the bedroom window.
We are on the tenth floor.
16. 4 September 1666
I have time in my hands, yet I have completely lost track of it. Am I in the past, the future, or the now? I just don’t know anymore. Alfarin and Elinor come back to us after I doze off with Medusa slumped across my chest. They have another key card with them, and they do try to be quiet, but Alfarin has the build of a baby elephant. It’s inevitable that he’ll trip over something while trying to tiptoe across the darkened room. As it turns out, it’s his axe that betrays him; he left the guitar case lying on the carpet. He goes ass over heels and crashes into the table. Elinor thinks he’s being dragged away by some freakish entity of doom and starts shrieking. Medusa flings herself out of the bed but manages to knee me between the legs in the process, and I am now in so much agony I think I must be dying again.
I’m definitely in the present. Pain doesn’t stay with a person this long unless it’s real.
Elinor goes next door for a shower and Medusa follows her. I think they want to gossip, although what they could possibly have to talk about is beyond my understanding. All Medusa has done is eat and sleep.
Alfarin squeezes himself into our shower, and I find some clean clothes for him out of the stuff the girls bought last night. He isn’t self-conscious about showing off his body, and he walks around the room, dripping wet, with a bath towel barely covering him. He has a tattoo of a longboat on his right shoulder. I think it will mean more to him now.
I’ve been thinking about getting inked, but I can’t decide on a design. I like those full-on sleeves. But I’d need to work out a bit more, because they’d look sort of stupid on skinny arms.
Once I’ve stopped my death, I’ll get both arms tattooed.
Medusa comes back to the room, grabs some clothes, and disappears again. Alfarin and I make small talk.
“You all right?”
“Yes, my friend.”
Alfarin and I are such good friends, we only need six words.
Medusa and Elinor come back into the room. They’re playing twins again. Both are dressed in gray skinny jeans and black T-shirts. They also have their hair tied back, although Medusa’s curls are already escaping and falling around her face.
No one mentions the imprints filled with dark gray powder that cover the white sheets where Medusa and I slept.
We are molting death.
The Viciseometer is in my hand. “I need the date, Elinor.”
She’s sweating and looking as green as I’ve ever seen her. Both of her hands are on the nape of her neck now. It’s almost as if she’s checking to be sure her head is still attached to her shoulders. Elinor squeezes Alfarin’s arm.
“Promise me ye will do exactly as I ask,” she says to him.
Alfarin kisses her hand. “I am your slave.”
“Ye know my date of death, Mitchell. It was my birthday: the fourth of September,” she says. Her voice is breaking; Elinor is terrified. Yet if anyone deserves a second chance at life, it’s Elinor, and if we can stop such a horrible death, that can only be a good thing. Right?
“What time do you want to take us back to, Elinor?”
“It was midafternoon. The boys had come back to tell us that the fire had reached Fleet Street, so try three o’clock.”
I don’t need reminding of the year: 1666. Devils who died in that year were all given a commemorative pin. It has an enameled image of The Devil with the year imprinted underneath.
The Viciseometer starts to whistle and vibrate long before I’ve finished inputting the coordinates for time travel. It can sense the expectation of everyone in the room. The snakes on the rim seem to connect with my stomach, which is squirming and writhing with nerves.
“You’ll have to imagine it, Elinor,” I say, “but don’t land us in the fire. We need to be hidden bystanders at first.”
“I understand,” she says, resting her slim fingers on the Viciseometer as it vibrates in my hand. Elinor gazes at Alfarin with tears in her eyes.
“This is what I was talking about earlier when ye and I were alone in t
he park,” she says strangely. “This is why we were meant to be friends in the Afterlife.”
Medusa and I look at each other. She is as confused as I am, which is a relief. I don’t want to be the only one out of the loop.
“Ye must hold onto someone now,” instructs Elinor. She screws up her face with concentration and the red surface of the Viciseometer face starts to swirl.
“Now.”
Screams, much louder than before, echo in the suffocating darkness. Something else is traveling with us. I sense the metallic smell of blood and hot, panting breath. It isn’t human. I can feel traces of something fine against my skin, like cobwebs, and then I feel fingers, groping at my body.
We arrive in a blanket of smoke. Everyone falls to their knees.
“There was something there, in the darkness!” cries Medusa. Her eyes are bulging in their sockets.
“What was that noise?” booms Alfarin. “It wasn’t human.”
“I felt it, something grabbed me.”
“I don’t want to do that again,” says Medusa. She rubs at her arms, as if trying to warm them up.
“Perhaps I didn’t do it right,” says Elinor, panic-stricken, and she takes her fingers away from the Viciseometer. Tiny reds sparks are spitting around the rim, but it doesn’t burn my hand.
“There was nothing wrong with the way you used it, El,” says Medusa supportively.
“Listen, everyone. The fire must be near,” says Alfarin. “I can hear the crackling from here.”
For the first time we take in our new surroundings. We have arrived in yet another rickety wooden tenement. The smell of piss makes my eyes water. Several burlap sacks are stacked up in a corner. Two mice lie dead on the ground.
“Are we in yet another toilet?” I ask.
“This is an old warehouse. Old man Blinkerton used to trade out of here. He’s moved to new premises down by the river,” replies Elinor. Her past has already become her present.
She walks to a wooden door, which is banging against the frame, and opens it a fraction.
“Do you live near here, El?”
Elinor nods. A glazed, almost drunken expression has spread across her freckled face.
“I haven’t seen our John or William in over three hundred years,” she sighs. “They’re just as I remember them.”
“You can see your brothers?” we all cry, rushing to her side.
We peer out of the crack. My eyes don’t immediately fall on the two kids fighting in the narrow street. Instead, they’re gripped by the blaze of tangerine flame that hovers in the skyline. It may be afternoon, but above the fire, the sky is black. Thick chunks of ash are falling like dirty snow.
“What would you like us to do, Mitchell?” asks Alfarin. “We are in your hands once more.”
“I think this one is going to be easy,” I reply confidently. “I think we just need to grab Elinor from wherever she is at this moment and get her out of that . . . that . . . is that thatched building your house, Elinor?”
“Hold on a second,” interrupts Medusa. “We aren’t really thinking this through properly. What happens when you rescue the living El? What happens to the version we already have? We can’t have two Elinors.”
I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this. I’m kicking myself for not bringing along the reference book on the Viciseometer and I’m mentally thumbing through its pages when a bomblike blast ricochets through the narrow cobbled street. The sound of screaming slices through the air. Medusa and Elinor are thrown off their feet as the wooden door disintegrates into matchsticks, sending lethal splinters flying through the air like daggers.
Alfarin takes the full force of the blast. His head smacks into the wall with a sickening thud.
“Alfarin!” screams Elinor. She crawls along the floorboards to where Alfarin is now lying unconscious. His axe is still in his hand.
Medusa and I rush over to our friend. He’s out cold. A pink lump the size of a plum is already forming on the side of his enormous head.
“What now, Mitchell?” screeches Medusa.
“Elinor, you stay with Alfarin. Medusa and I will go into your house and . . .” But I shut up because Elinor is absolutely freaking out.
“It has to be Alfarin!” she screams. “When the time comes, it has to be him!”
“What are you talking about?”
“It has to be him. He was the one. It’s all gone wrong.”
I have no idea what Elinor is screaming about and I don’t have time to find out. The fire’s crackling has been replaced by a roar. The inferno is coming closer by the second.
Medusa starts pulling at my arm. “We have to go now,” she urges me.
I hand Elinor the Viciseometer.
“You know how to use it if you have to get away.”
“It isn’t mine!” she cries, tears streaming down her soot-covered face.
“Didn’t stop me.”
We leave Alfarin and Elinor in the cramped warehouse; the sound of Elinor begging Alfarin to wake up disappears in the gusting hot wind. The two little boys have vanished into the thatched building, but we can hear them yelling from inside.
The scene is chaotic. People of all shapes and sizes are running in all directions. No one seems to know the way out of this labyrinth of flame. Just minutes ago the fire was on the horizon. Now it is only doors away. Wood and straw ignite quickly as if soaked in accelerant. The ash falling from the black, heavy sky sticks to my skin. It gets into my nostrils and throat. Medusa’s long eyelashes are coated, and her hair is now as gray as her jeans, aging her by fifty years.
We head into the pitiful house Elinor called home. We can hear her living voice, and it sends chills up my spine. If she sees us, she won’t know us.
Several adults burst through the entrance. They’re covered in black ash, but I get the impression they weren’t that clean to begin with. A woman with a dirty white cap on her head lurches forward. Greasy red strands of hair fall from her headpiece, and she tucks them behind her ears. Just the way our Elinor does.
Totally unprovoked, the woman slaps Medusa hard across the face. My best friend falls to the ground.
“Get ye out of my house, ye filthy whore!” screams the woman. “Did ye think ye could steal my belongings whilst the fire burns? Ye stinkin’ maggot.”
“Touch her again and it’ll be the last thing you do!” I yell, pushing the woman away. Medusa is sobbing on the ground and her pale skin is now shining bright pink, seared with the outline of short fingers. I pull her to her feet and shield her behind me.
“Stop yer screechin’, ye stupid bitch!” cries an older male with barely any teeth; those that do remain in his sore-covered mouth are stained yellow and brown. “Get the food in the cart before some other stinkin’ thief tries to take off with it.”
“Get the pigs,” grunts another male. He has a deformed arm, which hangs limply at his side. The adults ignore the screaming from upstairs.
“Elinor and two of the boys are up there!” I shout, but the adults ignore me. They’re grabbing pots and dirty, cracked plates and are loading up a wooden cart outside. The screams are getting louder by the second. A fat, bearded face pokes through the entrance.
“Bert, Jacob, the fire has reached the McDonalds’ house. The firemen pulled it down with old man McDonald and the little ’uns still inside,” he croaks. He coughs blood onto his arm. “Get yerselves out of here now. Head eastward, away from the wind.”
“What about the kids?” I yell as Bert, Jacob, and the old hag who slapped Medusa join the masses streaming away from the approaching roar.
“Get away from me, boy!” snarls the man with the deformed arm. He has a squealing piglet tucked under his armpit. He smells so bad I’m amazed the piglet hasn’t been knocked unconscious.
“Let them go,” sobs Medusa, pulling at my arm. “We’ll get El and the boys.”
The man with rotten teeth suddenly stops. “Boys, ye say? Are my boys up there?”
“And Elinor!” scr
eams Medusa. The pain and humiliation have passed. By the way her back teeth are clenched, I’m sure she’s going to punch someone soon.
“Girls are no use to me,” snarls the man. “Just another mouth to feed, but I’ll take my boys.”
Thick black smoke is starting to condense in the room. I can’t see the wooden staircase anymore. The living are coughing up the linings of their lungs, while Medusa and I are fighting the reflex to breathe. The screaming upstairs has stopped.
The man with rotten teeth yells out, “John, William, get yer backsides down here!” but no one comes. He hovers by a wooden chair with broken spindles and then runs out of the house.
“He left them!” screams Medusa. “They left their children to die in the fire.”
“Yeah, but we’re here!” I shout over the roaring and spitting firestorm, which has already reached us. “We need to do this now, Medusa.”
I run blindly up the stairs. The wooden boards are uneven and loose. I lose my footing before I’m even halfway up and slip down. Medusa runs past me, skipping up the steps two at a time as if she were weightless.
Terrified that the floor will give way with Medusa up there, I pull myself to my feet and clamber up after her. We can’t see our hands in front of our faces. The smoke is as black as coal and the heat’s intensity tells me that this building is already on fire.
Parts of the ceiling collapse with a thunderous roar. Flaming wood and thatch crash down to our left. There is a pitiful scream to our right as some of the dense smoke is sucked out of the newly created hole above our heads.
“Elinor!” screams Medusa. “Elinor, it’s us, we’re here to save you.”
“She won’t know who we are!” I cry back. “She hasn’t met us yet.”
A figure in a dirty white dress appears in a doorway.
“I cannot move our John or William,” says the living Elinor, choking. “Ye must help me.”
I run into the room. The two little boys we saw fighting earlier are huddled together in a corner. Their green eyes are as big as Brussels sprouts. I try to pick one up, but he starts slapping and hitting me. I drop him after he bites me on the shoulder. He gags and spits at the taste of my dead flesh.
