Danny rubbed his eyes as he regained his feet. 'Damn. I guess Ceridwen’s okay.'
Eve knew otherwise. Danny had been momentarily blinded by the brightness of the lightning, but Eve saw the elemental sorceress crumple to the ground, like a marionette with severed strings.
The Hydra, its skin blackened and charred, yet far from dead, reared up from the ground, parts of its serpentine form still smoldering with fire. Nine mouths screamed out its rage, surging forward to continue its attack.
'Come on!' Eve cried out as a head bent forward, mouth agape. 'What does it take to kill this thing?' She took hold of its upper and lower jaw as it struck, preventing it from biting her.
The other heads had driven Danny to the ground, and he was snapping off fangs and gouging eyes, trying to keep himself from being bitten in two, doing whatever he had to just to keep himself alive.
A thick, noxious cloud of ash plumed from the mouth of the Hydra as Eve struggled, the substance clinging to her face, momentarily blinding her. She let go of the monster’s head, throwing herself back and away, bouncing off what could only have been the side of the Range Rover. She tumbled to the ground, clawing at the hardening ash on her face, tearing most of it away before it could solidify.
Eve watched in horror as the blackened body of the Hydra loomed above Danny, each of its heads preparing to strike at the boy. She attempted to get to her feet, but excruciating pain exploded in her side, and she was driven again to her knees.
She could only watch as the Hydra’s heads dipped and Danny’s hands rose instinctively to protect his face. But then something happened that at first Eve could not begin to explain. The Hydra’s attack was stopped.
No, she thought, watching carefully, not stopped, slowed down. As though in the space around the demon boy and the Hydra, time itself had become disoriented.
'Amazing,' she said, ignoring the grinding of broken ribs in her side, and getting up from the ground. Conan Doyle and Ceridwen strode side by side toward the monster, their hands extended, trails of sizzling magical force leaking from the tips of their fingers. Their faces were etched with strain and focus.
'Eve, if you wouldn’t mind, this is far from easy,' Conan Doyle said, a slight tremble in his voice. 'Kill it.'
'Haven’t you been paying attention?' she asked. 'That’s what Danny and I have been trying to do, no help from you.'
Conan Doyle grimaced, turning his gaze briefly to a broken tree limb on the ground. 'The branch,' he began. Fat beads of sweat had begun to collect on his brow from the strain of the spell that had slowed time. 'Use it to pierce the Hydra’s heart. Much like yourself, it’s the only way the monster can be…'
His voice trailed off, but she had the information she needed. Eve raced to grab the branch, then ran at the monstrosity that still towered over the boy. Whatever magic they had used, it only affected those who were in the vicinity when it was cast. But the Hydra and Danny would not be slowed like this for long.
'This is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me,' Eve said as she placed her hand against the charred scales of the monster’s breast, feeling for the pulse of its heart.
Eve found what she was looking for. With all the unnatural strength she could muster, the vampire plunged the jagged end of the makeshift spear through the creature’s chest and into its heart.
She found the act strangely liberating.
The Hydra shrieked in agony out of all of its mouths, a chorus of anguish so profound that Eve was almost moved to pity.
Almost.
When it crashed to the ground, throwing up volcanic ash in clouds that spread in concentric circles around it, she strode over to the monster and kicked it. 'It wasn’t ever gonna be me in the dust, ugly. Not today.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ash clouded the sun above the petrified forest. The breeze blowing across the island of Lesbos would soon clear away what had not already clung to the skeletal trees or blanketed the ground. In the moments following the death of the Hydra, Conan Doyle concerned himself with the well-being of his associates. All of them were injured, yet Danny and Eve healed quickly.
'Let me have a look,' he said to Ceridwen.
She had sustained several long gashes on her right side. But even as he tried to see to her wounds he could feel a wave of cold emanating from her hands where she touched her scored flesh. Ice formed on her skin.
'I’ll be fine,' she said, curtly at first, and then she caught herself and her features became gentler. 'Truly. I will be fine. See to the others. Or better yet, see to Gull. He and his friends weren’t very much help, were they?'
Conan Doyle smiled bitterly. 'Did you expect them to be?'
'Son of a bitch!' Danny snarled.
Through the drifting, settling ash, Conan Doyle saw the demon boy striding toward him with Eve at his side. Sunlight shone down in patches but the bit of magick Gull had taught Eve to protect herself was holding up for the moment. At least that had not been false.
'What is it?' Ceridwen asked, moving toward them in concern, wincing at the pain in her side.
Conan Doyle did not have to ask, but he awaited the answer to the question in any case. Eve spun around, her arms wide, taking in the entire dead, petrified landscape around them.
'They’re gone!' she said.
'Bastards!' Danny added for punctuation.
Eve laughed humorlessly. 'Can you believe these guys? Drag us all the way out here to get answers and instead we get to fight the Hydra! And now they’re gone! Took off while we were trying to stay alive. We have been so completely punked.'
Conan Doyle did not know the term, but its meaning was clear. He only nodded. Rather than respond he set off toward the place he had last seen Gull, Hawkins, and Jezebel.
'Arthur?' Ceridwen called.
Lost in concentration, he barely heard her. He had an idea but wanted confirmation. The ash continued to settle, drifting, and he wiped it from his eyes as he circumnavigated the corpse of the Hydra. He would have to see to it before they left, some spell to disintegrate it, perhaps, so that it was only more ash in the petrified forest. Certainly he had no intention of reburying it.
Beyond the monster’s corpse he strode a hundred yards farther to a place where the dead trees formed a kind of natural circle. Or, rather, it appeared natural. Conan Doyle knew better. In the rough center of that circle was a hole in the ground. Ash coated the earth but Conan Doyle fell to his knees there and plunged his hands into the hole, sifting ash and digging a bit deeper.
He drew out a human skull.
Ceridwen, Eve, and Danny had followed him at a distance, observing. Now the demon boy swore aloud once more.
'So this is the grave of that dude? Forceps, or whatever?'
Conan Doyle held the skull up. 'This is human. Ancient, but human. The father of the Gorgons was not human.'
'Then whose grave is this?' Eve asked. 'What the hell was Gull up to here?'
He raised his eyebrows and stood, tossing the skull back into the ash. 'I should think that much would be obvious, my dear. Some time in the past… perhaps as early as the very beginning of the Third Age of Man… the Hydra was buried here to guard this grave, to destroy anyone who came in search of it. My old friend Mr. Gull availed himself of our services as bodyguards. He simply did so without informing us.'
'Bodyguards?' Eve snarled. 'More like bait.'
'As you wish,' Conan Doyle acknowledged. His attention was still not fully on the conversation. He scanned the ground, eyeing the fresh ash as he began to walk away from the grave. Silently he counted paces in his mind, paused to glance deeper into the petrified forest, then crouched and plucked from the ground an object that at first appeared to be just a stone beneath the ash.
'No offense, Mr. Doyle, but you don’t seem nearly as pissed off about this as I’d like you to be,' Danny said. 'I
