Mark Valentine’s Ralph Tyler investigates the occult for excitement. He first teams up with the narrator in ‘The Grave of Ani’ (Dark Dreams #1, 1984) and further tales appeared in a number of small-press journals. In 1987 a short collection of two Tyler tales was published under the title 14 Bellchamber Tower, and Herald of the Hidden and Other Stories (2013) collected ten stories (three previously unpublished).
Valentine also created The Connoisseur, a collector of the outré and bizarre, who made his début in the 1990 issue of Dark Dreams. The author went on to write more than twenty further tales about the aesthetical detective, which have been collected by Tartarus Press in In Violet Veils (1999), Masques and Citadels (2003) and, in collaboration with John Howard, The Collected Connoisseur (2010).
Harry D’Amour is the creation of bestselling fantasist Clive Barker. A down-at-heel investigator in the classic Raymond Chandler mould, D’Amour first appeared in ‘The Last Illusion’ in Clive Barker’s Books of Blood Volume 6 (1985) and ‘The Lost Souls’ in the Christmas 1986 issue of Time Out. He was subsequently featured in the novels The Great and Secret Show (1989) and Everville (1994), before becoming the hero of Barker’s 1995 movie Lord of Illusions, as portrayed by Scott Bakula. The character has also played a major role in the Boom! Studios comic series Hellraiser (2011) featuring the demonic Pinhead, and the two characters are due to be reunited Barker’s long-awaited novel The Scarlet Gospels.
Working-class sorcerer, occult detective and sometimes con man, John Constantine was created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and John Totleben for DC Comics’ The Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 in June 1985. The cynical Londoner went on to appear in his own comics, Hellblazer (1988–2013) and Constantine (2013–), and he has been portrayed by Keanu Reeves in an eponymous 2005 movie and Matt Ryan in a 2014 TV series.
Comics writer Neil Gaiman has featured Constantine in editions of The Sandman and The Books of Magic, while John Shirley has written three Hellblazer novelisations, including a tie-in to the film.
Along the same lines, Max Payne was a character created in 2001 for an action-packed video game, inspired by Norse mythology. Following the murder of his family, the former NYPD Detective uncovers a government conspiracy while battling, amongst other opponents, a self-styled messenger of Hell. Mark Wahlberg played the character in a 2008 movie loosely based on the game.
James Herbert was another bestseller who, in his 1988 novel Haunted, decided to try his own hand at the psychic detective genre. What makes Herbert’s David Ash different is that he is renowned for his dismissal of all things supernatural, until three nights of terror in a reputedly haunted house force him to re-evaluate his beliefs. Haunted was filmed in 1995 by director Lewis Gilbert with Aidan Quinn as Ash, and the character reappeared in Herbert’s novels The Ghosts of Sleath (1994) and Ash (2013).
Penelope Pettiweather, Northwest Ghost Hunter, is another rare female psychic sleuth created by Jessica Amanda Salmonson in the collection Harmless Ghosts (1990). The author subsequently revived her letter-writing investigator for one half of The Mysterious Doom and Other Ghostly Tales of the Pacific Northwest (1992). Absences: Charlie Goode’s Ghosts (1991) was a chapbook that collected five stories about Steve Rasnic Tem’s eponymous antique collector and amateur archaeologist, who has an affinity for the occult. The character has since appeared in stories in All Hallows #2 (1990) and Fantasy Macabre #14 (1992).
Kim Newman first introduced readers to Charles Beauregard, an adventurer in the service of the Diogenes Club, in his alternate-world novella ‘Red Reign’ (in The Mammoth Book of Vampires, 1992), which he expanded into the novel Anno Dracula the same year. Since then, the influence of secret agent Beauregard and the mysterious cabal he works for has spread to various sequels and spin-offs, and served as a unifying nucleus for many of the author’s short stories and subsequent novels.
Parapsychologist Ryerson Biergarten was introduced by T.M. Wright in his 1992 novel Goodlow’s Ghosts. Sleepeasy (1994) was a sequel that resurrected a deceased character from the earlier book, while Biergarten himself was back, this time on the trail of a serial killer, in The Ascending (1994).
In Mark Frost’s The List of 7 (1993), a young Dr. Arthur Doyle teams up with mysterious special agent Jack Sparks (possibly the model for Sherlock Holmes) to confront the supernatural schemes of a secret cabal. The two protagonists were reunited in The 6 Messiahs (1995), set ten years after the original.
New Orleans FBI agent Aloysius Xingu L. Pendergast and NYPD detective Lt. Vincent D’Agosta first appeared as supporting characters in Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s debut novel Relic (1995), about a mythical monster loose in the New York Museum of Natural History. They both returned in the sequel, Reliquary (1997), and have continued to appear in a number of other bestsellers from the writing team. Although the 1997 movie The Relic omitted the pivotal character of Pendergast, Tom Sizemore played D’Agosta.
Marty Burns was once famous. Then he became just another fallen star in Hollywood, working as a low-rent private eye, until the search for a missing hooker in Jay Russell’s Celestial Dogs (1996) involved him in a centuries-old conflict with Japanese demons. Since then, Russell has continued Marty’s exploits in the novels Burning Bright (1997) and Greed & Stuff (2001), the novella Apocalypse Now, Voyager (2005), and a number of short stories.
A Wine of Angels (1998) was the first novel to feature Phil Rickman’s “Deliverance Consultant for the Diocese of Hereford” Merrily Watkins, who investigates supernatural mysteries. So far the author has written eleven further novels about the Anglican priest, her pagan daughter Jane and damaged musician Lol Robinson.
John Connolly’s Charlie Parker, a former NYPD detective hunting the killer of his wife and young daughter, made his first appearance in the author’s debut novel, Every Dead Thing (1999). Since then he has also been featured in eleven increasingly macabre mysteries.
The start of the 21st century saw an explosion of occult investigators in fiction, mostly fuelled by the rise of the bestselling “paranormal romance” genre. These included P.N. Elrod’s vampire private detective Jack Fleming, Tanya Huff’s undead Henry Fitzroy, and Jim Butcher’s Chicago wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden.
The Occult Detective (2005) contains seven stories about psychic detective Sidney Taine by Robert Weinberg, while Visions (2009) is a collection of twelve fantasy and horror stories by Richard A. Lupoff, four featuring the author’s psychic detective Abraham ben Zaccheus.
Paul Kane’s Dalton Quayle Rides Out (2007) contains two humorous tales of the eponymous psychic investigator and his good friend, Dr. Humphrey Pemberton. The Adventures of Dalton Quayle appeared four years later and collected seven stories.
With the occult adventure Sherlock Holmes: Revenant (2011), Canadian-based Scottish author William Meikle continued the exploits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Great Detective in a pastiche novel that was authorised by the Doyle Estate. He followed it with Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories (2013), containing ten short stories and ‘A Prologue’ by “John Hamish Watson, M.D.”.
Meikle’s Carnacki: Heaven and Hell (2011) was a collection of ten original stories based on the character originally created by William Hope Hodgson, who didn’t even rate a credit in the book.
Of course, there have also been previous anthologies of psychic detective stories. Although it is surprising that August Derleth never compiled one for his Mycroft & Moran imprint, Michel Parry’s The Supernatural Solution (1976) reprinted nine stories about detectives and ghosts by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, E. and H. Heron, William Hope Hodgson, L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, Dion Fortune, Arthur Machen, Seabury Quinn, Manly Wade Wellman and Dennis Wheatley. Parry also collected six reprints (half of them from his earlier book) by Hodgson, Eustace, E. and H. Heron and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the slim 1985 volume Ghostbreakers.
A more satisfying compilation was Supernatural Sleuths (1986) from veteran editor Peter Haining, which reprinted twelve stories by Mark Lemon, Algernon Blackwood, Sax
Rohmer, Henry A. Hering, Gordon MacCreagh, Gordon Hillman, Margery Lawrence, Joseph Payne Brennan and those old standbys Conan Doyle, E. and H. Heron and Wheatley.
Despite appropriating Haining’s title, Supernatural Sleuths (1996) edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg cast its net for reprint stories wider, including among its fourteen selections tales by William F. Nolan, Ron Goulart, August Derleth and Mack Reynolds, Robert Weinberg and Larry Niven, along with such familiar names as Wellman, Hodgson and Quinn.
Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2008), edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, contains eleven original stories by Barbara Hambley, Barbara Roden, Chris Roberson, Kim Newman and others. It was followed by Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2011). Justin Gustainis edited Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives (2011) which features fourteen “urban fantasy” stories by, amongst others, Carrie Vaughn, Tanya Huff, Lilith Saintcrow, Simon R. Green and T.A. Pratt.
In many ways, this present volume can be viewed as a companion-piece to my Shadows Over Innsmouth trilogy (1994–2013) and the anthology The Mammoth Book of Dracula (1997). As with those other books, it contains a combination of new and reprint fiction and is assembled along a loosely constructed chronology (stretching from Ancient Egyptian times through to the 21st century). I would therefore advise that, for maximum enjoyment, you read this book from beginning to end, and do not dip in and out of the stories. This is especially true of Kim Newman’s multi-part short novel, which was written especially for this volume.
So now it is time to meet some of the greatest fictional detectives (and their faithful amanuenses) who have ever confronted the bizarre and the unusual. Already the forces of darkness are abroad and occult powers are gathering. In the everlasting battle between Good and Evil, these investigators of the unusual set out to solve ancient mysteries and unravel modern hauntings with the aid of their unique powers of deduction and the occasional silver bullet.
Once again, for the supernatural sleuths, the game is afoot …
Stephen Jones
London, England
SEVEN STARS PROLOGUE
IN EGYPT’S LAND
by KIM NEWMAN
After Dracula (1897), The Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903) is Bram Stoker’s best and best-known book. It chronicles the gradual possession of Margaret Trelawny by Tera, an ancient Egyptian queen of evil, whose mummified remains have been brought back to their London home by Margaret’s archaeologist father.
Although it never attained the popularity of the author’s earlier novel, The Jewel of the Seven Stars was first adapted as “Curse of the Mummy” in 1970 for the television series Mystery and Imagination. It has subsequently been filmed several times—by Hammer as Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971), as The Awakening (1980) starring Charlton Heston and, most recently, as Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy (1997) with Lou Gossett, Jr.
For his story cycle in this volume, Kim Newman has borrowed bits from Stoker’s book—notably the jewel itself, and the character of Abel Trelawny—much as he co-opted the author’s vampire Count for his Anno Dracula series.
Pai-net’em is a real historical figure, a Pharaoh’s scribe and councillor whose mummy was discovered in 1881. Most biblical scholars, and Yul Brynner in The Ten Commandments (1956), assume that the Pharaoh of Exodus was Rameses II. However, Newman has arbitrarily chosen Meneptah III on the grounds that he was even more unpleasant than Rameses and therefore the sort of person to oppress the Israelites and deserve the curses. Egyptian history doesn’t bother to mention the plagues at all, or the Israelites much.
ALL THEBES, ALL Egypt, was filled with the stench. Pai-net’em had bound up his head with linen, bandaging nose and mouth as if wrapping himself for interment. The stench got through, filling his nostrils and throat, curling his tongue.
His eyes were swollen almost shut by weeping boils. Insects clumped around his bloody tears, regathering every time he wiped them away. Eggs laid in the gum around his eyes hatched hourly. Newborn flies chewed with tiny teeth.
Progress through the city was slow. The roads were filled with the dead, animals and men. Darkness was relieved only by the spreading fires. Most of the people were too concerned with private griefs to lend their hands to fighting the flames.
Truly, this was the time of calamities.
*
A priest, a man of science, Pharaoh’s closest advisor, he was brought as low as a leper. He could not hold in his mind all that had happened in the last month. Looking at the mottled swellings and punctures on his body, he could not tell the marks of sickness from insect bites, even from the scars left by hailstones.
The Gods must hate Egypt, to let this happen.
Pai-net’em could not number the dead of his household. His grief had been spent on lesser catastrophes, sickening cattle and rioting slaves. Now, with brother and son struck down, his wife dead by her own hand, servants’ corpses strewn like stones about his estates, he had no more grief, no more feeling, in him.
A stream of blood trickled past Pharaoh’s Palace. Tiny frogs hopped in the reddened water. A living carpet—millions of locusts, flies and gnats—covered the streets, slowly reducing the fallen to skeletons. Insects assaulted the feet of those like Pai-net’em who waded perversely about, fixed like stars on their own courses.
The guards lay dead at their posts, wavering masks of flies on their faces. Pai-net’em passed through the open doors. Even here, inside Pharaoh’s house, insects swarmed and gnawed. With the crops and the cattle blasted, many more would die of famine even after the darkness abated.
Lightning was striking all through the city.
*
Pai-net’em found Pharaoh in his morning room, hunched on his day-bed, face as swollen and distorted as the lowest slave’s. The great were not spared; indeed, Pharaoh seemed to suffer more than his subjects, for he had far more to lose. If all who lived under him were obliterated, his name would pass from memory.
The old Pharaoh had done much to preserve his name, built many temples, left many writings. This younger man, so addicted to luxury that he neglected public works, had taken to having his name inscribed on tablets over those of his predecessors. It was a desperate act, a cry against the advance of oblivion.
“Pai-net’em,” Pharaoh said, mouth twisting, tongue swollen. “What has brought these curses upon Egypt?”
Pai-net’em found he did not have the strength to rise from his kneeling position.
“The Israelites claim responsibility, sire.”
“The Israelites? The conquered people?”
“Yes. They say their God has visited his wrath upon Egypt.”
Pharaoh’s eyes widened.
“Why?”
“They are a sorcerous people. But their claims are fatuous. They have but one God, a child beside our Gods.”
“This is not the work of the Gods.”
Pai-net’em agreed with Pharaoh.
“We both know what is at the bottom of this.”
“You have it here, sire?” Pai-net’em asked.
Pharaoh got off his day-bed, flies falling from his robes. Blood streaked his legs. His chest was sunken, his skin rubbed raw or bloated with sickness.
Pai-net’em stood, coughing fluid into his mouth-linen.
Pharaoh opened a wooden box. The darkness of the morning room was assaulted by red light. Pai-net’em remembered the first time he had seen the glow. Then, Pharaoh had been slim and swift and powerful. And he had been secure in his own health, his position.
Bravely, Pharaoh took the object out of the box. It seemed as if he had dipped his hand into fire and pulled out a solid lump of flame.
Pai-net’em got closer and looked at the jewel. A ruby as big as a man’s fist. Inside glinted seven points of red light, in the shape of the seven stars of the night sky. It had fallen into the Nile, from the stars themselves, and turned the river to blood. It wa
s not a jewel, given in tribute to Pharaoh. It was a curse, spat from above at Egypt. It was the source of all miseries, of the insects and the lightning, of the darkness and the death.
“Such a beautiful thing,” Pharaoh mused, “to contain such curses.”
Pai-net’em saw the beauty, yet the jewel was hideous, crawling with invisible filth.
He shook his head, thinking with bitter humour of the Israelites’ claim. This was beyond the Gods of any people. This was death made into an object. It could not be destroyed—that had been tried, with chisels and fire—only passed on, to the unwitting.
“Take it,” Pharaoh said, tossing the jewel to Pai-net’em.
He caught the thing, feeling its horrid pulse.
“Take it far from here.”
Pai-net’em bowed his head.
He would die in the execution of this task. But he had no other purpose. His name would be remembered for this sacrifice. As long as Egypt endured, so would Pai-net’em.
*
Outside the Palace, he held the jewel to his chest, cupping it with his hand. He thought himself the calm centre of a storm. All around, insects and death whirled in bloody darkness. Evils flowed from the stone, but he was shielded from them. It was as if he were inside it rather than it inside his fist.
Everything was tinted red, as if he were looking through the ruby. His limbs were heavy and he felt trapped.
He started to run, away from the Palace.
A burning began in his chest, where the jewel was clutched, as if a blob of molten metal had struck him and was eating its way towards his heart.
He let his hand fall, but the jewel was stuck to his torso, sinking in. Agony filled his chest, and he tore the linen from his face, screaming.
But he still ran, wading through the streams of frogs and locusts. The weakness of his legs was washed away. He no longer felt anything.
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