Warning: TOP SECRET!
Keep out! No Spies allowed
This new development is extremely troubling…don’t let anybody know Miss Lionheart’s expose is now available on Kobo, Barnes and Noble and more!
“Mad, bad and dangerous to read.” E.G
The homework ate my dog.
A must read for all mad scientists, young and old. L.L.
Hijack yourself into mad scientists’ territory, duck the gelignite, avoid the Acme fuses. Do whatever you need to, just make sure you don’t miss out — it’s more than your life is worth.
A mad romp into the dangerous world of evil genius, super spies, and dangerous designer animals. Available on Amazon and Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Baker & Taylor and more-here at the universal link https://books2read.com/u/m0rP50 .
Lilly’s bundled into Mr Big’s underground laboratory to create designer creatures – or die. She finds herself heading a team of misfits in charge of designing dreadbeasts – deadly giant snake spider hybrids. She needs to escape, but she also wants to make a special pet – a squirrel-snake hybrid and escape – before Mr Big kills them all.
Reviews:
“a fun read for any YA mad scientist, secret spy, or evil super-villain” PD Friend
“Packed with ingenuity and exciting twists” Michelle Child
“I wish this book had been written when I was younger.” & “A must-read for precocious pre-teens” Lee Murray
Start reading now…
1• The Offer
Lilly glanced behind as a black car with heavily-tinted windows turned the corner – the thud of pop music on its stereo turned up too loud to ignore.
The vehicle screeched to a stop and began following her with a slow deliberateness. The thud thud thud of her heart began to war with the syncopated drum-track.
A terrible wailing of synthesized voice blasted from the car’s stereo, as the vehicle drove up onto the curb in front of her.
Bullies from school?
Lilly gnawed the inside of her cheek with a familiar anticipation. Someone was about to get seriously hurt – and it was going to be very hard to explain later.
Expecting the usual taunts, Miss lah de dah Professor thinks she’s sooo special, swanning around at the looni-versity, and, look, it’s the mutant freak, Lilly was surprised when two thugs in black leathers jumped out without saying a word. With their shaved heads, meaty palms and identical bulldog expressions, the pair were almost indistinguishable – except the first glowed an unhealthy radioactive greyish brown, and the second was so pale his blue veins stood out under his skin. Odd.
Concentrate. What else?
They were young, in their twenties at most, and plastered with crime syndicate patches, including the internationally feared WorldWideWebOfEvil.com
Definitely not from school then.
Lilly breathed deeply. The first thing she learnt in spy school was, don’t show them you’re afraid. And the best way to do that was not to be afraid.
She took half a step toward the two boys, kicked off a rather expensive pair of heels, and ran. Not because she was frightened – of course not – if these guys were trying to kill her, she’d already be dead. It was the soul-destroying thought of having to listen to the whine of the singer from the car’s stereo for a moment longer. That, and she abhorred their leathers. Not just for the lack of dress sense, but because animals looked so much better in their own skins.
The two thugs walked after her unhurriedly. Good, there was no way they could catch her at that speed. They started jogging, still far too slow.
She had her escape plan mapped out (through a nearby garden and over the fence) when the car revved. It reversed past, with a screech of tires, and once again blocked the path in front of her.
She spun around. Seriously? How many people were after her? Three? Four? She tried to race past the two thugs, onto the empty road.
They pushed her back with surprising strength, their hands burning cold.
Lilly’s stomach lurched. Those hands were too cold to be alive. Her brain rebelled. Undead? Impossible. But they had to be.
She should be doing something clever to escape, but couldn’t think of any good options. She couldn’t even pretend she wasn’t frightened any more. Instead of figuring out a plan, her brain was stuck on the undead question.
From inside the car someone growled, “Mr Big has a job for you.”
“Mr Big?” Lilly echoed, trying to give herself more time to think. As head of Global Killing Systems (GKS) Laboratories he was one of the least important crime lords – and the most dangerously unpredictable.
One of the half-frozen thugs grabbed her arm in a chillingly vice-like grip and yanked her toward the car.
Folded into the back seat was a cauliflower-eared brute, squashed into a pinstripe suit, his tiny pin-sized head incongruous with the rest of his bulk. “It will only take a moment.”
“I’m a bit busy,” she replied, trying to extricate herself from the thug’s iron grip by breaking his fingers. A couple of short sharp snaps and…nothing. He didn’t even seem to notice.
The oaf in the pinstripes smiled. “Miss Lionheart. Miss Lilliana Lionheart. Please don’t damage my two colleagues here. They’re rather expensive. Besides, I don’t think you understand. Mr Big wants you to be an integral part of the GKS laboratory’s biological division.”
“Yeah, and what Mr Big wants, Mr Big gets,” sneered the blue-veined boy.
“Hush Veins,” the oaf in pinstripes said. “Talking’s my job, remember?”
Heart hammering, Lilly shook her head. “You’ve made a mistake. I’m just a school kid. Whoever it is you’re after, it’s not me.”
Pinhead pulled out a plastic folder with Miss Lilliana Lionheart on the cover. He smiled as he flourished her grades, a passport, and a picture of Embraldo, the pet lizard-gecko hybrid she’d created when she was younger.
Much younger, she thought, biting at the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from saying something that would make the man angry. Angrier. He seemed pretty angry already.
“Mr Big has organized a meeting, so come along nice, or say goodbye to that pretty face of yours.”
Lilly tried to tell herself it was an empty threat. She tried to barge past the two thugs – and failed as they blocked her escape, again.
She hit out and screamed, for all the good it did. Nobody could possibly hear her over the high-pitched music.
This time, when Pinhead spoke, he wasn’t laughing or smiling, or even asking nicely. “Hurry up and get in,” he growled. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
“What?” Lilly said, pretending not to hear him. “Um, I don’t suppose I could grab my shoes?”
“These?” Basher said, picking a shoe up with his thumb and forefinger, and tearing it apart.
Crying wasn’t an option, so slowly, carefully, she slipped her hand into her pocket and began to text home. She needed to keep talking to distract these idiots. “I have to go, I’m late for Biochemistry, it’s a fascinating lecture on the interactions of messenger RNA.”
“Get in now!” he thundered. “Or you won’t like the consequences.”
“I tell you what I don’t like,” Lilly said, giving up on deaf and trying for a bravado she didn’t quite feel. “People telling me what to do.”
She’d almost finished typing a message with the car’s license number, M1N1NSRUS, into her phone. Knowing she wasn’t the fastest stealth texter, she kept talking. “Besides, I hate your choice of musak. Isn’t there something else you could harass me with? Mr Goodie’s Band and his Bad Time Hits? Top Dog and the Strangled Cats?”
Veins smacked his near transparent fist against his meaty palm.
His grey-brown double snapped, “Come on, let’s just bash her over the head and shove her in the boot.”
“Nah, Basher,” growled Pinhead. “You know what Mr Big said. Shut up, while I try to do this proper-like.”
“How about we do the other usual?” Veins growled. He clenched his fists so hard his veins popped into stark blue-green relief. “This is boring.”
Having completed typing what Lilly hoped was, Help! M1N1NSRUS Mr Big, she tried to hit the send button.
Basher ripped her hand from her pocket. “Keep those hands where I can see them,” he growled.
Lilly tried not to groan. She could hit send later – hopefully. Right now, the cold barrel of a gun pushed against her head was taking all her attention.
“Get into the car, or I’ll blow your brains out,” Pinhead snapped.
Smiling meekly, (despite a horde of brutal, if imaginary, butterflies, tearing her stomach apart) Lilly raised her hands and stepped into the car. After all, what else could she do? The offer had been made with such eloquence and conviction, she couldn’t exactly refuse.