the.com/devil to pay

means An idiom for serious trouble or dire consequences looming ahead, as in 'there'll be the devil to pay.'

from Most likely nautical slang: 'the devil' was sailor-speak for the ship's longest, hardest-to-reach seam (between hull planks), and 'to pay' meant to seal it with hot tar ('paying' a seam, from French poix/Latin pix, pitch). Working the devil seam was brutal, cramped labor — so 'the devil to pay (and no pitch hot)' meant an awful job with no means to do it. Over time the literal tarring faded and only the dread remained. A popular folk theory ties it to literal devils and debts, but the pitch-and-seam story is the one etymologists back.