by Paul Neuhaus
“It was,” Connie agreed. “You were like Errol Flynn in a Gremlins t-shirt.”
“Great,” I replied. “Is my jug okay?”
Amanda looked around to my back. “Against all odds, your jug is perfect.”
I sighed. “I couldn’t bear to get this far only to be jug-less.”
By the time we got to the waterline, the sun was nearly down. I don’t know how consummations work, but I assumed Orpheus and Eurydice only had until midnight to do the deed. Fortunately, there were three sets of tracks through the sand. Eurydice’s, Orpheus’ and Medea’s. No surprise Medea’d be along since she had some magic to do. That was the part that made me most nervous. I cared about Mr. and Mrs. Orpheus getting their fuck on only insofar as it helped Medea. The whole situation was just funky. By that point, I’d been around for thousands of years, seen most of the world and captured Evils large and small. Never once had I been on a desperate chase to cock block someone.
Before we followed the trail in earnest, I run into the surf to wash off the sticky robot goo. There’s nothing worse than to have a throb-y ass and be covered with sticky robot goo. As I was bathing, Connie said, “Huh. Look at that.”
I came up out of the surf to find him pointing at the ground. On the ground, a short distance away from the trail of our quarry, was another set of tracks, running parallel to Orpheus and company’s. It was two people. Both of them very small. “Yeah,” I said. “I noticed that when we first arrived. There’s someone else in here with us.”
“And they’re both the size of Holly Hunter,” Connie said.
Once we set out after Medea and the others, Venables said, “What’s the deal with Eurydice? She said she wasn’t into Orpheus anymore.”
“That’s just what you would say if you were not only still into someone you were also expecting an imminent rescue from the someone you were supposedly no longer into. Medea and Orpheus got word to her in the Underworld. She knew the gas attack was coming and she was all revved up and ready to scoot.”
Venables nodded. “Man, Orpheus sure does have an impact on the ladies.”
I raised a finger. “All the ladies except Medusa. He was out of her life and she wasn’t exactly mooning after him.”
Amanda called my finger raise and raised me a second finger raise. “Medusa’s a special case. She can’t feel anything below the waist.”
We might’ve bantered back and forth like that for a while if Connie hadn’t gotten our attention. “What’s that?” he said.
I looked to where he was pointing and saw a set of ruins on the beach. In front of the ruins was a stone table with stone benches. Sitting on one of the benches was an old man.
“Should we go around?” Venables said.
“I dunno,” I said. “The beach gets rocky on the other side of the ruins. We may lose the trail. Maybe we should ask the old dude if he knows where Medea and Orpheus and Eurydice went.” While I was looking at the aforementioned rockiness, I thought I saw two small figures standing atop it. Before my brain could confirm what, my eyes thought they saw, the little shapes scampered down the far side.
Seeing no better plan, my two companions agreed that we should approach the old man sitting near the ruins. He was staring blankly at the surf and I had to snap my fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “What do you want?” he said, irritated.
“Just a little information,” I said. “Then you can go back to your sitting and your staring.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’d sit, and you’d stare too if you were me. Look at me! By the gods, look at me!” He held up his hands and jutted his chin out and, for the first time, I noticed how emaciated he was. His eyes were sunken, and his cheeks were hollow. His hair was coming out in patches.
“What seems to be the trouble, old—”
He cut me off. He was mighty eager to tell his tale. “My name is Phineas and I used to be king in these lands. But that all changed with Poseidon’s curse! You cannot know what it means to be shunned by the gods, fool girl! You cannot know!”
I scowled at him. “I have a better idea than you’d think. But I’m a little pressed for time so if you could just—”
He cut me off again and, for a moment, I considered grabbing him and shaking the shit out of him. “If I could just what?! Give you something for nothing?! You ask a boon of me when you can plainly see I have so little to give?!”
“Look, pops, all I need is a little info, and then I’d be happy to be out of your hair.”
“I tell you I’m cursed, and you call attention to the miserable state of my coif?! Your manners are contemptible, girl!”
I put my hands on his stone table and leaned in toward him, gritting my teeth. “Three people went by here a while ago. Two women and a man. Did you see them, yes or no?”
The old man leaned in toward me, gritting his own teeth. “Go fuck a centaur, you smelly whore!”
I went for him. If Connie and Venables hadn’t each grabbed one of my arms and pulled me back, I would’ve chewed him up and spit out the gristle. Constantinides pulled me back toward the sea as Amanda sat down across from the old fellow and smiled at him sweetly. “Listen. King Phineas,” she said. “We’re a little rushed here. We need to stop two people from fucking or the world’s gonna end. We just wanna know where the people we’re following went. I’m certain you must’ve seen them. Is there anything we can do to get you to help us out?”
He seemed to like Amanda’s more diplomatic approach. He didn’t even need to consider his answer. “Of course, there’s something you can do! Break the curse! If you do that, you’ll never be able to shut me up. I’ll tell you where your friends went, I’ll tell you any gods-damned thing you wanna hear.”
“We’d be happy to help in any way we could... your grace,” Venables said. “Provided it’s within our power and it doesn’t take too long.”
Phineas smiled and folded his stick-like arms over his sunken chest. “You’re in luck, missy. Helping me won’t take long at all and you’re right on time to do it. Behold!” He pointed toward the ocean and we all looked. Right then three women walked out of the water and headed toward us. All three of them wore silvery robes and were luminescent in the fading light. Each of them bore a tray laden with fruits, meats and breads. The women were not only wet, they were draped with sea weed. The food, on the other hand, was completely dry. “Three times a day, these three maidens bring me three platters of the finest food known to man. They place it before me and, as soon as I lay hands on it... Well, I’ll demonstrate.”
Connie and I watched as the sea broads walked by us. They ignored not only us but also Amanda as they wordlessly placed the food in front of Phineas and then retreated again to the ocean.
The old man held his hands in place just above the three platters. “I am all skin and bones because I am not allowed to eat,” he said. “Three times a day, every day, I am served a banquet fit for a king and three times a day, every day, the harpies descend upon me. They claw at my flesh and my hair and my clothing and they defile the food so that not even a crumb can pass my lips. I will call them now as I do every day. If you can chase them away so they never return, I will give you the information you seek.”
I sighed and said, “Alright. Hold that thought. Amanda, get in here. We need to huddle.” Venables got up from her bench and came over to Connie and me.
“Harpies are the little bird women, right?” Amanda said.
“That’s right,” Connie replied.
“Let’s figure out how we’re gonna handle this,” I said.
“How are we gonna handle this?” Connie asked. “Little bird women are airborne. We don’t have any bows and arrows and you broke our only spear.”
“One spear wasn’t gonna help us against a bunch of little bird women. I might have an idea, though. Search the ground for sticks. Big, thick sticks.”
“Sticks?” Amanda said.
“Yeah. One for each of us. Make sure they’re sturdy.” With that, w
e broke and went on a stick hunt. Fortunately, it didn’t take us long to come up with three suitable candidates. Once that was done, I had us all gather around Phineas. “Pull your hands back,” I said to the disgraced king. With his hands out of the way, I arranged the three platters in a line in front of him. “Okay, when I say ‘go’, I want you to throw yourself onto the trays, and, no matter what happens, I don’t want you to move. I’m not kidding. No matter how unpleasant things may get, you cannot take your body off of the food. Do you understand me?”
Phineas looked uncertain, but he nodded.
I turned to my two traveling companions and said, “All you gotta do is follow my lead, okay?” Both of them nodded as well. I took a breath and I said, “Okay... 1, 2, 3… Go!”
Phineas threw himself onto the three platters and the air was immediately thick with little bird women. They tore at the old king’s hair and clothing and generally made an awful ruckus. I wasted no time at all. I immediately starting beating the harpies with my stick. Good solid blows that had the fringe benefit of following through to the man underneath. Connie and Venables didn’t need any coaching. They too went crazy, wailing on both man and harpy as if they were a hideous piñata. The harpies had hollow bones and were easy to smash. Some of them got wise and rose into the air to attack their attackers. None of them went high enough to avoid a nice overhand swing and we brought them down too. Most of our smacking was confined to the ones on Phineas and—I won’t even lie—the cries of the old fucker as he absorbed blow after blow were ever so satisfying.
In time, our work was done. We had one very bruised and battered Phineas and a dozen or so barely recognizable bird women. The table was fairly covered with carcasses, feathers and stinky black blood.
Funny thing was, Amanda continued to wail on the old geezer a moment or two after all the harpies were dead. Finally, I pulled her off of him and we shared a grin. “You can get up now,” I said to the fallen king.
Moaning, Phineas came to a seated position again. He looked around for more harpies but saw there were none. As soon as that fact fully registered in his brain, he laid into the food. He didn’t even care that it was spattered with harpy blood.
“Alright, Phineas... We held up our end...”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said around a mouthful of half-chewed bread and dates. “Walk a diagonal line inland from where I’m sitting. You’ll come to that stand of rocks. Go over it. At first you won’t see anything significant. No trail or anything. But, if you continue to walk straight, you’ll come to a little path lined with painted stones. The path leads to a beautiful glade my people once used for ceremonies. There’s a small amphitheater. I guarantee that’s where your three friends went. There’s no other real landmark around here for miles.”
“Good enough,” I said, tossing aside my stick. “Enjoy your dinner.”
Phineas nodded. “I’d offer you some, but I don’t want to.”
Without another word, I set myself on the path Phineas had indicated. Connie and Amanda fell in step behind me. When we got to the stand of rocks, the old man called after us.
“Hey!” he said. “Was it really necessary for you to beat the shit out of me to lift the curse.”
“Yes,” I called back to him. “Yes, it was.”
We turned back in the direction we needed to travel but we hadn’t gone three steps before we heard a loud crack. All three of us were startled and we spun. Poor Phineas had just had his curse lifted and now he was dead with a smoking hole in his head. A hole the size, no doubt, of a twenty-two-caliber bullet.
“Shit!” I said. “Run!”
And run we did.
I’m not sure why we were running come to think of it. It wasn’t like Harper Adcock could chase us with her rifle and get shots off with any kind of accuracy. Her weapon and her biathlon training demanded a stationary firing position, so Adcock would follow at a safe distance until she could get to another such position. I was just annoyed that everyone and their mother had apparently beat a path to my trailer door and figured out how to use my magic pinecone. Stopping Orpheus and Eurydice from fucking and dealing with whatever Medea had in store was bad enough without Adcock’s lovestruck ass bringing up the rear.
“Next time we chase three villains into a parallel dimension, let’s bring better equipment,” Connie said.
“No argument here,” I said, panting. Fortunately, the path lined with painted stones was right where Phineas said it would be. Also, fortunately, the path led into a stand of pines and there was nothing between it and the ocean but open space. Harper would be hard-pressed to find any more high ground from which to shoot. Not so fortunately, there was a skeleton right before the tree line to the right of the path. Big deal, right? No, I’m talking a skeleton probably forty feet long from the tip of its snout to the end of its pointy tail. It was a dragon skeleton, and, yes, it was dead, but Medea was standing near the skull prying out its teeth with a dagger. At first, none of us took this to be a bad sign. We were more pleased that Medea was standing out in the open and we could apprehend her. We didn’t even get close, though. Before we got within fifty yards, she raised her hand over her head and tossed the teeth in a wide arc in front of her. As soon as the teeth hit the dark soil, they sank. As soon as they sank, they gave birth to the most fucked-up plants I’ve ever seen. Briar patches six feet high. But they weren’t that thick. Inside them, you could see something white and solid. By the time each plant reached its full height, the thing inside burst out. The thing was a humanoid skeleton. I say humanoid because “human” isn’t exactly accurate. They were human-seeming below the waist, but the ribcages were significantly wider, the shoulders were broader, and the heads were small, low-slung and conical. They looked like a cross between a human skeleton and a gorilla skeleton. There were six in all and each one carried a gladius just like Connie and Amanda.
None of us were pleased by this new development. Amanda less so than Constantinides and I. She held up her own sword and said, “You guys realize I have no idea how to use this thing, right?”
Behind the creepy skeletons, Medea slipped into the forest. Even with the distance between us, I could see she was smiling. I couldn’t wait to make her eat that smile.
The skeletons themselves weren’t doing anything. They were meant to block the path and wouldn’t attack unless the three of us tried to proceed.
“Can we cut a wide swath around them maybe?” Connie said.
“Mmm. I suspect it’d have to be pretty wide.”
Venables looked back the way we’d come. “Why can’t Adcock pick these things off instead of a hungry old shithead?”
“Maybe we could sneak up on Harper and take her gun...”
I shook my head. “I don’t see her, do you? Besides, I don’t know about you, but I’m a lousy shot. Guns aren’t my chosen weapon. Actually, I broke my chosen weapon a while ago.”
“It’s a shame Cerberus isn’t here,” Amanda said.
I couldn’t help smiling. “Cute.” I pictured the giant, three-headed dog bounding into the group of killer skeletons and blasting them apart—then going to town on his new chew toys. But that wasn’t gonna happen. I slipped my backpack off and handed it to Amanda. “Here. Gimme,” I said. I grabbed her gladius. She took the cue and put the pithos-pack onto her own back. “Stay behind us,” I told her. “A fair ways. At least if they kill Connie and I they may go back into sentry mode and leave you alone.” I turned to Constantinides. “I’m assuming you at least know how to handle one of these...”
Josh Groban’s clone grinned. “Would you believe I’ve never laid hands on one in my life?”
I threw back my head and exhaled sharply. “Big shot knight has never held a sword?”
“I’m not a real knight. I’m more like a Knight of Columbus. Besides, if we survive this, the Knights of Eurydice’re gonna need a major rebranding. The woman we’re sworn to protect not only doesn’t want our protection, she’s a major league skank.”
I returne
d my eyes to the skeletons. They hadn’t moved. Not surprising. I was sure they’d spring into action, though, if we got anywhere near them. “Man, this has been one hell of a week,” I said. “All I wanted to do was sit around my trailer, get blasted and maybe club the clam a few times.”
“That’s all any of us really want,” Amanda said.
We stood there, frozen into inaction for a while until somebody behind us said, “What’re you guys looking at?”
That scared the shit out of us since we hadn’t heard whoever it was approach. It ended up being a naked guy none of us recognized. “Who the hell are you?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Perseus.” He shook each of our hands and reiterated to each of us that his name was Perseus. He sure was polite for a naked stranger. Here’s the thing, though: He wasn’t just naked. He was hung like a rhino. I mean he had a Louisville Slugger between his legs. He didn’t seem put out by the fact Amanda and I couldn’t stop staring at his Johnson. Meanwhile, Connie was flushed and looked everywhere except at the newcomer’s impressive manhood.
“Are you the same Perseus that was a great warrior and had amazing adventures, and married Andromeda, and fought monsters and rode on Pegasus?” I asked, forcing myself to look him in the eye.
He smiled. “I have had those great pleasures, yes. I was down on the beach and I saw you guys and wondered what you were up to.”
“Well, at the moment, we’re not up to much. We need to follow this path and stop a terrible injustice from happening and those skeletons are blocking our way.”
Perseus looked down the path and saw the skeletons for the first time. “Oh. Right. Those skeletons there. Makes perfect sense.”
“I was wondering... Since you’re here and all, do you think you could give us a hand?”
“What? With the skeletons?” Turns out Perseus wasn’t that bright. Either that or his enormous pecker was diverting too much blood from his brain.
