Several days of normalcy follow their visit to the High King's court. Sonya goes into the office to hack away at paperwork, and notices reports that a number of Chicago's homeless have been disappearing. She follows that up to discover that it's part of a new organ trade that's marked by weird occultist Mafia activity--Giovanni. Pursuing her contacts, she finds that many Bone Gnawers are missing. They were the first to notice, and those who've looked into it have vanished.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
The shipping trail leads to a hospital in upper state New York. She tells the pack, suggesting that if the Garou who investigate at these homeless shelters have been vanishing, then a better place to start may be with ghouls who are involved. Find them and follow them. RF agrees to hit up information on free clinics, while Aila and Jonas go harass some vampires to see what they can learn.
They find one leaving Electronics Boutique, oddly enough, and trail him in a car (Jonas drives; when Aila protests about his age, he shows her a fetish that's basically psychic paper) till they reach a place where they can force him off the road.
He gets out angry. "I'm sorry," Aila tells him.
"It's not an accident!" he snaps. "Unless you're idiots-"
"That's not what I'm sorry for," Aila corrects him, then she shifts and pins him to his car.
He knows one Giovanni in an Italian neighborhood, and one who lives at the edge of one of the cemeteries--an undertaker who also specializes in "shipping." Aila kills the vampire and they clean up the mess. Jonas grabs the guy's CDs.
Getting back into the truck, Aila catches a flash of someone in the rear view mirror. Someone in torn up, unkempt clothes. She gets back out for a better look, but there's no one there--just footprints, along with marks like he was dragging a stick or something. They follow the trail to a creek, where they lose it.
Sonya's investigations net her nothing except that the Mob is uncannily quiet, like someone told them to clam up.
RF gets a catatonic patient who was found in an alleyway. He realizes their mind has simply been shut down. The orderlies tell him this is the third in the last two weeks. Except for the catatonia, they're all very healthy for homeless people. They've been getting forwarded to Our Lady of Perpetual Health in upper state New York, where a doctor has been studying their cases. RF calls him--Dr. Arthur Sinris--to tell him about the new patient. Sinris himself takes the call, which is odd for a busy doctor. He's sad to report to RF that he's made no progress in the diagnosis so far, and asks RF to do some forensic work for him. This is eleven of these patients in two weeks from Chicago.
After RF hangs up, a few moments later he gets a sense that something is off. The lights begin to flicker. People back away from the door when something...someone shuffles through: wet hair, a long coat, broken rusted armor, and a long sword he's dragging along the ground behind him. RF dodges around the thing, and finds that it follows him as he heads out into the street. It moves like a zombie.
He alerts the pack, who head in. Sonya names a meeting place for RF to lead the thing to, and calls an air spirit to accompany RF in case he needs backup.
Alarms go off at Dreamsoft, which they quickly pinpoint to an Eiluned dauntain--one who's really far gone. Rey and Faris take off.
RF leads the thing--the dauntain--to the meeting place, dodging its clumsy swings and keeping it from attacking anyone else. Rey and Faris arrive on the scene, and Rey hits it with the car. It flips back over the car and stumbles back to its feet. Rey backs up.
The Garou arrive. This is a public place, so they'll go in human form, hand-to-hand. Aila ducks in to trip the thing with a leg sweep--and her blow passes through it. She looks up into its face and sees a spectre's eyes! It's a...dead spectre fairy?
RF summons the coils of the Serpent to grab the thing. Sonya asks the air spirit to take it back with the fae.
RF checks the patients and personnel at the clinic. Some of the ones close to the spectre-fairy exhibit symptoms similar to the catatonic people, in a lesser degree. He thinks they should be okay, though there are a couple brought in shortly after that it looks like the thing had gotten to in the last couple of hours. Sonya checks over witnesses to the fight and finds something similar.
The pack heads to Dreamsoft to catch up with the fae. They all wonder why the thing went after RF. And what is it? Aila ponders the Keremet, but Faris says that's a myth. The sword this thing carried has the Eiluned symbol. Aila spots the deathmarks of a member of the Legion of Fate. It seems to be a ghost possessing a body of something that's not solid or visible to begin with. "A spirit possessing a spirit," Sonya sums up. That's not metaphysically possible. "A mingling?" she suggests.
"Not natural," Faris muses. "It would have to be artificially created."
On the back of the neck, Aila spots a triangle with a stylized dragon in it. Sonya recognizes it as a Nephandic symbol Ambrose has pointed out to them on other artifcacts they've found. Jonas sends a picture of it to Ambrose. Ambrose heads over.
His investigation reveals that this thing is three souls--a spectre, a human, and a faerie--all stuck together. RF has a brief vision: an army of these things in chains, slogging across a battlefield of Garou and fae. He shakes the vision off, confused. It doesn't feel like one from his own past lives.
Aila gets a Sluagh to help talk to the spectre. When they rouse it, binding sigils glow on its face--they're Dragon's Tongue sigils, holding this monstrosity together. It's an extremely powerful spectre...one with no Psyche. Ambrose picks out runes from among the sigils--the true names of the three beings involved, taken apart and put back together to form this thing. He recognizes it as twisted Hermetic magic. "Breaking names," he points out to the others. "Right," says Faris. "You're called namers for a reason."
Their study is interrupted when they find themselves under attack. Things arrive in the hallway outside the lab--like the faerie-spectre they're looking at, except that these are werewolves. Some of the Bone Gnawers that were missing, in fact.
Sonya tries to exorcise them. It seems like it should have worked, but the binding runes snap them back together. Sonya calls to the pack. A Nocker fires a silver rocket, which kills one. A Sluagh ties the other up so the Garou can kill it. When the bodies die, the spectres try to flee. The Sluagh grabs them.
Interrogating them, they learn one remembers being stuffed into a werewolf on a bus--a Greyhound, heading southwest. There's a ticket in the body's pocket. The other was ambushed in the Labyrinth. It recalls flashing lights and a doctor's mask.
They identify the Eiluned as Sir Garret, a young sidhe whose last assignment was to investigate th Our Lady hospital. Jared follows leads that take him to the same place RF ended up with Dr. Sinris. Ambrose finds a connection on the faerie-thing--it's like a walking hole of nothing. Now that he knows what to look for, he tells the others he could find it anywhere.
They send a report to Sir Garret's superior, who says they were investigating children going missing around the hospital.
The most disturbing part about this is that the human soul bound in Sir Garret's body was snatched from Arcadia. It's the soul that would have inhabited that body otherwise; it was called back and bound to the faerie soul.
Ambrose sends a report to the chantry, which sends Mark over. While they wait, RF has another vision: some of these things were in control of themselves--the Balor. He places the location of the battle in Ireland.
Sonya thinks that sounds familiar. To try to learn more, RF tries the Ancestral Recall Gift. When he activates it, the coils of a green serpent circle around him--it's not Uktena, and it's also not evil, but it's not something that normally happens with that Gift. He remembers that when these things came before, they had been constructed. He sees a mage holding an evil grimoire.
The Garou consult with Fianna while the fae ask the Fiona, but neither lead turns up useful information, which means they've pretty much run their local leads to a dead end. To learn more, they'll have to go to New York.
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