Brigid Hawking is the 'Van Helsing of ghost hunters' and has built a career debunking fraud and chasing the very real apparitions of entities and forces from outside accepted reality. In the town of Whitby, on the coast of Yorkshire, she and other ghost hunters rendezvous in uneasy truce to monitor the mother of all hauntings, as something unprecedented happens: a correlation between paranormal events and an observed phenomenon of the planetary magnetic field.

Here she meets Mel Jenkins, a monitor for the British Parapsychic Network, and they pool their resources both to chase their personal demons and to explore their immediate and passionate attraction. Against a background of haunting and apparition, and the texture of a quaint sea-town from the days of sail, their love blossoms with the urgency of their needs, and the terrible presence of something evil, something that has stalked Brigid all her days and may have taken those she most loved from her.

In a place with a centuries-long reputation for the strange, where hell-hounds howl a death-knell and ghosts hurl the living to their doom, now the Unseen breaks through as never before. Brigid and Mel are at ground zero of a volcano of the paranormal that will silence sceptics, rewrite textbooks and overturn the modern perception of death and reality.

But this is not just about demonstrating the reality of the paranormal world. For Brigid and Mel alike, it's entirely personal -- and very possibly lethal.

ISBN: 978-0-9807092-6-1
Published by DreamCraft
Cover by Jade
Length: 43,250 words
Format: PDF to suit virtually any device
Kindle (due)
Price: $4.99




Read an excerpt:

From Chapter Four...

When they stepped out into the pre-dawn street, in the glow of streetlamps and the floodlit facade of the gothic church across the way, the air seemed to crackle with a latent something.

The bike fired first time, which mildly astonished Mel. She let the engine warm for a couple of minutes before easing them down the alley from the coach houses, and down Crescent Avenue to Upgang Lane. From there she took Chubb Hill Road and Bagdale Road, the long way around to the waterfront and the bridge.

Nothing stirred save a cat crossing the road in the glare of their lights — a black cat of course. The town seemed pent in a breathless grip. When they had parked the bike and made their way quickly up Henrietta Street, knelt and snipped the cable ties to retrieve the instruments, they felt a prickling at their spines unlike anything they had known before.

The night seemed blacker and colder than ever, and the town lights were a forlorn foothold against a universe too big and angry to understand.

"Let's get out of here," Mel whispered as they knelt by the downcomer, stuffing the sensors into Brigid's pack.

No sooner had she spoken than a mournful sound crossed the predawn air, not the wind droning through the stoneworks of the ruined abbey, nor the foghorn down at Hawsker � a moaning howl, a drawn-out cry, as of a great hound calling some distance away.

Their eyes met, and as they hurried down the street Brigid panned her instruments. The howl came again, and she watched the readings, which were already excited and high, spike again.

"Somewhere above, on the cliff," she hissed.

They rounded the bottom of Church Street and strode quickly to the bike, in the shadows of the Town Hall. But this time a twist of the key brought not so much as the dash lights. "What is it?" Brigid asked, a deep murmur by Mel's ear as she trained the scanner back along the street toward the foot of the 199 steps.

"No juice. Dead as a doornail." Mel's voice was tight, and she looked back at the arch of the other helmet in the indigo shadows. "Brigid, I'm out of my depth. I'm just a researcher. What do you usually do when the shit hits the fan like this?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't panic. If the things that go bump in the night have so little ectoplasm about them, they can only be seen in the dark, it's hardly likely they can do us any harm." The words were terse, her concentration absolute, but the arm about Mel's middle was tight and reassuring all the same.

The great hound howled again, this time a lot closer. ""It's coming down the steps," Brigid whispered. "Get your camera ready, shoot without flash."

"If it'll work at all." Mel pulled out her digital SLR and flicked the switches. "Working, but for how long, I don't know. Close phenomena can drain batteries fast."

"Save them. Shoot when I tell you."

"Maybe we should be running. Just a suggestion."

"You can run if you like, I don't see the point myself." Brigid's voice was almost unnaturally composed. "It would be like a UFO landing in front of you, and you passing up the opportunity to see what nobody else believes in."

"So stand and let it come?"

"Stand and let it come," Brigid whispered. "Mel, trust me. If you never trust me again, trust me now. Train your camera up the street past the magic shop and let it come."

What would they see? Anything? Or would it be as invisible as the ghost train of Grosmont? They heard the thump of huge feet now, scuffling down the steps, it was maybe forty yards away. Less. The scanner was spiking wildly, telling them the free electromagnetic energy was wild. Hairs rose on nape and wrists. They felt the snap and itch of static on their leathers as they moved. A hand run through hair would trail blue sparks.

Energy — wild, free energy, was everywhere, all about them. Some of it manifested as positive ions in the air, much of it was etheric energies at wavelengths science had yet to measure, but it was real.

The scanner wavered, the display flickered and died and Brigid pocketed it with a wry smile. "As you said, batteries give out fast when you're up against the real thing." She brought out her camera and poised her gloved thumb on the switch. "Save it, save it � wait �"

The thud of huge paws — their scuffle on the wide stairs — came clearly, and suddenly they knew it had turned the corner. The streetlights had dimmed, security lights in shops had faded as if power was being drawn off. In the blue pre-dawn shadows their eyes saw nothing. A snuffling growl came to their ears, and they sensed it approaching.

"Shoot," Brigid whispered, and both cameras began to record, frame after frame.

They almost felt the dog's hot breath. Fear made their hearts race as their eyes searched in vain. It was not visible, certainly not to their eyesight, though others might have possessed the sensitivity to see clearly what, perhaps, only the cameras were recording. They heard its racing steps as it bolted along Church Street and went by in a shudder of unease which left them giddy and sick. And they heard its paws beat the cobbles, away along the waterfront on the east side.

Miraculously, the batteries in both cameras lasted long enough, and in the moments following Mel and Brigid sat on the bike in a close hug and breathed deeply as they let the reality wash over them.

A few moments later the shop and streetlights brightened back to their normal intensity. With a glance back at Brigid, Mel twisted the key. This time the bike started at once, and they slung their cameras with a shuddery feeling. Brigid took out the detector and changed its AA cells. The display lit afresh and she panned it around the street.

"Interesting. The 'Barguest hound' seems to leave an EM spoor."

"You can track it?" Mel's question carried a tone of suggestion.

"I can certainly see where it's been."

"Which way?"

"That's the spirit," Brigid whispered, with a hug around her middle. "Head on along the waterfront, nice and slow."

The bike purred past the Bridge Street turning, past the carpark at the end of Grape Lane, and slowly past the old ship chandlers' businesses. At a tap on her shoulder, Mel brought them to a halt. Sleepy seagulls stirred on pilings and capstans, and turned huge, heavy-beaked heads as they stretched their long, marbled wings.

"I think it doubled back through Grape Lane to Bridge Street."

"Leading us in circles?" Mel asked, glancing across the carpark, past the magic crystals shop to the James Cook Museum. "Maybe this animal doesn't go far from home."

"You think it's native to this part of town?"

"No one knows, but the central area is the oldest part, with structures hundreds of years older than up on the West Cliff. If anywhere is likely to be the focus of such a manifestation, it's down here." Mel nodded toward the narrow lane. "Hang on." The Ninja rumbled quickly through the curving street, emerging by the Dolphin. "Where now?"

"Left."

They were across the bridge in moments and Mel paused them again on the waterfront, where the wind played in the rigging of The Grand Turk and the Christmas decorations were jostled like dancing skeletons.