Tears of the Furies

PROLOGUE

Three years ago

A pale shroud had been drawn across the sky, softening the midday sun and filtering its rays through a layer of gauzy surreality. Billowing mist clung to the indigo waters of the Aegean Sea. This was the familiar, tangible world, yet in conditions like these, other worlds seemed close at hand, perhaps just a breath away.

It won’t be long now, Nigel Gull thought. A thick bead of sweat slid from the top of his misshapen skull down the knobby flesh of his face, and he wiped it away with a silk handkerchief clutched in a contorted hand.

The cool haze lessened the heat, but only barely. Gull gazed up at sun where it hid behind the drifting fog. It reminded him of the eye of some watchful deity, the once all-seeing orb glazed over with the film of death. He found it all strangely appropriate, to be observed from above by a god long dead.

He twisted around in his seat and narrowed his gaze as he regarded the skipper of the small boat. Though motorized, to his mind it was barely more than a skiff, certainly not large enough for the man to earn the title of captain.

"How much farther?" he asked.

The old man squinted into the haze as if he were able to somehow see what lay upon the sea ahead. "Not long now," he grumbled, his words thickly accented with the flavor of the isles.

Taki Spiliakos had been with Gull since his arrival in Greece nearly six months ago, assisting him in his pursuit of the most elusive of prizes. The fisherman — a resident of the tiny island of Giaros — had the reputation of being a madman, but of course, a madman was exactly what Nigel Gull required.

Born with his head and face enshrouded in a portion of his mother’s amniotic sack, a caul as it was named by those who still remembered the ancient ways, Spiliakos was destined to be endowed with a powerful sensitivity to things of the preternatural. The superstition had proven true, and his unusual gifts had begun to exhibit themselves early in his seventh year. It was said that young Spiliakos could communicate with the spirits of the past, that he heard the whispers of ancient ghosts, and that he could see into the past the way others were said to be able to predict the future. That infernal chatter had driven him into isolation, and finally into the embrace of madness.

Gull sought a piece of antiquity, a fragment of myth with the ability to hide itself away from the most scrutinizing eyes. The ancients spoke to Taki Spiliakos, and through him Gull had gleaned many clues to the whereabouts of his elusive prize. There had been mishaps since Spiliakos had come to be in his employ, errant leads and tangents and false alarms. The spirits of the long departed were bored and thusly playful, but Nigel did not look at these moments as failures. They served merely as a process of elimination that would eventually yield his heart’s desire.

And what about this time? Gull wondered, continuing to gaze into the undulating fog, his body swaying with the swell of the sea. What of today?

The previous morning, after awakening from a particularly debilitating session with the restless dead that required half a bottle of scotch for recovery, the old man had finally recounted his most recent conversation with his ancient dead of the islands. This communion with the spirits had produced more than one mention of the object of Gull’s quest, and a possible location as well.

Gull had immediately dispatched a reconnaissance team to the island of Kassos. As usual, his hopes were high, but his expectations were held at bay… until the field team failed to call in with its report. All attempts at communicating with his Wicked, as he enjoyed calling those in his employ, had been unsuccessful, and further investigation had found the entire island of some fifteen hundred inhabitants to be incommunicado.

Now, as the small boat cut through the uncommon mist — a perhaps unnatural phenomenon — Gull felt excitement roil in his gut. He had wasted no time gathering a crew for his yacht and setting sail for Kassos. Afraid of running afoul of the rocky reefs around the island in the uncanny fog, he had ordered his crew to drop anchor, deciding to go ashore by motorboat. His crew, loyal to a fault, had wanted to accompany him, but he had insisted on proceeding with only Spiliakos to guide him.

"How much farther can it be?" Gull grumbled, his patience beginning to fray, but as the words were leaving his mouth, he heard the sound he’d been anticipating, the surf breaking upon the shore.

Spiliakos cut the power to the motor, allowing the boat to drift toward the beach. It was as if a curtain of gray had been briefly lifted to reveal their destination. The old man leaped into the knee-deep surf, guiding the boat up onto the rocky shore. He extended his hand to Gull, who took it, allowing himself to be helped from the boat.

"Is this it, Taki?" he asked, his eyes frantically searching for any sign that this was indeed the place he had been seeking for so many years. "Is she here?"

Spiliakos touched his age-spotted fingers to the side of his head, rubbing at his temple. "That is what they tell me."

"Where?" Gull grasped the old man’s thin, muscular arm in a malformed grip. "Ask them where she is to be found."

The sea mist clung to the shore, but a gentle wind blew, stirring the air, briefly revealing a second boat upon the beach before it was swallowed up again.

"Your agents’ ship," Spiliakos said grimly. "I am sure that they could answer your question."

The island was eerily quiet, the fog-muted hiss of the surf the only sound, except for the pounding of Nigel’s heart in his ears.

"Right, then," he said moving away up the beach. "Let’s find them."

The fog churned and swirled as it drifted over the island, so that Gull was forced to move slowly, cautious with each step, peering ahead. The breeze off of the sea would occasionally tear through the gray mist, giving them fleeting glimpses of what lay before them. They had not traveled far before they found the first of the Wicked.

The figure in the distance stood with its back to them, remaining perfectly still as they approached. Gull was startled to see the man alive, and his expectations of success began to wane.

"You there," Gull called. But the man did not respond, and there was not the slightest hint of movement.

The mist coalesced about the figure once again, hiding him from view, and Gull cursed, quickening his pace. Nearly blind in the fog, he extended his hands, feeling his way through the cool, damp haze.

"Hello. Are you deaf, then?" he called into the mist, but there was still no response.

Spiliakos followed dutifully. Gull was vaguely aware of his stumbling pursuit as the rocky shore gave way to outcroppings of stone. Gull stumbled, the toe of his boot catching on an oddly shaped rock. Spiliakos tried to stop his fall, but the old man was not fast enough, and Nigel found himself pitching forward.

He flailed outward and managed to grab hold of an outcropping of rock, clinging to it as he tried to restore his balance. Gull was draped across the oddly formed stone configuration, and even as he recovered from the shock of his stumble, and he got his footing again, he became aware of the shape of the stone beneath his hands. It was not a natural formation, but the statue of a man.

Gull regained his footing, but his hands did not leave the statue. It was cool beneath his touch. His fingers traced the exquisite line of the statue’s musculature and the way the stone had been made to replicate the folds of cloth. He moved around to the front of the figure, and the mist cleared enough for him to gaze into its face.

Nigel Gull had known this man.

His name was Colin Davenport, and he had been commander of the Kassos reconnaissance team, in Nigel’s employ for nearly ten years. The expression frozen upon Davenport’s face was one of supreme terror. A look that conveyed how aware the victim had been at the moment of his horrific transformation.

Gull reached a twisted hand out to Davenport’s face to touch what his flesh had become. The tips of his fingers tingled as he caressed the smooth surface of man’s stone cheek.

"Has he answered your question?" Spiliakos asked, he, too, staring at the statue that had once been flesh and blood.

"Oh yes," Gull hissed, unable to look away. "He’s absolutely extraordinary."

"But what of the others?" Spiliakos asked, turning away. The mist had again grown impenetrable, hiding what lay ahead. "Has the same fate befallen them?"

Gull finally tore his gaze from the stone man and stared into the swirling haze.

"Damnable fog," he growled, fumbling in his coat pocket for his penknife. The blade was no more than two inches long, but it had proven its worth on many occasions, and he never went anywhere without it. "Should have thought to do this as soon as we first encountered the infernal brume," Gull griped as he opened his other malformed hand and ran the blade across the palm. Blood bubbled up from the gash, and he closed his fingers upon the wound, allowing his life stuff to trickle down the sides of his clenched fist and spatter upon the ground.

Gull closed his eyes, recalling an invocation taught to him by an ancient hag on the Russian Steppes. The words of the spell leaped from his mouth as if eager to escape. The blood that had dripped upon the ground began to smolder, vapors of red rising up to mingle with the fog that encompassed them. The gore on his hand had begun to fume as well, and he opened his hand, palm skyward, to expose the bloody cut to the elements. Blood no longer seeped from the wound, but instead streamed upward, scarlet strands that stretched from the gash to sway snakelike in the swirling vapor.

The wind suddenly picked up, responding to the ancient European magicks, and he watched as Spiliakos shielded his eyes from the dust and sand.

Gull extended both hands before him, the words leaving his mouth in a bellowing crescendo. With the last of the incantation spoken, Gull felt the power within him swell and reach out to take hold of the surrounding fog, clearing it from the sky above the island on an unnatural breeze.

Momentarily drained, he fell to his knees.

"May the gods protect us," Spiliakos said, muttering the words in Greek.

Gull shook off his disorientation and looked to see what had brought the exclamation to the old man’s lips. He rose to his feet, surveying the island now that the mist had been dispersed. In the full light of day, with blue sky sprawling above and the Aegean crashing upon the shore, Gull at last could view the panorama of the island that spread out before him. Never in his long, accursed life had he seen anything quite so breathtaking.

A forest of stone figures. Statues as far as his eyes could see.

"I have to be closer," Gull said dreamily, walking forward.

Spiliakos was at first tentative, but then begrudgingly accompanied him. "They were fleeing her," the old Greek said, moving among the petrified men, women, and children. "The village of Panagia is that way, and Emborio is beyond it." He gestured in the direction from which the villagers had most likely come.

Gull stood before a cluster of men and women who had once been in his service. They, too, wore expressions of horror; two of the five had even drawn weapons.

"Bloody fools. I gave them specific instructions that she wasn’t to be threatened," he said, shaking his head. "That she wasn’t to be hurt." Gull pointed a crooked finger at the gun clutched in the stone fingers of one of his former operatives. "Does this look non threatening to you?"

"Look at their faces," Spiliakos said. "They were frightened."

Gull seethed. "None of this would have happened but for their stupidity! If they had followed orders… They caused this!" He threw himself at the stone figures of his men, knocking them over, shattering them upon the ground. He kicked at the broken limbs and body parts that now littered the ground.

"Mr. Gull, please," Spiliakos pleaded. "Calm yourself. It is not the time to — "

Then they heard it, soft at first but growing louder, and it froze them both in place. The air was filled with hissing, the sound made by a serpent when threatened. But it was not the sound of one snake, or even a dozen, this was the warning of serpents too numerous to count, and they were drawing closer.

"She’s here," the old man whispered, and he blessed himself with the sign of the cross.

Gull wanted to laugh out loud, amused that the old madman had at this moment decided to embrace the Christian God.

"Oh, he’ll be a lot of bloody help," Gull said with a shake of his deformed head. He scanned their surroundings. "No, sorry, old boy, but today is a day for deities far older and wiser."

The echo of his own words still in his ears, he caught sight of her and froze. She moved among the petrified bodies, and he felt his breath being taken away.

"It appears the ancients have whispered the truth at last," Spiliakos said, his gaze following the stealthy dartings of the figure that approached.

"A reward for being such a good listener, perhaps," Gull replied. "Now cover your eyes."

Spiliakos ignored him, moving into that forest of the stone dead for a closer look.

"There were two things the old voices told me last night," he said. "First, that you would find her at last, and second, that her eyes would be the last thing I would ever see." The old man stopped beside the petrified figures of an old woman and a little girl, frozen in mid-run, their heads turned slightly to gaze back upon their pursuer. "I have always heeded the whispers of the ancients."

Gull would have ordered the man back to his side but his voice would not come. She was slinking among the statues, and her progress held him transfixed. Her movements were filled with a predatory grace. Her hair was a nest of writhing green vipers, and her face — once so alluringly beautiful that the goddess Athena cursed her out of jealousy — was hideous. Monstrous. Not unlike Nigel Gull himself.

Medusa.

She swayed cobra-like before Spiliakos, a good deal taller than he was. Her gaze was eager, her beguiling movements urging him to raise his eyes, to look at her. The old man stared at the ground, at his feet.

Medusa reached out to Spiliakos, placing an alabaster hand beneath his chin, tilting his gaze up to meet hers. The old man complied with her gentle urgings, the snakes in her hair writhing and hissing excitedly, as their eyes locked, and Taki Spiliakos fell under her curse. There was a sound like twigs snapping, a gray hue spread over his flesh, and then the old man froze, immortalized in stone.

For a moment, Medusa stared down upon her handiwork in admiration. Then she twitched, her head rising as she remembered there was yet another to feel the effect of her stare. The object of his obsession turned her gaze upon Nigel Gull, moving swiftly toward him, the very air seething with the malice she projected.

Gull only smiled.

The Gorgon slowed, staring at him in confusion. Gull wondered how long it had been since she had been able to look into someone’s eyes without harming them. It was a moment that would stay with him for the rest of his afflicted existence.

"I bear my own curse, miss. Yours cannot hurt me. We’re much alike, you and I," he said to her, drawing her attention to his malformed visage. "I’m Nigel Gull," he said in his most gentle voice as he gingerly moved toward her.

He reached out to take her hand in his, pleasantly surprised to see that she did not pull away, and bent forward to place a tender kiss upon the back of her hand.

"And I have loved you for an eternity."

The monster — the woman called Medusa — began to cry.