Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

"You are not welcome here."

The words were in another language, an ancient form of Greek, but such barriers meant little to the dead. Like other ghosts, Dr. Graves could draw the meaning of the words from the ether itself. From the substance of the spiritual realm, a tapestry woven from the souls of humanity throughout the ages.

"I apologize for the intrusion," Graves said quickly, for he had been schooled in many things during his life, diplomacy among them. "I will stay only a moment and then leave you to your peace."

The faceless dead laughed at him. Their spokesman tilted his head to one side, and the words came again, yet now Graves wondered if it was he speaking or if this was the voice of the collective.

"There is no peace here while the world treads upon this ground and admires the temple of Athena as nothing more than a relic. It would be better if it were nothing more than dust. Perhaps then we could move on."

Graves nodded, hoping he projected sympathy. He began to speak again, but was interrupted.

"And you will leave when you are instructed to do so. Or you will never leave. We shall see to that."

Fear rippled through his spectral form again, and Graves bowed his head and began to withdraw. "My apologies again. I merely thought that if the Gorgon had desecrated this temple with her presence, you might tell me."

" Wait."

Dr. Graves forced himself not to smile as he paused and glanced around. The gathered dead drifted closer, some of them emerging from among the columns and forming a tighter circle around him. There was a flicker of identity across the face of the spokesman ghost, but then it was gone.

"What do you intend for Medusa?"

"Medusa?" Graves repeated, mouth dry. So it was true. Not just a Gorgon, but the hideous monster of legend. "Only to stop her from killing anyone else."

There was a susurrus of whispers on the ethereal plane, the voices of dozens, perhaps hundreds of ghosts speaking all at once. He heard them as a single sound, the hushed noise of the wind through a cornfield. Then all at once it ceased.

The faceless spokesman slid closer to him, staring at him with no eyes, speaking to him with no lips.

"She has been here. We sent her away."

Graves nodded. "There are too many people who might see her."

" Fool!" the voice in the ether snapped. The faceless ghosts swirled closer, and Graves shivered with the cold of tombs millennia old. "We would never allow Phorcys’s tainted spawn within these walls. It would be the gravest insult to the goddess."

"Of course," Graves agreed, moving backward toward the entrance. "If only I knew where to find her, I could be sure she would never be able insult the goddess again."

Once more the temple was filled with that ripple of whispers.

"She hides among the dead, those who were ancient before the first stone of the temple was laid."

Clay was behind the wheel of the car. Squire had to set up a rig to reach the pedals, and they didn’t have time for such foolishness. The goblin sat in the passenger seat, still wearing his silly cap. Clay gripped the steering wheel and drove down Ermou Street, careful at each intersection. The Greek way of handling such things was to honk the horn as one approached a cross-street. Whoever beeped first had the right of way. But if two cars blared their horns simultaneously, an accident was almost inevitable.

They had followed a small map Yannis had given them. It had been simple enough to find the Monastiraki train station, despite the torn up roads. The city seemed dotted with dozens of places where the streets were being improved, and others where they were in terrible disrepair.

"Not far now," Graves said.

Clay glanced in the rearview mirror. The ghost was visible there, manifesting in the backseat. In the darkness of the night, with only the glow from the dashboard and what light came in from the buildings that lined the street, Graves seemed almost solid.

"You can feel it?" Clay asked.

Dr. Graves nodded. "Like a winter storm coming on."

"Yeah, good for you, Casper," Squire muttered, shaking the map in his hand. "That’s great and all but, hello, map?"

The hobgoblin had his booted feet up on the dashboard. Clay shot him a sidelong glare. Squire had his uses, but often the annoyance outweighed them.

"Focus on the task at hand," Clay told him. "We’re going to have to be very quiet. It may go badly for us if we cannot take her by stealth."

"What, I’m not quiet? I’m the fuckin’ soul of quiet."

Clay sighed.

"I doubt the Gorgon’s stare will affect you, Clay. You are infinitely malleable," Dr. Graves said, his voice like a cold breeze in the car.

Clay shuddered.

"I don’t like guessing," the shapeshifter replied. "You’re dead. And Conan Doyle made it clear hobgoblins were immune to certain curses. But I’m not sure in my case, so let’s just take it slowly. And — " he glanced again at Squire "- be quiet."

The hobgoblin grinned. "My middle name."

The cemetery loomed up on their right, and above it a church whose domed roof seemed the color of rust in the moonlight. The Kerameikos was closed, of course, the gates locked. And somewhere inside, among ancient ruins of Greece that few tourists and fewer Athenians ever bothered to visit, among graves and aboveground crypts and crumbling markers, Medusa was supposed to have made her lair.

"Are you certain of this?" Clay asked as he pulled the car to the curb. Dr. Graves’s eyes seemed yellow in the dark. Clay parked and killed the engine, turning around to face the ghost.

"She hides among the dead," the phantom adventurer said. "Those who were ancient before the first stone of the temple was laid. That’s how they told it to me. The corpses of Athenians were buried here for more than a thousand years, as far back as the twelfth century B.C. Nowhere else in the city fills that bill. It’s an ancient place with far less human traffic than anywhere else in Athens."

"A good hiding spot," Squire said, peering through his window. "Nice and homey. Let’s go."

He started to open his door, and Clay grabbed his wrist. Squire twisted around to face him. Clay smiled and pulled the foolish cap from the goblin’s head.

"Quietly," he said. "Graves makes no noise. I’m going in on cat feet. If Medusa hears us coming, it’ll be you who gives us away. Please don’t."

Squire put one hand over his heart. "You wound me, buddy. To the core. And I heard you the first fifty friggin’ times."

The hobgoblin popped his door and stepped out, closing it gently behind him. Clay glanced back at the ghost in the rear seat.

"What do you think?" the shapeshifter asked.

Dr. Graves raised an eyebrow. "I think there’s a reason we’re not all going in together," he said, and then he rose up through the roof of the car, passing right through fabric and metal as though it weren’t there at all.

Clay climbed out, pocketed the keys, took one look around and then he changed. The feeling was not precisely painful, but it was often unpleasant. When he transformed into a creature smaller than himself, it was not as though he was being physically compacted, crushed down to size, but rather as though a part of him was draining away to some other place.

Fur pushed through his skin. His bones popped and reshaped and shrunk. His ears perked up. His rough tongue darted out, and he twitched his whiskers, tail waving behind him. On cat feet, fur the color of copper with a white streak along one ear, Clay darted to the gate of the cemetery and right through grating meant to keep humans out.

Graves was likely already inside, and Squire was nowhere to be seen. Clay assumed he had simply melded with the shadows outside the cemetery and emerged from some dark place within. The cat trotted across the brittle grass among the tombs.