The Devil's Dreamcatcher (21 page)

The Viciseometer from Up There puts us at a huge advantage when joined with the timepiece from Hell. So the two teams will have to stay together—for now. There's just no other way.

Angela and Johnny pull Owen to his feet. He's shaking violently. No one goes to Jeanne, and I feel sorry for her because I know what that's like, but when I make an attempt to approach her, she turns away. I'll give her time. I want to believe she's worth the effort I'm trying to put in with her. It may never come to a friendship, but an understanding is possible.

“What did the Skin-Walkers do to us?” whispers Owen. “That noise . . . it was like . . .”

“I think we heard the absorbed screams of pain of everyone who's trapped in the nine circles of Hell,” I reply. “We should be thankful it was only the two of them that came along for the ride.”

“Thankful?” gasps Jeanne.

“There are nine Skin-Walkers, Jeanne,” I reply tiredly. “Owen knows. He's going to fill you in on what they all represent.”

I know I shouldn't be so harsh, but I won't be the angels' encyclopedia anymore. I'm pretty sure Owen knows far more than he's letting on—even if half of the stuff he's mentioned to me doesn't make sense. I think back to our conversation about my death, when he claimed to have seen my records, to have read that I have two timelines or something. I still think he's crazy—no one can die twice—but that doesn't change the fact that Owen has more information than the other angels.

Which makes me think . . . I trusted him back in Washington because I had no choice. Now I do have a choice, and I'm going to be wary.

“Angela, I take it you know this place?” I ask.

“Like the back of my hand. My grandpa would bring me and my sister here when we were little. We used to stargaze and make wishes.”

Angela stares up into the blue sky.

“They never came true, though,” she adds sadly.

“I need you to get supplies, Angela. Owen has money and we still need food.” I glance at Alfarin. “Well, we don't
need
it, but we operate much better with full stomachs. We also need sleeping bags or something, because we could be here a couple of days while we train. Devils don't cope well in cold weather.”

“You are not our leader,” growls Jeanne. Clearly, the warmth she showed me earlier has disappeared after her encounter with the Skin-Walkers.

“Medusa
is
our leader,” say Mitchell and Owen together.

“What?” chorus Alfarin and Johnny, staring in amazement at Owen.

“I agree,” say Elinor and Angela.

“Never!” shouts Jeanne.

Owen pulls the blue Viciseometer from his pocket and hands it to Angela. “Do as Melissa—Medusa asks. Take Johnny and Elinor. Get everything she requires. Team ANGEL isn't a team, we're just dead souls thrown together. I've seen firsthand what can happen to a team that doesn't work together. Jeanne has been right all along. We need one leader, and I think that should be Medusa.”

“You cannot betray us like this!” cries Jeanne. “We were sent on a mission from Heaven. You must see it through!”

“Well, maybe I don't want to—not anymore,” replies Owen.

“It was an order.”

“I'm sick of orders.”

“This is cowardice.”

“No, Jeanne. It's self-preservation.”

Jeanne is shaking with rage, so much so that her skin is starting to change color. Blinding pockets of brilliant white light seem to be radiating out of her very pores. It's nothing like the flames that erupted out of Mitchell, but instead looks like countless laser beams.

“We must take orders from the devils, Jeanne,” says Owen.

And now I see what he's doing: Owen is deliberately baiting Jeanne—and it's working.

“Oh, shit,” mutters Mitchell. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward him. “Stay behind me, Medusa. Alfarin, if Jeanne attacks, you know what to do.”

“
You are a coward!
” screams Jeanne, and her voice is so deep that the ground beneath her actually rumbles.

“The devils are now in charge, Jeanne. We have no choice but to capitulate,” says Owen, standing his ground as he adds extra emphasis to the word
capitulate
. “I hope this works,” he adds in a low voice.

Suddenly, Jeanne streaks into the sky. There are no wings and no harp, but finally we see a flying angel.

And it's beautiful.

Jeanne's entire being is golden, surrounded by a crystal nimbus. In the center, I can see the very vague outline of a person: two arms, two legs, a head, but it's like the outline of a body at a crime scene. White stars shoot from Jeanne's form as she speeds into the distance like a firework.

“You did that with deliberate purpose, Owen,” says Alfarin. “You are either very brave, or very foolish. Jeanne is as fearsome as my father sister Dagmar, and she would scare the Skin-Walkers.”

“Those of us who will train to become weapons will need to have a trigger,” says Owen, staring at me. “We know Mitchell's is the thought of something happening to his living brother. I took a guess that Jeanne's would be an angel deferring authority to a devil.”

“I'm glad you tried that, Owen, and not me,” says Mitchell. “You forget, she's gonna come back at some point, and when she does, I think we'll find out how Joan of Arc kicked so much medieval ass—before she got tied to a stake, of course.”

“Do not say that out loud, my friend,” says Alfarin. “She may still be able to hear you.”

“So what's your trigger, Owen?” I ask. “The immolation is activated by rage. We'll all need that anger for it to work properly—”

“Well, being dead kinda pisses me off,” interrupts Angela. “I could think about that.”

“It's not enough, Angela,” I reply. “We're all angry about being
dead, but this goes beyond being pissed off. This is a rage so intense, it changes the physicality of existence.”

Angela's heart-shaped face falls. Elinor wraps her arm around the angel's shoulders.

“Ye must not feel sad,” she says. “I will not be able to do it, either. I have never felt rage. It just isn't in my nature, although I did once punch Mitchell.”

“Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Elinor,” says Mitchell, rubbing his jaw.

“And I am still very sorry about it.”

“I guess I'll just have to be mother and look after everyone,” says Angela.

Jeanne is now a mere speck in the distance. I hope she lands before her rage wears off, because that looks like one awfully long drop.

“What about you, Alfarin?” says Mitchell. “Do you think you'll be able to do it?”

“Find my trigger and watch me burn,” says Alfarin proudly, puffing out his chest.

Elinor shakes her head at Mitchell. A deep frown has formed on her pretty freckled face.

“Here goes nothing,” says Mitchell, with a resigned shrug of his shoulders.

“Mitchell, what are ye doing?”

“This isn't going to be pretty,” mutters Johnny, and he starts taking big steps back.

I'm expecting Mitchell to punch Alfarin, or steal his axe or something, but instead, Mitchell just strolls up to Alfarin and starts whispering in his ear. The Viking's jaw locks, and I can actually hear his back teeth grinding as Mitchell continues to whisper.

“Mitchell,” calls Elinor in a warning voice. “Ye had better not be saying what I think ye are saying.”

Alfarin's huge frame is starting to shudder. His blue eyes are fixed firmly on the horizon.

“He's making him relive something,” says Owen quietly. “But what?”

“His death?” I ask, with a glance at Elinor.

“Not
his
death, no,” she replies, tugging at the back of her neck. Elinor is getting more and more distressed as Mitchell continues to whisper.

Alfarin's immolation is immediately triggered when a sob breaks from Elinor's chest. Mitchell and Owen are thrown thirty feet into the air as Alfarin explodes into a mushroom cloud of crimson fire.

“Holy shit!” screams Angela as an invisible heat wave knocks the rest of us off our feet, with a blast of burning air that reminds me of the enormous ovens in Hell's kitchens.

“We have to put him out!” cries Elinor. “There will be nothing left of him.”

Mitchell and I start crawling through the thorny grass toward the burning Alfarin. I had completely forgotten what Septimus said about combustion, and Alfarin, who died a thousand years ago, has enough heat in him to take out half of New Zealand.

“What did you say to him?”

“Elinor's death is his trigger,” pants Mitchell. “I just . . . I just made it worse.”

Suddenly a golden streak zooms over our heads. It lifts the Alfarin fireball and flies it at high speed through the sky like a blazing comet—and then we hear his elongated cry as he's dropped into the aquamarine lake.

The water explodes as a cloud of steam and spray gushes upward like a geyser.

“
Alfarin!
” screams Elinor.

“Holy shit!” cries Angela again.

Mitchell and I are already running toward the pebble-lined shore. A steaming Alfarin emerges from its depths; his beloved axe is still in his hand.

“The French wench is strong,” is all he says before falling forward, flat on his face.

“What was Jeanne thinking?” yells Mitchell. He skids into the stones and tries to haul Alfarin out of the water. He doesn't get very far with such a dead weight.

“She was the only one who
was
thinking,” I reply. “Alfarin can't possibly control his immolation yet. He would have combusted if Jeanne hadn't dropped him into the water so quickly.”

Jeanne lands next to us on the shore. The blinding light fades like the filament in a bulb.

“Thank ye, Jeanne!” cries Elinor. “Thank ye.”

Alfarin starts to stir at the sound of Elinor's voice. He pulls himself onto his haunches and shakes his long blond hair and beard like a dog.

“I will need to practice,” he croaks, “but I will be victorious once I have food in my belly.”

“Did it hurt, Jeanne?” I ask.

“Of course it hurt, but I have known worse.”

“Will you be able to train Owen?”

“If he will listen.”

That's good enough for me.

“Okay, I think I have the first stage of a plan ready,” I say when Elinor and the guys finally manage to drag Alfarin out of the water. “Mitchell, Alfarin, Owen and Jeanne will train to control their immolation. Elinor, Angela and Johnny are responsible for keeping a lookout and getting supplies. Angela will have the Viciseometer from Up There, and I will keep hold of the other one. Even though Angela and Johnny will be keeping watch, we all need to be alert for the Skin-Walkers. That should be easy because we'll smell them before we see them. But even more importantly, we need to be alert for the Unspeakable and the Dreamcatcher. He's coming after me, and I'm happy to be the bait. When the time comes, we, as weapons, will attack the Unspeakable and I will rescue the Dreamcatcher. I'm going to need both Viciseometers for that, Angela, so you'll need to be ready to hand it over when I ask. The Skin-Walkers will take the Unspeakable back to Hell, and we'll have the boy.”

“And what then?” asks Jeanne.

“Then comes stage two.”

“Which is what, Medusa?” asks Mitchell, and I know what he fears.

“We're going to change the culture of Hell, Mitchell, because no more children will be used as Dreamcatchers. Not ever.”

Elinor, Angela and Johnny disappear in search of food. Owen is happy to entrust Angela with their Viciseometer, and I know I can count on Elinor. Jeanne complains, but not for long. She has a purpose now, which is to train the guys for their immolation. She's a natural, and my intuition is telling me it's something she's done before. Not just at the graveyard when she slam-dunked Alfarin, or the time she took Owen away from the paradox Mitchell, but other times, too. She's just too good at it.

I think back to the information Septimus showed us before we left Hell. Jeanne d'Arc was burned alive by the English in Rouen in 1431. That's a long time to exist Up There with so much anger. I'm guessing she's been here before, back in the land of the living. I'd like to ask her if she's immolated before, but there's no point; Jeanne wouldn't answer. When I was alive, there were always stories about people having visions of saints. If Jeanne really did come back, something tells me this mission is already entirely different from her previous visits. I think her rage may turn out to be the most powerful weapon we have. Plus, she's a leader, a strategic thinker. She led entire armies when she was alive.

And don't Mitchell, Alfarin and Owen know it.

Now she has them standing in a straight line, and she's pacing up and down in front of them like an army general issuing orders. Owen appears to be quite passive, but the looks on Mitchell's and
Alfarin's faces are priceless. Mitchell's mouth is open in shock, practically catching flies. Alfarin's bushy eyebrows have imploded into the creases in his forehead. They keep swapping glances, but both of them are too scared of Jeanne to do anything other than listen.

Mitchell catches my eye, and I have to stuff my knuckles into my mouth to keep from giggling. I don't want to piss her off, either. “Keep your friends close and angels with a vicious temper even closer” is another motto I'm going to exist by.

I leave Jeanne to her training and walk up from the shoreline to a long bank of pine trees. We're well hidden here, and the entire landscape is unspoiled by the living. I just hope that by the end of this, it will be unspoiled by the dead, too. Elinor said that we're toxic and that we leave traces. I remember watching those flower petals crumple to gray ash in Mitchell's fingers at the cemetery. I would hate to ruin such a beautiful place as this.