fingers tingled as he caressed the smooth surface of man’s stone cheek.
'Has he answered your question?' Spiliakos asked, he, too, staring at the statue that had once been flesh and blood.
'Oh yes,' Gull hissed, unable to look away. 'He’s absolutely extraordinary.'
'But what of the others?' Spiliakos asked, turning away. The mist had again grown impenetrable, hiding what lay ahead. 'Has the same fate befallen them?'
Gull finally tore his gaze from the stone man and stared into the swirling haze.
'Damnable fog,' he growled, fumbling in his coat pocket for his penknife. The blade was no more than two inches long, but it had proven its worth on many occasions, and he never went anywhere without it. 'Should have thought to do this as soon as we first encountered the infernal brume,' Gull griped as he opened his other malformed hand and ran the blade across the palm. Blood bubbled up from the gash, and he closed his fingers upon the wound, allowing his life stuff to trickle down the sides of his clenched fist and spatter upon the ground.
Gull closed his eyes, recalling an invocation taught to him by an ancient hag on the Russian Steppes. The words of the spell leaped from his mouth as if eager to escape. The blood that had dripped upon the ground began to smolder, vapors of red rising up to mingle with the fog that encompassed them. The gore on his hand had begun to fume as well, and he opened his hand, palm skyward, to expose the bloody cut to the elements. Blood no longer seeped from the wound, but instead streamed upward, scarlet strands that stretched from the gash to sway snakelike in the swirling vapor.
The wind suddenly picked up, responding to the ancient European magicks, and he watched as Spiliakos shielded his eyes from the dust and sand.
Gull extended both hands before him, the words leaving his mouth in a bellowing crescendo. With the last of the incantation spoken, Gull felt the power within him swell and reach out to take hold of the surrounding fog, clearing it from the sky above the island on an unnatural breeze.
Momentarily drained, he fell to his knees.
'May the gods protect us,' Spiliakos said, muttering the words in Greek.
Gull shook off his disorientation and looked to see what had brought the exclamation to the old man’s lips. He rose to his feet, surveying the island now that the mist had been dispersed. In the full light of day, with blue sky sprawling above and the Aegean crashing upon the shore, Gull at last could view the panorama of the island that spread out before him. Never in his long, accursed life had he seen anything quite so breathtaking.
A forest of stone figures. Statues as far as his eyes could see.
'I have to be closer,' Gull said dreamily, walking forward.
Spiliakos was at first tentative, but then begrudgingly accompanied him. 'They were fleeing her,' the old Greek said, moving among the petrified men, women, and children. 'The village of Panagia is that way, and Emborio is beyond it.' He gestured in the direction from which the villagers had most likely come.
Gull stood before a cluster of men and women who had once been in his service. They, too, wore expressions of horror; two of the five had even drawn weapons.
'Bloody fools. I gave them specific instructions that she wasn’t to be threatened,' he said, shaking his head. 'That she wasn’t to be hurt.' Gull pointed a crooked finger at the gun clutched in the stone fingers of one of his former operatives. 'Does this look non threatening to you?'
'Look at their faces,' Spiliakos said. 'They were frightened.'
Gull seethed. 'None of this would have happened but for their stupidity! If they had followed orders… They caused this!' He threw himself at the stone figures of his men, knocking them over, shattering them upon the ground. He kicked at the broken limbs and body parts that now littered the ground.
'Mr. Gull, please,' Spiliakos pleaded. 'Calm yourself. It is not the time to — '
Then they heard it, soft at first but growing louder, and it froze them both in place. The air was filled with hissing, the sound made by a serpent when threatened. But it was not the sound of one snake, or even a dozen, this was the warning of serpents too numerous to count, and they were drawing closer.
'She’s here,' the old man whispered, and he blessed himself with the sign of the cross.
Gull wanted to laugh out loud, amused that the old madman had at this moment decided to embrace the Christian God.
'Oh, he’ll be a lot of bloody help,' Gull said with a shake of his deformed head. He scanned their surroundings. 'No, sorry, old boy, but today is a day for deities far older and wiser.'
The echo of his own words still in his ears, he caught sight of her and froze. She moved among the petrified bodies, and he felt his breath being taken away.
'It appears the ancients have whispered the truth at last,' Spiliakos said, his gaze following the stealthy dartings of the figure that approached.
'A reward for being such a good listener, perhaps,' Gull replied. 'Now cover your eyes.'
Spiliakos ignored him, moving into that forest of the stone dead for a closer look.
'There were two things the old voices told me last night,' he said. 'First, that you would find her at last, and second, that her eyes would be the last thing I would ever see.' The old man stopped beside the petrified figures of an old woman and a little girl, frozen in mid-run, their heads turned slightly to gaze back upon their pursuer. 'I have always heeded the whispers of the ancients.'
Gull would have ordered the man back to his side but his voice would not come. She was slinking among the statues, and her progress held him transfixed. Her movements were filled with a predatory grace. Her hair was a nest of writhing green vipers, and her face — once so alluringly beautiful that the goddess Athena cursed her out of jealousy — was hideous. Monstrous. Not unlike Nigel Gull himself.
Medusa.
She swayed cobra-like before Spiliakos, a good deal taller than he was. Her gaze was eager, her beguiling movements urging him to raise his eyes, to look at her. The old man stared at the ground, at his feet.
Medusa reached out to Spiliakos, placing an alabaster hand beneath his chin, tilting his gaze up to meet hers. The old man complied with her gentle urgings, the snakes in her hair writhing and hissing excitedly, as their eyes locked, and Taki Spiliakos fell under her curse. There was a sound like twigs snapping, a gray hue spread over his flesh, and then the old man froze, immortalized in stone.
For a moment, Medusa stared down upon her handiwork in admiration. Then she twitched, her head rising as she remembered there was yet another to feel the effect of her stare. The object of his obsession turned her gaze upon Nigel Gull, moving swiftly toward him, the very air seething with the malice she projected.
Gull only smiled.
The Gorgon slowed, staring at him in confusion. Gull wondered how long it had been since she had been able to look into someone’s eyes without harming them. It was a moment that would stay with him for the rest of his afflicted existence.
'I bear my own curse, miss. Yours cannot hurt me. We’re much alike, you and I,' he said to her, drawing her attention to his malformed visage. 'I’m Nigel Gull,' he said in his most gentle voice as he gingerly moved toward her.
He reached out to take her hand in his, pleasantly surprised to see that she did not pull away, and bent forward to place a tender kiss upon the back of her hand.
'And I have loved you for an eternity.'
The monster — the woman called Medusa — began to cry.
CHAPTER ONE
Now…
The morning sun shone across the streets and squares and rooftops of Athens, from Lykavitos Hill to the Acropolis, but the daylight only made the shadowy alleys of the Plaka seem deeper. Yannis Papathansiou parked his car near Hadrian’s Arch, propping a card identifying himself as a policeman onto the dashboard before locking it up. The heat was already oppressive, and Yannis took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He stretched his back, showing off his voluminous belly, and then started off.
The Plaka was the oldest neighborhood in Athens, not far from the agora — the market — at the base of the
