January 24, 1965 - January 30, 1965
From GURPSworld Wiki
Sunday, January 24nd, 1965
We met with Mrs. Carter for breakfast to discuss our findings from yesterday. It's clear she is not a great fan of Marjorie anymore than Marjorie is of her. She indicated that the price to get Marjorie's help would be enormous, such as the power stone that powers the mana-stat here at the Alden Compound. An artifact of that magnitude is priceless. It is integral to the work we do, so obviously it's not something we can exchange for information about the Red Book. Kuranes was very direct and accusatory in asking about the Red Hand and whether Mrs. Carter had withheld information from us. I suppose it's best to get all of that out in the open, but I think it's obvious that Mrs. Carter is in many ways in over her head. She is not a mage and, while she does have some experience with mages and weird elements, she is not exactly an expert on magic or well-connected to every magical group out there. She knows a few powerful people like Mr. Tophet, but she cannot be expected to know about every magical group that comes and goes over the years.
Mrs. Carter did seem disturbed by an aside that Kuranes and Marjorie had during our meeting last night. Marjorie indicated that she had successfully created a magical child with Jack Parsons some years ago. Mrs. Carter takes that to mean that she has created some sort of astral entity that gives her a special sort of domain over our universe. I don't know about any of that. I will be interested to investigate that more after I have learned more on the nuances of space, time, dimensions, and how our reality is truly ordered. Despite her reservations about Marjorie, she does think that she could be a useful contact. Maybe, but her apathy seems to be a difficult barrier, especially when the only things that motivate her carry such a high price.
It felt like our options were getting narrower, and that we're running out of time to track this book down before something bad happens. We decided we will investigate the suicides starting tomorrow. If that doesn't pan out, we may need to do some traveling to find more good leads, or we may need to put the matter of the Red Book aside to look into other items of interest. We'll see how it turns out.
After our meeting, I went back to my guesthouse, smoked a joint, and listened to my Kind of Blue album. I spent most of the rest of the day studying Persian script in the library. I am slowly but surely becoming competent at this. It's going to take a while, but at least I can start to feel the progress I'm making. Kitab al-Babi is always in the back of my mind. I know that much of my other activities are distractions from it, but I will come to understand it in due time.
Monday, January 25th, 1965
I had strange dreams again last night. I had gone to sleep exhausted and felt like I was floating as soon as I hit the bed. I slipped into sleep almost instantly, my arrival into the realm of dreams heralded by a trumpet playing above a low, electric hum. With each note, a blue spark flashed before me. Each spark illuminated a small portion of what appeared to be a skeleton hovering in front of a vertical wall of gray sand. But, it was no human skeleton. It had two ribcages. Its spine diverged into two columns below its neck then converged again at the waist. It appeared to have three clawed thumbs on each hand, and three toes on each of its cylindrical feet. At one point a spark flashed right in front of an eye socket, but it did not fade like the others. It persisted. At once I heard a chant emerge from the electric hum underlying the music. The chanting crescendoed, deep and throaty like songs from the Mongols of the plains. Seconds later, the other eye socket was illuminated by a spark. The blue glow persisted in both sockets, and the frequency of the chanting lowered, deepening into a horrifying undulation of alien sounds. The eyes shifted color, turning green, then yellow, then orange, then at last red. They stared into my mind, unraveling my thoughts and amplifying the terror brought on by the alien madrigal.
I awoke in a sweat, my sheets torn from their corners. I could see the morning light starting to creep in through the window shades. I was happy to be awake. I don't understand the recent dreams. They are not frequent, and they don't seem to interrupt my sleep the way some people's nightmares do, but I have not had strange dreams like this since I left China as a child. Why have they come again?
Today was another long day. We met for breakfast and decided that we would go out to investigate the suicides. Just prior to breakfast I set up some magical beacons to assist with magical travel through space-time. The beacons would let me more easily transport home if need be. I think I will set these up on a regular basis. They will be useful for getting home safely from almost anyplace and anytime.
Our first stop was at the newspaper to speak with the crime reporter who had written the story about the recent suicide at the Roosevelt Hotel. It seemed like a good idea when we left the house, but by the time we arrived, it seemed like a bad idea. I though that we could circumvent this by making use of magic. But, for some bizarre reason, I had agreed to this idea. Kuranes and Elaine spoke with the reporter. I think there was something off about her. I can't put my finger on it, but I just didn't like her very much. They found out that the suicide victim, Ms. Johansen, had been a bit of a loner, but really didn't get much great information. We were at least able to find out the name of the detective who worked the case, and managed to track him down to the LAPD central office. Detective LaPierre. We called ahead and went to wait for him to arrive for lunch at the station. He was more helpful than the reporter. He told us that Ms. Johansen had been staying in room 404 at the Roosevelt. Prior to her suicide in the morning, there had been reports of shouting coming from her room at about 3:00 a.m. It was not clear from the report if she was arguing, but apparently no other shouting voices were heard, just hers. I was suspicious about that.
Kuranes and Elaine went to investigate the room, and I went to the roof. There were no useful clues on the roof. Kuranes and Elaine ran into someone in the room, apparently the director of the theater company Ms. Johansen was in, and had a brief conversation with him. He confirmed that Ms. Johansen was a loner, and he let them look through her affects that he was packing up. There were no artifacts of particular interest. We next went to examine the alley below where the body fell, to see if there were any other clues, or if someone had come by the body and taken something. We did see that when she fell, multicolored glass shards flew out upon impact. She was apparently carrying a glass. I thought it made sense that she would have been drunk when she died.
Kuranes and Elaine went back to the room, and I went to the lobby. I spoke to one of the people there, but he knew nothing about Ms. Johansen. In fact, he didn't even know there had been a suicide. He was a bit put off to learn about it and started giving the manager at the front desk a hard time. I took the opportunity to read a little of Kitab al-Babi. My Persian is getting better, but I still can't really tell what the text says. I have managed to piece together a passage here and there, but it still involves a lot of laborious translation. I am not thinking in Persian yet. They arrived back from the room with an ashtray that matched the glass Ms. Johansen had been carrying when she jumped. It was rather ugly. When we got back to Elaine's van, Kuranes just tossed it in amidst her things. Of all the things to take... why that ugly thing? It did not have a magical aura, as far as I could tell.
It was getting on into the late afternoon, but we decided to followup on our only other lead. We went to the apartment building where the previous suicide had happened about a month prior to Ms. Johansen's death. The victim was also an actor, and also jumped from a high building. When we reached the address, I attempted to sense if there were any magical things there. There were not, but I did feel a magical presence coming from a pawn shop across the street. We decided to investigate. The proprietor was a black man of Genda-like proportions, a loud and boisterous guy named Emperor Jones. Did it really say Emperor on his birth certificate? Maybe. I guess I could find that out later. We looked around the shop, and there was a collection of glassware that had the look of the ashtray and the goblet Ms. Johansen had when she plummeted to her death. Besides that, there was mostly just a lot of junk, none of it magical. Whatever was magical was hidden behind the counter somewhere. Emperor Jones was a bit hostile to us when he realized we weren't normal customers (or whatever passes for normal at a Pawn and Loan on Sunset Boulevard). He accused us first of being con artists, saying that he himself was a con artist and that we would therefore not be able to con him, and then he accused us of using voodoo. I impressed upon him that Chinese people did not use voodoo, but then he just accused me of using whatever voodoo it is that Chinese people do. I tried to get back to where I sensed the magic, but he halted me and then told me to leave. Kuranes came out a few minutes later.
I was ready to stake the place out then and there. Elaine and Kuranes wanted to go investigate the scene at the apartment building, but I felt like whatever magic was in there was what we were after. What else could it be? But, we went ahead up to the roof anyway. We met the woman in the penthouse apartment who had been throwing a rooftop party the night of the suicide. She was a producer, and the lover of the deceased. She indicated that just prior to his death, he had developed a drinking habit and had taken up a fascination with glassware. Ugly glassware. The description matched the piece that Ms. Johansen had when she died. This could not be a coincidence. I felt that someone had used the Red Book to curse glassware and that the glassware was leading to suicides. Though, in hindsight, I must say that this conclusion makes no sense. I don't recall reading anything about the Red Book being used to manufacture such items. It is a book devoted to the necromantic act of demon-summoning, not to the practice of creating cursed objects. These are two very different things, though the results for the victims can be the same.
We were all in agreement that the pawnshop had to be staked out, and that we would either snatch the item when Emperor Jones left, or, if he took it, follow him to his destination and get it. I went around back to the alley and the others stayed on the street to watch the front. A couple hours after sunset, Emperor Jones left the shop. He was carrying the item with him in a bag. He got into his car and drove off. I joined the others back at the van and we followed him to an apartment in West Hollywood. I watched him go in and up some stairs, and we saw which lights came on. We saw Emperor Jones in the apartment. He looked outside, then drew the curtains closed. We decided that we had to go get whatever it was he had. We snuck up to the apartment and unlocked the door. Kuranes sent his companion Kielu in to investigate. Evidently, Emperor Jones had gone to the bedroom in the back of the apartment and was engaged in some sort of ritual. We went in to confront him. We snuck into the bedroom, but he was nowhere to be seen... until he leapt from the shadows to grab me! Fortunately, I dodged out of the way just in the nick of time. I think if he had gotten ahold of me, it would have been tough to get free. He was just so big.
We sparred briefly. Emperor Jones was surprisingly spry for a man of his stature. He dodged away when I tried to sweep him to the floor, then dodged a volley of electrical bolts that Elaine fired from some pistol-like device she had. He came at me again, but I dodged and countered with a shot to his throat. He staggered slightly. Elaine unleashed more bolts at him. They hit, but didn't seem to slow him down one bit. He tried to rush past Elaine and Kuranes. Somehow, Elaine managed to grab at him and stop him. At that instant, Kuranes overcame him with a mental attack, dazing him where he stood. We quickly searched the room and found that Emperor Jones had a magical golden bowl rimmed with a strange, arcane script. It had been sitting in his desk during the altercation. I bade Kuranes help me with an incantation, then quickly hurled the bowl through the fabric of space to the beacon I had set up at the Alden House. The bowl vanished!
When Emperor Jones came to, he did not remember anything. We explained that he had fallen, that we had heard him from outside the door, and came in to check on him. He was friendly when he realized we weren't there to cause him any trouble. He seemed to have no recollection of the bowl or of us, only a vague sense of having seen us before. We told him to get some water and try to relax, that it looked like everything was fine. He said he felt alright, just a little sore.
We made it back to the Alden House as fast as we could. The bowl had arrived safely. I used some basic magic to levitate the bowl down to the temple below the house. That was the safest place we could think of to store it. Kuranes stayed to further secure it with a pentagram and conduct some research on it. I felt like we should return to collect all of the glassware we had seen in the pawn shop and at Emperor Jones's apartment that matched the goblet and ashtray associated with the suicides, but Kuranes thought that with the bowl secure, that the glassware was not currently a threat. That was good enough for me. We can deal with collecting all of the individual pieces of glassware later, if need be. It was late and I just wanted to head to sleep as soon as possible.
Tuesday, January 26th, 1965
We met for breakfast this morning and I, for one, felt that our options were narrowing. We discussed the value of contacting David Van Landingham about his purchase of the Primer. We agreed it was best to follow up on that, just in case. Near the end of breakfast Kuranes at last decided to tell us about some dreams he had that he considered "prophetic." Kuranes seems to be something of a dream traveler, so I thought it best not to ignore what he had seen.
We discussed and researched the possible meanings of the images he shared with us from his dreams. Much of it unequivocally pointed to a woman living in Glendale who we believed, after some research, to be the daughter of a Miskatonic-educated occultist named Mr. Manton. We decided to get in touch with her and try to arrange a meeting, to perhaps learn more about her father. Kuranes believed this was all worthwhile, as it may pertain to a key somehow associated with the Dreamlands (coincidentally, a map of the Dreamlands was purchased from Anaximander's shop by an unknown party). She agreed to come to the Alden House tomorrow afternoon.
We decided to use the rest of the day to follow up on Mr. Van Landingham. We learned that he had an office in Santa Monica, that he was involved in real estate. Genda phoned him and set us a meeting time in the afternoon. I felt fortunate that he had time to see us right away, seeing as how he is a busy millionaire. We made a few preparations then took the Mercedes out to Santa Monica, Genda at the wheel.
Mr. Van Landingham was eager to receive us. He seemed enthusiastic about meeting some agents of the Promethean Foundation. We exchanged pleasantries, and Kuranes and I verified that Mr. Van Landingham was, in fact, a mage. He had little skill and no training, but he did have the aura of a minor mage. He seemed mainly like a dabbler, not serious enough about magic to fully commit himself to the practice. It made perfect sense that he would be interested in the Primer, because, in many ways, it represents a shortcut for the dilettante. He confirmed that he had it, but he wanted to keep it for himself, to use it. We determined that there were no other magical artifacts present, and Mr. Van Landigham seemed like a decent enough person, so we decided to let him keep it. We warned him that we weren't the only parties who may take an interest in it, but he wished to keep it nonetheless. I gave him my card and let him know that if he ever got more serious about wanting to learn magic, we might be able to arrange some private instruction for him. Better to have multi-millionaire magies on our side, I say.
We got home in the early evening. We talked over our plans. We decided we would have our meeting with Manton's daughter then make a return to the Pasadena Mystery House to see if we could learn anything new, and just to see what OSI had left behind. I spent the rest of the evening studying Persian, and took another glance at Kitab al-Babi.
Wednesday, January 27th, 1965
I spent the morning continuing my studies. Noon came and went, and still we had not heard from the woman Kuranes dreams had pointed us to. Eventually we called her, but she was suspicious of us and not interested in coming by. She said that the types of things we wanted to know would be better uncovered at a library, looking through Miskatonic yearbooks and the like. She did inform us about some of the people she had met at her father's funeral, and indicated that a couple of them had taken possession of any relevant documents and artifacts that her father still had upon his death. In other words, anything that would be useful to us was already taken.
Our trip to the Mystery House started off on the complete wrong foot. Genda took us who knows where. I think we may have been in Alhambra at one point, but we eventually found our way to Pasadena. We approached the house carefully, from down the street. We didn't sense anyone surveilling it, and it appeared abandoned, so we let ourselves in. We looked around the premises and discovered, as we expected, yet still to our dismay, that the OSI had taken everything of value. Interestingly enough, the sealed double pentagram chamber was still there. We determined further that some entity was trapped inside, though it seemed largely indifferent to our existence. We were not able to establish any meaningful communication with it, but sensed that it was powerful, and perhaps dangerous by way of this power alone, even if it had no specific malevolent intentions. We considered the option of freeing it and helping it return whence it came, but we ultimately decided that would be too dangerous. We thought it would be wiser to learn more about it first. Mrs. Carter can have the foundation purchase the house, and we'll have plenty of time to ascertain what it is and how to send it away. I think Kitab al-Babi will be very useful for that.
After poking around the house, we made a quick stop in Glendale on our way back to the Alden House. We located the residence of Mr. Manton's daughter, and Genda communicated with the spirits to investigate it. We determined she was in possession of a few items that her father had left her, but that she was probably right, that we could find the information contained therein just as easily from publicly available sources. Plus it occurred to us that the foundation had purchased a great deal of materials and information from Miskatonic University. So, we decided to leave her in peace and return home.
Our research into Kuranes's dream via Manton and his Miskatonic connections proved at once fruitful and disturbing. He had, in fact, been in an astronomy club at the university with a number of other people who had appeared in Kuranes's dream. Furthermore, a map and poem that Kuranes had seen, in conjunction with what we could glean from the Miskatonic materials pointed directly to the Choronzon Club, a potentially dangerous cult with ties to Xavier Hellestromme, Marcus Kane, and the cosmic entities known as Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath. What's worse, the stanza from his dream pointed toward the potential involvement of Yog-Sothoth, and perhaps something much worse - an attempt at waking an even more powerful, more dangerous entity. In some ways, this is not a surprise, as Yog-Sothoth may be connected at a very basic level to the fluctuation in mana in our plane of reality.
We had no good leads into the Choronzons, and we were not keen on contacting Marjorie Cameron, so I got in touch with Tophet to see if he knew anything. He was disturbed by our findings, but curious as well. He mentioned that he may have further information about the Choronzons, and that he would get back in touch with me about it.
Thursday, January 28th, 1965
After an early training session brushing up on some Five Ancestors Fist form transitions, I had a huge bowl of noodles then spent the rest of the morning studying Persian. The others left to go investigate something or other out of town, but I felt it was best to stay and meet with Tophet, to see if he had any information for us about the Choronzons. I believe my decision was justified, because Tophet brought a wealth of information, including photographs, names, and some descriptions of the key players involved in the L.A. C.C.C.
It seems from the information Tophet provided that the C.C.C (which poses as a chess club in Hollywood) is dangerous only by way of their recklessness, and perhaps the ethos of certain members. Most concerning is the man named Graves, who, beyond being a trained magician, is also naturally gifted at teleportation. I have heard of such people before (there are many Chinese folk tales about people with these powers), but I have never met one. Someone with a natural grasp of teleportation, who does not need to rely on the heuristics of incantation, could be formidable and, if nihilistic in his methods, more than a little dangerous. He evidently studied under Tophet at some point, but Tophet had few kind words to say about his character, though he acknowledged that his magical ability was unquestionable.
I suppose the others will not be returning today. Tophet left for the airport, and I finished out the day studying more Persian.
Friday, January 29th, 1965
I woke up to some distressing news this morning. The others arrived home sometime in the small hours, and Genda informed me there was an uninvited visitor to the Alden House. Or so the spirits had indicated to him. Genda and I had our breakfast, and he filled me in on their trip out of town. They had encountered some mages who were evidently up to no good. There was a brief skirmish, but one escaped... via teleportation. That instantly made me suspicious that they had encountered Gardner Graves and other C.C.C. members. Shots were fired in the skirmish, but everyone survived. The team managed to bring back a box full of trinkets, which Kuranes was already busily studying in the temple. After breakfast, Genda and I went to the temple so that he could investigate the spiritual aspects of the trinkets, and so that I could show the photograph of the C.C.C. members that Tophet gave me to Kuranes. Kuranes confirmed the man they had seen was, in fact, Gardner Graves.
Kuranes was too absorbed in the analysis of the items they had found to do anything else for the time being. I had Genda figure out the approximate time and place that our visitor had come and gone. He had most recently been in the study, sometime around 3:00 a.m. I summoned forth images of the past to see where he had been and what he had been up to. Sure enough, it was Gardner Graves, lounging about in the room, smoking a cigar. The remains of the cigar were still in the ashtray. He exited by simply teleporting out. I decided to go back and have a closer look, and figure out where he teleported to. I shifted in time back to the moment right after he left, then traced his destination. He ended up in an apartment nearby, a few miles away somewhere in Hollywood. I returned to meet with Genda and determined via a trace that he was currently at the Cassia Chess Club, playing chess, also nearby in Hollywood.
Kuranes had no interest in doing anything other than studying the items they had found, and Elaine was still asleep somewhere. Genda and I decided we would go dig around for more information about Gardner Graves before then come back for lunch. We went to determine if Graves had any property in Los Angeles County. It was a quick trip downtown, and the woman at the office was very helpful. She told us that Mr. Graves owned an apartment building and was the actual owner of the building where the chess club was as well. It fit with the model of the C.C.C. membership that Tophet had explained to me, that the members were generally men of wealth. Clearly, Graves had money if he was buying up buildings in Hollywood.
We returned to the Alden House and took our lunch with the others. Elaine was up and about now, and Kuranes finally emerged from the temple. We decided that we would go check out the chess club, so we loaded up in the van and headed over. The chess club was in a building that appeared to be registered to the Church of Scientology. That was a bit disconcerting, but we pressed on. We took the elevator upstairs and found the club. It was little more than a series of rooms and offices, some of which were occupied by chess players. We checked around but saw no sign of Graves. Genda determined via communication with spirits that Graves had been there within the last few hours, but left. The apartment building he owned was nearby, so we headed over there. The building was typical of the neighborhood, and it appeared he lived in the unit 101, the manager's unit. A few other names listed by the buzzer were names that I recognized from the photograph Tophet had given me. This was no surprise.
The others decided to head in to meet with Graves, but I went outside into the bushes to scope the scene through a window. They spoke at length, but I don't know precisely what about. I learned later that they neglected to ask a bunch of key questions, such as what he knew about the Red Book or the maps from Anaximander's, but they at least got a little bit of information. It was Graves's opinion that the Red Hand had been tasked with the job of assassinating or kidnapping Magdalena Carter (the Iron Lady, as he called her), and that he suspected Marjorie was the one who put out the hit. He also invited Kuranes to join his club, and Kuranes accepted! We made our best effort to reach Mrs. Carter via magic and telephone, but we had no luck. Holmes was on the way home, but Mrs. Carter had apparently decided to go to Paris instead of return to Los Angeles. I only hope she is one step ahead of the Red Hand and has some safe house there that she's going to. I wouldn't want her to get unwittingly ambushed on the streets of Paris.
Kuranes left later that night to go to his induction. These C.C.C guys were fast! They invited him to join in the afternoon, he accepted, and he was on his way to their ceremony that same night. I tried to use a trace to establish where the ceremony was taking place. The car they sent for him went up into the hills, but another mage interfered with my spell while it was in transit, so I don't know where it ended up. I do know it wasn't the same part of town where Marjorie and her coven had performed their induction ceremonies; it was in a different part of the hills.
After Kuranes left, the rest of us gathered at the table in the Alden House to discuss what we would do next. We decided that a return to Cave City was a reasonable idea, because if we didn't do something about this hungry ghost that Freddie Gumm had let possess him, who would? We did not have any great plan to deal with it, or even any idea of the specific nature of this particular hungry ghost, but Genda thought the best course of action would be to restrain it and try to drive the ghost out from Freddie Gumm's body. He said this could be accomplished by pouring hot oil down its throat. I am a bit skeptical about this method (though I do believe I have heard of such practices in old folk tales), but it's something to try!
It was just then that there was some commotion outside, and Genda reported a spiritual disturbance. We went out and found Holmes, wet and shivering, lying on the ground. We moved him inside and tended to him. It was almost as if he had been in freezing water. I did my best to heal him, and we tried to make him comfortable and warm. We fed him and gave him drink. He reported that he and Mrs. Carter had learned of the threat against her life while they were in London. Mrs. Carter had taken a flight to Paris to go to a safe house where the Red Hand would not be able to get her. Holmes returned on their scheduled flight. He said there was a bright flash and he heard some noise when they were in flight over the Atlantic; he thought the plane might be going down. He teleported out, and ended up in the freezing water below. He says kept teleporting, ending up at various times in the ocean again or in the frozen tundra of some northland. After many such hops, he eventually made his way back to the Alden House, on the brink of death. Once he was recovered, he went to rest. Most people would have died from such an ordeal, but Holmes is clearly a hardy fellow. Even still, I think Holmes is lucky to be alive.
I finished out the evening with a few more hours of Persian study.
Saturday, January 30th, 1965
I woke up to find Genda in the kitchen, scrounging around for food. He told me that he had received a call from the studio informing him that he needed to come in today. He said it was unusual for them to call actors in on the weekend but, given the nature of the movie and his role and the work that needed to go into the costume and special effects, it wasn't totally unheard of. We also read the news that the plane that Holmes had been on had apparently gone missing over the Atlantic Ocean. In light of all of this, Genda wanted me to accompany him as his personal assistant once again. Keaton and Elaine arrived to the table soon, and they agreed to tag along as well.
We made our way up to the studio. Traffic was heavy, and it took longer than expected to get there. We were about thirty minutes behind schedule. The gate guard had not been informed that we would be arriving. He was hesitant, but he recognized Genda and me and let us in. We walked through the lot to Mr. Tuttle's workshop. We found Tuttle and a few others there working on the costume. It did not look at all like a dinosaur, but rather like a demon, with grotesquely clawed feet, and a vaguely humanoid yet monstrous face. It was quite repulsive, and I do wonder where Tuttle had the idea for such a creation. It happened that neither Tuttle nor anyone else there had sent for Genda. It was starting to feel like someone had tried to set him up. We stayed to chat with the movie people, then headed back off the lot. Elaine and Keaton had left! I guess they were feeling impatient, but it would have been nice to know they were just going to drop us off ahead of time. We could have brought two cars. Anyway, since Genda is simply too large for me to easily shift him through dimensions, we did what most people would do and called a cab. The cabbie got us back fast.
We arrived back to the house to find Mycroft Jones's car parked outside, with Mr. Jones and his associate, a Mr. Banks, inside. Jones and Banks had come on account of the plane disappearance, and apparently also had business concerning a reporter's visit to the house and the way he had been escorted off premises. Jones informed us what would be happening if it turned out Mrs. Carter had died, and just wanted us to all be up to date on foundation policies and what we would need to know going forward. He left shortly thereafter and headed out to the Palisades for some golfing with his associate. Our suspicions were high all around, so we did not inform Jones of Holmes's return or let him in on what Holmes had told us.
After Jones left, I had Genda consult the spirits to determine if anyone had been around while we were out. In fact, no one had. But, someone had been at my guesthouse last night while I slept! Two men had come in in the dead of night and scoured the premises. I knew exactly what they were looking for! I decided to do some magical investigation into the happenings at my residence last night. Meanwhile, Genda was trying to get information about the number of the caller from this morning. I determined after some study that two men in balaclavas had entered between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. They used a hand of glory before entering to insure that I would remain fast asleep. They searched through my room, and found Kitab al-Babi in its spot, in the pentagram. Fortunately, they were not able to get it from the pentagram. They left frustrated. I considered the option of traveling back in time to get a closer look at these men, but decided instead to focus on the hand itself. With more than a little effort, I was able to sense that the hand of glory used against me last night was being stored somewhere off to the west, likely in the vicinity of Malibu.
Genda was able to ascertain that the number that had called us belonged to none other than Marjorie Cameron. She was trying to get him alone for some reason, and still wanted to. She invited him to dinner and he accepted. She was in Malibu. Coincidence? The rest of us tagged along in Keaton's antique van; Genda took the Mercedes alone. Keaton used some technological devices to monitor the conversation. We could hear everything that Marjorie and Genda said to each other, though we could not see anything, nor could we communicate back to Genda. We stayed in sight of Marjorie's house, parked just off the road. Genda got in with no trouble; they did not find the transmitter he was wearing under his lapel.
It turned out that Marjorie's reason for contacting Genda was relatively innocuous. She wanted his powers as a spiritual medium to contact her husband and child in the astral plane. A mother who wants to know about her child, and a wife who wants to speak to her husband seem totally normal. She informed Genda that she had not had any success with spiritualists to date, that most were charlatans, and that the ones who weren't were unethical or incompetent. She offered promises of comfort and industry contacts if Genda could provide the services she requested. Genda considered, but ultimately told her that he would need to get back in touch with her. Marjorie also let it be known that she had been watching us, perhaps by magic but definitely by sending Licata's thugs to follow us around, and that she deemed us as no threat to her. She is right about that. Nothing she is doing is of interest to the foundation. She does not seem to be amassing dangerous items or engaging in necromancy or anything like that; all she wants is to be Queen of the World. It is likely even the case that our interests are aligned, that reinvigorating our world with mana is something we all want.
I determined while Genda was dining with Marjorie that the hand of glory was not on her property. It was a few miles away, up in one of the canyons running through the coastal mountains of Malibu. When Genda left, we met up with him in the parking lot of a seafood place, where we decided we were going to go up into the hills and find that hand. Marjorie's people were still following us around, looking at us from a perch on a nearby hill. In fact, they followed us right up into the hills, into a small woods. We found a cabin there, and it appeared by the light inside to be occupied. We snuck through the trees to get closer. We observed at least one man inside. This was it. We needed to get in and nab that hand fast. We closed in, but just as we were nearing the cabin, they must have heard us. They was movement inside. We rushed in. Genda was able to knock one man prone, but before he could finish him, the man vanished. The other man dodged away as I tried to bring him to the ground, but that only put him in Elaine's sights. She fired one shot that hit him int he center of his forehead. Blood trickled out and he fell over, dead.
The hand was not there. I concentrated and determined that it had moved, about two miles away, further into the hills. I rested up while the others searched the cabin. By the time I had recuperated my energy, the hand had moved again, this time 20 miles. Within another minute, I could no longer sense it. It had been sequestered somewhere safe from scrying, or it had been moved too far for me to sense. I decided to find where it had gone on its first jump. I took flight and flew above the trees to another cabin. It was dark and empty. I returned and, after we cleaned up the scene and disposed of the body, we went by car and van to the other cabin. Magical investigation revealed that the hand had appeared there, and that two men had put it onto some device, whereupon it vanished again. We concluded the Red Hand likely had a series of places like this, maybe all over the region, where they could move things around with these devices. The men themselves had also vanished. I tried to sense where they might have gone, but I was unable. The spirits were also unhelpful in locating them, but were able to conclude that they had left via magical means. I did what I could to search for answers, but the trail had gone cold just like that.
The Red Hand knows we mean business now, and I believe they mean the same! I have elected to move a futon down into the temple, where I'll be sleeping for now. I have also secured Kitab al-Babi where it cannot and will not be found by anyone. I'll not specify that in writing, not even in my own diary, lest I am not the only one reading this.