Charon Unguarded (Ferryman Saga Book 1) Page 8

  ‘I can help you get a meeting with Zeus. It won’t be easy and it could take a couple of weeks to track him down, but I will do this on one condition.’ His face was a cold mask. When Hermes' face went blank like that, it was a sure sign he knew something important. It meant there was something he was deliberately not saying and it looked like Charon would have to sneak around his friend to get to the truth.

  ‘And that is?’ Charon asked.

  ‘Once you have passed the information on, because I agree they need to know, you need to leave this alone. You are kicking a whole hornet’s nest of troubles and you are going to get yourself killed. Or worse. Quit prodding, pass on the message, and let the people who have the tools to deal with it do their job.’ Hermes sounded serious.

  ‘Worse than dead, huh?’ Charon knew he shouldn’t joke.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Fine.’ Could he drop it? Really? Just dropping this would mean ignoring his conscience. It would mean trusting some very unreliable people to put their mistrust and suspicion of outsiders aside for long enough to put these monsters back in their cages. Making an insincere promise grated on his conscience but until he had told the full story to the people who needed to hear it, and seen their reactions, he could not keep that promise. He couldn’t do that until he had the whole story. ‘The nurse who stitched you up is due to check you over later.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject, Charon.’ Hermes snapped. ‘You are meddling with affairs which have nothing to do with you! It’s dangerous. How are you going to explain how you know all this? Have you thought about that? You’ll have to admit you were listening in.’ Hermes was referring to the meeting. The single decision to eavesdrop that started all this nonsense.

  Charon sighed, ‘I need to take this information to the right people. We’re dead if we don’t.’

  ‘We? When did this become we?’ Hermes began to pace. ‘I want no part of this.’

  ‘When you refused to let me go up there by myself last night, and you were used to force me to go with those men. I can’t sit around and do nothing. Odin can neither act alone nor approach Zeus directly. At least not without going through the Council. He gave me a job to do. I’m not foolish enough not to carry it out. Can you imagine Zeus’s reaction if he found out I didn’t pass on this message?’ He paused and added quietly, ‘Inaction has cost me too much already.’ He leaned back in his chair and picked at his nails.

  ‘Ah. This is about Hel. You’re trying to impress …’

  ‘This is not about my ex-wife!’ He hadn’t meant to snap. Hel was a sore spot and Hermes had just poked it. ‘She wasn’t even there. For all I know she’s already faded.’

  ‘If it doesn’t have some benefit to you then why …’

  ‘Hermes, why don’t you get it? This is about doing what needs to be done despite the risk. If I don’t we’re screwed so I might as well try. I’m not looking for accolades or rewards. I just think we should get a say in the way we end. Ra might not be behind the escape but he made a cowardly choice and then withheld the truth so we can’t stop him. He also knows that Odin cannot act alone.’

  ‘I get that for some reason, you feel some sense of responsibility toward one set of creatures who don’t even think you are real, and another group who know you are but treat you with contempt. And that’s only when they bother to acknowledge you at all. I’ll get you the meeting, but that’s as far as it goes. You drop it and you leave my name out of it. Okay?’ Last night Hermes had only reluctantly agreed to help him spy on that meeting. Had the blank stare been fear, as Charon had suspected, or was there something else? Hermes was a known trickster since that whole business of stealing a whole herd of Apollo’s cattle, why the sudden caginess? Had ‘they’ got to him?

  ‘Fine.’

  The rest of the morning passed in sullen silence until the nurse arrived to look Hermes over. If she picked up on the atmosphere she didn’t let on. Hermes gave terse one-word answers to her questions about his vision or lingering disorientation, but Charon paid no attention. Having retired to the living room to afford Hermes some privacy he didn’t hear anything to prompt his concerns but the speed of his friend’s change of heart continued to bother him. He would have to be careful what he said to Hermes in future. He was behaving very evasively and Charon did not want to give anyone reason to change their plans before he could alert the proper authorities.

  When the nurse had finished, Hermes emerged from the kitchen pulling on his jacket. ‘I have to go and make those enquiries. This is not something I can do on the phone. Remember your promise, Charon. Once I do this, you pass on your message and leave it alone.’

  ‘I’ve told you, my friend, I cannot make that promise.’

  ‘I am not saying this as a friend,’ Hermes said irritably. ‘We’ve gone way past that. I am giving you an order as a senior deity. Are we clear about that?’

  ‘You can’t give me orders …’

  ‘I can. I will do whatever I need to do to keep my friends safe.’ On that, Hermes turned and left Charon’s house, slamming the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Prophecy

  It had been nearly a week since Hermes had left and he had not been in touch with Charon since. On reflection, Charon had decided that pestering Hermes would not help but that did not stop his final words from marching around his head without rest. Hermes had said he would look after his friends. Charon felt he should be taking that at face value, but he couldn’t help but sense that he was no longer included in that list of friends. Even so, it was getting urgent. Odin had already chased him about the message twice in the last four days, and asked what was taking him so long. He needed Hermes’ help but contacting him didn’t seem like such a good idea. The only alternative route to Zeus was the Council.

  On his way to work he considered contacting other minor gods. He knew what their reaction would be and they could not be trusted not to try to steal the message and then sell it to Zeus. Many of them still owed him favours. What wouldn’t they do to be absolved from those debts? No, that would be too dangerous and it would risk the information falling into the wrong hands. Odin didn’t know who had released those monsters, and until they did, Charon couldn’t be sure who he was dealing with. The wrong word to the wrong person could mean his own eternity in Tartarus. I promised not to tell anyone but Hermes. He’d keep that promise, but only because there was little reason to believe that anyone else would react any differently.

  His keys jingled as he dragged them from his pocket and opened the door. Hopefully today would go the way of the rest of the week. Aside from being chased by Odin’s men, he’d had a wonderfully peaceful week. There had been no more weird texts warning him off, and no visits from irate faeries who didn’t know their own strength. However, Charon wasn’t happy. It was too quiet, and he couldn’t help but suspect that this was the calm before the storm. If this had all been a sick practical joke to teach him to mind his own business, someone upstairs[3] would have found some way to let him know he’d been made to look a fool. Not out of any concern for him, of course. The Olympians still loved to let people know when they’d been tricked for the simple joy of making them feel bad. It was in the same spirit that a mean child pulling wings off a fly laughs when it still tries to take off. The mortals had had the right idea when they abandoned worshipping us.

  Knowing it wasn’t him being made the butt of some bored immortal’s joke didn’t do anything to help his mood. So far, he’d snapped at the postman, and driven a call centre operative who’d dialled a wrong number to quit on the spot. Like it or not, he would have to call Hermes and sort this mess out once and for all. He decided to use the work line but dialled 141 to hide the number. If whoever had sent him that text message last week had his number, they were probably able to tap his calls, and he didn’t want this one to show up on the bill.

  It rang several times before someone finally picked up.

  ‘IT helpdesk, Cassandra speaking. Who’
s calling please?’

  ‘Cassandra, it’s Charon. Is Hermes there? I need to ask him something.’

  ‘Mr Hermes no longer works here, sir. Can I help you?’

  ‘What! Where’s he gone?’ This was worrying to say the least. Hermes hadn’t mentioned anything about changing his role. As far as he knew, they got placed in a job and were expected to get on with it. Maybe they’d had enough of him killing the equipment. This was too sudden. Someone had got to him.

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be …’

  ‘Supposed to be what? All seeing? You know it doesn’t work like that and I am sick of people treating me like some sort of walking prediction machine then going off to do the opposite of what I advise. All I know is that he called in Monday. Said he’d had a better offer somewhere else. Can’t say that I blame him. Is there anything else because some of us have work to do?’

  ‘No. Thanks. I’ll try his mobile.’ Charon said weakly. He’d not been prepared for Hermes not being there.

  ‘You do that.’ The line died. Cassandra had been prickly since he’d met her but being murdered by your abductor’s wife will put a real dent in your armour. She was technically mortal but thanks to her presence in the stories of Troy, and Apollo’s sense of humour, she was granted a certain immortality; much to her annoyance – she wasn’t a liar. It wasn’t her fault nobody listened to her. Well, not completely.

  He tried Hermes’ mobile several times without success. The final tries told him that calls from his phone had been blocked by that number. Charon put the phone down then sat staring at it for what felt like an hour. It looked like he had no choice. He would have to contact someone else. The trouble was distinguishing between who he could trust and who would be able to offer him any useful help. The entirety of the people on both lists consisted of Carnus, one of the very many sons of Zeus, and a seer.

  * * *

  It didn’t take him long to find Carnus. The seer was not doing well. His thick dark hair was matted and greasy, and greying at the temples, and his clothes were dusty and crumpled. Charon had tracked him down to a park bench in the town centre and found him deeply involved in his philosophical conversation with a pigeon who appeared more interested in a discarded chip than in Carnus. He was a very expressive speaker and as his hands grew more animated Charon could see that his once olive skin was now grey and stretched over his too-thin and cold-blistered fingers. He saw a black bin-liner tucked under his seat and Charon wondered if the man even had any gloves. Winter was no time to be sleeping under the stars. Charon waited for him to finish and the pigeon to depart before he took a seat next to him.

  ‘Ah, Charon. To what do I owe this honour? I was wondering when I would see you. Not dying again, am I?’ He winked. His eyes were clouded. To the mortal eye, he looked to be in his fourth decade, but Charon knew him to be far older. The last time they had met, Charon had been escorting a very irate seer over the Styx after he had been taken for a spy and murdered by one of the Heraclids. Hippotes had taken it upon himself to kill first and ask questions later was the best way to greet a stranger approaching their camp. The storm, famine, wrecked fleet, and scattered army, that Carnus had come to warn him about had hopefully taught him the error of his ways. He wore the marks of a troubled life but he had not lost his Greek accent, despite his millennia or more in Britain.

  ‘You know what brings me?’ Charon asked. He couldn’t have guessed.

  ‘I’m a seer. I know most things, though not enough to keep me out of trouble.’

  ‘I’m looking for some information on how to reach Zeus without …’

  ‘Without going through that gods-awful Council? I know. They’ve not been much help of late, have they? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my influence does not stretch beyond pigeons these days.’

  ‘Pigeons?’ He felt his voice crack.

  ‘Don’t mock. They’re smart enough to live off mortals and not have to lift a feather. That last one had just lost his favourite roosting spot and was asking me where the best place to move was.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That home was wherever he decided it was. If one spot was no longer there, he must consider what was most important to him; proximity to food or family. Then he would find a new favourite.’

  ‘And if losing a favourite roost due to the actions of another meant losing all places to roost for all pigeons?’

  Carnus laughed. ‘The pigeon analogy cannot help you here. Your problem cannot be solved so easily. Pigeons are wise, but short-sighted. They cannot see the bigger picture and their cares are few. You must visit one of the Oracles. They will help … I see you were hoping to avoid them too.’

  Charon scowled. He hated that he was so easy to read. Even by a seer. These days his face always betrayed his feelings. The Oracles it was then. Carnus was right; he didn’t want to visit them. They gave him the creeps. Those riddles they spoke in gave him a headache and the smoke they insisted on spreading everywhere clung to your clothes for weeks, but even they were less scary than the council. If Carnus couldn’t help though, there wasn’t anywhere else he could go.

  ‘How do I find them? They don’t exactly go out of their way to advertise.’

  ‘Got a pen?’

  ‘I have a phone.’

  ‘Pftt. You disappoint me, Charon. A phone? You’ve embraced the life of these feckless mortals then? Going out of their way to find new and ingenious forms of idleness …’

  ‘It has a notebook. You really haven’t moved on from the Luddites at all have you!’ Charon had heard the rumours that some of their kind had been involved. For Carnus, the industrial revolution had been the final descent into chaos. He hadn’t led the Luddites but he had sympathised with their cause and had become set in his ways ever since. He’d not put much stock in those rumours until he’d had to hunt Carnus down for this little chat. One of the conditions of their settlement, when they made passage to the mortal world, was to ‘not get involved’ in human affairs. They were certainly not supposed to draw attention to themselves, so advising and assisting the Luddite rebellion had broken about every rule in the book. If the Council had been able to shove Carnus back in his box they would have done it in a second. As it was, they had to make do with an indefinite suspension. Unfortunately for Carnus, the Council’s idea of indefinite lasted an awfully long time.

  ‘I was never one of you. Wasn’t really one of them either. Even in my life as a human,’ Carnus said. The resentment was plain in both his voice and his face. ‘Seers never are. Spend too long with a foot in both worlds and you see how well you fit in.’ He turned to meet Charon’s eyes. His milky eyes were fixed on Charon, but it felt like they were looking straight through him. ‘You think I liked the idea of being dragged back here after being dead for more than a millennium? Ha! First there was that bet, then I let myself be seduced by the promises of that damnable council. Human vanity is what got me into this mess. I figured a healthy dose of rebellion would get me out, but then I’ve never been so good at predicting my own future.’ He patted Charon on the shoulder and continued. ‘I bear you no ill will but you’ll have to excuse an old man’s griping.’

  ‘Some of us aren’t ready to go,’ Charon said and exhaled slowly. In his rush to heroically stand up to Ra and the others, he’d not considered people like Carnus. Genuinely exhausted, with little to hold them here other than the Council having neglected to release them. Carnus had few stories but they had decided his skills would be useful to them. Then one day they just stopped listening. ‘You know where I can find these Oracles?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a Psychic Fayre held not far from here on a regular basis. One of the Oracles has managed to wrangle a spot in the cricket club. It’s on London Road. You’ll know her when you see her. She’s the only one there who doesn’t appear pretentious. Nice girl, bit vague. Always has a smile and a cup of tea for old Carnus.’ He watched as Charon tapped the address and the date of the next fa
yre into his phone. He showed him the screen to check he had them down correctly.

  ‘There’s no point showing me that. I can’t read it.’

  ‘You’ve never learned to read?’ Charon asked.

  ‘Not in English. Greek served me well enough while I lived. I only learned to speak English so I could understand Chaucer. That was when this language had poetry in its heart. But now?’ He huffed. He never completed that sentence as he began to cough violently. Deep, racking coughs that shook not only him but the bench. When the fit subsided, Charon offered him the bottle of water he had in his pocket for which Carnus could only nod his appreciation. When he finally sat up Charon noticed that his lips were tinted with flecks of blood.

  ‘You’re ill? We’re not supposed to be able to get ill!’

  ‘After the thing with the Luddites, I ended up in one of those cotton mills, and like so many others I ended up with fibres in my lungs. Well, it was that or starve. Unlike them, I can’t die from it, what with being dead already.’ He proffered the bottle back at Charon who gestured that he should keep it. ‘Enough questions now. Let me have my peace.’

  Charon decided to grant the man his wish. He stood, walked a few steps but then stopped. ‘If you need anything let me know.’ There was no answer. He turned to see if Carnus was okay, but the bench was now empty aside for some dead leaves. The seer, and his belongings, had vanished.

  * * *

  The next fayre was on Saturday. Charon had spent a fractious two days hoping the Oracle would be able to help. If she was the real thing he knew he would end up having to decipher some painful riddle. He had been waiting by the doors for the fayre to open just so that he could get in and out as fast as possible but the event organisers did not share his sense of urgency. A lengthy queue of mortals had gathered behind him, circling round the car park. Surely, at least one of them would have been expecting his arrival, but the stall holders who recognised him all seemed surprised at his presence. Judging by the scowls and furtive looks some of them were giving him, they were the genuine article. One of them even had the audacity to wave burning sage at him as he passed her stall. Charon understood now why Carnus avoided these places.