by Royston Wood
Chapter Thirteen
It runs on what?
All I can see is those slathering jaws descending towards my face. My mind is screaming in horror. Or is that my mouth? Strange to be questioning it at a time like this.
Fortunately Victor’s body seems to have regained control for my hands are scrabbling at the bandolier of knives. My fingers wrap around a handle and yank a knife clear of its sheath. Just before Cretin’s weight comes hammering down onto me my hand turns the knife point outwards.
With a howl of shock and pain Cretin staggers to his feet, the knife handle jutting from his chest right where his heart is. Eyes wide with disbelief, his hands reach up to touch the handle as if to check it’s real. He sways, totters sideways and then slumps to his knees.
I’ve killed him!
I didn’t mean to kill him! It all happened so fast! I didn’t know what was going on! And anyway, he was going to kill me, right?
I don’t know how to feel.
I feel sick, yet relieved.
I feel like there is a weight crushing my chest, but lightness in my heart.
I feel terrible, but powerful.
I feel exhausted, but elated.
But mostly I feel shocked and horrified when Cretin pulls the knife from his chest and casually tosses it aside to skitter across the cold stone floor.
Before I can react he grabs my wrist and yanks me towards him. I can feel the heat and smell the rancid stench of his breath as he growls in my face, “Victor, don’t look so surprised. You know as well as I that only a silver weapon can harm a werewolf.”
Well Victor probably does but I don’t! Now I just feel angry!!
I struggle in his iron grasp but he is too strong, even for Victor, and I’m held fast.
His jaws open wide and stretch towards my throat.
They’re about to snap shut and I close my eyes in terror.
Whamm-oof-boing!!
His iron grasp is suddenly broken and I tumble backwards to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse the shaggy werebear that has flattened him, sproing from Cretin’s back as if it’s a hairy trampoline.
Cretin is tough though. In moments he rolls back to his feet and charges at me, all snarling teeth and saliva, whilst I dodge between bouncing beasts and scramble over unconscious wererabbits, trying desperately to find my sword.
He’s right behind me, I can feel his fetid breath on my neck! I’ve run out of room! I’m back at the grandfather clock blocking the door. I turn to face him. Suddenly the light in the room dims causing us both look about, wondering what’s happened. The shining disk of light is gone! Bunsen has managed to close the doorway!
“What have you done to the Portal of Infinite Power you fool!” Cretin snarls at Bunsen.
“Hah! Don’t call me a fool, Cretin!” shouts Bunsen, waving some small cylinders he has clutched in his claws at him. “I might be small but I can still outwit you, dog breath. You’ll never get it to work now: I’ve taken the batteries out!”
Cretin howls in rage and thunders across the hall after him.
“Batteries!” I mumble incredulously. “It runs on batteries?”
“Of course,” says Tim, arriving at my side. “It’s got to run on something. You didn’t expect it to be clockwork did you?”
“But it’s the Portal of Infinite Power! It can’t run on batteries! Surely it runs on something super powerful, like magic.”
“True, magic is very powerful,” says Tim, “but it can be risky. One slip of the tongue and it all goes pong!”
Dodging a s-leaping werewolf I stumble back into the grandfather clock ‘locking’ the door behind us. He might have a point.
But there’s no more time to think about it now. There’s another echoing thud from the door and the massive grandfather clock jerks forward and bashes into me.
Straining hard I push back against the grandfather clock and just about manage to stop it toppling over and squashing me flat. But the door has been smashed open a couple of inches. A gnarly trotter-like hand appears through the gap, trying to force it open further.
Despite the danger I can’t help wondering if the trotter-hand belongs to a werepig and what it looks like. Perhaps not like the cheerful Three Little Pigs image that first jumped into my head – probably more like a horrible goblin from the Hobbit.
Tim and I look at each other and then shoulder charge the door. There’s a squeal from the other side and the trotter disappears. We slam into the door again and it bangs shut. But it won’t take them long to ram it open again.
But right now things seem quiet around Tim and me so I take a moment to catch up on what is happening: I’m trapped in a room in a castle in a crazy place/land/story/dimension trying to stop a mental werewolf (that is charging around chasing a tiny ten inch dragon) from bringing an army of werebeasts from another crazy place/land/story/dimension (part of which is leaping around the room because of the miscast spell of an armadillo) by shutting down the Portal of Infinite Power (which apparently runs on batteries). There’s another load of werebeasts trying to break down the door behind me and I’ve just come within a bouncing bear of death.
And I’m meant to be having a day of work experience at the library; the really boring, but exceptionally safe, library! At least, that’s how I’ve always thought about it, if I’ve thought about it at all. But then I’ve always thought dad’s job as a librarian was really boring and exceptionally safe. Now it seems exactly the opposite, if this is what he gets up to every day. Maybe dad does have a cool job after all! Possibly even frosty.
“Catch!!”
Yanked out of my daydream I react instinctively and snatch the hurled batteries out of the air. Cretin, who must have finally caught up with Bunsen, tosses him aside and comes after me.
I lob the batteries to Tim like a hot potato and Cretin swerves towards him. And Tim chucks them back to Bunsen. Now we’re playing Wolfie in the Middle whilst leaping werebeasts bounce all around us!
This is all too majorly weird. I’ve got to do something to stop it. But what? Well, if we could capture Cretin it would be a start. Maybe then the other werewolves will give up. But how?
Dodging a wererat I stretch for the batteries that are flying towards me again, flashing silver as they spin in the air.
Silver! Cretin said he can only be harmed with a silver weapon. If I had a silver weapon maybe I could capture Cretin!
“Tim, can you turn one of these knives to silver?” I shout as I taunt Cretin with the batteries.
“I do know a spell that would do it,” he replies as he circles around into a position where I can toss the batteries to him. “But so far my spells haven’t gone very well!”
“Don’t worry,” I say, throwing the batteries in his direction, “I can’t think of anything that sounds like silver, so you can’t get it muddled up!”
With a frown he immediately flings the batteries on to Bunsen. Then his brow clears and he beams at me.
“Victor my boy, I think you’re right! Hold your knife up high where I can see it.”
I hold up the knife whilst watching Bunsen flapping around Cretin’s head.
“Weird and mystic forces entwine,
Into this transmuting spell of mine,
Even though it doesn’t rhyme,
Turn Victor to silver!
No, no, I meant his blade! Turn his blade to silver!”
Oops! I didn’t see that coming. A streak of light slams into me, momentarily blinding me. When my sight clears I’m no longer blind – I’m bling! Head to toe silver!