Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (28 page)

The Cyclopes roared and reached for him, one massive hand
closing on Danny’s head. He felt pressure on his own small horns and then his
skull, as the monster began to crush it. Danny shot out his tongue and its
sharp tip punctured the skin of the Cyclopes’ palm. It flinched, withdrawing
its hand long enough for him to reach out and grab thick handfuls of the
thing’s filthy, matted hair. He hauled himself quickly upward and wrapped his
arms around the Cyclopes’ horn, his legs around its neck. He felt himself
keenly aware of the glistening softness of the monster’s single eye. Silent in
his determination, he raised his right hand, flexed his clawed fingers, and
swept them down toward the Cyclopes’ eye.

His hand froze.

Danny had just enough time to look at his fingers and see
the white fire that blazed across his skin all the way up his arm before he was
plucked from the Cyclopes’ back. His entire body went rigid. Danny hissed but
could not even open his mouth; he tried to struggle but to no avail. Liquid
white fire — cold enough to gnaw his bones — swept over him and he
hung there in the air like bait as the Cyclopes turned toward him.

"Please accept our apologies," Conan Doyle said.

The Cyclopes touched its shoulder and throat, holding up its
fingers to examine the black blood Danny’s attack had drawn. He glared at the
demon boy and Danny had never felt so vulnerable.
What are you doing, Conan
Doyle? I’m a crunchy granola bar up here, as far as this thing’s concerned.

The one-eyed beast regarded him with a grimace as though it
was trying to decide how to cook him. Then, slowly, Danny felt himself moving. Conan
Doyle had caught him in a spell, a net of sorcerous fire, and now the mage drew
him down to the stone floor of this Underworld cavern. When at last the spell
dissipated he looked around to see Conan Doyle taking a step nearer to the
Cyclopes. He was about to protest what the old guy had done when he felt
Ceridwen’s hand on his shoulder.

Danny glanced up at her and felt all his anger dissipate. Her
eyes had that effect. Even weakened, she had that effect on him. The Fey
sorceress was ethereally beautiful — his opposite in so many ways —
and yet it was not just her beauty that soothed him, but the benevolence that
exuded from her.

"What the hell —" he began.

Ceridwen placed a pale finger over his lips and Danny
hushed. Confused, but no longer angry, he turned to see what Conan Doyle was up
to. The mage had both hands up, blue light still misting from his palms but
making no movements the Cyclopes might interpret as hostile.

" — apologies for my young friend," Conan
Doyle said, speaking loudly so that the giant might hear him. "This place
is new to us and unsettling. We have met only enemies here and have had to
defend ourselves many times. I believe he’d come to think there could be no
kindness in this place."

The mage glanced back at Ceridwen and Danny. The sorceress
kept a firm hand on the demon boy’s shoulder and an unseen wind blew through
that ancient ruined world, that endless catacomb, and her linen cloak fluttered
against him.

Danny shrugged, glaring back at Conan Doyle.
What
? he
thought defiantly.

When the mage spoke again, he kept his eyes on Danny. "We
have to adjust our expectations now that we have met you. We cannot confuse a
hospitable invitation with a heinous threat."

Conan Doyle let his gaze linger on Danny a moment longer and
the boy saw the mage sigh, chest rising and falling. Then Conan Doyle turned to
the Cyclopes again.

"My name is Arthur. My friends are Ceridwen and Daniel.
Please forgive us, and accept our thanks for your gracious offer."

Throughout this apology the Cyclopes had touched its throat
and shoulder several times. The wounds had stopped bleeding. It did not even
seem to be bothered by the cut he had made to its fingers, but Danny was not
going to remind the monster either. Its single eye blinked and it had a sour
expression twisting up its ugly face.

For a long moment the Cyclopes stared down at Conan Doyle. Its
cooking fire crackled a hundred feet behind it, burning brightly, though the
dead, black wood seemed to cry out as it surrendered to char and ember.

The monster looked at Danny, who flinched. He might have
tried to defend himself but Ceridwen held him fast.

"That was an interesting attack, with your tongue,"
she whispered.

With Eve he might have made a joke of it. Even with
Ceridwen, had he been feeling bold. But as the Cyclopes pushed Conan Doyle
gently aside and took two long strides toward him, he could not have thought of
a humorous retort if his life depended on it. His throat was dry. He ran his
rough, sharp tongue across the backs of his teeth.

The Cyclopes crouched in front of him like a man bending to
scold a puppy. The monster extended one long finger with its cracked yellow
nail and poked him.

"That hurt," it said. "Don’t do it again."

"I . . . I won’t." It felt absurd, having this
conversation. But it felt dangerous as well.

Then the Cyclopes grinned and nodded. "Good. Are you
hungry, little satyr?"

And Danny realized that he was. The smell of meat cooking
over the flames had his stomach growling. He glanced over at Conan Doyle, who
nodded his encouragement, looking almost sinister in the shadows of this place.

"Um, well, yeah. I could eat."

"Excellent!" the Cyclopes rumbled. "Come!"

He moved back to his fire and picked up a long shaft of wood
— a long tree branch to the rest of them but little more than a stick to
the monster — and began to cook once more. At the end of the branch was
some kind of creature but it was only smoking meat and bone now and Danny could
not tell what it had once been. Nor did he want to know.

Ceridwen ushered him forward and the two of them strode up
beside Conan Doyle.

"That was a near thing, Daniel," the mage said,
brushing fingers across his mustache, unconsciously straightening it. He
glanced warily at the Cyclopes.

Danny glanced at Ceridwen, then back to Mr. Doyle. "How
did you know he wasn’t going to eat us?"

Conan Doyle stared at him for a moment, then gestured up at
the tall rock Danny had leaped from. "He seemed surprised when you
attacked him. Mystified by it. Perhaps even a bit hurt. Before that, I confess
his invitation to dinner did sound menacing to my ears. Even now, I’m not
completely certain of his motives."

"I am," Ceridwen said. They both glanced at her
and she shook her head. "There’s no cruelty in him. His kindness is
genuine."

Danny wasn’t convinced. Were farmers cruel to the turkeys
before Thanksgiving? He didn’t think so. But there was such certainty in the
way Ceridwen spoke that he thought her reasoning was from more than just
observation, that she had a sense about the Cyclopes.

The one-eyed creature inhaled the aroma of his cooking and
grunted appreciatively. "Are you coming, friends?"

"Yes, absolutely. Sorry for the delay." Conan
Doyle nodded at them and started toward the Cyclopes’ cooking fire.

Danny stopped him. "Wait, one last thing. How does he
know English?"

Conan Doyle frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Ceridwen smiled, her grave features lighting up with fond
amusement. "Oh, I see. You were speaking with him and you thought . . .
no, Danny. He wasn’t speaking English. You were speaking Greek. Very old Greek."

"What? But I —"

"It isn’t only you," Ceridwen told him. "It
is happening to us all. When we first entered this place, it was draining me. Cut
off from the nature of the world I know, with only the cruel, lifeless elements
of the Underworld, I was weak. I’ve begun to regain my strength now, at least a
little of it. And just as I adjust, as this place comes to think of us as —"

Danny scoffed. "A place can’t think."

Ceridwen raised an eyebrow. "No? All right. If it’s
simpler, consider this. This is a place of magick. A place where the souls of
the dead from the entire history of a grand empire came upon their death. Not
all of them spoke the same language. Yet they had to understand this place and
one another."

He felt sick. "So the Underworld is treating us like
we’re dead? Like we’re, what, damned to this place?"

Conan Doyle put a hand on his shoulder. "Something like
that."

Danny sighed and gave a small shrug. "I’m not gonna say
I like the sound of that, but at least it makes sense. I was afraid it was just
me."

"There are things about your nature and your parentage
that are only beginning to reveal themselves," Conan Doyle said. "In
this case, you’re not the only one affected. But at a guess, it wouldn’t
surprise me to learn that you could have understood the language here even
without the magick present. Demons are ancient. Ancestral memory for you will
be different from that of ordinary humans. I’ve no doubt you may discover you
speak dozens of languages. Or, perhaps —" and he looked thoughtful
as he said this "—  all of them."

"Holy shit," Danny whispered.

Conan Doyle smiled. "Yes."

He linked one arm beneath Ceridwen’s as if they were
strolling through the park and together they walked toward the Cyclopes’s fire.
Danny hesitated only a moment before following.

"That smells wonderful, my enormous friend," Conan
Doyle said. "Your hospitality is greatly appreciated."

As they sat on an outcropping of stone near the fire, the
Cyclopes grinned at them, obviously pleased with the unexpected pleasure of
socialization in this place.

"The pleasure is mine, Arthur."

Ceridwen gazed up at the giant. "It saddens us that we
will not be able to stay very long. One of our number has been stolen from us
by vile enemies. We know only that our enemies seek the Erinyes, the Furies,
and so we must seek them as well."

The Cyclopes’s single eye narrowed and his expression was
grim. He nodded heavily and regarded each of them in turn. "I am sorry you
cannot stay. This is a bleak place and it is not easy to find friends. I hope
that we will meet again. You will eat your fill and be on your way. And while
you eat, I will make a map for you, to show you the safest way. The Erinyes are
very cruel, though. Not like me.

"They don’t like visitors at all."

Squire missed driving.

The train had left Athens headed due west toward Corinth and
there seemed no choice but to pursue it, pausing at each of its scheduled stops
in dreadful hope that some catastrophe would have occurred to give them a clue
as to Medusa’s actions. How long could she go unnoticed, after all? Whatever
part of Dr. Graves’s spirit had tainted her when he had shot her with those
bullets, Medusa had managed to extricate it. Perhaps she had pried out the
spectral bullets. However she had done it, Graves could no longer track her.

They had to find another way. For now, following the train
was the only solution. Their greatest concern was that she might throw herself
from the train and disappear into the countryside or some village along the
Aegean. There was also the possibility that they might actually overtake the
train and manage to be waiting for it when it pulled into Corinth.

But with Clay behind the wheel, that seemed a distant hope. He
drove like an old lady. Back home Squire had rigged Conan Doyle’s limo with
foot blocks on the brake and accelerator so his short legs could reach. He
loved to drive . . . and he loved to drive fast. It was torture for him to sit
in the passenger seat.

They had driven through Megara a while back. Now the road
had swung far enough south that the blue-green shimmer of the Aegean was
visible, like some ancient paradise beckoning them to abandon the modern world.

"It’s beautiful, isn’t it?" Clay said, glancing
out his window.

"Absolutely. So nice that we have time to appreciate
the wonders of the Mediterranean. For Christ’s sake, just drive the fucking
car! If you stop sightseeing, we might actually catch up to her."

He wanted something fried to eat. Onion rings, yeah, that
would be perfect.

Clay gave him a sidelong glance, accelerating to a speed at
which the car began to shudder. The shapeshifter grunted in amusement, but he
wore a fond smile.

"Don’t take it out on me because you’re too short to
drive."

The ghost of Dr. Graves drifted forward from the back seat,
moving his head between them and glancing at Squire. "Need I remind you,
my friend, that you have the advantage of being solid?"

"Oh, so now we’re trying to top each other’s miseries? Next
Captain Quint’s gonna show us his shark bite."

But Graves was right. He liked being solid, and not just
because it meant he could drive a car. There were a few other of his favorite
things he needed flesh and bone to do. Eating was up there, but it wasn’t
number one. Much as he hated to admit it to himself, the ghost had given him
some perspective.

Squire glanced at Clay again and grumbled. "Just drive."

The engine whined loudly, as though under the hood was not
an ordinary car engine but something swapped out from a Honda motorcycle. Traffic
was sparse and for all of Squire’s complaints, Clay was driving fast. The road
hummed under the tires.

The hobgoblin reached out and clicked on the radio. He
scanned the stations, finding a lot of static and too many voices speaking
Greek. At one point he paused on a familiar song, Bruce Springsteen’s "Born
to Run," but the reception was for crap, fading in and out, sounding
muffled and tinny, and he gave up, cursing.

"Greek radio," he muttered.

"Yeah," Clay agreed. "You don’t get a lot of international
pop stars out of Greece."

Squire snorted. "Exactly."

The hobgoblin punched the radio off with a stubby, leathery
finger.

"Well, gentlemen," said the ghost in the back
seat, "as much as I hate to miss a moment of this scintillating
conversation, I think I ought to check on the train’s progress again."