Midnight in the Mists - The Dark Deepens: The Evynsford Chronicles, #2

By Julianne T. Grey

It has been over a year since Inspector Arthur Eldermann was sent to find the vanished children of Evynsford and the fingertips of some shadowy will were revealed. It could almost be believed that whatever darkness had come to that secluded hamlet had been driven off. Yet the mists endure, an oppressive smothering blanket, and as the pale summer of 1899 spreads up the British Isle, another ill wind blows across Evynsford from the Irish Sea.

Something has been tearing apart the fields, and so three farmers set out to end the menace. When they don’t return, searches begin, and in a prospector’s lodge a grisly scene is uncovered. It could not have been the work of any man, but no such creature haunts those shores. The Watchman placates and consoles, but the cries of the widows and the fatherless grow too loud. Something must be done. Once again, things which cannot be explained are plaguing Evynsford and a call goes out for a constable to help. Well, not a constable.

Inspector Eldermann has not been idle this past year, his professional triumph and spiritual revival in Evynsford having landed quite a bit more in his lap. Case after gory case has been handed him, sending him wading waist-deep into human depravity even as his soul strives to rediscover what it means to be holy. Wrestling with the black night inside himself and the world around him, the Inspector is called back to the place where his life began its new road. Someone is waiting there for him, and she has been very patient ... but can she and the man she longs to love stand together when darkness comes for them from within and without?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imaginarium Press Publishing
• Release date: Apr 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386106357

Book preview

Prologue: Stir Not Up

The Adamic Society for Moral Improvement in Liverpool was not prone to displays of ostentation. Indeed, compared to the Masonic Lodge, that imposing, blocky edifice built two streets down from them, their low hall of dark brick was rather unimpressive. Though they had been in Liverpool for near on a century before the Lodge was built in 1856, the quiet Society had been mostly ignored or seen as an eccentric fancy of a few local business magnates. They did not seem interested in the more impressive displays of beneficence and philanthropy of similar groups. Oh, they most certainly did good works – fatherless children sponsored to fine schools, widows steadily provided for, charities funded, that sort of thing – but they did it discreetly, asking for no dedications, no plaques, no recognition. If a curious soul should look into the Society’s activities, if they found anything at all, they would find only that they were the actions of private, wholesomely good men.

So it was that the Society continued on through the years unmolested.

This Friday, like every first Friday of the month, those good men would stroll beneath the stone arch of the front door, each passing a respectful nod of obeisance to the inscription graven there: In Linguis Hominum Aut Angelorum. Their dress, like everything about the Society, was unassuming, simple and somber. The only eccentricity in manner they displayed was the way the men acknowledged each other with a gentle dip of the head and the appellation of brother before stepping into the Society Hall.

Within the hall, the first portion of the meeting went smoothly. After a general meandering discussion about some of the members attending the ceremony for the founding of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Society turned its attention toward establishing preparatory funds for the undoubtedly oncoming conflict with the Boers in southern Africa. The previous Boer Conflict Fund, the BCF, was well established and had discharged its duties well enough under Brother Horston, but discussion needed to be had on whether the BCF should be expanded or whether a separate fund should be established. Several brothers expressed concern that the work of managing an expanded fund would prove too much for Brother Horston, especially after the recent addition to his household of a healthy baby boy, which he was again congratulated about. However, with a young man’s self-annihilating zeal, Horston set the brothers at ease. After all, he already had one young child and one more would not make all that much of a difference. The meeting concluded with a unanimous agreement to simply expand the BCF with seed funds collected the next month.

The meeting closed with the ceremonial locking of the front door, all brothers standing silently as Brother-Warden Jameson turned the key and then walked solemnly to the rear of the hall and unlocked the rear door. The brothers filed out quietly with a respectful nod at the inscription in the lintel: Tradidero Corpus Meum Ut Ardeam.

At last, only Brothers Braddock, Withum and Benns remained standing in the middle of the hall, where an ornate Persian rug was the only decoration. Brother-Warden Jameson walked from the rear door and precisely but briskly folded back the rug to reveal a solid door of oak set into the floor. Without a word, Jameson drew out another key, unlocked the door and drew it open, revealing stone steps leading into darkness. Braddock, Withum and Benns marched down the stairs into the dark, bowing their heads to avoid striking them upon the doorframe where words were graven: Noverim Mysteria Omnia.

Once all three had vanished from sight, Brother-Warden Jameson closed the door, replaced the rug and went to stand sentinel beside the rear door.

It was just another first Friday at the Adamic Society for Moral Improvement in Liverpool.

HE HAS BEEN SENT TO Evynsford again, Brother Braddock reported to the two other men standing about the triangular plinth, their faces revealed by three small candles in the plinth’s center.

We should have cleaned up all this mess before now, Brother Benns groused sourly as he scratched at his white-whiskered cheek. I still do not understand why we didn’t contact the Seraph a year ago.

Braddock’s face performed a rodentious little twitch.

You are not talking about a vagrant or orphan, brother. He is a rising star in the Constable Offices of Preston and the darling of the regional press. Even the Seraph cannot just make someone like that disappear.

He is the darling of the press, Benns rumbled, sparing the much smaller man a disdainful glare. Because you insisted that we keep ensuring he would be sent off on all those consulting cases by the C.O.P.

He had to be kept busy, Braddock retorted shrilly. And how was I to know the man would have such resounding success? It is uncanny.

It is a disaster, Benns pronounced dryly. Now instead of removing our problem for the next step of our staggering little plan, we have inserted him right into the middle of things.

It is not my fault, Braddock sulked, receding to the back of the candlelight.

Naturally, Benns said lazily, his face fixedly disinterested.

Gentlemen, enough, Brother Whithum said flatly, speaking for the first time since