The Moon Stealers Box Set. Books 1-4 (Fantasy Dystopian Books for Teenagers)

by Tim Flanagan

  Praise for The Moon Stealers

  "It was really well written and had such rich detail that made the book shine and come to life …. an amazing jigsaw that slowly comes together" - Anne Marie, Best Books

  "One of the best books I have read on the subject so far! I think it will be a big hit with boys" - Jennifer Moody, Addicted To Books

  "This is a very entertaining book that anyone can enjoy. I can't wait for the next one" - Crystal Trent Dotson, All My Book Finds

  "I was drawn into this book literally from the very first paragraph" - Maria Foley, Book Junkies

  "This is a fun adventure filled fantasy book. I would think any kid would enjoy this series, I know I did and I'm an adult" - Heather Alexander, Young Adult and Teens Readers Community

  Also available from Tim Flanagan:

  The Moon Stealers and the Quest for the Silver Bough (Book 1)

  The Moon Stealers and the Queen of the Underworld (Book 2)

  The Moon Stealers and The Everlasting Night (Book 3)

  The Moon Stealers and The Children of the Light (Book 4)

  The Curious Disappearance of Professor Brown

  The Mystery of Van Gogh's Missing Heart

  Lawrence Pinkley's Casebook Vol. 1

  Lawrence Pinkley's Casebook Vol. 2

  Amazon Publishing Manual

  The Moon Stealers Box Set

  Copyright © 2014 Tim Flanagan

  The right of Tim Flanagan to be identified as the author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  The Quest for the Silver Bough © 2012

  The Queen of the Underworld © 2012

  The Everlasting Night © 2013

  The Children of the Light © 2013

  This edition published 2014 by Flanagan Wale Publishing

  Moon Stealer logo, cover art and maps copyright © Dylan Gibson 2014

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  Visit the author's website for more details on how to claim your exclusive FREE book!

  www.timflanaganauthor.com

  Contents

  The Quest for the Silver Bough (Book 1)

  The Queen of the Underworld (Book 2)

  The Everlasting Night (Book 3)

  The Children of the Light (Book 4)

  About the Author

  1. The Graveyard

  It all begins with Peter Crisp….

  It was eerily quiet in Parsley Bottom graveyard, and very, very dark. The reassuring light from the street lamps did not reach this part of the village, making everything look like a scene from an old black and white film. The white glow from the moon picked out the cracked and crumbling edges of the gravestones that stuck out of the ground, bent and unattended after so many years of neglect. An occasional stone was half covered by clumps of long grass or the skeletal remains of bunches of flowers long forgotten. A rusty gate clung to an old stone wall by one hinge, leaning on the dirt for support, unable to move. The bats, which had been known to put on quite a show for the locals in the past, had tucked themselves beneath the eaves of the church roof, shielding their heads beneath their leathery wings, aware of the evil presence that stirred amongst the gravestones below. Tonight, Parsley Bottom graveyard was not the place to be - unless you were already dead of course.

  Peter Crisp lay on a blanket behind one of the larger gravestones not too far from the stone wall of the old decaying church, trying to shield himself from the cool air that drifted off the river at the bottom of the graveyard. The frosty night air had already started to make the grass around Peter crisp and stiff. The white stones shimmered magically as small crystals of water froze into dustings of ice that glimmered in the moonlight.

  One night, he thought to himself, that’s all I have to do. He tried to convince himself that it would be easy to stay there as he nervously hugged the sleeping bag tight against him, pulling it up high beneath his chin.

  One night, he said to himself again. Hearing his voice inside his head reassured him that he was not alone.

  But, during his whole life Peter had never been alone, not truly.

  He pulled his hand up so that he could just see his wrist-watch without heat escaping from inside the sleeping bag.

  The luminous clock face read:

  Twenty-eight minutes past midnight.

  It would be at least six hours until the sun started to come up. By then he would have proved to everyone at school that he was as brave and tough as Jimmy Cox, not to mention winning Jimmy’s new skateboard in the process. If he didn’t manage it and went home early, he would remain the school weirdo that no one wanted to know. This was the dare of all dares: stay in the graveyard for one night.

  Peter wasn’t what you could call a popular twelve year old boy. His mother never managed to keep up with his growth and as a consequence his clothes always appeared to be two sizes too small. His thick brown hair grew too quickly and would often cover his spectacles making him feel like he was constantly looking out of a window with the curtains half drawn. Peter was different to the other children at school: he could see things that they couldn’t, which often made them stare at him or call him names. On the brighter side, he could run fast. The other kids at school would often be impressed with the speed he could run, until his long uncoordinated legs would cause him to trip over his own feet. Then they would laugh at him and mock the way his legs got tangled up amongst themselves. Jimmy, by contrast, was popular. He lived in a pub with his parents, was good at sports and always had clothes that fitted. In fact, some of them weren’t even strictly part of the school uniform, but Jimmy always seemed to be able to get away with it.

  It’s just like camping. Peter told himself, trying to keep positive. That afternoon he had collected a few items from home to bring with him and help him through the night. He'd told his mother he was staying round a friend's house. To occupy his mind he mentally went through his list for the twenty third time, just to make sure he had everything:

  A flashlight

  Blanket and sleeping bag

  Thick coat and hat

  Chocolate bar

  Can of Fizzy Orange

  Peter squeezed his left arm reassuringly against his chest, making sure that Dudley, his favourite bear, was still there. He would never admit to owning a teddy bear at his age, but he'd had Dudley since he was one year old.

  A sharp crack echoed around the graveyard making Peter forget about his list and remind him exactly where he was. Instinctively he sat upright and twisted towards where the sound came from. He stopped breathing and started to shiver; the sleeping bag had slipped down slightly around his shoulders.

  He waited for another sound, but nothing happened. It felt like ages until he felt confident enough to relax again.

  Probably just squirrels or hedgehogs moving about in the bushes looking for food. That’s all it was, he thought, trying to convince himself that the sound was nothing to worry about as he lay back down.

  He decided to cough loudly, hoping to scare any small animals away, then waited again. No other sounds disturbed the night air so he snuggled into his sleeping bag, lifted the zip up as high as he could and closed his eyes. To stop himself from hearing other sounds, he began to hum a nameless tune to himself until
he slowly drifted to sleep.

  The arrival of the bright moon in the starry night sky had, unknown to Peter, begun to wake up another occupant in the graveyard, one that preferred to do its hunting beneath the black cloak of night. Two hooded shapes slid slowly across the muddy grass from amongst the shadows of the stones. Their movement was so slow and smooth that they could have been travelling on wheels or skating across a frozen lake.

  They moved towards Peter.

  Peter was sleeping lightly, his ears subconsciously tuned in to the sounds of the graveyard. Occasionally, he would hear the rustling sound of wind as it blew through the trees, or a gentle splash from the shallow river, all of which he accepted and dismissed as normal. But there was another sound now, one he was unfamiliar with, that made him open his eyes. He lifted his head above the gravestone and looked around. Everything was black except for the moon that reflected off the cold white surface of the gravestones. But something was different and he couldn't tell what it was. To start with, he had heard a sound that seemed out of place, a sound that reminded Peter of thick gravy bubbling in a pan ready for a Sunday dinner. There was also a strange smell like a mouldy sandwich that had been left in his school bag for too long.

  He took the flashlight from the bottom of his sleeping bag, turned it on and swung the light around him like a beam from a lighthouse. Everything looked normal, although the noise now seemed to have stopped. Reassured that everything was normal, he switched the light off and snuggled back down inside the sleeping bag once again.

  After a few seconds Peter thought that he heard the thick bubbling sound again, but this time it seemed to be nearer; so close in fact that it almost sounded like it was coming from somewhere at the end of his sleeping bag.

  'I don’t scare that easily, Jimmy!’ Peter shouted into the night, his voice echoing around the gravestones. ‘You need to try harder than that if you want me to go home early.' Peter thought it was probably Jimmy or one of his friends trying to scare him, but he wasn’t going to be put off that easy. He switched the flashlight on again and placed it on the grass beside him so that the beam shone towards his feet.

  Once again Peter settled down inside the warm sleeping bag and closed his eyes. He didn’t know if there was enough power in the flashlight to last through the night, but he was sure Jimmy would get bored quickly and go home. Peter soon drifted back into a light sleep in the hope that the next time he opened his eyes the sun would be coming out.

  The hooded shapes waited before moving closer towards Peter. In the middle of the night most people were fast asleep and could do nothing to help him. His screams and cries remained unanswered leaving behind a tangled sleeping bag in a heap behind a gravestone.

  2. Inside MI6

  For the past two years that Steven Knight had been working for the British Government it had involved nothing but sitting behind a desk writing reports for senior officials. And, he had no reason to suspect that today was going to be any different. He entered through the high security checkpoints inside London’s MI6 headquarters and stepped into a highly polished glass elevator that would take him up to the seventh floor where his desk awaited him, along with the pile of paperwork he had left there the night before.

  From inside the atrium of the building where suited men whispered selective truths into the ears of their colleagues, a tall man dashed across towards the elevator just as the doors began to slide shut. The man athletically slid through the narrow gap and nodded good morning to Steven as the elevator began to smoothly move up.

  Steven thought he recognised most people that worked in the building, but not this man. And his appearance was not one you could forget in a hurry. At around seven foot tall the stranger's height was the first striking thing about him. His black hair hung in dreadlocks to thick muscular shoulders beneath an expensive tailored pin striped suit. But the most unusual thing about this man was the silvery white scar that cut deeply into his black skin from below one eye to his jaw line.

  After a few seconds the elevator stopped at the fourth floor and another man entered. ‘Good morning, Knight,’ he said to Steven. ‘Caught any aliens yet?’ he continued with a mocking smile on his face.

  ‘Not yet, Davison,’ replied Steven. He knew that the department Steven worked for was the butt of all jokes within the building.

  ‘Actually, I wanted to come and talk to you,’ continued Davison trying to sound charming and sincere. ‘I noticed something strange this morning when I was having my breakfast. I was about to take my last mouth full when I saw that the cereal had arranged itself into letters that spelt out a word.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Steven, slightly warily, waiting for the punch line.

  ‘I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget.’ Davison pulled a notepad out of his inside pocket and thumbed through it. ‘Here we go; it spelt out the word ANILE. Strange, eh? Anyway,’ he paused, ‘I thought you should know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ nodded Steven trying to work out if Davison was being serious or not, ‘I’ll look out for any other cereal related reports and let you know.’

  Desperately trying to stop himself from laughing, Davison turned his face down towards his feet, his lips tightly clamped together not wanting to betray his joke.

  ‘This is my stop,’ said Davison as an electronic bell chimed their arrival to the sixth floor. The elevator doors began to open. ‘I'm off to fight some real foreign threats. Bye.’ He enthusiastically stepped out of the elevator and disappeared from view. As the doors closed Steven was sure he heard Davison burst into laughter from somewhere further along the corridor.

  The elevator hummed into action once again, the tall man continued looking out of the glass as if he were on his own. But, for a split second Steven thought he was using the reflection in the glass to discreetly assess and observe Steven, An uncomfortable shiver travelled down his back. He was glad when the doors to the seventh floor opened, allowing him to step into the corridor.

  Steven approached an office door with the words ‘Unexplained Foreign Activity Department – UFA’ etched in the glass. He swiped his security card in the electronic reader and waited for the click of the lock to disengage before pushing the door open.

  The UFA was a lesser known section of MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. During the 1950's, in the aftermath of panic caused by Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds, as well as supposed real alien sightings encouraged by the Roswell Incident in America, the British Prime Minister at the time, Clement Attlee, commissioned UFA. Since World War II he considered Britain’s security to be at risk from other life forms as well as from other countries.

  But so far, no convincing evidence of alien life forms had ever been found.

  Or, as the conspiracy theorists would say, none that had been officially reported.

  To date the most interesting things that had landed on Steven’s desk included reports of strange activity in a laptop in Appletreewick, North Yorkshire, a possessed Caretaker at a School in Piddle River, Dorset, and a Hamster called Nibbles that was thought to be twenty six years old in Tutts Clump, Berkshire. All Steven seemed to have done was investigate hoaxes. Never once had he felt like there was any possible shred of genuine alien activity in Britain, or ever likely to be.

  Recently, Steven had been wondering whether this was the right job for him. The team he worked for was the joke of MI6 and it was amazing that it continued to receive funding. Many rumours circulated about the source of the funding; the official explanation was that the government paid for all departments in MI6, including the UFA, but the most recent rumour doing the rounds was that a private drugs company now funded the UFA on behalf of the government. Whatever the reason, Steven was considering a transfer to another department with more excitement like Counter Terrorism that Davison worked in.

  Ever since Steven had been eight years old, he believed that there must be something else out there and he desperately wanted to be at the front when it was discovered. Probably his biggest motivation came from his
endless search for his parents who had mysteriously disappeared in the Forest of Dean when he was a child. He kept a newspaper cutting about his parents' disappearance inside an old scrap book, the paper yellow with age and soft along the well thumbed edges.

  Steven walked to his cubicle, a small area enclosed on three sides by thin partition walls to the other cubicles that joined his. His desk was overloaded with books on conspiracy theories, and brown folders stuffed with paper and stacked in a pile that had begun to overflow across his computer keyboard.

  He shared the office with three other people: Jake, a fat balding single man who thrived on conspiracy theories and regularly updated a blog which officials at Whitehall naturally monitored and censored when necessary, giving more fuel to Jake’s obsessions. Gwen, a divorced woman, who seemed to have one mission in life and that was to disprove any possible signs of alien life and on the way, cut men down at every opportunity, just for her own amusement - definitely an aggressive non-believer. The fourth member of the team was Sir Adam Brooks, the official long suffering leader of the UFA. He had worked in the department for longer than Steven had been alive. Unlike many of the other MI6 Heads of Department, Sir Adam didn’t carry an aura of power and authority with him, which is why Steven liked him. But it also made him feel sad; was he destined to end up like Sir Adam, needlessly searching for alien life?

  While he waited for the computer to warm up, Steven scribbled the word ANILE on his notepad. He had thought about what Davison said in the elevator, but as he looked at the word he realised that if he rearranged the letters it could also spell ALIEN. It was another of Davison’s lame jokes.

  Steven opened the folder at the top of the pile. It was the latest hoax he was investigating. He had received a report from a local police station in the small town of Wettyfoot in Scotland, where a local resident had reported seeing Loch Ness monster babies in his garden pond. A sample of the water and a dead baby monster had already been delivered to the MI6 laboratory for analysis.