Tom Burgess



Tom Burgess was a protagonist in The Power of Five book one, Raven's Gate by Anthony Horowitz.

Origins
Tom was living in Lesser Malling. He was the only good villager there, because he had only just moved to Yorkshire and he didn't fit in with the other villagers. Tom was not sociopathic like the other villagers and when he knew the villagers were obsessed with dark magic, he was horrified.

Biography
Tom first met Matt when he was sent by Jayne Deverill into Lesser Malling town center to get a poisonous herb for her dark potion. Tom was the only villager to be friendly to Matt, the others just hung about in street corners, pointing and whispering at him, and some stood openly and laughed at Matt. Tom approached Matt and grabbed him, at first scaring him, but when Tom introduced himself, Matt learned from Tom there was an evil plan in the village, and Tom Burgess warned Matt to leave the place. He apologized for scaring him but said that Matt had to go for his own safety.

Several days later, Tom went into the woods hunting foxes but found none. Halfway in his hunt, he came upon Matt, who was lost. Tom became friendlier with Matt and said the building he was beside was an old power plant, the first one made in Britain. Matt then asked why it was here and learned the villagers were all planning something to do with the power plant. Then Tom asked why he hadn't fled, and Matt said he'd tried to but the roads looped him back to the farm no matter how far he went. Matt also added he wouldn't leave unless he knew what the danger was he was running from. Tom told him to come to his farm tomorrow, which was not far from Jayne Deverill's farm, and then he whipped round, and saw Asmodeus, Jayne's cat, which had followed him and Matt. Without stopping, Tom shot the cat dead, blowing its brains out. The cat spun round, clearly dead. Matt was completely shocked until Tom proved the cat was a witch's cat and not fully natural. Tom was absolutely afraid and told Matt to leave with him tomorrow. He gave Matt a pendant to unlock the maze of woodland and roads. The pendant was in the shape of a key and it actually worked.

Matt saw, to his shock, that the dead cat, Asmodeus, was actually alive again, and fully healed, despite having been shot dead before. Matt then left the farm, slipping out and was surprised by how easy it was, and wondered if Jayne knew something he didn't. He soon found out that what she knew was that Tom Burgess was already dead. Matt went into Tom's house, thinking how much more attractive it was than Jayne's place. Then inside it was like a storm had hit. Matt found Tom Burgess' broken body in the bedroom, and he had scrawled RAVEN'S GATE in green paint onto the wall before he died. It was implied Tom had been killed by the cat Asmodeus.

Then the witches came and removed Tom's body, to confuse Matt and the police even further. To further add insult to injury, they got a con artist to pretend to be Tom Burgess, and he called Matt and said Tom was still alive but had gone to Cirencester.