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Your chance to bag some good value e-books from Crooked Cat Publishing!

Their autumn sale is on - books across all Amazon sites - for 99c/99p

This is the UK site; https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_3_12?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=crooked+cat+publishing&sprefix=CROOKED+CAT+%2Caps%2C350

For others, just search for 'Crooked Cat Publishing' and be spoilt for choice.

Blog guest - Shani Struthers and 'domestic spiritual clearance'...

Today my guest is author Shani Struthers, from Brighton, UK. Today sees the launch of her third Psychic Survey book, 44 Gilmore Street. 

This follows on from the popular earlier novels, The Haunting of Highdown Hall and Rise to Me. She has also written a prequel, Eve, which is featured in my blog here

These Psychic Survey novels have already garnered a staunch review base of 50+ reviewers, a great achievement.

The main characters who form the Psychic Survey team are Ruby, Theo, Ness and Corinna who deal with ‘domestic spiritual clearance’ – a great invention.

Her other paranormal novel is Jessamine.

Shani has been fascinated by the paranormal for most of her life, and as she says in our Q&A session below, all of her stories are inspired by true events and experiences.

Q & A

How long have you been writing? 

I’ve been a copywriter for over twenty years, working mainly in the travel industry but I’ve only been writing novels for four years.

What influenced you to start?

I’ve always wanted to write a novel; I’ve been threatening family and friends with it for a long time so I thought I’d better make good that threat!

How do your family/friends feel about your writing?

They’re proud of me but, as you know yourself, Nik, when you’re writing/editing a book you tend to live and breathe it – I think they’d rather I came back to the real world more often!

Are you planning to write any more romance books or will you stick with the paranormal? Of course, you can indulge in romance in paranormal novels too!

Jessamine closed the gap between my romance and my paranormal books, it’s a romance but with a supernatural edge to it. There’s also a touch of romance in the Psychic Surveys books between the two main characters Ruby and Cash but it’s real and down-to-earth as opposed to slushy. I’m not averse to romance in any way but I think paranormal is my genre from now on, it’s more fascinating to write.

I know some of your favourite authors are Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill. A tall order, I suspect but what is your favourite book? And why?

It is a tall order but rather than say what is my favourite book I’ll say what book has inspired me most lately – it’s Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. I’ve been meaning to read it for a while and finally got round to it and loved it. Like the black and white film of the book - The Haunting with Claire Bloom – it’s a real lesson in ‘less is more’. So much is left to the imagination and it’s that that is truly terrifying. That’s the way I want my writing to go in future.

What challenges have you overcome in having to concentrate on the supernatural?

I don’t write horror as such, I write paranormal but I have had to delve into some very dark research because of it – research that left me feeling very unnerved. I’ve decided not to focus on anything Satanic but to focus on the ghost element instead – and I always try to look for the human story behind the haunting, that’s what really fascinates me most – why a spirit is grounded.

There’s also an element of time travel involved, since ghosts have a habit of appearing in their future. Would you consider a time travel novel at some point?

We are conditioned to think of the world as linear but maybe it isn’t and maybe the spirit world isn’t either. Never say never.

Is it a challenge, this delving into the past to unearth the present haunting?

It can be but I look for inspiration in real life events and then add a heavy dose of fiction.

Who is your favourite character in all your books and why?

I love them all – the good and the bad – but my favourite is Ruby Davis, the main character in the Psychic Surveys books. She starts off as fairly naïve due to a sheltered upbringing by her grandmother but over the course of six books she’s going to find herself going down some very dark roads. I like to write strong, independent female characters and she’s going to need every ounce of her strength.

Ahah, six books! That’s good planning, Shani. Creating a series can bring its problems. For example, how do you continue to think up new storylines using the same characters and yet remain fresh?

I have a story arc in mind and that helps – a journey for each of the characters to go on but yes, it’s a problem regarding trying not to info-dump too much in subsequent books – to keep them action-centred rather than a recap.

As an author, what is your biggest challenge and how do you overcome it?

Confidence – you know what it’s like, ninety nine people can love your book but one slates it and which one affects us more, yep that one in a hundred. That’s the biggest challenge for me, listening to criticism but only if it’s constructive.

Other than writing, what are some things that you love to do?

Just hanging out with my friends and family really, eating, drinking and being merry!

Thank you, Shani. And good luck with your latest, 44 Gilmore Street.

Readers find Shani here:

Facebook Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/p9yggq9

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shani_struthers

Blog: http://shanisite.wordpress.com

Goodreads: http://tinyurl.com/mq25mav

Website: http://www.shanistruthers.com

Newsletter Link: http://eepurl.com/beoHLv

Psychic Surveys Book Three: 44 Gilmore Street

UK http://tinyurl.com/jobnwoo

US http://tinyurl.com/j6jvev5

Believe in ghosts

In recent years interest in paranormal fiction has burgeoned, though of course the genre is by no means new.

Many young readers who have discovered vampires through Twilight and its successors probably never heard of Bram Stoker’s Dracula when they first gained an interest in the saga of Bella Swan.

Ghost stories are one sub-genre of the paranormal and these have a long and respectable tradition, penned by a good number of great authors, among them Charles Dickens, M.R. James, Henry James, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Edith Wharton, Fritz Leiber, Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Susan Hill.

Medieval ghost - wikipedia commons

There are two types of ghost stories. In the first, it is obvious from the outset that the story relates to ghosts – usually to be found in an anthology. There, the author is striving for effect, the crawl of chilled fingers up the spine, the anticipation of incipient doom, the tragedy of history repeating itself, etc. The second type is not defined as ghost story, and may be a romance, a mystery, or a suspense tale and its ending is often the twist that reveals the ghost aspect; naturally, these stories cannot be contained in a ghost anthology, or the plot ultimate device is destroyed.

In my time I’ve written both kinds, and enjoyed writing them.

Interestingly, a 2014 YouGov poll reveals the findings concerning British people and their belief in things that go bump in the night.

Apparently, only 23% of British people say they are religious. I think that despite the low percentage who consider them religious, a higher percentage actually believes in God (in one form or another).

According to the poll, 1 in 3 holds the belief that ghosts exist; that is 34%. And of that number, 9% state they have communicated with a ghost.

39% believe a house can be haunted.

28% have felt the presence of a supernatural being.

The poll states that women are 10% more likely than men to believe in ghosts.

And, finally, 17% are likely to believe in life after death.

Touch wood, like all poll results, these figures may need to be taken with a pinch of salt (thrown over the shoulder if spilled), since we all know that statistics can prove anything.

FFB - The Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance, the third in the sequence of six paranormal 'Night Hunter' thrillers by Robert Faulcon (Robert Holdstock) begins in the American west, where Mary Jane Silverlock, an attractive Indian has reluctantly agreed to undergo an esoteric transformation.  Why becomes clear later – but we know it has something to do with Dan Brady in England…

Dan is struggling to communicate with dead American, Ellen Bancroft. Her message is worrisome: Danger. From the west. Over the sea.

Mary Jane travels to England by arcane means, carrying within her an evil force destined to join with Arachne, the entity responsible for abducting Brady’s family (#1, The Stalking).

Dan Brady is drawn to Cumbria, specifically Maron Tor, and the town of Casterigg. Here he encounters a young girl, Kelly, her father Simon and her Uncle William – all of whom seem trapped in the town. Only he is capable of effecting their release.

And all the while, the evil contained within Mary Jane gets closer… and pyrotechnics are inevitable!

Another fast-paced tale, delving into the mysteries of shamen, black magic and supernatural elementals.

Blog guest – Shani Struthers

No safe haven – Psychic survey team finds something insatiable

Hi, Shani, and welcome. I had a premonition that you’d be here today. Tell me about your new book…

Thank you for hosting me on your blog.

My new book, Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story launches on the 24^th November on Amazon and is the prequel to the popular Psychic Surveys series. Featuring two of the Psychic Surveys team – Theo Lawson and Vanessa Patterson – it’s set between 1899 and 1999 and is loosely inspired by a true event.

In my fictional re-telling, Theo and Ness are asked to investigate a town weighed down by the sorrow of what happened 100 years before…

 

This is the blurb:

What do you do when a whole town is haunted?

In 1899, in the North Yorkshire market town of Thorpe Morton, a tragedy occurred; 59 people died at the market hall whilst celebrating Christmas Eve, many of them children. One hundred years on and the spirits of the deceased are restless still, ‘haunting’ the community, refusing to let them forget.

In 1999, psychic investigators Theo Lawson and Ness Patterson are called in to help, sensing immediately on arrival how weighed down the town is. Quickly they discover there’s no safe haven. The past taints everything.

Hurtling towards the anniversary as well as a new millennium, their aim is to move the spirits on, to cleanse the atmosphere so everyone – the living and the dead – can start again. But the spirits prove resistant and soon Theo and Ness are caught up in battle, fighting against something that knows their deepest fears and can twist them in the most dangerous of ways.

They’ll need all their courage to succeed and the help of a little girl too – a spirit who didn’t die at the hall, who shouldn’t even be there…

 

Excerpt from Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story:

As Theo turned round to face the double doors, she had a feeling that someone - something - was rushing at her, as fleetingly as whatever had been in Adelaide's house. Refusing to let fear get a stranglehold, she turned back, her aim to confront it. A black wisp of a shape, like wood smoke, sideswiped her, before fading into nothing. Staring after it, wondering what it was, something else caught her attention. At the far end of the second room was something more substantial: a little girl, staring at her.

Theo's eyes widened. "Oh darling, darling," she whispered. She took a step forwards, tried to remember the names of the children on the list from earlier: Alice, Helen, Bessie, Adelaide's ancestor, Ellen Corsby perhaps. Which one was she?

She inched closer still. "Darling, your name, tell me what it is."

 
The little girl's arms moved upwards, she stretched them out, her manner beseeching although she remained mute. Theo tried again, told the child her own name.

"It's short for Theodora. I bet you're called something pretty."

 
The girl had a dress on; long, brownish, a course material - linen perhaps? Nothing special but if it was her party dress then maybe it was special to her. Her boots were brown too - lace ups, sturdy looking. She was around eight or nine but it was hard to tell. She could have been older just small for her age. Her hair was brown and tangled; she had a mane of it. Everything about her seemed to be brown or sepia, maybe sepia was the right word, as though she'd stepped out of an old photograph.

"I'm here now, sweetheart, I've come to help. You've been here for such a long time. Too long. You need to go to the light, go home, rest awhile."

Up closer, Theo could read her eyes. The longing in them stirred her pity.

 
"Let me help you," Theo persisted, her voice catching in her throat. As glorious as the other side might be, she still felt it unfair to be felled at such a young age. Often this was a good existence too and it deserved to be experienced fully.
 
She was close now, so close and still her arms were outstretched.
 
Harriet - the name presented itself whole in her mind.
 
"Your name's Harriet. Is that correct? It's lovely, it suits you."
 
Was that a smile on the child's lips, the beginnings of trust? Soon she'd be able to reach out and touch her. What would she feel like? Cold? Ethereal?
 
"Darling, I'm here," she repeated, no more than a foot between them. "I'm here."
 
Joy surged - one spirit had come forward - it was an encouraging start.

Just before their hands touched everything changed. Hope and joy were replaced with confusion as something sour - fetid almost - rose up, making her feel nauseous.

"Don't be afraid," Theo implored. Yet there was nothing but fear in her eyes now. No, not fear, that was too tame a word - terror.

 
"I'm not here to harm you," she continued. "I'm here to help."
 
As the words left her mouth, other hands appeared behind the child, a whole sea of them - disembodied hands that clawed at her, forcing her backwards.
 
"No!" Theo shouted. "Stop it. Leave her alone!"
 
But it was no use. Her words faded as the girl did. She'd been torn away, recaptured; the one who'd dared to step forward. Theo could feel sweat break out on her forehead, her hands were clammy. She clutched at her chest, her breathing difficult suddenly, laboured. Her heart had been problematic of late, a result of the pounds she'd piled on. She must go to the doctor to get some medication. Struggling to gain control, it took a few moments, perhaps a full minute, before her heart stopped hammering. And when it did, she remembered something else. The girl's eyes - her sweet, brown, trusting eyes - when the expression changed in them they hadn't been looking at her, they'd been looking beyond her. Was it at the thing that sideswiped her? Theo couldn't be certain. She wasn't certain either if that 'thing' was a spirit or much less than that - something with no soul, but with an appetite, an extreme appetite: a craving. Something, she feared, was insatiable.

***

 
Thank you, Shani. A couple of spooky coincidences there, too. Thorpe Morton - hmm: my first published book's hero was James Thorpe and the pen name I used was Ross Morton (Death at Bethesda Falls)...!

I wish you well with Eve.
 
Eve
UK http://tinyurl.com/nmnajss

US http://tinyurl.com/pe5f6db
 

    Shani Struthers

Author Bio

Shani is the Brighton-based author of paranormal fiction, including UK Amazon Bestseller, Psychic Surveys Book One: The Haunting of Highdown Hall.

Psychic Surveys Book Two: Rise to Me, is also available.

Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story – is the prequel to the Psychic Surveys series.

 

She is also the author of Jessamine, an atmospheric psychological romance set in the Highlands of Scotland and described as a 'Wuthering Heights for the 21st century.'

Psychic Surveys Book Three: 44 Gilmore Street is in progress.

All events in her books are inspired by true life and events.

Catch up with Shani via her website www.shanistruthers.com

or on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

Facebook Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/p9yggq9

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shani_struthers

Blog: http://shanisite.wordpress.com

Goodreads http://tinyurl.com/mq25mav

FFB - The Talisman

#2 in the Night Hunter series by Robert Faulcon [Robert Holdstock](1983)

Dan Brady witnessed the abduction of his wife, daughter and son at the hands of Satanists, who  took them for undisclosed purposes. They left him for dead in the first book, The Stalking. Yet he survived and discovered there was a dark organisation, Arachne, literally hell-bent on using his daughter’s nascent psychic powers.

In this book, Brady’s search for his family takes him to Norfolk, the fenlands where an ancient curse has been awakened by the enemy. The atmosphere that Faulcon creates is definitely spooky, and you’re certainly left guessing who is innocent and who is a depraved follower of Arachne.

It’s a tale told at a pell-mell pace and a worthy successor to the first book; gruesome and graphic in places. The origin of the Talisman is haunting and tragic, providing Brady with one more crucial yet confounding piece of the jigsaw.

Compelling storytelling: I’ve started #3, The Ghost Dance.

Note: Faulcon seemed to have a fixation with the letter ‘A’ when choosing characters for this story: Alison, Angela, Andrew, Agnes, Anita and Alan!

 

 

 

 

‘… Beautifully choreographed and delivered…’

Thank you to reviewer Rowena Hoseason for her thoughtful and insightful 7/10 review of The Prague Papers; an extract is shown below:

“There’s a nifty twist to this espionage adventure, set behind the Iron Curtain in the mid-1970s. The smart, sexy female protagonist isn’t just a rare survivor from Warsaw’s WW2 ghetto. Nor is she merely a highly skilled covert operative, brought up by the British to be extremely effective against the KGB. Tana Standish has one more thing going for her: psychic talents. There’s nothing outlandish in the psi-spy’s capabilities – they’re neatly underplayed, a talent which isn’t understood or entirely controllable but which frequently tips the odd in her favour.

“This mild shift into the land of ‘maybe’ is carefully contrasted with the grim, grey reality of life in Czechoslovakia in the Seventies, brought to heel seven years earlier by Soviet tanks, its citizens stifled by the relentless brutal mechanisms of an efficient totalitarian regime. An underground resistance cell has been compromised. Tana is assigned to put the network back together and use her special talents to ascertain if comms have been compromised, or worse. The result is a running chase through the back streets and sewers of Prague, where the protagonists barely taste their black bread and spicy sausage between violent and amorous encounters. This isn’t a slow-burn spy story a la Alan Furst where the tension builds over quiet encounters and long railway rides. Instead it’s more of a headlong hurtle through rapid liaisons and botched ops; there’s every opportunity for Tana to show off not just her psi skills but also her street savvy and close-quarters combat.

“For me, the best scenes are the one-on-one confrontations, claustrophobic closed room battles of expert second-guessing. There’s a superb fight sequence which takes place in a pitch-dark living room, where weaponless Tana must defend herself against an armed opponent using her memory, wits, senses and what falls to hand. It’s beautifully choreographed and delivered.

“… preceded by a simply chilling chapter, the best in the book, where Tana must marshal all of her mental strength to resist the worst that her opponents employ against her. I also thoroughly enjoyed the scenes in the Soviet psychic investigations unit. Likewise, the author’s attention to detail in his descriptions of Prague, and Tana’s cracking back-story, were superb….”

***

The review can be read on Amazon UK here

And a longer review can be read on the MurderMayhem&More site here

 

 

Saturday Story - 'The House of Aunty Berenice'

Wikipedia commons

 

 

THE HOUSE OF AUNTY BERENICE

 

Nik Morton

 

Purple was etched beneath her wide eyes. The slightly built girl in the shadowy doorway wore an eggshell-blue dress and apparently nothing else. Some people answer and look as if they're truly at home, in body and spirit; somehow, she didn't seem to belong, not here in this dilapidated house, not in shadow.

            'Hello,' Swan greeted her, conscious of his total lack of originality. He removed his brown trilby, reassured by the touch of the felt brim. Why be concerned about showing freshness to her, why impress a stranger? 'I'm looking for a Miss Winkworth - she used to live here...' What an utter mess he was making of it! Affected by the presence of this slip of a girl!

            She opened the door a little further, as though reluctant to admit daylight, anxious to preserve the shadows. He studied the silent puzzlement in her chestnut-brown eyes.

'I'm an investigator,' he began and withdrew a Perspex card. 'She's her late uncle's beneficiary...'

            Long auburn hair shimmering, she nodded and beckoned with slim fingers for him to enter.

Swan cast a final apprehensive look up at the shabby Georgian facade. Probably his over-active imagination, but he could feel the charged atmosphere, a palpable thing, as he stepped over the threshold.

What little wallpaper the hallway possessed was peeling off the damp walls, baring cracked alabaster. Cobwebs looped everywhere. Strangely, the air was not musty; it seemed chill, sharp, a smell like hoar-frost. Tangible. Air in suspension.

Her shapely body tended to flow beneath the dress; hips and buttocks rolled provocatively yet she appeared blissfully unaware of her sexuality, giving him the fanciful impression of someone fragile and unearthly.

Dust and grit moved under his feet.

He shouted: 'Wait!' Voice echoing. 'We can talk here!'

She turned, a crease of disapproval marring her brow. 'You should know better than to shout,' she whispered softly. 'Aunty will hear you. We don't want that, do we?' Her eyes lanced up at the flaking ceiling.

Inquisitively, he followed her gaze. 'Aunty?' he queried, unbuttoning his raincoat.

            'You're my Knight Errant. You need not trouble yourself with Aunty Berenice. She died two years ago...' And she turned gracefully on her bare feet and resumed her interrupted journey.

            Everything pointed to her being slightly mad, but he was curious. She spoke intelligibly: her mind seemed synchronised, for she said her aunt died two years ago, and that coincided with Abigail Winkworth's disappearance... Smiling to himself, he felt his revolver snug in its holster. She was small and harmless...

            At the end of the hall she waited by a woodworm-pitted door. Through the circular skylight, noonday sun played on her wan high cheekbones. Dust motes glided aimlessly in the sunbeam.

Dryness increased in his mouth as he noticed the dark aureoles of her breasts and the darker triangle beneath the flimsy dress. Yet she appeared unconcerned, innocent, and his cynical mind found that difficult to grasp.

Wordlessly, she took his hand warmly in hers. A kind of frisson traced his spine, tautened his stomach muscles. Was this feeling primitive, merely genetic pimping, or something more profound and spiritual? She led him into a bare sour-looking green room whose parquet floor was littered with cans of food. A naked light hanging on flex from a damaged ceiling rose lent stark illumination.

            Cut into the wall opposite was an archway, with a dark-stained wooden cellar-door secured by a rusty bolt. Chopped-up remains of a dining table and chairs were stacked against one wall. An axe rested against the fireplace tiles; the grate contained crisp black book-pages and furniture, while to the left stretched a ceiling-high bookcase, almost empty now, only a few books lying forlorn and well-thumbed, threatened-looking...

She must have read his features, for she said, 'I can't eat books, but they can keep me warm and cook my tinned food.'

            It was sunless in here, bleak. With an effort, he smiled and pointed to the bolted door. 'Is that the wine cellar? Have you a good vintage locked away, perhaps?'

            Her mouth twisted open. 'It - it's dirty,' she stammered, holding him back. 'Anyway, there's no light...'

            He shrugged, his joking having fallen quite flat. 'I was just curious.'

            'And the bolt's jammed,' she persisted.

            Though now mystified about the cellar, he switched the subject. 'Do you live entirely out of tins, then?' The concern in his voice was genuine. Lost waifs, scruffy urchins, hurt strays, he'd met them all - some were hysterics, others paranoid, and some were the real thing, emotionally damaged in a none too caring society. But over these last two years he’d hardened his heart against them all. Until now. At the moment, as she looked wide-eyed at him, he could feel his legs becoming jelly.

'Usually I get something out of the deep-freeze, but -' she sighed - 'that's jammed as well.' Her tone contained no plea for him to mend the freezer door. 'Besides,' she added, 'I like a change now and again - and the tins give me that.' Without warning, she sat down cross-legged in the middle of the floor. He was grateful to rest his quaking legs and knelt by her side. She gripped his hand tightly.

            Reflective, she jerked her head to one side, flicking wisps of hair from her eyes. No tide-marks, hair glistening and healthy, she seemed clean and content, but for the eyes... 'It's a fascinating room, when empty, isn't it?' Her eyes roamed over the ramshackle place. Not much furniture left to cook with, he mused. 'I've lived here three years now - not only in this room...' She gestured nervously. 'I mean the whole hunk of house. Hunk of house - do you like that?'

            'Yes, I do.' Her eyes shone at him, and he saw tears behind them, streams of emotion that had never trickled forth. She seemed so defenceless, so fragile. And, he feared, desirable...

            'My name's Mystique Recondite.'

            Where did reality begin and end with her? Still, the name suited her! 'What did you mean - your Knight Errant?' he asked.

            'I want to get away from this,' she suddenly confessed in a whisper and her eyes rolled as though aware of an indiscretion, 'this thing, this house...' The change in tone - and in allegiance - was disconcertingly abrupt, almost to the point of schizophrenia. Then it dawned on him that she had not been outside the house in those three years... No wonder she was so wan, so erratic, seeming less than sane.

Intrigued and a little scared, he felt his skin creep icily down his spine. Her grip tightened, nails digging into his palm. Clearly, underneath her cheerful uncaring manner she, too, was afraid of something.

'Mystique. Do you know the woman I'm seeking?' He was now anxious to get away, yet, perversely, he did not want to leave her alone here. 'Miss Abigail Winkworth - is she related to your Aunty, perhaps?' A crumb fell from the ceiling.

'Yes. But before I say any more you must promise you will never leave me, bring me back here.'

            Under normal circumstances he would have laughed, dismissed her demand as a demented plea, to be patronised only until the men in white coats arrived with a straitjacket. But he'd known her so long now, or felt he had, he could not deny or betray her. He nodded.

            'Promise!'

            The ceiling shook with her words. Crumbled and flaked.

            'I promise you'll never be left here.'

            She leaned forward, pouting. 'You have twisted the words.' Her lip curled back. 'It's like milking a reluctant cow to get you to say it!'

'All right, Mystique. I promise I shall never leave you, bring you back.' And he meant it. Mystique sighed contentedly. 'What's your name, Knight Errant?'

            'Alann - with a double en.' He smiled and sensed a change in the air, like a pressure-increase heralding a storm. Now the vile staleness of the discarded cans, of the age of the place, permeated his nostrils and throat and sickened him. As though some odour-shield had been withdrawn.

            He heard the unmistakable creaking of floorboards. Upstairs.

            'I like you, Alann,' he heard her say.

'I like you a lot.' Her vermilion lips curved. Engaging, yet incongruous at this time; tongue flicked, licking her lips.

Against his will, a lascivious stirring below his stomach began to warm his blood.

Hinges squeaked and her smile froze.

He followed her alarmed eyes. In some mysterious manner the cellar's bolt had loosened; the door swung slightly ajar. Fetid air floated out, a miasma that crossed the room and pressed against him.

The ceiling uttered a moan. Pieces of whitewash and cement dropped in little clusters, making a series of scratching sounds.

            'Aunty must be angry' he said and instantly regretted it.

            Mystique cried out, 'No, Aunty! Not him! Please! Not this one!' She jumped up, made to let go his hand. 'I won't let you!'

But he hung on: he didn't intend losing her.

Now the ceiling issued a monstrous belch. The green walls dulled, wan and indistinct.

His nostrils snatched some nauseous odour, reminiscent of a slaughter-house he once visited on a case.

Plaster cascaded onto the rubbish already there.

Mystique hesitated, despair clouding her eyes.

He clutched her hand tighter, fingers interlaced.

            The roof quivered, emitting a fountain of dust.

And the cellar door swung wide: a spectral light shone from within.

Tempted to seek shelter, he ran across the room with her, came up against the wall. But he held back, lest they become buried alive... Swan pressed her against the wall, close to his inadequate sheltering body.

            Hunks of house dropped in dribs and drabs, bounced on rubble. Clouds of choking dust leapt up only to subside and leap again. A rogue alabaster splinter pipped his shoulder.

            All he could hear was the trundle of falling debris. It grew into a deafening, continuous, horrible roar.

            As his watering eyes focussed on the beckoning cellar-entrance to his left he could see the spectral glow emanating from what appeared to be bones.

His head spun giddily as Mystique's words forcefully returned: 'Not this one! I won't let you!' The cellar was a trap.

            Something hard and jagged rapped his shoulder-blades. He experienced a cold trickle of blood as he felt the stabbing pain of Aunty Berenice's displeasure.

            Mystique stood immobile, eyes clamped shut. Dust stuck to the sweat on their faces, to his injured back.

His once-reassuring revolver pressed against his ribcage; he released a barking laugh on dust-flecked lips. What good was a gun against anything like Aunty Berenice? On the edge of hysteria, he laughed again. One moment the thunder bellowed, the air screamed; the next, an unreal deathly silence enveloped them.

            Only the centre of the ceiling had fallen.

            Unexpectedly, Mystique lifted her dusty lips to his. Her gesture was more thankful than coquettish.

'Thank you, Knight Errant, my Alann with the double en,' she said. 'When you laughed, she was beaten. There's been no laughter in this house for years.' Nor compassion, concern, love... Her eyes glistened. 'You see, you were my Knight Errant!'

He had no logical answer to that. But he believed instinctively that Aunty Berenice had been the beneficiary he'd sought. His client had referred to her as a sour, disillusioned old woman who thrived on hate and fear. She had destroyed her family and her children's lives, then vanished. Yes, she would have probably changed her name. But she could not change her nature: even in death she had endowed her house with her own brand of bitterness and spite. Even to the point of manipulating Mystique.

Yet he was no longer interested in client or job. Holding her hand, he recalled his promise. His heart pounded, and not because of their ordeal.

He now had no wish to break his promise, ever.

            Without so much as a backward glance they left the firemen and the police and the curious onlookers to sort out the shambles, to bar up the entrance and exits, to close the House of Aunty Berenice until it could be razed to the ground, removed forever from the world of Mystique Recondite.

 ***

Previously published in Dark Horizons, 1985.

Copyright Nik Morton 2014.

If you liked this story, you might also like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat (2013), which features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own words’.  He is also featured in the story ‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.

 

Spanish Eye, released by Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback and as an e-book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton/dp/1909841315/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399383023&sr=1-4&keywords=nik+morton

http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Eye-Nik-Morton-ebook/dp/B00GXK5C6S/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1399382967&sr=1-5&keywords=nik+morton