Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Thirteen: The Reckoning Tide

The jetty was coming apart under their feet.

            James felt the planks shift, a deep splintering groan that travelled up through his legs and into the small of his back. He braced himself against a piling, one arm hooked around the slick timber, the other clutching the ledger to his chest. The leather was saturated, black with seawater, and it had begun to smell of something ancient and sour. Siobhan crouched three feet away, her fingers dug into a cleat bolted to the decking. Leo was behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other gripping a length of broken railing he had pulled from the wreckage.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Twelve: The Pier’s Last Stand

The wind hit them the moment they stepped off the pier's landward end and onto the planking proper, a solid wall of driven salt that made Siobhan stagger and clutch the rail. James kept his head down, the ledger jammed inside his coat and pressed against his ribs with an arm that had long since gone numb.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Eleven: A Storm’s Fury

The pier gave no shelter from what was coming in off the North Sea.

            James reached the landward end with his coat plastered to his back and his right hand pressed flat against the railing for balance. The blow to his skull had left him with a dull, insistent throb that sharpened every time he turned his head too quickly, and the three miles from the manor had been covered in a haze of hedgerows and ditches and the occasional pair of headlights that sent him flat into the wet grass until they passed. He had no clear memory of getting out of the cellar. The chain had given at the bracket, not at his wrist, and the iron ring still hung from the raw skin like a bracelet he could not remove. The rest was fragments: a door that had not been locked, a stretch of gravel he had crossed on hands and knees, the salt marsh beyond the garden wall where he had lain for what felt like an hour while the storm gathered itself overhead.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Ten: The Tidal Cellar’s Secret

The cold came first. Not the shallow chill of an unwarmed room, but the deep, settled cold of stone that had never known sunlight. It pressed through James's shirt and into the skin beneath, and with it came the awareness of his own body, the catalogue of damage: the ache at the back of his skull where the blow had landed, the raw burn around his wrists, the cramp locked into his shoulders from the angle of his arms.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Nine: Captured by the Tide

The van’s headlights swept across the lighthouse compound and caught the black saloon already parked at an angle across the gravel, its doors swinging open before Leo had cut the engine.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Eight: The Lighthouse Vault

He drove through the small hours with the window cracked an inch, the cold air keeping the exhaustion at bay. The coast road unspooled in the headlamps, empty and black, and the sea was a presence off to his left that he could not see but could feel in the pressure of the wind against the car's flank. He had not slept. He had tried, in the flat above the office, lying on the sofa with his coat still on and the microfilm cylinder on the table beside him, but every time he closed his eyes the gala reassembled itself behind the lids. Arthur Vane's voice, low and assured, naming facts about James's life that no stranger should possess. The black saloon idling at the kerb, it's engine a patient rumble. The coordinates burning in his head like a fever.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Seven: A Gala of Shadows

The Grand Hotel stood on the cliff road like a wedding cake left out in the rain, it's white stucco façade lit by floodlamps that turned the February damp into a haze of suspended droplets. James paused at the bottom of the steps, one hand resting on the cold iron railing, and let the ache at the back of his skull settle into something he could manage. The wound beneath his hair had stopped seeping sometime that afternoon, but the skin around it felt tight and hot, and the lights from the hotel's entrance seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Six: The Northern Star’s Coordinates

The morning light came through the office window at an angle that felt personal, a blade of white February glare that found the gap in the curtains James had not quite closed the night before. He sat at the desk with his back to it, the Maglite fragment still wrapped in its handkerchief beside the telephone, the folded receipt from the storage facility propped against the base of the lamp where he could see the word Pier in Leo Bernard's cramped hand. His head ached in a way that paracetamol had not touched, a deep and patient throb that seemed to keep time with his pulse, and the skin above his left ear was tender when he pressed it.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Five: Beneath the Pavillion

The mist came in off the North Sea before dawn, thick enough to blur the streetlamps into soft coronas of orange. James walked with his collar turned up and his hands buried in his coat pockets, the folded receipt a crisp edge against his knuckles. The promenade was empty. Even the gulls had not yet begun their morning patrol.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Four: A Whispered Name at the Shack

The Crab Shack sat at the wrong end of the promenade, where the paint on the railings had blistered down to bare metal and the amusement arcade's neon gave up halfway through the word FORTUNES. James walked with his collar up and his hands buried in the pockets of his coat, the Maglite fragment wrapped in its handkerchief pressing against his thigh, the watch a smaller, colder weight on the other side. The slashed tyres had forced the walk. He had stood in the lane behind the office for a full minute, looking at the rubber peeled back in neat flaps, before locking up and setting out on foot. The black Rolls Royce wasn't parked across the street. That did not feel like a comfort.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Three: Initials on Silver

The bus let him off on Cadogan Road at twenty past two, and James walked the remaining half-mile to his office with the torch fragment heavy in his coat pocket and the taste of West's warning still coating his tongue. The black Rolls Royce had not followed him back from West Runton, and the absence of it unsettled him more than the surveillance itself had done.

When An Old Music Video Makes You Feel Really Sad

It was late one night a few weeks ago when I began to click through what remaining music channels we currently have. There’s only five now, and four are them are brought to us by the Now! Music people.

I stopped on the channel dedicated to the 1980s, and my attention was immediately captured by a classic song from Fleetwood Mac from their album Mirage. It wasn’t one of their best efforts, but the song Gypsy, with Stevie Nicks’ wonderful performance and a classic music video, always makes for great viewing. It really is a great example how great the music video industry was back in those days, when the industry was finally beginning to realise just what they could do.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter Two: The Cliff’s Silent Witness

James left the handkerchief where it lay and took the watch with him.

            The bus from Cromer to West Runton ran every forty minutes, and he caught the one that pulled away from the stop on Cadogan Road at ten past one. A handful of pensioners sat near the front, shopping bags wedged between their feet. A young mother with a pushchair folded into the luggage rack stared at her phone. No one looked at him. He took a seat halfway down, next to a window filmed with salt, and watched the town thin out into hedgerow and ploughed field.

Anglo-Force: Saltwater Grudge Chapter One: A Watch in the Mailbox

The wind came off the North Sea in long, querulous gusts that rattled the sash window and found every gap in the frame. James Watt sat with both hands curled around a mug that had gone tepid twenty minutes ago, watching a gull beat itself steady against the grey. The bird hung there a moment, wings working, then peeled away toward the pier.

Here's Another Way to Read My Stories

Those of you who've been playing close attention to this blog may have noticed a change around here. If you don't what I mean take a look at the image above, paying attention to the part I've highlighted for you.

You'll see this on most of the fiction pages now. If you tap, or click, or whatever, on the words "Download this story in PDF format here" it will hopefully open a new browser window where you'll be able to read the entire story in PDF format. This means that instead of visiting and reading each chapter individually you'll be able to download and keep the entire story whenever, and wherever, you want, and the best thing about is it's FREE!!!!!

I haven't uploaded all of the stories yet, so keep checking back if you want to add my fiction to your collection.

If any of this doesn't work and you can't access the PDF files leave a comment on my Facebook page. 

Social Media Discoveries 82: Matteo Mancuso, Wolfie's Just Fine, Savage Existence, Woodship and More!

We've made it to episode 82 of Social Media Discoveries. Bloody hell, how did we get this far? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, whatever that is.

Anglo-Force: Pendragon Chapter Sixteen: The Dawn of a New Age

The morning light, usually a comforting, golden wash across Arthur’s London Crown Prosecution Service office, felt oddly sterile, a harsh fluorescent glare compared to the bruised, metallic dawn that had broken over the Tower of London just hours before. The silence, too, was a stark contrast to the cacophony of sonic blasts, the whirring of drones, and the desperate shouts that had echoed through the night. Arthur sat at his desk, the events of the previous evening a heavy, visceral weight, yet strangely, it was accompanied by a newfound clarity, a steel-hard resolve he hadn’t possessed before. He reviewed the news reports scrolling across his laptop screen, each headline a carefully crafted lie: ‘Unexplained Technological Malfunction at Historic Landmark’, ‘Tower of London Incident: No Casualties Reported’, ‘Authorities Investigate Drone Anomaly’. Inspector Solo and his police force had done a commendable job of damage control, weaving a narrative designed to prevent widespread panic. They had managed to contain the truth, for now.

Anglo-Force: Pendragon Chapter Fifteen: Clash of Eras (Climax)

A metallic tang, like old blood and ozone, coated Arthur’s tongue. He swallowed hard, the taste a stark reminder of the night’s grim purpose. The wind whipped at his white kevlar body armour, a cold caress against his face as he stood on the ancient battlements of the Tower of London. Below, the Thames flowed, a dark, indifferent ribbon under the sickly glow of the city’s emergency lights. Excalibur, a beacon of ancient power, hummed faintly in his grasp, its familiar weight a comfort against the encroaching dread.

Anglo-Force: Pendragon Chapter Fourteen: The Eve of Battle

The laptop, still warm from Arthur’s hurried journey, clunked softly as he placed it on the ancient oak table in Magus’s hidden study. Dust motes danced in the single beam of moonlight slicing through a high, leaded window, illuminating the room’s chaotic charm – towering stacks of leather-bound tomes, arcane instruments glinting in the gloom, and the pervasive scent of old paper and something indefinably magical.

Anglo-Force: Pendragon Chapter Thirteen: The Pendragon’s Resolve

The persistent hum of the server racks in the building’s basement usually provided a comforting white noise, a steady pulse to the Crown Prosecution Service’s diligent work. This morning, however, it felt off, a low thrumming beneath the floorboards that vibrated with an unsettling discord, a subtle disruption to the expected rhythm of an otherwise ordinary London morning. Arthur Pendragon sat at his desk, surrounded by stacks of meticulously organised legal documents, each file a testament to his successful career. Yet, his gaze kept drifting from the intricate legal precedents and witness statements to the small, intricately carved wooden box nestled on the corner of his blotter. It was the same box Magus had given him, a twin to the one Solo now possessed.