The man's heart thundered in his breast like a tribal drum. The back of his throat was bitter with fear and the exertion of running at a dead sprint at a time in his life when his body would no longer tolerate such unplanned exertion. Tears of fear burned at the corner of his eyes as he pounded down the alley, trying not to look back and yet unable to stop himself from trying to steal a glance at the… the thing that pursed him. Risking a look he could catch only its shadow, long and tenebrous, against the red brick wall of the alley way, not upon him, not quite. The man burst out of the alley mouth across a deserted street, hurdling a low rope divider that set off a neatly apportioned city park. Moonlight and terror gave the place a sinister aspect for all the merry-go-round and duck pond must have made it idyllic in the daylight hours. He pounded down the gravel path towards the pond, casting another furtive glance over his shoulder as he passed a park bench that in warmer times might have housed a drifter. Even that dubious human contact would have been something. There were no people anywhere, no bystanders, no police, no help.

Greg wasn't a bad guy. No worse than most. What could he have done to deserve this... this whatever it was. Fumbling in his pocket he snatched out his cellphone and swiped the display live. In front of him the gravel path wove between gracefully arching oak trees. In the warmer months it would have formed a pleasant canopy but at the moment the bare branches were skeletal and threatening. A weird laughter sounded behind him, sinister and inhuman. Sobbing he bolted for the trees furiously thumbing his phone for a number, any number and thrust the phone against his ear. In the dark he stumbled his expensive shoes slipping in the gravel, instinctively he threw out a hand to arrest his fall as he tumbled into the red cedar mulch, feeling the rough would splinter his hand but caring not at all.

"Hello..." a sleepy voice asked in his ear.

"O...Olivia," he panted feeling the first spark of hope since the thing had appeared in his peripheral vision as he left the bar. He thrust himself to his feet, one of his shoes was gone and the gravel stung his foot through the thing sock as he got back onto the path, racing between the trees.

"Greg? What the fuck its three in the god damn..."

"Oliva I need you to call 911 tell them I'm in the park west of..." Something stabbed downwards from the trees in front of him and Greg opened his mouth to scream, but the only sound that was heard was a hollow mocking chuckle as pain and darkness closed around him.

______________________________________________________

There were many things that Eleanor Tregellan enjoyed. Wine, chocolate, feminine company, bookstores, necromancy, and coffee. Running however, she could have done with out. At 35 she was no longer the energetic youngster who had cheerful ran marathons just for fun, the ravages of Mother Time were beginning to catch up with her in a dozen aches and pains that she wouldn't have had to deal with ten or even five years before. She was a trim woman, though that was more through exercise than genetics, hence the running, with dark red hair and a generous spattering of freckles that broadcast 'kiss me, I'm probably at least Boston Irish' to anyone with an eye for it. She jogged up the driveway of crushed marble, past the sculpted trees and well concealed wards, to the large two story house she shared with Emmaline. According to her annoyingly precise smart watch, it was nearly five forty five, though in early March dawn was still an hour or so away. The motion detector on the house lights clicked and soft illumination flooded the front steps. Blowing hard, she wiped the sweat from her brow and slowed to a walk stepping to the dark oak portal and pressing her hand to the middle of a large brass sun and moon symbol which was screwed into the timber.

"Hestias," she intoned wearily and the lock opened with a soft whisper of metal on metal. She pushed open the door and stepped across the threshold, closing it with a quick check of her hip that sent a gentle bang through the lower story. The interior lights were already on and she could hear a soft musical voice humming a German folk tune from the kitchen. The smells of hot food and freshly brewed coffee were like ambrosia and Ellie changed course and headed to the kitchen. A statuesque blond woman behind the gold shot marble counter tops, pouring some kind of butter syrup over pancakes. Even in an old UCLA t shirt, Emmaline Von Morganstern contrived to look elegant and sophisticated, her mused hair, yet to be tamed from sleep, hung in a stylish disarray that a model on the catwalk might pay for a hairdresser to achieve. Emmaline looked up and smiled as Ellie entered and she promptly forgot all about her aching muscles and the various irritations of approaching middle age.

“There you are gelibete,” Emmaline said with a smile her Autrian accent clipping the words sharply. Though Emmaline had been in America for a decade the Land of the Free was making little headway against her implacable Teutonic tongue. You could take the girl out of Neuschwanstein but you couldn't take Neuschwanstein out of the girl. Emmaline produced a pancake and a cup of chilled orange juice and set them down on the kitchen table for Ellie, liberally adding the buttery syrup without asking.

“You are just hell bent on undoing my run aren’t you,” Ellie teased as she took her seat. Emmaline snorted and produced a second pancake and some coffee for herself before joining her lover at the table. She laid her hand across Ellie’s and squeezed gently.

“You are too skinny anyway,” Emmaline told her primly and began cutting into her pancake. Emmaline called them pancakes but in reality they had so much egg in them they were more like a custard slice and they were Ellie favorite.

“Have you looked over the auguries this morning? They are not good,” Emmaline complained, her accent sharpening ‘good’ to something more like ‘Gut’ with a German glottal stop. Ellie groaned.

“You have made breakfast and read the auguries? Only you could make me feel lazy for only completing a 90 minute run,” Ellie laughed. Emmaline leaned back, the fabric of her shirt stretching rather distractingly over her chest, and retrieved a tablet which she passed over to Emmaline. It was an android of course as the Wozniak Geas made all apple products inherently dangerous for any kind of Working. Emmaline thumbed it on and looked at the file which was being displayed, a PDF copy of the output of a half dozen pen and ink stenography machines. She frowned as she adsorbed the information.

“That looks like dangerously like a Silinus curve to me,” she said indicating the right most graph. Emmaline nodded.

“It’s only a five step Fourier transform of it,” Emmaline corrected. Unlike Ellie she maintained ties to the world beyond the occult, teaching part time at DuPal where she lectured on the Philosophy of Mathematics. She was better at the math than Ellie was though Emmaline lacked Ellie’s stomach for its more esoteric application.

“Do you think we should stop forecasting?” Emmaline asked, taking a sip of her orange juice before continuing her examination.

“Maybe,” Emmaline conceded, “I’ll know better once I see what you looking at it has done.” Reading the future was a tricky business, especially so because reading it could very literally alter the events previously foretold. Schrodinger's cat was alive and dead until you opened the box afterall. Sometimes the best thing you could do was stop forecasting all together or else risk disaster via the Cassandra Paradox or some other esoteric law of probability. Ellie nodded and set the tablet down, pushing away thoughts of troubling omens and portents in the mathematical substructure of reality. It was too early to get all ‘and lo I saw a pale horseman’ about it. Conversation turned to more mundane matters. Emmaline’s sister was visiting from Austria next week. The faculty was putting together a dinner party to celebrate Beltane, an idea Emmaline had planted no doubt. Ellie allowed the wash of happy domesticity to pass over her for a few minutes, making appropriate noises in those rare places it was required and generally enjoying Emmaline’s company. Both witches suddenly stiffened a heartbeat before Emmaline’s phone began to buzz. It was work. Of course.

“Speak,” Eleanor commanded as she answered the heavily customized smartphone. She nodded her head as the voice on the other end outlined the situation.

“Yes, I’ll be in, call it 30… no 45 minutes I need to shower,” she said at last and then hung up the phone.

“Do you need me?” Emmaline asked, her blue eyes serious and concerned. Ellie reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“Yes,” she said simply and then added, “but not for work, you have class today.” Emmaline pursed her lips no doubt lingering on the ill omens as Ellie devoured the last forkful of pancake and stole a quick swig of her partners coffee.

“Ok, Ill take down the forecasting rig, but if you need me, call me, I doubt my students will object if they miss out on a lecture about the importance of the Mandelbrot series,” she admonished. Eleanor was already heading for the door and she turned to give Emmaline a leer.

“I wouldn’t be so sure dearest,” she teased, “but don’t worry, this is West Coast stuff, how bad can it be?”

__________________________________________________________
From: etregellan@SundayGroup.org
To: cdavidson@SundayGroup.org;vkerensky@SundayGroup.org;mduclar@SundayGroup.org; |untranslatable rune|
BCC:spriest@PriestHawthorne.org
Subject: Pending Assignment - Possible Travel [Urgent]

Hi All,

A situation has arisen that requires an immediate investigation. Please report to the office ASAP. Travel may be required rapidly so please bring whatever supplies you will need. Current estimate is three days though this may be revised upwards.

After the incident with Delta last month I remind you that any weapons will need to be in properly checked baggage, ditto any artifacts that will interfere with navigational equipment.

See you shortly,
Eleanor Tregellan
__________________________________________________________

Chalk dust filled the air as Edgar worked his equations along the wooden mat he had placed in his living room, though truth be told it was much more like a vast study filled with books and trinkets across the ages. Along the walls were the words AIWISS and 418 etched in chalk like the marking of days in a prison cell. He seemed a madman, though his demeanor was calm and full of focus. Just now he was finishing the pentagram along the floor.

He had read the Liber AL vel Legis, having been written by that fool Aleister Crowley whom he'd met a few occasions before the fellow's untimely death. He wrote his work in a completely esoteric fashion when it should have reflected the layman's occultism, and Edgar had to agree with Israel Regardie's criticisms of the work, and not just because the wizard had been far better friends with Regardie when he was alive!

So it vexed him that despite the blathering, there was a bit of truth in the Liber AL, and after careful study, Edgar had deduced that there likely had been some being that had visited Crowley when he was penning his work at Cairo over a century ago. Aiwass was one evidently known by Aud the Deep-minded in Snorri Sturlsson's 3rd and 4th lost manuscripts; the Galdr Edda and the Seidr Edda. No one save Edgar had touched Snorri's tomb since the 13th century, so Crowley couldn't have used the name in those lost books to perpetuate his own lie.

Had that idiot known a form of magick that Edgar had yet to learn? Granted he still knew more about the Nordic way of the wyrd than any occultist, but it still vexxed him. Perhaps if Odin remained elusive, he could converse with this entity Aiwass and discuss magic properly. He was nearly done with his ritual circle, merely needing some goat's blood to call the spirit into the room. He passed the burning hearth and entered the kitchen, washing his hands with Dawn(™) before collecting the blood bags from his freezer.

Then his Android phone `pinged` like a morning bell, and he checked it to see he had a new email. "Bloody technology" he muttered, and opened the email after having to sign in and scroll and found Ellie needed him at the office. He lifted his lip in distaste. Not at Ellie, but the timing. It seemed the Norns still had their fun with him when they could, and he placed the blood bag back in the freezer and collected his things before entering the closet where he kept the Fjarskiptingu Steinn, or 'Teleportation Stone.'

It was dangerous to teleport often, but as long as everyone at the office followed the bloody rules and kept out of his office, no one would end up as a Draugr or a blood smear upon the walls. He plucked a small sack of sulfur from his robe pocket and began to sprinkle the mineral upon the stone at his feet, humming a tune.



Ozone filled the air as lightning engulfed Edgar Stormraven's form, which gave his jackets nasty static shocks if he might add, and with a flash and a boom he stood at the center of a smoky room. Couching and waving about his arms, he fumbled for the door and opened it, letting the fog dissipate into nothing as he blinked, standing amid the office center. His room was the only one that was obscured by a windowless wall, so he could perform his experiments safely (for others, not just he!)

"Oh this better be good, this better be good." The old man murmured, making his way to the break room. A small half room with two round tables, five chairs, a vending machine that ate up coins like Fenris ate hands, and a coffee machine that had been dubbed "jormungandr" because it was everyone's world in this place. He poured himself a hot cup of the brew, hoping beyond hope it was actually drinkable this time. Back in his day, they used fresh cow's milk for creamer rather than this corporate shit.

Clive awoke to the incessant chirping of songbirds in the trees outside his tent and the faint light of dawn struggling to reach him through the rain cover. He set aside the bayonet in his hand and stretched with a groan, cracking his neck with almost gratuitous volume as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. He fished a beefy revolver from his waistband and paused for a 20 count to take in the sounds and smells around him. It was surprising how many monsters could be smelled before they were seen, or maybe not given how many of them eat human flesh or corpses. Clive still wasn’t satisfied yet, not by a long shot. He holstered the revolver and retrieved a compact shotgun from under the blanket as he poked his head out of the tent with all the caution of a lone deer living in a town of wolves. When he wasn’t immediately set upon by ravenous horrors of the night, he slowly exited his shelter. It wasn’t until he walked the perimeter of his campsite and checked the entire site for tracks twice over that he finally relaxed and set his main weapon aside.

He broke camp with almost robotic efficiency and packed everything into a rugged, mud-splattered Jeep. From the floodlights and suspension lift, to the snorkeled exhaust and winch bumper, this beast could get places most people would never see. That being said, the chipped paint and visible rust hinted at the vehicle's true age despite the upgrades. Clive caught a whiff of his own pungent scent as he packed and frowned when he smelled his armpit. To think he’d been hesitant to pay a whole $30 for that camper’s shower he now was immensely grateful to own.

______________________________________________________

The drive back to town was uneventful as the previous night. Hopefully this quiet Wisconsin town would have many more uneventful nights now that the source of those mysterious disappearances over the years had been dismembered, its frozen heart melted in a roaring fire, the body salted, the remains cremated, and the ashes scattered to the wind. Clive always hated wendigo hunts. Inconsiderate bastards can’t even pick somewhere nice to eat wayward hikers. They never fail to pick the absolute coldest damned places to live and require so much clean up afterward. Of course this particular incident happened in a much warmer part of the year than usual and that fact stewed in his mind the entire drive.

He soon pulled into the parking lot of the local library and headed inside, eager to check his email and see if his new... employer? Yes, his new employer, had his first assignment. He couldn’t help his excitement at the idea of working with a proper team for the first time. Who knows what they might be able to teach him? His hopes soared when he checked his single unread message. He hastily typed out a reply and all but ran to his car.



______________________________________________________

True to his word, Clive pulled up to the nondescript building in just under two hours. He retrieved a pair of duffel bags from the trunk and stepped up to the front door, the skeleton key Eleanor had given him in hand. As he’d been instructed, he tapped his key against the door three times and it swung wide. Seeing a wooden turn its own handle and open by itself made him slightly uneasy despite himself. Though he was a monster hunter, he was no mage and shied away from the use of magic as much as possible. The art of seals and scrolls always gave him the heebie jeebies.

Clive stopped by his room, which was little more of a glorified armory with a blowup mattress truth be told, and set his bags down by the reloading bench. He picked up a notepad beside the bench and scribbled out a note for himself to replace the salt he’d used on his little hunting trip. Moving to a rather large and detailed map of the continental United States on the opposite wall, he replaced a red pin in southern Wisconsin with a green pin and frowned. The idea of a wendigo possession that late into spring and so close to a population center didn’t bode well. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a repeat of the summer of ‘09.

Summoned to life by a loud ping that fell like a hammerblow against her skull, Val woke up with a cold sweat and the sickly sweet doom that seemed to have followed her back from the Pyramid Club. Fighting a wave of fear, she lurched upwards in a panic and gasped for air, desperately grabbing for her phone and then throwing it halfway across the room before she had even read the email that had brought her back to the land of the living. Burying a sob in her hands, she pushed the blankets aside with a low, weary sigh. She ignored the half-awake complaints from the woman next to her and the fumbling hand that reached for her shoulder. Val didn't remember her name. It was probably Sophia. It didn't matter.

She grabbed a crumpled t-shirt that lay in a pile of clothing at the foot of the bed and threw it on. It smelled of sweat and vodka. A small cloud of glitter attacked her and flashes of the previous night exploded past her retinas, smashing her visual cortex with bright strobe lights and visions of excess. Val grabbed her head between her hands and cursed. Magic infused drugs always kicked hard. And tequila never helped. The young alchemist sat down on the floor several steps later with another groan of pain. She fished a pill out of the back pocket of her discarded jeans and swallowed it dry. Praying for mercy, she grabbed her phone and began to read the latest alert. Squinting to read email 451 out of 450 unread, Val began to feel a growing sense of dread that manifested into absolute despair. Curling into a sad ball on the dusty, glitter strewn floor of her room the young wizard began to plead with the universe at large.

Work.

Work.

Not work.

Not now.

Please no.

Val studied the ceiling for several minutes as she contemplated the excuses she could make. Eleanor Tregellan didn't seem the type to buy a sad story. And the company still believed in her. She hadn't burned enough bridges for them to hate her. They didn't know her, not really. Not yet. The buzz from the pill calmed her. She breathed slowly, enjoying the tingling warmth that crept outward from her core. She was an artist. A real artist with drugs. It was a pity so few people knew. The office. Val closed her eyes and let herself fade from the moment. When she opened her eyes again words floated past her.

Eleanor. The Boss. Springsteen? No. Tregellan. Less Americana. More witchery. Val remembered her from the interview. All those freckles, all that competence, and those gold framed glasses. Val had felt out of her depth when talking to her. Tregellan had intimidated her.

"Fuck," Val muttered, feeling suddenly dizzy.

A rune danced in front of her. She saw a face. The old man from the office. He had strong Gandalf vibes, but where were the Hobbits? She'd heard he was a wizard. Someone had told her to stay out of his office, but she'd managed to sneak a peak when no one was looking. She remembered the mess and the ancient book, she'd wanted to look closer. Most of all she wondered where he was hiding the One Ring. Probably in the chest. Definitely in the chest. She'd have to get the key.

"Get a hold of yourself, Val," she admonished, slapping the side of her face lightly with a desperate laugh.

Davidson. The name meant nothing to her, but she heard faint music and an Ennio Morricone banger danced past her ears. A serious face and serious eyes. A gunslinger with guns, so many guns. She hoped he was like John Wayne. John Wayne in True Grit. Eye patches were cool.

Duclar. French. The name reminder her of Paris. It made her sad. She didn't want to remember. She saw the face of a young man. Blue eyes and a burning cigarette. A mad laugh echoed from nowhere and she tasted a hint of her own fear.

Val forced her eyes shut. She resisted the urge to scream and gulped down her anxiety. She couldn't let them down. Not yet. Not now. She needed rent money. She needed caffeine. And she needed a breakfast burrito. She had to get up. She had a job to do. Her mind made up, Val rose to her feet and walked out of her bedroom. She didn't bother putting on any more clothes. She wasn't a prude. She didn't believe in pants within the safety of her own flat. Well, Milo's flat, but she paid him. Trying her best to walk like a human and not a zombie, Val stumbled through the hallway, past the crumbling kitchen, and walked into the bathroom with a muted grunt in the direction of the bowler wearing young man sitting on the living room floor as he delicately fussed over a kettle of tea and ornate tea set. He waved back at her, but remained focused on his tea.

Slamming the door behind her, Val undressed and stepped into the shower. The cold kiss of water jolted her awake and she leaned her head against the wall as the water rose to an almost unbearable temperature. Beneath the falling water she felt tears on her cheeks. She needed a way out. She needed more time. She needed Cara. Hot water and soap did not banish her nightmares. She could still see the fangs. She could still smell the sickly sweet death that haunted her.

She had lived her life between nondescript warehouses for some years now, subsiding on a well-tested diet of coffee in Styrofoam cups, instant noodles, loud thumping music, and party drugs. But she'd fucked up. She'd fucked up and now she was trapped. The Sunday Group was her way out. It was her only chance. She could make a buck. She could get out.

A loud thump on the door interrupted her mid shampoo. Milo didn't like it when she wasted water. He said anything more than forty five minutes was a waste of money. Uninterested in another argument, Val turned off the water and wrapped herself in a nearby towel. She flashed him a finger as she walked past him and his low chuckle followed her back to her room. Her friend from the previous night hadn't moved much.

Thirty more minutes passed before the alchemist was ready. She had dressed reluctantly, perceiving real work to be suffering. Her black jeans were tastefully torn at one knee and her t-shirt was a loud electric blue. Feeling a need for some level of professionalism, Val put on a pair of scuffed green canvas sneakers that seemed more than cool enough for a business meeting. She hoped the rest of the Sunday Group would be pleased that she'd even taken the time to do her makeup. She grabbed her jacket from the chair where she had left it on her way out of the bedroom.

Still reaching for some semblance of calm, Val crossed the apartment and stopped at a thick metal door that seemed oddly out of place in a residential apartment. The door latch looked to be fashioned from the rear axle of an old Ford and had been haphazardly welded across the metal lined door frame. The alchemist pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door with a gentle twist. Val walked into the room deliberately, carefully disarming the trigger mechanism of the alchemical bomb she had readied and preventing a nasty explosion. She didn't bother to close the door behind her. Milo knew to respect her privacy. She felt a small rush of excitement at the thought of traveling again. She hoped they were going somewhere good. Somewhere cool. Somewhere with good music. Somewhere with good food. And somewhere where she could get pretty drinks decorated with fancy umbrellas on the company dime.

Idly dreaming, Val grabbed a tattered leather bag from a corner of the room where she had left it and eyed the shelves lined with vials of potion that covered all the walls of the room at alarming angles. She hummed to herself as she selected particular phials of pragmatic magic and slipped them into the canvas lined pockets of her bag. She didn't think she'd need a love potion. She hoped romance wasn't a part of the job. She hadn't signed up for that sort of thing. Instead she brought her own distinct takes on the classics. A potion to heighten the senses, a potion to facilitate a hasty escape, a potion to increase strength, and a potion to heal minor wounds. The key she mused to herself with no small measure of pride was adding cherry flavor. Content with her selections, Val added an assortment of alchemical ingredients, basic stock that would allow her to make some useful concoctions if things got heavy. Val closed her bag with a loud thud of metal clasps.

Without a second thought the young alchemist reached for a jar of small pills that she shoved into an empty bottle of Ibuprofen. Shaking the pill bottle playfully, she carefully stashed it in the inner pocket of her jacket. An elicit mixture of color coded arcane drugs of her own design, they varied in potency and effect, from mild buzz to psychedelic magic fueled trip into another plane of existence. They would help her ease the boredom she expected and numb the familiar pain. They'd help her escape herself. They'd keep her functional, but she doubted they'd do much for the nightmares.

The heavy door to the laboratory shut behind her. She had reset the alchemical trap. She wasn't taking any chances. Wrapping the bike lock through the latch, Val locked the door to her arcane collection and pocketed the key. Val trusted Milo, but she wasn't an idiot. He was a friend, a good friend, but friendships weren't an insurance policy when dealing with groups of cranky wizards drunk on their own moral superiority.

"I'm heading out, Milo", Val said, putting on her jacket. Wearing her armor, her memories, she finally felt ready, ready to face the world and the monsters that lurked in the shadows. At least that's what she wanted to believe. If she hadn't known better.

"A party, this early?" Milo asked as she reached for the door knob.

"No, I wish," Val complained, sighing loudly. "Work. Got a message from the office."

"Office? This that Sunday Group thing you were talking about? No more peddling drugs, ey? You gone straight on me girl?"

"Yes, I'm an upstanding member of society now, Milo," Val said, oozing sarcasm. She crossed her arms and nodded in the direction of her laboratory, "Keep on eye on things will you?"

"Sure, sure, you pay me for the privilege of two rooms and I will guard that privilege with my life."

"Wonderful, just don't let anyone into my room."

"Of course, that's what you pay me extra for," Milo answered without even a hint of offense in his voice.

"And if the cops show up just make sure to burn my kit before they get through the front door."

"What do I do if a council of wizards show up?" Milo asked with a raised brow and a smirk that betrayed his nature.

Val paused in thought for a moment and then offered a shrug, "If a council of wizards show up, make sure to burn my stuff even faster. I don't need them offering me more advice."

"Righto, napalm it is. Let's see those older geezers deal with that," Milo said with a laugh.

Val rolled her eyes at the young trickster, fighting an urge to call him a child. She gestured with a thumb towards her bedroom, recalling a recent complication, "Oh, there's a woman in my room, Sophia, can you make sure she leaves in a couple of hours."

Milo turned and looked at Val with sad eyes full of disappointment. Val knew that she had fucked up and the alchemist felt a wave of self-disgust surging through her. The hoodlum tutted softly, "Sarah, she said her name was Sarah. You'd do well to listen, just once, Val. You can't keep treating people like this."

"Yeah, ok. Sarah, that's what I said. Just get her out of my room."

"Yeah, yeah, but don't expect me to apologize for you."

"What's there to apologize for?" she hissed at Milo, trying her best to channel her shame into anger. Anger was so much easier to deal with. Before she could even turn the door knob, she heard Milo rise from his perch on the couch.

"Wait, hold up Val," Milo said. Even with the bowler hat on his head he was a good head shorter than Val and a fair bit younger. Val always hated how much older he seemed. He lorded his position as household authority over her and spoke of things like morals. She hated the jerk sometimes, but loved him more than she liked. Milo smiled and held out a paper shopping bag. Val made no move to grab the bag and Milo impatiently pulled out a gun from the brown paper bag,"On the house. Something to keep you safe. 9mm Para-fucking-bellum. Czech Steel. Shoots ace. Not a lot of kick. Will last you for a good hundred years. Clips loaded and you've got 16 rounds. Just don't forget to turn the safety off before you start blasting, yeah?"

"I don't need a gun, Milo," Val said, feeling her heart lurch in her chest. She wasn't a fighter. She wasn't even a sometimes fighter. She was a runner. She was a coward.

"Yeah, well wizards always say shit like that and then they take a round to the dome or find themselves eaten by some monster. You're an investigator now, Val, you gotta bring some artillery with you when you hit the streets."

"Fuck," Val said, regretting her life choices for only the fourth time in an hour. "If I get arrested I'm telling them you gave me this."

"Just use some magic, make it look like a rock or something. Use a glamor, can't be that hard. I've seen other pointy hatted fellows do it. Not like the TSA are gonna look that carefully, are they?" Milo replied with a wink.

"Fuck," was all Val weakly managed as she took the gun and stuffed it into her bag. She wasn't ready to kill.

---

Val strode into the company offices with her tired eyes hidden beneath a pair of sunglasses. She had stolen them from a shop rack on her way to the office. Free was almost always better than $179.95. The alchemist wielded a questionable breakfast burrito she had purchased from an even more dubious food cart in her right hand. She had an office. They had said so on her first day. Well, it was less of an office and more of a chemistry laboratory. She couldn't remember where it was. She didn't feel like asking. It was somewhere in the basement and the idea of stairs didn't appeal to her. She had survived the "L" and the walk down the platform and that was enough adventure for one day. The magical door was a nice touch. She was impressed. She wondered if the old wizard was around, she wanted to take another look at his office.

Anxiety coursed through her blood and Val reflexively palmed the vial of blood she kept in the pocket of her jacket. She wanted it. Even now, she wanted it. She needed it. She need it even now, but she knew that she'd really need it later. She'd need it if they got stuck wherever it was they were going. She'd need it if the job took longer than three days.

Uncertain of how far she was willing to walk, Val collapsed into a tasteful corporate sofa near the door that faced an elegant teak desk and a pretty receptionist. Val thought that she had met her before. Joanna, maybe, Blumenthal, probably. The alchemist would have been content to while her day away watching the slender hands of the secretary dance across her keyboard. There was something terribly exciting about 100 words per minute being knocked out that reminded Val of 150 beats per minute, neon lights, and exposed skin. Val took a slow breath in and felt the urgent pull of neurochemicals as they flooded into her ventral striatum. She felt better already. She felt at ease, but she needed coffee and she needed something to distract her from work.

"Hello!" Val quipped as she bounded to her feet, abandoning her half-eaten breakfast burrito.

"Hello?" the secretary replied, looking up at uncertainly at Val. Her eyes were deep pools of green that Val found terribly entrancing. Her blouse was killer. And her hair cut was stylish. Val liked her already.

"Miss Blumenthal?" Val asked, leaning closer, and resting her arms across the desk. Lips painted a bright turquoise pursed into a wavering smile and Val tucked a strand of stray blue streaked hair to the side.

"Yes, that's right, but please, call me Joanna," the woman replied with a warm smile. "What can I do for you today, Miss Kerensky?"

"I'm here for some sort of meeting?" Val began, gesturing broadly with her hands. "I'm not late am I? I really wanted to make a good impression⁠ on E—"

"Ummm, Miss Kerensky," Joanna interrupted.

"Yes, Joanna?" Val said.

"You have glitter all over your jacket."

"Ah, so I do," Val said with an impish smile. "How about you show me where the coffee machine is and I tell you how I got glitter all over my jacket?"

"I can just point you in the direction of the break room⁠—"

"Oh no, that's no fun," Val said frowning sadly. She shifted even closer and tilted her neck just so. "I was hoping to ask you some questions about the office. I'm very curious about some of my colleagues. Particularly, the grey beard with the messy office."

"I guess I can take a short break," Joanna demurred with a short breath of excitement. Val didn't miss the hint of color that danced across her cheeks.

"Wonderful!" Val said positively purring. She offered a hand to the other women as she rose from her seat and leaned in close to whisper, "Now, about that glitter..."

Click.

Click.

Click. Click.

"C'mon, fire up!"

Click.

"Should have switched back to light bulbs when I had the opportunity..." a low voice muttered more to itself than anything else in the darkness. Another attempt to throw the switch, but while its collegues followed suit one of the luminescent tubes refused to work still. Unfortunatenly it was one of the more important ones, illuminating the workbench and not some empty space or temporary collection of garbage.

The cellar probably was the only place in Maël's abode which did not have that certain odour of burnt tobacco in it, but given its size one could argue that his home still was at least halfway smoke-free. Instead the smell of wood filled the room along with traces of leather, rubber and a waft of hard-soldering. All of which was okay, but smoking here would get him rid off whatever kind of reputation he had earned so far pretty fast. Aside from that -- in an environment filled with wood and dust many decades old it was just too much of a fire hazard.

There it was, pretty much in the centre of the room: a not-so-mighty, but still formidable Wurlitzer CX. The one with the intricate roll-changing mechanism. A machine which could give you all the fun for a single coin, from a time when phonograph records were a heap of teething troubles and transistors not even a theoretical thing. Well... not all the fun to be honest. That did only come if one dared to take the panels off before switching it on so one could see for oneself just how oldschool the idea of steampunk already was back in the day. There were more than enough flexible pipes that needed replacement, an abundance of cogs and chains desperately crying for lubrication and an electric motor that looked like a massive, black chunk of menace. Not to forget the light bulbs! Quite ironically this instrument's lighting was in better working order than that of the room it was being restored in.

The larger part of the general population being oblivious to the supernatural was a good thing. Maël had convinced himself very early that most people would not be willing to sell any instrument to a passionate lover of those things who also was half a demon. Unless of course they hoped for it to be given some kind of infernal touch. There had to be a way to make one of those cute wooden organ pipes scream like a real banshee, hadn't it ? And if computers could do magic one couldn't rule out the possibility to create a music roll that would make a Wurlitzer CX summon an otherworldly being just by playing it. A melody of horror that would spill death upon any undesired intruder automatically!

Anyway. He currently lacked the time to delve into cool imaginations. He had set himself the goal to get the thing back in working order at some point in the future. However there always were those unforseen evantualities... Sometimes they were the spice in the soup, but sometimes they were also just flat-out annoying. Having dropped his somewhat outdated smartphone onto a small table, Maël shoved himself beneath the inner workings of the machine. The two double-action bellows had become brittle and were leaking badly.

It took a few hours until the thought of a fresh cup of coffee had become too tempting to resist. He never would have thought to check his phone while filling himself up with that rejuvenating poison -- why give work B the opportunity to reach oneself while one was trying to regenerate from work A ? Said phone however was quick to realize that it had left the depths of reinforced concrete and could make contact with the network again. The message was accompanied by a particularly loud ringtone he had selected for anything that orignated from @SundayGroup.org. Yes, he had a hobby for relaxation and a real job that put him into weird and no less perilous situations frequently. Now the latter one had come to bite him.

------

Big, bright red and accurately printed letters announced the contents of the small plastic case:

CARFENTANYL
- EMERGENCY USE ONLY! -

Somewhere below the red letters and written in white ink by hand stood a small footnote: "And Clive use only plz because I know he's the best with guns!"

Not so much with his personality though... Maël added internally as he stared at the case. Carfentanyl was a somewhat pumped-up variant of fentanyl and normally only used for putting things like elefants, lions or ice bears asleep quickly. However Maël, heavy-heartedly, had opted to buy that tranquilizer dart gun just in case something would happen with him even he didn't expect and couldn't control anymore. Not that it had ever seen any real use since then and not that he was entirely convinced of the whole thing being a good idea in the first place, but better safe than sorry always was a good approach and he was not the one who would have to make the ultimate decision. Therefore he always took it with him to the Sunday Group's offices.

Speaking of which... that message had been received just now, but it had been sent hours ago already and spent the meantime in the network's buffers. He was running late, damn late!

The building had a small car park below the ground that could only be used by those who had the proper keycard and were registered employees. There was a security service which cared about it during the night and a caretaker to keep things tidy and well maintained, so Maël had absolutely no concerns giving his motorcycle a stay here. His own office ? One of the more boring ones: no laboratory down in the cellar, no inofficial 'please don't stay here because someone might teleport and displace you to death' zone he imagined in his mind, no weapon racks and not even as much as a custom keyboard replacing the one that was standard office equipment here. In other words: A museum preserving how the building had looked like before a bunch of supernatural investigators had set foot here.

The fancy thing was the person now sitting in the chair and, to be honest, he was at least as much proud of it as he was worried.

Eleanor arrived at the office 37 minutes after her phone call had ended. The sun was beginning to rise but the chill of Lake Michigan didn't give much hope for any warmth to day. She checked herself in the mirror making sure she was the presentable face of a bland organisation. Dressed in a dark grey pencil skirt with a conservatively buttoned white shirt and low practical heels she looked like a thousand other attorneys, CPA's and COOs who would be making their way to whatever outpost of modern industry at which they choose to toil, doubtless believing that their work was both valuable and vital. As she gazed at the three story red brick office building that served as the Sunday Groups Chicago offices she wondered if she was, in her own way as deluded as they were. That seemed depressingly likely. She twisted the key in the igntion, shutting off the purr of her Audi's engine and cutting of the music that had been playing in mid chorus. For a few long moments she sat in place, hands on the wheel, willing her body to move without achieving any result. At last she managed it and steped out of her car into the cool march morning. She pulled her black leather coat up over her shoulders and lifted her briefcase from the passenger seat before heading for the front door. Straights seemed to almost go out of their way to ignore the magical world around them, but a little bit of theatre went a long way. One jogger who saw a well dressed woman with a briefcase enter the building would immediately discount every instance of a hunched figure, or an unkempt man with a duffel bag that looked suspiciously like it might contain weapons. She climbed the granite steps and pressed her key to the door, allowing it to swing open before stepping into the warmth of the heated interior.

The inside of the building was tastefully decorated in a modern style, soft carpeting with soothing neutral tones. The receptionists desk stood empty, which was unusual, and one of the chairs in the vestibule appeared to be speckled with glitter. Eleanor pursed her lips, but as no pixies appeared to menace her she let it go as unimportant. Walking around the desk she pushed open the glass doors stenciled with the rather unimaginative logo of the Sunday Group, a stylized S entwined in a G and headed down the hall into the main annex. A dozen or so offices encircled a central common area in which photocopiers and the other essential tools of modern office life were located. To the rear of the building was another hallway in which the restrooms, break room and several conference areas, set off with semi transparent windows. At each end of the rear hallways were stairwells that led to the upper floor. The second floor was given over to rather extensive storage and in some cases containment areas while the third floor, accessible only through an elevator off a separate entrance on the other side of the building, housed what few administrative staff were required to support the actual working members. Largely this was a case of ordering equipment, dealing with payroll and occasionally notifying next of kin. To Eleanors knowledge none of the admin personnel had any idea what the actual purpose of the Sunday Group was, other than the vauglely worded mission statements, 'making tomorrow better today' and other such nonsense, that appeared in the companies few public listings. That was not her department.

Her own office sat in the right rear corner where she could view the other office and the common area. It had a window of frosted glass and a name plate that read: Eleanor Tregellan - Operations Manager. A decade ago, before things had gone south in Fayetteville, this had been Dan's office. Management had told her that she had earned it, but steeping through the door always felt a bit like drinking the blood of her former teammates. The interior of the office was not particularly impressive. A large modern desk with a small but powerful laptop computer set off to one side. A comfortable leather chair and several tasteful pieces of modern art. Book shelves lined the three walls that did not look out over the other offices, each one piled with bound folios of A4 paper, printed pdfs of works on subjects ranging from the construction of non-euclidian algorithm generation, to Folklore of the American Southwest. While Eleanor had a fondness for the aesthetic of old grimiores, she preferred to keep her working documents in easy to use, and magically sterile formats. Besides her Latin wasn't that great and the translations were a damn sight easier to manage.

Walking over to her desk she sat down and took a deep breath. Partly to distract herself from her next task she drew out her cellphone. Sure enough there was a text from Emmaline.

Liebhaberin, curve is now two Fourier transform from baseline Silenas. I'm shutting down the rig. Be careful. I love you.

Eleanor sighed. The auguries had indeed gotten worse since she had looked at them over breakfast. That wasn't a good sign, personal observation really only changed forecasts when ones own fate was tied up with the outcome. Continuing to predict the future in such cases always created a dangerous feedback loop with results worse than the original predictions Right now Emmaline would be destroying the glyphs they had painstakingly etched into the soft stone of their ritual space before laboriously smashing each of the CPUs they had used to monitor the spell, otherwise the forecasting algorithm might continue to operate within the silicon hearts of the microprocessors even in the absence of the rest of construct. She quickly texted back that she would be careful then drew a phone from beneath her desk. It was old, a black bakelite model dating from before the second world war, complete with old fashioned rotary dialing. No cords connected it to anything, but she knew by now that didn't matter. It took her an additional moment to steel herself before she reached out and laid her hand on the receiver. The call bell rang unmusically. She allowed it to ring twice more before lifting it to her ear.

"Operations..."

The team was finally assembled when Duclair at last decided to join them. Eleanor refrained from grinding her teeth. Management had told her she should think of herself as a handler rather than an employer, unique people lost their value if you tried to hammer them into a shape of your own devising. She let her eyes slide off the tall man and sweep the rest of the room. Edgar Stormraven sat nursing a cup of coffee that appeared to have personally offended him. Talents like his were rare, most people born with magical gifts died young and horribly but those that survived could wield tremendous power. It was hard to imagine Edgar wielding the power of the cosmos as he sat in his threadbare coat looking for all the world like a decrepit pensioner who had forgotten to shave these past twenty years. Beside him sat Davidson, looking as though he had slept in a bush and enjoyed the experience. His bearing reminded her uncomfortably of Dan and seeing him bought back the memory of that long ago night when she had found him kneeling in a ditch tearing at his face with bloody fingernails. She had opposed his recruitment but had been overruled by Management. People with outstanding warrants were always a risk, the best false identities in the world could be blown away in a heart beat if someone from the old days was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still it was always a benefit to have someone handy with a weapon to hand when things dropped in the pot. Across the table and a study in incongruity was Val looking like a wide eyed bush baby and still yet to rid the lace traces of glitter from her skin and hair. She had entered with a giggling Johanna Blumenthal, the normally reserved secretary having flushed several shades when she saw Eleanor before retreating back to her desk in reception. Eleanor was yet to make a determination about Val, people with both the technical knowledge and skill for brewing potions were rare, and she was a potential asset if she didn't manage to kill or maim herself in the process.

"Now that we are all here," Eleanor began, unable to resist a slight jab at the tardy, we can be about our business. She touched a control and the lights dimmed, causing Val's eyes to dilate and narrow uncontrollably for a few seconds. A ceiling mounted projector through a photograph up on the rear wall. In it a man, perhaps thirty five years of age lay in a few inches of brackish water. His body had been opened from his Adams apple to his groin and ropes of intestine spread out across the surface of the water like enormous snakes. His clothing, while soaked in blood, had obviously once been of a very high quality.

"This was Gregory Tailor, a mid level executive with a commodities trading company called...." she glanced down at her notes.

"Northern Vista Inc," she explained, clicking forward to another image that listed some particulars about the company. Like the Sunday Group it was vague, something to do with trading in oil, soybeans, corn and pretty much any other resource being moved in North America.

"He was found dead in a pond in a Seattle park two days ago by the local PD. Before he died he called his ex-wife Olivia Tailor in a panic." On queue the call, obtained by shady means Eleanor was not privy to but delivered to her, like the rest of the information, on a usb drive in a FedEx overnight bag.

Sleepy Female voice: "Hello..."

Greg (clearly panicked):"O...Olivia,"

Olivia: "Greg? What the fuck its three in the god damn..."

Greg: "Oliva I need you to call 911 tell them I'm in the park west of..."

Just before the line went dead there was an eerie chuckling and snuffling sound. Eleanor rewound the track and played it twice more.

"Local PD have no idea what to make of it and we might just shrug our shoulders and move on... except." The slide shifted on the projector to reveal another man. This one in jeans and a winter parka. The red fabric of the parka had been torn open and stuffing, now matted with blood covered the body. The similarity to the wounds suffered by Gregory were striking. This corpse too lay in a pool of water, though ice had began to form around the body in small clumps that made his outline look hazy.

"This is Jason Talbot, reported dead this morning in Fargo" Eleanor explained.

"Talbot worked on the oilfields during the boom, but with the slow down has been out of work. There dosen't appear to be any connection between the two men prior to this, but we aren't sure of that."

"Any thoughts?" she prompted, careful not to prejudice the team with her own ideas.

Edgar placed his coffee cup down on the table with a faint 'clack', and he breathed in through his large nose as he considered the evidence before them. One of the reasons he joined the Sunday Group, other than a chance to make a normal wage, was so he could keep an eye on the spirits and eldritch beings of the world. Particulary the beings that hunted and fed upon men. If the demons or followers of the primordial chaos returned to the world, he was as likely to find the news here as he was in his sanctum.

These corpses were an oddity, he admitted. Many aberrations could have slaughtered these men in that fashion. Immediately he thought of a Wendigo, but it was dismissed as soon as he thought it. A Wendigo would need outside help to travel such distances, and far more of the corpses would have been devoured (if it left anything at all). A Fomorian of celtic origin might leave the water at each scene, but not the ice necessarily. It must have been some spirit or wraith, at least when he was given such limited information to go with. But perhaps there was more...

"Play both images back, will you girl?" He bade Ellie. She had either given in or kept her cool long since they had met from his useage of 'girl.' It was hard to halt saying it, since everyone here could be his thrice great grandchildren. He performed a quick Lunkt Aiga spell mentally as she humored him, his eyes gleaming faintly for the briefest of moments. In modern terms, it allowed him to zoom and clean the images in his mind, doing what most software could do in a fraction of the time. Technology was so limited, he thought to himself. As he soaked in the two images, he found something.

The melted ice was of course a slight giveaway that narrowed down the list of suspects. Whatever had killed them was likely or nordic origin, his specialty. It wasn't the style of any celtic beasts, or inuit monster. This thing had brought the ice with it and had left it at the scene. But what he truly found fascinating was the blue tinge of the skin just as the cusp of eviscerated injury. Edgar lit his pipe as he pondered the information, not wanting to conclude it was some form of frost jotun or ice-wraith, but considering the possibilities highly.

The magician hobo took a lengthy draught of his pipe before using the instrument to point at the projector. "I suggest you print out the images and magnify." He said to the group. "You'll see a frost blue lining along the edges of the wounds that suggest that if it was not from some ice creature, it was done by a weapon edged in ice. It was done by a weapon of Jotunheim if I don't miss my guess. Though it is possible that a wizard such as myself, or an arctic beasts committed such a crime. For ice magic is telling but not exclusive."

Puffs of smoke wafted about his wizened face. "Perhaps if I was at the bodies I could perform a divination, and the length between the crimes is concerning. But as it stands, my conclusion is a Jotun. Even weaponless, a frost giant can use the ice on his body to rend and tear midgardians with relative ease."

He was concern on the implications of such a reality if it were true. Jotuns in the americas either meant they were expanding their territory or they were desperate, and both promised more deaths in the future. He would need to consult the books in his personal library to render more information however. He was sure there was something more to be found. He turned his head to regard Val, sizing her up. "Young one, I am in need of your assistance." He said, eyes filled with the promise of wisdom.

"Do your best to make better coffee for next time. I can't think after drinking that hot garbage."



@Penny@Fetzen@Rapid Reader@Jarl Coolgruuf

Clive laced his fingers together and fixed the image with a thousand yard stare. Everything in the room but the image faded from his mind as he analyzed every detail of the bodies and their surroundings. The wounds were clean with little tearing in the skin. His best guess was that whatever performed these killings was likely part of a group either by alliance or species. The blade work suggested intelligence at least enough to wield a blade if not make one and the fact the bodies were not consumed counted out more bestial creatures.

If he were to be perfectly honest, everything the wizard said went right over Clive's head. Norse mythology was not at all in his knowledge base, but Edgar's assertions lined up with his own thoughts.
"Had to have been a blade of some kind and a sharp one at that," Clive agreed, "The cuts are too clean to have been made with anything but a very sharp edge."
He pondered for a moment, sorting through the collection of monster lore contained within his mind and the clues at hand. Ice related, intelligent, uses a blade, either part of a group or able to move vast distances relatively quickly.
"Kigatilik fits the bill as well. I doubt he'd leave the Arctic Circle, but there's always the possibility. Do we know if these men were shamans or magic practitioners of any sort? Did they have any connection to the Inuit peoples?"
Perhaps Edgar had ruled out the possibility of Inuit creatures, but Clive wasn't ready to count them out so soon.

For the entirity of both Edgar's and Clive's talk, Maël did his best to hold back his urge to cough. He respected Edgar, really, but only for everything that was not related to his habits of teleporting and smoking that wicked weed he did. One day the Sunday Group would burn down not due to alchemistic experiments gone wrong or a Djinn making a house call, but due to the inherently evil spirit of deactivated smoke detectors. Yes, he smoked too -- but in front of the door.

Trying to save the world the printing of a bunch of colored images, he stepped forward and tried to find the blue-ish lines mentioned right as they were being projected onto the wall. Unfortunately though ice-blue on white was not a very good combination by the means of an ordinary beamer. "Well I can't see them, but if you say so I guess they are there, Edgar." And now the tall man coughed, trying to make the best of the disturbance by returning back to his chair and freeing the projection of himself. "While nordic stuff clearly is your profession I feel obliged to add that we should not rule out second- and third-grade possibilities. Someone could have constructed a magically refrigerating sheath for a sword of his imagination which is made of ice. Simply pour some new water into that thing once its product has lost its cutting edge and dump the bloody piece of evidence into your longdrink after you're done and before the police shows up."

Now Maël himself deemed the hypothetical example just given to be quite exaggerated, but he hoped that it delivered the point: There were other posssibilities and one should not close one's eyes to those, particulary not to the combination of magic and machine. Nordic beasts had been catalogued long since, but no catalogue in the world would be capable of holding a record of all inventions possible if just the human mind's wickedness was allowed to roam freely long enough.

"Judging by the images I'd say that only a small fraction of the victims' bodies has actually been consumed, so this was not done in order to still some hunger but out of either bloodlust or a very artificial desire. What strikes me more however are two things: The presence of a larger body of water in both cases and the fact that Mr. Greg, despite being in very immediate danger, decided to relay his call to 911 through Mrs. Olivia instead of doing it directly, thereby wasting a lot of time. For what ? Men in nice clothes normally don't have that much of a bad reputation that they no longer can call the cops directly. I think we should put our eyes on both the victim's social environment and the pond. If the motive is indeed artificial this might provide more insight."

He sighed. "Even if that includes paperwork..." Maël couldn't resist the temptation to take a glance over towards their cowboy.

Val had listened to the recording with a growing sense of dread. She had looked around at the others hoping to see some similar emotions, but all she had seen was professional interest. They didn't seem bothered by the bodies. They didn't seem to taste the blood pooling at the back of their throats like she did. They didn't even seem to flinch after having to listen to the phone call a second time. Val felt the sweat prickle through her pores. She felt sick. She felt afraid. She hadn't seen bodies before. Not like that. Not projected in high definition onto a wall. The desperation in the Tailor's voice was familiar, it was her own voice. His fear overwhelmed her. The terror she remembered wrapped its tendrils around her neck and began to choke her.

She straightened in her chair, her hands reaching protectively to cover her own neck, and she halfheartedly listened to the conversation that followed. While the others talked, Val engaged in a battle with her breakfast, desperately trying to remain still. She didn't want to throw up in front of the others. It seemed like poor form. Val didn't have time to think, she was busy fighting off her own nightmares. Sharp teeth leered at her from the shadows. A sweet flowery smell of doom surrounded her. Cruel promises full of love whispered out to her through her fear.

Caught in her own dark thoughts, Val only reluctantly recognized the pause in the investigative musing of her colleagues. Unwilling to be called on by Ellie, she surmised it was her turn to earn participation points. The young alchemist nodded thoughtfully as she sensed that all the eyes in the room had turned to watch her. In a feat of great dexterity, Val took off her freshly stolen sunglasses and placed them lightly on the table without so much as a tremor. She tried her best to appear as if she had been paying attention. She pretended that she had some deep insight into the murders gruesomely painted onto the wall.

"He has committed the crime who profits by it," Val began, channeling what little she remembered from Philosophy 101 and Seneca. The Stoics were cool. It was too bad they only wrote sad stories. She had no idea who or what had killed the two men. Not with any confidence at least.

Frost giants? Inuit ice demons? Murderers wielding magically frozen swords? It all sounded like a bad joke. Had she been unaffected by the drugs coursing through her system, Val was sure she would have laughed. Instead she just felt numb, any positive vibes having long since been dispelled by the gruesome scenes. She did not regret her evening of Bacchian debauchery, but she regretted the morning. Without Joanna's pleasant company, she was reminded of the dreadfulness of the world. The bodies stuck with her. Jumbles of intestine floating on the water were hard to forget.

"What's the point? Why kill some randos like this? Boredom? To send a message? An ice blade seems like an oddly distinct way to kill someone unless you just really hate using a gun. And killing people thousands of miles apart? What did the killer do, take a plane? Drive cross-country? Take the bus? Or is this some group thing? Maybe a doomsday cult trying to start a magical war? Some fucked up evokers lost to the thrill?

Val shrugged her shoulders,"Maybe Mr. Tailor and Mr. Talbot were running some energy scam and ran afoul of the Frost Giant Mafia? Has anyone looked at their bank statements?"

Satisfied that she had accomplished at least the bare minimum expected of her, Val turned to eye the elderly wizard with a carefully curated smile that sparkled with glitter that fell from her hair,"And as for the coffee, I'm afraid I can't help you there, but do let me know if you need me to make you some little blue pills for your after work activities. Old age shouldn't hold you back..."

Eleanor nodded her head at the teams observations. It wasn't surprising that Edgar jumped straight to the possibility of a Norse connection. At times it seemed like the old man saw Odin under the bed. The fact that he was following his obsession didn't mean he was wrong and iced wounds were something that police or the preliminary coroners reports had picked up on. The others broadened the conclusion expanding the list of possible suspects. It was always good to get these impressions early before too much data was available, sometimes the more piece of random data you have the less pronounced the sequence in that data became. Surprisingly Val's insight was the most pragmatic and the only one that could be further addressed without getting out into the field.

"So far as we can tell, Tailor and Talbot never met each other, of course its possible they did and we simply have no record of it. Tailor was a high roller, six figures, ski vacations to Aspen, Talbot was basically a drifter, doing jobs for hire living hand to mouth most of the time," she explained, flashing through what limited biographical information they had been able to assemble. The Sunday Group didn't have access to the same resources that Law Enforcment did, though Eleanor had some contacts in both Law Enforcement and the Intelligence community, but she rarely involved them unless it was absolutely necessary. The last thing they needed was some climber at Langely deciding the the Invocation of Korzan Nekt was more accurate and cheaper than a drone strike and rending the veil asunder by accident. Fortunately with the advent of social media and a little judiciously applied cryptomancy, it was possible to gather a fairly reliable picture of most people.

"If either of them were practitioners," she went on nodding to Clive to show she was addressing his point, "They did a better than average time of hiding it." Initially her mind had gone on the same path as the former Ranger's. Tailor did seem like a candidate for some sort of dark pact, rising quickly with wealth and power accumulating with little effort and the chuckle and violent method of death would not be unheard of if he had reneged on a deal with a dark entity of some kind. That also might have explained why he choose to call his exwife if it were some sort of primogeniture arrangement, but Oliva West had no children and so far as Eleanor could determine had been separated from Tailor too long for him to have impregnated her in a way that fit the time frame. Also the killing of Talbot, if they were connected as Edgar had confirmed they were, wouldn't make sense in that framework.

"No major movements in bank accounts, Tailor did withdraw about ten thousand dollars the night before he was found dead, but that isn't out of character with him when he partied. Talbot had seventeen fifty in a Bank of America account that it looks like he lost the card to a couple of years ago."

"Unfortunately I think our next logical step is to head to Seattle and investigate what Tailor was doing there, I say Tailor rather than Talbot," she paused silently cursing the similarity of the two men's names. This kind of think never happened in a story where all the characters could be relied upon to have distinctive names.

"Because we have the phone recording from him and the Fargo police department... well they have dealt with us before and are likely to be less well inclined to aid us," she said with a massive understatement that made Edgar chuckle.

"With that in mind, gather up what you will need, transport will be here in an hour and we will be wheels up by noon," she continued with Germanic efficiency that would have made Emmaline proud. She took a sip of coffee and grimaced. It really was terrible.

Clive approached Eleanor after the meeting to inquire about transportation and did his very best to not be visibly disgusted when she informed him they would be flying to Seattle. She mentioned something about most people not being capable of driving for 16 hours while only stopping for bathroom breaks, but he was too preoccupied with thinking about braving the horrors of the TSA. Flying meant he would have to check his tools and weapons. To say he felt naked without a firearm or blade was a bit of an understatement. He'd only used a plane for travel once before and the whole experience of disarming made him thoroughly uncomfortable and put him on edge for the entire trip. That being said, he was a professional and kept his sulking to himself.

The former Ranger decided to pack light for this expedition, only taking his bread and butter compact shotgun, an Austrian classic, and the Ol' Razzle Dazzle. He hadn't found an excuse to use 7.62x51mm in a long time, much less in semi auto, but he figured it couldn't hurt to take it and the two magazines of black tip he "found". Never know when you'll encounter a death cultist in Level IV plates. Speaking of which, the 11 pound ammo limit proved a bit difficult for him. Should he take more NATO or more slugs? More silver plated slugs or more dragon's breath? This would be so much easier if he could simply throw everything in his car and hit the road.

The downsizing added to his packing time, but he was still good to go in a matter of minutes. Clive was used to packing and leaving in a hurry All his clothes, toiletries, survival gear, and more fit into one large rucksack, a hard sided black case, and a very worn guitar case. He found the guitar case especially helpful in environments with more witnesses. With everything gathered, he set his luggage down in the lobby and occupied himself with chewing gum. More specifically, he occupied himself with snapping his gum at a gratuitous volume. The sound of cap gun going off in his mouth seemed to ease his tension somewhat as he waited for the others to finish packing.

Edgar had learned long ago not to take most young people to heart in terms of their attitude. He remember when he was their age back in the early 1800s. So vibrant and full of wonder and energy, and not a small amount of backtalk. Strange how time changes you, mentally and physically. He finished his coffee cup and took his leave, setting the cup in the sink before heading out towards the hallway and into his office.

Inside, there was a strange multisection desk that made a half circle where he set his various work peices and books of study. Behind that was a dias atop a small raised platform for ritual readings, and to no one's surprise the walls were covered in bookshelves filled with books from across humanity. Here he kept his most prudent items for combat or scrying, or anything that might aid in investigatory work. He liked to keep things on hand. The teleportation stone could only do so much so frequently after all.

Within his carry on bag he grabbed seven tomes, two of which he had written himself. Alongside them was his Shillelagh, slipping into the bag and somehow going beyond the fabric's dimensional diameters. Closing it up, he opened a drawer and placed on his hide travel belt, strapping on a wondrous mixture of items that could easily be disguised from the genuine public with a simple spell. Potions and alchemical supplies mostly.

Once he exited the room, he met up with the others waiting for the cab. Anyone with any magical competency could see him decked out as a wizard of old; regal and proud and ready to conjure and dispell demons. But to any passerby, he was a humble homeless elder, who had not showered in a week and like as not eaten since then either.

While others did not seem to take long in order to get themselves ready for the journey ahead, Maël did take a different approach. Instead of vanishing into his office right away, the Franco-American reached for the coffee pot and the adjacent fridge containing the milk first. There was no point in waiting for a cab together, so why make a hurry out of getting ready ? The flight wouldn't go any time sooner because of them arriving super early.

Yet still there was another reason behind the man's strategy. It revealed itself once he stood in front of the cupboard containing his clothes and forced a temporary gap into the window shade using two fingers. Peeking through it he could see Edgar and Clive already waiting... always a good thing to know in advance what kind of disguise their wizard had chosen this time. It being a homeless man lightyears away from the last wash pretty much ruled out the coat and tie option, at least if one wanted to avoid stupid questions like 'Do you all belong to the same group ?' from the cab driver or airport personnell.

Instead of putting it on, Maël carefully dropped the thing into his suitcase just in case it might help making a good impression somewhere in Seattle. Along with it followed another trenchcoat just like the one he was currently wearing and, last but not least, his 'No more Mr. nice guy'-suit. The hooded leather jacket had a noticeably larger and wider cut than Maël's ordinary clothes and had been ripped open and patched together again using various pieces of scrap leather so often that it looked as if stolen right off a farmer's cliché scarecrow. The pair of trousers ? Didn't look any different.

Reaching for a few other items, none of them having any of the supernatural properties or sheer firepower that his colleagues liked to carry around, Maël was ready to go soon then. Didn't they have a cathedral with a large Flentrop organ somewhere in Seattle ? Maybe talking with the locals would yield the opportunity to play a tune or two on it.

Val emerged from the drab basement room that she had turned into a laboratory with her leather bag and a stuffed rabbit. She couldn't remember the last time she had arrived ready to travel. She preferred the "throw all your stuff in a bag in a mad dash or miss your flight" approach. She had to pretend to pack though. Everyone else had vanished into their offices to pack or drink, she couldn't be entirely sure. Val suspected the grizzled Ranger had a secret supply of tequila. Maybe when they returned she'd figure out a way to liberate any booze hidden in his gun room.

She imagined that she could feel the weight of the gun in her bag. It made her nervous. She hated guns. She didn't want to have to kill someone. Val could feel that she was rapidly falling from the brief peak of horror that had become her morning of illicit magical substance use. She didn't like it, but she had to pace herself. Val saw no reason to talk to the others and simply collapsed into a corner of the couch as she wished for a swift death.

She missed the decked out appearance of the wizard she had decided to rename poser-Gandalf. Had she noticed, Val would doubtlessly have asked him more than one pointed question about the best way to explode a bad guy, but she was too tired to pay attention. She restrained a brief desire to murder Clive. She didn't think Ellie would accept loud chewing as reason for defensive magic of the offensive variety. Instead the young alchemist busied herself with her stuffed rabbit.

The brown rabbit had seen better days and was a patchwork of mismatched fabric and assorted threads. Sir Thomas, as Val had named him, was a brave knight. The greatest knighted rabbit in all the land. The only one in fact. And he had been tasked by King Arthur himself to find the Holy Grail. A quest he had dutifully attempted to complete for several centuries.

Val was unsure what her colleagues or more importantly her therapist would say about the extremely detailed and lengthy biography she had created for Sir Thomas. She doubted it would be good. For some reason professionals tended to look down on the idea of keeping stuffed animals in your office. However, they'd just have to indulge her. She loved traveling, but she she hated airports. They reminded her of the suburbs. A place she considered a minor rendition of some infernal plane. Nerves. She could feel her nerves firing much too fast. She didn't like the pit she felt in her stomach. She wanted to cry, but she knew better.

American Air lines flight 1450, non-stop to Seattle departed at 125 pm. Given the security theater involved that still meant they only made it with a few minutes to spare despite the early start. The gray panel van that delivered them to the airport was beyond nondescript. Eleanor had worked a charm into the windows and doors that made it actively difficult for people to notice the thing. It did result in rather more near collisions than she was entirely comfortable with but that was a small price to pay to avoid being pulled over when you were hauling illegal weapons, or a possessed child chained with silver manacles to an exorcism. Police took a dim and uneducated view of such things. Drivers did tend to notice it when it became a direct obstruction, instinctively swerved away with a curse and then found their attention drawn away moments later. Thus it was that no one noticed the eclectic group climb out of the van when it reached Dulles airport. Eleanor frowned slightly as Clive hopped out, hefting two large duffles, heavy enough that the suspension creaked noticeably as it relaxed. She wondered how much armament he was carting about, but felt it would be discourteous to ask. Besides, in their line of work, there really was no kill like overkill. The remaining team members climbed out after him, carrying their own luggage. Most of it looked fairly nondescript though Eleanor suspected that their collected luggage contained more weapons, conventional or otherwise, than any TSA agent would be comfortable seeing on one flight. Her eyes fell on Maël as he disembarked, ducking to keep his head from striking the top of the rear door. In his case, he was the weapon and the thought gave her a queasy feeling. Well few people in her line of work lived long enough to die in bed.

They each waited for a minute before setting out, breaking up their departure from the nondescription field, as Emmaline had jokingly named it when Eleanor had explained it to her, giving the impression that they were not a group to any casual observers. Eleanor went last just after Val. The pair of them had first class tickets whereas the males were condemned to economy. The practice had a number of benefits including the fact that a plane would wait longer before departing if the stragglers were first class, plus there was champagne and legroom.

Check in proceeded quickly for Eleanor, a slight delay as she declared her own firearm a Sig Sauer P220, but it was registered properly and declared so it was little more complicated than checking a few extra boxes on one of the customer screens. The fact that the bullets were micro-etched with banishing invocations was, thankfully, unnoticed in the the polite inspection. Printers whired and boarding passes were produced with polite smiles and friendly well wishes. Dressed in her business suit and carrying a briefcase she looked no different than a thousand other low level executives off to talk about interest rate returns or negative gearing investments or... whatever. So much for the glamorous life of the secret occultist. She was escorted onto the 737 and took her seat in the spacious first class seats, accepting a glass of champagne from the pretty stewardess. Eleanor watched her go envious of the younger woman's body, eternal youth was something you could have, if you were willing to take it. She hoped she would always find the price too high.

As though summoned by that unwholesome thought, Val appeared and checked her ticket to confirm that she was seated in the chair across from Eleanor. Val looked much less like she belonged in first class than Eleanor did but it wouldn't be a problem. Airline staff saw far stranger things than a somewhat scruffy looking passenger with a pricey ticket. Eleanor raised her glass of champagne in ironic salute and waited for the younger woman to take her seat.

"I just wanted to check in with you and see how you are doing with..." Eleanor paused thinking of what exactly she was checking in about. The drugs? The murder? Being knew to a group as strange as this one? Best to leave a dangling pointer and let the girl drive it from there.

"...with everything," she concluded.

@Rapid Reader

Clive, or as his fake I.D. (courtesy of the lovely people of the Sunday Group's forgery department) read "Jacob D. Ferguson", spent the walk up to the luggage checking counter mentally preparing himself to be metaphorically naked on a plane full of strangers. He swallowed hard when a TSA agent with a crisp, ironed uniform and practiced customer service smile asked how she could help him.
“I’d like to check some luggage.”
“And a lot of it! Are you a musician?” she asked, gesturing to his guitar case.
“No.”
“Oh? In that case, are you carrying any hazardous materials? Fireworks, chemicals, guns, ammo--”
“Both.”
He set the rifle case and the guitar case down on the scale along with one of the duffel bags on his shoulder.
“Oh that’s no problem at all! What firearms are you declaring today?”
“Shotgun, rifle, two handguns and some blades in the duffel. Also, approximately ten and a half pounds of assorted ammunition and magazines.”
“Alright, sir we’ll take good care of all your firearms. Enjoy your flight!”
One by one the bags were checked for airline compliance and when they passed, on to the luggage belt they went. The sheer volume of firearms and ammunition he checked was a bit odd but nothing she hadn't seen before. Once the agent got to the guitar case, however, Clive instinctively held on. She gave a small tug and frowned at him.
“Sir, you can let go now.”
He continued to hold his grip on the case as she pulled harder with both hands this time, but to no effect. Clive’s iron grip held firm.
“Sir.”
He released the case all at once and the agent stumbled back a step with a scowl. Clive remained immune to her venomous glare as he watched his pride and joy disappear around a corner. His jacket and waistband felt all too light as he made his way farther into the airport.



Clive was hopeful for a time during the boarding process that he would be alone during the flight. If he couldn’t be comfortable without his tools, he could be comfortable with the extra leg room. That hope died when a young girl who couldn’t have been much older than ten took the seat next to him. He took solace in the fact that she was wearing headphones and stared down at her cellphone while she took her seat without saying a word. At least she wouldn’t be bothering him during the trip. The thought occurred to him that she seemed rather young to be flying by herself, but that was no concern of his. He simply fished another stick of gum from his pocket to help his ears during the take off.

Having nothing else to do, Clive waited until they were comfortably in the air before producing a deck of worn playing cards from his jacket pocket and began a game of solitaire. The girl beside him took notice of the game and tugged on his jacket sleeve.
“What’re you doing?”
Clive choked back a sigh and replied, “Playing a game.”
“What game?”
“Solitaire.”
“What’s it about?”
“Matching cards.”
The girl pursed her lips and gave a small “hm”. “Sounds kinda boring.”
“It is.”
“Know any better games?”
Clive paused for a moment as he set down the card in his hand. “I do.”
“Like what?”
“Ever played poker?”
“No. My dad says gambling’s for heathens and degenerates who want to throw their money away.”
Clive couldn’t help but smile and even gave a small chuckle. “Sounds like he’s just bad at gambling. Poker’s easy if you got someone to teach you.”
He gathered up his cards off the fold out table in front of him and dealt a pair of hands quick as a whip with the cards facing up. Despite her earlier statement, the girl leaned over and regarded the cards with interest.
“Now, the first thing you gotta learn is the hand ranking system.”

For Maël, airports were a nuisance and an amusement at the same time. On one hand there was all the waiting, all the armed guards, all those security checks and scanners one had to go through just in order to be kept waiting afterwards still. On the other hand none of this was anywhere near being a tool appropriate in order to detect what they were really dealing with in his case. Maintaining his countenance, the frenchmen allowed the overabundance of uselessness to hold him in its firm grasp while he wondered how much it would cost to get the Sunday Group its own learjet or even something bigger for a fully mobile office and lab solution.

The outcome of his considerations was a rather negative though: First of all it simply was way too expensive. Secondly however the idea also held great potential for internal conflict. If one considered what the Sunday Group had done to a once innocent Chicago office building a fully customizable plane would probably turn out as a restored B-52 with a built-in shooting range and its empty bombing bay being used to get rid of alchemical experiments in the process of going horribly wrong.

Speaking of budget, it became quite apparent where some of that did go when Eleanor and Val turned for another part of the 737 than he had to. The creation of privileges without explanation was one thing, the seat he found himself to be cursed with was another. This was an airplane, the method of locomotion at least once associated with freedom like no other! And they were going to fly over the US, a country that valued 'freedom' more than anything else! And where was all that freedom now ? Faded away in a wisp of nothingness, probably just like that shit piece of crack Eleanor must have been smoking when booking this three square feet torture chamber without walls for him!

Reaching for his phone before service would become unavailable due to takeoff, Maël wrote a text message to his boss:

My knees feel like Han in the trash compactor, except I know there isn't any droid to save them. I hope the flight will be short enough for you not to explore all of that space you have in business class!

The stewardess walked by only to get her well trained corporate smile blasted out of her face by his stare. Maël knew she only tried to do a good job, but he was not in a good mood currently. He felt rather... wedged in. Maybe they could save even more money and still increase his traveling comfort by some out-of-the-box thinking ? Putting him into a large crate and sealing it with some magic to obfuscate its true contents might do the trick since cargo holds were pressurized. Or maybe his demonic alter ego had the potential to evolve if the desire was strong enough ? Now would have been a damn good time to grow a pair of wings in order to do some flying himself!

Val returned Eleanor's ironic toast with a desperate smile of her own before she drowned her sudden anxiety in a bubbly swoop. Putting down her now empty glass, her fingers danced nervously across her neck. She touched the black choker she had worn gently, shifting it in place. Some things were better kept from her employers and colleagues. Bite marks were suspicious. In their line of work, two fresh puncture marks just above an artery were even more suspicious. She doubted any of them would approve. Especially not the cowboy. He seemed like "the shoot first, shoot again, and then light on fire before asking questions" type of guy.

Caught in the metaphorical spotlight that was Eleanor's competent gaze and her own distracted thoughts, Val stalled for time. She pursed her turquoise lips into her best approximation of a cheerful smile, "I'm fine. Very fine. Who doesn't love a good early morning presentation?"

Incapable of waiting for Eleanor's response, Val nearly jumped out of her seat as she flagged down the first class flight attendant and wrapped her glittered fingers around another glass of champagne before the woman had a chance to object or pull the tray away from her. Val slid back into her seat with an silently mouthed apology in the direction of the stewardess and a deferential shrug towards her boss. "Free champagne is free champagne...right?"

Sipping slowly on the champagne, Val contemplated damage control. She wasn't sure she could lie to Eleanor, not about everything. Did they know about the drugs? Was it her reaction to the corpses? Was it the secretary? The young alchemist coughed politely to clear her throat. There was no way the others knew. Not about anything serious. Not about anything that would really hurt.

The bloody faces of Tailor and Talbot haunted her. In death they continued to ruin her day, so she settled for some version of the truth,"It's just...I've never seen a body before. Not like that. Not torn to pieces. And not cut into ribbons with an ice sword."

She sighed wearily and leaned back into the soft embrace of the first class seat, clutching the stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest as she looked up at the ceiling, "How do you get used to that? How do you forget?"

Val shivered. She sat up slowly and pocketed her sunglasses, drawing out slow breaths before she spoke. Her hazel eyes were clear and the drugs had faded. She met Eleanor's thoughtful gaze reluctantly. She covered her sadness with defiance, but it was there, it was something real. She wanted to trust Eleanor. She wanted to tell her. But she couldn't. She settled for her mask. She settled for a story. She settled for the Val they'd expect, "I know what I signed up for. I'm not some civilian. I know this game. I know the rules. I know what's waiting in the dark. I'll do my job."

"I'll even be your Nancy Drew. For a price," Val added with a grin, "But I'm not the cowboy, I'm not poser-Gandalf, and I'm not the tall Parisian. I'm not a killer."

@Penny

Eleanor sipped her own champagne and nodded her head. There were many things she had experienced since joining the Sunday Group that she wished that she could forget. Things that she had seen. Things that she had done. Most of her fears did not dwell in the past however. It wasn't general knowledge, even among the magical community, but something was coming, a conjunction of stars, a nexus in the points of fate that bound the universe together. A knot in the twine out of which Edgar would claim the Nornes spun mens future. The Group, or at least it's myserious leadership, wasn't certain how far in the future the crisis point was but it WAS coming. Even that fear was abstract though, the question that kept her awake at night, was what might SHE do in the future.

"Do you know what I did before I came to the Sunday Group?" Eleanor asked. The question was entirely rhetorical of course, Emmaline alone, now mostly retired to her academic work, had been with the organisation long enough to remember the younger Ellie Tregelan.

"I was a doctor," she told the young alchemist. Eleanor's face was almost puzzled by that fact, as though she could scarcely credit she had ever been such a thing. Even then she had been a practitioner, though her magic was far more prosaic than it was before Emmaline had come along with her theroms and datasets.

"I saw my first bodies as a medical student, cadavers in anatomy class," she explained.

"But the things I have seen since," she deliberately put down her wine to avoid from draining the glass in a single swig. There had been far too many bodies, victims, bystanders, friends and team mates, to allow her to shrug it off all together.

"I think it's important never to forget," she said at last, "all of us have a reason to do what we do, but for me, the less people I can put in the bad memory column the better. A good enough reason not to be a trophy wife in the Hamptons like most of my med school classmates anyway." She laughed but it was a brittle and slightly unpleasant sound.

"To the second point... each of us has a unique skill set. You aren't here because we need another...." she paused, considering the words carefully before concluding with "Belligerent."

"Sometimes it is handy to have someone around whose first instinct isn't to open fire or call down spell flame," she explained. A pudgy woman in the aisle beside them started at half heard snippets of that conversation. Eleanor slapped her eyes back to the romance novel in her lap with a glance. Eleanor relaxed slightly and picked up her wine taking another long drink.

"Of course sometimes that is exactly what you need to do, and in those cases it is helpful to have people along who think that is a good idea."

@Rapid Reader