Coils

by Barbara Ann Wright

  She ran for Arachne, but Aix was already darting in that direction, striking with teeth longer than Medusa’s arm. Arachne blocked with the aegis. Medusa looked for Cressida again and spotted her in the distance, being led by Pandora. Cressida’s steps seemed wooden and unnatural, as if Pandora had done something to her.

  “Bastards!” Medusa cried. As she was about to leap a narrow channel of lava, something heavy crashed into her back. She cried out as she flew through the air, twisting to see that Agamemnon had hurtled into her, but Arachne jerked him to safety. Medusa rushed toward the lava, the heat reaching up to claim her, and powerful as she was, she knew she’d be reduced to a shade, trapped either in Tartarus or up among the others, with Stheno and Euryale to join her soon.

  A flash of gold whipped beneath her, and she tried to grab on to Aix’s slippery scales, but she went flying again. Aix’s jaws caught her gently and lowered her to one of the obsidian islands. Aix purred softly as she looked Medusa over.

  “No, Aix, stop them!” Medusa pointed toward where the three were disappearing into the black box. “Mom, please!”

  Aix looked that way, clearly confused, and then turned back to her daughter as if saying, “No, I want to stay with you.”

  “There, take me there!” Medusa shouted. “Quick before they shut us in!”

  Confused as she was, Aix eventually obeyed, but by the time she ferried her to the black doorway, the others had disappeared, and when Medusa tried to follow, she bounced off darkness that had become as solid as a wall.

  Chapter Nine

  One minute, Cressida had been following Medusa through a lava filled hell in Tartarus, and the next she was sitting up in bed, nine years old, awakened by strange noises in the middle of the night while staying with June at a dig site in Turkey.

  And Tartarus…had been a nightmare? Must have been. It’d felt so real, but that was impossible. And then she’d dreamed she was being chased by the Furies—one too many tales around the campfire—even though June had assured her that the Furies only pursued those who’d committed very specific crimes.

  Sitting alone in a dark tent, Cressida didn’t want to think about the kind of people the Furies went after. She wanted to hear that they were made-up stories. She wanted the kind of reassurance her parents provided, even though she’d often rolled her eyes when they took all the magic out of the world. With shadows stretching long fingers across the tent walls, though, she wanted their sensible presence instead of June’s, who would rather there be monsters if the monsters had to play by certain rules.

  Cressida crept from her tent and tiptoed to June’s. She curled into the blankets at her aunt’s side, but June slept too soundly to stir. Cressida didn’t want to wake her; she’d already called herself a big baby for seeking the bed of a grown-up, but the unfamiliar night sounds kept creeping in, every rustle like the scratch of the Furies’ claws.

  She sobbed, curled her arms around herself, and June awoke with a start. “Cressi? What’s wrong?”

  “I had a bad dream.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all over now,” June said sleepily. Her voice banished a bit of the darkness but not nearly enough. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

  She led Cressida back to her own tent, the night quiet around them, but it would be too hot to sleep. How had she ever fallen asleep in this heat?

  Cressida blinked, overwhelmed with déjà vu. This had all happened before, just like this, only it wasn’t so hot then. It had been fall, the night air so crisp it had given her goose bumps. Why was she sweating in her pajamas?

  Inside the tent, coolness engulfed her, and she sighed. The air conditioner must have kicked on. Except tents didn’t have air conditioners. She’d tried not to complain about the lack of climate control when she was little, didn’t want anyone to think of her as spoiled.

  “No one thinks you’re spoiled,” Pandora said.

  Cressida staggered away from her, blinking away memory in favor of the cool, uniform walls of the labyrinth. “What?” She whirled around, spotting Arachne and Agamemnon. “Where?”

  Memories rushed back: the golden serpent, Medusa whispering, “Mom,” and Cressida knew it was Aix, though some legends put other people as Medusa’s parents…

  Then everything had gone blank, and she’d been in Turkey again. “What did you do to me?”

  Pandora had the grace to look sheepish. She slipped something into her pocket. “A little loan from Hypnos, god of sleep. I must remember to return it to him right when we get back.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “You…hypnotized me?” She glanced at the box and all of them again. “Where’s Medusa?” She saw the shield in Arachne’s hands and did a double take. “Is that…that’s not…the aegis of Zeus?” A familiar, snake-headed face stared at her from the middle, though it was covered in gold instead of flesh, but the details were so precise. Even the eyes were the same as Medusa’s, though creased in anger as if even death couldn’t quench her emotions.

  Because it wasn’t just the cast of a head. Cressida put a hand over her mouth. “You killed her!”

  “Again, you mean?” Arachne said. “No, her spirit’s still in there.” She jabbed a thumb at the box. “And she’s probably pissed as hell, so we’d better go before she and her mom find a way to bust out.” All three of them began to march away.

  Cressida didn’t move, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. “You knew she’d fight you for the aegis? Is that why you didn’t tell her what you were after?”

  “She distracted her mother,” Agamemnon said over his shoulder, “and now we have what we came for. Step lively, or you’ll get left behind.”

  She took a few steps before stopping again. “Hecate said you needed me.”

  Pandora shook her head. “We’ve got what we were paid to get. If you’re late delivering your own prize, that’s on you.” She tried a smile that was probably supposed to be kindly. “Cheer up. You have the harpe of Cronos. Now you can finish your deal.”

  “We didn’t have to get you out,” Arachne said. “We could have left you with Medusa, but that would be a waste of a living person.” She smiled and shrugged. “And technically, we could take the harpe as long as we only touched the sheath. We just can’t wield it. Now, come on.”

  Cressida looked to the box again. They were right. She couldn’t stay here, and she didn’t know how to open the box. The fact that she’d been tricked ate at her, but that seemed secondary to the fact that her guides were leaving and taking the helpful string with them as they went. Would Charon leave without her? What did he care? If she managed to find her way to the tracks and he was gone, she’d have to wait the eternity it took him to go and come back, if he came back at all.

  She still had to free June, too. She did wonder what Hecate needed both the harpe of Cronos and the aegis of Zeus for, but that wasn’t really her business. And Hecate might not need her to wield the harpe. If anyone could figure out a way around Cronos’s rules, it was the goddess of magic.

  Could she walk out of here without the woman who’d asked nothing of her save that she consider helping Stheno and Euryale? Cressida hadn’t decided if she would or not. She didn’t relish the idea of luring Perseus to his death, but Medusa had never pressured her. She’d left the choice up to Cressida, something no one else in the Underworld had done so far.

  The others were already down the hallway. Soon they’d turn the corner and be out of sight. Pandora cast several regretful glances over her shoulder, but she didn’t stop. None of them did. Looking out for number one was probably the only way to behave in the Underworld if a person wanted to survive.

  But there was more to living than just survival.

  Cressida stalked after them. “Now I know why you’re all stuck in the Meadows of Asphodel. It’s not because of what you did or didn’t do. It’s because of who you are!”

  “Oh for gods’ sakes,” Arachne said. “No one cares what kind of person you are. Deeds are all that matter to the gods. Do you
think Hercules is a nice person?”

  No, she never had, but she didn’t mention that. She pointed over her shoulder. “And leaving Medusa here is a good deed, is it?”

  “Don’t you think we tried to be the heroes of the Underworld when we first came here?” Agamemnon asked. “There is no law. There is no justice. You have what you have because you’re powerful enough to take and keep it. The only people who get second chances to move up the Underworld ladder are those already inside the Elysian Fields.”

  “The rich get richer,” Pandora mumbled.

  Cressida thought of the heroes being resurrected when they were bored enough of paradise to try for something greater. She wondered what constituted great deeds in the modern age. As long as the heroes lived up to their full potential, even if they failed at their chosen tasks, she supposed that might be enough to return them to the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blessed.

  “The gods don’t bother to look at us,” Agamemnon said. “So it doesn’t matter what we do.”

  Cressida stared at him for a few seconds. “Fuck that.” She turned and strode toward the box. “It doesn’t matter if anyone’s watching or not. I choose not to be a douchebag.”

  “What are you going to do?” Pandora called.

  Arachne said, “Who cares?”

  Cressida cast one glance over her shoulder, and they’d all stopped to watch her. “I’m going to do the right thing because it’s the right thing, and if I wind up in the Fields someday because of it, so be it.” She grinned. “I’ll do my best to put in a good word for you.” Unless they kept walking away. Then they could go screw themselves.

  She drew the harpe and prepared herself for the onslaught of Cronos’s mind. It felt muffled farther from his prison, but the gist was still there: slice, murder, kill.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “But we’re killing a box this time, okay?” She raised the harpe and swung just as the footsteps of the others came closer.

  She’d prepared herself for the ting of metal hitting metal or the dull shockwaves she’d get if striking stone, but the sword sank fast and halted, as if she’d buried it in an enormous block of gelatin. The grip slipped out of her fingers, and momentum pitched her forward. She smacked into the box. Against the sword, it was gelatin, but to her face, it felt like a rock. Just her luck.

  The others hurried back toward her. Maybe she was getting through to them because she wouldn’t leave a friend behind, or maybe it was because she’d offered to try to help them attain the Elysian Fields. Whichever it was, she’d take it.

  “Stop,” Pandora said with a sigh. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Then help me!” After rubbing her face, Cressida grabbed the harpe, put a foot on the box, and pulled the sword free with a little pop. She felt over the place she’d cut, looking for a dent or a slice, but it seemed whole, and to her touch felt solid as marble. Maybe in a different spot? She raised her arms to strike again.

  Pandora caught her wrist. “That isn’t going to work. You can’t open it if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I haven’t known what I was doing since I got here!”

  Pandora stared as if Cressida was a mystical creature she’d like to study.

  “Medusa wouldn’t come back for you if she didn’t need you,” Agamemnon said. “You must know she’s only helping you so that you’ll help her.”

  “But she left it up to me! And when Hecate commanded I come down here and get this sword in order to free my aunt, Medusa came with me. She could have left me out to dry.”

  He exchanged a glance with Arachne. “Maybe, maybe not,” Arachne said.

  “You’re her last chance to kill Perseus,” Pandora said softly.

  “Rumor has it that he’s already lived two lives,” Agamemnon said. “If he decides to be resurrected again…”

  “She won’t be able to touch him.” Cressida put a hand to her forehead. “And yet she still offered to help me first, letting me choose whether or not I would help her.”

  Arachne frowned. “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”

  Cressida waited for more, but Arachne just shrugged. Pandora was watching the box as if having second thoughts.

  Agamemnon sighed. “If we let her out, she’ll try to kill us, not to mention what her mother will do since we’ve stolen the aegis.”

  “I’ll open the box for you,” Pandora said. They all stared at her, but she only looked at Cressida. “Then the three of us are running, and you two can figure out how to get out of Tartarus on your own.”

  “Unless Charon decides to wait for us,” Cressida said.

  Arachne snorted. “He won’t.”

  As she and Agamemnon started away, Cressida called, “Hecate wants the harpe, too.”

  “You’ll find your way,” Arachne said. “If you die, Medusa can drag your corpse up with her. She’s got time.” She smirked over her shoulder. “For some things, at least.”

  Pandora touched the box and then faced Cressida with what seemed like a genuine smile. “You seem like a nice person. Good luck.” She put her hands on Cressida’s shoulders, then one of Arachne’s webs flew from down the corridor, caught her around the waist, and pulled her away.

  As they rounded the corner, one side of the box dropped open with a slam.

  *

  Medusa stared at the wall of darkness. Her hair ruffled gently as Aix breathed in and out behind her. Memories of childhood rose again, and she clung to them, clung to anything besides the fact that she was trapped in Tartarus.

  Her sisters had cared for her when she was very little; their mother couldn’t do much more than hunt for them and protect them. It wasn’t until long after Aix had died that Medusa had wondered who’d cared for her sisters as infants. She supposed that Aix had always done the best she’d could, even against Zeus himself.

  She remembered being carried in her mother’s mouth, grasping her mother’s teeth. One day, after being carried far enough that Aix’s mouth dried out, Medusa had tumbled into a sandy hole with Stheno and Euryale, and Aix had covered them with dirt. As Zeus rampaged through the desert, hunting them, they’d cried out for their mother to hide with them, but she was far too large to fit in the hole. Euryale begged Aix to flee and hide in the nearby mountain that was always belching smoke and lava, but she never ventured far from her young, and they couldn’t stand the same great temperatures she could.

  Aix had faced Zeus and lost, and she’d probably never understood what he wanted or why he’d come. She hadn’t thought to run because she couldn’t carry her daughters far in her mouth, and she hadn’t thought to have them cling to her back. She’d never been smart, but she loved her children and died for them. After Zeus had skinned her, he’d let her daughters be.

  Medusa slid her fingertips across Aix’s snout. “I didn’t know you were here, Mom. I looked for you in Asphodel. I hoped Zeus had sent you to the Elysian Fields, but why would he do that for a monster?”

  And he wasn’t even the one she was really mad at. She’d let her mother become just Aix in her mind, just another Titan, and she hadn’t come to Tartarus because she didn’t want these memories again. Tears started down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop breathing. “Well, we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other again.”

  Aix gently rubbed her head up and down Medusa’s side and purred, a sound that dredged up deep memories of being lulled to sleep in her mother’s warm coils. She supposed she’d come to enjoy it again.

  If she couldn’t figure a way out of here.

  “Right.” She wiped the tears away and thought of Euryale’s words when they’d realized their mother was never coming back: “We always have to get back up.”

  She turned to the square of blackness and wiped her hands on her jeans. Cressida was counting on her. She didn’t know what the other three were planning. They were probably leading Cressida away, and each second Medusa spent lost in the past feeling sorry for
herself was a second the villains got farther ahead. She wasn’t surprised at the anger inside her, the sting of betrayal, but the jot of fear was new and sharp. She recognized the familiar fear for her sisters, a lingering dread she’d gotten used to, made sharper by the fact that if Cressida slipped through her fingers, it was possible her sisters would as well.

  This new fear, though, was all for Cressida’s safety. If those bastards harmed her…

  She had to figure out how to open the box first. She reached for it, ready to feel along it for weak spots, but her arm plunged inside, and she cried out as she slipped forward, the solidness evaporating. She felt a rush of air as her mother followed her, no doubt spurred on by her cry.

  But she didn’t have time to be surprised. She had to be ready to face whatever waited in the labyrinth. Power trembled through her, and she was ready to unleash it on the three turncoats, but when she saw Cressida, Medusa swallowed her power again.

  Still, Cressida’s wide eyes said she’d glimpsed Medusa’s transformation. Luckily, their gazes hadn’t met, and she didn’t seem afraid by what she’d seen. She rushed forward, arms out, and crushed Medusa in a hug.

  With a laugh of relief, Medusa started to hug her back, but Cressida pushed away slowly and stared as Aix’s massive shape oozed from the box, curling around them until she blocked off the cul-de-sac.

  “Cressida, this is my mother. Aix, this is Cressida.”

  Aix’s large head dipped forward, her tongue flicking in and out.

  “How do you do?” Cressida asked hurriedly, the words almost on top of one another, inflectionless in her obvious terror.

  Medusa tried her best to ignore it. She couldn’t afford to let Cressida’s feelings for Aix affect her now. “Did they hurt you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Cressida blinked and shook her head, giving Aix a tentative smile before turning to Medusa. “They used some kind of hypnotism, but I…couldn’t leave without you.”

  Even as gratitude and affection washed over her, Medusa felt guilty as hell. “Thank you, Cressida. Where did the others go?”