The Devil's Intern (22 page)

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.

I start swearing. I get louder and louder, and eventually even the couple making out in the tree stop what they’re doing and yell at me to peace out.

“At least the great Lord Septimus hasn’t informed the HBI,” says Alfarin.

“What are we going to do, Mitchell?” asks Elinor.

I gaze into the red face of my Viciseometer, willing it to help me in some way. Yet it sits benignly between my clenched fingers.

A million thoughts are racing through my head like a fast-moving film. I see Medusa in all of them.

“We have to go back to Hell,” I announce. Alfarin and Elinor immediately start remonstrating, but I shout at them to let me finish.

“We’re going back to Hell for Medusa’s record. We’ll break into devil resources, get her file, and come straight back here again. Even if we can’t find anything on the eighteenth of June, 1967, we’ll still have addresses, names of people she was associated with . . .”

“Including the stepfather,” adds Alfarin knowingly.

“Exactly.”

“Give me the Viciseometer, Mitchell,” demands Elinor. “I’ll take us back to devil resources. I worked there for decades as a filing clerk after the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918.”

“Remember, we’re looking for Melissa Pallister, born in 1951,
died on the twenty-fifth of June, 1967,” I say urgently. “As soon as we have the file, we come back here.”

As Elinor moves the red needle around both faces of the Viciseometer, Alfarin takes me aside.

“Do you think we will find her?” he asks.

I can see the oozing pulp of mashed strawberries on my sneakers. The metaphor is not lost on me.

“I won’t rest until we do.”

It feels as if we’ve landed in a furnace. And we have. The biggest oven most of the living will ever know—once they’re dead, that is.

We are back in Hell.

Elinor has taken us deep into the heart of the devil resources department. It is spread over levels 211 to 278 and contains the devil resources details of every dead person now residing in the overpopulated Underworld.

Bright-red, sticky-looking letters displaying the number 267 are stamped on the glistening rock walls. Brilliant, resourceful Elinor has taken us straight to the section containing all the surnames beginning with the letter
P
.

The files are in towering black cabinets. All have a smiling picture of The Devil on them.

“Should we spread out?” asks Alfarin.

“Yeah,” I reply, blinking as my eyes stream from the hot air blowing through the labyrinth of dark corridors. “We’ll stay close to each other, though. We’ll take one row each, side by side. Holler if you find the last name Pallister.”

We spread out and start searching. You’d think someone whose surname begins with
Pa
would be quick to find, but we walk for what seems like hours up and down the rows. It takes me ten minutes to get beyond all the dead Paddocks.

Four have become three, and Team DEVIL feels unstable with
one of its members missing. I keep expecting a puny little fist to punch me, or mad corkscrew curls to brush against my face. I want to hear her voice mocking me.

I miss my friend. I miss her so much it’s like a constant stabbing pain in my chest.

As I search the names written on the dusty black cabinets, images of Medusa being tortured by the Skin-Walkers start to flicker into my head. I can’t help it. The more I try not to think about them, the more images arrive to spite me. I see her silent scream because her tongue is missing; I see her blood bubbling on the ground; I see the inverted spikes on chains piercing her skin . . .

Stop
. No more.

We’ll find her.
I
will find her. I still have ownership of time.

Elinor yells to Alfarin and me. I run to the end of the row and turn left. I can’t see her, but Alfarin is hurtling toward me with his axe bobbing up and down on his shoulder. He’s like a freight train and can’t stop easily once he builds momentum. He runs straight into me and we collapse on the floor. His blade nearly scalps me in the process.

“Elinor!”
cries Alfarin, and my eardrum shatters. “Where are you?”

“Down here!” she yells.

“Down where?” I choke. Alfarin is still lying on top of me.

“I’m here.”

This is not helpful.

“Get off me, Alfarin,” I grunt.

“I am sorry, my friend. I thought Elinor was in danger.”

Alfarin hauls himself up and offers me a hand. Together we go in search of Elinor. We find her standing a third of the way down a dark corridor of files. She’s bathed in the light from a single torch, lit high above her head. Her shadow stretches behind her. It’s moving, although she is not. Alfarin and I jog toward her, but something doesn’t feel right. Of all the drawers in all the rows, why is there a single flame in the exact place we need to look?

“I’ve found the surname Pallister, Mitchell,” says Elinor proudly.
Her pale hand is splayed out across the front of a cabinet. She still has the Viciseometer in her other hand.

Scores of drawers have that surname written on them. Without a word, the three of us stand side by side and Alfarin and Elinor start opening them. The drawers squeal and rattle, and plumes of black dust belch out as my friends rifle through files that haven’t felt the touch of a devil in centuries.

“This is full of first names beginning with
S
,” says Alfarin, slamming the drawer shut. The towering cabinet rocks precariously.

“I have the
C
s,” says Elinor.

I haven’t started opening any drawers. My eyes are trained on the single torch burning brightly above us.

“Don’t you think this is too much of a coincidence?” I ask as they each open another drawer. “We’re looking for a Melissa Pallister, and there just happens to be a lit torch directly above the section we need.”

“Ye are just being paranoid,” replies Elinor; she sneezes as an explosion of dust showers her. “It just means someone has been filing down here recently.”

But I’m not so sure.

“I have the
M
s!” cries Alfarin. “Curse the gods, there are so many Melissas in Hell. Does our Medusa have a middle name?”

“It’s Olivia,” I reply.

“Melissa Olivia Pallister,” mumbles Alfarin; his thick fingers are searching through the files. Elinor is bouncing from one foot to the other in anticipation, but my eyes are now shooting from one end of the corridor to the other.