Stones of Power- Hellstone & Maelstrom

by Jenna Grey

  “Give in, or I will hurt you,” he said, pushing his knee right up into the most tender part of her.

  His groin was pressed against her thigh, and she could feel his hardness through the thin fabric as he rubbed himself against her, dry humping her.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a two-pronged fork that was just within her reach. He didn’t seem to have noticed it, too intent on getting between her legs. He loosened his grip on her for a moment, reaching down to unfasten his trousers and Polly snatched at the fork before he had a chance to realise what she was doing. He saw the danger at the last moment and made a grab for her hand, but he was too late. Polly brought the fork down hard on his neck and stabbed it in until the prongs had almost disappeared in his flesh. At that moment she really didn’t care if she killed him. Winchard gave a terrible shriek, reaching up to pull it out.

  “You bitch, you fucking bitch!” he screamed at her.

  Polly just laughed in an attempt to mask her terror.

  “Not such a bloody princess now, am I?” she said, backing towards the stairs. She had to get out of here because she knew that if he got a hold of her now, he’d definitely kill her, or at least make her wish she was dead. He had pulled out the fork and was moving towards her, brandishing it with serious intent. She picked up the knife and held it in front of her, both hands clasping the handle.

  “I will kill you if you come any closer,” she threatened. “Believe me; I will do it.”

  He looked at the knife and laughed.

  “If you can see what you’re doing with one eye.”

  The knife trembled in Polly’s hands, real fear taking her now, as she realised that was no idle threat.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Elias Gaunt appeared at the top of the stairs, staring down at the scene with a look of abject horror on his face. Polly never imagined she would ever be happy to see her uncle, but she sagged with relief.

  Winchard dropped the fork and said:

  “Your bitch of a niece just attacked me.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his still bleeding neck.

  Polly gave an outraged growl; the knife still clutched in her hands.

  “And your bastard of a friend tried to rape me!” she yelled. “I want him out of the house, now.”

  Her uncle tutted, rolling his eyes, as if she were a naughty child making a fuss about nothing.

  “There’s no need for this fuss; it was obviously just a misunderstanding.” Her uncle turned to Winchard, who was now hunched over, looking thoroughly sorry for himself. “Winchard, apologise.”

  Polly was outraged.

  “Apologise? He’s lucky I’m not pressing charges. Uncle, I want him out of the house, and I want him out now. Either he goes, or I do.”

  Her uncle sighed, trying to keep his temper with her, but Polly could see that beneath the veneer he was seething.

  “Polly, be reasonable. Yes, he was in the wrong, but you’re overreacting. I need Dalbert here; we have important business to deal with. I give you my word; he won’t touch you again. Now apologise Dalbert and give Polly your assurance that you won’t try anything like this again.”

  “I’m sorry,” Winchard mumbled, dabbing at his neck. There was surprisingly little blood.

  Polly shook her head, knowing that she couldn’t back down on this.

  “Not good enough. I mean it Uncle, it’s him or me.”

  Her uncle hesitated only momentarily, then said:

  “Then I’m sorry my dear; it’s you. I just hope that you have somewhere to go.”

  Polly just stared at him for a moment, trying to gauge if he was serious or not. His eyes were hard, uncompromising and Polly just couldn’t read his expression.

  “I have a friend I can stay with,” Polly said, dropping the knife. “I can’t stay here, not after this. I hope you can manage without me, Uncle. Perhaps Dalbert here can finish dinner off for you.” She took off her apron and threw it at Winchard, turning to make for the stairs up to the hall.

  She could see now that her uncle had thought she was bluffing about leaving and had finally realised that she meant it. He stopped her as she tried to pass him on the stairs.

  “Look, perhaps we can discuss this later, you’re upset. There’s no need for unpleasantness. I’m sure we can sort this out.”

  Polly shrugged his hand from her arm.

  “There’s plenty of need for unpleasantness. Goodbye, Uncle,” she replied, pushing past him.

  She disappeared upstairs before he could answer her, but she could hear him railing against Winchard, calling him some very choice names. She’d rarely heard her uncle so upset. Good, let the bastard fume.

  Polly hurried up to her bedroom, her heart still doing a frantic dance; it felt as if it were throwing itself against her rib cage, trying to break out.

  “Calm down; just take a few deep breaths and calm down.”

  She was hyperventilating, dizzy from taking in too much oxygen and she slowed her breathing, exhaling a long breath to get back to normal. Her throat hurt, and it felt as if she were swallowing a marble every time she gulped; her finger was sending pulses of throbbing pain every few seconds. She suddenly burst into tears, furious, hurt, afraid, dropping down on her bed face down and sobbing into her pillow. It was a good ten minutes before she could think about doing anything other than hiccuping sobs. If her grandmother was watching over her, she wondered what she was thinking now. She was still shaking, her neck painfully sore from Winchard’s assault, her throat dry and gritty. She looked in the mirror and saw that her neck was bruised, red, and a bit swollen. The blood had soaked through the dressing on her finger and was dripping everywhere. She managed to make another makeshift dressing with some toilet paper and Sellotape; it would have to do for now.

  She stood up and pulled her holdall from under the bed, throwing the first things that came to hand into it. She didn’t have time to make sensible choices, just putting in clothing that didn’t need much maintenance: jean’s, tee shirts, a couple of sweaters, trainers and some underwear. There wasn’t much room for any personal items. Could she take anything with her that she didn’t need? She supposed it depended on how you defined ‘Need’. She picked up the photograph of her and her grandmother in the garden from the bedside table – she couldn’t leave that behind. The only other thing she took was the copy of the Hobbit her mum and dad had given her on her 10th birthday, just before they were killed. She doubted she’d ever be able to come back and get the rest of her things, but at least she would be free. In some ways, it had made things easier. She had wanted an excuse to leave, and they didn’t come better than this.

  Even though she had made it clear that she was leaving, she didn’t want to have another scene and give her uncle any kind of excuse to stop her going. There was a fire escape outside her window and Polly could leave that way without her uncle being any the wiser. She just wished she’d got the chance to take the rest of the money from the box before she went. Still, she had a tiny amount of savings in her post office account, not much, but enough to give Bert a little bit of money for food until she could find some sort of job. She had thought about leaving a note, but there was no need, was there? She’d already said everything there was to say.

  Polly took one last look around her room and felt a terrible emptiness in the pit of her stomach. She had been born in this house, lived here every day of her life since, home-schooled, cocooned from the harshness of the world. She’d had a happy life here with her mother and father and then her grandmother – up until the last few months anyway. So many memories. How could she not feel sad at leaving so many of her possessions behind? She only hoped the Bert meant it when he said she could move in there. Then she remembered Liam and wondered if she might not be jumping out of the proverbial frying pan into an inferno. At least Finn would help to soften the blow. Thinking about him brought a little smile to her lips. He was very cute.

  She climbed out of the window and down
the fire escape, taking with her just a holdall and a well-stuffed shoulder bag. When she got to the bottom, she took one last look back at home, then, with a sigh, she turned her back on it and began walking.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The shop was in darkness by the time she got there, even though it was still only late afternoon. There was an ‘Open’ sign on the door, though, so she gingerly pushed. It opened, and the bell tinkled out a welcome. Her back said a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to her as she stepped inside and dropped her far-too-heavy bags on the floor. She was about to call through, when a very dishevelled figure stepped through from the back room. He was covered in dust and cobwebs, his face smudged with dirt, his hair tousled. It was Finn, she was sure of it.

  “Finn?” she asked, her voice coming out with a rasp. Her throat was very sore.

  The smile he gave her confirmed it was him. She let out her pent up breath and smiled back.

  “We got your message,” he said, looking over her shoulder at her bags. “It looks as if you’ve taken us up on our offer to come and stay.” He didn’t look at all unhappy at the prospect.

  “I had to get out.” She hesitated, not sure if she should tell him the whole truth; she decided that in this case discretion was the better part of valour. “I hope you don’t mind. I don’t want to impose. If it’s a problem...” She laughed then. “If it’s a problem I can always find a park bench to sleep on.”

  Far from looking put out, Finn looked as if he’d just won the lottery.

  “God, no, it’s a pleasure. To tell the truth, I was hoping that you’d take us up on our offer. What decided you in the end?”

  Polly drew in her breath, trying to decide just what she could, or should, tell him.

  “Winchard tried it on with me,” she mumbled, staring down at the floor. She held her breath, waiting for Finn’s reaction, afraid to look up.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked, a quiet demand. She glanced up then; he looked so concerned.

  “A bit, but I’m okay, really.” He didn’t look convinced. “I stabbed him in the neck with a fork,” Polly continued, trying to sound flippant, to diffuse the situation. “He looks as if a vampire has chowed down on him.” Finn didn’t seem to be buying her act.

  “What happened to your hand?” he asked, lifting it and examining the make-shift bandage.

  “I cut my finger – it’s nothing,” she croaked. He looked at her throat, gently easing her hair back to see the livid red mark on her neck. His eyes met hers, their gaze fixed on one another. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But you’re here now, and it’s not going to happen again.” He gave her the tiniest of smiles then, a reassurance perhaps.

  Polly reached up to wipe away a cobweb that was dangling from Finn’s ear, a careless gesture, then realised what she was doing.

  “Cobweb,” she said, blushing furiously. Finn fidgeted nervously.

  “I was cleaning out the spare room, in case you needed to come and stay,” he said. “Let’s get these bags upstairs and then we have some things to discuss. Dad’s in the back room. I’ll take your bags.” He lifted the bags as if they weighed nothing, moving with lithe grace through to the back room. Polly followed him through, still nervous, but feeling better now. There was something about Finn that put her at her ease, and yes, he did make her feel safe.

  Bert was sitting at a very cluttered table poring over a pile of old books. He looked up at her over his half-moon glasses as she entered, an expression of real pleasure springing to his face when he saw it was her. He stood up and came over to her, taking her hand in both of his and holding it for a moment, shaking it warmly.

  “Oh Polly, my dear, I’m so glad you’re safe. Come in; come in and make yourself at home.” He ushered her further in and guided her to the armchair. “I take it that you had to flee that nest of vipers?”

  “That scumbag, Winchard, assaulted her,” Finn said, dumping her bags at the foot of the stairs and parking himself on the arm of Polly’s chair. Bert looked mortified.

  “Oh my dear, are you hurt?” he asked.

  Polly shook her head quickly, tossing just the briefest glance at Finn and willing him not to say anything,

  “He didn’t get that far,” she said, pretending a laugh. “Uncle and I had an enormous row, and I stormed out. I told him that I was going to stay with a friend.”

  Bert looked suitably relieved and said:

  “Well, you’re here now and safe, so you make yourself at home. Finn, my boy, why don’t you take Polly up and show her to her room? It’s nothing to write home about I’m afraid, but it’s clean and comfortable – you’re welcome to stay there for as long as you wish. I’ll have a nice cup of tea waiting for when you come down.”

  “Follow me,” Finn said, grabbing her bags and starting up the narrow staircase at a trot.

  Polly stumbled after him, trying to negotiate her way around the boxes and piles of junk that stood between her and the stairs; there was hardly an inch of floor or wall space.

  “Finn, why do you keep all of this junk?” Polly asked as she narrowly avoided tripping over a box filled with what looked like old watches and bits of clocks. He grinned back at her.

  “Oh, some of it is cursed, or has a spell on it, only we haven’t had time to work out which is and which isn’t so we keep it all, just in case someone stumbles over it and hurts themselves.”

  “So you keep it here so we can stumble over it and hurt ourselves,” Polly said, glaring at the box she’d just tripped over.

  Finn just laughed.

  “We’ll get around to it one day.”

  Just above the shop was one huge room that must have covered the whole of the ground floor. It obviously served as a living room come kitchen and was as cluttered and messy as the room downstairs, a wilderness of mismatched furniture and sundry clutter that made it look more like a junk shop than a living area. It was painfully evident that three men lived here. There was a battered old sofa and a couple of armchairs, none of which matched, a TV and computer on a cluttered desk to one side, and a coffee table stacked high with miscellany. The other side of the room was an open plan kitchenette of sorts, which looked as if a burglar had stumbled through it in the dark, knocking everything over in his wake. The table and chairs were a hideous Formica that had probably been old fashioned in the 1960s; the battered old cooker and refrigerator were even older, and the few mismatched cupboards all had different handles. The Fountain household certainly didn’t believe in living in the lap of luxury. It was wonderful.

  They carried on through and up another flight of narrow stairs.

  The hallway above was extremely cramped. Polly thought that the rooms behind the doors must be small because the doors were so close together. It was a quaintly old building, probably 18th century, the ceiling’s low with exposed oak beams here and there, which Finn had to duck to avoid.

  “That’s our room ‒ Liam and I share,” he said, moving past the first door. There was a sign, battered and obviously quite a few years old that read: Liam and Finn’s room. Keep out.’There was a rather sorry looking picture of the Millennium Falcon underneath.

  “Is Liam all right? I was worried about him,” Polly said. “He seemed very upset. I felt awful that he’d made himself ill trying to do a reading for me.”

  Finn didn’t answer for a moment.

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s a tough cookie,” he replied, but Polly thought that somehow his words didn’t ring true.

  They stopped outside the next door along.

  “Which of you is the oldest? Polly asked, as he opened the door into a small box room. It was tiny, but it was comfortable, if a little mismatched and old fashioned. It was still a damn sight better than living under the same roof as Doctor Death and the Marquis de Sade.

  “We’re not sure. We both say we’re the oldest, but Liam probably is.” He dropped the bags and turned to go. “I’m sorry we weren’t here when you phoned earlier, but Dad and I had to go and see someone in Ludlow Down; we t
hought he might be able to help us with some more information on our friend Sigurd Thorgeirsson.”

  “Was he able to help?” Polly asked. Finn was standing close to her, his arm almost touching hers; she could feel the tickle of the fine hairs of his forearm brushing against her skin. It sent a little shiver through her.

  “Yes, quite a bit. If you want to get yourself settled in and then come back downstairs, we’ll tell you what we found out.” He turned slightly so that they were facing one another, just a foot of space between them. Finn was a few inches taller than her and as she looked up into his face, at the brightness of his eyes, the soft curve of his lips she had the desperate urge to kiss him. He made a strange little sound in his throat, and moved back; his face flushed scarlet, and he backed towards the door.

  “Oh, the loo and the bathroom are directly opposite if you need them. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “I’ll come down now. I can unpack later,” Polly said. But Finn had already bolted.

  Polly followed Finn downstairs, almost tip-toeing past Liam and Finn’s bedroom door. She didn’t want to see Liam. She felt bad about that because he really hadn’t done anything to hurt her and had tried to help, but he scared the life out of her. Bert was still at the table, peering over the top of his strange glasses at something in one of the books that seemed to interest him greatly.

  “Ah, I do hope you like the room?” Bert asked, as she sat down.

  Polly nodded and smiled.

  “It’s perfect, very cosy and safe. I love it. I promise I won’t outstay my welcome, though. I’ll start looking for somewhere else tomorrow.”