[Sarah Jane Adventures 03] - Eye of the Gorgon

by Phil Ford

  And Bea hadn’t really said much for a while. Sarah Jane and Maria sat there and Bea hummed to herself. Sarah Jane recognized the song, Slow Boat to China.

  ‘So, if Bea had this talisman, and its alien, and she’s seen these Sontarans, then she isn’t just talking about a bunch of old horror movies, like Mrs Randall thinks, is she?’

  Sarah Jane looked at Maria, then back to Bea, ‘Aliens have been coming to Earth for centuries, Maria. Maybe Bea’s adventures with her archaeologist husband involved a lot more than just old pots and bones.’

  ‘I’d love to get you on a slow boat to China,’ Bea sang. Then she looked at Sarah Jane for the first time in ages, ‘That was our song. Edgar had such a lovely voice.’

  Sarah Jane smiled, ‘Did he? I’m sure he was quite a man.’

  But Bea had begun humming to herself again, once more lost in her own world. Sarah Jane ached to be let in there.

  ‘It’s so sad,’ Maria said. ‘The things she must have seen. And now everyone thinks she’s crazy.’ Sarah Jane looked around the room, a room filled with memories of long-gone adventures, and loneliness.

  ‘Who knows where any of us will end up?’ she said.

  Sarah Jane reached out and laid her hand over Bea’s. ‘But someone doesn’t think you’re crazy, do they, Bea? Someone knows what that talisman is, and they want it.’

  Abruptly, Bea stopped humming and fixed her eyes on Sarah Jane, ‘The talisman?’

  A thrill of excitement shot through Sarah Jane. ‘Yes, Bea! The talisman. Tell me what you know. I promise I’ll believe you. Sometimes people have thought I’ve been mad, but I’ve seen things, too. Just like you!’

  Bea’s eyes floated towards the window, her mind floating back decades…

  ‘Edgar unearthed it at a dig in… ’ She screwed up her face with the effort of pulling the word from her damaged brain… ‘In Syria.’

  The memory made her smile, ‘He gave it to me.’

  She savoured the special memory for a few seconds, then her smile faded, ‘Of course, he had no idea what it was. Had no idea.’

  ‘So what was it?’ asked Maria.

  And Bea’s fingers suddenly gripped the arms of her chair, her eyes blazed with terror. ‘They mustn’t find it! They mustn’t!’

  Sarah Jane reached out to her again, tried to comfort her, ‘Who, Bea? Who do you mean?’

  ‘The Sisters!’

  ‘You mean, as in nuns?’ asked Maria.

  ‘They protect her!’

  ‘Protect who?’ asked Sarah Jane.

  Bea fought hard for the word, but this time it wasn’t just down to the Alzheimer’s. She was scared to speak it.

  ‘Who?’ Sarah Jane urged. ‘Who are they protecting? Who wants the talisman?’

  Bea forced its name out, ‘The Gorgon!’

  Chapter Eight

  Kidnapped

  As the big black hearse slid alongside them on the road, Clyde figured the best thing to do was to just keep on walking.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s Sister Sinister again.’ As he spoke the nun was already getting out of the hearse. She was going for the sweet, concerned nun approach again. ‘Don’t run away, Luke. I won’t hurt you. I just want us to have a little talk.’

  Yeah, thought Clyde, and you’ll tell us all about raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens!

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Luke. No way is she really a nun,’ he warned, backing off from Sister Helena. Two other nuns had now also slipped out of the hearse.

  Oh, brother! Hench-nuns!

  Sister Helena broadened that toothpaste smile and opened her arms. ‘Whatever else would I be, but a nun?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clyde told her. ‘But I bet you ain’t got legs under them robes, just a bench of slimy tentacles or something.’ He noted with relief that he was way past fancying her now.

  Sister Helena laughed. ‘Your friend watches too much TV, Luke. I think perhaps we could talk a little more sensibly without him. Jump in the car and we’ll go to the abbey.’

  Luke shook his head, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re safe with me,’ she said.

  ‘We’re not going anywhere with you,’ Clyde told her.

  ‘It’s not an open invitation,’ she scowled. Then she turned back to Luke, ‘Listen to your friend here and you’ll be in far more danger, I guarantee. But I can help you. I want to help you.’

  ‘The talisman is dangerous?’ Luke asked.

  ‘More than you can possibly imagine.’

  And Clyde could see Luke looking inside the hearse, thinking about getting in. Clyde was about to speak up, to tell him not to be an idiot — but Sister Helena had already seen her chance, her hand was in the small of Luke’s back and before either of them knew it, Luke was in the big black car.

  Clyde leaped forward. ‘No!’

  But Sister Helena turned on him, and Clyde didn’t quite know what happened next. He felt the slightest pressure of her hand on his chest and then he was on his back on the pavement and the hearse was pulling away from the kerb — Luke trapped inside.

  Clyde rolled to his feet and pulled his mobile from his pocket. He was thumbing up Sarah Jane’s number as he ran.

  Meanwhile, Sarah Jane and Maria were walking across Lavender Lawns’ gravel drive towards the little blue car. Bea’s outburst about the Gorgon had been the last thing she had said. No matter how much Sarah Jane tried, the old lady wouldn’t talk, just sat in her chair singing to herself. Whatever had happened to her in the past, whatever sort of encounter that talisman had brought about, it had clearly been terrifying.

  But a Gorgon?

  ‘It’s Greek mythology, right?’ said Maria.

  Sarah Jane remembered the story, ‘There were three, The Daughters of Phorcys the Sea God and Ceto. Medusa, Stheno and Euryale.’

  ‘All snakes for hair and turning people to stone just by looking at them?’ Maria was having a hard time believing that.

  And that was when Sarah Jane’s phone went. ‘Hello?’

  On the other end of the line, Clyde was gasping for breath as he ran, ‘Luke — he’s been nabbed by a nun!’

  ‘He’s been what?! How?’

  Clyde quickly outlined what had happened. Sarah Jane asked where he was and told him to stay there — she was coming to get him. Snapping the phone shut, she told Maria to get into the car and gunned its engine. Gravel flew as it pulled away. Fifteen minutes later she found Clyde at the side of the road. He told her that Sister Helena had mentioned St Agnes’s Abbey and another fifteen minutes later Sarah Jane was pulling up outside it.

  Sarah Jane wasn’t big on plans. Experience had taught her that too much could go wrong with a plan; it always relied on other people and other things doing what you expected them to. Aliens rarely did what you expected them to do, so Sarah Jane didn’t waste time formulating plans.

  But she had a quick brain. She could think on her feet. She relied on that. And, if it came to it, she could still use them to run pretty fast, too. But as she hammered on the abbey door she had a bit of a plan and as she glanced over her shoulder at the little blue car she was satisfied that it looked, from here, as if it was empty.

  A nun opened the door to Sarah Jane, who pushed a Press card in her face. It was fake, one of several that she sometimes used.

  ‘Hello. My name’s Felicity Barnes. I’m doing a story for The Times on religion in the twenty-first Century. Is there anyone I can talk to?’

  The nun looked doubtful.

  ‘Perhaps Sister Helena?’ Sarah Jane suggested and, as she had hoped, the name got her inside.

  Clyde and Maria, crouched down in the little blue Nissan, counted to a hundred then crept out, still keeping low. With the car between them and the abbey, they checked the coast was clear then made a dash for the building. Sarah Jane had used Sister Helena’s name — they were going to have to find an unlocked door, or an open window.

  It took them a few minutes, but they eventually found what th
ey were looking for — a window at the side of the abbey that had been opened just a few inches to let the summer air inside. Clyde got it open all the way and the two of them climbed in.

  They found themselves in a bare passageway with a wooden floor that creaked with every step, no matter how carefully they trod.

  ‘Now what?’ Clyde whispered. ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maria told him — like she would have a clue! ‘What do nuns generally do with the kids they kidnap?’

  Okay, Clyde considered himself told. And when they came to the first door in the passageway, it seemed to Maria like as good a place to start as any. She reached for the handle — and found Clyde wrapping his own hand around hers.

  ‘Hold on. What if it’s in there? This Gorgon.’

  Maria looked at him, despairing. ‘Then just keep your eyes closed and hold my hand.’

  Yeah, like he was going to do that! Clyde Langer wasn’t chicken. And just to prove it, he opened the door and went in first.

  They found themselves in a small room, empty but for a simple bed and a chair — and a woman that Clyde immediately recognized from Lavender Lawns… Mrs Gribbins stood there, her face contorted with horror, and her body turned to stone!

  As one, Clyde and Maria turned to get out of there — and found the doorway blocked by a dark shape, its face veiled, its hands like claws.

  Chapter Nine

  No choice

  Sarah Jane leafed through a large, old book. She was surrounded by books. The nun who had opened the abbey door had led her into the library and locked her in.

  So much for fake ID, Sarah Jane thought. But she wasn’t too concerned. As long as no harm had come to Luke. And she didn’t imagine that it would be long before Sister Helena showed up and she started to get to the bottom of things.

  In the meantime she had taken a look around the library, and among the books there was an elaborate volume on Greek Mythology. In it she found a beautifully detailed illustration of Perseus slaying the Gorgon, Medusa.

  The ancient story went that Perseus set out on a quest to kill Medusa and bring back her head as a wedding gift for King Polydectes, who was forcing Perseus’s mother to marry him. Armed with gifts from the gods — a magical sword and a highly polished bronze shield — Perseus set out to hunt down the dreaded Gorgons. He found them sleeping in a cave, and by viewing the three ghastly sisters only by the reflection in his mirror-like shield, was able to cut off Medusa’s head without being turned to stone by the sight of her, and escape before the surviving sisters caught him. Perseus sailed home with Medusa’s head in a bag and presented it to Polydectes as he prepared for the wedding. But as soon as Polydectes set eyes on the decapitated Gorgon’s head it turned him to stone.

  That was the story. But Sarah Jane knew well that some legends were more than just ancient soap opera. They didn’t have newspapers and twenty-four-hour TV news to flash events around the Ancient World. The news anchormen of ancient Greece were poets like Homer, who heard stories and wrote them down. Who knew the origins of those stories? But sometimes, just sometimes — Sarah Jane knew — when there was a monster involved in them there was every chance that someone had encountered a creature from another world.

  The sound of the library door being unlocked roused Sarah Jane from her thoughts. A moment later Luke was in the room. Sarah Jane flung her arms around him.

  ‘Luke! Are you all right?’

  He seemed a little bemused by the question. He told her he was fine.

  And Sarah Jane’s relief gave way to anger, ‘What do you think you were doing, getting into a stranger’s car? For an intelligent boy, sometimes I can’t believe how stupid you are!’

  He started to protest that he hadn’t just got into the car, but they both heard the whispering rustle of Sister Helena’s habit as she joined them in the library.

  ‘Luke was never in any danger, Miss Smith. But it seemed that bringing him to the abbey was the fastest way of attracting your attention. Although your two other young friends were a surprise.’

  As she spoke, Maria and Clyde ran into the room. Behind them came two more nuns, followed by the Abbess.

  ‘We found Mrs Gribbins,’ gasped Clyde.

  ‘She’s been turned to stone,’ said Maria.

  Sister Helena looked genuinely regretful, ‘Unfortunately, Mrs Gribbins always was something of an old fossil.’

  Sarah Jane gathered the kids behind her, ‘Is it true, then? Are you really protecting a Gorgon here?’

  One corner of Sister Helena’s mouth lifted and her eyes glittered as if someone had said something funny ‘A creature with writhing serpents for hair?’ she asked, looking at the book Sarah Jane had just put down. ‘Those melodramatic Greeks. They never could resist embellishing a story.’

  She closed the heavy book with a thump, and turned back to face Sarah Jane. The smile had gone. ‘As you’ve heard, however, the myth isn’t entirely without foundation.’

  Maria was determined that the nun wasn’t going to think she was in the least bit scared. ‘But it’s an alien, right?’

  Sister Helena’s gaze fell on the Abbess as she spoke, ‘The Gorgons travelled to our world 3,000 years ago. Once there were three. Now only one.’

  And Sarah Jane knew it was standing there in the room with them, its face covered by a black veil.

  ‘Generations of our sisterhood have served and protected the Gorgons down the centuries,’ said Sister Helena, and Sarah Jane could see something like love in the nuns eyes when she looked at the creature in the veil. Sarah Jane felt her blood run cold.

  ‘What happened to the other two?’ she asked. ‘One was killed in the ancient days, when our sisterhood still served Demeter, when the key was stolen.’

  And that was when Sarah Jane saw it all. ‘The key to whatever brought the Gorgons to Earth,’ she said. ‘And the Sisters have been searching for it ever since. Did you get close once, Sister Helena? Maybe fifty years ago? Was that when the second Gorgon died?’

  Sister Helena scowled, ‘Professor Nelson-Stanley and his meddlesome wife!’ She moved closer to Sarah Jane, her features softened. ‘But you have the key now, Miss Smith. I’m sure you will be more reasonable.’

  Sarah Jane told her not to bet on it. Kidnapping and turning people to stone didn’t bring out the best in her.

  Sister Helena became almost pleading. ‘The Gorgon is old. The talisman opens a portal to the Gorgon world. She only wants to go home to die. You can understand that, can’t you? Would you deny her?’

  Sarah Jane looked from Sister Helena to the silent, shrouded creature, then back at Luke and the others.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ she asked.

  Sister Helena’s voice was quiet. Sarah Jane imagined she might even pray in that voice. She said, ‘You have no choice.’

  Sarah Jane took in the room, the nuns, the kids and the creature that stood there in a veil that covered things that she didn’t want to think about. One thing was for sure — she had to get Luke, Clyde and Maria out of there.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll get it.’

  But Sister Helena wasn’t stupid. ‘The two boys will stay here.’

  Sarah Jane tried to argue, but she knew that Sister Helena was holding the high cards. Luke and Clyde would be safe, as long as Sarah Jane didn’t try to trick them — which Sarah Jane knew was exactly what she had to do. The question was, how? She didn’t buy Sister Helena’s story that the Gorgon only wanted to go home. Not for a second. So there was no way that she could hand over the talisman. But how could she not do that, and get the boys back safe and sound? As she drove back to Bannerman Road with Maria, Sister Helena and the Abbess following in the hearse, Sarah Jane went over the situation in her head again and again, searching for a way out.

  When they reached the house, the nuns followed Sarah Jane and Maria inside. Sarah Jane told them she was going upstairs to get the talisman, Sister Helena closed a hand over Marias shoulder and said that she woul
d stay there with them.

  Maria watched Sarah Jane go upstairs, then turned to look at the Abbess. She hadn’t made a sound all this time.

  ‘Doesn’t she speak English?’ Maria asked Sister Helena.

  The Gorgon doesn’t need to speak.’

  ‘You mean she’s — like — telepathic? Is that how she controls you?’ Maria grinned, still determined not to show how afraid she felt, ‘I mean, looking after a Gorgon isn’t exactly normal for a bunch of nuns, is it?’

  The Abbess turned towards Maria. Despite the black veil, Maria could feel the creature’s eyes on her.

  Sister Helena whispered in her ear, ‘I’d shut up, if I were you, or the Abbess might show you her idea of solving a problem like Maria.’

  It was advice from a sinister nun who served a 3,000 year-old monster that could turn people to stone. It seemed worth taking. And then Maria heard Sarah Jane coming down the stairs, she saw the talisman in one hand — and noted that the other was hidden. Sister Helena didn’t notice that, her eyes were on the talisman.

  ‘The key to the portal!’

  As Sister Helena made a move to take it, Sarah Jane stepped back and revealed the sonic lipstick in her other hand. She pointed it directly at the talisman and the sonic lipstick emitted a low warbling sound.

  ‘Either you let my son and his friend go, or I’ll destroy the talisman with sonic disruption!’

  But Sister Helena only shook her head sorrowfully, ‘I warned you, Miss Smith. Now look on the face of the Gorgon and feel your flesh turn to stone!

  And the Abbess’s claw-like hands moved to the veil.

  Sarah Jane pulled Maria to her, ‘Don’t look, Maria!’

  And no one heard the unlocked front door open, or the footsteps in the hall.

  Alan was walking in on them before anyone knew he was there.

  ‘Hello? The door was… ’

  And his eyes fell on the face of the Gorgon. ‘Dad!’ Maria screamed. ‘Don’t look at it!’

  It wasn’t an alien face — not quite. It looked like the face of an incredibly old woman, shrunken, creased and leathery. Her eyes were blank and staring. Her mouth, lined with ragged and rotten teeth, fell open, and from it came a hideous cry. And with the cry — a terrible noise of fury and pain — came the snakes, thrashing, serpentine beams of cold blue light that leaped from between her jaws and burst from her blank eyes and surged across the room, engulfing Alan.