Pale Lanterns: A Novella

London, 1884. A fog-choked city gripped by fear. Women are vanishing. Eyewitnesses whisper of red eyes, impossible leaps, and a figure stalking the rooftops. The legend is back: Spring-Heeled Jack.

Ex-inspector Thatcher Bell, haunted and half-forgotten, takes the case no one else will. What he uncovers isn't just a killer-but a force, something old, wearing the shape of a man. Armed with a cursed whistle and a fading map of ancient lanterns, Bell fights to hold back the darkness clawing through the city's seams.

But monsters don't go quietly. And some light comes at a cost.

Pale Lanterns is a gothic-noir novella of myth, memory, and men who hold the line-until the line burns away.