Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie)

by Thomas E. Sniegoski Christopher Golden

  The cat continued to watch her with curious eyes. She found the key and pulled it from her bag.

  "Got it," she said, showing it to the animal. "Are you going to let me by?" she asked the cat.

  It studied her, extending its neck to sniff at her pants leg, as if considering her question. It looked up into her eyes again, meowed once, and left its perch, joining three other cats of various sizes and colors that had mysteriously appeared at the bottom of the steps.

  Julia found it odd and rather disconcerting the way they were watching her as she slid the key into the lock. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the cats weren’t ready to follow her, then quickly slipped into the house.

  The inside was eerily quiet.

  "Hello?" she called out, knowing no one was home, but wanting to be sure. The only sound was the ticking of a grandfather clock in a hallway off the foyer.

  Danny had asked her to bring a few of his favorite CDs, DVDs, and books the next time she was in the neighborhood. She had gone to see her therapist earlier that morning in Cambridge and decided she would stop in, so that his things would be waiting for him when he returned from wherever it was he had gone.

  She thought about her son quite a bit these days. What had Mr. Doyle called him? she thought, climbing the stairs to her son’s room. A changeling? A demon baby switched with a human child. It was the most insane thing she had ever heard, but the facts were all there. She remembered her child the way he had been before the onset of puberty, before the disturbing physical changes, and wanted to cry.

  Julia thought that she had gotten beyond all this, surprised that she even had any tears left, but there they were. She wished she could talk with her therapist about this, but of course, that was out of the question.

  She stopped on the stairs and took a deep breath, composing herself. No matter what he was, she still loved her Danny. He was still the child she had raised and loved with all her heart for sixteen years.

  It’s like if he was gay . . . but different. Really different.

  Julia set the bag of his things down as she entered his room on the second floor and breathed in the scent of him. Since beginning to change, her son had started to give off a strange aroma, a heavy musty scent not too far removed from the smoky smell of a wood-burning stove. His sweatshirt was on the floor at the foot of the bed and she bent down to pick it up, instinctively folding it and crossing the room to place it on the edge of the bed. She wondered where he was and if he was safe. She felt a certain peace knowing that Dr. Graves had promised to look after him, and smiled at the thought the man. He was good for her son, despite the fact that he was . . . what he was. Dr. Graves knew how to put her fears at ease, and because of that she had developed quite a fondness for him.

  Julia picked up the shopping bag and placed it on Danny’s bed, wanting him to see that she had brought his things, to know that she was thinking of him. Always thinking of him. Then she left the room, closing the door gently behind her, and headed down the stairs to the foyer. She had just placed her hand on the crystal doorknob, when she heard the sound.

  A strange thumping noise came from the hall closet. Julia held her breath, her chest aching with fear. She knew she should leave, maybe call the police, but found herself strangely drawn to the sound.

  What the hell are you doing? An inner voice screamed as she slowly reached for the knob. Again she heard the noise, and immediately pulled her hand back, only to slowly reach out again.

  She would never have dreamed of doing such a thing before Arthur Conan Doyle and his strange companions had come into her life. It had to be their influence on her, that’s the only way she could explain it. The metal knob was cold to the touch and she counted to five before tearing open the door with an ear-splitting scream.

  Squire cowered in the corner of the closet, covering his face as if attacked by a flock of angry birds. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You just about made me soil my boxers."

  Julia’s heart threatened to burst through her ribcage. "What the hell are you doing in the closet?" she asked, not liking the sound of her voice, pitched high from fear and the adrenaline coursing through her body. "I thought you were all away on some mission."

  Squire turned away from her and immediately began to rummage through the floor of the closet. "We are," he said, dropping to his knees. "But I need a couple of things from here before we continue with our business in Greece."

  She was going to ask how he had gotten there, but remembered something about the goblin using shadows to travel in, and decided that she didn’t need to know anything more.

  "If I was a titanium mesh net where would I be?" he asked himself, disappearing beneath a curtain of Doyle’s long winter coats.

  "You’re in Greece?" she asked, immediately curious. "What does Danny think of that? He’s always wanted to travel and —"

  "He ain’t with us," Squire said, potato-shaped head popping out from beneath the dark overcoats. "He’s with Mr. Doyle, Ceridwen, and Eve."

  A knot immediately began to twist in her stomach. "You mean Leonard . . . Dr. Graves isn’t with him?"

  Squire shook his head. "Nope, Casper’s with me." He disappeared again underneath the coats. "Titanium mesh net, titanium mesh net, titanium mesh net."

  Danny’s in perfectly good hands, she thought to herself. Sure, Leonard is elsewhere, but he still has Mr. Doyle, Eve, and Ceridwen to look after him. There’s no reason to worry.

  Is there?

  "Got it!" Squire yelled. He crawled out from the bottom of the closet hauling a thick net of what appeared to be woven metal. "I knew I’d left it around here somewhere," he said, a victorious smile gracing his grotesque features.

  "So do you know if he’s okay?" she asked, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

  Squire shrugged. "Couldn’t tell ya, babe. The kid could be pushin’ up daisies for all I know." The goblin laughed uproariously. "Just kiddin’, I’m sure he’s fine. I wouldn’t worry."

  Too late for that, she thought, immediately picturing herself on a plane to Greece, traveling to identify the body of her son killed doing God knew what.

  "Hey, listen," Squire said, bending down to again go to the back of the closet. "I gotta get back to work. It was nice chattin’ with you. If I see the kid I’ll let him know you were asking for him."

  With those words, he was gone, disappearing inside a patch of shadow, like a rabbit going down into its hole. Julia could do nothing but stare into the closet, mouth agape. Closing the closet door, she stood in the foyer, her mind a jumble. The thought of going home to her empty house, to sit and wait by the phone until Danny got back and finally got around to calling her was not appealing in the least.

  She was going to wait for him to return.

  Julia Ferrick left the foyer and walked into Mr. Doyle’s study, going straight for the liquor cabinet. She was going to need all the help she could to keep her wits about her.

  She found the scotch and poured herself a double.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A terrible malaise had fallen upon Ceridwen. Her body shivered with weakness and her vision was clouded as though cataracts veiled her eyes. Yet she refused to allow Arthur to see how this transition to the Underworld was affecting her. Faerie was her home, and her relationship with the elements there, with nature, was nearly symbiotic. If her life did not precisely depend on that rapport, her health could certainly be affected by it. Traveling from Faerie to Arthur’s world — the Blight — was not difficult. For millennia, the two realms had been connected, and their natures were not dissimilar, their elemental forces kin to one another, sisters, in a way.

  This horrid place was merely a distant cousin, and a withered, sickly, and malevolent cousin at that. Cut off from the elements of the Blight, she was weakened, and though she could feel the elements of this place all around her, they did not welcome her. Nor did she relish their touch. In truth, the moment she had entered the Underworld the flame had snuffed out at the center of the ice sphere ato
p her staff, and then the ice had begun to melt.

  It was good to her now only as a walking stick. Though Arthur had seen that she was unsteady, Ceridwen did her best to put her weight on the staff rather than entirely upon him. He would have danger enough to combat without worrying overmuch about her.

  That had been her concern during their initial descent into the Underworld, and the moment she heard Danny Ferrick scream, it became reality. When the demon boy crested the ridge ahead, the look of terror etched on his face forced Ceridwen to summon all of the strength and courage remaining to her.

  It was precious little preparation for the sight that confronted her next. The three-headed dog scrabbled up the rocks in pursuit, grunting, eyes glistening crimson in the gloom. The weight of its three heads ought to have thrown off its balance, but its body was wide and built for that burden, and it was agile enough. The hound came to an abrupt halt the moment it saw that its prey was not alone.

  "Cerberus," Conan Doyle whispered at her side, obviously in awe of the gigantic beast that now regarded them with three sets of crimson eyes. Other than those few odd flutterings in the cave above them, it was the first real sign of life they’d seen since passing beyond the gates, but judging by the stink that radiated from the hound, she wondered if it was truly alive at all. The great dog reeked of death and decay, and she could see spots where the flesh was missing, exposing stringy sinew and yellow bone.

  Danny ran toward Eve. She marched forward to meet him, the bottom of her brown leather coat flapping behind her in a sudden gust of sulfurous air from below.

  "Stop running," the vampire snapped.

  The demon boy brought himself up short upon her command, moving to her side quickly, though his expression was dubious. "Do you not see the dog?"

  "Yeah. And me without a really big newspaper," Eve sneered. "There’s nowhere to run, kid. The only way to live is to win."

  They all remained perfectly still, allowing the dog to familiarize itself with their scents. It continued to growl threateningly as each of its heads paused to study them individually. Ceridwen assumed that now that it had more than one target, it was assessing their vulnerability, deciding which of them it would try to catch and eat first.

  Then its growl turned to a high-pitched whine and it tensed upon its haunches, its hackles rising as it prepared to attack. She had already noted the fragile wall to the right of the dog, where it crouched on the ridge of steps leading up from the floor of the Underworld. Without a further thought she put her own pain and illness aside and began to call upon the elemental forces. Cut off from the elements of Faerie, or even the Blight, she was forced to tap into the elements of the Underworld.

  Ceridwen screamed. Unimaginable pain wracked her body as the ugly nature of that realm fought her, for this was a place of death and it cared not for the requests of the living. Then, abruptly, tainted brackish water spun in a circle around the top of her staff and solidified into ice, and a sickly yellow flame sparked to life within. She cried out once again, her muscles tightening painfully as the connection was made, as the filth and death of the Underworld seeped into her flesh and bone. A putrid orange light crackled around her staff, and then elemental fire surged from the icy sphere atop it and struck at the cave wall.

  A portion of the wall shattered and thousands of pounds of stone crashed down onto the ridge . . . but too late. Cerberus bounded toward them as the rock wall fell harmlessly behind the hound. There was an ancient, empty hunger in its eyes.

  Nausea roiled in Ceridwen’s belly as she tried to summon the elements once more, but she was met with painful resistance. She slumped to the ground, sapped of strength, watching helplessly as Conan Doyle lunged forward to meet the giant dog’s attack.

  "Heeeyahhhh!" he cried out, advancing toward the beast.

  Cerberus paused, crouching low to the ground. But Conan Doyle showed no fear, glaring into its eyes.

  "Back off, you damned fool!" Eve shouted, sprinting to his side.

  Conan Doyle risked a quick glance toward the vampiress and the dog sensed its opportunity. With a snarl that came not only from each throat but from deep in their shared chest, Cerberus sprang at him. Ceridwen wanted to close her eyes, but she could not look away.

  The mage was a man of quiet dignity and propriety, but in battle, he was fearsome indeed. He seemed almost to transform, bracing himself in a warrior’s pose, his right hand burning like the sun. He met the attack head-on and plunged his blazing fist into one of Cerberus’s open mouths. The other two heads cried in agony, but the one assaulted by the magickal fire burned horribly from within, its eyes boiling from their sockets as the flesh and fur of its wide, heavy head burned away to reveal its flaming skull.

  Conan Doyle stumbled away from the beast, clutching his wrist and staring at his own smoldering hand in obvious pain. The spell had been a weapon of incredible power, and there was always danger in magick. He had burned himself badly.

  But Cerberus was not going to give him time to recover. Its injuries were horrid to see, but the two surviving heads were driven only to greater madness. They frothed at their mouths, a yellow foam that stank worse than the beast itself. Where its body was dessicated and the bone and muscle showed through, fresh blood and pus flowed as it shook in fury. It had been deciding which of them to rend and tear, but now Conan Doyle was its only target.

  "Arthur!" Ceridwen cried, damning herself for her weakness even as she summoned the strength to stand. She would be too late.

  But Eve was there.

  She pushed Conan Doyle out of harm’s way as the remaining two heads, driven to the brink of madness, lunged for him with utter ferocity. One of the still functioning heads snapped its jaws closed on Eve’s shoulder and she roared in pain, baring long fangs. She spun and pummeled its snout, but Cerberus flipped back its head, shaking her like a rag doll. Eve’s flailing feet caught the still smoldering third head and it exploded in a shower of blackened bone and red burning embers.

  Danny was right behind her. The demon boy ran at Cerberus and leaped into the air with uncanny strength. He launched himself at the hound and sank his claws into its side. Where its flesh was rotting away, Danny began to tear at Cerberus. Blood and pus drooled out onto its fur as he tore strips of decaying flesh. Then he reached inside and clutched a yellowed rib. The bone snapped off in his hands.

  Eve screamed as Cerberus bit down harder on her, shaking her still. Her own blood scattered the ground like scarlet rain.

  Ceridwen climbed to her feet, ignoring the creeping numbness that permeated her body. She picked up her staff and stumbled forward. The growling of the dog’s heads and the screaming and cursing from Eve echoed through the cave.

  "I can’t risk hitting them," Arthur screamed over the ruckus, his hand again radiating an unearthly light, his body trembling with the effort.

  "We’ve only just begun this. We’ll not die now," Ceridwen replied. Mustering all her remaining strength, she brought the heel of her foot down on her staff, breaking the end so it now tapered to a jagged point. She hefted the broken staff and threw it like a javelin with all her strength, willing the wood — the only bit of nature from her own world in this horrid place — to fly true.

  The spear pierced the thick muscle of the dog’s chest. The head holding Eve opened its jaws to yelp in pain, flinging her limp and bloody form into a broken heap at the edge of the ridge.

  Ceridwen and Conan Doyle ran to Eve, but Cerberus was already on the move, the remains of Ceridwen’s staff protruding from its chest. Conan Doyle sketched a pattern into the air and from it a spiral of blue light erupted, rocketing at Cerberus. Danny still clung to its side, tearing at its flesh, but he was not in the immediate line of fire. The hound was badly injured but it still moved with uncanny speed and dodged that magickal attack, thundering toward them.

  "Take her," Conan Doyle ordered, moving between the women and the slavering monstrosity.

  Ceridwen grabbed Eve beneath the arms and began to pull her away f
rom the edge. She could hear Conan Doyle’s melodious voice beginning a new incantation when another sound filled the air.

  Screaming.

  "Enough! That’s just enough of that shit!" Danny Ferrick screamed.

  Tearing into Cerberus’s body, he climbed the hound as though to saddle it, then he grappled with one of its heads, gouging at its eyes, scooping one of them out. The hound bucked and threw him forward. Danny landed, rolling, and then rose again. He screamed, shaking as he confronted the dog with such ferocity that it paused and took a step back. Danny seemed to be in the grip of madness.

  "I’m not afraid of you!" the boy bellowed, then threw himself at the hound, claws flying, tearing and rending and pummeling its remaining heads, driving the animal back.

  "Daniel, be careful!" Ceridwen called out as the boy rammed his new horns into the belly of the beast.

  Cerberus reared up on its hind legs, attempting to use its front paws to repel its relentless attacker, but to little avail. Danny drove it back farther and farther until there was no longer any place left for them to go.

  And Ceridwen watched in horror as the two tumbled backward over the edge of the ridge, disappearing into the Underworld below.

  Tumbling down the rocky cliff, Danny tried to use Cerberus’s disgusting body as a shield, tucking himself close so the putrid, matted fur so that the beast could take the brunt of the damage. They crashed again and again into the cliff and with each jarring impact Danny did his best to twist around to keep Cerberus between himself and the jagged outcroppings of rock. Then their painful journey came to an abrupt end with a whimper from the hound and the splintering of bones inside it. An enormous rib bone shot up through it, nearly impaling Danny, just before the impact sent him sprawling across the ground. He rolled, grunting in pain with each bump, and at last came to rest against the trunk of a gigantic tree.

  Danny lay there for a while, looking up into the skeletal branches and strangely shaped leaves that decorated them, until a flow of warm blood into his eyes obscured his vision. With a trembling hand he wiped away the blood, and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.