Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

Squire grimaced. "Wait, so now you’re funny all of a sudden?"

"Sedate her?" he heard Graves ask from above them. "Why on earth would we want to sedate her?" The ghost drifted closer and Clay glanced at him, and through his translucent form. "The Gorgon must be dealt with as we would any other monster. She must be destroyed."

Clay understood exactly what the ghost was saying, but something deep inside him did not agree. Medusa was ancient and had seen and experienced so much, he found it a tragedy to have to kill her. Yes, he knew she was a monster, but so was he, and that shared bond made it very difficult for him to end her life.

It was as if she sensed his hesitation — his weakness. Medusa twisted her body in such a way as to tear the ectoplasmic netting and free her hands. She shrieked like the damned, as she raked her clawed fingers across the dry, cracked flesh of Clay’s face, ripping away one of his sensory stalks. The snakes atop her head hissed, writhing and striking out with equal savagery.

"Damn you!" Clay bellowed, recoiling from the injury, providing her the opportunity she sought. He was slow, still feeling the effects of her curse, and before he could recover, she had freed herself from the net, swatting Squire away as if he were an annoying insect.

"Graves!" Clay called out, the pain in his face beginning to subside, another stalk already growing.

It sounded like short claps of thunder, and Clay suddenly realized what the ghost was doing. He had seen Graves do it before, summoning replicas of guns from his past, created from the substance of his body and shooting bullets of ectoplasm.

The gunfire came to an abrupt stop.

"Did you stop her?" Clay asked, the stalks on his face moving about in the air attempting to locate the doctor’s ghostly shape.

"No," he said. "She obviously knows this cemetery far better than we."

"Beautiful. Then we lost her — again," Squire muttered, picking himself up from the ground where Medusa had thrown him. One arm hung limply from its socket, longer than its counterpart and Clay watched as the goblin casually reached out with the uninjured arm to roughly yank it back into place. He winced at the popping sound that accompanied the movement.

"That’s better," the hobgoblin sighed, moving the restored arm, checking its mobility.

"We have not lost our quarry," Dr. Graves said, floating down to join them, the white of his shirt and his dark suspenders and trousers equally transparent, as if he had been superimposed upon the cemetery.

"What do you mean?" Clay asked. With a thought, he replaced the writhing sensory organs on his face with eyes.

Graves gazed off into the cemetery and beyond. "I hit her at least once," he said, holding up a ghostly pistol that shimmered in the darkness, threatening to become insubstantial. "The bullets are made from my life-stuff," he explained. "She is carrying a piece of me inside her — as if I’ve been brought along for the trip."

Squire smiled, pointing a gnarled, stubby finger at Graves. "You da man," he said with a wink. "So what are we waitin’ for?" He rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Let’s go finish off this beastie."

"No," Clay said.

"No?" Squire repeated incredulously. "What, are we gonna let ole snake head rampage through the streets of Greece turning everyone into decorative lawn ornaments? If you ask me, that brain inside your coconut is still made out of rock."

Clay shook his head. "I didn’t mean we weren’t going after her. We’re just not going to kill her."

His comrades stared at him.

"We’re going to take her alive."

In the ancient language of the elements, Ceridwen thanked the waters of the Ionian for their assistance. On the face of that promontory, atop a ledge perhaps one hundred feet above the water, the cliff had opened like massive stone doors, the gates to the Underworld. Conan Doyle had charged her with finding the fastest way to that ledge. His only criteria was to do it before Gull’s cajoling spell wore off, and the stone doors slammed shut again.

From the deck of Captain Lycaon’s boat she’d looked up at the entrance in the rock face and pondered the puzzle. She thought about conjuring a traveling wind, but determined that their number was too great and that the amount of time needed for the proper enchantment was out of the question.

She’d felt Conan Doyle’s anxious eyes on her as the others bid the good captain farewell.

"We must be going now, Ceridwen," he had urged, and she had looked down over the side of their transport and suddenly had known how they would reach the Underworld entrance.

She had approached the side of the boat and thrust her staff into the emerald waters, asking for its assistance. At first the Ionian was sluggish to respond, but soon it warmed to her request, pleased to know that the Fey — who had once wandered this world at will — still existed. The sea had obliged Ceridwen, and the waters encircling the boat began to bubble and churn, and the air grew increasingly colder.

A bridge, she’d whispered in the language of the sea, my companions and I need a bridge.

In response, a swirling waterspout had surged up and out of the body of the ocean, bending and twisting to connect the sea to the rocky face of the promontory. The air grew steadily colder, and colder still, and the once fluid ocean waters became solid in the sudden, magical chill. A bridge of ice was formed.

"Impressive, my dear," Conan Doyle said, a twinkle in his eyes.

Ceridwen felt a flush on her pale cheeks. "Quickly now." She urged them on as they scrambled over the side of the fishing boat and began their ascent toward the opening in the cliff face.

"I’m almost tempted to go with you," Captain Lycaon said as she went over the side, the last to begin the climb. He stood at the rail, watching, eyes filled with wonder. The man was trembling, but she doubted that it had anything to do with the cold she had summoned. "But I fear that should I enter that place, I would not be allowed to leave."

"This is not a journey for the likes of you, good Captain," Ceridwen said, balancing on the ice. "Go back to the life you have made and leave matters of the Underworld to others."

Captain Lycaon bid them all farewell, and they continued across the frozen bridge that would bring them to the land of the dead.

Frost crunched beneath the sole of Conan Doyle’s leather walking boots. He turned to see how the others progressed. Eve appeared to be having the most difficulty, struggling to maintain her footing, but he had little compassion for her. Before leaving Boston he had instructed her on the significance of a good walking shoe, but she had ignored him as usual, preferring to wear a high-heeled Italian boot.

Eve was indeed a slave to fashion.

"Quickly now," he encouraged. "I have no idea how long Gull’s enchantment will remain over the opening, we must get inside before the doors return to their previous state."

"An ice bridge," he heard Eve grumble from behind. "Couldn’t have made something a little less dangerous. A fucking ice ladder maybe?"

"If you want, you can hold on to my shoulder," Danny suggested. "My sneakers give me pretty good traction."

"Thanks, kid," she said sarcastically. "That way when one of us slips and goes over the side we’ll have company on the way down."

The demon boy laughed out loud, and Conan Doyle was again reminded of how young Danny Ferrick actually was, and how well he was adjusting to the new life into which his metamorphosis had thrust him.

"Hey, I think I see some fish frozen in here," the boy said, dropping to his knees and brushing the frost away from the path.

Eve was attempting to make her way around the boy as Ceridwen patiently waited for him.

"Daniel, please," Conan Doyle said. "What did I just say about quickening our pace?"