The Devil's Intern (17 page)

Why doesn’t she hate us? We’re the reason she is dead. And all this time she knew.

Elinor knew.

I pull off my soaking-wet sneakers, socks, and jeans. My T-shirt remains in 1666, incinerated along with everything else in that house, that street, that city. The rubber soles of my Converses have melted. Every inch of my skin is pulsing with pain.

“We’ll need some salve for your burns, Mitchell,” sniffles Medusa. She wipes her eyes with the tissues, blows her nose, and stands up.

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t bother. I remove myself from the shower and stand in dripping-wet boxer shorts on the cold tiled floor. Medusa starts to pat me down with a fluffy white towel.

“You were both so incredibly brave,” she says quietly. Medusa bites down on her bottom lip, but she can’t stop the tears from coming again.

“We killed her.”

Medusa shakes her head vehemently. “You saved her.”

“I killed her,” says Alfarin. He is still smoldering under the water. He looks waxy, like a mannequin. His eyes are red and swollen. The black pupils have completely disappeared.

“You saved her!”
shouts Medusa. “Don’t either of you realize what you’ve done for her?”

I smash my fist into the door. Screaming, with my burned lungs bleeding into my mouth, I pound the door again and again and again. I need to feel more pain on the outside. The burns are not enough. I have to be consumed by it. It’s the only way I can get rid of the agony in my head.

When things get tough, the living will often complain that they wish they were dead. How stupid and naïve can you get? Do you think you can get rid of all the crap in your life by ending it? There is no escape, not ever. The pain and sins in your head will stay with you for all eternity, and now I am cursed with the death of one of my best friends. For the rest of my existence I will carry the burden that my selfishness caused Elinor to die. I didn’t strike the blow across her throat, but I was the reason the axe was there in the first place.

I was right all along. I’m a danger to them, and I should have had the balls to do this alone.

Medusa is pulling me into the main bedroom. “Mitchell’s lost it,” she tells Elinor.

“Ye stay with him in here,” says Elinor. “I’ll see to Alfarin.”

I feel Medusa’s rough fingertips against the split skin of my knuckles. Then her fingers stroke my face.

“You promised you wouldn’t leave me,” she says quietly. “So come back to me. Come back to me, Mitchell.”

“I’m evil, Medusa.”

“You’re anything but, Mitchell. You are the most loyal person I know. You would do anything for your friends—anything.”

Her skinny arms wrap around me and I let my head fall onto her shoulder. Another oath is secretly sworn, and I swear it on Elinor’s blood because I will not risk any hurt to the one person I love more than anything in this world or the next.

My death is coming, and then this will be over.

Medusa and Elinor bought clean underwear for Alfarin and me on that first night in New York. The ridiculousness of it makes me want to laugh. Only girls would think like that. We’ve seen two of our deaths—directly caused one of them—but the world will be okay because I’m wearing new boxer shorts.

They should meet my mother. They’d all get on like a house on fire.

No, I can’t ever make that joke again. Houses and fire and death—damn, I can’t shake the sound of that axe. It whistled through the smoke. It was singing as it sliced through Elinor’s neck.

The girls want to talk about what has happened, so they’ve called a meeting of Team DEVIL. Elinor feels she has to explain herself, but she doesn’t seem to understand that I just want to forget that any of it happened. I certainly don’t want to relive it. I’m sorely tempted to use the Viciseometer and just leave for Washington right now.

The only thing stopping me is the thought of leaving the others stranded here in this hotel room, in this city, in this world. I need a plan, but my head is on the verge of exploding with guilt. There’s no room for planning, not at the moment.

Medusa is wrong; I’m a coward. I should have done this without them, but I was scared. I thought I needed help. The reality is way
different. Medusa, Alfarin, and Elinor needed saving from me and my arrogance and my fears.

Medusa and Elinor are pacing in the bedroom. I’m dressed, sore from the burns, and sitting on the edge of the bed, trying not to move too quickly. You’d think my skin would be used to fire after four years in Hell, but 1666 was an inferno of pain that most devils never have to experience. Alfarin is in the bathroom; he’s been in there for hours. When he comes out we all gasp because he’s shaved off his beard. From the state of his mutilated face, you’d think he’d used his axe. He has bits of toilet tissue stuck to nicks all over his chin and cheeks.

He looks so ridiculous that the girls start laughing.

I just want to punch him.

I hate myself for thinking it, but I’m so angry with him right now that I want to destroy him. We could have done something differently. We
should
have done something differently. I told Elinor we would go back and drag her out when we first saw her, but she won’t have it. She says she’ll explain why at the meeting.

Why are Alfarin and Elinor so stubbornly refusing to change their deaths? I just don’t get it. Not everyone gets a second chance. This is a huge opportunity to right wrongs—and they’re passing it up.

Medusa hands me three white pills and a glass of water. It’s medicine for the living, so we both know it won’t work, but I appreciate the gesture. Her fingers run through my short hair, but she stops when I flinch.

“When El has said what she needs to say, I’ll go out and buy some aloe vera. It’s topical, so it might actually help,” says Medusa softly.

“Thank you.” I have no idea who or what aloe vera is, but I know Medusa is just trying to help.

The girls have their arms around each other and their heads are resting on each other’s shoulders.

No chance of Alfarin and me doing that anytime soon. We can’t even look at each other.

Elinor is nervous; she’s pawing at the back of her neck as she always does; only now I know why.

“I know that ye all hate me right now,” she begins, “but now I’ve seen how it all happened, I just want to thank ye both . . .” She trails off, her green eyes filling with tears. Now that the crisis is over, Elinor is finally going to lose it. She turns to Medusa and starts to wring her hands; she looks panic-stricken, but I couldn’t hate sweet, simple Elinor if my return to life depended on it.

“We don’t hate you, Elinor,” I say dully. “Do you really think there’s anything you can do that would make any of us hate you?”

“You always said it was fate that brought us together,” says Medusa, hugging Elinor tightly.

“I knew I would find you all eventually,” sobs Elinor. “It took me years to find Alfarin in Hell, but of course he didn’t know who I was because he hadn’t seen my death yet. And then I had to wait centuries for you two to arrive, but I checked the logs every day. When Medusa arrived, I didn’t say hello until Mitchell got there, because it needed to be the four of us . . . and three seemed . . . three seemed so uneven. . . .”

So far, Alfarin has said nothing. His eyes are fixed firmly on the carpet. He looks as if he’s zoned out.

“We can still change your death, Elinor,” I start, but he interrupts me.

“No, we cannot,” he says slowly. His deep voice echoes around the room.

“Yes, we can,” I argue. “Medusa and I can go back and drag Elinor out when we first see her. I’ve already said this to her.”

“And what of her brothers?”

“I don’t know, I’ll throw them out of the window myself. Look, you weren’t there, Alfarin. You were lying unconscious in some piss-drenched warehouse. You didn’t see what happened. I’m telling you we can change this.”

“Alfarin is right, Mitchell,” says Elinor. “He understands. If ye
stop my death, then it will be my brothers who die instead. Ye tried to pick them up, and ye couldn’t hold on to them. They were raised in the slums. They could fight before they could talk. Ye would not have been able to get them out.”

“Well, guess what, your brothers aren’t my best friends!” I shout back. “So if it’s a choice between their lives and yours, well, sue me for wanting to save yours.”

“But the choice is mine,” says Elinor gently.

The bile and heat of pure anger are now swirling inside me. I can’t keep on punching windows and doors, but I swear it’s the only way I can release my frustration.

“Why won’t you let me help you, Elinor?” I cry. “What was the point of coming if you won’t let me help you? When we passed through administration, you punched me in the face, you were so pissed, and now that we’re here, now that I know how to stop your death, you won’t let me.”

“I didn’t want ye to stop my death, Mitchell!” cries Elinor. Alfarin steps in front of her and glares at me. “I knew this was the moment when I would die, and I needed to make sure Alfarin knew what to do. I didn’t want to burn slowly, Mitchell. I didn’t want to die in agony. I wanted it to be quick. Ye said yerself in the house that ye couldn’t stop it. Alfarin saved me. You saved me.”

“We killed you!”
I roar back.

“Do not raise your voice to her again,” warns Alfarin.

“Or what? Are you going to cut my head off, too?”

Alfarin pushes me; I push him back. We start jabbing at each other, but the first punch is mine. His chin is like hot steel, but I don’t care. The girls start shrieking as Alfarin and I grapple and fall to the floor. I throw punches and kicks, but I have no idea what I’m connecting with because everything feels like smashing into a solid wall. I take several blows to my stomach, and it feels as if my gut is going to shoot out of my mouth with the force.

The writing table and chair are sent flying across the room. A lamp falls on Alfarin’s head. My body feels as if it has been flayed
with burning whips, but the pain is a motivator. I want to pummel Alfarin’s head into the carpet until he sees stars.

Medusa and Elinor are screaming at us to stop fighting. They both try to pull us apart, and our blows have to be aimed around them. I start swinging at thin air. So does Alfarin. There is wet stuff dripping from my lips. My dead blood tastes really salty, like concentrated seawater. No wonder Elinor’s brother spat me out.

I know Elinor is right. If we had saved her, her brothers would have died instead. We wouldn’t have been able to get all three of them out. That kid was like a Hell-cat in the way he punched and kicked. Knowing that I’m wrong about saving Elinor just fuels my anger.

I don’t know if Alfarin is seeing stars yet, but I’m seeing planets. I fall to my knees as the room starts spinning. Alfarin cuffs me and knocks me over. I fall onto the open guitar case. I grab for the axe and cry from the depths of my soul as I swing it low. The blade connects with the carved leg of one of the armchairs. Elinor has admired it from the beginning of our stay, claiming it’s a Queen Anne chair. Well, the only Queen Anne I know was beheaded by Henry “Chopper” VIII, and now that I have this axe in my hands, I feel like doing some chopping of my own. I’ll slice through everything in the room if that’s what it takes to make sense of all this.

“Stop it, Mitchell, stop it!” screams Medusa.

“Put down my axe!” cries Alfarin, and he grabs the Viciseometer from the one table in the room that hasn’t toppled over. He places it on the floor, underneath his boot. “Put down my axe or I will stamp on this and destroy it forever.”

It’s a face-off. I clamber to my feet with my swollen lip oozing thick blood down my chin. The axe is still clenched in my hands.

Alfarin looks puffy and sweaty, and several of his shaving nicks are also oozing with thick blood. He’s trying to balance on one foot, and he’s wobbling like a mound of pink jelly.

A snort escapes from my nose, which is very painful; I think the lining of my nostrils is burned as well.

The ends of Alfarin’s mouth start to turn up. I try not to catch his eye because I don’t want to laugh; I want to cause him extreme pain.

Now his arms are flapping like windmills. If he doesn’t watch out, it’ll be his enormous stomach that crushes the Viciseometer, not his foot.

“I’ll put down your axe if you step away from the Viciseometer.” I try to look tough, but now my throat has gone into spasms. It’s like trying not to laugh in math class. You can’t help it. It’s a hidden reflex designed to screw you over.

“I accept your surrender,” says Alfarin, and he promptly falls down.

I pass the axe to Medusa and she almost drops it. That treacherous weapon is seriously heavy. Elinor scampers across the room, picks up the Viciseometer, and slips it into her back pocket.

“It wasn’t a surrender,” I say, walking over to Alfarin. “It’s a truce. A cessation in hostilities.”

He holds out a plate-sized hand. I take it. I try to pull him up, but I don’t have the strength of a forklift.

“You fight well, Mitchell,” he says. “You almost connected at one point.”

“Dude, I totally got you at least three times.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I lie. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“No. I’m trying to rescue your manhood in the sight of the women. In truth, it was like being licked by puppies.”

“Murderer.”

“Girl.”

“Want some food? Room service does an awesome BLT.”

“Sounds like a plan, my friend.”

The girls are staring openmouthed at the pair of us, but this is how guys do it. We get mad, we fight, and we’re friends again. I
instantly feel better for having landed a few punches on Alfarin’s body, even if I’ve shattered every bone in my right hand doing so.

Two deaths down and nothing has changed. I’m still angry at my own failures and worried sick about what’s to come. I’m sitting on the floor with Medusa’s back to my chest, the remote control in her hand. She wasn’t too impressed by my suggestion that she feed me. In fact, she told me where I should shove my BLT and fries, which would be totally gross and unhygienic. A vibrating ringtone shrills from the pile of muddy clothes we threw in a corner after coming back from the year 970.