The Case of the Vanished Sea Dragon Read online

  ‘Good luck finding it, then,’ smiled Archie.

  Alba thought for a moment before speaking. ‘This is more important to me than the forbidden divide so I am deciding to let you show me the way.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Archie, climbing on to the desk and jumping on to the dragon’s back.

  ‘Ouch, you are kicking me.’

  ‘Sorry. My name’s Archie, by the way. What’s yours?’

  ‘Hello, Mr Archie. I am called Alba Longs,’ replied Alba.

  ‘What fun,’ said Mrs Klingerflim, with a wistful glint in her eye. ‘If I was twenty years younger I’d be coming along. You be careful.’

  Alba opened the window and leapt out.

  ‘This is so cool,’ said Archie. He had never seen the city from this angle before. The sun was setting, turning the cloudy sky pink at the edge.

  ‘Which way is the way?’ said Alba, landing on a TV aerial, crushing it flat.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Archie as her tail sent a satellite dish flying. ‘Head for that pub at the end of the street but mind the …’

  His words were cut short by Alba knocking over a row of chimney tops like they were skittles.

  As they made their way across the rooftops of London, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, neither of them noticed that they were being followed.

  They had been travelling for around half an hour when Archie said, ‘We should be able to see the road from that block of flats.’

  Alba made the jump, flying over a moving train that whizzed along a raised track, landing on the top of a building.

  ‘Where is Old Ford Street?’

  ‘That one,’ said Archie, indicating a long dimly lit road, lined with dirty red-brick factory buildings, rubbish tips and breaker’s yards, where old cars were smashed up and sold for spare parts.

  Alba flew down to a factory roof.

  Archie knew the area because his dad had once started a business further down the street. Archie had gone there a couple of times with him. He had enjoyed playing around the old cars until the business had gone the same way as all his old man’s businesses and his dad had wound up in prison.

  ‘There’s one seven six,’ said Archie, spotting the number written in red paint on the high gates of a down-beat breaker’s yard.

  Alba jumped from the top of a factory to a corrugated roof of a small shack inside the yard. Battered cars, with flaky paintwork and no wheels, were stacked up. There were piles of engines, exhausts, tyres and other car parts strewn around the place. In one corner was an upside-down yellow Mini. By the gates was an old reddish-coloured truck with its back doors hanging open, and, in the middle of the yard, was the empty shell of a once-white van.

  ‘You must get off here,’ said Alba.

  Archie climbed off her back and pulled out a jelly bean from his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, offering it to her.

  ‘What is this small coloured pebble?’ she asked cautiously.

  ‘A jelly bean,’ replied Archie. ‘It’s food.’

  ‘Food? I am starving,’ said Alba, taking it from his hand and throwing it into her throat. She swallowed it. Her eyes widened with delight. ‘This is delicious. I very like this jelly bean. I very like it a lot. Have you more?’

  Archie rummaged in his pocket and pulled out another and handed it to her.

  ‘I do not know how to be thanking you for these jelly beans,’ she said, ‘but I must go and help for my sister.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Archie.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Archie,’ she said, jumping down into the yard and prowling around, peering into gutted cars, looking for something.

  A male voice called out, ‘In here.’

  Alba looked around, confused.

  ‘I think it came from the truck,’ said Archie.

  Alba looked at the reddish-coloured truck. The back doors were open. ‘Thank you, little humano,’ she whispered, walking cautiously up the ramp into the back.

  ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Who is in there?’

  The back doors of the truck suddenly swung shut and the engine started. Archie tried to see who was in the driver’s seat but the angle was no good. The truck reversed, backing into the gates, pushing them wide open, swinging into the road.

  Archie felt the corrugated iron roof buckle under the weight of something landing on it with such force that it knocked him off his feet. He looked up to see another dragon. This one had a green underbelly and a red back, and ears rather than gills. It peered at him with yellow eyes and spoke.

  ‘So this is your friend, is it, Holly?’

  Holly’s head appeared over the dragon’s shoulder. ‘Dirk Dilly meet Archie Snellgrove,’ she said.

  Archie lowered his voice. ‘There’s another dragon,’ he said.

  ‘I know, it’s Dirk,’ said Holly, sliding off Dirk’s back.

  ‘There’s another dragon,’ repeated Archie.

  ‘No kidding,’ said Dirk. ‘Where did Alba go? We lost sight of her. What was that truck doing?’

  ‘There’s another dragon,’ he said for a third time.

  ‘I think your friend might be a bit slow,’ said Dirk.

  ‘No,’ insisted Archie, speaking through his teeth. ‘Another one. Down there.’

  Dirk craned his neck round to see a brown-backed, caramel-bellied Shade-Hugger stepping out of the shell of the once-white van, covering his eyes from the last rays of daylight.

  ‘Karny,’ muttered Dirk.

  ‘Do you know this one too?’ asked Archie.

  ‘He’s an old friend,’ said Holly.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Stay here, and keep quiet,’ whispered Dirk, flying down to the yard, landing on Karnataka’s back, catching the Shade-Hugger by surprise, pinning him to the ground.

  ‘Cool uncle,’ said Archie, grinning.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ said Holly.

  ‘Who would believe me?’ he replied, watching the two dragons struggling with each other.

  ‘How’s it going, Karny?’ said Dirk in Karnataka’s ear.

  ‘Dirk Dilly,’ he responded, in his usual nasal whine. ‘I order you to release me.’

  ‘Order me? You’re getting ideas above your station,’ replied Dirk. ‘All this power has gone to your …’

  His words were cut short as a metal cuff slammed shut around his neck and his head was smashed into the side of a rusty Ford Capri.

  ‘I think you’ll find my station exactly matches my ideas, these days,’ said Karnataka, ‘seeing as I’m Captain of Dragnet now.’ He stood up and brushed himself down. ‘Good work, Officer Grunling.’ He turned to Dirk and said, ‘Balti here is my most trusted officer.’

  Dirk pulled his head out of the dent it had made in the car door to see the dirt-brown Drake, whom he recognised as Dragnet Officer Balti Grunling.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Balti to Dirk. ‘You owe me pepper.’

  Dirk had bribed Balti the last time they met with the promise of some pepper to liven up his otherwise rather plain mud diet.

  ‘I’ll get you all the pepper you need,’ Dirk said.

  Balti dragged his head into the car again, denting the dent, then he puffed out his chest and said, ‘Assaulting Captain Karnataka the Fearless is an extremely serious offence. Shall I read him his rights, sir?’

  ‘Not just yet,’ said Karnataka. ‘I need to speak to him in private. Leave us. I’ll call when I need you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Balti pompously, ‘but that would be most irregular. This criminal attacked you.’

  ‘As your captain, I order you to give me that chain and leave. Me and this dragon have business,’ said Karnataka.

  ‘Well, it’s very unorthodox,’ grumbled Officer Grunling, begrudgingly unhooking the chain from his tail, handing it to his superior, and walking into the shell of the once-white van. He muttered something in Dragonspeak that caused the rock beneath his feet to lower him into the ground.

  Karnataka yanked hard on the chain, sending Dirk flying
into the upside-down Mini, causing it to spin around on its roof and whack the back of his head.

  Crouching on the corrugated iron roof, Archie whispered, ‘I thought he said they were friends.’

  ‘We need to help him,’ said Holly.

  ‘It’s too high to jump down,’ said Archie.

  Holly slid to the back of the roof. ‘Down here,’ she said, disappearing over the edge.

  Archie crawled to where she had been and looked down to see that Holly had landed on a large pile of tyres at the back of the building.

  ‘Come on,’ she mouthed.

  On the other side of the shack Karnataka pounced on Dirk, pulling the chain, yanking his head back.

  ‘Spill the beans, Dirk,’ he said in his nasal whine. ‘You’ve found out, haven’t you?’

  ‘What beans? Found out what?’ said Dirk, struggling to breathe.

  ‘You must have found out how to contact a Sky Dragon by now.’

  Karnataka had dragged Dirk’s head so far back that Dirk was looking at him upside down. The angle was incredibly painful and not the most attractive view of Karnataka. Dirk could see right up his nose. So it was with great relief that Dirk watched a heavy lump of metal smash into Karnataka’s head.

  ‘Ow,’ exclaimed the Shade-Hugger, loosening his grip on the chain.

  A second piece of car engine collided with his head. Dirk took the opportunity to twist round and send a burst of fire into Karnataka’s face. Karnataka screamed in pain and Dirk jumped up, reversing the situation, landing on top of him. He glanced up to see Holly and Archie standing nearby, poised with more bits of car at the ready.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dirk.

  ‘No problem,’ replied Holly.

  Dirk reached behind Karnataka’s wing, retrieved a key and undid the neck cuff, while holding Karny down with his other three sets of claws.

  ‘Let me go,’ said Karnataka.

  ‘First things first,’ replied Dirk. ‘Something here doesn’t add up. I found the line of ash after Alba had been to see you.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So how do you know about the Sky Dragons?’

  ‘How? I … I … I’ll tell you how. It’s my job to know these things, that’s h … how,’ stammered Karnataka nervously.

  ‘But if you knew about the Sky Dragons, that means …’ Dirk stopped mid-flow. Somewhere inside his head a cog clicked into place. ‘You set the whole thing up, didn’t you, Karny?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Karnataka, trying to avoid his gaze.

  ‘You sent Alba to find me and lead me to her sister’s cave. The ash outline wasn’t real, was it? The idea was to make me think her sister’s disappearance had something to do with a Sky Dragon. Shute was right. No Sky Dragon has materialised in hundreds of years. You tricked me. I bet Alba doesn’t even have a sister.’

  Karnataka writhed, trying to get free, but Dirk held him firmly.

  ‘Delfina is real enough,’ said Karnatka, ‘real and in prison, arrested by Officer Grunling on some trumped-up charge of spying for the Kinghorns. You know how overzealous these Drakes can be with their arrests? When Alba came to me to plead for her release I came up with the plan to get her to hire you. I knew that your first stop would be the last place her sister was seen and that you’d find the outline of ash I made in her cave and assume that a Sky Dragon was responsible for her disappearance. Then it was only a matter of time before you found out how to contact the Sky Dragons.’

  ‘I’ll kill her,’ snarled Dirk.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on her. I told her that if she failed I would banish Delfina with the other Kinghorn traitors, so she was trying to save her sister … save her from the Inner Core.’

  ‘Why Sky Dragons?’ asked Dirk.

  ‘The Kinghorns are rising, Dirk,’ replied Karnataka. ‘They’re waiting for the right time to attack. If we don’t stop them it will be war, dragons against humans. The Drakes are tough enough but they haven’t got the brains or power to defeat Vainclaw’s army. Besides, offer them a big enough bribe and they’ll swap sides before you can say liquorice laces. We need allies, Dirk. We need the Skies on our side. You’ve heard the stories; they have powers beyond any of us. Firewalls, Dirk.’

  Angry smoke poured from Dirk’s nostrils. ‘Why involve me?’

  ‘Because I knew you could find the answer but I also knew if I asked you directly, you wouldn’t help me.’

  ‘You were right about that,’ said Dirk.

  ‘Alba was supposed to meet me at this address as soon as she learnt how to contact a Sky Dragon in exchange for her sister’s release. I just got word from Balti that she was here. Where is she, anyway?’

  ‘She got in a truck and it drove away,’ said Archie.

  Karnataka looked at the blond-haired boy. ‘Not more of your human pets, Dirk?’

  ‘This one wasn’t my fault,’ he replied. He turned to Archie. ‘You mean she was in that truck we saw leave?’

  ‘Yes, someone called her in and it drove off.’

  ‘Where’s the truck going, Karny?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about a truck. She was supposed to meet me here in exchange for her sister’s release.’

  ‘But if the truck is nothing to do with you …’ began Dirk, his words trying to keep up with his racing thoughts. ‘Who else knows about this place?’

  ‘No one, just me and the Drake.’

  Dirk swung his head to address Archie. ‘What did the truck look like?’ he asked.

  ‘It was sort of reddish-coloured,’ he replied.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Only the two letters printed on the side.’

  ‘What two letters?’

  ‘G and S.’

  ‘Global Sands,’ gasped Holly.

  ‘Rats on a stick,’ exclaimed Dirk.

  ‘You think Brant Buchanan knows more about dragons?’ said Holly.

  ‘I’m worried that it’s looking that way,’ said Dirk. ‘Right, Captain Karnataka the Fearless, a Sea Dragon has been kidnapped by humans. It’s time for you to live up to that name.’

  ‘Ah, well … yes, right,’ stumbled Karnataka, edging away. ‘These days I have to follow correct Dragnet procedure. I’ll alert the nearest duty officer, who will assemble an emergency action committee meeting.’

  Dirk spat a mouthful of fire at him. ‘If you don’t help me I’ll go before the Dragon Council and tell them what I know about those missing Welsh gold reserves.’

  Karnataka could tell Dirk wasn’t joking. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Take the boy with you and search east. We’ll look west.’

  ‘You want me to carry a human? Are you mad?’

  ‘While I’m chatting to the Council I could also mention this little Sky Dragon scheme of yours. I wonder how they’ll view your actions,’ added Dirk.

  ‘But, Dirk … a human,’ protested Karnataka.

  ‘He’ll help you identify the truck.’

  Karnataka looked warily at Archie. ‘All right, get on,’ he said, ‘but no kicking.’

  Archie climbed on. ‘Another dragon ride, brilliant!’ he said happily.

  ‘Whoever finds the truck first sends up a fire flare to let the other know where he is.’

  ‘I’m the Captain of Dragnet,’ whinged Karnataka. ‘Do you know how risky carrying a human is for a dragon in my position?’

  ‘You should have thought about that before you set me up,’ said Dirk. ‘Let’s get going.’

  Both dragons flew to the roof of the shack, Holly on Dirk’s back, Archie on Karnataka’s.

  ‘And don’t even think about ditching the kid and heading underground,’ warned Dirk, ‘It looks as though one of the most powerful humans on the planet has kidnapped a Sea Dragon. If we fail to rescue Alba you can kiss goodbye to your cushy job as captain and say hello to full-scale war.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were a surprisingly large number of reddish-coloured trucks in south-east
London that evening. With the warmth of Holly’s arms around his neck, Dirk searched the streets, but each time they found a truck that fitted the description, they would get close only to find it wasn’t the one they were looking for. They had reached Waterloo, when Holly eventually spotted one with the letters G and S printed in white on the side.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said.

  Dirk soared over two parallel railway bridges and landed on the oval top of a cylindrical 3D cinema in the middle of a large traffic island.

  ‘It’s heading for the bridge,’ he said.

  The truck was crawling in traffic towards the river. Dirk jumped over an office block and landed on a rectangular pillar that jutted out of a building on the South Bank of the Thames. Holly recognised it as the National Theatre, having been there with Dad and Big Hair once to see a boring play about a man who spent four hours moaning about his dead father before getting into a fight and dying.

  Below them, a crowd of theatre-goers had crammed themselves on to the balcony overlooking the river to enjoy an interval drink on this warm summer’s evening. A bell rang twice, which Holly remembered meant two minutes until the second part of the play began.

  Dirk took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, tilting his neck vertically. Holly struggled to cling on.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, feeling his stomach swell.

  He exhaled and Holly felt the skin around his neck get warm as a ball of fire flew from his mouth, shooting high into the London sky.

  ‘It’s a fire flare,’ he said, ‘so Karnataka will know which direction to head in.’

  ‘Or which way to avoid,’ said Holly cynically.

  ‘Yes, he’ll probably see it, dump Archie and head back to Dragnet HQ,’ agreed Dirk.

  ‘The truck’s getting away,’ said Holly, seeing that it was already halfway across the bridge.

  Dirk looked down. Jumping the river was always the most challenging part of his life in London. It meant a lot of open air, with no roofs to land on and blend into. It was OK late at night but in the low evening light with the babbling theatre crowd with nothing better to do than gaze across the river, it could be risky. Thankfully, the bell rang again, just once this time, and the balcony emptied.