The Green Glass Grail, part 5 (conclusion)

Scaggs and Bonetti tail Hector while the DAE crew search his apartment. They find nothing incriminating other than a key hidden in the ice tray of his freezer. Later, they tail him to a music club where he talks with Maria Perez. After leaving the club, he goes a couple blocks out of his way to get home.
Going back to the street Hector turned down, Ray uses Past Sight to see the last time he used the key they found, and sees him going into the side door of an abandoned souvenir shop.

The next day, while Scaggs and Bonetti are again tailing Hector, the DAE group investigates the shop and finds a basement full of stolen radios, alchemical equipment, and a big white board with the names of various players in the LA occult underground (including all the DAE crew) with notes, lines, and arrows indicating connections. As they're getting ready to leave the shop, Floyd gets a call on his cell phone from Bonetti. Hector is heading their way.

A big fight ensues in the alley behind the souvenir shop. George throws a blast spell at Hector, who uses a similar effect to keep the dust and debris swirling around himself in an attempt to escape. Scaggs and Bonetti block one end of the alley with their car, and Kellie does the same at the other end. Arnulf and Floyd engage Hector in hand-to-hand combat, while Ray uses Instant Zen Master to duplicate Arnulf's Tae Kwon Do skill. The Street Phantom uses an effect similar to the Cliomancer formula spell House of Mirrors, so that Arnulf, Ray, and Floyd become confused and accidentally attack each other. Or rather, Arnulf and Floyd accidentally attack Ray. Realising what's happening, they all back away, giving Bonetti the opportunity to shoot Hector in the arm.

Ray uses You Remember Now to make Hector think Bonetti has special "witch poison" bullets, so Hector magically expels the bullet back at Bonetti, shattering the windshield of their car. Scaggs freaks out at this and ineffectually empties his revolver in Hector's direction. Once he's out of bullets, Floyd and Arnulf tackle and subdue Hector.

 
The Green Glass Grail, part 4

The old man who stole the bottle turns out to be John Barleycorn, a dipsomancer from Chicago. He tells the group that he was hired by William Queen, an associate of David Temple's, to get the bottle. He agrees to go back to Chicago and leave them alone. Spooked by how easily the bottle was taken, they pile into a rented van and drive up to San Francisco.

Hearing that Scaggs and Bonetti have made some progress on the Vince Jenkins murder, they return to LA the next day. Bonetti gets Ray into the police impound lot and shows him a torn piece of a black trenchcoat caught in the door. Ray uses Past Sight to watch the murder, and gets a look at the Street Phantom's face. It's not anybody he recognizes.

Meanwhile, Floyd, George, Kellie and Arnulf decide to track down T-Joe and find out how he got the bottle. They find him and a brief struggle ensues, prolonged by the sudden appearance of an angry Rotweiller coming to T-Joe's defense and taking a nice bite out of Arnulf's arm. George frightens the dog off with a pistol shot and they make off with T-Joe. T-Joe tells them that he got the bottle from a crazy old man. They drive around for a while and T-Joe points him out. George talks to the man, who turns out to be a borderline schizophrenic named Elijah McGillicuddy who's in the habit of guzzling Coke and handing the empty bottles to whoever is standing nearby. T-Joe also tells them that the dog was a stray that Vince Jenkins fed the 'Immortality' formula to and was subsequently possessed by a demon. He's been trying to figure out how to get the demon out of the dog.

Later, Ray meets up with the rest of the group and they compare notes. Arnulf thinks Ray's description of the Street Phantom sounds like Hector Garcia. They swing by the McDonald's so that Ray can get a look at Hector. Hector is the man Ray saw in his vision.

 
The Green Glass Grail, part 3

The group decide to have the liquid in the Coke bottle analyzed. They send a small sample to a chemist buddy of Gabriel's. Floyd talks to Eric about grails and grail-like objects, while Kellie and Arnulf spend a boring afternoon tailing T-Joe Walters. Arnulf chats with a couple of Jenkins's other coworkers, Maria Perez and Hector Garcia. It sounds like they, along with Jenkins and Adele Cox, were looking into the supernatural together.

Learning that the stuff in the bottle is ordinary Coca-Cola, Floyd goes to the pet store and buys a couple of mice. He feeds some of the Coke to one of the mice, who seems to experience no ill effects. At dusk, there are 3 minutes and 33 seconds of missing time, after which the bottle cannot be found. Ray uses Past Sight and sees the bottle fly out the window.

Meanwhile, George is boozing it up at Oscar's and sees that another patron suddenly has an empty Coke bottle on his table. He phones the DAE crew and tails the stranger to his hotel. When the gang show up, they go in and find a King of Cups from a Tarot deck pinned up on the board where guests can write their name next to their room number. They proceed to Room 13, bust in, and confront the old drunk inside. After somebody mentions David Temple, the man magically attacks George with all the debris in the room. George retaliates in kind, and as both of them are really drunk, they both get hurt really badly. Arnulf tries to step in but gets beaned by a random bottle. Floyd and Kellie finally wrestle the old man to the floor. They take him back to the office (first sending Becker in to shut off all the cameras) and send for Doc Westlake. Searching the room, Ray and Arnulf find the Coke bottle along with a pewter Revereware mug.

 
The Green Glass Grail, part 2

After a brief discussion, Scaggs and Bonetti go to check out the other Street Phantom victims for missing hearts. Ray, Becker, and Kellie go to check out Vera's apartment. When they get there, they find that the new tenants are moving in. The landlady tells them that she finally got tired of waiting for the police, specifically a homicide detective named Dean Kustoris, to tell her whether they were done with it.

Ray uses Past Sight to see Vera's murderer -- a shortish man or possibly a stocky woman, dressed in an overcoat, hat and gloves, with a scarf over his/her face -- kill the old woman with a knife, then cut out her heart and put it into a grocery bag. The Phantom looks around for a second, then opens the refrigerator and takes out an old-style glass Coke bottle, putting it into the bag.

Floyd and Arnulf track down T-Joe Walters at a local all-ages club. T-Joe brags about Satan's Chosen Temple and claims responsibility for Jenkins's death. Floyd arranges to buy his "Elixir of Life" formula for $500. They agree to meet at the club the following evening. Later, they tail T-Joe to an SRO hotel not far away.

The next day, they talk with Eric Snow about whether the Street Phantom might be a thanatomancer. Eric isn't sure, since he's never met one, nor met anyone who's ever met one. He's not even sure there really are any. Scaggs and Bonetti have learned that none of the other victims had missing hearts, although they were all stabbed with a knife similar to the one that killed Vera.

That night, Floyd buys the formula from T-Joe while Ray and George break into T-Joe's hotel room. They find an empty Coke bottle like the one taken from Vera's refrigerator, which they take. They put it in the safe at the office. The next morning, it's full.

 
Mirror Man epilogue
Over the next few weeks, the team do some discreet research and affirm that David Cole probably was a real CIA agent. The Russian document turns out to be a ritual for summoning "Tenebrae" -- shadowy creatures who feed on the bodies of the unloved dead. They also figure that Cole's magic sunglasses allowed him to appear in mirrors and otherwise move about without being seen.

The Green Glass Grail, part 1

This storyline incorporates characters and situations from the adventure "Green Glass Grail" by Chad Underkoffler

Backstory: A few weeks ago, the Dark Adapted Eye ran a story about the "Angel of Mercy," a woman in downtown LA who seemed to have some kind of magical "healing touch." Floyd and Kellie tracked her down and found out that she was a retired social worker named Vera Leitwinder. She told them that she'd had a vision after a near-fatal heart attack and felt she had a calling to help the homeless. After she gave someone a hot meal, they seemed cured of whatever physical illness they had. Since she could only do this once a day, she asked that her name and address not appear in the story. Vera Leitwinder was found murdered in her apartment a couple of days ago.

For the past week or so, rumors have been flying about the "Street Phantom" - a mysterious figure preying on the homeless in downtown LA. Apparently, he's got some kind of mojo that makes people who weren't directly affected ignore his crimes.

Our story begins when Floyd gets a call from Jake Bonetti, asking for cooperation on a case. The deal is this: he and Scaggs have got a criminal investigation with some mystical overtones. They'd like help from the Dark Adapted Eye staff in investigating the mystical stuff, while they concentrate on the mundane end. In exchange, they'll grant DAE an exclusive on the story, provided that their names and that of their employer are not used.

Bonetti's story is this: The New Inquisition became interested in a local man named Vince Jenkins and had their local "associates" (who turn out to be S&B Investigations) run a routine investigation on him. Last weekend, Jenkins turned up dead, having apparently gotten drunk, stolen a car, and crashed it into a ravine out near San Dimas. At about the same time, TNI also noticed increased reports of missing time and strange radio voices in the LA area, so they've dispatched Scaggs and Bonetti to take over the investigation.

The DAE gang agree to this and start checking out Jenkins and his associates. They find out that he worked as a part-time web designer and also at a local McDonald's. They also learn that Jenkins was "straight edge" and thus unlikely to get drunk and boost a car. Checking out Jenkins's ransacked apartment, Ray uses Past Sight to see that both the Umbrella Men and Jason Rice have been there looking for something. They also find several receipts from "Fitzhugh's Dreamshop", a magic supply/head shop just down the street from the McDonalds.

They track Rice down and find out what he knows. Jenkins was apparently into alchemy, and Rice thinks some of his McDonald's coworkers were also into the magic scene. He went to the apartment after he heard about Jenkins's death looking for his alchemical notes or other nifty magic stuff. Rice thinks Jenkins was killed by the Street Phantom, possibly because he'd figured out who it was.

The next day, they talk to Adele Cox, who worked with Vince at McDonald's. She's not much help. They also head across the street to Fitzhugh's Dream Shop and talk with the proprietor, Mike Fitzhugh. He tells them that Vince had some kind of formula -- supposedly for an "Elixir of Life" -- that he'd gotten from local "Satanist" T-Joe Walters. Fitzhugh says he warned Vince that the ingredients he was buying sounded more like a possession ritual, and Vince said he'd be careful. A couple days after that, Jenkins showed up, on the run from a vengeful T-Joe. Fitzhugh offered to let Vince sleep in the shop, and Vince agreed, but he never showed up. The next day, he heard that Vince was dead.

Back at the DAE office, they meet up with Scaggs and Bonetti. Bonetti has photocopies of autopsy reports, and wants to know why nobody told him that both Vince Jenkins and "this Angel of Mercy woman" were both found with their hearts missing. George says it's because the LAPD have been infiltrated by occult operators. Ray speculates that it might also be due to the Phantom's "ignore me" mojo.

 
Mirror Man, part 2 (conclusion)
After a phone call from Daphne saying that some of the children told her they'd seen the Mirror Man at school, Ray, Becker, George and Arnulf stake out the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Kellie and Floyd research the Lexington Home and other matters.

Ray spots the mirror man getting out of a car, but quickly loses sight of him. Becker sees him go into an alley, and Arnulf goes in after him, but can't find him. Becker runs the license plate of the car and finds it registered to a Morton Freebody at a nearby address. Hacking the DMV database he pulls up a drivers license for Freebody, who's roughly the same height as the man Ray saw, but is 50 years old and weighs 300 pounds. The Mirror Man spots them and attempts to flee in his car. They trail him to an abandoned brewery. Ray and Arnulf follow him inside, while Becker and George cover the exits.

Ray hears movement behind him and turns to see the Mirror Man threatening him with a knife. "Who are you working for?" he asks. Ray says, "The Dark Adapted Eye." "The what?" "Don't you read the Dark Adapted Eye?" "What is that? Is that code? What is that?" Ray uses You Remember Now to make the Mirror Man think he's packing heat. "Drop the knife or you're dead," he says with his hand in his pocket.

"I'm already dead," the Mirror Man laughs and swings at Ray with his knife, cutting a nice red gash across his stomach. Arnulf hears the scuffle and shows up at this point. "You won't take them away from me again," the Mirror Man says. Arnulf, not particularly interested in repartee, kicks him. As they struggle, Ray summons Becker and George on his cell phone. They arrive quickly, and George uses Timblebelly to make the Mirror Man stumble as he swings the knife at Arnulf, who connects with a sharp kick to the bridge of his nose. The kick shatters the mirrored sunglasses and fractures the Mirror Man's skull, killing him. Shards of the sunglass lenses fly everywhere, and a strange scuttling noise is heard briefly, then recedes.

Searching the body, they find a set of keys and a Washington, D.C., drivers license in the name of Burton Thomas. George takes Ray to see Doc Westlake. Arnulf and Becker head back to the office to collect Kellie and Floyd.

Later, everybody but Ray goes back to the brewery. Floyd finds traces of some strange snake-like tracks in the dirt, along with footprints, bloodstains and the like. In the trunk of the car they find a Coleman lantern, a rifle, a couple of handguns, some rope and burlap sacks. Heading to the Freebody apartment, they find another wallet with a drivers license and CIA ID card in the name of David Cole, along with a couple pages of handwritten Russian. On the bedroom wall is a big sheet of butcher paper on which a crude "family tree" diagram has been laid out, with big squares labelled, "My Mother", "My Father", "My Brother", "My Sister", "My Wife", "My Niece", "My Nephew" and so on. Pictures of (what they presume to be) the Mirror Man's victims have been pasted in the Mother, Father (Freebody), Wife, and Niece (Darmeka) spaces.

 
Mirror Man, part 1

This storyline incorporates characters and situations from the adventure "A Garden Full of Weeds" by James Palmer

Monday morning, DAE gets a call from a reader, Daphne Horton. Daphne works at the Lexington Children's Home in North Long Beach. The Lexington is a home for orphans and wards of the state between the ages of 4 and 6. Saturday night, a little girl named Darmeka Poe disappeared from the home. The police have been out, naturally, but haven't yet discovered what happened. Some of the children have told Daphne that Darmeka was taken by the Mirror Man.

The Mirror Man is a sort of bogeyman character that the children have been talking about for the past couple of months. He wears a black trenchcoat and mirrored sunglasses, and appears in the mirror if you sing to him. Spiders and centipedes crawl out from under his shoes. He hates children and wants to "get" them. If he chases you, you can get away by playing hopscotch. Daphne doesn't know if the Mirror Man stories are true or not, but she knows the police aren't taking it seriously and so she's contacted the DAE.

Arriving at the Lexington Home, the team split up. Arnulf and Ray search the dormitories while Floyd and Kellie interview the staff and a few of the children. One boy, Henry Sanders, 4, says he saw the Mirror Man and Darmeka in his mirror the night she disappeared. They learn the home's routine. The children go to bed at 8:00. There's a bed check at ten and again at midnight. Overnight, there is one case worker, a nurse, and a security guard on duty. Darmeka was in her bed at the midnight bed check.

Up in the dorms, Arnulf and Ray check the layout. There are two big long rooms, the boys on the second floor and the girls on the third, with rows of bunkbeds along each wall. Between every other set of bunkbeds is a dresser or wardrobe of some kind. (So each dresser or wardrobe is shared by four children.) The furniture is obviously donated or surplus. Some of the dressers have mirrors on them, but not all. There is a mirror directly opposite Darmeka's bed. There are bars in the windows of the dormitories. There is a fire escape on each floor, but an alarm goes off if the door is opened.

While Arnulf chats with the staff member who's showing them around, Ray uses Past Sight to see what happened when Darmeka disappears. At first, he's slightly disoriented and has an "insightful" flashback to the Umbrella Men's pendulum spelling out the name Russel McGlynn. Then he finds himself in the dark dormitory. He hears a man's voice, but can't see anyone. The voice says, "Yes it is. Yes it is. Look, just shut up." Ray glances at the wall clock (it's a little after 1:30 in the morning) and is suddenly aware that a man is in the room. He's a light-skinned black man in a black trenchcoat and mirrored sunglasses, and he's standing right in front of the mirror across from Darmeka's bed. He steps over quietly and gently picks the girl up, not waking her. He walks back toward the mirror, and then he's suddenly not there.

They arrange to come back in the evening and talk to the security guard. Then they all head out to Santa Monica to find Russell McGlynn. They find "Cutter" at a vegetarian taco stand and strike up a conversation. He strikes them as a typical beach bum. They ask him about the Night of Big Weirdness, and he remembers that he had a nosebleed for no reason for about an hour. He tells them about finding some books that somebody threw off the pier a couple nights ago. They had a tag on them that said "Return to the University of Idaho Library," but he hasn't gotten around to going all the way down to the Post Office yet. Floyd asks to see them, and it turns out they are the missing copies of The Invisible Clergy and The House of Renunciation.