This is an excerpt from the epic novel of the supernatural occult Bloodstone and Broomcorn: Curse of the W.I.T.C.H. written by Sean Terrence Best. You can find this legend of charnel mystery at Amazon.com.

In a dim, grungy one bedroom apartment on the second floor of a roach infested rat-hole of a condemned building in the squalor of the seediest underbelly of the Megalopolis, Horace ‘Hank’ Bellingham sat alone. Hank was experiencing one of those ghostly moments of reflection and self analysis that are dangerous enough for ordinary people, but are especially risky for someone like Hank, who is in hiding. Musing pessimistically, he pondered what his lifelong devotion to the cultivation of his mind had availed him. Taking his academic credentials as a case in point, he questioned if earning his Psy.D. in Clinical Forensic Psychology among the hallowed halls of the Chicago School had really done him or anyone else any good at all. This advanced scholarly pinnacle had been further augmented by two years at the Academy in the little town of Quantico, Virginia.
In years past, Hank had been a brilliant offender profiler. His natural gift for tracking down serial murderers had played a crucial role in taking some very bad people off the street and putting them behind bars or in the gas chamber, thereby making the world a safer place for honest, hardworking folk. That had been good, hadn’t it? But that was before his retirement from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. In actuality, he had been ‘relieved of his duties’ after he had suffered a dramatic psychotic break from reality. But Hank had not suffered a psychotic break; he had uncovered a subversive truth that some unseen authority did not want exposed. As a result, a chemical neurotoxin had been slipped into Hank’s coffee one morning which caused him to engage in a violent outburst of uncontrolled behavior and collapse helplessly onto the floor in debilitating, life-threatening convulsions.
Hank was hospitalized and ordered to submit to a series of tests involving blood work, brain scans, and psychological evaluations. This was impossible. Hank could not remain in the hospital, because they, the unseen foes whom he had unwittingly angered, were after him. It wasn’t enough to discredit Hank; that was only the first step in the plot to exterminate him. The people who were hiding what Hank had stumbled upon wanted him dead.
Sylvia had helped him sneak out of the hospital late on the same night he had been admitted. The next day, Sylvia had mysteriously disappeared under what Hank considered to be very suspicious circumstances; but, it was the shoot-out the following night under the old pier near the industrial loading docks that convinced Hank that the clandestine agency that sought his demise was playing for keeps and would not give up until he had been eliminated… eliminated with extreme prejudice. Hank realized that drastic measures were in order. He fled the country that very night.
Hank’s mind wandered back to his present location in the dirty apartment. He did not like the thoughts he was having. He struck a match and, with a badly shaking right hand, held the little yellow flame to the twisted end of a hand-rolled cigarette. He drew air through the cancer stick. The tip glowed red. Hank shook out the match and dropped it into a heavy, green, ceramic ashtray that was shaped like a fish. The apartment was shrouded in gloomy shadows. Hank flicked on the table lamp that was crowded in among a muddled mess. The dull, blanched glow of the shaded lamp cast an eerie circle of soiled luminescence. Hank stared blankly at the ragged composition notebook in front of him. He took another drag off the cigarette. There was a reddish-brown splotch in the shape of a thumbprint on the cover of the notebook; dried blood.
A dismal scene, as dreary as his apartment, loomed outside Hank’s smudged window. Weaving its way around the slummy buildings, the elevated interstate added to the cluttered jumble of the deteriorating skid row in which Hank had, two months ago, taken up residence. The thick, round pylons, like huge muscled legs, that supported the broad, slate-gray concrete decks of the highway, had the effect of making the whole bland structure appear as a writhing, serpentine dragon-beast that lorded over the rotting tenements and warehouses in menacing, minatory silence. Traffic on the interstate had been sparse of late. Come to think of it, the Megalopolis didn’t seem as crowded as it used to be. Hank Bellingham wondered what was happening to all the people.
Hank needed a cup of coffee. As he pushed back from the small deal table, the rusty metal legs of the chair on which he sat slid roughly on the lackluster hardwood floor generating a nerve grinding grating noise. The red vinyl seat of the old chair was cracked and torn, with dried chunks of discolored polypropylene crumbling from the exposed foam cushion. A mottled, blue-glazed coffee percolator sat atop a 1950’s style propane stove. The white enamel of the stove top was covered with grease and grime. A row of cruddy seasoning containers lined a narrow shelf at the back of the stove. A jumbo, fat, juicy, disgusting cockroach, the color of burnt sienna, crawled in spurts and starts across the lids of the rank seasonings. Scanning for carrion to scrounge, the hideous insect, with its dark wax-paper wings furled in an armored shell over its back, offensively waved its vulgar feelers in the stale air of the fetid apartment. Hank ignored the loathsome pest. He grabbed the handle of the coffee pot, lifted, then placed it back on the burner over the tiny blue flame.
If Hank had been the only human occupant of this crappy building, he would have wondered at the gas still being on, but the owner of the defunct property, a potbellied, beer-sucking Ukrainian immigrant named Boris, was sticking it out in the shambles of his disintegrating unit on the first floor. Boris’ pudgy, fungoid feet were never covered, and he was perpetually clad in a filthy, mustard-stained wife-beater that stretched tightly over - not entirely covering - his bulging, round belly. Baggy, dark blue jogging pants and a tattoo that said something in Cyrillic on Boris’ right arm completed his fashion ensemble. Boris reeked like a combination of rotten egg and sour milk, and he couldn’t talk without having the stub of an unlit, cheap stogie jammed between his yellow, snaggled, decaying teeth.
None of this mattered anyway, because the only time Hank saw Boris was when paying the rent, in cash, at the first of the month. Boris didn’t speak English very well and he didn’t seem to care who Hank was or what he did as long as the rent was paid.
Hank looked at his coffee pot again. The rich aroma of the dark brew filtered into the musty atmosphere of the malodorous apartment. Hank stepped beside the stove to a sink full of icky, smelly, dirty dishes. He turned on the hot water tap and filled his coffee cup, then turned off the tap and poured out the hot water. He did this to heat his cup. Hank liked his coffee hot; a warm cup would keep his coffee hot longer, and that was important because he had a lot of reading to do.
The notebook lay open on his unkempt table and as he eyed the journal from where he stood near the old stove, Hank lightly rubbed the skin behind his ears. His face was still sore and underwent occasional recurrent swelling from the cosmetic surgery he had undergone in order to radically alter his physical appearance and erase all traces of his true identity. He would like to have stayed in Mexico. The plastic surgeon there had a beautiful villa on the Pacific coast at Mazatlan. The view of the ocean was splendid and the marlin burgers served at the little huts on the beach were an exotic cuisine from the apex of the culinary arts. Hank’s mouth watered a little at the thought; but, he couldn’t have peace. Thoughts of Sylvia always returned to haunt him, even in an exotic paradise and even with a new face.
Hank was frequently plagued by the memory of his first encounter with Sylvia Stanford at the Behavioral Research and Instruction Unit. The harrowing flashback forced itself on his mind’s eye like a robe-clad sentencing judge hurling heavy stones of accusation and guilt that bent Hank into dehumanizing supplication to pay moral penance for a crime he had not committed. The foul misdeed of Sylvia’s sudden disappearance had surely not been his fault. In order to free himself of the languor and the soul-rotting shame, he had set out upon a pilgrimage of self cleansing. Hank would purge his sin by launching his own private investigation into Sylvia’s mysterious vanishing, followed by a decisive vendetta against those responsible.
His quest for the truth about Sylvia’s fate had taken him on the hunt of his life. The clues had led him all the way to a ghost town called Anthrax Island in the remote desert of Uzbekistan. What he discovered there had led him back to the Megalopolis. So here he was, a shadow searching for a shadow. Even with his new face and even though his fingerprints had been surgically removed, Hank still took the precaution of maintaining the lowest possible profile; hence, the trashy apartment in the sleazy part of town. No one would think to search for the echo of Horace Bellingham in this dump.
Thinking of his quest to find out what had happened to Sylvia reminded Hank of Raj and how she was covertly using her newspaper to help him solicit the public for information that might be helpful in his search. He remembered when Raj had called him early the previous morning. She had been very vague and hush-hush in her remarks over the phone. Most other men would have entertained hope that a new lead had been found, but Hank’s deep understanding of the intricate nuances of human behavioral psychology told him that Sylvia wasn’t why Raj had called.
Raj was, however, most excited and eager to see Hank about something. She wanted to come to his apartment, but he told her no. He agreed to meet with her three blocks away in the back room at Moppy O’Grady’s Irish Café. Sleazy private detectives and senior citizens scraping by on the stipends of their Social Security checks are the only people who ever go to Moppy’s, and the back room is for family and close associates only - of which there is an ever dwindling number. People were disappearing; a disturbing pattern that was as observable at Moppy’s as on the infrequently traveled turnpike. Like the dank, dreary weather of the Megalopolis, Moppy’s is a somber, gray place. Everybody minds their own business at the old clapboard café. The spirit of Moppy’s moves in silence. Moppy’s is a place where secrets can be kept.