Tears of the Furies

CHAPTER EIGHT

The fishing boat rocked beneath his feet, and Conan Doyle was surprised by how quickly he regained his sea legs. His mind briefly flashed back to his military service during the Boer Wars, when he had traveled to South Africa across turbulent seas on a British steamer. It had been years since he had thought of that part of his life, but he did not often ruminate on his more mundane existence, before his supposed death. Memory is such an odd device of the mind, Doyle mused, gazing out over the emerald green waters, stimulated by the most random things.

The winds blowing off the waters of the Ionian Sea were invigorating after the long day of travel from the island of Lesbos, and he greedily filled his lungs with the rejuvenating Mediterranean air. It wasn’t the rest his body craved, but it would have to do.

Conan Doyle turned to look at the weathered fisherman in the wheelhouse behind him. He had found him in a small tavern at the bay of Marmari. While his companions waited outside to avoid arousing any unwanted suspicions, the mage had gone in alone to hire a boat. All the fishing boats were in for the day, and none of the seamen present would even entertain the thought of taking their crafts out again, especially at the request of a foreigner — and an Englishman to boot.

He had reached the point where he was seriously considering using magick to manipulate one of their minds, when Danny had grown tired of waiting and come in to find him. The appearance of the boy had cast a pall of silence over the establishment. Even though his head was covered with the hood of his sweatshirt, in such close confines it was impossible for them not to recognize that the boy was not normal. His eyes, his teeth, his skin… The atmosphere of the tavern had grown immediately hostile, and Conan Doyle had decided that it would be best for them to leave at once.

Now the captain returned Conan Doyle’s gaze, yellow eyes glinting like polished gold in the last rays of the setting sun. A kindred spirit, he had called himself.

He had intercepted Conan Doyle and his group at the rear of the tavern, introducing himself as Captain Lycaon. Conan Doyle had sensed immediately that there something not quite human about the fisherman — something unnatural, but there seemed no malice in him, no duplicity. If he was an agent of Gull’s, well, that was the risk.

The captain smiled now through the wheelhouse window as he piloted the boat, and Conan Doyle could not help but notice again that there were far too many teeth in the man’s mouth. He doubted that Captain Lycaon smiled much around his fellow fisherman, or even that he had much contact with their like at all, other than to occasionally partake of some refreshment in the same establishment.

Kindred spirits. Lycaon said that it was Danny who had changed his mind, that he had sensed their kinship and would never have forgiven himself for not helping one of his own. Conan Doyle had considered asking the old man for his story, but decided against it, choosing instead to simply offer their destination.

"We’ll need passage along the coast to Cape Matapan — or Cape Taenarus as it used to be called."

The old man had nodded slowly, removing a pipe from his back pocket, preparing to smoke.

"Let me guess," he had said between puffs, the sweet smell of his tobacco causing Conan Doyle to crave the relaxing pleasures of his own briar pipe. "It’s the Ayil Asomati caves you seek."

"Precisely."

Lycaon spoke with a strange accent, not Greek, or anything else familiar, but with the hint of the Mediterranean in it nevertheless. "At night I hear the call of the caves sighing upon the winds, and they ask me if I am ready to lay down and sleep my last, but I tell them that it is not yet my time, that there are still many fish to catch, and much ouzo to drink."

"Will you take us then?" Conan Doyle had asked after a moment of silence during which the old captain puffed on his pipe, seeming to listen for the sounds of the caves.

"When would you like to leave?"

"Immediately."

They were on their way in a matter of minutes.

Now upon their journey, Conan Doyle took stock of his Menagerie. At the back of the boat Eve, Danny, and Ceridwen sat, enjoying a moment of respite before the next phase of their mission. They were tired and could have used some time to rest and regroup, but Gull had a healthy lead on them, and if they had any thought of catching up to him and his Wicked, they could not afford to tarry even for a moment.

Eve must have felt his eyes on her, for she glanced up, brows knitted in consternation. She rose to her feet and strode toward him, tugging at her torn leather coat, which was stained with her dried blood.

"I’m going to stink like fish for days," she complained, the wind whipping her hair around her sculpted features.

Conan Doyle always marveled at her beauty. Here she was only hours after battling a Hydra to the death, and she looked as though she could have stepped from the pages of Vogue.

"You don’t smell of fish," he assured her. "Blood, yes, but not fish."

Eve stared at him then, dark, almond-shaped eyes boring into his own. "Are you all right?" she asked. There was empathy in her gaze, but a steely judgment as well. "Back on Lesbos, with the Hydra, you were a little off your game."

"I was momentarily distracted." His concern over Ceridwen’s injuries had left him embarrassed and a bit ashamed. Matters of the heart needed to be set aside when dealing with conflicts of this magnitude. "I assure you it will not happen again."

Eve slowly nodded. Sometimes she seemed so very modern, so young, and at other times her gaze revealed the profoundness of her age, and an ancient wisdom lay within. "That’s good to hear. Danny and I almost got our asses handed to us today."

Conan Doyle glared at her, leaving no doubt that the conversation was over.

She put up her hands in defense. "It had to be said."

The boat’s engine cut off, and Conan Doyle watched as Captain Lycaon emerged from the wheelhouse. The old man was smoking his pipe again and said nothing as he pointed to the promontory that was gradually coming into view as they rounded the headland from Cape Matapan, the southernmost point of continental Greece.

Danny and Ceridwen had joined them, each peering out into the darkness for a glimpse of their destination.

"Is that it?" Danny asked. "I don’t get it. Why do you think Gull wanted to go there? It’s just a big cliff."

Ocean-blue cloak fluttering in the wind, Ceridwen extended her arm, fingers splayed, feeling the emanations from the great stone projection. "So much more than that," she said in a voice tinged with foreboding. "So much more than is obvious."

Eve made clicking noises with her mouth as she placed her hands on her slender hips. "Isn’t that always the way," she said, giving Conan Doyle a quick look from the corner of her eye.

The high rocky formation loomed above them, and Conan Doyle moved to the front of the boat for a better view, searching for the area that was rumored to be an entrance to the Underworld. The Ayil Asomati caves were the most famous of Hades’ ventilation shafts, favored by mortals on quests.

Captain Lycaon joined him. "I’ll get you as close as I can," he said, eyeing the towering rock formation as he suckled the end of his pipe. "But you’ll need a raft, if you’re planning on climbing to the caves."

"Bring us as far as you dare, Captain," Conan Doyle ordered. "We’ll make do from there."

The sound began as a distant warble, and Conan Doyle at first mistook it as the cry of some lonely night bird. It was a song, perhaps one of the most beautiful he had ever heard, and it was coming from somewhere on the cliffs of the promontory.

"Look!" Eve called, distracting him from the unearthly tune.

Conan Doyle followed her gaze, again enveloped in the overpowering beauty of the song, and saw three figures standing on one of the small ledges jutting out from the promontory. It was Gull and his people, and the deformed sorcerer was using his damnable gift to sing in the voice of Orpheus.

They were closer now, and Conan Doyle could make out the words of the song in the language of time long past. Plaintively it asked for the entrance to the Underworld to be revealed.

"It’s beautiful," Captain Lycaon whispered, and Conan Doyle saw that the old seaman was crying.

As he looked back toward the promontory, he realized that it was not only they who had been affected by the song of Orpheus. Conan Doyle watched transfixed as two towering gates of solid rock parted in the face of the mountainous cliff.

The Underworld.

Clay is falling.

Deeper and deeper he plummets into the darkness within himself, the oblivion into which he has been cast by the gaze of Medusa. After a while, he finds himself comforted by the darkness surrounding him, the desire to escape slowly draining from him.

He wonders if this was how Medusa’s other victims had felt? Suddenly trapped within themselves, gradually losing the will to be anything but stone.

For a brief moment he again struggles against the sucking pull of the abyss, but to little avail. He is drowning in shadow, the ebony pitch attempting to work its way into his mouth and nose. It wants to be inside him — to consume him. It wants him to forget that he ever existed.

And it almost succeeds, but then he hears Eve’s voice, as he had that day they lunched on Newbury Street. "Do you remember?" she had asked, a longing in her voice that made his heart break.

And he does. He remembered then — and he remembers now, and his unremitting fall into oblivion is slowed by the recollection. Memories flash before him, curtains of darkness are savagely torn aside. Clay recalls a murk deeper and darker than the one that now envelops him, but it lasts for only a brief instant, before it is banished by the brightest flashes — the light of creation. And the inky black is replaced by entire constellations.

Creation. It is his first conscious memory.

The memories give him buoyancy, and he begins to ascend.

Clay remembers the hands of the Creator, molding and shaping him — preparing him to take on the forms of the wondrous life that would inhabit these new worlds. He is the imagination of God made malleable flesh.

He is the Clay of life, and God was his sculptor.

Oh, the creatures he had become. Clay remembers each and every one as he climbs up from the darkness, suddenly able to resist the pull of the depths. He tries to alter his form, there in the dark, to become something more acclimated to swimming in the sea of black, but realizes that he has no shape here, that he is nothing more than conscious thought.

To be only one thing, unable to change… the idea fills him with a powerful fear, and Clay remembers another time when he felt this afraid.

The Creator had been finished with him. Every form of life that was, and would ever be, had been molded from his being. God’s masterpiece of creation was complete. And he was cast aside, left to wander the new and glorious world that he had helped to define, forgotten and alone.

Alone.

But he survived. He thrived and became a part of the world, found a purpose for himself. Clay feels the darkness take hold again, its pull given strength by his despair, and he fights against it, finding strength in the knowledge that he found his own way in the world. A life shaped not by the Creator’s hands, but by his own intent.

The shadow’s hold upon him slips away, and he surges upward. He is not merely refuse left over from the Supreme Being’s master plan, he is needed. Clay will not squander the potential of the life he had made.

He is not cold, lifeless stone.

He is the substance of creation.

He is Clay.

His eyes were first to change.

In one instant he was blind to the world around him, and the next his vision was restored, the stone crust over his eyes flaking away. Clay gazed around the Kerameikos Cemetery, not sure how long he had spent in his petrified state. The confrontation was still going on.

Squire darted in and out of the shadows, keeping Medusa off guard, as Graves hovered above the scene, fashioning a net from the ectoplasm that made up his body. Interesting, Clay thought, but he wasn’t convinced their plan would succeed. They needed his help.

The eyes were but the first step. Clay exerted his will over his body, forcing away the shell of rock that now enveloped his form. The enchantment of Medusa’s accursed gaze fought against him, not wanting to relinquish its hold, but he was so much more than mere flesh and blood, and its grip on him shattered. His flesh had fought the curse from the moment he had begun to succumb to it, and now he forced every atom of his form to return to life from stone death, leaving only a sheath of rock around him. That sheath popped and snapped like melting ice on a frozen lake during the first days of spring, and it fell away from his body in large chunks to litter the ground.

"Heads up, honey!" Clay heard Squire cry out.

He turned just in time to see the hobgoblin emerge from a patch of shadow cast by a section of ancient stone wall. Squire threw himself at Medusa’s legs and, as she fell forward, Graves silently swooped down, dropping the shimmering net of ghostly material over her.

Clay willed himself to move, ignoring the stiffness in his joints and the burning aches in his muscles as he ran across the burial ground to join his comrades.

"Nice to see you up and around," Squire said, moving out of his path.

Clay dropped to his knees, throwing the weight of his body on top of the Gorgon, who thrashed beneath the ectoplasmic net. "Give me a hand here," he called to the goblin. Medusa was strong, incredibly so, and was trying to maneuver her body to again affect him with her petrifying gaze.

Sorry, not this time.

He instinctively shifted the configuration of his face, his eyes receding into the flesh to be replaced with highly sensitive sensory stalks that picked up on vibration and the shifting of air currents no matter how minute.

"Holy shit, I think I dated your sister back in ‘75," Squire sniggered, even as he attempted to hold down Medusa’s thrashing legs.

"Maybe you should hold off on the commentary and sedate the Gorgon. Just a suggestion," Clay said, even as he struggled to keep Medusa down.

Squire grimaced. "Wait, so now you’re funny all of a sudden?"

"Sedate her?" he heard Graves ask from above them. "Why on earth would we want to sedate her?" The ghost drifted closer and Clay glanced at him, and through his translucent form. "The Gorgon must be dealt with as we would any other monster. She must be destroyed."

Clay understood exactly what the ghost was saying, but something deep inside him did not agree. Medusa was ancient and had seen and experienced so much, he found it a tragedy to have to kill her. Yes, he knew she was a monster, but so was he, and that shared bond made it very difficult for him to end her life.

It was as if she sensed his hesitation — his weakness. Medusa twisted her body in such a way as to tear the ectoplasmic netting and free her hands. She shrieked like the damned, as she raked her clawed fingers across the dry, cracked flesh of Clay’s face, ripping away one of his sensory stalks. The snakes atop her head hissed, writhing and striking out with equal savagery.

"Damn you!" Clay bellowed, recoiling from the injury, providing her the opportunity she sought. He was slow, still feeling the effects of her curse, and before he could recover, she had freed herself from the net, swatting Squire away as if he were an annoying insect.

"Graves!" Clay called out, the pain in his face beginning to subside, another stalk already growing.

It sounded like short claps of thunder, and Clay suddenly realized what the ghost was doing. He had seen Graves do it before, summoning replicas of guns from his past, created from the substance of his body and shooting bullets of ectoplasm.

The gunfire came to an abrupt stop.

"Did you stop her?" Clay asked, the stalks on his face moving about in the air attempting to locate the doctor’s ghostly shape.

"No," he said. "She obviously knows this cemetery far better than we."

"Beautiful. Then we lost her — again," Squire muttered, picking himself up from the ground where Medusa had thrown him. One arm hung limply from its socket, longer than its counterpart and Clay watched as the goblin casually reached out with the uninjured arm to roughly yank it back into place. He winced at the popping sound that accompanied the movement.

"That’s better," the hobgoblin sighed, moving the restored arm, checking its mobility.

"We have not lost our quarry," Dr. Graves said, floating down to join them, the white of his shirt and his dark suspenders and trousers equally transparent, as if he had been superimposed upon the cemetery.

"What do you mean?" Clay asked. With a thought, he replaced the writhing sensory organs on his face with eyes.

Graves gazed off into the cemetery and beyond. "I hit her at least once," he said, holding up a ghostly pistol that shimmered in the darkness, threatening to become insubstantial. "The bullets are made from my life-stuff," he explained. "She is carrying a piece of me inside her — as if I’ve been brought along for the trip."

Squire smiled, pointing a gnarled, stubby finger at Graves. "You da man," he said with a wink. "So what are we waitin’ for?" He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Let’s go finish off this beastie."

"No," Clay said.

"No?" Squire repeated incredulously. "What, are we gonna let ole snake head rampage through the streets of Greece turning everyone into decorative lawn ornaments? If you ask me, that brain inside your coconut is still made out of rock."

Clay shook his head. "I didn’t mean we weren’t going after her. We’re just not going to kill her."

His comrades stared at him.

"We’re going to take her alive."

In the ancient language of the elements, Ceridwen thanked the waters of the Ionian for their assistance. On the face of that promontory, atop a ledge perhaps one hundred feet above the water, the cliff had opened like massive stone doors, the gates to the Underworld. Conan Doyle had charged her with finding the fastest way to that ledge. His only criteria was to do it before Gull’s cajoling spell wore off, and the stone doors slammed shut again.

From the deck of Captain Lycaon’s boat she’d looked up at the entrance in the rock face and pondered the puzzle. She thought about conjuring a traveling wind, but determined that their number was too great and that the amount of time needed for the proper enchantment was out of the question.

She’d felt Conan Doyle’s anxious eyes on her as the others bid the good captain farewell.

"We must be going now, Ceridwen," he had urged, and she had looked down over the side of their transport and suddenly had known how they would reach the Underworld entrance.

She had approached the side of the boat and thrust her staff into the emerald waters, asking for its assistance. At first the Ionian was sluggish to respond, but soon it warmed to her request, pleased to know that the Fey — who had once wandered this world at will — still existed. The sea had obliged Ceridwen, and the waters encircling the boat began to bubble and churn, and the air grew increasingly colder.

A bridge, she’d whispered in the language of the sea, my companions and I need a bridge.

In response, a swirling waterspout had surged up and out of the body of the ocean, bending and twisting to connect the sea to the rocky face of the promontory. The air grew steadily colder, and colder still, and the once fluid ocean waters became solid in the sudden, magical chill. A bridge of ice was formed.

"Impressive, my dear," Conan Doyle said, a twinkle in his eyes.

Ceridwen felt a flush on her pale cheeks. "Quickly now." She urged them on as they scrambled over the side of the fishing boat and began their ascent toward the opening in the cliff face.

"I’m almost tempted to go with you," Captain Lycaon said as she went over the side, the last to begin the climb. He stood at the rail, watching, eyes filled with wonder. The man was trembling, but she doubted that it had anything to do with the cold she had summoned. "But I fear that should I enter that place, I would not be allowed to leave."

"This is not a journey for the likes of you, good Captain," Ceridwen said, balancing on the ice. "Go back to the life you have made and leave matters of the Underworld to others."

Captain Lycaon bid them all farewell, and they continued across the frozen bridge that would bring them to the land of the dead.

Frost crunched beneath the sole of Conan Doyle’s leather walking boots. He turned to see how the others progressed. Eve appeared to be having the most difficulty, struggling to maintain her footing, but he had little compassion for her. Before leaving Boston he had instructed her on the significance of a good walking shoe, but she had ignored him as usual, preferring to wear a high-heeled Italian boot.

Eve was indeed a slave to fashion.

"Quickly now," he encouraged. "I have no idea how long Gull’s enchantment will remain over the opening, we must get inside before the doors return to their previous state."

"An ice bridge," he heard Eve grumble from behind. "Couldn’t have made something a little less dangerous. A fucking ice ladder maybe?"

"If you want, you can hold on to my shoulder," Danny suggested. "My sneakers give me pretty good traction."

"Thanks, kid," she said sarcastically. "That way when one of us slips and goes over the side we’ll have company on the way down."

The demon boy laughed out loud, and Conan Doyle was again reminded of how young Danny Ferrick actually was, and how well he was adjusting to the new life into which his metamorphosis had thrust him.

"Hey, I think I see some fish frozen in here," the boy said, dropping to his knees and brushing the frost away from the path.

Eve was attempting to make her way around the boy as Ceridwen patiently waited for him.

"Daniel, please," Conan Doyle said. "What did I just say about quickening our pace?"

The boy lifted his head, embarrassed, and quickly got to his feet. "Sorry. This whole frozen ocean thing is just so cool."

A loud crack ricocheted through the air, and Conan Doyle felt a powerful vibration pass through the icy surface beneath his feet. He glanced at Ceridwen, troubled.

"Risk of the gates closing is not the only reason we should quicken our pace," she said, placing a hand against Danny’s back, urging him forward. "The ocean’s natural state is volatile. The spell will not hold it for long."

Another loud crack, followed by a succession of smaller, more muted pops, erupted. The frost on the bridge had begun to melt, making the surface slipperier. Conan Doyle concentrated on his footing, not daring to slow his progress now to check on the others. He trusted they would be moving with both caution and alacrity as well. The cave was just ahead, a thick, less than welcoming sulfurous stench exuding from the yawing gates.

There came a low, unmistakable grinding that Doyle knew came not from the melting ice beneath their feet, but from the stone doors as they began to close.

"Blast it!" he yelled, trying to increase his speed. Instead he lost his footing and stumbled forward, hands sliding across the surface of melting ice. He was skidding toward the edge, when he felt his momentum arrested by a strong grip on his left ankle.

"No time for fun and games," Eve said, helping him to his feet with Danny’s assistance. Jagged cracks splintered through the ice beneath them.

"Forget me!" Conan Doyle bellowed, shrugging off Eve and Danny. He pointed to the rock doors slowly swinging shut. "Stop them, or this has all been for nothing!"

Inspired by his words, Danny sprang forward and caught one of the stone doors, but it continued its inexorable progress, dragging him across the icy slick ground. Eve got a grip on the other door, planting her feet in the slush and pooling seawater. She managed to stop it from closing.

"What a pussy," she grunted to Danny. "Can’t believe I’m stronger than you."

Danny repositioned his feet on the slick surface and hauled back upon his door. "Fuck… you," he snarled with exertion and, for a moment, succeeded in keeping his side open as well.

Conan Doyle reached the doorway, stopping to allow Ceridwen to pass. "After you, my dear,"

"Cut the gentlemanly bullshit, would you?" Eve grunted. "My arms are coming out of the sockets any second now."

"There’s always time for manners, Eve," Conan Doyle chided, following the Fey sorceress into the darkness of the Underworld.

"What’s the matter Eve?" Danny asked, his voice strained. "Door a little heavy for you?"

"It’s a good thing I like you, kid," she said letting go of her door and reaching across to grab Danny by the ear. The boy growled as she pulled him toward her, and the two tumbled to the ground in a heap upon the cave floor, as the twin doors slammed shut with a resounding echo.

Eve landed astride the demon boy and smiled down on him. She grabbed hold of the leathery flesh of his cheek and gave it a pinch. "I could have left you outside on the ledge," she said, crawling off of him. "And maybe you’ll wish I had."

He smiled back as he climbed to his feet. She could feel him watching her as she wiped the dust and dirt from her pants. For effect, she took her time, then glanced up at him.

"Take a picture. It’ll last longer."

Danny just scowled and made an obscene gesture. Eve laughed softly. She found it flattering, enjoyed the fact that even at her age she could still make the young ones sweaty.

Now she surveyed their surroundings. It was not as dark as she had expected. They were in a cave with a ceiling perhaps twenty feet high, but it grew wider and taller as it tunneled deeper into the rock, into the earth, and where the tunnel turned out of sight, a kind of orange glow illuminated the depths. A thick, rotten egg smell, riding on gusts of warm air, wafted out to greet them.

"That’s nasty," Danny said, holding his nose and looking about. "Where’s Mr. Doyle and Ceridwen?"

"Where do you think?" Eve asked, moving toward the orange glow. "Stink central. Where else would they be?"

The sides of the rounded cave walls were smooth and warm to the touch. The deeper they went into the widening tunnel, the warmer it became.

"It’s hot in here," Danny commented from behind.

"Figured that out all by yourself?" Eve sniped, a feeling of unease beginning to creep through her.

The tunnel curved, descending toward what looked to be an exit into a much larger chamber beyond. Eve emerged from the tunnel and stopped dead in her tracks, overwhelmed by the sight before her. Danny kept right on walking, slamming into her back.

"What the fuck?" he uttered in astonishment, and she had to agree. What the fuck, indeed.

They stood on a ledge with a breathtaking view over a valley — a landscape that could have given the Grand Canyon a run for its money — but where the canyon was breathtaking in its majesty, this place filled Eve with a creeping dread that made her bones ache and her stomach churn. Every muscle in her body screamed for her to run away.

"Ah, I see that you’ve finally decided to join us," came a voice, and Eve nearly jumped out of her skin. Conan Doyle appeared from the shadows to the left, with Ceridwen trailing behind. He wiped moisture from his brow with a white handkerchief. "I was beginning to think that you hadn’t made it."

Eve gazed once more out over the hellish landscape. "And, boy, am I glad I did."

"Come now, Eve," Conan Doyle said as he joined her. "What did you expect from the Underworld? Rolling fields of grass? Apple orchards? Rose bushes, perhaps? It isn’t supposed to be Eden, my dear."

His last comment was like a jab in the ribs, and Eve gave him a hard look. Conan Doyle was well aware of how sensitive she was about her early days and often used such references to help her to focus, but this time it only made her angry. This was the sort of place she expected to end up in for what she had done. The ultimate punishment for her sins.

"So where are we, really?" Danny asked, moving past her, closer to the edge. "Is this really it? Really the Underworld?"

"Close enough," Doyle said. He tucked his handkerchief back into his suit jacket pocket. "Think of a bubble, or better yet, a garbage can containing the refuse of another age, a sanctuary away from a world that has mostly forgotten that this age had ever truly existed." He stopped suddenly and looked around, cocking his head slightly to one side as if listening.

"What is it?" Eve asked.

They were all looking around now.

"It’s nothing," he said, turning away. "There’s a path over here that will take us down," he said, and started in that direction, clearly expecting them to follow.

Eve’s upper lip curled back. "Goody."

Silently, they descended deeper into the Underworld, Doyle, Ceridwen, Danny, then Eve. The walls themselves seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, as though fire blazed on the other side of each stone surface, and it was burning through in spots. The sulfurous smell came and went on the strange winds of that place. The terrain was awful, and they had to be cautious, for the stony ground was pitted with soft places, where the rock would suck like a quicksand mouth as they stepped past.

Hideously twisted things flew along the roof of the cave, but they blended so well it was difficult to determine their size. They seemed harmless enough, though their eyes glowed white, and Eve wondered what they fed on here. There was little other sign of life, either current or past, though they came once to a long stretch of dusty plain at the base of a craggy hill where calcified bodies jutted from the ground as though they had fallen there in death long, long ago, and sediment had settled around them.

Those whose mummified skulls were exposed had their jaws open as though they had died screaming.

After a while Eve stopped thinking about leaving and started to wonder what Nigel Gull and his people could possibly want in a place like this.

"So what do you think, Doyle?" she asked, breaking the silence. "Why are we here? What’s Gull up to?"

The landscape had grown even bleaker. Smoldering rock, skeletal trees twisted and gnarled, dead for what looked like centuries, but she guessed it was probably longer than that. Much longer.

Other than the twisted things that had flown by, they were the only signs of life in this place.

"I gave up trying to figure out Nigel Gull a long time ago," Conan Doyle said as he helped Ceridwen circumvent a large, black boulder that blocked their path. The Faerie sorceress had been doing her best to cover it, but Eve noted a falter in her step. Her skin was pale and marbled with blue veins, but there was a greenish tint to her flesh now and her eyes seemed somewhat disoriented. Ceridwen looked decidedly unwell. Eve wondered if it was an effect of the Underworld and made a mental note to watch Ceridwen’s back if things got wild.

Conan Doyle was looking around again. "I sense something here. Something other than Gull’s passing, something oddly… familiar."

Danny had continued on the path and was half a dozen or so feet ahead of them, bounding down the rocky slope as if he were some kind of mountain goat.

"Hey, kid," Eve called out, the bad vibes getting to her. "Wait up."

He disappeared around a bend and was lost from sight.

"Fucking kid," she grumbled and Conan Doyle smiled.

"Boys will be boys," he said, putting his arm around the ailing Ceridwen and continuing their descent.

Upon a narrow plateau, Eve paused to ask if the elemental was all right, but her question was interrupted by a chilling scream. Danny bolted out from behind the cover of some large rocks, a look of absolute terror on his usually fearsome demonic features.

"Run!" he shouted, on the verge of hysteria as he scrambled up the sloping path toward them.

From what? she wanted to ask, but never got the opportunity, because her question was answered when she saw that he was being chased.

It was the biggest dog she had ever seen, about the size of an elephant, and scrabbling across the rocks in hot pursuit of the boy. Its ferocious growl sounded like the rumbling of a diesel engine.

It had three heads, each of them snapping after Danny, hungry for a piece of him.

The large black cat stared at Julia Ferrick from the middle step in front of Conan Doyle’s brownstone, its wide, jade eyes assessing her as she began to climb the stairs. She didn’t remember Mr. Doyle having a cat, so assumed it belonged to one of the neighbors.

"Hey, kitty," she said offhandedly as she placed the shopping bag she was carrying at her feet and began to fish through her pocketbook for the key that Dr. Graves had given her.

The cat continued to watch her with curious eyes. She found the key and pulled it from her bag.

"Got it," she said, showing it to the animal. "Are you going to let me by?" she asked the cat.

It studied her, extending its neck to sniff at her pants leg, as if considering her question. It looked up into her eyes again, meowed once, and left its perch, joining three other cats of various sizes and colors that had mysteriously appeared at the bottom of the steps.

Julia found it odd and rather disconcerting the way they were watching her as she slid the key into the lock. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the cats weren’t ready to follow her, then quickly slipped into the house.

The inside was eerily quiet.

"Hello?" she called out, knowing no one was home, but wanting to be sure. The only sound was the ticking of a grandfather clock in a hallway off the foyer.

Danny had asked her to bring a few of his favorite CDs, DVDs, and books the next time she was in the neighborhood. She had gone to see her therapist earlier that morning in Cambridge and decided she would stop in, so that his things would be waiting for him when he returned from wherever it was he had gone.

She thought about her son quite a bit these days. What had Mr. Doyle called him? she thought, climbing the stairs to her son’s room. A changeling? A demon baby switched with a human child. It was the most insane thing she had ever heard, but the facts were all there. She remembered her child the way he had been before the onset of puberty, before the disturbing physical changes, and wanted to cry.

Julia thought that she had gotten beyond all this, surprised that she even had any tears left, but there they were. She wished she could talk with her therapist about this, but of course, that was out of the question.

She stopped on the stairs and took a deep breath, composing herself. No matter what he was, she still loved her Danny. He was still the child she had raised and loved with all her heart for sixteen years.

It’s like if he was gay… but different. Really different.

Julia set the bag of his things down as she entered his room on the second floor and breathed in the scent of him. Since beginning to change, her son had started to give off a strange aroma, a heavy musty scent not too far removed from the smoky smell of a wood-burning stove. His sweatshirt was on the floor at the foot of the bed and she bent down to pick it up, instinctively folding it and crossing the room to place it on the edge of the bed. She wondered where he was and if he was safe. She felt a certain peace knowing that Dr. Graves had promised to look after him, and smiled at the thought the man. He was good for her son, despite the fact that he was… what he was. Dr. Graves knew how to put her fears at ease, and because of that she had developed quite a fondness for him.

Julia picked up the shopping bag and placed it on Danny’s bed, wanting him to see that she had brought his things, to know that she was thinking of him. Always thinking of him. Then she left the room, closing the door gently behind her, and headed down the stairs to the foyer. She had just placed her hand on the crystal doorknob, when she heard the sound.

A strange thumping noise came from the hall closet. Julia held her breath, her chest aching with fear. She knew she should leave, maybe call the police, but found herself strangely drawn to the sound.

What the hell are you doing? An inner voice screamed as she slowly reached for the knob. Again she heard the noise, and immediately pulled her hand back, only to slowly reach out again.

She would never have dreamed of doing such a thing before Arthur Conan Doyle and his strange companions had come into her life. It had to be their influence on her, that’s the only way she could explain it. The metal knob was cold to the touch and she counted to five before tearing open the door with an ear-splitting scream.

Squire cowered in the corner of the closet, covering his face as if attacked by a flock of angry birds. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You just about made me soil my boxers."

Julia’s heart threatened to burst through her ribcage. "What the hell are you doing in the closet?" she asked, not liking the sound of her voice, pitched high from fear and the adrenaline coursing through her body. "I thought you were all away on some mission."

Squire turned away from her and immediately began to rummage through the floor of the closet. "We are," he said, dropping to his knees. "But I need a couple of things from here before we continue with our business in Greece."

She was going to ask how he had gotten there, but remembered something about the goblin using shadows to travel in, and decided that she didn’t need to know anything more.

"If I was a titanium mesh net where would I be?" he asked himself, disappearing beneath a curtain of Doyle’s long winter coats.

"You’re in Greece?" she asked, immediately curious. "What does Danny think of that? He’s always wanted to travel and — "

"He ain’t with us," Squire said, potato-shaped head popping out from beneath the dark overcoats. "He’s with Mr. Doyle, Ceridwen, and Eve."

A knot immediately began to twist in her stomach. "You mean Leonard… Dr. Graves isn’t with him?"

Squire shook his head. "Nope, Casper’s with me." He disappeared again underneath the coats. "Titanium mesh net, titanium mesh net, titanium mesh net."

Danny’s in perfectly good hands, she thought to herself. Sure, Leonard is elsewhere, but he still has Mr. Doyle, Eve, and Ceridwen to look after him. There’s no reason to worry.

Is there?

"Got it!" Squire yelled. He crawled out from the bottom of the closet hauling a thick net of what appeared to be woven metal. "I knew I’d left it around here somewhere," he said, a victorious smile gracing his grotesque features.

"So do you know if he’s okay?" she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

Squire shrugged. "Couldn’t tell ya, babe. The kid could be pushin’ up daisies for all I know." The goblin laughed uproariously. "Just kiddin’, I’m sure he’s fine. I wouldn’t worry."

Too late for that, she thought, immediately picturing herself on a plane to Greece, traveling to identify the body of her son killed doing God knew what.

"Hey, listen," Squire said, bending down to again go to the back of the closet. "I gotta get back to work. It was nice chattin’ with you. If I see the kid I’ll let him know you were asking for him."

With those words, he was gone, disappearing inside a patch of shadow, like a rabbit going down into its hole. Julia could do nothing but stare into the closet, mouth agape. Closing the closet door, she stood in the foyer, her mind a jumble. The thought of going home to her empty house, to sit and wait by the phone until Danny got back and finally got around to calling her was not appealing in the least.

She was going to wait for him to return.

Julia Ferrick left the foyer and walked into Mr. Doyle’s study, going straight for the liquor cabinet. She was going to need all the help she could to keep her wits about her.

She found the scotch and poured herself a double.