As the weather grows colder and the nights draw in, the Spook and his apprentice Tom Ward must be even more vigilant in their battles against the boggarts, witches, and ghosts roaming the county. When they receive an unexpected visitor, the Spook decides it is time to move to his winter house in Anglezarke. It is a bleak, forbidding place, full of witches and secrets. Tom hears rumors of menacing creatures stirring on the moors nearby, including the evil beast called Golgoth. Who was the mysterious visitor? And is Tom prepared for what he will find in Anglezarke? “Delaney excels in navigating the territory between high and domestic fantasy: his characters are very much of this world, and the evils they face are grounded as much here as in myth.” - The Horn Book “Delaney is a master story-teller.” - The Times (London) As the weather grows colder and the nights draw in, the Spook and his apprentice Tom Ward must be even more vigilant in their battles against the boggarts, witches, and ghosts roaming the county. When they receive an unexpected visitor, the Spook decides it is time to move to his winter house in Anglezarke. It is a bleak, forbidding place, full of witches and secrets. Tom hears rumors of menacing creatures stirring on the moors nearby, including the evil beast called Golgoth. Who was the mysterious visitor? And is Tom prepared for what he will find in Anglezarke? Joseph DELANEY is the author of the internationally best-selling The Last Apprentice series, which is now a major motion picture, Seventh Son . He is a former English teacher who lives in the heart of boggart territory in Lancashire, England. His village has a boggart called the Hall Knocker, which was laid to rest under the step of a house near the church. The Last Apprentice: Night of the Soul Stealer By Joseph Delaney HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2008 Joseph Delaney All right reserved. ISBN: 9780060766269 Chapter One An Unexpected Visitor It was a cold, dark November night, and Alice and I were sitting by the kitchen fire with my master, the Spook. The weather had been getting steadily colder, and I knew that any day now the Spook would decide it was time to set off for his "winter house" on the bleak moor of Anglezarke. I was in no rush to go. I'd only been the Spook's apprentice since the spring and had never seen the Anglezarke house, but my curiosity certainly wasn't getting the better of me. I was warm and comfortable here in Chipenden, and that's where I'd rather have spent the winter. I glanced up from the book of Latin verbs I was trying to learn, and Alice caught my eye. She was sitting on a low stool close to the hearth, her face bathed in the warm glow of the fire. She smiled and I smiled back. Alice was the other reason I didn't want to leave Chipenden. She was the closest I'd ever had to a friend, and she'd saved my life on a number of occasions over the last few months. I'd really enjoyed having her living here with us. She made the loneliness of a spook's life more bearable. But my master had told me in confidence that she would be leaving us soon. He'd never really trusted her because she came from a family of witches. He also thought she would start to distract me from my lessons, so when the Spook and I went to Anglezarke, she wouldn't be coming with us. Poor Alice didn't know this, and I hadn't the heart to tell her, so for now I was just enjoying another of our last precious evenings together in Chipenden. But as it turned out, that was to be our last one of the year: as Alice and I sat reading by the glow of the fire and the Spook nodded off in his chair, the tolling of the summoning bell shattered our peace. At that unwelcome sound, my heart sank right down into my boots. It meant only one thing: spooks' business. You see, nobody ever came up to the Spook's house. For one thing, they'd have been ripped to pieces by the pet boggart that guarded the perimeter of the gardens. So, despite the failing light and the cold wind, it was my job to go down to the bell in the circle of willow trees to see who needed help. I was feeling warm and comfortable after my early supper, and the Spook must have sensed my reluctance to leave. He shook his head as if disappointed in me, his green eyes glittering fiercely. "Get yourself down there, lad," he growled. "It's a bad night and whoever it is won't want to be kept waiting!" As I stood up and reached for my cloak, Alice gave me a small, sympathetic smile. She felt sorry for me, but I could also see that she was happy to sit there warming her hands while I had to go out into the bitter wind. I closed the back door firmly behind me and, carrying a lantern in my left hand, strode through the western garden and down the hill, the wind trying its very best to tear the cloak from my back. At last I came to the withy trees, where two lanes crossed. It was dark, and my lantern cast disturbing shadows, the trunks and branches twisting into limbs, cl