Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (14 page)

The passengers of the Range Rover had traveled in silence
ever since setting out from Mitilini, where two of the vehicles had been
awaiting their arrival. Eve was behind the wheel, with Conan Doyle in the
passenger seat, and Danny and Ceridwen in the back. The kid still had his
headphones on, but when she glanced in the rearview mirror, Eve could see he
was alert and anxious, his eyes darting around, watching the sides of the road
. . . not to mention the road in front of them. He was guarded and suspicious.

That was good. Healthy.

The other Range Rover was ahead of them. Hawkins was driving
with Gull riding shotgun and the wild-eyed Jezebel in the backseat. Eve had
taken a liking to Jezebel, perhaps because of the madness in the girl’s eyes. She
knew what it was like to feel that unchained and how dangerous it could be. Eve
figured the girl’s instability was a liability, but she was Gull’s problem, for
now.

Conan Doyle had a map spread on his lap and the interior
light on. Eve had enjoyed the sunshine, thanks to Gull’s spell, but she was
relieved that night had fallen. She was comfortable in the dark. At home.

"We’re nearing Sigri, now," Conan Doyle reported.

Eve shot him a sidelong glance. "Let me guess. Cute
little fishing village, like we stepped back in time, full of hardy Greek men
and sensuous full-bodied women?"

Despite the tension Gull’s presence was causing, Conan Doyle
had not apparently lost his sense of humor. Most people would not believe he
had one, but Eve knew it well. Even now, the mage pretended to be surprised.

"However did you know that?" he asked.

"I’m psychic. Didn’t you know?"

In the back, Danny laughed softly. A quick glance in the
mirror confirmed he had pulled the headphones off. Eve realized that, just as
she had, the kid sensed they were approaching their destination. That there was
something supernatural nearby. Something big.

Even Ceridwen smiled at her words. Eve was far from psychic,
of course. But they had been driving the coast of the island of Lesbos for a
while now, and every place they came to was just a more rustic version of the
last quaint fishing village.

"I wish we coulda spent some more time in Istanbul,"
Danny said. Now that the silence had been broken, he seemed to want to engage
the rest of them. "It was beautiful. Dirty, yeah. But still . . . squint
your eyes just right and it feels like you’re walking through history. Those
were maybe the only lectures I ever stayed awake for in my history classes . .
. about the Byzantine Empire and the Turks and all of that."

"Perhaps we can return one day," Conan Doyle
offered. "When other matters are not so demanding of our attention."

Danny seemed surprised. "Do you think?"

Ceridwen replied instead of Conan Doyle. In the mirror, Eve
could see the Fey sorceress turn to the boy. "I don’t see why not. You
have the resources now to explore not only this world but others as well. You’d
do well to take advantage of the opportunity to enrich yourself."

"Or you could just have fun," Eve added. "You
know, learn about different countries by experiencing their pubs and whores."

Conan Doyle sighed but said nothing. Eve gave him a devilish
smirk. She was glad that he and Ceridwen seemed to be healing the rift between
them and maybe there was a future there. They certainly loved one another and
that in itself was rare. Even with the resentment of the past still lingering the
two of them would obviously have sacrificed anything for one another. But Eve
was going to draw the line at their trying to parent Danny Ferrick. The kid
needed friends and mentors, yes. But he had a mother. An ordinary, wonderfully
human mother. Eve didn’t want any of them distracting the kid from how lucky he
was to have her.

They followed the Range Rover in the lead as it veered away
from the village they’d been approaching. The land around them quickly began to
change. The ground was rutted. Hawkins was driving like he had a death wish or
just didn’t care. Eve thought that was pretty sexy, actually, and had no
problem doing the same. They bumped over ruts and cut corners too close,
sending up swirls of dirt clouds that rose into the night as they passed.

Soon it was not only the terrain that had changed.

"Holy shit," Danny muttered in the back eat, voice
so low he seemed unaware he had even spoken. "What
is
this?"

"Yes," Ceridwen agreed. She shuddered and drew her
cloak more closely around her as she stared out her window. "It is like a
tomb of trees."

Up ahead, Hawkins slowed. Eve did the same. She had to cut
the wheel to swerve around a tree that had fallen across their path. But, then,
it wasn’t really a tree, was it? All around them now was a gray, charcoaled
landscape. The trees did not blow in the breeze. The plants did not give off
the perfume of flowers. Each trunk that jutted up into the shadow of the night
seemed like a withered husk, a corpse, and their branches were skeletal figures
pointing accusingly at the sky.

"That’s exactly what it is," Eve told Ceridwen. "Exactly."

Hawkins turned off the main road now and Eve followed
slowly, very careful not to knock down any of the trees. The smell of the ocean
came on the breeze through the window, but there were no other scents. Nothing.

"The forest is petrified," Conan Doyle explained,
glancing back at Danny and then leaning forward to see out the window. "Nature
as cadaver, if you will. In prehistoric times there was a great deal of
volcanic activity here. Eruptions produced lava and ash that filled the air so
quickly that instead of burning the vegetation here, it was coated instead with
a layer of ash and preserved, just as you see."

Even for Eve the trees were haunting to look at, and they
were deep among them now.

"So, the original trees are still under that ash?"
Danny asked.

"No. Actually, they were fossilized from the inside out
during that same process. You’re in a sort of fossil diorama at the moment. It’s
a remarkable place, actually. A window on the past."

"I’m more concerned about the future," Eve said
grimly. Up ahead, Hawkins had stopped the lead vehicle. There appeared to be
some kind of clearing beyond.

Eve pulled behind and killed the engine. She was the first
one out of the Rover. Conan Doyle and Danny got out. Ceridwen was slow to
follow. The destruction of this primeval forest seemed catastrophic to her, or
so her expression implied. The Fey sorceress reached out to touch a nearby
fossilized tree, but she drew back her hand quickly and lowered her gaze in
sadness.

"And this is where we will find the grave of Phorcys? The
Gorgons’ father?" she asked as she looked up.

Conan Doyle and Danny were already walking toward Gull and
his associates, all of whom were out of their vehicle. Eve was the only one who
had waited for Ceridwen. She did not dislike the Faerie woman. In fact,
Ceridwen had earned her respect many times over, and she appreciated that Conan
Doyle loved her, and that the feeling was mutual. But they just didn’t have a
thing in common. Despite the horrors she had seen in her life, Ceridwen
remained in some way innocent.

Eve was the furthest thing from innocent. She was tainted,
forever and always, by her sins and by the touch of unclean hands.

Yet Ceridwen always treated her with deference and a quiet
camaraderie. So Eve waited for her, and it was she who answered the elemental’s
question.

"Maybe we’ll find it, and maybe we won’t," Eve
told her. "Phorcys was a myth. A legend. Some of them are true and some of
them are bullshit. But even if he was real, and the story of the Gorgons is
true, that doesn’t mean this is his grave right here. If there’s one thing I
know about Nigel Gull, it’s that the truth is open to interpretation when it’s
coming from his mouth."

"Yes," Ceridwen replied. "I had that sense."

She glanced once more at the tree she had touched and rubbed
her fingers together as though some residue remained on her skin. Eve wore her
jeans and boots and a long leather jacket over a green turtleneck. Her hair was
perfect. Her dangling earrings, jade and amber set in gold, had come from a
jeweler in Paris. Ceridwen wore a dress that was little more than a layered
veil and a robe more suited to Medieval times. And yet there was no question
that the sorceress seemed the more at home here, in this ancient place, despite
what had befallen the forest.

"I think we’re going to have to work extra hard to keep
your guy out of trouble this time," Eve told her.

Ceridwen’s violet eyes flashed defensively, but then she
must have seen something in Eve’s own gaze, for she smiled instead. "Where
would he be without us?"

Eve glanced around and laughed. "A fossil."

The two of them caught up to Conan Doyle and Danny, Eve
noting with admiration that the kid was handling himself well. Hawkins and
Jezebel were standing back from the others slightly, and so Eve also hung back
to keep an eye on them.

"You are certain this is the place?" Conan Doyle
asked, glancing around. Despite the heat, he wore one of his dapper,
old-fashioned suits. Thus far his only concession to the weather had been to
remove his tie. Any moment she expected him to doff the jacket and roll up his
sleeves. But, then, he was locked in this battle of wills with Gull, and that
might be construed as a sign of weakness.

It was all ridiculous as far as Eve was concerned. Gull was
deformed because he played with magicks he should have left alone. She figured
Conan Doyle ought to be satisfied with that as a victory.

"Am I certain?" Gull asked. His wide nostrils
flared. "Would I have dragged all you lot out here if I wasn’t? You know
me better than that, Sir Arthur."

Their mutual dislike and rivalry was buried beneath the
chivalric code of another era, but it was there nevertheless.

"How did you determine this to be the site of Phorcys’s
grave? What led you here?" Conan Doyle asked, his tone modulated, more
reasonable, as he stroked his mustache.

Eve glanced around the petrified forest. The place was
impossibly quiet. In that moment it seemed the whole world had been fossilized.
Something was not right. She had felt the supernatural force growing here and
had told Conan Doyle as much. It was obvious that
something
was here. But
despite the look of the place, it did not feel like a grave to her.

It felt
hungry
.

And no one knew what hunger felt like better than she did.

"I’ve been mapping the real-world locations of
mythology for decades. You know that well enough. In my travels I located stone
statues . . . victims of a Gorgon’s eyes. The Gorgons were Phorcys’s daughters.
That in mind, it wasn’t difficult to find a spell that would use the stone
remains of his daughters’ victims to create a Divination Box."

He reached into the first Range Rover and withdrew a small
wooden box with no cover. On its sides were markings similar to others Eve had
seen once before, ages ago in Babylon. Gull held it low so that they could all
see inside. There were bits of stone within that must have come from one of the
Gorgon’s victims as well as the small bones of some kind of bird and several
dark-shelled nuts.

Gull shook the box. The contents rattled and jumped a bit,
and then all of them rolled of their own accord across the bottom of the box,
clicking on the wood as they gathered in one corner.

"Good as any compass," Danny noted, standing
between Eve and Conan Doyle.

Gull’s misshapen face beamed at the kid. "Precisely, my
boy. Precisely."

The bones and stones and nuts began to rattle again. At
first Eve though nothing of it. Then she saw the alarm on Gull’s face. An
instant later the contents of the Divination Box slid up the inside wall and
jumped out, flying to the ground and bouncing and rolling across the barren
earth, as if drawn by a magnet.

The ground began to buckle and quake. Eve was thrown against
the Range Rover. Her companions began to shout, but she ignored them all, her
eyes searching the darkness among the petrified trees for the place where those
bones and stones had gone.

The earth heaved, shattered, and sprayed, and then collapsed
in upon itself, a massive hole opening in the ground.

From it came a noise . . . hissing, as if of a thousand
snakes.

Then the first hideous head began to rise, sickly yellow
eyes glowing in the night as it sought them out.

A Hydra.

Danny Ferrick didn’t need one of Doyle’s musty old books to
tell him what it was that had emerged from the dry, barren earth, its multiple
heads snapping and hissing. He‘d seen enough movies and read enough Greek
mythology to know exactly what now attacked them.

"Holy shit. A fucking real Hydra." he whispered
with awe, frozen where he stood. He could not take his eyes from the serpentine
monstrosity, its nine heads swaying hypnotically, as if trying to decide which
of their number it would strike at first.

Conan Doyle stood beside Danny, his hands held up, a spray
of emerald light flashing from them and spreading in front of the two of them
like some sort of shield. The old guy seemed way too proper most of the time,
but the second the magic started to spark from his eyes and that weird nowhere
wind buffeted his clothes and ruffled his hair, he was almost more frightening
than any monster. Power simmered in him, flowing off of him in waves.

"Eve," Conan Doyle called. "If you would be
so kind as to get off your behind and lend a hand . . ."

The vampire had been thrown back against the Range Rover
when the Hydra erupted from the ground, and now she pulled herself to her feet.
"Right away, boss man," she said, shooting him the middle finger. "I
live to serve."