In the Reign of William
the Conqueror.....
Druscilla Marie d'Lambert's odyssey begins with her birth in Britain
in 1070 A.D. Druscilla's father Hugo d’Lambert is a retired
Norman army captain who decided to stay in this new country and marry
his girlfriend Elizabeth Eccles. He found great success as an apothecary
due to his secret penchant for alchemy and the family settled in the
village of Blackbridge a mile form the Cursed Forest. No one has ever
returned from The Cursed Forest of Blackbridge, said to be Satan’s
lair. In these times, Britains have to be wary of raiding parties
of Vikings who land on the northern and eastern shores in search of
loot and slaves.
Coincidentally, on the day of Druscilla's birth, serial murderess
Countess Jocelyn Von Hagen, the Black Widow of Dresden, arrived in
the area while eluding the Scottish sheriff who had pursued her from
Edinburgh where she had botched the murder of Lord McKay. Jocelyn
took refuge in The Olde Hellfyre Inn and caught the eye of the proprietor,
Nicholas Nut-tree, a pseudonym used by the Dark Prince Satan. Satan
found Jocelyn fascinating and good for pleasure, so he protected her
from the law. Their relationship lasted eighteen years, during which
Satan taught Jocelyn limited magical feats. However, he discovered
her to be a selfish and untrustworthy person who argued constantly
over her need for more power and an obsessive desire to possess his
Pentagram Ring as a token of his devotion. To calm her, Satan gave
her a silver amulet containing an ampoule of rare, powerful dragon’s
blood that will amplify her existing powers. Jocelyn denigrated the
gift and pushed her luck in a big, loud, nasty argument that got her
banished from the Cursed Forest forever.
On that day, Jocelyn vows revenge, transforms herself into a large
Black Raven and flies north to the camp of Viking raider Roggevand
the Furious. She carves a magic rune on his chest that makes the Viking
chieftain invulnerable to weapons, as proven when Jocelyn hurls a
spear at him and it bounces off his chest. Jocelyn promises to make
the Viking ruler of all Britain if he enters Blackbridge Forest, seeks
out and slaughters the Christian Devil Satan and brings her the Pentagram
Ring.
The next day, which is Druscilla's 18th birthday, the Vikings raid
Blackbridge. Hugo entrusts his notebook of apothecary secrets to his
daughter and tells her to hide in the thickets outside the Cursed
Forest until the battle is done. Hugo and Elizabeth hide in the great
stone St. Martin’s church. Halfway to the forest, Druscilla
gets cold feet and returns only to witness her friends and neighbors
being mercilessly slaughtered by the Norsemen and the church burned
to the ground. While hiding in an outbuilding, Druscilla hears Roggevand
tell his lieutenant that he is leaving the battle to fulfill the orders
of the sorceress Jocelyn to find and kill Satan in the Cursed Forest.
The trumpets blare, announcing the arrival of Baron Griswold's troops.
The Britains engage the Vikings, delaying Roggevand’s exit,
so Druscilla takes advantage and runs back to the forest, not stopping
at the thickets, but running deep into the endless darkness beyond.
Jocelyn, in the form of the Black Raven, returns to the Cursed Forest
to witness the destruction of her former lover. Druscilla runs deep
into the forest thinking Roggevand is chasing her. The exhausted girl
stops by the Pool of Dark Visions to rest and drink the refreshing
water and is confronted by Satan, who is auguring at the Pool by dripping
his blood into the spring to get future visions. Scared, angry and
thirsting for revenge as well as water, Druscilla loses her faith
and makes a pact with Satan to be his pupil and agent if he will grant
her power, immortality and eternal beauty. She mentions what she heard
Roggevand say to his aide and Satan realizes Jocelyn is responsible
for the Blackbridge Massacre. Satan, aware of the Black Raven in the
tree, accepts Druscilla's pact. Jocelyn watches helplessly from a
tree branch as Satan gives Druscilla the coveted Pentagram Ring and
promises that after three years tutelage from him she will be named
Queen of Witches. He warns her of Roggevand’s approach before
departing. Jocelyn is furious that this peasant girl has attained
in a few minutes all that she herself desired, but can do nothing
about it. Satan bids Druscilla farewell and leaves her to deal with
Roggevand.
When Roggevand searches the woods for Satan, Druscilla panics and
hides in the Pool of Dark Visions, but is unable to hold her breath
underwater. She opens her mouth to exhale and the Ring’s power
draws the dissolved Devil’s blood into her mouth. Druscilla
swallows it and is transformed into a true blood relative of the Devil.
Transformed, she emerges from the Pool and is about to face-off Roggevand
when Baronet Fredrerick Griswold enters the forest in pursuit of the
Viking chieftain and vows to save her. But fate has other plans for
both Druscilla and Frederick.
1091 A.D.
Three years later Druscilla is confirmed as Queen of Witches and is
officially betrothed to Frederick, who has been her true suitor. She
moves into Griswold Castle, but all is not as peaceful as it could
be. There are other tenants in the castle brought there by Frederick's
late father; Dr. Rene De La Croix, a devout agnostic, politician,
and true scientist and Rene’s spoiled 14 year-old daughter Mariette
who is jealous of Druscilla and has designs on Frederick. Unbeknownst
to anyone, Jocelyn has been coming to the castle by night to seduce
Mariette, telling her that Frederick can be hers if she will administer
a dragon’s blood potion to Druscilla. Mariette is instructed
to take get and bring the Pentagram Ring to Jocelyn. Late that night,
Mariette waits until her father is deep in his studies and Frederick
is off on a hunting trip. Mariette offers Druscilla a poisoned wine
toast to the impending nuptials. Druscilla drinks the brew and falls
comatose on the floor, but the Pentagram Ring won't come off her finger
as only she can remove it. Rene discovers his daughter’s treachery
and sends Mariette to St. Martin’s Convent where she is to be
kept by the nuns until she can be married off. Fearful that his daughter's
deadly deed will result in her execution and his banishment; Rene
entombs Druscilla in a false wall in an arcade in the castle’s
upper hallway and tells everyone she has gone to London to get her
wedding dress.
2010 A.D.
While restoring Griswold Castle, donated by Baron Oswald Griswold
as the Blackbridge National Museum of Antiquities, noted physician
and historian Dr. Erik Henderson and his associate, psychiatrist Dr.
Viktor Sneed, discover what they think is a Medieval mummy walled
up in an arcade. In the process of removing the mummy from the tomb,
engineer Reggie Potts cuts his finger and bleeds profusely on the
body. The blood is quickly absorbed into Druscilla's dry flesh which
becomes soft and pliable again. When more signs of life are detected,
Henderson takes the comatose girl to his clinic for observation. In
the clinic, the doctors detect delta brain waves in their patient…she's
alive and dreaming! That night, shifty ex-con janitor Clive tries
to steal the Pentagram Ring from Druscilla by attempting to cut off
her finger. He only succeeds in cutting his own hand. His blood gushes
on Druscilla’s skin and again, the blood is quickly absorbed
into her flesh. Druscilla’s heartbeat increases and her breathing
stabilizes. She starts to blink. Clive tries with all his might to
pull the ring off her finger. This causes Druscilla to awaken. She
soon sheds her gray, wrinkled skin as a reptile does and starts to
regenerate. The Witch Queen is at once confused, frightened and fascinated
by the unfamiliar surrounds of the 21st century. Sister Bess, the
nurse, walks in on her and alerts Henderson and Sneed that their patient
is awake.
Sneed makes a secret phone call to a mysterious Col. Mortimer, a member
of Sneed's gentlemen's club, and tells him that Druscilla the legendary
Blackbridge Witch is alive and at the clinic. Apparently, Mortimer
has been sifting historical records and sources for 60 years looking
her and asked his old friend to keep him posted on any information
gleaned at Griswold Castle where she used to live.
Months later, Druscilla has retrieved her personal treasure from Griswold
Castle and converted it into millions of pounds sterling. She purchases
a townhouse in Mayfair and a fire engine red Rolls Royce Phantom III.
She also has obtained a modern high school equivalency education and
has a houseman/driver named Henry Ratcliffe, who is a transformed
brown rat she found in Hyde Park . Druscilla catches up on the modern
social and scientific scene by lunching with her titled Mayfair neighbors,
all young, jet-set noblewomen. Oddly, many of her friends have ancestors
who over the last 900 years have had experiences with a woman named
Druscilla d'Lambert. One friend chronicled how a witch named Druscilla
saved Leonardo Da Vinci from an assassination attempt and another
girl's ancestor worked with a Druscilla d’Lambert to save her
French relatives during the revolution. Druscilla asks Henry to research
her mysterioous historical past.
Druscilla is summoned to the office of Dame Millicent Mackenzie, head
of Her Majesty's Secret Service and learns that Jocelyn Von Hagen
is still alive and the head of UMBRA a supernatural terrorist organization
of renegade witches, warlocks and demons. Recently, Jocelyn worked
for the Nazis and then the KGB during the Cold War. Druscilla is given
a commission as an MI-6 operative, code name Wicca Girl (over her
protests that Wicca has nothing to do with witchcraft) and assigned
to neutralize the Von Hagens and dismantle UMBRA
Meanwhile in Bel Air, California.......
While Druscilla gets her training , U.C.L.A. freshman Cheralyn Rose
Moscowitz discovers on her 18th birthday that her absentee father
is none other than the Devil. Her award-winning soap-opera actress
mom Ruby Mosco made a deal for career success to have a son by Satan,
who frequents Hollywood as producer Nick Nussbaum. But, fate was fickle
and now Ruby has fire-breathing Cheralyn, who sports two hornettes
under those red bangs and has a few supernatural powers she has not
understood until now. Cher demands to meet face to face with her father.
Summoned in a midnight ceremony, Satan realizes that there is no escape,
he's got a daughter and must deal with that fact. He tries to deter
her from being a part of his activities, but Cher is adamant that
she wants to get her degree at U.C.L.A. then join the family busines.
A week later in London, Druscilla is called to MacKenzie's office
and assigned to liquidate UMBRA's new financial executive Drago Montenegro
in Cancun, Mexico. Druscilla travels outside England for the first
time in her life and flies to Cancun, Mexico, a place and culture
she did not know existed a few monts earlier. Druscilla meets Drago
at the hotel's veranda bar. Shortly afterward, Drago meets and is
intrigued by, a vacationing U.C.L.A. freshman playing volleyball on
the beach – Cheralyn Rose Moscowitz! Drago makes dates with
both ladies, but has ulterior, evil plans for them. At seven p.m.,
Druscilla and Cheralyn collide in the hotel lounge where they are
supposed to meet Drago. They discover each others identities, conclude
that they are blood sisters, and join forces to destroy Drago. Druscilla
sees her way to get to Jocelyn and Cheralyn wants to get recognition
from her father. On Mexican soil, they now face a fight with a hoarde
of supernatural villains from the four corners of the globe and an
unstopable ten foot granite monster called IncaDink. Oh yes, there
is Cheralyn's 900 year old, six foot-six brother Maximillian Von Hagen.
So begins an blood-linked friendship that will fight evil and find
shopping bargains around the world forever. But, is the world ready
for the crime fighting duo whom the supernatural world will come to
know as ''The Betty and Veronica from Hell''? |