The Army of the Dead, Part 4

Flame was kneeling beside the wounded King Allfire, tears running down her cheeks, while the other dragons rounded on Count Geoffrey.
  “You’ve gone too far this time!” proclaimed Flicker, who was holding him firmly by the neck.
  “No!” King Allfire protested weakly. “It’s… it’s not him!”
  “The king is entering a near-death madness!” exclaimed Sir Burnevere. “That settles it; the time has come to rid ourselves finally of Count Geoffrey of Monmouth!”
But then a powerful voice cut across the Lake, and reached the dragons assembled on the shore. It belonged to Mona the Vampire, and it originated from a large wooden barge on which Mona was riding.
  “Stop!” came the command. “King Allfire’s right! Can’t you see? It’s not Count Geoffrey – it’s Merle!”
Mona was nearing the shore. On the barge with her were six figures clad entirely in white.
  “The Ladies of Ovenon!” exclaimed Sir Flicker, dropping Geoffrey absently to the ground. “Mona has brought them to us.”
  “But why?” queried Lady Tantrel. “And if Merle’s responsible for all this, where is she?”
A magical wind whipped up behind the assembled dragons. They turned around to see Merle standing before them, but she was not as she had been before.
  “Insignificant fools!” boomed Merle’s titanic voice from one hundred feet above them. “Now shall you face me, puny dragons, and all the powers of Hell!”

During the course of the adventure, Mona had worked out several things about the situation of Camelhot’s final battle, based on her knowledge of Arthurian lore coupled with the scant information that Merlin had given her. Now she knew how to deal with Merle, and she had a shrewd suspicion about what would happen when she did so.
  “The ideals of chivalry and honour that Camelhot stands for must not survive!” Merle proclaimed. “Tales must not be told throughout the ages of King Allfire and his Knights of the Square Table! I will put an end to this, and none shall stop me!”
  “Merle!” Mona cried boldly, leaping off the barge as it came in to moor. “I will stop you!”
  “My power is too strong for you now, Mona the Vampire!” Merle thundered. “You will join these pitiful fools in tasting my wrath!”
  “No,” Mona replied calmly, and whipped her Dracula amulet from around her neck. A golden glow enveloped Merle’s colossal form, just as it had done before with the waters of the Lake. Merle screamed and tried to break free, but Mona sent up some lightning with her free hand, which bound Merle to the spot.
  “This amulet has more powers than simply warding off undead evil, as I’ve recently discovered,” Mona declaimed. “Now we will see you as you truly are, Merle the Wizard!”
  “Egad, sir!” Galahot exclaimed. “She’s changing!”
  “She’s shrinking, too,” said Hotbreath. “Mona’s magic is destroying her.”
  “Not quite destroying her,” Mona told him. “More, sort of… purifying her. Watch and see.”
Merle’s wizened old witch-features were melting away. Her face was becoming covered in white hair, a silver wand appeared in her hand, and green robes emblazoned with a yellow sun were wrapped around her body. The golden light abated, and Merle now stood revealed in her true form.
  “I knew it!” Mona cried. “Merlin!”

Merlin blinked a few times, clearly disorientated. He peered quizzically at Mona, and began to scratch his head thoughtfully.
  “Do you know me, child?” he asked, puzzled.
  “Of course I know you!” Mona exclaimed. “You sent me here! No wonder you were so cagey about who the real threat was here – it was you all the time! You are Merle!”
  “Merle was a part of me,” Merlin replied. “An evil, unnatural, warped part of me, but now you have destroyed her, Mona the Vampire. I am grateful for this service. Yet how is it that you recognise my true form? You know me only as Merle.”
  “Well, yeah, in this time I do,” Mona told him. “But, back where I come from, we’re allies! You were to one who sent me here to sort out this mess in the first place!”
  “Did I, now?” Merlin chuckled. “A funny thing, time, isn’t it? It appears you have succeeded in the task I gave you, then – Merle can no longer cause any harm in this time and place – all is as it should be.”
  “Well, that’s all well and good,” cried Princess Flame, “but what about Daddy?”
  “You must leave me now, Puff,” Allfire told her softly. “My time grows short. You and Flicker must take care of Camelhot – the legend of King Allfire is over.”
  “No, it’s not!” Mona exclaimed. “Don’t you see, Your Majesty? It’s only just begun.”
  “What do you mean, Mona?” asked King Allfire, puzzled. “This wound is fatal.”
  “Yes, I’m sorry about that,” Count Geoffrey apologised. “But Merle was controlling me.”
  “I know,” nodded King Allfire. “She was the real enemy all along; not you, Count Geoffrey.”
  “Your Majesty, you don’t have to die!” Mona exclaimed, sensing that the conversation was drifting off-course. “I’ve brought the Ladies of Ovenon for you. They will take you to their magical isle, where your wound will be nursed and cured!”
  “Then you can come back to Camelhot!” Flame cried joyfully.
  “No,” Allfire sighed sadly. “I know what I must do. My place is on Ovenon now – Camelhot is yours, and Flicker’s; I know you’ll take care of it well.”
  “No!” sobbed Princess Flame. “You can’t leave us, Daddy!”
  “I have no choice, Puff,” King Allfire sighed. “My time is complete. Yet before I travel to Ovenon, there is something that must be done.”
King Allfire heaved himself into a sitting position, and picked up Excaliburn from the ground beside him.
  “Sir Burnevere,” King Allfire said, “take Excaliburn to the Lake, throw it in, and tell me what you see.”
Mona nodded in approval at this, as she watched Sir Burnevere take Excaliburn from King Allfire. She flitted along beside him as he went down to the Lake.
  “Now, don’t be telling him you see only the wind and waves, and then try to keep the sword for yourself,” Mona warned him, thinking of her Arthurian stories again.
  “Of course not!” exclaimed Sir Burnevere. “What do you think I am, Mona?”
Burnevere flung Excaliburn far out into the Lake. A scaly hand emerged from its surface, caught the sword, and pulled it back underneath the water. Burnevere described this scene to King Allfire, and he smiled happily.
  “The magic sword has been returned to the Lady of the Lake,” Allfire nodded in approval. “She will keep it safe until such time as its powers are needed once again. Now I am ready to go to Ovenon. Thank you for ensuring my safe delivery, Mona – I owe you much gratitude for all you have done.”
The silent, mysterious Ladies of Ovenon came up to King Allfire and carried him carefully to their barge. As Flicker, Flame, Galahot, Hotbreath, Burnevere, Blaze, Tantrel, Count Geoffrey, Mona and Merlin all looked on, the Ladies laid King Allfire out flat in the middle of the vessel, and took up their positions surrounding him.
  “Oh, Flicker,” Flame blubbered. “I can’t bear this.”
  “It’s all right, Flame,” Flicker soothed her, holding her close to him. “Your father will be well taken care of on Ovenon, just as we will take care of Camelhot in his absence.”
Mona went down to the water’s edge as the Ladies were preparing to cast off. She smiled down at King Allfire, who seemed to be resigned to his fate.
  “You know, Mona, I’m so proud of all that we’ve done in Camelhot,” King Allfire half-smiled. “My only regret is that I won’t get to see my grandchild grow up.”
  “The important thing is that he will grow up,” Mona told him sagely, “thanks to you.”
The wooden barge sailed out onto the Lake, and was soon lost to view in the darkness.

Everyone was now feeling a bit numb. Mona was happy enough that things were as they should be, but she realised that it would be a while before the dragons came to terms with everything.
  “Hey,” said Sir Blaze suddenly, “where’s Mumsie?”
  “And Sir Loungelot!” realised Flicker. “They’re both gone!”
  “But where did they go?” asked Lady Tantrel.
  “Who’s to say?” said Mona. “They’ve obviously found their own path now, and so must the rest of you.”
  “We must return to Camelhot, sir,” asserted Sir Galahot. “With King Allfire and Queen Griddle gone, the new king and queen must take their place.”
  “What new king and queen?” asked Flame absently, still rather shocked.
  “Why, King Flicker and Queen Flame, of course!” exclaimed Sir Galahot. “We are your Knights of the Square Table now! Long live our new king and queen!”
  “Long live King Flicker and Queen Flame!” echoed Sir Burnevere, Sir Hotbreath and Sir Blaze.
  “And Prince or Princess whatever-it’s-going-to-be-called,” added Tantrel.
  “And what about you, Count Geoffrey?” asked King Flicker. “Would you like to return to Camelhot with us, or to Castle Threadbare?”
  “Neither!” declared Count Geoffrey. “I’m going home to Monmouth in order to pursue my lifelong ambition.”
  “And what might that be?” asked Flicker.
  “To become a published writer!” Count Geoffrey declared. “That has always been my dream.”
  “What are you going to write about?” asked Mona, intrigued.
  “Why, this, of course,” replied Count Geoffrey. “Camelhot! Everyone’s been saying that the tales of King Allfire and his Knights of the Square Table will be recounted for thousands of years, so someone’s got to get the ball rolling. That someone is me!”
  “Wait a minute,” said Mona. “You mean that you, Geoffrey of Monmouth, are going to write an account of the legend of Camelhot?”
  “Yes, I am,” Geoffrey replied. “I might change a few things, though. The table, for example; I’ve always preferred circles to squares. And the world of dragons and the world of humans do not tend to mix, come to think of it. If I make all the characters in the story human, I’ll have to change the names a bit. Instead of King Allfire, I’ll have King Arthur. Yes, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.”
  “That’s catchy,” remarked Flicker. “I’ll look forward to reading your stories, Count Geoffrey.”
  “What shall I be called in them, sir?” asked Sir Galahot.
  “Sir Galahad!” Count Geoffrey decided.
  “And me?” asked Sir Burnevere.
  “Sir Bedevere!” declared the budding chronicler.
  “And what about us?” asked Sir Hotbreath and Sir Blaze.
  “I’ll work on the rest later,” replied Count Geoffrey.
  “Whoa, this is heavy stuff,” remarked Mona. “And will Merle be in your chronicles?”
  “Well, I think I’ll change her quite a lot,” considered Count Geoffrey. “Instead of having Merle the Wizard, an evil old crone, I’ll have Merlin the Wizard, a wise old man who teaches the young King Arthur all he knows about right and wrong. Man, I’m just brimming over with good ideas. I must return to Monmouth immediately and write them all down. Farewell, my friends, farewell!”
And with that, Count Geoffrey took off into the night, thinking up more and more ideas to work into his first chronicle about the world of Camelot.

  “Now I, too, must be on my way,” said Merlin. “I have heard tell of a castle where an evil fiend has taken control and is seeking to use the fortress as a bastion of evil. The castle’s true master is on his way to reclaim his birthright, but he’s trapped in a cell in Nottingham. My help is required.”
  “That’s Knightmare!” Mona exclaimed excitedly. “You’re going to Knightmare Castle, to help Treguard! You’ll meet me there, too, eventually.”
  “I’ll look forward to that,” Merlin smiled, as he began to melt away into the darkness. “Farewell, knights of Camelhot. Farewell, Mona, until we meet again.”
  “Wait, Merlin!” cried Mona. “What about Merle – are you sure she’s gone forever? Merlin? Merlin!”
But Merlin had gone. Mona and the dragons began to head back towards Camelhot, more than a little affected by the night’s events.
  “Well, Mona, I suppose that you too will be heading home soon,” said Flicker. “Camelhot owes you much – thanks to your intervention, its future is assured.”
  “Just doing my job,” Mona grinned. “Good luck, Flicker – I know you’ll do a good job, even if you don’t make it into Geoffrey’s chronicles.”
  “What makes you think that I won’t?” asked Flicker, surprised.
  “Oh,” Mona shrugged, “just a hunch.”

Mona watched Sir Galahot, Lady Tantrel, Sir Blaze, Sir Burnevere and Sir Hotbreath enter the gates of Camelhot once again, followed by their king and queen, Flicker and Flame. Mona then returned to the Dream Caverns, but she did not head straight home. There was somewhere else she wanted to go first, where she had some questions to ask and some answers to find. Soon enough, Mona entered the Great Hall of Knightmare Castle, where Treguard and Merlin were having a conversation. They looked up when they saw her, and Merlin nodded slowly.
  “So,” the wizard intoned, “now you know.”
  “I know why you were so cagey about exactly who or what was threatening Camelhot,” Mona smiled wryly. “It was you all along!”
  “Well, not quite,” Merlin replied. “As I believe I explained to you, Merle was just one of my many forms and shapes. Some of these are eviler than I care to admit but, as we know, good cannot exist without evil.”
  “So, is Camelhot safe now?” Mona asked.
  “From our point of view, yes,” Merlin told her. “There is no more help that we can give it. By the way, in answer to your other question, I can never really be sure that Merle – or any other part of me - is completely destroyed. I am sure, though, that you defeated her. You realised that the goodness within you, coupled with the powerful magic of your amulet, would draw out the goodness in me, and so you banished Merle’s evil and replaced it with my true form.”
  “Yeah, sure I realised all that,” Mona assured Merlin, although she had being relying more on instinct than anything else. “I destroyed the evil part of you, just I like I did for myself before.”
  “Remember, Mona, things cannot always be thought of in such black-and-white terms,” said Treguard. “Certainly you overcame an evil part of Merlin, but to destroy them all… well, that would be quite some feat.”
  “Still, you did very well,” Merlin assured her. “Camelhot is saved; the mission was a complete success.”
  “Well, I guess that’s that, but there’s something else that bothers me,” said Mona. “I’d always thought that Camelhot was a dragon-filled parody of Arthurian legend, but now I’m not so sure.”
  “You’re thinking about the chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which tell tales of King Arthur and Camelot,” Merlin nodded. “An interesting twist, that, I must say.”
  “But is it true?” Mona asked. “Is everything we think we know about Camelot really based on Count Geoffrey’s writings about Camelhot? Didn’t King Arthur really exist at all?”
  “You’re thinking too simplistically again,” Treguard told Mona. “Think of all those wonderful worlds you can reach through the Dream Caverns. Anywhere you can think of; it’s out there somewhere. You can’t possibly say that King Arthur never existed just because, in one reality, the legend of Camelot was based on dragons. Anything and anyone that people believe in is out there somewhere, if you know where to look.”
  “Man, this is starting to screw with my head now,” Mona sighed. “I’ve got to get home. I’m glad that Camelhot is sorted, and that Flicker and Flame are going to have an egg, and that’s enough for now.”
  “My niece is having one of those as well,” Treguard announced suddenly.
  “An egg?” asked Mona uncertainly.
  “A baby!” laughed Treguard. “In fact, one of the members of the Army of the Dead came to try and kill it, but fortunately I was there to stop it.”
  “Ah, so that’s the human child that Merle was going on about,” Mona realised. “Merlin, I can’t believe you wanted to kill Fay’s baby!”
  “I didn’t!” Merlin protested. “It was Merle.”
  “I can’t handle any more of this; my brain’s about to explode,” Mona announced, shaking her head vainly. “I’ll see you next time, guys.”
Mona returned to the Dream Caverns, and Merlin smiled at her retreating figure.

FX turned from the telescreen in the spaceship, where the image of Mona leaving Knightmare Castle was visible.
  “There we are!” he declared to his two companions. “That’s more like it.”
Fantastic Max turned around from facing the ship’s control console.
  “Are you ready to make your first report, then, FX?” he asked.
  “Yes, I think I’m just about ready,” FX confirmed. “Mona saved Camelhot from the Army of the Dead, and destroyed a very evil witch. That should certainly do to start convincing the King that Mona’s deeds and intentions are far from evil.”
  “But what about her meeting with Count Dracula?” asked AB, who was dusting the control panel. “How can we be sure they’re not plotting some evil scheme together?”
  “Well, I guess we can’t be one hundred per cent sure,” FX considered. “But I just don’t believe that they are. Do you?”
  “Well, no, not really,” AB replied. “But I can’t understand why she did go to see him.”
  “Perhaps she was just after a bit of advice,” Max suggested.
  “We’ll continue to monitor the situation,” FX decided. “But, in the meantime, I’m going to tell the King all about Mona’s latest triumph. Set a course for Twinkle-Twinkle, please, Max.”

  “Hello? Is there someone down there?”
Lily sat bolt upright, her ears pricked up. She had abandoned her vigil at the ventilation pipe, convinced that it was useless, but now, surely, that was a voice coming down it! Lily shot up the ladder and placed her mouth to the pipe.
  “Is someone there?” she called urgently. “Yes, there are three of us down here. Please, help us!”
A few agonising seconds passed, and Lily feared that there would be no answer. However, she sighed with relief as the voice – which had a strange hissing, rasping quality to it – came again.
  “Lily?” it asked. “Is that you?”
  “Well, yes,” Lily replied, more than a little confused. “But who are you?”
  “I’m… a friend,” the voice replied at length. “I read in the newspaper that you’d disappeared. What are you doing down there?”
  “Charley brought us here,” Lily replied ruefully. “We’re locked in. Can you see the manhole cover just by the pipe? There’s a bomb shelter underneath, and we’re trapped inside!”
  “I see the cover,” the voice replied at length.
  “Can you open it?” Lily asked hopefully.
  “No, I fear that I’m… not quite designed for feats such as that,” the mysterious voice replied. “But I’ll give the fire brigade a call and get them to come and let you out.”
  “Oh, thank you!” Lily cried joyfully. “Thank you so much! But please tell me who you are!”
  “Just a concerned friend,” came the enigmatic reply. “I’ll go and make the phone call now. Is everyone okay; do you need an ambulance as well?”
  “Oh yes, I think Dottie needs an ambulance quite urgently,” Lily suddenly remembered. “She’s severely dehydrated and she keeps throwing up. And we could all do with something to drink as well!”
  “No problem,” replied the mysterious benefactor. “I’ll relay all that information to the operator. Don’t worry, now – help will be with you soon.”
Lily danced back down the ladder with wings on her feet.
  “Thank God!” she cried. “We’re going to be rescued!”
  “I knew it!” Charley exclaimed. “I knew things would turn out okay in the end.”
  “Shut up, Charley!” Lily snapped. “As far as I’m concerned, you deserve to stay down here and rot!”

Mona came into her bedroom and flopped down on her bed. Fang was lying by the pillows, seemingly fast asleep. Mona gave him a quick stroke; his fur was wet and cold, signifying that he had been outside in the rain quite recently. Mona drew her hand away, and then her attention was caught by a newspaper that had been put onto her pillow.
  “Odd,” Mona mused. “I didn’t leave that there.”
Mona picked up the newspaper, and gasped in surprise at the date – nearly two weeks had passed since she had left for Camelhot! It certainly didn’t feel like she had been away that long.
  “Oh my God!” Mona exclaimed, as she read the headline and stopped worrying about the date. “Charley, Lily and Dottie have gone missing, and everyone thinks I’m missing too!”
Mona read the article with extreme concern. In it, Charley’s mother was quoted as saying that Charley had been planning to take the three girls to stay somewhere overnight, but she didn’t know where. They had never returned from their trip.
  “Charley!” Mona exclaimed. “If Lily and Dottie are in trouble, it’s bound to be all his fault. I’ve got to go and talk to his mother immediately!”

  “Mrs Bones!” Mona yelled, banging on the front door for all she was worth. “Open up, Mrs Bones – it’s really important!”
Charley’s mother opened the door and regarded Mona with tired, sad eyes.
  “Mona!” she cried incredulously. “I thought you were missing!”
  “Well, I’m not!” Mona exclaimed. “But Charley, Lily and Dottie are! Where did Charley take them? You’ve got to tell me!”
  “I… I don’t know!” Mrs Bones blubbered, clearly unable to control her emotions. “Charles was so mysterious about the whole thing. He wanted it to be a surprise for you all; he wouldn’t tell me anything…”
  “Something!” Mona snarled in her feral, bestial voice. “He must have told you something!”
  “The only thing he said was that, in case of an emergency, Lawrence knows,” stammered Mrs Bones, alarmed by Mona’s ferocity.
  “God damn it, this is an emergency!” Mona expostulated. “Why haven’t you asked Lawrence what Charley was on about?”
  “I’m afraid it’s quite impossible for anyone to do that now,” Mrs Bones blubbered. “Lawrence had… a most unfortunate accident.”
  “What kind of an accident?” Mona demanded.
  “He was knocked down by a bus, a week ago last Saturday,” wailed Mrs Bones.
  “Oh my God!” Mona exclaimed. “Is he dead?”
  “No, but he’s in a coma in the hospital,” Mrs Bones sniffed. “They don’t know if he’ll ever wake up!”
  “He will if I have anything to say about it!” Mona growled. “Thanks for the info, Mrs Bones.”
There was a flash of magical lightning, and Mona was gone.
Numbly, Mrs Bones closed the front door and then went to have a long lie-down.

The sound of breaking glass shattered the peace of the hospital ward as Mona crashed through the window. Her vampire eyes soon saw Lawrence lying completely still in a bed in the far right-hand corner of the room. In a heartbeat, Mona was standing beside the bed. Lawrence was wired up to several bleeping machines, and he had bandages wrapped around various parts of his body. Mona leant down and shouted in his ear.
  “Lawrence!” she yelled. “Lawrence, wake up!”
Lawrence did not move, and Mona remembered that he was in a deep coma. Mona frowned to herself; she just had to talk to him. The thought that she could turn him into a vampire flashed through her mind, but she decided to try something a little less drastic first. Placing her right hand over Lawrence’s forehead, she began to concentrate hard.
  “Wake up, Lawrence!” she growled, gritting her teeth and focusing her power. “I command you; wake up, now!”
Lawrence’s eyes fluttered open. He regarded Mona through a hazy blur, as if looking up out of a dream.
  “Mona?” Lawrence mumbled weakly. “What’s… what’s going on?”
  “Charley, Lily and Dottie!” Mona exclaimed. “Where are they?”
  “What?” Lawrence muttered, his voice barely comprehensible. “I don’t understand. Where am I?”
  “Damn it, Lawrence!” Mona exclaimed, slapping Lawrence around the face. “You know where my friends are! Charley’s been up to something, and you know what! Where is he?”
This stirred something in Lawrence’s brain. Mona had to concentrate hard to understand his slurred reply.
  “The… the bomb shelter,” Lawrence mumbled. “They’re in the old bomb shelter. No one can get out from below – it has to be opened from the top.”
  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Mona exclaimed. “Where is this bomb shelter?”
Lawrence said nothing, so Mona punched him in the ribs and he began to cough weakly.
  “Where’s the bomb shelter?” Mona yelled maniacally.
  “In the woods,” Lawrence coughed alarmingly. “Not far in, just past Cresthaven Street. There’s a big… a big load of brambles…”
Lawrence said no more, but Mona had heard enough. She leapt through the broken window and out into the night.

Mona ferreted amongst the brambles, searching desperately for any signs of the bomb shelter Lawrence had told her about. Just as her hand brushed against something metallic, there came a terrific wailing of sirens from the direction of Cresthaven Street, and then two ambulances and a fire engine roared into view and skidded to a halt on the muddy ground. Firefighters and paramedics, all carrying torches, began to pour out. A fireman with a white helmet rushed over to Mona.
  “Are you one of the missing kids?” he demanded.
  “No,” replied Mona. “Well, yes, I’m one of the ones in the paper, but…”
  “We got a phone call saying that you were trapped in a bomb shelter hereabouts,” interrupted the Station Officer.
  “You did?” Mona puzzled. “Who could have…?”
  “Where are the others?” asked the Station Officer urgently.
  “They must be down in the bomb shelter,” Mona replied, collecting her wits. “I think I’ve found it. Look.”
The Station Officer shone his torch onto the ground by Mona’s feet. They could clearly see the thick iron manhole with the small glass panel.
  “Right, we’ll soon have this off,” nodded the Station Officer. “Bring over the cutting gear, lads!”
The fire brigade soon used their powerful tools to remove the manhole cover. Mona watched anxiously as Lily came bursting out of the hole, inhaling the fresh air as if it were some wonderful drug.
  “Lily!” Mona cried, rushing up to her. “What the hell has been going on?”
  “Mona!” Lily cried joyfully, and she flung her arms around her. Mona almost fell over, but steadied herself and returned the embrace. “I knew you’d come to save us, I just knew it!”
Mona noticed that Lily was dirty and smelly, but she did not care. Clearly something quite disturbing had been happening, and clearly Lily was very relieved that it was over.
  “We’re glad you’re okay, miss,” said the Station Officer to Lily. “Are there any others down there?”
Lily looked over to the hole, and pointed a condemning finger at the person who was climbing out of it.
  “There’s Charley!” Lily growled accusingly. “This whole thing is his fault! Dottie must still be inside – I don’t think she can get out by herself. She’s seriously ill!”
  “What?” cried Mona.
  “She’s dehydrated and she’s hardly breathing!” Lily cried unhappily.
  “Get those paramedics down there!” yelled the Station Officer to his team. “They’ll need plenty of fluids and some cylinders of oxygen.”
  “Hey, don’t tell us how to do our job, Mac!” yelled one of the paramedics. “We’ll assess the patient when we get down there.”
The Station Officer muttered something that sounded like “jumped-up ambulance drivers” and then went to report in to his Station Commander on the radio. One of the paramedics was leading Charley over to one of the ambulances, but Lily was still clinging tightly to Mona.
  “Lily, what happened here?” Mona asked. “How did you three manage to get stuck down a hole, and what’s wrong with Dottie?”
  “It’s all Charley’s fault!” Lily gabbled, her voice wobbling noticeably. “He told us it was going to be a private party, but he trapped us in that bomb shelter for nearly two weeks.”
  “The private party!” Mona realised.
  “Dottie’s really ill; she might be dead!” Lily wept openly. “She just kept throwing up and throwing up – there was nothing I could do!”
Mona held Lily very tightly as she watched the paramedics maneuver Dottie’s stretcher up through the hole. Mona’s mouth dropped wide open when she saw the sorry state of her cousin.
  “If he’s killed her…” Mona muttered ruefully.
  “Excuse me, miss,” a female paramedic said to Lily. “We’d like to take you in for observation as well – you’ve been through a lot.”
  “She realises that,” Mona pointed out.
  “I’m not going in an ambulance with Charley!” Lily stated forcefully.
  “We’ve put the other girl in with the boy,” the paramedic said. “You can go in the second ambulance. Come along, my dear.”
  “Come with me, Mona!” Lily blubbered, clutching at Mona’s front.
  “Yes, of course,” Mona replied, walking with Lily towards the ambulance. “Ooh, that Charley. He’ll be sorry for this!”
The sirens wailed once again and the two ambulances – one containing Mona and Lily and the other containing Charley and the unconscious Dottie – sped off towards the hospital.

Mum-Ra swept his bandaged hand over the bubbling cauldron, and the image of the two ambulances disappeared. The evil mummy regarded George through his cold, dead eyes. George could not help but flinch a little.
  “So,” rumbled Mum-Ra, “what did we learn from that little episode?”
  “Well, my favourite bit was when Merle turned into Merlin,” George replied. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
  “Fool!” hissed Mum-Ra. “I do not mean to waste my time discussing the adventure with you as if we had just watched it on TV! What have we learned about Mona the Vampire?”
  “Well, her favourite friend is obviously Lily, because they were so pleased to see each other just now, so maybe we could trick Mona using that,” George suggested vaguely.
  “We need more than that!” Mum-Ra declared. “That is not to say that it’s not a useful observation, however, but we need more. Think, boy! What else did Mona do?”
  “She saved a bunch of dragons from a load of skeletons,” George replied.
  “Any fool can see that!” Mum-Ra roared. “What we have to think about is why she saved the dragons from the skeletons!”
  “Because Merlin told her to.”
  “Not necessarily; she did it because she believes there is a natural order to things, and she always does whatever she can to keep that order in place. She saved Camelhot because she believed it was important; significant to the well-being of the universe. This is definitely something we can use.”
  “You mean that if we could convince her that, like, she had to kill herself for the good of mankind then she’d do it, right?” George piped up.
  “Something along those lines, yes,” Mum-Ra returned dryly. “We must discuss this further. I will now come with you back to your town, and we can work out exactly how this plan is to work.”
  “Great,” nodded George, a little doubtfully. “Do we use the Dream Caverns?”
  “Oh, no,” Mum-Ra grinned sinisterly. “I shall transport us myself. Ancient Spirits of Evil, transform this decayed form to Mum-Ra, the Ever Living!”
George shrank back and closed his eyes as the awesome change took place. He then felt strong hands gripping him as he was lifted into the air, and out of a square hole at the top of Mum-Ra’s pyramid.

A week had passed by. Dottie felt sore all over, and there was a terrible pain throbbing in her head. Monitors bleeped all around her, and some kind of clear liquid was dripping intravenously into her arm. She blinked continuously as she took in her surroundings. She could see that she was in a hospital ward. A glazier was fixing the window, which had obviously been broken for some reason. Dottie could remember why she was in hospital, and she winced as the memories began to assault her brain. Lying back heavily on her pillow and turning to one side, she saw a familiar face staring back at her from the next bed. Lawrence was propped up against his pillow, looking at Dottie with interest and concern. His left arm was bandaged, and his right leg was being supported in a sling.
  “Hi, Dottie,” Lawrence smiled cheerfully. “I’m glad you’re awake at last. They’ve been saying you could wake up at any time for about three days.”
  “They have?” Dottie queried, rubbing her aching head. “How long have I been in here?”
  “A week,” said Lawrence. “I couldn’t believe what a state you were in when they brought you in, but you look much better now.”
  “That’s good to know,” Dottie returned dryly. “Why are you in here, Lawrence?”
  “I got knocked down by a bus,” Lawrence grinned sheepishly.
  “You did?” Dottie queried. “Hey, hold the phone! Is that why you didn’t come and let us out of the hole?”
  “Yes, I’m sorry about that,” Lawrence apologised. “By the time I came to my senses, you’d already been rescued and brought in. I feel really bad about what happened to you.”
  “It’s not your fault,” Dottie replied. “It’s Charley’s. Lily said it wasn’t safe to rely on one person alone to rescue us, and she was absolutely right. Ooh, I’ll kill Charley when I see him!”
  “He’s already in a lot of trouble,” Lawrence informed her. “The police went to speak to him, I think.”
  “Good,” Dottie frowned ruefully. “But what about the hole, Lawrence? Is it still there?”
  “No, they filled it all in with concrete the morning after you were rescued,” Lawrence replied. “I wish they’d been that quick with the window over there – it’s taken that bloke a week to fix it.”
  “Oh dear,” Dottie sighed. “I wonder how long we’ll be in here.”
  “Oh, I’m going home in a few days,” Lawrence grinned. “I can’t wait to get everyone to sign my casts. I’ll bring them in here so you can sign them, when you’re feeling a bit better. I think they want to keep you in for a while – you developed a serious stomach infection while you were down there and they’re having to feed you through a tube.”
  “Oh dear me,” Dottie sighed again. “I wonder if I’ll have any other visitors.”
  “Of course you will,” Lawrence laughed. “Mona and Lily have hardly been out of the place, and your parents have been in every day. You’ll be fine, Dottie, and back on your feet in no time.”
  “No thanks to Charley,” Dottie said darkly. “I really have had it with that guy, I’m telling you! I should have stuck to my guns and steered well clear of him, but I won’t make that mistake again!”

Mona and Lily were sitting on Lily’s front doorstep. They did not know that Charley was watching and listening from the bushes nearby, taking in all that they were saying, and formulating a plan.
  “I still wake up in the darkness and imagine I’m stuck down there,” Lily was telling Mona. “That horrible feeling of being trapped without any hope of escape; it’s indescribable.”
  “This really does top all the stupid things that Charley’s ever done,” Mona said. “If only I’d been with you, I would have turned into a vampire and opened that hatchway at once. As it was, you could all have starved to death!”
  “Thank goodness that someone came along and heard my calls for help,” Lily sighed. “I’d love to know who it was, and say a proper thank-you to them. Whoever it was knew my name, but didn’t stick around to see the rescue. Who could it have been? It’s a mystery.”
  “Yes, that is odd,” Mona agreed. “Don’t forget, though, I was on my way to rescue you as well. I found out what had happened as soon as I got back from Camelhot, and I was moments away from removing that manhole when the fire brigade turned up.”
  “Oh, it was so good to see you there when we came up!” Lily exclaimed. “I think it allowed me to hang on to the last shreds of my sanity.”
  “I’m so glad that you’re back to normal now, Lily,” Mona smiled. “But poor old Dottie, laid up in hospital for ages. I’d hate to think what would have happened if she’d stayed down there any longer. Ironically, the one who seems to have been affected least by all this is Charley.”
  “What possessed him to do it, Mona?” Lily wondered. “I think he must have severe psychiatric problems.”
  “Well, perhaps he does,” Mona agreed. “I tell you, Lily, if I see him anytime soon, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself from smacking him in the face.”
  “Yeah, me too,” Lily agreed. “Although I’d rather smack him somewhere else.”
  “Let’s not talk about Charley anymore,” said Mona. “Why don’t you show me that new sound system that your mom bought for you because she was so pleased that you weren’t dead?”
As Mona and Lily entered Lily’s house, Charley watched them ruefully. It was clear that he had way overstepped the mark this time, and Mona and Lily were not going to forgive him in a hurry. But there were ways to rectify that, Charley reflected, if you knew where to look.