Soul Stealer (23 page)

“Scum alert!” Tim muttered to his sister.

When the old lady stretched for a bunch of flowers, the young man quickly reached for her shopping bag on the baby seat of
her cart. In seconds, he had her purse and was about to slip it into his pocket when he spied Pip and Tim observing him. He
immediately dropped the purse and kicked it under the woman’s cart. Then, he touched her elbow to catch her attention and,
bending down, picked up the purse, saying, “‘Scuse me, darlin’, dropped yer purse, love?”

She thanked him profusely and he walked away with a crestfallen look.

“What a slimeball!” Pip muttered. “If we hadn’t seen him…”

It took them several minutes to find their mother. Much to Pip and Tim’s continual annoyance, she did not go around the supermarket
according to the layout of the aisles but the make-up of her shopping list, which was categorized. Meat and fish, because
they were main courses, were listed together despite the fact that the fish counter was at the opposite end of the store from
the butchery department. When they caught up with her, she was by the bakery counter.

“Not much longer,” she said encouragingly as they came up to her. “If you like, I’ll meet you by the checkout.”

As they sauntered off, the man in the leather jacket once again caught Tim’s eye. He was in the beauty products and cosmetics
aisle, facing a set of shelves loaded with men’s toiletries. On the floor by his side was a supermarket basket containing
some ordinary groceries. Just as Tim caught sight of him, he saw the man take down a bottle of expensive eau de Cologne, study
the packaging for a moment and then, believing he was not being watched, hide it inside his jacket.

Tim hurried after Pip, who had walked on ahead of him.

“Hang on,” he said, nodding slightly over his shoulder. “Slimer in action again at four o’clock high.”

“You play too many war games,” Pip chided him, but she gave a quick glance in the man’s direction just in time to catch him
tucking another item into his clothing.

When he picked up his basket, and moved on, Pip and Tim followed him at a distance. He paused here and there to openly put
items in the basket, but he also surreptitiously filched a half-bottle of whiskey and a full bottle of Southern Comfort, putting
them into his jacket and easing them around the side so that they did not bulge in the front. Finally, zipping the jacket
up to his neck, he made for the checkout lines.

“Do you think they’ve a store detective or a security guard or something?” Pip asked. “We ought to tell someone.”

“Naw to that!” said Tim dismissively. “This is a task for the punitors.”

Pip looked into her brother’s face. There was a mischievous glint in his eye.

“First test of PP,” Tim continued.

“PP?” Pip queried.

“Punitor power!” Tim answered.

“Sebastian said the power would come when we needed it,” Pip remarked. “Nothing happened when the boy pinched the purse.”

“Maybe it all happened too quickly,” Tim answered. “Maybe it takes a bit for the power to kick in.”

The man joined the one-basket-only line. When it came to his turn, he put his basket on the shelf at the end of the conveyor
belt and began to unload it. Pip and Tim positioned themselves in the adjacent line to watch.

“We can’t just stand here,” Pip said.

“See his jacket?” Tim said. “Concentrate on it.”

“Concentrate? His jacket…!”

“Just do it, sis. Just do it!”

Tim half closed his eyes. He might have been praying.

When his basket was empty, the young man bent down to put it on the pile of others under the end of the counter. As he did
so, Tim heard the jacket zipper start to unwind.

“Fun time,” he muttered to Pip.

The man remained bent double. Tim could see he was fumbling with the zipper, trying to tug it up. It would not budge. He stopped
and it slipped a little further down. By now, he was gripping it hard, sweat
breaking out on his brow. Yet the zipper would not fasten and, as soon as he relaxed his grip, it edged lower towards his
waist.

“Are you all right?” the woman manning the checkout inquired, while all around, people were starting to pay attention to the
man’s peculiar behavior.

By now, he was getting very anxious. The zipper was continuing its inexorable slide downward but, despite his increasingly
frantic fumbling, he was unable to stop it. Finally, it reached the catch at the bottom, which suddenly snapped open. On to
the floor fell a scattering of stolen items. The bottle of whiskey shattered, causing nearby shoppers to jump backward. Over
the checkout, a strobe light started to flash as an alarm sounded in the ceiling. Two security guards appeared, running down
the aisles. They apprehended the thief, marching him away towards the rear of the store.

“So that’s what being a punitor’s like!” Tim exclaimed with unsuppressed glee.

Mrs. Ledger knocked on Tim’s bedroom door, carrying a tray of corned beef and pickle sandwiches, three glasses and a bottle
of lemonade.

“Room service,” she said cheerily.

“Thanks, Mum,” Tim replied, quickly followed by Sebastian, who courteously said, “That’s most considerate of you, Mrs. Ledger.”

“Sandra, remember?” Mrs. Ledger retorted.

“Toady,” Tim whispered, grinning.

Spread across the floor were Ordnance Survey maps, sheets of printer paper, pencils, scissors, a roll of tape, rulers, set
squares, a pocket calculator, and a hiker’s compass.

“What are you up to?” Mrs. Ledger inquired.

“Planning what we’re going to do over vacation,” Pip answered non-committally.

When her mother had gone, Pip aligned Sebastian’s glass ruler with Rawne Barton, the hill fort, the Church of Saint Benedict
and the Blessed Raymond Lull in Brampton, another church in a village two miles farther on and an ancient bridge over a river
on a stretch of Roman road. Tim added another of his rulers with Sebastian adding a third and fourth. Finally, the line ended
at a low headland on the coast not far from a small fishing village called Cockleton.

For a moment, Tim stared at the map and then said, “When was this published?”

Pip turned over a corner of the sheet, studied the bottom margin and replied, “Crown copyright, 1966.”

Tim pointed to the headland. Clearly printed over the sea next to it were the words: Jasper Point.

“I think,” he said, “we’ll find they’ve done a bit of building there since then.”

Getting up from the floor and taking care not to step on the map, Tim sat at his computer and logged on to the British Energy
Web site.

” ‘The Jasper Point nuclear power station,’” he read as the screen cleared and a picture of it unrolled, “‘is an advanced
gas-cooled reactor which went online in 1976.
There are actually two reactors at Jasper Point producing 1,210 megawatts of electricity each at full capacity. This is sufficient
to provide electricity to about a million homes.’ Now that,” Tim concluded, “is pretty major power.”

“Pretty major power,” Pip reiterated thoughtfully, “but what part does it play in Yoland’s scheme?”

F
or the first
few
days of vacation week, Pip, Tim and Sebastian decided there was little they could do. Pip cycled past Yoland’s bungalow a
few times, but there were no signs of activity there other than a double-glazing worker putting the finishing touches to the
new window. Twice, Tim took his mountain bike and risked riding at breakneck speed downhill through the wood in which Scrotton
lived, yet all he saw were foraging squirrels and pheasants. As for Sebastian, he was absent throughout the daylight hours,
only reappearing at dusk.

On the Wednesday evening, Sebastian summoned Pip and Tim to his underground chamber.

“I do not know exactly what Yoland’s course of action will be,” he stated. “I am not acquainted with the methodology of applying
spell keys. However, I have drawn some conclusions. The first concerns the gold nobles. I do not think these are being employed
in the making of the spell keys. I therefore deduce that they have another function. These coins are very valuable, both for
their gold content and as historical artifacts.
Gold is the best substance with which to engender greed. I believe the coins feature in the spell as a mechanism for corrupting
others or for distracting them from the evil he is undertaking.”

“I’ve been thinking, too,” Tim declared. “One of Yoland’s aims is to spread evil. Right?”

“Indeed,” Sebastian concurred.

“Now, what is evil?” Tim went on.

“Evil is wickedness,” Sebastian explained, “a force the opposite of righteousness.”

“Exactly,” Tim said. “A force. And what is electricity if it isn’t a force of some sort? And, to use archaic speak, therein
I deduce lies the crux of our conundrum.”

Pip scowled at Tim and remarked sharply, “You’ve got to be such a smart…” And then she fell silent.

“Penny dropped, sis?” Tim asked. “What does a nuclear power station do? It creates electricity and feeds it into the National
Grid and, from there, to every building in Britain.”

“In ancient times,” Sebastian cut in, “power such as this traveled along ley lines…”

“… but now,” Tim continued, “it goes along copper wires to every wall socket in Britain. If Yoland has his way, every power
point will become a portal for evil. Plug in your toaster and what have you got?”

“A gizmo radiating evil,” said Pip in a voice muted by the horror of the thought.

“One thing I just don’t get,” Tim said. “What’s the point of spreading evil about? How can Yoland benefit from it?”

“He benefits not from the evil itself,” Sebastian explained, “but the anarchy this creates in the breakdown
of law. Broadcast evil and you will not only create widespread wickedness but cause the disintegration of morality and, in
turn, society. By the widespread stealing of souls, Yoland will control many thousands, perhaps many millions of people.”

“So Yoland is out to rule the world!” Tim exclaimed. “Sounds like a case for the Caped Crusader!”

“Excuse me,” Pip interrupted. “This isn’t
Spider-Man Two.
It really is time you woke up and smelled the coffee, Tim.”

“Spider-Man doesn’t have a cape,” Tim replied pedantically.

“Whoever,” Pip retorted glibly.

“I am sure,” Sebastian remarked, “Tim is already awake—” he sniffed the air “—and I sense no aroma of coffee.”

Thursday morning dawned cold and clear, the sky a piercing blue, the sunlight stark but chill. The first of the winter’s frosts
shone on the grass, catching the sunlight like powdered glass.

Tim left the house at eight o’clock, wearing a dark-green padded fishing jacket, his feet encased in Wellington boots and
long woolen socks lined with newspaper, a trick his grandfather had taught him. He could hear Grandpa Ledger’s voice now:
There’s good reason why those who have no home sleep under yesterday’s headlines. The layers of paper trap the heat.
In his left hand, Tim carried an old army canvas gas-mask case and, in his right, a dark-blue fiberglass coarse fishing
rod fitted with a rear-drag feeder reel, 300 meters of black four-pound-breaking-strain line and a lure made of rubber that
looked like a newt. His fishing jacket was smeared with several seasons’ worth of fish slime and blood that had resisted his
mother’s every effort to remove it.