Chapter 1
Chapter 2
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Other booksThe Daughter of Chaos trilogy
Eversong
Shadojak
Ethea
Dylap
Darkest Wish
Dedication
For my Scrumpy
PROLOGUE
Two years earlier
The naked limbs of a willow whipped savagely at Norgie’s body as the wind slapped rain against his face. Screwing his eyes against the weather, he searched for a way inside the derelict town house; seeking refuge from the relentless storm that battered the foul night.
Stooping low to avoid being stung by the tree, Norgie stumbled over the dilapidated lawn to a cellar window. He kicked it through with the heel of his boot, the sound drowned out by the watery night, then crawled through the gap. His belt buckle caught on the frame, holding him like a worm on a hook before he wriggled through and flopped to the concrete floor within.
Damn, if it wasn’t the wettest night he had ever had. Struggling to his feet he shook the excess water from his heavy clothes.
Norgie wasn’t a man for indoors, not even in the harshest of winters - yet this storm was something else. His age was beginning to show; living on the street will do that. It adds years to your face whilst stealing them from your life. Still, for a homeless guy, he wasn’t doing all that bad and he had a couple of yellow teeth in his black gums to prove it.
A dank smell of mulch and turps permeated the cellar. Adding to the aroma was dust, mouse droppings and something unpleasant and pungent which he recognized yet couldn’t put a name to. It tickled his nose and made him uneasy. It was a world apart from the fresh autumn air he should be relishing, as he lay merrily on a park bench by the river.
People would call him homeless, a bum, a dreg on society. He would call himself a ‘free man’. No commitments, no dead-end job or boss to slave for, no debts, no responsibility. Just himself, the earth and sky. Waking up each day with no worries and the freedom to wander where his heart would lead. A free man; albeit a wet one.
Soft amber light from a street lamp filtered through the fractured window, casting a hypnotic effect against the far wall and creating strange shadows from the objects on the floor. The effect would have been relaxing if it wasn’t for the dead cat laid at his feet.
The feline had been torn open. Grey guts spilling out to the open air as dry eyes stared up at him, tongue hanging dark and limp from a gaping mouth
Norgie reached inside his coat and retrieved a bottle of Captain Morgan. He took a swallow of the rum to wash down the rising bile in his throat. That explains the stench then, he mused.
Smaller objects appeared as he grew accustomed to the dark. Scattered randomly about were dead mice that appeared to have succumbed to the same fate as the cat. They were gutted and crushed as if someone wasn’t satisfied with merely cutting the poor creatures open, they’d felt they needed to stamp upon them too. Surrounding each tiny corpse was a circle of runes drawn onto the concrete with chalk. The cat also had its own circle, large enough to accommodate the limp body.
After swallowing another shot of rum, Norgie decided he would rather spend the night somewhere-else after all. It was then that he heard footfalls shuffling above, before clomping heavily down the stairs toward the cellar.
Norgie was sure the place was empty, the whole street derelict. He got the unnerving feeling that whomever it was knew he was here.
The footfalls terminated on the other side of the door. He glanced to the window but realised he wouldn’t get through in time and would be exposing his back to the stranger coming through. A second thought was to hide but apart from the scattered corpses, there was nothing to hide behind.
His breath caught as the handle turned, the spring mechanism inside making a metallic ping as the door swung towards him. Norgie’s stomach clenched as he forced a smile upon his face but that quickly dropped, the eager greeting also died on his lips as a spindly creature, shrouded in shadow, shuffled into the cellar.
“Jim?” Norgie asked, gingerly.
The man before him resembled a guy he recognised as a fellow ‘free man’ who frequented the same soup kitchens as he did. Yet, he appeared older, frailer, as if something had sucked the life from him and left an emaciated creature which was more skeleton than man. It appeared a lifetime of debauchery had finally caught up with the old sod. Yet he was sure he had seen him only last week, looking healthier and decades younger.
“What the hell happened to you? You look like a prisoner of war or something.”
Norgie took another swig from his bottle as Jim’s sunken yellow eyes stared unblinking into his. His nose had been broken at an odd angle and split under the bridge, his mouth hung slack, jaw hanging low as if the effort was too great to close it. Tufts of white hair sprung from his head in patches, giving the impression he was suffering from alopecia.
Norgie offered him a drink, holding the bottle out but the gesture went unnoticed.
“You done this in here, Jim?” Norgie asked, gesturing about the cellar. “Not sure what the mice have done but the cat didn’t deserve that.”
Norgie realised his words were falling on deaf ears. Jim didn’t appear to acknowledge that he was even in the room. He took a step back and tried to peer into the darkness behind the decrepit man, but the heel of his boot caught on something solid, knocking him off balance and it was all he could do, arms wind-milling, to keep upright.
He had stumbled over a brick. The sudden motion appearing to awaken something in the other man.
“She shouts!” Jim said suddenly, as if the quick movements before him jolted him out of his glum mood. The voice was shrill and desperate, startling a double-beat into Norgie’s heart.
“Oh! How she shouts. Never enough, not nearly enough. I drew her fancy symbols, didn’t I? Got her the blood, nice and fresh how she wants it. Squeezed every drop out of the mice - lots. Sprinkled it all around just as she says.”
Norgie watched as the frail figure before him clenched his fist around an imaginary creature, reliving the demise of the poor rodents.
“But still she shouts.”
“Who, Jim? Who’s been shouting?” Norgie asked, yet he’d an inkling that the ‘She’, was coming from inside Jim’s senile head.
