The Losgadh

By Rex Fausett

The Losgadh is a recorded mythical creature in Scottish lists without any detail and this tale redresses that. In the first days of Scotland being visited by Christian missionaries, some missionaries resorted to brutal tactics to persuade peaceful farmers and artisans to convert to Christianity. Uffa Atticus, the village blacksmith, led his villagers in acts of resistance. The missionaries used as, mercenaries, former Roman soldiers who settled and married locally to burn Uffa on a bed of straw and pitch. Uffa cursed the missionaries as he was dying but after being saved from death by a magical local spring he undertakes a campaign to kill Christians and burn their churches.
Uffa is a dark, burned-black monster with control over all forms of fire but also with the power to control minds when it suits him to do so, making him a formidable entity.
Ultimately, Losgadh leaves Scotland and heads to London with the intention of killing the Archbishop of Canterbury and burning Westminster Abbey to the ground.

The story starts with Uffa’s renaissance in the present time after a quiet period while he gathers supporters before a concentrated campaign against Scottish churches and religious leaders that leaves many worshippers roasted in their pews and pulpits.
He heads south and creates havoc in Newcastle-on-Tyne and Carlisle before reaching London. The carnage is extreme in both places. At Carlisle, Uffa is joined by a couple of other presumed mythical beasts who share in the destruction and killing.

An investigator from The Aberdeen Mythology Institute who calls herself Threnody, catches the Losgadh’s attention and fascinates him. Threnody is very white-skinned and Uffa in his matt-black burnt skin, recognises her as his opposite. They meet occasionally through the story. Threnody liaises with police to hunt Uffa down and goes to London to try and intercept and dissuade him from his intended act of violence - destroying the Archbishop and the Abbey.

The backstory of the magic pool in Uffa’s village is important to the narrative. Threnody’s backstory is also there and the final act of Uffa’s destruction is conducted with the women who oversee that magic pool.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rex Fausett
• Release date: Jul 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215852873

Rex Fausett

Nice to meet you. I live in New Zealand but travel a lot, especially to Paris and New York. My stories are often set in New York because it's one of the great cities and New Yorkers are something special. My hat goes off to New York cops. It needs a special kind of person to take on crime in the city. New Orleans is my other favourite US city.Other things - I'm married with one adult daughter and a 17 year old cat. I enjoy writing, which i do full-time now, and I read non-stop. I like beer, barbeque and burlesque. I stop for red lights but I frequently fail to keep within the speed limits.

Book preview

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THE LOSGADH

(The Burnt Man)

REX FAUSETT

For Alan Taylor

Copyright 2023 Rex Fausett. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

You must greet your returning heroes, dead or alive, with horns, great horns that shatter the air and resound through the valleys and hills, cause waves on still waters and make birds, animals and men and women, pause their lives for a moment and pay attention. Do not muffle your drums or mute your chorus.

-Uffa Atticus (The Losgadh)-

Two days ago, Scotland.

Freeman reached his destination and sat for a minute, wondering why he’d come, hoping nothing had changed, fearing it might have. Maybe it was just a dumb idea, a stupid error of judgement. He parked his rental Prius and started walking across the meadow. The grass was long and dry this hot summer, getting browner by the day, although storms were supposed to moving in from the north the next day. He could see the top of the old dead tree less than a hundred metres away, silhouetted against the distant Cairngorms. Out of the air-conditioned car, sweat stains quickly formed under his arms and across his chest.

Fifty metres on, the atmosphere transitioned from hot summer to late autumn as the temperature dropped noticeably. From nowhere a mist formed, centred over the exact piece of ground he’d come to visit. Hesitantly, he moved ahead to find the grass still hadn’t grown back over the bare patch of earth. It looked just like it did the last time he was here, but it had become parched and cracked in the heat of the burning summer sun.

So, again, why had he come? Because he wanted that one last look before he died, just to confirm or dispel his worst fears. If it came after him he wouldn’t be surprised and maybe it no longer mattered.

He drew closer and looked left. He couldn’t decide if the old tree had any life left in it or not. Perhaps sap still moved in its veins and perhaps it would last longer than him. It probably would because he was scheduled to die the following Tuesday.

Like the last time he’d been here there were a few dead animals and birds near the dried-out grave; rabbits, mice, something that looked like it might be a hare, a weasel, a large pheasant. They were in various stages of decomposition because the likely scavengers, ants and black birds didn’t come near. He saw a dead badger and a small deer the last time, his only visit since the time with Jocasta.

Jocasta had been the love of his life but that thing destroyed her from the inside out and, consequently, their relationship.

Funny, but as he stared at the bare earth he swore it was moving, just little ripples in the dirt that lifted and moved and he had to look away. On that previous visit he’d brought a camera to capture the place as a matter of record but nothing came out. At least thirty photos taken and nothing on the film. For Stamp that had been the last straw - this place was cursed. He’d left, swearing he would never come back, yet here he was.

He took a last look at the bare, grave-shaped patch, saw the earth lift a couple of centimetres and then he was running back to his car as fast as he could. There was a loud explosion behind him as he opened the car door and looking back he saw the old tree explode in a monstrous ball of fire. He dived in, started the engine and drove as fast as the car would go, back to the pub where he’d stayed the night.

It was alive, it knew he was there and it had sent him a message. It was coming for him. Stamp grabbed the minimal luggage from his room, just a sports bag and a laptop, ran downstairs, threw a bundle of pound notes at the receptionist as he passed the desk and drove south as fast as he could in the direction of Heathrow.

At the British Airways desk he was obliged to wait to be served so he could change the flight he had booked for the next day and even that brief stoppage frightened him. The doctor who had agreed to euthanize him was expecting him on Tuesday and it was already Friday. Three or four days depending on how you counted those days. Could it find him in three days? Probably, but the chance of being among the living dead for eternity was too terrifying for Stamp Freeman, if becoming one of the living dead was what happened when the creature got hold of you. He and Jocasta had escaped together once but they hadn’t connected for years and there was a chance that mentally she was still in a bad place. Right now he wanted to get the hell out of Britain and his flight was leaving for Rome in ninety minutes. He’d consider other travel options in the air and when he arrived.

Flying far above the earth he felt secure. Rome wasn’t too bad if you were considering the safe-distance-from-Scotland equation but Australia might have been better.

He caught a cab from Fiumicino Airport into the Eternal City and took a room in the hotel nearest to the Termini, then booked a seat on the train to Venice leaving early the next day. He would have liked a direct flight to Venice from England but it was one of those days where nothing fitted together and his need to leave British soil had been paramount. At this time of the year the trains were filled with tourists heading up to join the throngs of visitors to La Serenissima. Crowds were good, ensuring little chance of solitude near his apartment. Also, Venice gave access to water within minutes no matter where you were and it was where he felt completely safe.

As far as he knew Jocasta still lived in Venice. He needed to know if she was okay and he wondered briefly, feeling slightly guilty, why he’d given up making an effort with her even though he’d made an effort for quite a long time after they first parted. Parting wasn’t his idea. Memories – he wished he didn’t have any. Those tearful, shrieking, encounters when she couldn’t get a grip on the things she’d witnessed.

Freeman had kept an apartment in Venice for more than twenty years. It wasn’t very big, but its value had tripled over recent times as the demand for property overlooking a canal, any canal, had exploded.

It had a large bedroom and an enormous living room, just the two rooms if you discounted the bathroom, with floor to ceiling windows and doors looking down over the Grand Canal. It was part of a Grand Palazzo with vast silent hallways. Discreet fellow occupants made it perfect for the life he led.

Catching a Vaporetto outside the station, Freeman enjoyed the security the water gave him. On the Vaporetto, in a gondola or on a paddleboard he couldn’t be touched. Or so he had always assumed. It was a conclusion he and Jocasta had reached back when they were still talking, based on the black apparition they’d confronted. They saw him as a creature of fire.

It felt good to be home again and good to feel safe. Freeman stood on his balcony, leaning on the railing with a glass of cold beer in his hand, breathing in the salt air and cooking smells and watching boats and gondolas pass by in columns under his window. The Grand Canal was busy today because it was the height of the tourist season. He never tired of the pageant that Venice provided. Sure, it was crowded but crowds gave protection, just like the canals themselves provided the kind of protection he needed.

He watched the canal traffic for ten minutes, his favourite occupation. He drained his beer, turned, and went straight to the bar that dominated the back of the room, grabbed another cold beer from the refrigerator and went back to canal-watching. His place was once and only briefly part of a nightclub and he’d seen no reason to take out the bar. Indeed, being large and hand-carved by an artisan in a style Freeman thought might be Rococo, involving putti and many bunches of grapes, it was a focal point for visitors on those rare occasions he had visitors, or at least those visitors who could take their eyes off the Grand Canal for a moment.

He drained the last of the second beer and turned back inside. He dropped on to the black leather couch, turned ninety degrees, put his feet up and rested his head on the end cushion. He tried to marshal his thoughts but the crippling pain of his brain tumour suddenly overwhelmed him. The pills that would dampen the pain were still in his travelling bag, He found those and took two, knowing that the chemicals would fog his head until unconsciousness overtook him. He gave in to it and settled back on the long couch and went to sleep, thinking he should have closed the doors overlooking the canal.

The attacks came unannounced; he could go for four or five days feeling like he didn’t have a problem, wasn’t even sick, but sometimes he had weeks where he could hardly exist. That was why he found a doctor who agreed to assist his self-termination.

Visiting his version of hell in Scotland was on his bucket list and perhaps a bad idea but something he felt had to be done, such being the nature of bucket lists. His list was now a thing of the past, except for Jocasta.

He woke up twelve hours later, dripping with sweat from his dream about the thing, which was definitely coming for him. It had said so in his nightmare. He closed the windows against the dark, ran a hot bath and sank down into a sea of bubbles to gather his thoughts and decide what was next. Find Jocasta – that was suddenly urgent.

The warm water put him to sleep again and when the water cooled and finally woke him he felt better, more alert. He put on a dressing gown, opened up Google and entered her name – Jocasta Parrish, Venice.

Only two hits on the name, both linked to Jocasta, mother of Oedipus. He altered the search to J Parrish and got a list consisting mainly of builders in Britain, nothing related to Jocasta. Then a little electrical current hit his still somewhat fogged brain. Her father had been a British travel writer who lived in Venice and he had been to her parent’s place a number of times. His memory was taking a beating from the drugs these days and it was fair to say that events from fifteen to twenty years ago were not always as clear as he would have liked.

He checked the time because he was disoriented from the travel and two long sleeps. It was mid-morning and he set out with his umbrella to search for Jocasta under dark grey skies.

Even after all these years he still got lost in Venice’s labyrinth of streets and canals and it took him more than thirty minutes until he arrived in what he thought was the right street. But it had changed in twenty years. Obviously the subject of gentrification by interlopers from abroad, there was fresh paint and stonework all around, but wasn’t this the right address? There was an arched doorway at street level between two freshly tiled staircases but no doorknob, no doorbell and no indication of who lived there. Was this it? Did she now live in the Venetian equivalent of a Hobbit-hole?

He knocked and waited. No-one answered so he backed up and looked up to the blank façade above the doorway. He knocked again, louder, and waited.

You looking for someone? An American accent from behind.

A girl, well, a woman now, named Jocasta.

Jocasta? Wow. You’d better come up.

The guy was about sixty, dressed for being a tourist in a cream shirt and trousers and a Panama hat. He pointed up the left staircase and, because he looked harmless, Freeman walked ahead of him up the steps and through an open door. It was a fairly typical Venetian apartment with a series of rooms that went through to a lounge room and a smallish patio at the back that looked onto a canal that Freeman didn’t quite recognise from this angle.

Have a seat. Don Southgate. The guy held out a hand.

Freeman took it and looked at Southgate more closely. He was tanned and looked to be in really good condition, probably had work done regularly. In fact he was probably nearer seventy than sixty. He took him at face value, introduced himself, and sat on a lounger covered in several layers of ivory cotton fabric and about ten pillows that matched perfectly.

Southgate looked Freeman over and saw a tall, lean guy with longish black hair dusted with grey and held back in a ponytail. His lightly tanned face looked a bit gaunt but he had intelligent dark eyes and would probably be attractive to certain women.

It was already hot and Southgate offered a drink. Stamp accepted a cold beer. As he passed it over, Southgate again said, Wow, Jocasta. What was her name Jocasta, um, Paris? No, Parrish. Jocasta Parrish, quite a girl. You knew her, Stamp?

Yes, many years ago. I thought I’d look her up for old time’s sake.

We bought this place from her about eight years ago. She owned this apartment and the mirror image apartment next door. Gerry Austin, our neighbour from back in Phoenix bought the other one. I’m not sure where Jocasta went but I think she’s still around somewhere.

Okay. What about the door between the staircases downstairs?

Funny you should ask. Sheree and I, that’s Mrs Southgate, were talking about that just yesterday. I don’t think that door’s been opened since we moved in. Bear in mind that mostly we only spend springs and falls here so we aren’t around all the time but I’ve never seen anyone there. We know that there is definitely an apartment there but the way it was built you can’t see any parts of it from here or the street, although from the canal you can see windows in the back. The few times we’ve passed it in a water taxi the curtains were drawn. It looked abandoned. Like another? I’m having another.

Freeman nodded and as Southgate opened more bottles a woman came through the door on the right which Stamp had assumed was a bedroom. These places tended to have two or three bedrooms.

The woman was much younger than Don Southgate, about twenty-five, twenty-eight, Freeman figured. Blonde, pretty, wearing a multi-coloured long, loose kaftan sort of thing, heavily bedecked in jewellery and with sparkling sandals. She had already had work done, particularly on her breasts, which stood out like the canopy over a veranda.

Sheree, this is Stamp Freeman. Stamp, Sheree. Stamp is asking about Jocasta, Sheree, knew her from a while back.

Sheree was open-mouthed. Really? You knew Jocasta? You’re the only person, ever, who actually knew her. Did Don tell you we want to buy the place downstairs?

Not so far. Is this true? He turned to Southgate.

Well, it seems a waste not to use space in Venice, he said. There’s so little of it available and it would fit nicely into our place, provide storage, a guest wing, that sort of thing.

Have you been to see if taxes and levies are up to date? It would give you a clue about abandonment.

We should do that, darling, Sheree put in.

Yes, you’re right. We’ll have a look tomorrow shall we? Don hugged Sheree as if it was her idea.

Freeman had had enough. These people were about wealth and entitlement, no sign of culture or intellectual pursuits, no books other than an airport thriller and a book of colour plates of New York skyscrapers. The two pictures on the wall were badly painted depictions of forests. He stood.

"I must be going. It was so nice to meet you, Sheree and Don. I’ll see about buying you a drink sometime soon. Have you been to Harry’s Bar yet?’

Keep meaning to. That would be nice, Stamp. Speaking of nice, Stamp, that’s an unusual name – is there a story there?

The story goes that my mother wanted to call me Arthur but my father demanded time and time again that he get the final stamp of approval on family names so my mother registered me as Stamp when he wasn’t looking. They divorced soon afterwards.

At the foot of the staircase, Freeman stopped to have another look at the mysterious door. It looked like very solid wood and nothing broke the surface that could be a lock. Maybe there was something biometric but he wasn’t all that familiar with locks of that nature other than knowing on a general basis how they worked. More likely electrical and operated with a remote.

In any case, where leaves had been blown into the street during the previous day’s winds they had been moved into a line by the door opening outwards, leaving an arc of bare stone, so someone lived there, or at least came and went, for sure. He knocked one last time and getting no answer, moved along.

He had a friend down at the Mayor’s office, a woman he’d known even before he made Venice his home, and he made his way to her office, knowing she could help him out with information.

Bon Giorno, she called from the room behind the abandoned reception desk after he rang the bell for attention.

Is that Gina Lollobrigida in there? he inquired. That husky sexy voice that sends shivers down my spine when I hear it?

Stamp! Where have you been? Come here and kiss me.

Viola met him halfway and threw her arms around him and kissed him thoroughly. Viola’s loyalty to her husband had always stopped her sleeping with Stamp Freeman but it had come very close a few times. She was a dark-haired beauty who actually bore a resemblance to the young Lollobrigida and she had matured beautifully.

Ah, Viola. Is Francesco still alive?

Unfortunately, yes, but he can’t last forever. How are you, Stamp? She patted the side of her head. Is the …? She was aware of his brain tumour and his attempts to heal himself over the last couple of years.

Still there, Viola. Are you free for me to take you for a drink? Also, I need a favour.

Okay. What kind of favour?

I need some information about a property. Maybe you can tell me something about the owner too. Let me write down the address and the lady’s name.

Viola looked closely at him, deep into his eyes, which looked kind of tired. Have you been given any kind of timeline for the head? She sat down behind her computer and started work on the keyboard.

I planned an exit for next Tuesday. It made Freeman gloomy to talk about it but he trusted Viola. She stopped typing.

Next Tuesday? How can that be?

It can’t be fixed and it’s incredibly painful, Viola. I don’t want to live in constant pain so I made a date with a doctor to end it.

But … okay my conscience just went on holiday and I’ll be staying at your place until at least midnight. I’ve wanted you for almost thirty years and I’m not going to miss out just because you’re stupid about dying. Tears were starting to fall. Let me do this thing for you and then we’re going drinking.

Thirty seconds later she said, Your apartment is owned by Jocasta Parrish, whose address is care of a lawyer called Antonio Gallo, let me write this down. There. She passed Freeman the note. There is no other record of Jocasta Parrish. Now why does that name ring a bell? Never mind, let me get my coat and handbag. It might come back to me. Unusual name, Jocasta. The name of Oedipus’s mother but you probably know that.

Aren’t you somebody’s mother, Viola?

Yes, of course. You know that. Oh, lusting after mother, right? You’re a very naughty man, Stamp.

But how can I resist a sexy mother like you? Some of the most attractive women I’ve known in the last twenty years were mothers. Being a mother seems to bring out a ripeness, a sexual aroma that draws me to them, even along busy streets and in crowded bars I sense that subtle scent and I look for the owner, I follow her sometimes for an hour because I must know who she is.

Are you sure you’re not Italian?

Not that I know of, but I can be Italian if that’s what you’d like.

Viola laughed. Their relationship had always been an easy one and she was suddenly looking forward to a night of, not just sex, but romance in the old-fashioned sense.

Meanwhile there was Harry’s Bar and Viola was greeted by the maitre’d almost with reverence and the best table was made available immediately, out on the terrace overlooking the canal. The temperature had retreated from uncomfortable to pleasant and Viola pressed Freeman for details of what he was doing and why.

Freeman had never discussed his motives with anyone and he wondered if he should just be glib and slide over the topic but his relationship with Viola was such that he decided to tell the whole story for the first time. It would clear his head, at least mentally if not necessarily emotionally.

You may recall that they found the tumour about two years ago, a large tumour, and gave me six months to live. Inoperable, they said and difficult to treat, make your peace with everyone and prepare yourself. I tried to be brave and ignore their instructions about medication but eventually the pain was too much and I filled the prescriptions. It seems unfair to be stuck with it. I didn’t think I’d ever done anybody any harm and suddenly I was shouting at God and calling him an arsehole and saying he’d pissed me off and who did he think he was, and this from a man who didn’t even believe in God. I was angry, occasionally desperate, and as my condition worsened I realised I had no choice but to live with it for as long as possible. Right now I’m getting massive head pains every couple of days and the pills aren’t helping as much as they used to. Hardly at all, in fact. I have to sleep for twelve hours sometimes but that’s better than being awake.

It sounds terrible.

It is terrible. I’m lucky I don’t get other symptoms like vertigo and vomiting. My libido is also fine.

Ah, a small mercy. Viola took his hands in hers and kissed them. "And no women in your