by Lucy Coats
Demon glared at it.
“Let’s get going, then,” he said through gritted teeth.
CHAPTER 8
THE PALACE OF DEATH
It was one of the most uncomfortable journeys of Demon’s entire life. The box had grudgingly agreed to enable its special passenger mode for him. It even provided a large bottle for Orpheus to pour himself into so he didn’t blow away during the ride. After many tearful farewells from Eurydice, who was staying to visit with Arachne for a while, Demon lay across the box’s silver lid. He clung on to Orpheus’s bottle with one hand and the handle with the other. The large blue wings flapped frantically, once, twice, three times, and then they were airborne.
“Good-bye, Orphy!” sobbed Eurydice.
“Good luck, Demon!” called Arachne.
Demon slipped and slid from side to side, terrified that he was going to fall off as the box labored across Lethe’s marsh and veered sharply right.
Then it plunged downward, avoiding a cloud of ghostly bats.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Demon howled as his toes scraped along the ground. The box merely let out a stream of blue symbols that roared past his ears, crackling and spitting with sparks. It rose unsteadily into the air again with an unbalancing wobble that nearly caused Demon to drop Orpheus’s bottle. Over Eurydice’s grove, over the warriors’ tree, over the crowded plain of ghosts they flew, until Demon could finally see the black walls of Hades’s palace. With one last mighty effort, the box heaved itself and Demon over the silver gates and flumped down beside Cerberus’s body with a crash. As Demon thudded to the ground, the silver skulls on top of the palace roofs swiveled to look at him. Their fiery eyes suddenly ignited, pinning Demon in the middle of a circle of hot red beams.
“Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” shrieked the skulls, their bony jaws creaking like rusty hinges.
“Quick!” said Orpheus’s muffled voice from inside the bottle. “Show them your ring!” Demon got his hand out from underneath him and waved Hades’s black ring at them. As soon as it touched one of the red beams, they all winked out.
“False alarm! Stand down, boys!” said the nearest skull. Demon looked around nervously. Had Hades heard them? He hoped not. He jumped to his feet, wincing at the pain from his rough landing. How much time did he have left before the god came after him? He HAD to find that cauldron quickly.
Offy and Yukus were just slithering down his legs and starting to mend him when he noticed all three of Cerberus’s noses twitching.
“Oh no,” he said to the box. “I think he’s going to—”
“AAHHCHHOOOOO AAHHCHHOOOOO AAHHCHHOOOOO AAAAARRROOOOO!”
The three heads crashed to the ground, making it shake and shudder. A deep new crack snaked out underneath them, and out of it came the sound of a thousand hungry hundred-armed monsters.
“Box!” shouted Demon. “Do something! Please!”
The silver lid flew open and the silver disk on a tube shot out, attaching itself to Cerberus’s heaving chest. It then retracted into the box like a whip, and the box snapped shut.
“Sneezing symptoms should not have resumed yet. Running emergency diagnostics,” it shrieked. Demon clenched his fists, trying not to panic. The snakes of Cerberus’s manes were beginning to sway and stir. Then the box lid lifted again. A large glass tube with a thin pointy quill on one end and a ring on the other popped up from its depths.
“Inject patient’s heart with contents of syringe,” squawked the box. “Hurry!”
Demon didn’t understand. “What do you MEAN?” he screamed.
“Stick him with the pointy end and push!” Its metallic voice rose to a screech. So Demon grabbed the glass tube and ran over to Cerberus. He felt desperately for his heartbeat as he saw the six nostrils twitch again ominously.
Thuddity thud thuddity thud! There it was. He jabbed the pointy end between the ribs and pushed down on the ring, which slid down into the tube with a hiss. Cerberus’s body jerked once and then lay still again. Demon sat back on his heels, listening nervously to the furious bellowing coming out of the crack to his left.
“Emergency averted,” said the box smugly. “You have precisely one hour to complete your task.” The blue symbols inside flashed twice, and then the lid shut with a bang. “Battery recharge pending. Shutdown imminent.” It sighed deeply, made a strange pinging sound, and went totally silent.
“Nooooo!” Demon yelled, shaking it by both handles and rattling the lid. “You can’t go to sleep NOW!” But the box remained a lifeless silver lump. Nothing Demon said or did would wake it up. Finally, almost speechless with terror and frustration, he remembered to let Orpheus out of his bottle.
“What am I going to DO?” he asked as the mist flowed out and re-formed into his ghostly friend. The box had been his savior so often that he didn’t know how he was going to manage without its tinny advice.
“Steal the cauldron, get back here quick, and hope it recovers,” said Orpheus. “Didn’t you hear it? We have less than an hour. Come on!” He flowed toward the black stone doors of the palace, Demon running beside him. One touch of Hades’s ring on the doors and they opened. They were in!
Edging around the sides of a large courtyard with a dead weeping willow and a sluggish fountain in the center, Orpheus put a finger to his lips.
“This way, I think,” he whispered, leading Demon into a wide passageway lined with unmoving giant stone skeletons that stared silently at one another across the shiny marble. Demon looked at them uneasily as he tiptoed past, but they didn’t move a fingerbone. His thumping heartbeat ticked away the seconds as they ran up narrow black marble staircases and down broad, empty corridors. Then, just as Demon smelled the scent of new-mown hay—surprising in that musty place—they heard the sound of muffled marching footsteps.
“Quick! Behind here!” Orpheus hissed, disappearing into an alcove behind a black velvet curtain. Demon slipped in with him, feeling the clammy mist of the ghostly body touch his side. He peeked out through a tiny crack to see a terrifying sight. A whole platoon of the giant stone skeletons had come to life and was marching in perfect step down the corridor, bones clicking softly as they passed.
“What are THEY?” Demon whispered, though he feared he knew. Immediately, the skeletons stopped dead, skulls turning toward the alcove as one. Demon froze, not daring to move even an eyelash, let alone breathe. Seeing nothing, they marched on, rows and rows of them. Demon let out a whooshing breath as the last of them disappeared.
“Phew!” he said.
“Definitely phew! Those were Hades’s personal Skeleton Guard,” Orpheus replied. “The ones Eurydice was talking about. We passed the spares on the way. Didn’t you notice?”
“I thought they were just statues,” Demon said. Then he smelled the new-mown hay again. The scent seemed to be coming from a door just ahead. A door with a silver crown and a wheat stalk over it. “Hey! Are those Queen Persephone’s chambers?” he asked. She was the goddess of spring and growing things, after all, as well as Hades’s wife.
“Yes, they are. Wait there! I’m just going to make sure there’s nobody inside,” said Orpheus, flitting across the corridor. Demon jiggled from foot to foot impatiently, but soon Orpheus was beckoning him forward.
“Coast’s clear,” he said. “I think they’re usually in the big hall at this time of day, judging the dead. Either one of the gods is on your side, or you’re very lucky!”
Demon sent a quick thought of thanks to Heffy, Hestia, and Hermes, just in case. If any gods were going to be on his side, they were.
Queen Persephone’s chambers were a riot of color, festooned with flowers so bright that they almost hurt Demon’s eyes after all the gray and black. He suddenly realized how much he missed Olympus and the Stables. Were his beasts all right? Was Doris the Hydra cleaning out the poo properly and feeding everyone? But there was no time to think of that. The clock was ticking, and they needed to find that cauldron urgently. Demon and Orpheus moved quickly through the
rooms, searching. Eurydice hadn’t been able to remember exactly where she’d seen it. “There were pretty berries near it, I think,” she’d said. “Red ones like lots of tiny cherries.”
There wasn’t a berry in sight in any of the rooms. Not a single one. Demon was in despair, looking under drifts of poppies and behind clumps of bluebells.
“We’ll never find it,” he groaned. Even the normally cheerful Orpheus looked glum.
“It’s all spring flowers in here,” he said. “Maybe my Eurydice got it wrong.”
Suddenly Demon had an inspiration.
“What if Queen Persephone had her autumn decorations up when Eurydice was here?” he asked. “This definitely looks like spring, but tiny red berries come in autumn from trees like mountain ash and hawthorn. Maybe we should be looking for those kinds of blossom.” So they searched every tree in the place. There was cherry blossom and apple blossom, pear blossom and plum blossom, but they couldn’t find a single hawthorn or mountain ash. Demon was about to tear his hair out with frustration, when his eyes fell on a little tree with shiny reddish bark and clouds of tiny white flowers, half-hidden behind a high wall covered in ferns. Between its moss-covered roots was a glint of gold. Demon ran over and pulled at it with a shout of triumph. Out came a tiny cauldron with a silver handle.
“Got it!” he cried. Just then there was a tremor beneath his feet, and a muffled rumble. “Oh no! I think Cerberus has started sneezing again! RUN!”
CHAPTER 9
THE CAULDRON OF HEALING
Demon and Orpheus ran at top speed back the way they’d come, avoiding more marching Skeleton Guards by the skin of their teeth, and burst out through the black stone doors again.
“Box! Box! Wake up! I’ve got the Cauldron of Healing!” Demon shouted, just as three enormous sneezes and howls shook the earth again.
The box woke up with a screech, glowed blue, grabbed the cauldron from Demon with its mechanical arm, and scuttled toward Cerberus. “Implementing potion interface, implementing potion interface,” it gabbled, vibrating so fast that it became a silver blur.
With a burst of foul gas, several scaly green arms erupted out of the crack in the ground near Demon’s feet. “AARRGGH!” Demon screamed, jumping for cover behind Cerberus’s huge body as the arms grabbed at him. Orpheus slipped in beside him as a smudge of mist.
“What’s happening?” Orpheus shouted. There was no time for Demon to answer. Instead he pointed with a shaking finger at the black doors, which had just crashed open. A whole platoon of Skeleton Guards came pouring out, stone swords raised, and started hacking at the scaly arms. Green blood poured over the dusty ground, smoking and bubbling, and the roars turned to shrieks of agony as more arms reached out from the cracks.
Demon was trying hard not to panic amid the chaos happening around him. He watched the box like a hawk, willing it to hurry. After a moment, the box snapped open, and then the small golden cauldron was floating up out of its inside, filled with a liquid that glowed bright purple.
“Patient must ingest potion immediately, patient must ingest potion immediately,” it beeped loudly. Demon seized the cauldron by the silver handle and started pouring the purple liquid between each of Cerberus’s three jaws in turn.
“Don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze, don’t sneeze,” he muttered over and over again as he worked faster than he ever had before. As Cerberus slobbered and dribbled and swallowed, the yellow oozy slime miraculously disappeared from around each of his six nostrils. He opened his suddenly unswollen eyes, got up, and shook himself, making Demon roll hurriedly out of the way of his enormous lion’s paws. Three huge heads gazed down at him. Three huge tongues lolled out between hundreds of sharp white teeth, dripping poisonous beast dog slobber, which burned holes as it hit the ground.
“Thank you, stable boy,” said three booming dog voices and a thousand hissing snake ones.
“N-no problem,” said Demon nervously, backing away slightly.
Then Cerberus raised his heads and sniffed the air.
“WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!” he bayed out of all three mouths, charging at the silver gate, which flew open as he hit it. Demon and Orpheus stared as Cerberus raced toward the plain, barking all the way. Suddenly there was a cacophony of human yells and screams, and they watched Georgios, the annoying tour guide, fling his red placard away as he took to his heels and ran as fast as he could, stomach wobbling before him.
“Serves him right,” said Orpheus unsympathetically. “Humans aren’t meant to come to the Underworld while they’re still alive. I hope Cerberus eats him.”
“I do ssso agree with you, dear Orpheusss,” said a soft, sibilant voice behind them. “But it’sss not Georgiosss’sss time to die yet. My Guardian will sssimply play with him for a while, then herd him and his cussstomersss back to the upper world.” Demon whirled around and fell to his knees as Hades dropped a black-gauntleted hand on his shoulder. Orpheus dissolved into a streak of mist and disappeared through the open gates with a ghostly moan of fear.
“Jussst in time, ssstable boy. Jussst in time. My ghossst dragonsss will be disssappointed. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to give them sssome sssatisssfaction? After all, you did ssso nearly fail to cure my Guardian in time. Look at how the monssstersss almossst got out.”
Demon shuddered. “N-n-no th-thank you, Y-y-your D-deathly I-illustriousness, I-I’ll p-pass.” Over Hades’s shoulder, he could see a few of the Skeleton Guards still battling the last few monster arms. Their gray stone bones were spattered with green blood. The rest were busy filling in the cracks in the ground and throwing cut-off arms back down where they had come from. It was a gruesome sight.
Hades looked slyly at Demon. “Very well,” he said. “But I must insssissst you come to a little feassst with me and my dear queen. I’m sure you’re VERY hungry by now!” Demon gulped, willing his stomach not to rumble. He was STARVING, but he knew he couldn’t accept the god of death’s invitation. What could he say? Would Hades fry him to a crisp if he refused? There was an uncomfortable silence as Demon thought feverishly.
“There’ll be ssstuffed vine leavesss and roasssted sssalmon and honey cakesss,” Hades said temptingly. Demon’s mouth watered. Could it really do any harm? Just one little honey cake? Just a tiny piece of salmon? He was about to open his mouth to say yes, when an invisible hand clamped over it and prevented him.
“Hello, dear Uncle Hades,” said Hermes, pulling off his invisibility helmet and popping into view, giving Demon a stern shake. “Must rush. Zeus wants his stable boy back. Preferably in one piece. So kind of you to invite him to dinner, but he’ll have to decline.”
He seized Demon under one arm, whisked the silver box under the other, and tossed his helmet back onto his head. With a whoosh, they rose into the air and zoomed away, leaving Hades hissing and screaming with frustration and rage behind them.
“Wretched messsenger,” he howled. “Jussst wait till I get my handsss on you! I WANTED that ssstable boy!”
“Lucky I was around,” said Hermes. “Or you might have been in real trouble.”
Demon let out the breath he’d been holding ever since Hermes had picked him up. His heart felt as if it were trying to crawl out from under his ribs. He imagined being stable boy to Hades and shivered. It would have been TERRIBLE.
“Thank you, Hermes,” he said gratefully.
“Hey, think nothing of it,” replied the god, snickering slightly. “Anything to annoy old Death Face.”
Demon swallowed. “W-will Hades come after me again?” he asked.
“No no, don’t worry, Pandemonius. It’s me he’s angry with. But I’d avoid him for a while just the same.”
Demon vowed silently to do just that.
CHAPTER 10
THE STABLES AGAIN
Demon tried to look down at himself. It was a very odd experience being invisible. He could feel his body perfectly well, and he could feel Hermes’s arm around his waist. He just couldn’t see anything except the landscape below. H
e drew his legs up at the sight of the angry ghosts milling around on the banks of the Styx.
“I think we’ll give old Charon a miss this time,” said Hermes. “I wasn’t lying when I said Zeus wants you back quickly. The Stables are starting to smell again. Aphrodite is complaining that all her nightdresses stink of poo.”
“Oh no!” Demon exclaimed. “What happened? I left Doris the Hydra in charge. It was supposed to clean up and feed everyone.”
“Ah!” said Hermes. “The Hydra, eh? Well, I’m sorry to tell you it’s had a little problem.”
Demon clutched the invisible arm holding him as they swerved around the corners of the dark tunnels. “W-what problem?” he asked, his starving stomach beginning to feel a bit queasy.
“Apparently it, uh, snacked on a bit too much ambrosia cake itself instead of giving it to the other beasts. It’s been lying in its pen moaning with a bad stomachache ever since you left.”
“Oh! Poor thing!” said Demon. “It’s not really very smart. Maybe it misunderstood me.” He hated to think of any of his beasts being in pain or discomfort. “Can Iris take us back really quickly? I need to give it something from the box.”
Quite soon, he wished he hadn’t asked that question. The fast version of the Iris Express was even more scary and sickening than the normal one. His whole face felt as if it were being torn off backward as they zoomed up at warp speed. He fell out onto the warm, sunbaked earth of Olympus gasping and wheezing. Hermes gently placed the box beside him.
“I’ve got another message to deliver,” he said. “See you around!” And with that, he was gone again. The familiar smell of beast poo drifted into Demon’s nostrils as he hauled himself upright and wobbled off toward the Stables, the box in his arms.
“About time, Pan’s scrawny kid,” said the griffin grumpily from its post beside the Hydra’s pen. “I’m STARVING!”
“FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD!” went a chorus of barks, moos, baas, squeals, squeaks, hisses, and neighs.