Tears of the Furies m-2

by Christopher Golden

  Graves showed his distaste by folding his arms across his chest, shaking his head from side to side.

  "Enough of that," Clay snapped. "Have a little decency. If you don’t have anything to contribute, let us do our work."

  The hobgoblin still knelt at the girl’s remains. He’d put the hand down and was rummaging through the other, fragmented pieces. "I can pretty much rule out a basilisk attack," he said. "Those sons of bitches just solidify the outside, leaving a soft, chewy center. These poor folks are stone through and through."

  Abruptly the hobgoblin stiffened, looking about the darkened space as if he had heard something.

  "What’s up?" Clay asked.

  "Think I’m getting a call." Squire climbed to his feet and strolled from the room. "Give me a minute."

  Clay and Graves remained silent, both staring at the remains before them. Clay had been walking this world for thousands of years, dealing with all manner of paranormal manifestation, but the sight of this family transformed to stone disturbed him profoundly.

  "Can you trace them?" Graves suggested quietly.

  The souls of murder victims never passed on to the afterlife immediately. Always, they clung to their old shells for a time, crying out for vengeance, hoping that someone would hear their anguish. The Creator had touched him, and over time, as he saw the sins of humanity evolve, Clay had developed the ability to see the ectoplasmic trail left behind by a murdered soul. The victim’s spirit clung to the murderer, creating a tether of soul stuff that connected corpse to killer, and if he reached the dead soon enough, Clay could follow that trail. He could catch the killer.

  But this… He did not know.

  The shapeshifter moved closer to the stone bodies, his eyes searching for signs of their tethers.

  "Well?" Graves asked.

  "Nothing," Clay replied. "It’s as if they’ve always been nothing more than inanimate objects. Maybe because they’re no longer flesh, but there’s no connection to the killer that I can see."

  "Curiouser and curiouser," Graves whispered.

  Squire returned, a quickness to his step as he crossed the room.

  "Just got a call from Mr. Doyle," he said.

  "I didn’t hear any phone ring," Clay commented.

  "He doesn’t have to use a phone," Squire explained. "Me and the boss, we got this system set up so that he can contact me through the shadows. All he has to do is find a nice patch of darkness and speak in my native tongue to make the connection."

  Interesting, Clay thought. Here was yet another unique talent the little goblin had never exhibited before. Squire was always full of surprises, which was probably why Conan Doyle kept him around.

  Graves’s spectral form shimmered in the gloom. "What did Conan Doyle want?"

  "He and the rest of the crew are coming to Greece. An old acquaintance dropped by the brownstone and filled him in on what’s really going on around here."

  "And?" Clay prodded him.

  "The Greeks’ve got a fucking Gorgon problem."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ceridwen stood naked in the empty rooms that were to be her quarters, now that she had decided to stay. In recent days she had used one of the many guest rooms on the upper floors, but if she was going to live here, she desired a more permanent and more personal space. Conan Doyle had recommended this suite of rooms because of their location. There were half a dozen high windows along the rear wall of her bedroom, three each on either side of broad French doors that opened onto a small courtyard garden behind the house. The doors were wide open now, and a cool breeze swirled and eddied about the room, caressing her skin, bringing up gooseflesh and hardening the nubs of her breasts. It was a delicious sensation and she shivered in pleasure.

  She swung out one long leg and did a spin on the smooth wooden floor, her bare feet rejoicing in the feel of the wood. There would be no carpet for Ceridwen. The smell and feel of wood was her preference.

  The sun shone upon the cut edges of the many glass panes in French doors, and it glinted there, refracting, throwing a scattering of tiny rainbows across the natural maple floor. The rooms were bright with sunshine and had been cleaned recently. She wondered if Arthur had used magick to tidy up, or if he had had Squire clean the suite earlier, presuming she would stay.

  No. He didn’t know I was going to choose to remain here, she thought. Though perhaps he hoped.

  And it had been clear that he was glad Ceridwen was staying behind, and not solely because she was a staunch and valuable ally. That was all right, though, for she had not been forthcoming about the entirety of her reasons for that decision. The Faerie sorceress had not lied. She had simply not provided the whole truth.

  Fighting at Arthur’s side made her feel complete, somehow. As though it was meant to be. Such attitudes toward destiny were common among her kin, but she had always eschewed such ideas as flights of fancy. Now she could not decide what to think. But, then, Conan Doyle had always had that effect on her.

  A tiny smile played upon Ceridwen’s lips and she shivered again at the caress of the cool breeze upon her flesh. I think it must be his eyes, she thought. Yes. His eyes. There’s iron there.

  She danced over to the open doors and stepped into the warmth of the sun. Her flesh absorbed it, the heat radiating down to her bones. Ceridwen went to her knees on the stone patio and glanced around the garden. It was a pitiful thing, with little variety and less vigor, but she would soon see to that. With a satisfied sigh she plunged her fingers into the soil and she felt the life there. The earth responded to her touch, quivering beneath her. There was so much she could do here. The garden needed color and wild scents. And water. She would want a fountain, built of stone and with the water summoned from deep within the earth, a spring she would create by simply asking the water to flow upward.

  Elemental magick was her very pulse.

  As Ceridwen smiled, sprouts burst from the soil, a trio of small buds that grew rapidly to full-fledged flowers, the same violet as her eyes. They smelled of vanilla and oranges and they grew only in Faerie, only within the walls of Finvarra’s kingdom.

  Unless she willed it.

  They were the merest fraction of the color and life she would bring to this garden. But now she had other duties to attend to. A different sort of summoning to answer. Ceridwen stood and stretched, enjoying the sun on her body. The walls around the garden courtyard were high. Anyone inside Conan Doyle’s house might see her, but she knew he had thrown up wards to keep away the attentions of prying neighbors. Not that she minded. Women of the Fey were never coy about their bodies. In its way, the flesh was the fifth element, after fire, air, water and earth. She only wished she could control her flesh as easily as she did the others.

  With a sigh she slipped back into her bedroom, calling a small breeze to blow the French doors closed, just softly enough not to shatter the glass. The only things of hers she had already brought into her suite were some of the clothes she had kept in the guest room upstairs. Now she examined the closet and chose a light gown the color of the winter sea. Once she had slipped it on she also donned a hooded cloak of a blue deeper and richer than the gown.

  Eve wanted to take her shopping for clothes more appropriate for the modern human world. Ceridwen felt that since she had decided to remain for a time, perhaps she would take the vampire up on this offer. At the very least, it ought to be an entertaining evening out. Beyond their fondness for Arthur, the two women had little in common.

  Ceridwen retrieved her elemental staff from its place by the door, the wood cleaving to her grip and the fire within the icy sphere at its tip glowing brightly within. Another wind blew up and closed the door behind her as she went out into the corridor.

  This part of the old house was silent… what Arthur and his former associate, the disquieting Mr. Gull, were doing on the roof had no echo down here. Ceridwen liked it this way. In Faerie, everything was alive and vibrant. There was a beauty and sublime rightness to the dwellings of the Fey, particularly
the homes constructed in the boughs of trees, but something about mortal houses brought her an inner peace. There was an elegance and a sense of artistry in a dwelling such as this one that she could appreciate in quiet moments.

  Now, though, was no time for reflection.

  Ceridwen swept along the corridor, a blue mist swirling around the ice atop her staff, her cloak nearly brushing the floor. They would all have gathered upon the roof by now and might already be awaiting her. Yet even as she thought this, Ceridwen passed a pair of large doors that had been thrown open and saw within the vast spectacle of Conan Doyle’s library. Nostalgia bloomed within her, a feeling rare for one of her race. Yet it was powerful enough to pause her in her purpose and divert her into that massive hall. For calling it a room would not do it justice.

  The library was a glorious place, fully four stories high with nothing but bookshelves along the walls, save for the large skylights far above. The center was open and filled with comfortable chairs in which to cozy up and read. Stairs led up to the second floor, which was little more than a balcony that ran around the perimeter, looking down upon the first. The third floor balcony was slightly narrower, and the fourth the narrowest of all, so that the vast open air of the library grew wider the higher one climbed.

  "Wonderful," Ceridwen whispered to herself. She could recall long hours spent here on the occasions when she had come back to the mortal world — what her people called the Blight — with Arthur.

  Yet the immediacy of their situation beckoned. She turned to leave, but even as she did so, she caught sight of another figure moving across the balcony on the second story. It was only a glimpse, as he moved into one of the many alcoves of bookshelves, but there was no mistaking the leathery skin and small, sharp horns.

  Ceridwen went softly up the stairs to the second floor and moved around the circumference of the room, along the balustrade, to the alcove where he had disappeared. Danny Ferrick had his back to her and wore small silver headphones. She knew that music somehow came from such things but she could not see its source. The demon boy nodded along in time with the rhythm and had not noticed Ceridwen’s arrival. For several moments she watched him curiously as he withdrew certain volumes from the shelves and perused them. Conan Doyle had one of the most extraordinary libraries in the world, replete not only with the summary accumulation of human wisdom, but with the secrets of the occult as well. The true histories of the world. Revelations of ancient societies. Lost worlds. Other dimensions. Many of the books in the library were unique and thought to have been lost at the time of the burning of the library of Alexandria.

  A young man with an interest in the supernatural could learn a great deal in this hall.

  She tapped him on the shoulder. "Danny."

  "Fuck!" he snarled, spinning to face her and backing away at the same time. Fright and aggression warred in his eyes, and then he saw who had disturbed him, and he let out a long breath, relaxing into his sagging, teenager posture.

  "You wear the face of his enemy and yet still call upon the man-god of your parents’ religion?" Ceridwen asked.

  The demon boy leaned back and gazed up at the sunlight streaming in through the windows in the ceiling high above. He waved a clawed hand. "Well, He hasn’t struck me with lightning yet, so either He isn’t listening or I’m getting the benefit of the doubt. My guess is, you don’t get judged on your gene pool, but how you swim in it."

  "I am amazed at how often I have no idea what you’re talking about."

  Danny looked at her and shook his head. "Damn. You and everyone else around here. Squire’s the only one who doesn’t give me that confused look, and that’s because he’s more of a kid than I am. If he’s got a mom somewhere, I got a feeling she’s pretty horrified. Maybe that’s why we get along."

  "You do yourself a disservice, Daniel. You have earned the respect and fondness of every resident of this house. Dr. Graves in particular."

  The teenager shrugged. "He’s cool. You’ve all been pretty much all right by me. Except maybe Mr. Doyle. I don’t think he likes me very much."

  He gazed over the edge of the balustrade, down at the first floor, and he said it carelessly. But Ceridwen could see in his eyes that he did care, quite a bit.

  "You might be surprised. I think Arthur fears for you, Danny. That is the concern you see in him."

  The demon boy did not respond to that. He appeared to think it over a moment and then only nodded, keeping his own counsel. At length he walked past her and started perusing the shelves again, but halfheartedly, including her in his observations.

  "This is a pretty amazing place, isn’t it? I mean, it’s so giant I have a hard time figuring out how it fits inside the house. From the inside it seems big enough that there shouldn’t be room for anything else. No bedrooms, no parlors, no dining room. It’s weird. Maybe it’s an optical illusion or something."

  Ceridwen smiled. "Something like that."

  Danny had begun to run his fingers along a line of books, reading the titles silently to himself, but at her response he paused and regarded her.

  "No. Uh uh. Don’t do that. I know that tone of voice. Okay, so there’s stuff I don’t know. I’m a moron. Well, un-idiot me. Fill me in. What’s the secret of this place?"

  She lost her smile. "You’re right, of course. You are young, but you’ve earned the right not to be treated as a child. My apologies."

  Danny grinned. "Well, you don’t have to be so fucking serious about it."

  The mischief in the boy’s eyes was contagious. Ceridwen found herself laughing softly along with him. As they spoke their voices echoed in the vast chamber. She gestured upward.

  "You are correct. It is much too large to fit inside Arthur’s house. The truth is that it isn’t inside the house at all. It’s… elsewhere. And the door is just a door that leads to that elsewhere. If you were to go up through that skylight, it wouldn’t be Boston unfolding around you."

  "Where are we, then?" Danny asked, sounding more than a little concerned.

  Ceridwen considered a moment before replying. "I don’t know. I also don’t know how the library is summoned. Sometimes it is here, and sometimes it isn’t. The doors appear wherever they like in the house. The library is only available when it is needed, even if your need is only for pleasant distraction, for there are storybooks in here as well."

  As she spoke, the two of them strolled along the second floor balcony. Ceridwen held her staff in one hand and ran her fingers over the smooth mahogany of the balustrade with the other. She could not help admiring the simple luxury of the great library. Danny kept moving along the shelves. They momentarily came to another, far larger alcove, set into the wall. There was an identical alcove on each floor of the library. The books here had a certain scent to them… a kind of wild, musty odor. Some of them were bound in leather as ancient as Eve herself, others in materials that could only be found in Faerie, or in other worlds.

  Danny slid one of the books from the shelf, a heavy, dusty tome with a weathered cover and a lock that fell away at his touch. He began to lift the cover.

  "Stop!" Ceridwen shouted, lunging for him and swatting the book from his hands with a swing of her staff. She watched breathlessly for a moment as it tumbled to the floor and slammed closed upon impact.

  "What the hell?" Danny demanded.

  "This section," she said, gesturing with her staff toward that wide alcove, fingers of blue fire shooting from the ice sphere atop it to touch the rest of this particular collection on the first, third, and fourth floors. "This is the bestiary. And it is off-limits to you."

  "Why?" The boy was clearly angry. He crossed his arms. "Is the old man afraid I’ll do something stupid? Or something evil?"

  Ceridwen flinched. So that was what the boy thought? That Arthur believed he would cleave eventually unto his father’s demonic nature. Well, and perhaps it was so, but only time would tell.

  "Neither, Daniel," she said. "Do you know what those books contain?"

  He
rolled his eyes. "Hello? You wouldn’t let me open one to find out. But from the titles, I’m guessing Monster 101. Bestiary, right? So pictures of giants, vampires, goblins, trolls, all that kind of stuff. Big deal. Why are they off limits?"?Ceridwen frowned. "They are indeed full of monsters."

  "They’re pictures!"

  "Yes," she agreed. "But sometimes they get loose."

  The boy stared at her with wide eyes. Ceridwen only nodded in confirmation and took him by the arm to lead him down the stairs to the first floor. As she escorted him out into the hallway and then toward the front of the house, she lowered her voice.

  "We must move along, now. Arthur will be expecting us. Off to Greece, he said?"

  "Yeah," Danny agreed. "Some island of lesbians."

  Ceridwen arched one thin eyebrow. "I believe it is called Lesbos."

  "Okay. That’s not nearly as much fun, but okay."

  They started up the main staircase toward the roof. She let her senses become attuned to the air, moved it around, felt for the presence of others, just in case Gull’s associates were lingering nearby. Though there was no sign they were not alone, still she lowered her voice.

  "From the moment we set off on our journey with Mr. Gull, you will have an assignment of your own."

  Danny paused on the stairs and gave her a secretive glance. "Yeah?" he asked in a whisper.

  "You must do something for Arthur and me. You must keep watch over the girl, Jezebel, to see if there is any sign of duplicity among Gull and his companions."

  "Jezebel?"

  "It shouldn’t be difficult, Daniel. You can barely keep your eyes off of her," Ceridwen said, smiling sweetly.

  He grinned. "It’ll be pretty painless. But why Jezebel and not that Hawkins guy? She’s pretty wacko, but he seems way more slimy."

  Ceridwen nodded. "Eve will be looking after Mr. Hawkins for precisely that reason. He is too dangerous for you to make an enemy of him. Should he take a dislike to you, Hawkins could kill you out of sheer boredom."

  She started up the stairs once more, but Danny did not move. Ceridwen looked back down at him. "What is it?"