The Infernals Read Online Free PDF Page B

pair of blunt scissors. Now, Wormwood was many things—irritating, funny-smelling, not terribly bright—but, most unexpectedly, he had proved to have an aptitude for all things mechanical. Thus, aided by a manual that he had found in the trunk of the Aston Martin, he had taken responsibility for the maintenance and care of the car. It went faster than before, drove more smoothly, and could turn on a penny.
    Oh, and it now looked like a big rock.
    Nurd knew that Mrs. Abernathy and her master, the Great Malevolence, would not exactly be pleased that their plan to create Hell on Earth had been foiled. Neither of them seemed like the forgiving type, which meant that they’d be looking for someone to blame. The Great Malevolence would blame Mrs. Abernathy, because that was the kind of demon he was, and she was supposed to have been in charge. Mrs. Abernathy, in turn, would be searching for someone else to blame, and that someone had last been seen hiding under a blanket and drivinga vintage car into Hell. Nurd wasn’t sure what would happen if Mrs. Abernathy ever got her claws on him, but he imagined that it might involve every atom in his body being separated from the next, and then each one being prodded with a little pin for eternity, which didn’t appeal to him in the slightest.
    So he had made two decisions. The first was that it would be a very good idea to stay on the move, because a moving object was harder to target. 10 It might also, he felt, be wise to disguise the car, which is why they had acquired a frame made from bits of wood and gauze and metal, and painted it to resemble a big boulder, albeit a boulder that could go from naught to sixty in under seven seconds.
    At the moment, though, Wormwood was peering beneath the hood of the car and fiddling with some part of the engine that only he could name. Nurd could probably have named it too, if he was bothered, which he wasn’t, or so he told himself. Afterall, he was the brains of the operation, and therefore couldn’t be going around worrying about carburetors and spark plugs and getting his hands dirty. It never struck him that Wormwood, as the individual who actually understood something of how the car worked, might have had more of a claim to being the brains than Nurd, but that’s often the way with people who don’t like getting their hands dirty. You don’t necessarily get to be king by being bright, but it does help to have bright people around you. 11
    “Have you worked out the problem yet?” asked Nurd.
    “It’s the ignition coil,” said Wormwood.
    “Is it really?” said Nurd, who tried not to sound too bored, and failed even at that.
    “You don’t even know what an ignition coil is, do you?” said Wormwood.
    “Is it a coil that has something to do with the ignition?”
    “Er, yes.”
    “Then I do. Do you know what a big stick capable of leaving a lump on your head is?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good. If you need to be reminded, just continue giving me lip.”
    Wormwood emerged from beneath the hood and wiped his hands on his overalls. That was another thing: on the front of the car manual there had been a photograph of a man wearing overalls and holding a tool of some kind in a vaguely threateningmanner. On the left breast was written his name: “Bob.” Wormwood had decided that this was the kind of uniform worn by people who knew stuff about engines, and had managed to make himself a set of patchwork overalls from the contents of his meager bag of clothes. He had even stitched his name on them, or a version of it: “Wromwood.”
    “It’s the copper wire on the windings,” said Wromwood—er, Wormwood. “It’s taken a bit of a battering. It would be good if we could find some replacements.”
    Nurd turned and stared out from the mouth of the cave. Before them stretched a huge expanse of black volcanic rock, which made a change from the huge expanse of gray volcanic rock that had until recently been the site of their banishment. The sky