“I’m a representative of the Order,” I said. “I’m investigating the disappearance of the Sisters of the Crow. This is my associate.” I nodded at Derek. “This is my other associate.” I nodded at the vampire. “I request to speak to the Oracle.”
The woman said nothing. Moments ticked by, like falling pine needles, one after another. In ancient Greece, Gorgon Medusa could turn a man to stone with her gaze. I had a nice big pine to my left. If that mask left her face, I’d make a break for it. Perseus, who finally chopped off Medusa’s head, had a mirror shield. I had nothing. Even Slayer’s blade was opaque, so no dice there.
She turned and strode into the sunshine. I followed.
* * * *
The cobbled stones of the path veered left and right in a gentle curve. The witch’s black dress swept them clean as she moved. Her mask flared to cover the back of her head like some bizarre motorcycle helmet and all I could see was a narrow strip of her dark skin right above the neckline.
A vast herb garden stretched on both sides of us; flowers and grasses were separated in rows, bordered by a dense evergreen hedge in the distance. Basil, yarrow, mint, brilliant red poppies, yellow cornflower, fuzzy bush clover, white umbrellas of elderberry…They never needed to leave the premises to look for wild plants. Most covens used the same herbs in their rituals. Very convenient when the herbs grew right by the gathering place.
My memory claimed that there was a big grassy lawn somewhere here, but beyond the herbal field rose trees, massive dogwoods and oaks tinseled with Spanish moss. The trees looked entirely too old to have grown naturally. I couldn’t recall how I knew the lawn had been there, but I remembered it. And the fountains. Many water jets shooting from the ground.
And a woman. A very tall woman who laughed a lot. Her face was a fuzzy blur in my memory.
Derek wrinkled his nose. I glanced at him.
“Animal,” he said. “Odd.”
“What kind?”
“Not sure.”
The trees parted before us, revealing a hill sitting in the middle of a large clearing. More of a kurgan, actually, rising straight up out of the herbs, like a cap of a colossal mushroom. Kudzu and grasses blanketed the hill in a green shroud, but at the very top the bedrock broke through: smooth, polished dark gray marble, tinted with swirls of malachite and flecked with gold.
If I had a marble dome that pretty, I doubt I’d let it get overgrown like that.
The Medusa impersonator circled the hill and stopped. We stopped, too. Ghastek sent the vamp up onto the hill and it perched among the kudzu like some gaunt ghoul.
Derek sneezed.
“Bless you.”
He sneezed again, pulled a canteen from his belt and washed his nostrils out.
The guide waited. We stood with her. A light breeze rippled through the tree branches. Birds sang. The sun, highly amused by our presence, did its best to barbecue us.
The vampire sprang straight into the air and landed ten feet behind us. Derek snarled. And sneezed again.
A deep rumble shook the ground. I backed away.
The grassy soil fell away in heavy slabs. The hill quaked and crept up, higher, higher. A colossal brown head emerged from underneath the kudzu, the flesh hanging from it in wrinkled folds. Two eyes stared at me, black and shining like two giant chunks of anthracite.
A tortoise.
I quested: not a shiver of magic. No scent of burning grasses associated with illusion. It was an actual living tortoise.
The curve of the gargantuan mouth widened. The jaws opened and a black maw gaped before us. I braced for a wave of turtle breath, but no discernible scents emanated from the mouth. The mother of all tortoises rested her chin on the grass and held the pose.
Okay, now I’d seen everything.
Our guide bowed her head and pointed into the tortoise.
“In there?”
She nodded.
“You want us to go into the tortoise?”
Another nod.
“It’s alive.”
Another nod.
“No.” Derek sneezed again.
“I must say it’s a bit irregular.” Ghastek’s voice vibrated with excitement. It’s easy to be deliriously happy about investigating something, when you’re in no danger of being swallowed.
I glanced at the vamp. “How fast can you rip it apart if it eats us?”
“The shell is quite thick. We’d have to exit back through the neck. If it withdraws its head, we’ll have to carve through a lot of flesh.”
“In other words, if it eats us, we’re screwed.”
“Crude but accurate.”
I faced the guide. “Are you coming with us?”
She shook her head.
Nice plan. Take the gullible outsiders, walk them around for a bit, then feed them to the giant tortoise. The tortoise is full, the outsiders are dealt with, and everybody’s happy.