The ancients attacked as one, a single wave of shambling necrotic flesh, archaic weaponry and furious cries of indignation. The two surviving Furies urged the legion of reanimated corpses to slay the usurpers — to make them permanent residents of this hellish realm.
Eve was the first into the fray, lunging into the dead warriors and tearing at them. She punched a fist through the chest of the first to come near her and tore off the head of a second. Through shared desperation, Ceridwen and Gull joined forces, conjuring a cloud of crackling energy hungry for the desiccated flesh of the dead. Inspired by Eve’s wanton violence, Danny Ferrick threw himself into the fray, many a decomposing god falling before his savagery. Hawkins proved himself deadly in hand-to-hand combat, shattering bones and crushing skulls with nothing but his hands. The girl, Jezebel, seemed to come truly awake and alive when at last the nightmare was about to swallow them. Her childlike qualities evaporated and only the weather witch remained. Lightning crackled within Hades’ heart, shattering gods and burning what remained of them.
All of it was merely to buy Conan Doyle time to bring his plan to fruition.
He knelt and dug his fingers into the ground, tearing away gobs of bleeding muscle. One by one he pressed the Hydra’s long, sharp teeth into the flesh of the Lord of the Underworld’s heart. The legend called for them to be planted in the earth, but in this place, here was the soil, here was the ground. With a prayer to gods long passed from this plane of existence, he stood back from his chore.
'What have you done, sorcerer?' Megaera screeched, dropping down upon him like a hungry bird of prey. She landed on his back, her claw about his throat.
Conan Doyle surged up from his crouch, spinning around in hopes of dislodging the loathsome creature from her perch. The Erinys held tight, her powerful legs locked around his waist as the grip on his neck continued to tighten. He heard the agitated hiss of the snakes that lived in her hair.
He spun to see the battle in the chamber and his hopes sank. The number of resurrected gods was growing, the corpses streaming into the chamber in endless numbers. His compatriots had to be growing tired, their sorceries and brute strength starting to wane.
'I feel your despair and sup upon it with glee,' the Fury cackled in his ear as her grip upon his throat tightened even further. 'Surrender yourself to me — do not delay the inevitable. For what you and your companions have done, your suffering will last for eternity.'
Doyle felt his legs begin to weaken. It cannot end this way. A crude spell of conflagration leaped to the forefront of his thoughts and he brought it forward, feeling white-hot fire begin to swirl and grow in the palm of his hand.
' Surrender,' the Fury hissed as he dropped to his knees, borne down by her weight.
Conan Doyle reached up behind him and placed the ball of fire into the creature’s matted locks. 'Never,' he wheezed, hearing the whooshing sound of dry, ancient hair igniting and feeling the hold on his neck lessen.
The Erinys screamed, beating at her blazing head. Serpents, their bodies afire and smoldering, leaped from their burning nest to land on the ground, startling Conan Doyle with their number. He was preparing another spell, something that would reduce the foul beast to ashes, when, from within her robes, she produced her whip, and with blinding speed, cracked the lash.
The barbed, leathery tendril wound around his still-constricted throat, closing his breathing passage off entirely. Images of the wrongs he had committed during his long life flooded his mind.
'So much to be punished for,' the Fury said, her burned and blackened visage grinning at him down the length of the whip.
She yanked Conan Doyle viciously forward, and he again stumbled to his knees. Sins of the past clouded his mind, making it difficult for him to concentrate. He grabbed hold of the barbed length of whip, using the pain in his bleeding hands to clear his addled brain. She was dragging him toward her, the sounds of battle in the background accompaniment to his struggle, inspiring him to fight on.
' Come to me, sinner,' she hissed hungrily.
There were snakes all around her feet, but he noticed something else. In the area where he had planted the Hydra’s teeth, the fleshy earth was moving, startling the snakes and making them slither away. A geyser of blood squirted upward and from Hades’ very flesh there grew a soldier, brandishing a sword that looked to be forged from jagged bone.
Megaera spun to face her new foe, its body glistening with the blood that now pumped through the heart of Hades. She cried out for help from Alekto, and from the gods that had been called forth. But it was too late. The Hydra soldier brought his jagged blade of bone down through the thick muscle of her neck, sending her head spinning through the air before dropping to the floor.
Conan Doyle pulled the whip from around his neck, watching as more of the gore-covered soldiers climbed up from the fleshy earth. One soldier for every tooth, he observed, watching as they helped one another emerge from their birthing place. Before long they stood before him, fifty blood-drenched representations of man, their features unformed, mere holes for eyes and slits for mouths. They clutched their weapons of bone, waiting for the one who called them to life to proclaim his wishes.
'Fight,' Conan Doyle cried, pointing to the battle being waged across the chamber. 'Destroy these forgotten gods!'
The soldiers of the Hydra’s teeth surged obediently forward, an unsettling, inhuman cry of war escaping their unformed lips.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gull cut a swath of death through the resurrected gods, destructive magick spewing from one malformed hand, the gun that he had used to slay Charon firing from the other. And still they came at him, these once fabulous beings that had looked upon man from Olympus, manipulating the young race for their own amusement.
An emaciated, eight-foot-tall creature covered in silvery scales surged toward Gull, wielding a trident of gold. One of the offspring of Poseidon, he thought. How sad that beings once so revered have come to this. Gull fired a single shot into the god’s bearded face and the flesh and bone and stringy hair collapsed inward and blew out the back of his head.
In the moment he had bought himself, Gull checked his inside coat pocket for his prize, the treasure whose acquisition had caused all of this insanity. The blood of the Furies was still there, still safe. He had to leave this place soon. His goddess, his love, awaited the cure for her affliction. Medusa would finally understand that his love for her knew no bounds.
Another god, this one clad in the skins of animals, attempted to decapitate him with an enormous club, but Gull would not oblige him. The club-wielding god died squealing, an entropy spell swirling about his once mighty form, consuming what remained of his flesh.
Everywhere the sorcerer looked there was ferocious battle, and the dead continued to stream into the chamber. From the teeth of the Hydra, Conan Doyle had managed to conjure the assistance of a small army, and it seemed that the blood-slick soldiers had managed to buy them all some time. But Gull knew the dead would soon overwhelm them again.
He would have none of that.
Again, he patted his breast pocket, feeling the glass vial safely nestled there, and decided that now was the time to take his leave. He felt a momentary pang of guilt for deserting those who had begrudgingly become his allies, but there was too much at stake for him.
Through the sea of conflict, Gull saw an exit in a wall of the fleshy chamber, throbbing and pulsing not twelve feet away. Holstering his gun, he spoke an ancient incantation that would clear a path to the door and surround him in a field of dark and terrible magick. Killing magick. The gods who attempted to stop him died screaming, their bodies exploding into flames on contact with the shimmering aura that now protected him. Gull smiled as he reached the throbbing door, chancing a final, quick look over his shoulder before leaving.
'Nigel?' he heard a squeaky voice, ragged and full of panic.
And then he saw her, Jezebel, her clothing torn and stained with blood. There was a sad, sweet smile on the girl’s face as she made her way across the battlefield toward him. Bursts of lightning leaped from her fingers,
