When looking for villains for Cora to
face I wanted them to be very much a part of the time period. I knew
I wanted there to be many one off villains in an almost
'monster-of-the-week' fashion, but I wanted there to be a force that
is always a constant threat in disrupting Cora's efforts. Secret
societies have always fascinated me. I think they represent a basic
fear of the unknown mixed with the power the wealthy holds over us.
The Court wasn't necessarily built off of any specific secret society
but more on the fear and mystery surrounding them.
The East End of London during the
1800's was rampant with over population, crime, and poverty. For
those who don't know the East End is home to the Whitechapel
district, the scene for the Jack the Ripper murders. Knowing that I
wanted the Cora Frost series to play out mostly in the East End, I
wanted the major villains to be in contrast to the poor and
downtrodden citizens of the East End.
I knew that I wanted this social
elitist group to be dangerous, decadent, and macabre. The reason I
brought up one of the most nefarious serial killers of all time was
because he had a part to play for the inspiration of the Court. Early
on I was thinking of having Cora be enthralled in the heart of the
serial killer's plot. While doing research into some of the suspects
I realized that I would have to be patient, I still plan on having
Cora face against the killer, but it's not a story I want to rush.
While Cora will have to wait to meet
Saucy Jack the suspects did offer me some villains to play with in
the mean time. Some of the suspects noted in the files are those
driven by pure speculation. Given only a name without any concrete
evidence that they even existed. One of those names was Dr. Stanley.
The name gave me a lot of play room while still nodding a bit to
Ripper lore. Dr. Stanley David Cohen is an amalgamation of this
random name in the Ripper files and a real suspect who was either
going by the name David Cohen or was given the name due to his name
being to 'hard to spell' for the officer writing the report.
Dr. Stanley David Cohen is very much a
Moriarty to Cora's Holmes. They are evenly matched when it comes to
their mental powers, literally psychically and logically. What makes
him fun is that he is very much a stereotypical mustache twirling
villain you could see tying someone to train tracks, but there is
also this hidden menace behind him. He can see the future so he in a
way shapes it to best fit his purposes, this sometimes put's him in
Cora's way, but at times he will even help Cora if it means the
future he is hoping to create.
Another suspect that caught my
attention was Robert D'Onston Stephenson, a journalist who had a
preoccupation with the occult. I thought that he best represented the
opposite of what Cora is. Cora uses good or white magic to help
others while Stephenson uses the darkest magics to help himself.
In the first draft of Cora Frost, the
only villains Cora faced were the Court and the Spring-Heeled Jack
entities that they controlled. During the first draft I felt that we
never got really close to Cora, she was strong, but we didn't know
why she got into the occult or why she wanted to try and help people.
Knowing that I had to get a little more personal to the titular
character, I looked back at the inspiration for Cora, Cora Scott.
Many believed that she and her husband at the time were charlatans,
hoaxing people out of their money. So I thought it would be a
brilliant idea to showcase her and her first husband as con artists,
using the idea of the supernatural to cash in on peoples money.
While having this new back story
brewing I realized there needed to be something to bring Cora from
being a con artist pretending to speak to the dead to being a hero
who uses sorcery to benefit mankind. I wanted there to be a new foe,
one that made the members of the Court seem like little kittens in
comparison. The first idea that came to my mind was a seemingly alien
monster like Cthulhu or an elemental and demonic creature like the
Balrog from Lord of the Rings.
Another idea came to me while watching
the supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows. In Dark Shadows the
character of Julia Hoffman started the show nearly as malevolent as
Barnabas Collins, but after seeing the consequences of her actions
and her part in the death of her friend, she quickly became more
benevolent and much more a power for good. So my next idea was to
have someone who seemed entirely frail like Julia, but extremely
intelligent and without any kind of remorse.
Having the two ideas floating around in
my head I thought that the elemental creature wouldn't be as
compelling as a villain whose presence was going to be felt
throughout most of the Cora Frost stories. On the other hand the idea
of a frail intellectual woman seemed more in line with the already
established slew of Court villains. For some reason I then began to
wonder what an elemental creature like the Balrog would be like if it
was trapped in human form. Then all of a sudden the two very
different ideas merged into one character.
Now that I had a basic sketch in my
mind of what Cora's most recurring villain would be like I began to
do research into mythological creatures who would best fit the idea.
After wondering a bit through Wikipedia (which I have a near
addiction to sometimes) I fell upon an article about a creature
alluded to in the bible, the Nephilim. In the bible they are only
described as being giant, and in modern literature they have been
assigned as everything from angelic beings to strange alien like
creatures. Because of this ambiguity I chose to have the Nephilim in
my story be creatures born of pure elemental magic. They would be
able to 'cloth' themselves in flesh and look like anything they
wanted to.
So the Nephilim was born, a creature
born of magic alone, and as such can only be destroyed the same way.
The Nephilim in the Cora series has since been one of my favorite
characters to write for. She is always sly and her presence is felt
in every scene she is seen in or even the ones she is simply
mentioned in. There is another short story in the works that will
reveal more about the Nephilim (including her name) coming soon.
Meanwhile to catch up on Cora, the Court, and the Nephilim be sure to
check out the series on Amazon and Nook. A free short story can be
found here for Amazon and here for Nook. More information on the Jack
the Ripper suspects can be found here.
