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Session Four: The Murder of Wesley Watkins

Page history last edited by Shieldhaven 12 years, 10 months ago

The next morning (Tuesday, May 17th), Patrick calls up Jeremy Watkins to ask him a few questions about the missing Wesley Watkins, his nephew. He finds out that Wesley left his office and never made it home, and the police are not getting involved as quickly as Jeremy would like.

 

The rest of the group meets up at Patrick's penthouse to discuss their next move and replenish Mana from the Hallow's store of tass. After some initial evasiveness, Patrick explains that Wesley Watkins had gone missing, and had been missing for more than 48 hours, but the police weren't getting involved. Though some of the group preferred to let the cops handle it, or just wait and see if Wesley showed up again on his own, they agree to come along to investigate Wesley's route from the office to his home. In private, Danny makes a phone call to Bobby Murphy to see if he knows anything about this case; Bobby pulls up a reference to an old and long-since-paid gambling debt.

 

At the Holyrood Poultry office building, the mages use various sensing spells. Sequela's Grim Sight noted a strong resonance of death, as if a mass murderer or vampire passed through the front door daily. Surya's Prime Sight shows him that while no magic was active in the area, the trail that Sequela was seeing also had a connection with the Abyss. Following this trail into the building, they observed that it covered the lobby and the Holyrood offices on the 16th floor. Danny and Patrick talk to the receptionist, who initially gives them no information, but the subtle mention of investment paperwork and mob connections quickly changes her tune. They search his office thoroughly, but find little of interest - no sign of violence, though a note on his calendar indicates that he had plans to meet someone for coffee on Sunday - an appointment he almost certainly missed.

 

Leaving the Holyrood office on the 16th floor, they ride up and down in the elevator for a bit, checking out the trail on the other floors. The resonance extends from the 11th floor to the 18th (noting that there is no 13th floor). They discuss the implications of this at length, imagining a vampire janitor. Sequela talks to one of the security guards, who in turn takes her to talk to the building superintendent. Sequela is only vaguely bending the truth when she describes herself as an associate of a powerful businessman who has questions about the building, though she casually deflects the superintendent's questions in return. Though she remains confused and reluctant, the superintendent gives Sequela the name Annie Crowther, the cleaning lady who handles floors 11 through 18, and agrees to let Sequela interview her during her shift at some point. The group realizes that Annie cannot possibly be a vampire when they hear that her shift starts at 7 p.m., which is well before dusk at this time of year.

 

They leave the office building, finally tracing Wesley's route home to his apartment - a walk of about fifteen minutes through the Financial District. They find no outstanding clues along the way, and no sign of unusual resonance. At Wesley's apartment, Surya easily opens the lock, and they begin searching the place. Saint casts an Augury, asking whether Wesley would ever return to this apartment alive; the answer comes back as a definite negative. Based on the condition of the food in his refrigerator and the emptiness of the cat's food and water (but the cat's otherwise good health) leads them to conclude that Wesley has been gone between two and five days, which is certainly in keeping with the known timeline. They feed the cat, eventually deciding to take it along with them, and Surya takes a backpack full of Wesley's clothes. Saint uses Postcognition to see the last few minutes of Wesley's time in the apartment: it is morning, and he is preparing for work. They leave his apartment and return to the office building, arriving around 6:30.

 

Following the trail of death and Abyssal resonance outside of the building, it leads to a bus stop, where Surya and Saint wait unobtrusively. Sequela, Volchik, and Tommy wait in the lobby; Volchik has Wesley's cat wrapped up in his coat. When the bus arrives, Surya picks Annie out of the crowd with his Prime Sight, and the two men follow her into the building, though the security guard stops Surya in his tracks. Surya admits that he has no legitimate business in the building, and waits outside, still carrying a bag of cat food. Annie is a heavyset woman with stringy hair, clearly one of Boston's working poor, and she walks with her head down. Once she reports in to work, Annie gets her cart of cleaning supplies and comes out to speak with Sequela, still keeping her eyes downcast and mumbling her answers. She agrees to let Sequela, Tommy, and Volchik follow her in her rounds. They leave the cat in Saint's keeping, Volchik having calmed it with a spell.

 

In the service elevator, Sequela asks Annie a series of questions, and both Sequela and Volchik try to win her confidence. Annie proves to be unexpectedly strong-willed, however, and is almost completely unmoved. Once they reach the 11th floor, the elevator doors open, Annie and the three mages step out, and for the first time she looks up and speaks clearly. "You're going to regret asking all these questions," she says, and then she pounces on Tommy, snapping at him with razor-sharp, shark-like teeth. Tommy's mystic armor of Life and his natural reflexes avoid the worst of her attack, though she injures him slightly. He focuses his will and sends strength flooding through his limbs. Volchik puts some distance between that fight and himself, and casts his armoring spell, while Sequela attacks Annie to little effect. Annie bites down on Tommy's arm, just as he drives his knee into her and causes her to stagger back. Volchik casts a spell that overwhelms Annie's mind with a psychic assault, though her mental fortitude is still significant. Annie turns her attention to Volchik in response, and sinks her teeth into the man's face. Sequela dumps out chemicals from the cart of cleaning supplies, preparing to turn one of the buckets into a Soul Jar if there is no other way to stop Annie. Focused on Volchik, however, Annie does not see Tommy come up behind her, or anything else that follows as he delivers a brutal strike to the back of her head.

 

They bring Saint and Surya up to the 11th floor. Surya and Tommy scavenge CAT 5 cables from the computers in the office and bind Annie tightly. Tommy heals himself and Volchik with magic. Having cast Postcognition once again and seen the entire sequence of Wesley's death, Saint and Volchik go down to the alley where Annie ripped out his throat, but they find no trace of blood or other remains, just the signs of a struggle. Sequela spends this time studying Annie's mangled, ruined soul with a Soul Marks spell. Back on the 11th floor, they drag Annie into the women's bathroom, parking the cleaning cart outside. Saint casts another spell to dissuade people from investigating too closely. In the bathroom, Tommy wakes Annie with mundane medicine. Surya questions her with, ah, slightly enhanced techniques, breaking several of her jagged teeth. Her bloody-mouthed laughter unsettles him somewhat. She gives the name of her Abyssal master as "the Blasphemous Scribe, my Prince, my Prince, the Prince of 100,000 Leaves, my Prince." Volchik risks reading her mind as Surya demands information about her master and how her master contacts her. Though he can get little clear information at first, he sees her thoughts of an underground temple with a large community of people sharing her shark-toothed deformity. Just before Surya knocks her unconscious again, Volchik picks up "Howard's Rock."

 

Surya strangles Annie, the most just and fitting end he can think of for her; he feels sufficiently justified that this execution will not cause him to lose sleep at night. Sequela casts a spell to hide her cause of death, and each member of the group leaves separately, with Sequela leaving last. The building superintendent is waiting in the lobby as Volchik leaves. She asks him several nervous questions, surprised to learn that Dorothy was wandering around unescorted. Volchik misdirected her to 18th floor, giving Sequela time to catch the elevator and leave the building. The group gathered again at Patrick's place and made plans to use Annie's ID to go to her apartment and search it before the police find her body and start doing legwork of their own. They plan to move immediately, before the night is through.

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