CHAPTER 26: THE MEDUSA PROTOCOL
In the high-ceilinged atrium of the North Carolina Museum of World and North Carolina History, the scent of floor wax and climate-controlled coolness hung still in the air. Beyond the velvet stanchions, the celebrated ancient limestone tablet rested under its heavy vitrine, the fractured upper edge awaiting the missing shard.
Behind the display, Pierre and Alfie wheeled out the metal archaeology cart. On its upper tray lay the artificial limestone fragment they had shaped and dusted in the back rooms, imbued with Alfie's razor-sharp wordcraft to mimic the missing ancient script.
The lead archaeologist nodded toward the overhead rig, convinced that the fragment was the authentic keystone required to decode the inscription. "It confirms the reading," the scholar murmured, adjusting his spectacles. "Lower the rig."
With a low hydraulic hum, the mechanical claw descended from the ceiling, its steel pincers latching onto the reinforced glass vitrine. Gears clicked as the glass lifted, rising smoothly until a two-foot gap opened between the rim of the case and the museum floor.
Before the claw could clear another inch, the security detail flanking the perimeter moved. One of the men in matching dark suits stepped forward with practiced, military precision. He reached inside his tailored blazer, pulled out a heavy metallic cylinder, thumbed an activation switch, and hurled it under the rising glass. The device landed squarely atop the ancient tablet with a sharp metallic clatter, its digital face flashing with an eighteen-second countdown.
Around the gallery, the air grew suddenly thick and charged with ozone as the party took up defensive positions. The mundane illusion covering the security guards began to warp and dissolve like smoke in a draft. Beneath the harsh museum track lights, the neat crew-cuts on their heads began to writhe and hiss, their hair separating into dozens of living, coiling vipers. On their breast pockets, the silver museum security badges caught the fluorescent glare, each stamped with an identical name: *Gordon. Gordon. Gordon. Gordon.*
Pierre blinked, adjusting his round wire-rimmed spectacles as he took in the four identical nameplates.
"Hello," Pierre ventured in his lilting Parisian cadence, leaning forward across the handle of the archaeology cart. "Your name is very close to mine. Well, kind of. And you all have the exact same name. Is this your actual name?"
"This is our actual name, Gordon," the nearest operative replied, his voice grating with dry, reptilian sibilance as the snake crown reared back.
"We are sent to resolve the subjects at hand," Gordon announced, signaling to the other three. "Get the evidence first. Bring back the subjects alive."
"Oh dear," Pierre muttered, stepping back a pace.
The second Gordon drew a squat, pneumatic sidearm from his coat. Without hesitation, he pivoted and fired at an approaching museum attendant. A viscous pellet of inky, pitch-black liquid erupted from the muzzle, striking the bystander across the shoulder. The dark sludge hissed, spreading rapidly across the attendant's skin like spilled ink on blotting paper, calcifying the flesh beneath it into coarse gray stone.
Pierre stared at the spreading petrification, eyes wide with genuine scientific fascination. "Wait, how did you do that? I have been trying to do this! This is a very cool trick. Could I perhaps borrow your pistol, Mr. Gordon?"
"No," Gordon snapped coldly. "This is for Redactors only."
"Wait, what do I have to do to become a Redactor?" Pierre asked earnestly.
The operative's eyes narrowed into serpentine slits. "You are the subject. You will never be a Redactor."
Dravin took cover behind the base of the glass display claw, his university tweed rustling against the metal housing as he shouted a warning.
Pierre ducked low beside the rolling cart, turning to Alfie, who sat perched on the lower tray. "Alfie, I am not getting a very good impression from these new people here," Pierre whispered frantically. "Any ideas?"
"Yeah," Alfie growled, his hand tightening around the hilt of his tiny rapier. "He just pulled a gun out, so we better do something!"
"Yes, but it just turned him into stone," Pierre rationalized quickly. "It is not that big of a deal. There are a lot of other stone things in here—they get to be admired for many years, you know!"
"Yeah, well, I'm not really looking to become a piece of stone, mate!" Alfie barked back. "So we better do something!"
Pierre peered beneath the glass case. The digital device sat squarely atop the limestone tablet, beeping insistently as an oily black fluid began oozing across the ancient carvings.
"Alfie," Pierre murmured, a reckless grin spreading across his face. "Are you thinking what I am thinking?"
Pierre rummaged through the archaeology cart's lower tool shelf, pushing past paintbrushes and specimen envelopes until his fingers wrapped around a bright orange, heavy-duty extension cord.
With quick, deft loops, Pierre fastened the heavy rubberized cable securely around the sturdy twine waistline of Alfie's coat. He scooped the driftwood doll up into his arms and dropped into a low crouch behind a wooden shipping crate, out of the Gorgons' direct line of fire.
"Okay, Alfie," Pierre briefed him in a rushed whisper. "I am going to tie this extension cord around you. And I have to admit, I am not very athletic. So plus or minus two feet is about all I can do for you. You may have to adjust in the air, but that is okay."
Alfie gave a determined nod of his carved wooden chin. "Yeah. All right. All right!"
Across the floor, the third Gordon sidestepped the stanchions and leveled his pneumatic pistol toward the reception lobby, aiming straight at Nincy who was filming with her ring light.
Gordon fired. The black viscous pellet struck Nincy square across her knuckles. The dark fluid surged outward in an instant, gluing her fingers together around the phone grip and creeping rapidly up her forearms in a sheath of rigid, petrifying gray stone.
In the museum lobby, Nincy screamed as the calcifying gray crust raced from her knuckles up her wrists, locking her fingers tightly around her phone rig. Around her, tourists and desk attendants panicked, fleeing in every direction as security alarms began to shriek.
"Classic Nincy," Alfie sighed from behind the display crate, shaking his wooden head. "Still filming the disaster."
"Edward, it is your turn!" Dravin heard the call amid the ringing chaos and vaulted into motion.
The professor hitched his tweed elbows and broke into a frantic sprint across the lobby tiles toward the reception desk. "I'm immediately sprinting over to Nincy and hitting a Cure Wounds!" he shouted over the blaring klaxons.
Pierre peered around the corner of the packing crate, watching Dravin's desperate charge. A thought struck him, and he wondered aloud whether Dravin actually knew he was casting divine spells, or if his academic research was simply manifesting into magical effects.
"I don't think I know yet," Dravin called back breathlessly as he skidded to a halt beside Nincy. "In my mind, I'm just applying emergency historical physiology!"
"Your worry for Nincy just oozes out of you, Professor," Alfie piped up with dry amusement.
"Exactly!" Dravin declared, laying his hands upon Nincy's stiffening wrists.
"Regardless of the theory, I am going for Nincy!" Dravin pressed his palms against her hands. As he channeled his academic intent, a pale, luminescent glow radiated from his fingertips. The cold, creeping gray stone shuddered, its forward advance halting on her skin before retreating down her arms like ice under warm water.
"Pure wounds," Pierre nodded approvingly from the crate.
"Cure hounds," Alfie chimed in, chuckling at the linguistic slip.
Across the floor, the Gordon who had fired the shot hissed in frustration. The serpent-headed operative lurched forward and lunged across the desk to snatch the phone from Nincy's grip before the footage could upload.
"Whoa—who was that?" Alfie blinked. "For a second, someone called her Nancy! Her name is Nincy with an *I*!"
Nincy ducked her shoulder, clutching her phone to her chest with white-knuckled determination. Gordon's clawed fingers swiped empty air, unable to wrest the device away as the receptionist continued to record every hissing snake and flashing red light.
Across the gallery, the fourth Gordon broke into a dead run toward the eastern wall, aiming to hit the button to drop the glass case down again and seal the ticking bomb inside.
Pierre tightened the orange cord around the doll's waist, bracing Alfie for his throw.
"Ye—" Alfie began.
"—etated!" Alfie declared from behind the crate. "I think I'm ready to be yeeted under the glass!"
Pierre measured the narrow clearance beneath the vitrine with an anxious squint, weighing whether an airborne pitch was even possible.
"I'm viewing this as more of like a slide across the floor and then a little scurry," Alfie countered, planting his carved feet on the linoleum.
"I will help you aim," Pierre offered, adjusting his spectacles. He braced his shoulders to assist the little doll, timing the launch to give Alfie maximum momentum.
Alfie crouched low, his small wooden joints tightening like springs. "Acrobatics!"
With a sharp flick of Pierre's wrists and an athletic dive, Alfie rocketed across the polished museum linoleum like a curling stone. His carved driftwood boots skimmed the wax, zipping cleanly beneath the two-foot clearance under the vitrine.
"Just get to the tablet!" Alfie shouted, sliding toward the pedestal. They had all agreed they were not supposed to take the heavy slab with them—they only needed to touch it to awaken its power.
As Alfie flew beneath the glass, a sudden magnetic pull surged through the air. A loose thread on the cuff of his coat began to tremble and hum, tugged violently toward the ancient stone as if drawn by a celestial lodestone. With a final athletic leap, Alfie cleared the edge of the pedestal and planted both wooden palms squarely upon the limestone surface.
Instantly, the museum vanished. Time collapsed into a frozen, breathless stillness. Alfie was no longer inside the North Carolina Museum of World and North Carolina History. He stood upon the wave-swept deck of a wooden galley surging through pitch-black ocean spray in the dead of night. Rain lashed against his face as a bearded captain paced the forecastle, bellowing to his oarsmen: *"You know what we do best! We get in there, we kill, we destroy, we pillage! Who's with me?"* Men roared, heaving against the oars in rhythmic fury. The first mate pointed through the tempest, shouting to the helm: *"There's the lookout! We're just to the right of the lookout—he's the beacon! He's the beacon!"* The galley carved through the narrows, slipping past the shoals, and Alfie saw the terrifying vision of a seaside town engulfed in flames as marauders swept through the streets.
Then reality flickered like a candle in a gale. Alfie was back upon the deck, the identical speech ringing out into the storm. The oarsmen plunged their paddles into the dark water once more. But this time, the first mate looked toward the light and shouted: *"There's the lookout! He's beckoning us the right way!"* The steersman swung the rudder hard into the light. In an instant, the ship struck jagged granite shoals, the hull splintering into toothpicks against the black rocks. The vision shifted to the coastal town on the shore, its inhabitants sleeping soundly and undisturbed through the quiet night.
With a violent jolt, the temporal fold snapped shut. Alfie found himself back in the museum gallery, sitting cross-legged atop the ancient tablet beside the beeping bomb.
Alfie trembled from head to wooden toe. "Watch out for the water," he rasped, coral eyes wide with lingering shock.
The moment Alfie's hands had touched the stone, a warm, resonant shockwave of raw temporal vitality rippled across the room. The exhaustion of the day melted away from Pierre and Dravin in an instant. Spells long expended snapped back into readiness; strained muscles refreshed as though they had completed a full night's peaceful rest.
Alfie clutched his coat, visibly shaken to his core. He looked back toward his companions and asked whether the temporal release had reached them all.
"The power emanated to all of us," Pierre called out in relief.
"I think I get out from under the case with the bomb on it!" Alfie shouted, scrambling for safety. "Pull me out! Pull me out! Pull me up!" He yanked hard on the orange extension cord like a deep-sea diver signaling for retrieval.
Pierre set his boots against the crate and hauled on the rubber cord, reeling Alfie back under the two-foot glass gap onto the safety of the floor.
Across the gallery, Nincy sprinted toward the main doors, holding her phone aloft to preserve her footage.
The tablet's glow flared and dissipated. The lead Gordon bared his fangs, his snake hair hissing in unison. "Revision is compromised!" he snarled in fury. "Capture the subjects!"
The Gorgon lunged across the floor, driving a serpent-crowned headbutt toward Dravin, the impact grazing the professor for four damage.
Pierre finished reeling Alfie in, crouching low beside the shuddering doll. "Did you experience that, Alfie? I think I was with you on the ship. That water was very scary."
"Yeah, it was really scary, wasn't it, mate?" Alfie muttered, his carved hands trembling. "That's what's in my head twenty-four-seven."
"Oh my god," Pierre whispered, patting Alfie's shoulder. "I think we need to get you some therapy when we are not in the middle of a contest for a piece of rock."
"I think it's best if you never touch that," Alfie warned, looking back at the ancient pedestal. "Leave that rock alone."
"That sounds very good to me," Pierre agreed readily. He peeked around the crate, calculating their route toward the exit. Dravin was caught between two of the serpent-headed guards, while the Gordon who had shot Nincy hovered near the wall console, preparing to lower the glass and seal the ticking bomb.
"I am going to make a run across and grab the bomb," Pierre declared. Sprinting low, he darted beneath the raised glass vitrine, snatching the warm, beeping cylinder off the limestone slab before sliding back into the open gallery.
In Pierre's mind, all Gorgons were fundamentally the same—and every Gorgon he had ever met was French. And if there was one thing Frenchmen could never resist, it was a crusty, fresh-baked baguette. Flipping open his canvas lunch satchel, Pierre pulled out a fresh baguette. With surgical precision, he thumbed a hollow into the crumb, jammed the ticking explosive deep inside the crust, and held it high above his head.
"Fresh bread!" Pierre shouted across the gallery, aiming to distract the guards from Dravin.
The effect was instantaneous and uncanny. All four Gorgons froze mid-stride, their serpentine crowns standing on end as their nostrils flared toward the aroma of golden-baked wheat. With a theatrical flourish, Pierre prepared to hurl the bread across the marble floor.
"Here, sheepy, sheepy!" a distant guard's voice echoed through the museum corridors, calling after a lost livestock display.
"I don't want to blow up the sheep," Pierre muttered, adjusting his trajectory. He threw the baguette hard toward an empty alcove away from the innocent bystander. "If they are all going to run for this bread, then I am playing fetch with the Gorgons!"
Sure enough, the nearest Gordon broke into a desperate, inhumanly fast sprint, his tailored suit rustling as he bolted past Pierre to tackle the baguette. Pierre planned to pull Nincy out through the front while staring deeply at the stone, ready to duck away from any blast.
"Iconic," Pierre whispered, watching the operative scramble after the baked goods. "He did not eat his breakfast."
With the operative occupied, Dravin stepped forward to face the second Gordon looming before him. "The old tried and true," the professor muttered, clearing his throat.
Rather than waving a wand, Dravin simply clasped his hands behind his back and began to lecture. In a dry, hypnotic, and utterly relentless academic drone, he dissected the morphological variations of archaic Athenian pottery. The words carried a subtle, soporific resonance that settled over the Gordon's serpentine crown.
"A twenty-two on sleep," Dravin noted as his incantation took hold. "I pick the one right next to me." The heavy slumber dropped the operative prone onto the floor. The operative's eyes rolled back; the hissing snakes on his skull went limp and flopped forward as Gordon collapsed face-first onto the linoleum, dead asleep.
"Since I made the one close to me sleep," Dravin said, dusting his tweeds, "I'm going to back up a little bit."
CHAPTER 27: BAGUETTES AND BASILISKS
Dravin stepped back from the unconscious Gordon sprawled across the floor, adjusting his spectacles.
Across the gallery, the third Gordon lunged toward the lobby corridor, pursuing Nincy with a drawn pistol to unleash an Editorial Gaze. The report of the weapon cracked like a whip against the high ceilings.
"Alfie, do you want to edit it into an editorial maze?" Pierre called out, ducking behind the cart.
"Can I edit an enemy's spell?" Alfie's coral eyes flashed with inspiration.
"I thought it was any spell in your area," Pierre shouted back.
"You're so right!" Alfie began rapid-firing potential word alterations, weighing whether an editorial glare or an editorial glaze would best break the curse.
"I was thinking a maze would trap him so we could get out," Pierre offered.
"Yeah, that's pretty good," Alfie mused. "I wonder what an editorial glaze would do, though?"
"Sorry, Nincy!" Alfie shouted down the hall.
The remaining Gordon in the main gallery watched his colleague disappear after the baguette-bomb into the far exhibit hall. Realizing the bread had been claimed, he turned back to the party, abandoning the lure. He sprinted toward the display case, but found himself just out of range.
"I think I try to make my way out toward the front," Alfie said, scurrying along the baseboards.
"Is there an obvious exit over here?" Pierre asked, scanning the perimeter. Behind a screen of historical tapestries stood a reinforced doorway, half-concealed from casual view.
Alfie dashed toward the portal. The exit door leading to the parking lot had been welded shut by an inky, hardened residue along the frame, but right beside it was a metal staircase marked with an illuminated sign: *ROOF ACCESS*.
"All right, let's go!" Alfie scurried onto the first metal tread.
"Do you still have the extension cord dangling from you, Alfie?" Pierre called after him.
"Yeah, I'm keeping it with me," Alfie replied, coiling the bright orange cable over his small wooden shoulder like a firefighter's hose. "You never know—I might have to get off the roof in a pinch!"
From the reception corridor, Nincy's voice echoed through the marble rotunda: "This is going to go so viral! I'm posting it right now before I turn! I'm posting it if it's the last thing I do!"
"I've got to be famous," Pierre chuckled dryly.
At the far console, the surviving museum security guard slammed down the emergency override. Heavy corrugated steel security gates came crashing down with an earsplitting clatter, sealing the exits. Alarms blared deafeningly through the museum.
Pierre watched Alfie's orange cable disappear into the stairwell, but his curiosity pulled him in the opposite direction. Near the raised glass case, the civilian attendant who had been struck by the first Gorgon's shot was turning rapidly to stone. Pierre ran over to investigate her condition.
Pierre knelt beside the stiffening woman, examining the spreading calcification. Her fingers were already fused solid, the coarse gray texture climbing past her collarbones toward her chin. Looking around in mounting concern, Pierre touched the coarse stone skin, instantly recognizing the creeping petrification from memories of his youth.
"This is a very weird pilgrimage," Pierre muttered under his breath. "What am I supposed to learn from this? Are you part of the pilgrimage? What did you do to cause this?"
The attendant's eyes were wide with terror, her gaze darting frantically toward Pierre as the stone began locking her jaw and spreading over her mouth.
"Right when you are about to speak, your voice gets covered up," Pierre murmured softly. "Do not worry."
Pierre reached down and hoisted the petrifying attendant into his arms. Carrying her toward the vitrine, he propped her rigid shoulders against the lifting glass, angling her body so that the moment the case rose, her petrified hands would fall directly across the surface of the ancient tablet.
And then Pierre was running.
Pierre rushed forward, grabbing the petrified museum attendant by the arm to drag her across the floor toward the rising glass case. In his mind, Pierre told himself he was merely a normal boy acting as a diversion, hoping the ancient tablet might beacon her toward safety. But the instant his bare hand locked around her forearm, a sudden, uncanny movement rippled beneath his beret of normalcy—the hidden, serpentine coils against his scalp stirring in resonance.
As he pulled her toward the pedestal, a faint gasp escaped the woman's lips: "Oh, thank... it's working. I'm okay." Pierre glanced down in disbelief. The calcified gray stone was actively receding, draining down her skin and vanishing directly into his touch where his fingers gripped her flesh. It was dissipating at an impossible speed.
"These Walmart Gorgons cannot even keep someone stoned for more than two minutes!" Pierre muttered under his breath, utterly convinced that American Gorgons were simply incompetent amateurs whose magic unravelled on its own. "Ridiculous!" He leaned her securely across the pedestal so she remained in direct contact with the stone.
From the adjacent hall, a muffled *crump-hiss* echoed through the ventilation shafts. It was not a fiery explosion, but the violent rupture of pressurized gas and boiling sludge. The Gorgon who had ravenously devoured the baguette-bomb had bitten straight into the core, detonating the weapon within his gullet.
"That was probably that ghost pepper," Pierre called out triumphantly. "That was that North Carolina Reaper pepper I stuffed inside the baguette!"
Dravin, standing his ground beside the sleeping operative, spotted the dropped pneumatic sidearm lying on the linoleum. "I want to pick up his Editorial Glare gun and shoot the other one!" Dravin announced.
He snatched up the weapon and fired point-blank at the awake Gordon. The viscous ink struck the operative's chest, but the Gorgon's reptilian fortitude absorbed the shot, the black sludge dissolving into his tailored jacket without petrifying.
Dravin assessed the room. "These gates that are down—they're like a mall at closing time?"
The corrugated metal shutters sealed every archway tightly. "So the people outside aren't getting back in," Dravin observed, planting his sturdy frame between the awake Gordon and his sleeping comrade. "We just have one awake in this room with us. You'll have to go through me!" Dravin dragged the sleeping operative back by the collar to keep him out of the fight.
The awake Gorgon hissed, catching a fleeting look of recognition as he glanced at Pierre, before turning viciously back toward Edward to strike, his venomous claws tearing through the professor's tweed sleeve.
From the stairwell landing above, Alfie peered through the banisters at the base landing.
Alfie eyed the display pedestals below. "All these pots and relics—they're not fully enclosed in glass, right? They're half cases."
"Right!" Alfie gestured with his wooden hand, channeling his *Mage Hand*. A translucent blue phantom hand materialized over an ancient clay storage urn, hoisting the heavy vessel into the air directly above Gordon's serpentine crown. With a flick of Alfie's wrist, the spectral hand released the urn from above the stairwell.
*SMASH!*
The heavy terracotta vessel cracked across the Gorgon's skull, shattering into jagged shards and sending the operative stumbling across the marble floor.
At the center vitrine, the museum attendant groaned. The gray stone had completely vanished from her skin, leaving her fully restored. She blinked in dazed bewilderment, touching the limestone tablet. This time, no radiant pulse answered—the tablet's stored temporal vitality had fully dispersed.
"Well, that was a lot of anticlimactic," Pierre muttered, offering a hand to help the stunned attendant to her feet. "Since you are healed, I guess we run!"
Pierre grabbed the attendant's arm, guiding her around the perimeter of the vitrine toward the stairwell where Alfie waited.
"Listen, I remember my first time being turned to stone," Pierre consoled her in an earnest whisper. "It is very weird, I know! It is probably very spooky for you. But luckily this is like a Walmart stone—it is just a veneer. You were only there for two minutes. One to two days of Powerade and a piece of pizza, and you will have no problems!"
Back in the center gallery, Dravin raised his hands, preparing an offensive invocation. "All right, I think it's time we hit him with a good old Guiding Bolt!"
"Can I add a letter and make it Guiding Bolts so we can hit both at once?" Alfie called out from the stairs. But the weave allowed only a single letter alteration at this level.
"If I back up, do I take an opportunity attack?" Dravin asked, weighing his tactical positioning. "Make sure wordcraft edit means what? Edward or Pierre can use a legend to make an edit. Just burn one legend to offset disadvantage! We only have level one, which means change one letter. I'll just do that—Guiding Bolt!" Dravin stood firm and invoked his spell.
A blinding lance of radiant celestial fire erupted from Dravin's outstretched fingers, slamming directly into Gordon's chest. Ink and sparks sprayed violently across the floor as the bolt seared the Gorgon's flesh, leaving him smoking and staggering on his feet.
Reeling from the strike, the wounded Gordon snarled, his snakes thrashing in wild fury. Raising his pneumatic sidearm, he aimed the muzzle directly at Dravin's face to fire his petrifying glare.
"Hear me out!" Alfie shouted from the stairwell. "I am using WordCraft Edit to change *glare* to *glaze*!"
Alfie proclaimed the definition with absolute swagger: "The modern slang meaning! To shower someone with excessive praise and over-the-top flattery!"
Gordon paused as if struck by lightning. Pulling out his gun, he stared at it, reloaded it, and slowly slipped it back into his belt. The operative beamed at Dravin with an expression of pure, tearful reverence.
"I mean, that academic paper that you put out recently was incredible!" Gordon gushed, his voice brimming with sincere adoration. "I really feel like we could use some of that knowledge in the world today! And you were willing to share that! That is a true blessing, Professor—the whole world is smarter because of it!"
Pierre peeked over a display case, grinning. "I am just so disappointed that my colleague fell asleep during your lecture earlier. It was so disrespectful!"
"He is totally editorially glazing you!" Alfie laughed from the stairs. "Yeah, that's what my friend needs right now!"
Across the gallery, Dravin reached into his heavy tweed coat, preparing his next incantation. To focus his radiant spellcraft, he drew forth a massive, solid steel security guard flashlight, aiming its polished lens straight toward the mesmerized Gorgon.
Dravin thumbed the switch on his heavy security guard flashlight. A blinding beam of pure radiant energy erupted from the lens, engulfing the glazed operative in a searing halo of divine brilliance—a focused *Guiding Bolt* that spotlighted the enemy as a luminous target.
"Pot drop number two!" Alfie shouted from the mezzanine, seizing the advantage of Dravin's radiant beacon. Guiding his translucent *Mage Hand* through the air, he hoisted another ceramic urn aloft and hurled it down to shatter across the illuminated Gorgon's shoulders.
Before rushing up the stairs, Pierre checked the archaeology cart. "Would there be some rock-treatment oil on here? An acid to clean ancient stone?"
On the bottom shelf sat several reagent flasks and vials of acid to grab and clean stone exhibits.
Pierre snatched a heavy glass vial of amber reagent from the cart's rack. "Their goal was to destroy the tablet with that bomb before the power could be released. Now they're trying to capture us."
He held the vial close to his temple to test its resonance. Instantly, his beret gave an agitated flutter and hiss as the curls beneath twisted violently, his concealed serpent coils reacting to the volatile brew.
"That is good enough!" Pierre grinned. "I will hit them with a bad hair day! Professor, duck!"
From the mezzanine rail, using sleight of hand or athletics, Pierre threw a six. The flask shattered across the floor near Gordon's feet, splashing down as the acid hit the ground and formed a bubbling green pool.
Down on the floor, Dravin narrowed his eyes. "He has made this personal," the professor muttered grimly. Reversing his grip on his heavy steel security flashlight, Dravin stepped in close. It was the heavy flashlight that would finish the job.
With a resounding *CRACK*, Dravin brought the solid metal butt of the flashlight squarely across the glazed Gorgon's jaw. The critical blow dropped Gordon like a sack of grain, sending him crashing onto the linoleum.
"I got you," Dravin called up to Pierre. Grabbing the collar of the sleeping operative who had fallen during his lecture, Dravin hauled him across the wax, dragging him directly into the bubbling acid puddle. The caustic chemical hissed violently, dissolving the Gorgon into harmless black vapor.
The gallery fell into an eerie silence, broken only by the pulsing wail of the building alarms. Combat was over. Through the perforated mesh of the lowered security gates, they peered out into the front reception lobby. Near the shattered glass doors stood the petrified stone statue of Nincy, still clutching her ring light and phone aloft in perpetual vigilance. And beside her, an ink-black rift hovered in midair—a dimensional tear of the Three Fates into which another unconscious figure was being pulled.
"Holy s***," Pierre whistled, inspecting the empty cart. "That was way more effective acid than I expected." He quickly pocketed a second spare vial into his satchel.
"We have roof access," Alfie called down from the landing.
Before heading up, Alfie spotted a green-and-gold twill trucker hat lying abandoned near the stanchions, thrown from a tourist's head during the initial panic. Alfie scooped it up and plopped it onto his head, grinning beneath the oversized brim. "Went to the North Carolina Natural History Museum and all I got was this stupid hat," he cheered.
Pierre looked up at the banners hanging in the hall. "Professor, I have been wondering all day—can you please explain to me why there is a dragon in the Greek antiquity wing of this museum?"
CHAPTER 28: ECHOES ACROSS THE LOST ROADS
"I believe that is a North Carolina Velociraptor," Dravin replied solemnly, peering at the bizarre museum display as security klaxons wailed deafeningly behind them.
"It is not very often that we get a perfectly quiet time in the museum with no one here," Pierre observed, strolling across the polished floor. He stopped before a freestanding glass case featuring an ancient Spartan hoplite panoply. "Professor, is it frowned upon if I take this really cool Spartan armor?"
"That's a good question," Dravin mused, stroking his chin. "Anybody need some heavy armor? You're in chain mail currently, but guess where you got it from? This museum!"
Pierre hurried over to the auxiliary claw controls, deftly maneuvering the steel pincers across the gallery to hoist the heavy glass vitrine, scooping up a bronzed breastplate and greaves.
Alfie adjusted his souvenir cap over his wooden ears, turning around only to discover that while Pierre and the Professor were eyeing museum-grade ancient armaments, he had spent the entire heist standing in the museum gift shop.
Dravin proudly claimed the ancient hoplite shield for himself, while Pierre scooped up an authentic bronze war javelin.
"Went to the North Carolina Natural History and World History Museum, and all I got was this stupid hat," Alfie grumbled, glaring down at his green-and-gold souvenir.
"I am sorry they did not make the Spartan armor in your size, Alfie," Pierre teased.
"Yeah, my hat was clearly made for a stuffed animal," Alfie retorted.
"Time to go," Dravin urged, heading toward the rear of the hall. They ducked through the service door into the archaeology storage room. In the distance outside, sirens began to wail across downtown Raleigh—police cruisers responding to the alarm.
"Police sirens," Dravin clarified. "Though being in the Greek exhibit, you might think they're mythical sirens calling you back."
"They are beckoning us," Pierre laughed, referencing the pirate vision.
In the corner of the storage room, the rusted wooden service door stood ajar. Dravin pulled it open, revealing the swirling gray mist of the Lost Roads. "I have pretty good survival instincts," Dravin said, taking the lead across the threshold.
The party stepped through, the cold museum air giving way to the timeless, non-Euclidean fog. Although their path meandered without geographic logic, turning sharply and doubling back across forgotten paving stones, they enjoyed a smooth journey, tracking their own returning footprints with remarkable ease.
Time lost all measurable meaning in the gray ether. Whether twenty minutes passed or three full hours, the mist eventually receded, replaced by familiar pine trees and the lantern-lit porch of the Marigold Inn. They had returned to The Margin.
By the crackling hearth in the common room sat Michael, nursing a mug of tea. He looked up, nodding in approval. "Well, what's up? Looks like you guys had a good trip."
"Mike, we missed you, mate!" Alfie cheered, climbing onto a bench.
"You weren't gone too long for scouting out a fragment," Michael remarked.
"Yes, we found a particle of stone," Pierre reported proudly. "But more importantly, look at Alfie's new hat—it is very cute! Secondly, look at the Professor's new hat and shield—not as cute."
"We gave them bread," Pierre defended their museum salvage. "I think we deserved credit!"
"The only person filming was Nincy, and she kind of turned to stone," Alfie added.
Michael straightened up, his brow furrowing. "Did you all run into Redactors?"
"Is that what they call themselves? Yes," Pierre confirmed.
"Wow," Michael murmured grimly. "I would not have thought Redactors would be on the scene that quick."
Naomi hurried down the wooden staircase into the Marigold's common room, her arms laden with leather-bound ledgers, historical registries, and regional field maps. "You are back!" she called out, breathless. "Did you touch the tablet? Did you have a vision?" Seeing Pierre standing tall in a bronzed Spartan cuirass, Dravin bearing an ancient hoplite shield, and Alfie wearing a museum souvenir cap embroidered with *NCNHAWM*, her sharp eyes widened in utter disbelief. "Wait... did you loot full Spartan armor from the museum?"
"We liberated cultural heritage," Pierre declared with impeccable French gravity, puffing out his armored chest. "They threw bombs at us! It was being threatened by American Gorgons with pneumatic sidearms! They all had the exact same name and were like Walmart versions of my cousins—they could not even keep someone stoned for more than two minutes!"
Naomi stopped dead, her brow furrowing in deep alarm. "What was the name? I don't know if we've ever seen that pass by before. We've had sightings around the margins of little devilish imp creatures—the Satans, the goats and imps—and Living Ink, which we had never heard of before. But Gorgons? You saw a vision?"
Pierre noticed how pale Alfie looked, the wooden boy standing quietly by the bench, shivering from the stone's touch. Pierre immediately stepped between Naomi and his young companion, his tone gentle and protective. "Alfie, you do not have to talk about it," Pierre intervened. "It is okay. Maybe after a drink or something. Alfie had to relive a very traumatic moment."
"Okay, all right," Naomi softened, giving Alfie space. "I can wait. That's fine."
"You have any rum?" Alfie asked quietly.
From the kitchen doorway, Michael poked his head out with a wide grin. "We've got rum! I'll put it right in the pancakes!"
Pierre's eyes widened in culinary horror. "Ah! This is why you have made a mistake! You need to adjust the temperature if you are going to use alcohol in cooking!"
"I think rum pancakes make a lot of sense, Mike," Alfie said with a faint, recovering smile.
Naomi opened a dispatch report on her tablet. "We lost another lead today," she announced somberly, pulling up security footage from a UK pawn shop. A woman with waist-length braided hair had entered the shop, shaken the clerk's hand with a numbing electric shock, seized a miniature ancient catapult, and vanished into the crowd. "It's gone. Another timeline anchor struck through."
"Is there any way to know or feel where the catapult went?" Alfie asked. "Can we feel its resonance?"
"No," Naomi answered quietly. "No one recognized her, and the news has no idea what to make of it."
"Are they torn between two meanings in the news?" Pierre asked, wondering how social media was reacting. "Is public perception splitting?"
"The media coverage is strangely muted," Naomi explained. "An infamous relic theft like that should have stirred up viral coverage, but the public seems to have moved on already, as if memory is being actively dampened."
"When did this happen compared to our heist?" Pierre pressed.
"About the same time," Naomi said.
"Naomi, I do not care about this toy catapult!" Pierre protested dramatically. "I thought I was going to be famous on American television! How else do you make Hollywood? Why else would my mother send me to America?"
"I don't think you're supposed to get famous," Naomi countered dryly. "Your mother might be a dance mom, but this is a covert timeline recovery, not a reality show."
"Where is my media coverage?" Pierre demanded.
"I have to assume something will come out of stealing a Spartan armor set from a museum," Naomi replied, "even if the mortal world hasn't caught on yet."
Naomi pulled out her phone, checking the feed for the North Carolina Museum of Natural and World History. "There is a new post from Nincy's account," she reported. The video was strangely distorted: dark shadowy orbs and light smears obscured the Gorgons' faces. Whenever the party appeared, they looked like blurry pedestrians turned away from the camera, and the footage skipped abruptly past the moment Dravin laid hands on her wrists.
"The view count is climbing fast, but there are zero comments and no likes," Naomi analyzed, showing them the screen. "The mortals don't know what to make of it." Just then, a single comment popped up on the post: *The NC MONA WHM was legendary. Fire emoji. Fire emoji.*
"M-web," Pierre laughed, reading the acronym.
"For now, the timeline anomaly is masked," Naomi concluded, locking her phone. "The Fates haven't scrubbed the internet yet, but we need to move on our next objective before the Redactors trace the thread back through the Lost Roads."
Pierre slipped his phone back into his pocket as Naomi checked the video metrics. "One like, one comment," Naomi summarized. "High views, but people are just scrolling past it."
She slammed open two large manila binders on the oak table, pushing them toward the center. "The stolen catapult in the UK is a dead end. That leaves us with two active leads: the flight hijacking that never happened, or the Mad Doctor tour. What do you think?"
"What was the doctor again?" Alfie asked, leaning forward on the tabletop.
"An investigative journalist started a podcast and published a book about a controversial physician," Naomi explained. "One camp claims the doctor was a hero who cured impossible afflictions; the other claims he was a butcher who killed dozens of patients. The journalist is currently touring college campuses through West Virginia."
"We have a Lost Roads route called the Forgotten Trail," Naomi continued. "It's a more natural wilderness path that can bring you out right near the campus tour stops."
"He seems to want us to go toward the doctor," Dravin observed thoughtfully.
"I have to admit, the hijacking feels very sensitive," Pierre argued passionately. "Whereas the murder mystery—I am a huge fan of true crime! Two women drinking wine talking about a murder! It sounds way more French!" Pierre listened to the sample audio clips, finding the airplane ambient sounds terribly dull and demanding to hear about the rogue physician instead.
Alfie swung his feet up onto a low stool, grabbing a wooden mug. "I'm down for either one, boys," Alfie agreed with a wide grin.
"I am all for the murder mystery," Pierre reiterated. "It sounds way more French!"
"Mad Doctor binder—let's do it," Dravin decided firmly.
"Mad Doctor it is," the group agreed, settling upon their next expedition. The schedule would be verified to track down the journalist's next campus appearance.
Dravin unstrapped his newly acquired hoplite shield, setting it on the wooden bench. "Naomi, who's your best artificer here?"
"And I would like my new javelin turned into a Zeus thunderbolt, please!" Pierre added with dramatic theatricality.
"I was going to have them inspect my new museum shield to see if there is any latent enchantment," Dravin continued.
"Rosa is our resident demigod artificer," Naomi said, glancing at the Greek arms. "She has an innate sense for classical relics. She'll inspect everything you stole."
"This hat was dropped on the floor!" Alfie protested defensively, tugging the brim of his museum souvenir. "I didn't steal it!"
"I was less referring to that, Alfie," came the amused reply from across the hearth. "Though it's shocking you found something in your exact size."
Dravin offered an elegant, patrician wave of his hand. "I like to think that all historical artifacts in museums were stolen at one point in history anyway."
"That is very well said, Professor!" Pierre agreed heartily.
"I am actually returning it to its original mythological use. *Ipso facto*," Dravin concluded.
"Putting it back to its original use!" Pierre beamed. "And what better way to use it?" Returning ancient Greek weapons to demigods in the Margin was practically a restoration of destiny.
"As far as I am aware, I am still basically in Las Vegas," Pierre rationalized, "and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! You made the mistake of showing us that you are invisible to the mortal eye. You have nothing but yourself to blame!"
"People do say Charleston is like the Las Vegas of West Virginia," Naomi noted with a wry smile.
"I will put that in the tourist guide for the next French traveler," Pierre declared happily.
"All right, we will get you all resettled," Naomi agreed as the travelers settled into their chairs. The fire crackled warmly in the stone hearth. With the Raleigh artifact stabilized and their path set toward the Forgotten Trail, the company rested, ready for the strange road ahead.