Soul Stealer (27 page)

Pip felt her face pale. Her knees grew weak and her hands shook. Sweat started to run down the back of her neck and trickle
down her spine.

Fixing her eyes on the sliders, she thought briefly of the supermarket thief’s zipper and concentrated hard. The numbers on
a monitor above the desk began to gradually count down.

“So,” Loudacre said, “that accursed alchemist’s brat has made you a punitor.”

Pip made no answer but concentrated harder on the sliders. The numbers continued to decline.

“You, a mere child, are no match for me,” Loudacre declared dismissively.

Loudacre stepped back from the console. The sliders moved of their own volition. Pip tried to stop them but could not. The
monitor continued to count down.

Thrusting her hand in her pocket, Pip removed her rowan disc. If she could not stop the controls with punitor powers, she
reasoned, she could at least stop Loudacre — de Loudéac, Malodor.

“My will and skills,” Loudacre continued, “developed over the centuries, against yours learned what — a week ago…?”

Pip, keeping her hand by her side, revolved the disc. Loudacre saw the movement and looked at the disc in her hand. Pip spun
it as quickly as she could, again and again.

“A brave try,” Loudacre complimented her, “but I am immune to such fairground toys. They may work
with Yoland. Yet he is hardly of my caliber. A novice by comparison.”

The counter continued to fall, more quickly now, more steadily.

Pip kept turning the disc. It had to work.

Even at a distance of several meters, Pip could smell Loudacre’s breath. It stank of putrefying meat, dead fish and rotting
vegetation.

“A futile try,” Loudacre muttered.

Pip surrendered and put the disc back in her pocket.

“You think I know you not?” he went on. “I have not forgotten…”

“And I have not forgotten you,” Pip interrupted defiantly.

Loudacre’s eyes narrowed. Through the slits of his eyelids they appeared to hold a fire deep within them, just as Yoland’s
did.

“I am sure that is so,” he replied. “Nor shall you.”

He pointed his left hand at Pip. She felt a strange sensation surge though her body, as if her flesh were shrinking around
her skeleton.

“I can squeeze the life from you without even touching you,” Loudacre threatened in not much more than a whisper. “Consider.
You would be advised to be afeared of me. Terribly afeared.”

Pip gasped for breath.

“Soon, you meddling runt, you will find air more precious than gold.”

Loudacre turned his back on Pip, paying attention to the power station controls. The digital counter was still dropping.

Wheezing hard and feeling light-headed from lack
of oxygen, Pip glanced around. She had to do something. Mounted on the wall was a small green fire extinguisher under a notice
that stated:
For Electrical Fires Only.
It was, Pip was certain, heavy enough to be of use as a weapon, if she had the strength to lift it. Yet, she considered,
it might still serve her purpose.

She wrenched it from its mounting, hugged it to her chest with one arm and pulled the safety pin.

“Afeared of you!” she panted boldly. “Never!”

Loudacre turned around. Pip squeezed the extinguisher trigger. A long blast of argon and nitrogen gas hit him full in the
face. He raised his hands in defense. The freezing gases, under pressure, peeled his skin away from his hands. Eventually,
he fell against the console and slumped to the floor, whimpering and catching his breath.

When the extinguisher was empty, Pip lurched to the control room door. Once outside, her breathing became normal, and she
headed as fast as she could up the stairs to the reactor hall.

Halfway up, she came face to face with Scrotton running pell-mell down towards her. Just a meter or two from her, he launched
himself into midair, sailed over her head, landed by the control room door and disappeared inside.

Pip reached the reactor hall. Bursting into it, she saw Yoland standing close to the hole in the floor. The carbon-dioxide
coolant was no longer rushing out under pressure. Alarm bells continued to ring. The Scrottons stood in a circle around him,
facing out. Tim and Sebastian stood a few meters from the circle.

“What’s happened?” she asked Tim.

“Pressure’s down. Yoland’s about to do the stuff. Where’s Loudacre?”

“Out of the game,” Pip answered. “The rowan disc and punitor power didn’t work, so I put out his fire instead.”

Yoland raised his arms as if in supplication. Out of his jacket pocket protruded the end of the envelope containing the spell
keys.

“What is that?” Pip said.

From the opening in the reactor floor appeared a vague, miasmic face like those, Pip thought, one saw sometimes in clouds
on summer days, only not as dense.

“The enemy,” Sebastian replied succinctly.

“Whose enemy…?”

She looked again. The face was friendly, smiling, happy. Then, in an instant, it was leering, its lip curled, its cheekbones
prominent, its hair matted and long.

“Everyone’s enemy,” Tim said, taking his sister’s hand.

“Everyone who is good of soul and deed, that is,” Sebastian added.

“You mean…” Pip started.

“That,” Sebastian confirmed, “is the satanic visage of Beelzebub, Lucifer, Mephisto, Ahriman…”

The automated voice changed. Reactor malfunction —Reactor malfunction. Containment staff red alert. Containment staff red
alert.

The ethereal face turned as blue as an electric spark and opened its mouth. A swarm of fat bluebottle flies flowed from it,
circled to form a column and then flew
down into the reactor. No sooner were they gone than the image dissolved into invisibility.

“That’s what Yoland was doing when I was in detention,” Pip said. “He was calling up…”

“We must divest Yoland of the spell keys,” Sebastian declared. “Use your powers as punitors. We are three and he but one.”

“No choice,” Tim said. “Are we ready?”

The others nodded.

As one, they ran at Yoland, punching the encircling Scrottons out of the way. Several fled up the walls, chattering like angry
monkeys. One fell to the ground and deflated. Sebastian closed on Yoland. For a few moments, they tussled before Sebastian
was able to snatch the envelope from Yolands pocket.

Some of the spell keys fell out to clink on the floor. A Scrotton ran to gather them up. Tim kicked out at it, his feet meeting
the Scrotton’s jaw. There was a castanet-like clack as his teeth smashed into each other. Yoland tried to regain the envelope
but Sebastian, after taking a few of the spell keys, threw it to Tim.

“Take a handful each,” Sebastian shouted. “Throw them hard at the walls.”

Pip and Tim did so. As the keys hit the reactor hall walls, they exploded in the most beautiful stark colors. Emerald, yellow,
aquamarine, scarlet and violet sparks sprayed out from them, more vibrant than any firework display.

The reactor hall door opened and Loudacre entered, his face blotched by the gas from the fire extinguisher. The backs of his
hands were raw, and one of his eyes was weeping badly. The other was half closed. His lips
looked chapped, his forehead as red as if he had caught too much sun.

Pip, seeing him, put the spell keys she still had into her pocket.

Lurching clumsily, Loudacre staggered towards Yo-land, his arms flailing in front of him. He gripped the chemistry teacher
to steady himself, but this threw them both off balance. They stumbled several paces backward. At the opening into the reactor,
Loudacre lost his footing.

“He’s going in!” Tim muttered.

Loudacre slid slowly downward, pulling on Yoland to save him, grasping his belt. He opened his mouth and yelled. It was an
unearthly screech, part human, part animal, primeval and bestial.

Yoland tried to pry Loudacre’s fingers from his belt. They were tight. He started to unfasten the buckle, but he was too late.
With a jerk, Loudacre tried to raise himself, and Yoland lost his footing. As Loudacre vanished from sight, Yoland struggled
to find a handhold on the surrounding panels, but they were flush with each other and offered no handles. He screamed briefly.
Then he too was gone.

The Scrottons clinging to the walls started to fall off. One, hanging from the roof girders far above, lost its hold and plummeted
downward to follow Yoland and Loudacre into the reactor.

Tim felt someone grip his shoulder. It was Pip.

“Look!” she said, and she held out the dosimeter attached to her shirt. The square of film, which had been clear when she
first put the badge on, was now dark gray.

“Let’s get out of here!” Tim yelled.

Sebastian ran over to the engineers and took away the nobles. All five men immediately came to their senses and set about
replacing the cover and bringing the reactor coolant gas up to pressure. Tim took Mr. Clayton’s coin. He stood up unsteadily,
shaking his head to clear his brain.

Pip took the guide by the hand and led him to the exit. They went as quickly as they could down the stairway. At the reception
area, the remaining members of the Atom Club cowered behind the desk.

“Have you got Scrotton there?” Tim asked Den.

“The one in a school uniform,” Pip added.

“No,” came the reply. Den pointed to the door leading to the visitors’ car park. “He’s made a run for it.”

Tim slammed the main entrance door open. Scrotton was loping fast down the road towards the outer perimeter security fence,
his school blazer flaring out behind him.

“Stop him!” Tim yelled at the police officers. “Shoot!”

“It’s one of the school kids!” came the answer.

“It’s not!” Tim shouted back. He could hardly tell the truth. “It’s a terrorist! He opened the reactor. He threw little bombs
about. I saw him.” That at least, he thought, was a truth of sorts.

Two of the policemen raised their submachine guns.

“Halt or we open fire!” bellowed the most senior policeman, a sergeant.

Scrotton paid no heed.

“This is your last warning!”

Scrotton, weaving from side to side, kept on going.

“Fire!” ordered the sergeant.

There was a short burst of automatic gunfire. The bullets struck Scrotton, spinning him around. Beyond him, the slugs ricocheted
off the road surface.

“Hold your fire!”

The staccato chatter stopped abruptly. Their weapons at the ready, the policemen advanced down the road. Tim kept up with
them, a few meters to their rear.

Scrotton lay in the middle of the road, one arm bent under his body, his head to one side. His eyes were open and staring.
Where the bullets had hit him, there were ragged holes in the material of his school uniform.

“Oh, my God!” one of the policemen muttered, closing the safety catch on his sub-machine gun. “I’ve shot a child.”

Yet, as the policeman spoke, Scrotton sat bolt upright.

“You shouldn’t’ve messed with me,” he growled loudly.

At that, with a detonation no louder than a small firework, his body imploded and evaporated into thin air. All that remained
was a wisp of smoke, soon to be blown away on a light sea breeze.

“What the hell was that!” the police sergeant exclaimed.

The four officers went to the spot where Scrotton’s body had lain. On the tarmac there was not so much as the slightest trace
of blood.

Pip and Sebastian caught up with Tim while the rest of the Atom Club milled around the school minibus, not knowing what to
do.

“We’ve lost our chauffeur,” quipped Tim. “Think any of them know how to drive?”

Pip was about to reply when she heard a slight fizzing sound and looked off to her left.

Behind a security fence topped with razor wire stood a row of huge transformers from which trailed thick, high-tension cables.
These in turn led to the first of a series of massive pylons at least fifty meters high. Others fanned out over the landscape
in the direction of distant low hills.

For a length of about five meters, one of the cables was bulging, the swelling moving slowly towards the transformers. Pip
gazed at it, bemused. It was as if the cable were a python that had just swallowed a rabbit.

Then it dawned on her. When Yoland fell into the reactor, he must have still had in his possession a set of spell keys.

“He’s done it!” she screamed at Sebastian and Tim. “Look!”

She pointed to the cable. The bulge was picking up speed, heading for the transformer. Around it sizzled and danced a haze
of green sparks.

Pip sprinted down the security fence, keeping up with the bulge. Tim and Sebastian followed on her heels.

By the time she reached a police Land Rover parked against the perimeter fence, she knew what she had to do. Or at least attempt.
It came to her like a revelation.

She clambered onto the hood of the police vehicle and then hoisted herself onto the roof, breaking one of the windshield wipers
on the way.

“Oi!” the sergeant hollered at her. “Get down! What do you think you’re doing?”

Yet Pip knew exactly what she was doing.

If each spell takes four keys,
she reasoned, what happens if you upset the balance, add a fifth into the equation…?

Standing on the vehicle roof, she fumbled in her pocket and took out one of the spell keys. Holding it between index finger
and thumb, as if it were a flat stone she was going to skim across a pond, she drew her arm back and spun it at the cable.
It missed.

There was, she then realized, no chance of hitting the cable, never mind the accelerating bulge running down it. She took
out another spell key. It was one of those made of white gold with the BE! furnace sign upon it.

Wait,
she told herself. Her hands shook.
Wait
.

Moving ever faster, the swelling in the cable arrived at the transformer. Pip hurled the spell key at it. The key struck the
top casing and bounced on to one of the huge ceramic insulators to which the cables were connected.

At that second, the bulge reached it, too.

For a moment, nothing happened; then the transformer erupted into orange flame. A brilliant white flare shot high into the
sky, screeching like a banshee. Chrome-yellow darts of light flickered about it.