Masks of Nyarlathotep - Chapter 1: New York City

[Toric_Arthendain]

As Hamish heads down the fire escape and Thomas goes out into the hallway, Joe turns to the corpse of Elias on the bed. Never having been much of an actor himself, he figures to let Thomas talk to the police first. In the meantime, he gives last rites to Elias, and then waits for the police.

 

[VorpalBunny]

Carter waits until the twins are out of the window and well down the fire escape before he opens the door.

"Officers! In here please!"

 

[Shapermc]

Before leaving the room Shorty grabs all the clues they found and rolles them up tight and puts them in the inside pocket of his suite coat. Making sure that him and his broter were moving silently and avoiding the sight of unwanted eyes, Shorty descends after seeing that Hamish has made it down safe. Moving quickly down the ladder, Shorty greets his brother with a quick pat on his shoulder and makes a few hand jestures for him to follow out of site around back.

After a few misleading turns and twists, the borthers apear across the street from the hotel, leaning on a building. They wait paitently for their comrads while one of them at all times keeps a look out for the rest of the party.

 

[Yellow Sign]

As Shorty and Hamish climb out the window and down the fire escape, a black Hudson touring car which was parked nearby speeds of. Shorty catches a brief glance of a thin black man at the wheel.

Thomas and Professor Carter see a pair of uniformed policemen and a middle aged balding man in a brown suit coming down the hall. The policemen have revolvers drawn. Behind them a man in a undershirt has his head stuck out his door and is looking down the hallway.

"What's all this then!!" shouts one of the police as they near. They stop infront of the door way with Thomas and Carter, the younger of the two police glances into the room and almost vomits at the sight of Elias on the bed. The older of the policemen calls to the man with them. Mister Young call the station and get some help down there. It's murder alright." and then he turns to Thomas and the Professor. "Ok, come clean! What's going on here?"

 

[Krug]

Thomas waits for the Professor to speak. He's the smart one, after all...

"It's horrid sir. A crime of the most horrible devising..." he says, stepping past the vomit.

 

[VorpalBunny]

Carter looks down at the vomit, pulls out a hankerchief and covers his nose as he moves aside so the two officers can enter the room.

"Officers, my name is John Carter. I am an adjunct professor of anthropology at Columbia University. These are my associates, Thomas Anderson and Father Savino. We were summoned here for business reasons by my personal friend, Jackson Elias. When we arrived, we discovered Mr. Elias was dead and were ruthlessly and viciously attacked by the three ruffians you see here."

"In the course of self-defense, we were forced to kill two and incapacitate another." Carter points to the unconscious thug.

 

[Yellow Sign]

"Well let's see some indentification then." As the policeman looks over your id's he relaxes abit. He takes your statements and a couple more policemen arrive including a dark suited detective. You hear him mumble "Not again!" as he looks at Elias' body. He comes over to you and holds out a hand. "I am Lt. Martin Poole, I take it you arrived just after the poor bugger was butchered?"

 

[Krug]

After Carter introruces himself, Thomas will do the same.

"Not again?" Thomas lifts an eyebrow. "You mean this nefarious act has happened before?"

 

[Yellow Sign]

The detective arches a eyebrow. "Yes, it has. This is the ninth such killing in the past two years. They all had that terrible symbol cut into their forehead before they were butchered." He pause to lick his lips "So, you where friends of Mr. Elias then? Would you have any idea why this happened to him? What has he been doing ithese past few days? Did he have anything to do with Voodoo?"

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

"Voodoo?" Joe asks. "I don't know about that. I didn't know Jackson Elias as well as Professor Carter did."

Joe turns away from the body of Elias and looks at the officers. "Nine times over the last two years? Has your investigation turned up what that symbol carved on his head might actually mean?"