Werewolf versus Dragon (3 page)

THE RSPCB HAD BEEN FOUNDED TO CARE FOR
endangered beasts, beasts once thought to have been extinct. It had set up breeding and conservation programs, and provided medical care for sick or injured beasts, sheltering them from harm. Thanks to the RSPCB there were now laws against beast poaching, trading in beast furs, and beast experimentation. Cruelty to beasts had been made illegal. But there were still some people who were willing to break the law.

While Orson cleaned up in the operating theater, Ulf followed Dr. Fielding to her office. He
stood in the doorway and watched as she reached for her phone and pressed the numbers on the keypad.

“Hello, can you put me through to the department for National and International Criminal Emergencies?” she said. “Yes, it is an emergency. A dragon has been killed.”

Ulf was holding the clipboard with the Autopsy Case Notes. “Why would anyone want to shoot a dragon?” he asked.

Dr. Fielding was pacing up and down, holding the telephone to her ear. “Hello, it's Dr. Fielding from the RSPCB. Is that the department for National and International Criminal Emergencies?”

Ulf unclipped the Autopsy Case Notes and placed them on Dr. Fielding's desk.

“When will they be back?” Dr. Fielding asked. She raised her eyebrows. “Two days? But this is an emergency.”

“What's wrong?” Ulf asked.

Dr. Fielding frowned. “Can I leave a message for an inspector?”

She looked up. “Give me one second, Ulf.”

She changed the phone to her other ear.

“Yes. Can you say that it's Dr. Fielding from the RSPCB. A dragon has been killed.”

She bit her fingernail and listened anxiously to the voice on the end of the line. “If you would, please, yes,” she said.

Dr. Fielding put the phone down. “They're useless. All the inspectors are busy. Beasts aren't their top priority.”

She sat down at her desk and turned on the computer. “Can you help, please, Ulf? Can you find the Helping Hand and start checking the archives for any criminals we have on file?”

Ulf walked into a storeroom at the back of Dr. Fielding's office. Filing cabinets ran along each side of the room. On top of them, stacked to the ceiling, were cardboard boxes and heaps of papers tied with
string. The storeroom contained all the RSPCB's paperwork.

Ulf read the labels on the cabinets:

RSPCB MEMBERSHIP…ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEYS…BEAST POPULATIONS…FOREST CONSERVATION…

He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Something rustled in one of the boxes. Its top opened and a finger poked out. Ulf watched as three more fingers and a thumb emerged.

The Helping Hand crawled out of the box and scuttled onto a stack of papers. It tapped a finger impatiently, awaiting instructions.

Helping Hands are busy beasts. They run on their fingertips, and are perfectly suited to helping around an office, sorting and filing, fetching and typing.

“Dr. Fielding needs everything on dragons, criminals, and cannons,” Ulf said.

The Helping Hand began rummaging through the files, opening each box and filing cabinet, pulling out sheets of paper, running its fingers over the words.

“The Helping Hand is on the case,” Ulf said, walking back into Dr. Fielding's office.

Dr. Fielding was standing at the window. “Look, Ulf,” she said. “Come and see this.”

A shiny black car was coming down the driveway. It stopped at the entrance gates, and a man got out. Ulf and Dr. Fielding looked at one another, then hurried through the house and out of the front door.

“Can I help you?” Dr. Fielding called to the man as she walked across the courtyard.

The man was standing behind the gates. He was tall and thin, dressed in a long black coat, a black hat, and black leather gloves.

He tipped his hat, revealing black hair greased into a side parting. “Dr. Fielding, I presume?”

Ulf stood beside Dr. Fielding and watched as the man took a wallet from his coat pocket. He opened it, showing a photo of himself.

“My name is Inspector Black,” he said. “From the department of National and International Criminal Emergencies.”

“NICE,” Ulf read above the man's photograph.

“I've come about the dragon.”

“That was fast,” Dr. Fielding said, checking the man's identity card. “I was told that all the inspectors were busy.”

“I was in the area. May I come in? We have much to discuss.”

Dr. Fielding opened the entrance gates, and Inspector Black parked his car next to the RSPCB vehicles: a rescue truck, a Jeep, and four all-terrain vehicles.

He stepped out. His black shiny shoes scrunched on the gravel as he walked over to them.

He looked to the left. Then he looked to the right.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “I'm currently in the middle of a top-secret investigation. The situation is extremely serious. There are rumors of a beast hunter operating in the area.”

“A beast hunter?” Dr. Fielding asked. “Who?”

“This man hates beasts,” the Inspector said. “We do not know his exact identity, but we believe he is in the area and in possession of a cannon.”

“A cannon?
He
shot the dragon!” Ulf said.

The Inspector looked down at Ulf. “And who are you, young man?”

“This is Ulf,” Dr. Fielding explained.

From his coat pocket, Inspector Black took out a notepad and pencil and started writing. “Is this boy a relation of yours?”

“Ulf is a werewolf.”

The Inspector's pencil lead snapped. “A w-w-w-werewolf?”

“He lives here,” Dr. Fielding added.

The Inspector's eye began twitching. He took a step back from Ulf. “Dr. Fielding, is there somewhere we can talk privately?” he asked.

“We can go to my office.”

“I need you to tell me everything you know—
when and where you found this dragon.”

Dr. Fielding turned to Ulf. “Ulf, could you give the troll its medicine and check the temperature of the incubator, please?”

“Now?” Ulf asked.

“Please, Ulf,” Dr. Fielding said. “I won't be long.”

Dr. Fielding took Inspector Black to her office, leaving Ulf on his own. He was thinking about the dragon. He imagined it screeching and falling from the sky.

He headed to the feed store, the largest building in the yard. Picking up a bag of frozen rats, he carried them to a large metal shed, the quarantine unit. He stopped at the big metal door.

Inside, a troll was thumping the walls. It had been suffering from a highly contagious case of cavern fever. Dr. Fielding had brought it in from Troll Crag to keep an eye on it.

Beside the door, she had left a bottle of antibiotic pills. Ulf pushed a pill into each of the rats' rears, then
opened a hatch in the door. He saw the troll's green eyes in the shadows. It grunted, then stamped its foot and banged the walls. It didn't like the light. Quickly, Ulf threw the rats in and slid the hatch shut.

As he walked away, he heard loud thumping and chomping sounds. The troll was eating.

Ulf headed down the line of buildings, wondering what Inspector Black and Dr. Fielding were saying in her office.

He opened the door to the hatching bay, a square white shed two buildings along. On a table inside stood a fireproof glass incubation tank.

In the tank, two chicks were sitting on piles of hot ashes. Ulf could hear them chirping. They were newly born fiery phoenixes, just a day old.

When fiery phoenixes die, they burst into flames and burn away. From their ashes, their chicks are born.

Ulf checked the thermometer on the side of the incubator. Two hundred and nineteen degrees Fahrenheit. Just right.

He watched as a third pile of ashes glowed red hot and another phoenix chick burst into life. Three chicks out of four had hatched already. Dr. Fielding would be pleased.

Ulf stepped out of the hatching bay and looked across the yard. Dr. Fielding was coming out of Farraway Hall with Inspector Black.

“I must warn you, it is quite upsetting to see,” Dr. Fielding was saying.

The Inspector smiled. “I see all sorts of things in this job,” he replied.

Dr. Fielding opened the doors to the operating theater. The Inspector peered inside.

“It's been cut open!” he said. The Inspector turned away, holding his hand to his mouth.

“We had to do an autopsy,” Dr. Fielding explained.

Inspector Black took a deep breath, then reached into his coat pocket for his notepad.

“What exactly is it that you do here?” he asked.
“I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with your work. Do you mind if I look around?”

“There's quite a lot to see,” Dr. Fielding replied, looking at her watch.

Ulf ran to the Inspector. “I'll show you, if you like.”

The Inspector's eye twitched. “He doesn't bite, does he, Dr. Fielding?”

Dr. Fielding smiled. “You'll be quite safe with Ulf. I'll be in my office if you need me.”

She headed back inside. “Oh, Ulf, please could you check on the Roc and feed the jeepers creepers for me?” she called.

“Will do,” Ulf replied. He led the Inspector to the vehicles in the courtyard. “It's much too big to see everything on foot.”

The Inspector took his car keys from his pocket and walked toward his shiny black car. “I'll drive,” he said. “There's a rug in the back you can sit on.”

“We're not going by car,” Ulf told him. He
pointed to the line of all-terrain vehicles in the vehicle bay. One was red, one black, one yellow, and one blue. “Have you ever ridden an ATV before?”

“Oh, I'm sure I can manage,” the Inspector said. He tucked his trouser legs into his black socks and sat on the black ATV. “It can't be that difficult.”

“Just copy me,” Ulf told him.

Ulf got onto his favorite bike, the blue one.

“Shouldn't you put some shoes on?” the Inspector asked.

Ulf turned the key and kick-started the engine with his hairy foot. “Come on,” he called, twisting the throttle and accelerating around the side of the house toward the paddock.

Ulf shouted “open” and the gate opened automatically. “The gates are voice activated,” he called.

The Inspector wobbled as he rode behind Ulf. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“To the beast park!”

ULF RODE OUT AHEAD, STANDING UP ON THE
foot bars of his ATV, bouncing over the bumps in the paddock. Inspector Black rode behind, sitting carefully on his seat.

“How big is this place?” the Inspector called.

“Ten thousand acres,” Ulf shouted. He pointed across the valley to the lake and the forest, then over to Sunset Mountain and the hills beyond. “Everything you can see!”

They sped past a bulltoxic, a long-haired bull-like beast that was chewing a bush of red berries.

“It only eats poisonous plants,” Ulf shouted. “Its poo could melt your shoes.”

Ulf looked back as the Inspector swerved to avoid a pile of green dung.

He rode on down to the freshwater lake. A crocoon slid into the water, and a rat fish jumped.

Ulf waited for the Inspector to catch up. “Here we have a wartolump,” he said.

The Inspector stopped his bike.

In the shallows, a beast was snoozing, its fat, warty stomach rising and falling, and its thick lips flapping as it snored. It had two short tusks.

“It came from a lake where the water was polluted. Its tusks were rotting,” Ulf said. “Dr. Fielding had to file them down. When they've grown back, it'll be released somewhere new.”

Inspector Black took his notepad from his pocket. “And what's that one over there?” In the reeds, an ingo was wading, spearing fish with its tail.

“The ingo speared a broken bottle in a canal,”
Ulf explained. “It was spotted by the lockkeeper, and Dr. Fielding brought it in. She had to treat its tail. It needed thirty-six stitches.”

Ulf revved his engine and sped off up the valley, heading toward a high-netted enclosure the size of an aircraft hangar. This was the aviary, where the winged beasts lived.

Ulf slowed down as he rode into a wire-mesh tunnel that ran through the aviary from one end to the other.

In the first section of the aviary, a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion took off from an oak tree. It flew toward Ulf and gripped the wire mesh with its claws, beating its wings.

“Is that a griffin?” the Inspector asked, riding alongside Ulf.

The griffin sneezed.

Ulf nodded. “It was brought in suffering from the flu,” he said. The griffin took off and flew back to the tree, coughing.

In the next section, vampire owls were sleeping, perched in a row on a high wire.

“It's like a zoo here,” the Inspector said.

“This is not a zoo at all,” Ulf told him. “It's a rescue home. All the beasts are released back into the wild when they're ready.”

The Inspector looked at Ulf's hairy feet. “What about you, werewolf? Are
you
going to be released?”

“One day,” Ulf said, accelerating away through the mesh tunnel and out the end of the aviary.

Outside was a huge golden bird as big as a plane. This was the Roc. It was lying down with its beak on the ground. Its golden feathers had lost their shine and some had fallen out.

Inspector Black skidded to a halt. “That one's escaped,” he said, seeing the huge beast out in the open.

“It's okay,” Ulf told him. “We're trying to get it to fly away.”

“Why? What happened to it?” the Inspector asked.

“It got blown off course in a storm,” Ulf said. “Dr. Fielding says it's homesick.”

Ulf pulled up beside the Roc's feeding trough. He dug his hands into the pile of beast feed and pulled out two meaty steaks.

“Come on,” he said to the Roc. “They're tasty. You need to get strong.”

He threw them high into the air. “Jump for them!” he called.

The steaks fell to the ground. The Roc sniffed one, then pushed it away with its beak.

“It doesn't look well at all,” the Inspector said.

“Dr. Fielding's trying to make it better.”

Ulf accelerated off along the track. Up ahead, nestled into the hillside, were four enormous transparent domes. He headed for them, slowing to let the Inspector alongside.

“Greenhouses?” Inspector Black asked.

“Biodomes,” Ulf explained. “They're for the extreme-weather beasts. They're entirely self-regulating and temperature controled.”

Each biodome was three hundred feet wide and one hundred fifty feet high.

Ulf stopped his bike. “Wait a second. Dr. Fielding asked me to feed the jeepers creepers.”

The tropical biodome contained a thick jungle. Ulf pulled the lever on the side of the dome, and inside one section a hatch opened from the ground. Out rose half a cow on a spike.

Ulf watched as the vegetation started to move. Creeping vines slithered from the trees and crawled from the ground. Leaves parted to expose gaping green mouths. They squeezed and chomped and chewed the cow.

“Flesh-eating plants,” Ulf said.

The Inspector's eye started twitching again.

Ulf hopped back on his bike and rode to the desert
dome. “In here we've got a sand whale,” he called.

Up ahead was the snow dome. “And in there we've got frostbiters.”

Ulf rode to the final biodome. It was shaking and flashing. Thunder and lightning were crashing inside. “The storm beasts!” he called.

“PARDON?” the Inspector shouted. “YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP. I CAN'T HEAR YOU.”

“A FLOCK OF THUNDERLARKS AND TWO ELECTRODACTYLS!” Ulf shouted.

As the Inspector stopped his bike to note everything down, Ulf rode on, pointing west to a rocky hill dotted with caves.

“And that's Troll Crag up there,” he called. “All the trolls live in caves and underground tunnels.”

Inspector Black followed, holding his hat on.

“This way,” Ulf called.

They turned down into a marsh, and a swarm of mosquitoes as big as crows rose from the ground and flew toward them.

“Hurry up!” Ulf said. “They can suck a pint of blood in five seconds.”

Quickly, the Inspector twisted his ATV's throttle. Its wheels spun in the wet ground, spraying mud up his pants.

Ulf tried not to laugh as the Inspector's ATV lurched forward. They hurtled side by side down the track and bumped onto a wooden bridge. Ulf looked back. The giant mosquitoes were settling back onto the marsh.

Ulf and the Inspector crossed a stream to the foot of Sunset Mountain.

Inspector Black looked up. The mountain was pitted with black shadows moving upward, writhing between the rocks.

“They're rock-eating beasts,” Ulf explained. “They're called kracks.”

“What else is up there?”

“Listen,” Ulf said.

Ulf and Inspector Black turned off their ATV
engines. From high above came a sound like tiny bells tinkling.

“Whistling mimis,” Ulf said.

The Inspector wrote in his notepad.

“Why are you writing everything down?” Ulf asked.

The Inspector tapped his pencil to his nose. “I must make a note of every detail if I'm to catch this criminal.”

“But what has any of this got to do with the dragon?”

“I'm dealing with a beast hunter,” the Inspector replied. “To catch him, I must first get inside his mind. I must think like him. There are beasts here that, given the opportunity, he would love to get his hands on.”

Ulf gulped.

“You mean he could come
here
?”

The Inspector closed his notepad and revved his engine loudly. “Right, what's next?”