Joe woke up with a stinking headache.

She walked to the bathroom and caught a glimpse of red through the translucent glass of the dingy bathroom, probably the bloodshot eyes she thought as she stared at her small, pale, rounded face in the mirror.

A blast of Beethoven’s fifth stung her ears. “Argh! Damn it.”

She stepped into the bedroom, naked, and fumbled in her jacket hanging over the only chair in the room.

She switched off her mobile, sighed and touched her forehead with her palm. Then she picked up her badge labelled, “Joanne Schlesinger, MI5,” that’d fallen out of her jacket.

Standing nude in the middle of the room, she looked out the window and realised the curtains hadn’t been drawn. “Oh shit!” She grabbed her duvet and wrapped it round her small frame. It was probably already too late.

The strange thing was there wasn’t a soul in sight. No cars, bikes, buses or anything – an unusual kind of day. But that wasn’t as strange as what was hanging in the sky, slowly descending, and dripping red rain. What the hell was in those drinks last night?

But even the giant lozenge with a lolly-stick poking out of the top hadn’t prepared her for what she saw underneath the rain, mouth gaping, catching it. A whale with canines the size of a lamp post was lying in the street in front of her eyes, drinking drips of the giant lolly – Joe shook her head in disbelief.

She scanned the street – no one. Where was everybody? She grabbed her binoculars and homed in; feet, arms and heads lay in the whale’s mouth. “Looks like … Bill next door … shit!”

A text message on her phone read, Vampire Whale on the loose, seek and destroy … then investigate strange lozenge. “Oh great! What the hell am I supposed to do? Such a screwed up world … since the global cooling clashed with the global warming …” she muttered.

Putting clothes on, she grabbed her nine-millimetre and headed out. Blonde hair streaming, trainers squealing, she sprinted for the street.

Joe stopped short, realising someone else was there.

“Shush!” said agent Laszlo. “Sound … it kills what it hears.”

“What do we do then, Master-Mind?” she whispered.

“We wait. That’s a fresh red-hot chilly lolly from the atmosphere it’s drinking … thirsty, probably, from all the blood.”

“No shit!”

“It’s not going anywhere … nothing that eats that much can lift off – that’s simple science.”

“Perfect, I ain’t got all day.”

Joe leapt atop the stinking mammal and emptied an entire clip into its brain, before it could flinch.

“Done,” she said, watching the last of the lolly melt into the over-sized kipper!

“Damn you're good.”

“No-one messes with a girl with a hang-over.”

She holstered her weapon, eyeing Laszlo up and down. “Want some coffee at my place?”

“Sounds good,” he said.