My Evil Eye, page 12
All the lights on the ceiling shut off.
Do they think they’re blinding me? Really? How funny. I can see everything in the dark with my nose.
I hear what sounds like tin cans being thrown down the stairs. The hallway gets smoky. If I were human, this would probably be curtains. But I’m not human.
I rush across the now dark, smoky hall and burst through a stairway door. The soldiers turn in shock. They’re wearing gas masks. Is it nerve gas? Mustard? Chlorine? They used to try that when I fought soldiers on the western front.
I hold my breath and grab a soldier who’s running up the steps by the leg. He kicks and screams. Then I tear the mask right off his face and throw him down into the hall below. His lungs can go find out for themselves what they unleashed. I use his mask, but I have to move it around my cobras to fit it over my head. It’s a bit challenging, but not impossible.
Gunfire flashes along the dark stairway. A stray shot nicks my neck. Stray bullets only piss me off more.
This is a very long stairway. Beside the metal railing, there’s a gap and I can see up like twenty floors.
I rush up the steps. Now it’s easier than ever to catch them. Many of the soldiers are hiding out, and after I ascend three or four flights catching up to them, I just fling their feeble bodies through the gap in the stairs. Falling four flights surely breaks their necks or cracks their heads open.
More gunshots.
Then, all of a sudden, everything turns dark…
I smell a nutty metallic smell. The detonation is blocking out my schema of the chambers. I force my eyes open. My ears are ringing. I’m coughing and lying on my side, hanging off the side of a blown-open stairwell. They must have thrown a bomb.
I falter. The ringing in my ears won’t cease. I force myself up. There’s a gap blown open in the center of the stairwell. It’s a treacherous leap if I miss—a five-floor drop. I’d survive, of course, but it’d be hella painful.
I leap…and make it. Then I race up the stairs to kill the rest of them.
I grab more legs, hurling them down. I rip the rifle from the strap of a soldier and use the butt of the gun to alter his face. More shots echo. They flash in the darkness. Eventually, I have climbed nearly thirty stories—I’ve lost count, but the drop between the steps is pitch black. I can’t see the smoke at the bottom anymore—I’m too high up.
At the top, at the end of a hallway, I stop by a double door. I stop because the rest of the Imada army, like fifty of them, are lying on the ground with guns pointing, waiting for me to cross the threshold. This could be it. This could be the end for good ole Medusa.
I sniff the chamber through the walls and gaze with my mind’s eye at every soldier in the room. There are Doric columns along the chamber and… ah, I remember, I remember this room now. This is Apollo’s throne room. This is where I met the jerk when I first arrived.
But this is a side entrance near his dais. From here, I sense his throne to my left behind the door. But he’s not there—at least, nobody’s sitting on the throne.
I have only one choice—to move as fast as I can. If I retreat, I’m buried anyway.
After a deep breath, I charge through the doors.
A flash of green makes me squint. It’s coming from my own eyes. Now I recall the silvery walls by his throne. My eyes, now brighter than ever, flash along the reflective walls of Dellon’s chamber. Were they gold or silver? They were something shiny. Now they’re glowing from my bright emerald eyes. And I’m so pissed that the green light is blinding. I sense the room, more than see it, with my nose. Only a few soldiers are wearing infrared goggles. They’re the only ones who don’t become petrified. Everyone else instantly freezes.
Hey, what do you know? It’s not my end after all. And, well, being that it’s Dellon’s court, there are quite a few wigglies moving about the floor too. That’s convenient. The snakes can take care of those stray soldiers I can’t mesmerize.
Come, lovelies. Come and help mommy, Medusa, stop the mean soldiers.
I shall attack them one by one with the help of my little friends. One at a time. Just as before, I’ll go after each and every one. Ready? You remember the chains, don’t you? Oh, yeah.
One…
16
THE BEACH
I knock on Ash’s front door. He’s staying in this cute one-story house, just like mine, probably of the same construction because we live on the same street. I know Ash is here because the first thing I did when I woke up in the middle of a grassy field in Arkansas was beg the first guy I saw, on a nearby highway, to lend me his phone. Then I called that asshole who let me loose on Imada. When Hades got on the line, I didn’t let him talk, couldn’t stand his voice. I just asked for one thing: Ash’s address.
God, I’m frantic. I’m so worried about Ash.
I readjust the bun on my head, straighten my granny sweater and thick glasses, and wait. Yeah, I stopped for, like, five minutes at my house to get dressed in my second librarian outfit. I didn’t have my key, but the wall was still boarded up so it wasn’t hard to break in.
You want to know what happened to me after I went berserko in Dellon’s lair? Beats the hell out of me. It must have been pretty gnarly, because I black out when things start to get gross. I remember coming home on lots of buses though. It took two days to get home. Why, do you ask? I had to ride only at night and hide like a vagrant during the day because of my hair.
This short, chubby brown-haired guy with a black-and-blue tie-dye T-shirt and shorts opens the door, and light floods the darkness outside. He furrows his brow and stares at me as I look down.
“Is Ash here?” I ask quietly.
“You know him?”
I nod.
“Uh…” He’s looking me over. He’s like examining me, which I really don’t like. Finally, he says, “No. He’s not.” But I smell another human inside. I recognize the scent. I look around the guy who opened the door. The light’s bright inside and a TV is blaring.
“He’s not here,” the creep says again, leaning forward.
I reposition my glasses, stand straighter, and say, “Can you tell him I stopped by? Tell him I can meet him at my place. Tell him—”
“No, I don’t think…” He stops midsentence and develops this grimace. “Wait, you’re the lady who works in the library, right?”
“Gorgi?” cries a voice behind him.
It’s Ash. I literally push the jerk to the side and walk in. Asher runs straight into my arms. We hold each other tight for a moment.
I step out of Ash’s arms and look down. “I was meeting your friend.”
“Dale, this is Gorgiana,” Ash says.
“That’s Gorgiana?” he asks. “Oops.”
“This is my best friend, Dale,” Ash says. “Come in. Come in.”
“God, Ash,” I say, “I was so worried about you.”
“Me too. I kept going by your house again.” He looks down and sees my shoes. I’m not wearing any. I told you I was in a rush. Worse, my feet are caked in filth.
“Sorry,” I say, looking down with a shrug. I probably smell too. I told you I rushed over to make sure he was okay.
“I’m just so happy you’re okay, Gorgi. Come in.”
I catch Dale shaking his head as I walk over to the adjoining kitchen. It’s a simple kitchen separated from the living room by a counter, just like my place. Well, Dale’s written me off as a freak. I guess I won’t be pals with Ash’s best friend.
“I’m so sorry, Ash,” I say.
“Why say that? You didn’t cause any trouble. We were attacked. I went to the police and filed a missing person’s report, but they weren’t of any help. Like I told you, I rode by your house every day since Sunday. I knocked on your door a thousand times—”
“You’re so cute.”
“I was worried.”
“I’m fine.”
He nods. But he doesn’t look like he believes me.
“Ash, what’s the last thing you remember after I left?”
“I woke up in the parking lot,” he says with a shrug. “I remember guys in black suits bringing us to a truck before that. And I would have rushed them if one of them didn’t have a gun stuck in my back.”
“I know you would.”
“Then I just woke up on the ground.”
“But you don’t remember seeing me in the truck?”
“No. Should I?”
Oh, thank God. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t recall being thrown into a trance. He still thinks I’m human.
Now I can just go. But I don’t want to go.
“Did they do anything to you, Gorgi?” He leans down and looks in my eyes with such concern. It’s sort of safe because I’m wearing my thick library spectacles, but he’s looking closely enough that he could freeze. I turn.
“I was rescued by my family,” I say.
“What sort of family do you belong to?”
I really don’t know how to answer that. But I’ve dealt with this sort of stuff a million times before. I simply look down and act coy. Then I don’t say anything.
“Okay,” he says. He buys it, for now. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“I’m fine, Ash.”
I look up a smidgeon. He’s squinting. I brush the bangs from my eyes.
“What?” I ask with a smile.
“I’m trying to figure you out. You’re such a mystery.” I hear Dale scoff in the background, like a dick. “You have to be the most mysterious girl I’ve ever dated.”
“I like you, Ash,” I say with a nod. And that’s a stupid thing to say. Nothing like being forward with a man. I mean, when you’re a pathologically shy librarian. But that’s what he said to me at the club.
I hold my hands together, playing with my fingers. In my periphery, I see his friend drinking from a milk carton and staring at us. He really doesn’t like me.
“You want a drink or something?” Ash asks.
I shake my head. “I’d rather go to the beach. You said you like that. It’s not far from here. You’d have to drive, though. I don’t drive. You want to, Ash? You want to go to the beach?”
“Gorgiana?” he asks with a big smile.
“Yeah? What?”
“It’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“Oh,” I say with a coy smile. “But you said you like the beach. And there’s something I want to talk to you about.” Then I look up at him and show him my eyes straight on. Yes, I’m wearing glasses, so a glance doesn’t make him freeze, but I can still mesmerize him if I look deeply enough. Okay, using my cursed eyes to get my way is deceitful and wrong. But, hey, I really want to walk with him tonight, even if it’s late for him. Selfish? Sneaky? Manipulative? Sure. But hey, I’m a monster.
He freezes for just a second, then—
“Okay,” he says. “Sure, why not?” Then he chuckles. “Wait a second. Let me go get my coat.”
“Don’t forget the sunscreen,” says his dickhead roommate.
“I’m different.”
He laughs. That hurts a little because I’m trying to confide in him. He quickly loses his smile when he glances at my profile under a streetlight.
We’re holding hands walking along a sidewalk. I feel the salty air brush against my face and I hear the waves. We’re not far from the water. I love the beach, you know, just like Cora. I just can’t go during the day. I meander along this walkway near the sand all the time in the early morning before sunrise. It’s just, I usually don’t have company. You get it. Now I have to explain this to my new human friend. I mean, I don’t have to, but I want to. But telling him I’m different wasn’t supposed to be funny.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, but you are different,” he says with a shrug. “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
“No.”
“Our first time out, the shyest girl I’ve ever met got in front of a hundred people and transformed into a rock star,” he says. “Then she jumped me.”
“Sorry, but you’re cute,” I say with a shrug.
“The next time I went out with you, I had a gun stuck in my back.”
“That wasn’t cute.”
I stop and look at the waves. See, I don’t want to tell him, because I’ve done this a hundred times before. It’s not like I’ve taken a vow of silence about my identity. That’s not it. I know what you’re thinking.
You just went to his house, Gorgiana, not only to make sure he was okay, but to make sure he didn’t see you transform. Now you’re planning on telling him about who you are!
Yeah. Well, I like him. And now I want to risk it.
Or do I?
If a guy’s special, and a bit weird, he won’t run home when I show him who I am. But if he’s normal—and this boy has that long blond surfer hair and looks very normal—Asher will suddenly remember that he has to study tomorrow and will take me home. Then he’ll avoid me forever. I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to talk to the police and get that creep Hades to rescue me from the police station. But if he’s normal, and he jets, that’s good too because then I won’t live with the pain of love. Because I am immortal, and all mortal men I fall in love with eventually die. That’s why that Justin Bieber song I love is so wonderful, but so awfully sad for me. Do you get it?
You don’t? Well, I don’t either. I hate love.
“What is it?” he asks quietly. We’ve been walking in silence for a little while now.
“Do you like Greek mythology?”
“Sure. I’m an English major.”
“That must be why you like books? Like me?”
“Yeah.”
I fumble with my fingers. Then he grabs one of my hands.
We walk on. I listen to that glorious sound of waves rolling in again. Then I look around us. All I see is a few lights on buildings by the shore. No one is on the walkway at this time—not in a college town in the summer in the middle of the night.
“What would you say, Ash…if I told you that it’s real. All of it. In fact, some of those people that you call Greek or Roman “gods and goddesses” are living and doing things like you do every day? Like going to the beach, working in office cubicles, serving at restaurants or…shelving books in libraries in universities?”
His hand twitches in mine a little. His muscles tighten. The creepiness is settling in, and we’re almost to that point of no return; I like to call this “tight or flight.” He either gets close to me or leaves. Because it’s such an important moment, and I haven’t had someone close to me in over two decades, my hand shakes too.
“What are you trying to say?” he asks almost in a whisper. He stops walking.
“I’m not only different. I’ve been here for a long time, Ash. I mean, I’ve lived on this earth for a very long time.”
We face each other and he nods seriously. Then he gesticulates for me to go on.
“I’m pretty old.”
“Just say what you’re trying to say.” Asher closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Just say it. Please.”
“Medusa.”
“Huh?”
“Medusa,” I say with a nod.
“What are you talking about?”
“Medusa. You asked me to just say it. There. That’s it. Medusa.”
“And? What about Medusa?”
“You’re standing in front of her.”
“Maybe I should take you home.”
See. There it is. I told you.
“Yeah, probably,” I say, lowering my head.
“Damn it, Gorgi!” I jump from his outburst. “It’s so crazy being around you. I don’t totally mind.” He laughs, but in an odd angry-nervous sort of way. “I mean, even the theater turned out okay—but I keep looking around thinking we might get jumped. You’re scaring me.”
“I won’t let that happen to you ever again. I promise.”
“What are you talking about? What about Medusa?”
See. You can tell someone right to their face the real stuff going on, and they still won’t believe you. Especially if it involves magic. Nobody believes in magic anymore. Let’s not even talk about religion.
In the olden days, he’d have immediately jumped to the conclusion that I’m a witch. He’d be planning with his friends to tie me to a tree and light a nice cozy bonfire under my bare feet. Then again, a few centuries ago, he probably would have considered that the first time I threw him against a wall.
“Gorgi!” he snaps again. He brings my face up, but I avert my eyes. He’s trying to search them. “What are you thinking? What are you saying?”
“Don’t look into my eyes.”
“Serious?”
“Don’t look into my eyes, Ash,” I say firmly with a nod. This is the worst thing he can do right now.
“Medusa?” he asks in a whisper.
“Yes, Asher,” I whisper back. “That’s my name.” I’ve turned to the ocean. And the peaceful waves. I’m wondering if I made a mistake. “I came up with Gorgiana long ago. It’s from the root word gorgon. My enemies used to call me Gorgo. I’m—” I get teary eyed. Damn, don’t cry! Stop it! “I’m a monster, Asher. My name is Medusa. I’m that same lady they talk about, the one with snakes in her hair. A monster, Ash. That’s me.”
He digs his hands in his pockets and turns from me. That’s better. At least now I can’t curse him with my cursed gaze.
“You’re not a monster, Gorgi,” he says. He shakes his head. “You’re an angel. You’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever known.”
I cry. I violently shake my head. Damn, those words are sooo sweet! Damn it! I’m such a cry baby!
I get the hell away from him. I run.
I rush in the sand toward the waves. Part of me considers swimming. I could. I could just go out there along the aquamarine horizon—well, it’s just a dark shadow right now, but I always imagine it as aquamarine—and see where the water takes me. I’ve done it before. I can’t drown. I mean, I could end up at the bottom, but I’ll awaken. Then my body will rise and float. See, I can’t leave this forsaken hell you call Earth no matter what I do.
I stop crying because crying disgusts me right now.
