Occult Detective
Page 41
Vinnie looked around. “Perhaps you should stand over there,” he advised Ripper. “With your back to the wall.”
“We are plenty powerful,” Ripper told him. “Dark lords of the night and… stuff.”
“Can I quote you?” asked Annette sarcastically. “Beyoncé, I’m begging you, woman to woman, please… Ditch the loser!”
Beyoncé looked over at Ripper and thought about it.
“Perhaps if you kick a bit harder?” Vinnie advised the undead.
“Perhaps if we drink the chicks?” the vampire hacking at the brickwork snarled.
“Not without Ripper’s permission,” Vinnie told him. “You’re the slave. He’s the master. That’s how it goes.”
“I ain’t his slave!” Scab objected.
“You’re in my gang. You do what I say!” commanded Ripper.
“Right against that wall there,” Vinnie advised Ripper on safe spots. “Maybe holding a stake.”
Cracks appeared in the stonework. The blockage began to clear.
“You’ve warned your spawn of the things that can harm them, haven’t you?” Vinnie checked with Ripper. “Garlic, crosses, holy water, all of that.”
“Hey, we seen the movies,” the belligerent not-slave insisted.
Vinnie shook his head. “Being undead, it’s more than wearing leather coats and hair care product. There’s plenty to watch out for. Sacred rice, running water, holy wafers, church bells, whitethorn, pickles, mayonnaise, anything yellow…”
“You’re making that up!” Ripper objected.
“Really? Well, the yellow prohibition might be for Green Lantern power rings. But you don’t know, do you? You don’t even know how to transform into an animal. Or a weather phenomenon. Or a big truck.”
“That’s it. I’m gonna…”
The archway bricks collapsed. Behind was a deep chamber, carved with sigils.
“What the hell is in there?” wondered Annette.
“This became the tomb of Sir Marmaduke Runnagate Bannerworth, better known in the Victorian Penny Dreadfuls as Varney the Vampire.1 Well, here’s what was left of him after a close encounter with Mount Vesuvius.2 People were especially keen to keep his dust pretty much dusty. The carvings on the wall basically say, ‘And don’t come back’.”
“This is a real tomb!” one of the vampire girls said enthusiastically. “With a real stone coffin.”
“Sarcophagus,” Annette corrected her; she couldn’t stop herself.
“This may well be breaking and entering,” Mrs Blythely warned.
Vinnie pointed to the casket. “There’ll be Varney-dust in the bottom there. Whichever one of you wants the power should…”
“Hold on,” the arch-kicking Scab interrupted. “What d’you mean, whichever one? We all get the boost!”
Vinnie shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t all be the master-vampire. Haven’t you people ever seen Britain’s Got Talent? One of you spills his blood on the ashes – and it had better be vamp blood not human blood because otherwise you’ve got a very pissed elder vampire reforming instead and you do not want that to happen. You mix your ichor with the dust, lap it up again, and suddenly you know everything old Varney knew about undeading and you get the total upgrade package. And then you let us mortals go, like you promised.”
“Vinnie, you didn’t actually believe that part, did you?” Annette whispered.
“Hold on,” objected Beyoncé. “Ripper, Scab’s trying to bleed in the coffin!”
Vinnie winced. “Ah. We’ll just cower over in this corner until the vampire fights have finished, shall we?”
*
Ripper staggered to his feet, covered in the blood of his gang, torn, battered, but victorious. He dropped Scab’s torn-off head on the gore-spattered floor. “You were right, dweeb,” he told Vinnie. “Drinking vampire blood does boost me!”
“I don’t think that’s a proper diet for a person,” Mrs Blythely warned. “Not that I’m judging about anybody’s dietary choices but…”
“Vinnie, I thought you knew what you were doing,” Annette cut in. “So far you seem to have got rid of a pack of fairly useless undead and created one big nasty one.”
“He’s not big and nasty yet,” Vinnie warned her. “He hasn’t mixed his ichor with Varney’s ashes.”
“But now I shall,” the triumphant vampire proclaimed.
“Ripper…” Beyoncé called uncertainly. The gore and violence had left the girl shocked and sobered. She backed behind Vinnie.
Ripper ignored her. The blood-covered street punk hefted the stone lid easily now and tossed it across the room. One red gash later he had the sticky paste he desired.
“He’s done it,” Annette realised. “We’re dead now.”
“I… I don’t think this is a healthy environment for social work,” Mrs Blythely warned.
“I don’t think I want to date him any more,” Beyoncé admitted.
“Good,” approved Vinnie. “That was pretty much the whole reason for letting things go this far. Taking out the vampire wouldn’t have stopped you wanting to be undead. Or dead. So we had to go the long route.”
“By creating an ultra-powerful uber-vampire?” Annette critiqued.
Ripper swallowed down the gory mash. He seemed to grow and darken.
“You’ve just become a very serious undead,” Vinnie congratulated him. “Right up there. By now you probably know all about Don Calmet, and Summers, and Nosferos, and Vrykoulakos, and Graf Hertzog and all the rest, right back to the sinking of Mu. You’ve got all the powers of a major undead. You can probably read what it says on these walls.”
Ripper looked around, focussing on the signs, suddenly cringing. “Holy…!” he hissed.
“Yeah. Kind of like dogs can hear high-frequency sounds we miss, now you’re so powerful you can pick up on the wardings you just weren’t undead enough to notice before.”
Ripper shielded his eyes. “Kill you…”
“You might want to read the small print,” Vinnie pointed out. “The wardings that prevent a vampire from harming anyone in here? They’re right below the bit about you not being able to leave the room.”
Ripper leaped at Vinnie – and was hurled away with bone-shattering force. His body boiled where it hit the wall.
Annette took Beyoncé and Mrs Blythely and firmly led them out of the chamber. The vampire lunged after them, and was jerked back like a dog on a chain.
Ripper snarled at Vinnie. “You did this to me!”
“Yes I did,” agreed the jobbing occultist. “And do you know what? I was being kind.” He turned back to the steaming vampire and fixed him with a stare. “I could have led you to Vrykolakas the elder vampire, or to the Shrine of King Lud, or to the ghoul-tunnels under St Paul’s Cathedral. I could have taken you to the Laundry of Doom, or shown you what lies under St Guy’s Hospital. I could have brought you to the Tower of London and let the ravens shred you. I could have dropped you in the lair of the many-angled Sleeper Beyond Sanity! Or I could have got nasty! Because I Do – Not – Like amateurs preying on little girls, or bullies who think their power lets them do whatever they want.”
Ripper took a step back.
Vinnie took a breath. “So here you are. Trapped by your own power. All the strength and abilities of a vampire lord – and all of his limitations.” He turned to go, then added another piece of information. “You remember I said a proper vampire has to sleep in a coffin scattered with his graveyard soil? If he doesn’t return to that coffin by daybreak he’s destroyed. Nothing to do with sunlight, that’s just for newbies. With great power comes a whole new rule-book. You have to learn to manage your condition. Frankly I think you’d flunk the exam.”
“Wait…” Ripper gasped.
Vinnie checked his watch. “About three hours to sun-up. I’m guessing you didn’t stuff your pockets with your native earth? Ouch. Rookie mistake.”
Ripper lunged at him again. He really wasn’t a fast learner.
; Vinnie ignored him. He returned to Annette, Mrs Blythely, and Beyoncé, and headed back to the surface.
“I really don’t know where on the forms I’m going to put all of this,” the social worker fretted.
“Just tick the box at the bottom that says refer to the Thaumaturgist Royal,” Annette advised her. “Vinnie’s on his list.”
“How are you going to write this up for your paper?” Vinnie wondered nervously.
“Like my editor would believe this. Don’t worry. I’ll just do another story about delinquent youth, drink, and drugs. That’s always good for a few column inches.”
“I still get paid though, right? I’m pretty sure I’ll need to buy a clean pair of pants.”
They emerged through a grating on the Thames Embankment. Surprised rats scurried into the darkness.
“Sooo…” Beyoncé said to Vinnie, “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Yes,” Vinnie told her quickly. “Probably. Almost definitely. Sorry. I’m, um, needed elsewhere. Urgently. A call from, er, from the Vinnie-cave. I must go!”
He hastened back to his occult world of pacts and demons, where he was safe from fifteen-year old ingénues.
1. One of the earliest fictional vampire stories, Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood, appeared as a serial of 667,000 words from 1845-47, chronicling the torments of the Bannerworth family at the hands of Sir Francis Varney, who is strongly hinted to have been an ancestor depicted in an old family portrait and variously described as Sir Marmaduke Bannerworth and Sir Runnagate Bannerworth at different points in the text.
2. Varney the Vampire ends with the villain’s remorseful suicide into Mount Vesuvius, which is assumed will end his torment.
Author Dossiers
Mike Chinn
Deck the Halls
Mike Chinn has published over 40 short stories, from Westerns to Lovecraftian fiction; with all shades of Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction and Pulp Adventure in between. He’s scripted comic strips for DC Thompson’s Beano and late-lamented Starblazer digest; along with two books on how to write comics/graphic novels – which saw translation into several languages. The Alchemy Press published a collection of his Damian Paladin fiction in 1998, whilst he has edited SWORDS AGAINST THE MILLENNIUM (2000) and THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES (2012) and THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES 2 (2013) for the same imprint. He is presently working on a third volume in the PULP HEROES series, along with a Sherlock Holmes Steampunk mash-up for Fringeworks – in which he gets to send the famous detective to the Moon.
*
Russell Proctor
Freak Show
Russell Proctor is an Australian writer with two published novels, ‘Days of Iron’ and ‘Plato’s Cave’. I currently have a six-book contract with Permuted Press for a horror/fantasy series and sequels to my current books.
*
C.L. Werner
Memento Morbid
C. L. Werner’s credits include the Chaos Wastes books, the Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter novels, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy, and the Thanquol and Boneripper series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer World. You can find more about his work at vermintime.com.
*
Robert M. Price
The Avatar of Darkness
Robert M. Price edited Crypt of Cthulhu for 107 issues, then began putting together anthologies for Fedogan & Bremer, Arkham House, and Chaosium. And I am the host of The Lovecraft Geek podcast. Much of my fiction is collected in Blasphemies & Revelations.
*
Neil Baker
The Devil’s Mud Pack
Neil Baker is a filmmaker and animator and is also the owner of April Moon Books, a new independent publishing house specializing in horror, mythos and cutting edge childrens’ books. None of this bodes very well for his family’s well-being.
*
Christine Morgan
Matt Brimstone, P.I.
Christine Morgan’s stories have appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines. I have several books in print, both small-press and self-published. My next one, HIS BLOOD, will be out this spring from Belfire Press. I’m a regular contributor to The Horror Fiction Review and have recently begun making forays into editing projects for Daverana Enterprises and Fringe Works / Knight Watch.
*
Tim Prasil
An Unanchored Man
Tim Prasil’s Help for the Haunted: A Decade of Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mysteries (1899-1909) is available from Emby Press. He also writes audio drama, and his anthology Marvellous Boxes was produced and posted to the Web by The Decoder Ring Theatre. Two of those productions were selected for broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. His Chronological Bibliography of Early Occult Detectives has revised the standard history of occult detective, tracing it back to 1815. Along with other features and news about Tim’s writing, the bibliography can be found at timprasil.wordpress.com.
*
Lee Clarke Zumpe
That the Wicked Shall be Welcome
Lee Clark Zumpe has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy and speculative fiction since the late 1990s. His short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of publications such as Weird Tales, Space and Time and Dark Wisdom; and in anthologies such as Horrors Beyond, Corpse Blossoms, Best New Zombie Tales Vol. 3, Cthulhu Unbound Vol. 1 and Future Lovecraft. His work has earned several honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections.
An entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, Lee has penned hundreds of film, theater and book reviews and has interviewed novelists as well as music industry icons such as Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains and Alan Parsons. His work for TBN has been recognized repeatedly by the Florida Press Association, including a first place award for criticism in the 2007 Better Weekly Newspaper Contest.
Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit www.leeclarkzumpe.com.
*
David Annandale
The Broken Choir
David Annandale writes Warhammer 40,000 fiction for the Black Library, most recently the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos. I also write thrillers and horror fiction, such as the haunted house novel Gethsemane Hall. By day, I am a Senior Instructor in the Department of English, Film and Theatre at the University of Manitoba.
*
Joel Jenkins
The Vorpal Tomahawk
Joel Jenkins lives in the heron-haunted and sasquatch-bedeviled wilds of the Great Northwest. He has impersonated a ghost and was once nearly shot by the law for looking “intimidating”. His published work includes over twenty books in genres from science fiction and fantasy to guns & guitars and westerns. For a free ebook check out his website at JoelJenkins.net.
*
Justin Gustainis
Bump in the Night
Justin Gustainis is a college professor living in upstate New York. He writes fiction as a way to put off grading his students’ term papers.
*
Thomas Deja
Body of Proof
Thomas Deja’s work includes appearances in Betrayal on Monster Earth, PulpWork Christmas Special 2014, Shadow Legion: New Roads to Hell and multiple volumes of How the West Was Weird. You can find more about him and his work at:
welcometonocturne.blogspot.co.uk
*
D.J. Tryer
Trace
DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing and has been widely published in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA and elsewhere, most recently in Steampunk Cthulhu (Chaosium), Tales of the Dark Arts (Hazardous Press), Cosmic Horror (Dark Hall Press) and Serial Killers Quattuor (JWK Fiction), as well as in Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press), All Hallow’s Evil and Undead of Winter (both Mystery & Horror LLC) and Fossil Lake (Daverana Enterprises/Sabledrake Enterprises), and in addition, has two novellas available as eBooks, The Yellow House (Dy
natox Ministries) and Acting Strangely (Jazzclaw Publishing).
DJ Tyrer’s website is at djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk.
The Atlantean Publishing website is at:
atlanteanpublishing.blogspot.co.uk.
*
Scott Chaddon
The Red Brotherhood
Scott Chaddon an Alaskan, born and bred, artist and writer. I am presently working on my first novel.
*
Lizz C. Schulz
Wished Away
I grew up on a farm in Tennessee, where my favorite thing to do was wander in the woods and make up stories. I now live with my husband and cats in Columbia, South Carolina, where I am an avid role-playing gamer and proud geek-girl. I am eagerly awaiting the birth of our first child.
*
Antonio Urias
Cinder & Smoke
Antonio Urias is a New Yorker born and bred. He was raised on a steady diet of grapes and books, often fantasy, and spent an inordinate amount of time telling stories, often involving cowboys. Not much has changed in the intervening years. He still loves grapes. He still loves fantasy. And he’s still telling stories, though these days there are less cowboys. He has a few pieces published or upcoming in Mad Scientist Journal, SpeckLit, T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, and Apocrypha and Abstractions, and can sometimes be found at his blog at:
antoniourias.wordpress.com
*
Jason Andrew
Murder on the Feng Shui Express
Jason Andrew lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. He is an Associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Active Member of the Horror Writer’s Association, and member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories. His first short story, written at age six, titled ‘The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason’ was severely rejected. It also caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.