From The Abode of Woe
by A.L. Butcher

Paradise’s
dim light grew ever dimmer as the hell-lights began to glare with the blue glow
of sulfur. It was an unforgiving light for the unforgiven. Word had got around,
and crowds had begun to gather for the evening’s entertainment. Calchas had
started a book on the outcome of the battle, and the diablos were rolling in.

“Two to One
for the Pig Man!” yelled a grifter clad in the sharpest suit of the evening.

“Seven to
Four for the Prince!” bellowed another voice, shrill in the crowd.

Kevin the
fiend grinned. He was having the time of his unlife; he’d read the small-print.

“Are they
ready?” Calchas asked, eying the large and sinister cloth-covered mounds on
opposing sides of the temple.

“Yep. Ready
for mayhem, master.” A smiling fiend is not something to stir the heart with
confidence or joy and Calchas sobered. He wondered if he should feel guilty,
but he had enough of that to last a thousand lifetimes and these New Dead had
brought it on themselves. At least that is what he told himself and Cassandra.

“Ego fighting
ego will bring no good for either. A temple built in haste to honor mere vanity
and lies will surely fall to dust.” Cassandra stared at the mounds, hoping
these fire-spiting death machines would not bring them all to the Undertaker’s
door. Were they too close? She closed her eyes and let her mind wander.

“Will we be
punished for this venture?” He’d asked, thinking too late they may have erred
and voicing both their fears. He hoped nothing would backfire; plans in hell
oft went awry. And he knew that sooner or later he’d pay the price for this
deceit.

“This is
Hades. Punishment is inherent. But I think not . . . at least not on this day.
‘Rue thy former life, and revel in thy afterlife, for thou art damned.’ Is that
not the advice you once gave me? We are the damned. We must survive as we may.
But those infernal and wicked weapons of the new-dead — Surely the walls of
Ilium would have fallen on the first day.” She paused, “Would we have fought
with such demon-weapons of war?”

Calchas gazed
over to the two looming cloth-bound shapes. “Probably. Priam and Agamemnon
would have found some means to destroy one another, no doubt. Man’s capacity
for war outweighs his capacity for reason — and this place is full of the
testimonials to that.”

“They will
fall in dust as vain men are wont to do.” Cassandra told him.

“They won’t
go through with it. It would be suicide. That building will fall down in the
next hell-storm,” Calchas replied, doubtful.

They’d
watched the crowd assemble from a reasonable distance. “Pack up. In case. And I
will try to steer the mayhem from our door to be on the safe side, should the
range of those war-weapons be enough to hit us. Make sure you are careful where
you stand.

“Look there’s
old Assisi. Out for the entertainment, along with everyone else by the looks.
Let’s see — drinks are half-price.” Calchas would not let this opportunity
pass.

Cassandra
nodded, “Where did you get the fire-spitters?”

“Che Guevara
owes me a favor. It might be useful to keep one—just in case. How hard can they
be to use? Look, come there are our two brave heroes.” Calchas separated
himself from Cassandra, still in the guise of the department man, and wandered
over to the two Prophets.

“So,
gentlemen, are we ready to settle this? Remember the winner gets control of
that site, should it still be standing. The loser, or losers . . .will have
more immediate issues to deal with.” Calchas motioned to the nearer of the
covered shapes. “Who would like Big Bertha?”

The Reverend
Henry Prince stared doubtfully at the shape. “That’s not a sword, or a
firearm.”

“Give that
make a Heck-Cookie!” Kevin chortled. He’d been milling and warming up the
onlookers. With a flourish he tugged the cloth away — to reveal a howitzer,
pointing towards the Temple of Woe. It was an evil-looking device, as were many
man-made machines of death. “Humans, they do like to kill one another in all
sorts of inventive ways! Welcome Big Bertha. She’s a friendly girl!”

“And the
other?” Smyth-Pigott asked, his voice tremulous.

They walked
across to a lower-slung shape. “Gentlemen, meet Roaring Meg, the deadly maiden
of the English Roundheads,” Kevin chuckled.

“Not your era, I suppose, but they do the job. They
are primed for combat. Meg has helpers: she fires but one ball at a time, yet
she’s a fiery lass and one of the more knowledgeable operatives of hell has
evened the odds.” Calchas held his palm out, containing dice. “Whoever rolls
snake-eyes gets first choice, but Meg is a little slower, and older, and thus
she fires first.”

“What happens if we refuse this ridiculous plan?”
Henry Prince could not take his eyes from the cannon.

“Refuse? I wasn’t aware that was an option.” Calchas
feigned surprise.

Kevin murmured something in Calchas’ ear, “My
associate says it is an option but if
a refusal is forthcoming then all rights are revoked to build now and for
infernity, Sentence will be the six-hundred and sixty-five years of cleaning
Perish sewers, and you must publicly affirm your rival as the true Chosen One,
the true heir and the ultimate seer. And as both are equally guilty you will
have to work together, and your women too, forever. If both refuse, then it
must be done at exactly the same time. Whomever speaks first is deemed the
greater coward.”

British-born A. L.
Butcher is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover
of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described
as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as ‘evocative’. She writes with a sure and
sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but
could be.

Alex is the
author of the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles and the Tales
of Erana lyrical fantasy series. She also has several short stories in
the fantasy, fantasy romance genres with occasional forays into gothic style
horror, including the Legacy of the Mask series. With a background in
politics, classical studies, ancient history and myth, her affinities bring an
eclectic and unique flavour in her work, mixing reality and dream in alchemical
proportions that bring her characters and worlds to life.

She also curates
speculative fiction themed book bundles on Pubshare – for the most part – the Here Be Series

Alex is also proud to
be a writer for Perseid Press where her work features in Heroika: Dragon
Eaters, Heroika Skirmishers – where she was editor and cover designer as
well as writer – as well as Lovers in Hell and Mystics in Hell –
part of the acclaimed Heroes in Hell series. http://www.theperseidpress.com/

 

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Death is bored.
Immortality will do that to you.

** A hilarious new series from the author of The Cassie Black Trilogy! **

After an eternity of escorting souls to the afterlife, Death
— who really prefers you call him Mortimer — is bored. There’s been
departmental divisions, technical developments, and fitness crazes that mean
people just aren’t dying like they used to.

What’s worse… He’s running low on romance novels to keep
himself occupied.

His solution: a working holiday to Top World, where he
expects room service, infinity-high thread counts, and an easy solution to get
business booming again.

What he doesn’t expect is Mrs Morris, a
seventy-three-year-old detective with a tightly packed schedule that leaves no
room for an immortal assistant.

But Mortimer refuses to go away. After all, detectives find
murderers, and having his very own killer would be the perfect way to nudge up
those mortality rates.

Luckily, someone’s just been murdered — and Mrs Morris has
been hired to find the culprit. The only trouble? The victim reeks of demons,
turning Mortimer’s perfect opportunity into a great deal of trouble that could
end his career. Oh, and the human race.

Death Takes a Holiday is a humorous fantasy
novel about the most inconvenient partnership in the history of the afterlife,
where a pair of unlikely allies are thrown together by broken bones, murder
mysteries, pesky demons, and the deadliest cup of coffee in Portland.

Like Terry Pratchett joining the Thursday Murder Club, Death
Takes a Holiday is perfect for fans of wry humor, paranormal mystery,
and unforgettable characters forming reluctant bonds.

**Releases August 18, 2026 – PreOrder Now!**

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Author of humorous fantasy whodunits full of mythical
misfits and magical mishaps

Many moons ago I was a scientist in a neuroscience lab where I got to play with
brains and illegal drugs. Now, I take wickedly strong tea and turn it into
comic fantasy whodunits full of mythical misfits and magical mishaps that I
hope give you a giggle. 
My tales run the gamut from the ever-expanding Cassie Black Trilogy with its
wryly humorous paranormal mysteries to the comical fantasy whodunits in The
Circus of Unusual Creatures, and from light-hearted novellas celebrating my
love of books to short fiction in which I really flex my myth-loving and
humor-craving muscles!

When I’m not creating worlds or killing off characters, I can be found
gardening, planning my next travel adventure, concocting some sort of mess in
the kitchen, or working as an unpaid servant to one very spoiled cat and some
very demanding squirrels.

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Libby Kay lives in the city in the heart of the Midwest with
her husband. When she’s not writing, Libby loves reading romance novels of any
kind. Stories of people falling in love nourish her soul. Contemporary or
Regency, sweet or hot, as long as there is a happily ever after—she’s in love!

When not surrounded by books, Libby can be found baking in
her kitchen, binging true crime shows, or on the road with her husband,
traveling as far as their bank account will allow.

Libby cohosts the Romance Roundup podcast with Liz Donatelli
where they recommend romance books and interview authors, influencers, and
publishers. Check it out for your weekly dose of romance!

 

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Enter the Flash Point Giveaway Here

February. Freezing. Snow everywhere. A surveillance
stint in Oswestry. At least, it was supposed to be surveillance. Well,
surveillance and persuasion. Piece of piss job, frankly, and as it was just
Liam and me, holed up in a cottage for an unspecified time, I’d looked forward
to it. We didn’t often get to work together so when we did it was a bonus. We’d
been a pair for nine months, engaged for two. Secretly engaged, that is,
certainly as far as the service went. Married couples were absolutely not allowed
– there was an idea it could lead to agents being compromised – but they were
realistic enough to understand they could do little about more casual hook-ups:
everyone knew that being in a relationship with someone not in the
service was fraught with difficulties.

So, the only people who knew about the
engagement were my parents, enjoying their retirement on the Gold Coast in
Australia – Liam’s were both dead, killed in a car crash when he was a teenager
– and our immediate boss, Catherine Spencer, a splendid old battle-axe with a
heart of gold. Catherine was probably in the wrong job. She was far too
concerned with the mental wellbeing of her charges, who she tended to treat as
though they were the family she no longer had. Unlike Sarah Brook, she’d not
been a field agent so hadn’t had her softer, more human edges knocked off her.
I loved her to bits.

                Anyway, as I say, it was a simple enough
job. Keep an eye on two young Russian dissidents, a married couple with the
assumed names of Grigori and Polina Mironov. They were journalists in Moscow who
had caught the eye of the Kremlin in the sort of way that was likely to end very
badly very quickly, so they’d been spirited out via Estonia and brought to
Birmingham. MI5 had no real thoughts that the Mironovs could be of any great
help after their initial debrief; I genuinely think the overriding plan was to
keep them safe. Good guys one, bad guys nil sort of thing. Not that the service
was expecting the Russians to bother sending assassins to Birmingham to knock
them off; it’s not as touristy as Salisbury for one thing. So the watching
brief I had on the Mironovs was near the bottom of my extensive list of
responsibilities.

                Until
it wasn’t.

                Completely
unexpectedly, after two years in Birmingham, Grigori and Polina upped sticks
and moved sixty-five miles west to Oswestry, about as close to the Welsh border
you can get without being a sheep. No one knew why. They certainly didn’t tell
their local handler. Five weren’t keen on that. Black mark for the handler and
a blacker one for his supervisor: me. It’s a lot easier for a couple of
Russians to stay under the radar in Brum, surrounded by a million ethnically
diverse people, than it is in a small rural town like Oswestry. No matter how
fluent their English was, Grigori and Polina would soon become the subject of
gossip and MI5 is distinctly anti-gossip.

                So
that’s when Liam and I got involved. It was my job anyway and Catherine
Spencer, told to send someone after them, watch them, befriend them, try and
find out why they’d disappeared into the back of beyond, keep them safe and,
one way or another, persuade them back to civilisation, decided that Liam
should go too. If the friendly approach didn’t work and we had to do it
forcibly, I’d find it difficult by myself. Liam riding shotgun was fine by me
as Catherine well knew, although I didn’t think force would be needed. We were
both good at striking up random friendships and we were a similar age to
Grigori and Polina. Two young couples both new to the town. Nothing could be
easier. So we were given fake jobs, installed in a small house around the
corner from the Mironovs’ rented flat and told to get on with it.

                To
start with it was straightforward. First of all, I arranged to bump into Polina
in the local Co-op. She was thin, pale, drawn, with washed-out blonde hair tied
back in a loose ponytail. Obviously struggling to find a particular item on the
shelves. Black tea, it turned out. I helped her look but it was a small store
and we had to settle for Earl Grey. That got a conversation going. As we were
both new to the town, I invited her and her husband to join us for a drink in
the pub. Two pairs of outsiders united against the Welsh, of whom there were
many. She laughed. The first warning sign was that they’d reverted to their
real names, Marat and Natalya Panarin, which only added to Five’s concern. It
was the first indication that the job might not be as uncomplicated as Liam and
I had expected.

                It
didn’t take long for things to go wrong. Badly wrong.

Steve
Sheppard was born and grew up in Surrey before moving to Buckinghamshire and
then to Oxfordshire, where he spent a quarter of a century living in an
idiosyncratic village that was the affectionate inspiration for his fourth
book, Lazytown. He now lives
in Hampshire. He spent forty years starting to write books but not finishing
them, until belatedly realising that the key is not to give up. The other thing
he has since learned is that he should have become a celebrity before writing a
book, as this would have made selling it much easier. 

 False Connections is Steve’s fifth book,
but the first one written as a straight thriller and not primarily as a comedy,
although it does contain humour. He hopes it will be the first of a series
featuring feisty, funny but flawed ex-MI5 agent, Mel Milano. He also has three
spy thrillers with laughs to his name, all published by Claret Press: A Very Important Teapot (2019),
set in Australia, Bored to Death in
the Baltics (2021), not set in Australia, and Poor Table Manners (2024), which takes place in Cape
Town.  These feature an initially fairly
hapless hero, Dawson, and a considerably less hapless heroine, Lucy, together
with varied supporting casts, most of whom are not who they claim to be.
Steve’s fourth book is an out-and-out comedy-murder-mystery, Lazytown (2025).

  

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