The Temporal Stone (The Morgan Sisters) (9 page)

'Uh oh,' Declan said. 'They're vamps, and they're taking full advantage of the humans not being able to escape. We've got to do something...'

'You mean vamps as in vampires?'

'Afraid so, Sammy.'

'But they... they... can kill,' she gulped.

Declan nodded, 'They're capable of some serious bodily harm. You know what you've read about them in books?'

Sammy nodded.

'And seen in movies?'

She nodded again.

'Some of it is fiction, but a lot of it is true.'

Sammy's face paled in seconds.

'But don't worry, we can handle them.'

'We can?' she whispered.

'Just be careful, alright?'

Sammy nodded before Elliot spoke, 'Wait a minute, why aren't the trolls bothering them?' he asked.

'Maybe there aren't any here?' suggested Emma. 'Erm, can you tell us if any of your kind are here?' she turned to ask their captive.

He looked up from his squashed position in the cage.

'I can't... I can't see see...'

'Declan?' asked Emma.

'Yes, I think so too,' he replied.

'Huh? Oh come on you guys, not fair to communicate like that. Emma, what were you thinking just then?'

Emma raised her eyebrows and looked backwards.

'Oh no, you're not going to let him out? But he might freeze us all and then what?'

'It's a risk we've got to take if we're going to help stop those poor humans from becoming lunch,' Declan added.

'I know you're right, I really do, but...'

'Free me me? Free me me?' said the troll. 'You'll free me in order to help those people people?' he asked.

'We have to,' said Emma. 'Will you promise not to hurt us?'

The troll smiled widely.

'I never had any any intention to harm you you. I want want to help you you. I want to help you you. Really, I do. I do do,' he clapped.

Emma turned to Declan who nodded from the front seat of the car as he handed her a key from the glove box.

Taking a deep breath, Emma leant backwards just as Lana grabbed her. 'Be careful, Sis,' she whispered before releasing her.

Emma climbed onto her knees and leant over the back seat, fumbling with the key in the padlock until it clicked free. The door popped open and the troll gingerly unravelled himself from it. As he lifted himself into the small space next to the cage, he let out a giggle and leant forward towards Emma.

She gulped and tensed her body as he leant over to grab her.

'Oh no,' cried Lana with her eyes closed.

But when she opened them again, she was amazed to see her sister hugging the creature back, giggling with him.

'Oh,' Lana yelped. 'You didn't harm her. But you could have frozen us all, why didn't you?'

The troll released his grip on Emma and shrugged, 'Why would I I? Why would would I I?' he asked.

'But all the humans - and back in Bath, Liam and Nisha - oh, I'm so confused.'

'The trolls aren't all all bad bad,' he quipped. 'Some are under under the spell spell. A nasty spell spell. I managed to escape it it, but then you ran me over over and, and trapped me in that cage cage.'

'Why didn't you say something before?' she asked.

The troll shrugged his shoulders, 'Why? Why not? Who knows knows?'

'We can talk about this later,' Declan said, peering through the window and watching more and more humans being carried into the castle.

'Can you see any trolls in the vicinity?' he asked.

The pixie troll scoured the area and shook his head, 'No, no trolls here, no trolls here here.'

'How are we going to help, Declan?' asked Elliott.

'I have a plan,' he replied, looking through his mirror directly at the creature in the back. The troll gulped loudly.

oOo

'So we're safe to get out of the car?' Lana asked for the third time.

'Yes, yes, safe yes yes. I can keep you safe safe,' he answered.

'How can you keep us safe?' Elliott quipped as they very quietly climbed out of the Range Rover and hid behind it while they waited for Declan to explain his plan.

'I can tell you when when bad pixie trolls come near near and if they do do, I can try to stop them them. Don't worry, you'll be safe safe.'

'So, what's the plan?' Emma asked.

'Well, I figured our friend here, oh, what's your name by the way?' Declan asked as he looked towards the creature.

'My name name? You want to know know my name name?'

The group nodded as he grinned, blushing at the same time, 'My name name is is Jimble Jimble.'

'Nice to meet you, Jimble,' Declan whispered while the others smiled at him. 'Now, here's what I need you to do...'

CHAPTER 14

The group watched as Jimble rushed to the other side of the road, hiding behind people stopped in the street. Occasionally, he would turn back and seek reassurance from Declan, who would nod and give his thumbs up.

As he finally approached the castle, the others silently followed.

If the plan worked, Jimble would touch each of the vampires and stop them in time. If it didn't work, then they'd have a fight on their hands and they had to be prepared.

Just before Jimble disappeared behind the door which had been left slightly ajar, he turned back one last time.

'Maybe we shouldn't have asked him to do this. Look at him, he looks terrified,' whispered Emma as they crept towards the door.

'I'm sure he'll be fine, Em. If he wasn't confident, he would've said so,' Lana replied.

'I hope you're right,' whispered Sammy, who was probably even more frightened than Jimble had appeared to be.

Suddenly there was a loud crash from behind the castle door. Jimble came running out, his arms and legs everywhere as he tried to bolt as fast as possible. His mouth fell open as he silently screamed.

'Jimble,' hissed Declan. 'Over here.'

Jimble stopped abruptly and turned to face them. Shaking his head, he cried out, 'I didn't get them all. There's still three left - run!'

'No, Jimble, come here. We can do this,' Emma cried, rushing out to try and catch him.

As she caught up with him, she went to grab hold of his arm. He spotted her just in time.

'No, Emma, no no! You must not touch me me unless I know you're going to to,' he scolded. 'You could have been been frozen. You could have been frozen frozen. If you touch me me, even accidentally, without me me seeing you, you will be like your friend friend,' he said pointing to Moira in the car.

'But couldn’t you un-freeze me?' she asked as she tried to make him turn back.

He shook his head, 'Therein lies lies the problem problem, Emma, the problem. It's this spell spell we're under. I only managed managed to escape escape part of it it. If you become frozen frozen, I cannot unfreeze you, I cannot cannot.'

'Hurry,' Lana yelped as a vampire with short bright red hair appeared in the castle doorway, scouring the area.

'You!' he bellowed, pointing to Jimble.

'Me?' Jimble replied, his face turning rather pale.

Fortunately the vampire was so focussed on getting his hands on the troll, that he neglected to notice the five Watchers now surrounding him.

Before he even had a chance to flinch, he had been tackled to the floor, held down by Declan's brute force, before he was held in place by a ring of fire.

'Now Jimble, now! Touch him now!' Declan yelled as Elliott opened up a gap in the fire for the troll.

'Ooh, it's hot hot, ouch ouch,' he cried as he pounced forward, his finger outstretched. Once he had made contact, he shot backwards.

'We don't like fire fire, it's too hot, too hot hot,' he grumbled, rubbing his hands together.

'Are you okay?' asked Emma as she approached to check him over.

Looking up at her, his eyes welled with tears and he nodded, 'You care care? You you really do do care?'

'Of course I care,' she chuckled.

'Shhh,' whispered Declan. 'There are still two more in there. We'll have to go inside.'

'But what about him?' asked Sammy. 'Shouldn't we do something with him?'

'What do you mean?' asked Lana, 'He's frozen isn't he?'

'Yeah but he's a... a... vampire. Shouldn't we put a stake in his heart or something? We can't just leave him there. What if this spell wears off? Then he'll just go back to killing people.'

'When the spell wears off, he'll be in the middle of crowds of people, he'll have no choice but to disappear. We can't worry about that now,' replied Declan from the front as he gingerly pushed the door open.

Inside a great hall were around thirty people, all lined up at the far end of the room, beneath what looked like an oversized dartboard.

'What's that?' whispered Sammy, pointing to it.

'It's just an imitation of an Arthurian round table,' replied Declan as they searched the room for signs of vampires.

'Cool,' whispered Elliott. 'I don't see them.'

'Me neither,' said the others.

'There's a door over there,' Lana said as she rushed towards it, followed by the rest of the group. 'It leads out into a garden. 'Oh, I see them.'

Declan dashed out in front of her, running alongside a pretty tunnel of plants made from curved trees until he reached a set of steps that led away from the castle. He could see a man and a woman disappearing down another set of steps leading back towards the centre of town.

Increasing his speed, he threw himself on top of the male vampire, punching him hard in the mouth. Fighting back, the vamp was soon back on his feet as his mate was stopped by Lana and Emma, who managed to kick her in the back, causing her to fall to the floor.

'Jimble, quick!' yelled Lana as they fought hard to keep her down. Seconds later, however, the female vampire had thrown the girls off her and jumped back onto her feet. She hissed at them as they slowly circled each other.

Pushing his long white hair over his shoulder, the male vampire flashed his sharp teeth before attempting to throw himself at Declan.

'Oh please, that is just so predictable,' yelled Elliott who threw himself from the top of the stairs, landing on his side on the floor next to the white haired monster. With his arms outstretched, flames erupted from his fingertips causing the vampire to hiss in pain.

The fire burned hotter and hotter before he had time to get out of the way and within the seconds, he was no longer a living creature but a mere pile of ash on the ground.

'No!' screamed his mate just as Jimble arrived to gently place his finger on her arm. Her features began to freeze over like a statue, fear and shock etched on her beautiful face.

'Shouldn't we burn her too?' asked Sammy as she tiptoed around the statue looking at her in fascination.

'We usually try to avoid killing, when possible,' Declan said as he dusted himself down and shot Elliott a sideways glance.

'Oh, sorry,' Elliott, replied, 'I got a bit carried away.'

'No, you had to kill him him. He was going to kill kill us, all of us... I know I know. You were were right to dispose dispose of him him,' Jimble said as he wobbled away.

'Where are you going?' Lana shouted to him.

'We must go go. We must go now now... the trolls are coming coming.'

The sisters looked at each other before they all ran back towards the car.

'Where are they?' asked Lana.

'Not far far.'

'But what about the people in the hall?'

Declan shook his head, 'We can't do anything about them now. We don't know where they were before they were carried in there. We'll just have to leave them be, for now.'

'Why are the trolls coming, Jimble?'

'The commotion commotion, they heard heard the commotion.'

As they climbed back into the car, Jimble hopped up into the boot and Declan asked him about the other trolls.

'Why are they bad and you're not, Jimble?'

'They are not not bad bad, it's just the spell. Just the spell spell.'

'But what is this spell?' he asked as he began to drive the car away from the castle.

'It started nearly two hundred hundred years ago ago. We were hibernating, like we do every year year. Every year,' he sighed. 'When we were rudely awoken awoken by all this noise noise, all this terrible noise. Bang, bang, banging, it was terrible terrible. My queen sent sent some of the trolls trolls to investigate. They found humans humans digging, right above us us. They were too close close for comfort, they were were. Building a tunnel, of all things. A tunnel for a train trail, of all things things,' he said, shaking his head. 'Anyway, one of the trolls trolls had had enough enough. And he went up there and he, well well, I'm not proud proud of what he did, but he... he...'

'What? What did he do, Jimble?' asked Sammy.

'He killed them them.'

'He killed them? Who did he kill?' Lana asked.

Gulping loudly, Jimble trembled, 'Some of the humans humans. About a hundred hundred... not all at once, mind you you. He did it over time time so the humans wouldn't become too suspicious suspicious,' he said, crying.

'Oh Jimble, it's not your fault. Don't cry,' Emma said as he looked at her and let her squeeze his hand.

'It gave us a bad bad name name. But that's beside the point, beside the point point. When the queen found out out about his murderous ways ways, she she sent him away. She told him him he was no longer one of us, one of us and she forbade him from ever returning returning.'

'But what has this got to do with the spell?' asked Declan who was keeping a close eye on the road as they finally exited Winchester.

'Well, Gordle - that's his name, it is it is - stole a precious stone stone from us, from beneath the tunnel where we lived lived. Well, that precious stone stone wasn't just any old precious stone stone, it was an artefact artefact from an ancient time time. We worshipped worshipped that stone. It was the Temporal Stone stone. With it, you could halt time time and play with it it however you wanted wanted. We never did did, of course we didn't didn't. We just worshipped it it. We didn't need to play with time time, we didn't. But Gordle took it it. We didn't know until it was too late late. We travelled miles and miles miles trying to find him but we never did. The stone was gone gone.'