The Gorgon Slayer Read Free Page A

stairs.
    Trying to make their feet find the stairs while they looked backward into their shields was tough going. Rick would have fallen ifWarren hadn’t been in front of him. Finally their feet found the floor. They scanned the basement.
    Dusty pipes hung from the ceiling, and a large door opened onto the backyard. Lawn implements and hand tools lay everywhere. O’Rourke stood by the water heater, one leg raised as if he were running, his sword in the air, and his shield on the floor behind him. Chen and Harper were by the furnace with their swords locked in their stony fists. Chen crouched with his hands to his face. Harper looked fearfully over his shoulder, his expression frozen rock solid.
    “None of them were looking at their shields when the Gorgon got them,” Rick whispered.
    Warren nodded. Only fools looked away from their shields on Gorgon extermination assignments. O’Rourke, Chen, and Harper might have been dummies—they were all good friends of Rank Frank—but they certainly were not fools. Warren didn’t like it.
    “Speaking of the Gorgon,” he said, “where is it?”
    An old cedar wardrobe stood in the back bythe lawn mower—the Gorgon could be in it, or behind it. Warren flicked its doors open with the tip of his sword. Nothing. He stabbed behind it, at nothing but air. Rick checked behind the furnace, knocking over Chen and chipping his nose on the floor.
    “Nothing,” Rick said.
    “That’s impossible—Gorgons don’t just vanish into thin air.”
    “There’s nowhere else for her to hide.” Rick paused. “Unless she’s behind the—”
    His eyes opened wide. A horrid shriek erupted from behind the stairs and clammy, leathery wings exploded into Warren’s face. He slammed his eyes shut and beat the Gorgon off, hearing Rick’s sword swish through empty air. Warren dove back, rolled on his shoulder, and came up clear, his sword slicing in every direction and his eyes fixed on his shield as he flashed it around the basement.
    The Gorgon was perched on Harper’s stony arm. She was sixty pounds of boiled-down ugly with a face like a living nightmare. Snakes danced around her head, hissing andstriking at Rick’s sword as he waved it in the air. Her gold-and-black eyes were slit like a cat’s, and her teeth were in worse shape than Princey’s.
    With one clawed hand, she gathered the dust off the top of a pipe and threw it at Rick’s shield.
    “Aagh! She messed up my shield! I can’t see a thing!”
    Panic crawled across Rick’s face, the same look that was frozen on Harper’s. He dropped his shield and turned toward the Gorgon.
    “Don’t look, Rick!”
    But Rick was thinking—his eyes were closed. He brought his sword around in a long, fast arc, aiming for the Gorgon’s neck. But he was swinging blindly. The Gorgon jumped back, hissing, and Rick’s sword clanged uselessly off Harper’s forehead.
    “Harper is going to hate you for that when he refleshes.”
    “I don’t care about Harper! Where am I? Where is the Gorgon? How do I get out of here?”
    “I’ll get you out!” Warren shouted as heleaped toward his companion, fighting through foul Gorgon breath as the beast fluttered and shrieked in his face. The Gorgon, beating her wings on Rick’s ears like a boxer, was waiting to shout “Surprise!” in whatever language Gorgons shouted as soon as he opened his eyes.
    Warren fought closer. The Gorgon retreated to the water heater. Suddenly she leaped up, wiped a pipe clean, and threw a handful of dust at Warren’s shield. As he sneezed, a wing smacked the back of his head, his sword flew up, and suddenly dust was everywhere.
    When he could see, Warren looked at his shield. If the entire world had turned to dust, then it was still working. Otherwise …
    “Rick, she got my shield, too!”
    “Then close your eyes.”
    Warren had figured that much out for himself. There was a hissing cackle, and scaly fingers hit him first on one blind side, then on the other. His sword