Volume X

To See the Sun

You want tales of an improbable romance and young men whose skin glitters in the sun? We don’t sell those types of books in here...

Balthazar is a curiosity, a man who lives by the sea in Whitby and gives readings of classic novels to anyone who wishes to listen in the backroom of an antique bookstore.  His readings are unique and attract an ever burgeoning crowd.  The readings often drift from the original text and into parallel stories that suggest he has a firm grasp of history, as if he has actually lived through the creation of these classic novels, yet he has no memory of this… in fact, Balthazar has no memory at all.  He has no idea who or what he actually is or where he came from beyond waking up with a circular stab wound to his chest in the bowels of Fountains Abbey.  That wound has never healed and he now finds himself wandering the North Yorkshire moors searching for an answer to his true identity.

Claire and Prudence are two mildly intentioned Goths who like to experience the more bizarre things in life.  Whitby has much to offer them outside of their more mundane existence.  One chill April night they step across the threshold of Balthazar’s antique bookstore, joining dozens of other curiosity seekers.  Intrigued by the deep pools of loss that are his eyes they follow him to his daytime existence where he is the feature character attraction at the Dracula Experience, and from that moment their lives are never quite the same.

All the while the scattered remains of sheep pile up on the wilds of the North Yorkshire moors… a beast is a foot and Claire, Balthazar and Prudence are about to come face to face with it…