by Zoe Drake
“No, there’s an old pond down there, behind the church. It’s much closer.”
With the vicar leading, they walked down a footpath overgrown with weeds and brambles, and eventually they came to a gate, leading to a large, roughly oval-shaped pool, lying at the edge of the dark brown fields that spread away to the horizon.
Gareth took several deep breaths.
“Are you ready?” asked Rose.
“Yes, Michael.”
Gareth sighed. “Let’s do things properly this time.”
He reached out to grasp the vicar’s hand, and together, they launched themselves off the edge of the pond, their legs stepping wide to propel them outwards.
They hit the water with a resounding splash, droplets slapping their faces and shirts. They sank up to their thighs and remained standing, even though the muddy bed caused them to slip a little before they found secure footing.
Rose turned to Gareth, and placed his left hand on top of Gareth’s head. Beneath the gentle pressure of the vicar’s hand pressing downwards, Gareth bent his knees and felt himself once more being swallowed up by the water. It closed around his head, rushing into his ears, lightening his limbs. After a few seconds, he stood up again and broke the surface, the pond water streaming from his face and clothes. It was cold, but not as cold as the ghostly chill of last night.
Gareth heard the priest’s voice ringing out, confident in the morning air. The language was archaic and unfamiliar, but somehow Gareth understood each and every word. The incantation triggered something deep inside him, building up inside him like the onrush of a fever. He began to join him, his mouth opening and the words tumbling out unbidden, rising into the air and floating away over the fields.
When the priest’s voice paused, Gareth lifted his head. Rose was staring past him, over the other man’s shoulder. Gareth turned his head to follow his gaze.
The church had become a lighthouse.
Something rested on top of the spire, something so bright that Gareth could not look at it without shielding his eyes, but below it something was happening to the church. The stone, the brick, the very fabric of the church itself was gleaming with a hard, coruscating shine, like the furnace that burns at the heart of a diamond. Gareth felt the rays of light caught and reflected by his aching, prismatic heart. Around the church, dozens of glowing spheres were materializing in the air, swaying, weaving, high above the grass.
The two men stood waist deep in water, transfixed by the glowing wave that rolled towards them.
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Turn the page for more of my work – an exclusive excerpt from the occult supernatural chiller, The Mists of Osorezan…
THE MISTS OF OSOREZAN
by Zoe Drake
Chapter One:
The Book of the Veils
Ahead of them lay the island of San Michele, the Isola di Cimitero. The sight filled Professor Weiss with memories of things that wouldn’t stay dead.
The Vaporetto waterbus sped on its way through the calm waters of the lagoon, Weiss and Mendelson both standing up on the starboard side, holding onto the railings. The breeze and the chill metal against his fingers made Weiss feel cold despite the early July heat. With his other hand, he held on to his Panama hat, squinting against the sunlight breaking through the lemon-colored mist over the lagoon. Not many passengers at this time of day; only a few middle-aged men and women carrying bunches of flowers. Paying their respects before catching the last ferry home.
For over two centuries the island had been the resting place of the people of Venice, but a resting place not as final as others. After ten years, unless their family was incredibly rich or powerful, the bones of each individual were interred and placed in the Ossario, the collection of marble urns on the south side of the island. Interred to make way for a new occupant.
“They call this place the Island of No Return,” Eric Mendelson said.
Weiss gave his friend and colleague a disparaging look. “Might as well call it the Island of the Revolving Door.”
Eric Mendelson hadn’t changed much. He was in his mid-sixties now, but with his tanned skin and clear eyes he looked twenty years younger. He was dressed in a casual shirt, a light summer jacket, Bottega Veneta sunglasses against the late afternoon glare. There was now more grey than black in his beard, but he still had the build of a rugby player.
He had weathered better than the slightly older Benjamin Weiss. The Professor’s hair, although still long and thick, was now completely white, and his tall, willowy figure had a slight stoop. And the pain, Weiss thought. Does he get it as badly as I do? The ulcerated insides? The stomach cramps and nausea as the years of service to the elders slowly took their toll?
“Why couldn’t we talk about this back at the hotel?”
“This is something that you have to see with your own eyes, Benjamin.”
Ahead of them, the island of San Michele crept closer and closer. It was a stretch of land completely enclosed by an orange brick façade, the outline broken at regular intervals by casements holding tall pointed windows. Behind the walls, thick green trunks of cypress trees stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing aloofly away from the island like sentinels. An elaborate Gothic portal hung in the center of the façade, its white surface stained and weathered by the waves of the centuries. A vague but tangible aura of loneliness hovered over the whole place.
Weiss pointed to the northwest. “Isn’t that the island of Murano over there?”
“The famous Island of Glass, yes. Fra Mauro kept his workshop in Murano, but there’s something in the cemetery I’d like you to see first.”
“Gosh, Eric, I never could resist an invitation like that.”
Weiss had been in Venice for perhaps two hours. He had arrived at the Bauer Hotel, and found Mendelson waiting in the lobby. We’re in luck, Eric had said, there’s still a ferry service operating until four-thirty, and he had escorted the confused Professor to the hotel side door leading out to the canal, where gondolas and water taxis were called for their passengers. “A short cut to the Vaporetto stop,” he’d said, “I’ll explain when we get there.”
The waterbus sailed around the left side of the island and docked at a jetty with signs saying Isola di Cimitero. The passengers stepped carefully over the iron gangway leading to the damp planks of the jetty.
“Eric, I don’t mean to grumble, but we both know that the Jewish cemetery isn’t here, it’s over on the Lido. What’s this place got to do with me specifically?”
“Be patient, Professor.”
The small group of people, Weiss and Mendelson at the back, walked through the main entrance, past a small church, the Chiesa di San Michele, into the cemetery proper.
It was a garden. A garden of white stone crosses in neat, tightly packed rows separated by walking paths and lines of cypress. As they strode down one of the paths, Weiss noticed that almost all the crosses had freshly cut flowers lying beneath them, and many had tiny photographs of their occupants next to their names. Weiss took off his hat, embarrassed under the scrutiny of so many of the distinguished Gentile deceased. To the north, the lowering sun, death’s rainbow, blazed naked through the windows of the Gothic portal, setting them aflame.
The cemetery was divided into sections by high brickwork walls, curving away into the trees. Mendelson indicated a path to the left, but Weiss halted him with a hand on his friend’s arm. “Eric, you look tired. Is that something to do with what you want to talk about?”
Mendelson looked surprised and shook his head. “Not really.”
“You look a little worried.”
“Yes, I’m worried, but… well, how about you? How are you enjoying your retirement from active service, Professor?”
“I’m fine. University budget meetings and questions from other scholars on the finer points of early Aramaic literature. Things couldn’t be more relaxing.”
<
br /> “You’re lying, Benjamin.”
“Yes, but so are you.”
They looked at each other and both laughed at the same moment.
As they walked, Weiss could see that the walls were comprised of what he could only describe as tombs – contiguous, marble-topped crypts that lay at the foot of lavishly carved tombstones, each the size of a grown man, flush into the surface of the wall. The only sounds that broke the silence were the crunching of their footsteps on the pebbled paths, and the humming wake of the waterbuses beyond the walls, passing by on the way to the next island.
“Well then,” said Mendelson, “Time to disappear.”
He took from his inner jacket pocket a small pouch of black silk. Opening it, he produced a square of waxen paper with an ornate sigil drawn upon it – a sigil that Weiss recognized as the Sixth Pentacle of the Sun. He held it up to the gentle breeze, and whispered a sentence in Hebrew.
Weiss indicated a bench over to their left. “Why don’t we sit down while we’re waiting?”
The last Vaporetto left at five thirty. A few moments before, the warden from the ferry walked through the cemetery on his rounds, making sure there was nobody left behind on the island. Weiss and Mendelson sat on the bench, concealed by the power of the Sixth Pentacle; the warden walked past them without giving them a second glance.
Venice, Eric had once remarked of his adopted home, is a city of masks. The bright carnival colors are only there to hide the decay. The undead sorcerer Casanova had worn such a mask. A featureless, gleaming white Buotto covered what was left of his face as he shambled through the sewers of Venice in creaking leather. Holding himself together through the incantations in the books stolen from Count Cagliostro in the late eighteenth century. Seventeen years ago – the last time Weiss had been called to Venice – he, Mendelson and three other agents of the Lamed Vav had finally cornered Casanova in a stinking tunnel beneath the Palazza san Marco, up to their waists in filthy water.
I left all of that behind me, thought Weiss. Or I assumed I had…
“Horror on a grand scale, this book has secret societies and conspiracy theories, mysterious ailments, and legendary monsters all twisted together in… a story you won’t want to put down!”
= Review by Marjorie, from “Vine Voice”
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“The Mists of Osorezan: Nihon Gothic Book 1”
by Zoe Drake, a supernatural thriller set in London,
Venice and the Japanese countryside!
ALSO BY ZOE DRAKE:
DEAD HAND CLAPPING
A bizarre serial killer stalking his prey through Tokyo’s sleazy night life…
An innocent man arrested for the murders…
A dedicated police officer searching for the real killer…
A young girl with psychic visions of approaching disaster…
Four lives are about to collide, and the shock waves will tear Tokyo apart.
“‘Dead Hand Clapping’ is a well-crafted thriller that takes the reader deep inside a dark, dangerous Tokyo. In vivid prose, Zoe Drake has crafted a multi-leveled crime thriller that is vast in scope. A troubled Scottish man, Ian McKenna, comes to Japan for the funeral of his expat father… only to end up being arrested for the gruesome murder of a young woman. The story is filled with twists, turns, shocks, and more, all as Drake takes us realistically through the mean streets of Tokyo.”
– Five-star review by Davalon, Amazon.
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“Dead Hand Clapping – Nihon Gothic Book 2”!
DARK LANTERNS
A city of 13 million people. 12 months of the year. 4 seasons. 15 short stories.
In these spine-chilling tales we meet 15 residents of modern Tokyo; businesspeople, high-school students, laborers, foreign exchange students, chefs, gangsters, down-and-outs…
Each of them will encounter one of the Yokai – the supernatural creatures immortalized in Japanese myths, legends and folk tales. Some of them will survive the experience. Some of them will not.
All of them will be changed forever.
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Acknowledgements
The quotation in Chapter 24 was taken from pages 298-299 of Catching the Light: the Entwined History of Light and Mind by Arthur Zajonc, reproduced by kind permission of Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers Ltd.
I would like to thank everyone involved in the creation of Cold Skies. This story has been a long time coming, and I am truly glad that you shared the journey with me by reading this far.
I would love to know what you think. Please get in touch with me through my Facebook page or the Excalibur Books website, and I would be truly grateful if you could leave a review on Amazon. Reviews are the lifeblood of indie authors!
Until the next book…
Zoe Drake.