Night Walker cannot be lumped into one genre. It is a mystery-crime-romance-paranormal story. The novel has a violent edge, however, the story’s protagonists and secondary characters advance the plot through unwavering friendships and humor. The plot is driven through action, parapsychology, social questions, and a relationship buoyed by passion, doubt, and fate. Below are some excerpts to give you a small glimpse of Night Walker.
“Greetings fair ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are prepared for a night of history and frights. I will be taking you on a journey back in time, to when London was plagued by disease, the River Thames a cesspool of human waste. It’ll be delightful. We will start with a walk to Charterhouse Square in Clerkenwell, where we will be standing on… well, I’ll tell you when we arrive.”
“However, driven to the point of insanity, Niles Thompson could take no more and so he stood on that same chair, slipped a noose around his neck, kicked the chair away, and hanged himself. And to this day, ladies and gentleman, if the time and the conditions are right, you too can hear the horrific screams, the scraping and scratching of Mr. Miller’s chair, and the crack… of Niles Thompson’s neck.”
“…he punched her repeatedly until her face became almost unrecognizable with bruises. Her four upper front teeth were knocked out. Blood drained out of her mouth onto the wood floor, staining it forever like a scar on skin.”
‘And then I kissed him softly on his lips. He withdrew a little, I assume, because of the cut on his mouth, but then he placed his hands on the sides of my face and through my hair and then continued to kiss me, quite a bit more eagerly. He smelled and tasted so good, I could have devoured him all day, but after about half a minute, I pulled away when I tasted blood.’
‘His lovemaking had been manic at first. The intensity mirroring his personality. But then, he was gentle, yet earnest, even desperate at times, but honest.’
‘In a flash, I found myself in Hallway B. A cold, dark figure, a woman, pulled off her hood, revealing a pale, worn face with deep, charcoal circles under her intense blue eyes. As sinister as she looked, she didn’t frighten me, at least at first. Instead, she enveloped me with warmth, but her eyes were pleading, imploring me. Then, she reached out a blue veined hand and touched me.’
‘In the catacombs the dank air clogged my nostrils causing me to gasp for air...I could faintly make out a dark figure against the catacomb wall to the left of me and another one to the right. Holding my lantern up, I saw a face, vaguely familiar… it was Tom, but then again it wasn’t. The figure to my right was certainly Tom. He was intently looking at the figure across from him, over my head. Surprise crossed his face, he tilted back his head, opened his mouth wide; his fangs extremely sharp and long, and then he screamed in anguish, causing the ceiling to rain dirt upon my head. The earth pounded me from above, filling my nostrils, my eyes, my mouth. The pounding kept getting louder and louder.’
‘Blackness. So pitch black, I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face. It surrounded me and swallowed me, spitting me out into some even darker void. A plane of nothingness. Delirious, confused, not knowing which way was up or down, left or right. I wanted to throw up, scream, something, anything to wake me from this dream. But, I couldn’t. I was paralyzed, shackled by my own fear.’
‘We followed him down and cautiously entered a very dank, barely lit tomb-like room. The walls were all weathered brick, with holding cell doors trapped between the brick walls. The musty smell accosted us all as we went through the arched tunnels. The lanterns gave us no comfort; they only cast an eerie glow.’
‘The planchette started to move in slow, but deliberate concentric circles, spiraling out and then spiraling back in, almost hypnotizing us. The scratching of the three legs was all that could be heard aside from our breathing. After three or four spiral round-trips, the planchette stopped in the center. After about 30 seconds, it started to move again, but only the front, wavering back and forth as if it were thinking of what to say. Then, it journeyed to a letter, deliberately pausing so the round window displayed “R.” It continued this way until the rest of the word or words were formed: A-P-E-H-E-L-P.’
‘Had she had her wits about her, reacted a second earlier, she may have been able to bite his tongue and then scream and push him away, but it was too late. The stalker pulled back for a split second, cocked his head slightly, as if hearing what she wanted to do, bared his teeth and then sunk them into her lower lip.’
‘There was an eerie glow in the room cast by an outside light. And that’s when I saw them. Criss-crossed, diagonal, long and short scars all over his back, down, and I assume, beyond his waist band. I discovered some discolored, raised circles, about a quarter inch in diameter, right around his kidney area. Squinting, I noticed the circles formed some kind of pattern. Hesitantly, I pulled the waist band down slightly on his suit pants to reveal the rest.’
‘His face was darkened, despite the light, and not by shadows, but by a sinister haze. He stared straight ahead, much like the boy in my lucid dream, jamming the knife into the floor, continuing the slow chop.’
‘"And now, an exclusive interview with Richard T. Brown, the latest supposed victim of the London Vigilante." Flash to Richard sitting in a hospital bed, pasty face, greasy hair, very bruised, his hand covering his mouth as he spoke his muffled account.
“So, what did your assailant do?”
“Well, he attacked me from behind, choking me. I was walking back to my hotel after having a beer at a local pub when he struck. I didn’t see him, but I figured he was tall from the angle he grabbed me from. He threw me up against the brick wall where my forehead hit, nearly knocking me out, but I tried to stand my ground. I remember turning to try to see him. My vision was a little blurry, but I thought the guy was in all black and wearing a mask.”
“Guy? There are a lot of people out there, women in general, who think this person is a woman.”’
“So, what did your assailant do?”
“Well, he attacked me from behind, choking me. I was walking back to my hotel after having a beer at a local pub when he struck. I didn’t see him, but I figured he was tall from the angle he grabbed me from. He threw me up against the brick wall where my forehead hit, nearly knocking me out, but I tried to stand my ground. I remember turning to try to see him. My vision was a little blurry, but I thought the guy was in all black and wearing a mask.”
“Guy? There are a lot of people out there, women in general, who think this person is a woman.”’