West Coast
Devonshire, Dartmoor
St. George, St. George's Cemetery
5 November 1898, 02:27 hrs.

"What?" asked Kyle, as if he hadn't heard the doctor correctly a moment ago. Now he stood so close to the hole that he could look down into the shadowy maw of the tomb. The low rough walls of the earth were broken by a few roots that had been cut off with a hatchet several days ago. Still, a few stretched into the hole at the bottom of which lay the coffin. There the doctor pointed to a few spots he had wiped free from the earth.

"The lid is not on properly. A few nails are bent or even missing," he said dryly and glanced briefly at his colleague before his fingers slipped under the mantle. Metal glinted in the moonlight as the doctor pulled back the hammer of a revolver with an audible click. The cylinder spun, presenting the loaded bullets inside as the former soldier's fingers closed tightly and securely around the grip. The doctor took a deep breath as if he too wanted to calm down, while Kyle tensely tightened his shoulders. Nervously, Kyle shifted his stance, positioning himself a little sideways as if to assume a fencing position. He gripped his cane like a sabre about to be unsheathed.

"Are you ready?" murmured the doctor.

"Ready for what, exactly?", Kyle wondered as he stared tensely into the grave. Ready in case some unholy creature was about to pop out of that coffin? An undead one, perhaps, that had already tried to get out of its box? Ready for the sight of a decomposed corpse, stinking, rotting and God knew what else? No, actually he was not ready! His heart somersaulted in a stumbling sprint.

"Yes. Of course, I'm ready!" he lied instead, trying hard to sound confident and cocky as ever. But his voice was quieter, harsher than normal and Kyle cursed himself for it. He was a great mage! He could take on the scum of London's streets and look the nightmares of the human soul in the face every day. He knew what abysses felt like. He braved all this madness, created a blade from it and he would grow stronger from it. Danger and the courage it took was the fucking price! Kyle knew this, he told himself over and over like a mantra. And yet it could not so easily dispel the fear that nevertheless coursed through his veins like a poison.

The doctor, on the other hand, seemed remarkably calm. Like a rock in the surf, unafraid of the waves. Was all this real? Or was this simply his self-control? Did he not want to look like a fearful fool in front of him any more than Kyle did the other way around? Perhaps Dr Archer was simply braver than he. He had been in the war. What did Kyle know about the things this man had experienced or seen there? Maybe he was just looking for an adventure. Why else would a lord be a seeker, if not out of boredom?

Kyle's fingers around the knob of his walking stick throbbed. They almost ached under the pressure of his grip.

The doctor placed the spade in the crevice between the coffin and the lid. With only one hand, he levered it upwards with a flourish, grabbed the edge and jerked the wooden slab upwards.

Kyle expected anything. A thousand images flitted by in his mind of what might happen and what horrible creature might leap out at them. In his mind's eye, he saw the moaning, half-decaying body moving upwards, partially eaten away by maggots and worms. Kyle wasn't sure at that second if his heart was sprinting or standing still.

He winced as the lid thudded against the hard, earthen wall and slid down it at an angle, where it wedged between the coffin and the earthen wall. The doctor's fingers around the pistol grip twitched and grasped harder as his arm drove forward. Both seekers held their breath. A moment, frozen in motion.

But the coffin was empty.

"You've got to be kidding me..." gasped the doctor as they both stared into the empty, unadorned contents of the deathbed. Swollen boards, darkened by dampness and earth, nailed together and planed a little. Just enough so that it didn't look like a simple crate for a dog to bury in the garden. The coffin had no padding. Only a few letters tied together, damp and stained, a few wilted flowers and small lumps of earth lay inside. The remains of meagre grave goods, which the mourners had placed with him before he was buried. The floorboards of the coffin were stained, smeared with something foul-smelling but... There was nothing else. They had expected everything. Except this.

"I just don't believe it now!" groaned Kyle breathlessly, his gaze clinging to the empty interior. His gaze ran the lid and insides with quiet desperation, looking for any magical symbols or perhaps scratch marks. Something that indicated that dark art could be at play here, just like in the forest. That someone might have been practising magic or performing some occult rite. Something.

But there was just nothing. Nothing but the missing body.

Kyle wanted to roar. His teeth clenched, gritted under the pressure of his anger and raging frustration. THAT had been their only clue! They had wasted half the day discussing how they could get their hands on this cursed corpse. Now they were sneaking into the graveyard like criminals at night, enduring the headache it was giving him, and they were digging in wet, damp earth for what felt like an eternity. For nothing! Dr Archer spoke from the heart: this could not be true!

Body snatchers just didn't make any sense here in this town and at the innkeeper's house of all places. Especially because the corpse would no longer have been fresh. Nor did he see any reason why a potential murderer should dig up the body. Why should he? He already had it in the ground and no one seemed to ask questions. No one except you!

"Could the widow have taken him away?" he spoke his next thought aloud, looking bitterly at the bent, crooked nails. They were narrow and small, not difficult to bend out.

"I doubt it. Did you see the picture in the tavern? A woman would hardly be able to carry off a fellow of that stature so easily. Not without help or traces." the doctor replied, leaning closer over the box as if something might have escaped him. He put the revolver back into the holster under his coat to have both hands free. He felt around the edge of the coffin, picked up the letters and seemed to consider pocketing them for a moment. But someone who removed even a corpse left no evidence where he usually made it so difficult for them.

"The coffin smells of the corpse fluids. The dead man was definitely in it. I can't tell when he was removed, though." Dr Archer grumbled. Displeasure was also found under his tone like an unmistakable signature. He picked up a chunk of the soil and crushed it between his fingers. Nothing noticeable or out of the ordinary. Just plain earth.

"Nothing," he confirmed what they already knew. "It's no use." with scowling lips he reached for the coffin lid to pull it back onto the box. It was maddening! Their only lead had vanished into thin air. But they couldn't waste much time here. With every minute, the risk grew that they might somehow be discovered and accused of being body snatchers or at least grave robbers.

That was another reason why her mood was not necessarily the best while the doctor was shovelling earth onto the coffin again. Covering it up was much quicker than shovelling it free, as he just pushed the earth from the pile on the side into the hole and tapped it down. Now it was clear why the grave had looked so strange. Someone had dug it up before. Feverishly, both seekers thought about what they should or perhaps could do now.

Telling anyone about the disappearance of the body was out of the question. They could not even involve the constable or report their discovery to the beadle, for they had, against all laws and morals, tried to dig up a dead man and cut him open without permission. This could hardly be explained to Baltimore by possible supernatural activity.

"What if the widow had an accomplice? Someone who helped her?" pondered Kyle as he paced back and forth to the side of the grave in the same spot each time. The grass beneath his feet was already lying flat on the ground.

"Whoever is responsible for this MUST have had help. That, or the dead man got up and walked himself." his eyebrow tugged towards the sweaty strands of his mop of hair as he looked at the mage.

"I don't even want to think about a dead man walking." Kyle immediately spoke up and glanced at the other graves. They appeared to be untouched - thankfully. But that only made the matter of the host's grave, his death and everything around it even stranger.

He did not want to completely rule out the involvement of resisters. They knew too little for that. The dead disappearing from their graves was not a good sign. Especially when he thought of the many dead animals in the forest. "If that's the case, there must be at least someone here somewhere who is a master of powerful black magic. And then the question remains: Who? Why? And WHERE is the body?"

Questions piled up like the earth on the grave before them. But no answers. Doctor Archer pressed the last bit of earth firmly into place, examining the proper placement of the flowers, and Kyle pushed the wooden cross firmly into the ground. His gaze lingered on the grave marked with carved letters and briefly, the Seeker snorted bitterly.

"I guess the cross served its purpose, huh?" he said sarcastically.

A questioning look settled on the mage, who pursed his lips in a wry grin. When you had to explain a joke, it was no longer funny. Not that he had meant to joke.

"Crosses have been put up by Christians since the death of the Messiah to make the connection with the resurrection of Jesus. So... the hope of rebirth," he explained, pointing to the tomb. "Mind you, it's hardly thanks to God that this one crawled back out of the grave." Black humour didn't quite hit the doctor's point. For his expression froze a little more than usual.

"No. God certainly didn't do that," said Archer in a tone that was completely new to Kyle. Not that it was surprising, after all, he didn't know the doctor very well. But the way his gaze settled on the grave and the cross, lingering on it and looking at it so strangely had a whole new way about it. Something Kyle didn't know how to interpret, but it still poked him in the gut with a whole new form of interest.

"Have you ever seen a resurrected one?" asked Kyle, because that was simply the first thing that came to mind when he saw Dr Archer's serious expression. It was bullshit, unlikely, and yet...The doctor's head turned towards him. Moonlight scanned over the doctor's serious features. Closed and as solid as a thick, stone wall against which a thick skull, no matter how hard, could run in vain. The doctor studied him so closely as if he were thinking very carefully about how to answer him. Silence lay between them like a mighty rock. Then he seemed to have made up his mind.

But just as the doctor opened his mouth, a loud, animal-like howl pierced the silence of the night. A cold shiver ran down Kyle's spine. It felt as if something or someone had placed its claws on his shoulder and was breathing cold breath into his neck directly behind him. The pressure made his body heavier, and tightened his senses and instincts.

"Kyle..." the doctor continued, but he interrupted. 

"I know." The pair's gaze settled on the forest that rose like a black sea of endless tree tops and shadowy shapes to the foot of the hill not far beyond the billowing mist. "That sounded far too close."

And then a loud, shrill scream rang out.