Target: Nobody

by Tommy Donbavand

  I was still none the wiser. “Your gifts?”

  “I have what you laypersons often call ‘second sight’,” said Claret. “All the Astounding Claret has to do is touch something which has been in contact with the missing person and he can follow their energy line right to them. Works for missing belongings too.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “That’s rubbish,” scoffed Fangs. “And even if it was possible, it’s no substitute for good, solid secret-agent work.”

  Claret smiled. “Fangs isn’t exactly a fan of my new career,” he said. “Nor does he believe that I can use astral-projection to travel outside my own body to possess another living creature’s.”

  I could feel my eyes getting wider with every new claim. “And can you?”

  “Of course he can’t,” snapped Fangs.

  “I certainly can,” Claret retorted. “It takes up a lot of energy but, if I concentrate hard enough, I can inhabit the body of any living thing.” He gave me a wink. “You wouldn’t believe the number of missing pets I’ve found that way.”

  “How did you learn to do it?” I asked.

  “I didn’t,” Claret replied. “It all happened by accident, years ago. Fangs had a pet rat when he was a kid. Stoker, it was called. It escaped one day while he was at school, and I knew I’d have to find it before he got home or he’d end up in tears.”

  “Tears?” Fangs muttered. “As if.”

  Claret winked at me again. “So, there I am, crawling around on the floor looking for this rat when, suddenly, I’ve got whiskers and I’m staring up at myself. I thought I must have banged my head at first – but it turned out I’d left my own body and possessed Stoker’s!”

  Fangs opened Cube’s fridge and poured himself a glass of milk. “Then why have you come here? Can’t you just possess a pigeon and fly off to find Cube?”

  “Anyway, when Cube disappeared, Phlem called me,” said Claret, ignoring Fangs’s last remark. “He never wanted me to retire and set up on my own. He said my skills could prove useful in certain MP1 cases, so I promised to help out whenever I could.”

  He turned to look around the worktops. “Now, I just need something that Cube has touched recently – aha!” He snatched up a spray bottle filled with pink liquid. “ ‘Heat-resistant cooking spray,’ ” he said, reading the handwritten label on its side.

  Fangs almost choked on his milk. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “It does sound like one of Cube’s inventions, though,” I said.

  Claret slumped back into a chair, his chest heaving and his eyelids fluttering.

  Fangs watched his dad with a blank expression.

  Then Claret sat bolt upright again and pointed straight ahead. “I have it!” he cried. “The Astounding Claret can see Cube’s energy line.”

  “What does it look like?” I asked.

  “Long and yellow,” replied Claret. “But he’s far away. His energy line is wearing very thin.”

  “It’s not the only thing wearing thin,” said Fangs.

  “The Astounding Claret needs a plane,” said Claret, jumping up. “I’ll go and arrange one with Phlem.” He raced out of the kitchen, his shiny purple cape wafting out behind him as he ran.

  Thirty minutes later we were climbing through the clouds in the MP1 private jet. Claret was at the controls so he could “follow” Cube’s energy line. Fangs and I were in the cabin, talking to Phlem via a video link on my laptop.

  “Agents Brown and Enigma,” he rasped. “Anything to report?”

  “The flight’s not bad,” said Fangs, “but I don’t think much of the pilot.”

  “I don’t care what you think,” Phlem said. “I’m pulling out all the stops to find Professor Cubit.”

  “It’s your call,” said Fangs. “But, in the meantime, there’s a village somewhere that’s badly missing its idiot.”

  Phlem ignored the sarcastic comment. “Agent Brown, you will find a flight case beneath your seat containing your gadgets for this assignment.”

  I slid the case out and put it on the table.

  “How can we have gadgets if the man who makes them has been kidnapped?” asked Fangs.

  “These are the inventions Cube most recently logged into the MP1 stores,” Phlem explained. “We’re reasonably certain he’s worked out any glitches.”

  Fangs sighed.

  I opened the case and then jumped back in surprise as something flew up into the air and began to whizz around the cabin.

  “This is what Cube calls the Bat ‘n’ Ball,” said Phlem.

  I studied the gadget. It was a tennis ball with a pair of bat’s wings stuck onto it. “How do we control it?” I asked.

  “I’m uploading the relevant software to your laptop and Smartphone as we speak,” said Phlem.

  Next, I took a bar of soap from the case. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “According to Cube’s paperwork, it’s known as Sticky Soap,” Phlem replied.

  “I don’t even want to ask…” said Fangs.

  “You don’t need to,” said Phlem. “It does exactly what the name says. It’s soap mixed with powerful glue. One wash and you’re stuck.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find a way to make use of it,” I said.

  “And the last one?” Fangs asked, peering into the now empty case. “The madness usually comes in threes…”

  “Actually, you’re already wearing the final gadget, Agent Enigma,” said Phlem with a hint of a smile. “You have been since you collected your dry-cleaning from the MP1 laundry.”

  Fangs stood and looked down at himself. “What?”

  “Cube calls it Seat of Your Pants,” Phlem went on. “There are chair legs built into the fabric of your trousers. To activate them, just put your hands in your back pocket and press the button.”

  Cautiously, Fangs moved into the cabin aisle and then followed Phlem’s instructions. Four poles slid out from my boss’s trousers – two from the trouser legs and two from the waistband – to form the legs of a chair.

  Fangs sat back. “This is actually quite comfortable,” he said. “It will come in really useful if I need a sit-down in the middle of a busy assignment. Cube’s finally designed something that wor—”

  There was a flash and a spark. Then the front chair legs expanded and catapulted my boss along the length of the cabin and through the curtain which separated us from the cockpit. Fangs landed on his dad’s lap.

  CRASH!

  “This is turning into an exciting day!” Claret smiled. “First the Astounding Claret finds Cube’s energy line – and now he gets an unexpected cuddle from his son.”

  “I’m not cuddling you,” Fangs protested, working the button in his back pocket to try to retract the chair legs.

  “Well, you should be,” said Claret. “The Astounding Claret has figured out exactly where Cube’s energy line ends. We’re going to the Greek island of Rhodes.”

  The telescopic chair legs shrank back – but not quite all the way, forcing Fangs to walk out of the cockpit as though he was wearing a pair of stilts.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had another drink,” he mumbled.

  Tuesday 0804 hours: International Airport, Rhodes

  I called the traffic control tower at Rhodes airport to give them our secret MP1 password, “zombie brains”. We were given permission to land at the far side of the airfield. Claret taxied the jet into a hangar that had been specially reserved for us.

  We disembarked quickly, although Fangs stepped cautiously down the stairs, like he was walking over hot coals.

  “Are you OK, boss?” I asked.

  “Of course I’m not OK,” he replied. “I’m scared Cube’s stupid chair trousers might launch me into orbit again. I’m never getting my dry-cleaning done at MP1 again, Puppy. I might find scorpion stings embedded in my bow tie next time.”

  We made our way to the main terminal, where we mingled with holidaymakers and locals alike. I noticed a black cat lurking behind us and stopped to
tickle it under the chin. The cat purred and rubbed up against my legs.

  “Where next?” I asked, standing up.

  “I’m not sure,” Claret replied. “Cube’s energy line is diffusing, making it difficult for the Astounding Claret to follow it further.”

  “Of course it is,” said Fangs. “Whenever he’s called upon to give specific information, the Astounding Claret loses the trail.”

  “Then what do you propose we do?” Claret demanded.

  “We do it the old-fashioned way,” said Fangs. “We interrogate the locals.” He spun round and grabbed the black cat, then held it at arm’s length. “I know a witch’s cat when I see one,” he snarled. “Why have you been following us?”

  The cat hissed, then he karate-chopped Fangs on the neck, kicked him in the stomach and flipped him onto his back. He ran up Fangs’s chest and glared down into his face. “My name is Feline Scamper. I’m a local secret agent based here in Rhodes and attached to Monster Protection, 2nd Unit.”

  “That’s the mainland Europe division,” I said, helping my boss to his feet as the cat leapt to the floor. “We didn’t call ahead for local assistance.”

  “I was already at the airport, tracking someone,” said Feline. “Then I heard the password ‘zombie brains’ had been used, and I thought I’d better check out what my fellow agents were up to.”

  “Who are you tracking?” asked Claret.

  “Someone who is here to collect a delivery,” said Feline. “The tenth this week. All identical wooden crates, all flying in from Syria. They pass through the security scanners without a problem, but something about them feels wrong to me.”

  “Now that’s a real spy talking,” said Fangs with a grin. “Working off clues and hunches. That’s how we’ll find Cube in the end. None of this psychic nonsense.”

  “Who’s Cube?” asked Feline.

  “Professor Hubert Cubit, the head of MP1’s technical division,” I replied. “He was snatched from London last night, and we believe he’s been brought to Rhodes. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Well, one of us believes that,” said Fangs with a glance at his dad.

  “I’m telling you, his energy line ends here,” said Claret.

  “Perhaps we could help each other out,” Feline suggested. “After all, we’re both on Monster Protection cases on the same island. Maybe one of my fellow agents has some information about this missing friend of yours.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I said. “First, though, we’ll try and help you. Tell us about these crates.”

  “They’ve all been sealed with a highly sophisticated numerical lock,” Feline explained, “and we don’t know the access code to look inside. The same person has collected all of the crates. We could arrest her, but we don’t want to scare off the end buyer.”

  “Her?” said Fangs.

  Feline smiled. “That’s her at the arrivals gate. The one in the black dress. Her name is Marmalade Springs.”

  Fangs removed his sunglasses and studied the woman. She had long, curly black hair and sparkling brown eyes. “Getting the code should be no problem.” He slipped his sunglasses back on. “Give me five minutes.”

  “No!” cried Feline. “You’ll blow the whole operation.”

  But it was too late. My boss was already hurrying towards the woman – and Claret was right beside him. Feline and I dashed after them.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Fangs demanded of Claret.

  “To interrogate the suspect with you,” said his dad.

  “I don’t need some old man to help me talk to a beautiful woman.”

  “I think you’ll find that this old man still has a few tricks up his sleeve,” said Claret.

  The two vampires were so lost in their argument that they collided with Marmalade Springs, sending her crashing to the ground. She cried out in surprise.

  Fangs took Marmalade’s hand to help her to her feet.

  “I’m so sorry, miss,” he said. “We didn’t see you.”

  Marmalade snatched her hand away, only for Claret to grab it.

  “What my insolent son means to say is that he didn’t see you,” the older vampire soothed. “I was simply dazzled by your incredible beauty.”

  But Marmalade pulled her hand away from Claret too. She looked around, nervously. “Go away!” she said, snatching up her purse. “I’m meeting someone.”

  “Who?” said Fangs.

  “Nobody!” Marmalade hissed. Then she hurried away.

  “Thanks for that!” Feline scowled. “I’ve been following Miss Springs all week hoping to find out what she’s been collecting and for whom, and now all that work is ruined.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Claret with a wink. “I think this must have dropped out of her purse when she fell over.” He held up a piece of paper on which was scribbled a six-digit number. “I think it’s her phone number.”

  “Or it could be the code for the locks on those crates,” suggested Feline.

  “The code,” said Claret. “Yes, of course. I used my skills as a pick-pocket to retrieve the secret code.”

  “You did nothing of the sort,” scoffed Fangs. “Her purse was wide open, and the piece of paper was sticking out. I could have taken it myself.”

  “No need to be jealous that you didn’t, son,” said Claret. “Now where are these crates?”

  Feline led us through airport security and into a warehouse filled with the bags and boxes that had been unloaded from that day’s various inbound flights.

  “There it is,” said Feline, gesturing at a large wooden crate in the corner of the shed. There was an air vent in the top and a computer keypad fixed to the front. “It’s exactly the same as the last nine.”

  “Except you’ll get to find out what’s inside this one,” Claret said. “All thanks to the Astounding Claret.” He took a step towards the keypad.

  Fangs snatched the sheet of paper from his dad’s hand. “You’ve done your bit for today. Leave this to a real vampire spy…” He tapped the code – 180910 – into the numerical lock. There was a click!, and a whirr!, and the front panel of the crate dropped open to reveal – hamsters!

  Thousands and thousands of hamsters…

  A great furry tidal wave descended upon us, sweeping us off our feet and carrying us into the middle of the cargo shed.

  SQUEAK!

  I don’t have the words to describe the sound of several thousand hamsters, all squeaking at the same time. The crate must have been sound-proofed as we’d heard nothing before Fangs had opened it.

  Fangs! I’d lost sight of my boss in the sudden chaos. I gazed across the sea of hamsters. A hand was pushing up through the furry mass, a hand that was clutching my Spookie award. I couldn’t believe he’d actually brought it with him.

  “Forget me,” Fangs croaked. “Just save the award!”

  I forced my way through the animals, taking as much care as I could not to stand on any of them, and grabbed Fangs’s hand. Claret also clamped a hand around my boss’s wrist to help me pull him out.

  Fangs’s head broke the surface of the hamsters. A small, beige hamster was trying to burrow into his ear. I pulled it out and sent it scurrying on its away.

  Claret hugged his son. “I thought I’d lost you,” he cried. “And I didn’t want to have to explain that you’d met your end at the tiny paws of a few hamsters.”

  “A few hamsters?” spat Fangs. “There are thousands of the things!”

  The whole warehouse suddenly started shaking. No, not just the warehouse, but the ground as well. I grabbed a trolley and hung onto it as bags and boxes tumbled off their piles and onto the ground around us.

  “It’s an earthquake!” I cried, as everything around us started to move very, very fast. One second I was clinging onto the luggage trolley, and the next, I was on the other side of the warehouse, holding Fangs’s hand, and talking incredibly quickly. Claret and Feline had also moved in the blink of an eye.

  Then as suddenly as
it had sped up, the world slowed down again.

  “Now that,” I said, “was weird.”

  Tuesday 1140 hours: MP2 Headquarters, Rhodes

  From the outside, the MP2 Headquarters looked like an ordinary holiday villa in the hills, but, inside, was a brightly lit and air-conditioned corridor that led deep into the mountainside. Feline showed us into a modern laboratory staffed entirely by witches. One of them cackled as she limped across the room to us.

  “So these are the agents from MP1?” she said. “They look delicious, especially this one.” She sidled up to Fangs and squeezed his arm like she was testing the freshness of a loaf of bread.

  Fangs didn’t react. I think he was still stunned from being smothered by hamsters.

  “That’ll do, Kora,” said Feline. “I’ve brought these people here to help them, not cook them. She’s a brilliant geologist,” the cat whispered to me as the witch hobbled away, “but she just can’t leave her old Gingerbread House days behind.”

  Once the earthquake had ended, Feline had called in a team of witches’ cats to shepherd the hamsters back into their crate – but it had still taken over an hour. Fangs had spent most of that time sitting silently on an upturned suitcase, clutching the Spookie award.

  Kora launched a complex piece of software on her computer. “The earthquake registered five point nine on the Richter scale,” she said, indicating a graph filled with jagged lines. “Except it wasn’t really an earthquake.”

  “Of course it was,” said Claret. “The earth was quaking. We felt it.”

  Kora shook her head. Her lank, green hair slapped against her cheeks. “It’s only an earthquake if there is an epicentre – a point where the disturbance starts. Whatever this was, it happened all over the world at exactly the same time.”

  She launched a page of news clippings. An “earthquake” had been reported in London, Rio, Sydney, New York and Beijing. It had happened everywhere at once.