Urban Fantasy Mysteries

By John Pirillo

Over six hundred pages of Urban Fantasy Mysteries featuring the detective who made London famous.

 

SHADOW OF DEATH

Somehow, it just doesn't seem fair when a detective is the one being followed, except when it's for revenge!

 

THE EIGHTH DOOR

Hell is just around the corner. But not the one you expect.

 

FIST OF THE GODS

Size is not everything when it comes to murder and deceit.

 

A MAD PATH TO THE LIGHT

One man's insanity is another man's clever. But which one is it, and what will it lead too, if followed?

 

INTO THE LIGHT

How can a man that should not exist possibly visit a man that does? And what does he want?

 

Five great Urban Fantasy Mysteries that can only happen after Midnight in the dark of Victorian London.

 

Buy your book now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Pirillo
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201816261

John Pirillo

The author was born in Washington, Pennsylvannia. He loves animals and birds. Has two pet cockatiels that keep him company while he writes. He has a lovely daughter and a rascally grandson. He is rich in friends that matter and well adjusted to a life of challenges. He writes and draws every day. He loves anything science fiction, fantasy or extremely well written. Same goes for movies and TV. Not married currently, but has an eye and ear open to possibilities. :)

Book preview

SHADOW OF DEATH

Death’s Cry

W hat’s a little revenge between friends? He asked.

We’re not friends!

Wrong answer!

Nooooooooooooooooooo! Shattered the night like a hammer smashing glass into tiny particles that spin out of control in every direction.

221B Baker Street

Holmes woke himself up with a scream. Not just a dreamlike scream; but an actual one. Loud and piercing. Heart breaking. Miserable and filled with despair.

The door to his room slammed open and Watson raced inside, his pistol in his hands, searching for what was attacking Holmes.

Holmes?

Holmes shook his head to clear it. It had all been a nightmare.

I’m fine, Watson, he told his friend, but his face did not say that. His face was not its usual neutral look, but instead fraught with terror.

Watson came closer to search his friend’s face. Holmes managed to bring himself back under control and when he looked into Watson’s face, he no longer was drowning in emotions.

Perfectly normal in his tone he said. Really, Watson, this is much ado about nothing. I am fine.

Watson lowered his weapon. You’re...

Fine, Holmes reassured his friend. I’m sure, Watson. Perfectly fine. Please do not bother yourself a moment longer about me. Get your sleep. I suspect you’re going to need it when we go out on our case tomorrow.

Watson nodded, but his face said he was not so sure about what Holmes had stated. Something about the haunted look in his eyes and an undertone that was fraught with a kind of horror he could not put his fingers on.

He turned to exit the room and then turned back. He knew his friend was lying. When you want to talk about it...

He did not finish his sentence. He just gave Holmes a sincere look, nodded, and left, closing the door shut behind him.

Holmes eyed the shut door a moment and then collapsed back onto his bed, struggling to breathe again.

His heart was pounding, blood pulse racing.

He felt as if he were about to die.

No! He screamed inwardly.

I will not! He hollered at himself in his mind.

He sat back up, forcing himself to remain still, not to give in to the shivers and tremors he felt his body wanting to explode into.

A blast of light pierced Holmes’s mind.

The memory of what he had seen began to swallow him up again and the last words of Lovecraft.

Once more he felt his world beginning to collapse, his heart pounding and breath-catching hard in his throat.

No! He commanded himself yet again, ironing his emotions against the psychic drain he felt coming on. Somehow, he had been attacked. He would need to speak to Harry about this.

He sat up once more, then assumed an easy yoga posture, crossed his hands in his lap, then put a forefinger to his right nostril, breathed in, and then to his left and breathed out.

As he repeated this Pranayama yoga exercise, he could feel his sense of instability vanishing, his nerves smoothing out, heartbeats slowing down.

He sighed with relief.  Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, his blood pressure dropped, and he could feel that calm, lazy feeling that always came when he had returned to his center again.

Then and only then did he begin meditating, using the technique that his old friend, the Monk in Pahalgam, had taught him along with the breathing, relaxation technique.

As he did so, a brilliant door of white light opened before his vision.

He immediately forgot the bed he sat upon, the room about him and his current world.

He stepped up the ascending staircase that went to the brilliantly lit door and stopped before it.

He hesitated only a moment, then flung the door open.

What Comes Forth

N ooooooooooooooooooooooo !

A scream of terror and pain shatters the black ebony night and a million, a billion stars collapse and tumble across the skies, flinging themselves into hiding from something that looms above them.

Something dark.

Something terrible.

Something nearby!

The Nightmare

Alittle matter of death

Parted their path

In short, dreary breaths

That could not last.

Both struggled.

One to the dark

One to the puddles.

But only one the victor

Of their dark, dark struggles.

—Doctor John Watson

The fingers were like slimy vises about his neck as Holmes struggled with the ghostlike figure of Lovecraft, whose hands had turned into long tentacles, clasping Holmes about his throat, cutting off his breath and causing his lungs to swell with impotence from lack of air.

He was suffocating.

The blood-red eyes of Lovecraft stared into his own.

I will never forgive you.

Somehow Holmes was able to speak despite the sense that he was suffocating, however slowly.

It’s not me you have to forgive, Lovecraft, Holmes blurted out, meanwhile struggling to break free from the massive tentacle wrapped about his arms and chest and pinning him to the wall he was flattened against.

He was imprisoned in a dark room with walls that soared into dark heavens that were shot through with bleeding red lights that winked like eyes of massive behemoths. The sky stirred as if monstrous forms moved slowly about each other, suffocating the small light that there was with their massive forms.

A single light lit the room within which he was imprisoned. And it was a light that cast only darkness. It was impossible to exist, but it did.

The massive tentacle clasping Holmes to the wall was green-tinted and had suckers that puckered along its length and width and seemed to be alive on their own, their mouths breathing in and out.

He could feel the ones pressed against his sides and chest and arms pulling his flesh into their mouths then letting go and repeating the process.

It was both unnerving and frustrating to his soul.

When they sucked in, he felt his consciousness diminishing and when they released him, he felt as if he could breathe again, even though just a little.

Lovecraft jammed his face only inches from that of Holmes.

I don’t need forgiveness; I am freeing the world of its weakness.

He sneered at Holmes and then said, You!

He smiled. A smile that dripped with darkness and hatred. I should be rewarded being so kind to our world, Holmes. Removing you is the best thing that could ever happen to it.

You’re as mad as Moriarty was! Holmes managed to get out before he felt his senses starting to fail from the lack of oxygen.

He was a fool, which is why I killed him before you could, Lovecraft confessed.

How he could speak when he had no more air in his lungs made no sense. He was suffocating; he knew that and yet he was not at the same time.

You couldn’t have! Holmes blurted out, choking as he did so.

Lovecraft smiled. You are a fool, Holmes and always have been. Even Moriarty, who was far less intelligent than I, was able to fool your silly deductive reasoning into believing he was dead when he was not. He was my partner and none who serve me shall ever die unless I choose that for them.

He clenched a mold encrusted fist in front of Holmes's face. I am the god of my life; I kill whom I choose and bring back to life those I need.

That’s blasphemy! Holmes stated, everything growing darker about him.

He could feel his heartbeat slowing.  He had but moments to live.

Now, Holmes, before we finish our little discussion about morality, I want you to see something.

Lovecraft let go of Holmes and stepped aside.

Holmes saw what Moriarty wanted him to see.

He felt his soul leap out of him and scream!

No man should live after what he had seen, he thought to himself.

Lovecraft smiled and then said, No man has!

Then Holmes felt his neck snap at the same time as he was strangled to death.

Tortured Soul

Apulsating madness spun out of control, seizing every living ear within its reach, until the walls of London all crumbled, cracked, fractured, bent, and became tortured monuments of pain and discord, fear, and terror, then a voice called out to the madness.

Noooooooooooooooooo!

Pahalgam, India

Before.

Holmes and the Monk sat on the huge boulder that jutted out over the Ganges. Both were silent and contemplative. The night was thick with gathering clouds, but still, billions of bright pinpoints of white light pierced the heavens above, glittering and glowing in the atmosphere of the Earth.

A single crow flew overhead, calling out to a partner across the river; its voice soon drowned by the roar of the raging Ganges, the mother of rivers as the Hindus believed.

Something loud enough to snag his attention roared behind him and the Monk...above and beyond the temple where the Monk lived, and he studied in.

Higher up the mountain. Likely one of the tigers that prowled the area. One had been spotted near the village across the river and had been chased away by a brave, but a misinformed child who thought it was a large cat and not a predator that could swallow him in one gulp. But sometimes the naivety of a child was also their salvation, for had the child screamed in fear, more than likely it would have been it's last.

So many do not realize, or else forget at the moment, that most animals do not strike or harm out of malice, but because they feel threatened or frightened. The child had not been frightened. Its love had calmed the savage beast and thus spared its life.

The village of Pahalgam was lit up with huge bonfires now. The villagers were celebrating the birth of Krishna to Nerada.

The Monk spoke, The children are celebrating again.

Holmes did not hear at first, he was thinking of his father and their last words together. Eat the world as if it were your last meal. Savor it, let it pleasure your senses and fill your soul with delight, he had told Holmes.

Just like tonight, he had sat next to his father, his arm about his shoulders, snuggling him close, giving him body heat against the air and breeze as they gazed at the distant splotches of light in the sky high above.

The Monk repeated himself. The children are celebrating again.

What? Holmes replied, the memory of his father fading. He looked at the man who had become his best friend and teacher. What did you say?

The Monk laughed. I am too good a teacher. Now, you can even tune me out of your thoughts and hearing as well.

Holmes blushed. Never my heart though.

The Monk pressed a warm hand on Holmes's left arm. Nor you mine. You have become like a son to me. And God knows I have no children except those of my temple.

Holmes laughed. But it was true, his training in calming his thoughts and centering them on a single purpose was working. Even better than either thought would happen. It was as if Holmes had an extra sense that opened up a new world of opportunity for his intellect to function in.

The Monk called it his Doorway. His ascension.

To Holmes, it felt like a soft, but gentle wave of being in which he rested, all his senses stretched out to infinity, bathed in a gentle light that had no beginning or end.

The Monk smiled and pointed at Pahalgam. It makes my heart smile when they show their joy for God.

But? Holmes asked.

The Monk looked at him.

Holmes smiled. You always follow such a statement with a question or something you are poised to reveal to me.

The Monk smiled. I do have a question for you.

See, the game’s afoot after all, Holmes pointed out.

The Monk laughed. Our little games are always afoot. But they are nothing compared to those you will play later in your life, my son.

They both lapsed into a comfortable silence a moment, their eyes on each other’s faces, sharing the peace between them and the love a moment longer.

Finally, the Monk nodded as if Holmes had asked a question or made a statement.

Yes, the game is afoot, as you say so frequently and quaintly, may I add.

He turned to point at the village again. Every day they labor to feed themselves, to raise their children, to protect their families from heat and cold, thieves and murderers.

He paused as if weighing his next words.

But in all that time, all those years that come between, they don’t think once about the meaning of it all. How all the trivial things matter as much as the larger.

He turned to Holmes and looked into his face. Then a minor matter of death interrupts their simple lives. And all that time they had to live and learn in has been vanquished.

Is death little? Holmes asked, fully knowing that was where his friend was leading him to throughout the conversation.

From a certain perspective, it is immense, enveloping, catastrophic, and final.

He paused a moment, then said, But from another point of view, it is highly illuminating, a second chance and liberation from pain and discomfort.

Holmes nodded. Illuminating because it reminds us of our mortality...?

No, son, because it reminds us of how little we have learned so far, and how much further up the mountain we have yet to climb.

Holmes thought about that. Then what good is death if it only reminds us of what we have lost, not what we have gained?

The Monk smiled. And there you have the goal of life’s game, Sherlock. To find that balance which declares that the true meaning of life is to live it and live it well... he said, then paused a moment and added, ...and kindly.

221B Baker Street

Holmes woke himself up with a scream. Not just a dreamlike scream; but an actual one. Loud and piercing. Heartbreaking. Miserable and filled with despair.

He sat up in bed, his heart pounding so hard it felt as if it might shatter his ribs and chest and fling itself free in terror.

No! He uttered. This cannot be, he commanded.

The door to his room slammed open and Watson raced inside, his pistol in his hands, searching for who was attacking Holmes.

Holmes?

Holmes shook his head to clear it. It had all been a nightmare.

I’m fine, Watson, he told his friend, but his face did not say that. His face was not its usual neutral look, but instead fraught with terror.

Watson came closer to search his friend’s face. Holmes managed to bring himself back under control and when he looked into Watson’s face, he no longer was drowning in emotions.

Perfectly normal in his tone he said. Watson, this is much ado about nothing. I am fine.

Watson lowered his weapon. You’re...

Fine, Holmes reassured his friend. I’m sure, Watson. Perfectly fine. Please do not bother yourself a moment longer about me. Get your sleep. I suspect you’re going to need it when we go out on our case tomorrow.

Watson nodded, but his face said he was not so sure about what Holmes had stated. Something about the haunted look in his eyes and an undertone that was fraught with a kind of horror he could not put his fingers on.

He turned to exit the room and then turned back. He knew his friend was lying. When you want to talk about it...

He did not finish his sentence. He just gave Holmes a sincere look, nodded, and left, closing the door shut behind him.

Holmes eyed the shut door a moment and then collapsed back onto his bed, struggling to breathe.

His heart was pounding, blood pulse racing.

He felt as if he were about to die.

No! He screamed inwardly.

I will not! He hollered at himself in his mind. You will not have me, Lovecraft! He roared to himself.

He sat back up, forcing himself to remain still, not to give in to the shivers and tremors he felt his body wanting to explode into.

A blast of light pierced Holmes’s mind.

The memory of what he had seen began to swallow him up again and the last words of Lovecraft.

Once more he felt his world beginning to collapse, his heart pounding and breath-catching hard in his throat.

No! He commanded himself yet again, ironing his emotions against the psychic drain he felt coming on. Somehow, he had been attacked. He would need to speak to Harry about this.

He sat up once more, then assumed an easy yoga posture, crossed his hands in his lap, then put a forefinger to his right nostril, breathed in, and then to his left and breathed out.

As he repeated this Pranayama yoga exercise, he could feel his sense of instability vanishing, his nerves smoothing out, heartbeats slowing down.

He sighed with relief.  Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, his blood pressure dropped, and he could feel that calm, lazy feeling that always came when he had returned to his center again.

Then and only then did he begin meditating, using the technique that his old friend, the Monk in Pahalgam, had taught him along with the breathing, relaxation technique.

As he did so, a brilliant door of white light opened before his vision.

He immediately forgot the bed he sat upon, the room about him and his current world.

He stepped up the ascending staircase that went to the brilliantly lit door and stopped before it.

He hesitated only a moment, then flung the door open.

Chester Street, London

Thick fog clung to the walls of the street’s buildings, crawling up and down the brick-and-mortar sides like wispy caterpillars of smoke, drifting sideways and backward in eddies as the Thames blew cold winds from its shoulders into the shuddering city of London.

Something moved in the fog.

Disturbing it.

Shoving it away.

Like a huge bulldozer moves mounds of earth, this was doing it to the fog.

Something so large that it defied imagination, and yet was somehow nebulous and wispy itself like the damp air it pushed away from its colossal form.

Something so large that one could never see the length or breadth of it, even if several blocks away and yet when next to it, it seemed to be just as natural as part of London night air, as the occasional seagull, pigeon, or bats that flit like tiny angels through the curling fog.

Something large.

Something that loomed high above the buildings, casting thick, but shifting shadows across the street below.

A constable, whistling to himself, to divert his mind, swung his nightstick happily as his metal toes scraped the sidewalk stone, sparking tiny tumbles of flame, before he scraped yet again with his next footstep, making his way forward to complete his beat, his tour of the city for that evening.

Ah Mabel, how I am looking forward to that foot rub you promised me, he whispered to himself, as if afraid that mentioning it more loudly would make it not happen.

He checked the door of the building he was passing. Thoroughly tight. He let go of its doorknob, went back onto the sidewalk, and proceeded towards the next building, being careful to avoid getting too close to the alley as he did so.

Too many horror tales whispered quietly and not so calmly at the station had warned him that most of the dark things that now prowled London at night were more likely to attack from alleys.

Yet.

Yes, it was quiet, and he preferred it that way. And yet, something about the quiet was unsettling to his soul. For some reason, the hair on the back of his head kept wanting to fly away from his scalp, flee from his mortal body to safety.

He shivered once and glanced about, not knowing what was wrong, but feeling as if somehow, he was being violated, or watched closely by something invisible and malignant.

In his soul of soul, he knew something was terribly wrong.

Then the huge shadowy, misty form that was almost invisible reached through the veils of curling misty fog towards him.

He only knew that because he could see a shadow growing on the sidewalk before him.

Growing darker, closer, and forming into something his imagination couldn’t grasp.

He shook his head.

What rubbish! He scolded himself and began whistling again and twirling his nightstick, even though now a part of him kept watching the ground more.

Had he been looking up, maybe things would have been different.

Maybe.

But as it was, he did not stand a chance.

Something, wet, slimy, and cold as ice clutched him by his neck.

Before he could scream or struggle to break its grip, he was jerked skywards, his fear and terror and pain blinding him to the world until it all went...

Snap!

Wiltshire Road, London

Karina Goldsmith shivered in the damp, clinging fog. She was a midnight angel, a woman determined to turn a profit before it got too much later. She had not had a single offer this night, even though she was so close to the merchant ships and the husky sailors in their cabins that snuck out at night for a quick rendezvous.

Curses! She swore, tugging at the wet hem of her skirt.

It was getting ragged on the edges. If she did not manage some more coin soon, she would not only be out of clothing but a place to live as well. She was two weeks behind on rent, and only the generosity of her landlord and his lust for flesh had kept her safely indoors at night.

But she could tell he was getting tired of her. His apartments were filled with so many like her and always would be. They were the downtrodden, the hopeless, and the lowliest of the low to much of London.

While most Londoners did not look down on them; enough did to make their lives perfectly miserable when they went into crowds. They were shunned by the so-called good and respectable ladies who married men, not for love, but wealth. How much different were they if she married for money, as opposed to outright charging for it? No difference whatsoever in her mind. Prostitution was prostitution.

Sex was just that. Sex.

She longed for love but had never known it.

Her brother had raped her at twelve and then been murdered by her father in rage when he found out. Her father, who had loved her with all his soul, had been sent to the China Wars and never returned. Her mother never got over it and wasted away, without a thought as to what would happen to her only child: Karina.

Maybe that was Karina’s curse in life, to love and lose. Love and be lost.

She began to weep. To sob softly.

Then she felt a movement in the air around her.

She shivered violently a moment, shrugging her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, but it didn’t provide any warmth against what she felt.

Then as she finally decided to get indoors, something caught her by the throat and jerked her hard into the sky, choking off her air and her...

Life.

Morningstar Way

Lovecraft stirred uneasily before the window looking over the street. He had located this flat just in the nick of time. His face was too well known for him to be constantly about revealing himself to the crowds of the city, which never slept.

He was a master of disguise like the man he loathed with all his heart...Sherlock Holmes...but he did not like the feeling of the greasepaint on his flesh, the glue, and other chemicals he had to use.

He shoved the curtains back across the window and turned his back to the street view and his small room.

How has my life come to this? He asked himself.

He had murdered the true Lovecraft of this world once he had crossed over from his parallel world. It had been a simple thing to accomplish; the man was a writer and one knew that writers were too imaginative for their health and wellbeing and too trusting to recognize death looking them in the face.

Snap!

The sound of the man’s neck-snapping clung to his memories.

Why?

Because he was looking at his image dying.

Pah! He cursed, disgusted at himself for sinking into such memories. He shrugged them off.

Then he felt a pulse of such intensity in his chest that he reeled from it a moment. He grabbed hold of a dresser top to steady himself. Just in time. For another pulse struck and this time harder.

After each pulse, he caught a brief vision, a flash, and a view of someone’s face and then it faded to darkness. It repeated itself nine times. Each time a new face. Each time new darkness.

He straightened out and sucked in a deep breath of darkness that was gathering in the room before him, his eyes widening in joy.

My lady! He greeted happily, glad to have the visions of those he had killed so brutally fade from his thoughts for a time.

From the darkness, a woman stepped forth. Her face was bright with both greetings and lust. For death and dying.

She stopped before him, but only that part of her. For she was not truly human nor of his world, though she lusted to be. All his dark friends did. And every time he helped them to get the door into his world a bit wider, the more power they gave to him; the more power he controlled. But he knew it had a price; a danger; and an outcome that was as inevitable as the deaths he had already claimed.

It was a bargain he could not refuse, nor they if they wanted to come back to this earth once more. An Earth they had been driven from by the great Merlin the Magician some years back when Fairie and Earth had separated.

Master, she greeted him, but not with sincerity, with an underlying sense of sarcasm and...something more...despite!

He sighed. Even the Dark Ones who served him despised him. He was unloved by mortals and the demons of the deep. He did not care though. Not anymore. Not since...

He shuddered unhappily for a moment.

The woman saw the moment and rushed him.

He thrust the memory away from him and she froze mid-step. She backed up and waited. She always waited. Waited for him to make the mistake that would close the bargain between them. His soul. Eternal torment and damnation. But not yet. Not this day, this hour, this minute.

Not yet!

That is what she hungered for.

For what did he hunger?

An image of a tall detective and his portly partner lit the screen of his mind a moment and he smiled.

How many? He demanded, his senses back under control as well as his emotions.

She did not hesitate a moment to reply. Nine in all to death’s call.

She smiled.

And they were tasty!

He smiled back.

I’m sure they were.

He stepped to within inches of her, pressing a hand to her bosom. I need you.

She pressed closer. I am yours to command.

He laughed.

Her face darkened with fury. You mock me?

He did not speak another word. He threw her down on his bed and took from her what she would never willingly give...her love. If such darkness could ever be called anything like that.

In neighboring flats, the screams that came from his room caused sleeping souls to cringe in their dreams and have nightmares.

But Lovecraft and the woman did not care.

They were too busy devouring each other.

But even as they committed further sins against themselves and the Light that pervades our universe, Lovecraft could still only think of one thing besides the dark flesh he was pressing into...revenge!

Justice!

Revenge!

She screamed when he thought the last revenge in his mind as he threw himself with all his might against her.

A scream of intense pleasure.

His hatred was the only kind of love she could ever know or wanted to know. And it gave her more pleasure than had the deaths of the innocent nine earlier.

Then he recovered his strength and shattered her thoughts with an even more powerful slam into her body.

Dogs began barking loudly outside.

Cats screaming.

Neighbors wake up and cross their chests in prayer.

Thieves ran for their lives.

Birds shot into the air from their roosts.

Bats shot from their hiding places and arrowed away.

221B Baker Street

Watson stood at the window looking out over Baker Street, with Mrs. Hudson leaning against him. It was Sunday. She had just returned from her church, where she went every Sunday to pray and to help with the charitable work of the church, which was feeding the poor and destitute.

Your day went well, my dear? Watson asked in a sweet voice.

Yes. I wish you had come as well.

He put an arm about her shoulders and pressed her closer. I had my reasons.

She glanced over his shoulder at Holmes, who sat by the fire, covered by a thick blanket, shivering.

He’s sick?

Not at all. At least, not in any way I can put into words. Or he either, for that matter, Watson added in frustration.

Holmes, whose eyes were shut, suddenly opened and he screamed, Nine in all to death’s call!

Nine to Death’s Call

Nine deaths. All by hanging. The Inspector thought as he struggled to cope with the immensity of the murders. All within minutes of each other.

Watson stood up from the body that had been cut down from the top of the building where it had been strung like a cock rooster by a rope about its neck.

Lovely creature, even in death, he mused.

What? What did you say? The Inspector demanded, shocked out of his thoughts by Watson’s kind words

Watson gestured to Karina’s body, the Midnight Angel. I know her type, Inspector. Abandoned, hopeless, desperate for love, for the means to survive.

The Inspector spat in disgust. I hate this. Women are meant for marriage, not cattle.

He turned away to look at Holmes, who was examining her shoes that lay about twenty feet apart from each other and had a greenish substance glistening on them both. He walked from the last shoe; then joined the Inspector as Watson did so as well and closed the black medical bag he always carried.

This is the last one?

The Inspector nodded. "Nine in