Modern/Delta Green - The Beginning of the End (Updated Daily: Sep. 8)

[talien]

The paramedics showed up too late. All of the victims were dead by the time they got there. It took over an hour before the agents were able to return to their van. It was not in the shape they left it in.

“What the hell happened?” asked Hammer.

“I thought you two were with the van?” asked Blade.

“We were helping Colorados scope out the crime scene!” Hammer shouted back.

“Hey, buddy,” said one of the paramedics. “Someone was snooping around your van before, thought it was one of you guys.”

Clothing was scattered everywhere. Vests, BDUs, even underwear.

“What did he look like?”

“Weird guy in a tattered overcoat and a broad-brimmed hat. Was sniffing your laundry. Holding big handfuls of it under his nose. Looked like he was liking it too.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Blade.

Colorados walked over while Hammer scanned the exterior of the van with his cistron.

“I picked up a print on the door handle,” he turned to Colorados. “I’ll send it over to you; check AFIS and see what you come up with.”

“Rumors speak of a witch,” he said.

“A witch?” asked Hammer. “The kind that rides around on broomsticks?”

Colorados shook his head. “Skinwalkers. A Skinwalker’s a Navajo witch. They are always up to no good, casting curses and poisoning the orenda. They can change their shape, become a wolf or rattler or some such.”

“Is there anyone around here we can ask about this sort of thing?” asked Blade. “The only shaman I knew is dead.”

Colorados nodded. “Michele Blackmoon,” he said.

“If she’s not the witch herself,” said the paramedic. “She was a nice lady, but since she came back from college she’s been into some strange stuff.”

“Guppy,” asked Blade, but the smaller Indian man was already on it.

“Got her address. Not far from here.”

They piled into the van. Thanks the arrival of the fire trucks, someone had winched them out of the ditch.

“Maybe I should drive,” began Blade.

Guppy slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ve got it! I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure…”

“Yes!” Guppy leaned on the gas pedal, lunging the van forward. “Fine!”

The others strapped on their seat belts.

[talien]

They couldn’t have been more than a few minutes into the drive when the radio started playing Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

“I’ve got you under my skin,” sang Sinatra.

“Shut that s**t off,” muttered Hammer.

“I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.”

“I didn’t turn it on to begin with!” said Guppy, staring at the radio.

“So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.”

Blade turned the knob a few times. The digital readout showed the stations change, but the music kept playing.

“I’ve got you under my skin.”

There was a thump on the roof of the van.

“I’ve tried so, not to give in.”

“Did you hear that?” asked Caprice.

“I said to myself this affair never will go so well.”

Hammer took out his Glocks. “Yeah. It’s big.”

“But why should I try to resist when baby I know so well,” the radio crooned.

“And heavy,” said Blade.

“I’ve got you under my skin.”

“I’ll get it off,” shouted Guppy. He slammed his foot on the brakes…

“I’d sacrifice anything come what might for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats, repeats in my ear: Don’t you know you fool, you never can win?”

And the van swerved wildly out of control. Guppy struggled with the wheel. For a terrifying moment it seemed as if the van would flip off the road. The vehicle screeched to a halt.

“Use your mentality, wake up to reality!”

Everyone glared at Guppy, then hopped out the van, weapons out.

Hammer clambered up the ladder to the top of the van. “Clear.”

“Clear,” said Archive after looking underneath it.

“Clear,” said Caprice scanning the back of the van.

The horn honked.

“But each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop before I begin.”

They ran around to the front. “What?” asked Blade.

Guppy, still in the driver’s seat, just pointed.

“Cause I’ve got you under my skin.”

Standing on the road in front of them was a thing that was pretending to be a wolf. But it was most certainly not a wolf, as the skin was stretched over a muscled frame that tore at the rugged hide, revealing glistening red muscle streaked with white bone. Its spine poked through the back of its hide at jagged angles, as if someone had hastily stretched the fur over a larger beast’s musculature. It growled, and they could see the full length of its tongue between the gaps in its mouth.

“First vampires, now werewolves?” asked Hammer in disbelief.

Blade’s hatchets were out. “I’ve got it.”

He charged it with a roar. The wolf-thing bounded forward.

Man and beast clashed in a titanic collision in front of the van. The wolf-thing unbalanced Blade, knocking him on his back. He held his steel hatches crossed before him, keeping the snapping jaws at bay.

They all opened fire on it. Bullets pierced the flesh but had no effect. Little spurts of blood jutted out of the thing’s back, but if it felt any pain it didn’t show it.

Finally, Guppy took careful aim with his laser and, pointing at the wolf-thing’s head, pressed the trigger. The beam grew in intensity until the mangy head burst into flame. With a roar, the wolf turned and bounded off down the street faster.

Caprice looked at Guppy’s weapon. “I’m going to requisition one of those from Redlight next time.”

[talien]

The rest of the drive was uneventful to Blackmoon’s house. It was an old, lonely house with a sunflower spinning wheel. Two cats sat contentedly in a window.

Blade knocked on the door.

A crazy-looking Navajo woman with wild hair answered. Cats spilled out, meowing loudly, through the opening.

“Who are you?” asked the woman. “What do you want?”

“Are you Michelle Blackmoon?” asked Blade.

The woman squinted her eyes at him. “Who wants to know?”

Blade flashed his badge. “We’re federal agents.”

“Don’t even start with that zoning crap!” shouted Blackmoon. “You can’t tell me how many cats people can have. I’ll have as many cats as I wanna have!”

“We’re not here about the cats, ma’am.”

She looked past over his shoulder. “You got anyone else with ya?”

Blade turned around.

“Was that scarecrow there before?” asked Guppy.

“I don’t think so,” said Caprice.

“That’s not my scarecrow,” said Blackmoon.

The old woman grabbed a shotgun from inside the door and pointed it at Blade’s head.

“You’ve got ten seconds to get your ass outta my yard. And don’t think I’m gonna tell ya twice!”

“Whoa,” said Blade, putting up his hands. “We just wanted to ask you some questions…”

The scarecrow suddenly bounded into action. It pulled a huge scythe out of the fields and effortlessly carried it. It took one, two, three mighty leaps through the uncut grass and then it was on the roof of the house. It barely made a thump.

There was a shriek of wood and plaster. Tile fell off the roof. Caprice and Guppy backpedaled to get a better look at it. “It just made a hole into the house!” shouted Caprice.

“Go on! Get out!” shouted Blackmoon. “What the hell did you bring into my house?” She slammed the door behind her.

Blade slammed his shoulder into the door. She had locked it.

They could hear her screaming through the front door. “Oh get outta here!” she shouted at a form at the top of her steps. “GET AWAY FROM MY BABIES YOU SON OF A BITCH! I’LL BLOW YOUR F**KING HEAD OFF!”

“Up the side of the house!” shouted Caprice to Guppy. They grabbed a gutter pipe and started climbing.

There were two shotgun blasts. Hammer hurled himself through a side window into the foyer. Blade followed suit.

Blackmoon was standing at the top of the steps, shotgun held limply in one hand. She gagged and gulped.

Behind her was the Skinwalker. Its flesh was pulled tightly over a skull, as if it were the flesh of a smaller man. The lips peeled back in a grin.

Blackmoon gagged again. The Skinwalker hurled her down the steps.

Blade ducked to the side as the old woman’s body flopped down the steps. Taking the steps three at a time, he buried one of his hatchets in the Skinwalker’s chest.

It laughed at him.

Grabbing his wrist, the Skinwalker flipped Blade sideways and then kicked him down the steps.

Archive dragged Blade’s unconscious body back through the doorway to the front of the house. To give them cover, Hammer fired both Glocks into the thing, emptying the clips.

The Skinwalker jerked as the bullets hit, but they had little effect. As it pointed, Hammer’s flesh split open in great rents across his chest and arms, as if he was a stuffed doll who had burst its seams. He fell to the ground screaming.

The Skinwalker started making its way down the steps when a series of gunshots interrupted its descent. Its head whipped around…

Peering down through the hole in the ceiling, Guppy and Caprice had their weapons trained on it. Caprice emptied his clip into the Skinwalker’s chest, knocking it backwards. It windmilled at the edge of the steps.

Guppy fired his laser at its feet. Screeching, the Skinwalker bounced down the steps. It landed on its back.

Archive fired his Glock into its forehead. It didn’t get up.

Caprice turned to Guppy. “We can cross Blackmoon off as a suspect.”

They hopped down into the house and clambered down the steps.

Their cistrons beeped. Caprice picked it up. “Hello? Yeah? We’ll be right over.”

“What’s up?” asked Archive, tending to Hammer and Blade’s wounds.

“Colorados wants to speak with us about fingerprints.”

“The ones he found on our van?” asked Archive.

“The same,” said Caprice. “They belonged to Virgil Nist.”

“Who’s that?” asked Guppy, afraid to ask.

“The dead man who you found skinned at the bottom of the hole.”

[talien]

Colorados stood in the Phoenix police station, sharing the print outs of the fingerprints. “It’s an exact match.”

“Whatever it is, it’s dead,” said Hammer, recovered from his wounds with several stitches along his arms and chest.

“Nist didn’t have a twin,” said Colorados seriously. “There’s only one way his fingerprints could be on your vehicle when he was dying at the bottom of that chasm.”

“Skinwalkers,” said Blade.

“Right,” said Colorados. “Since Nist’s body still has its hands, it had to be the skin. Which would take incredible precision.”

The whole conversation was making Hammer uncomfortable. “We killed it. Find out who the man was in Blackmoon’s house and you’ll have your murderer.”

Then the lights went out.

“Hey, hey!” said one of the cops. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

Colorados picked up the phone. “Hello?” He put it back down. “WE’VE GOT LIGHTS, AND PHONES, OUT UP HERE! CAN SOMEBODY TALK TO ME? What the hell? Have we got emergency lights here or WHAT?”

The emergency lights cut on inside the building. Over the intercom, Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” began playing.

“Are you kidding me?” shouted one of the cops. “We don’t have power but they pipe in music? Gimme a break!”

Colorados stood up. “All right people, we’re going into a lockdown situation. That means everybody sit tight and don’t move unless someone wearing a badge tells you to.” He turned to the team. “Let’s go, I need to make sure the prisoners are secure.”

Colorados led them to the holding cells.

“All right, let’s go, gentlemen,” said Colorados. “Get up, show me some skin. You in a coma, buddy? We have a blackout. That means emergency head count. Hey lower bunk. Let me see some skin.”

The prisoner gave him the finger.

“That is special.” Colorados moved to another cell. “Heads up, heads up. Move it down there. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Show me some skin, that’s it.”

He moved to the next cell. “Heads up, gentlemen…” There was no response. “Gentlemen?”

Two prisoners sat in their cell, shaking in fear. One man pointed to the next cell. Colorados walked over.

Boots, a hat, a cloak, and other clothing lay carelessly on the ground. Colorados pointed his flashlight in the cell.

The Skinwalker and a skinned prisoner were there.

“What in the holy hell is that?” shouted Colorados.

“Shoot it!” shouted Hammer. He drew his two Glocks.

Instead of drawing his weapon, Colorados stepped over to the cell and unlocked the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” screamed Hammer. He tackled the sheriff, but not before the cell door was opened.

The Skinwalker simply stared at Blade. Slowly, Blade took a step forward.

“Blade!” shouted Guppy. “Snap out of it!”

Caprice and Archive fired their weapons at the thing, but it didn’t flinch. It just kept staring.

Blade stepped inside the cell.

Hammer got to his feet and, hurling himself at the cell door, slammed it shut.

“What are you doing?” shouted Guppy. “You’ll trap him in there!”

“It’s too late for him already,” said Hammer.

The Skinwalker walked over to Blade and, clasping him in a twisted lover’s embrace, smothered him with its mouth.

They stopped firing, watching in horror as Blade’s eyes rolled in the back of his head and he gagged.

There was the sound of something huge squawking and flapping above the cell. Then the ceiling exploded as a huge pair of claws tore through it, grabbing Blade by the shoulders. With another flap of its wings, Blade was lifted into the air.

“What the hell was that?” asked Caprice in shock.

“A shantak,” said Archive. “Someone summoned it.”

“It took him,” Guppy said over and over. “It took him.”

“Let’s go!” shouted Hammer. “Anything that large we can track!” He shoved Guppy towards the front entrance.

[talien]

They sped behind the huge bird-like thing with a horse’s head, following its erratic path over hills and through deserts. It swooped down, depositing Blade near a cabin, and then spiraled up into the sky out of sight.

“Something that big…” said Hammer nervously. “We should call in a satellite strike or something.”

Archive shook his head. “It’s fled into space, if not another dimension. Shantaks are not of this world. We won’t see it again.”

They crept their way towards old log cabin. The door was open.

It was a two-room affair, a bedroom and kitchen/living area with a front and back door of rough planking. Blade was on his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing.

“Blade!” shouted Guppy. “Are you okay?”

“It…” he gasped, eyes red from choking. “It just jumped out…” he coughed again.

Archive examined the pottery pieces on the mantle. “These artifacts are quite old. They look like they’re Anasazi workmanship, the type of quality only found in museums.”

Guppy lifted the lid on one of the jars. He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what this is…but it’s disgusting.”

It was a thick, pink, semitransparent substance filling the pot to the brim.

Archive inspected it. “It looks like some kind of emollient.”

“Emollient?” asked Caprice.

“It’s used to make skin soft and pliable,” said Archive with a grimace.

“Then you won’t want to know what’s in this jar,” said Hammer. He lifted it up with the edge of his gun. It looked like a sopping wet pile of fur.”

“Wolf fur, I’m guessing,” said Archive.

“There’s nothing else in here,” said Caprice. “Just an old boiler.”

“If the thing left Blade, it had to go somewhere,” said Hammer. He didn’t seem entirely convinced that it had really left Blade.

Archive blanched as he opened the last jar. “I think I know what happened to that woman,” he said quietly. “Her skin’s in here.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Hammer asked Blade. “Anything?”

“I was throwing up something...” Blade wiped his eyes. “It was red and purple…it snaked down…there.” He pointed to one corner of the room.

Guppy got down on his hands and knees. “Yep. There’s a loose floorboard here.”

Blade leaned over and, inserting one of his hatchets into the gap, pulled upwards. The wood bent with a creak and then, Blade’s arms straining, flipped upwards. It bounced off the floor and clattered into an opening down below.

Hammer took a deep breath. “Who wants to go first?”

“It took me,” said Blade, “so I’ll go first.”

There was a ladder leading down. He took it one step at a time.

Peering through the darkness, he swung a flashlight beam across to the far side. The basement was huge, dug out by unnatural hands well beyond the length of the cabin.

Something roiled in the far corner.

More flashlight beams crossed to illuminate it as the rest of the team descended. They could make out the stretched features of a man’s face and hand, flattened, stretched, and enlarged to clown-like proportions in a macabre patchwork of flesh. It was a stitched quilt of human skin, and beneath it something started, as if suddenly awakened.

“Back,” gasped Blade. “Back!”

One of the faces in the flesh lifted up on a pseudopod. Then the whole thing began rolling like a sentient wave, skin falling over skin, tracking up dirt and grime as the quilt of flesh surged toward them.

Hammer unloaded both pistols reflexively, but the bullets merely punctured the undulating skin.

“Go!” shouted Guppy. He fired his laser, and the thing hesitated as the flesh smoked and burned.

With the rest of the team back up in the cabin, Guppy clambered up the ladder. One pseudopod grabbed hold of his leg…

Archive dumped the emollient down the shaft. The flesh shuddered and lost its grip on Guppy.

Stumbling onto the wooden floor, they scrabbled backwards.

“How do we stop it?” shouted Caprice.

“Fire,” said Guppy. He trained his laser on the boiler. “Can you lure it over to it?”

Blade blinked. “I…yes, I think so.”

The flesh flopped outwards over the hole, probing.

The boiler’s temperature gauged flipped to the danger zone. Guppy trained his laser on the heating element.

Blade ran over to the boiler. “Over here!” He held one of his hatchets. With a practiced throw, he hurled it at the flesh. The axe bit deep, only to be enveloped. The thing began extending pseudopods towards him.

“When it gets on top of that boiler,” said Guppy. “Shoot it.”

Hammer reloaded his pistol and nodded.

The flesh shuddered and flexed, rising up in a wall as it crawled halfway up the side of the cabin, across the floor, and over the boiler.

The boiler squealed from the intense heat. Blade flinched as bolts affixing the boiler to the wall fired out under the pressure, punching holes in the thick wood of the cabin’s walls.

“Now!” shouted Guppy he backed out of the entryway to the cabin.

Blade dove for the window, hurling himself through it.

Hammer fired a carefully aimed shot, piercing the boiler.

There was a terrific explosion as the boiler ripped from its moorings, propelled by a blast of scalding hot steam. It ruptured outwards, tearing through the flesh-thing as it rocketed upwards. The explosion blasted outwards and upwards, flattening the cabin, shearing right through the roof.

Hammer and Blade were stunned, flat on their backs from the proximity of the explosion and covered by splinters and logs.

“Holy crap,” said Caprice. “There can’t be anything left of that thing!”

“Get down!” shouted Archive.

A hail of bloody gibbets of flesh, bits of metal from the boiler, and chunks of wood showered all around them.

[talien]

They were driving back to Phoenix in the van. Blade was at the wheel.

“So that was the Skinwalker?” asked Caprice.

“There were two,” said Archive, “the Skinwalker itself and a Navajo witch.”

“The man we killed at Blackmoon’s house was known as Charlie Two-Horses,” said Hammer. “Judging by the pelt we found in his cabin, he was also the wolf that attacked us.”

“But that doesn’t explain the thing down in his basement,” said Guppy with a shudder.

“That was the Skinwalker,” said Archive. “The place you found the bodies was its lair.”

“So Charlie digs up the Skinwalker,” postulated Caprice. “He promises it bodies in exchange for the same powers. Then he goes on a killing spree. The woman—“

“Anna Price,” added Hammer.

“Anna finds him digging around down there and the Charlie decides she’ll be his first victim.”

“Until we caught him in the act,” said Blade grimly. “It looks like he was stitching skin together for the thing so it could grow.”

“It’s a good thing we caught it when we did,” said Archive. “There were remnants of egg shells in the cabin too.”

“What was up with the weird song playing every time the thing showed up?” asked Guppy. “Why would it broadcast its presence?”

“I think that was something else,” said Blade.

“Like Coyote?” asked Archive.

“Like Coyote,” Blade said, but he didn’t confirm that it was actually Coyote because he suspected worse.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Hammer. “Why did it let you go, Blade? I thought for sure it would have ripped your skin off and added you to the collection.”

Blade didn’t say anything at first. “Maybe it didn’t want me.”

They laughed. “Yeah, you’re too disgusting even for a Skinwalker,” joked Guppy.

Blade didn’t laugh. Because he knew, deep down, that it had been forced out. By something that already called Blade’s body its home.

He scratched idly at one of his palms.

[talien]

This scenario, “Darkest Calling,” is from the Call of Cthulhu supplement “The Stars Are Right” by David Conyers. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero) played by Joseph Tresca
• Jake “Blade” Iron Shirt (Strong Hero) played by Matt Hammer
• Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero) played by Joe Lalumia
• Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster

Darkest Calling is one of those scenarios that set up a moral dilemma in the hopes that the PCs will opt for the greater good and will thus just go along with the plot. To whit, a shaman commits murder as part of a ritual to banish extradimensional horrors. He’s the good guy in the greater scheme of things, and the scenario hopes the PCs will see it that way.

But they didn’t. Although they understood why the shaman was doing what he was doing, there was no way they were going to go along with the scenario. The scenario also puts them in the position of impossible odds: it’s assumed the agents go to speak to the shaman on a reservation alone with no backup. What a surprise, the PCs are overwhelmed and become the next sacrifice.

Except the agents were far too smart for that. They figured out the ritual pattern and laid a trap. So I had to play dirty and have some unexpected allies be in on the ritual too.

It doesn’t help that the scenario suffers from an error that is crucial to the PC’s success. According to the scenario’s logic, the first victim should have a dot on his left hand, the second should have two dots on her left foot, the third should have three dots on his right foot, the fourth should have four dots on his right hand, and the fifth should have five dots on his forehead. The PCs find Kate Draper with two dots on her left foot, making her the second victim. Paco Yuma, listed as male in the scenario, is described as having “a single gray dot painted on her hand.” So already we’re switching genders. Then it reads, “the middle right symbol has a single dot on the head (TRUE) matching the dot pattern on Paco Yuma’s head (FALSE, it’s on his hand), while the lower right symbol has two dots on the left hand matching the dot patterns on Kate’s left hand (FALSE, as the dots were on Kate’s left foot). This tripped me up something awful and I had to reread it a few times during play before I realized it was an error.

The other problem is that the agents are basically tied up and thrown down a hole. They wait for days before being sacrificed. No agent (and I would argue no PC) will just wait around without having a plan. To my surprise, their plan almost worked.

Almost. This is a huge turning point in the campaign. Things are about to get ugly and political.

Defining Moment: The defining moment in this game was when Archive was called upon to make an impromptu speech. He did an excellent job. And of course, the finale – this scenario marks the departure of one of our long time players as he leaves for Australia. We’ll miss him!

Relevant Media

• Burden in My Hand: by Soundgarden. This is one of those songs that perfectly sums up the scenario, from Blade's alcohol problems, to being "haunted by my ghost," to following someone into the desert, to a dead woman's body. I love Soundgarden.
• The Stars Are Right: Contains the Darkest Calling scenario.

[talien]

Follow me into the desert
As thirsty as you are
Crack a smile and cut your mouth
And drown in alcohol

--Burden in My Hand by Soundgarden

PHOENIX, AZ--“You know, if we keep this up, Caprice is just going to quit,” said Guppy glumly. One of their own had been called on to sacrifice himself yet again to the bureaucratic gods. Doing “paperwork” as they called it actually entailed much more than just paperwork. It meant being cross-examined by a committee, who wanted to know what was done and why.

In their most recent case, there was much cleaning up to do.

“We destroyed the Skinwalker,” said Archive. “That’s not enough?”

“There were records in the Phoenix police station of a man’s fingerprints who was most certainly dead,” said Hammer. “So no, it wasn’t enough. They had to set fire to the police station after the Shantak attacked.”

“What’s the cover story?” asked Blade.

Hammer frowned. “Native American extremists attacked the police station after believing some kind of messiah-like figure was killed in a shootout with federal agents.” As an African-American, he didn’t like the tone the cover-up had taken.

“They made Charlie Two-Horses out to be the underdog?” asked Archive in disbelief.

Hammer nodded. “It’s easier to believe that than a guy running around stealing skins.”

Blade sighed. “Whatever. The mission was considered a success overall or we wouldn’t be on this next case. We’re looking for Kate Draper, a Majestic friendly. She disappeared investigating a missing person in the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in the Sonoran Desert.”

“Isn’t that your people?” asked Archive.

“Yeah,” said Blade. “Which is why I’m mission leader. Again.”

”What is it with this place?” asked Hammer. “You’ve got all kinds of supernatural weirdness in Arizona.”

“I think this may be all connected,” said Blade. “What do you have on Draper so far?”

Archive looked up from his keyboard. “A couple of articles on missing persons and cattle, wolf, and coyote mutilations.”

Guppy cleared his throat. “I was able to hack into her e-mail account. She downloaded several online resources on the Kokoham people, a race of American Indians who once lived in the Sonoran Desert but vanished around 1000 A.D. Her e-mail also includes an electronic insurance form with her rental company; she was driving a Toyota Landcruiser, registration number GZB 334.”

“Great, we’ll have to track—“ began Blade.

“I also hacked her credit card transactions,” said Guppy proudly. “Her recent expenses match those of her expense reports except for one: a back country camping permit purchased at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument three days ago.”

Blade shifted gears as he pulled off one of the exits. “Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument it is.”

Archive stared at Guppy in awe. “Remind me to never tick you off.”

[talien]

A Papago State Ranger remembered Kate Draper. He told the agents that Kate was heading down to the southeast corner of the Ajo Range.

Numerous dirt roads crossed the monument, so it took time to find Kate’s vehicle. Eventually, the spotted her four-wheel drive parked at the end of a very long road.

Pistols out, they surrounded the vehicle.

“Clear,” said Hammer.

Using one of his lock-picking tools, Guppy popped the locks.

A quick examination revealed a Lonely Planet guide to the Southwest, an Apache-English phrasebook, some handwritten notes, a photocopied article, and a torn photocopy depicting a diagram of two stars. Archive took pictures of everything with his cistron.

Archive scanned the notes. “She was trying to draw a connection between the missing person cases and the animal mutilations. Tying it to some ancient Kokoham curse.”

They took a walking trail that led up through a rocky, mountainous pass east into the Monument.

Trekking through the Sonoran Desert was hard work. The trail continued for fives miles, and uninterrupted it took three hours. Though they brought plenty of water, the heat was brutal.

“This…couldn’t we have…” gasped Guppy. “Taken a helicopter?”

“I thought you Indians were used to hot weather,” said Hammer with a smirk.

“I am!” said Guppy. “But this…this is a desert!”

They bumped into Blade, who was staring down over the next rise.

There before them was the corpse of a woman. She was naked, face up, spread like a star and bound by ropes to stakes pounded into the earth. Her body was decorated with fresh cuts, creating a pattern of spirals, stars, crescents, and swirls. Everything between her abdomen and her knees had been eaten away.

Guppy stumbled away, gagging.

Hammer leaned down over the body. “This is Kate.” He snapped on a pair of plastic gloves and began talking into his cistron. “No clothes, jewelry, money, identification, or camping equipment. Bleeding indicates the pattern was carved into her skin while still alive, administered shortly before her death.”

Blade peered over Hammer’s shoulder. “The patterns on her body are a mixture of Tohono O’odham and Kokoham styles symbolizing creatures from the underworld.”

“Some of them are reminiscent of constellations,” said Archive on the other side. He got down on his knees. “See this? There are two gray dots painted on her left foot, one above the other.”

“The fatal wound in her midsection suggests an attack by a large animal,” said Hammer. “There’s a thick, orange substance on the wound…” He swabbed it with an evidence kit. “It smells vaguely of bile.” Hammer moved on. “The body is greenish around the abdomen. Her fingers, toes, eyes, and face have withered, and bloating suggests she’s been dead for at least two days.”

Guppy, who had been heaving off in the scrub but not actually vomiting, finally returned. “There is a circular depression of sand where nothing grows over there. It looks like it collapsed, like a sinkhole.”

Before anyone could respond, the thud-thud-thuding of a chopper overhead interrupted their conversation.

Hammer reached for his Glocks. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

[talien]

“Drop your weapons and lay face down on the ground with your hands on your head!” shouted the loudspeaker from the helicopter.

”What the hell is this?” asked Hammer.

“That would be the Phoenix police department,” said Blade. “We’d better do as they say.”

They did as they were told. The helicopter landed and four officers left the craft to handcuff them. Two were in plain clothes and three were in uniform.

“We’re federal agents!” shouted Blade over the roar of the chopper. “Check our badges!”

“Right, sure,” said an attractive redhead with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed in dark-rimmed glasses, a t-shirt and jeans. “You don’t look like agents.”

“You don’t look like a police officer,” said Hammer.

She fished Blade’s badge out of his pocket. “CIFA huh? We’ll have to confirm your identities...”

“We’re in the middle of an investigation!” shouted Blade. But they were already being ushered into the helicopter.

She closed the door inside the chopper, muffling the roar of the engine. “I’m Andrea Knightly, detective in charge of the Phoenix Homicide Unit. Two hikers reported the findings to park rangers.”

“You’d better make the calls quick,” snarled Hammer. “You’re interrupting a federal investigation…”

“Hey!” said Knightly, poking one finger into Hammer’s chest. “I don’t care if you ARE feds, this is MY jurisdiction.” She opened the door again and hopped out. “If you are feds, I’m sure you won’t mind waiting while my men investigate the crime scene.”

She flashed them a smile and then, with a whirling motion of one finger to the pilot, closed the door again.

[talien]

The Phoenix police kept them for hours before they were finally released.

“Looks like you’re legit,” said Knightly. They were all uncuffed.

She perched herself on a desk in the Phoenix police station.

Guppy looked around. It was a different police station than the one that the Skinwalker had escaped from. ”Hopefully we don’t have to burn this one too,” he muttered.

“What?” asked Knightly.

“Nothing,” said Guppy.

“So what can I do for the mysterious, we-don’t-report-our-budget-to-the-American-people Counter-Intelligence Field Agency?”

“We’re investigating the murder of Kate Draper,” said Blade. “Any information you can share would be greatly appreciated.”

Knightly relaxed somewhat. “Draper’s actually the second victim. The first was a young Papago Indian named Paco Yuma.”

”My people prefer the phrase ‘Tohono O’odham’,” said Blade.

“Oh, right.” Knightly nodded. “So anyway, he was murdered on the Tohono reservation in exactly the same way three days before Draper died.”

“Can we see photos of the body?” asked Archive.

“Sure.” She dug out the file and handed it to Archive. “Why?”

Archive flipped through the pictures. “There.” He pulled out one of them. “There’s a single gray dot painted on Yuma’s left hand.” He clicked on his cistron. “And here’s a picture of Draper’s left foot, with two gray dots.”

“Gray dots.” Knightly rolled her eyes. “What are they teaching you guys at school?”

Hammer cleared his throat. “He’s a friendly, actually…” when he caught her gaze, Hammer shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“We found this piece of paper in Draper’s car,” said Archive. It showed two stick figures, one with a dot next to its left arm and the other with two dots next to its left leg. “I think we have a ritual killing on our hands.”

Blade furrowed his brow. “There is an old Indian legend that I remember my father telling me. There were five evil underworld spirits that plagued the lands of the Kokoham. A shaman called upon the services of five brave sons and daughters, who traveled with the shaman into the desert. Together they confronted the spirits in their lair. The shaman offered his five sons and daughters as sacrifices in exchange for peace with his people. The spirits accepted the offer.”

Archive tapped on his cistron. “It wouldn’t by any chance look like this, would it?”

On the small screen was a complete picture of five stick figures, including the two from the lower right corner that were on Draper’s notes. There were dots numbering one through five on each of them, with an odd-looking face in the center.

“This is from Chants and Rituals of the Sonoran Indian Tribes, by Janice Fletcher.” Archive turned to Knightly. “Do you have a local map of the area?”

“Sure,” she led them over to a large map of southwestern Arizona. “These two red pins indicate the murders.”


Archive’s eyes went wide. “Are you descended from the Kokoham?” he asked Blade.

Blade blinked. He hadn’t expected that question. “I don’t know…” he mumbled. “My father used to rant about it when he was drunk. I think that’s why Palmer took me under his wing. But there’s really no way to prove it…”

“Can you remember anything about constellations at all? I think it ties to the murders.”

Blade considered the question. “There was a star called Sharnoth.”

Archive tapped away on his cistron. “Got it. Sharnoth is a perfectly aligned pentagram of stars inside the constellation of Gemini, although the middle star isn’t visible.”

Blade turned to Guppy. “Can you correlate the remaining three points with that constellation?”

Guppy tapped more keys. “Tapping into the GPCA in Nebraska…got it.” A map of the Arizona desert appeared on the cistrons. The five stick figures appeared on it, two matching the locations of Yuma and Draper’s murders. Then another virtual overlay appeared, indicating the location of the constellations. The cistron beeped as the remaining three sites flickered.

Blade checked his watch and sighed. “We’re too late. My guess is you’ll find your third victim…” he looked at the cistron and then, picking up a pushpin, speared a point on the wall map a couple of inches to the left of Draper’s murder. “Here.”

Knightly nodded. “I’ll send men to check it out. But that means we know where the next murder is going to take place.”

“That’s right,” said Blade with a slow smile. He tapped the fourth spot on the map with one finger. “And in three days, we’ll be waiting.”

[talien]

Several motorbikes made their way to the ritual. Blade’s heart sank as he saw it was Native Americans.

There were five men with a shaman at the center, also Native American. He was dressed in ceremonial garb.

“Wait for my signal,” whispered Hammer to the police snipers sequestered all around the site.

Blade looked through his binoculars. “That’s John Takoda. A shaman on the Papago Reservation.”

Takoda was a tall, thin man with parchment-like wrinkled skin and long gray hair tied in a ponytail. He wore jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots.

They carefully bound the man to the ground. He showed no signs of resistance. Then, lifting a knife over the man’s head, he began cutting into his flesh.

“That’s it, go, go, go!”

The agents rushed forward, pistols out. “Hands up! On the ground, now!”

The Native Americans looked up, surprisingly calm. Takoda put his hands up. “Jacob Ironshirt. You have come, as Coyote foretold.”

“Put the knife down,” said Blade. He pointed the pistol at Takoda.

“You have interfered with things that you do not understand. Our people are to be protected, as will all men, women and children of this earth if I am allowed to complete the rituals of banishment.”

“Down!” shouted Hammer.

Takoda shook his head. “If we do not, the lands will be subject to darkness and death, bringing the time when the stars are right ever closer. Our people have long understood sacrifice, a concept lost to your modern ways.

“This is not the way to do it,” said Hammer. “I’m not going to ask you again!”

“I have volunteers who understand that the interest of the tribe come first,” said Takoda. “But now it seems Coyote has sent you to me to serve a higher purpose.”

Takoda resumed the carving of the man’s flesh on the ground.

“Take him out!” shouted Hammer into his mic.

There was the crack of a sniper’s rifle. Hammer’s pistol flew out of his hand. He swore, clutching his bleeding fist. “Son of a bitch, they missed!”

“They didn’t miss,” said Knightly, striding towards them. “Did I mention I’m half-Papago?”

Guppy shouted into his cistron. “Agents compromised! Repeat: agents compromised!”

Blade turned around in shock. “You?”

“Oh I know I don’t look it. But then, you look pretty damn Native American to me and you don’t seem to give two s**ts about your own people.”

The other police officers forced the agents’ hands behind their backs. Blade looked around. They were all Native Americans.

“This is only going to make us look worse,” he said quietly.

The Phoenix cops forced all the agents to their knees and stripped them of their weapons.

“Save your breath,” said Knightly. “Watch and learn.”

Takoda finished carving odd patterns into the man’s skin. He ended it by painting four dots on the man’s right hand. Then he stepped away and chanted.

Something welled up from the sand. Dozens of its long stick legs crawled out of the sand like a spider, raising up a chaotic, wriggling mass. Mouths opened up from the dark torso, revealing teeth the texture of ice shards, opening into deep throats of blackness that gurgled forth phlegm-soup similar to tadpole eggs. The clicking, beating of woody-knolls across its pulsating shape repeated like Morse code.

The sacrificial victim screamed as the thing shambled closer. Takoda stepped out of the thing’s path.

It moved over the man, who screamed again, his voice drowned out by the clicking. When it slithered away, his torso was scoured to the bone in the same pattern that they had found Draper’s body.

Tears streamed down Blade’s face. Hammer watched stoically. Archive watched with frank curiosity. Guppy kept his eyes closed and looked away.

Another hole opened in the sand on the other side of the corpse. The thing crawled into it and seemed to be flushed downwards, the clicking sound disappearing with a loud pop.

“Now do you understand?” asked Takoda.

“I understand you just killed an innocent man,” Blade replied.

Takoda sighed. “Still your eyes have not been opened. Very well. We will see if you change your mind in three days.” He nodded towards Knightly. “Take them to the well.”

[talien]

They were driven into the desert far off the main roads and taken to a natural dry well. On the surface, wooden boards covered the well decorated with Indian designs. It was clear they had recently been broken with incredible force from the inside.

They were tossed into darkness. The fall, a good twenty feet, was slightly mitigated by the large amount of soft sand at the bottom.

“Everyone all right?” asked Blade.

“I think…” gasped Guppy. “I twisted my ankle.”

Time came and went.

“I think I found something,” said Archive. He pushed away some sand, revealing a glitter of metal in the few shafts of sunlight that made it into the well. “It’s a woman’s bracelet.”

It read: To Kate, Love Always, Liam.

“Someone will come for us,” said Guppy. “I sent a message before we were picked up.”

“It’s been days,” said Hammer glumly. “They should have been here by now.”

“They’re coming soon,” whispered something hideous in Blade’s mind. “You must escape now or they will kill you.”

“They’ll be coming soon,” said Blade. “They’re going to sacrifice one of us. So if we’re going to make our move, we have to do it now.”

“Do what?” asked Archive. “Climb the sheer wall of the well?”

“I will help you,” whispered the voice.

“I can do it,” said Blade. He took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he pressed his palms against the plastic zip ties. They snapped easily.

Blade dropped them to the ground. Archive looked at them in disbelief. It looked as if they had been chewed through.

“How did you do that?”

“Never mind that,” he whispered. “I’ll take out the guards and get some help.”

Blade put one palm flat against the wall. It stuck, like he was some sort of spider. He pressed his left hand and similar found purchase. One handhold after another, he slowly but surely climbed the walls that no man could possibly have climbed.

“How is he doing that?” asked Hammer.

“Who cares as long as he gets us out of here!” asked Guppy.

A few seconds after Blade cleared the well, one guard fell into the pit. Another fell soon after. The agents ensured they stayed unconscious.

Then their walkie-talkies started squawking.

Guppy dove for one of them. “Oh crap, they’re checking in!” He panicked. “It’s in…Native American, I think!”

“Throw it up to me!” Blade shouted down to them.

Guppy tried, but it merely bounced off the side of the well. It smashed to pieces as it fell.

“I got it.” Hammer grabbed the second walkie-talkie and hurled it up to Blade.

Blade caught the walkie-talkie and spoke into it in another language.

“That should hold them off for a little while,” he shouted down. “See if you can find something to help you climb up.”

“We’ll tie their shirts and pants together,” said Hammer. He turned to Archive and Guppy. “Strip them and make some solid knots. We’ll fashion rope out of their clothes and throw it to Blade.”

They stripped the two guards’ clothes and made a makeshift rope from them. Guppy suddenly noticed the green flicker of a cistron’s power light in the sand. He dug it out.

“I’ll call for help!” shouted Guppy. He flicked it on. The biometrics read his thumbprint…

Guppy stared at it. “I…I don’t understand.”

“What?” asked Hammer. “What is it?” He looked over Guppy’s shoulder. “Oh s**t.”

“What?” asked Archive.

“We’ve been…” Guppy couldn’t continue. He just held up the cistron, glowing in the dark of the well.

In the darkness the screen was clearly visible. It read: DISAVOWED.

“What does that mean?” asked Guppy.

“I don’t know,” said Hammer.

Blade was talking to someone up top. They couldn’t make out his conversation.

“Blade?”

There was no response.

A few minutes later the cistrons began beeping. It read: AGENT COMPROMISED.

Then an explosion rocked the ground.

[talien]

Blade cleared the lip of the well. The guards were talking amongst themselves, fiddling with the cistrons, trying to figure out how they worked. They were all run by biometrics, fingerprint recognition. The cistrons wouldn’t work for them, but the guards didn’t know that.

Blade came up behind one guard and grabbed him in a choke hold. With a roar, he flung the man into the well. The guard, cistron and all, went hurdling into the pit.

The other guard drew his pistol. Blade chopped it out of his hand with an open palm jab.

The guard swung at him, but Blade caught the punch easily in his palm. He squeezed, and the guard screamed as his fist dripped blood.

Hurling him like a rag doll, Blade tossed the second guard into the pit.

Then Guppy started shouting about the guards having to check in. A walkie-talkie sailed over the edge of the well. Blade caught it just as the voice on the other end rose in alarm.

“Everything’s fine,” he said in the O’odham dialect. It was difficult – he had always considered himself Apache. His father was Apache, his mother Navajo. The Kokoham lineage was a myth that Palmer used to tell him when he was a child. It made Blade feel better about himself when his father beat him in one of his drunken rages.

But now Blade had a chance to be a hero. He shouted down for his teammates to find something to help them climb up. If they tied the clothes of the guards together…

Up top, nearby cacti suddenly lurched forward, grabbing Blade’s arms as if they were refugees from some Wizard of Oz set.

Out of the darkness strode John Takoda and his men. They were all there: Knightly, the renegade police officers, the entire tribe had turned out to see the last sacrifice. They watched in complete silence.

“Your O’odham needs some work,” said Takoda quietly. “Why are you fighting your destiny?”

“Fighting?” Blade snarled. “Give me my hatchets and I’ll show you fighting.”

“You do not understand.” They tied him up again, his legs too this time. Then they tossed Blade into the back of a jeep. “Think of the dark spirits you have defeated.”

“He’s trying to trick you,” whispered the voice. “Don’t listen to him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” snarled Blade.

“I think you do. First you defeated the Traveler. Then Thin Jack. Then the Skinwalker. I dispelled the Festering Shambler. There is but one more spirit and one more sacrifice to be made. Will you not go honorably?”

The jeep bounced along as they drove out to the spot of the sacrifice.

Blade growled. “This is not about honor.” He strained at his bonds. “This is about survival. There is no fifth creature! You’re just killing innocent people for no reason!”

“Kill them,” whispered the voice. “Or they will kill us.”

The jeep squealed to a stop. Takoda’s men lifted Blade out and strapped him down to the ground.

“You will be my high priest.”

“I disagree,” said Takoda. “And deep in your heart, you know the truth. Coyote knows it. Your ancestors know it. Palmer knew it. These sacrifices are why you succeeded. They had to happen, or you would not have defeated those spirits.”

“You will call down the shapes of night to worship me at the times of year.”

“There’s no fifth spirit!” shouted Blade, flailing at his bonds. “This is a bunch of supernatural garbage!”

“You will prostrate yourself before me and in return you will survive when the earth is cleared off for the Great Old Ones.”

Takoda began carving symbols into his flesh. Strangely, it didn’t hurt at all.

“You will go beyond the rim to what stirs out of the light…”

“Are you so blinded that you do not see?” He reached into a small pot of gray paint and placed five dots on Blade’s forehead.

“There’s nothing to see!” shouted something that was not Blade’s voice. It came from one of his palms.

Takoda shined his flashlight on Blade’s open palm. A fanged maw had erupted there like a wart, teeth and a long tongue trailing bloody saliva as it shrieked.

“YOU are the final spirit,” said Takoda sadly. “And the final sacrifice. You are both man’s destruction and salvation.”

He began chanting over Blade’s body.

Blade’s body shuddered. With a roar, he easily snapped the bonds.

The shaman looked down in surprise as an open palm gripped his face, tearing off his nose. He was tossed aside effortlessly.

Bullets thudded into his flesh. The police, the Native Americans, all of them fired, screaming, shouting. It wouldn’t help them.

He was power incarnate, unleashed at last, not in a whimpering pedophile’s body but a strong, healthy one that could withstand some abuse.

He was no longer Blade. He was no longer Kokoham, or Apache, or Navajo.

He was Y’golonac, and he would stride forth from the loneliness of the aeons to walk once more among men.

He tore the shaman in half just as the beeping started. It was in his head. The transformation was almost complete. He wouldn’t need the head soon anyway…

There was the mournful howl of a coyote.

And then Y’golonac/Blade remembered fear.

[talien]

The Academy was nestled comfortably into the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the tail end of the Rockies in northern New Mexico. It had the bearing and appearance of an old-world military academy, with the scenery of the mountainous American Southwest.

Caprice, Jim-Bean, Archive, and Hammer acted as pallbearers, solemnly bringing a memorial coffin to the Spire. They marched a path, flanked by Majestic-12 agents, a four-story needle of the flattest black.

Christine and Alex were there, flown in under secrecy. They didn’t know where they were, and wouldn’t have been able to identify it if they tried. They were only there as a result of Drake’s intractable stubbornness, who promised that Outlook could wipe their memories later.

It was the right thing to do, he said.

They tried to find his family, but Jake’s father wouldn’t respond to their calls. His brother was missing. His mother was long dead. And so only Christine and Alex stood in testament to what little family Jake had left on Earth.

Archive cleared his throat. As the only team member with any religious background, it fell to him to speak of the dead.

“Jacob Ironshirt, known to us as Blade, died as he lived. He was loyal to his family and friends, and protected them both when they needed it most. He reached rock bottom and, through sheer force of will, crawled his way back into the light. And now, his journey is complete. Jake can rest in peace knowing that he died, not as a TV star, or as a father, or as a CIFA agent, but as a hero. He will be immortalized in our hearts. May God rest his soul. Amen.”

“Amen,” said the agents as one.

Drake solemnly wrapped up the American flag and presented it to Alex. The boy, eyes wide with tears, took it without comment.

Rifles were fired. And then on a television screen, it was revealed that Drake’s name was etched into the Spire, joining the other two thousand cadets and agents who died in the line of duty.

When it was over, Christine and Alex were whisked away without saying a word. The Outlook team would be gentle, they promised. They would only remember him as a military hero, killed while on reservist duty in Iraq. Drake threatened to kill them if either of them so much as had a headache.

Drake was waiting for the agents in his office. He poured a shot of scotch for each of them.

“To Blade,” he said, tears in his eyes. It rattled the other agents. They had never seen anything but rage from the old man.

They clinked their glasses. “To Blade!”

They all downed it at once. It was strong stuff from his special stash.

“What happened back there, Drake?” asked Hammer. “We got a message we were disavowed?”

Drake put down the shot glass. “You were. If those @$$holes in Majestic-12 had their say, they would have dropped the lot of you.”

“So what happened?” asked Caprice.

“I fought tooth-and-nail to get you reinstated,” he said vehemently. He poured another shot of scotch and poured it into the glasses of everyone within reach. “That’s what I do. I protected my men. I’ve lost plenty in my command. But not that way. Nobody should go that way.”

“So it’s true?” asked Guppy fearfully. “We all have bombs in our heads?”

Drake stared at the wall. “I didn’t believe it. There have always been rumors of a new failsafe. But I didn’t believe them.” He downed another shot. “I should have.”

Guppy rubbed his temples. “So they could blow us up at any time?”

Drake plunked down his shot glass and grabbed the pull. He took a long pull from it. “Not my problem anymore.”

He walked towards the door.

“Not your problem?” Hammer peered at him. “Where are you going, sir?”

“I quit,” said Drake. “Your new case officer starts on Monday. I hear he’s a real hard ass.”

The agents all stared at each other in shock as the door closed behind him.