Simply the Quest Read online

  ‘Elliot!’ shouted Thanatos. ‘Stop, I just want to talk to you—’

  Elliot raced towards two archways at the far end of the hall. He turned to check on Hermes – the Messenger God was whizzing around the room, dodging blasts from Hypnos’s trumpet as Nyx tried to wrestle her way free from the whale’s skeleton. But Thanatos was already on his feet.

  ‘Go left!’ cried Virgo, shaking her hand free of Elliot’s.

  ‘How do you know?’ said Elliot, heading that way.

  ‘Because some of us picked up a map,’ said Virgo smugly, pulling the piece of paper from her pocket.

  ‘There’s nowhere to run, Elliot!’ cried Thanatos behind them. ‘I will catch you.’

  ‘Down there!’ shouted Virgo. They ran through a cafe, towards a corridor where a large turtle was hanging from the ceiling and reptilian exhibits stared at them from the glass cases on either side. They reached a turning to the left and to the right.

  ‘Which way?’ said Elliot desperately.

  ‘One moment . . .’ said Virgo, turning the map around. ‘I’m just working out the optimal escape route . . .’

  ‘Well, hurry up,’ said Elliot, snatching the map from her. ‘Thanatos will be here any—’

  ‘There you are,’ said Thanatos, slamming a hand down on Virgo’s shoulder. ‘Now let’s all just calm down and have a little chat . . .’

  At the Daemon’s touch, Virgo suddenly took a gasping breath.

  ‘Virgo?’ said Elliot. ‘Are you . . .?’

  But Virgo couldn’t speak. Elliot watched her grow sickeningly pale as the life force was sucked from her mortal body by the touch of the Daemon of Death. He faltered and panic rose in his chest. Last time Thanatos touched the immortal Virgo, he could only hurt her. This time, Elliot knew he could kill her.

  ‘Let her go,’ he said shakily.

  ‘First,’ said Thanatos, not moving, ‘we have a few things to discuss . . .’

  ‘Not until you let her go,’ said Elliot more forcefully. He could hear Hermes and Nyx shouting in the hall.

  ‘She’s free to go anytime she likes,’ said Thanatos. ‘I am not restraining her in any way.’

  Elliot looked at Virgo’s gasping body as she collapsed to her knees.

  ‘So I have all the time in the world for our little chit-chat,’ said Thanatos, looking down at her. ‘But I think our friend here would appreciate us hurrying it along a bit. Now, about my Chaos Stones . . .’

  ‘E – move it!’ shouted a voice behind it. ‘She’s coming . . .’

  With a rush of air, Hermes swooped through the corridor. But as he flew along, he touched each glass case, muttering mystical words. At the sound of his voice, the exhibits slowly creaked to life.

  ‘What are you—?’ Thanatos began, releasing his deathly grip on Virgo as the corridor started to fill with turtles, lizards and a particularly excitable crocodile.

  ‘Thanatos!’ shouted Hermes, picking up a huge snake. ‘Catch!’

  He threw the massive serpent and it coiled instinctively around the Daemon’s body.

  ‘Child!’ screeched Nyx from the hallway. ‘I’m coming for you . . .’

  ‘I’ll try to hold her!’ yelled Hermes. ‘Shift it!’

  ‘Come on!’ said Elliot, gathering Virgo up from the floor, as Thanatos wrestled with the enormous snake. The lyre started to play some thumping drum and bass music.

  ‘Go left!’ Virgo groaned as the life-blood returned to her face.

  They ran down a long, empty corridor, the sounds of the battle between Hermes and Nyx ringing through the museum.

  ‘Where now?’ shouted Elliot as they reached a turning.

  ‘Straight ahead,’ panted Virgo, pointing to a set of white double doors.

  ‘That’s a dead end!’ said Elliot.

  ‘That’s the lavatory,’ said Virgo, consulting her map. ‘It’s been hours, I’m absolutely bursting . . .’

  ‘Elliot!’ Thanatos boomed down the corridor behind them. ‘Elliot – I’m starting to lose patience . . .’

  ‘Over here!’ said Elliot, dragging Virgo into a big hall marked ‘Mammals’.

  ‘Elliot – look out!’ exclaimed Virgo, pushing them behind a door as Hermes hurtled past them, hotly pursued by Nyx. The Messenger God flew low around the hall, animating the huge mammal exhibits. Nyx, hot on his feathered heels, was about to catch him when a herd of stampeding rhinos knocked her to the ground and trampled her.

  ‘We need to move faster,’ Elliot hissed. He saw a brown horse in a nearby display case and had an idea.

  ‘Hermes!’ he yelled. ‘Over here!’

  The Messenger God zoomed over and touched the display case.

  ‘Gotcha, mate!’ said Hermes as the glass magically vanished. The horse stepped out into the hallway. Elliot quickly patted his nose, before clinging on to his mane and swinging up on to the horse’s back. He used to ride bareback with his mum on the farm and his body slipped quickly into the happy memory of riding these beautiful creatures.

  Nyx was still struggling to get to her feet beneath the rhinos. She spied Elliot across the hall.

  ‘There you are!’ she screeched. ‘I’m coming for—’

  She was silenced by a stampede of the giraffe family.

  ‘Hermes!’ shouted Virgo, narrowly avoiding an antelope. ‘I’ll need a steed too!’

  ‘Totes, babe!’ said Hermes, doing a second circuit of the hall and bringing the next exhibit to life. ‘Bosh!’

  ‘Eey-ore,’ brayed the furry donkey. Virgo looked aghast, but got on.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Elliot, spurring his horse on and riding bravely through zebra, buffalo, wildebeest and an enormous warthog in the Mammal Hall.

  ‘Stop!’ shouted Virgo suddenly.

  Elliot turned, expecting Virgo to be in Thanatos’s fatal grip once again.

  She was pressing the buttons on the Massive Mammal exhibit.

  ‘Apparently, a blue whale is 175 times my weight! Isn’t that fascinating?’

  ‘Elliot!’ shouted Thanatos, appearing from behind a school of flying dolphins. ‘Come back here!’

  ‘This way!’ shouted Virgo, leading the way into a darkened room.

  ‘Is this a good hiding place?’ whispered Elliot.

  ‘No idea,’ said Virgo, flicking on the lights. ‘But it sounded like a marvellous gift shop . . . Perhaps a rubber lizard would show my gratitude to the Council for giving my kardia back . . .’

  Elliot heard Hermes and Nyx and a cacophony of animal noises behind them. They exited the gift shop and charged on, dodging armadillos, lions, tigers and a friendly chimpanzee that jumped on to Virgo’s back. They emerged into a big hallway, just as the chimp stole Virgo’s map and scampered away.

  ‘I don’t know where to go!’ said Virgo, looking down the long corridor.

  ‘Let’s try in here,’ said Elliot, dismounting from his horse and creeping into a dark side room.

  ‘Right,’ whispered Elliot. ‘Let’s hide. He’ll never find us h—’

  ‘RRRRROOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!’

  Elliot turned to see an almighty T-Rex rearing up behind them.

  ‘I thought dinosaurs were extinct!’ cried Virgo.

  ‘Well, we’re gonna join them if we don’t get out of here – run!’ shouted Elliot.

  They bolted in different directions through the dinosaur exhibit.

  ‘Virgo!’ shouted Elliot, as a velociraptor nipped at his toes. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Over here!’ cried Virgo from somewhere.

  Elliot jumped over barriers and dived under displays as the T-Rex crashed through the hall behind him, destroying everything in its path.

  Elliot saw a light up ahead shining through a glass door.

  ‘Virgo!’ he yelled again, but this time received no answer. With a frustrated shout, Elliot burst through the door and found himself back in Hintze Hall. He spun around to see the T-Rex lumbering closer, closer, closer . . .

  With an almighty roar, the dinosaur charged at the do
or – and promptly knocked itself out on the stone wall above it.

  ‘No wonder you lot died out,’ said Elliot, shaking his head.

  He looked around the hall. It was completely empty.

  ‘Virgo?’ he whispered into the echoing space. ‘Hermes? Are you guys—’

  Without warning, he was suddenly snatched up into the air. He looked up, expecting to see the kindly face of Hermes. Instead, the green eyes of Nyx were glaring down at him.

  ‘Gotcha,’ she hissed, soaring up to the high roof of Hintze Hall. ‘Let’s see how well your friends can protect you now!’

  Nyx dangled Elliot precariously from a single talon and extracted the watch from his pocket with another.

  ‘Give that back!’ said Elliot, swiping for his watch and nearly losing his grip.

  ‘Now,’ her discordant voice sang out. ‘You need to tell me where my idiot son hid the other Chaos Stones . . .’

  ‘Get stuffed,’ yelled Elliot, desperately clinging on to her talon.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s try this another way. The drop from here might not kill you. But it will break most of the bones in your body. Up to you, of course. I’ll give you to the count of one . . .’

  ‘Bruv?’ a voice whispered through the hall. ‘Do you trust me?’

  Nyx whipped her head around, but Hermes was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Two . . .’

  ‘You know what to do,’ said Hermes. ‘I’ve got ya, bruv.’

  Elliot looked down at the tiled floor. This was gonna hurt. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Thr—’

  Before Nyx could finish, Elliot lunged for the watch, yanked his arm free of her talon and hurtled towards the floor. What had seemed such a vast distance from up high felt a lot shorter as he plunged headlong. He braced himself. Where was Her—?

  ‘BOOOOOOM!’

  A familiar pair of arms caught Elliot in their strong embrace and flew him safely to the floor. The Messenger God winked at his friend.

  ‘I’ll always catch you, bruv,’ he smiled, before shouting up at Nyx, ‘Oh, babe. You couldn’t catch a cold!’

  Hermes whizzed a few victory laps around the hall, waggling his bottom at Nyx.

  ‘Or a fish in a barrel!’

  Elliot watched Nyx hover behind Hermes, her face distorted by a twisted grin. What was she . . .?

  Hermes continued his taunts with a small airborne victory dance.

  ‘I’m not being funny, babe. But Nyx – you couldn’t catch . . .’

  Doof!

  Hermes went totally silent, his face frozen in an empty grin as a small curl of black smoke wafted up behind him.

  ‘Hermes!’ Elliot cried as the Messenger God fell to the floor and crumpled into his arms. ‘What’s—’

  Standing triumphantly behind him, brandishing Hypnos’s sleep trumpet, was Thanatos.

  ‘No!’ Elliot shouted, shaking his friend. It was no use. Hermes was out cold.

  Nyx cackled with glee as Elliot dragged him behind a pillar.

  ‘Hermes!’ he cried. ‘Hermes – wake up!’

  ‘Oh, he won’t wake up for days,’ said Thanatos as Nyx landed beside him and took the trumpet. ‘And by the time he does, it will be far too late. Or will it? I’ll give you one more chance. Where are my stones?’

  ‘Tell him,’ said Nyx, holding up the trumpet.

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Elliot.

  ‘I don’t know how you’ve been brought up,’ said Nyx, ‘but in my household, when Mother asks you to do something, you do it.’

  ‘If I’m asleep, I can’t tell you where the stones are,’ said Elliot.

  ‘True,’ said Nyx. ‘But I have a feeling after I’ve taken you to the Underworld and tortured you for a while, you might wake up a bit chattier. Tell him.’

  ‘Don’t make this so hard for everyone, Elliot,’ urged Thanatos. ‘My deal still stands. Just tell me where they are. I can help you. You and your mother. Let me give you what you really want.’

  Elliot tried to silence the dark voice screaming in his consciousness.

  Do it, it said. Get the life you deserve. Get Mum back.

  Elliot stared at the Daemon. He couldn’t tell him. Could he?

  ‘No,’ said Elliot weakly.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ sighed Nyx, bringing the trumpet to her lips. ‘Boys always do things the hard way. Goodnight, Elliot.’

  She took a giant breath. Elliot winced as he awaited the blow.

  Before Nyx could take her shot, the silence in the hall was shattered by an almighty rumble, shaking the floor and bringing exhibits crashing to the ground.

  ‘What the—?’ snapped Nyx as the rumble grew louder.

  ‘Troops!’ cried a familiar voice. ‘Attack!’

  In a heartbeat, the hall was filled with all the animated exhibits of the Natural History Museum, led by Virgo astride her donkey. A flock of angry birds attacked Nyx with beak and claw, while Thanatos was beset by swarm after swarm of insects.

  Dinosaurs, mammals, reptiles and a vicious armadillo charged at the Daemons. Nyx turned her trumpet on the animals, but no matter how hard she blasted them, they kept up their relentless march.

  ‘They’re dead! The trumpet doesn’t work on them!’ said Thanatos, kicking away a battalion of dung beetles. ‘Do something!’

  ‘Halt!’ a voice shouted as a piercing light flooded the hall. ‘Police!’

  Blinded by the floodlight and deafened by Nyx’s screeching, all Elliot could make out were the tiny red lasers of dozens of guns trained on Nyx and Thanatos.

  ‘Stay right where you are!’ shouted the policeman. ‘There’s no way out.’

  ‘There’s always a way out!’ screeched Nyx, taking Thanatos into her arms and blasting up through the ceiling of the Natural History Museum. ‘Until next time, Elliot . . .’

  Elliot covered Hermes’s body as the bullets whizzed up through the brick dust and rubble towards Nyx. But it was no use. She was gone.

  Elliot shook the comatose Hermes. He couldn’t wake him up . . . Wake up! He grabbed his bag and quickly found Aphrodite’s potions. He held Hermes’s lips open and administered a huge dose of Aphrodite’s Wake-Up Juice.

  ‘Hermes! Hermes!’ he whispered.

  The Messenger God’s eyes flickered open.

  ‘Mate,’ he groaned, rubbing his head. ‘Epic anti-bosh.’

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ shouted a policeman. Elliot threw his hands in the air. ‘You have the right to remain silent.’

  ‘Can I just say—’ Virgo began.

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Elliot.

  Their friend the security guard wandered sleepily into the wrecked museum. He turned his head slowly around the hall, before snapping awake.

  ‘All this!’ he cried, pointing at Elliot. ‘All this for a poxy umbrella!’

  Two armed officers approached Elliot and Virgo. ‘They’re just kids,’ said one to the other. ‘Children – we’re going to need to contact a responsible adult. Who should we call?’

  ‘Um,’ said Elliot, pulling the royal pardon out of his bag and looking at the crowds of police now swarming all over the Natural History Museum. ‘Does anyone have the number for Buckingham Palace?’

  25. Busted

  After a few hours persuading the Metropolitan Police that Elliot hadn’t downloaded his royal pardon from the internet, followed by a timely phone call from Her Majesty, Elliot, Virgo and Hermes arrived back at Home Farm late on Wednesday night. They headed straight for the shed, where Zeus was pacing anxiously around the floor.

  ‘You’re home!’ he boomed gratefully. ‘So . . .’

  ‘So . . .’ grinned Elliot, pulling out his watch to reveal the two stones. ‘We did it!’

  He was nearly suffocated by a giant bear hug from the King of the Gods.

  ‘My quest is won,’ said Virgo quietly. ‘That’s it. I expect I’ll be recalled to the Council any second.’

  In this moment of triumph, Elliot was surprised that he didn’t feel all that happy abo
ut the thought of life at Home Farm without Virgo. She was annoying. She was a pain in the butt. She was . . . a girl. But he’d got kind of . . . used to her. A quick look at her confused face made him wonder if she felt the same.

  ‘Hermes – may I use your iGod?’ she asked. ‘I must inform them of this development at once.’

  ‘Help yourself, babe.’ Hermes yawned. ‘I need to sleep this off – night, all.’

  ‘Who’s with Mum?’ asked Elliot.

  ‘She’s with Athene,’ said Zeus.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Athene, coming into the barn. ‘I had to prove I could juggle seven aubergines while counting to one thousand in Swedish for my assessment. Aphy took over . . .’

  ‘Until I had to unicycle across a tightrope while singing the Italian national anthem,’ scowled the Love Goddess, stomping into the shed. ‘But don’t worry, I left a note for Heffer – he’ll be with her. I expect they’re in the front room watching that London property show she likes – Overpriced, Over-budget, Over-a-kebab-shop.’

  ‘I’ll go and say hi,’ said Elliot, heading for the door.

  ‘Oh, Elliot – before I forget,’ said Athene, grabbing an envelope from her desk. ‘This letter arrived for you this morning. I must say, your postman is most indiscreet. I think I know more about Mr Durrant’s constipation than he does . . .’

  Elliot’s whole body tingled. He recognized that writing.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, practically snatching the letter and running outside into the paddock.

  There was barely enough moonlight to read by, but Elliot tore open the envelope with quaking fingers and tried to concentrate on the trembling words.

  My Beloved Boy,

  Wow. Words can’t describe how I felt receiving your letter today. I have read it so many times I worry I’ll wear the words out – but just touching something that has come from you, knowing that you were thinking of me, makes this the most precious thing I have held since I last held you.

  You say you have many questions – this must be a very confusing time. I supported Mum and Dad’s wish that you weren’t to know where I was, but please know that it has been torture not being able to talk to you, to see you, to help you these past ten years. I haven’t been there for you, Elliot, and you deserve to understand why.