Curse of the gorgon, p.1
Curse of the Gorgon, page 1
Curse of the Gorgon
Synopsis
Cassandra Hunt is the Gorgon, an assassin/spy. She was programmed via mind control by Thora, her handler, for Olympicorp, a shadowy, cultish conglomerate bent on world domination. Everything changed when she met reporter Elle Pharell. They survived Olympicorp’s mass experiment gone awry and fell madly in love.
Now, in exchange for Elle’s safety, Cass works with a global intelligence collective seeking to apprehend members of Olympicorp. But things don’t go as planned when Elle is abducted. Untangling Olympicorp’s sinister intentions is Cass’s only chance of seeing Elle alive again, and Thora offers to help, for a price.
Elle wakes up at a secret medical facility with no recollection of how she got there, and the staff won’t answer questions about her lost memories. The one question she can’t get out of her head? Who is the mysterious woman she only remembers as the Gorgon?
What Reviewers Say About Tanai Walker’s Work
Rise of the Gorgon
“Rise of the Gorgon by Tanai Walker is a fast-paced suspense about two women who uncover two different truths: one uncovers a terrifying conspiracy, and the other (the Gorgon) discovers free will. …If you like fast-paced suspense with a complex storyline, a bit of romance, and a lot of ass-kicking, you will like this story. This is also a story about breaking free, finding free-will, and letting love lead to something more.”—Lesbian Review
Sacred Fire
“Walker crafts a fantastic tale incorporating mythological figures in contemporary settings. It’s not every day you read a novel with a Black lesbian interacting with a Slavic forest spirit in an after-hours spot featuring scantily clad dancing women. She builds the tension with creative turns of phrases as she details how Swan is drawn deeper into the web woven by a goddess thousands of years ago. …Sacred Fire is not your typical novel, but it’s worthy of a read because of the author’s ability to take an unlikely combination of situations and make them entertaining.”—Black Lesbian Literary Collective
“Tanai Walker’s Sacred Fire is the epitome of a paranormal novel. …Walker is capable of beautifully describing actions and scenery. From the images on the postcards to having tea in an antique shop, it’s all lovely to visualize.”—Rainbow Round Table
Curse of the Gorgon
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By the Author
Sacred Fire
Rise of the Gorgon
Curse of the Gorgon
Curse of the Gorgon
© 2023 By Tanai Walker. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-394-8
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: April 2023
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design by Tammy Seidick
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Acknowledgments
Dad, thanks for always asking about my book.
Gina and Jeraine, thanks for sharing your paradise while I powered through the end of this book.
Liz, thanks for lending out your expertise to beta read.
Dedication
To my amazing wife, Janette, because she keeps my feet on the ground.
Prologue
Indian Ocean
Western Sumatra
The sun and the sea. In the arms of a gorgeous, mysterious woman. Elle wanted to say so much as the waves rocked the small yacht, lulling the two of them after a session of afternoon lovemaking. Along with the steady gusts of salty wind, sadness stirred the tranquility around them. She lay next to Cass and tried to convince herself to get over the feelings that swelled inside her.
So much had happened since the death of Robert Loera, a troubled veteran Elle helped after interviewing him for a series. They’d become friends and he seemed to be adjusting. Then, one morning he came to her office and ended his life after making some cryptic statements about hurting people in the desert. Elle’s questions into his death led her to Ziggurat, a company that hired discharged veterans as security personnel.
She’d gone to Kuwait not knowing that she had stumbled on to a mind control experiment gone awry. The perpetrators, Olympicorp, a shadowy conglomerate of subsidiaries, a cover for their crimes against humanity. Elle’s investigations put her on their radar and sent Cass to sabotage her findings.
It had nearly been a year since their adventures in Kuwait; several days on the run from Cass’s handler, as well as a horde of locals and personnel of Ziggurat poisoned by an experimental psychotropic bioweapon—a hive mind controlled by another deranged ex-soldier, his brain mutated by mind-altering experiments performed by Ziggurat.
Elle and Cass had barely escaped with their lives and decided for their own safety to put Kuwait behind them, including the inexplicable bond that drove them into each other’s arms.
She did her best to return to her life as normal, despite the unanswered questions that had brought her to Kuwait in the first place, despite her worry for Cass, for whom she knew life was far from normal.
Then, months later came the invitation to Indonesia from Cass for a rendezvous in a tropical paradise. Upon recognizing the contents of the package, two plane tickets on a bed of flowers, Elle knew she would go wherever Cass was, no matter the risk. This realization both terrified and thrilled her. Still, she picked up her phone with trembling hands and began to clear her calendar.
Elle found herself on high alert throughout her journey. In hindsight, she should have listened to the nagging paranoia that indifferent eyes were watching her every move. Cass walked right up to her as she stumbled around the airport. She looked like a tourist in shades, shorts, and a T-shirt. She was tan, as if she had been out in the sun for a few days. She had a boat for them, and they sailed along the coast. They mixed with the tourists on shore, but mostly stayed close to the boat, swimming, paddle-boarding, fishing, and making love. It was as if Kuwait never happened.
Cass made it all look so easy, even the acceptance of a fate she did not deserve, how she insisted on going underground to keep Elle safe. Still, she had put them at risk by arranging the trip, proving that not even her steel resolve could keep them apart.
She looked to Cass and saw that she was not snoozing, but awake and watching her through partially closed eyes. Elle smiled at her and she smiled back. Cass turned over on her side and reached for her hand. Their fingers intertwined. Elle felt the warmth of her skin. Neither of them spoke a word. With so much to be said, it felt frivolous to spend their time in silence, smiling at each other in the sunshine.
A surge of wind turned the slightly choppy water into bucking waves. Cass’s arms latched around her as the boat rose with such violence it tilted nearly onto its side. They lost their footing and were nearly tossed overboard. A torrent of salt water drenched Elle as she scrambled against the side railing. She felt Cass’s arms clutch her waist as the boat bucked and reared. For a few terrifying moments, they were at the mercy of the sea.
The force loosened Cass’s grip and Elle was airborne. She hit the back railing and nearly went over onto the swim platform. The world blurred for a moment, black and gray and blue sky. She opened her eyes. She was on her back looking up at the astonishingly blue sky, free of the storm Elle realized had caused the sudden violence.
She heard her name and craned her neck to see Cass clinging to the outboard. She propelled herself forward across the wet deck, unperturbed by the violent rocking of the boat, her eyes locked on Elle.
She managed to slide close enough for their reaching hands to touch.
The boat bucked with a force that flung Cass several feet into the air. She fell hard on her side and rolled into Elle who clung to her hoping she had not been knocked unconscious. Both stunned by the impact of their bodies, they rode out the storm.
The tempest calmed, and the boat bobbed on the choppy water that remained.
Cass raised her head and wrapped her hands around Elle’s upper arm.
“Are you okay?”
Before she could answer, a mechanical roar rumbled at the front of the boat. They looked up at the sky over the cabin to see a sheet of water that raged from the sea, bringing with it a flying craft that resembled a black helicopter without rotor blades. It hovered above the boat dripping curtains of water and jets of spray that reflected the sun into a multitude of ghostly rainbows. Two wings, hooked at the ends like blades, extended from the craft’s sides. From the bottom, a hatch opened, and black cords fell and dangled just inches above the deck. Five men in black tactical gear slid down the cords, their faces covered with black helmets with black visors
“Stay here, and don’t move even if they come for you,” she said and guided Elle’s arms around the railing.
Elle understood the gravity of her instructions, to not go down without a fight.
Cass moved toward the black visors, her wet hair loose and whipping in the wind. The five men paused for a few seconds and then advanced as one, carefully. They knew the danger of the woman facing them down on the deck.
Cass stooped quickly and picked up a broken fishing rod.
One of the five produced a wide circular device with a glowing light and lined with what looked to be jagged teeth. Another commanded Cass to go with them and no one would get hurt.
“Who sent you?” she asked.
In answer, they repeated the command, go with them and no one would get hurt.
Cass looked over her shoulder at Elle. The expression on her face was heartbreaking. She turned back to the men in black, and the strange craft floating above them.
“I can’t go with you, not willingly.”
They came at her at once. Cass brought the rod down on one of their shoulders and it snapped in half. She jabbed what remained into the visor on the helmet of another. One of them grabbed Cass’s rod-wielding arm. She tried to twist away, but another of the men restrained her free arm. A booted foot slammed over one of her bare feet. Cass’s face twisted in pain and she wrenched out of their collective grip. Still clutching the piece of rod, she drove it into the thigh of one of the men who’d tried to restrain her.
Behind Cass, another of the men brandished a stun gun. Elle shouted out a warning, but it was too late. She heard the two cracks like miniature lightning bolts and saw Cass fall to her knees. The attacker with the cracked visor tried to quickly wrap the strange round device around her neck. Elle realized the purpose of the thing and felt shock and revulsion. She saw that Cass had lifted her hand to keep the thing from being secured. Her wrist caught between the spikes.
Elle heard the stun gun repeatedly. The men in black bore down on her. One held the device around Cass’s neck, the others took turns meting out punishment, one with the stun gun, another kicking, another punching. Cass bent forward, her strength fading in the fray, but she did not seem to lose consciousness. She kept her arm up inside the collar.
Elle noticed one of the men had broken off from the fray with Cass and was marching her way. She felt a scream escape her as he neared. She peered past him to see Cass upright despite the abuse hurled onto her.
Suddenly, the man in black forcing the collar flew backward with a force that slammed him into the side railings of the boat. Cass was able to disengage from the device which clattered to the deck and slid backward. She stood on shaking legs, then collapsed.
Elle tried to run for her, but the man in black blocked her path. She tried to fight back, but he grabbed her in a bear hug, lifted her squirming body, and carried her toward the cabin.
She lost sight of Cass then. Elle screamed her name as the men in black bore her, kicking and thrashing, to the front of the boat where they dropped her like a sack of potatoes.
She rolled over and saw the opening of the hatch and the black cords dangling down. Something large fell over the lip and landed a few feet away from her in a jangly metallic clatter. She looked up to see a narrow cage of black metal bars, chains, and panels. One of the men in black hoisted Elle to her feet and into the cage. The contraption lifted from the deck. Elle screamed at them as the cage lurched higher into the air toward the strange craft. When she was high enough, she could look over the cabin to see the men standing over Cass’s prone body.
The hatch of the strange craft obstructed her view and she tried to stoop, praying not to hear a gunshot. The cage jangled and shook as she ascended into the dim hatch as if she were on some dilapidated ride at a roadside carnival. Once the ride stopped, she was shoved into a corner. Wild-eyed, she watched as the remaining men in black climbed into the craft. They did not bring Cass with them.
She heard a hiss and a thunk as the hatch door closed leaving them in complete darkness for a few seconds. Several interior lights blinked on as did panels of buttons and controls.
“Where is Cass?” Elle asked. “What have you done with her?”
None of them answered.
A sense of dread claimed her, and she felt tears gathering in her eyes.
“What have you done with Cass?”
None of them spoke a word or even looked her way.
“You know it’s illegal to detain me without letting me know why.”
Still, there was no answer.
She looked around at her present company. They stared ahead, packed in with mere inches between them. Even inside the strange craft, they wore their visored helmets, which could not have been comfortable to wear in such a closed-in space. Elle let out an ear-piercing scream and a few of them flinched. One of them turned her way but quickly looked away.
“Where is Cass?” she asked.
They returned to their task of ignoring her. The tears came then. She crouched down as best she could inside the narrow cage. The craft went on and on for what seemed to be hours. Her stomach growled and her bladder began to sting. She prayed Cass fared better, but doubt coupled with dread had settled in to stay.
A thrumming beneath her feet woke her. The craft bounced and she heard a whoosh like air decompressing. She groaned, aware that she was still in an upright position, the muscles in her legs ached and her skin was covered in bruises earned from being tossed around the boat and her struggle with the men in black. She still smelled of the sea. Her clothes, shorts, and a T-shirt as well as her bikini underneath, were stiff from dried salt water. She was barefoot.
The hatch opened flooding the space with light. Through her tear-blurred eyes she saw the men in black gear file in. As her eyes cleared, she saw the silhouettes of two men in dark suits. They released the mechanisms to open the cage and half-carried her out of the craft and onto a gated blacktop.
She glanced around her for landmarks, signs, anything that could identify her location. She saw mountains in the distance, and even closer a large, dilapidated hangar. She spotted a helicopter and some cars parked close by.
They had taken her to an airstrip.
She found her footing as they led her across the cracked blacktop toward the hangar. As her eyes continued to adjust to the light, she looked around for flags or any other insignia to identify who had her. Finding no clues, she found herself wondering what was worse, being caught up in any given world government’s net or Olympicorp, an organization that played by its own rules.
Inside the hangar, a small sleek jet waited. Otherwise, the place was empty save for a flock of birds flying between the high rust-colored rafters. The men in black escorted her past the jet and to a flight of metal stairs. At the top of the stairs was a doorless frame. On the other side, a few people milled around in suits. None of them looked her way or spoke.
They took her to a closet-like room with a foldout table and a wooden bench. They sat her there and left. She heard the click of a lock as they secured the door behind them. Elle looked around the tiny space and saw a camera mounted in the corner. Someone was watching her. She turned away and tucked her legs beneath her. The wood gleamed as if recently polished, and was slightly concaved like a church pew. It seemed out of place there in the drab little room. She had sat in many pews when she was younger. Her father would take her to speaking engagements around Atlanta at various churches. They would go out to dinner together afterward and talk about everything. By high school, she began to develop her own ideas about life. She was bitten by the writing bug, and her favorite subject was certainly not the Bible.
She stopped going to her father’s speaking engagements and sitting in those pews waiting for him. She felt tears threaten her eyes. She quickly wiped at her face. She was uncertain of what the next person would say or do to her, but she could give them hell. She could fight. For herself and Cass.
