Squire rode in the back, ugly little fucker bouncing around back there. Eve surprised herself by being happy to see all three of them.
Clay tore gears up as he halted the lumbering vehicle and killed the engine. He climbed out, and even as he did he changed, shifting with effortless fluidity to his natural form, the tall, hairless man whose flesh was cracked, dry earth. The Clay of God.
'You want a hand?' Squire asked.
'Couldn’t hurt,' Clay replied, as he hefted a burden from the back of the truck. A body, wrapped in chains, a leather hood covering its head not unlike the sort of thing a falconer used to keep his bird calm.
Grinning, Squire began to applaud. 'Come on,' he said, glancing over at Eve. 'Give the big guy a hand.'
Eve scowled at him. Squire blew her a kiss, then hopped out of the truck. But he did not approach. He only leaned against the side of the vehicle and watched. Something was to unfold here, and he did not want to be a part of it. She saw a look of distaste flicker across his face and then his sardonic grin returned.
Clay carried Medusa over his shoulder, reaching back to cinch the straps on her hood tightly as he strode toward the church. She did not struggle. Perhaps, like a hooded falcon, she was waiting for her moment to strike. When he had reached Gull and Conan Doyle, Clay slipped her off of him and let her fall to the ground. A moan of pain came, muffled, from beneath the hood.
'What have you done to her?' Gull demanded, kneeling by Medusa and glaring up at Clay.
His upper lip curled in hatred and disgust. 'A few broken bones. Far less than she deserved.' Clay looked at Conan Doyle. 'Are you sure this is the right thing to do.'
'No,' Conan Doyle confessed, startling Eve with his honesty. 'But it’s what we’re doing.' Then he stepped up beside Gull and looked down at Medusa. 'Do not remove her hood entirely until the curse is — '
'I am not a fool!' Gull snarled, rounding on him.
But then Conan Doyle seemed forgotten. Eve watched as Gull summoned a spell, sketching his fingers in the air, and the chains fell away, pooling around her on the ground.
'It is I, fair one,' Gull whispered, the words eddying on the breeze. 'Come. Take my hand, rise and let the curse be broken.'
Eve took a step back and tensed, waiting for Medusa to lash out in attack, prepared to stop her if she did. Conan Doyle did not move but Eve could see a soft blue glow around his hands and feel the electric charge in the air around him that only came from magick. He was ready as well.
Medusa stood. Eve could hear hissing beneath the Gorgon’s hood and now that she looked closely, she saw the leather shifting, almost undulating with the presence of the serpents on the monster’s head.
Gull put a hand behind her, touched the small of her back. Medusa flinched and Eve twitched in response, ready to move.
'It’s me,' Gull whispered. 'It’s Nigel.'
Then Medusa surrendered to him, sliding her taloned hands around behind him and pressing herself into him, molding her body to Gull’s and laying her head on his shoulder like any young lover might do.
There was silence at the top of that hill. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Gull reached into his pocket and produced the vial. He held it up in front of her face as though she could see it. Though that was impossible, of course, she sensed it somehow, for she froze and her head tilted back as though she could inhale that blood. Eve wondered if it was the magick in that vial, the forgiveness, the power of ancient myth that Medusa sensed, or if it was simply the scent of blood that had caught her attention.
The mage did not seem so ugly in that moment when he reached up and uncapped the vial, then loosened Medusa’s hood. Eve tensed again, worried that he would pull it off, but instead Gull only raised it high enough to reveal her mouth, the pale flesh and needle fangs and the forked tongue of the accursed Gorgon.
'Drink,' he said, pressing the vial into her hand.
Medusa hesitated only a moment before she lifted the vial and sucked its contents into her mouth. The bloody tears of the Furies disappeared into her hideous maw and that forked tongue ran out into the vial, licking it clean.
The effect was almost instantaneous. Medusa did not collapse or even flinch. Instead the visible gray flesh at her chin became pink and healthy and her mouth was that of another creature entirely, with lush, full lips. Damp tears ran down her cheeks.
Before she had been cursed by Athena, Medusa had been the most beautiful creature in the world. Or so went the myth. Now, as she reached up to remove her hood — all of them watching in hushed fascination — Eve could believe it. Her eyes were wide with joy, her lips trembling with emotion. She held her hands up and studied the long, elegant fingers, then ran her palms over her lissome shape. At last she reached up to touch her face, and even as she did she spun, looking at them each in turn. She was awestruck and lost in a blissful rapture. It was written in her every expression, her every movement.
'My darling. You are free, now. Your curse is ended. After an eternity, your beauty is returned to — '
His voice had given her focus for the first time. Medusa turned and looked at Nigel Gull, this twisted mage who had risked all for her, and she recoiled at his appearance. Her beauty was marred by the revulsion that curled her upper lip and narrowed her gaze as she took a step back from him.
Medusa was free of her curse, but Gull was still stricken by his own. The handsome countenance he had sacrificed for dark gifts of magick would never be his again. His misshapen features flinched now, stung by her reaction to him.
'Medusa?' he ventured, pitiful. Crushed.
When she spoke, the words were Greek, and so ancient that though Eve remembered the language, it took her a moment to translate in her mind.
'I am sorry,' the Gorgon said. She reached up a perfect, slender hand, but fell short of caressing Gull’s hideous features. The hand fell to her side. 'I have despised my own face for so long… if I spent my days gazing at yours it would only remind me of the hell I have escaped. You have given me everything, but I cannot repay you. I cannot give you what you most desire in return.'
At some point Danny and Ceridwen had come out of the church. Squire, Clay, and Graves watched from their vantage point near the truck. Conan Doyle stood with Eve. And Gull was alone.
'What did she say?' Danny asked. 'That language, what — '
'Ancient Greek,' Conan Doyle explained. 'But I don’t know what — '
Nigel Gull understood, however. From the look on his face, it was clear that he understood all too well. All the light and hope had drained from his eyes and there was only malice there once more. Any trace of the desire and love he had revealed was buried deep beneath the ugliness that was not only in his face, but in his heart. This was the cunning schemer who had betrayed them, who had used them, and who had discarded his own allies in the pursuit of his goal. This was the dark magician.
Oh, yes, he had understood Medusa perfectly.
Gull drew his antique, pepperbox pistol from beneath his jacket, and shot her through the head.
Eve cried out and Conan Doyle lunged for the weapon, but too late.
Medusa fell to the ground, blood spreading across the white pebbles of the drive.
Gull knocked Conan Doyle away, gave Medusa a final glance, and then a pool of bruise-purple energy gathered around his feet and the ground swallowed him whole, the mage slipping down into some dark portal of his conjuring. Slipping away.
But as he went, Eve caught sight of his face, of the distant, hollow glaze in his eyes, and she knew that though he would escape them, he would never, ever be free.
EPILOGUE
On the third floor of Arthur Conan Doyle’s home in Louisburg Square was a bedroom with no bed. Shelves lined two of the walls, laden with maps and journals and artifacts from the life and career of Dr. Leonard Graves. There was no bed because dead men did not need to sleep. Instead, in addition to those shelves and a scattering of books the ghost of Dr. Graves had borrowed from Conan Doyle’s library, there was an antique Victrola side by side with a CD player, old records and brand new discs. Graves was equally passionate about Robert Johnson and the
