The Curse of Medusa

“You’re wrong, Kiefel! How can you believe that thing is what you say it is, if you’re not totally crazy? Medusa was a myth, damn it!”

“I see American education does not extend to the Classics! We know from our reading of Ovid that Medusa was a real, mortal being — her head of snakes… these snakes… was given to her by Athena as punishment for desecrating her temple when she slept with Poseidon!”

“Fairy tales…” Grant said, but he was no longer sure of it.

“Sadly, we can never know the truth, but that is Ovid’s account.” Kiefel held the head up to his face and stared at it almost lovingly through the mask. “Others claim Poseidon was besotted with her, but when she rejected him he grew enraged and used his divine power to turn her hair into snakes.”

“You did all this killing just to get this thing released from Archive 7?”

Kiefel beamed. “There’s no need to congratulate me, Mr Grant — it’s implied.”

“For God’s sake, Kiefel — you need help!”

Kiefel was unmoved. “She was still incredibly beautiful, but the snakes terrified anyone who looked at her and turned them into stone… this was mighty Poseidon’s revenge on the woman who had rejected him.”

“Please, just stop this!” Grant watched the madman’s eyes through the gas mask, distorted by the warped plastic lenses.

The German ran a hand down the skull’s cheekbone. “Some say that when Perseus was sent to kill her, he took a glass shield so he could look at her reflection and never at the Gorgon herself. This was how he was victorious. This was how he beheaded Medusa without getting turned to stone!”

Grant ignored the lecture. “For God’s sake give that woman a gas mask, Kiefel!”

His voice muffled through the mask, Kiefel sighed. “When Perseus returned to Greece, he gave Athena Medusa’s head, which she wore on her shield — her aegis — as a weapon, allowing her to turn her enemies to stone simply by showing them the head.”

Grant shook his head in despair and banged his fist into the dirty floor. “You really are insane!”

“I am insane for liberating Medusa, but your government is not insane for storing it in secret for decades? How sane is it to withhold the real truth of our world from all the people?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not…” Kiefel offered a low, guttural belly laugh. “Of course you know nothing about Medusa being stored in Archive 7! I expect you also know nothing about why the severed head of Medusa — a Greek Gorgon — was in northern Norway? About who took it there and why?”

“As a matter of fact I do not!”

“Have you ever heard of Valhalla, Mr Grant?”

“Of course.”

“Perhaps that will help you put the dots together, but in the meantime, I have business to attend to.”

“I’m not playing your games, Kiefel. Whatever the hell that thing is, I know you can’t possibly believe looking at some dead snakes can turn a man to stone!”

“I never said that, Mr Grant.”

Kiefel slowly walked the head over to the female security guard. She kicked and struggled against the ropes binding her to the support post of the distillation unit.

“You see, when Poseidon turned her hair to snakes, this was the act of a spurned, enraged lover, and it became her curse — the true curse of Medusa was that she could never fall in love with anyone without turning them to stone. Now the curse of Medusa will fall on the entire world, starting with America which I intend to use as a testing ground. Jakob!”

Jakob padded across the room and gripped the security guard’s head, forcing her to look at the severed, mummified head of Medusa. The young woman recoiled in terror.

“Now, Mr Grant, you will see the true power of Medusa — the world’s most ancient doomsday weapon!”

Grant wanted to look away, but his inherent sense of leadership and responsibility forced him to behold the ancient evil that was unfolding before his very eyes. He couldn’t turn his back on this poor woman, not now.

Kiefel held the skull up to the woman, whose head was now in the vice-like grip of Jakob’s broad, gloved hands. He moved the skull closer until it was almost touching her terrified, sweat-streaked face, and her screams echoed in every room and corridor of the sprawling, abandoned processing plant.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

With Kiefel moving the skull ever closer, the young woman stared at it with wide, crazed eyes, and then began whispering an unintelligible Spanish prayer. She kicked more, and writhed like a trapped pig, but it was too late.

Grant watched with a sense of growing, desolate horror as the woman began to judder and shake uncontrollably, and then her skin slowly turned a strange putty color. A few seconds of agony later, the woman was silent and totally still.

Jakob staggered back, his trembling hands at his sides, and moved away from the dead, ossified guard as fast as he could.

“You’ve frozen her!” Grant muttered, incredulous.

“Wrong!” Kiefel said. “As I tried to explain to you before, this woman is not frozen — she is stone… behold!”