Rampage! (11 page)

But the figure was still there.

Except it was closer now.

Rose blinked, furious at the way her devious mind had even painted a treacly look of concern on the imaginary sorceress’s face, making her look like some lavender-scented aunt with a big bar of chocolate in her handbag. She almost laughed. As if Medea could ever be the sort of person to brush your shoulder with her hand and murmur a soothing, ‘My poor Rose. I’m so sorry about your father.’

Making it all the more startling when she did.

Rose felt her touch like a sliver of ice dragged over her skin.

Sharp, cold and, worst of all, undeniably real.

She stared up into the sorceress’s grey, glinting eyes, aware of the screeching jungle around her fading away as surely as if someone had turned down the volume on a giant radio. The world wobbled beneath her feet, jolting the trees and stopping the birds flying in mid-air. Lurching sideways, her gaze fell on a clump of scarlet fire-flowers, blooms that suddenly swelled into huge red trumpets and furiously rushed up to fill her vision.

Just before everything went completely black.

XIV

H
OLDING
O
UT
F
OR A
H
ERO

‘Is magnificent tea-tray! I think is silver!’

Chief Inspector Gonzales, head of South Manaus Police Station, pressed the phone hard to his chubby ear and admired the rather splendid silverware he’d confiscated from the boy and the ram the day before. Unlike the ugly little statue, lyre and other oddments he’d seized, which were clearly only cheap stage props that the odd pair had managed to thieve from the theatre, it looked valuable. Now, with his plump behind perched on his desk, he waited for his brother Leonardo, an antiques dealer in Belem, to tell him what he thought it might be worth. At the other end of the line, Leonardo huffed again.

‘You say it has a lady’s face on it?’ he said.

Usually his dithering infuriated Gonzales, but not today, because today the Chief Inspector was far too busy totting up dollars in his mind, the dollars he was certain they’d make when Leonardo sold the tray to some well-heeled tourist. In fact, he was so busy counting that he didn’t hear the low whisper of snakes behind him.

‘
Si!
’ barked the Chief Inspector. ‘Though she looks like a cat’s bottom.’

Nor the sharp intake of Medusa’s breath, following by fits of hissing giggles.

‘Bring it to the shop at the weekend, Gonzales.’

And he didn’t even notice the flop of five bellies dropping one after another on to the stone floor behind him –
plop, plop, plop, plop, plip
– as four deadly serpents (and Grass Snake, who was doing his best) now slithered straight towards him. Sliding in SWAT
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formation, their coffin-shaped snouts instantly homed in on the tang of his cheesy feet.

Of course, seeing them would have been the most dreadful surprise.

Maybe it’s surprised you, too?

Which just goes to show what you know about shields belonging to Ancient Greek goddesses, because even fancy-pants ones like Athena’s, that really do look rather like something a posh butler would serve afternoon tea from, will always revert to being a ‘Where-do-you-think-you’re-sticking-those-scones, Mister?’ sort of deadly weapon on a quest. Making it extremely lucky that as the snakes began rising around the legs of Gonzales’s desk there was a bright, ‘Hot dang! Anybody home?’ from the public office beyond, followed by a most impatient rapping on its glass screen, obliging Gonzales to waddle off, leaving the snakes snapping
their needle-sharp fangs hungrily in the air behind him.

Luckily, world-famous pop stars, cute as cupcakes, can charm even the grumpiest of police inspectors into letting their prisoners go. Particularly when that inspector is left blushing like rhubarb from a ‘You’re so sweet!’ kiss on his cheek, has been bamboozled by a handful of free VIP tickets for his daughter to ‘Hazel Praline’s Rio Rockfest’, holds the full bail money in one hand and a thousand dollars for the ritzy antique tea tray (and all the other clutter the boy refused to leave without) in the other.

Meaning that half an hour later, Alex and Aries were up in the central living room of the penthouse suite of the Manaus Esplendido.
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Huge and airy, with one wall lined by three big glass doors that opened on to balconies giving spectacular views over the city, it was sumptuously decorated. Chandeliers made of green and pink glass hung from the ceilings. The floor gleamed with honey-coloured marble. A grand piano stood in one corner. In the centre three leather sofas were arranged around a low wooden table, against which Alex had leaned the now silent and un-squirming shield.

Hazel was sitting on one of the sofas, fanning herself with a Pegasus feather fan despite the air-conditioned chilliness of the place, watching as Alex paced the
length of the living room. Up and down his sandals slapped against the marble as he fretfully snatched glimpses of the jungle lying distantly in the gaps between the skyscrapers that loomed about the hotel. Meanwhile, Aries soaked his aching hooves in a tub of ‘Promise of India’ bubble bath. Their sleepless night spent cross and worried, locked up in that unpleasant police compound, had left his four stomachs in a tight knot. Now, having recently been rudely bundled into Hazel’s bodyguard-driven SUV, ‘helped’ on board by being prodded in places he didn’t care to mention, he was feeling more miserable than ever and trying to cheer himself up.

And failing.

According to the blurb on the bottle, sinking into its frothy embrace was supposed to leave him ready to dance like a princess whilst smelling of Darjeeling roses.

But it wasn’t working.

Of course, he thought gloomily, what he really needed was something that would foam up into a big figure of froth and jab a bubbly finger at Alex, forcing him to believe that what Aries said about Jason was true, something that would stop the boy wasting time waiting for the Argonaut to appear again so that they could leave Manaus right now and head into the jungle and find Rose. He could see how desperate the boy was to leave, how he couldn’t eat, couldn’t settle, couldn’t even stop worrying long enough to sit down. All of which made
him feel even more frustrated, and feeling like a four-hoofed Cassandra.
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In the hour or so since they’d arrived up here, there’d been hugs and thank-yous and cheese sandwiches and big glasses of iced chocolate-milk topped with cream that neither of them could face. Astonishingly, and I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but even the olives glistening in their bowl had tasted like greasy pebbles to Aries today. True, his spirits had rallied briefly when Hazel had told them she’d never heard of Jason, and thought Argonauts were some sort of cookie, but they’d swiftly plummeted again when she’d told them how she’d left Rose on her own. Worse, at the mention of the sorceress, she’d promptly burst into tears, wailing about that
appallin’ witchy-woman
and
heaven t’Betsy she’d a-never a-left Rose if she’d known.

Which had thoroughly disappointed them both.

Aries looked up at her again, at her shiny blonde ponytail and her polished nails, pink as seashells, and realised that despite being so modern she was just like Alex’s sisters, ready to scream and scamper into the villa at the first crash of thunder.

She wasn’t a bit like Rose.

‘We should be in the jungle by now!’ said Alex, glaring out of the window at the sweltering city.

‘And we would be,’ replied Aries, noticing how quickly the light was fading from the sky, draining it from blue to grey, ‘if Jason were here.’

‘I thought you said he was a hero, Alex?’ said Hazel. ‘Why isn’t he leading you on the quest?’

‘That’s a very good question!’ harrumphed Aries and stepped noisily out of the bubble bath, shaking each hoof in turn.

‘Something must have happened to delay him,’ said Alex.

‘Then let’s go on alone,’ said Aries.

‘Alone?’ hissed Adder, suddenly lurching out of the shield and sloughing off its silvery veneer in an instant. ‘That’sss not wis-s-se!’

Squealing, Hazel blanched and drew her feet up on to the sofa.

‘It’s all right,’ Alex reassured her quickly as the other snakes began to stir and zigzag up. All apart from Cobra, who snoozed happily with his collar tucked over his snout.

The Gorgon flicked her golden eyes open. ‘He’s right,’ she sighed, glancing coolly at Hazel’s horrified face. ‘Much though it pains me to say it, he’s the only one who’s likely to get close enough to Medea to give her the statue.’

‘S-s-she wouldn’t accept a pres-s-sent from either of you two,’ said Viper. ‘Even if you s-s-survived long enough to try.’

‘Hero plusss gift equalsss victory,’ said Adder, nodding sagely.

‘Bes-s-sidesss,’ hiccupped Grass Snake, boggle-eyed with alarm as the silver vanished and became green again. ‘He’sss got the key home!’

‘But we can’t just stay here waiting,’ protested Alex, thumping the back of the sofa. ‘Rose is out there. And so is Medea!’

In the moment’s silence that frosted through the room at the mention of the sorceress’s name, Aries watched the boy’s face, crumpled with a mixture of frustration and confusion.

He felt a tingling in his tail.

Was Alex finally beginning to wonder about Jason? About what exactly was taking him so long to find them? If indeed, he was even trying?

‘Then let’sss s-s-start planning tacticsss!’ hissed Krait, wrapping his coils excitedly around his head and rasping his scales. He peeked out of the tangle of loops. ‘If we do have to go alone, we’re going to need them.’

‘Tactics?’ said Alex.

‘For the battle ahead, of cours-s-se!’ cried Viper. ‘Didn’t your father teach you anything? The firs-s-st duty of a s-s-soldier isss to know the lie of the land.’

‘Vantage pointsss to s-s-spy on the enemy,’ said Adder. ‘Ground cover, s-s-shelter and outcropsss for s-s-surpris-s-se attacksss!’

‘And hiding placesss,’ added Grass Snake, shivering on the Gorgon’s brow.

Huge and round, Hazel’s eyes slid warily from one writhing snake to the next as she nervously reached down into the big pink leather handbag at her feet and pulled something out. ‘In that case, maybe this’ll help?’

Everyone stared blankly (apart from Cobra, who was now muttering drowsily about grasshoppers).

‘It’s a book,’ she explained, handing it to Alex. ‘All about the Amazon. And there’s a map tucked into the back.’

Alex read the title dismally. ‘
Glamazon Gals
?’

Aries shuffled over, and took a single olive from the tray Hazel had ordered from room service, before laying his head on Alex’s shoulder as the boy began flicking through the pages. ‘How to survive the rainforest and remain gorgeous’, ‘The five best heat-resistant lipsticks to wear in the jungle’, ‘Perfumes that do not attract bugs’.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Alex.

‘Oh, I know,’ said Hazel. ‘Maybe it’s not like, totally ideal for a boy and a ram, but it’ll still tell you what you need to know. The bugs and gigantic spiders, what critter’ll be tryin’ to eat you in the trees, on the path, in the air, under the water ––’

Aries felt his throat tighten around the olive, gulped it down loudly and looked at the book a second time.

There were pictures of a river so wide it made Aries think of the sea, and lots of strange-looking animals: a ‘jaguar’, all big and toothy, and rather like the Nemean Lion, except that it was still wearing its golden, black-dotted fur, instead of wobbling around, pink as a blancmange (thanks to Herakles); a craggy-dragon
called a caiman; and pigeons, like the ones that were doubtless, at that very moment, decorating his statue with poo, but with dusky pink feathers, the colour of a sunset, not drab and grey. Glancing up at Alex, he saw the surprise on his face. Surprise, and something else: excitement.

Aries felt a spark of hope. Maybe, just maybe, if Alex read enough and thought enough, he’d feel confident enough for them to leave together? Couldn’t he see, after everything that they’d done in London, that he was brave and smart enough to lead them through the jungle without the ‘help’ of old brawn-for-brains?

Alex took the map out of the back of the book, unfolded it and spread it out across the low table. Next, he pulled the crumpled page from Persephone’s magazine from his pocket and carefully began comparing the two. Meanwhile, Aries pushed over a few more pages with his muzzle, eager to find out more. The back of the book was devoted to the rainforest’s history: drawings of men cutting into rubber trees;
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men mining for gold; men chopping down the jungle and driving cattle on to it; men wearing strange armour – ‘conquistadors’, the caption said – which was apparently Spanish for old soldiers. Aries snorted. Soldiers? They looked completely mad, dressed up in ballooning trousers and ridged metal hats that drooped with feathers.

A sudden knock at the door made them both jump and Hazel hurried across the ocean of marble to answer it.

‘Miss Praline?’ Aries watched as one of her bodyguards, a thickset man dressed in a black suit and sunglasses stepped into the room. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but the receptionist just rang to tell me they’ve something of a fruit loop in reception. A young man, demanding to come up.’

Beside him, Alex turned and gave him an ‘I told you so!’ look, sending Aries’ hopes diving, like a harpy spotting dinner at the bottom of a cliff, and taking his pipe dream of the two of them setting out as the A-Team
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with it.

‘A fan?’ said Hazel curiously.

‘No, miss.’ The bodyguard glanced into the room. ‘Actually, he’s come from the police station where these two were held. It’s Alex he wants to talk to.’ The man hesitated, rubbing his chin thoughtfully before he went on. ‘Insists he’s a Greek prince.’

Jason hadn’t felt less like a Greek prince in his entire life and ghosthood.

Having spent most of the night slinking through the shadows, he’d used every second since daybreak searching for Alex and Aries, dodging the strange chariots that hooted and smoked as he scurried through the city streets
to call at all the police stations, only to arrive at the right one an hour or so after they’d left with some singer, and he had been told to try at the Hotel Esplendido. Everywhere he went, faces froze, eyes gaped and children burst into squeals, horrified by the raging bites that had turned his golden skin fiery red and as bumpy as a monster’s bottom.