THE LAST LORD OF MISRULE

The old Don was fed up with Christmas before it had even begun. The colleges were closed, the porter's retired for the holiday and the cathedral bells were peeling their excited news all too raucously for his ancient ears. The Medievalist in him had darkened his indulgent heart.

Stooped under the eves of the public house he'd just frequented for a half stout the aging professor wrapped his overcoat tighter round his frame and headed out into the sleet of that December's Christmas storm.

"No newspapers, no new tomes, it's a waste of valuable time!" he grumbled as the shops' lights went out one by one for the start of Christmas Eve night.

With no great hurry he shambled like a tramp through the frightful wind, now dashed with snow, ambling towards his rooms in the old quarter near the Bishop's palace.

"I hope he melts! I can't wait to get home to my books and forget your modern Christmas!" the peevish soul remonstrated with a group of loud children constructing a snow man in their front garden. The reflection of the fairy lights of their gorgeous tree painted his twisted face in reds, blues and yellows.

"Look! A funny old goblin!" they shouted at the crooked man, "A Christmas devil!"

"A devil eh! I'll give you devils! Damn you and your snowman!" the bitter old fool bellowed as the children's mother came out to see what was going on.

The ancient scholar shuffled quickly away tutting to himself and casting all and sundry whom he passed curses and misfortunes.

At the corner of the square, one usually draped in shadow, a small shop remained brightly lit when all the others were now dark and closed for the holiest of nights. The old man had never noticed it before and paused to take a look before the final push through the ice and snow to his quarters.

The window was stuffed with curios and junk from every corner of the world and every age of man. There were spears, drums, toy trains, vases, silver teapots, rusty keys, gilt trays, doubloons, a lilting milk churn and countless more objects rejected by times gone by and accumulating here in this cobwebbed depository.

Experiencing an uncommon urge to look closer the old don entered the establishment. He stamped his shoes on the mat ridding them of filthy snow and shook his mohair hat. There was no proprietor evident so he walked right in and began to browse the piles of bric a brac. 

Suddenly he saw something. Something vaguely familiar. It grabbed his whole attention and he stared with fascination at an object standing at the back of a dusty dresser. It was a ceramic figurine of two boys stood next to each other, one older and taller dressed in dashing garb, wide velvet cap and tights with a huge halberd in his hand  and a smaller child adorned in similar but less extravagant attire. The old fellow was mesmerised.

"A fine and unusual piece isn't it!" said a crackly voice from behind him.

He turned face an old crone with a warty nose and a hairy chin. She smiled a toothy smile revealing alternate blackened teeth.

"What is it?" asked the professor, half-knowing the answer already.

"Ah! Curiosity has the better of you I see! It's a rare thing called the Last Lord of Misrule and his Page".

"How much?"

"To you Sir, thirteen pounds".

"I'll take it!"

The old crone wrapped the figure carefully is some fading newspaper and handed it across the counter.

"How old is it, the figure?" asked the Don as he opened the door to leave.

"At least five hundred years old to this very day!" she cackled and closed the shop turning out the lights.

Intrigued the don retired to his rooms and fingered the figurine with growing fascination. He had something like it already, a large ancient statue of the medieval, gigantic and deformed Pope of Fools.

"I can't believe my luck! Another one!"

He poured himself a sherry and stared at his purchase as it glinted in the firelight from his hearth.

Suddenly starving, he took a wrinkling apple from the bowl and began to peel it with a sharp kitchen knife. He stood over the figure immersed in its ancient glaze.

He suddenly cut his thumb deeply.

"Damn it!"

Blood bubbled out and trickled down his hand and dripped onto the figurine below, where it filled a small depression at the feet of the two boys. 

All at once there was a loud crack and a blast of light blinded the old man. The statue appeared to explode and the room convulsed in a dense rank fog, which stunk to high heaven.

The don retched clutching his throbbing thumb, blood steeping from his wound.

As the mist receded two huge figures stepped out of the murk, the two boys from the figurine, now life-size and very much alive.

The professor cowered as the taller of the two hefted his halberd and jabbed it at the throat of the old man.

"Who be you?" the boy bellowed.

"I'm the professor"

"Where is this? And When? Speak!"

"It's the old City. It's Christmas, 2021."

"Tis Christmas after all! D'ya hear that lad! We've landed on our bastard feet!"

The smaller of the two boys stepped forward. He wore a long jester's hat and carried a bore's head under his arm.

"Tis my Lord! Five hundred year we've slept. Our time has surely come again!"

The old scholar shivered but plucked up the courage to ask the apparition a question.

" And who are you Sir?"

"Why I am Lefwinus, the last of the glorious Lords of Misrule and this be here Odelgarde my faithful page."

"What do you want with me?"

"We want nought from thee old codger, you gave us life! But be warned, t'will be the bloodiest Yule you can envision, a festival of death, an orgy of anatomy but whence we're done you can be King of Reason and rule those cunts we've left!" roared the Lord of Misrule as the two figures smashed through the window and flew into the night.

The old man ran to the shattered pane and peered into the dark.

"God Almighty! What have I done!" he moaned into the infinity of Christmas Eve's sacred sky.

At the end of the road the Bishop's Palace was in full swing for the grand masked ball, a witty nod to the hoary past of the City and a fulsome fecund feast for the present incumbents of high office in the burgh.

Everyone was there; the Mayor, the Aldermen, the Council Men, the Minister, the Duke, The Duchess, the clergy, the Bishop, the deacons, the dons, the industrial greats, the titans, the illustrious and positioned from across the proud metropole.

They thronged and pulsed in magnificently expensive guises, milling round each other like automatons sipping flutes of even more expensive champagne. The rarefied air was filled with the bellicose laughter of the satiated and the titled.

It was outside this caviared scrum that Lefwinus and Odelgarde landed. 

"Ah! Smell that lad! Tis the noisome stench of fattened fuckwits. No matter when it is, they're all the same swine!"

The Head Usher came out to greet the pair. He eyed their shifty looks with suspicion and his nose rankled at the foul aroma coming off their ancient clothes.

"Could I please see your invitations!" he commanded snootily.

"Hear that Odelgarde! This swill-monkey wants our invitations!" laughed Lefwinus.

The page-boy howled and leapt onto the usher growling like a mad dog. In one fell swoop he'd sliced off his head with a huge cutlass.

The bloodied boy turned and looked at his Master with the man's severed head under his arm, the boar in the other.

"Two invites!" 

They both roared with laughter and booted open the crystal double-doors of the Bishop's palace.

Odelgarde threw the two heads high in the air and Lefwinus quartered them with his halberd with inhuman speed spattering thick blood over the assembled elite.

Masked men and women screamed as the two aliens from the Dark Age skewered and chopped their way through the crowd sending limbs and entrails flailing through the air.

A particularly rotund chicken planted himself in front of the murderous pair.

"What the hell do you think you're doing you stinking scoundrels? I'm the Palace Sheriff and this is my watch!" he yelled.

"Sheriff Chicken eh! I am Lefwinus, Lord of Misrule, at thy personal servitude. Odelgarde, my good man, please if you will, give the Chicken our warmest introductions!"

"Yes Lord!" smiled the page, whereupon he gathered a heap of sleeved arms and pantalooned legs and set it alight. The Sheriff turned to stare at it in abject horror.

Lefwinus spun his halberd and with a flourish rammed the sharp end forcefully up the Sheriff's backside and continued to push.

"That's quite the entrance Master Chicken!" howled the Misruler.

Finally through, the Sheriff was lowered, impaled on the halberd, crossways onto two tall severed legs stood upright at the sides of the crackling bonfire of limbs.

Odelgarde rotated the halberd and the official screamed in agony as his poultry costume burned away and the taut skin on his belly began to crisp and peel away revealing wetter things beneath dropping into the flames.

"One good turn deserves another!" quipped the page and they both cried with laughter.

Taking out his cat-o-nine-tails the Lord of Misrule leapt onto the chandelier above and peering round the gored company he proclaimed:

"Where is this Time's Bishop, that mitred guzzling twat! Where is he?"

"I am here Lefwinus you dribbling ass!" came the belligerent reply.

The Lord of Misrule and his page both gawped to see the source of the impudence and found it.

Sat upon the palatial throne was a huge figure resplendent in cream raiment and topped with the sacred Mitre of the episcopal seat. Her face was young and angelic, her hair long and falling in curled tresses over her massively broad shoulders. She smiled.

"Who the fuck are't thou?" asked the Misruler as he and his ward strode toward the dais.

"Why I'm surprised thou dost not know me Lord Drooler! I'm the mitred guzzled twat who vanquished you to the gutter from whence you crawled the last time we crossed!"

Lefwinus squinted to focus on the speaker. He shuddered.

"Gregoria! Tis you, our old enemy, the papal piss-flap!"

"Tis I Misrule, Yes, Gregoria, the Pope of Fools and I trump your scratty arse when'ere we meet. Alas, I fear, you cretinous wanker, this time too!"

"I know not how you comest here you shit-stain Pope but I care not. Odelgarde and I shall mount your crooked seat and lance your foolish arse till the angels die of boredom!"

At this the two boys began to sprint, shrieking loudly with cutlass and cat-o-nine-tails wind-milling lethally through the air.

"Let us draw and quarter this fat partridge in a piss pot!" yelled Lefwinus as he leapt high into the air, Odelgarde following at his heels.

Gregoria stood slowly, her gargantuan frame casting a shadow on the reredos. Her massively overgrown hand reached down and clasped a mammoth gold crozier lying next to the throne. She wielded it with immense power into an angled position in front of her as the chintz of her vestments released a blinding light.

She heard Lefwinus and Odelgarde descend through the haze and stood like a rock as they realised too late that they would be pierced by the Fool's golden pike.

The two boys screamed in agony as they slid down the crozier all the way to the Fool Pope's fists, where they stared near death into the girl's huge eyes.

"Till next we meet Grego-r-i-a..." whispered the Lord of the Misrule as he and his page bled out.

"I fear not Leftwinus, you are the last, as am I" smiled the Pope of Fools.

The three denizens of a darker age all began to fade and crumble to powder, the dust rising in the warm air to the high rotunda, where they coalesced into a single smudge on the fresco of raging angels.

On the dais a lonely crooked figure emerged from behind the throne, in his hands his two ancient figurines, both with blood-filled wells. The old professor placed them on the floor and stamped on them forcefully crushing them to a fine bone ash.

He staggered backwards and sat exhausted on the throne, both his thumbs deeply cut, a reluctant king of the Christmas gore and carnage his dark heart had made.

GHOSTS

They're everywhere ghosts. And they like to mess with us.

I think of them as cartoons of the dead, Animations from the grave. Adverts in the intermission. Interreference on the screen of life. They can be a pain.

I've seen them you know, Ghosts.

We'll one really.

I was fiddling with some mirrors in my bedroom, after the teacher challenged us, to see if I could capture infinity. I set up five of them all reflecting each other's pictures. A nest of realities. It was beautiful if I say so myself.

Whilst lost in the scattering I detected a thin fog forming.

And their it was.

A woman's spirit caught in the mirrors flitting about trying to get out.

It reminded me of the Ghostbusters' ghost-trap. But they're not real. This was.

The creepiest bit was when she stopped gyrating and stared straight at me.

That woman hated me, I could tell. She wanted my life.

Scared of her getting out I quickly turned the mirrors flat and put them back in the rooms I'd found them.

Seeing a ghost like this is unusual. A certain algorithm of light and circumstance needs to come together to allow it to happen and as I've said it's only happened to me once.

More often than not I feel them. They piggyback my hand as I'm typing, attempting to type as well, as they might have done in life. I half expect them to change what I'm writing but besides a few nudges of the keys they never have. 

Oddly enough it's almost a pleasant experience and lends a whole new meaning to the idea of ghost writing! I do feel sorry for them to be honest. Writing connects people from all walks and all ages across the years. They yearn for that connection. I can feel one now resting on my fingers,

They taste strange too. Yes, I've tasted ghosts! A few times. Being a form of charged mist they can easily enter your mouth. I've literally eaten phantoms! They like to be shovelled into my mouth with a spoon whilst I'm eating pudding. It sounds crazy I know! Maybe it's the memory of desserts that they find so sweet and wish more than anything to taste them again.

It's the light static that gives them away in your mouth. A sort of powdery buzz like when you put battery contacts on your tongue. There's a hint of iron as well, as if you've bit the inside of your cheek but only very slightly. I imagine they have a tinge of blood still lingering inside them after living a proper life. Like memory foam I guess.

It would be great if I could say I enjoy eating ghosts like I do candyfloss but I don't really. They can get over-excited inside your body and forget that they're dead. It all comes flooding back in a fashion once they fill your limbs and head like a hand in a glove. But without substance they can't do anything and get annoyed. 

I had one in me a while back. I think it was a girl. She was kicking inside me like a baby. I pitied her. She felt small. She must have died young. A mere tooth. She left through my eyes, which made them water slightly. Ghost tears of all things!

Anyway, I'm going to stop typing. The presence on my hands is desperate to write and making me sli 

           p.

Its best if I carry on later when its hopefully cleared of 

                                                                                       f!

OLD CHRISTMAS EVE

Twas but a flicker in the tallow flame burning in the window. I lit it so that he may find his way home. Thank the Lord God. It was nothing but the rude wind from the hill where the fir tree stands.

Its Christmas Eve tonight. Old Christmas himself saunters the hoary lanes with his dripping candles and evergreens. Stop by Old Man. Please.

I've left him some ale and some cheese from the dairy lest he forgets to bless us with his mistletoes and sage. A blessing for the Yule and the year to follow when we will need his magik luck to run well our stony soils and meagre crops. Yes, it would be truly good. But I'll leave no carrots for Old Man Christmas.

Let's pray its him and not .... the other one. The one who feigns civility and knocks lower down the wood with his furred paw mucked from leaping in the empty furlongs of our darknesses.

In disguise he comes, the evil one. A field animal at home in the worst of winter, its eyes accustomed to the black of night, its legs muscled from clearing our graves, insulting the dead with steaming piss dripping from its legs. 

Fleet of foot and fetid breath, that devil's long front-teeth seem chiselled for tubers but it only plays with them. Its diet is finer for it feasts on our weaknesses on this Eve of Christ and drinks the gilded liquor of our waning souls.

It is to be feared, the ancient goblin from the fields. The smiling leveret. The rabbit-jack no less.

I've lit the hearth and wait nervously for my missing man. The excited bairns are bedded by the hearth but my husband isn't here, detained no doubt from market work whence he sold our sows yesterday to wealthy folk, the twenty third. He's vowed to fetch something back for our sacred table this Christmas Day.

I hope he's safe this cold eve, perhaps curled in soft hay inside a forest hut or nestled in a byre where cattle-breath warms his face.

Dear Lord, do not let him meet the hopping one as it springs between the thorns and hips searching for the lame on this night of nights, its sagging belly hollow as the howling pit from which it sprang.

But lo, I hear something, some sound anew in the drape of dark. The hearth shudders as frost crackles beyond the door where two feet tread. Or God forbid, four filthy paws.

Knock, knock, knock!

High upon the door I hear the knocks and bound for the bar to let him through, my man, frozen to the bone, pale and staring like a lunatic.

He walks and grins. The bairns wake up.

It is only then I see the hare upon his back and He is in.

MAKE ME SOME LAMBSWOOL MY DEAR

She wandered into the Museum that day. It was freezing cold that New Year's Eve and raining outside in the dead of Winter.

Shaking herself dry she made her way to the pendulum at the centre of the atrium.

The huge weight hung from the high ceiling. She stared up into the distant roof and blinked as a lightening bolt flashed by. The thunder came next and seemed to shake the building. The pendulum shuddered.

Snuggling into her long coat she took the huge marble steps to the top floor. The levels were circular and the uppermost one held the medieval displays and the whispering wall.

Inside the tall glass cases were dishevelled artefacts from the middle ages found close by; pots, utensils, brooches and canon balls. There was also a large bowl with a gnarled wooden spoon alongside a recipe for something called Lambswool. Peering down she realised that the spoon wasn't just weathered. It had been bitten all over.

Next to the bowl and spoon was a little card, which read 'Kitchen ware found near the site of the old village doctor. The area was said to have been haunted by demons and that the spoon was used by the Devil'.

A map located the old Doctor's surgery.

By coincidence the site of the old surgery was where her own house stood now and it still retained the name. She shivered involuntarily.

"The Devil! Where I live!" she said to herself, "How horrible! What complete tosh!"

Sauntering further into the gallery she found herself staring at a portrait in oils. It was of a man, a man's face. He wore a black hood and held a huge black beaked mask under his arm. His eyes were red and his skin a pale yellow. He looked ill. His smiling mouth was slightly open and behind were stained gritted teeth. He seemed to glare at her with an unexpected but palpable malice and he emanated an utter loathing of her which touched her very core. This was the face of pure evil.

Staggering back from the picture she caught sight of the label.

"Village Doctor: Reputed to have Infected the whole Village with the Black Death and Invited the Devil to Supper to celebrate the Slaughter."

"The Doctor!" she gasped.

Running from the display she could still feel those hateful red eyes burning into her back as she took the corner to the start of the whispering gallery.

She stood taut against the wall and breathed heavily, her breaths coming in large gulps. Slowly she calmed herself and looked around to see of anyone was there. Slightly embarrassed she laughed nervously and took a few paces along the circular wall. 

Making sure that no-one else was on this floor or along the wall she faced into it and whispered "Hello!"

Chuckling and brushing her overcoat she walked a couple of steps and suddenly stopped.

"Hello!" replied a voice slithering almost silently along the wall.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she looked around frantically to see who could have replied to her on the upper floor. She had checked and was certain she was alone a few moments ago.

There was no-one.

"Hello! Are you there my dear?"

The woman exhaled in fright and ran around the circular level looking for the exit.

The stranger's voice continued.

"We shall have company tonight. Make us some Lambswool my dear and I will be pleased! You do want to please me and my guest don't you!"

The woman listened with increasing horror. Who on earth could be whispering to her along the wall? And that voice! A terrible, dreadful voice, so utterly inhuman and full of .....

"Malice!" she exclaimed and all at once knew she was listening to the whispers of the Village Doctor, whose portrait hung in the gallery next door.

Her whole body shook and she searched and searched for the exit but to no avail. The whispering wall seemed to be endless and she ran and ran in continuous circles until she could run no more.

Bent double she struggled for air and sobbed.

The Doctor resumed.

"Use the large bowl and spoon for mixing the Lambswool my dearest and let my guest taste it first lest he should get angry and turn on ... you!"

The woman screamed in terror. This can't be happening. She must be hearing things. Someone downstairs must be talking on the phone and somehow its echoing through the marble to here.

"Yes that's it!" the woman consoled herself.

"I shall be home at the strike of 7, when my work is done my sweet. But heed me, have it ready!" he warned and with that the Doctor's voice receded back into the walls and became silent.

Holding her head, shrieking loudly, the woman found the exit and hurried down the massive stairs until she was outside in the bitter cold once more. The Museum attendant was just shutting the large iron gates for early closing. It was 4 'o' Clock.

"Happy New Year for tomorrow my dear!" he said to her, his breath rising like a ghost.

She froze and stared at the attendant but he was smiling and his friendly face put her once more at ease.

"Yes, Happy New Year!" she replied tucking her ands in her pockets.

She was pleased to feel the tinge of winter on her face again and she shrugged off the past half an hour as nothing more than an unpleasant daydream brought on by the macabre museum.

Regaining her composure she stopped at a micro-pub, the Fleece and sat happily drinking a glass or two of the local bottled beer and after an hour she bought two more bottles to take home, which she thought later, was quite an unusual thing for her to do.

Feeling the warmth of the beer reddening her cheeks she strolled home. She passed the Butchers, where the jolly man waved. She passed the hairdressers, where the ladies waved to her as well. At the village Church she paused to look at the graveyard over the wall. The headstones were lob-sided and stained like old teeth. Many of them were plague victims, re-interred from the fields a century or so ago.

"The plague!" she whispered to herself.

"Did you say something my dear?"

The woman spun round as if her own grave had been walked on and looked straight into the face of the local Priest.

"Wishing you a very happy and healthy new year to come my child" warmed the Priest and took her hands in his.

As he touched her, his smile didn't last and he quickly withdrew his hands and hurried away back to his Church.

"Happy New Year!" she called after him somewhat puzzled and a little frightened by his odd behaviour.

She jumped as the Church clock struck the hour. It was 6 'o' Clock.

Reaching her door the woman had the strangest feeling that someone was behind her. Pivoting round she saw no-one but the feeling persisted as she unlocked the large wooden door, a leftover from the previous house-owner. The house name-plate glistened as the fist New Year's Eve firework lit up the darkness. It read 'The Old Surgery'.

Taking off her long coat she immediately struck a match and ignited the kindling and paper and coal she had prepared in the large kitchen hearth earlier that day. The woman made herself a cup of hot cocoa on the stove and turning with it in her hands she froze.

Standing on the big timber table was a large bowl, a wooden spoon and a parchment curling at the edges.

Shivering uncontrollably she knew instinctively that these were the vary same objects she had peered at several earlier in the Medieval gallery.

She moved closer and saw that the parchment was indeed a recipe for lambswool and nearly fainted.

Clutching the edge of the table she steadies herself and felt an undeniable urge to read the recipe.

Take warme beer, boile creme with thrice cloves, droppe three yolks in withe sippets of bread, put all in a bowl and pour in the warm ale to crowne the bowl full. Scattere sugar, stick with white almonds and spice with cinnamon, ginger, and sugar. This thee shall do to make the Lambswool and howle with your guests.

The urge in her grew stronger and she took the bowl and the spoon and followed the recipe to the letter utilising the beer she bought from the Fleece. Everything else was in her pantry, the ginger, the nutmeg and eggs.

She busied herself completely, overtaken with a compulsion to make the best Lambswool in the village for her husband and his esteemed guest. 

Finished, the thick cream slopped over the sides of the Howling Bowl. The woman dipped her finger in and wrapped her eager tongue around the sweet brew.

"Mmmmm!" she cooed.

Her clock suddenly struck seven. The shock of the chimes brought the woman to her senses.

She stared incredulously at the large bowl of liquid and the wooden spoon in her hand.

"What ...."

She didn't have time to finish her question because the front door of the house burst open. The cold winter air rushed through and into the gloom of the hallway stepped two figures.

The one at the front was wearing a long black coat with a black hood and a huge beaked mask.

"Hello my dear! Happy New Year! Did you make me some lambswool for my guest?"

The guest barged past the Doctor and on two steaming cloven feet lurched towards the woman in the kitchen, violently grabbing the wooden spoon from her and voraciously ladled from the bowl.

"Mmm! Lambswool!" he gurgled smiling through pointed teeth, which he began to bite the spoon with. He took her hand and bit her sticky finger hard.

"You started without me!"

As the Doctor laughed the woman began to scream.

THIS SINISTER FEAST

 October hardens like a scab.

Two devils, dancing, demand again the Beast

spew up the Samhain, its festival, its Hell

and ravenous, like greed, let it out to feed,

upon the innocents, the krill it craves, oh yes, He'll gorge

this night, His sinister Feast of Halloween

where incognito He misrules the sweet processions

Before returning like a crab, full fattened, to the darkest sea.

WINTER'S GRIP '71

The winter of 1971 was as bitter as the grave and as long as any anyone could remember in Snowdonia. 

Snow fell and blanketed the villages and terrible winds wailed across the tops right up until the first days of Spring should have come. But they didn't.

The weather was a like a mad devil and gripped the land in its lengthening claws, a wild vampire sucking the light from the days.

Nothing stirred in that dark wind-blasted season and lost souls were blown off-course in the dreadful months of ice and sleet at the bitten end of the year.

In early March and unexpectedly snug in the tiny Welsh hamlet of Glasynfryn, a man sat with his dog by a warm log fire and listened to Budgie, the new rock trio giving Led Zepp a run for their money. His small place glowed in the fell night like a beacon.

Relaxing to the heavy riffs with a long joint, the man was suddenly startled by a colossal blast of wind outside, worse than anything the whole winter had thrown up thus far and his old cottage rattled and creaked in shock.

With a skid his LP stopped dead and the lights went out. It was pitch black in his living room save for the nodding flames in the grate.

The man fumbled round the kitchen next-door for a candle, which he lit on the fire.

"Christ! What a wind!"

He stared cautiously outside through his window at the snowy windswept world. The mad gust had subsided but a dreadful wind remained. There were now no lights on at any of his neighbours' houses anywhere on the hillside.

"Damn it. Its a power cut! Again!"

He stoked the grate and piled new logs into the basket. It could be a long few days until the power comes back on he mused.

"This winter will be the death of us boy!" he said and smiled at his loyal dog.

With a warming cup of soup he settled back down and gave gave his pet a chew.

"Their you go old fella!"

He patted it's head and drank his hot soup staring into the enchanting flames of the hearth. They seemed to be telling him something, to keep the fire burning.

He must have fallen asleep and dreamt.

It was his dog growling that woke him up.

"What's up fella?"

The two made their way to the kitchen, where to the man's surprise the back door was ajar and the cold long Winter wind and snow were howling in.

"Christ!" he swore and pushed the door back and bolted it this time.

The dog continued to growl and padded to the bottom of the staircase staring up.

Geraint heeded his faithful dog's instincts and headed upstairs carrying his old friend. He found nothing out of the ordinary and neither did the dog.

In the morning the man woke, stretched loudly and staggered downstairs. He lit the stove for a pot of tea and fed the waiting pet, who wolfed down its dry mix in seconds.

The kettle whistled and the man stumbled back upstairs with his steaming mug, slurping along the way.

He glared into the mirror at his grizzled face and shook his head.

"Blahhh!" he complained to his own reflection.

Reaching for the soap he stopped and stared at it.

It was covered in hair. Long white hairs.

"What the ...!"

He turned the bar over and found the hair on both sides.

The man looked at the soap intently as if it explain to him directly what was going on.

He turned and picked up the bar on the bath-side.

"More!" he shouted.

Suddenly he remembered the open door the night before and ran tearing round his cottage looking for an intruder. Finding nothing upstairs he set his dog on sniffing anyone out hiding in the pantry or the woodshed. Again, they found nothing.

He finished his tea and made a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, sharing some of the cooked rashers with his greying pet.

"You've not been rolling round in my soap have you dog?" said the man chewing on his fried bread.

"Maybe something blew in last night? A seagull or a squirrel? Its all very mysterious mutt" he puzzled stroking his old dog under the table.

The man spent the short spell of late Winter daylight splitting logs for the fire and stacking them neatly in his shed. They groaned as they settled like .... coffins! .... he thought. for some reason He shivered and stood his axe by the door, where a stooped group of snow drops were the only visible signals of a Spring that might never arrive.

That night he carried several large pans full of boiling water upstairs and filled his bath. he had cleaned his two bars of soap and was looking forward to a good hot soak before bed.

It would be days before the power's back up. The phone's were down too so he couldn't even contact the hill farm where he worked each March helping with the lambing high up on the slopes.

As he returned for one last pan-full from the hearth his dog was stood straight, hackles up and snarling at the the bottom of the stairs.

"What is it boy?"

He sprinted the steps as best he could without spilling his water and looked in two bedrooms and finally the bathroom.

Nothing.

"Its OK dog, there's nothing here. Go back to sleep by the fire. I'll be down in a bit and make us both some cocoa".

The man undressed and got into the bath. The hot water rose around him and he slid back into its comforting warmth. On the sill was a lit candle and its flame danced and flicked in the harsh wind mugging its way through the rickety window frame. A jos-stick's scented smoke curled and twitched next to it.

The aches of splitting logs oozed away from his bones and he reached for the soap. He lathered his chest and short grey hair and sang half-lines of Stairway to Heaven.

"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now....."

He sank himself under the water to rinse his head.

"It's just a spring clean for the May ...."

He put the soap back and wiped his eyes.

The man sat bolt upright as he stared at the soap. It was sodden with long white hairs again. He touched it tentatively as if it were alive and flicked it onto the floor where it skidded to a stop.

He stood and shuddered and without taking his eyes of the hairy thing he wrapped a large bath towel around his waist and stepped out of the tub.

The man backed out of the bathroom and onto the landing.

His dog, standing at the foot of the stairs still, immediately starting barking frantically with its eyes fixed on the man. 

Startled the man turned and caught a glimpse of a wavering outline in the landing mirror. 

There was something clinging to his back shivering.

The man jumped with fright and his dog barked even more, trying desperately to get up the steep stairs but it was too old for the climb.

His shuddering passenger leapt off him like a bat and crouched on the landing staring at the man with a surreal intensity.

It was a svelte, green-skinned, human-like creature with incredibly long arms and legs, which were wrapped round the man. 

It had long pointed ears, huge bright piercing turquoise eyes, a short nose, black lips and a thin mouth full of sharp teeth. It also had a mane of long white hair, which was draped over her back touching the floor. A sinuous tail wove to and fro through its tresses.

The being was perfectly still. Steam from the hot bath rose from its verdant limbs giving it a spirit-like form.

The man's mouth was agape. Never had he seen such a beautiful, elven thing, totally otherworldly, but somehow familiar. He wondered if it might be an alien.

All at once the wind ceased abruptly and the house stopped groaning. A ray of sunlight fired through the bathroom window and hit the creature with a bright orange beam.

It stiffened and sprang up immediately. It sniffed the air noisily.  It ran to the window and gazed at the world outside licking its sharp teeth.

"It's time!" it whispered, its reflection in the mirror disappearing.

It darted down the stairs past the man and the dog and reached the back door in a second, its green features a grassy blur, its tail a gyrating asp.

Clasping the door it turned and looked at the man.

"Thankyou for keeping me!" it hissed through its gleaming fangs.

At once it ran out of the house and into the icy wastes, where its footsteps left sprigs of snowdrops and celandine exploding through the melting snow. Everywhere the sprite leapt new life erupted and the sun burst through the fading grey like magma as the first lambs screamed in the fields.

The man flexed in his towel and the puzzled dog panted. They both stood at the door and looked out onto this green season, a spellbinding cauldron of rising sap and hot blood unfolding in the wake of the growling spirit as it searched for the dying Winter, teeth bared, hungry for its final breath.

It was Spring.

At last.

FIELD TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO NINETEENTH CENTURY ARCHEOLOGISTS

Line rings

*

Hello, is that Steinheim? Swanscombe here.

Yes, its Steinheim Swanscombe.

Steinheim, we've found something. Something immensely important.

What is it Swanscombe?

It looks like a new burial chamber. Neanderthal I think. 

How many corpses?

Hard to tell. At least four. Two adults and two children. Completely intact. But ..

What is it Swanscombe?

There's lots of other loose bones around the family.

What are they?

Human.

Human? In the chamber?

Yes. Individual bones and skulls scattered around the floor.

What kind of skulls Swanscombe?

They look .... modern!

Modern? What do you mean?

Not Neanderthal.

Not?

No. They're smashed too. Large holes have been made in the skulls.

Swanscombe, you must be mistaken. No modern corpses could be there if you've just discovered the chamber.

I don't think we have.

What? What do you mean Swanscombe?

I don't think we've discovered this chamber. I think someone else was here before us.

How do you know?

The scattered bones and skulls.

What about them?

They discovered the chamber.

That can't be Swanscombe. You're wrong.

I don't think so Steinheim. There are tools.

Tools?

Yes, hand tools. 

Of course there are! Neanderthal tools.

No. Modern ones. Trowels and ..... hammers.

Swanscombe, don't move anything else. I'm coming over by plane. I'll be there by Midnight.

You don't need to. I can handle it.

Swanscombe, I'm coming.

Wait, something's moving.

Moving? What?

One of the hammers. It's rising and coming out of the shadows.

Swanscombe, what's happening?

OH MY GOD! One of the adults. It's alive!

Swanscombe, that's impossible! Stop joking around!

PLEASE! PLEASE NO! STEINHEIM!

Swanscombe!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[bone breaking sounds]

SWANSCOMBE!

[eating sounds]

SWAAAANSCOOOOOMBE!

[grunting sounds]

*

Line goes dead.

THE SNAKE CHARMER

Kranker was sat near the bar drinking a beer.

It was a dark winter's night, which knocked on the door and rattled the frame.

"Hello".

The man startled Kranker, who spilled his drink.

"Oh I'm terribly sorry! Let me help you".

The man began to dab at the wetness on Kranker's shirt.

"Stop that! I'll do it myself thankyou!"

"Well at least let me buy you another drink"

"Fine. I'll have another glass of beer"

The man went to the bar and got two frothy pints. He tipped something into Kranker's.

"There you go!"

"Thank you"

"Sorry about the shirt"

"Forget it. I'm Kranker"

"Schlinker"

He held out his hand and they shook.

"What do you do Kranker?"

"I'm a pet control warden"

"Really! So you catch strays then?"

"Yes. Stray dogs mostly but also cats, guinea pigs. Even snakes!"

"Snakes! Well I never. How about that. Such a small world"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you're a stray snake catcher and I'm a ..... snake charmer"

"A snake charmer?"

"Yes, I'm part of the Circus that's just arrived in town"

"Circus eh, I used to love going to the circus when I was a kid"

"Oh its not just for kids. We get many adults coming to the circus nowadays. My own act is very popular with grown men because its so terrifying"

"Terrifying? Why's that?"

"Well, its because I charm what is probably the biggest snake in the world. Its a forty foot long boa constrictor and is really quite frightening. It really draws in the crowds"

"Forty feet long! That's a proper monster!"

"Yes, its a freak really. Most likely a Titanoboa that's somehow re-evolved from other massive snakes"

"What on earth do you feed it on?"

"Well its a problem really. We need large animals like cows or horses, which we kill and keep frozen in a huge chest freezer"

"Does it like frozen animals?"

"Well, in the wild it would eat live prey naturally but with current legislation as it is we can't do that. It would make a great spectacle though, in the circus!"

"It sounds incredible. Forty feet long. I would love to see that."

"Really? You wouldn't be scared?"

"Oh no. I've caught a few large snakes in my time and it would be just so cool to see something that big. As long as I don't have catch it!"

"Of course not!" chuckled Schlinker, " and I'm sure I could get you in the Circus's final night tonight if you really want to see it."

"That would be great!"

"Well, just follow me then. I'm going over there right now."

Kranker followed Schlinker to the Circus marquee at the edge of town. It was in complete darkness. Schlinker checked his watch.

"Perfect. It's feeding time. You'll get to see it all Kranker."

"Fabulous. I can't wait!"

Kranker was feeling a little drowsy for some reason and began to stagger a little.

"Just through here."

Schlinker pulled back a canvas door and the two men walked into a pitch black space. 

"Just up here Kranker. You go in and I'll just reach in here and turn the light on."

Schlinker leaned into an alcove and grabbed hold of something long. He flicked the switch.

Immediately the space was filled with bright light and there was raucous applause from what seemed like a thousand people sat round a huge Circus ring.

"Wha - what's going on Schl - Schlinker?"

"I told you Kranker, you'll get to see it all, up close and personal."

Schlinker revealed a long shafted pitch fork and he began to viciously prod Kranker into the ring.

"As I said, its bleeding time!" bellowed Schlinker to the crowd who roared in appreciation.

"Titano is starving!" Kranker yelled and prodded Schlinker once more, this time drawing blood as he shambled into the centre of the circle to the loud applause of an exclusive crowd.

"What the hell are you doing Schlinker?"

"I'm feeding the snake Kranker and you are its food! Come, the town's elite are waiting!"

"For God's sake Schlinker, I beg you! This is insanity!"

"You mean for God's Snake Kranker!" Schlinker laughed as he stuck the fork's tines deep into the man's arm.

Kranker screamed in pain as the shackled Titano reared up high above him, its massive mouth stretched wide and its colossal fangs drooling venom.

The hapless victim froze and stared in horror at the leviathan towering over him. He struggled to wipe the drool from his eyes.

Schlinker whipped up the crowd. They were now on their feet and the snake master demanded a drum roll off them. From the rattle of jewellery and drumming an excited chorus for Titano sprang up. 

"Titano, Titano!"

Greedy for one last scream before it struck, Schlinker lunged at Kranker once again with his fork.

Suddenly Kranker grabbed its two prongs, the sharp tips piercing his palms. Despite his sedation, he pulled with all his might.

Kranker fell backwards and dragged Schlinker into the centre just as Titano's head was descending rapidly to devour its prey.

The bewildered snake charmer looked up, shielded his face and shrieked in terror.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Titano swallowed Schlinker whole, its long fangs piercing his face as his body slid down its giant throat with a shlurpp!

The crowd were momentarily stunned but then applauded the gruesome twist, clapping wildly in the aisles as the beast retreated to its high shackles beneath the roof, digesting the still-conscious Schlinker in the dark of the ring-top. 

From this black apex the grim loud sound of bones snapping could be heard.

The expensive crowd gasped but then bayed with pleasure despite the obvious agony unfolding above them.

Kranker, bleeding badly, slunk out of the tent past the flustered ring-master, who was holding a paint brush.

Outside he passed a hastily-made sign.

"Vacancy! Snake Charmer! Apply Within!"

ECHT STARK FOREVER

Echt Stark was the apple of his parents' eye.

Echt gave their life meaning.

They would do anything for him.

Born under a grey steely sky, the boy Echt slipped into the world and two became three.

The three who would face the world together.

Echt grew up in a cocoon of love and affection. His parents encouraged him to seek knowledge and understanding through all the media available, which Echt did. TV, video, cinema, theatre, books and music were the lectern of his mind.

But above all he loved comics and could not get enough of the heroic antics of his favourite characters. Echt worshipped their ways, their costumes and their powers.

He wished more than anything that he himself had super powers and set about making his mind and body the very best they could be. He would train his brain and muscles to become the equal of Olympians and more.

His parent's encouraged him to tone his physique and channel his mind to find the answers to the world's biggest questions. Yes they were a little worried about pushing him but Echt was a born hero.

He began to perform random acts of kindness and courtesy around the town. He solved some problems. He rescued cats from trees, mowed lawns for free, swept tons of leaves for elderly neighbours and there were rumours he had done much more daring, more sensational feats.

With local applause ringing in his ears, the boy's love of comics grew and so did his love of his favourite heroes. 

He adored the way they moved with confidence and prowess, their ability to turn heads and stop crowds with their grand gestures. Above all he loved their one-knee, fist on the ground landings.

There was something about this manoeuvre that captured his imagination like no other. 

He stared in astonishment at the finesse with which his heroes did it and the heights from which they came to land. The heroic landing was the very epitome of their fabulous moves, its awesome swoosh the zenith of their swagger.

Echt wanted nothing more than to master it.

He put himself through a brutally rigourous programme of athletics, gymnastics, callisthenics, bushido, savate, hapkido, trapeze, wrestling and many other physical regimes and disciplines. 

By the age of ten he was one of the world's greatest gymnasts and acrobats and people came from miles around to see him tumbling and rolling like, well ...one of his comic heroes.

His parents encouraged him to reach ever greater swishes and swirls, although they harboured some secret guilt about driving him on.

Echt trained harder and harder.

Eventually he announced that he was ready to attempt his own heroic landing. 

He had leapt from buckets, from boxes, from crates, from wooden horses, from chairs, from tables and from the tops of boulders. Like a diver he was increasing the height from which he landed on one knee, with one fist down and a huge cape billowing in the wind, the applause from his adoring fans charging his sinews to ever greater feats.

Echt announced to his parents that he was going to perform a grand landing that coming weekend. He would leap from the balcony of the town's museum and land on the civic plaza below.

They begged him not to do this but he assured them that he was ready. His body was ready and people would talk forever of his majestic act. His parents relented and the big day came round.

It was a sunny Saturday. The blue sky was almost cloudless and people were wearing T-shirts and shorts. Everyone was having a good time and when midday came around a sizable crowd had gathered around the sides of the plaza. High noon.

Echt could see the townsfolk below and hear their encouraging trills. At the very front were his devoted parents.

He had already decided that morning to jump from a much higher part of the museum. The lower balcony was just too low for anyone to remember it. He need altitude if this landing was the legend he wanted it to be. He needed it to be as legendary as the divine flourishes of his heroes.

Echt stepped into the daylight on the very top balcony of the old museum, a height of at least fifty feet from the plaza floor. 

The crowd gasped and his parents staggered with disbelief. they held their hands over their mouths in horror at the sight of their beloved son teetering on the edge so far above them. He had clearly lost his mind.

The boy looked at the people way below him and then stared into the sky. He thought of those airy citadels, where wondrous beings dwell in the clouds and of glorious capes swooshing in the hazy sunlight as they made their descent.

He thought of all this and jumped.

The throng was silent as Echt shot downwards, his own cape fluttering in the rare air like a victory flag. He looked wonderful, a sacred youngling caught in the bright rays of the sun.

After a few sinuous twists and rolls, it only took a couple of seconds and Echt was nearing the ground. He assumed the landing pose he had practised a million times, the heroic god-like posture of his comic idols.

He landed.

The first bones to shatter were his knuckles and knees. Next were his legs, his pelvis, his right arm and eventually his back as the shock wave ravaged his young body.

Echt crumpled like a paper bag, broken beyond repair.

His parents picked him up, a brittle wretch. Their hot tears of agony drenched his closed eyes. 

They opened and he whispered a single word to them.

"Sorry!"

It took countless hospital operations to piece together the shards of his hundred fractures. Many steel rods were inserted. But nothing could be done for his back. He would be without movement for the rest of his days.

His parents cared for him as best they could. He was grateful to them.

But his spirit had gone, his divine ambitions. Where was the billow of his cape in the light, where was the head held high? No cheering, no clapping, just sadness and sobbing. 

Echt was a thing to be avoided. To be passed quickly without a glance. To be crossed over the road for. His tragedy was everyone's and their guilt was the indelible mark of the age.

Years faded and the boy became a man-thing of sorts. He got older but could not move to be any age. He just sat staring at rotting comics in the boiling conservatory, where his parents left him all day and every day.

He stared at the distant healing sun and wanted to kneel in its golden flare one more time.

Echt shuffled off his sofa and fell to the floor. With excruciating pain he grated his clicking limbs into something like the one-knee landing he had dreamt of all those years before on the high balcony of the museum.

His hospital blanket shivered on his back as he looked at the fiery orb beyond the sky and he screamed. 

It was a scream of a thousand pains and a single joy for the boy he left behind on that terrible day.

Echt closed his eyes for the last time. His final wishes were scrawled on the comic book by his side.

His parents looked on and wept for the son they had lost. 

It felt like they would weep for an eternity and extinguish the light in this world.

They mourned but followed their son's wishes to the letter.

That night by the thick cover of darkness they took Echt's stiffening body to the plaza. They had hired a cement mixer and it met them there.

As instructed Echt was positioned precisely on the stone flags. Rigor Mortis had set in completely.

When all was ready the cement was poured. Just enough to cover their boy. His parents looked at him with pride and sadness one last time and left.

In the morning crowds gathered. There was a new statue in the plaza. A man on bended knee, his cape flying and his fist touching the ground like a hero.

The crowds stared, looked up to the sky and knew who he was.

Kneeling in the exact same spot where he'd landed from the top balcony those many years ago here he was again.

Echt Stark.

Forever.

CAFE BLOOD

The craft course was in a beautiful rambling country pile in rural Nottinghamshire.

It was a gorgeous Sunday. The September light promised that summer's end was still some way off. The air was clear and a warm breeze blew through the estate.

Katrin was enrolled on a craft course there. Crafts for Novices it said on the ticket. It had been a Christmas gift from an unknown benefactor and Katrin had at long last found the time to go to this important event. Her facile work as a village vicar had kept her far too busy. 

In fact she was glad to get away and was actively reforming herself because after fifty years with the toothless Jesuit her faith in the Nazarene was gone. Increasingly delighting in the cruel and constant slurry of blasphemous bilge on TV Katrin was finding more and more truth in a world ruled not by God but by Satan. It made much more sense to her and she felt a new stimulus growing inside her like an egg. 

Sadly during this essential change she found no comfort at all in her insipid husband Daniel, as his allegiance to her was non-existent. He was increasingly spiteful and it was clear to Katrin that Daniel was fast becoming a thorn in her side and a distraction from her second path.

Daniel had come with Katrin because of the food and sat in the garden café of the country house with a book he’d bought on holiday in a charity shop. It was called "Suture" and was one of those well-thumbed 1970’s horror paperbacks with a bloody cover depicting a needle piercing someone’s lacerated skin. 

He ordered a cappuccino and a delicious-looking sausage sandwich and nestled down into his comfortable deckchair relishing three hours of peace and quiet and an escape from his Wife’s unending and unbearable tirades about how terrible the world was and how God had forsaken it.

He just wanted to delve into a fictitious realm of mindlessly violent blood loss and not have to listen to Katrin’s irksome stream of shite. God how he wished she’d join a cult or something and just fuck off.

The first large cappuccino turned into a second and third one. Daniel gratefully admired the lithe figure of the young siren who had waited on him. He planned to tip her well.

A late summer wasp poked its face into the sweet leftovers of the first two cups yet to be taken away. Daniel had purposefully hidden them on the next chair to get the siren back later. 

The wasp re-emerged with a mouth covered in froth and looked as if it had been gagged. Daniel smiled. 

"Serves you right wasp for sticking your beak into other peoples' business. Like Katrin!" he mused. 

Yes. Katrin was a black and white wasp buzzing round her needy congregation, removing unwanted baggage, bringing it home and poisoning him in the process. The world's nosiest dog-collared pest!

He smiled bitterly. He realised he was utterly sick of Katrin and had to leave her or else he might do something he would regret. Something biblical.

The bothersome insect was still hovering round his cups and getting way too close to him for comfort. Daniel had had enough. 

Taking an unused glass he trapped the insect on the table. The horned wasp stared at him hatefully and pounded the transparent walls of its new prison. Daniel could have sworn he momentarily saw Katrin's head on top of its stringy neck. He grimaced and felt a shudder run along his spine.

Shaking his head, he looked at his watch. Eleven am. Another two hours of peace. At least he hoped it would be peaceful. The first hour had perturbed him, his book offering only snatches of grisly comfort as he dealt with his pesky friend still incarcerated in the glass tower. 

What he had managed to read was basically a sordid tale where prisoners were experimented on without anesthetic. A black-garbed Judge asked them to repent before further sentences were passed, his particular favourite being the Y- incision and autopsy, naturally whilst the poor unfortunates were still fully conscious. These corrections he administered himself in a square, mirrored room, so the unrepentant could see their grisly descents into Hell.

Daniel had had enough Cappuccino so ordered a pot of tea for one. Once the attractive waitress had tended to his needs again he sat back to watch the comings and going’s of the garden cafe’s other guests. 

"It takes all sorts I suppose," he thought. "Look at them. Slurping coffee like sheep wittering on about their interminable problems to friends and family who just want to be somewhere else and not have to put up with the never ending swill of self pitying effluent streaming from their gobs!"

He imagined them all being taps, which he went round and turned off, twisting their heads till their mouths shut. He chuckled at this image and returned to Suture. The mad judge was busy slicing open someone's belly and lifting out entrails like presents.

It was nearly lunch and Daniel ordered a liver sandwich, a hangover from his Lancastrian childhood when offal had been half his diet. Kidneys, tripe, bone marrow, dripping and his favourite, liver, preferably pigs as they seemed to imbue it with extra succulence. 

He did feel sorry for those pigs but at least they ate well and never moaned about how shit everything was. Not like Katrin and her tiresome flock. All strung-up and uptight. No flavour at all he reckoned. Unforgiving meat. The judge would sort them out. 

"Yes. He certainly would!" he said aloud laughing. 

Some of his seated neighbours stared at him. He smiled and bit noisily into his liver.

The wasp in the glass was quiet. Exhausted from fruitless efforts to escape it sat in its cell, its torso heaving. Daniel uncharacteristically felt sorry for it now. The little devil was clearly beaten and had inevitably bowed to his greater mind. He, its mighty captor and master!

He lifted the glass and it flew straight at his forearm and stung him. The wasp’s stinger was so forcefully stabbed into his skin that once it had excitedly injected its venom it could not free itself. It buzzed and buzzed in helpless frustration.

Daniel screamed and leapt out of his chair. He saw the thing trapped in his flesh and clasped it with his thumb and forefinger, violently ripping it off. The stinger remained like a thorn topped with the insect's guts and as he touched it Daniel screamed again in agony. 

Everyone in the café was staring at him. He was sure they all had Katrin’s hateful grimace. He stormed off towards the building knocking over the table.

“Help. Help!” he bellowed as he staggered into the entrance clutching his increasingly swelling arm.

“I’ve been stung. Terribly stung!” 

Daniel was almost delirious with the scolding fire tearing through his limb when losing consciousness he fell headlong into the craft room where his wife Katrin was.

Daniel awoke surrounded by concerned faces. He was strapped to a table surrounded by figures dressed in black. They glared at him and tutted.

“So this is Daniel eh Katrin.”

“Yep. This is Daniel. A sorry specimen of a husband I have to admit.”

“Yes. Sorry. Well. If you are to progress to the next stage of the craft Katrin we will have to make Daniel sorry he was ever ejected from his mother’s God-smitten hole I'm afraid.”

A familiar face moved forward and Daniel was horrified to see it was the Judge in his book Suture.

He wore a dark hood and a bright red dog-collar. Around his neck was an upturned crucifix on a jet black rosary.

He spoke like a goat.

"You have been found guilty of obstructing a disciple of the Great Lord. How do you plead?

"I’m innocent! I'm innocent!"

"What does the chief witness say? What say you Katrin?"

"Guilty! Guilty as charged!"

"Guilty! Then so be it. You shall be punished accordingly Daniel."

The Head Priest nodded to Katrin who picked up a large blunt needle and thread. She commenced to pierce Daniel's lips and pull the thick thread through the flesh. 

"Katrin! No! Please! No! I shall change, I shall support you, I shall follow you! Please!"

Katrin stared at her husband and shook her head before continuing to sew his mouth together, Daniel shrieking in agony throughout the embroidery.

With blood flowing into his stitched lips Daniel stared in disbelief at the woman whom he'd once loved, now smiling at him as the High Priest stooped over him with a scalpel.

Mumbling through the tight sutures and writhing against his straps Daniel's eyes widened in abject horror as the sharp blade entered his breast and was drawn slowly down his abdomen toward his navel. Hot smoking blood gushed out like lava and flooded the table. 

The coven grinned, overjoyed with the prospect of Daniel's sacrifice to the Dark One. They dipped their fingers into his opening chest and licked the tips. The High Priest pushed on with the Y-incision and forced open the huge wound, slowly revealing Daniel's steaming entrails slopping between his ribcage.

There was a moment of pause while all the assembled company raised their hands high above their heads. At the rapturous cry of the High Priest all hands delved into Daniel and in an ecstasy of bloodlust pulled out fistfuls of wet organs and tubing, holding them in the air before nuzzling them theirs' and each other's faces.

It was Katrin who reached in last smiling broadly and menacingly. Her smile broadened close to his face as she clutched his still-beating heart and dragged it from its bloody roots. Daniel screamed so forcibly that his lips ripped open and from the mangled hole emitted such a blood-curdling yell that he passed out.

Daniel awoke with a start at his café table with his face in a saucer of tea. The wasp was positioned inside the glass, now seemingly full of blood, greedily siphoning up the warm scarlet liquid. Katrin was sitting next to him. She had blood round her lips and was wearing a crimson dog-collar and an upturned crucifix on a jet black rosary.

He quickly felt his lips. They were painfully ragged and peppered with agonising holes.

Panicking he fumbled to unbutton his shirt and stared at his chest feeling the skin with enquiring fingers.

A huge angry Y-incision was brutally stitched up all the way down his chest.

Daniel screamed and screamed in total horror and looked up as Katrin bit deeply into his glistening severed heart held in her hand.

RICHARD RAVEN, PAINTER

It was the summer of 1547. The sun baked the dense streets like a sadist. It reeked of shit and piss. Richard Raven strolled through it all. He wore a large beaked mask stuffed with herbs to keep the stink out. His black hood was up and his long dark cloak trailed in the sewage. He looked like a crow.

He entered his home knuckling the graveyard. It was crooked and its four front windows stared over the massing graves. They heaved like mole hills in the offended till. His home was his sanctuary. The Exorcist's House because Richard raven was an exorcist of paint.

When he painted people he could protect them. His portraits guarded them from their demons and for this he was handsomely rewarded by the grateful rich. This was the contract. Paint for monthly purses of gold and silver and you shall live a happy life free of torment and canker. This was the Raven's stipend, an allowance for the pain his rigours brought him. Recently those pains had worsened and he stooped often with increasing fatigue.

Still he endeavored to exorcise the coming dark with brushes and oils and his strokes of sanctuary hung on the walls of the City's elite like stays of execution. They were mounting too as if some foul edifice was braced above the town poised on the very brink. Their demons were massing.

The painter also assisted the poor and the decrepit of the slums near his house, the overwhelmed and the gangrenous teeming like rodents in the slurry creeping down from the high villas. He painted them freely requiring no payment but the obvious gratitude and sorrow seeping from their faces.

Thousands of these tiny paintings covered his own walls and Raven drew succour from the humility captured within. These were the seraphim in the hell they'd not constructed. The elvers in the priveleged piss. They too twitched like stricken flies at their dismal end. The gutters seemed fit to burst. Talk of malignancy hissed round the cramped alleys like a tide of adders; talk of Death and the Devil himself.

But Richard Raven had a weakness, which was also his escape from the banal, the strain and the growing unease.

He liked to eat and drink the finest meats and wines in the city's most expensive hostelries and bed the most sophisticated women of the night, who's clothes were lavish and quims were washed anew. For this decadence he strew his gold like confetti. Or rather, the gold of the fortunate and the bloated, piled high in the salted cellars of the exorcist's house, his hidden pension.

It was on a night such as this, a night of opulence and copulation that the beaked man staggered home under the misty smoke of the torches by the church.

"Raven!" whispered a voice in the darkness. "Richard Raven, Painter!"

A figure stepped out of the shadows and stood before the startled man.

"Yes. I am Raven. How can I be of service to you?"

"I am Merelda. Contessa of Stygia. I seek your famous skills as an artist of rare hue as I suffer the prospect of injurious blows this very eve."

"What ails you Contessa and I shall see if I can help."

"I am followed by a person of twisted character. A brute who wishes to do me harm. An ogre hell-bent on my mutilation and the violation of my very self."

"Who is this man?"

"He is a force of nature, a terrible lord, who's name remains unknown to me. I know him by his dreadful aura as you would do too".

"I need not meet the man but rather protect you from him If I am correct?"

"Yes. Yes. Oh please help me!"

The lady came closer and kissed the artist's hand and a sudden surge of temptation swept through him. His pulse quickened and he fevered under the mask.

"I shall help you Madame but I require recompense in advance and then monthly forthwith. How will you pay me?"

The Contessa blushed under the dusky torchlight and unfastened the top button of her velvet camisole. Her slow fluttering was unmistakable to Raven, a proffer of passion and a wage he immediately approved of.

He wished heatedly to bed this noble and show her the lengths he would go to capture her essence. He took her hand and walked into his house.

He handed the Countess Merelda a small glass of claret. She smiled and bowing he stepped into his wash room, where Raven removed his beaked mask and his hooded cloak and with spiced soap flannelled his hands, face and loin.

With more claret flowing and deep in the silks and taffetas of his boudoir he wooed the Contessa and felt his passion burgeoning like never before. Her visage, her perfume, her shapely curves all concocted a feverish desire in his weakening soul.

"No Richard! First you must paint me. Then you shall have me!" the Contessa advised.

Raven flicked and dabbed through the night to render the Lady's impression onto his canvas. He was distracted throughout but by and by it was done.

"It is complete Contessa".

The Stygian royal stood in front of her portrait perfectly still.

"You have done well Richard, esteemed painter, but I am unsure of you have captured my truest of natures".

"I have tried my very best my Lady and wish most eagerly to now take you to my bed and describe further my technique," cooed Raven.

"Of course Richard, you shall have me but first you must see me fully in the atelier's light."

The Contessa began to slowly remove her garments; the velvets, the brocades, the camisole. When her petticoat was all that remained Raven held his breath.

It fell and in the dusk of the artist's room revealed a body so hateful, so inhuman that he held his hands over his mouth.

The Lady's breasts were those of a cow, her arms the twisting, biting lengths of serpents, her waist the hairy hide of a warthog and her legs .. it was her legs that made Richard Raven scream, a scream that left the Exorcist's house and carried down the cramped streets of the city like a mad crier.

The Contessa's legs were those of a goat, matted with thick brown hair. Her feet were coarse cloven hooves. Raven stared in disbelief and gagged.

His eyes rose slowly to the head and there .... before him .... was the horned Devil! Lucifer himself!

"You have been busy Richard. I thought I'd better pay you a visit myself before you put me out of business in this Godforsaken hovel completely! I hope you approve of my guise, the voluptuous Contessa, whom I knew would ... erm, wet your palette so to speak! You may still bed me should you wish but I advise against it unless you wish to be incinerated by my particular hot passions!"

"No!"

"Ah, No! As I expected. I have no wish to char your manhood Richard but I do wish to burn all of your paintings. My demons have waited quite long enough and they do so wish to plague your townsfolk so diligently once again. I aim to set them free from your pesky canvas prison".

"You may still wish to bed the Contessa before I start Richard. On the house. Your last brush with lust you might say."

"No. No thankyou".

"Ah well, Never mind. I am keen to free my friends anyway, so they may degrade this pathetic town afresh. I think I shall begin with my Asteroth, who has been sorely missed by his Duchy of pain."

Satan stared at the painting of an Admiral in which his Arch Duke of Hell was bound in a second portrait behind it.

"Ah yes. Asteroth my old infernal fellow. Naturally the Admiral will suffer a terrible demise I'm afraid."

"No! My Lord Satan!" intervened Raven, "Perhaps start here! My own self portrait! You know you want to and since I am plagued by many demons you will release them all at once, a veritable windfall of devils and I shall perish right before you!"

"Hmm. a most enticing proposition Richard. A windfall you say. I like the sound of that. Let the devilry begin!"

Satan whiplashed his flaming fork-tail and lit the painting. It flared in a noisy sizzle of oils and Raven's image quickly sagged and wilted.

The painter began to sweat and cough.

Lucifer laughed.

"Soon this town will be writhing in my demons' filth again and you my friend will hang on MY wall for eternity in my gallery of despair!"

As the rear painting caught as well the painter coughed a little more but then looked up at Satan and smiled.

"Why do you smile so Painter? You have little to delight you I would have thought!"

"I'm smiling because you have not inspected those portraits closely enough my Lord Lucifer. In fact you have simply taken my word for it!"

"What are you talking about mortal, I can clearly see that it's you in the frame you dullard!"

"Ah, but is it? In fact it is not me, it is my twin brother Clifford, who has been dead these past ten years, ensnared and heinously murdered by your mistress The Black Death. He lies not one hundred feet away in the graveyard, where I had him interred, whilst vowing vengeance on pestilence and your Hellish breed."

"What! Dead? the Black Death? You trickster Raven! You talentless dauber! And who in Satan's name is on the second portrait?"

"Why, you are correct My Lord Lucifer!"

"What!"

"It is you that I have painted! You Satan! You Lucifer! In truth you were my Brother's demon and his executioner, the Blackened Death simply your idiotic slave. It is you that is burning in oil!"

As the painting of the Devil went up in flames the smell of searing soulless flesh filled the room as Satan began to burn. Though born of flame and fire, this vengeful charring was a pogrom he could not withstand and with a final glare of primal rage toward the smiling painter, he spread his blazing wings and smashed through the roof of the Exorcist's House and sought the solace of his foul abyss.

"I shall return Raven! Mark my words! I shall return!" bellowed the Devil.

The painter laughed even louder.

"I think not you Fallen fool!" Raven chortled, "Look!"

The painter held up a whole stack of portraits he'd made of Satan and howled in triumph.

"Damn you Raven! Damn your soul to Hell!"

As Lucifer flew smouldering into the Pit Raven looked toward his brother's grave, where a curl of smoke was rising.

Raven smiled.

"Rest in peace my dear Brother; after my brush with the Devil by God's grace I live on yet to fight another day."

The painter then raised a glass of claret to the oil of the grinning Contessa still glistening on his easel.

"My Lady," he bowed.