Chapter Twenty:
Serpent's Head

Without Pegasus to get them there, reaching the Desertas Island was just as difficult as it was in Perseus’s day.

Thanks to the rocky terrain and high cliffs, it was impossible to land the Millie on the chain of islands and the only approach possible (without a flying horse), was by sea. Considering there was a U-boat at the disposal of their enemy, this situation did not please Chris much and hoped the headstart they had on the Nazis would suffice in helping them reach the Desertas without incident. As it was, the Millie was forced to set down in Madeira, far enough from the Portuguese coast to be remote, but close enough to be considered its territory.

Landing at Santa Cruz’s Aeroporto da Madeira at the eastern edge of Madeira, the airport was barely functional with Buck worrying the short runway might have been too much for the Fokker F20. Nevertheless, they landed without any trouble thanks to his expert handling and once on the ground, both Chris and Julia wanted to move quickly. Whether or not the Nazis had agents in Portugal, the Reich’s reach seemed to be everywhere these days, neither wished to remain in place long enough for word to get back to Krauss at their location. Madeira wasn’t that small, and it wouldn’t take long to determine where they were headed in their search for the Aegis.

To this end, Ezra procured them a sizeable motor tug with a diesel engine that was nowhere as luxurious as the yacht they chartered in Egypt. Used by large fishing parties or sightseers wanting to take a private tour of the archipelago, what the Magellan lacked in refinement, it made up for in practicality. Perched at the rear of the craft were two motorised canoes capable of holding their sizeable group and their equipment when they reached the shore.

A few short hours after arriving in Madeira, the Magellan set sail for the Desertas, with the tug chugging along quite reliably even though it marked its progress with loud belches of diesel laden fumes that made Ezra wince. Meanwhile, Vin ensured they had enough ordinance for a fight, convinced their next encounter with the Nazis would require it. They were too close to the Aegis for the sharpshooter to take chances.

It was a sentiment Chris agreed with entirely and would have preferred Mary to remain on the mainland if Madeira could be considered such a thing, but predictably the lady was adamant she was coming along. Despite himself, Chris had to admit he had grown accustomed to her presence on the expedition, even though it would take all the wild horses that ever existed, to drag that bit of truth from him.

Even during the flyover Buck made over the island, they saw how inhospitable the place was to humans. While there were sparse vegetation and apparently some local fauna in wild goats and the monk seals that came to its shores on occasion, the island was oddly empty. Covered in hills and a coastline that was mostly cliff, a few stretches of beach allowed for a shore landing. The rest of the coast abutted the ocean with high, treacherous cliffs and rocks to ensure any approach would have to be conducted with extreme care.

As they skimmed the coastline looking for a place to anchor, Chris imagined these islands must have been a favourite for pirates hundreds of years ago. There were enough narrow coves concealed by the cliffs to hide any modestly sized craft.

Even though the sun was blazing high on what promised to be a sunny day, there was something ominous about these islands. Its remote location so far away from the civilised world put Chris on edge for reasons he could not explain. Absurdly, he thought it resembled a half-submerged beast, lying still in wait for prey to swim too close. Chris was by no means a superstitious man, and even after everything he’d seen, he often landed on the side of the sceptic, but everything about these islands reeked of menace. He just didn’t know how.

“Well Chris,” Mary stood alongside him as the Magellan continued its search. “You certainly know how to take me to the best places.”

“You wanted to come,” he threw her a sidelong glance, taking a moment to admire those spectacular legs barely concealed in a pair of white shorts. She’d give Gyspy Rose Lee a run for her money.

“Oh I do, but we’ll talk about that when we get to a nice hotel.”

He cracked a grin at that. “Miss Travis, are you always so forward?”

“When I need to be.”

Mary wasn’t about to apologise for her manner. She was a thoroughly modern woman even if the world as not ready for such independence from the fair sex. However, now they almost at the cusp of another set of dangerous circumstances, Mary wanted to take the opportunity to discuss a few things.

“So what now Chris?”

Chris continued to face the island, allowing the sound of lapping ocean against the hull and the chirping of sea birds to help him contemplate his answer. Aware she was a creature of impatience, he did not allow too much time to lapse because he knew her query was not about what they were going to do in regards to the Aegis, but their blossoming relationship.

“Well you’re not the settling down kind are you?” He met her blue-grey eyes pointedly. “Not that I want you to be, I suppose. You know the life we live. We’re not around a lot, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that to change. You have your life in New York, and I don’t want you to stop being who you are on my account.”

“No,” she agreed with him on that observation. “I’m not ready to settle down, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I do. I suppose if this is to go any further, we’ll both need to make a little accommodation, if not a life change.”

“Just the moments?”

“Yes, that will do,” she agreed with a little smile, understanding his proposal in that simple word. When they saw each other, they would be together, but when it was time to do what they were both best at, both would simply walk away. Neither were children, and both understood adult relationships did not always have to end with ‘they lived happily ever after’.

Once the agreement had been made, Chris leaned forward to seal the compact between them with a kiss, knowing it was the best solution for right now. As much as he was ready to be with her, a part of him still felt tethered to the wife he loved and lost. Sarah and Adam were very much in his heart, and though Chris was willing to move forward, closing the door on his grief if not the memories, would take time.

“Chris!” Vin hollered before their lips could touch and Chris gave the sharpshooter a look of annoyance as the younger man made his way towards them unaware of what he was interrupting.

Vin had spent most of their hour’s journey in the wheelhouse with Riley who had some experience with the high seas. The sharpshooter seemed excited, and Chris flashed Mary a look of apology before he broke away again and faced Vin.

“What is it?”

“I think we may have found something,” Vin gestured for him to follow as he headed to the front of the craft once again.

“Something?”

Chris really hoped it was not a German U-boat.

Rounding a particularly impressive cliff wall, they were confronted by a fissure barely large enough for the Magellan to enter. Almost entirely bathed in shadow, barely any light was able to penetrate the narrow passage because of the high walls of rock on either side. If one didn’t know better, it would appear as if God himself, decided to split the mountain in half with a chisel. However, it was not this that capture the attention of his comrades.

With jagged stalactites of limestone covered in moss and algae hanging from its roof, to the opening resembling the maw of that great beast Chris had thought about earlier, the grotto was carefully hidden in the deepest part of the fissure. Unless one was staring directly down its gullet, the rocky alcove was easily overlooked. Then again, how often did the Desertas have visitors? There were no settlements on any one of the island chains, and the only inhabitants appeared to be its native fauna.
As Chris and the others stared over the rail of the ship, there was no mistaking what shape the grotto had chosen to take and seemed in keeping with the legends surrounding the Aegis.

A serpent’s head with its jaws widened, ready to swallow any visitors whole.

“Well that doesn’t look ominous at all,” Mary remarked feeling a shiver run down her spine at the sight of it. The narrow passage into the grotto provided excellent acoustics for the wind to utter a low whine that sounded like the howl of an animal gasping its last breath.

Chris couldn’t disagree with her there, but there was no avoiding their journeying to the place. If this was where the hunt for the Aegis took them, then that was where they were going. He supposed if there was some consolation, he did not think any U-boat would be able to fit through the fissure in the event the Nazis tracked them here.

“Vin, tell Riley to take us in there.”

“Sure about that?” The sharpshooter asked surprising Chris by the question.

Vin was seldom unsettled by anything. Yet right now, that ordinarily unflappable mask felt thinner than usual. Since reconnecting after years apart, Chris knew very little got to Vin. He took most things in stride, and it was this reasoned approach to everything that made him such an excellent lieutenant. Chris had to wonder if Vin really sensed trouble, or perhaps the younger man caught the feeling from him. They were so attuned, it was not a preposterous assumption.

“Yeah,” Chris nodded. “Let’s get this done.”

Upon reaching the grotto, they learned it was merely the opening to a subterranean waterway, no doubt running beneath the mountain of rock that made up most of the island. Keeping the Magellan as much out of sight as it was possible to do so, the group entered the serpent’s maw by canoe. With Chris in one craft and Vin in another, they crossed the stone threshold. They entered the stygian cavern feeling as if they were journeying into the underworld when the reassuring sunlight disappeared from view.

Once they sailed deeper into the cavern, the light of the sun was replaced by the iridescent sparkle of glow worms, numbering in the thousands it seemed, living in the crooks and crannies of the stalagmites hanging of the cathedral-like ceiling. The creatures illuminated the overgrown moss and ferns dangling above them with bright light and banished the bats attempting to sleep, to the far corners of the cavern. Beauty in such an unlikely place captured the attention of the travellers who spent a good few minutes admiring the unspoiled magnificence of the natural world.

“So what can we expect next?”

Julia, who was seated next to Mary in the middle of the canoe, asked the question of Chris. The leader of the seven was sitting up front with JD, while Ezra and Nathan manned the outboard in the rear.

Ezra, who was trying hard to pay attention to steering the craft instead of gawking at the titian-haired goddess who snared his affections, answered her. “I believe Mr Dunne is best able to answer that question.”

JD raised his eyes from his notebook at the mention of his name. Using a flashlight to read the scribblings across the paper, JD had jotted down notes from the hours he spent on the Millie, studying every snippet of useful information he could glean from the books about the Aegis.

“Well to tell the truth ma’am,” JD confessed closing the leather bound book and slipping it into his coat pocket. “There isn’t really a lot of factual data regarding the Aegis and Perseus. A lot of these myths come from classical poets of the time, and each of them had their own way of interpreting the story. It’s hard to nail down what’s actually real and what’s literary license.”

Julia was still smiling at the way JD called her ‘ma’am’ and was touched at how apologetic he seemed at being unable to provide her with an answer. She could well understand why these seasoned and hardened band of veterans had taken the young man to their hearts.

“I suppose not much has changed in two thousand years,” she gave Mary a little wink since the blond was immersed in the literary world more than anyone else.

“Hey, don’t blame me,” Mary immediately rose to the comment. “ I try to write as factually as possible. If I can’t prove it, I don’t write it.”

“And if that don’t work, she stows away in crates.”

“Quiet you,” Mary bit back at Nathan, but was nevertheless smiling at the healer. “Not my finest hour, but I’m here.”

“No kidding,” Chris couldn’t help tease, himself grinning at Nathan’s well-placed remark.

“The way these things happen Miss Julia,” Nathan explained. “Is we follow the rabbit hole for as long as it goes and that usually gets us to the next clue.”

“Unfortunately,” Mary added, “the rabbit hole can some times produce giant scorpions, death traps and drugs that make you think you’re fighting zombies.”

“Zombies?” Julia’s eyes widened and had to look at Ezra for confirmation.

“Produced by an ergot derivative according to Alexandra Styles,” Ezra explained. “Still, I rather be in a drug-induced hallucination then being the main course at a jungle feast,”

Ezra could still smell that soup.

“Or be expected to play stud to an entire village of Norwegian Amazon women,” Nathan couldn’t help but announce since they were on the subject of the more unusual incidents in their expedition.

“Must you remind me?” Ezra groaned and wondered if he would be remiss if he shoved Nathan off the boat.

“What?” JD laughed out loud, joined by Julia and Mary, who were reduced to soft giggles at that revelation.

“Hey, come on now,” Nathan nudged him in the back. “Ain’t nothing to be embarrassed about. Some men would think that was a sweet deal.”

“True,” Ezra agreed and noted the look of affection coming his way from Julia, despite her amusement at his embarrassment. It was a nice feeling. “In any case,” he turned his attention back to JD. “We decided to keep it to ourselves or Mr Wilmington would never have flown us out of that blizzard,”

Another burst of laughter followed, but Chris was no longer paying attention to the banter between his comrades. His gaze hardened as he observed the current swirling around the canoe and the speed at which they were travelling. Looking across the narrow gap between his boat and the one being led by Vin, both men noticed the same thing. They were moving faster. A lot faster than what the outboard motors on their canoes were capable. Studying the water through the light of the torch he was holding up, he saw the undeniable pace of the current.

The glow from above allowed him to see the continuing outline of the cavern they were sailing through but little more than that. The flashlight did a little better, revealing the passages continuation and the waterway travelling through it but offered no illumination on what they were sailing towards. What he could hear and it felt some distance away, was the rushing of water.

“Can you hear that?” Chris called out, silencing the chatter on both boats immediately.

“I can hear it!” Riley answered before Vin could.

“What is it?” Mary asked immediately, apprehension dripping from her voice. The blond woman knew how these things went, and since it was some time since their last perilous escapade, she supposed they were due.

“Nothing good,” Chris deadpanned and then hollered, not just to Ezra but to Josiah who was at the rear of Vin’s boat. “Kill the engines!”

Both men complied immediately, bringing an abrupt halt to the outboards directing both their crafts. When the motors of each stuttered their last smoky belches, neither canoe stopped moving. If anything, it appeared the currents were gaining momentum, and they were moving faster than ever, with no signs of slowing down. As they were swept further down the waterway, the ominous sound of rushing water continued to grow, until its rumble was pressed up against the walls of the cavern, overwhelming them with their roar.

Frothy foam appeared on the water surface, a further indication of the imminent peril they were about to face though its form remained elusive for the moment. Beneath the canoe, chop increased, and both crafts were now subject to the turbulence that accompanied it. With no idea where they were headed because the black ahead looked like oblivion, Chris assumed the worst and acted accordingly.

“Slow us down!” Chris barked at his men prompting JD and Nathan to immediately snatch up the oars and begin paddling, hoping to slow them down or at least get them to the cavern walls so they could decide what came next. Correspondingly, Riley and Buck were doing the same on their canoe.

The action seemed futile because their efforts were like trying to sweep the sand off a beach. Both canoes were surging through the water now, pulled along the currents towards the source of that mighty roar Chris was sure were rapids, waterfalls or worse yet, whirlpools. Mary and Julia were trying to maintain their calm but despite their ability to handle most things (except maybe premature departures from bi-planes), the apprehension on their faces was apparent.

“CHRIS!”

Vin’s voice forced his eyes front again, and he looked up to see the torches finally giving light to their predicament. The cavern had suddenly forked into two separate tunnels. Both of them possessing their own kind of peril with one route continuing into the darkness, while the other appeared to be the edge of a waterfall and with no idea how far the drop was going to be, Chris knew that way was to be avoided at all costs.

“Try and veer us to the right!” Chris shouted as both Nathan and JD paddled even more furiously, fighting the powerful currents dragging them toward the cascade.

Vin Tanner could only watch helplessly along with Buck, Josiah and Riley as the canoe carrying their companions headed directly for the waterfall. They were the closest craft to it, and not even JD and Nathan’s effort to steer the boat in a diagonal direction could alter their course. In an attempt to avert the disaster coming at them, Ezra had restarted the outboard, hoping the motor might give the craft the boost it needed to reach its sister ship.

“Gimme some rope!”

It was a long shot and he knew it. Maybe they could tether one canoe to another and drag it towards safety. He looked over his shoulder and saw Josiah scrambling for the rope. The former seminary student was no longer bothering to operate the outboard on their craft, realising it was a moot point considering the strength of currents. He found the length of rope among their equipment and quickly tossed it to Vin who caught it with one hand.

The Texan having spent enough time on ranches after the disbandment of the Texas Rangers office he was apart of, had no trouble configuring the rope into the lasso he needed.

“CHRIS! CATCH!”

“Boy, we may get pulled in with them,” Riley advised, not liking the idea of abandoning the other craft and Miss Julia to what was coming, but he was also a realist. In his game, he had to be.

“I don’t give a damn!” Vin snapped and threw the lasso as far as it would go. Chris had gone to the nearest edge to grab it when it came his way. The rope sailed across the space between the two canoes, and there was a moment when the hope in Vin’s chest swelled so large, he believed Chris might actually catch it.

Except he didn’t.

The rope landed in the water a few feet before Chris’s outstretched hand before sinking into the depths as surely as Vin’s hopes. Chris gave Vin a look across the distance, one that assured him they would be fine until the canoe sailed out of reach and down the waterfall.

Then Vin was sure of nothing at all.

Chapter Twenty-One:
Siren

"CHRIS!"

Vin's voice was swallowed up by the roar of rushing water when the canoe was directed down the left passage, leaving the fork and the rest of their comrades behind. As the sharpshooter's cry was muted behind him, Chris recalibrated his focus on where the canoe was headed. JD and Nathan had all but abandoned the attempt to steer their way out of trouble with oars, while Ezra was ensuring the girls were okay where they were. Even though both women claimed to not need a man's help for anything, Chris looked over his shoulder long enough to see Mary's apprehension and knew he could rely on Ezra to ensure they were safe.

Facing front, he aimed the torch and saw the edge approaching with terrifying speed. The wall of blackness beyond the pool made Chris fear the worst, but the strength of the current ensured they would be meeting it head-on. The darkness prevented him from seeing just how much of a drop they were going to experience and his efforts to answer that question with the narrow beam from the torch was next to useless.

"HOLD ON!"

The warning came just as the nose of the canoe passed over the edge and pierced the empty space beyond. Chris braced himself by gripping the sides of the narrow craft and planted his feet against the wooden deck. The canoe tipped forward sharply, prompting gravity's pull on all of them. Mary uttered a short cry of fright, while Ezra spat a profanity that was not at all in keeping with his erudite speech.

Craning his neck forward, Chris glimpsed the first view of what lay below. Much to his relief, the plunge downward was nowhere as lofty as he feared. It was no more than twenty feet, even if their landing was going to be rough. Their equipment began to slide across the floor of the boat, and Chris did what he could to secure the torch and the knapsack containing the circlet and other survival gear.

"Hang on to the guns!"

Nathan was shouting at JD and Chris was grateful the healer made the demand before he could. For his part, Chris had coiled one strap of the knapsack with his foot, ensuring it went nowhere without him. Below them, he was now able to see more foamy water as they were bathed with the light spray of the rushing currents. Wiping his face, he steeled himself as the canoe tipped all the way over and they were falling.

The bow of the canoe hit the water hard, soaking Chris as it disappeared beneath the depths for a few seconds before its construction forced it afloat again. As they were all splashed with water, the deck of the boat was similarly doused, but not enough to capsize them, much to Chris's relief. The canoe shook off its ordeal after a few seconds, though its occupants did not recover as quickly before it sailed away from the plunge pool and continued onward, albeit across calmer waters.

"Everyone alright?" Like Chris, everyone was soaked.

Mary was running her fingers through her golden hair combing out the water, while Ezra was frowning at the destruction of another suit. Nathan was checking their ordinance while JD was patting down his coat, ensuring his notebook was where he left it. Julia Pemberton appeared the calmest, even though earlier on, Chris was sure he saw fear on her face too. Then again, he could confess to the experience himself.

"We're okay, Chris," Nathan assured their leader. "Me and JD managed to keep the guns from going over, but I'm worried what the wet might have done to them though."

"Can't be helped," Chris shrugged, not liking the idea of being unarmed while down here either, however, there was nothing to be done about it.

"I wonder where the others are," JD cast a look from where they came and saw nothing but the waterfall. There was no sign of the other canoe and no sounds echoing from that upper chamber to indicate how far away their comrades might be.

"I don't know," Chris frowned unhappily. "Let's just hope whatever they run into, they can handle it."

"Vin will keep them safe," Nathan said confidently, aware his sentiment was shared by both Ezra and Chris. That young kid who tagged behind them on the Western Front had evolved into one of the most capable men they knew, and each of them was proud to have played some part in it.

"No doubt," Ezra nodded and then regarded himself with distaste. "For once, just once, I would like to embark on one of these escapades that do not leave me scurrying for my tailor. Seawater will not do well on this fabric."

Julia smiled in his direction, "don't worry, you still look smashing even with the look of a wet hound."

"Well your taste can't be faulted," Ezra threw her a smirk, appeased by her compliment.

"That's one way to put it," Nathan rolled his eyes, now checking the ammunition.

Of course, the healer knew just how much Ezra liked the woman and was pleased to see she was one who could match Ezra wit for wit. Ezra's problem with the opposite sex had always been boredom. While he treated every woman like a lady, the dumb ones didn't last long with him. It wasn't just that he liked them classy, he liked the ones who could match him intellectually, which in Ezra's case was formidable.

"Chris," Mary scootched over to him. "Where are we headed?"

"I'm not sure," Chris confessed, aiming the torch which took a few shakes to get working again, at the path ahead.

Fortunately, the darkness that followed them down this new chamber began to diminish and as they sailed further along the subterranean channel of water with the glowworms making their appearance once more, bathing the place with a luminescent glow. It would be quite beautiful if it weren't for the fact they had no idea where they were or what had happened to the others.

The walls flanking them were smoothed, implying the water level had once been higher, and Chris wondered if Perseus had made this journey and how had he done it. Keeping his torch aimed ahead, Chris suddenly sat upright when he saw what appeared to be a wall, blocking their progress any further. Searching the tunnel, he realized there was no other way for them to progress if they did not get through it and the unhappy possibility they might have to return the way they came loomed in his mind.

"Oh hell," Nathan grumbled, seeing the impasse they were fast approaching.

"It seems we might have taken the wrong route," Ezra commented. "Mr Tanner and the others might be closer to the Aegis than we are."

"No kidding," Chris grumbled, until they drew closer and closer to the wall and they saw that it was not a wall at all, but a door.

The seam that split the wall in half was covered by moss and algae, but as they closed in, they saw patterns the slick green growth concealed. Only when it was bathed in the light of the torch, did the decidedly man-made design take on greater definition. Though barely discernible, thanks to the ravages of time, the carved lines revealed a great temple, it's architecture was in the design of those from Classical Greece, with two figures poised on either side of what appeared to be an orb. One was the image of the Gorgon, the snakes coiling around the lady's head, their carved image looking somewhat unearthly with the green growth around it. On the other side, was the unmistakable image of the monstrous progeny of Pasiphae and the white bull denied sacrifice by Minos to Zeus.

"What's that in the middle?" Mary indicated the orb between the two mythological creatures.

Chris studied it for a minute, trying to guess what it could be. While he was not the scholar JD was, Chris Larabee had a knack for solving ancient riddles and this one, jumped out at him almost immediately. "I need the Circlet."

"It couldn't be that simple, could it?" Nathan asked as Chris bent over to remove the knapsack strap coiled around his ankle. Lifting it up, he began rummaging through the contents within the canvas, searching for the acquisition made by Julia Pemberton that started this search for the Aegis.

"I doubt anything about this will be considered simple," Ezra commented. The trouble with sealed doorways wasn't that they were locked to intruders but rather because they were hiding something far worse.

"Attaboy Ezra," Nathan gave him a look. "Don't trip over your optimism."

Chris ignored them both when the nose of the both finally reached the door, and the craft came to a sudden stop. The soft impact of wood against stone sent a jolt through all of them before they were able to move again. Chris climbed as far along the tip of the canoe as he could, without landing in the water, before he pressed the ancient piece of gold into the grooves of the carved orb. To no one's surprise, it fit perfectly and allowed Chris to twist it into place.

"It's a key!" JD exclaimed, having seen this type of mechanism before.

No sooner than he made the comment, a low, grinding sound screeched into being, making them all wince. The sound of rock against rock was teeth chattering, but they bore it because what followed was the whine of an ancient mechanism forced out of its hibernation to fulfil out its purpose. To Chris, it didn't seem too dissimilar from the large pistons of a steam train just before it left the platform.

As the door parted, the vegetation encrusting the seam of rock was torn apart, while the ceiling above them shook loose cobwebs, specks of dirt and even some of the glow worms clinging to the jagged roof. They disappeared into the dark water, their luminescent body marking their descent. A few bats, unhappy by the shudder running throughout the passage took flight, driving Mary and Julia to crouch down low to avoid them.

"Ezra, Nathan," Chris gestured at the oars, thinking it was a miracle they had not been lost during their plunge down the falls.

Light poured through the open door, not just from the glow worms living in the ceiling but also from the tall mushrooms growing out of the rock walls. Some almost a foot high, their dome-shaped heads radiated with amber light, while chanterelles fanned out with equally bright colours. Ferns and other creepers waved them by, as they used the cracks of the stone walls for purchase, some with leafy appendages that did not fit their subterranean surroundings.

Even the dark water beneath them shed its sinister cloak as the canoe sailed forward on currents of vibrant cerulean. The water was so crystal clear they could see the marine life going about their business languidly, indifferent to the strange new arrivals above them. Silver and gold bodied fish swam beneath them, navigating the anemones clusters and coral beds.

"Well this is unexpected," Ezra was first to comment. Previous experience made him believe they would be confronted by something dark and terrible once they slipped through the wall and drew closer to the Aegis. This approach seemed far too easy for his liking.

"Yeah," Chris replied, feeling the same suspicion. This was too easy, and just because it looked pretty didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. "Everyone, keep your eyes open. Julia, don't let Mary touch anything."

The look Mary shot him could have killed him dead on the spot.

"Hilarious Chris," she saw Julia stifling a little smile and grew more annoyed. "There's nothing to touch."

"I'm sure you'll find something to catch your interest," Chris winked and faced front again.

Like before, there was nothing but an underground waterway, with walls enclosing them on all sides, and the only way out was to keep going forward. Reflections in the water bounced off the walls, adding to the unearthly look of the place. While it was all pretty, all Chris could think of was one word, repeating itself over and over again in his head.

Flypaper.

JD was quickly sketching one of the fish he saw swimming along with the canoe. The animal obviously found the boat as fascinating as they found it's presence. He'd never seen a fish like that and wondered what species it was. It looked like a goldfish, but there was something different about it that fascinated the scholar. With a pencil, he began sketching the creature, wishing to show it to Orin Travis when they got back to civilization. Once they'd recovered the Aegis that is.

The fish continued to swim, and as Chris paid attention to where they were going, JD continued to sketch, even if the light was dim and he'd end up wearing glasses if he kept this up. Leaning forward to get a closer look, he admired the graceful way it shimmied through the water, the different shades of colour that rippled through its body as it moved. It was shaped like a bullet with a long flowing tail that trailed behind the animal as it glided through the darkness. It was almost like the hair of a beautiful girl swaying in the wind.

The shape began to change, and JD blinked, feeling his eyes drink in the sight of the fish that was now a lot bigger than he thought and upon closer reflection, didn't look like a fish at all. The tail flowed like the red hair of a Celtic maiden and her legs...

Legs?

JD blinked and looked again and saw nothing but a fish, swimming curiously by the boat, investigating them in its own way. Shaking such foolishness out of his head, he went back to sketching, giving the creature's body definition when he glanced at it once more. The fish had disappeared, making JD frown because he hadn't quite gotten it all down yet. Leaning across the edge of the canoe, he tried to see if he could find it again when all of a sudden, the water came out to greet him.

It was shaped like a hand.

JD could see fingers, long, slender ones, reaching for him. A watery digit extended towards him, daring JD to make contact. For a few seconds, he simply stared at it, mesmerized by the dance of colour and light, unable to do much else, even called the others for help. All he could do was reach out and touch the hand beckoning him for connection. When he made contact, the water felt cool and inviting, and when JD followed the hand into the underground sea, he saw a face staring at him.

Her dark hair was swirling around her pale face, bathed in the same aquamarine hue that radiated off the walls of the passage. Dark eyes stared at him with lips so red, he could see the colour of them through the greenish hue. As he stared into her face, he heard her sing. The words were familiar and stabbed at his heart, even after a year since his mother's passing. JD had a feeling he would miss it for the rest of his life.

While the moon her watch is keeping
All through the night
While the weary world is sleeping
All through the night
O'er thy spirit gently stealing
Visions of delight revealing
Breathes a pure and holy feeling
All through the night

She sang that song to him all his life, and as he listened to it now, sung so sweetly in his ears, he started to weep in despair, wanting the anguish to stop and willing to do anything to see it happen, even die, completely unaware he wasn't alone.

Even as she spoke to him, stroking his brow while he lay curled up in a ball, feeling so dirty, he could hear distantly the song playing beyond the walls of the room.

Focusing on the tune playing on the phonograph in the saloon downstairs was the only way he had been able to keep from screaming at her, or worse, killing her. In what was left of his ruined psyche, a tiny voice was telling him she had not known how badly it would go, what payment that son of a bitch would demand and it had been his choice to pay it.

What else could he do? She was his mother!

He thought he could bear it. He thought he could save her and he did, even as he washed the blood and slick off him, even when he doubled over the wash basin, throwing up until there was nothing left. Even as the pain wracked his body, he knew he had delivered her and yet in her salvation, their relationship was effectively destroyed forever. He knew he would travel with her no more, that their time as a mother and son team of grifters was over. He had no wish for this life, not after seeing what it cost.

When you're all dressed up and no place to go,
Life seems weary, dreary, and slow.
My heart has ached and bled for the tears I've shed,
When I've no place to go unless I went back to bed.

"My Darlin' boy," she wept openly and if he had bothered to look, would have seen she was displaying more emotion than he had ever seen her show before. Her words had little effect on him, not after what her reckless pursuit of a con had led them into. Led him into, the thought bitterly. Even now, he could smell the stink of the man, the pain that tore through him like a knife through hot butter. Even now, hours after the fact, he still felt like he wanted to die.

Even though he was seventeen, he had known a risky venture when he saw it, but Maude did what she always did in such situations, exactly what she wanted. William 'Reddy' Griffin wasn't just some rich fool who could be taken in easily, he was a mobster from New York, and no sensible grifter would take the risk of trying to swindle one, except for Maude of course.

"I didn't know! I wouldn't have let him near you if I knew!"

It had been all Ezra could take. The next thing he knew he was running out of the room, running towards the first enlistment office he could find, to escape the shame. All the while thinking of the song that had been playing when he left her for good.

I've had a sad, sad life and whenever I go
To that peaceful spot where the violets grow,
Upon a nice white stone will be written below:
"He was all dressed up and no place to go."

"Mary. We're in trouble."

Mary was kneeling over Chris Larabee trying to shake him back to coherence. A few seconds ago, he had dropped to his knees, becoming unresponsive as he became lost somewhere in his mind, somewhere he appeared trapped. The expression on his face was one of anguish and seeing his pain, made her heart ache in frustration because she couldn't free him from it. Across the length of the canoe, Chris was not alone in his misery.

Nathan's hands were in the water, reaching for something that wasn't there. His face, like Chris, was one of grief and sorrow and Mary couldn't imagine what trauma he was suffering because she did not know him that well. While Nathan had proven himself to be a kind, compassionate soul with a dry, biting wit, she knew from conversations with the rest of the seven, he kept his past a secret, much like Ezra, which was likely why the two men got on so famously.

"Kathy!"

Like Heathcliff, Nathan was crying out for someone who was not there and yet was unable to see the ones who were.

"I know that!" Mary declared, annoyed at Julia's statement of the obvious.

"I don't mean these men," Julia returned promptly. "I mean them."

Mary looked up to see where Julia was pointing. Emerging from the water, surrounding the canoe were at least a dozen women. They were naked, with green hair clinging to their bare shoulders. Their yellow serpentine eyes glared at the two women who escaped their siren song and parted their blood red lips to reveal rows of serrated teeth.

Yeah, Mary thought to herself as the sirens approached, Julia was right. They were definitely in trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Two:
Soft Places

It was the same, every damn time.

Whenever Chris Larabee vanished from sight, presumably to face some danger without him, Vin Tanner felt like he was ten years old again. No longer was he the accomplished sharpshooter or Texas Ranger. Instead, Vin became the frightened child who managed to lie his way onto the Western Front. In that muddy carnage, Vin found the one person he loved almost as much as his ma. From the moment Chris understood he had run from a place as brutal as the front lines and allowed him to remain with K-Troop, Vin loved him.

These days, the strength of that affection was expressed in the camaraderie they shared, but Vin still never forgot what it was like to look up into those ice coloured eyes and know with complete certainty, this man would always keep him safe. Vin was an adult now, and yet deep inside him, he was still a hair’s breadth from descending into panic whenever he saw Chris ride off without him.

Just like it did when he was a kid, his chest would tighten with the fear Chris would die in the trenches with so many of the others on the front and Vin would be alone again. Chris had given Vin this family that wasn’t just him. It was also Ezra, Nathan, Josiah, Buck and later JD. If it weren’t for the authorities getting their hands on him after the war, Vin had no doubt, Chris would have adopted him.

It was why seeing Chris disappeared down that waterfall filled him with raw terror.

“CHRIS!”

Vin shouted into the darkness and received no answer but the constant roar of the churning waters. The strong currents dragged them away from the fork, giving Vin no chance to do anything to help the occupants of the other canoe. Their own was being spirited down a different path, one that gave them no hints as to the fate of their friends.

“Vin, they’re gone!”

Vin was about to turn on Buck savagely when he realised Buck didn’t mean dead, just momentarily out of reach. Buck was too optimistic to think anything else. Biting back the harsh words he was about to utter, Vin remembered himself. Gritting his teeth, he retreated behind the stoic mask he sometimes wore like a cloak of protection.

Buck was right, they were out of sight for the moment, that’s all. Besides, Vin reminded himself Chris Larabee did not get into situations he could not get out of, and that the man could take care of himself. Whatever it was, Chris and the others were facing, Chris would be alright. He had to be.

Right now, they were in a situation no less dire. Despite the divergent path their canoes had taken, with Chris’s party having the worst of it, he, Buck, Josiah and Riley were still headed down a subterranean river whose end they could not see. With each side of the passage a wall of rock, there was no place to put to shore, and if they wished to find Chris and the others, they had to continue ahead, even if it took them deeper underground.

“Alright, alright,” Vin considered what came next now that he was in the mind to ponder the question. “We can’t help them until we figure out where we are ourselves. At this point, let’s just assume they’ve gone a different direction, and not anything worse than that.”

“Too right lad,” Riley nodded, offering the sharpshooter his support with that affirmation. Like Vin, Riley did not want to think the worst because if he did succumb to that fear, it would be of help to no one. Miss Julia wasn’t just his partner, but family.

“Yeah,” Buck agreed, embracing the belief wholeheartedly as only Buck could. “They’re fine. Ain’t nothing Chris can get into, he won’t be able to get out of.”

“Okay, then. The first sight of land, we get out? You all fine with that?”

“Sounds good to me,” Josiah drawled, appearing even more stoic than Vin could manage on a good day, confident the young man whom they all watched grow up, would once again prove their faith in him.

“The only trouble is,” Buck pointed out as they continued paddling down the waterway, carried by their own steam and the currents, “is we don’t got the circlet or JD.”

Scanning the smooth walls of the passage, damp with moisture and reflecting the luminescent glow of the critters above them, Buck forced his worry for JD down the same place Vin kept his concerns for Chris.

“If we get to the Aegis, we won’t have the least bit idea of how to reach it, and you know how these things always go.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Josiah admitted having five years of experience to look back on. “There’s always something lurking in the dark, waiting to take a bite out of us.”

The suggestion made Buck stop paddling immediately to crane his neck over the side of the craft and scrutinise the water more carefully. He tried to see if anything was lurking in the depths that might be waiting for a meal to show up on a canoe-sized platter. Fortunately, the crystal blue water revealed nothing except the exotic and colourful marine life. Satisfied for now, they were not venturing into the lair of some creature looking to eat them, the men paddled, ignoring the planet-size hole left by their absent comrades.

They continued this way for another thirty minutes, surrounded by limestone walls on either side and no sign of any land that could allow them to put to shore. Even the rushing hiss of the waterfall diminished into nothingness, and there was only the gentle lapping of water against the hull keeping their voices company. As their descent continued, there was a feeling they were passing from one realm to another, as if the fork was not a simple fissure in the rock, widened by millions of years of erosion, but a soft place.

A drunken Arab once told Vin there were places where the veil between worlds was not as immutable as one believed. The sharpshooter dismissed this as a tall tale until a few months ago when he stood there beneath the Saudi sky and watched a goddess attempt to take the body of the woman he loved. At that moment, Vin was willing to believe anything.

All their patience was beginning to crack when suddenly, something appeared ahead of them that was more than just darkness and water. The light beckoned them forward and as they neared it, saw the illumination coming from two burning torches, the firelight dancing off the slick reflection of the walls. Both were mounted against a facade of sandstone built into the limestone around them. Flanked by the torches were a set of doors, with huge brass knockers, each in the shape of a bull’s skull.

Six feet of floor separated the water from the door, with an edge dropping two feet down after the final paved slab. Water sloshed against the sandstone, creating amber lines against the tan rock. Barnacles skirted the surface before disappearing entirely into the drink. The clarity of the water allowed them to see the green vegetation clinging to the stone, swaying with the currents in their featherlike grace.

“Well, this don’t look ominous at all,”

Buck’s comment mirrored his own, but Vin knew they had little choice in the matter. There was no way ahead unless they went through whatever awaited them behind those doors.

Ten minutes later, they were out of the boat and standing in front of the massive doors, each man sufficiently armed for whatever lay ahead. Like the knockers, the design against the gold-plated door was definitely Grecian in origin. Vin did not need to be the expert Chris or JD was to recognise the style, which seemed to figure the bull quite prominently.

“Bulls,” Josiah commented to no one in particular. “If we were after the Aegis of Zeus, this might be the place. Bulls were said to be his sacred animal. They sacrificed the things to him all the time.”

“How can an animal be sacred when they’re being sacrificed?” Vin asked that somewhat valid question. The sharpshooter disliked the idea of any animal being killed for no good reason. Eating was one thing, but the foolishness of murdering them to appease indifferent gods was a waste.

“They were all mad bastards back then,” Riley commented. “Them and their heathen ways.”

“Yeah,” Buck snorted. “Us good Christian folk never did anything like that, except maybe burn witches at stakes.”

Any comment Riley or Josiah was about to make in defence of their religion was promptly silence when a loud creak ripped through the air, and the doors jerked into movement. All four men took a quick step back as the doors swung out, widening just enough for them to enter. Vin exchanged glances with his friends, all of whom recognised a trap when they saw one.

“Should we?” Buck had to ask because what awaited them might not be something they could survive.

“Ain’t got much choice,” Vin stepped forward, his Colt firmly in his grip as he stepped through, hoping whatever was on the other side would help them find Chris and the others.

The stone floor continued beyond the threshold of the door, forming part of the hallway that was the same width of those high doors. Like the facade, the walls were constructed of sandstone, with artwork so well preserved it might appear as if the artist just painted it. Immortalised in vivid colours, were the pantheon of Greek Gods, Zeus with his thunderbolt, Athena with her shield, Poseidon with the half body of a fish and Aphrodite gloriously naked.

The hallway was illuminated by torches placed at regular intervals along the walls, providing a soft, amber glow reminding Josiah Sanchez of a church. There was no doubting the splendour of the architecture and the former seminary student had to wonder how this place could exist, remaining as pristine as the day it was built. Age had not affected any of the artwork, nor were the corners draped with threads of cobweb. Even the floor revealed the absence of any dust. It was as if the place was trapped in time, unable to move beyond the moment.

It gave him the chills.

“There’s darkness here,” Riley voiced his reservations, the Irish brogue adding to everyone’s anxious nerves.

Vin ignored all this, focussed only on one thing. To reach Chris, they had to get through this place. All other considerations were unimportant in the face of that goal. He led the way, grateful for the Tommy Gun slung across his shoulder, insisting on taking it because there was a chance they could run into Nazis with similar ordinance during this expedition. When it came to enemies with guns, Vin did not believe in moderation.

At the end of the hallway, were another set of doors, although these were half the size of the version that gave them entrance into the passage earlier. Once again, when they approached, the doors opened of their own accord, but unlike the chamber they were now in, what lay beyond was bathed in dim light. The dry, stale smell of something old and long since drained of all moisture, wafted at them.

“We’re going in there?” Buck was the first to say it.

Vin walked through without a second thought, his flashlight lighting the way, while assured his friends would be right behind him.

“Of course we are,” Buck muttered under his breath before adding louder, “Vin, hold up will you!”

The pilot rolled his eyes in exasperation, unsurprised by the sharpshooter’s behaviour. The kid had more courage and loyalty than sense. However, Buck had no intention of letting Vin go anywhere alone, even if he was acting like a pig-headed mule. Hurrying after Vin, he cast his eye back to the others just long enough to gesture to Josiah and Riley to follow him into the darkness. Switching on their torches, they had no sooner crossed the threshold before the door slammed loudly behind them.

Josiah was the first to swing around and make an attempt to open it once they were sealed inside. To no one’s surprise, it did not budge. Whatever force allowed them entry had no desire for them to leave and Josiah frowned, aware that loud clang signalled the trap they knowingly entered, had just been sprung.

“No surprise there,” Riley shrugged.

“Everyone, keep your eyes open,” Vin warned as they started moving again.”This place don’t look as friendly as the one before.”

“You got a strange idea of what’s friendly,” Buck grumbled, hating the idea they walked in here in the first place but chagrined at knowing there was no other path they could take.

Unlike the hallway behind them, this was bathed in darkness. Their flashlights provided some definition, but the darkness shrouding them was not just the lack of light. There was a hidden menace in the black that permeated off the wall, like a slick, oily residue no one dared touch. While the other corridor was wide, this one was narrow, and the masonry lacked the polish of sandstone. This corridor looked as if it had been carved out. A light covering of moss and lichens clung to the stone, while cobwebs dangled from the roof.

The corridor was also narrow, barely six feet across, forcing them to walk two by two.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Josiah remarked, seeing the spider retreating up the wall at the sight of them. Things were living in here, he thought silently. He could hear the chirps and skittering of insect chitin against the rock.

The foul smell which initially reminded Vin of the stale water one might find beneath a forgotten well, evolved into something rancid until it was enough to force the tracker to breathe through his mouth to tolerate it. The further in they journeyed, the stronger and more revolting the stench became and yet Vin was sure there was a familiarity to it.

“What is that stink?” Buck blurted out, never one to hold in a thought. “Smells like something died in here.”

The three men who had been on the ground during the Battle of the Somme immediately looked at each other as Buck’s statement prompted their memories. Vin had no doubt, if Nathan Jackson were present, the healer would have picked up on it sooner, but unfortunately, Nathan was somewhere else in this underground world, while they were left to fend for themselves, stumbling in the dark, trying not to wake a dragon.

“What?” Buck saw his three companions go suddenly still.

“Everybody,” Vin spoke, his too-soft voice almost a whisper, “quit talking.”

“Why?” Buck hissed but made sure he did it quietly to not ignore Vin’s warning.

“Something is dead down here,” Vin started moving again, this time a good deal more cautiously. “A lot of somethings.”

“If you’ve ever been on the battlefield lad,” Riley explained just as quietly, “you’d know the stink of a hundred bodies after a day in the mud.”

Buck froze inwardly at the answer. During the war, he’d seen the aftermath of the battles fought by the infantry divisions, the thousands of bodies lying across the plains, pounded by artillery, footprints both animal and man, into mud. The fear he felt wondering whether or not Chris, Ezra, Nathan and Vin were down there among the dead, was nothing in comparison to actually being a part of it on the land.

The passage suddenly made a sharp turn and headed off to the right. Following it, they discovered this one wasn’t as long as the previous corridor and ended at a juncture revealing access to three others, all in different directions. Something about the configuration bothered Vin, but before Vin could form the answer, he took a step forward and felt a loud, crisp crunch beneath his boot. Until now, Vin had aimed his torch ahead, paying more attention to where they were going instead of what was underfoot. There didn’t seem the need when they identified the rock floor upon first entering these catacombs.

The crack used the acoustics of the corridors to leave their immediate vicinity, making the sharpshooter frown as he lowered his torch to his feet. What he saw sent shivers of ice racing down his spine. Examining the rest of the floor, Vin’s jaw tightened at what he had erroneously believed to be the gravel produced by a carved passage like this.

It was bone.

Lots of bones and judging by the fragment of jaw he saw lying against the dust, he now knew to be the desiccated remnants of offal left behind from Christ only knew how long ago, they were human. Vin could see the curve of a rib, the oddly shaped pelvic bone and fragments teeth.

“Jesus Christ....” Buck whispered, his face ashen even if Vin couldn’t see it.

“He’s got nothing to do with this,” Josiah examined the remains now as well.

Riley was not interested in the bones, but he was listening keenly while he swept the torch’s light across the immediate area, ensuring nothing crept up on them while they were holding position for the moment.

Vin dropped to his knees to pick up what appeared to be a femur, ignoring the revulsion of handling the remains of what used to be a living, breathing person like himself. What a terrible place to die, he thought, at the bottom of the world, in the dark. He wondered if the collection of bones meant this poor soul had not died alone or had they been the last in a long line of grisly deaths.

Using the light of his torch, he studied the marks across the yellowed bone in his hand, examining every aspect of its texture and once again, feeling his horror ratcheted up another notch when he realised what he was looking at. Clenching his jaw, he lifted his gaze and saw Josiah conducting a similar study of a smaller bone, this one appeared to be a metacarpal.

“You seeing what I’m seeing?”

“What?” Buck demanded, never being comfortable with places that kept the sky so entirely out of view. This place had already put him on edge, but this latest discovery was straining his ability to maintain his calm.

“These are teeth marks,” Josiah answered grimly. “I think these people were eaten. Some of these bones were gnawed.”

“Christ.”

Riley’s simple exclamation was all the prompt Vin needed to straighten up. “We got to get moving, we can’t stay here. We’ll head back the way we came and figure something else out.”

“What? Why?”

A loud, unearthly bellow answered Buck’s question. The sound was so thunderous it felt as if the walls had shuddered at its roar. The smaller denizens of the passage, living in the moss and cracks, scurried back to their hiding places, their departure evident by the silence that fell over them all. Only the roar continued, closing in on them.

“Come on!” Vin prompted everyone in the direction away from it. “Keep moving.”

“Hold on Vin,” Buck snapped, not wanting to run blindly ahead with no idea where they were going even if he agreed wholeheartedly with getting away from whatever was making that racket. “We got to think it through or we’re going to get lost in this maze.”

“It’s not a maze!” Vin snapped, jumping a little when another roar chased them down the corridor. “It’s a labyrinth.”

Chapter Twenty-Three:
Delirium

Mary still had trouble processing what was approaching the canoe as the currents around them suddenly ceased, and they were floating in a stationary position. The trap they had unwittingly entered was now sprung, and the hunters were about to collect their trophies. Fighting all logic and common sense, telling her she could not possibly be seeing what was closing in on the canoe, the terror gripping her heart had a more visceral piece of advice.

They're coming.

"You know how to use this?" Julia asked, rifling through the cache of weapons Chris Larabee and company had brought with them to face whatever dangers lurked in the shadows where the Aegis was hidden.

Mary's answer when she took the Browning semi-automatic pistol in her hand was to release the slide and then the safety. "Can't be the daughter of an ex-cavalryman and not know how to shoot a gun. It's just un-American."

Julia flashed her a smile of amusement despite their present circumstances, arming herself with an M720 semi-automatic shotgun, and keeping the S2-200 machine gun within reach. She had an idea of what these things surrounding them were, but Julia had no intention of letting them get near any of the men. As it was, she was uncertain whether or not the fugue state they were gripped in could be broken, but it was a puzzle that could be unravelled after she dealt with the present threat.

"They're after the men," Julia declared, having retained enough about her classical studies to know her cryptozoology with some expertise. "I think they're sirens."

"Sirens?" Mary's eyes widened and saw the ring of unearthly flesh closing in around them. Of course, what else would they be?

"According to the legends, they're supposed to lure men to their deaths by singing songs of such despair, the men were useless to stop them when the sirens came on board to tear them apart.”

Julia saw the first one of the creatures nearing the canoe and promptly lifted the barrel of the shotgun she was wielding. Pulling the trigger, she hoped the sirens might be frightened off by 20th-century weaponry.

BOOM!

The sound was like the bellow of an enraged God. Inside the close confines of the underground passage, it made the walls quake and jolted everyone present, including the men in their company lost in their delirium. The creatures halted in their advance for a second, before the slits of their reptilian irises contracted with calculation and what hesitation they felt was overcome by the thirst for blood.

"Oh, crap!" Mary cursed as she realised she was going to have to fire on these creatures since the last hope of avoiding a fight faded with the sound of the gunshot blast. Taking aim, the mythological women showed no fear facing the gun barrel and Mary wondered if it was because they were impervious to bullets or had no idea what she was holding in her hand was a weapon.

After all, it was probably the Bronze Age the last time they were afforded a meal.

"At least!" Julia bit back just before she opened fire.

The first bullet tore through the chest of the siren closest to the canoe. The gunshot penetrated the creature's flesh with a spurt of dark blood, splitting her face with a grimace of agony that appeared even more grotesque when those sharp, needle-like teeth were revealed. She staggered in pain, her scream becoming lost in the shrieks of outrage. Those voices, so debilitating to the male of the species, sounded to Mary and Julia like sharp, savage screeches.

She sunk into the dark water, prompting the others to come forward, their movements marked by the swirl of foam around their bodies as they advanced. Mary saw another reaching the canoe from the corner of her eye, its claw-like hands attempting to climb on to the boat. Chris was still on the floor, the expression on his face so anguished she could not bear it, and it infuriated her that he was suffering so. Without even knowing what was in his mind's eye, she suspected it had to do with the fire that took his wife and child.

"Bitches."

Mary promptly shot the encroaching siren through the skull. The creature's hand whipped back like elastic before she fell back first into the drink. Another deafening boom from the shotgun had Mary turning sharply to Julia, who was shooting at the monsters seemingly unperturbed by the insanity of their present situation. Then again, with what Julia was combating these days, Mary knew not all monsters were mythological. Some became that by embracing ideology. Yet another siren disappeared under the water and Mary was starting to think they might survive this situation when one of the Oceanids bellowed loudly in a call that seemed to draw the attention of the others.

The words to Mary sounded like gibberish and for an absurd moment, Mary thought they resembled the high-pitched squeal of dolphins. Whatever the strange vocalisations were attempting to convey, all of a sudden, the creatures suddenly dove beneath the water. For a few seconds, only the diminish chop of their departure remained visible, but the sirens themselves were so far unseen. Raising her eyes to Julia, she dared to hope this might be over, that the weapons they were carrying might have scared he things away.

"Where did they go?" Mary asked, trying to keep the hope out of her voice. Fear had made her an optimist.

"Not far I think," Julia swept her gaze across the surface, trying to see the creatures who should have been clearly visible in the crystal coloured water. Strange how it was now dark and impenetrable as if the mood of the sea changed to suit the needs of the predators living in its depths.

The pause though temporary, gave Mary some time to examine Chris who was muttering incoherently, although she managed to make out a few sentences.

"I can still smell them in the ash...."

Oh God, Mary's heart clenched in sympathy, imagining what horror he must be seeing. She knew he cared for her, but Mary was not so foolish as to delude herself into thinking she was the love of his life, nor would she ever be. That distinction went to the woman who had borne him a son, the love of his youth lost in a cruel blaze. She brushed his brow gently, wishing to soothe him his torment, knowing this could only end if they got away from here.

"What do we do?" Mary looked to Julia, who appeared accustomed to handling dangerous situations.

"We leave," Julia stated without hesitation. "While they're deciding how they're going to deal with us."

No sooner than the words left her lips, the canoe began rocking perilously. Below their feet, they could feel the heaving of unseen assailants against the underside of the boat. Mary gripped the side of the craft to avoid being tipped over while Julia clung to the heavy casing of the outboard motor. Water started sloshing against the hull and into the canoe as the turbulence grew more violent. Their enemy was renewing their attack from a different direction to avoid their guns.

"They're trying to capsize us!"

"I got that!" Mary bit back. None of the men seemed aware of what was happening, still trapped in their delirium and Mary supposed that was some consolation. If she and Julia failed to stop these monstrous women, being oblivious while they were being torn apart might actually be a small mercy.

From the corner of her eye, Mary caught sight of something emerging over the edge of the boat. Turning around swiftly, while struggling to maintain her balance despite the rocking beneath the craft, Mary managed to squeeze off a shot. The bullet tore through the wood, spitting splinters into the water and at her, before nicking the enemy’s ear. The siren uttered a piercing scream of pain as she shrank away from the canoe, clutching her ear as dark, goopy blood oozed over her fingers.

Meanwhile, Julia was attempting to start the outboard, determined to leave the area. If they could escape the clutches of these sirens, perhaps the men would snap out of their tortured state and regain their senses. As the thought crossed her mind, she glanced at Ezra, who was burying his face in his hands, his whole body shuddering as he sobbed. What in God's name was he seeing?

It was an odd feeling that came over Julia Pemberton when she first saw Ezra Standish.

Whether or not he knew it, he was the most striking man on the floor of the museum, that night in New Mexico. Not only was he wearing a well-tailored suit exuding elegance instead of vulgar wealth, he also moved effortlessly through the patrons, charming men and women alike. Julia, who often encountered such specimens in her line of work was untouched.

Until he smiled.

He was already beautiful, but the man wore that damn dimpled smile so well it would tempt even the most chaste of women. Yet through the facade of that smile, she noticed something else and that cemented her attraction to him. In his sea-green eyes was loneliness on a profound level. She knew without ever meeting him, even when he was surrounded by friends, Ezra still felt alone. Upon meeting him, her belief in this deepened because it looked as if he didn't feel worthy in their company, as if something about him made him less. It touched her.

Tugging hard on the pull cord to kick start the engine, her attempts to do so were interrupted by the glimpse of a hand reaching across the edge of the boat, seeking out and finding J.D Dunne. Without thinking twice, Julia crossed the narrow space to the young scholar, presently curled into a ball whimpering, and brought the butt of the shotgun down. Bone shattered beneath the weapon, forcing the raptor-like hands to shrink back with a scream of pain like a banshee's cry.

Not that she had time to see where the creature had gone because something else was attempting to climb into the canoe, this time trying to reach Nathan Jackson. Swinging the gun into position, Julia didn't waste time with threats. She aimed high and nearly blew the siren's head off its shoulders with one well-aimed shot. The explosion of sound cut off any cry of agony the intruder might have made and resulted in a bellow of fury from the others.

In retaliation, the sirens beneath the boat attempting to capsize it, renewed their efforts pushing hard against the underside of the craft until Julia could feel the pounding against the wooden floor through her boots.

"Get us out of here!"

Mary had just enough time to shout before she was reloading her gun to resume firing. She fired into the dark sea, now aiming at things she couldn't even see, hoping she would get lucky with one of the shots. Beneath them, the pounding grew more fierce, with the canoe rocking dangerously from side to side, amidst the splashing water around them.

Julia resumed her efforts to start the engine when a particularly sharp jolt against the craft, made the deck heave suddenly. She barely managed to stay upright, but no such luck was with Mary. With horror, Julia saw Mary Travis lose her footing and plunge headfirst into the water, impacting the surface with a loud splash before she disappeared into the now dark depths.

"MARY!"

Mary did not hear Julia's panicked cry. All she heard was the tremendous splash of water as she fell in, followed by the muting of all sound by total submersion. Once again, as Mary descended into the depths, momentarily stunned by her abrupt change of circumstances, she wondered where the crystal clear water had gone because all she could see now was blackness. Terror filled her, knowing what was swimming down here and felt a surge of relief when she realised she still had a death grip on her gun.

It was just as well because swimming into view, were the sirens.

Their limbs almost appeared green as they glided past her, their visage even more fearful in the emerald gleam of the water. The irises of their serpent eyes had widened until they were almost black, and as two of them closed in on her, bearing those terrible teeth, Mary reacted instinctively and fired. The bullet's power was severely diminished in the water, but the siren was close enough for it to penetrate before its velocity slowed to ineffective levels.

It struck the creature in front of Mary in the chest, propelling her back into the darkness from where she had come. However, no sooner than that one threat was dealt with, Mary felt the pain of teeth sinking into her shoulder. Opening her mouth to scream resulted in salt water rushing down her throat and for a second, she could do nothing as nails clawed at her and that biting pain intensified, until it provided Mary with the clarity needed to fight back. As it was, she was starting to run out of oxygen, and if she did not break surface soon, she would drown down here.

Reaching around, Mary dug her nails into her attacker's skull and felt revulsion when her fingers made contact with stuff that didn't at all feel like hair, but the slimy texture of seaweed. Biting back her disgust, Mary pushed on until she felt skin and dug in. Pulling back, she was sure she pried a bit of the siren's skull back. Slamming the gun in her hand against the creature's forehead, the metal made a dull thunk against bone.

A small mist of dark blood swirled between them, intermingling with the red of her own wound. Mary struck her again, this time, dislodging her completely. When she pulled back, Mary spun around and fired. This bullet caught the siren in the forehead and Mary saw her dark eyes roll back into white as the life drained from her. No sooner than the siren started to sink, Mary kicked hard, propelling herself to the surface. Overhead, the light of the glow worms on the ceiling led her to air like the stars to lost sailors.

"MARY!"

Julia was torn between going after the blond woman or defending the men in the canoe. Thankfully, she was not required to make such a terrible choice when she saw Mary's blond hair appear through the water. The journalist appeared in one piece, but that was blood Julia could see staining the shoulder of her blouse. Mary quickly sought out the boat and started swimming towards it when she realised where it was. Almost on cue, the sirens moved to intercept her.

Using the same marksmanship she used to dispatch Adashir Shah, Julia took careful aim with a handgun and cleared the woman's path to the boat. Firing at the creatures that would attempt to waylay her, Julia put down enough suppressing fire to let Mary reach the canoe. Some of her shots hit home, the others merely served to chase the enemy away.

Mary reached the canoe and pulled herself into the craft, landing like a fish on the deck. Panting from her exertions, Mary looked at Julia.

"Can we please leave now?"

"Well now that you're done with your little swim," Julia managed a smile, the levity hiding just how relieved she was to see the journalist alive.

"Very funny," Mary gave her a look and then fell silent because the creatures were surfacing, all of them.

Julia saw the sirens surrounding them in all directions, the losses to their number, making them doubly determined to get their prey. They were about to converge on the canoe, ensuring it went nowhere and Julia found herself thinking fast, trying to find a way out when suddenly, she saw something that was swiftly improvised into an idea.

"Mary, come up here. I need you to start the boat on my signal."

Mary saw the gleam in Julia's eyes and recognised the possibility of a plan when she saw it. Her shoulder was still stinging with pain, and she could feel her blood pulsing with each movement, but Mary nevertheless scrambled to her feet. Adrenalin propelling her forward, she crossed the length of the boat and took Julia's place at the outboard.

In the meantime, Julia was unscrewing the cap on one of the spare jerry cans of fuel the company had brought with them on this expedition. The combustible liquid had been strapped securely to the hull of the craft and had ridden the rapids with them when they descended the waterfall. Once exposed, she flung the content around the boat, splashing some of the liquid on the creatures closing in on them, as well as across the water. The oily residue immediately created rainbows of colour across the surface. Julia used every last drop and in good time because the sirens had reached the boat. Digging into the inside of her jacket, she produced the box of matches and praised Ezra Standish's personal deity, Lady Luck for keeping them dry.

"NOW!"

The order was punctuated with the strike of a match.

Mary yanked the pull cord hard and prompted the outboard into its sputtering rumble. As it came to life, Julia tossed the match. The gasoline across the surface and splattered against the creatures ignited with a spectacularly large whoosh of sound. As the cavern ignited with bright amber light, the sirens shrieked in terror as the fuel on their skin burst into flame.

"GO! GO! GO!"

The canoe was moving even before Julia started shouting. Pushing the throttle to full, the craft lurched forward sending Julia to the deck rump first. She landed hard as the boat pushed its way through the sirens, now diving under the waves to avoid the still burning fuel, while others did the same to extinguish the flames burning them alive. Their shrieks reached crescendo and Mary was grateful she was seated near the motor because its roar went a long way to muting those terrible sounds as they sped away from the scene.

Julia grimaced as she tried to stand up, her behind aching from the awkward landing. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the flames diminishing, the more distance they put between themselves and the sirens, the amber glow of the gas-fuelled fire contracting swiftly into black again. With any luck, the creatures would give up any idea of a chase, after incurring such losses to their deadly sisterhood.

"Are you alright?" Julia turned to Mary, who was still manning the outboard, remembering the blood she had seen on the woman's shoulder earlier but had no time to investigate because they were under siege.

Mary lifted the collar of her shirt to investigate the extent of the injury and winced at the gruesome teeth marks left by the creature who attacked. Although the skin was discoloured around the bite, and the pain was considerable, she knew it was a superficial injury.

"I'm okay," she answered. "How are the men?"

Julia was nearest to Nathan. Kneeling over the healer, she wondered who this Kathy was he seemed to be pining for. Whoever the lady was, it appeared Nathan was as tortured over her as Heathcliff on the moors. She shook him, hoping the action might dispel the delusion the man was presently trapped.

"They're still under the influence of those creatures," Julia shot a dark glare at the direction they had left the monsters. "I think we might need to get them further away to break them free of whatever it is they're experiencing."

"You know, the more I travel with these men," Mary sighed, "the more impossible the things I'm seeing."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Julia shrugged, unable to deny she had seen some odd things these last few months. "I imagine after seeing Tiamat almost returned to Earth, sirens seem par the course."

Suddenly, behind them, they heard the moan of someone who sounded like he was waking up from a particularly nasty hangover. It took a moment for Chris Larabee to sit up shakily, before realising he was wet, and the floor of the canoe had taken on water. Puzzled, he saw the state of his comrades before shifting his piercing gaze, now sharpening into focus with the realisation some calamity had occurred, at the two women present.

"Mary is that blood?" His voice rose an octave once he realised what that stain on her collar and shoulder was. "What happened here? What's wrong with Ezra, Nate and the kid?”

Mary and Julia exchanged glances, but it was Mary who answered. "It's a long story, and after we're done telling it, you will never again say bringing a woman on your adventures is a bad idea."

Chapter Twenty-Four
Labyrinth

When Vin Tanner was what he called a 'little fella', he made the best and worst decision of his life.

Running away to an enlistment office, he wound up in the middle of the Western Front, surrounded by blood and carnage that was almost too much for his ten-year-old mind to process. If not for the fact he had run straight into Chris Larabee, Vin had no idea what would have become of him. Adopted by K-troop, Vin followed Chris around everywhere, and whenever he was absent, it was Ezra Standish who kept him close.

Although Vin never said it out loud, his affection for Ezra was damn near equal to Chris. Upon learning he could not read, Ezra made it his business, in between card tricks and combat action, to teach him. There were nights around the campfire when Ezra would sit by his side, and they would read books that only young boys could love. He learned to read from Call of the Wild, Time Machine and Treasure Island.

His absolute favourites, however, were the Greek classics.

Vin would fall asleep listening to Ezra's voice reading him stories about great heroes, performing incredible feats of bravery, fighting fantastic monsters. The stories inspired his imagination and did what Ezra expected it would, made Vin want to read more about them. The books Ezra gave him were lost now, and Vin remembered how heartbroken he was to leave them behind when he made his escape into the arms of the Navajo after the war.

Still, every one of those tales lived in his memories, Hercules and his Twelve Labours, Jason and his Argonauts and of course, Theseus and the Minotaur.

It was why the instant he heard that loud bellow echoing down the long narrow corridors with pulverised and fragmented bones scattered across the ground, Vin understood where they were.

"You think this is that Labyrinth?"

Josiah threw a glance at Vin as they retreated up the corridor they had just taken to make their gruesome discovery, still stunned by the possibility of what Vin was suggesting. Unlike Buck, Nathan and Ezra, Vin was not one to make wild exaggerations, and upon hearing the proximity of that roar to their present location, Josiah suspected Vin might be right, even if it did seem absurd.

Before Vin could answer, the walls around them began to move, sliding effortlessly back and forth, as if they weren't carved out of stone at all. They glided across the floor smoothly in stark contrast to the grinding screeching through the air. The wall flanking them on the left suddenly hooked abruptly into a corner, and the narrow tunnel ahead was severed in half by another section cutting them off, turning the corridor into a fork going in both directions. Each newly created route ran into the darkness, offering no clues as to what lay ahead.

"What the hell just happened?"

Buck's demand mirrored all their confusion, but Vin knew the answer. The labyrinth was moving. This maze intended to keep them disoriented so they would be unable to get their bearings or more importantly, incapable of escaping. Whatever force controlled this place, it was determined they keep their appointment with the creature calling this lair home.

"It ain't gonna let us out."

"It?"

"Don't you know the story about the labyrinth lad?" Riley's head turned left to right, looking as if he were about to cross the street.

"Of course, I do!" Buck said with irritation, before the full implications of that sank in, coupled with the repeating roar of a creature whose voice felt like thunder, quaking the walls as it closed in on them. "Are you telling me that an actual man is running around with a bull's head, eating people?"

No one answered Buck, because as incredulous as it might seem to them, it might be true.

"This way."

Ignoring the speculation and focussing only on the threat, whatever it might be, Vin gestured to the others to follow him. He had no idea whether or not it was the right route to take but staying put when something was hunting them, and Vin did not doubt this was exactly what was happening to them, was a terrible idea. They needed to keep moving to stay one step ahead while they searched for a way out.

More and more bones appeared in their path, crushed underfoot as they ran down the corridor, only to find it twisting and turning so sharply, it was impossible to keep track of their route, let alone escape. The walls were moving around them, sliding back and forth, barring access points, opening up new ones. From the corner of Vin's eye, he could tell the walls were shifting like sand, and they were being herded towards the source of that roar, growing steadily louder as it closed in.

It occurred to Vin, no matter what they did, escape was impossible. If Ezra was here, he would have coined their situation perfectly and called it what it was. Playing with a stacked deck.

Vin came to an abrupt halt as he saw another corridor suddenly become a fork and the maze once again forced them into another direction. Their torches were the only illumination in this labyrinth, and Vin had no doubt the bones they were standing on, belonged to folk who were doing the same thing they were right now. Running until exhaustion or the thing living within these walls caught up with them and meted out their grisly end.

"To hell with this."

Vin did not move any further. Instead, he reached over his shoulder and retrieved the Tommy gun waiting patiently for its owner to come to his senses. "I'm done running. If they want us to meet this thing so bad, then I say we give them what they want."

He swept his gaze over the faces lit by flashlight and saw the effect of his decision in their eyes. Buck was nodding, Josiah managed one of those faint smiles that told everyone who knew him he agreed, and though he did not know Riley that well, Vin saw the man was reaching for his gun in solidarity of his bold plan.

"Sounds like a plan," Buck agreed, cocking his shotgun. Buck preferred this than trying to outrun something determined to catch them. If they were going die for their trouble, Buck preferred doing it while fighting.

Around them, the corridors continued to change their configuration even more furiously as Vin slapped a magazine into his gun to make it ready for the impending confrontation. The walls were being shuffled in the same way a poor gambler would do when he was desperate to win. The unseen mechanism moving the walls were increasing their pace as if realising the game had changed, that the quarry was no longer acting like prey, but a force preparing for a battle.

The bellows grew louder as the enemy closed in, the roar growing indignant at their audacity to fight. Perhaps the chase was part of the ritual, Vin thought as he felt the rumble beneath his feet with each thunderous roar. The walls seemed to reverberate with the sound, and the sharpshooter had to wonder how many souls had utterly lost their senses because their fear had overtaken them.

Fear meant little to men like them, not after the war. Not when one stared down guns, watched an army on horseback, or running through a field of artillery fire. Systematic, institutionalised violence practised by the Great War made what appeared now seem rather benign to Vin. Finally, he paused to catch his breath and conclude what was coming was just another enemy.

Then he saw it.

In his head, he knew what a minotaur looked like. Pictures books and statues had given him a clear idea of the half-man-half-bull creature that hunted the mythological Theseus in Classical Greek literature. After seeing Tiamat descend from the heavens to claim Alex's soul, Vin thought he was beyond the ability of the supernatural to be stunned, but he was wrong.

Armed to the teeth and poised to unleash an unholy barrage of gunfire at the slightest provocation, Vin, Josiah, Buck and Riley realised their hunter was about to make its belated appearance. The shudder the four adventurers had believed to be the vibration of its furious roar through the stone was, in fact, the result of impact tremors from something very large and ancient.

It stood almost twelve feet tall, towering over them so much it appeared as if the sharp point of it's horns, not unlike the kind belonging to the longhorns Vin encountered ranching in Texas, were in danger of scraping the ceiling. As it stomped forward, the corridor seemed to widen as if it was doing so to accommodate the new arrival. Its torso was human, with bulging biceps and arms that looked like tree trunks. The Minotaur wore a leather tunic over its broad chest, and there were vambraces on both its arm. It wore breeches like a man and at its hip, was the scabbard of a blade but its feet were cloven hooves. Clutched in its meaty grip was a double-headed axe like those carried by Vikings.

And it carried the head of a bull.

Yellowed irises as large as fists glared at them from an undeniably bovine head. Each breath escaped it like a pant, and absurdly, there was a ring through its nose. Its jaw parted slightly revealing powerful molars and sharp canine teeth for rending flesh.

"Mother of God..." Riley whispered.

"No."

Its voice was the stuff of nightmares, a deep gravelly sounded spoken from the bottom of a well where the dark things thrived, and doom lurked in the shadows. Each man froze at the sound of it, felt it run up the length of their spines, wrapping them in icy tendrils of fear. Somehow, its ability to speak made it even seem more monstrous if such a thing was possible.

"Son of a Queen."

"You can talk?" Vin managed to say because no stories he read ever mentioned the Minotaur being verbal but then those had been fairy tales. This was the terrible reality.

"I can speak the language of the prey," it said, pulling back its teeth in what was almost a smile, revealing those ivory white teeth that gleamed in the darkness. "Now, why do you stand still? You should run. You taste so much better when you run. It salts the meat."

It was Buck who pulled the trigger first.

The shotgun blast struck the beast in the chest, driving it back a step from the force of the explosion. The Minotaur staggered. For a few seconds after the ringing of the gunshot in such close confines diminished from their ears, they almost believed they would find the creature lying in a puddle of its own blood. Except it wasn't. It shook off the blast like a dog shaking off water after coming in from the rain.

"Your weapons have changed, but I have not. You are in my snare, my labyrinth, little prey. Here, you are all my sport."

That was all Vin was prepared to listen to before he opened fire, unleashing a hail of bullets.

The echo of gunfire throughout the narrow corridor made the noise created by the shotgun blast earlier seem like a squeak. Adding their fire to Vin's own, the others followed suit, unleashing a tidal wave of bullets that should have killed the thing where it stood. The creature reacted to the artillery, its body jerking about like a marionette because its size couldn't shield it from the explosive force of the bullets, but as they continued to shoot, it became apparent none of the shells were penetrating its hide.

"Why isn't it going down?" Buck swore, continuing to shoot until his shotgun was exhausted and he needed to reload.

The gap in the wall of gunfire was all the creature needed to retaliate. With far more speed than one would attribute to a being of such size, it recovered from the fire without a scratch and hurled the massive axe at Buck's direction. The weapon moved through the air with a swoosh, not unlike a gust of wind, spinning through the narrow space between the Minotaur and its victim.

"BUCK!" Vin shouted and leapt forward without hesitation. Tackling Buck to the ground, the great axe flew over their heads and through the space where Buck's head would have been. It continued spinning through the air like a Catherine wheel before it struck rock with a loud, sharp clang making them all wince.

"We got to move!" Vin barked, taking note the creature was stomping its feet as if it were preparing itself for something. It took him only a split second to guess what. The sharpshooter had spent enough time around animals to recognise a charge when he saw it. No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, the Minotaur lowered its head, aiming those formidable horns in their direction.

"Get out of the way lad!" Riley shouted at Vin.

Both Josiah and Riley were continuing to shoot, trying to bring down the giant but it shrugged off their bullets as effortlessly as it did before. Snorting loudly, the Minotaur's low guttural growl promised nothing but menace. It ran towards Buck and Vin. At that moment, Josiah abandoned any idea of shooting the creature and instead, put his shoulder down and made his own charge at the beast.

He struck the Minotaur hard enough in the side for the human-bull hybrid to be knocked off course briefly. Raising its monstrous head, it uttered a furious howl before its swung one of its limbs and swatted Josiah aside as if he were an errant child. It was jarring to see Josiah, who always felt like a hulk of a man to Vin, being dispatched quickly. Equally alarming to the sharpshooter was the hard thud of Josiah's head against the rock wall. Unfortunately, he could do little to prevent it as he was busy hauling Buck to his feet.

Meanwhile, the Minotaur, utterly unaffected by the attempts of the prey to stop it, resumed its advance on Buck and Vin. Once again it lowered its head, eager to gore them with the sharp points of its horn, its yellow eyes gleaming with menace as it stomped its feet to resume its charge towards them.

Buck snapped out of his disorientation long enough to see the beast coming at them, and the malevolence in its eyes was enough to get him moving again. The two men bolted out of the creature's path at almost the last minute, narrowly avoiding the sharp horns that smashed into the rock. The Minotaur fell backwards, staggered temporarily by the impact, allowing Vin and Buck to regroup with Riley who was helping Josiah to his feet.

"Josiah are you alright?" Vin asked hastily.

"Nothing's broke that won't heal," the older man gruffed, wiping the blood from his forehead. "That is if we get the chance."

Vin thought quickly. The creature was still recovering from the collision with the wall, but Vin had a feeling even if they ran, the force guiding this maze would ensure they would be led straight back to the Minotaur. Worse than that, they weren't being hunted by some mindless monster. The thing could speak, and it appeared to be smart, smart enough to use the labyrinth's tangle to its advantage. No, running was pointless, they had to kill it.

"'I'll tell you, lads, if I hear it saying Fee-fi-fo-fum, it'll grind the bones of an Englishman, I'll be offended. I'm Irish." Riley declared, hastily reloading his gun for another round of fire.

"Yeah that would piss me off too," Buck managed to say. "What's the plan, we can't keep firing at it, bullets aren't doing anything against it. "

The Minotaur was already shaking its horned head to dispel its daze state. With a snort of indignation, possibly at being thwarted by what it considered prey, it retrieved the axe partially embedded into the wall. Broken bits of stone and dust drifted away from the fissure the axe created, and the beast turned back to them with nothing less than murder in its eyes. It meant to have all of them for their bread if Riley's use of the vernacular could be employed. Vin knew their guns would be useless to stop them.

Their guns...

"I got an idea," he spoke up suddenly. "Distract it, do whatever you got to do but keep his eyes off me."

"That's not a plan!" Buck shouted as the Minotaur ran at them again.

The four men scattered in different directions. Riley found himself running into a wall that wasn't there a moment earlier. He almost collided with it head first and had just enough time to look over his shoulder to see the axe blade swinging in his direction. Dropping to his knees, the powerful blade swiped the air over Riley's head as he scrambled away from the Minotaur, but the creature was quick and was over him a second later, about to bring down the axe on his head.

"Get clear!" Buck shouted and fired at the minotaurs head, point blank.

The shotgun blast did not kill the creature or blow its head off as it would have done to a normal man, but the sound and the buckshot did cause it to stagger backwards giving Riley enough time to get on his feet and escape. This time, Buck was ready for the creature, having formed a partial plan of attack with Josiah when they came to Riley's aid.

Buck continued to fire, using the blasts from his shotgun to drive the Minotaur into retreat. While the bullets might not penetrate its supernatural hide, they did have enough explosive force to affect the creature nonetheless. The Minotaur bellowed in outrage at the prey putting up such a formidable fight even if they all knew it could not last indefinitely. When their ammunition ran out, so would their luck. When the audible click signalling the spent chambers of the weapon reached his ears, he saw the Minotaur flinging the axe at him.

Buck sidestepped it, but before the Minotaur had a chance to close in, Josiah took up the fight once again, using bullets to keep its focus on him and away from Buck who was now reloading his gun. Riley, understanding the tactic was adding his fire to Josiah's. However, this time, the creature was no longer retreating. It had adapted to the effect of the new weapons. The guns, like all the weapons used against it before this day, not forged by a god or a titan, were no longer capable of halting the Minotaur from its purpose.

"This is pitiful!" The Minotaur growled, swinging his axe again, this time at Josiah.

Josiah jumped back, feeling a wall too close to his back and realised he was about to be cornered, tried to get past the beast. As it prepared to deliver a killing stroke, Riley jumped up and grabbed the massive arm, trying to halt the axe from connecting with any part of the former seminary student. Furious at the intervention, the beast felled the Irishman in a single backhanded blow, sending Riley rolling across the floor like a dervish.

Meanwhile, Buck who reloaded his shotgun, prepared to shoot again, waiting only for Josiah to get clear to avoid accidental fire. As Josiah did just that, hurrying to Riley to ensure the man was unscathed by the tumble he'd taken, the pilot found himself facing the Minotaur head-on, armed with a gun he knew would do little to harm it. Buck pulled the trigger again, but as expected, the blast did little to halt the creature's progress. Now that it was aware of what the gun could do had braced itself to take the hit. It faltered but a second and was on the move again with the axe still clutched in its fist.

"Your weapons are useless," the Minotaur gloated as it raised the blade again.

"Maybe they are," Buck bit back, "but this wasn't about hurting you."

The Minotaur paused a moment, puzzled by that statement when suddenly, it saw movement at the corner of his eye and shot Buck a look of anger, realising what his words meant at the last minute.

"This was about distraction."

The pilot saw the Minotaur starting to turn when suddenly, the point of a blade sliced through the front of the beast's chest. The point pushed past the leather, spurting blood in all directions. The creature threw back its massive head and uttered a scream of agony that seemed to rock the entire cavern. Its arms became outstretched when it spasmed, allowing the large axe to fall from his grip, the blade digging into the earth. As it sank to its knees, Buck saw Vin Tanner standing behind the Minotaur, having ended the beast with its own knife.

The Minotaur stared at Buck a minute longer, still stunned at being bested by prey and there was dying to come. When it did fall flat against the stone floor, its eyes had rolled back into death and saw nothing more.

Vin, who had used the distraction provided so painfully by the others, had come to the realisation that only the beast's own weapon was capable of ending its life. When Buck had been laying down his suppressing fire in shotgun blasts, Vin had taken the opportunity to sneak up behind the creature and steal the knife hanging from its sheath and put it to good use.

"Nice work," Josiah said limping towards Vin as the blood spread across the floor around the Minotaur's body.

"Well," Vin drawled, "if there's one thing us Texans know how to do, it's how to handle steer."

Chapter Twenty-Five:
The Aegis

"How bad is it?"

Chris Larabee asked Nathan Jackson as the healer tended to the wound on Mary Travis's neck. Even though the injury was superficial and the lady herself had assured him she was okay, his jaw still clenched at the sight of the discoloured flesh, not to mention the bite marks on her skin. Of course, voicing his displeasure would only result with Mary embarking on some feminist tirade at being able to take her licks like anyone else. As it was, there was going to be no living with her after she and Julia Pemberton had saved their asses from the mythological sirens who nearly ripped them apart.

"Like the lady said," Nathan did not look at Chris as he swabbed the injured flesh with iodine, the sting making Mary wince in reaction. "It looks worse than it is. I'm just cleaning it up to make sure it doesn't get infected. Human bites are poisonous as hell."

"You are assuming what we just survived was human?" Ezra countered, his normally mellifluous voice bearing a hard edge ever since they emerged from their delirium.

"Who knows," Chris shrugged refusing to admit it as evident as it might appear.

After the supernatural forces they encountered during the affair with the Tablet of Destiny, Chris could never be sure of anything again. One thing for certain, if the sirens made a repeat appearance, the encounter would end very differently. Secretly, he was properly outraged at the creatures for using his dead wife and son against him, and while he wasn't sure what the others experienced, Chris did notice the return of the dark shadow in Ezra's eyes, the one the gambler wore much during his first few months on the Western Front.

Thanks to the sirens, whatever demons Ezra had been outrunning caught up with him again.

Julia who was seated next to Ezra reached the same conclusion when she saw the diminishing light in his sea green eyes, and though it went against the grain of her very English upbringing, she couldn't bear it. Threading her fingers through his discreetly, she squeezed gently telling him in her way, she was there for him.

Ezra raised his eyes to her at that small gesture, pleasantly surprised enough to flash her a dimpled smile. Once again, Julia felt a surge of warmth spreading through her heart.

"Now there's my smile."

"Not much of one," Ezra sighed but secretly admitted he liked her claims of ownership.

"Are you alright?"

"I shall survive," Ezra nodded and raised her hand in his lips to plant a kiss against her knuckles. "Thank you, Julia.

"Hey look," J.D. who was at the head of the canoe suddenly sang out to the others, his voice echoing through the darkened chamber as he interrupted their tender moment.

After Julia and Mary sped them away from the sirens, the canoe continued its journey through the underground sea, now winding into a river, into the depths beneath the island. For an absurd moment, Chris wondered if they had not found the entrance to the Underworld where Hades and Persephone ruled and Cerberus, the three-headed dog was waiting to shred them to pieces. After all, the ancient Greeks believed the entrance to the Underworld was an actual place, and one could enter it merely by stepping through its gates.

Chris tried not to worry about Vin and the others, hoping the rest of his friends were not encountering similar dangers as they just had with the sirens. It was clear they had crossed a point of no return after meeting the mythological creatures. While the glow worms continued to provide guidance to the travellers making this journey into the forbidden, the terrain seemed to be changing. What had become familiar since their tumultuous drop down the cascade was now evolving into something ominous.

Previously, the walls of the subterranean chamber, smoothed by erosion over thousands of years, slick with moisture and covered with moss and lichens were now craggy and sharp. The feeling they had ventured into the mouth of some dark, terrifying creature with a mouthful of sharp teeth made a powerful resurgence. Flanking them on either side of the canoe, were spiked, jagged rocks and the petrified remains of coral. Adding more to the effect, like bits of meat clinging to teeth, was the detritus of rotting weeds, broken pieces of disintegrating wood and stray objects that were no doubt the remains of other ill-fated voyagers.

"I guess we weren't the first ones to try this," J.D. remarked, turning a shade paler when he recognised some of those broken pieces of woods bore the curved shape of a boat's hull. "I wonder if they made it?"

"The Aegis is still unclaimed," Ezra stated, not liking the sudden shift in the atmosphere of the place, not that it was a bed of roses previously. Relying on his gambler's instincts to guide him, everything about this new leg of their journey felt fraught with even more danger. "One would assume not."

"Ezra's right," Chris spoke up after conducting a similar survey of the terrain. The blackness ahead seemed endless, and Chris hoped the route to the Aegis was not a one-way trip. Finding it would mean nothing if they couldn't get out again. "It's been here for nearly two thousand years. Stands to reason someone would have made a try for it."

"Like them Nazi bastards," Nathan added as he continued tending to Mary's shoulder, taping down the gauze across the wound with tape. "Besides, it's better if we found it, especially if it’s capable of what they think it does."

"Surely you do not believe it can turn armies into stone,?" Ezra eyed his usually logical and reasonable friend with some surprise.

"Belief is a powerful thing Ezra," the healer gave Mary a nod he was done. "It doesn't have to work for them to believe it will make them invincible."

"He's right," Julia added. "Hitler has spent a considerable effort since he came to power acquiring objects like these, all to reinforce his desire for a thousand year Reich."

No sooner than Julia completed that statement, the darkness ahead diminished with an amber glow becoming brighter as they approached its source. The earlier blackness retreated into the walls, seeping through the rock until they saw, at last, a short stretch of shore. The beach was covered with small stones and pebbles, hiding what sand there might have been on this sudden coastline.

That was not what caught their attention, however.

It was the collection of boats. Some were run aground, others were trapped on the reef, having drifted there after years of centuries of neglect. A few were complete wrecks, with gaping holes in their cracked hulls and barely held together by nails and ropes while their sails hung slack on the tilted masts, covered in cobwebs and dust. Every craft visible bore the signs of time and deterioration.

"Jesus," Nathan whispered.

"There's so many," Mary leaned over the canoe for a better look, her brow furrowed in similar shock.

As they drifted by one of the vessels against the rocks, J.D. noted the design of the horse-head prow and identified it immediately, familiar enough with the culture of mariners who constructed it. "That one's Phoenician."

"Yeah," Chris agreed, recognising the prow and then gestured to another craft, one that had made it all the way to the shore, with its curled prow and the animal motif on its faded canvas sail. "That's Roman."

"There are dozens of them," Julia surveyed the shore and felt a chill run down her spine. Had all these people come for the Aegis?

"Yes," Ezra nodded grimly. "And none of them left."

There was only one path leading away from the shore once the canoe reached the pebbled beach. It was an entrance covered in vines and moss, seemingly untravelled for centuries if the thickness of the vegetation was any indication. As always Chris led the way to the paved stone floor appearing beneath their feet once they crossed the threshold, leaving the beach for a larger chamber constructed of sandstone. The vast hallway was empty except for the tall statue whose subject could not be mistaken for anyone else.

The Medusa.

Carved from dark stone, the image was more sensuous than it was terrifying. The beauty of the woman had been captured, even if the more nightmarish aspects of her persona remained, such as the flowing hair of snakes. Her face was one of loveliness and bore a look of serene elegance. Her modesty was kept with scales across her breasts before her slender waist tapered into that of a snake, with tail curled in a single coil. She stood ten feet tall, indifferent to their presence, the guardian to the mouth of a stairwell, whose steps descended into a lower level.

Etched into the floor before the steps were letters in ancient Koine script which J.D. promptly translated for the benefit of the others.

Here lies the legacy of Phorcys and Ceto's seed.

"I guess this is the place." The scholar remarked after he completed his translation. Staring down the dimly lit flight of steps, J.D. wondered how there could be light down there. Then he remembered this was how it always started before they ran into something wanting to eat, kill or skewer them for intruding upon its bastion.

"The legacy of Phorcys and Ceto's seed?" Nathan was never a fan of the classics. He prefered contemporary works from authors like Twain and Wells. His role in the group did not require him to possess the same expertise as Chris and J.D.

"Supposedly the parents of the Medusa," Chris explained for the benefit of those who did not know. Casting his ice coloured eyes down the shadowy flight of steps, he was once again revisited by his earlier thoughts of gateways leading to the Underworld. This one certainly felt like the path taken by Orpheus to retrieve his beloved Eurydice.

"Well, this does not at all look ominous," Ezra's sarcasm withered in his throat as he stared at the sculptured face, wondering what sin this woman was guilty of committing to having been treated so unkindly by fate.

"Let's do this," Chris started his descent, wanting this over and done with as soon as possible. Even though he had spent years chasing after antiquities the last five year and was accustomed to the danger, something about this entire situation felt worse. There was a malevolence lurking in the shadows, waiting for them to step into its trap the closer they came to their prize.

He had not taken more than a dozen steps forward when his foot struck his path that made a loud, clanging noise upon impact. The sound startled the others, freezing them in their tracks in case what Chris encountered was life-threatening. The dim light down the stairwell had shrouded the object until he was on top of it, but now that he was paying attention, Chris could see the shape of it across the stone tile.

It was a sword.

In fact, it was the first of many. The weapons were scattered across the steps, not just swords, but knives, maces, bows and arrows, discarded for reasons that prompted Chris to tighten his grip on his gun. He spotted a shield lying against the floor and recognised its classical Greek origins. Judging by the dust accumulated across its face, and the impressions left by its rim, Chris guessed quickly it had been sitting here since ancient times.

Studying them carefully, something J.D. said in Egypt suddenly surfaced in his mind. Now that it had emerged, was screaming so loud, he could not hear anything else. He thought of those boats at the shore, abandoned because their owners never returned to claim them or the numerous weapons he and the others could now see.

Medusa was dead, the existence of the Aegis proved that, but Medusa was not the only child of Phorcys and Ceto was she?

What had J.D. said? Medusa had sisters, Stehno and Euryale. They were Gorgons too, and unlike Medusa who was mortal, as made painfully obvious when Perseus took her head, they were immortal. Even as the possibilities crossed his mind, Chris knew it was insanity. It had to be. The idea was too ludicrous to entertain and yet, seeing those weapons at his feet, the margin between madness and truth became wider than the Grand Canyon.

"Pick up any shields you see," Chris ordered promptly, having a premonition of what they were going to find even if logic continued to rail against the idea. Then again, he and the others were almost murdered by the sirens of myth a short time ago. Even if it turned out to be for nothing, Chris saw no reason to ignore precautions.

"Excuse me?" Ezra ever the doubting Thomas reacted immediately. "Mr Larabee, we have guns..."

"It's not for the protection Ezra," Chris bit back. "It's for the reflection."

"Aw hell," Nathan hissed once the implication of that statement set in. He wasted no time shifting through the cache on the floor, finding what he needed a few steps behind Chris. Wiping its surface with the sleeve of his coat, he saw the gleam of old metal revealing just enough shine to be used as a mirror. The others were doing the same, while Julia lifted a sword or rather a short dagger to eye level in examination.

"Chris, you do not seriously think we will encounter ..." Ezra couldn't even say it.

"Why not?" Julia countered, "you forget what we just fought. As impossible as it seemed, those women were sirens."

The smart play would be to leave, Chris thought as he finally reached the foot of the steps. However, as much as he worried they might encounter actual Gorgons, another part of him refuse to give up the idea of the Aegis. Until he peered through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs and stared into the room beyond it.

If Chris thought seeing the boats on the beach was eerie, then what was in the large hallway he just entered, made his blood run cold.

The hallway was wide enough to need thick columns the width of tree trunks to hold up the roof. Across the domed ceiling was a stunning mural of the Olympian gods in all their glory, against the backdrop of Mount Olympus. The painting, like the others on the walls and the artwork on the columns, was painted with stunning, vibrant colours and appeared as if they were freshly painted. Their detail was illuminated by the flame torches hanging against the columns with the smoky texture of the air masked by the strong scent of hyacinth.

But it was only the statues Chris could see.

There were dozens of them, life-sized sculptures carved from stone. They were statues of men from several different cultures if the clothes they were wearing were any indication. These stone warriors were clad in all manner of dress, from togas to breeches, adorned with helmets and armour. They were portrayed in a run or lying prone against the floor, their hands shielding their eyes in desperation. Some brandished their weapons to strike, and some were caught merely standing in place. Yet they all shared the same look on their faces.

Terror.

"I'm starting to think this is a terrible idea," Mary remarked as she and the others followed Chris deeper into the room, navigating past the statues she knew were not really statues, even if none of them dared to voice it.

"This is your expedition, Miss Pemberton," Ezra turned to Julia and saw her emerald eyes surveying the scene with similar anxiety creeping into her face. No matter what Julia thought she knew or what she believed, Ezra could see she was scared. The self-assurance she possessed in being able to cope with any situation was being left tattered because what they were seeing couldn't be what they suspected, even if it seemed obvious.

"We're already in the belly of the beast," Julia finally spoke, "I don't think a retreat is any longer an option."

Chris was listening to the discussion, but he was already looking ahead, beyond the statues to what lay at the head of the room. Flanked by two taller statues, one of Athene and the other Chris recognised as Poseidon, was an object propped on a wooden mount, covered in silk. From the shape beneath the red fabric which seemed to shimmer even though there was no wind in this place, Chris knew immediately what was beneath it. It was the Aegis.

"That's it, isn't it?" J.D. asked him, the younger man's voice was almost a whisper.

"Yeah," Chris nodded. "I think it is."

"How can you be so certain?" Ezra inquired, incapable of reaching such a conclusion without a tell.

"Because if the legend around the Aegis being able to turn whole armies into stone is true, then it has to be hidden. Medusa's head was supposedly used as the boss on the face of the shield, so anyone handling it couldn't stare directly into it. Until it was used against enemies, it had to be covered up, or innocent bystanders would wind up being turned into stone."

"Wonderful," Ezra rolled his eyes, questioning himself again why they were still on this fool's errand when the words' legend', 'myth' and 'supposed to' were quickly evolving into fact. The statues around them were not carved. Each one appeared as if their subjects had been dipped in stone, and the only conclusion left, was the one he could not accept.

"We can't even be sure we've got the right shield?" Nathan said dubiously as Chris approached the mount on which the Aegis stood, eyeing its two guardians. Athene stood proud and tall, garbed in armour as a goddess of war ought to look, with her owl perched on one shoulder and sword held high in another. Poseidon was similarly armed with a trident while the lower half of his body was that of a fish.

"Unfortunately no," J.D. answered for Chris who was already investigating the mount on which the Aegis was displayed. The silk seemed to ripple with movement when the leader of the seven approached it, almost as if it was anticipating the contact with excitement. "Unless we look at it directly and considering all this," he gestured to the statues with a little smile, "I'm happy to not try."

Mindful of not touching anything after her previous experience in an ancient cavern, Mary was examining one of the statues. Like all the others, the expression on the faces of the stone figure revealed a thousand kinds of horror and she prayed, this was some artist's twisted idea of a joke and not the depiction of someone in the last moments of his life. She stared at the statue/corpse for a moment, feeling a chill run down her spine before she glanced at Chris to see what he was doing.

Mary knew without doubt Chris would go where angels feared to tread to get the Aegis. It was not in his nature to shirk away from danger, even in a situation where a gorgon might come into play. She supposed it was why she was so attracted to him. And also the reason she wanted to drop kick him to Timbuktu.

"Such pretty golden hair."

The voice came out of nowhere and was whispery like the cobwebs that hung from some of the statues. It moved across Mary's skin like molasses and made Mary stand ramrod straight at the hearing of it.

"It reminds me of the sunlight, in the days before the Heir of Argos sent us here."

The sentence ended with a rattle.

"Who's there?" Mary asked, her voice catching. She knew who it was of course, even if her reason balked at the suggestion. Yet the fear still set into her bones felt like a blight given sustenance to spread over her.

She heard the slow drag across the floor, of something large moving closer and in her mind's eye, she imagined its long, serpentine body slithering across the stone as only a creature like it could do. Mary wanted to turn and look, but these stone bodies ensured she must not. If she did, she would never leave this place alive.

"You have a woman's wisdom," the voice said silkily. "Not at all bearing the impetuousness of men, like these fools here."

Mary did not have to see her to know the voice was gesturing to the stone figures before them. "They come in here, seeking to take the Aegis, thinking it will grant them power and fortune. All it brought them is the living death."

"Living death?" Mary almost turned at that. "What does that mean?"

"It means my dear child," the voice spoke with triumph, "none of them are dead. They're simply trapped in stone. They know all that is happening around them, but they can do nothing. That is the penance for those who try to take my sister's head out of this place."

"Your sister?" Mary whispered, realising her guess earlier was the truth.

They had just entered the lair of two living gorgons.

Chapter Twenty-Six:
The Void

When he woke up this morning, Vin Tanner never imagined part of his day would include slaying the Minotaur.

As he stood watching the widening puddle of blood around the fallen creature, he felt his head swim a little at the unreality of it all. The Minotaur lay still at their feet, the handle of the sword sticking through its chest, standing upright as if to mark the place where the beast had died. Once again, Vin reminded himself of what transpired when Tiamat descended from her home in oblivion to steal Alex’s soul. What all of them saw that day was no illusion, no trickery capable of being explained away hours after the fact. He remembered how Alex had looked when Tiamat's essence was in her body and knew without any doubt if she had not been freed - there would be no world left behind.

Around them, the world seemed to be waiting in silent anticipation for what came next. Even the walls sliding and shuffling to and fro earlier, were now frozen in place as if they were just as stunned by the killing blow. For a few minutes after the creature was ended, time stood still to allow everyone present to catch their breaths as the crimson halo of blood slowly soaked into the earth.

"Let's get the hell out of here," Buck Wilmington finally spoke, unable to bear the silence or the sight of the monstrosity in front of them. When they were trying to escape the thing, there had been little time to think about anything else other than escape, but now that the danger had passed for the moment, Buck's sensibilities were beginning to fracture. They had just killed a creature whose very existence was obscene.

His words followed the loud crack of stone breaking. It jolted them out of their silence, drawing their eyes to the source. A wall had fissured and was soon crumbling. The thick dark line of the break ran across the stone like a vein surfacing on skin. Moving from one slab to another like a spreading malignancy, they could only gape as the walls began to crumble and the chunks of rocks striking the floor seem to shatter it.

"Aw hell!" Vin cursed realising in a split second this whole place was constructed and maintained for its lone occupant, and now that it was gone, there was no reason to exist. "MOVE!"

"Move?" Buck demanded as Vin started running in the opposite direction of where the floor was giving away. "Where?"

"Anywhere! This place is about to go!"

None of it made one bit of sense, but what about any of this did? Vin sprinted away from the Minotaur, glancing over his shoulder long enough to ensure Buck, Josiah and Riley were still with him. As he did so, he saw it was not just the walls behind them that were starting to crumble but the floor beneath them, and as the chunks broke away, he realised the entire construct around the Minotaur was being dismantled. With the destruction of their present reality, what lay beneath them was not the reassuring innards of a mountain, but black oblivion.

"Jesus Christ!" Riley exclaimed as he saw a section of floor at his left flank caving away and as it broke apart, what lay beneath was emptiness. The Irishman had no idea what would happen if they tumbled into that abyss with the disintegrating labyrinth, but it was not a question he needed answering.

"I'm pretty sure he's got nothing to do with this," Josiah panted as he raced forward, a few steps ahead of Riley. As they ran past the flanking walls of the maze, they saw more and more fractures appearing in the stone, the sound making them wince as the breaks became so numerous, the wall could no longer stand, and they were coming down like someone was lowering the curtains on this act of the play.

Dust rolled towards them with each shattered wall, and as everything began to disintegrate, only the blackness remained, reminding Josiah of the slick left behind by an oil spill. The ground beneath them began to quake, warning them the rock was going to give way. It prompted them into sprinting because they were now aware they were running for their lives and faltering might doom them to the bottom of an abyss that may have no end at all.

Vin led the way, uncertain of where they were headed, only that they had to keep moving. Sparing a second to look over his shoulder to ensure his company were still behind him, the sharpshooter wasn't about to leave anyone behind in this place. The walls crumbling had outpaced them now and what Vin saw in front of him was no longer the labyrinth that tried to trap them here to become a feast for the Minotaur, but the empty spaces between realities.

Navajo medicine men who were able to cross the three realms (the Lower, the Middle and Underworld) spoke of the dark things that lived in this in-between outside of time. Vin never put much stock in any of that, but he knew this was where they were the minute they entered the labyrinth, and if they did not escape it now, they would never leave it. The idea of never seeing Alex again, of never being with her, the way he had in the last four months, filled him with fear he never thought possible. As the world crumbled away, he saw something ahead as improbable as the rest of their present situation.

Steps.

Suspended in mid-air, the steps were little more than slabs of stone, but they were ascending in a wide corkscrew formation that would carry them above the destruction of the maze if they chose to use it. Considering their choices at present, Vin was not about to ignore the lifeline thrown in their direction. Heading towards it, he saw Buck directly behind him, with Josiah and Riley a few paces after that.

Beyond them, the labyrinth was all but gone and what remained, was dark emptiness so pervading it chilled Vin to the bone. If the medicine men were right, the soft spaces between the worlds were not empty. Terrible things were lurking here, and he and his friends had to leave before those very same things discovered there was fresh meat to be had. Creatures with teeth who wouldn't just tear flesh but rip apart one's soul like it was a succulent morsel to be savoured with each bite.

"FOLLOW ME!"

Vin reached the staircase first, and as he stepped on it, he ignored the fact it was being held up by nothing. Hurrying up the steps, he cast another look over his shoulder and saw Buck falter. The pilot was trying to process what he was seeing because this was too much after the Minotaur. Buck dealt in things he could see. He was used to calculations, wind speeds and lift, tangible things quantifiable in science, not this situation where nothing made sense.

"BUCK!" Vin snapped him out of his hesitation. "Come on!"

Buck blinked away his doubt at that sharp rebuke and started moving again, ignoring the steps were being held up by nothing and around them, the maze had almost completely disintegrated and all that was left in this place, was the staircase leading upward. Facing front, he kept his eye on Vin, putting his trust in the younger man who always seemed to know what he was doing, because the men of K-Troop, not to mention him and Josiah had helped Vin become strong.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

Riley's shocked utterance mirrored their own feelings at the impossibility of their situation as they climbed up the stairs, leading upwards through the black. Behind them, there was no longer any trace of the maze. It, along with the labyrinth, was completely gone now. All that remained was the void and the steps keeping them from becoming lost in it.

"Where are we going?" Buck hollered at Vin, though he suspected the sharpshooter had no idea himself.

"Anywhere, as long as it ain't here!"

Josiah had somehow ended up in the rear as they ascended the steps, keeping watch on Riley whose very Catholic sensibilities was being challenged by what they were experiencing. The former seminary student could understand the man's conflict when everything he knew about the world was being tested. However, Josiah had faith in things other than God, and that was in the friends he shared his life with and in particular, the sharpshooter leading them to safety.

Breathing hard, he paused a moment to catch his breath, having no wish to linger on these steps even if they did appear to be rather sturdy, for something that was hanging suspended in the air with no visible means of support. As he did so, he was able to hear for the first time, something coming from the emptiness he had not noticed before. After the destructive roar by the disintegrating maze had diminished, there was nothing but their own heated voices to be heard.

But now there was another sound.

It was a light buzz that was growing in intensity; the more he listened to it. Josiah stared into the darkness, trying to source out which direction it was coming from and frowned when he was unable to do so. Sweeping his gaze across the blackness, he decided to hone in on it and felt his heart turning to ice in his chest because he could feel dread creeping up his spine.

"Josiah, what is it?" Vin demanded, having seen Josiah had stopped climbing.

Josiah looked up at Vin. "Can you hear anything?"

Everyone fell silent at that question and Vin who had better senses than any of them after a youth spent hunting and tracking with the Navajo shifted his attention from their flight up the mysterious steps to their surroundings. There was nothing but the void now the maze was gone, with their torches providing the only illumination allowing them to see where they were going. Listening carefully, he soon reached the same conclusion, that whatever was making that insistent buzzing was getting louder and...he realised with a surge of terror, closer.

"MOVE!"

Vin paused long enough to say before he was barking at the others to get moving again. He had no idea what was making the sound, but it was coming for them, and Vin just knew that whatever it was, may just be worse than the Minotaur. Hastening his pace, Vin was running up the steps, two at a time, hoping the others followed his lead. Buck was right on his heels and glancing back, he saw Riley's gun was firmly in his grip. Josiah was also brandishing his weapon, expecting trouble.

"What do you think it is Vin?" Buck asked, sensing the younger man had an idea by how urgently he barked at them to move.

"Nothing good," Vin replied, scanning the path ahead to see where the stairs might lead and then to his relief, sighting a pinprick of light that could have been the sun for what it may represent. "I think I see the way out!"

"Thank Christ!" Buck remarked as the buzzing continued to get louder and louder, sending chills of ice running up his spine. Yeah, Vin was right, whatever it was, it was nothing good.

It was Josiah who saw them first.

When the labyrinth collapsed, taking with it the torches illuminating the place, they switched to their flashlights and Josiah had waved it into the darkness, in the hope it would also help him to see what was coming. In retrospect, he rather wished he had not done that. If asked to describe them, Josiah would not have been able to do so. All he could see was the slick reflection of their skin against the dim light of his torch, that and the teeth.

In fact, they were almost nothing but teeth. Long, serrated things that chomped up and down as they closed in, their mandibles moving rapidly in anticipation of the feeding to come, gnashing in a frenzy of ravenous need. Josiah could hear the buzzing so loudly, the sound filled his world, and suddenly he wondered if Purgatory was like this, an oblivion where creatures like this awaited to tear you apart.

"Get a move on, man!" He felt Riley gripping his arm, snapping Josiah out of his temporary daze, just as the creature, whatever it was reached him.

Without thinking twice, Josiah fired his gun. The bullet entered the space between those teeth, and the screech it uttered seemed to send the others into a frenzy. Until Josiah pulled the trigger, he had no idea he had been holding the weapon so tightly his knuckles were almost white. The thing retreated, but the others were moving in, spreading out like a swarm of bees about to overwhelm them with numbers.

Hurrying up the stairs as Riley fired over his shoulder, Josiah could see the creatures coming out of the darkness, attempting to halt their progress towards the light. The boom from the weapon was so loud, it seemed to scatter the swarm of snapping teeth, but like the tide on the beach, the retreat was only temporary, and they were closing in again. Breathing hard as he sprinted up the stairs, Josiah never felt his age more profoundly than at this moment, because his heart was pounding in his chest so hard it might burst.

When a set of teeth appeared at the corner of his eye, he had just enough time to turn around and fire. The bullet splintered the thing's teeth, causing it to screech in pain as it disappeared into the darkness but another closed in from an entirely different direction, their movement not unlike that of angry vultures swarming its prey. Josiah felt is fetid breath in his nostrils seconds before the mouth opened and a tongue, long and thick like a python, slithered at him.

Without warning, the air exploded with the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun. Looking up, Josiah saw Vin was holding position, ordering the others to keep going as he unleashed a barrage of gunfire at the swarm, delivered courtesy of his Tommy gun. Buck was adding his shotgun to the fight, and the combined firepower of both was enough to get Josiah moving.

"MOVE YOUR ASSES!"

Buck hollered at him and Riley, and Josiah needed no more encouragement than that, confident these two men would have his back as they had done so many times in the past. He scaled the stone steps, the torch still in his hand to light the way, with Riley only a few paces ahead. Gunfire and screeching pain rang in his ears but Josiah no longer paid any attention to it. The way out of this hell was just ahead, and once he reached it, Vin and Buck could leave too. He was not delaying their departure any more than he had to.

Vin slapped another magazine into the Thompson machine gun at the same time Josiah and Riley ran past them. The creatures, whatever they were, were being held at bay, possibly because the weapon used against them sounded almost as fearsome and loud as they were. If death had no meaning for them in this place, it would not take them long to discover that bullets were finite. Buck was blasting away while he reloaded, giving him the short respite he would have to reciprocate soon enough.

Glancing over his shoulder, Vin saw Riley and Josiah closing in on the fissure of light, praying it would take them out of this place back to the world they knew, and not someplace worse. He supposed at this moment, they didn't have much choice in the matter. All he cared about right now was staying alive long enough to get there.

"Reload!" Buck shouted at Vin in warning as the last of his shotgun shells flew into the darkness.

"I got ya," Vin shouted back. "Get going, I'll cover you!"

Buck hesitated, not liking the idea of leaving Vin behind until he realised he needed to get to the light so he could cover Vin's retreat to it. Swearing under his breath, he started up the steps, taking note of the things coming too close to him, and feeling their movement through the air against his skin. One of them came out of nowhere, and Buck ducked as it passed over his head, before it exploded in flight, the result of Vin's bullets ripping it apart.

Breathing hard, he stole a look over his shoulder and saw Vin backtracking slowly and then ahead to see Josiah and Riley had reached the top. The light was pouring out of what appeared to be a fissure against the black canvas. Impossibly, he thought he sniffed the scent of salt air and that only hastened his pace because it struck him what it was.

The ocean.

"Come on!" Buck heard Josiah calling after him, spurring him to move faster. He was doing it while attempting to reload the shotgun, wanting to give Vin his escape when the time came. Abandoning the torch because he needed both his hands, he watched the strobe light tumble into the darkness only to have their unseen assailants flying after it. A second later, the illumination vanished utterly, and inspiration struck the Millie's pilot.

These things were attracted to light.

It was how the damn creatures had found them in the first place. It was the light from their torches! In this all-consuming blackness, the flashlights would have been like beacons, attracting them in the same manner moths were drawn to the flame.

It gave Buck Wilmington a plan.

"Josiah, we need the flare gun!" He bellowed over the sound of the Thompson's gunfire.

The Coston flare gun had been in the canoe, and though it seemed unlikely they would require it during the search for the Aegis, every member of the team knew the prudence of being well prepared and using the resources on hand. It had been a habit ingrained in all of them from their time on the front. On this occasion, Buck had seen Josiah pack the wooden case in his backpack before leaving the boat at the shore.

"The flare gun?" Josiah exchanged a puzzled look with Riley. "Why?"

"These things are attracted to light!"

That little bit of knowledge was all Josiah needed to connect the dots of Buck's plan. The light of understanding flooded the would-be preacher's face, and he was reaching around for the pack even as he turned to Riley, who was similarly enlightened.

"Cover me!"

"Aye," the big Irishman nodded, ready to protect Josiah while he did what was needed.

With Josiah working quickly to provide them with a distraction, Buck turned his attention to Vin who was making slow progress up the steps because of his efforts to keep the creatures away from them. By now Buck had reloaded his shotgun and was in the position to give Vin the time the younger man needed to get away from those accursed creatures. When he pulled the trigger, the powerful blast scattered the swarm.

"Vin, get up here now!"

Vin didn't argue with Buck's order, ceasing fire immediately and sprinting up the steps, two at the time to close the distance to the pilot. Behind him, he could hear the creatures screeching, and their snapping teeth felt so close, Vin swore he could feel their rancid breath on the back of his neck. Without knowing how he could be so sure, Vin knew the click click chatter of their teeth would be following him into his dreams for some time.

Then without warning, the sky came alive with the bright glow of a flare. It streaked across the black like someone had sliced the velvet canvas with a knife. The flash moved through the darkness in a neat arc before erupting spectacularly into a burst of light that resembled like fireworks. For a brief moment, its brilliance brought some much-needed beauty to this desolate void.

The instant the flare appeared in the sky, the creatures immediately forgot about their prey and flew after the flash. It would not take the things long to discover they were chasing fool's gold, but the precious minute they were distracted, would be enough.

"VIN!"

"I know, I know!" Vin shouted back at Buck, running at top speed now, forgetting about the creatures and their ravenous desire for his flesh. "The rest of you get going!"

"Not a chance in hell!"

If anything happened to Vin on his watch, Chris would never forgive him and Buck wouldn't blame him. "Josiah, Riley! You two go on! We're right behind you!"

Josiah nodded, disliking the idea of leaving but knowing it was now or never. Gesturing at Riley, the two older men climbed up the last few steps and disappeared into the light, hoping where they ended up was nowhere like this place. Buck watched them vanish before he raised his eyes to the flare and saw that it was quickly being enveloped by the dark. The creatures had reached the flash and would know in a second they were duped.

No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, the buzzing grew louder again, and Buck knew they were coming back.

"COME ON!" Buck shouted as he heard the rising tempo of those gnashing teeth.

"Get going, old fella! I can keep up!"

"Real funny Junior!"

Both men raced up the last few steps just as the swarm closed in on them. Whether or not the creatures could follow them through was not a question they had time to consider before they jumped through the fissure. All they knew was the white glare was going to swallow them whole.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Gorgon

The Aegis.

Chris Larabee circled the shrouded shield resting on its mount, marvelling at the fact this had been sitting here in this place, before the birth of Christ. As mythical objects went, there was none so fantastic as the shield carried by Perseus, fashioned from the hide of a goat belonging to a goddess, bearing the standard of a creature capable of turning men into stone. This was the shield carried by the Goddess of War and left here because its power was simply too much for any mortal to wield.

His reason warred with the superstitious belief this object from the past was capable of transmuting flesh to stone. Even as he stood in this chamber filled with statues he knew in his gut were not sculpted by an artisan, the notion of what might have crafted them was too terrible to entertain. Yet there was no other conclusion and his senses, so relied upon throughout the years to keep him and his friends alive, was screaming at him with desperate warning. There was danger, and it was so close, it was breathing down his neck.

"Everyone, keep your eyes open. Something is in here with us."

"I concur," Ezra answered automatically because their leader was correct. The feeling of dread was so thick in the air; they all felt suffocated by it. If fear could be a tangible thing, then at present it was wrapped around them with serpentine coils as live as the Medusa's hair.

Chris came to a stop behind the shield, examining the object that was almost entirely sheathed by a thin layer of red silk. It's satin material provided enough details in the contour for Chris to know he was standing behind it. Lifting the material carefully, he marvelled at how soft the fabric felt to touch even after centuries on this place. There was only a light coating of dust resting against it, and it drifted into a small cloud at the disturbance.

Raising the cloth higher, Chris saw the back of the shield. It was smooth and highly reflective, almost like the mirrors of ancient times, with two straps of leather riveted with brass bolts. The enarmes were designed to be slipped over arms for better control, and Chris admired the artistry, thinking how well it was crafted considering the techniques used would be regarded as primitive in this day and age.

"This is it," Chris confirmed to the others who were watching. "It's the shield."

"We're just going to keep it covered?" Nathan asked, wondering if they were letting their imaginations run away with them, by the care they were taking not to provoke a myth.

"I am in no hurry to disprove whether or not the Aegis's power is a legend," Ezra shot him a look. He glanced at Julia and noted her expression was a little pale and realised despite her self-assurance, the sinister feel of the chamber had gotten to her, and he instinctively took her hand.

She met his gaze in gratitude, emerald pools filling up with emotion and Ezra knew, he just knew right there and then, those eyes would have power over him for the rest of his life. Any lifetime, he thought absurdly. There may be women after her, there were certainly many before, but in this one moment, he knew she would be the only one that mattered.

Was this how Vin felt when he ran into Alex? Ezra wished the sharpshooter were here so he could put the question to him.

"Hey," JD suddenly spoke up. The scholar was waiting to approach Chris ready to hand the folded leather satchel stored in his pack, to carry the Aegis on their journey out of this place, when he noticed something. Sweeping his gaze across the faces of those present, JD realised they were so busy with the Aegis; they did not see one of their number was missing. "Where's Miss Travis?"

The question made Chris freeze immediately, and he raised his chin, his green eyes taking on their icy gleam as he scanned the room for Mary and saw no sign of her. Her absence struck cold fear in his heart, and he was about to lower the silk over the Aegis when he saw something in the reflection that made him forget all about finding Mary, at least for the moment.

The face of a woman was staring at him.

It was not Mary's face, but it was beautiful, nonetheless. Elegant features, with intelligent dark eyes and a headful of squirming snakes. Their eyes touched each other in the reflection, and upon that contact, he heard the sound that made his stomach heave and threaten to crawl up his throat in sheer horror.

A single rattle.

Growing up in Arizona, Chris was more than familiar with the sound of a rattlesnake, and as he stared into the face, suspended directly above him, he didn't even need to look up to confirm what she was. Breathing hard, he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder because to do so was to end up like the rest of the poor souls who wandered into this place and chose to satisfy their curiosity.

"HIDE NOW, AND FOR CHRIST'S SAKE DON'T LOOK AT HER!"

Chris slid his arm through the enarmes of the shield, needing it now not because it was the prize they had ventured into this place to find, but because it's reflective surface was all that was keeping him from ending up like all the others statues.

JD stumbled back from Chris, colliding with the stone figure behind him, one of a Greek warrior, whose mouth was agape with horror, capturing his last moment of existence in the flesh, when JD saw something lower itself from the ceiling. He saw her in profile, the squirming snakes, the elongated body shaped like a snake, even the tail that tapered into the familiar shape of a rattler. It took an instant for his mind to process what she was, and he immediately looked away, feeling a sudden wave of empathy with the stone image he had just bumped into.

"She's here!" JD warned the others in a shout and then remembering something else. This couldn't be the Medusa, his frantic mind told him. She was dead, but Medusa had sisters. Euryale and Stheno. His mind quickly surfaced the memory of the legends surrounding Perseus. They had chased the hero after he'd stolen their sister's head. Could they have retrieved it and brought it here, even after it was grafted to the Aegis?

"Everyone get out of here!" JD shouted a warning at the others, "there's two of them!"

As he shouted, the Gorgon turned her head in his direction, and JD had less than a second to look away. Her existence alone solidified his belief these figures had been men once and if he didn't act really fast, he was going to end up like them. Ducking behind the statue he had collided with, he stood behind it and raised the shield Chris had made them pick up and stared through it. The fearsome creature in the reflection had turned in his direction when he had cried out, giving Chris just enough time to get past her.

The leader of the seven was racing across the paved floor, with the Gorgon in pursuit while pulling back the string of a bow. As she aimed at Chris's back, intending to bring him down with an arrow, JD thought quickly. Pulling out his gun, he pointed the barrel at the far wall and pulled the trigger. The boom of the gunshot was loud enough to startle the Gorgon in her tracks, enough for her to turn sharply in its direction.

Chris didn't know who had fired the shot, but he was grateful for it. He heard the slithering behind him and knew she was in pursuit, not to mention moving fast. Not being able to look over his shoulder was a decided disadvantage and Chris had no idea how far behind him the thing was. Furthermore, he had not missed JD's warning that there were two of them. Of course, they would be. The Gorgons were a trio, with Medusa being the youngest of three sisters. The oldest being Stheno followed by Euryale.

When her reflection showed her veering away from him, Chris risked looking over his shoulder and saw JD had fired the shot, giving him the breathing room he needed to get past her. She headed towards the wall where the bullet had impacted, and Chris took the opportunity to backtrack and get JD. His first impulse was to find Mary, but his fierce desire to protect JD as well as keep the kid close got the better of him.

"Thanks, kid," Chris said upon reaching him.

"Chris," JD let out a sigh of relief. "You're okay! There's two of them? What are we going to do? We can't even look at them!"

"Calm down for starters," Chris could see the fear in the boy's eyes and frankly Chris couldn't blame him. The situation before them was wholly impossible by every science they knew, but the Gorgon was here, and she was after them. Their incredulity could wait until after they dealt with the creature.

"We've got to get her from behind. I'm going to lead her away, can you sneak up behind her?" Chris wasn't sure if JD could do this, but he could not see where Ezra and Nathan had gone with Julia, so the kid was all he had. If this were Vin, he would have felt more confident, but JD had been proving himself this past year, and Chris had to believe he could do this.

"I can try," JD admitted, not about to hide how frightened he was, but the fear of the Gorgon was nothing in comparison to fear of disappointing this man. "Chris you gotta make sure those arrows don't hit any part of you. The Gorgon's blood is poisonous, and they used to dip their arrows with it."

Once again, Chris marvelled at what that formidable intellect of JD's was capable of containing, especially when they needed it. "I'll remember that, but you remember this. If you can't make the kill, you pull back, do you hear?"

"Yeah," JD nodded understanding completely. "What's your plan?"

Chris told him.

******

"There's two of them!"

That was all Ezra Standish needed to hear. Not bothering to offer the creature a second look, because the descending figure of scales and writhing hair was enough to make him spin on his heels, grab Julia's hand in his and start running. "Nathan, we cannot look at them directly!"

"No shit!" Nathan snapped, already wondering how the hell they were going to kill these things coming if he and Ezra couldn't look at it directly. Raising the shield he had taken, he lifted it directly in front of his face as he moved, trying to catch a glimpse of the creature they were running from, while at the same time not cracking his head open by running into the stone statue.

"Really Mr Jackson," Ezra frowned as he sought a place to put Julia while he attended to this situation with the rest of his comrades. "Language!"

"I'll live!" Julia rolled her eyes in exasperation, more concerned with the Gorgons stalking them, then the assault on her delicate feminine sensibilities.

Coming out of the shadows, Mary Travis appeared. She looked as white as a sheet but nowhere as paralysed by fear as she ought to be. She was holding a shield, using it to look behind her as she hurried to the rest of her friends. "Will you three shut up! She's right behind me."

"She?" Ezra managed to say when he saw something flying out of the darkness. It was small and fast, giving Ezra only a second to process what it was. Without thinking twice, he yanked Julia behind a column just as it passed her shoulder. Nathan lifted his shield just in time, and the arrow bounced off it with a loud clink, the tip no match for the strength of the steel.

"Take cover!" Ezra barked and all of them scattered, seeking out hiding places amongst the doomed seekers of the Aegis. He did not see where Nathan or Mary went as he dragged Julia behind what appeared to be the statue of a Roman soldier, complete with helmet and plume riding its crest. The soldier had drawn his sword but never got any further than that before he was turned to stone. His cloak, hanging from his back, had become a good place for cover when Julia and Ezra stood behind it.

"Come now," the voice wound through the statues, reaching them like dark tendrils of poison. "Do not make this any more difficult on yourselves than it has to be. Stheno and I will find you, just as we found the others who dared to violate our sister's tomb and defile her body."

Julia's eyes widened at that eerie voice, and Ezra thought her lips parted to speak, but he shook his head and told her to remain silent.

The Gorgon was attempting to bait them into giving away their position. There were too many shadows and corners for them to take refuge in this place with its stone menagerie and dim light. They heard her serpentine body moving across the floor, the scraping as scales rubbing against the stone and knew she was approaching. From where he was hiding with Julia, he saw Nathan behind a column, eyes fixed on the floor, trying not to look at what was coming down the aisle between them.
Mary was crouched on the floor, looking like just another fallen statue.

BOOM!

They all jumped, startled by the sound of the gunshot and their movement, slight as it was, allowed the Gorgon to hone in on their position immediately. Ezra stiffened, torn between the desire to run and the reason that implored him not to because this would be a terrible idea. In the end, he pulled back further behind the statue, feeling Julia shift with him and waited.

Ezra watched the Gorgon's reptilian body slither past them, trying not to feel utter revulsion at this half-human-half-reptilian monstrosity. She was scanning the place like the hunter she was, trying to see them in the dim light, her hands clutching her bow and arrow, poised to pin her target the instant she caught sight of them. Without warning, she lifted the weapon and unleashed an arrow. A second later, a scream followed and to Ezra's horror, he saw Mary tumble out of her hiding place, an arrow protruding from the middle of her thigh.

The Gorgon immediately closed in, and Ezra knew if it reached Mary Travis, Chris Larabee was going to lose another woman he cared for. The gambler was not about to let that happen. Giving Julia a look to stay put, he emerged from his hiding place and produced his derringer from beneath his sleeve, firing a single bullet he hoped would blow the demon's skull apart.

However, as he emerged, the snakes on her head seemed to hiss even louder, telegraphing the danger to her with their own eyes. The Gorgon spun around as Ezra fired, and the shot that should have entered the back of her head went through her shoulder instead. Uttering a howl of pain, she snapped her head in his direction so fast, Ezra knew merely turning his head away from her was not going to save him.

He was going to die.

"HEY!" Nathan Jackson shouted, and the creature snapped her head in his direction, only to see the spinning shield flying at her. She had just enough time to process its approach before it slice through her flesh. A shriek that sounded like a banshee's wail screeched through the air and Ezra, who had dropped his gaze to avoid looking at the Gorgon only raised his head when he saw the shield slamming into one of the statues, becoming embedded in the stone.

It was only when he heard the thud of a body against the ground did Ezra dare to look. Her tail was still twitching, and her arms flailed about as if what remained of her refused to believe she was dead. Black blood spread across the floor, filling the air with an odour so rancid, it made Ezra's stomach turn. Lying face down, the Gorgon's head lay a few feet away, having rolled to a stop at the feet of her victims.

The snakes that had nearly ended him were dangling lifelessly from her skull, just as dead as the rest of her.

"That was a hell of a throw," Julia managed to say, unable to move her eyes away from the corpse now that it was safe.

"I concur, Mr Jackson, "Ezra stared at his best friend, thinking once again Nathan had saved his life. "I had no idea your skill at horseshoes could transfer so well."

"Me neither," Nathan answered, appearing a little shellshock his desperate attempt to save his best friend's life had actually worked.

The healer's train of thought had taken a life of its own once he heard Mary's pained cry. All he knew was he had to get to her and was in the process of thinking how to do that when Ezra made his bid to keep the Gorgon away from Mary. When the thing had turned in Ezra's direction, Nathan stopped thinking and just acted.

"Can I get a little help here!" Mary snapped, realising it was safe to look up now she could see the headless body not far from where she was lying.

"Yeah," Nathan snapped out of his shock and hurried towards the downed woman, his instincts to heal, making him forget his astonishment at what he had just done.

"Ezra, there's still another one of these things here," Julia replied as she saw Ezra approaching the severed head carefully, before draping his coat over it. Legend had it the Gorgon's ability to turn victims into stone continued even beyond its death, so Ezra was taking no chances.

"I know," Ezra nodded grimly and decided they had to get moving to be of any help to Chris and JD.

Chris had never run so fast in his life.

All he knew was he had to lead the Gorgon away from the others. Since he was carrying the Aegis, the creature seemed to focus her attention on him, and as expected, when he emerged from his hiding place, taking the winding path between the sisters' past victims, he never felt more vulnerable in his entire life.

Forcing away thoughts of Mary's safety from his mind at the moment, Chris knew he would be no good to her unless he could reduce the numbers of Gorgons hunting them. These things had done nothing in the past two millennia except wait for treasure hunters to come after the Aegis, only to be added to the grim collection of statues in this chamber for all time.

Chris had no intention of meeting his end that way.

Jumping over the obstacles in his path which included the artifacts left behind by the dead, including swords and other discarded weapons, he could hear the Gorgon behind him, her elongated body sweeping the objects aside with clatter and banging as she moved past them. He had no idea where JD was but hoped the kid was staying put until it was time to act. As he closed in on the doorway from the shore, he could smell the salt air in his nostrils and feel the breeze sneaking through the entrance.

"Do you think leaving this chamber will save you?" The voice behind him taunted.

Her words sent ice through his veins for it was spoken with the voice of a corpse trapped in the bottom of a well, trying to talk through the water rotting its flesh.

Chris didn't answer her, not about to parlay with a creature whose mere gaze could end him. Instead, he remained focused on his course and only changed direction when heard the familiar snap of a bowstring being released. Having spent some time with Vin's Navajo family, Chris recognised the sound. Dropping down low, he saw the arrow sail over his head, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

Reaching the shore, he was confronted again by the graveyard of boats. Now that Chris knew what happened to their masters, their neglect felt even more profane. Chris didn't waste heading towards the canoe. Instead, he jumped onto one of the ancient boats, something Egyptian if the markings on the faded sail were any indication. The craft had been run aground, whether by design or time, who could say.

Another arrow was shot, this one struck home, and Chris uttered a cry of pain as it penetrated his shoulder. For a second, the agony was so blinding he almost lost his footing, but the Gorgon's triumphant laugh compelled him to keep running. Reaching the final boat, Chris plunged head first into the water, allowing the cool to soothe his injury and give him a momentary respite.

Meanwhile, following instructions, JD waited until the Gorgon moved past him before emerging from his hiding place. With his rifle in hand, JD stalked the creature, ensuring she didn't see him, while he maintained a view of her back as she chased Chris out of the chamber. He wondered which one she was, Stheno or Euryale. He supposed it didn't matter, either were just as deadly.

After glimpsing the sight of a living legend like the Gorgon, JD had come to the realisation that science was only the beginning of knowledge, and the mysteries of the world, so often counted as superstitious nonsense, existed in a realm by themselves, one he could no longer ignore. Following the trail left behind by the Gorgon, the drag marks across the dust covered floor, JD knew he would never dismiss anything as nonsense again.

When he heard the splash of water, JD knew that Chris had managed to carry out his part of the plan and as he stepped through the entrance, saw the Gorgon approaching the edge of the shore, surveying the river for any sign of her prey. Using the cover of the doorway, JD raised his gun and took careful aim, remembering everything Vin Tanner taught him and squeezed the trigger. The explosion of sound made the Gorgon turn. Her reflexes were stunningly fast, and instead of striking her head, her tail lifted at the last minute, the rattle tip taking the bullet.

The Gorgon uttered a cry of pain before she swung around, forcing JD to retreat before he could see how much damage he'd done if any at all. "Where are you? You miserable insect!"

JD swore under his breath because his bullet had been intended to end her, but now she was coming for him, and all he could do was retreat into the chamber, hoping to become lost in the shadows cast by the statues. Dropping to the ground, he could hear that rattle along with the drag of her body, as she closed in on him.

"Where are you little mouse," she sneered. "Do you think you can kill Stheno after true warriors have failed. I have put armies to the stone. What do you think you can do?"

She was close now. He could hear her breathing and his own stilled. Trying not to panic, JD sought a path past the woman and saw none he could take that wouldn't put her right in her crosshairs. Maybe if he remained where he was, she wouldn't...

"There you are."

JD closed his eyes, determined not to open them, no matter what. One look into her face, and it was over. The slithery sound of her body across the ground had stopped, and he could hear her loud breath in his ear. Crouched down low, he was like a penitent man begging for forgiveness from a creature that knew no such thing as mercy.

"Look at me boy," she commanded and her voice as almost sweet. "Look at me, and it will end quickly."

"Sorry ma'am," he managed to say despite his fear. "According to a friend of mine, real men don't end anything quick with a lady."

She uttered a brittle laugh and replied, "you are spirited boy, but in the end, you all go. We are forever, and you are just like all the others."

JD could not see the hand reaching for him, but he knew she was about to grab him and force him to look into her face. He'd fight it, but somehow, he didn't think it would do any good. How hard had the men before him fought? It had turned out no better for them. Why did he think he was going to escape when they hadn't?

"Maybe," Chris Larabee said having snuck up behind the creature using the distraction JD had unwittingly provided. "And maybe not."

The Gorgon started to turn around, but she never had the chance. The ex-calvary man swung the sword belonging to someone who was most likely dead in the chamber beyond. It was a single swipe, but it did the job. The blade sliced cleanly through her neck with such force; there was no time for her to utter any last words. In fact, the only creatures making any parting statement were the snakes passing for her hair. They writhed and spasmed with that brutal cut before going limp. Her head tumbled through the air, before landing on the ground with a sickly squelch and rolling into the darkness. Chris made no effort to see where it ended up. Instead, he lowered the sword, grateful the deed was done until he remembered JD.

"JD!"

For a second, Chris was gripped with the terrible thought he hadn't reached them in time, that the worst had happened to JD. When he concocted his plan, it was with the hope the kid would never face the Gorgon head on, let alone be caught in a cat and mouse game with her. If anything had happened to JD, Buck would never forgive him, and Chris would never forgive himself.

"I'm okay," JD sang out and stopped short at the sight of Chris who was still carrying the sword, with the Aegis still concealed with the red silk, secured firmly with a knot. The man looked like some ancient warrior who had just risen from the sea.

"Alright," Chris, let out a sigh and turned back to the chamber. "There's one more of the things in here. I say we go find the bitch and get the hell out of here."

JD was not about to argue with that.

Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Firefight

Daylight.

It flooded his eyes a second before his shoulder met dirt. Despite the rough landing that sent pain throughout his body at the impact, Vin Tanner didn't mind one damn bit. Above him, blue skies held court to white clouds sailing languidly across its expanse told Vin they had passed through the eye of the needle from whatever realm they had just been. Beside him, he heard Buck uttering a groan at his own similarly abrupt landing and when Vin lifted his head, realised they were lying on the ground on the top of a mountain.

Surrounding him on all sides was the ocean the seven sailed to reach the Desertas islands, and the ground he was presently lying against, was its tallest peak. By the positioning of the sun above, Vin knew it was past midday and the amber veil rising from the horizon heralded the evening to come. Blinking away the sunspots in his eyes, Vin sat up shakily, his head still spinning at how they came to be in this place, when his last recollection was of the big black emptiness and the things lurking in it, in pursuit.

"You okay lad?"

Vin lifted his eyes and saw Riley extending a hand towards him to help him to his feet. The sharpshooter was still unsteady enough to accept the offer, and he saw Josiah giving Buck the same assistance. Rubbing his eyes to clear his muddled thoughts, Vin nodded in gratitude to the older man and surveyed their surroundings.

As seen earlier, they were on the top of the tallest point in the islands, on a patch of green that was framed by a ring of rocks, spaced an equal distance from each other to indicate immediately the formation was not natural. Vin recalled seeing Stonehenge, having been dragged to the place by Josiah and Nathan when they first visited England. It was a miserably wet and gloomy day, but Vin had to admit, the site bore a remarkable similarity to the formation in front of them now.

"We just showed up here?" He asked Josiah and Riley, who were first through.

"Yeah," Josiah nodded, staring at a fixed point over the edge and not looking at them. "I think this place was how they got in our out of whatever craziness we just experienced."

"Soft Places," Vin mused, recalling that Arab's description.

"Soft places?" Riley stared at him, still trying to wrap his mind around what they experienced. His very Catholic upbringing told him such places could not exist, but he had seen enough in the last year to have such steadfast beliefs challenged.

"Yeah," Vin nodded. "Navajo medicine men say its the spaces between worlds, like the hollows between walls."

"Normally I say it's hooey," Buck rubbed the back of his head, "but after what we just went through, I'm just going to call it weird shit and leave it at that."

"You've got a way with words," Riley managed a smile. "But right now, it will do."

"What about Chris and the others?" Buck asked, and even though he did not mention him by name, it was JD whom Buck was most concerned about. As it was, he still grappled with the horror of what they witnessed in that dark abyss. Buck did not know which was worse, the Minotaur or the nameless terror that had almost torn them apart a few minutes ago. The idea that JD could be facing something far worse in the search for the Aegis was more than Buck could stand.

"Chris Larabee can take care of himself," Josiah assured the pilot, perfectly aware the source of Buck's anxiety was JD. Chris Larabee could handle any situation, of this Josiah had no doubt, but JD was still a novice to this life he'd taken up when he signed on with them. While JD proved himself on many occasions, the truth of it was, JD still had a lot to learn. "And anyone else with him."

Buck blinked, realising Riley was similarly concerned about Julia Pemberton, whom all three of them understood by now, was not just his partner but also his friend. There was no mistaking the almost paternal affection Riley had for the lady.

"Yeah, we shouldn't worry," he said, slapping Riley's arm with assurance. "I'm sure that little lady is fine."

"Of course she is," Riley shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed his concern for Julia was noticed. "I sometimes forget she's saved my arse more times than I can count, but I promised her Da to keep her safe. After what we just ran into, I'm praying to Jesus she and your lot haven't run into something worse."

"Yeah," Josiah frowned at the thought because if Chris was still on the trail of the Aegis, that was a genuine possibility. "We gotta have faith brother. Faith in them."

"Damn straight," Buck added his voice to Josiah's comment and took it to heart himself. The older man was right, he had to have faith in Chris, Ezra and Nathan to get JD, Mary and Julia back to them safely.

Vin however, did not weigh in.

His silence drew Josiah's attention, and as the one-time man of God stared at the sharpshooter, Josiah noticed Vin had not even registered their conversation. Instead, as Josiah approached Vin, who was standing with his back to them, he saw Vin's gaze was fixed on the ocean beyond the stone ring surrounding them. Now that Josiah took a closer look, he realised Vin's expression was grave. After what they had just escaped, Josiah couldn't imagine what could be the cause until he saw what Vin was looking at.

A German U-boat.

"Hell," Vin cursed. The one glimpse of that metal leviathan was more than enough to chase the residual effects of that Other Place from his thoughts as a more grounded enemy appeared before their eyes.

"What?" Buck immediately snapped to, and both he and Riley joined Vin and Josiah at the edge.

The U-Boat was holding the position a short distance from the bow of the Magellan, the tug Ezra had procured them to get here. A trio of inflatable boats was spreading out from the submarine with one heading directly for the Magellan while the others continued towards the island. Each vessel was occupied by at least a half dozen men, and though he couldn't see her, Vin knew Isabella Krauss was with them.

"Well, I suppose it was too much to hope they wouldn't find us," Riley sighed. "I'll bet a year's pay to King George that one of their bastard spies spotted us when we landed in Madeira. They've got people everywhere these days."

"Doesn't matter," Josiah shrugged. "They're here, and they know so are we."

"So what do we do?" Buck asked, shifting his gaze to Vin. "We still got to find Chris and the others."

Vin dropped his gaze to the ground, wanting badly to go find the rest of their company but the truth was, they had a more pressing problem to deal with. Those Nazis were going to scour the island until they found their quarry. At this point, the most sensible thing to do was to run but running meant leaving their friends behind, and with a submarine, any distance they put between them and the island was a moot point.

"We fight."

"Fight?" Buck gave him a look. "You sure?"

"We can't run, that thing will blow us out of the water even if we managed to get to the Magellan and there's not enough island for us to hide out for long. Besides, if Chris and the others get out the same way we did, they're going to end up in the hands of those bastards. They ain't seen us yet, and we got the high ground so I say we reduce their number while we can."

"He's right," Riley nodded in agreement. "That model U-boat holds about 25 crew. If we can cut them down to size, they won't have enough men to sail out of here, and we might stand a fighting chance against them."

"It's a plan," Josiah nodded in approval. "We still have a decent amount of ammo. We used most of the smaller stuff while we were in the maze."

It was true. They expended a lot of firepower with their small arms because of the lack of time to reload, but they still had more than enough bullets for the rifles and Vin knew himself, how much damage he could do with his own Winchester.

"Alright," Vin nodded, "let's see where they intend to make landfall and give them a surprise when they get to shore."

"Yeah," Buck grinned, preferring to fight an enemy he could understand, not the creatures they had been faced with a while ago. He hoped Chris was looking after JD because the idea of the kid being torn apart in the hell they narrowly escaped was too terrible to imagine. However, he had confidence in his oldest friend to keep the boy safe. "Nothing I like more than surprises."

"Unless it's an eight-year-old kid, right?" Josiah couldn't help remark, reminding Buck if he planned on getting anywhere with the fair Miss Recillos, he had a pretty formidable obstacle to overcome first.

Buck glared at him. "Very funny."

******

To say the involvement of Chris Larabee's team in the search for the Aegis had complicated matters considerably was a gross understatement.

Like that troublesome archaeology professor who seemed to appear in the most inopportune places, Larabee's team was proving to be just as equally annoying. The retrieval of the Aegis should have been concluded by now. Yet at every turn, the Reich was thwarted by the American interlopers. Isabella Krauss was becoming properly sick of it.

As she rode in one of the three inflatable boats or Mitte schlauchboot as Commander Bucholz so proudly told her, carrying a complement of half a dozen men and their equipment, she was eager to finish this business once and for all. Heading towards the shore, she saw one of the boats approaching the tug the Americans had used to make the journey from Madeira. They certainly wouldn't need it for a return trip because she was determined to ensure none of the pigs left the Desertas Islands alive.

While she had to admit tracking them across the globe had taken the burden of deciphering the Aegis's final location off her shoulders, she still wanted them eliminated for good. It was easy enough to accomplish thanks to the Reich's ever-expanding network of spies at her disposal. All it had taken was one informant to sight their arrival in Madeira for Isabella to be made aware of it.

Within hours of receiving the report, the nearest U-boat in the area was dispatched to take up the duties of the vessel damaged in Marsa Matruh, ready to intercept Larabee and his conspirators when he emerged from wherever it was the Aegis was hidden. Isabella intended to be there when he appeared so she could steal his prize from right under his nose, and put a bullet between his eyes.

As the inflatable neared the shore, the beach awaiting them on the main island was a dark grey shale, far removed from the more pristine white of its smaller counterparts. Craggy hills frowned upon them and cast a shadow across the stretch of coastline that seemed to make the place even gloomier. She wondered where Larabee and his men were led in search of the Aegis.

The tug was abandoned in a small cove. Further investigation revealed there was nothing to indicate where its crew had gone. There was no opening, no sign of a grotto or any kind of subterranean passage that would provide a clear path once the Americans entered the narrow passage. It was odd. In the end, she assumed Larabee was attempting to hide the craft from them and left her men on the boat, with orders to afford the Americans the proper reception if they managed to return to it beneath the notice of the shore party.

White foam broke up against the pebble shore as the tide rushed in and as the craft continued to close the distance to land, seabirds took to the air at their approach, squawking their indignation at their presence. No one lived on this island except the seabirds, the feral animals brought here by mariners of the past such as rodents and goats, not to mention the seals who chose its many bays to breed.

Isabella supposed this barren scab of rock was the perfect hiding place for the Aegis.

The scientist in her did not buy into the nonsense the Aegis could turn armies to stone. Nothing she collected for the Fuhrer had proved capable of exhibiting any supernatural power, but what it did have, was symbolism. The Reich had ridden to power by capturing the imagination of its people and making them believe patriotic fervour and unquestioning belief was the path to some grand destiny of cosmic making. The Fuhrer wielding the Aegis would aid that belief until it became full-blown zealotry. Such power could be used to capture the world.

"Marler," she regarded her SS minder in all this. "When we reach the shore, spread out. This island is small, we should be able to locate the Americans easily."

Marler's expression remained impassive even though she knew behind his vacant eyes, he was seething. He looked as dark as his leather coat, the clothing of choice for the growing Gestapo arm of the Reich it seemed, and she knew he was personally affronted at how much trouble acquiring Larabee had proved to be.

"And when we find them?"

"It depends," she said thoughtfully as the inflatable started to shudder with the chop of the receding tide. "If they have the Aegis, take it and kill them. If not, kill everyone except Larabee, the boy and the woman. We don't need the others, and their number is too large to secure. The woman can be useful if Larabee refuses to talk."

A little smile curled Mahler's lips, and inwardly, Isabella shuddered at the pleasure behind that sinister smirk. It was not that she objected to his 'interrogation' techniques when dealing with women, but the pleasure he took in it. Torture was a tool. When it was used for gratification, it was dangerous, and she had a feeling if Mahler had not found an outlet for his sadism through the Gestapo, he would have likely done it as a serial murderer.

The crew began disembarking the instant the first boat approached the shore, with her men setting foot on the coast leaving footprints in the sand from their jackboots. Two of them had started to pull the craft further into the beach when the crack of gunfire came out of nowhere, startling them all. The initial gunshot killed one of the men carrying the boat, his life ending with a splatter of blood across his chest before he fell into the vessel. More shots fired then, snapping the rest of the Germans out of their shock and into action.

Someone had the presence of mind to shout a warning. "Scharfschütze!*"

Isabelle was pulled to the deck by the Marler as the soldiers in the boat with them, took up their weapons and returned fired in aid of their besieged comrades.

Isabella swore.

Those damn Americans!

Vin fired again.

This time, he pinned a target attempting to take aim at the edge of the cliff where he, Buck, Josiah and Riley were using for cover. One of the Krauts managed to land a shot near them, but all the bullet did, aside from impacting harmlessly against the ground, was to spit dirt and dust in their direction. It did nothing to hinder their continued assault on the enemy. Vin knew their advantage would last just long enough for the Germans to escape the range of their weapons, but in those precious few minutes, he and the others could do plenty of damage.

Within a minute of the first gunshot, he and Riley managed to put down most of the first inflatables compliment. Riley, who had come to their aid along with Julia Pemberton during the climax of the affair with the Erran, proved himself a formidable shot, enough to gain Vin's respect. The space around the craft was covered with bodies, the tide threatening to sweep one or two out to sea, while the occupants of the second raft were returning enough fire for Vin to know this advantage would not last for much longer.

Buck retreated from the edge, immediately scanning the terrain to see which direction the enemy would come when they finally discovered where the sniper fire was coming from. There was only one path from the beach to the ring of stones the four of them had found themselves after the maze. It was steep, and a little bit treacherous, but the Krauts were plenty mad, and Buck had no illusions they would want to avenge their fallen comrades. Fortunately, it was not the only way off the hill.

While the others continued to shoot, Buck saw a few of the sons of bitches making their way across the beach, evading the sniper fire using the large rocks planted throughout the beach. Once they reached the trail shrouded by trees and angled steeply enough for any sniper to have difficulty getting a clear shot, there was nothing to stop them from closing the distance.

"We better decide if we're staying," Buck hollered at Vin over the sound of gunfire. "Cause they're on their way!"

Vin could see this himself, and although it went against the grain, he had been aiming for Krauss. He could see her in the second boat, being kept low so he couldn't get a clear shot of her in his crosshairs. It was not in his habit to shoot a woman, but after seeing how Adashir Shah's sister had nearly gutted JD during the affair with the Erran, he was not going to let outdated chivalry hold back the need to put down a dangerous enemy.

Besides, after what the woman threatened to do to JD, Vin would lose no sleep putting a bullet in the bitch.

The soldiers on the craft with her were the source of most of the returning fire and Vin shifted his aim, targeting not the men but the inflatable itself. A single shot was all that was needed. He didn't have to hear the burst of air at the puncture because the reaction of those on board was enough. As it began to deflate, some of the Krauts tried to retain their balance while others simply went overboard, pre-empting their eventual submergence into the water.

"Nice shot," Josiah remarked in between gunfire. A few of the Krauts had managed to reach the cliff, skirting along the wall to reach the trail leading to them. "Maybe that will cool them off."

"I wouldn't count on it," Riley said grimly, gesturing to the craft that had been moored to the Magellan. "I think they're about to get reinforcements."

The occupants of the third inflatable, well beyond the range of their guns, were paddling back to the submarine. No doubt, when the Krauts got there, they would alert the rest of their comrades to the assault on the beach. Vin knew the Germans had enough guns and ammunition to outlast the four of them, not to mention men to wield those weapons. Buck was right, it was time to get moving while they still could.

"Alright, let's get going. We've got to find a place to hold up until they find us and it ain't gonna be here." Vin swept his gaze across the plateau and saw it lacking in any formations capable of providing cover, other than the ring of stones which was inadequate for the purpose. Particularly against an enemy on even ground with a great deal more firepower. "If Chris and the others have to come through here the same way we did, they'll be walking into a war zone. We've got to lead these bastards away from here and hope Chris can catch up with us when he gets out."

If he gets out, Vin thought silently.

By now, Vin was convinced Chris and the rest of their friends were trapped in the same void they had just escaped. Nor did Vin have any doubt Josiah and Buck would storm the gates of oblivion to help him get them back. However, none of that could be achieved until they dealt with Isabella Krauss and her Nazis.

Once and for all.

 *sniper

Chapter Twenty-Nine:
The Medusa

If Chris Larabee thought his troubles were over when he and JD found the others, he was sorely mistaken.

In fact, he thought things were going their way when he and JD found their friends after their confrontation with the Gorgon. Expecting to fight another one of the creatures, the two men were grateful to learn Nathan had done the deed already. The healer had dismissed the feat rather casually, more interested in fixing Mary's wound, which Chris was none too happy to discover. Still, he was soon assured by her complaining, her wounds were none too serious.

Chris might be falling in love with the woman, but the day she shut up and let him get a word in otherwise, would be the real discovery of the century.

"Any idea how to leave this place, Mr Larabee?"

Ezra asked, thinking their journey back to the surface would require them crossing the path of the Sirens once more, and he had no desire to suffer another hallucination at their hands. Having his psyche excoriated once a day was more than enough. Yet sweeping his gaze around the temple, he could see no way of leaving the place other than the way they arrived.

"We can go back the way we came," Chris suggested. "Although once we reach the waterfall, we have to find a way up and then swim for it."

"That is a numerous set of variables to base an assumption on," Ezra's grimace showed his thoughts on the idea.

Now that the Gorgons were dead, Julia examined the statues scattered throughout the place, wanting a fresh look at them now she realised these were not carved images, but the remains of the poor people turned into stone, as they were in danger of a short time ago. She stood in front of what appeared to be a Roman soldier, complete with armour and cloak, not to mention the very distinct helmet with feathered plume.

"What is going to happen to these people?" Mary winced in pain as Nathan tightened a bandage around her thigh, exposed after he cut away the fabric of a pant leg to treat her wound. "The one we killed told me they weren't really dead, just trapped in stone."

"Oh my God," Julia gasped in horror, staring into the frozen face in front of her, shocked to think he might be conscious of everything happening, even the passage of time.

As if in answer to her question, the ground beneath them began to quake. The first tremor was slight, but even that mild shift was enough to adversely effect the chamber of stone and marble surrounding them. Dust shifted free from cracks between the slabs of rocks in the ceiling. The statues began to shudder. One or two of the torches, hanging on the walls, dropped on the floor having been shaken loose.

Chris was suddenly struck with the idea the reality in which the temple existed, had now pivoted following Stheno and Euryale's death. After encountering the Gorgon, Chris had told himself this place could not exist in the world, not for all this time in such complete secrecy. Somehow during their pursuit of the Aegis, they had crossed over into a pocket-universe where Sirens, Gorgons and the Aegis existed.

"Nathan, are you done?" Chris sank next to Mary, having an inkling of what was coming. If he was right, they were going to have to get moving quickly.

"Yeah, yeah," Nathan's long fingers worked deftly, securing the bandage to ensure the wound could begin healing properly now. "I'm done."

"What's happening Chris?" Mary wrapped her arms around his neck as he hoisted her up, bristling at the need to be carried but seeing enough urgency in his eyes to not give him any lip about it.

"I think we need to depart this place," Ezra uttered the understatement of the century.

The statue next to Julia exploded.

The woman uttered a short cry of fright as the Roman soldier she had been studying suddenly disintegrated in front of her. Its deconstruction was so complete it sent up a cloud of dust when the pile hit the floor. Amidst the growing intensity of the quakes around them, the soldier's abrupt demise started a chain reaction that swept quickly throughout the temple as more and more statues crumbled, becoming piles of sand with only a diminishing fog of grey to mark where they once stood.

"Hell," Nathan groaned as they looked up and saw cracks starting to appear across the ceiling. The spidery tendrils ran across the roof like thick veins, and pouring through them was light. With their arrival, the quakes became more violent, until dust drifted through the slabs being shaken as if the fragile plane on which this place stood was breaking apart.

"No, kidding," Chris replied and glanced down at Mary. "Hold on."

"Oh God," Mary dropped her head back in exasperation. "Why do we always end up running? Every time we enter one of these places, it always ends up with us running for our lives. Can't we ever leave these situations by taking a nice walk or stroll for a change? What happened to saunter, or sashaying, even a plain moseying...?"

"Mary," Chris grumbled as she started to rant, "you're awful pretty, and I like you a lot, but for once SHUT UP!"

"FINE!" Mary bit back but obeyed as he started searching the place for the way out.

"Chris!" JD shouted, already on the case, pointing towards a door at the far end of the room, one Chris was sure wasn't there before. It was nothing more than a stone archway, sealed by two doors made of wood. The wood was fastened together by faded hessian, not nailed as one would expect. Chris supposed it fit the period of Perseus’s legend and hoped it was a way out. Whether it was or not, really didn't matter, they couldn't stay here.

"Everyone move!" Chris shouted and started running first, tightening his grip around Mary even as he heard her whimper a little at the world beginning to deconstruct around their ears. The light outside was so blinding, it was impossible to see what lay beyond those fissures. It didn't matter, now that Stheno and Euryale were dead, there was no longer any reason for the temple housing the Aegis to exist.

"Shall we, my dear?" Ezra grabbed Julia's wrist as they ran towards the door, JD had reached first.

"Yes, I think so," Julia did not protest as he towed her along, running past more exploding statues. Columns had started rocking dangerously, and Julia knew when those stone pillars went, so would this place. "I think as first dates go, this one had truly reached its climax."

"Oh I wouldn't say that," Ezra managed to return, never one to appear flustered even when the world was being demolished around them. "I believe blowing up a submarine might have been a highlight as well."

"Will you two stop flirting and move your butts!"

Nathan's barked prompted them to run faster, seeing JD in the distance waving them forward. The young scholar who was carrying the Aegis, after Chris surrendered it so he could pick up Mary, was already at the door, beckoning them to hurry. Nathan halted in his steps, pausing to let Julia and Ezra pass him along the stone path, now covered with the remains of the ruined statues. One or two columns smashed against the floor, sending dangerous chunks of rock in all direction.

Mary uttered a frightened cry, and for an instant, Nathan thought the dangerous debris had caught up with her and Chris. Fortunately, his fears were allayed a second later when Chris rounded the pile of rock, albeit covered in stone dust, in good condition.

"Keep going," Chris snapped, prompting Nathan into moving himself. "We're right behind you!"

More and more columns fell throughout the room, their impact against the floor making everyone's teeth chatter at the thunderous noise. The air became thick with dust, and with the light flooding in, it was becoming difficult to see. Whatever force keeping this place intact throughout the centuries, apparently felt its task was done with the death of Medusa's sisters.

As Chris approached the doorway, JD now opened, he could see the words scrawled into the stone archway above them. It was now illuminated by the same unseen presence bringing an end to this temple.

*Ολα ο οποίος ψάχνω Σπίτι, εισαγω*

"What does that mean?"

Chris heard Ezra demand as he sighted JD over the gambler's shoulder, pulling open the door and bathing them all with more light but this time, the breeze blowing through the exit brought with it fresh scents. Salt. Chris could smell salt. Was it from the ocean?

"Doesn't matter! Just GO!"

Nathan shouted, sending JD rushing into the light and the last image Chris glimpsed of the boy was of JD's silhouette disappearing. Julia and Ezra followed, vanishing similarly with only Nathan pausing long enough to ensure Chris and Mary were still behind him as promised. The healer waited until they closed the distance, his eyes widening at the calamity taking place behind them, telling Chris he didn't need to look over his shoulder to see what was chasing them to the door.

"Oh God."

Chris heard Mary squeal because she could see what was happening behind them before she buried her face in his shoulder. She did not want to look anymore and kept her face there. Confident they would be following, Nathan stepped through the exit, vanishing as the others had done before Chris reached the doorway himself and allowed the white light to swallow them whole.

"We can't stay here!" Buck shouted as he fired again.

Leaving the high ground where it would be easiest for the enemy to find them, the remaining members of the seven and Riley had left the peak in search of a defensible spot to deal with Krauss and her Nazis. The beach the Nazis had used to come ashore, appeared to be the only one on the island as the rest of the coastline was made up of high cliff and jagged rocks that wasn't fit for humans to cross. Unfortunately, that left their hiding places somewhat limited.

The gully in which they were now fending off the Nazis invaders was almost six feet high, allowing them all the depth needed to be well protected by gunfire, but unfortunately for them, the Nazis had come armed with more than just guns. As another short-range shell hit the ground not far from where they were taking refuge, raining soil and mud on them, Buck covered his ears from the tremendous blast.

Vin, Josiah and Riley were more accustomed to the noise, familiar with trench warfare after the last war. As the debris-covered them, they shifted position towards the site of the blast, aware the enemy wouldn't try to shell the same place twice for a few minutes and resumed their gunfire. As it was, there were at least fifteen German soldiers on the other side of the clearing, all armed with Maschinenpistole 34 or more specifically MP34 submachine guns and unfortunately for them, as well as a GrW 34, Schwere Granatwerfer 34, portable mortar launcher.

"We stay put!" Riley snapped. "We try to move out of this gully, and they'll cut us down before we get halfway across the island. This is the only place we can hold out."

"Hold out for what?" Buck demanded, unaccustomed to this after seeing the war from the air. Flying over the battlefield was a world of difference from being right in the middle of it, and Buck realised just how much now.

"I have no idea," Riley revealed, glancing at Vin and Josiah because he too had no suggestions where they could go if they made a run for it. They would never make it to the Magellan, and even if they did, there was every possibility that U-boat would blow them out of the water. "Lads, any ideas?"

Vin had one, but Isabella Krauss was smart enough to stay out of sight, ensuring he would be robbed of his clear shot of her. Yet Vin knew taking her out would change the odds. These Nazi fools were thugs. It was clear that subtlety was simply not in their DNA. Krauss, on the other hand, was smart and cold. She knew they had no way off the island, and they were greatly outnumbered. Ordering the artillery strike on their location meant eventually they would get killed or cry surrender.

Another loud explosion pelted them with clumps of soil and dust, leaving behind a smoking crater. Dropping to the gully floor, they skirted along the edge, aware the pause in the shooting was allowing the enemy to close the distance.

"We can try for the water," Josiah suggested. "Head back into that cave we went into, at least far enough so they can't find us."

"No," Vin said automatically, not about to entertain that thought in any shape or fashion but Josiah was right, they needed to get out of here. The gully had been an excellent place to cut down the enemy numbers further, but the artillery fire was a game-changer. It would bombard them relentlessly, giving the Nazis the cover needed to reach them.

Suddenly the shooting stopped abruptly, and the silence that fell over the place reminded him of those temporary ceasefires in the front, where both sides for whatever reason, chose to take a moment to catch their breath. Somehow Vin had an idea this pause was going to be nowhere as amicable.

"Mr Larabee," the thickly accented voice of Isabella Krauss called out.

Vin and the others exchanged quick glances.

"She thinks Chris is with us?" Buck whispered.

"Why not?" Josiah returned. "So far, all she's seen of us is our bullets. No reason to think Chris and the others aren't here with us."

"What do you want?" Vin spoke up for Chris, knowing the woman was waiting for a response.

"Let's not play games, Mr Larabee," her impatience could be heard from the divide across them. "I want the Aegis. I know you have it. Give it to us, and you and your men can go free."

It was a lie, and they all knew it. Nothing about the woman revealed that kind of mercy, besides the Aegis wasn't here anyway for Vin to make the bargain.

"We ain't dumb enough to buy that line, lady!" Vin hollered back. "The minute we hand you the Aegis, you're gonna kill us dead."

"I'm afraid that's a risk you're going to have to take."

"She'll kill us lad," Riley warned in case Vin was contemplating the idea of surrender. Instincts told him Vin would never consciously yield to anything unless he had read the young man entirely wrong. "She's never left anyone who ran into her live. She's a beast."

Vin suspected as much anyway and replied in kind. "No, that's what you're gonna have to do if you want the Aegis. Come and get it!"

"You're a fool!" She snapped. "**SCHIEßEN!"

Vin's German was good enough for him to drop down immediately as the words were uttered. Gunfire exploded across the gap between the gully and the German advance. They were out in the open, but the cover provided by the mortar fire was giving them plenty of room to forge on ahead. Bullets kept the enemy down, and the constant bombardment as the gully was pounded with repeated explosions, ensured the four men remained pinned.

Another blast near Josiah threw him to the ground, and as he scrambled to his feet, hearing Vin and Buck call after him, their voices were muted by the ringing of his ears. Standing up awkwardly, Josiah tried to shake the disorientation from his head when suddenly, something white-hot penetrated the haze in his head with world-ending pain.

"JOSIAH!" Buck fairly screamed, seeing Josiah's shirt flare red. The bullet had struck the man in the chest, but the pilot couldn't be sure it wasn't in the heart. He only knew the damage was severe. Josiah stumbled backwards, hitting the wall of the gully before sliding to the ground, the spread of blood growing wider.

Buck forgot the gunfire and went to his side immediately. Next to Chris, Buck had known Josiah the longest. The man had been his mechanic in France and made sure Buck always flew off in a plane that would get him back safely. The idea of anything happening to this gentle giant who had kept his dumb self from doing anything too stupid was a reality Buck had no desire to face.

"How bad?" Vin hollered, realising they might well die today and their hours of life had just started counting down.

Buck, who was kneeling across from Josiah as he examined the downed man's wound, raised his eyes to Vin. "If we don't get him help, he's going to die!"

"I guess the crows did finally find me after all...." Josiah muttered.

"Will you cut it out with that Edgar Allen Poe talk!" Buck snapped. "Vin! What do we do?"

Vin closed his eyes and took a breath after pulling the trigger of his rifle and putting down another German. There was a pause on the mortar fire as they stopped to reload, giving Vin a second to think. He refused to let them surrender to that woman, remembering what she tried to do to JD. When she found out Chris wasn't with them, she would kill them all anyway. He'd rather die on his feet than on his knees. Vin was only sorry he wouldn't be able to say goodbye to Alex.

"Riley! I want you and Buck to get Josiah out of here. I'll cover you."

"What the hell kind of plan is that?" Buck returned immediately, shooting him a look of disbelief. "We ain't leaving you behind!"

Chris would never forgive him, Buck thought.

"The only one we have!" Vin snapped, flinching as another bullet hit the soil near him, prompting to fire again. Beside him, Riley was continuing the barrage, but both men could see the Germans were gaining ground. In a matter of minutes, the bastards would be on top of them anyway. "Get going!"

The shooting paused once again, and this time when the silence descended, Vin knew what Krauss was going to say.

"Mr Larabee," she shouted from her vantage point at the edge of the clearing, "You are out of time. You have one last chance to put down your guns and give us the Aegis or surrender yourself and help us retrieve it. Either way, this foolishness is about to end."

Vin took a deep breath, preparing to answer when someone else spoke instead.

"You are right about that."

Appearing through the trees framing the clearing, was Chris Larabee.

At the same time as he approached, Vin saw Nathan, JD, Ezra and Julia sneaking into the gully from the far side of the clearing, using the battle between the two forces to enter the trench and rejoin their comrades. Facing front, he wondered what the hell was in Chris's mind fronting up to that insane bitch without a weapon and carrying what appeared to be a shield in a leather satchel.

"What's Chris doing?" Vin hissed, feeling his panic rise at the man's reckless behaviour. Carrying the shield that was most likely the Aegis, Krauss was liable to shoot him and take the Aegis out of his cold dead grip.

By now, the others led by JD had reached them, but there was no time for happy reunions, not with the odds they were facing. Buck tossed JD a happy grin, but it lasted long enough for him to hear Josiah's groan before his expression sobered. It looks like the kid was safe, but they were all about to die here.

"Gentlemen," Ezra Standish announced himself, like the conductor in a rather crowded bus. "Under the instructions of our esteemed leader, please drop your heads to the ground and keep your eyes closed."

The instant he had spoken and Isabella Krauss identified what it was he had concealed in the sheathe of leather, she ordered her men to stop firing. Chris glanced at the gully just enough to make eye contact with Vin, and a slight nod was all the younger man needed to understand what was required of him. he heads of his friends, peeking over the top of the gully, now vanished from sight, no doubt obeying the order he had Ezra make.

Chris didn't know if he was gambling with fool's gold, but he had come too far to stop.

"Mr Larabee," Isabella Krauss stepped forward with Marler at her side. "We meet at last."

"Yeah," Chris nodded. "Despite your dumb attempts to get your hands on me." Glancing at Marler, he couldn't help but add. "I've seen better kidnap attempts by Larry, Moe and Curly."

Marler's face twisted in an angry scowl and swore something in German that would have annoyed Chris if he didn't know Marler's time on this Earth was dwindling fast.

Krauss hid her smirk, enjoying Marler's irritation somewhat, but she was fixed only on the leather satchel whose shape left her no doubt what was inside. She was suspicious of why Larabee had suddenly emerged but then supposed, with all avenues of escape dwindling, the man had no choice but to make a deal. He came to a pause between the gully and her soldiers, brazen courage oozing off him. A perfect Aryan specimen, she thought to herself.

"Mr Larabee, I am not interested in you or your collection of rabble," she glanced at the gully behind him. "I only want the Aegis."

By now, all guns were pointed in his direction. Chris knew he could die if he were mistaken about what he was about to do. Then again, like Ezra Standish, Chris was never afraid of taking a gamble.

"And if I give it to you, will you let us go?"

"I see," Krauss realised now it was never Larabee she spoke to, but a member of his team, most likely Tanner, who was reputed to be Larabee's trusted lieutenant. "Very clever. I take it that was one of your comrades I was addressing earlier?"

"It was," Chris nodded. "Now, once again. Will you let us go?"

Lying through her teeth, she answered. "Of course I will. We only want the Aegis. We have no interest in killing Americans. In fact, our Fuhrer thinks very highly of your country, he would not wish to be the cause of any unpleasantness between our two nations."

"Right," Chris replied, reaching the same conclusion as Vin. She'd kill them alright, and she'd take a great deal of pleasure doing it. He could see it in her eyes. "Okay, I guess I don't have much choice. You want the Aegis, you got it."

Chris lifted up the satchel in which the Aegis was kept, carefully ensuring the enemy knew he was making no effort to pull a double-cross. Not that he could. If Chris went for a gun, he'd be dead before he pulled the trigger. Instead, he removed the Aegis from its satchel. Once again Chris caught his reflection in the polished bronze, now appearing even brighter in the afternoon sun. Peeling away the leather, he slipped his arm into the enarmes...

Perhaps it was the ease in which Larabeewas handing over the shield after being so insistent on keeping one step ahead of her that made Isabella Krauss realise something was wrong. As the shield was exposed to the sunlight, she saw its gleaming magnificence, and the image cast against its face seemed almost alive. Even though it was nothing more than the face of a woman sculpted in bronze, for a second Krauss thought she saw the snakes in the Medusa's hair come alive, writhing around her face like they were reacting to the heat of the day.

Then the Medusa's eyes blinked open and in that instant, Krauss realised she had been tricked.

But it was too late.

Isabella Krauss opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out because her tongue had turned into stone.

And soon after, the rest of her.

*All who seek home, enter

**Fire

Epilogue

"Vin!"

Alexandra Styles waved happily when the doors of the plane finally swung open, and she saw Vin Tanner emerging from the Darlin' Millie.

She received the telegram from England a day ago, telling her the Millie was expected to set down on American soil with scant details on how their trip to find the Aegis had ended. Not that it mattered, Alex was grateful enough to have Vin back in one piece, after getting a taste of how dangerous his adventures abroad could be. Unlike Mary Travis, Alex did not crave joining Vin on these expeditions, aware her presence would only give him one more thing to worry about in tense situations.

Besides, it just made their reunions so much sweeter.

During his trip away, Alex busied herself with the preparations she needed to make for her eventual move to Albuquerque. As intended, her interview with the Sisters of Mercy had gone exceedingly well, and the arrangement for her internship was set. Upon completion of her medical degree in New York, she would be relocating to town to take up the position at the hospital and be closer to Vin.

"Alex!"

Vin made no effort to hide his joy at seeing her as he exited the plane, now in its usual place in the private hangar at the West Mesa Airstrip in Albuquerque. Descending the steps leading from the door, he crossed the distance between them ahead of the remaining seven and practically swept her off her feet when they finally embraced. Pressing his lips to hers and feeling Alex's arms circling his neck was the best possible conclusion for what had been a strange journey with a horrific climax.

For a few seconds, nothing existed for them except each other. Not the amused glances of his friends as they disembarked the plane, the somewhat bracing wind rushing through the open hangar doors or even the knowledge their time together would be short. After so many months, it still astonished him her power over him and how only in her presence, a hidden corner of his heart seemed to come alive whenever he saw her.

"How are you, Darlin'?" Vin asked, pulling away from her when the footsteps and voices of the others emerging from the aircraft became audible penetrating the fog of their warm greeting. "Did you do everything you needed doing?"

"Yes. I got the internship, so when I get back from New York, I'll be starting at the Sisters of Mercy hospital."

"That's great," Vin grinned, thrilled at the idea of having her in the same town as him. While he was no teenager mooning after her when they were apart, he could not deny having her close by was wonderful. "When do you have to head back?

"In three days," she frowned, clearly disappointed by the reality of their present, despite the hope for the future. "But at least we'll have tonight and tomorrow together, right?"

"Right," Vin was similarly disappointed at that, but also knew they would put the time to good use. Besides, it was handy having a gal who didn't mind him taking off for extended periods because she had her own life to live. From what Alex had mentioned about it, she would have barely time to think during her internship, let alone be concerned about how much time she had to spend with him.

"How was your trip? Did you find the Aegis?"

Mention of the Aegis sobered his elated mood, and a cold shudder ran down his spine at the mention of the ancient artifact. "Yeah," he nodded, "we found it."

"Everyone, come out! It's safe!"

Vin was the first one out of the gully after Chris Larabee cried out and gave them the signal things were all clear. Lifting his head over the top, Vin sought out Chris first and saw the leader of the seven quickly sealing the Aegis inside the leather satchel once more. What he saw after that, like the rest of his friends emerging from their hiding place, wiped the unflappable expression off his face immediately.

Where there had been at least ten Nazi soldiers, scattered across the clearing, armed with a varied arsenal of weapons from the Fatherland, were figures captured for all time in stone. Caught by surprise, they stood in the clearing, like an out-of-place menagerie of rock, their poses conveying a variety of expressions ranging from surprise and confusion to eventual shock and horror. For the seven and their companions, it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the power of the Aegis.

"God," Buck whispered at the realisation this garden of stone was only a short time ago filled with flesh and blood men.

"God had nothing to do with this lad," Riley whispered as he stood up after pulling himself over the top of the gully to witness the scene before them.

Julia, clutching Ezra's hand, walked gingerly towards the figures, pausing only when she glimpsed Marler. The SS officer wore an expression of grotesque fear. For a moment, she was reminded of the gargoyles that adorned so many of the old manors in England. The look of terror on his face, perhaps at the last moment realising what was happening to him, made her take a step closer to Ezra.

JD, on the other hand, felt no such anxiety when he approached the statue of Isabella Krauss.

If one did not know this was once a human being, the statue of the Nazi scientist might have been considered a work of art no different than any found in the important museums across Europe. Yet JD knew better. Wearing an inscrutable mask, none of his companions was able to read, a surge of satisfaction coursed through him as he stared into the face of the woman who threatened to take his eyes.

Did she realise at the last minute the prize she so sought after wasn't just some artifact, but the remnants of a creature whose power she was about to experience personally? He would have liked to have known her thoughts in those final moments and realised if Mary was right, if the victims of the Gorgons were aware of what was happening to them, then he had one card left to play.

"JD?" Buck looked at him in concern, feeling uneasy at the expression across the younger man's face because he was unable to read JD at that moment, which was unusual. "Are you okay?

JD was carrying a shotgun, liberated from Nathan who was busy tending to Josiah in the gully and did not utter a word when he raised the weapon and blasted the statue's head off.

The thunderous boom took everyone by surprise. Anyone who wasn't aware of where JD was, jumped. As fragments of rock and dust created a white cloud around him, when it cleared, they saw JD standing in front of the headless statue, set apart from all the others now. While most present were shocked by the vicious display from the usually unassuming young man, Vin who had been sitting next to JD when Krauss was seconds away from taking his sight, was unsurprised.

"Yeah, Buck," JD lowered the gun, "I feel fine now."

"Mary!"

Alex saw Chris helping Mary out of the plane, looking off-colour, with Nathan following closely holding a pair of crutches, she looked at Vin in question. As far as Alex knew, Mary had gone back to New York, probably in a huff because Chris denied her request to join the expedition. Now in hindsight, she supposed she ought to have known better. There was no way Mary would ever take no for an answer, but by barging her way onto the trip, appeared to have become injured in the process.

"She stowed away," Vin shrugged.

"Oh God give me strength," Alex rolled her eyes, wondering why she was surprised by the stubborn recklessness of her best friend and hurried to join them when Mary, Chris and Nathan reached the hangar floor. "What happened to you? Aside from your boneheaded play of stowing onboard?"

"No comment," Chris deadpanned.

"Hey!" Mary scowled at Alex. "Spare me the lecture. I've suffered enough already."

"What happened?" Alex directed her question at Nathan, who would be best to give her the answer she wanted, not so much about the cause but the result.

"She got stung by a poisoned arrow," Nathan explained.

"Naturally," Alex shook her head, somewhat pleased with how well she took that outlandish snippet of intelligence.

"Honestly Alex," Mary grumbled, even though she made no effort to remove the arm Chris had securely around her waist. "I'm fine, you don't have to treat me like I'm some sort of helpless female."

"Yeah, you're ready for a marathon alright."

Chris wasn't about to let her go, not after how close he came to losing her back on that island. They'd spent three days at Madeira, with the seven aside from Josiah who had injuries almost as bad, scouring the length of the archipelago trying to find a way to save her life when the local physicians were baffled by her condition.

For the three days that almost felt like years, Chris watched the fever burn through her, nearly reduced to praying to God didn't see fit to take away another woman he loved.

"Chris!"

Nathan's urgent cry made Chris completely forget what he saw when the Aegis did its worst on Isabella Krauss and her soldiers. Dropping the Aegis, now completely sheathed in its case, he hurried to the gully where Nathan and the others had gone to give the rest of the seven his warning to stay down and keep their eyes closed. When he reached the gully, his first thought was Josiah who was lying against the wall of the trench, his shirt stained with blood but it took a split second to see it wasn't Josiah that caused Nathan's panic. It was Mary.

She was lying across the ground, shaking like a leaf, her luminescent skin almost grey now. Oblivious to them, she continued to shiver, her body bouncing against the mud like animal twitching its last.

"I don't know," Nathan answered, forced to leave Josiah's side to deal with this new crisis. "One minute she was fine and then she started seizing like this. Christ, she's burning up."

How could she have deteriorated so fast? Chris could count how many minutes ago the woman was nagging in his ear, telling him repeatedly just because she needed his help with her injured leg, she wasn't a helpless female, before going on to explain all the things women could do now and she was thoroughly modern...

"Chris," JD's voice spoke up, interrupting that memory. The kid, like the rest of his comrades, had come to investigate after hearing Nathan's hollering. "If Mary was hit by one of the arrows used by the Gorgons, she might be poisoned by their blood."

"What?" Buck burst out. "Gorgons? As in real ones?"

Why was he surprised? Buck thought a second later. They had just escaped the Minotaur, why would the presence of a Gorgon be any more unbelievable?

"Yeah," JD answered the pilot. "There were two of them. Stheno and Euryale, you should have seen them..."

"JD!" Vin said sharply, able to see Chris was about to go off like a stick of dynamite.

"Sorry," JD apologised and turned to Chris, who was cradling Mary in his arms, appearing as helpless as they all felt at seeing the spirited woman in this state.

"Nathan, help her!" Chris demanded, unable to stand seeing her like this. She was no longer conscious of them, her eyes rolling so far back, all he could see were the whites.

"Chris, I don't even know what we're dealing with!" Nathan wanted desperately to help, but he had no idea how. Perhaps if he was a real doctor, he might have some idea what caused such symptoms, but he did not.

"There's gotta be something," Chris stared at him, unable to believe this pain in the ass could go out like this. She deserved better.

"Mithridatium!" JD burst out.

"What?" Nathan stared at him incredulously, perfectly aware of what JD was talking about. "Boy, are you crazy?"

Nathan knew what it was, of course. Anyone calling themselves a healer was aware of it. Mithridatium, a poison antidote created by Mithridate IV, almost two thousand years ago, had been concocted because of the king’s deathly fear of poisoning. Legend had it, the antidote was capable of combating all forms of poison and had been used by physicians as late as the 19th century.

"What is it?" Chris demanded, willing to try anything. Mary's seizures were starting to wane, but she remained incoherent and pale. It was more than he could stand.

"It's insane," Nathan bit back. "We have no idea if it would work."

"Nathan, if she's poisoned by something ancient, then maybe what we need is an antidote just as old!" JD pleaded his case.

"Nathan," Ezra added his voice to the debate. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. At this moment, you have no idea of what is happening to her, and if young JD's suggestion can save her, why not?"

They were right, Nathan realised. They had nothing to lose.

"Alright," Nathan looked at Chris. "But if we're going to do this fool thing, we have to get back to the mainland right now. I have no idea how much time we have, and you don't make this stuff by going to the grocery store."

Alex's eyes were wide as saucers at Nathan's revelation.

"You're joking. Mithriadatum? It's practically an old wives tale!"

"I know," Nathan agreed, "but it worked."

JD's suggestion required them returning to the Madeira as quickly as possible. Fortunately, when they returned to the Magellan, they found the craft emptied. The U-boat remained, but the Germans on board made no attempt to stop them. Riley suspected there was barely enough crew onboard to run the craft, let alone attempt to pursue them. The ship could hold no more than twenty-five crew and the numbers Vin, Josiah, Buck and Riley left on the beach had amounted to half a dozen, to say nothing of the souls lost to the Aegis.

Returning to Madeira, Josiah was quickly attended to at the hospital. While the older man's injuries were grievous, Nathan who knew all about keeping soldiers alive on the battlefield long enough to get to a hospital, ensured he was stabilised enough to survive the trip to Madeira. Mary's condition left the esteemed doctors at Madeira hospital baffled, with no idea how to treat her. She was suffering some kind of virulent infection burning her inside out, but no drugs they possessed seemed capable of fighting it.

In the end, it was left to the seven to source out the ingredients needed, from every apothecary, herbalist and botanists across the island. When the parts were finally located, all fifty-six of them which included exotic fares such as acacia juice, gentian root, cassia and frankincense, it was JD, the closest thing they had to a chemist, who mixed up the concoction in a honey base, with Nathan's help.

"Absolutely," Mary insisted as they made their way to Chris's car outside in the parking lot. "I'm fine now. Besides, I've had it with sitting still for so long."

"No, kidding," Chris rolled his eyes. "I hadn't noticed. You haven't shut up since you got on the plane."

"Oh God," Buck Wilmington groaned after he, Josiah, JD and Ezra made their belated exit from the Millie. Buck and JD helped Josiah down the steps, while Ezra made sure the man didn't take a tumble forward as he descended the short flight to the floor of the hangar. "Are you two still at it? Mating alligators don't go as hard as it as you two!"

"That bad?" Alex glanced at Buck.

"Enough to test the patience of any number of saints," Ezra remarked, just as sick of hearing the two bicker as the rest of his comrades.

"Hilarious Buck," Mary made a face. "You are off my Christmas card list."

Buck merely grinned that inane grin that always made Chris want to wipe off with his fist.

"Come on Josiah," JD said, leading the man out of the building with Buck continuing to flank him. "We'll drive you back to your flop."

"And I'll be staying over for a few days," Nathan added. "You can't be left alone in your condition."

The big man was taking careful steps ahead, hating to be so weak but unable to deny his condition did demand assistance for a few days at least. "You better not snore."

Before Nathan could answer, JD piped up as they continued out. "And maybe we can get that pretty school teacher to come to visit you. I'm telling you, she likes you, Josiah!"

"I swear," Josiah growled as they disappeared from view. "I'll shoot you."

Laughing as they watched the trio leave, Alex turned back to Vin and the others. "So, what happened with Miss Pemberton? Was she really a spy like you thought?"

All eyes shifted to Ezra at the mention of Julia Pemberton, the spy who so obviously captured his heart, and knew part of the reason for Ezra's melancholy on the return trip home, a rarity in itself, was because he was missing her terribly.

"She was nothing like what I thought," Ezra replied thoughtfully. "Nothing at all."

"I guess this is it."

Three days and nights in Madeira had come and gone with them spending it in hospital rooms or scouring all manner of establishments, to locate the ingredients Nathan needed to save Mary's life. There had been no room to breathe, no time to think of what came next when everyone was fixed on that one purpose. As the group's chief procurer, Ezra had pooled all his resources to get what Nathan needed, because some of the fifty-six items require for the mithridatium was rather hard to come by. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Mithridates had managed to acquire them without the aid of the Air Postal service.

When it was all said and done though, Mary was on the mend and Julia revealed it was time for her and Riley to get back to England.

"I guess so Miss Pemberton," Ezra said, holding her hands in his, and wishing not to let go as he stared into those pools of emerald, wanting to be lost in them forever. They were standing at the local airport as she prepared to board an aircraft back to England, with Riley waiting a discreet distance away to allow them to say their goodbyes in privacy. "I must confess I find it most difficult to say farewell. I have become rather accustomed to your presence in my life."

Julia broke into a radiant smile. "You know," she leaned over and kissed him chastely on the lips. "For an American, you have the amazing ability to sound like a Jane Austen novel."

"Well, I am a man of good fortune," Ezra smiled, but it lacked its typical sardonic tone because he felt gloomy knowing she was going. The woman had been a staple of his thoughts for several months and while he had resigned himself to believing the reality would not be equal to the fantasy, meeting her in the flesh had proved otherwise.

"Surely not in need of a wife," Julia teased.

Ezra dropped his gaze to his expensive wingtips, "I would not say that."

She lifted his chin and smiled as their eyes touched. "I shall not be a stranger Ezra." She pressed his palm against the silk blouse she was wearing. "You are in my heart, Mr Standish, so I will never be far away."

"I have no idea how to contact you," Ezra stared at her. "And considering what you do for a living, I would like to know how you are faring, saving the world in your patriotic pursuits. Perhaps even put pen to paper to compose some suitable prose."

"You can send your letters to my family home. My father will see to it I get them." Julia answered touched by the affection she saw in his eyes and knew whatever this thing between them was, it was real, and it might even stand the test of their time apart.

"And I can expect any return correspondence?" Ezra asked, hopefully.

"What do you think?" She smiled and leaned in for a kiss.

As Ezra leaned forward to return her affection, he couldn't help but think his life had just gotten a great deal more interesting."

"And the Aegis?"

The artifact over which this entire affair had begun was conspicuously absent from their conversation as the group left the hangar, ready to head back to town for a few days of well-deserved rest.

"Don't look at me," Mary shrugged, having asked the question repeatedly when she woke up days later in Madeira, when the worst of her fever was over and received a vague answer from Chris and upon further inquiry, learned none of the seven was eager to talk about it either. She had no idea what had taken place on the island, only that somehow they had managed to elude the Nazis to make it to the mainland in one piece. "They won't tell me anything."

"There's nothing to tell. We delivered it where it needed to be." Vin shrugged, and Alex could tell immediately it was far from the truth.

In fact, as she observed Nathan, Ezra and Chris, she saw a shadow over their faces, telling her that it was best to avoid probing further. After the incident with the Erran and the Tablet of Destiny, Alex concluded some mysteries should remain secret. Even though she would soon be a medical doctor, Alex would never be able to say with certainty, the world they saw every day, was the only one in existence.

"To the British Government?" Mary inquired because she was still recovering from her fevered state when Julia Pemberton had departed Madeira. Had she and Mr Riley taken the Aegis with them?

"No," Chris said firmly, the memory of what he had seen burned so deeply into his consciousness, he had made up his mind the second Isabella Krauss uttered her last breath, what he was going to do with the Aegis. "It's somewhere no one is ever going to get their hands on it."

SOMEWHERE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC.

From the height it was dropped, the Aegis struck the choppy water of the North Atlantic so hard, it created a sizeable column of froth and bubbles before vanishing into the sea.

Secured with diving weights, the Aegis remained in its leather satchel, never seeing the light of day as it plunged through the sky, abandoned by the Folker F20 in mid-flight. Once it reached the ocean, it sank fast, moving through the depths past the indifferent shoals of fish and larger predators who determined very quickly, it was nothing perfect to eat.

It travelled beyond the light, disappearing into the darkness where not even the sunlight penetrated, past the galleons of old, the forests of seaweed and the vast mountains no man could climb. Eventually, it passed from all thought into the deep contours of the world. The end of its journey was witnessed by a lone member of the Grimpoteuthis family, someday to be renamed after a fictional airborne pachyderm, when it landed on the seabed.

The creature displayed mild curiosity at the new arrival, pausing long enough to probe the leather with its stunted tentacles, before determining it was an excellent place to store her eggs when it was time to breed.

But that was for later. When she was ready, the Aegis would be waiting.

THE END

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