
Gender-fluid, autistic vampire Hyde Snodgrass is living their best life with their bookshop, cats, and witch girlfriend, Teresa Vega. The colours of autumn are beginning to blend into winter. An ordinarily joyous midwinter is spoiled by the arrival of their estranged family.
When their murderous uncle is found dead in front of their shop, Hyde finds themselves unwillingly dragged into the investigation. Accusations swirl around South Myrddin. It takes a village to untangle the mystery.
Can the true killer be unmasked in time to save them?
Will there be anything to celebrate in the coming Yuletide season?
Ah. Our semiferal wandering bard.” Hyde frowned when he hopped up to sit on the counter. “Bram.”
“Just saying hello to the cats.” Bram had returned to the village a month back after a lengthy absence. One of the oldest fae in Scotland, probably the world, he’d been away dealing with the Seelie Court. He’d tamed his wild brown hair into a loose bun. His guitar was, as always, strapped to his back. It only seemed to highlight his lithe yet muscular form. “How is the morning treating you, mo chridhe?”
“I am not your heart. Stop it. Makes me feel like I’m this massive beating heart just flopping around on the pavement.” Hyde knew he wouldn’t stop. He took it as a personal mission to be as disruptive as possible. “What chaos are we causing this morning?”
“Me? Chaos?”
“It’s in your veins. What have you done? You’re never usually this chipper so early in the morning.” Hyde typically saw Bram dragging himself from his lighthouse on the edge of the village no earlier than noon. “Well?”
“I have a rock garden.”
Hyde blinked several times. They glanced over at Mortar, who yawned before returning to Bram. “A rock garden?”
“Aye. In front of the lighthouse. I’ve arranged them along the windowsill.”
“Bram.” Hyde spoke very slowly. “Bram. Why have you arranged pebbles along a windowsill in the lighthouse?”
“Outside the lighthouse. How else will they get sunlight?” Bram smiled brightly when they rubbed their eyes tiredly. “You’ve missed me, haven’t you?”
“Do the pebbles need sunlight?”
“Arthur gets quite grumpy without it,” Bram said with a straight face, as if he hadn’t named a random rock and claimed the thing needed sunlight to thrive. “Cernunnos prefers the south-facing windows.”
“This might be a silly question.”
“No such thing.” He waved off their concern.
“A complete lie. I’ve known you long enough to know there are definitely silly questions. Ones you usually ask.” Hyde soldiered on, trying to make sense out of the fae’s nonsense. “Have you named one of your rocks after the Celtic horned god?”
“He named himself. As did King Arthur.”
“First, Arthur was mythical. Probably.” Hyde had read loads of contradictory material on Camelot, the Round Table, and even Merlin. They’d been drawn to the legends because of living in South Myrddin. “Second, and far more importantly, how exactly did he name himself?”
“The rocks are possessed.”
Hyde bitterly regretted running out of blood wine. They did have a bottle of non-alcoholic blood in the fridge upstairs in their flat above the shop, but it wasn’t the same. As a vampire, they consumed both liquid and regular food. “Your rock garden, which isn’t a garden, is filled with possessed rocks.”
“Correct.”
Hyde eyed his mischievous smirk with suspicion. “You’re doing this to annoy Emrys, aren’t you? Why else would you pick King Arthur and a Celtic god important to druids?”
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The excerpt sounds really good. Thanks for sharing.
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