Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (21 page)

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

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

Alone
.

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

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

He is not cold, lifeless stone.

He is the substance of creation.

He is Clay.

His eyes were first to change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sorry, not this time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The gunfire came to an abrupt stop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No," Clay said.

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

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

His comrades stared at him.

"We’re going to take her alive."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eve was indeed a slave to fashion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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