Icy Sedgwick's Blog, page 83

Tales of my London Trip: Part I

It's taken me a while, but I've finally gotten around to sorting out my photographs from my trip to London last weekend. I wanted to celebrate my birthday but I prefer weekends away to nights out, and there was an exhibition I wanted to see at the Museum of London, so the destination choice was fairly obvious...



Gemz and I travelled down on Friday, and we were staying in the Gloucester Road Holiday Inn. How's this for a creepy corridor? I put the photo on Instagram and a lot of people had visions of the Overlook. We were also amused by a 'what to do in an emergency' sign that included the line 'Do not panic'. Well that's us told, isn't it? What made the corridor especially weird was how low the ceiling is - I'm only 5ft 6ins and even I felt like I was having to duck.





Anyway. The whole reason I'd wanted to go down was for the Doctors, Dissectionists and Resurrection Men exhibition at the Museum of London up in Barbican. (We couldn't take photos in the exhibition so Gemz took this photo of the sign in the entrance). It was a fascinating exhibition, split into three areas. Bodysnatching came first, along with the tale of London's own bodysnatchers, known as Burkers (named after Burke and Hare). The bodysnatchers operated in the years prior to 1832, when bodies for anatomy lectures were scarce and difficult to come by through legal means. The next part of the exhibition was dedicated to the doctors, followed by the art of dissection. It was an interesting exhibition, featuring skeletons uncovered during excavations at the Royal Hospital in Whitechapel, and it left you aghast at the practice at bodysnatching, but aware that without such sordid acts, medical science might not have advanced the way that it did.





The Museum of London is a fascinating place to visit, telling the story of the city from its prehistoric origins, through its occupation by the Romans, and then through the Plague, the Great Fire, the War, and on into the Sixties and Seventies. There isn't much evidence of London's medieval past, let alone anything earlier, and much of their Jacobean architecture has even been demolished, but the museum does afford a good view of a section of London Wall, part of the defence wall built by the Romans to protect Londinium. Apparently the wall dates to the late second or early third century, between 190 and 225 AD.





Next up was the Science Museum, where I wanted to see an exhibition on alchemy (as you do). We also visited Google's Web Lab, where they were running various experiments where visitors could try out things in the exhibition, and other experiments were controlled by online users. It was predictably busy, and half of those experiments available for use within the museum seemed to be out of order, though I'm not surprised having seen the way a lot of people were just hammering on the machines with no idea of what they were supposed to be doing. The Science Museum isn't my favourite of all of the museums in London but they do have some pretty cool stuff, and considering it's free entry, it's always worth a visit.





On Saturday night we headed off to the Bank of England to do a ghost walk around the alleyways of the City of London. The photo on the left is the plaza outside the Royal Exchange. I used to work on the edge of the City, and the pub where I DJed is on Cannon Street, just along from the Bank of England, and I've always found the City to be a fascinating place. It's pretty much deserted after about 7pm, and it's surprisingly quiet on a weekend, and it's a place where the old brushes up against the new within the confines of the medieval City.





Our guide led us down Birchin Lane and into Birchin Court, where we saw the alleged sight of Ebenezer Scrooge's counting house in A Christmas Carol. The streets in this area are very narrow, running between tall buildings and giving you a sense of what our fair capital must have looked like in Dickens' day...albeit without as much sewage and filth in the gutter. So many tiny pubs and other gems are tucked away down these alleys and in these back streets, and it often makes me wonder how people come across them, unless it's by accident. If that's the case, what else could you accidentally stumble across?





We ended up in Fredericks Place, off Old Jewry, which was the site of a story about the Cripplegate Ghost. According to our guide, Alice Gilliford was living in this court when she died, and she was laid out for burial in her wedding dress, wearing her wedding ring. The sexton of the church decided to make off with the ring before she was buried...except the wife came to life just as he dug his knife into her finger. It turns out the woman was narcoleptic and was not dead, merely in a death-like coma, and the pain brought her round. She fled home through the streets carrying the lantern discarded by the terrified sexton, and became known as the Cripplegate Ghost even in her lifetime. She lived many more years and even had four more children before she finally passed away.





The walk also took in Guildhall, a fabulous building on Gresham Street that is the home of the City of London Corporation. Built in the fifteenth century, it's one of the few remnants of medieval London, and it's now a Grade I listed building - it's the only stone built building not owned by the Church to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666. Lady Jane Grey, the famed Nine Days Queen, was tried here for treason in 1553. The façade is beautiful enough on its own but what is perhaps more interesting is the fact that Guildhall stands on the site of Londinium's Roman ampitheatre. You can see the remains of the eastern approach to the arena if you descend into the basement below Guildhall Art Gallery, something I did a couple of years ago when I was in the area. Coming from the north east where we have Roman ruins aplenty, I'm never particularly phased by seeing them elsewhere, but I have to admit, seeing part of an amphitheatre is still rather impressive! Thing is, the area still feels thick with something, as those who fought and died in the arena haven't quite managed to pass on. It's definitely a very weird place, and the combination of a fairytale frontage and a Roman amphitheatre make Guildhall a great place to visit.





After the tour, we took a walk across to Leadenhall Market on Gracechurch Street. The market site dates back to the 14th century, providing another link to London's medieval past, and was originally a game, poultry and meat market. Now it sells all sorts and is even home to aPizza Express and Ben's Cookies. The current design dates to 1881,  and has appeared as Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, and was also used in The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. It was restored in 1991 and is now a Grade II listed building. I've been in before, a few years ago at Christmas, but the only time I think you can really appreciate it is actually at night when it's deserted.





Here's me posing by one of the pillars. I absolutely love Leadenhall Market, and I've got a bit of a thing about covered markets. They're just such a good idea, and the fact that they're covered gives them a feeling of permanence denied to regular markets. We used to have two covered markets in Newcastle, but the Green Market was turned into an extension for the main shopping centre, leaving just the Grainger Market, which has seen something of a regeneration in recent years. Places like Leadenhall Market become tourist attractions, not to mention fashionable, and it's an easy way to preserve little slices of history.





After Leadenhall Market we took a ride in the lift up to the roof of One New Change, the shopping and restaurant complex beside St Paul's Cathedral. Our ghost walk guide told us that one of the planning conditions for the complex was a viewing area, so they decided to use the roof, giving you amazing views of the Cathedral, and across the river to the likes of the Shard. I absolutely love St Paul's, designed by Christopher Wren after the previous cathedral was gutted during the Fire. Due to the cost of entry, I've never actually been in, but one of the days, I will have a look inside. Anyway, it was dark and very windy when we went up onto the roof of One New Change, and it was also raining, but I'm sure the view is astounding on a clear day.



The hour was growing late and the weather increasingly wild so we headed back to west London, and a truly horrendous late night trip to Tesco Express. If the zombie apocalypse had broken out, I don't think we would have noticed the difference.



I'll post the photos and write-up of our Sunday activities tomorrow...

Feedly as a Reader replacement

Last week I blogged about the move by Google to ditch Google Reader. I explained how I was looking for an alternative, and I was trialling Feedly, both on a desktop computer and on my Android phone. One of the reasons I chose Feedly was because it works as an extension through Chrome, whereas some of the other readers I looked at either charged a fee for a certain number of subscriptions, or others required you to download software and run the feeder through your machine. I access RSS readers on various machines, as well as my phone, so I needed something that worked across several platforms. In addition, Feedly allows you to log in to your Google Reader account so all of your subscriptions are already there, waiting for you to browse. I subscribe to over 200 blogs so any service which doesn't allow me to import those (Skimr had real problems with that) is already onto a losing wicket.



At first, I hated it. Feedly seems to prefer to display content by the date posted, assuming that you come back and read all of your outstanding posts on a daily basis. I prefer Google Reader's layout, letting you scroll by title and then browsing the titles of unread posts within each blog. I don't always get the chance to read every day, so a time-orientated layout is never going to suit me.



However, I decided to persevere, and I spent a little time during the week tinkering with my settings through the desktop version (these changes sync with the app version so whatever I do on my computer is reflected on my phone). I've set up categories, and dragged each blog I subscribe to into one of them, meaning I can quickly browse just those blogs related to writing, or history, or design etc., depending on what I want to read at the time. Even better, I could never read those blogs I subscribe to through Blogger in the Reader on my phone, but Feedly makes it easier to add them to my existing categories, meaning I can now read them on my phone too. Just this one little change has really affected how much I use Feedly.



I now find myself checking Feedly more often, and reading more posts that I did. Its inclusion of thumbnails with each post title makes it far more visually appealing than Google Reader ever was, and while nothing can top Google Reader for raw efficiency, Feedly is certainly impressing me enough that I have no real need to try any of the other readers.



Has anyone else given Feedly a go?

#FridayFlash - Frozen World

Jyximus Faire trudged along the street, cursing the weather as the snow seeped through the holes in his ancient boots. He couldn't remember the winter ever lasting so long before. The Underground City escaped relatively unscathed, its crumbling tenements kept warm by the smog of industry, but the City Above lay smothered by a thick blanket of white. The City mages were working flat out to clear it, but for every snowfall they repelled, two more broke through their defences. It reinforced Jyx's desire to specialise in Elemental sorcery - after all, nature was clearly stronger than the alchemy of the mages.



The huge iron gates to the Academy loomed ahead of him. A coach careered past, sending a spray of slush in its wake. The wet snow caught Jyx across the back, the soaked fabric sticking his threadbare cloak to his shirt. A head poked out of the coach's window, and Jyx recognised one of the prefects. The older boy smirked, and disappeared out of sight into the gloom.



Jyx slipped between the gates after the coach and left the driveway to cut across the lawn. The snow was deeper than it was on the road, but at least he wouldn't get sprayed by passing coaches, and his feet were already frozen. A few more minutes wouldn't kill him.



The lamps of the Academy glowed in the distance, and Jyx forced himself onward. He stumbled through snow drifts on the lawn, watchful for the low iron fence that marked the edge of the Ornamental Garden. Within a few minutes that felt like hours, Jyx saw the fence, and hurried towards it. Doctor Ermes kept the snow at bay in her garden, and only a thin crust of frost coated the twisting paths. Jyx hopped over the fence and stamped the snow from his boots.



The garden hummed with the low vibration of the Doctor's magic, entwined with the natural energy of the plants and trees. Jyx loved the garden, and couldn't wait until next year when they'd begin to study specific Botanical magick. He'd already read all of the books the library had but there was nothing like actually practising it - especially with an expert like Doctor Ermes.



A stream wound its way through the garden as it flowed from a spring beneath the Academy in the west and into the canals in the east. Jyx normally arrived at the Academy by canal but with the water frozen solid, he'd had to travel on foot. A narrow bridge carried the path over the stream.



Halfway across the bridge, a strange noise caught Jyx's attention. It sounded as though someone were pounding on glass and shouting to be heard. He looked around, but the nearest building was the Academy, and it was too far away for him to hear any of its occupants.



The pounding got louder and on a whim, Jyx looked over the side of the bridge. He saw movement below the ice, and he leaned over the rail to peer closer. The shapes below the ice moved like people, sliding to and fro like a crowd in Monument Square, but the water wasn't deep enough to hold people. Jyx had heard of lakes beyond the City where the water stole the reflections of any who dared to look into it - had Doctor Ermes enchanted the stream to do the same to ensnare unwary students?



He frowned. Capturing reflections was only one step up from the nefarious Shadow magick, and while he longed to try both of them, it wasn't right that innocent people were walking around without their reflections, especially not if they were students. He looked at the Academy, and back at the frozen stream. He was already an hour late - pausing for another five minutes wouldn't make any difference.



Jyx looked around on the bridge, and spotted a small pebble tucked in a hollow near one of the posts holding up the rail. He picked it up, wincing at the cold stone against his frozen fingers, and leaned back over the rail. He remembered a spell he'd seen in a book about Water magick, and now seemed the best time to try it. Jyx stretched out a trembling forefinger and drew a sigil over the ice. The light trail left by his finger pulsed a deep blue that grew lighter by shades the longer he stared at it. Once the light trail turned white, Jyx hurled the stone at the ice.



The ice cracked and the light trail faded. Jyx scowled, annoyed that the sigil had failed. He looked about on the bridge for another projectile, but it seemed the pebble was the only available missile.



The ice groaned. Jyx watched as the shapes congregated around the tiny fracture. The crack widened as they pounded on the underside of the ice. The air filled with a hideous cackle, and Jyx realised the laughter came from the trapped reflections. The crack heaved open and a jagged talon poked upwards out of the ice.

Panic seized at Jyx and he fled from the bridge. He didn't feel the pain in his feet as he plunged through the garden and broke out into the kitchen garden near the east wing of the Academy. The voices of students heading for the main building drifted through the air, and he ran in their direction.



Jyx reached the Academy and raced up the steps to the main doors. The other latecomers slipped inside, glad of the warmth in the entrance hall, but Jyx paused on the threshold, listening hard. A shiver unconnected to the weather ran down his back as the faint echo of a cackle drifted on the breeze.



Jyx hurried inside, hoping that Doctor Ermes would never know.




* * *


Jyximus Faire is the protagonist of my work in progress, The Necromancer's Apprentice, and I thought you might appreciate an introduction to the world above my Underground City. The other City flashes can be found here.

[Book Review] Mojo Queen and Red House

I don't normally write reviews of more than one book at once, but considering how close together I read these two, and the fact that they're the first two books of a series, then I thought I'd make an exception for the phenomenally talented Sonya Clark.



Mojo Queen and Red House are both about paranormal investigator Roxanne Mathis, who just so happens to be a practicing witch. Often aided and abetted by her ancestor, vampire Daniel, Roxie spends Mojo Queen doing battle with a demon summoned into a young woman, while in Red House, she's fighting to clear a B&B of malevolent spirits. In both books, she's both frustrated and tempted by Blake the Sexy Sorceror, a devillish young man with a penchant for chaos magic.



I don't normally read paranormal romance but these books are closer to urban fantasy, and there's enough of the cool energy-blasting and ghost busting to make me rather keen for the next instalment, Hoodoo Woman. Roxie is a strong and independent heroine, with a taste for the blues and a capable streak that made me warm to her pretty much instantaneously, and Daniel is one of the coolest vampires I've come across in a very long time (he's in the same league as my beloved Xan Marcelles). Even though Blake is by turns an arrogant so-and-so and a dangerous man, he's also Very Sexy and the type of hero someone as strong as Roxie needs. He doesn't save the day, just lends a hand when she needs it.





I think a lot of books related to witchcraft could suffer in the wake of movies like The Craft, or TV shows like Buffy, and it's nice that the female protagonist is granted power of her own, to do with as she will. Roxie chooses to use it to help people, by clearing houses of unwanted spirits, rather than using her power for personal gain. There is little in the way of religion here, as Roxie forges a strong bond with the natural world, and she's such a positive, normal character that I couldn't help but like her.



I met Sonya on Twitter, and after reading some of her Friday flashes on her blog, thought I'd give Mojo Queen a go. I read it in a matter of days and treated myself to Red House just after Christmas, a book I read in about four sittings. Sonya writes in such a way that it's nigh-on impossible to put her books down, and her world-building is incredible - it feels both painfully real, and delightfully otherworldly at the same time. Roxie has a clear, straightforward narrative voice, and she's very easy to root for. The combination of the supernatural and other cultures makes for interesting reading, and I keep wanting to look up all of these other forms of practice for extra reading.



I can't actually recommend them enough, so it's fairly obvious they get a 5 out of 5 blunt pencils!



You can buy Mojo Queen here, and Red House here.

Goodbye Google Reader

I was more than a little surprised when I logged into Google Reader on Thursday to be confronted with a message that the service would be closing in July, apparently due to a "lack of use". I haven't been keeping up with things so hadn't heard rumblings of this, but apparently it's been slated for a while.



It's been a pain trying to find a viable alternative - I'm currently testing out Feedly because it lets you keep ALL of your Google subscriptions (something Skimr had problems with) but I don't like its layout compared to Google Reader. I subscribe to over 200 blogs and it can be a nightmare trying to keep up with everything when posts are listed by the day they were posted, not by blog title (unless there's a way to change the setting that I haven't found yet).



But I never really considered it as being any more of a problem than that until I read a Problogger post on the subject. As they point out, many people visit blogs by using readers, so will a lack of a viable reader cause a downturn in blog traffic?



I never really look at my analytics, but I checked for March so far, and it turns out that none of the referring sources for my blog visits came from Google Reader. It was mostly tweeted links, Facebook posts via networkedblogs or Google+. A couple of visits came via Google searches but while the analytics tell me that I have subscribers, they don't visit the blog - perhaps they just read the posts in the Reader. So how will those readers access my content after Reader closes?



I like Google, I do, and while I don't miss Google Wave or Feedburner, I will miss Google Reader because of its efficiency and ability to get the job done. Will Feedly be able to take its place? Only time will tell!



What readers, if any, do you use?

#FridayFlash - The Unsaid Warning

The young man shuffles into the work room wearing the familiar despondent look. He looks at the floor and fiddles with the cuffs of his frock coat. Delta looks him up and down while his attention is fixed on the rug. His fine clothes and tidy hair give him away as a visitor to the Underground City - it would take saving for several years before many of its inhabitants could even afford his boot laces.



"What can I do for you?" asks Delta, although she already knows why he is here. There is only one reason why anyone ever visits her.



"I was, er, told that you, ah, have abilities," replies the man. He will not meet her gaze, though she cannot decide if this is through embarrassment or shame.



"I do indeed, but it depends which of them you want. What brought you down to Limestone Alley?"



The young man finally looks up, and tears fill his brown eyes. Delta clucks and steers him to the reclining chair by the window. A gas lamp on the wall outside affords little light, and she lights fat pillar candles on the sill. The young man eyes the battered chair with suspicion, but she motions for him to sit.



"My price is a shilling," she says.



"So small a price!" says the young man.



"Then you accept. Excellent. I'll have to ask you to open your shirt a little."



She turns away and gathers her supplies while the young man removes his silk cravat and unbuttons his shirt. Even the skin of his chest bears the pale golden glow of one used to sunlight. Delta glances at her own hands, so white even in candlelight.



"This will sting a little," she says, turning back to perch on the stool beside the chair.



"Compared to the pain I feel now, it will be nothing."



He lies back and closes his eyes, but Delta notices his knuckles turn white as he grips the arms of the chair. She whispers a soothing lullaby, learned at her grandmother's knee when she lived with the coven, and sets to work.



The young man gasps the first time the needles touches him, and he bites his lip to keep from complaining. Delta's needle flashes back and forth, pulling the thread between her neat row of stitches. Moments later, the work is done, and she draws a sigil in the air above the young man's chest.



"Oh my!" The young man looks down at his flawless chest, and presses a hand to his breastbone. The haunted, faraway look has fled from his eyes, replaced by warmth and friendliness. His handsome face cracks open in a broad grin.



"I take it sir is pleased?"



"I am most impressed, my good woman!" He clambers out of the chair and does a jig across her narrow room.



"I am glad, sir." Delta tidies away her tools while the young man marvels at his reclaimed love of life.



"You are a true marvel, really you are. Next time I have my heart broken, I shall know where to come!" He presses a shiny shilling into her hand and skips out of the room before Delta can stop him.



She thinks of running after him, but the sound of his footsteps has faded by the time she reaches the door. Her warning dies on her lips and she sits in her chair by the small grate, pulling her knitting into her lap. She knows he will return when he realises that a mended heart will never break again - but nor will it love.




* * *


This is another of my stories set in the Underground City, the setting of my work in progress, The Necromancer's Apprentice. You can access the others here!

Read an Ebook Week - The Results

I'm not usually in favour of writers who post statistics, but I tried an experiment recently, and thought I'd blog about my results. I decided to make both The First Tale and Checkmate & Other Stories free for the duration of Smashwords' Read an Ebook Week, and I kept a tally of how well downloads went. After all, I don't get that many downloads via Smashwords, so I wondered if the combination of making the books free and taking advantage of a promotion might boost the numbers.



In total, 27 people downloaded The First Tale, while 27 people downloaded Checkmate & Other Stories - naturally, I have no way of knowing if the same twenty seven people downloaded both titles, as not all of the receipts featured both books. The promotion began on March 3rd and I didn't make them free until March 5th, but I don't think that made a massive amount of difference in the long run. Even within a couple of hours of making them free, I'd had more downloads than I have done in months, so that was a bonus. However, I did notice a flurry of downloads whenever I tweeted the link, although I have no way of knowing if it is a link on Twitter that impels people to download books, or the inclusion of the word 'free'.



But what next?



Hopefully, the people who downloaded the books will enjoy them. Entertaining readers is my prime goal when writing, so I hope they come back to leave reviews to help other readers decide whether or not they want to read them too. However, it's all too easy to ignore a downloaded book if it has been free, since there's no financial impulse to read what has been purchased. There's no guarantee that a download will equal a book read. After all, I made Dead Man's Hand available for free upon release for five days in September 2012 and had 86 free downloads - and gained a single review.



I'm of the school of thought that it's not unreasonable to want to make a living writing - you wouldn't expect to go to a craft fair and pick up a hand-knitted scarf for free, so why should a book be free when time and effort has gone into its production as much as it would a physical object? I hope that the downloads lead to further purchases down the road - after all, if I've entertained you with Checkmate, might I not also entertain you with The Necromancer's Apprentice? Amanda Palmer might blather on that artists shouldn't expect payment as a matter of course, but should rather make their work available for free in the belief that true supporters will donate, but I've had a donate option on my blog for a couple of years now and I am yet to see any donations. I must point out, I'm not asking you to do so now, merely making the point. Amanda Palmer can afford to follow such a route but independent writers at the start of their career just don't have the same fanbase.



Of course, I don't have any other titles on offer at the moment so it could be that whoever downloads the books never comes across anything of mine again, but I suppose I'd rather they were downloaded for free and enjoyed than passed over entirely. I just hope that those who downloaded them enjoy them.

#FridayFlash - Black Dog

My name is Samuel Phipps and I offer my position as a clerk within a firm of engineers as testament to my sanity. I can offer no other evidence as to the veracity of the events which I am about to relate, other than the testimony I shall lay before you.



I was staying with my brother in a small Norfolk village; he has been recently married and I had promised to visit with him and his dear wife. On the night before I was due to take my leave, bound once more for London, I had been visiting another friend on the edge of the town. My brother could not make the visit due to illness, and I found myself in a position of having to leave my friend's lodgings without arrangements for transportation being made.



It is not so large a village that one feels compelled to travel by coach, or even horseback, and at that moment in my visit, both were extravagances which I could ill afford. I deemed it prudent to make the short journey on foot, and took my leave of my gracious host. Moments before I left, he offered the suggestion that I might shorten my return journey by some ten minutes or so by cutting through the graveyard, instead of following the meandering lane. I thanked him for his suggestion, and stepped out into the cold March air.



I had not gone three paces when a small hand tugged on my arm. I am not accustomed to frights, or extended indulgence of my imagination, but the suddenness of the act startled me. I looked down and saw that the hand belonged to that of my friend's maid. She had been returning to the house from the chicken coop when she heard my friend's suggestion, and she begged me to ignore the advice, and take my intended route. I told her that I wished to return home and if my friend's suggestion would allow me to do so all the quicker, then I would follow it. She told me that the graveyard was the haunt of the infamous 'Black Shuck', and she pleaded with me to take the longer route, "all the better to avoid 'im". The little maid seemed convinced that my soul would be lost should I encounter the beast, seen only in the graveyard on nights such as these, and I saw no way to placate her that would not involve a lie. I assured her that I would take the long walk instead, and left her clasping her hands in gratitude.



I am not a man prone to such notions, but I regretted my choice the instant I set foot in the graveyard. A narrow gate admitted me in the rear wall, and a winding path cut a swathe between a host of stones. I normally find such places to be fascinating records of human experience, but with a cold wind at my back, and frost in the air, I found I had little time to read the stones. I fancied I heard footsteps, yet when I turned my head, I saw nothing in the moving shadows.



Something howled in the darkness behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to discover its source. The path was empty. I heaved a sigh of relief and turned back to the path ahead.



A large black dog blocked my way. Around three feet high, it stood perhaps seven yards away, with ragged fur and enormous paws. Red eyes burned in its impassive face, its features akin to those of a mastiff. It did not snarl, or bare its teeth as I feared it would. It regarded me with vague interest, but I sensed no real malice on its part.  I recalled the fevered words of the maid and wondered if this was the Black Shuck of which she spoke. I found I could not move, bound to the spot as I was with fright.



The dog walked along the path towards me, carrying itself with the dignity one more associates with cats than dogs. It regarded me all the while with its red eyes, and I could not even close my own to prevent my seeing its approach. Some nefarious agency kept my eyes wide open. The dog sniffed my hand in the manner of any normal hound, and lifted its gaze to meet my own. I saw nothing in its eyes, no danger or evil, nor willful defiance of the Lord. The dog simply...was.



With no warning, it stood on its hind legs, and pressed its paws against my chest. I would have started for I felt no weight behind the gesture, no sudden movement that may cause me to stumble backward. The dog gazed into my eyes, and let out a single bark. An instant later, my eyes closed and I regained control of my limbs. When I opened my eyes, the dog was gone, and I was alone in the graveyard.



I hurried home, and arrived at the same moment that I surely would have done had I taken the longer route. I did not tell my brother or his wife of my ordeal, and I retired to bed, pleading a headache. I did not wake for two days, and when I finally did awake, my brother's wife explained in halting terms that the coach I was to have taken overturned on the journey, killing its occupants.



I returned to London a day later, somewhat fearful of the coach, and discovered that a fire destroyed my lodgings on the day I should have returned. A host of such tales played out before me, and soon my acquaintances congratulated me on my run of good fortune. I smiled and shook their hands, agreeing in turn, but I could not bring myself to speak of the events in the graveyard, nor tell of the two mysterious marks that had appeared on my chest, marks shaped like those of cloven hooves.

Read an Ebook Week - Free books!

It's Read an Ebook Week over on Smashwords, so I've made my two self-published titles FREE between now and March 9. Simply enter the code "RW100" at the checkout to get the titles for free - they normally cost 99c. Remember, this offer finishes on Saturday. You can choose between The First Tale, and Checkmate & Other Stories.





The First Tale

A vaguely steampunk adventure, set in the fictional city of Vertigo. The Resistance is pitted against the shadowy Weimar Corporation that runs the City. Their stalemate is broken by the death of a suspected infiltrator, setting Resistance Commander Liss Hunt and her bewildered companion Philip Wiseman on a journey into the depths of both organisations to discover the truth behind who - or what - is really running the City. Featuring automatons, mad scientists, chases, a gun-toting heroine and even the Living Dead, The First Tale is a short novella that proves people are not always what they seem.



It's had one 5* review on Amazon, where you can still buy it for $1.17 if you want to purchase instead of downloading for free on Smashwords.





Checkmate & Other Stories

This collection features fifteen previously published stories, published across the space of two years, spanning fantasy, horror, sci-fi and speculative fiction. Among other things, Bleed Them Dry puts a new spin on vampires as corporate moguls, talking corpses tell their side in The Dead Do Listen and and a devilish game of chess goes apocalyptically wrong in Checkmate. You can read a sample of The Dead Do Listen as a Friday Flash, here.



It's had two 5* reviews on Amazon, where you can still buy it for $1.17 if you want to purchase instead of downloading for free on Smashwords.



I hope you check them out, and if you do...I hope you enjoy them!

#FridayFlash - Don't Look Back

A man broke into our house when I was nine. My dad was away on business - at least, that's what Mom told me. I found out later he was visiting his new girlfriend in Hackensack. Anyway. This man broke in. Turned out he'd been stalking Mom for weeks - the papers later called him the Machete Killer. They were never imaginative with names. He chased her around the house, and the noise woke me up. Mom tried to get me to leave, to go and get help. I ran across the lawn, lights already coming on in the neighbouring houses. Mom screamed and I looked back. I saw why they called him the Machete Killer.



At Mom's funeral, some mad aunt I'd never met before told me the story of Lot and his wife, as if I was somehow to blame for looking back. That guy would have killed my mom whether I was looking or not but I got the point. Don't look back. I never have.



I blamed my dad for not being there, so I went to live with my uncle. He took little interest in me so I sort of drifted through life. I walked out of high school on the last day - everyone else was hanging around, making plans for things to do. I left and never looked back. I met a girl in college, dated her for a while, but she couldn't decide between me and the captain of the football team. I broke up with her in the street, and left her crying on the sidewalk. I never looked back. I got a job in a law firm, did reasonably well, and after a couple of years, decided I wanted to be a writer. I quit, and packed up my few things in a cardboard box. I walked out of the building, and didn't look back.



I got a job in an occult bookstore to pay the rent while I worked on my novel. The owner did weird stuff in the backroom while I minded the store. I never asked what - I just didn't care, as long as I got paid. Earlier today I accidentally walked in while he was busy, found him stood in the centre of a circle of salt, chanting mumbo jumbo and waving something around that looked like a thigh bone.



I just left work, and I'm walking towards the subway. Footsteps echo in the street behind me, footsteps that match mine. I speed up, they speed up. I slow down, they slow down. I cross the street, they cross the street. Except now they're getting closer. I can feel hot breath on the back of my neck, hot breath that smells like something crawled into a hole and died.



But it's okay. If I don't see it, it isn't there.



I won't look back.



(Original photo by ColinBroug, edits by me)