Sea Monsters and Other Delicacies (7 page)

IT WAS PITCH DARK INSIDE THE CHEST
.

“Help!” Ulf shouted.

He was tangled in the netting, struggling to free himself. The net cut into his skin as he shook from side to side and kicked against the lid of the chest.

“Help! Help me, Tiana!”

There was no answer. He tried to bash the lid with his fist, but the net was wrapped tightly around him. He could hardly move.

“Someone help me!” he called.

He was stuck. He lay in the dark and listened. The only sound he could hear was his own breath.

“Help me!” he called.

As time passed, he could feel himself getting hot and dizzy. It was airless inside the chest. He was thinking about Orson and Dr. Fielding, and what awful things might be happening to them. He had to stop the Baron.

Suddenly, from out in the room he heard an almighty crash and the sound of breaking glass. Someone was clambering over the crates and furniture.

“Orson? Dr. Fielding? Is that you?” Ulf called.

He heard the padlock rattling on the side of the chest. Then he heard the sound of wood splintering as the padlock broke free.

The lid flew open.

“Druce!” Ulf said. It was Druce the gargoyle!

“Drucey to the rescue!” the gargoyle gurgled. He flicked out his long yellow tongue and licked Ulf's face.

Ulf struggled to his feet and tore off the net. “Thank you, Druce,” he said.

Druce leaped onto a table and pointed to Professor Farraway's skeleton. “Professor?” he gurgled. He leaned forward and prodded the skeleton. “Professor dead.”

Ulf could hear a rattling sound, and saw the jam jar rolling on the floor. Tiana was inside, beating her hands against the glass. Ulf picked the jar up and unscrewed the lid.

Tiana flew out in a burst of sparkles. Her face was pale and she was shaking. She took a deep breath then scrunched up her tiny fist. “I hate Baron Marackai!” she said.

Ulf ran to the broken window and looked out. In the distance, he could see the Baron's boat motoring out of the seawater lagoon. The boat was dragging something behind it in the water. “The sea monster! He's got the sea monster!”

Tiana flew out of the window and hovered high in the air. “And Orson!” she called. “He's got Orson too!”

Ulf could just make out the giant shape of Orson's body on the deck of the boat. “Meet me in the yard, Tiana!”

Ulf clambered over the boxes. “Look after this place, Druce,” he said, taking the key from his pocket and placing it on the table beside the gargoyle. “You're in charge now.”

Druce was stroking Professor Farraway's bony hand. “I'm in charge, Professor. Drucey in charge.”

Ulf ran from the room, down into the yard, and Tiana flew to meet him as he sped off on his ATV. She perched on the handlebars, clinging to the speedometer. “Hurry, Ulf!” she said.

“Open!” Ulf called. He raced through the gate and into the beast park. The needle on the speedometer pointed to fifty miles an hour. He skidded past Troll Crag and through the marsh, heading for the lagoon. He roared along the shore to the dock and slammed on his brakes.

“Dr. Fielding,” he called, looking around. Dr.
Fielding's glasses lay broken on the ground.

“He's taken her too!” Tiana said.

“We've got to catch him,” Ulf replied. He jumped off his bike and ran to the RSPCB speedboat. A wrench was sticking from its dashboard and wires were hanging out. The controls had been smashed.

Ulf looked out to sea. The Baron's boat was disappearing over the horizon.

“We'll never catch him now,” Tiana said.

“Yes, we will,” Ulf told her. “We can take the submersible.”

He ran along the dock to the RSPCB's orange underwater-reconnaissance vehicle. It was half-submerged in the water. He untied its mooring rope and stepped onto the metal hull, then lifted up the hatch to get in.

Tiana hesitated. She'd never been underwater before. “How can we follow them under the water? We won't be able to see them.”

“We can track the sea monster. Its beacon will show up on the submersible's computer. Come on!”

Ulf started climbing down a short ladder. Tiana flew in, and Ulf reached up and closed the hatch.

He climbed into the submersible's cockpit and looked out through the viewing sphere, a bubble-shaped window at the front.

“Are you sure you know how to work this?” Tiana asked, flying past a row of red buttons. The inside of the submersible was dotted with switches and dials.

Ulf flicked a switch. The controls lit up and the engine hummed. He checked the power levels and tapped the pressure gauge. Then he turned on the navigation system and a blue screen appeared in a panel on the wall. It was an electronic map. In the center of the screen was a white cross indicating the submersible's position. To the west an orange dot was flashing. It was moving away from them. “That's the sea monster's beacon,” Ulf said.

Tiana flew to the viewing sphere. “Full steam ahead!” she said. “FOLLOW THAT SEA MONSTER!”

Ulf pushed the control stick forward and the submersible's thrusters powered up.

AS THE SUBMERSIBLE PULLED AWAY FROM THE
dock, Ulf turned a metal wheel, emptying the pressure tanks. The submersible began to dive. A depth gauge on the control panel showed its descent: one meter, two meters, three meters, four meters, five meters…

Bubbles rose in front of the viewing sphere as the four thrusters propelled the submersible through the lagoon.

Ulf could see sea beasts in underwater enclosures. They passed a golden sea serpent with a bulge in its belly where it had swallowed an anchor, a yellow-
finned sea monkey, a clump of carnivorous seaweed and a flaming squid that was glowing underwater, burning red with fire.

They headed to the sea gates. As the submersible approached, the automatic gates opened to let it through.

They sped out into the ocean, and Ulf looked through the viewing sphere. Sunlight was filtering through the water, sparkling on shoals of silvery fish.

He was in the wild. Ahead stretched mile after mile of deep blue sea.

Ulf checked the navigation system. The orange dot marking the sea monster's position was moving steadily to the west.

“Hold on tight, Tiana,” he said. Ulf set the thrusters to turbo drive and the submersible surged forward.

Tiana hovered at the viewing sphere, pressing her hands to the glass. The submersible was speeding above the seabed.

Ulf looked down. Rocks and sand blurred beneath them. They overtook a shark, its teeth flashing as it turned.

Ahead, columns of seaweed as tall as trees rose from the ocean floor. Green and purple leaves hung in the water like ribbons. It was an underwater kelp forest.

The submersible powered forward and long swishing kelp leaves slapped against the viewing sphere. The forest stretched as far as Ulf could see and, all around, seals were playing in the weed. The thrusters groaned as ribbons of seaweed tangled in the propellers. Ulf reduced the power and steered carefully, weaving the submersible in and out between the swaying green columns.

Gradually, the sea ahead became clearer as they pushed through the other side of the kelp forest, back into open water. The seabed was sandy.

Ulf checked the navigation system. The sea monster's beacon was still heading west.

“Where's the Baron taking it?” Tiana asked.

Ulf shrugged.

He looked through the viewing sphere as they passed a turtle burrowing for urchins. It was digging with its flippers, throwing up a cloud of sand.

“Look, Ulf,” Tiana said, pointing ahead. In front of them on the seabed was an old ship, half buried in the sand. On the ship's mast was a tattered black flag with a skull and crossbones. “It's a pirate ship,” she said.

As they passed above it, Ulf looked down. The ship was covered in barnacles, and seaweed was hanging from its rigging, swishing in the current. He saw a rusty old cannon pointing from its side, then a huge eel wriggling from a porthole.

The submersible sped on, keeping a steady course. For over an hour, they tracked the sea monster further out to sea, passing mile after mile of sandy seabed.

In time they came to the edge of a coral reef. It
stretched on for miles. As the submersible powered above it, Ulf stared at the corals and the rocks. They were all different colors: turquoise, emerald, scarlet and amber. He could see fish darting in and out of crevices and cracks. He saw starfish, jellyfish and sea anenomes.

“It's pretty here,” Tiana said. She was hovering at the viewing sphere, her tiny hands pressed to the glass.

Ulf checked the navigation system. Dotted around the orange light of the sea monster, he could see other lights of different colors.

“Look at this, Tiana,” he said. “Beast beacons. There are beasts here.”

Tiana flew over to the screen. “Where are we?” she asked.

They looked out through the viewing sphere and saw a silvery tail swimming up ahead. As they motored toward it, a beast turned in the water. It had the upper body and head of a woman with long silvery hair.

“It's a mermaid!” Tiana said, fluttering her wings. The mermaid swam deep down, hiding behind a bank of coral. Ulf looked to the side and saw water nymphs sparkling in the water. They were fluttering their tiny fins, swimming in circles and chasing each other.

“They're just like fairies!” Tiana said.

Ulf glanced at the navigation screen. The sea monster's orange light had stopped moving. They were closing in on it.

Suddenly, Tiana yelped. Ulf looked up and saw a red sea beast swimming alongside the submersible, bumping its long snout against the viewing sphere. Its jaws opened in a grin, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Ulf saw a beacon attached to its tail. “It's a crocodon,” he said. The beast swished its barbed tail, then shot off through the water. Ulf watched it disappear into the distance.

Then he stared. Ahead in the water he could
make out four dark metal columns rising from the seabed.

He cut the thrusters, and the submersible slowed. “I know where we are, Tiana. This is the Farraway Reserve.”

Ulf twisted the metal wheel, and the pressure tanks filled. The submersible started to rise.

At a couple of meters below the surface, he wound the wheel back up, bringing the submersible to a halt. He reached to the ceiling and cranked a metal handle, raising the periscope. Through the periscope Ulf could see above the water. The four metal columns were supporting a huge industrial platform with buildings on it and cranes leaning from its side.

It was the old oil rig. Moored to one of the thick metal columns was Baron Marackai's boat.

ULF DROVE THE SUBMERSIBLE BENEATH THE
old oil rig and surfaced alongside Baron Marackai's boat. As he opened the hatch, he glanced to the horizon. The sun was low and evening was setting in. It wouldn't be long until night came, and with it the moon and Ulf's transformation.

Tiana flew out and hovered above the Baron's boat, peering into the wheelhouse. “They're not here,” she said. She flew to the rear of the boat. “The sea monster's gone too.”

Ulf looked up. The oil rig platform loomed over them like a large black machine. Long metal chains
with hooks hung down from its edge. He clambered out of the submersible and tied its mooring rope to a metal column. Then he reached out and took hold of a rusty metal ladder. Its rungs were caked with slippery seaweed. He started climbing. “Come on, Tiana. We have to find Orson and Dr. Fielding.”

At the top of the ladder Ulf stepped onto the platform of the old oil rig. It was huge. He could see rusty sheds and old machinery: cranes, winches and forklift trucks. Ahead, painted in white on the ground, he saw a big letter
H
in a circle, and on the far side of the rig was a drilling tower and a large warehouse.

“It looks deserted,” Tiana said.

“Professor Farraway closed it down years ago,” Ulf told her.

Ulf heard the
thwock thwock thwock
of helicopter blades. He looked up. A helicopter was flying toward the oil rig. “Hide, Tiana!” he said.

They hid behind a rusty crane as the helicopter hovered above the platform, touching down on the big letter
H
. Ulf watched as the helicopter blades slowed. Twelve humans stepped out from it onto the oil rig: six men in black suits and six women in long dresses.

“Who are they?” Tiana asked.

Across the platform, Ulf saw the door of a black hut opening. A man came out and strode toward the helicopter. “Look! It's Baron Marackai!” he whispered.

The Baron was no longer dressed in a captain's clothes. He was wearing a long fur coat with a high fur collar, giranha-belly pants and serpent-skin boots.

One of the men from the helicopter stepped forward. He handed the Baron a leather briefcase and the Baron opened it. The briefcase was stuffed with bank notes.

“Money!” Tiana said.

Baron Marackai snapped the case shut. “That'll do nicely,” he said.

The guests each shook the Baron's hand. “Thank you…
Merci…Danke…Gracias…Arigato…Teshekurler…
”

“Come this way,” the Baron told them, leading them across the platform. “Everything is prepared.”

“Let's follow them,” Ulf whispered.

Ulf and Tiana dashed across the helipad to the black hut. Ulf peered around its side. Baron Marackai was taking his guests to the warehouse on the far side of the rig.

Tiana tapped Ulf's shoulder. “Look in here,” she said, peering through a steamy window into the black hut. Inside was a kitchen. A fat man wearing a white chef's hat was lifting the lid of a saucepan. He dipped his finger in a dark brown sauce then licked it. He smiled, wiped his finger on his thin mustache, then looked in the glass door of an oven.

Ulf turned and glanced back around the side of
the hut. Baron Marackai was sliding open a huge metal door at the end of the warehouse. He led his guests inside.

“Come on,” Ulf said, running to follow them.

“Stop, Ulf,” Tiana called, as two men came out of the warehouse.

Ulf ducked behind a forklift. Tiana flew beside him. They watched as the men walked across the platform toward the black hut. They were both dressed in white shirts and pink bow ties.

One was small and was dabbing his nose with a red rag. “Blud do this. Blud do that. Pah!” he said.

The other man was big, with a thick beard. “My shirt's too tight,” he said.

“Why do
we
have to serve the food?” the small man complained. “Why can't we eat with the guests?”

They walked to the door of the black hut and went inside.

“Tiana, we have to find Orson and Dr. Fielding,” Ulf said. They headed to the warehouse and peered
through the doorway. It was enormous. Barrels were stacked around the sides, and there were piles of metal pipes, wooden crates, and big rusty drills. Hooks hung on chains from the ceiling. Signs on the walls read
LOADING AREA
and
DANGER: HEAVY MACHINERY.

At the far end of the warehouse, Baron Marackai was sitting at a long table. His guests were sitting either side of him, laughing and joking, pouring wine into glasses. The table was laid for dinner with a white tablecloth and silver cutlery. Candles were flickering in ornate candlesticks. There was no sign of Orson or Dr. Fielding.

Tiana perched on Ulf's shoulder. “Let's try somewhere else,” she said.

Ulf turned and saw the small man in the waiter's outfit coming out of the kitchen toward them. He was wheeling a large metal trolley. “Quick, Tiana, hide!” Ulf said.

They dashed inside the warehouse and hid behind an old oil barrel, then watched as the small man wheeled in the trolley. It was loaded with dishes covered by domed silver lids. It rattled as the small man pushed it to the dinner table at the far end. He placed the dishes on the tablecloth in a long row.

“That'll do, Blud,” Baron Marackai said.

Blud backed away from the table, bowing.

The Baron stood up, tapping his glass with a fork. “Ladies and gentlemen, a word if I may before we begin.” He stepped to a huge door at the far end of the warehouse. His guests turned and watched as he slid the door open.

Through the far end Ulf could see out to sea. The sun was setting and the water was glowing red.

“Look at this,” Baron Marackai announced. “The Farraway Reserve. In these waters are treats and delicacies beyond your wildest imaginings, the rarest sea beasts known to man. For too long they have been allowed to swim freely, their delicious flesh denied us, protected by law. But I ask you, if man wasn't meant to eat beasts, why are they so darned tasty?”

Baron Marackai's twisted face twisted even more as he laughed. His guests chuckled.

“Everything you are about to eat has been caught locally,” he said. “Which reminds me…” He snapped his fingers. “Tonight we have a guest of honor.”

Ulf turned and gasped as he saw the big man lumber in. He was carrying Dr. Fielding over his shoulder. Her wrists and ankles were tied and her mouth was gagged. She was wriggling and struggling.

“Bring her here, Bone,” the Baron ordered. “She can sit next to me.”

Ulf snarled.

“We've got to save her,” Tiana whispered.

Ulf crept along the side of the warehouse, keeping low behind the barrels.

Tiana flew beside him. “Be careful,” she said.

Ulf saw the big man, Bone, push Dr. Fielding into an empty chair beside the Baron.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you all to Dr. Helen Fielding of the RSPCB,” Baron Marackai announced. The Baron's guests hissed and booed.

“She's going to watch us eat, while we shall watch her squirm!” The Baron laughed again and his guests laughed too.

Ulf's elbow knocked a stack of steel pipes. One clattered to the ground and suddenly the guests stopped laughing. Ulf ducked.

“What was that noise?” the Baron asked, looking to where Ulf was hiding.

Ulf crawled behind a pile of wooden crates. He watched as Blud walked over, checking the pipes. “It's nothing, Sir,” the small man called. “Probably just a rat.”

“Then without further ado…” Baron Marackai said. “Let the Beast Feast begin!”

He walked to the end of the long table and lifted the silver dome from the first dish. Underneath it Ulf saw a beast that had been skinned and roasted. It had pineapple rings on its tusks.

“Roast anglodon,” Baron Marackai announced. “Delicious!”

The guests licked their lips.

Ulf saw Dr. Fielding turn her head in disgust.

Baron Marackai lifted the dome from the second platter. Underneath was a yellow trunk cut into slices with melted cheese in the middle. “Stuffed trunk of elephant eel.”

The guests clapped.

Baron Marackai lifted the third dome. Underneath was a big blue blubbery mouth. It was sprinkled with peanuts and laid on the plate in a smile. “Succulent boiled lubbalubba lips.”

The guests cheered.

Baron Marackai lifted the fourth dome. Underneath were fairy-like beasts fried to a crisp. “Deep-fried sea nymphs.”

“I can't watch,” Tiana said, holding her hands over her eyes.

The Baron picked up half a lemon from the side of the plate and squeezed it over the little fried nymphs. “Tasty!” he said.

He walked the length of the table lifting the silver domes one after the other. Under each was a dead sea beast, cooked and ready to eat. Some were covered in batter or made into pies. Others had been mashed or barbecued and covered in sauce.

“Three cheers for Baron Marackai,” the guests cheered. “Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!”

The Baron sat down and grinned. “Dig in,” he told them.

The guests grabbed at the food with their fingers, tearing off flippers and cracking off claws. They ripped off legs and fins and popped out eyeballs, sucking them until they burst. They shoved in mouthfuls of meat, with gravy dribbling down their chins. They slurped sea-serpent soup and nibbled slices of elephant eel. They gobbled flaming squidlets, chomped impossipus sandwiches, and spread sea-monkey pâté on toast. They chewed the fat from the lubbalubba lips and bit off the sea nymphs' heads.

“Fill your bellies,” the Baron told them. “There's plenty more.”

He threw a fork at the waiters. “Blud! Bone! Go and fetch the rest!”

Tiana groaned. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Ulf could feel his fangs pushing through his gums. He looked to the far end of the warehouse. Outside, the sky was darkening. Soon the moon would rise.