Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (41 page)

Through the sea of conflict, Gull saw an exit in a wall of
the fleshy chamber, throbbing and pulsing not twelve feet away. Holstering his
gun, he spoke an ancient incantation that would clear a path to the door and
surround him in a field of dark and terrible magick. Killing magick. The gods
who attempted to stop him died screaming, their bodies exploding into flames on
contact with the shimmering aura that now protected him. Gull smiled as he
reached the throbbing door, chancing a final, quick look over his shoulder
before leaving.

"Nigel?" he heard a squeaky voice, ragged and full
of panic.

And then he saw her, Jezebel, her clothing torn and stained
with blood. There was a sad, sweet smile on the girl’s face as she made her way
across the battlefield toward him. Bursts of lightning leaped from her fingers,
striking down any who attempted to block her path. He was her salvation, her
oasis in this terrible sea of madness and violence — it had been that way
since they met.

Gull remembered when he first found the girl, fourteen,
shivering and wet, sitting at a campsite in the Sequoia National Park
surrounded by the bodies of her family. Jezebel hadn’t wanted to go camping at
all. She loved them, but hated them at the same time, like so many girls her
age. Spoiled and temperamental, in a fit of rage she had whipped the elements
into a fury to match her own, calling the lightning down upon her mother and
father, burning them black, scorching the earth around them. Her brother
— whom she had despised — she pummeled to death with a rain of
massive hailstones, so that what was left of him was unrecognizable pulp.

Nigel Gull had felt the presence of magick and tracked it to
that place. In the aftermath, Jezebel had been shattered by guilt, attempting
to use her power to kill herself. Gull had seen the lightning flash, darting
fingers of fire into the forest again and again in the same spot. When he had
come upon her, he saw it strike her once, twice, a third time, with no idea how
many times it had struck before he arrived. The girl was weeping, the lightning
not harming her at all, arcing around her, tearing up the ground in a circle
around her.

Jezebel had been a troubled child, but also a talented one. One
with potential. Gull had gone to her, risking the lightning himself, and though
she had at first shrunken back from his hideous visage, when he had pulled her
into his arms and whispered to her that it was going to be all right, that they
could never have understood her but that he could help, she had relaxed into
his embrace and sobbed uncontrollably. Eventually she had fallen asleep in his
arms and he had carried her out of the forest to his car, leaving the corpses
behind.

They had been together ever since.

Now the immolation field that surrounded him crackled and
hummed as Gull watched Jezebel make her way toward him. Her hair was whipping
wildly around her in a wind of her own devising and there was a desolation in
her eyes, a hopelessness he had not seen since he had first discovered her. The
jeans and barely-there T-shirt she wore were streaked with filth and torn in
places. She had many cuts, but the worst was a slash on her right side from
which streaks of blood had spilled down to saturate the leg of her pants,
blackening the denim.

"Nigel, wait for me," she called, desperate.

Gull had become her protector as well as her employer, her
unique talents and childlike view of the world serving him well on many
occasions. Jezebel had been a tremendous asset.

Now she was merely a hindrance.

He could not afford to have her draw attention to his
departure. She called his name again, and he could see the tears streaming
freely down her face. Gull opened his arms as if to welcome her into their
loving embrace. Jezebel quickened her pace, nearly falling as she navigated her
way over the piles of dead gods, of bones and armor, that littered the floor. Gull
almost felt a pang of guilt as she at last reached him, hungry for his arms to
be about her — protecting her as he had done from the start.

The twisted mage closed his eyes just as she touched the
immolation shield that protected him. Jezebel was unable to scream as her
lovely body was consumed by a searing flash of supernatural light. He opened
his eyes again, the image of her at that moment before her demise burned onto
his retinas. He would miss Jezebel, and when this quest was done, he would tell
his beloved Medusa of her sacrifice. Perhaps then he would shed a tear for her
passing, but now, there wasn’t time for sentimentality.

The exit quivered wetly behind him, and he ducked his head
as he departed the chamber through the orifice. The shield of devastation waned
and was gone, his strength nearly depleted. He would have to find a place to
rest soon.

It was dark inside the passage, the stink reminding him of
the London charnel houses from his youth. Gull carefully felt along the
passage, the moist wall of flesh beneath his hand thrumming with life, or at
least what passed for living in this infernal place.

"Going somewhere, Gull?" asked a voice from behind
him.

Gull stopped, whispering a spell to illuminate his hand, and
turned to see who had addressed him. The demon boy lurked in the shadows, his
eyes glinting yellow in the faint light thrown by Gull’s hand.

"Ah, Daniel, I was following one of the Erinys and —"

The boy surged toward him. "Don’t give me any of your
shit," he growled, and Gull saw that something dangled from the boy’s
clutches. A head; the boy was holding the decapitated head of one of the gods
he’d battled.

"Don’t you take that tone with me, boy," Gull
began, taking a step back. A spell that would have solidified the air around
the youngster, suffocating him, danced upon the mage’s lips, but the demon
child was faster.

Danny charged, lashing out with the severed head, catching
Gull across the face and knocking him to the ground. Nigel fumbled inside his
coat for his gun, but the boy moved with frightening speed and was suddenly
perched atop him. The demon gathered up the front of Gull’s coat in his clawed
hands, pulling him close.

"I saw what you did to Jezebel," he said, giving
him a shake, eyes ablaze and mouth twisted in disgust. "How could you do
it?" he spat. "How could you do something like that to one of your
own team?"

Gull was still groggy from the blow to his face. "It
was nothing personal," he slurred, attempting to pull his wits together
enough to summon a spell to allow him to escape from the demon boy’s clutches. "Just
a sad fact of the job we do. Everyone is expendable."

The youth snarled with indignation and slammed Nigel hard
against the ground before pulling him close again.

"You killed her," he spat, and flecks of spittle
flew from the youth’s fanged mouth to dapple his cheek.

Gull nodded in understanding. "She was drawing
attention. She drew yours, didn’t she? I should have been quicker. Even had I
taken her with me, she would have slowed me down."

"Fucking piece of shit, I should bite out your throat
right now."

"I only did what your beloved Conan Doyle would have
done if faced with a similar dilemma," Gull said. "Do you really
think he wouldn’t gladly sacrifice any of his Menagerie to get what he wants?"

"Mr. Doyle would never . . ." Daniel started,
rearing back, but then stopped midsentence, as if something in Nigel’s words
struck a chord of truth.

"Oh, he would, lad," Gull continued, a smile
creeping across his twisted features. "But you keep on believing him, if
it makes it easier for you to sleep at night."

The boy went wild, leaping up to drag him to his feet. "I
don’t need to hear any more of your bogus bullshit," he screamed.

Gull reacted, sensing his opportunity. He bellowed a spell
of incineration, thrusting his already illuminated hand into the boy’s face. He
cried out, but his grip did not lessen. The smell of burning flesh filled the stagnant
air of the passage.

"Nice one," the demon boy said, the skin of his
right cheek charred to black. "As if I wasn’t pretty enough already."

The youth moved behind him, gripping his neck and pushing
the twisted mage back toward Hades’s heart, and the battle that still raged
within.

"Got a little something you need to do before you go,"
the changeling growled in his ear. "And it involves that beautiful singing
voice of yours."

"And if I won’t oblige you?" Gull asked defiantly.

The boy tightened the grip upon his neck, one of his clawed
fingernails breaking the skin. Gull felt the tickling sensation of his own
blood as it ran down the side of his neck to his shoulder.

"Then I’ll eat your heart."

"Fine," Gull responded, allowing himself to be
maneuvered toward the doorway. "I just needed to know where we stand."

The blood of long-dead gods was rank in her mouth, but Eve
was beyond caring. She sprang at one of the resurrected and buried her fangs in
its throat. With a savage growl, she pulled her head back, pulling flesh and
muscle away, her face bathed in gouts of foul, black blood. Again and again the
vampire slaughtered these minor gods, the foot soldiers of Olympus, avoiding
their swords, spears, and axes, feasting on their rancid flesh and foul-tasting
life-stuff, but still it wasn’t enough. The dead continued their incessant
march into the chamber. From the blood of the Fury she had feasted on, Eve had
learned the names of each and every one of them, gods and demigods alike, and
knew their sins as well. At that moment, they all shared a goal, to protect the
treasures of Olympus at any cost.

The creatures born from the teeth of the Hydra were proving
very helpful. She and her companions would have fallen to the deluge of the
dead much sooner if not for their assistance. Quickly, she looked about the
chamber. Ceridwen seemed to be holding her own, manipulating the elements of
the Underworld to combat their relentless enemy. She wondered how much longer
the Fey could keep it up. That fine-looking son of a bitch, Nick Hawkins was
holding his own, not that she gave a shit.

Danny was nowhere to be found. That worried her.

She slammed her fist through the tattered remnants of the
rib cage of a goddess, even as the tall, majestic creature tried to reach for
her face. Eve tore her spine out through her chest.

Conan Doyle appeared at her side, as she spun around to face
other enemies. A quartet of armored corpses were attempting to surround him,
but Conan Doyle was not so easily taken. He wielded a pitted, ancient sword he
must have taken from one of the fallen, but it was infused with a strange green
fire that caused the dead gods to explode when they were cut by the blade. One
after the other, he destroyed them.

"Enjoying yourself, Eve?" he asked, wearily.

"Oh, yeah, this might be the best field trip yet,"
Eve snarled, clawing at a black-eyed, hulking figure, spilling its viscera to
the ground. "And to think, we owe it all to your buddy, Gull, and his
hard-on for Medusa."

Conan Doyle muttered something beneath his breath and the
soft, fleshy ground beneath their enemies’ feet turned to a bubbling, viscous
fluid, swallowing six of the groaning, hideous dead before returning to its
solid state.

"Gull and Medusa?" Conan Doyle asked, turning to
her, a look of astonishment upon his blood-spattered face.

Eve twisted the head of an ancient god completely around
with a loud, wet pop, tearing it from its roots. She rode the corpse to the
ground and sprang up once more to fall in beside Conan Doyle. "That’s what
this is all about. I figured you’d have sussed it out by now. Gull’s in love
with Medusa and wants the tears of the Furies as some kind of cure to lift her
curse. Ain’t love grand?"

Conan Doyle uttered a disgusted laugh. "Oh, that’s
simply priceless." A shrieking god clad in tarnished armor forced his way
past the children of the Hydra’s teeth, coming toward Conan Doyle with his
spear lowered. Still deep in thought, the sorcerer did not seem to notice, and
Eve moved to intercept the attack.

"Watch your —" she began, but a powerful
hand wrapped around her ankle, sending her sprawling to the gore-soaked ground.
One of her recent victims, it seemed, was not quite dead.

From the ground she watched it all unfold in slow motion,
the spear- wielding zombie making his way toward Conan Doyle and he turned
slowly, too slowly. The spear was poised for the mage’s heart, and there didn’t
seem to be much that could be done to prevent it from finding its mark.

Then she heard it, rising above the din, a song as beautiful
as any ever sung in her eternal lifetime. She watched in wonder as the
resurrected god fell to his knees, spear clattering at Conan Doyle’s feet.

The scene was repeated all around the chamber as the song
lifted through the air. The gods who had been stirred to battle by the cries of
the Erinyes fell to their knees, enraptured by the voice of Orpheus.

Eve knew who was responsible, but was surprised that he had
the decency to come to their aid.

Hawkins, the worse for wear and looking far less dapper, let
loose a raucous cheer. He lifted a bloody battle-axe above his head as he
watched his master step back into the vast cathedral of Hades’ heart. Eve
almost began to believe that the spirit of camaraderie had taken hold of Gull,
but the dark mage stumbled over one of the hundreds of bodies that littered the
floor, and she caught sight of the demon boy behind him. At first she did not
recognize the hellish visage as the boy she’d grown so fond of. Danny was
changing. Quickly.

Eve felt a wave of relief. The boy reached down to haul Gull
back to his feet. He pushed Gull toward them.

"It’s a good thing we decided to bring him, eh Arthur?"

Conan Doyle was looking about the room, distracted.

"Arthur?" she asked, catching his eye.