In his mind, he began to review the list of items Clay had asked him to bring from the brownstone. He stopped for a moment, removing the bundled titanium netting from his shoulder and dropping it to the shadowpath. "Let’s see," he grumbled. "Got the netting, of course. Can’t catch a beastie without a good net."
He picked up a small box and opened it to reveal a clear, glass vial. He took the container from its case and admired the milky fluid inside. A whole lot of South American tree frogs gave up their skin to produce this bottle o’ bad business. Should knock’er on her ass.
The hobgoblin put the narcotic back into its protective case and turned his attentions to the tranquilizer rifle. Normally he would have preferred weapons with a more archaic flavor — knives, swords, crossbows, axes — but in this case he was willing to bend a bit. From what he could see, the rifle was in good working order and he slipped it back under the netting until it was needed.
Then he caught sight of the brightly colored Skittles package. "There you are," he said with an enormous grin, snatching up the package of candy. "Come to Papa." He tore open the package with his teeth, tilted his head back and dumped most of the candies into his open maw.
"Oh that’s good," he grumbled, as the multiple flavors exploded in his mouth. "It’s been too long." He tried to remember the last time he had satisfied his nasty sweet tooth. Close to two days, probably a record.
He was in the midst of a euphoric sugar rush when he thought he heard Clay’s voice. Squire paused in the stillness of the shadows, gooey wad of sour candy in his cheek.
"… ire hurry up, damn it!"
It was Clay all right. "Shit," the goblin muttered beneath his breath, pouring the rest of the Skittles into his mouth and gathering his things. He tossed the candy wrapper and hauled the net filled with stuff over his shoulder, trudging down the appropriate shadowpath.
He knew by the ruckus wafting into the ocean of darkness that he had reached his destination. The exit was a small one, a tight squeeze, but that didn’t matter to a hobgoblin.
Squire forced his way into the opening, bones bending to accommodate the tiny space. The cool touch of shadow clung to his flesh as he emerged from an oval-shaped patch of shadow thrown by a cast iron trash barreclass="underline" first his head, followed by his short, muscular body. It was kind of like being born, minus the death of his mother and the attempts of the midwife to kill him, but there was no time for sweet nostalgia. He hauled the netting out of the pool with a grunt.
The hobgoblin quickly scanned his surroundings, searching for his friends, but found only bad news instead. What they had feared had happened. He was at a train station, squatting beneath a glass overhang that would have protected him from the elements if necessary, and where commuters, tourists, and the like should have been awaiting a train, there were now only cold statues of stone.
"Damn it," he hissed, throwing the net over his shoulder and moving out from beneath the overhang. Squire scanned the area, his sharp eyes taking in every inch of the place. Where the hell are Clay and Graves? he thought, carefully moving around the poor saps who had simply been waiting for a train when Medusa decided to pass through town.
"You see a big guy that can change himself into monsters?" Squire asked a large man who had been frozen to stone as he looked up from his morning newspaper. "He had a ghost with him."
And all was eerily silent.
Until the mastodon came crashing through a wall at the far end of the platform, destroying a mosaic depicting famous Athenian landmarks.
"Never mind," Squire told the stone man. "I think I found him."
The attack had come without warning.
Clay and Graves had been in pursuit of the fleeing Medusa, hopeful that she would steer clear of the more populated locales. But the Gorgon seemed not to consider her surroundings, intent only upon her destination. Clay had grown certain of that. Following her path, it was obvious to him that she moved with purpose, as though she knew exactly where she wanted to be.
Like she’s following a trail.
That trail had taken her to the Theseum train station on the west side of Athens, at the beginning of the rush hour commute. She moved with incredible speed, slinking along the city streets near the edge of the train station, reminding Clay of a sidewinder snake, slithering across the desert. They’d almost lost track of her a few times, but Graves had always managed to find her, sensing the ectoplasmic piece of himself still imbedded inside her.
They tried their best to catch up, hoping to stop her before she reached the station, but Medusa only moved faster, as if spurred on by some unknown lure. Squire would have muttered something rude under his breath, some obvious joke about the monster needing to catch a train. The thought, though foolish, rang true. Why else come to a train station? Clay dropped to all fours, flesh shifting, bones reknitting, all in a single instant so that by the time he hit the ground the fur had sprouted on his body and his tail whipped behind him. He needed speed. As a cheetah, now, his claws tore at the ground and he sprinted into the station.
Medusa had already climbed the stone steps up onto the platform, and he could hear the screams of those who had caught sight of her.
They didn’t scream for long.
The cheetah bounded up the station steps, and above the final cries of Medusa’s victims, he heard a sound that filled him with dread.
This hiss of a train as it pulled away.
He sprang onto the platform, just in time to catch sight of Medusa leaping onto the last car of the departing train. Clay watched in horror as the Gorgon tore off a door with a shriek of metal and tossed it aside. Then she disappeared inside, that nest of snakes upon her head coiling excitedly.
"Damn it!" Clay snarled even as his flesh altered again and he stood upright, unfolding into the body of a man. Already the deaths of those at the train station weighed on his conscience, but now there was the train. He tried not to wonder how many passengers were aboard.
The air shimmered beside him and Dr. Graves appeared, phantom guns drawn. His shirt cuffs were rolled up and through his transparent form Clay could see the X where his suspenders criss-crossed his back like bandoliers. He had always cut a heroic figure, but just then there was nothing heroic about the dread etched upon the spectral features of Leonard Graves.
"We have to catch that train," the ghost said. "I can do it, but you’ll need real speed."
Clay swore under his breath. He nodded and his flesh began to flow once more, becoming malleable… but he never completed the change. A figure clad entirely in black appeared from among the stone people on the platform and let fly with a throwing blade. Clay turned, but not fast enough, and the thin blade bit deeply into his shoulder. He tried to shift back to his more human state, but was wracked with an excruciating pain that radiated from the wound. In a form between cat and man, he leaned forward and tore the blade from his flesh with his mouth, tossing it to the ground. His own blood glinted off the strange sigils etched on its surface. He heard his attacker laughing, the sound of joy muffled by a cherubic mask. The effect of that childlike mask on the killer’s face was profoundly unsettling.
Blasts of ectoplasmic gunfire filled the air and Clay watched Graves descend upon their foe.
The baby-faced figure danced among the gunfire, eluding the phantom bullets with a disturbing grace, and as he moved, Clay saw that he had taken a cylindrical canister from a pouch on his belt and was spreading its grainy contents in a circle below the ghost’s floating form.
"Graves!" Clay warned, but it was too late. The ghostly adventurer began to scream, his normally translucent form, beginning to fade.
"What have you done to him?" Clay growled, finally able to take on his natural, earthen form, but only for an instant. He was eager to show their attacker that he had messed with the wrong people.