In the Watches of the Night

The local museum was recently preparing to open a new display about a prominent local family. Edward Eastman, the only son of a wealthy father, had donated many interesting family heirlooms to the museum.

The Eastman family has been in the community for generations, and Thomas Eastman, Edward’s great-great-great-grandfather, was one of the founders of the town. The heirlooms donated included several paintings, some furniture, some letters, and assorted antiques. The most interesting piece was a large, old-fashioned silver pocket watch, with a stylized dragon engraved on the lid, which had belonged to Thomas Eastman.

Image credit

Unfortunately, two days before the museum was scheduled to open, the museum was broken into, and many of the Eastman heirlooms were taken, including the pocket watch. The assistant curator, who had been working late that night, was brutally killed. And to make the case even more complicated, Edward Eastman has vanished.

Possibilities

1 Edward Eastman had a tendency to gamble, and his debts quickly outgrew his abilities to pay them. He didn’t donate his family heirlooms to the museum; he sold them and used the cash to pay off some of his debt. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough, and the people he owed got impatient and threatened him.

Edward quietly left town before the break-in, hoping to put some distance between himself and the loan sharks. The break-in at the museum was a straight robbery; other valuable pieces were also taken. The assistant curator happened to walk in at the wrong moment.

2 Thomas Eastman was a sorcerer of no small skill. He was also a thoroughly unpleasant person, and was forced to disappear for a good long time, leaving many of his possessions behind. Chief among these was his pocket watch, which he had designed himself. It was something like a magical battery, supplying him with any needed magical energy. Thomas had put himself into a type of stasis, concealed in the basement of his mansion.

Five generations later, Edward Eastman was doing some remodeling, and accidentally woke Thomas up. Thomas killed Edward and started setting about locating his missing belongings. He broke into the museum to recover them, killing the assistant curator when she got in his way. In a few days, the badly mauled body of Edward Eastman will turn up near his house.

3 Edward Eastman had an interest in the occult, which was bolstered by some of the things he read in Thomas’s papers. However, some of his experiments in sorcery attracted the notice of one of the Hounds of Tindalos. Edward managed to seal the Hound into a non-dimensional space, using Thomas’s watch as a focus. Unfortunately, Edward was an amateur sorcerer at best, and the Hound quickly broke through the seal, destroying the watch and several other items. It happened upon the assistant curator, and tore her apart. Then it hunted Edward down and exacted a horrific revenge.

© Megan McKnight