Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (15 page)

The ground shuddered again, a tremor that all of them rode
out as though they were on board a ship. The earth collapsed around the Hydra,
huge chunks of volcanic soil sinking inward, entire stretches of that dusty
ground erupting upward as the Hydra bucked and hauled its body out of its den
beneath the dead earth. Each head was as hideous as the first, jaws gaping
over, slavering venom spilling out onto the ground to sizzle like acid as it
touched earth. Beneath its scales moved thick, ropy muscles, and its nine tails
thrashed on the dusty ground.

Danny started forward, despite Conan Doyle’s magickal
defenses. The mage reached out a hand and grabbed his shoulder.

"Not yet, boy."

Eve cautiously moved toward the monster that now swayed on
its thick, muscular trunk. She drew its attention, and nine pair of eyes
focused on her.

"What’s she going to do?" Danny asked.

Conan Doyle ignored him, muttering an incantation under his
breath, even as Ceridwen entered the fray. The elemental sorceress pointed her
staff toward the beast, the sphere of blue ice atop it crackling with growing
power. Her violet eyes sparked, and she raised her arms

The Hydra struck. Despite Eve’s distraction, one massive
head turned away from the vampire, and its jaws opened wide, vomiting a gray,
noxious vapor. Ceridwen tried to ward off the billowing cloud, but it clung to
her, coating her in a layer of ash.

Conan Doyle shouted her name, his face etched with fury as
he unleashed a bolt of pure magickal force. But he had been distracted, and
even as he ran to her side, the blast went wild, missing the monster and shattering
a fossilized tree nearby.

Three of the Hydra’s heads twisted around to stare at the
tree that the spell had destroyed. One set of jaws gaped open and hissed in the
general direction of Conan Doyle and Ceridwen, but the others still focused on
Eve. It had identified her early on as its main prey, and now it began to
slither across the barren earth toward her.

This whole thing is going to shit
, Danny thought.
Deep
shit
. He started after the Hydra, but he remembered Conan Doyle’s caution,
and turned to glance back at the man who led them. What the hell was he
supposed to do?

Eve snapped a branch off of a petrified tree and as the
Hydra twisted its body across the earth toward her, she prepared to use it as a
club. "Is she all right?" she yelled to Doyle, who knelt at
Ceridwen’s side, trying to remove the solidified ash that was crusted on her
body.

The vampire had no time to wait for an answer. The Hydra
darted toward her, quickening its speed, and while two of its heads feinted, a
third lunged toward her, jaws spreading, venom drooling out.

Eve danced aside and swung the thick tree limb at its head. "Take
that, you ugly prick."

The Hydra screeched in pain and fury, but even as one head
sagged, disoriented, another long neck shot forward, jaws snapping. Once more
Eve evaded the Hydra, but this time she jabbed one of its eyes with the end of
the branch. The eye punctured, and putrid, gray fluid squirted out. But the
Hydra was not nine separate beasts. Its injured heads had distracted Eve, and
perhaps they had been meant to, for now a third and fourth serpentine mouth
belched clouds of that noxious clinging vapor rather than attacking outright. Danny
held his breath, his heart pounding in his chest, and every muscle tensed to
join the fray. But Eve amazed him with her speed as she dove to the ground,
rolling beneath the vapor, right up to the belly of the beast. She swung her
club, this time striking the monster’s body. All nine heads bellowed its rage
as the creature swiveled around and lashed at her with a pair of whip-like
tails.

Eve could not dodge the monster forever. One of the tails
caught her in the chest with such forced that the pop of cracking bone echoed
in the air. She was thrown forty feet, landing in a tumble of limbs. She
grunted with the pain of broken bones as she spilled end over end and at last
came to a sprawling stop.

The Hydra eagerly moved toward its fallen prey.

This was a whole new life for Danny, this world of magic and
monsters, but new as it was, it was
his
world. He was part of it. No matter
what Conan Doyle said, he had to help Eve. The mage was helping Ceridwen, and
Eve’s battle with the Hydra was slipping by in heartbeats, so quickly that it
might be over before Conan Doyle returned to the fight. Danny had to do
something.

He looked around
. Where are Gull and his people?
He
saw them in the distance and shouted for them, but they ignored him.

A groggy Eve had just climbed to her feet when the Hydra
attacked again. A head struck her, its mouth clamping onto her shoulder, long
venomous fangs digging into her flesh. She clawed at its face with taloned
hands to little avail and shrieked in pain as the creature held fast, sinking
its teeth deeper, driving her to her knees. Another of the heads lunged, biting
into the opposite arm, followed by yet another that saw the potential for a
strike upon one of her thighs. She fought valiantly, but the serpents’ heads
would not release her, lifting her from the ground, trying to pull her apart.

Danny breathed deeply, mustering all his courage, and sprinted
across the hard, dusty ground, volcanic ash rising around him. One of the
Hydra’s heads whipped around, and its hideous eyes locked on him. It bared its
fangs and hissed.

The demon boy hissed back, and lunged for the monster.

The man who arrived at the scene of the second atrocity in
Athens looked exactly like Yannis Papathansiou, walked and talked like him,
even smelled like him. But the detective was elsewhere. It was Clay who wore
his face, and he entered the building with Squire in tow. The hobgoblin was
hideous, but he had passed for human before, primarily because people saw his
ugliness and tried to avert their eyes out of politeness. When they did stare,
they thought him some kind of freak. There would be those who would wonder
about the gnarled little man with Detective Papathansiou, but no one would say
a word in front of Squire.

"Let me handle this," Clay whispered to the
hobgoblin.

"I think we’ve finally found the perfect look for you,"
Squire whispered, peering over the top of his dark sunglasses, even though dawn
was hours away. The hobgoblin was wearing a baseball cap that had Kiss
Me
I’m Greek
embroidered on it, with a pair of red, luscious lips emblazoned
below. Clay had considered asking where he’d gotten such a hat, but knew he
would probably regret the question, so he let it go.

The detective had called them at the hotel to inform them
that another stone body had been found. Clay had instructed the old man to stay
home, that he and his associates would handle the investigation. Yannis had at
first protested, but when Clay had explained that a fresher victim might
provide better clues to lead them to their quarry, he had at last acquiesced.

Clay and Squire moved past the Thesseion temple toward the
small gathering of police officers and detectives. "Not a word," Clay
warned the goblin again, as a broad shouldered man with glasses approached
them. Papathansiou had told him that this detective was named Dioskouri, and
the other, smaller man, who had yet to notice their arrival, was Keramikous.

"Lieutenant," Dioskouri said.

"Detective," Clay acknowledged dismissively,
channeling every nuance of Lieutenant Yannis Papathansiou’s personality and
body language. They were speaking Greek, which Squire did not understand very
well, but in his masquerade, speaking English would have raised suspicions. He
looked past Dioskouri, searching for the crime scene. "The body is where?"

The detective nervously adjusted his glasses as he turned
and pointed through the darkness to a section of columns. "Back there, his
wife found him."

"Time’s a wastin’, Zorba," Squire said, heading
toward the crime scene.

"And you are?" Dioskouri asked in English, moving
to block Squire’s way.

Squire sighed in exasperation. "Would you mind telling
him who I am, Yannis, old chum?"

"This is Professor Squire from the Institute in Vienna,"
Clay explained in staccato Greek. "He’s been vacationing on the islands
and was kind enough to offer his assistance."

Dioskouri looked down at the tiny man in confusion. His
English was rough, but understandable. "I mean no disrespect sir, but you
are an expert on the impossible? On men and women turned to stone?"

Squire clasped his stubby arms behind his back and rocked on
the heels of his high top sneakers. "You’d be surprised, my boy, you’d be
surprised."

Clay decided that it would be wise to get them to the body
as quickly as possible and pushed past Dioskouri and Squire. "Keramikous,"
he called to the other detective, who was still conversing with two, uniformed
patrolman.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" the man responded quickly,
stepping away from the officers.

"Secure the area. Professor Squire and I are going to
look at the crime scene."

Keramikous looked momentarily confused. "Professor
Squire?"

"He’s from the Institute in Vienna," Dioskouri
snapped, with an air of superiority.

"Carry on," Clay said, waving them away as he and
Squire carefully navigated the stone pathway that would take them to the body.

"Where exactly is this Institute in Vienna?"
Squire asked in a whisper from the corner of his mouth, amusement in his voice.

Clay shrugged. "I made it up. But neither of them seems
interested in second-guessing their lieutenant."

"Did you know I’m this shy of a degree in massage
therapy?" the hobgoblin asked, holding his sausage-sized thumb and
forefinger apart less than an inch.

"You don’t say," Clay said as they approached the
Doric columns around which yellow crime scene tape had been wrapped.

"Couldn’t find any place to accept my internship
though," Squire grumbled. "I think it’s because I’m a guy trying to
break into an industry dominated by chicks. What do you think?"

Clay pulled away the tape, maneuvering around the column,
searching for the latest Gorgon victim. "I think I might be able to find
you something in New Orleans, if you’re interested."

An unusually wide, toothy grin spread across the hobgoblin’s
face. "Hey, you’d do that for me? That’d be sweet."

"Here we go," Clay said as they came upon the
petrified body. It was just as disturbing as the others, the features wide with
fear and despair.

"All right, let’s deal with this Gorgon bullshit and
get home to the important stuff." Squire began to move around the crime
scene, examining every shadow.

Clay smiled to himself. Now at least Squire would be
focused. He wondered briefly how Graves was faring in his more spiritual
investigation, haunting the streets of the ancient city for a spirit or two
that might give them some information about the Gorgon’s whereabouts. Hopefully,
working both the physical angle and the ethereal, they could make some progress
and find the creature before it caused anymore harm.

Still wearing the shape of the overweight detective, he
turned his attention to the ossified figure before him. Its terrified gaze was
frozen, staring blankly in the direction of the two columns. "The Gorgon
must have been standing somewhere over there," Clay said, turning toward
the columns.

"Let’s see if it left anything of interest behind."
Squire walked over to the columns, surveying the ground around them. "No
conveniently dropped cigarette butts or anything," the goblin observed, "but
that doesn’t mean it didn’t leave a scent behind."

Clay took that as his cue to alter his form again. To track
by scent he summoned the shape of an animal with an incredibly acute olfactory
sense. The shape of Yannis Papathansiou melted away with a sound very much like
the flapping of bird’s wings, to be replaced by a far more beastly form —
a Dire Wolf, prehistoric relative of the common gray wolf, larger and more
sturdy than its modern counterpart.

"Nice doggy," Squire said, stepping away.

Clay smelled it immediately, the aroma of something ancient
and dangerous, hinting of desperation and unpredictability. It made the hackles
of fur at the back of his neck stand on end.

"I’ve got it," he growled, altering the structure
of the wolf’s mouth slightly to allow him to speak.

Squire jumped onto his back, grabbing a handful of thick,
grayish fur. "Go fetch."

It was no simple thing to avoid the police already in the
area, but Clay maneuvered in the shadows and the route of the Gorgon’s escape,
neat the back of the ruins. Its scent was all over the place. The Dire Wolf
leaped into the darkness. They paused a moment, waiting for voices to shout at
them, but no one had noticed their exit.

Clay placed his nose closer to the ground and began to
follow the trail, a path so obvious it was like following bread crumbs, or a
line drawn with bright red crayon. The Dire Wolf and its passenger padded
across the timeworn ground of the Agora, leaving the murder scene behind. The
spoor was strong. At this rate, it would only be a matter of time before they
found their prize.

A sound like the crack of a bullwhip filled the air as a
bullet exploded from the barrel of a rifle. The steel-jacketed projectile
slammed through the thick fur and muscle of the Dire Wolf’s neck, turning
several of its vertebrae to powder. Clay flipped backward on his side with a
roar of pain, bucking Squire from his perch. Already, the flesh was knitting as
the shapeshifter assumed a more familiar guise, a human face.

"Squire, are you all right?" he hissed, altering
the structure of his eyes, turning the darkness of night to the light of day
and scanning for signs of their attacker.

Squire slunk up next to him in the shadows, an inch-long
gash in his forehead. The two of them moved quickly against the face of a
building, gauging the location of the shooter as best they could and hoping
they would be out of the line of sight. Without another shot, Clay could only
guess about the sniper’s location, and guessing would be dangerous.