Rampage! (27 page)

IIVIII

B
Y A
C
REEPY
L
AGOON

A few hours later, the lagoon lay like a slab of black marble in the moonlight.

Overhead, a straggle of ragged clouds swept across the sky and a few vultures hunched in the scatter of trees around the shore, their silvery plumage ghostly in the gloom. Rose trembled with nerves. Her fingers twitched. Clenching her fists impatiently, she told herself to get a grip.

But it wasn’t easy.

As you know, this place had freaked her out right from the start, and now, steeped in darkness, it felt a million times worse. Menace seemed to ooze from its water and stalk the bluff behind her, and she shivered to see the small canoe, bobbing at the water’s edge, moored to a low tumble of rocks. She rubbed her shoulders, hardly able to believe how excited she’d been only a few hours before, racing to find Alex and Aries, so giddy with her own powers and certain that sorcery held the key to her father’s happiness.

But now everything had changed.

Now she knew how foolish she’d been to even think
of helping Medea. And on top of that, discovering the true history of the lagoon gold, so horrible it made her skin creep, she was absolutely determined to stop Medea’s plans.

A few metres away, the sorceress stood half-stooped on the shoreline, her arms outstretched, whispering over the water. Her voice drifted back to Rose through the sultry air, eerie against the lisping cicadas, and although she spoke too quietly for Rose to make out the individual words, her tone was unmistakable. Playful and inviting, as though she were coaxing a cat into a warm house for the night, which, given the ghastly surroundings and complete lack of cuddly kitties or bowls of creamy milk, was all highly unsettling and so I’m not going to linger on it.

Thank you very much.

As Medea raised her hands to the moon, Rose caught a flash of what remained of the pharaoh’s bangle twinkling in her fingers and felt a deep stab of revulsion. You see, after everything the others had told her, she’d started to wonder about the bangle’s true nature, absolutely certain that whatever power it contained, it certainly wasn’t distilled from the love of the Egyptian people.

Batting creepers and vines out of her way as she’d stumped back to the village, she’d recalled the sorceress’s bright, lying face when she’d talked about the cuff and racked her brain over its weird inscription to Osiris. For several minutes the name had pinballed around her mind, bouncing off her recollections of the Tutankhamun
exhibition, the glittering death mask, the glass cases of jewels and amulets and huge golden boxes. But it hadn’t been until she reached the outskirts of the village and seen the tribe gathered together, singing in the firelight, that she’d remembered the painting.

Dominating one whole wall of the dimly lit side room at the exhibition, it had shown women dressed in the white of mourning standing beside red-robed priests huddled in the burial chamber, whilst behind them the slaves bricked up the doorway. From
inside
the tomb. Sealing themselves in to die. Because, as she finally recalled her mother telling her younger, sobbing self, dead pharaohs liked to have company in the afterlife.

Only then had she remembered that Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead. And with a sickening certainty, she’d understood that Tutankhamun would only have worn the bangle
after
he died, clamped around his mummified wrist like a golden ticket into the Egyptian Underworld. Appalled, she’d pictured it nestled inside the dark sarcophagus, its gold feeding on the muted wails of the people dying around him, gorging itself on their misery.

Poisonous gold can only do poisonous magic.

Of course, Rose hadn’t seen the grisly fate of the big, blue butterfly she’d turned back to a caterpillar, but she remembered the tree branch that had sprung from Medea’s work table, and how, only half an hour later, she’d discovered it swarming with termites, their sharp little mouths ripping the new wood to shreds, and shivered.

Medea’s magic was rotten to the core.

Meaning that when the sorceress had used the bangle to work her spell on her father to uncover those memories of Rose’s childhood, there couldn’t have been any healing. Instead, she must have damaged him more. After all, Rose thought, despite whatever had happened to the expedition, he’d still managed to reach the village, hadn’t he? Yet, thanks to Medea’s toxic magic, now he couldn’t even leave his sheltering tree.

She glared at the sorceress, feeling hot fury stinging her cheeks, coupled with a sudden, biting impatience to be out on the wretched water so that Alex and the others could finally end Medea’s reign of misery. And since by now you’re probably wondering quite what Rose was doing there, all on her own, I suppose I’d better tell you about the plan that she and the others had come up with at the graveyard.

Having listened to everything Rose had told them, they’d quickly decided that it would be far too risky to try to overpower the sorceress at the village since the Kaxuyana people of Tatu would surely rush to defend their lovely Fair Trade lady. Instead, they agreed to sneak down here and wait for their chance to ambush her at the lagoon. And so, whilst Rose had returned to Tatu to accompany Medea here, Wat (who’d flatly refused Rose’s offer to magic him back to England, verily insisting on doing his part to defeat the cruel minx of Kolkis, the jinx of the jungle, the vile vixen of –– well, you get the picture) would lead the others through the jungle to the western side of the water.
Then, as soon as Rose was out on the canoe, and more importantly a safe distance from the sorceress’s wrath when she discovered the girl’s betrayal, they’d stop the spell and slam the statue into Medea’s hand.

Simple.

And then Rose heard the first snap from the water.

Sharp as a guillotine, it sliced through the muttering jungle behind her and jerked her from her thoughts. She paused, stretched up on her toes, seeking out the water beyond the sorceress, but it lay darkly still and secretive. Silently scolding herself for being so jumpy, particularly when Alex had said it was important that she didn’t do anything to arouse suspicion, she began walking towards the canoe, setting her face into a look of cool determination. It didn’t help, of course, that she’d never been much good at acting, but she consoled herself that she wouldn’t need to pretend for much longer because, if everything went according to plan, like Alex had described it, then they’d be able to strike soon, and long before she had to release a single drop of Medea’s hateful potion into the water.

Which was when she heard a second snap.

And another.

And another.

Squinting, Rose made out a row of soft, triangular shapes break the dark surface of the water. For a long moment, the pale and fleshy throats of ten, twenty – maybe more – caimans loomed from the centre of the lagoon, glimmering like gravestones before they sank back down.
Rose made out the gleam of eyes at the bridge of each snout, as the reptiles knifed through the water towards her and Medea. Without warning, Rose’s legs turned to rubber as she realised whom the sorceress had been calling.

‘Come along, Rose!’ Medea’s voice was light and fluty, sugary as a hostess inviting someone to sit down at the table. ‘Time to make a start!’

Rose stepped into the canoe, just as something big and broad thumped against its side. Suddenly unbalanced, she toppled backwards, landing clumsily. She spun round, horrified, as a huge caiman stumped past her, up on to the mud, only centimetres from her fingers. Swinging its massive tail, it slapped the canoe a second time, sending it skittering sideways out across the water, and Rose grabbed the sides, gasping as more and more caimans slunk out of the lagoon and surged up the shore towards the sorceress. The night throbbed with their grunts and snorts as they surrounded her like toddlers nuzzling a beloved nursery teacher.

A sudden cramping sickness clawed at Rose’s stomach. There was no way the others could attack Medea if she was flanked by such a legion of toothy guards. Panic tightened her throat and she gaped, wordless, as the biggest caiman, a crack-scaled bruiser with a scar down its tail, rolled on to its back to have its belly tickled, drooling whilst the others jostled round, jaws snapping in glee, clambering to get closer.

‘Oh, don’t look so worried!’ cried the sorceress, glancing up and seeing Rose’s stricken face. ‘It’s all right!
They’re with us. I’m enchanting them to collect the gold when you’ve raised it to the surface.’

Rose swallowed hard, her eyes widening as Medea began walking towards her, with the caimans like a dark, scaly stain around her feet. Still cooing at the swell of reptiles, Medea crouched beside the canoe.

‘Right out to the middle, Rose!’ she whispered. She pulled the pouch of Levitation Potion from her pocket and set it on the floor of the canoe before reaching over a couple of squirming caimans to toss the mooring rope into the boat. ‘And wait for my instruction to start pouring.’

Start pouring?

Rose gulped.

The plan was meant to have worked long before that.

Panic fluttering behind her ribs, she leaned forward, took hold of the paddles and edged them over the sides of the canoe. The wood felt slick against her palms, wet with sweat, and she had to tighten her grip until her knuckles grew white. From the shore, an audience of caimans watched her, their teeth shining in wonky, stupefied grins as, steeling herself against the prickling fear now sweeping up her legs and back, she dipped the oars into the water and began to row.

‘C’mon!’ growled Alex under his breath, willing the caimans to move away from Medea as she walked back towards the rocky bluff. Like an assassin waiting for a clear shot, he could feel every muscle and nerve twitching, itching with impatience to strike.

Beside him, Aries snorted hotly behind the screen of yellow monkey-blossom as Medea paused at the base of the rocks and, tilting back her head, scanned its cracks and fissures, smiling.

‘Fie!’ hissed Wat, puzzled. ‘What foul deed would she fain make now?’

‘Foul deed?’ quavered Grass Snake, slithering through the branches for a better look.

Alex drew him gently back and settled him among the others on the front of the shield, who were coiled in tight battle-springs, ready for action, and snatched a glance across the water at Rose. She looked so small and vulnerable, dwarfed by the long stretch of blackness, and, hardly daring to breathe, he turned back again, tightening his hand around the Nemesis statue.

Suddenly a low, guttural moan erupted from the rocky cliff face bordering the lagoon. The snakes bristled and Gorgon gasped as around them the jungle chirruping stopped instantly. An armadillo, which had been busily snuffling at the water’s edge, jerked back its head with a squeak and waddled rapidly back into the undergrowth.

‘What’s happening?’ demanded Aries, feeling his hooves beginning to judder beneath him.

Over by the sorceress, the caimans began edging away from the foot of the bluff as now the high-pitched whine rang out again. Eerie as a lone wolf’s cry, it echoed through the strange stillness that hung over the water, making the hairs on the back of Alex’s neck stand up.

‘I don’t like thisss,’ whispered Grass Snake.

But Alex’s attention was glued to the sorceress as she briskly fluttered her fingers at the caimans, like a teacher dismissing a class. Immediately, the creatures at the edge of the group peeled away. The others rapidly followed, slithering into the water behind them, to swim like a scaly flotilla towards Rose’s canoe, meaning that finally, finally the sorceress was alone.

‘This is our chance!’ hissed Alex, above the rising grumbling of rock. ‘We go now. Ready?’

Glancing down, he saw the fierce resolution kindling in Aries’ eyes.

‘Ready with ramming speed!’ he replied.

Beside him, Wat nodded once and tightened his grip on his croquet mallet.

‘On three,’ said Alex. ‘One, two ––’

Except that nobody heard three.

This was on account of the ear-splitting roar that ripped out of the rock face and ricocheted like a thunderclap around the lagoon. Half-emerged from the thicket, Alex and the others stared in disbelief as the rock splintered into a tracery of cracks, jagged as a lightning strike. Crags of stone snapped off ledges and tumbled down, splashing into the water as the rock groaned and wailed.

‘What in Hades!’ gasped Aries, as another whip-like crackle rent the air and a new darker fissure, thicker than the others, sped along the face of the rock, fizzing like a trail of lit gunpowder. On and on it bore, drilling through the stone in a riot of dust, outlining the shape
of something big, something gnarled, something with a broad trunk-like body, a flat triangular head and a thickly tapering tail.

Wat stepped backwards, clutching his beard in horror as ripple after ripple swept over the surface of the centuries-old stone.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he hissed.

Sandstone chattered and chipped, reduced to a jigsaw of shivering shards around the outline of a gigantic caiman, much,
much
bigger than the ones paddling across the lagoon below.