Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

She could only watch as the Hydra’s heads dipped and Danny’s hands rose instinctively to protect his face. But then something happened that at first Eve could not begin to explain. The Hydra’s attack was stopped.

No, she thought, watching carefully, not stopped, slowed down. As though in the space around the demon boy and the Hydra, time itself had become disoriented.

"Amazing," she said, ignoring the grinding of broken ribs in her side, and getting up from the ground. Conan Doyle and Ceridwen strode side by side toward the monster, their hands extended, trails of sizzling magical force leaking from the tips of their fingers. Their faces were etched with strain and focus.

"Eve, if you wouldn’t mind, this is far from easy," Conan Doyle said, a slight tremble in his voice. "Kill it."

"Haven’t you been paying attention?" she asked. "That’s what Danny and I have been trying to do, no help from you."

Conan Doyle grimaced, turning his gaze briefly to a broken tree limb on the ground. "The branch," he began. Fat beads of sweat had begun to collect on his brow from the strain of the spell that had slowed time. "Use it to pierce the Hydra’s heart. Much like yourself, it’s the only way the monster can be…"

His voice trailed off, but she had the information she needed. Eve raced to grab the branch, then ran at the monstrosity that still towered over the boy. Whatever magic they had used, it only affected those who were in the vicinity when it was cast. But the Hydra and Danny would not be slowed like this for long.

"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me," Eve said as she placed her hand against the charred scales of the monster’s breast, feeling for the pulse of its heart.

Eve found what she was looking for. With all the unnatural strength she could muster, the vampire plunged the jagged end of the makeshift spear through the creature’s chest and into its heart.

She found the act strangely liberating.

The Hydra shrieked in agony out of all of its mouths, a chorus of anguish so profound that Eve was almost moved to pity.

Almost.

When it crashed to the ground, throwing up volcanic ash in clouds that spread in concentric circles around it, she strode over to the monster and kicked it. "It wasn’t ever gonna be me in the dust, ugly. Not today."

Ash clouded the sun above the petrified forest. The breeze blowing across the island of Lesbos would soon clear away what had not already clung to the skeletal trees or blanketed the ground. In the moments following the death of the Hydra, Conan Doyle concerned himself with the well-being of his associates. All of them were injured, yet Danny and Eve healed quickly.

"Let me have a look," he said to Ceridwen.

She had sustained several long gashes on her right side. But even as he tried to see to her wounds he could feel a wave of cold emanating from her hands where she touched her scored flesh. Ice formed on her skin.

"I’ll be fine," she said, curtly at first, and then she caught herself and her features became gentler. "Truly. I will be fine. See to the others. Or better yet, see to Gull. He and his friends weren’t very much help, were they?"

Conan Doyle smiled bitterly. "Did you expect them to be?"

"Son of a bitch!" Danny snarled.

Through the drifting, settling ash, Conan Doyle saw the demon boy striding toward him with Eve at his side. Sunlight shone down in patches but the bit of magick Gull had taught Eve to protect herself was holding up for the moment. At least that had not been false.

"What is it?" Ceridwen asked, moving toward them in concern, wincing at the pain in her side.

Conan Doyle did not have to ask, but he awaited the answer to the question in any case. Eve spun around, her arms wide, taking in the entire dead, petrified landscape around them.

"They’re gone!" she said.

"Bastards!" Danny added for punctuation.

Eve laughed humorlessly. "Can you believe these guys? Drag us all the way out here to get answers and instead we get to fight the Hydra! And now they’re gone! Took off while we were trying to stay alive. We have been so completely punked."

Conan Doyle did not know the term, but its meaning was clear. He only nodded. Rather than respond he set off toward the place he had last seen Gull, Hawkins, and Jezebel.

"Arthur?" Ceridwen called.

Lost in concentration, he barely heard her. He had an idea but wanted confirmation. The ash continued to settle, drifting, and he wiped it from his eyes as he circumnavigated the corpse of the Hydra. He would have to see to it before they left, some spell to disintegrate it, perhaps, so that it was only more ash in the petrified forest. Certainly he had no intention of reburying it.

Beyond the monster’s corpse he strode a hundred yards farther to a place where the dead trees formed a kind of natural circle. Or, rather, it appeared natural. Conan Doyle knew better. In the rough center of that circle was a hole in the ground. Ash coated the earth but Conan Doyle fell to his knees there and plunged his hands into the hole, sifting ash and digging a bit deeper.

He drew out a human skull.

Ceridwen, Eve, and Danny had followed him at a distance, observing. Now the demon boy swore aloud once more.

"So this is the grave of that dude? Forceps, or whatever?"

Conan Doyle held the skull up. "This is human. Ancient, but human. The father of the Gorgons was not human."

"Then whose grave is this?" Eve asked. "What the hell was Gull up to here?"

He raised his eyebrows and stood, tossing the skull back into the ash. "I should think that much would be obvious, my dear. Some time in the past… perhaps as early as the very beginning of the Third Age of Man… the Hydra was buried here to guard this grave, to destroy anyone who came in search of it. My old friend Mr. Gull availed himself of our services as bodyguards. He simply did so without informing us."

"Bodyguards?" Eve snarled. "More like bait."

"As you wish," Conan Doyle acknowledged. His attention was still not fully on the conversation. He scanned the ground, eyeing the fresh ash as he began to walk away from the grave. Silently he counted paces in his mind, paused to glance deeper into the petrified forest, then crouched and plucked from the ground an object that at first appeared to be just a stone beneath the ash.

"No offense, Mr. Doyle, but you don’t seem nearly as pissed off about this as I’d like you to be," Danny said. "I mean, what now?"

Ceridwen sketched a symbol in the air, and a gust of wind scoured the stone in Doyle’s hand clean of ash. Beneath it was a familiar box whose sides were etched with sigils as old as human civilization.

Conan Doyle turned his face up to the sky. Now that the ash had cleared he enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The back of his neck was sticky with sweat, however, and that he could not abide. He longed for a luxury hotel room with a decent shower.

"He’s not as upset as you are, Danny," Ceridwen said in her lilting Fey voice, "because he knew this was going to happen."

Eve snickered darkly. "Of course you did. Of course you did! Fuck!"

Danny shook his head. "I don’t get it. If you knew, why did we even come?"

Conan Doyle frowned and spun on his heel to stare at the boy in consternation. "Daniel, I’m disappointed. How else was I to discover what Gull had in mind? Now, at least, we know where to begin."

"We do?" Danny replied, throwing up his hands. "Maybe you do, but I’m totally lost."

Eve put a hand on his shoulder, smiling now, her own anger and the last of her bloodlust leaving her. "Doyle’s never lost."

"Well," Conan Doyle said, allowing himself a small swell of pride. "Never is awfully strong. Rarely, then. I’ll accept that much." He cradled the Divination Box in one hand, and with the other he reached out and let his fingers brush Ceridwen’s hand. When she allowed his touch to linger he felt a wave of satisfaction. Though his concentration had been elsewhere, part of his mind had been with her. He glanced at her, and she nodded, her eyes gentle.