Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (48 page)

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.