by Lori Woods
“What happened, Ray?” one young man asks, and I recognize him as Laura’s husband.
This was not the act of a basilisk. It’s clear; a snake creature like a basilisk would not drain the blood of its victim. It would just feast. Ray holds onto his father, full of fright, but he manages to answer. “These two women in hoods jumped me at the gas station. They tied me up and blindfolded me. Then they took me here,” he says.
Val and I exchange glances. This certainly confirms what the mermaids had told us. Peter is walking around the room on all fours, sniffing around. “So we are dealing with some sort of witches, then?” Joe asks.
“Or vampires,” Val admits sadly. “Though I’ve never heard of vampires targeting specific creatures before like this.”
“Then we’re dealing with witches,” Laura’s husband says. “What sort of spells require werewolf blood? This much of it too?”
“I smell serpent,” Peter says as he stands. All of the werewolves start sniffing the air.
“I don’t smell anything,” one of the women says.
“It’s subtle,” he says.
“Then you probably just smell a rattlesnake or something, boy,” another werewolf snaps.
Peter stands upright. “I’m telling you, I smell serpent! You’re not dealing with witches or vampires. Until Val came in here, I didn’t smell vampire at all. You’re dealing with some sort of snake creature.”
“Do you smell basilisk?” Val asks.
“No, just snake…” Peter says, sniffing around some more. “You know, out in Safe Haven, people with serpent characteristics—like djinn’s, the Nāga, or even the kappa’s—have been known to buy donated werewolf blood. They use it in their medicines.”
“That’s ridiculous,” another werewolf says. “I’ve never donated blood for a humanoid snake creature. Who would?”
“There are werewolves out in Safe Haven,” Peter says, and some of the werewolves laugh at him. “What! There are! You people all think Safe Haven is still just some ghetto. There are werewolves and witches and trolls and elves there too, you know!”
“That’s enough!” Val snaps at the werewolves. “Peter just helped save Ray’s life, and you’re all laughing at him! What is wrong with all of you?”
Ray pulled away from his father, standing up slowly. “Easy, son, you just lost a lot of blood,” Joe tells him.
Ray nods, but he approaches Peter. “You found me?” he asks weakly.
“Yes,” Peter says, and Ray leans forward and wraps his arms around Peter’s neck.
“Thank you,” he says.
The look on Peter’s face breaks my heart. He did not expect anyone to be kind to him here in Nightshade; that much is clear. When Ray pulls apart from him, Peter holds onto the boy’s arms to help him stand upright until Joe can come over and help his son. “We need to get you home, Ray,” Joe says. “You need to rest.”
I look at Peter; he seems bothered by everyone’s quickness to brush his opinion aside. I stand by him and place a hand on his shoulder. “You sure you smell serpent?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says to me. “And it’s not just some little garden snake. I smell something wicked.”
“Based off what Ray saw and what the mermaid’s saw, we need to find some sort of group of women-like reptiles who can turn people to stone and would need werewolf blood,” I say.
“You know,” Val says, smiling at Peter and I. “That coffee shop you like so much, Suzy, is open late. I can run get us some caffeine, and we can hit the books. See if we can find anything we’re missing.”
I nod. “That sounds just wonderful.”
Chapter Seventeen
So…many… books….
Val, Peter, Snowball, Alfie, Sprout, Red Sumac, and I have been at it for hours. I’m impressed that neither Alfie nor Sprout has turned in the towel just yet and that they have hung with us for as long as they have. Doc left us an hour ago—the poor old man was just not cut out for all-nighters. He’s softly snoring in a corner seat, his hands resting on an open book.
“I can’t do this anymore!” Snowball wails pitifully. “I don’t even like to read! Why are you making me stay up?”
“Please, just… just…” Alfie grumbles. “I am so tired I can’t even come up with something to say to you, Snowball.”
“Good, I don’t have the energy to retort,” she says.
“Would you two stop?” I say, propping my feet up on the footstool. We’ve gathered around the library’s main fireplace and have pulled up some of the more comfortable furniture. We are surrounded by hordes upon hordes of books all referencing petrifaction – the ones I had summoned to fly off the shelves earlier. But, of course, we have thus far come up incredibly short. This is getting old fast. Peter is curled up on the floor in front of the fire; he fell asleep reading about half an hour ago, and none of us had the heart to wake him.
Red Sumac is watching him closely with this almost motherly stare. I know she feels guilty for the way she had spoken to me earlier, and frankly, she should. I’ve offered her my forgiveness, but she had been pretty nasty. Not at all like the woman I had grown to love as a close friend. Prejudiced hatred runs deep in some families, no matter where you’re from. I sink deeper into my seat, flipping through the current book I’m on. So far, I haven’t found any references to humanoid serpents turning organic creatures to stone. I have, however, found a good bit on serpent creatures and the use of werewolf blood. Turns out Peter was dead-on when he had said serpent hybrids have been known to use werewolf blood in their medicines; it has all sorts of healing factors for them when combined with other material. I wonder why, but I really don’t feel the need to study up on reptilian biochemistry tonight.
I flip to another page in my book and I see an old drawing depicting what looks like a war. It’s of men in strange wizardry uniforms sledgehammering statues. I cringe. It seems I’ve found some information on the so-called Anti-Masons. The drawing of the man on this page in particular looks familiar; I look at the book, then back at Red Sumac. It causes me to shiver as I realize I’m staring at an illustration of her great-grandfather. The man just looks evil, and I get the impression that she was certainly close with him; close enough for him to brew such hatred into his great-granddaughter that she would feel the need to fly all the way out to Nightshade tonight just to berate me. I skim the passage a bit, and I get this déjà vu feeling while reading it; it’s like I’m studying about white supremacy during the Civil Rights era all over again, except on steroids. I whisper to the book for it to go flutter on upstairs to my office and wait for me there; it doesn’t have anything about serpent creatures, but the Anti-Masons have piped my interests. I’ll read up on them later.
The book zooms out of my hands, fluttering up the stairwell and disappearing. “Me! Me! Me!” one of the books on the floor starts yelping upon discovering that I’ve put the one I had been reading away.
“Okay, quiet, though,” I say. “You’ll wake up Peter!”
Val snickers slightly. He’s seated on the floor in front of me with a book in his lap, leaned back against the footstool. “They’re books. They don’t really get the concept of sleep.” He yawns. “But I do. I’m a creature of the night, but I’ve gotten so used to sleeping at night since I’m the only one around here…” he starts to close his eyes, and I bop him in the head with my foot.
“You’re the one who suggested the all-nighter. You don’t get to sleep,” I say. I open up the book, and I start skimming. I come across some old, Greek mythology. Mythology seems hardly worth reading, and I almost close the book to put it away when I suddenly recall mine and Red Sumac’s first trip to Safe Haven. The Graeae sisters… they were from Greek mythology too! It seems I need a new lesson on what is merely legend and what is actual history! I flip through some pages, and an illustration catches my eye.
A woman with serpent hair turning a man to stone. I know this story. Medusa. “Hey,” I call out to the room to no one in particular. “Medusa—history
or mythology?” I ask.
“History,” Val says, yawning. “But she died nearly two thousand years ago.”
“Dead or dead dead?” I ask.
“No one’s really sure,” Red Sumac says. “But I doubt she’d go into hiding for this long just to show up in little old Nightshade to knock off a few werewolves.”
“Good point,” I say. I read up a little on Medusa anyways; something about the illustration caught my attention. She was cursed by the goddess Athena after she was raped in Athena’s temple—harsh—given snakes for hair, and made to look so ugly people who looked at her would turn to stone. Eventually, Medusa was beheaded. I got to say, Athena punishing a woman for being raped makes zero sense to me. I then come across a short story of Medusa attempting to get revenge on Athena, and since I’m kind of hating on Athena right now, I decide to give it a quick read.
Basically, Medusa disguised herself as a servant and tried to poison Athena. Obviously, it did not work out in Medusa’s favor. But, something in this tale stands out to me. The fake name Medusa used when she came to visit Athena? Solan. Almost like I visualize runes, all the pieces of this puzzle start flying into place.
“Holy cow!” I shriek, jumping up to my feet. “Medusa is here in Nightshade, and I had coffee with her!”
Peter rolls over and rubs his eyes. Doc’s eyes flutter open and everyone suddenly seems much more awake. “What are you talking about, Suzy?” Red Sumac asks.
“Solan,” I say. “The woman who wears the niqab and glasses? She doesn’t wear the niquab because she’s a Muslim or the glasses because she’s blind; she wears them so no one will see her face and be turned to stone!”
“We’ve got to put out a search on her—now!” Val says, jumping up. “Are you certain about this, Suzy?”
I feel awful. Solan and I had become friends, but so far, she is the only one who fits the narrative of this series of murders. She could turn someone to stone simply by looking at them. Her serpent hair would explain her desire for werewolf blood, according to what Peter said, so that gives her motive. It would also explain why Laura’s eyes were gouged out; she didn’t want her accidentally turning to stone like what happened to Ted.
“I believe so,” I say.
“We’ll go to Dudley and have him put out a description. We need to wake the town again, so it seems,” Val says. “I’ll go to Dudley.”
“We’ll go after Solan,” I say, looking at Red Sumac and Alfie.
“Um, no you won’t!” Val exclaims. “Suzy, if you so much as look at the woman, you’re dead. You understand that, don’t you? This is dangerous. Even I, a vampire, cannot look at Medusa. This is not like a vampire basilisk. This is a real-life horror.”
“If you’re planning on waking the whole town to go on a search, Val, then I will be going too,” I say and then turn and look at Peter. “You, however, stay here. Doc will look after you, won’t you, Doc? And Sprout?”
Both men nod, and Peter moans. “But I want to help,” he complains.
“Kid, you’ve helped enough,” Alfie assures him. “You helped us find Ray tonight. Curl up in front of the fire and get you some sleep. I’m going to go get my axe!”
“I better go with him,” Snowball says. “He’s liable to lop some of his toes off.”
“Haha, very funny, Furball,” Alfie says, and the two of them hurry off.
Red Sumac and I grab our brooms, and we head out as well, followed closely by Val. Sprout and Doc remain behind as requested to watch after Peter. Val heads off to get the word out on Medusa being in our midst and to start a search party. Red Sumac and I mount our brooms, and we begin a preliminary search around Nightshade, looking for anything that might stand out.
From our brooms, we can see that Val has stirred the town. People are out searching, half of them carrying looking glasses. “What’s up with the mirrors?” I ask Red Sumac as we continue circling overhead.
“Medusa, unlike a basilisk, cannot hurt you with a reflection,” Red Sumac explains. “So, mirrors give us an advantage against her. I’m just amazed she’s actually here. I mean, she was dead.”
“That doesn’t really mean much on this side, now does it?” I ask.
“Point taken,” she says.
Suddenly we hear shouting. We scan the ground below us, and Red Sumac points. “Look, there’s a crowd forming over there.”
We zip our brooms towards the back of some buildings, and there she is. Solan had attempted to run, but the large crowd of werewolves has managed to chase her into a corner. She holds up both hands in surrender. Soon, Dudley is there and he escorts her to the station. “Something’s not right,” Red Sumac says.
“Agreed,” I say. “That was way too easy. She’s some sort of immortal beast, right?”
“Medusa was mortal until her curse,” Red Sumac says. “But there’s no way a crowd of werewolves and mere witches would be able to intimidate her enough to surrender.”
We fly to the station. Val and Alfie are both waiting outside for us, along with Snowball. “We got her!” Snowball declares loudly as Red Sumac and I land.
“I’m not so certain,” I say, looking at Val.
“You think something’s up too?” he questions.
“She just surrendered,” I say. “She’s very powerful, from what I read. I’m going to go talk to her.”
“Absolutely not!” Val shrieks.
“Val, I’m a big girl. I got this,” I insist, shoving by him. When I enter the jail, Dudley is proudly writing up a report at his desk out front. “You might want to wait on that,” I tell him. “Something’s not adding up. Where is she?”
“In a cell,” he says, pointing with his thumb towards the back of the station. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I want to talk to her,” I say, and he starts to protest; I give him a look that screams you know I’m not going to listen to you so why even bother, and he just slumps back down in his desk and sighs.
I wander towards the back of the station, and wouldn’t you know it, she’s just sitting in a regular old cell. No magic, no nothing. Come on, Dudley, are you serious, I think to myself. He just captured Medusa—as in the Medusa, and he puts her in a cell without any precautions whatsoever. I could get out of this cell. “Solan,” I say.
She turns towards me, and crosses her arms, no longer pretending to be blind under those sunglasses. “Suzy!” she stands. “What are you doing here?”
“No, I think the better question is, what are you doing here?”
“They think I murdered those werewolves!” she exclaims. “And a mermaid, or some other creature, I’m not sure. They think I kidnapped that little boy.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I say. “I mean why are you still here? There’s no way this little cell is holding you, Medusa?”
She crosses her arms. “I prefer Solan now.”
“Yeah, the name you used the last time you tried to murder someone, right?”
“You know me better than that.”
“Do I?” I ask. “I didn’t even know your real name. You told me you were from the other side like me. You pretended to be blind to hide your eyes. You pretended to be a sad, frightened Muslim woman to keep me from being suspicious of you. But really, you’re something straight out of Greek mythology.”
“It’s not mythology,” she says. “That was my life. I did not commit these murders. But you’re right. I could get out of here easily.” She steps forward and grabs one of the cell bars, squeezing it. When she lets go, the metal bar is dented from where she had grasped it moments ago.
“You’re staying here by choice,” I say. “And you allowed yourself to be captured. No doubt all you would have had to do is remove that headpiece of yours, and the entire crowd who had cornered you would have turned to stone like Ted.”
“True,” she says. “I am innocent, Suzy. I have not turned someone to stone in two thousand years; I take much more precautions now. I do not wish to harm anyone.”
“How are y
ou alive? You were beheaded thousands of years ago,” I say.
“Werewolf blood,” she says. “A kind werewolf saved me. Stole my head from Athena and returned it to my body, dripping blood into the wound. Poor fellow turned himself to stone in the process because he looked at me, though. That was the last innocent life I’ve taken—over two thousand years ago. I am cautious. I allowed that crowd to take me today because I feared they might would accidentally knock my cloth or sunglasses away if they tried to grab me.”
“So, why are you staying here?” I ask.
“So they will not come for me again,” she says. “I told you, I’m innocent. They will learn that soon enough when another werewolf is killed, and I’m still here.”
“We don’t want that to happen,” I say. “Who is responsible? You know, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she says, and she sounds sad. “My sisters. The other Gorgons. I’ve been trying to stop them—to get them to leave Nightshade.”
“Your sisters?” I question. “Why are they after werewolves?”
“For their blood,” she says.
“Are they sick?”
“No,” Solan says. “Only cursed like me. I’ve told them they cannot break our curse with werewolf blood, but they say they have seen progress with the spells and potions they have been using. They won’t stop until they are cured. They think if they use more blood in their potions, then they might could cure themselves. They think that because werewolf blood saved my life—because of its healing properties for serpent creatures—that they can use it to separate the serpent curse from their humanoid bodies.”
“But you don’t think so?” I ask.
“Not at all,” Solan insists. “Stop them. I’ve tried. They’re my sisters, but they are just going to keep hurting people—werewolves—until they get what they want. The problem is, they will never get what they want. It will never end until someone puts a stop to it.”