Read Online Tomorrow's Ghosts by Charles Christian - Free Book Online
Authors: Charles Christian
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as a trust fund for the lately departed Sebastien.
“As for Dannii’s father? He’s into property development though possibly not as well-heeled as he’d like to make out. Caught out by the property market crash and now sitting on a pile of negative equity. Let’s hope Xanthe never discovers that thanks to his life insurance policies, he’s currently worth a lot more dead than he is alive.”
“Yes, let’s hope so indeed,” says the inspector with a faraway look in his eyes. In fact he is so distracted that he fails to notice the
Hobnob
he’d been dunking in his tea has started to dissolve.
6. Blood on the Keyboard
Dannii hates it when that scheming, gold-digging tart Xanthe refers to her mother as a
troublesome witch
. How dare she? Of course her mother is a witch but that isn’t the point. It is the derogatory way Xanthe talks about her, completely ignoring the fact her mother belongs to an ancient tradition dedicated to easing human suffering and bringing joy into the world.
She smiles to herself. As much as she loves her mother, Dannii knows most of the stuff she spouts about witchcraft is just New Age bollocks. As for bringing joy to the world, her mother had become a bit of a sad sap whose main interest was bringing joy into her own life, ideally by getting high.
“And whose fault is that?” asks Dannii to herself. “Her bloody weak-willed father and that bitch Xanthe, that’s who! If they think my mother is a troublesome witch, then by
Abaddon
they ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ll give them a lesson in troublesome witchcraft they’ll never forget.”
All that time Dannii had spent rattling around in her mother’s crappy horsebox hadn’t been entirely wasted. She’d watched carefully as her mother had mixed her magic potions, crafted her spells and cast her runes. Late into the night, when everyone thought she was fast asleep in the space above the horsebox’s cab, Dannii had listened to her mother discussing magic with other members of her craft. She’d also found and read from cover-to-cover three books, containing what her mother quaintly referred to as
forbidden knowledge
, that had been hidden away from prying eyes in a secret compartment beneath the horsebox’s front seat. It was the same compartment her mother used to hide her best quality marijuana.
It might not have been an ideal initiation into the world of witchcraft but a surreptitious surfing of Google and some other less discerning search engines to be found on
Silk Road
, TOR and the darker reaches on the internet rapidly filled out the gaps in Dannii’s knowledge of the magical arts, whether white, green or black.
Of course Dannii understood from the outset the cost she’d incur in obtaining those good A-level grades and the university scholarship. She also knew she’d run up a huge debt that one day would have to be settled but Sebastien had proved to be an acceptable down-payment and now she had an idea where to find the next instalment.
There is a gentle tapping at her bedroom door, followed by her father gingerly popping his head around the doorway.
“Dannii, dear,” he says, “I realise things haven’t been that great between us since the divorce. And I know you and Xanthe don’t get on but she’s totally desolate over the awful thing that happened to Sebastien and I’d be really grateful if you could try to be nice to her.”
Dannii loathes it when her father calls her
dear
in that wheedling voice he always uses when he’s looking for a favour but this time she is prepared to let it ride because she has an idea.
She’d been sitting at her desk when he’d knocked at the door and, pausing only to palm a drawing pin, which she then presses deeply into her thumb until she’s drawn blood, she spins round on her chair and greets her father with her most sorrowful face.
“Oh, Daddy dear,” she says, as tears realistically course down her face (jabbing that drawing pin into her hand really hurt) “I do
“As for Dannii’s father? He’s into property development though possibly not as well-heeled as he’d like to make out. Caught out by the property market crash and now sitting on a pile of negative equity. Let’s hope Xanthe never discovers that thanks to his life insurance policies, he’s currently worth a lot more dead than he is alive.”
“Yes, let’s hope so indeed,” says the inspector with a faraway look in his eyes. In fact he is so distracted that he fails to notice the
Hobnob
he’d been dunking in his tea has started to dissolve.
6. Blood on the Keyboard
Dannii hates it when that scheming, gold-digging tart Xanthe refers to her mother as a
troublesome witch
. How dare she? Of course her mother is a witch but that isn’t the point. It is the derogatory way Xanthe talks about her, completely ignoring the fact her mother belongs to an ancient tradition dedicated to easing human suffering and bringing joy into the world.
She smiles to herself. As much as she loves her mother, Dannii knows most of the stuff she spouts about witchcraft is just New Age bollocks. As for bringing joy to the world, her mother had become a bit of a sad sap whose main interest was bringing joy into her own life, ideally by getting high.
“And whose fault is that?” asks Dannii to herself. “Her bloody weak-willed father and that bitch Xanthe, that’s who! If they think my mother is a troublesome witch, then by
Abaddon
they ain’t seen nothing yet. I’ll give them a lesson in troublesome witchcraft they’ll never forget.”
All that time Dannii had spent rattling around in her mother’s crappy horsebox hadn’t been entirely wasted. She’d watched carefully as her mother had mixed her magic potions, crafted her spells and cast her runes. Late into the night, when everyone thought she was fast asleep in the space above the horsebox’s cab, Dannii had listened to her mother discussing magic with other members of her craft. She’d also found and read from cover-to-cover three books, containing what her mother quaintly referred to as
forbidden knowledge
, that had been hidden away from prying eyes in a secret compartment beneath the horsebox’s front seat. It was the same compartment her mother used to hide her best quality marijuana.
It might not have been an ideal initiation into the world of witchcraft but a surreptitious surfing of Google and some other less discerning search engines to be found on
Silk Road
, TOR and the darker reaches on the internet rapidly filled out the gaps in Dannii’s knowledge of the magical arts, whether white, green or black.
Of course Dannii understood from the outset the cost she’d incur in obtaining those good A-level grades and the university scholarship. She also knew she’d run up a huge debt that one day would have to be settled but Sebastien had proved to be an acceptable down-payment and now she had an idea where to find the next instalment.
There is a gentle tapping at her bedroom door, followed by her father gingerly popping his head around the doorway.
“Dannii, dear,” he says, “I realise things haven’t been that great between us since the divorce. And I know you and Xanthe don’t get on but she’s totally desolate over the awful thing that happened to Sebastien and I’d be really grateful if you could try to be nice to her.”
Dannii loathes it when her father calls her
dear
in that wheedling voice he always uses when he’s looking for a favour but this time she is prepared to let it ride because she has an idea.
She’d been sitting at her desk when he’d knocked at the door and, pausing only to palm a drawing pin, which she then presses deeply into her thumb until she’s drawn blood, she spins round on her chair and greets her father with her most sorrowful face.
“Oh, Daddy dear,” she says, as tears realistically course down her face (jabbing that drawing pin into her hand really hurt) “I do
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