Carnival of Stone: A Novella (The Soren Chase Series)

by Rob Blackwell

  He wasn’t focused on her words anymore, just replaying events in his mind. What had his first assumption been? He’d thought the professor and his team had discovered the gorgon by accident up here. But then he’d figured out that was untrue. Emily had led them to the gorgon.

  Only what if she hadn’t? What if she wasn’t up here to find the gorgon at all? He knew very little about the creature except for a few pages in a book of Greek myths. And even the legends didn’t agree on their origins. Some myths said gorgons were monsters from the deep sea, but others said they were beautiful women, cursed by the gods for their vanity.

  Soren knew myths were unreliable, but there was usually a hint of the truth hidden inside them. He’d known many monsters that could change forms. Hell, most of them could. It was a lot easier to walk around in the mortal world if you could fake looking like a human. But gorgons were supposed to be different.

  “You’re not commanding the gorgon,” Soren said.

  Emily smiled again and put a finger to her nose.

  “A little slow on the uptake, aren’t we?” she said. “You thought I was controlling the monster. I understand. But now you know the truth.”

  Without warning, the snakes surged forward. Soren automatically put his hands to his face, convinced they were coming at him. Instead, they wrapped themselves around Emily and began crawling up the length of her body. There were dozens, then hundreds, suddenly upon her.

  As they went, they ate her clothing, revealing pale flesh that was changing even as Soren watched it. Many of the snakes appeared to be biting her, but then sinking inside of her, joining their bodies to hers. As they did, he saw her legs turn gray and begin to gleam. As Soren watched, her flesh became scaly.

  Soren looked at Emily’s face. There was no pain there, only an expression of pure ecstasy.

  He watched as her legs fused together and expanded, turning into a giant tail. Other snakes continued up her body, disappearing into her stomach and then her breasts, turning them into the grayish scales her legs had become. The serpents slithered into her arms, and as they did her hands transformed into claws.

  Finally several that Soren felt sure were copperheads slithered all the way up Emily’s face and into her mass of hair. They began eating her hair until there was nothing left but the snakes, now were attached to her skull.

  Her mouth opened to reveal large fangs and another snake as her tongue. Yet she seemed to have no trouble speaking.

  “I am the monster,” she said.

  Emily was the gorgon. And in that moment, Soren realized he was staring directly into her eyes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Glen picked himself off the ground slowly, still woozy from the blow to the head.

  He couldn’t believe Emily had hit him. He didn’t have a good idea of why she had, but he understood this: she clearly wasn’t on his team.

  He paused a moment as the world came back into focus and started walking forward, one hand still clutching his face. Given Emily’s desire to go after Soren and the professor, he assumed that was the direction she’d headed in. After a moment, when he felt on surer footing, he started running.

  Glen didn’t know what to do, but he wasn’t going to leave Soren to die. As he ran, he realized he had no weapons and no way of knowing what he was running into. Soren had the gun; Glen just had a mirror. And if Soren was being attacked by a bunch of snakes, that wasn’t going to help very much. He would be far better off letting the monster turn Soren into stone and running for help elsewhere. It was the sane, logical thing to do.

  Yet he had no intention of doing it. Terry had given him a specific task and he knew better than to disappoint the old man. Besides, some part of him had started to like Soren. You almost had to admire someone brave enough to walk into this mess. Glen didn’t think he would have on his own.

  He held on to some thin ray of hope that he could improvise his way out of this. Glen stumbled into the forest and was struck first by the silence. Just a few minutes ago, all he’d been able to hear was hissing, and that had curiously stopped. Unless the snakes had moved miles away, he didn’t understand why.

  And then he heard something else, a harsh, guttural voice that sounded so awful it made Glen want to clap his hands over his ears.

  “I am the monster,” it said.

  Glen came around from behind a tree and saw it, a huge, misshapen creature that looked like a cross between a person and a gigantic snake. It was facing away from him, staring directly into Soren’s eyes. Soren was just standing there, looking at it in surprise. He was so motionless, Glen wondered if Soren was in the process of being turned to stone.

  Glen whipped the mirror out of his pocket and charged forward. In his mind, he issued a battle call, but he knew better than to utter it out loud. If he held any advantage at all, it was in a surprise attack.

  On that front, at least, his assault was a success. He tried not to look at the creature as he came toward it, keeping his eyes on the ground, but was aware of two things: there were no more snakes and the thing was now looking at him.

  Which also meant it was looking directly into the mirror. Glen wasn’t sure what he expected. He had visions of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz screaming, “I’m melting, I’m melting,” but nothing like that occurred. Instead, he heard the sound of snakes chuckling. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to Glen. Up until that moment, he’d never considered the possibility that snakes could laugh, or make any kind of sound beside a hiss. This sounded like an amused hiss, if such a thing were even possible.

  “Kind of you,” the gorgon said. “I do so love to take a look at myself gussied up this way. It’s hard to get my hair just-so.”

  The next moment, a gigantic snake’s tail wrapped around Glen’s waist. It was hideous and scaly, but the worst part about it was the way the scales pulsed and moved as if there were living beings underneath them.

  Of course there are, Glen realized. That thing is Emily and that’s where all the snakes went.

  It seemed like a crazy idea but Glen felt he was right. Before he could consider it further, the gorgon yanked Glen into the air and he fought to keep the mirror between his face and the monster.

  “You really think you can turn my own power against me?” the gorgon said, and her voice even sounded like Emily’s, only deeper and more terrifying. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you read. Come now, does that make any sense? Could a dragon be hurt by its own fire? Could a scorpion be killed by its own venom? Yet another dangerous assumption you two have made. You really should work on that.”

  The tail squeezed Glen and he cried out in pain. It felt like his insides were being slowly crushed. It was so intense he nearly dropped the mirror, but barely held on to it. It was the only thing keeping him from being turned to stone.

  He saw movement to the side and looked to see Soren, unaccountably not turned to stone, picking a gun off the ground. Glen watched him calmly reload it even as he felt his rib cage was about to be crushed.

  “Hey, ugly,” Soren shouted.

  Glen couldn’t see the gorgon’s face, but he knew it must have turned in Soren’s direction. Soren kept a hand in front of his face, clearly shading his eyes from the thing’s gaze, and fired off several rounds.

  The gorgon let out a piercing scream and the tail around Glen uncoiled, dropping him to the ground. He felt the wind knocked out of him. He looked over, hoping to see a wounded gorgon. But the gun didn’t appear to do much damage. Some of the shots must have ricocheted off of her, blocked by the scales. Others had connected, forming tiny holes in the creature’s otherwise large torso. He saw blood seeping out of them.

  “I will tear you apart for that,” the gorgon wailed.

  Her giant body slithered forward, attacking Soren while he continued firing until his gun was out of ammo. Then Soren did something completely unexpected. He threw the gun to the ground and rushed the gorgon head on.

  The man was insane. He should be
running, screaming or dying—possibly all three at once. Instead he was rushing a creature that towered over him at roughly nine feet and whose bulk was three times as large.

  But Soren charged it like a linebacker in a football game, grappling with its large, misshapen claws as they tried to tear at his face. Soren even managed to dodge the snakes on the gorgon’s head, which snapped frenetically at him. He was trying to wrestle the creature.

  “I don’t understand,” the gorgon rasped. “I looked into your eyes. You should be stone!”

  Soren’s attack didn’t last long. The tail that had been holding Glen wrapped itself around Soren’s body and then held him in the air. Soren was looking anywhere but at its face.

  “Look at me again!” the thing screamed. “Look into my eyes!”

  But Soren was pointedly not doing what he was told. Glen heard him scream as the tail began to crush him. Glen had to do something. He looked around for anything to hit the gorgon with, perhaps a large branch he could use as a weapon. There had to be some way to distract her from crushing Soren.

  That was when he spotted the dead professor on the ground. Next to him was a shotgun.

  Glen didn’t wait, but sprinted behind the gorgon, which was completely ignoring him, and ran to grab the gun. He hoped a blast from it could do some damage against the creature.

  Glen looked up to see the gorgon’s tail whipping back and forth, shaking Soren like a ragdoll. His body had gone limp. Glen hoped he wasn’t dead already. But Glen knew he was out of time. He either acted now or they were both finished.

  He reached the shotgun and picked it off the ground. He ran back towards the monster, now only a few feet away. She was still concentrating so fiercely on Soren that she hadn’t noticed him.

  Glen aimed his shot at the gorgon’s torso. He couldn’t aim it at her face because he was afraid to look there.

  “Hey, Medusa!” Glen yelled. “Try turning this to stone!”

  He saw her head whip around out of his peripheral vision, but he knew better than to look her in the eye. He fired the shotgun several times, trying to pump the barrel like he’d seen in the movies. The gun made several weak clicks, but didn’t fire a shot. It wasn’t loaded.

  “This just isn’t my day,” Glen said, staring at the shotgun in horror.

  The gorgon flung Soren into the air, and his body fell to the ground. Glen decided to avail himself of the only option he had left. He dropped the useless shotgun and ran.

  The gorgon was after him in an instant. He heard an angry hiss and the sound of her slithering across the ground in quick pursuit. Behind him, Glen could hear the sounds of trees being smashed by her giant tail.

  Glen ran without direction, adrenaline and terror providing a brief but critical burst of speed. He didn’t dare look back, partly out of fear he would trip and partly because he worried he would look into the thing’s eyes.

  He knew he was leaving Soren behind, but there was nothing he could do for him anymore. At least he’d successfully drawn the gorgon’s attention.

  Glen could hear the creature gaining, the hiss growing louder as he sprinted out of the forest and onto the road. He kept running, but could feel his strength flagging. He was doomed. He didn’t know where he was headed and it was only a matter of time before the thing caught up with him.

  He glanced up the road, hoping to see something—anything—that could help him. Almost like it was summoned from his thoughts, he saw a blue car moving toward him at a breakneck pace. The car was kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake and appeared to be moving far faster than it should on the dirt road.

  Glen didn’t care, he just felt a surge of hope. Maybe it was Jay coming back to camp to kill the monster. He didn’t know how Jay had survived and it didn’t matter. He and Soren would be saved.

  He risked a glance behind, expecting to see the gorgon gaining on him. Instead, it had vanished. It must have seen the car and hidden somewhere. Glen hoped it wasn’t going back for Soren.

  He began running at the car, waving his arms in a gesture that clearly meant he needed help. But the car didn’t slow down. Doubts began to gnaw at him. He realized he’d seen the car before, just recently. It had been parked outside a building in D.C. when he was downtown.

  The thought didn’t have time to fully connect. Looking at the driver’s side, he couldn’t see anyone there.

  Oh my God, Glen thought. That car is driving itself.

  He realized his mistake a minute later. There was a driver there; he was just too short to properly see over the steering wheel. Glen abruptly knew who was in the car and why it looked so familiar.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  The car braked suddenly, the abrupt deceleration kicking up another cloud of dust that wafted toward Glen. He stood in the center of the road uncertain of where to run as the driver stepped out of the car.

  “Top o’ the morning to ya, ya mutherfookin’ yob,” the leprechaun said.

  The passenger door opened and the other leprechaun got out. This one didn’t bother to talk. Instead, he aimed what looked like a small machine gun at Glen and began firing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Soren woke up in a daze, his head feeling like it had been hit with a hammer.

  He sat up abruptly, which only made the situation worse. The world seemed to tilt and spin around him, nearly making him throw up. It was the second time in less than an hour that his head had been hit by something heavy. In this case, it was the ground, not a rock, but the effect was identical.

  He looked around to find himself alone in the forest. Glen wasn’t there, but neither was the gorgon. The only person nearby was the professor, and he was beyond anyone’s assistance.

  Soren put his hand to his head and massaged his temple. He didn’t know what had made him charge the gorgon. It was beyond stupid, a fight he couldn’t hope to win. But when the bullets didn’t connect, he couldn’t think of what else to do.

  Tangling with the thing had made him even warier of it. Its flesh pulsated and moved. It turned out that a gorgon wasn’t so much a single monster as it was a collection of other creatures, a living entity made from a swirling mass of snakes. Just remembering the way its body had felt when he touched it made him want to vomit. Or maybe that was because the world was still spinning. It was hard to be sure.

  He heard the sound of a car nearby, its engine roaring. Maybe Glen had found a car and was escaping. But that didn’t seem probable. Soren had seen the camp; there had been no vehicle nearby.

  He stood up and brushed himself off. Soren eyed the forest warily, halfway expecting the gorgon to attack again. But there was no sign of her. Instead, he could barely hear the sound of a car. If it wasn’t Glen, he wondered who the hell would be driving out here.

  A dark thought occurred to him. He thought of the repeated spam phone calls he’d been receiving.

  “Shit,” he said.

  The thought seemed to clear his head and the world righted itself. Soren took off at a jog at first and then a full out run, sprinting to the edge of the forest just in time to see Glen standing in the middle of the road waving his arms frantically at the approaching car.

  Soren knew immediately who was in the vehicle. Somehow the two leprechauns had traced him here using the cell phone calls. He’d hung up fast, but it must have been enough time for them to get a bead on his location.

  He also realized that Glen was a dead man if he didn’t move quickly.

  Soren darted out into the road as the car ground to a halt. He saw Lochlan hop out and say something, followed a moment later by Keevan. When the latter leprechaun began firing, Soren leapt into the air, knocking Glen out of the way as the bullets blew past where he had been standing.

  The two hit the ground on the other side of the road and rolled for a moment in the grass. Soren didn’t pause, but heaved Glen behind a large tree. Soren heard coughing from Keevan and Lochlan and knew the dust the car had kicked up must have momentari
ly blinded them, giving Soren and Glen a precious extra few seconds. He took cover behind the tree.

  “This is a really bad time, Lochlan!” Soren shouted. “Could you come back and try to kill me later?”

  “Soren, it’s wonderful to hear yer fine voice,” Lochlan said. “Thank ya so much for taking our calls earlier. From what I understand, humans can track phones by hacking them, but the magical way is so much more fun. Yer signal was a little tricky to find up here, but with a magical boost, I got ya. I do so love tha little trick.”

  There was another round of gunfire and the tree they were hiding behind was quickly obliterated. Soren grabbed Glen and pulled him into the grass, again narrowly missing the gunfire.

  “I’m not kidding, Lochlan!” Soren said. “There’s a monster out here.”

  “I do my research,” Lochlan said. “I never come into a place unprepared. We heard what’s out here. The boss says there’s a cockatrice in the area. Well, I got a cock it can trice right here. Do ya see what I did there, Keevan? I made a small joke.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Soren said.

  “Everyone’s a critic,” Lochlan replied. “Our boss wants us to grab the thing too.”

  Soren was stunned by how much Lochlan knew. Granted, they were facing a gorgon, not a cockatrice, but Soren thought they were, for all practical purposes, the same thing. But how did Lochlan know there was something here at all? He could understand tracing him by phone, but it wasn’t like it was common knowledge there was a cockatrice/gorgon in Hilltop. He looked over at Glen, who shook his head, apparently understanding the question in Soren’s head.

  “I’d like to have a word with ya,” Lochlan said. “There’s still time to come out of this alive.”

  Soren sincerely doubted that was true. If the leprechauns didn’t kill him, the gorgon would. As soon as the sentence flitted through his mind, he burst out laughing. It wasn’t every case where you could say something as crazy as that.

  Still, he stood up and dusted himself off.