Crossover of the Week

May 2006

BLACK MAGIC WOMAN

            Supernatural investigator Quincey Morris and white witch Libby Chastain battle a practitioner of black magic who is continuing her family’s vendetta against the descendants of the woman who exposed her ancestress as a witch during the trials in Salem. Quincey owes a debt to a man named Jack, whose crew travels in semis and four-wheel-drive jeeps. Quincey thinks that none of the experts who have written about the vampire’s nature, such as Van Helsing, Blake, and Tregarde, have been able to explain why the undead are vulnerable to certain natural substances. A flashback details Quincey’s namesake and great-grandfather’s death while helping to kill Dracula, as well as the aftermath of those events. Morris once spent an hour in a townhouse in Washington’s Georgetown section where two Jesuit priests died performing an exorcism to save a young girl. Quincey and Libby visit occult investigator Barry Love, whose bookshelves hold two different editions of the Bible, Stone’s Practical Demon-Hunting, the Bhagavad-Gita, Newman’s The Vampire in Victorian England, Wellman’s biography of John the Balladeer, books by Hegel and Sartre, Black’s Approaching the Millennium, and the third edition of Investigating the Occult: Principles and Techniques by Scully and Reyes. Later, the black witch uses her magic to force the driver of an SUV to attempt to run over Quincey and Libby. The SUV smashes through the front of Del Floria’s Tailor Shop. After Libby is hospitalized, a pair of N.Y.P.D. detectives question Quincey about the “accident.” One is named Clark, while the other’s last name is something that ends with “witz.”

            Novel by Justin Gustainis, 2008. The modern-day Quincey Morris is a descendant of the courageous Texan of the same name in Stoker’s Dracula. The original Quincey’s wife died in childbirth, thus explaining his bachelorhood in the original novel. Jay Lindsey notes, “There is some conflict with Quincey Morris, Vampire, by P.N. Elrod. In Gustainis’ book, Morris is survived by his parents and one son. In Elrod’s account, Morris claims his parents died long before. I think we can get around that, though. Given that the Morris family picked up a generational monster hunting legacy, it’s obvious that at some point the original Quincey, in his new state of undeath, attempted to make contact with his parents and son, and it did not go well. A century later, while relating his account to Elrod, vampire Quincey chose to gloss over those painful memories.” Jack is vampire hunter Jack Crow from John Steakley’s novel Vampire$. Van Helsing needs no explanation at this point. Blake is a reference to the protagonist of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. However, Blake’s exploits take place in a world where the existence of the supernatural is widely known. The Blake referenced here must be her CU counterpart, whose exploits are vastly different from the “Blake-verse’s” Anita. Diana Tregarde appears in a series of novels by Mercedes Lackey. The two Jesuit priests are from William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist. Stone is Ezekiel Stone from the television series Brimstone. Newman is doubtless the CU counterpart of Kim Newman. The exploits of Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer, aka Silver John, are well-established as part of the CU. Black is Frank Black from the television series Millennium. Scully and Reyes are FBI Agents Dana Scully and Monica Reyes from The X-Files. Earlier in the book, Special Agent Dale Fenton refers to The X-Files as a television series; presumably, this was a spin-off of the movie starring Garry Shandling and Téa Leoni. Del Floria’s Tailor Shop houses the secret entrance to the headquarters of U.N.C.L.E. The N.Y.P.D. detectives are John Clark, Jr. and Andy Sipowicz from the television series NYPD Blue.