by Donna Hosie
“And he was her stepfather?” asks Elinor.
I nod furiously. “She told me it was her stepfather. Medusa has gone back to do something connected to him.”
“But where?” demands Alfarin. “Where has Medusa gone? Time is nothing without the destination. We have to see the place she has traveled to in the red—”
“I know, Alfarin!” I interrupt. “I know we have to see it in order to travel to it.”
“Has she ever said anything about her mother, or where she used to live?” pleads Elinor; she is clawing at my arm.
But I can’t remember. My mind is like a blanket of pale-gray fog. I try to think back to past conversations with Medusa, but I can’t even remember what her voice sounds like. I try to grasp it in my head, but it has turned to bloodred sand. It’s slipping through the cracks in time we’ve opened.
“Let’s try the bridge first,” I say, wiping away the beads of sweat that have gathered around my top lip.
“But this date in the Viciseometer isn’t the date of her death!” cries Elinor.
“I know!” I yell. I immediately regret shouting as Elinor blanches and Alfarin’s face turns to thunder. “I’m sorry, Elinor, I’m sorry.” I hold her trembling hands in mine. “But we have to start somewhere. We will find her. I promise you, we will get Medusa back.”
Tears cascade down Elinor’s freckled cheeks. I feel more responsible for her than ever. How could I have let Medusa go?
Why did she let me go?
I do not touch the red needle. It hangs on its chain like a delicate pendulum as I imagine standing on the Golden Gate Bridge. The red face begins to glow and spark.
“Hold on to someone,” I say, but I don’t need to. Alfarin, Elinor, and I have been holding each other since Medusa left us.
Our flight through time is hot but quiet. No screaming or wailing of the dead accompanies us. Just a haze of pink in the darkness, like the seconds before a sunrise. The Skin-Walkers have gone.
We arrive on the bridge next to one of the colossal towers. Up close, it looks more orange than red. A steady stream of traffic thunders past: Buicks; Pontiacs; and my all-time favorite, the Chevrolet Camaro. Classic muscle cars.
But I only want Medusa.
“Can you see her anywhere?” I yell, pulling out of Alfarin’s and Elinor’s grip. I run to the edge and look along it and then down into the water. The futility of our presence is laid bare by the sheer scale of this bridge. It’s so long, it’s impossible to see the full length. Medusa could be here right now and we wouldn’t see her unless we used the Viciseometer to travel along every inch of it.
I look along the strait to the Pacific Ocean. Fingers of fog are already starting to grope inward as the sun sets. The fog is coming to claim the bridge, and us with it.
Elinor is running up and down, screaming Medusa’s name. I try a different tack and start yelling for Melissa Pallister.
But my raggedy doll isn’t here. This wasn’t her time.
“Should we try the other side, or the middle of the bridge?” asks Alfarin. His voice is steady and calm. His blue eyes are narrowed with intense concentration.
“I don’t think she’s here, Alfarin,” I reply as Elinor continues to scream. “We could scan every inch and we wouldn’t find her.”
“There’s something in the water!” cries Elinor, and Alfarin and I rush to where Elinor is pointing down into the murky depths. Something bobs in the froth, hundreds of feet below.
“It’s just a seal,” says Alfarin, and he wraps his arms around Elinor, who collapses sobbing into his arms.
I always considered Medusa my best friend, and myself hers. I never really gave much thought to anyone else’s relationship with her, even though the four of us are inseparable. But Elinor was like the sister Medusa never had, and Alfarin was like a brother. We were a family.
Medusa has been gone just minutes and already I’m referring to her in the past tense. Is this how those who are alive move on without those who’ve died, I wonder? Is it that easy? One minute you’re there, the next you’re gone. A memory. A photo. A ghostly imprint.
Medusa is already dead. The living won’t mourn her passing again. Will the bustling kitchens in Hell notice one departure among the steam and noise?
Well, screw them all, because I will. If I have to travel along every inch of this bridge, this city, this world, I will find Medusa. I will stop her from doing whatever it is she couldn’t tell us she was planning to do. I will not let the Skin-Walkers find her. She isn’t theirs to take.
My cell phone vibrates and beeps. It’s Alfarin who hears the incoming text. I’m too busy trying to find Medusa’s voice. I pull out the cell phone—it’s glowing red.
“Do ye think that’s her?” asks Elinor.
I don’t have to look to know who it is, because I can hear his voice in my head instead of the one I really want. I just don’t understand how. We’re forty years in the past and I won’t be born for decades. My life and death are still to come.
So how does Septimus know we’re in trouble?
23. The Other Thief
go back
Another two-word text. I show the message to Alfarin and Elinor. They guessed it was from Septimus as soon as they saw me pull the glowing cell phone out of my backpack.
“Go back,” repeats Alfarin. “Lord Septimus is asking us to go back to Hell?”
“We can’t . . . leave without . . . Medusa,” says Elinor. She has finished sobbing, but her words are punctuated by hiccups.
“Try holding your breath,” suggests Alfarin rather unhelpfully. I make a WTF face at him.
Alfarin gets it. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I forgot.”
I grip the cell phone in my hand. I came close to calling Septimus once before, and our situation has become even more hopeless. Yet I hold back once more. I don’t even scan my directory for his number.
“Why do you think Septimus said go back instead of come back?” I ask Alfarin.
“It has fewer letters?” he replies without a hint of irony.
I laugh. It’s completely inappropriate, but in normal circumstances that’s exactly why Septimus would have done it.
“Go back . . . go back,” I mutter to myself. I’m searching for clues in the six characters. Septimus enjoys being cunning in a way that’s almost Machiavellian.
My eyes follow a fine-looking 1965 Chevy Nova. The driver stares at me glassy-eyed as he takes a drag on a long cigarette. He finishes crossing the bridge and heads toward the park we just exited, in a cloud of black exhaust.
I slap my forehead. The park. That’s it.
“Go back, Septimus wants us to go back!” I yell.
“We knew that, Mitchell,” says Elinor. The whites of her eyes are as red as her hair.
“Hold on, quickly, we’re going back to the park.”
“Do ye think Medusa has come back?”
I shake my head. “No, but I bet you anything Septimus is there.”
Elinor suddenly lets go and both hands grasp her neck.
“Ye cannot take us back, Mitchell. Septimus may have the HBI with him. We’ll be arrested and locked up and then we will never find Medusa.”
“Elinor.” I try to keep my voice as calm as possible, even though I’m tempted to just grab her in a headlock and take her by force. “Please, Elinor. I am asking you to trust me. I know Septimus. He wouldn’t betray us.”
“How can ye say that? Ye have only been dead for four years, Mitchell. You forget we are in Hell and there are different rules for us.”
“What if Lord Septimus can help us find Medusa?” asks Alfarin.
“Exactly.”
Elinor transfers her gaze to Alfarin. “Do ye think we should go back to the park?”
He nods. “I trust Mitchell.”
It doesn’t bother me that Elinor believes in Alfarin more than in me—not much, anyway. They have an impenetrable bond now. I just want to keep us together. I need to see the park in the red face of the Viciseomete
r. I fix my mind on the tree with the tusklike boughs because that seems as good a place as any to go back to. I slap Alfarin on the back in a show of thanks, and he reciprocates and almost sends me tumbling to another doom over the edge of the bridge.
Elinor is muttering under her breath. I only catch every third or fourth word, but it sounds as if she’s praying.
“Now.”
A reddish-black mist swallows us whole. As before, there are no screams in the darkness. I can feel flames tickling at my flesh, but they aren’t hot. They’re light and wispy, like feathers. For the first time, I want the gnashing of teeth, because it would mean the Skin-Walkers were back and not tearing at my Medusa in another time.
The three of us land on our feet. Just above our heads is the couple from before. They’re so busy getting it on that they don’t notice us materializing out of nowhere. I doubt they would have noticed even if we’d landed on top of them.
“No Skin-Walkers again,” says Alfarin quietly, with a sideways glance at Elinor.
“Do ye think that means they already have her?”
Alfarin says nothing; he’s looking beyond me with his eyes wide open like blue-and-white china saucers.
“Lord Septimus!” he cries, and he immediately goes down on bended knee with his axe clasped between his hands.
I spin around and see my boss striding across the patchy yellow grass. Septimus appears a foot taller than I remember, long and thin and achingly cool in a black pinstriped suit and red shirt.
I start walking backward. I can feel my duplicitous tongue swelling in my mouth. I want to hug him and run from him at the same time. Has he always looked this fierce? His black skin is glistening, and the sun is reflecting off the golden hoops that hang from his ears.
I wait for the crooked white teeth to appear as characters in his enormous grin, but they stay hidden. Panic forces every swear word I know to come tumbling out of my mouth as I continue to stumble backward, away from the most important civil servant in Hell—a former Roman general who intends to incite a million tortured, tired souls in Hell to rise up and create an army.
What was I thinking by coming back here?
Septimus is now just feet away from me. His eyes are boring into mine. I cower in front of him as I wait for the roar, the condemnation, the absolute disappointment as time finally catches up with me and my betrayal.
“I don’t think I have ever seen any devil go to quite this amount of effort to change the color of his eyes.”
“What?”
“Although I have to say your particular brand of blush quite suited someone with your skin coloring,” continues Septimus, gazing around the park. “Not as good as mine, of course. Black is far superior. Everything goes with black.”
“What?”
“Come now, Mitchell, is that the best you can do? You disappoint me. Earth has made you monosyllabic.”
“What?”
Septimus turns to Alfarin. In my haste to move backward, I trip over a tree root and sprawl on the ground. Elinor appears to have passed out.
“So, son of Hlif, son of Dobin, I take it the manner of your death pleased you? I say that because you are still standing here with The Devil’s intern.”
“Lord Septimus, I could not have chosen a more honorable way to cease and pass over.”
Septimus finally smiles as he turns to Elinor. His outstretched hand pulls her to her feet. I swear I hear a sizzle, like frying bacon, as their skin connects. The sun is setting behind Septimus’s head, which gives him the appearance of being on fire.
“Your discretion and faith in others, Miss Powell, is an inspiration to us all. I trust it was not too traumatic to finally see the end come to pass?”
“No, sir,” replies Elinor faintly. “I think it was more upsetting for Mitchell than anyone.”
My boss turns to me. At this point I’m waiting for the ground to split open and swallow me whole.
“And what of your death, Mitchell? Is your demise the next path in time to be challenged?”
“Medusa has gone missing. We all came back here, but then she took the Viciseometer and traveled on somewhere alone.”
“And yet she left you with Hell’s timepiece?” asks Septimus in his deep southern drawl.
“Medusa couldn’t have been holding it when she pressed the red button. She didn’t want to leave us stranded without it.”
“So Miss Pallister intended not to return?”
“Can you help us find her?” I’m back on my feet, face to face with Septimus. His forehead wrinkles into a frown. His dark-brown eyes have a thin red ring around the irises. I guess the heat takes longer to leave when you’ve been dead for two thousand years.
“No, I cannot,” replies Septimus, and he doesn’t flinch, even when Elinor starts to sob once more.
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“This is your doing, Mitchell,” replies Septimus slowly, “and you must fix it.”
“Do you know where Medusa is?”
“It would not matter if I did, Mitchell.”
“Is this my punishment for stealing the Viciseometer?” I shout. “Is this how it works? Instead of punishing me, you retaliate against Medusa?”
“Medusa made her choice to leave, Mitchell.”
“She wasn’t thinking straight,” I cry, “and I was the one who forced her to come here. I told her it was her turn. I forced her to take the Viciseometer; she even told me she wasn’t ready.”
“Please, Mr. Septimus, sir,” begs Elinor. “Please help us find Medusa. The Skin-Walkers stopped chasing us once Medusa was gone. We think they have gone after her.”
Septimus places his hands in his pockets, throws his head back, and starts to stroll around. The panic I felt before is turning into anger and loathing with every nonchalant step he takes. How can he be so calm when Medusa is in so much danger? I thought he liked her.
“Let me ask you a question, Miss Powell,” says Septimus. “At what point do you believe a person—either living or passed on—becomes liable for their actions?”
“We are all liable for our actions, sir,” replies Elinor, “but that does not mean we don’t go to the aid of a loved one when they need it.”
“But your paths are now destined for another direction,” says Septimus softly.
“You guessed I was going to take the Viciseometer, didn’t you?”
Septimus laughs, but his laughter is cold. “I did not guess, Mitchell. I knew. I have known for six months.”
“How?” asks Alfarin.
I answer for him. “Paris.”
“Indeed.”
Elinor looks confused, so I explain further. “Six months ago, Septimus had to deal with a security breach. It was in one of the red files we keep in the safe. It was me—us. When you and Medusa took us back to Paris, we were seen.”
Alfarin is massaging his temples. “Is this the paradox you were explaining, my friend? We were in two places at once?”
I nod. “Six months ago, the four of us were hanging out at your cousin Thomason’s—and we were also splashing around in a fountain next to the Eiffel Tower.”
“So this is my fault?” gasps Elinor. “Mine and Medusa’s?”
“Miss Powell,” says Septimus, “almost everything that your Team DEVIL has done to date since you all—rather cleverly, I might add—tricked your way out of Hell has been determined by time. Your pasts, presents, and futures are inextricably linked in ways you haven’t even seen yet.”
“You said almost everything.”
Septimus sighs. “Miss Pallister’s actions today were . . . unexpected.”
“Is that why you won’t help us?” I ask. “Because you don’t know Medusa’s future anymore?”
“That is one reason.”
“How did you find us, Lord Septimus?” asks Alfarin. “Are there other ways to travel through time?”
Septimus reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a white silk handkerchief. A round object is hidden in its folds.
“Let’s just say my intern is not the only thief in Hell.”
Carefully, Septimus peels back the corners of the silk. It ripples like a quick-moving cloud. Elinor gasps.
“That’s another Viciseometer.”
I look down at the timepiece Septimus is now holding in his outstretched palm. Unlike my version, which is made of burnished gold, this new one is forged from the brightest silver. It’s almost white. The face displayed in Septimus’s hand is the same as our red one; it shows the days and months of the year in Latin script. The exception is that it’s colored like the densest sapphire, and instead of slithering snakes forming the numbers for the year, Septimus’s Viciseometer is edged with glittering thread that marks the numbers zero to nine.
“Where did you get that?” I ask.
“Where do you think, Mitchell?”
“Up There,” reply Alfarin and Elinor together.
“Why? How?”
Ignoring me, Septimus carefully starts inputting time with a thin blue needle. I’m sure I can hear the tinkling of tiny bells as the watch starts to vibrate. The Viciseometer in my pocket is bouncing around as if it’s on a spring, as if it’s trying to get to the one in Septimus’s hand.
“Did you honestly believe you were the only person in history who has desired to change his death, Mitchell?” asks Septimus kindly. “Did you really think you were the first to actually try it?”
“You’ve known all this time.” I’m not asking a question; it’s a statement of fact.
“And now, speaking of time, this is the moment when I must leave you all. Sir will be wondering where I have gone off to.”
“Help us find Medusa,” I beg.
“I believe Washington, DC, is your next stop,” replies Septimus. He nods to Alfarin and Elinor. “Miss Powell, Prince Alfarin, be wise with your counsel until we see each other again.” Septimus turns to me and smiles. “Life isn’t easy or fair, Mitchell, and neither is death. Remember that when it is time to choose.”
“Don’t go!” I shout, but with a blinding, air-sucking flash, Septimus is gone. The patch of grass where he was standing is charred black.
