Bad
Moon Rising is a dark psychological thriller.
Brought up believing sex with the living is
the devil’s work, a killer only finds release once he has saved his victims’
souls. Abiding by his vision, he marks them as his. A gift to guide his chosen
ones on the rightful path to redemption.
Detective Inspector Paolo Storey is out to
stop him, but Paolo has problems of his own. Hunting down the killer as the
death toll rises, the lines soon blur between Paolo’s personal and professional
lives.
Excerpt
from Bad Moon Rising
“Please, no. Oh God. No more. Please.”
Excited by her pleading, he pounded his
fists into her face. He craved release, but couldn’t give in. Not yet. Not
while she could defile him. Only when her swollen lids meant she could no
longer see did he allow himself to take her throat between his hands and free
her soul.
He waited for her death throes to pass,
then relaxed his grip and moved down the bed to suck and caress her breasts.
His heart pounded. Now. He had to move now before it was too late. Shifting
position, he straddled her body. Arching his back, he emptied his hatred onto
her breasts.
Shuddering, he slid from the bed and fell
to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “So sorry, so
sorry, so…”
His throat constricted. As tears flowed, he
screamed. Thrashing wildly, he knocked against the chair holding the woman’s
clothes. Her tights fell across his neck and he panicked, clawing himself free.
Fucking whore!
“God forgive me,” he sobbed. “She made me.
Forgive me, God. Forgive me.”
Crawling to the corner cupboard, he opened
the door and reached for the scourge. He braced himself, then flicked the
nine-tailed lash, the tiny spiked ends digging into his flesh.
Each strike lifted him closer to purity,
until he collapsed. Exhausted, he slept.
He woke at first light, ready for the next
stage. Filling a bowl with water, he brought it to the bed, then scraped under
each of the woman’s nails before washing most of her body in the warm water. He
swabbed above and below her breasts, careful not to disturb his gift, the sign
of her salvation. From under the bed he brought out a small black leather
casket. He removed a fine-toothed comb and ran it through her pubic hair,
placing the loose hairs in the envelope he’d already marked with a number four.
***
Detective Inspector Paolo Storey hunched
deeper into his sheepskin. The cold suited his mood. A biting wind, typical for
the dying days of February, gusted across the front of the criminal courts and
played havoc with the press microphones. One of the reporters dropped his
dictaphone. It bounced once before landing in the gutter. A spasm of disgust
crossed his face as he reached down and brought it up, dripping with sludge.
For the first time that day, Paolo felt like smiling. He didn’t like reporters,
and that one in particular enjoyed knocking the police.
He
couldn’t understand why the press considered it was okay to have a go at the
people trying to put criminals away. Lowlife cons had more rights than their
victims. He tried to contain his anger but he was too mad at the world in
general, and justice in particular.
Paolo and his Detective Sergeant, Dave
Johnson, stepped back to allow the solicitor and Frank Azzopardi to pass. The
reporters began yelling questions, each determined to be heard. Matthew Roberts
stood beside his client, waiting for the noise to abate.
“Seems the bastard’s got away with it,
sir,” Dave whispered.
Paolo turned his head slightly to answer;
the icy wind was making his eyes water. “Yeah, that tends to happen when the only
witness disappears, particularly when she’s also the victim. Ssh, let’s hear
what Roberts has to say.”
“My
client, Frank Azzopardi, a well-respected businessman, has been the victim of
yet another effort by the police to improve their conviction rates. He has been
unfairly targeted, accused of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, yet
not one witness to the alleged attack has come forward. Even the supposed
victim hasn’t felt it worth her while to follow up on her original statement.
We have been told today that the Crown Prosecution Service cannot find
sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that all charges against Mr
Azzopardi have been dropped. We shall be making a complaint about the
harassment he has suffered at the hands of an overzealous police force.
Depending on the outcome of that complaint, we will consider our legal options.
That is all, we have no further comment.”
Paolo knew they were most probably too far
away for Roberts and the reporters to hear him, but he lowered his voice just
in case.
“I could’ve written that speech for him,”
he said. “He’s like Pavlov’s bloody dog. See a camera – badmouth the police.”
Bad
Moon Rising is published by Crooked {Cat} Publishing.
Reviews: Jo Reed: http://joreed.co.uk/blog/?p=60)
and Judging Covers Book Reviews: http://judgingcovers.co.uk/reviews/bad-moon-rising
Frances di Plino is the pseudonym of columnist, editor,
non-fiction author and writing tutor, Lorraine
Mace. Writing as Frances di Plino gives her the opportunity to allow the
dark side of her personality to surface and take control.
As Lorraine Mace, she is a gentler
creature, being humour columnist for Writing Magazine and a deputy
editor of Words with JAM. She writes fiction for the women’s magazine
market, features and photo-features for monthly glossy magazines and is a
writing competition judge for Writers’ Forum.
She is a fiction and non-fiction tutor for
the Writers Bureau, and is the author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing
Your Book. She is also co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The
Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press).
1 comment:
Excellent post. Great excerpt. I'm very impressed
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