Rampage! (18 page)

Rose stifled a giggle, wiping her eyes.

‘It was as tough as a football.’

He smiled broadly, and chuckled.

‘Jeff said that we should have packed the peas for blow-gun pellets!’ He paused and held out his arm in front of his face, frowning at his tattered shirtsleeve, the bony hand sticking out of the filthy cuff for the first time. He looked back at Rose in dismay. ‘What’s happened to me? I don’t understand.’

‘You will, Dad. Soon, I promise. When we leave for London.’

‘London? But we’re not finished here yet. There’s so much more to do.  We’ve only mapped a tenth of this region and we’ve already found traces of black soil, potshards, tools made from animal bones, Rose! You know what that means?’

‘Evidence of that old tribe, Dad?’

He nodded, his face animated and filled with enthusiasm, the way it always was when he talked about archaeology. And for once, Rose was delighted to hear
it too. In fact, she’d never been so happy to hear about a bunch of old bones and bashed-up crockery in all her life.

She smiled, urging him to go on.

‘James thinks that the Royal Geographical Society will want us to come out here a second time.’ He smiled, looking around at the river, and quickly squinted back over his shoulder towards the village. His face grew serious.

‘What is it?’ said Rose.

‘The others?’ said her father. Paler now, he turned back to her, his skin glimmering beneath a shimmer of sweat. ‘Have you seen them?’

Rose felt her heart skip a beat. She shook her head.

‘They were out on the water,’ he muttered. He frowned and rubbed his temples with his fingers. ‘That water was so dark, Rose, as black as oil. They went out to take readings and I stayed on the shore, collecting soil samples on the bank … and ––’

‘Dad?’

Noticing that his hands were trembling, Rose leaned over and took hold of one as he hunched lower, almost cowering. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were wild and shining with a sudden fear. ‘Teeth …’

‘Dad?’ Rose stared, bewildered. ‘What are you talking about?’

He drew his hand away, and together with the other, ran both through his hair, staring hard into the dust. ‘Like shards of rock,’ he said slowly. ‘James and the others,
they were in the dinghy, that’s right, they were in the dinghy and, and …’ His face crumpled with horror. Lurching towards her, he seized hold of her shoulders in alarm. ‘I tried to warn them, but …’

‘But what?’ urged Rose. ‘Dad?’

His brow lowered, as he searched for the rest of the memory. He looked up at her, panic-stricken.

‘They’re all … gone.’

Rose felt a ripple of horror flash over her skin. ‘What are you talking about? What happened to them?’

But it was too late.

She watched helplessly as his face returned to its calm, blank mask. Then, sagging back against the tree trunk, he pursed his lips and stared into the flowing water once more, as if she hadn’t spoken. Worse, as if she wasn’t even there.

‘Dad?’

But there was no response.

Hearing her own breath, short and stabbing, rasping in her throat, she wondered what on earth could have induced such terror. Teeth like shards of rock? It hardly made any sense. A cold prickling crept up her spine. Just what
had
happened to those men out on the water?
What
water? She shuddered, knowing that she must accidentally have stumbled on the memory of whatever terrible event had left him in such a wretched state in the first place, the dreadful thing that had shut down his mind, as Medea put it.

Shivering, she snatched the flask out of the dust and
buttoned it back into her cargo shorts. For a few long moments she sat back, listening to the chatter and shrills of the jungle, letting it calm her with its familiar, hypnotic lull.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered, as much to herself as her father.

And slowly, slowly, despite the sick feeling squirming in the pit of her stomach at seeing his terror, she knew in her heart that it would be. Obviously, she reasoned, her rookie potion hadn’t been strong enough to last more than a few minutes. But it had worked, hadn’t it?

And, with the right gold, Medea’s special gold from the lagoon, she would be able to make it permanent. The thought filled her mind, as big and bold and brash as an advert slapped up on a billboard, and she felt her earlier fear slipping away.

Things
would
be all right.

In fact, her mind now ran on, they were going to be very much more than simply all right. With Medea’s help, they were going to be dizzyingly, life-changingly, unbelievably marvellous.

Above her, the afternoon rainstorm began pattering against the canopy of waxy leaves and she leaned back beside her father, listening to his breathing. She lifted her face to the sky and felt the cool water run over her sun-burnished skin.

She could do it.

She could actually be a sorceress.

As the rain soaked through her thin clothes and
plastered her hair to her head, she began to feel giddily happier than she had since leaving England and, leaning over, she kissed her father’s filthy cheek.

Medea was right: magic really did change everything.

And, with the sorceress’s help, just what couldn’t she do?

Well, unfortunately, one of the things that she couldn’t do was see what Medea was up to at that precise moment.

A few miles south of the village, the sorceress was turning rapid circles in front of a waterfall. The same waterfall, in fact, that had appeared in Persephone’s magazine, and in case you’re wondering, it was much more spectacular in real life, what with all those thousands of gallons of water gushing over its rim of grey rock and plummeting in a deafening whoosh into the eddies below. Yes, ringed with rainbows in the late-afternoon sunshine and twinkling with kingfishers’ wings, it’d certainly be a much pleasanter thing for me to write about and maybe even draw a picture to go with it, instead of telling you about madam, who’d now stopped twirling round and was busily rummaging through the sack of old jaguar bones she’d brought with her. Trophies from the big cats the tribesmen had killed, these bones had adorned the wall of the chief’s hut, and had been childishly easy to steal earlier that day with all the men out in the jungle, hunting. And now, picking out a long yellowed thighbone, she reflected that much as she hated being stuck out here in the festering jungle, the place did have its advantages.
Rather like a Do-It-Yourself store for sorceresses low on power, the place was full of its own sort of labour-saving devices. Not power drills, electric saws and paint guns or anything like that, but brimful of animals, plants and insects that were already so supercharged with the desire to bite, sting, throttle, squeeze and savage anything in their path to a mush of tapioca that it only took a small blast of magic from her to turn them into the most ghastly of weapons. Which was just as well, she reflected sourly, as she could hardly ask for Rose’s help with what she intended to do now.

Sinking to her hands and knees, she began piecing together a skeleton in the dust: a cage of ribs, a column of vertebrae, a curve of tail, leg bones, toe bones, a butterfly of shoulder blades and lots and lots of teeth. Setting down each piece as carefully as a museum curator preparing a display for a glass case, she laid out the shape of a big cat in front of her.

Except that this one had three skulls at the top of its spine.

Yes, I know.

Things are not looking good.

This is because they aren’t.

Next, she took the bangle from her pocket, aware of its coarser surface since the girl had used it in her magic that morning and, muttering dark curses, began dragging it down the ribcage and spine, the chinky-chink of dry bones easing her sour mood.

You see, since Rose’s lesson that morning, the
sorceress’s day had gone rapidly downhill. Having packed the girl off to make earrings, Medea had settled to her daily scry only to be rocked back on her jungle boots when she discovered how close Alex, Aries and Jason were getting to the village. She could hardly believe her eyes when the scrying waters had cleared to reveal Alex guiding Aries over the slick, flat stones crossing the Trombetas rapids, a few miles to the west. Soundlessly shouting instructions over the raging water, he’d kept the ram safe – wet, miserable and scowling after Jason who leaped the stones as gracefully as a gazelle – but safe. And, keen though she was to see each one of them for her own exquisitely poisonous reasons, it wouldn’t do to have them clomp-hoofing in unannounced and totally ruining her plans with Rose. To be honest, the speed at which they’d coursed through the jungle thanks to that whingeing, wet sock Hazel made her want to spit lizards.
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But, tempting though a vile sulk would be, she knew that a piece of unspeakably dreadful magic would do a lot more good.

Or rather, bad.

It had taken her hours of sweat and blisters to walk here, but now, as the earth beneath the bones began to judder, jiggling the bones where they lay, she felt her spirits lift a little. A whisper of low voices twisted around her as the bones began sliding jerkily together, as though yanked by invisible threads. The spine stacked like
building bricks, the rib cage closed like a bony hand and the skulls rumbled like grisly bowling balls to line up along the creature’s neck.

Clunk,

           
clunk,

                       
clunk.

And if you’re squeamish, I’d suggest closing your eyes and running your finger halfway down the next page before you open them again, because this next bit is positively stomach-churning.

The rest of you, who’re a little bit tougher, brace yourselves.

Pink flesh now knitted itself rapidly on to the bones. A heart bloomed like a red orchid behind the creature’s ribs and began to throb; a stomach bulged and gurgled, two lungs puffed up like bellows. All over the creature’s body veins spun out like cables, battening down the slabs of growing rubbery yellow muscle that stretched over the creature’s broad shoulders, plaited over its back and pelvis, unfurling down its legs and wrapping about its toes. Teeth slotted into the hollows of jawbones and twinkled as the creature lay thickening and rounding, as wobbly as a jaguar-shaped jelly, and about as unappetizingly pink.
40
Its tail twitched. Muscles jumped and rippled along its back, fired by nerves, making its hips and shoulders jiggle, its legs shiver into life. Finally a tide of gold fur, dotted with black, surged up from the
tip of its tail over its body and heads, making Medea squeal with glee.

Instantly, six ears twitched at the sound. Six ruby-red eyes slid round to regard the sorceress. Medea chuckled and held out her hand as the creature stretched up on to its paws, arched its back and padded over to her. For a moment she ran her milky-white fingers lovingly through its fur, rubbing each of its ears in turn as it nuzzled its heads against her. Then, taking it gently by the scruff of the neck, she led it into the jungle, knelt down beside it and, leaning her forehead against the creature’s middle head, began chanting her dark charms and imagining its claws tearing through Aries’ flesh. In her mind’s eye she saw the ram’s horns vanishing one last time beneath a fury of pounding paws and felt a cold swell of delight as beside her the giant cat purred with understanding.

Finally drawing back, she tilted its middle head up and kissed its nose. ‘Go hunt.’

A moment later, the monstrous cat sloped away into the darkening jungle, its heads keenly sniffing the air around it.

XIX

T
HINGS
T
HAT GO
B
UMP!
H
ISS!
R
AAR!
T
IPPITY
-T
AP!
‘E
EK!
W
HAT
W
AS
T
HAT?' IN
T
HE
N
IGHT

Night falls quickly in the jungle, stuffing every nook and cranny with a thick, velvety blackness. Tree trunks veiled in darkness start to slither and squeak, hissing and rasping with secret visitors. Invisible ferns rustle with the snuffling of unseen rats. And scuttly-wuttly things with far too many legs plop on your mosquito screen like trapeze artists tumbling into safety nets.

Plunge! 

               
Whee!

                            
Splat!

Or at least they do until the bigger things slink down from the branches and gobble them up.

Which hardly made Alex feel any better.

Despite the sheer exhaustion that made his body seem heavier than a Spartan's shield, since falling into his hammock a few hours ago he'd lain awake, prickling at every screech and squeal and sudden snap of a twig
underfoot. Not to mention the eerie three-voiced roar that repeatedly splintered the night, sounding louder and closer each time it keened, like a pack of wolves in the wilderness.

Actually, let's not mention that.

Shuddering, he stared up at the impenetrable gloom overhead, thinking of how the rainforest at night reminded him of the Underworld Zoo, in those hours after the visitors had gone home, when the most ferocious monsters stirred into life. Creatures like Hydra, the huge, many-headed lizard. Easily the sleepiest exhibit in the daytime, frustrating the crowds by lying like a grey hillock, snoozing at the bottom of her tank, things were very different in the dark. And, much as Alex loved her, whenever he caught sight of her greasy scales, big as dinner plates, pulsing against the glass wall of her pool as she dragged herself up into the moonlight, he was always hugely glad that she was enclosed behind monster-proof mesh.

Unlike the predators here.

Not that the eeriness of the jungle was the only thing keeping him awake, I'm afraid. No, his unease had started much earlier, soon after bundling Aries into his hammock
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when he'd returned to chat with Jason over the campfire. Emboldened from having saved the Argonaut from the
wasps' nest earlier in the day and feeling as though the three of them (and the Gorgon and snakes) were at last on the quest together, he'd shared his own ideas with Jason on how they could defeat Medea. The one where Alex would strum the lyre to momentarily distract her whilst Jason slipped the statue into her hand. The one where they could sneakily follow her out into the jungle, zap her with a lightning storm from Zeus's thunderbolt to freeze her long enough to tuck it beneath her arm. The one where Aries could butt her into the river and, when she stretched out for help, stick Nemesis neatly in her grasping fingers.

Sighing, he felt his face grow warm again, blushing with that same mixture of embarrassment and anger that he'd felt when Jason had simply smiled indulgently at him, as if Alex were just a child. ‘That needn't concern you or Aries,' he'd said, flinging the rest of the fish bones from his supper into the fire, and watching the flames sputter with blue light. ‘I'll handle it myself.'

Handle it himself?

Medea?

So much for working together, piped up a sour little voice in his mind, or for learning any hero tricks. Alex bristled, thinking back to the Caves of Acheron, of watching Jason sword-fight using the stick of driftwood, and wondering if he'd teach him to fight as gracefully too, and felt freshly foolish.

Yesterday, when Jason had punched him on the shoulder as playfully as a big brother, he'd really thought
they were a team. But now he was beginning to realise that while Jason relied on him to read the map, catch the fish for dinner using Artemis's arrows, build the fire and cook, he clearly didn't think he was good enough to help with the important things.

Suddenly the triple yowl echoed through the jungle again, closer than ever, and, thoroughly rattled, Alex slid out of his hammock. Even if Jason thought he was only about as much use as a chocolate sandal, he consoled himself that he could at least protect the camp by stoking up the fire to ward off any circling carnivores. Beside him, Grass Snake shivered off the shield and began passing him twigs and kindling in his mouth to help. Back in old Greece, he'd been one of hundreds of non-venomous snakes who slithered around the floors of
Hippocrates
's healing sanctuary on Kos where he'd loved nothing better than building lots of lovely sparkly fires for purifying water. (To be honest, it'd been much more fun than all the hissing and wriggling he'd had to do in the long, boring ceremonies dedicated to Asclepius, the god of medicine, where the priests would fling him round their heads until he felt almost as sick as the patients.) Now, watching the blaze and knowing it would scare off even the most determined prowlers, they both felt calmer.

On the other side of the clearing, Aries grumbled in his sleep, muttering uneasily, tangled in his mosquito nets. Yet Jason slept on soundly, the sword of Achilles laid alongside him in the hammock. Alex watched the
splashes of firelight playing over his dirt-smeared features, lending him nobility even out here.

Trust them, he thought, to be stuck with someone who wanted it to go it alone, determined to be the hero and scoop up all the glory right to the end. Except that, now, the more he thought about it, the odder it seemed. After all, on the quest for the Fleece, Jason had had no fewer than fifty helpers, Argonauts who'd fought beside him, battled the harpies and boxed with a king who wouldn't let the
Argo
pass until someone stepped into the ring with him. And even though Alex knew that Jason had done all the dangerous bits by himself, he'd still taken a little of Medea's help, wearing her magical salve to protect him against the fire-breathing bulls and waiting until she'd enchanted Drako before he clambered up the deadly serpent's coils. So why wouldn't he even listen to anybody now? Was it really because it came from a boy and a ram? Even allowing for Jason's huge pride and achievements, they were still up against a vicious sorceress, and it hardly made sense to ignore every one of Alex's suggestions.

Jabbing the fire with a branch of mahogany wood, Alex felt a sour twinge of unease wrap itself around his heart, enfolding it like an anaconda. And, as he thought about how the other Greek heroes had achieved their missions, he felt it start to squeeze: Theseus had gladly taken Ariadne's ball of wool, spooling it behind him so that he could find his way back out of the Minotaur's maze; Herakles had asked his nephew to sear the stumps
of Hydra's necks with a flaming torch after he lopped off each head, to stop more from sprouting. Alex glanced curiously at the shield and the snakes and Gorgon sleeping beneath its silvered veneer. Even Perseus had needed to ask for directions to find Medusa from the
Grey Sisters.
So why, if men like that could rely on princesses, boys and a group of hags with only one eye between them, would Jason flatly refuse their help? It didn't make sense. Unless, he thought, there
was
something Jason wasn't telling them about what he planned to do.

He looked over at Aries, still snuffling in his hammock and knew that the ram would have lots of suspicions and doubtless each would be more dreadful and unbelievable than the last. But even so, by the time the tree frogs began their morning burp-chorus high above him, Alex still hadn't come up with a reasonable explanation for why Jason was being quite so secretive and, slinging Artemis's bows and arrows over his shoulder, he headed down to the river, feeling more unsettled than ever.