“Oh shit”

Xenosa crouched down on the opposite wall, as far away from the mechanical spiders as she could. She remained still, not moving until she was sure that they hadn’t detected her. She had no desire to be hanging from the ceiling being torn apart. She crept forward, further down the hall. She made it about 20 feet, before two of the spiders appeared in front of her. For a moment, she saw the spider transform into a ghost, and then flicker back. The second one did it as well, and the ghostly woman looked painfully familiar, but she couldn’t place where she knew her from. She wore a pendant that glowed briefly, before she changed back to mechanical spider form.

The spiders didn’t advance, but she could see their mandibles moving, whispering over and over “Castiel….Castiel”.

There was a brief surge of confusion, which turned into fear, and then anger. Fuck that. She shouted as much at the spiders, lighting and then flinging her last remaining Moltov cocktail. She saw the machine scream as it caught fire, before turning around-sprinting back the way she came. She made it about ten feet, and then something hit her in the back and she fell, descending into darkness.

She was floating, mind blissfully blank, until a voice started shouting “Xenosa. Xenosa wake up! You have to wake up”.

She opened her eyes, and she was suspended from the ceiling, tubes coming out of her neck. Any damage that she had taken was repaired, including the shrapnel in her shoulder. She could feel the spiders crawling all over, and they were taking SOMETHING from her, but she couldn’t figure out what. She could feel herself transforming into her true form, momentarily before being forced into Anika’s body. She tried to focus on maintaining her demon form, trying to activate her fire mantle and burn these motherfuckers, she could feel the tech become available, and then disappear. She struggled to rip out the cables stuck in her neck, and that only made more spiders swarm all over her body. Eventually she was able to rip it out of her, and fuck it hurt. She still couldn’t transform though. She looked around wildly, trying to find anything she could use to escape, before they jammed the cable back into her, and dismantle her piece by piece. The demon suspended next to her had a gun as an arm. Perfect. She jammed the cable in and felt her consciousness occupy the empty space. Hellfire exploded from the arm, and she eradicated the spiders that were nearby in quick succession. There were still a few spiders on the floor, occasionally transforming into ghostly figures. There was that woman again, nagging at her, but there was no time to think about it. She was finally able to fully transform, spreading herself fully, fire and heat rolling off her in waves. She was going to engulf this entire place, destroy it, and it would feel so good…

Suddenly she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and it was Brandon, the priest, and a group of other hunters. They started placing bricks of C4 on the wall, while the priest held up a rosary and holy water, keeping the ghosts back. Brandon shot her a brief look that said “Go, now”.
She didn’t need to be told twice. As she streaked out of the room wings flapping, she heard Brandon say “Jenny?”, his voice thick with emotion.

Ah, shit. That’s where she recognized the woman from. She could see the picture, Jennifer Margaret Dearborn written in Brandon’s cramped handwriting. Anger coursed through her, and her mantle grew brighter, the need to destroy something, everything. She was unchained, but evidence of her work for the god machine still lingered, and still bound her.

She hovered near the rear of the burning building, wanting to make sure that Brandon and his hunters had escaped before she left. There was no way she could stay, she was being watched and she couldn’t risk being near them. But she had to make sure they made it out. The relief she felt when she saw him walk out calmed some of the fire raging inside her. The look on his face however…

She remembered with perfect clarity, the first time they had met. His words that made her realize what she was. A tool for the God Machine. The realization that led to her fall. She remembered that phone call, where she promised him that she would help him find his wife’s ghost. Now the moment had come for her to make good on her promise.

She landed and assumed Anika’s form before jogging up to the group. “I just got here, what happened?”

The look Brandon gave her was loaded with emotion and weariness. “Why don’t you tell me?”

She led him away from the rest of the hunters, the priest tagging along, which annoyed, but didn’t surprise her.

“What’s going on? Why were you in there? Why was my wife there?”

Xenosa could only be honest with the only person she really trusted. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the Dormier group. They are connected to a lot of strange things going on in Raleigh. I found out about this warehouse, and thought that maybe if I blew it up, it would slow them down. Well, it exploded, a little too well. As I was running out, I got hit in the shoulder with…something. I was able to see into the twilight. You remember that big spectral bear that was running around? Well I could see another one only it was a giant Puma. So I saw a door in the floor, and I went through it. There were mechanical spiders, except they weren’t, they kept whispering Castiel…Brandon I swear, I had no idea. I thought this was just a warehouse.”

She watched him fight to get himself under control. “Ok. Aright. So there must be something anchoring them here…do you know anything else?”

She thought of Samuel running away with files under his arm. “Actually, an associate of mine might have some information. I’ll have to check in with him”.

She couldn’t help but notice the priest look directly at her at these words. She knew that he was thinking “associate means demon”. She didn’t care anymore, let him judge her all he wanted.

She turned her attention back to her friend. “Brandon, believe me. I want to help”. He was looking at the ground, before he nodded once.

The rest of the group was walking around the building, trying to see if there was anything else to be found. Before they rejoined them, she mentioned in a low tone, “Also, I’m being surveilled”.

His eyes became unfocused as he looked around intently. “Nothing is watching right now. Come on, lets see if there is anything left to find here”.

She spent the next few hours helping the hunters sort through the wreckage of the building. They had nothing to show for it, but the manual labor helped her frayed nerves. She rode back to the motel where her car was parked in a van with Brandon and a few of the others. She thanked them for the ride, but before she got out he said “I don’t want you driving alone. Sam will go with you”.

She looked at him intently. “But, I’m being watched”.

He took Anika’s hand gently saying “That’s why I don’t want you be alone”.

As she handed Sam her car keys, she noticed that there was this warmth radiating from her chest. It was strange, it didn’t feel like the normal fire that she had come to associate with her anger. It felt, calm, almost peaceful. It felt weird, but not unpleasant.

As they drove away, Anika’s exhaustion caught up with her. The last thought she had before drifting asleep was “This is what being cared about feels like”.

They had all been sitting upstairs at the bar, discussing events, going over some ideas. It had been fine until Gray showed up. Quickly the conversation had dissolved into them bickering with each other. Xenosa seethed at Grey, while Anika assumed a nonchalant position. He had no right to keep calling her a murderer in that tone. So fucking what? They all had to make a living, at least hers was honest.

Enough was enough. If she stayed the bar might burn down, and that wasn’t fair to Katie. Before she could leave, Bobby asked her to shoot out some windows at the Dormier HQ. He said it was to check their response time. She knew what Bobby was capable of, and he was always straight with her. She had no issues with helping him out, plus if nothing else she was getting to take some pot shots at Dormier.

She was settled in a tree about a half mile from the actual campus. She could get a clear shot at the third floor window. She was setting up to aim when she hear a “mrow” on the branch next to her. It was the fucking, bullet dodging cat. She wasn’t falling for that again, oh no. She lined up her shot again, and watched the glass shatter. Perfect.

Wait. She continued to peer through the scope. There was something in the building, something that she couldn’t see, calling her.

No. Going into HQ would be foolish, plus she had something else in mind. But, they knew something was up with Dormier, and there was something in there…

“Mrow!” It’s noise sounded insistent. Stupid cat. She looked at it, and it looked scared. What the hell?

“RUN”

She lept off her branch and started to book it, not stopping to think about why she was listening to a cat, or how it could talk. There was a loud explosion from behind her, presumably the tree, but she didn’t stop to look back. She made it back to her car, tossed her gym bag into the passenger seat, and started driving. At the intersection where she would take a left to go back to her apartment, she swore she felt something or someone following her. She drove around the Raleigh beltline, twice, just to be sure. Once her heart rate had returned to normal, she returned to her apartment. Normally she slept with her pistol within reach, but she put out her assault rifle tonight, just in case.

The next morning, she spent an hour or so on the computer, looking for her target. She finally found the location of a Dormier warehouse in a small town called Hickory, about a two hour drive. There were mostly warehouses, furniture outlets, and seedy motels. She packed her gym bag, and headed out, music blaring, hoping to clear her head.

She arrived in Hickory in the mid-afternoon. Too early to head over to the warehouse, so she parked at a random furniture store. She bought a lamp that wasn’t too hideous. Both Anika and Xenosa didn’t see the point in decorating your living space, but she had to buy something. It was the normal thing to do.

So she bought the lamp, and was headed back out to her car when she got this feeling like she was being watched. Watched with a capital W. She was being watched by the God Machine, or one of it’s agents. Whatever it was, it was close, but she couldn’t see it.

“Fuck, fuck fuck”. Panic seeped into her mind, There was no way she could go ahead with her plan now, but there was no way she could go home either. She drove carefully to the nearest hotel, checked into a room. Perfectly normal, that’s what she had to do. Once she was in the room, and made sure it was clear she took out her phone and dialed a number with trembling hands.

“Brandon here”.
“Hey, it’s me. Where are you?”
“At a rest stop off of I-40. What’s up? Where are you?”
“In a town called Hickory. Listen something is watching me. I mean really watching me”.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay put. We’ll come by and get you. If you have to leave, just call me when you’re safe”.

The call disconnected, leaving her feeling more panicked and miserable than before. Since she fell she had been laying low, doing the odd job here and there for Brandon and the hunters, mostly staying in her apartment and playing video games. Xenosa’s rage had started to boil over to the point where she had to do something to sate it. But it wasn’t worth risking being hunted and killed by Angels.

Anika was craving a smoke, so she went outside leaning over the railing, when she noticed someone familiar parking a pickup truck. Samuel.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” she muttered to herself. Curiosity got the best of her, and she followed him at a distance into yet another furniture store. He was looking at a chair, and she came around the corner saying, “I’m looking at that one too, I’m not sure if I like it in brown or black better”.

He was startled but quickly recovered, muttering something about material possessions weighing us down. Buddhist shit.

She followed him back to his truck, and got in the passenger seat, still ranting about how we are all slaves to worldly goods. Wow, this guy took his cover too seriously.

“So what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, you’re the one that snuck up on me”.
Anika bit her lip. That was true. She answered, “I’m here to destroy the Dormier warehouse”.

He raised his eyebrows. “After your friend Maggie told me about what was going on, I started to look into them as well. Trying to figure out what their endgame is. This isn’t limited to North Carolina you realize, it’s going on in other cities as well”.

“Yeah well, I don’t think I’m going to go through with it, at least not yet. Our enemy iis watching me.”

“What? And you approached me? Well, my cover isn’t flagged so I should be ok. Still, I shouldn’t be seen with you. But I think you should still go through with the mission”.

“Really?”

“Yes. Now I’m going to drop you off here. You should be able to walk back.”

He dropped her off at the side of the road, near a Waffle House about 2 miles from her hotel. Samuel was right. She had made the decision to come here, there was no reason for her to back down now. If she did, that meant the God Machine still controlled her, and there was no way in hell she was going to let that happen.

She stopped at the Waffle House, ate something, and with a sudden burst of inspiration, stopped at the ABC store across the street and bought four bottles of vodka. Perfectly normal if you’re staying at the Red Roof Inn.

She added the vodka to her gym bag, along with her two rifles, her pistol in a shoulder holster. She was just leaving the parking lot when she got a text from Gray.

You might want to look into a Dormier warehouse or shipping facility, and do something to shut it down

She frowned at her phone before replying Already on it

Gray pissed her off. Ever since the situation with Ruiz, she couldn’t help but feel like he was manipulating her, for his own agenda. What the hell does he do anyway? At least the others were capable, and honest about what they were doing. He claimed transparency, but he was sitting in the shadows, not doing anything, just poking at others to do his work for him.

Well screw that, this was her plan, her idea. This was her decision, not his.

Emboldened by this train of thought, she found a spot to observe the security around the warehouse. She quickly got rid of all the security cameras, with a few well placed shots. Quietly she made her way into the building via the rear entrance.

The place was huge. It wasn’t just distribution that was done here, there was a room where it looked like they were producing the anti-depressant. Another area was producing blue paint. which seemed really odd. There was a gallon bucket lying around so she took it. It might come in handy later. So far everything was going great, which should have tipped her off.
She set up two of the vodka bottles after determining their maximum flammability. She smiled to herself. Good old Molotov cocktails. This place didn’t stand a chance. She moved away, just far enough so she could flick a match at the bottles.

The area exploded, with a lot more force than she had expected. She turned and ran, but not fast enough. Shrapnel from the explosion ripped through her shoulder. She stumbled, her vision flickering. Suddenly she could see something huge, it looked like a giant Puma cat with tusks, running parallel with her, away from the fire. Instantly she knew this was what had been following her. She could feel the air getting hotter behind her, she had to get out, now. She would deal with the beast later if she had to. She was running for the exit, when Samuel crashed through a window on the second floor, folders and papers in his hands. She sprinted after him, the Puma still running with them. She dodged a hatch in the floor, and heard a faint “mrow”.

She stopped in her tracks looking at the hatch. “Mrow” came the noise again. Without thinking she kicked at the hatch. “Fucking cat”. She kicked it again. “Fucking door”. Finally the hatch swung open and she climbed down into a short tunnel. The cat was nowhere to be seen. She followed the tunnel, until it came to a dead end. Shit. She pushed and kicked on the wall until it slid open.

There was a room, illuminated by dim blue lights. There was a demon, or the remnants of one, chained to one of the walls, being picked apart by little spiders.

“Oh shit” she whispered.

The wind howled across the sky above the team as the portal snapped shut behind them. The chill was biting. The group all began to shift, attempting to shed the tender skin of their human forms in favor of durability. They looked around, searching for a sign as to where they were, but nothing was there. Just cold, white, bombed-out ruins. As the roar of the portal was silenced, they were able to get a better sense of their surroundings. The barren landscape was not do barren.

Just as they got their wits back, something drew their attention. They were not alone. Something was there. Lots of somethings. As they finished their transformations, they noticed them, a horde of spiderlings had been attracted to the area. Whether it was their energies or the portal, they were there, and they were coming toward the group. The Demons sprung into action. Yahoel flashed out, ripping his claws into a nearby wall, pulling it to the ground and opening a “door” for the group. Gravas barreled forward with Yahoel and Sabrael in tow. Trampling the spiders as he went. Xenosa took to the sky in a blaze and Raziel bounded through the ruins with cat-like grace. Grey simply faded away into the landscape.

Soon, they had escaped the spiders’ onslaught but there was another problem. Someone else was there. Xenosa discovered a human watching her through his gun’s scope, but he soon was found to be not so human. They had found another of the Fallen. A self-hater. He had cut out all of his embeds and exploits in favor of gadgets. This bothered Gravas greatly. Introductions were short-lived, however, as there was an arch-angel and a build-a-bearto deal with. Samuel, Gravas, Yahoel and Raziel stuck around to fight a bear as the others rushed to find Ms. Ruiz, an arch-angel, and a bunch of C4. There were also some beings that had been cryogenically frozen. They are presumed to have been destroyed with the coming angel-bomb.

The bear clambered out of the Twilight towards Yahoel, who stood, waiting, in the streets. Samuel kept a watchful eye through his scope. Gravas laid in wait to strike. As the bear came into the physical world fully, a round from Samuel’s rifles struck him, bouncing off of his armor, the bear charged forward. Unfortunately for the bear, that is where Yahoel stood. As he neared the magma-golem, Gravas leapt from the nearby building, scuttling up the bear’s foreleg before clamping down on on the tendons of the leg, dragging the bear to the ground, immobilizing it. It skidded to a stop at Yahoel’s feet. Yahoel sprung backwards, planted his feet on a nearby pillar and pounced back at the bear’s head. His clinched fist rocked the bear’s skull, knocking it out immediately. To the amazement and, perhaps, horror of Samuel, the duo immediately began to dismantle the cryptid beast, relieving it of its biomechanical devices in an almost surgical manner.

After finding Ms. Ruiz, the other group eventually came upon the bodies of the tactical extraction team and their C4. They were in the process of being eaten by spiders. With the use of a quick distraction, Raxiel was able to acquire once brick of C4. Then there was more running from spiders. Gravas, once again, trampled most of them, leaving a field of demolished spider parts in his wake. After cleaning up the rest of them, the group continued on the attempt to find and stop the arch-angel. When they eventually reached the lair, they found the arch-angel, sitting on his throne, trying to force himself into a human body. He was also trying to build another portal device, perhaps to bring more than just himself in his twisted form, back to Earth’s realm. With the help of a magma chain-saw, more scorpion grappling, and a well-placed shot by Xenosa, the arch-angel was destroyed. It was not done, however. Its death initiated a count-down to destroy that world. Gravas was able to get the portal up and functional so that the group could escape back to their own time and place safely, just before the angel exploded, taking an entire world with it. A couple problems came about, however.

First, the group was back a day after they left. Calculations on unknown tech in the face of a world-imploding angel bomb can be tough. It happens to the best of us. Also, an angry ghost of a 12’ tall being from the other world came through the gate with the group. That is also a problem, and likely a bigger one.

Bobby went to the hospital to sell a mugging story, as his wife has already called the police due to his disappearance the day before. Gravas went to his bolthole in order to drop off his new supplies. The rest of the group went back to the bar. I can’t remember where Samuel went, but he didn’t want to talk about or go back to Boston, for some reason.

Anika had barely loaded up Mass Effect when there was a loud thump on her door. She scowled. It was probably just the neighbor, again. If she ignored it he would eventually go away. She used the remote to turn up the volume on the TV.

Thump. Thump. Followed by a child’s voice yelling “I know you’re in there bimbo!”

Anika grabbed her .45 crouching behind her coffee table aiming at the door.

Thump. Thump. “Come out you poopy head!”

Poopy head? What the hell kind of insult was that? She approached carefully, before looking through the peep hole. It was a child, throwing a baseball at her door.

Thump. Thump. People were starting to come out of their apartments, curious, like humans are.
Xenosa knew that it would be relatively easy to kill the boy without injuring anyone else. But a dead child would certainly raise questions. It would be better to try to scare him off. Begrudgingly Anika put her gun away, and opened the door as far as the chain would allow.

“Gehen Sie nach Hause , um Ihre Mutter Sie hässliche Kind” she hissed, as menacingly as she could. She had found that speaking in Anika’s native tongue worked relatively well in getting people to leave her alone.

“Whatever Kraut, you’re going to come out one way or another”. He threw the ball again. Thump.

Anika looked at him again more closely. This was no boy, it was a ghoul. There could be only one reason why a ghoul was standing outside her apartment. Fuck.

“Alright, I’ll come out”. She locked the door behind her, still eyeing the ghoul warily.

“Hey Anika, you ok? Do you want me to take care of this for you?” spoke up her neighbor.

“No I’m fine, just go back inside”.

“Alright if you’re sure”.

She followed the ghoul away from the apartments, and the crowd was beginning to disperse. He was whistling to himself, a baseball bat slung over his shoulder, still tossing the ball into the air. How easy it would be to light it on fire…

That was a bad idea, mostly because of who sent him. It would be a very bad idea if she injured the messenger.

“They have a job for you,” said the ghoul. He handed her a manila folder. There was a picture and the name Charles Meckle, a local indie artist. “They want you to make sure Charles Meckle has an…’unfortunate accident’. It needs to be done by the end of the week.”

She considered it for a minute, before deciding that it was in her best interest to not to get on the vampires bad side. She was in enough shit with them as it was, there was no point it making it worse. Plus, she had been itching for a contract. While she was enjoying these, ‘video games’, a lot more than was probably appropriate, she probably did need to spend some time outside her apartment. The Ordo Dracul was not her first choice for an employer, but she did owe them.

“Fine. Tell them I’ll do it. But,” she grabbed the ghoul by his shirtfront lifting him into the air so she could stare him directly in the face. “If I ever catch you around here again…”

The ghoul gripped her arm, hard. “Whatever bitch, you can’t threaten me”. His breath smelled like rot and decay. She dropped him, bruises already beginning to form. He winked at her before shouting “Stranger danger!”

She watched him go, knowing that she probably hadn’t seen the last of him. Wonderful. As she walked back into her apartment she couldn’t help but wonder what Charles Meckle did to make the vampires want him dead. In the end though it really didn’t matter. Before anything else, she needed more information. She could talk to Darius, he probably knew about Meckle from around the art scene. Regretfully she turned off the Xbox, and dialed his number.

“Hey Darius, it’s Anika, do you think we could meet at the bar in a bit?”

The session began with Katie Shannon in her bar, taking care of basic duties. The tv was on in the background. The top story was about the disappearance of a Cary woman, Megan Ruiz, from the Greenway trail near the Raleigh art museum. However, more than that, she sensed the presence of the God-Machine in the report.

Coincidentally, between commercials, she saw a commercial for a new drug by the Dormire Group. An anti-depression medicine called Pax. The commercial featured an outcast rejoining the herd of humanity. Its tagline was “Because we’re all the same, and we’re all in it together.” She recognized the God-Machine in the commercial as well, and that the name means sleep.

Meanwhile, Mike Birch has contracted both Bobby Abbott and Darius Greenley to do a job for him. Bobby works for Dormire and wants them to build a fountain tunnel for him. He wants them to build it based on the Portals artwork near the art museum. In fact, right near where Ms. Ruiz went missing. While the two were there, they sensed infrastructure under the rings. Nearby, using a metal detector, they discovered that something was buried. Of even more importance though, was the signs of blood, drag marks leading to the rings, and a huge paw print that they took a cast of.

Around this time, Grey Dempsey and his assistant went out with some state politicians who wanted to be seen supporting the police, especially in the light of the disappearance. Reading the situation, he saw the ambition in Sergeant Mike Bryant. Capitalizing on this, he forged a connection between his politician, and the sergeant.

After several personal things happened the group headed to the Portals to uncover the infrastructure. Silver spikes were driven into the ground around the area forming a pentagram to gather up the aether. The infrastructure itself were two boxes. When the players uncovered them, they opened a portal to another snowy world where they could hear a woman screaming. Meanwhile, the aether spilling out of the boxes were being sucked up into the underground pentagram, creating an illusion that everything was normal within their bounded area. The players decided to go into the portals, where they heard the sounds of movement on the other side.

Notables:

1. Grey Dempsey is being investigated
2. Maggie is being investigated
3. Bobby Abbot’s daughter has an odd flush around her shoulder blades that look like the silhouette of a man.
4. Kelly is trying to get into Blithe Spirit. She’s getting involved with her old crowd.
5. Anika Wolter has been contracted by the ghoul, Colin, to arrange an accident for the local indy artist Charles Meckle.
6. The Dormire Group’s commercial has supernatural components, and many of the people involved work for it. They’re having a company event in two weeks.
7. Someone was following the group to the Portals.
8. There’s a cat that can dodge bullets.

Beats:

• Grey Dempsey: 10 regular beats, 1 cover beat
• Anika Kolter: 5 regular beats, 2 cover beats
• Bobby Abbot: 5 regular beats, 3 cover beats
• Katie Shannon: 5 regular beats, 2 cover beats
• Darius Greenley: 5 regular beats, 2 cover beats

Key:

• Grey Dempsey: Doesn’t already know his next key, uses Dexterity
• Anika Kolter: Doesn’t already know her next key
• Bobby Abbot: Doesn’t already know his next key
• Katie Shannon: Doesn’t already know her next key
• Darius Greenley: Doesn’t already know his next key, uses Manipulation