WELCOME TO MY WORLD
1. The Saiitii Manifestation
“I knew well enough what some of the great Forces are capable of doing. Yes, unless it should prove to be one of the cases of the more terrible Saiitii Manifestations, we were almost certain of safety, so long as we kept to our order within the Pentacle.”
Based on characters created by the legendary pioneer of supernatural horror William Hope Hodgson, this short story speculates what might have happened to the ghost-finder and his circle during World War I. In 1919 they meet again after the better part of five years - well, all bar one.
2. The Relict
“I had become one of those ‘left behind’, a member of the legion of the bereft and broken whose ceaseless demands exhausted Carnacki’s gift.”
The Relict takes up the story where The Saiitii Manifestation left off. The heirs of those who vanished in Putney come together in Carnacki's old flat in Chelsea. The portal opens, the invisible horde invades, and an answer - of a sort - appears.
PLUS - WHH: Scenes from a short life. Scene One: The Bronze Medal
Key episodes from the life of Carnacki creator William Hope Hodgson.
"Saturday morning, November 5 1898, William Hope Hodgson, merchant seaman, not quite twenty-one, enters the Police Court at Blackburn, Lancashire, not to answer charges but to receive a medal from His Worship the Mayor. Six months previously, on the far side of the world, young Hodgson dived into the shark-infested waters of Port Chalmers, New Zealand, to rescue a mate."
3. The Fourth Sigil
"They had done what anyone would have done in the circumstances. They sent for a doctor. Not just any doctor, mind you, nor even a doctor of medicine. No, on Sir Barnard’s suggestion they sent the chauffeur Ganbaatar and the limousine for Lorne’s friend from the Psycho-Analytic Society, Dr John.
“Just what manner of doctor is he?” Flick wanted to know.
The answer came from their guest, Sir Barnard: “A master of matters beyond our ken.”
Given the evening she had undergone – considering the bizarre situation in which she now found herself – Flick had to concede that being A master of matters beyond our ken made Dr John eminently qualified for the case in hand."
The morning after the night before, they gather at Buxton's house in South Kensington. They have lost the Sigil. He's not lost, Dora points out, he's gone underground. So he has, quite literally. And he's by no means alone down there.
4. Chiasm
Carnacki has been found - amid a nursery of alien invaders. Carnacki and the survivors of the Battle of King William Street tube station are taken to places of safety. Sir Barnard Buxton gathers his VIP friends to determine what to do next