Reluctantly she rose and padded across the bleached pebbles and scrub grass that surrounded the church. She knocked twice, hard, on the massive wooden doors and then stood back. Even as she waited for someone to answer she heard the noise of the truck’s engine.
With a clank, the doors were pulled open. Conan Doyle gazed back at her from the shadows within. The cool darkness seemed to beckon to her, to promise her comfort and safety, but she would return to the nighttime world soon enough.
"They’re coming," she told him.
Conan Doyle nodded, then pulled the doors open wider and stood aside, glancing in at Nigel Gull. Ceridwen and Danny sat together near the front of the church, conspiratorially near, though they’d left off their conversation to look up and see what was transpiring. Gull sat in the rear, hands folded on his lap as though he were the most penitent soul who’d ever entered a place of worship. Even his eyes had changed, for when he looked up at the interruption they were filled with hope and love and expectation.
For a moment the malformed mage seemed fixed to his chair. Then the sound of the engine grew louder — loud enough to be heard inside the church — and he rose and strode stiffly toward the doors. Eve stepped aside to let him pass. There would be no subterfuge from him now. His focus was on his heart’s desire, nothing more and nothing less.
Just as Eve had seen Conan Doyle do so many times, Gull smoothed his jacket and shook out his cuffs, trying to make himself presentable. He reached into his pocket and she knew he would be clutching the vial in his hand, hidden away. The tears of the Furies.
The truck came around the corner, a rough old thing, the sort of vehicle that might be used on a local farm or to go to market. There was a man driving — or at least, Clay, with the face of a man. The face he wore most often, when he gave his name as Clay Smith. Beside him the air shimmered and she could almost make out another figure. Someone else might have thought it a trick of the light, but she knew it was Dr. Graves.
Squire rode in the back, ugly little fucker bouncing around back there. Eve surprised herself by being happy to see all three of them.
Clay tore gears up as he halted the lumbering vehicle and killed the engine. He climbed out, and even as he did he changed, shifting with effortless fluidity to his natural form, the tall, hairless man whose flesh was cracked, dry earth. The Clay of God.
"You want a hand?" Squire asked.
"Couldn’t hurt," Clay replied, as he hefted a burden from the back of the truck. A body, wrapped in chains, a leather hood covering its head not unlike the sort of thing a falconer used to keep his bird calm.
Grinning, Squire began to applaud. "Come on," he said, glancing over at Eve. "Give the big guy a hand."
Eve scowled at him. Squire blew her a kiss, then hopped out of the truck. But he did not approach. He only leaned against the side of the vehicle and watched. Something was to unfold here, and he did not want to be a part of it. She saw a look of distaste flicker across his face and then his sardonic grin returned.
Clay carried Medusa over his shoulder, reaching back to cinch the straps on her hood tightly as he strode toward the church. She did not struggle. Perhaps, like a hooded falcon, she was waiting for her moment to strike. When he had reached Gull and Conan Doyle, Clay slipped her off of him and let her fall to the ground. A moan of pain came, muffled, from beneath the hood.
"What have you done to her?" Gull demanded, kneeling by Medusa and glaring up at Clay.
His upper lip curled in hatred and disgust. "A few broken bones. Far less than she deserved." Clay looked at Conan Doyle. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do."
"No," Conan Doyle confessed, startling Eve with his honesty. "But it’s what we’re doing." Then he stepped up beside Gull and looked down at Medusa. "Do not remove her hood entirely until the curse is — "
"I am not a fool!" Gull snarled, rounding on him.
But then Conan Doyle seemed forgotten. Eve watched as Gull summoned a spell, sketching his fingers in the air, and the chains fell away, pooling around her on the ground.
"It is I, fair one," Gull whispered, the words eddying on the breeze. "Come. Take my hand, rise and let the curse be broken."
Eve took a step back and tensed, waiting for Medusa to lash out in attack, prepared to stop her if she did. Conan Doyle did not move but Eve could see a soft blue glow around his hands and feel the electric charge in the air around him that only came from magick. He was ready as well.
Medusa stood. Eve could hear hissing beneath the Gorgon’s hood and now that she looked closely, she saw the leather shifting, almost undulating with the presence of the serpents on the monster’s head.
Gull put a hand behind her, touched the small of her back. Medusa flinched and Eve twitched in response, ready to move.
"It’s me," Gull whispered. "It’s Nigel."
Then Medusa surrendered to him, sliding her taloned hands around behind him and pressing herself into him, molding her body to Gull’s and laying her head on his shoulder like any young lover might do.
There was silence at the top of that hill. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Gull reached into his pocket and produced the vial. He held it up in front of her face as though she could see it. Though that was impossible, of course, she sensed it somehow, for she froze and her head tilted back as though she could inhale that blood. Eve wondered if it was the magick in that vial, the forgiveness, the power of ancient myth that Medusa sensed, or if it was simply the scent of blood that had caught her attention.
The mage did not seem so ugly in that moment when he reached up and uncapped the vial, then loosened Medusa’s hood. Eve tensed again, worried that he would pull it off, but instead Gull only raised it high enough to reveal her mouth, the pale flesh and needle fangs and the forked tongue of the accursed Gorgon.
"Drink," he said, pressing the vial into her hand.
Medusa hesitated only a moment before she lifted the vial and sucked its contents into her mouth. The bloody tears of the Furies disappeared into her hideous maw and that forked tongue ran out into the vial, licking it clean.
The effect was almost instantaneous. Medusa did not collapse or even flinch. Instead the visible gray flesh at her chin became pink and healthy and her mouth was that of another creature entirely, with lush, full lips. Damp tears ran down her cheeks.
Before she had been cursed by Athena, Medusa had been the most beautiful creature in the world. Or so went the myth. Now, as she reached up to remove her hood — all of them watching in hushed fascination — Eve could believe it. Her eyes were wide with joy, her lips trembling with emotion. She held her hands up and studied the long, elegant fingers, then ran her palms over her lissome shape. At last she reached up to touch her face, and even as she did she spun, looking at them each in turn. She was awestruck and lost in a blissful rapture. It was written in her every expression, her every movement.
"My darling. You are free, now. Your curse is ended. After an eternity, your beauty is returned to — "
His voice had given her focus for the first time. Medusa turned and looked at Nigel Gull, this twisted mage who had risked all for her, and she recoiled at his appearance. Her beauty was marred by the revulsion that curled her upper lip and narrowed her gaze as she took a step back from him.
Medusa was free of her curse, but Gull was still stricken by his own. The handsome countenance he had sacrificed for dark gifts of magick would never be his again. His misshapen features flinched now, stung by her reaction to him.