SWAGG 4: Soulforce

By Jill Marshall

Darkness is spreading. Gideon Flynn, SWAGG’s beloved leader, is rapidly becoming more shadow than light.
And it’s not just Flynn. Destructive forces are stealing across the planet, causing rifts in families, in continents, in the Earth itself ...

As super-scientist Stein races to create a way to bring Gideon back from the Shadows, with the help of his old friend Frank and his new SWAGG team, they realise that Flynn is always secretive for a reason. He knows something. He knows what’s coming. And he knows how to stop it.
So if SWAGG can’t bring him back before he disappears forever into the blackness, it’s going to be too late ... For everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jill Marshall
• Release date: Mar 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990024863

Jill Marshall

Jill Marshall is the author of the best-selling Jane Blonde series and fiction for children, young adults and adults. Her middle-grade series about sensational girl spy, Jane Blonde,published by Macmillan Children's Books UK, has sold hundreds of thousands of copies around the world, featured as a World Book Day title and reached the UK Times Top 10 for all fiction. Jane Blonde has been optioned for film and TV and is currently undergoing some exciting Wower-ish transformations.Jill has now brought Jane together with her other series in this age group - Doghead, The Legend of Matilda Peppercorn, Stein & Frank - in a fantastic new ensemble series. Meet the SWAGG team, and their first book, SPOOK.As well as books for tweens and teens, Jill writes for young adults and adults, each with a collection of three stand-alone novels. She also writes for younger children, with a Hachette-published picture book for teenies, Kave-Tina Rox.When she's not writing books, Jill is a communications consultant and a proud mum and nana. She divides her time between the UK and New Zealand, and hopes one day to travel between the two by SatiSPI or ESPIdrilles.

Book preview

Chapter 1 - Déjà Vu

Turning up the long collar of his suit, Gideon pushed on through the swirling smoke along the south bank of the Thames. He concentrated hard so that his ankles would remain vaporous and un-trippable, as he tried even harder not to glance over his shoulder at the chilling whisper.

‘Hey, mister!’

He hated the Shadows. The SWAGGers had no idea how much he hated the Shadows. They seemed to believe, when he slunk off at the end of their adventures or shimmied into beingness just as they gathered in the School of I.C.E or the Runes or any of several Spylabs, that lingering in the Shadows was all his choice.

Gideon almost laughed. Choice? It was the last place he would choose to be. It was never his decision to be yanked backwards as if some invisible force had hooked a crook around his neck, sucking him back to learn his lesson again. Over and over. He was beginning to wonder if he’d ever learn it enough to escape the Shadows forever.

‘Where exactly do I fit in?’ he wanted to yell. Where would he finally find out what he was there for? Where would he find the place that he remembered somehow, not as a thought or smiley, curly-edged photo, but as a sensation of having been somewhere before? Déjà vu, they called it. Home, he called it.

He pushed on through the weeds, weary at the relentlessness of it all. Perhaps he’d never know, and he’d just have to put up with it. And to be fair, some of the Shadows wasn’t too bad, like the library of the Hall of Records which he’d graduated to after several decades of lone studying. That was bright and interesting, somewhere to hear from genius teachers and real-life experts. Actually real-dead experts. Over the course of many years, he’d stumbled occasionally into a meeting room to find incredible conversations between equally incredible figures taking place.

In these pockets of illumination, he’d heard about each of the SWAGG members. About Jack, zzzippping between this world and the Egyptian afterlife as the god, Anubis. About Tilly – legendary Catgirl Matilda Peppercorn, managing the fortunes of all witchkind through her own unique brand of magical mayhem. About Stein, the three- hundred-and-something-year-old alchemist who could create life-giving juice - and possibly immortality - for less fortunate beings.

And he’d heard about Janey. Jane Blonde: an uber-spy, for sure, but also just a brilliant human being whose destiny seemed incredibly linked with his. Just the most incredible human being, he thought with a sigh – a fact that Jack Bootle-Cadogan had also noticed, in time to swoop in and grab Janey’s attention when Gideon was dragged back to the dangerous darkness.

Because the rest of the Shadows was exactly as it sounded: shadowy, a smoky plane that mirrored the earth but reflected none of its earthly patterns and rules, like gravity and time. It was always murky, with pungent mist smothering obstacles below the sightline so that they tripped you up, dragged you to the floor at the feet of somebody, some creature, some being that wanted a word. He dreaded the times when someone wanted a word. There was always an inner pull into some uncomfortable space, a curious nasty whiff that he knew was leading him off track. And each time he listened to the word, he ended up back here, right where he’d started.

‘Mister!’ There it was again. Louder now, more urgent.

It was getting very tedious, especially when he just wanted to be out there among the living, and the method to achieving it seemed so tantalisingly close. But that was what the Shadows was all about. It was the holding place, where everyone went to discover what they’d forgotten to learn - or decided to ignore.

Sometimes he knew he was ignoring some niggling voice in the back of brain. Maybe that was who was on his trail right now – a new niggling voice. Someone was definitely following him, ducking behind the skeletal outlines of the barren trees and upturned rowing boats littered along the shadow bank of the Thames, creeping ever closer. Close enough to reach out a hand or sneak around him and pin him from the front with a foot, or a claw, or whatever it had …

And suddenly he’d had enough. Whatever was behind him, he’d faced worse with the SWAGG team, very often and very recently. Ancient monsters had arisen from lochs and oceans; monstrous enemies had dragged them all to their near-deaths. He was fairly sure this was just one figure. How bad could it be?

Before his courage could evaporate like the curls of fog around his feet in the morning sun, he spun around. ‘What do you want?’ he shouted.

The shadowy figure stumbled to a halt, uttering a Russian-sounding curse before it let out a contrasting, high-pitched giggle. ‘English, of course!’ said the heavily-accented voice of an adolescent, somewhere about his own age. ‘Sorry, Mister Gideon. I did not mean to alarm you.’

Gideon peered through the darkness. A young man loomed forwards, his huge shoulders parting the trailing leaves of the drooping willow tree like stage curtains. Even in the Shadows he had a commanding presence, and he just radiated niceness.

‘I am Peter.’ He grinned amiably. ‘I suppose I could have just told you that before, instead of scaring you half to death.’

‘Already dead,’ Gideon pointed out.

‘Yes! Of course. Well, instead of scaring you at all then!’

Gideon couldn’t help but flash his customary quick smile in return. ‘What can I do for you, Peter? Did you want a word?’

‘Many words, Mr Gideon! It is such a pleasure to meet you. I enjoy it bigly.’

‘Maybe … hugely?’

Peter shrugged. ‘I am really just learning the English.’

‘Your English is excellent. I bet I don’t know any of your language!’ He guessed it was Russian, but it could be any of those countries speaking in Cyrillic languages: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Kazakhstan.

‘Few people do,’ said Peter with another heave of his enormous shoulders. ‘It is not a common tongue.’ He smiled again, but it didn’t quite reach his sad eyes. ‘That is what I discovered when I travelled to down the mountain. They did not even speak Transnordian in the very next town, and it was barely across the border!’

‘You’re Transnordian! Like Stein. Prince Stein,’ he said, remembering some of Stein’s background. Peter’s mournful eyes were still downcast. ‘What happened in the next town?’

‘They did not like strangers.’

‘Few people do,’ said Gideon softly, echoing Peter’s own words. He had a vague sense of knowing Peter already, that he’d met him before – but it wasn’t in the Shadows. Maybe he was having one of those déjà vu moments. They seemed to be getting more and more common of late. ‘Did they … did they kill you? Is that why you’re here?’

Peter shook his head quickly. ‘No. They were not so cruel as that. But I had volunteered to leave my village of Rustnuts to search for help when the villagers were starving, and the citizens of the next town would not let me stay once I had purchased a prize bull from them to grow our herds, to help our cows to calf and give milk. Instead they sent me and the prize bull back to Rustnuts without food or water. Whatever provisions I had, I gave to the bull so he could serve the village. And …’ He shrugged again. ‘I did not make it home.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Gideon.

‘All is well and meant.’ Peter smiled again. ‘ In the end, it was a local prince of the Huckenbeck dynasty who turned around the fortunes of Rustnuts – your friend, Prince Stein.’

His cheery expression darkened suddenly, and Gideon’s senses switched to high alert.

‘Is Stein in trouble?’

Peter blinked at him with his soulful spirit eyes. ‘Soon,’ he said with a sigh, ‘we will all be in trouble - even here in the Shadows. You need to help him to help you.’

‘Why? What’s happening?’

‘I cannot tell you more. Just that you need to go now.’

Gideon’s eyes narrowed. He’d followed this sort of instruction once too often to take it at face value. Peter might look completely innocent, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d been duped.

‘Who gave you this information?’ he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended. He felt terrible instantly. He could sense that Peter was the most open, honest, straightforward person Gideon had ever met. ‘My apologies, Peter. If you can’t tell me who issued this warning, I understand.’

Peter looked around carefully. ‘It is one of the special groups in the sidelights, for certain members only,’ he whispered. ‘I think you may remember one day, but until then I’m sworn to silence – apart from this message. Help Stein to help you.’

A ray of pale sunlight glimmered over Peter’s burly shoulders. Turning away, Gideon clamped his eyes shut. ‘Is that what you’re here to learn, Peter?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you’re in the Shadows?’

‘I am here because I choose to be.’ Peter’s words were splintering into different sound waves, reaching Gideon’s ears in scratchy, staccato soundbites. ‘Because Stein … mind and body. Help you … Stein to help—’

His voice fizzled out. When Gideon opened his eyes again, Peter was gone, swept away in the dawn like the coiling mists of the Shadows.

‘I’m really so very sorry, Peter,’ said Gideon again. If anyone deserved to have moved on from this place, it was this sweet-natured young man.

Hoping desperately that Peter really was as kind and genuine as he seemed, Gideon shook off the lethargy that the Shadows always induced in him and turned his attention towards another place of learning – the School of I.C.E.

Chapter 2 - The Dream Creeper

Stein’s feet were frozen to the floor. He tried moving them again, but it was useless. His legs felt like watery columns over which he had no power. He recognised the floor but, like the door to the left, he couldn’t recall where it was. All he knew for sure was that he wasn’t meant to be there.

‘Oddsbudlikins! Move, dear feet!’ he begged – but his jaw was as fluid and useless as his legs, his voice as silent as death itself. Was he a ghost? Was he actually dead at long last? He’d been undead so long it was hard to tell.

Stein’s heart quickened as a smooth golden glove edged through the door. Someone was feeling their way into the room. The hand was followed by a gold arm, the top half of a body, the legs, and then eventually the whole person – a tall, slender figure encased from head to toe in gold. Stein couldn’t tell if it was yellow lycra clothing like Janey’s spysuit, or golden skin.

The figure crept furtively into the room, carrying a carved wooden casket with a steepled lid and a name on an enamel oval stuck onto the front. Craning his neck, Stein read the label and tried not to gasp. GIDEON, it said.

Just as the figure bent to place the box on the mostly-familiar floor, an immense taloned bird coursed through a skylight overhead and spiralled downwards towards the crouched body. A vulture? One of the Graeae? No, smaller, Stein realised – possibly a falcon. Flapping its wings, it leaned back into its own jetstream as its clawed feet stretched out below its plummeting body, aiming right for the parcel.

‘Look out!’ screamed Stein to warn the figure – and even though no sound at all seemed to issue forth from his stupidly flapping mouth, the golden being seemed to hear him. Jerking upright, the being pointed its featureless face straight at Stein with the same tensed shoulders as a burglar caught in the act of stealing someone’s prized possession.

Stein’s heart lurched as the truth hit him. He wasn’t supposed to see him! This was somewhere secret, special, and Stein wasn’t meant to be there.

The figure was so shocked to find Stein watching him that he didn’t notice the falcon until it screeched towards the box to rip it from the golden hands. Grappling with the casket, it whipped around towards Stein for help. The raptor’s talons shredded the intricate carvings. Suddenly it had the box in its grip. The gold figure screamed, arms wheeling feverishly as it swiped at the invading bird but sweeping straight through the falcon, over and over and over in a nightmarish whirl of helplessness.

The figure shouted something to Stein, but his ears weren’t working either, and as Stein tried to reply, no sound came out of his screeching, open lips. He screamed again, fruitlessly, as the bird of prey filled the entire ceiling with its terrifying wingspan and soared away through the skylight.

‘Noooooo!’ cried Stein as the room swam before his eyes in the blinding sunlight. Shimmering in out and out of his vision, the golden figure reached desperately for the skylight as Stein shouted, ‘Come back! Let go of that box!’

To his very great surprise, the vulture-like bird swung around, dropped down onto his bed and snorted steam directly into his face.

‘Ow. That’s hot. I cannot burn, but still … ow,’ muttered Stein. His voice seemed to be working properly. ‘Wait. That’s not a bird.’

He opened his eyes as a raspy forked tongue licked both of his cheeks at the same time.

‘Dogweed!’ His dragon’s face was worryingly close to his. One false sneeze and Stein’s ringlets could go up in smoke. ‘Where’s the golden being and the carved box and the bird of prey and … Oh. Was I dreaming?’

Dogweed nodded, licking both of Stein’s eyebrows to flatten them. He must have been thrashing around on his pillow for ages to make them stand so spectacularly on end. In fact, he could probably time it to when he’d had a little lie down while his batch of special pom juice began to froth in its test tube – five hours ago.

‘Gadzooks, it seemed so incredibly real, Weedy. And the place so familiar. In fact, much of it was familiar – a golden figure planting a box in the middle of a room that I almost recognised; a casket bearing the name of Gideon; a bird of prey that I seemed to know.’ Stein gaped at Dogweed. ‘La, I know enough about the mystical arts to know when a dream is a message. This was clearly a warning! The question, however, is whether it is a warning for Gideon or … and I hate to say it, dear dragon … about Gideon.’ He poked his steed in the chest. ‘Out of the way. I’d better call a meeting.’

For a second, he considered messaging everyone on his personally-developed Frightspace App. It would be the quickest and easiest way to contact all the SWAGG members at once – if only they all used it. He doubted strongly that anyone ever logged on apart from his Transnordian friends, despite them all declaring that they loved it and used it daily, especially Tilly who said she and all her friends were always on it and thought it was superbly excellent. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ he’d muttered at the time.

‘You should talk to thomeone about that lithp,’ she’d replied.

Trying not to laugh, Jack had come to Stein’s rescue. ‘That’s Shakespeare,’ he said, pointing at Stein.

‘Nooo, that’s Stein. Oh! Is Shakespeare your first name, Steiny? I like it! You and Thomas could make a great TV forensics team – Thaumaturge and Shakespeare, Special Detectives.’

‘It’s not … I … ‘tis a quote from … forsooth, never mind,’ Stein had finished with a sigh. There was little point in explaining that William Shakespeare was a playwright from the century before even Stein’s original birth, whose work transcended time to the degree that some people, like Jack, enjoyed it in this day and age.

‘Yes, maybe not the app, Dogweed,’ he said to the dragon in the sleeping quarters of his School of ICE quadrant. ‘And come to think of it, I cannot see my tablet. I must have left it in my alchemy lab. Let’s do this the old-fashioned way. Really, really old-fashioned.’

Stuffing the gurgling test tube from his experiment into his pocket for safekeeping, he leaned over the edge of his Jacobean four-poster bed and withdrew a roll of parchment. Then he fumbled for a long-feathered quill in his locked chest of special things and scribed an invitation for each of his friends.

Urgent message. Must discuss Flynn. Yours, Stein.

He added ‘Library, 9.30am’ and then pulled on his favourite velvet waistcoat and matching pantaloons to make his journey around Jack’s castle. Some of the students were stirring, especially the newer ones who had joined the school since they’d decided to open the doors to anyone who felt like they didn’t fit in anywhere else – the bullied, the shy, the minority, the different or the far too ordinary (who often turned out to be the most extraordinary), and even the terribly lonely, as Stein himself had been for several centuries before he’d learned how to make friends. When they’d all discovered they were in a school of the mythical, mystical and magical, it was hard to make them go to bed.

‘Good morning, Eboni and Mindy,’ he said to the first pair he met in the corridor. From the look of their proudly-worn gadget belts, they were fresh from a spy-buys session with Janey.

Mindy had been at the school a while, of course, but with Chandi and her twin, Joe, becoming such firm friends, she had jumped at the chance to buddy up with the quiet newcomer who shone with some power as yet unknown. As Janey had explained in their earlier lessons, this was the kind of power that got them picked on by other kids who didn’t like being shown up. At the School of ICE they would all learn to own it, be kind with it and – with a little luck - gain a bit of SWAGG’s special brand of quiet-ish confidence.

‘Good morning, Stein,’ said Eboni shyly.

Stein handed her one of the parchment scrolls, sealed with his own brand of alchemical wax that would burn the prying fingers of anyone but the intended recipient. ‘Would you mind taking this back to Mistress Blonde?’

Pink with pleasure at being entrusted with this important job AND getting to talk again to the superspy, Eboni clutched it to her stomach and ran back towards the lab, as Mindy laughed and chased after her.

Sending Dogweed to deliver Matilda Peppercorn’s parchment, Stein hurried on to the Egyptology Museum, past darkened staterooms festooned with coffins where his own vampire and zombie friends had lessons at night and hunkered down during daylight hours, and the Witchery Quadrant Torture Room where the werewolves gladly caged themselves at full moon. With a staff of ghostly experts and superheroes in charge of students who operated best at night, he was hardly surprised to find that many of the rooms had fallen quiet since dawn broke. Only the most human – Janey and the spies, and some of the parents and locals – still occasionally operated during daylight hours.

Not surprisingly, Stein found the Museum doors locked into place with a rotating Eye of Horus. He considered knocking, but then the ghostly figure of Abigail Pippin wafted along the corridor, bobbing before him in a polite curtsey. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ she whispered. ‘Mr Albert Cornthwaite and … ahm, certain others … were having a very rowdy game of Senet until the small hours, while trying to advise Jack on proper first dates. Jack’s probably only just gone to bed.’

Stein had the very strong suspicion that Abigail herself had been one of the players, and possibly also one of the dating advisors. ‘Forsooth, that sounds fun. I must join them one night.’

‘Oh, we’d … they’d love that!’ cried Abigail with a grin.

‘Does Gideon join you?’

The former maid shook her head so vigorously that her cotton mob-cap slipped sideways. ‘No, not Mister Gideon. He …’ She thought about it carefully. ‘He doesn’t seem to get the same freedoms as the other ghosts. Nobody tells me when to come and go, but I don’t think it’s the same for Mister Gideon.’

Stein smiled. ‘I can’t imagine anyone trying to tell you what to do, Mistress Pippin,’ he said as he flattened the scroll and shoved it under the door.

‘Well, as the old Lady B-C taught me,’ she replied, looking very pleased at his comment, ‘there’s ways to ask nicely.’

‘Indeed.’ Stein bowed his ringleted head towards her. ‘I must take my leave, but I wonder if I might request a small alarm call for Jack? It’s very important he attends this meeting.’

‘And them’s the ways to ask nicely!’ said Abigail with a laugh. ‘Certainly. I’ll do that for you, your highness, and for Lord Jack, of course.’

‘Thank you. I look forward to our game of Senet!’

‘Oh, sir, I don’t play Senet. I’m just a girl – a spinster and a servant. What would the world be coming to?’ With a huge saucy wink, she kicked out her skirts ahead of her and vanished straight through the Museum wall.

Stein was suddenly reminded of the golden figure in his dream, stepping carefully through to a new threshold.

‘What indeed. What is the world coming to?’ muttered Stein.

That really was the question. What was the world coming to? There was a clue in that casket. He just knew it. And as an alchemist, a scientist, a mathematician, a physicist … he intended to find that clue and figure it out.

Chapter 3 - Nessy Nastiness

At 9.30am, as directed, they all appeared in the library in various states of disarray. ‘My sticky-out eyebrow were as nought compared with some of these hair issues,’ Stein muttered to Dogweed. Jack’s golden curls were all pushed to one side as if he’d had his head stuck out of a car window, and Matilda Peppercorn’s blue-and-grey zig-zags were practically giving off sparks. They wouldn’t have looked out of place in a computer server cabinet.

‘I was having a lovely cat nap! What’s this about, Shakespeare?’ cried Tilly.

‘Please call me Stein. Or if you must use my birthname, you could say Petroc.’

‘That’s right! Petroc! Remember when I discovered Stein’s original name at his castle?’ Janey folded herself neatly onto the sofa as Jack lurked, trying to figure out where she was going to land so he could pounce into the seat beside her. ‘Before he was Prince Stein of the Transnordian Huckenbeck dynasty, he was Petroc Hawkback of England.’

‘Thank you, Mistress Blonde,’ said Stein. Pushing Dogweed behind the capacious reading chair, he chucked him a wad of peppermint leaves to chew, in case he coughed and set the ancient books alight. ‘And to all of you for joining me here. I don’t like this any more than the rest of you, I swear it, but I feel we must confer - about Gideon!’

‘Do we have to, Stein? Isn’t it easier just to ignore what Gideon’s up to? To never discuss it and hope it never really becomes more of an issue?’ Jack gazed at the others’ looks of disbelief. ‘What? That’s what we do in our family.’

‘What you used to do. You’re all getting better at sharing,’ said Janey, smiling sweetly at Jack.

‘Yes indeed!’ Stein cried. ‘I hear you were discussing certain personal matters even last night, Jack.’

Jack turned raspberry red and quickly swapped to his doghead to conceal it.

‘But I must admit it feels like we’re ganging up on Gideon,’ Janey went on, smoothing over Jack’s discomfort. ‘It’s not fair when he’s not here to defend himself.’

‘Maybe he was meant to be here but he couldn’t read your note, your Stein-ness.’ Matilda Peppercorn gazed intently at the little scrap of parchment in her hand in what Stein knew was an attempt to look anywhere but at Jack, who was busy peering soppily at Janey’s right ear. ‘Urgent meffage. Mufft difcuff Flynn. YourF, Ftein. That is a whole lot of Fs.’

Jack sighed, using the outward puff of air as an excuse to stretch out his arm and close his fingers over Janey’s hand. Tilly’s eyes nearly rolled out of her head. ‘It’s just how Stein writes the letter S. Anciently.’

‘I know that. I was joking.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. Aren’t jokes meant to be … what’s that word? Funny?’

‘Ftop it or I’ll Flap you,’ snarled Tilly. ‘Was that funny?’

Twitching uncomfortably, Jany removed her fingers from Jack’s grip. ‘Perhaps Stein’s right. We probably do need to figure out what Gideon’s up to. His behaviour’s been—’

‘Weird,’ said Tilly.

‘Outrageous,’ cried Jack.

‘Unconscionable,’ Stein announced.

‘I was going to say out of character,’ Janey finished a little mournfully.

‘Forsooth, what if this behaviour is entirely within his character?’ Stein said slowly. ‘I have been worriting about this issue for days, and after more than three centuries of practice, I am very good at worriting. This thought would not go away that this might just be how he is. What he is.’

He took in each of their expressions: Tilly’s raised eyebrows, Jack’s worried eyes and Janey’s tightly wrinkled nose which he knew was a sign that a tear might threaten to roll down her cheek at any moment.

‘I don’t want to think about that, Stein,’ she said.

Jack tried holding her hand again. ‘We have to think about it, Janey. Stein’s right. Gid’s supposed to be our leader and yet he’s never here. He disappears off to the Shadows whenever we need him. He’d obviously much prefer to be there.’

‘Or with the Others,’ Tilly added bitterly. Gideon had quickly become very close to the former allies and current enemies of witchkind, with whom SWAGG had recently had a very intense run-in. ‘You saw it. He assimilated very well in Others HQ.’ Before Jack could splutter about her vocabulary, she held up a hand. ‘Yeah, I know some words.’

‘Prison dramas?’ asked Jack.

‘No,’ said Tilly, though he’d obviously guessed correctly.

Janey sighed. ‘I suppose I am a bit concerned about how easily Gideon was manipulated by Simone Varley and the Hopkins. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Not logical enough, Mr Spock?’ snapped Tilly.