The Heart of the Sphinx

Chapter 13

Medusa looked at the dead man slumped on his own chair in his own house inside the library and then looked at it for some time, as if inspecting her handiwork and she seemed quite satisfied with how the corpse looked. Although it would take the body more than six hours to set in to rigor-mortis and then it cannot be said that how the body would look then.

Bella came inside the library and said,” Why are you standing here?”

“Ahhh!! There you are my young cub. I was just looking at this pathetic little bug and thinking how essentially easy it was of quenching all his desires to life. I do understand your concern that this will be an odd place for contemplation but I must tell you, my cub, this one was a bad egg,” said Medusa as she dropped the bullets on the floor with a dramatic effect.

“And why are you dropping that?” asked Bella, in horror as she looked at the scattered bullets on the carpet.

“Why? What is the matter?” asked Medusa as she looked at Bella.

“These bullets are going to have your finger prints and then they will come to understand that they are not dealing with common human being which will lead then one step closer to our trail,” said Bella, as she hastily picked up all the bullets and then put them inside her pocket wrapped in a kerchief.

“It is impressive, about how you know things which I was not aware about myself!! Where did you come to know about these things?” asked Medusa as she looked at the young girl who was looking at everything in the room and moving about in order to check if there were any other traces of the clues which she had left in the room or not.

“I have been watching Dexter for eight seasons on TV. There were pretty good theories and clues about what to do when to murder and what not to do and what is the science of the blood splatter and if that can be used in order to understand what kind of instrument has been used or what kind of mood the killer had when he or she was doing this murder. It was very interesting,” said Bella as she wiped off the surface of the couch and found out of the tail hairs and plucked it out as well.

“You are really very good at that. It is too bad that you are a girl like me, or I would have wanted you to join the army and then I would have trained you to get promoted as the commander,” said Medusa as she smiled at the young girl.

“Well you are not in Egypt any longer and the times have changed by almost a century, so you do understand that now women can do anything they want right?” asked Bella as they both headed towards the roof.

“Is that so? Then why are you still on the streets even though clearly you are intelligent and good enough to be in that place where they make you study? And learn?” asked Medusa as they stood on the roof.

“That is because I don’t have a guardian and I don’t have any money either. I am not one of these privileged bitches who would have anything to do and then they will get away with it. That is the reason I am trying to learn, because I don’t want this life any more than you do Medusa,” said Bella, as the sphinx could hear the plea in her voice.

“Then we are going to do everything in our capacity to make you rich, so that you can attain the education that you need and the platform, that is what you children call it nowadays in order to improve your social standing,” said Medusa as she grabbed hold of Bella in her arm and then swooped down the roof.

“Why are these urns so essential to you?” asked Bella as she made sure that the backpack was safely and securely fastened to her torso.

“There are a few things which were created by the Gods in order to keep the power of doing everything out of the hands of the mortals. The mortals, that is the humans as you call them now, they are very fickle creatures. They do not understand that everything is not meant for everyone and the every single time that they have been handed over more power that they can deal with they do not think of higher things, like knowledge or improvement of others or even the enhancement of soul. They only do one thing, that is giving in to their greed and lust and power-hunger and they become absolute tyrants and I don’t want that to happen to anyone here,” said Medusa as Bella smirked at her as they flew up in the sky and then swooped in and over to take care of the wires and then things hanging all over. They could not fly low at all, which was good in one sense.

“Why are you smiling?” asked Medusa as they reached the place in which they had been living for the past few days.

“I was thinking of what you said earlier. About the lust and power hunger in men when they had been given power more than they could deal with. That is why I was laughing,” said Bella.

“I consider this to be an extremely vexing and perplexing behaviour on your part. Why do you laugh? DO you think that I am jesting with you?” asked Medusa in a cold voice.

“Of course not. You speak the truth. You say everything correctly Medusa, that is the reason you have to live in the shadows. This is a world where truth has also a price and power comes from dealing with information and here the power is held by men who want that and claim that power by any means possible,” said Bella as she placed her backpack on the floor.

“What do you think that I am not aware of that?” asked Medusa and Bella looked at her cold gaze and a shiver ran through across her spine.

Bella could not speak anymore. She stood there mute, absolutely no idea what she was going to do next.

“DO you think that this world is very different from the world that I have been seeing all these years? The centuries I have asleep, very little is changed in that time period,” said Medusa as she opened the bag with her talon and then took out the urn from the bag.

“This is not all the nonsense that you think it is dear cub. This is something else. This holds the key to life and death and I was considered to be the protector of this thing. I had never thought that these imbeciles were going to take all the pieces away which would have to force me to come down to this. Taking away things when I am asleep, is a violation of thing which is called privacy and I am not going to let them think that they can do anything they want. These men had taken these away in order to use this or sell this off but then because of the power it held inside itself they grew attached to this and did not allow themselves to part. I knew that this would happen. There is a part of the Goddess of knowledge herself in it,” said Medusa as she touched the urn in a loving manner.

“Then they need to be kept safely, if they are so precious. They cannot be allowed to fall in the hands of man again,” said Bella, with urgency in her voice.

“Yes, I do know that. And you are correct. But until and unless I have been able to retrieve all the four urns, I cannot have the ceremony any longer without which it will be all very fruitless again. My choice of being able to use my womb was taken away just because I was deemed to be unfit of being a mother. The cats and dogs and the fishes are allowed to breed but I am not. I was not? Why? Because I had the heart of a lion but also it was cold as a stone,” said Medusa as she looked at both the urns kept on the end of the floor.

“But that is not true at all. How can anyone do that to you?” asked Bella as she came closer to Medusa and touched her back, the place where the skin and fur became enmeshed together.

“Let me see how long she considers that I am fit to be punished for no crime of mine,” said Medusa as her eyes started burning again.