Of Sands and Tides: The Chronicles of Captain Georgianna Forsythe by Jan Edwards
About Of Sands and Tides:
When the old god Nyarlathotep lures Captain ‘Georgi’ Forsythe – special agent for the Ministry of the Arcane -- to the Valley of the Kings, the battle for her place in this world begins. Eight thrilling adventures packed into one volume, taking us from ancient Luxor to the Loch Ness of 1932. Conflicting pantheons of myth and legend plunge Captain Georgi into cosmic battles beyond wildest imagining. Will she remain a force for good or be lured into the world of chaos? The choice is hers!
Excerpt:
Entering the domed southern entrance of the Greenwich foot tunnel she hurried down fifty feet of spiralling stairwell and traversed the four hundred yards beneath the Thames at a clipped pace. She paused at the north end and peered back along the arched tunnel, wrinkling her nose at the rank, fishy stink of the river. Her hand had begun to itch, that branded third digit twitching maniacally. She had not seen a soul, though the floor glistened with wet prints merged into one sodden trail. Something was out there, and it was not human. Noden’s gift never lied.
Georgi was not a nervous type but since the submarine debacle she had found confined spaces somewhat unnerving. She took the stairs at a trot, bursting out of the roundhouse on the north entrance and distancing herself by several paces before stopping to draw breath. She coughed, the thick air tearing at her throat and nose, making her gasp all the harder.
Through drifting fug she could still make out the glow of the dome’s glazed roof. To her left a smaller, diffuse pulse indicated what might be a streetlamp. Conditions made it difficult to see clearly any further than a handspan from her face. It at least explained why nobody was coming in from the northern end. Even those who knew the place well would have been disorientated. That coupled with the eye-stinging, lung scouring, coal-tainted air would keep all but the most determined safe at home behind closed doors.
Only the thought of old Nellie, alone and waiting. prevented her taking the saner course and heading home. A promise is an officer’s sacred bond and Captain Georgianna Forsythe would not let an old friend down. She pulled up the collar of the greatcoat she had worn in favour of her usual flying jacket and struck out across the street until she found the paving edge of Doug’s Path. She deduced rightly that she could hardly get lost if she followed the curb to the junction where she turned right. She was gratified to see the twin headlights of a Number 56 bus at the stop just ahead of her.
Georgi hurried forward to grasp the passenger pole and set foot on the bus’s grubby platform. There was no rumble of diesel engines nor grumble of impatient passengers, and the bus interior was as mist-raddled as the outside, but she saw enough to ascertain that it was devoid of people.
She supposed it possible the driver had considered it too dangerous to go further, even with the conductor walking ahead carrying flares. If the 56 had been abandoned, however, it did not explain seats strewn with belongings. Handbags, shopping bags, briefcases, hats, coats – all thrown around the space as though some mad wedding guest thought to make confetti from whatever came to hand.
Georgi’s hand slid through a smear of cold goo bisecting the back of the nearest seat. She peered at the sticky, brownish smear on her fingers and then sniffed at it with a certain caution. The taste test was unneeded. She had seen blood and death too many times in the service of the King for any lingering doubt. The thought of what might have caused the destruction of a whole bus full of people and leave little more than this filled her with an awful foreboding, a feeling backed to the hilt by the nagging ache in the third digit of her left hand.
She moved back to the bus’s platform and considered retracing her steps to the south bank to summon help from there. Except that the food package was warm against her hip, reminding her of her orders to visit Nellie for that report, and she really, really, needed to know why her arcane early warning system had been aroused.
The deep guttural cry of some animal seeped through the fog. It sounded familiar, except it was like no dog that she had ever heard, and too deep for the unearthly scream of a fox. Nor was it a distressed horse from some milk float or brewer’s dray.
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