by Paul Neuhaus
“With the skeletons. Yes.”
He put his hands on his hips which only served to further accentuate his foot of tube steak. “Here’s the thing: Yes.”
My friends and I were momentarily thrown by that answer, but then we understood he had just agreed to help us. “Connie, give him your sword.”
Constantinides handed his gladius to the newcomer, but still wouldn’t look at him. Perseus seemed oblivious to the smaller man’s discomfort.
As I did a few stretching exercises, Venables whispered to me. “So, this guy is some kind of legendary Greek hero?”
“One of the most legendary, yeah.”
“What’re the odds of him happening along right when we needed him?”
“Better than you’d think. This isn’t really ancient Greece. It’s more like a theme park attraction. It’s not built to scale, and it’s populated with people and things designed to amuse Pan. Which, by the way, is why Perseus has a dick the size of a Winnebago. If he—”
Connie interrupted us. “Um, guys...”
Amanda and I looked up in time to see Perseus walking toward us from the direction of the trees. Behind him, where the skeletons had been, was a big pile of bones. And swords. He handed his gladius back to Connie. “Thanks,” he said. “That was fun. I think I’m gonna go now. On up the beach a ways Achilles is having something called a ‘group grope’.” He actually made air quotes when he said, “group grope”. “Any of you guys wanna come?”
Amanda and I hesitated, but quickly realized we needed to stay on task. “No, no thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the assist.”
He gave us a little salute. Then he headed back toward the beach. As we watched him walk away, Amanda said, “We should come back here again soon.”
“Yes, I think we should.”
Connie stamped his foot. “I’m standing right here!” he said.
As we walked toward the forest, Amanda stood close to Connie and whispered cutesy apologies.
Disgusting.
As soon as we crossed the threshold into the forest, we saw flickering lights. Not too far in front of us there was a scene lit by many torches. When we saw it, I broke into a run and my two companions followed my example. In time, we broke through the pines into an enormous hollow. In that hollow was a ruined amphitheater. The top row of bleachers was at ground level and the other rows descended into the ground so that the area where the actors would normally perform was at the lowest point in the hole. The torches were everywhere. All along the perimeter of that top row and all along the perimeter of the oval-shaped stage area. But we’re not talking Dodgers Stadium here. From top to bottom was only a few dozen yards.
On the stage below us, Medea sat on an alabaster throne looking up. She was smiling. Lying across her lap was a bronze bar about a foot long and about seven inches wide. Before I had time to wonder about that, the mean little bitch clapped her hands twice—not as a way of showing approval, but as a way of signaling the show to begin. I turned to Amanda and reached out my hands to undo the harness around my new pithos. I was more than ready to give the thing its first road test. As I placed my fingers on the harness, I was jerked backward and ripped up and away from Venables. Before I even understood what was happening to me, I was slammed down on the bleachers and held firmly in place. A briar patch like the ones that had encased Medea’s skeletons had grown up under my feet. Strong, ropey tentacles encased and lifted me, manipulating me into a seated position. Then it hardened around me so that I could not move. My face was held rigidly in place by the immovable branches. My eyes were pointed at the stage. I suspected that, once the show was done, the bush would contract in upon itself and liquify me.
So, I had that to look forward to.
I couldn’t see Amanda or Connie, but I was sure they’d met the same fate. If they hadn’t, Medea wouldn’t have appeared so calm and collected. She did the two-clap thing again. From stage right, two little satyr boys wheeled in a brass bed with linen sheets. As soon as it was centrally placed, they scurried back out again. In the center of the bed there was a lyre. Medea made with the claps one last time.
Orpheus and Eurydice came in from stage left. They were dressed in thigh-length cotton robes and had both, somehow, gotten themselves prettied up. Both of them had bathed and were covered with shiny oils. Eurydice had tiny jewels stuck to her skin in beautiful patterns. She shimmered in the flickering light. She was beaming as most new brides are. Not so new in her case, but better late than never.
Orpheus led his good lady wife in by the hand. When they reached the bed, he sat her down and picked up the lyre. He cleared his throat. He spoke, and the sound carried through the amphitheater. “Ahem. I, uh, I can’t tell you how touched we are you all could make it here to witness the first night of Eury and I’s long-delayed life together. Truly, it’s a magic time and we couldn’t have done it without you.” Ah, irony.
With no further ado, Orpheus strummed the lyre and began to sing. Even in the midst of the pain and frustration I was feeling, I was transported by the sound of his voice. He didn’t sing one of his own songs. He sang “Time in a Bottle” by the late Jim Croce. During the performance, he divided his looks between the three of us in the stands and Eurydice. Eurydice looked like a love-addled teen as tears ran down her face and her smile lit the night. When her husband finished his song, one of the satyrs came in, collected the lyre, and scampered off again.
Without any further build-up, the main event began. Eurydice stood up long enough to remove her robe. Orpheus did the same. They were both nude underneath. Medea, bronze bar in hand, stood and her throne, pulled by unseen hands, disappeared into the darkness behind her. Orpheus laid down on the bed. Eurydice, bursting with energy, curled up in the hollow made by her husband’s spread legs. She spent a moment or two fluffing his phallus until it was fully erect and then she mounted him. Okay, I thought to myself. So, we’re doing this.
It was over almost before it began. After a pump or two of Eurydice’s hips, Orpheus’ face screwed up and he blew his load. Not one of the better live sex acts I’ve seen, but let’s be fair. Orpheus had probably pictured this moment a million times in the millennia leading up to it. The poor guy was destined to cum too soon.
Weirdly, the two now-married people looked to Medea in the aftermath of their brief joining. They seemed embarrassed. They weren’t projecting their voices toward us, but I could still hear them thanks to the amphitheater’s fine acoustics.
“Oh, sorry,” Orpheus said. “I’m sorry.”
“Was that not—?” Eurydice threw in.
“No, it’s—” Medea said. “I mean it is what it is, right? Did you cum?”
“Did—did I cum? Yeah, I mean I came. It was, well, it was quick, but it definitely happened. I was just—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Medea replied. “It just had to be, it didn’t have to be good.”
“Oh, well, hey, don’t put it like that.”
“Were there supposed to be like sparks or something?” Eurydice said. “Magic flames?”
“No, no. Do me a favor and hold still.” Medea stood over them and held her ingot over their still-connected forms. She closed her eyes in concentration and damned if sparks didn’t leap off the two of them and impact the metal. Only a few at first, but then growing in strength and frequency. “There!” the sorceress and child murderer said, clearly excited.
Orpheus and Eurydice stayed where they were and watched as the little ribbons of light danced around them. “This is so weird,” Eurydice said.
Orpheus did a half roll of discomfort under his wife. “Could you move a little to the—? I’m getting a cramp.”
“Don’t move I said!” Right then, Medea’s metal bar burst into golden flames. She held it higher and didn’t flinch from what must’ve been tremendous heat. The fire only lasted a few moments before popping and going out entirely. When the little colored dots cleared from my vision, I could see Medea held a long key with hooks and barbs. I could also see
the former Mrs. Jason was beyond ecstatic. Orpheus and Eurydice had gotten what they wanted and so, apparently, had Medea. The witch gave an exultant shout.
The shout was punctuated by a rifle’s loud report.
A red bloom like a poppy appeared on Eurydice’s forehead and she fell off of Orpheus, off of the bed, and onto the stage. Stone cold dead. Orpheus screamed.
Another shot. This one caught Medea in the same shoulder I’d been winged in myself. She tumbled backward, dropping her key.
The shot to the shoulder apparently blew Medea’s concentration. The briar encasing me retreated. When it was down around my waist, I could look over and see Connie and Amanda being freed from their vegetable prisons too. Even before I could stand, I turned and snapped the straps off of my pithos. “You might wanna stay down,” I said to my two friends. With that, I sprinted to one of the aisles leading down to the stage. I had the pithos under my arm. Behind me, I heard Amanda say, “Where’re you going?! I thought you didn’t know how to sword fight!” She wasn’t talking to me. She was talking to Connie. The knight who wasn’t a knight was behind me, but I couldn’t focus on that.
I had two assholes that needed jugging.
Orpheus had spilled out of the bed onto the stage and gathered Eurydice up in his arms. He was not only weeping, he was looking around in a desperate attempt to understand what’d happened. I didn’t feel sorry for him.
I was almost close enough to do him. I reached down, shifted the pithos so that I was holding it diagonally across my body. I popped the top and I could feel the familiar vacuum start from within. When it was in capture mode, the pithos became hard to hold. It was almost like the thing was eager to eat souls. I won’t deny it: watching it do its work could be exhilarating.
Medea popped up from where she’d fallen. Blood poured out of her shoulder wound. She’d found her key on the ground and was gripping it tightly on her undamaged side. Fortunately, she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking past me. At the trees above the amphitheater.
The aisle I was running down ended at the stage. Unlike modern theaters, Greek theaters had their performers level with the lowest of the audience members. I pointed the pithos at Orpheus.
Connie roared past me, running toward Medea. I had two thoughts simultaneously. Man, he really shouldn’t be doing that and There’s nothing I can do about it right now.
Orpheus started flying toward the pithos. When a flesh and blood creature gets sucked into the jug, their form stretches and twists in the most profane ways. It’s like their body is turned into taffy and yanked, in random bits, toward the opening of the pot. The musician screamed—more because he was forced to let go of Eurydice than he was alarmed at the changes wrought upon his body.
Medea wanted to deal with whatever she’d seen in the trees, but Connie was getting too close. Using her bronze key as a sort of wand, Medea pointed it at the Knight. To her, Connie was nothing. A momentary diversion away from her real quarry. The former Knight of Eurydice burst into flame—from the inside out. It was like there was a mini supernova somewhere in his chest and it burst out all at once. He fell in smoking pieces to the dusty ground.
Someone screamed “No!” just behind me. It was Amanda. I hadn’t realized she’d come down to stand with me. I couldn’t pay attention to her either. All I could spare was a sharp “Do. Not. Move.”
She didn’t move.
By then, Orpheus was so stretched and distended he was like a slick of oil flowing rapidly toward me on an unseen whitewater rapid. In midair, he was hit by bullets. Three in quick succession. When he flowed into the pithos, I had no idea if he was alive or dead. For the record, I didn’t give a shit one way or the other.
I slammed the lid on the jug. I would need to reorient myself for when I did Medea. Fortunately, Medea still wasn’t looking at me. She had returned her gaze to the trees above the theater. She raised her key and pointed it. Immediately thereafter, I heard a woman scream. I swiveled my head to look behind me and had just enough time to knock Amanda to the ground. I hit the deck too. Harper Adcock flew through the space we’d just occupied and stopped dead in the air a few feet from Orpheus and Eurydice’s marriage bed. She dropped her rifle and it clattered to the ground.
I used the opportunity to pull myself off of Venables and sprint around to Medea’s left. “Stay the fuck down. On the ground. I mean it.”
I stopped when I was even with the bed and on a diagonal facing the sorceress. I put one hand on the jug lid. “Put. The. Bitch. Down,” I said. I looked briefly at Adcock. She was terrified. She also had a splint on her nose. I looked back at Medea.
Medea was tired but smiling. She brought up the hand on her wounded side. She couldn’t get it any higher than her waist. Apparently, she didn’t need it any higher. She spread her fingers into a claw and then made a fist.
I looked back at Harper. The former Olympian imploded, falling in on herself until there was nothing but a red gelatin mass that plopped to the stage.
I pulled the lid off my jar and felt it vibrate to life. The eager sucking began, and Medea was pulled toward it. But there wasn’t a trace of concern on her face. Even as parts of her stretched unnaturally, she smiled. Then she raised the key over her head and took off like a rocket. Her vertical momentum was enough to rip the pithos out of my hand. It bounced once and then rolled under the bed.
Before I could react, two children ran in and skidded to a stop where Medea had been standing. One was a boy, the other was a girl. They were wearing togas and both of them carried a Dory scaled to their size. They looked up into the air and screamed a scream of frustration.
Amanda and I both yelled, “Hey!” at the same time. The kids turned to us and immediately ran away. Out the back of the amphitheater and into the woods.
“Who were they?” Venables said.
“Don’t you know?” I ran to where Medea had been standing. She’d left a black scorch mark in her wake. I looked up and could still see her. She moved fast enough to cause a sonic boom. She left a contrail behind her. She was gone. But she wasn’t just gone. At the exact point where I’d last seen her, something weird happened to the sky. It turned to glass. At first it was just at the point where she’d disappeared but then it grew downward, forming a dome around the amphitheater. At first, I couldn’t think of why Medea would do something like that. All I could think was, Huh. Now I really am in a giant snow-globe.
With Medea gone, Amanda ran down the aisle and stopped at the place where Connie had been immolated. She looked down at the black ground and then over at me. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was badly, badly traumatized. At that moment, I wanted to stay focused on the weird sky, but I had to say something. “It’s gonna be okay,” I told her. “He’s not dead. Not really.”
Venables was unable to process what I was saying. “Huh? What— What do you mean?”
“Nobody’s minding the store in the Underworld. Connie can just walk right back out again. So, can Eurydice for that matter.”
Amanda’s eyes grew wide and she brushed the tears off her cheeks. “Okay, okay. Good. We have to get out of here. We have to go to him.”
“Yeah. About that...”
I went back to looking at the glass dome above our heads and my friend joined me.
7
Escape
After I told her that Connie was probably still alive, Amanda calmed down considerably. “It’s a dome,” she said. “That means it touches the ground. In a circle around us. We just need to go to the edge.”
A reasonable thought, I suppose, but incomplete. “Right. Okay. What then?”
“Maybe Perseus could knock a hole in it with his dick...”
I smiled and indicated she should give me my backpack. She did. I slipped the pithos into it and she helped me get it fastened around me again. While she did the straps, she said, “What about Harper? Do you think she’s still alive too?”
I hadn’t considered that. I think we have a natural prejudice against people that’ve be
en turned into Smucker’s Strawberry Jam. “I dunno,” I replied. “I guess we’re gonna find out.”
With that, I headed toward the edge of the stage on its inland side. Venables fell in step behind me. “Where’re you going?”
“To the dome wall. Like you said.”
“Like you said: ‘And then what?’”
I shrugged. “I dunno. All I know is, if you stop moving, you’re dead.”
Amanda matched my pace.
The edge of the dome wasn’t nearly as far away as I was afraid it would be. Medea hadn’t clapped it down over the whole Demizoi interior, just over the part Amanda and I happened to be in. When we reached the concave glass wall, I rapped it with an experimental fist. It bonged pleasantly.
“It looks really thick,” my friend said.
“It is really thick,” I replied. “I don’t see rocks or sticks doing us much good.”
“What about sound? Can’t you break glass with sound waves?”
I smirked at her. “You can break glass with sound waves. Do you happen to have a sound cannon?”
“No,” she muttered, just at the level of audibility.
I decided to make her squirm a little. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What’d you say?”
Venables raised her voice. “I said ‘no’! I don’t have a sound cannon!”
I shook my head. “Too bad. Note to self: Get a sound cannon for... future dome breakage.”
“Alright, alright. I just sort-of lost a boyfriend. Stop busting my balls.”
Since we were faux-arguing, we didn’t see the man come out of the trees on the other side of the dome and approach us. We didn’t know he was there until he rapped on the glass on his side. Amanda and I nearly shit ourselves. The guy laughed at us when he saw how startled we were. It was Hermes, out of place in his nice suit and spotless red tie.
I turned from startled to ecstatic on a dime. I shouted a greeting at the Olympian along with an impassioned plea for him to get us out.