Tears of the Furies

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Their time in the Underworld had been a parade of the astonishing, a mind-boggling series of sights and experiences unlike any they had previously experienced. Conan Doyle had come to believe he had grown numb to it, that there was nothing left that could surprise him. Now, standing on a hill of bones, gazing down on the sprawling corpse of Hades, the mage realized how wrong he had been.

"Y’know what?" Danny asked beside him, breathing through his mouth to avoid the horrendous stench of decay that permeated the air. "I’ve had enough. I’m going home."

Ceridwen moved up next to the boy and placed a comforting arm about his shoulders. Conan Doyle knew the Fey were sensitive to the emotional states of others. She could feel Danny’s turmoil and was attempting to calm him. That was good, for he himself had no time for such mollycoddling. One of his Menagerie was in grave danger, and he would move Heaven, Earth and the Underworld itself to get her back.

"You don’t mean that," Conan Doyle said, as he started down the slope toward the enormous corpse. "What about Eve? Do you want to leave her here?"

"Eve can handle herself," Danny replied, but Conan Doyle could hear little conviction in his tone.

He stopped his descent and turned to look at Danny and Ceridwen, who were still standing on the crest of the hill of bones. "But she will not have to, for we are going to assist her."

Danny shook his horned head. "No way. I can’t do it anymore, it’s just too much." He gestured toward the body of Hades in the black soil valley below. "Do you see that?" he asked, his voice growing higher with panic. "It’s a giant fucking dead guy!"

The boy turned, and for a moment Conan Doyle thought he was about to walk away, but he spun around to reiterate his point. "It’s been one thing after another since coming here — since hooking up with you."

"And you’ve become a welcome part of our motley tribe," Ceridwen said, as she calmly stroked the back of his head.

Danny quickly stepped away from her touch. "I’m sorry, I just can’t."

There was a tremble in the boy’s voice and Conan Doyle was certain that he was about to cry. This will not do, not at all.

"You asked for this, boy," he said coldly. "You begged to be a part of it."

The boy squatted and buried his face in his hands. "I know, I know, and there’s a part of me that’s starting to get used to it." Danny laughed, raising his head. There were tears in his yellow eyes. "Can you believe that? I’m sixteen years old and I’m starting to get used to this shit. When we’re in the middle of it, the blood and monsters and shit, there’s a part of me that even likes it. Do you have any idea how much that scares me?"

"Get hold of yourself, Daniel," Conan Doyle snapped. "Are you not part of my team, of my Menagerie?"

Danny wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "It’s just that.. I was inside the belly of a fucking sea monster… and now this." He again gestured to the corpse that filled the valley below, the remains of a god. "I just don’t know if…"

"Damn you, boy! Answer the question!" Conan Doyle bellowed. "Are you not a part of my Menagerie?"

The young demon looked as though he’d been struck, rocking back slightly on his haunches, and then his expression began to change. Conan Doyle recognized the anger, which was exactly the response he was hoping to get.

"Did you hear me, Daniel Ferrick?" he continued. "Or was my question lost in the sound of your pathetic blubbering?"

The youth rose to his feet and Conan Doyle could have sworn he saw a flicker of crimson flame erupt from his eyes.

"No, I heard you just fine," Danny growled. "And, yes, I am part of your fucking Menagerie."

"Excellent," Conan Doyle said, reaching up to casually stroke his mustache. "Now follow. We’ll see this through. Eve would sacrifice immortal life for any of us. You’ve never served in the military, Daniel, but still you should understand. We don’t leave one of our own behind. Not ever." The mage turned and continued down the hill, off of the bone-strewn hill and onto the fine black soil of the valley.

Danny pushed past him, quickening his step. "What’re we waiting for?" he growled. "The sooner we find Eve, the faster we can get out of here."

Ceridwen fell into stride beside Conan Doyle, one hand raised, stirring the wind so that the air, thick with the stench of decay, was more breathable. He had noticed that after the shattering of her elemental staff, she had not attempted to repair it using the dark, corrupt wood of the Underworld. She had summoned the roots and made the trees do her bidding in building a raft for them to cross the Styx, but had not made herself a new staff. It was clear she had established a rapport with the elements of this place, but it seemed she did not want that connection to be any more intimate than was necessary.

"Are you two coming?" the demon boy called.

"We’re right behind you," Conan Doyle said, taking Ceridwen’s arm. "Every step of the way."

Ceridwen stood before the body of the fallen god and marveled at its enormity. From inside the great, decaying corpse there came faint sounds of life. Her gaze traveled over the incredible sight of the dead giant, rotting remains whose breadth was greater than all but the largest villages of Faerie.

Conan Doyle stood on her left, Danny on her right, all of them awed into silence until the demon boy shook his head, swore under his breath, and began to utter a mad little laugh.

"What do you think happened to him?" Danny asked. "By the looks of his throat, I’m guessing shaving accident."

She ought to have been reassured that the boy’s twisted sense of humor had returned, but there was that lunatic edge to it that only made Ceridwen more concerned for him. She gazed down at the dark, powdery earth beneath her feet, then knelt and pushed the tips of her fingers into the tainted soil, gasping at the images flooding her mind. Conan Doyle joined her and she took hold of his proffered hand as she tried to sort through the tainted memories of earth.

"Hades took his own life," she said, withdrawing her hand from the soil. She wiped her fingers on the hem of her cloak. "He knew it was only a matter of time before they were forgotten, and without the memory of the mortal world, they would cease to be." The very ground was saturated with the melancholy of the gods, and it threatened to overwhelm her. "The constant thought of it drove Hades mad, and he slit his own throat with a dagger that was a gift to him from his beloved Persephone."

"I’d slit my throat if I had to live here, too," Danny muttered to himself, still gazing in disbelief at the remains of the god.

Conan Doyle still held Ceridwen’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "And Eve? Can you sense anything of her?"

Ceridwen nodded, dredging up that particular piece of imagery from the countless others shown to her. She saw the hideous Gull and his followers, and she saw Eve, kneeling before the vengeful Furies. "Yes, they were here," she gasped. "As were the Erinyes. They’ve all gone inside."

She turned her gaze to one of the many ragged, rotting holes in the corpse of Hades, where strange, mournful sounds continued to waft out from within. They live there, she thought. Not only the Furies, but others as well. The dead. The damned. The gigantic corpse was like a city of death.

Danny only laughed. "We’re going in there? Of course we are!"

The rotting flesh of the god was stiff with rigor, but tore with enough pressure, releasing the nauseating stink of decay. Conan Doyle was surprised to find how simple it was to climb Hades’ corpse. Only the stench was a deterrent. They scaled the mountainous corpse to one of the larger gashes at the rib cage and slipped inside, walking on wounded flesh that seemed to have moved from putrefaction to petrification. Inside, the corpse was so dry it seemed almost mummified.

Conan Doyle led them within and found that pathways had been constructed of repurposed flesh and bone. There were chambers and tunnels, and quickly enough they found a makeshift bridge fashioned out of a rib bone. Conan Doyle crossed that bridge and the others quickly followed. It was like they had entered another world. Within the corpse it was dark, but what looked to be stars twinkled from the ceiling above, suspended in a velvety black sky, illuminating the strange landscape with the faint hint of twilight.

"They can’t be stars," Danny said, squinting up at the ceiling. "We’re inside a body…"

The demon boy’s voice trailed off, arousing Conan Doyle’s curiosity. "What is it, Danny?" he asked, looking up as well, but unable to penetrate the inky black.

Ceridwen raised her hand, blue-green light springing to life at her fingers as she attempted to illuminate the darkness above, but it was impenetrable.

"Those aren’t stars," Danny said with a slow shake of his head. "They’re eyes."

Conan Doyle squinted, but it was obvious that the youth’s recent demonic metamorphosis had enhanced his night vision, for as much as he wanted to, he could still see nothing.

"The entire roof, or whatever it is… it’s covered in bodies, thousands of bodies, and they’re watching us." Danny shuddered, looking quickly away.

"The spirits of those being punished by the Furies," Ceridwen said thoughtfully. "I saw it when I was tethered to the soil. The Erinyes built their lair here, transformed Hades’ remains into a palace of suffering for those condemned to their ministrations."

Danny looked up at the ceiling again, unable to take his eyes from it. "It’s… it’s horrible," he whispered. "Their mouths are all moving — they’re reaching out for somebody to help them." He sounded very young.

Conan Doyle put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. "There’s nothing we can do for those poor souls now. They’re the ghosts of another age. But we can prevent Eve from sharing their fate."

This seemed to rally the boy’s resolve, and they forged ahead, deeper into the body of the fallen god, the eyes of the damned lighting their way. There were strange formations of what first appeared to be rock on either side of the path they traveled. Upon closer examination, Conan Doyle discovered that it was not rock at all, but the ossified remains of what could only have once been other gods. They were huddled close, wearing masks of sadness and misery, draped over one another as if they had been commiserating when the end finally arrived. Minor deities and demigods, dressed in tarnished armor and wielding pitted swords and axes. They had inhabited the corpse of Hades at some point, who knew how many millennia before, and had died there, forgotten. Dozens of them. Hundreds.

The Children of Olympus.

And yet Conan Doyle could not help wondering what had happened to the others. Where were Zeus and Athena and Poseidon and their kin, the key figures of Greek mythology? Surely they were not these withered corpses whose remains had merged with the bones and dead flesh of Hades.

"This is where they fled," Ceridwen said, interrupting his musing as she reached out to brush her fingers across the remains of a dead god. She gasped, pulling her hand quickly away. "How horrible," she whispered, clutching the hand to her breast. "They are still alive — a spark of life still exists within these petrified shells."

"Come away," Conan Doyle said, taking her by the arm and leading her back onto the path. "They are echoes of the distant past. Relics. Their fate cannot be undone."

The demon boy hushed them, then, and Conan Doyle turned to see that he had moved ahead several yards. He was crouched with his head cocked, listening. When the mage and Ceridwen went to stand with him, they heard faint voices chanting in ritual, the words indistinguishable but growing louder.

They began to follow the voices. As they walked, the ground beneath their feet became soft and yielding but not from rot, like the outer flesh of the corpse. It was as though they were walking across a carpet of thick moss. Conan Doyle wondered about it, but his musings were cut short as they reached a new passage. The sounds of voices were louder now, and he could distinguish that of Nigel Gull from the others. The sorcerer was pleading, begging in song that his petition be granted. The other voices, women’s voices, made the hair at the back of Doyle’s neck stand on end, and an icy chill run up and down his spine.

The fleshy passage opened up onto a ledge that looked out over an enormous chamber of dark, thickly muscled walls.

"The heart of Hades," Conan Doyle whispered to his companions, marveling at the sight.

The three knelt and carefully peered over the edge.

Below them Nigel Gull stood before three terrible creatures that could only have been the Furies. Hawkins and Jezebel knelt behind him in reverence to the sisters, their heads bowed, as if to look upon the Erinyes was to somehow incite their wrath. Eve stood obediently at Gull’s side, the lash of one of the Erinyes wrapped around her throat like a leash. The twisted mage was using the voice he had stolen, the voice of Orpheus, to entice the sisters of night.

Conan Doyle felt Danny’s hand tighten on his arm as they watched what was unfolding below. It was exactly as he had feared, Gull was giving Eve to the Furies, but for what he did not know. The hideous thing whose lash was wound about Eve’s throat yanked upon the whip, pulling her violently to the ground. The Erinyes converged upon their prize, their pale, spidery hands fluttering excitedly about her prostrate form.

"Will you grant me my heartfelt plea, most revered Eumenides?" Gull sang out in a voice not his own.

Danny leaned close and whispered in Conan Doyle’s ear. "We have to do something." The boy’s grip on his arm grew harder. "We have to do something now."

Conan Doyle studied the scene below them. They could interrupt the ceremony, but then the mystery of Gull’s request would not have been revealed.

And he needed to know. He needed to know what could drive a man to this.

"Will you grant my plea, revered Eumenides?" Gull sang to the sisters of suffering.

The Erinyes were not an easy lot to read, and Gull wasn’t sure how they would respond, but by the way they hovered around the vampire, he knew that his offer was at least tempting.

"It has been too long since last we punished a sinner such as this," one of the Furies proclaimed, leaning forward to sniff at Eve’s hair, as one would take in the scent of an especially delicious meal.

"And long has the daughter of Phorcys and Keto suffered for her slight against the goddess Athena," said another of the three, her robes — made from the souls of the tortured — flowing eerily about her.

The Fury whose whip entwined the vampire’s throat looked down upon her captive with eyes ripe with blood. "You have done much to deserve punishment, lamia," she said, pulling Eve closer. "Do you wish to stay with us? Do you wish to repent the sins you have perpetrated upon the Third Age of Man?"

Eve looked up into the face of the Fury and smiled defiantly. "Can I have my own room?" she asked, and Gull cringed at her impertinence.

The sister of darkness smiled, seemingly unfazed by her lack of respect. "I shall receive much gratification from your suffering," the Fury said as she bent forward to lay a gentle kiss upon the vampire’s head.

" Tisiphone," she said, never taking her bloody orbs from her prize, "give the heartsick magician what he so desperately desires."

Gull felt his heart leap within his chest. His prayers had been answered at last. All that he had done in the name of love, all the lies and betrayals — it hadn’t been for naught.

One of the Furies — Tisiphone — slowly glided toward him. "In what shall you contain this valuable gift?" she asked, hands as pale as alabaster folded delicately before her.

For a moment Gull was so overcome with gratitude that he did not understand the question.

"In what will you carry the tears of a Fury?" she screeched, infuriated by his silence.

His hands quickly went to his pocket and he pulled out a glass vial, presenting it to Tisiphone.

" Open it," she commanded, and he immediately removed the stopper.

Tisiphone brought one of her long fingers up to her face, and with the nail, she poked at the bloody orb engorging the eye socket, enticing it to weep a single tear of crimson. Gull was there to catch the drop of blood, trapping it within the glass vial. The other Erinyes did the same, each in turn crying a lone tear for the sorcerer as payment for what he had brought to them.

"Would you like me to contribute to that?" Eve asked, still on her knees before the sisters. "I haven’t taken a piss since getting to this fucking place."

Gull forced a smile as he gently pushed the stopper into the opening of the vial. "Thank you, but no," he replied. "I believe you’ve done more than enough for me."

He could not take his eyes from the container’s contents, holding up his prize for all to see. He’d never experienced such elation before.

But the feeling was short lived.

"Nigel Gull!" thundered a voice from somewhere above, a voice he knew only too well.

"We have come for our friend," Arthur Conan Doyle proclaimed.

Gull watched as the Erinyes encircled their newest prize, their bloody eyes searching the chamber for these newly arrived enemies.

"By all means, Arthur," Gull replied, a twisted smile spreading across his malformed features. "Come down and take her."

That’s new, Eve thought, turning her head to watch as her allies leaped down into the chamber from a ledge somewhere above. It looked as though they were riding on a current of air. Some hocus-pocus whipped up by Ceridwen, she imagined.

The cavalry had arrived, but at that moment, with her throat entwined with the barbed lash of Alekto, Eve had started to entertain the notion that perhaps this really was what she deserved. Kneeling before the Daughters of Night, she remembered the sins she had perpetrated upon the Third Age of Man and wondered if the punishment meted out by the Erinyes, or any higher authority, would ever be enough to absolve her. She doubted it, but was certain that the sisters were willing to give it a try.

Her past sifted through her memory and she saw all of the sins she had to atone for, the betrayals and the debasements, the murders and the corruptions of the innocent. Eve had yearned for redemption so long that it no longer mattered if she achieved it. It was the quest that was her journey. Now, though, the recollections of her sins haunted her so profoundly that they sapped away her strength.

As Conan Doyle strode toward Eve and her captors across the heart of Hades, she gazed up at him reluctantly, knowing he could never understand the part of her that wanted to surrender. Despite the Furies, Conan Doyle was undaunted, and he approached with his head high, Fey sorceress and demon changeling flanking him. The Furies closed ranks around her, protecting their latest acquisition from these would-be rescuers, whom they must have considered thieves.

"You’re too late, Arthur," Gull called. "What’s done is done. Eve is no longer your concern. She belongs to the Furies now."

Conan Doyle turned his attention briefly to the deformed mage, his eyes blazing with a suppressed fury. "She belongs to no one, you fool," he said through gritted teeth. "And she was most certainly not your property to trade away. I assure you, we will deal with that grievous error of judgment soon enough."

He looked back to the Furies and bowed his head in reverence. Danny and Ceridwen did the same. "But now I must speak with the Daughters of the Earth and Darkness."

Eve tried to stand, but the barbed whip wrapped about her throat grew tighter, biting deeply, and she felt a fresh flow of blood cascade down her neck as she again dropped to her knees.

" There is nothing to say," Alekto declared. "A contract was established, a transaction made. This sinner is our property now, to punish as we see fit."

The other sisters nodded their agreement, the snakes that swam through the tresses of their hair hissing in agitation.

"Is there nothing we can do to change your mind?" Conan Doyle asked. There was sadness and sincerity in his voice and Eve wished that she could muster the strength to tell him that she wasn’t worth it, that she deserved to be left to their ministrations.

"A trade, perhaps?" he suggested. "Something that you might find of equal value and interest."

There was a flurry of movement as Gull surged toward the sisters. Eve saw a flicker of fear in his eyes.

"Don’t listen to him," the dark mage warned. "He is not to be trusted."

All three Furies moved with terrible swiftness and precision, lashing out at Gull with their whips. Eve crumbled to the ground as Alekto’s whip pulled away from her throat, tearing flesh, spilling more blood. The sisters attacked Gull, and the mage was driven to his knees, raising his hands to protect his malformed features. Each blow drew blood, but Gull did not cry out.

"We have heard enough from you, magician," the Furies said in unison, whips writhing menacingly on the ground only inches from the scarred and bleeding Gull. " We will now hear what this other has to offer."

With the touch of the Erinyes’s whip gone from her throat, Eve felt her strength returning, but the remembrances of sins that had blurred with the passage of time were still as fresh and raw as newly opened wounds. It was as if they had been committed only yesterday. Yet now her guilt and despair were fading. She had dedicated herself to making reparations for her sins, and yet the touch of Alekto’s lash had brought all of her doubts and self-loathing to the surface. Rage began to burn away her regret and her longing for punishment.

Eve steeled herself, wondering what Conan Doyle was up to. The mage stood as though orating before a Victorian audience, holding the lapels of his coat with self-importance. It was a show, like the best snake oil salesmen had put on in their day.

"I propose that in exchange for our friend," the mage said. "We will leave the Underworld post haste, and you need never worry about us again."

Eve snarled, one corner of her mouth ticking up in amusement. She saw the Furies’ confusion, the lashes of their whips writhing about on the floor of the chamber like the tails of angry tigers.

Tisiphone, who seemed to speak for the others when they weren’t all speaking, slunk nearer to Conan Doyle and eyed him and his companions closely. Her talons hooked into claws. "And how would we benefit from this barter?"

Eve climbed to her feet, while Conan Doyle adjusted the sleeves of his jacket, as always, making himself presentable even in the most daunting of situations. Part of the show.

The sisters were distracted by his words and his manner and no longer noticed her.

To their peril.

"If you give me what I want," Conan Doyle explained. "There will be no reason for us to bring your rather gruesome domicile down around your ears."

And with those words, the mage nodded to Ceridwen, and both he and the Fey sorceress raised their hands into fists, blazing with magic, uncast spells and deadly enchantments. Gull called out a warning. Hawkins and Jezebel seemed at a loss, realizing they ought to do something but too overwhelmed to act.

"Do you understand this benefit now, sisters?" Conan Doyle asked as he extended his arms, bathing the interior walls of Hades’ heart in eerie, dancing shadows.

"You dare threaten us in our lair?" Megaera shrieked.

The air crackled with the tension of impending violence, and Eve drank it in. Ever since she had been at Gull’s mercy she had nurtured fantasies of vengeance, of wanton bloodshed and savagery the likes of which she had not indulged in for far too long. The guilt the Furies had wrought in her had stung her deeply, had torn open the oldest wounds in the world. And beneath her rage and her lust for revenge was the specter of her bloodlust. Eve was a vampire, the mother of all such creatures, and it had been far too long since she had satiated her hunger.

For once, she let the hunger and hatred take over. With a throaty growl, Eve sprang at Tisiphone, knocking aside her sisters. Fingers tearing at the creature’s robes, at fabric woven from the souls of the tormented, Eve spun Tisiphone around to face her. A look of genuine surprise appeared on the Fury’s face as Eve stared into her blood-swollen orbs.

"You picked the wrong pet, bitch," she growled, feeling her fangs slide out, razor sharp. "I’m nobody’s doggy."

Eve hauled Tisiphone off the ground, rage and blood thirst driving her to madness. "This is for helping me remember what a vicious cunt I’ve been." And she brought her mouth down to the throat of the Fury, fangs plunging deeply into pale, alabaster flesh that reeked so pungently of misery.

Tisiphone wailed as she was driven to the ground by the ferocity of Eve’s attack, an unearthly shriek of agony that caused the souls in her cloak to disperse, screaming themselves, ghosts fluttering like bats into the shadowed eaves of Hades’ heart.

Conan Doyle had witnessed Eve’s savagery countless times in their long relationship, often during the insanity of battle, but it never ceased to disturb him. The Erinys flailed beneath Eve’s attack, her whip lashing repeatedly, tearing Eve’s coat to shreds and scoring the flesh beneath, but to no avail. Eve rode the bucking myth, mouth firmly attached to her victim’s throat.

The dying scream of the Fury was horrible, becoming nearly unbearable as her remaining sisters joined in, filling the cavern with ear-splitting cries of shared anguish.

Then the chamber itself seemed to react, the ground starting to undulate as if something long dormant had been awakened by the sisters’ plaintive wails.

Danny looked at Conan Doyle, panic in his eyes. "I don’t even want to know."

The walls began to tremble. They had been dry, flaking and chalky, but now they seemed damp and soft, very much like the floor. Conan Doyle was reminded of anatomy lessons at the University of Edinburgh and the first time he had seen the exposed musculature of a cadaver he would be dissecting. Hades’ heart was the size of a cathedral, but now it became living muscle. It began to pulsate, emitting a rhythmic, near-deafening throb.

The heart of Hades had been made to beat again.

Ceridwen gripped his arm as the floor thrummed beneath their feet. Conan Doyle gazed across the chamber at Gull. He had scrambled away from the Furies and was consulting silently with Hawkins even as he cradled Jezebel in his arms. She had all but fainted, tears streaming down her face, red hair filthy and matted. The girl was falling apart. Hawkins was almost there himself from the look of it. The dapper Englishman was not so dapper now, his eyes wild as he spoke to Gull. For his part, the misshapen mage seemed at a loss for once in his godforsaken life, panic etched upon his grotesque features.

Obviously, whatever was happening now was not in any way part of Nigel’s game plan.

"Come," Conan Doyle said, grabbing Ceridwen by the arm. The sorceress — his love — had been watching the surviving Furies, sickly green magick dancing from her fingertips. But the time for fighting was over. The time for retreat had arrived.

"Danny!" he snapped, gesturing to the demon boy, who was staring around at the beating heart of Hades with the same wild light he’d had in his eyes after he had killed Scylla. He squatted on his haunches, ready to move. At the sound of his name, he looked up, alert.

"We came for Eve. Let’s get her and go."

"That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since I met you," the boy snarled.

Eve who was still crouched over her prey.

Danny hurried toward Eve across the undulating floor of Hades’s heart, but as the demon boy reached for her, shegrowled and batted his hand away with a bloody claw. She did not want her feast interrupted.

"Damn it! If I was carrying a rolled newspaper I’d slap you across the nose," Conan Doyle snapped. He and Ceridwen ran to Eve. The sorceress pulled the demon boy away and Conan Doyle himself let loose a tendril of crimson magick that swirled around Eve and pulled her from her victim. "Take your damnable head from the trough and let’s go!"

Eve shook off his spell and landed on the pulsing ground several feet from her prey, fangs bared, her mouth and chin stained with gore. There was murder in her eyes, and Conan Doyle summoned a spell of defense in his thoughts, just in case.

"We’re going now, Eve."

At first he wasn’t sure if she even understood his words, but then he saw a glimmer of humanity return to her eyes.

"What a fucking rush," Eve whispered, burying her face in her hands. "Never fed on the blood of a deity before." She looked up at Conan Doyle, her eyes wide and radiant with a strange inner light. Then she smiled and wiped the drying blood from her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Potent. Way potent."

"I can only imagine," Conan Doyle responded, but before he could say anything more the voice of Nigel Gull interrupted.

"Look what she’s done!" he screamed, and Conan Doyle turned to see the twisted little mage pacing around the fleshy chamber as it undulated and pulsed. "You’ve ruined everything!"

Hawkins swore at Gull, trying to lead him to one of the hollow blood vessels that would take them out of there. Jezebel was once more standing on her own, but she was a pitiful waif, stumbling after him, silently pleading.

Eve started toward Gull, but Conan Doyle grabbed her arm. Her bloodlust was sated and the violence was gone from her eyes. "Survival is our only concern at the moment," he said.

With one last, longing look at Gull, she nodded. "Let’s go."

Ceridwen lifted a glowing hand to illuminate their path. "This way," she said.

All four of them paused as the surviving Erinyes moved to block their path.

"You will go nowhere," Alekto and Megaera moaned in unison.

Hawkins had fallen in behind them, with Gull leading a muttering Jezebel by the hand.

"Oh, this is just lovely," Hawkins muttered.

"What do we do?" Danny asked.

Conan Doyle held Ceridwen’s hand tightly, preparing to destroy the Furies. But then Gull’s bitter laughter filled the chamber.

"Oh, dear Arthur, you’ve bollixed it all up for me now, haven’t you, mate? So simple, it was. A bargain, nothing more. And you had to interfere. You couldn’t just do your part."

As he raved, Conan Doyle turned to see what had set him off. There they were, the seven of them — intruders all — in the midst of Hades’ pulsing, stinking heart. But beyond Hawkins and Jezebel, beyond the cursing, twisted shape of Nigel Gull, there were other figures. And now he saw what had prompted the dark mage’s new tirade.

Gull’s eyes narrowed with hatred and his nostrils widened, snorting like a stallion’s. "If your damned nobility keeps me from Medusa, I’ll have your heart, you bastard. I’ll have your heart."

But no one was listening to Gull anymore. On one side they were blocked by the surviving Furies. And now other creatures entered Hades’ heart through pulsing arteries, gaunt, skeletal beings adorned in fabulous armor stained black by the passage of millennia. Conan Doyle had seen these creatures before, scattered about within the corpse of Hades, but in a far less animated state. Something had awakened the lesser gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.

"Another time, Nigel," he rasped.

"What the fuck is going on now?" Eve snarled.

Ceridwen’s violet eyes flashed with light. "At a guess? You slaughtered a myth, my friend. You spilled the blood of the Erinyes, and it has set Hades’ heart to beating again… and roused the dead gods who had made this place their tomb."

"Zombie gods," Danny said with a shake of his head. "Well, shit, it was only a matter of time."

Their numbers continuing to grow, the dead gods shambled closer. Many brandished ancient weaponry: swords, spears, battle-axes, and knives.

Resigned to whatever came next, Conan Doyle smiled sidelong at Eve. "This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into."

She grunted. Not quite a laugh, but it would do. "Wasn’t something I planned."

Gull pushed Conan Doyle out of the way, sputtering angrily at Eve. "You murdered one of the Furies! What did you expect?"

Eve stared at the creatures coming toward them and cocked her head to one side. It reminded Conan Doyle of a dog he’d owned in his youth, and how it would often tilt its head upon hearing something that he himself could not.

"No," Eve replied, shaking her head. "They’re not attacking because of what I did, they’re attacking because they’re afraid."

"Afraid?" Gull exclaimed. "What in the name of bloody Christ could the resurrected gods be…"

"They’re afraid that we’ll take the treasure hidden outside this chamber. Afraid that we’ll steal the treasure of Olympus."

Conan Doyle looked at her quizzically, his hand slowly rising to stroke his mustache. The dead gods moved closer and he listened to their mournful groans.

"I drank the blood of a deity, boys," Eve said. "I know all kinds of shit about this place now."

"The treasure of Olympus," Conan Doyle repeated, as he dropped his hands to his sides, allowing the magick through him. "How interesting. Who knows what wondrous things can be found here?"

"Oh, yeah, fantastic," Eve drawled, glancing back and forth between Alekto and Megaera on one side and the resurrected god-corpses on the other. "Lot of good it’ll do us. I’ll settle for not dying, thanks."

Eve hissed at Alekto. The Fury cracked her whip almost as though she was trying to herd them toward the dead gods. Eve caught it in her hand, the barbs ripping her flesh even as she yanked it from Alekto’s hand. The Fury snarled at her and the two began to face off against one another.

"You’d better have something up your sleeve, Doyle," the vampire snarled. "We can kill these bitches, but we’d need a small army to fight the undead of Olympus."

Conan Doyle slowly reached into his pocket, searching for something he had nearly forgotten. "A small army you say." He pulled his hand from his pocket to reveal the teeth. The Hydra’s teeth.

"I believe I have just the thing."

The ancients attacked as one, a single wave of shambling necrotic flesh, archaic weaponry and furious cries of indignation. The two surviving Furies urged the legion of reanimated corpses to slay the usurpers — to make them permanent residents of this hellish realm.

Eve was the first into the fray, lunging into the dead warriors and tearing at them. She punched a fist through the chest of the first to come near her and tore off the head of a second. Through shared desperation, Ceridwen and Gull joined forces, conjuring a cloud of crackling energy hungry for the desiccated flesh of the dead. Inspired by Eve’s wanton violence, Danny Ferrick threw himself into the fray, many a decomposing god falling before his savagery. Hawkins proved himself deadly in hand-to-hand combat, shattering bones and crushing skulls with nothing but his hands. The girl, Jezebel, seemed to come truly awake and alive when at last the nightmare was about to swallow them. Her childlike qualities evaporated and only the weather witch remained. Lightning crackled within Hades’ heart, shattering gods and burning what remained of them.

All of it was merely to buy Conan Doyle time to bring his plan to fruition.

He knelt and dug his fingers into the ground, tearing away gobs of bleeding muscle. One by one he pressed the Hydra’s long, sharp teeth into the flesh of the Lord of the Underworld’s heart. The legend called for them to be planted in the earth, but in this place, here was the soil, here was the ground. With a prayer to gods long passed from this plane of existence, he stood back from his chore.

"What have you done, sorcerer?" Megaera screeched, dropping down upon him like a hungry bird of prey. She landed on his back, her claw about his throat.

Conan Doyle surged up from his crouch, spinning around in hopes of dislodging the loathsome creature from her perch. The Erinys held tight, her powerful legs locked around his waist as the grip on his neck continued to tighten. He heard the agitated hiss of the snakes that lived in her hair.

He spun to see the battle in the chamber and his hopes sank. The number of resurrected gods was growing, the corpses streaming into the chamber in endless numbers. His compatriots had to be growing tired, their sorceries and brute strength starting to wane.

"I feel your despair and sup upon it with glee," the Fury cackled in his ear as her grip upon his throat tightened even further. "Surrender yourself to me — do not delay the inevitable. For what you and your companions have done, your suffering will last for eternity."

Doyle felt his legs begin to weaken. It cannot end this way. A crude spell of conflagration leaped to the forefront of his thoughts and he brought it forward, feeling white-hot fire begin to swirl and grow in the palm of his hand.

" Surrender," the Fury hissed as he dropped to his knees, borne down by her weight.

Conan Doyle reached up behind him and placed the ball of fire into the creature’s matted locks. "Never," he wheezed, hearing the whooshing sound of dry, ancient hair igniting and feeling the hold on his neck lessen.

The Erinys screamed, beating at her blazing head. Serpents, their bodies afire and smoldering, leaped from their burning nest to land on the ground, startling Conan Doyle with their number. He was preparing another spell, something that would reduce the foul beast to ashes, when, from within her robes, she produced her whip, and with blinding speed, cracked the lash.

The barbed, leathery tendril wound around his still-constricted throat, closing his breathing passage off entirely. Images of the wrongs he had committed during his long life flooded his mind.

"So much to be punished for," the Fury said, her burned and blackened visage grinning at him down the length of the whip.

She yanked Conan Doyle viciously forward, and he again stumbled to his knees. Sins of the past clouded his mind, making it difficult for him to concentrate. He grabbed hold of the barbed length of whip, using the pain in his bleeding hands to clear his addled brain. She was dragging him toward her, the sounds of battle in the background accompaniment to his struggle, inspiring him to fight on.

" Come to me, sinner," she hissed hungrily.

There were snakes all around her feet, but he noticed something else. In the area where he had planted the Hydra’s teeth, the fleshy earth was moving, startling the snakes and making them slither away. A geyser of blood squirted upward and from Hades’ very flesh there grew a soldier, brandishing a sword that looked to be forged from jagged bone.

Megaera spun to face her new foe, its body glistening with the blood that now pumped through the heart of Hades. She cried out for help from Alekto, and from the gods that had been called forth. But it was too late. The Hydra soldier brought his jagged blade of bone down through the thick muscle of her neck, sending her head spinning through the air before dropping to the floor.

Conan Doyle pulled the whip from around his neck, watching as more of the gore-covered soldiers climbed up from the fleshy earth. One soldier for every tooth, he observed, watching as they helped one another emerge from their birthing place. Before long they stood before him, fifty blood-drenched representations of man, their features unformed, mere holes for eyes and slits for mouths. They clutched their weapons of bone, waiting for the one who called them to life to proclaim his wishes.

"Fight," Conan Doyle cried, pointing to the battle being waged across the chamber. "Destroy these forgotten gods!"

The soldiers of the Hydra’s teeth surged obediently forward, an unsettling, inhuman cry of war escaping their unformed lips.