The Gorgon Slayer (2 page)

“You know what Neptune’s trident is, Frank?” Warren asked.

“That big fork he carries around? I’ve seen him with it on TV. So?”

“So go sit on it.” This time no one laughed but Rick.

It used to be that everyone called Warren Warren. That was before he learned that the old hag who lived next door to him was a witch—a real witch. She caught him late one
night raiding her garden. She said that if he was determined to eat like a pig, she’d make it easy for him.

Warren ran around on all fours, squealing, for two whole months. Dr. Fileberg said he was lucky to have recovered as much as he had, but it would go beyond luck for him to recover any further. Warren’s father said he hoped Warren had learned his lesson. Warren had.

“Ba-blee-ba-blee-ba-blee, that’s all, folks!” Rank Frank whooped.

“Do you know where I live?” Warren asked him.

“Yeah, on Twelfth. Out back in a sty, right?” Frank honked a laugh.

Warren forced a smile. “Good one. Anyway, right next door lives this nice old lady. Growing in her garden are the best watermelons you’ve ever tasted.”

Rank Frank sat forward, suddenly interested. “Really?”

“As soon as the sun goes down, they’re yours for the taking.”

“All right! Thanks, Piggy!”

“Don’t mention it.” Warren only hoped that the old hag was into garden slugs now instead of pigs.

The sound of backfire ripped the morning air, and Princey’s rusty pickup struggled into the agency’s driveway. Princey was a Cyclops, with one eye in the middle of his bald head, scrub brush bristles growing out of his ears, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and a constant snarl showing yellow, pointed teeth.

“GRR-OW WITCH!” Princey groaned as he unfolded himself from the pickup’s cab. Princey was tall, over eight feet, and pickups were small. Driving to work never left him in a very good mood.

He trudged to the side of the dispatching office—really an old garage—hacked, spit, and unlocked the door. He went inside, and a moment later the garage door opened to reveal Princey leaning on the desk he’d built. He scowled even more than normal and smacked his lips as if he’d eaten a bad skunk for breakfast. His bleary eye scanned the bleachers.

“TRUMBULL! YOU’RE ON TIME!” Princey said everything in capitals.

“Yes, sir,” Warren answered.

“WHERE’S O’ROURKE, CHEN, AND HARPER?” Princey waved away any answer. “FORGET IT. I KNOW WHERE THEY ARE.” He studied the tattered spiral notebook that served as a work log. “HERE’S TODAY’S ASSIGNMENTS.” Princey wasn’t much for small talk.

“DIVINE, COME HERE.” Rank Frank rose and grinned his way to the desk. He could grin because he knew he was getting the best assignment available. He wasn’t named Divine for nothing—his dad was Jupiter, the king of the Olympian gods, and Princey always stayed on Daddy’s good side.

“DIVINE, A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG PRINCESS IS TRAPPED IN AN EVIL WARLOCK’S TOWER. TRY TO HAVE HER OUT BEFORE CLOSING, WILL YOU?”

Rank Frank was still grinning. “Sure thing, boss.” He wrote down the address from the log and was gone on his fifty-eight-speed touring
bike—a gift from his father—before anyone could tell him what a lucky scuzz he was.

“RODRIGUEZ.” Rodriguez stepped forward. Princey didn’t like Rodriguez, especially when he’d first had to be nice to Frank. “OLD MAN FREDERICK WANTS HIS HORSE BARN CLEANED OUT. FIND A RIVER AND SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO.”

Warren groaned in sympathy for Rodriguez. Three thousand years ago, Hercules had cleaned the huge and extremely filthy Augean stables by diverting a river through them. Ever since, Cyclops like Princey always assumed that rivers were the only way to clean stables. Most humans were not as strong as Hercules—actually no humans were; they had to use a shovel. Rodriguez had a manure-filled day ahead of him.

Princey handed out the work assignments, one by one. Thurston had to capture an escaped winged horse; Doolittle had to shingle a witch’s candy house with chocolate bars. The bleachers emptied until only Warren and Rick were left.

“TRUMBULL AND … YOU, THE NEW GUY.”

“Howell,” Rick said.

“RIGHT, HOWARD. COME UP HERE.”

“Both of us?” Warren asked. He’d never been part of a two-man assignment before.

“BOTH OF YOU. YOU’RE GOING TO TRAIN HOWARD.” Princey scanned the work log. “MRS. HELGA THORENSEN CALLED IN THREE DAYS AGO ABOUT A GORGON IN HER BASEMENT. I SENT OUT O’ROURKE, THEN CHEN, AND THEN HARPER, BUT THEY …” He waved his hand again. “WELL, YOU KNOW WHAT GORGONS DO.”

Warren knew—if you looked at one, you turned to stone. There were animated Gorgons on television commercials, but the censors kept how nasty they looked to a minimum. The commercials always began with a green winged female monster with snakes for hair moving into some poor sucker’s attic. Does the sucker want to get rid of her? Of course he does! Run down to your nearest convenience store, sucker, for a jumbo-size can of Gorgon
Gone! And if you act now, you’ll also receive a free blindfold!

But the trouble was that Gorgon Gone didn’t work. Instead of wasting their money, most people ignored the commercials and called in professional Gorgon exterminators.

“YOU TWO SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.”

Or two eleven-year-old boys.

Rick didn’t look as if he was feeling very well, but he was a rookie and unused to this. Warren didn’t feel well because he was more than used to this. He was sick and tired of getting these bottom-of-the-barrel assignments —he’d taken out at least a dozen Gorgons already this summer. They were boring.

The only problem anyone ever had with them was turning into stone, which wasn’t much of a problem if you knew what you were doing. If you did harden up, when—or if—someone later exterminated the Gorgon, you’d reflesh with nothing more than a splitting headache, sore muscles, and a gritty taste in your mouth.

If the Gorgon flew off while you were stone, then the problem became much more than just a problem. About all you could hope for then was a nice spot in the park and a nearby sign that read Please Keep the Pigeons Off the Statue. But that never happened. Well, hardly ever, anyway.

Only one thing worried Warren. Three guys had already screwed up. There had to be a reason.

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?” Princey demanded. “CHRISTMAS?”

Rick sighed. “Do we have to take this one?”

Princey leaned over the desk. “ROOKIES SHOULDN’T BE SO CHOOSY, HOWARD. REMEMBER, YOU’RE ONLY WORKING ON A TRIAL BASIS.” He turned his eye on Warren. “WHAT ABOUT YOU, TRUMBULL? DO YOU WANT TO PASS ON THE ASSIGNMENT, OR DO YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR JOB?”

Warren wasn’t sure. He was saving the money he earned for a new camera. The goddess of love, Venus, was coming to town on the first stop of her latest world tour, and he
wanted to get some good pictures. But was a camera worth always getting stuck with the most boring assignments?

Worse yet, what if he and Rick failed? Once they refleshed they’d have to live with the nickname “rockhead” for the rest of their lives. No nickname was as bad as that, except maybe Piggy.

But still, pictures of Venus were worth a few risks.

He looked at Rick. Rick looked at him. They both nodded.

“Could I get that address from you, Princey?” Warren asked.

With Princey’s bellow of “COME BACK A ROCKHEAD, AND I’LL DOCK YOU HALF YOUR PAY” ringing in their ears, Rick and Warren set out to do something Rick had never done and Warren didn’t want to do. Even so, it would be an easy, if dull, day’s work.

“Where do we start?” Rick asked. He didn’t have a bike, so he was balancing on Warren’s handlebars. He was too tall for Warren to see over, but so thin Warren could almost see through him.

“At Happy Harry’s Rent-All,” Warren said
patiently. “That’s where we get our equipment. Princey has certain procedures we’re supposed to follow with Gorgons.”

“Procedures?” Rick asked.

“Harry will explain it to you.”

Happy Harry’s Rent-All rented everything. Everything. If you needed to get somewhere in a hurry and wanted to stay neat doing it, Happy Harry would have a magic carpet with stain guard waiting for you. If a pesky giant was hiding in the clouds above your yard, you could get rid of him with an ax and a magic bean from Happy Harry’s. If you needed it, if you wanted it—or even if you didn’t—it was waiting on Happy Harry’s dusty shelves.

For a price, of course.

“What can I help you good-looking young men with?” Happy Harry asked, his fat cheeks crowding out his Happy Harry smile. “I bet you’re helping your dad shingle the roof, and you dropped and lost your hammer. I have just the thing for you.”

He pulled a large stone mallet from beneath the counter. “This is Mjollnir, the hammer of the Norse thunder god, Thor. Drop it, and it
comes right back to you. I’ll let you have it cheap.”

I’ll just bet that’s Thor’s hammer
, Warren thought. He’d heard of scam artists selling counterfeit heavenly artifacts for a hefty fee. Thor himself had spent four months in jail for peddling fakes. They caught him because he’d forgotten to file Made in Taiwan off the hammer handles. Nobody ever said thunder gods had any brains.

Warren ignored Harry’s offer. “We need two Gorgon extermination kits.”

“Gorgon problems? Well, it’s that time of the year.” Harry shook his head in sympathy, though his smile remained the same. “Lucky for you, I just happen to have two of the best kits on the market in storage. I’ll be right back.”

He waddled into his maze of shelves, humming, banging things together and raising a huge cloud of dust, then waddled back with two shiny shields and two swords.

“This is the Perseus Mark Four Ultra Gorgon extermination system. Let me demonstrate.” Harry slipped a shield over one hand
and picked up a sword with the other. “Using the sword is obvious—if you can’t figure that part out, you better hire a professional. Just remember to aim for the throat. The only way to kill a Gorgon is to cut the head off.”

“I know all this,” Warren said, “but you better explain it to him.”

Harry turned to Rick. “As far as the shield goes, just read your history book. How did Perseus perform the first extermination?”

“He used his shield as a mirror,” Rick said, “to keep from looking at the Gorgon.”

“Right. Like this.” Harry demonstrated the maneuver. “Always use the shield, boys. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a high iron count in your blood.” He laughed. “Get the joke? Iron, mineral, stone, in your blood, you turn to stone … you’re not laughing.”

“How much?” Warren asked, desperate to change the topic.

“Let’s see …” Harry stroked the fat hanging beneath his chin. “These things are in high demand nowadays … thirty dollars a day should cover it.”

“Princey won’t let us go any higher than twenty-five. It’s a standing rule.”

Harry nodded. “You work for Prince Charming? He’s a very good customer. For you, twenty-eight fifty.”

“But he just told you twenty-five,” Rick said.

“And I can’t let them go for any less than twenty-eight fifty. I have a son studying at the Midas School of Business. Do you have any idea what they charge?”

“But we can’t—”

“But you’ll have to,” Harry interrupted, “unless you want to try exterminating Gorgons with garbage can lids and Popsicle sticks.” He grinned, or widened the grin he already had. “Should I start calling you rockheads now?”

A Centaur—half man, half horse—came into the store. Most Centaurs in town were cabbies. It was the only job they were built to do.

“Well, Ernie!” Harry said, apparently forgetting that Warren and Rick existed. “What can I do for you?”

“I need a new cabby hat, Harry. A customer stole mine.”

“How awful!”

Yeah
, Warren thought,
how awful
How awful it would be if Harry didn’t give his first customers a little attention. Warren half-considered trying the extermination kit out on Harry. If it was going to cost him three dollars and fifty cents of his own, he might as well get his money’s worth.

“Well, you know the nature of the business.” Ernie reached back and brushed a fly off his withers. “You take a customer wherever he wants to go for fifty cents, then don’t let him off your back for anything less than five dollars. One customer got mad and stole my hat. I need to rent one.”

“I have just the thing for you.” Harry hurried back along the counter, saw that Rick and Warren were still waiting there, and reached beneath the counter for a magic lamp. He rubbed it and a blue genie appeared.

No big deal
, Warren thought,
genies are everywhere
. He once switched his dad’s aftershave for a magic lamp. The old man was so
surprised he almost dropped the poor genie in the toilet.

“Yes, master?” the genie asked now.

“Take care of these two while I deal with a real customer.” Harry shuffled off into his maze of shelves.

The genie looked wearily at Rick and Warren. “How much was Harry going to charge you for these extermination kits?”

Warren’s escapade with the witch had taught him never to lie to anything that could throw a spell on him. “Twenty-eight fifty.”

“I’ll let you have them for fourteen and a quarter.”