“Well, you can forget it!” snapped Jerry. “Come on guys—let’s go.”
“Yeah. This crap makes me sick anyway,” said McKenna, straightening up. “I don’t mind killing something for my dinner, but this!” He let go of the ram and gave it a swat. “Get lost, Rambo. It’s your lucky day.”
With a bleat the ram took off into the mist.
“Wait. Wait!” quavered the voices of the dead. “Give us our blood . . . ”
“You might as well let that sheep go,” said Cruz. “Come on. That was a path that our Frenchy ‘discovered.’ Let’s go back that way.”
With Jim McKenna leading the way, they all began leaving. Behind them, the voices of the dead began wailing. “Wait . . . we must have a blood sacrifice. You’ll never get back without us.”
A little further on, Cruz came to a sudden halt. Jerry heard a pitiful bleat, and peered around the sergeant’s shoulder.
There, lying in the path, was the ram. It should have been a lot more careful about where it ran in the mist.
“Oh jeeze,” muttered McKenna. “We’ll have to kill it. We can’t leave it to suffer.”
Medea handed him a small clay flask. “Here. Give the creature this. Force its mouth open and pour it down.”
Liz stepped into the breach. “I’ll pour, Mac. You hold the mouth open.”
The animal stilled. Medea smiled. “Now. I think I have the answer to your problem. This animal is too injured to recover. The poison you have just administered causes sleep, ending in death.”
“That’s a mercy . . . ”
“I am not finished. I am a mistress of illusions. And I have been known to deceive people about victims before. After all, I convinced the people of Corinth that a dead pig in a pretty robe was Glauce. Shall we try to deceive the spirits of the dead? Given a piece of the Ethiope’s clothing I could indeed make that ram look like him. Thus we may get what you need. But in exchange you must promise to take me to this ‘America’ place.”
Jerry took a deep breath. “We can’t promise what we can’t guarantee delivery of.”
“Yeah. Getting into the States is difficult enough even without being here. Can’t make that promise, Medea,” said Cruz.
Liz covered her eyes. “I can imagine filling in that work-permit application could be interesting.” She obviously spoke from frustrating experience.
“And without it,” muttered Jerry, “she’ll be an illegal alien.” He shrugged ruefully. “Can you imagine putting down sorceress as your occupation?”
Cruz frowned. “What about refugee status? Of course, unless we can pass her off as a Cuban, the Immigration and Naturalization Service probably won’t accept it.” For a moment, his swarthy face was creased by a scowl. “You can always count on la migra to be assholes.”
He turned back to Medea. “We’ll try. But we can’t make any guarantees.”
Medea smiled at him. “I like your honesty, more than I like glib easily broken promises like Jason’s. Swear that you will try your best to take my children and me to this place, and I will help you to the best of my skill and powers.”
Cruz nodded. “Sounds fair, hey guys?”
Lenoir sniffed. “Mademoiselle can always come to France. It is a far better place than America. And you will not have to claim that Satan is Fidel Castro in disguise to get asylum.”
* * *
“Enter then the halls of the dead, the realm of dread Hades and august Persephone,” quavered the voice. Plainly, Medea’s deception had worked.
“This is wrong,” protested Jerry. “This isn’t what happened. That was in later legends.”
Lamont shrugged. “Well, maybe it’s our break out of here. Come on. We can’t just back off . . . ”
So down they went. “At least there was none of that blood-drinking stuff,” whispered Liz. “But I thought we were underground . . . ”
It was a gloomy enough scene . . . but those were trees . . .
“We are. This is the vestibule of Persephone, with the black poplars and sterile willows again. The Gate and Cerberus should be next.”
The three-headed guard dog of Hades was monstrous. On the elephant side of Great Dane. Black venom drooled from each slobbery mouth. It grinned at them, revealing huge yellowed teeth. Thumped its tail. Then it cried “Welcome!” with a voice of brass. Then it stopped paying them any attention at all, in order to scratch.
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