The fumes from below increased the sensation. I felt the same creeping numbness, the tingly strangeness I’d experienced at Delphi. Once again my body seemed to move too slowly, as if I were wading through water. My anxiety was similarly subdued: I noticed a surprising loss of fear, a dreamlike disengagement that bordered on euphoria, even in the midst of chaos.
Thalia was slowly creeping up the slope of the angled roof. With her arms and legs reaching out in the moonlight, she looked like a white-limbed spider, dragging the bloody rag of her body over the web of tiles. Phoebe stood only yards away. She was searching the architecture, desperately seeking a route to the ground or some way into the church. She kept glancing anxiously back at Thalia, who still held the ax in her hand.
Peering down from overhead, I discovered what looked to be our only chance. Down the wall, roughly halfway between us, was a large round window into the chamber of bones. It was too high up for Phoebe to reach, but with a little help, I thought she might just make it.
I told her to stay right where she was. Then I pulled off my blood-soaked T-shirt and wrapped it around my face, covering my nose and mouth the same way I had done at Delphi. If I was being affected by the fumes in the belfry, the level of gas below would be sure to knock me out.
I inhaled a last full breath of fresh air and pulled the mask over my face. Then I stepped down through the doorway into the dark. Bodies were strewn on the stairwell, and those that had fallen back down the steps had piled up at the floor. Trapped below when the door was locked, they all now lay unconscious.
The sweet odor of ethylene penetrated my mask. I closed the trapdoor to keep the fumes from escaping. As I stepped over the bodies on my way down the stairs, tiny hints of movement revealed they were alive: fluttering eyelids, twitching fingers, spontaneous moans and sighs. It seemed at any moment any one of them could awaken, just as Thalia had done. If the air from the slot in the door had aroused her, how long before these others would awaken now that the door had been open?
I endered the ossuary. The entire room was littered with Furies, heaped on the floor like corpses. With the collection of bones lining the walls and skulls scattered over the floor, it looked like a chamber of Hades. I tried to breathe as little as I could, but still the fumes were infecting me, making the strange even stranger. Stepping over skulls, broken glass, and sleeping, half-robed females, it felt like I was walking through the remnants of a dream.
In the center of each of the four walls, a deep oculus was carved through the thick stone and set with a large round window. I snatched a thyrsus from the hand of a sleeping Fury and carried it to the window that overlooked the roof. Phoebe was too far below to be seen, but Thalia was visible, crawling onto the peak. I gently broke the glass with the thyrsus, careful to keep the shards from falling down on Phoebe. Fresh air poured into the room. I swept the broken glass inside and leaned out through the oculus.
Phoebe stood below me with her back against the wall. A few yards away on the peak of the roof, Thalia rose to her feet. Blood covered most of her body. Through the hair that snaked down her face, her white eyes shone bright as the moon.
When I called out, Phoebe glanced up at me with a look of desperation.
“Take my hand!” I told her, reaching down as far as I could. She turned and reached up, but our fingers barely met.
Behind me, the Furies were stirring. I heard them humming faintly, their voices rising in a strange moaning rhythm.
Thalia staggered toward Phoebe, raising the ax in her hand.
I shimmied farther out while gripping the rim of the oculus. Reaching down, I grabbed ahold of Phoebe’s outstretched hand. I pulled her up toward the opening. The eerie humming grew louder. Suddenly, hands took hold of my leg, and teeth clamped down on my thigh. I cried out in pain. More hands grabbed my ankles and feet. They twisted and yanked the joints.
Sparagmos!
While holding on to Phoebe, I tried to kick them back. Mad shrieks erupted.
On the roof, Thalia howled and swung her ax at Phoebe. Phoebe swerved to avoid the blade, then kicked back at Thalia. Thalia staggered and dropped to her knees. Then rose again to attack.
My legs were being wrenched apart. I hollered out in pain. Phoebe hung several feet off the roof but still had not reached the window; I couldn’t let her go. Hanging helpless, she called my name. I pulled with all my strength.
Behind me the Furies released their grip. Other hands took hold of my waist and pulled me back into the room. Phoebe was hauled right up with me and grabbed the oculus rim. From there she dragged herself up the wall.
Thalia shrieked and swung her double ax. It clanged against the stone as Phoebe crawled in through the oculus.
Thwarted, Thalia wailed.
I helped Phoebe into the chamber. It was Damiana who’d saved us. She had a cloth wrapped around her face and a bloody thyrsus in her hand. The Furies who’d been after me lay moaning on the floor.
Air was flowing into the room. Again we heard the ax crack on stone and turned to see the blade hooked on the rim of the oculus. A a bloody hand reached up and grabbed ahold of the rim. Thalia was hauling herself up to the window.
Women continued awakening around us. Humming their unearthly tune.
“Hurry!” I shouted. We fled through the rising Furies and down into the stairwell.
The fumes were even stronger there, and the steps were covered with bodies. We scrambled over them, stumbling down in the darkness, Phoebe limping painfully. She was trying to breathe through her sleeve, but the gas was clearly affecting her, and to keep from falling she clung to me. Damiana led the way, probing the dark with her thyrsus. We heard the pursuing Furies’ voices echo down the stairwell behind us.
There were still more bodies at the bottom of the tower. We scuttled over them as we left the stairs. Women lay sprawled on the floor of the narthex and down the vast aisles of the nave. All of them appeared to be awakening. The weird moaning infected them, an eerie, rising chorus.
Across the colonnaded narthex, the entry doors were open. The three of us went charging toward them.
Phoebe stumbled and fell to the floor. The fumes had overwhelmed her. I called to Damiana, and we helped her to her feet. Furies were slowly rising around us. Their hum resounding louder.
Damiana glanced back at the tower. “Run!” she cried.
Thalia had emerged from the stairwell, followed by an army of ghosts. The shrieking women were streaming toward us across the marble floor. Thalia raised her ax. Their cries rose into the dome.
We dragged limping Phoebe past the columns of the narthex toward the open entry doors. Furies rising from the floor reached out to claw and grab us. I tried to kick them away. Damiana let loose with her stick. We battled our way through the forest of pillars until finally we reached the doors.
As we passed over the threshold, I glanced back at Thalia. She saw me and flung her double ax through the air. It soared across the narthex, tumbling like a tomahawk. As it came down at me, it glanced off a pillar, igniting a spark off the stone.
Flash!
A thunderous explosion blew me out the door. The ax came flying out with me. Windows shattered, doors blew out. I crawled away in terror. Phoebe and Damiana stumbled off ahead of me. The ground beneath us trembled. I turned to look as the growing blast rumbled its way up the tower, bursting out the oculi and exploding the belfry dome. Glass and debris rained down from the sky. The great bronze bell came tumbling through the collapsing tower and smashed through the roof of the narthex. It landed inside with a hideous clang, a sound like a human scream.
Then everything grew strangely quiet. Great, billowing plumes of smoke rose up out of the church.
Furies staggered out, gasping.
I dragged myself up and stood there, trying to catch my breath. Phoebe and Damiana were waiting behind me, hiding at the edge of the square. I picked the double ax up off the ground and looked at its glistening blades. The corner of an edge had broken off, but otherwise it was p
erfect. The ax was ancient, expertly made, and had a kind of magic about it.
According to Phoebe, the labrys was used in spiritual ceremonies by Minoan priestesses on ancient Crete. Clearly, it could be used for other things, too. Murder. Dismemberment. Revenge. This storied blade had even brought down a church.
Dual blade, dual purpose. Everything always came down to a choice.
I carried it away and ran off with my friends.
28
PEOPLE WERE stepping out of their doors as the three of us fled to the harbor. Shaken from sleep, they emerged half-dressed in their nightshirts or pulling on their robes, padding dumbly out onto the street and gaping up at the sky. They stared in confusion at the plume of glowing smoke, wondering if they had actually awakened or were still in the grip of a dream.
These were the “ordinary” citizens of Ogygia, merchants and hoteliers, cooks and fishermen. They had lived their normal lives like any normal person, struggling to earn an honest living and trying to get along. But these seemingly innocent burghers had carried a terrible burden, a grievance buried inside them, like the shard of a broken blade.
An eye for an eye. Blood for blood. The law of retribution. There are painful memories that never seem to die, grave sins that can never be forgiven. They give birth to a mindless, fanatical rage. They spawn the untamable Furies.
The glow these Ogygians stared at now was the dawn of a realization—that their dark dreams and wishes could no longer be concealed. They watched us hurriedly limping past, torn, bloodied, tired, wondering why their avenging daughters had failed to seal our fate. Soon enough their shock, we knew, would turn to indignation. They’d come after us in an angry mob, another horde of Furies. If the tippling Sheriff ever made it down the mountain, he surely wouldn’t bother to stop them. Even Damiana would be a victim of their rage.
This fear spurned us on toward the harbor and sent us racing out to the yacht. We found Dan waiting at the foot of the dock. He was greatly relieved to see us. “When I heard the explosion,” he said, “I couldn’t help thinking the worst.”
I told him he’d better get us out of there fast.
From the dock, the glow over the square shone brightly. Black smoke drifted past the face of the moon.
Dan already had the engines idling and had pulled up most of the ropes. The girls followed him up to the pilothouse, while I cut the last two lines with my ax. In less than a minute we were pulling away from the dock and heading out into the bay.
I joined them all in the pilothouse.
“We’ve got to stop that bleeding,” Phoebe said. I’d thrown away my blood-soaked shirt; the cut on my shoulder was open, and blood had run down my back. The ethylene had cleared from my system, but the loss of blood was making me faint.
Phoebe started wrapping me with a bandage from her pack. “My turn to take care of you,” she whispered.
Dan stood at the wheel, busily steering the massive yacht and working the throttles on the console. Although he looked a little boggled by the complexity of it all, he seemed to be handling it okay. At least he got us heading in the right direction.
He glanced at the ax I had set against the wall. “Souvenir?” he asked.
I nodded, musing on the “double” thoughts I’d had outside the church. “That is my intention,” I said.
Damiana stood behind us, staring back at the island. “There they are,” she said.
Just as we’d expected, the citizens of Ogygia had begun spilling out of the streets, and were now self-righteously marching up the wharf. They didn’t look happy to see the yacht speeding off, and several men ran out onto the dock. We watching them shout curses at us. Then they started piling into the police boat.
“They’re going to try to come after us!” Phoebe said.
“Not to worry,” Dan assured her, pushing up the throttle. “This yacht can outrun any boat in that harbor. And besides…” He emptied his pants pocket onto the console. Among the various items were three blackened spark plugs. “They’ll have a little trouble getting that cop cruiser started.”
Phoebe stepped over to stare at the plugs, then gave Dan a peck on the cheek. “You really are brilliant,” she said.
He gave her a kiss in return. “Inspired by my Muse,” he said.
The yacht was now out of the bay and cruising swiftly over open water. The pale, pinkish light of dawn appeared on the horizon.
“Where are we going?” Damiana asked.
An air of gloom hung about her. She clearly was heartbroken by all that had occurred, but I noticed what I thought might be a glint of hope in her eyes.
“I don’t know,” Dan said, trying to cheer her up. “But you can’t go too far in the Cyclades without running into another island.”
She nodded, then turned away to once again stare out the window.
Phoebe went to her side. “Try not to worry,” I heard her say. “I’m sure your family will be all right. We’ll take you back to them as soon as we can.”
In the pile of coins, euros, and spark plugs removed from Dan’s pocket, I now recognized something else: a small, carved, painted wooden bird, set within a round brass ring. It was another toy version of the wryneck birds we’d seen hanging in the monastery chapel.
I picked it up. “Where did you get this?” I asked.
Dan glanced over, and when he saw what I was holding, quickly looked away. I noticed his Adam’s apple nervously bob.
“Dan?”
He looked at me a moment. Again he looked away. “I found it,” he said. “On the street.”
“When?”
“When I was out looking for you and Phoebe. Before I came back to the church.”
I remembered the fear I’d seen in his face. He’d been so paranoid, he’d attacked me. Never had I seen him look so stricken.
I moved closer, studying his face. “What the hell happened out there?”
Again he swallowed. He glanced furtively at Phoebe and Damiana. “It’s too horrible,” he said.
“Tell us,” I said.
Phoebe stood beside me. “Dan? What happened?”
He stared ahead out the black window. He couldn’t seem to keep the memory away; you could see it tugging at his face. Finally he began to tell us.
“On a street… near the square. The Furies, there was…a mob of them. Thirty, maybe. Fifty. They were attacking someone. There was…a lot of blood. Everywhere. I heard screams. Horrible screams.” He looked at us. “They were tearing him apart.”
“Sparagmos,” Phoebe said solemnly.
“Who was it?” I asked. “Could you see?”
He stared ahead, a blank look on his face. “Yes,” he said. “I saw. I tried to stop them. I tried to fight them back but… there were too many.”
No wonder he looked such a bloody mess. How could he have possibly survived!
“What happened?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I… I ran away,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to look at us.
Phoebe reached out tenderly. “Dan, they would have killed you. You didn’t have any choice.”
He looked at her. Unbearable pain and guilt in his eyes. “He was just a boy,” he said. “He was just a little boy.”
We stared at him in horror.
Damiana pushed between us, peering anxiously into his eyes. Then she turned to me. She looked down at my hand.
A cold dread came over me. I opened my palm and revealed the painted bird.
Damiana, tentatively, reached out and took it. Then she slowly turned to Dan. I saw her body trembling. She could hardly bring herself to speak. She held the bird out to him. “Where? Where did you find this?” she asked.
Dan looked frightened by the terror in her eyes. “On the street” he said. “After they left, I went back and”—he hesitated, remembering the bloody scene—“that was all I found—”
Damiana turned away. Her head rolled gently and her eyes glazed over. I jumped forward as she fainted and caught her in my arms.
“Over there,” I said. Phoebe helped me carry her over to the bench, and we gently laid her down. Dan pulled the throttle and slowed the boat to a crawl. I grabbed an orange life vest off a hook on the wall and placed it under Damiana’s ankles. Phoebe fanned the girl’s face with her hand.
Dan stood over us, looking confused.
“I saw her buy that bird,” I said. “In the outdoor market the morning I got here.” I looked up at Dan. “She gave it as a gift to her little brother.”
Dan shook his head in disbelief. “No.”
“The boy must have been on his way to the church to find her,” Phoebe said.
“Yes,” I said. “And he was the brother of the Fury who betrayed them.”
For a moment we stood silent, waiting for Damiana to awaken. Fearing it, too.
“Another tragedy.”
We turned. The voice had come from behind us. A dark figure stepped from the doorway into the light.
The Sheriff.
The three of us stared at him, stunned. He had a bloody bandage around his neck.
“We Greeks are accustom to tragedy,” he said.
Andreas Vassilos looked bone-tired and drunk. The impression came primarily from the bottle in his hand, and the way he held it, dangling at his side. But he also looked even more slovenly than usual. He had taken off his shoes and unbuckled his belt, and the dusty cuffs of his pants were dragging on the floor. His uniform shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, revealing a sweat-stained T-shirt, and several loops of fine gold chain dangling from his neck. The cop hat was gone, and his gray hair, curled from drying perspiration, flowed to his shoulders in soft, wavy, almost feminine locks. His clothes gave off the spicy odor of clove cigarettes, and the booze on his breath was so sharp I thought it might awaken Damiana.
He shuffled toward us in his socks, and he spoke in a weary voice. “Tender girl…new to grief. A bit of wine, perhaps. Medicine for misery. Dull the pain, ease the burden. Put a little sting of madness in her.”
Night of the Furies Page 28