Werewolf versus Dragon (5 page)

DEEP IN THE WOODS, TWENTY MILES NORTH
of Farraway Hall, a tall crane was trundling through the trees. It stopped and lowered a huge metal cage to the ground. Draped over the top of the cage was a tarpaulin sheet.

The small man named Blud stepped out of the cabin of the crane. He slipped a gas mask over his face, then reached up, pulling a gas cylinder from behind his seat.

He lifted the corner of the tarpaulin sheet and peered through the bars of the cage.

Inside, a huge dragon lay half conscious, smoke
drifting from its nostrils as it snorted noisily, in and out.

“You're an ugly beast,” Blud whispered.

The dragon half opened its red eye.

“Want some more medicine?” Blud said.

He pointed a hose from the gas cylinder and sprayed the dragon's face with tranquilizer gas. The dragon's eyelid drooped.

“Sleep tight,” Blud sniggered. He took the gas mask off and dabbed his runny nose with a soggy red rag. Then he walked out through the trees into a clearing.

In the middle of the clearing was a huge round pit. Blud walked to its edge and looked down. A tall ladder leaned against the wall of the pit. At the bottom, the big man with a thick beard and long greasy hair was digging. He was throwing up clods of earth with his shovel.

“Have you still not finished, Bone?” Blud asked.

Bone wiped his face with the front of his black
vest. “You can help me if you want,” he called up.

Blud sat down, dangling his legs over the edge of the pit. “You're the digger, I'm the gas man,” he said.

“I always get the heavy work,” Bone muttered under his breath.

“If you've got any problems, then talk to the Baron.”

Bone rested on his shovel. “Have you got the dragon?”

“It's sound asleep,” Blud said. “I gave it a double dose. We don't want it waking up on us.”

“The Baron said he wants it angry.”

Blud sniggered. “When that dragon wakes up and finds out we've killed its baby, it'll be really annoyed.”

Bone laughed. He pushed his foot on his shovel, chuckling as he dug deeper and deeper.

FARRAWAY HALL WAS SET IN A REMOTE VALLEY
on the coast. It was a country mansion, the former home of the Farraway family. For a hundred years it had been the headquarters of the RSPCB and the world center for the study of cryptozoology. On the ground floor, many rooms had been modernized, including the surgery, laboratory, and office. Upstairs, on the first and second floors, the older rooms had hardly changed in decades.

Ulf carried the crate up the back stairs and down the Gallery of Science, a wide corridor with drawings of beasts framed on the walls.

As Tiana flew alongside him, he told her what had happened that morning.

“But why would anyone kidnap a dragon?” Tiana asked, flying past a diagram of a sphinx's brain.

“Inspector Black says the beast hunter is planning a Ring of Horrors.”

“What's a Ring of Horrors?” Tiana asked.

“Beast cruelty,” Ulf told her. “Come on. We can check it out in the library.”

Ulf headed past a picture of a mermaid's digestive system and another of the skeleton of a troll. At the end of the corridor he followed Tiana through the Room of Curiosities: a large room with wood-paneled walls. Cabinets and cupboards were crammed together. Tables were stacked with old objects and souvenirs. There were microscopes and veterinary tools, wooden chests and silver boxes. The room contained every artifact from the RSPCB's history since it had been founded a hundred years ago.

Hung on one wall was the net used in the first-
ever fairy rescue and two wooden oars from an early expedition to study a South Pacific sea serpent.

Ulf wove his way between the cabinets as he carried the crate, and followed Tiana to a large wooden door at the end of the room.

“You go first, Ulf,” Tiana said, hovering near the handle.

From behind the door, Ulf could hear moaning and groaning. The door led to the old library, the room where the ghosts lived.

Before Ulf could turn the handle, the door creaked open by itself.

Ulf glanced at Tiana, then carried the crate inside. The library was dark and gloomy. The curtains were drawn. He could just make out the bookshelves lining the walls and the two tall bookcases standing in the middle of the room. Between them was a large reading table. He could see row upon row of books, and more stacked in piles on the floor. The library contained every book ever written on cryptozoology.

“Fly along the shelves, Tiana. Look for anything on the Ring of Horrors,” Ulf said.

Tiana shivered. She clung to Ulf's shoulder. “Look,” she said, pointing up.

A shapeless glowing mist was moving along the upper reading level. Ulf heard the sound of footsteps. Then, as the mist disappeared into the wall, he heard a cry. A ball of green light flew out from a dark corner and shot across the room. Inside it, a mouth was screaming.

Tiana darted into the crate as the ball of light vanished behind a bookcase.

“I don't like ghosts,” she said.

There had always been ghosts at Farraway Hall, and more had been brought in recently, rescued from houses that had been knocked down or graveyards that had been built over.

The science of cryptozoology studied not only the corporeal or physical beasts, but also beasts from other dimensions, such as demons, angels, dream
beasts, and ghosts. At the RSPCB, ghosts were treated no different from other beasts, and were given everything they needed to pass the time.

As Tiana flew to the bookshelves, Ulf placed the crate on the floor. He took the flashlight from his back pocket, flicked it on, and shone it around the room. Dusty paintings hung on the walls. He saw an old mantelpiece and a cracked mirror covered in cob-webs. In the corner of the room, an empty chair was rocking back and forth. It had been rocking back and forth for nearly a hundred years.

From the crate, Ulf took out a broken desk lamp. He placed it on a shelf by the rocking chair, then stepped back. The lamp began to flicker, on and off, on and off. “The ghosts like the lamp,” he said to Tiana.

Tiana was flying along the shelves, glowing brightly in the gloom. She perched on an old grandfather clock. Its pendulum was swinging, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. The clock's hands were moving backward.

“Why are they going the wrong way?” she asked.

“It's a ghost trying to turn back time.”

Ghosts are restless beasts. They're made almost entirely of leftover emotions from unfinished lives, like fear or regret, love or longing. They exist only because something from their previous life remains unresolved.

Ulf could hear the sound of fingernails scratching down wood. He shone the flashlight on a cupboard in the corner. From the crate he took out a broken violin. He placed the violin inside the cupboard, then quickly shut the door. Music started playing inside.

“I can't find anything,” Tiana said, perching on a stack of books.

“Keep looking. I'll be with you in a minute,” Ulf said. He took out a porcelain vase and carried it to the mantelpiece. He was about to put it down when it flew out of his hands and smashed against the wall.

Tiana squeaked.

“Don't worry. It's just a poltergeist,” Ulf said.

“No, Ulf. Look!” Tiana said, hovering by a low bookshelf.

Ulf shone his flashlight along the shelf, reading the book titles:
Handling Storm Beasts, Living with Zombies, The Spotters' Guide to Invisibles, Monsters of the Deep, The Dietary Habits of Vampires.

“Here,” Tiana said.

The Ring of Horrors.

Ulf pulled the book out and opened it. Inside were drawings of beasts fighting one another, with crowds of humans watching and cheering.

“That's evil,” Tiana said, looking at a picture of a pack of demondogs attacking a dragon. “How can humans do such a thing?”

Ulf read to her: “The Ring of Horrors reached its height during the time of the Roman Empire. All kinds of beasts were made to fight to the death, the most popular being dragons, particularly firebellies.”

“Stop,” Tiana said. “That's enough.”

She pushed the book shut.

“Firebellies,” Ulf muttered. “The dragons on the radar were firebellies.”

“It's horrible,” Tiana said.

“If the mother dragon
has
been kidnapped, then—”

“I don't want to know.”

Tiana was covering her ears.

Ulf imagined the mother dragon being thrown into a pit and made to fight.

Just then, he heard a scream. The screaming mouth flew out from behind a bookcase. Ulf looked over. High on a shelf, a book was edging out. Ulf shone his flashlight on it. The book was floating in midair. It drifted down in front of him.

He looked nervously at Tiana.

“Let's get out of here,” Tiana said.

The book opened and its pages began flicking fast, as if they were being turned by invisible hands. It was a notebook, handwritten and full of drawings.

Suddenly, the pages stopped. Ulf and Tiana stared. The book was showing a picture of a dragon chick hatching from an egg. It was labeled:
AZIZA THE FIREBELLY.

“Let's go. I don't like it in here,” Tiana called, flying toward the door.

The book shut in a cloud of dust and fell to the floor. Ulf picked it up and put it back on the shelf. But as he edged toward the door, the book floated after him. It was pushing itself into his hand. Ulf felt a sudden rush of cold air as a ghost passed straight through him.

The door creaked open. Tiana flew out and he ran after her, shaking. The door slammed shut behind them.

“What was all that?” Tiana asked.

Ulf looked at the book in his hand.

On the cover of the book, written by a finger in the dust, were the words:
I KNOW WHO HAS HER.

CLUTCHING THE BOOK, ULF BOUNDED DOWN
the back stairs with Tiana following him. They raced into the yard and along the edge of the paddock toward Ulf's den.

The sun was going down behind Sunset Mountain, and the light was fading. Suddenly they heard a trumpeting roar.

Ulf and Tiana both stopped.

“What was
that
?” Tiana asked.

Out in the paddock Ulf saw Orson pulling the biganasty on a thick rope. The biganasty was roaring, rearing onto its hind legs. Its three horned heads
were gnashing as it bucked and thrashed. The spines along its back were sticking out like knives from its thick black fur. It crashed its clubbed tail to the ground, then snorted, scraping the dirt with its hoof.

“Come on, girl,” Orson called. “Nice and easy does it.”

“What's Orson doing?” Tiana asked.

“He's locking it up in case the beast hunter comes here,” Ulf explained.

“Here?”

“It's just a precaution,” Ulf told her.

The biganasty dug its hooves into the ground. With his massive arms, Orson heaved, and the biganasty slid across the mud. Orson dragged it to the safety of the Big Beast Barn. “Is everything okay?” Ulf called.

Orson closed the barn doors on the biganasty and gave a thumbs-up. “Everything's locked up. The electric fences are on, and the alarms are set. I'll be keeping watch.”

Ulf ran to his den.

Tiana followed him inside.

Ulf lay on his straw clutching the book. It was old and bound in soft black leather.

I know who has her,
he read.

Ulf opened it excitedly:

 

The Book of Beasts

by Professor J. E. Farraway

 

He turned the page.

“Who's Professor Farraway?” Tiana asked.

“Professor Farraway was the world's first cryptozoologist,” Ulf said. He looked out through the bars of his den at Farraway Hall. It was nearly dark. The light was on in the observatory, and Dr. Fielding was standing at the window, peering through her binoculars. “He used to live here. He's dead now.”

Ulf flicked through the pages.
The Book of Beasts
was Professor Farraway's very own notebook, full of diagrams and drawings, jottings and photographs. It contained sections on every kind of beast, from wartolumps to griffins, electrodactyls to jellystoats. Ulf saw photographs of a giranha, a phoenix, and a mermaid. He found a drawing of a troll digging a tunnel. In the margin was a note on how to hypnotize an eight-headed hydra using walnuts suspended on strings, and instructions on how to treat a fairy's sparkle.

“Look,” Tiana said. She saw a picture of a golden Roc. The book said that golden Rocs live on the
orchid mountains of Tanzania, and that orchid scent will revive a homesick Roc. “There are orchids in the forest!” Tiana said. “We can make the Roc better.”

Ulf turned the pages, looking for the picture of the dragon.

“Wait,” Tiana said, seeing a photograph of a stone gargoyle on a rooftop. “That's Druce!” The gargoyle was sticking his tongue out.

“Here we are,” Ulf said, turning to the drawing of the dragon chick. “It opened on this page.”

“Aziza the firebelly dragon,” Tiana read.

“This is Professor Farraway's dragon. He hatched it from an egg.”

“How do you know that?” Tiana asked.

“Dr. Fielding showed me a newspaper clipping in the observatory. That's the dragon that's been kidnapped.”

Ulf closed the book.
I know who has her
, he read on the cover. He remembered the book being pushed into his hand in the library.

“He knows who's kidnapped the dragon.”

“Who does?”

Ulf looked at Tiana. “Professor Farraway. I think he's a ghost.”