‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said.
She smiled, drawing red lips back over shiny white teeth and held out her hand. Taking it firmly, he curbed a small, telltale shiver as she laced her fingers through his, reminding himself that at this rate he’d soon have the Underworld key back in his pocket.
‘Walk with me,’ she sighed, looking up at him under her sooty lashes. ‘It’s a lovely afternoon and we have so much to talk about.’
Jason followed as she led him off the path that led into the village, and turned towards the jungle instead. Now, stepping in her footsteps, Jason recalled the way she’d guided him through the Kolkis forest on the night they’d stolen the Fleece. She’d glanced back over her shoulder and beamed at him, just the way she did now, and he felt himself start to properly relax, wondering why he’d been so worried about coming back to Earth at all. Women always forgave him. And who could blame them? He was irresistible.
Squeezing his hand, she picked her way under a low-hanging bough, thick with blood-red blooms. He squeezed back, knowing that if he played his cards right, she’d probably magic him back to Manaus, to the opera house, for good measure. Meaning that he’d be back in the Underworld for Aphrodite’s party. And once he’d told them his story – his pained regret that Aries had run away with the statue, but what could you expect from a clonking great farm animal? And the sadness he felt for Alex, just a boy unready for a real quest (after all, the goddesses loved a troubled hero) – he’d be posing in his battle armour and leopard-skin for a new range of pots and urns in his honour. Better still, he’d have that old sop Apollonius fawning round him, ready to take down everything he told him again.
But, he reminded himself, first things first.
‘I’ve missed you,’ said Jason softly. Which was sort of true since he had missed her, even if it was rather in the way that people miss a terrible headache, say, or a giant spider lurking in the bath.
‘And I’ve missed you, too,’ replied Medea.
‘My princess,’ sighed Jason.
‘My hero,’ cooed Medea.
My foot.
To be honest, as Medea led him further and further into the jungle, their conversation became far too gushy, mushy and slushy for me to waste time and good ink on. So I shan’t. Only to say that Jason was so busy flirting, flaunting and flattering that he was quite flummoxed when they suddenly stepped out of the jungle’s thick shadows to see a wide, dark lagoon.
Yes, you know the one.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ said Medea, gazing up at the craggy bluff of rock at the far side of the water. ‘We used to take walks like this on Iolkos, when we were first married, do you remember?’
Jason did. As his eyes swept over the dark water, he found himself recalling the swamp of singing stink-toads that she’d loved to visit and realised that her taste in ‘beauty spots’ hadn’t changed much.
Shuddering, he turned his face up to the sky and watched the wisps of white trail over the blue.
‘Do you remember how we’d watch the clouds,’ he said, ‘seeing pictures in them? I’d always see stags and warships.’
‘And nymphs,’ muttered Medea quietly.
‘Whilst you saw scorpions and dragons,’ said Jason
‘Sweetheart,’ said Medea, tilting her face up to his and laying her hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m so glad you came back.’
‘So am I,’ said Jason, shrinking beneath her embrace. ‘But how could I not? As soon as I heard what Athena was planning, I volunteered myself for the quest. I knew that I had to protect you.’
‘Protect me?’ said Medea, wide-eyed.
Turning, she led him to a low tumble of rocks, close to the shore, sat down and patted the warm stone beside her.
‘Yes,’ said Jason, sitting down next to her, warming to his tale. ‘Of course Athena took a lot of persuading. I think she was suspicious of why I was so desperate to return to Earth. Deep down, I’m sure she knows that my heart still belongs to you, my sweet.’
‘My darling,’ sighed Medea.
‘But, I was determined. I demanded she let me return to find you.’
‘Oh, captain of my heart!’ sighed Medea.
‘Of course it was a nightmare when she saddled me with Alex and Aries.’
‘But they’re gone now, aren’t they? Tell me,’ she said, bristling with curiosity. ‘Was there a lot of blood?’
‘Barrels of it!’ said Jason, surprised to see the glitter of genuine interest in her eyes. After all, she must surely know that her magic would have dispatched them horribly? Or perhaps she simply couldn’t resist hearing about the details first-hand from him? Between you and me, Jason might have been surprised to know that she wasn’t actually sure of any such thing, since she’d been so busy preparing for meeting him. And not only in the lipstick and hairbrush department, I’m afraid. But, we’ll come to that later.
‘It was hideous!’ Jason went on. ‘Truly, I’ve never seen a monster more terrifying. The power of him, Medea, the span of those feet and claws. The ram didn’t stand a chance.’
Medea clapped her hands together. ‘And Alex?’
Jason shook his head, pushing the uncomfortable thought of the boy racing hopelessly back with those flimsy little arrows out of his mind.
‘You really excelled yourself there.’
‘So,’ said Medea, resting her head on Jason’s shoulder. ‘Tell me about Athena’s plan.’
‘She means to send you to Tartarus.’
Medea regarded him evenly. ‘How?’
‘Using a statue,’ said Jason. ‘Filled with the Erinyes. Can you imagine, she actually wanted me to hand it to you?’
Medea waited for him to go on.
‘As if I ever could!’ he added, wishing that he had it in his hand now, wrapped in a big soppy ribbon.
‘And you came back to sabotage her plan?’
‘It’s been my only thought!’
Medea looked up at him, saucer-eyed. ‘My honey-baklava!’
‘My rose-lipped princess!’
‘My sweet prince of Iolkos!’
‘My cherry-lipped queen!’59
Medea laughed girlishly and stood up, clapping her hands together.
‘And now you’re back with me!’
‘But only for a little while,’ said Jason, rather too quickly. ‘I mean, it’s awful, I know, but I’ll have to return soon. We don’t want Athena sending anyone else up here, do we?’
Medea shook her head sadly.
‘That’s why I think that you and I need a plan.’
‘We do?’
Jason nodded, and took the sorceress’s hand in his.
‘I think I should go back and tell her that we’ve talked as ex-husband and wife ––’ said Jason
‘As lovebirds,’ interrupted Medea.
‘As lovebirds, yes,’ said Jason. ‘And that you’ve told me how terribly sorry you are about the past and that you’ve turned over a new leaf.’
‘Except that I won’t.’
‘Well, I know that,’ said Jason. ‘But she doesn’t need to, does she? And, if you were a little less, well, flamboyant about things in the future, then she’d never find out.’
‘And it would be our little secret,’ cooed Medea. ‘A love secret?’
‘That’s right,’ said Jason. Sitting back on the rock, he allowed himself a moment to imagine the word ‘DIPLOMAT’ being chiselled next to ‘HERO’ in the plinth of his pavilion statue.
‘Sealed with a kiss?’ added Medea.
‘Maybe later,’ said Jason, leaping to his feet.
For a split second, Medea’s mouth drew tight before she gave him a wide, generous smile.
‘And you’d really do this, just for me?’
‘Of course,’ said Jason, tossing back his head. ‘We were so close once.’
Medea sighed happily and glanced towards the bluff of rock edging the far side of the water.
‘But before you go, there’s something I’d really like to show you.’
>
Masking his impatience, Jason put on his considering face and looked up at the sky to where a cloud, unpleasantly shaped like a spider, was chasing after a fluff of white that looked rather like a fly.
‘Well …’ he stretched the word out as he thought.
‘Then I’ll magic you straight back to Manaus, to speed you on your way?’
‘All right, then,’ said Jason, crumpling his brow into an earnest frown. ‘You know how much I’d love to spend more time with you, but for your sake, I have to leave soon.’
‘I know,’ said Medea, a faint sliver of ice in her voice. ‘But don’t worry, darling. You’ll be gone soon.’
59 My! Pass me the sick bucket. Let’s not start all this again.
BY A CREEPY LAGOON
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.
Rampage! Page 25