Christopher Golden - Tears of the Furies

Eve stared at the creatures coming toward them and cocked her head to one side. It reminded Conan Doyle of a dog he’d owned in his youth, and how it would often tilt its head upon hearing something that he himself could not.

"No," Eve replied, shaking her head. "They’re not attacking because of what I did, they’re attacking because they’re afraid."

"Afraid?" Gull exclaimed. "What in the name of bloody Christ could the resurrected gods be…"

"They’re afraid that we’ll take the treasure hidden outside this chamber. Afraid that we’ll steal the treasure of Olympus."

Conan Doyle looked at her quizzically, his hand slowly rising to stroke his mustache. The dead gods moved closer and he listened to their mournful groans.

"I drank the blood of a deity, boys," Eve said. "I know all kinds of shit about this place now."

"The treasure of Olympus," Conan Doyle repeated, as he dropped his hands to his sides, allowing the magick through him. "How interesting. Who knows what wondrous things can be found here?"

"Oh, yeah, fantastic," Eve drawled, glancing back and forth between Alekto and Megaera on one side and the resurrected god-corpses on the other. "Lot of good it’ll do us. I’ll settle for not dying, thanks."

Eve hissed at Alekto. The Fury cracked her whip almost as though she was trying to herd them toward the dead gods. Eve caught it in her hand, the barbs ripping her flesh even as she yanked it from Alekto’s hand. The Fury snarled at her and the two began to face off against one another.

"You’d better have something up your sleeve, Doyle," the vampire snarled. "We can kill these bitches, but we’d need a small army to fight the undead of Olympus."

Conan Doyle slowly reached into his pocket, searching for something he had nearly forgotten. "A small army you say." He pulled his hand from his pocket to reveal the teeth. The Hydra’s teeth.

"I believe I have just the thing."

The ancients attacked as one, a single wave of shambling necrotic flesh, archaic weaponry and furious cries of indignation. The two surviving Furies urged the legion of reanimated corpses to slay the usurpers — to make them permanent residents of this hellish realm.

Eve was the first into the fray, lunging into the dead warriors and tearing at them. She punched a fist through the chest of the first to come near her and tore off the head of a second. Through shared desperation, Ceridwen and Gull joined forces, conjuring a cloud of crackling energy hungry for the desiccated flesh of the dead. Inspired by Eve’s wanton violence, Danny Ferrick threw himself into the fray, many a decomposing god falling before his savagery. Hawkins proved himself deadly in hand-to-hand combat, shattering bones and crushing skulls with nothing but his hands. The girl, Jezebel, seemed to come truly awake and alive when at last the nightmare was about to swallow them. Her childlike qualities evaporated and only the weather witch remained. Lightning crackled within Hades’ heart, shattering gods and burning what remained of them.

All of it was merely to buy Conan Doyle time to bring his plan to fruition.

He knelt and dug his fingers into the ground, tearing away gobs of bleeding muscle. One by one he pressed the Hydra’s long, sharp teeth into the flesh of the Lord of the Underworld’s heart. The legend called for them to be planted in the earth, but in this place, here was the soil, here was the ground. With a prayer to gods long passed from this plane of existence, he stood back from his chore.

"What have you done, sorcerer?" Megaera screeched, dropping down upon him like a hungry bird of prey. She landed on his back, her claw about his throat.

Conan Doyle surged up from his crouch, spinning around in hopes of dislodging the loathsome creature from her perch. The Erinys held tight, her powerful legs locked around his waist as the grip on his neck continued to tighten. He heard the agitated hiss of the snakes that lived in her hair.

He spun to see the battle in the chamber and his hopes sank. The number of resurrected gods was growing, the corpses streaming into the chamber in endless numbers. His compatriots had to be growing tired, their sorceries and brute strength starting to wane.

"I feel your despair and sup upon it with glee," the Fury cackled in his ear as her grip upon his throat tightened even further. "Surrender yourself to me — do not delay the inevitable. For what you and your companions have done, your suffering will last for eternity."

Doyle felt his legs begin to weaken. It cannot end this way. A crude spell of conflagration leaped to the forefront of his thoughts and he brought it forward, feeling white-hot fire begin to swirl and grow in the palm of his hand.

" Surrender," the Fury hissed as he dropped to his knees, borne down by her weight.

Conan Doyle reached up behind him and placed the ball of fire into the creature’s matted locks. "Never," he wheezed, hearing the whooshing sound of dry, ancient hair igniting and feeling the hold on his neck lessen.

The Erinys screamed, beating at her blazing head. Serpents, their bodies afire and smoldering, leaped from their burning nest to land on the ground, startling Conan Doyle with their number. He was preparing another spell, something that would reduce the foul beast to ashes, when, from within her robes, she produced her whip, and with blinding speed, cracked the lash.

The barbed, leathery tendril wound around his still-constricted throat, closing his breathing passage off entirely. Images of the wrongs he had committed during his long life flooded his mind.

"So much to be punished for," the Fury said, her burned and blackened visage grinning at him down the length of the whip.

She yanked Conan Doyle viciously forward, and he again stumbled to his knees. Sins of the past clouded his mind, making it difficult for him to concentrate. He grabbed hold of the barbed length of whip, using the pain in his bleeding hands to clear his addled brain. She was dragging him toward her, the sounds of battle in the background accompaniment to his struggle, inspiring him to fight on.

" Come to me, sinner," she hissed hungrily.

There were snakes all around her feet, but he noticed something else. In the area where he had planted the Hydra’s teeth, the fleshy earth was moving, startling the snakes and making them slither away. A geyser of blood squirted upward and from Hades’ very flesh there grew a soldier, brandishing a sword that looked to be forged from jagged bone.

Megaera spun to face her new foe, its body glistening with the blood that now pumped through the heart of Hades. She cried out for help from Alekto, and from the gods that had been called forth. But it was too late. The Hydra soldier brought his jagged blade of bone down through the thick muscle of her neck, sending her head spinning through the air before dropping to the floor.

Conan Doyle pulled the whip from around his neck, watching as more of the gore-covered soldiers climbed up from the fleshy earth. One soldier for every tooth, he observed, watching as they helped one another emerge from their birthing place. Before long they stood before him, fifty blood-drenched representations of man, their features unformed, mere holes for eyes and slits for mouths. They clutched their weapons of bone, waiting for the one who called them to life to proclaim his wishes.

"Fight," Conan Doyle cried, pointing to the battle being waged across the chamber. "Destroy these forgotten gods!"

The soldiers of the Hydra’s teeth surged obediently forward, an unsettling, inhuman cry of war escaping their unformed lips.

Gull cut a swath of death through the resurrected gods, destructive magick spewing from one malformed hand, the gun that he had used to slay Charon firing from the other. And still they came at him, these once fabulous beings that had looked upon man from Olympus, manipulating the young race for their own amusement.