Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (2 page)

"Bloody fools. I gave them specific instructions that
she wasn’t to be threatened," he said, shaking his head. "That she
wasn’t to be hurt." Gull pointed a crooked finger at the gun clutched in
the stone fingers of one of his former operatives. "Does this look non
threatening to you?"

"Look at their faces," Spiliakos said. "They
were frightened."

Gull seethed. "None of this would have happened but for
their stupidity! If they had followed orders . . . They caused this!" He
threw himself at the stone figures of his men, knocking them over, shattering
them upon the ground. He kicked at the broken limbs and body parts that now
littered the ground.

"Mr. Gull, please," Spiliakos pleaded. "Calm
yourself. It is not the time to —"

Then they heard it, soft at first but growing louder, and it
froze them both in place. The air was filled with hissing, the sound made by a
serpent when threatened. But it was not the sound of one snake, or even a
dozen, this was the warning of serpents too numerous to count, and they were
drawing closer.

"She’s here," the old man whispered, and he
blessed himself with the sign of the cross.

Gull wanted to laugh out loud, amused that the old madman
had at this moment decided to embrace the Christian God.

"Oh, he’ll be a lot of bloody help," Gull said
with a shake of his deformed head. He scanned their surroundings. "No,
sorry, old boy, but today is a day for deities far older and wiser."

The echo of his own words still in his ears, he caught sight
of her and froze. She moved among the petrified bodies, and he felt his breath
being taken away.

"It appears the ancients have whispered the truth at
last," Spiliakos said, his gaze following the stealthy dartings of the
figure that approached.

"A reward for being such a good listener, perhaps,"
Gull replied. "Now cover your eyes."

Spiliakos ignored him, moving into that forest of the stone
dead for a closer look.

"There were two things the old voices told me last
night," he said. "First, that you would find her at last, and second,
that her eyes would be the last thing I would ever see." The old man
stopped beside the petrified figures of an old woman and a little girl, frozen
in mid-run, their heads turned slightly to gaze back upon their pursuer. "I
have always heeded the whispers of the ancients."

Gull would have ordered the man back to his side but his
voice would not come. She was slinking among the statues, and her progress held
him transfixed. Her movements were filled with a predatory grace. Her hair was
a nest of writhing green vipers, and her face — once so alluringly
beautiful that the goddess Athena cursed her out of jealousy — was
hideous. Monstrous. Not unlike Nigel Gull himself.

Medusa.

She swayed cobra-like before Spiliakos, a good deal taller
than he was. Her gaze was eager, her beguiling movements urging him to raise
his eyes, to look at her. The old man stared at the ground, at his feet.

Medusa reached out to Spiliakos, placing an alabaster hand
beneath his chin, tilting his gaze up to meet hers. The old man complied with
her gentle urgings, the snakes in her hair writhing and hissing excitedly, as
their eyes locked, and Taki Spiliakos fell under her curse. There was a sound
like twigs snapping, a gray hue spread over his flesh, and then the old man
froze, immortalized in stone.

For a moment, Medusa stared down upon her handiwork in
admiration. Then she twitched, her head rising as she remembered there was yet
another to feel the effect of her stare. The object of his obsession turned her
gaze upon Nigel Gull, moving swiftly toward him, the very air seething with the
malice she projected.

Gull only smiled.

The Gorgon slowed, staring at him in confusion. Gull
wondered how long it had been since she had been able to look into someone’s
eyes without harming them. It was a moment that would stay with him for the
rest of his afflicted existence.

"I bear my own curse, miss. Yours cannot hurt me. We’re
much alike, you and I," he said to her, drawing her attention to his
malformed visage. "I’m Nigel Gull," he said in his most gentle voice
as he gingerly moved toward her.

He reached out to take her hand in his, pleasantly surprised
to see that she did not pull away, and bent forward to place a tender kiss upon
the back of her hand.

"And I have loved you for an eternity."

The monster — the woman called Medusa — began to
cry.

Now . . .

The morning sun shone across the streets and squares and
rooftops of Athens, from Lykavitos Hill to the Acropolis, but the daylight only
made the shadowy alleys of the Pláka seem deeper. Yannis Papathansiou parked
his car near Hadrian’s Arch, propping a card identifying himself as a policeman
onto the dashboard before locking it up. The heat was already oppressive, and
Yannis took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He stretched his back,
showing off his voluminous belly, and then started off.

The Pláka was the oldest neighborhood in Athens, not far
from the agora — the market — at the base of the Acropolis, right
in the shadow of the Parthenon. It was a warren of streets so narrow the word
alley
was a compliment. All throughout the Pláka there were buildings with names from
ancient times and monuments, which made the little neighborhood a tourist
mecca. Yet there were still many Athenians who made their lives here and had
shops and apartments, as though the true Greeks refused to surrender this one
last little portion of their city to foreign visitors.

Yannis could admire that. But it didn’t mean he had to like
the Pláka. It was so damned easy to get lost there, that was the biggest
problem. He had lived in Athens most of his life, had been a policeman, and now
a detective, in the city for three decades. It was embarrassing and a little
unsettling to find himself lost anywhere in his home city. He was always
careful to keep track of his path in the Pláka. And not only to avoid
embarrassment. Athens was an ancient city, and this was its ancient heart. In
his career as a policeman he had learned a great many things about what lay
hidden in the shadows of the world.

And the alleys of the Pláka were nearly always in shadows. He
didn’t like it here.

Yannis grumbled and wiped his forehead again, feeling the
dampness spreading beneath his arms and a trickle of sweat run down his back. He
was too old and too fat for this job, but most days he managed all right. Most
days, he didn’t leave his car and walk blocks to get to the scene of a crime. But
he didn’t like to drive into this maze. Getting lost was only one problem. There
were too many people, and some of the shopkeepers thought nothing of blocking
part of the already narrow way. If he came upon an obstacle, he would have no
way to turn around.

He reminded himself of all of these things as he marched
along Thaloú Street. It was barely past breakfast and yet already the
restaurants were preparing for lunch. His stomach grumbled at the scents of
souvlaki and loukanika cooking. Yannis began to plan his own afternoon repast,
musing lovingly over thoughts of dolmodakia and a tyropitta as a small after
lunch snack. A little cheese pie never hurt anyone. He smiled at the thought.

His smile was erased the moment he turned on to Pittakoú
Street. The sun did not reach this far. The tops of the buildings hid the place
away. Though the sky was blue and clear as the Aegean, down along this short
road it was as gray as the black heart of a thunderstorm. Nothing but shadow. The
scents of the food seemed to disappear. He could still see the faces of the
tourists passing by, and the smiles of shopkeepers as they tried to draw people
into their stores. It was the Likavitos Festival in Athens, now. A time of
jubilant celebration, of music and wine, drawing families from all over Europe.

Bad luck
, he thought.
Bad luck and bad timing
.
Not that there was ever a good time for horror to slip from the darkness and
taint the world of daylight. Murder was never good for business. Athens had
more than its share of crime, mostly theft. But the murder of tourists was very
bad for business. By lunchtime he would have his captain breathing down his
neck. By the end of the day, the mayor would be laying it on Yannis as though
he himself were the murderer. The newspapers would be starved for crumbs of
information. But that was nothing to what he would face if the international
press became involved.

CNN
, he thought grimly.
Sewer rats
.

Yannis paused to push wispy strands of gray hair away from
his face. Again he mopped his forehead, and he took a moment to rest. He lay
his hands upon his belly as though he might relieve himself of the burden of
carrying it for a moment. His father had been skeletally thin, but his mother .
. . from her he had inherited his bulk and his shambling gait. She had been
proud of it, the old witch. As though her size had been her greatest ambition
and proudest accomplishment. Yannis was as heavy as he had ever been and was
still half the weight that had finally killed his mother.

Water
, he thought. He needed a drink of water. Although
coffee would be an acceptable substitute.

At last, having no way to put off his venture into that
gloom-dark street, he started on again. Halfway along there was yet another
turn, this one barely an alley. It was a curving, cobblestoned path that at
first glance could have passed as a delivery entrance for some of the buildings
on Pittakoú Street. At the end of the path was the Epidaurus Guest House.

There were a few people out in front of the place, but not
as many as Yannis would have expected. He grunted to himself.
Would you want
to stand out here in the shade, with all the buildings far too quiet?
The
answer was no. The sounds of the Pláka could be heard from here, even distant
music, but it was as though he had stepped into another world and the way back
to the other might be gone when he tried to return.

Ha!
he thought.
You’re getting morbid in your old
age.

His mouth twisted as though he had sucked on something
bitter. Yannis had reason to be morbid. He had been witness to the monstrous
and the terrible far too often in his life.

An officer in the uniform of the Athens police nodded to him
and waved him in. Yannis did his best to hide the exhaustion he felt after
wending his way through the maze of the Pláka. He said nothing to the officer,
asked him nothing. The young ones hardly knew enough to fill an ouzo glass.

The Epidaurus was like many guest houses in the area. On the
outside it was kept up reasonably well. The interior was barely passable. Its
location near to the Acropolis brought in tourists who would consider it
quaint, but though clean, the place was in disrepair. The walls needed painting
and the wooden floors were scuffed and faded. There was nothing beneath those
high ceilings to bring beauty to the place. No art on the walls, no elegant
furniture or drapes on the windows. The prices were too high, but people paid
them, and the owners spent not a penny to improve their lodgings.

Yannis thought the owners were miserly and their guests were
fools. But he had a low opinion of most people. He was a curmudgeon, well-liked
only by other detectives, and only then because, despite his appearance, he was
skilled at his job.

There were two other detectives there when he arrived, but
Yannis had seniority. The two men, Dioskouri and Keramikous, were pale and
seemed nervous. When they noticed him they immediately broke off conversation
with a pair of uniformed officers and a crook-backed old man who must have been
the owner, and came to him instantly, faces etched with relief.

"Lieutenant," Dioskouri said, adjusting his
glasses and running a hand over his wiry black hair. "You’ve got to come
in and see this. We don’t know what to do."

It was all Yannis could do to sigh and not roll his eyes. Dioskouri
was a broad-shouldered boy from the wine country, and his Greek was spattered
with the dialect of his birthplace. It gave him away as young and naive, though
he was past thirty.

Keramikous was altogether different. He was a tiny man, both
thin and short, his stature barely that of a teenaged boy. Yannis was uncertain
of his age, but he marked it at somewhere south of forty. Keramikous was
balding, his hair already as gray as Yannis’s. He seemed fragile and withered,
the oldest young man Yannis had ever met. But he was a good detective and a
family man, and for that Keramikous had his respect.

"Niko," he said, studying Keramikous, surprised at
the pallor of the veteran detective. Despite the summer heat that brought beads
of sweat out on his forehead, the man shivered as though in a fever. "Niko,
tell me the story."

The tiny man shook his head. "It’s useless to tell you."
He spoke the Greek of a born Athenian, with the edge of the city in his voice. "Come
and see for yourself."

His partner hesitated. Keramikous gestured to him,
indicating that he should stay with the owner. The stooped old man seemed about
to weep, his eyes red and moist, the skin beneath them swollen. The expression
on Dioskouri’s face was enough to embarrass even Yannis. He had never seen a
man look so grateful.

Coward,
he thought.

But that was before he saw what was in the breakfast room.

Keramikous led the way. It wasn’t a very large room, just
broad enough for half a dozen small tables and a sideboard laden with milk and
juice, a bowl of fruit and boxes of dry cereal. There were pastries as well. This
wasn’t breakfast as far as Yannis was concerned, but it was enough for
tourists.

The glass floor-to-ceiling windows in the rear of the
breakfast room looked out upon the guest house’s one bit of beauty, a large
courtyard garden. The flowers were in full bloom, and their scent traveled in
through the shattered windows on the breeze. Somehow the sunlight touched the
garden, though it would not bless the street outside.