The Good the Bad and the Infernal
Page 23
People began walking towards it, and I couldn’t help but join them, the old man following more reluctantly at my side.
There was a creaking, grinding sound as if the town had only just gained weight, pressing itself down into the earth beneath it.
We surrounded it, looking along its streets, trying to peer through its windows.
I saw Irish in the crowd, his notebook in his hand. I waved at him, but his attention was elsewhere.
Nobody seemed willing to cross the town’s threshold.
Then a bright light surged out from the centre of the town, pulsing through the streets and shooting straight up into the sky above. People panicked, backing away and crying out, worried that the whole place might be about to explode. It didn’t.
A figure appeared, a tall, blond-haired man in a smart suit and vest. He walked towards us (though I later heard that he appeared to walk towards everybody, whatever side of town you were facing) and came to a halt on the edge of the town.
“Welcome!” he shouted, his voice carrying perfectly over the crowd. “My name, as some of you already know, is Alonzo. And I’m here to welcome you to Wormwood.” He smiled, the most charming smile I had ever seen. “You’ve all been through terrible ordeals to get here, and some of you have travelled thousands of miles to reach this point.
“Well...”—he clasped his hands together, as if in prayer—“what can I say? What has come before was nothing. This is where your adventure really begins.”
And in that, he was quite right.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
When I was a child I loathed Westerns. That was because I had never seen a Sergio Leone film. Once the Dollars trilogy and—most especially—Once Upon A Time In The West had been crammed into my naive eyes I saw the west in a different way and fell in love. This series is the resultant child, a hobbling bastard with a hybrid set of genes. Leone, Corbucci and Il Maestro, Ennio Morricone all played their part.
As did Alex Cox, that wonderful curator of unloved movies for many seasons of Moviedrome. He knows why the Italians made the best narrators of the savage west and his enthusiasm and recommendations led me to treasure time and time again.
It’s a story I’ve wanted to tell for many years and I can only thank Jon Oliver and David Thomas Moore time and time again for letting me tell it. Their support, enthusiasm and wise editorial nudges have been a real boost. It’s been wonderful to finally storm Fort Solaris, it only took four stocks of dynamite and a barrel of hooch to do so.
As always I must also thank Debra. She puts up with my being a moody varmint when working on a book and is always the first to read the result. She is lovely and more precious than all the smuggled Civil War gold in the world.
Mum is the second reader and equally valuable for that. She knows when not to ask ‘how’s the book going’? and always points out the way to Sierra Madre. I love her lots and, like many sons, probably never tell her enough. Given that nobody reads the acknowledgments but mothers and lovers anyway at least I’ve told her now.
Finally, all the chapter titles are the names of Spaghetti Westerns. While you’re waiting for the next book in my crazed oat opera you would do worse than to track them down and watch them. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Adams is a no-good, pen-toting son of a bitch. Responsible for over twenty penny-dreadfuls and scientific romances such as The World House and the Deadbeat series. He has also worked with the Hammer Books Gang creating novelisations of their foul kinematographs and has been known to operate under the alias of John Watson M.D. writing novels featuring that pansy-ass detective Sherlock Holmes. He is wanted in several states and a reward is offered for anyone quick enough to slip a noose around his crooked neck. Further evidence of his crimes can be found on his Wild Western Waystation:
www.guyadamsauthor.com
Coming soon from Solaris...
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HELL
BOOK TWO OF THE HEAVEN’S GATE TRILOGY
ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-498-1
ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-499-8
UK: £5.99 • US: $6.99
“Heaven? Hell? There’s no difference. Angels, demons, we’re all a bit of both. This could be the most wondrous place you ever experience, or so terrifying it makes you pray for death.
“Not that death would help you, of course; there’s no escape from here...”
Wormwood has appeared, and for twenty four hours the gateway to the afterlife is wide open. But just because a door is open doesn’t mean you should step through it.
The few who have travelled to reach the town are realising that the challenges they’ve already faced were nothing compared with what lies ahead. The afterlife has an agenda of its own, and with scheming on both sides of reality, the revelations to come may change the world forever...
JANUARY 2014
“What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘angel’?” asked Mallory.
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know... guns?”
Alice isn’t having the best of days - late for work, missed her bus, and now she’s getting rained on - but it’s about to get worse.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act - or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory - a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn’t want to fix - Alice will learn the truth about her own history... and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding - and can she trust either side?
‘Dark, enticing and so sharp the pages could cut you, Blood and Feathers is a must-read.’
Sarah Pinborough
www.solarisbooks.com
Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio’s peak, which played like a cross between the Dracula and Frankenstein films and Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors...
Four passengers meet on a train journey through Eastern Europe during the First World War, and face a mystery that must be solved if they are to survive. As the ‘Arkangel’ races through the war-torn countryside, they must find out:
What is in the casket that everyone is so afraid of? What is the tragic secret of the veiled Red Countess who travels with them? Why is their fellow passenger the army brigadier so feared by his own men? And what exactly is the devilish secret of the Arkangel itself?
Bizarre creatures, satanic rites, terrified passengers and the romance of travelling by train, all in a classically styled horror novel.
www.solarisbooks.com
“NEW TOWN, NEW TROUBLES. THAT’S A RULE.”
Jordan looks like a regular teenager, but he’s not. He acts like he’s not exactly human, but he is. He treads the line between mundane reality and the world of the supernatural. He helps kids on the run find their way back home. He’s good at that; he’s a runaway himself. Sometimes he helps in other, stranger ways.
Desdaemona also knows the non-human world far too well. She tracks Jordan down and enlists his aid in searching for her lost sister Fay, who did a Very Bad Thing involving an immortal. This may be a mistake, for both of them. Too many people are interested now, and some of them are not people at all.
Ben Macallan’s urban fantasy debut takes you on a terrifying journey, lifting the curtain on what really walks our city streets.
‘One of the most innovative and sophisticated writers of horror fiction.’
Tangled Web Books
‘Macallan’s narrative skills weave a spell-binding effect. Seldom, if ever, is a syllable wasted.’
Infinity Plus on Tower of the King’s Daughter
www.solarisbooks.com