Mrs. Deverill

Mrs. Jayne Deverill is the antagonsit in the The Power of Five series book one Raven's Gate and she is mentioned in the other books.

She is a witch who lives in the Yorkshire village Lesser Malling and hates the outside world.

She rarely goes into the outside world but she came to London to pick up Matt Freeman, whose blood she needed to free Chaos, the King of the Old Ones, and his followers, the Old Ones. She needed to free him so the Old Ones could kill off the outside world she despised and set about a new world, where, she hoped, she and the other villagers as well as the Nightrise corporation (another branch of Old Ones followers) would gain incredible wealth and power.

She bullied Matt when he was in her adoption, torturing him psychologically and physically - she had her farmhand Noah, (who acted like the classic Igor) beat Matt and threaten to kill him.

She made the mistake of putting a picture of Matt at his parents' funeral in her closet, which Matt found. Jayne Deverill would take nocturnal trips to the (supposedly abandoned) power plant in the woods outside the village, where she joined the village cult to prepare for Matt's sacrifice. Jayne Deverill lost Matt briefly when he went into the town of Greater Malling to escape, he found Richard Cole, a journalist, and told him his story, but Cole didn't believe him, and when he left the offices in a foul mood, Jayne Deverill was outside and captured Matt again.

Matt had seen Tom Burgess, a farmer who had tried to get him out and was the only nice villager, been killed by some monster, so he was shocked when all evidence of the murder - including Tom's body - vanished and everyone told police that Tom was alive and gone to see his sheep. Then, to Matt's horror, he got a call from the dead farmer saying he was up in Cirencester. This totally confounded Matt and he wondered if he was going crazy. He escaped and found Jayne Deverill in the cult doing rituals in the woods at night around a fire. Some influential man was there too. Matt was discovered and Jayne Deverill summoned two black dogs out of the fire and they chased Matt, but he was saved by Richard, who killed the dogs and adoped Matt.

Later on, Richard and Matt went to the British Museum in London to see Professor Dravid, a member of a secret organization called the Nexus, who had vowed to protect humanity, and Dravid told them about the Old Ones and said Jayne Deverill and the others were witches. But Dravid was killed, because Deverill had animated all the dinosaur fossils to kill Matt and Richard, but they escaped, and Matt was captured by Jayne Deverill, who also got  Richard.

Later in the night, Matt was captured by Sir Michael Marsh, a government scientist who betrayed him by revealing his evil allegiance, and Matt realized Marsh was the man who had been at the ritual that night. Then Marsh took him to the power plant and gave him to the villagers. Matt was about to be sacrificed and Richard was forced to watch, but then Matt realized his supernatural power, freed him and Richard, banished Chaos, and escaped.

But Jayne Deverill was completely mad by now with rage, because she wanted to be the one who killed Matt, and then she ran after him and Richard, fighting Richard over a tank in the power station full of acid. Jayne Deverill got the upper hand and wrestled with Richard, but eventually he overpowered her and knocked her into the acid, killing her. In his view, this burning was worse than the Burning Times back in the 1600s.