Scene 2: Cursed blood

Maybe it is a disease of the flesh, they suffer.... Roderick shoos off these dim-witted, decomposing labourers.
"Off you go! Get out of my sight before I order the dogs to tear you apart!! I do not want to see your filthy presence on Rookwood land ever again! You hear?? NOW, GO!!!! "

He turns his back to the withdrawing things, his heart thumping much faster than he wished, in his old chest.

Walking back towards the graveyard, he sees some commotion ahead, near a freshly dug grave. What now? are the young Rookwood making a show of their ineptitude already??

"Alexander?... Claire?... stop frolicking like children! Show some respect for our ancestors! This is a sacred..." he stops in his tracks, spotting Alexander down in the grave, with a strange statue!

Can that be? How? Why here??!!

The others see the octogenarian turn a whiter shade of pale.

Alexander continues hauling himself up from the grave and points toward the strange figure absconding with his cousin. "That... thing has Claire! Stop right where you are, you lowborn miscreant!"

Roderick turns to look in the direction Alexander is pointing at, and sees something dragging Claire away among the grave headstones!

"Claire! No!!"

As he calls out the name of Claire in an alarmed desperate tone, Roderick instinctively stomps the ground with one foot. His face becomes ashen and immobile for a brief moment, as if it was a mask made of stone. From under his foot, a strange vibration propels forward, causing the soil to bulge slightly, as if a subterranean creature was moving from his foot towards the kidnapper.

The vibration advances fast zigzagging among the gravestones, eventually reaching an ancient marble statue depicting an angel, that adorns a tomb.

The stone angel cracks at its base with a deep grinding noise, and it topples, its heavy mass falling at the passage of Claire's kidnapping creature! Its stone wing smashes hard against the creature, who loses its footing at the tremendous impact, letting go of Claire.

Roderick straightens, his countenance returning normal, in time to see the creature falling under the statue, and Claire being released!

Claire scrambles away from her would-be kidnapper, crawling in a panic on all fours through the mud to put any distance between herself and him. Once she is a bit away from him, she struggles to her feet and throws herself into Elias' arms, tears of fear streaking down her face.

Nathaniel step between Claire and the creature "She will do no such thing!" He says, not sure what's goin on, why the creature thinks Elias is Claire's nephew, or where this sudden surge of bravery came from

Alexander stands up slowly to his full height, keeping the pagan bust in both hands until slowing letting it fall to one side. With the creature's gaze falling on the statue, he narrows his own eyes. "Time to teach this interloper what it means to cross the Rookwoods..."

As this is going on, Claire just slowly steps backwards, trying to fade from the attacker's immediate attention...

Nathaniel looks at the creature in horror, and realizes he has to do something to help. He looks around for anything he can use as a weapon, when his gaze falls upon the cat. He raises an eyebrow "Time for an impromptu expiriment into the hypothetical supernatural properties of this feline." he quickly says before attempting to hurl the cat at their enemy.

Somehow Roderick senses the century old stones of the graveyard... even below the graveyard.

He now calls upon these ancient stone guardians to stop this blasphemous creature, to protect the youngest of the line.