He shrugged. "Just trying to decide if I’m insulted by that or not." After a moment he seemed to determine that he was not, for he started up after her.
They made their way to the roof with no further incident. There was a small stairwell that went up from the east end of the fourth floor corridor, and at the top was a door. It stood open, and a cool breeze swept in from outside. Sunshine splashed onto the threshold, and when Ceridwen and Danny stepped out onto the roof, they found a glorious blue-sky day. Jezebel’s weather manipulation had been only the beginning, creating a chain reaction that altered the weather pattern for the entire city.
"Her magick is sort of like a minor league version of yours, huh?" Danny muttered to her as they joined the others.
Ceridwen shot him a hard look. Jezebel was nothing like her. The girl bent the weather to her will, instead of cajoling it, nurturing and loving it. And Ceridwen was bonded to the elements, not the weather. Yet the comparison grated on her.
"I was beginning to worry about you," Conan Doyle called as he started toward them. He was neatly attired and his clothing was extremely old fashioned, but he did not look as proper as he often did.
Gull was with him, and beyond the misshapen man were Hawkins and Jezebel, watching like carrion birds awaiting the demise of their feast. But the show really belonged to Gull and Conan Doyle. Each of the two men held an object in his hand, a heavy stone carved into the shape of a pyramid and engraved with strange sigils unfamiliar to Ceridwen.
"All right," Eve said, "how does this thing work, exactly?"
Ceridwen stared at her in surprise. She was sitting on the far edge of the roof with her skin-tight natural denim-clad legs over the side, propped back on her arms with her face upturned toward the sun.
The mother of all vampires, basking in the light of day.
"Eve?" Ceridwen said. "What are you… how?"
The wind swept Eve’s hair across her eyes and the vampire tossed her head like some Hollywood starlet and gave them all a Cheshire cat grin. She stretched backward, obviously relishing the sunlight. The dark green sweater she wore rode up, exposing the smooth flesh of her midsection.
"How, what how?" she asked coyly.
"How come you’re not crispy fried?" Danny put in.
Conan Doyle cleared his throat, and when Ceridwen looked at him he gave her a meaningful glance. "Mr. Gull has come to us armed with one of the things Eve most desired. A spell that cloaks her in hidden shadows all day long. The sunlight never reaches her skin."
Ceridwen frowned and left Danny to watch the mages at work, while she walked over to join Eve. She did not sit on the roof’s edge, however. Instead, she stood and stared down at the vampire.
"That was rash, don’t you think? Accepting his help? You owe him, now. You’ve made a deal with the devil."
Eve snorted derisively. "I’ve made deals with lots of devils in my time. I’m already damned."
For a long moment Ceridwen only stood there. "All right. Just watch him. And watch yourself. You never know what you’ve agreed to without realizing it."
"Eve?" Gull said.
Ceridwen eyed him cautiously. He was malformed, and she most clearly found him hideous, but she saw something tragically noble in his features and bearing. That and his charm combined to make him far more dangerous than any mere mage.
"Yeah?" Eve replied. She did not turn toward him.
"You asked how it worked. Quite simple, really. Or relatively so." He gestured at an oval ring of shimmering energy that opened like an iris on the rooftop. "Scattered across the world are loci that Sweetblood and his acolytes — Doyle and I — placed there well over a century ago. The one nearest the isle of Lesbos is in Istanbul. There must be three loci for a Blackgate to function. One to open it on this side, like a key. The second, at our chosen destination. In this case, Istanbul. The third to follow after, closing the Blackgate. Leaving such portals open is bad magick to begin with, but leave enough of them open, and the entire time-space weave could come undone and collapse."
"Don’t cross the streams," Eve muttered, eyes closed, head still thrown back. "Thanks, Egon."
Ceridwen ignored her. Gull seemed puzzled but said nothing.
"Blackgate?" Danny asked.
"As you see," Conan Doyle replied, and he gestured to Gull. The two mages had used a spell to create the foundation for the portal, but now they separated, one moving to the left of the shimmering oval and the other to the right. Then, simultaneously they raised their loci and touched the tips of those runic pyramids together. At the moment of contact, the portal ceased its shimmering and became a sheer, vertical oval of solid blackness. Like an oil spill painted on air.
"Right. Blackgate," Danny repeated.
"Mr. Gull will go first," Conan Doyle said, glancing warily at Gull. There was clearly a part of him that saw this as a trap, and Ceridwen could not blame him. "Then the rest of you, one at a time. And I will follow behind, closing the gate."
"Let’s saddle up and get a move on, then," Eve said, climbing to her feet picking up her long, dark brown leather jacket, and striding toward the Blackgate. "I could use a shot of ouzo."
Ceridwen exchanged a glance with Arthur, a look rife with meaning. She would go second, right after Nigel Gull. And if anything should go wrong, if somehow Arthur was killed in transition or magickally rerouted or something equally unpleasant happened, she would slit Gull’s throat and stay by his corpse to make sure it remained dead.
"As you say, Eve," Conan Doyle agreed. "As you say."
As night fell over Athens, she lingered in the darkness between two of the columns of the Thesseion, the temple dedicated to Hephaestus. The progeny of man wandered in and around the temple as though the whole of the city were some hideous beehive. Yet there was no veneration in their visits, not an ounce of worship. The Doric columns of that proud temple stood as a faded testament to an ancient way and all that remained of the mystical power that once had held sway here was the brittle residue that sifted down from the ceilings and columns.
Time had moved on and left a void within her, an ache in her heart. Once upon a time there had been great deeds performed in this city, by both gods and men. Now there was merely aimless meandering. What little she understood of the modern age told her that mortals aspired to very little beyond their own mortality.
Fools. She wished she could erase them from the land, or at least instill within them the sense of awe that their ancestors had once had for the gods and monsters of old.
She did not want to die. Yet if she were to live, she wanted at least not to be so alone. Somewhere in this ancient seat of power, she reasoned, there must be pieces of the Old World lingering, some tangible connection to the past. If she could touch that bygone age, taste it, she knew it would sustain her. For here in the modern city with pollution in the air and cars roaring on the roads, she felt like a wisp. Like a memory. Like a myth. As though at any moment she might simply disappear into the mortals’ collection of legends, becoming nothing more than a story.
Yet she was not a story. She was flesh and blood.
And venom.
There in the darkness between the columns of Hephaestus’s temple, she stared out across the Agora, a massive open area ringed with buildings and thronged with mortals. Yet they did not thrive there. They only survived and observed. They entered the buildings as though the city was a living museum.
Once the Agora had been the center of life in Athens, the seat of its lawkeepers and administrators, with its temples and arcades and shops, and the mint where the coin of the ancient city had been struck. There had been a library there, and houses of education. But if all of those structures that lined the edges of the Agora were the mind of Athens, its broad open expanse was the city’s beating heart.
The memory was fresh. So much so that if she narrowed her eyes just a bit she could still see the carts and the vendors shouting at passersby, the hagglers at the booths and the children running in among the crowds. A shudder of
nostalgia passed through her. The Agora of Athens had once been the crossroads of the Aegean. In her mind’s eye she could see Socrates orating in the street. She could smell the honey and spices permeating the sweltering air, hear the voices of slave traders as they boasted about their chattel. She could taste an olive upon her tongue, its perfect flesh crushed in her mouth, flavor spreading over her palate.
What mortals did not understand was that the ancient world faded but it never disappeared. If she could peel back the layers of time that had transpired since then, she could touch that world. Just for comfort. Her mind roiled with confusion. Immortal life was wasted if she could not decide how to spend it. Certainly not like so many others from her age. She had convinced herself that a taste of the past was all that was required. Then she would know what to do. How to live.
And none of these mongrel offspring of the once-proud human race were going to stand in her way.
In the darkness, her hands caressing the perfect beauty of the Doric column beside her, its marble cool against her skin, she hissed softly. It was only her voice for a moment, and then her hissing was joined by a chorus of angry whispers from the nest of snakes atop her head.
"Excuse me?" asked a voice from behind her. The language was Greek, but so mangled that she knew he had not been born here.
A curious tourist who’d lost his way, perhaps, and heard the hissing in the shadows. With an expression half smile and half sneer she turned to face him. He recoiled in horror and his eyes froze, his features a mask of revulsion and terror that would remain for all eternity, etched in petrified stone.
The passengers of the Range Rover had traveled in silence ever since setting out from Mitilini, where two of the vehicles had been awaiting their arrival. Eve was behind the wheel, with Conan Doyle in the passenger seat, and Danny and Ceridwen in the back. The kid still had his headphones on, but when she glanced in the rearview mirror, Eve could see he was alert and anxious, his eyes darting around, watching the sides of the road… not to mention the road in front of them. He was guarded and suspicious.
That was good. Healthy.
The other Range Rover was ahead of them. Hawkins was driving with Gull riding shotgun and the wild-eyed Jezebel in the backseat. Eve had taken a liking to Jezebel, perhaps because of the madness in the girl’s eyes. She knew what it was like to feel that unchained and how dangerous it could be. Eve figured the girl’s instability was a liability, but she was Gull’s problem, for now.
Conan Doyle had a map spread on his lap and the interior light on. Eve had enjoyed the sunshine, thanks to Gull’s spell, but she was relieved that night had fallen. She was comfortable in the dark. At home.
"We’re nearing Sigri, now," Conan Doyle reported.
Eve shot him a sidelong glance. "Let me guess. Cute little fishing village, like we stepped back in time, full of hardy Greek men and sensuous full-bodied women?"
Despite the tension Gull’s presence was causing, Conan Doyle had not apparently lost his sense of humor. Most people would not believe he had one, but Eve knew it well. Even now, the mage pretended to be surprised.
"However did you know that?" he asked.
"I’m psychic. Didn’t you know?"
In the back, Danny laughed softly. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed he had pulled the headphones off. Eve realized that, just as she had, the kid sensed they were approaching their destination. That there was something supernatural nearby. Something big.
Even Ceridwen smiled at her words. Eve was far from psychic, of course. But they had been driving the coast of the island of Lesbos for a while now, and every place they came to was just a more rustic version of the last quaint fishing village.
"I wish we coulda spent some more time in Istanbul," Danny said. Now that the silence had been broken, he seemed to want to engage the rest of them. "It was beautiful. Dirty, yeah. But still… squint your eyes just right and it feels like you’re walking through history. Those were maybe the only lectures I ever stayed awake for in my history classes… about the Byzantine Empire and the Turks and all of that."
"Perhaps we can return one day," Conan Doyle offered. "When other matters are not so demanding of our attention."
Danny seemed surprised. "Do you think?"
Ceridwen replied instead of Conan Doyle. In the mirror, Eve could see the Fey sorceress turn to the boy. "I don’t see why not. You have the resources now to explore not only this world but others as well. You’d do well to take advantage of the opportunity to enrich yourself."
"Or you could just have fun," Eve added. "You know, learn about different countries by experiencing their pubs and whores."
Conan Doyle sighed but said nothing. Eve gave him a devilish smirk. She was glad that he and Ceridwen seemed to be healing the rift between them and maybe there was a future there. They certainly loved one another and that in itself was rare. Even with the resentment of the past still lingering the two of them would obviously have sacrificed anything for one another. But Eve was going to draw the line at their trying to parent Danny Ferrick. The kid needed friends and mentors, yes. But he had a mother. An ordinary, wonderfully human mother. Eve didn’t want any of them distracting the kid from how lucky he was to have her.
They followed the Range Rover in the lead as it veered away from the village they’d been approaching. The land around them quickly began to change. The ground was rutted. Hawkins was driving like he had a death wish or just didn’t care. Eve thought that was pretty sexy, actually, and had no problem doing the same. They bumped over ruts and cut corners too close, sending up swirls of dirt clouds that rose into the night as they passed.
Soon it was not only the terrain that had changed.
"Holy shit," Danny muttered in the back eat, voice so low he seemed unaware he had even spoken. "What is this?"
"Yes," Ceridwen agreed. She shuddered and drew her cloak more closely around her as she stared out her window. "It is like a tomb of trees."
Up ahead, Hawkins slowed. Eve did the same. She had to cut the wheel to swerve around a tree that had fallen across their path. But, then, it wasn’t really a tree, was it? All around them now was a gray, charcoaled landscape. The trees did not blow in the breeze. The plants did not give off the perfume of flowers. Each trunk that jutted up into the shadow of the night seemed like a withered husk, a corpse, and their branches were skeletal figures pointing accusingly at the sky.
"That’s exactly what it is," Eve told Ceridwen. "Exactly."
Hawkins turned off the main road now and Eve followed slowly, very careful not to knock down any of the trees. The smell of the ocean came on the breeze through the window, but there were no other scents. Nothing.
"The forest is petrified," Conan Doyle explained, glancing back at Danny and then leaning forward to see out the window. "Nature as cadaver, if you will. In prehistoric times there was a great deal of volcanic activity here. Eruptions produced lava and ash that filled the air so quickly that instead of burning the vegetation here, it was coated instead with a layer of ash and preserved, just as you see."
Even for Eve the trees were haunting to look at, and they were deep among them now.
"So, the original trees are still under that ash?" Danny asked.
"No. Actually, they were fossilized from the inside out during that same process. You’re in a sort of fossil diorama at the moment. It’s a remarkable place, actually. A window on the past."
"I’m more concerned about the future," Eve said grimly. Up ahead, Hawkins had stopped the lead vehicle. There appeared to be some kind of clearing beyond.
Eve pulled behind and killed the engine. She was the first one out of the Rover. Conan Doyle and Danny got out. Ceridwen was slow to follow. The destruction of this primeval forest seemed catastrophic to her, or so her expression implied. The Fey sorceress reached out to touch a nearby fossilized tree, but she drew back her hand quickly and lowered her gaze in sadness.
"And this is where we will find the grave of Phorcys? The Gorgons’ father?
" she asked as she looked up.
Conan Doyle and Danny were already walking toward Gull and his associates, all of whom were out of their vehicle. Eve was the only one who had waited for Ceridwen. She did not dislike the Faerie woman. In fact, Ceridwen had earned her respect many times over, and she appreciated that Conan Doyle loved her, and that the feeling was mutual. But they just didn’t have a thing in common. Despite the horrors she had seen in her life, Ceridwen remained in some way innocent.
Eve was the furthest thing from innocent. She was tainted, forever and always, by her sins and by the touch of unclean hands.
Yet Ceridwen always treated her with deference and a quiet camaraderie. So Eve waited for her, and it was she who answered the elemental’s question.
"Maybe we’ll find it, and maybe we won’t," Eve told her. "Phorcys was a myth. A legend. Some of them are true and some of them are bullshit. But even if he was real, and the story of the Gorgons is true, that doesn’t mean this is his grave right here. If there’s one thing I know about Nigel Gull, it’s that the truth is open to interpretation when it’s coming from his mouth."
"Yes," Ceridwen replied. "I had that sense."
She glanced once more at the tree she had touched and rubbed her fingers together as though some residue remained on her skin. Eve wore her jeans and boots and a long leather jacket over a green turtleneck. Her hair was perfect. Her dangling earrings, jade and amber set in gold, had come from a jeweler in Paris. Ceridwen wore a dress that was little more than a layered veil and a robe more suited to Medieval times. And yet there was no question that the sorceress seemed the more at home here, in this ancient place, despite what had befallen the forest.
"I think we’re going to have to work extra hard to keep your guy out of trouble this time," Eve told her.
Ceridwen’s violet eyes flashed defensively, but then she must have seen something in Eve’s own gaze, for she smiled instead. "Where would he be without us?"
Eve glanced around and laughed. "A fossil."
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