by David Sinden
When fiery phoenixes die, they burst into flames and burn away. From their ashes, their chicks are born.
Ulf checked the thermometer on the side of the incubator. Two hundred and nineteen degrees Fahrenheit. Just right.
He watched as a third pile of ashes glowed red hot and another phoenix chick burst into life. Three chicks out of four had hatched already. Dr. Fielding would be pleased.
Ulf stepped out of the hatching bay and looked across the yard. Dr. Fielding was coming out of Farraway Hall with Inspector Black.
“I must warn you, it is quite upsetting to see,” Dr. Fielding was saying.
The Inspector smiled. “I see all sorts of things in this job,” he replied.
Dr. Fielding opened the doors to the operating theater. The Inspector peered inside.
“It’s been cut open!” he said. The Inspector turned away, holding his hand to his mouth.
“We had to do an autopsy,” Dr. Fielding explained.
Inspector Black took a deep breath, then reached into his coat pocket for his notepad.
“What exactly is it that you do here?” he asked. “I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with your work. Do you mind if I look around?”
“There’s quite a lot to see,” Dr. Fielding replied, looking at her watch.
Ulf ran to the Inspector. “I’ll show you, if you like.”
The Inspector’s eye twitched. “He doesn’t bite, does he, Dr. Fielding?”
Dr. Fielding smiled. “You’ll be quite safe with Ulf. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
She headed back inside. “Oh, Ulf, please could you check on the Roc and feed the jeepers creepers for me?” she called.
“Will do,” Ulf replied. He led the Inspector to the vehicles in the courtyard. “It’s much too big to see everything on foot.”
The Inspector took his car keys from his pocket and walked toward his shiny black car. “I’ll drive,” he said. “There’s a rug in the back you can sit on.”
“We’re not going by car,” Ulf told him. He pointed to the line of all-terrain vehicles in the vehicle bay. One was red, one black, one yellow, and one blue. “Have you ever ridden an ATV before?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can manage,” the Inspector said. He tucked his trouser legs into his black socks and sat on the black ATV. “It can’t be that difficult.”
“Just copy me,” Ulf told him.
Ulf got onto his favorite bike, the blue one.
“Shouldn’t you put some shoes on?” the Inspector asked.
Ulf turned the key and kick-started the engine with his hairy foot. “Come on,” he called, twisting the throttle and accelerating around the side of the house toward the paddock.
Ulf shouted “open” and the gate opened automatically. “The gates are voice activated,” he called.
The Inspector wobbled as he rode behind Ulf. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the beast park!”
Chapter 7
ULF RODE OUT AHEAD, STANDING UP ON THE foot bars of his ATV, bouncing over the bumps in the paddock. Inspector Black rode behind, sitting carefully on his seat.
“How big is this place?” the Inspector called.
“Ten thousand acres,” Ulf shouted. He pointed across the valley to the lake and the forest, then over to Sunset Mountain and the hills beyond. “Everything you can see!”
They sped past a bulltoxic, a long-haired bull-like beast that was chewing a bush of red berries.
“It only eats poisonous plants,” Ulf shouted. “Its poo could melt your shoes.”
Ulf looked back as the Inspector swerved to avoid a pile of green dung.
He rode on down to the freshwater lake. A crocoon slid into the water, and a rat fish jumped.
Ulf waited for the Inspector to catch up. “Here we have a wartolump,” he said.
The Inspector stopped his bike.
In the shallows, a beast was snoozing, its fat, warty stomach rising and falling, and its thick lips flapping as it snored. It had two short tusks.
“It came from a lake where the water was polluted. Its tusks were rotting,” Ulf said. “Dr. Fielding had to file them down. When they’ve grown back, it’ll be released somewhere new.”
Inspector Black took his notepad from his pocket. “And what’s that one over there?” In the reeds, an ingo was wading, spearing fish with its tail.
“The ingo speared a broken bottle in a canal,” Ulf explained. “It was spotted by the lockkeeper, and Dr. Fielding brought it in. She had to treat its tail. It needed thirty-six stitches.”
Ulf revved his engine and sped off up the valley, heading toward a high-netted enclosure the size of an aircraft hangar. This was the aviary, where the winged beasts lived.
Ulf slowed down as he rode into a wire-mesh tunnel that ran through the aviary from one end to the other.
In the first section of the aviary, a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion took off from an oak tree. It flew toward Ulf and gripped the wire mesh with its claws, beating its wings.
“Is that a griffin?” the Inspector asked, riding alongside Ulf.
The griffin sneezed.
Ulf nodded. “It was brought in suffering from the flu,” he said. The griffin took off and flew back to the tree, coughing.
In the next section, vampire owls were sleeping, perched in a row on a high wire.
“It’s like a zoo here,” the Inspector said.
“This is not a zoo at all,” Ulf told him. “It’s a rescue home. All the beasts are released back into the wild when they’re ready.”
The Inspector looked at Ulf’s hairy feet. “What about you, werewolf? Are you going to be released?”
“One day,” Ulf said, accelerating away through the mesh tunnel and out the end of the aviary.
Outside was a huge golden bird as big as a plane. This was the Roc. It was lying down with its beak on the ground. Its golden feathers had lost their shine and some had fallen out.
Inspector Black skidded to a halt. “That one’s escaped,” he said, seeing the huge beast out in the open.
“It’s okay,” Ulf told him. “We’re trying to get it to fly away.”
“Why? What happened to it?” the Inspector asked.
“It got blown off course in a storm,” Ulf said. “Dr. Fielding says it’s homesick.”
Ulf pulled up beside the Roc’s feeding trough. He dug his hands into the pile of beast feed and pulled out two meaty steaks.
“Come on,” he said to the Roc. “They’re tasty. You need to get strong.”
He threw them high into the air. “Jump for them!” he called.
The steaks fell to the ground. The Roc sniffed one, then pushed it away with its beak.
“It doesn’t look well at all,” the Inspector said.
“Dr. Fielding’s trying to make it better.”
Ulf accelerated off along the track. Up ahead, nestled into the hillside, were four enormous transparent domes. He headed for them, slowing to let the Inspector alongside.
“Greenhouses?” Inspector Black asked.
“Biodomes,” Ulf explained. “They’re for the extreme-weather beasts. They’re entirely self-regulating and temperature controled.”
Each biodome was three hundred feet wide and one hundred fifty feet high.
Ulf stopped his bike. “Wait a second. Dr. Fielding asked me to feed the jeepers creepers.”
The tropical biodome contained a thick jungle. Ulf pulled the lever on the side of the dome, and inside one section a hatch opened from the ground. Out rose half a cow on a spike.
Ulf watched as the vegetation started to move. Creeping vines slithered from the trees and crawled from the ground. Leaves parted to expose gaping green mouths. They squeezed and chomped and chewed the cow.
“Flesh-eating plants,” Ulf said.
The Inspector’s eye started twitching again.
Ulf hopped back on his bike and rode to the desert dome. “In here we’ve got a sand whale,” he c
alled.
Up ahead was the snow dome. “And in there we’ve got frostbiters.”
Ulf rode to the final biodome. It was shaking and flashing. Thunder and lightning were crashing inside. “The storm beasts!” he called.
“PARDON?” the Inspector shouted. “YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP. I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”
“A FLOCK OF THUNDERLARKS AND TWO ELECTRODACTYLS!” Ulf shouted.
As the Inspector stopped his bike to note everything down, Ulf rode on, pointing west to a rocky hill dotted with caves.
“And that’s Troll Crag up there,” he called. “All the trolls live in caves and underground tunnels.”
Inspector Black followed, holding his hat on.
“This way,” Ulf called.
They turned down into a marsh, and a swarm of mosquitoes as big as crows rose from the ground and flew toward them.
“Hurry up!” Ulf said. “They can suck a pint of blood in five seconds.”
Quickly, the Inspector twisted his ATV’s throttle. Its wheels spun in the wet ground, spraying mud up his pants.
Ulf tried not to laugh as the Inspector’s ATV lurched forward. They hurtled side by side down the track and bumped onto a wooden bridge. Ulf looked back. The giant mosquitoes were settling back onto the marsh.
Ulf and the Inspector crossed a stream to the foot of Sunset Mountain.
Inspector Black looked up. The mountain was pitted with black shadows moving upward, writhing between the rocks.
“They’re rock-eating beasts,” Ulf explained. “They’re called kracks.”
“What else is up there?”
“Listen,” Ulf said.
Ulf and Inspector Black turned off their ATV engines. From high above came a sound like tiny bells tinkling.
“Whistling mimis,” Ulf said.
The Inspector wrote in his notepad.
“Why are you writing everything down?” Ulf asked.
The Inspector tapped his pencil to his nose. “I must make a note of every detail if I’m to catch this criminal.”
“But what has any of this got to do with the dragon?”
“I’m dealing with a beast hunter,” the Inspector replied. “To catch him, I must first get inside his mind. I must think like him. There are beasts here that, given the opportunity, he would love to get his hands on.”
Ulf gulped.
“You mean he could come here?”
The Inspector closed his notepad and revved his engine loudly. “Right, what’s next?”
Chapter 8
ULF ZOOMED OFF, FOLLOWING THE TRACK along the base of Sunset Mountain, down to a wide lagoon that led out to sea. “The sea beasts,” he called.
On the far side of the lagoon, between the rocks, tall iron gates kept the sea beasts in. Running along the northwest shore were the marine facilities, deep-water docks, and the RSPCB speedboat and submersible.
Ulf pointed to a seven-headed hydra basking in the examination bay.
“The hydra was hit by a cruise liner,” he explained. “When its eighth head grows back, we’ll release it.”
He sped along the side of the lagoon.
“Look! There’s a razorjaw.”
Just out from the shore, a baby razorjaw was jumping through the waves, following them. It looked like a thin red shark with spines along its back. As they watched it, a larger razorjaw burst out of the water.
“That’s the mother. She was rescued from fishing nets. She gave birth here in the lagoon.”
Inspector Black stopped his ATV and scribbled something in his notepad. “Interesting how the mother sticks so close to her baby,” he said.
“She protects it,” Ulf replied.
As they rode off again, the middle of the lagoon started to bubble and boil. A red flame flashed under the water. The Inspector’s handlebars wobbled.
“Are you okay?” Ulf called.
The bubbling stopped.
“I thought the water just caught fire,” the Inspector said.
“That’s the flaming squid,” Ulf explained. “It’s having its barnacles scraped. We’ve also got a petrified impossipus, two blind megamauls, and a pack of weed dogs. Sometimes we have mermaids, too.”
They rode on past the end of the lagoon and then higher and higher up a hill.
At the top, they stopped and looked out over a vast moor. Beasts were roaming in fields separated by electric fences.
“This place is enormous,” the Inspector said, amazed.
“These are the Great Grazing Grounds,” Ulf told him, riding down the slope.
“Open,” he called. A gate opened automatically, and they rode in.
An armorpod, a big beast with spines all over its body, rolled across the track, blocking their way.
“We’ll have to go around it,” Ulf said, steering in a wide arc, giving the armorpod plenty of room.
The Inspector stopped his ATV, beeping his horn. The armorpod snorted, and a long trunk emerged from the ball of spines. The trunk slowly stretched out and sniffed the Inspector. He jumped up onto his seat.
“Don’t worry, it’s a plant eater,” Ulf said. “Big but friendly.”
The armorpod sneezed, splattering the Inspector with sticky green mucus.
Ulf giggled, then twisted his ATV’s throttle and rode out across the moor. “Come on,” he called.
The Inspector followed as a bouncing boogle sprang down the hill. It had eyes all over its body and a long tail coiled beneath it like a spring. It leaped straight over the Inspector, letting out a squeak, then dived into a hole in the ground.
“What’s that stink?” the Inspector asked, covering his nose with his handkerchief.
“Fear scent,” Ulf said. “Boogles are incredibly nervous beasts.”
Inspector Black rode from the stench as fast as he could, straight into a pool of slime. His ATV’s wheels spun and he skidded to a stop. Up ahead, an Emperor slug the size of a car was munching on the leaves of a tree. The Inspector stepped off his ATV, his shoes squelching in the slug’s slime as he pushed his ATV free.
Halfway across the moor, Ulf was waiting. He pointed to what looked like a field of boulders and bushes. “Over there’s a herd of tankons,” he said.
Inspector Black pulled alongside.
“Where?” he asked. “I can’t see anything.”
“They camouflage themselves,” Ulf explained. “Look closely.”
The boulders and bushes were moving.
Ulf and the Inspector rode on. In other fields there were long-eared jackalopes, unga-bungas, and a duck-billed sphynx. Ahead, the track rose up onto a long metal bridge that ran above twelve high brick-walled pens. These were the meat eaters’ enclosures.
“We have to watch out in the next bit,” Ulf said.
Ulf and the Inspector rode up onto the bridge, steering carefully. It had no sides to stop them falling off the edge.
The bridge clattered as they rode along it. They looked down on either side. Below, meat-eating beasts were growling and grunting, snorting and roaring.
“It’s not a good idea to get too close, so we feed them from above,” Ulf said.
A pack of demondogs was gnawing on a pile of bones. They looked up, snarling.
“I hope they’re not hungry now,” Inspector Black said.
A pigeon flew past, and the Inspector wobbled, nearly riding off the edge of the bridge.
“Mind the giranha!” Ulf called as a beast with the body of a giraffe and the head of a piranha stretched its long neck and snapped its jaws. It swallowed the pigeon, feathers and all.
“That was close!” Ulf said. “It could have eaten your head.”
They rode along the narrow bridge as carefully as possible, over the gorgon’s enclosure. The gorgon was climbing to the top of a tree, its hair a tangle of writhing serpents. They sped over a swirling black hole that was screeching and sucking in insects, then a feareater with eyes that burned red with fire.
At the end of the bridge they carefully rode down the other side.
<
br /> Inspector Black was trembling.
Ulf switched his headlight on, lighting the way into the Dark Forest. He weaved between trees, jumping his ATV over tree roots and fallen branches. The Dark Forest was his favorite bit—it was where Tiana lived.
A stranglasnake dangled from a branch, hissing at the Inspector as he passed underneath. Inspector Black bumped along behind Ulf, glancing around nervously. From the trees came the sounds of forest beasts: hoots and squawks, howls and screeches.
In the shadows, Ulf could see the sparkles of fairies. “There have always been fairies in the forest,” he explained.
“And there always will be,” a little voice said.
Ulf looked up as Tiana flew from the trees and landed on his handlebars.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m showing Inspector Black around the beast park,” Ulf told her.
Ulf slowed down and looked back. The Inspector’s hat had caught on a branch and he’d stopped to retrieve it. As the Inspector reached up to grab it, a tree crab pinched him on the nose.
Ulf and Tiana giggled.
Then, all of a sudden, the ground shook and they heard a trumpeting roar.
“You’d better get out of here,” Tiana said, taking off into the air.
The Inspector was clutching his hat. “What was that noise?” he asked.
“That’s the biganasty,” Ulf said. “We don’t want to get in its way.”
Branches crunched and snapped as a beast crashed among the trees behind them. Ulf twisted back the throttle on his ATV.
“Come on, I’ll show you a shortcut,” Tiana said, flying ahead.
Ulf and the Inspector followed Tiana’s sparkles down a long dark trail. They passed the swamp where the swamp monster lived. The black water was bubbling and swirling. They rode up steep banks and down deep hollows, the fairy whizzing ahead of them, guiding them through the Dark Forest.
At last they came out into the sunlight. Ahead of them, beyond the paddock and the freshwater lake, was Farraway Hall.
Ulf skidded to a halt. “Thanks, Tiana,” he said.
“I’ll see you later,” the fairy replied, circling his ATV. “I’m off to collect primrose oil.” She smiled at Ulf, then shot past the Inspector back into the forest.