The Black Veil

In the dark backstreets of Birmingham, an industrial city in the West Midlands, England, whispers spread online about a hidden livestream known only as The Black Veil. Merely accessible through encrypted links only available through the dark web using crypto-currency payments, the stream promises viewers something forbidden: real fear, real suffering, and death performed like ritual theatre. At the centre of it all is Luciferia - an irresistible and mysterious goth witch whose beauty and sexy charisma make her impossible to resist. Draped in black satin with inverted pentagrams sewn in red, silver charms and rings, she prowls underground clubs and occult circles, luring lonely men back to her candlelit Victorian flat. Her bedroom is a shrine to the deathly: blood red walls, antique mirrors and a self-made Voodoo doll hanging above her four-poster bed, animal skulls and bones strategically placed, and an upright coffin standing silently in the corner like a waiting doorway to hell. But as beautiful and seductive as she is, Luciferia is only the bait. Once Luciferia has lured her next victim the ritual begins, she disappears, then her partner emerges from the coffin - a bearded and bald, muscular and tall figure known online only as "Mammon." Silent and methodical, he transforms the room into a stage of psychological terror. Hidden cameras stream every second to paying viewers across the dark web, where anonymous spectators vote on how the victim's fate unfolds, bidding higher for greater cruelty and longer suffering. As the body count rises, scattered up and down the black country route canal, a burned-out Birmingham Detective investigating a series of both disappearances and mutilated bodies, discovers fragments of the broadcasts buried deep online. What begins as a hunt for two serial killers slowly becomes something far darker: Luciferia and Mammon seem to believe the murders are not performances, but sacrifices feeding an ancient occult entity watching through every screen. And the more people who log on, the stronger it becomes. Will Detective Arthur Thorne expose the roots of evil? or will he fall victim to Luciferia's seduction and sexy appeal?

Pages: 307, Paperback, Independently published