Page 30 of Hallow Hill at Halloween: Part Two

Still, few creatures give up life without a fight and Lorcans were no exception. Those final moments of volley between defiance and pleading haunted him whenever he let his compartmentalizing focus falter. If he couldn’t keep the memories locked down, it led to self-doubt. And self-doubt about killing one’s own kind was anguish.

Rita had learned shortly after brushing against the supernatural world that morality wasn’t a thing with magic-kind. Nonetheless, Jeff was sensitive to issues of right and wrong, and lived with enough guilt to cripple a weaker person.

Capture and release was the metaphor Jeff chose as a way to think about his job. He knew the elders who’d outlived sanity were in torment and knew that he was saving them fromthat and chose to believe that their spirits moved on to another adventure. Still, he was haunted by the prospect of what if there wasn’t another adventure and he’d simply ended the lives, the only lives, of Lorcans. He’d become practiced at brushing that last thought away. So much so, that whenever the moral conflict came, always unbidden, he was braced and prepared for it.

Self-doubt? Think about how to handle the lagging supply of the pub’s most popular ale.

“Are you following?”Jeff asked Bulent.

“On you,”the gargoyle chief replied.

“Where do you think she’s going?”

“Too erratic to speculate.”

“I’d say it was a merry chase if Rita’s condition wasn’t grim.”

“You call the judge Rita?”

“She’s a neighbor and a friend. Comes to the pub where I work and I see a lot of her.”

“Ahhhhh.”After a slight pause, Bulent said,“She’s come up for air.”

Bulent was referring to the fact that she’d emerged from the plane of human consciousness where nightmares are found.

“Guesses?” Jeff asked.

“She’s probably going straight for her body thinking she can better defend herself in the flesh.”

“My thought as well. That could save us some trouble and put her right where we want her.”

“If fortune be with us.”

“Hear that.”

Medusa did indeed flee to her prison and found her body just as she’d left it. Jeff arrived an instant later but remained outside the confines of her cell. The guards were soshocked to have a visitor that they remained motionless for a second before regaining their wits and dropping to their knees.

It took Jeff a few heartbeats to remember they were behaving that way because they thought he was Athena.

Wild-eyed and furious, Medusa and all her reptile appendages hissed at the visage of Athena. Without warning and with an ear-splitting scream, she threw herself against the barrier which made Jeff and the two guards reflexively fall back.

Jeff reached for the pouch of powder that contained the sedating charm. As he was doing so, he said, “Calm yourself. I’m here to change you back to your maiden form.”

Medusa went stock still. “Change me?” She spoke in ancient Greek but, as Athena, Jeff understood her perfectly.

Jeff had the powder ready to send her way, but stopped. He felt a tickle of intuition that made him hesitate.

“What the hell.” It wasn’t a question. It was a surrender. Even though he thought it was a ridiculous notion, he had the idea that maybe, just maybe, in some kind of bizarre universe somewhere, he might be able to do more than simple look like Athena.

Turning to face Medusa, who had indeed grown still and calm, he said, “I take from you all the worse and neutralize the perverse. Obey me now, powers that be, reverse the curse and set her free.”

As he spoke, Jeff thought he felt himself growing in both power and size, even though he didn’t actually change physically. It felt like a pilot light had been ignited in his core, ready to be called upon for any whim a god might have. It was seductive, but also uncomfortable and he’d be glad to leave Athena behind.

Medusa gasped as she was changed back to the young demigoddess she’d been before her nightmare began. For thefirst time in millennia, she heard no hissing, felt no writhing, and was pain free.

“Well,”said Bulent,“you don’t see that every day. What made you think it would work?”

“Hunch.”

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