Building Tales

Moving

2010-02-08T01:48:00.000Z

Building Tales is moving. As of now, it will be incorporated into my main website, ZoeRobinson.com. The reason for this is simply that I can better control the way the stories are presented, keep them all sorted into serials and generally work with them more easily. The plan was always to have the stories linked into my site, it's just that it seems to have taken a while to get this far.

Thanks for your patience with the current storyline, too. I'll get back to working on it now.

Curse of the Other World, part fifteen

2010-01-08T00:01:00.002Z

Riverside Café, the student union's answer to a restaurant, was a permanently chilly room with a lowered section near the back, connected by a short flight of steps and looking out on a balcony that could only be reached from outside. The lower level was constantly occupied by a group of scraggly-haired students in big, black coats; most of whom kept them on despite being inside, because of the cool temperatures. The place looked like a poor man's fast food joint, and priced itself accordingly; hence it was a popular haunt for students who did not fancy sitting in the bar.

Sarah squeezed past a crowd at the entrance who were having a loud discussion about how their courses were not all they had hoped for, and looked around the small, round tables for Howard. She saw the masculine-looking woman sitting in a corner, dressed in a dark grey shirt and sporting a short, spiked haircut. Her hair was dyed platinum blond, as were her eyebrows. Her overall appearance was striking and, Sarah had to admit, it was quite a good look for her.

'I take it you've ordered already?' asked Sarah as she sat down, noting the number on a stick sat on the table, next to a pile of Howard's lecture notes. She slung her jacket over the barrier between the upper and lower areas, and slipped her satchel under the table.

'Yeah, I've been here a while already,' said Howard. 'I've only got one lecture on Mondays, so I've just been in here, going over my notes and trying to get my head around them.'

'What is it you're having trouble with?'

'Quantum mechanics.'

'Ah. I can't really help there.'

Howard laughed. 'You're the third person to say that to me. I'll pick it up eventually, I'm sure.'

'Have you talked to your tutor about it? They should be able to help.'

'I'm seeing him this afternoon at three. I just want to give it one more read through myself beforehand.'

'Fair enough. Well, I'm going to get some lunch. Want a coffee or something?'

'Got one already, thanks.'

Lunch passed with little more than small talk. Sarah picked at her pizza and tried to ignore the fact that much of it appeared to be made of grease from the cheap cheese topping, while Howard devoured her egg and chips like she had not eaten in weeks. How she managed to stay thin despite her appetite always amazed Sarah.

'So, what was it you wanted to talk about?' Howard eventually asked.

'Actually, I thought it was you who wanted to talk,' said Sarah. 'I got the impression last night that there was something bothering you.'

'Oh. Right,' Howard looked uncomfortable now. 'Well, err, I don't know if this is the right place.'

Sarah half wanted to tell her to forget it and move the conversation on to something else, but she contained herself. There was clearly something on the younger woman's mind and it would be best if she just let it out.

'It's okay,' she said. 'You can tell me anything.'

'Well, it's kind of private, you know?'

'Fair enough. If you ever want to talk, you know where my office is.'

Howard nodded. 'That might not be the best place to talk either. It might give the wrong impression, you know?'

Since the start of the Michelmass term, the first of the three terms making up each academic year at Durham University, Sarah had been President of its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered students' association. Unlike most student society presidents, Sarah had a small office in the union building from where she could coordinate her society; liaise with both university and student union staff and meet students that were having problems with their sexuality or gender identity.

Most of the time, the office was staffed by volunteers from the society who had a free hour during the day, or some time to kill in the early evening before they went out to the pub, but occasionally Sarah would be confronted by a student with real problems, and those were the times she lived for. They gave her a chance to flex her counselling skills and sometimes, when there was a problem at the university level causing the student hassle, it also gave her an outlet for her constant desire to kick the world into shape.

Times like those were becoming few and far between since she had been able to convince the university and the union to have an LGBT association representative present at key meetings, to which she would often send a volunteer because meetings bored her, but she continued to live for the challenges wherever she could find them.

Howard put down her third cup of coffee with a determined thunk. 'Look, the thing is I've got this housemate, Liam, who's really been worrying me. He doesn't go to lectures much, doesn't talk to anyone in the house anymore and spends a lot of his time in his room. Now I know all that's kind of par for the course with some people but I've heard weird muttering and chanting when I've passed his door and that's the bit that's worrying me.'

'What sort of chanting?' asked Sarah. This was not the type of conversation she had been expecting but it had caught her interest nevertheless.

'I'm not sure. It's not English, I can tell you that much.'

'Do you think he's into the occult?'

Howard nodded. 'It's crossed my mind. I've done what protection spells I know of, but I'd appreciate it if someone with more experience could give me there opinion.'

'That's fair enough. I'll pop 'round tonight if you'd like?'

Howard smiled. Sarah could not help getting butterflies in her stomach when Howard smiled at her. The woman had such a bright smile, almost radiant; enhancing her already good looks. Sarah could not help but be attracted, current relationships notwithstanding.

Curse of the Other World, part fourteen

2010-01-07T00:01:00.002Z

Chapter Six

Extract from Sarah Barclay's Diary

22^nd January 2000 – Second term of my second year and I'm really enjoying it. Settled back into uni life bettr than ever before. This place really feels like home, now; which is probably because I'm sharing a house this year rather than living in halls. Having my own place makes me feel far more settled. I love it! I just wish there weren't so many noises outside keeping me awake at night. I've looked out of the window to see what's going on out there when I hear voices and weird sounds in the street but I've never caught anyone yet. Maybe I'm just going a bit mad? I don't know. I'm probably overreacting, as usual.

Peter is spending a lot more time here lately, which is great. I really like him. I'm not sure if I like him in that way, but he's certainly grown on me over the last few months. He even came up to Coxton to see me over the holidays, which was nice. Daniel sent a card, but it's not the same. He said he had to work but I'm starting to think maybe we weren't cut out to be in a relationship.

The early morning light had hardly begun to reach over the tops of the three- and four-storey town houses on Hallgarth Street as Sarah pulled her aching body out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Her head pounded in time with her heartbeat; her neck and shoulders were tense and felt like she had been working out too much. The night before was supposed to have been a quiet night in, but then Howard and Peter had come to visit, bringing a couple of bottles of wine and some takeaway menus with them. It had all gone downhill from there.

'You look how I feel,' said Daniel as she passed him in the hallway.

'Remind me never to drink again,' she said. 'Aren't you up a little early? You don't have lectures until ten.'

'Couldn't sleep,' he said. 'Someone singing kept me up this time. I'm going to call the landlord before I head out. The windows obviously aren't sealing properly or we'd not be hearing this crap all the time.'

She wished him luck and stepped into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Her arms ached as she took off her dressing gown and slipped out of her pyjamas. On the inside of her right thigh was a small bruise the size of her thumbnail. It was blue-black in the centre flowing into an odd tinge of green on the outer rim. She ran her finger over it, wondering where it had come from. It was painless to the touch. She paid it no more heed. Bruises came and went without warning in her experience; had done for years and would no doubt continue to do so.

Howard had wanted to talk to her about something the night before, but with everyone else there she had been too nervous, or maybe too embarrassed. Although she had only known the other woman properly for a few months, although she had recognised her in passing before that, they had become close; good friends, although not best friends. That title was still reserved for Daniel, even if they were drifting apart.

As she showered, she made a mental note to meet Howard for lunch. Maybe she could prize the details of whatever was bothering Howard from her then. She decided to send her a text when she got out of the shower, providing her fingers were working well enough to use the buttons on her mobile by then. The shower usually fixed that but of late it was taking longer and longer on a morning for her joints to un-seize themselves. Just the week before she had been late for morning lectures twice because she found it so hard to tie her shoelaces.

If it doesn't get better soon, I'll see the doctor, she decided. The last thing she needed was to end up crippled by arthritis by the time she was thirty, like her grandmother had. The signs were there, but she had often ignored them or dismissed them outright as her seeing things that were not there simply because of her family history.

Skipping breakfast because she felt so hungover, she threw on a pair of jeans and a creased black blouse, her favourite, fighting her stiff and mostly uncooperative fingers to fasten the buttons; then donned a long, black cardigan to finish off the outfit. After rummaging around under the bed for a good five minutes, she eventually found her shoes and was all set to head out to lectures. She kissed Daniel goodbye, wished him luck with the landlord and headed out to her first lecture of the day.

The morning passed in a slow procession of boredom and note-taking. A procession of lecturers who looked even more worse for wear than Sarah did came in, said their peace, asked if there were any questions then did their best not to look disappointed as the same people asked the same questions they had no doubt heard year after year. She wondered how these people coped, trying to teach subjects they had probably once had a real passion for, to people that mostly did not share their love. That was no way to live life, she decided.

Her satchel rang as she was walking to the university library. Hunting around desperately in its recesses, trying to find her mobile before the voicemail kicked in, she took the call on the last ring.

'Hiya!' said Howard, sounding far too happy for a Monday morning. 'Still up for lunch?'

'Of course,' Sarah replied. 'I've just got to check some books out at the library. Meet you in Riverside in half an hour?'

'I'll grab us a table.'

Curse of the Other World, part thirteen

2010-01-06T00:01:00.002Z

'Let's go over what we know so far,' said Sarah. After a long, hot bath, more tablets than Peter had seen prescribed to any patient in his career, and three mugs of scalding hot tea, she was starting to look vaguely alive and even almost human.

'Where do you want to start? The trip to the hotel? That weird recording your friend sent you?'

'Hey, he was your friend too as I recall.'

'That was when I thought he was a she. I feel like I don't know who he is now.'

'Oh don't start with that judgemental shit.'

She stood up and made her way to the kitchen to make another pot of tea.

'Hey,' Peter called after her. 'I didn't mean it like that.'

'Do you want tea?' she called back.

'I've still got some here.'

'I've put another pot on, just in case,' she said as she came back into the lounge. 'Now, where were we.'

'You were avoiding the subject, I think.'

'Yes, well let's continue on that line shall we? You said the design at the hotel reminded you of something?'

'Ah, yes,' said Peter, leaning forward, his voice suddenly far more alert. 'I've not found it in your books or online yet but the magic circle thing did make me think of the reenactment we went to at Coxton one year.'

'The village's 900 year anniversary fête, wasn't it?' asked Sarah.

'That's it, yes. I can't fully remember what went on but there was something weird about the reenactment the historical society put on that evening. Some kind of pseudo-pagan rite. It made me feel very uncomfortable, I remember that much.'

Sarah nodded. 'I don't remember much of that whole day, but weren't there a load of robed figures doing something odd with an unprotected magick circle?'

'So you said, yes. I don't know anything about magic protection.'

Sarah nodded. 'Yeah, I'm sure of it. We'll have to look up what they were doing, and why. It's possible the squatters were doing something similar.'

Peter made a note in his notebook. Sarah waited until the sound of his scribbling finished before going on. The noise reminded her of the night before; that stritch-scritching outside, trying to get in. She shuddered.

'Are you all right?' asked Peter.

'I'm fine.'

'Well, if you're sure. What next?'

'The EVP,' she said, grasping the chance to get away from her silly fears. 'It mentioned something about a house without walls? I'd like to try to find more references to that. I'm certain I've heard it before.'

'There was nothing in the encyclopaedia about it. Maybe you misheard?'

She shook her head. 'No. The voice was too clear for that. I know it's important, I just don't remember why.'

'Okay,' said Peter. He wrote down another note. 'Want to try to find more about that Toth bloke as well?'

'Toth isn't a “bloke”, Peter. By the way, what did the encyclopaedia say about him?'

'Precious little. It's mainly about witch hunts and superstitions, isn't it?'

'Well, yes. Surely there was something, though?'

'Not a lot. It was mainly a summary but it did mention his followers wanting to bring him forth or something, because then they'd die first. Maybe that's what the squatters were doing?'

Sarah rested her chin on her hand, unconsciously massaging her jaw and upper lip with her fingers as she considered the idea. 'It's certainly possible,' she said. 'What did the magic circle look like again?'

Peter described it to her. She tried to picture it in her mind. Had she seen something like it before? She was not sure.

'Okay,' she said. 'Let's assume for a moment that the squatters were interested in Tsoth Nemorrah, whatever he is or whatever he's up to. If that's the case, the magic circle might have been part of a ritual to do with him. It would certainly explain some of the other EVP on the recording, wouldn't it?'

'The chanting and people saying “He comes”, you mean?'

'Exactly.'

'It also means we're in the clear, doesn't it?' Peter sounded almost hopeful.

Sarah looked at him for a moment, searching for any hint of confidence in the murky shadow of her vision. She wanted what he had said to be true as much as he likely did, but something in the back of her mind told her to press on with this. It could not be so simple, could it?

'I wish I could say yes,' she said. 'But I honestly think this is too good to be true.'

Peter slumped back in his chair with a sigh.

'What will it take to convince you that we're safe?' he asked. 'It's gone. Whoever or whatever this Tsoth thing is, it's obviously not the same thing we fought.'

'I know, I know,' she said, her tone almost pleading with him to bear with her. 'It's just that I have a gut feeling that there's more to this than we're seeing.'

'So where do we go from here? We can't call the others in on a hunch. They simply won't come. Hell, I wouldn't.'

Sarah nodded. 'I know. We need more evidence. We need to go back to where this all started.'

Curse of the Other World, part twelve

2010-01-05T00:01:00.005Z

Chapter Five

Extract from Robbins' Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology

Tsoth Nemorrah. Also known as Sothnem, Tothnerra, Tsoth, Nemra, Toosoth and variants thereon.

References to Tsoth Nemorah are many and conflicting. The earliest widely-accepted reference is in John Dee's Treatise on the Ancient Demons of Mesopotamia (believed to be written circa 1277), which describes Tothnerra the Unclean as “...a malevolent cloud-like being which lives outside of the spheres of man, ever watchful...” and claims (wrongly) that the Mesopotamians believed he was the original ruler of Earth, who was cast out by men who came to Earth from the stars.

Followers of Tothnerra are documented in Mustafa Faisal's infamous Wanderings (actual date of writing unknown but the general consensus is that it dates to the early fifteenth century). In Faisal's text, the followers are said to worship “the demon god of lies, who waits in the house without walls”. Tothnerra's followers are said to believe that their god is waiting for “the time when the curse of the other world will be lifted and He will retake his stolen throne”.

When this time will come is not known but Wanderings does go into great detail about the “plague of nightmares” and “unending seas of blood and madness” that will signal Tothnerra's imminent return. To this end, his followers are said to seek to kill, maim and torture all those who come into contact with them, in an attempt to fulfil their prophecy.

It is not known why Tothnerra's followers would seek to bring this monstrous creature to Earth but in The Death Cults of Tsoth Nemorrah, Dr Henry Carter claims to have spoken to several cultists who professed “a desire to die first, and die forever” when Tothnerra returned. Although Dr Carter's claims have never been independently verified, his theory that Tothnerran cults believe in guaranteed resurrection for all non-cultists for the purposes of eternal torture does arguably find some corroboration in both Faisal's Wanderings and Dee's Treatise.

The physical appearance, or potential lack thereof, of Tsoth Nemorrah is as widely disputed as his, or her, apparent gender and general demeanour. Most accounts make no attempt at a description of the creature. Although Wanderings does refer on occasion to a “skin of hardened leather”, it also describes “a hideous, evil cloud”.

Dee's Treatise on the Ancient Demons of Mesopotamia also refers to a cloud-like being but again, descriptions are conflicting as Dee also takes into account John Mercer's translation of the (as yet undated) Arab tale of the Whirling Devil with “teeth as black as night” and “a body festooned with horns, like studs on old leather armour”. Whether the Whirling Devil is a form Tsoth Nemorrah takes or is merely an associated entity is a topic of great debate by scholars to this day.

Peter woke with a stiff neck and an aching back. In his student days, and some of his time pulling long shifts as a trainee doctor, he had slept on many a sofa without ill effect, but it was clear to him that those days were long past. Age had not only finally caught up with him but was threatening to rush past and leave him struggling to keep up.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position; with great difficulty and a lot of grunting. His head ached, his mouth felt like old carpet and he desperately needed a drink.

Oh yes, he thought. Hair of the dog would shift this, no problem.

Even after all he had worked through, his mind still went to drink as the first and best solution to any problem. He hated that; hated himself for making it happen. It was his fault, his bad decisions, his stupidity that had lead to the bottle. There was no denying that.

The creak of the bedroom door opening pulled him out of his thoughts. Sarah staggered out of the bedroom, unsteady on her feet and still dressed in yesterday's clothes. Her skin was pale and waxy, save for dark rings around her eyes, and she held on to the wall like it was the only thing that was holding her up. He started to speak, to ask if she wanted breakfast, but she raised a hand to stop him; then staggered off toward the bathroom.

He filled the kettle to the sound of her vomiting and hoped the previous day's activities had not been too much for her. He was in no fit state this early in the morning to be looking after an ill woman, and certainly not one with Sarah's temperament. Still, perhaps tea would help.

Curse of the Other World, part eleven

2010-01-04T00:01:00.001Z

Sarah's wardrobe was built into the wall of her bedroom, opposite to her bed. In the bottom, Peter found a large cardboard box filled to the brim with books of various sizes. He struggled to pull it out of the wardrobe but, with some straining and grunting, managed to get it out onto the bedroom floor before the bottom fell apart under the weight of its contents.

Inside were dogeared paperbacks, some containing receipts that told him Sarah must have bought them when she was fourteen or fifteen. He put them carefully to one side, creating a pile of pulp fiction he doubted would ever get read again. Sarah certainly seemed in no position to give them any more attention, that was for certain.

Underneath the paperbacks were some equally worn out textbooks from Sarah's undergraduate days. He took these out and read the titles. The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles, The Role of Belief in Mental Development, and other similar titles. He flicked through the books, opening them at random pages and scanning their contents quickly; understanding little. Psychology was not his area of expertise, but what he understood of the texts seemed interesting, if a little heavy.

The book he needed was at the bottom of the box, alongside a leather-bound book with no title on its cover and a copy of Sarah's doctoral thesis; also bound in leather. He took out the thesis and opened it, flicking through the pages. It was a large document, almost two hundred pages long including index and bibliography, and rather heavy. Scanning a few pages at speed, he found himself able to follow most of the argument but he could not agree with the content.

Sarah was arguing that belief in gods was a part of the inherent human need for the supernatural to be real; which she claimed was rooted in an evolutionary need to create myths in order to fill in our gaps in understanding of the world around us.

He put the book aside with a derisive snort. There was no need in him to believe in anything he could not experience with his own five senses. Belief in invisible superheroes that cavemen thought had created the world was not necessary to his evolution.

The untitled book interested him more than the old, red hardback he had come looking for. Judging by its cover, it was clearly expensive and well used. He opened it carefully, admiring its gold-edged pages, and was surprised to find it filled with hand-drawn images and text in Sarah's own handwriting; all tiny, rounded letters with circles over the 'i's.

He read some of the writing with a growing feeling that he was violating her privacy. The book was a grimoire of sorts; a tome discussing Sarah's experiences with magick – a spelling she used throughout the book – and also her views on magickal theory. Nearer the back were numerous spells. The whole book must have taken months, if not years, of painstaking work to complete.

He flicked to the last entry. May 2001. Not long before Sarah had been blinded. She would have been very ill throughout the time she was writing the book, yet continued to write it by hand. It must have meant a lot to her, he decided.

Yet he knew now that she did not believe any of it. A committed atheist, she had spent the last seven years striving to understand why people needed to believe in things that were untrue; and debunking myths and legends wherever she could. In fact, most of her income since leaving academia had come from uncovering the truth behind local folklore and writing articles on it for specialist magazines.

How could someone have such a drastic change of heart? Of course, he already knew the answer. They had all changed since the summer of 2001. They may want to block out the memories of what they had done, but there was no denying that it had changed them all.

He put the spellbook back in the box, wiped his sweating palms on the legs of his jeans and took the red book into the lounge.

'I've got the book you...oh,' his voice trailed off. Sarah was asleep, her head resting on her arms, folded on the desk in front of her.

He put the book down carefully on the coffee table, trying his best to be quiet. It had been a long day and he knew how much she needed sleep these days, so waking her was not an option.

Carefully, he lifted her in his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. She was lighter than she looked, wrapped in her huge cardigan. He wondered how she had managed to loose so much weight; she had always been thin to start with and the steroids she would undoubtedly be taking as part of her treatment should have meant she put on weight, but apparently she was not.

He laid her on the bed gently, pulled the covers over her and went to bed down on the sofa. However important she had thought it was, the research could wait until morning.

Curse of the Other World, part ten

2010-01-03T00:01:00.004Z

The majority of the recording was either the high-pitched chitter-chatter whistling of digitised white noise, or Sarah and Peter talking to James Pearlman about what they saw in Coxton Hall. After an initial listen-through, Sarah spent a while selecting key portions of the recording and splicing them together into a new file, while Peter made another pot of tea.

The new recording contained five segments from the original. Spliced together, they lasted no more than a minute.

'Here we go,' said Sarah. She sipped her tea and tapped the mouse button, to play the new recording.

'GET … OuT … noW,' the harsh voice demanded.

Chatter played next. At first it had sounded like mere white noise, but Sarah had upped the volume on this segment before she pasted it in, and now it was clear there was a conversation here. Two people were talking, but what they were saying was unclear.

One of the the speakers howled in terror. The chatter stopped abruptly.

'Where was that from?' asked Peter.

Sarah tapped the mouse again and the recording paused. 'I can't tell you for certain but, based on where it shows up in our conversation, it would have been recorded as we were walking into the main dining room.'

'So that wail could have been whoever made this seeing us come in?'

Sarah shook her head. 'It's unlikely. Most of the time, what we hear isn't directed at us. It's more likely that we've picked up something that was going on in there anyway, or even just an echo of something that's happened in the past.'

'That first one certainly sounded like it was directed at us.'

Sarah nodded. 'Yeah. That one's the exception that proves the rule, as they say.'

She tapped the mouse again.

'TsoTH... NeMoRRah,' a husky voice cried. A stronger burst of static followed. 'The hoUSe... withOUT... WAlls!'

A drumbeat followed, with chanting. Although it sounded like Latin, Sarah could not make out what was being said.

'He COMES! HE CoMEs!' chanted a clearly female voice, filled with what sounded like religious fervour.

The recording ended. The room filled with silence.

Sarah sipped her tea, tapping her fingers on the side of the mug and considering what she had heard. Run together, it almost felt like the message would make sense, were she able to put the pieces together.

“Tsoth Nemorrah”, she thought. I've heard that before.

Peter took her hand, instantly derailing her train of thought.

'Can you not do that, please?' he asked. 'It's very annoying.'

She looked at him blankly. 'Do what?'

'That tap-tapping on your cup. It's stopping me thinking.'

'Oh,' she said, looking at the cloudy mix of colours that passed for her hands and mug of tea. 'I hadn't realised I was doing it. Sorry.'

'It's okay,' he said, his hand lingering on hers.

She turned back to the computer. 'So, any idea what these sounds mean?'

'No. The chanting was a bit odd. It sounded like some kind of ceremony, although the drums were a little odd.'

'Yeah. Any idea who or what Tsoth Nemmorah is?'

'Is that what they said? I couldn't work any of that bit out.'

Sarah shot him a quizzical look. 'I think so, yes. This isn't exactly an exact science but I'm getting pretty good at deciphering static voices.'

'I'll take your word for it. Listening to static isn't my thing, you know?'

She turned back to the computer and tried her best to keep a straight face as she brought up her web browser and ran a quick search for this mysterious name.

'Okay. I've got sixty-eight thousand hits for this thing. The first three reference a set of horror stories from the 1930s, and the fourth is about a heavy metal band.' She looked up at Peter, who was staring at the screen over her shoulder. 'This is going to take a while.'

He seemed to nod, although it could just as easily have been a trick of the light, and patted her on the shoulder. 'I'll grab some bedding and make up the sofa.'

Research was never Sarah's strong point. Focussing on one topic for any length of time inevitably lead to her mind wandering to other topics, and by the time she realised what was going on; she would have read two or three pages of whatever text she was supposed to be studying without actually taking in any of the information.

Looking up information on Tsoth Nemmorah was as bad as researching her doctoral thesis, if not worse. She could feel her back stiffening as she sat at her desk, her arms feeling like lead weights had replaced her bones. Each page was taking longer and longer to read as time went on; her mind becoming clouded and less able to concentrate on identifying the words on her screen amongst the other swirls of murky colour.

She rubbed her aching eyes, ignoring the pain in her fingers and her shoulder, and clicked on the next link.

Five minutes later, she called Peter out of the kitchen.

'Good grief, woman,' said Peter. 'You look haggard. Let me take over for a while.'

'I'm fine, stop worrying,' Sarah snapped. 'Anyway, I think I've found what we need.'

'What is it?'

'Remember those horror stories I mentioned?'

'Not exactly, no.'

Sarah shrugged. 'Well, that doesn't matter. It seems they were based on older texts. This site here talks about a collection of clay tablets unearthed at Cheddar Gorge in 1957. There's controversy over what they actually say but one of them is a bas relief that seems to match the description of someone called “Sothnemra the Demon King of Nightmares” in Robbins' Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology; which explains why I thought I recognised the name. I've got a copy of that book around here somewhere.'

'Any idea where?'

'Most of my books are in boxes in the bottom of my wardrobe. You could try there.'

Curse of the Other World, part nine

2009-11-11T00:00:00.000Z

He took her hand gently and helped her to her feet. She was still unsteady but the shaking had all but died away; which was a great relief.

'Sorry, I must seem like an utter fool now,' she said, half laughing through her nerves.

'Don't fret so much,' said Peter. 'You're under a lot of strain and with what we've seen today I don't blame you.'

She was not sure how to take his comments but decided that the last thing she needed at that moment was an argument, so she let it slide and sipped her tea instead. It was cooler than she would like, but she drank it anyway. Her mouth was dry, either from the shock or as a side effect of her medication, so the liquid helped.

In the corner, the computer bleeped. Sarah felt for the coffee table, put down her mug carefully and hurried over to her workstation.

'What was that?' asked Peter.

'I've got an alarm on the computer to alert me when certain people send me e-mails,' said Sarah, distractedly. 'Ah, it's from Howard.'

'You contacted her too? I thought you said you'd only called me.'

'He's a he now,' said Sarah as she brought up the e-mail. The text displayed in her usual magnified font. She read it quickly. 'Ah, he's finished processing the sound file I sent him.'

'Hang on, back up a minute,' said Peter. He sounded confused. Sarah rolled her eyes. She did not have the time for this.

'Can we discuss this later?' she asked. 'I think this is important.'

'Okay. What's the e-mail about, if you don't mind me asking?'

'I sent him a copy of the recording I made at the hotel and asked him to run it through his equipment for me. You know he's a sound engineer now? I was hoping his equipment would pick up something mine would miss.'

'And did it?'

'Apparently so. Turn on the speakers, would you?' she asked, pointing to the doorway. 'The amp is on a table behind the door.'

A high pitched wine made its way into her head without going through her ears. She hated that sound but there was little she could do to stop it, save for buying a new set of speakers and without a sudden pickup in the number of articles she could sell to the paranormal rags and occult websites, that was not going to happen any time soon.

The whine died down, the amplifier clicked noisily; telling her it was ready to receive a signal. She double-clicked on the file attached to Howard's e-mail.

A whistling sound like steam escaping through a broken kettle piped through the speakers, blurring into a digital chattering. For a moment it sounded like a hundred voices all talking at once, in another room.

'What is this?' asked Peter.

'White noise filtered through a load of digital effects to screen out background noise,' said Sarah. 'Just ignore it. Listen for anything that sounds like real speech.'

The chattering continued but now there was another sound. Plastic creaking, under pressure. The dictaphone casing creaking as she clipped it to her jeans.

'GET … OuT … noW.'

The voice was harsh and seemed to be formed out of the background chatter itself. It was as if someone with no means to make sound on their own had taken parts of the white noise on the dictaphone recording and played with them, enhancing the base of some, the treble on others and arranging them in such a way that the intended message would be heard, albeit in a synthetic and highly foreign to the ear manner, when played back.

Sarah felt for the mouse and quickly clicked on the pause icon.

'Did you just hear that?' she asked.

'I'm not sure,' said Peter. He sounded nervous. 'What do you think you heard?'

'A voice.'

'In that case, yes.'

'What did it say?' asked Sarah.

'I think it was “get out now” but I'm not certain.'

Sarah nodded slowly. 'That's what I heard, too.'

The floorboards creaked as Peter walked over to the armchair nearest to the computer table. 'What do you think it means?'

Sarah shrugged. 'Honestly, I don't know. I could be nothing, of course. This stuff often seems to be nothing more than random chatter and fake warnings.'

'So you've heard weird voices like this before?'

'Many times, yes. It's called Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP for short. Like in that film with Michael Keaton?'

'Sorry, all I remember him from is Batman.'

Sarah rolled her eyes again. 'Your knowledge of modern cinema is sadly lacking.'

'Yeah, yeah. You're getting off topic now, love.'

'Hint taken,' said Sarah. She smiled, brushed a few stray hairs out of her eyes and turned back to the computer. 'Okay, let's just play it through and see if there's anything else on here.'

Curse of the Other World, part eight

2009-11-10T00:49:00.000Z

Chapter Four

'Sarah,' said Peter. His voice was soft and low, almost as if he did not want to wake her.

He shook her shoulder gently. She stirred, but showed no sign of actually waking up.

'Sarah,' he repeated, this time with more force. 'Wake up, Sarah.'

She groaned. 'What?' she asked. She was clearly a little dazed. 'Where am I?'

'You're on your sofa. You fell asleep while I was scouring the Internet.'

'Oh. Right.'

She brushed some stray hairs out her eyes, then stopped suddenly, her hand still at her forehead.

'Hang on. How long have I been asleep?'

'About an hour.'

This news did not hit home well. She looked like someone had thrown a brick through her window, then asked for the brick back.

'Oh bloody hell,' she moaned. 'I've missed taking my tablets. No wonder I feel so bad.'

'Can I get you anything?'

She shook her head but even that looked like it took something out of her. 'No, it's okay. I'll deal with it. You go and put the kettle on, yeah?'

'Your wish is my command, madame.'

'Yeah, right,' she said as she fought her way to her feet and walked unsteadily out of the room. 'In that case, you can get me a million pounds and a golden egg while you're boiling the kettle.'

'You know what? I don't think I can manage that,' said Peter.

From the tone of his voice, Sarah got the impression that he was smiling. That was good, she thought. He needed to smile more. She was certain he had not smiled in a long time.

She struggled to her feet and followed him into the kitchen. At first her legs were cold and would not respond but she managed to massage enough life back into them that she could walk. She was unsteady, her body felt like it was weighted down with lead, and even the smallest of movements felt like her muscles were being torn apart, but she managed it.

She reached the 'fridge, cut herself a couple of chunks of cheese and ate them slowly while Peter busied himself making tea. She was no big fan of cheese, but it was a quick snack and she had to take her medication with food otherwise it would attack her stomach lining and make her even more ill.

'There's cheese in the 'fridge if you want any,' she said. 'I'll be back in a second, I just need to take my tablets.'

'Thanks. I'll take the teas through to the lounge.'

By the time she reached the bathroom, she was fully awake. Her head was full of cotton wool and she was groggy but that was all part of being ill and she had long since stopped taking any notice of such feelings. Instead, she concentrated on the tasks at hand: sifting through her e-mails, or writing articles for low-paying magazines, or whatever the day demanded in order for her to be able to pay the bills. Today the day demanded that she take her tablets quickly and the convince Peter that Coxton Hall was a problem that was worth pursuing.

She felt for the pull cord out of habit, and yanked it to turn on the light. The cord clicked but the room stayed dark. Great. Another problem to add to her ever-expanding list. Still, it hardly mattered to her. In the time she would be in the room, the energy-saving bulb would have little time to warm up; meaning what light it did give out would only serve to emphasise the murkiness of the shadows that made out what was left of her eyesight. She settled for swearing under her breath, yanking the cord again and then fumbling for the plastic box on her windowsill.

She ran her fingers over the rough lattice of square lids that made up the upper side of the box until she came to the one with the correct date on it; printed in Grade One Braille. She flicked open the lid, poured the tablets into the palm of her hand and swallowed them with a glass of water.

As she put the glass down on the sill, the scratching noises began again. It began directly below her, on the ground floor, on the wall she was facing. That was unusual. Normally, the scratching would begin on the wall by the door; like someone was trying to claw their way through the wall to get into the old Post Office. Maybe now they were trying a new tactic, going for a different wall in the hope of finding a weak spot?

Or maybe they're just trying to get to you.

She wanted to turn and run but she was rooted to the spot. The noise, that scritch-scritch, slow and steady, dug deep into her and froze her solid. Her hand remained fixed gripping the glass, shuddering under the strain as she gripped tighter and tighter, unable to let go.

What is wrong with you?

In her mind, she screamed at herself. This was not the woman she knew she was; or had been once. The woman she knew would not freeze in terror at the slightest of sounds. The woman she had been would have grabbed a torch, opened the window and found out what was going on outside. Hell, it was probably just rats getting into the empty shop below. The neighbourhood was on the verge of turning into a slum so rats were not outside the realms of possibility.

The scratching drew nearer but now there was another sound as well. A dull scraping noise, like heavy cloth being dragged along a dry stone wall. It was getting nearer, moving up the wall outside, coming right for her.

Oh shit! Oh shit. What is it? What the hell is out there?

Scritch ... scritch ... scritch ...

It was coming nearer! Her mind's eye filled in the picture for her. Something was out there, climbing the walls, scraping at the brickwork, trying to get into her house. Soon it would reach the window, and then what? What was out there? She wanted to run, but she could not. Her legs could not carry her that fast even if she could get them to move, but she was rooted to the spot. Fear and illness had conspired against her.

'Sarah, are you alright?' The voice came from the doorway behind her.

She screamed, and collapsed into a ball of terror. Torn between turning and confronting the newcomer and risking leaving her back open to whatever was outside, or staying facing the stranger outside and risking not seeing who was behind her, she elected to drop into the foetal position and tremble on the floor. She knew it was stupid, but she could not help herself. Her mind had conspired against her.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and screamed again, pushing herself away across the floor until her back was pressed against the wooden panels along the side of the bath.

'Get away from me!' she shouted. 'Stay back!'

'Sarah, it's me,' said Peter. 'What's gotten into you?'

'Peter?' she asked.

'Yes,' he said, reassuringly. 'It's okay. It's just me.'

She could feel herself shaking. Her bottom lip quivered. She did not want to cry in front of her friend, but some things just can't be helped.

'For fuck's sake, Peter. Don't scare me like that!' she pleaded.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. It's just that you've been in here ages and I was getting concerned. What took you so long?'

'I thought I heard something outside,' she said. 'Someone trying to break in downstairs. I was listening in case they got inside.'

Peter was silent for a moment. The floorboards creaked over by the window and she guessed he was trying to see out through the frosted glass.

'Well, whoever was outside, they're gone now,' he said.

Sarah smiled an unconvincing smile. 'That's good news.'

'Here,' said Peter. 'Let me help you up. Maybe your tea won't have got too cold yet.'

Curse of the Other World, part seven

2009-11-09T00:48:00.001Z

The day dragged by for Sarah. At first it had seemed like such a good idea to visit the faire, which had been advertised as a “fun day out for all the family” and was supposed to include many shows, including re-enactments of historical events of local significance, and performances by all kinds of local entertainers. There was going to be a hot air balloon ride, many stalls to browse around and a good friend to chat with, along with the possibility of winning a prize or two on some games. Sarah thought it it would be like being a kid again and being taken to the village fête in Bowlan, the village where she grew up.

But the hot air balloon was late in arriving and would not go up because of problems with the furnace, or some other excuse the operator gave whenever anyone asked him. The local “entertainers” turned out to be a comedian who was re-hashing material so old he must have written it before Sarah was born; a performing dog who had no interest in performing; and some dance routines performed by girls from the local junior school.

Suddenly, being a kid again would have its advantages, Sarah realised. The foremost advantage being that the standards by which she judged everything would be much lower, so perhaps the “entertainment” would not seem so bad.

An hour into the day and Sarah had found another way of lowering her expectations. She found the beer on sale in the drinks stall was warm, flat and difficult to hold down; while the spirits all burned the back of her throat, or made her feel sick, or both. The mead was just fine, however.

'Any more of that and you'll be paralytic,' said Howard as she helped Sarah to a seat in the corner of the marquee housing the drinks stall.

'Nonsense,' Sarah protested. 'I'll be fine.'

'If you say so.' Somehow Sarah did not believe she meant that.

'Where's Peter anyway?'

'Watching the historical society massacre an ancient pagan tradition.'

'You sound like you disapprove,' said Sarah. 'I never knew you were so judgmental.'

'What, and you don't?'

'I'm sure it's meant in the finest of educational … umm … somethingorothers. I've forgotten the word.'

'You're drunk,' said Howard, disapprovingly.

'See? I was right. You are disapproving. And you've had several yourself.'

'I was merely making an observation. Also, aren't you supposed to be driving Peter home?'

Sarah shook her head. 'I drove here but he's driving us back.'

Howard nodded. 'Fair enough.'

'Why do you care anyway?' asked Sarah. She sounded more aggressive than she had expected, and tried to tone it down. Best to attempt a modicum of decorum, after all. 'I thought you were all friendly with the bitch crowd and couldn't be seen with the likes of me.'

'What makes you say that?'

'Well, today is the first time you've spoken to me since I left PaganSoc, even though we're on the same course.'

Howard looked down at her plastic cup and said nothing. Sarah began to wonder if she had said the wrong thing.

'I suppose I'm just shy around people I like,' said Howard, uncertainly.

For a moment, Sarah wondered how to take that; the she decided it did not matter. Howard's choice of words was her own problem. Still, the girl seemed nervous now. It would probably be better to try to put her at ease.

'Hey,' she said. 'We've all been there. The thing is though, you've just got to bite the bullet and do what feels right, because if you don't everyone else will just step on you to get ahead.'

Howard nodded slowly but still sounded unsure of herself. 'Yeah, you're right.'

Sarah patted Howard on the shoulder. 'Come on,' she said. 'Let's go and find Peter.'

At six foot three and with dark skin, Peter was easy to spot amongst the crowd of short, pasty locals even though the light was fading. The two women weaved their way through the crowd and took up position on either side of their large friend; Sarah hooking her arm around his, Howard simply standing there with her hands in her pockets.

'Have we missed much?' asked Sarah.

'I think they're about to start,' said Peter.

The crowd formed a wide circle around what Sarah immediately recognised as a basic magic circle. Formed from a thin white rope and decorated, rather unnecessarily in Sarah's opinion, with glitter so the circle sparkled in the candlelight. On the northern side of the circle stood a large stone altar with a deep velvet cloth laid over it. Upon the altar stood two large candles, one gold, old green; while a tall lantern holding fat white candles stood at the south, east and west points.

The crowd on the other side of the circle parted and thirteen robed figures filed in, walking in procession around the circle to the south point, where they stepped inside. The first eleven took up position between the altar and the lanterns, the twelfth knelt to the left of the altar. The thirteenth, knelt at the altar with their head bowed for a moment, then stood; took up a knife from the velvet cloth and walked with a singularity of purpose to the eastern lantern.

Kneeling, the thirteenth figure raised the knife and chanted in Latin. Sarah worked hard to translate what the woman was saying.

'We hail the guardians of the East, the element of Air. I ask that you come forth to guard and protect this circle, and watch over this, our ritual.'

Sarah raised an eyebrow at this. The chant was similar to the one she would have used in her own rituals. It felt wrong to be watching this actor play out a mockery of her faith; and more wrong to stand by while someone who most likely did not know what they were doing called forth creatures over which they would have no control.

She quickly chanted her own protection spell under her breath and noticed Howard do the same.

'What are you two doing?' Peter whispered in her ear.

'Making sure we don't get hurt when these berks bit off more than they can chew.'

The thirteenth figure, a young woman with pale skin and dark hair if what Sarah could see of her in the candlelight was correct, moved on to the south, west and, finally, the north side of the altar and called forth the other three elementals. Sarah held her breath, half expecting screams of terror from the participants or the audience as something burst forth and devoured the actors. It would have been fitting, but also very unlikely.

Sarah watched with interest coupled with a strong sense of revulsion as the actors went through the motions of recreating a stereotypical pagan ritual. No doubt this had been what the Pagan Society had been roped into helping the historical society script, although Sarah wondered if they would have agreed if they had known how badly it would be acted. Those with speaking parts had clearly not rehearsed enough, and the others simply looked bored.

For the finale, the woman who had called the elements forth, and who Sarah had therefore dubbed the faux High Priestess, plunged her dagger into a dead chicken that was held by her would-be high Priest. The High Priest then poured the blood that poured form the poor bird into a wooden bowl on the altar while the faux High Priestess dropped to her knees, raised her arms in supplication and cried out in poorly-accented Latin.

'Lords, accept this offering as a show of our commitment to your cause,' the woman cried. 'And look favourably upon us, I beg of you, when your time of ascension comes around.'

'What on Earth is this crap?' muttered Sarah. By this point, the drink was starting to wear off and she could no longer contain her incredulity.

'I have no idea,' said Howard. 'It's not what I thought they were doing.'

'It's not?'

Howard shook her head. Although the evening light was growing dim and the candles were doing little to counter the encroaching darkness, Sarah could tell that the other woman was just as unhappy as her.

'I thought they were doing one of the solstice rituals,' said Howard. 'I spent an entire afternoon working one out for them, too. I don't know what this is all supposed to be.'

Sarah looked back at the circle. The faux High Priestess was daubing symbols on the foreheads of her coven in the blood of the dead chicken, while the High Priest burned the carcass in a metal dish on the altar. Around the circle, the crowd looked as uncomfortable watching this spectacle as she expected she did at that moment.

When the carcass was burned, the actors filed out of the circle by the southernmost point and disappeared into the crowd.

The other events had ended with polite clapping from the audience. This one ended with silence.

Curse of the Other World, part six

2009-11-06T01:43:00.001Z

By the time they had all made their way to the drinks tent, navigating the huddle of people who thought standing and chatting around or in front of the bar and blocking everyone else's access was an acceptable social practice, and then fought their way back out of the tent, the re-enactors were taking their positions for the first of the day's events.

'This should be interesting,' said Howard. She hooked her thumb into one of the belt loops on her jeans and sipped beer from a flimsy plastic cup.

'What are they doing?' asked Peter.

'The trial of Mary Jennings. Apparently she was head of a local witch cult, and also the cousin of a local Earl or something.'

The trio found a spot amongst the small crowd where they could get a good view of the performance and settled in to watch as a middle-aged woman in faux medieval finery was dragged kicking and screaming into to a mock courtroom made from plywood daubed with cheap paint. A fat man in black robes sat behind a dais and scowled at the woman as she passed.

The clerk of the court rose. 'Silence! This court is now in session. Lord Havelock presiding.'

Sarah leaned over and whispered in Peter's ear. 'I don't think that's how it goes.'

'I know,' Peter whispered back. 'But cut them some slack. The guy's clearly nervous.'

The clerk reeled off a list of the defendant's supposed crimes, emphasising words he obviously felt were heinous or would make the poor woman seem more vicious and cruel than she otherwise may. Sarah found her mind wandering, the amateur actor's performance not enthusing her. Her knees ached and there was a deep pain in her right thigh; like someone was trying to cut their way out of the muscle with a needle. She rubbed her leg absent-mindedly while waiting for the man to finish talking.

The defendant spoke only to confirm her name, and did so in a meek voice. Sarah thought she was meant to feel pity for her at this point but found herself unable to do so. The fight had clearly long gone from the woman, leaving her a pathetic shell. Sarah had no time for people who just gave up, or those who encouraged others to do so. She felt an urge to grab the stupid woman by the shoulders and shake some sense into her, all the while screaming “for goodness' sake woman, pull yourself together!”

'Look at her,' she whispered to Peter. 'She's not even bothering to fight these wankers.'

'She's going to be put to death,' said Peter. 'Have some sympathy.'

'If she's going to die, she literally has nothing to lose by fighting, does she?'

'You really have no sense of empathy, do you?' asked Peter.

The question took Sarah aback. It was not something she had ever thought about.

'Of course I do,' she said. 'Everyone does.'

Peter shook his head. 'Not everyone.'

Sarah shrugged. What did it matter? Feeling sorry would not bring the woman back to life after three hundred years. She turned her attention back to the performance.

The prosecution was quizzing a man about what he had seen Mrs Jennings and her friends doing in the Eshford Woods during the previous winter. The man, was clearly not the sharpest tack in the box and was dressed in the shabbiest clothes Sarah had ever seen; only one stage up from cutting a hole in a potato sack and using it as a robe. He explained how he had not actually seen Mrs Jennings because each of the participants in some obscene dance, which he described in lewd detail and would have demonstrated if not told by the Judge to remain seated, had been wearing deep hoods.

'This is a farce,' Sarah muttered. 'How this ever passed for justice, I'll never know.'

'It's not for us to judge the standards of another age,' said a woman behind and to Sarah's right.

Sarah turned and gave the woman a pitiful glance. 'Like hell it's not. It's our duty as human beings to show up these worthless scum for what they are. Why should they decide what's right and wrong? They don't know the first thing about it!'

Peter put a hand on her shoulder. 'Sarah, please calm down.'

She shrugged his hand away and walked off. He followed close behind.

'What's wrong with you today?' he asked. 'Everything started out so well. What happened?'

I'm in pain, I feel sick and I'm not in the mood to be reminded just how many bigoted scum infect this country, she thought. That's what's wrong.

'I'm just not in the mood for this,' she said. 'Seeing how pathetic little bullies can just get away with such horrible things really doesn't sound like entertainment to me.'

Peter put his arm around her shoulders and walked her back to her car. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get you home.'

'What about you? I thought you wanted to see the show.'

'I'll come back later, maybe.'

Sarah looked over at Peter. He smiled the warm, ever-forgiving smile he seemed to reserve for those occasions where she had done something incredibly stupid, or when she had hurt his feeling but he did not want to let on. She knew anyway, of course. She always knew, and if she was honest that was sometimes her aim, but not this time. This time she was just riled because of the pain and sickness mixed with the stupidity of what was being performed.

'I'm sorry, Peter,' she said. 'Go and enjoy the show. I'll get us another drink and see you back there.'

'Only if you're sure you want to stay,' he said.

She kissed him on the cheek. His wiry stubble felt more scratchy than usual against her skin.

'I'm sure,' she said, and meant it for once.

Curse of the Other World, part five

2009-11-05T01:23:00.000Z

Chapter Three

It was October, the start of autumn in 2000 and Sarah was sat on a wooden fence overlooking a large playing field on the edge of Coxton. In the distance she could see a group of men and women in fancy costumes constructing a medieval-themed village made of tents and easily-assembled, prefabricated wooden structures. She imaged this was what a film crew would do for a costume drama, only this was on a much lower budget.

Twigs crunched underfoot behind her. She turned and saw Peter trudging down the uneven, and somewhat muddy, dirt track. He was topless, his dark skin looked flawless in the afternoon sun, and carrying an ice cream cone in each hand. He passed one to her when he got close.

'I think we're early,' he said.

'Don't worry about it. Come and enjoy the sun.'

She hopped down off the fence and beckoned for Peter to follow her as she walked into the field.

'The guy in the ice cream truck gave me the funniest look when I asked for “Monkey's Blood”, by the way,' said Peter. 'I assume it was a little joke?'

Sarah shot him a puzzled glance and went back to licking her ice cream.

'It wasn't a joke. He mustn't have been from 'round here.'

'What is it, then? I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you weren't asking for real blood on your ice cream.'

'Good grief, no. It's just raspberry sauce.'

'Then why call it monkey's blood?'

'Because that's what everyone else calls it! You can't expect me to go against the flow with everything.'

A chill breeze blowed as they stepped out from the tree-lined path into the field proper. Sarah shuddered. This time it was Peter's turn to look puzzled.

'You can't be cold, surely?' he asked.

'A little. It's not as warm as it looks, is it?'

'I'm stood here with no shirt on and you ask me if it's cold?'

'Well yes, but you're weird.'

'Okay, you just keep telling yourself that.'

A woman shouted something from further up the field. Sarah turned and saw a short woman in a man's red shirt and blue jeans waving as she hurried toward them.

'Who is that?' asked Peter.

'Sharon Howard,' said Sarah. 'Most people just call her Howard, though. She can be a little odd, but she's okay really.'

'A little odd but okay really?' said Peter, wistfully. 'Where have I heard that before?'

'Hey!' said Sarah, faking hurt feelings. She nudged him in his side to get even. He laughed, and grabbed her around her waist so she could not escape, then started tickling her mercilessly.

'Hey!' she shouted between squeals and bursts of laughter. 'Get off!'

'Do you yield?' he asked. 'Will you apologise for making me drop my ice cream?'

'Yes! Yes, okay!' She could hardly breathe now, she was laughing so hard.

'Well I see somebody's having a good day,' said Howard as she drew close. 'How are you doing? I didn't expect to see you here.'

Peter let go of Sarah, letting her fall to the floor in an undignified heap, and smiled at the newcomer. 'Peter Rowe,' he said, holding out a hand. 'Pleased to meet you.'

Howard took Peter's hand and shook it, introduced herself and turned to Sarah, who was busy brushing grass off herself.

'Long time, no see,' said Sarah. 'How have you been?'

Howard shrugged. 'Keeping busy. Got a job over the summer so this year money shouldn't be as tight. How about you?'

'Pretty much the same,' said Sarah. In truth, she expected it was the same story for most of the old gang. 'So what brings you here?'

'Oh, I'm here with PaganSoc,' said Howard. 'I'm surprised you didn't come down with us.'

Sarah looked over at Peter. He was just stood there, not speaking, probably listening but then again she could never tell.

'I don't really get along with a lot of people in PaganSoc,' she said.

'Oh. Right. Yeah, sorry. I forgot.'

PaganSoc, the university's society for pagan students, had been established for several years by the time Sarah had joined in the first few days of her first university term. As a wide-eyed and naïve Fresher, she had eagerly flocked to join all the clubs and societies where people shared her interests or just seemed cool. After the LGBT, which had turned out to be a crushing disappointment, the pagan society had been her first port of call.

At first, she thought she would fit right in with that group. The people running the pagan stall at the Freshers' Fair were incredibly warm and welcoming. The first few meetings were great fun and she felt right at home. Then the bitchiness started; the rumour mill got into full swing and before she knew it, untruths about some of her friends, and even herself, were circulating and she found herself ostracised by people she thought had been friends. She had left by the end of the second term and never gone back.

'So they're all here, are they?' asked Sarah.

'Not everyone, no. There's been another big falling out, so there's really just three of us going regularly now. It's quite annoying but what can you do?'

Kick out Rebecca and Dawn so they stop spreading rumours about anyone they don't like? thought Sarah. It would certainly help heal some old rifts.

Sarah kept this idea to herself, however. 'So who's here?' she asked instead.

'Rebecca, Edward and Charles. Dawn might be coming along later, but apparently she's got some important meeting with the union society today so she “couldn't possibly come and help set up” our stall.'

'You sound so convinced she's not making up excuses, there,' said Peter. Sarah nudged him in the side again, but could not help smiling.

'No shit, Sherlock,' said Howard. 'To be honest with you, she's a petty little madam who deserves a kick up the backside.'

'Now that, I think we can all agree on,' said Sarah. 'Do you guys fancy getting a drink? Standing around here in the sun is giving me a headache.'

Curse of the Other World, part four

2009-11-04T00:41:00.001Z

'Has that helped calm your fears?' asked Peter once they were clear of the hotel and driving back to the city.

'No,' said Sarah.

She shifted in her seat. She had never been comfortable as a passenger; something about her personality always wanted her to be in control of the vehicle. She tried to shake the feeling that at any moment they were going to hit another car, or have a lorry slam into the side of their vehicle. It was silly to be so worried and she knew it, but the feeling clung on to her nevertheless.

'Look, just because they were probably messing with the occult doesn't mean It's back,' said Peter. He sounded forceful, probably more aggressive than he wanted to be.

'I know, I know,' she sighed. 'Even so, we need to look into this further. There's something about that place that just doesn't fit right.'

Peter said nothing. They drove on in silence for several miles, slowing only when they reached the city and hit the inevitable traffic.

'You're not convinced, are you?' Sarah asked. She already knew the answer, but felt it was best out in the open.

'No.' Peter's voice was flat and filled with concern, but for what? She was not sure she wanted to know.

'I wish I had your confidence.'

'I just feel you're looking for signs because you want them to be there.'

'I certainly don't want them to be there. That's the last thing I want.'

'Are you sure? It seems to me that you've been spending your time looking for clues that we didn't kill that thing because--' He stopped suddenly. Catching himself before he said something he would regret? Probably. Sarah was too upset to leave it at that now, though.

'Because what?' she demanded. 'If it's dead, great. Fantastic. I'd honestly like nothing more.'

'But you don't believe it is, do you? You think it's going to come back for another try.'

'Yes! That's exactly what I think. It's going to come back because we didn't kill it. We can't kill it, Peter. That's the point. All we can do is keep it from getting a foothold here again.'

'That's not enough for you though, is it?'

'What?'

Peter stopped talking. Sarah pressed on at him regardless. If he had reservations about what they were doing, they needed to be aired now. She needed to know whether she could count on him if she turned out to be right.

'Look,' he said, with a sigh. 'I don't want you to get hurt, Sarah. You're my friend and you always will be but right now I think you're jumping at shadows because you can't put a line under what happened to you and move on. I just don't want to see you get hurt again.'

Sarah ran a hand through her hair, rested her head on the seat's rough headrest and sighed.

'Peter...' she said, but the words just would not come out. What could she say to that? He was cloaking his own fears in overzealous concern for her well-being and surely they both knew it.

She let the rest of the journey play out in silence.

Sarah sat in silence in the worn out armchair by the window in her small lounge. The sun was warm against her skin and the light was bright enough to see the room by, but that did little to lift her mood. Peter thought she was paranoid, or that she had still not fully recovered from their ordeal eight years ago, or perhaps both. For all she knew, he was right. But how was she expected to 'recover' from something like that? There was no counselling session available for her problem; no support groups she could go to; nothing. The only people who had been through what she had were the same people who had packed up and fled town as soon as they could. She had been left to sort herself out on her own.

The floorboard by the door creaked; an ever-present sign that someone was coming in. She glanced around, then turned back to the window. Peter walked over to her in silence, put a mug of tea in her hands and headed back to the kitchen; returning moments later and sitting on the sofa in silence.

She nursed her tea, enjoying the warmth of the mug as it spread into her hands, making the joints in her fingers ache a little less.

'I'm sorry for being so snappy,' she said.

'I know,' said Peter. From the sound of his voice, he was either staring down at his feet or muttering into his mug. She could not tell for sure; a cloud had dulled the light from outside, sending the room into murk.

'I'm sorry for being overprotective,' Peter continued. 'I can't help it. I suppose some things never change.'

'You don't have to stay if you don't want to.'

Peter stood up. Sarah felt her heart pound in her chest. For a moment, she thought he really would just leave, but instead he began pacing the floor.

'I really don't know what to think about today,' he said. 'It's all come out of the blue.'

'I know,' she said noncommittally. He needed to talk, so she kept her responses short.

'I'm sorry to say that I don't think it's back. Not based on what we've seen today.'

'Okay.'

'But the pentagram, or magic circle or whatever the hell was drawn in that hotel. That's got me worried. I'm sure I've seen it before.'

'Oh?'

Peter fell silent. He paced across the room and back several times. In the silence, his footfalls echoed on the wooden floor. Sarah sipped her tea and waited for him to continue talking.

He snapped his fingers. 'Marden festival. Remember? We borrowed your Dad's old tent and you got legless on cheap mead.'

'Vaguely,' said Sarah. It was the first and only time she had been completely out-of-her-head drunk and consequently, much of the weekend was a blur.

'Remember the re-enactment group? They did a dramatisation about a witch cult, or something?'

'I remember a load of guys in armour running about and shouting something,' Sarah conceded. 'And a woman with a hairy wart just under her lip.'

'That's it, yes. They had a ritual circle just like the one in the hotel.'

'Are you sure?'

'Positive,' he said. He finished his tea in one big gulp. 'Can I borrow your computer for a minute? I think I might be able to find what they were re-enacting.'

Curse of the Other World, part three

2009-11-03T00:39:00.000Z

Chapter Two

“I had been lost for many hours before my pride would let me admit my error. My search for the lost goats had led me far from the mountain pass and as I looked around me, I knew I was far from home. Should I turn left, or right, or go straight ahead to reach the path worn of footfalls of so many of my ancestors, the path that would lead me back to the town? I did not know any longer. I came to town only to sell the goats, and because of that I was unfamiliar with these mountains.

“I had been stupid to wander so far on my own, but youthful pride had left me now. I was alone, lost and miserable. That is when He came to me.”

- Mustafa Faisal, 'Wanderings'

The journey to Coxton was an unbearably long montage of flashing lights interspersed with flurries of colour and sound. Sarah gripped the cane that rested on her knees, folded so it would not take up too much space in the car. She wanted to talk to Peter about what they might find when they arrived, but there were no words to express the myriad emotions that seemed to plague her.

The car was unbearably hot even with the windows open and air vents on the dashboard all blowing cold air at her. Perhaps it was her fever causing yet more problems, or maybe it was just that the situation was putting her too much on edge. Whatever the reason, she could not wait to get out of the car and feel the wind on her skin.

'Are you okay?' asked Peter.

'I'm just nervous,' said Sarah.

'You'll be fine. Remember, I'm here if you need me.'

'Sorry?'

'I'm here to help if we find anything. Like those symbols in your old books?'

'Ah. Yes. Let's hope we don't come across anything like that.'

'You thought I meant something else?'

'Sorry. I can't help it. I get a lot of people wanting to 'help' me when I don't need it, and I just get a little edgy.'

'To tell you the truth, I think you were always a bit edgy, Sarah. Ah, we're here.'

'There should be a red convertible on the driveway. That's Pearlman's car.'

'I see it.'

Gravel crunched under the tyres. The car slowed and came to a halt with a jolt. Sarah reached around to the back seat to grab her bag and felt the loud cracks in her back. She winced.

'I heard that,' said Peter. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine.' She felt around for the bag, pulled it over to her and turned back around.

'You seem to be having a lot of problems,' said Peter. 'Are you still seeing your doctor?'

No, I've given up on experts and decided to just let the illness run its course. Idiot.

'I see them when I have to,' she said. 'Are you ready?'

'There's no need to be snappy. I'm just trying to help.'

'I don't need help with this. I know very well what's going to happen to me and I don't need doctors poking and prodding me all the time just to come back and say there's nothing they can do.'

'Alright. I didn't mean any offence. I was just concerned.'

He really sounds upset, she thought. Maybe I was too harsh?

She sighed, ran a hand through her hair, and brushed away the strands that came free. 'I know, but can we just drop it, please? I'll be okay, and we have work to do.'

The car drew to a halt in silence. Sarah felt around for the door handle and let the door swing open while she fought with the release catch on her seatbelt. Her fingers were swollen and a little unresponsive, which was doing nothing to lighten her mood.

She swept the ground with her cane before climbing out of the car. The drive was made from loose gravel and the air was full of the smell of burning charcoal. The whole experience reminded her of summers spent at home with her parents, when she was younger.

'Doctor Barclay?' a male voice asked. A blue-grey shadow was crunching along the gravel toward her. She smiled.

'Mister Pearlman, I presume?' she said, extending a hand. The shadow took it, shaking her hand with a vice-like grip. She imagined he worked out regularly. His strong aftershave stung her eyes.

'Thank you for letting us visit so soon,' said Peter. 'We both appreciate it.'

'Oh, it's no trouble,' said Pearlman as the trio walked toward the mansion. 'To be honest, I'm hoping you can help me as much as I can help you. I take it you're aware of my plans for this place?'

'I've heard talk of a museum,' said Sarah. 'Something about showcasing all the murders that have happened here, and the hall's occult history?'

'That's it in a nutshell. Coxton has a rich history of witchcraft, murder and intrigue; most of it involving this building. I think it's time people were able to see the place in all its glory, and to learn about the real history of the Hall.'

'It's certainly a nice idea,' said Peter. 'But how do we fit in?'

'Well, the majority of the work on the museum is being carried out by my researchers but Doctor Barclay's phone call gave me ideas for how to launch the museum. If what she's told me turns out to even be partly true, just think about the potential. A real-life modern cult active in a sleepy northern English village? The tourism potential is immense.'

'I've not promised anything,' said Sarah. 'We're merely here to check out a possibility.'

'Oh of course, of course.' Pearlman fought with a lock on the main doors, and the large wooden edifice swung open. 'Well, here we are.'

They stepped inside and immediately Sarah felt there was something wrong. Perhaps it was her imagination playing a cruel trick on her, or perhaps it was simply that they had stepped into the shade after walking through the warm, spring air. Whatever the cause, Sarah felt an icy chill rush over her. She shuddered.

'It's cold in here, don't you think?' she asked.

'I'm surprised you can feel anything through that huge coat of yours,' said Peter. Sarah was clad in the Royal Air Force greatcoat she had bought from an Army surplus shop in Durham when she was still a student there. The coat was old and the lining was wearing thin but she still wore it whenever she went out.

'Snide comments aside,' she said. 'I can definitely feel a breeze. Are the windows intact?'

'Most of them are broken on the ground floor. Some on the other floors are still in one piece, but I think that's more down to luck than good management. Does it matter?'

Sarah shook her head. 'It just means we'll have more background noise on the recording, that's all. It's nothing I can't fix with a bit of work. Shall we get started?'

She fished a battered Dictaphone from her pocket and felt for the 'on' switch. To her right, someone closed the door they had entered through, throwing her world into murky darkness. She clipped the Dictaphone to the waistband of her jeans so it could record every word and sound but would not get in the way.

'Where do you want to start?' asked Pearlman. 'There are some strange markings in the dining room. I've not been able to work them out.'

'That sounds perfect,' said Sarah.

Peter offered his arm for guidance, and Sarah accepted. Together they followed Pearlman out of the entrance hall and down a short, formerly wood-panelled corridor toward a large, open space that felt a lot like an immense conservatory. Peter described their surroundings as he walked and Sarah tried to make a mental picture of the building in her head, but with little success. There was something about the place that kept her from concentrating too well.

'Here we are,' said Pearlman, with a hint of regret coupled with something else. Anger? No, not quite that strong. Annoyance, definitely. 'As you can see, it's a bit of a mess. Most of the glass in the ceiling was intact until about a fortnight ago, but I'm afraid it's all shattered now. It's going to cost a fortune to replace.'

Sarah looked around, appreciating the brightness of the light the room offered. The floor was a mix of sandy brown, green and a deeper brown. Dirt and litter, maybe? The scent of slightly damp soil certainly suggested it. There was something else here, however. Clinging to the scent of dirt was a more acrid scent that coated the back of her throat.

Has something been burning in here?

Around the edges of the murky floor was a border of light cream, above which a blue-grey mist hung. Her mental picture formed into a large sun room with low, cream-tiled walls and a deep green carpet. Above the walls would have been a lattice, probably white, of glass window panes. It had probably looked very nice when the hall was still being used as a hotel.

She looked over at Peter. His tall, brown-and-blue haze was easy to pick out in the light. He was kneeling on the floor, with Pearlman's wider, pink-and-black figure close by.

'Do you see anything?' she asked.

Peter stood up slowly and walked back toward her. 'There are markings on the floor. I think I recognise them, but I'd have to check with your books. Do you have a camera?'

'Oh...,' she faltered. Cameras had not been a concern of hers for almost a decade. 'Ummm... I think there's one on my phone. Give me a sec....'

She fished around in her handbag until she felt the cool plastic block, and handed the phone to Peter. He took it and stood beside her for a moment, probably working out how to use it, then walked back to Pearlman. The wider man had not moved from where he was crouched. Whatever they were looking at, it must have been interesting. She made her way over to them, scanning the ground with her cane as she went.

'Hold on,' said Peter. Sarah froze. Peter stood and took her hand, guiding her over to where he and Pearlman had been examining the floor.

'Do you have any idea what this is?' asked Pearlman.

'I don't know. Can you describe it?'

Pearlman took a deep breath and puffed it out in a bemused manner. 'Where to start?'

'It's a chalk circle about eight feet in diameter, with a variety of sigils around the outside,' said Peter. He sounded professional, like he was describing the symptoms of some routine illness to a group of students. 'There's another circle about one foot in diameter, touching the outer circle in the lower-left quadrant. That has more sigils around its inner ring. A scalene triangle with its hypotenuse bisecting the larger circle is touching both circles.'

Sarah built a mental image of the diagram, but it wavered in her mind. Why could she not concentrate? It was so frustrating.

'What do the sigils look like?' she asked.

'Hard to say. Geometric shapes, runes, hieroglyphs maybe? I can't say for certain.'

'What do you think it is?' asked Pearlman.

'It sounds like ritual magic,' Sarah replied. She chewed her lip in thought. 'That's very interesting.'

'What's ritual magic?' asked Pearlman.

Sarah breathed in sharply through her teeth as she mulled over how to explain what could be a very complex subject. 'In simplest terms, it's like doing magic by rote. Practitioners believe that there are certain chants to say and certain forms to produce in order to get certain magical effects.'

Pearlman sounded surprised. 'Does it work?'

'I have trouble saying any sort of magic works. I'm not a great believer in it.'

'But you study it?'

She shook her head. 'No, not really. I'm more interested in the reasons why people believe in it. Most magical effects can be explained in more simple, scientific terms if you look hard enough. Belief is just taking a short cut.'

She turned and walked a few paces away from the circle, scared that she might accidentally damage it before Peter was finished examining the area. Pearlman stood with the deep grunt of someone both overweight and unfit, and followed her.

'I thought you investigated this stuff,' said Pearlman. 'Don't you need to have some belief in it to do that, or do you just think it's all hocus pocus nonsense.'

'I used to believe,' said Sarah. 'People change. I've yet to find a single legend, folk story, haunting or whatever that doesn't have a simple, rational explanation. I think anyone would share my scepticism under the same circumstances.' As lies go, she thought it was a believable one at least.

Pearlman grunted non-committally. 'So what do you make of this circle?'

'Honestly? It worries me. It must have something to do with the squatters disappearing, but I'm having trouble thinking of a way to explain it nicely.'

This seemed to satisfy Pearlman. He grunted acknowledgement once more.

'I think we're done here,' said Peter. 'I've taken some pictures, we can compare this with your books when we get back.'

'Is there anything else we should look at?' asked Sarah.

Pearlman thought for a moment. Sarah could not be entirely sure what the man did then but it seemed to her that he shook his head. 'No. Not that I can think of. You're free to look around, of course, but this is the main attraction, so to speak.'

'Then let's look around,' she said.

They walked for what seemed like hours, taking regular rests while Sarah recovered enough strength to go on; and occasionally snacking on the cereal bars Sarah carried in her satchel in case she needed something to eat so she could take her medication. With rests, snacks and the occasional chat about what they all thought the history of the building might be; with none of them claiming to know all the facts, or even anything more than they had read in the newspapers or picked up through hearsay.

The search took up most of the afternoon and throughout, Sarah could not help feeling she was being watched. Not the group as a whole, just her. She knew it was paranoia, but the feeling was compelling and despite her best efforts, it would not go away.

Curse of the Other World, part two

2009-11-02T00:37:00.002Z

Sarah's computer was surprisingly modern. For someone who had lived in a world of dry old books, archaic rituals and superstitious folklore, Peter thought her choice of computers was at first surprising. The machine was entirely contained in a large, flat screen and sat on a small table in the corner of the room, where Peter thought most people would likely keep a television. A keyboard, with the lettering wearing off the keys, and mouse sat in front of the screen. A battered dictaphone, a mobile phone and an iPod that had clearly been dropped a few too many times were the only other things on the table.

Sarah felt for the power button and turned on the computer. A few moments later, it asked her, in a clear but slightly artificial fashion, for her username and password. She typed quickly, and the screen flickered; settling on a hugely magnified arrowhead.

'Wow,' said Peter, from the sofa. 'How can you see anything with the mouse that big?' He could have kicked himself the moment the words left his mouth, and tried to cover his own sense of embarrassment by continuing talking. 'Doesn't it get in the way?'

Sarah shrugged. 'You get used to it. Give me a second and I'll bring up the article.'

He waited while she found the website for the local newspaper and brought up a story to show him. Despite himself, Peter could not help but be amazed that she could use a computer so easily. He felt ashamed of himself for it, her loss of sight had not accompanied a loss of intelligence, but part of him, at the back of his mind, still expected her to be some frail and helpless young woman who needed his help. She would tell him he was being an arse, and she would have been right.

'Ah,' she said, sounding triumphant. 'I think this is it.'

She tapped a few keys. The computer read out the article's title, in the same clear mechanical tones. 'Strange lights accompany disappearances in Coxton.'

'Yes, this is the one. Do you want to read it or listen to it?'

Peter read the article. Listening had never been one of his strong points. As a student he had always preferred textbooks to lectures, and after he left university this preference had solidified even further. Given a choice between a medical journal and a conference, he would take the journal any day. Text fitted neatly into his mind. It could be filed away carefully, matched with other information like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Give him a lecture to focus on and his mind would simply wander.

He sat down at the computer and zoomed the screen out. The text shrank to a more manageable size. He began to read.

STRANGE LIGHTS ACCOMPANY DISAPPEARANCES IN COXTON

By John Phillips, Regional Correspondent

Thirteen squatters disappeared from the famous Coxton Hall amidst a weekend of strange lights over the famously haunted town.

Local residents began complaining of strange noises and lights in the sky above Coxton Hall on the evening of Friday 16th May at around nine o'clock. Bethan Gilbert, 78, called the police complaining of “a loud banging from underground” and “deafening screams like a wild animal was being slaughtered”.

Det. Sergent James McAlroy of Northumberland Constabulary told us: “We arrived at approximately 9:30PM following a series of reports of strange lights and noises coming from the property. We attempted to contact the Hall's residents but received no answer and we were unable to gain entry.”

Neil Roberts, 57, the landlord of the Coxton Arms watched the lights from his bedroom window and reported several periods of activity between 1AM and 8AM on Saturday morning. His wife, Mary, made several calls to the police to report “hideous screams”, “howling” and “chanting, like something from a horror film” in the Hall's south field. Police visited the Hall again after Mr Roberts spotted a group of hooded figures performing “some sort of ceremony” in the field, but found no evidence of anyone having been present.

Further reports of strange activity were recorded on Saturday night, with police visiting the Hall again. Det. Sergent McAlroy told this newspaper: “We received a record number of complaints about lights in the sky, loud banging and chanting coming from the area of Coxton Hall on the evening of Saturday 17th May, but found no evidence of any untoward activity in that area.”

The squatters were reported missing on Sunday afternoon when Kelly Marsted, 17, of Greenwood Terrace, visited the property in search of her boyfriend and discovered the Hall was empty. “The place is normally buzzing,” said Miss Marsted. “But when I got there it looked like a bomb had gone off. There was soot everywhere and the place stank of burned hair. I didn't see anyone else there.”

Northumbria Police are treating the disappearance of the squatters as suspicious and have urged anyone with information to call their dedicated case line.

Coxton Hall has been a regular home to squatters since the mid 1960s, when local coal baron George William Johnston died, leaving no clear heir to his fortune. The Hall fell into disrepair while Johnston's family fought lengthy court battles over the millionaire's estate, during which time the owner of the land on which the hall rests became clouded.

The Hall has been a regular host to folk legends and strange sightings, the oldest of which dates to the late seventeenth century when William Jennings Coxton, the infamous cousin of the then-Earl of Durham, built the Hall and was burned as a witch in its grounds soon after. In 1904, John Motson and his notorious occultist commune, the Friends of the True Lords of Earth, committed suicide en-mass in the Hall's main dining room.

In 2007, the Johnston family's ownership battles were finally resolved and the Hall and its surrounds were purchased by software tycoon James Pearlman. Mr Pearlman, 42, said of the missing squatters: “I've been no fan of theirs and I'm glad to have my property back, but I wish them no harm and hope for their safe return.”

Peter turned away from the computer and rubbed his face with his palm. He could feel himself turning cold and clammy. This could not be happening. Not now. He was just getting his life back together. There had to be some other explanation for it. There had to be.

Sarah looked over at him in that usual, not quite focussed manner of hers. He met her gaze, then looked away.

'Well?' she asked.

'There has to be another explanation,' he said, his tone embodying the bitterness he felt.

'I'd like to think so too. That's why I need to go there and have a look for myself.'

What exactly are you expecting to see? he wondered. Everyone else moved on, but not you. You want this, don't you? Why can't you put it behind you and get on with your life?

Because it hurt her. The thought struck him hard and fast. She had been there when David died. It may have been the last thing she ever saw. It had hurt them all, but of those who came out of that final encounter, she was the one who could never fully heal. The chance of the thing returning was always slim in his mind, but she had clearly believed it was a real threat. Could he deny her a chance to see that the world was going to be all right? What kind of man would he be then?

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. His stomach was churning now.

'Peter?' Sarah asked. He realised she had been talking, but his mind had drifted.

'Sorry, what?'

'Will you come with me?'

Images of David's body, of the river of blood flooded into his mind and threatened to overwhelm him. Could he put himself through that again? All those months of pure hell had been almost too much. Could he put himself through all that again if she was right? He had never wanted any of this. Why could he not just be left alone? All he had ever wanted was to have a normal, quiet life.

If this is back, you won't get a quiet life. Nobody will.

It's up to you.

He sighed a deep, resentful sigh. If it was back, it had to be dealt with. If it was not, he could go home and get back to his blessedly dull existence. There was only one way to find out for sure which life he was going to get.

'Yes,' he said. 'But I never really had a choice, did I?'

'Mister Pearlman?' asked Sarah. The receiver creaked in her hand. She was gripping it too tightly. Nerves had always been her weak point.

Peter sat on the sofa and nursed his mug of cold tea. He should go and warm it in her microwave, but he seemed to lack the strength to move. Was it strength, or willpower? He was not sure. He was not sure of anything any more. The world had spun around him, leaving him grasping for any firm handhold he could get. It was better to just sit tight and wait for things to fall back into place.

Sarah felt for the seat beside him on the sofa. He had not heard her hang up the telephone. How long had he been drifting in his own thoughts? He checked his watch. Ten minutes had passed.

'Are you okay?' she asked.

He sighed. 'No,' he said. Honesty was the best policy.

She looked down at her hands, resting on her knees. They were deathly white except for red knuckles. He could see the veins in her wrists; all blue-green. Did she not have a single drop of melanin in her entire body?

'I know I'm asking a lot,' she said. 'You don't have to come if you don't want to.'

'I know,' he said. He reached over and took her hand in his. She held it tightly, her skin cold to the touch.

'What did he say?' he asked.

'The Police have finished with the scene. We can look around any time we like.'

Peter drummed his fingers on his mug. 'Okay. Let's get this over with.'

'You want to go now?'

'I'd prefer to get there and back before we spend more time fretting over it.'

Sarah mulled this over for a moment before nodding. 'Okay. Fine. I just need to get a couple of things together.'

Curse of the Other World, part one

2009-11-01T00:33:00.001Z

Chapter One

Extract from Sarah Barclay's diary

4^th May 2009 - Another night of tossing and turning, fever and a terrible pounding in my head. The illness is getting worse, and having trouble sleeping isn't helping my recovery. I hate these flare-ups and they're becoming more common. Maybe I should try the sleeping tablets the doctor prescribed? They might help me sleep, but what would help me wake up again? It's not worth it. I've probably got little enough time as it is without wasting more of it in bed. Screw the tablets, I take enough tablets already! The weather will change eventually and I'll stick it out until it does.

I've been hearing a lot of disturbing things on the radio, and local fora on the Internet. It could be nothing, but if that past has taught me anything it's that when the stakes are high you've got to cover all your bases. I'll call Peter in the morning and try to get him to come and investigate with me. I'd rather not involve any of the old guys just yet – especially Peter - but I know if there's something amiss I'll likely not spot it. I need help, and he's the closest.

Peter did not know what was worse: being woken early on his first day off in a fortnight of ten- to twelve-hour shifts; or getting stuck in traffic that turned a half hour journey into an hour-and-a-half's endurance test. He had been sitting in a hot metal box with broken air conditioning and the stench of other people's exhaust fumes for over an hour before he decided on neither. What was worst was not knowing why he was slowly baking in this snot green rental car with its crappy radio and seat moulded to fit another man's backside. Whatever Sarah wanted to show him, it had better be bloody good.

He reached over to the jacket he had tossed onto the passenger seat, and fished a handful of hard gums out of the pocket; tossing one into his mouth almost as a reflex action. He knew he should cut down on the amount of sugary snacks he ate but try as he might, he could never go more than a few days before the cravings got the better of him. He had cut out cigarettes; and after a hard battle he had even cut out alcohol, mostly anyway, but he could not cut out the occasional bag of sweets. Everyone needed their little vice, he supposed, and at least with this one he could work off the calories.

In the distance, the Cathedral dominated the horizon, a Norman giant gazing down from its plateau upon the hills and moors that had languished beneath its dominion for almost a thousand years. The streets and roads through the city twisted their way toward this monument to a faith that Peter had once held dear to his heart, but now it was simply an extravagant headstone for centuries of dead men. He snorted a dry laugh. Time was a bastard, it crept up on you and corrupted everything you cherished.

The turn-off was up ahead now, a crumbling tarmac street revealing the old cobblestones underneath. It was as if Durham still clung to its ancient past, merely covering over the remnants of the old world rather than having to part with them. The city clung to its medieval days of glory with almost obsessive fervour; terrified of embracing a future where its own importance was long gone.

Peter pulled onto the side-street and turned left into a grimy back alley, graffiti announcing to the world that “Dezza loves Jodi” and also that Dezza, whoever he was, “is a poof”. Peter wondered if the announcer had received a particularly harsh beating for that particular message. He drove on, passing three badly-scrawled “Tony”s in the same dull grey paint, and stopped outside a set of rusted metal gates. Through the gates he could see a deep blue Mini Cooper that had not moved in years. Its paint was dulled, its tyres flattening. Another symbol of a past more comforting than the modern world.

The building beyond the gates was squat and built in the post-war style, with wide, rectangular windows scraping the low, tiled roof. The ground floor had once been a newsagent and post office but was now just another vacant shop amongst many. A dull green door stood in the left-hand corner, with an intercom mounted beside it. Peter pressed the button and waited.

No answer.

He stepped back and looked up at the windows. The curtains were open, but he could see no sign of anyone inside.

'Hello?' A crackled voice came from the intercom.

'Sarah, it's me,' said Peter.

'Just a second,' said the voice.

The plastic box buzzed, the door unlocked. Peter stepped inside and climbed the staircase toward another door with peeling, yellow paint. How could Sarah stand to live in such a soulless, grotty hovel?

People change, he thought. And it has been years.

With a clunk, the yellow door opened. At first Peter did not recognise the scruffy woman that stood before him. Her short, black hair was messy, like she had only just woken up, and her skin was deathly pale. A red rash spread across her nose and cheeks, giving her a look of someone who had spent too long out in the sun, and her hazel eyes skipped left and right as she spoke.

'Thanks for coming,' she said, and smiled an uncertain smile. 'I wasn't sure if you would.'

'You said it was important,' said Peter.

She nodded and stepped back to allow him inside. 'It is. Well, I think it might be. It's worrying anyway. Come in.'

She closed the door behind him and walked down the hall to the kitchen, running her hand along the wall as a guide. He followed her.

'Can I get you a drink?' she asked. 'I think I've only got tea, or blackcurrant but there might be some coffee left.'

'Tea will be fine, thank you. What exactly is it you called me about.'

'It might be best if you sit down,' she said.

Oh God, someone's dead.

Peter pulled out a chair from the tiny kitchen table, and sat down. 'All right.'

She felt for a chair, and sat down. Peter resisted the urge to get up and help her, remembering the arguments they had once had. Her independence burned hot enough to weld with, and with his sense of guilt he had been all too eager to appear helpful.

The kettle hissed on the counter. Sarah fidgeted with cups, milk and teabags.

'It's difficult to explain,' she said. 'There's been a lot of trouble around here lately, and now people are missing. I think it's like last time, but I can't be sure.'

'What do you mean by trouble?'

'I keep an eye on the paranormal fora on the Internet and there are more sightings of strange things now. Dark figures on the hills around here. Sightings of huge black cats around Coxton. I've heard banging and scraping outside, like someone's trying to get in through the walls. Coxton's got it worst, but the Echo has been reporting more fights in town and attacks on students, too.'

'Well that could just be a sign of the times. I remember being told about all the student-bashing during the miner's strike.'

She shook her head. 'This is different. If we were talking about loudmouths and dickheads then I'd have never brought it up, but that's not what's been going on.'

Something stirred in the pit of Peter's stomach. He had an idea of what was happening, but he did not want to face it.

The kettle clicked. Sarah stood and walked to the counter. She was limping slightly, favouring her right leg, and a little unsteady on her feet.

'Are you okay?' he asked.

'I'm fine,' she replied. He wondered if the response was automatic.

She handed him a mug, and sipped at her own while leaning against the counter. If he had not known better, he would have said she was staring into space. He wondered if he should say something, but what was there to say? He had no idea what she was talking about.

David.

The thought struck him without warning and sent a shiver down his spine. That poor young guy, barely a month into his first term at university before his parents had to take his body home. Peter had hardly known him, but he had seemed nice on the few occasions when they met.

'Why did you ask me here?' said Peter. It sounded more blunt that he had wanted.

She smirked. 'Still as forthright as ever, I see.'

'Sorry. It's just that I'm tired. I've been pulling long shifts to cope with this virus thing that's going 'round. People are dropping like flies left, right and centre and we're understaffed again.'

'It's okay. There's no need to apologise.'

'So why did you call?'

She sighed, looked down at her cup. He wondered whether she could see it or not. Sometimes she seemed to be able to see a few things if they were up close and in a good light, other times she seemed to be totally blind. He remembered a time when he had asked her about how much of her sight she had left, and remembered even more strongly how she had told him to drop the subject. He would have done the same in her situation. Being pestered by a curious, drunk man sprawled on your sofa was not going to make anyone open up.

'I think it's back,' she said. Her voice had lost all its usual strength and confidence. 'When the news mentioned squatters at an old hotel all disappearing, I had a horrible feeling that we've seen this all before. But I can't be sure, you know? Not now, anyway. I need someone to come with me to investigate the hotel. Someone who can remember the things we saw.'

Peter remembered all too well. The years had lightened the load a little, but there was no softening of the blow when the memories surfaced. Had he not thought about this himself? There had been more odd people on the streets of Newcastle but he had put it down to working too hard. Stress could do that to a person, after all.

'It could be nothing,' said Peter, but now he was not sure he believed it himself. 'It wouldn't be the first time that you've gone chasing monsters that don't exist.'

'I'm not young and stupid any more, Peter. I can tell the difference between a real problem and someone wanting their name in the papers. There's something happening, and I need your help to look into it.'

Now it was Peter's turn to be silent. It had been eight years. He had almost convinced himself that everything they went though had happened to someone else. Why now? He had just started to get his life back together!

Please God, don't shit on me again.

But God was not listening. He knew that for certain, now. In the pit of his stomach, he knew it like it was written in stone for all to see. And he knew she was right just as much. But how? He could not tell. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, but nothing solid. Was that what made Sarah look for a link to all these events? On their own, they seemed less than conclusive but together? It certainly needed looking in to, even if he did it just to settle his own fears.

'Why me?' he found himself asking. 'Why not one of the others?'

'You were closest,' Sarah replied. She looked over at him, not quite focussing on him but getting close enough. 'I needed someone who could come quickly and you were the only one in the area. Sorry.'

He nodded slowly. Death by choice of housing. He knew he should have gone back to Nottingham after university.

'Will you help me?' she asked.

He snorted a hollow laugh that seemed to stick in his throat. 'Do I have a choice? If you're right, we're all in this together whether we like it or not. That was the promise, remember?'

'That was a long time ago,' she said, pausing to sip her tea. 'People change. Old promises don't always feel so binding after nearly ten years.'

Peter shook his head slowly, gazing at the mug cupped in his hands.

'Not this one,' he said.

Unholy Crusade, part twenty

2009-10-31T00:21:00.001Z

Gretl crept toward the shadows where Allemand had been stood. She half expected that he would still be there, watching impassively as Baron's men dealt with his own. As she stepped off the gravel path onto the scuffed and stained concrete yard, her heart sank. Allemand was nowhere to be seen.

Her fists clenched. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and swallowed her urge to scream. She had been so close! He had been right there in front of her and now? Nowhere. She had lost him again.

He could not have gone far, however. For all his years and all his skill, he could still not fly or just disappear into thin air. He had to be close by. She could still find him, if she hurried.

Someone grabbed her from behind; an arm around her shoulders, a hand grabbing her hair. Before she could react, her head was slammed against a shipping container. She staggered, saw stars, but steadied herself and turned around before her assailant could act again.

She stopped dead when her eyes fell on who had attacked her.

'Hans Allemand,' she said. 'I've been looking for you.'

'Your German needs some work,' said Allemand.

His comment took her by surprise; a fact Allemand played to his advantage. He stuck fast and low, slamming his fist into her gut. She doubled over in pain, sinking to her knees; steadying herself with one hand on the floor, the other clutching her stomach.

'Bastard,' she spat as she fought back the pain. She was well fed that evening, the pain would pass quickly.

As she climbed back onto her feet, he struck again. This time she was ready for him. She grabbed his arm as he lashed out, ducked under it and pulled around to his back, then kicked his right leg out from under him. He fell, and she fell with him; landing on the middle of his back with his arm still in her grip.

For all his skills as a manipulator, Allemand's street fighting needed some work.

'I've been looking for you for a long time,' said Gretl.

'I don't care,' said Allemand. He struggled, but she held on tightly to him. He could not get free now.

'In fact, I've been looking for you since January of 1963. Do you remember where you were then?'

'Get off me, bitch. I'm going to fuck you up!'

'That's hardly an incentive for me to let you go then, is it?' Gretl said, as calmly as she could. 'I'll tell you where you were in January 1963. You were in Harderwijk. One evening, you came to my door claiming you had been robbed and needed to call the Police.'

'Is this going anywhere?' asked Allemand. Gretl ignored him.

'You looked hurt. You were covered in blood. I took pity on you, let you in. Do you remember what happened next?'

'No.' His voice was flat, almost bored.

Her heart sank. She knew it would be unlikely. He probably did all he did to her to so many people. Why would she be different? Why would one more matter to him?

But it mattered to her. She felt a fire in her belly now. After decades of hunting, she had him and she was going to make him pay.

She leaned in close, still holding on to his arm. She would be risking pulling it out of its socket now, but she simply did not care. She put her lips to his ear. She could feel him squirm as he tried to break free.

'Well I remember,' she said.

With her free hand, she pulled a syringe from her jacket and in one swift motion, emptied its contents into Allemand's neck.

'Put the gun down,' said Dupont. 'Put it down slowly, and step away.'

'No,' said Cartwright.

'Do it or I'll blow his fucking head off.'

'And then he'll shoot you,' said Seth. 'Or if not him, one of the snipers.'

Dupont said nothing; and at that moment, Seth knew he would win. He lowered his hands and turned around slowly. Dupont was still holding the gun at his head and he did not feel confident enough to challenge him on that just yet, but that time was coming.

'It's over,' he said. 'Put the gun down and come quietly.'

Dupont shook his head. 'No.'

'There's really no good way out of this for you,' Seth continued. 'But it would be best if you came out of it alive.'

'Why? So you can have revenge for your son? Don't think I don't know why you're here. This was never about my deal, was it? It was about payback.'

'You're wrong,' said Seth. 'What you did to my family was terrible, but I'm not here for that now. All I'm here for is to take you in.'

'No,' said Dupont. 'I'll not be some trophy, rotting in prison while you brag to your friends.'

'Look, we can do this– No!'

Seth lunged forward as Dupont turned the gun on himself, but he was too late. The shot echoed around the yard and Seth's glasses smeared with blood and other things he did not care to identify. The dead man fell to the ground, and Seth dropped to his knees beside him.

'No!' he roared. 'Damn you, you bastard! Damn you!'

He pounded the corpse with all his might, pouring his grief and rage into every blow. His hands were red, his soul empty.

When Cartwright eventually pulled him to his feet, whatever had been left of Seth Baron had died.

Gretl dragged Allemand to his feet and hauled him into the yard. He staggered along in front of her, his head lolling to one side and rocking as they walked.

Seth was sitting on the bonnet of Allemand's Mercedes. Cartwright stood beside him, smoking a cigarette and looking concerned. By the gates, two men in cheap grey suits were reading three men in expensive black suits their rights.

'You got your man, then,' said Cartwright, bitterly.

Gretl said nothing.

'What will you do now?' asked Seth. His voice sounded distant, like he had become detached from the world.

'We're going to wait for sunrise,' she said.

'Won't that kill you?' asked Cartwright.

Gretl looked at the young man, weighing up the likelihood that he meant what he had just said. She decided he did. He really was not the sharpest tack in the box.

'You never planned to come out of this, did you?' asked Seth.

'No,' she said.

Seth snorted a dry laugh but his face told her he found nothing about the situation all that funny.

'Go home,' she said. 'Go home to your wife. You can deal with this mess in the morning.'

Seth nodded slowly.

Cartwright put his arm around his boss' shoulders and led him away.

Epilogue

When they returned in the morning, all that remained was yellow police tape flapping in the wind, and a new charred mark on the concrete.

'Think she actually did it?' asked Cartwright.

Seth stood with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, staring blankly at the mark on the ground.

'Yeah,' he said. 'She'd spent too long chasing her man. When she got him, what else was there to live for?'

'You see, I just don't get that,' said Cartwright. 'There's always something to live for. It might not be obvious right there and then, but there's always something 'round the corner if you look hard enough.'

He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one and offered the packet to Seth. The older man shook his head.

'Let's hope your right,' said Seth, although from his tone it was clear he did not mean it.

Cartwright patted the old man on the shoulder. 'Come on, let's go and get breakfast. It's my shout.'

Unholy Crusade, part nineteen

2009-10-30T21:19:00.002Z

'Shots fired! Shots fired!'

The panicked cry came through the radio as Gretl ran down a grey-walled corridor toward the fire escape. It was Cartwright's voice, she could tell despite the interference. The guy clearly could not hold his own in a tense situation. He would get someone killed one day, that was for sure.

Hopefully he would not do it tonight.

She burst through the fire escape, grabbed the railing and leapt over it. The gravel crunched beneath her feet as she landed, and again as she dropped into a crouch. Over the commotion now going on in the yard, she doubted anyone would notice. Nevertheless, from here on in she needed to be careful.

Allemand was there. Allemand would hear her coming.

She looked around, scanning the area for trouble; for places anyone might hide now the shit had most definitely hit the fan; for places where she could sneak through the shadows and reach her man. Baron would take care of Dupont and the others, she only needed to deal with Allemand. He was the wildcard the Ministry were ill equipped to handle. If she did not catch him before he made his move, no one would leave the yard alive.

Keeping low and sticking to the shadows, she made her way into the yard.

The night was not going as Seth Baron had planned. Then again, few do. He had expected problems, but when the emaciated dogsbody had shot the city's most powerful drug lord, he knew there was no way he was getting the upper hand without a fight.

Cartwright stuck close to his left flank as they approached the entrance to the yard. Seth kept his eyes on the gunman, ready to fire if things turned nasty again. At present, it was stand-off; just lots of angry chatter, nobody wanting to make the first move. That was fine by him.

Cartwright moved to the left side of the entrance. Seth took the right side. Crouched and with his gun drawn, he waited for his backup to move in.

'That was a brave thing you did there,' said Dupont. 'There are going to be many men after you tonight.'

Jeremy Pellier looked down at the corpse piled at his feet, then at the fat man in the expensive suit. He was right. People would be out for his blood, and not just tonight. From here on in, he had to watch his back.

'You're going to need help just to stay alive,' Dupont continued.

'That sounds like an offer,' said Jeremy.

The Frenchman snorted. Jeremy did not understand the response.

'What do you want?'

'Fifty percent. Of everything.'

'Pull the other one,' Jeremy sneered. 'No one in their right mind would take that. Try harder.'

'Mister Pellier, I am trying to be reasonable here. The cost of setting you up in this town will be significant. If you want to work with us – and I assure you, you do want to work with us – then you have to accept our terms. Fifty percent, or you can take your chances out on the street.'

Jeremy looked down at the old man's body. It had been so simple. Would his end come so easily?

'Thirty five,' he said, mustering as much force as he could convey.

The Frenchman shook his head.

Jeremy felt his grip on the gun slipping. His palms were hot and sweating; his shirt clinging to his back. He needed to finish this and soon, before more problems arose.

'Fine,' he said.

The Frenchman smiled. 'Then let's do business.'

'We're in position now,' said Travis through Seth's earpiece.

Seth said nothing in reply, but looked over at Cartwright, who nodded to him. Seth held up three fingers: move in on three. Cartwright nodded again.

Three.

Two.

One.

'Armed Government Agent!' called Seth as he stormed into the yard. 'Hands in the air!'

Pellier turned quickly, his gun raised. Cartwright shot him in the shoulder before Seth could react. The gun fell to the floor with the heavy thud of metal on concrete. Pellier clutched at the wound and screamed obscenities, but Seth hardly noticed. His eyes were fixed on Dupont. No one else mattered now.

No one except Allemand, wherever he might be. He was the rogue agent in all this. If the vampire woman did not hold up her side of the bargain, Allemand could prove their undoing.

He put those thoughts out of his mind and walked toward Dupont, his gun raised; ready to fire at the slightest provocation. Cartwright and the others cold deal with the monkeys, he wanted organ grinder all to himself.

Come on, you bastard. Give me an excuse.

But the fat Frenchman just stood there in his expensive suit, sucking on a cigarette and holding his hands up on either side of his bulbous head. His grey eyes followed Seth's every move but other than that, he said and did nothing.

'Marc Dupont, I am arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to the murder of David Baron,' the words cut deep in Seth's throat. He held the gun so tightly it shook in his hand. Do something, you bastard! Give me a reason. GIVE ME A REASON!

'You do not have to say anything,' he heard himself say. 'But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.'

The fat man sniffed, and lowered his hands. 'Is that it?' he asked. The tone made it sound like he was almost bored.

Seth grabbed the man's arm and forced him against a packing crate. He reached into his jacket for handcuffs when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly he was spun around and a black gloved fist smacked into his face. He lost his footing, and fell; his gun slipping from his grip.

'Cartwright!' he called as Dupont's guard came at him again.

A shot rang out. The guard's eyes glazed, and he crumpled. Behind the falling man, Cartwright walked forward, his gun pointed at Dupont's head.

'No!' cried Seth, scrambling to his feet and pushing Cartwright away. The younger man fought to keep his footing, but at least he was pointing his gun at the ground now. 'He's mine! I want him alive!'

He could feel tears welling in the corners of his eyes. He brushed them away. There would be time for grief later. Right now, he had a job to do.

He felt the gun on the back of his head, and went cold.

Unholy Crusade, part eighteen

2009-10-29T17:16:00.002Z

Chapter Seven

After the first target arrived, time passed so slowly Seth could almost imagine he felt his fingernails growing. This was the worst part of any job: knowing something is going to happen but being unable to interfere lest you make it worse, or stop it happening altogether. They had to hold off until the purpose of the meeting was established, and it became clear just what kind of crime was being committed. Without that, they were powerless to act.

The next car arrived twenty minutes later, amidst radio silence. Seth watched the silver Toyota pull into the yard and four men climb out. He did not recognise them immediately, but Cartwright did.

'That's Dupont,' he said. 'The one in the blue suit.'

Seth sipped his tea. The lukewarm liquid coated his dry throat, seeping its way through tensed muscles.

Dupont. The man who had ordered the hit on his son.

He would be his priority.

Gretl scoured the screens before her, searching for any clue about what Allemand intended to do. The old man was hiding the shadows between two storage tanks, near enough that he would be able to see and hear everything that happened at the meet, but far enough away that anyone in the yard would never spot him. He stood motionless, a feat rarely achieved by mortal and immortal men alike. She wondered how long he had practiced.

The radio crackled. She ignored it; paranoid that the moment she turned away from the screens, Allemand would disappear. She had come too close to let him slip away now.

'Black Mercedes on Woodrow Lane, heading to junction with Strathclyde Road,' said the radio.

Another voice crackled over the channel. She did not recognise it. 'Any word on the occupants?'

'Three men,' said the first voice. 'Looks like Dixon and Pellier in the back. Unknown male driving.'

'Here we go,' Gretl told herself. Leaning forward, her head almost pressed up against the largest of the monitors, her eyes fixed on Allemand. 'Let's see you get out of this one, you bastard.'

'We should be there in a minute, sir,' said the driver.

Reggie Dixon said nothing. Jeremy Pellier shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The gun the German had given him was taped uncomfortably to his thigh, hidden under his trousers but still conspicuous in how it made him walk. He wanted this over with quickly before anyone spotted anything amiss.

'When we get there, you keep close to me,' said Reggie. 'I don't trust this French tosser to play straight, so when he makes his move, I want you there to deal with 'im, got it?'

'Got it,' said Jeremy. God, he wanted this night over with.

The car pulled into the yard. There were two other cars already parked there, at the back; cutting off a clear run into the building. That was okay by Jeremy. What he wanted was a clear run out of the yard if things got bad.

'Here we go,' said Reggie. 'Remember: stick close to me.'

'I'll remember.'

'Mister Dixon,' said Dupont. The fat bastard was all shining teeth and crocodile smiles tonight, Jeremy noted. 'We meet again.'

'Dupont,' Reggie replied, making no effort to pronounce the name correctly. If Dupont minded, he made a good show of hiding it.

'Let's get straight to business, shall we?' said the Frenchman. 'I take it you have the money?'
Reggie grunted. 'I have it. Do you have the goods this time?'

'You need to ask? Mister Dixon, I am shocked. I really am.'

'After the shit you pulled, you're damn right I'm asking. I lost good men because of your fuckup.'

Dupont stepped forward and seemed to grow in size. 'I don't care for your insinuations, Mister Dixon.'

'Fuck you,' Reggie spat. While Jeremy had fought against his instinct to grab at his gun when Dupont moved, Reggie had not so much as flexed a pinkie. 'You want to make this trade or not? I don't have all night.'

'I'm afraid not, Mister Dixon. Not with you, at any rate.'

For the first time, Reggie's mask slipped and Jeremy saw the morass of range that boiled beneath the surface. In a blink of an eye, it was gone.

Jeremy knelt and made as if he was fastening his shoelaces.

'What are you talking about?' asked Reggie. 'You want to deal in this town, you deal with me. There's no one else. Get up, Pellie. For fuck's sake try to look professional, will you?'

Jeremy stood. 'I'm sorry, Reggie.'

'So you bloody should be. For fuck's sake man, we're supposed to be...'

His voice trailed off when his eyes latched on to the gun in Jeremy's hand. He began to ask what Jeremy thought he was playing at, but he did not have the time.

Jeremy squeezed the trigger three times. Reggie's body shuddered as each bullet cut deep into his chest.

He sank to the floor, coughing up blood and curses.

Finish him. The voice echoed in his head. He recognised it but did not know from where. Remember what he did to you. Finish him now!

He raised the gun to the old man's head, and fired.

Unholy Crusade, part seventeen

2009-08-19T03:09:00.001+01:00

Seth watched as his men took up position on the roof of the factory across from the target; in the café down the road and in vans parked in several key points down the road. When the time came, they would be able to block off the street quickly and take out anyone who tried to resist arrest.

Cartwright fidgeted in his seat. The younger man was poor company on a job like this. Seth's usual manner of working was to relax into an almost meditative state; clear of mind but alert enough to respond quickly when the time came. Cartwright's incessant fidgeting and impatience ruined all that.

'How long do you think we've got to wait?' Cartwright asked.

'Half an hour, maybe more,' Seth replied curtly.

'Time enough for a brew, then.' Cartwright unbuckled his seat belt. 'Want one?'

Seth sighed, squeezed the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day. Maybe a cup of tea was not a bad idea. 'Sure. Black, no sugar.'

As he waited for his tea, Seth settled into stakeout mode. He sat impassively, breathing slowly, watching the world go by. A cat walked along the high wall surrounding the factory. It reminded him of Tom; the cat he had had as a child. He put the memory aside for now, not wanting any distractions. A man walking a German shepherd passed him without a second glance. Seth watched the man in the rear view mirror as he walked his dog down the street, in case he was a lookout for the targets. The man turned a corner into a housing estate and disappeared. Probably just some guy out walking his dog, Seth decided. He gave him no more thought.

Cartwright climbed back into the car, a cardboard drinks carrier in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He passed a cup to Seth and proffered the bag. 'Doughnut?'

Seth took the cup but declined the food, as tempting as it looked. 'I'm coeliac.'

'Shit, sorry. I forgot.'

'It's okay. What did the guys in the café have to say.'

'They've seen nothing so far. They'll radio if anything comes up.'

Seth nodded. 'It's early yet.'

They sat in silence, sipping over-hot tea and waiting. Time lost its meaning as Seth slipped further into stakeout mode until suddenly a voice came over the radio.

'Black Mercedes approaching,' said Porter. 'Plates registered to a van reported stolen two months ago. Occupant matches description of Hans Allemand.'

Seth turned on the microphone on his lapel. 'Roger that. Hold position until my signal. Let's see what he does.'

The Mercedes rolled into view at a leisurely pace, keeping just under the speed limit. It passed the factor gates and headed on down the road. Seth waited. A drive-by inspection of the area before starting business was not unexpected under the circumstances.

Gretl's voice crackled over the radio. 'Baron, the target is here.'

'I know,' Seth replied. 'We just saw him go past.'

'No, I mean he's here. In the factory.'

That was quick, Seth thought.

'Do you think he suspects something?' asked Cartwright.

'It's unlikely,' said Gretl. 'It looks like he's finding somewhere to hide.'

'Come again?' asked Seth.

Gretl did not reply right away. When she did, her voice was distant, like the radio was a secondary concern and she was paying more attention to something else. 'There's more going on here than we thought. Stay where you are for now.'

'I don't think that's an option,' said Seth, readying his weapon. 'The bad guys are on their way in.'

Unholy Crusade, part sixteen

2009-07-31T15:11:00.001+01:00

Jeremy Pellier pulled up behind the deep blue Mercedes and climbed out, turning up the collar on his jacket and wishing the rain would ease up for a while, give everyone a break and a chance to dry off a little. He hated weather like this. Why he had ever come back from France was a mystery right now. Better weather, cheaper food, good drink. Oh, how he wished he was back there instead of being here in this cold, wet, miserable country.

The rear door on the Mercedes opened with a clunk. He rushed over and climbed inside.

'Jesus, it's wet out there,' he said. He could feel himself shaking and tried to convince himself that it was just because of the cold. An attack of the nerves would not be a good thing right now.

The man in the driver's seat passed a plastic bag over his shoulder to Jeremy. 'You'll be needing this.'

Jeremy looked in the bag. Inside was a 9mm Glock; several rounds of ammunition in standard black clips; and one tarnished silver clip.

'Remember our agreement,' said the driver.

'Yeah.' Jeremy's voice was flat, betraying no emotion. 'I remember.'

He slipped the bag under his jacket, stepped out of the Mercedes and headed back to his Toyota.

By the time he had fastened his seat belt, the other car was gone.

Gretl had set herself up in the video room of the factory whose yard was to be the meeting place for that night's deal. Getting in had not been a problem. She vaulted the rear wall of the warehouse next door, climbed its fire escape and jumped onto the factory roof, then let herself in through an access point put there to make maintenance of the factory's flat roof easier. Now the guards were unconscious in a corner and she was sat in front of a bank of monitors. She pulled the bluetooth earpiece out of her pocket and fastened it to her ear. It felt uncomfortable; she imagined people would get used to them if they used them enough but she hated it, always would.

'I'm in,' she said.

'Good,' said Seth through the earpiece. His voice was crackled with a little static but the message came through clearly. 'We're almost in position. Keep this channel open.'

'Will do.'

She sat back in the chair and waited. It was up to the enemy to make their move now. All she could do was wait.

Unholy Crusade, part fifteen

2009-07-22T17:43:00.001+01:00

Chapter Six

1

'I don't see her,' said Cartwright. 'Think she's actually going to come?'

Seth kept his eyes on the street ahead. The rain had eased off during the afternoon but showed no signs of abating entirely. 'Of course she'll come. She wants this just as much as we do.'

They sat in Seth's black sedan and waited, watching the rain fall and the pedestrians hurry down the road in the hope of getting out of the weather quickly.

The minutes dragged by and Seth was beginning to give up hope when he spotted a redhead in black glasses walking toward the car. It took him a moment to recognise her, but he did. All his training coupled with years of on-the-streets experience had made him an expert in recognising people. It had been three days since they had met in person but she was still fresh in his memory thanks to spending days analysing photographs and other records. Her hair might be different and her spectacles changed the eye-to-face ratio slightly, but her overall face shape was the same. She may be able to fool the average person with her disguises, but he was not having any of it.

He unlocked the car doors and she climbed into the back.

'We were starting to think you weren't coming,' he said.

'I got delayed. Let's not hang around here. You were easy to spot; chances are I'm not the only one who saw you.'

Seth turned the ignition, pulled out into the road and headed off at a steady twenty miles per hour. There was no sense drawing attention to them by speeding.

'What was the delay?' asked Cartwright.

'It doesn't matter,' Gretl replied, sounding edgy. 'It won't affect tonight.'

Seth hoped Cartwright knew better than to push for more information. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, noted the vampire's smarter appearance: black suit, black blouse; all neat and ironed. She had even brushed her hair. Maybe she had been telling the truth about how important tonight was to her.

'So what have you found out?' Gretl asked.

'Dupont is meeting with Reggie Dixon again tonight. They're trying for another deal. What about you?'

'Allemand will be there too. So will his new lackey.'

'What new lackey?' asked Cartwright. 'Why didn't we hear about this?'

'His name is Pellier. He's been sniffing around town, asking about me for the last couple of days. I just found out tonight that he's working with Allemand.'

'If that's true, tonight is going to be more complicated than I thought,' Seth said.

'It doesn't change the plan.' Gretl's tone was firm. 'Everyone we want is going to be at the meeting tonight. If we're going to hit them, tonight is the time to do it. The last thing we need is to give them time to work out what's happening and go to ground. Agreed?'

'Agreed,' said Seth.

'Then let's get our gear ready and get in there.'

Unholy Crusade, part fourteen

2009-07-22T16:45:00.000+01:00

Gretl rinsed her hair with the shower attachment of her bath, leaning over the side in a most undignified and uncomfortable position as she did so, and wondered why so many women felt the need to go through this process regularly. It made no sense to her; such a rigmarole for little real gain. If she had no pressing need to change her appearance after the fight at the warehouse, she would never in a million years want to have to waste time on this.

Still, it beats the old methods, she thought. At least now it's just a case of rinse, soak, rinse.

She squeezed as much water out of her hair as she could, grabbed an old towel and dried herself off. Her hair was still damp but that was fine. She looked at herself in the mirror, making sure she had covered every patch of hair she could see, picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting her hair into a short, spiky style. It would not look great since she was doing it herself, but it would be passable and that was all she needed for now.

There was only one thing left to do: fake tan. She had not been looking forward to that; it was even more hassle and undignified posturing than the hair dye.

It can wait until I've had a cigarette, she decided.

Unholy Crusade, part thirteen

2009-07-21T18:08:00.003+01:00

Gretl pulled up in the car park outside a large supermarket and finished her cigarette as she watched people going in and out of the giant building. She needed a change of clothes after last night's escapades and in the early evening, most shops were closed. This place sold clothes that looked cheap but at least she would not stand out amongst the regular crowds. It would do, for now.

She tossed the cigarette butt out of the car window, checked herself in the passenger side mirror, and climbed out of the car.

The choice of clothes was surprisingly large and better than she had expected. She selected three black trouser suits, blouses is a variety of colours and two pairs of decent, black shoes with low heels. The idea was to look like she was an average office worker; the kind of person one would not think was out of place where she would be hanging out. If she wanted to look like a street urchin or a student, her current clothing would serve perfectly well.

With her outfits chosen, she headed for the hair and makeup aisle and bought tanning lotion, makeup to suit a darker complexion and hair dye in as natural a red as she could find. She passed by the optician then stopped, turned around and headed back. She had never needed spectacles but they helped change the face enough that anyone not paying real attention might mistake her for someone else. Every little helped.

On her way to the checkout, she picked up more orange juice.

Jeremy sat in the King's Arms, nursing a pint of Sovereign ale and waiting for Reggie to show his face. He had been there for almost twenty minutes, which was par for the course for the old bastard, but tonight he was not in the mood to be messed around. If he didn't turn up in the next ten minutes, there would be hell to pay.

'Jeremy my old son,' Reggie called from across the room. 'It's good to see you looking so well.'

'I've been better,' said Jeremy. 'What did you want to see me about.'

Reggie took a seat across the table from Jeremy and leaned in close. Horton, his stocky minder took up position watching the crowd.

'Someone set us up last night,' said Reggie. 'And I think I know who.'

Yeah, I bet you fucking do, thought Jeremy.

'Oh yeah?' he said.

'There's a guy in Broughton called Simon Trafford. You know him?'

'Can't say I do.'

'No, I thought not. He's small time, but he makes a little on the side as a police informer. I've had my eye on that little shit for a while now, and he's been good for me; telling the rozzers what I want them to know and all that.'

'What's this got to do with last night?'

'Hold your horses, old son. I'm just getting to that.' He nodded to Horton, who passed an envelope to Jeremy. 'That was on my desk this morning.'

Jeremy opened the envelope and pulled out two photographs. Both showed a middle aged man with receding hair and very little chin talking to a short woman in a long coat.

'I assume this bloke is Trafford,' said Jeremy. 'The woman looks like the bitch from last night.'

'Right on both counts.'

'So what do you want from me?'

'Isn't it obvious? These two wronged us last night, old son, and if we are wronged, should we not be avenged?'

Reggie stood up and made to leave. 'Give me a call when this is sorted out.'

Jeremy looked at the photographs again. This made no sense to him. Reggie had been the setup merchant. He had seen that, had he not? So what was this?

He downed his pint, stuffed the photographs and the envelope in his pocket and headed out into the street. He needed to think this over.

Unholy Crusade, part twelve

2008-08-29T18:02:00.003+01:00

Gretl sat on the roof of the Victoria, a pseudo-Victorian building in the centre of town. It had been a theatre in the 1960s, a cinema in the 1980s and was now a trendy wine bar on the ground floor with a cheap and nasty nightclub occupying the two floors above it. If there was anywhere to pick up scum in this town, the nightclub in the Victoria was the place.

The night was still young and she had barely woken but already the craving was threatening to overwhelm her. She had been hooked on cigarettes when she died and the need for nicotine had been tremendous. Her body ached, her mind pulsed with every heartbeat and she felt herself become so tense whenever she could not get one more draw on those little white sticks. She experienced the effects of withdrawal whenever it was a choice between cigarettes or little Claus having a new pair of shoes, or the right books for school, or any one of a hundred other things a growing child needs. Money had been tight, but she could always fight the cravings when things got too bad.

She would give anything to feel those cravings now. Compared to the hell she faced each night, they were paradise.

She scanned the crowds that were starting to form outside the more popular pubs and clubs. Somewhere in each crowd there was a target. She just needed to find one. Which unlucky sod would it be tonight?

Outside the Victoria, a man in a white tracksuit sauntered over to a blue Fiat, looked both ways, then leaned into the passenger-side front window. Gretl watched him talking to the driver; saw him pass something over to him and receive something in return. Then he stood up, patted the roof and walked away.

'Dealer,' she thought, keeping her eyes on the car. 'Perfect.'

'Allo there, darlin',' the dealer grinned. His smile was crooked, like he's taken one too many punches to his already less than perfect face while growing up. 'What can I do for you?'
His eyes flicked up from her chest for a brief second, meeting hers. It was all she needed. As his jaw sagged in the vacant way that told her he would do anything she asked.

She smiled. 'Let's go for a ride.'

He started the car and headed out of town. Gretl looked around the car as they drove, taking in the black jacket slung on the back seat and bulge in the dealer's trouser pocket. Either money or drugs. She hoped it was money, drugs were useless to her.

'Stop here,' she said.

The dealer pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car.

She leaned over toward him, put her hands on his shoulders and whispered in his ear. 'Sleep.'
He closed his eyes and went limp, his head falling forward. She pushed it to one side and bit down hard on his neck. The blood flowed slowly, but it was warm and the pleasure centre of her brain stepped into overdrive as its sharp, iron taste flowed over her tongue. Her heart raced, her pupils dilated. She sucked at the wound, gulping the warm, red liquid as fast as she could. She had to get as much out as possible before the wound clotted. It was a personal rule; one bite per victim. Any more and she risked killing the poor sap.

Killing was Allemand's territory. Despite everything he had taken from her, she still had her conscience.

The blood stopped. She licked sorrowfully at the young man's neck, savouring the last of his precious, life-giving fluid, then slumped back in her seat and let it work its magic on her. The wounds that had not healed since the night before closed, leaving no trace. She looked whole again. Human. The spectre of death lifted.

Her business concluded, she searched the man's pockets, finding a roll of twenties, a half-empty packet of cigarettes and a bic lighter. She took them all, pulled him out of the car and drove back into town.