Tears of the Furies

CHAPTER TEN

Squire scurried along the shadowpaths.

To others it was only darkness, but to the hobgoblin it was a vast network of tunnels leading to any place on the planet, and even beyond, where the slimmest touch of shadow was the means to travel great distances. All shadows were connected, and Squire knew their secrets well. He jogged through the dark, instinct guiding him toward his destination.

In his mind, he began to review the list of items Clay had asked him to bring from the brownstone. He stopped for a moment, removing the bundled titanium netting from his shoulder and dropping it to the shadowpath. "Let’s see," he grumbled. "Got the netting, of course. Can’t catch a beastie without a good net."

He picked up a small box and opened it to reveal a clear, glass vial. He took the container from its case and admired the milky fluid inside. A whole lot of South American tree frogs gave up their skin to produce this bottle o’ bad business. Should knock’er on her ass.

The hobgoblin put the narcotic back into its protective case and turned his attentions to the tranquilizer rifle. Normally he would have preferred weapons with a more archaic flavor — knives, swords, crossbows, axes — but in this case he was willing to bend a bit. From what he could see, the rifle was in good working order and he slipped it back under the netting until it was needed.

Then he caught sight of the brightly colored Skittles package. "There you are," he said with an enormous grin, snatching up the package of candy. "Come to Papa." He tore open the package with his teeth, tilted his head back and dumped most of the candies into his open maw.

"Oh that’s good," he grumbled, as the multiple flavors exploded in his mouth. "It’s been too long." He tried to remember the last time he had satisfied his nasty sweet tooth. Close to two days, probably a record.

He was in the midst of a euphoric sugar rush when he thought he heard Clay’s voice. Squire paused in the stillness of the shadows, gooey wad of sour candy in his cheek.

"… ire hurry up, damn it!"

It was Clay all right. "Shit," the goblin muttered beneath his breath, pouring the rest of the Skittles into his mouth and gathering his things. He tossed the candy wrapper and hauled the net filled with stuff over his shoulder, trudging down the appropriate shadowpath.

He knew by the ruckus wafting into the ocean of darkness that he had reached his destination. The exit was a small one, a tight squeeze, but that didn’t matter to a hobgoblin.

Squire forced his way into the opening, bones bending to accommodate the tiny space. The cool touch of shadow clung to his flesh as he emerged from an oval-shaped patch of shadow thrown by a cast iron trash barrel: first his head, followed by his short, muscular body. It was kind of like being born, minus the death of his mother and the attempts of the midwife to kill him, but there was no time for sweet nostalgia. He hauled the netting out of the pool with a grunt.

The hobgoblin quickly scanned his surroundings, searching for his friends, but found only bad news instead. What they had feared had happened. He was at a train station, squatting beneath a glass overhang that would have protected him from the elements if necessary, and where commuters, tourists, and the like should have been awaiting a train, there were now only cold statues of stone.

"Damn it," he hissed, throwing the net over his shoulder and moving out from beneath the overhang. Squire scanned the area, his sharp eyes taking in every inch of the place. Where the hell are Clay and Graves? he thought, carefully moving around the poor saps who had simply been waiting for a train when Medusa decided to pass through town.

"You see a big guy that can change himself into monsters?" Squire asked a large man who had been frozen to stone as he looked up from his morning newspaper. "He had a ghost with him."

And all was eerily silent.

Until the mastodon came crashing through a wall at the far end of the platform, destroying a mosaic depicting famous Athenian landmarks.

"Never mind," Squire told the stone man. "I think I found him."

The attack had come without warning.

Clay and Graves had been in pursuit of the fleeing Medusa, hopeful that she would steer clear of the more populated locales. But the Gorgon seemed not to consider her surroundings, intent only upon her destination. Clay had grown certain of that. Following her path, it was obvious to him that she moved with purpose, as though she knew exactly where she wanted to be.

Like she’s following a trail.

That trail had taken her to the Theseum train station on the west side of Athens, at the beginning of the rush hour commute. She moved with incredible speed, slinking along the city streets near the edge of the train station, reminding Clay of a sidewinder snake, slithering across the desert. They’d almost lost track of her a few times, but Graves had always managed to find her, sensing the ectoplasmic piece of himself still imbedded inside her.

They tried their best to catch up, hoping to stop her before she reached the station, but Medusa only moved faster, as if spurred on by some unknown lure. Squire would have muttered something rude under his breath, some obvious joke about the monster needing to catch a train. The thought, though foolish, rang true. Why else come to a train station? Clay dropped to all fours, flesh shifting, bones reknitting, all in a single instant so that by the time he hit the ground the fur had sprouted on his body and his tail whipped behind him. He needed speed. As a cheetah, now, his claws tore at the ground and he sprinted into the station.

Medusa had already climbed the stone steps up onto the platform, and he could hear the screams of those who had caught sight of her.

They didn’t scream for long.

The cheetah bounded up the station steps, and above the final cries of Medusa’s victims, he heard a sound that filled him with dread.

This hiss of a train as it pulled away.

He sprang onto the platform, just in time to catch sight of Medusa leaping onto the last car of the departing train. Clay watched in horror as the Gorgon tore off a door with a shriek of metal and tossed it aside. Then she disappeared inside, that nest of snakes upon her head coiling excitedly.

"Damn it!" Clay snarled even as his flesh altered again and he stood upright, unfolding into the body of a man. Already the deaths of those at the train station weighed on his conscience, but now there was the train. He tried not to wonder how many passengers were aboard.

The air shimmered beside him and Dr. Graves appeared, phantom guns drawn. His shirt cuffs were rolled up and through his transparent form Clay could see the X where his suspenders criss-crossed his back like bandoliers. He had always cut a heroic figure, but just then there was nothing heroic about the dread etched upon the spectral features of Leonard Graves.

"We have to catch that train," the ghost said. "I can do it, but you’ll need real speed."

Clay swore under his breath. He nodded and his flesh began to flow once more, becoming malleable… but he never completed the change. A figure clad entirely in black appeared from among the stone people on the platform and let fly with a throwing blade. Clay turned, but not fast enough, and the thin blade bit deeply into his shoulder. He tried to shift back to his more human state, but was wracked with an excruciating pain that radiated from the wound. In a form between cat and man, he leaned forward and tore the blade from his flesh with his mouth, tossing it to the ground. His own blood glinted off the strange sigils etched on its surface. He heard his attacker laughing, the sound of joy muffled by a cherubic mask. The effect of that childlike mask on the killer’s face was profoundly unsettling.

Blasts of ectoplasmic gunfire filled the air and Clay watched Graves descend upon their foe.

The baby-faced figure danced among the gunfire, eluding the phantom bullets with a disturbing grace, and as he moved, Clay saw that he had taken a cylindrical canister from a pouch on his belt and was spreading its grainy contents in a circle below the ghost’s floating form.

"Graves!" Clay warned, but it was too late. The ghostly adventurer began to scream, his normally translucent form, beginning to fade.

"What have you done to him?" Clay growled, finally able to take on his natural, earthen form, but only for an instant. He was eager to show their attacker that he had messed with the wrong people.

The figure in black let loose with another blade, this one sticking in the center of Clay’s orange, cracked flesh. He tore it away with a snarl and ran toward the assassin. In his mind he saw the image of a powerful silverback gorilla, and willed his body to become it. Again he was stricken with an incredible bolt of pain, driving him to his knees.

He glanced up at the dwindling form of Dr. Graves. "The dirt," the ghost moaned. "It’s from my grave… it binds me… calls me back there."

Another throwing knife pierced Clay’s flesh and the masked man giggled. He was playing with them. Enraged, Clay forced his protesting flesh to assume the shape of the gorilla and lunged at their attacker. The man tried to avoid him, but this time Clay was faster, knocking him savagely to the ground. He roared, tossing back his head and shrieking to the heavens, his fists beating on his broad chest.

"We’ve underestimated you," the man said. His voice from beneath the disturbing cherub mask was a dry whisper, like the rustling of leaves. "Thought the knives would have shut you down by now."

The silverback brought its arms down upon the man’s chest as though they were clubs. The man made not a sound as he was pummeled. Clay reared back, staring down at the body of his attacker. The man looked like a broken rag doll, arms and legs askew, the eerie baby-doll face looking up at the pale, blue Athenian sky.

The places where Clay had been stabbed burned as if touched by acid and he looked away from his foe for an instant to check on Graves. The ghost was gone, only the circle of earth upon the ground remained.

"Finished with me already?" the whispering voice said mockingly, and before Clay could react, the man was up from the ground and had climbed upon his back, locking himself in place with his legs and arms about the gorilla’s throat.

Impossible. He was dead. Bones shattered.

Clay roared, hurling himself to the side, thrashing about in an attempt to dislodge his attacker. He considered changing his shape again, to become something even more powerful. For a moment, he hesitated, the memory of the awful pain giving him pause. The knives were imbued with some sort of sorcery, a spell meant to prevent him from changing his shape. Whoever this guy was, he knew things about Conan Doyle’s Menagerie, ways to stop them. Ways to kill them.

Another knife bit into the thick muscle of his shoulder blade and the silverback roared. He reached over his shoulder, powerful arms attempting to pull his attacker from his back, but could not do it. The man was stuck like a tick on a dog.

Clay threw himself to the ground, rolling across the train platform, crashing into the stone bodies of Medusa’s victims. The bodies toppled to the ground, crumbling into pieces, but still the man in black held tight.

His thoughts raced. He had to do something.

"Squire, hurry up, damn it!" he bellowed, directing his voice to the nearest patch of shadows though he doubted it was possible for the little bastard to hear him. If there was any time that they could have used the hobgoblin’s assistance, it was now.

As he rolled across the hard ground of the station, the image of another animal filled his mind — something big. And his body began to change. Clay quivered and shook. The pain was unbelievable, and for an instant it almost stopped him.

Almost.

The silverback was gone now, replaced with body of a mastodon, and Clay tossed its huge head back, tusks gleaming, and blew a triumphant blast through his trunk. The pain had infected his entire form, it was absolute agony retaining the shape, and the intensity of what he was experiencing drove him wild.

The mastodon thrashed its mighty body from side to side. Clay could still feel the man clinging to his back, almost as if he had burrowed beneath his flesh. Blinded by agony and rage, he surged forward with no concern as to what was in his path.

The massive pachyderm plowed through the back of the decorative mosaic wall, shattering it to rubble, and for an instant he felt the man’s grip on him lessen. Sensing an opportunity, Clay pitched its massive head forward. The assassin was flung from his back, and upon striking the ground rolled to his feet, seemingly unfazed. He held more of those enchanted throwing knives in his hands.

"This should do it," he hissed from behind his cherub’s mask.

The assassin lifted a hand, about to fling more blades. Clay braced for the savage bite of those knives… but then his attacker’s head snapped viciously backward. He staggered, daggers dropping from his gloved hands to clatter upon the ground. His hand rose to weakly brush at an object protruding from one of the eyeholes in the cherub mask.

A tranquilizer dart had been shot into his right eye.

Clay watched with great satisfaction as the figure fell limply to the station floor, arms and legs twitching.

"Did you see that shot?" Squire hooted, rifle slung over his shoulder as he advanced across the platform.

The feeling gave out in the mastodon’s legs, and Clay slumped to the ground. Bracing for pain, he transformed to his humanoid guise, flesh flowing once more. The process was excruciating, his body feeling as though it had been set afire from the inside.

"What the hell’s wrong with you?" Squire asked, kneeling beside him.

Clay looked into the face of the hobgoblin, pleased for once to see the little man. "Didn’t think you were that proficient with modern weaponry," he said as he tried to stand.

"Don’t care for them really," Squire responded, hefting the rifle. "But it doesn’t mean I can’t shoot the balls off a blue jay at fifty yards."

Clay stumbled over to the circle of dirt. "We have to see about Graves," he said, falling to his knees before the circle. "He said that this dirt came from his grave, that it was calling him back to his body."

Squire nodded in understanding. "Old-fashioned binding spell for wandering spirits," he explained. "At first they’re bound within the circle and then slowly drawn back to their bodies where they’re imprisoned until the sorcerer who cast the spell decides they can go free."

"That’s where he is now?" Clay asked, searching the air above the dirt circle for a sign of the ghostly adventurer. "Back with his remains?"

The hobgoblin stepped closer to the circle. "If I’m remembering right, it can take a little while for the spell to kick into full gear, especially if the spirit has a particularly strong disposition." He rubbed away part of the circle with the toe of his shoe. "He may not be quite there yet."

The air above the broken circle shimmered and pulsed as Leonard Graves began to materialize. The ghost was not in the best of moods.

"Bastard!" he roared, the twin Colt 45s taking shape in his hands. "Where is that son of a bitch?"

"Whoa, Len. Where’s your usual calm reserve? Be cool, pal," Squire said. "We took care of him for ya."

"He’s down," Clay confirmed as he reached up to remove the last of the attacker’s knives from his shoulder, hissing with pain as the dagger came loose. "But we still have to catch that train — "

"Where is he?" Graves interrupted, gliding through them, ghostly guns still in hands. "I want to see the assassin up close. I’m going to make sure he doesn’t have any other tricks up his sleeve."

"What’s the matter with you, Casper?" Squire chided as he turned around. "He’s right th… Oh shit."

The figure in black was gone.

"I remember the day when getting shot in the eye with a tranquilizer dart pretty much took you out of the picture," Squire said, walking over to check out where the body had lain. The dart lay upon the platform. "But I shouldn’t be surprised."

"What are you talking about?" Clay asked, frustrated by this latest turn. Isn’t anything going to go right on this mission?

"Our mystery boy with the kewpie doll face mask is named Tassarian. A real nasty prick, let me tell you. Used to work for Conan Doyle’s old pal Nigel Gull."

The goblin nudged the tranquilizer dart with his shoe. "Or at least he did until about twenty years ago, when I killed him."

Gull had left them to die.

In the voice of Orpheus he had compelled them to lie upon the ground and await an inevitable death. Now the sound of beating wings grew louder and Conan Doyle winced at the horrid shrieks that filled the air in the distance, growing nearer by the moment.

"I can’t move," Danny growled. The demon boy’s tone was a mix of rage and panic. "If those razor birds come back for us, we’re screwed."

"It is not the Stymphalian Birds whose cries you hear," Conan Doyle said, forcing the words from his throat. Gull had not commanded them to silence, but even so any action that was not part of his instruction was difficult.

"It’s not?" Danny asked with a spark of hope.

"No. I’m afraid it is something far worse." Conan Doyle wracked his brain, desperately trying to think of a spell or incantation that could counter the power of Orpheus.

"Excellent," Danny replied sardonically. "Those birds were so last week. I would have been really embarrassed to have them rip me to shreds and eat my entrails. Hopefully something much cooler will kill us.."

Conan Doyle managed to roll onto his back, gazing up at the misty sky of the vast underground cavern. The ceiling was so high that the true height of it was impossible to discern. "Sarcasm will do nothing to help us, boy. If that’s all you can contribute, I’d appreciate it if you would hold your tongue."

"Dude," Danny exclaimed. "There’s a good chance we’re about to die here. I think me being sarcastic is the least of our friggin’ problems."

The shrieks were closer now.

"Gentlemen," Ceridwen scolded in a whisper, her face pressed to the ground. "Perhaps our energies could be put to better use, hmmm?"

Conan Doyle was glad to hear that she was conscious, but hardly thrilled that she would be awake to experience what would likely be a grisly fate. A succession of horribly shrill cries filled the air; eager wails of excitement from creatures that had at last found their prey.

The Harpies had found them.

Warm fetid air blasted the ground from the power of their wings, kicking up dirt and dust as they dropped from the sky. There were three of them. Their hideous, bird-like bodies reminded Conan Doyle of vultures, but with the heads of women. The Harpies roosted upon the rocks and perched there, gazing down on their prey. Conan Doyle could feel their hungry eyes on him, and smell the stench of death wafting from their feathered bodies.

Danny Ferrick began to whimper. "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit."

"Control yourself, Daniel," Conan Doyle instructed, with all of the authority he could muster.

Oh shit, indeed.

The Harpies huddled together, strengthening the image of vultures. But vultures did not speak. " What have we here, Sister Twilight?" one of them asked in archaic Greek, its voice a terrible screech.

" I’m not sure, Sister Dark," replied a second.

" I think a tribute has been paid to us, sisters," said the last of the three. " Oh yes, I think the one whose beautiful song we heard has bestowed this honor of fresh meat."

"Come now, Sister Dusk," said Twilight. " Why would one who sang so beautifully wish to pay us tribute?"

"Are we not beautiful as well?" Dusk replied.

As the other Harpies agreed, Conan Doyle frowned. He was skilled in linguistics, particularly ancient languages, but he should not have been able to understand them so well. Curious, he glanced sidelong at the demon boy. "Daniel," he whispered. "Can you understand these creatures’ speech?"

"Yeah, but I wish I didn’t. If they’re gonna eat us I wish they’d just do it and get it over with, their voices are like fingernails on a damn blackboard."

Fascinating, Doyle mused. It was as if the Underworld were somehow accepting them, bestowing upon them an understanding of the ancient language of myth. They were becoming part of this place. It made certain things easier, but somehow he found it very unsettling as well to wonder what else it might mean. This was something that he would need to look into later… if there was a later for them.

"An offering perhaps," Sister Dark suggested. " For safe passage across the land. As Charon takes payment for passage across the Styx, this is our due for allowing them to cross the land unhindered."

"An interesting theory," said Twilight, reaching up with a talon to scratch the side of her head. The Harpy’s hair was long and gray, matted with filth. "But I’m not sure that…"

Conan Doyle cleared his throat. He could understand the Harpies. Could they understand him? "If you would like to know why we have been left here, good sisters, all you need do is ask."

The creatures exchanged glances and then fluttered down from their perch on the rocks. They alighted upon the ground, another cloud of black dust roiling beneath them.

" Look, sisters, the carrion speaks," Twilight said, bending forward to take a closer look. " Do you have answers for us, tender morsel? Do you know the reason why you have been abandoned here?"

Conan Doyle could feel Gull’s spell weakening slightly, and was able to sit up. The Harpies recoiled, baring razor-sharp teeth and hissing in warning.

"Just stretching, my dears. No cause for concern." He wanted them as calm and complacent as possible, in case an opportunity to escape should present itself. Danny was moving about more freely also, as was Ceridwen.

"My belly rumbles for food," Dusk shrieked. " You will explain why you are here immediately — or go down our gullets with questions unanswered. Soon I will be too hungry to care."

"Of course, of course," Doyle answered. "Let me see." He raised a hand to stroke his mustache. "Where to begin?"

The Harpies leaned closer, eager to hear his tale. Their feathers were stained and matted with the dried blood of previous meals, the smell wafting off their bodies sickening.

"We are here, my compatriots and I, because we were betrayed."

Twilight cocked her head to one side, intrigued. "The one whose voice sang the most lovely of songs, was he the purveyor of this betrayal?"

Conan Doyle nodded. "Sadly, yes," he explained. "He acquired, by magicks most foul, the voice of Orpheus, and has used its persuasive capability to steal away one of our group, and to order us to stay to meet our fate at your mercy."

"Horrible," Twilight hissed.

" Terrible," said Dark, with a disgusted shake of her head.

" Appalling," Dusk interjected for the sake of unity with her sisters. "It is enough to weaken the already precarious trust we have in those that we so tentatively call friend."

Dark and Twilight turned their attentions to their sister, obviously taken aback by her words.

"Your trust in us is precarious, darling sister?" Twilight asked, ire in her tone.

Dusk shook her head furiously. " No, no. Do not misconstrue. I speak of friends, not dearest family."

Then Dark flapped her wings in agitation. "And what friends do you have in this misbegotten place but us? Can you tell me this?"

Like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, Conan Doyle sensed it growing around him, raising gooseflesh on his arms. He frowned deeply and glanced around, trying not to draw the Harpies’ attention. Someone was using magick. He glanced toward Ceridwen, her regal features in profile. She was conscious and sitting up, but he could tell that she was in no condition to attempt a spell of any kind, and Danny was not capable of such a feat.

Then who?

The Harpies were being manipulated, a spell had been cast to foment hostility among them. Their argument was reaching a fevered pitch and they had begun to scream at one another, their talons digging into the dry, rocky earth as they grew more agitated.

"And what of you, Twilight?" Dark shrieked, spittle flying. "Do you mistrust me as well? Am I the last to know how you two really feel about me?"

Twilight flapped her powerful wings, stirring up clouds of dirt. "I have had suspicions about the two of you for quite some time," she snarled. "When were you going to do it? As I slept? Helpless while in the embrace of dream? I should have known."

Conan Doyle caught Danny’s eye as the sisters continued their tirade against one another. The demon boy slid closer to him.

"What the hell’s going on?"

The mage managed to stand. The effect of Orpheus’s voice was indeed wearing off, and he helped Ceridwen to her feet as well. "I’ll explain later." He reached down to haul Danny up. "But now might be a good time to get as far away from here as possible."

The Harpies did not even notice them getting to their feet and moving away. The sisters were totally engrossed in one another, blind to anything other than their heated squabble about betrayal and mistrust.

" I’ll see you both dead!" Twilight raged, and the ugly beast spread her wings, lifted off the ground several feet and then descended upon her sisters, curved black talons tearing at them savagely.

Dusk and Dark responded with equal fury, their screeches of outrage filling the air as they attacked each other with wanton abandon.

Potent magick, Conan Doyle thought as he watched the horrible creatures engage in their insane melee. As he and his companions made their escape, he scanned the cliffs surrounding them, but still could not find the source of the spell.

They were moving far slower than he would have liked, the residual effects of Gull’s song still working on them, but they made progress nonetheless. The screams of the Harpies receded into the distance as they scrambled down an embankment into a gully.

In places the cavern ceilings were so high that moisture gathered in the eaves and swirled into clouds. As they traveled, hour after hour, they heard the sounds of distant oceans and the thunder of lumbering beasts as they made their way through tunnels and across barren plains of rock and cold, slippery moss.

In time they found themselves on rough terrain with uneven hills of craggy stone and outcroppings of rock that jutted up from the ground as though rammed through the earth from below. Some were small, little more than a scattering of blocks, and others were towers. It reminded Conan Doyle of the American Southwest, of the red rocks that were spread across sections of Arizona, among other places.

They weaved their way around the largest of these, following paths cut into the ground by the wind that scoured the stone. It was rough going, but at least they had left the Harpies far behind.

"So what happened with the sisters back there?" Danny asked. "Why’d they go all Jerry Springer on each other?"

"Magick happened to them," Conan Doyle explained. "A spell was cast that caused their already rabid emotions to run amok."

Ceridwen stopped and turned to look at him, her face cast in eerie shadows from the strange gloom of this place. "And did you cast this spell, Arthur?"

Before he could answer the wind brought a new scent to them. It was the smell of a campfire, and of cooking meat.

Conan Doyle didn’t know how the others were responding to the drifting aroma, but his stomach was close to cramping, it was so empty. And like the cobra charmed by a tune, he found himself drawn toward the smell. They fell silent and walked quietly in between two tall stone outcroppings, which seemed part of a ridge of towers that seemed to loom up on all sides of them now.

"Hey!" Danny said. "Is this a good idea?"

"Perhaps we should find out," Conan Doyle answered. At this point he had gone beyond caution, his sudden realization of hunger perhaps making him a tad careless. Beyond that was the simple fact that this was the direction Gull had taken Eve, and he was determined to retrieve her.

They saw the flicker of the campfire reflected on the stone thrusting up from the earth ahead. The smell of roasting meat was nearly overwhelming, and Conan Doyle could have sworn he heard the hissing sound of grease as it dripped into the fire.

It compelled him to move closer.

Their path among the stones twisted slightly and around that bend was the prize that had drawn them like a moth to flame. Conan Doyle slowly, cautiously peered around the corner into an open area, a clearing in this forest of stone.

A giant sat upon a rock before a roaring fire, some sort of beast roasting over the hissing flames on a spit. The giant’s back was to him, but Conan Doyle could see that he was powerfully proportioned. The hair cascading down his back was very long and curly and he wore only a loincloth made from the fur of some animal.

Conan Doyle was unsure of how to proceed. He thought about clearing his throat to introduce himself and the others, but considering how friendly the other denizens of the Underworld had been, wasn’t sure if this was the best course. His questions were answered for him when the huge man, sitting hunched before the fire, addressed him in a low, melodious voice.

"Welcome, strangers." The giant turned to face them from his rocky seat. "Step into my humble abode."

Ceridwen and Danny froze beside Conan Doyle as the giant fixed them in the stare of the single eye at the center of his broad, bearded face.

"You’re just in time for dinner," said the Cyclopes, and his lips spread wide in a ghastly smile.