Tears of the Furies

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In the grip of magick and wind, spun and blinded by the white-gray spell-storm, Conan Doyle held tightly to Ceridwen’s hand. He had traveled with her like this before, during the Twilight Wars, but this was different. There was a dark tint to the winds, a texture to them as though the black soil of the netherworld had been drawn into them and now scoured his flesh like a desert sandstorm. And there was a smell, an unpleasant odor that was carried on the wind. It might have been the Forge of Hephaestus, the stink of brimstone, he knew. But Conan Doyle thought that it was something else, some part of Ceridwen’s magick tainted by the fact that she was drawing on the nature of this place, the elements of the Underworld.

Or perhaps it’s just Gull, and the poison that lingers in his magick, even after all of these years. His curse.

His eyes watered, demanding that he close them, but he refused. Though he only managed to keep them slightly open, Conan Doyle despised surrendering control, even to Ceridwen, and if the situation demanded it, at the very least he wanted to see where he was going. Not that there was much to see. The winds howled, rushing him forward. He gripped Ceridwen’s fingers more tightly.

Then his feet touched stone. The traveling wind subsided too quickly, giving them no chance to halt their momentum, and Conan Doyle stumbled forward, dropping to one knee. Only Ceridwen’s grip on his hand kept him from sprawling across the floor of the cavern. But his love was the only one who alighted gracefully. Danny and Eve struck the ground hard, tumbling painfully but rising uncannily fast.

Gull staggered several steps and then dropped onto his hands and knees, blood dripping from his broken nose. He trembled weakly for a moment before getting ahold of himself.

Conan Doyle glanced around. The traveling wind had brought them as far as it could, within this hellish world. They were at the mouth of the tunnel through which they had entered, perhaps thirty feet wide and forty high. In comparison to the vastness they had seen, it was narrow. It was ordinary. He looked back the way they had come and only then did he see Sweetblood. Conan Doyle had been wrong to think only Ceridwen had managed to alight with any grace. Lorenzo Sanguedolce stood casually in the tunnel beside the massive Forge of Hephaestus. It gave off light and a strange heat that lent a warmth to the body without searing the skin.

Puppets, Conan Doyle thought. We’re all puppets.

He strode to Sweetblood and the mage raised a single eyebrow, regarding him coolly.

"I know the threat this world faces," he told his former mentor. "We would all have aided you. You could simply have asked."

Sanguedolce’s nostrils flared. "It would have gone far more smoothly had the temptress not slain Tisiphone. I might have come and gone with none the wiser. That would have been best. As for your help, I have no need of it. When the time comes to face the DemoGorgon, perhaps you can serve again as you did this past day, as a distraction. As fodder, to buy me time for the real battle."

Conan Doyle was a gentleman, but in his life he had also been a soldier. Yet neither of those facets of his spirit could summon a response to Sweetblood’s appalling arrogance. They were all silent, each of them having heard the exchange. Ceridwen, Gull, and even smartmouthed Danny Ferrick, all stared at Sweetblood in amazement and distaste.

Eve was frozen by her shock for only a moment. Then she launched herself across the cave. "You cocky motherfucker! You’d still be back there being Zeus’s fucking chew toy if it weren’t for Ceridwen. This thing, the DemoGorgon, it’s you the Big Evil is coming for, right? I say we just make you dead, and then it’ll ignore us again."

She sprang at him, murder on her face. Sanguedolce put one hand on the Forge of Hephaestus and simply gestured with the other, and Eve was engulfed in flames. Her scream could have wrung tears from the damned.

Conan Doyle leaped between Sweetblood and Eve, his hands clenched into fists that crackled with swirling golden light.

"That’s enough, Lorenzo. You’ve done far more than enough damage by now."

Ceridwen raced to Eve’s side, fingers sketching the air, and Conan Doyle felt the superheated air drop eighty degrees in an instant. The flames that had momentarily touched Eve’s flesh were snuffed and frost formed on her charred skin and scorched hair.

Danny tensed to spring, but Conan Doyle gestured for him to stay back. The demon obeyed, but with obvious reluctance.

Sweetblood smiled at Conan Doyle. "That’s right, Arthur. Call your pets to heel. As for it being enough, I concur. We’ve all gotten what we wanted. Or, at least, what we needed."

His gaze shifted and Conan Doyle glanced over to see what had drawn Sanguedolce’s attention. It was Gull, who sat on the stone floor of the cavern with a glass vial of blood held up in his fingers, staring at it as though it were the world’s largest diamond and he could study its facets.

Eve wasn’t so easily distracted. Her skin would heal, but she would still feel the pain. Enough so that she abandoned the colloquial jargon that was so much a part of her modern persona. "Hear me, o’ man," she snarled, baring fangs that gleamed in counterpoint to the blackness of her charred flesh. "There shall be a reckoning."

Sweetblood sneered. "Oh, yes. But you won’t even be on the battlefield by then, dear one. This is so far above you — "

"Shut the fuck up."

The words came from Danny, but it was clear from his tone that they were spoken not in anger, but in fear. All eyes turned to him. The demon boy had walked deeper into the tunnel, just past the place where the Forge of Hephaestus sat, burning. Now Danny turned to take them all in with a glance, his yellow eyes wide.

"Do you hear that?"

Conan Doyle narrowed his gaze, peering down into the tunnel. He could see nothing save the same orange glow that had greeted them upon their arrival here. But Eve had left off her rage at Lorenzo and she stepped past him to join Danny.

"Screaming," she said, her voice low. Then she turned toward Conan Doyle. "The ghosts are coming. The dead gods, the ones that are nothing but spirit now, they’re coming after us."

Behind him, Nigel Gull laughed. "Or perhaps they simply want out."

Conan Doyle swore under his breath. If the dead gods escaped the Underworld, there would be catastrophe and slaughter. The specters were bad enough, but he suspected that they would not come alone.

The Underworld was another realm, a twist of the fabric of reality away from the world of Conan Doyle’s birth. A barrier existed between dimensions, as it always did, but magick could open a portal or build a bridge. The portal between the Underworld and his own world was represented physically by two enormous stone doors, or gates.

He turned toward them now, glancing up at their height. "We’ve got to get them open. Now."

"No more voice of Orpheus," Danny muttered.

"We’ve wasted time," Conan Doyle snapped, glaring at Sanguedolce. "Come, Lorenzo. The gates must be opened, and then closed again once we are on the other side."

The cave floor trembled slightly beneath their feet. The distant wailing of anguished spirits came along the tunnel, audible at last to the rest of them, and growing louder by the moment. Sanguedolce turned and caressed the Forge of Hephaestus.

"Damn it, man! You didn’t come in here without an exit plan!"

The ground shook so violently that Conan Doyle staggered backward. Ceridwen steadied him and then leaned on him herself. The cave split, a crack splintering across the floor and widening moment by moment, each time with a sound not unlike the profound snapping that came up from deep ice melting.

Conan Doyle glanced down the tunnel again. Nothing was in sight yet, not monsters or resurrected gods, but it was a matter of moments, he knew.

"Come on!" Danny snarled.

Eve held on to him.

Sweetblood shrugged. "My magick could free us. That was my plan. But there is a faster way." He pointed at Ceridwen. In the gloom of the cave her own slim, angular features seemed almost ghostly. "She is tied to the elements, to nature. The gates are of this world, and of that. All she must do is commune with the elements of our own realm, and the doors will open for her."

Conan Doyle nodded, then spun on Ceridwen. "Go. Do it."

She shook her head, confused. The cave shook harder, debris and dust falling down from the roof above them. "I don’t know if… I’ve had to adjust to the nature of this place. I am not certain if — "

Nigel Gull choked his hoarse laughter again.

Eve rushed across to Ceridwen, grabbed her arm and propelled her the last few feet to the massive crack that went up toward the roof showing the seam between the doors. "Just fucking do it. No time for doubts, princess. Get us out of here."

The ground shook again and Eve went to her knees. Ceridwen braced herself against the stone gates, her hands on either side of the seam. Conan Doyle held his breath as he watched her trembling not from outside stimuli, but from within. Her eyes lit up with a familiar blue glow, and they began to change color. Green and fiery red and white-gray and at last, night-black.

Black mist leaked from the edges of her eyes. Purple-black energy began to glow around her hands, spreading up her arms. It was tainted magick, the same hideous shade as he had seen Gull wield from time to time, but this was the base elemental nature of this place. Ceridwen was in tune with it, sharing her nature with it.

She screamed in anguish and disgust and threw her head back, her eyes oily black, her mouth gaping open. The gates in front of her began to glow with that bruise-black energy.

"Ceri!" Conan Doyle shouted. He ran at her, reaching for her.

His wrist was caught in an iron grip and he spun, raising his free hand to attack, a spell coming to his lips. Then he saw that it was Danny who had grabbed him.

"We’ve got to get outta here and get the door closed from the other side," the boy said. "You know that. Maybe you should focus on keeping us alive in the meantime."

His fangs were longer, now, and the horns had grown during their time in the Underworld. Danny looked more the demon than ever, and yet in his voice he was still the boy, unsure of himself, trying his best to face up to the horrors that he had thrown himself into, to the truth of who and what he was. Conan Doyle had let his emotions interfere with rational thought for a moment, and he was ashamed of himself.

Ceridwen screamed again, but he turned his back on her.

"Come, then. Let’s buy her the time she needs."

With a crash, the ground shook again. Sweetblood stood beside the Forge, his entire body engulfed in a crimson flame, staring back along the tunnel. Eve grabbed Gull by his jacket and hauled him to his feet.

"Get up, asshole. We might need you."

Conan Doyle stood beside Danny and while Ceridwen was busy trying to get them out, the five of them rode the cracking, undulating stone floor of the cave and waited for the hordes of resurrected myths to attack. The shrieks of disembodied gods grew louder, whipping with the wind through the tunnel, and Conan Doyle narrowed his eyes as he realized that they weren’t just voices anymore.

He could see them.

Like heat distortion above the blacktop on a July day, they obscured the view of the far end of the tunnel, where it turned to the left and downward. The spirits had just appeared but they were swift, streaking toward the gates with malicious momentum. From this distance and in the gloom he could not make them out as distinct from one another. Instead they were a wave of spectral hatred, flowing upward.

The tunnel shook again. Debris showered down from above. A shard of rock struck Conan Doyle on his left cheek and cut him. He hissed with pain and put a hand to his face, glanced down a moment to see the blood on his hand, and only when he had looked up did he see the shadow that had begun to obscure the orange glow at the far end of the tunnel. A massive, skeletal hand and a battle-axe. The shadow moved and in a moment had blocked all light from that direction.

The dead gods still shrieked, hurtling up the tunnel at them, but he could not see them any longer. The only light came from the Forge and from the magick crackling around Sweetblood’s body and Conan Doyle’s own hands. And from behind…

A blinding flash of blue lit up his peripheral vision, illuminating them all in stark silhouette. So bright was the light that it shone deep into the tunnel and for just a moment Conan Doyle saw the specters of gods screaming nearer, perhaps a hundred yards away now, and deeper, the march of an army of bones. With that image still imprinted on his retinas he spun in search of the source of that bright flash.

Ceridwen shuddered as though she were having a seizure, hands pressed against the high stone doors ablaze with purple-black light that flowed like mercury over her upper arms and spilled like cloud-tears from her eyes. The doors themselves radiated that same magick so that it seemed to be seeping from the stone rather than flowing from Ceridwen. But that dark glow had diminished somewhat, and the color was lightened by the bright blue light that blazed in the crack between the doors. It swirled with shades of blue, ice and sky and river, all shifting in the pure, brilliant glow that seemed only to grow.

In tendrils, the elemental magick of Earth slipped through into the underworld and ran across the inside of those enormous doors, the gates of the Underworld. Like lightning it leaped through the seam and touched Ceridwen, merging with the black energy that consumed her, tinting the color of her eyes and the magick she summoned. Through the clash of light and magick, he saw that Ceridwen was weeping, but there was a beatific smile on her lips.

Swirls of blue light slipped into the dark field around her and she was thrown back, away from the doors. Ceridwen fell to her knees amidst a shower of debris from the ceiling of the cave. Sparks of conflicting colors danced in her eyes and from her fingertips.

"Arthur!" Sweetblood shouted.

But he did not turn, this time. All the dead of Olympus might be upon them in a moment, and he would not leave Ceridwen to suffer alone. He ran to her side, stepping over a splintering crack that raced along the tunnel floor, and he knelt by her.

Reached for her.

Ceridwen glanced up at him. Her chest was heaving and her face drawn, sickly. The elements of two dimensions warred in her and the conflict was churning inside her.

"Arthur," she said. "Time to go home."

She staggered to her feet, reached out her right hand, which was swathed only in pure blue light. Though the light in her eyes was still tainted, she had managed to summon a connection that was devoid of the netherworld’s darkness. Ceridwen touched the doors.

They blew outward as though a hurricane had slammed into them, and the light of dawn over the Mediterranean spilled in. Conan Doyle saw the sea churning far below and relief washed over him. Despite the peril they still faced he felt a smile stretch his lips… and then Ceridwen collapsed.

"No!" the mage shouted, reaching to catch her before she could tumble to the stone floor.

With her in his arms he turned to call for the others, even as the ghosts overtook them. Their screams were so loud that spikes of pain shot through the sides of his head. Vicious spirits spun in the air, several of them reaching for Eve, lashing at her. Where they battered against her, the charred flesh of her arms and face was scraped away.

"Oh, you bastards!" she snarled.

Conan Doyle held out a hand and an arc of green, ethereal light leaped from his fingers. When it touched the ghosts, they all ceased their screaming, stopped their swooping attacks. Danny had been about to defend himself when the spirits that had been diving at him began to drift aimlessly.

"Come!" Conan Doyle shouted. "They’re mesmerized, but it will only last a moment! Danny, take Gull."

The demon boy snarled and leaped over to grab hold of Nigel Gull. They joined Eve and the three began to run toward Conan Doyle, where he stood with Ceridwen by the yawning gates of the Underworld.

Sweetblood still burned with crimson flame. He stood beside the Forge of Hephaestus facing the march of the dead. Conan Doyle had bewildered only a small number of the ghosts, the first to reach them, and now the others were focusing their attention on Sanguedolce.

"Lorenzo!" Conan Doyle shouted. "We must close the gates!"

The archmage glanced over his shoulder, a sly grin on his face, as though this were the most enjoyment he had experienced in quite some time. Then he raised both hands, fingers contorted in a pattern Conan Doyle had never seen before, and he screamed as though he had been run through with a saber. Crimson fire erupted from not only his hands but his entire body, spikes of it thrusting outward to skewer each of the dozens of spectral gods that surrounded him.

They had been shrieking in rage before. Now they cried out in agony, were engulfed in that same red flame, and one by one they winked out, snuffed from existence.

Sweetblood touched a hand to the Forge and it levitated off of the ground. He turned to face Conan Doyle. "Go, you fool! What are you waiting for?"

With that, Conan Doyle turned with Ceridwen and, supporting her, hurried out of the Underworld and into the morning light of his own world. They stepped onto the ledge below the massive stone doors and then leaped out into the air, floating the twenty or thirty yards down onto the narrow, rocky shore. Then they stumbled into the water together, knee-deep in the blue-green Mediterranean. Eve, Danny and Gull were not far away… the vampire still healing, and fortunately still under the influence of the spell Gull had given her to protect her from the sun.

The roars of rage and cries of anguish from the open doors echoed out across the water. The ground even here shook and loose stones tumbled down into the sea. Then, with a crash, the sound was cut off. The shaking of the earth subsided.

Conan Doyle spun to see Sweetblood hovering in front of the cliff face, the Forge of Hephaestus floating in the air behind him. The doors had been slammed closed. The arch mage had a single finger out and the fire that poured from his body was sealing the gates, leaving only molten rock where any entrance might have been.

But once more his attention was torn away from the crisis at hand. Ceridwen fell to her knees in the water, waves washing around her, and began to vomit. Black bile spilled from her mouth and dripped from her nose. Purple tears slid from her eyes.

"Ceridwen," Doyle whispered, and he dropped to his knees in the water beside her. "Are you all right?"

A foolish question, but it meant something else, of course. Not was she all right, but was she going to be. Ceridwen nodded, trying to catch her breath, marble complexion somehow even more pale, if that were possible. She bucked and vomited again, hyperventilating between heaves. Her hands slipped out from under her and she dunked face-first into the water, but the black, unearthly stuff she had thrown up had already dissipated in the water.

When Conan Doyle drew her up from the sea, the waves still washing over her, there was a kind of relief in her eyes and now at last he realized what had been different about her complexion. Blue veins ran beneath her skin, lightly visible beneath the whiteness of her flesh. They had been more numerous and darker when she had first emerged from the Underworld.

"Is she all right?"

Conan Doyle flinched as he heard Eve’s voice. He glanced up and saw the concern on her face, and he nodded. "I think so, yes."

Eve smiled, the expression cracking the still burned flesh, and she sat down in the water herself. Some of the charred skin was flaking off to reveal new, pink skin beneath, already healing.

Strands of seaweed had begun to wrap themselves around Ceridwen’s arms and legs, but they were not attacking her. The sea was caressing her. Nature was welcoming her back. This was not her home, not the way that Faerie was, but this place her people called the Blight was far more natural to her, its elements far more familiar. She could speak to them, rely on them, and they on her.

When he looked once more upon Ceridwen’s face, she was smiling.

"Uh, Mr. Doyle?" Danny called from the rocky shore.

Conan Doyle turned and looked at him. The demon boy stood with Nigel Gull, who seemed to have almost recovered from his injuries. Recovered his dignity at least. He stood with his arms crossed, as though he were impatient for them to conclude their business. It took Conan Doyle a moment to realize why it seemed as though something was missing from the scene.

The cliff behind them was just a cliff, now. Stone. Nothing more. The ground had ceased all shaking.

But Sweetblood was gone.

"I didn’t even see him go," Danny offered, shrugging in apology.

Conan Doyle threw his arms up. "Gone. Of course he is. Slip in, use the lot of us as his bloody chessmen, and then disappear before the dust can clear, no regrets, no recriminations. Bastard."

He was stoking the fire of his rage, preparing for a proper rant, when Ceridwen reached up from the water and took his hand. Conan Doyle glanced down at her and saw that she was smiling fondly at him. His brow creased in a frown and he turned to Eve, who had waded out a short way into the sea so that now only her head was above water. Charred flesh drifted around her, washed away by the surf.

Eve cocked her head to one side. "We survived. He played us, yeah. But we made it out of there. Shit like this, well, let’s just say whenever the ennui of being immortal starts to get to me, it’s good therapy to have to fight for your life."

Conan Doyle pushed his fingers through his hair and then flattened his mustache. He smoothed his jacket, trying to bring some order back to his immediate surroundings. When he spoke, he let his gaze drift to Nigel Gull, who was wiping drying blood from his face with his untucked shirttail. Gull had seemed defeated, deflated, before they escaped. Now he stood as tall as ever, a dark gleam in his eyes and a sneer set into that ugly face.

"We survived, yes," Conan Doyle confirmed, glaring at Gull. "But I wonder if we would have been so fortunate if Sweetblood did not think there might come a day when we might be useful to him again."

Gull snorted laughter, a fresh trickle of blood spilling from his left nostril. "Come on, old boy, do you really believe Lorenzo ever actually needs anyone."

Danny spun and marched toward Gull, then poked him in the chest. "I’m so sick of you, dude. Talk to Mr. Doyle like that again and — "

Black light crackled in Gull’s eyes and that bruise-purple energy began to coalesce around his fingers as he made a fist. "Don’t press your luck, boy. You caught me unaware before. I’m quite alert at the moment, I promise you."

The changeling laughed. "What are you going to do to me? Burn me? Kill me? I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid to — "

He left off there, quite abruptly, and Conan Doyle frowned as he finished the sentence in his own mind. I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid to live. It would be good to get Danny home, and soon. The boy had been through a great deal. He needed his mother’s comfort, and the counsel of a soul more tender than Conan Doyle. Dr. Graves had formed a bond with Danny. After this adventure, that would surely be put to the test.

Ceridwen rose from the water. She still looked a bit wan, but a certain peace had returned to her countenance. The way her cloak and tunic clung to her made Arthur’s breath catch in his throat. All of his righteous ire evaporated in that instant and suddenly he was as grateful to be alive as Eve was. They had survived.

He reached for her and, despite the presence of the others, held her close. Ceridwen smiled as their lips brushed together and then he pressed his cheek against hers, knowing his stubble was rough on her skin, remembering that she had always liked that.

Survived.

"Well, it’s been lovely, but I’m afraid I must be going," Gull announced.

Conan Doyle turned toward him, still holding Ceridwen. Eve was floating blissfully in the water and barely acknowledged him, but Danny gaped in astonishment and looked to Conan Doyle for support.

"Come on!" the boy said. "This guy totally played us. You’re not going to just let him walk away?"

Gull raised an eyebrow. "Isn’t he? We go back a ways, boy. And Sir Arthur was never the sort to slay a man in cold blood. It’s one of the obvious distinctions between the two of us."

For just a moment longer, Conan Doyle held on to Ceridwen, gaining strength from her touch and her nearness. Then he pulled away from her and strode out of the surf up onto the narrow, rocky shore. Gull cocked his head and watched him curiously. There was no sign of fear in the man’s countenance, but Conan Doyle had known him long enough to see a bit of trepidation in his eyes. Only once before had they tested their skills against each other in dire combat. The truth was, rested and ready, Gull might have had more raw power. He certainly had dark sorcery at his disposal that Conan Doyle did not. But like any other conflict, a magickal duel was equal parts strength and cunning, and despite his conniving ways, Arthur felt sure that he could best Gull if it came to that.

But he had no intention of dueling.

Still…

Conan Doyle stepped into the swing, slamming his fist into Gull’s face with enough force that the other man staggered backward. One of his knuckles popped. He kept after Gull, driving a left into his abdomen, then a right, and even as the twisted mage tried to block, magick crackling around him, Conan Doyle struck him one, final time with a blow to the chin that knocked him off of his feet. Gull fell onto a ridge of rocks and rolled over once, crying out with the impact.

Fuming, magick roiling around his hands and steaming from his eyes, his mouth pulled into a sneer that distorted his misshapen head even further, Gull pulled himself painfully from the ground, climbing to his feet.

Conan Doyle stepped up onto the rocks to glare down at Gull. "I am not the man you once knew. I could kill you, Nigel. Don’t imagine I’d feel any compunction about that. I have the will, and the capacity. But I have been considering your sins ever since I discovered your intent. Others have done far worse for love. No matter how misguided, no matter what you nearly cost my friends, and me… I am inclined to accept that we have all been equally manipulated. You were as much a pawn as the rest of us were. For that alone, I will not prevent you from leaving. But after what you’ve done, what you risked, and the callous way in which you threw away the lives of your own associates.. I could not allow you to depart without expressing my displeasure."

Gull strode several yards nearer to the cliff face, his back to Conan Doyle. He reached into his jacket and withdrew the vial of blood he had received from the Erinyes, the tears of the Furies. After examining it to make sure it was still intact, he glanced back at Conan Doyle, nostrils flaring.

"I shall not forget that indignity."

"Nor should you," Conan Doyle warned. "Nor should you."

Eve at last surfaced and emerged from the sea, water spilling off of her ruined clothes. Whatever designer had fashioned them would have wept to see the way she wore them now. She strode up beside Conan Doyle and Ceridwen joined him on the other side. Danny crouched on a nearby rock, more at rest in that position now, it seemed, than standing upright.

All four of them stared at Gull silently for a moment.

"Are you going to tell him now?" Eve asked.

Gull bristled. "Tell me what?"

Conan Doyle nodded once and let out a long breath. The magick Gull had been mustering had begun to dissipate. The time for war was over, for now.

"When the first of Medusa’s victims turned up in Athens, I sent agents to investigate."

The realization of what that might mean was instantaneous. Gull’s eyes widened and he glanced about as though he might find some solution upon the rocks. Then his gaze hardened again and he glared at Conan Doyle and his companions.

"If she has been harmed — "

Conan Doyle raised an eyebrow. "She’s killed who knows how many by now. I can almost assure you that if they’ve caught up to her, she has been harmed. You may have put us all through this for nothing, in the end. A bid to cure a monster. Yet you if anyone should know that it is not the face that makes a monster, but the heart.

"Still, we shall see."

The morning sun had long since stretched across the water and the shore. Conan Doyle left all of them standing on the rocks and walked up toward the cliff. An outcropping of rock jutted from the craggy face of the peninsula, and he stepped into the cool shadow it cast.

"Squire," he whispered into the shade. "Hear me."

On the marble stage of the ancient theatre in the shadow of Sparta’s acropolis, Clay let out a bellow that frightened birds from the trees of the nearby woods. The shapeshifter had taken the form of a mountain gorilla, and he felt the weight and the grim menace of the animal in his heart and soul. If he had a soul. Somehow he doubted that in the midst of fashioning his creations out of the Clay of Life, the Lord had seen fit to provide one for him. He was a tool, after all, not a being.

Yet if he had no soul, how else to explain the horror he felt so deeply within him at the horrors Medusa had perpetrated. He thought of the hundreds who had been murdered just in the last twenty-four hours, and it kindled a need for vengeance in him. Life was a gift. Clay had taken lives, but he had spent far more time punishing those who had stolen that gift from others, making up for what he had done, and attempting to bring some justice to the world.

No, not for the world. Just for people. For the dead.

He thought about the children and spouses of the dead, the parents who would not even have a corpse to bury but instead a statue. Stone. And never an explanation for how such an atrocity could occur.

"She’s trying to free herself!" Dr. Graves shouted.

The ghost darted through the air, morning light shining through him, and fired his phantom guns at the Gorgon as she struggled against the net Squire had thrown over her. The bullets made her jerk and twitch and bleed black, but they would not kill her.

Squire kicked her again.

But they weren’t here to torture her. They were here to end her. And end the threat she represented.

With the lumbering gait of the mountain gorilla, Clay moved in. His form was so enormous that it cast a massive shadow across the ground, the darkness sweeping over Squire as he passed the hobgoblin. The shapeshifter reached down with his enormous hands and grabbed up fistfuls of net, drawing the sides together.

Medusa thrashed, attempting to tear herself free. One of her arms slipped loose and Clay grabbed it, snapping the bones in her forearm. He drew her into an embrace. She whipped her head around, eyes scarlet and gleaming with hatred as she tried to turn him to stone. Clay had solved that problem before by constantly shifting his flesh and bone, never holding the same shape so she could not work her curse upon him again. Now he closed his eyes even as his body began to stiffen, and his every molecule fought the effects of her influence.

He squeezed her tightly. The snakes on her head poked through the holes in the net and darted out to bite him, snapping at his face, sinking fangs into his flesh and sending venom shooting through him.

Clay tightened his hold on her and felt some of the bones in her chest give way. He drew in a breath and prepared to crush her, to snap her spine, to rip her in two if that was what it took to destroy the evil inside her.

"Hey!" Squire shouted.

The hobgoblin struck him on the arm. Clay was so entrenched in the gravity of his task that he did not respond. There was no levity in this. No pleasure in it.

Squire punched him in the leg. "Hey, dumbass!"

Clay turned his face away from Medusa, the serpents biting his right cheek and his neck in several places, through the fur of the gorilla. He opened his eyes and stared down at Squire, then at Graves behind him. The ghost wore a confused expression that was entirely unlike him.

"Cut the crap," the hobgoblin snapped. "Wrap the bitch up with a bow. Just caught a whisper from the boss. Apparently we’re supposed to deliver her alive."

Clay had convinced himself that Medusa’s death was necessary. Had felt her bones break in his grasp. The urge to finish her, to shatter them all, was powerful.

Now he growled, the words rumbling in his chest. "Deliver her where?"

The island of Kithira was just south of the Peloponnese, a beautiful place with enormous Venetian influence mixed with the Aegean. Eve had been there once upon a time, before the Venetians, when the Barbary pirates still held sway over the place. But it wasn’t Kithira she had suggested for their rendezvous. It was Andikithira, the tiny isle she still knew as Aigila, though no one had called it that in many an age. It lay twenty-eight miles south of Kithira, a dot in the Mediterranean, and though it was not unknown to world travelers, it was no tourist haven. For centuries the only tourists had been pirates, and even now the only ferry came but once a week.

It was there, beside a whitewashed church overlooking the glistening blue sea, that they waited that long afternoon.

She sipped from a glass of wine that had been homemade by the Koines family, who had been on Andikithira as long as the island had been above water, or so it seemed. The spell that Gull had placed on her to protect her from the sunlight would wear off. The ugly son of a bitch had told her as much. But she was going to take advantage of it while she could. If it hadn’t been for the presence of Danny Ferrick — still a teenager despite his demonic nature — she would probably have stripped nude and lain in the sun, giving herself over to its rays and its warmth. Instead she made do with her wine and the white wall that ran along the edge of the steep hill that overlooked the small village below.

The church was at the peak, the village below, and beyond that, the blue-green sea, so soothing to her now. She would never forget the sight of the Mediterranean in that moment when the gates of the Underworld had blown open and they were free. If she’d had breath in her lungs, the sight would have stolen it away.

Her skin was almost entirely healed, save for some mottling on her face that would take some time to go away. That was where she had been burned the worst. A quick stop on Kithira and she had purchased new clothes, including attire for traveling, as well as an outfit for an afternoon in the sun: black linen shorts and a shirt that she had tied just below her breasts, and sandals. It had been millennia since she’d had occasion to bother with sandals.

There was a picturesque bit of architecture, at the edge of the cliff. A sextet of arches, three on the bottom, two in the middle, and one at the top. Inside of the top two tiers there were bells. Church bells, to let the villagers know the time for mass had come. But other than a low, singing whistle produced by the wind up inside them, the bells were silent this afternoon.

The others were all inside the church. Eve had no desire to enter, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have dared it. There was no way to know what would become of her. Conan Doyle, Ceridwen and Danny had each come out to join her briefly, but now all three of them were back inside with Gull, making certain he did nothing to endanger them.

Never turn your back on a scorpion, she’d warned Conan Doyle. She knew from experience, from years in the desert. And Gull was a scorpion if she’d ever seen one.

So Eve lay on the wall and drank her wine alone and waited for the afternoon sun to burn down into the ocean as evening approached. She saw the dust rising from the passage of a truck through the village long before she could make out the distinguishing features of the truck itself. Not that it mattered. The island was small. There was only one reason for anyone to drive a truck up the hill to the church this afternoon. Only one.

Reluctantly she rose and padded across the bleached pebbles and scrub grass that surrounded the church. She knocked twice, hard, on the massive wooden doors and then stood back. Even as she waited for someone to answer she heard the noise of the truck’s engine.

With a clank, the doors were pulled open. Conan Doyle gazed back at her from the shadows within. The cool darkness seemed to beckon to her, to promise her comfort and safety, but she would return to the nighttime world soon enough.

"They’re coming," she told him.

Conan Doyle nodded, then pulled the doors open wider and stood aside, glancing in at Nigel Gull. Ceridwen and Danny sat together near the front of the church, conspiratorially near, though they’d left off their conversation to look up and see what was transpiring. Gull sat in the rear, hands folded on his lap as though he were the most penitent soul who’d ever entered a place of worship. Even his eyes had changed, for when he looked up at the interruption they were filled with hope and love and expectation.

For a moment the malformed mage seemed fixed to his chair. Then the sound of the engine grew louder — loud enough to be heard inside the church — and he rose and strode stiffly toward the doors. Eve stepped aside to let him pass. There would be no subterfuge from him now. His focus was on his heart’s desire, nothing more and nothing less.

Just as Eve had seen Conan Doyle do so many times, Gull smoothed his jacket and shook out his cuffs, trying to make himself presentable. He reached into his pocket and she knew he would be clutching the vial in his hand, hidden away. The tears of the Furies.

The truck came around the corner, a rough old thing, the sort of vehicle that might be used on a local farm or to go to market. There was a man driving — or at least, Clay, with the face of a man. The face he wore most often, when he gave his name as Clay Smith. Beside him the air shimmered and she could almost make out another figure. Someone else might have thought it a trick of the light, but she knew it was Dr. Graves.

Squire rode in the back, ugly little fucker bouncing around back there. Eve surprised herself by being happy to see all three of them.

Clay tore gears up as he halted the lumbering vehicle and killed the engine. He climbed out, and even as he did he changed, shifting with effortless fluidity to his natural form, the tall, hairless man whose flesh was cracked, dry earth. The Clay of God.

"You want a hand?" Squire asked.

"Couldn’t hurt," Clay replied, as he hefted a burden from the back of the truck. A body, wrapped in chains, a leather hood covering its head not unlike the sort of thing a falconer used to keep his bird calm.

Grinning, Squire began to applaud. "Come on," he said, glancing over at Eve. "Give the big guy a hand."

Eve scowled at him. Squire blew her a kiss, then hopped out of the truck. But he did not approach. He only leaned against the side of the vehicle and watched. Something was to unfold here, and he did not want to be a part of it. She saw a look of distaste flicker across his face and then his sardonic grin returned.

Clay carried Medusa over his shoulder, reaching back to cinch the straps on her hood tightly as he strode toward the church. She did not struggle. Perhaps, like a hooded falcon, she was waiting for her moment to strike. When he had reached Gull and Conan Doyle, Clay slipped her off of him and let her fall to the ground. A moan of pain came, muffled, from beneath the hood.

"What have you done to her?" Gull demanded, kneeling by Medusa and glaring up at Clay.

His upper lip curled in hatred and disgust. "A few broken bones. Far less than she deserved." Clay looked at Conan Doyle. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do."

"No," Conan Doyle confessed, startling Eve with his honesty. "But it’s what we’re doing." Then he stepped up beside Gull and looked down at Medusa. "Do not remove her hood entirely until the curse is — "

"I am not a fool!" Gull snarled, rounding on him.

But then Conan Doyle seemed forgotten. Eve watched as Gull summoned a spell, sketching his fingers in the air, and the chains fell away, pooling around her on the ground.

"It is I, fair one," Gull whispered, the words eddying on the breeze. "Come. Take my hand, rise and let the curse be broken."

Eve took a step back and tensed, waiting for Medusa to lash out in attack, prepared to stop her if she did. Conan Doyle did not move but Eve could see a soft blue glow around his hands and feel the electric charge in the air around him that only came from magick. He was ready as well.

Medusa stood. Eve could hear hissing beneath the Gorgon’s hood and now that she looked closely, she saw the leather shifting, almost undulating with the presence of the serpents on the monster’s head.

Gull put a hand behind her, touched the small of her back. Medusa flinched and Eve twitched in response, ready to move.

"It’s me," Gull whispered. "It’s Nigel."

Then Medusa surrendered to him, sliding her taloned hands around behind him and pressing herself into him, molding her body to Gull’s and laying her head on his shoulder like any young lover might do.

There was silence at the top of that hill. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Gull reached into his pocket and produced the vial. He held it up in front of her face as though she could see it. Though that was impossible, of course, she sensed it somehow, for she froze and her head tilted back as though she could inhale that blood. Eve wondered if it was the magick in that vial, the forgiveness, the power of ancient myth that Medusa sensed, or if it was simply the scent of blood that had caught her attention.

The mage did not seem so ugly in that moment when he reached up and uncapped the vial, then loosened Medusa’s hood. Eve tensed again, worried that he would pull it off, but instead Gull only raised it high enough to reveal her mouth, the pale flesh and needle fangs and the forked tongue of the accursed Gorgon.

"Drink," he said, pressing the vial into her hand.

Medusa hesitated only a moment before she lifted the vial and sucked its contents into her mouth. The bloody tears of the Furies disappeared into her hideous maw and that forked tongue ran out into the vial, licking it clean.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Medusa did not collapse or even flinch. Instead the visible gray flesh at her chin became pink and healthy and her mouth was that of another creature entirely, with lush, full lips. Damp tears ran down her cheeks.

Before she had been cursed by Athena, Medusa had been the most beautiful creature in the world. Or so went the myth. Now, as she reached up to remove her hood — all of them watching in hushed fascination — Eve could believe it. Her eyes were wide with joy, her lips trembling with emotion. She held her hands up and studied the long, elegant fingers, then ran her palms over her lissome shape. At last she reached up to touch her face, and even as she did she spun, looking at them each in turn. She was awestruck and lost in a blissful rapture. It was written in her every expression, her every movement.

"My darling. You are free, now. Your curse is ended. After an eternity, your beauty is returned to — "

His voice had given her focus for the first time. Medusa turned and looked at Nigel Gull, this twisted mage who had risked all for her, and she recoiled at his appearance. Her beauty was marred by the revulsion that curled her upper lip and narrowed her gaze as she took a step back from him.

Medusa was free of her curse, but Gull was still stricken by his own. The handsome countenance he had sacrificed for dark gifts of magick would never be his again. His misshapen features flinched now, stung by her reaction to him.

"Medusa?" he ventured, pitiful. Crushed.

When she spoke, the words were Greek, and so ancient that though Eve remembered the language, it took her a moment to translate in her mind.

"I am sorry," the Gorgon said. She reached up a perfect, slender hand, but fell short of caressing Gull’s hideous features. The hand fell to her side. "I have despised my own face for so long… if I spent my days gazing at yours it would only remind me of the hell I have escaped. You have given me everything, but I cannot repay you. I cannot give you what you most desire in return."

At some point Danny and Ceridwen had come out of the church. Squire, Clay, and Graves watched from their vantage point near the truck. Conan Doyle stood with Eve. And Gull was alone.

"What did she say?" Danny asked. "That language, what — "

"Ancient Greek," Conan Doyle explained. "But I don’t know what — "

Nigel Gull understood, however. From the look on his face, it was clear that he understood all too well. All the light and hope had drained from his eyes and there was only malice there once more. Any trace of the desire and love he had revealed was buried deep beneath the ugliness that was not only in his face, but in his heart. This was the cunning schemer who had betrayed them, who had used them, and who had discarded his own allies in the pursuit of his goal. This was the dark magician.

Oh, yes, he had understood Medusa perfectly.

Gull drew his antique, pepperbox pistol from beneath his jacket, and shot her through the head.

Eve cried out and Conan Doyle lunged for the weapon, but too late.

Medusa fell to the ground, blood spreading across the white pebbles of the drive.

Gull knocked Conan Doyle away, gave Medusa a final glance, and then a pool of bruise-purple energy gathered around his feet and the ground swallowed him whole, the mage slipping down into some dark portal of his conjuring. Slipping away.

But as he went, Eve caught sight of his face, of the distant, hollow glaze in his eyes, and she knew that though he would escape them, he would never, ever be free.