Victory !

Thursday Morning, Early, June 19

Ebony was hidden in the morgue of the Eastern Regional Medical Center, North Philadelphia. She was watching the skeletal creature tear into one of the corpses there. It didn't stay for long, and turned into a mist, and seeped away.

Abu had given the group a Detect Risen Magic figurine a few days ago; it would vibrate when near anything with Risen magic. Luckily, Ebony was carrying this, and she used its vibrations to follow the mist. The mist seeped down a drain, and under the road. This allowed Ebony to track the thing from above ground, up on the road.

She texted the party, and they all soon arrived on the spot, and they all followed Ebony and her figurine.

After a few hours, at 6 am, it stopped, under a large intersection, the junction of North Fifth Street and Fairmount Avenue.

"Now we wait," Ebony said.

Thursday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 19

Sledge phoned STRIKE FORCE and updated Lieutenant Prospero. He arranged for the Police to cordon off the intersection. Detective Noble arrived to join them as well. According to her City Hall blue-prints, there was a large sewerage pumping station here; it was the confluence of several of the cities major sewer lines. The tunnels would be tall and walkable,

Thursday Morning, Late, June 19

They all went down a manhole down the street from the centre of the street to the south, armed with one air compressor, their firearms and several flashlights.

Down the tunnel, they came across a coffin, then another. Sledge couldn't help himself, and opened them both. One had a wispy haired old man, the other a healthy man in a suit.

Sledge searched them both and found wallets full of cash.

"Best let sleeping dogs lie," whispered Detective Noble.

He left the money.

They moved a bit closer to the pumping station, and came across more coffins. Some old wood, some stone, but most were normal coffins. There were 28 in all: three were stone, and seven were locked (from the inside, Ebony checked).

"But why are there no ghouls?" said Detective Noble. "Vamps never leave their coffins unprotected during the day. It doesn't make sense."

Abu's Detect Risen Magic figurine was now held by Jacob, who was upon the road standing in the middle of the intersection.

They guessed that the creature was hiding in one of the coffins, so did some triangulation, with the figurine, to try to narrow down which one.

They got it down to four coffins, so carefully opened each one: a nine year old boy, a woman, an old man, and a street thug in a hoody.

They narrowed this down further by lifting each coffin, in turn, and taking the coffin down the passage, to see if the figurine would stop vibrating. (It only had two modes: vibrating and not; at ten paces, it stopped dead.)

The lady vampire's coffin seems to be the likely candidate. They opened the lid again, and stepped back. Suddenly, she sat up ... well, she was shoved up. The creature was lying under her, and it sprang up.

Battle was met!

Everyone opened up with what they had: Sledge's twin .357 magnums, Detective Noble's police special, Mort's Glock 17, Ebony's oil. The enraged creature launched into Sledge as he blasted away, and it bashed and clawed him. Then it had a go at Ebony. It was so fast and quick, and it had to be hit in its head, that only Sledge could inflict reasonable damage on it. Noble got in a few desultory hits. Mort didn't even try. Ebony's oil was also very effective, and the creature roared and screamed, as it burned. And burned. And burned.

Finally, the creature collapsed, burning, and the group then carefully pounded the charred skeleton into powder. And then pounded the powder some more. And kept pounding it until there was no piece larger than soot.

Detective Noble had a specimen plastic bag and she swept all the dust into this. Then rinsed the sooty stain with water (from the open sewer) and kept that too.

"Now, I'll get some stakes," said Mort. "And kill all these vamps."

"No you won't," said Detective Noble. "Not all vampires are evil by definition. And we have no evidence than any of these ones are."

Mort fumed.

"And furthermore," she continued. "I think this is Oberon's claimed area. And if not, it is Defacto's area. We don't want either of them riled. So, we will put everything back to exactly how we found them."

So they carefully tidied the coffins up, and put them back to how they were.

Thursday Afternoon, June 19

They gave the ashes, and the sticky sooty paste to Abu. He put them into a canopic jar, and sealed it with a ritual and a hieroglyph.

"Safer to destroy this before nightfall," he mused.

Then, with police escort, they took the jar to the Sandmeyer Steel Company. There was an industrial iron furnace here. Abu tossed the canopic jar into the mix, and the party gleefully watched the jar, soot and ash be vapourized.

"Now we can say it is gone," said Abu.

Thursday Sunset 8:32 pm, June 19

Mina arrived to the apartment.

"I hear you finally did it," she said.

Nods all around.

Mina handed Sledge a briefcase.

"A token of my appreciation," she said.

Sledge opened it. It was $150,000 in small bills.

Thursday Midnight, June 19

Ebony then offered to perform with Mina in one of her nightly rituals.

Mina smiled enigmatically and nodded: "But, of course."

So Ebony undressed, and knelt with two other girls and Mina. Mina opened Ebony's neck and used her blood to paint around the circle and on the walls of the sarcophagus. Part-way through the ritual, Mina bit into her own wrist; black blood welled-up, and Mina fed it to Ebony.

Friday Sunrise 5:32 am, June 20

Mort snuck out alone, just after sunrise. He went to the intersection where they fought the mummy yesterday, and quietly slipped into the sewers. He was carrying a large bundle of stakes.

The coffins were all there, in the same positions. Mort then went methodically through each one, staking them all. He didn't open (or even touch) the seven locked coffins, but that still left twenty-one vampires destroyed. Two turned into aged partial skeletons, most into dried skeletons, and some into fresher corpses.
[ Unlike Buffy vampires, Twilight vampires and True Blood vampires, WoD vampires, when "killed", turn into the age the corpse would be, had it not become a vampire. So old ones turn into dust, and young ones into fresh corpses. ]

The Hunt Continues

Monday Morning, Early, June 16

Mina arrived at 4 am, with another young lady.

Jacob asked her "Is there any effect that Sledge will suffer for giving Oberon a feed."

"Oh yes," said Mina tactlessly. "It will shadow his soul."

But STRIKE FORCE had more pragmatic views.

"The taint of your souls," said Lieutenant Prospero. "Is a small price to pay for the power of the Nexus. This thing ought to be able to help us all."

Mina opened the neck of her lady companion, and used her blood to draw some more symbols on the walls of the tomb, in the sarcophagus itself, and inside the shroud circle on the floor.

Jacob asked what they were for, but she just mentioned "shroud augmentation".

Monday Morning, June 16

Mort researched all the places in town he could think of that might have reason to hold bodies or body parts. Then spent the morning phoning every one to see if anything mysterious had happened last night.

Sledge, Ebony and Jacob were already members of STRIKE FORCE, but Lieutenant Prospero wanted the entire group to join. Mort refused, despite the substantial benefits one accrues for belonging.

Monday Afternoon, June 16

Sledge's mum

Sledge's mum was a Dooley, and she wanted a "good catholic wedding" for Sledge's marriage to
Safiya. So, Sledge and Safiya went to Sledge's mum's local church. The priest, Father Patrick Maynard, was very happy to marry the two, provided that Safiya become a fully-fledged catholic, of course. Safiya agreed, so the priest enrolled her in a Wednesday night Catholic Christian Doctrine course.

"'Indoctrination', more like," muttered Jacob.

The last session of CCD would be on July 23, and Safiya would be confirmed on the following Sunday (July 27) . The marriage could take place after that.

"When the paint has dried" quipped the priest.

Sledge booked him for Tuesday July 29.

Monday Night, June 16

A formal agreement was reached with Mina.

Each day, Abu would have access to the tomb, to spend as much time as he likes documenting and studying the contents.

Each night, Mina would have it for her rituals.

Tuesday Morning, June 17

Mort got a call from the Eastern Regional Medical Center. One of the corpses down in the cancer morgue had been disturbed.

Wednesday Morning, June 18

Lieutenant Prospero told the party that the police had been contacted by the Blue Pine Clinic. One of its patients had died last night, and had been stored on premises for the undertaker to collect next day. In the morning, it was discovered that the body had been ripped apart, and the stomach was missing.

The Blue Pine Clinic was about one kilometre from the Eastern Regional Medical Center.

Wednesday Afternoon, June 18

Safiya had her first CCD lesson. She began to ask Sledge all kinds of questions, none of which he knew the answer to:

• "Catholics regularly bow to, pray to, and kiss the feet of statues of Mary, yet the second commandment says not to bow to idols"
• "Matthew 6:7 says 'And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do', yet doing penance with the rosary is what else but meaningless repetition?"
• "Timothy 3:2 says 'A priest or bishop, then, must be above reproach, be the husband of one wife, be temperate, be prudent, be respectable...' yet the Pope says Catholic priests must be celibate. Who is right?"

Wednesday Sunset 8:32 pm, June 18

Mort had the original electric air compressor that they were hiring from the dive shop. They hired three more compressors, one each for Sledge, Ebony and Jacob. This would allow them to stake out four places at once.

After last night's clinic raid, they had four likely places where the mummy could strike, all within two to three kilometres of the Blue Pine clinic:

1. Penn State Organ bank
2. Eastern Regional Medical Center
3. Blue Pine Clinic
4. Eastern River Hospice

STRIKE FORCE arranged the necessary warrants, permissions and paperwork so that the party could camp the night in each place: Mort went to the organ bank, Ebony the medical centre, Jacob the clinic and Sledge the hospice.

Thursday Morning, Early, June 19

At 3am, Ebony was crouched in a small cupboard in the morgue of the Eastern Regional Medical Center. She heard a loud bang. So, she stealthy crept out to see. Across the room, was a charred skeleton with glowing eyes, and with fresh organs peeping between its ribs. It was tearing into one of the corpses from the body drawers, with loud meaty rips, and wet slopping noises.

She silently texted the others in the group, then sat back and watched.

The Nexus

Sunday Evening, June 15

"We need to get Abu down here," said Mort. "To identify all these magical hieroglyphs."

Abu was promptly phoned, and said he would be there within an hour.

Detective Noble started the grisly task of sealing the crime scene. Now that supernatural activity had ceased, she phoned in the mundane CSI guys.

Outside, the sun set.

Almost immediately, the charred pieces of the mummy skeleton melted into mist and floated up the stairs and through the ruined door. The party frantically followed it. The air compressor pump set was still sitting in Mort's hearse, so they couldn't try the mist-sucking trick. The mist got into the bathroom, and went down the bath drain.

"Damn damn damn," they swore.

Suddenly Mina was there, arriving in her usual enigmatic vampire fashion. She wandered around the basement looking at things.

"This is fascinating," she said. "These hieroglyphs and the Risen magic has made this area into a Nexus. A source of great power. It would take me almost a year to make something like this. I should like to use it."

"What about Oberon?" asked Ebony. "Doesn't he 'own' this part of the city?"

Mina looked at her.

"Yes. 'What about Oberon?' indeed. He would dearly love this. So would all other creatures of the Veil: the werewolves, sidhe, mages, demons, ghosts, sin-eaters, even the Promethean." She paused for thought. "I shall shroud it. Then they will not be able to find it."

Before the party or Detective Noble could reply, Mina was gone.

Abu bin Laden then arrived. His jaw dropped as he surveyed the place.

"This is a tomb!" he cried. "A fully-configured tomb. Look! See the shabtis, the scarabs; those bodies are lain out in the five symmetries. The canopic jars will contain their organs."

Abu was in happy-land as he started taking pictures of the tomb and making extensive notes. Mort followed his progress. Abu explained that the magical hieroglyphs (the ones that could not be photographed) can be copied, but that the copies must be kept 'a hand-span' apart, else they fade. He also pointed out that if you have one tattooed or drawn upon you, as the party had done with the cold hieroglyph, then you age one year per day. Mort pointed out that the Khalfanis, and Safiya and Osiris had the hieroglyphs on their bodies 'for ages', yet they hadn't aged. Abu could not explain why.

Sunday Night, June 15

Mina arrived, an hour later, with four girls in their early twenties. She barged in past Abu and started to set things up on the floor surrounding the sarcophagus. Abu protested, and she fixed him a feral gaze, and he withdrew silently. Then the four girls undressed, and knelt at the four corners. Mina bit each one in the neck, and didn't seal the wounds. The blood ran copiously down their fair bodies, and Mina used it to draw an unbroken circle around the sarcophagus. Mina then drew symbols in blood on her own naked body, and writhed in the centre (in the casket itself). After some minutes of orgasmic throes (the boys in the party watched in rapt lustful fascination), she stood up, and sealed the girls' wounds (with a lick).

"The Shroud is done," Mina said, as she dressed again. "This place is now protected from magical scrying. If that circle is broken, the Shroud will cease, and I will know, and I will kill whoever broke it. "

Mina collected her girls: "I strongly suspect that Oberon does not know of this Nexus. See that he does not. He now can not scry past the Shroud, and he will not want to send his ghouls* to cross the police lines. So you have some time before he will dare send anyone. I want you lot to take on the rent of this apartment. Keep it as your nexus. As your group Strike Force's nexus. As this Egyptologist's nexus. As my nexus." She tossed them a bundle of money ($1500).

"Oberon owns this region of the city," Mina went on. "This means any Veil activity here needs his approval. You are all Veil-aware, so that means if you take this as your apartment, as you are about to do, then you will need to contact him and get clearance. Again, I stress, he must not be told of the Nexus, the Shroud, nor my interest. I'll be back at 4 [ am ]." Mina then left.

The CSI guys arrived. Detective Noble set them to work and they tidied the place up, and hauled off all the body pieces.

"We can maintain the crime scene status for tonight, and tomorrow night, before it appears suspicious," said Noble.

"I guess I better go see Oberon," said Sledge.

Oberon was in the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill, in his offices upstairs. Sledge went up and spoke to him. Oberon was all smiles and teeth, and seemed genuinely touched that the party (the "cell" as he kept calling them) was seeking his permission.

"Yes, you can have that apartment," Oberon said. "The 'rent' is one drink a week. I will not kill the volunteer, just a single drink. Paid in advance"

Sledge said he needed to speak with the group as to whether this price was okay. And would return at midnight with an answer.

Sledge, Ebony and Jacob were happy with this 'rent'.
The vampire haters in the party: Mort and Juan, were not. Neither was Theo.
STRIKE FORCE sided with the ayes.

They argued long into the evening.

PRO: The ends justify the means. The powers of the Nexus help us immensely.

CON: Don't deal with vampires (Oberon). Don't let vampires use the Nexus (Mina).

Sunday Midnight, June 15

It was decided: Detective Noble brought in a "willing volunteer" from the police station, a young black girl Tyra, and gave her to Sledge. Tyra was on a charge for possession, and was happy to volunteer because all charges would be dropped. Sledge took her to Oberon, and he had his drink; he took a litre of her blood and sealed the wound. His glamour ensured that she didn't remember the ordeal at all.


* = A WoD ghoul is not the corpse-eating creature of lore, but is the term for vampire slaves. The vampire feeds his ghoul some blood, and then has a psychic connection.
Vampires have ghouls. Werewolves have "nonces". Sidhe have "fae bitches". Geists and Demons have "the possessed". Promethean have "Igors". Mages have "slaves". Risen have "the loyal".

Dave Dobbyn's song "Loyal" is about a Risen slave.

The End?

Saturday Afternoon June 14

Sledge and Safiya were kept unconscious with chloroform ("not chlorophyll" quipped Jacob wryly) while Mort attempted some skin excoriation to remove the playing-card-sized "loyalty" hieroglyph tattoos, (the top tattoo, a permanent version of the one Mort had drawn on Sledge).

Mort cut down to the fascia, with the scalpel from his med bag, in a neat square, and peeled the sheets of skin off. Then he tried the awkward task of stretching the surrounding skin back over the wound, and suturing it closed.

Ebony stayed and guarded the unconscious Sledge and Safiya, while Mort and Jacob took hand-sketched drawings of the four hieroglyph tats, and the fifth one of Safiya's, to Abu. He identified the hieroglyphs as Loyalty, Commune with the Dead, Speak Egyptian and Sixth Sense. The extra one was Cold.

Saturday Night June 14

Poor Sledge and Safiya were kept locked up in Mort's safe-house all night. They were in utter agony from the cuts, and were kept heavily sedated.

By the morning, the magical hold that the creature had over Sledge had waned, and he was back to his old self again. Safiya too. She turned out to be a Cairo student. Her and her brother, Osiris, had been kidnapped and bewitched months ago.

Sunday Morning June 15

As soon as it was light, Ebony checked out the Elfrith Alley mummy apartment. It appeared normal, however the solicitation of prostitutes (that Ebony was with two days before) was no longer there; not one. Ebony inquired around the local shops. The hos had been seen only last night.

Ebony quickly checked the parking garage and, sure enough, the Chevy Caprice was there. She contacted the party and they decided to call the Prospero and STRIKE FORCE.

Detective Noble arrived with some extra cops, and they checked out the site of the hos. The area had recently been sluiced down. Noble brought in the forensic boys. They found a severed finger up on one of the internal walls. It had a finger-print and was identified as one of the call-girls.

They updated Noble on everything else, including the magical tattoos and the mummy apartment, and asked for heavy help (like a swat team or a Special Patrol Group). Noble and Prospero were loathe to do this.

"When you have large police action against the Supernatural," Detective Noble said. "You get big breaking of the Veil problems. The officers that survive end up with mental scars which haunt them for the rest of their lives. Or else they go insane."

"But," she added. "We can help you in other ways."

Noble gave Sledge and Safiya some healing salves (which all but cured the frightful dermatological mess that Mort had inflicted on their backs), and she gave Ebony an Incendiary Stick. This looked like a common-or-garden wooden police baton, but if you twisted the handle a certain way, it would burst open and burn with the intense heat of white phosphorus.

"But don't let a vampire catch you with this," she warned. "Else they will kill you - utterly."

Sunday Afternoon June 15

Mort experimented with the Cold hieroglyph. He copied it onto Ebony's back using a permanent marker pen. And then poured some Nile water onto it, as suggested by Abu. Ebony found that if she concentrated on the drawing, then she could stick her hand into the freezer and the cold didn't affect her.

So Mort drew Cold tats on everyone with the marker pen. They worked on everyone except Juan.

Sunday Late Afternoon June 15

Wanting to do it before dark, they decided to go in to the apartment.

The apartment door was cold to the touch. Everyone activated their Cold hieroglyphs, and then Ebony picked the lock.

The entire room was cold. There were two skeletal dogs there. They attacked, but Theo made short work of them with his katana. No sign of any people, so they approached the basement door. It turned out to be solid iron and had been bolted and reinforced. They couldn't make any progress.

Lieutenant Prospero was phoned. He sent a squad car to secure the area, and sent Detective Noble with a police-issue hydraulic battering ram.

It was now 90 minutes before sunset.

A few solid bashes smashed the door frame, and the solid iron door tumbled down the stairs into the basement. In went some molotovs, which made fire and choking smoke.

Gun shots came from within.

Sledge came to the fore, and he shot at the shadowy figure down there. Sledge took some wounds, but the shooter was dropped. It was Dr Khalfani ("Mr Fez"). He was hiding behind a huge stone sarcophagus. Mrs Khalfani was cowering in the corner.

The room was bedecked like an Egyptian tomb: the huge stone sarcophagus centre stage, with hieroglyphs all over the walls, complete with canopic jars, shabtis, scarabs, and other funerary items ... and the pieces of twelve prostitutes scattered about. The place was also freezing cold, with ice on the floor.

Jacob, Juan, Mort and Theo lifted the lid of the sarcophagus together; it was very heavy. Ebony hurled in some litre containers of oil, and then her incendiary stick.

There was a roar and a scream. The lid shot up, out of their hands, as the thing within stood up violently. It leaped out of the sarcophagus and raked Theo. Then it bellowed, on fire, burning fiercely, and it ran from the room. Sledge opened up with his .357 magnums, called-shots to its head. He got in some good hits because it stumbled and fell on the stairs.

With the white phosphorus burning hot and fierce, it didn't take long for the creature to burn into a charred skeleton. There were about 40 minutes to sunset.

Dr Khalfani was still alive, barely, so they patched his wounds. Mrs Khalfani was none the worse for wear; a bit of smoke inhalation. Safiya's brother Osiris wasn't so lucky. His body, well, pieces of his body, were scattered with the prostitutes'. The intense cold had started to wane, so Detective Noble and Juan could come down.

Mort wondered if any of the hieroglyphs on the walls of the tomb were the magical type. Since they could not be photographed, he took some photos with his phone-camera of each wall, and sure enough, there were holes in the picture where the magical ones were. Maybe one in twenty.

Ebony gestured to the hieroglyph-encrusted sarcophagus: "At least, now we can replace the museum's one," she mused.

Sledge's Faux Pas

Friday Morning, June 13

Ebony was on watch. "Mister Fez" left the apartment, and Ebony followed him to the parking garage. He drove off in his Chevy Caprice. She returned to the watch, and soon after, the other older woman (she guessed Mrs Khalfani) left. Ebony followed her, and she went to a nearby supermarket on foot.

Ebony phoned it in, so Sledge Hammer and Mort joined her. They ambushed poor Mrs Khalfani, shot her up, and left her, bandaged and unconscious, in a skip in an alley. Apart from the groceries, they found $1000 and the apartment keys on her.

Summoning the rest of the group (Jacob and Juan), they entered the apartment building, then burst into the apartment itself. Safiya and Osiris were there, but put up no resistance when threatened with guns and knives. They were soon zip-tied to the chairs in the kitchen, and gagged.

The apartment appeared totally normal with standard accouterments and furnishings, with two bedrooms, an open-plan living area with kitchen, bathroom and shower.

However, in the hallway was a door, presumably down to the basement, cold to the touch. In fact, it was so cold that the door handle was beaded with ice, and was steaming. No-one was brave enough to open it, so they went back to question the brother and sister.

Juan was groping away on the squirming Safiya, when he noticed a tattoo of a hieroglyph on the nape of her neck. Mort took a picture of it, with his phone, planning to send it to Abu to get it indentified. But the photo showed no tat - just the smooth olive skin of the girl.

Sledge tried tracing the picture onto a piece of paper. This worked okay. So Mort took a photo of the hieroglyph on the paper. Again, nothing on the camera - just paper.

"Hmm," said Sledge. "Curious. Try it on me. See if we can photograph it then."

So Mort copied the hieroglyph onto Sledge's nape using a vivid permanent marker pen.

Sledge suddenly went quiet and stared vacant. Mort frantically tried to rub it off.

Sledge then blinked, and reacted violently. He drew both his .357 magnums and blasted away at Mort, luckily missing him.

Mort, Ebony, Jacob and Juan fled. Sledge opened up on them. He got two good shots into Ebony as she was last to scamper from the apartment. Rather than pursue, he secured the apartment.

The party gathered a block away to lick their wounds. Ebony was badly wounded, so they took her to a hospital.

Jacob phoned the fiasco in to Prospero.

"Oh dear," he said.


Friday Evening, June 13

They thought they'd ask Mina for advice. Mina was not particularly interested.

"Clean up your own dirty work," she said. "And anyway, that is Oberon's area. See if he will help... ha ha... maybe not. He sure hates Mort. Good luck!"

Apparently, the recent mummy killings were no longer being done in "vampire style", so the vampires no longer seemed to be so interested in getting the killings to stop.

Oberon was in the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill. But he didn't seem particularly interested in helping out either, when Ebony approached him. She did recall that one of the hos was a vampire girl any way. So maybe Oberon already knew.

While this was going on, Mort was outside in his hearse, being too scared to enter a place where Oberon frequented. Alert, more out of fear than anything else, he happened to catch notice of a shadowy figure on a nearby roof-top. He ducked... as a 7.62mm full metal jacketed round crashed through the back window, through his head-rest, and buried itself in the dashboard paneling. (It was Sledge with his scoped PSG1 sniper rifle). Mort floored the accelerator and took off.

The party stayed the night in Mort's safe house. Luckily, Sledge had not been there, so would not know how to find it. [ Merit Safe Houses are unlocatable by definition ].

Saturday Morning, June 14

Early in the morning, Sledge's mother contacted the group.

"I'm worried about my boy," she sobbed. "He's taken up with a moslem girl, a terrorist!, and they are going to get married."

A plan to rescue Sledge formed.

"Invite him and his betrothed to your place, for lunch. We will ambush him and take him away from those awful Egyptians."

Saturday Noon, June 14

Sledge and Safiya arrived and Sledge's mom's fourth-floor apartment, for lunch.

Sledge's mom greeted them and, as per tradition, got Sledge to place all his weapons on the mantelpiece in the lounge before entering the dining room for the roast chicken lunch.

This is where the party struck, hitting Sledge with a taser (donated from Prospero). Safiya screamed and tried to run, but they easily grappled her down.

Sledge and Safiya were zip-tied, and laid down in the lounge and their backs were exposed.

Sledge had four hieroglyphs tattooed on his back (from nape to midback). Safiya had five.

"We need to get these off," said Mort.

STRIKE FORCE

Wednesday Night, June 11

The group decided a full-scale stake-out of this Elfrith Alley apartment was in order. There was a bunch of whores hanging around the entrance to the "2nd Street" subway station, mainly black girls, so Ebony mingled with them. There was much jostling and shoving as they viewed her as competition, but when she made it clear she wasn't looking for their business, they stopped. Or maybe it was because Sledge started throwing around Grants (Ulysses S Grant, $50 bills).

Mort IDed one of the hos as a vampire, so he stayed well clear of the solicitation (collective noun for whores), just in case she happened to be one of Oberon's.

Theo was still working in the Penitentiary, and Juan was back at his work (Khyber Pass Bar & Grill). Vince? Well, Vince hadn't been seen since the morning, when they were in the Old Fireman's Hall. He always was an elusive fellow.

Mort and Sledge's phones both suddenly rang, almost to the second.

"Hello" they both said simultaneously.

"It's the Coroner," said Mort.

"It's Lieutenant Prospero," said Sledge.

"I have to go down to the Thomas Jefferson morgue," they both said in unison. "There's been another killing."

So they both left together, in Mort's hearse, leaving Ebony and the hos.

At the morgue, they were both ushered in to the slab by Lieutenant Prospero and the Coroner. Naked, and blooded, lying there, was the body of Vince. Well, pieces of the body of Vince; he had been ripped apart.

"That is Vince," Sledge and Mort both said in harmony, voices a third apart.

The coroner had been busy: "He is missing several organs: the liver, bladder and gall bladder. He's only been dead for three hours."

"So he is dead then?" observed Sledge.

Mort checked under the nails. Sure enough: traces of fibre.

Lt. Harold Prospero

Mort and Sledge said their fond farewells to Vince "we never did know him very well", and then Lt.
Prospero beckoned them away: "Come with me."

They left the morgue, and he escorted them to the Police station. Here, he took them to an office, and sat them both down. There was another man and a woman in the room too.

"This is Detective Trisha Noble," the lieutenant said, gesturing to the woman; the rather attractive young woman.

She nodded. Sledge just stared at her substantial chest.

"And this is Jacob Bradshaw," he gestured at the other man. "A Scientist from Penn State."

Det. Trisha Noble

Mort acknowledged Jacob, but Sledge was too busy staring at the detective.

"Are you married?" he asked.

The lieutenant continued: "I think it is time that we reveal ...all. Detective Noble, Mister Bradshaw
and I know about the Veil. We know of the supernatural, the Supernatural and the forces of darkness. Though, as far as we can ascertain, we are the only three in the Philadelphia Police Department who do..."

"It IS a mummy" squeaked Mort, excitedly.

"Yes, we gathered this. And we plan to use your group, and your somewhat unconventional investigative techniques, to continue the hunt for it."

Mort and Sledge were already on their phones to Ebony, Juan and Theo. Though, for some reason, they couldn't get a signal: "No service".

"We belong to a group called..." continued the lieutenant, then he paused, hand on heart, and looked off into the far distance: "STRIKE FORCE."

"It is a large organization," he carried on. "And we have top men in most cities of the States." He added with the best Peter Griffin side-ways glance, "Top men. And many in other parts of the world."

He paused, and said dramatically with the infinity stare "STRIKE FORCE... has resources, and endowments, that members may use..."

"Can we join?!" squeaked Sledge.

"Yes, we wish you to pledge," said Prospero. "And I also want to embed Mister Bradshaw, here, into your group."

[ Ian, having retired Vince character, rejoins the party ]

"Yes yes," said Sledge, impatiently. "But I want to join Strike Force..."

"You must say it with a pause," interrupted the Lieutenant. "Raise your chin and focus your eyes to the horizon before you say it. Right palm on your heart. Then say the words, chest forward, 'with authority and resonance'."

He stared to the distance and intoned: "STRIKE FORCE."

Sledge repeated: "STRIKE FORCE."

Mort tried too: "STRIKE FORCE."

Jacob too:  "STRIKE FORCE."

Trisha did too, which was impressive when she out-thrust her chest: "STRIKE FORCE."

[ In WoD terms, STRIKE FORCE is a Tier-three organization, also known as a "Conspiracy" ]

"What happens if you don't say it right?" asked Mort.

"Bad things happen," said the lieutenant. "Bad things. I have heard whispered tales of dread 'minus one dice on all rolls for the rest of the Chapter' whatever that means."

"Do you have a constitution?" asked Mort.

"We sure do," said Prospero. He handed Mort a hard-bound book, the size of a church bible, with 6-point type printed on wafer thin rice paper. It was full of 1800s archaic legalese; with its quadruple-nested subordinate clauses, complex and ambiguous prepositional phrases, regular and obscure latin quotes (exempli gratia, in fide scientiam, coque natibus, purificatus non consumptus, pedicabo et in equitibus, et cetera), and archaic phrases like 'the party of the first part hereafter referred to as' and 'excepting in cases where hither-to unforeseen circumstances ameliorate the intent of the parties' providence'.

"STRIKE FORCE ... was started by Abraham Lincoln himself, in 1863, during the Civil War." the lieutenant added. "The vampires were pro-slavery, you see, and they ran the big farms. So there was quite a bit of preternatural and unorthodox fighting going on in the background, which didn't make the papers. Hence, .... STRIKE FORCE."

While Mort was struggling with the heavy constitution, Detective Noble walked over to Sledge (who was still drinking her in, like a dehydrated man) holding an elaborate ornamental dagger. She took his left ring finger, and jabbed it with the pointy end of the knife, drawing blood.

"Ow!" yelped Sledge.

Trisha quickly placed his bleeding finger onto what looked like a red stamp-pad. It blotted the blood away, leaving no trace.

"Say 'I, your-name, do hereby pledge myself to, my all," she paused, and looked into the distance as she intoned. "STRIKE FORCE'."

Sledge was getting the hang of it now: "I, Sledge Hammer, do hereby pledge myself, my all, to," he did his best resonant voice so far: "STRIKE FORCE !"

He felt a tingle in his core, and then a jolt.

"You are now pledged," said Trisha. "Welcome to ... STRIKE FORCE !"

"So, I can date you now?"

She smiled thinly: "That is not part of the deal."

Mort rubbed the back of his neck.

"I can sense something in this room," he said. "Something magic or dangerous."

Lieutenant Prospero reached into a drawer of the desk, rummaged around a bit, and produced a ruby gem, the size of a marble. Mort's Sixth Sense hackles rose even more.

"This is a non-eavesdrop gem. It stops us being overheard in this room both magically and mundanely. This is why your phones don't work too."

"Is that an Endowment?" asked Mort.

"Aye," said the lieutenant. "We have some resources which are made available to members and pledges in the form of Endowments."

"I want a flame-thrower!" snapped Sledge.

"We must be careful with fire weapons. The Philly vampires do not approve, as fire is the bane of vampires too, and they try to control all sources. If they catch you with fire weapons, you'll be killed with extreme prejudice. They could well have ghouls, aka slaves of vampires, infiltrated in the police. Also, the mages don't appreciate fire neither, and, as you know, the mages control the Internet, so don't try to order this stuff online."

The talk drifted on. Prospero and Noble knew of the three different vampire clans in Philly: the leaders being Oberon, Mina and Defacto. There were also two packs of werewolves, one cabal of mages, some fae activity, some witches and a some demons. Plus the usual collection of ghosts and hauntings you'd expect in a big city. The recent mummy attacks was the first risen activity that they knew of - well, not counting ten years ago.

While they were there, Prospero used his police contacts to find out about the Elfrith Alley apartment, and whether he could find any evidence that would allow a police bust of this dwelling. There were two couples living in the ground floor apartment, both from Egypt and recently moved in: brother and sister Osiris and Safiya Runihura, and Dr Gahiji Khalfani and his wife Nailah. Dr Khalfani was an anesthetist at the Thomas Jefferson Hospital, and the only income earner for the apartment. They all had legit travel and work visas.

---

Sledge, Mort and Jacob arrived back at Elfrith Alley and updated Ebony about STRIKE FORCE. So far, only Sledge and Jacob were members, but Prospero wanted them all joined up.

"Besides," added Sledge with a leer. "You get endowments!"

They took turns watching the apartment as the night grew on.

One of the Egyptian women left. Ebony followed her. She went to a 7-11, and returned. But the rest of the night passed uneventfully.

Thursday Day, June 12

'72 Chevy Caprice

That afternoon, Ebony was again on watch. A man, in a fez, left the apartment. She followed him, and he went to a nearby parking garage and hopped into "a red 1972 Mitsubishi Ferrari" - car identification was never her strong suite, it was actually a tomato-red 1972 Chevy Caprice - and drove off. She noted down the licence plate, phoned it through to Prospero, and returned to the apartment.

Prospero reported that the car had, indeed, been stolen.


Thursday Evening, June 12 

Sledge was on watch. Just after dark, a tall man in a hoody, left the building and walked quickly down the street. Sledge happened to be on watch, so he followed the chap, unseen, using his shadowing skills. The mark rounded a corner into a blind alley. Sledge snuck up, glanced in and saw the hooded figure scaling the walls, like a spider. Guessing that this was the creature, he quietly left it and returned to Elfrith Alley.

He phoned this in, and Mort straight-away phoned the Coroner.

"I bet there will be another killing tonight," Mort boasted.

Friday Morning, early, June 13

Around 1am, Ebony was on watch again. The "Mitsubishi Ferrari" pulled up in the alley, next to the apartment building. (It was a narrow street and, during daylight hours, this act would block traffic, though, at 1am, few were about.) Mister Fez got out, opened the trunk, got out a length of thick hose, fist-sized diameter, and fed it through the barred partial-window that led to the basement of the apartment. He then emptied the contents of whatever was in the trunk down the hose into the basement.

Then he packed up and drove off.

Ebony assumed he'd return the car to the parking building, so she went there, and sure enough, it was. She popped the trunk and found that it was full of plastic water containers, all empty, and coil of hose. There were still remnants of the liquid in them, so she took a sample and returned to the alley.

Jacob got woken, and he took the sample to analyze it with the police's gas chromatograph. It was water from the Nile.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully.

Friday Morning, June 13

Mort was awoken by his phone. It was the Coroner.

"You were right," he said. "A tramp, near Elfrith Alley, ripped apart. Missing eyeballs and, kidneys."

The Penitentiary

Wednesday Morning, June 11

The Old Fireman's hall opened at 10 am, so the party visited then. There was no change to the Sixth Sense of Theo nor Mort. So nothing there.

They then headed back to the Fleischer Art Memorial. It was open and the staff very friendly. There was no sign of the vampire ball the night before, though the staff were happy to talk about it. Theo and Mort's Sixth Sense rang plenty of alarm bells near the centre of the facility, but there was no easy way to get below ground to investigate more. However, they suspected that with the strong concentration of vampires here, that there probably wouldn't be any mummy activity. They were also not keen to take on a nest of vampires; even during the day.

Next stop was the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Wednesday Afternoon, June 11

Upon arriving at the penitentiary, the security checks were very thorough.  Visiting hours were 2 pm to 5 pm, so they timed that right. Juan had plenty of his relatives locked up here, so he gave a name for the party to visit: Jose Direction, and they went to the visiting cubicle (with glass screen and telephones) to speak with him. Inmate Jose had some surprising information: there had been a murder last night, in wing B. Jose didn't know many details, but he was in wing A, and the seven wings didn't really mix. But he did know of an inmate Eric Fulby who was in wing B.

So Sledge asked to visit Eric Fulby. Eric was very loquacious when plied with cigarettes. An inmate named Gavin Summerfield had been killed: "he was a prick, so no loss there". Violently. At 2 am.

Mort contacted the coroner. Yes, there had been a murder last night in the penitentiary. And yes, it was messy: the victim, an inmate named Gavin Summerfield, had been torn apart, but not drained. It was put down as just "another prison killing" even though Gavin was alone in a locked cell. But the prison had a rather bad record of "extra-judicial killings" (as the coroner wryly observed), and weren't particularly enthusiastic nor tenacious to have them solved.

"The heart was missing too," added the coroner adroitly.

Mort wanted to come immediately.

"You're not blowing up another damn lung!" snapped the coroner.

"No no. I just want to check his fingernails"

So Mort took off to the coroner's hospital.

While this was going on, Brother Theo, using the full weight of his Episcopalian Benedictine rank, was ingratiating himself into the confidence of the prison chaplain Peter. Peter was delighted to have Theo perform some ceremonies. Theo wanted to bless the cell where the murder took place, and Peter managed to get the Warden Candy Clam to allow this. So those two, plus Sledge, went to the very cell.

The place hadn't been cleaned yet and there was blood all over the walls. It looked as though someone had taken some buckets of paint and hurled them all over the walls and bed of the small cell. Theo's Sixth Sense was actually stronger in the central circle area (where the seven wings' corridors met) rather than in the cell. But they didn't want to tarry in the circle.

On the way back, Theo and Sledge managed to convince the guards to show them the CCTV pictures of the time of the killings. There were no cameras in each cell, but the corridors and the central circle area were certainly covered. Around 1:30 am, a mist could be seen to seep up through the drains in the floor of the central circle. It was quite slow, and when the footage was played back at normal speed wasn't obvious at all. But at enhanced speed, the mist rose, then flowed, with creepy intent, down the corridor of wing B, and into Gavin's cell.

"We get a lot of mist around here," quipped the guard. "It's a damp hole."

Back in the city centre, Theo had joined the coroner and checked out the body of inmate Gavin. Sure enough, under the fingernails, were traces of fibre.

The rest of the party returned to town too. Ebony checked out the Philly Library records of the old city. Apparently, the Eastern State Penitentiary was built in 1829 on an old Unami indian graveyard - that explained the ley-line conjunction.

Some other trivia about the prison: Al Capone and Willie Sutton had been locked up here. In 1924, Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot sentenced Pep "The Cat-Murdering Dog" (an actual dog) to a life sentence, and was assigned an inmate number (C2559), and a mug shot. Pep had killed the governor’s wife’s cherished cat.

Ebony had an idea: "I wonder if the Sixth Sense is stronger in Elfrith Alley now, since last night?"

Wednesday Evening, June 11

Back to Elfrith Alley.

Both Theo and Mort's Sixth Sense was definitely stronger than they previous night. The strongest Sixth Sense reading was at a T-intersection at the mouth of the alley itself. This was next to two apartments: one of four storeys and ten apartments, and the other with six storeys and twenty apartments.

Judicious phone calls to the superintendents in each building revealed some apartments for rent. In the four storey building, there was one apartment on the ground floor. They managed to wangle an after-hours appointment, went in and had a look around. It had a basement which extended under the alley. The Six Sense reading down here was stronger again. They guessed the source must be through the brick wall in the basement of the apartment across the alley (of the six storey building)

Ebony went to the door of this apartment. There was the sound of a TV on inside. She hammered on the door. It opened with a safety-chain. A woman in her thirties answered. She was olive-skinned, with angular features.

"Hello," said Ebony. "I'm doing a survey on apartment living..."

"Not interested," said the woman, as she slammed the door. She had an Egyptian accent.