Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) (33 page)

"An excellent question." Conan Doyle turned his
gaze from the river to the black sand of the shore. The sand had been
disturbed. There was no doubt that Gull and his operatives, along with captive
Eve, had arrived first. He removed one of the two gold coins the Cyclopes had
provided them to pay Charon and began to play with it, dexterously rolling it
back and forth across the knuckles of his hand. It was a trick he had learned
from Harry Houdini, a friend from long ago.

"What have you done now, Gull?" Conan Doyle
whispered, lost in thought as the coin danced atop his hand.

As if in response to his query, the Underworld answered.

Ceridwen could feel it in the elements around her; from the
granules of sand beneath her feet, to the mournful whistling of the wind that
caused the skeletal branches of the trees along the shore to click and clatter.
The Underworld was attempting to speak to them, and only she had the ability to
hear.

She closed her eyes and listened. Then she wandered across
the sand, closer to Conan Doyle and the boy, closer to the river’s edge.

Conan Doyle watched her as she approached. "What
troubles you, Ceridwen?"

She did not respond, his voice added to the cacophony of the
elements as they attempted to communicate. The river was the loudest voice of
all, and she found herself drawn to its flow. This was the place from which the
answer would come: the Styx, eager to share with her what had transpired. Ceridwen
squatted down at the shore and extended her hand toward the hellish waters.

"No!" Danny yelped, his alarm cutting through the
static inside her head, and she looked up into a face wracked with worry.

"I don’t think you want to do that." He turned his
nervous gaze out over the water. "There’s something . . . not right about
it."

Conan Doyle had moved closer as well and she tried to
assuage their fears with a smile. Then she gently touched her fingertips to the
agitated water.

Ceridwen and the River Styx were one. Her body went rigid,
her mind filling with rapid-fire images detailing what had come to pass, what
the river had seen. Most of it was monotony, the ferryman in his launch and its
countless journeys, transporting the dead to their final destination. Faces
flashed across her mind, wan and bewildered.
So many faces
. But then her
mind’s eye settled upon the most recent passengers, including the twisted, ugly
visage of Nigel Gull. Ceridwen witnessed what had transpired from the river’s
point of view, as though she were looking up from beneath the water. Gull had
committed a terrible crime, a most foul act. Ceridwen saw the murder of Charon,
saw Gull set his body adrift upon the river.

She drew her hand from the water with a gasp, stumbling into
Conan Doyle’s waiting arms, the violence seared into her mind.

"I told her not to touch it," she heard Danny say,
concern in his voice. "What did it do?"

Ceridwen opened her eyes and looked up at them, pulling back
from Arthur’s embrace. "The ferryman is not coming. Gull and his people
were here with Eve no more than two hours ago," she said, seeing the
ghastly image reenacted in the theatre of her mind. She closed her eyes and
shuddered even though the temperature was oppressively hot.

"What has he done?" Conan Doyle asked, eyes stormy
beneath salt-and-pepper brows.

"He’s killed Charon," she said, trying to force
the images from her mind. "And they’ve taken his boat across on their own."

Conan Doyle clenched his fists in anger, turning his back
upon them and walking away. She understood his frustration. Their enemy was
besting them at every turn. This was not something to which Arthur Conan Doyle
was accustomed.

"So we’re screwed, then. Game over," Danny
muttered. "How do we help Eve now?"

"Arthur?" Ceridwen called. He was standing with
his back to them at the edge of a forest of black, skeletal trees, again lost
in thought, but this time she suspected she knew what occupied his mind. It was
the way he eyed the copse of trees that gave his thoughts away.

The sorceress was far from Faerie, far from anything the Fey
might think of as nature, but she had begun to establish a rapport with what
passed for the elements of this barren place. Her strength was returning. Her
magick as well, though tainted now by the Underworld. Yet Arthur did not know
that. He must have sensed that communicating with the elements here was not as
debilitating for her. He had, after all, only just witnessed her forging a bond
with the River Styx. But he could not know how far she had adjusted.

This is a test for him in a way,
she thought. Conan
Doyle was a man of both thought and action, and he prided himself on
practicality. What must be done, he would often say, must be done, and damn the
consequences. Yet in their battle with the Hydra, his fear for her had caused
him to become distracted, endangering the lives of the others and the success
of their mission. He had promised it would never happen again.

But here was a similar situation.
Will he ask it of me
when he knows it will cause me pain?

Ceridwen was about to take that responsibility from him,
when Conan Doyle turned to face her. The steely look on his face told her all
she needed to know.

"Gull has thwarted us for the last time," he
announced, walking toward her. "These trees," he motioned to them
with a wave of his hand. "We have no time to build a raft, nor anything to
lash them together. You must coerce them into taking on the shape of something
we can use to get across." He walked past her to stand again at the
river’s edge, gazing out over its broad expanse. "We must act with haste."

Danny strode angrily toward him, his features more demonic
than ever. "What is wrong with you? You know she can’t do that. This place
is bad for her. Using magick here hurts her. It’s obvious you don’t give a shit
about people when it comes to getting what you need, but I figured if there was
anyone, it’d be —"

Conan Doyle turned and glared at him, nostrils flaring, and
the boy was silenced. Ceridwen wanted to speak up for him, but if they were
going to survive, they would have to rely upon one another. Part of that was
working out their own conflicts.

"Have you given Eve up for dead, then?" Conan
Doyle asked, every word a dagger. "Abandoned her to her fate?"

"Of course not," Danny growled.

"Nor have I. Whatever Gull’s intentions here, they are
likely sinister. Even if they were not, he has manipulated us throughout this
fiasco, and now Eve’s life is in the balance. I ask what is required, nothing
more."

When Conan Doyle spun to face Ceridwen again, Danny seemed
about to argue, but then fell silent once more. The sorceress did not blame
him. Arthur was correct. In truth, she was relieved that he had chosen their
purpose over her comfort.

"Can you do this?" he asked.

And how could she deny him?

They walked upon a surface of bones.

From a perilous mountain path, they had descended into a
broad expanse of what Eve at first believed to be limestone. But as they grew
closer, she had begun to see pieces of dry, yellow bone scattered on the dirt. In
matter of minutes, no matter where her foot fell, the soles of her Italian
leather boots landed atop the remains of something that had once been alive. Some
of the bones were human, yes. She recognized those readily enough. But from
what she could see there were bones there belonging to just about everything in
creation.

"Am I the only one who’s a little freaked out by this?"
Eve asked, turning to face her captors.

"It’s the bloody Underworld," Hawkins snarled. "What
do you expect, a field of poppies?" He reached out, placed the flat of his
hand against her back, and shoved. "Keep moving."

Eve stumbled, still under the sway of Nigel Gull’s magick,
then turned to look into Hawkins’s eyes. She prided herself on the way she
evolved with the world, but in her were all the women she had ever been, all
the ages she had lived, and now in her fury she fell back on the Eve of another
era.

"Mark me," she said. "You may do your best to
forget who it is you trifle with, but I shall not forget. I have bred legions
of monsters, and slain even more. Your bones will join these others beneath my
feet before long. One way, Mr. Hawkins, or another."

Hawkins tried to smile to show her that he was not bothered
by her words, but he could not quite manage it. Instead he gestured as if to
push her again, but she was already turning to forge ahead. The path gradually
angled upward as they approached a hill. Eve wondered what new thrills the
Underworld had in store for them on the other side.

Calmer, now, she shook off the remnants of the past,
summoning the sardonic swagger that had become so much a part of her survival
as an immortal. Eve glanced over her shoulder at Gull.

"So, are we there yet? I’m bored."

Gull was walking with Jezebel, a protective arm around her
waist. There was something untoward about the intimacy between them. The mage
was not her father, but regardless Jezebel was still only a girl. Even if there
was nothing sexual there, still it was troubling. Jezebel was powerful, and
with her red hair and green eyes, and her sensuality, stunning. But she was so
obviously broken inside, clamoring for Gull’s approval. And he twisted her
around with his words just the same way he wrought magick with his contorted
fingers.

Throughout their trek, Jezebel had grown quieter and now she
appeared to be a little shaky — not really digging the whole bone carpet
thing.

"Damn, the girl doesn’t look well. Maybe she’s just
realizing what I figured out the second we arrived. This is a place the
wandering souls go. The damned, right? I figure we all belong here. It’s like
coming home. Can’t be easy on the kid."

Jezebel shuddered at her words.

"Shut your mouth," Hawkins barked, but he did not
touch her. "D’we need this, Nigel? Think I liked her better when she
couldn’t talk."

"That will be enough of that, Hawkins," Gull said
casually, as though they were all just taking a pleasant Sunday stroll through
the park.

They reached the base of the hill, the bone path leading
upward, and Eve again considered what awaited them on the other side. Jezebel
stopped to rest for a moment, taking a seat on an enormous skull that could
only have belonged to something monstrous.

"In answer to your question, Eve, I would wager that we
are close," the hideous sorcerer said. He stroked Jezebel’s hair as if he
were calming a nervous house pet.

She leaned into him, closing her eyes, lost in his
attentions. "I think I would like to go home now," she whispered in a
tiny, little girl’s voice that trembled on the brink of tears.

"There, there, pretty Jez," Gull comforted,
continuing to stroke her fiery red hair. "It won’t be long now."

Eve didn’t like the sound of that and wondered where she fit
into the mage’s plans. Throughout her time as his prisoner she had fought
against the enchantments placed upon her, but she was still incapable of
directing her own actions. Eve would be free. Of that, she had no doubt. A
moment would come when she would have the opportunity to free herself, and then
she would kill them all. She would need patience, however, but Eve had lived
almost forever and had learned patience very well indeed.

"Won’t be long until what?" she asked Nigel, as
she squatted to the bone floor and retrieved the skull of what could have been
a crow. She used its beak to clean away some of the grime that had collected
beneath her fingernails — a manicure was definitely in her foreseeable
future. She looked up into the sorcerer’s eyes, the only part of his body that
hadn’t been twisted by magick. "C’mon, Gull, the suspense is killing me."

"We’d best hurry, then. You’ll need to survive at least
until we can deliver you." Gull smiled, and it was wretched to see. The
mage hauled a dozy Jezebel from her seat. "On your feet now, girl,"
he commanded, no longer sounding quite so fatherly. "We have places to be."

Jezebel did as she was told, hugging her body as if cold.

"Hawkins, see to her," Gull instructed, and the
man moved to stand beside the girl, ushering her gently along.

The sorcerer moved toward Eve, gesturing for her to begin
the climb up over the rise. She didn’t care for the implications of his words,
but they came as no surprise. He had kidnapped her for some reason, and she
doubted that her scintillating conversational skills had anything to do with
it.

Eve had difficulty maintaining her footing on the shifting
slope, and she used her hands to pull herself along. The pieces of bone were
sharp, but the pain kept her focused.

Gull had begun to climb as well, eagerly matching her
progress, his breathing becoming labored as they neared the top, perhaps more
from anticipation than exertion. Eve found herself increasing her pace, eager
to reach the summit before her captor.

"Last one to the top is a deformed fucking freak,"
she snarled. "Aw, too late." She went up over the rise . . .

And froze. After all she had seen in her excruciatingly long
lifetime, she had never seen anything quite like the sight that greeted them
over the top of that hill.

Gull joined her, fury twisting his features all the more
horribly. "There were times when I actually felt a sense of guilt over
what I was going to do with you. But now I believe . . ." Then he, too,
stopped and gasped.

"Just when you think you’ve seen it all," Eve
said, eyes riveted to the valley below her.

The body of a giant lay splayed upon the valley floor, so
enormous that it covered much of the valley. The corpse was larger than an
aircraft carrier, large enough that a small town could have been built atop it.
And
corpse
was the word. The giant was quite dead, of that she had no
doubt, and had been dead for some time by the look of him. Desiccated skin hung
loose and leathery from its monstrous skeleton. A wispy fog floated above the
enormous cadaver, the smell blowing up from the valley on a breeze ripe with
the stench of rot.