Daniel Oriel and the Crusade

By Oliver Franklin

How many enemies can a young man have left? The Good Book says a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. And this is proven true as some of the St Aldate’s congregation decide that too much of a good thing is bad. A new dance studio has opened in Oxford, promising to uncover hidden talent, but then a body turns up – dead from asphyxiation. Was it an accident or murder? It turns out that this studio is not all that it seems... Daniel and Reverend Watson lead a massive demonstration against the place. Meanwhile Mark enters The Ministry and Kavanagh has problems of his own. The Occult Link Unit is busy and some bright spark gets the idea that if kids went to the Youth Group, they wouldn’t be dabbling with Ouija boards. So the Oriel wrecking ball continues to roll and what else will it demolish? Revival has come to Oxford... but so has death. Under 16’s are NOT WELCOME at this establishment!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver Franklin
• Release date: Dec 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781005092351

Oliver Franklin

You will read some of it in the books...

Book preview

Daniel Oriel

and the Crusade

by Oliver Franklin

Copyright © 2017 Oliver Franklin

The author has asserted his moral rights

First published in 2017 by Buddlewood House

Typesetting, page design, layout by

DocumentsandManuscripts.com

The right of Oliver Franklin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, design and patents acts pertaining. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this work may be made without written permission from the author.

– This is the fifth book in the Daniel Oriel series

and is not for children –

Chapter 1

Two Unexpected Announcements

At the end of the third annual Oxford Street Party there was an unexpected announcement. The tradition of allowing the rockers to close out the celebration continued and, for this year, Mark had organised something special. He’d contacted his fellow musicians from the bands Midsummer Party and Xaviour and, together, they were performing a triple whammey at the end of the evening. Each group arranged a forty-five minute set and they were due to run from just after seven to half-past nine.

The crowd this year was the biggest so far and an estimated eight hundred of them were packed into the road between the stage and Lloyd’s Bank. Dave Zachary had planned to film the event from his usual vantage point – atop the bus shelter – but the police had ordered him down. So he set himself up by the sound desk at stage left and had to make do with microphones and speakers in the shot. The consolation was that he could take an audio feed directly from the desk, which meant that the sound quality on the resulting video would be excellent…

Midsummer Party treated the audience to Jail House Rock, Rock Around The Clock and a number of other classics. Xaviour came on next and, when they finished their set with their hallmark high-pitched vocals and screaming overdrive guitar and bass, Mark publicly applauded them, saying to their lead singer as he left the stage, ‘You’ll be top-billing next year, Colin!’ Such was the noise that nobody else heard him and so the crowd were taken completely off guard afterwards.

That is, when December Gold concluded with a beltingly loud rendition of Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. Mark waited for the noise to hush and made the following statement, ‘Thank you, thank you… no, I won’t take my shirt off! – ’ laughter and a few wolf whistles ‘ – Far too cold. It is January, you know? Listen, I’ve got an important announcement… I haven’t spoken to the guys about this either – ’ he glanced round at them ‘ – so they’re going to be as surprised as you lot.

‘These past five years have been great. We’ve had the ride of our lives and I think many of you have too – ’ strange mutterings erupted now ‘ – the thing is, come September we’ll all be going different places. So we won’t be here next year – ’ disappointed groans ‘ – so we’re probably going to have to disband soon – ’ howls of protest now ‘ – wait, listen… we won’t just leave you all in the lurch and never appear again. If the guys agree, we’ll do a series of ‘Goodbye Gigs’ at the Dog and Duck in the coming months. Watch our YouTube channel and Facebook page for news. Take care! God bless – !’

And with that he turned and mouthed ‘Sorry’ apologetically to his band mates.

They left the stage in something of a malaise and a number of die-hard fans and protesters tried to storm the stage and had to be tackled by the stewards.

Although the others were a bit miffed that he’d sprung it on them without warning, none of them were really angry, as they all knew that the party was coming to an end and, as tantalising as it might have seemed in previous years, a career in covering other people’s music didn’t seem like the way to go.

The gear was packed into the Volvo and Sam’s dad’s new van and, after bidding the others ‘Goodbye’, Mark, Daniel and Kavanagh were consoling themselves with a late-night coffee and chips at Ralucca’s place.

‘The guys looked a bit cross,’ Daniel considered, stirring his coffee with a chip, until the end dropped into cup. ‘Oh dear! I’ve lost that one…’

‘I think they were more downcast than angry,’ his brother replied. ‘First I quit drinking on them, which put a dampener on their partying, then I announce the band is done… You can’t blame them.’

‘I’m sure they all knew it was coming,’ Kavanagh ventured, ‘it was just an unspoken thing. Of course, sleeping in a drunken heap in your mate’s bedroom every weekend and playing rock music is fine – for a while – but you can hardly make a career out of it!’

‘You sound like your grandparents,’ Mark retorted, ‘and our parents. Besides, you’ve never done it?’

‘Done what?’ Kavanagh asked, suspiciously.

‘Slept in a drunken heap and played rock music, I think,’ Daniel commented.

‘No, I suppose I haven’t,’ Kavanagh confessed. ‘And I can’t say I particularly want to.’

‘Take it from me, you don’t want to,’ Mark confirmed, knowingly. ‘You lose sleep, you lose brain cells, you lose money and – ah – other things too…’ His voice tailed away and he looked out of the window at the passers-by, on their way home from the New Year’s Day festivities.

Daniel and Kavanagh exchanged knowing glances but said nothing.

‘Would you like try some polenta?’ Ralucca asked, offering her late-night customers the delicacy on a plate. ‘I made them for tomorrow, would you like?’

‘Mm, yes please,’ Daniel replied, smiling at her.

Many shops and eateries had stayed open late for the party and done surprisingly good business. Although new to Oxford, Ralucca had followed suit, this being the first Street Party she had been a part of. The gouge in the table by the window was still evident, where the biker had threatened them with a knife, and the friends felt that by attending regularly, this might somehow smooth things out with Ralucca.

A few minutes later, Daniel was staring forlornly at the soggy remains of his chip, when his brother came out with, ‘I’m thinking of training for the ministry, actually. What do you chaps think?’

Daniel suppressed the outburst that first occurred to him, and Kavanagh managed to moderate his initial response to, ‘That’ll be a surprise to your parents…!’

‘And me,’ Daniel added, frowning at him.

‘Have you told them?’ Kavanagh continued.

‘Nope,’ said Mark.

‘Which ministry? There’s quite a variety out there, these days,’ Daniel pointed out.

‘Anglican, obviously,’ his brother replied, finishing off his latte with a rude slurp. ‘I’m also thinking about getting into youth ministry, if St Aldate’s can get the funding for it. It’d be nice to have something more formal going on than the ad hoc arrangement running at the moment.’

‘Have you spoken to Reverend Watson about it?’ Daniel asked.

‘Nope,’ he confirmed.

As Mark then perused the dessert menu with an air of disinterested benevolence, Kavanagh and Daniel exchanged grins across the table.

‘Well, stepbrother, I’m very pleased for you,’ Kavanagh commended. ‘Tell me, when did you first consider this new vocation, just now or five minutes ago?’

Mark thumped him.

‘Ouch!’

‘Hey! Stop it, you two,’ Daniel urged, ‘Ralucca’s watching…’

‘Don’t worry, Dan,’ Kavanagh confided. ‘Give it another couple of years and I’ll let him have it, from both of us – a really good clout…’

‘If you’re going to try it,’ Mark hissed, ‘do it before I’m ordained will you? It’s not good for Anglican Ministers to go beating the living daylights out of their upstart stepbrothers!’

Chapter 2

A Cold Plunge!

The School opened three days late, after a heavy snowfall that weekend. Even then, some of the water pipes had burst and there was no heating in the dining hall. Of course the students thought it was exciting and sat and ate their lunch wrapped up