Jory Sherman – Satan’s Seed

Jory Sherman – Satan’s Seed (New English Library, 1979)

Something evil stalked the peaceful valley, dredged up from the fires of Hell.

“When Sam Hinton took some ranch-hands to investigate – he found the steaming remains of his prize bull scattered over several yards of turf  ….”

Thanks to Nightreader for providing the scan and blurb.

Jory Sherman – The Bamboo Demons

Jory Sherman – The Bamboo Demons (New English Library, 1979)

Blurb

The night creature crouched in front of her. It was changing … changing … The hair, long and beastlike, was growing, hiding the naked body. A low growl rose to a snarl as the lips peeled back over yellowing canine teeth. The stench of carrion flesh choked her. It moved, half-straightened, sprang …

Forty-eight hours later and three thousand miles away a phone rang. It was 4am but what Russell Childers heard was enough. At once he was wide awake and making ready to fly to the Philippine jungles. Making ready to track down something so hideous that he had hoped it lived only in myth.

Cover illustration: Ian Miller

Thanks to Steve for providing the scan and blurb

Jory Sherman – Chill

Jory Sherman – Chill (Nel, 1979: originally Sepulchre: Chill #2, Pinnacle,1978)

Patty and Tom were delighted when they inherited the old mansion in Louisiana. But their delight rapidly turned to fear, and then blind terror as the house took over their lives.

Whenever Patty looked at the building, the ground seemed to move and she felt giddy and faint. Then their beautiful daughter Joan fell into a coma and they knew that the drama was just beginning. The house became alternatively icy cold and stifling hot. And as Joan ‘slept’, a terrible creeping slime worked its way into her I.V. drip.

Psychic Investigator Russell Chillders had come to attend a birthday party; he stayed to perform an exorcism …

The second of (I think) seven Dr. Russell “Chill” Chillders adventures and up until now its done exactly what it says on the cover. Patty Brunswick keels over every time she turns around to look at the Grandier mansion (so why look?) and after yet another turn, Moses Petitjean, the gardener who the Brunswicks inherited with house, flips out, points at Patty’s daughter Joan and accuses her of knowing what’s going on. She immediately falls into a coma which her GP, Dr. Morgan, diagnoses as hibernation. Luckily, this happens on the eve of her sixteenth birthday and Chill has been invited along by her dad. As yet, his telepathic, sometimes other-half Laura Littlefawn hasn’t put in an appearance – quite a result, as it happens, with gorgeous Kim Micheals, Bob’s administrative assistant, all over him like a rash.

Chill has already worked out that the cause of all these faintings and comas is some form of evil spirit. He visits out Moses at his junkyard hovel to gently grill him. The gardener lets slip that there is a Grandier family crypt cunningly concealed in the trees over yonder, and begs our phantom fighter to stay away from it.

Sex, you’ll be delighted to hear, has reared its ugly head. Tom Brunswick, big-shot TV producer by day, alcoholic dexy-guzzler by night, has been drunkenly necking teenage older- man fetishist Ginger Branson. Wife Patty catches him in the act before things can get out of hand. Meanwhile, tormented by Kim’s boobs “rising, full and round as melons out of the bodice of her negligee”, Chill finally succumbs and climbs out of his pyjamas. Hardly has the wrestling match on the bed got underway than in bursts Patty with her tale of woe and, simultaneously, the phone rings. Its Laura Littlefawn (star of the book, no question) who has been following the action telepathically and decided to offer Chill a little vocal support.

For Ginger’s dad, Ozzie, it is all too much and he confronts his daughter over her continual slaggy behaviour. The trouble is, he fancies her himself and it’s getting worse as his wife’s been perma-drunk for five years. Their row gets heated and Ozzie pummels her. As Ozzie, filled with remorse, throws up down the toilet, Ginger runs off into the woods. Toward the Grandier vault. Toward the swamp.

After 90 pages I didn’t hold out too much expectation for Chill but with Ginger’s disappearance, Sherman gets down to business and before you know it we’re in full-blown The Exorcist/ Amityville Horror territory with a splendid creeping vine rampage to top it off. Even our hero is bamboozled by who is behind the possession which is in some way connected to Urbaine Grandier and the Nuns of Loudon, further complicated by all too human agencies who know something about the Brunswick’s property that they don’t. There are some exciting set-pieces – a life or death struggle in the sucking mud of the swamp, the ever-multiplying creepers’ attack on the machete handed Chill and friends, the discovery of a child’s remains in the sepulcher – and the action packed final third decided me that its time for that rematch with Chill #4: Vampire, if only to see how Laura’s getting along and find out if there are any more gratuitous references to Chill’s appearance on The Phil Donahue Show.

Jory Sherman – Vampire

Jory Sherman – Vampire (Nel, 1981: originally Vegas Vampire: Chill #4, Pinnacle,1980)

Jillee Graham: Las Vegas Showgirl. Dead on Arrival.

Three days dead. Her body found out in the desert barely covered with a little sand.

Tammy Links: Las Vegas Showgirl. Dead.
Gale Rogers: Las Vegas Showgirl. Dead.

Cause of death: Loss of blood. All three.

The pathologist reported that Jillee had lost over four pints of blood. The body was unmarked except for a throat wound. Two deep punctures, the skin between ripped away. The veins around the wound had collapsed. The jugular had been pierced very precisely. Blood loss had been rapid. Too rapid to be explained by the natural pumping action of the heart. Half the blood in the body had been sucked out. A massive hemorrhage of the brain had been followed within moments by unconsciousness and death.

One man suspected the cause: One man Knew:

Dr. Russell V. Chillders – Chill. Psychic Investigator

He recognised the cruelly clinical mark of the feeding vampire.

The man’s a genius. This time he’s in at the First Annual Psychic Seminar in Vegas promoting one of his bestsellers to an avid audience and Laura Littlefawn when redneck cop Captain Loomis whisks him away meet pathologist Bill Patterson. Patterson would like Chill to give his opinion on the dead showgirl craze, because he has a terrible feeling that a vampire is responsible. Loomis can barely conceal his contempt – at this theory, at Chill, at psychic hocus pocus, at humanity in all its forms and, most of all, at pink clad Ramsey Bullock, owner of The Gold Dust Queen where the three girls worked. “How they can let these fags into Vegas, I don’t know. He oughta go back to L. A., where he belongs.” It is to be hoped that when he retires he moves to an English village and opens a pub.

The Gold Dust Queen and the adjoining The Silver Foxxe are linked by a secret tunnel. When Amelia Robinson, ambitious proprietor of The Silver Foxxe discovered it, she also disturbed a centuries old vampire, Edvar, all tux and opera cape, and has now struck up a deal with him whereby she feeds him chorus girls in return for his assistance in taking over the Man in Pink’s club.

Chill is having the time of his life. In the name of vampire-hunting, the sesame stick muncher gets to interview the Chorus Girls. In their communal changing room. And everybody recognises him from his chat-show appearances. On the downside, he’s also also had to endure a “boffo” set by C &W favourite Rambo Nelson at The Gold Dust Queen. For a time it looks as though he may also be due some love interest from dancer Marla, but Edvar also has designs on her ….

It’s probably not a series best or maybe I’ve just read too many vampire novels. The biggest disappointment is Edvar’s performance in the final showdown: Chill toughs him up way too easily considering the guy should have the strength of ten men. Marla makes a far better show of it in her catfight with Laura. Hal Strong, the third member of Chill’s team, gets to do some vampire research (namechecks for Montague Summers, Colin Wilson and Dion Fortune’s Psychic Self-Defence), but his main contribution is to get trapped in a lift while everyone else is having a fight to the death.