Hell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion
Hell would have its Empire….
A unique anthology of two thrones at war as the forces of Hell assault an unsuspecting
Victorian Britain.
The cry went out to theologians and engineers, to artificers and antiquarians, to every name which could be named. By telegraph where lines were still intact, and by volunteer riders where they were not; smuggled along the coast in fishing smacks, semaphored from hill-tops. It came without royal sanction, issued jointly by the Lords of the Admiralty and Marquess Lansdowne, the new Secretary of State for War: “In God’s name, help us. We are losing.”
Prologue Excerpt:
It began as “certain curious events”. A mention in a local newspaper; a wry comment in one of the national organs; a letter to the editor of a hobbyist magazine. Shadows and lights, inexplicable scratchings at the door – neither certain nor concrete. And it might have continued as such for months, remarked on by country vicars in their sermons, perhaps investigated with enthusiasm by the type of amateur sleuth who loves a good mystery. Nothing to bother the engines of Empire.
But it did not stay that way. We were not allowed months. From the first mention of a sickly light upon the heath to the first clawed-open corpse was a matter of weeks. Faces which could not be faces were seen in the alleyways, and mediums broke from reporting Great Aunt Mary’s comfort in Heaven to stare and scream.
Something was very wrong.
Stories included in this anthology:
‘The Battle of Alma’, Matthew Willis
‘Hell at the Empire’, Marion Pitman
‘The Mighty Mastiff’, Rose Baxter
‘The Sea Wall’, Ian Steadman
‘The Singing Stones’, Charlotte Bond
‘The Nowl of Tubal-Qayin’, Phil Breach
‘Forge’, Shell Bromley
‘Ad Majorem Satanae Gloriam’, Damascus Mincemeyer
‘Infernal Patrol’, A.F. Stewart
‘Yan Tan Tethera’, J.A. Ironside
‘Reinforcements’, Frank Coffman
‘The Charge of the Wight Brigade’, Phil Breach
‘Profaned by Feelings Dark’, Jack Deel
‘We’ve Always Lived in a Colony’, S.L. Edwards
‘The Ones That Were Left Behind’, Martin J. Gilbert
‘A Swig in Hell’, Charles R. Rutledge
Edited by John Linwood Grant
Lapsed Reality 