The Devil's Dreamcatcher Read Online Free PDF

friends,” replies Alfarin, backing down. His next words are drowned out by a sudden increase in the volume from the screaming siren. I can feel it piercing my eardrums, like needles. The pain of the person screaming is actually inside my skull. And then I recognize the voice. It’s mine. It’s the sound I made when I fell to my death.
    Elinor has her fingers in her ears, and she’s the first to collapse to the floor.
    â€œMake it stop, make it stop!” she screams. “I can feel the flames again.”
    Alfarin is moaning about fangs and knives. His axe slips to the floor as he’s forced to block out the sound with his hands. The flashing red light is getting darker. Liquid is dripping from its base onto the stone floor below.
    The liquid is blood.
    I don’t like blood, especially the blood of the dead, because it looks like lumpy gravy. I start to sway.
    â€œIt’s programmed so . . . so that every devil hears his own . . . death again,” groans Mitchell. His pink eyes are rolling in their sockets.
    I drop to my knees as the room starts to spin. My relentless scream is now accompanied by Septimus’s deep, drawling voice, which seems to be coming out of every fissure in the stone walls.
    â€œHELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. FAILURE TO COMPLY IS UNWISE. HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. . . .”
    It’s the last thing I hear before I pass out.
    I wake to the sensation of something cold and wet being splashed on my face. Aside from the goose bumps I got when I heard The Devil screeching only a few hours ago, I haven’t been cold for four decades, and the feeling is strange and unnerving. There’s a bitter taste on my tongue. I can’t quite open my eyes yet, but I sense someone crouching over me, watching me. Expecting the worst, I immediately lash out with my arms and legs, but it’s only Mitchell’s voice that responds.
    â€œWatch it! Jeez, you’re seriously bony, Medusa. You could take an eye out with those elbows.”
    I stop flailing and manage to open an eye. Mitchell, Alfarin and Elinor are already awake, although Elinor’s pale skin has turned a jaundiced shade of yellow. Alfarin is the only one standing; Mitchell now has his long legs drawn up well away from me, and he’s placed his head between his knees.
    â€œHELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE. FAILURE TO COMPLY IS UNWISE. HELL IS NOW IN LOCKDOWN. . . .”
    The screaming siren has stopped, but Septimus’s prerecorded warning still booms out of the rock at intermittent moments. I look up, both eyes open now, at the connecting door to the Oval Office, and see that the flashing light has also been extinguished. The only proof that it was ever in use is a thick puddle of blood, the circumference of a car tire, which is bubbling away below it.
    â€œI see that not even the dead can rouse you easily, Miss Pallister.” Only then do I see Septimus, standing behind a desk with a crooked smile on his face. “Let me assure you that this is not a further aptitude test to see whether you can cope with working on level 1.”
    He places a cup of water on the desk. I’m guessing he’s the one who splashed me awake.
    â€œThat alarm is the sickest thing I have ever heard,” groans Mitchell. “I could hear my bones crunching.”
    â€œAs you know, it was designed that way to make devils listen, Mitchell,” says Septimus. “It was programmed for each of us to hear our deaths once more. I am sorry for the distress it caused you all, but as an alarm, it is extremely effective. Even I stop everything at the sound of a sword slicing through an intestinal wall and the resulting harmony of dying moans caused by infection.”
    â€œHow long do we have to stay in lockdown, Lord Septimus?” asks Alfarin. He’s mopping at