The Last Apprentice

Recently i have been reading a book series called The Last Apprentice. It is about a boy apprenticed to a Spook, one who guards people from the dark. Spooks do not usually have friends because people fear them. I have read four of them already, and they are pretty creepy. The list goes in order by creepiness like this:

1. Attack of the Fiend
2. Night of the Soul Stealer
3. Curse of the Bane
4. Revenge of the Witch

The chapter art, along with the story itself, is really spectacular, and to prove it I uploaded some images.

Revenge of the witch, chapter 12: The Desperate and the Dizzy

Now, for you people reading this post, you probably only see a mirror and a hand reaching towards it. So let's give some clarification. In the mirror is a dead witch, Mother Malkin, who is being summoned by, who else but, the main character's only friend, Alice. The main character, Tom, (keeping a promise to Alice) fed Mother Malkin some cakes for two nights in a row, enabling her to escape from her pit (pits are used to bind live witches, and the witches aren't usually able to get out, due to the iron bars at the top.) Tom killed the witch, but witches can still walk around and feed after death. The following chapter is suspenseful as it deals with Tom trying to spot who the witch might have possesed.

Curse of the Bane, Back Cover

This is a picture of Alice in a haunted house with Tom. They just recently escaped the Bane, a creature who steals blood from humans to make himself powerful, with Tom nearly killed because he refused to let the Bane lose. Tom gets confronted with a nightmare that the Bane forces upon him, and the Bane tries to get Tom to free him and give him his blood. Tom refuses, but the Bane traps him in a dream while he convinces Alice to open the Silver Gate (the gate that binds the Bane.) Tom desperately tries to wake up (Taking almost two hours to do so), but when he does wake up, Alice has already opened the gate, dooming the County, and given the Bane her blood, dooming herself, so that she may become a witch.

Night of the Soul Stealer, chapter 21: The Trap

Night of the Soul Stealer, Back Cover

In the top picture, Meg, a domestic lamia witch (lamia witches come from Greece. Feral lamias have long, powerful claws, scales all over their bodies, and a thirst for human flesh. Domestic lamias look like humans and have control over their diet.) who fell in love with the Spook, is climbing through the dirt after her sister, a feral lamia that tried to kill and eat Tom. Meg was given "Herb Tea" that made her forget her power over humans, but also made her forget small things, such as names. Somehow (the reason is not stated in the book) she remembered who she was and locked Tom and the Spook in the cellar where she spent her summers awaiting the Spook's return to his winter house. Tom escapes, but Meg caught him sneaking back into the house trying to get the Spook out and trying to save his father's soul by giving Morgan, and evil character who is torturing Tom's father's dead spirit, a grimoire that will summon Gorgoth, the evil god of winter. Tom escapes using a rowan staff and a silver chain, and puts Meg in a pit in the basement, where she should have been if not for the Spook's soft heart*.

In the bottom picture is Marcia, Meg's feral sister, crawling towards Tom, who is bound in place by a spell.

Attack of the Fiend, chapter three: Priorities

Attack of the Fiend, chapter five: The Three Sisters

Attack of the Fiend, chapter seven: Alice's Tale

Attack of the Fiend, chapter 17: Moonlight

Attack of the Fiend, chapter 25: A New Order

In the top picture, a witch is shown on horseback commanding Tom's family hurt, his trunks stolen, and his barn burned down.

In the next picture down, Beth and Jennet, witch twins from the Mouldheel clan, are shown sitting on tree stumps. Tom is lead to them by Mab, Beth and Jennet's sister and also leader of the Mouldheel clan, with the thought put into his head by Mab that they were going to save Alice. They play a game with Tom (Tom having no choice in the matter, for he has a spell cast onto him, preventing him from refusing or resisting) in which the players pick a category: Truth, Dare, Promise, or Kiss. It being Tom's turn, he chooses truth, which seems to be the least dangerous, because a dare could risk his life and Alice's, a promise** could risk the whole County's safety, and he remembers that they said if he chose Kiss then he would have to kiss someone or something. The scene goes like this (told in first person view by Tom):

"Tell me this and be truthful. And you'd better, if you know what's good for you. Wouldn't do to cross us! Which one of us do you like best?"
I looked at Mab in astonishment. I'd had no idea what kind of question I'd be asked, but this was like a bolt from the blue. And it wasn't easy to answer. Whichever one I picked, the other two would be offended. And I wasn't even sure whst the truth was. All three girls were scary and most certainly witches. I didn't like any of them. So what else could I do? I told them the truth.
"I don't like any of you that much," I said. "I don't mean to be rude, but it's the truth you wanted and it's the plain truth I've given you."
All three let out a simultaneous hiss of anger. "That's not good enough," Mab said, her voice low and dangerous. "You have to choose one of us."
"Then it's you, Mab. You were the on I saw first. So it might as well be you."
I'd spoken instinctively, without thinking, but Mab smiled. It was a self satisfied smile, as if she'd known she was going to be chosen all along.
"It's my turn now," said Mab, turning away from me to face her sisters. "I'll take kiss!"
"Then kiss Tom!" Jennet exclaimed. "Kiss him now and make him yours forever!"

Tom has no control over his body, so he must kiss Mab, but feels sharp burning pains in his left forearm. He is free from Mab's control, and remembers what Alice had once done. Alice had once gripped his arm so hard that her fingernails went into his flesh. When he took her to her aunt's house, where she would live, she had said "Put my brand on you there...That won't ever fade away." On another occasion, right after she had let the Bane loose, Tom was going to go his own way, away from Alice, when she shouted "You're Mine. You belong to me!" He tells Mab that he belongs to Alice (not purposefully, possibly for the same reason that Mab could not kiss him.) Mab then says that when Alice is dead, he will be hers, and sets off. Tom follows, fearing that she will kill Alice to make him hers.

In the next picture down, it appears to me that Tibb, an evil creature with more strength than a full-grown man, is shown being cut out of a sow. Tibb poses a great threat to Tom, and causes many troubles throughout the book.

In the picture next to the bottom, Tom is at Malkin tower with Mab, and he has read a letter that tells him his mother's sisters are in the two trunks that Mab couldn't get open. His mother's sister's, his aunts, trunks will not open except by his hand in the moonlight. When the sisters are in moonlight, they awaken. Tom opens up the trunks, tricking Mab into thinking that she has control over him, and is forcing him to open the trunks. When he does, his aunts frighten of Mab, Beth, and Jennet and drive the Mouldheel clan out of the tower that they had just captured, putting them in a higher state of authority than the Malkins and the Deanes, the other witch clans.

In the last picture, Tom is back home and just survived attacks from the Fiend, the very Devil himself, and Grimalkin, a witch assassin. Alice and him sit on the steps, looking at the stars. This chapter is important, because it shows that Tom belongs to Alice, and that no other witch can control him or make him hers, an attribute that saved him from Mab's control.

* The Spook was in love with Meg, and couldn't find it in him to put her in a pit. Tom is thankful however, because mentioning Meg saved Alice from a pit of her own.

** The other reason Tom refuses to pick promise is that a promise to Alice released Mother Malkin and dangered the County.