Read Online Mort by Martin Chatterton - Free Book Online Page A

Smiler bearing down on them, Trish hoisted the second object she’d found in the ventilation shaft.
    Sir David’s tranquiliser gun.
    Trish squinted through the night-vision goggles down the barrel. She tightened her finger on the trigger and took aim.
    The tranquiliser dart flew past Smiler’s head, slicing a hole through his ear. The tiger bellowed in pain, rearing up on his hind legs above her and Nigel.

    He hung there for what seemed an eternity before turning and running back down the ballroom. At full speed, the animal slammed into a wall and bounced back straight towards the boy, who had almost reached the relative safety of the ventilation shaft.
    Trish saw Mortimer DeVere freeze, trying to get a fix on where the animal was.
    Before Trish could warn him, Smiler pounced and, this time, no amount of Shaolin moves could help. The sabre-tooth pinned Mort to the floor with his great paws, and bellowed into his face.

    So this was how ten thousand years was going to end, thought Mort as Smiler’s hot breath filled his nostrils: eaten by his pet cat.
    Mort tried to kick Smiler using a Chung-Jao Dancing Crab kick he’d been taught by Grand Sensei Woo, but it was like kicking a rhinoceros.
    Then, just as Smiler clamped his jaws around Mort’s neck, the darkness was lit by a second brief flash. Smiler grunted, and Mort disappeared under five hundred kilograms of sabre-toothed tiger.

Agnetha pushed open the security door to her secret underground compound and forced herself to breathe.
    The fact that the heavy security door was unlocked was a bad sign.
    On her way down through the catacombs under Festering, Agnetha had half-hoped that the inhabitants of her compound would still be safely tucked up in bed.
    The open door told her a different story. She stepped cautiously through the security door and looked around.
    The compound consisted of a vast dome-shaped greenhouse built inside an even larger natural cave. Agnetha had stumbled across it some years ago while exploring the catacombs and knew it would be a perfect place to develop her own secret project.
    The roof of the dome was lined with powerful lamps, which (when the power was on) acted as an artificial sun, allowing Agnetha to grow a woodland glade thick with trees and lush green grass. At the centre of the glade stood an old-fashioned country cottage, complete with low-thatched roof and rose garden. A stone path, green with moss, wound its way to the front door.
    Agnetha’s torch beam sent shadows scurrying across the black leaves as she scanned the trees. She shivered and pushed open the gate, moving slowly along the path, gun in one hand, torch in the other. At the entrance to the cottage she paused and then kicked the door open. As it swung back onits hinges, she dropped into a forward roll to confuse any possible attacker and came up in the cottage hallway, arms extended, her eyes and gun barrel darting from corner to corner.

    The place looked very much like someone had left in a hurry.
    In the kitchen a couple of bowls of grey mush lay half-eaten on the scrubbed pinetable while another was up-ended on the floor. Three wooden chairs of different sizes were pushed back haphazardly from the table.
    She was on her way upstairs when she heard the sound. She dropped to one knee and listened carefully, probing the stairway with the torch beam. She slipped the safety off the Weiner & Missen dart gun and held it out in front of her.
    Agnetha slowly moved to the landing. There it was again. There was something in one of the bedrooms.
    She crept forward, the torch beam like a light saber, her finger coiled around the trigger of the dart gun as she slowly pushed open the first bedroom door. It looked like a child’s bedroom. There, fast asleep in bed was a dark shape huddled under the covers, snoring softly. As Agnetha’s torch moved across the bed, whoever was in there shifted and Agnetha hurriedly turned the torch off. The shape began