Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (24 page)

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.

Danny could see that Doyle and Ceridwen were helping Eve. He
hoped that she was all right. Between the fight with the Hydra and now this,
she had been taking quite a beating lately and he wasn’t sure if she was as
durable as he was. Ceridwen, at least, seemed a little better. She’d been
drag-assing back in the tunnels and he’d thought she was just going to pass out
or something.

As the others made their descent, he took the opportunity to
look around. It was a cruel place, rocky with strange, skeletal trees rising up
out of the gray dirt like the hands of some animated corpse. Even though the air
was still, the strangely shaped leaves rustled, producing a strange grating
sound.

Weird
, he thought. Danny began to look more closely
at what he believed to be leaves, but the sudden sound of growling distracted
him.

The boy turned, stunned to see the giant dog stalking toward
him on wobbly legs. Cerberus hadn’t been killed in the fall after all. Huge
chunks of its flesh were missing, and exposed muscle and bone glinted wetly
through the various rips and gashes.

"Give it up," he told the dog as it slowly moved
closer.

The animal continued to growl, bloody strings of saliva
dripping from its two remaining mouths. Danny glanced in the direction of his
friends, but they were not close enough to lend him a hand. It looked as though
he was going to have to deal with this problem on his own.

"Last chance," he told the animal. "Just get
the hell out of here, and we’ll call it even."

Cerberus continued its inexorable advance.

"All right," Danny said, reaching up to break away
a limb from one of the skeletal trees. The branch came away with a loud snap,
followed by a metallic rustling from the weird leaves.

He turned back to face the dog and saw that the animal had
stopped. "Changing your mind?" he asked, a snarling smile on his
face.

Cerberus seemed to have forgotten about him, its two
remaining heads looking around as the sounds from the trees began to intensify.
Its ears had gone flat against its blocky skulls, and Danny thought that he
heard at least one of the heads whimpering.

What now?

The dog seemed afraid, and even though he would have liked
to think it was because of him, something told him that really wasn’t the case.

Suddenly Danny realized that the leaves weren’t leaves at
all. He watched in awe as the shapes dangling from the trees began to drop,
unfurling sleek, angular wings just before hitting the ground and gliding back
into the air.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered in awe, as the
strange birds filled the air, their bodies catching the muted light of the
Underworld, their feathers like tarnished metal. As he watched them dip and
dart about, he trawled his knowledge of mythology, gained mostly from
television, for the identity of these strange, metallic creatures.

One of the birds flew past his face, the side of its wing
gently glancing his cheek, and he recoiled from its touch. His hand came away
from his face covered in fresh blood.
Wait. I remember. Birds, but with
metal razors for feathers, some shit like that. Something to do with Hercules.

The swarming birds cried out, their strange song reminding
him of the shriek of a rusty screen door, only much louder. They were agitated,
maybe picking up on the vibes from him and Cerberus. Most flew in a shrieking
cluster above them, but they were starting to dip lower, single members of the
flock dropping down from the sky, razor-sharp wings coming dangerously close.

From the corner of his eye he saw Cerberus leaving, its
heads and body tucked low to the ground as it began to trot. The flock
apparently didn’t care for the dog’s sudden movement. Their grating cries grew
louder, and more of them glided down from the sky, the touch of their wings
slicing into rotting, broken flesh of the hound. Danny could hear the giant dog
yelping in pain as it fled across the barren landscape, shrieking birds in
pursuit.

Then Cerberus fell and the birds swarmed him. Even at that
distance, Danny could hear the dog whimpering and he almost felt bad.

Almost.

Most of the razor birds had left with Cerberus, and Danny
used the opportunity hurry to the cliff to meet his friends. They were almost
to the bottom.

"You all right?" Eve asked weakly. "You look
like total shit." She smiled at him then, and he knew that she was okay,
despite the fact that she was covered in drying blood.

"You guys might want to hurry," he said, looking
back over his shoulder. Only one or two of the birds were visible in the dark
gloom of the cavernous sky. Most of them were still savaging Cerberus, and
perhaps they would roost there for a time.

"What now, Daniel?" Conan Doyle sounded a bit
exasperated.

"I think we’re okay." He reached out to help Eve
with the final step to the Underworld floor. "But there were these crazy
birds made of metal and —"

"Stymphalia," Conan Doyle interrupted.

"Whatever," Danny agreed. "They’re nasty."

Conan Doyle nodded as he removed his handkerchief from his
pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. Both Eve and Ceridwen were sitting on
the rocks at the bottom of the cliff path. Eve was already starting to look
better, but now that he could see more clearly, Danny wished he could say the same
about Ceridwen. The Faerie sorceress sat with her face buried in her hands. She
might have gotten her second wind before, but it seemed like she had just about
used it up.

Danny caught Conan Doyle’s eye. "Is she okay?"

The mage nodded, going to her side and putting a gentle hand
on her arm. "This place seems to be having a debilitating effect." Danny
noticed an uncharacteristic touch of concern in the man’s voice.

Ceridwen leaned her head back against his chest and looked
up into his eyes. "Don’t be concerned," she told them all while
speaking directly to Conan Doyle. "Give me a chance to acclimate myself,
and I’m sure I’ll be fine."

Eve was up now, walking around, stretching her legs. But
Danny saw her freeze in mid-step, and she turned toward him. "Hey, kid. Your
friends are back."

She gestured with her chin to a rocky hill, where at least a
dozen Stymphalia perched, watching them silently. More fluttered down from the
sky with a metallic clatter.

Conan Doyle frowned as he watched Eve and Danny, in the
twisted landscape of this new level of the Underworld. They were gesturing to
one another, but for the moment seemed in no danger. He turned his attention
once more to Ceridwen with an ache in his heart that only resonated more deeply
when he caught her gazing at him. Something was happening here, between them. The
caution, the resentment, the echo of the past was being stripped away.

It frightened him. He had caused her so much pain before
that he knew he ought to keep her at arm’s length. But Conan Doyle did not know
if even he had the strength for that. Particularly not now. Her normally pale
skin was starting to turn an unhealthy gray, and it looked as though she were
having a difficult time staying awake.

"I’m sorry," he said.

Ceridwen smiled weakly. "For what? This is not your
doing, Arthur. You spend far too much time blaming yourself for things not in
your control."

"If I had known this damnable place would have such an
effect on you, I would have —"

"You would have done exactly as you have done." The
sorceress cut him off. "I am not the focus of this mission." She
stood and moved to him, reminding him of an old woman who had sat too long in a
cold winter chill. "Drive your concerns for me from your mind," she
said, placing the palm of her hand against his face, her cool touch providing a
moment’s respite from the heat of the Underworld. "Stopping Nigel Gull
should be your focus."

He took her into his arms then, and he could not stop
himself. In the tongue of the Faerie he whispered to her.
"For so long
I had lost my heart. So many years that I stopped noticing it was gone. But now
I have found it again, and the fear of losing it weighs heavily upon me."

Ceridwen pulled away and placed a hand on his chest,
searching for the beat of his heart. Finding it, she smiled and was about to
speak when a screeching din filled the air.

"Lord, what now?" Doyle muttered as he turned to
see Eve and Danny walking backward toward them.

Beyond them, a flock of screeching, razor-winged birds
filled the sky.

The Stymphalia had returned.

Conan Doyle and Ceridwen moved as best they could to meet
Eve and Danny. The four of them gathered there on that hellish plain, and gazed
at the glittering, screeching cloud coming toward them.

"Wish I knew what pissed them off so bad," Danny
said.

Conan Doyle did not have time dwell on the question. The
angry flock was quickly descending and he had to act if he and his charges were
to survive the onslaught.

He took hold of Ceridwen’s hand. "Lend me what strength
you have to spare." The sorceress nodded, gripping his fingers tightly,
and he felt a surge of power flow into his body.

"Is this it?" Eve asked, panic in her tone as the
birds wailed above them. "We’re going to drive them off by joining hands
and singing Give Peace a Chance?"

"Eve," Conan Doyle snarled. "Stay close, and
do shut up."

He attempted to blot out the sounds of the angry Stymphalian
Birds, concentrating on a spell of protection. Where normally such a spell
would flow from his lips, immediately providing the protection they so
desperately needed, Conan Doyle found that his familiar magicks were not
inclined to work efficiently in the Underworld. Even with Ceridwen’s strength
added to his, the task of summoning a shield was exhausting and quite painful.

The birds unleashed their first wave, the more ferocious of
their number diving down to touch razor-sharp feathers to delicate flesh.

"Doyle!" he heard Eve snap. "We’re waiting."

The birds’ cries were louder, more frenzied. He flinched as
one flew past his arm, slicing through the material of his suit coat and the
shirt beneath. He could feel the warmth of his own blood trickling down his
arm.

"We’re going to be cut to fucking ribbons!" Danny
yelled, and Conan Doyle sensed that the boy was about to bolt.

"Stay where you are," he commanded, feeling the
troublesome magick begin to bend to his wishes.

The air around them hummed as the enchantment began to
coalesce into the shield he had cast. The Stymphalia collided with the
crackling sphere, their metal bodies falling to the ground in an explosion of
cold, white sparks. It took everything Conan Doyle had — and what
Ceridwen was continuing to give him — to maintain the bubble of magickal
force. He wasn’t sure how long he could hold it.

The birds grew even more furious, descending in a ravening
cluster, a blizzard of razor blades. Doyle and his companions were blind to the
world outside as sparks exploded in the air around their protective sphere with
the birds’ relentless onslaught. Conan Doyle felt Ceridwen’s grip begin to
weaken and glanced over to see his woman struggling to stay upright.

"Hold on, love. Hold on."

The sphere began to waver and one of the Stymphalia managed
to break through. Conan Doyle cried as the bird landed atop his head, sinking
its needle-like beak into his scalp.

Eve was the first to react, swatting the animal to the
ground and stamping on it with the heel of her boot.

"My thanks, Eve," he gasped, a warm stream of
blood from his scalp tickling the back of his neck.

Ceridwen fell to her knees, her pale flesh tinted more green
than ever. She had given all she could, but it still was not enough. The
magickal sphere of protection threatened to buckle.

"Eve, I want you to listen to me," Conan Doyle
said through gritted teeth. "I can’t keep this up much longer. When the
sphere falls, I want you and Danny to take Ceridwen and run. I’m certain that
there are caves nearby where you can find shelter and hold off any further
attack."