The Cornerstone (25 page)

‘It really is quite simple when you get down to it.’

‘Yeah, it is I suppose. Let’s see if it works...’

Max Bloom’s eyes - shut tight during the whole exchange - snapped open.

- 7 -

Gormley, still standing guard over Max, found himself heading towards the ceiling at a hundred miles an hour.

He crashed through the artex like it was balsa wood, and was only spared instant death because the woodworm had been having a field day in the joists and they broke apart on impact. Gormley became wedged, his head and shoulders sticking up into Charlie’s rather old fashioned bathroom, his legs dangling down into the lounge.

Fergil saw this happen and instinctively word shaped a barrier between him and the incensed Max.

Word shaping.

Max finally understood what that term meant: It was like pulling on a giant invisible ball of plasticine, breaking off what you needed and shaping it as you desired.

He dragged power from the books around him, formed it into what approximated a long, heavy battering ram and lashed out at Fergil.

The rat faced little man was picked up and smashed through the large bay window behind, bursting into the front garden in a cloud of glass and wood.

The other Wordsmiths - now terrified - attempted to push Max back with a storm of their own Wordcraft.

He erected a cocoon of energy and let their feeble blows bounce off.

It felt like being tickled.

In response, Max dealt with Merelie’s captor first, who followed his Morodai colleague ceiling-wards.

That left the one who’d killed Nugget...

This bastard was now escaping through the broken window in an effort to save his worthless hide. Max assisted his exit with a boot of Wordcraft that sped the escape attempt up considerably.

The recently defenestrated Fergil was getting to his feet when the Wordsmith-shaped missile collided with him, sending them both flying into the large, extremely pungent compost heap.

Max surveyed his handiwork and looked down at Charlie Pearce, who was wide-eyed and clutching the arms of his chair.

‘Bloody hell Maxwell!’ he gasped.

‘You alright Grandad?’

‘I’ll be ok... and judging from what I’ve just witnessed, you’re more than ok, my boy.’

Max was surprised to find his grandfather was right. He couldn’t see or feel any of the injuries he’d suffered at the hands of Gormley. He had a feeling that when this rush of power was over though, they might make their presence felt in spades.

He went over to Merelie and sat beside her. Her eyes fluttered open, focusing on Max.

‘You know… we both need to stop getting knocked out all the time,’ she said, sitting up.

‘Agreed… how you feeling?’

‘Awful. But I’m sure I’ll feel much worse later. What happened?’

‘Some Wordsmiths came through The Cornerstone trying to get you.’

Merelie looked around. ‘I don’t see anyone.’

‘Yeah… that might take a bit of explaining,’ Max admitted.

A scream of rage came from outside.

Fergil and the other battered Wordsmith were up, covered in compost. Max looked back at Merelie. ‘Maybe it’s better if I just show you.’

He got up and made his way over to the open window, doing his best Clint Eastwood impression. Fergil and his friend saw Max coming and started to word shape.

‘Max!’ Merelie warned, coming up behind him. ‘Get out of the way!’

He held up an arm. ‘Leave this to me, ma’am,’ he said. The accent was supposed to be a macho Texas drawl, but sounded more like Foghorn Leghorn with a head cold.

Max stepped out into the garden - it was still drizzling for anyone keeping note - and sauntered towards the Wordsmiths.

The blast wave of energy that came rolling at him rivalled the one Merelie and Imelda had used against Elijah.

Merelie felt it coming and knew Max Bloom was dead.

However, Max smacked the blast to one side with a contemptuous flick of the wrist and gave her a cheeky wink.

This was so cool penguins could have mated on it.

Rather less cool was the fact the diverted energy wave hit Charlie’s Austin Montego, driving it through the rotting garage doors.

Inside, the car scraped along the concrete, sparks flying. This caused a leaky diesel canister to catch fire and explode. The Montego’s half full petrol tank joined in on the act and the whole lot went skywards with an apocalyptic roar.

Max stared dumbfounded at the destruction he’d caused.

Mum’s going to kill me.

In a poorly judged moment of hilarity, Fergil cackled out loud when he saw the look of horror on Max’s face.

This was noticed, digested and steps were taken.

Fergil and his companion were picked up by invisible hands, Max flexing his word shaping muscles. He smartly knocked them together three times, rendering both completely insensible and let them drop to the ground.

Merelie, eyes wide and stunned, came to stand in front of him.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘You… you… ‘ She pointed at the comatose pair, the burning garage and back at Max.

‘Yeah… looks like you were right,’ he said, offering her an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t expect lightening bolts to start shooting out of my arse, though.’

- 8 -

Nugget wasn’t dead.

As a massive
barrel
of a dog, built of hard muscle underneath all that fat, he’d been in many scrapes over his eight years and survived all of them.

From falling down steep river banks to colliding with boys on pushbikes - Max had come off worse in that incident - he’d put his body through the mill on countless occasions, as any self respecting big slobbery dog should.

Any animal that can survive mini-catastrophes like that and face down Biff the insane ginger tom must be as hard as nails. A little thing like being propelled across the kitchen floor by magic hasn’t got a chance of killing him.

Knocking him senseless for a bit? Indeed.

Killing
him? Absolutely not.

As Charlie staggered into the pantry, a dazed Nugget was quite contentedly munching on a mouldy potato.

Max ventured back into the kitchen, the shell-shocked Merelie in his wake.

‘Nugget!’ he shouted in delight, making his head hurt. The rush of Wordcraft was leaving his body and many aches and pains were now making themselves known in no uncertain terms.

Nugget saw him, broke free of Charlie and trotted over on wobbly legs, planting a paw in Max’s crotch.

The pain was almost worth it.

‘Never known a dog like it,’ Charlie said, wiping his eyes. ‘Good old Nuggie.’

Max patted the Labrador on the head and wiped masticated potato onto his jeans.

They all heard the sound of a car roaring up the driveway.

‘Police?’ Max said.

‘Let’s go see,’ Charlie replied.

He opened the front door in time to see a lime green Fiat Punto come screeching to a halt in front of the porch.

Slumped in the passenger seat was a man with a toilet bowl on his head.

Imelda Warrington - looking like she’d been on a date with The Terminator - got out of the driver’s side and gave Max a long, hard look. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were covered in grass stains and mud.

‘What have you done now, Max Bloom?’ she demanded.

- 9 -

While Charlie Pearce ate his chocolate bourbon just before all hell broke loose in his front room, Imelda Warrington was once again faced with the spectre of Elijah, still possessed and hungry for vengeance.

Only this time she was alone.

Bugger.

‘Where’s the girl?’ he snarled.

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘I will devour your mind.’

‘Oh yes, yes,’ she replied with contempt, and not a little bravado. ‘What is it the children say?
What-evah
.’

Discretion being the better part of valour, Imelda turned tail and ran into the rear garden. Elijah gave chase.

The librarian reached the middle of the lawn and shaped a bolt of power at the Arma.

If this had come from the newly appointed Wordsmith Max Bloom, Elijah might well have been occupying a different postcode, but Imelda had nowhere near that level of power, especially miles from the library.

Elijah shrugged off the attack and slammed into her, sending both sprawling into a nearby flower bed, his hands grasping at her throat.

It fast became a one-sided fight. He was a two hundred pound battle hardened soldier and she was… well, a
librarian
, for heaven’s sake.

As the air was choked out of her, Imelda desperately scrabbled around for something to defend herself with.

Peter Bloom liked gnomes.

This tells you virtually everything you need to know about his sense of humour. That and the fact he used toilet bowls to pot plants in.

Amanda Bloom was about as keen on gardening as a chronic hay fever sufferer, so the wide plot of land at the back of their house was all his to play with.

The gnome army had therefore built up over the years.

There were nineteen of them now.

Some were the old fashioned type: sitting on mushrooms, holding a fishing rod - you know the sort. Others were a lot stranger - including gnome versions of Darth Vader, Abraham Lincoln and Gene Simmonds, the bass player from Kiss.

Imelda grabbed the first heavy thing to hand and hit Elijah round the head with a surprisingly accurate gnome rendition of cartoon favourite Captain Caveman.

The big man grunted and fell to one side, allowing her time to catch her breath.

She scrabbled away, getting to her feet as he launched at her again, blood pouring from where she’d belted him.

Putting the tall rotary washing line between her and Elijah, Imelda tried to gather enough Wordcraft to put him down for good.

The weak bolt she sent hit the Dweller in the face, making him stumble into the washing line, where he became entangled.

Anyone who’s had to wrestle with one of these monstrous pieces of equipment will testify that if you’re not careful, you can get caught fast in the thing worse than a fly in a spider web. The nylon strings get under your arms and snagged on your clothing, while the metal poles always make a bee line for your head, giving you a nasty whack between the eyes.

Being an evil creature from the void doesn't prevent this.

Elijah floundered as his arms plunged into the line, the heavy leather ties on his tunic getting snagged in the nylon web.

Backing away, Imelda noticed a dilapidated swing set sitting at the back of the garden, rusting itself into the earth.

She took a deep breath and began to pull in as much Wordcraft as she could muster in the brief time she had, while the Dweller struggled to get free.

She focused on hooking the swing set with her mind, clenched her fist and attempted to send it flying at him.

It was a large and heavy contraption however, so ‘flying’ isn’t quite what happened. It did meander like a happy drunk across the grass though, gathering just enough speed to clout Elijah, ripping the washing line from its concrete base as the whole lot crashed to the grass.

For a second it looked like this had done the trick. The indestructible creature lay still.

Given the Dweller’s resiliance to everything that had been thrown at it so far though, it came as no surprise when it sat Elijah’s body up and extricated itself from the swing set / washing line combo with a series of grunts and growls.

‘Oh for crying out loud,’ groaned Imelda.

She hobbled towards to the house and had made it as far as the conservatory when the Arma caught up, spun her round and slammed her against the glass.

 ‘Enough games,’ it slobbered. ‘Tell me where the girl is.’

‘I have no idea!’

The thing grabbed her by the throat with one arm and studied her terrified expression.

‘Then you’re no use to me… time to eat.’

Thick, living smoke began pouring from his eyes.

Panic rose in Imelda’s chest as she kicked fruitlessly against him.

Despair swelled in her heart as the black smoke started to invade her mind.

Complete surprise poked her in the ribs as a toilet bowl dropped onto the Dweller’s head, finally ending the battle in her favour.

- 10 -

Shopping on a Saturday morning with an eleven year old girl is marginally more stressful than defusing a nuclear bomb.

The above statement would get wholehearted agreement from Amanda Bloom, who was at last returning home with her grumpy daughter from the hell that was the shopping precinct.

Monica was in a mood because she’d once again been denied the joy of owning her own pair of Ugg boots, in favour of badly needed school shoes. She was also fed up because her mother had dragged her round Tesco for an hour, picking up a few much needed essentials – including some migraine tablets.

Monica was really living up to the nickname Moan-ica right about now.

‘It’s not fair, I never get what I want,’ she pouted.

Amanda, who remembered the hundreds she’d spent on a Nintendo DS Lite for Monica’s birthday, chose to remain silent and grind her teeth as the car turned into Green Vale Road.

There was a puke green Fiat Punto parked outside the house.

It was in the space Amanda favoured, the one closest to the front door - a godsend when loaded down with six Tesco shopping bags.

Guaranteeing a visit to the dentist in the near future, she ground her teeth more and parked further along.

Monica leapt out of the car as soon as it came to a stop and flounced off towards the house.

‘Thanks for the help, my little ray of sunshine,’ Amanda said under her breath, lugging the shopping bags from the back seat.

As she locked the car Monica came back over, a scared look on her face.

‘There’s people in the garden, mum.’

‘What?’

‘People in the garden! A woman in a suit and a man dressed in leather. They look like they’re fighting!’

Amanda heard a loud clatter of metal; the sound of a rusty swing set hitting a nylon washing line.

‘Stay here,’ she ordered Monica.

Amanda hurried across the front garden and down the side of the house, slowing when she saw a bedraggled woman running towards her being chased by a reject from Iron Maiden.