EXTRACT FOR
Return To Albrecht Manor
(Christopher Newman)

Chapter One



"Noah!" Dr. Sarah Bookings harshly whispered. "Look over by the rose garden!"

Without responding to her, Noah Ravenswood, witch and occultist, turned his eyes to the rose bushes only twenty yards away. At first he saw nothing. But soon a shadow, darker than the ones surrounding it, moved in a jerky fashion.

"She's coming," he informed his friend. "Be ready for a fight, Sarah. She's been afflicted with this for over two months. Her hunger is going to make her quite mad and completely unreasonable."

"I've never dealt with..." the long nosed woman's statement trailed off. She craned her neck in the direction of the cemetery's gates, looking for aid that wasn't coming.

Ignoring Sarah's fears, Noah watched as Angela picked her way amid the rosebushes and cautiously approached the Williams crypt. He could hear her low muttering and constant ranting, the sounds of which chilled his soul. She giggled and chortled as her hands clenched involuntarily like the claws of some terrible beast. He continued the surveillance as she approached a patch of light that separated her from the front of the mausoleum. He held his breath as she quickly launched herself across the shaft of illumination with the grace of a tigress. As she did, he took in every detail he could, since anything he could discover about her would be helpful.

"Lord and Lady," he breathed softly.

Angela White was once a beautiful woman, he could see that still, but gone was any semblance of humanity from her once pretty face. Her long kinky hair hung to the middle of her back and was matted with leaves and dirt. Her dress, more like a burial shroud, hung off her frame and frantically billowed as she passed by. Her long legs thrust out past the garment's hem and ended with bare feet caked with thick, clinging mud. She quickly knelt against the side of the crypt shrouded in darkness but Noah could easily see the hot burning points of her eyes. For a terrifying second he thought she had spotted them. But as the moments passed he noted her stare was for the cemetery road between the twin hills and he watched her eyes swivel down toward the gates.

"She senses something wrong," he whispered to his long-time assistant. "What could it be?"

The figure crouched suddenly and went flat to the ground. Noah turned to look where she was spying and was relieved when a car passed by, its headlights shining well ahead of it.

Capturing Angela once more in his line of sight, he saw her rise from the cool grass and stalk forward. With a jungle cat's grace she moved to the front of the crypt and grasped the iron gates barring her way within. He let out a breath filled with admiration as her bony shoulders bunched and flexed; she ripped the cage away with minimal effort. It let out a horrible screeching sound, followed by a bang as she dropped it. Angela drove one shoulder into the door and burst it open. She disappeared into the confines of the mausoleum.

"Quickly!" Noah gasped as he jumped up and ran, his hands digging into the deep pockets of his duster. As they neared, the sounds of shattering fiberglass echoed out of the dark portal. Noah knelt by the door and rapidly drew a complex sigil into the dirt in front of the crypt with the oak wand drawn from his coat. Digging into the soft earth below, he channeled a bit of his stored arcane energy into it and it flared briefly. Inside he saw the bony woman hunched over a lidless casket, crooning softly in an animalistic manner. She reached into the coffin and drew forth the corpse's clothed arm. A soft, sobbing sound resounded pitifully through the mausoleum as she bared the limb. Noah could see drops of spittle raining down upon the dead flesh. She bent her head down and opened her jaws.

"Angela!" he called out into the dark recesses, startling her enough to release her grip. "Stop what you're doing! If you eat, you'll only complete the curse!"

The figure inside looked over its shoulder and hissed horribly. Fear momentarily clutched at the occultist's heart.

"Who are you?" she growled, in a voice better suited to a demon than a woman. "How dare you interrupt my meal?"

"We're here to help you," Sarah replied from off to Noah's left. "But if you continue along this path, we can't restore you."

"Aarrggh!" The creature screamed as she spun in place. Noah backed up, happy to see Sarah do the same thing. Angela crouched suddenly and launched herself across the gulf between her and them in a panther-like leap. Her eyes were burning a fiery scarlet and her mouth wide open, exposing her teeth. As she flew through the air, the wizard could see that she had filed them down to points, typical of someone with her condition. He nearly stumbled and fell as he backpedaled out of her reach.

Angela soared past the crypt's threshold and slammed into the opposite end of the prepared magical barrier which sprang to life as she fully entered the containing circle. In a screaming rage she began to beat her fists bloody against the arcane obstruction until she stopped to let out a howl of pure anguish, and then commenced to hurl herself against the walls of her prison.

"Angela, listen to my voice," he commanded as she shrieked and wailed. "You managed not to feed, and that is good! But you'll be doomed if you eat of the dead! I cannot return you to humanity if you fight me. Unless I banish the curse upon you, you'll never be free of the hunger!"

This increased her flurry of thrashing, clawing, and biting at the shield. With both hands she drove her now bloody fists into the spell repeatedly. As this went on, Noah's mind turned back to the events that had brought him face-to-face with this irate, hungry she-ghoul.



*****



Dandelion was located on the shores of Lake Erie, along what was called the North Coast by most Ohioans. The Dandelion City Council had contacted him via his website to inquire about obtaining his unique skills. He recalled the secret meeting four days ago with the members of that governing body. To the man (and one woman) they were scared and frightened, and at a loss as to how to explain to the general public who, or what, was desecrating tombs here in Two Hills Cemetery.

"Eyewitness reports vary," City Councilwoman Maggie Drake had told him. "But one fact is unmistakable: it is a lone person who is prowling the graveyard, forcing their way into mausoleums, and dragging out coffins one at a time."

"This is a quiet little town," Mayor Luther Higbee supplied in a disgusted tone. "We can't have the public all stirred up over something as despicable as desecrating the graves of our loved ones. This perpetrator needs to be brought to justice."

They suspected a grave-robber at first, he thought darkly, frowning at the still practiced profession of stealing from the deceased, but I knew better.

The police escorted them out here and allowed him and Sarah to inspect the damage and even read their reports. He was shocked to see that the caskets had been ripped apart by superhuman strength and tossed aside like discarded, broken toys. He hadn't flinched at rummaging around the emaciated dried-up bodies within, examining each one to find some sort of clue as to why they had been so rudely treated.

It was on the throat of one pale corpse, placed in a family crypt two months ago that he discovered the answer. A perfect set of teeth marks had barely broken the dry cold flesh. A quick check of dental records with the local dentist named the culprit as twenty-two year old Angela White of 349 Blackbird Lane.

It must've been her first try, he thought at the time, before she filed down her teeth.

The cops raced off with this information, but found nobody home at the address on the poor side of town. Noah and Sarah had followed in his 1972 Monte Carlo at a more leisurely pace. . The place was dark and cool and the blinds were all drawn tightly shut. Every room was like this; even the mattress was up against the only window in the solitary bedroom. Upon entering the one floor ranch house they discovered it to have been the scene of a terrible struggle. The pantry had been raided and the contents flung across the floor. Spoiled food was strewn about the kitchen. In the living room the furniture was torn to shreds and broken like matchsticks, the white stuffing jutting out like the guts of a disemboweled teddy bear. Even the bathroom revealed a toilet clogged with foul smelling, brackish vomit. In short, it looked like a pack of wild animals had gotten into Miss White's place and destroyed it like a hurricane in a frantic, desperate search. Every room showed the wizard his assumptions were correct.

The police bemoaned not catching the woman at home, but Noah had already suspected they wouldn't locate her there. If his assumptions were right, she would be in hiding since her condition wouldn't be so obliging as to let her remain above ground during the day. Instead of looking for clues inside the home he had gone around to her neighbors to ask about the missing woman's recent activities. It was in an elderly black woman's parlor that he confirmed all his terrible suspicions.

"She's got the Devil in her, the poor thing," the old gray haired woman had wheezed as she nursed a cup of tea. "She was a good God-fearing Christian, even went to my church. If'n I had to guess, I suspect it has to do with that feller she was seeing."

"What was the man's name?" he asked politely.

"Darrin Moses. He works for the local garbage company," she answered him. "I heard tell another gal had her eye on him and didn't take too kindly when he came a- calling on Angela."

"Who is the other woman?" he had asked, with his interest fully piqued.

 "I don't rightly know. But I heard from my grandson that this girl is from New Orleans. She settled here after the hurricane a few years ago. Folks say she's a Creole woman, you know voodoo and such. Some people from my church have been whisperin' and moanin' about her dallying in Black Magic and such. Hexing the young'uns who cross her or don't do what she asks."

The story was an old one, a love triangle with one of the players dabbling in the occult. Noah had seen this kind of thing countless times over his many years dealing with the bizarre and strange world of magick.