A Curse of Gold

by Annie Sullivan

  Hettie’s attack has done nothing, just as Triton warned.

  In retaliation, the creature darts forward, arms out. Its claws splinter Rhat’s sword as he brings it up for an attack, and Rhat splashes backward into the water to avoid the claws tearing through his stomach as well.

  Royce moves forward to take his place. He advances backward, using his shield to guide him. He spins quickly, his sword screeching against the tough skin of the gorgon’s arm before glancing off. While Royce readies his next blow, he doesn’t see the gorgon’s long tail whip around and wrap around his ankle.

  “Royce!” I cry too late.

  He jerks around, landing on his back.

  The creature crouches over him. Right over his face. All the snakes stand on end and let out a screaming hiss as the gorgon’s eyes let out some sort of light.

  Royce shuts his eyes and tries to get his shield up for extra protection, but he doesn’t move fast enough. Triton twists his hand and creates a barrier of water between Royce and the gorgon just to be safe.

  The gorgon lashes her body around. Her tail crashes into Triton, sending him flying backward into the fog.

  Royce has his shield up by the time the water above him splashes back down into the pool.

  He swings his sword around wildly as the gorgon hunches over him again.

  The gorgon raises her claws, but before she can strike, I stumble forward. My blade glances off her arm. She grabs it and presses downward, pushing my blade closer to Royce’s chest.

  The hissing snakes on her head snap inches from my ear.

  “Keep your eyes closed,” I shout as much for Royce as for me.

  I drop my shield to grip the sword hilt with both hands, using all my strength to keep the blade from sinking another inch. I’m so focused on it, I don’t see her other arm jerk straight toward me.

  Hettie’s shield knocks it away, and she quickly swipes at the creature’s neck. But the creature pulls back, knocking me aside with its arm.

  Jagged rocks cut into my back as I splash into the water beside Royce.

  I roll over on my back so I’m not facing the gorgon, and I move to tell Royce to do the same. But his body is already rotating. Only, it’s not a natural movement.

  While Hettie and I were so focused on the gorgon’s upper body, she’d been coiling her long tail around Royce, squeezing the life out of him. The tail’s already up to his chest.

  Royce takes ragged breaths. He’s dropped his sword and shield and rips at the coils, trying to tear them from his body.

  “Hang on, Royce,” I scream, pulling at the tail. Thousands of tiny, dagger-sharp scales bite into my palms, ripping into my skin.

  Rhat joins me, pulling at the coils, but he can’t loosen them. They continue twisting Royce around and around as they choke the life from him.

  Royce lets out a pained gasp as the tail closes around his neck. His face goes an awful shade of blue, like the water at the bottom of ocean we’d just left behind.

  Rhat grabs Royce’s sword from where he dropped it and leaps to his feet.

  He and Hettie trade grunts as they ram their swords at the gorgon. Hettie ducks low, covering her face with her shield and going for the creature’s neck, while Rhat wards off the gorgon’s raging arms.

  I shove my sword into the tail with no effect. I try to wedge it between the coils to pry them apart. When that fails, I try to get my sword between the scales, but they’re too tightly packed.

  “Triton, help me,” I yell into the fog. But the god is nowhere to be seen.

  Royce’s face darkens even more as it disappears behind the last of the tail.

  “No, no, no,” I cry, dropping my sword. I dig my fingernails into the tail, barely noticing the scales ripping into my flesh. I claw at them until my fingers are covered in blood.

  I grab my sword and climb to my feet, but without Triton to keep the puddle steady, I have to wait for the ripples to clear before I can make out the gorgon’s shape.

  One of her snakes nearly catches Hettie in the arm as she ducks out of the way and behind the gorgon.

  I trudge forward, waving my sword to keep the creature’s attention directed forward. I can’t tell how close the beast is. The ripples make her close one moment and farther away the next.

  I swing my sword upward and connect with nothing.

  A rock flies from somewhere and crashes into the gorgon’s head. The creature staggers to the side. Rock after rock hits her in the head. She shrieks as one snake goes limp and dangles down over her cheek. The other snakes grow frenzied, each trying to coil closer to her scalp for protection.

  There’s a sickening thwack from behind. Hettie’s sword slices clear through the creature’s neck, sending the head rolling.

  “Don’t look,” Triton cries from somewhere.

  I snap my eyes shut and back away from where I heard it land until Triton speaks.

  “It’s staring away from us,” Triton says. I open my eyes to find him there with another rock in his hand.

  Hettie impales the head on the end of her sword while I race to Royce. Rhat’s already there. We fight to unwind him from the gorgon’s grip.

  When we finally unwind the last of the tail, he’s not moving. His body rests lifelessly against the rocks, his skin a dusky purple color.

  “Royce.” I cup his face in my hands. “Royce.” My voice rises unnaturally. A nauseous feeling starts in my stomach and crawls through my body with every second that passes. My breath catches in my throat.

  Then there’s a tiny inhale.

  But not from me.

  Royce’s eyes flutter open. He struggles to take another breath.

  “Royce!”

  I collapse against him. He coughs, and I pull back.

  He struggles to sit up, taking gulping breaths and cradling his ribs.

  Then Hettie lets out a scream.

  A burst of snakes explodes from the gorgon’s severed head, slithering in all directions. There must be twenty of them.

  Hettie kicks the skewered head free and starts slicing at the snakes around her ankles.

  Royce and I rush to our feet, and I toss my sword to him, knowing he’s better with it. I pick up Rhat’s broken hilt and jab it into the middle sections of a few of the creatures while everyone else chops at the snakes, hacking into anything they can. Green flesh floats atop the water while a red stain inks into the puddle.

  I crush one snake under my heel while Rhat slams his shield into another.

  A snake rears up right behind Royce, fangs exposed and ready to bite. It shoots toward his calf, but a rock smashes into its head, crushing it.

  My eyes jump to Triton. He picks up more rocks and launches them at the creatures with deadly accuracy.

  Hettie brings her sword down with a reverberating clang, severing the head from the last wriggling snake. She takes big, gulping breaths. “That’s gorgon blood, right?” She points to the water. “Where are the pegasi?”

  Triton sighs. “I worried it wouldn’t work. We’ll have to drop a head directly into the ocean to meet all the necessary conditions.” He stares at the head Hettie discarded. “But it might be better if we lure one closer to shore, because we’ll need a new head.”

  “This one won’t work?” Hettie looks down at the gorgon head surrounded by a pool of blood. When she stabs at it again and raises it up, eyes faced away from us, a few final drops of blood leak out, and then nothing.

  Triton shakes his head.

  Hettie slides the head off her sword with her foot. “All of that work wasted since we couldn’t get the head back to the ocean in time,” she mumbles.

  I stare down at the water around us as it grows darker with blood. Finally, I spot my shield and pluck it from the mess. The gorgon’s tail must’ve hit it because it’s bent in on itself.

  Royce comes up next to me and strains his muscles as he tries to bend the shield back into its original shape, but it doesn’t budge. He gives up with a grunt.

  “Here, take mine
,” he says, handing me his from where he dropped it. Gorgon blood drips down the front of it.

  “Royce—”

  “I’d rather you have it,” he says, cutting me off. “I fight better without it anyway.”

  I know he’ll say anything he has to in order to get me to take the shield, so I slip my arm through the handles.

  Triton separates some water from the pool and trickles it over the shield, rinsing off most of the blood. “We should head back to the shore. All this blood will attract other gorgons. One will probably follow us.”

  “Probably?” Hettie asks from where she’s kicking snake bodies to be sure they’re dead. “Didn’t you think having this puddle of ocean would probably work? We shouldn’t be retreating. We should be going out there and finding a gorgon so we can stop Dionysus.”

  “Maybe we should go back to the beach and regroup,” Royce says, trying to defuse the tension.

  “You’re giving up?” Hettie cries.

  “Hettie,” I start, “we’re covered in gorgon blood.” Bits of it are splattered up and down her legs and arms while the rest of us are stained from rolling in the bloody water. “Rhat’s sword is broken and one shield is crushed. We barely beat that creature fully armed.”

  “Fine,” she says. She starts to stomp off in the direction we came from.

  “Wait,” I call, “we need to stick together.”

  But Hettie seems as bent as ever on ignoring my words, and before I can stop her, she disappears into the mist.

  “Hettie,” Rhat cries, but his voice is echoed by another one.

  Hettie lets out a sound that I can only describe as absolute disgust.

  We rush forward and find Hettie waist-deep in one of the mud pits. Splashes of gritty brown muck cover her arms, neck, and chin. She tries to struggle toward us, but the substance is thicker than honey—and looks stickier too. Chunks of rock sit on the surface, not yet having been swallowed by the sludge.

  No waves appear as Hettie thrashes around. The pit almost manages to look like solid ground except where it creeps up around Hettie’s waist, depositing gravelly bits on her shirt as she jerks up and down in the muck. When she finally manages to twist around, the look on her face is one of pure hatred.

  Then her face pales.

  It takes me a moment to realize why. A moment later I hear it. The hissing.

  It reverberates through the air.

  Then there is a sickening splash.

  My body goes cold.

  Without raising my eyes too far, I use my shield to see what’s going on. I make out the torso of a gorgon pushing through the mud pit as if it were nothing more than water.

  And it’s headed straight for Hettie.

  “Get out of there,” Rhat shouts, his voice resounding louder than I’ve ever heard it. He kneels at the end of the pool and stretches his arm out to her. Her fingertips graze his, but they can’t grab hold of each other.

  My heart leaps into my throat, and I struggle to suck a breath in. My feet itch to move forward, to help somehow.

  The gorgon is getting closer and closer.

  Rhat moves to jump into the pool, but Triton holds him back. “If you get stuck, the gorgon will get you both before we can get you out.”

  Rhat shakes him off and kneels again. He stretches forth once more, his knees sinking into the edge of the pit, but he still fails to reach her. Hettie drops her shield into the muck and throws out her arm, straining against the unmoving goo.

  The hissing gets more agitated, as if the snakes see their prey in sight and know a meal is coming.

  And as Rhat fails again, a sinking feeling settles in my stomach. It’d been hard enough to get Triton’s foot free. How much more force will it take to get Hettie out?

  The hissing coils around my mind, creeping under my skin and through my veins, pulling tighter and tighter as the beast gets closer and closer. I find a rock on the ground and pitch it toward the gorgon, but without looking, the rock misses by an arm’s length. I grab rock after rock, but the gorgon moves faster through the pit. Its sharp claws rise out of the pit, dripping sludge. They rake through the mud, propelling the gorgon forward even faster. It’s closing in fast. Too fast.

  Bile crawls up my throat as I imagine those claws digging into Hettie. I hurl another rock, but the creature stays focused on my cousin. On the prey that is trapped.

  It opens its mouth and lets out a shriek, its claws nearly within striking distance. A few arm lengths away. A few seconds away.

  My heart jolts. It takes a moment for it to start again. When it does, it pounds so loudly it almost drowns out the never-ending hissing, each beat a countdown echoing in my ears.

  “Hurry,” I cry, launching more rocks that end up swallowed by the muck.

  Triton and Royce grab ahold of Rhat’s arm and try to angle him toward Hettie. But Rhat keeps losing his footing on the edge of the pool, sending chunks of dirt into the mud. Royce and Triton fight to keep a grip on him as he nearly plummets face-first into the muck.

  “Come on,” Rhat roars frantically as he adjusts his feet.

  I see the men working, making miniscule movements in the placements of their hands on Rhat. Each one trying to make sure he has the best grip despite the sweat clearly staining their palms. But they’re not going to get Hettie out in time. The gorgon is too close. It’s nearly there—each swish louder than the last.

  Rhat loses his footing again.

  “Try again,” Hettie says, but her voice is forced. Her cheeks are bright red from the heat of the pit, and her hair sits limply on her head.

  The gorgon’s faint shadow falls over her.

  She stills. She knows she can’t turn around, but she can see the fear playing across our faces.

  “Kora.” Her voice is small, pleading. Her eyes search out mine. As she does so, her face becomes ghostly pale and her eyes widen.

  The fear I see is crippling. I want to say something, to reassure her, but I feel as stuck as she is. All I can see is the gorgon’s torso as it rises behind her.

  She must see her own fear reflected in my face.

  My heart clenches in my chest. This can’t be happening. Not to Hettie. She’s a fighter. She’s always been able to get out of trouble. And I was supposed to save her from dying—from having the Oracle’s vision come true.

  I move to the edge of the pit. Bits of dirt crumble in under my feet. But my eyes aren’t on them. They’re on the gorgon’s torso as it raises its sharp claw, readying for a killing blow.

  I drag my gaze to Rhat. Tears stream down his face as he screams for Hettie to reach.

  But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t.

  She seems to sense the blow coming. She steels her face.

  “I love you,” she whispers to Rhat as their fingertips brush each other.

  Rhat cries out and tries to charge into the pit, but Royce and Triton pull him back before he falls headfirst into the mud.

  The three men tumble backward.

  I lock eyes with Hettie. But how can I watch her die? I drop to my knees, as they refuse to support me any longer. I want to melt into the puddle and disappear. And yet I can’t look away as the gorgon’s arm speeds forward.

  Then an idea flashes through my mind, spurred on by the thought of a different puddle—the golden puddle Dionysus’s henchman had left behind.

  But I need gold. And I need it now.

  Royce is too far away.

  I bite my lip.

  The seashell! The one I’d turned to gold after freeing Grax. The one I’d forgotten to give Phipps because so much else had been going on.

  My hands tear at my pockets, fighting to get to the oblong shape. My fingertips graze the metal, sending a surge through my body as I absorb the gold.

  I shove my hand against the muddy pool, turning it instantly to gold. But was I fast enough?

  My eyes jump up. The gorgon’s claws falter a mere finger’s breadth from Hettie’s back as gold rears up all around the creature.

&
nbsp; Hettie sucks in a tight breath as everything around her hardens.

  Rhat’s already on his feet and skidding across the golden pool before the gorgon gains its bearings.

  “Duck,” he yells at Hettie, who bends forward as he lops off the gorgon’s head, spilling blood across the golden surface.

  The rest of the gorgon’s body slumps forward, nearly knocking into Hettie.

  “Leave the gorgon’s head,” Triton says. “There’s no use trying to get it back to shore. And if Kora changes the mud pit back, the snakes might sink in and get trapped in there.”

  Rhat kicks the head away and then makes it back to land. He manages to use the gold to lean far enough forward to get a grip on Hettie with one hand while Royce and Triton hold his other one.

  “On three,” I say, “I’ll turn it back and you pull hard so Rhat doesn’t get stuck too.”

  The others nod.

  “One, two, three,” I call. Then I press my hand back against the gold.

  With a squelching, sucking sound, Royce and Triton pull back fast enough to keep Rhat from sinking into the pit, and he in turn pulls Hettie right along with him. They collapse in a pile while I grab a rock and transfer the gold. I stick it into my pocket and rise to my feet just as the others do.

  Rhat wraps Hettie up in a tight hug, and she relaxes against him, tears slipping down her cheeks. She stays there a few long moments before she peels away from him and comes up to me, wrapping her arms around me. Her breath pulses hotly against my neck as she exhales. “I’m so sorry, Kora. Thank you.”

  She shudders against me, reaching up to wipe at the tears dotting her cheeks, but she only succeeds in smearing more goo across her face in the process.

  “It’s okay,” I say, pulling her closer despite the heat radiating off her body. “We all want to find a way to get to Dionysus. And we’ll find a way—together.”

  “We should get back,” Triton says. “The sooner we get back to the ocean, the sooner we can get this crud off of us. Not to mention this pool of blood is probably what attracted that gorgon—and is now attracting every other creature on the island.” He raises his hands up, separating the water from the blood and moving the pool over to a cleaner area.