Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

The mage was a man of quiet dignity and propriety, but in battle, he was fearsome indeed. He seemed almost to transform, bracing himself in a warrior’s pose, his right hand burning like the sun. He met the attack head-on and plunged his blazing fist into one of Cerberus’s open mouths. The other two heads cried in agony, but the one assaulted by the magickal fire burned horribly from within, its eyes boiling from their sockets as the flesh and fur of its wide, heavy head burned away to reveal its flaming skull.

Conan Doyle stumbled away from the beast, clutching his wrist and staring at his own smoldering hand in obvious pain. The spell had been a weapon of incredible power, and there was always danger in magick. He had burned himself badly.

But Cerberus was not going to give him time to recover. Its injuries were horrid to see, but the two surviving heads were driven only to greater madness. They frothed at their mouths, a yellow foam that stank worse than the beast itself. Where its body was dessicated and the bone and muscle showed through, fresh blood and pus flowed as it shook in fury. It had been deciding which of them to rend and tear, but now Conan Doyle was its only target.

"Arthur!" Ceridwen cried, damning herself for her weakness even as she summoned the strength to stand. She would be too late.

But Eve was there.

She pushed Conan Doyle out of harm’s way as the remaining two heads, driven to the brink of madness, lunged for him with utter ferocity. One of the still functioning heads snapped its jaws closed on Eve’s shoulder and she roared in pain, baring long fangs. She spun and pummeled its snout, but Cerberus flipped back its head, shaking her like a rag doll. Eve’s flailing feet caught the still smoldering third head and it exploded in a shower of blackened bone and red burning embers.

Danny was right behind her. The demon boy ran at Cerberus and leaped into the air with uncanny strength. He launched himself at the hound and sank his claws into its side. Where its flesh was rotting away, Danny began to tear at Cerberus. Blood and pus drooled out onto its fur as he tore strips of decaying flesh. Then he reached inside and clutched a yellowed rib. The bone snapped off in his hands.

Eve screamed as Cerberus bit down harder on her, shaking her still. Her own blood scattered the ground like scarlet rain.

Ceridwen climbed to her feet, ignoring the creeping numbness that permeated her body. She picked up her staff and stumbled forward. The growling of the dog’s heads and the screaming and cursing from Eve echoed through the cave.

"I can’t risk hitting them," Arthur screamed over the ruckus, his hand again radiating an unearthly light, his body trembling with the effort.

"We’ve only just begun this. We’ll not die now," Ceridwen replied. Mustering all her remaining strength, she brought the heel of her foot down on her staff, breaking the end so it now tapered to a jagged point. She hefted the broken staff and threw it like a javelin with all her strength, willing the wood — the only bit of nature from her own world in this horrid place — to fly true.

The spear pierced the thick muscle of the dog’s chest. The head holding Eve opened its jaws to yelp in pain, flinging her limp and bloody form into a broken heap at the edge of the ridge.

Ceridwen and Conan Doyle ran to Eve, but Cerberus was already on the move, the remains of Ceridwen’s staff protruding from its chest. Conan Doyle sketched a pattern into the air and from it a spiral of blue light erupted, rocketing at Cerberus. Danny still clung to its side, tearing at its flesh, but he was not in the immediate line of fire. The hound was badly injured but it still moved with uncanny speed and dodged that magickal attack, thundering toward them.

"Take her," Conan Doyle ordered, moving between the women and the slavering monstrosity.

Ceridwen grabbed Eve beneath the arms and began to pull her away from the edge. She could hear Conan Doyle’s melodious voice beginning a new incantation when another sound filled the air.

Screaming.

"Enough! That’s just enough of that shit!" Danny Ferrick screamed.

Tearing into Cerberus’s body, he climbed the hound as though to saddle it, then he grappled with one of its heads, gouging at its eyes, scooping one of them out. The hound bucked and threw him forward. Danny landed, rolling, and then rose again. He screamed, shaking as he confronted the dog with such ferocity that it paused and took a step back. Danny seemed to be in the grip of madness.

"I’m not afraid of you!" the boy bellowed, then threw himself at the hound, claws flying, tearing and rending and pummeling its remaining heads, driving the animal back.

"Daniel, be careful!" Ceridwen called out as the boy rammed his new horns into the belly of the beast.

Cerberus reared up on its hind legs, attempting to use its front paws to repel its relentless attacker, but to little avail. Danny drove it back farther and farther until there was no longer any place left for them to go.

And Ceridwen watched in horror as the two tumbled backward over the edge of the ridge, disappearing into the Underworld below.

Tumbling down the rocky cliff, Danny tried to use Cerberus’s disgusting body as a shield, tucking himself close so the putrid, matted fur so that the beast could take the brunt of the damage. They crashed again and again into the cliff and with each jarring impact Danny did his best to twist around to keep Cerberus between himself and the jagged outcroppings of rock. Then their painful journey came to an abrupt end with a whimper from the hound and the splintering of bones inside it. An enormous rib bone shot up through it, nearly impaling Danny, just before the impact sent him sprawling across the ground. He rolled, grunting in pain with each bump, and at last came to rest against the trunk of a gigantic tree.

Danny lay there for a while, looking up into the skeletal branches and strangely shaped leaves that decorated them, until a flow of warm blood into his eyes obscured his vision. With a trembling hand he wiped away the blood, and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

Cerberus was lying in a heap among the rocks across from him. It didn’t look as though the multi-headed dog had been as lucky as Danny.

Serves you right, you piece of shit, he thought, still feeling a trace of the terror he’d felt when he had first unknowingly trod upon the sleeping monstrosity. Danny didn’t like dogs much; ever since his loser father had brought him a dog not too long after his parents had split. It was a mutt from the local animal shelter. All the thing did was bark, poop, and piss all over the house. It hadn’t lived with him and his mother for very long. When he thought of dogs, all he could think of was his father, and how the only thing the prick hadn’t done to his mom was shit and piss all over the house. The bastard had all the bases covered when he’d brought that dog to live with them.

His body felt like one big open wound, damp with his own blood, every movement met with white-hot agony. But Danny figured he’d gotten off lucky. He was surprised that the damage wasn’t worse considering how far he had fallen. He looked at his arms and, for a brief moment, was thankful for the changes he’d been undergoing, as he grew into his true self. Yes, there were scrapes and some bloody gashes, but he was alive, and he was sure he wouldn’t have survived that fall if he’d been a normal teenager.

Danny heard his name being called from someplace far above and gazed up to see the tiny shapes of his companions as they made their way down the cliff toward him. He climbed to his feet, checking out his legs, making sure that nothing had been broken.

"Down here!" he called up to them, hands cupped over his mouth.