Dragon Shield by Charlie Fletcher Page A

time,’ he said.
    ‘Only one thing you need to know about that,’ said The Fusilier as he jinked round a corner in a controlled slide, the hobnails on his boots skating noisily sideways on the pavement. ‘If the dragons are attacking you, it’s already too late.’
    ‘So what’s this big secret you know?’ said Little Tragedy. ‘Why aren’t you froze like the other Regulars?’
    The Fusilier looked back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
    Will felt Jo’s bracelet in his pocket. He pulled it out and showed it to them. Then he shot his wrist out of his cuffs and showed his own bracelet.
    ‘Bracelet?’ said The Fusilier. ‘I think it’s more than jewellery, mate.’
    ‘No,’ said Will. ‘It makes sense . . . When we were both wearing them, we weren’t frozen. Then Jo’s got torn off and she did freeze.’
    He looked at them both. They didn’t look convinced.
    ‘It makes sense,’ he repeated, hearing how weak that sounded second time round. Maybe he was just wanting it to be so because he needed something to make sense in the midst of all this scary craziness he was trapped in.
    ‘OK then,’ said The Fusilier. ‘Take your bracelet off. See if you freeze.’
    Will shook his head.
    ‘I’ll put it back on you,’ smiled Little Tragedy encouragingly. ‘Go on, give it a go!’
    Maybe it was because his hair was pushed back revealing his little horns that made Will shake his head. He didn’t seem quite trustworthy. Something that the Victory had said that stuck in his head: Tragedy often meant well but wasn’t quite reliable.
    ‘What you scared of?’ said The Fusilier.
    ‘That it might not work.’ said Will.
    The Fusilier exhaled in frustration and shook his head.
    ‘So why do you want to find your sister and put hers back on?’
    ‘Because it might work,’ said Will. ‘Sorry. It makes sense to me.’
    And it did. If there was a tiny chance he’d go to sleep on his feet like all these people in the street around him, the frozen taxi drivers and people on buses and bicycles and the crowd on the pavements they were moving through, he couldn’t afford to take it. But if there was a tiny chance he could get Jo back and awake, he had to take it.
    He slipped her bracelet back in his pocket and zipped it up. The Fusilier shrugged and led on. Tragedy tutted and shook his head at Will.
    ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said. ‘We’re meant to be mates. I brought him back to save you!’
    ‘Sorry,’ said Will. He wasn’t going to be guilted into doing it. Maybe he was too scared to try taking off his scarab bracelet in case it didn’t work. Maybe he just needed the possibility he was right: maybe he was clinging to that straw because otherwise he would have nothing, and drown.
    As they carried on he realized what was so extra creepy now that evening was on them: normally street lamps come on when it gets dark. Normally cars turn on their headlights and people in buildings turn on the lamps when the sun goes down. Normally it’s so automatic that you don’t even notice it. None of that had happened.
    The buildings were taller now as they got closer to the centre of the City, big purpose-built office blocks replacing the two- or three-storey houses they had been passing. There were some lights on – traffic lights, some windows and a few cars that had the kind of lights that were on all the time, but that meant there was just enough light to throw deep shadows that made the darkness seem all the weirder and more threatening, and the road felt less like a street than a deep dark canyon.
    The falling darkness sucked colour out of the world, and without colour the unmoving pedestrians looked all the more like statues and less like real people. And now they stopped looking like actual people who might spring back into action at any moment, it was like they were even more absent. Because of that Will suddenly felt very alone indeed.
    He looked sideways into the murky interior of a supermarket as