The Lebo Coven

When Matt tried to kill Barry with his car, the two brothers went their separate ways. Barry moved to Atlanta and Matt stayed in the family home in Aiken Mill, Virginia. One day Barry is notified that Matt disappeared. Since he lost his job and his girl, he returns home and is shocked by the damage someone did to his house. Even more perplexing is the word Lebo painted in Matt's room in cow's blood.The first night he is in the house strange things happen like a glass moving of its own volition; Barry hears strange inhuman noises and the word Lebo starts to glow. Jennifer Brand joins Barry in seeking answers. Since she is a gray mage, she senses the dark forces gathering around Barry and his house. They learn that Matt rented a room to Ren, a practitioner of the dark arts, who intends to invoke a spell that will require a blood sacrifice, preferably Matt's but Barry will do in a pinch. The two Riggs brothers and Jennifer try to stop him.

From Publishers Weekly

A young man battles dark forces overwhelming his home, family and friends in this formulaic supernatural thriller. When Barry Riggs returns to Aikens Mill, his Virginia hometown, he finds his family house ransacked and the word LEBO scrawled in blood on its walls. His estranged younger brother, Matt, is missing, and the locals suspect it's the work of Ren, a drifter and supposed Satanist whom Matt rented rooms to. By luck, Barry reconnects with old acquaintance Jennifer Brand, whose recent delvings into the Kabbalah help them discover that the house is a locus for an evil far worse than the satanic. Though Rainey gives his horrors an original cosmic twist, he depends heavily on large dollops of arcane occult lore, which drop thuddingly into conversations and make the characters speaking it all sound alike. A few twists and a well-executed climax raise this novel above more routine horror fare. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Stephen Mark Rainey is author of the novels BALAK, THE LEBO COVEN, DARK SHADOWS: DREAMS OF THE DARK (with Elizabeth Massie), BLUE DEVIL ISLAND, and THE NIGHTMARE FRONTIER; the short story collections FUGUE DEVIL & OTHER WEIRD HORRORS, THE LAST TRUMPET, LEGENDS OF THE NIGHT, OTHER GODS, and THE GAKI & OTHER HUNGRY SPIRITS; the scripts for three DARK SHADOWS audio dramas (THE PATH OF FATE, CURSE OF THE PHARAOH, and BLOOD DANCE); and over 90 published works of short fiction. For ten years, he edited the award-winning DEATHREALM magazine, and has edited three anthologies (SONG OF CTHULHU, DEATHREALMS, and EVERMORE). Mark lives in Greensboro, NC.

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