‘Remember what we discussed.’
Rose nodded irritably and tried to tamp down her impatience by thinking back to the wide patches of brown and treeless earth she’d seen from the plane window. Eduardo had explained why the villagers would be suspicious of them, of any strangers, and now, as they began walking towards the village, she reached for her locket, rubbing it nervously, hoping that an old man and a girl didn’t look like the cattle ranchers and oil prospectors he’d told her about, the sort of people who’d tear the villagers’ jungle down and turn it into a desert of dust, leaving them nowhere to live and hunt.
Closer now, Rose searched the village with her eyes, scanning every hut, every doorway, desperate for a glimpse of her father. Women dressed in red and green and gold sarongs stood peeling knobbly brown roots and throwing the creamy middles into a pot, others smashed them to a pulp with paddles. A few sat cross-legged on blankets, sifting through tubs of beads and threading them on to wires to make what looked like earrings. Around them, boys in football shirts chased one another around the huts, skittish as the dragonflies she’d seen flitting between the trees, whilst the girls helped their mothers and tufty-headed toddlers, some naked, some in red loincloths, giggled and crawled over blankets. A boy of about ten, wearing a halo of yellow parrot feathers, threw a stick for a thin, gangly dog.
By the time they reached the nearest hut in the ring, Rose could see that everyone’s faces, even the babies’, were painted with the same pattern of long red stripes, stretching from the tips of their noses and out across their cheeks, like whiskers.
Minus nought point eight three three. Minus fifty-seven point two.
Unbidden, the Scroll’s voice drifted into her mind and now, despite her dry mouth and sweat-slicked hair, she saw herself back in London, surrounded by the icy white statues of the British Museum, hearing those numbers for the first time and turning to see Alex’s and Aries’ faces, bright with understanding, knowing just how much it meant to her.
If only they could have known she’d finally made it.
If only they were here with her.
If only!
Suddenly the boy with yellow parrot feathers noticed them, threw down the dog’s stick and sprinted into the longhouse. Behind him, the women swept the toddlers into their arms and called to the other children, as five well-built men burst out of the building carrying bows and arrows. Their broad chests were hung with strings of something jagged and white that Rose thought might be jaguar teeth and now, tilting their chins up defiantly, the warriors stood absolutely still and stared at Rose and Eduardo.
For long moments it seemed like the trees were the only things moving, tipsy in the heat, and as the tribesmen continued to stare at them Rose felt another sting of impatience. She didn’t have time for all this eyeballing, like the gunslingers in the corny old Westerns that she and her dad used to watch, and she was about to open her mouth and say something, although she wasn’t quite sure what, when another man stepped out of the longhouse. He was tall and powerfully built and wearing a crown of yellow parrot feathers in his shoulder-length hair. Rose knew he must be the chief. He grunted something to the others and began striding across the dusty middle of the village, flanked by the tribesmen. The boy in yellow feathers caught up, his curious expression and pursed mouth a perfect miniature of the chief’s face. Copying his father’s walk, he regarded Rose suspiciously, whilst behind him, some of the smaller children, having broken free of their mothers’ grasps, waddled like ducklings.
The chief stopped and stared at Rose. She held his gaze, feeling her cheeks grow hotter as he bent towards her, stretching out his hand, fascinated. Rose steeled herself as he took hold of a lock of her hair and teased a single curl between his fingers before looking back over his shoulder and barking something at the others. She glanced at Eduardo, feeling horribly confused, as the tribesmen began chattering excitedly.
‘Fire hair,’ translated Eduardo uncertainly.
Rose blinked up at him.
‘He’s saying ––’ Eduardo paused to listen to another burst of speech, ‘he’s saying that they’ve seen it before, Rose. On the pale man who sleeps beside the creek.’
A minute later, Rose sprinted away from the others in the direction the chief had pointed, diving between the huts and out towards the creek. Leaping the roots of a kapok tree that loomed like a giant elephant’s foot blocking her way, she skidded to a stop beneath an arch of leafy ferns and gasped.
Slouched beneath a tree with a bulbous trunk was her father. She took in his hollowed face, his blistered skin, his beard, always so groomed and soft when he hugged her, now wiry and snagged with leaf litter. The sight of his knee, bony and bruised, sticking out of his ruined trousers made her heart hammer in her chest like a frantic woodpecker.
She began walking uncertainly towards him. ‘Dad?’
Startled by her voice, a few blue budgerigars flapped out of the tree above him, tweeting furiously and flying away. But he didn’t see them. Now, as an awful tightness clawed at her throat, Rose willed him to turn his head and look at her. Instead he simply continued to watch the brown water beyond, snaking away around a bend in the trees.
‘Dad?’
She hunched down beside him and laid her hand on his thin shoulder, trying hard not to notice the jab of bones beneath her fingers nor the way his body stiffened at her touch. Biting her lip, she looked into his eyes, foggy and bloodshot, searching for a spark of recognition, a glimmer, a flicker in that blank emptiness. ‘It’s me, Rose. Your daughter?’
The words felt like stones in her mouth and as her father continued to stare through her, unseeing, she felt herself starting to tremble. She waited for a few seconds more, feeling a heaviness sucking at her bones and flooding her whole body with a dull aching coldness.
She hardly heard Eduardo’s anxious voice – ‘Aqua! Aqua!’ – as he ran, shouting, down the path towards them, but a few moments later he thrust a clay beaker into her hands. Mechanically, she brought it to her lips and then dropped it.
How could her father not know her? How could he look through her like a patch of air?
Hot tears prickled her eyes. She tried to blink them back, realising that even the terrible day when her mother had waited for her, tear-streaked behind the school fence, to tell her that the Royal Geographical Society had called off the search for him, she hadn’t felt this desolate. This lost. Then, she’d blankly refused to believe that he was gone. Her head pounded and stifling a choking sob, she covered her face with her hands, shutting out the villagers, who now chattered like mynah birds around her.
Eduardo reached out and steadied her. ‘There’s a long way to go.’
A long way to go?
She shrank back, unable to reply.
Wasn’t travelling halfway around the world a long way to go? And crying yourself to sleep for months on end? Lying to her mother? A long way to go?
Seeing the pain in her face, Eduardo took a step towards her father and laid his hands firmly on his shoulders.
‘Your daughter, señor!’ He spoke loud and slowly. ‘She has come all this way for you. Is Rose? Si?’
Her father stared back blankly at him. Frowning, Eduardo took a firmer grip and tried to pull her father away from the tree. ‘Señor, you should ––’
‘No!’ Her father’s yell roared in her ears.
Raw and primitive, it sounded like an animal in pain.
Scooting backwards in the dust, Rose shrieked, gaping as her father kicked out his legs out in panic, catching Eduardo’s shins to send him sprawling backwards on to the ground. She stared, unable to believe what she’d seen, feeling a curdling mixture of horror and bewilderment flood through her as she scrambled uncertainly to her feet and swayed towards the other villagers who were trying to help Eduardo.
Which was when she noticed the woman watching her.
Rose stopped and tried to take in the pale, willowy figure standing a little distance away, dressed in a T-shirt and khaki short
s. She peered at the plait of black hair over the phantom’s shoulder, the black hair streaked with violet, and growled under her breath, cursing her stupid brain. Clamping her eyes shut, she blamed the soul-splintering shock of finding her father so damaged and the throttling heat and the crushing exhaustion she felt for conjuring up such a terrible hallucination, counted to three and opened them again.
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.
28 Lianas are vines that twine around tree trunks to reach the light above the canopy. Making woody tightropes high in the rainforest, they’re used as sky-highways for tree-dwelling animals. Every day, they bustle with lizards, rats and monkeys, and ring with the swearing of sloths, who having chosen to snooze hanging upside-down from them, wake to find their tummies covered in paw-marks.
29 The molucca is the big hut in the middle of the village where the tribe meets to make important decisions. It’s a bit like a town hall, only with monkeys instead of a fancy clock on the roof.
HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO
‘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 SWAT30 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.31 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.32
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.
‘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.
Rampage! Page 11