SKELETON KEY #6

18. Nicola

19. Judy Drood ~ "Girl Detective"

20. The Black Provost

18. Nicola Karnstein  

Nicola is a new student at the local high school, having recently moved into town with her two sisters and her Grandmama from a small village in the Carpathian Mountains.

Dislikes:  sunlight, Hawthorne trees, nosy little boys, girls who are too clever for their own good, gypsies.

(See: Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires)

19. Judy Drood ~ "Girl Detective"

The entire town is in shock when Judy's father, lovable old Colonel Drood, a leading member of the community, is arrested for a series of unusually vicious murders.  Though the evidence against him is strong, Judy, a student at the local high school, believes he is innocent and sets out to prove it.  However, the more her investigations uncover, the more Judy inadvertently proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her father was actually a fiendish master criminal!

But Judy is blinded by loyalty and does everything she can to prove him innocent, including tampering with evidence and harassing witnesses.  Eventually, however, her father is sent to prison for life, leaving Judy somewhat psychologically scarred and jaded, with a cynical distrust of law enforcement and some rather severe anger issues.

While still in high school, Judy becomes obsessed with solving mysteries and uncovering crimes - often where none exist.  Her unorthodox (not to mention illegal) methods annoy and antagonize the local police.  However, she does manage to solve enough real crimes that the local papers refer to her as the "teen girl detective"  - a label Judy despises, but which, unfortunately, sticks, even after she graduates from high school and becomes a student at Lone Mountain College.  Judy is a loner who doesn't trust anyone, except perhaps her hapless childhood friend, Kasper Keene, who often finds himself, against his better judgement, assisting Judy on one of her "cases".

(See:  MAD NIGHT and THE GRAVE ROBBER'S DAUGHTER.  Judy's first appearance was in 1993 in the book BLACK CAT CROSSING, in a story reprinted in MANIAC KILLER STRIKES AGAIN)

20. The Black Provost

In the late 1800's, shortly after Lone Mountain College was established, the original board of regents, reacting to the rowdiness of the post-Civil War student body, appointed one of their own to administer discipline.

Known as The Black Provost, he soon began abusing his power, delighting in sadistic torture in his hidden chamber of horrors, assisted by six tongueless nuns.  He is believed to be responsible for the deaths of over a dozen students.  His reign of terror ended when the truth was discovered and he was hung for his crimes.

Since then, it has been said that his spirit still haunts the campus and many people over the years have reported seeing The Ghost of The Black Provost,  stealing across the quad in the moonlight, a bloody hatchet in his hand.

More seriously, authorities suspect that the same deranged individual who stole the hood and robes of The Black Provost from the Anthropology Museum, may have been responsible for the recent rash of violent murders on and around the Lone Mountain campus.

(See: MAD NIGHT)