Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie)

by Thomas E. Sniegoski Christopher Golden

  "Hello there, are you Bob, then?" Hawkins asked the driver.

  The young man with the black suit and the E. POWELL sign flinched and then looked Hawkins up and down in frank appraisal.

  "Can I help you, sir?" the driver asked.

  "You are Bob, yes?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Ah, excellent," Hawkins said. "I apologize for keeping you waiting. I missed my flight and had to take the next one. I know you’ve been here for quite some time . . . two hours, is it? I’ll make sure to add a large gratuity to the company charge."

  Bob smiled in relief. "You’re Mr. Powell," he said. "I was beginning to wonder if I was in the wrong place. I called in, and they said to wait another twenty minutes or so. Truth is, I was about to leave."

  Hawkins glanced over his shoulder at Gull and Jezebel. "Well, then it seems we’ve arrived just in time."

  The driver frowned, glancing once at the others but then trying his best not to see them, Gull because of his hideousness, Jezebel because of her beauty. "Oh. I didn’t realize there were three of you. The slip said one passenger."

  "Is that a problem?"

  "No. No, of course not. There’s plenty of room, Mr. Powell."

  Then he smiled and opened the door for Gull and Jezebel. They climbed into the expansive rear of the limousine, and she stretched out full length on one of the seats, instantly asleep. Moments later Bob was sliding behind the wheel and Hawkins was climbing into the rear of the limousine, and then they were drawing away from the airport.

  Above them, the clouds had all but disappeared. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun shone warmly down upon the limousine as it made its way toward the heart of Boston.

  "Oh, Bob," Hawkins called.

  "Yes, Mr. Powell?"

  "Change of destination, my boy. We’re going to be staying with a local associate this trip."

  "Whatever you say, sir. So, where are we headed?" the driver asked.

  "Beacon Hill," Gull replied, his mind darkening with memory now. "Louisburg Square. I’ve come to visit an old friend."

  "Yeah," Bob said, nodding sagely. "That’s nice. Visiting old friends."

  Gull gazed out the window, but he could no longer see the beautiful day that Jezebel had given him. His eyes stared, instead, into the shadows of the past.

  The ninth of August 1902. Coronation Day. But Nigel Gull had neither the inclination nor the invitation to attend Edward’s installment as king. Even if he had, he had spent the day and the evening performing a different service to the Crown. It was long after dark, now, when sensible people were in their beds. Gull rarely slept.

  The rail station at Clapham Junction was dark and deserted as he made his way along the platform, gaze plumbing the shadows all around. It had begun to rain an hour or two before, and the storm cast a shroud upon everything it touched. Gull’s eyesight was keen, however, and the rain would not inhibit him. He could see, for instance, that nothing moved in the gallery on the far side of the tracks, where passengers would await the morning train come dawn. Within the station itself, all seemed still and undisturbed. Yet he could feel it. In the damp air there were traces of malign magick, echoes of a sinister presence. Gull thought the author of such dark deeds was no longer at the scene, but caution guided him, nevertheless.

  Three separate sets of rails ran through Clapham Junction. On the center track there sat a charcoal black steam engine with the number one painted on its face in silver. Rain pelted it, making it gleam even in the dark. No steam rose from the engine, but it seemed a watchful thing, just the same, as though it might burst to sudden life at any moment. Behind it was a single coal tender, and attached to that, two elegant Pullman cars with crimson wooden panels beneath each window and gilt stenciling above. It was a private train and spoke of powerful wealth.

  Gull leaped from the platform into the rain. It streamed down his misshapen face, a moist caress that only served to remind him of his appearance. He shook off the rain and dipped his chin, feeling the storm at his back as he crossed the first set of tracks. The engine’s cab was dark but that was his first stop. Gull climbed up inside Number One and found it empty as he had expected.

  He moved more quietly now, slipping out of the cab to the ground. The rain was cold and cruel, punishing him as he crept slowly along beside the tender until he reached the steps up onto the first Pullman. Hand on the rail, he went up and then found himself before the ornate door of the car. Gull muttered to himself a few words of ancient Aramaic, and the fingers of his left hand began to burn with a tainted yellow light. For illumination, and for defense, in case his instincts were wrong and the culprit remained.

  The door swung open easily. Gull moved into the car and raised his hand, splashing a sickly golden glow across the car. His breath caught. The opulence of the Pullman was startling. The floor was covered with Oriental carpet, the windows curtained by velvet drapes. A trio of crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, and the windows were etched glass. The wood gleamed richly.

  The car was empty.

  Gull would have sensed anything lurking in the shadows through his light. There was nothing beneath the tables here.

  He hurried, now, moving through the Pullman as swiftly as he was able. When he reached the door at the other end he paused only a moment before drawing open the door.

  The dead girl lay on the platform between trains. Her hair was dark, but might have been lighter were it not sodden with the rain. Her body had been forced through an opening in the ornate railings and she was splayed there, her arms spread out, her head hanging several inches from the platform, thrown back, mouth wide open.

  She was unclothed, her flesh pale, save where arcane symbols had been carved into her. The storm had washed the blood away. Tiny puddles of rainwater had accumulated in the hollows of her eyes, and the storm had filled her open mouth as well. Rain dribbled from one corner of her lips, sluicing down her cheek and falling down into the space between cars.

  She was no more than seven.

  Nigel Gull knew his own heart. There was little therein that was spectacularly noble. Yet the sight tore at him. The villain was gone, the one responsible for the girl’s death, who had killed her in ritual sacrifice as part of some spell to hide himself. He had attempted to murder King Edward on this eve of his coronation, not expecting other mages to be there to prevent it. Then he had fled here.

  Had he found the girl somewhere along the way, or kept her awaiting her demise as a prisoner in the luxury of his private train . . . just in case he needed her life? Gull found he did not want to know the answer.

  But he needed to know.

  And though it made him shudder to think of it, though his spirit cried out that it was an abomination in itself, he realized he knew a way to retrieve that information. Nigel Gull had learned from the greatest of mages, Lorenzo Sanguedolce, the man many called Sweetblood, the literal translation of his name. The mage’s other apprentice had been horrified, but Sanguedolce himself had not passed judgment at all, when Gull had looked too deeply into ancient Egyptian magicks that had been forbidden even to the high priests of that age. He had acquired certain hideous skills on that night, at the cost of his face, and he had never yet employed them.

  But this . . . it seemed almost as though his sacrifice on that evening several years past had been in preparation for this. For one of those skills was The Voice of the Dead.

  Sickened, stomach churning, but more determined now than he had ever felt, Gull stepped through the opening in the railing and straddled the platforms between the two Pullman cars. He clutched the railing and leaned over far enough that he could slide his free hand beneath the dangling head of the dead girl. Rain spilled off of her eyes, and some slid from her mouth. One of the sigils sliced in her chest opened slightly, the wound resembled an eyelid, leaking pink tears.

  Gull stared into her face. Perfect, shattered innocence. He closed his own eyes tightly and drew a breath to steady himself. Then he pulled her head toward him an
d placed his lips over hers in a grotesque kiss. Lifting and tilting her head all at once, he drank the rainwater from the mouth of the dead girl as though her skull was his goblet.

  "Dear God, Gull! What are you doing?"

  Startled, he let the girl’s head drop, leaving her wedged into the railing, and crossed over the small gap above the coupling to the second Pullman car, turning all in the same motion to face the figure who had appeared so suddenly behind him. The horror and disgust in the new arrival’s tone was engraved upon his features as well, but the man did not seem surprised. It was, rather, as though his discovery of Gull in the midst of such an apparently odious act only confirmed what he had always believed.

  "Well, well, well . . ." Gull said, feeling the magick working within him, feeling the thoughts and feelings of the dead girl fill him. Her name had been Carolyn but everyone called her Cass. She was from Derbyshire. The sorcerer had stolen her from her own bed before coming to London to kill the king.

  "Speak up, man!" the other demanded.

  Even as Gull continued on. "If it isn’t Sir Arthur."

  Conan Doyle flinched. Rain dripped from his mustache, plastering it to his face. Gull wanted to smile at the sight of the distaste in his eyes, but he was too connected now to the echo of the girl that was inside him. Still, he saw it. Even as he tried to make sense of what he’d found Gull engaged in, Conan Doyle was bristling at the insult. For during the coronation ceremony, he had been knighted by the king. The man had spent his life in service to his country as a doctor, a writer, and an outspoken private citizen, working tirelessly against the enemies of the Crown, but disdained the idea of a reward. In truth he had accepted only to avoid insult to the king, and the wrath of his aging mother.

  Gull knew this, and it made him all the more bitter. Conan Doyle was his friend and his fellow apprentice to Sanguedolce, but he had not the other man’s station or experience. He would have sacrificed almost anything for such an honor.

  "I’ll have an answer," Conan Doyle said, the suspicion in his gaze now burning with a crackle of blue magick. The energy misted from his eyes and sparked around his fingers.

  "Ah, you think me the villain now," Gull said. "Of course. The freak, the twisted one, is tainted so he must be evil. You’re so very predictable, Sir Arthur."

  "Stop calling me that!" Conan Doyle snarled.

  A fight was in the offing. But Gull knew they could not afford the indulgence. The true villain was escaping, and the dead, violated flesh of the innocent he had destroyed was only growing colder.

  "My name is Cass," he said . . . but it was not really Gull who spoke. His mouth moved, and he generated the words as if reading them from the echoes of the dead girl’s spirit that moved within him, but it was her voice.

  The Voice of the Dead.

  "He is a tall man, thin, and he wears spectacles. His jacket is long and fancy. His name is Graham," Gull went on, the sweet, angelic voice of the murdered girl issuing from his lips.

  Conan Doyle recoiled, taking a step back into the open door of the Pullman. "What black sorcery is this, Gull? This is the gift you received from Anubis, the power for which you let yourself be disfigured?"

  "Only one of them," Gull replied, still in the voice of the dead girl. "Only one. And would you not listen, now, Arthur? Is your disdain so great you will not hear the voice of this savaged child, so that we might find her defiler?"

  Conan Doyle’s mouth opened, his expression revealing his intent to deliver a righteous tirade. But then his gaze shifted to the naked, carved body of the girl, and he faltered. Anger burned in his eyes but the spark of magick in them receded. His fists clenched at his side, and he nodded once.

  "Go on."

  Gull felt for the echoes within him again and once more spoke in the Voice of the Dead, searching the fragments of her spirit for the clues that would lead them to her killer. He felt confident it would work. It must work. The friendship he had shared with Conan Doyle, tenuous as it had always been, would never be the same after this. Gull knew it even then. But he was no stranger to sacrifice, when the stakes were high enough, and he accepted this loss without hesitation.

  "He spoke of Norwich as home," said the dead girl’s voice.

  Conan Doyle nodded. "That may be where he’s headed."

  After he had finished conferring with his agents about their assignment in Greece, Conan Doyle excused himself and retreated deeper into the house. It was pleasant to have them all together beneath his roof, and he knew they would take some small time to socialize. This was only right and natural. And it was important, as well, for them to continue to get to know one another better, to develop their relationships. Sanguedolce had issued dire warnings upon Conan Doyle’s last encounter with him, and there was no doubt that the menagerie would be needed once again before long. He had not revealed to them all of what Sanguedolce had said to him about The DemoGorgon, an entity of cosmic evil that was, even now, making its way across the universe toward this world. He would bear the weight of that threat himself, for the moment, and do all he could to see that when the DemoGorgon arrived at last, they were prepared.

  But that was for another day, another year. Perhaps even another lifetime. For now, there were other threats and other concerns.

  Smoothing his jacket, tugging at his sleeves, he stood a bit straighter and made his way up the stairs. The banister was smooth under his touch. Upon the wall beside the stairs hung portraits of long ago friends such as Houdini and Barrie and Colonel Cody. Elsewhere in the house there were portraits of Innes and Jean and the Ma’am. All were remnants of another life, melancholy echoes of another age. Yet rather than sadden him, their presence comforted him and lent him strength.

  A smile pushed up the ends of his mustache as he crested the landing. Conan Doyle made his way down a long corridor, turned and followed another, and with every step he could feel the electric tingle of magick in the air. He breathed deeply, and on the air he caught the scent of flowers so sweet they could only grow in Faerie. That alone soothed him, the air of Faerie filling his lungs, refreshing him.

  Ceridwen stood at the end of the corridor, her long, lithe form draped in sheer silk the deep blue of the horizon just before sunset. The wind from Faerie blew through an open door, each gust causing the silk to cling to her sensuous form in such a way as to make his breath catch in his throat. The pain of regret still lingered between them and he had not dared to suggest that they might put aside the harms of the past, but there was no denying the emotion that remained.

  The door was the very one Conan Doyle had once used to leave her, to leave Faerie — he had thought forever. He had sealed it behind him, this passage between worlds, and only recently had been forced by circumstance to open it again, to return and plead for her aid. In the crisis that ensued, the passageway had been destroyed.

  Now, Ceridwen had rebuilt it. The question in Conan Doyle’s heart was, to what end?

  "You can return home, now," he said, damning himself for the quaver in his voice.

  Ceridwen stared a moment longer through the door. As Conan Doyle joined her, he could see the trees and hills of Faerie and a stream that flowed gently along a curving path, burbling over stones.

  Then the elemental sorceress, the niece of King Finvarra of the Fey, turned to him. Her features were fine and noble, cheekbones high, violet eyes wide and commanding. Yet he knew her. Loved her as no one ever had. And he saw the sadness and doubt in her gaze.

  "I could," she agreed. A glint of magic sparkled in her gaze. "And I could return, from time to time. This passage makes it convenient enough. For now, though . . . it seems to me that the recent troubles in Faerie were inextricably tied to the misery that befell this world. The connection between the two seems stronger than it has been in quite some time, so that what threatens one realm threatens them all. It may be that a new dark age is imminent. If so, I believe that I will do more good working with you and your clan here than at home."

  Her proud gaze faltered
a moment and she glanced away. Then she lifted her chin and met his eye. "That is, if you have no objection."

  Conan Doyle wanted to reach out to her, to pull her into his embrace and feel the soft silk of her robes beneath his touch. He wanted to laugh with surprise and pleasure. But Ceridwen would not have approved. He had hurt her badly, once upon a time. Perhaps there would come a time when all the detritus of their past could be brushed aside and the simple adoration they had once felt for each other could be reborn. For now, though, they were separated by the ruin of things that might have been. But Ceridwen wanted to stay, and that meant there was hope.

  "My dear, you are welcome in my home from this night until the last night of the world."

  Her pale, blue-white marbled skin flushed slightly pink, but only for a moment. Ceridwen nodded, softening. "I am pleased. We may be at the forefront of a new round of Twilight Wars, and there is no one at whose side I would rather fight."

  The blush of a smile whispered across her face and in her violet eyes he saw the innocent heart he had known, years before. It was gone, then, hidden beneath the hardened wisdom of the time since, but as Ceridwen nodded her thanks and then set off down the corridor away from him, Conan Doyle found happy contentment in the knowledge that it was still there, within her. Regardless of what might or might not happen between them in the future, he silently vowed never to disappoint her again.

  The roads were still slick with recent rain but the sky was crystal blue, the kind of day that seemed like a gift. Nigel Gull did not like the rain. It spoke to him with the voices of the dead, yet only in unintelligible whispers. The ghosts of words he couldn’t really hear. Now he sat in the back of the limousine and glanced at Jezebel, sleeping soundly where she lay sprawled on the seat, and he cherished her. She was always looking out for him, poor girl. Gull intended to return the favor.

  The windows were down slightly, and there was a salty tang to the air that blew in. A stranger to Boston, he had known it was near the ocean but had not understood exactly how integral was the relationship between city and harbor. Gull breathed in deeply, savoring the breeze.