The Black Heart Crypt

The raven proved an excellent guide, leading horse and rider through the shallows of the Pattakonck River until they came upon a dilapidated boathouse.

Water lapped at the piers of its rotted dock. Barnabas tugged the reins and urged Satan to climb the muddy banks of the river. The hoofprints were the first they had made in miles.

The police searching for Norman Ickes would not be able to track Jack the Lantern.

“Thank you, trusted eyes of the sky,” Barnabas said to the bird as it lighted upon his elevated arm. “We need now a stable. Somewhere for Satan to rest this night.”

The bird fluttered off its perch and flew up a weed-choked pathway to a dark, deserted mansion. Barnabas snicked his tongue and Satan clip-clopped up the trail of flagstones, following where the bird led.

They soon passed a domed mausoleum penned in by a spike-tipped picket fence. The burial chamber had to be three or four times larger than the Ickleby family crypt.

A name was chiseled above its grand entrance:

SPRATLING

Of course. The dark mansion up ahead was the fabled Spratling Manor, with an estate so vast it had its own monumental burial vault.

Barnabas had heard of this place back when his casket and soul were first wrenched away from the cemetery at Saint Barnabas. A young gravedigger had joked that the Spratlings were “too good” to be buried in Haddam Hill Cemetery with the commoners.

The raven cawed from the peak of a slate roof on an outbuilding.

“A carriage house,” murmured Barnabas.

Two wide doors separated by a stone pillar filled the front of the building. Barnabas and his horse trotted closer. Through the narrow glass windows at the top of the roll-up doors, he could see that one stall was occupied by a hulking black Cadillac the size of a boat. The other was empty.

He dismounted his steed.

“You will rest and feed here tonight while I journey north. To Great Barrington.”

After removing Satan’s bridle and saddle and feeding him a sack of dry oats he found rotting in the mansion’s pantry, Barnabas explored the cluttered shelves of the garage.

He found exactly what he was looking for: two kerosene lanterns and a box of wooden matches.

Next he marched back into the manor itself. The place was deserted. Rodents scurrying along the baseboards seemed to be the only living inhabitants.

Passing through a gallery of dark oil portraits, he ascended a staircase to the second floor and started rummaging through closets and storage trunks. The place reeked of mildew and attic dust.

Fortunately, the Spratling men had been old-fashioned when it came to clothing. Barnabas was able to quickly piece together an all-black costume very similar to that worn by his alter ego back in the early 1700s: black riding pantaloons, tasseled Hessian boots, a long black tailcoat, a flowing black cape.

“Forget the cape,” said a small voice inside his head.

Barnabas grinned. Norman.

“Why?” he thought back.

“It’ll just slow us down.”

Us. The thought made Barnabas widen the grin beneath his mask.

“Very well,” he said out loud. “I thank you, Norman, for your wise advice and counsel. Now—be still!”

In another closet, Barnabas found a silk top hat. He did not take it.

The black tricorne—stained and weather-beaten, its stiff fabric cracked along the edges—looked much more menacing.

Norman’s voice in his head made no objection to his choice of hat.

So Barnabas tugged it on and tucked the pistol his descendant had stolen from the hardware store into his wide leather belt. The modern-day weapon would suffice until Jack the Lantern was reunited with his hidden gold and his own cache of single-shot pistols. He preferred to kill with those. The spark of flint. The roar of the gunpowder. The smoky sizzle of the swirling lead ball ripping through flesh and bone.

It was like shooting a man with a small cannon.

Passing a misty wall mirror, Barnabas gazed upon his gloriously attired reflection. The body of Norman Ickes was slight, but the rippling black garments and sinister jack-o’-lantern mask made him look powerful, especially amidst the gloomy darkness. Pleased with what he saw, Barnabas threw back his head and let loose the lunatic war cry of a madman.

Jack the Lantern was back.