London Town

by Rachel Green

To call London "a town without pity" was to do it a disservice. It was the loneliest city in the country, where you could starve to death within sight of the great cathedral of St. Paul’s or be cut to pieces by a group who didn’t like the way you dressed, or spoke, or held a cigarette. It was also my city, where a chance encounter might result in a spiral of such depravity that the angels would shy away. Cobbled back streets would reveal treasures of shops and houses virtually unchanged in a century, where a fiver would get you a hand job and a tenner enough crack cocaine to make you believe you could fly. And fly they did, those fortunate few who plummeted to die upon uncaring concrete, photographed by passing tourists on their way to the Tower. London thrived upon pity, it filled column inches.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Night Thoughts from a Day Job

by Rachel Green

If pressed for a description of his lover, just one thing that he adores about her, Harold will rest his chin on his fist and stare into the middle-distance before fixing you with a grey-eyed stare and a half-smile. Her cold hands and her warm heart, he'll say, shifting position so his knuckles now press against his soft lips. He'll close his eyes for a moment and you'll guess that he's thinking about her as his lips flicker against his fingers in a kiss to his absent beloved. When his eyes open and he sees your expression he'll shrug and laugh. Her hands are as cold as the grave she sleeps in, he'll say, but her heart is as warm as the blood she's drinking. He'll smile then, reaching forward to clap you on the shoulder with one hand while the other pushes a syringe full of paralytic poison into your bloodstream.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Guilt Unproven

by Rachel Green

I relax against the soft leather of the chaise-longue, cross my legs at the ankles and lace my fingers together just blow my breasts. Doctor Reuben opens the thin file he's compiled from a brief internet search on my name and pseudonym - I can see the corner of a printout with the distinctive blue edge of the first Harold and Jasfoup painting. My GP has referred me to this man with wire rim glasses and hair bristling out of his nostrils because I have "a tenuous grip on reality." I know this because on my first visit I looked at my file when Doctor Reuben was called to reception. He won't find anything wrong with me; at least, nothing he can quantify, for my responses are always as pitch-perfect as if they were served on a plate. I know exactly what he wants to hear because my two favourite demons are reading his mind.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Second Fall

by Rachel Green

The lighthouse at the end of the world was bathed in the ruddy sunlight of evening. Lucifer sat on the steps, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the warm brickwork and paying no attention to the flakes of mortar that fell like the sand of an hourglass. The apocalypse had been and gone, a thousand angels dying every second that his people fought and taking five hundred of his own troops with them. Even so, it had been seven hours until the last one had died with Lucifer's spear through his soul. There had been no kingdom after that, no power and no glory, just the image of the smoking vault of Heaven sliding into the sea. He took a last look at the ruin of the mortal world, then a step forward into oblivion, his tattered wings streaming behind.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Indecent Exposure

by Rachel Green

On the wall of the study, next to the shelves of leather-bound encyclopedias forty years out of date (where the entry for computer still shows a building-sized machine with less memory than a modern mobile phone) hangs a portrait of my grandmother. It is not the sepia tones that date it but the heavy glass - a daguerreotype plate with a backing of yellowed card - that shows a slightly blurred image from a too-long exposure and leaves a smile too broad for a human face. Sophia - my grandmother - is looking past the camera at something that amuses her, my grandfather, perhaps, or my Great Aunt Lydia of which no photographs were ever taken. It is a moment of joy in an otherwise secretive life captured on film and left as an heirloom for her unknown offspring, though my siblings never survived to see it. She couldn't have known that I would be able to see behind the deliberate blur to her feet, so often hidden beneath heavy Victorian skirts, and the evidence of her mother's sordid little secret. I inherited much from Grand-Mama; the photograph, the chest of drawers in the bedroom, a china tea service and the cloven hooves so cleverly hidden by slow exposure.

6S

Rachel Green, author of A Place of Peace and Solitude, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

A Song of Loss and Love

by Rachel Green

He sits on the edge of the lake as dusk approaches, the last rays of the dying sun giving his face the ruddy glow of a denizen of Hell. Appropriate, then, for that is exactly his nature, though he shows neither horn nor hoof nor arrow-barbed tail. Instead he mourns the loss of Heaven and coaxes a melody from an ancient violin, its rich tone coming not from its construction, though Stradivarius would have wept to see it, but from the centuries of care it has enjoyed under its master's fingers. The baby at his feet gurgles and waves its arms as if to catch the mournful notes before they are carried away and Lucifer looks down and smiles. "Hold not the sadness," he tells his mortal son, "I'll play the pity fiddle no more." With a sweep of the bow the dirge glides into a jig, and young Harold giggles, opening and closing his fists in delight.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Peak Time Delay

by Rachel Green

As I hurry through the parking lot intent upon reaching the ticket office, and therefore the train, before the departure time an unexpected compliment stops me in my tracks. "You are as beautiful as the autumn rain and I will possess you for eternity.” I turn and look for the speaker, the heel of my shoe protesting against the cobbled surface that leads to the building. It was a soft voice, rich with the lilt of Arabia like a soft breeze against the stubborn dunes of my self-awareness but its origin eludes me. Only a thrush notes my puzzlement, tilting its head against the breeze rocking the pumpkin coloured leaves from the overhanging chestnut. I shake my head, purchase my ticket and hurry down the stairs to the platform where my heels twists off in an act of final rebellion, pitching me off the platform in front of the 18:24 to Paddington and the feet of my new master, the djellebah-clad Azrael, angel of death.

6S

Rachel Green is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

A Place of Peace and Solitude

by Rachel Green

I was married once before and lived in a house with a huge garden built on the side of the highest hill for miles around, from the top of which you could see as far as the Malvern Hills on the horizon. The slope of the garden was in excess of sixty degrees but climbing the high steps would reward you with a series of terraced areas winding up to the miniature orchard at the top. The greenhouse was suspended over the void of the rockery and lower terrace and was accessed by means of a rickety iron staircase from the soft fruit area; there was no access from below and my husband was unable or unwilling to commit his bulk to the flaking iron of the stairway, apprehensive of finding himself propelled though thirty panes of plate glass. That suited me just fine. I was free to grow what ever I liked and retained an area that was free of interference by me better half, as he used to call himself (though it was an oxymoron, in my opinion, for a misogynist to judge himself by reference to a woman). I made myself a seat up there from which I could look out over the landscape; a deckchair amidst the cannabis plants.

6S

Rachel Green, author of Sixteen Sanguine Splashes, is the chronicler of the demon Jasfoup.

Sixteen Sanguine Splashes

by Rachel Green

They never did find Grandmother's body, though there was so much blood splashed liberally around the manor that she couldn't possibly still be alive. That's what the police inspector told my mother on the day they arrested Daddy on purely circumstantial evidence. The bloody knife, the argument over his inheritance and his gloves at the scene of the crime all had perfectly reasonable explanations but link them together with the brutal murder of an old lady in her own home and the jury had their own idea of what two plus two added up to. Inspector White of the Laverstone Constabulary was apologetic about the state of the house, for the day before we moved in Mother had to enlist the help of Mrs. Blesset and Mrs. Jarvis from number fourteen to help her clean. The site of all that blood wasn't suitable for a child to see, they said, even if I was nearly twelve so they gave me tuppence for ice cream and told me to go and play in the park. I sat at the top of the slide and watched them empty bucket after bucket of red water down the outside drain, knowing they'd miss the stain in the cellar where I killed her.

6S

Rachel Green, author of Burned Out, is the chronicler of the demon Jasfoup.

Quitter

by Rachel Green

Winston took a long drag of his herbal cigarette holding the smoke in his lungs while it leached stress from his blood, then letting it all out in one long, controlled exhalation toward the night sky. He looked down again at the glowing tip, rolling the joint in his fingers and feeling where one of the skins was peeling away and shook his head. He passed it to Sam, a younger man with the folly of youth tattooed on his arms and knuckles and its stupidity marked by the beanie hat rammed onto greasy blond spikes. Sam took it and inhaled quickly; staccato drags that implied he wasn't taking it in and was just smoking to be sociable with his friend. He'd quit when he got a decent job, by sheer happenstance, in a company the produced cutting-edge technology. Sam didn't know shit about technology, just that they did random drug tests.

6S

Rachel Green, author of Indecent Exposure, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Burned Out

by Rachel Green

On the advice from her sister, Julie Turling applied for the position of funeral director with Parkes and Sons, ticking the box that said previous experience but not the one which detailed previous employers. When she attended the interview - dressed rather garishly, in Mr. Parkes Junior's opinion - in sky blue under the obligatory tailored black jacket, she explained that it was not so much experience in a parlour as with the dead themselves. Mr. Parkes Senior looked at Mr. Parkes Junior who leaned forward in his chair and asked her what she meant. Julie looked up at Mr. Parkes Senior, laughed, and said, "Did you ever wonder why your father insisted on a burial rather than the cremation he offered to all his clients? He says that he stuffed his coffee full of money before he died and that's why his account was overdrawn." Mr. Parkes Senior bowed his thanks, and left to enjoy whatever eternity offered him.

6S

Rachel Green, author of Cleansing, is the chronicler of the demon Jasfoup.

Under the Moon of Love

by Rachel Green

I met my lover under a waxing gibbous moon. With three or four nights left before it was full, it didn’t occur to me that she might be a werewolf. Whoever heard of a lycanthrope that came out to play every night? Nobody, not even Selene. Of course, Selene didn’t even know she was a werewolf. The poor bitch had no memory of the three nights a month she changed into a woman.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Haute Cuisine

by Rachel Green

Felicia looked down at her plate where a repast of sautéed potatoes, peas, carrots and meat awaited the attentions of her cutlery. On the recommendation of the family doctor she’d been advised to lay off the red meat, a task made difficult by her werewolf nature. Still, this was, according to Jasfoup, known in restaurant circles as "the other white meat," and although it came not from a bird but from a mammal, the dish itself was not unlike eating quail. Quail was, she found, something to focus on; if she told herself it was quail often enough she might even believe it. Quail. Not rat at all.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Cleansing

by Rachel Green

The center of the lake was the calmest place Melissa knew. The azure of the sky as she floated on her back during the heat of a summer day made it a haven of tranquility. She drifted with the slight current. It wasn't much of one for the lake was landlocked, sandwiched between the Freemont hills and the Tribune forest but it was enough to carry her closer to the shore. She didn't want to go there. That was where Terry's body lay, still torn and bloody where she'd attacked him with the log before slipping into the cleansing water.

6S

Rachel Green is the chronicler of the demon Jasfoup.

Choked

by Rachel Green

Harold never knew about his big sister. She died in the womb, strangled with Harold’s umbilical cord as he jockeyed for position on the runway to post-partum life. Born three minutes before him she never felt her mother’s love or the cosseting of a warm terry blanket. Ada was never allowed to grieve; the needs of her son outweighed her need to cry for her lost daughter and it was thirty-seven years before she felt able to face the tiny grave with the piece of slate inscribed with the words Alice, 1968. Harold had asked about it once – he’d not been more than six or seven. She’d dismissed his question with a shake of her head and buried his dog next to it with a similar headstone.

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Too Late

by Rachel Green

She stared at me, a perplexed look on her face, as if she expected me to remember her. I didn’t of course. I have perfect memory control and have been deleting selected memories long before I ever realised what I was doing. Certainly long before I ever met her... whoever she is. What does she mean, we lived together for five years? I’d remember someone that important to me, wouldn’t I?

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

Jasfoup in Monochrome

by Rachel Green

It’s not often that Harold surprises me. We’ve had a very easy-going relationship for some years now (separate bedrooms and bathrooms but shared kitchen) and I thought I knew just about everything about him. Today, though, I was shocked when he told me the vicar had been round for an unexpected badger when I didn’t even know we had badgers in the garden – perhaps that’s why one was unexpected. Harold looked at me a bit strangely, with his head on one side and that lock of platinum-blonde hair falling over one eye. (I always want to brush it backwards.) “Not a black and white badger,” he said, “he wanted a donation for the church organ fund again.”

6S

Rachel Green, whose full catalog is here, is an English woman who spends far too much time writing about demons.

The 6S Summer Reading List!

Over 140 Great Books to Choose From!

Open publication - Free publishing - More summer reading

6S

6S contributors Rachel Green and Shaindel Beers stand alongside Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Charles Dickens, Stephenie Meyer, and many others in our very first Official 6S Summer Reading List. How many have you read? How many will you read? Thanks to every 6S Newsletter subscriber who contributed! If you'd like your favorite books represented in the future, sign up for the 6S Newsletter! Just enter your email address in the box on the upper right of the site... and happy reading!