Eve felt a wave of relief. The boy reached down to haul Gull back to his feet. He pushed Gull toward them.
"It’s a good thing we decided to bring him, eh Arthur?"
Conan Doyle was looking about the room, distracted.
"Arthur?" she asked, catching his eye.
"Do you feel it?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Feel what?"
"Something familiar," he snapped, moving away toward an exit from the chamber. "Hold things here while I investigate."
Conan Doyle had felt it on at least two other occasions since arriving in the Underworld, a presence of power not native to this death realm, a presence that brought about a tingling sensation at the back of his neck, and the disquieting feeling that they were being watched, maybe herded in a certain direction. At first he’d chalked it up to his own, quite active paranoia, but each time he caught wind of it, his suspicions grew. He felt it now here within the corpse of Hades, a familiar electricity that drew him away from the safety provided by the voice of Orpheus to a passage that would lead him to the unknown beyond the chamber.
The feeling grew as he cautiously walked the winding path, the song of Orpheus growing fainter in the distance. As he rounded a bend, Conan Doyle stopped, a spell of defense ready as he saw a figure lying upon its side in the path ahead. Cautiously he approached, studying the crumpled figure for any sign of movement.
Conan Doyle squatted down beside the body and was startled to see that it was the last of the Erinyes. She was quite dead, as were the snakes that had attempted to flee their host upon her demise. He rolled her onto her back and watched as a ghostly wisp of smoke trailed up from the fist-sized hole burnt into her chest. Conan Doyle reached down and touched the edges of the blackened wound, letting some of ash collect on his finger. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. It smelled of power.
An ancient and terrible magick had been unleashed upon the last of the Furies, a spell that he was certain had not been performed by any in his company, or even the enemy. By the acrid aroma of the residue, Conan Doyle knew this was magick of a darker nature, wielded with the utmost precision, that could only be attributed to a sorcerer with enough knowledge and strength to master such fearsome power — an arch mage of the highest order and discipline.
He could think of only one such mage.
The Fury had been struck down before the entrance into another chamber, the passage having been at one time covered in a thick membranous skin. The covering had been torn, and as he approached the rip, Conan Doyle could hear the sounds of movement from within the chamber beyond.
Stretching the opening wider, Conan Doyle forced his way into the room behind and gasped at what he saw. It was a workshop of sorts, but nothing like the hot, clanging place Squire worked his weapons. This was not a workplace for hobgoblins or even members of the human race. This was the workshop of a god, a massive chamber cluttered with the enormous tools of the metalsmith and laden with gigantic swords and armor that had been crafted for the true gods of Olympus. No sword was smaller than Conan Doyle himself.
The mage stepped farther into the vast chamber, marveling at the sights before him; an intricately carved golden throne obviously meant for a king, a winged chariot, beautiful jewelry spilling from countless metal chests, weapons, and armor. There was animal statuary so wondrously sculpted that he could have sworn they were living breathing things. Everywhere Conan Doyle looked there was something so fantastic that it nearly took his breath away.
Once upon a time, this workshop had been the pride of Olympus, its fires forming the treasure of the gods. But like the Furies, the craftsman himself had relocated to the corpse city within the remains of Hades.
This was the workshop of Hephaestus, god of fire and patron of craftsmen. Not the most powerful god in the Greek pantheon, but among the most respected and best loved.
There came the sound of clatter and the mutter of an angry voice from deeper in the workshop, and Conan Doyle remembered that he was not alone. Cautiously he made his way closer. He could feel it again in the air, the familiar crackle of primordial forces reminding him that he was in the presence of awesome power.
He came around the gigantic bronze sculpture of a bull to see the figure of man dressed in a charcoal gray suit, as if he’d come from a wedding or maybe even a funeral. The man’s back was to him, but Conan Doyle knew immediately who it was. It was as if the magick was saying his name over and over again.
Sanguedolce. Sweetblood. Sweetblood the mage.
"Lorenzo," Conan Doyle called out, but the man did not respond.
He continued to rummage about, grumbling beneath his breath as he furiously searched for something among the creations of Hephaestus.
"I should have known you had something to do with this," Conan Doyle said, cautiously approaching the man. "Gull couldn’t have come up with anything quite this elaborate on his own."
Sweetblood slowly glanced up from Hephaestus’s hoard. "Ah, Arthur," the mage said with the slightest hint of a smile. "It’s about time you got here, I was beginning to worry."
Conan Doyle seethed. All of this, from beginning to end, had been a part of some scheme of Sweetblood’s. Even Gull, the poor, mad, twisted bastard, had been manipulated. Sanguedolce had been his teacher and mentor in the mystic arts until the man’s sudden disappearance in the early part of the twentieth century. Conan Doyle and Gull had both been his students. They knew better than anyone that Sweetblood was the most powerful mage in the world, but he was also cunning.
"What have you done, Lorenzo? What is it that you so desire that you had to orchestrate all of this?"
Sanguedolce waved off his inquiry, continuing to search. "Give me a hand, Arthur. I need you to help me find something." He picked up a bronze helmet, studied it momentarily, and then tossed it over his shoulder where it noisily clattered to the ground. "You’re good at that, aren’t you? Finding things that don’t wish to be found?"
Conan Doyle fumed.
Sweetblood had secreted himself away in a hidden chamber, gone missing by choice, creating a magical chrysalis that would mask his power while he was entombed within. He claimed to have discovered a creature of unimaginable evil and power, out in the farthest reaches of space. The DemoGorgon. The evil had sensed him, had located him, and Sanguedolce claimed that his power would act like a beacon, drawing the DemoGorgon to Earth by its hunger to feed upon Sanguedolce’s innate magick. The sorcerer had hidden in hopes that that unimaginable evil making its way across the universe would lose interest if his power were not there to entice it.
For the safety of the world, and all those who lived upon it, Sanguedolce had not wanted to be found. But Conan Doyle had done just that, searched for his former mentor and located him. The chrysalis had been shattered in the process, the mage was released from his self-imposed confinement, and now, according to Sweetblood, his power was drawing the voracious DemoGorgon ever closer.
Conan Doyle knew Sweetblood blamed him, and he accepted some of the responsibility. But if the arrogant bastard had bothered to inform his students, they might have avoided the doom that now seemed inevitable.
"Since your revival, I’ve made frequent attempts to contact you, to discuss the impending threat and to apologize for my misunderstanding of your — "