RangerWickett
Legend
Chapter Fifteen: The Whore of Babylon
The party mulls over the last words of Dalavar Kineil. Balthazarr, Iscalio, and the other knights Dalavar had telepathically dominated have left, giving the group time to heal and rest in an old plantation house on the outskirts of New Orleans that once served as a base for the Bureau.
In Neil’s last moments, he said that Tagin had already seen the ‘Son of Man’ and his Archangel. It was pretty obvious that in Dalavar’s deluded mind he had matched Legion with the Son of Man (the second coming of Jesus for the apocalypse), and they could pin Autumn as the ‘Whore of Babylon.’ Jenny points out that since Autumn is apparently working with Legion, Dalavar didn’t quite get everything to fit properly, since in Revelation, the Whore of Babylon is on the side of the Dragon of the Apocalypse.
Those are the two references the group can’t figure out right away. The ‘Dragon,’ and Legion’s ‘Archangel.’ They guess that the Dragon is some magical creature Legion is trying to find or kill, since so far Legion has been killing off Dragons, driving half-Elf telepaths insane, and trying to kill a Siren.
It all fits when they remember the fight with zombies in Bonaventure Cemetery, in Savannah. Neil had mentioned that they’d seen Legion and his Archangel at the gates of heaven, and moments before the zombie attack, Michael had pointed out a monument over the grave of one wealthy Savannah redsident. The sculpture was a huge marble arch meant to represent the gates of heaven, complete with a life-size St. Peter standing to usher people through.
In Revelation, the Dragon fights with the Archangel Michael, and forces the Dragon to the earth. Michael, the Archangel.
Cai asks, “What was the name of the ghost that was in the cemetery?”
Madeline answers, “Gerrard. He said he was lost.”
Cai nods. “How much do you want to bet that Gerrard is the name of the ghost who bonded to Michael?”
Finagle’s eyes widen. “It was in that same cemetery where we chased . . . what’s his name? Jericho. The man who killed the first two Dragons. Michael was there, and when he killed Jericho, he passed out. And after that he started acting funny. I . . . I saw him in the Bureau one day talking all secret-like with Autumn. And he started swearing at the Dragon.”
It clicks, and everyone sits silently for a moment, considering the implications. Legion possessed Michael somehow, and in the process forced out the ghost Michael had already bonded with.
“But,” Jenny points out, “Legion doesn’t have total control of Michael. He was surprised when we told him about Keira’s death. Legion’s working with Autumn, so if we can stop Legion, we can go back to the Bureau.”
Cai grumbles, not sure he would actually want to go back to the Bureau. Madeline and Finagle seem to agree with him. They want to stay as far away from Autumn and Legion as possible. Jenny nods in agreement, and they all look to Tagin for his opinion.
Tagin looks worried and starts to glance around nervously. He feels something tingling on the back of his neck, sending a brief shiver down his spine. And then a familiar but somehow hollow voice reaches his ears.
“We gotta take ‘er down, Tagin. Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I got your back.”
Tagin groans in dismay as the ghostly image of Brian Greenman appears in his vision, still dressed in the same ‘Die Orcs!’ shirt he was wearing when Autumn shut off his heart and killed him.
Everyone looks at Tagin in confusion, since no one else can see Brian’s ghost. When the ghost of Finagle’s uncle relays to Finagle that Brian has come back and is bonding with Finagle, the 16-year-old kid genius begins to jump for joy. His dear friend Brian is back, even he did decide to bond with Tagin.
Tagin asks Brian what he did to deserve this torture. Tagin found Brian fairly annoying in life, and he certainly doesn’t want a ghost of the guy following around forever now that he’s dead. Brian ignores the insults, too intent on getting revenge on the whore who killed him.
Brian describes his death, hoping to convince them that they need to kill Autumn in revenge.
He says: “It was awful. I was sitting there, trying to remember so I could tell you all what happened, and then suddenly I felt something go wrong in my chest. I concentrated, trying to force my heart to keep beating, y’know, making my saving throw and all that. But then I felt a blast hit my mind, and I knew I was seeing the last 3d4 rounds of my life.”
Brian also explains that it was his intervention that kept Dalavar from mind blasting Tagin just a while back. So he thinks he’s already proven that he can cover Tagin’s back.
Tagin fluctuates every minute or so between anger toward Brian and depression, but when the party begins to discuss their plans, he’s able to focus a little better. They all realize that somehow they have to prove to the Bureau that they weren’t responsible for killing the Dragons or the illithid J’Qwuan, and that means breaking the Chief out of Autumn’s grip somehow. Also, in a remarkable act of heroism, Tagin tells the rest of the group that they don’t have to come with him, but he is going to try to stop Legion.
He plans to find out where Legion will strike next, and Tagin will be there to stop him.
But before we get to the plan, let’s go over the characters again.
“Chuck” Tagin-Eve, 3rd/1st level rogue/sorcerer, bonded with the ghost of Brian Greenman (D&D player and fellow hacker). Tagin still refuses to reveal his real name. His most substantial ability is the +15 bonus he has to hacking. Until now, Tagin has always been a skulker, not noticed by anyone, and glad because of it. Now, however, he finds himself the center of attention.
Jenny Windgrave, 4th level paladin, bonded with the ghost of Pataman, her great, etc. grand-uncle from the Powhatan tribe of Indians in the 1630s. Jenny is unnerved at all this talk of apocalyptic events. Even though she doesn’t actually believe Dalavar’s insane ramblings, she won’t totally discount them. She is a devout Christian, and in the past few weeks has seen that ghosts and goblins are real, so she is willing to suspend her disbelief some more.
Madeline West, 4th level wild sorceress, bonded with Catherine, the ghost of a woman hung in the Salem, Massachusettes witch trials centuries ago. Madeline is sensitive to everyone’s worries, but she herself isn’t worrying too much. She’s always been interested in the occult, and is more concerned with getting killed than about Legion stopping a war. Unfortunately, Catherine is a bit sheepish. She was killed falsely for witchcraft, afterall, and so she doesn’t enjoy using magic now. Thus, every once in a while Madeline’s magic mishaps.
Finagle P. Luckshore, 4th level wizard (technomancer, he calls himself), bonded with the ghost of his uncle Cheston, an inventor. Finagle fell into a slump when his friend Brian was killed, but now that Brian is back, Finagle is good to go. Of course, now that his compressed air tranq rifle is broken, he’ll have to rely on magic for a change, instead of technology. (One of Jessie’s biggest complaints was that Finagle never seemed to want to act like a mage, so Jessie took initiative and left the guy no other choice.) Finagle also has a pet gargoyle named Herbie, who he had left behind in Balthazar’s room, since carrying around a gargoyle would attract attention, even in New Orleans.
Cai Maxwell, 4th level fighter, now the only member of the party not able to use magic. His over-developed sense of justice is battling with his sense of prudence as he tries to decide whether he wants to take the fight to Autumn and Legion. Cai is pretty sure that Legion is a demon, and so he plans to drag Jenny along just in case, since she’s the resident vessel of God (those come in handy when fighting demons).
And now that you know the party’s positions concerning the current events, here’s a quick rundown of the items the party finds in storage in the attic of the plantation house. Since it was once a knight outpost, there are still a few useful items. Of course, the most immediately useful item is Cai’s new katana. To clarify, his old sword was a hilt that when activated created a normal metal katana blade. This new weapon is an ivory-white lightblade, with magic runes that Finagle reads as “Wicked Wing.”
And now, back to the plan. After resting up and healing, they use the travel key to take a gate to Savannah. They first check out the cemetery to see if Michael might be there, but apparently Legion’s puppet Archangel is no longer worried with keeping up appearances.
Steeling themselves for disaster, they take the only course of action they have left: Sneaking into the Bureau. Despite almost everyone’s arguments against it, Tagin decides that going in alone, is his safest bet to avoid getting them all captured.
Everyone except for Tagin waits just outside the gate in Savannah, the gate to the Faerie World. The party keeps one key, and promises Tagin they won’t come in after him, and that if he doesn’t return within an hour, that they’ll use the key and hide. Tagin opens the gate, and takes a moment to adopt his disguise.
With a shimmer, Tagin’s appearance changes to that of Brian Greenman. No one in the party actually has any illusion spells, so the best Tagin’s able to pull off is to allow Brian to create a visual apparition of himself, to cloak Tagin’s appearance. They’re fairly certain that everyone would recognize any of them on sight as the fugitives, but they’re willing to risk that not everyone in the Bureau was familiar enough with Brian to recognize him as some obscure techie who got his brain fried a few days ago.
(Brian huffs at this, but Tagin warns him that unless he plays along, they’ll both die for good).
Tagin steps through the shining gate, and a moment later it snaps shut, dropping the parking lot of Oglethorpe dormitory into darkness.
Inside the Bureau, Tagin as Brian nods to the surprised but not violent guards who are stationed at the door to the gate room. He walks into the Bureau, navigating quickly to Brian’s old office. Tagin/Brian gets nervous whenever anyone walks by, but they only run into low-level desk-workers, and no actual knights. When they reach Brian’s office, the door is locked and covered with a variety of “Do Not Cross, Crime Scene” tape. Tagin picks the lock and they slip inside.
The room has been pillaged by knights who evidently were looking for leads to find Tagin and the others. Thankfully the computer isn’t broken, so Tagin is able to . . . after making sure Brian stops looking over his shoulder . . . is able to hack into the Bureau’s systems and find out where Autumn and Michael are supposed to be. Michael is on ‘special assignment’ out of the Bureau. Records confirm that the same day that Brian died, Autumn used the gate to go to Atlanta, where she forced Brian to poison Dornankanir and then fiddled with Cai’s memories, but she has not left the Bureau since. So Autumn is still nearby, but Michael is not. An attempt to hack into Michael’s computer fails, so Tagin does the next best thing and finds out where Michael’s room is.
They leave Brian’s room and travel across the compound, up an elevator and then a little ways further to Michael’s office. Tagin again picks the lock, then sneaks inside. Brian activates an Alarm spell to warn them if anyone comes near.
Tagin flips on the lights of Michael’s room, and is shocked at the surroundings. The wall is covered with tacked-up surveillance photos of normal-looking people, all labeled with Draconic names. The computer is still on, it’s screen open to a file database of Dragons. Tagin wonders why he couldn’t hack into the system, and then he sees that Michael had unplugged his computer’s ethernet cable.
Strewn across the desk are reams of papers listing names, statistics, and locations of hundreds of Dragons the Bureau keeps track of. At the top of the pile are five stacks of stapled pages that have been covered in harsh red pen marks. The names are too familiar. Giriuko. Flarinaman. Dornankanir. And the last two. . . . These are covered with the most writing, which actually makes it hard for Tagin to read the main print.
The two files read ‘Sexton,’ and ‘Sahkrekal.’ Tagin recognizes Sexton, the church Dragon in Atlanta who refused to admit that he actually was a Dragon. Sexton had kept rambling that no, he wasn’t a demon, wasn’t a dragon, not a demon, not a demon. As Tagin skims down the page, he sees that it’s an assessment of Sexton’s history and personality. There’s no history except that rumors place him in England as early as the 1600s. Nothing else of note, other than that he’s been at the same church for decades, and a psychological analysis done in 1982 states that Sexton is ‘entirely harmless, even in the most extreme cases of provocation.’
The red pen marks surrounding this last comment are viciously scribed, digging gouges into the paper. “Lies! Murdering demon! He’ll burn in hell.” Across the surveillance picture of Sexton’s face, the word “Sahkrekal” has again been penned.
Before reading over the other sheet, the one labeled Sahkrekal, Tagin skims through Michael’s computer, seeing that he’s collected the greatest information on wealthy Dragons involved in business, and primarily red Dragons, with a few Bronzes and Golds also thrown in, plus many Dragons listed as ‘unknown.’
Tagin closes the files on Dragons, but one file remains open, a document that catches his eye.
It starts off, “Let me tell you fools of this Knighthood about a small piece of history. About Sahkrekal, and the Legion who will destory him and all those like him. You’ll appreciate it, I’m sure, since it will put into perspective how your hopes and desyres to protect the demons of this world have failed. I shall put the pieces of the puzzle together for you, and perhaps you will be smart enough not to fight against me.”
Tagin is stunned. Apparently Legion left a note for the Bureau to find. Wanting to get out of there, Tagin copies the file onto a floppy and stands up.
Brian suddenly gasps, and Tagins turns to look at him. Even for a ghost, Brian looks pale.
“Oh my god. She’s coming. She’s . . . she’s on the other side of the door, listening to us.”
Tagin draws his guns, but as soon as he does he can hear the sound of high-heeled footsteps sprinting down the corridor. Tagin shoves the floppy and the files on Sexton and Sahkrekal into his pocket, then kicks the door open and fires a shot at Autumn as he gives chase. Since Tagin is moving so fast, Brian can’t stay close enough to hide Tagin’s appearance.
Tagin bursts into a run, and Brian casts light on Autumn, then conjures mist in the corridor, trying to foul Autumn up while still giving Tagin something to shoot at. Brian shouts for Tagin to take the woman down, but Tagin just keeps running after her.
Down a hallway, a curve, then out of the mists. A few dozen feet ahead, Autumn nears an elevator which suddenly opens to reveal three figures. Autumn runs into the elevator as the figures emerge. She shouts for them to stop the intruder while she gets reinforcements. As the doors slide shut, Autumn turns to smirk at Tagin.
Tagin skids to a stop, sizing up the opponents. An Orc, six feet tall, dressed in a loose black kung fu outfit. A Dwarf, dressed in a black suit, his beard decorated with rings and braids. And between them, its hands and feet chained together like a convict, stands a creature that looks like a surprisingly canny Sewer Demon (see Chapter Four), a reptillian humanoid with incredible strength.
The Dwarf groans. “Dammit. I’d hoped to be able to punch out early tonight.”
The Orc grins, cracking his knuckles and then dropping into a fighting stance. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t look like he’ll take too long.”
Brian whispers in Tagin’s ear that the knights are positively covered in magic. (See, the DM thought we’d all be going into the Bureau, so she worked up a nifty battle with two powerful knights. It’d be a shame to let the knights go to waste just because the party was foolish enough to send in only one guy.)
The Orc rushes forward as the Dwarf closes his eyes and hums a low chant. Tagin fires two shots at the Orc, but with blinding speed the Orcish monk whips out his hands and knocks the bullets aside, deflecting one, but getting grazed by the other. The Orc leaps upward in a flying kick, just as the Dwarf finishes his spell and drops the hallway into darkness (Orcs and Dwarves have Darkvision, and so they don’t mind).
Tagin gets a full kick to the face, and Brian begins to shout that the Dwarf’s got a gun! A big-ass Dirty Harry hand-cannon!
Tagin scrambles blindly through the darkness, waiting for the Orc to punch him. As soon as the Orc connects, Tagin guestimates where to fire and drives a bullet into the Orc’s arm. In the background he can hear Brian futilely yelling at the lizard man prisoner to help them.
The Dwarf shouts, “Get back,” and the Orc leaps away from Tagin. Tagin ducks in panic, and the wall behind him caves in with the impact of a powerful blast. Tagin continues to scramble desperately, and in the nick of time Brian casts a light cantrip to counter the darkness. Tagin gets pounded again by the Orc, dropping him to about 3 hit points, vs. an Orcish monk that’s hitting for d8+6 damage per hit.
Suddenly, the lizard man bounds to behind the Orc and snaps out with a bite, nipping the huge monk, but distracting him long enough for Tagin to get off a wonderful double-sneak-attack pistol blast into the Orc’s knees. The Orc falls to the ground in agony, and the lizard man tackles Tagin to the ground just in time to take a bullet for him. The Dwarf’s huge pistol hits the lizard man in his arm, but he grits his sharp teeth and takes the pain.
The lizard man thrusts out his chained-together wrists and feet and says, “Cut me loosssse.”
Tagin obliges, snapping the chains with a few rounds of gunfire. Free to use his hands and feet, the lizard man monk(!) pounces upon the Dwarf and waylays him in a few seconds.
An alarm begins to fill the air, alerting that one of the rogue knights is in the Bureau. Tagin runs to the elevator, shouting for the sewer demon monk to follow him. They pile into the elevator, and Tagin takes moment to override the Bureau’s electronic lockdown on the elevators. In a moment, the elevator is zooming to the floor that the gate is on.
Tagin takes a moment to rest, eyeing the pale-scaled, golden-eyed reptile that saved his life. When he asks how the lizard man knew to save him, the reptile replies that all his people—the Shan-toq, called ‘sewer demons’ by the knights—can sense magical auras, and he heard the ghost’s pleas for help. (If you recall, sewer demons have a particular affinity to magic, an ability to sense it, because they really like how magic tastes).
The Shan-toq monk introduces himself as Goghei, and says that he was brought in by the knights so they could experiment on him (it’s rare to find such an intelligent sewer demon). When Tagin asks if he’ll come with him, since they’re both trying to escape, Goghei replies, “Yesss.”
When the doors to the elevator open, they sprint through the hallway, heading toward the gate room. Whenever anyone gets too close, Tagin lays down suppressing fire, but he soon runs out of bullets. They reach the gate room without being caught, however, and Goghei leaps into the room, knocking down two guards with a flying spin kick/tail swipe. Tagin presses a (bulletless) gun against the temple of the last guard, demanding to know whether Autumn came through. The man shouts that she did, and without further ado, Tagin yells for Goghei and they leap through the gate, back to Savannah.
Tagin and Goghei (and Brian’s ghost) emerge right beside the rest of the party. Tagin closes the gate behind them, then shouts that they have to go now. Autumn’s getting away. Tagin reopens the gate, this time leading to Atlanta, and they all leap through.
(Good deductive reasoning on Tagin’s player’s part, realizing that Autumn must have been running to warn Legion. And Legion, of course, was in Atlanta, intending to kill Sexton.)
The gate in Atlanta opens nearby a Bureau garage. Goghei’s feels the presence of powerful magic inside the building, so the party rushes in, hoping to stop Autumn before she can get a car. They kick down the door and see Autumn kneeling over the body of an unconscious Bureau employee. As soon as she sees them, she breaks off from scanning the man’s thoughts and kicks into a run, sprinting into the parking-lot-like garage, filled with cars.
Jenny tries to get her new bow ready so she can shoot at Autumn, since, now that everyone’s used up all their bullets, she has the only real ranged weapon. Autumn slinks out of sight before Jenny can fire, and the party rushes after her, breaking up to search as much of the garage as possible, because Autumn must be hiding behind the various vehicles. A brief search follows, knights chasing glimpses of Autumn through aisles upon aisles of parked cars. As they hunt for her, they can hear her voice laughing gently into their minds, taunting them.
Goghei sniffs her out quickly and charges toward her, bounding over car hoods toward the fleeing telepath. Autumn mentally blasts the Shan-toq, knocking him off his feet for a moment. As the rest of the party rushes toward her, Autumn opens the large door out of the garage, revealing the midnight streets of Atlanta beyond.
Tagin helps Goghei to his feet while Cai and Jenny chase after Autumn, who can’t outrun them in her high heels and business attire. Madeline stops Finagle for a moment, pointing to the car nearest to the door of the garage. “Start this thing for me.”
As Jenny and Cai near Autumn, Cai holding Wicked Wing ready to strike, and Jenny keeping Autumn covered with Fethlefeira, Tagin and Goghei sprint out of the garage. Autumn stands nervously, half-surrounded by Cai, Jenny, Tagin, and Goghei.
Smirking, Autumn cocks her head sideways at Jenny, and suddenly the paladin turns and fires her arrow at Cai, striking him in the arm. Cai shouts in anger, then realizes that Autumn is dominating Jenny. He tries to charge at Autumn, but the telepath doesn’t rest for a moment as she mind blasts the poor man. Cai topples to the ground, stunned.
Goghei and Tagin rush out, and Goghei deflects the arrow Jenny fires at them. Tagin sprints away from Jenny toward Autumn, drawing his switchblade. The air ripples with Autumn’s mental power as first a blast of psionic energy snaps forward at Tagin, and then a stab at his brain causes his heart to flutter for a moment. Brian absorbs the brunt of the two attacks though, and Tagin leaps through, slashing at Autumn with his knife. The knife scitters across the woman’s vest, cutting the fabric, but not beneath, and Autumn just shakes her head.
An arrow flies in from behind, catching Tagin in the back of his knee, and as the hacker stumbles to the ground he sees both Jenny and Goghei advancing upon him with malicious intent. Autumn mocks him telepathically, then taunts him further by making Goghei suddenly pass out. The lizard man hits the concrete hard.
Finagle, previously invisible, leaps from behind Autumn and actually grapples with her, screaming uncontrollably about how she killed Brian. For a moment, Jenny regains her senses, and she tosses the bow so she won’t be tempted to use it if Autumn regains control. A moment later, though, Autumn fills Finagle’s nerves with pain, and the teenager begins to spasm in agony. She shoves Finagle to the ground telekinetically, then gestures for Jenny to attack Tagin again.
Jenny activates her spear and raises it to deliver a killing blow to Tagin.
But Autumn is too distracted to notice the inside of the garage. A car horn sounds from the garage, and headlight fills the dark streets as Madeline tries to ram a car into Autumn. Tagin leaps forward and knocks Jenny out of the way of the car, and Goghei instinctively tumbles out of the way. Madeline lines up perfectly with Autumn, succeeds a driving check, and steps on the . . .
Brake. She fails a Will save, and at the last moment swerves the car to stop it inches away from a cringing Autumn. As everyone scrambles off the ground, Autumn mind blasts them all, then opens the passenger door of the car.
“Thank you,” she says to Madeline, then gets in and slams the door shut. The car’s tires squeal, and it speeds off down the street, Madeline driving by Autumn’s dominating commands.
A few moments later, Jenny snaps free of the stunning attack, then Cai. Jenny heals Tagin and Finagle quickly, helping them to their feet. It takes a few rounds, but everyone gets up and piles into another car to try to give chase, with Finagle magically hotwiring this one just like he did with the last one.
As they speed down the road, they realize they have almost no idea which way Autumn has gone. Tagin knows she’s heading toward Sexton’s church, but they want to stop her before she gets there. Even Goghei can’t pinpoint her location accurately enough.
Cai pulls out his cel phone and grabs Finagle by his shirt. “Can you cast any spells over the phone?”
*ring* . . . *ring* . . . and before Autumn can stop her, Madeline acts as she normally would, and answers her cel phone. On the other end of the line, Finagle waits for Autumn’s command, “Hang up that phone,” hoping that Madeline won’t have the phone too close to her ears.
As Madeline moves puppet-like to turn off the cel phone, a piercing sonic whine shrieks through it, growing louder, shaking through the car and finally exploding in a torrent of noise. Madeline screams and slumps unconscious against the steering wheel, dropping the car into a spin which ends in it skidding to a stop in a hedgerow.
Goghei guides them, and in a few moments they come upon the crippled car. Autumn seems to have escaped with relatively little harm, and thanks to an airbag, Madeline is just confused and stunned, not seriously hurt. They know that Autumn on foot will take a while to reach the church, so they pull Madeline into the car, use their last healing potion on her, and speed through the streets of Atlanta, to a secluded old church that is home, supposedly, to a Dragon named Sahkrekal.
As the car speeds along, Tagin pops the floppy into Finagle’s laptop spellbook, opening up the file of Legion’s “manifesto.” He begins reading out its contents to the rest of the group, since it’s about a fifteen minute drive to where they want to be.
According to Legion, the Dragon Sahkrekal was a native of England over 350 years ago. Whoever Legion was, he met Sahkrekal, and the Dragon controlled him, eventually killing him after using him as a slave for years. But Legion survived as a ghost, and found a host body in which he could carry on his vengeance. However, his host was slain and his spirit was captured by another master, one who showed him how all magi need to be destroyed because they are a threat to Mankind. Decades passed, and he moved from body to body, inhabiting an entire legion of hosts in his quest to make Sahkrekal pay.
And when Legion finally confronted Sahkrekal, Legion’s full might was so powerful it drove the Dragon mad. Sahkrekal was in human form, and when his mind snapped he fled, insisting that he was not the demon Legion wanted to kill. Before Legion could finish the job, though, his host was killed, and he lost track of Sahkrekal. Now, centuries later, he was finally able to recognize Sahkrekal’s face as that of the ‘harmless’ Dragon Sexton. When Sahkrekal went mad, he crawled into the persona of Sexton, and has been too afraid to come out, for fear that Legion would find him.
And now, Legion has.
Madeline tries to convince them that they have enough information now. They can go back to the Bureau, and now that Autumn is gone, they can use the evidence to clear their names. But Finagle has personal reasons for wanting to put an end to this, and the thought of letting a murderer of Legion kill in the name of humanity is repugnant to Jenny. Tagin’s reasons are a bit more complex, but he won’t Legion win either. And Cai, as I said, has an over-developed sense of justice. Goghei just needs to hang around long enough for these knights to vouch for him, so the Bureau won’t try to dissect him.
After much worry and debate, they all agree to do whatever they can. Very late into the evening, the car pulls up to the grassy lot surrounding Sexton’s church. Over the distant drone of Atlanta’s nightlife, they can hear the lamentful calling of a lone gargoyle sitting watch atop the church, shouting that someone is already inside.
The party mulls over the last words of Dalavar Kineil. Balthazarr, Iscalio, and the other knights Dalavar had telepathically dominated have left, giving the group time to heal and rest in an old plantation house on the outskirts of New Orleans that once served as a base for the Bureau.
In Neil’s last moments, he said that Tagin had already seen the ‘Son of Man’ and his Archangel. It was pretty obvious that in Dalavar’s deluded mind he had matched Legion with the Son of Man (the second coming of Jesus for the apocalypse), and they could pin Autumn as the ‘Whore of Babylon.’ Jenny points out that since Autumn is apparently working with Legion, Dalavar didn’t quite get everything to fit properly, since in Revelation, the Whore of Babylon is on the side of the Dragon of the Apocalypse.
Those are the two references the group can’t figure out right away. The ‘Dragon,’ and Legion’s ‘Archangel.’ They guess that the Dragon is some magical creature Legion is trying to find or kill, since so far Legion has been killing off Dragons, driving half-Elf telepaths insane, and trying to kill a Siren.
It all fits when they remember the fight with zombies in Bonaventure Cemetery, in Savannah. Neil had mentioned that they’d seen Legion and his Archangel at the gates of heaven, and moments before the zombie attack, Michael had pointed out a monument over the grave of one wealthy Savannah redsident. The sculpture was a huge marble arch meant to represent the gates of heaven, complete with a life-size St. Peter standing to usher people through.
In Revelation, the Dragon fights with the Archangel Michael, and forces the Dragon to the earth. Michael, the Archangel.
Cai asks, “What was the name of the ghost that was in the cemetery?”
Madeline answers, “Gerrard. He said he was lost.”
Cai nods. “How much do you want to bet that Gerrard is the name of the ghost who bonded to Michael?”
Finagle’s eyes widen. “It was in that same cemetery where we chased . . . what’s his name? Jericho. The man who killed the first two Dragons. Michael was there, and when he killed Jericho, he passed out. And after that he started acting funny. I . . . I saw him in the Bureau one day talking all secret-like with Autumn. And he started swearing at the Dragon.”
It clicks, and everyone sits silently for a moment, considering the implications. Legion possessed Michael somehow, and in the process forced out the ghost Michael had already bonded with.
“But,” Jenny points out, “Legion doesn’t have total control of Michael. He was surprised when we told him about Keira’s death. Legion’s working with Autumn, so if we can stop Legion, we can go back to the Bureau.”
Cai grumbles, not sure he would actually want to go back to the Bureau. Madeline and Finagle seem to agree with him. They want to stay as far away from Autumn and Legion as possible. Jenny nods in agreement, and they all look to Tagin for his opinion.
Tagin looks worried and starts to glance around nervously. He feels something tingling on the back of his neck, sending a brief shiver down his spine. And then a familiar but somehow hollow voice reaches his ears.
“We gotta take ‘er down, Tagin. Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I got your back.”
Tagin groans in dismay as the ghostly image of Brian Greenman appears in his vision, still dressed in the same ‘Die Orcs!’ shirt he was wearing when Autumn shut off his heart and killed him.
Everyone looks at Tagin in confusion, since no one else can see Brian’s ghost. When the ghost of Finagle’s uncle relays to Finagle that Brian has come back and is bonding with Finagle, the 16-year-old kid genius begins to jump for joy. His dear friend Brian is back, even he did decide to bond with Tagin.
Tagin asks Brian what he did to deserve this torture. Tagin found Brian fairly annoying in life, and he certainly doesn’t want a ghost of the guy following around forever now that he’s dead. Brian ignores the insults, too intent on getting revenge on the whore who killed him.
Brian describes his death, hoping to convince them that they need to kill Autumn in revenge.
He says: “It was awful. I was sitting there, trying to remember so I could tell you all what happened, and then suddenly I felt something go wrong in my chest. I concentrated, trying to force my heart to keep beating, y’know, making my saving throw and all that. But then I felt a blast hit my mind, and I knew I was seeing the last 3d4 rounds of my life.”
Brian also explains that it was his intervention that kept Dalavar from mind blasting Tagin just a while back. So he thinks he’s already proven that he can cover Tagin’s back.
Tagin fluctuates every minute or so between anger toward Brian and depression, but when the party begins to discuss their plans, he’s able to focus a little better. They all realize that somehow they have to prove to the Bureau that they weren’t responsible for killing the Dragons or the illithid J’Qwuan, and that means breaking the Chief out of Autumn’s grip somehow. Also, in a remarkable act of heroism, Tagin tells the rest of the group that they don’t have to come with him, but he is going to try to stop Legion.
He plans to find out where Legion will strike next, and Tagin will be there to stop him.
But before we get to the plan, let’s go over the characters again.
“Chuck” Tagin-Eve, 3rd/1st level rogue/sorcerer, bonded with the ghost of Brian Greenman (D&D player and fellow hacker). Tagin still refuses to reveal his real name. His most substantial ability is the +15 bonus he has to hacking. Until now, Tagin has always been a skulker, not noticed by anyone, and glad because of it. Now, however, he finds himself the center of attention.
Jenny Windgrave, 4th level paladin, bonded with the ghost of Pataman, her great, etc. grand-uncle from the Powhatan tribe of Indians in the 1630s. Jenny is unnerved at all this talk of apocalyptic events. Even though she doesn’t actually believe Dalavar’s insane ramblings, she won’t totally discount them. She is a devout Christian, and in the past few weeks has seen that ghosts and goblins are real, so she is willing to suspend her disbelief some more.
Madeline West, 4th level wild sorceress, bonded with Catherine, the ghost of a woman hung in the Salem, Massachusettes witch trials centuries ago. Madeline is sensitive to everyone’s worries, but she herself isn’t worrying too much. She’s always been interested in the occult, and is more concerned with getting killed than about Legion stopping a war. Unfortunately, Catherine is a bit sheepish. She was killed falsely for witchcraft, afterall, and so she doesn’t enjoy using magic now. Thus, every once in a while Madeline’s magic mishaps.
Finagle P. Luckshore, 4th level wizard (technomancer, he calls himself), bonded with the ghost of his uncle Cheston, an inventor. Finagle fell into a slump when his friend Brian was killed, but now that Brian is back, Finagle is good to go. Of course, now that his compressed air tranq rifle is broken, he’ll have to rely on magic for a change, instead of technology. (One of Jessie’s biggest complaints was that Finagle never seemed to want to act like a mage, so Jessie took initiative and left the guy no other choice.) Finagle also has a pet gargoyle named Herbie, who he had left behind in Balthazar’s room, since carrying around a gargoyle would attract attention, even in New Orleans.
Cai Maxwell, 4th level fighter, now the only member of the party not able to use magic. His over-developed sense of justice is battling with his sense of prudence as he tries to decide whether he wants to take the fight to Autumn and Legion. Cai is pretty sure that Legion is a demon, and so he plans to drag Jenny along just in case, since she’s the resident vessel of God (those come in handy when fighting demons).
And now that you know the party’s positions concerning the current events, here’s a quick rundown of the items the party finds in storage in the attic of the plantation house. Since it was once a knight outpost, there are still a few useful items. Of course, the most immediately useful item is Cai’s new katana. To clarify, his old sword was a hilt that when activated created a normal metal katana blade. This new weapon is an ivory-white lightblade, with magic runes that Finagle reads as “Wicked Wing.”
- Wicked Wing: A light sword; obsidian hilt with long, ivory-looking blade. Its light blade emerges as a katana, and if the wielder is unwounded, he can hurl a blast of energy out to a range of thirty feet. It sweeps out a 60-degree arc, like a trail of feathers from a long wing, reaching out to a range of twenty feet. It deals 2d10 damage to anything in the path of the arc (Ref DC 14 for half damage). Additionally, the wielder can Fly, as per the spell, for a total of 10 rounds per day. Cai takes this.
- Ammunition: Two dozen +1 hand-crossbow bolts. Several react funny to wild magic, so roll a d6 whenever fired by Madeline’s wrist crossbow:
1-Random small animal flies out instead of the crossbow bolt. On a successful hit it clings and deals 1d2 damage per round until the target spends a round picking it off.
2-No effect, attack is an illusion.
3-Normal damage
4-Deals +1d6 damage (roll 1d10: 1-2, fire; 3-4 acid; 5-6 sonic; 7-8, lightning, 9-10, cold)
5-Roll on the minor surge table
6-Double damage
- Spectacles of Truth: Bulky, thick, black-rimmed glasses that grant the wearer True Seeing once per day, cast at 12th level. Finagle takes these.
- Marksman's Gloves: Empower the wearer to grant proficiency in any ranged weapon. If she already has proficiency with a particular type of ranged weapon, she gains a +2 competence bonus to attack and a +1 competence bonus to damage with that weapon. Tagin refuses them, so Jenny takes them.
- Overcoat of Armor: Provides +6 armor bonus to AC. Additionally, it grants the wearer damage reduction 5/+1. It's a gray trenchcoat, heavy and large, built for a large man, looking circa the thirties or forties. Cai.
- Fethlefeira: Long, slender, polished wood; elven carvings; it is effectively a +1 Holy Shortbow, dealing to evil creatures an additional +2d6 damage. Against undead, once per day it can fire a Turning Bolt. An undead struck by this arrow is affected as though the bow wielder had tried to turn it, but at 4 levels higher. Roll normally for turning, but it only affects the one creature struck. Sadly, everyone made fun of this bow’s name, so Jenny took it, feeling a special kinship with the item.
- Gauntlet of Shielding: A black leather glove, left-handed. It hold 4 charges. Once per round, the wearer can expend a charge to create a brief force shield. For the next round, the wearer is affected as by the shield spell, gaining +7 cover bonus to AC, immunity to magic missiles, and a +4 cover bonus to reflex saves. This applies to attacks from one half of the wearer, chosen when the shield is created. Charges refilled if gauntlet smeared with magi blood. Madeline took this for self defense.
- Travel Keys: 2 Keys, green. Goes between any two doors, through the faerie world instead of to the Bureau.
- Earrings of Wallspeak: Wearer gains Clairaudience, 3/day, as the spell. Madeline was the only one who wore earrings.
- 7 Potions of Cure Moderate Wounds (2d8+5): Used immediately to heal the party.
And now, back to the plan. After resting up and healing, they use the travel key to take a gate to Savannah. They first check out the cemetery to see if Michael might be there, but apparently Legion’s puppet Archangel is no longer worried with keeping up appearances.
Steeling themselves for disaster, they take the only course of action they have left: Sneaking into the Bureau. Despite almost everyone’s arguments against it, Tagin decides that going in alone, is his safest bet to avoid getting them all captured.
Everyone except for Tagin waits just outside the gate in Savannah, the gate to the Faerie World. The party keeps one key, and promises Tagin they won’t come in after him, and that if he doesn’t return within an hour, that they’ll use the key and hide. Tagin opens the gate, and takes a moment to adopt his disguise.
With a shimmer, Tagin’s appearance changes to that of Brian Greenman. No one in the party actually has any illusion spells, so the best Tagin’s able to pull off is to allow Brian to create a visual apparition of himself, to cloak Tagin’s appearance. They’re fairly certain that everyone would recognize any of them on sight as the fugitives, but they’re willing to risk that not everyone in the Bureau was familiar enough with Brian to recognize him as some obscure techie who got his brain fried a few days ago.
(Brian huffs at this, but Tagin warns him that unless he plays along, they’ll both die for good).
Tagin steps through the shining gate, and a moment later it snaps shut, dropping the parking lot of Oglethorpe dormitory into darkness.
Inside the Bureau, Tagin as Brian nods to the surprised but not violent guards who are stationed at the door to the gate room. He walks into the Bureau, navigating quickly to Brian’s old office. Tagin/Brian gets nervous whenever anyone walks by, but they only run into low-level desk-workers, and no actual knights. When they reach Brian’s office, the door is locked and covered with a variety of “Do Not Cross, Crime Scene” tape. Tagin picks the lock and they slip inside.
The room has been pillaged by knights who evidently were looking for leads to find Tagin and the others. Thankfully the computer isn’t broken, so Tagin is able to . . . after making sure Brian stops looking over his shoulder . . . is able to hack into the Bureau’s systems and find out where Autumn and Michael are supposed to be. Michael is on ‘special assignment’ out of the Bureau. Records confirm that the same day that Brian died, Autumn used the gate to go to Atlanta, where she forced Brian to poison Dornankanir and then fiddled with Cai’s memories, but she has not left the Bureau since. So Autumn is still nearby, but Michael is not. An attempt to hack into Michael’s computer fails, so Tagin does the next best thing and finds out where Michael’s room is.
They leave Brian’s room and travel across the compound, up an elevator and then a little ways further to Michael’s office. Tagin again picks the lock, then sneaks inside. Brian activates an Alarm spell to warn them if anyone comes near.
Tagin flips on the lights of Michael’s room, and is shocked at the surroundings. The wall is covered with tacked-up surveillance photos of normal-looking people, all labeled with Draconic names. The computer is still on, it’s screen open to a file database of Dragons. Tagin wonders why he couldn’t hack into the system, and then he sees that Michael had unplugged his computer’s ethernet cable.
Strewn across the desk are reams of papers listing names, statistics, and locations of hundreds of Dragons the Bureau keeps track of. At the top of the pile are five stacks of stapled pages that have been covered in harsh red pen marks. The names are too familiar. Giriuko. Flarinaman. Dornankanir. And the last two. . . . These are covered with the most writing, which actually makes it hard for Tagin to read the main print.
The two files read ‘Sexton,’ and ‘Sahkrekal.’ Tagin recognizes Sexton, the church Dragon in Atlanta who refused to admit that he actually was a Dragon. Sexton had kept rambling that no, he wasn’t a demon, wasn’t a dragon, not a demon, not a demon. As Tagin skims down the page, he sees that it’s an assessment of Sexton’s history and personality. There’s no history except that rumors place him in England as early as the 1600s. Nothing else of note, other than that he’s been at the same church for decades, and a psychological analysis done in 1982 states that Sexton is ‘entirely harmless, even in the most extreme cases of provocation.’
The red pen marks surrounding this last comment are viciously scribed, digging gouges into the paper. “Lies! Murdering demon! He’ll burn in hell.” Across the surveillance picture of Sexton’s face, the word “Sahkrekal” has again been penned.
Before reading over the other sheet, the one labeled Sahkrekal, Tagin skims through Michael’s computer, seeing that he’s collected the greatest information on wealthy Dragons involved in business, and primarily red Dragons, with a few Bronzes and Golds also thrown in, plus many Dragons listed as ‘unknown.’
Tagin closes the files on Dragons, but one file remains open, a document that catches his eye.
It starts off, “Let me tell you fools of this Knighthood about a small piece of history. About Sahkrekal, and the Legion who will destory him and all those like him. You’ll appreciate it, I’m sure, since it will put into perspective how your hopes and desyres to protect the demons of this world have failed. I shall put the pieces of the puzzle together for you, and perhaps you will be smart enough not to fight against me.”
Tagin is stunned. Apparently Legion left a note for the Bureau to find. Wanting to get out of there, Tagin copies the file onto a floppy and stands up.
Brian suddenly gasps, and Tagins turns to look at him. Even for a ghost, Brian looks pale.
“Oh my god. She’s coming. She’s . . . she’s on the other side of the door, listening to us.”
Tagin draws his guns, but as soon as he does he can hear the sound of high-heeled footsteps sprinting down the corridor. Tagin shoves the floppy and the files on Sexton and Sahkrekal into his pocket, then kicks the door open and fires a shot at Autumn as he gives chase. Since Tagin is moving so fast, Brian can’t stay close enough to hide Tagin’s appearance.
Tagin bursts into a run, and Brian casts light on Autumn, then conjures mist in the corridor, trying to foul Autumn up while still giving Tagin something to shoot at. Brian shouts for Tagin to take the woman down, but Tagin just keeps running after her.
Down a hallway, a curve, then out of the mists. A few dozen feet ahead, Autumn nears an elevator which suddenly opens to reveal three figures. Autumn runs into the elevator as the figures emerge. She shouts for them to stop the intruder while she gets reinforcements. As the doors slide shut, Autumn turns to smirk at Tagin.
Tagin skids to a stop, sizing up the opponents. An Orc, six feet tall, dressed in a loose black kung fu outfit. A Dwarf, dressed in a black suit, his beard decorated with rings and braids. And between them, its hands and feet chained together like a convict, stands a creature that looks like a surprisingly canny Sewer Demon (see Chapter Four), a reptillian humanoid with incredible strength.
The Dwarf groans. “Dammit. I’d hoped to be able to punch out early tonight.”
The Orc grins, cracking his knuckles and then dropping into a fighting stance. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t look like he’ll take too long.”
Brian whispers in Tagin’s ear that the knights are positively covered in magic. (See, the DM thought we’d all be going into the Bureau, so she worked up a nifty battle with two powerful knights. It’d be a shame to let the knights go to waste just because the party was foolish enough to send in only one guy.)
The Orc rushes forward as the Dwarf closes his eyes and hums a low chant. Tagin fires two shots at the Orc, but with blinding speed the Orcish monk whips out his hands and knocks the bullets aside, deflecting one, but getting grazed by the other. The Orc leaps upward in a flying kick, just as the Dwarf finishes his spell and drops the hallway into darkness (Orcs and Dwarves have Darkvision, and so they don’t mind).
Tagin gets a full kick to the face, and Brian begins to shout that the Dwarf’s got a gun! A big-ass Dirty Harry hand-cannon!
Tagin scrambles blindly through the darkness, waiting for the Orc to punch him. As soon as the Orc connects, Tagin guestimates where to fire and drives a bullet into the Orc’s arm. In the background he can hear Brian futilely yelling at the lizard man prisoner to help them.
The Dwarf shouts, “Get back,” and the Orc leaps away from Tagin. Tagin ducks in panic, and the wall behind him caves in with the impact of a powerful blast. Tagin continues to scramble desperately, and in the nick of time Brian casts a light cantrip to counter the darkness. Tagin gets pounded again by the Orc, dropping him to about 3 hit points, vs. an Orcish monk that’s hitting for d8+6 damage per hit.
Suddenly, the lizard man bounds to behind the Orc and snaps out with a bite, nipping the huge monk, but distracting him long enough for Tagin to get off a wonderful double-sneak-attack pistol blast into the Orc’s knees. The Orc falls to the ground in agony, and the lizard man tackles Tagin to the ground just in time to take a bullet for him. The Dwarf’s huge pistol hits the lizard man in his arm, but he grits his sharp teeth and takes the pain.
The lizard man thrusts out his chained-together wrists and feet and says, “Cut me loosssse.”
Tagin obliges, snapping the chains with a few rounds of gunfire. Free to use his hands and feet, the lizard man monk(!) pounces upon the Dwarf and waylays him in a few seconds.
An alarm begins to fill the air, alerting that one of the rogue knights is in the Bureau. Tagin runs to the elevator, shouting for the sewer demon monk to follow him. They pile into the elevator, and Tagin takes moment to override the Bureau’s electronic lockdown on the elevators. In a moment, the elevator is zooming to the floor that the gate is on.
Tagin takes a moment to rest, eyeing the pale-scaled, golden-eyed reptile that saved his life. When he asks how the lizard man knew to save him, the reptile replies that all his people—the Shan-toq, called ‘sewer demons’ by the knights—can sense magical auras, and he heard the ghost’s pleas for help. (If you recall, sewer demons have a particular affinity to magic, an ability to sense it, because they really like how magic tastes).
The Shan-toq monk introduces himself as Goghei, and says that he was brought in by the knights so they could experiment on him (it’s rare to find such an intelligent sewer demon). When Tagin asks if he’ll come with him, since they’re both trying to escape, Goghei replies, “Yesss.”
When the doors to the elevator open, they sprint through the hallway, heading toward the gate room. Whenever anyone gets too close, Tagin lays down suppressing fire, but he soon runs out of bullets. They reach the gate room without being caught, however, and Goghei leaps into the room, knocking down two guards with a flying spin kick/tail swipe. Tagin presses a (bulletless) gun against the temple of the last guard, demanding to know whether Autumn came through. The man shouts that she did, and without further ado, Tagin yells for Goghei and they leap through the gate, back to Savannah.
Tagin and Goghei (and Brian’s ghost) emerge right beside the rest of the party. Tagin closes the gate behind them, then shouts that they have to go now. Autumn’s getting away. Tagin reopens the gate, this time leading to Atlanta, and they all leap through.
(Good deductive reasoning on Tagin’s player’s part, realizing that Autumn must have been running to warn Legion. And Legion, of course, was in Atlanta, intending to kill Sexton.)
The gate in Atlanta opens nearby a Bureau garage. Goghei’s feels the presence of powerful magic inside the building, so the party rushes in, hoping to stop Autumn before she can get a car. They kick down the door and see Autumn kneeling over the body of an unconscious Bureau employee. As soon as she sees them, she breaks off from scanning the man’s thoughts and kicks into a run, sprinting into the parking-lot-like garage, filled with cars.
Jenny tries to get her new bow ready so she can shoot at Autumn, since, now that everyone’s used up all their bullets, she has the only real ranged weapon. Autumn slinks out of sight before Jenny can fire, and the party rushes after her, breaking up to search as much of the garage as possible, because Autumn must be hiding behind the various vehicles. A brief search follows, knights chasing glimpses of Autumn through aisles upon aisles of parked cars. As they hunt for her, they can hear her voice laughing gently into their minds, taunting them.
Goghei sniffs her out quickly and charges toward her, bounding over car hoods toward the fleeing telepath. Autumn mentally blasts the Shan-toq, knocking him off his feet for a moment. As the rest of the party rushes toward her, Autumn opens the large door out of the garage, revealing the midnight streets of Atlanta beyond.
Tagin helps Goghei to his feet while Cai and Jenny chase after Autumn, who can’t outrun them in her high heels and business attire. Madeline stops Finagle for a moment, pointing to the car nearest to the door of the garage. “Start this thing for me.”
As Jenny and Cai near Autumn, Cai holding Wicked Wing ready to strike, and Jenny keeping Autumn covered with Fethlefeira, Tagin and Goghei sprint out of the garage. Autumn stands nervously, half-surrounded by Cai, Jenny, Tagin, and Goghei.
Smirking, Autumn cocks her head sideways at Jenny, and suddenly the paladin turns and fires her arrow at Cai, striking him in the arm. Cai shouts in anger, then realizes that Autumn is dominating Jenny. He tries to charge at Autumn, but the telepath doesn’t rest for a moment as she mind blasts the poor man. Cai topples to the ground, stunned.
Goghei and Tagin rush out, and Goghei deflects the arrow Jenny fires at them. Tagin sprints away from Jenny toward Autumn, drawing his switchblade. The air ripples with Autumn’s mental power as first a blast of psionic energy snaps forward at Tagin, and then a stab at his brain causes his heart to flutter for a moment. Brian absorbs the brunt of the two attacks though, and Tagin leaps through, slashing at Autumn with his knife. The knife scitters across the woman’s vest, cutting the fabric, but not beneath, and Autumn just shakes her head.
An arrow flies in from behind, catching Tagin in the back of his knee, and as the hacker stumbles to the ground he sees both Jenny and Goghei advancing upon him with malicious intent. Autumn mocks him telepathically, then taunts him further by making Goghei suddenly pass out. The lizard man hits the concrete hard.
Finagle, previously invisible, leaps from behind Autumn and actually grapples with her, screaming uncontrollably about how she killed Brian. For a moment, Jenny regains her senses, and she tosses the bow so she won’t be tempted to use it if Autumn regains control. A moment later, though, Autumn fills Finagle’s nerves with pain, and the teenager begins to spasm in agony. She shoves Finagle to the ground telekinetically, then gestures for Jenny to attack Tagin again.
Jenny activates her spear and raises it to deliver a killing blow to Tagin.
But Autumn is too distracted to notice the inside of the garage. A car horn sounds from the garage, and headlight fills the dark streets as Madeline tries to ram a car into Autumn. Tagin leaps forward and knocks Jenny out of the way of the car, and Goghei instinctively tumbles out of the way. Madeline lines up perfectly with Autumn, succeeds a driving check, and steps on the . . .
Brake. She fails a Will save, and at the last moment swerves the car to stop it inches away from a cringing Autumn. As everyone scrambles off the ground, Autumn mind blasts them all, then opens the passenger door of the car.
“Thank you,” she says to Madeline, then gets in and slams the door shut. The car’s tires squeal, and it speeds off down the street, Madeline driving by Autumn’s dominating commands.
A few moments later, Jenny snaps free of the stunning attack, then Cai. Jenny heals Tagin and Finagle quickly, helping them to their feet. It takes a few rounds, but everyone gets up and piles into another car to try to give chase, with Finagle magically hotwiring this one just like he did with the last one.
As they speed down the road, they realize they have almost no idea which way Autumn has gone. Tagin knows she’s heading toward Sexton’s church, but they want to stop her before she gets there. Even Goghei can’t pinpoint her location accurately enough.
Cai pulls out his cel phone and grabs Finagle by his shirt. “Can you cast any spells over the phone?”
*ring* . . . *ring* . . . and before Autumn can stop her, Madeline acts as she normally would, and answers her cel phone. On the other end of the line, Finagle waits for Autumn’s command, “Hang up that phone,” hoping that Madeline won’t have the phone too close to her ears.
As Madeline moves puppet-like to turn off the cel phone, a piercing sonic whine shrieks through it, growing louder, shaking through the car and finally exploding in a torrent of noise. Madeline screams and slumps unconscious against the steering wheel, dropping the car into a spin which ends in it skidding to a stop in a hedgerow.
Goghei guides them, and in a few moments they come upon the crippled car. Autumn seems to have escaped with relatively little harm, and thanks to an airbag, Madeline is just confused and stunned, not seriously hurt. They know that Autumn on foot will take a while to reach the church, so they pull Madeline into the car, use their last healing potion on her, and speed through the streets of Atlanta, to a secluded old church that is home, supposedly, to a Dragon named Sahkrekal.
As the car speeds along, Tagin pops the floppy into Finagle’s laptop spellbook, opening up the file of Legion’s “manifesto.” He begins reading out its contents to the rest of the group, since it’s about a fifteen minute drive to where they want to be.
According to Legion, the Dragon Sahkrekal was a native of England over 350 years ago. Whoever Legion was, he met Sahkrekal, and the Dragon controlled him, eventually killing him after using him as a slave for years. But Legion survived as a ghost, and found a host body in which he could carry on his vengeance. However, his host was slain and his spirit was captured by another master, one who showed him how all magi need to be destroyed because they are a threat to Mankind. Decades passed, and he moved from body to body, inhabiting an entire legion of hosts in his quest to make Sahkrekal pay.
And when Legion finally confronted Sahkrekal, Legion’s full might was so powerful it drove the Dragon mad. Sahkrekal was in human form, and when his mind snapped he fled, insisting that he was not the demon Legion wanted to kill. Before Legion could finish the job, though, his host was killed, and he lost track of Sahkrekal. Now, centuries later, he was finally able to recognize Sahkrekal’s face as that of the ‘harmless’ Dragon Sexton. When Sahkrekal went mad, he crawled into the persona of Sexton, and has been too afraid to come out, for fear that Legion would find him.
And now, Legion has.
Madeline tries to convince them that they have enough information now. They can go back to the Bureau, and now that Autumn is gone, they can use the evidence to clear their names. But Finagle has personal reasons for wanting to put an end to this, and the thought of letting a murderer of Legion kill in the name of humanity is repugnant to Jenny. Tagin’s reasons are a bit more complex, but he won’t Legion win either. And Cai, as I said, has an over-developed sense of justice. Goghei just needs to hang around long enough for these knights to vouch for him, so the Bureau won’t try to dissect him.
After much worry and debate, they all agree to do whatever they can. Very late into the evening, the car pulls up to the grassy lot surrounding Sexton’s church. Over the distant drone of Atlanta’s nightlife, they can hear the lamentful calling of a lone gargoyle sitting watch atop the church, shouting that someone is already inside.
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