Footsteps: Austerley & Kirkgordon Origins 1

"I swear if I see Austerley again, I'll kill him myself. The man's a lunatic, and he wants putting down for the good of society - and his own good for that matter."

A retired protection operative, Kirkgordon's only mistake was to seek a little of the excitement his previous life had offered. Leaving his family behind, he joins Professor Austerley beneath a New England graveyard and fights horrors he could never have dreamed of. But while he seeks to extract his client from the madness, the Professor shows a hunger for things unholy, an insatiable appetite that chills Kirkgordon to the core.

"Footsteps" is the prelude to "Crescendo!", the first story in the Austerley & Kirkgordon series, and relates the tale of their first bizarre meeting from the perspective of a compromised Kirkgordon. Drawing on the Lovecraftian lore, this short tale introduces the reader to the conflicted pair, one desperately seeking the wonder of darker things, and the other, horrified by the wild chaos he has become involved in.