Medallions d20 Modern (Update Wednesday 09-20-06)
- Thread starter Old Drew Id
- Start date
Old Drew Id
First Post
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Getting Closer
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Getting Closer
“That’s not skin…that’s clay,” Crystal announced, with her light (and gun sight) trained closely on the zombie’s face. Willie grunted with the pain in his leg and leaned over to take a closer look.
“I don’t care if it’s a mud mask, let’s get out of here!” Taylor urged, but no one moved.
Crystal picked up one of the thug’s knives and poked at the body with it. She heard her own voice sounding eerily detached from the disgusting display in front of her, as though the entire situation was an academic problem. She was rather pleased with herself at her ability to handle what she was seeing. “Look, there is real bone and muscle underneath, but the skin…has been replaced with clay… And this neck muscle looks like….evidence of larvae…” The forensic evidence didn’t lie.
She looked up at Willie and Taylor, “This guy has been dead for days.”
“Good, so definite zombie material…now can we get out of here?” Taylor was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.
Willie reached into one of his jacket pockets and produced a small plastic bag, “You wanna get a sample, Crystal?” Crystal nodded and took the plastic bag. She began to cut a sample from the body.
Taylor grimaced in the dark, “You two need a life! Taking pieces of dead guy home to…shut up! Listen!” She cocked an ear upwards as the other two froze in place.
In the distance, a police siren was wailing. Crystal’s radio crackled to life, “Hello folks, this is…um…this is your Brother…we’re on the freeway heading back to where you’re at, and we’re currently following several gentlemen in uniform who seem to be heading in your direction as well. Just in case you weren’t expecting any guests…Over.”
Taylor was already halfway down the stairs. Crystal vaulted up over the body and stuffed the bagged sample into her pocket as Willie limped towards the exit. She surveyed the damage to the room as Willie moved slowly down the stairs. The sound of sirens was getting louder.
Crystal yelled down the stairs, “Get the car pulled around! I’ll help Willie to the door!”
. . .
“Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. This is Lucille. How may I direct your call?”
“Lucille? Hey baby, this is Willie.”
Lucille smiled and blushed. She carefully put the top back onto her bottle of fingernail polish. “Willie? Boy, look at you calling me bright and early on a Monday morning! Now I know I ain’t all that! You callin’ to take me out again?”
“Um…yeah, baby, sure! I was calling to ask you out again! You know, I had the best time with ya on Friday and I just can’t wait to see you again. You know, you have an effect on me, baby!”
“Well, Willie, ain’t you just the sweetest thing? You know, I might be free later this week!”
“Great baby! Say, baby, as long as I got you on the phone, I was gonna look up some information on this van…”
. . .
“This here’s your supply cart, with your mop and bucket there, and …these gloves aren’t any good. We’ll get you a fresh pair…and here are your toilet paper rolls and your paper towels and glass cleaner here…”
Joe sighed and nodded along. He was wearing blue coveralls over his brand new “Danger Girl” T-shirt, and he was hot, tired, and bored. This old guy actually spent half and hour going over all of the different duties that Joe was supposed to do and all of the things that he was supposed to clean, and he seemed to expect Joe to actually care about everything he was saying.
This wasn’t at all like it was supposed to be. In the movies, when you needed to sneak into some office building, you just decided to do it, and then two seconds later you saw the hero wandering down a hallway with a mop and an ID card. But Joe had spent an hour filling out tax paperwork, (and having to make sure all of the fake information he put on that paperwork matched up correctly) then had to sit through some stupid half-hour safety procedure film they showed to new employees (probably a brain-washing technique, which is why Joe was careful to avert his eyes the entire time), and now he had been listening to this guy drone on for forever about his cleaning supplies.
Now the old guy was looking at him expectantly. Crap, Joe recognized this look. This was the “I just asked you a question and if you had been listening you would know that” look. Joe mumbled, “yeah, um, I just want to clean stuff.”
The old guy chewed his lip for a second and then nodded, apparently satisfied, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “Swing by the supply room to get your rubber gloves, then start on the third floor in Accounting and work your way down.”
A few minutes later, Joe was on the third floor. He breezed right past Accounting and headed for the restrooms, towing along his supply cart the whole way. Once inside the bathroom, he pulled a small package out from under his coveralls. He ripped open the package and pulled out a hat, shirt, and tie.
First, the Bigfoot hat. That felt a lot better. There were way to many cameras in this building. Next, Joe lost the coveralls and put on the button-down shirt and the tie. He checked his watch and wondered how long he could be missing before raising suspicions.
Next stop, back down the hall, into Human Resources. Using the new set of keys, Joe was inside in just under a minute, and sat down at a computer.
Most of the workstations were left on all night, with there was no password on the screensaver of the first one that Joe touched. No surprise there, really. Joe poked around for a minute among the list of programs and eventually found what he was looking for. Before two minutes had passed, a nearby laser printer was spitting out a report of all of the recent layoffs.
Again, disappointing. In a movie, Joe would have had to hack the password, with at least two attempts ending in a big flashing skull and crossbones and message that took up the whole screen in yellow text saying “Access Denied”. Instead, just two minutes and he had a printout.
“Hello?”
Joe’s heart lurched up into his throat. There was a security guard at the door to the department. Joe took in a slow deep breath. He just needed to remember what Willie and the preacher had told him. Short answers. People are more likely to believe you if you stick to short answers.
“Hey, sir, do you work here?” the security guard was still standing at the doorway.
Joe put on his best smile. So far, he didn’t even need to lie. He did work here. “Yep,” he answered, and lifted up his new employee badge.
“You working late tonight?”
Well, this was easy. “Yep,” and motioned at the computer.
“You’re supposed to come downstairs and sign the sheet if you are working this late at night.”
“Um…sorry”
“It’s alright, sir. It’s just that we have an alarm that goes off downstairs…did you just get up and go to the bathroom or something?”
“Yep” Jeez, Joe was about to bluff his way out of the situation without ever even having to lie to the guy. And here Willie was always acting like this charismatic stuff was hard.
“That explains it then. Sorry, we’re having some trouble with the cameras in this section tonight. I just had to come up and take a look.”
“Um…okay.”
“Alright, I’ll let the other guards know you’re up here. Take it easy.”
“Thanks,” Joe smiled and continued typing random things into the computer until the guard had gone down the hall. After that, he tucked the printouts into his pants and headed out the door and back to the bathroom.
. . .
One hour later, Joe was standing in a small lobby in a corner set off away from the main hallways, and connecting four small offices. He had just stumbled across this place while doing actual cleaning. Joe had almost vacuumed the floor of the entire lobby before he saw the names on the four doors.
The four vice-presidents. The four old inactive members of the library. The four oldest members of the Ward Numismatic Society. The names matched up to the offices. These were their offices.
Joe tugged his hat back out of his pocket and pulled in down low over his eyes. Next he pulled out his ring of keys and unlocked the first door. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
The office inside was opulent, museum-like, and intimidating. Joe immediately felt a strong urge to leave, but he dismissed it and tip-toed into the room.
The furnishings were expensive and tasteful. A heavy cherry wood desk, bookshelves full of what appeared to be law books and expensive degrees. A couple of old oil paintings. Persian rug.
Better to be safe tonight, Joe decided. Get a couple of pictures, make a plan, and come back tomorrow night. He hurried back to his supply cart and fished out his backpack from underneath a bag of garbage. Rummaging around inside, Joe removed a disposable camera from the bag and hurried back into the office.
Again, a strong feeling of paranoia. This place was definitely not meant for prying eyes. The guards would be here any minute. Joe rapidly worked the room over, snapping pictures of the bookshelves, desk, walls, and floor. Finally satisfied, he grabbed the waste basket from under the desk and brought it back out to his cart. He dumped the trash papers into his backpack and sealed the whole thing up as quickly as possible.
A moment later, he was safely away, and more eager than ever to get back home.
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Getting Closer
“That’s not skin…that’s clay,” Crystal announced, with her light (and gun sight) trained closely on the zombie’s face. Willie grunted with the pain in his leg and leaned over to take a closer look.
“I don’t care if it’s a mud mask, let’s get out of here!” Taylor urged, but no one moved.
Crystal picked up one of the thug’s knives and poked at the body with it. She heard her own voice sounding eerily detached from the disgusting display in front of her, as though the entire situation was an academic problem. She was rather pleased with herself at her ability to handle what she was seeing. “Look, there is real bone and muscle underneath, but the skin…has been replaced with clay… And this neck muscle looks like….evidence of larvae…” The forensic evidence didn’t lie.
She looked up at Willie and Taylor, “This guy has been dead for days.”
“Good, so definite zombie material…now can we get out of here?” Taylor was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other.
Willie reached into one of his jacket pockets and produced a small plastic bag, “You wanna get a sample, Crystal?” Crystal nodded and took the plastic bag. She began to cut a sample from the body.
Taylor grimaced in the dark, “You two need a life! Taking pieces of dead guy home to…shut up! Listen!” She cocked an ear upwards as the other two froze in place.
In the distance, a police siren was wailing. Crystal’s radio crackled to life, “Hello folks, this is…um…this is your Brother…we’re on the freeway heading back to where you’re at, and we’re currently following several gentlemen in uniform who seem to be heading in your direction as well. Just in case you weren’t expecting any guests…Over.”
Taylor was already halfway down the stairs. Crystal vaulted up over the body and stuffed the bagged sample into her pocket as Willie limped towards the exit. She surveyed the damage to the room as Willie moved slowly down the stairs. The sound of sirens was getting louder.
Crystal yelled down the stairs, “Get the car pulled around! I’ll help Willie to the door!”
. . .
“Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. This is Lucille. How may I direct your call?”
“Lucille? Hey baby, this is Willie.”
Lucille smiled and blushed. She carefully put the top back onto her bottle of fingernail polish. “Willie? Boy, look at you calling me bright and early on a Monday morning! Now I know I ain’t all that! You callin’ to take me out again?”
“Um…yeah, baby, sure! I was calling to ask you out again! You know, I had the best time with ya on Friday and I just can’t wait to see you again. You know, you have an effect on me, baby!”
“Well, Willie, ain’t you just the sweetest thing? You know, I might be free later this week!”
“Great baby! Say, baby, as long as I got you on the phone, I was gonna look up some information on this van…”
. . .
“This here’s your supply cart, with your mop and bucket there, and …these gloves aren’t any good. We’ll get you a fresh pair…and here are your toilet paper rolls and your paper towels and glass cleaner here…”
Joe sighed and nodded along. He was wearing blue coveralls over his brand new “Danger Girl” T-shirt, and he was hot, tired, and bored. This old guy actually spent half and hour going over all of the different duties that Joe was supposed to do and all of the things that he was supposed to clean, and he seemed to expect Joe to actually care about everything he was saying.
This wasn’t at all like it was supposed to be. In the movies, when you needed to sneak into some office building, you just decided to do it, and then two seconds later you saw the hero wandering down a hallway with a mop and an ID card. But Joe had spent an hour filling out tax paperwork, (and having to make sure all of the fake information he put on that paperwork matched up correctly) then had to sit through some stupid half-hour safety procedure film they showed to new employees (probably a brain-washing technique, which is why Joe was careful to avert his eyes the entire time), and now he had been listening to this guy drone on for forever about his cleaning supplies.
Now the old guy was looking at him expectantly. Crap, Joe recognized this look. This was the “I just asked you a question and if you had been listening you would know that” look. Joe mumbled, “yeah, um, I just want to clean stuff.”
The old guy chewed his lip for a second and then nodded, apparently satisfied, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. “Swing by the supply room to get your rubber gloves, then start on the third floor in Accounting and work your way down.”
A few minutes later, Joe was on the third floor. He breezed right past Accounting and headed for the restrooms, towing along his supply cart the whole way. Once inside the bathroom, he pulled a small package out from under his coveralls. He ripped open the package and pulled out a hat, shirt, and tie.
First, the Bigfoot hat. That felt a lot better. There were way to many cameras in this building. Next, Joe lost the coveralls and put on the button-down shirt and the tie. He checked his watch and wondered how long he could be missing before raising suspicions.
Next stop, back down the hall, into Human Resources. Using the new set of keys, Joe was inside in just under a minute, and sat down at a computer.
Most of the workstations were left on all night, with there was no password on the screensaver of the first one that Joe touched. No surprise there, really. Joe poked around for a minute among the list of programs and eventually found what he was looking for. Before two minutes had passed, a nearby laser printer was spitting out a report of all of the recent layoffs.
Again, disappointing. In a movie, Joe would have had to hack the password, with at least two attempts ending in a big flashing skull and crossbones and message that took up the whole screen in yellow text saying “Access Denied”. Instead, just two minutes and he had a printout.
“Hello?”
Joe’s heart lurched up into his throat. There was a security guard at the door to the department. Joe took in a slow deep breath. He just needed to remember what Willie and the preacher had told him. Short answers. People are more likely to believe you if you stick to short answers.
“Hey, sir, do you work here?” the security guard was still standing at the doorway.
Joe put on his best smile. So far, he didn’t even need to lie. He did work here. “Yep,” he answered, and lifted up his new employee badge.
“You working late tonight?”
Well, this was easy. “Yep,” and motioned at the computer.
“You’re supposed to come downstairs and sign the sheet if you are working this late at night.”
“Um…sorry”
“It’s alright, sir. It’s just that we have an alarm that goes off downstairs…did you just get up and go to the bathroom or something?”
“Yep” Jeez, Joe was about to bluff his way out of the situation without ever even having to lie to the guy. And here Willie was always acting like this charismatic stuff was hard.
“That explains it then. Sorry, we’re having some trouble with the cameras in this section tonight. I just had to come up and take a look.”
“Um…okay.”
“Alright, I’ll let the other guards know you’re up here. Take it easy.”
“Thanks,” Joe smiled and continued typing random things into the computer until the guard had gone down the hall. After that, he tucked the printouts into his pants and headed out the door and back to the bathroom.
. . .
One hour later, Joe was standing in a small lobby in a corner set off away from the main hallways, and connecting four small offices. He had just stumbled across this place while doing actual cleaning. Joe had almost vacuumed the floor of the entire lobby before he saw the names on the four doors.
The four vice-presidents. The four old inactive members of the library. The four oldest members of the Ward Numismatic Society. The names matched up to the offices. These were their offices.
Joe tugged his hat back out of his pocket and pulled in down low over his eyes. Next he pulled out his ring of keys and unlocked the first door. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.
The office inside was opulent, museum-like, and intimidating. Joe immediately felt a strong urge to leave, but he dismissed it and tip-toed into the room.
The furnishings were expensive and tasteful. A heavy cherry wood desk, bookshelves full of what appeared to be law books and expensive degrees. A couple of old oil paintings. Persian rug.
Better to be safe tonight, Joe decided. Get a couple of pictures, make a plan, and come back tomorrow night. He hurried back to his supply cart and fished out his backpack from underneath a bag of garbage. Rummaging around inside, Joe removed a disposable camera from the bag and hurried back into the office.
Again, a strong feeling of paranoia. This place was definitely not meant for prying eyes. The guards would be here any minute. Joe rapidly worked the room over, snapping pictures of the bookshelves, desk, walls, and floor. Finally satisfied, he grabbed the waste basket from under the desk and brought it back out to his cart. He dumped the trash papers into his backpack and sealed the whole thing up as quickly as possible.
A moment later, he was safely away, and more eager than ever to get back home.
Old Drew Id
First Post
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Eating, Flirting, Bleeding
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Eating, Flirting, Bleeding
Willie limped through the maze of cluttered lunchtime tables into the back of the Thai restaurant that had the unfortunate luck to be situated next door to Joe’s comic shop. He spotted his destination from across the room. Small table in the back, two fat white fellas on either side of it. Either by good luck, wisdom, or Joe’s peculiar body odor, they had managed to keep all of the nearby tables empty, allowing them a bit of privacy for their meeting.
“Wilson, glad to see you up and around again!” Brother Cooper boomed, with a smile on his face and two platters of sushi in front of him. Joe offered a similar greeting through a mouthful of peanut-butter steak.
Willie eased his body down into a chair, stretching his leg out and feeling something ominous pop in his foot, as it had been doing for the past two days. “Hey preacher… ‘sup Joe?”
Brother Cooper dove right in, “Have you heard back on the van yet?”
Willie nodded, and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a small notebook started flipping through disorganized entries. “The van is registered to…”
“Sir, can I get you something to drink?”
The waitress was perky, and clearly didn’t mind interrupting. She hovered over Willie like one of Joe’s unmarked helicopters, and seemed annoyingly eager to please.
“Yeah, baby, gimme a glass of rum, no ice.” Willie turned back to the table and kept flipping through his notebook.
“Rum and coke, coming up!”
“No, baby, wait…not rum and coke. Just rum. Tall glass. No ice.”
“Oh…okay…um, if you want to order a straight liquor, I can bring it in, like, shot glasses? But we have a limit of two per person?”
Willie took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, baby, I’ve been having a really rough week. Now how about you bring me six shots of rum, two for each of us here, okay?”
The waitress seemed to consider saying something else, but decided against it, and hovered away back to the kitchen.
“Wilson, I understand the events of this week have been hard for you, as they have certainly been a cross to bear for each of us. But perhaps alcohol is not---”
Joe interrupted, “Dude, I can not do rum shots in the middle of lunch. I would hurl all over this--”
Willie rubbed his temples and tried to massage the headache away. “Joe, the shots are all for me, not for you. And Preacher, I appreciate it, but I am just in the mood for a little rum this morning. I promise. Now can we please get back to the van?”
“Okay, so I’m not paying for the rum then, right?” Joe managed this last bit while stuffing an entire spring roll into his mouth.
Willie ignored the question and began to read from his notes. “Anyway…the van is registered to a local florist called Havana Flowers. It’s owned by a Ferdinand Garcia…who came over from Cuba two years ago with his sister…Van reported stolen two weeks ago.”
“Garcia?” Brother Cooper repeated, with a tone of concern in his voice. He shared a glance with Joe, who was already rooting around in his backpack. “That matches what we found…”
Joe pulled out two pieces of folded paper from his backpack, one a computer printout and the other handwritten on the letterhead, “From the Desk of Guyzell Cooper.” Both were now slightly smeared with wasabi and soy sauce.
The computer printout was a list of recent layoffs from South-Medical. The handwritten page was a list of volunteers from the St. James Mission for the Homeless. Judging from the markups on each page, Joe and Brother Cooper had cross-referenced the lists before Willie had arrived. There were only a couple of last name matches, and only one full name match. Isabel Garcia.
Willie thought out loud, “Her name’s on both lists…and she could likely be the sister of this van’s owner. Plus, if she is, she’s Cuban, which means she could have exposure to voodoo…”
. . .
Brother Cooper rolled the stack of chairs out of the storage room. Once he reached an open space, he began un-stacking chairs and arranging them around card tables in the Mission’s main room. This was sweaty work, but it was the Lord’s work, and that was a good thing. The mission manager was downstairs dealing with some unspecified task, leaving Guyzell alone upstairs with Wanda Miller.
Brother Cooper took a break for a moment, leaned back against the wall, removed his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. Ms. Miller came out of the kitchen at that same moment with a glass of lemonade.
“Here you go, Reverend. I saw you working so hard out here and I figured you could use this,” she smiled brightly.
“Well thank you Ms. Miller---”
“Oh, please, call me Wanda!”
“Oh, well, thank ya, Ms. Wanda, and please, call me Guyzell.”
“Oh, well, Guyzell, it’s just the least I could do for my favorite new volunteer! I just think it’s wonderful they way you come in and volunteer your time here at the Mission. Your wife must be very proud of you…”
“Oh, Ms. Wanda, I’m not married.”
“Really? I’m a single girl myself, Guyzell.”
“Say, Ms. Wanda, might I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” she answered, and stepped a little closer.
“Do you know a woman who works here named Isabel Garcia?”
Ms. Wanda stepped back a pace. “Huh?”
“Isabel Garcia? She’s a volunteer here.”
“Yeah, I know who she is.” Strangely, Ms. Wanda was not smiling anymore.
“Is she the one who bakes those brownies for the men?”
“I bake brownies sometimes. I’m a good cook!”
“Yes, I’m sure you are, but Ms. Garcia?”
Ms. Wanda must have suddenly thought of something that upset her because she seemed to close up a little. Guyzell often thought it was harder talking to women than it was to men, because they often seemed to react so unpredictably. Finally, she answered, “Yeah, she’s fine. She bakes brownies all the time for the men. They all love her. They call her Mama Garcia. Only I don’t think she’s very responsible if you ask me. She’s missed her last two scheduled times to come cook. I haven’t even seen her in a couple of weeks.”
With that outburst, Ms. Wanda stormed back into the kitchen. Whatever she had thought of had definitely made her angry. Brother Cooper offered a quick prayer that she would get through it okay.
Then he speed-dialed Wilson to fill him in on the latest information about Isabel “Mama” Garcia.
. . .
Joe wadded up the tissue and shoved into his left nostril. His fingers were nearly black with caked blood under the nails. He wiped them on his bathrobe as he shuffled to the kitchenette, still carrying the Necronomicon and reading as he walked.
Joe opened the fridge and pulled out the orange juice carton. The carton was a little light, and he made a mental note to buy more soon. With all the nosebleeds lately, he needed to keep a good stock of O.J. and sugar cookies around.
He walked with the carton of O.J. in one hand and the book in the other back to his desk, and sat down to continue reading. Annoyingly, his head was hurting again, and over the past hour, he had started seeing little black spots in the corners of his vision.
But it was worth it. Joe knew that. He had seen glimmers of another spell in the book. A spell he was piecing together, bit by bit, from the scattered insanity of the Necronomicon and the shredded remains of his Doc Strange collection.
Joe wasn’t exactly sure how it would work, or how powerful it would be, but he knew it was there, and he had already deciphered the title: “Healing Vishanti Touch.”
Session 3 (5/21/2003) Eating, Flirting, Bleeding
Willie limped through the maze of cluttered lunchtime tables into the back of the Thai restaurant that had the unfortunate luck to be situated next door to Joe’s comic shop. He spotted his destination from across the room. Small table in the back, two fat white fellas on either side of it. Either by good luck, wisdom, or Joe’s peculiar body odor, they had managed to keep all of the nearby tables empty, allowing them a bit of privacy for their meeting.
“Wilson, glad to see you up and around again!” Brother Cooper boomed, with a smile on his face and two platters of sushi in front of him. Joe offered a similar greeting through a mouthful of peanut-butter steak.
Willie eased his body down into a chair, stretching his leg out and feeling something ominous pop in his foot, as it had been doing for the past two days. “Hey preacher… ‘sup Joe?”
Brother Cooper dove right in, “Have you heard back on the van yet?”
Willie nodded, and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a small notebook started flipping through disorganized entries. “The van is registered to…”
“Sir, can I get you something to drink?”
The waitress was perky, and clearly didn’t mind interrupting. She hovered over Willie like one of Joe’s unmarked helicopters, and seemed annoyingly eager to please.
“Yeah, baby, gimme a glass of rum, no ice.” Willie turned back to the table and kept flipping through his notebook.
“Rum and coke, coming up!”
“No, baby, wait…not rum and coke. Just rum. Tall glass. No ice.”
“Oh…okay…um, if you want to order a straight liquor, I can bring it in, like, shot glasses? But we have a limit of two per person?”
Willie took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, baby, I’ve been having a really rough week. Now how about you bring me six shots of rum, two for each of us here, okay?”
The waitress seemed to consider saying something else, but decided against it, and hovered away back to the kitchen.
“Wilson, I understand the events of this week have been hard for you, as they have certainly been a cross to bear for each of us. But perhaps alcohol is not---”
Joe interrupted, “Dude, I can not do rum shots in the middle of lunch. I would hurl all over this--”
Willie rubbed his temples and tried to massage the headache away. “Joe, the shots are all for me, not for you. And Preacher, I appreciate it, but I am just in the mood for a little rum this morning. I promise. Now can we please get back to the van?”
“Okay, so I’m not paying for the rum then, right?” Joe managed this last bit while stuffing an entire spring roll into his mouth.
Willie ignored the question and began to read from his notes. “Anyway…the van is registered to a local florist called Havana Flowers. It’s owned by a Ferdinand Garcia…who came over from Cuba two years ago with his sister…Van reported stolen two weeks ago.”
“Garcia?” Brother Cooper repeated, with a tone of concern in his voice. He shared a glance with Joe, who was already rooting around in his backpack. “That matches what we found…”
Joe pulled out two pieces of folded paper from his backpack, one a computer printout and the other handwritten on the letterhead, “From the Desk of Guyzell Cooper.” Both were now slightly smeared with wasabi and soy sauce.
The computer printout was a list of recent layoffs from South-Medical. The handwritten page was a list of volunteers from the St. James Mission for the Homeless. Judging from the markups on each page, Joe and Brother Cooper had cross-referenced the lists before Willie had arrived. There were only a couple of last name matches, and only one full name match. Isabel Garcia.
Willie thought out loud, “Her name’s on both lists…and she could likely be the sister of this van’s owner. Plus, if she is, she’s Cuban, which means she could have exposure to voodoo…”
. . .
Brother Cooper rolled the stack of chairs out of the storage room. Once he reached an open space, he began un-stacking chairs and arranging them around card tables in the Mission’s main room. This was sweaty work, but it was the Lord’s work, and that was a good thing. The mission manager was downstairs dealing with some unspecified task, leaving Guyzell alone upstairs with Wanda Miller.
Brother Cooper took a break for a moment, leaned back against the wall, removed his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his brow. Ms. Miller came out of the kitchen at that same moment with a glass of lemonade.
“Here you go, Reverend. I saw you working so hard out here and I figured you could use this,” she smiled brightly.
“Well thank you Ms. Miller---”
“Oh, please, call me Wanda!”
“Oh, well, thank ya, Ms. Wanda, and please, call me Guyzell.”
“Oh, well, Guyzell, it’s just the least I could do for my favorite new volunteer! I just think it’s wonderful they way you come in and volunteer your time here at the Mission. Your wife must be very proud of you…”
“Oh, Ms. Wanda, I’m not married.”
“Really? I’m a single girl myself, Guyzell.”
“Say, Ms. Wanda, might I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” she answered, and stepped a little closer.
“Do you know a woman who works here named Isabel Garcia?”
Ms. Wanda stepped back a pace. “Huh?”
“Isabel Garcia? She’s a volunteer here.”
“Yeah, I know who she is.” Strangely, Ms. Wanda was not smiling anymore.
“Is she the one who bakes those brownies for the men?”
“I bake brownies sometimes. I’m a good cook!”
“Yes, I’m sure you are, but Ms. Garcia?”
Ms. Wanda must have suddenly thought of something that upset her because she seemed to close up a little. Guyzell often thought it was harder talking to women than it was to men, because they often seemed to react so unpredictably. Finally, she answered, “Yeah, she’s fine. She bakes brownies all the time for the men. They all love her. They call her Mama Garcia. Only I don’t think she’s very responsible if you ask me. She’s missed her last two scheduled times to come cook. I haven’t even seen her in a couple of weeks.”
With that outburst, Ms. Wanda stormed back into the kitchen. Whatever she had thought of had definitely made her angry. Brother Cooper offered a quick prayer that she would get through it okay.
Then he speed-dialed Wilson to fill him in on the latest information about Isabel “Mama” Garcia.
. . .
Joe wadded up the tissue and shoved into his left nostril. His fingers were nearly black with caked blood under the nails. He wiped them on his bathrobe as he shuffled to the kitchenette, still carrying the Necronomicon and reading as he walked.
Joe opened the fridge and pulled out the orange juice carton. The carton was a little light, and he made a mental note to buy more soon. With all the nosebleeds lately, he needed to keep a good stock of O.J. and sugar cookies around.
He walked with the carton of O.J. in one hand and the book in the other back to his desk, and sat down to continue reading. Annoyingly, his head was hurting again, and over the past hour, he had started seeing little black spots in the corners of his vision.
But it was worth it. Joe knew that. He had seen glimmers of another spell in the book. A spell he was piecing together, bit by bit, from the scattered insanity of the Necronomicon and the shredded remains of his Doc Strange collection.
Joe wasn’t exactly sure how it would work, or how powerful it would be, but he knew it was there, and he had already deciphered the title: “Healing Vishanti Touch.”