Soul Stealer

by Martin Booth

  “It’s been chucking it down for yonks,” Tim said.

  “Chucking it down? Yonks?” Sebastian repeated. “I am not accustomed to your phraseology.”

  “It’s been raining hard for hours,” Tim explained. “The river’s going to break its banks and you live underground.”

  “I appreciate your concern yet I am aware of the water rising,” Sebastian said.

  “How can you know?” Pip asked. “You hardly have any windows down there.”

  “Certainly,” Sebastian replied, “I have no conventional casements, yet there are other ways to see. Come, follow me.”

  Sebastian stepped through the opening behind the panel. Pip and Tim followed him, feeling with their feet for the first stones of the flight of steps leading to the passageway, remembering Sebastian’s previous warning that the steps were uneven and had been worn away in the middle over the centuries. Once at the bottom of the steps, they carefully followed Sebastian’s muffled footsteps along the passage to the heavy oaken door leading into his chamber. As Tim heard the latch open, a faint yellowish light lit up the corridor, illuminating the last five meters or so.

  On entering the chamber, it seemed unchanged since their last visit. The glow of the four candles set in their bronze wall mountings glimmered on the vaulting of the ceiling and shone on the series of chains and pulleys suspended from the central stone boss high above. On the oak table, the light touched the pewter bowls and lent a translucence to an alabaster pestle and mortar. The racks of bottles and retorts glittered and the rows of leather-bound books looked as if they had been polished: the gold-leaf embossing of their titles shone as if recently applied.

  In the alcove where Sebastian slept, Pip noticed the sheepskin coverings were disturbed and kicked into a pile, suggesting that Sebastian had also been sleeping restlessly. She pressed her hand against the wall to see if it was damp. The stones, although cool, were quite dry. Between the flagstones of the floor there was no sign of any seepage. The air did not smell musty.

  “Welcome once again to my humble abode,” Sebastian said and, pointing to the wall, continued, “and observe my window on the river.”

  Protruding from the wall was a horizontally calibrated glass tube containing a red-colored orb.

  “This,” Sebastian exclaimed, “is connected by a bronze pipe to the river bank. At the far end is a valve. As the river rises, water presses on the valve and the air pressure within the tube increases, forcing the red marker to ascend. The delineation on the glass informs me when the fields are at risk of being inundated. As you can see, this is not presently the case.”

  “Neat!” Tim exclaimed. “When did you install it?”

  “I did not,” Sebastian replied. “My father did, as a means of warning when we should bring the animals in from the fields to high ground.”

  “What about the house?” Pip inquired.

  “Be not concerned. The house is never at risk,” Sebastian declared confidently. “It was built well above the flood plain. Now,” he continued, “I have been studying some of my father’s texts. While you are here, let me report something of my findings.”

  He opened a heavy, leather-bound tome resting on the table. As he did so, Pip and Tim could see its contents consisted of a manuscript written in neat cursive writing upon stiff cream-colored vellum. The ink was faded in places, the capital letters at the start of each paragraph either ornately curled or incorporated into an intricately colored illustration like a medieval religious manuscript. The colors looked as fresh and bright as if they had just been painted. Where gold leaf had been applied to the paint, it shone as if newly refined from its ore.

  “My mother illustrated this text for my father,” Sebastian remarked.

  “What was your mother’s name?” Pip asked.

  “Lady Tabitha Rawne,” Sebastian answered in a soft voice as he ran his finger lightly over an illustration.

  Tim tried to make sense of the manuscript.

  “You will not understand it, Tim,” Sebastian said. “It is written not only in the Latin of my father’s day but also in code, indecipherable to all but those with alchemical knowledge.”

  “What’s it about?” Pip inquired.

  For a moment, Sebastian was silent. “It is a treatise written by my father,” he said at length, “about those who would steal the souls of others. Allow me to demonstrate. Tim, look into my eyes.”

  Hesitantly, Tim did as he was ordered. In the dim glow of the candle-lit chamber, Sebastian’s pupils were dark. Yet, as Tim peered into them, he could see a bright zigzag of luminosity moving within them. It was like looking at the filament of an old-fashioned light bulb swinging from side to side on the end of a flex.

  “Now,” Sebastian said, “place your hand on the table, fingers spread.”

  Tim complied. Sebastian removed one of the candles from the candelabrum, tipped it on its side and let the molten wax fall on the table between Tim’s fingers. Although Tim’s face showed his apprehension, he did not flinch. In fact, he couldn’t move his hand at all. It was paralysed.

  “Your natural reaction would have been to withdraw your hand so as not to be scalded,” Sebastian said. “You were very afraid, yet you did not move your hand for I had control of you. Now, I shall go deeper…”

  Sebastian stared at Tim. His eyes were wide and intense.

  Tim suddenly felt most strange. It was as if his flesh was moving around inside his skin, as if his skin was nothing more than a loose-fitting overcoat several sizes too big. And, within his flesh, there was something else moving sinuously, like a snake searching for a hole in which to hide.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, but his mouth made no sound. The words echoed within him as if he were shouting in a church.

  Sebastian took a small metal clicker from his pocket like the ones found in Christmas crackers. He snapped it once. Tim felt a tiny charge run through his body and his hand lifted from the table as if by its own volition.

  “Your soul is now closed to me,” Sebastian declared.

  “And what did you learn?” Tim asked.

  “Much of your basest desires and greatest fears,” Sebastian replied. “I will give you an example. You wish your father would give you the money you inherited from your mother’s father rather than make you wait until you come of age.”

  Tim was flabbergasted. He had never mentioned that to anyone, not his father, not Pip — and certainly not Sebastian.

  “You see?” Sebastian said. “If I can discover your most precious secrets, I can steal your soul.”

  As Sebastian was speaking, Pip noticed what she took to be a square glass screen about the area of a hard-backed book mounted on the wall. Displayed in it was a vague moving picture in muted colors.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “It is a camera obscura,” Sebastian answered.

  “A what?” Tim asked.

  “It is an optical device.”

  “Did your father invent it?”

  “Indeed he did not,” Sebastian admitted. “The Chinese philosopher M’o Ch’i, five centuries before the time of Our Lord, knew of it. The great Aristotle knew of it also, as did the Arab scholar Alhazen of Basra in the tenth century. However, my father improved upon it and I too have made several minor modifications based upon the writings of Giovanni Battista Della Porta in his publication, Magiae Naturalis, published in 1558.”

  “What does it do, exactly?” asked Pip.

  “It captures an image,” Sebastian went on, “with the use of a convex lens and projects this onto a flat surface. It is based upon the principle that light travels in a straight line but, when its rays pass through a small hole in a thin material, they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside-down image.”

  “Where’s the hole the light comes through from outside?” Tim wanted to know.

  “In the attic,” Sebastian told him. “The light rays travel down through the house walls in a cavity, guided by prisms.”

  “What
is that a picture of?” Pip asked.

  “The fields outside,” Sebastian said.

  “But how can you see them?” Tim demanded. “First, it’s night, and second, it’s chucking it down frogs and fishes.”

  “That was my most difficult modification,” Sebastian admitted, “which involved the magnification of all available light to provide enough to form an image. As you can see, I have only partially succeeded, for the image has no color resolution and is not very defined.”

  “Looks pretty good to me,” Tim complimented him. “Certainly as good as those night cameras wildlife documentary makers use.”

  “What’s that?” Pip remarked, peering closely at the screen. “There’s something moving in the field.”

  “Sheep,” Tim suggested.

  “In this rain?” Pip responded. “They’ll be under the hedge, sheltered.”

  Tim studied the screen and said, “I can’t see anything.”

  “Just there.” Pip pointed to the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. “Moving towards the house.”

  “It is of no consequence,” Sebastian announced dismissively.

  “But I can see it!” Pip retorted. “And it’s not a sheep. Sheep don’t creep along on their bellies.” She squinted at the glass plate to get a better view. “It’s a dog.”

  “Look again,” Sebastian instructed her, gazing briefly but intently into her face.

  Pip peered closer to the screen. The animal moving across the grass was a two-meter-long crocodile, its mouth open, its teeth sharp, its yellowish-green scales polished by the falling rain. As she watched, it reached the ha-ha, and slid down the bank, disappearing under the surface, leaving a flurry in the water.

  “Have you ever seen one of these creatures alive in the English countryside?” Sebastian inquired.

  “No!” Pip answered emphatically. “Of course not. They live in Africa.”

  “Precisely,” Sebastian answered. “What you saw, Pip, is your chimera, the beast of your fears and nightmares, which I have called up from the depths of your soul.”

  Once again, he snapped the clicker, handing one to Pip and another to Tim. “You must each have one of these. When you feel your soul being touched by another, press the device just once. It will break the hold upon you. But do not use it frequently. The more you press it, the less power it will retain. Now,” he went on, “we have other matters to attend. It is time for us to commence our investigations of Yoland and Master Scrotton. First, we must ascertain the location of their domiciles.”

  “You mean check out their addresses,” Tim replied, putting the clicker safely in his pocket. “Talk modern speak, follow me and prepare to be amazed.”

  They left Sebastian’s subterranean lair and headed for Tim’s bedroom. Once there, Tim sat at his computer and accessed the Internet, logging on to the British Telecom site. Twenty seconds after clicking on to Directory Inquiries, Yoland’s address appeared on screen: 47, Keats Road. A search for Scrotton, however, drew a blank.

  “He’s got to live somewhere,” Pip said.

  “Is it possible he lives with Yoland?” Tim suggested. “After all, he is his familiar.”

  “Now that would raise a few eyebrows,” Pip remarked.

  “Quite,” Sebastian concurred. “And neither Yoland nor Scrotton will wish to draw attention to themselves. However, if Scrotton is as I believe him now to be, his place need not be a house.”

  Pip and Tim stared at each other, flummoxed.

  Four

  Templum Maleficarum

  Sebastian was not walking along the road as they drove to school the following morning. As both Pip and Tim had expected to see him, they cast nervous glances at each other.

  “Where’s Sebastian today?” Mrs. Ledger remarked.

  “Maybe he’s farther down the road,” Tim suggested. “We did leave a few minutes later than usual.”

  “He is a most remarkable young man,” Mrs. Ledger said. “Well-mannered, obviously clever. Very good-looking, too — the new haircut aside. Where did you first meet him?”

  Tim, trying hard to recall if he had been asked this before and, if so, what answer he had offered, said, “When I was fishing.”

  “Did you?” Mrs. Ledger answered.

  Tim, thinking he had given the wrong information, said, “I think so.”

  “It can’t be hard to remember,” his mother replied. “You’ve hardly made many friends since we moved here.”

  “It’s been a long summer,” Pip said, defending her brother.

  “A lot’s gone down,” Tim added evasively.

  “I should very much like to meet his guardians,” Mrs. Ledger continued. “Have you met them?”

  “No,” Pip admitted, “but we’ve seen the cousin’s husband in the distance with a herd of cows.”

  As they reached the outskirts of Exington, the traffic became heavier and Mrs. Ledger became a more nervous driver. However, it was not until they were two streets away from the school that she had a fright.

  The street was residential, lined by detached houses with trim hedges, neat front lawns and tidy driveways. Dark-green garbage cans stood at the curb, awaiting emptying.

  Suddenly, a handsome tabby cat ran out into the street from behind one of the cans. Mrs. Ledger rammed her foot on the brake. The car stopped abruptly, Pip and Tim thrown against their seat belts. From behind came the squeal of tires on tar as another vehicle did an emergency stop to avoid hitting Mrs. Ledger’s car. At the sound of the screeching tires, the cat paused, looked at the vehicles, then fled with considerable speed down a driveway. Mrs. Ledger pulled in to the side of the street.

  “People really should not have cats if they live in a town,” she declared, her hands shaking as she fumbled in her handbag. “They cause accidents and it’s unfair to the animals. Cats like fields and woods where they can hunt. Besides, they always get run over.” She studied her makeup in the rearview mirror, licking her index finger and tickling the corner of her eye.

  “You know, Mum,” Pip said, “you’re like a cat.”

  “And how do you make that out, young lady?” her mother retorted.

  “Whenever something fazes you, you check your eyeliner or something. Just like a cat. When they’re fazed, they wash their faces with their paws.”

  As they arrived at the school, Sebastian was just entering the main gates, ten paces behind Scrotton.

  Catching up with Sebastian, Pip said, “How did you get here ahead of us?”

  “But for the stopping capacity of your mother’s vehicle…” Sebastian began, ignoring Pip’s question and leaving the rest of his sentence unspoken.

  Pip and Tim exchanged a look.

  “You told us you wouldn’t shape-shift…” Tim said.

  “I stated that I could not move around the school in the shape of an animal,” Sebastian corrected him. “However, to arrive in the vicinity of the school before the arrival of the pupils and teachers I deem to be of no considerable risk.”

  “But why did you…?” Pip began.

  “I have my reasons,” Sebastian cut in on her. “You should not be so inquisitive.”

  “What were you looking for?” Pip ventured.

  “I was looking to see if there was evil hereabouts.” Sebastian walked on in silence.

  “And?” Tim goaded him.

  “Suffice to say I have regrettably discovered nothing of immediate importance.” With that, Sebastian walked away, aloof and unapproachable, as if the feline qualities of the cat had yet to wear off him.

  During the mid-morning break the library was busy, but Tim was still able to briefly access the librarian’s computer, which she had left on. He logged on to the general database and entered Scrotton’s name. His age came up as 11, his address as 14 Peelings Lane, Brampton and his mother’s name as Mrs. Mary Scrotton. No father’s name was listed.

  “He’s from a single-parent family,” Tim reported as they walked to their next class.

  “Or no family at all,” Sebastia
n remarked.

  “What do you mean?” Pip asked. “Everyone has parents. They’re a biological necessity.”

  “Not necessarily,” Sebastian said enigmatically. “In some cases, such as in that of a…”

  “A what?” Tim interrupted.

  However, at that moment, Scrotton appeared walking towards them and Sebastian ceased talking.

  By a row of lockers outside the classroom, Pip noticed a Year Seven girl standing with her left hand thrust deep into her skirt pocket.

  As they passed her, a Year Eight girl said spitefully, “You want to watch out for that Julia. She’s a witch, she is.” She then deliberately fell against the girl, knocking her into the wall. The girl started to sob.

  “Is she?” Pip whispered to Sebastian.

  He briefly sniffed the air and shook his head.

  Pip, Tim, and Sebastian approached the girl. “Why did that dunce-in-a-dress say that?” Pip asked her quietly.

  The girl made no reply but half withdrew her hand from her pocket. It was dotted with large warts. “The doctor says I’ve got too many,” she replied in a crestfallen voice. “He can’t take them all off at once.”

  Sebastian leaned casually against the wall next to the girl and, waiting until Scrotton was out of sight, lightly touched her on the neck. She jerked as if she had touched a live wire and stumbled against the lockers. Sebastian moved away and went into the classroom.

  “Are you OK?” Tim inquired, pretending to be anxious. The girl was ashen-faced, her hands unsteady: she dropped her books.

  “I… I think so,” she answered. “Something strange just came over me.”

  “Go to the girls’ room,” Pip suggested. “Get a drink of water.”

  Tim, picking up the girl’s books, said, “We’ll save you a seat.”

  A few minutes later, as the lesson was beginning, the girl came in and sat beside Pip. She was smiling broadly.

  “All right now?” Pip whispered.

  “It’s really weird,” the girl replied. “I can’t believe it.” She held out her left hand. The skin was completely unblemished, with not so much as a red mark where each wart had been. “They’ve gone!”