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twisted piece of blackened metal was the only bit of color on his entire body.
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He wore loose-fitting white sweatpants or gi, I couldn't really tell which.
I'd never seen a Gorgon sporting such clean clothes. Most of the Gorgons in
the kibbutz owned only castoffs or things they'd Dumpster-dived.
Like a crystal grotto, the Medusa surrounded Perseus on all sides. He stood
barefoot in the center of it.
"You have been blessed, child," he said to Amariah. His voice was soft and his
inflection educated, almost upper-class.
Amariah sucked nervously on the bandages of her infected fingers. I pulled her
hands from her mouth. "Don't."
"My name is Amariah. Sometimes my friends call me Rye."
"Hello, Rye," Perseus said, crouching down to look Amariah in the eye.
"I need to get her to the hospital," I said.
The Gorgon cocked his head at me. "What for? She is on her way to becoming
greater."
"She'll die," I insisted.
"We all die," he said. "Even humans like you."
"I'm not human," I said.
He raised white eyebrows. "Not human? You don't look like any of the People
I've ever seen."
"I'm no Gorgon."
He stiffened a little when I used the vernacular to describe his "people." I'd
forgotten that some viewed the word as an insult. Standing up, Perseus asked,
"Not human, not elevated. What then?"
"Daddy is an angel," Amariah supplied. "An ark & archangel."
Perseus took a hesitant step forward and sniffed the air around me. I held my
ground, though I flinched when he came near my exposed skin. His liquid-silver
eyes inspected me intently. "Are you the angel of death?" he asked finally.
"I was rarely a psychopomp."
"Was?" Then a moment later he added, "Rarely?"
"I can assure you I haven't come for you," I said.
He nodded. "Why do you travel with a child? Is she an angel? Can angels be
infected with the Medusa?"
"The body is flesh," I said. "Flesh is corruptible. As for Amariah, she is my
daughter. She is human. I'm not quite sure how we ended up here. We were &
running away."
"From the pretty ones! With wings," Amariah added.
"An angel on the run?" Perseus gave me a quirky smile. "How interesting."
"Come on," I said to Amariah. "We've got to get you to a hospital."
Amariah, clearly fascinated with Perseus, took my hand hesitantly. As if
suddenly thinking of it, she asked, "Where's Mommy?"
"Safe," I said with more confidence than I felt. "We're going to call her as
soon as we get to the hospital."
I stepped around Perseus, who eyed me from where he'd moved to stand near
David's famous Oath of the Horatii. The Gorgon's paleness was a stark contrast
to the dark sienna and black of the oils.
I wasn't sure where I thought I was going. After all, we were surrounded by
glass on all sides. I just wanted to keep moving, and to get away from this
strange Gorgon. I didn't like the way he looked at Amariah, and the
fascination she had for him. I turned, thinking we could try the stairs again,
when my peripheral vision noticed something on the floor of the hallway
Perseus had come down. I could see dark patches in the glass. They were small
and squiggly, looking for all the world like footprints. It seemed as though
where Perseus had stepped, the Medusa & melted.
"Why are you called Perseus?" I asked him.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the canvas. He lifted up the ornament
dangling at the end of his necklace. Showing the reflective side to me, he
said, "I look good in a mirror."
"Perseus destroyed the Medusa."
"Really? I hadn't heard." His tone was of bored indifference, but his yes
narrowed with sarcasm.
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"Can you cure it?"
Perseus uncrossed his arms and lifted his chin defensively. "Perhaps if I
thought it was a disease, I could."
"Will you help my daughter?"
"Your daughter doesn't need any help."
I rolled my eyes at his quasi-spiritual politics. "Why aren't you cured?"
"I have been. I've been cured of my humanity."
"You were once human?" Most Gorgons I knew had been born that way. If he had
started out human that might explain his accent and obvious intelligence. But
although the Medusa moved slowly through DNA, the nanobots still destroyed
whatever they touched. Most infected humans died in a matter of years.
"In a manner of speaking, all of the People began as humans & in their own
way."
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