Night of the Furies

by David Angsten

  “How?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know because there is no way.”

  I knew she was right, but didn’t want to believe it. Not after seeing what they had done to the hunter. As I wound the cloth around her foot, I struggled to come up with a solution.

  Nothing came to mind.

  “Do you smell that?” Phoebe asked. She was looking up at the tree.

  A soft, herbal scent hung in the air. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Bay leaves. This is a laurel tree.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s a part of the kykeon, too.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “The laurel tree is sacred to Apollo.”

  “Oh. Good. The rational one. Ask him what to do when you can’t find any rational way out of your problem.”

  Phoebe didn’t respond. I continued wrapping her foot.

  “Hear me, oh god of the silver bow…”

  I looked up. Phoebe had spoken the words while gazing up at the tree. Now she began declaiming loudly in Greek.

  “Phoibe, su men onto xaire, anax, ilamai de proseuxe…“

  Her voice was formal and somber. I had no idea what the words meant, but the sounds had a kind of beauty to them, a guttural, archaic eloquence.

  “What was that?” I asked when she finished. I was tying off the cloth at her ankle.

  “Nothing,” she said with a shrug.

  I stood up. “Didn’t sound like nothing. In fact, it sounded like a prayer.”

  Phoebe looked uncomfortable. “Couldn’t hurt,” she murmured.

  I pulled on the backpack. “I didn’t know you—”

  “Jack—look!”

  I turned. A pair of headlights was coming up the road.

  “It’s a truck!” Phoebe exclaimed.

  It looked like an old pickup from the 1950s. Big round fenders and a fat, round cab. The shifting gears made a grinding noise as the truck struggled up the slope.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  I trotted out onto the road. Phoebe ignored me and followed. We stood in the middle of the highway together, waving our arms as the vehicle approached.

  It ground to a halt in front of us. I held up my hand to block the headlights, but still couldn’t make out the figure at the wheel.

  “Wait here,” I said. Laying a hand on the hilt of my dagger, I warily walked to the driver’s window.

  Phoebe followed right behind me.

  The window rolled down with a squeaking noise. I stared at the driver in shock.

  “Damiana!”

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “Hurry, there’s not much time.”

  23

  WE SUDDENLY found ourselves flying down the mountain in Damiana’s truck. The truck belonged to her father, she said. She had taken it—against his will—after refusing to join the Maenads for the evening’s Bacchanalia. Whether this unexpected turn of events was due to the influence of Apollo, I couldn’t say for sure, but now we would reach the town in a matter of minutes—well before the Bacchae could beat us to the jail.

  I should have expected a smirk from Phoebe, but she seemed to take the miracle completely for granted, as if they occurred every day of the week.

  It was cramped and warm in the creaky little cab. Phoebe sat between Damiana at the wheel and me at the passenger window. I rolled the window halfway down and a breeze swirled around us. We all stared ahead at the road unwinding in the headlights.

  “Why did you decide to help us?” Phoebe asked.

  Damiana glanced at her, at the scratches on her neck and the crusted blood on her bandaged ear. Shame and guilt seemed to darken her face. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t let them kill you,” she said. “Too many people will die.”

  “We just saw one of them,” I said. “An old man, a grandfather. The Maenads tore him to pieces.”

  Damiana turned to me, ashen-faced, then stared ahead out the windshield. “Gurpinar. The Cypriot.”

  “You knew him?” I asked.

  She glanced at me nervously. “He stopped at the church yesterday. He had been here…almost a year ago.”

  “Looking for his grandson?” Phoebe asked.

  She nodded. “He asked me many questions then. About the monastery.”

  “Did you tell him?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “But he knew. He recognized one of the Sisters. He had seen her on Mykonos.”

  “So he went to the police chief,” Phoebe said.

  “And Vassilos gave him the runaround,” I said.

  She peeked at us anxiously. She seemed reluctant to say any more.

  “Why are they doing this?” I asked. “Why did they murder our friend?”

  “Please,” she said. “Please do not ask me these things.” She watched the road descend through a grove of ancient olive trees. The pruned black branches looked twisted and tortured, as if they’d been forced into worshipping the sky. “I will help you and your brother,” she said. “But you must promise to leave our island. Never come back here again.”

  Phoebe and I stared at her.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How can you—”

  A woman screamed.

  Damiana slammed on the brakes. A stark naked woman was standing in the road. The truck swerved to miss her, and the headlamps turned their light into the trees, where a horde of howling Furies came pouring out of the dark.

  Stones glanced off the hood. A large rock cracked the windshield. As the truck bounced wildly off the shoulder, I tried to roll up my window, but a pinecone thyrsus crashed through and struck the side of my head. The blow made me dizzy, and the broken thyrsus rattled to the floor.

  A Maenad rolled across the hood and slammed against the glass. Her crazed eyes blazed with madness. Damiana jerked the wheel, and the woman tumbled away.

  Another jumped on the running board. She tried to open my door. I jabbed her with the broken thyrsus, thrusting her into the mob.

  The truck swerved back up onto the road. Maenads filled the headlights. Hands reached through my shattered window and scratched across my throat. Something cracked behind us. I turned to see a bronze ax slam against the glass. Bacchantes had climbed into the bed of the truck and were trying to break into the cab.

  “Don’t stop!” I shouted to Damiana. The truck had broken through the horde, but Bacchae were chasing behind us.

  Again the ax blade glanced off the window. Three Furies were smashing at the glass. I climbed out onto the running board and raised my thyrsus at them.

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  One of them came at me with her thyrsus. The razor-seeded pinecone slashed my ear and implanted itself in my shoulder. I lost my footing on the sideboard and nearly slid off the speeding truck. My thyrsus dropped and clattered down the road. With my ankle dragging over the passing tarmac, I clutched to the rim of the window, cutting my fingers on the broken glass.

  Again the woman whacked me with her thyrsus. This time I grabbed her stick and swung her off the truck. She tumbled away into the darkness.

  Phoebe leaned out and hauled me up.

  The Fury with the ax slammed the rear window, finally shattering the glass.

  Phoebe screamed.

  I launched myself into the bed of the truck. A woman came at my face with her teeth. I socked her square in the jaw. This stunned her long enough that I could knock her off the truck.

  The other came at me with the ax. I dove as the blade swung down. It clanged against the metal floor. I crashed into the tailgate.

  The woman wheeled on me in a rage, blowing hair lashing her face. Her chiton was a tattered and filthy rag. Her mouth was smeared with blood.

  I stood and pulled Gurpinar’s dagger from my belt. We rounded each other like gladiators. Suddenly I recognized the Fury’s face.

  “Euphrosyne!”

  The one who had teased me with those glimpses on the yacht. Now she seemed barely human.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I shouted.<
br />
  She laughed her mad, high giggle. I slowly lifted my knife.

  With a flash the ax swished through the air and caught the blade, knocking the dagger clean out of my hand. I stared at my open palm in amazement.

  She came at me, howling, slashing wildly, blades slicing air. I fell back, pinned in the corner. She swung the ax up over her head—

  Suddenly she stopped. Her mouth froze open in shock. She looked down at a growing stain darkening her side. Slowly, she turned around.

  Phoebe stood before her, looking as stunned as Euphrosyne. She was holding the bloody dagger in her hand.

  Euphrosyne raised the ax to strike her.

  “No!” I dove and pushed her, and she tumbled from the truck. Her ghostly form receded into the darkness.

  Damiana, driving on, shouted over her shoulder, “Are you okay?”

  Phoebe had dropped to her knees. She was staring at the dagger in her hand.

  “Yes,” I shouted. I peered warily at the road behind us. “Keep driving till I tell you to stop.”

  I knelt on one knee in front of Phoebe. Her hair was blowing in the wind. She lifted her gaze from the dagger.

  “They are Furies,” she said.

  She seemed badly shaken by the stabbing. “Yes,” I assured her. “Of course they are.”

  “No. I mean…they’re not Maenads.”

  She wasn’t making sense. “Phoebe—”

  “At Delphi, the oracle. It’s bothered me, what I said—‘the Furies are coming.’ Furies, not Maenads.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” I said.

  “It does,” she said. “Maenads, the Bacchae, are worshippers of Dionysus. Furies, or Erinyes, are avenging spirits from the Underworld. They take the form of women and seek revenge for murder. Usually the murder of a parent.”

  “You’re saying these women are spirits?”

  “No. I’m saying you’ve been right all along. Basri’s killing was more than a religious rite. It was a vengeful murder.”

  “But why I”

  She held out the dagger. “Look,” she said. “Look closely.”

  I took the bloody knife in my hands. The long silver blade was intricately engraved, and the convex handle was neatly wrapped with a ribbon of white leather, capped with a turban-shaped pommel. I’d hardly noticed before, but the weapon was really quite beautiful.

  “It’s a military dagger,” Phoebe said. “The kind that’s awarded to officers.”

  I studied the elaborate engraving on the blade. It seemed to be purely decorative.

  “Look,” Phoebe said. She turned the handle of the dagger toward me and pointed to the silver cap on the pommel.

  Cast into the metal was a crescent moon and star.

  I stared at it for a long moment. Slowly at first, then suddenly, the whole bloody story of the island fell in place.

  “Damiana!” I shouted. “Stop the truck!”

  24

  PHOEBE AND I scrambled back into our seats. Glass littered the inside of the cab. We were stopped at the edge of a darkly plowed field somewhere near the outskirts of town.

  Damiana threw the truck into gear and headed back onto the road.

  I turned to her. “Gurpinar was a Turk,” I said. “He must have been a military man. Either that or he’s descended from one. And if I remember, Basri’s family is descended from an admiral of the Turkish navy. That’s why he was chosen, isn’t it? Same as Gurpinar’s grandson.”

  Damiana glanced at me, then held her eyes on the road.

  Phoebe looked at her. “They’re descendants of the Ottoman Turks,” she said. “The army that committed the massacre in 1822.”

  “When did it take place?” I asked. “What month? What day?”

  Damiana hesitated. “The massacre began on September eighteenth.”

  “The same day of the year Gurpinar’s grandson disappeared,” I said. “That’s the reason he came back here now. He knew your history. He wanted to see if it would happen again, on the anniversary of the slaughter.”

  She continued silently staring ahead. The road was passing swiftly.

  “Damiana,” Phoebe said, “there’s no reason to hold back any longer. This can’t stay hidden anymore. You realize that, don’t you?”

  Ever so slightly, she nodded.

  “Those women aren’t Furies,” Phoebe told her. “They’re murderers.“

  Damiana looked at her. Her eyes flitted back and forth between us, then she looked back at the road. She seemed to be struggling with something she knew could never be comprehended.

  “On our island…we have always kept the old rites alive. The monachai… for centuries…they held them secret from the Church.” She peered out from under her brow at the road. “When the Ottoman’s burned the monastery, and massacred the monks and the people…the Bacchae went back to their primitive roots. They turned to human sacrifice to fulfill the need for revenge.” She turned her gaze on Phoebe. “Ever since, once a year, they succumb to the spirits of the Furies.”

  Damiana seemed too civilized, too rational for this. “How could you possibly join them?” I asked.

  She stared out vaguely into the darkness of the road. “My family’s ancestors…they were tortured and butchered and raped in the massacre. Many of the girls were taken away…raised as Ottoman slaves.” She paused, then turned to look at us. “Like my mother, and my grandmother, I was recruited to the monastery. The abbess there is strict. The life is harsh and repressive. Once a year it is relieved…with four days of indulgence…and the murder of a blood descendant of our enemy.”

  Phoebe and I stared at her. “Then…you’ve done this before,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “You must believe me. This was the first year I took part in the rite. “

  I saw no reason to doubt her. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old.

  “I know now it is evil,” she said. “I know it is wrong. Wrong to murder a man for the sins of his ancestors. Wrong to carry on this grievance forever.”

  Phoebe laid her hand on Damiana’s arm. “You must leave with us,” she pleaded. “Help us bring an end to the killing.”

  Damiana seemed uncertain.

  Phoebe turned to me to assure her. “We’ll put an end to it, won’t we, Jack?”

  I looked at her, then at Damiana. This killing of Turks had been going on for nearly two centuries. The pagan cult itself had lasted for millennia, surviving the Romans, the barbarians, and the Christianization of Greece.

  The chance we’d live to tell their story was looking rather dim.

  “If you get us off this island,” I said, “I promise you, we’ll end it. But first we have to get my brother out of jail.”

  THE TOWN of Ogygia was quiet and dark; it was nearly three in the morning. As Damiana drove us down the narrow, winding streets, the rattle and rumble of the truck on the cobbles reverberated off the high stone walls and broke the slumbering silence. We peered out through the cracked windshield toward the farthest reach of the headlights, half expecting the Furies to appear. While Vassilos might still be somewhere on the mountain, we knew the women were fast approaching.

  For now the streets were empty.

  “The bells have tolled,” Damiana said. “The women on the mountain are in thrall to the Erinyes, and the people have locked themselves indoors. If you venture out on a night of the Furies, you are more than likely to be killed.”

  A night of the Furies! No wonder they had rounded up the tourists and shipped them off the island. If not they’d be left with a bloodbath, an international calamity with the media descending.

  They’d cleared the island of everyone but the ones who knew their secret.

  Damiana hurriedly navigated the maze of unlit streets.

  “I’m lost,” I said to Phoebe.

  “Me, too,” she replied.

  “I’ll drive you to the harbor,” Damiana said, “after we pick up your brother.” The plan was to steal away on Basri’s yacht. Assuming
we could find his keys at the station.

  “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” I asked.

  Damiana didn’t answer.

  “You must,” Phoebe said.

  She glanced at us. “I, too, have a brother,” she said. “My family has always lived on this island.”

  I remembered her picking up her little brother from school. “Aren’t you afraid of what will happen if you stay?”

  Again she didn’t answer.

  “You must come with us,” Phoebe insisted.

  Finally, we turned onto a street I recognized. The police station was halfway up the block. A light was on inside, the only visible light in the neighborhood. As Damiana pulled up in front, I flew from the truck and went to the door.

  It was locked. I whipped out the keys and started inserting them, one by one. The ring held more than a dozen. Phoebe and Damiana waited behind me.

  “Listen,” Phoebe said. “It’s them.”

  I paused. The street was deathly quiet, but drifting down out of the sky was the distant sound of the Furies, the same sprinkling of cries and screeches we’d first heard up on the mountain. These voices that initially had aroused our curiosity now instilled a horrible dread. I felt my stomach fluttering as I fumbled with the lock.

  “What if the key’s not on there?” Phoebe worried aloud.

  I was down to the final few. “It’s got to be one of these,” I said.

  The Furies grew louder and louder. I tried the fourth key. The third. I heard a distinct, high-pitched cackle I was certain I’d heard before. I tried the second-to-the-last key. Phoebe and Damiana kept their eyes on the end of the block. Finally, I plugged in the last key. This one had to be it.

  It stuck and would not turn.

  “Impossible!” I said, and forced it.

  The key broke off in the lock.

  “Fuck!”

  The Furies’ shouts were so loud now they seemed to fill the streets. We looked at each other in panic.

  “You sure you didn’t miss one?” Phoebe asked.

  I tried to pry out the broken key. “Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “The goddamn lock is jammed!”

  “Use the dagger,” Phoebe said. “Try to pry it open.”