Gothic Romance; Magic,Tortured Heroes and Ghosts, Oh My!

I'm in the Halloween Spirit. After all, my fellow lovers of Dark Things, this is the most wonderful time of year. We can decorate our homes and yards with all the lovely little skulls and ghosts and no one blinks or thinks we're weird. We fit in, for one month out of the year. So, Let's Celebrate the Dark Side. I'm giving away free copies of my Gothic Romance to readers here. All you have to do is use the coupon code at the end of this blog and you've got a full length 400 page Gothic Romance Novel Free on me.

Excerpt From Dark Hero, A Gothic Romance:
Just to bring you up to speed: Donovan, the main character, the Dark Hero in the story, is a doctor and a scientist. He cuts up dead bodies, and preserves specimens. His laboratory, like that of any scientist, is sort of creepy for the rest of the world to enter, as he has his preserved specimens of both animals and human remains on display.

     An hour later, Donovan summoned Miss Ramirez to his laboratory.

     Seated behind his desk, he watched the woman’s reaction to the preserved specimens adorning the shelves. As a rule he didn’t allow strangers into his laboratory, particularly women, who tended to be squeamish. The one time he summoned Elizabeth here he’d had the more offensive specimens covered by a canvas to preserve her tender sensibilities.

     The rest of humanity could run shrieking from him and good riddance.

     Elizabeth was the one person he did not wish to repulse with his studies in anatomy.

    

 Miss Ramirez started and gasped as she saw the grinning skull on his desk. “El Diablo!”

     “Not the devil, one of his hirelings.” Donovan replied. “I killed him and fed his body to the sharks. Sit, Miss Ramirez.” He gestured to the chair.

     She regarded him with horror, as if he would slit her throat if the mood took him.

     Smiling, Donovan gestured again to the seat opposite his desk.

     With reluctance, she sank into the chair. “Please, do not send me away.” The woman blurted, near the point of tears. “I talk too much, it annoys my lady—I will try to be—“

     Donovan raised his hand, indicating silence. “I did not summon you here to reprimand you. I need your assistance. How long has the ghost been haunting Elizabeth?”

    “You know about the spirit, my lord?” Her eyes grew wide with alarm.

    “She visited us last night. It threw Elizabeth to the floor, right in front of me.”

    “Dios! I did not think the spirit would attack her in your presence.”

    “What does she want?”

     Chloe clutched the arms of the chair and pressed her lips together, as if the truth might fly from them unbidden. Her doe-like eyes begged him not to ask her to betray her lady.

     Donovan maintained his impervious stare.

      She crumbled. “I do not know, my lord!”

     “Has Elizabeth said anything to you regarding the ghost? Who is it?”

     “Her mother, my lord.”

      Donovan’s heart chilled at the woman’s words. “Her mother? What does she want?”

     “I do not know, my lord. My lady does not speak of her mother at all. She talks about her grandmother often, but . . .” The woman paused. Her eyes took on a terrified cast as something slowly became apparent to her.

     “Elizabeth is being harmed.” He insisted in a severe tone. “If you have any insights, no matter how slight, now would be the time to share them, Chloe.”

      She stared at him, considering her predicament: angering the master, who paid her wages, versus reporting the truth to him about his lady. Her lower lip quivered, her eyes brimmed with rising tears.

      Bloody Hell, Donovan cursed silently. That last thing he needed was another weepy female to deal with. Lizzie had been weeping off and on for days, and he fully expected that storm to worsen before it was over. He loved Lizzie, and dealing with her tears left his heart in shreds. He couldn’t endure a bout of hysterical weeping from another woman—he’d rather die, by his own hand.

      As he glowered impatiently at the servant, waiting for her to explode into an annoying torrent of tears, she straightened her spine, clasped her hands together tightly, and appeared to tuck her raging emotions neatly away beneath her colorful shawl for another day.

     “At first,” She sniffled, and went on in a throaty voice, “The spirit did not harm Madame. She appeared a few times to her at night and during the day she would toss items about my lady’s room. Several times, we would find the wardrobe emptied all over the floor. After questioning me as to the reason for the mess, my lady realized it was the spirit doing this to get her attention. She said her mother was a having a—Oh!” She spun her hand in the air. “—acting like a child who does not get its way? I do not know the word, my lord.”

      “Having a tantrum?”

      “Yes, that is the word my lady used. Every few days there would be an incident. Madame and I would pick up the mess and she cautioned me to keep silent. Lately, the spirit started attacking her. My lady has been pushed, slapped, shoved, and once she was locked in a closet.”

      “Yet, you did not come to me.” Donovan chastened.

      “My lady swore me to silence, my lord. And you are a man of science,” She gestured around the room. “What could I have said to make you believe my tale?”

The woman did have a point. He would not have believed her—not before last night.

       “Nothing like this happened on the ship. These attacks seem to have begun after our arrival here. What could have disturbed her mother’s spirit since then?”

       Her dark eyes moved about the room, from the stuffed raven to the owl and the lizard perched on the shelf behind him as if seeking the answers. “There is a magic charm in Madame’s possession. She discovered it among her grandmother’s things after we unpacked her trunks. My lady believes the charm is a protection against nightmares.” The maid tugged her shawl about her. Her dark eyes widened. “But it is pure evil, my lord.”

       Donovan pondered her words. Maureen’s ghost had said Elizabeth’s ancestors were sorcerers. If senile Old Sheila had fashioned a malicious charm, it seemed prudent to remove it from Elizabeth. “Find it. Bring it to me.” 

 Dark Hero, A Gothic Romance is available FREE at Smashwords.com. This is an exclusive offer only for readers of this blog. Coupon is good through Oct. 31st 2012. Have a Halloween Treat on me!

If you would like a free e-book copy of Dark Hero use coupon code TN97B at the checkout at Smashwords.com

Chills to You,  

Lilith Bloodrose

A Chilling New Gothic Classic

I just watched "The Woman In Black", and let me tell you, it's scary!
I was home alone, so I had to cling to my German Shepherd for comfort during the really scarey scenes. Usually my dear husband is the one who holds my hand, but he wasn't available, but Fritz, my 2 year old shepherd was most happy to sit on the sofa with me and let me snuggled him from protection.

I must say, it's rare that a Gothic story gets me that spooked, and I give praise to the director for taking the story and creating a very seriously creepy movie that is destined to become a cult classic. It's set in th late Victorian age, about the turn of the 20th century.

Daniel Radcliffe stars in a adult role in this thriller written by Susan Hill. He's a widower named Arthur Kripp, a lawyer who is sent by his firm to a remote village in England to find the correct will after a rich woman dies and leaves her estate papers in shambles. He has lost his wife, and has reached rock bottom. His son is about four years old, and doesn't want him to go out of town for this job. Arthur is in arrears financially, and his boss at the firm makes it clear that if he can't complete this job, he'll be let go from the firm. So, Arthur travels by train to the remote seaside village and is met by cold shoulders and anger at every turn. Arthur goes to the deserted manor house to find the papers, against the advice of the local lawyer and other villagers. The house is seriously creepy, a pure goth delight. The interior is dark, moody, and full of spooky atmosphere, the perfect setting for a ghost story.

As Arthur goes through the widow's papers at the empty manor house, he hears odd noises, and has strange sensations as things brush past him. He looks out the window at one point and sees a woman in black on the deserted grounds. He goes outside to try to find her, but to no avail. Instead, he finds a grave. Meanwhile, he goes to town and children immediately start dying. He can't understand it, but each time he encounters a child, they seem to die shortly thereafter, violently. The townspeople try to make him leave by force, but won't tell him why this is happening in their village. As the mob closes in he is rescued by the local gentry, Mr. Daily, played by Ciaran Hinds. Mr. Daily offers him a room at his mansion, and Arthur meets Daily's disturbed wife. The Daily's have also lost a child, and the mother is grieving, and has a strange affliction/gift as she as sometimes able to channel her child. Her husband just thinks she's nuts, but she's actually giving Arthur a few clues as to the strange woman in black and her purpose in the area. 

Poor Arthur is alone at the Haunted Mansion, but really not alone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Determined to follow through with his job, lest his employer let him go if he does not, he keeps searching through the papers at the mansion. He discovers some very disturbing things as he does so. A child of the owners died years ago. He finds letters from the birth mother, the old widow's sister, accusing her of taking her child from her, and of being responsible for the child's death.  The woman in black is the birth mother. She's haunting the house and the villagers, taking their children from them one by one for reasons unknown. She's a very angry ghost! Arthur is being stalked by her. The toys in the dead child's room start to play (wind up toys) in the middle of the night. He sees strange shadows and things brush past him. This movie is brilliant in that it's not about what you see, it's what is implied behind the scenes. There were some seriously creepy scenes using the children's mechanized toys. Scary little ghost children who aren't very nice!  Talk about a high creep factor.

 

 

Arthur's scared, wouldn't you be, all alone in a mansion with lots of ghosts?

Arthur came to the remote village to find legal papers at the house of a dead client. Easy job, right? He ends up finding a desolate house full of ghosts and dark secrets. He is isolated and alone, and is stalked by a woman in black as he tries to prevent her from taking more children to the grave in her mad quest for vengeance.  Watch the movie, you won't be disappointed. But my advice, watch it with a friend!
Watch the Movie Trailer

Chills to you, 

Lilith Bloodrose

What makes a compelling, believable Ghost Story?

Ghosts have always fascinated me. My first encounter with a ghost in a romance was Lynn Kurland’s Stardust of Yesterday. I admit I was pulled in partly by the cover, as the actor from Highlander was the cover model. Yes, those alluring covers do draw us in, don’t they! In this story, the hero was a ghost and the heroine was still alive. Talk about instant conflict. That first paranormal romance sparked my interest to the genre and led me happily down the path to the dark side.

As an author, creating ghosts is much harder than reading about them. When writing Dark Hero, a Gothic Paranormal romance, I had think long and hard about how and why the ghosts would appear in the story in the first place, as well to try to create that chill factor we love in ghost stories. No, I didn’t go into haunted houses. I love to be scared by reading ghost stories and watching scary movies (not alone!) but facing a real ghost in a haunted house--no, not if I can help it. 

I asked myself this, why stick around in a place for centuries when you could be off enjoying the after-life? I’d go to Paris, to the Louvre. I’d be off in a heartbeat if I was a ghost and able to travel anywhere I wanted to go with no physical boundaries. And yet, the main element of ghost stories is the ghost being tied to the person or to a specific place.

Ah, now I had a clue. I can’t just throw random ghosts into a story to jack up the creepy factor and scintillate readers; we need to have reason for the haunting that fits into the plot of the book.

So, I came up with a list of elements to help me construct a compelling, believable ghost:

1). Ghosts have feelings, and feelings compel us to act, rationally or irrationally.

I love the Supernatural TV Series. As Dean and Sam hunt ghosts, there are often some pretty angry haunters to contend with. An example is the female ghost in the show’s pilot who kept appearing to men along the deserted road. The men she appeared to were unfaithful to their mates, so after they picked her up she would kill them. She did this because she had been betrayed by her husband and being in an angry, irrational state, she killed herself. Thus, she became fixated on killing other men in the area near her home who are adulterers. Her feelings of pain and betrayal at death forced her to seek revenge--now that’s an emotionally driven ghost.

2). Ghosts want to contact the living. That is the bread and butter of the Ghost genre. If they’re off doing their own thing, like going to Paris to haunt the Louvre (my choice) then where’s the story? What’s the point?  It might be at the Louvre . . . but again, why would I be there instead of at home trying to contact my children and grandchildren?

3). Ghosts have to be motivated toward a goal. There has to be a reason why they are stuck where they are. That’s why they are so angry, sad or psychotic. They have intense feelings which cause them to act and they are motivated to complete a goal so they can find peace.

 To illustrate this, consider two of the ghosts in the Harry Potter movies. I love the headless ghost who keeps floating around Hogwartz cheerfully chatting with everyone, but it seems he serves no real purpose in the movie other than background flavoring. Moaning Mertle on the other hand, (the girl who haunts the bathroom) has intense feelings and a purpose to be in the story. She has knowledge that ultimately helps Harry and the gang. Once they talk to Mertle, she helps them solve their problem by giving clues that lead to the next step in their quest. 

Elizabeth O'Flaherty in Dark Hero

I have several ghosts in Dark Hero. Some are strangers to the heroine and others are family members. Regardless of their relationship to Elizabeth O’Flaherty, they all have a reason to be stuck with a haunting gig and a reason to want to contact to her. Elizabeth is a seer and is able to see and speak with the dead. Examining why the ghosts should be present in first place helped me to write a compelling ghost story and avoid using ghosts as wallpaper merely to spice up the story. 

After sharing what I think makes a credible ghost, let’s open this up for discussion. Feel free to share your comments about what makes a worthy haunting in a story and what you like (or don’t like) in ghostly characters.

Chills To You, 

Lilith Bloodrose

The Highwayman, Part II

Undead Romance . . . Ghostly Lovers . . . The Highwayman still comes to visit Bess at the Inn after their demise. Love it. You will, too. With the Full Moon this week, enjoy this poem and imagine a bit of ghostly courtship taking place on a lonely, moonlit road, as gentleman caller rides up to the old abandoned inn door and pays a visit to the lovely, pale Bess, the Landlord's Black eyed daughter . . .

Part one of this excerpt was in the previous post, and the following lines are from Part II of the famous poem.

When we left the lovely Bess on Friday, she was having a bad night as the soldiers came to the inn and seem to be settling in.  She's worried, for you see, her lover, the highwayman, promised to come to her that night. 
 
The Highwayman, Part II by Alfred Noyes:

He [the highwayman] did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say— 
"Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight; 
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding, Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up, straight and still!

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him— with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—Riding—riding— 
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter, 
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair

If you are looking for a musical rendition of the this haunting poem, check out Lorena McKennitt's  version from her Book of Secrets CD. The link is here again for your convenience:
Lorena McKennitt's rendition of "The Highwayman"

Full Moon, Ghosts, and Eternal Romance

If you've never read the narrative poem "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, published in 1906, you've missed a truly romantic story.  The Highwayman and Bess, the Innkeeper's daughter, have a thing going. They meet late at night. He stops by on horseback, knocks on her window, and she leans out. They talk, they kiss, and her lovely long dark hair caresses his face. But, with any story, there is conflict. The Highwayman is a wanted man, because he is in reality a thief. Soldiers come, they set up camp at the Inn, they use Bess as bait to lure him to the trap, she kills herself, using the gun shot and the flash of the powder to warn him and he escapes. The next morning he hears the news, how the lovely Bess killed herself to save her love from the soldiers waiting for him at her home. He's so full of grief at the loss of his love, what does he do? Why, he heads back towards the soldiers and has it out with them, going down in a bloody fight to avenge his true love's death.

The beauty of this romantic story,aside from the Romeo and Juliet storyline, is that it doesn't end there.
The ghost of the highwayman comes riding down the lane, stops and the inn, and knocks on the window. And who's to say a Ghostly Bess doesn't answer his romantic knock?

The poem is in the Public Domain, as it was published before 1923.
So, dear reader, savor it for yourself. The original poem is far better than any retelling;

The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes: Part I  (Part Two will be in the next Post)

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

 He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

 Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,    
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.


And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

 "One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."

 He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

 He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.


In Part two, to be featured in the next Post, Bess is confronted with a horrifying reality as the soldiers lay a trap for her lover as she remembers her love saying at their last parting:

"Watch for me by moonlight; 
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!"

Snow White and the Huntsman Movie Review

It seems that this spring and early summer has been a true goth fest when it comes to movies. We had "The Raven" in early May, followed by "Dark Shadows" in late May, and now another dark movie has come our way. Oh joy! It's sort of like Halloween, when everywhere you look you see the wonderful little skulls and pumpkins!  It's the most wonderful time of the year.....oops, well, it is, when we have three Gothic themed movies in a row....and it's not October!  <HUGE GRIN>

I went to the movie Snow White and the Huntsman this weekend after anticipating it for months.

This movie does have a seriously creepy, dark atmosphere. I loved it. The director has taken the lovely children's story of Snow White and turned it into a Gothic Fairytale.

The storyline follows the fairytale pretty well. A beautiful, enchanted child is born to a king and queen in medieval Europe. The queen dies when the little girl, called Snow White is about seven or eight. The king mourns his wife, but eventually remarries a beautiful woman. Unbeknownst to him, the woman is a sorceress. The king dies, and well, you know the rest. Evil stepmother rules the kingdom, Snow White is out of the picture. In fact, she ends up locked up in a dungeon for years.

The movie veers slightly from the fairytale, but not far. The princess Snow White escapes, runs into the forest, and the Queen wants her back, because of the whole rival beauty paranoia going on. So, the Dark and Beautiful Queen hires the huntsman to go after Snow and bring her back. The problem is, my fellow goth lovers, is that Snow has ran into the Dark Forest, a place of magic, mystery and Halloween type trees that grab at you with roots and branches. The Dark Forest is the only place the Evil Queen has no power--go figure?

So, enter Thor---er--the Huntsman.
He's the only one who knows the secrets of the Dark Forest and can track her and bring Snow White back to the dungeons. But, then, as you probably guessed, he switches sides, feeling sorry for Snow White and her plight. Of course they encounter dwarves in their journey, and of course the Evil Queen pursues them. The Queen tricks Snow into eating the poisoned apple, and she dies. The rest is history, as they say. you know the story. The Huntsman kisses her, she comes back to life, and they storm the castle . . .  That's the short synopsis.

Along the way, the princess and the huntsmen encounter some adventure, a little romance, a triangle romance scene, if you will, and some enchanted creatures, including woodland fairies.  I found this version to be visually lush, amazing and richly imaginative. I highly recommend it.

Now, you're probably thinking of Kristen Stewart and going....ewww....from the Twilight thing. But seriously, I have to say, the movie is well worth the effort. Stewart does a pretty good job in the lead role. She's not bad, really. Just not incredibly strong with the screen presence thing yet. But she's young, and she's growing into it. Regardless of how you feel about Stewart, the movie is incredible, truly strong visually. Having Thor (Chris Helmsworth) in the role of Huntsman was a huge bonus. And, if you're looking for strong female screen presence you've got it with Charlize Theron as the evil queen. Now that is some smoking stage presence, ladies and gentleman. Give that woman an Oscar, please! I was captivated by this lovely, bewitching, malevolent queen. In fact, I think Theron stole the show, for me. She is hauntingly beautiful and frightening.

One of the most striking scenes of Theron is when she appears to Snow White, offers her the apple, and then the Huntsman discovers who she is and swings his axe at her. She transforms into a flock of black crows against a snowy forest and they all cascade up into the sky. It's so darkly poetic and lovely.

So, bottom line;  Get over the Kristen Steward dislike due to her role as wilting Bella in The Twilight Saga, and go see this wonderfully Gothic Fairytale. Stewart shows promise in this story, and she learns to kick ass and wield a sword. No more squirming and grimacing as she waits for her boyfriend to save her. And if you're looking for stellar performances; with Thor from the Avengers headlining as the male lead and Charlize Theron as the elegantly malicious sorceress queen, you'll be vastly entertained.


 The men who play the dwarves are also worthy of note, as they capture your heart. Not Doc, Dopey and Sneezy, but real life, gritty, warrior dwarves that deserve the limelight every bit as much as the rest of the cast.

Movies this good do not--I repeat-- do not come around very often. So dear Gothic Friend, savor the moment, and don't choke on your popcorn. 

Chills to you, 

Lilith Bloodrose.

Meet Elizabeth's Mysterious Bridegroom in Dark Hero

Chapter four excerpt:  Elizabeth's stepfather meets the mysterious Count Rochembeau; Copyright Lily Silver 2012
 
      The door opened, and the count emerged. The lawyer rose and Fletcher followed suit.
      “My Lord, this is Captain William Fletcher, the stepfather of the young lady you had me inquire about. Captain Fletcher, may I present Le Comte de Rochembeau.”

       Fletcher stared at the apparition dominating the chamber, rendering it even darker by his mere presence. His host’s mutilated face was covered by black silk scarf. Only his lips and chin were visible beneath the dark silk. The skin just beneath the fabric appeared angry and swollen. Tiny holes had been cut into the cloth, yet all one could make out in the dim light was the eerie shifting of light behind the eyeholes of the dark sheath.
      “My lord.” He made a bow, recalling his manners. The mute specter nodded and gestured to the chair. Fletcher sank into it quickly, the better to hide his knocking knees.
       The count sat in a chair next to the door he just emerged from--a dark corner devoid of illumination--and gestured with a wave of his hand for his solicitor to begin.
       “His lordship wishes to know if you’ve had sufficient time to consider the agreement.” Jamison asked, unaffected by the veiled creature staring at them from the gloom.
        “Aye, its fine, I’ll sign.” He had been warned not to stare, but couldn’t restrain himself. The dark sheath hiding the man’s face made him uneasy. It reminded him of an executioner’s mask. The count was a sizeable man, with inky black hair that swirled about his broad shoulders in wild disarray. Unable to hold that disturbing silvery gaze, Fletcher focused on his host’s attire; gleaming black Top boots, black breeches, and a silk dressing gown of blood red. The gown was opened to reveal a mass of scars riddling his chest that were long and precise.
      “We will collect her Friday.” The Frenchman spoke at last in a harsh, grating tone.
                                Dark Hero, Lily Silver; Copyright 2012

Missed Appointment, Copyright Lily Silver, aka Lilith Bloodrose 2004