Joshua Reynolds's Blog

I recently sat down with Katrina Ostrander on the Aconyte Fiction podcast to talk about my new Legend of the Five Rings novel, White Feathers, Crimson Leaves. I’ve embedded the video below, but you can also listen via Spotify, if that’s your jam. In a similar vein, there’s a new interview out with the cover artist, Diego Gisbert Llorens, on his fantastic art, which is worth a read.

And, of course, if you’d like to nab a copy of the book yourself, I encourage you to do so! And if you already have, a review on the social media site of your choosing would not go amiss – my business is word-of-mouth, as they say.

I decided to go for an old favourite today. I’ve watched The Cave (2005) maybe four or five times over the past few years, not because it’s excellent cinema, but because it does a better than average job with its premise, and sometimes that’s what you need. It promises subterranean gribblies and inter-character tensions and delivers on them in spades. Underground monsters are my comfort viewing.

There’s a certain level of comfort to be had from a film like this. It’s got a nice cast of character actors starring, many of them easily recognizable (especially nowadays), but no one outshines anyone else – though if you’re one of those weirdoes who enjoys Yellowstone, hey this film has Rip Wheeler fighting a giant bat monster. None of the characters are throwaway parts, though some are less-developed than you might prefer. Everyone gets a moment, even if it’s their last.

The tensions within this group are legitimate (if largely predictable) ones, brought to a boil by an out-of-context problem. Said problem is handled well, with a mix of practical effects and early CGI for our subterranean monsters, erring, thankfully, on the side of the former.

It’s all stirred together in a fairly standard monster movie, with the winged ‘devils’ hunting their prey through a variety of eerily vast caverns or terrifyingly claustrophobic tunnels, picking them off one by one until the climax.

It’s an efficient film, hitting the expected beats without cheating the viewer out of the occasional surprise or shocking moment, but never pausing long enough to milk such moments more than absolutely necessary. There’s no fat on it. Every big moment is earned, and all the little ones are building to something.

If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you give it a try. I give it four subterranean parasites out of five.

Who’s WhoImportant characters in the Royal Occultist mythos – both good and bad. 5. Rupert of the Rhine

Soldier. Admiral. Scientist. Colonial governor. Many were the titles held by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland. But among them is one not often spoken of in polite society – Royal Occultist.

Born in 1619 Bohemia, Rupert was the youngest child of Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I of England. His family was forced into exile during the early months of the conflict that would come to be known as the Thirty Years War, leading to a tumultuous childhood for the precocious Rupert.

He took quickly to the life of a soldier, fighting against Spain in the Netherlands among other campaigns, until his capture during the invasion of Westphalia. Despite numerous escape attempts, as well as a romantic affair with the daughter of his gaoler, he remained in captivity until 1641, when his release was secured and he took passage for England, where he quickly joined the Royalist cause.

Rupert first assumed the responsibilities of the Royal Occultist in 1642, not long after his arrival in England and only two years after the death of the prior holder of the title, Edward Holywell. Holywell, another military man, left behind only a small library of journals and a collection of artefacts, many of which have since been lost. Rupert first became aware of Holywell’s Bequest, as it came to be known, during the events surrounding the so-called Affair of the Buckinghamshire Devil in the same year. While there is no record as to what exactly took place during this incident, Rupert officially became Royal Occultist at its successful conclusion.

Assisted by the military engineer and mathematician, Dr. Thomas Rudd, Rupert quickly set about proving his worth as both a military commander and the Queen’s Conjurer. However, his career as Royal Occultist was fraught, to say the least. The English civil war was a period of mass chaos, marked by witchcraft and necromancy on an unprecedented scale as dark forces sought to take advantage of the troubles.

From the renegade alchemist O’Neill to the degenerate, worm-worshipping d’Amptons of Derbyshire, Rupert’s opponents were too numerous to properly record. At times it seemed as if his esoteric responsibilities might eclipse his military ones, leading to frequent clashes with his fellow Royalists over the course of the war. He and his assistant, Rudd were often at odds as well, with Rudd’s philosophical occultism contrasting against Rupert’s more haphazard ritualism.

Despite these troubles, Rupert managed to assemble one of the largest occult libraries in the Occident, as well as a not inconsiderable arsenal of mystical artefacts over the course of his tenure, and he is known to have developed and refined a number of rituals still used by the holder of the offices to this day. It is rumoured that Rupert even managed to rebuild much of the Great Library of Mortlake – though unfortunately it was lost again, when Oliver Cromwell ordered the destruction of Rupert’s collection after the latter’s exile.

During this time Rupert was also a member in good standing of the mystic Order of the Cosmic Ram. It is believed by some that it was the Order that provided Rupert with the Holywell Bequest – in actuality, the remnants of the Great Library of Mortlake – and thus his initial success. Regardless, as the civil war dragged on, an apparent schism developed in the Order and Rupert was caught in the middle.

Further, Rupert frequently clashed with William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle and a senior member of the Order. The two came to blows during the Order’s abortive expedition to the Blazing World in 1642, with Cavendish fleeing into exile soon after. The Order, left rudderless by the disastrous events of the expedition and Cavendish’s departure, turned to Rupert for leadership.

Using the Order’s resources, Rupert attempted on numerous occasions to turn the horrors he faced to his own advantage, such as his attempt to bind the monstrous Skin-Kites of Trieste to the Royalist cause or his association with a certain mysterious ‘Lapland lady’, who often accompanied him on his investigations in the shape of a white dog. Such were his transgressions during this period that he and Thomas Rudd had their final falling out, leading to a dissolution of their partnership as well as Rupert’s estrangement from the Order.

Rupert was stripped of the offices in 1655, and soon after, his quarrels with the Royalist court-in-exile sent him to the Germanies, where he is known to have consulted with a certain Baron Vordenburg of Styria on the matter of the Devil Ferenczy, as well as the Circus of Night. Over the next five years, Rupert’s reputation as a statesman, scientist and artist grew, but little is known of his more esoteric activities. Some believe he was engaged in a hunt for mystical artefacts such as the Gubbio Sigillum or grimoires like the Monstrorum Minorum Liber – the infamous Book of Minor Grotesques. 

What is known is that he re-assumed the post of Royal Occultist briefly in 1660 following the Restoration – ostensibly at the behest of the Order of the Cosmic Ram. Over the next ten years, Rupert sought to rebuild England’s mystic defences as well as his own occult library. But weary and disinterested in participating in the Order’s internecine squabbling, he soon stepped aside in favour of his former apprentice, the aptly-named John Cadmus.

Cadmus, a former soldier, had fought alongside Rupert in the Germanies before returning with him to England. Rupert, seeing Cadmus’ aptitude for ritual magics and his affinity for the abnatural, endeavoured to teach the other man all that he knew, and remained in an advisory position until his death in 1682.

Unfortunately, with Rupert’s death came an end to the protection he’d provided his successor, and elements within the Order of the Cosmic Ram soon moved to replace Cadmus with someone more amenable to the Order’s point of view…

I’ve been reading comics since I was a wee mote of a lad, and for as long as I can recall, my favourite character, bar none, has been Benjamin J. Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. I can’t say where I first saw him, or why he resonated so strongly – maybe I just like monsters – but he did, and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Some of my favourite comics are the raggedy copies of Marvel Two-in-One I rescued from a local antique shop at ten for a pound, and I spent entirely too much money on the hardback omnibus of The Thing comic from Marvel a year or so back, just to have all of those in the same place. I’ve got the Marvel Essentials Marvel-Two-in-One and Fantastic Four compilations, and I reread them regularly. Charitably, a lot of those comics mentioned above aren’t strictly good. There’s more lows than highs in there, but I love them regardless.

I love them so much, that I even had a blog dedicated to the character for a few years there. Yes, I was a comics blogger (sort of) for a time. I know, know. Best to leave that sort of thing to the professionals.

Anyway, I will say that Byrne’s version (pictured above) is probably my favorite take on the character, at least visually. There’s just enough of the alien about him to make him slightly startling, while, at the same time he looks so damn solid. This is a Thing who looks like he could take a punch from the Hulk, or a blow from Thor’s hammer. Byrne has his faults as an artist (inking, for instance. Man needs a good inker.), but when he was on Fantastic Four, he was a superb draftsman. Looking at the image above really makes me want to try my hand at a few sketches.

Thinking on it further, it’s probably not so much the character’s strength or look that attracts me, but his refusal to stay down, no matter how hard he gets hit. Ol’ Benjy is sort of the archetype of this speech from Rocky Balboa (2006). He keeps getting up, whatever the cost. I empathise with that. Persistence is the only reason I’m a writer. It ain’t talent, or artistic vision, I can tell you that. Nah, it’s just plain old refusal to stop, even though I’m not the best – even though I never will be.

I look at the Thing, and I see someone like me. Ugly and stupid, but we keep moving forward. Because nobody tells us when to lie down.

Only we get to decide that.

Before we begin, I have to admit that I saw the 2010 remake first, and comparing the two, I probably enjoyed it more. But having watched this one a few times now, I think I’ve isolated why I haven’t taken a shine to it – it’s depressing as hell, even for a Romero film. 

There’s not a single blessed ray of hope in this thing. It’s probably the most gritty, nasty bit of cinema that Romero has ever done. Not in terms of special effects, but in terms of tone and atmosphere. It is steeped in realism, nihilism and cynicism. From the main protagonists all the way to the background characters, there’s a sense of society – of humanity – unravelling. Even in the Dead films, there wasn’t this pervasive miasma of despair; there was a bleakness, yes, but not this utterly banal and wrenching sense of futility. 

It’s an ugly film – but good. The remake has some of that dystopic nastiness, but it doesn’t go far enough. It trades in a Kafkaesque nightmare military bureaucracy for zombie tropes which, while more entertaining, aren’t nearly as effective. Too, the remake narrows the focus to the protagonists, leaving the greater horror of events at a remove. 

One of the strengths of the original is that ability to pull back, to get a glimpse of a moribund government – of the tangled communications, the catastrophic, cascading scrum of mistakes and missteps that results in our utter damnation. 

Anyway, it’s a good film if you’ve got a taste for end of the world scenarios that are hideously plausible. I highly recommend it. I give it five knitting needles to the eye out of five.

Palman Vordenburg silently slipped into his quarry’s hotel room, revolver in hand. The doors to the balcony were open, and outside the City of Lights was singing the night to its end. The large apartment suite occupied the top floor of the Chateau Voltaire, near the Rue de Rivoli. It had all the amenities of home, including a terrace that overlooked the city. Not that his quarry required much in the way of amenities – not mortal ones at any rate.

The being calling herself Adhema had not been mortal in centuries; not since France was Gaul, and nothing but trees from Calais to Marseille. Older, perhaps, than Rome itself. It was hard to judge such things from where he stood. How many years made an immortal? A century? Two? Or was it a term better defined in epochs? He shook the question aside. As far as he was concerned, they were not truly immortal, these creatures – merely persistent. They could die as easily as any beast, if one had the trick of it.

Vordenburg pawed at his coat, desiring a cigarette. He stopped himself, not wanting the smell to alert his prey. He knew, with the instinct of a born hunter, that he did not have much time before her return. The countess was nothing if not prompt, and dawn was only minutes away. Ten, maybe fifteen. Plenty of time for her to return to her lair, her own prey in tow. So, instead, he chose a chair out of sight of the door, and settled himself down to wait.

As he did so, he considered the trail that had brought him here, and where it might yet take him, if luck was on his side. A trail of whispers and rumours, stretching across the Channel – across Europe itself. Stories of a city of black jasper, eternally in mourning, known to most as Selene, but called Sepulchre by its dreadful inhabitants.

The city of the dead. The city of the vampires.

He’d read of the black city as a boy, in the journals of his great grandfather, and its shadow lay across his bloodline in some way that he could not understand or explain. He had known this all his life, though until recently he’d had no real interest in pursuing the search for it. The same search that had consumed his grandfather, leaving him a broken man, and seen three of his uncles vanish into the Balkans never to heard from again.

But a recent chance encounter with a train full of dead men in the wilds of Hertfordshire had set him on the path to Sepulchre. All he had to guide him were hints and guesses, gleaned from the writings of those who had come before him, or the whispers of things better off dead. Thus, he had come to Paris on the trail of one who might be able to give him the answers he sought – willingly, or otherwise.

She had been easy enough to find. Between his new contacts in the Westenra Fund and his old ones in the Calmet Society, he had been able to narrow down her current hunting ground: Paris. Parasites like Addhema were attracted to the lights and life of the great cities; they battened on their host’s vitality like ticks, nestled safely in the shadows.

He’d prowled Paris for a week, searching for her spoor. The scalped body of a flower seller, found floating in the Seine, had led him to a cabaret dancer who’d had her black bob ripped from her skull and her corpse left to dangle from the red windmill of the Moulin Rouge. There were others; a dozen or more, stretching back months. Finally, a covert meeting with a certain Monsieur Gravelle in the catacombs had pointed him to a hotel – this hotel.

Gravelle, an apparatchik of France’s Department of Occult Affairs, had implied that the creature enjoyed the quiet protection of certain high-ranking members of French society. Vordenburg, no stranger to such things, had understood Gravelle’s intent instantly. They wanted the beast gone, but could not act in an official capacity to do so. Thus, he would be given a certain amount of latitude in regards to his hunt.

But finding her was the easy part. She was clever, this Addhema. Wily and strong, in the way of her kind. But not so strong that he feared to confront her. They followed rules, these creatures. Esoteric ones; always different. But rules nonetheless. Sorcery, even the foulest sort, was nothing but rules. Do this, to achieve that. Fail and suffer. Vampires laboured under these conditions no less than the mightiest horrors of the deepest nether-realm.  

Whereas the strength of men lay not in their guns or their courage. Instead, it lay in their ability to break the rules when it suited them. To come up with clever ways to circumvent those natural laws which might otherwise hinder them.

Case in point: Vordenburg himself. Whatever men like Gravelle might think, Paris had long since been declared neutral territory by the armies of the night. The powers and principalities that held the City of Lights under their infernal sway were fierce things; territorial and fractious. Even the undead knew better than to breach their laws. In return, they were subtly protected from groups like the Calmet Society. But Vordenburg had never been one to let others tell him what he could, or could not, kill.

So, he sat and waited, pistol on his knee.

Thankfully, he did not have to do so for long. Soon enough, he heard the murmur of voices in the corridor, and the tinkle of a woman’s laughter. The door rattled – opened – and light flooded the darkened room as someone flicked the toggle. He leaned forward and cocked his weapon. The laughter ceased. Vordenburg rose and stepped into view.

Two women stood in the doorway; one tall, one short. Both pale and slim and smelling of tobacco and perfume, after the way of Parisian women. The tall one was dressed well, in silk and furs; elegant as only women of a certain class could manage. The short one was dressed like a man, albeit a stylish one, and might have passed, save for the spill of glossy chestnut hair that hung down her back. To all intents, the pair were an older woman and her ingénue paramour, like so many who haunted the streets of Paris.

But to Vordenburg’s eye, they were simply predator and victim.  “Inside, please,” he said, politely. They moved inside, eyes wide with fear and, yes, anger, and he deftly moved between them and the door. “Move away from her, Countess. Else we will both be disappointed with how the evening proceeds.”

The taller woman made to speak, but the younger one did so first. “How rude,” she said. “Can you not come back later?”

“Sadly, no.”

The younger woman sighed and took her companion’s hand. “My apologies, my sweet. If you would wait for me downstairs, I will be but a moment.” She kissed the older woman’s hand lightly and showed her to the door, despite her protests. When the latter was in the corridor, Vordenburg shut the door in her face, and turned back to the younger woman.

“She will call for the gendarmes,” Addhema said. Her eyes were wide and deep, and Vordenburg knew better than to meet them for too long.

“I do not think she will,” he said. “Even if so, I will be gone before they arrive.”

“You are confident. I despise that in a man.”

“My apologies,” he said.   

“Should I know you, then?” Addhema unknotted her tie and flung it carelessly away. “Is this some personal matter between us?” After removing her coat, she made her way to the sideboard and poured herself a drink. She did not offer Vordenburg one. “Have we crossed paths before? If so, I do not recall.”

Vordenburg shook his head. “Not to my knowledge.” Her accent was odd; faint, but unidentifiable. As if her birth-language were long dead. Then, it almost certainly was.

“Lucky for you. I take great offence at this, you know. It is not seemly.”

“Again, my apologies. Politesse has never been my forte.”

She turned to face him, and for a moment, her face resembled a skull. Her eyes shone with an ugly, hungry light as she took him in and a part of him – a small part, but a part nonetheless – was frightened. But as ever, he wrestled the fear down with an ease born of altogether too much experience. “You asked if you should know me,” he said. “I think that you do. How could you not? After all, I have killed so many of you down through the years.”

She chuckled. “Perhaps I do know you at that. You are the Styrian, Vordenburg?”

“I am. And you are the Countess Addhema.” He peered at her. “Is it true you rip the scalps from your victims?”

She smiled. “Is it true you wear a necklace of teeth taken from yours?”

“No,” he said, vaguely offended by the idea.

“Shame. For a moment, I thought you might be interesting.” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger and studied it. “What you have heard of me, however, is true. Some of our kind draw strength from blood or bone marrow or even moonlight. I take it from hair, ripped from the scalp of those unfortunate enough to attract my eye. I steal their years and add them to my own allotment. As curses go, there are worse, I suppose.”

“And that woman? You were planning to take her scalp, then?”

“Yes. I liked its colour.”

Vordenburg nodded. “A lucky escape for her.”

“And unfortunate for me.” She studied him, the way a leopardess might study a rival. “Why have you come here? To kill me? Better than you have tried and I am still here.” She swirled her glass, and peered out the window, across the lights of Paris. “I thought you might have died in Istanbul. Word was the British shot you down like a dog.”

“You mean you hoped,” Vordenburg said. He locked the door without taking his eyes from her. “Do you talk about me, then? Your kind, I mean.”

Addhema chuckled. “Oh, we are notorious gossips, I fear. Nothing like eternity to loosen one’s tongue. Yes, you are often the subject of our salons. You and others like you. Sometimes we plan your murders. Other times…other times we revel in your exploits.” She glanced at him. “I lied, you know. About Constantinople. I heard that you killed the Carpathian, Von Klatka. And Verona Bellak, the Red Nun of Bucharest. I knew them.”

“Then you know I did the world a favour.”

She shook her head. “Is it true you slew the Wolf of Styria in London?”

“Not alone, but yes. He is no more.”

She sighed; a sound like dead leaves dancing across pavement. “How many of us have you killed in your short life, exactly? A dozen? More?”

Vordenburg said nothing. Addhema sipped at her drink. “We are a dying breed, you know. Fewer and fewer of us make it to a century. Most perish within a dozen years of receiving the maggot’s kiss. Some fall to your sort, but the rest…” She snorted in an unladylike fashion. “They are not ready for the weight of eternity.”

“Few of us are. Tell me about the city of black jasper, countess.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why would you wish to know about such a place?”

“Professional interest.”

She laughed. “Ah. You are not the first, you know. Many hunters have sought that place – and paid the ultimate price for their hubris.” She shook her head. “No living man can walk those streets and survive. Not even a Vordenburg.”

“Then why not send me to my fate?”

She looked away. “Any vampire who offers up the location of that place will be destroyed. So say the laws of our kind. My life is a horrid thing, but it is still life and I am loathe to give it away so easily.”

She stepped out onto the balcony, and Vordenburg followed warily. Was she planning an escape? A possibility; not all vampires were shapechangers. Some were sorcerers. Others were more akin to machines, with strange organs powering them. Addhema was not one of those, he thought. But that did not mean she did not have her secrets – or that she was not dangerous. “None would know you had shared the secret,” he said. “Not from my lips. Besides…” He gestured with his pistol. “It is not as if you will have to worry.”

“A threat?” she asked, not turning to look at him.

“A promise,” he said. “Only one of us will leave this suite tonight.”

Addhema glanced at him, a thin smile on her face. “Promises, promises.” She looked up at the night sky, and the stars overhead. Their light was becoming diffuse; fading as the night did. “Tell me, how many of my kind have you encountered?”

“A trick question, for no two vampires are entirely alike.”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes, but whatever their form, all come to Sepulchre eventually. All dwell in that city where dawn never comes, and the moon never sets.”

“How utopian,” Vordenburg said.

She threw back her head and laughed. At first, the sound was lovely; but as it went on, it soured into something that made his hackles bristle. It was like a black note that hung on the air for far too long. As it faded, she said, “Hardly that, my dear Baron. It is a pit of adders to rival Constantinople at the apogee of its might. And you would enter it willingly?”

Vordenburg nodded. “If only to set it ablaze.”

“And then where would we go?”

“Back to the dust, where your kind belongs.”

Addhema studied him for long moments, and he began to wonder whether she might lunge for his throat. Finally, she extended her hands to him. “Dance with me, Styrian, and I may tell you what you wish to know.”

Vordenburg hesitated. “What?”

“A dance, Vordenburg. Only a dance.” Her expression became wistful. “It has been so long since I was able to just…dance.” She kept her hands out. Slowly, he holstered his pistol and took them in his own. Her touch was cool, like marble sat too long in shadow. She smiled. “There now, do you see? I am not so fierce as all that.”

Vordenburg didn’t reply. They swayed in time to a melody only she could hear. “The last time I danced this way was in, oh, 1735 or thereabouts,” she murmured. “In Pressburg. A professor of theology, named Spurzheim. Ugly man. Beautiful dancer.”

“He wrote a book about you.”

“I know.” Her tone grew melancholy. “He died for his sins.”

“You killed him.”

“No. The one who made me killed him, because he sought the same thing you do.” Her grip on him tightened. “We are ambitious by nature; predators by design. But rival wolves will unite to drive off a greater threat. In such a place, even your vaunted lethality would avail you little.”

Vordenburg was suddenly aware that he had made a fool’s mistake, letting her get close. Overconfidence, perhaps – or maybe he was not as resistant to her charms as he’d assumed. He could feel the unholy strength in her grip; like twin clamps of iron, biting into his shoulders. Her gaze bore up into his own and he felt as if he were not looking at a woman at all, but some great serpent, readying itself to strike. “Then why not send me there?” he asked. “Let your friends kill me, the way Spurzheim was killed.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Friends? I have no friends in that bleak oubliette. Only enemies – and worse than enemies.” She pulled him close. “Do you know how I became what I am, Styrian? I do not even have the dignity of feeding on blood. No. I must scalp my victims and take their brief lives to supplement my own pitiful existence. For each year left to them, I earn but a single day. All because the creature who made me had a cruel sense of humour.” She bared her teeth. “Szandor.”

Vordenburg stiffened instinctively. Szandor. A name to conjure with, as the saying went. The undead did not have royalty as men understood the term. They took titles the way a magpie might steal shiny stones. Count and countess, duke, and duchess. All just words, empty of any authority, moral or otherwise. A tiger was not a lord, simply because it was referred to as such. But some vampires were nonetheless aristocrats of their kind; their power undeniable. Szandor was one such. It was said he’d once tried to claim the soul of Bonaparte, even as the Wallachian devil, Tepes, had supposedly desired to pass his curse to the English queen, Victoria. That both had failed had been merely a matter of luck.

“Szandor,” Addhema hissed again. Her fingernails dug into him like the claws of some great cat. “I hate him and I love him, for he made me this…thing. I – I have done so much evil, at his demand. Because I have no choice.”

Vordenburg did not speak. Instead, he dropped his hand to his pistol. If she noticed, she gave no sign, but continued with her imprecations. “It was Szandor who killed Spurzheim, to protect the secret road to Sepulchre, or so he claimed. It is why he tried to kill Bonaparte, who had designs on the city himself.”

“He serves the city, then?”

She snorted. “He serves himself, always. As we all do. For all I know, he rules the city now. That was always his great desire. It was why he had me steal gold for him, for he needed – needs – it to maintain his position. Even among the dead, gold has value. Perhaps even more so than blood.”

“Tell me the way, and I will kill him for you,” Vordenburg said, softly. It was a calculated gamble. There was little a vampire hated more than other vampires. They were not communal creatures, for all that they played at it. Unfortunately, the gamble didn’t pay off. Addhema snarled and shoved him back, nearly hurling him off of the balcony. He stumbled against the iron railing and snatched his pistol from its holster, quickly cocking it.

“You dare?” she growled. “You dare to offer me such a thing? You?” She flexed her fingers and her knuckles popped like gunshots as her nails lengthened. Vordenburg tensed. She laughed, low and ugly and rose to her full height. She was taller than he’d first assumed. Or maybe she was a shapechanger after all. “I was once royalty – a queen in all but name. And you, Styrian, offer me justice? The great murderer of my kind?”

“The dead cannot be murdered,” Vordenburg said, flatly.

Addhema laughed and shook her head. “Oh, but you are wrong. The dead can be killed. They can be hurt – abused. Held captive or made ashamed. Cursed.”

Vordenburg studied her down the barrel of his pistol. “They can also be avenged. Do the souls of your victims cry out as you do, Addhema? Are they no less deserving?”

Addhema paused, as if such a thought had never occurred to her in all her existence. Then she stepped back, and retreated into the room. He followed slowly, warily, and saw that she was pouring herself another drink. “My victims,” she said. “My victims are his, as I am his. I am a tool – a blade – wielded by the hand of another. Even now, though I have not seen him in decades. Even now, I would serve him, if called. I can do nothing else. Such is his power over those whom he has remade in his image.”

Vordenburg grunted impatiently. Why did so many of them wish to talk, at the end? There were few things more frustrating than a talkative corpse. “Then let me kill him. That much I can do. Send me to him, and I will put a holy bullet in whatever maggot-infested lump he calls a heart.”

“As if you could.”

“I have killed worse things.”

She looked at him then. “Perhaps you have, at that. But no. Kill me and be done, Styrian. I will not betray my people, however much I loathe them.”

Vordenburg sighed. “What if I were to let you live?” Even as he said it, his soul recoiled from the thought of such a bargain. But needs must, when the Devil drove. She looked at him incredulously.

“What?”

“Tell me what I want to know and I will depart. I will leave you in peace – at least for now. I cannot promise I will do the same if our paths cross again, but for tonight at least you would live. Is that not worth something to you?”

Addhema laughed and held up her glass, as if to toast him. “In vita, mors, in morte, vita!” She knocked back the rest of her drink and stood, proud and defiant against the lights of the city. “That is the motto of our great city. In life, death, and in death, life.”

“One last chance,” Vordenburg said, softly. His finger tightened against the trigger.

She smiled sadly and touched her hair, as if to smooth a loose strand. “No more chances,” she replied. “The girl you saved earlier tonight was to have been mine and all her years with her. But now I am bereft and the sun rises. You have killed me as surely as a holy bullet in my heart.” A clump of hair came away in her hand and she let it drop to the floor. “Though, I admit that the bullet would be quicker.”

“It still can be,” Vordenburg said. “Tell me where the city is, or at least how to find its location, and I will spare you the sun.”

Addhema laughed and turned away. “How chivalrous you are.” She fell silent, and for a moment, he thought she might hurl herself over the balcony. But instead, she sighed. “Do you know what awaits you there, in that city of black jasper? Can you even conceive of such a place, so monstrous and beautiful in its monstrosity?”

“I have a very good imagination,” Vordenburg said.

Addhema glanced at him. “As I said before, there is no happy ending for you there. Only death, and a cruel one at that.” She shuddered, and another clump of hair slid from her raw scalp. Her flesh seemed papery now and he could see the black latticework of her veins.

Vordenburg smiled coldly. “Then you should have no problem telling me.”

Addhema turned back to the city. The sun was a crimson strip on the horizon, painting Paris in bloody hues. “Maybe you are right. Maybe you and that terrible place – as well as those who dwell there – deserve one another. Fine.” She turned to look at him. “There is a man in Belgrade, a bookseller, named Durad. He has a copy of the Black Map.”

“And what is this map?” Vordenburg asked suspiciously. He had never heard of it, nor had it been mentioned in any of his ancestors’ writings. She smiled.

“How do you imagine my kind find our way to the city? Do you believe us to be like homing pigeons? No. We have a map, drawn it is said, by a fallen angel. Can you imagine such a thing?” She ran her fingers through her thinning hair, and Vordenburg saw the flesh of her scalp part. It did not bleed, and he felt a flicker of revulsion.  

“And this man will give it to me?”

Her smile was an awful thing. “Not willingly. But I am sure you can convince him. The map will show you the way to Sepulchre. Be wary. Durad is a trickster at heart, and more dangerous than he appears.” She bowed her head and shuddered, as if in pain. “Now, do your duty and send me to whatever fate awaits me.”

Vordenburg fired.

Then he turned and departed as what was left of the Countess Addhema was caught up by the morning breeze and scattered across the streets of Paris below. When he reached the street, he pulled up the collar of his coat against the morning chill and set off towards the train station.

He had a train to catch.

My newest Legend of the Five Rings novel, White Feathers, Crimson Leaves, is out now, wherever you order books! If you haven’t already preordered a copy, now’s your chance to pick it up. And if you’ve already done so, thank you. It’s much appreciated. Grab your copy now.

It’s Monday! Here’s a roundup of interesting things I was looking at recently, plus a few other odds and sods.

Ian Watson died. I never met the man, but he was an influence on me nonetheless, along with people like Kim Newman and William King. A fearless writer, who probably understood what made Warhammer 40K work better than anyone other than John Blanche. Sam Kieth died. Another weirdly formative artist for me. Kieth’s artwork always promised something interesting; it was organic and vibrant and confusing and while I wasn’t a fan of The Maxx, I still read every damn issue. Make of that what you will. Happier news – a new issue of Wyrd Science is out! This is a fantastic magazine for fans of board games, role-playing games and various other things. I recommend getting yourself a subscription. It’s worth the money. Even happier news – The Lovecraft Investigations are back on the BBC! If you haven’t listened to these audio dramas about a pair of podcasters investigating the ostensible real-world Lovecraftian shenanigans, involving cults, British espionage and various other things, you really should. It was Portfolio Day a few days ago. Here’s some of the artists I like: Les McClaine. Dan Schkade. Ethan M. Aldridge. Victoria Maderna. Artyom Trakhanov. Jordan Sorcery digs into the history of Man O’War. I only played Games Workshop’s naval warfare game a few times, but I always dug it. It’s weird they haven’t tried to bring it back, but then, Mordheim also languishes in obscurity, so maybe they’re just not interested in making money. Paul Leone writes some good stuff. Try some of it out. Danie Ware talks about prologues and why we need ’em. Colin Harker has a new book of poetry coming out. Why not preorder it?Benito Cereno talks Cronenberg movies. Benito is always a great listen, so check it out. And finally…Alan Moore and Ian Sinclair in conversation. Fantastic stuff, and the rest of the videos on that particular channel are pretty interesting as well, fyi.

I’ve been hearing about this one for years. A low budget monsterpiece (get it, like masterpiece?) in the tradition of Evil Dead (1981), featuring some ridiculous monsters, tongue-in-cheek acting, gratuitous nudity and a bit of Lovecraftian (Derlethian?) cosmicism to round it out.

It had a bit of a thorny path to the screen. While it was filmed in 1988, and is very much of it’s time, it didn’t actually come out until 1995, courtesy of Troma Entertainment. The plot is reminiscent of any number of grisly paperbacks from the Eighties and Nineties; a monstrous spirit, freed by human idiocy, goes on a rampage until a chosen one arrives to stop it. Basically, exactly the sort of thing that gets my attention. It’s handled about as well as you’d expect. The acting is fine, erring on the side of community theatre farce. The humour is juvenile, bordering on puerile. The cosmicism is largely unexplained; no questions are answered in this film, though plenty are raised. Things happen, more things happen, and we careen towards the climax.

The entertainment value comes in watching the largely hapless cast of idiots getting their limbs bitten off, skin boiled etcetera ad nauseum. The monsters – the heralds of the Wendigo (‘the wind whispers…Wendigo…’) are a brilliant lot, especially the chili goblin (yes, literally, a goblin that comes out of a pot of chili). The effects are the best one can buy for under $20K, with some brilliant nods to Harryhausen, and show a great deal of the same inventiveness as came to define the early films of Sam Raimi. Lots of off-kilter camera angles, trolley-shots and unseen presences. Oh, and a lot of nod and a wink references to Bedford Falls, from Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). In fact, the film might even count as a Christmas film – though your mileage might vary on that, obviously.

Put it all together and you basically have a – well, a chili. It’s not good, per se, but it does the job better than you might expect. I found it a fun way to spend an hour and change, and I certainly don’t regret the time spent. I give it three skulls-on-sticks out of five.

‘A Concise and Sinister History’A five-part series detailing the history of the office of Royal Occultist3. William Coffin to Aylmer Beamish – 1700 to 1835

In 1700, Dr. William Coffin, a physician and scholar of some note, was elevated to the position of Royal Occultist after an undisclosed service to the king. Some say Coffin was responsible for discovering the cause of a mysterious ailment plaguing Queen Mary, while others maintain it was the king himself who was suffering. Regardless, Coffin served at the king’s pleasure until 1714, when he perished in a Wych Street house-fire said to be the result of an elemental conjuration gone wrong – but rumoured to, in fact, be a personal vendetta by his replacement, Jonathan Wild, the so-called ‘Thief-Taker General’.

Within a month of Coffin’s death, the office was occupied by Wild, who used it as cover for his more esoteric illicit activities. How Wild came to be elevated to the position is unrecorded, though it is not inconceivable that a significant amount of money might have changed hands. Wild’s tenure was marked by the loss of both Rupert’s painstakingly accumulated library and his collection of artefacts – many of which ended up in the hands of private collectors.

Wild was ignominiously dismissed from the position in 1725 for corruption. He was replaced by the mystic and scholar, Henry Balcairn, a former protégé of Wild’s predecessor, Coffin. Balcairn held the post until late 1756, when he was killed during a mystical skirmish with the noted French sorcerer, Henri du Nord.

As the British Empire turned its attentions the developing conflict in the Americas, Balcairn’s assistant, Solomon Woodville, soon found himself despatched to counter certain French efforts in the Province of Virginia. Woodville returned to England in 1762 accompanied by a new assistant, Henry Ebon, but remained only briefly – he and Ebon returned to the Americas in 1764, when they found themselves pitted against the strange creature calling itself Indrid Cold, who was in league with the colonial insurrectionists.

It was a subdued and taciturn Woodville that returned home in 1774 – alone. He never spoke of what had befallen Henry Ebon. Whatever had occurred during his conflict with Cold, it had shaken the formerly sanguine occultist to his core. Woodville retired from public life, and retreated to his family home in Somerset. While he continued to act as Royal Occultist, he did so with little of his former enthusiasm and flair. Woodville died at his home in 1795, a victim of a strange wasting illness.

In 1800, the occultist and philosopher Francis Barrett was invested with the duties of the Royal Occultist. His tenure, while largely uneventful thanks to the proactive efforts of his predecessor, was marked by the sudden appearance of his assistant, the enigmatic Wynn Kardec. Kardec, a virtual cipher, soon became known in polite society as a gambler and serial amorist, as well as for his wit and talent for prestidigitation.

By 1810, Kardec was serving as Royal Occultist, though there is no record of the position being officially bestowed upon him. Kardec’s tenure was contentious; he was said to have claimed credit for Napoleon’s first defeat in 1814, as well as driving out certain heretofore unnoticed evil spirits said to be haunting Frogmore House.

In 1816, Kardec caused a scandal among the ton, and threw that year’s season into disarray. Kardec accused several notable families of employing sorcery in order to improve their prospects – accusations which he later recanted, with no explanation. Despite this, Kardec served in the position until late 1830, when he is said to have vanished up an Aldershot chimney in a puff of smoke. He left behind a bewildered assistant, Cyril Gorn Yarker, who attempted to pick up where Kardec left off, with little luck.

Yarker’s tenure, while not as fraught as some, ended ignominiously in 1835 when he was lured into an ornamental pond by a mermaid and drowned. He was succeeded by Aylmer Beamish, a rake of some minor infamy. Beamish, purportedly a childhood friend of Queen Victoria (as well as one of the illegitimate children of King William IV), was invested with the duties of Royal Occultist which he was to ably perform for close to fifty years.