City of Ghosts: The Netherweird Chronicles, Book Four - paranormal urban fantasy, where history and mythology collide by Violet Fenn

Author:Violet Fenn [Fenn, Violet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harker House Publishing
Published: 2023-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

“You’re telling me that Dad—the one person in this family who insists he has no interest in spooky stuff—used to have a pet goblin?” I’d been pacing the kitchen for a good twenty minutes, utterly unable to get my head around what Gran had told me. Finn-the-pooka had been reassured no one was going to dump him in the Mersey and was persuaded to put on an old pair of shorts and a Bob Marley t-shirt I’d found at the back of my wardrobe. He’d then gone back to sleep on the sofa, with Grimm sitting guard by his side. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with him in the long-term, but that was the least of my concerns right now.

“They’re not really goblins,” said Gran. “At least, not in the way you’re thinking. More like shapeshifters, I’d say.” She was looking remarkably calm for a woman who’d spent her entire life dismissing anything out of the ordinary, only to find herself reappearing in Liverpool years after her death, in the company of her dead sister, her undead granddaughter and an overgrown bloody were-cat. “Mischievous little beggars, generally. Your Finn,” she nodded towards the living room, “is one of the better behaved.” She sniffed. “Which is how it should be.”

“He’s not my Finn,” I said. “He’s nobody’s anything, and he is going to have to find somewhere else to stay pretty sharpish.” I looked around my flat, which now contained at least three more paranormal creatures than I am strictly happy to share my space with.

“That’ll be easier said than done,” said Gran, “if my memory’s correct. And it usually is, even now I’m dead and gone.”

“Not gone enough,” muttered Kitty from where she stood in the corner of the kitchen. Gran just rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean, easier said than done?” I asked, a sneaking suspicion already crawling its way up my spine.

“Oh, he’ll think he belongs to you, now,” said Gran airily. “You protected him, see. And I can’t imagine that cat of yours is going to take kindly to you evicting him.”

“It’s not up to Grimm who gets to stay here,” I said. Both Gran and Kitty gave me pitying looks, which I chose to ignore. “Anyway, back to Dad. How do you know about his…” I thought carefully about the words I was about to utter, not sure it made sense even now, “pet pooka?”

“Small world,” said Gran, “isn’t it? I knew his family, way before he started courting your mother.” The way she said ‘courting’ made it sound grubby, somehow. But then Gran used to turn the tv channel over if anyone on the soaps so much as kissed, tutting as she did so. “There’d always been talk. He came from a strange family, your dad.”

“What do you mean, strange?” I asked. “Stranger than ours?”

“Well, we didn’t know how strange our side was back then,” said Gran, “did we? And your dad’s lot, well—they weren’t strange like we are now, I don’t think.

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