Description:
Pursued by the many guises of the devil Belial, three teenagers flee down a storm-swept highway in the South Dakota badlands while the world quite literally crashes down around them. Fischer, a shy and thoughtful young boy, has stolen a handful of magical red stones from their rightful Keeper to impress his blowhard cousin David. Now the earth is in deadly peril, unless they can return the stones and reunite Thistle, the 200-year-old "teenager" who is the Second Keeper, with her father within three days. Always close behind them, Belial draws on his "marked ones"--ordinary people who have given themselves to evil--to capture and deliver the young fugitives. Gradually Fischer realizes with terror that it is not Thistle, but him that Belial wants--for his theft has made him The Taker. This mystical fantasy crackles with suspense and a pervasive sense of the demonic. Young Fischer falls in love with the mysterious Thistle and her mission, but wrestles at the same time with his secret desire to win his cold and distant father's respect by keeping the power of the stones for his own. Barbara Russell has shown her skill with similar themes in two earlier well-received novels for younger teens, Blue Lightning and Last Left Standing. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell
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