Rampage! (8 page)

Cherries ricocheted from Aries' muzzle.

                                                              ‘… ME!'

In reply, Aries gave de Bonita's ankle an amorous lick, sending her shrieking on to the humpback bridge as the funny little man from the musicians below scrambled up on to the stage and began jabbing Aries in the rump with his short stick.

‘Call the police!' bawled de Bonita. ‘A vet! A farmer!'

She spun away furiously. It was unfortunate that as she did so her Geisha wig, made for sitting prettily rather than running away from rams, flew off, whirled over the stage and landed on the head of a man in the front row. Now the audience erupted into gales of laughter, as an
appalled de Bonita patted her head, horrified to discover her wrinkled stocking cap, skull-tight over her hair and leaving her looking like a bank-robbing walrus.

Which was when Aries noticed Alex race on to the stage.

‘You didn't!' he cried, grabbing hold of the torn blue velvet roll around Aries' neck.

Aries looked up at him, bewildered.

‘Get him out of here!' bellowed de Bonita, scooping up her fan and what was left of her dignity to race off stage.

Alex threw his arms defensively around Aries as a gang of burly stagehands dressed in black raced in from the sides of the stage. ‘He doesn't mean any harm!'

Grabbing a ram, in case you haven't tried it, isn't easy at the best of times and particularly when they are as big as Aries. Now, trying to curtail a furious Aries, loaded up with a thunderbolt, lyre and a quiver of slapping arrows, it was like being sucked into a mad game of Buckaroo. In desperation, Alex grabbed hold of Aries' horns and forced him to look into his eyes.

‘It's the love petals, Aries! That's all!'

Aries blinked. ‘Love petals?'

At which Alex shot off the ground, dragged backwards by three pairs of hands. Suddenly, several more hands laced through the leather straps of the harness on Aries' back and began towing him behind Alex, off the stage and out into the corridor.

But on the up-side, at least they saw Jason.

He was happily strolling down the corridor in the opposite direction, whispering to a woman with curly brown hair tangling down her back.

‘Jason!' yelled Alex. Aries heard the gladness in his voice, so relieved to have found him.

From the other end of the corridor the woman yelped and clamped a hand over her mouth as Jason glanced back and blanched.

‘We're over here!' called Alex. Struggling against his captors, he looked down at Aries. ‘Thank Zeus!' he gasped. ‘He'll help us sort this mess out and we can be on our way to Rose again!'

Which was when Jason muttered something to the woman, wrapped his arm around her … and they vanished around the corner together.

‘Jas––?' shouted Alex.

Aries snatched a last glance of the boy's face, crumpled in confusion as they were hauled away, their feet and hooves sliding over the tiles, yanked out of the corridor into a glittering foyer in the direction of a grand, gold-framed door.

A door through which five Brazilian policemen were now charging, brandishing handcuffs and ropes.

Which was just great.

IX

L
OOK
W
HO'S
S
TALKING

Things weren't going terribly well for Medea either.

Glowering at her spell book (flung face-down on the floor) and her chart of tropical moon phases (crumpled into a ball and stamped on), she clenched her fists, brooding yet again why ever since she'd woken up that morning thoughts of Jason had swarmed through her head like a plague of locusts, whirring and skittering and making it impossible to concentrate on anything else.

Her astral calculations were all wrong. Her mixture of lizard blood and scorpion sting had curdled miserably. Even the moments spent scrying on Hazel as she discovered that glorious spider crawling up her bedsheets had been ruined by her ex-husband poking his annoyingly handsome nose into her mind.

But why?

Frowning at the sudden chatter of budgies outside her window, she realised that she hadn't felt this sort of mental itchiness for centuries. Not since she'd been a fledgling witch had her natural ESP – Extra Sorceress Perception – been helpful to her by alerting her to things before they happened because since then she'd always
had far more powerful magic at her fingertips to answer any questions she had.

Yet it was bamboozling her now.

Then a strange thought crossed her mind.

Surely Jason hadn't –
wouldn't
– come back to Earth? Jason?
Her
Jason? Leave the Underworld paradise he'd been partying in for years to do anything as dangerous as step back on to Earth? The thought was so absurd it made her laugh out loud.

Her mind spun her back to the palace she'd shared with him years ago on Iolkos. Bitterness flooded through her veins as she saw herself lying in her shuttered chambers, the Golden Fleece abandoned at her feet, jamming her fingers into her ears, trying to escape the sound of the city bells announcing Jason's engagement to Glauce. Of sobbing until her eyes burned and, in despair, throwing herself on to the scratchy curls of the Fleece, hating it, cursing it, blaming it for ruining her life, and in her furious misery pummelling it with her fists, tearing at its ringlets until her fingers bled.

When it had begun to glimmer with new life.

Back in the hut, she slowly turned her hands palm upwards.

The scars were still there.

Growling, she set her scrying bowl down with a violent clang, determined to find out why her ex-husband was stomping through her thoughts. Obviously, she scolded herself, muttering as she snatched up her potions and lit the flame, this would be a complete waste of
time. There was no way he'd appear because there was no way he'd be back on Earth. (Scrying, you see, simply isn't powerful enough to see into the Underworld. Something to do with all those rocks and roots and buried dinosaur bones, not to mention a barrier of godly protection, overwhelmed such first-grade magic.)

Except that a few minutes later she found herself transfixed, watching the colours in the liquid spiral out to reveal a magnificent pink-walled building beneath a domed roof of green and gold mosaic, sparkling in the rain. Abruptly, the view zoomed dizzyingly down to the building's front doors as they slammed open.

And Jason strolled out.

He.

         Was.

                  Back.

                             On.

                                     Earth.

There was absolutely no doubt about it.

Feeling her breath snag in her chest, Medea leaned in closer, willing her brain to believe what her bewildered eyes were seeing: Jason, son of Aeson, hurrying down a flight of steps into an empty town square, his arm wrapped around the shoulder of a young, dark-haired woman.

That bit, at least, was easy to believe.

Stunned, she forced herself to calm down. Then, sensing her heartbeat dwindle to its usual crocodile slowness, she looked more carefully at the building behind
them, at its domed roof twinkling like a giant mirrorball in the rain, and knew that she'd seen it before. From the plane – that was it! – on the day she'd flown into Brazil.

The Manaus Opera House.

Leaning closer, she watched Jason and the woman splash away through the puddles, feeling her curiosity prickle as he tapped the long and – now she came to consider it – curiously old-fashioned key sticking out of his back pocket.

She began pacing the hut, running her hand through the violet streak in her hair, thinking, thinking. Clearly the boy and the ram must have blabbed to the Underworld about her awesomely terrible magic and some bothersome do-gooder like Athena had decided to stick her snooty little nose in. Yet they'd known that without new fleeces she had no real power left. So why had Athena sent her shiny Jason back to Earth? To spy on her? To stop her from trying something else? Stop her, indeed! She sneered, imagining the goddess of war prancing around with her big silly shield. Soon, oh, so very soon, she'd wipe that smug little smile off her face for good. And how much more delicious would it be if she were to use Jason to do just that?

To and fro, fro and to, her jungle boots thudded on the mud floor as her thoughts grew colder and colder still, slowly crystallising into a new and delightfully poisonous plan. After all, wasn't it perfect that he should reappear precisely when she was on the cusp of seizing more magical power than she'd ever known in her long
and malicious life? Because couldn't she, with a little careful planning, use him as her own finishing touch, like drizzled honey on her baklava of evil?

But, first things first.

Like the small matter of making sure he actually arrived to see her. After all, knowing him, he'd probably already be thinking of just how quickly he could get that impossibly handsome face of his back to his Underworld fans. She stood, framed by the hut window, her eyes dark as thunderclouds.

Which would have been one of those splendidly dramatic moments, had the scrying bowl not chosen that precise second to let out the most disgusting rumbling belch. The sort of belch a podgy hippo might produce, with a belly full of water, should it attempt a graceful riverbank roll, and, rudely snapped out of her reverie, Medea scuttled over to the bowl again.

‘What the ––?' she spluttered, gasping as she saw Alex and Aries, decorated like a peddler's mule, being dragged out of the building through the very same door that Jason had stepped out of only a few minutes ago. Except that the boy and the ram were leaving backwards, squealing, in a flurry of hands, feet and hooves, escorted by several gruff policemen.

Medea stared in astonishment.

Surely those turnips had learned their lesson the first time? So, why were they back again? To help Jason?
Aries? Help Jason?
The thought was absolutely ludicrous and yet there he was, as big and bald and mad-looking as ever,
and, moreover, clearly loaded down with godly gifts for the quest, whilst the boy was struggling to hold on to Athena's enormous shield.

No, of course it wasn't for Jason, she chided herself. Rolling her eyes at her own silliness, she realised that plainly when the Underworld had discovered that she was in the Amazon – where their beloved Rose had been heading to find her father – they'd decided to come back and make sure their little pal was safe.

Well, how sickening.

But, perhaps, how perfect, too.

Because even though Alex might be as annoying as a mosquito, he was also smart and, coupled with the ram's blundering determination, that meant Jason would have the help he needed to actually be able to find her out here.

Just so long as he had a real reason to look.

She closed her eyes and found her mind returning again to that strange-looking key. Then, knowing exactly what to do, she raced across the hut, flung back the lid of her trunk and, slipping on the gold bangle, twirled around the room, congratulating herself on her own terrible cleverness.

Meanwhile, outside the window the little bunch of blue budgies continued to trill merrily, flapping their wings in the sun and tottering along the branch as though everything in the jungle was lovely.

Which, I'm afraid, is budgies all over for you.

X

J
AILHOUSE
S
HOCK

Someone who most certainly wasn’t trilling at that moment, or indeed bouncing along a branch for that matter, was Madam Rosita de Bonita.

Sopranos’ voices, you see, are as delicate as porcelain and just as easily shattered by shock,
24
meaning that when Aries had turned Madam’s aria into an
aaargh
-ia, he’d strained her voice horribly, warping her scales to wails, her trills to shrills and turning her Top-C turvy. Worse, with a leading lady moaning from her chaise longue with her singing voice sounding like a spaniel trying to yodel, the opera company had been forced to cancel its show.

And Alex and Aries had been arrested.

How unpleasant.

Now, unlike the city’s opera house, which is as pink and giddy as a beautifully iced cake, the yard of the South Manaus Police Station is a miserable place. Open to the sky, it consists of a scrubby patch of ground bordered on three sides by the blank whitewashed walls of the police
station itself and on the fourth by a pair of tall gates, railed with iron struts and ending in sharp tips, that lead out on to the street and city beyond. Or at least they do when they’re not chained and heavily padlocked, shut firm to imprison a boy and a giant ram. This is because cells, as you might have guessed, aren’t built to accommodate oversized rams (or indeed ram-sized ones) and having seen the calming effect that Alex had on Aries, the police had decided to keep both of them outdoors.

‘I suppose you’re blaming me for all this,’ sighed Aries, scuffling up a cloud of dust made silvery by the moonlight.

‘No,’ replied Alex patiently. ‘I’m trying to get us out of here. Do stand still!’

Clambering up on to Aries’ back, he steadied himself against the gates and stood up gingerly. Then, balancing like a stunt rider, he stretched up and closed his sweat-slicked fingers high around two bars of the gate.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, one of their many gifts – say, the lightning bolt to zap the gates, or the cocktail stirrer to pick the padlock – might well have been useful at this point. Unfortunately, however, the Chief of Police, Inspector Gonzales – a rather gruff little man with a bristly moustache like a toilet brush – had seized everything and locked it safely away in his office.

‘It’s no good!’ announced Aries. ‘I can tell by the tone of your voice that you’re cross with me.’

‘Well,’ admitted Alex, twitching his nose as a drop of sweat rolled down it, ‘I suppose it might have helped if you’d ignored your stomach.’ Lifting up his right foot, he
braced it against the gate, took a deep breath and swung up his other leg. ‘You know …’ he grunted, grasping the bars more tightly, ‘just … till … we left the … building.’

‘I see,’ muttered Aries. ‘I notice you’re not blaming Jason.’ Aries stepped back to look up at him, frowning. ‘Even though he’s the one who made us creep around the opera house in the first place and didn’t help us when the police arrived.’

Alex grimaced as the metal bit into his fingers. Steeling himself, he tried lifting one hand higher. But it was hopeless. The bars were sharp-edged and his hands were clammy, useless for holding on. Now, wholly losing his grip, his hands slid painfully down the bars.

‘Aries!’ he yelped, landing in a heap on the dusty ground. Frustrated, he kicked the gates hard, making the metal rattle wildly. ‘Aren’t things bad enough?’

‘That’s what I was just say––’

‘No, you weren’t!’ snapped Alex, wiping his brow. It was hot and sticky, itchy with grit. ‘And I don’t want to hear it!’

‘But if he’d owned up to knowing us ––’

Alex threw his hands in the air.

‘Then what? He’d be stuck in here too, wouldn’t he? Locked up like us! We can’t all make fools of ourselves, Aries, get caught and bundled into prison, you know. Some of us have to manage to stay out of trouble for five minutes to lead the quest.’

Aries’ eyes widened in shock and Alex caught his breath, wishing that he could snatch the words straight
back again. For a moment he simply stared at Aries, almost willing the ram to furiously stick out his lower lip and start the old argument they always had whenever they talked about Jason.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Aries’ face crumpled with hurt and he turned silently away, trudging over to the other side of the compound to slump down, his big bottom turned towards Alex.

Alex stood up and leaned against the gate, pushing his face against the warm bars. He glared at the narrow road beyond, littered with wooden trolleys piled with rotting fruit, and felt his heart grow heavier than Achilles’s sword. In the distance he could hear the blare of the city – people laughing, music playing, the blast of horns from the sort of metal chariots they’d seen in London – and felt dismally glad that the other boys from the Underworld – the ones who hung round the zoo, teasing that he was more Ancient Geek than Ancient Greek for bothering with a load of smelly old monsters – couldn’t see him now. Or his father, who’d doubtless still be bragging to the market traders in the agora about his clever, questing son who’d been chosen to help Jason. Biting his lip, he craned his neck, trying to see a little further down the street, wishing that Jason would hurry up and find them. Come back and show them how to escape. Show them how to stay calm when everything was going wrong.

Like now.

The thought sent fresh panic spiralling through his chest. They should be on their way to Rose by now. They should be heading into the jungle. If only they hadn’t made such a spectacle of themselves in the opera house, Alex felt sure that they would have been.

‘Alex?’ Aries’ voice was small now, little more than a whisper.

Turning, Alex looked over at the ram lying in a pool of moonlight and, seeing his sad, flattened ears, felt his heart tighten. He walked over and sat down beside him as Aries looked up, his muzzled scrunched up with worry.

‘What is it?’

Aries paused for a moment. ‘Supposing Jason doesn’t come back?’

Alex laid his arm across Aries’ neck. Usually a remark like that would annoy him but now he felt too exhausted to argue.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he shrugged. ‘He’ll be here soon.’

Yet even so, as Aries slumped back down again, Alex found himself wishing that the ram hadn’t chosen that particular moment, what with their being trapped in a strange, unfriendly place, hot, hungry and sickeningly worried about Rose, to suggest that they’d been abandoned too. Somewhere across town, a bell rang seven times and, feeling a sudden chill, Alex drew his knees tightly up beneath his chin.

Of course Jason would come back for them.

Alex just hoped he wouldn’t take too long about it.