Strange Tales

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

The Lady on the Hill

Years before the peace negotiations were ever initiated in Northern Ireland at the turn of the century, there was a killing field where neither side ever claimed responsibility for a murder. It was at the foot of a hill known as the Devil’s Drop, a place along the border of the Republic of Ireland not far from the Irish Sea. The bodies found at this site had been so horribly mutilated that none risked any association with such heinous crimes. Both the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Garda Siochana patrolled the area regularly, eager to capture the monsters who would commit such crimes. The Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Defense Association placed bounties on the heads of the perpetrators, eager to distance themselves from such revolting brutality.

The citizens of the nearby city of Dundalk avoided the area like the plague, believing the place to be haunted by demons. Though the city was considered to be the birthplace of the mythical warrior Cu Chulainn, the Devil’s Drop was said to be a place forsaken by the gods. At first they believed that it was the killers of the extremist groups that had committed the atrocities. When the activists vehemently denied these things, they next assumed it was the work of the authorities who sought to blame it on the dissidents. When the police and the military pledged to bring the murderers to justice, they realized it was the work of a demon that could not be thwarted by mortal means.