The COMC Files IV: last chapter today

Dear Readers, Next up: the final chapter of Book IV from the Chronicles of the Mythic Cartographer. For those just joining, this series follows Dr Elena Delange—a once-cautious anthropologist whose research into myth takes a dangerous, visceral turn. Each book dives deeper as her world collides with legends made real, forcing her to survive, adapt,…

The COMC Files: The Priest & The Billionaire.

I barely have time to kick off my heels, pausing in the dim hallway to breathe in the hush that always feels a little haunted after a night with the Boswells. I’m savouring the moment: free, for as long it lasts, from other people’s loyalties or longing. London is a purr outside my windows, rain…

The COMC Files: The Sting

The King’s Gold — 10:54 p.m. The pub is packed, South London voices rising beneath battered beams, pints gleaming amber under yellow light. Roger stands behind the bar, posture loose but watchful. I’m nursing my gin, scanning the crowd with my fieldworker’s eye—noting every shift in tension, every too-loud laugh that might mean trouble. Harry…

The COMC Files: King’s Gold

Old Foxes and City Spring I set the burner on the counter beside my forgotten groceries. Two hours. The old Fox doesn’t waste time. I strip off my coat, catch my reflection in the hall mirror—hair still wild from travel, shadows under my eyes that haven’t lifted since Romania. My body carries the toll: months…

The COMC Files: Flashes-back&forth

My spine stiffens; I exhale through a grin I can’t quite suppress. “Dr D”—that’s one of the boys, then. But the voice continues, and I catch the gravel beneath the mischief, the particular cadence that only decades, and heaps of rye, can build into a throat. Not Bartley. Nor any of the siblings. The old…

The COMC Files: Limbo

Between Two Worlds Sunlight fingers through tall pines, casting shifting lace onto mossy stones. The sanctuary courtyard smells of woodsmoke, crushed grass, damp earth. Children crouch by the stone gutter, daring each other to touch the cold water. Older women in braided red sashes gather by the spring, their laughter spilling into the mountain air….

The COMC Files: Update

London, when the cab spits me out by my townhouse, is grey and humid, the air smelling of diesel, toast, and river. My feet strike the pavement with purpose, but there’s a tremor beneath every step: exhaustion, awe, the shock of clocks resuming. I unlock the door, inhale the familiar scent of home—old books, ground…

The COMC Files: The Big Brave Wolf

A subtle scrape, the faintest ahem. I startle. Asdar stands just inside the natural arch, one hand braced on stone—habit or ritual, I can’t tell. His silhouette flickers: tattooed arms, copper-blond hair loose, eyes pale and steady in lamplight. I smirk, annoyed but amused. “Damn it, you really do move like a wolf. Are you…

The COMC Files: The Pivot

The Living Thread A pale sun claws over the ridge, sending light in trembling bands through the narrow window, gilding the swirl of smoke in the hearth. I take my coffee black—the only appropriate colour for a woman straddling the border of legend—and stack my notebooks, pencils, and a battered digital recorder. The villagers have…

The Myth Mapping Protocol

Zurich: Trust Amellal, 4:59 AM  Tarmo leaves the blue-lit command centre on autopilot, muttering something to Sandi about “ten minutes.” The corridors outside feel colder, emptier—a different planet from the round-the-clock surveillance inside. He bypasses the kitchenette, shuffles into the locker-room showers, and starts the water scalding hot, as if heat and steam could cleanse…