Contents
Title
Quotes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33: A week later
Want some adventure?
Author's Note
Other books by J.F.Penn (Amazon)
About J.F.Penn
Acknowledgements
Copyright page
Deviance
London Psychic Book 3
J.F.Penn
www.JFPenn.com
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world …"
Romans 12:2
"You were wild once. Don't let them tame you."
Isadora Duncan
Chapter 1
The train rattled along the tracks on the brick bridge above their heads, lending a rhythm to the words spoken below. London was never completely dark, the city lights lit up the sky at all hours, but tonight it seemed that the darkness was deeper, the space between the stars an all-consuming black. As the nearby church bells tolled midnight, the small group gathered together. Candles flickered, casting a halo around their heads, bent in respect to those lost here.
They stood in front of a pair of tall gates, closed and locked to segregate this small area of scrubland in the heart of Southwark, a stone's throw from the river and affluent Borough Market, at the junction between Redcross Way and Union Street. The dull metal struts of the gates were alive with multi-colored ribbons, each inscribed with a name. They represented those whose remains lay under the earth of Cross Bones Graveyard, names gathered from records of history in an attempt to personalize the dead. Their shades walk these streets still, a sliver of their memory in the hip-swinging walk of sex workers, their song in the local pubs, their laughter in the late-night bar crawlers.
"I was born a goose of Southwark by the grace of Mary Overie, whose Bishop gives me license to sin within the Liberty."
The words of local poet John Constable rang out in the night air, his poem a tribute to the women who had once plied their trade here under the authority of the medieval church. They were known as Winchester Geese, controlled by the Bishop of Winchester and their taxes filled the coffers of the church. But in death, these women and their bastard children were outcasts, denied a burial in consecrated ground. Tonight these Outcast Dead would be honored in the memories of those who walked in their footsteps centuries later.
A young man with a guitar played a mournful dirge, his voice clear in the night air. His blond hair reflected the light from the candles, a blue streak through it giving him a rakish look. Jamie Brooke stood on the edge of the group listening to his song. She held a candle in both hands and gazed into the flame as her thoughts shifted to the memory of her own daughter, Polly, who had died six months ago from a terminal illness. The ache of grief still made her breath catch on days when her guard was down, but here, amongst these other mourners, the memory was tender.
A smile played across her lips. Polly would have loved this group of colorful people who lived outside the conformity of the city suits. These were no mourners in dull black. There were several women from the Prostitutes' Collective, holding a banner high. They honored their sisters and brothers who had died servicing society, courted and loved in secret while rejected and hated in public. One woman wore a belt of a skirt, tall spike heels revealing killer legs. Jamie caught the woman's face in profile, realizing that it was a man in drag, or perhaps someone transgender. Not that it mattered here, in the city where all could find a place.
As the group joined together in song, Jamie recognized a woman in the crowd, her pixie-cropped ash-blonde hair shining almost white in the candlelight. Known to Jamie only as O, she wore light makeup, her petite features making her look like a teenager, wrapped tight in a black denim jacket and skinny jeans. But Jamie knew what lay beneath her clothes. She remembered her first glimpse of O, dancing naked at the Torture Garden nightclub, her full-body octopus tattoo undulating as she moved. She was certainly no teenager.
A woman started crying silently and O put her arms around her, solidarity clear in the gesture. Jamie noticed other signs of a tight-knit community as people held hands, love evident in the way they looked at each other. For a moment, Jamie wished she had that kind of community. But her years as a police officer and caretaker of her sick daughter had meant little time for friends.
What would my ex-colleagues think of this gathering? Jamie thought. This patchwork of personalities held together by respect for the dead and perhaps, by a hope that they could transcend the bleak future of those gone before. Jamie knew that many here would go out tonight and trade their bodies for money in the hotels and backstreets of Southwark. It ever was and ever will be. She looked up at the stars, which had witnessed lust in these streets since Roman times. Human nature didn't change. There would always be sex and death, drinking and drugs, peace and war, violence and love. There would always be light in the dark too, and Jamie hoped to be one of the bright ones in this borough.
"Tonight we march along the same streets as the Outcast Dead, in memory of those who came before us and the sisters and brothers we have lost along the way."
The strident voice echoed through the street, an Irish lilt evident in her tone. It belonged to the leader of the event and one of the personalities of Southwark: Magda Raven. That's what she called herself anyway – no one seemed to know her real name. She was tall, built like a pro netball player, her long limbs muscled and toned. She wore a tight black t-shirt and black jeans, both arms displaying full-sleeve tattoos that covered them from shoulder to wrist.
One arm was tattooed like a stained glass window, with the figure of Mary Magdalene kneeling in front of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. The other arm was a riot of ravens, wings beating in a tornado of wind and nature, as if they would lift from her skin. Jamie had heard Magda called an urban shaman, that she walked the city with a vision of the other worlds it contained, and she had heard of Magda's campaign to turn the graveyard into a memorial park. The woman was seemingly unstoppable, a hero to the local people and a thorn in the side of developers who wanted to make a tidy profit from this valuable land.