Tuesday 24 April 2018

Waking the Ancients is Here!

Just published!

 "Catherine Cavendish can unfailingly be counted on to scare readers senseless as simultaneously we find ourselves totally engrossed with her realistic characters." - The Haunted Reading Room

Legacy In Death

Egypt, 1908


University student Lizzie Charters accompanies her mentor, Dr. Emeryk Quintillus, on the archeological dig to uncover Cleopatra’s tomb. Her presence is required for a ceremony conducted by the renowned professor to resurrect Cleopatra’s spirit—inside Lizzie’s body. Quintillus’s success is short-lived, as the Queen of the Nile dies soon after inhabiting her host, leaving Lizzie’s soul adrift . . . 
 

Vienna, 2018

Paula Bancroft’s husband just leased Villa Dürnstein, an estate once owned by Dr. Quintillus. Within the mansion are several paintings and numerous volumes dedicated to Cleopatra. But the archeologist’s interest in the Egyptian empress deviated from scholarly into supernatural, infusing the very foundations of his home with his dark fanaticism. And as inexplicable manifestations rattle Paula’s senses, threatening her very sanity, she uncovers the link between the villa, Quintillus, and a woman named Lizzie Charters.


And a ritual of dark magic that will consume her soul . . .


From the beginning:
 
The man looked down at his scattered ashes. “I am growing tired of waiting. When will I be free of this prison?”
“Soon.” The woman moved away in that fluid, ethereal manner of hers. Her scarlet gown flowed around her. An armlet shaped in the goddess Isis’s symbol—a coiled cobra—gleamed. Heavy black kohl rimmed her eyes, emphasizing the deep violet of her irises, while her long, black hair, set in many tight braids, reached her waist. “You must be patient,” the woman said. “I told you I would help you get what you desire.”
“But that isn’t possible. She is back in her body. Back in her tomb.”
“All is possible. I have the power. Haven’t I proved it? Aren’t you the proof of it?”
“I still don’t live.”
“Your spirit lives.”
“My spirit cannot touch her.”
“But it can touch her spirit. Mate with her spirit if you so desire.”
“And why would you do this for me?”
 “My revenge is incomplete. My murdering sister rests while I am forced to wander in spirit with no substance of my own.”
“And how will it be done? I am in your hands. This is not comfortable for me. I am always in control.”
The woman threw back her head and laughed, showing black, rotten teeth. Stinking, no doubt, if he could smell anything.
You have not been in control for a long time. The god I serve is Set, and he is in control. He will come and he will work through me. More powerful this time, for Sekhmet will bring him.”
“And I will have my queen?”
“You will have her.”
“She will be in the one who is here now?”
 “That is to be determined.”
“But this one is not of the blood.”
“She will not be possessed, but transformed. We do not need a blood relative.”
“That has been tried before. And failed.”
“The rules were not properly followed. You cannot possess all of her. You have seen that. The gods will not allow it. Her spirit must be divided. Some of it must remain with her body—and lie cold in her tomb. Waiting. Always waiting. In that way, the gods are appeased and my price is also exacted.”
“So part of my queen will still wander, looking for her lover, but enough of her spirit will be released to come to me.”
 “Now you understand. You will have all that you desire, and my revenge will not be compromised.”
“And I can be with her. For all time.”
The woman didn’t answer. She gave the merest hint of a smile and passed on.
In his world of shadows, Dr. Emeryk Quintillus waited.
(Copyright © 2018 Catherine Cavendish
All rights reserved)  

You can find Waking the Ancients here:








Catch my blog tour featuring true stories, myths and legends from Vienna and Egypt and beyond...


February 24th 2018 - The Scary Reviews In The Footsteps of Ghosts

April 23rd 2018 - Oh, For the Hook of a Book The Curse of Gleichenberg Castle 

April 24th 2018 - Silver Dagger Book Tours Sekhmet - The Goddess Who was No Pussycat!

April 24th 2018 - Shehanne Moore Castle of the Thousand Passions 

April 25th 2018 John Palisano The White Lady of Porcia Castle

April 26th 2018 - JG Faherty The Ghosts of Schloss Therasburg

April 27th 2018 - Stuart R. West - Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley

The Wurmbrand-Stuppach Curse

April 29th 2018 - Susan Roebuck The Castle of Unrequited Love

May 1st 2018 - Frazer Lee Set- God of Chaos, Friend of the Dead

May 3rd 2018 - Russell R James Horus the Sky God

May 4th 2018 - Hunter Shea The Pedlar and the Devil

May 9th 2018 - JH Moncrieff The Woman in Black of St. Veit, and the Ghost of Paracelsus


May 9th 2018 - Ink Heist The Eagle and the Serpent - The Curse of the Hapsburgs