The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,50

then he scampered after Zac and ducked into the elevator just as the doors swept closed.

“Bye,” whispered Herya, watching the lights above the lift door begin counting down.

“Do not feel bad, Herya of the Valkyries,” Argus said. “Not everyone can be the fearless hero.”

He turned and flashed her his toothiest of grins. “Now, are you going to leave quietly?” he asked. His hands went to his belly and he formed the folds into the shape of a mouth once more. The flab-roll lips wobbled up and down as he made them speak: “Or must we have you killed?”

Zac and Angelo stood at a ramshackle wooden jetty on the banks of the River Styx. The black water burbled and boiled, bobbing a small motorboat up and down on its surface.

Above them, the clouds were a ceiling of grey, and in all directions the monochrome landscape was empty and sparse.

“Turned out nice again,” said Steropes cheerfully. He was crouching down on the jetty, pulling the boat in with one massive hand.

Angelo shuddered. “This is nice?”

“Well, it isn’t raining acid, and we haven’t got the old toxic fog hanging about, so, yeah, I’d call that a right result.” Steropes hauled the boat up to the edge of the small pier and held it steady. “There you go. In you hop.”

Zac jumped down into the boat, then watched as Angelo fumbled around on the jetty’s edge.

“Come on, hurry up!” Zac urged.

“I’m coming, give me a minute,” Angelo replied. He sat on the pier’s edge, then twisted on to his front. His legs dangled just a few centimetres above the boat, his toes stretching and kicking as they tried to find purchase.

“You’re there, just jump.”

“Stop rushing me!”

“Stop being so hard on your friend – he’s doing his best,” Steropes suggested.

“He’s not my friend, he’s my colleague,” Zac said.

Angelo’s arms had been wobbling with the effort of holding him up. They gave out then and he fell, screaming, into the boat. It rocked violently from side to side for a moment, before Steropes managed to steady it again.

“There we go,” the Cyclops said. “That’s you in.” He pointed downriver in the direction of the flow. “You want to go that way. There should be plenty of fuel, but if you see anything moving in the water, you’ll be best cutting the engines for a while.”

Zac’s head snapped up. “Anything moving? What do you mean? What’s going to be moving?”

“Who knows?” said Steropes. “The river runs through some nasty places. There are bound to be a few things swimming around down there.”

“Great,” Zac tutted. “It would’ve been nice if Argus had mentioned that when we were planning this whole thing.”

Steropes shrugged. “It would, but then he’s a demon. He’s not supposed to be nice.”

“You’re quite nice, though,” Angelo said. Steropes’s face lit up.

“Well, thank you, Angelo,” he said. “I really appreciate that. And sorry again about putting you in a bag. It was nothing personal, honest.”

“It’s fine,” Angelo said. “I quite enjoyed it. Not at the time, but looking back, I mean.”

“All this male bonding’s great and everything, but we really should get going,” Zac said.

Steropes frowned. “What?”

“I said the male bonding – it’s nice, but we need to move.”

“Male bonding?” said Steropes. His eyebrows rose and his voice took on a higher pitch. “What are you saying?”

“What do you mean, what am I saying?”

“I’m not male!”

“You’re... You’re not?”

“No!” Steropes yelped. “I thought that would’ve been obvious!”

Zac stared at the Cyclops’s stubble and bare, muscular chest. A shudder travelled the length of his spine. “My mistake,” he said.

Steropes released her grip on the boat. “Right,” she said, suddenly sounding much less friendly than she had just a moment ago. “Well... off you go, then.”

Angelo unfolded himself and slid on to a wooden bench at the front of the boat, just as it began to drift down the river. “Bye, Steropes,” he called, waving enthusiastically. The firing-up of the boat’s motor cut off the Cyclops’s reply.

“You know,” Angelo said, “I’m going to miss him.”

“Her,” Zac corrected.

“Her. Right.” The same shudder ran down Angelo’s back. “I forgot.”

“I wish I could,” Zac muttered, then he steered the boat towards the centre of the river and chug-chug-chugged off in the direction of Hell.

HE RIVER STYX was one of those things that cropped up in all sorts of different religions and legends. It was first mentioned in Greek mythology, where the ferryman Charon would transport the dead to the underworld on his boat, provided they’d remembered to bring the correct change, and