Taking the smallest slurp of her drink in the world (microbes would have downed more in one go), she wondered if Tank's absence was in any way related to the fact that Peter hadn't turned up. At first, she thought that she'd just missed him. It wouldn't have been an unreasonable assumption, not given the crowd of thousands that had turned up to support such a good cause. But on arriving at the pub, she'd bumped into Richie on her way to the toilets. 'Uncomfortable' would have been the very best that could be said about their encounter. After an awkward pause that lasted way too long, and with Richie just wanting to scoot past her in a very narrow corridor, Janice decided that she at least had to ask. So she had. She'd asked the young lacrosse player if Peter had turned up to watch, or was at least here in the pub. The answer had troubled her more than a little. Richie, despite clearly not wanting to engage Janice in conversation at all, had gone on to explain how Peter was supposed to have been there, and how unusual it was for him not to have been. That, combined with the missing-in-action Tank, led her to be concerned for both of them. Janice figured if Richie was more than a little anxious, then there was indeed something to worry about. After the painful conversation, Janice had done something that only a few hours ago would have seemed impossible for her to even contemplate. She'd phoned Peter. First on his mobile, and then, after no response and no option to even leave a message, at home. Getting through to his home answer phone, she even left a message asking him to call her back on her mobile as soon as possible, that's how worried she was. That was over ninety minutes ago, and still he hadn't returned her call. So here she was, afternoon dragging into evening, clinging onto her best hope of finding out what had happened to him and his friend, by hanging around the remaining sports players that still resided in the very noisy pub. A sense of real foreboding hung over her.
43
A Captive Audience
It had all happened so suddenly, it was hard to make sense of it really. Having just stepped off the monorail at Salisbridge station with Tim (both in their human forms, with Tim having had intensive training over the last week or so about how to hold his complex alter ego together) they'd come back from a tour of the Purbeck Peninsula nursery ring, when all of a sudden they'd been surrounded by strange dark shapes, both dragon and human alike. Armed with lethal looking, dark coloured swords, it was blatantly obvious to everyone on and off the monorail that they had little choice but to comply with their demands. There were simply too many of them to do anything else. Marched from the station to the market square like lambs to the slaughter, nothing could have possibly prepared the two of them for what awaited them there. It was like something from a nightmare, but no nightmare on earth could possibly have been that bad. Off to one side, a group of very ordinary dragons lay surrounded by this new enemy. But that wasn't what turned theirs and the other detainees' stomachs. In the far corner of the square, a towering pile of butchered dragon bodies stood higher than most two storey houses. The sight made them tremble with fear, and they both started to gag as the smell of death wafted in their direction. As their group was marched across the market place, Peter knew things were as bad as they could get and that fate had conspired to put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, once again caught up in an unimaginable horror that couldn't possibly get any worse. How wrong he'd been! As the prisoners from the monorail were guided into the middle of another group of guards, Peter watched, fascinated by a structure that was being constructed at the far end of the massive square, some kind of metal monstrosity that required almost as many beings to build it, as were guarding the captives off to one side. As they continued walking and were about to enter the guarded area, two terrifyingly huge swords dropped down in front of both him and Tim, simultaneously.
"Not you two," barked the guard. "You two... over there!" he said, nodding his giant scaly head off to the left.
Terrified out of their minds, Peter and Tim headed off in the direction that had been indicated, hemmed in by their captors. Abruptly the crackling, spluttering and hissing of dragon flame caused them to look over their shoulders at the massive structure being built. Whatever it was, it was big. Strong as well, observed Peter. Taking his eyes off the construction effort, he'd turned round just in time to see his surrounding captors all part in front of him, like a pair of stage curtains. He'd thought this nightmare couldn't get any worse, but now knew just how wrong he'd been. Instantly his body started to shake of its own volition. His mind used all its conscious will to command his form not to urinate (which it really wanted to do right now) and to try and curb the shaking.
"Ahhhhhhh... if it isn't my young friend!" boomed a loud, terrifying voice from in front of him. It was a voice that featured regularly in his nightmares, a voice that he'd told himself had gone forever and he would never hear again, a voice he'd encountered on that cold, winter's night. A voice belonging to a being who had very nearly killed him.
Manson stood surrounded by an entourage of dragon, naga and human shapes. Terrified as he was, Peter's brain had the capacity to recognise that some of the human shapes with him were actually nagas.
'This is it then,' he thought, 'the big play.'
"How nice of you to join us," announced the most frightening voice in the world.
He knew this was it. The end. There was no possible escape, and out of the corner of his eye he could just make out a heap of executed dragons. Sure he was next, Manson would get exactly what he wanted, exactly what he didn't get last time, on that cold, chilly night, just above where they now stood.
"I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed that you and this entire place," he said opening his arms wide, grandstanding, "weren't wiped from the face of this planet with my little bomb. It seems, BENTWHISTLE, that your luck knows no bounds. Rest assured, this time though, your luck's run out. There's not even the tiniest sliver left."
The smallest fraction of his brain smirked a little at the way in which Manson always seemed to be able to make the word Bentwhistle sound like something someone else's cat was doing in your garden right now.
By now Peter had resigned himself to his fate, a painful death at the hands of the being he hated the most on this planet. With that in mind, strangely, his body calmed down, allowing him to take everything in for almost the first time. As well as the guards in all their various forms, there appeared to be more important beings surrounding his nemesis, he judged. A woman stood at the far end of the line, clad fully in skin tight black, the look in her eyes pure evil. Peter thought he knew danger when he saw it. She might as well have had a massive red neon sign above her, with that very word written on it, and was to be avoided at all costs he knew. Next to her was a wizened old man who, by Peter's guess, had to be a dragon as well. He looked frail and weak, sitting as he was on a bench made of rock. Moving on, a sight that just made him angry, angrier than he could ever remember feeling, greeted him. A reasonably small, light green dragon stood, looking more than a little cocky. A white shape like a delicate rose blossomed across his stomach. A dragon Peter recognised, one he'd dealt with and one who'd not only betrayed him, but the king as well.