Damned By the Ancients by Catherine Cavendish Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Damned by the Ancients
Nemesis of
the Gods #3
by
Catherine Cavendish
Genre: Horror
Pub
Date: 10/23/18
Infinity
In Death
Vienna,
1908
Gabriele
Ziegler is a young art student who becomes infatuated with
charismatic archeologist Dr. Emeryk Quintillus. Only too late does
she realize his true designs on her. He is obsessed with resurrecting
Cleopatra and has retained the famed artist Gustav Klimt to render
Gabriele as the Queen of the Nile, using ashes from Cleopatra’s
mummy mixed with the paint. The result is a lifelike portrait
emitting an aura of unholy evil . . .
Vienna,
2018
The
Mortimer family has moved into Quintillus’s former home, Villa
Dürnstein. In its basement they find an original Klimt masterpiece—a
portrait of Cleopatra art scholars never knew existed. But that’s
not all that resides within the villa’s vault. Nine-year-old Heidi
Mortimer tells her parents that a strange man lives there.
Quintillus’s
desire to be with Cleopatra transcends death. His spirit will not
rest until he has brought her back from the netherworld. Even if he
has to sacrifice the soul of a child . . .
Prologue
Is this what dying feels like?
Phil Bancroft ran his tongue over his
dry lips. Where did that thought come from? He watched Dee, the woman
he loved, touch the tip of the gleaming gold dagger. This was not the
homecoming he had expected. He had only just returned from New York
and they should be in each other’s arms. Dee had told him Paula
took the pills and now she was dead. Poor Paula. Phil wished he could
feel remorse for his dead wife. Guilt. Anything. After all, she was
an innocent obstacle who had been murdered at his lover’s hands.
Her only crime was to have been sole inheritor of her father’s
fortune. If that man had not cut his younger daughter—Dee—out of
his will, Paula would still be alive today. They could have divorced
and gone their separate ways. It was his fault she had to be
killed. Everything they had wanted was now
theirs, but Dee seemed different somehow. Distant. A smile played on
her lips, but not her usual lighthearted smile. No, this one was
almost…cruel. “What are you doing with that, Dee?”
he asked, nodding at the dagger. She shook her head. “Not Dee. She is
gone.” Phil held out his hand to take the
weapon from her and wondered why his fingers trembled. “Don’t
mess around. Give me the dagger before one of us gets hurt.” Her smile twisted into a snarl. Surely
her eyes weren’t that color? Dark blue. No, violet. Dee has
brown eyes. The library door burst open and a
familiar figure strode in. Stefan Bloch—the estate agent in whose
hands the owners of the magnificent Villa Dürnstein had placed
responsibility for administering the lease. But he had no business
here today. “What are you doing here?”
The words died on Phil’s lips. The estate agent ignored him, made
straight for Dee, and took her in his arms. “What the hell?”
Phil lurched forward and grabbed Stefan’s arms. He tried to drag
him off the woman who was responding all too passionately. Stefan let Dee go and wheeled round,
landing a stinging blow to the side of Phil’s head. He staggered
and fell hard against the library desk. The man and the woman towered over him
as he lay sprawled on the floor, his hand checking his jaw for
damage. Phil stared at them. He no longer knew
these people. Oh, they looked the same, but their eyes told a
different tale. Dee and Stefan were no longer there. So who were
they? As if she had read his thoughts, the
woman spoke. “You are right to cower before us. The woman you knew
as Dee is no longer here. Her spirit has passed over. I, Arsinoe,
Queen of Egypt and the Nile, inhabit her body.” She indicated
Stefan. “The man who inhabited this body is also gone. My lover,
Nebunaten, has been reborn in him, but this body is dying. He needs a
healthy host.” He heard the words, but they couldn’t
be true. Someone was playing a cruel joke. Maybe Paula wasn’t dead
after all. Yes, that was it, she must be behind all this. He
scrambled to his feet. “Stop this right now. I don’t know what
the hell’s going on here, but if you seriously expect me to believe
anything you’ve just told me, you are mistaken. Dee—” He watched incredulously as the woman
he loved threw back her head and laughed. A horrible, hollow sound.
“Still you will not believe. You think your lover killed your wife
with pills. She did not. She killed her with this.” She waved the
dagger. “And that was the last memory your Dee took with her into
the afterlife. With the god Set and goddess Sekhmet to aid me, I took
her body, just as Nebunaten took the man’s. Now it is your turn to
surrender your earthly form.” The blade flashed once. Twice. Blood
spurted from two deep wounds in his chest. His limbs grew heavier, as
if someone had attached lead weights to them. Everything slowed as he
sank to his knees, blood pouring through his hands as he desperately
fought, in vain, to stanch the flow. A low growl echoed through his
brain. The figure of a cat stood on its hind legs, changing to a
half-human form before his rapidly dimming eyes. The woman spoke in a
foreign tongue and the man took hold of Phil’s
shoulders. Something tugged at his
spirit, dragging it out of his body as a dark cloud descended on his
mind. This is what dying feels like. And then he knew no more.
Waking the Ancients
Nemesis
of the Gods #2
Egypt,
1908
University
student Lizzie Charters accompanies her mentor, Dr. Emeryk
Quintillus, on the archeological dig to uncover Cleopatra’s tomb.
Her presence is required for a ceremony conducted by the renowned
professor to resurrect Cleopatra’s spirit—inside Lizzie’s body.
Quintillus’s success is short-lived, as the Queen of the Nile dies
soon after inhabiting her host, leaving Lizzie’s soul adrift . .
Vienna,
2018
Paula
Bancroft’s husband just leased Villa Dürnstein, an estate once
owned by Dr. Quintillus. Within the mansion are several paintings and
numerous volumes dedicated to Cleopatra. But the archeologist’s
interest in the Egyptian empress deviated from scholarly into
supernatural, infusing the very foundations of his home with his dark
fanaticism. And as inexplicable manifestations rattle Paula’s
senses, threatening her very sanity, she uncovers the link between
the villa, Quintillus, and a woman named Lizzie Charters.
And
a ritual of dark magic that will consume her soul . . .
Wrath of the Ancients
Nemesis
of the Gods #1
DESTINY
IN DEATH
Egypt, 1908
Eminent archeologist Dr. Emeryk Quintillus has unearthed the burial chamber of Cleopatra. But this tomb raider’s obsession with the Queen of the Nile has nothing to do with preserving history. Stealing sacred and priceless relics, he murders his expedition crew, and flees—escaping the quake that swallows the site beneath the desert sands . . .
Vienna, 1913
Young widow Adeline Ogilvy has accepted employment at the mansion of Dr. Quintillus, transcribing the late professor’s memoirs. Within the pages of his journals, she discovers the ravings of a madman convinced he possessed the ability to reincarnate Cleopatra. Within the walls of his home, she is assailed by unexplained phenomena: strange sounds, shadowy figures, and apparitions of hieroglyphics.
Something pursued Dr. Quintillus from Egypt. Something dark, something hungry. Something tied to the fate and future of Adeline Ogilvy . . .
Egypt, 1908
Eminent archeologist Dr. Emeryk Quintillus has unearthed the burial chamber of Cleopatra. But this tomb raider’s obsession with the Queen of the Nile has nothing to do with preserving history. Stealing sacred and priceless relics, he murders his expedition crew, and flees—escaping the quake that swallows the site beneath the desert sands . . .
Vienna, 1913
Young widow Adeline Ogilvy has accepted employment at the mansion of Dr. Quintillus, transcribing the late professor’s memoirs. Within the pages of his journals, she discovers the ravings of a madman convinced he possessed the ability to reincarnate Cleopatra. Within the walls of his home, she is assailed by unexplained phenomena: strange sounds, shadowy figures, and apparitions of hieroglyphics.
Something pursued Dr. Quintillus from Egypt. Something dark, something hungry. Something tied to the fate and future of Adeline Ogilvy . . .
Following a varied career in sales, advertising and career guidance, Catherine Cavendish is now the full-time author of a number of paranormal, ghostly and Gothic horror novels, novellas and short stories. She was the 2013 joint winner of the Samhain Gothic Horror Anthology Competition, with Linden Manor, which was featured in the anthology What Waits in the Shadows. Cat’s novels include The Pendle Curse, Saving Grace Devine, and Dark Avenging Angel. She lives with her long-suffering husband and black (trainee) cat. They divide their time between Liverpool and a 260-year-old haunted apartment in North Wales.
The
Knutsford Highwayman
Ghosts
can turn up in all sorts of places and, when they were alive, can
have come from any – and all – backgrounds. In my novel, Damned
by the Ancients, Dr.
Emeryk Quintillus, while he lived, was an archaeologist. Hardly the
kind of occupation you would think someone so evil would have
indulged in. His home, in a wealthy suburb of Vienna, was the last
place you would expect to find demons, ancient gods and curses.
The
same observations could be made of today’s subject. Edward Higgins
– known as “Squire” Higgins to his friends – was a member of
the gentry of Knutsford, an ancient small town some fourteen miles
from the major city of Manchester, and lying in the gentle Cheshire
countryside. His home, for a time, was in Heath House, just a few
doors from the house that would become Victorian novelist’s
Elizabeth Gaskell’s home. She even wrote about him in a short story
called The
Squire’s Tale.
Higgins
moved from Manchester to Knutsford in around 1756 and was regarded as
a man of means. A gentleman in fact. He paid a considerable amount
for his new home so was clearly not short of funds. But Edward
Higgins had a shady past. Details are sketchy but, without a doubt,
he was convicted of housebreaking in Worcester in 1754. He was
sentenced to transportation to the American colonies for seven years
but that was never going to happen. As soon as he arrived in Boston,
he stole a fortune from a rich merchant whose house he broke into.
This funded his passage home and no doubt his future lifestyle.
On
April 21st,
1757 he married Katherine Birtles whom he kept in blissful ignorance
of the true source of his wealth. As far as she was concerned he
earned money from rents he charged on properties he owned.
Higgins
led the life of a country gentleman, riding to hounds and owning
several horses. He fathered five children and, by all reports, was a
good father and husband. He and Katherine dined out a lot with
neighbours yet Higgins remained of fit and athletic build. He would
need to be.
His
dinner engagements afforded him the opportunity to familiarise
himself with the layout of his neighbours’ houses. Then, at a
future date, he would return to rob them.
He
was also never one to miss an opportunity. Out walking in Chester
city centre late one night, he saw a ladder, leaning against the wall
of a house. He climbed up it and let himself into a bedroom where a
young woman lay sleeping. Evidently she had arrived home late after a
ball and had left her jewellery scattered all over the dressing
table. Higgins quietly pocketed it and then froze. The young woman
turned over in bed. Many years later, he said. “Had she awaked I
would have had no choice but to murder her.”
But
it was not sufficient for him to rob neighbours. Higgins was after
much larger fry. Late at night, he would muffle his horse’s hooves
and set out along the dark and treacherous Chester Road, holding up
coaches. He found his highwaymen activities easier and far more
lucrative as travellers at that time would carry a few guineas with
them in case of being held up. It saved a lot of unpleasantness!
The
Royal George Hotel – at the time a coaching house – served as the
base of his operations. It afforded excellent opportunities to size
up the quality of valuables being transported. His career was
short-lived as his luck began to run out. When he decided to hold up
the carriage of wealthy Lady Warburton she recognised him as a man
she had seen leaving a ball earlier.
Higgins
began to work further from home. He returned from Bristol with
hundreds of Spanish dollars which he proceeded to use but the
circulation of so much Spanish money in such a confined area arose
suspicion, including that of a local gossip to whom Higgins is
supposed to have told of a man being robbed in Bristol. The gossip
soon became suspicious of the real identity of the robber and word
spread.
In
1764, Higgins robbed a house in Gloucester and was traced back to his
home in Knutsford. Police came to arrest him but naively gave him
leave to go upstairs to pack a few things. Needless to say, the
ever-resourceful Higgins saw his chance and escaped. The police did
not recapture him. He got word to his wife to sell the house and join
him – ironically instructing her not to lose the board that hung
over the dining room fireplace. On it, in gold letters, were painted
the words, ‘Do Not Steal’.
Now
reborn as Edward Hickson, Higgins and his family set up home in
French Hay, Bristol where, yet again, he lived as a gentleman. Then,
in 1767, his career ended abruptly when he was seen by two butchers
breaking into a house in Carmarthen, Wales. Caught with valuable
items from the house, he was arrested and this time could not escape.
Not that he didn’t keep trying to evade conviction and
imprisonment. He was identified as escaped prisoner Edward Higgins
but handed over a fake pardon he alleged to have been granted;. When
the authorities exposed the paper as a forgery, his fate was sealed
and he was sentenced to death. He begged for compassion for his ‘poor
disconsolate widow and fatherless infants,’ insisting they knew
nothing of his crimes.
Higgins
was hanged at Carmarthen on 7th
November 1767, but his story does not end there.
The
sound of muffled hooves and the sight of him riding his horse through
the streets of Knutsford have been reported by a number of people.
Other have recorded sightings of him searching for a likely coach to
hold up and, late at night, a phantom coach has been seen and heard
moving outside the Royal George Hotel. This is also said to be
Higgins. For a ghost, he is pretty busy.
In
Damned
by the Ancients, Quintilllus
doesn’t have to travel far to find his victims. They are already
there.
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