"Let me have a look," he said to Ceridwen.
She had sustained several long gashes on her right side. But even as he tried to see to her wounds he could feel a wave of cold emanating from her hands where she touched her scored flesh. Ice formed on her skin.
"I’ll be fine," she said, curtly at first, and then she caught herself and her features became gentler. "Truly. I will be fine. See to the others. Or better yet, see to Gull. He and his friends weren’t very much help, were they?"
Conan Doyle smiled bitterly. "Did you expect them to be?"
"Son of a bitch!" Danny snarled.
Through the drifting, settling ash, Conan Doyle saw the demon boy striding toward him with Eve at his side. Sunlight shone down in patches but the bit of magick Gull had taught Eve to protect herself was holding up for the moment. At least that had not been false.
"What is it?" Ceridwen asked, moving toward them in concern, wincing at the pain in her side.
Conan Doyle did not have to ask, but he awaited the answer to the question in any case. Eve spun around, her arms wide, taking in the entire dead, petrified landscape around them.
"They’re gone!" she said.
"Bastards!" Danny added for punctuation.
Eve laughed humorlessly. "Can you believe these guys? Drag us all the way out here to get answers and instead we get to fight the Hydra! And now they’re gone! Took off while we were trying to stay alive. We have been so completely punked."
Conan Doyle did not know the term, but its meaning was clear. He only nodded. Rather than respond he set off toward the place he had last seen Gull, Hawkins, and Jezebel.
"Arthur?" Ceridwen called.
Lost in concentration, he barely heard her. He had an idea but wanted confirmation. The ash continued to settle, drifting, and he wiped it from his eyes as he circumnavigated the corpse of the Hydra. He would have to see to it before they left, some spell to disintegrate it, perhaps, so that it was only more ash in the petrified forest. Certainly he had no intention of reburying it.
Beyond the monster’s corpse he strode a hundred yards farther to a place where the dead trees formed a kind of natural circle. Or, rather, it appeared natural. Conan Doyle knew better. In the rough center of that circle was a hole in the ground. Ash coated the earth but Conan Doyle fell to his knees there and plunged his hands into the hole, sifting ash and digging a bit deeper.
He drew out a human skull.
Ceridwen, Eve, and Danny had followed him at a distance, observing. Now the demon boy swore aloud once more.
"So this is the grave of that dude? Forceps, or whatever?"
Conan Doyle held the skull up. "This is human. Ancient, but human. The father of the Gorgons was not human."
"Then whose grave is this?" Eve asked. "What the hell was Gull up to here?"
He raised his eyebrows and stood, tossing the skull back into the ash. "I should think that much would be obvious, my dear. Some time in the past… perhaps as early as the very beginning of the Third Age of Man… the Hydra was buried here to guard this grave, to destroy anyone who came in search of it. My old friend Mr. Gull availed himself of our services as bodyguards. He simply did so without informing us."
"Bodyguards?" Eve snarled. "More like bait."
"As you wish," Conan Doyle acknowledged. His attention was still not fully on the conversation. He scanned the ground, eyeing the fresh ash as he began to walk away from the grave. Silently he counted paces in his mind, paused to glance deeper into the petrified forest, then crouched and plucked from the ground an object that at first appeared to be just a stone beneath the ash.
"No offense, Mr. Doyle, but you don’t seem nearly as pissed off about this as I’d like you to be," Danny said. "I mean, what now?"
Ceridwen sketched a symbol in the air, and a gust of wind scoured the stone in Doyle’s hand clean of ash. Beneath it was a familiar box whose sides were etched with sigils as old as human civilization.
Conan Doyle turned his face up to the sky. Now that the ash had cleared he enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The back of his neck was sticky with sweat, however, and that he could not abide. He longed for a luxury hotel room with a decent shower.
"He’s not as upset as you are, Danny," Ceridwen said in her lilting Fey voice, "because he knew this was going to happen."
Eve snickered darkly. "Of course you did. Of course you did! Fuck!"
Danny shook his head. "I don’t get it. If you knew, why did we even come?"
Conan Doyle frowned and spun on his heel to stare at the boy in consternation. "Daniel, I’m disappointed. How else was I to discover what Gull had in mind? Now, at least, we know where to begin."
"We do?" Danny replied, throwing up his hands. "Maybe you do, but I’m totally lost."
Eve put a hand on his shoulder, smiling now, her own anger and the last of her bloodlust leaving her. "Doyle’s never lost."
"Well," Conan Doyle said, allowing himself a small swell of pride. "Never is awfully strong. Rarely, then. I’ll accept that much." He cradled the Divination Box in one hand, and with the other he reached out and let his fingers brush Ceridwen’s hand. When she allowed his touch to linger he felt a wave of satisfaction. Though his concentration had been elsewhere, part of his mind had been with her. He glanced at her, and she nodded, her eyes gentle.
"Go on," she urged. "I’m curious."
Conan Doyle glanced deeper into the petrified forest. "Well, to begin, they had another vehicle waiting for them not far from here, well aware that they would be leaving us behind and that they would unlikely be able to reach the Range Rover."
"Okay, but what about the grave?" Danny urged.
"Do you know the story of Orpheus?"
The demon boy nodded. "I think so. Something about saving his girlfriend from Hell- Mom used to watch Xena."
"Hades," Eve said quietly. She kept glancing at the open grave as though its nearness disturbed her.
"Hades. Whatever. Greek Hell," Danny muttered. "Okay, go on."
Conan Doyle turned to Ceridwen. She was unlikely to know any of what he was about to explain, and it seemed most important to him that she understand what was happening.
"Orpheus was the son of Calliope and Oeagrus. Some of the myths say his father was Apollo, but no matter. He was the greatest musician written about in the Greek mythology. His voice could soothe wild animals and lure the trees to dance. He appears in the story of Jason and the Argonauts, but that is not the greatest myth of Orpheus. For his story is intrinsically tied to love.
"His wife, Eurydice, died of a serpent’s bite, and Orpheus was so stricken with grief that he would not accept her death. He descended into the underworld and sang to Hades himself, his songs so beautiful that the lord of that terrible realm agreed to allow Eurydice her freedom. But not without condition. Hades instructed Orpheus that Eurydice must follow him to the surface and that he must not look back. But the agony of being unable to see her, to know for certain that Hades had kept his word, was too much for Orpheus, and at the last moment he did turn, and Eurydice was drawn down into Hades’ realm once more.
"Orpheus grieved for the rest of his days, and his songs of mourning made the heavens weep. Yet his luck did not improve. The Maenads were female followers of Dionysus, women who would dance in praise of their god and become so frenzied that they would lose control of themselves. When Orpheus refused to admire them, to lust for them, because grief still clouded his heart, they attacked him and tore him to pieces."
Danny visibly flinched. "Damn, I don’t remember that part being on Xena."
"Nice," Eve whispered.
Ceridwen only frowned, troubled, and said nothing.
Conan Doyle took a breath, glancing at them each in turn. "The Olympians were so furious with the Maenads that they turned them into trees." His gaze surveyed the petrified forest. "And as for Orpheus.. they threw his head into a river, and the river fed the ocean, and in time his head came to rest on the shore of the island of Lesbos."