The Black Heart Crypt

The dog that men called the Black Shuck had been sent to guard the Haddam Hill Cemetery, to protect the goodly souls buried there from the graveyard’s foulest residents.

It perked up its ears, not liking what it heard.

The click of a lock being opened.

A spell being broken.

The dog scurried around to the front of the Ickleby crypt.

The black heart lock was still there, clamped tight through the hasp on the door.

But the dog smelled something foul.

The pent-up evil of thirteen villainous souls seeping out through the crypt’s mildewed stone walls.

The seal had been shattered.

The souls of the Icklebys had, somehow, been set free.