Free Tears of the Furies (A Novel of the Menagerie) by Thomas E. Sniegoski Christopher Golden

eyes tightly and drew a breath to steady himself. Then he pulled
her head toward him and placed his lips over hers in a grotesque kiss. Lifting
and tilting her head all at once, he drank the rainwater from the mouth of the
dead girl as though her skull was his goblet.
    "Dear God, Gull! What are you doing?"
    Startled, he let the girl’s head drop, leaving her wedged
into the railing, and crossed over the small gap above the coupling to the
second Pullman car, turning all in the same motion to face the figure who had
appeared so suddenly behind him. The horror and disgust in the new arrival’s
tone was engraved upon his features as well, but the man did not seem
surprised. It was, rather, as though his discovery of Gull in the midst of such
an apparently odious act only confirmed what he had always believed.
    "Well, well, well . . ." Gull said, feeling the
magick working within him, feeling the thoughts and feelings of the dead girl
fill him. Her name had been Carolyn but everyone called her Cass. She was from
Derbyshire. The sorcerer had stolen her from her own bed before coming to
London to kill the king.
    "Speak up, man!" the other demanded.
    Even as Gull continued on. "If it isn’t Sir Arthur."
    Conan Doyle flinched. Rain dripped from his mustache,
plastering it to his face. Gull wanted to smile at the sight of the distaste in
his eyes, but he was too connected now to the echo of the girl that was inside
him. Still, he saw it. Even as he tried to make sense of what he’d found Gull
engaged in, Conan Doyle was bristling at the insult. For during the coronation
ceremony, he had been knighted by the king. The man had spent his life in
service to his country as a doctor, a writer, and an outspoken private citizen,
working tirelessly against the enemies of the Crown, but disdained the idea of
a reward. In truth he had accepted only to avoid insult to the king, and the
wrath of his aging mother.
    Gull knew this, and it made him all the more bitter. Conan
Doyle was his friend and his fellow apprentice to Sanguedolce, but he had not
the other man’s station or experience. He would have sacrificed almost anything
for such an honor.
    "I’ll have an answer," Conan Doyle said, the
suspicion in his gaze now burning with a crackle of blue magick. The energy
misted from his eyes and sparked around his fingers.
    "Ah, you think me the villain now," Gull said. "Of
course. The freak, the twisted one, is tainted so he must be evil. You’re so
very predictable, Sir Arthur."
    "Stop calling me that!" Conan Doyle snarled.
    A fight was in the offing. But Gull knew they could not
afford the indulgence. The true villain was escaping, and the dead, violated
flesh of the innocent he had destroyed was only growing colder.
    "My name is Cass," he said . . . but it was not
really Gull who spoke. His mouth moved, and he generated the words as if
reading them from the echoes of the dead girl’s spirit that moved within him,
but it was her voice.
    The Voice of the Dead.
    "He is a tall man, thin, and he wears spectacles. His
jacket is long and fancy. His name is Graham," Gull went on, the sweet,
angelic voice of the murdered girl issuing from his lips.
    Conan Doyle recoiled, taking a step back into the open
door of the Pullman. "What black sorcery is this, Gull? This is the gift
you received from Anubis, the power for which you let yourself be disfigured?"
    "Only one of them," Gull replied, still in the
voice of the dead girl. "Only one. And would you not listen, now, Arthur? Is
your disdain so great you will not hear the voice of this savaged child, so
that we might find her defiler?"
    Conan Doyle’s mouth opened, his expression revealing his
intent to deliver a righteous tirade. But then his gaze shifted to the naked,
carved body of the girl, and he faltered. Anger burned in his eyes but the
spark of magick in them receded. His fists clenched at his side, and he nodded
once.
    "Go on."
    Gull felt for the echoes within him again and once more
spoke in