Dirk had once seen a TV show in which people described their near-death experiences. Most of them had described seeing tunnels with white lights at the end. As Dirk felt the bullets do their terrible work and his life force ebb away, he hadn’t seen anything, but in the darkness he had heard something. At first it was just garbled noise, then he heard a voice he hadn’t heard for a long time. It was his mother. He could hear the first words she had ever spoken to him, the first words he had ever heard, as he crawled from the Outer Core as a youngling. At the time he had been too young to understand but now as the words came back he heard her say, ‘There, there, little one, you have finished the hardest journey.’ The voice grew fainter and he heard another. It was Minertia. ‘Because someone needs to know how delicately balanced are the scales between war and peace,’ she said, ‘someone who cares.’ He heard more voices, speaking over each over, garbled, growing louder and louder like an orchestra of noise.
The voices disappeared and suddenly there was silence – peaceful, endless silence – and Dirk knew that this was the end. This was death.
Then, in the dark nothingness, one more voice spoke.
‘Dirk, come back to me,’ said Holly, throwing her arms around him.
Dirk opened his eyes and raised his head. ‘What happened?’ he said.
‘You swallowed a little lead,’ said a man in a wide-brimmed hat.
‘Ladbroke Blake?’ said Dirk, lifting himself up and examining his blood-smeared belly.
‘Dirk Dilly,’ replied the craggy-faced man, smiling.
‘It was you that rescued us from the library,’ he said, ‘but how …’
‘Enough,’ said Weaver, picking up his gun and jumping to his feet. ‘What is wrong with Mr Buchanan?’
‘The same thing that’s wrong with all of them,’ said Dirk. ‘They’re under the spell of Dragonsong.’
‘But whose?’ said Holly.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dirk.
‘As far as I could tell from the car,’ said Ladbroke, ‘both dragons sang at the same time.’
‘They must have done it at precisely the same time and entranced each other as well as everyone else,’ said Dirk.
‘But how do we get him out of it?’ asked Weaver.
‘Like this,’ said Ladbroke, slapping Mr Buchanan hard in his face. The billionaire rocked with the force of the slap. He blinked then he looked at Weaver with a vacant smile.
‘Mr Buchanan, sir,’ Weaver said, ‘are you all right?’
‘The monsters and the music. Did you hear the music? It sounded for ever. Did you see the monsters? They’ve gone now but they were here.’
‘What are you talking about, sir?’ said Weaver. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ladbroke. ‘That should have worked.’
‘Pretty music in my head and monsters in my hair,’ sang Brant Buchanan, ruffling his silver hair.
Dirk approached but Buchanan stared straight through him and said, ‘All the monsters have gone now.’
Dirk lifted a paw and slapped him again.
Buchanan swayed and said, ‘Where did the music go? Did the monsters take it with them?’
‘It’s like he’s still under,’ said Holly.
‘Look at the positioning,’ said Dirk. ‘Vainclaw and Fairfax were on either side of Buchanan. They must have sung at the same time, wanting to get in first. Buchanan was directly in between both Dragonsongs. He got a double dose. It must have damaged his brain in some way.’
‘Is there a cure?’ said Weaver.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it before,’ said Dirk. ‘Why didn’t it affect you?’
‘Because he’s deaf,’ said Ladbroke.
‘Deaf?’ said Archie.
‘But you can hear us?’ said Holly.
‘I lip-read,’ said Weaver. ‘I have done all my life. It’s trickier with dragons though.’
‘What about in the car?’ asked Archie.
‘It has voice-recognition software installed. I can read everything that is being said inside that car on a monitor at the front.’
‘So I can’t make you forget everything,’ said Dirk.
‘Believe me, I have no interest in any of this. Let me take Mr Buchanan back. He needs medical attention. You have my word that I’ll destroy his evidence and do my best to keep him away from dragons in the future. I’ve never liked this project.’
‘I can’t see that we have much choice,’ said Dirk.
Buchanan staggered over to where Callum was crouched at Vainclaw’s feet, stroking his legs.
‘Where is the music?’ he said to the boy.
‘I’ve heard it too. My master used to sing to me, now he hears it himself,’ replied Callum.
‘The monsters have gone,’ said Buchanan.
‘The monsters are all around us,’ replied Callum.
‘Take the boy back too,’ said Dirk. ‘Send him back to his father.’
Weaver took Callum and Buchanan by the hand, led them back to the car, then looked back.
‘I don’t want my dad to work for Mr Buchanan any more,’ said Holly.
Weaver nodded. ‘I’ll make sure he gets a fair redundancy deal.’
‘Make sure you destroy all the evidence, Jonnie,’ called Ladbroke.
Weaver nodded, got in the car and started the engine.
‘Is that his name?’ said Holly.
‘Yes,’ said Ladbroke.
‘How do you know?’ asked Archie.
‘The Department knows a lot of things,’ replied Ladbroke. ‘Unofficially, of course. Officially we know nothing.’
‘What department?’ said Dirk. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Pi Blandford.’
He held up a card for them all to see. In bold black capitals it read:
AGENT PI BLANDFORD
Department of Defence against anything that does
not conform to the conventional understanding of
the world as we know it
DODAATDNCTTCUOTWAWKI
Archie and Dirk barely had time to read it before the words faded and vanished, leaving an empty blank card.
‘You’re not called Ladbroke?’ said Holly.
‘If it helps, Ladbroke is one of my favourite names,’ he said.
‘And you know about dragons?’ said Holly.
‘Technically, no, the Department doesn’t know anything about anything,’ said Ladbroke, ‘because the things we investigate do not technically exist.’
‘Isn’t that a bit weird?’ said Archie.
‘What’s weirder? Pretending dragons don’t exist or knowing that they do?’ said Ladbroke.
‘So you knew right from the beginning?’ Holly said.
‘When I first got assigned responsibility for dragons, I found a copy of Mr Klingerflim’s book. I decided to check out his widow’s house. That was when I discovered Dirk. When I saw you go round, Holly, I followed you home. Listening in on your phone conversations I learnt that your stepmother wanted to hire someone to follow you so I made sure that she found another of my cards.’
Ladbroke held out a cream-coloured card that read:
LADBROKE BLAKE
BLAKE INVESTIGATIONS:
Confidential, Professional
and Affordable Private Investigations
‘Why have you never let on you knew before?’ said Holly.
‘The Department has a policy of non-intervention. I’m not supposed to get involved. My job is only to collect information on dragons.’
‘Well, I’d hardly call this non-intervention, Mr Blandford. You’re surrounded by dragons and you’re talking to one,’ said an elderly female voice behind him. ‘I’m not sure you’re within departmental guidelines.’
‘Mrs Klingerflim,’ said Holly, running to help the old lady out of the car and noticing the nasty purple bruise under her eye.
‘Hello, dear. Hello, Archie. Hello, Mr Dilly.’
‘So Ladbroke brought you here?’ said Dirk.
‘He was kind enough to fly me over,’ said Mrs Klingerflim. ‘We only arrived today, didn’t we, Mr Blandford?’
‘I wanted to know why Buchanan had brought Holly to Los Angeles,’ said Ladbroke. ‘I did a little research and learnt about the Summit of Skull Rock. There were no details in our case files, except for the names of those involved – Ivor and Elsita Klingerflim.’
‘Elsita?’ said Holly.
‘That’s my name, dear,’ said Mrs Klingerflim. ‘You didn’t think my first name was Mrs, did you?’
Ladbroke continued. ‘My contacts at NAPOW informed me that Buchanan was turning the library into some kind of trap. My contacts at the electricity board told me that the substation had gone down, so I dropped by and opened the roof for you. I never had any contact with you directly, so I didn’t really break any rules.’
‘Is that why you left Mrs Klingerflim to get out of the car and confront the Kinghorns on her own?’ asked Dirk.
‘No,’ said Mrs Klingerflim. ‘I told Mr Blandford to stay inside in case they used Dragonsong. Good thing too.’
‘Now, Mr Dilly, I’d appreciate your thoughts on what to do about this situation,’ said Ladbroke. He gestured to the nine dragons, looking like models in a waxworks museum.
‘Leave them to me,’ said Dirk. ‘Will you make sure Holly and Archie get home safely?’
‘The whole family will be flown home courtesy of the Department.’
‘I owe you my life, kiddo,’ Dirk said to Holly, and they hugged.
‘When will we see you next?’ said Holly.
‘Very soon,’ replied Dirk.
‘It’s been a pleasure never having met you, Mr Dilly,’ said Ladbroke, shaking Dirk’s paw.