of time before they found their prize.
A sound like the crack of a bullwhip filled the air as a bullet exploded from the barrel of a rifle. The steel- jacketed projectile slammed through the thick fur and muscle of the Dire Wolf’s neck, turning several of its vertebrae to powder. Clay flipped backward on his side with a roar of pain, bucking Squire from his perch. Already, the flesh was knitting as the shapeshifter assumed a more familiar guise, a human face.
'Squire, are you all right?' he hissed, altering the structure of his eyes, turning the darkness of night to the light of day and scanning for signs of their attacker.
Squire slunk up next to him in the shadows, an inch-long gash in his forehead. The two of them moved quickly against the face of a building, gauging the location of the shooter as best they could and hoping they would be out of the line of sight. Without another shot, Clay could only guess about the sniper’s location, and guessing would be dangerous.
'Think he’s still up there?' Squire asked, craning his neck back as though he might spot the sniper from their vantage point.
'Only one way to find out. Stay here.'
The hobgoblin did not protest as Clay stepped away from the building and out into the open. No matter how destructive, a simple bullet wasn’t going to do more than tear him up a little, and Clay could always knit himself back together.
No second shot came.
Peering into the darkness at the tops of the neighboring buildings, even with his eyes adjusted, he saw only architecture. Nothing moved.
'He’s gone.'
Squire grunted, cursing under his breath as he touched the wound on his head and stepped away from the wall. 'What the hell was the asshole doing? If he thought he could pop us, he would’ve stuck around. But if he knew it wouldn’t be that easy, why bother?'
The question troubled Clay. He shifted into the form of the Dire Wolf again but this time Squire trotted along behind him. Clay was moving more slowly. They passed through a narrow alley, tracking the scent, but on the next street over, a cobblestoned road that seemed almost abandoned, the Dire Wolf sniffed and flinched away from the ground, nostrils searing and eyes watering.
Once more Clay metamorphosed into the familiar, human face he so often wore. He rarely revealed what he thought of as his true appearance. There was nothing human about him.
'He’s gone, all right. He shot me just to buy time.'
Squire dabbed at his wound with a filthy handkerchief. 'To do what?'
Even in human form, Clay found the strength of the pungent aroma was nearly overpowering. 'Do you smell it?' he asked.
Squire sniffed, and his brow furrowed, causing a fresh trickle of blood from his wound. 'What the fuck is that?'
'Ammonia,' Clay answered. 'To eradicate any trace of the Gorgon’s scent. I could pick up the trail again if I searched long enough, but there’s no way to know if it’ll be a fresh trail, or the path the Gorgon took getting to the ruins, instead of away.'
Squire placed his hands on his hips. 'Are you suggesting that our monster has a guardian angel looking out for it?'
'I’m suggesting that somebody else has an interest in our quarry,' Clay responded, his dark animal eyes scanning the darkness. 'And they’re willing to kill to keep us from getting to it first.'
'Quickly now,' Gull ordered as Hawkins sunk the blade of the shovel deep into the dry, black soil.
He chanced a glance over his shoulder at the commotion in the not-too-far distance.
Conan Doyle and his people are putting up quite a fight, he thought, the Hydra’s angry wails echoing through the night. Gull felt a momentary pang of guilt as he watched them fight for their lives against the many-headed beast, but then realized their lives meant nothing compared to his objective.
'Did you know it was there?' Jezebel asked, distracting him.
He turned from the battle in the distance. Hawkins was still digging, making excellent progress, each shovelful of dead earth bringing them closer and closer still. Jezebel was staring at him, large, green eyes glistening in the darkness, red tresses blowing across her face.
'Did you know the monster was under the ground?' the girl asked again, reaching out to touch Gull’s sleeve, urging him to reveal his duplicity.
She was a fragile thing, filled with such rage, sadness, and fear. He hated to show her the lengths to which he would go to achieve what he most desired, how easily established trusts could be torn asunder, but there was far too much at stake to concern himself with such flimsy concepts as loyalty and honor.
'Nothing must sway us,' he told her, nodding grimly. 'There was no way the Hydra would have allowed us to reach the grave.'
Jezebel looked from Gull to Hawkins, who continued to furiously dig, and then turned her attention to the Hydra and its prey. 'They trusted you,' she said, her voice no more than a whisper.
Gull chuckled. 'I seriously doubt that. But there was no choice, my dear Jezebel. If Conan Doyle knew who was actually buried here, and my intentions for him, well, let’s just say I doubt we would be where we are right now.'
For a long moment, Jezebel only looked at him, one hand on her outthrust hip, ever the rebellious teen. Then she shrugged, her t-shirt riding even higher up on her exposed abdomen. 'I didn’t like them very much anyway,' she said with a darling shake of her head, a sly smile creeping across her delicate features; her faith in him seemingly restored.
'That’s the spirit.' Gull pulled her close and placed a gentle kiss on her brow, then turned his attentions to Hawkins. 'How’re we coming along, Nick?' he asked, the crackle of anticipation in the air.
'Would be further along if one of you would lift a bloody finger to help,' Hawkins grumbled, tossing another shovelful of dirt over his shoulder. The man was making excellent progress. He had dug down at least four feet into the dusty soil.
'We all have our parts to play, Mr. Hawkins,' Gull reassured him. 'Soon your part will be done, and it will be our time to shine.'
'Yay!' Jezebel said, clapping her hands.
Hawkins sunk the blade of his shovel into the earth again, but this time it was met with a strange, hollow thud. Gull gasped as the man looked up and smiled. Hawkins leaned his tool against the side of the hole and, kneeling down, began to carefully brush away the dry, black dirt. Even this far down the soil was like dust, as if all moisture had somehow been removed from the ground.
Gull moved closer to the hole’s edge, watching the man as he worked. Something wooden was gradually coming into view. He held his breath as Hawkins placed the flat of his hand against the top of the buried box to read its psychic impression.
Hawkins gasped, falling backward as his body was wracked with trembling spasms. Gull frowned and knelt to reach for him, but Hawkins waved him away, catching his breath.
'This is it,' he said, struggling to his feet and retrieving his shovel.
'Let’s have it, then, Nick,' Gull ordered, his heart racing. 'But be careful, yes? It’ll be useless to me if the contents of our little box are damaged.'
Hawkins jammed the point of the shovel into the rotted wood, splintering the top with ease. He tossed his shovel aside to squat down at the box. Carefully he pulled the cover away, the ancient wood crumbling in his hand, to expose a filthy, burlap sack. Hawkins reached inside and hauled the sack out of the box.
'Give it here,' Gull said, his twisted hands reaching eagerly as Hawkins handed it up to him.
Gull gently laid the sack on the ground and knelt beside it as if preparing to pray. The burlap was as rotted and dry as the earth in which it had been interred, and he grabbed hold of the coarse cloth, tearing open the sack to expose its contents.
A single human skull.
Jezebel knelt breathlessly beside him, and Hawkins peered out over the rim of the hole.
'Here we are,' he said as he raised up the perfectly preserved skull. It still wore a paper-thin covering of dried
