Beetle Queen Read online

  A woman pulled out a pistol from her garter belt and fired a shot. There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone turned to look at the hovering beetle woman, to see if she’d fallen. The bullet glanced off Lucretia Cutter’s exoskeleton, ricocheting backwards, severing a wire that held up one side of the massive screen showing the decimated wheat harvest. One corner dropped to the ground and swung forwards, revealing a pyramid of gold birdcages filled with exotic parakeets that were squawking and thrashing about their cages, trying to get out.

  Lucretia Cutter laughed, a horrible guttural mix of gurgles and hisses, revelling in the mayhem. More shots were fired. One man swung his fist at a swarm of beetles, lost his balance and hit a famous movie star, who spun round and punched him in the face. Fights broke out all over the theatre. Lucretia Cutter turned to the camera with the red light.

  ‘I demand that your government draws up a charter handing sovereignty to me.’ She leant forward. ‘If they do it quickly, maybe you won’t starve to death.’

  Darkus followed Lucretia Cutter’s eye-line and spotted Ling Ling behind the camera. This show was all for the cameras. He had to get Lucretia Cutter off the air, but he also had to stop the beetles attacking people. He looked out into the auditorium and spotted Uncle Max and Motty fighting with Craven and Dankish. Calista Bloom was standing behind them, taking a picture of herself with all the famous people being attacked by beetles.

  His eyes landed on the big spotlights mounted on tripods at the back of the theatre, he waved at Virginia and Bertolt and pointed.

  ‘We’ve got to stop this,’ he shouted. ‘The lights! Use the lights!’

  Bertolt frowned but Virginia’s eyes lit up and she nodded. She gave Bertolt a shove, and they jumped off the stage, running into the auditorium, sucking up Lucretia Cutter’s beetles as they went.

  ‘Baxter,’ Darkus said, taking the beetle off his shoulder, ‘can you fly to that camera and find the off switch?’ The rhinoceros beetle nodded and leapt into the air. ‘Novak, get into the wings.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he replied, jumping to his feet and launching himself off the stage at the deadly chauffeur.

  Ling Ling sprang up, her torso flipping and legs scissoring as she twisted in the air. Darkus slid right through the space she’d been standing in and clattered to the floor. Ling Ling landed, one foot either side of Darkus’s head.

  ‘No!’ Novak screamed, scrambling to the edge of the stage.

  ‘Hi!’ Darkus grinned.

  As Ling Ling drew up her leg to kick Darkus in the face, he flicked the switch on his air pump, firing a stream of bombardier beetles back out of the hose of his aspirator, right into Ling Ling’s face. She stumbled backwards, her hands covering her face as it sizzled and burnt from the acid sprayed by the panicked beetles.

  Darkus scrambled away, following the cables that sprouted out of the TV camera to an electrical box.

  Lucretia Cutter’s antennae flicked and thrashed about as she called the bombardier beetles away from Ling Ling, instructing them to join the army of beetles attacking the humans in the auditorium.

  Darkus flipped open two plastic containers strapped into his utility belt, each containing four titan beetles.

  ‘Get into the electrics,’ he whispered to the Base Camp beetles, ‘and eat through the wires. Stop the broadcast.’

  The titan beetles didn’t need to be told twice. They scurried down through the wires and began chewing the cables.

  Darkus felt his body suddenly being lifted into the air, and he grabbed on to the camera. Ling Ling ripped off his backpack, tossing it aside. Darkus struggled and kicked, but she was surprisingly strong.

  Darkus heard Uncle Max shout, ‘Get your hands off my nephew!’ and saw him running towards them, pushing up his sleeves, but Mawling had spotted him too, and was charging down the stairs from the stage like a steam train.

  Calista Bloom, who was sticking close to Uncle Max for safety, tripped, crying out as she fell to the floor in front of Lucretia Cutter’s meat-head.

  ‘Mum!’ Bertolt howled, jumping on to the spotlight stand and yanking it round to point at Mawling, who was instantly blinded and then attacked by a swarm of beetles who had been drawn to the light.

  Calista Bloom scrambled to her feet, skidded on her stiletto heel, and fell backwards, doing an accidental bicycle kick right into Mawling’s privates.

  Mawling hovered for a moment, pulling a face that looked like he’d sucked a lemon, his hands clasping his crown jewels. Uncle Max spun round and punched him. Mawling crumbled to the floor.

  Ling Ling’s arm swung back, and Darkus thought she was about to strike him, but instead she was defending herself from a microphone stand that was swinging down towards her head. She blocked the blow, grabbed the stand and spun around. Novak was clutching the other end of it.

  Ling Ling pivoted, wrapping her free arm around the shaft of the stand and lifting Novak into the air. Novak let go, launching herself backwards, flipping into a reel of cartwheels and an Arab spring, landing in an attack stance.

  Darkus was stunned. Before he could cheer, Novak was running forwards, launching herself into a spinning pirouette of roundhouse kicks, spotting as she spun, never taking her eyes off Ling Ling.

  Ling Ling pushed Darkus aside as Novak’s foot swiped across her cheek, splitting her already blistered skin and spraying blood across the floor.

  Darkus stared at Novak’s feet. They were claws. Black chitinous claws like her mother’s.

  Ling Ling rallied, coming hard at Novak, who blocked her punches and kicks but was no match for the deadly chauffeur. Novak flipped backwards. Stumbling, she fell to her knees, and suddenly Ling Ling was standing over her, her face all bloody and blistered.

  Darkus scrambled forwards and grabbed the discarded microphone stand, sweeping it at Ling Ling’s supporting leg, knocking her off balance. ‘RUN!’ he shouted at Novak.

  He jumped up on to a theatre seat, and could see Virginia and Bertolt were each standing behind one of the enormous chrome spotlights at the back of the theatre, trying to control their movement. He pointed up into the heart of the beetle vortex above people’s heads. ‘SHINE THE LIGHT THERE!’ he shouted. ‘UP THERE!’

  Virginia saw him, followed his finger and nodded, moving the bright light so it pointed into the throng of beetles. She shouted to Bertolt to do the same, and the beams met, creating a concentrated ball of light.

  The beetles, unable to help themselves, were drawn to the light. They pulled away from combat with the humans and, hypnotized, flew into, through and round the light.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Predator and Prey

  ‘Darkus, listen, please.’

  Darkus turned at the sound of Novak’s voice and jumped down from the theatre seat.

  ‘You have to help me,’ Novak blurted out, grabbing his hand. ‘Mater’s going to put me back in the pupator.’

  ‘What’s a pupator?’

  ‘It hurts, and I’m frightened.’ Novak was biting her lip so hard he could see blood. ‘She’s going to turn me into a beetle, like her.’

  ‘No, Novak, I won’t let her.’ Darkus shook his head.

  ‘Thank you.’ Novak flung her arms around him. ‘I knew you’d understand. Thank you, thank you.’

  ‘Ow! Let go!’ Darkus laughed, pulling away.

  ‘You must stay away from Ling Ling.’ Novak’s eyes were wide with concern. ‘She kills people, and she doesn’t have to try very hard to do it.’

  Darkus’s eyes flickered to a gang of gym-loving actors and stunt men who had encircled the chauffeur. Ling Ling stood in the middle of them, calm and poised to fight.

  ‘Did Hepburn find you?’ Novak asked. ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘Hepburn was amazing.’ He popped open a pouch on his belt. ‘Her Morse code is perfect.’

  ‘Oh, darling Heppy, there you are,’ Novak cooed as she lifted the pretty jewel beetle and hugged her.

&nb
sp; Darkus looked up. ‘Hey, why are the spotlights not up in the air?’

  He heard cries of alarm behind him. The beetles were attacking again, and more savagely this time. The white beetles’ claws sliced and cut faces and necks.

  He looked at the stage. Lucretia Cutter was proudly surveying the carnage in the auditorium and standing beside her was his father.

  Darkus was about to shout, but Novak grabbed his arm. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Darkus, he’s on her side.’

  Darkus’s guts twisted. He shook his head. ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He knows about the pupator. He’s going to let her change me.’

  ‘No.’ Darkus looked at Novak. ‘He isn’t like that.’

  ‘Darkus, I heard them talking.’

  ‘I won’t believe it.’ He broke away from her. ‘Where are the security guards?’ He looked about angrily. ‘There are loads of them outside.’

  ‘Ling Ling took out everyone inside the building and locked the doors. Maybe the men outside don’t know there’s anything happening in here.’

  ‘Don’t they watch TV?” Darkus snapped. ‘We need to get them inside. Now.’

  ‘How?’

  Darkus pointed at a glass box on the wall. ‘Fire alarm.’

  Between them and the button, Ling Ling was kicking the stuffing out of ten men.

  ‘Baxter!’ Darkus called, and the rhinoceros beetle, who’d been on top of the camera, fighting beetles, flew to his hand. ‘Can you break the glass with your horn and push that button?’

  Baxter didn’t wait to reply, but spun around, flying up and over the heads of the fighting humans.

  ‘We’re losing,’ Darkus said, looking around in horror. ‘We need those security men, now.’

  ‘I’ll get them in,’ Novak said, leaping up.

  ‘Novak, your feet!’ Darkus looked down at the hooks on the end of her claws. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Do you hate them?’ she asked. ‘They’re ugly, aren’t they?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Darkus looked at her. ‘They’re AWESOME! Can you run up walls and stuff? Like a beetle?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Novak frowned. ‘I’ve never tried.’

  ‘What!?’ Darkus exclaimed. ‘If I had beetle feet, that’s the first thing I’d do.’

  Novak looked down at her black feet, pivoted and ran, her strong claws powering her forwards. As she approached the wall she raised one foot and then the other, the sharp serrated edges of her claws cutting into the brick as she ran up to the ceiling and then round the corner to the stage door.

  An ear-splitting alarm rang out. Baxter had done it!

  Jumping back up on to the chair, Darkus saw that Uncle Max had Craven up against the wall, his hand around the villain’s neck. Dankish was on his knees at Calista Bloom’s feet, doubled up in pain, but they were both being attacked by beetles now. He scanned the room, but couldn’t see Virginia or Bertolt anywhere.

  Grabbing up his backpack, he strapped it back on. This fight was far from over. He turned to the stage, a tumult of suspicion, anger and love churning in his belly as he saw his father in heated conversation with Lucretia Cutter. He wasn’t arguing, or fighting her, like he should have been doing. He seemed to be pleading with her.

  Darkus glared at Lucretia Cutter, wondering how you hurt someone who was bulletproof.

  The greatest weapon you have is knowledge. Dr Yuki Ishikawa’s voice sounded in his head. Think, Darkus. You know what she is. Every creature has a predator. That is how balance is maintained.

  Darkus looked past the screen, hanging precariously from one wire, to the golden pyramid of cages full of exotic birds, fluttering around and flapping their wings. ‘Of course!’ he gasped, launching himself up the steps on the left side of the stage and running behind Lucretia Cutter.

  ‘It’s dinner time, my feathered friends,’ he cried out, flinging open the cages and shooing the birds out into the theatre. They rocketed up into the seething torrent of beetles, happily pecking at and swallowing as many as they could. Seven of the bigger birds peeled away from the flock, flying to the front of the stage, where the biggest beetle they’d ever seen was hovering in the air.

  Lucretia Cutter shrieked and fell to the ground as the birds pecked at her wings and eyes.

  ‘Baxter!’ Darkus gasped. In his haste to fight back, he’d endangered his best friend. He span round, studying the wall beside the fire alarm. There was no sign of him. Darkus couldn’t breathe. He felt something knock against his ankle, and looked down: the rhinoceros beetle was head-butting him. He swept the beetle up, kissing his thorax, before placing Baxter on his shoulder. ‘Stay close, Baxter, I don’t want those birds to get you.’

  Darkus’s giant pooter was empty and, he realized, the safest place for the Base Camp beetles. Inside they’d be protected from the hungry birds. He jumped off the edge of the stage, scurrying to the electrics box, which was a mess of copper wires thanks to the titan beetles.

  ‘Quick, guys, I need to suck you up into the pooter, before those birds try to eat you!’ He switched on the suction and vacuumed up the titan beetles. ‘This room is full of birds,’ he whispered to the hidden battalion of Base Camp beetles in his utility belt. ‘Don’t come out unless I call you.’

  The Base Camp beetles chittered in reply.

  A team of security men burst through the double doors at the back of the theatre, led by Motticilla. They headed straight for Ling Ling and the ring of fallen actors groaning on the floor. Darkus saw Virginia and Bertolt in the aisle, back to back, hoovering up Lucretia Cutter’s beetles. The tide of the battle was turning. Most of Lucretia Cutter’s beetles were in the stomachs of the happy birds, or in Bertolt’s and Virginia’s pooters.

  ‘Get away from me!’ Lucretia Cutter screeched, punching a bird.

  Ling Ling was in front of the stage, fighting off the security guards, disarming them as quickly as they drew their weapons. Craven and Dankish, wounded and limping, clambered on to the stage, where they met the injured Mawling. Novak rushed on to one side of the stage with the security guards who’d been stationed outside the stage door.

  ‘NO!’ Lucretia Cutter swung her head angrily. She was surrounded, and being pecked at by birds. ‘You cannot stop me.’ She looked out into the theatre. ‘IT’S TOO LATE!’ She wrapped a beetle leg around Dad’s waist and rose up, lifting Bartholomew Cuttle into the air. ‘You’re fools!’ Her human forearms slapped away the last attacking birds. ‘You can’t win. I already have the planet in the palm of my hand!’

  ‘Dad!’ Before he had time to think, Darkus was running: through a door, up a flight of stairs, bursting out on to the balcony, into a box overlooking the stage.

  As Lucretia Cutter rose, with his dad clasped to her abdomen, Darkus jumped up on to the railing and threw himself off, grabbing her around the neck. The shock of his attack made Lucretia Cutter release Bartholomew Cuttle, who dropped to the stage floor with a sickening thud.

  ‘I’m going to kill you, boy!’ she shrieked, whirling around and grabbing him with two arms and two serrated beetle legs, rising higher into the fly tower of the theatre. There were bars with lights and ropes hanging down, attached to pieces of scenery. On a platform high above him, Darkus saw Gerard. He tried to cling to her neck, but Lucretia Cutter pulled him off and brought him round to face her.

  ‘Ever been bitten by a beetle?’ she said, stretching her black mouthparts wide, her mandibles reaching out towards him. His face was inches from her razor-sharp teeth, and her breath stank of rotten pear drops.

  ‘BEETLES!’ Darkus cried out, kicking his feet violently against Lucretia Cutter’s abdomen. Pushing himself backwards into the air, he flung his arms over his shoulders as if doing a backwards dive into a swimming pool, giving him enough momentum to escape her grasp.

  He should have fallen like a dead weight to the ground, but the Base Camp beetles were there with him, exploding out of his backpack and utility belt, zooming out of their pockets, gathering underneath him, flying up a
s hard as they could. Baxter was in between his shoulder blades, Novak sent up Hepburn, Bertolt sent Newton, and Virginia hurled Marvin into the air. The titan beetles inside the pooter flew upwards for all they were worth, pushing against the roof, slowing Darkus’s fall and lowering him slowly, and safely, to the ground.

  ‘ENOUGH!’ Lucretia Cutter lost her temper, zooming down and shouting orders at her injured henchmen. Craven, Dankish and Mawling disappeared into the wings, and Ling Ling ran to the red curtains on the stage. Vaulting up and grasping the drapes between her ankles, she folded the fabric into handholds, climbed to the top, then flipped herself upside down, hooked her feet around a lighting bar and clambered up into the fly tower.

  As Darkus landed Novak ran towards him, smiling, her arms wide.

  ‘You did it! You won!’ she exclaimed, as a giant black chitin leg grabbed her from behind, dragging her backwards and up into the air.

  Darkus saw the shocked look on Novak’s face, and then she screamed, a sound of pure terror as Lucretia Cutter soared upwards carrying her daughter.

  ‘No!’ He ran forwards, but he was too late.

  Baxter rocketed up after Novak, the rhinoceros beetle valiantly trying to attack Lucretia Cutter with his horn.

  She smashed Baxter out of the air with a chitin claw and the big black beetle tumbled to the ground at alarming speed.

  ‘BAXTER!’ Darkus cried out.

  Lucretia Cutter laughed, flying up into the fly tower and was gone.

  Darkus lurched forwards. Baxter’s wings weren’t opening. He was going to hit the ground. Darkus couldn’t reach him in time. He sobbed as he threw himself towards his best friend, knowing it was too late.