Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

The boy lifted his head, embarrassed, and quickly got to his feet. "Sorry. This whole frozen ocean thing is just so cool."

A loud crack ricocheted through the air, and Conan Doyle felt a powerful vibration pass through the icy surface beneath his feet. He glanced at Ceridwen, troubled.

"Risk of the gates closing is not the only reason we should quicken our pace," she said, placing a hand against Danny’s back, urging him forward. "The ocean’s natural state is volatile. The spell will not hold it for long."

Another loud crack, followed by a succession of smaller, more muted pops, erupted. The frost on the bridge had begun to melt, making the surface slipperier. Conan Doyle concentrated on his footing, not daring to slow his progress now to check on the others. He trusted they would be moving with both caution and alacrity as well. The cave was just ahead, a thick, less than welcoming sulfurous stench exuding from the yawing gates.

There came a low, unmistakable grinding that Doyle knew came not from the melting ice beneath their feet, but from the stone doors as they began to close.

"Blast it!" he yelled, trying to increase his speed. Instead he lost his footing and stumbled forward, hands sliding across the surface of melting ice. He was skidding toward the edge, when he felt his momentum arrested by a strong grip on his left ankle.

"No time for fun and games," Eve said, helping him to his feet with Danny’s assistance. Jagged cracks splintered through the ice beneath them.

"Forget me!" Conan Doyle bellowed, shrugging off Eve and Danny. He pointed to the rock doors slowly swinging shut. "Stop them, or this has all been for nothing!"

Inspired by his words, Danny sprang forward and caught one of the stone doors, but it continued its inexorable progress, dragging him across the icy slick ground. Eve got a grip on the other door, planting her feet in the slush and pooling seawater. She managed to stop it from closing.

"What a pussy," she grunted to Danny. "Can’t believe I’m stronger than you."

Danny repositioned his feet on the slick surface and hauled back upon his door. "Fuck… you," he snarled with exertion and, for a moment, succeeded in keeping his side open as well.

Conan Doyle reached the doorway, stopping to allow Ceridwen to pass. "After you, my dear,"

"Cut the gentlemanly bullshit, would you?" Eve grunted. "My arms are coming out of the sockets any second now."

"There’s always time for manners, Eve," Conan Doyle chided, following the Fey sorceress into the darkness of the Underworld.

"What’s the matter Eve?" Danny asked, his voice strained. "Door a little heavy for you?"

"It’s a good thing I like you, kid," she said letting go of her door and reaching across to grab Danny by the ear. The boy growled as she pulled him toward her, and the two tumbled to the ground in a heap upon the cave floor, as the twin doors slammed shut with a resounding echo.

Eve landed astride the demon boy and smiled down on him. She grabbed hold of the leathery flesh of his cheek and gave it a pinch. "I could have left you outside on the ledge," she said, crawling off of him. "And maybe you’ll wish I had."

He smiled back as he climbed to his feet. She could feel him watching her as she wiped the dust and dirt from her pants. For effect, she took her time, then glanced up at him.

"Take a picture. It’ll last longer."

Danny just scowled and made an obscene gesture. Eve laughed softly. She found it flattering, enjoyed the fact that even at her age she could still make the young ones sweaty.

Now she surveyed their surroundings. It was not as dark as she had expected. They were in a cave with a ceiling perhaps twenty feet high, but it grew wider and taller as it tunneled deeper into the rock, into the earth, and where the tunnel turned out of sight, a kind of orange glow illuminated the depths. A thick, rotten egg smell, riding on gusts of warm air, wafted out to greet them.

"That’s nasty," Danny said, holding his nose and looking about. "Where’s Mr. Doyle and Ceridwen?"

"Where do you think?" Eve asked, moving toward the orange glow. "Stink central. Where else would they be?"

The sides of the rounded cave walls were smooth and warm to the touch. The deeper they went into the widening tunnel, the warmer it became.

"It’s hot in here," Danny commented from behind.

"Figured that out all by yourself?" Eve sniped, a feeling of unease beginning to creep through her.

The tunnel curved, descending toward what looked to be an exit into a much larger chamber beyond. Eve emerged from the tunnel and stopped dead in her tracks, overwhelmed by the sight before her. Danny kept right on walking, slamming into her back.

"What the fuck?" he uttered in astonishment, and she had to agree. What the fuck, indeed.

They stood on a ledge with a breathtaking view over a valley — a landscape that could have given the Grand Canyon a run for its money — but where the canyon was breathtaking in its majesty, this place filled Eve with a creeping dread that made her bones ache and her stomach churn. Every muscle in her body screamed for her to run away.

"Ah, I see that you’ve finally decided to join us," came a voice, and Eve nearly jumped out of her skin. Conan Doyle appeared from the shadows to the left, with Ceridwen trailing behind. He wiped moisture from his brow with a white handkerchief. "I was beginning to think that you hadn’t made it."

Eve gazed once more out over the hellish landscape. "And, boy, am I glad I did."

"Come now, Eve," Conan Doyle said as he joined her. "What did you expect from the Underworld? Rolling fields of grass? Apple orchards? Rose bushes, perhaps? It isn’t supposed to be Eden, my dear."

His last comment was like a jab in the ribs, and Eve gave him a hard look. Conan Doyle was well aware of how sensitive she was about her early days and often used such references to help her to focus, but this time it only made her angry. This was the sort of place she expected to end up in for what she had done. The ultimate punishment for her sins.

"So where are we, really?" Danny asked, moving past her, closer to the edge. "Is this really it? Really the Underworld?"

"Close enough," Doyle said. He tucked his handkerchief back into his suit jacket pocket. "Think of a bubble, or better yet, a garbage can containing the refuse of another age, a sanctuary away from a world that has mostly forgotten that this age had ever truly existed." He stopped suddenly and looked around, cocking his head slightly to one side as if listening.

"What is it?" Eve asked.

They were all looking around now.

"It’s nothing," he said, turning away. "There’s a path over here that will take us down," he said, and started in that direction, clearly expecting them to follow.

Eve’s upper lip curled back. "Goody."

Silently, they descended deeper into the Underworld, Doyle, Ceridwen, Danny, then Eve. The walls themselves seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, as though fire blazed on the other side of each stone surface, and it was burning through in spots. The sulfurous smell came and went on the strange winds of that place. The terrain was awful, and they had to be cautious, for the stony ground was pitted with soft places, where the rock would suck like a quicksand mouth as they stepped past.

Hideously twisted things flew along the roof of the cave, but they blended so well it was difficult to determine their size. They seemed harmless enough, though their eyes glowed white, and Eve wondered what they fed on here. There was little other sign of life, either current or past, though they came once to a long stretch of dusty plain at the base of a craggy hill where calcified bodies jutted from the ground as though they had fallen there in death long, long ago, and sediment had settled around them.