Something unnatural.
The hum of an approaching plane stirred him from his recollections, and he squinted into the nighttime sky. The plane descended in the distance, touching down expertly in the field that was once rife with olive trees. But that had been long ago, when Yannis still believed that the world was sane. He chuckled as he took another puff on his cigar, amused that he could ever have been so naive.
In that case, years past, he had called the number, and a strange gravelly voice had answered. In broken English, Yannis had described what was happening in Athens, about the desecrated graves and the cannibalized bodies. The voice on the other end had grown silent, the open phone line hissing in his ear, and for a moment, Yannis thought he had been cut off, but then the voice returned and said that someone would be along to help.
Yannis took a final pull on his cigar, and for the sake of his upset stomach, tossed the remains to the ground. The plane rolled toward him, its landing lights pulsing as if to the beat of the craft’s mechanical heart, and again his mind traveled back through the years, to a time and place when he had met another plane.
He hadn’t been sure what to expect, but the man who stepped from the small private plane certainly was not it. He had imagined a wild-haired scientist, with thick glasses and perhaps a German accent, but as the man approached him, Yannis realized that perhaps he had seen too many American horror films. The stranger was a fine looking gentleman, handsome as far as Americans go, with dark, close-cropped hair and an air of authority that seemed to radiate from him in waves.
There had been very little by way of formalities. The man had instructed Yannis to take him to the First Cemetery immediately, and once there had told the detective to remain in the car no matter what he heard or thought he saw. It had all seemed very unusual to Yannis, but he had accepted the orders, especially since the man had given him an envelope full of cash before leaving the car. For that kind of money he would have spent the entire night there if need be.
The plane’s engines whined down and he ambled toward the craft, adjusting his clothing as he went. The bottom of his shirt had come undone, the pull of the material across his expanse of belly making it difficult for the last buttons to remain fastened. But he quickly lost interest in his appearance as the door to the craft swung open and a set of collapsible stairs unfolded from within.
The first person to exit was very small, almost dwarf-like. Yannis wasn’t sure if he had ever seen anyone quite so strange.
"How’s it hanging?" the tiny man asked him in a voice that could have been the one to answer that first call he had made, years past.
Yannis simply stared. The man’s eyes were a sickly shade of yellow, and both his ears and teeth came to points.
"What? No speaky da English?" the ugly little man asked, before bursting out in a braying laugh. "Don’t worry about it, pally. I don’t speak Greek."
Next off the plane was a handsome black man whose movements reminded Yannis of someone moving underwater.
"Pay him no mind, sir," the man said in a low, tremulous voice.
Yannis could have sworn that for the briefest of moments he was able to see right through the stranger, but he blinked and the gauzy effect went away. He told himself it must have been a trick of the light.
"Yannis Papathansiou," called a strangely familiar voice from inside the plane, and the police detective looked up to see another figure emerging.
The man looked exactly as he had more than twenty years ago. Exactly.
Something unnatural, he thought again. It was almost funny. He called this man when the extraordinary presented itself… but who was he to call about the passengers of this plane? No one, of course. They were the solution, not the problem.
"It’s a pleasure to see you again, sir," the ageless man said in Greek, extending his hand, and Yannis remembered how he had disobeyed this man’s instructions that night so many years ago.
He had been dozing behind the wheel of the car when the screaming began. It had been unlike anything he had ever heard, and he had immediately reacted, climbing from his vehicle and running into the cemetery before he even realized what he was doing. After all, he was a policeman.
It had been dark that night, and he had strained his eyes to see what was happening, and then the clouds parted for an instant, and beams of moonlight shone upon the burial grounds. Then Yannis had seen what he would never forget.
The man he had brought from the airfield, the man whose hand he now shook, had been in the midst of battle with a creature the likes of which Yannis had never seen. Its body was covered in filthy, matted fur, its eyes glowing red, like burning coals. Strands of dead flesh dangled from its gnashing teeth. Yannis had never believed himself a particularly brave man, but he had found himself moving toward the struggle, weaving around the tombstones to help the stranger in his struggle.
When he had been only a few feet from the battle, the man had noticed his approach and ordered him to stop. Yannis had frozen in his tracks and watched in awe the scene that played out before him. The creature tore at the man with its claws, rending his clothing and flesh, but the man seemed unharmed. Then he had begun to change, to grow, his body transforming into something of great ferocity, his flesh as malleable as clay.
The years have not been kind to Yannis Papathansiou, Clay thought. He was sitting in the front seat of the detective’s car as they drove toward Athens. He remembered a much different man than the one beside him now, but then again, twenty years had passed. The blink of an eye for Clay, but not so fleeting for humanity.
"So, Yanni," Squire said, leaning forward from the backseat.
"It is Yannis," the detective corrected, eyes still on the winding road before him.
"Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant. So, you had any other tourists turn up petrified?" the hobgoblin asked.
Yannis shook his head, jowls wiggling. "No, the bodies found at the Epidaurus are the only ones."
"So far," Squire added, sliding back against his seat. "But I’d bet we get a few more statues before this is over. Crap like this is never easy."
The detective grimaced at Squire’s words, and Clay wondered if he was remembering the last time he had phoned Conan Doyle for assistance. On that night, years past, he had specifically told Yannis to stay in the car. The man was never meant to witness what transpired in the cemetery. Clay’s battle with the corpse-eating Mormolykiai was not for human eyes, but Yannis had seen it, and there was nothing Clay could do to change that.
"What… what is responsible? What can turn a person to stone like that? How can it be?" the detective asked, steering the car around a sharp turn that would lead them to the first of numerous side streets in the crowded city.
Clay gave him a reassuring glance. "That’s what we intend to find out."
"You must suspect that it is bad," he said. "To have come with others." He fixed Clay with large, watery eyes.
Clay had wondered if what Yannis Papathansiou saw those years past had changed him in any way. Looking into those eyes now, he had his answer.
"Better to be safe than sorry." He glanced over his shoulder to see Squire looking out the window like an excited pet, happy to be off the plane and to have somebody else doing the driving for a change. Graves appeared lost in thought, but Clay suspected the ghost was probably already beginning their investigation, listening to the whispering voices of the dead prevalent in this ancient city.
"We’ll try to get this done as quickly as possible," he reassured the detective. "You won’t even know we’re here."
Yannis chuckled, a wet burbling sound that gave Clay the impression that the Greek was filled with fluid. "I will know," he said, taking a left turn in the Athenian West End, heading into the Kerameikos, the pottery district. "And I will not sleep peacefully until I know that you, and whatever it is that plagues this city, are gone."