Flame of the Dragon Read online

  For me!

  (Well, I wrote them all!)

  Previously on Scream Street…

  When Luke Watson first began to transform into a werewolf, his whole world was turned upside down – especially when his family was forcibly moved to a new home in Scream Street. This secure, magically locked location was one of several communities in which G.H.O.U.L. (Government Housing Of Unusual Life-forms) placed vampires, witches, zombies and more.

  Luke quickly made friends with the wannabe vampire next door, Resus Negative, and Cleo Farr, a tomboy mummy from along the street – but his parents were terrified. So with the help of his new friends he set out to collect six relics left behind by the community’s founding fathers. Only with their combined power could he open a doorway back home, even though such portals are against the rules. However, by the time Luke had succeeded, his parents had seen how happy he was in Scream Street and decided to stay.

  Meanwhile, doorways work in both directions, and it wasn’t long before Scream Street’s greedy landlord, Sir Otto Sneer, was charging “normals” from Luke’s old world to visit what he called “the world’s greatest freak show”. Soon the street was swarming with tourists, making life a misery for the residents.

  This set Luke, Resus and Cleo off on a second quest: to track down the founding fathers and return their relics in an effort to close the doorway and save their friends and neighbours. Five relics in, all seemed to be going well – until the illegal doorway was discovered and the trio were caught by Acrid Belcher, the disgusting swamp beast head of G.H.O.U.L. himself…

  Prologue

  The Punishment

  Mr and Mrs Watson gripped the bars of the viewing area as they watched the Movers march Luke, Resus and Cleo over to the trapdoor. Niles Farr and Resus’s mum and dad were with them. The trip through the Hex Hatch to G.H.O.U.L. headquarters had been made in silence, apart from the occasional sob from Bella Negative.

  The trio had their hands tied and they stood, staring miserably at their parents as Acrid Belcher approached, clutching a roll of parchment. Cleo began to shake. Resus fought back tears as he caught sight of his mum’s stricken face.

  “Defendants,” the slime beast gurgled. “You have been charged with opening a magical doorway out of a G.H.O.U.L. community, allowing thousands of normals to enter and disrupt the lives of its residents. Do you deny these charges?”

  “You don’t understand,” protested Luke. “I just wanted a way to take my mum and dad home…”

  “Then you admit to collecting the six founding fathers’ relics and using their power to open a doorway back to your old world?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Enough!” barked Belcher. “You are guilty of the charges brought against you, and sentence will now be passed.”

  Luke gulped and didn’t say any more.

  “Luke Watson, Resus Negative, Cleo Farr – you will now be banished to the Underlands for the rest of your natural lives, however long that may be.”

  Acrid Belcher grasped the lever beside him and pulled it back hard. The trapdoor swung open with a barely audible creak, plunging Luke, Resus and Cleo into the dark, swirling abyss beneath…

  Chapter One

  The Underlands

  As Luke tumbled through the purple clouds he found himself in the middle of a violent storm. He could just make out the desolate features below: black soil, twisted trees and a raging river of churning, dark water.

  Then he caught sight of Resus and Cleo, also mid-fall, being buffeted by the wind as the ground sped towards them. Luke felt consumed with guilt. This was all his fault. His friends hadn’t been in any danger until he had involved them in his quest to find the founding fathers’ relics. “I’M SORRY!” he bellowed.

  Cleo managed to flash him a quick smile before a crackling bolt of purple lightning shot between them, sending her spiralling backwards. Resus grabbed the mummy’s foot before she could disappear into the sheets of torrential rain, pulling her towards him so that Luke could catch her other hand.

  “HOLD ON!” shouted the vampire, then he plunged his hand into his cape and pulled out a large golfing umbrella, forcing it open against the howling wind. Instantly, the trio’s descent slowed as the umbrella acted like a parachute. They were still falling, but the ground wasn’t rushing up to meet them quite so quickly. Maybe they could survive this fall after all…

  “YOU’RE A GENIUS!” cried Luke.

  “FINALLY YOU REALIZE!” Resus grinned. “AFTER ALL—”

  His words were cut off abruptly as another fork of fiery lightning arced towards them, slamming into the handle of the umbrella with the force of a charging bull. Both vampire and umbrella were flung away across the sky in a blaze of fizzing violet sparks.

  “RESUS!” screamed Cleo.

  Luke twisted round, trying to spot a flash of the blue lining of his friend’s cape among the pounding sheets of grey rain, but there was nothing. Resus was gone.

  Then Luke plunged into the heaving waters of the river and pain exploded in his knee as it smashed against a rock.

  The freezing water bit at Luke. He opened his eyes but could see nothing in the inky blackness. The river spun him around and around, and he could feel his lungs burning. He needed to work out which way was up and get to the surface so he could breathe again – but he had lost all sense of direction in the turbulent water.

  The pain in his knee began to overwhelm him and he found himself thinking about his mum and dad. He’d started searching for Scream Street’s hidden relics as a way to take his parents back to their old world. They hadn’t asked to be moved – it had all been because he had started transforming into his werewolf. Now he would never see them again. A veil of unconsciousness began to wash over him…

  Then, suddenly, a hand plunged into the water, grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and dragged him to the surface. Luke gulped down a lungful of freezing air.

  “I’m not losing you, too!” gasped Cleo as she pumped her legs to try to keep the two of them afloat. Lashing rain hammered down all around them like needles. “Can you swim to the riverbank?” she shouted.

  Luke shook his head. “I hit my leg,” he replied weakly.

  Gritting her teeth, Cleo wrapped her arm around Luke’s chest and began to swim towards the bank. A deep red stain spread out behind them in the water as blood gushed from Luke’s injured knee.

  Finally, Cleo found she was able to stand. Her legs tired and shaking from the cold, she dragged Luke clear of the water, then slumped to the ground beside him. As the pair struggled to catch their breath, the charred remnant of the umbrella handle was whipped out of the sky and embedded itself in the mud next to them.

  “Resus!” croaked Luke. Then the world went black.

  When Luke opened his eyes again, the rain had stopped – although dense, plum-coloured clouds still rolled across the sky and a strong breeze made him shiver in his wet clothes. Cleo was kneeling beside him, wrapping a length of her own bandages around his injured knee.

  “How does it look?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the pain.

  Cleo tied the makeshift dressing in place. “Pretty bad,” she said. “It’s bleeding quite heavily. I think it’ll need stitches.”

  “Not much chance of that here,” said Luke glumly.

  “No,” Cleo agreed. “Think you can stand?”

  “I’ll give it a go…”

  Cleo grabbed Luke’s arm and helped him to his feet. He took a tentative step, but the pain exploded in his knee and he fell back to the ground.

  “Get me that stick,” he said through gritted teeth, pointing to a blackened branch that had been washed up by the river.

  Cleo retrieved the branch and handed it over. Luke plunged one e
nd into the soft, wet mud and used it to drag himself upright. “There!” he smiled, wedging it under his arm. “I can use this as a crutch. Come on – we need to find Resus.”

  But before he could take a step, an unexpected noise reached him – the sound of wet, ragged breathing. He froze.

  “Behind you…” Cleo warned.

  Luke turned to find a huge troll lumbering towards them, teeth bared. “Stay back!” he cried.

  The troll grunted and took another step towards them.

  “I’m warning you!” Luke declared, sounding braver than he felt. “I’m a werewolf, and I’m prepared to attack…”

  Still the troll kept coming.

  Luke tossed the stick aside, closed his eyes and tried to trigger his werewolf transformation. He felt the rage begin to build at the back of his mind and he held his muscles taut, ready to be reshaped.

  The troll was almost upon them now.

  “Any time you like…” hissed Cleo, struggling to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Luke opened his eyes again. “I can’t transform,” he breathed. “I’m just too exhausted. Sorry…”

  Before Cleo could reply, the troll grabbed both children and held them up to its face. “You two are comin’ wiv me!” it growled.

  Chapter Two

  The Village

  The Underlands flashed by as the troll ran through sparse woodlands and bleak fields, Cleo tucked under one arm and Luke under the other.

  If the mummy wasn’t being bounced up and down with every footfall, she would have commented to Luke how similar this journey was to the one they’d endured the last time they’d been snatched by trolls. “I think I’m going to be sick!” she groaned. Luke didn’t reply; his knee was still bleeding badly and his eyes were heavy.

  Cleo knew she had to do something. Last time they had almost been cooked alive, only managing to save themselves by setting off some fireworks Resus had found in his cape. But now Resus wasn’t here, and Luke looked as if he might pass out at any second. It was up to her.

  Closing her eyes tightly, Cleo stretched down and bit the troll as hard as she could on the bottom. The creature let out a howl, flung the pair to the ground and began to hop around in circles, clutching his backside.

  “What did ya bite me for?” he wailed.

  “I decided that if one of us was going to be eaten, it wouldn’t be me!” replied Cleo, licking her lips and doing her best to look wild-eyed and crazy.

  “I wasn’t gonna eat you!” grunted the troll, offended.

  “Of course not,” said Cleo sarcastically.

  “I was tryin’ to help you!” insisted the troll.

  “Help us?”

  The troll nodded. “Your friend’s hurt his leg, so I reckoned I’d better take you to…” He stopped and leant closer, peering at Cleo’s face. “’Ere, I know you…”

  “You do?” said Cleo, taken aback.

  The troll looked over at Luke, then back at Cleo. “You was in the cage wiv me all them weeks ago. You helped me find my friend!”

  Cleo felt her anger drain away. The creature was right! She, Luke and Resus had been locked in a holding cell at G.H.O.U.L. headquarters after they’d accidentally become trapped outside Scream Street, and the troll had been there too.

  “You’re Wompom!” gasped Cleo, suddenly remembering.

  “That’s right,” beamed the troll, snatching her up and giving her a hug. “We saw some kids drop through the trapdoor from G.H.O.U.L., so I came runnin’ as quick as I could to see if you was OK.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” asked Cleo.

  Wompom smiled. “Just you wait an’ see…”

  It took another hour to reach the village. Cleo, who was now sitting astride Wompom’s shoulders, stared open-mouthed at the collection of ramshackle huts inside a barbed-wire fence.

  A rough sign proclaimed:

  “Dead End?” said the mummy.

  Wompom carefully lowered Luke to the ground and lifted Cleo off his shoulders. “Your new home,” he announced proudly. “It’s not much, but we like it.”

  “You keep saying ‘we’,” Cleo pointed out. “Do you mean you and your wasp friend?”

  “Lan’s here,” said Wompom, “but not just him. The people what live in Dead End are them who’s been banished to the Underlands by G.H.O.U.L.”

  “Criminals!” exclaimed Cleo.

  “Not any more,” Wompom assured her. “Some of ’em did some naughty things in the past, but now we all work together to make the best of whats we’ve got.”

  “What’s going on?” slurred Luke, coming round. “Where are we?”

  “Your friend’s lost a lot of blood,” Wompom told Cleo, picking Luke up again. “Lan will know what to do wiv him. Come on.”

  “Halt!” came a voice as they reached a small wooden gate. “Who goes there?” Piercing green eyes glared at the group through a slot cut into the gate.

  “It’s me, Wompom,” replied the troll.

  “I can see that, you eejit!” snapped the voice. “Who’s this you’ve got with you?”

  “The kids wot fell down from G.H.O.U.L.,” said Wompom. “I’ve brought ’em back. One of ’em’s hurt.”

  “How do you know we can trust them?”

  The troll scowled. “Rooney – you was sent ’ere for robbin’ anyone wot tried to get a peek at your pot of gold. I’d trust a fartin’ goblin quicker than I’d trust you! Now, open this gate afore I rip it off its hinges and feed it to you.”

  “All right, all right,” grumbled the voice. The gate swung open and Cleo was surprised to see the figure behind it jump down from a wooden crate. He was a tiny man, dressed in an emerald suit and sporting a mop of shocking red hair.

  “Rooney’s the most wanted leprechaun in the world,” Wompom whispered to her. “Or he was until they caught him trying to sell fake rainbows to tourists…”

  “That’s enough talk!” snapped Rooney, slamming the gate shut behind them. “Now, off to the hospital before I change my mind.”

  “Hospital” turned out to be a rather grand title. Wompom led Cleo past several tumbledown shacks and into a cabin made of corrugated iron. Inside were two beds, one of them shrouded by a dirty, torn curtain. The troll laid Luke on the other.

  Cleo took Luke’s hand and held it tightly. His injured leg was caked in dried blood and he was beginning to sweat.

  The door opened again and a giant wasp flew in, wings buzzing noisily. “Where isss the new arrival?” he hissed.

  “On the bed,” said Wompom. “He’s hurt his leg.”

  Lan Mossdrop landed beside Luke’s bed and folded his wings against his back.

  “Can you help him?” Cleo asked.

  “We are not blessssssed with the latessst equipment,” Lan replied, “but I promissse to do my bessst.” He pulled back Luke’s torn jeans and began to examine the wound. “Thisss will require ssstitchesss,” he announced, and with that he turned his back and began to sew up the gash, using his own stinger as a needle.

  “Lan looks after everyone who gets sick here in Dead End,” said Wompom proudly. “He did a great job fixin’ up that other kid.”

  If Cleo’s heart hadn’t been safely stored away in a fridge back in Scream Street, it would have skipped a beat at this news. “What other kid?” she asked cautiously.

  “This one,” said Wompom, pulling aside the dirty curtain around the second bed. Cleo’s face fell. Instead of the vampire she had been hoping to see, a young skeleton lay there, just waking up.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Wompom.

  “Nothing,” sighed the mummy. “I just thought it might be our friend.”

  The skeleton had other ideas, however. He leapt out of the bed and threw his bony arms around Cleo. “You’re alive!” he exclaimed. “I thought I’d never see you again!”

  Cleo untangled herself from the skeleton’s grip and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” she said indignantly, “do I know you?”

  “Of course you do!” beamed the skeleton.
“It’s me – Resus!”

  Chapter Three

  The Crowd

  Once Luke’s leg had been stitched up, Lan buzzed out of the room.

  “Your friend will have to rest now,” Wompom told Cleo, “but you can stay with him until he wakes up. We’ll be back to check on him later.”

  As soon as the door closed behind the pair, Cleo turned to face the skeleton. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re certainly not Resus,” she said firmly.

  “Of course I’m Resus!” insisted the skeleton. “Look, I’ve got this to prove it…” He reached under his pillow and pulled out a vampire cape with a blue lining.

  “Where did you get that?” demanded Cleo, snatching the cape from him. “This belongs to our friend.”

  “It does belong to your friend,” hissed the skeleton. “Me!” He closed his eyes and there was a sound like a bath being emptied. His bones began to ripple and change shape, and within seconds he had turned into a very familiar vampire.

  “It is you!” cried Cleo in amazement.

  Resus looked over at the other bed. “What’s wrong with Luke?”

  “He cut his leg when he landed,” Cleo replied. “What happened to you?”

  “I landed in a tree not far from here,” Resus told her. “I’ve got a few bruises, but nothing more.”

  “Nothing more?” cried Cleo. “You were a skeleton just now!”

  Resus grinned. “I was, wasn’t I!”

  “But … how?”

  “With a bit of help,” said Resus. “Look under the bed…”

  Cleo crouched down and peered into the gloom beneath the rusty frame – to see her own reflection looking back at her in a pair of familiar mirrored sunglasses. “Zeal Chillchase!” she exclaimed.

  The Tracker raised a finger to his lips, then indicated a loose panel in the wall just behind him. He pushed it aside and crawled through.

  Cleo glanced back into the room. “Can we leave Luke?”