by Donna Hosie
“I am with you as always, my friend.”
Mitchell and Alfarin have their own language, an understanding. Like true friends. But at their words, the HBI agent who is leading the way suddenly stops and turns around. His stubby fingers flick back his jacket to reveal a handgun nestled in a black leather holster.
“I wouldn’t try anything silly if I were you, kiddos.” He sounds as thuggish as he looks, and I shrink away from him. He couldn’t kill us, of course, but a gunshot wound would still be agony.
“Oh, please, ye fool,” replies Elinor sharply. “Alfarin could kick yer ass with his eyes shut.”
“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’s voice continues to sound the lockdown alarm, and it’s so loud that it almost covers the sound of the real Septimus laughing behind me.
“Don’t mess with Team DEVIL, Roger,” he calls. “Their ingenuity and cunning have been known to impress even me, and as Caesar can testify, I am notoriously hard to please.”
This makes me feel better—until I notice that Septimus has maneuvered himself next to me as we walk into the darkness. I can’t help thinking it’s for my protection.
Tiny red lights begin illuminating the stone path as we make our way forward. The increase in gradient makes my thighs ache. We are traveling upward.
“Where are we going, Septimus?” calls Mitchell.
“To the security offices.”
“I thought level 1 was the highest floor in Hell.”
“This is an area that is out of bounds, Mitchell. We do not advertise its existence.”
“Am I in trouble?” I whisper.
“No, Miss Pallister,” replies Septimus firmly. “But a review of the security cameras in the master’s private chambers has revealed something we would like your input on. You have nothing to fear.”
“Septimus . . . that smell,” says Mitchell, and I’m reminded of Elinor’s reaction to it just a moment ago.
“I repeat, Mitchell, you have nothing to fear, not while I am with you.”
The stench is getting worse, though. I’ve never been able to break the habit of breathing—there are very few devils who can— and no matter how hard I try to stop, the rotten smell gets into my nose anyway. My eyes stream with the effort of trying to see in the darkness. For the first time in ages, I wish I were back in the steam and sweat of Hell’s kitchens. At least there, the aroma of fresh bread and roasting chicken didn’t make me gag.
What in Hell is causing that stench?
The illuminated lights on the floor turn sharply to the right and begin traveling up the wall beside me. I realize they’re marking out a large entrance. Sure enough, two of the HBI agents each push open a door in that very spot, and a flood of white light blinds us.
“Inside. Quickly,” commands the one named Roger.
I blink rapidly as my eyes become accustomed to the change. All of us have tears streaming down our cheeks—except Septimus, who isn’t blinking at all.
“A few words of caution before we enter the security briefing room, Team DEVIL,” he says. “It would be unwise to mention the smell, even though it is quite unbearable. It would be deemed rude, and trust me, you do not want to offend Perfidious.”
“Who is—”
But Septimus raises a hand to silence Alfarin.
“I will answer all questions once this exercise is over, Prince Alfarin, but I beg your indulgence. An item was stolen earlier from Sir’s private chambers—his bedroom, to be exact. It is critical, for a number of reasons that I will not divulge now, that this item is found and returned. Hell will remain in lockdown until The Devil’s property is back in his possession. Miss Pallister is wanted for questioning, not as a suspect, but because she may be able to assist in tracking the person we believe is the culprit.”
I nod, although my instincts are telling me to run as fast as I can, as far as I can.
“Your new friends may of course accompany you during the questioning, Miss Pallister, if that is your wish,” says Septimus kindly.
“I don’t want them to get into any trouble.” I sound like a four-year-old, but I’m terrified.
“We’re staying,” says Mitchell.
“Very well,” says Septimus. “Do not panic, and do not resist what is about to happen.” He directs his words to Mitchell and Alfarin. “As long as you obey, you are in no danger, you have my word.”
The bright light is suddenly extinguished. I feel hot hands on my arms, and I wrestle with them as I’m hustled forward.
“Get off me!” I scream. My fists are on autopilot and are fighting for all they’re worth.
“Don’t touch her!” yells Mitchell, and I hear someone grunt, as if they’ve been punched.
“Remember, do not resist,” calls Septimus. “Miss Pallister, please trust me.”
His voice is like a soothing balm. Although every instinct I possess is pushing at me to fight back—hard—I drag my fists back to my side.
We’re forced into a room with a long mahogany table in the center and a large mounted screen at the end. Telephones with rows of flashing red lights line the torchlit stone walls.
I gasp and stumble backward when I see what is standing in the corner of the room. It’s a gray-and-white wolf. Only it isn’t a wolf; it’s a man dressed in a wolf’s pelt. The skinned animal’s cranium is sitting on top of the man’s head, and its teeth are long, black and bared. A growling noise shudders through the air.
But it isn’t the wolf head that’s growling. It’s the man beneath it. I notice for the first time that unlike everyone else in the room, he has black irises.
“Team DEVIL,” drawls Septimus. “Allow me to introduce Perfidious, the leader of the Skin-Walkers.”
4. Perfidious
Stunned silence meets Septimus’s introduction. My throat constricts. I glance at Mitchell, Alfarin and Elinor, who are standing in a straight line a few yards away from me. Their movements are very subtle, but both boys edge forward a couple of inches, just enough to put themselves in front of Elinor, who is pulling at the back of her neck again. Mitchell looks over at me and jerks his head. He wants me to move closer to the group—the team—but Septimus stops me before I have a chance to react.
“Stay where you are, Miss Pallister,” he says very quietly.
I don’t want to look at Perfidious, but his presence is like a magnetic force. I’m drawn to it, but not in a way that makes me feel safe—far from it. Even without the bared black teeth and rumbling growl, I know he’s dangerous. There’s a distorted aura around him that I can actually see. It’s a shadow that swirls around his entire body, moving and twisting like smoke.
The team of HBI investigators is standing back, too, because they’re as scared as we are.
What have I gotten Mitchell, Alfarin and Elinor into?
Next to the large mounted screen is another door. It opens, and in walks a small, portly man with a big white beard and long white hair. He’s wearing a red suit, which is bulging at the seams, and I am instantly reminded of Santa Claus, albeit one with ruby-colored eyes.
“Thank you for all coming,” he says. He speaks with an accent that sounds Scottish, like that actor who played James Bond when I was alive. “My name is Sir Richard Baumwither, and I am the director of the HBI.”
He pauses and looks around the room as if expecting a round of applause. He doesn’t get one. Perfidious gives him a look of contempt that would unnerve the bravest of devils. The leader of the Skin-Walkers—whatever they are—looks like he wants nothing more than to bite Sir Richard Baumwither’s head off. Then Perfidious licks his lips with a black tongue, and I swear I see that same movement mirrored in the lupine skull resting on his head.
“Everyone take a seat,” commands Baumwither with an officious wave of his pudgy right hand. He either hasn’t registered the wolf-man’s reaction or he doesn’t care. He simply picks up a remote co
ntrol device and presses a square red button at the top. The mounted television flickers to life, and I can’t help gasping as a familiar image fills the screen.
I suddenly know why I’m here.
At the same moment I open my mouth, Perfidious throws back his head, and the animal pelt comes alive as a shocking scream rips through the room. A set of crystal glasses in the center of the table shatters into tiny fragments. Alfarin springs to his feet with his axe in his hands, but the blade is torn from his grip by some invisible force and goes spinning through the air. It thuds into the table, inches from Baumwither’s liver-spotted hands.
“I did not do that,” booms Alfarin as two HBI agents foolishly try to grab him. He flings one, and then the other, against the wall.
Mitchell and Elinor are now standing again with fists clenched, ready to hit anyone who comes near their friend. I suddenly notice that I’m doing the same thing, and for a split second the shock of this realization makes me forget the image on the screen. I’ve always had to defend myself, but this might be the first time in my existence that I’ve had the instinct to physically protect someone else.
Then Perfidious’s continuous howling brings me back to reality. He ignores the chaos in the room, and the shadowy aura surrounding him stretches outward, like groping fingers. It claws at the screen, and I realize it’s the aura that’s howling in anger, and not Perfidious or the gaping wolf head he’s wearing.
I want to howl right along with it, because there is no question in my mind that the face leering down at me from the TV is the same face I see in my nightmares.
It’s my mom’s husband, my stepfather. His name is Rory Hunter. And he’s the reason I’m dead.
The aura’s howl reaches a fever pitch, and Baumwither smacks his hand on the table.
“That is enough, Perfidious!” shouts Baumwither. “Kindly recall that you’re here because I have personally invited you into the master’s inner sanctum. So please show some decorum.”
The shadow stops clawing at my stepfather’s image and slinks back toward Perfidious. It covers him in darkness, the antithesis of the light that I saw around Mitchell, Alfarin and Elinor that night outside my house.
The night I thought I was rid of Rory Hunter for good.
“Sir Richard,” says Septimus calmly, “perhaps you could explain to Miss Pallister why she has been brought here? Despite her forty years in Hell, I would like to remind all of you”—Septimus pauses to glance around the room at everyone, including Perfidious—“that she is sixteen years of age in mortal terms, and this must be quite overwhelming for her.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and I slowly sit down again. The palms of my hands are soaked with sweat. All I can think about is the inevitable bad dream that will invade my sleep tonight. I have a certain amount of control over what I do when I’m awake, but I’m a slave to my nightmares. Seeing Rory again after all this time is a brutal shock. It’s been so long, and yet not long enough. I already know that tonight I’ll fall asleep, and then I’ll dream, and then I’ll scream, and then I’ll wake up everyone in the dorm, which will result in a new vat of crap and taunts from them. My nightmares are the reason Patty and the other girls started calling me an animal in the first place.
Mitchell walks across the room and sits next to me.
“We’re here, Medusa,” he whispers. “We won’t let them hurt you.”
I want to believe him.
“I take it by your reaction that you recognize this man, Miss Pallister,” says Baumwither. His chubby, pale fingers are interlocked and resting atop his enormous chest.
I nod, and I feel light hands on my shoulders. Elinor has also crossed the floor and is now standing directly behind me. She is so kind that I feel like I’m contaminating her just by being near her.
“This meeting is being recorded,” says Baumwither, and he points to four cameras, high up in each corner of the room. “So if you could verbalize your answers, it will save having to repeat the question now, or at a later date.”
His ruby eyes are shining, but there’s no warmth there. Not like what I see in Septimus’s eyes, or Team DEVIL’s. Baumwither doesn’t remind me of Santa Claus anymore. Now he reminds me of a judge in a courtroom. I keep expecting him to condemn me to death, but he can’t because I’m already there.
And it’s his fault, I think, flicking my eyes to the screen.
“The man is Rory Hunter. He was my stepfather,” I reply.
“Was your stepfather?” asks Baumwither. “According to our records, he still is. At the time of his death, on the eighteenth of June, 1967, he was still married to your mother, Olivia Alice Pallister, was he not?”
I nod. Baumwither raises a bushy white eyebrow. “Yes,” I say aloud.
“Then he remains your stepfather.”
“Why does it matter?” demands Mitchell. “You still haven’t told Medusa why she’s here.”
“Miss Pallister is here,” replies Baumwither, “because Mr. Hunter is now the chief suspect in a theft that took place earlier today.”
“But I haven’t seen him since . . . since my mom . . . since he and she . . .”
I can’t seem to get the words out, but I recall every detail of that evening with terrible vividness. I can remember the sound of the gunshot, and racing down the stairs. I can remember the blood all over my mom’s hands. There was so much blood that at first, I thought it was my mom who was shot. Then two medics were there. They just appeared out of nowhere. I ran out to the porch, and Jancye, a neighbor, came and helped me. I was covered in blood, too. It must have come from my mom’s shirt when I hugged her, because I didn’t go near Rory’s body.
I hate blood.
I hate him.
Septimus turns to one of the HBI agents. “Would you get Miss Pallister some water, please?”
“Do I look like an assistant?” replies the investigator.
“It wasn’t actually a request.” Septimus’s eyes narrow as he rises to his full height.
The investigator mutters something under his breath but leaves the interrogation room.
“Have you seen your stepfather at all in the forty years you’ve resided in Hell?” asks Baumwither.
“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 watchin
g 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.”
