Charon Unguarded (Ferryman Saga Book 1) Read online

  CHARON UNGUARDED

  A.H. Johnstone

  CHARON UNGUARDED

  © A. H. Johnstone 2018

  Cover Art by S.E. Anderson

  Editorial: Michelle Dunbar

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, uploading to the internet, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and/or author, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Second edition published in 2018 by Bolide Publishing Limited

  http://bolidepublishing.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  The Rules of the Council

  Conditions of Settlement

  Preview: The Bet

  Notes and references to the more obscure deities

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  The Meeting

  Charon swore. The monitor he had been battling with for the last hour had flickered off yet again. There was a pop from under the desk followed by the smell of burnt plastic. ‘Typical.’ He groaned as he crawled under the desk and fought with the mass of wire. Eventually, he found the correct lead and followed it to the power socket. The plug had melted. Struggling to his feet he picked up the telephone and hit one of the autodial keys.

  ‘Yes. It’s the front desk. Again. Put me through to IT please. Quick as you like. It’s not as though any of us have work to do or anything.’ He waited for ten minutes on hold, listening to a tinny, off-tempo, instrumental version of Rhinestone Cowboy. It played on a loop, accompanied by Charon grinding his teeth. A curse on the demon who came up with this damnable tune … A crackling line broke him off mid-thought. Finally, someone answered. The voice at the other end was muffled.

  ‘This is IT. I hear you have a problem. Sorry to hear that. Can I ask you the nature of your problem, and I will put you through to the right department?’

  ‘For the tenth time this week, you mean? You keep a record of calls, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but it might be a different prob …’

  ‘My security monitor has finally burned out. I’ve been chasing you lot for a new one for weeks.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. Would you like to visit our website and complete the customer satisfaction survey?’

  ‘No, I would not! I work for this company, I am not a customer!’

  ‘Sorry to hear that but—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear how sorry you are! I want it fixed or replaced, or whatever in seven Hells you lot bloody do all day! Today!’ he snapped.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but we have to prioritise our attention where it can be most profitably invested,’ he whined. It sounded almost like he had a peg on his nose. ‘Maintenance of hired equipment is not our problem …’

  ‘Not your problem, huh?’ He sighed. ‘Exactly what is your problem? I mean we appear to have an IT department who won’t do any IT. At least not beyond telling me to turn it off and back on again. When you can eventually be pressed to send an engineer, there is never one available on the day and when they are, they never appear. You seem to have plenty of ‘Sorry you were out’ cards which magically appear all by themselves.’ The voice, however indistinct, seemed extremely familiar to him. Charon flexed an otherwise innocent biro to near breaking point. He was about to hurl it across the foyer before he realised he’d only have to go and get it. The voice probably knew him too and was, therefore, doing this on purpose and probably found it extremely funny.

  ‘Oh, bugger this!’ Charon hadn’t meant to say that out loud but centuries of keeping to himself had led him into a habit of thinking aloud or rehashing conversations he had wished had lasted longer, just for the company.

  ‘Sir! Please moderate your …’

  ‘Hermes? Is that you?’ He hadn’t seen his friend in nearly a century. Since being dragged from the Underworld to the back of beyond to guard the foyer of one officially disused office block after another, he hadn’t seen much of anyone. It was dull, but he didn’t complain. Who would he complain to? It paid and there was relatively little actual work to do. Weekends off too. There was a clatter at the other end of the line.

  ‘What?’ His shock was audible. ‘How do you know my name? Who told you?’ Paranoid as ever; some things never change.

  ‘It’s me, Herm. It’s Charon. How did you end up on an IT helpdesk?’ He laughed.

  ‘Charon? Well, I’ll be damned!’

  Charon thought Hermes probably should have reconsidered that expression given who he was speaking to.

  Hermes continued sulkily, ‘I am only on the telephone communications side of it. They won’t let me near any actual equipment. My presence seems to fry it.’ Hermes sounded deflated. ‘My other role is far less exciting. I am also a bicycle courier, though not by choice. It was a punishment for something. Can’t remember what I did now. Deadlines don’t seem to be the forte of our ‘employers’. Eternity or nothing.’

  How droll. It was remarkable how little imagination their masters had. Even before they came here, and they still had their full powers, the gods could be quite creative in their petty vindications. They were still petty, capricious and vindictive but, faced with modernity, they’d become downright dull, if not lazy. Before he had been forced to manifest into human form, he had been little more than a creepy doorman. Once sucked out of the twisted collective imaginations of these bipedal apes, he was transplanted into the nearest appropriate human body and put back to work … as a security guard. As an abstract, he couldn’t just manifest, so he’d been shoved into a random mortal. No bespoke form for him, oh no. Aside from bodies and scenery, not a lot had changed.

  The only difference he’d noticed since he had stopped ferrying the dead across the river to Hades was that the boat had gone, and his feet stayed dry. River? Stinking bog more like. Now he had the freedom to move around as he pleased but that was more due to the limit of their powers than any special consideration on their part, and he could still find himself in serious trouble if he let the wrong person through those doors. Once he had been chained up as punishment for ‘letting’ Heracles beat him up and get past him. For a hero, that boy’s moral compass had been way off. Maybe he had a magnet in his pocket? Charon nearly choked from laughing when Heracles changed the spelling of his name to something more ‘contemporary’. They’d nearly all gone along with the mortals and ‘Romanised’ their names, but Charon had suspected Heracles’ decision had a lot to do with the long-standing spat between him and his stepmother. She hated the boy and the feeling was mutual. He shook his head. Back to the point. ‘Hermes. Buddy. Can you please send me an engineer? I have about three hours before a
load of shiny-arses arrive for some big meeting and if the ‘wrong people’ wander in, I am for it.’

  ‘Who are the ‘wrong people’?’

  ‘Who do you think? Mortals. ‘Lesser beings’ with a pulse and a birth certificate or anyone not currently in someone’s good books. You know what they’re like. Who can keep up?’

  ‘Oh, them,’ Hermes paused, ‘do any of them believe in us anymore? Most of them look at me like I have given them a headache.’ Hermes had been able to manifest, which meant mortals couldn’t quite focus on him or fix his face in their heads. Zeus was not happy about it either. For a being that had spent hundreds of years pretending to be other people and creatures – mostly for the purpose of getting into as many pairs of knickers as he could manage while not getting caught by the Mrs – it had surprised Charon that his new inconspicuous incarnation had raised such consternation. He’d had to wonder about the one seduced by a swan …

  ‘Not enough of the old stories about us survive to give a real boost to whatever belief is keeping us here, at least not anymore. There are a few oddballs and the academic sort who think we were ‘literary constructs of mortal experiences’. The Fae courts and the Council like to keep us as quiet as possible. Something about abiding by the same set of conditions everyone signed when we came over. Basically, we’ve got the power we came with and it’s just going to have to last us. Strictly no top-ups allowed,’ Charon said.

  The Council was made up of the Norns, the Fates, the Furies etc. Basically, every group of abstracts deemed capable of getting the head gods to simmer down and behave themselves. The Muses had been kicked off some time ago for allegedly inspiring some rather unpleasant business involving an otherwise harmless vicar and a militant seagull, though nothing was officially proven …

  ‘I didn’t sign anything.’ Hermes snorted back a laugh. ‘Who’s coming for this one?’

  ‘The biggest bullies in the playground of course.’ It disgusted Charon that thousands of years of loyalty, albeit reluctant, wouldn’t merit a more senior role. He wasn’t surprised. Then again, he didn’t know what he would do with new responsibility, he just knew he wanted it. He considered approaching Hades again next time he was in. ‘Come on, Herm, do it for a mate.’

  ‘Because it’s you, I’ll see what I can muster up. In return, you can meet me in that pub on the corner near your building. Oh, and you’re buying. TTFN.’ Hermes hung up.

  ‘TTFN? Whatever next?’ He looked around the foyer. It depressed him. Once it had shone. Gleamed even. Now the smell of damp permeated through the whole building. The once brilliant matte white walls were streaked with mould, dust, and mildew where the roof and window seals had leaked. The chrome coatings on the barriers and bannisters were flaking and corroded, and the floor was covered in a carpet of cracked linoleum tiles, dead leaves, and the litter which had blown in from the playing field behind the building through a hole in the now boarded window panel. Added to this there was the smell of damp plaster everywhere he went.

  He decided to kill time and at least get rid of the rubbish. As he swept he looked down at his faded black uniform with the printed grey badge reading ‘Ferryman Security’. It was flaking. Decaying like everything else they had a hand in. Something about their influence in the mortal world was toxic. He’d just put the broom away when a black van – he assumed it was black, but the dirt made it hard to tell – pulled up in front of the main doors. He went out to investigate. Before he could launch into his well-rehearsed ‘You can’t park that there, mate’ routine,’ the driver leapt out, flashed him an ID, a fanged grin, and then slid open the side door of the vehicle.

  ‘Herm said he owed you one. Where do you want this lot? You’ll have to sign for it.’ He handed Charon a clipboard with one black-nailed, and slightly orange tinged hand, and indicated the boxes of equipment behind him with the other.

  * * *

  Within two hours Charon had a brand-new security system complete with intercom and automated doors. That demon had worked like, well, a demon. No human could have worked at that speed. Hermes had earned that pint. Maybe he should have offered the technician a cup of tea, but he was one of Arawn’s crew and that lot gave him the creeps. The Underworld held perils in its belly, but they were a law unto themselves and everyone steered clear. Even Cerberus started whimpering and tucked his tail in when that lot were about. Charon did help him pack up his van, but only so he would be gone as quickly as possible. He checked the time again. Twenty minutes to spare.

  When people began to arrive, Charon trudged through his assigned script. It wasn’t hard. Ask the name. Check the list for the name. Make them sign the visitors’ log, issue a badge, and give directions to the upstairs lounge. Some of them were not quite as omnipresent as they liked to pretend, so he’d had to show several how to operate the lifts. Surely, they could have worked out lifts by now, but then they have only been here for a millennium. Why hurry?

  They still acted like gods, but thanks to a frankly ridiculous punch up, and a very misguided wine-fuelled bet, had found themselves begging for asylum in the mortal world. All they had left was to hang around and wait for the last of the memories to fade. This had been Yahweh's idea of an easy way to get shot of them all. And wasn’t he as pleased as Punch? Turned up to make sure we all crossed over without a hitch too. And he made sure we saw Gabriel and another of his lackeys measuring up for a refit … Git! He never could tolerate competition. What Yahweh hadn’t banked on was the way their stories had seeped into the cultures they now inhabited. Drama, poetry and prose had provided at least some of them an anchor to cling to. Holding them here whether they wanted to stay or not.

  Charon looked through the list again. There was no sign of the organiser’s name, but all the names had one thing in common. They were all the head of their respective pantheons and their presence did not bode well. Gods, former or otherwise, only gathered like this if there was big trouble, and only if the Council had approved it. He was perplexed that Zeus, Hades and Poseidon had all been invited while Odin’s name had been scrubbed off the list by a very angry hand. This struck Charon as odd, but he thought no more of it. It wasn’t his job to ask questions, just keep his head down and do the job.

  Don’t get involved. Getting ‘involved’ got people killed. He’d seen enough before the pass to tell him that much. Charon wondered what force could have had the influence to have pulled them all to a rundown office block in High Wycombe? Then it dawned on him. Officially, they were supposed to keep a low-profile and not attracting attention, so it was a good idea for them to maintain an appearance of absence. Setting up a base in a small, grey, industrial town just outside London that most of the country hadn’t heard of was a damned sure-fire way of achieving that.

  Just as Charon was deciding whether to attempt to get the kettle working, ‘He’ arrived. The ‘Lord without limits’. With a full entourage. None of whom were on his list. That’s just great. He pressed the door release and stood in front of the desk to properly greet him. ‘Ra, I had no idea you were coming. You did not appear on the list they gave me …’

  ‘Charon, you know better than that. I do not need to make people aware I am coming. It somewhat spoils the surprise, don’t you think?’ he chided, gently. ’The sun always comes.’ His voice was soft. Not deep, but quiet and smooth. His mortal form had somehow become the mortal embodiment of his former self. His dark skin shimmered with gold flecks and reflected a golden glow into the dark foyer. In the right light, it was uncomfortable to look at him directly. Charon wasn’t certain that this characteristic was entirely accidental given Ra’s predilection for glamour and glitz.

  ‘Can I lead you up to the meeting room, sir?’ Charon hoped he refused. He only knew a fraction of what was in those offices and he didn’t want to know about the rest. He had been explicitly warned not to venture past the third floor …

  ‘No. Thank you. I know where I need to be. Am I the first to arrive?’

  Charon tried not to make his relief
visible. ‘No, sir. According to my list there are still some yet to arrive, and some have not responded.’

  Ra did not seem at all surprised or even interested by this. Charon continued, ‘I have sent them up to the second-floor lounge, as per the instruction. Let me assure you that Odin has not attended.’

  ‘That is because I did not invite him. He is … not reliable when it comes to matters requiring discretion.’ He waved his entourage away. ‘Can I be sure of your own, Charon?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You are not as loose with your words as some of your kind. Was there something else you wished to ask me? I am very busy.’

  ‘I was wondering, if it’s not presumptuous of me, but what happened to Aken? I don’t see him here.’

  ‘Sadly, he has already faded. His stories were not as strong or well known as your own. There was no anchor for him here. He vanished almost as soon as he left the shores of the Nun. Oh, well. He was never the best conversationalist. We barely notice his absence. I dare say we manage quite well without him.’

  Charon said nothing but his heart sank. He considered whether this was the whole truth. Aken had been his equal, and a firm friend, He should have made it over. Ra had managed to bring that damned barque through the pass and secure bodies for his nearest and dearest, why not Aken? It stung to hear him so easily disregarded.

  Even the Olympians had found a way for Charon to pass through safely, though he suspected that came more out of a desire to not have to train another servant. He decided to mourn Aken later as his grief would not be well-received here. Ra waited at the lift for someone to press the button for him. One of his attendants scurried over and obliged, bowing and scraping. It was pathetic, because in mortal form – gold infused skin and eyes aside – Ra looked like every other modern western businessman. Just more so. It was this the Council meant by ‘drawing undue attention’. Ra entered the lift and gave Charon the barest of nods. As soon as the lift doors closed, the previously prim and orderly attendants began whipping out magazines and cigarettes and calling lounge furniture out of thin air. This just would not do.