Soul Stealer (24 page)

Arriving at the river bank, Tim slowly made his way upstream, watching out for the telltale dash of silver in the pools that
might indicate a school of fish being scattered by a pike. And he was after pike.

Downstream from the old bridge, the current had scoured out a deep, black pool next to the stone pier. If there was a pike
worth catching in that stretch of the river it would, Tim reasoned, be there. Putting his bag down on the bank, he positioned
himself upriver from the pool and cast downstream, pulling the artificial newt slowly up the current, at such a speed as would
make its rubber tail waver from side to side as if it were alive and swimming.

On the fourth cast, Tim saw a jack pike of about three pounds swim up to it, inspect it, veer away and snatch a straggler
from the rearguard of a shoal of minnows before swiftly heading across the river and under the roots of a willow overhanging
the far bank.

The pike’s appetite temporarily satisfied, Tim reeled the artificial newt in and, sitting down on the bank, removed it from
the thin steel trace at the end of his line. Putting it in his lure box, he studied his other spinners and chose a silver-and-green
spotted spoon in its place.

There was no point in immediately casting for the pike, and Tim was reluctant to try and tempt it out from the willow roots
for risk of snaring his line, so he
leaned back, his spine fitting between two courses of the stonework on the bridge pier. Even through his padded jacket, the
masonry was sharp and cold.

Across the river, austere and dark behind the trees, the concave bowl of the quarry face loomed upward, the top fringed with
bushes against the morning sky. As Tim looked at the rock face, he saw something moving up it. At first, he thought someone
was rappeling. Several times in the summer, he had watched rock-climbers making their way up the wall of stone when he was
fly-fishing. However, this figure seemed different. The rock-climbers tended to move smoothly, with a careful deliberation.
This figure was jerky, its legs and arms outstretched, the knees and elbows kept at right angles.

Curious, Tim put his fishing rod down in the grass and, finding a shallow stretch in the river, he waded over to the far bank
and edged his way through the boulders and bushes. Gradually, he made his way closer to the quarry face.

Crouching behind a boulder, Tim cast his eye over the cliff before him. At first, he could make out nothing moving except
a falcon strutting daintily along the edge of a fissure. Yet, no sooner had Tim seen it than it took to the wing, soaring
into the air to ride an updraft, whisking away over the top of the quarry.

Close to where the bird had been perching, a figure appeared. Dressed in dark-brown clothing and seeming to hug the rock face
with every curve of its body, it rapidly moved sideways across the sheer wall. Its jerking movement reminded Tim of a bat.

It was a moment before Tim realized what he was watching.

It was Scrotton.

Then, to Tim’s horror, another Scrotton appeared from the debris of loose stones at the foot of the quarry face, crabbing
up to join the first. A third Scrotton materialized and ascended the sheer surface, following in exactly the same footholds
and handholds as the other two.

Tim retreated to the river as quickly as his Wellington boots would allow, keeping as low as possible, but to no avail. He
was still twenty meters from the water’s edge when he heard a thrashing of the undergrowth behind him. Glancing around, he
saw the three Scrottons loping through the bushes, the branches lashing their faces. They made no attempt to brush them aside.
When they came up to a bramble patch, the thorns snagged their hair and skin, but they paid them not the slightest heed.

“Hell’s bells!” Tim whispered.

He kicked off his boots and hurled them at the leading Scrotton. It batted them aside with a bunched fist, hardly breaking
its stride. Barefoot and regardless of sharp stones or thorny twigs, Tim accelerated to a sprint, his feet kicking up plumes
of dusty earth on the path. He was grateful for the newspaper-lined socks.

At the river bank, he launched himself into the water, stumbling over the rocks just under the surface. The Scrottons slid
to a halt, apparently reluctant to enter the water.

Reaching down by his feet, Tim picked up a smooth, round stone the size of an apple and hurled it at his pursuers, now less
than five meters away. The first Scrotton ducked. The second took a glancing blow on its brow and started to growl loudly
through bared
teeth. It glanced from one to the other of its companions then began to gradually advance into the river, feeling carefully
for loose stones underfoot. Tim edged backward. The water was icy. Already, he could barely feel his toes.

“Told you not to mess wiv me, didn’ I?” the first Scrotton muttered. His teeth were yellow, like an old dog’s, and chipped.

“Don’t learn too good, do ya?” asked the second. Its words were slurred as if it had a speech defect.

The third Scrotton hopped forward, its feet splashing. Tim jumped backward, almost losing his balance, flailing his arms to
keep upright.

“’Bout this time tomorrer,” the third Scrotton prophesied, “they’ll find yer sorry little carcass a long way downstream, caught
under an over’angin’ willer.”

“Much cryin’ ‘n’ wailin’ and gnashin’ of teeth in Rawne Barton tomorrer night,” predicted the second Scrotton.

“Diggin’ of ‘oles and sayin’ of prayers,” added the third.

Tim looked hastily around for a weapon. Riding directly towards him on the current was a stout tree branch.

“Forget ‘bout that!” the first Scrotton exclaimed. He reached under the water, picking up a large stone and tucking it into
his neck shot-put style. “Told ya I was good at gym,” he chortled, his throat rattling as if it was full of phlegm.

Spinning around, Scrotton hurled the stone, striking the branch in the center, cracking it in two. The splash knocked it out
of the current. Tim impotently watched his weapon drift away.

Hunching themselves down, the Scrottons started to advance in a line, their arms hanging at their sides, their hands in the
water, feeling for rocks as they moved nearer.

Looking behind himself, Tim wondered if he could get to his fishing gear before the Scrottons reached him. If he could, the
rod might serve as a weapon and, if they came to fighting at close quarters, the lead-filled priest in his bag might serve
as a handy sap.

Then, suddenly, it dawned on him. Fumbling at the buttons of the breast pocket of his fishing shirt, Tim thrust his hand inside,
feeling for the rowan disc. Finding it, he held it out and started to revolve it.

“Gha! Gha!” Scrotton grunted. It was a rasping sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “Look!” He turned to address his
supporters. “’E’s got a rowan circle! Fat lotta good that’ll do ‘im, eh!”

Bending down, Scrotton found a small stone and hurled it at Tim. It struck his hand. His fingers opened involuntarily and
the rowan disc fell into the river, spinning in an eddy on the edge of the main current. Tim, ignoring the advancing Scrottons,
threw himself after it, stumbling over boulders in the river bed. The waves he made drove it further away. Scrotton also made
to grab the disc, but Tim beat him to it. He quickly revolved it in his fingers.

The Scrottons stopped in their tracks, looking from one to the other in a perplexed fashion. Scrotton himself stood firm,
his eyes closed. He was, Tim knew, fighting the power of the rowan disc.

Gradually, Tim stepped backward. Scrotton made no
attempt to follow him. The power of the rowan disc was holding him. Tim did not take his eyes off Scrotton.

Suddenly, there was a frantic splashing in the river. The Scrottons were scrambling on to the bank and vanishing between the
boulders. Scrotton himself turned and followed them.

Through the quarry rode four women exercising their horses. One waved and called out, “Catch anything?”

Tim returned the wave, putting the rowan disc back in his pocket, buttoning it up once more.

“Not yet,” he shouted back.

Arriving at a thick clump of hazel saplings, the riders followed the path behind it. Tim could make out their shapes through
the branches but, by the time they reached the other side of the thicket, their outlines had faded and disappeared. The sound
of the horses’ hooves died out instantly.

“If that’s not being saved by the cavalry,” Tim said aloud to himself, “I don’t know what is…”

Deciding to abandon his Wellington boots, Tim climbed the bank and, gathering up his fishing gear, set off for home. Glancing
back at the quarry, he could just make out a Scrotton setting off up the rock face, leaving a trail of water as it rose higher.

Pip was in the sitting room when Tim arrived back at Rawne Barton. Making a detour past his father’s study to borrow his binoculars,
Tim poked his head around the door and said perfunctorily, “Word, sis. Now! And call up the maestro!”

Leading the other two up to the attic, and kneeling
by the old window set in the gable end of the house, Tim spat on the glass to loosen the grime and polished it with his handkerchief.

“Look at this!” he ordered, adjusting the focus on the binoculars and passing them to Sebastian. “Over at the quarry. What
do you see?”

Sebastian saw nothing until Tim showed him how to refine the focus. Then he briefly studied the quarry and handed the binoculars
to Pip.

“Scrotton!” she exclaimed.

“Look again, sis.”

“Plural!” retorted Pip. “I can see two of them.”

“There’s at least three,” Tim replied. “I came face to face with them at the river. Saved in the nick of time by the rowan
disc and…”

“Gentlefolk on horseback?” Sebastian asked.

“How did you know…?” Tim began.

“Do not think, because I am not with you, that I am not with you,” Sebastian replied enigmatically.

“What are the Scrottons up to?” Pip wondered, lowering the binoculars.

“Shinning up and down,” Tim said.

“Yes, but why?”

“Think,” Sebastian said, “of a butterfly newly emerged from its chrysalis. It does not appear immediately to fly away. It
lingers for a while, moving its wings, waiting for the veins therein to fill with blood, expand the tissue in the framework.
It flexes its legs, unfurls its antennae, unrolls its proboscis, raises and lowers its abdomen…”

“Do you mean to say,” Pip asked incredulously, “that these Scrottons are — newly hatched?”

“You may put it in such words,” Sebastian replied.

“Then where are they coming from?” Tim mused.

“Later, when it is safe, I shall show you,” Sebastian answered.

At four o’clock that afternoon, when the sun was already beginning to drop, they left the house, crossed Rawne Ground, waded
the river and made their way into the quarry. Tim wore a pair of old sneakers.

Nearing the loose stones that had fallen from the quarry face over the years, Sebastian paused and, telling the others to
wait several paces behind him, he started scrambling up the gentle slope, arriving at the point where it reached the base
of the sheer rock face. Here, he began to excavate the scree, pushing stones behind him. For several minutes, he bent forward
and dug with his hands. Eventually, he stood up.

“Come here,” he invited Pip and Tim.

They joined Sebastian. In the loose shale and stones, there was what at first looked like a crumbled transparent plastic sack,
the size of a small trash bag.

“What is it?” Tim inquired.

“To continue my allusion to an emerging butterfly,” Sebastian said, “this is, as it were, the shell of a chrysalis from which
a replicate Scrotton has emerged.”

“You have to be joking!” Tim exploded.

Sebastian made no reply but the look on his face spoke volumes.

A
t the head of the line waiting to enter the biology laboratory on the first day back after vacation was Scrotton. Although
his clothing was as creased and disheveled as usual, it was much cleaner. He made no effort to communicate with anyone else
in the line and stood staring at his feet.

“Think that’s the original Scrotton we’ve grown to know and love?” Tim whispered to Pip.

Sebastian, overhearing him, shook his head and said, “That is one of the replicates. His clothing is clean because he has
just hatched.”

“Like a butterfly,” Pip murmured. “The colors are brightest when it has only just left its chrysalis.”

The laboratory door was opened by a short-haired, handsome young man in his early twenties wearing a blue blazer, khaki trousers,
a white shirt and a tie with a university crest embroidered upon it. His suede shoes were well brushed.

“Come in,” he invited the class, “and sit in your usual places, please.”

The pupils filed in and fanned out between the benches.

“My name,” the teacher began, “is Mr. David Loud-acre and I’m the substitute teacher taking Miss Bates’s classes this week.”