The Demon Terror

Prequel to The Demon Detective Agency

Copyright © Brittle Media Limited  2026

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Author: Tom Kane
Cover and illustrations: Mack Dundee

Published by Brittle Media Ltd

Some demons serve annihilation.

Others serve a darker kind of justice.

The Devil’s Own 

El Beheira Desert, Egypt 1963

It was a lonely existence if you could call it an existence. It had spoken to no one for such a long time. It knew if it had spoken to a human, that person would have hated it. It knew that as surely as it knew the sun would rise in a few hours. That thought made it sense the air, keener than ever to find something to eat… anything to eat, any human to eat.

The hunger was gnawing. It had been that way since the beginning, never enough to eat, not since the war, the death of its brothers and sisters. The war, it hated the war and though its memory of that time had faded, it was still full of hate for the humans who had wiped out its family.

It sensed the air again and the smell of something familiar stopped its musings. The ethereal being  quivered. Catching prey was easy, finding it was harder. 

It considered the existence it had now to what it had been like before the war before the humans came with their vile weapons and wiped the spirits from the face of the land.

Dawn would soon blossom over the Egyptian desert, it knew. It could smell them before it heard them. Human flesh, many of them.

I hunger.

The thought was not new, it had hungered for human flesh for a millennium. And here they were, entering its realm, where it would feast for a long time.

A thin light breeze in the ethereal night blew the scent away. It smiled inwardly and silently waited.

***

“This will be very interesting, Peter, I’m sure of it.”

Peter Samuels looked at his Uncle John and suppressed a snigger. 

Interesting? No, uncle, it won’t. It will be the same dull casket as before, full of sand.

The day had started out as any other. It was another sweltering day in the El Beheira Desert in Egypt, on his uncle’s archaeological dig. Sunny skies and rising temperatures threatened a cauldron of heat inside the chamber. If it hadn't been for the punkhawallahs his uncle had employed to continually fan the air in the chamber, it would have been too hot to bear.

As with all these things, the whole business was an unreserved bore. Peter Samuels didn't hate it, but he had friends back in London and it was currently the fab place to be. The Beatles had brought glamour and excitement to London and he was young enough, only just turned twenty-one, and rich enough to enjoy it.

But no, his father had insisted he go with his Uncle and 'dig a few fossils up, get an education and see what you want to do with your life.' He already knew what he wanted to do with his life, get drunk, get laid and get high, not necessarily in that order. 

Peter’s uncle John walked ahead of him, down the low shaft that led to the face of the tomb his uncle’s diggers had uncovered. Babu, the digger’s foreman, walked behind, alongside Peter. Peter and the older Babu had formed a close working relationship. They enjoyed each other’s company and Peter had learned a lot from his new tutor.

The Egyptian desert heat was stifling, despite the punkawallahs sterling attempts to keep the air moving, only giving them a limited relief.

“I don’t know how you stand it, babu. This heat and all the clothes your diggers wear.”

“Master Peter, you should try wearing our rags sometime. They actually dissipate a lot of the heat. I will teach you to wear or clothing at the next dig.”

Peter smiled down at Babu. “Do you think there will be another dig?”

Babu smiled a crooked smile, his toothless grin belying a mischievous youngster in an old man’s body. “Oh yes, at least one more. This I know from experience.”

“I see one of your assistants is a woman. Isn’t that forbidden, or at least unusual?”

“You are observant, Master Peter. She is a good worker. But not Egyptian. She has the mark of the Shaman about her. She brings us luck.”

Peter looked to his right, and just behind. 

The young woman looked in his direction, her head  hidden by the hood from her cloak, but her face was partially uncovered. Peter caught a glimpse of long auburn hair and an intensity in her eyes. Moments passed and Peter was entranced.

“Peter! Where are you boy?”

Peter looked toward his uncle; the spell broken. “Here, uncle.” Peter looked back at the woman, but she was nowhere to be seen.

The flickering oil lamps lining the shaft set off an odd array of shadows, some that looked truly frightening, caused by workers crouching down with their pickaxes on shoulders, the work tools making shadows that passed for the devil’s horns.

A hush crept over the small gathering as Babu and his assistants worked their way round the opening to what they expected to be a burial tomb over 3,000 years old. The Mastaba, a pre-pyramid tomb made of mud bricks in the form of a low oblong structure had been buried for most of its 3,000-year existence. 

Peter’s uncle was hoping his nephew would finally see an Egyptian mummy.

Peter wasn’t holding his breath. He had seen three tombs opened in the few months he had been in Egypt none of which had a mummy, let alone any treasure. No, Peter was certain this tomb would be no different than the others.

Babu called out for Peter’s uncle as the entrance to the tomb was finally unsealed and the huge stones removed.

Dust and the usual odd odour of damp sand, mixed with stagnant air that hadn’t been circulated for thousands of years, crept into Peter’s nostrils, and made him sneeze.

“Same smell as before, uncle. Grave robbers perhaps? Again.” Peter’s comments were ignored.

Uncle John held up a hurricane lamp and entered the tomb, followed by the small British contingent. Peter remained outside.

A few minutes passed and eventually Uncle John emerged from the tomb. He held an ornate casket in his hands and was grinning wildly.

“No mummy?” Peter asked.

His uncle shook his head. “But we have this. It may be full of priceless jewels.”

“Or sand, like the last one.”

“Oh, ye of little faith, Peter. I’ll hold it and you can be the first to look inside. The first human to see the inside in thousands of years.”

“No! No, Mister John. This is not for you,” Babu said, walking forward and trying to take the casket from John Samuels.

“What do you mean? I insist you let go, Babu. Let go of the casket, man.”

Peter walked up and pulled the foreman to one side.

“Please, Master Peter. Tell your uncle it is not wise to open this casket,” Babu said, fear evident in his pleading voice.

“Why, Babu. Why is it not good to open the casket.”

“Demons,” Babu whispered. “He will doom us all to eternal damnation. We will all die in this place if he opens the casket.”

“Babu,” Peter said, holding Babu’s shoulders and looking him in the eye. “There are no demons. It’s fairy-tale. Be at peace and let me look inside.”

Babu began to object again and Peter held up a warning hand. “No more nonsense, Babu. Step aside.”

Babu, clearly unhappy, complied and moved toward the exit from the cavern.

Peter looked at the front of the casket, no bigger than a rugby football, and located the hasp. 

He looked at the faces of the Egyptian workers in a line down the cave… and at the hooded woman. He could see her beautiful face clearly now, and she was shaking her head.

“No. Do not open it.”

The thought, no, female voice, leapt into his mind unbidden. Peter’s hand faltered as he looked down at lid. He shook his head, ignored the silliness, and opened the hasp with a little difficulty and lifted the lid. By the light of the flickering oil lamps, Peter looked inside.

“Well,” his uncle said, unable to peer inside himself as the lid of the casket obscured his view.

“Sand,” Peter said. 

“Sand?”

“Yes, uncle. Sand, just like the last one. Wait a minute. There’s an odd glow in the sand.”

“Glow?”

“Yes, the sand is glowing, getting brighter. Good lord!”

“What?”

An unearthly screech issued loudly from the depths of the casket. Making Peter step back and stumble, falling over into a recess in the tunnel.

His uncle dropped the casket as a swirling black mass erupted from it. 

“What is it? What is it?”

The British contingent gathered round John Samuels while the Egyptians kept their distance, backing away into the tunnel, ready to take flight.

The swirling black mass seemed to have attached itself to the tunnel’s low ceiling, gyrating, pulsing and almost throbbing with energy above the British.

In an almost instinctive way, the British had formed a circle, looking up at the swirling mass. It was within this circle that the mass suddenly dropped, exploded in a flash of blinding light, and resolved into an entity from mankind’s worst nightmare. A Minotaur, the head of a bull on the body of a man, roared its rage at the small gathering of humans and proceeded to rip into each and every one of them. The killing spree was short, dramatic, and horrific. Peter Samuels couldn’t take his eyes off the bloody spectacle but still managed to shout to Babu.

“Run, Babu! Take your men and run!” 

The Egyptian workers ran for their lives, but the black fury that was the Minotaur charged after them.

Peter cringed in the small alcove, shocked at the scene of carnage before his eyes. The head of his poor uncle, staring at Peter with mouth agape, topping the pile of body parts the Minotaur had ripped from its human prey.

The sounds of screams and the raging of the Minotaur in the tunnel told Peter the workers were meeting the same fate. He then realised it would be his turn next if the Minotaur returned.

As if on cue, all was silent with only the stamping feet of the Minotaur heralding its passing down the tunnel. Then the monster appeared to Peter’s left, stopped and sniffed the air. A deep growl emanated from the monster.

“Hooman,” it said, with a quivering bass voice, deep, deadly, and sinister. “I smell you, hooman.”

Peter lay still in the small recess and held his breath, then realised he had to breath. Panic almost hit him like a sledgehammer. 

The Minotaur moved forward, into the cavern area dug out by the Egyptian workers, sniffing the air.

“Hooman, I will find thee and tear thy heart from thy body.” The creature’s voice had an echo to it, giving off a reverberating mix coming from the walls, making Peter’s body quiver and shake.

The creature was tall, and not easily able to turn in the small cavern. It moved away from the fallen casket at the entrance and crunched its way across the pile of British remains, its dark black legs gaining an unearthly sheen of blood red.

Peter let out his breath, slowly. He calculated the distance he had to cross in as short a period of time as possible before the Minotaur could turn and attack. He realised, as the creature stood in the mound of body parts it had created, it would be slowed down by the slick of blood and guts. His erstwhile companions may prove to be a blessing in disguise. But even so, it would be a small advantage against the towering Minotaur.

He saw the casket discarded by his uncle, and a long bone handle was sticking out of the sand.

A knife. 

Peter felt sure it was a Jambiya, a curved dagger favoured by many Arabic men.

“Use the Jambiya, the knife, it has magical properties.”

Peter was again startled by the female voice in his head. He looked around the area slowly but could see no one. Then he saw her, opposite where he cowered in the small alcove. It was the Shaman and she was in a similar alcove on the opposite side.

“See, the knife to your left.”

Unthinking, Peter pushed himself up and ran the short distance to the casket, grabbing the bone handle, pulling it free and rolling over until he was at a standing position. Instinctively Peter took a crouching stance.

The Minotaur screamed its rage and turned, slowly, slipping and losing both balance and traction.

Peter took the time to examine the Jambiya. Sliding the blade from its weathered leather scabbard. The blade glistened as if it was new.

“Slice the beast’s blood and fire will consume it.”

Peter heard the voice again and had no idea what she meant.

The Minotaur saw the blade in Peter’s hands and screamed its rage once more.

“Is that all you’ve got, you devil?” Peter didn’t feel heroic, but in times of need fear had to be put aside.

Another scream issued forth and the Minotaur raised its ferocious Bull head and shook it.

It was an open invitation to Peter and his only chance as he saw the creature’s jugular stand out.

“Yes,” the voice said.

Peter smiled. Now he understood. He leaped forward and ran at the beast and jumping up as high as he could, landing on the creature’s shoulder. He immediately stabbed and sliced the blade into the monsters jugular. To his surprise, each cut and slice caused a small fire in the creature’s neck, steam billowing out. The creature tried to grab Peter’s legs, but he held on for his life and managed to hack even deeper into the Minotaur. Finally, the monster grabbed Peter’s left leg and pulled him away, dashing him to the sandy floor.

Peter was stunned, but alive and alert enough to realise he must make his escape. Clutching the Jambiya and its sheath he ran up the tunnel for the exit, avoiding the carnage that may have hindered his escape.

The Minotaur raged and then lowered itself, head first, and charged up the tunnel after Peter.

Fresh, warm air hit Peter as he escaped the tunnel and ran down the crumbling side of the burial mound. 

The Minotaur was not far behind.

Peter looked back and could see the creature was not going to catch him. Swaths of dark gas and flames seemed to envelope the creature. Peter stopped, turned, and watched.

The Minotaur had also stopped and was swaying, back and forth, pathetic moans and half screams issuing from the smoky, fiery mass that suddenly vaporised.

The Minotaur was gone, and Peter Samuels was alone, in an Egyptian desert.

Survivors

The desert heat, sand and moaning wind all contrived to make Peter Samuels want to drop to his knees, lie down, and go to sleep. He was exhausted, but a grim determination made him move forward, to keep putting that next step down and then move his other leaden leg in front of it. One step at a time. 

Alone and with no supplies, Peter headed off into the desert to try to find help. There was none to be had, and he was soon lost.

But at least he had found his forte in life. He now knew what he wanted to do. Find demons and destroy them as they had destroyed his uncle and the men at the dig.

It was this desire for revenge that drove him forward. 

Something has been unleashed. And if it can happen once… it could happen again.

Exhaustion made him stumble and thoughts of demons flew away as he staggered forward a few feet, lost his footing, and crashed, face down, to the sandy ground. He rolled forward and then slid down the sheer slope of a large sand dune. He tumbled to a stop at the bottom and rolled over onto his front, panting, and choking.

When he opened his eyes, he saw a pair of British Army boots. He looked up, and inside the boots was the biggest man he had ever seen. Dressed in Arabic robes, he would have mistaken the man for a Bedouin, but the boots gave it away.

"Hello mate. You lost?" The big man asked.

Peter Samuels nodded.

"Me too, pal," he said, offering his hand to pull the younger man up. The strength in the big man's arms was impressive as he pulled the Peter to his feet. He swayed a little as he let go of the other man’s hand.

"Tell you what, how about you and I trying to find our way home from here?"

"Okay," Peter said, with a smile.

The big man held his hand out, and Peter shook on it.

"Cedric, Cedric Abuthnott," the big man said.

"Peter, Peter Samuels," Peter answered.

“What are you doing out here in the desert?” Cedric asked. “You look as though you should be down the King’s Road, Chelsea, having a good time.”

Peter Samuels smiled. “Getting an education, Cedric. And you?”

Cedric smiled back. “Pretty much the same, I guess.”

The wind whipped up and blew sand in the two men’s faces.

“I suggest we get moving,” Cedric said. “If I remember rightly, we need to go due east to get to Wadi El-Shabbad.”

“Isn’t that going to be dry this time of year.”

Cedric nodded. “Unless of course you happen to know how to find water left over after the rains.”

“And do you?”

Cedric nodded again. “We dig. But first, we walk. See, you’re learning already.” Cedric produced a compass from the depths of his thobe. He looked at it, put it away, turned and strode off.

Peter watched the big man stride away and realised their meeting had been fateful. He strode after Cedric and the two men marched as best they could to whatever fate had in store for them.

***

Wadi El-Shabbad

Peter dropped to his knees into the shade of a knot of palm trees. Cedric assumed a position, standing, looking East.

“Cedric, take a seat. You must be as tired as I am.”

Cedric looked down at Peter. “In a minute. I’m sniffing the air.”

“For water?”

“No, not sure what I can smell, but it doesn’t smell good.”

Peter nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s been a weird day.”

“So, you said earlier, sir.”

“Cedric. We’re in this together. You don’t have to keep calling me sir.”

“Habit, sir.”

Peter looked around at the Wadi El-Shabbad, a knot of trees and a dried-up watering hole. That was all he could see. He pulled out his Jambiya knife and stood up. “Where do we dig?”

Cedric looked at Peter Samuels and his benign expression changed. “Where did you get that,” he said, pointing at the knife.

“I told you. I killed a demon with it.”

“I assumed it was heat-stroke talking. You’re telling me you actually killed the Minotaur?”

Peter was surprised. Having told his story to Cedric, he had left out the monster, saying it had been a worker gone crazy killing the entire dig-team.

“How do you know about the Minotaur?”

“I studied Greek legends as a kid. That Jambiya you have is supposed to be the only true thing that can kill a Minotaur.”

“Well, that’s a coincidence. But a happy one. Now we have something we can use to dig for water. Point me in the right direction, Cedric.”

Cedric pointed to the wet patch close to the knot of palm trees. “There, dig there, sir.”

Peter dropped to his knees and began digging.

The Desert

Cedric watched Peter dig until the younger man’s enthusiasm gave way to fury and then, finally, exhaustion.

Peter stabbed the Jambiya into the damp patch by the palms, dropped to his knees and clawed at the soil with both hands like a man trying to dig his way out of hell. Sand and mud coated his fingers. Sweat ran into his eyes. He cursed, spat grit, and kept going.

Cedric folded his arms and looked out over the wadi.

"You dig like a man with a personal grievance against the earth," he said.

Peter did not look up. "I’ve a personal grievance against a great many things at the moment."

"Fair enough."

A minute later Peter sat back on his heels, panting. There was a shallow hole before him and a darkening patch at the bottom of it.

Cedric crouched and pressed his thick fingers into the mud. "There you are. Give it a minute."

Peter wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "If you tell me that is water and not some desert trick, I shall kiss you."

"I’d rather you didn’t, sir."

"Peter."

Cedric gave him a dry look. "You are still technically my social superior."

"We are two idiots in a hole in Egypt. I think society can survive the strain."

Cedric considered that. "Very well. Peter."

A little water pooled at the bottom of the hole. Not much, but enough to shine in the sunlight like treasure.

Peter stared at it. "Good Lord."

Cedric shrugged. "The desert keeps a little for those willing to work for it."

Peter cupped some in his hands and drank. It was muddy, warm, and glorious. He drank again, then sat back and looked at the knife lying across his lap.

For a while neither man spoke.

The wind moved lazily through the palms. Somewhere beyond the wadi, a bird gave a brief, lonely cry.

Cedric nodded at the Jambiya. "Now then. Tell me the true version."

Peter looked up. "What?"

"The thing you have not been saying. The story with the missing workers, the dead uncle, and the rather inconvenient knife."

Peter gave a thin smile. "You make it sound trivial."

"It is either trivial or impossible. I’m trying to remain open-minded."

Peter picked up the blade and turned it in the light. "It was not a madman, Cedric."

"No."

"It came out of the casket."

"Yes."

"It was black smoke at first. Then a thing. A great beast. Bull’s head. Man’s body. It tore them to pieces as if they were dolls."

Cedric listened without blinking.

Peter let out a breath. "There. I’ve said it plainly. You may now decide I’ve gone mad from heat and grief."

Cedric rubbed his chin. "No."

"No?"

"No. You’re far too specific for madness. Mad people are usually vague or poetic."

Peter barked a laugh despite himself. "That is an extraordinarily comforting distinction."

Cedric took the knife carefully and examined it. "Also, I know this blade."

Peter stared at him. "You know it."

"Not this one exactly. But I know of it. Stories. Old nonsense mostly. Family rubbish. My grandmother was Welsh and terrifying. She had views on these matters."

"You are telling me your grandmother prepared you for Egyptian monsters."

Cedric handed back the knife. "I am telling you that when your grandmother says, 'If a black thing with horns ever comes for thee, use the old blade and don’t be polite about it', one tends to remember."

Peter looked at him for a long moment, then laughed again. It was half hysteria, half relief. "This is absurd."

Cedric nodded. "Yes. Best accept that quickly. It saves time."

Peter fell silent. When he spoke again his voice had changed.

"My uncle is dead."

"Yes."

"They all are."

"Yes."

"And there was a woman there. A hooded woman. She spoke in my head. She knew about the blade."

Cedric glanced around the wadi. "Do you see her now?"

"No."

"Do you feel watched?"

Peter hesitated. "Yes."

Cedric rose at once.

"So do I," he said.

Peter stood, the knife in his hand.

At first there was nothing. Only heat, trees, the trembling air above the sand.

Then the smell hit them.

Rot.

Not the honest rot of a carcass left in the sun. Something colder. Fouler. Like a grave opened in harsh weather.

Cedric turned slowly. "That," he said, "is not water."

The patch of wet earth between the palms bulged.

Peter took a step back. "Oh no."

A hand thrust up through the mud.

Not a human hand. Too long. Too black. The fingers ended in pale, curved points that were more claw than nail. Another hand followed, then a head rose from the wet ground, face slick with mud, eyes bright as burning coals.

The thing hauled itself up to the waist. Its mouth split in a grin far too wide for its face.

Peter swallowed. "There appears to be a demon in the watering hole."

Cedric bent, picked up a length of dead palm branch, and weighed it in his hands. "That is an excellent example of understatement."

The creature hissed and lunged.

Cedric swung first. The branch cracked across the side of its head. The thing twisted, snarled, and came at him with startling speed. Peter darted in and slashed with the Jambiya. The blade bit into the creature’s shoulder.

A line of fire raced across black flesh.

The demon screamed.

Cedric stared. "Well, that seems useful."

"Very."

The creature spun towards Peter and knocked him flat. He hit the ground hard enough to see stars. Sand filled his mouth. The demon loomed over him, claws opening.

Cedric rammed the palm branch into its face. "Over here, you ugly bastard."

The demon wheeled. Peter rolled, came up on one knee, and saw the same thing he had seen in the tomb. Not merely flesh. Something under the flesh. Smoke. Movement. Instability.

"Hold it still," he shouted.

Cedric, who was in no position to hold anything still, ducked a claw and said, "Do your best to keep instructions relevant."

The demon swiped again. Cedric caught its wrist with one huge hand and locked his other arm round its throat. It shrieked and thrashed like an animal in a snare.

Peter drove the Jambiya into its side.

Flame burst from the wound.

The demon convulsed. Cedric let go and threw himself clear. Peter hacked again, this time across its chest, and fire spread in bright veins through the thing’s body. It staggered backwards into the muddy pool, screaming in a voice that seemed to come from underground.

Then it collapsed in on itself.

Flame. Smoke. Nothing.

Silence returned so abruptly it seemed unreal.

Cedric sat down heavily. "Right," he said after a moment. "Now I believe you."

Peter was still breathing hard. He looked at the knife, then at the patch of scorched mud.

"I killed one in the tomb and another in a puddle."

"That appears to be the pattern, yes."

Peter lowered himself onto the sand and began to laugh. Cedric looked at him with mild concern.

"It is either laugh or go mad," Peter said.

"Choose laughing. It suits you better."

Peter sobered and looked east, where the horizon shimmered. "It’s real, then."

"Yes."

"And if it is real, then there are more."

Cedric did not answer immediately.

"Probably," he said at last.

Peter gripped the Jambiya. "Then I mean to find them."

Cedric looked at him. "As a hobby?"

"As a purpose."

Cedric considered that with the air of a man evaluating a suspect engine noise.

"You are serious."

"My uncle died because I did not listen. Those men died because I thought I knew better. If such things exist and I walk away, then I deserve whatever comes next."

Cedric got to his feet and brushed sand from his robe. "Very noble."

Peter frowned. "You disapprove?"

"No. I merely prefer noble causes with food and regular transport."

Peter gave him a weary smile. "Will you help me?"

Cedric looked out across the desert, then back at the blackened patch where the demon had died.

"I was on my way to nowhere in particular when I found you," he said. "That seems suggestive."

Peter held out his hand.

Cedric stared at it. "We already shook once."

"This is different."

Cedric took the hand and pulled him to his feet. "Very well. Let’s find our way out."

Peter glanced down at the knife.

Then, faintly, on the edge of hearing, a woman’s voice touched his thoughts.

You have only opened the first door.

He looked round sharply, but there was no one there.

Cedric saw the movement. "What?"

"Nothing," Peter lied.

But he knew it was not anything at all.

The Escape

They walked until the sun went white and vicious, then walked some more because stopping felt too much like dying.

The wadi had given them water, but not comfort. The palms were a brief mercy in a landscape that did not do mercy for long. Cedric wrapped strips torn from his own undershirt around Peter’s blistered hands with the calm practicality of a man repairing a punctured tyre.

“How far to civilisation?” Peter asked.

Cedric squinted at the horizon as if it had personally offended him. “It depends on what you mean by civilisation. There’s a Bedouin track east of here. If we find it, we might find people. If we don’t, we’ll find God. And He’ll be very cross we turned up without an appointment.”

Peter tried to laugh and produced something that sounded like grit in a tin. His mouth was so dry it felt like his tongue had turned to cloth. He kept one hand inside his jacket, fingers wrapped round the Jambiya’s bone hilt as if it might run away.

Every time his mind drifted toward what had happened in the tomb, the memory arrived with the same sickening clarity: horns, blood, his uncle’s head lolling at an angle no neck should allow. And always, behind it all, the terrible simplicity of it, no one would believe him.

In the late afternoon they heard an engine.

It was a thin sound at first, more imagined than real, and Peter nearly dismissed it as heat-hallucination. Cedric did not. He changed course without ceremony, angling them toward a low rise where the desert flattened into a hard, pale pan.

A battered Land Rover appeared, followed by a second. The vehicles raised only a modest plume of dust, as if the desert had already taken its fill of drama for the day. Two soldiers in khaki and one man in a white galabeya climbed out, rifles slung and expressions wary.

“Stop!” one of the soldiers called in Arabic. Then, catching Peter’s clothing and pallor, he tried again in careful English. “You, British?”

Cedric raised both hands, palms out. “Yes. Thank Christ. We’ve been walking for hours and we’ve had a falling-out with the local wildlife.”

The man in the galabeya stepped forward. He was older, with a sharp nose and eyes that missed nothing. “Where you come from?” he asked.

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it. 

A tomb, and a monster, and my uncle’s blood all over the stones. 

Putting the thought to one side, what came out instead was the first lie of his new life. “An archaeological dig. There was… an accident.”

Cedric nodded gravely as if he had always intended to be a man with an archaeological disaster in his pocket. “Collapse in a tunnel,” he said. “Panic. Dust. People ran. We got separated. He is Lord Avoncroft’s nephew.”

At the name, the man in white stiffened. A quick exchange in Arabic followed. One soldier jogged back to the Land Rover and spoke into the radio in a rapid, clipped burst.

They put Peter in the back of the first Land Rover and Cedric in the second, as if separating them might prevent them from conspiring with the sand. Peter let it happen. He was too tired to argue and too aware of the weight under his jacket.

At a small desert police post, two concrete rooms, a generator, and the smell of cigarette smoke baked into everything, they were given water that tasted faintly of metal. A medic dabbed iodine on Peter’s scraped face and asked, with professional boredom, how a young Englishman had managed to fight the desert and lose.

An officer arrived just after dusk in a clean and immaculately pressed uniform, but with an ugly attitude. He asked for dates, names, maps. He asked how many men had been at the dig. He asked why Peter had no water with him. He asked where the others were.

Peter answered badly at first, too fast, too ragged, too full of pictures he didn’t want to see. Cedric, when they were finally allowed in the same room, waited until the officer stepped outside and then leaned in close.

“Listen,” Cedric said softly. “You can tell the truth, or you can tell something that passes for it. The truth will put you in a padded room in Cairo. Something that passes for it will get you on a plane.”

Peter stared at him. “You’re very calm for a man who watched a thing burn into smoke.”

“I am not calm,” Cedric replied. “I am simply large enough to store panic internally.” He nodded toward the door. “We tell them there was a collapse. That your uncle went in first. That there was shouting and dust. That someone, one of the workers, went mad with fear and started stabbing. That you ran. That you got lost.”

Peter swallowed. “But that isn’t what happened.”

Cedric held Peter’s gaze. “What happened has no place in a report. They will find bodies. They will find blood. They will not find a Minotaur, because it has the decency to vanish. So, they will invent one anyway, bandits, a disgruntled man, a cave-in. Let it be the least stupid invention available.”

Peter looked down at his jacket where the Jambiya pressed against his ribs. For the first time it occurred to him, fully, plainly, that the knife was not merely a weapon. It was evidence of an impossible world, and impossible worlds attracted the wrong kind of attention.

He imagined a police officer turning it over, noting the strange sheen, asking why it was warm to the touch even in the cool of night. He imagined the blade being shipped off to some government laboratory where men in spectacles would decide what to do with it.

“If they ask about weapons,” Cedric murmured, reading Peter’s face as if it were a newspaper headline, “you picked it up from a market. Souvenir. Rich boy nonsense. Nothing more.”

When the officer returned, Peter repeated the latest version. Collapse. Panic. Separation. Heat. Lost. He said the words and felt something inside him harden, an ugly little knot of necessity. He was learning that survival did not end when the demon died. It was a matter of attitude, perception, and survival.

Two days later they were in Cairo, processed through a series of offices that smelt of paper, sweat, and the fear of causing diplomatic incidents. Peter spoke to a man from the British consulate who was very sympathetic until Peter’s story threatened to become complicated, at which point sympathy became brisk efficiency.

A telegram arrived from the dig site with the sort of restrained language that meant horror was overflowing between the lines. There were no survivors apart from Peter. There were injuries consistent with “animal attack” and “bladed instruments.” There were no bandits found. There was, in short, a great deal to explain and no good explanation to offer.

Peter signed documents with shaking hands. He identified what little there was to identify. He listened to officials talk about repatriation, compensation, unfortunate misunderstandings with local labour, and the necessity of a single, clear account for the newspapers.

That night in a cheap hotel near the river, Peter opened his suitcase and unwrapped the Jambiya. The blade glimmered faintly, clean as if it had never tasted blood. He stared at it until his eyes hurt.

Cedric sat on the edge of the other bed, turning a cigarette between his fingers without lighting it. “You do understand,” he said, “that if you tell anyone what really happened, you won’t be hailed as a hero. You’ll be studied. Or locked away. Or quietly disappeared.”

Peter nodded slowly. “So, we tell the story that works.”

“We tell the story that works,” Cedric agreed. “And we keep the other one for ourselves.”

Peter looked down at the knife and felt the weight of the decision settle on him like a second skin. Cover stories, he realised, were going to be part of the work, the first part. He did not yet know what the work was called, only that it had begun in a tomb and would not end in a consulate office.

Outside, Cairo continued, indifferent. Somewhere a journalist would soon turn their disaster into a neat column of print. Somewhere in England, letters were already being written. Two weeks later, those letters would find Peter Samuels and drag him home.

The Repatriation

Cairo looked nothing like grief.

It bustled, argued, sweated, traded, and shouted with the cheerful indifference of a city that had seen empires fall and had no intention of pausing for one young Englishman’s private catastrophe. Horns blared. Vendors pleaded. The Nile went on being the Nile. Peter moved through it as if he had become slightly transparent.

The British consulate was cool and officious, full of fans that clicked like patient teeth. A portrait of the Queen watched him with calm disapproval as a man in shirtsleeves slid a form across a desk.

“Mr Samuels, Lord Avoncroft’s nephew, yes?” the man said. His accent was London, his manner a careful sort of kindness. “I’m deeply sorry. We’ll do what we can to expedite matters.”

Peter nodded as if he were discussing train timetables. His hands rested on his knees. They would not stop trembling unless he clenched them into fists.

“Now,” the consular man continued, tapping the paper with a pen, “you’ve already given the local authorities an account. We’ll mirror that account. Consistency helps. There will be inquests and questions back home and, inevitably, the press. The fewer imaginative details we provide, the better for everyone.”

Cedric stood behind Peter’s chair, looking too large for the room and too composed for a man who had recently watched the laws of nature behave badly. When the consular man asked a question that drifted too close to the truth, What did you actually see? Cedric coughed once, very quietly, and Peter remembered to be dull.

He spoke about the collapse. About dust and shouting. About men running in panic. About losing his uncle in the confusion. Each sentence tasted like ash, but it had the advantage of being believable. When asked what possessions he had with him, Peter mentioned a watch, a lighter, and a dagger he had bought at a market.

The consular man nodded, wrote it down, and moved on. But as Peter stood to leave, another Englishman appeared in the doorway, grey suit despite the heat, hair clipped short, eyes like a man who read secrets for a living.

“Mr Samuels?” the newcomer said, as if they were old acquaintances. “A moment, if you don’t mind.”

Cedric stepped slightly to one side, polite, but immovable. “He does mind,” he said. “He’s just been through a massacre and a desert. Unless your moment involves a bed and a glass of water, it can wait.”

The man’s gaze flicked to Cedric, assessing the breadth of him, then back to Peter. “Of course. My apologies,” he said smoothly. “We may speak another time.”

***

They sent him to a clinic run by a British doctor who smelled faintly of gin and exasperation. The man prodded Peter’s bruises, checked his pupils, clucked at dehydration, and concluded that Peter was not about to die of anything obvious.

“Shock,” the doctor said, as if naming it would make it polite. “Nightmares. Tremors. You’ll want rest.” He scribbled a prescription. “This will help you sleep.”

Peter looked at the paper and imagined falling asleep and waking up back in the tomb with horns above him. “No,” he said hoarsely. “If I sleep, I’ll dream.”

Cedric took the prescription and folded it neatly. “We’ll keep it,” he told the doctor. “For later. When the nightmares become more reasonable.”

***

Uncle John’s effects came in a battered leather case that looked wrong without him carrying it. A clerk opened it with the reverence of a man managing someone else’s sorrow and began listing items for the record: notebooks full of cramped writing, a compass, a pair of wire spectacles, a signet ring, dried sand in the seams of everything.

Peter signed beside each line because that was what one did. He did not read the words properly. He could not bear his uncle being reduced to stationery. When the clerk asked about recovered artefacts, any objects removed from the tomb, any container, any… casket, Peter felt Cedric’s presence behind him like a warning hand.

“Nothing of value,” Peter heard himself say. “It was all buried. Lost.”

The clerk nodded, relieved to have a simple answer. Simple answers made paperwork possible. Paperwork, Peter was learning, was what the world did to horrors it could not look at directly.

Back at the hotel Cedric locked the door and checked the window latches, an unnecessary act that nonetheless made Peter feel marginally less exposed. Then Cedric produced the Jambiya, wrapped in a towel as if it were breakable china.

“We don’t put this in the hold,” Cedric said. “Things go missing. Especially interesting things.”

Peter rubbed his face. “It’s a knife. How interesting can it be?”

Cedric gave him a flat look. “It burns demons. It whispers trouble. And the consulate had a gentleman in a grey suit who wanted a moment. That is what interesting looks like.”

Peter stared at the blade. In lamplight it looked ordinary, old metal, curved edge, bone hilt, until you remembered the fire that had crawled along it like a living thing.

“When I get home,” Peter said, surprising himself with the certainty in his own voice, “I will be expected to go back to parties and polo and pretending life is a string of amusing inconveniences. I don’t think I can.”

Cedric sat down carefully, as if the chair might object to his weight. “No,” he agreed. “Once you’ve met a Minotaur, cocktail conversation loses its sparkle.”

Peter swallowed. “Will you come to England with me?”

Cedric looked at him for a long moment. Then he nodded once. “Yes. Someone should make sure you don’t get eaten in your sleep.”

“Good,” Peter said, and felt a small, strange relief. “Then we do this properly. We keep the story simple. We tell the truth only to people we would trust with a loaded gun and a secret. Which is, at present, you.”

Cedric’s mouth twitched. “I’m honoured. And alarmed.”

Peter wrapped the Jambiya in a shirt, slid it into the lining of his suitcase, and then, dissatisfied, took it out again and put it back under his jacket. The weight of it steadied him. It was ridiculous that a knife should feel like an anchor, but his life had become a catalogue of ridiculous things.

The flight home was a blur of engine noise, thin airline tea, and Peter’s reflection in the window glass: pale, older, and oddly unfamiliar. A stewardess asked if he was all right. He told her he was fine and heard himself sound convincing.

In London Airport’s arrivals hall, a newspaper stand displayed a photograph of sun-bleached sand and a headline that made Peter’s stomach clench. ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRAGEDY IN EGYPT: BRITONS DEAD. Beneath it, in smaller print, the usual confident nonsense: cave-in, panic, native superstition. The story that worked.

A taxi carried them into a London that looked freshly rinsed by rain. Peter expected comfort and felt only distance. At his flat, a neighbour produced a stack of post with the sort of expression one used for funerals and scandal. There were telegrams. There were letters with black-edged borders. There was, most prominently, an envelope from a solicitor marked urgent.

Peter read the first line, then the second, then sat down hard on the nearest chair.

Cedric hovered in the doorway, suddenly all business. “Bad news?”

Peter looked up, the paper shaking in his hands. “My father’s dead,” he said. The words felt impossible after everything else. “And apparently I’ve inherited a hall.”

Cedric exhaled slowly. “Right,” he said. “Then we pack. And we keep the knife close.”

The Quiet After

The first thing Peter learned about returning home was that England had no patience for the dead.

There were condolences, of course, flowers, stiff cards, black-edged stationery, and people saying terrible business in voices that suggested mild inconvenience. But beneath it all was the brisk machinery of inheritance and reputation, grinding forward as if it had been oiled with indifference for many years.

The solicitor’s office smelled of leather chairs and safe decisions. A thin man with careful hair explained, in loving detail, how a title functioned, what came with it, what could be sold, what could not, and which charities expected Peter’s name to continue appearing on donor lists like a polite disease.

Cedric sat behind him, too large for the room, hands folded as if attending church. The solicitor kept glancing at him with the uncertainty of a man who had not been trained in what to do with a chauffeur who looked like he could lift the building.

Outside, a journalist waited near the curb pretending to admire a lamppost. Another loitered near Peter’s building the following day. The Egypt story had not died; it had merely become elastic, stretching to accommodate whatever nonsense the journalists wrote and the public found most satisfying. Peter was, depending on the paper, a plucky survivor, a doomed aristocrat, or a scandal wrapped in sand, with he and his descendants cursed forever.

At night, when the city settled, he discovered the second thing about homecoming: sleep was no longer a private act. It was a place to try for freedom, a place to find demons.

He lay in the dark and listened to his own breathing until it became part of the room. Every time his mind drifted, Egypt returned, hot stone, the taste of grit, the wet sound of flesh tearing, the moment the Jambiya flared and the Minotaur went up like a torch in a windstorm.

On the third sleepless night Cedric knocked once and came in without waiting for permission, carrying a tray with something strong, masquerading as tea.

“You’re not sleeping,” Cedric observed.

Peter rubbed his eyes. “An astute observation, my friend.”

Cedric set down the tray. “The doctor gave you something.”

“Not touching it,” Peter said. “If I dream, I go back.”

Cedric nodded once as if filing that under reasonable, given circumstances. “Then don’t dream,” he said. “Work.”

***

They spread Uncle John’s notebooks across the dining table like a card game played with guilt. His handwriting slanted forward, always hurrying, as if even ink could not keep up with what he had found. There were references to old sources, half-legible titles in Greek, Arabic and Latin, dates, place names, and repeated, underlined notes about sealed doors and breaches.

Peter found a page where his uncle had sketched a Jambiya from memory, bone hilt, curved blade, next to a single sentence twice underlined: The blade answers to what is not human.

“That would have been useful in Cairo,” Peter muttered.

Cedric peered over the page. “Your uncle does have a talent for writing the obvious in a way that sounds mystical.”

Peter took his Jambiya from the drawer and laid it on a folded napkin. Even on the table it looked like a thing that did not belong in a respectable house. He set a candle beside it and watched the flame for any sign of bending, blackening, doing anything at all.

Nothing happened. The blade sat there and refused to be dramatic.

“Perhaps it only performs for paying audiences,” Cedric suggested.

Peter ignored him, took a pin from a lapel, and pricked his own thumb. A bright bead of blood welled up. He touched it to the blade’s edge and waited.

Still nothing. No spark. No heat. No creeping flame. The blood simply smeared and dried, ordinary as anything else in Peter’s former life.

Peter let out a shaky breath. “So, it doesn’t do parlour tricks. That’s something.”

Cedric leaned back. “Your uncle’s line is literal. It answers to what isn’t human. Which means if it is quiet, we should be grateful.”

As if to contradict him, the Jambiya gave a faint, almost imperceptible pulse of warmth, like a kettle beginning to think about boiling. Peter froze. Cedric’s gaze snapped to the blade.

The telephone rang once, sharp in the quiet, and then stopped.

Cedric was on his feet in two strides, lifting the receiver. He listened, expression blank, then replaced it slowly.

“No one,” he said.

Then, softly, came the sound of paper slipping under the front door.

Cedric went out to the hall, returned, and set a plain visiting card on the table beside the knife. It bore a name in crisp black type, Mr W. Hargreaves, and a telephone number. No address. No organisation. Just the quiet confidence of someone who assumed he would be obeyed.

On the reverse, written in neat ink, were six words: When you are ready to speak plainly.

Peter stared at the card until the letters blurred. “That’s him,” he said. “The one at the consulate.”

Cedric’s expression hardened. “Then we don’t ring him. We don’t invite him in. And we don’t pretend he’s doing us a kindness.”

Peter slid the card into the fire and watched it curl and blacken. The Jambiya lay quiet again, innocent as cutlery.

“We go to the hall,” Peter said. “If people want to stare, let them stare at a gate and a lawn. If they want a statement, they can have the same one until they choke on it.”

Cedric nodded, already moving. “A strategic retreat. Excellent. I’ll have the motorcar ready.”

By the time the lawyers, the neighbours, and the newspapers had finished circling, Peter Samuels had done the only sensible thing left. He vanished into his own inheritance. When he finally stood at the window of Avoncroft Hall, looking down over lawns too well kept to be honest, he felt no safer. But at least, for the moment, he was out of reach.

Mr W. Hargreaves

The card should have ended it. Burned paper, burned bridge, problem solved.

Instead, it began something else: a quiet pressure that made the walls of his London home feel thinner than they had any right to be.

Peter did not tell Cedric he kept checking the street from behind the curtains. Cedric would have called it sensible. Peter would have called it humiliating. It was the first time he had understood that there were predators who wore suits, not horns.

The next morning, at precisely nine, the telephone rang.

Cedric, polishing his shoes with an intensity Peter had never seen before, looked up. “That’ll be him.”

Peter picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Mr Samuels,” said a man’s voice, calm and unhurried. The accent was English and unplaceable, too correct to be merely upper-class, too careful to be merely polite. “William Hargreaves. I left a card.”

Peter kept his eyes on the front door as if Hargreaves might step through it by force of tone alone. “I received it,” he said. “I chose not to keep it.”

There was a pause, not offended, simply measuring. “Burning it was your prerogative,” Hargreaves said. “Most men would have kept it and pretended they hadn’t. I prefer honesty. It saves us both time.”

Peter tightened his grip on the receiver. “What do you want?”

“A conversation,” Hargreaves replied. “About Egypt. About your journey in the desert with Mr Abuthnott.  About what the official report cannot contain. About what you carried out of that tomb.”

Peter’s stomach turned. He did not look at Cedric, but he felt the big man’s presence draw closer, quiet as a closing door.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” Peter said, hearing how thin it sounded.

Hargreaves sighed softly. “Mr Samuels, I watched you choose your words in Cairo. You did it well. The market dagger was inspired. Less inspired was bringing it back through London Airport. You were fortunate the Customs man you met had a hangover and a dislike of paperwork.”

Cedric’s eyes narrowed. Peter could almost hear the man thinking, So that’s the sort we’re dealing with.

“How do you know Cedric’s name?” Peter asked.

“Because,” Hargreaves said, “I make it my business to know the names of people who walk out of impossible situations.”

He did not say who he worked for. He did not need to. The way he spoke had the weight of offices, stamps, and sealed files.

“There is,” Hargreaves continued, “a small section of the government dedicated to matters that would unsettle the public if printed in the Daily Express. Our job is not heroism. It is containment. We keep things quiet. We keep them contained. We keep them from becoming contagious.”

“You mean you hide it,” Peter said.

“We catalogue it,” Hargreaves corrected gently. “We observe patterns. We prevent repetition. And, when necessary, we remove dangerous objects from well-meaning hands.”

There it was at last, the point of the conversation, slid in like a blade between ribs.

“I will meet you,” Hargreaves said, “today, at three, at a club off Pall Mall. You will bring the dagger. We will speak plainly, as my card suggested. After that, you will be able to sleep again.”

Peter felt a cold anger arrive, sharp and clean. “You cannot promise me sleep,” he said. “And you will not take anything from me.”

Cedric held out his hand. Peter hesitated only a moment before passing the receiver over.

“Mr Hargreaves,” Cedric said, in a mild voice.

“Mr Abuthnott,” Hargreaves replied at once, as if greeting a colleague. “I wondered how long it would take you to step in.”

Cedric’s smile did not reach his eyes. “Here is what will happen. You will stop ringing. You will stop sending cards. And you will stop pretending you are offering help when you are really offering a cage.”

Hargreaves chuckled, genuinely amused. “You have a talent for metaphor, Mr Abuthnott. I suppose that is why you survived the Army.”

Cedric’s expression did not change. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Hargreaves said, and for the first time his voice lost a fraction of its softness, “that there are other people who notice anomalies. People who do not care whether you are a lord, a chauffeur, or a grieving nephew. I am not the worst thing that will come calling. I am simply the first. However, there are others watching. Other governments, other agencies. And dare I say, other worldly agencies. Beware what awaits you. Be aware of your fate.”

There was a small click, as if Hargreaves had smiled into the line. “When you change your mind,” he added, “ring the number. Ask for me. Don’t ask for the department. It does not exist.”

Cedric replaced the receiver without ceremony.

Peter stared at him. “Is he bluffing?”

“No,” Cedric said. “He’s worse than that. He’s organised, part of an operation that has done this sort of thing before. And he is indicating there are agencies in other countries with similar interests. We need to be on our guard from any danger.”

Peter went to the sideboard drawer and took out the Jambiya. It lay in his palm like a promise and a problem. He hated that a stranger had spoken about it, as though it had already been catalogued a committed to a dusty shelf in a dustier basement.

“We’re not meeting him,” Peter said.

Cedric nodded. “Not today. And not on his terms.”

They left London that afternoon, not dramatically, no chase, no shouted threats, simply a motorcar slipping away from the city while newspapers sold their tidy lies and men like Hargreaves filed their quiet truths. When Peter later stood at the window of Avoncroft Hall, looking down over well-kept lawns, he did not think of titles. He thought of cages, and of how easily they were built.

Lord Avoncroft

Peter stood at the window of Avoncroft Hall and looked down over lawns too well kept to be honest. The family seat had passed to him on the death of his father, who had chosen the most inconvenient moment possible to leave the world. The letters had caught up with him two weeks after Cairo. By the time the wills, lawyers, condolences, and appalling neighbours had finished with him, Peter Samuels had become Lord Avoncroft of Bletchley.

He felt no grander for it.

Peter’s England was green, rain-soaked, and civilised. But despite the calm and gentile exterior, Peter was entirely unable to make sense of what had happened in Egypt.

Cedric, now in a dark chauffeur’s suit that sat on him like formal wear on a battleship, came into the library carrying a tray with tea and sandwiches.

"You’re rich," Cedric said.

"Apparently."

"That’s usually good news."

"Not lately, it isn’t."

Cedric set down the tray. "You have a hall, land, a car with an engine the size of Belgium, and a cook who fears neither God nor seasoning. There are worse fates."

Peter turned from the window. "You forgot to mention the crushing sense of pointlessness."

"That comes free with inherited wealth, I believe."

Peter smiled despite himself. Cedric had become indispensable with alarming speed. Chauffeur was only the polite description. In practice he was driver, bodyguard, factotum, and the one person in England with whom Peter could speak plainly.

The Jambiya lay in the desk drawer. Peter never kept it far away.

There had been no more demons since Egypt. No voices. No hooded woman. No sign that the universe had split open for him at all. At times he almost managed to believe it had been shock and sunstroke. And yet, on certain nights, he awoke smelling blood and hot stone.

“Do you dream, Cedric?”

“Depends on…”

The telephone rang.

Cedric glanced at it. "There you are perfect timing. Maybe it’s purpose calling."

Peter picked up the receiver. "Avoncroft."

At first he did not recognise the voice. Then memory clicked into place.

"David Haley?"

"Peter. Thank God. I wasn’t sure it was really you."

"It is. Though your gratitude suggests I owe you money."

The old school friend laughed weakly. "Nothing like that. I’m sorry to ring out of the blue."

"You have rung out of the blue, David. It is a little late to apologise for it."

There was a pause. Cedric, pouring tea, lifted an eyebrow.

David lowered his voice. "I read about Egypt."

Peter’s expression changed. The papers had had a field day with the tragedy. Archaeological disaster. Cave in. Native confusion. Official nonsense, mass suicides, laid over horror.

"What about it?"

"They said you were the only one who got out."

"Yes."

"And some of the workers were talking about... well..."

"Go on."

"Demonic forces."

Peter said nothing.

David took the silence for encouragement or desperation. "Peter, I need a favour."

"What sort of favour?"

Another hesitation.

"Do you know an exorcist?"

Cedric stopped pouring.

Peter leaned on the desk. "That is not a sentence one hears every day."

"I’m serious. There’s something in the castle."

"The castle."

"My family seat, Castle Aenden. Near Dover. It’s been in the family for centuries and mostly a ruin until Father decided to live in the habitable wing and pretend we’re Norman barons. For the past week there have been noises. Things moving. Lights. My sister swears she saw a woman flying round the battlements."

Peter looked at Cedric. Cedric put down the teapot very carefully.

David went on in a rush. "No one believes us, of course. Mother says it’s nerves. Father says draughts. The servants are leaving. One of the maids says it’s a witch. I don’t know what it is, but I know the house feels wrong. And when I read about Egypt, I thought... well, perhaps..."

"Perhaps I’d gone from wastrel to demon specialist."

"If anyone else said that I’d deny it."

Peter almost laughed.

Cedric mouthed, "Take it."

Peter nodded slightly.

"When do you want us?"

"Us?"

"I don’t travel without my man, Cedric. Chauffeur-cum-bodyguard-cum-teaboy. He is a pillar of the modern age."

Cedric smiled and bowed from the waist.

David sounded too relieved to be curious. "As soon as possible. Please."

Peter looked at the rain beginning to patter against the window.

"We’ll take a look," he said.

When he put the receiver down, Cedric handed him a cup of tea.

"What do you think?" Peter asked.

Cedric took his own cup. "I think the wealthy classes remain remarkably dependent on the supernatural whenever the plumbing fails."

Peter smiled. "And beneath that?"

Cedric’s face settled into another smile.

"I think we should go."

The Road to Dover

Castle Aenden

The road to Dover narrowed, dipped, and finally seemed to give up altogether. Avoncroft’s motorcar, splendid on civilized roads, disapproved of Kentish lanes with loud mechanical bitterness. Cedric drove as if wrestling a black panther.

Castle Aenden appeared at dusk.

It sat on high ground above the grey sweep of sea, part ruin, part house, part accusation, like a finger pointing upwards to attract attention. The oldest tower was Saxon by David’s proud insistence, the later additions a jumble of survival rather than design. Ivy gripped one wall like a dark hand. Gulls circled above the battlements, crying like souls in litigation.

"Charming," Cedric said.

David Haley met them in the courtyard. He was paler than Peter remembered, thinner too, as though the house had been feeding on him.

"Peter. Thank you."

He shook hands quickly, then looked at Cedric and seemed unsure whether to greet him as employee or invading army.

"Cedric Abuthnott," Cedric said. "I drive, carry luggage, and offer pessimism where required."

David blinked. "Good. Yes. Splendid."

Inside, the castle was cold in a way that had nothing to do with weather. Stone sweated. Corridors turned at awkward angles. Doors stood half open on shadows. Though lamps burned, the light seemed perpetually inadequate.

Peter felt it at once.

Not fear exactly. Recognition.

This is like Egypt.

David led them to a sitting room where his mother sat bolt upright with the expression of a woman determined not to permit hysteria in a respectable family. His father was red-faced, irritated, and two whiskies into denial. A younger sister, Anne, looked close to collapse.

"We are not mad," Anne said before anyone was properly introduced.

"No one said you were," Peter replied.

"They have all thought it."

Mrs Haley tightened her jaw. "We have had a distressing few days."

Mr Haley snorted. "Distressing because everyone insists on turning creaks into curses."

At that exact moment something heavy slammed overhead, and then the tell-tale sound of footfalls on stone, receding into the distance.

All four Haleys looked at the ceiling.

Cedric sipped the tea a maid had just brought in. "Old houses do settle strangely," he said. "Usually not with slamming doors followed by footsteps."

Nobody smiled.

As the evening wore on, the details emerged. Tapping in the walls. Doors opening. Sudden cold patches. Candles going out in enclosed rooms. A woman seen on the battlements at dawn, though no one in the house had been outside. Twice, Anne said, she had woken to find muddy footprints on the floorboards leading nowhere.

"It wants something," she whispered.

Mr Haley rolled his eyes. "Nonsense."

Then all the firelight in the grate bent sharply to the left as if a draught had breathed across it.

Peter and Cedric exchanged a glance.

Later, when David showed them their rooms in the east wing, Cedric spoke in a deep voice.

"Well?"

Peter touched the inside pocket where the Jambiya rested hidden beneath his coat. "It’s here."

"What is?"

Peter gave Cedric a worried look. "I don’t know. But it’s here."

“It’s Jane Baden.”

All eyes turned to David’s sister.

“Who?” Peter asked.

“My sister has been reading up on the history of this place.  Seems it has a bloody history in Medieval times.”

“Everywhere had a bloody history during the Medieval period.”

“Jane Baden was accused of being a witch and burned at the stake for her troubles. She had been caught…”

“Caught doing what,” Cedric said.

“Flying?” Peter said.

Anne gave him a sickly smile and nodded.

Cedric looked down the corridor, where the lamps seemed smaller than they ought to be.

"Excellent," he said. "We have an adversary, that we know nothing about and cannot see. A ghost that can fly and who knows what will come next. The odds are not good, my Lord."

“Peter! I keep telling you Cedric it’s…”

A snickered woman’s laugh filled the room, then stopped abruptly.

Peter looked at Cedric and Cedric shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Yes, it certainly is here… Peter.”

Castle Aenden

Investigation

Morning brought no comfort. The castle was no less wrong by daylight. If anything, the sea mist creeping round the walls made it worse.

Peter and Cedric began with what Peter grandly called an investigation and what Cedric accurately called walking about and asking frightened people questions.

The cook had heard singing in an empty corridor.

The gardener had seen a woman in grey standing on the north wall and had decided, with admirable practicality, to stay away from the north wall thereafter.

At the main entrance to the courtyard, the Groundsman, from Northern Ireland, greeted them.

The clawing mist that enveloped everything and everyone, gave Cedric a chill to his bones. “This mist of yours…”

“Sea-haar, soir.”

“Yes, this sea-haar, does it have a voice?”

The Irishman shook his head. “No, soir, of course n…”

Cedric put a hand up. “Then who is that singing?”

The three men stood close together and each turned a full circle. 

“It’s comes from all directions,” Peter said.

“That it does,” Cedric agreed.

The groundsman’s eyes took on a glint of fear. “I don’t…”

“Know?” Cedric said with a shake of his head.

“T’ ain’t real,” the man said, fear filling his face with dread.

 ***

Jane Baden was suddenly alert, no longer asleep. She stood on a grassy cliff top, looking down at a broiling, grey sea. She felt odd. She wasn’t alone in this dream, another woman, same age, but different, was inhabiting the same body.

“This isn’t LA,” the other woman thought.

It wasn't anywhere the other woman recognised. To her right there were white cliffs and to her left the ground sloped downwards and became a path and then a road that led to a small town, a hamlet, she thought. It's odd how dreams work, she thought to herself. Hamlet was not a word she would have used normally. She looked down at herself and realised she wasn't wearing her normal jeans and sweatshirt, but a full-length skirt made of a rough, grey material which had layers of linen underskirts under it, giving the effect of a billowed-out skirt. The sweatshirt had been replaced by a laced-up bodice and beneath that was a linen blouse. All this made her think of the old Frankenstein movies. She had gone back in time again.

She burst out laughing at the absurdity of her situation, turned, and was stunned to see a huge castle behind her. A drawbridge kept unwanted visitors out.

She laughed louder, turned back, and regarded tea again.

“I feel I could fly.”

 ***

A maid had resigned at breakfast after claiming something breathed on the back of her neck in the linen room.

Peter examined the battlements. Cedric the chapel. Neither found anything except old stone, gull droppings, and an increasing dislike of the place.

By noon they had assembled on a table in the library the following collection of anti-supernatural equipment: one church candle, a bell from the ruined chapel, a silver letter opener, rock salt from the kitchens, a Bible missing the Book of Judges, a gardening spade, and a bottle of brandy.

Cedric looked at the arrangement.

"You’re making this up, aren’t you?"

"Mostly."

"I admire the honesty."

Peter leafed through an eighteenth-century pamphlet on hauntings David had produced from some forgotten shelf. "There are recurring themes. Iron. Salt. Prayer. Symbolic objects."

Cedric picked up the brandy. "And this?"

"Morale."

Cedric set it down. "Sound enough."

That evening, they took position in the old great hall, where most of the disturbances seemed centred. Rain beat at the shutters. The sea muttered beyond the cliffs. David, against explicit advice, insisted on staying with them. Anne remained too, white-faced but stubborn.

The first hour yielded nothing.

The second brought a drop in temperature so sharp David’s breath smoked in the air.

Then the chapel bell rang once on the table without being touched.

Anne gasped.

The fire guttered.

A shape passed above them, fast and pale, gone before the eye could settle.

David whispered, "Did you see that?"

"Yes," said Peter.

"No," said Cedric at the same time. "But I am prepared to be persuaded."

Then came the sound.

Not a scream.

Not quite.

Something between wind and a woman in pain, circling the hall from above.

Anne clutched the edge of the table. "It’s her."

The shutters on the long windows banged open together. Rain blew in. All four looked up.

For one impossible second a woman hung in the air beyond the glass, skirts streaming, hair blown back, face smeared black and sooty, full of anguish. Smoke and flames seemed to billow around her for an instance and the smell of burning oil, green wood, and something close to meat, but not quite. Then she was gone and with it the smell, gone into the storm.

David crossed himself badly.

Cedric stared after the apparition. "I withdraw my scepticism in full."

Peter had gone cold.

He had seen that movement before. Not the woman herself, but the sensation of a presence slipping between one place and another. A wrongness in the air.

Egypt. The hooded woman came to mind.

"It isn’t haunting the castle," he said slowly. "It’s trapped near it."

Anne turned to him. "What does that mean?"

Peter did not answer because he did not know.

But somewhere, very faintly, he heard a woman’s voice in his mind.

“Look back.”

He spun round. On the far side of the hall, half hidden by darkness, stood a hooded figure.

Auburn hair. Stillness. Watchful eyes.

You.

The fire flared and the corner was empty.

Cedric saw Peter’s face. "What happened?"

"There was someone there."

"Who?"

Peter shook his head. "I’m beginning to suspect that is the wrong question."

Demons in the Sky

The Night the Dreams Came.

Over five-thousand miles away from Castle Aenden in England, and sixty years in the future, May Brubaker, ex LA police officer, was having trouble sleeping. She had gone to bed early but had only managed short bursts of sleep. It was close to dawn when she finally drifted off. That was when the dream started. 

May was standing on a grassy cliff top, looking down at a broiling, grey sea. It wasn't anywhere she recognised. To her right there were white cliffs and to her left the ground sloped downwards and became a path that led to a small town, a hamlet, she thought. It's odd how dreams work, she thought to herself. Hamlet was not a word she would have used normally. May looked down at herself and realised she wasn't wearing her normal jeans and sweatshirt, but a full-length skirt made of a rough, grey material which had layers of linen underskirts under it, giving the effect of a billowed-out skirt. The sweatshirt had been replaced by a laced-up leather bodice and beneath that was a linen blouse. All this made May think of the old Frankenstein movies. May had gone back in time again. It was at that realisation, that May knew she was not in her own body. She had somehow moved in time and distance into another body.

Jane Baden. Who in hell is Jane Baden?

***

Sixty years earlier, another dream manifested itself to Anne Haley.

She woke screaming the house down and was found in the corridor outside Peter’s room, barefoot, sobbing, and repeating the same words.

"The cliffs. The fire. The witch in the sky. May is on fire!"

*** 

Suddenly, Jane Baden jumped straight upwards and floated down to earth again, very gently. She had no idea why she had done that, but she did it again and achieved a higher height, but once again floating back down to earth. She did it several more times and each time she got higher and higher until, incredibly, she was flying. She maintained her height and tentatively tried turns, diving and increasing her speed. Arm outstretched, she was flying over the cliffs and suddenly realised where she was. The White Cliffs of Dover. Looping round and overflying the landscape of medieval England, Jane’s heart was soaring with unadulterated pleasure. She had never been so happy.

 ***

Once Anne had calmed enough to speak, the details came in fragments. A woman in rough grey clothes standing on white cliffs above a boiling sea. Rising into the air. Flying with joy until men below pointed and shouted. Then darkness, prison, judgement.

Peter listened without interrupting.

Cedric stood at the window, looking out at the moonlit battlements.

When Anne had finished, Peter said, "Did the woman have a name?"

Anne frowned as if listening to something far away. "Jane. No... May. I think both. I don’t know."

Cedric turned. "Both is not usually encouraging."

David, who had been hovering in the doorway, looked appalled. "What does it mean?"

Peter answered honestly. "I haven’t the slightest idea."

But he did have a feeling, and it was growing heavier by the minute.

The next morning, he walked the cliffs below the castle alone. The sea was iron-grey, the wind vicious. Here, far from the walls, the place felt even stranger, as though the landscape remembered something the house did not.

He found marks in the turf. Not footprints. A scorched circle no wider than a dinner plate.

When he crouched to touch it, the voice came again, stronger now.

“Not a haunting. A crossing.”

He closed his eyes.

"Who are you?"

No answer.

Only a flicker behind his lids. White cliffs. A cart. Smoke.

When he opened his eyes, Cedric was standing over him.

"You have the look of a man receiving bad news from an invisible aunt. Who are you talking to?"

Peter stood. "I think the woman is not dead."

Cedric waited.

"I think she is caught."

"Caught? By someone?"

Peter looked up at the castle. "No, caught between here and then. It’s difficult, but that’s what I feel."

Cedric gave a thoughtful grunt. "Then perhaps we should stop pretending we’re merely observing and do something idiotic."

Peter almost smiled. "I was hoping you’d say that."

***

It was early morning and she was swooping over the cliffs, whooping with delight. She was quite a distance from a small hamlet but knew she must maintain that distance, lest she be seen by the villagers. It would bode ill for her should she be caught in the act of flying.

She was so thrilled and pleased to be able to fly that she soared atop the cliffs happier than she had ever been in her life.

Jane was enjoying herself so much, at first didn't realise she had strayed too far toward the village and she saw, with a gasp, that villagers were looking up at her, at least five of them pointing in her direction. There was no mistake; she had been seen, caught red-handed in England, in the middle ages. 

There was only going to be one outcome to this.

The Old Chapel

Exorcism

They chose the old chapel because old chapels, according to Peter’s pamphlets, were where one did these things. Cedric chose it because if matters went catastrophically wrong, the walls were thick and would contain whatever dark forces manifested themselves.

The family remained outside. Even Mr Haley had abandoned mockery in favour of nervous drink.

Peter drew a circle in salt on the cracked stone floor.

Cedric inspected it. "If this fails, I should like it noted that my reservations were dignified and numerous."

Peter set the chapel bell at one point of the circle, the Bible at another, and the Jambiya at the centre.

"We are either on the brink of revelation," he said, "or making fools of ourselves in front of the good people of Kent."

Cedric lit the candle. "I rather think both."

Peter began with the only Latin he could remember from school and moved swiftly into improvised prayer. Cedric supplied "Amen" at intervals that suggested doubt rather than conviction.

For a long moment nothing happened.

Then the candle flame turned black.

The temperature dropped so violently their breath burst white before them.

The bell rang on its own.

A wind rose inside the chapel, though all the doors were shut. Papers whirled. The flame from the candle stretched sideways, then down, then up again.

Peter gripped the hilt of the Jambiya. "I don’t think it likes us."

"Or your Latin."

Then a woman’s cry filled the chapel, layered with another sound beneath it, deeper and older, like laughter spoken through earth.

The walls changed.

Not at first. More as if the stone had become uncertain of itself. Cracks lengthened. Light bent. The altar seemed suddenly farther away than geometry allowed.

Cedric took one deliberate step backwards. "Peter."

"Yes?"

"You’re making this up, aren’t you?"

"Mostly."

"Thought so."

The floor lurched.

The candle exploded in a shower of sparks.

Every sound in the chapel was sucked away into a vast, impossible silence.

Then reality tore.

Light collapsed into a line so thin it hurt to see it. The line opened like a wound.

Peter had just enough time to think, This was not the plan, before the world seized him and hurled him forward.

Bonfire

Jane Baden was now in the local gaol, a woodcutter's  shed, awaiting her trial for witchcraft. She had hardly eaten for days and had only a few sips of water. She was cold, dishevelled and feeling faint from hunger. A classic way of ensuring the prisoner would be compliant during the trial.

The scene shifted once more.

Jane was in the dock at the local assizes in the town of Dover. She was listening to the arguments back and forth between the magistrates and the local scribe who had been appointed as Jane's lawyer.

"I maintain, magistrates, that this person, Jane Badedn, is innocent of all charges."

"You see, magistrates, she is possessed of another."

The scribe had his back to Jane.

The scribe turned, looked directly at Jane, and winked.

Jane's mouth was open, but words were not forming. She realised she was a pawn in a game being played by a demon, the women who possessed her and now this scribe.

The scribe was still talking, but to the magistrates this time.

It was becoming hard for her to concentrate and she could feel that she was becoming slightly delirious.

The scene shifted one more time.

Jane was thrown bodily into a cart, pulled by an ox. Her hands were tied behind her back. Her long hair had been shorn. She was bruised and battered by the watching crowd as they had punched and kicked her as she was dragged toward the cart.

Jane huddled in the corner, knowing full well what was about to happen to her. She was still weak from lack of food and she still had a fever, but her mind was clear. She was being taken for execution. She dreaded to think what form the execution would take but had a fairly clever idea.

As the cart trundled through the muddy streets of Dover, people lined the streets and jeered at her, many with hate, pure hate in their eyes, some had pity, but most were indifferent and would soon be on their way to do their daily business safe in the knowledge that another witch had been despatched and the world was a safer place.

The cart rounded a corner and she glanced at the crowd. As she came past a group of men with tankards with beer slopping over the edge as they drunkenly shouted at Jane she suddenly saw the scribe.

Jane was shocked. Was he on her side? What did it mean?

 "Why?"

The scribe smiled back at her. "Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer. Good luck." And then he was gone.

The scene changed again, and Jane  was dragged to a large tangle of wood and rags. Here she was unceremoniously tied to a stake set in the middle of the wood pile and then more wood and twigs and branches were stacked around her.

A man stepped forward with a large wooden bucket of pitch and another of some foul-smelling greasy oil.

"Please, sir. Pour oil on my person, please." Jane's anguish was palpable as she pleaded with the man. The man simply poured pitch around the base of the bonfire and then sprinkled the greasy oil over the sticks and wood surrounding Jane, but not a drop did he pour on Jane. If he had, the fire would have caught on her clothing sooner and her agonising death would have been that little bit swifter.

The man walked away with a sneer at Jane and the executioner walked forward, a large blazing torch in hand.

Where Are We?

Mud. That was Peter’s first clear impression.

Mud underfoot. Mud on wheels. Mud on the hems of people’s clothes as they surged round a square stinking of smoke, animals, and human panic.

Cedric hit the ground beside him with a curse. Both men were now dressed not for modern England but for something earlier, rougher, meaner. Peter stared at his own sleeves in disbelief.

Around them voices shouted in an older cadence. A child cried. Somewhere a woman wailed.

On a raised platform a figure stood bound between guards.

A woman in grey.

Peter’s stomach tightened.

"No," he said quietly.

Cedric got to his feet and looked round with the calm of a man refusing to be impressed by impossible things.

"Have we travelled in time," he asked, "or is Kent simply worse than I thought?"

Peter pointed to the platform.

The prisoner lifted her head.

For a heartbeat, her face was not hers. Another face seemed to move beneath it, modern and terrified and furious all at once.

May.

Though Peter did not know the name, he knew with perfect certainty that this was the same presence from the castle, from the dreams, from the air above the battlements.

A magistrate was speaking. Peter caught only parts of it. Witchcraft. Abomination. Defiance.

Then another man stepped forward. A scribe in poor robes. He turned, and Peter felt the world tilt again.

The man winked at the prisoner as though they shared a joke.

"What in God’s name is this?" Peter whispered.

Cedric, beside him, said quietly, "Whatever it is, it is not random."

The crowd roared approval as sentence was pronounced.

The woman would burn.

Peter moved instinctively forward and Cedric caught his arm.

"Think."

"I am thinking."

"No. You are reacting. We know nothing about this place, these people. We could end up joining her," Cedric said, nodding to the hapless woman.

Peter looked round at the mob, the guards, the weapons, the fanatic certainty on every face.

Cedric was right and Peter hated him for it.

They could not stop this.

Not yet.

*** 

Jane, secured to the stake, realised this was the end. The executioner walked around the bonfire igniting the pitch as she went.

Whoever had put the wood on the bonfire was not concerned about whether the wood was green or not and as it ignited it caused a lot of smoke. The wretched woman coughed and spluttered and her eyes watered and stung. She involuntarily inhaled smoke and coughed uncontrollably. 

Nothing stopped the relentless smoke and fire and soon the base of the bonfire was a roaring inferno. The smell of burning pitch made Jane cough even more, but that was the least of her worries. The heat from the fire was now making her sweat profusely and her clothing, the hem of her skirt, was smouldering and giving off its own foul stanch.

As the flames rose higher and higher, Jane could just make out people dancing and triumphantly skipping around the bonfire.

The Shift

They had no choice but to watch the conflagration to its grim conclusion.

It was the most terrible lesson Peter had ever learned.

The woman was dragged through muddy streets in a cart while people jeered and threw filth. Her hair had been shorn. Her face was bruised. Yet still there were moments, fleeting and shocking, when something in her expression became modern, lucid, resistant.

At one corner of the square Peter saw a woman smiling in the crowd.

Short blonde hair. Pink at the edges. Eyes full of gleeful malice.

The sight chilled him more than the weather.

Cedric saw where he was looking. "You know her?"

"No."

"Good. Because she looks like trouble given human form."

At the stake, the woman in the crowd moved closer, delighted, proprietorial.

The condemned prisoner lifted her head and for one impossible moment looked straight at Peter.

Not at the crowd.

Not at the executioner.

At Peter.

Help me.

The thought struck him so hard he staggered.

He lunged forward. Cedric gripped him again, harder this time.

"You cannot save her by dying beside her."

Flame took the wood.

Smoke rose thick and foul.

The woman screamed once, a sound Peter would hear for years afterwards.

Above the roar of the fire came laughter. The blonde woman moved round the pyre like a celebrant. Then she looked straight at Peter and smiled as if she could see him across centuries.

Fire climbed.

Smoke thickened.

Jane knew the fire was only seconds away from her, but when it came it was a complete shock. Her skirt caught fire with a brief crackle and the flames quickly spread upwards. Her bodice was made of a thick leathery material and as the heat in it built up it constricted and Jane was caught in an agonising vice like grip, pushing what air she had in her lungs outward. She screamed and tried to take a deep breath, but the constriction was too great. Then the linen underskirts burst into flames and her legs were rapidly scorched as they were roasted. Skin boiled and peeled off, the fat from her legs also igniting. Then her bodice finally caught fire and her linen blouse quickly burned away. What was left of the hair on her head soon singed and scorched her scalp. But by this time, most feeling in the lower part of her body was, thankfully, gone. The upper body was now burning, and Jane was losing consciousness. 

One final, deep, moan escaped her body and Jane crumpled to a heap of burning flesh as what remained of her legs could no longer support her body.

The conflagration continued on for quite a while after Jane Baden had died and the onlookers had long since moved away, the stench of burnt human flesh was too sickly for even the most diehard of ghouls who regularly watched these medieval executions.

Peter stood rigid, sick with helplessness.

Cedric’s voice, when it came, was low and grave.

"This world is bigger than us."

Peter did not take his eyes off the pyre. "Yes."

"It is more dangerous too."

"Yes."

"And we are not in control."

At that, Peter gave a bitter little laugh.

"No, Cedric. We are very far from it."

The blonde woman in the crowd lifted two fingers to her brow in mock salute.

Then the world shifted  again.

The Return

Peter came back to himself on the chapel floor at Castle Aenden.

Rain hammered the windows. The salt circle was gone. The candle was a puddle of wax. Cedric lay a few feet away, groaning.

For a long moment neither man moved.

At last Cedric rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling.

"I should like to state, for the record, that I preferred the desert."

Peter sat up slowly. His hands were shaking. "She burned."

"Yes."

"And we watched."

"Yes."

Peter closed his eyes.

Outside the chapel door David Haley called anxiously, "Is it over?"

Cedric turned his head towards Peter. "That," he said, "depends very much on one’s theological outlook."

When they stepped into the corridor, the air in the castle had changed. It was not safe exactly, but lighter. The pressure had eased.

Anne Haley, pale but calm now, stood with one hand to her throat.

"I dreamed of the sea," she said. "Then nothing."

Peter looked at her carefully. "And the woman?"

Anne frowned. "Gone. Or at least farther away."

David exhaled for what seemed the first time in days.

Mr Haley declared the whole business monstrous and irrational and asked whether that meant dinner might now proceed normally.

Cedric said, "I take that as a yes."

But Peter knew it was not over.

Not remotely.

The Beginning of the Truth

They left Castle Aenden the following morning under a sky the colour of old pewter. David pressed payment on Peter, who refused it. Mrs Haley tried to thank Cedric and seemed uncertain whether one thanked a chauffeur for surviving medieval witchcraft. Cedric accepted with admirable dignity.

Back at Avoncroft Hall, Peter went straight to the library and laid the Jambiya on the desk.

Cedric stood by the fire.

For a while there was only silence.

Then Peter said, "This isn’t over."

"No," Cedric replied. "It’s just started."

Peter looked at the knife. "Egypt. Dover. The woman in the castle. The hooded shaman. The thing in the crowd. They are connected. I know they are."

Cedric nodded. "And at present we understand approximately none of it."

"Less than none."

"Which is awkward but honest."

Peter walked to the window. The lawns rolled away green and oblivious. Beyond them the world was carrying on as if demons, witches, burning women, and voices in the mind were not waiting just out of sight.

"We need to understand what we’re dealing with," he said.

Cedric joined him at the window. "And get better at it."

Peter turned.

Cedric’s face was serious now, all humour stripped away.

"If such things are loose in the world, then Egypt was not an exception. It was an introduction."

Peter felt the truth of that land like iron.

He looked down at the estate, at the ordered life that no longer fit him.

"We’re going to need books," he said.

"Naturally."

"And weapons."

Cedric glanced at the Jambiya. "Also, naturally."

"And somewhere to work."

Cedric looked round the vast library. "I feel we may have overprepared in that area."

Peter smiled for the first time in days.

Then his expression sharpened.

"We’re going to need a name."

Cedric considered it.

"The Avoncroft Inquiry Bureau?"

Peter stared at him.

"No."

"The Supernatural Motor Club?"

"No."

Cedric smiled very slightly. "Then we had better think carefully."

On the desk, the Jambiya gave a faint, brief glimmer, as if in approval.

A soft knock came at the library door. An elderly housekeeper Peter had not yet learned the name of hovered on the threshold with the cautious look of someone interrupting grief.

“My Lord, there’s a letter. Delivered by hand. The gentleman wouldn’t give a return address.”

Peter took the envelope. It was thick, good paper, the sort that assumed it would be kept. No stamp. No crest. Just his title and address written in a precise, economical hand.

Cedric’s eyes narrowed. “That handwriting,” he said. “It’s him.”

Inside was a single sheet. No letterhead.

Lord Avoncroft,

I am given to understand you have recently attended an ‘unpleasantness’ near Dover, and that the matter concluded without recourse to police, clergy, or public explanation.

You will appreciate, I hope, that this is precisely the sort of pattern my colleagues and I monitor. You may continue to decline our assistance, but you cannot decline our attention.

If you wish to ensure that the next incident remains as quiet as the last, ring the number on my card and ask for me. If you do not, I will assume you have chosen to learn by experience.

Yours,
W. Hargreaves

Peter read it twice, then folded it with great care, as if careful hands could make a thing untrue. A stranger had mapped his movements from Cairo to Kent to this room and done it without leaving so much as a footprint.

Cedric watched Peter’s face as if expecting it to fracture. “Well?”

“He knows,” Peter said. “Or he knows enough to be dangerous.” He slid the letter into the desk drawer beside the Jambiya and pushed it shut until the wood clicked. “Either way, he’s close. Close enough to leave paper on my table.”

Cedric’s gaze drifted, not to the drawer, but to the shadows beyond the window. “We have work to do,” he said. “But first we need to know what we’re dealing with. Demons, ghosts, witches, are they all branches of the same tree, or are we collecting a forest?”

Peter looked down at his hands, still faintly stained with ash that no amount of scrubbing seemed to shift. “One thing is sure,” he said. “It isn’t finished with us.”

Cedric nodded once. “And time isn’t playing fair.”

Peter tried for a smile and failed. “We need to be ready for what comes next,” he said. “And I keep telling myself there’s someone on our side, the woman in the hood, the voice that warned me in Egypt. But I don’t know if she’s a guardian.” He glanced at the darkening window. “I don’t even know if she’s on our side.”

And as Peter spoke, somewhere far beyond the walls of Avoncroft Hall, something in the dark turned its attention toward the house, slowly, as if it had all the time in the world and had been listening for his name.

Also, by Tom Kane

If you enjoyed The Demon Terror, why not read The Demon Detective Agency  by Tom Kane.

Where life meets death,

there lies a shadowed world,

steeped in magic, sorcery, and terror.

Between life and death, nothing is sacred.

The sorcerer battles the necromancer,

while the devil plays one against the other.

Where life becomes death,

love is lost, and hate writes every law.

Hell waits… behind the demon’s door.

👉 Read The Demon Detective Agency today – https://mybook.to/DemonDetectiveD2D

Visit Tom Kane's website for series in these genres, Historical Fiction, Thrillers, Supernatural & Science Fiction - https://viewauthor.at/FictionBooksOnline