The Story So Far
When Professor Childermass lends a bizarre collection of artifacts to the Gudge Museum, he secures a summer job for Johnny Dixon in exchange. Soon afterward the very strange Mattheus Mergal appears at the museum insisting that Johnny show him the objects, which were made by the evil wizard Esdrias Blackleach. Mergal is determined to steal the most powerful object of all: the wooden hand made by Blackleach just before his death. If Mergal posesses this frightful relic, nothing -- and no one -- can stop him from terrorizing the world. And as Johnny and the professor race to halt the demon, the wooden hand's force becomes ever stronger....
The Hand of the Necromancer (1996), by Brad Strickland, is the tenth book in the Johnny Dixon series.