Mission: Lullaby

by Tommy Donbavand

“Clickety click… Sixty-six…”

  “Yes!” Fangs was almost vibrating with excitement. “I just need forty-three,” he said.

  “And the next number out is…”

  “Forty-three,” Fangs whispered. “Forty-three, forty-three, forty-three, forty-three, forty-three…”

  “Four and three… Forty-three…”

  “YES!” Fangs leapt up and punched his fist into the air. “BONGOS!”

  “I think you mean ‘bingo’, boss.” I smiled.

  “BINGO!” he said. “What do I win?”

  I checked the board above Derek’s chair. “Well, one line wins you a stick of Blackpool rock, but the numbers will have to be confirmed first.”

  Derek was watching us. “Ready?” he asked.

  Fangs nodded eagerly, and then turned to me. “What do I do?” he whispered.

  “You read out the numbers in your winning line, and the caller will check them off on his board.”

  “OK,” said Fangs. “I think I’ve got the hang of this bingo lark now.” He read out the first number. “Number two… One little duck.”

  Derek smiled as he checked his own board. “One little duck, the number two…”

  I couldn’t remember seeing Fangs ever look this proud. “Twenty-one… Key of the door…”

  “Key of the door, twenty-one…”

  The other players were chuckling at Fangs’s enthusiasm now. “Seems like we’ve got ourselves a wannabe bingo-caller,” said Derek into the microphone. “Your next number, please…”

  Fangs slid the next tiny door open. “Four and three…” He paused for a moment, trying to remember if there was a special call for this number, then he said: “Squirrel army.”

  Derek’s face fell. He stared at us. “Here,” he said, nervously. “I know you two from somewhere…”

  “Not us,” I said with a smile. “We’re just tourists, up here for a vampire-detective convention.”

  “Although,” Fangs said, “he might know us because we are … I mean, were … world-famous spies – before we were disavowed, of course.”

  “Sshh!” I hissed – but it was too late.

  Derek had leapt up and was running for the exit. I gave chase.

  “What about my stick of rock?” Fangs cried after me.

  “I’ll buy you another one,” I yelled. “Come on.”

  By the time my boss caught up with me, Derek was at the front of the arcade. He crashed out through the double doors and turned left onto the promenade, pushing people out of the way as he went. After charging through a group of girls out on a hen night, he ducked into a building on his left. “He’s gone in there,” I said, skidding to a halt outside the entrance to the attraction. “Into the haunted-house ride.”

  The doors had been painted to look like iron gates at the entrance to a creepy crypt and above were the words:

  HOUSE OF HORRORS

  They had been daubed in dripping red paint. Fake cobwebs fluttered in the breeze and a plastic skeleton hung from the window of the ticket booth next door. Low moans and screeches echoed from a speaker fixed to the wall.

  I slapped the rest of my change down on the counter, behind which sat a bored-looking man in a zombie outfit. “Two, please – as quick as you can.”

  Wednesday 2045 hours: House of Horrors, Blackpool, UK

  We crept along a narrow corridor lit only by ultraviolet bulbs. The special effects were rubbish. Manic laughter rang out from hidden speakers, steam shot out in front of us, and ribbon brushed our cheeks. Before long, we found ourselves walking through a graveyard. Mist rolled over the bumpy ground, oozing between plastic headstones that jutted from the fake grass.

  “This place is stupid,” moaned Fangs. “I mean – who’d be scared of stuff like this?”

  Suddenly, a fist burst up out of the grave nearest to us. Fangs screamed – properly screamed, like a four-year-old who had just found a spider in the bath. He stamped on the hand, shattering the plastic and bending the metal underneath until all that was left was a jagged stump that whirred as it rose and fell above its damaged motor.

  “I thought that might have been Derek about to attack you,” said Fangs, trying to regain his composure. “Remind me to pay for it on the way out.”

  “Are you sure you’re OK to go on?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Fangs. “That thing just took me by surprise. Bound to happen when your senses are as keen as mine.”

  “All right,” I said. “But let’s try to stay quiet. We don’t want Derek to hear us.”

  As we left the graveyard, a cardboard ghost popped out in front of us. (Fangs ripped it down from its wire.) Then a sarcophagus swung open to reveal a moaning mummy. (Fangs punched it in the face.) Dozens of plastic cockroaches rained down on our heads. (Fangs jumped up into my arms and cried for his mum.)

  I sighed. “Look, boss,” I said, “why don’t you wait outside—”

  Fangs’s scream cut me off. “There’s a monster behind me.”

  I turned to see a mannequin standing in the shadows behind us. “It’s just another prop,” I said.

  “I knew that,” said Fangs, straightening his bow tie. “I just wanted to see if you did, Puppy.” Then he spun round on one leg and struck the model in the stomach. “Hi-ya!”

  “OOF!”

  “Puppy…” Fangs said slowly.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Did that plastic exhibit just say ‘OOF!’?”

  “Yes, it did, boss,” I replied as Derek Dopper stepped out of the shadows and clamped a hand on our shoulders.

  “I think we need to have a little talk,” he growled. Then he dragged the pair of us through a door that had been hidden behind a fake spider’s web and into a brightly lit store room, filled with boxes of Halloween props and rolls of spare tickets.

  I blinked at the sudden change in light. I needed to think fast if we were going to convince Derek to take us on as his henchmen. “Listen,” I said. “It’s OK – we’re on your side.”

  “My side,” spat Derek. “But you’re from MP1! You’re Fangs Enigma and Puppy Brown. And he hit me.” He pointed at Fangs and rubbed his stomach. “That really hurt.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Fangs. “I thought you were a dummy.”

  “And now you’re insulting me as well!” Derek shoved us into two wooden chairs. Then he grabbed a coil of fake human intestines from a hook on the wall and began to tie us up.

  “We were with MP1,” said Fangs as the troll tied his hands behind his back. “But not any more. We hate MP1 now. We’ve been disavowed.”

  Derek’s brow furrowed. “Disavowed?” he repeated.

  “Fired, sacked, given the boot,” I added as Derek secured my wrists to the chair with a string of fake guts. “They got rid of us – after all we’d done for them. They tossed us out like yesterday’s leftovers.”

  Derek stepped back to stare at us, and the top of his head brushed the ceiling tiles. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Trust me,” said Fangs. “I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t taken the keys to my luxury MP1 flat.”

  “So what are you here for?”

  “We want revenge,” I said. “We want to teach MP1 a lesson for doing this to us.”

  Fangs nodded. “Puppy’s right. And the best way to show those goody-goodies in London that we mean business is to swap sides and work for a villain like you. Show them what a threat to society you really are.”

  Derek looked surprised at this. “I’m a threat to society?”

  “That’s how we see you,” I said. “But MP1 don’t. They didn’t take your brilliant squirrel-army plot seriously, did they?”

  “No, well … I accidentally sent them the wrong video.…”

  I knew it!

  “But that video was a work of genius,” I said.

  “It was?” Derek and Fangs said together.

  “Of course,” I said. “Arranging for your mum to burst in like that and make it look as though you were some sort of fool gave
MP1 a false sense of security. Made them think you were just another wannabe villain – an amateur – whereas we know you’re a genuine danger to mankind.”

  Derek straightened up, a look of pride washing over his face.

  “Yes, I suppose I am pretty dangerous…”

  Fangs looked as though he was about to disagree, so I kicked him in the shin and continued. “Bingo-calling isn’t the career for a great super-villain like Derek Dopper,” I said. “You should be ruling the world from a hollow volcano somewhere.”

  Derek’s eyes grew misty as he imagined his ideal lair.

  “And now that MP1 think you’re a laughing-stock, you are ready to strike,” I said. “They’ll never see you coming. You really are a genius, and a criminal mastermind like you needs henchmen. Henchmen who despise MP1 as much as you do.”

  “That’s true,” said Derek. “But where would I find henchmen like that who would want to work for me?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Fangs.

  I kicked him again.

  “We’ll do it,” I said. “Hire us as your henchmen, and we’ll help you earn membership of GLOVE.”

  Derek’s large eyes narrowed. “How do you know I want to join GLOVE?”

  I thought quickly. “Which scheming super-villain wouldn’t want to join it? Let us help you earn membership, then, together, we can get revenge on MP1.”

  Derek paced the room as he thought this through. “You want to work for me?”

  “That’s exactly what we want,” I said.

  “And you’d have to do what I ask, no matter how scary?”

  “You’re the boss,” said Fangs, finally catching on. “Although I think you’ll find there isn’t much that scares me…”

  Wednesday 2145 hours: Bassey’s Karaoke Bar, Blackpool, UK

  Fangs gripped the microphone with trembling fingers as a rock-guitar intro played, and the name of a song flashed up on screens all around the bar:

  Dying Is Forever

  The audience of supernatural creatures cheered as Fangs began to sing along nervously:

  “Dying is forever,

  Unless you are a zombie,

  Then take some advice from me…”

  Derek and I were seated at a table near the back of the room, watching him. We were squeezed in between a pair of drunken gnomes and a giantess who elbowed me in the ribs every time she took a sip from her bucket of beer. Derek had insisted on coming to his favourite karaoke bar and then made Fangs and me choose songs to sing from the zombie disc-jockey’s list of titles, just as he had.

  “This is brilliant,” cried Derek over the music. “I normally have to come here by myself, but now that you’re my henchmen, I can order you to sing with me any time I want.” He took a blast from his inhaler. “I might even get you to stop the DJ from using his smoke machine. It really affects my allergies.”

  “Don’t you think we’d be better spending our time thinking up evil plans to impress GLOVE?” I asked.

  “That’s exactly what I am doing,” replied Derek. “I come up with my best ideas while I’m singing karaoke. Ooh, it’s all happening now! It won’t be long till I’ve moved into an evil lair of my very own. My mum will be really proud of me.”

  On the stage, Fangs was looking worried. I’d seen him battle bad guys, chase villains and foil the wicked schemes of some of the greatest criminal monsterminds the world had ever seen, but I’d never seen him look as uncomfortable as he did right now.

  The music was blaring, and the flashing lights were directed straight into his eyes. A harpy – her hair a writhing mass of hissing snakes – danced wildly at the front of the stage while he tried to concentrate on his words. When the song was finally over, the DJ – a local radio celebrity called Crisp Boils – called for a round of applause. Fangs left the stage.

  “I’m next.” Derek beamed, jumping out of his seat and knocking my glass of orange juice over. The troll raced to the microphone, insisting that Fangs give him a celebratory high-five as they passed each other.

  The title of Derek’s song flashed up onto the screens:

  Zombie Feasting Time

  Fangs slumped into the empty chair beside me as the song started. “I am never doing that again,” he grunted. “I’d rather swim through a tank full of hungry sharks in a suit made out of raw meat.” Fangs rubbed a hand over his face as Derek began to sing. “Tell me I didn’t sound as bad as that.”

  “You did well, boss,” I said. “You had at least one fan down there.”

  Fangs glanced at the harpy, who was now dancing along happily while Derek sang.

  “I think she’d dance to the sound of the fire alarm if it went off,” said Fangs. “That’s an idea, actually. Let’s set off the alarm and get out of here.”

  “We can’t,” I said, patting his arm. “We have to find a way to get into GLOVE.”

  “Well, I can’t think straight with ‘Karaoke Ken’ screeching up there,” said Fangs. “I never thought I’d say this, but I want to go back to his mum’s guesthouse and…” His words tailed off and he stood up to look around the room. “Puppy…” he said. “Why is everyone asleep?”

  Fangs was right! Aside from us and Derek, who was still singing on the stage, everyone else in the room had fallen fast asleep. The customers, the DJ, even the snakes in the harpy's hairdo were all snoring away happily.

  After Derek finished his song and took a bow, the audience slowly began to wake up again. They stretched and yawned.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Derek as he rejoined us.

  The troll shrugged. “This always happens when I sing,” he said. “People fall asleep.”

  I felt a smile creep across my face. “You’re a genius,” I said, clapping Derek on the back. “In fact, I think you’ve just found a way to get us into GLOVE.”

  Thursday 0718 hours: Caribbean Dreams, Blackpool, UK

  “You think I sound like a police car?” Derek asked.

  “No,” I replied. “I said that your singing works like a siren’s.”

  “Eh?”

  Fangs and I were sitting in Derek’s bedroom, trying to explain the details of my plan to get us inside GLOVE. The room was rather oddly decorated. The walls were painted in various shades of grey and had dozens of small stones and pebbles glued to them. Larger rocks were scattered across the bright red carpet, and the ceiling light gave the room a soft, scarlet glow.

  The troll had been far too excited by his karaoke exploits to discuss my plan the night before. He’d sung loudly all the way home, sending everyone we passed on the street into a deep, restful slumber. Only Fangs and I were unaffected, and that was because of our anti-hypnotic implants. They were a standard issue for all MP1 spies to stop us from being susceptible to most magic charms and spells. Thankfully, Derek hadn't questioned why we'd stayed awake.

  “A siren is a kind of mermaid,” Fangs explained. “They’re very pretty.”

  “And deadly,” I added. “Their voices have the ability to control people – just like yours does.”

  “You mean they make people fall asleep, too?” Derek asked.

  “No,” I said, “they lure ships onto the rocks by singing to the sailors.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice,” said Derek.

  “It isn't,” I said. “But they promised to stop doing it when the supernatural equality laws came into force – in the same way that vampires agreed not to drink blood from living humans any more.”

  Fangs shuddered. “That was never a good way to get the stuff. Too messy – and blood’s much better if you let it sit for a few hours before serving.”

  Derek was confused. “So … I have to sing like a mermaid, but I’m not allowed to drink human blood?”

  “You might have to explain the plan again, Puppy,” Fangs said.

  “OK,” I said. “Like sirens, you have the ability to affect other people with your singing voice. In your case, you can send people to sleep.”

  Derek nodded. “I know that. But how will tha
t help get us into GLOVE?”

  I smiled. “Well, let’s say you make security guards fall asleep. Then we can sneak past them and help ourselves to whatever we want. Money, jewels, top-secret documents…”

  Derek’s eyes widened. “And THAT will get us membership of GLOVE?”

  “Exactly.”

  Derek was clearly thinking hard. Finally he said, “Don’t move,” and pulled open a huge wardrobe. He began to root around inside.

  Fangs whispered in my ear. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “We won’t know until we try it, boss.”

  “But we’re putting our trust in a troll who decorates his room to look like the inside of a volcano.”

  Before I could reply, Derek reappeared from inside the wardrobe with a triumphant “Voilà!” He was wearing a black mask over his eyes and a tight yellow T-shirt with “DD” printed on the front of it. “I’ve been waiting for just the right moment to unveil my outfit. Now I really look like a super-villain. No one will forget the name Derek Dopper.”

  “Could this get any more embarrassing?” Fangs groaned.

  “I’ve got T-shirts and masks for both of you, as well.” Derek beamed.

  “Yes, boss,” I said. “Apparently, it can.”

  Derek had decided that he couldn’t start his new career as a super-villain on an empty stomach. And so we went downstairs in our new T-shirts and masks. “I’ll sit at the head of the table,” said Derek. “You two should sit on either side of me in case anyone tries a sneak attack.”

  Fangs and I shared a glance. “A sneak attack?” he said.

  Derek nodded. “Now I’m a major super-villain, there will be people wanting to topple me from my lofty perch and take over my organization. You two have to put yourselves in harm’s way and block any attack aimed at me.”

  The door to the kitchen swung open and Derek’s mum appeared, carrying a pan full of sausages. Well, I say pan full – there were three sausages. Three very small, lonely looking sausages.