Locked inside the car, Holly and Archie had watched helplessly as Weaver knocked Mrs Klingerflim into the dark space between the cars.
‘Dirk!’ screamed Holly as he took a round of ammunition in the belly.
Callum sat huddled in a corner, repeating, ‘My master, he’s here,’ over and over again.
‘Shut up, Callum,’ said Archie, but he wasn’t listening.
‘Look,’ said Holly, noticing that while Buchanan had the full attention of the dragons, a door in the black car opened and a shadowy figure lifted Mrs Klingerflim inside. The man’s face was obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. He disappeared into the car, unseen, as Weaver fired the gun a second time.
Seeing that everyone had frozen, Holly said, ‘One of them must have used Dragonsong.’
‘But which one?’ asked Archie. ‘None of them are moving.’
‘Except for Weaver,’ said Holly, seeing him walk up to his boss and wave a hand in front of his face. ‘We’ve got to get out. If only we could break the …’ She stopped. ‘Of course.’ She reached inside her T-shirt and pulled out the dragon claw she wore around her neck. ‘Dragon claws can cut through anything,’ she said.
Holly jammed the claw into the door and levered at it. There was a crunch as the claw cut through the lock and the door swung open.
‘My master. He’s not moving,’ said Callum, slipping out and running to Vainclaw’s side. Holly and Archie rushed to Dirk’s unmoving body and fell to their knees.
‘Try and push him over,’ said Holly but, as much as they tried, they couldn’t move him.
‘You want a hand?’ said a voice behind them. Holly spun round to see a familiar weather-beaten face beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She couldn’t think of a time she had been as pleased to see anyone. She hugged him then said, ‘Archie, this is Ladbroke Blake, the detective I told you about.’ She turned back to him and said, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Let’s get this dragon on his back first.’
Weaver, who had been trying to wake up Mr Buchanan, turned round and said, ‘What’s happened to him?’
‘Never mind him, give me a hand,’ snapped Ladbroke, staring Weaver directly in the face.
Together, Weaver and Ladbroke pushed Dirk on to his back.
‘I’m sorry, Holly. It looks bad,’ said Ladbroke.
Holly forced herself to look. There were three holes in Dirk’s chest. She fell to her knees and collapsed into tears, her hands across his belly. ‘Oh Dirk,’ she cried. ‘Please say something.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Weaver quietly.
Holly didn’t register his words. She felt Dirk’s blood fill the gaps between her fingers. She raised her head, looking at the stars, blurry through her teary eyes. This was the end, she thought. He was dead. Dirk was dead. Nothing meant anything any more. After all she had been through with Dirk, protecting mankind from the Kinghorns, it was a human weapon that had killed him.
Killed.
Dead.
The words lost their meanings as Holly wept.
The pain in her heart was so overwhelming that she barely noticed the dull ache in her leg. But it was insistent. It came from the bone fixed by the Sky Dragon, Nebula Colorado. It felt as if the bone was trying to tell her something.
She remembered Nebula’s words – Part of me is now a part of you – and suddenly she knew what to do. She didn’t know how. She hadn’t heard a voice or seen a vision. She simply knew as though she had always known.
‘All of you, hold him down,’ she said, wiping her eyes, smearing green blood across her cheek.
‘Holly, he’s dead,’ said Ladbroke gently.
‘Hold him down,’ repeated Holly. ‘You too, Weaver.’
‘What’s happened to Mr Buchanan?’ said Weaver.
‘Put the gun down and do as she says,’ shouted Archie.
Weaver looked like he wanted to say something but he placed the gun on the ground, sat down and held Dirk’s tail. Ladbroke took his head and Archie held his wings. Callum remained where he was, stroking Vainclaw’s paw and muttering, ‘My monster, my master.’
Holly placed her hands over the gash where the bullet had gone in and concentrated. She sensed the torn flesh and the open arteries. Then she sensed the metal of the bullet itself. She focused hard and felt warming energy spread from her leg and fill her body. In her mind’s eye she could see the bullet lodged inside the bloody mess. She focused on it, hooking it with her thoughts and drawing it out. Her hands remained still, but she could feel the bullet climbing back to the surface until she felt its cold metal in her palm. She closed her hand around it then allowed it to fall to the ground. With the bullet out, she placed her hands back on the wound and channelled the energy from the bone in her leg. By the time she had removed her palms, the wound had healed over.
‘How did you do that?’Archie said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got to do the others quickly.’
As she retrieved the second bullet, Dirk’s body twitched.
‘Hold him down, make sure he doesn’t injure himself,’ said Ladbroke.
By the time Holly had extracted the third bullet and healed the final wound Dirk let out a low moan.