The Gatekeeper's Sons

Chapter 23

Than waited above the abyss as, first, Alecto sprang up from the granite below with a wild look of hatred, made more horrific by the blood dripping from her beautiful, dark eyes. Next came Tizzie with a shrill cry of outrage, echoed by the howl of the great hound on whose back the Fury was straddled. Finally, up came Meg with a large falcon on her shoulder, its toothed beak dripping with blood from a recent kill.

They left the abyss and quickly emerged inside Therese's house, where the dog Clifford lay dying on the floor.

Than hastened to the dog's side and grunted, knowing what the dog's death would mean for Therese. He disintegrated and dispatched himself straightaway to Aphrodite at Mount Olympus to beg for her help.

The other Than remained with his sisters to catch and torment the men who were waiting in the shadows to ambush Therese and her aunt.

There were four of them, for Than could easily sense their presence--one for each of them, he thought, smiling. He finally understood the pleasure his sisters took in their duties. He couldn't wait to strangle the man he had heard talking about Therese.

The man had said, "So young and pretty," as he had looked at a photo of her on her dresser. "I wonder if she's a virgin. I can't wait to pinch her pretty flesh." Than had shuddered with rage and clenched his teeth at hearing those words from the man's filthy mouth.

Alecto brought the first scrawny, little human up by the neck from the master bedroom where he had been filling his pockets with jewelry, including a diamond necklace now falling from his flailing hand. Meg came up from the basement with a hairy blonde whose blue eyes now opened wide with fright, the whites of his eyes like perfect circles. He was the only fair-skinned man among them. The others were brown skinned, like Grahib.

Tizzie held her man from the back, putting her beautiful face against the side of his face and allowing the snakes that were once her hair to curl around him from behind. Than found his man in Therese's room holding the tortoise, so he had to be careful. In invisible mode, he extracted the animal from the human and then bound his hands behind his back with a leather belt. He brought his man to the main living room, where his sisters and their prey had gathered.

He watched with profound satisfaction as Meg took her falcon from her shoulder onto her finger and ordered him, "Do it!"

The falcon went up to the man that Tizzie held entwined by her snake hair, which hissed at the man and flicked its many tongues. The falcon took his toothed beak and viciously pecked one of the man's eyeballs repeatedly in the socket as the man screamed and writhed with pain. Blood poured from the gory socket when the falcon fluttered away and back to the shoulder of his mistress. The other men moaned and cried out as fiercely as the victim.

"The location of McAdams!" Alecto commanded. The man in her possession floundered and writhed.

"Please!" the man begged. "I don't know anything. Let me go!"

Meg gave another command to her falcon, which flew directly to Alecto's prisoner, and as the whites grew larger in the scrawny man's eyes, the falcon pecked one of the eyes to bits, which poured out in bloody tears down his cheek. He screamed and cried and flailed his body against Alecto's strong hold.

The falcon returned to Meg's shoulder, his beak dripping.

"We're dead either way!" the blond in Meg's possession cried. "Have mercy on me and I'll tell you where McAdams is. But don't let your bird near me, or I'll never speak!"

Meg gave the command to her falcon, which went before the blond who had just spoken and then carved out his eye with his beak.

Meg said, "Never issue ultimatums to a Fury."

"Hell 101," Tizzie said with cruel sarcasm.

Alecto laughed a rueful laugh.

Than did not share in the pleasure of his sisters as he had expected he would. He turned and looked at the frail man he held, bound at the wrists by his leather belt. "Do not tempt my sisters with arrogant words or foolish silence. Tell them where they can find McAdams. Maybe they will have mercy on you, and maybe they won't."

"There's a warehouse," the man said with heavy breaths. "In San Antonio, Texas. He has an office there on a street called Nakoma. There's a sign called 'Dougal's' on the door. The building is close to the airport. That's all I know. I swear!"