Mission: Lullaby Read online

  Determined that he would also be stuffed with information, the young Hubert built a tight-fitting wooden box to wear like a hat at all times, so changing the shape of his head as it grew, from a useless sphere to a fact-filled square. It is for this reason that he is now known as “Cube”. He earns his living as MP1’s top brainbox – literally. And, right now, I couldn’t have been happier to see his cuboid cranium.

  Even Fangs seemed to be delighted he was here. “Kind of you to stay in touch,” he said, “but you’d better watch your back. You don’t want to be caught talking to us. We’ve been disavowed.”

  “Disavowed?” I asked.

  “It’s a spy word. It means no longer trusted by the secret government agency which employed you,” Fangs explained. “I heard it used in a movie.”

  “I’m not worried about being seen talking to either of you,” said Cube, kindly. “Mainly because you haven’t been disavowed.”

  “Yes, we have,” said Fangs. “We were thrown out of the building, and Jeff the security ogre frisked me on the way out. He’s got really rough hands.”

  Cube checked that no one was watching our table and then he pulled a small laptop computer from the pocket of his apron. “I think you’d better see this,” he said, opening it up. Phlem’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Agents Enigma and Brown,” he said. “My apologies for putting you through that.”

  “I don’t understand, sir,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “We have to get someone on the inside of GLOVE right away,” Phlem replied. “We need to discover their plans.”

  Fangs’s brow furrowed. “You want us to go undercover? Why didn’t you just say so?”

  Phlem shook his head and the tendrils of slime that hung from the corners of his mouth jiggled. “Your reputations precede you both. Even in disguise, you could be recognized. But we need you – our best agents – to infiltrate GLOVE somehow.”

  Things were starting to make sense. “So you fired us to give us the perfect motive for revenge on MP1. The world has to think that we’re turning bad.”

  “Exactly,” said Phlem.

  I grinned, thrilled to be back on the case again. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We’ve identified a villain who wants to earn membership of GLOVE,” Phlem explained. “I need you to convince him to hire you both as henchmen.”

  “I get that bit,” said Fangs. “But what was all that nonsense back at Headquarters? Surely we could just pretend we’d been sacked?”

  “Someone left a black glove on my desk this morning, Enigma,” said Phlem. “That means GLOVE has someone on the inside here at MP1. Beyond you two and Cube, I don’t know who I can and can’t trust. Your exit from MP1 had to look real.”

  “Including our reactions,” I said.

  “Precisely, Agent Brown,” said Phlem. “The mole could have access to your MP1 records and so, from this moment, everything you ever used as part of your jobs has been confiscated. You no longer live in MP1 accommodation, have access to MP1 vehicles or permission to use any of Cube’s gadgets. You’re going to have to complete this assignment on your wits alone.”

  Fangs leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “That shouldn’t be too much of a problem…” I caught him just before the chair tipped over and he crashed to the floor.

  “So who’s the target?” I asked. “Who do we have to convince to hire us as goons?”

  The image on the screen changed to a freeze-frame shot of a troll.

  “This is Derek Dopper,” said Phlem. “A small-time villain with dreams of joining the major leagues. The tech boys found an email he sent to GLOVE asking for membership, but the organization won’t take him seriously. That’s where you two come in.”

  “In what way?” Fangs asked.

  “You have to help him come up with a scheme villainous enough to get him membership of GLOVE. Once he’s inside, he’ll be invited to GLOVE HQ and, as his henchmen, you will go with him.”

  “And then once we’re inside, we can tell you the identity of Mr Big and his plans,” I said. “It’s brilliant.”

  “So what do we know about Derek?” asked Fangs. “How did he come to our attention?”

  “GLOVE wasn't the only organization he contacted,” said Phlem. “Watch.”

  Cube pressed another button, and the video started to play. The troll made a trumpet shape with his hand and sang a fanfare. “I trust I have your attention now, MP1! I am Derek Dopper, and I am the baddest villain you guys have ever met.”

  He pulled what he might have thought was a scary face, but which actually made him look like he desperately needed the toilet. Then he continued: “Unless you pay me the sum of one million pounds, I will inject hot chilli sauce into every acorn in Britain! Squirrels everywhere will go crazy, and before long they will join with me to create a Squirrel Army—”

  Suddenly, the door to the room opened, and an older, female troll entered, carrying a vacuum cleaner. “I’ve got to do your room, Derek,” she said, spraying a bottle of air freshener.

  “Mum,” Derek coughed. “Don’t spray that stuff in here. You know it affects my allergies.” He took a couple of puffs from an asthma inhaler.

  “I have to clean, Derek. I can’t have the place getting dusty! Go and play outside for half an hour.”

  “I’m not playing, Mum. This is serious stuff! And now you’ve interrupted me, I’ll have to start all over again.”

  “Pfft! You shouldn’t be hanging around indoors. You should be out there, trying to find a job.”

  “But, Mum…”

  “Don’t you ‘But, Mum’ me! Now, get out while I clean up. I told you not to bring those crisps up here last night.”

  There was a hiss of static and the video ended.

  Fangs and I exchanged a glance. “I think we may need more than just our wits,” I said.

  Wednesday 1653 hours: M6 Motorway, UK

  “We want Junction thirty-two,” said Fangs, reading the map. We were driving to the guesthouse in Blackpool where Derek Dopper lived with his mum.

  It would usually take us a while to track down the headquarters of a villain, but Derek Dopper had helpfully written his return address on the back of the envelope when sending his "Squirrel Army" DVD to MP1 Headquarters. I couldn’t quite believe he would want anyone to see that video. I could only presume that he’d sent the wrong copy.

  As we didn't have access to an MP1 car, my dad had lent us his old runaround. It wasn’t exactly up to Fangs’s usual standards, and he kept fiddling with the controls. He’d just switched on the windscreen wipers. I turned them off as he began to play with the air-conditioning settings. The fur on my face wafted as it was treated to a sudden blast of ice-cold air.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Looking for the cocktail cabinet,” Fangs replied. “I need a drink.”

  “There is no cocktail cabinet,” I said. “That’s just in MP1 cars.”

  “Oh,” said Fangs. He paused and then said, “Massage controls for the seats?”

  I shook my head.

  Fangs shrugged, but didn’t reply. He sat in silence for a few moments, twiddling his thumbs. I continued concentrating on the road, wondering how we were going to introduce ourselves to Derek when we arrived. We’d have to—

  “Are we there yet?” Fangs asked.

  “What?”

  “Are we in Blackpool yet?”

  “No,” I said. “We’ve got another eighty-six miles to go.”

  Fangs sighed dramatically. “This is taking for ever,” he moaned. “We’d have been there by now if Phlem had let us take the jet.”

  “He can’t exactly say he’s disavowed us, and then let us borrow a plane.”

  “He could say we stole it…”

  “And then we’d have the police on our tail as well,” I pointed out. “If you’re bored, why don’t you listen to the radio?”

  With another sigh, Fangs switched on the car stereo. Cheesy 80
s pop music blared out. “Oh, no, no, no…” He twisted the dial. The next station blasted out the latest hip-hop hit from the top of the charts. “No chance.” Fangs kept turning the dial.

  Eventually, he settled on a news programme. The presenter was in the middle of discussing something very familiar. “… urgent government security meeting following the discovery of a hoax bomb in the House of Commons this morning. Thankfully, the bomb squad was able to make the device safe, and it was later—”

  “Hey!” Fangs yelled at the radio. “The bomb squad didn’t even get there in time. We were the ones who dealt with it!”

  “I know that, Fangs,” said the presenter, “but we can’t let GLOVE know you were ever involved.”

  The car swerved as I took my eyes off the road to stare at the radio in surprise. “Did the news reader just reply to you?” I asked.

  The exit to a service station was coming up, so I indicated and turned off the motorway.

  “Yes, he did,” replied the radio. This time it was a voice I recognized. “And, frankly, he’s been waiting for you to turn the radio on for ages now.”

  “Cube,” I cried. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “The one and only.”

  Fangs was still staring at the radio in bemusement. “When did you get a job as a newsreader?” he asked.

  “I’m not a newsreader,” Cube replied. “I’m simply using the FM frequency to connect your radio speaker to the mobile phone I slipped into Puppy’s pocket in the cafe.”

  I put a hand in my pocket and pulled out the phone. “I thought Phlem said you weren’t allowed to give us any gadgets,” I said, handing the phone to Fangs.

  “Well, it’s not really a gadget, is it?” said Cube. “And I wanted you to have a way to stay in touch. Nice little number, that one. I installed a voice-scrambler chip inside it.”

  “Voice scrambler?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” said Cube. “It allows you to disguise your voice. Just choose a setting from the app, and you can sound like you’re a human, goblin or harpy – or just about anyone or anything else, in fact.”

  “That will be why we didn’t recognize your voice on the radio at first,” said Fangs.

  “Precisely. I remotely activated the scrambler before I started to broadcast via your radio.”

  “How does it work?” asked Fangs.

  “You just launch the app,” said Cube. “You’ll find it on the communications screen. You don’t always need a radio frequency to make it work, of course.”

  “Thanks for your help, professor,” I said. “It’s good to know you’re there if we need you.”

  “You’re very welcome,” said Cube. “I’d better sign off before anyone finds out I’m helping you.”

  There was a hiss, and then the radio signal went dead. I started the car and headed for the service-station exit.

  “It was good of Cube to help us like that,” I said. “Wasn’t it, boss?”

  There was no reply.

  “Boss?”

  Fangs was too busy fiddling with the phone to answer me. He tapped the screen a few times, and then spoke into the mouthpiece. His voice came out of the car radio sounding like that of an old-time radio announcer. “We now return you to the amazing adventures of Fangs Enigma, the world’s greatest vampire spy! It was a cold and frosty morning when the grave, yet disturbingly handsome vampire dropped into the alleyway behind the armed thugs…”

  He was lost in a world of his own making. I sighed and pulled back onto the motorway. We still had over 80 miles to go…

  We pulled up outside the guesthouse at just after 7 p.m. “Caribbean Dreams,” Fangs read the sign above the door. “More like a nightmare, if you ask me. We’re not really staying here, are we? Isn’t there a five-star hotel somewhere nearby?”

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, getting out of the car. “My mum and dad used to bring me to Blackpool every year to see the illuminations. We always had fun.”

  With an expression of disbelief, Fangs joined me in getting our luggage out of the boot. “You will let me know when the fun starts, won’t you?”

  We knocked on the door and it was opened by the female troll we’d seen in the video. It was Derek’s mum. She was wearing a flowery apron and a pair of pink rubber gloves. “Hello,” I said, cheerily. “Your sign in the window says you have vacancies. Could we possibly book two rooms for a couple of days?”

  The landlady looked us up and down suspiciously. “Here for a holiday, are you?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “There’s a convention in town for fans of a vampire-detective series. We’ve come to get some autographs.” Fangs’s story about the amazing adventures of Fangs Enigma had come in useful, after all.

  “All right,” said the landlady. “Follow me…” She led us into the house and up to the first landing. “These will be your rooms,” she continued, gesturing to a pair of doors at the end of the corridor. “You’ll get hot water from seven to seven-thirty, and breakfast is served on the dot at eight. There’s a shared bathroom on the next floor up, just along from my son’s room. Make sure you don’t go peeking in his room, though. He doesn’t like nosy parkers.”

  Fangs whipped off his sunglasses and grabbed the landlady’s hand. He kissed the leathery skin. “We promise to abide by the rules of your charming hostelry,” he crooned. “Miss…?”

  The troll scowled. “Dopper,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Doris Dopper.”

  “Enchanted to meet you, Doris.”

  “Is your son at home?” I asked as innocently as I could. “It would be nice to have someone local who could show us around.”

  “He’s at work till midnight,” said Doris.

  “Really?” I said. “What does he do?”

  “He’s in show business, or so he reckons. He calls the numbers at one of them bingo arcades in town – Bingo Bongo.”

  Wednesday 2004 hours: Bingo Bongo, Blackpool, UK

  The arcade was packed. End-of-season tourists pumped handfuls of coins into slot machines, or clacked a plastic puck back and forth across rows of air-hockey tables. Wherever we turned, there were flashing lights, ringing bells and electronic beeps.

  Fangs looked around with a barely disguised sneer. “You realize I’m more used to spending time at the casino in Monte Carlo, don’t you? Staying in five-star hotels and travelling first class.”

  I did my best to hide my smile. “Ah, but that was back when you were a secret agent. Now, we’re just a pair of henchmen for hire, trying to find work.”

  “I know,” said Fangs, “and it’s depressing me.”

  “Well, if you don’t think you can play the part of a lowly henchman for a couple of days…”

  Fangs bristled at the accusation. “Of course I can,” he said defiantly. “Never let it be said that Fangs Enigma is not in touch with the common man.” With that, he strode up to a nearby change booth and smiled widely at the cashier. “I will have milk on the rocks, with a twist of lemon, please.”

  The woman stared back at him open-mouthed. “You what?” she asked.

  “I’d like a glass of milk,” Fangs explained.

  “Are you taking the mickey?”

  “It’s just his sense of humour,” I said, sliding a ten-pound note across the counter. “Can we have some pound coins, please?”

  “It might be best if I do the talking for the time being,” I suggested, as I led Fangs away.

  “Up to you,” he replied. “I just want to find Derek and get out of here. The flashing lights and constant noise are giving me a headache.” He glanced around. “Where is he?”

  I pricked up my sensitive werewolf ears, trying to pick individual sounds out of the hullabaloo. I could hear a child crying over a dropped ice cream, a man bragging to his friends that he was about to win the jackpot on a slot machine, the

  PFFT! PFFT! PFFT!

  of air-powered rifles firing on the shooting gallery, and then…

  “Seven and two, seventy-two… On its own,
the number three… Two fat ladies… Eighty-eight…”

  “That’s him,” I said. “This way…”

  Fangs followed me to the back of the arcade, where people were playing bingo on multi-coloured boards, each hoping to fill a single line or get a full house and win a prize. And calling the numbers, his huge troll body squeezed into the caller’s booth, was Derek Dopper. He was on a plinth so he could see over a mountain of “Kiss Me Quick” hats and models of Blackpool Tower.

  “That’s him,” said Fangs. “What do you suggest we do?”

  Before I could answer, a cry rang out: “Bingo!” Someone had filled their card and claimed a full house.

  “I think we should play it cool, boss,” I said. “Let’s sit in on the next game.”

  Fangs sighed. “You want me to play bingo? It’s hardly a challenge, is it? Not like the skill required for poker, or the quick judgment you need for blackjack.”

  “Eyes down for a single line,” said Derek into his microphone as we each sat behind a bingo screen. “And your first number is … one little duck, the number two…”

  I felt Fangs stiffen in the seat beside me. “I’ve got that number,” he hissed. “What do I do?”

  “Just cross it off,” I said. “Now you only need the other four numbers on that line to win.”

  Derek’s voice boomed out again. “Eight and nine… Eighty-nine…”

  “I’ve got that one, as well,” squeaked Fangs excitedly.

  “Six and one… Sixty-one…”

  “I haven’t got that one.”

  “Key of the door… Twenty-one…”

  “I’ve got that one,” exclaimed Fangs. He continued to shout out as each number was called.

  “Five and seven… Fifty-seven…”

  “Nope.”

  “Seven and four… Seventy-four…”

  “Gah.”

  “Two fat ladies… Eighty-eight…”

  “Oh, come on.”