Page 28 of Hallow Hill at Halloween: Part One

What she didn’t anticipate was that the spell went a step further. Those who saw Medusa did not turn to stone. Instead, all whose names didn’t appear in the pantheon registry would instantly go irrevocably mad. Apparently, the madness took the form of causing a victim’s darkest fears to rise to their conscious minds and appear to be reality. The nonstop terror was, as said before, incurable. Those who weren’t prevented from doing so, put an end to the torment by suicide.

Tragically, Medusa wasn’t spared from suffering insanity.

The entirety of the blame was assigned to Athena with no scant scrap directed in Poseidon’s direction. After all, gods did as they pleased. Even though she was blamed, the slight recrimination barely touched Athena. After all, she was Zeus’s favorite. She could do as she pleased.

A short time later a rumor that she’d been killed by the demigod, Perseus, one of Zeus’s sons, was circulated for two reasons. First, to quell the humans’ fear that she might emerge from any random shadow and, second, to elevate Perseus to the status of hero. Win. Win. Who cared if it was true?

There was no one to rebut the tale. During her imprisonment, which was largely solitary, Medusa passed her days wishing. She wished for a reversal of the curse, so that she might once again be loved and accepted by others. If that wish wasn’t to be granted, she thought, then she’d want mortality so that she could simply die. If neither of those wishes were viable, she’d settle for revenge upon Athena. And, since she didn’t really believe either of the first two wishes were possible, she spent most of her time focused on the third.

How does one get revenge against any goddess? Add to that Athena’s political status and a sane mind would know only a fool would waste a wish on an impossibility.

Medusa was hardly in a frame of mind to execute complex, sophisticated payback plans. When it came to Athena, her damaged thought processes could only manage a chant-like repetition of one word.

Destroy.

Destroy.

Destroy.

The somewhat fuzzy picture she formed in the vision of her sad derangement resembled a portrait of Athena painted by Picasso.

Ew.

Occasionally Athena would send a blind man to sit outside the bars of Medusa’s cell, well out of the strike distance of snakes, and keep her company. None of the visitors willingly made a second appearance because Medusa had become quite single-minded. She wanted to talk about delicious ways to bring about Athena’s destruction and wouldn’t be distracted by talk of anything else.

In a classic case of self-sabotage, she drove away the company she craved and was left with her thoughts and the constant movement of snakes close to her ears, making a sound that it would driveanyonemad.

That was her life,

Until she discovered that she could dream walk.

“You’ll miss the Vampire Ball,” I said, trying not to sound like the whining of some of the actresses in Asian dramas. Keir had just told me he wanted to go hunting with his brothers.

“I’m committing to be back in plenty of time to get into my costume.”

“For sure?”

He chuckled. “Why would I lie?”

“Where are you going?”

“It’s…”

“It’s… what?”

“Not in this dimension.”

“Oh. What are you hunting? Exactly.”

“Will you accept shorthand?”

“I guess.”

“Monsters.”

“Monsters?”

“Big nasties.”

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