Dead Waters

28

I left the rest of the group to deal with locking up the students. I needed a break from the interrogation and I had a few things that still needed checking out with Godfrey Candella, and just as I put my handle on the door leading down to the archives, the man himself sent me a text saying he had some information to share.

Every visit down to the Gauntlet was a new adventure in creepiness, especially when it was dead silent and I found an exhausted Godfrey asleep with his eyes open at his desk, his head propped up on a now-drool-covered stack of books and his cell phone flipped open on the desk. I shook him awake and he sat bolt upright in his chair, startled. When he noticed it was only me, however, he relaxed.

“Wow,” Godfrey said. “That was quick.”

“I was on my way down, actually,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “So, any luck with Director Wesker or Ms. Daniels?”

“Not yet,” I said. “We’re questioning some of Professor Redfield’s students, and even though they were in on his magic, they’re maintaining that they know nothing about the woman in green we keep seeing.” I paused for a moment, my mind switching gears. “Let me ask you something that’s been troubling me the past few days. Do you think you’d be able to take down a loved one if they were transformed into something horrible?”

Godfrey tidied up several of the files and books on his desk as he thought about it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I suppose I’m grateful that I don’t work in the field and will hopefully never have to answer that. On a good day, I only deal in theoretical dilemmas or recording those of other people.”

“I’m just asking your opinion.”

Godfrey sighed and put down his books. “Fine,” he said. “In that case, I’d probably die first. I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d hesitate and that would be my undoing, but don’t worry, Simon. That won’t happen to you.”

“It won’t?” I asked. “Why not?”

“Because that’s not who you are,” he said. “You save people, and that includes yourself as well. It’s why you’re out there and I’m down here.”

Godfrey was probably right. The reason I obsessed over every little thing was my near-constant need these days to be helping others. My issues with Jane, the dresser, and the apartment were only a reflection against that, my last safe haven where I didn’t have to defend the world, my Fortress of Solitude. My emotional psychometric outbursts were only an extension of my raw feelings about not wanting to share that, but if I was honest with myself, it wasn’t that I didn’t want Jane to move in. Hell, she wasn’t even asking to. I was simply scared because it would ultimately be the final wall to giving myself over to someone completely. The realization alone was enough to ease some of my tension, and I switched my focus back to the case.

“Have you had any luck tracking down that symbol on Jane’s back yet?”

Godfrey nodded. “I came across that marking in some of the older books of New York history. It seems that the older generations of Greek fishermen and sailors carved it into their boats. They believed it would give them good water for safe sailing. It put them under protection from the sea.”

“Or something in it,” I said. “But what does it symbolize?”

“At first, I thought it might be the symbol for Castalia,” he said. “A fairly common figure in Greek mythology, the nymph of poetry.”

“What the hell is remotely poetic about this she-bitch who’s constantly trying to drown me or turn my girlfriend into something I’ll need a fish tank to hold?”

“That’s just it,” Godfrey said. “Castalia didn’t seem like the right fit to me, either. So I kept looking, checking variants of all water-based symbology. It turns out that the mark is used to summon forth a host, a vessel, for the water spirit to inhabit.”

“Then that she-bitch has been building up her power over Jane,” I said, “exerting it to take control of my girlfriend. So, what is it? Who is it a symbol of?”

“Are you familiar with the Police?” Godfrey asked.

“The band?” I asked. “Or the serve-and-protect kind?”

“The band,” he said.

“Yes, but do you really think this is the time for a music lesson?”

“In this case, yes,” he said. “I don’t care much for modern music personally, but I do try to associate myself with cultural works that touch on anything mythosrelated. When it comes to references, the works of Sting are unparalleled.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, what song are we talking about here?”

“‘Wrapped Around Your Finger,’” he said. “The lyric is, ‘You consider me the young apprentice, caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.’”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What the hell are those?”

“I think your woman in green may be Charybdis,” Godfrey said. “A daughter of Poseidon. A naiad, technically.”

“Those are a type of water nymph, right?” I asked.

Godfrey nodded. “Very good,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said. “Good to see that my time studying Know Your Unknown wasn’t completely wasted on me. But I thought nymphs were supposed to be sexy. This Charybdis is more deadly than sexy.”

“I’m sure she started that way,” Godfrey said, “but if you—excuse the language—piss off the gods, they tend to exact a punishment.”

“Punishment?”

“According to Homer, she stole from Hermes. For her crime, she was turned into a monster of the sea. Another story says she was transformed because she did so much damage on land in the name of her father, Poseidon, that Zeus became irate with her and exacted it as punishment on her. There are several versions of the tale, but any way you look at it, she’s marked as a monster of the sea. Part of the description for Charybdis in one of her forms is a giant mouth that takes in vast quantities of water, creating whirlpools.”

“Like the ones that have claimed all those boats over the years at Hell Gate,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

“What about the other one you named?” I asked. “What was it called again?”

“Scylla,” Godfrey said. “That comes from another tale, but Scylla was also a nymph that the sea god fisherman named Glaucus fell in love with. Apparently, she wouldn’t give him the time of day, so he turned to the sorceress Circe, asking her for a love potion. She, however, fell for the fisherman herself, but he spurned her advances, causing her to take vengeance on the object of his desire—Scylla. Using poison, she transformed Scylla into a sea monster that is described differently than Charybdis—twelve legs like tentacles and a ring of snapping dog heads around her waist.”

“Tentacles,” I said. “That fits what I saw in my vision of when the General Slocum went down. That much makes sense, as do the crush marks on one of the student’s laptops we found at the bottom of a well leading out to the river.”

Godfrey nodded. “Supposedly, these two creatures were the guardians of the Strait of Messina, situated between Sicily and Italy. They still call one of the rocky outcroppings there Scylla. Scholars believe it may well be where the expression ‘between a rock and a hard place’ comes from.”

Despite the hard time my mind was having wrapping around the tale, the last details brought more pressing questions to mind. “Italy? Then what the hell are they doing here in New York?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, “but the Greek people are prevalent in America. Why not their gods, too?”

“No offense,” I said, “but I’m not sure I buy into this whole pantheistic worldview. I mean, if we’re going to go there, let’s just call in Thor to take care of it and call it a day, right?”

“He’s Norse, not Greek,” Godfrey corrected.

“Fine, whatever, but you see where I’m going.”

Godfrey sighed. “I hear you,” he said. “Look. I don’t know if I believe in gods and goddesses the way the Greeks did, either, but I do think that much of what they chose to believe in came from things that already existed in the world, something they then interpreted to fit their own worldview. For instance, it’s quite likely that supernatural creatures such as sea monsters may well predate the Greeks, but we see them as Greek mythological figures because that’s what the Greeks chose to name them. That’s what stuck in people’s minds.”

“Well, we’ve seen plenty of Charybdis in her female form,” I said. “I wonder what’s become of Scylla, other than knowing the professor fed it the still-conscious remains of George. Why he’s feeding it, I have no idea. Maybe so it grows up big and strong.”

Godfrey flipped open one of his books to a page he had marked off with a Post-it. “I think I may have an answer for that,” he said. “Remember how I told you that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been blasting away at the strait back in the mid-eighteen hundreds? I think that blasting may have hurt both of the monsters over a century and a half ago, incapacitated them. Charybdis seems to have risen back to some of her power, possibly because she can take aquatic form. I’m not sure. I think Scylla is still mostly dormant. Charybdis is its keeper. Its nurse, in this case.”

“Not for much longer, I suspect,” I said. “I think Charybdis recovered because Mason Redfield discovered her while investigating the Hell Gate Bridge. In return for his help providing sacrificed students like George to her monstrous companion, she gave him secrets to help him be reborn. I’ve seen the watery pit where he’s been feeding students to something out in the river. A something named Scylla. I imagine that sea monster is probably growing up big and strong.”

Godfrey shook his head. “If Scylla is as monstrous as legend and myth has it, it would take more than simply feeding it blood. It’s certainly a start, but for something so grand in scale, there would have to be a larger summoning ceremony of sorts. Something to raise it. I think you hit the nail on the head, Simon. The water woman marked Jane so that she herself would have a vessel to inhabit herself once the ceremony is performed to raise Scylla. From what I’ve read, Scylla, supposedly because she’s a daughter of Poseidon, needs a vessel to keep herself material. Something greater than water. Flesh.”

“What kind of ceremony are we talking about here, Godfrey?” I asked.

“It would definitely be magical,” he said, “but not on the scale we use regularly up in Greater and Lesser Arcana. We’d have to start a whole new division to classify it. Maybe Super Greater Arcana or Godlike Arcana . . .”

“We can name it later,” I said. “Focus on the ceremony.”

He thought for a moment before answering, but there was uncertainty in his voice. “I would think this type of large-scale ceremonial magic is best performed at liminal times and places, but I’m not sure.”

“Liminal?”

“It means being at a crossroads,” he said. “On the cusp of great change.”

“Like a threshold?” I asked. He nodded. “You said those two monsters guarded the Strait of Messina. That’s a threshold of sorts. And isn’t a bridge like the Hell Gate another one? I think you may be right about liminality. By their very nature, those two creatures are bound to liminal places.”

“You’re right,” he said, counting off on his fingers. “For instance, the shores of bodies of water . . .”

“We have that,” I said. “Check.”

“Not just places,” Godfrey said. “Time is important, too.”

“Like when?”

“There’s a whole list,” he said. “Solstices, equinoxes, full moons, midnight . . .”

I pulled out my phone to check the time, date, and weather. “We’re near the September autumnal point of the equinox.” I checked the phase of the moon on my weather app and relaxed when I saw it. “Oh, thank God. We’re only at a new moon, not a full one.”

Godfrey didn’t relax. “I was getting to that on my list,” he said.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Dammit. I think the crossing over of all these various thresholds may be enough.”

“Tonight may be the night she attempts the ceremony, then,” Godfrey said.

I checked the time on my phone again. “The good news is midnight is almost six hours from now. There’s still time, but we have to act now. Any idea how one goes about killing sea monsters, God?”

“Nothing on record that I know of,” he said, “but the two of them may be at their most vulnerable right before the ceremony. If that doesn’t hold true. . .Well, when in doubt, go for the heart seems to be the advice that works best.”

“I’m not all that keen on getting that close,” I said. “And as a matter of perspective, I’d need a pretty goddamn big stake to pull something like that off.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Clearly this is why I don’t teach any of the paranormal combat classes.”

I nodded and smiled. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve got to hurry, but thanks for the information, Godfrey. I feel good now.”

“You feel good,” he repeated with a wary tone. “Why?”

“Because there’s a power in knowing what something is,” I said. “A power that’s going to help me kill it before it gets a chance to rise and take on New York, and most important, a power to save Jane. Do me a favor. Go up to Allorah Daniels’s office and let the Inspectre know about this.”

I ran off for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Godfrey called out after me. “What are you going to do?”

I didn’t bother to turn back. I was already bounding up the steps, a hint of hope finally in my heart after days of frustration. “Looks like I need to prep the boat with something sea monstery,” I said. With all this talk of mythological connections, I only wished I had some Argonauts on my side to go with it.