Tuesday, June 24
"Michelle" wakes up with a blinding headache and lower back ache in addition to the numerous aches and pains from cracked ribs, cuts, bruises and so on. When she stumbles into the bathroom, she finds a note on the sink that reads, "You're going to need these soon." Under the note is a variety of feminine hygiene products.
Zeke takes Detective Mariska Alerton, his police contact, out to lunch to find out why she's been trying to get hold of him over the last couple days. He finds out that she's gotten approval to hire him as an 'occult expert' as they've got a new case that just screams 'spooky'. He agrees to check out the corpses and crime scenes that afternoon.
Tinker manages to finally finish decrypting the database on Steve's computer and turns over the results to "Michelle", who shares them with Kayla. both are baffled by the columns of seemingly random numbers.
That evening, the group gets together to discuss what Zeke and "Michelle" have found out.
The case the police need Zeke's help with involves several members of the Sovereign Sons and Trey Kings having been burned to death over the last several days. Julian mentions that he remembered seeing a newspaper article about one of the incidents. The bodies were burned evenly and completely through, though their clothes and the buildings they were in were completely untouched. When Zeke checked one of the crime scenes personally, he couldn't find any of the markings you would normally expect from cult activity and he could detect no traces of spell-casting, though there was definite residual mystical energy. He asks Danny and Julian to check out the scenes with him as they can both sense things that he cannot.
"Michelle" gives the group a printout of the data that was in the database. It's five columns of numbers. Zeke recognizes the first column as a series of dates. After studying the numbers for a while, he is struck by why he finds the numbers in the second and third columns so familiar: he's seen them on his GPS; they're longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates. He plugs the coordinates into his GPS and finds that one of the coordinate pairs is a match to the old hunting shack out in the swap where they had collected their first Fairy Dust sample and the date for those coordinates is this coming Saturday. After that, it doesn't take long for the group to deduce that the last two columns are probably kilos and dollars. They surmise that this was Steve's schedule for picking up shipments of Fairy Dust and that he'd been steadily ramping up his operation.
quotesTuesday, June 24 (Evening)
Zeke tired and sore after his last several days of mistreatment, decides to call it an early night and heads home.
The rest of the group stays together to discuss their current situation and prioritize the things they need to do: deal with Nigel, deal with the other captured thralls, get Mike and Molly switched back, follow up on the information they found in Steve's database and get rid of Danny's tail.
After the meeting, Mike heads over to the warehouse to check on Nigel. As soon as he opens the box, Nigel attacks him but Mike just lets him wear himself out. This doesn't take long due to Nigel's current condition and afterward, Mike feeds him. It's pretty obvious that Nigel is now a broken man and after eating starts pleading with Mike to be let go. After listening for a while, Mike manifests his full angelic form and warns Nigel that he is always being watched. So, he will know if Nigel tells anyone the truth about what happened. Nigel runs out into the night to try to make it back home.
After Nigel leaves, Mike calls the rest of the group to inform them of what happened.
After getting the news, Julian heads over to the warehouse with bleach, paint thinner and other cleaning supplies and attempts to scrub the scene. When he arrives, he just kind of shakes his head and sighs at the evidence of how Nigel was treated.
Wednesday, June 25
Watching the morning news, Mike sees a report about a missing man being found by police after a mugging down in the fish market district.
Julian, just after hearing the same news report on the radio in his office at work, gets called into his superior's office. He is informed that a Detective Mariska Alerton of the Vibora Bay PD called asking if they could borrow him for a while. It turns out that one of their consultants, a cult expert by the name of Julian, recommended Julian due to his expertise with Voodoo cults. Figuring it'll be good publicity for the department, Julian's boss orders him to report to Det. Alerton and give her whatever assistance is required.
Shortly before lunch, Julian gets in touch with Det. Alerton and gets his first look at the crime scene. He can see from the scene and the reports that there's pretty much no physical evidence that's been left behind by the killer. He finds the spot where the three bodies were burned in the front room. After taking a look around the room, Det. Alerton warns him that the next thing she's going to show him is something they've been working very hard to keep out of the news. He's taken into the back where three other bodies were found; a young woman and two children. Julian can sense that a very angry (practically berserk) undead spirit was what was behind the attack.
He asks Det. Alerton if he can call in a psychic he knows to see if she can get a read on the place. Det. Alerton agrees on the condition that she's able to be discrete and willing to work for free. They had enough trouble getting the funding needed to hire Julian. Julian calls Kayla and leaves her a voice mail.
Det. Alerton informs Julian that she technically should not do what she's about to do, but he obviously knows how to treat a crime scene so she's going to head back to the office to catch up on some of the many other cases she's dealing with. She leaves Julian the files for the other two locations.
After getting off work and cleaning up, Kayla heads over to meed Julian. Donning a pair of rubber gloves, she touches the areas where the bodies were found but it doesn't trigger any visions so the pair head off to the next scene.
In the mean time, Sonia is visited by two agents of the Trismegistus Council, Donald and Ewa. They take possession of the thralls after a bit of tasering, leading to Sonia's feelings of Taser-Envy. She asks them what they are going to do with the thralls. She's told that they'll be taken care of while they go through the withdrawal process, which can be very rough. After that, the council will make sure that what they remember of their time as thralls will be very vague and dream-like so as not to let too much information out into the general population.
Julian and Kayla arrive at the second scene; another apartment. In this one, the four bodies were found around a card table where a poker game was apparently taking place when the attack occurred. Julian can definitely sense that the spirit was here. Like the first scene, the victims were members of the Sovereign Sons. Kayla again fails to trigger any visions and Julian remembers that she can only see the future, not the past. Kayla does find that the phone has caller ID and checks the list to see who is on it.
Julian calls up Mike and asks him to come and take a look around. Mike suggests that they call in Danny but Julian reminds him that they still have to get rid of Danny's police tail. Mike calls Sonia and asks here to go to Susan and let her know the plan for getting her back into society. Then he heads out to meet Julian and Kayla at the third crime scene.
Sonia heads over to the safe house where Susan is staying. There, she finds Susan hanging out with Sensei John. Sonia tells Susan that she should tell the cops that she was abducted but never got a good look at her kidnappers because she was drugged. She managed to escape and ended up wandering the streets for several days, lost and confused while the drugs ran their course. Sensei John says that he knows a cop that should be able to help them out by being the one to “find” Susan.
After delivering the message, Sonia decides to take a drive up to the Creek reservation to visit Dr. Joe and get the shotgun pellets dug out of her arms. On her way, she calls up Mike to let him know what happened. Mike then calls up Danny and tells him, “We've manage to get your Susan problem taken care of.”
Julian, Kayla and Mike meet up at the third crime scene. This is a small house in Trey Kings territory, on the east side of Cypress Grove Park. Downstairs is a meth lab where two of the bodies were found. Obviously, it's already been thoroughly gone over by the police. Two more bodies, another gang member and a young woman, were on the main floor. Mike gets no sense of demonic spirits and Kayla gets no visions but Julian can again feel that the angry spirit was here.
Julian decides to hit the streets to see what the word is on the attacks among the gang community and find out if there is any chance that the two gangs were working together. Mike decides to give Rabbi Levy a call to see if he might know something about vengeful spirits.
Julian spends a few hours asking around town and going over the police files. He finds out that there is no way that the two gangs were working together as they've been fighting pretty viciously lately. Just a couple weeks ago, a gas station got blown up during one of their firefights. Julian does learn the various known hang outs of the victims and gets the names of some of their associates.
Before calling up Rabbi Levi, Mike calls up Tinker and asks her if she can match the phone number from the caller ID to their owners. When Mike does call the Rabbi, he asks what he knows about vengeful spirits. Unfortunately, he doesn't give the Rabbi much information to go on but Rabbi Levi agrees to help if Mike can get him some more information. Mike calls up Julian and conferences him in on the call. Julian relays what he knows and Rabbi Levi points out that if someone blew up a gas station on top of him, he'd probably be pretty angry about it.
Mike calls up Det. Wheedle, his contact in the VBPD, and asks if he can dig up any information about the gang fight that led to the gas station explosion. Det. Wheedle manages to pull the file and passes on some of the particulars. There were two gas station attendants on duty and one had his son with him. That one, Renee Sardou, is survived by a wife and daughter. Also, there were anywhere between six and a dozen or more gang members on each side of the fight. Unfortunately, witness accounts become unreliable and vary quite a bit when there's a chance of catching a stray bullet.
Julian, Kayla and Mike head over to the gas station to have a look around. It is, not surprisingly, a burned out wreck. Julian can sense the presence of he vengeful spirit all over the scene. While looking around, he remembers that one of the ingredients they still need for the body switching spell is 'ghost essence'.
While looking around, Kayla trips over a bit of rubble and Julian has to catch her. When he does, she immediately goes limp and falls to the ground as she's beset by one of her visions. She sees Julian aiming his shotgun at something but he curses as his gun jams. He's somewhere out in the woods. When she comes to, she tells him what she's seen.
The group decides to check on the widow to see if she can give them any more information. Once they get to her apartment building, they debate for a while on the best way to approach her. They decide to buzz up to the apartment and ask Mrs. Sardou if she'd be willing to answer a few questions for the police. Julian and Kayla are let into the building and walk past a bored looking security guard before taking the elevator up to the fourth floor.
Julian talks to Mrs. Sardou for a bit when the daughter, Sabrina, mentions that her daddy sometimes comes to visit her after she's gone to bed. Julian, pretending to humor the girl, asks her a few questions. He learns that daddy is now an “angel” and that sometimes he visits to ask her how she's doing and to let her know that she shouldn't worry about him. She shows him a picture that she drew of her daddy with red, possibly fiery, wings.
When Danny leaves work, he notices that he's not being followed by the police anymore.
After leaving the widow, Mike heads over to Rabbi Levi's to give him the new information. The Rabbi is a little surprised to find a young woman coming to meet him and Mike has to do a bit of convincing to tell him what is going on. Unfortunately, Rabbi Levi doesn't know any way to capture 'ghost essence'. He does tell Mike that to get rid of a vengeful spirit, you either have to know the proper rituals to drive it into the next world or you have to satisfy whatever it's goals are.
Around sunset, the group meets at the coffee shop to compare notes. Sonia informs the group that she'll go visit some friends of hers to see if they have any useful information on dealing with non-corporeal undead. Mike hands over the information Tinker gathered from the phone numbers. Several of the names are gang members with various priors and a couple are currently on parole. The group decides that they should look up these other gang members directly. They also come to the conclusion that they need to find a way to get to the spirit before it can finish it's attack and leave. They also have also find a way to capture some of its essence for the spell.
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