"Eve and Danny, we have to help them."
"Of course," he agreed, guilt searing his heart and mind as he helped her to her feet. "Let’s bring this conflict to an end."
Ceridwen shot him a wounding gaze filled with disappointment and anger. Emotion had clouded his judgment, and he had much to answer for, but the lives of their comrades took precedence. The Fey sorceress moved away from him, blue fire dancing around her eyes and from the ice sphere atop her staff, leaving him to stand alone and to ponder the repercussions of his actions.
Or lack thereof.
Eve wiped a trickle of blood from her mouth, smearing a crimson band across her face that she was sure looked like war paint. That’s appropriate, she thought, preparing to have another go at the thrashing monstrosity. For this was most certainly war.
Danny had managed to grapple with two of the Hydra’s heads at once, squeezing their necks in his arms, forcing their hissing jaws closed. Again and again he struck their hideous, spade-shaped faces. The exposed leathery flesh of his body was covered in bloody bites, and Eve could see that his ferocity was starting to wane. They had to end this quickly, before they all ran out of energy and wound up as Hydra food.
Eve sprang at the many-headed beast. One head hung limply from the thick trunk of the Hydra’s body, blood dripping from its open maw, the first real casualty of their teamwork. She landed atop the monster’s back, digging her claws into the nearest wavering neck, feeling the skin at last pop, blood gushing out from the wound as the Hydra wailed in agony. Eve brought her mouth down to the steaming geyser, swallowing gouts of the monster’s blood in an attempt to replenish her strength.
The blood tasted like shit, but she felt revitalized. Uttering a deep, throaty laugh, she bit into the throat of the dying head, through thick skin, muscle and bone, finally tearing the head from the body. The creature bucked violently and Eve lost her grip, falling hard to the dusty ground. Danny had lost his hold on the other heads, and he leapt back as they snapped at him.
Eve still held a severed Hydra head and proudly showed it to Danny before tossing it away.
"Don’t know if that was such a good idea," he said breathlessly, looking back at the beast.
She began to ask what he meant, when suddenly she understood. The muscular stump was writhing in the air, the scaly flesh of the monster beginning to morph. And suddenly, from the stump, there emerged another head, growing quickly.
"Did you know it could do that?" she asked him, tensing to throw herself at the monster yet again.
"Saw it in some movie once," Danny explained, not taking his eyes from the hissing beast. He was breaking away a layer of solidified Hydra ash that had collected on his arm and chest. "Thought it’d been made up. Guess not."
"Thanks for sharing," Eve said. "I really appreciate the intel."
There were nine heads again, and she wasn’t quite sure how much longer she and the kid could keep this up. The Hydra was taking stock of its prey again, careful, heads weaving around, preparing to strike.
Eve was about to lunge again when a familiar voice boomed through the ashen forest.
"Hold!" Ceridwen cried, her staff raised above her head. A storm of electricity churned around the sphere of ice at the top of the staff.
Eve felt the air crackle. "Back up!" she shouted at Danny, just as a bolt of lightning tore through the heavens, cleaving the sky as it descended to Earth to strike the Hydra. The monster shook with the power of the storm as the lightning surged through it, smoke rising from the soil beneath. Eve and Danny were thrown backward, hair singed, skin prickling.
Danny rubbed his eyes as he regained his feet. "Damn. I guess Ceridwen’s okay."
Eve knew otherwise. Danny had been momentarily blinded by the brightness of the lightning, but Eve saw the elemental sorceress crumple to the ground, like a marionette with severed strings.
The Hydra, its skin blackened and charred, yet far from dead, reared up from the ground, parts of its serpentine form still smoldering with fire. Nine mouths screamed out its rage, surging forward to continue its attack.
"Come on!" Eve cried out as a head bent forward, mouth agape. "What does it take to kill this thing?" She took hold of its upper and lower jaw as it struck, preventing it from biting her.
The other heads had driven Danny to the ground, and he was snapping off fangs and gouging eyes, trying to keep himself from being bitten in two, doing whatever he had to just to keep himself alive.
A thick, noxious cloud of ash plumed from the mouth of the Hydra as Eve struggled, the substance clinging to her face, momentarily blinding her. She let go of the monster’s head, throwing herself back and away, bouncing off what could only have been the side of the Range Rover. She tumbled to the ground, clawing at the hardening ash on her face, tearing most of it away before it could solidify.
Eve watched in horror as the blackened body of the Hydra loomed above Danny, each of its heads preparing to strike at the boy. She attempted to get to her feet, but excruciating pain exploded in her side, and she was driven again to her knees.
She could only watch as the Hydra’s heads dipped and Danny’s hands rose instinctively to protect his face. But then something happened that at first Eve could not begin to explain. The Hydra’s attack was stopped.
No, she thought, watching carefully, not stopped, slowed down. As though in the space around the demon boy and the Hydra, time itself had become disoriented.
"Amazing," she said, ignoring the grinding of broken ribs in her side, and getting up from the ground. Conan Doyle and Ceridwen strode side by side toward the monster, their hands extended, trails of sizzling magical force leaking from the tips of their fingers. Their faces were etched with strain and focus.
"Eve, if you wouldn’t mind, this is far from easy," Conan Doyle said, a slight tremble in his voice. "Kill it."
"Haven’t you been paying attention?" she asked. "That’s what Danny and I have been trying to do, no help from you."
Conan Doyle grimaced, turning his gaze briefly to a broken tree limb on the ground. "The branch," he began. Fat beads of sweat had begun to collect on his brow from the strain of the spell that had slowed time. "Use it to pierce the Hydra’s heart. Much like yourself, it’s the only way the monster can be…"
His voice trailed off, but she had the information she needed. Eve raced to grab the branch, then ran at the monstrosity that still towered over the boy. Whatever magic they had used, it only affected those who were in the vicinity when it was cast. But the Hydra and Danny would not be slowed like this for long.
"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me," Eve said as she placed her hand against the charred scales of the monster’s breast, feeling for the pulse of its heart.
Eve found what she was looking for. With all the unnatural strength she could muster, the vampire plunged the jagged end of the makeshift spear through the creature’s chest and into its heart.
She found the act strangely liberating.
The Hydra shrieked in agony out of all of its mouths, a chorus of anguish so profound that Eve was almost moved to pity.
Almost.
When it crashed to the ground, throwing up volcanic ash in clouds that spread in concentric circles around it, she strode over to the monster and kicked it. "It wasn’t ever gonna be me in the dust, ugly. Not today."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ash clouded the sun above the petrified forest. The breeze blowing across the island of Lesbos would soon clear away what had not already clung to the skeletal trees or blanketed the ground. In the moments following the death of the Hydra, Conan Doyle concerned himself with the well-being of his associates. All of them were injured, yet Danny and Eve healed quickly.