Audrik
Explorer
Sufficient Unto the Day - Session 4a
Agent REDLIGHT made it to the road in front of the flat and promptly changed his mind. If ROSE had called the police, the flat would be the first place they’d look. He instead slipped quietly into the place where Sienkiewicz had been staying and called Brigadier General Justin Drake who seemed none too happy to be getting a call at 9 o’clock at night.
“Sir, this is Captain Gump. I need to ask a favor.”
“Gump? This had better be good. Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I do, sir, and I apologize. I’m in Plymouth, UK on a Delta Green Operation, and things have gone really wrong.”
There was a moment of silence, and when the general spoke, he emphasized nearly every syllable with a strong southern accent.
“You have got to be kidding me, Gump!”
“No, sir. You see …”
“Captain, do you mean to tell me you’re across a damned ocean on a Delta Green Operation you can’t handle, and you think I should give a damn?”
Agent REDLIGHT explained to the general how he had been framed for murder, his cell leader wanted him arrested or dead, and a cult was going to end the world. For his part, General Drake listened in agitated silence until the end. He then let REDLIGHT have it, and he was merciless. He didn’t care one way or another if Delta Green couldn’t handle field operations. He was a general in the United States Army, and he was unwilling to commit resources to extract a single asset from an allied country. He finished with a piece of advice:
“Calm yourself, and think about what you’re saying. An evil cult is going to end the world tonight, and you need help running from it? You need some rest, Captain, and I do, too. Don’t do anything stupid, and talk to me when you can make some damned sense, boy!”
Agent RICHARD answered his phone, and ROSE told him about recent events from her point of view. REDLIGHT was compromised. He was in some kind of cult, and he’d just killed the man they were assigned to watch, nailed him to a wall upside down, and cut off his head. She had last seen him heading toward the flat, and she wanted RICHARD to be prepared.
Agent RICHARD was unsure of what to do, but he thanked ROSE for the heads-up. The door to the flat had just opened, so he told her he thought REDLIGHT was there. She told him to take care and hung up the phone.
While the general was yelling at REDLIGHT, the agent noticed three robed individuals across the street entering his flat. As soon as the general was finished, he apologized and quickly hung up to call RICHARD. There was no answer, so he took a deep breath and looked around the room.
Sienkiewicz hadn’t left much. There was a bedroll, a backpack, a can of beans, and a bible with a bookmark. There was also the thick, comb-bound book of printer paper Sienkiewicz had said contained the counter-ritual.
The book was printed single-sided, and it was pretty thick as a result. The cover page listed the title as The Book of the Damned, by Karaj Heinz Vogel. The agent skimmed several pages here and a few pages there trying to get an idea of the content. It contained a treatise on ‘Sleeping Places’, several genealogies, and many pages in a strange language which the hand-written annotations suggested was an incantation of some sort.
This had to be the counter-ritual Sienkiewicz had mentioned. Not trusting himself to remember the words or to be able to read them when the time came, Agent REDLIGHT took out the microcassette recorder which had belonged to the dead CIA man and recorded himself reading the words several times in several different ways hoping that one of them would be right.
A police car pulled up in the snow where Agent ROSE was waiting. Two officers got out and approached her. One took her statement while the other examined the interior of the house. ROSE told the officer she and her partner were independent private investigators working a job for the U.S. Embassy in London. They were instructed to keep an eye on an American named David Benjamin Sienkiewicz, but her partner had apparently snapped. She had found him kneeling in front of the body hanging on the wall inside with bloody hands and a sword.
The second officer confirmed that there was a headless body nailed to the wall and a sword on the floor. He called for a homicide detective, preferably one with a specialty in occult crimes. The officers offered to take ROSE into protective custody, but she declined politely. Her other partner was still at their flat, and he was likely in danger.
The officers called in to report and then gave ROSE a ride two blocks over to the flat. Agent REDLIGHT watched her enter with the police officers while he cleaned his prints from the gun. The door to the flat was open, and ROSE could smell the familiar rusty odor of blood. She entered with the officers behind her, and found what she had feared. Agent RICHARD had been decapitated and nailed to the wall upside down to the points of a pentagram. The head was missing.
Agent REDLIGHT could hear his cell leader’s scream from across the street, and he knew what had happened. He also knew who would catch the blame, so he slipped outside. After a quick scan to make sure no one was watching, he carefully set the revolver on the hood of the police vehicle and headed off to the north. As REDLIGHT turned the corner onto snow-covered Drake Park Road, he stopped short. There was a large gathering of robed people. He estimated there must be at least a hundred. Time to find a better plan.
Agent REDLIGHT made it to the road in front of the flat and promptly changed his mind. If ROSE had called the police, the flat would be the first place they’d look. He instead slipped quietly into the place where Sienkiewicz had been staying and called Brigadier General Justin Drake who seemed none too happy to be getting a call at 9 o’clock at night.
“Sir, this is Captain Gump. I need to ask a favor.”
“Gump? This had better be good. Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I do, sir, and I apologize. I’m in Plymouth, UK on a Delta Green Operation, and things have gone really wrong.”
There was a moment of silence, and when the general spoke, he emphasized nearly every syllable with a strong southern accent.
“You have got to be kidding me, Gump!”
“No, sir. You see …”
“Captain, do you mean to tell me you’re across a damned ocean on a Delta Green Operation you can’t handle, and you think I should give a damn?”
Agent REDLIGHT explained to the general how he had been framed for murder, his cell leader wanted him arrested or dead, and a cult was going to end the world. For his part, General Drake listened in agitated silence until the end. He then let REDLIGHT have it, and he was merciless. He didn’t care one way or another if Delta Green couldn’t handle field operations. He was a general in the United States Army, and he was unwilling to commit resources to extract a single asset from an allied country. He finished with a piece of advice:
“Calm yourself, and think about what you’re saying. An evil cult is going to end the world tonight, and you need help running from it? You need some rest, Captain, and I do, too. Don’t do anything stupid, and talk to me when you can make some damned sense, boy!”
Agent RICHARD answered his phone, and ROSE told him about recent events from her point of view. REDLIGHT was compromised. He was in some kind of cult, and he’d just killed the man they were assigned to watch, nailed him to a wall upside down, and cut off his head. She had last seen him heading toward the flat, and she wanted RICHARD to be prepared.
Agent RICHARD was unsure of what to do, but he thanked ROSE for the heads-up. The door to the flat had just opened, so he told her he thought REDLIGHT was there. She told him to take care and hung up the phone.
While the general was yelling at REDLIGHT, the agent noticed three robed individuals across the street entering his flat. As soon as the general was finished, he apologized and quickly hung up to call RICHARD. There was no answer, so he took a deep breath and looked around the room.
Sienkiewicz hadn’t left much. There was a bedroll, a backpack, a can of beans, and a bible with a bookmark. There was also the thick, comb-bound book of printer paper Sienkiewicz had said contained the counter-ritual.
The book was printed single-sided, and it was pretty thick as a result. The cover page listed the title as The Book of the Damned, by Karaj Heinz Vogel. The agent skimmed several pages here and a few pages there trying to get an idea of the content. It contained a treatise on ‘Sleeping Places’, several genealogies, and many pages in a strange language which the hand-written annotations suggested was an incantation of some sort.
This had to be the counter-ritual Sienkiewicz had mentioned. Not trusting himself to remember the words or to be able to read them when the time came, Agent REDLIGHT took out the microcassette recorder which had belonged to the dead CIA man and recorded himself reading the words several times in several different ways hoping that one of them would be right.
A police car pulled up in the snow where Agent ROSE was waiting. Two officers got out and approached her. One took her statement while the other examined the interior of the house. ROSE told the officer she and her partner were independent private investigators working a job for the U.S. Embassy in London. They were instructed to keep an eye on an American named David Benjamin Sienkiewicz, but her partner had apparently snapped. She had found him kneeling in front of the body hanging on the wall inside with bloody hands and a sword.
The second officer confirmed that there was a headless body nailed to the wall and a sword on the floor. He called for a homicide detective, preferably one with a specialty in occult crimes. The officers offered to take ROSE into protective custody, but she declined politely. Her other partner was still at their flat, and he was likely in danger.
The officers called in to report and then gave ROSE a ride two blocks over to the flat. Agent REDLIGHT watched her enter with the police officers while he cleaned his prints from the gun. The door to the flat was open, and ROSE could smell the familiar rusty odor of blood. She entered with the officers behind her, and found what she had feared. Agent RICHARD had been decapitated and nailed to the wall upside down to the points of a pentagram. The head was missing.
Agent REDLIGHT could hear his cell leader’s scream from across the street, and he knew what had happened. He also knew who would catch the blame, so he slipped outside. After a quick scan to make sure no one was watching, he carefully set the revolver on the hood of the police vehicle and headed off to the north. As REDLIGHT turned the corner onto snow-covered Drake Park Road, he stopped short. There was a large gathering of robed people. He estimated there must be at least a hundred. Time to find a better plan.
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