The Sea in Darkness: An Urban Fantasy Thriller: (Harker & Blackthorn - Book Six) Read online

  The Sea in Darkness

  Harker & Blackthorn - Book Six

  J. A. Ironside

  Copyright © 2022 J. A. Ironside

  Blue Stone Press

  The Sea in Darkness – Harker & Blackthorn Book Six - first published 2022

  Copyright © J. A. Ironside 2020

  Cover Artwork copyright © J. A. Ironside 2021

  Cover Design copyright © J. A. Ironside 2021

  Cover Photograph Girl copyright © Faestock

  Background Photograph © Andre Yurlov

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher and author.

  First Edition

  For the Cornish Sealife trust

  and their work preserving marine wildlife.

  Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

  But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

  The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

  Efface the footprints in the sands,

  And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

  Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

  The day returns, but nevermore

  Returns the traveller to the shore,

  And the tide rises, the tide falls.

  The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  The earth has guilt, the earth has care,

  Unquiet are its graves;

  But peaceful sleep is ever there,

  Beneath the dark blue waves.

  The Ocean — Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Change of Subject

  Chapter Two – Interrupted

  Extract from Stephen Thornton’s Journal

  Chapter Three – Uninvited

  Chapter Four – Two Sides

  Lodestone Document

  Chapter Five – Good News and Bad News

  Amy’s Field guide

  Chapter Six – Catch Up

  Chapter Seven – Proximity

  Chapter Eight – Nostalgia

  Lodestone Document

  Chapter Nine – Statistical Analysis

  Extract from Stephen Thornton’s Journal

  Chapter Ten – Passing Stranger

  Chapter Eleven – A Nightcap

  Chapter Twelve – Stargazey Pie

  From the Evening Chronicle

  Chapter Thirteen – Sparks

  Extract from Stephen Thornton’s Journal

  Chapter Fourteen – Damaged

  Chapter Fifteen – Adrift

  Chapter Sixteen – Dead in the Water

  Extract from Rebekah Harker’s Notebook

  Chapter Seventeen – Like a Stone

  Chapter Eighteen – Lost and Found

  Chapter Nineteen – The Seal Singing

  Chapter Twenty – Darkening

  Extract from Stephen Thornton’s Journal

  Chapter Twenty-one – Crawl Space

  Extract from Stephen Thornton’s Journal

  Chapter Twenty-two – The Fires of Hell

  Chapter Twenty-three – The Drowning Deep

  Chapter Twenty-four – How Rare and Beautiful

  Mission Report

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  The boat started life as a fishing vessel – a small European purse seiner which had been sold and bought, patched and repaired, until it was difficult to tell what its lines originally looked like. For all its mongrel appearance and general unloveliness, there is no reason for it to be adrift on the Celtic Sea, engines dead. It’s in perfectly good repair. A shift in tides carries it away from the North Atlantic Ocean and towards the English Channel. It bobs, silent and unoccupied, utterly undamaged, until a kinder tide diverts it again, sending it gently to berth in a cove on the South Coast.

  The small fishing village of Porthenys in Cornwall is around two and a half miles south of Penzance and is better known by the name ‘Mousehole’. The village has crouched on the coast since the Thirteenth Century and has been exporting pilchards almost as long. In the seventeenth Century, storms lashed the coast with such fury that a great a famine beset much of Cornwall, especially Mousehole, which relied on fishing for both food and trade. Thus, arose a folk hero in the unlikely figure of a middle-aged local fisherman. Tom Bawcock had neither wife nor child, and ‘nothing very much to lose’, as he put it. So, he set out to sea in his fishing smack, braving wind and weather to bring back a catch to relieve the fortunes of poor, starving Mousehole.

  His triumph is still celebrated every year on the twenty-third of December, and it is from this occasion that the local delicacy ‘stargazey pie’ originates – delicious, if you don’t mind your pie staring back at you.

  But as the good fishing folk of Mousehole rise for another day’s work on this late January morning, few are thinking of local legends or improbable feats daring. The seiner has been spotted, drifting on the edge of the harbour. Partially blocking the thoroughfare out to sea, in fact. When neither captain nor crew can be roused on the radio – indeed the communications and electrical systems appear to have shut down despite a dearth of damage to wiring or power supplies – a pair of mariners board the vessel.

  The younger of the two men finds the quiet tidiness of the deck and deserted cabin eerie and says as much. The older mariner grunts in acknowledgement. He agrees but will not voice his griping sense of superstitious dread aloud. There is no one aboard the ship, injured or otherwise. No sign of a struggle or accident. All equipment is stowed neatly away. The seiner’s present state is a mystery. For lack of a better suggestion, the seiner is towed into harbour and moored. The younger mariner points out the legend peeling from the vessel’s side – The Mariana. They have a place to start now in locating an owner or a point of origin.

  As the people of Mousehole turn away from the empty fishing vessel and go about their business, a streak of brilliant red gleams on one of The Mariana’s rails, drying finally to an unremarkable rust brown.

  Chapter One – Change of Subject

  The man dithering on Ivy Road wore an expression of mingled confusion and hope I found horribly familiar. My trainers scuffed against the damp pavement as I slowed my pace. I really hated doing this. It always seemed to be me who had to break it to one of Rebekah’s dalliances that she really meant what she said the first time. Or if Steve did ever encounter any of them, he was too much of a gentleman to mention it.

  “Are you lost?” I said, politely, watching as the man turned in a slow circle to survey the buildings. He’d done better than most. He’d actually found Ivy Road, which did not appear on any map or town plan and could not be located with Satnav.

  The man jumped, turning to face me. He had rather nice, soft brown eyes and dark brown hair. His features were pleasingly square and rugged, his frame tall and athletic – a runner rather than a gym shark. I felt a pang noticing the bouquet of white roses he held in one hand.

  Bex, you have got to get better at picking
them…

  “I’m…sorry?” he rumbled, in a pleasantly deep voice.

  I sighed internally. “I asked if you were lost?”

  He peered at me. “I know you…? Abby?”

  “Close enough,” I muttered. There really wasn’t any point getting attached. If Rebekah wanted to see him again, he would have been able to find the way. “Can I give you directions?”

  “I’m looking for the Harker & Blackthorn Museum.” He turned on the spot again. “I could have sworn it was here…”

  I couldn’t help a sideways glance towards the stone steps which led up to the black-painted door of an early Victorian townhouse. There was an old-fashioned sign over the door bearing the words Harker & Blackthorn: Museum of Folkloric Antiquities and Natural History. He was approximately six feet and change from the door, and he couldn’t see it.

  “You know Rebekah Harker, don’t you?” The man’s voice held a pleading note which, coupled with the big brown eyes, made me think of Labrador puppies. “This is where I met you before.”

  “I’m really not trying to cause offense,” I said gently. “But what did Bex…Rebekah say to you before you…went on a date?”

  The man frowned. “She said she wanted to keep things casual.”

  My gaze travelled over the roses and back to his face as I prompted, “Were those her exact words?”

  He deflated slightly as whatever Rebekah had said to him before inviting him into bed filtered to the front of his mind. “Just for tonight…” He frowned at me. “She meant it?”

  I kept my expression neutral. “Any reason she wouldn’t mean something she said?”

  His expression darkened.

  I didn’t need the Touch to tell me he now felt humiliated. That he thought Rebekah had made a fool of him. For a moment, I wondered if he would take it out on me. If he was one of those men, who processed rejection by verbally or even physically attacking someone weaker than him. He was going to get a surprise if he was. My special skillset wasn’t confined to picking up on how someone felt. I could probably throw him across the street if he threatened me, without laying a finger on him. Not to mention that I was also nowhere near as physically defenceless as I looked. My ex-SAS father had seen to that.

  The man appeared to gather himself, taking a deep breath and setting his shoulders. I admired the way he was able to don a veneer of dignity like a cloak. His mouth firmed as he came to some decision.

  “Here.” He thrust the bouquet into my hands. “If you think it appropriate, please thank Rebekah for a remarkable evening and assure her that her terms were understood.” He turned and stalked back down the road, nursing his wounded pride.

  I sniffed the flowers, shrugged and went up the steps to the museum.

  The interior of the Harker & Blackthorn Museum was jumbled, eerie and idiosyncratic. Anyone visiting a museum in the hope of becoming better informed should probably find a different place to visit, since you’re far more likely to come away confused at best or appalled and terrified at worst. I say that with all affection since I love the museum. But even I find it somewhat creepy.

  The contents of the glass display cabinets in the main exhibition room seemed to gaze passively back at me as I wove my way between them. Okay, so some of the cases held effigies and taxidermy animals – of course it felt like they were watching – but that was only part of it. The museum had become more aware since Rebekah moved in a year ago. It had opinions about who may or may not visit, and it took its cue from its owner. Rebekah had been dismissive of the idea that magic was involved and disliked me theorising about it. Then, last December, a witch – an ex-girlfriend of mine – had visited Oxford and confirmed my theory. While Rebekah was not a fan of the idea that one of her forebears was an occultist, knowing that the museum was warded and keyed to her will, made it even more difficult to find. For someone who had only the barest tolerance for magic and only as an undiscovered science, she’d certainly got the hang of managing the guest list in a hurry.

  On the other hand, Harker & Blackthorn had made some powerful and influential enemies over the course of the last twelve months. We were currently in a stalemate with amoral tech science giants, Evergreen Technologies. Having a base of operations that couldn’t be found unless a Harker or a Blackthorn issued an invitation was comforting.

  I trotted up the steps to the mirror room, ignoring the multiple copies of myself that flitted across the reflective glass and polished metal covering every inch of the walls, and pressed the concealed panel that opened the door to the back stairs.

  Rebekah lived in a flat in what was once part of the servant’s quarters of the town house. We weren’t sure when the remodelling had taken place, but it was probably not long after the original Harker and Blackthorn bought the building and turned it into a museum. Not that it was ever a tourist attraction – more of a storage vault for all the weird shit generations of cryptid hunters and folklorists brought back from their world travels.

  I didn’t bother to knock on the front door of the flat, before pushing it open and entering the horrible beige and burnt orange living room which formed the headquarters of our organisation. “Hey, Bex.”

  Rebekah emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Amy.”

  It was always strange to see her do something mundane. Not to mention a jarring contrast between the ugly room and its stunning occupant. Because while Rebekah is terse, ferociously intelligent, sharp tongued and not a glad sufferer of fools, she’s also completely, annoyingly beautiful. Her physical perfection combined with her intellect makes her more than a little intimidating – even for her closest friends.

  I set the flowers on the table and folded my arms. “I just ran into another one.”

  Rebekah looked up from shaking out the tea towel. “Oh? Which one?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, crossly. “I stopped trying to learn their names since you never intend to keep any of them.”

  Her lips twitched in amusement. One of her perfect eyebrows arched.

  I rolled my eyes. “Brown hair, big puppy-dog brown eyes, tall...”

  “Everyone’s tall by your standards,” Rebekah pointed out.

  I slanted a sour glance at her. “Athletic. Like, tennis player athletic.”

  “Oh yes. I know who you mean.” Rebekah nodded. “Nice arms. Good stamina.”

  “Jeez, Bex, I wasn’t asking you to complete a survey!”

  “What did he want?”

  “From the look of him? A rematch, probably.” I shrugged. “Or maybe to propose marriage. It really could have gone either way.”

  “It’s impossible to find a man who wants a casual arrangement these days,” Rebekah mused.

  “I don’t know what you do with them.”

  “I have sex with them, obviously. I don’t invite them in to put up shelves.”

  “Might be better if you did,” I observed. “They probably wouldn’t come back then. And if they did, we can always use more shelves.”

  “Very droll.”

  “I think maybe the pre-shag chat needs to include the words ‘I’m not going to call you’,” I said.

  Rebekah looked at me startled. “It already does. I’m honestly at a loss as to how I can be more explicit.”

  I sank into an armchair. “You must be dynamite in bed. It’s clearly mind-blowing enough that they recall nothing of what you said afterwards.”

  Grimalkin, Rebekah’s black, fluffy tomcat sauntered out from under the table, tail held high. He looked up at me expectantly, tatty ears pricked, before leaping lightly into my lap and curling up. I stroked his scarred head. The cat had eaten a semi-demonic entity – or fragmented, sentient off-shoot of a human’s psyche – about six weeks ago but it didn’t seem to have had any ill effect on him. Grim was still very much a typical cat: might sleep on you four hours. Might dart between your legs and almost kill you on the stairs.

  Rebekah perched on the arm of the sofa, wearing a look of consideration. “Perhaps I shoul
d have a few leaflets printed. The way dentists provide aftercare instructions for tooth extractions. I could pass them out when they leave.”

  “I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking,” I admitted.

  Rebekah chuckled. “It’s actually not a bad idea but mostly I said it to see that look on your face.”

  “I’m glad to be such a source of amusement,” I said wryly. “The girls all seem to get the message.”

  “The girls aren’t nursing erections when I try to have the pre-sex ‘we’re never growing older together’ talk,” Rebekah said candidly.

  I giggled, cheeks heating. “Okay, you win. Can we please change the subject?”

  “Certainly.” A rising, high-pitched squeal came from the kitchen. “Hold that thought. Kettle’s just boiled.”

  A few minutes later she handed me a cup of tea. “Heard from Stephen yet?”

  Six weeks of rigid self-discipline stopped my expression from slipping. “No. I think he’s coming back on Sunday morning, though.”

  Rebekah eyed me speculatively. “You’re not upset?”

  “Why would I be upset that Steve went to visit Kelsi for the weekend?” I said.

  “Because up until recently you and my cousin have been joined at the hip. If I wanted to know how you were, I could ask him and vice versa.” Rebekah sipped her tea and set it on the coffee table next to the forlorn looking bouquet. She looked down at her long fingered, elegant hands as if uncomfortable. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Alarm flashed through me, hastily smothered. My act must be shakier than I thought if Rebekah, of all people, was offering to sign up for a heart-to-heart. She was even more uneasy with overt emotional displays than I was.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” I was proud of my casual tone. “Things were a bit...weird after the winter solstice. But we’re fine. Best of friends, as ever.”

  “Alright.” Rebekah did not sound convinced.

  “Look,” I let out a long breath, “it would probably be the same if you and I had been forced to have...those sorts of feelings for each other as a side effect of some ritual.”