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1. Characters

1.1. PCs

Vincent Alexander, an unnaturally charismatic actor. (Image of Jude Law as Errol Flynn; played by David Devereux.)

Pete Argas, a veteran of the Great War with a talent for not being seen. (Image of Barry Morse; played by John Dallman.)

Robert John Carnegie, an American dabbler in the occult. (Played by Ingvar Mattsson.) Missing, presumed damned.

Major Brian Kingsthorpe, an engineering officer, veteran of the Great War, and subtle ritual magician. (Image of Rowan Atkinson as Major Blackadder; played by Phil Masters.)

Reginald Arthur Matthews, retired from the Indian Civil Service and knowledgeable in the ways of the Mysterious East. (Image of J J Thompson FRS; played by David Cantrell.)

Ola Nordmann, a Norwegian/Sami fisherman and shaman. (Played by Ingvar Mattsson.)

Barbara Vane, teacher, housekeeper and spirit medium. (Image of Merle Oberon; played by Karen Gilham.)

1.2. NPCs

Captain Maxwell Knight, in charge of MI5's B5(b) (which nominally monitors political subversion, but has other less official rôles (such as running magically-talented troubleshooters).

Sarge, Miss Vane's spirit guide.

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2. Events

2.1. Introduction and Training

[13 October 2007]

Early in September, the team is gathered for the first time. Captain Knight performs summary introductions, and explains that the powers that be aren't quite sure how to use the team yet; for the moment, they should concentrate on training.

2.2. Haunted Battleship

Friday 13 October 1939

Captain Knight confirms that some instructions have come in "on the square"; the second-in-command of HMS Royal Oak, which got back yesterday from the North Atlantic, is concerned that his ship is haunted; she's had more than the usual rate of boiler tube failures, and a variety of other problems. Commander Nichols, the 2ic, is aware of the team's nature; for other eyes, their cover is that of a civilian engineering investigation team. The ship is currently at Scapa Flow; the team's assigned transport is at Croydon Airport, a DH.89a Dragon Rapide.

The weather is clear after the previous night's storms, and the flight to RNAS Hatston takes about three and a half hours. Nichols is waiting with a boat to take them to Royal Oak, moored offshore. Alongside her is a fleet tender; a few hundred yards away is the old seaplane carrier Pegasus. He warns them that Captain Benn is a very suitable captain for this ship (Royal Oak fought at Jutland and is generally considered close to obsolete).

The team starts with a tour of the ship, though when they get to one of the boilers that's under repair they cut this short; Mr Alexander talks with Sublieutenant Fisher, who's overseeing the work, and persuades him to clear the room for twenty minutes or so. Mr Matthews and Miss Vane ask Commander Nichols to show them the ship's records; several men have been taken up recently for fighting, not in itself especially surprising, but more significantly several men seem to have reported fires that turned out not to exist. The current supposition is mental weakness, but they're good men in other respects.

In the boiler-room, Alexander keeps watch while Mr Carnegie and Major Kingsthorpe perform their respective workings to diagnose weak points in the boiler. Apart from the burst tube that was being replaced, there don't seem to be any particularly frail areas. That tube seems to have burst, which is the normal failure mode, though it's unusual for it to happen this thoroughly in a tube which has passed inspection. Carnegie talks about demon-summoning in a familiar way which Kingsthorpe finds somewhat disconcerting.

When Commander Nichols returns, Carnegie and Kingsthorpe ask him to introduce them to a more senior engineering officer; he brings them Lieutenant Martin, with whom they talk about the boiler failures. Martin can't account for them; the failures would be consistent with a boiler running far too hot, but the gauges (which have been checked and replaced) don't show any problems of that sort.

Miss Vane has been casting around for spirits of the dead, but has not found any. She speaks with her spirit guide, Sarge, who's sure there's something here, but thinks it's very large ("all through the hull") and not something he recognises. He attempts to speak with it, but gets no answer and doesn't want to push things.

Mr Argas considers random fires, and thinks about the effect they might have on the magazines. Alexander is noticeably nervous about this. Nichols is rather more sanguine; fires in magazines are something that battleship crews know how to deal with.

The team members retire to their accommodations (two junior officers' cabins, one for Miss Vane). She and Kingsthorpe conduct a seance; she invites Sarge to speak through her, and Kingsthorpe asks him to try harder to talk to the spirit. He does, and rapidly finds himself in a fight. Kingsthorpe attempts to lend him energy, but can't act quickly enough to be of help; he tells Sarge to flee, since the local spirit doesn't seem to be prepared to leave the ship.

Almost at once, a tannoy call goes out: "Check magazine temperatures". Argas follows invisibly to see what's going on; there's a wax sensor designed to sound an alarm if things get too hot, and it has melted, but there's no other sign of heat or fire. The sailors who were investigating replace the sensor and leave.

Matthews goes out on deck and uses his empathy with plants (the weed on the ship's hull) to try to find out about other hot spots; there are lots of them, all through the hull, and usually only lasting for a very short time. There's no real sense of how long this has been going on, though. He goes below again and checks the maintenance records (the last two years' are on board); reading between the lines a bit, this sort of failure and oddity has been going on at a low level for all that time, and possibly longer.

Alexander escorts Miss Vane round the deck so that she can try again to look for spirits of the dead; she doesn't detect any. Anyone who may have died aboard Royal Oak is presumably at rest.

Kingsthorpe speaks with the chaplain, who confirms that Royal Oak has never been a "happy" ship; in response to Kingsthorpe's hints of higher (or lower) powers, he gives mundane explanations (ship's traditions and such, that could only be cured with a total change of personnel). Kingsthorpe asks that a telegram be sent to the Admiralty requesting the full maintenance records.

The hints of something "throughout the hull" leads the team to get changed into boiler-suits and crawl about the innards of the ship. While there's nothing immediately obvious, it becomes apparent as they collate their reports that there's been some very large-scale symbol drawing going on, not based on the plans but seemingly connected with the specific small-scale details of the way the ship's been constructed. Kingsthorpe recognises it as a German pattern, though not a recent one; it's some sort of enchantment of binding.

It's getting quite late, and the team is invited to the officers' mess; Alexander tries to charm Captain Benn, who takes an instant dislike to him (though somehow this is defused into at least polite conversation). Kingsthorpe's vegetarianism is a matter of some comment, but the cooks manage somehow.

Before everyone turns in, Kingsthorpe conducts a protection ritual round the cabins; he stays up for an hour or so researching various powerful spirits.

Saturday 14 October 1939

They are woken shortly after 1am by a crash solid enough to be felt through the ship, followed by a loud rattle. Carnegie looks magically for the nearest source of refined fuel, and gets a trace off to the south. Kingsthorpe goes to investigate the rattle, and finds that the starboard anchor chain has broken loose ("that'll be a job for the divers"). He's very concerned, especially when the call goes out again to check magazine temperatures; Argas overhears that the first guess was a fire in the inflammables store, which could indeed cause such an explosion, but there's no sign of damage there. He goes out on deck; there's no moon, but the weather is clear, and in the light of the aurora he thinks he sees unusual ripples to the south. By the time he can get another crewman to look, they've gone.

About a quarter of an hour after the initial shock, three more shocks go off in quick succession, and the ship takes on a pronounced list. The team decides to leave her (so as not to get in the way of the professionals, of course). As they're climbing companionways to get to the deck, a rope whips round Carnegie; Alexander cuts one end of it, and Kingsthorpe works on the other. Carnegie tries a flame-based attack to burn it off, but it comes out rather more powerfully than expected; Kingsthorpe jumps back in time, but Alexander is singed. They decide not to fiddle further, but to carry Carnegie with them to the tender (now being cut loose as the Royal Oak continues to list). This is slow going, though, and the oily water catches up with them as they get out on deck. Nobody knows how to swim; Argas manages to stay afloat on his own, and the others cling to wreckage. Carnegie notices that it's smouldering where he touches it; he manages to dispel the effect, but finds himself being dragged down by his feet. He calls out something unclear about "old enemies". Kingsthorpe attempts a ritual of dispelling, but doesn't manage it in time.

After about half an hour, the team is fished out of the oily water and taken back to Hatston to dry off. Later in the day, Kingsthorpe tries divination to find out where Carnegie is; he starts with maps, going to increasingly smaller scales and larger areas, then attempts a vision of Carnegie's surroundings and reels somewhat. There definitely seems to be an infernal connection...

Sunday 15 October 1939

Research in London indicates that the symbolism found aboard Royal Oak is consistent with very early Thule Gesellschaft. HMS Warspite was built around the same time, also at Devonport; a team will be sent to check her over, as well as the ships converted and built there shortly after the Great War.

2.3. Talvisota

The next two months or so pass in waiting, paperwork and training. On Christmas Day, Captain Knight starts to talk about winter clothing, and the team is sent on an intensive training coures in arctic survival. Those who've been listening to the news start to brush up on their Finnish.

A new member joins the team: Ola Nordmann apparently paddled a boat across the North Sea and up the Thames to knock on just the right door...

Monday 1 January 1940

Captain Knight gives some background to the mission. Slightly over a month ago, the Soviet Union invaded Finland; much to everyone's surprise, they haven't managed to conquer the country, and indeed they've bogged down a bit. Britain is interested in providing some assistance to Finland, but not too soon - Finland is still on good diplomatic terms with Germany and could be a potent ally. The British and French plan involves a landing in Norway and an overland march across Norway and Sweden, coincidentally persuading Sweden to abandon her neutrality and giving the chance to leave Allied garrisons on the iron-ore reserves. Actually providing military aid to Finland is somewhat lower on the priority list. In any case, none of that is going to happen for a couple of months, until it's warmed up a bit.

However, remote viewing resources - and Knight is not prepared to discuss any details of those with people who might potentially be captured - have picked up a suggestion that the Soviets are attempting some sort of large-scale working in order to break the stalemate. The mission is to stop it and to find out more about it, possibly not in that order. Magic isn't something that the official Soviet world-view can accept, so Allied intelligence has no information about their capabilities. The best guess as to the location is somewhere near the northern shores of Lake Ladoga, some miles on the Soviet side of the front line.

Since His Majesty's Government is not in a position to provide any sort of formal assistance to Finland, the group will be travelling as civilian volunteers (indeed, several other Britons have gone to Finland to lend their aid). Refuelling has been arranged at Kristiansand and Stockholm, and the aircraft should probably be left in the care of the British Embassy at Helsinki, since if it's taken further forward it will probably be requisitioned for military use.

The team stocks up on cold-weather gear, alcohol and cigarettes, as well as survival rations, good-quality portable food, camouflage netting, rifles and ammunition, and even a Lewis gun (though without its bulky and heavy cooling jacket). They fly to Helsinki, stopping overnight in Stockholm.

Tuesday, 2 January 1940

At Helsinki, they are met by a junior staff member of the British Embassy, who secures their plane and takes them to meet the Military Attaché, Mr Walker. He suggests that they bypass headquarters at Mikkeli and proceed directly to the front at Kollaa, closest to their target location; Major Rissanen is particularly sympathetic to the British cause and will probably be prepared to help further. The team buys more alcohol in Helsinki (since it will probably be more to the taste of the people they'll be dealing with), loads up a pair of borrowed trucks, and makes immediately for Mikkeli, as it's on the road to the front. They arrive, find a house where they can bed down, and turn in fairly immediately; there's some suggestion of trying to pick up some rumours, but since only one of them speaks the language and the Finns are a notoriously closemouthed lot they decide to get some rest instead.

Wednesday 3 January 1940

They take advantage of the few hours of daylight to drive to Kollaa, and make contact with the rear areas of the Finnish forces there. After a certain amount of discussion (involving the sentries muttering things like "no, they can't be spies, spies would at least try to blend in") they are introduced to Major Rissanen, who is somewhat busy with plans for the next day's fighting. He speaks good English ("I speak many civilised languages, as well as Russian"), but seems somewhat puzzled by the team's reasons for being present. Major Kingsthorpe explains that this group is specialised in unconventional operations and has its own reasons for being here, and simply throwing them into the line as volunteers is possibly not the best thing; after a bit, Rissanen exclaims "ah, I see! You're witches. Why didn't you say so?" Things seem to go more easily after that, at least from his point of view; it's the team's turn to be nonplussed.

Major Kingsthorpe asks for a guide, and Rissanen says he has just the man. "It'll make a change for him from dodging artillery." They have dinner together, the team making significant inroads into their food and alcohol supplies, though Rissanen is unusually sober by the standards of his fellow-officers.

Thursday 4 January 1940

The guide, Corporal Häyhä, is ready for them with skis and rifle in the morning. He seems to have some trouble with the idea that they're not competent on skis, but grudgingly admits that snowshoes will probably do. They advance slightly south of the main fighting, and head down to the bank of the Kollaa, a narrow river which has nonetheless served as a front in the fighting. It's frozen, of course, and they encounter little difficulty in crossing, though Häyhä has a disturbing habit of vanishing even when he is trying to be seen.

They continue through the forest, with no clear idea of where they're going other than they're heading for the northern shore of Lake Ladoga. They meet a Russian BT-5 tank crew trying to fix their vehicle (mostly by blowtorching the engine to get it warm enough to restart); Häyhä asks permission, then snipes the three men from a distance that seems too great to be possible with the M28 rifle (a near variant on the Mosin-Nagant) he's carrying.

Some miles further on, they see a larger group of Russians, apparently a motor pool; there are two tanks, some self-propelled guns, and several trucks. The idea of taking one of the trucks is discussed briefly, but abandoned; they seem quite well-guarded, and the alarm could be raised quickly. Their unit insignia are slightly odd: 47th Special Morale Detachment, with a black and white oblique checked patch.

There's a log-and-ice road running from here to the south-east, and the team decides to parallel it. Late in the evening they reach an encampment, with several log buildings apparently thrown up in some haste from local timber. Häyhä points out that the Russians guarding this place are unusually smart: they're actually using cover and concealment effectively.

Miss Vane summons Sarge, who reports that the dead seem to be mustering here - dead soldiers from both sides, which he finds quite surprising. The team lays up for the night.

Friday 5 January 1940

Argas turns himself invisible (deliberately in front of Häyhä, who doesn't visibly react except to comment that Argas doesn't have green eyes) and sneaks up to the edge of the encampment. There's a sound of continuous plainsong-like chanting coming from the biggest building, which is windowless; there seem to be three or four voices involved. The other buildings are a barracks, an office of some sort, and a cooking and storage area (currently unheated); there are two trucks on the far side of the encampment, with the same Special Morale Detachment insignia. It looks as though there might be about twenty people present in total.

Argas ducks under the gate and takes a closer look. One Russian comes out of the barracks and enters the large building; after a bit, another comes out and heads for the barracks. There's smoke rising from the large building as well as from the barracks and offices; Argas thinks he can detect incense of some sort. He can mak out a few repeated words in the chanting; one of them is "Chyornovog". He heads back to the team; Kingsthorpe recognises that name as Bad News, and they plan an assault.

They split up and cover the encampment from different angles. Alexander aims up the Lewis gun on the barracks door. Argas sneaks in again, picks the lock on the armoury door, and enters when the guards are looking the other way. He finds rifles, pistols, ammunition and grenades; he takes several of the latter. As he's leaving again, one of the guards spots the door and shouts something; a soldier tries to leave the barracks, and is shot by Alexander, which slows down the others long enough for Argas to toss in a grenade. It starts to get substantially colder. The rest of the team (excepting Miss Vane) shoots at the guards, and at anyone else who shows his head, killing them mostly without difficulty, though one of them gets in a lucky shot which wounds Major Kingsthorpe severely (he stays conscious but rather wishes he hadn't). Argas, meanwhile, uses grenades to blow in the door of the big building; he sees several Russians inside, as well as a very large arcane diagram, taking up most of the floor area. A whirlwind starts to form in the sky over the middle of the camp. Argas throws a grenade squarely onto the diagram, and things start to go severely wrong for the Russians, starting with the building itself catching fire. The whirlwind disperses.

The team (and Häyhä) shoot the other Russians who appear, though one of them (perhaps more ruthless than the rest in using his dead and wounded comrades for cover) manages to get away into the woods. Sarge reports that the spirits are dispersing. Nordmann drums for a few minutes and apparently heals Kingsthorpe's wound. The team members grab up all the paperwork they can find from the office hut, and then set fire to the whole place and take one of the trucks to get away. They drive back past the other Special Morale Group camp, where one of the guards waves at the truck. Matthews is driving at first, but the ice road is a bit of a challenge; Alexander takes over after they've had to lever the truck back onto the road.

They cross back across the Kollaa River, and Häyhä waves at several snipers whom they haven't seen. They leave most of the spare food, booze and tobacco behind with Major Rissanen. From there, the trip back to Helsinki and thence to London is relatively painless.

Sunday 7 January 1940

The papers are frustratingly fragmentary, but MI5 finds them distinctly interesting nonetheless. It appears that the objective of the Russian ritual was to deepen the winter to the west of the front, making the off-road going easier, and that the power source was the spirits of the dead of both sides. It's not clear just where the 47th Special Morale Detachment fits into the Soviet order; it seems to be a GRU unit, but there's some indication that its existence is being kept secret from Soviet high command.

2.4. Archaeological Directorate

[2 February 2008]

The British effort to send troops to fight in Finland founders somewhat when the Finns make peace with the Russians, ceding a fair amount of territory. Germany invades Denmark and Norway, and everyone keeps glaring across the Maginot Line and other fixed defences.

In March and April, Argas, Alexander and Miss Vane each spend a week or two at a castle in the Highlands, learning extremely pragmatic forms of unarmed combat from a former member of the Shanghai Municipal Police.

Monday 6 May 1940

Captain Knight calls the team together to discuss a report from British agents in Luxembourg; it's believed that German spies have been seen in the area, investigating a local archaeological site. Since fighter escorts are limited, flying isn't recommended, but a ferry and train to Luxembourg can certainly be arranged. Argas talks a Bren gun and a supply of ammunition out of the armoury, just in case; fortunately this is an era that still has railway porters.

Tuesday 7 May 1940

The group arrives in Luxembourg in the afternoon, and talks with M. Daubigny, the agent who sent in the report. The agents have been seen in the town of Neufchateau, about fifty miles away in south-eastern Belgium. Major Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane do some digging in local libraries; apparently the archaeological site is a pre-Christian Celtic one, and was first dug up around twenty-five years ago; it's not of particularly great interest, and most of the items found are in a museum in the basement of Neufchateau's town hall. The site itself is a mile or so outside town, in the corner of a field.

The team proceeds immediately by local train to Neufchateau, arriving shortly after dark. They book in at the local hotel, which is somewhat overwhelmed by the custom particularly in the present political climate; Major Kingsthorpe establishes that they're the only guests at the moment. Argas proceeds to the site, becoming invisible when he gets close, and is followed at a distance by the others. He spies three Germans, digging and talking to each other; they aren't showing any light, and he can only make them out because of his very good night-vision. While he doesn't understand German, he reckons they don't sound happy. There's no sign of a vehicle, at least on the road where he's walking, which is the closest approach to the site.

Miss Vane advances quietly, and translates: the Germans are apparently looking for a specific item, rather than "more arm-rings".

Miss Vane, Argas and Alexander go to wake the nearest farmer, and borrow paraffin lanterns and rope. Argas, Alexander and Matthews advance along the hedge-line towards the Germans, while Nordmann and Miss Vane take a flanking position. Alexander steps out into the open, and calls "Guten abend".

The Germans look surprised, but don't immediately react. Alexander calls for them to surrender, and a flare bursts in the sky behind him. The Germans start to draw weapons; Matthews entangles the two who were pulling out pistols, while Argas shoots the other with his Lee-Enfield - and is rather disconcerted to find himself apparently hit by his own bullet. He remains conscious, and calls a warning to the others.

Alexander tries a full-blown magical intimidation attempt on the Germans, and is disconcerted to feel it bounce from a hard arcane defence. Miss Vane calls on Sarge to take a look; he reports that the Germans' defences are very solid, and he'd have severe trouble getting through.

Major Kingsthorpe heeds Argas' warning, and takes aim on the flare. Nordmann has heard the warning too; rather than shoot the German who's apparently picking up a rifle from a pile of equipment, he shoots the equipment pile itself. The ensuing explosion of stored dynamite leaves the two entangled Germans plainly dead, and the third nowhere to be seen. The flare goes out.

Nordmann partly heals Argas, and Kingsthorpe looks around the site for anything useful that might have survived. There are quite a few unburned fragments of notebook paper, which he gathers. Once the local police arrive (both of them), the team leaves the site. Alexander fetches the local doctor, who is persuaded to keep quiet about Argas' apparent several-days-old bullet wound; he's brought back to the town on a farm cart. The others return to the hotel; Alexander borrows a horse and sets off for Luxembourg to send a telegram from the Consulate there.

Kingsthorpe, Matthews and Miss Vane work on reconstructing the notes; there's something about a bronze dirk, but it's all frustratingly fragmentary. There's some suggestion that it might once have been in the town hall museum, and a sketch. The only useful name that comes up is that the local curé, Père Chauvet, has taken some interest in the site and its artifacts.

Wednesday 8 May 1940

Alexander sends a cable to London, confirming the presence of Germans and asking for a proper archaeological team to go over the site in more detail. They'll take a few days to arrive, however. He stays in Luxembourg long enough to get the reply (and amuse himself while waiting), then heads back to Neufchateau on a fresh horse.

The rest of the team visits Chauvet, who's packing to go and assist with the defence of Belgium. He's in his forties, and while he's happy to talk with Major Kingthorpe and the others they get the feeling he's holding a lot back. He was a young man when the site was found, shortly before the Great War; apparently the German military governor, Graf Hans von Blumenthal, took some interest in it between bouts of his more usual preoccupation of hunting. He's rather more evasive about the dirk, suggesting that it might do much damage if it were found, particularly with the Nazis' quest for some sort of historical or mythological justification for their actions. He doesn't seem too worried that it will be found, however, even when Kingsthorpe suggests that it might be wise to protect those who know the item's location.

The team heads to the museum, and Kingsthorpe is disgusted by the very poor state of the records of the site; he thinks some pages may have been removed entirely, but there's no way to be sure. There's certainly no bronze dirk matching the description or the sketch.

Nordmann visits Argas and finishes the job of healing him while Miss Vane distracts the doctor; then they and Matthews take turns watching the curé's house in case he should go out to retrieve the dirk, or simply leave suddenly.

Alexander returns, and he and Kingsthorpe visit Chauvet again. As Alexander gathers his will to control Chauvet's mind, the latter recognises him, crying "Talons of the Sphinx! You are monsieur Alexander, non?" This makes the control even firmer than expected, and the two have a very friendly conversation. Chauvet readily admits that he buried the dirk by a tombstone in the cemetery, and leads them to the place; he digs, but is rather disconcerted to find that the earth has been disturbed quite recently (in the last few days) and the dirk is missing. Miss Vane calls on Sarge, who contacts the spirits of the graveyard; the digging was done on the night of Saturday the 4th, by one person, but they can't make out any details as the impression is jangled or jammed in some way.

Kingsthorpe gathers some earth from the spot with the intent of casting a location ritual; Alexander and Argas talk to the sexton, who's in the pub, so they end up buying drinks for the idlers who are there in the afternoon. Alexander questions the sexton carefully, since the latter seems to be hiding something, but it turns out that it's just his general dereliction of duty.

The afternoon becomes generally boisterous, as Alexander and Argas buy more drinks and ask about strangers - the only ones who've been seen lately are the three Germans, who didn't even stay in town. While the pub is mostly empty at the moment, "everyone will be in later"... except for old Mère Sorel. "Why?" "She doesn't have any money!"

[22 March 2008]

Kingsthorpe gathers various magical components (including some fennel scavenged by Miss Vane), and sets up in the museum; the ritual takes some hours, and shows an interesting result. The pendulum would normally swing directly over the item of interest, but in this case it circles, as though it's being kept away by some means: the circling is however precise enough that Kingsthorpe can trace the centre of the effect to a house on the outskirts of the town. Kingsthorpe joins Argas and Alexander in the pub, where they determine that Mère Sorel has been away on a scrouging trip since Monday.

As things wind down, the team heads over to what they suspect is Sorel's house. There are no lights, but when Miss Vane gets Sarge to scout he reports that there's one spirit in the cellar (a live person). Argas walks invisibly to the back door, with Kingsthorpe following; there are a few chickens in the yard, but no animals likely to give an alarm. The back door is in poor shape; Argas oils it, then picks the lock and enters. He finds the cellar stairs and descends, in the near-darkness; when he gets to the bottom, he puts down his torch, turns it on and steps quickly away from it.

The light reveals piles of junk, some of it perhaps of some small value, and the figure of a old woman sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth. She doesn't seem to pay any attention to the light, or to Argas or Kingsthorpe. As they get closer, they see that she's holding the knife in her lap, mumbling to it, in a language that neither of the team members recognises - they later work out that it might be some sort of Celtic.

Argas picks her up and carries her upstairs to the parlour, then fetches the others from where they've been lying up in the hedgerow. Alexander takes the knife, and the woman stops mumbling; she seems catatonic. He and Kingsthorpe take her to the curé in the hope that she can be looked after and will recover.

The whole team heads back to the inn to get some sleep, and the knife is hidden in Kingsthorpe's ritual toolbox.

Thursday 9 May 1940

The team catches the first train back to Luxembourg, shortly after noon. It's a long journey, with frequent halts for troop trains; they don't arrive until the evening. They talk to the British embassy staff, and find that there have been ugly scenes at the station, with people scrambling to get on board any westbound train, though there's no particular news that should have caused people to panic.

The team decides that all these people might have a reason, even so, and that they should get the knife away from German forces as quickly as possible. Miss Vane manages to get hold of a horse and cart for only several times its peacetime value, and the team learns the hard way how to handle it. They drive overnight, sticking to main roads and mostly avoiding getting bogged down.

Friday 10 May 1940

At dawn, the sound of aeroplanes is very noticeable behind them. They make for Sedan, the nearest RAF base, on the basis that they ought to be able to get hold of an aeroplane there (at least for one person to get away with the knife). There's increasing air activity as they push through the woods of the Ardennes, and in the afternoon what sounds worryingly like mechanised units catching up.

They make good time, though, and come out of the forest in the late afternoon, as the French forces are advancing from Sedan to meet the oncoming German probe. They have no flag, but do their best to look harmless to the French, who are in any case distracted by attacking Stukas; when one seems to be coming a bit close, Alexander takes the Bren gun and knocks out its engine after it's committed to its dive.

The base at Sedan is mostly deserted, though Alexander finds a maintenance crew chief working on a downed Hurricane. He's got nothing ready to fly, since everything that can is already involved in the battle, but does point out Wing Commander Millett's staff car. "Wouldn't have told you about it if I weren't prepared for you to take it, sir."

It's a touring car with a foldable soft top, with seating for four, but with a quick bit of spanner-work the boot can be made to accommodate the other two team members.

Kingsthorpe sanctifies the back seat of the car, with Miss Vane's help, and they conduct rituals to increase the speed and fuel-efficiency of the car. Alexander drives, with Argas beside him navigating as they head north-west. There are a few hairy moments, but there isn't a great deal of traffic, and after several more hours they arrive at Calais.

Kingsthorpe hires a fishing boat that's about to head out, and the team gets back to Dover, having mostly slept across the Channel (though Alexander and Argas are seasick).

Saturday 11 May 1940

The team returns to London and hands over the dirk to Captain Knight. After a few hours of analysis and research, it appears that its importance is primarily symbolic rather than as a direct power item, but centuries of local belief in it as a symbol of resistance to foreign invaders may well have given it a level of power of its own...

2.5. Celtic Knife

[12 April 2008]

The team spends an uneasy few days listening to the news: Rotterdam is carpet-bombed, the Netherlands surrender, and at home the Local Defence Volunteers are set up. British and French forces are pushed further and further back towards the French coast.

Tuesday 21 May 1940

Captain Knight calls the group together. Extensive research has revealed a ritual associated with the dirk that was recovered in the last foray into Europe; it's specifically tied to slowing and stopping invaders, and with the rate of German advance it seems well worth a try. The team will be going over to Béthune, fifteen miles behind the front lines, to perform the ritual at an appropriate spot and leave the dirk buried there.

Their transport is a Bristol Bombay, flying supplies over to the troops. Alexander and Argas take the turrets, and the others dispose themselves among the bales and crates. The flight goes well at first, but over France they and their escort are jumped by a flight of Me109s. They're too many for the escort, and Alexander and Argas do their bit to help defend the plane. Argas has some success, scoring two hits - he thinks on the same aircraft, though the situation is very confused - with the second causing it to retreat, smoking heavily. Alas, this isn't enough to prevent the starboard engine being shot, and with other damage and the heavy load the pilot has to make an emergency landing.

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Note: the GM is well aware of the proper nomenclature of these aircraft, but "Me109s" they were to the men at the sharp end and "Me109s" they shall be herein.

---

The landing is rough, but the structure of the aircraft takes the brunt of it, and only Major Kingsthorpe is particularly shaken up. They've arrived in a ploughed field; Argas climbs a tree and spots a road nearby, but no buildings that might contain transport.

The group, and the two flight crew, head for the road, and flag down the first vehicle to come past: it's a lorry full of cabbages, as is traditional. After a slow and bumpy ride, they get to Béthune, and the crew head off to the local airfield to report in; after some checking around, and finding that apart from a small RAF contingent all the troops nearby are French, the team follows, to try to get some information about the area.

Squadron Leader Grimbald gives them maps of the area, and Major Kingsthorpe looks over it to find the area that seems most propitious. There's a graveyard on the edge of the town which seems eminently suitable, and the team goes to check it in more detail. Matthews stays close by, ready to mobilise the extensive plant life in defence of the team, while Major Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane plan to do the actual ritual and the others will form a perimeter.

Miss Vane summons Sarge to try to check the disposition of any spirits that might still be present; he's somewhat distracted by something, then seems to be blown away on a wind that's only perceptible to him. Miss Vane asks where he's being carried, but the link is lost.

Major Kingsthorpe performs a small experimental ritual, and feels the power being sucked out of it; he can get a vague idea of the direction, to the south-east, towards the nearest point of the German lines... and towards the middle of town. The group moves a few miles and repeats the experiment; it definitely seems to be an effect centred on the town, rather than on the Germans. They also find a medallion, suggesting that they're not the first to use this particular spot as a ritual location; it bears the symbolism of the Grand Orient de France, the Masonic group most active in the country. As they continue to test, the directionality gets vaguer. The centre is somewhere in the central, oldest, part of town, but that's all they can be sure of.

It's now full dark, and they spend some time looking around the blacked-out town for architecture that seems consistent with Masonic principles. There are three likely candidates, but the most promising seems to be the 14th-century bell tower, particularly when they realise that the chain on the door is loose enough to have been fastened from the inside. Argas picks the lock and sneaks in invisibly; he sees an obvious ritual setup, with elaborate chalked diagrams, candles and incense burners, and what appears to be most of a roughly-butchered cow on a table in the centre of it all.

There's also a man, who goes over to the door and notices that it's been opened; he spots Alexander outside, runs back in and bars the door, then heads upstairs (where he sets off a signal flare). Argas unbars the door again, and Alexander charges in after the man, who pulls a pistol on him but is clearly intimidated.

Major Kingsthorpe speaks with the prisoner - one Boniface Guerin - and tries to find out just what's going on with the ritual. Guerin doesn't seem to know much detail, but talks of "raising the land in its own defence". Meanwhile Miss Vane tries again to contact Sarge, from within the tower; she can get through to him, but he can't describe where he is other than to say "it's dark down here, crowded, and smells funny". He can't get out; the other spirits trapped with him seem essentially to be spirits of the land, of the streams and fields and trees.

Argas spots some men gathering in a side street; borrowing Major Kingsthorpe's field glasses, he identifies them as gendarmes. He (inivisibly) and Alexander go out to deal with them, while Major Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane talk with Guerin and Matthews and Nordmann try to make sense of the ritual setup.

Sarge reports to Miss Vane that the spirits seem to be being shouted at: something about rising up and destroying the foreigners. When Guerin boasts that this is a very old ritual, Major Kingsthorpe has a moment of inspiration: would these "foreigners" include, say, those of Frankish blood? Sarge thinks so.

Outside, Alexander raises an eyebrow at the gendarmes, using all his persuasive talents. They halt the charge they'd half-begun, and start muttering among themselves; one of them is sent away, and comes back with a man who's clearly a local dignitary of some sort. Alexander sends him inside to talk with Major Kingsthorpe.

---

Quote: (Major Kingsthorpe) I'm going to have a good word with all the people responsible for this, because it's deeply...
(Alexander) Stupid?
(Major Kingsthorpe) Misguided. Deeply misguided.

---

Alexander passes out cigarettes to the (rather confused) gendarmes, who retire to a nearby bar, leaving their most junior member to "keep an eye on things". Alexander and Nordmann follow them, in the hope of getting some food for the group.

The dignitary, M. Angrand, is clearly a ritualist of sorts himself; Major Kingsthorpe tries to explain to him just what the problem is with the magic that's in progress, but comes up against a self-importance raised almost to the level of an art-form. Angrand is willing, just, to concede that the setup might not be entirely perfect, but he's certainly not willing to disassemble it or otherwise let the trapped spirits out. While Major Kingsthorpe keeps talking with him, Miss Vane works out just what needs to be done to break the circle: smudge that line there, spill some ash from that burner, and knock over this chalice. She and Argas do this, and there's a very loud bang, which mostly prevents them from hearing the pained howling that follows. The door of the tower is blasted to pieces, and the people inside it are covered with a fine layer of exploded cow.

They clean up in a horse-trough as hearing slowly returns. The food-foraging party returns, Alexander telling the gendarmes to go and get help; in the ensuing confusion, which is assisted by a sudden air-raid, the party gets out of town, though Alexander stays behind to influence the medics to keep Guerin and Angrand unconscious for longer than might be strictly necessary.

The group apart from Alexander cleans up properly in a stream, and spends the night in a shed full of tractor parts. Alexander passes it more pleasantly.

Wednesday 22 May 1940

Dawn brings with it the sound of tanks: the Germans have arrived, rather sooner than anyone expected. Major Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane decide that time is of the essence, and elect to perform the dirk-ritual in the shed, leaving the dagger buried under the earth floor. Matthews causes moss to grow over the spot where it's buried, Argas camouflages it, and Major Kingsthorpe attempts without success to cast an obscuring ritual. Argas then heads into town to see what help he can give to Alexander.

Alexander is woken by a tank blowing up the house next door to the one where he's spent the night. He thinks fast and dresses in civilian clothing, then strolls nonchalantly out into the town square and persuades a series of Nazi officers, of steadily increasing rank, that he is an Abwehr agent with vitally important information for the commanding general. To General Hoth, he explains that he has been tracking a British special unit, and needs transport ahead of the lines before they can escape; Hoth is impressed, but will await confirmation of his credentials from Berlin. Meanwhile, the agent will be found some suitable accommodation. Hoth passes him to Captain Ehmsperger and his soldiers.

Argas arrives just as Alexander is led out from the town hall, now clearly the local Nazi headquarters. Alexander uses his persuasive powers on Ehmsperger, explaining that he needs to get ahead of the front line with the greatest speed; Ehmsperger has his car fetched, a rather battered Kübelwagen, and he, Alexander, and two of his troopers get into it. Argas climbs onto the back, staying invisible, and holds on very firmly. They drive north; Alexander would feel confident about taking on Ehmsperger alone, but doesn't fancy his chances against the two privates, and isn't aware of Argas' presence. Just short of St Omer, Alexander explains to Ehmsperger that he has to go back under cover and can't be seen arriving in the company of German officers; Ehmsperger stops, then turns the car round and heads back, looking somewhat confused. Alexander and Argas wait in town to see what they can learn of the others.

Meanwhile Major Kingsthorpe casts rituals of good fortune and concealment, and the remainder of the team sets off cross-country. There's rather less traffic today, and it's several hours before they see a vehicle: it's a Kübelwagen, heading south. Matthews causes the vegetation by the road to grow across and bind the vehicle, stopping it suddenly; while Ehmsperger and his men are still recovering (since the Kübelwagen is entirely without such effete luxuries as seat-belts), Major Kingsthorpe and Nordmann shoot at them, with Matthews joining in shortly thereafter. Ehmsperger and his first private go down quickly; the second is a bit more combat-experienced, and dodges around before Matthews ties him down with more plant life. Ehmsperger's bleeding heavily, and Miss Vane performs first aid on him before they leave in the Kübelwagen.

They meet the others, and abandon the car, in St Omer, then try to scrounge up some more civilian transport; the best they manage is an ancient tractor and cart. Major Kingsthorpe has to perform some fairly thorough rituals just to work out how to get it started, but it successfully gets them further north; after sunset, Argas directs the driving, as it has no lights. They cross the British lines around Dunkirk around 9pm.

Thursday 23-Tuesday 28 May 1940

Over the next few days, they learn that the Panzer advance has halted, though nobody's quite sure why. If the dirk ritual has had some effect, unfortunately it doesn't seem to have stopped the Luftwaffe, who continue to attack the town and the beaches. Alexander spends much of his time marshalling the various groups of soldiers as they straggle in; Major Kingsthorpe and Nordmann help with treatment of the wounded, with a bit of distraction necessary before they can use their really effective treatments; Miss Vane assists with general organisation, and Matthews finds a unit of Indian troops to reassure. Argas is kept busy keeping the group supplied with food and other essentials; he even manages to find a new leather flying-jacket for Alexander, who had to abandon his old one with the rest of his uniform. Major Kingsthorpe and Nordmann also work to keep the weather closed in, not so much as to prevent navigation but enough to make aerial operations tricky.

On Saturday the news comes that Boulogne-sur-Mer has surrendered; Calais falls the next day. While the destroyers are taking off troops a few at a time, they can't get in close enough to do this efficiently; on Monday, the call goes out in England for small boats to come to the assistance of the trapped BEF. On Tuesday, as the news of Belgium's surrender comes in, the really large-scale evacuation begins, and as a group containing civilians the team is on one of the earlier boats.

They are rather surprised when they see their transport: in spite of the biggest Red Ensign her captain can find, and rather gaudy red, white and blue paint over the torpedo mounts, the vessel picking them up is very clearly a German E-boat. They are suspicious even though she's in convoy with the other British boats under Royal Naval escort; Alexander asks the captain how he came by such a vessel. "Found it." Suitably reassured, they crowd on board.

The group makes it back to Margate, and thence to London.

2.6. Shipyard Sabotage

[6 September 2008]

Mr Alexander, or more specifically Flying Officer Alexander, has a spot of difficulty reconciling his duties with 74Sqn at Hornchurch with those to MI5, especially since as he's one of the more experienced pilots he's being rotated through flights to try to give the other fliers the benefit of his experience. Or to put it another way:

"How many hours on Spits?"

"A hundred and twenty-five, sir. Plus a hundred and two on Hurricanes, time on the Blenheim, Defiant, Wellington, Lysander, Dominie... I'll just leave my log book on your desk."

"Where the bloody hell did you come from?"

"Whitehall, sir."

"You're not bloody going back."

Tuesday, 9 July 1940

The team is called together for a new mission. Captain Knight explains:

"After your trip to Scotland last year, we took a long hard look at Devonport and the ships that had been built there. Didn't find a great deal - a chalk scrawl here and there - but during the investigation we did see that production at Devonport is rather less than it should be. Too many 'accidents', and that sounds worryingly familiar. We'd like you to look into it."

They take the train to Plymouth, and thence Devonport. There are plenty of troops being moved around the country, blackout precautions are being discussed, and the harbour defences are clearly being built up. Rationing is starting to bite, too, with some commonplace items being hard to find.

Lt Bartlett, their liaison at the yard, has been described to them as on the square but not particularly aware of occult matters; Major Kingsthorpe decides that the team will present itself as time-and-motion experts. Bartlett is young, enthusiastic, and has his head full of hypothetical communist saboteurs; there's certainly been a certain amount of labour trouble, and while Russia is nominally neutral the Communists have certainly been preaching that British workers should not assist the war effort.

Miss Vane gets Sarge to cast about; he can't detect any odd spirits. A general look around reveals a certain degree of sloppiness and low morale, but nothing that can be tied specitically to sabotage.

As they are inspecting the working areas, there's a loud crash from the northern caissons, where three destroyers are under construction. They hurry over, to find a man pinned under a steel plate that's fallen off its hoist. He's not badly injured, but work in the area has stopped.

Nordmann, Major Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane overhear one of the workers muttering sditiously to the others: "Look how much they care about us. The union rep's here before the ambulance." They get Argas to follow him invisibly, which he does with some success.

Nordmann accompanies the worker to the base infirmary; he hears him muttering something to the effect of "it just got away from me". He attempts to heal the man, but without success in this highly unnatural setting.

Meanwhile Kingsthorpe inspects the accident site; he and Matthews look through the yard's records. There are indeed rather more accidents than one might expect, and a disproportionate number of them involve errors made by a single person (rather than general failures of equipment).

Argas continues to follow his man ("Jim"), out of the yard gates at the end of the shift and into the Lamb and Packet. He buys beer for himself and his friends, perhaps buying rather too often for someone on his wages, and at closing time heads home. He waits around 20 minutes, then goes out again, carrying a small lantern to find his way. He steps up to a gate leading to the back yard of another pub, exchanges a few words with the man guarding it, and steps in - still followed closely by Argas.

There are two other men in the yard, and Jim reports to them that everything went well today: "lots of disruption, nobody seriously injured". The second man, who looks a bit more prosperous, asks whether they've been given any more targets; the third man, "Joe", says no. "She hasn't said anything yet."

Jim heads home, and Argas goes back to the base; he reports, eats, and goes to bed.

Wednesday, 10 July 1940

Eyeballing the workers as they come in lets Argas spot that his second man is Brian Andrews, a foreman - Matthews spots in his records that he gave up his job in a drafting office to come here.

Miss Vane talks to the typing pool to sound them out. They seem, if anything, keener on their work than the men outside. One of them mentions in passing "good thing Ronnie wasn't there - he'd have tried to lift the plate off on his own". Another says that maybe he could have done it... he may be a bit slow, but he's strong, and his heart's in the right place. Argas spots Joe, who's a welder.

At lunch-time, the news on the wireless is that the British Union of Fascists has been banned: "about time too" is the general sentiment, and indeed Mosley has been locked up for some months.

Matthews and Kingsthorpe take another look at the accident site, but to no avail.

Argas follows Joe as he followed Jim yesterday, but in the crush at the end of the shift he's knocked down and trampled; he managed to get out of the way before too many people get suspicious. He takes a few hours to track down Joe, who's in the Goat and Compasses; at closing time, Joe goes home, and doesn't come out again.

Thursday, 11 July 1940

Sarge watches for active spirits, and doesn't see anything. He also scans the workers' lockers for active magical items, again without result. Matthews continues to examine the records; while the overall level of accidents is the same on day and night shifts, the number of people working at night is rather lower, and so the rate per person on nights is much higher. Kingsthorpe informs Lt Bartlett that they think they have their sights on some subversive types, but are working on gathering evidence.

Argas visits Brian Andrews' house while the latter is at work, He slips over the back wall into the yard, picks the back door lock, and starts to look around. It's a fairly standard two-up two-down row house: the back downstairs room is a kitchen, while the front is a living-room (the wireless set is tuned to the Home Service). Upstairs, the back room is being used as an office, with various paperwork and household bills scattered about; the front room is a bedroom.

Argas checks the loft hatch, and sees that there are a couple of hairs across the opening. He carefully removes these, then lifts the hatch. In the loft are several large boxes, all of the same general type, labelled "fruit"; there's also a light switch. Argas slowly and carefully opens boxes: he finds a complex piece of electrical equipment (something like a radio), more electronics but this time wrapped round a sort of skeletal metal helmet, and in the third box electronics with an antenna socket. He closes the boxes, puts the hairs back across the loft hatch, re-locks the back door and leaves.

In the evening, Argas follows Joe, who spends it again at the Goat and Compasses chatting with his mates - and with Ronnie, which strikes Argas as somewhat unusual (while "naturals" are an accepted part of life, they don't tend to get invited down to the pub). Joe heads home and then out again shortly thereafter, meeting at the same place (which appears to be the back yard of the Goat and Compasses). This time when Brian asks him about targets he has one: Number 7 crane's driver, on tomorrow (Friday) night shift around 9pm. Brian says he'll take care of it; Joe says that he knows a lad who can be on the spot to offer sympathy.

Brian asks whether "he" still doesn't suspect anything. Jim answers: "Him? Of course not."

Argas is fortified with fish and chips when he gets back to base.

Friday 12, July 1940

Kingsthorpe and Nordmann inspect number 7 crane. They can't see anything wrong with it: no sign of sabotage, not even any weak components. Matthews and Miss Vane attempt to locate Ronnie in the yard records: Ronnie Thorpe is a general labourer, not particularly skilled but usefully strong, who lives in town with his aunt.

In the evening, Argas breaks into Brian Andrews' house again and waits invisibly to see what will happen; Nordmann waits outside to back him up. The others are waiting by the crane.

Shortly before 9pm, Brian climbs to his loft and turns on the light. There's a protracted noise of assembly, then of valves warming up, and Argas risks poking his head through to see what's going on. Brian is wearing the helmet, and apparently deep in thought, while surrounded by his array of odd machinery.

At about ten past nine, number 7 crane drops its load on some boiler tubes (fragile and expensive). Nobody is hurt. The operator is aware that he made a mistake of some sort, but is at a loss to account for how it could have happened. Kingsthorpe and Matthews spot the "friendly face" egging the crowd on to greater dissatisfaction.

At about twenty past nine, Brian takes off the helmet, then turns off and disassembles the machinery. Argas leaves.

Saturday, 13 July 1940

The team is still trying to work out who the mysterious "she" might be. They decide to look into Joe's landlady. She was widowed in the Great War, and turned to renting rooms to make ends meet. Argas locates Joe's room (top floor at the back) and breaks in; the main finding of interest is a cache of (British) money in the wardrobe, rather more than Joe could plausibly have saved.

Sunday, 14 July 1940

Miss Vane goes to church and strikes up a conversation with the landlady, Mrs Bithell. The latter seems sound: she's stern in her condemnation of the Germans, and feels that the Treaty of Versailles self-evidently didn't go far enough.

Monday, 15 July 1940

Kingsthorpe arranges for Special Branch to raid the houses of Brian, Jim and Joe (and their colleague on the night shift). When Brian is picked up in the dockyard, the others try to run, unsuccessfully.

A Navy radio engineer is brought in to look at Brian's hardware; his first reaction is that this clearly isn't a radio, but he's not sure what it is. Checking some of the part numbers suggests that it's of Russian manufacture, though most of the valves and other fragile components are British.

Kingsthorpe operates a ritual to determine how the device is properly operated, and gains a brief but detailed knowledge; the main consideration is that it should not be used more often than once per day by the same person, "not even for the glory of the Motherland". It seems that it is a psychic amplifier of some sort, and interrogation of Brian reveals that he was using it both to inflict unluckiness on people and to report in to Moscow. He's prepared to collaborate with MI5 and share his limited knowledge of the device in return for not being hanged for treason (for all that the prosecution might face something of a challenge, this is wartime).

Joe and Jim stay quiet: where they were getting their targets from remains a mystery. While they have clearly been seditious and can be locked up for the duration, getting a treason charge to stick would be a hard business. Superiors at MI5 consider whether it's worth the effort of trying to run them as double agents.

2.7. Hexenbombenflugzeug

[11 October 2008]

Monday, 12 August 1940

While flying patrol from Hornchurch with his wingmates Francis and Matuschanskavasky ("Ski" for obvious reasons), F/O Alexander is vectored towards an incoming bomber raid near Clacton; count is uncertain because of bad weather in the area. The weather is both very bad and very localised; as he approaches the target he finds very heavy cloud with occasional lightning, and substantial air turbulence. He heads for the centre of the cloud; Francis and Ski aren't able to handle the state of the air, and break off. The lightning is interfering with radio communications enough that Alexander can't contact base.

In a surprisingly spherical clear area in the middle of the cloud, Alexander spots a formation of five Heinkel 111s. One of them is heavily painted with odd, rune-like markings. He attacks this one, putting a couple of good bursts into the tail, but to no visible effect; apparently in return, his aircraft is struck by lightning from within the cloud, and set afire. Since it is no longer airworthy, he calls in his situation as he falls out of the cloud, and makes an emergency landing on a country road. He's brought back to base, with the Spitfire slated to follow when a truck can be scrounged up. His CO orders him to take his sighting report to Whitehall first thing in the morning.

Tuesday, 13 August 1940

The rest of the team is called together to hear Alexander's report. After some discussion, Major Kingsthorpe decides that a useful first step will be relocation to an active fighter base; since the flight of Heinkels was tracked heading roughly southwards after it had dropped its bombs on Rochford, he picks Tangmere, and arranges for a house just by the base to be made available.

On arrival, he starts to set up one of the rooms as a ritual space; this will take some days. Meanwhile, he performs an immediate ritual to create a protective amulet against lightning, since it seems likely that Alexander will have to intercept this attacker again. (Argas obtains the necessary owl and crow feathers from a local.) Alexander meanwhile attempts to arrange the loan of a Hurricane; as long as the base isn't fully scrambling, this should be possible.

Wednesday, 14 August 1940

Kingsthorpe casts a location ritual, based on the full description of the aircraft (and its unique identifying number) brought back by Alexander. He tracks it down to a hangar in Abbeville, on the French coast - this is known to be a fighter base (Bf110s), and it's not clear what a bomber is doing there, as they're mostly based rather further from the front.

Alexander spends much of the day on the phone to various procurement personnel, and eventually manages to divert the new Spitfire that was to be ferried to his home base at Hornchurch down to Tangmere.

As the evening approaches, Kingsthorpe, Nordmann and Miss Vane head to an Observer site on the coast, and set up in a tent. Argas and Matthews stay in the fighter control room at Tangmere, where they can listen to both the controllers and the telephone link to the others. Alexander waits in his Spitfire.

Kingsthorpe (with confirmation from Sarge) detects a magical presence at high altitude just as the weather round the site worsens substantially. They alert Tangmere, and Alexander takes off to intercept the attackers. As before, the air around them is very rough, but he penetrates the bubble, which seems to be moving firmly with the central plane; he shoots at the rune-painted Heinkel, but again seems to have no effect. A lightning strike jumps at his plane, but misses at the last moment (and he feels his new amulet crack). Since his fire doesn't seem to be having any effect, Alexander reduces speed, lowers landing gear, and slams the port gear into the topside turret of the Heinkel. This certainly kills the crewman there, and at this point the Spitfire isn't going to make a clean landing anyway, so he repeats the effect by putting the starboard gear into the left side of the cockpit, killing the pilot and damaging the controls. The Heinkel starts to spiral down and out to sea; the bubble of clear air disperses, and the storm starts to blow itself out. Alexander notices that his shiny new Spitfire is displaying a worrying amount of rust, particularly since it's mostly made of aluminium.

He stays in the fight, though, and shoots down a second Heinkel (this one in conventional livery) before the creaking and groaning of the airframe gets too much to ignore. The Spitfire clearly isn't going any further, other than straight down, and he bails out.

Kingsthorpe calls the nearest Naval presence to send out a launch to the Heinkel's ditching site. He then sends in a preliminary report to MI5. The Navy crew reports that the aircraft had been abandoned, with no sign of the crew except for two dead bodies, and all sensitive material removed.

Thursday, 15 August 1940

It appears that the team will have to travel to France, and MI5 has an asset in place that can drop them off that evening. They spend most of Thursday getting their kit together (including a variety of German uniforms), then head down the Thames Estuary to meet Captain Furneaux. the man who got them off Dunkirk. His S-boat is no longer flying the red ensign. He can't put them ashore directly, but does drop them off in a rowing boat fairly close in to the Somme estuary, from which Abbeville is only about six miles overland; he tells them to signal green-white-green at local midnight when they want a pick-up. They conceal the boat on shore and make camp for the night.

Friday, 16 August 1940

At dawn, Alexander and Miss Vane (with Argas following invisibly) walk into Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme, sit in the local cafe speaking German, and order wine. After a few hours, an army Leutnant turns up in a truck, with six men; he orders Alexander to accompany him, and takes him to the air base, turning him over to the commandant with "I believe this is one of yours". The Leutnant seems keen to get on with the invasion of England, encouraging the Luftwaffe airmen (including Alexander) to "hurry up and finish off the Royal Air Force".

Alexander claims to be part of an airfield survey party from the Reichsluftministerium, and shows his Kondor Legion badge to squash any argument. He gets the commandant to lend him a truck and driver to pick up the other members of his group. On the way back, he tries to get the driver to stop in the bombed-out ruins of Abbeville itself and let off Matthews and Nordmann; the driver is firm in his determination to obey orders, and Alexander has to use his mind-control powers to make him stop.

When the others (Alexander, Kingsthorpe, Argas and Miss Vane) arrive at the Abbeville air base, they are rapidly surrounded by armed men. A Hauptmann (with strange shoulder-board insignia, that somehow make the eye look away from them) slightly outside the ring explains to the commandant that these are the spies he was talking about - "and I never forget a face". He looks at Alexander, who is as confused as the rest, and explains "we met briefly on Wednesday night, but were not introduced. Indeed, I had to walk home from the party". Alexander, who at that point was wearing goggles and an oxygen mask, is nonplussed.

The group is searched, though Argas manages to hide his lockpicks, and confined to a cell. There's one guard in the building with them, and presumably others outside. Meanwhile, Matthews and Nordmann observe the base from a safe distance, working out the routines of the sentries.

Miss Vane asks to be taken to the privy, and while she's away Alexander controls the mind of the guard. When Miss Vane returns, on a signal from Alexander she hits her guard; Argas, who's picked the relatively simple cell lock, and Kingsthorpe join in, but it's Miss Vane's kick that really causes him to lose interest in the fight. Alexander slits the throats of the two guards before the others can object.

Argas locates a truck, returns to the others to tell them where it is, and then heads towards the one hangar that's been kept closed while they were on the base. The others sneak to the motor pool, start the truck and follow. Miss Vane crashes the truck into a side wall of the hangar, and the three pile out into what seems to be an office of some sort; they all grab up handsful of the paperwork that's floating around loose as a result.

Argas comes in through a door in the opposite wall, as they confront someone who is clearly magically empowered. Alexander gives him pause with some well-chosen words ("So, Helmut, we meet again"), but this has more effect on the other occupants of the hangar (maintenance crew, it seems) than on their target. He's finishing a magical ritual of some sort, and as they watch a Heinkel 111 is assembling itself out of nothingness in the middle of the hangar.

He leaps towards them, striking at Alexander, but Alexander dodges his blows and shoots him, as do Kingsthorpe and Argas. They reduce him to unconsciousness, and as soon as there's enough of the aircraft to enter bring him in and start the engines. Miss Vane opens the hangar door, then jumps in. The plane's weapons have been stripped, presumably to save weight; Kingsthorpe realises that the entire cabin area is a formalised ritual space, though not of a tradition that he knows.

Matthews and Nordmann knock out a sentry and go through the fence when the excitement starts; they're in time to see the Heinkel taxiing out (still missing the tip of its tail, though this forms itself as they watch) with Alexander gesturing at them from the cockpit. They run that way and are hauled on board during the taxi run.

Alexander takes off, though he can see a number of Bf110s being scrambled in pursuit. With a certain amount of fumbling, the team gets a radio call through to Tangmere, asking for an emergency interception. Matthews and Nordmann blaze away at their pursuers with small arms, surprisingly enough getting a few hits (though without any effect other than on morale), but it's only the arrival of a wing of Hurricanes that gets the Germans to break off pursuit.

Alexander brings the plane in at Tangmere, heavily escorted; he manages to crumple the main gear on landing, and everyone's rather shaken up. The plane is hauled off the runway by tractor, while the team and their prisoner are taken to debriefing. ("Kingsthorpe, Royal Engineers. May I use your telephone?") The snatched-up paperwork proves to give some clues to the strange rune-based magic being worked by the Armanenorden.

Saturday, 17 August 1940

Immediate interrogation of the prisoner reveals that his name is Hauptmann Gervas von Ettingshausen, the project was Sturmkrähe, and that it was being kept on the coast (and linking up with passing bombers in the manner of fighter escorts) to avoid observation from the ground.

He starts getting very ill on Saturday evening, and cheerfully points out that the drugs that will alleviate this are only available in the Reich. (He refuses to say what or where.) While he is technically a prisoner of war (and was wearing uniform when captured), consensus is that attempting to obtain a supply of drugs from Germany - or indeed to return him there - would simply be too dangerous for too little potential reward.

von Ettingshausen dies of multiple organ failure on Saturday evening, with a smile on his lips in spite of what must be severe pain. Over the next few minutes, his body dries out and turns to dust.

(Sarge can detect that his spirit goes roughly east, rather than dispersing as the spirits of dead people normally do. But not, he thinks, far enough north of east to be heading for Berlin.)

2.8. Went the Day Were?

[15 November 2008]

Monday, 19 August 1940

Captain Knight looks slightly embarrassed and apologetic.

"A gentleman formerly of our service, and with some pull in high places, has requested a team to look into what he's described as 'a werewolf'. Sir Andrew Davies-Wright was one of the precognitives working on artillery in the Last Lot, and - between us - it rather took its toll of him. But he still knows enough people to put pressure on us here..."

Werewolf lore isn't as firmly established as it will be in coming years, but just in case, the team loads up on flare pistols and silver steak-knives.

A truck is supplied, and the team heads to St Mary in the Marsh, a village near New Romney in Kent. It's a small place - a few houses, a church and a pub - and they first contact Sir Andrew. He explains that there have been a few chicken-killing incidents over the last week - not notable in itself, and would normally be written off as just a fox, but two people have seen something rather larger than a fox running off when they confronted it. One of them, Eric Harper, took a shot at it without any effect. The police aren't bothered with something so minor, but Davies-Wright has a feeling it's more important than it seems.

Eric Harper and his wife Audrey are in their sixties, and glad (if somewhat surprised) that their reports are attracting so much official attention. He shows the team the hen-house, and points out just where he was standing and where he saw the whatever-it-was (man-sized or a bit larger, he's at pains to point out, though going on all fours).

He was disturbed on Wednesday night by the sound of chickens in panic, and went out with his shotgun; he fired both barrels at the creature, and it ran off apparently unwounded. He found most of the pellets on the ground, and collected them; he hands over the jar. The pellets are noticeably flattened, as though they'd stuck something very solid. (There are one or two still stuck in the wood of the hen-house, which argues for the bulk of his shot having gone where he said it did.)

The wire of the chicken-run has been repaired, but it's possible to see that a triangular hole was made in it - and it certainly looks as though it was torn, rather than cut.

The team next visits Mrs Catchpole, the other person who saw something (on Tuesday night). She is chatty, but doesn't have much to add; the creature ran off when she confronted it with a broom. She mentions that "those parapsychological research people" have been asking questions, too; apparently they're four friends of the doctor's who have come to visit. (She is unimpressed with their various claimed ailments, and clearly thinks they're cowards who don't have the guts to join up or even to be conscientious objectors.) As with the Harpers', the hedge isn't dense enough to need to be broken through. Miss Vane thinks there's something odd about Mrs Catchpole's accent, but can't place it.

The team returns to Sir Andrew, who is slightly aware of the people from the Society for Parapsychological Research but is inclined to dismiss them.

The next stop is the pub, The Star, where Alexander immediately starts to... obtain information from... the young barmaid, Martha (who is fascinated by his flying stories). The landlord, Jim Wilson, has only two rooms left, but is happy to let the team have them (and gets the young "Ned" to make them up, with collapsible beds for the gentlemen). (In passing, he reckons the war will be over soon - the Germans are all very well on the attack, but they have no staying power.)

Martha tells Alexander that the Mellinghams, Peter and Anne, have the other room - they're two of the people from the Society for Parapsychological Research. The other two are staying with Doctor Taylor at his house.

The team pauses for lunch (basic but good); Alexander calls for a dispatch rider. Miss Vane sends Sarge to check on the village, particularly the spots where incidents have happened; he doesn't spot anything.

The team goes out to take a further look around; the place seems prosperous enough, but it's clearly missing a lot of people. Miss Vane spots the other two parapsychologists, Christopher Brown and Stephen Jones, talking earnestly about "psychical vibrations"; she encourages Sarge to shout at them, and they don't react at all. She chats with them briefly, explaining (without going into detail) that she and the team have been sent down from Whitehall to look into the incidents; they're glad that there's an official investigation happening, but somewhat rueful about not having had an opportunity to serve (as parapsychological investigators) themselves. They are eager to help; an official report of strange goings-on will _force_ Whitehall to pay attention.

Argas reckons he's going to be up for much of the night, so gets some sleep in the afternoon. Kingsthorpe visits Sir Andrew again, and reads the local histories in Sir Andrew's library - there are indeed legends of a "Black Dog of the Marsh", but they're very much the same as the ones to be found in most villages. Alexander's dispatch rider arrives; he sends the names of the parapsychologists, and Dr Taylor, to Whitehall for a background check.

As Miss Vane is walking back to the Star, Ned catches her arm. He explains that he saw Stephen Jones looking left-right-left when he crossed a road a few days ago - "and that's in the book! I think he's a spy! But Uncle won't listen..."

Around 9pm, Argas heads out and sets up in the fields behind the houses to one side of the village. There's a howling in the distance, but nothing else noticeable for a few hours. Around 11pm, there's a noise of panicking chickens; he heads towards it, in the garden of a house the team hasn't yet visited. He sees a large creature with its head and shoulders into the hen-house, and stays back to observe. After a few minutes, a woman comes out of the house, shouting; the creature pulls its head out of the hen-house (it does indeed appear to be a large dark wolf) and confronts her. They stare at each other for a few seconds, and then it pounces at her. Argas, who's been carefully aiming, takes a shot; it's a good hit, and knocks the creature aside; it doesn't seem wounded, though, and runs away through a neighbouring garden. He follows, but can't keep up with its pace.

The rest of the team is woken by the shot, and Alexander calms Mrs Coates. Alexander then calls for a second rider, whom he sends off with an urgent request for reinforcements (and silver bullets). Kingsthorpe goes to wake up Sir Andrew, who's happy to get his hounds out - but they turn away and refuse to follow the scent trail.

Tuesday, 20 August 1940

Argas searches for scraps of fur, but doesn't locate any. The parapsychologists are poking about enthusiastically; Argas follows them invisibly as they wave pendulums around.

The other team members are also poking about; Alexander recognises "Anne Mellingham" as someone he knew as Adelinde Fröbe in Berlin (someone who didn't choose to get out when he and others did). He immediately retreats to the Star before she gets a chance to recognise him, and calls for immediate backup by telephone. Kingsthorpe returns and asks him for more information; Alexander is evasive, and Kingsthorpe is unconvinced that the situation is as grave as Alexander represents.

Argas, who is still following the parapsychologists, starts to think that there might be some sort of code in their enthusiastic occult babblings. Kingsthorpe suggests that, as they're all away from their lodgings, he check the doctor's house.

He does so; the doctor's car is away (he spends most of his time in New Romney), and he gains entrance without difficulty. In one of the bedrooms, he spots a loose floorboard, under which are a great many oilskin-wrapped packages; he abstracts one that's unlikely to be missed, and recognises the shape of sticks of dynamite. He hears the parapsychologists returning, apparently alert to some sort of intrusion, but manages to hide in the kitchen until they have all gone upstairs.

He returns to the pub; the dynamite is in German wrappings. Kingsthorpe is keen to arrest these spies before they can escape; Alexander is more cautious, but strongly suggests that if Anne shows any sign of resistance they shoot her promptly.

The team goes to the doctor's house, with Argas invisible behind them and carrying the Bren gun. When confronted, three of the four pull out MP38s and start shooting; the fourth, Christopher Brown, drops his pack and starts to grow (both in stature and in hirsuteness).

The team hits the ground and returns fire with pistols; Anne goes down quickly, but the other two manage to take cover behind shrubbery and it's some time before Argas is able to shoot them; Kingsthorpe takes a nasty hit, and is out of the fight (and will take some time to recover). Meanwhile, Alexander takes his silver knife and confronts the werewolf; he holds his own briefly, but soon the creature's superior strength and sharp claws start to tell. Miss Vane takes Kingsthorpe's knife and starts to move up to help, but Alexander takes a nasty swipe to the lower abdomen and goes down, bleeding very heavily. Argas moves in with his own silver knife and manages to get in a good stab to the werewolf's stomach, killing it.

The volunteer ambulance service arrives, and with heroic efforts their doctor (not Dr Taylor, who gets grabbed later) manage to get Alexander's heart started again. He's taken some very severe damage, though, and will be walking with a cane for a fair while.

When the team returns to search Dr Taylor's house, among the dynamite and other sabotage materials are a wireless set and several cases of occult paraphernalia. These are all brought back to Whitehall for study. (Around the end of the week, it appears that one of these is some sort of magical navigation beacon. And that night, bombs fall on London...)

2.9. Hexenwetter

[17 January 2009]

Alexander buys a cane, and manages to get his flight status confirmed in spite of having only limited use of his legs. The demand for experienced pilots certainly has something to do with this. (Nordmann reckons he can fix the injury, but it will take time.)

Wednesday, 28 August 1940

As Kingsthorpe is leaving the British Museum one evening, the porter hands him a letter left "by an American gentleman". It's addressed by description rather than by name; Kingsthorpe asks the porter to describe the American, who was slightly overweight, with thinning light hair.

Kingsthorpe takes the letter home to his flat in Bloomsbury, scans it for obvious magical emanations (without result), and leaves it in a ward overnight.

Thursday, 29 August 1940

He opens the envelope, which contains a handwritten sheet and another envelope. The sheet reads "At seventeen minutes past nine on Thursday morning, do not cross the road. After that, read the other letter."

He proceeds on his way, keeping an eye on the time. Shortly before the time noted, he decides to wait before crossing the road; a building on the other side sloughs off its frontage into the street, presumably weakened by last night's air raid. Nobody is caught under it as far as Kingsthorpe can see, but he might well have been had he continued as usual.

On arrival at Whitehall, he opens the second letter. It states that on the evening of 4 September, a German magician will be out in a small boat, calming the waters for the invasion of England. The writer isn't quite clear how Kingsthorpe is involved with stopping this, but he's quite sure that he is.

He and Argas look at both letters, and establish that they're on paper watermarked from the Dorchester. They walk there across the parks, and Kingsthorpe readily gains access to the records. The receptionist recognises Kingsthorpe's description as Adrian Fiske, an American who's been staying for a few months. His home address is in Chicago. "It's after eleven, so you'll probably find him in the bar..."

He does seem to be there, so while Argas keeps watch in the corridor Kingsthorpe searches his room on the third floor. There's very little in the way of occult paraphernalia - a lump of cloudy quartz that might be used for scrying or might just be a paperweight, but no odd books or anything of that sort.

Kingsthorpe and Argas repair to Scotland Yard, where they ask to see the file on Fiske. He's been in England since just before the outbreak of war; he is an insurance agent for an American company, and has kept postponing his return to the USA, perhaps in consideration of the vulnerability of shipping in the Atlantic. He makes a bit of money on the horses, and doesn't seem to have any particularly dubious contacts.

Kingsthorpe and Argas return to Whitehall, pick up Nordmann and Matthews, and head to Hornchurch to talk with Alexander, who's very much tied up with anti-bomber missions. Kingsthorpe proposes getting Alexander to strafe the boat once it's located, but Alexander reckons that someone more used to patrolling in that sector would be a better bet; he refers them to Squadron Leader Henshaw at Coastal Command.

They go to Southampton, arriving just as the desk officers are leaving for the day. They do get a chance to talk with some of the pilots who are preparing for night patrols. They spend the night nearby.

Friday, 30 August 1940

Henshaw is available in the morning, and reckons that if this hypothetical boat is off the English coast, there should be no problem; if it's off the German coast, that will be rather more difficult, as Coastal Command's aircraft aren't exactly the newest or most agile. Perhaps a torpedo boat might be a more appropriate?

The group returns to London, where Kingsthorpe consults Captain Knight. Knight has been trying to get the Bureau's remote viewers to see where preparations are being made, but there's a very large-scale magical blackout on the French coast.

Kingsthorpe decides to talk to Fiske to see if he can get any further information out of him; Argas goes along for backup. Fiske is quite happy to talk, in between working his way through the Dorchester's whisky reserves. He doesn't have control over what he "sees", and he doesn't understand it well, but he's quite sure that Kingsthorpe would have been under the building when it came down. He's seen other magicians, when he was living in the USA; the German felt rather more powerful than them. All he can add is a rough description, and that this German seemed very pale.

Kingsthorpe spends the rest of the day making up a Luck charm for Alexander, and gets it sent up to Hornchurch by the next courier.

Saturday, 31 August 1940

The team digs through the Bureau's scanty records on German occultists from before the war started, and going by Fiske's description it seems likely that their target is one Gerlach Essig, who was generally reclusive but shows up occasionally on occult society membership lists.

Alexander gets the feeling that there's something odd about recent weather patterns in the Channel, and this is confirmed with the Met. Office: the last few days have been alternating better and worse weather than usual for the time of year. It's not conclusive, but it's certainly indicative; Nordmann feels that it's definitely not from natural causes.

Kingsthorpe attempts to locate Essig (armed with name and description), but is unable to penetrate the veil over the Continent.

The team develops a plan to put Kingsthorpe and Nordmann on a Sunderland, to plot the location of the mage, while Argas and Matthews are on an MTB and Alexander provides top cover.

Sunday, 1 September 1940

On Sunday, the weather is much worse, continuing the pattern. Kingsthorpe borrows a Fairmile B and crew from the Navy at Dover, and brings along Nordmann, Argas and Matthews. They head out into the channel, and Nordmann attempts to use his ability to detect oddities in weather patterns to locate the centre of the effect, pinning it down to somewhere between Calais and Boulogne.

As they head towards the French coast, they find that there's a substantial growth of water-weed, which forces them to reduce speed. Fortunately there's a very low cloud base, and they're not spotted from the air, though there are occasional sounds of aerial combat overhead. The cloud-base gets lower as they progress east, and it's soon foggy at the water's surface.

The Fairmile crew spots a German destroyer lying about a mile off the coast, a mile or two to the north of the centre of Nordmann's detection. The consensus seems to be to head back to base and call for the MTBs, but after the call is sent Kingsthorpe gives the order to turn south and see what can be seen. The Fairmile comes in very slowly, until it's possible to see the small boat and its single occupant, a hooded figure who's chanting and making odd gestures. Matthews causes the water-weed to reach up and haul down one side of the boat, and it capsizes readily; the figure goes into the water and doesn't surface, until he causes the weed to push him up again.

He's caught with a boat-hook and hauled aboard the Fairmile, which then makes for England while Argas works on reviving the half-drowned German. (Nordmann tries to heal him more thoroughly, but his magical efforts are strongly resisted.) He's unwilling to talk, but at least appears to be in slightly better shape than von Ettingshausen was (apart from the cocaine withdrawal).

Over the next couple of days the weather starts to settle back to normal (and the German engineers working on trying to make Rhine barges survivable for a Channel crossing in any sea state worse than "millpond" continue to worry).

2.10. Danger UXM

[21 March 2009]

Sunday, 8 September 1940

Last night, in the first really large-scale bombing raid on London, St Katherine Docks were hit. The Engineers found something odd and passed it up the chain, so the team is called in...

As they get through the perimeter, passing the damaged buildings and rubble (on some of which someone has pinned a sign saying "business as usual during alterations"), they see three shored-up pits, each holding one unexploded bomb. Lt Robert Andrews, a painfully young Engineer, points to the odd one: it looks like a standard small German bomb casing, but it has a substantial dent in one side, and it's covered with runic symbols (Kingsthorpe identifies them as the Armanic Thor rune, associated with ruin and destruction). There's some magical presence, but it seems quiescent.

Given these limited assurances, Lt Andrews defuses the bomb, and some of the team take it out to Essex. With magical protection provided by Kingsthorpe, Nordmann disassembles the bomb; it contains a mixture of explosives and cloth bags containing dust of some sort. Matthews believes it to be some sort of disease pathogen, but can't identify it in more detail. The team takes it to the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down, where after some hours it is confirmed to be psittacosis. It certainly can infect humans, but it seems an odd choice for a biological attack.

Back in London, Andrews passes on a report from a fire warden who was on duty when the bombs were falling. He claimed that this particular bomb was falling towards the nearby Tower of London, but then "bounced off the air" and came down in the docks instead. Miss Vane gets Sarge to take a look at the Tower; there's something going on there, but it's very subtle. (The team's superiors claim to know nothing about magical protection on the Tower.)

Monday, 9 September 1940

With all the team back in London, they decide it's time to visit the Tower. Gerlach Essig, the magician captured the previous week off the coast of France, has apparently been asking for them - quite apart from the cocaine withdrawal he's been going through, it seems he's suffering from nightmares of being attacked by ravens. He's in a bad way even though he's in one of the Tower's "quiet cells", ones in which no magic can work. (A little research suggests that these date from the 1500s or so.)

Argas reckons that the combination of psittacosis and the Tower may mean that someone's trying to nobble the ravens. Kingsthorpe speaks with them, but doesn't get much - the food has been a bit off in the last few months, there haven't been any interesting humans about for ages, and the quiet cells "smell funny". (And their current inhabitant is keeping the ravens awake by raving all night.)

Kingsthorpe speaks to the Ravenmaster, Yeoman Warder William Barnett, who's in his sixties; he can't account for anything odd about the food, as it's still coming from the usual sources (Smithfield and other meat markets).

Argas decides to take a look at things overnight, and goes home to sleep for the afternoon. Kingsthorpe visits the British Museum to check up on legends of ravens and the Tower - it was first written down by the Victorians, but there's some suggestion that the idea of the birds' being essential to the Tower's survival is an older one in oral tradition.

That evening, Argas sneaks in invisibly and keeps an eye on the ravens' feeding; he can't spot anything odd. He remains inside the Tower overnight.

Tuesday, 10 September 1940

Matthews runs background checks on the Yeoman Warders and their families. Alexander and Miss Vane speak with Barnett, who is visibly hiding something; under Alexander's influence, eventually backed up with full-on mind control, he admits that he is being blackmailed. His granddaughter, who's a clerk in the Ministry of Food, had some unfortunate friends a few years ago, of the student communist variety... and some of them have been leaning on him to try to poison or drive off the ravens. He gives descriptions of the three men he's seen, and hands over a hip-flask which he says contains the poison. Kingsthorpe analyses it, and confirms that it's a suspension of mercury.

---

Quote: (Alexander) So we stop giving it to them, and hope they don't... croak.

---

The team visits Scotland Yard, but can't identify their targets from descriptions. However, there's a Constable Jones over in Whitechapel who deals with that sort of thing; they head back. Jones (who looks profoundly disreputable) gives them a few places to look, and Argas finds them in The Mariner's Rest - not talking to each other, but all in the same place.

Miss Vane calls the Yard to get them picked up. One leaves, and Argas and Alexander follow him home (to a third-floor flat). The light goes off after a short while, and Argas decides to risk breaking in; the target is wearing headphones and operating a wireless transmitter, and doesn't choose to fight when he's captured.

Barnett identifies him and the other two, and they are taken to be tried as spies (and probably to have their radio fists imitated)...

2.11. Sunken City

[25 April 2009]

Wednesday, 11 September 1940

An early morning call goes out: meet at the docks on HMS Maori, bring tropical-weight clothes, briefing to follow.

Italian aircraft have crossed the border into Egypt, and a full-blown invasion cannot be far off. Last night, a radio message was received from Sidney Ericson, an agent in place in Alexandria: it wasn't entirely clear, but did include code groups for "send special assistance" and "likely to affect the course of the war". So special assistance is being sent...

Maori steams to Gibraltar, and refuels there, giving the team some time to pick up spare clothing, then proceeds to Alexandria (where they get the news that the Italians have crossed the border in force, but are so far being held back by the British).

Saturday, 14 September 1940

The local contact is a "trade attache" at the embassy, Thomas Williamson, who formally works for MI6 rather than MI5. His principal job is keeping tabs on the local Axis agents, mostly Germans; he has had only a loose supervisory relationship with Ericson, but does give the address of the antiquities job that he has been keeping as a cover job. As far as he's aware, Ericson's main job has been to listen in on the local anti-government movements, which vary from constitutional reformers to outright anti-British rebels. He arranges rooms in a local hotel.

Alexander has not been in Alexandria for some years, and takes out Miss Vane to paint the town red (and get some decent-quality clothes made up by local tailors). He gets distracted by a local lady at one of the casinos, and having made sure Miss Vane gets safely back to the hotel spends the rest of the night otherwise engaged.

Nordmann, Kingsthorpe and Argas proceed to the shop, which is clearly shuttered and untenanted; Argas heads in to scout it while the other two wait in a nearby cafe. The place has been locked up reasonably well, but he gets in through a barred back door and searches. In the upstairs bed-sitting room is a mummified corpse, sitting in the armchair; some magic is present, but it's not animated. In an ashtray is ash from coding sheets; concealed about the room are a radio and various high-value antiquities, presumably those too good for the general stock downstairs. He removes a gold ibis-head as an exemplar, and returns to the others.

Later in the evening, all three (and Miss Vane) return to the shop to take a more detailed look. Kingsthorpe analyses the magic on the mummified corpse; after some consideration, he thinks it is the residue from a failed attempt to animate a servitor. They recover the other artefacts from the upper room.

Sunday, 15 September 1940

The team returns to the embassy, and Williamson confirms from their photographs of the corpse that it is indeed that of Sidney Ericson. He points them to Fadil abd-al-Muttalib, a local collector of antiqiuties who was one of Ericson's sources in the revolutionary political world.

Kingsthorpe, Alexander and Miss Vane visit Fadil, an overweight and clearly rich man, who is happy to help friends of Mr Ericson's; he tells them about various diggers and dealers with whom he had business, though says that he'd been doing some digging himself recently. On Monday he was very excited about something, but by Tuesday he seemed very low, saying "my career is over" and "they'll never believe me again".

They look around for the diggers at Pompey's pillar, one of the main surviving antiquities and a popular relic-hunting area. They locate Daud, one of Ericson's preferred diggers - he hasn't seen him for several days, but assumed that this was of the new source of items he'd found, which certainly wasn't in this area.

Alexander visits the local museum, and impresses on Dr Jones the need for utter secrecy; he then shows him some of the artifacts. Jones is impressed by their condition; he dates them to the early Dynastic period, and believes that they may have been underwater recently.

The team rejoins, and with Alexander's information takes a boat tour of the Eastern Harbour - much of which covers the older parts of Alexandria, and which has in the past been a good hunting-ground, though it's mostly picked clean now. They speak with Sarwat, who skin-dives for items here, but he certainly hasn't heard of any new or especially interesting finds.

As they take tea in a cafe and consider what to do next, Miss Vane is approached by an elderly Englishwoman wearing a mixture of English and native dress; she seems agitated, and clearly believes she has found a fellow Spiritualist. Miss Vane allows the misunderstanding, and they converse; the lady, Miss Poole, has been suffering from terrible dreams, of Pharaohs rising from the water and killing the townspeople. She wasn't sure quite where this was happening, since it didn't make sense - the old Roman amphitheatre isn't underwater, after all!

Alexander visits the Navy base to investigage possible submarine traffic, and Kingsthorpe talks to the embassy to try to arrange for police support (though it seems that this isn't likely to be easy). The others go to the amphitheatre, and search using magical detections; they're soon joined by Kingsthorpe and Alexander. There's a trace of magic in a cleft under a wall, which seems large enough to get down.

Argas goes down first, winding his way through a fairly tight passage, and comes out into what's clearly a ritual space, thickly decorated with gold statuary; there's a definite jackal motif about it. The others follow him down, though Alexander (who's still unable to move well following his brush with death some time ago, in spite of Nordmann's efforts) stays on guard at the surface. There are several exits, which seem to lead further onward and downward; they explore down the largest of these, passing some high-powered pumps and following canvas pipes into the depths of the earth and eventually down to a pool of water that blocks the passage.

It is Alexander, therefore, who hears the barking of jackals; three of them run towards him, biting (with strangely-glowing fangs) and clawing. He shoots one of them; then two humans turn up, dressed in local robes and holding Thompson guns. They get ready to shoot Alexander (who's still dealing with the jackals), but the larger appears to recognise him - they have a hurried conversation on Arabic, including the words "Talons of the Sphinx", and he draws a large sword. Alexander draws his own swordstick, and they fight, recreating the scene from the film that Alexander made here a few years ago. Alas for him, it doesn't end the same way, as the big man gets a solid blow in to Alexander, who's already weakened from the jackal-bites and loses consciousness.

The team inside has heard the gunshots, and Sarge confirms two jackals coming in. Nordmann kills the first one, getting badly bitten in the process and falling down; Kingsthorpe shoots the second.

With a certain amount of wriggling and rearrangement, Argas sneaks invisibly up the passage, and finds the two Egyptians with Thompson guns laying an ambush in the ritual chamber. He kills one of them and badly wounds the other, then heads outside, to find Fadil and a woman in the process of picking up Alexander's body. He has the drop on them, but Fadil still tries to out-draw him - unsuccessfully. The woman is gesturing strangely, so (bearing in mind the rules that apply to magical engagements) he shoots her too; a crackle of electricity plays around her fingers as she falls.

She's carrying a bulky gold amulet that's clearly magical, as well as a number of other items that are not. The amulet seems to be hollow, and contains an oddly-shaped lobed cavity, as well as what seems to be a magnet in the middle.

Kingthorpe gives Nordmann some basic healing to get him back on his feet (and deal with the poison from the jackal's bites); Nordmann heals Alexander.

Monday, 16 September 1940

The temple is to be recorded in detail, then stripped to be shipped back to England when conditions permit. The surviving cultists are interrogated; the woman turns out to be Alexander's companion from the first night. They are engaged in an attempt to overthrow the constitutional government by magical means, intending to replace it with an absolute rule (and one rather less friendly to Britain). They have been using a combination of magic and technical means to plunder the early-dynastic cache they detected under the harbour.

When the Navy divers are called in to deal with the cache, one of them recognises the design of the "amulet" and passes word up the chain of command - "tell Sir Henry to forget everything he knows about Number Twelve".

2.12. Errore

[16 May 2009]

Wednesday, 18 September 1940

Williamson has received a report from a Long Range Patrol unit: in one of the villages near the Italian front lines at Sidi Barrani, there seems to be construction going on, specifically a Roman-style temple. The LRP unit had more militarily important targets for their explosives, so they left it alone. On the basis that Williamson doesn't understand what it might be for, and the team deals with things he doesn't understand, he'd like them to take a look at it.

Argas borrows a Lewis gun from the Navy, just in case, and Alexander hastily obtains a set of native-style robes. The flight to Mersa Matruh, aboard a Bombay carrying supplies, is uneventful, and the team is introduced to Lieutenant Parmenter of the Long Range Patrol. He takes them in a 30cwt Chevrolet truck through the Italian lines after dark, and parks up behind a sand dune about half a mile from the site. Even from here, Matthews can identify the smell of camels.

There is a small force of native cavalry, and a platoon or so of Italian infantry, camped out by the village, as well as one armoured car and one staff-type car without insignia. The temple is very obvious, and clearly quite close to completion. Argas sneaks round to the side of the encampment and investigates more closely. There are two one-person tents in the middle of the Italian encampment which seem to be guarded to prevent people from getting out, though there are no lights showing or sounds of conversation from them. The temple seems to be entirely new construction, slabs of marble cladding on a steel framework.

Argas approaches the prisoners' tents more closely, and detects a smell of very strong and cheap tobacco.

It is decided that, whatever the Italians are up to, it's probably worth stopping. Parmenter can bring his patrol back on the following night, half of it going to set fire to the ammunition dump at the next strongpoint, with the other half available for support here. He takes all the team apart from Argas and Major Kingsthorpe back to Mersa Matruh.

Thursday, 19 September 1940

Alexander arranges to borrow a Blenheim and bombardier for the coming evening's festivities. He'll also get a Gladiator for escort (there's only one Hurricane in the whole of Egypt, and it's needed elsewhere), flown by the local top ace, one "Pat" Pattle. (He and Alexander engage in some kill-measuring, though the fact that all Pat's have been scored in Gladiators counts very much in his favour.)

Matthews heads out in an LRP car with several small bags of gold, in an attempt to find locals who will be prepared to help with the attack. Nordmann arranges for some desert camouflage clothing, and manages to scavenge a Holland & Holland rifle the previous owner of which has no further need for it.

During the day, Major Kingsthorpe and Argas keep an eye on the site. There are definitely two prisoners, one man (probably local) and one woman (possibly European, but very tanned from long exposure to desert sun); they're being guarded, but also apparently being consulted on the construction. A junior officer visits during the morning; it seems to be substantially his project, judging by the amount of shouting he's doing.

Shortly after the lunch break, two trucks arrive with goats on board; they're unloaded into the animal pens near the outdoor altar-block.

Around two hours after sunset, once Nordmann and Miss Vane have returned, a much more senior Italian officer arrives, accompanied by the junior officer from earlier in the day. The latter begins what is clearly a long and complex ritual.

Nordmann takes careful aim with his rifle and shoots the senior officer, wounding him in the shoulder. Argas, having been sneaking up to the site, shoots the magician (whom he reckons is definitely doing something necromantic) twice in the back. Both of them go down.

About this time, with a rumble of hooves, Matthews appears, leading his scratch local force (who are especially enthusiastic once they realise that the natives working for the Italians are Libyan Bedu).

The senior officer is hustled by his aide into his staff car, which departs at speed. Argas encourages the prisoners, who have their hands tied but not their feet, to run for the dunes, then grabs the papers that the adept was working from (he's rapidly bleeding out).

Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane, meanwhile, have been taking tea and getting ready to receive the escaped prisoners. He asks Lieutenant Parmenter to head out to capture the Italian senior officer. Around this time, Alexander comes in with his Blenheim, scoring a direct hit on the temple with bombs and strafing the Italian troops. Nordmann gets closer and keeps firing.

A smaller bomb catches the staff car, but it keeps going, albeit on fire. Alexander is forced to break off pursuit when he realises he's overstressing his aircraft - and the Italian CR.42s (and light tanks) are starting to come up from Sidi Barrani.

The team, with the two escaped prisoners, heads back to Mersa Matruh. The two turn out to be archaeologists, Dr Paola Vercesi and Jibril abd-el-Rahim, who had been out of touch in the desert until they were captured by the Italians. Apparently they were the closest thing available to experts on Roman antiquity. They ask whether anything has been heard of their leader, Professor Domingues, a Brazilian who was captured at the same time; Kingsthorpe makes sure a note will be sent to the Brazilian Embassy.

The magician's notes, in classical Latin, suggest that while he had told his superiors he was going to strengthen and protect the Italian troops, he was in fact attempting to summon the shade of Italo Balbo (shot down a few months ago by his own side's anti-aircraft gunners) to take possession of Marshal Graziani, the senior officer who got away. Balbo was noted for rather more flair and less caution than Graziani has been displaying in the attack so far.

Rumours will be spread that the attack was aimed at Graziani, his schedule having been leaked by a spy in his headquarters.

2.13. Secrets of Palestine

[22 August 2009]

Saturday, 21 September 1940

After a day of rest, a cipher message arrives from London for Major Kingsthorpe. It seems that "an Allied operative inside the Italian Navy" has passed on information regarding the Italian bombing campaign against Palestine, specifically the oil refinery and port at Haifa - reports are being sent from within the town (and relayed by Italian ships) regarding the movement of assets, deception operations, and so on. Local agents have been trying to track them down, with no luck: they are unable to intercept radio messages or find any trace at all. The administrative section these spies seem to be dealing with is the same as that of the flamen who was working out of Sidi Barrani, so a destroyer will take the team to Palestine... The cover for the benefit of local agents is that this is thought to be a particular faction within SIM (Italian military intelligence) with which the team has dealt before (this is even technically true).

Sunday, 22 September 1940

The team is met by Major Baldwin, who advises them to try not to look British - there are plenty of locals, both Jews and Arabs, who don't like them. He has arranged hotel rooms and a secured room at the Consulate for their use; he's clearly not happy to have had to call in outside help, but his own resources are limited. The team studies the layout of the town and catches up on details; Baldwin has had direction finders out, but they haven't caught any illicit radio transmitters.

Miss Vane calls Sarge to search for signs of active magic or spirits; he can't spot anything out of the ordinary.

Alexander talks to the police to find out who's in charge of the underworld of Haifa; the answer seems to be a man called Siraj, who's essentially apolitical. Alexander visits his coffee shop and observes.

Kingsthorpe tries to track down local occultists, starting by with the antiquarian booksellers (working out likely prospects and then having long and philosophical conversations with them). He gets the impression that if there are serious magicians in Haifa they're staying well hidden.

At around dusk, most of the team (except Matthews) suffer sudden blinding headaches; Alexander is particularly badly affected, having to leave the cafe rather than making contact with Siraj. It is clearly some sort of magical effect; it lasts for around thirty seconds, then stops just as suddenly. To Alexander it feels like trying to listen to an aircraft radio during a thunderstorm. Sarge tries to pin down the location; it's somewhere near the Technion university, he thinks.

Alexander goes out that night looking for trouble (and finding it, though nothing he can't handle). Kingsthorpe, Matthews and Miss Vane visit a variety of cafes near the university, looking for anything unusual; they spot it, in the form of a young and painfully thin man being fed a large quantity of honeyed pastries and other foods by his friends. Asking about a little reveals that he's "one of those students" and comes in nearly every night.

Matthews listens to conversations nearby - there's a fair bit of political talk, which could be considered borderline subversive, but their target doesn't seem to be involved in it (he's discussing engineering and women with his friends, with similar lack of knowledge of both). Sarge establishes that his name is Tamir, and follows him back to his shared flat.

At the Consulate, Baldwin doesn't have a file on Tamir, but is certainly prepared to open one. He mentions that the RAF have been out looking for the Italian ships that must be lurking off the coast to relay signals, but with no luck. "They've never been as good as they were in the early days, like the time they wiped out the Turks at Megiddo." A little conversation with Kingsthorpe reveals that they have differing memories: Baldwin claims to have seen the RAF destroy by bombing the Turkish Seventh Army in Wadi Fara (in 1918), while Kingsthorpe regards that as a cover story because the Turks were actually destroyed by an earthquake caused by Allenby's staff adepts (something of an open secret in the British occult community). Allenby was offered the title of "Viscount Armageddon", but felt that it would play too much into the hands of the millennialists; he took Viscount Megiddo instead.

Monday, 23 September 1940

A little before dawn, Alexander goes out to have a word with Tamir. The blinding headache strikes him (and the rest of the team) again; once it's passed, he knocks on the flat door and asks for Tamir. Whoever's inside speaks very little English; Alexander takes control of his mind and gets him to open the door. There's a crunching sound from the back of the flat, and Tamir emerges at the other end of the hall, clearly in a panic. Alexander trips him with his cane, but he pays little attention, just trying to scramble up and keep going. Smashing through the doorway behind him comes a massive grey human figure, wielding a pair of sub-machineguns. Alexander, familiar with Hollywood folklore, recognises it as a golem (though it has no writing on its forehead).

Alexander allows Tamir to pull him out of the building and takes control of his mind, telling him to go to the Consulate. They try to get away together - but Alexander still moves slowly thanks to his leg injuries, and he takes a couple of bullets and goes down.

Kingsthorpe meanwhile has been reading up on the Battle of Megiddo; the histories here describe the RAF's attack, but that's more or less what he'd expect from the cover story. He's informed of a madman banging on the Consulate gates, and gets the team together. After hearing Tamir's somewhat incoherent story, he goes with Nordmann to the site (also calling for an ambulance), while Matthews and Miss Vane talk to Tamir to try to get his story into some sort of order.

Alexander is unconscious, and without his wallet. Kingsthorpe fixes him up while waiting for the ambulance; once he's been stabilised (and before he's taken away), Nordmann drums for a while and repairs the worst of the damage. Alexander persuades the ambulance crew to take him back to the Consulate rather than to hospital.

Kingsthorpe and Matthews search the flat; there are no signs of occult paraphernalia, apart from a very basic book on spiritualism which has clearly been read once and then discarded in a corner.

Tamir is still in shock, and quite prepared to talk. A few months ago he was riding back from visiting his family, and something happened; he's not sure what, but the next thing he knew he was lying on the sand and being woken by his donkey. Over the next few days, he found that he could talk to people at a distance in his head; he made contact with someone called "Julius", who seemed similarly anti-British (in Tamir's case, because the British aren't restricting Jewish immigration or stopping them from taking over Arab land), and has been passing on information since then.

Alexander talks to the RAF attaché to find out where he'd most like the Italian bombers to come in; he then arranges with Tamir to feed this false target information to them. Kingsthorpe sends a coded cable to JFC Fuller at Sandhurst, asking him for a summary of the battle of Megiddo to see which version he remembers.

The place where something happened to Tamir is very close to the crossroads at Megiddo, only about thirty miles away, and the team takes a car out there. They all spot a very strong magical shimmer off the side of the road, and as they get closer they can see that the foot- and hoof-prints tend to avoid it. Throwing a stone through the shimmer doesn't seem to make any difference, but when Alexander pokes it with his sword-cane it collapses, revealing a scorched but basically mundane document folder lying on a circle of blackened sand. It's labelled in Latin written in Enochian script, which Kingsthorpe can read: "Read this at once. Only you can prevent the poisoning of the world."

The paper inside is very fragile and prone to crumble; its contents are typed in English. It's about forty double-sided and closely-spaced pages, giving a concise history of the world (written in the future tense) from about 1910 (and it's accurate as far as they can tell) to 1960, with some particular emphases: there's very little mention of magic, but some excursion on (the carefully-explained ideas of) atomic power and atomic weapons. Both of these, it seems, are intrinsically inimical to magic and magicians; the startup of the Chicago pile in December 1942, and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will kill magicians all over the world. The other major emphasis is on the decline of Britain and the rise of two atomic-armed powers, the USA and the USSR, and the damage they both do to Europe.

The document goes into some detail as to how Britain can avoid being damaged by the Great War, implying that perhaps this is not the time at which it was intended to be read.

There's enough detail for an immediate prediction: according to the document, Vichy French forces will bomb Gibraltar for the first time tomorrow night.

The team drives back to their hotel; Alexander sends a cable to Gibraltar (citing "intelligence sources") warning the air defence crews to be on particular alert tomorrow night.

Around dusk, Tamir is planning to send the deceptive information; in case the golem returns, the team sets up an ambush in the military prison (Nordmann with his H&H rifle, Alexander with his Bren, Matthews with grenades). A few minutes after Tamir sends his message (with accompanying headaches again for all the team except Matthews), there's shouting from the front gate; it seems that the golem was pushed out of a car and is smashing its way towards Tamir. (He is got out of the way; the golem keeps heading for the same place.) As the golem comes down a corridor, the ambush is sprung; Nordmann and Alexander damage it, but not enough to slow it down, and it returns fire with its sub-machineguns, injuring Nordmann. The grenades finish it off, though, with fired clay fragments scattering throughout the corridor.

Alexander finds the nearest rabbi, Mordecai, and describes in roundabout terms what's been going on; he asks to see the head of the most conservative faction.

A cable comes back from Fuller; his analysis includes the earthquake.

Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane work to transcribe the document before it crumbles completely; they photograph as many pages as they can, particularly the signatures on the last page (Maxwell Knight, JFC Fuller, Julius Evola, Karl Spiesberger, TC Lethbridge, Hellmut Wolff). Kingsthorpe knows the first two signatures, and they look too unlike the ones he's met to be competent forgeries.

Tuesday, 24 September 1940

Alexander goes to see Elihu ben Yaron, and with a lot of coded talk about "noise being made" and "young hotheads" he believes they have reached an accommodation.

While the team has not yet decided just who should be shown this document, getting it back to London seems to be a priority, so Kingsthorpe throws his rank around a little to get space on a destroyer heading home.

2.14. Interlude in Gibraltar

[26 September 2009]

Some discussion of what to do with the document ensues; the consensus seems to be that it should at the very least be shown to Captain Knight. Preventing the development of atomic power and weapons seems likely to be a significant challenge, and may not even be worth doing, if the number of magicians killed is less than the number of lives saved by its availability in the war with Japan...

Argas and Miss Vane make themselves useful aboard - the former with manual labour, the latter in the galley.

Thursday, 26 September 1940

The destroyer arrives in Gibraltar to refuel, and the team is given quarters in the evacuated town overnight. Kingsthorpe borrows the Intelligence people's photographic equipment to make some more copies of the document, while Argas and Miss Vane go about getting hold of some better-quality food supplies.

(The players of Alexander and Nordmann were unable to make this session; they were clearly off at the RAF station on the island.)

Kingsthorpe runs into an old colleague from Sandhurst, (now) Colonel Banfield - he's a bit of a plodder, but seems to have done all right fr himself. Over brandy, Banfield explains that he's here as an advance party for the Engineers who are arriving next month to dig a host of new tunnels in the Rock; after a few more drinks, he asks the Major whether he's ever heard of mice getting at explosive detonators. It's happened to him in his last few postings...

Kingsthorpe returns to the others. Miss Vane summons Sarge, who says that there are definitely spirits in Banfield's vicinity, possibly held there by magic. The team inspects the explosive store - there's no sign of mouse-droppings, and the metal boxes in which the detonators are stored are still intact. It's only the items themselves that have been gnawed.

More discussion with Banfield reveals that he went on a trip to the Maginot forts in June of 1939 - semi-officially, his commission was being reactivated but wasn't yet in force - and the problem seems to have been dogging him since then.

Matthews and Miss Vane set up to spend the night in the explosives store: Sarge will tell Miss Vane about the spirits if and when they arrive, and Matthews will attempt to control them with his yogic powers. Meanwhile, Kingsthorpe arranges to sleep on Banfield's sofa, and pleads an early start; once Banfield has retired, he sets up a cleansing ritual, directly below Banfield's bed.

The spirits appear - they seem to be spirit-mice. Matthews commands them to go north and a little east, towards the Spanish mainland; they set off that way, but are thrown back by some other force. When Kingsthorpe's ritual takes effect, they are able to go on their way.

Friday, 27 September 1940

The team returns to their ship, but it seems that the oil taken on overnight was contaminated - the burners will have to be disassembled, cleaned and checked, and this will take a few days. This must have happened in the twenty-four hours leading up to the ship's arrival last night; Kingsthorpe and Sarge look for signs of magical influence on the oil, but it seems that it's just had a lot of a heavier fraction added. There's some muttering from the base personnel that perhaps the accident to a shell hoist on Thursday morning wasn't really an accident either - a rail broke and some shells were damaged, but nobody was hurt.

Kingsthorpe sends a ciphered message to London, hinting at problems following Banfield around and suggesting that investigation of other people who've visited the Maginot Line might be worth trying.

The team decides to look at the caves in the Rock, and so is fairly close by when someone in the hospital (in the upper part of St Michael's cave) finds that someone's broken into the drugs store and the supply of sulpha drugs has been severely damaged. MPs are sent to secure the place; Argas sees that the store has been crowbarred open, but reckons that someone acting quietly could have done it if he'd been able to avoid being seen or heard by the personnel on tidy.

Kingsthorpe speaks to the Provost Marshal and arranges that his team should have appropriate passes in case they're challenged while investigating. There don't seem to be any more relevant incidents in the recent past.

Argas checks Banfield and finds no trace of magic on him. That evening, the team splits up to keep an eye on likely targets - Argas and Kingsthorpe looking at the harbour, Matthews and Miss Vane roaming. They don't spot anything.

Saturday, 28 September 1940

In the morning, it turns out that the crew of one of the anti-aircraft posts was murdered during the night - each of them stabbed. Argas looks at the scene and spots some tracks of bare human feet outside the gun-nest. Sarge talks to the recently-dead spirits, and finds that each of the gunners was killed by a single stab in the lower back; none of them saw anyone, though one of them fired his pistol blindly.

Argas widens his search, and finds some disturbed vegetation; he and Matthews establish that it had something sodden with salt-water put down on it around the time of the murders. Miss Vane finds some scrapes on the sea-wall at the south end of the harbour which might indicate someone's having climbed out of the sea there. Kingsthorpe scans out across the bay to Algeciras, but doesn't spot anything unexpected.

That night, the whole team sets up in a sentry box with a good view of that end of the harbour, except for Argas, who's invisible closer to the point Miss Vane spotted. Around 1am, he and Matthews see a disturbance in the water; it's hard to make out the form itself, but Argas closes in, planning to capture it. Matthews has a good shot and takes it, and the figure goes down. It seems to be human, though his skin is coloured to match the quayside he's been crossing. He's dressed in a basic breechclout, and is carrying a long narrow blade that matches the wounds on the gunners. He's carried to the temporary quarters, and the local Intelligence officers are asked to recommend whichever medic they regard as most close-mouthed; the intruder is patched up. Kingsthorpe dispels his camouflage, and he's handcuffed to the bed.

Sunday, 29 September 1940

In the morning, he wakes; he tries to stick (in Italian) to name (Isidoro Paluzzi), rank and serial number but this doesn't last very long in the face of the evidence of what he's been up to. It's decided to take him back to England; en route, after it's become clear that he needs to be immersed in sea water at least once a day, he reveals that he was the one of several hundred people put through a big magical ritual who survived; he gained his chamaeleon skin and the ability to breathe water, but sadly not an appreciation of espionage or sabotage tactics. He's been sleeping underwater in the harbour.

2.15. Hellish Eleanor

[10 October 2009]

Monday, 30 September 1940

The destroyer reaches London late on Monday night, and the characters disperse to their various homes and lodgings.

Tuesday, 1 October 1940

They foregather at headquarters, and present their reports to Captain Knight. He is, to say the least, concerned. It's clear to him that the existence of the document can't go any further up the chain of command (i.e. to non-magicians and non-believers in magic), though perhaps some of its contents can. (There's also a concern that as the information in it is used, the remainder may become less accurate, as events no longer have their causes to follow.) Knight agrees that the signature looks somewhat like his, though if it's a forgery it's a lousy job; the same goes for Fuller's.

There's some discussion of the possibility of assassinating Enrico Fermi, who's currently working in Chicago. The possibility of suppressing the magical-radioactive effects, or shielding magicians against them, is also considered; it's concluded that the team needs to talk with a physicist who's sufficiently open-minded to be cleared for magic. Perhaps someone working with Frisch and Peierls in Birmingham, or with the Paris Group at Cambridge, could be brought in?

Meanwhile, thinking of things that shouldn't be known in advance: Mrs Jane Draper, of Croydon, was widowed on the night of 31 August; her husband was aboard HMS Ivanhoe. The information concerning casualties aboard Ivanhoe wasn't released even to relatives until 10 September, but on 3 September one of her co-workers at the shell factory where she's employed heard her talking about it. (The co-worker's report has been working its way through police channels since.)

During the day, Alexander, Nordmann and Argas visit Holland & Holland, first to obtain more ammunition for the salvaged rifle but also to get some of their other weapons upgraded; this will take a while.

Miss Vane, in ATS uniform, visits Mrs Draper at home that evening. Clearly there isn't a lot of money available, but the house seems reasonably well-kept-up. Mrs Draper is wearing blacks, but talks with Miss Vane; "it'll seem silly, but I went to a seance on the Monday night, and the spirit said that there'd been an accident to Ivanhoe, and I just knew my husband was dead".

Mrs Draper is not of great intelligence, and "didn't tell anyone important" about the news she'd had; she clearly doesn't make the connection between such news and the war effort. Miss Vane does extract from her the location of the seance she attended; it's in Bayswater.

Wednesday, 2 October 1940

Miss Vane does a bit of digging; these seances have become quite popular, and it's since she left London early in September. She arranges to attend the one that's happening that evening.

There seem to be three women running the thing - Mrs Parnell, who's clearly in charge, Mrs Andrews, a countrywoman who spends most of her time cooking and making tea, and Mrs Siudek, a Polish exile. They take a "charitable donation" and provide a meal (mostly vegetables, excessively boiled, but quite a lot of them) before the seance itself.

Miss Vane, who's had some exposure to Spiritualists before, has a pretty good idea of how a seance should go, and this one follows the pattern; Sarge reports no sign of magical activity or other spirits in the area, and the effects are most probably a combination of sleight-of-hand (table-tapping and rocking) and cold-reading of the other guests. Mrs Parnell expresses regret that the spirits could not be persuaded to use the talking-board; apparently this is quite a usual thing.

Thursday, 3 October 1940

Argas checks the area; he doesn't find any sign of magical activity. The team looks up Mrs Siudek; she claims to have fled from Poland in 1939 with her husband, and showed up at Dover. It's not really possible to check her story. Her husband, Andrzej, works as an aircraft-fitter at one of the bases in Kent; Alexander drives over to talk with him, and finds that far from having Nazi or Communist sympathies he has a fanatical hatred of both Germans and Russians.

Friday, 4 October 1940

Miss Vane returns to the next seance; this time the talking-board comes out, and (when asked "is there any news of the war") it spells out R-A-I-N-B-O-W - it transpires that "the spirits" think this is the name of a ship that's been sunk. Miss Vane calls on Sarge to disrupt matters, throwing the table about, to distract the guests. Afterwards she calls for checks on all three of the people running seances. (HMS Rainbow, an R-class submarine, has indeed been sunk, overrun - perhaps accidentally - by an Italian merchant ship.)

Mrs Parnell was widowed in the Great War and has been keeping the boarding-house for several years. Mrs Andrews is from Devon; her husband, in the merchant navy, was killed last year.

Monday, 7 October 1940

Argas goes to the seance, asking about news of his son; it seems to him like more cold-reading. What is genuine news is the German invasion of (or assistance to) Romania, which comes over the radio a few minutes later. The air raid siren goes during the seance, and they all spend some time in the house's Anderson shelter (noting the well-stocked garden); Argas talks with Mrs Parnell about spiritualism, and finds her well-read.

Tuesday, 8 October 1940

During Tuesday night's air raid, Argas and Matthews break into the house while the inhabitants are in the shelter. Argas searches the rooms: in Mrs Parnell's, he finds a great many books on spiritualism, including some (slightly hidden) which hint at using one's abilities for personal gain - though they're still claiming that the whole thing is genuine. In Mrs Siudek's room, he spots some scrape marks and lifts a floorboard to find a leather bag containing Polish gold coins, which at the very least should have been declared on entry. Mrs Andrews' room contains cookery books, largely unused. The final room belongs to the fourth occupant of the house, Miss Sibbett, who's concealing a supply of eggs (there are no chickens in the garden, so possibly they were obtained on the black market); Argas also finds some old medals, possibly Indian. There's an attic space, with cobwebs in the hatch-corners which haven't recently been disturbed and no ladder immediately to hand. Argas detects no magic anywhere in the house.

Matthews meanwhile checks the garden; it's well-tended, but he can't find any sign of unusual influence or of anything buried there.

Wednesday, 9 October 1940

Argas talks with Miss Vane about the spiritualist books; some of the authors he spotted have been comprehensively discredited since. Alexander arranges for Special Branch to help raid the place on Friday evening.

That evening, Nordmann and Matthews visit the seance; Nordmann uses his silencing powers to muffle all sounds, and Mrs Parnell plays up to this. They find out afterwards that they missed the air-raid siren.

Friday, 11 October 1940

Alexander visits the seance; there's much fluttering from the ladies present, though Mrs Siudek seems to take a dislike to him on the spot. The "news from the war" is that the Germans are making preparations to invade England almost at once. Alexander blows his police whistle, and everyone present is hauled off to the station.

The three ladies are interrogated separately. Miss Sibbett has no idea what's going on, and admits to having bought the eggs illegally. Mrs Andrews cheerfully admits to having faked the lot, since it's all a lot of nonsense but a good racket.

---

Quote: (Major Kingsthorpe) We'd beat you with a rubber hose but judging by your vegetables you'd probably enjoy it.

---

Mrs Siudek, confronted with the gold, breaks down, but she's a true believer in Mrs Parnell's talent.

Mrs Parnell herself seems to believe in her own talent too; Miss Vane says that, as a medium herself, she detected no spirits, and Mrs Parnell says that they must have been on a different "etheric frequency".

Argas strips the sitting-room where the seances have taken place; he finds a mark under one of the table-legs where a stone has been inserted to make it easier to rock, and locates the stone itself kicked under a dresser. Kingsthorpe scans the room and detects no sign of magic at all; Argas checks the house's fuse-box, and finds a crude clockwork device that could make the lights flicker.

Both the stone and the clockwork are presented to Mrs Parnell, who breaks down - she'd been trying to contact spirits for a long time, and had so much success once Mrs Andrews moved in.

Andrews claims that she simply made up the messages she faked; the team starts to think she may have some latent remote-viewing ability. Alexander and Miss Vane get her to write down a random thing that she's made up (HMS Hood being sunk by an air raid), which has not happened.

Saturday, 12 October 1940

On the basis that something about the seance setup might set off Mrs Andrews' latent talent, the stripped room is recreated at MI5 headquarters. The team would like Mrs Parnell to lead it, but while she's willing they don't think she'll be able to carry it off now that she knows that it was (at least mostly) faked.

Miss Vane presides at a seance as thoroughly observed as can be managed: nobody spots any sign of spirit or magical activity. Mrs Andrews says that Southampton has been sunk (not true).

Mrs Andrews will be prosecuted for fraud; the others will be let go, and Mrs Siudek found a new place to lodge, though the local police will be asked to keep eyes on them. It's still not clear whether her information was genuinely fortuitous or the subject of some mechanism still unclear...

2.16. Battle of the Charms

[7 November 2009]

Monday, 14 October 1940

After a rare day off, the team is called into Captain Knight's office for a new job. It seems that in the last couple of weeks German bombing has got a lot more accurate, and it's thought that their navigation has improved; Farnborough has been looking at captured aircraft, and the team should head down there and see what they can work out.

Flight Lieutenant Stainer, a navigator who's clearly unhappy to have been taken off bomber duty, is the local liaison; he's not cleared for the details of what the team does, but he's used to being tight-lipped. He explains that the Germans have been using a couple of radio-based systems for navigation, one fairly simple and one rather more complex; the guidance beams for those can be detected, and measures are being taken to stop them working. Whatever this new system is, it's not using detectable radio beams. They're still using pathfinders, so presumably not all their aircraft have been fitted with the system.

The team looks at the wreckage of one of the KGr100 pathfinder He111s that was forced to land a few days ago after a raid on Manchester - its fuel tanks were shot up, and the pilot put it down in a field in Warwickshire. (The crew were picked up about half an hour later by a Home Guard unit; they'd burned their maps, but made no effort to resist capture.) There's no sign of anything magical on board, even after thorough examination; Alexander takes Stainer to the mess while unconventional means are being used.

The team heads for the crash site to see whether the recovery teams missed anything. A few hundred yards back from the landing site, Kingsthorpe turns up a small silver swastika pendant that seems faintly magical to him (in fact he only finds it because of this). Argas reckons that one of the sheep that's wandering around is also magical, though Kingsthorpe doesn't agree; nonetheless, it is brought back to Farnborough.

Kingsthorpe secretes himself in the base library to perform a ritual that will allow him to learn more about the pendant; it was made a few months ago, it sometimes gets warm and vibrates, and the user was probably a pilot.

After a while, the sheep (which has been christened "Mutton Chops") passes a second magical pendant, which is cleaned off. Kingsthorpe repeats the ritual, and with a little more difficulty determines that this one was probably used by the navigator (and it doesn't get warm or vibrate for as long as the other). The team theorises that there are two magical beams, set to cross over the target; the pilot flies along one and the navigator releases his flares when the aircraft crosses the other.

Argas goes looking for Stainer, and finds him crouched and trembling round the side of the hangar. It looks to him very much like shell-shock, but it seems awfully sudden, and the medics confirm that he hasn't had any problems before (but that this thing has hit a few other people over the last several months - they think it's some sort of general stress of war work). Kingsthorpe confirms that he's under a curse of some sort, and performs a cleansing ritual. Stainer starts to recover straight away. Argas searches his office and finds a faint magical resonance on a hip-flask, which Stainer says he picked up a few years ago during a trip to Berlin (one of the meetings of aviation enthusiasts that have been common for a while).

Alexander has reported on possibilities, and is asked for more information. He borrows a recently-repaired Wellington and its crew to test the pendants. The pilot's does react, getting warm when it's roughly in the right beam and vibrating when it's on target, but it's still very hard to follow the beam. He is able to spot a formation of He111s coming in, around the same time Chain Home picks them up; he gets a rough bearing on the east-west beam, and a better one on the north-south.

Tuesday, 15 October 1940

The team talks with some of the other "shell-shock" victims; they have indeed all been to Germany on various aviation-related occasions, and have souvenirs. A carefully-worded circular is sent to the RAF medics, suggesting that anyone else who's been on one of these trips should send their souvenirs to MI5; there's a suggestion of long-term drugging.

Kingsthorpe returns to London to make a full report. The others, with Stainer, wait for nightfall and take up a captured and repaired He111 to follow one of the beams as far as can be arranged. Alexander flies, Stainer is navigating, Argas has the belly gun (and both pendants) and Nordmann is on top. It's still tricky to use the pendants, but Argas seems to have more of a knack for it; they join up with a returning group of bombers that's heading in roughly the right direction. The bombers soon turn away from the beam, though, and Alexander continues on. They approach the northern Netherlands, heading towards Groningen; somewhere aroung Leeuwarden, the beam suddenly cuts out. Alexander turns north to head home.

The radio comes to life, and Alexander spins a yarn of a damaged and lost aircraft. A Bf110 is sent up to escort them to the nearest airfield; they're clearly suspicious. Alexander shuts down one engine to allow a more convincing imitation of a damaged aircraft; when the Bf110 is close enough, showing lights and leading them down, he drifts slowly upwards, restarts the engine, and puts the He111 into a fast dive to give Argas a good shot with the belly guns. Argas rakes the Bf110's cockpit with machine-gun fire, and it crashes into the sea. The team returns to Farnborough.

Wednesday, 16 October 1940

Alexander calls up Hendon and asks for photo reconnaissance of the Leeuwarden area. There's some information already available; as the team pores over the photographs, Kingsthorpe spots a confluence of ley lines with a group of tents placed directly on top of it.

Assuming the second beam is also being sent from close to the coast, Cherbourg is the closest likely point, so photographs from there are checked; there's a similar group of tents in a magically-significant location.

The team puts together a report recommending immediate bombing of these two spots, and gives it to Knight to pass up the chain of command.

2.17. Fundamental Interactions

[5 December 2009]

Monday, 21 October 1940

Given some of the contents of the Knight-Fuller-Lethbridge document, the team has decided that talking to some of the British atomic scientists would probably be a good idea. Knight can supply them with rail warrants to Cambridge, since the closest group is working at the Cavendish Laboratory, but after that it'll be up to them.

The chief of security, George Whiskeard, is an MI5 man, but not one of Knight's lot. However, he's clearly exhausted by trying to get scientists to follow basic security procedures, and is glad to see people who (probably) have a better idea of how these things work; he gets one of the scientists, Nicholas Kemmer, to show them around. (Kemmer asks distractedly if they've seen his wallet; Argas checks, and it isn't in his jacket...) They start in Kemmer's half-office, since his room-sharer isn't there just at the moment, and talk in rather more technical detail than Kemmer is expecting about the possibilities of the atomic programme - putting it to him as primarily something they're worried about the Germans developing.

Kemmer explains roughly what the teams have been up to: uranium as a power source obviously has great potential, but the idea of a "super-bomb" some three or more orders of magnitude more powerful than conventional explosives - something which might end the war overnight if detonated in the right place - is getting rather more attention (at least in the UK - the Americans don't seem to accept that it's possible). The Germans started the war with pretty much the same information as the British, and have plenty of good scientists of their own (he names the ones he can remember - Walther Bothe, Kurt Diebner, Otto Hahn and Paul Harteck), so it seems likely that they've got about as far along as the British - further, if Hitler's taken a fancy to the project (much of the equipment here is scavenged up or built by the researchers, since resources haven't had much of a priority).

The team asks about uranium, since that's the primary raw material being looked at; in Europe, the main stockpiles (waste from radium extraction) are in Czechoslovakia and Belgium. It doesn't have any industrial uses beyond the extremely small scale, so if movements of it can be traced they may well be relevant to a power or super-bomb programme. There was also some talk about using heavy water in a power reactor, though the British research programme now regards that as something of a blind alley.

The short- and medium-term health risks of working with radioactive substances are reasonably well-understood by now, but there are some obvoius ways things can go wrong if short-cuts are being taken; Kemmer suggests some illnesses to look for (and key words that would be used in German communications, in case those should be intercepted). All of this information will be passed into the main section of MI5, so that it can be considered in assessing intelligence from other sources.

Kingsthorpe has been doing most of the talking; Argas scans for active magical effects, and finds only one, a fairly small item at some small distance. Kemmer takes the group to see an experiment in the production of one of the recently-discovered elements ("well, what would you call the two elements that come after uranium?"; he's slightly surprised when Miss Vane fills in "neptunium and plutonium"); as they're approaching it, Argas falls in a dead faint, Kingsthorpe feels very ill (as if he had a bad dose of 'flu), and Nordmann and Miss Vane are briefly dizzy. As they take Argas out to fresh air ("he was in the Last Lot, you know"), Miss Vane hears someone inside the lab say "that's very odd..."

Argas and the Major recover quite quickly once they're out in the open. Argas walks round the outside of the Laboratory to pin down the magical signal he detected; the others head back in, to speak to Norman Feather, the physicist who was conducting the experiment. He's friendly enough but rather distracted, clearly trying to come up with a workable theory to explain the very odd observation he's just seen: for about ten seconds, the radiation output of the neutron source he was using dropped to zero, and the current theory says that this essentially cannot happen. (It was just about as the team was approaching the lab...)

There's a pen trace to confirm it, but only one, and an equipment failure is one possibility - but the detector tube itself had stopped clicking. While Nordmann and Miss Vane talk to him, Kingsthorpe tries a basic ritual in the experimental chamber - finding it substantially harder than usual. Miss Vane calls Sarge, and he's very reluctant to enter the chamber - he says it "smells funny", but he can't explain just how. These effects seem to be in something like a ten to fifteen foot radius of the radioactive materials, even though they're in heavily shielded containers and by conventional standards entirely safe to approach.

The team looks around a bit more; Kingsthorpe, guided by Argas' observations, finds the magical item - it's a pocket-watch lying on a desk. As he takes a look at it, someone he hasn't seen before enters and says "oh good, you've found it" - this is Francis Perrin, one of the French scientists who came over from Paris after the fall of France. (He explains that he bought it last year, on a previous visit to Cambridge - it's a reasonable-quality but unremarkable timepiece.)

The team leaves; Argas checks the shop where the watch was bought, and can't detect anything remarkable about it. Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane ask about Perrin; he has lived for most of his life in Paris and hasn't been to Germany at all, certainly not since the war started.

Argas goes back into the lab and picks up Perrin's watch from a bench where he's left it. They all head to a boarding-house, and Kingsthorpe conducts a history ritual - there's nothing odd about the watch's history until a few days ago, when it was in a dark place for a while, then exposed to a strange electrical machine that sparked intensely, then in a dark place again. (There's no sign of damage to the watch case, though it's clearly seen some fairly hard use.) Argas takes a closer look and reckons that the watch is recording everything it "sees" and "hears".

Tuesday, 22 October 1940

When the watch-seller opens, Argas buys another watch of the same model, then goes to a specialised repair place and picks up a set of very small screwdrivers. He starts to transfer the mechanism from Perrin's watch into the new case, but when he removes it the magic dissipates, and does not return when he reassembles it.

The team talks to Whiskeard, on the basis that Perrin may well be recording his research to be passed on to other people. Argas drops off the watch where Perrin can find it. Kemmer sees the team and says gladly that he's found his wallet - though it now has a familiar-looking magical aura on it. Argas tails Kemmer for a few hours, staying away from experimentation; when Kemmer comes out of the first experiment, the wallet is no longer magical. As the team asks around, it seems that quite a few small items have been going missing and then turning up a day or two later; it's being blamed jokingly on "elves".

Wednesday, 23 October 1940

The items that went missing yesterday are back, though during the day their new magic fails when they are brought near radioactive substances. Argas, who's moving most through the labs, finds that he's getting a sense for radioactives - he definitely feels queasy when they're nearby, even if they're shielded. He borrows Kingsthorpe's watch, and arranges to leave it lying around in the hope that it will be taken. It is.

At about 8pm, Kingsthorpe scries for his watch; it's in a dark place, and there's a sound of two people arguing, but the voices aren't clear. At 9.30, he tries again: it's in an electrical machine, which when he describes it sounds very similar to the Russian machine captured at Devonport earlier in the year. At 11pm, it's being pointed around a room by an unfamiliar man, while another unfamiliar man looks on; the man who's holding it appears to be trying to convince the other that the spying effect is working correctly.

Thursday, 24 October 1940

Argas heads in to the Laboratory earlier than usual, and spots one of the cleaners looking around her and then dropping off the watch where it was left yesterday. He follows her away once her work is done; she shops, then goes home and spends the day cooking and cleaning. Kingsthorpe dispels the magical effect on his watch. Nordmann lurks near the cleaner's house, while Argas keeps an eye on her when she turns up for the evening's work at the Laboratory. When she leaves, she makes a telephone call, then bicycles (slowly, and it's quite a short distance) to Trinity College, where someone (the first figure from Kingsthorpe's vision of the previous night) steps out of the porter's lodge, collects an envelope from her, and heads back inside. The cleaner heads home; Argas follows the other figure, invisibly, as he heads back to his rooms. This is Alexander Black, apparently a Fellow; Argas doesn't attempt to follow him into his rooms but lurks nearby for a bit, and after a little while hears some electrical noise as the lights flicker briefly.

Friday, 25 October 1940

Argas goes out early again to trace the collection (an envelope has been left for the cleaner at the porter's lodge of Trinity). Looking up Black in the yearbook shows that he's a senior lecturer in law. At the Laboratory, a man from the Ministry of Supply has turned up - one Simon Dowsett, here to inquire into resource usage (and, he claims, try to get higher priority for the lab if it's important war work). He's the second figure from Kingsthorpe's vision.

Kingsthorpe phones London to see what's known about both Black and Dowsett. Black has been at Trinity for pretty much his whole career; Dowsett was a factory foreman who got pulled into the Ministry when the war broke out; he's pretty clearly anti-fascist, and even went to Spain with the International Brigades in 1937.

Argas follows Dowsett throughout the day; Dowsett has some sort of magical effect active on him, though the details aren't clear. In the afternoon, he's close to an experiment when it's fired up; he falls over, bleeding from the nose, and his suit starts to smoulder. Argas gets him out of the lab and after a quick check decides that he really does need a hospital. The doctors at Addenbrooke's reckon it looks as though he's had a sudden stroke; Nordmann is unable to help him, and it's arranged for him to be transferred to London.

Argas and Kingsthorpe confront Black, naming enough names that he can't get away with the blanket denials that are his first tactic. He caves; he's been an ideological communist for some years, as many people are, but he was contacted by someone who asked if he'd help to do more to further the peaceful socialist cause. He agreed, and was given the machine and some basic training in its use; he's had it for a year or so, and has gradually been getting more proficient at it, but is baffled as to why it's suddenly failing. He's also hauled off.

Kingsthorpe casts a Chaperone ritual onto a lead charm; it successfully jerks him out of the way when an experiment is about to start, but this doesn't seem to bode well for a situation in which radioactivity is rather more pervasive...

2.18. Amateur Athenians

[16 January 2010]

Monday, 28 October 1940

After a weekend off, the team is called in around lunchtime on Monday; it seems that Nicholas Kemmer has been trying to get in contact with them. After some discussion, they agree to meet him; he has been talking with Feather and the others, and he reckons that there's something about this group that affected radioactive substances. Knight expedites some new clearances (many of Kemmer's colleagues, after all, are as foreigners regarded as too unreliable to work on important things like radar so have been shuffled off to the atom project instead).

Meanwhile, Italy has invaded Greece. It's not entirely clear what their strategic goals may be, but their initial progress is very impressive.

Tuesday, 29 October 1940

Once the clearances are done, the group meets Kemmer again; Kingsthorpe talks about old and ill-understood forms of science (carefully avoiding using the word "magic") Argas demonstrates his ability to be unseen.

Kemmer (who seems surprisingly accepting - "I grew up in St Petersburg, I had a grandmother") asks several relevant questions: is the effect on radioactives something they were doing deliberately? Apparently not, and it made them feel unwell too. He wonders what would happen if they got close to a criticality; so do they. Since they obviously can't spare a team member for testing, they consider the Russian machines they've recovered (and the prisoners who at least know how to operate them, even if they don't understand how they're supposed to work); those should be able to produce "magical items" that can then be tested near radioactives. A section of the MI5 cellars is partitioned off to be Kemmer's part-time lab, since this is something he won't be able to talk about even with the other radiation physicists.

Wednesday, 30 October 1940

Meanwhile, there's work to be done: a body's turned up in Bristol, at the City Museum and Art Gallery, apparently burned to death but with no sign of fire damage on anything nearby. The local police punted it upstairs, and the Ministry has passed it on to the funnies.

The team takes a train to Bristol, and on arrival at the museum sees what is clearly an ongoing and acrimonious discussion between the police and a Mrs Campbell, apparently in charge, who wants all this cleared up so that she can open the museum normally. She found the body when she opened the museum this morning; there was no sign of a break-in.

The body is in the Greek Room, and doesn't appear to have been moved; there's enough char that there probably would be signs of this. (There are some traces of footprints from yesterday's visitors, so the place hasn't been cleaned up afterwards either.) Argas detects no magic on it, or in the room. Kingsthorpe photographs the site, while Nordmann goes to check all the potential entrances and exits. Matthews looks at the wooden ceilings and floors, not finding anything concealed behind them, but does spot that the items in one of the display cases have been rearranged to conceal the fact that something's missing. The label for the item is still there: it's a small terracotta head of an (unidentified) veiled goddess, in a style typical of the Eastern Hellenistic Kingdom, probably somewhere near the Hindu Kush. The catalogue is not entirely helpful; the head came as part of a bequest, and its provenance before that it somewhat uncertain.

Kingsthorpe looks at the body; the damage seems consistent with a powerful lightning bolt, though while he's theoretically aware of how this might be done it's more usually something that happens out of doors. One electric light fitting is somewhat melted, though the fuses haven't been blown. There are on the body:

• some melted coins and keys
• the remains of an electric torch
• a long narrow knife strapped by the ankle
• a cheap watch, probably picked up in Egypt or Palestine
• a leather-wrapped shard of pottery with some fragments of Greek writing on it (it's not one of the usual dialects, but seems to say something about Athene striking down the enemies of the Greeks)

Some of his teeth have been filled, not very well.

Nordmann locates a window that has been expertly forced; there's a crowbar tucked under the sill. Some tracking suggests that two people went in, separately, and the second person came out again. Kingsthorpe attempts rituals on various objects on the site, but something about the air of the place isn't right. The crowbar is handed over to the police to check for prints. The items found suggest that the victim might have been a sailor.

Back at the team's hotel, Kingsthorpe examines the history of the label, confirming that it was moved recently. The pot-shard has been in its wrappings for the last twenty-four hours. The police are asked to check the local Greek and Italian communities to see if anyone's gone missing recently, though they don't expect quick results.

Thursday, 31 October 1940

Nobody's shown up as missing straight away. The team returns to the Greek Room, though they allow Mrs Campbell to open the rest of the museum. Matthews checks the will that gave the head (and various other items) to the museum; Jacob Buckler died some ten years ago, and didn't have any living relatives. He asked for certain specific items to be delivered to particular people across the Levant, but gave the remainder of his collection to the museum. Matthews heads over to the University to find out who catalogued it.

Using the descriptive label, Kingsthorpe attempts to locate the missing head; it's in the central areas of the University. Argas gets a map of the University buildings and Kingsthorpe pins it down to the Classics department.

Matthews, talking to the departmental secretary, manages to borrow a photograph of the head. There's nothing in the accession records about the pottery shard, though, and it doesn't look as though it was broken off the head.

The others meet Matthews as he's leaving the department; they go back to talk to the secretary and find out just who of the academic staff is left; Argas takes an invisible look round the corridors, but doesn't see much activity. Dr Nicholson is the only one here at the moment. They go to see him; Argas reckons that there's certainly something magical in his filing cabinet. They talk about the incident at the museum, though Nicholson professes not to know much; the missing head is certainly not easily saleable, though other items in the museum would be. Nicholson is very clearly uneasy about something; when the group leaves (and Argas lurks behind), he listens to make sure they've gone away, then checks his filing cabinet and makes sure the head is still there.

Nicholson locks the cabinet and leaves at lunchtime; Argas opens it and removes the head. As far as he can tell, it's not something that could be used directly, but rather part of a larger magical effect.

Nicholson gets back from lunch and leaves again a few minutes later. Nordmann follows him, being deliberately obvious, to make him more nervous. Nicholson gets his bicycle; Argas slashes the back tyre as he gets aboard. Nicholson walks the bicycle down into the middle of town, near the city docks; in the crowd, looking around nervously, he patches the tyre, which gives Argas time to steal a bicycle for himself. They ride out of the centre to a suburban house which seems to be Nicholson's home. Argas stays outside; there's no immediate or obvious sound from inside.

After a while, Argas knocks; there's no answer. He knocks again; there's a slight sound from inside, perhaps muttering or chanting. He opens the door and calls out "Dr Nicholson, I've come to arrest you". Nicholson comes out into the hall and throws a small object at Argas; it sticks to his coat. Argas shoots and misses; Nicholson shouts something, but there's no effect; Argas shoots again, hitting this time, and Nicholson goes down. Argas levers the sticky thing off his coat - it's a piece of pottery with various writing on it, coated in glue - and bandages Nicholson, then calls for the rest of the team, who arrive just before the police.

Combining interrogation of Nicholson and examination of his (very extensive, but well-catalogued) handwritten notes, it seems that he was working on a location ritual of his own; he's very keen to recover the head and get it to Greece, since if the right actions are performed with it in a duly-consecrated temple of Athene it should substantially aid the Greek defence. (As a traditional classicist he's in favour of the Greeks in theory, if not always in practice.) He's spent some years constructing a magical system based on hints in obscure texts, and seems to have got it working most of the time. His career has rather suffered for lack of attention, though...

He was approached by the Italian - who called himself "Isaac Benton" and presented himself as a merchant seaman, but talked like someone who'd grown up on a farm near Rome - on Tuesday, supposedly to translate the pot-shard and see whether it might be valuable. Nicholson realised that this was the clue to an item he'd been looking for for a while - indeed, something he'd had in his own hands, but not realised its significance. He followed "Benton" (he hasn't forgotten all his skills from his trench-raiding days), and when the latter broke into the museum and lifted the head he felt he had to kill him quickly. Since then he's been out to Avonmouth looking for a ship that might be heading towards the Mediterranean, but without luck so far.

There's some feeling that Nicholson could be recruited, or at least helped with his mission. Nicholson himself hasn't met any other magicians before, and is rather overwhelmed by the whole business.

2.19. Acropolis

[20 February 2010]

Friday, 1 November 1940

Kemmer has been conducting a variety of experiments. There's a hard edge to the interference effect, and the distance seems to be correlated with the square root of the radioactivity level (and of the magical power of the magical item - the Russian machine is being used to create a variety of glowing stones). It changes a bit with different radioactivity types (alpha emitters interfere at 3-4x the distance of betas for the same decay rate, with neutrons and gammas somewhere in the middle). Once the interference kicks in, the decay stops dead; once the magical item has stopped being magical, decay resumes at its previous level. And interposing lead bricks makes absolutely no difference to the distance at which the effect kicks in.

While the team has no memory of self-luminous radium instrument faces causing them problems, they do seem to do so (and to stop glowing) when very close. The decay rate is so low that the distance is very small, though.

Kemmer has built a crude and short-ranged "magic detector": an alpha source and a Geiger-Müller tube connected to a capacitor, with a light to come on when the capacitor stops charging.

Kingsthorpe tries a variety of protective rituals, but radioactivity doesn't seem to be treated as a hostile spell or curse. Nordmann's weather-working doesn't trigger the detector, though controlling a small whirlwind does. Matthews sets up a long-term experiment with tomato plants (some of which he's encouraged to grow, others not) next to radioactive sources.

Sunday, 3 November 1940

Dr Nicholson has been hastily sworn in, and has agreed to work within the bounds of MI5 from now on. Since there's a diplomatic mission being sent to Greece, the team (plus Nicholson, and the votive head of Athene) is hurried onto a Wellington that'll be flying there overnight carrying the "real" mission, refuelling in Gibraltar.

Monday, 4 November 1940

Arriving somewhat groggy, the team goes to the diplomatic mission (carefully not being called an embassy or consulate - until the Italian invasion, Greece was a fascist country with some ties to the Axis). There's a fairly steady stream of politicians and senior officers coming to see the diplomats, and they are able to offer some advice from their military experience. Two Greek officers are assigned as liaison: Iatrides and Trikoupis, both with the rank of Lochagos (captain). Miss Vane starts learning Greek fast, and chats with them both; Trikoupis is optimistic about Greece's chances in the war, while Iatrides thinks a glorious death is more likely ("and what good will your diplomacy do when an Italian flag is flying from the Parthenon?").

Argas looks around the mission, and spots a couple of watchers front and back as well as the official guards. He heads out invisibly, while Miss Vane persuades Trikoupis to take the party to see the Acropolis. Dr Nicholson had hoped to use the temple of Athene Nike for his ritual, but the carvings - while undoubtedly good copies - aren't the originals. Those are in the Acropolis Museum, on the east side of the rock. Shifting them would be a pretty major job... so Nicholson arranges to be "overcome by the heat" while visiting the museum, and while resting pokes around on a magical level. The carvings have been here long enough that he ought to be able to do his ritual here, though it'll take an hour or so, longer than he'd hoped.

Argas takes a less-supervised look around; there are quite a few loafers about, though whether they're intelligence agents of some sort is anyone's guess.

That evening, the group (minus Argas) arranges to go out for food and drink with Iatrides; they do a poor job of holding their liquor (only partly faked) and generally give an impression of themselves as harmless. Argas meanwhile takes a look at the Acropolis Museum at night: there's a single night-watchman inside, and the doors are kept locked. The watchman walks around inside every once in a while, but snoozes for much of the time. There's a basic contact alarm system that'll go off if the windows are opened. Argas also scouts good routes for getting from the city across the Acropolis to the museum without being thoroughly exposed.

Tuesday, 5 November 1940

Once everyone has recovered from the previous evening's exertions, Kingsthorpe obtains some knockout drops from the "cultural attaché". That evening, around 10.30, Argas heads for the Acropolis Museum; when he gets there, he sees a truck outside, the door open, and the night-watchman slumped behind his desk. Looking more closely, he spies four people inside, loading up trolleys with antiquities and bringing them out to the truck. A significant fraction of the carvings Nicholson wants has already been loaded. Argas lets down all the tyres on the truck.

Wednesday, 6 November 1940

When the robbers finish, around midnight, they don't check the tyres, and start to drive off. Argas (still invisible) slashes the tyre closest to him, and that's enough to get them to stop. The robbers get out and start to argue; Argas slips into the cab and cuts the ignition lead (and all the other wires he can find, not being mechanically-inclined).

Meanwhile the rest of the group has been out with Trikoupis, and Kingsthorpe has managed to slip him the knockout drops. They head for the Acropolis, Argas spots them arriving, and they arrange to come at the robbers from two sides at once. The robbers scatter, and the team decides not to pursue them.

It takes about half an hour to shift the carvings back inside the museum. Dr Nicholson starts his ritual, with Kingsthorpe and Nordmann assisting; Argas, Matthews and Miss Vane stay outside to keep an eye on things. Around a quarter past one, Miss Vane spots a head briefly looking over the cliff below the museum. Argas takes a closer look: it's a black-clad man carrying a couple of knives and a pistol, and he has two comrades further down. There are three more coming over the ridge from the top of the Acropolis.

Argas stabs the first climber, who shouts something in Italian. The other two hurry up and over the edge, and start waving their knives about randomly. Argas hamstrings the second.

Matthews tells the scrubby plants on the rock to entangle the three coming from above, and brings them down; they start to break free, but he reinforces the binding and starts to strangle them.

The two Italians who are still mobile move back-to-back, and slowly approach the museum, waving knives randomly. When they spot Miss Vane, one of them throws a knife at her, but misses. Argas stabs one in the guts, and he goes down, then catches the last one as he sprints for the museum door. Matthews finishes off his three.

The ritual draws towards its end; Kingsthorpe and Nordmann both see on each other and on Nicholson a ghostly impression of a Greek helmet, which expands and fades into nothingness. Nicholson thinks the ritual worked, though the practical effects remain to be seen. He writes a label for the votive head and conceals it among the museum's other items.

Kingsthorpe inserts himself into the dreams of the night-watchman, suggesting that various groups of robbers fought among themselves and the watchman was able to knock out the last couple. The two surviving Italians are left knocked out and tied up. Argas waits on the site until the police arrive; the others head back to their taverna of the evening, but Trikoupis is gone, so they return to the mission (and get the "attaché" to raise the alarm with Greek military intelligence).

In the morning there's no sign of Trikoupis, so Kingsthorpe casts a location ritual: it points to the Piraeus. They get Iatrides to take them down there, and a crowd is gathering to look at the body that's just been fished out: Trikoupis, with his throat cut. Miss Vane gets Sarge to try to talk to Trikoupis' spirit: he can't get much, though, just a sense of betrayal by his (Italian) friends. Apart from dropping hints to Greek intelligence, there's not much more the team members feel they can do, so they board the Wellington that evening and head back to England.

2.20. The Old Straight Track

[27 March 2010]

Tuesday, 12 November 1940

After a few days of rest, the team is called back in on the following Tuesday morning, where the news of the previous night's attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto is unofficially shared.

Of more immediate importance, however, is a worrying collection of crime reports from round the country: seven in all, they all refer to petty vandalism (broken windows and such like), but they all seem to have occurred at more or less the same time on Sunday evening, nobody was caught, and in each case there was an odd symbol found nearby - a three-lobed knot, with various twiddles. The combination of symbols (not belonging to any known group) and seven events has meant that Knight has picked it up.

The events happened in Bath, Cirencester, Dover, St Alban's, Fenny Stratford, Lincoln and Wroxeter. The team plots these on a map, and they seem to line up at least a little bit; after some contemplation, Matthews draws in what he remembers from his schooldays of the Roman road network, and all the sites seem to lie on either Watling Street (now mostly the A2 and A5) or the Fosse Way (various minor roads, and in some places lost completely).

The team heads to the nearest site, in St Alban's, having called ahead to the local police. PC Braddock saw most, and explains: about 11.45 pm he was in the station, having just come in from patrol, when he heard breaking glass outside. He went out, saw a broken window in a nearby house and someone running away, and gave chase; he was unable to keep up and broke off pursuit. On returning, he spotted the symbol on the wall of the house with the broken window.

That symbol has been preserved; it's been chalked in place, and consists of the three-lobed pattern with a couple of extra small curlicues. Argas feels a magical residue about it, but can't get any deetails.

Since they're already half-way there, the team heads next to Fenny Stratford. Nobody observed the vandalism there (knocking over and stamping about on some road-works signs), but a man heading back late from his friend's house spotted the damage (and symbol) and called the police; there's no sign of magic on him. Mattsson recovers a size-8 boot print; the symbol here looks slightly different in the curlicues, but is basically similar.

The team calls from the police station to ask Knight to pull telephone records from the smaller villages where incidents happen; this will take some time. For the moment, they head back to London and hit the books.

Miss Vane looks into possible significance of the threefold knot: two things come up, both quite vague. It shows up in some Celtic designs but doesn't appear to have any particular significance, and some books by Margaret Murray (particularly God of the Witches) hint at some sort of three-fold symbol that might have been used in the religion she hypothesises. There also seems the possibility of a connection between the Roman roads and Alfred Watkins' idea of "ley lines" - while Watkins himself ascribes no occult significance to the alignments he discovered, occultists have gladly adopted the idea, and (as found during Operation Headache back in October) it seems to have some validity.

Nordmann looks at the symbols in a mathematical way; the ones found closer to the coast seem a little more complex, but the significance of the details is not at all clear.

Matthews calls around the police in other towns built on major Roman settlements to see if any reports have slipped through the gaps. He finds one from Exeter which seems to be a match, but nothing in York or other places that weren't on one of the two Roman routes in question.

Wednesday, 13 November 1940

The logical next step seems to be a trip to High Cross, near Hinckley, where the Fosse Way (or what's left of it) crosses Watling Street. Finding the spot is tricky in itself, as there's no settlement on the spot; the Fosse Way is just a cart track on one side of the main road and a field entrance on the other. Argas detects some magic in the area. A search reveals a crude hut in one corner of the field, in bad repair but somewhat weather-resistant; inside, there's a three-fold symbol (without curlicues) scraped out on the earth floor, which Argas reckons is definitely (if passively) magical. There are quite a few footprints inside and outside, and footprints and bicycle tracks outside - obviously more or less contemporary with each other, given how they overlay, but even Nordmann can't be sure of their age. Sarge can't spot any spirits in the area, but he confirms Argas' feeling of magic.

Matthews stays on site to keep watch (persuading the hedge at the side of the field to curl away and make a sheltered and concealing nook for him) while the others take the car five miles into Hinckley to obtain overnight lodging. They also report in, using code phrases, and buy a bicycle.

While he waits, Matthews gets a feel for the local plants. In the field on the other side of the road, there's a patch where they aren't growing quite as well; he investigates further, and finds that it's a rectangular outline with some other lines inside, perhaps the site of a Roman fort or something similar. He decides that this is probably not significant for the moment, and returns to his position.

At around 8pm, Argas bicycles back to relieve Matthews, though finding him causes brief difficulty. The first visitors arrive at 11pm, and they straggle in for the next twenty minutes or so, thirteen of them altogether, walking their bicycles across the field and leaning them against the hedge by the hut. All of them carry small bundles. Once three of them have gone inside the hut, Argas sneaks closer to overhear them (and look through some of the many knotholes and gaps in the hut's structure). They have changed into the robes they were carrying and lit lanterns; they are talking in English, in local accents, and are mostly catching up on news and gossip.

Argas gets the feeling there's a hierarchy involved, though he's not sure of the details: a man in his seventies (with a magical feeling about him) seems to be in charge, and a woman in her sixties is probably the number two. There's lengthy occult talk, of which Argas can't make much sense, and actual magic-working starts at 11.30. The ritual is conducted in English, albeit archaic, and seems to be orientated towards summoning some form of protection.

Thursday, 14 November 1940

The meeting breaks up once the ritual is over, a few minutes after midnight. Only one person leaves on foot, the elderly woman; Argas follows her a mile or so back to the nearest village, Claybrooke Magna, and carefully notes the house into which she goes. He returns to the hut, noting that the symbol on the floor has been re-inscribed.

Nordmann arrives at 4am to relieve Argas, but nothing happens for the rest of the night. Argas reports when the others wake up, and the details are passed on to Knight. He can check the address Argas found: it belongs to a Miss C. Winstanley, with no criminal record or file as a subversive; her family has lived in Claybrooke Magna for many generations, though the younger members have moved away and she's the last one left.

Matthews and Argas take the car to pick up Nordmann and then head for Claybrooke's one pub, the Pig in Muck. Miss Vane goes to the village on foot, and spots Miss Winstanley working in her garden (turned over to vegetable production); she strikes up a conversation, and gradually (via talk about gardening and the desire to do a bit more concrete to help one's country) works the conversation round to practical occultism. Miss Winstanley suddenly realises she's said rather too much to a total stranger and clams up; Miss Vane waves her Military Intelligence identification, and explains that she works for people who are taking just such concrete measures. Miss Winstanley is relieved: "I thought we were the only ones." Apparently it was all the Colonel's idea, to rebuild the Old Religion based on what Murray has reconstructed of it; the results can't be denied, and while some of it seemed faintly blasphemous the Colonel has explained that it's all entirely compatible with Christianity. On Sunday night they were able to send some of their coven along the old roads, and now that they can draw power from that network they're working on a large summoning, something to put a shield over the country and save London from the air raids.

Miss Vane offers a warning, but Miss Winstanley is sure the Colonel knows what he's doing, though he seems to be under some strain (poor man). She's happy to give his name (Burchard) and address (in Coventry, about ten miles away).

The others have been hinting that they're spying out the land for a possible military exercise. Most of the inhabitants either work on the farms nearby or take the bus into Coventry for war-work there. Argas books both of the guest rooms at the pub, in case they need to stay overnight. Matthews spots something odd about Miss Winstanley's garden; it looks over-heated, odd for November, but very reminiscent of attempts he saw in India to grow an "English garden" in the climate there.

It's late afternoon when the team goes to visit Burchard. There's a lot of flashing of identity cards, and Burchard, clearly an old India hand, is happy to talk. His house is packed full to bursting with Indian artefacts, of wildly variable quality; Argas spots that some of them are faintly magical, though probably from having been an object of veneration for centuries rather than from direct enchantment.

Burchard has a tedious and self-important conversational style, and he's glad of an audience. He explains how he's used Murray's work to reconstruct the Old Religion, and how he worked out that if ley lines may be significant then actual roads that people have travelled along for hundreds of years must be more so. The symbol is used as a thing to "push" against to start travelling.

While Burchard is talking, Argas confirms that there's something magical about him - his body, rather than something he's wearing. Miss Vane gets Sarge to look too; he doesn't like the "smell" of Burchard at all, though he can't pin down exactly what's wrong.

Matthews proposes that Burchard accompany the team to London for a detailed debriefing; Burchard is happy to go along with this, but explains that he needs to lead the current ritual for two more nights (i.e. until the full moon).

Once the team leaves and has a chance to talk, there's a feeling that it might be a good idea not to let the ritual be finished. Argas is dropped off (with bicycle) to keep an eye on Burchard's house; the others head to the Army offices in Coventry, on the basis that this is the best place to get a phone line that isn't going entirely through civilian exchanges. They call Knight, who starts things moving to get plenty of policemen available on Friday night to take the whole coven into custody if it seems like a good idea. He also confirms that Burchard has no criminal record and isn't a known occultist; he'll work on getting Burchard's service record, but this may take a bit of time.

Burchard leaves his house (by bicycle) around 10.30 that evening; Argas follows him, but Burchard is suspicious, stopping every so often to look around. The rest of the team returns to High Cross: Nordmann in the hole in the hedge, Miss Vane by the field entrance, and Matthews with the car keeping an eye on Miss Winstanley's garden in the village to try to find out more from the plants when they become overheated.

The coven members arrive as before (one of them, an adenoidal young lady, declaiming something about "along the same road by which it descended the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good" before being told to shut up) and the ritual starts. Sarge confirms to Miss Vane that there's power flowing along the roads, being drawn in to the crossroads. Everyone outside is a little startled when a flight of aircraft passes (single-engine planes at medium altitude, but it's very quiet out here apart from the chanting).

Very soon afterwards, the hut goes up in flames: it's clearly not a natural fire, as it seems to get hold almost at once. Argas kicks the door and calls "this way"; the interior is ablaze, even where there's seemingly nothing to burn. A few of the people closer to the door stagger out, on fire; Miss Vane knocks them over into the muddy field, as the best way to get them extinguished. Argas can't spot Burchard; he counts bodies, and there's one missing.

Nordmann and Matthews, at about this point, notice a fire-glow from the south-west, in the direction of Coventry - where an unexpected German air raid is hitting. Matthews can also see the closer fire, and gets the car started. Nordmann shoots the hut with his rifle; he gets a key structural beam, and the whole thing collapses just as Argas gets outside. What's left is a twenty-foot pillar of flame, one that's gaining in definition.

Argas backs away and shoots silver bullets; they don't seem to have much effect. The pillar throws a blob of fire at Miss Vane, who's closest, tending to the surviving wounded; she manages to get out of its way. Argas and Nordmann keep shooting, while Miss Vane drags away Miss Winstanley, the nearest casualty.

Matthews arrives in the car, just as Argas is diving into the ditch by the field-gate to wet down his clothes. Argas scoops up muddy water in his helmet, then takes it back to the fire and throws the water at it; this seems to have some effect, and he has to dodge the fire that's thrown back at him. Nordmann, having run out of ready rounds in his rifle, damps down his coat and throws it into the fire; this helps a bit. He asks for and receives Matthews' coat; meanwhile Matthews gets the car away from the area of the fire, pausing briefly when one wheel bogs down in soft ground; the fire-pillar is definitely heading towards this potential fuel source.

Nordmann throws Matthews' coat, but misses; the return blob of fire burns him severely. Argas has grabbed a jerrican from the car and is using that to throw on more water; the fire-pillar gradually sinks. As it sputters, Nordmann's weather-working kicks in, and a rainstorm starts, finishing off the last sparks. Once that's done, Nordmann directs the rain towards Coventry, now well ablaze, then loses consciousness.

There are six survivors from the coven; Matthews drives them to Claybrooke Magna and knocks up the village, getting the wounded into the church hall for emergency treatment out of the rain.

Friday, 15 November 1940

In the morning, Argas goes with the sexton to get the charred bones of the other six coven members from the ruins of the hut. The team debriefs the survivors; the flames hit suddenly, while the Colonel was in mid-sentence. They're cautioned to keep quiet, write it off to a stray German incendiary, and not to muck about with anything even vaguely magical.

2.21. Wooden Wonder

[17 April 2010]

Monday, 18 November 1940

Captain Knight has a new job for the team: a German spy was caught on Saturday night. Well, he walked into a police station and said "I am a spy for the Germans and I wish to surrender". He's been put in the Tower for now, but things seemed to keep going wrong round him - his guards suddenly got a bout of the trots, and someone apparently forgot to lock his cell door. He's been sitting about not trying to escape; but when he was put in the quiet cell, all these oddities stopped, so going and having some words with him seems like a good idea.

The team arranges to be locked in with the spy, whose name is Erich Neumann; he's from a village in Denmark near the German border. He explains that he was drafted immediately after the invasion of Denmark, and more recently told that he was going to be a spy; he has no particular enthusiasm for the Nazis, and after he was parachuted in made straight for the nearest village and found the police station. His instructions were to find casual work in Hatfield, a town notable mostly for the de Havilland plant, and then contact Blitzen, another German agent already in England. (Blitzen was caught some months ago, and his name is being used to send deception messages.)

Neumann didn't get much training: he was put in a room (in what he thought had probably been a school) for six weeks or so, and told to read books about infiltration into British society, radio operation, and so on. There was another spy being "trained" at the same time, "Wolf"; he seemed rather more enthusiastic about the whole business.

Neumann is moved out of the quiet cell, and Argas detects clear signs of magic; it's low-powered and not easily identified. However, when the team goes to put Neumann back in the quiet cell, all their shoelaces have come undone.

Alexander calls the Air Ministry to try to find out about unusual accidents; there's nothing immediately available. Nordmann gets in touch with his contact in the Norwegian Resistance; the details Neumann gave seem plausible, though they don't know of any Resistance people who might be able to confirm that he is who he claims to be.

Alexander makes the point that de Havilland, who are mostly repairing Hurricanes, have a fairly direct impact on aircraft availability - and this in turn has been a factor in staving off German invasion plans. The team calls Knight, and gets all aircraft works put on the lookout for someone matching Wolf's description.

Kingsthorpe places a magical protective ritual on himself, and he and Alexander talk with Neumann outside the quiet cell; they both do a poor job of carrying on a conversation while waiting for something odd to happen. Argas observes; there's a flare in Neumann's magic at the same time as Kingsthorpe's ritual goes down, indicating an attack of some sort. With a bit more observation by Argas, invisibly, it seems that the flare goes off every 10-20 minutes or so.

Alexander borrows a Tiger Moth and fitter from the Central Flying School, where he's been corrupting innocent young proto-pilots; he brings it in on the docks near the Tower. The fitter is sent off to a pub nearby for a bit, while Neumann is brought out to look at the plane. A few minutes later, there's a cracking sound and the propellor swings loose. The second time Neumann's magic flares, nothing apparently happens. A bit of questioning reveals that Neumann was asked to sit in a particular seat on the plane that brought him over.

The fitter fixes the Tiger Moth - there doesn't seem to be anything else wrong with it - and Alexander takes them back to Hendon.

Kingsthorpe attempts a magical ritual to locate the particular flavour of magic that Neumann is carrying; this is tricky, but it does indeed find Neumann, so when the latter is back in his cell it may be able to find Wolf.

Alexander spends the rest of the day with an Air Ministry functionary, looking for patterns in accident reports, though without any particular joy.

Tuesday, 19 November 1940

Kingsthorpe attempts to locate the other spy, and gets a result of somewhere around 10-30 miles north. The group decamps to Hendon and he repeats the ritual; the result is rather fuzzier, but seems to be about ten miles north. The group spends the night at Hendon.

Wednesday, 20 November 1940

Kingsthorpe tries again after a night's sleep, and gets a convincing read on Hatfield. The group heads up there and arranges lodging, then visits the de Havilland works. Once their credentials have been established, Alexander breaks off to talk with the test pilots (who haven't been seeing any unusual problems); the others talk with the chief of security and the works manager. They haven't taken on anyone new recently - some applications for unskilled labour, but they have plenty of that - and haven't seen unexpected accidents or anything of that sort.

The team heads off with the names and addresses of the unsuccessful applicants, and spends the afternoon visiting them; none of them is magical or matches Wolf's description.

In the evening, Kingsthorpe repeats his ritual with a detailed map of Hatfield; he pins the trace down to one of two houses or a pub. Argas keeps an eye on the houses while Alexander looks into the pub; its customers are mostly aircraft workers from the plant, with a few locals, and he doesn't spot anyone drinking alone while he's chatting with the barmaid.

Kingsthorpe and Matthews knock at the two houses and establishes that neither of them is letting rooms. They head into the pub with Nordmann and order beer (there's a slight delay as the barrel is changed, as the old one had gone cloudy). Argas enters the pub and spots the right sort of magic on a young man who's sweeping up. He drops a note to warn Kingsthorpe, then goes over and says "Guten tag, Herr Wolf, you are arrested". Wolf makes a bolt for it; Alexander throws an ashtray but misses, Matthews tries to knock him down but also misses, and Kingsthorpe hits with a straight right to unfortunately little effect. Alexander calls out "block that door" as Kingsthorpe struggles with Wolf with some help from Nordmann and Matthews. Wolf gets free from Kingsthorpe with a low blow, but by this time Argas has got up behind him and slashes with his knife; Wolf goes down and Argas secures him and patches him up.

Wolf had been taken on as a general skivvy; there's nothing incriminating in his room. The group takes him to the police station; Kingsthorpe questions him in German, but he looks blank. Alexander gets the others to leave him alone with Wolf, and starts to hone his straight razor meaningfully while talking in Munich-accented German; Wolf seems to think that he's an Abwehr agent, and admits that he's completed his main mission and is now waiting to get in touch with Blitzen. Alexander lulls Wolf's suspicions by explaining that the car taking them to the Tower will stop suddenly when they're nearly there, and at that point he should try to escape to Blitzen. Wolf reports that he has successfully placed the two pieces of paper in the prototype aircraft at de Havilland's.

Wolf is drugged into unconsciousness, and the team heads over to the factory. With the help of the security chief, they head to the small hangar which just barely contains the first model of a new light bomber. There are indeed two pieces of heavy, expensive-looking paper crumpled into the undercarriage housing, though they're blank; Argas detects some sort of magic in the whole aircraft, while Alexander simply falls in lust with it. Geoffrey de Havilland and his son Geoffrey (the chief test pilot) are both summoned; talking with them, it does seem as though if the first flights don't go well further funding for the project is likely to be cancelled, since this is a fairly unconventional aircraft in many respects.

Argas analyses the magic in the airframe; he thinks it's probably to attack the crew, though there's a lot more complexity than he's used to seeing. Kingsthorpe borrows the nearest guard hut for its occult resonances and conducts a very extended cleansing ritual; as this takes effect, the spell on the aircraft tries to destroy the plane, but it's swept away by Kingsthorpe's ritual.

[1 May 2010]

Thursday, 21 November 1940

Back in London the next day, with Wolf safely in the quiet cell in the Tower, the team talks some more with Erich. He is adamant that he received no training in the use of the odd effect that he seems to be generating; he wasn't even aware of it. The people in charge of the spy operation did ask him some odd questions which Argas believes may have been intended to find out whether he had developed the power they were expecting.

Kingsthorpe reads Wolf's memories to find out how he went about using his power; he had to think a key phrase, and look at his target. Nordmann and Matthews try to work out what the phrase might signify, but it seems to be just random syllables.

Argas asks more about the room in which Erich was put to read his training manuals. It was entirely surrounded by the rest of the building, and Erich noticed some wire frameworks - like sprung bed-frames or something of that sort - leaning against the walls in the corridor outside. There was also an occasional electrical burning smell. None of this sounds like the Armanic rune-magic with which Kingsthorpe is familiar - if anything, it seems a bit more like the Russian machinery they've captured.

Both Erich and Wolf are given thorough medical exams, and they seem to have some similar medical oddities - missing bottom ribs, slight anomalies in organ placement, and so on. None of it has any clinical significance, but since the same oddities occur in each of them it seems plausible to think that there may be some magical connection. (Matthews looks up the anomalies to see if they have any occult significance; there's very little in the literature, though there are some vague hints in some Tibetan material, and some more in some rather dubious Norse material of recent invention.) Kingsthorpe starts to make plans to try to remove the magical effect from Wolf.

2.22. Undertakings

Friday, 22 November 1940

However, this is cut off by a problem on Friday morning: Kemmer hasn't appeared at the section of MI5's underground passages that are being used as a laboratory. His lodgings in Baker Street have been phoned, and apparently he left as usual. Kingsthorpe immediately attempts to locate him magically, and gets a sense that he's to the north or north-west, but it's fairly fuzzy; he thinks there's something working against his magic.

Kingsthorpe heads up to Hendon and repeats the ritual; he gets a similar direction, but not much more resolution. Nordmann takes a look at Kemmer's rooms; there's no sign of disturbance, and he seems to have been following the rules on secret documents.

The team talks to ticket-takers at Baker Street station, several of whom remember Kemmer, though they haven't seen him today. They work their way back via paper-shops and tobacconists, and work out that Kemmer must have been picked up pretty close to his rooms. Some workmen repairing bomb damage to a building across the road remember seeing "two toffs" escorting him into a Daimler saloon - a pretty decent car, and not many of them are running at the moment.

Checking in with Scotland Yard reveals that no Daimlers have been reported stolen recently. The team works northwards, the way the car went, but most of the people who might have seen it aren't still on the street now, several hours later.

The team returns to headquarters, and Kingsthorpe scries to get a vision of Kemmer's whereabouts. He sees a coffin... which is lying in a room with two others, presumably in an undertaker's. It's not immediately identifiable, but looking up undertakers in North London who use Daimler saloons cuts down the list to a manageable ten or so.

The fourth site visited is Wilkinson and Baldwin, a firm in Edgware. Miss Vane's guide Sarge looks in first, and verifies that there's a room of about the right shape, though the central trestle is empty. In the yard at the back of the building are one hearse and two saloons, all Daimlers; the engines of the hearse and one saloon are warm. Argas sneaks in invisibly and detects a trace of magic by the central trestle; it's a tiled floor, and there's no trace of chalk or other signs of ritual magic in the grout.

Kingsthorpe, Miss Vane, Nordmann and Matthews go in to speak to Mr Wilkinson, in his sixties. Argas listens in to the conversations between the staff as they work out what's going on. Wilkinson explains that several of his men are out on a job at the moment: Mr Gabriel, who's been there a couple of years, and the men he's brought in more recently (who are not quite of the sort of class he might have hoped for, but they seem able to work well, which among men unfit for military service is quite unusual.) In fact, he's surprise they're not back by now; they were only going over to the North Middlesex Hospital to pick up a body.

Kingsthorpe gets the number of the missing hearse and calls it in; Scotland Yard will be told to be on the lookout. He confirms that the four men haven't been seen at the North Middlesex. It seems possible that one of the saloons could have been taken out this morning off the books; Wilkinson doesn't get in first thing.

With the addresses of the four missing men, the team heads out to look at their homes. Three of them are fairly standard working men's flats, with rather too much money hidden in mattresses and under floorboards. The fourth, Mr Gabriel's, is a bit more interesting, with definite magic surrounding it. There's also a hair across the doorframe, which Argas puts to one side as he unlocks the door. Sarge looks inside and confirms that there's nobody in there, though there is quite a bit of magic; Argas enters and searches.

Argas locates several magical items, mostly wands and medallions, cunningly hidden - built into hollowed-out table-legs and such like. Once he's got the hang of the hiding places, he can spot that there are several more empty compartments. Kingsthorpe checks the bookshelves; there are several books in Russian, which he doesn't read. Argas also locates a radio and codebooks, also in Russian; there are some ashes in the wastebasket.

The team calls in again, getting a couple of policemen to come and sit in the flat in case Gabriel comes back; they also ask that the hearse be stopped if it's seen. Back at headquarters, Kingsthorpe attempts to locate Mr Gabriel, using his codebooks and magical paraphernalia, but with no success; he tries again for Kemmer, who's to the north-east and moving.

The hearse is spotted near Chelmsford by a policeman on foot; by the time the team gets there, there's a report from Colchester, where a police car gave chase but hit a deep pothole almost at once. At Colchester, there's no further news, but Kingsthorpe borrows the library to repeat his location effect; it looks as though Mr Gabriel is now in Frinton-on-Sea.

By the time they arrive, it's full dark, but there hasn't been any disturbance. Argas scans out to sea: there's a waning half-moon, so it won't rise until around midnight. Kingsthorpe turns out the Home Guard, who carry out their defence-against-invasion drill; meanwhile he uses the library to do a final location, tracking down Gabriel to a seafront house at the southern edge of the town. Argas and Sarge scout around the outside; the sound of voices (in English) comes from inside.

The house has a garage, which Argas inspects; there's a hearse inside, with a coffin in it. He oils the side door and sneaks in, unlocking the car and shifting the coffin enough to confirm that there's something heavy in it. He pockets thhe car's distributor cap and leaves, bringing back Nordmann to help him shift the coffin; they wrestle it far enough out of the hearse to be able to get it open, revealing Kemmer, apparently asleep. They carry him back to the rest of the team, then fill sandbags to about the right weight, put them into the coffin, and close up the coffin, the car and the garage.

Kingsthorpe puts through a call to the police, and another to the Navy: it seems likely that there's a submarine rendezvous planned. He and Miss Vane take Kemmer to the local cottage hospital to keep an eye on him, while Nordmann, Argas and Matthews spell each other watching the house.

Around ten minutes to midnight, there's a sound of movement, and four men leave the house to enter the garage. There's a sound of car doors, then of shouting, and one man runs out of the garage's side door to run back to the house. (Nordmann and Matthews have aimed rifles, but hold their fire.) A moment later, a second man makes a run for it, then a third; thirty seconds after that, the last man goes across, and Argas moves in close behind him. This last man is shouting at the others to "get everything in here"; Argas shoots him with a short burst of submachinegun fire, and he falls, sinking very rapidly into the floor and disappearing. The others are fairly thrown by this, and when Argas (still invisible) shoots a second man they open up on each other with pistols.

Argas spots a magical trace underground, and follows it, calling in Nordmann and Matthews to deal with the other three. He gets to the back of the house, where a metal barrel propped against the wall has just caught fire; he calls for help while continuing to follow the trace. Nordmann knocks the barrel away from the house, preventing the whole place from going up. Argas' trace heads down the beach and out to sea; he can't spot anything on the surface.

Matthews checks the house for papers: nothing comes to light at first, but eventually he finds a hand-written schedule with dates and times, of which midnight is one. The Home Guard medics are called to patch up the three prisoners, two of whom are still alive, and the local ARP get the fire put out.

The team inspects the floor where the fourth man vanished; it's floorboards, an air gap, and then bare earth, which doesn't appear to have been disturbed or tunnelled through. Argas calls headquarters, asking them to get Coastal Command to look for submarines in the Channel, though they turn out to have no luck.

Saturday, 23 November 1940

In the garage there's a hastily-written note, reading "please deliver to O. Nordmann, of the spies". Nordmann reads it: "Nikolayev says hello." Nordmann is unwilling to go into details, but admits that he has met Nikolayev, a Russian of unpleasant habits.

At the hospital, Kingsthorpe tries to clean the spell off Kemmer, but without success; he tries again in London with better equipment, and Kemmer wakes up with no knowledge of what happened after he was put into a car at gunpoint. The two surviving enemy agents turn out to be London low-lifes, recruited by Gabriel.

At last, Kingsthorpe has a chance to try his dispelling ritual on Wolf: he successfully removes the magical trace, and it seems that Wolf is no longer able to make things go wrong for those around him.

[26 June 2010]

2.23. Self-Improvement

Monday, 25 November 1940

Miss Vane has been using her linguistic talents to pick up some basic Russian, and looks through Mr Gabriel's books. One in particular appears to describe a magical system that's alien to her; consulting with Kingsthorpe, who also hasn't come across it before, it seems fairly broad (rather than the specific rituals and powers that they're used to), and essentially elemental in nature. It's an aide-memoire rather than a teaching system - something akin to a "spell-book". The side text talks about Russian tradition, but there's less about the Glorious Destiny of the Proletariat than they would expect (and nothing at all about the Soviet system or Marxism-Leninism). It's moderately similar in style to the documents recovered from Finland back in January.

The book was published in 1926 and this edition printed in 1935 - but when they go to Cambridge to consult a Russian linguistic expert, he says that the typography is from before the 1918 spelling reform. The book looks somewhat cheaply printed, possibly by hand in a small run, and bound by hand too.

The hand-written notes interleaved in that book are another matter: nothing to do with magic, they describe a number of people whom the writer appears to suspect of being NKVD agents. Some of them have a "K." notation next to their names: this isn't explained, but it's applied to the group in Devonport, Professor Black, and to four other people, whose names and addresses (all in the East End) are given. Also listed, but without the "K.", are Irene Andrews, the fake medium imprisoned in October, and an unfamiliar name beside which is written "podtvyerzhdyeno" ("confirmed"). That turns out to be the name of someone who disappeared in London several months ago and hasn't been seen since.

There's nothing on Gabriel's own epionage operations, but it certainly looks as though he was trying to find out what the NKVD was up to in the UK - and possibly stop it.

Argas walks around in the East End that evening, taking a look at the homes of the four men. He detects magic in three out of the four of them, though he can only analyse one of the spells: it's something to do with the mind.

Tuesday, 26 November 1940

Argas follows that man (Malcolm McEwan, an engine driver on the Great Western) during the day; he doesn't do anything surprising, though he seems to have a bit of a cold. He gets sight of the other two he detected as magical that evening: William Hands, a warder at Pentonville, and Arthur Mason, a typesetter for the News Chronicle. (He's in his forties; the other three are in their twenties.) Mason spends the evening in the pub, and judging by the company he keeps is something fairly senior.

Wednesday, 27 November 1940

Argas follows the fourth man, Ron Ibbot, through his working day on the docks. As Ibbot goes home, Argas spots him making a chalk cross on the wall of a building. Once he's got home, he spends a couple of hours with the light on before going to bed.

Thursday, 28 November 1940

Argas returns via the site of the cross, around 1.30am, and sees that it's now been circled.

During these few days, Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane have been trying to find out more about this Russian elemental tradition: while it seems to have some similarities to things described in folk-tales, they eventually determine that there's literally nothing known for certain about Russian lore before the advent of Christianity in the tenth century. Anything as detailed as the system they've uncovered must be in large part invented.

Argas visits Ron Ibbot's house while he's at work. There's nothing incriminating there, but he does seem to be taking five or six correspondence courses in various mechanical and electrical trades, from a variety of institutions.

He then goes to Mason's house - all the men live alone, mildly unusual in itself, and none is married, though Mason is a widower. Again, he finds nothing subversive or illegal, though there's a very detailed set of notes on a highly complex process; he thinks it's something to do with increasing the efficiency of the organisation of movable type.

The others look into Mr Gabriel's records: his trail stops sharply before 1937, since while the relevant documents are present they can easily be spotted as forgeries.

None of the current four suspects is known to the police.

Friday, 29 November 1940

Argas, having checked that the other two men are on day shifts, visits their houses. McEwan has written several hundred manuscript pages of a gritty novel about life on the railways (it's pretty grim, but competently done); Hands has a large stack of Penguin editions of Great Literature, and appears to be working his way through them.

The news breaks of a naval battle at Cape Spartivento.

Saturday, 30 November 1940

Argas picks up Ron Ibbot and follows him all weekend. Ibbot now has active magic on him, which he didn't when last observed on Wednesday night. He doesn't do anything unexpected; he goes to a fairly normal church on Sunday.

Sunday, 1 December 1940

In the evening, Argas checks the other three; their magic is noticeably weaker, with McEwan the weakest. Argas theorises that this isn't mind control, as the team had previously guessed, but mind enhancement: a way to pay agents, which won't attract attention as they spend unusual amounts of money, and which must surely be addictive once it wears off.

Monday, 2 December 1940

Kingsthorpe decides that he will invade Ibbot's dreams. He gets MI5 to borrow a recently-busted opium den, and spends the day with Miss Vane preparing it with spirals of poppy-seeds and downward-pointing blue arrows on the walls. Argas waits outside Ibbot's house in case of complications.

Ibbot's dreams are fairly random, as one might expect, but Kingsthorpe directs him to remember the important events of the past few days. Ibbot apparently went to a "meeting" on Friday night, and Kingsthorpe directs him to dream of that. It was apparently a pretty boring lecture, and Ibbot wasn't paying much attention, but he recalls mention of a "fourth way" - which sounds to Kingsthorpe like some of the ideas of Gurdjieff (now in Paris). When pushed, Ibbot reveals that the lecture was at the Institute for Harmonious Self-Improvement, given by a Miss Clements, and he's been thinking more clearly since he started to go to them. Kingsthorpe tries for more information about the chalk cross, but Ibbot becomes angry, and Kingsthorpe withdraws.

Tuesday, 3 December 1940

The Institute for Harmonious Self-Improvement is near Wapping. Argas passes by: it's apparently a former church hall (the church is next door, looking poor), and a sign mentions "classes every evening" starting at 7pm. It's a one-floor building with the main door opening into a large hall; more rooms are at the back. Argas determines that he'll go to that evening's class, just to observe.

---

Quote: (Argas) I do not want to be attacked by a mob of rampant East End self-improvers. Some of them will have studied Boots.

---

Tea and biscuits are served, then Miss Clements (in her forties, probably) explains the system: the evening lectures cover the basics, taking about ten sessions, and there are advanced sessions available for those who progress beyond that stage. There's around ninety minutes of lecture, though people are prohibited from taking notes: it sounds vaguely familiar to Argas, who knows the basics of Gurdjieff's ideas, enough to ask some basic questions in the half-hour session after the lecture. There's a collection at the end; most of the twenty-odd people give a shilling or two, which can't be making anyone rich.

Wednesday, 4 December 1940

Argas plans to go back, so spends some time reading up on Gurdjieff. Some of the specifics he finds aren't the same as in the previous night's lecture; this clearly isn't being taught straight from the books.

At that evening's meeting, McEwan shows up. Sarge keeps an eye on the hall, and once the lecture has started spots a "glowing machine", like the Russian ones that he has seen before, in a back room; he goes back to headquarters to report to Miss Vane and Kingsthorpe. Meanwhile, after about half an hour of lecture, McEwan starts frothing at the mouth and falls over; Miss Clements cuts things short and does her best to help him, as does Argas. His symptoms are a bit like those of an epileptic fit, but the muscular movements are small twitches rather than big spasms. An ambulance is called, and he's taken away; Miss Clements looks as though she'd like to continue the lecture, but reads the mood of the room correctly and sends everyone home.

Thursday, 5 December 1940

The next evening, Miss Vane disguises herself as a lady fallen on hard times and goes along to keep an eye on things from the inside. Argas waits outside, starting at five o'clock, to see who arrives. Kingsthorpe is in a police station nearby. Around 6pm, two women arrive on foot, one of them Miss Clements; they enter the hall and go to the back rooms. The woman who isn't Miss Clements - conversation reveals that she's Miss Edith Pole - says that she has to prepare material for future lectures, and stays in the office, while Miss Clements starts to give tonight's talk. Nearly as soon as she's left, there's a brief flicker of the lights and a low hum as valves start to warm up...

After the lecture, Argas follows the two women home (via bus) to Seven Sisters - not a particularly pleasant area, but they live (separately) in a reasonably decent part of it. He tracks Miss Pole to her first-floor flat, making a note of the address.

Friday, 6 December 1940

Early in the day, Argas heads back to the Institute, getting in through the back door and into the office; there's a hair by the door-handle, which he puts to one side. There are two big wooden desks in the room, making it somewhat crowded; one of them has another hair by one of the drawers, and it turns out that the drawer bodies themselves have been removed to accommodate a familiar-looking Russian machine. There are no codes or other incriminating material around, just letters asking for support for the Institute's work. Argas restores the hairs and gets out.

At 7pm, he heads for Miss Pole's flat, entering the house invisibly and using his power of silence to get up the creaky stairs. There's something magical about the door-handle to the flat; he extends his perception further inside, and spots something magical very briefly before it stops being magical. Deciding that this is probably an alarm that has warned Miss Pole, he heads out, returns to visibility, and rings some of the bells; when a lady answers, he asks to speak with Miss Pole, and when told that she's not available looks concerned and asks to use the phone. His uniform does the trick, and he calls Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane, who set out at speed.

Meanwhile Argas asks the landlady whether he might see Miss Pole's room to make sure nothing is amiss; again, she is dubious, but allows him to look in from the doorway. The place is in good order, with no sign of anything wrong.

Miss Vane and Kingsthorpe arrive, and Argas asks the landlady to ask Miss Pole to call them. While he distracts her, Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane slip inside, to wait on the first-floor landing; Argas takes up position invisibly outside. A few minutes later, he spots a powerful ball of magic with Miss Pole inside it; it seems largely sensory in nature, though she has not apparently noticed him. Miss Pole walks along the road, glancing up at her flat, and continues round the corner. Argas follows her; she's waiting at a bus stop. He shoots her in the leg, then becomes visible while she is distracted and arrests her for espionage. She does her best to look blank.

[26 June 2010]

2.24. Drop-hammer

Monday, 9 December 1940

The interrogation of Miss Pole (and a search of her possessions) has yielded some interesting information. It appears that she's been keeping tabs on her fellow NKVD operatives in the UK, and in particular has noted some radio frequencies that are of interest. These match some recent intercepts from Sheffield, so the team goes there with a direction-finding radio van and an operator for it. Nothing happens for a couple of days.

Wednesday, 11 December 1940

Around 11pm on Wednesday night, the operator picks up a signal: the team moves the van to get a base-line, and establishes that it's coming from the Wisewood area, a surburban area on a hilltop. Argas scouts around the area, which mostly consists of two estates, the Sutton and the Wisewood; the latter seems to be the most likely origin point, and Argas notes that many of the houses in it are closed up. He also spots a few local toughs hanging around, apparently looking for a fight; if there's a method to their positions, he can't see it.

Thursday, 12 December 1940

Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane speak with the police in the morning; the Wisewood, or "Button Estate", seems to have attracted men in the uniformed trades for some years, and the vast majority of them have been called up. They've been having some trouble with burglary in the area.

At 11am, Argas is catching up on sleep lost the previous night when he's woken by a magical flare from the north-east; Kingsthorpe and Sarge spot it too, and between them they localise it to the Vickers works. They hurry there and talk to Lieutenant Hargreaves, the military liaison on site; nothing untoward has happened. The team looks around; Argas spots a small magical trace on the big drop-hammer, of which the workers are very proud: it's the biggest one in the country (and vital to war work, being the only one suitable for making the crankshafts for Merlin engines). He thinks that the trace is probably a sign of a failed spell-casting.

Alexander sets up an impromptu morale-building visit, giving a rousing speech about how the chaps on the front line appreciate the vital labour being done by the forge workers. This is well-received; one man talks back a bit, but the mood of the shop floor is clearly with Alexander, who puts the man at ease.

Under cover of this, Argas checks the drop-hammer's output: there's nothing magical about the crankshafts that were produced during the event. Matthews looks at quality control logs; there doesn't seem to have been any recent rise in failures, nor (when Miss Vane checks the accident book) in accidents. Kingsthorpe, Argas and Sarge search the drop-hammer for magical sigils, and the whole area for magic, without result. Argas feels that the trace is localised in the hammer's nameplate: from a German firm, Beche. That seems distinctive enough to be worth removing; it's hard work, since it's been painted over several times, but Alexander persuades a couple of the forgemen to lend a hand, and the heavy plate is taken back to the team's lodgings.

Of the men who were close to the hammer at the time of the flare, none has any particular bad record; one of them lives in the Sutton estate, but this may be a coincidence. Sarge stays at the Vickers plant to keep an eye out for more magic, while Kingsthorpe and the others work on a trap ritual. This is interrupted by an unusually heavy air raid, and they spend the night in a shelter.

Friday, 13 December 1940

Alexander visits the plant next to the Vickers works, Hadfields' East Hecla Works (the only source of 18" armour-piercing shells); there doesn't seem to have been any trouble there. Kingsthorpe spends the afternoon working on his ritual, this time casting it successfully: if another spell is aimed at the nameplate, his own working should give him the location of the caster.

That evening, there's another radio signal. Argas, Nordmann and Matthews go to check the target house, splitting up to stay inconspicuous. Since the house is boarded up, Argas heads for the back, but spots a watcher at the mouth of the alley leading there and and waits for him to move; after ten minutes, there's a double-whistle signal, and he wanders away. At the same moment, Matthews sees a man wheeling a heavily-laden bicycle (too heavy to be ridden); he follows, not trying to hide but presenting himself as simply a man out for a walk. Nordmann spots him leaving, and he and Argas follow. Half a mile later, the man turns into another alley; Matthews continues and gets out of sight, and the others catch up with him. While the other two cover the ends of the alley, Argas heads along it to look for a light; one back gate has been crowbarred open. There's no light visible, but the sound of quiet footsteps and heavy things being moved around. Argas stays out of sight, and the man leaves after ten minutes or so, his bicycle unloaded. He rides away (though the lights permitted during blackout don't allow one to go at much more than walking pace), and Argas follows at a jog.

Matthews, spotting the bicyclist approaching along the alley, arranges to step across the alley mouth at just the wrong moment, causing a collision. While the man is picking himself up and swearing at Matthews, Matthews points a pistol at him, and Argas comes up from behind and arrests him. He tries to paint himself as a burglar and points out the wrong house, but when Argas corrects him he admits he's been working for the NKVD, causing labour troubles; he's Jack Bolton, treasurer of the local branch of the AEU. In the house he left is a radio, a suitcase of currency, and some codebooks. Argas checks the first house, and finds the radio antenna, presumably intended to be retrieved on a later trip.

Saturday, 14 December 1940

In the morning, a ten-man section of redcaps (military police) arrives at the Vickers works, apparently told off to guard it. Their paperwork seems to be in order; they were nearby, with the East Yorkshire Regiment, until they were sent here this morning. The leader, Corporal Costello, guesses that it was something to do with military intelligence.

Argas shows them around the works, keeping an eye on them; they don't seem to show an undue interest in the drop-hammer.

Kingsthorpe contacts MI5 headquarters, though without any sort of secure line this is difficult; they're prepared to say that such a disposition would not be in their chain of command. He talks to Lt Hargreaves, who hasn't taken any steps - he assumed the team would be making their own arrangements. Alexander asks much the same questions of headquarters, sending coded telegrams from the police station; they know nothing.

Kingsthorpe, Alexander and Miss Vane drive to the current headquarters of the East Yorkshires, since they're not prepared to say anything on the phone either. Meanwhile, Matthews keeps an eye on the ritual setup, while Argas and Nordmann stay in the Vickers plant.

Argas spots a brief magical flash; when he tracks it down, it seems to be the knapsack of one of the redcaps (when the man puts the bag down to rest his shoulder, there's another flash). At the afternoon shift change, there's a fair bit of confusion, with people moving in all directions; Argas spots another redcap climbing the ladder on the side of the drop-hammer. Argas challenges him, but he turns and starts to aim his rifle; he's not put off by Argas' drawing his pistol, and they exchange shots as the workers scatter. Argas scores a minor wound on the man, but his return shot knocks Argas down, leaving him barely conscious.

Nordmann, who's been attracted by the sound of shots, unlimbers his own rifle and nails the redcap, who loses his grip on the ladder and falls, dying when he hits the factory floor. Nordmann heals Argas, who calls on the site security to round up the other redcaps; the workers have already done much of that job, since it doesn't take much to get them annoyed with military police.

When Kingsthorpe's party arrives with the East Yorkshires, they learn that there's no Corporal Costello and they haven't sent anyone to Sheffield; then the phone rings, and they decide to return with any real redcaps who can be spared. Between these and the normal police, the other fake redcaps are caught, though most of them choose to go down fighting rather than be captured. Alexander interrogates one of the three survivors - taking altogether too much pleasure in the physical side of things for the comfort of the rest of the team - and finds that they are Brandenburgers, sent in to place a specific item on the hammer and then escape. Kingsthorpe examines the silk-wrapped items from each man's knapsack: folding X-shaped beechwood frames, painted with black-and-white chessboard patterns and inlaid with gold wire. This is much more in his own tradition than the rune magic he's seen from Germany before. Apparently it's some sort of flare, intended to make the hammer thoroughly visible to the Luftwaffe.

But meanwhile the team has details of a submarine rendezvous (the Brandenburgers' pickup) and a set of recognition codes...

2.25. Powdered Gin

[18 September 2010]

Monday, 16 December 1940

The team returns to London. Argas enquires about other foreign agents in Sheffield; none has been spotted, but there were reconnaissance aircraft seen after the first bombing raid, so it seems likely that the Brandenburgers were sent on the basis of their report.

The Navy sent a squad to take the submarine: they captured the two men on deck, but the boat surfaced in a hurry and got away. It's believed to have been sunk by depth charge shortly thereafter.

Holland & Holland have finally had time to work on the weapons they were given back in October, including Argas' MP38. They should now be somewhat more accurate, and substantially more reliable.

It's coming up to Christmas, and the tea and sugar rations have been increased. Soap is one of the most popular presents this year...

Argas' wife Millie expresses some concern to him: she keeps an off-licence on the Caledonian Road, and while they'd normally see an increase in trade before Christmas (they don't have much to sell, but people still want to buy) she's had quite the reverse. At the same time, the number of people staggering around drunk in public (at this era, a pretty shameful state to be in) has seemed to increase.

Argas spends the evening hanging surreptitiously around the area of the shop. He notices that quite a few people, as they walk along the road northwards, seem suddenly to grow unsteady - in a magical way. He pops into a couple of the local pubs and doesn't spot any magical effects there, but thinking about the people who are affected he reckons they're all in the view of a particular group of flats, on the top two floors of a converted large house.

He calls in at headquarters; there's a munitions factory at the south end of the road, and there's been an increase in reports of drunkenness there. This makes it justifiable as official business, and he alerts the others.

Tuesday, 17 December 1940

Around lunchtime, he goes to the flats with a parcel, to use as a pretext to get the doorman to let him in. Three of the four flats are empty; the fourth is occupied by Mr Rooney, an Irishman who appears to be in his mid-eighties. Argas detects no magic on him, and leaves. He checks with Millie, who knows of Rooney - he hangs around outside pubs from time to time, ranting about the Evils of Alcohol.

That evening, the team waits for an air raid; Argas waits for the doorman to leave and lock up the building, then heads inside and searches Rooney's flat. There's no sign of magical paraphernalia, though there is a photograph of a man in his thirties or thereabouts who bears some resemblance to Rooney.

Argas has time to check the adjacent flat, which appears to be occupied by a young woman; again he finds nothing magical, though he does turn up a half-full bottle of clear liquid, hand-labelled "Powdered Gin" (in the style of Powdered Egg). Argas feels that the raid will probably be over soon, and he doesn't have time to search further.

The team repairs to a room over the Argas's shop, and Kingsthorpe projects astrally. The other two flats seem to be unoccupied. Rooney has returned, and is asleep - and shows as magical. To Kingsthorpe's perception, the Powdered Gin is also faintly magical. He checks the streets for further signs of magic, without result, and returns to his body.

Wednesday, 18 December 1940

Kingsthorpe spends the night, and at 6am projects again. Rooney is sitting at his window, reading yesterday's paper and muttering to himself; he looks to Kingsthorpe's occult senses like a man casting a spell. Alexander takes a nip of scotch and walks along the street below, and is surprised to find himself feeling as though he'd had four or five. Argas scans for, and finds, a magical effect on him.

The team visits the local police station, and asks what they know about Rooney. He's been a minor nuisance for years, and is banned from all the local pubs. One of the older constables remembers the time he arrived, about twenty years ago, shortly after his son was killed, something to do with drunken driving. He used to be a night-watchman.

Some discussion ensues - it seems clear that Rooney is a wild talent, but it's not clear what should be done with him. He hasn't expressed any particular political sympathies, but he came from Belfast and married an Englishwoman, so he seems unlikely to be a republican; on the other hand, the team doesn't want to reveal the existence of practical magic to such an unknown quantity.

In the end, it's decided to cause him to pass out in the street (courtesy of Argas and a hypodermic of something noxious), and have a couple of the Nursing Yeomanry ready to get him to a special hospital where he can be poked and prodded by Kingsthorpe; after that, he can be found a job somewhere that making drunk people drunker should cause no harm. This will take a few days to arrange, however.

Thursday, 19 December 1940

The next afternoon, Kingsthorpe is contacted - it seems that one of the workers at the munitions plant was spotted sabotaging shell fuzes, but claims she knows nothing about it. Alexander visits Julie Bragg at the police station; she's very nervous, and he chats to her to put her at her ease. While doing this, he's struck by the way she responds to his words, very much in the manner of people under his mind control; he suggests that the back of her head is itching, and she scratches it without apparent thought. (When Alexander asks about this later, she doesn't remember it at all.)

Kingsthorpe confirms that she's under a magical effect, and the two quiz her about recent contacts. She hasn't met anyone new recently, but does mention her sister Rose, whose address is in the flat next to Mr Rooney; she's also brought in, and seems to be suffering under a similar effect, though it's less advanced.

The only recent change in either of their habits seems to be that they've been buying "Powdered Gin" from a bootlegging operation that's being operated out of the A-1 Storage Company, on Caledonian Road by the canal. Argas visits the warehouse, which is ostensibly storing furniture for people who've been bombed out or left London. While he can smell distillery fumes, there's no sign of the plant; he spots two men, one in his twenties with a tubercular cough checking crates in the warehouse area, and the other in his sixties in the front office, talking with a woman in her thirties. These two men seem to be the warehouse staff rather than the business owners or clerks, who are presumably elsewhere. Argas checks the cellar, but still can't spot the distillery.

Alexander spends a longer time talking with Julie, trying to work round the mental block. Eventually she does recall his suggestion, but doesn't know where the idea to over-tighten fuze screws came from - "it just appeared in my mind". She describes the procedure for buying from A-1 - go to the side door, knock three times, and say how many bottles you want. She mentions the tubercular young man, who was apparently thinking of something else while he was serving her - she's not unattractive, and was slightly miffed to have no apparent effect on him.

The team organises a Customs and Excise raid on the warehouse, hanging back as the inspectors surround the place and break in. Argas and Alexander head in once the distillery is found, hidden between walls made from crate-sides; it looks as though they've been distilling from potato and turnip peelings, and flavouring with whatever's available. The only magic on the spot is in one of the bottles of juniper essence.

The older man, Richard Fenner, says that Luke (Nayland), the tubercular young man, has been in charge of getting hold of the flavourings. Nayland gives him a dirty look and says that he's got cousins in the country who send him things; with a bit more pressure, he admits that he's also got some supplies from "Miss Sophy", who works at the cigarette plant in Mornington Crescent. ("But she's not like that - she was a teacher, until the schools moved out of London.")

Friday, 20 December 1940

Nordmann and Kingsthorpe consult the records at the (now-empty) school at which "Miss Sophy" was teaching; Miss Wicker was a science teacher, an unusual job for a woman but not unheard-of. Her home address is also given.

The team calls for police backup to surround the Carreras cigarette factory, while Alexander goes in to collect Miss Sophy; he uses the pretext of a new school that might require her services to get her into the manager's office, then confronts her with the knowledge of her helping the distillery. (Argas lurks there, and can confirm she's the same woman he saw yesterday at A-1.) She tries to talk her way out of it, saying that there's nothing illegal about juniper essence and disclaiming all knowledge of the distillery. She claims just to have a couple of juniper shrubs at home, though a search of that house shows nothing like enough - and no magical equipment at all. She's eventually broken down and admits that she has a second cultivation area, in the catacombs that lead south from Camden Lock - they used to be stables for the carters, and while some of them are now used as warehouses more are lying empty.

Miss Vane sends Sarge to take a quick look at the location he gives, and finds a compact alchemical laboratory as well as shrubs being fed on strange compounds. The whole thing will be packed up and taken to headquarters.

Kingsthorpe talks with Miss Sophy, pointing out that she could well be recruited, particularly for the matter of helping plants produce more efficiently. She's keen to avoid anything that will "prolong the war", which to her means keeping the Germans out. Having heard of what happened in France, she regards invasion and German victory as only a matter of time.

Miss Sophy is arrested and cuffed, and Alexander cautions her, taking care to end with "...if you ever come to trial". She spills a little more, including her sale of love potions ("though they don't work, so that's all right") - and the one that did work, that she used to get young Nayland to help her out and not ask too many questions.

Mr Rooney is picked up by the police and whisked away. He clearly has no idea about magic. Eventually he'll be found a job as a night-watchman...

Over the next few days, Kingsthorpe works with Miss Sophy to try to get her to help the war effort; she's distressingly stubborn, but Kingsthorpe's fascination with what seems best described as "hedge alchemy" (she learned it from her grandmother in Kent) gradually wins her over.

Tuesday, 24 December 1940

Nordmann and Miss Vane are invited to the Argas's for Christmas. (Kingsthorpe barely notices the date; Alexander has volunteered for Christmas duty with a fighter squadron, on the basis that most of the chaps have family they'd like to get back to and he doesn't.)

Around six o'clock, a confused-looking carrier pulls up outside the shop. "I took this to the office, but they said I should bring it here." It's the smoked reindeer for which Nordmann has been waiting for several months.

Wednesday, 25 December 1940

After Christmas dinner, Argas' daughter Victoria is asked to play the piano and sing - which she does superbly well, particularly the latter. Argas goes slightly pale and explains in a very circumscribed way the sort of thing he's doing for the war effort - and it appears that Victoria has some of the same sort of talent that he has.

Thursday, 26 December 1940

The next day, he contacts Kingsthorpe, who is prepared to arrange for Victoria to come in for some basic tests.

While he's at headquarters, he's asked by Kemmer whether he has any abilities that will work differently on this piece of metal and that piece; he can just about tell the difference in terms of their very minor effects on his magic, but it transpires that what Kemmer is really after is some sort of differential telekinesis that will separate a mixture of the two.

2.26. Blinding the Bomber

[23 October 2010]

Monday, 6 January 1941

Captain Knight institutes a policy of regular meetings for keeping track of progress and raising concerns. Among matters discussed are:

• The disposition of captured enemy magicians: they're being sent to Johnstone Castle, near Paisley. It's off the ley lines and can be kept "quiet" (i.e. magically-suppressive) with regular re-enchantment; the most unimaginative soldiers in the Army are told off to guard the place.
• The Ministry of Supply will be asked to assemble a list of other singular and vital machines, like the Sheffield drop-hammer, particularly if they were imported from Germany.
• Tracking down the machines that were used on Wolf and Erich. This ought to be possible in theory, but doing magic across national borders seems to be a particularly challenging thing unless some sort of short-cut or beacon can be set up.
• Getting some magical backup staff who aren't field agents. Dr Nicholson is brought in, and Miss Sophy (grudgingly). Among other things they'll be trying regular sweeps for magical items and effects, but this is tricky: there are lots of small and apparently harmless magics in England, and some of them move around.
• The German archaeologists who were working in Belgium. The recovered notes didn't mention their names, but did refer to their organisation, the Ahnenerbe ("Ancestral Heritage").
• The Masonic occultists in Béthune might form the core of a magical resistance operation in Belgium. For further consideration.
• Mr Nordmann suggests the possibility of remotely operating machinery - as it might be a heavy bomber full of explosives - to reduce risks to aircrew. This will probably be impracticable because of national boundaries.
• Kingsthorpe scans the Argas family for signs of magical talent. Victoria's the only one who shows any: not much, but she has potential. For her own safety and to keep an eye on her, she'll be found a job at a classified site north-west of London.
• The Soviet machine operators who have been captured so far don't seem to have been in any sort of hierarchy; all claim to have been reporting directly to Moscow (one of them lets slip the name of the "A. G. Stoletov Electrical Institute"). None of them has any sort of magical aptitude.
• Overall, Knight (both by inclination and from his reading of the memorandum from Palestine) is more concerned about Communist than about Nazi infiltrators; the former seem to have better luck recruiting locals.

Monday, 13 January 1941

Mr Alexander gets a call from his old wingman Matuschanskavasky ("Ski"), who's been doing some escort flights near Manchester. Seems that they're got a new modification of the Manchester bomber, and the pilot reported being blinded by snow flurries on the test flights - which would have made more sense if there had actually been snow in the air...

The team flies to RAF Ringway and talks with Ski and "Bill" Thorn, the chief test pilot. Both he and the pilot on the second flight saw these mid-air flurries, though when he opened the canopy there was clear air outside. On inspecting the aircraft, a new variant with a larger wing carrying four Merlin engines rather than the usual two Vultures, Argas and Kingsthorpe both spot an enchantment on the canopy glass.

Tuesday, 14 January 1941

Alexander and Argas arrange to go up on the next test flight. Things start off well enough, and the aircraft handles well, but a few thousand feet up there's a bright flash inside the cockpit. Argas, in the bomb-aimer's position, is unaffected; Alexander is momentarily dazzled, but Thorn seems to have been completely blinded. Argas works his way into the cockpit, and realises that the panels themselves are glowing brightly; Alexander takes over control of the aircraft from Thorn, and jettisons the detachable portion of the canopy. Argas gets himself and Thorn to the tail-gunner's position, while Alexander gets Ski to fly an approach and lines up for landing by holding position next to his Gladiator. The canopy clears just before landing, and the three get out of the aircraft.

Thorn's vision clears after half an hour or so. Argas talks to the airfield's guards: nobody's tried to leave in the last little while, and nobody tries it later. He and Nordmann search for the jettisoned canopy and recover the pieces, on which the enchantment is fading.

Matthews dismounts one of the remaining glass panels; there doesn't seem to be any change in its magic. Thorn, Ski and Alexander, with Argas as a guest of the latter, head for the mess and deplete the bottle of vodka that Alexander brought up. Kingsthorpe looks at some spare cockpit glass panels, which seem to have the same enchantment on them. He, Matthews and Nordmann take a car to Avro's Chadderton works, where the aircraft was built (and where a small glassworks makes tempered glass in the particular shapes needed). There seems to be some sort of irregular and diffuse spell-casting going on in the glassworks; looking at the stock, about one batch in ten seems to be enchanted. They head back.

Alexander talks to Thorn and the other acceptance pilots (Manchesters are usually tested at Ringway before being flown off to squadrons). They've all seen some snow flurries, but given the season didn't think it worth reporting. Argas looks into the operational losses of Manchesters; the figures aren't easy to interpret, but there does seem to be a disproportionate level of aircraft lost on their first or second combat mission.

The team, apart from Alexander, sets out for the Bomber Command bases in Lincolnshire - but a blown tyre and missing direction signs means they don't reach the first one until the small hours.

Wednesday, 15 January 1941

Kingsthorpe convinces the squadron commander that there's a problem, though he's skimpy on details. He and Argas inspect the Manchesters; two of them have enchanted glass, about one in thirty. Alexander catches up with the Rapide, and the team spends the rest of the day travelling to various Bomber Command bases to do the same thing. The oldest affected aircraft were built in November of 1940.

Matthews takes his glass sample on a test flight in the back of another Manchester; it's safely in a duffle-bag so that it won't dazzle the crew, but in any case it doesn't react.

Back at Ringway, Alexander persuades the Avro team to put a hold on aircraft approvals for the moment.

Thursday, 16 January 1941

The team deals with the Coastal Command Manchesters, then returns to Chadderton. Argas looks for magic in the glass-ovens, and finds a complex "knot" in the tempering oven. Kingsthorpe plans a cleansing ritual involving a special batch of glass to be run through, incorporating some uranium as well as his usual ritual components, but this is a complex approach and his first two attempts fail. Before he retires for the night, he attempts to read the aura of the magical knot, in case it's a sapient creature of some sort; it seems not to be.

Over a secure line, Nordmann checks with Kemmer about the possibility of using uranium as a counter-magical agent on its own; it might take quite some time to take effect, but it ought to be achievable.

Friday, 17 January 1941

After another aborted ritual, Kingsthorpe finally succeeds in dispersing the knot. He takes a pane from the last enchanted batch and paints hexagonal markings on it with silver, then requisitions the local Carnegie library for a scrying ritual to locate the source of the enchantment. This shows him a room partly open to the outside, perhaps in a bombed-out house; there's a machine that looks very like the Soviet devices, and a stack of car batteries next to it.

Checking with the factory office shows no staff bombed out of their homes, so Kingsthorpe tries a location ritual on the key piece of the Soviet machine combined with a car battery; this leads the team to a bombed-out street a few miles from the factory. Argas checks the site stealthily; the items are still there, as is a concealed power cable running to a street-lamp that's still intact. There's no sign that anyone's been living there, though, or even visiting very often. While Argas watches, the machine starts to hum as its valves warm up.

He and Matthews wait by the machine while it operates, which it does for half an hour or so; Argas spots a small incoming magical effect as well as the rather larger outgoing one.

The others return to Chadderton; Alexander gives one of his morale-building speeches, while Kingsthorpe and Nordmann check the glassworks. There's no new magic there, but Kingsthorpe does spot something magically odd about the starboard main gear strut of a Manchester that's just being finished; he gets it down-checked, and the team gets back together at the machine's location.

Argas disconnects the batteries and Nordmann puts an axe through the power line (which causes a small power cut elsewhere). The machine is removed to be sent securely to London, and Argas and Matthews conceal themselves to watch for a reaction.

Saturday, 18 January 1941

Around 2am, Argas hears a quiet coughing and footsteps, but can't see anyone. He tracks by sound as the person goes up the steps to where the machine was, and follows close behind; the person swiftly turns back, and Argas trips him down the stairs, then applies handcuffs and sits on him until he becomes visible. He's a young and thin man, suffering from a nosebleed (and the handkerchiefs in his pockets suggest that this is a usual thing).

Back in a room at Chadderton, Alexander gets the man's story out of him: he's William Little, and as a tubercular youth got into the habit of reading about obscure subjects including the power of the mind. One of his teachers (who, by the time police are sent to his house, has disappeared) encouraged him in socialist thought, and eventually got the Russian machine for him; he's been using it to cure his tuberculosis, but the price was sabotage of the aircraft factory. They didn't tell him the machine could be operated at a distance, but "it just made sense to him", even if it does cause nosebleeds each time he uses it. Kingsthorpe confirms that William has some magical talent, though of a strange sort.

William, and the machine, are taken back to London; he's stowed in the Tower for now, but Kemmer wants an assistant who knows something about how these machines are supposed to work...

Alexander puts in the paperwork for Argas to be allowed to wear his (RAF) air gunner's brevet as part of his Army uniform.

2.27. Schiaparelli

[20 November 2010]

Monday, 3 February 1941

Argas gives Little a speech, attempting to persuade him to cooperate with the war effort. Little says he wants to go away and think about it, and is returned to his cell.

The possibility is raised of magically locating the Russian machines. Major Kingsthorpe's location ritual will find a specific item or person, not the nearest one of a particular class, and the machines have no magical properties when inactive. They do feed back a moderately distinctive signature into the mains when warming up, but one would have to be fairly close on the electrical grid to spot this.

Monday, 10 February 1941

Captain Knight explains that MI5 has been doing a certain amount of collaboration with the SOE, since they have a common enemy (MI6). Specifically, since Bureau 5(b) has been finding quite a few people with minor magical talents, they've been sending those of them as want to volunteer for dangerous work for SOE training, and some of them have been sent into occupied countries.

Four of them were in Paris - and one night last week, they were all scooped up by the Gestapo. Or so was the supposition; one of them, Jason Conant, turned up at Dover this morning, and has been rushed to headquarters. His account is that he was on his way to meet members of a resistance group when he suddenly became distracted and disorientated, as though someone were constantly shouting at him, though nobody else in sight seemed to notice anything; he lost all concentration and staggered out into the street, and was picked up by a Gestapo patrol (who apparently assumed he was drunk) for being out after curfew. His talent is for not being noticed; after a few days, the Gestapo assumed he must have been transferred out because his cell was empty, and he managed to get away. The screaming started at around 8pm and lasted for several hours; it happened again a few days later, as he was on a train out of Paris. (Kingsthorpe confirms all this by reading his memory.)

While it would be a good thing to get the other three agents out of the hands of the Gestapo, the team is clearly not the right one for that mission (Knight hints heavily that another, non-magical, group will be sent in for that). However, the effect that Conant experienced is of interest too: is this a new German weapon, perhaps? And for that, the team will be going to Paris... making contact, if necessary, with Défence de la France, the group the other agents have been working with. They're based at the Sorbonne, and specialise in papers and escape routes.

The best bet for getting in and out quickly seems to be one of the captured He111s; that can be put down on a field outside Paris, guided by one of the local resistance groups, though it won't be able to stay. It will return every couple of days around 1am, and land if the right light signal is given. The team will be dressed as a pair of German engineering officers (Kingsthorpe and Alexander, reluctantly sacrificing their moustaches to the war effort) taking a break from planning the cross-Channel invasion; their thug (Argas); their secretary (Miss Vane); and a couple of collaborators (Matthews and Nordmann).

The flight goes smoothly, though Alexander is not enamoured of this new concept of sitting in an aircraft that he isn't controlling. The Heinkel lands briefly, and the team gets out; a surly local Resistance man directs them to the station for trains to Paris.

Tuesday, 11 February 1941

At the Gare du Nord, those of the team who've been here before are struck by how it's changed: lots of Germans about, of course, but the whole place seems straitened and drab. They find a pension that's prepared only to overcharge them scandalously (and they are, after all, paying in Occupation Reichsmarks that have been either forged or recovered from German agents).

Argas goes out to check on the lodgings of the four captured agents; they are being watched, though subtly. While he's near the Sorbonne, he's struck by a distraction that sounds like what Conant described (the others experience it too); it's a little like the disorientation caused by radioactivity, but not entirely similar.

Once the effect has stopped, Kingsthorpe attempts to scry for one of the other captured agents; he's in a cell somewhere, being shouted at by someone in Gestapo uniform. Kingsthorpe goes on to ward his room in the pension, in the hope that this may ameliorate the effect if it recurs.

The team spreads out across Paris, with Nordmann staying in the room. The effect cuts in again at about 4.30, lasting for about half an hour; it's very hard to pin down, but coordinating everyone's experiences suggests it's in the western half of the city, probably fairly close to the Seine. Argas walks along the banks, failing to spot any large engineering works or heavily-guarded buildings (apart, of course, from the German military headquarters at the Hotel Meurice, across the Tuileries from the river - and as he's passing this area he gets a brief flash of the effect, at a rather lower power than before). Argas stays in the area until around 10pm, but it's not repeated.

Wednesday, 12 February 1941

The effect starts again in the morning, shortly after 9am. Argas reckons it's centred on the Meurice. Kingsthorpe scries for the cause of the effect, and spots a well-dressed lady of about fifty arguing with a man in German military uniform, in a generic-looking office; he's surprised to recognise the woman as Elsa Schiaparelli, a well-known fashion designer. (Miss Vane's able to fill in a bit more about "Schiap"'s background; she has been working in Paris since the 1920s, but sailed to New York shortly after the fall of Paris last year and is thought still to be there.) Argas heads for the Meurice and follows Schiap when she leaves (around noon, shortly after the effect stops); she crosses the Seine and goes into a hotel which seems mostly to be accommodating German officers. Another woman arrives, and they have lunch together; they then get into a taxi and head south.

Miss Vane has been doing a bit more research; Schiap arrived for a visit in Paris a couple of weeks ago, though it's not at all clear why she's done it. Her business here has been closed for over a year.

Argas sleeps for a few hours, then heads back to the hotel; he's able to sneak in and look at the register, which gives him Schiap's room number. The other woman returns for supper; Argas takes advantage of Schiap's absence to scan her room from the outside for traces of magic, but doesn't find any. The effect starts again during the meal; Argas tries to sneak into the dining room to eavesdrop on their conversation, but stumbles into a waiter and has to concentrate on getting clear.

As he returns to the lobby, two German officers come out of the bar, carrying a third between them who seems rather the worse for drink. Argas returns to the pension and reports.

Thursday, 13 February 1941

The effect starts again around 9am. Argas and Miss Vane, with Sarge providing backup, find an alley near Schiap's hotel which they can use as a short-term base; Argas sneaks into the hotel and borrows a maid's cap and apron out of the laundry, which Miss Vane can wear over her own black dress. They all head for Schiap's room, under cover of various sorts of invisibility (spiritual, magical and social); Argas opens it, and they search quickly. There are quite a lot of documents here, which appear largely to be rejected applications for a passport and exit visa for a widow named Dany (or Danielle) Compegne, whose occupation is listed as "secretary". Argas photographs the documents and Miss Vane copies down the details; they also abstract some hairs from Schiap's hairbrush, in case they need to locate her later. As they leave, they hear voices in German from a nearby room: "Come on, Kurt, you must have sobered up by now". Sarge confirms that Kurt is a magician...

Alexander goes to wait at a cafe on the route back from the Meurice to Schiap's hotel, and arranges to meet her as she passes: starting off with his (perhaps even genuine) admiration for her work, he talks with her sympathetically, and soon gets her talking about what she's up to. She's been trying to get an old friend out of the country, but the applications keep getting refused for a variety of spurious reasons; she rather thinks it's because Dany is Jewish. Alexander makes a vague offer of help "from a friend"; Schiap has clearly heard such things before, and asks what he wants in return. Alexander presents himself as wishing to do a favour for his favourite designer, hoping that perhaps one day she will be in a position to provide him with a suit, and tries to back it up with a bit of mind control; that bounces, but she's still inclined to take him at his word.

The first plan is to get them both out on the Heinkel when it comes back tomorrow night, but Alexander in particular feels that asking Schiap to bring herself and her friend to somewhere out of public view would be pushing things a bit; it's clearly to the short-term advantage of the German authorities if they just disappear, and the team can hardly out itself as British spies to someone who could then easily trade that knowledge for a single visa. The revised plan is to get Défence de la France to provide a fake passport and travel permit for Dany, and for them both to leave via train to Spain and Portugal - idealy on Friday night, since when Schiap doesn't show up to argue with officialdom on Monday morning alarm bells are likely to start ringing.

Alexander, with Argas as backup, heads to the Sorbonne, having chosen clothing that'll blend in. He talks to Jeanne Beauchaud, who reckons that with the photographs and sample signatures that have already been gathered for the official applications it should only take a couple of days to get the paperwork in order. A departure on Saturday seems workable. Jeanne is entirely happy to spend more time with the handsome English officer...

Friday, 14 February 1941

Alexander picks up the paperwork from Schiap, and passes it on to Jeanne. He plans to stay behind in Paris and to travel with Schiap and Dany at least as far as neutral territory; the rest of the team leaves on the Heinkel that night.

Saturday, 15 February 1941

Alexander picks up the paperwork, and "borrows" a van. Schiap and Dany, at his suggestion, take a mild sedative - not enough to knock them out, but enough to keep them calm. They travel light, leaving enough bags in their rooms to make it look plausible that they've just stepped out for pre-dinner drinks; in fact, Alexander takes them to the Gare de Montparnasse for the sleeper to Hendaye on the Spanish border. There aren't many passengers, and most of them are military (German or French).

Sunday, 16 February 1941

The train, steam-hauled, runs quite slowly, and it's early afternoon by the time they get to the border. Because of the gauge change, everyone has to leave this train; everyone's passports and papers are being checked as they file through a ticket gate to the Spanish train waiting to take them across the river Bidassoa and into Spain. Schiap goes first, having genuine papers; then Alexander, with good British forgeries; then Dany, with forgeries of uncertain quality. The inspector, a uniformed railway policeman, seems to be checking faces against a sheet of paper; he asks Schiap "and your companions" to step into the station master's office. Alexander spots that although Schiap and Dany are on the paper (among others), he's not; he tries to look as though he's nothing to do with these people, but Dany throws enough glances his way that the policemen clearly regard him as part of the group.

Two policemen usher them across the platform, and they're joined by a civilian who was standing by the gate; from the way the policemen look at him, he's clearly in charge. One policeman accompanies them into the office.

The civilian is hard to read, but basically polite. He introduces himself as Kriminalkommissar Deneriaz of the Gestapo. His French accent is eastern, and he speaks it fluently. It seems that the two ladies have been flagged as criminals, so cannot be permitted to leave France, and indeed will have to be held until more senior officers can arrive. Obviously a misunderstanding, but (lots of shrugging)...

Alexander gets the feeling he's waiting for something - perhaps a bribe, perhaps something else. Alexander continues the approach that he's nothing to do with these people, hoping not to have to bluff in his cover identity as an engineering officer. When Deneriaz starts to talk about "just a few days' delay", Schiap - who's been getting progressively more edgy - loses it. Alexander feels just a wave of dizziness, but Deneriaz turns white, vomits into a waste-paper bin, and slumps unconscious in his seat. The policeman rushes over to help, and Alexander siezes the moment to clock him with a heavy brass paperweight.

Alexander tells the two ladies to stay here and quiet while he arranges a distraction, then strolls casually out with the air of a man who's greatly relieved to have been released. He heads into the lavatory, takes a roll of toilet paper and inserts it into a waste bin, then hides it in a stall and lights it. Once it's smouldering, he walks back onto the platform; a few seconds later, there are cries of "fire", and the crowd starts pressing forward into the ticket gate. The policeman on the platform goes to investigate, while Alexander fetches the ladies and joins the crush. For a few moments it looks as though they'll all be evacuated to the street when the barrier is opened, but someone shouts something in Spanish and the crowd pushes forward onto the waiting Spanish train; it pulls away just as the last people press aboard.

The Spanish authorities hold it briefly at Irum station, just on the other side, to finish paperwork checks, but they're fairly lackadaisical about it - paying more attention to the papers of the German soldiers (including Alexander) than to those of civilians. If there's any message sent across the bridge, they don't act on it before the train pulls out again.

Monday, 17 February 1941

A day or so of slow travel later, the group arrives at Lisboa. Schiap and Dany get their tickets changed for the next liner to New York.

Tuesday, 18 February 1941

Once they're safely away, Alexander heads for the consulate to send a message home and pick up a new set of papers, and looks for a ship to get him back to England (there being something of a lack of aeroplanes).

The best bet seems to be the Espuma do Mar, carrying tobacco leaf and sugar to London. She's an old and ugly boat, but quite small and well-kept. Captain Hechevaria is not particularly happy at the prospect of passengers, but a bit of hard currency quickly changes his mind.

Tuesday, 25 February 1941

It's about a week's run up the coast, across the Bay of Biscay, and in to Plymouth. The boat is inspected en route by several Spanish and German launches, but her neutral status and a bit of bribery prevent any major incidents. Apart from the bombing run by a lost-looking Kondor... but Alexander stands to the machine gun (nobody asks where it came from), and finds that a Kondor flies much better on four engines than on two. The crew dumps its bomb load and limps home.

Alexander gets to Plymouth, and from there it's an easy run by train to London.

2.28. Das Teufelboot

[18 December 2010]

Friday, 28 February 1941

The monthly meeting is brought forward because of a time-critical mission. The main news is that Mr Little has decided to cooperate; his principal goal is to see that as few people are killed as possible, which to him means ending the war as quickly as may be achieved. With his assistance, Kemmer thinks he has the beginnings of a method for refining uranium (using Little's technique of building a self-sustaining magical construct, which will push more forcefully at U-238 than at U-235). If this works, he thinks he can have a working bomb by the end of the year - though not exactly a "fail-safe" design, since it will need a magician in close proximity to stop it from going off.

Argas studies the Knight-Fuller-Lethbridge document, trying to get some idea of the number of people affected by large-scale atomic activity. It looks as though about one person in a thousand, including about half the magicians, suffered some effects when Chicago Pile 1 went critical (ranging from headaches and distraction to insanity, coma and death); about twice as many were affected by the Trinity test.

Meanwhile, there's a problem: over the last year or so, some trans-Atlantic convoys seem to be being found too easily, with submarines popping up in just the right place to attack them. It's known that the Germans have experimented with magical homing beacons before, but searching a whole convoy at the docks isn't really practicable. So the team will go out with OB-293, leaving Liverpool on Sunday afternoon, going at least as far as the dispersal point; they can then either come back with the escorts, which will be leaving to join an inbound convoy, or continue, as they see fit.

The convoy commodore is Vice-Admiral Austin, "not the most flexible of thinkers"; it's probably a good idea to avoid coming to his attention if possible. Papers are provided to allow some latitude of action if needed. Meanwhile, everyone gathers arctic gear (and in Alexander's case his Irvine); Argas brings along the magical pendants from Operation Headache.

Sunday, 2 March 1941

The team will be travelling on Mijdrecht, a Dutch-registered tanker, under cover of being something to do with the Board of Trade and don't ask questions. Captain Groeneveldt is not happy to see them, but gives them a couple of cabins. Nordmann gives some smoked reindeer to the ship's cook, who turns out to be a Finn with very firm ideas on the proper preparation of such meat; it's hard to tell whether he's happy, but he's quite enthusiastic.

As the ship leaves the docks, Argas and Sarge scan her for anything magical; Sarge reckons that one of the crew, AB Henry Booker, is "odd" in a way he can't quite define. Matthews and Kingsthorpe check manifests and crew rosters for anything unusual, but nothing stands out.

Argas takes the ship's boat, and Sarge travels by his own means, to do cursory searches of the other ships in the convoy; they don't turn anything up.

There are thirty-eight merchant ships, of sizes up to about 9,000 tons, and one 20,000-ton former whaling factory ship, the Terje Viken. The five escorts are Wolverine and Verity, Admiralty modified class W destroyers from shortly after the Great War; Camellia and Arbutus, corvettes of the new Flower class; and Chelsea, an elderly American-built destroyer of the Wickes class.

Monday, 3 March 1941

Matthews and Kingsthorpe keep an eye on Booker (who asks Matthews if there's anything he can help with); he doesn't seem to be acting oddly. Kingsthorpe prepares an aura-reading ritual with a time delay, so as not to be conspicuous; Booker is a latent magician, though he may not even be aware of it.

Tuesday, 4 March 1941

Beverley, an American-built Clemson-class destroyer, joins as escort.

The team notices that Booker spends a lot of time on the starboard side of the ship, and even looks briefly as though he's going to jump overboard. Miss Vane speaks with him, and he seems to have no knowledge of his actions; he's not surprised, though, and it transpires that on a convoy last year he did something similar, a few days before they came under submarine attack. Sarge and Argas (once he gets back from a long examination of Terje Viken keep a surreptitious eye on him.

Wednesday, 5 March 1941

In the morning Booker drifts to the starboard quarter; Argas thinks that something is trying to pull magical power from him. (Nordmann plots rough bearings from the two incidents; if it's the same source, it's either moving or somewhere at sea.)

Argas talks with Booker; the latter has been to Germany, some years ago, but doesn't remember any Germans being unusually friendly when he was in port, and no longer possesses anything he might have picked up in those days. Kingsthorpe talks with Captain Groeneveldt, trying to find out about instances of depression or other mental problems in the crew; Groeneveldt, taking a pull from his hip-flask, says that he hasn't seen anything like that (and anyone who did have problems wouldn't be taken on the next voyage anyway).

Thursday, 6 March 1941

The watch on Booker is maintained. Around dusk, the whole team feels a strong pull to the east. (Nordmann checks bearings, and the source is definitely moving.) Sarge thinks he got the impression of someone or something calling for help.

Kingsthorpe works a highly ambitious warding on the whole ship, using Nordmann's hastily-whittled model, the nameplate, and various iron and chains found aboard. Sarge will wait overhead, outside the warding, and report in anything he detects.

Friday, 7 March 1941

The team is woken at about a quarter to five by hooters: the convoy is under attack. Argas, Alexander and Matthews spot at least three submarine conning-towers in various directions; Matthews thinks he caught a glimpse of some sort of artwork on the one he saw, a snorting bull (which Miss Vane immediately connects to Poseidon). Sarge has a trace in the same direction as that one, and goes to look: it's a big and hungry spirit, he says, and trying to break free. Two ships have already been sunk and two more damaged; Mijdrecht shudders as a torpedo hits her. Nordmann unlimbers his rifle and aims roughly towards the submarine; this turns out to be over the bows, as Mijdrecht's engines run up to full power. He shoots the conning-tower, to little visible effect. Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane, on the bridge, see Groeneveldt cursing; Miss Vane can pick out some of his words from her knowledge of Flemish, and they seem to be along the lines of "hit my ship, will they?".

Argas heads for the bows, just as Mijdrecht slices into the diving submarine; there's a crash and a prolonged loud scrape. He throws a grenade at the submarine, missing, then unlimbers the team's Bren gun; he, Matthews and Nordmann all put rifle fire into the damaged conning tower, and Argas is pretty sure he hit the commander. Groeneveldt calls in a position report, and Camellia and Arbutus begin depth-charging.

Sarge reports that the pulling continues - not from that submarine, but off in a different direction. Alexander persuades Groeneveldt to turn that way, but that sub is easily able to outrun them. Groeneveldt signals Verity and Wolverine to the area.

As dawn breaks and through the morning, Camellia and Arbutus continue to chase down the damaged submarine, firing depth charges; eventually they force her to the surface, and the surviving crew abandon her and are taken prisoner.

Taking stock, two freighters and one tanker have been sunk, and several more ships damaged, Terje Viken quite heavily. And there are still at least two submarines out there...

[22 January 2011]

Sarge reports that the binding holding the spirit in place feels pretty ragged to him. The team signals to Camellia, the closest of the corvettes, to approach, and transfers by boat - taking the mysterious-looking box of electronics. Camellia's captain, a very young-looking Lieutenant-Commander Willmot (RNR), is entirely willing to chase off after a submarine contact that the team claims to have detected by "secret means", particularly when the suggestion is put to him from behind such an array of uniforms and medals; he's even persuaded not to bother the commodore, but just to signal "possible contact" to Arbutus so that she can cover the gap. The team "operates" the box, with Miss Vane passing on information from Sarge, and Willmot brings the ship closer at very low speed over the next hour or so. (During this time, Terje Viken is hit again.) Even when they're on top of the contact, there's nothing audible on ASDIC, but Willmot is persuaded to fire off a depth charge barrage.

There's a series of explosions, but no immediate sign of debris from below. Sarge reports that the spirit seems to be getting loose, and then the water rises slowly into a hummock some twenty feet high. Camellia puts her stern towards it, and when the hump collapses into a wave suffers nothing worse than a soaking. (Miss Vane detects a spirit of some sort breaking loose - and it reminds her somewhat of what was on board Royal Oak.)

Sarge can't detect the pulling sensation any more, and can't find any sign of the submarine's crew either. After a bit more casting-about, with no contacts or debris, Camellia returns to the convoy.

Saturday, 8 March 1941

Around 1am, hooters go off again: another submarine has been spotted on the surface. Verity and Wolverine chase her down for several hours, and around 6am a depth-charge barrage provokes a large underwater explosion, with fire breaking the surface. It's claimed as a kill, though Sarge believes the submarine is limping away.

When the convoy disperses, the team transfers back to the cramped Camellia, and returns to Liverpool with eastbound convoy HX-111 - which is not attacked.

Wednesday, 12 March 1941

The team heads back to London and writes up reports. Later investigation will reveal that U-47, U-99 and U-A were all involved, as well as U-70; Wolverine will claim to have sunk U-47 on Saturday morning, though this later turns out to have been U-A, which got away. U-47, the boat with the snorting bull on its conning tower, the boat which sank Royal Oak... is never found.

2.29. Killer Rabbits

Tuesday, 1 April 1941

At the monthly meeting, Mr Nordmann arranges for Holland & Holland to make some armour-piercing rounds for his rifle; they'll also work on uranium-cored rounds, though this will be rather more challenging.

Mr Argas theorises that, given the number of Russian machines that have been found in England, it seems quite likely that some have been sent to Germany too - it's generally assumed that the Russians are spying on their nominal allies.

Given the way that magic seems not to cross national boundaries, it might be worth flying a magician over Germany to see how easily he can be detected - certainly before the magically-assisted atom bomb is developed.

Major Kingsthorpe casts an inquiry spell on the core component of the Russian machines, the stage that takes electrical power and transforms it into something else. It seems that while basic effects can be achieved by controlling voltage and frequencies, more complex activities require someone with - something like magical talent, but not the same thing. Mr Argas starts to study this machinery.

Monday, 14 April 1941

Captain Knight calls the group together and produces a tomato. "This was picked on Friday, at Old Chapel Farm in Kent, one of the sites where Mr Matthews' experimental plant-growing techniques have been tested. From an apple tree. Pop down there and take a look, would you?"

The team drives down and books rooms at the West End Tavern in the large village of Marden, then heads out to the farm, about half a mile outside the village. Three land girls greet them at the gate, and two engage them in conversation while the third runs off to get the farmer. The full complement here consists of Henry and Alice Cooper, the couple who hold the land (their sons are off with the Army); Dr Robert Cowling, a botanist whom Matthews has met before; and Jenny, Elizabeth, Olivia and Claudia, all of the Women's Land Army.

Cowling explains what's been going on: suddenly, in the last week or so, plants have been sprouting oddly. Some of the winter wheat has come up as lettuce, and one of the apple trees has started to grow turnips. Since Cowling isn't cleared for knowledge of magic, the team heads out to take soil samples, noting that quite a few of the plants are growing in a slightly odd or twisted way - both Matthews' enhanced strains and the control samples, roughly equally. He speaks with the plants and establishes that something has told them to grow in this way, but they can't usefully describe what that something might be.

Argas searches the small farm for untoward tracks; there's no sign of anyone having crossed the fences, and the odd growths seem to be randomly distributed rather than confined to a particular part of the farm. Nordmann walks round the fences too, spotting nothing unexpected, though an unseen animal in the next field over hisses at him.

Matthews and Argas stake out the fields in shifts; Matthews detects something whispering to the plants, and when Argas comes on around 1am he feels a miasma overlying the fields and reaching fifteen feet or so into the air. There's no sign of a source, but it seems to be happening strictly over this farm.

Tuesday, 15 April 1941

Argas, Miss Vane and Sarge go out by car looking for sources of magic in the local area - without success. The magic level of the farm is slightly higher than the surrounding fields, consistent with a large spell's having been cast on it, but that's about it.

While looking over the farm, Matthews hears a growl from something up a tree, though he can't see it; as he gets closer, a squirrel leaps out and bites him on the arm. He pulls it off, takes it back to the farm and shuts it into an empty grain bin; Jenny has done a first aid course, and patches up the wound with lots of iodine and bandages. Matthews takes some of the twisted plants and arranges for them to be put in pots off the farm - in the local police station seems like the easiest option - to see if they keep growing crookedly.

Kingsthorpe checks to see whether the farm lies on any ley lines - possibly, is the answer, but these things are pretty uncertain. Argas inspects the captured squirrel for magic: a very little. The team visits St Stephen's, where the ruins of the "old chapel" are barely visible in the churchyard; there's no sign of occult activity, and Sarge doesn't learn anything useful from the local spirits.

Kingsthorpe brings back the village doctor for Matthews: there's no sign of infection, though it might not show for a while and isolation would be ideal. Nordmann opens the grain bin; the squirrel now seems calm. He takes the closed bin out into the nearest field, and renews the supply of food and water.

Argas lurks on the farm at dusk, but doesn't detect any magic through the evening. Matthews keeps an eye on the farmhouse, where everyone but Olivia has gone to bed early; she stays up for a while writing a letter, then retires.

Wednesday, 16 April 1941

The squirrel still seems calm in the morning. Matthews talks to the farm workers to see if any of them have had odd dreams - one of them woke and saw him or Argas on Monday night, but they haven't had any disturbed sleep.

Miss Vane volunteers to take Olivia's letter (to her sister in London) to the Post Office, and steams it open. It seems innocent enough, but something about the patterns of phrasing make her think there might be a code involved. She makes a copy and sends it to London for priority attention, while the original gets re-sealed and put in the post.

Mr Nordmann builds a hide at one side of the farm, so that he can watch the fields from concealment. Mr Argas spends the morning walking through the fields, until he comes upon three rabbits apparently having a conclave - they're looking at each other, rather than outwards, and occasionally shifting their attention from one to another. He sneaks up on them invisibly and silently from downwind, and gets quite close before they turn to face him, then leap at him. He mostly manages to keep them away, but they get in a couple of good solid bites at his ankles before he can finish them off. He grabs one, but it gets loose before he can take it back to the farmhouse. He's trated with more iodine and bandages, and then everyone heads out - with the farm dog, and shotguns (though Miss Vane prefers her pistol). They find the warren, with rabbit-sentries posted, and clear it out. Some of the rabbits were pregnant, of course, and the babies seem to have been developing big teeth...

The corpses are shipped off for inspection as the sun sets. Mr Alexander spends the evening chatting with Olivia, who appears to have picked up a highly romanticised notion of the Workers' Struggle; as he works on her, she undergoes a profound change of feeling, and they go to find some privacy. Argas keeps watch on the fields again, to no avail.

Thursday, 17 April 1941

Miss Vane and Mr Nordmann suffer a revulsion of gut during the night; when Argas returns around 1am, he spots residual magic on the food that's been kept back for him. The landlady, Mrs Cotter, demands to know what's wrong with her rabbit stew; she is enjoined to move her traps further away from Old Chapel Farm.

In the morning, the decrypted message from Olivia's letter arrives; there are some missing words, but the gist of it seems to be "this seemed like a good idea, but now they're having problems". A watch is being kept on her sister's place in London.

Miss Vane and Sarge search the land girls' rooms; Elizabeth has concealed a bundle of love-letters from a sailor, but there's nothing untoward. The rest of the team goes over the outbuildings, stocks of fertiliser, and so on, finding nothing unexpected. Major Kingsthorpe, with Miss Vane's assistance, cast a cleansing ritual on one of the apple trees that's growing tomatoes; on the second try, all the tomatoes and twisted branches fall off. Kingsthorpe goes on to cast a defensive enchantment on the tree, which should alert him if some magic tries to breach it.

Kingsthorpe and Argas camp in the field, while the others stay at the pub. Around half an hour after sunset, Argas spots the "fog" descending, but this time he can trace its source. Kingsthorpe stays behind, but with the rest of the group following Sarge's hints, they and Argas meet on the road. The trail leads first to the churchyard, but this isn't the origin of the magic; that's a somewhat run-down house just outside the village proper. Up close, there's a little light visible through the curtains, probably from candles, and muttering audible from inside; the herb garden at the back also looks as though it might repay closer attention. Argas (invisibly) and Miss Vane take the front door, while the others guard the back.

The occupant is clearly unwilling to open the door, but when Miss Vane makes it clear that she's from the War Office - and that she knows just what's going on - she's admitted (and Argas slips in behind). Inside is a woman probably in her nineties, who seems to have two major objections to what's been going on at Old Chapel Farm: the shameless hussies with their "t-t-t-trousers", and the fact that she hasn't been given her traditional share of the crops there (since the experimental programme started). She's taken off to London, once it's established that the effects of her curse should wear off in a few weeks if not renewed.

2.30. Save the Hood!

[26 February 2011]

Thursday, 1 May 1941

The monthly meeting is rather taken over by a project of Captain Knight's. According to the Knight-Fuller-Lethbridge document, HMS Hood is due to be sunk in battle by the Bismarck on the 24th (and the Bismarck herself on the 27th). There's very little detail, since to the authors it was clearly an incidental event of the war, but it might be a political boost to MI5 if Hood could be saved.

Some discussion ensues - could the Admiralty be persuaded not to send Hood to sea? Probably not, on the limited evidence. Could Bismarck be sabotaged in her harbour in Gotenhafen (Gdynia)? The Polish Resistance is good, but not that good. There are no known magicians who have particular skill at fire, but the Russian machines (as operated by Mr Little) might be able to do something - perhaps off an aircraft or a submarine. He's put to practice his incendiary skills, starting with floating paper targets; the eventual plan is to keep a close eye on Bismarck when she sorties, send Bomber Command in to try to sink her, and if that fails to send in Little aboard an aircraft to try to detonate her magazines.

Sunday, 11 May 1941

However, these preparations are interrupted by an early morning call: "Get to the Tower, now." On arrival, it's clear that the usual guard has been substantially augmented. Knight explains: last night, a senior Nazi leader was caught near Eaglesham in Scotland, having apparently parachuted from a fighter (the wreckage has been recovered). He claimed he was trying to reach the Duke of Hamilton to broker a peace deal. Just in case, he's being kept in a quiet cell. MI6 is taking most of the credit, claiming they've provoked this with a false horoscope delivered a few months ago, but it's entirely unclear whether this is true. Whatever comes of it, he's an enemy agent in the UK, and so MI5 can at least get a look in.

Rudolf Hess is brought out of the quiet cell for the interview with Kingsthorpe and Alexander. As Alexander approaches, he calls out "Rudi?" The answer is quick: "Vin, what are you doing here? All right, what am I doing here, too?". (Argas stays invisible, barely controlling his laughter. There's some sort of enchantment on Hess, though it's not immediately clear what it is.) Alexander hands over a cup of coffee, which Hess sniffs at suspiciously and then drinks. Hess explains that, all of a sudden, it seemed like a really good idea to come to Britain and try to make peace, cutting "that salesman Ribbentrop" out of the loop. But he's now not entirely sure that this was his own plan.

He mentions, particularly to Alexander, that there are strange things going on at Wewelsburg, a little village near Paderborn - "strange even by the standards of the SS". Himmler apparently thinks he's in charge, but the people who are there permanently have their own plans. Apparently they fancy themselves as magicians - he doesn't know whether they are or not, but they certainly showed him some horrifying sights: "cities bursting into flame in an instant, and the thunderstorm rolling out of Russia and covering Europe".

On being pressed, Kingsthorpe admits that he might be able to put a message to British magicians through the relevant channels. When he says this, Hess' voice changes, and he speaks in German: "This is a message from Luitpold von Bocholt. All magicians will have to work together to stop the Russ, no matter what our leaders say." Then he blinks and looks around confusedly.

Argas reckons that the magic on Hess is (or was) some sort of reasonably subtle mind control. He and Kingsthorpe have both heard of von Bocholt, a fairly minor figure in the pre-war German occult community; apparently he's moved up in the world, since Hess confirms he's in charge of the magicians at Wewelsburg.

The team makes sure Hess is properly treated and gets a decent hot meal. On discussion with Knight, while Hess' course was right for the Duke of Hamilton's seat at Dungavel House, it's also worryingly close to Johnstone Castle, where captured magicians are being held. It might be worth popping up and taking a look...

The team loads into the Rapide, and Alexander flies them up, arriving shortly before sunset. There's a reasonable amount of open ground nearby, and they're met on landing by Governor Baillie, seconded from the Prison Service and thoroughly vetted. He's slightly surprised to see them, since he's not aware of any particular problems; the prisoners have been quiet, though Gerlach Essig keeps asking for more books.

Argas takes a look around the place: in spite of the name, it's more a lightly-fortified manor house than a castle, with the prisoners kept upstairs and the staff below. Several of the upstairs windows have been barred, and the ground is kept clear for some distance from the house, but there's no big outside fence or wall; it's not meant to look like a prison to passers-by. The prisoners are fed in their cells; they're taken outside only for exercise, carefully supervised. Altogether, it's not a high-security facility, but he reckons it would be at least tricky to break into without being noticed. Sarge looks for spirits, and spots nothing unusual. Argas confirms that the quiet cells' enchantment goes a few inches into walls, floor and ceiling.

Darkness falls, and almost at once Sarge reports three spirits appearing out of nowhere - they seem like "normal" dead humans, and they've moving around the house. Argas can track them magically. Kingsthorpe asks Baillie about ghosts, but he doesn't know anything - there are stories, but there are similar stories about pretty much every castle in Scotland.

Miss Vane puts herself into a mediumistic trance, and tries to talk with the spirits; they're thoroughly profane, and hard to understand. She gets the impression that they're particularly opposed to bishops, and that they've been confined for a long time and want to get free. She's not at all clear that they know they're dead.

The team considers an exorcism; although they can fight and ward against spirits, none of them is really qualified to dismiss them completely. They might be able to get in a security-cleared chaplain, though. Argas checks the cellars - they have packed earth floors, and are clearly quite old, but there's nothing magic detectable there. He goes to get some sleep, but the presence of the spirits disturbs him; eventually he retires under a heap of blankets in one of the storage sheds, pushing an improvised still out of the way (but the governor knows about it, so that's all right).

Considering the possibility that someone might have got a message out to Hess, Nordmann looks for game tracks: there are plenty, but no sign of anyone's having gone up to a window from outside. Kingsthorpe reads routine reports, but - since they're written by men chosen for their lack of imagination - finds them thoroughly soporific. Miss Vane gets Sarge to keep the spirits away from the team overnight, though now that they look at the guards it seems they may be a bit short of good-quality sleep too.

Monday, 12 May 1941

Sarge reports that the spirits blinked out at dawn - he thinks they were pulled rapidly downwards, though they moved too fast for him to be sure. The guards are organised to help dig exploratory holes in the cellar floor; about ten feet down, Argas and Matthews both come across lengths of verdigrised copper ribbon, which Kingsthorpe confirms have an anti-magical feel about them. One of them might be pointing towards Glasgow, and the two lines intersect somewhere in the grounds, but there's nothing detectable out there. Miss Vane checks the history of Johnstone Castle in the Glasgow University library; the Houstoun bought it and rebuilt it extensively in 1773 and subsequently, but the main house goes back at least to the 1500s as part of the Easter Cochrane estate, and it's never been completely demolished.

Kingsthorpe reckons that the depth of the copper ribbons - which are covered with curlicues rather than writing - might well be consistent with their having been buried some time in the 1500s. The team arranges to bring in some professional archaeologists, some Royal Engineers to excavate further without collapsing the place, and a decent exorcist.

Tuesday, 13 May 1941

The next day, they fly to Scapa Flow; Mr Little has been sent on ahead, and the machine has also arrived. He's had some success in setting fires, but range is tricky - and getting power may also be a problem, since the machine requires quite a lot of electricity. Nordmann carves and assembles a wooden model of Bismarck, which is painted grey and has some Krupp steel (from the remains of the High Seas Fleet) inserted. Kingsthorpe tests this with a location ritual; the result is very fuzzy, as expected over national boundaries, but does give a vague feeling of "more east than west". For the next few days, he repeats the ritual each noon, while Alexander familiarises himself with the Hudson he'll be flying if it becomes necessary.

Wednesday, 21 May 1941

At last, Kingsthorpe gets a response from the ritual: Bismarck is heading up the Norwegian coast. There's also a report from the British military attache in Sweden from the previous day (but because his source hadn't been worth much before, he tagged it as probably unreliable), that two large warships, three destroyers, and various escort craft and aeroplanes had passed the Kattegat. With this in hand, the Admiralty sends a photo-reconnaissance Spitfire, which brings back pictures of two large ships in a fjord near Bergen. Prince of Wales and Hood are sent towards Iceland, while four cruisers are sent to cover the Denmark Strait and the Iceland-Faeroes gap.

The team, hoping to remove the need for a naval battle, also gets Bomber Command to head for the fjord - but the low ceiling and generally bad weather prevent the bombardiers from finding their target. Alexander takes Kingsthorpe up in the Hudson, to get a bit closer with the ritual, but the results don't seem much better.

Thursday, 22 May 1941

The next morning, there's a much clearer position fix; the team flies to Iceland, to be ready when the ships get closer.

Friday, 23 May 1941

Alexander takes up Kingsthorpe (for the location ritual), Mr Little (and the Russian machine, with a diesel generator mounted in the Hudson's bomb bay), and Nordmann (to keep an eye on Little). Guided by Kingsthorpe's rituals, Alexander drops the Hudson out of low cloud to find Bismarck off the starboard quarter; he makes a quick turn to make her clearly visible to Mr Little, who tries to set a fire, but reckons he needs to get closer. Alexander climbs back into the clouds, then emerges directly over the ship, throwing the Hudson into a near-vertical dive. There's substantial anti-aircraft fire, but he weaves and dodges to avoid it; Mr Little, turning somewhat green, swallows hard and concentrates on the machine. Alexander pulls the Hudson out of its dive with a worrying creaking from the airframe, and evades further fire to get back into the clouds.

A cautious peek from a few miles away reveals a strange site: Prinz Eugen continues to steam ahead as before, but Bismarck seems to have become two ships, their images overlapping but diverging slowly. The one that's losing way is showing a thick plume of black smoke; the other is fairly intact.

It's decided to go in for another pass; this time, Alexander skims just above the waves, aiming to cut across under Bismarck's bows. The Hudson takes a hit from Bismarck's fire, the cockpit glass shattering, but there doesn't seem to be any injury or structural damage. Little concentrates again as the plane comes in for a close pass, and Alexander pulls up and away into the clouds.

With the damage and possible strain to the airframe, Alexander flies to a safe distance of ten miles before dropping back down for another look. The two images have merged again, with a thick plume of smoke covering Bismarck as she loses way. Alexander sends a final position report and Kingsthorpe confirms the sight of flame and panicked-looking people on deck, before the Hudson has to head back to Iceland for lack of fuel.

Later sighting reports show that only Prinz Eugen is still above the water, having presumably picked up Bismarck's survivors; she breaks for the North Cape rather than continuing out into the Atlantic.

The team returns to London via Johnstone Castle, where the Engineers have dug out three (somewhat damaged) copper loops that appear to have been a variant of the quiet cell; the spirits were being held in them during daylight, and once they're broken up the spirits disperse.

2.31. Shark and Harpoon

[16 April 2011]

Monday, 2 June 1941

The team looks over Sarge's trace of the spirit of Gervas von Ettingshausen; the place where it crossed the coast would be consistent with its having travelled towards Wewelsburg. The idea that he might have been using a constructed body is raised, but there was nothing unusual found at autopsy.

Argas hopes that Mrs Davis, the witch from Kent, might be recruited to a magical training effort; however, it turns out that her powers are largely rooted in very specific local knowledge. Sophy Wicker and Dr Nicholson are certainly prepared to work on this, but the agents themselves will be needed at least part of the time.

There's extended discussion of the message from Luitpold von Bocholt - both whether it might be genuine, and to what sort of people he might have expected it to be delivered. Those with the ability to exert influence on the government, perhaps - which gives some suggestion about his own position in the Reich's power structure.

It's not at all clear whether the Germans know about the Russian machines: if they do, they're also likely to work out how they could be used to make atomic bombs. If a mage can be flown over Germany to scry for magical defences, ones near uranium stockpiles would be particularly interesting. (Of course, the mage would have to know this to look for them, which would have unfortunate consequences if he were captured.)

Given the difficulty of magical workings while airborne, the team gets hold of a Wellington Mark IC that was due to be upgraded, and Major Kingsthorpe spends a week fitting out the bomb bay as permanent sacred space.

The Major also starts working on a variation of the ritual that gives the caster full knowledge of how a device is operated - he's hoping to be able to learn how a device (specifically a Russian machine) is made.

Monday, 9 June 1941

Over the last two or three months, there have been increasing signs of activity on the Channel coast, with German forces practicing barge manoeuvres and opposed landings. They seem to be building up forces again, but details aren't clear, so all agents who know the terrain are being sent over to determine troop dispositions and identify targets for bombing and sabotage. The team has been to Abbeville before...

This time, rather than airfield inspectors, they'll go as scouts for a propaganda film - Kingsthorpe as Hauptsturmführer Königsdorf, an SS liaison, Alexander as the film-maker since he speaks the relevant technical language, Miss Vane as the team's secretary, Nordmann and Matthews as collaborators, and Argas as a tough from the film company. Since such a team from Berlin would be coming by train from Paris, the team inserts as they did back in February, via captured He111 to a field outside the city. Getting out will be a matter of lamp-signalling from the shore near Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme, to be picked up by a small boat.

Tuesday, 10 June 1941

The landing and trip across Paris goes smoothly, but there's a holdup at the Gare du Nord: a low-ranking guard explains that the team's papers are no good, since they're the old style. With a bit of back-and-forth, Alexander realises that the man's willing to accommodate him, and slips some Reichsmarks into his Party membership card; the papers are stamped, and the team heads by train to Amiens. Most of the other passengers are Wehrmacht, and the military members of the team quickly realise that they're very raw recruits, knowing the basics of marching and shooting but nothing more than that. (A bit of surreptitious ear-wigging reveals that they're from different parts of Germany, though they're all wearing the same unit insignia.) At Amiens, both the team and the soldiers change trains for Abbeville, where they arrive late in the afternoon.

Miss Vane, keeping in character, goes to commandeer rooms at the best hotel in town; the "cover luggage", containing nothing incriminating, is left behind, and the team uses the last of the light to spy out "shooting locations" (with Königsdorf playing his part by occasionally saying "don't film that" about something completely innocent). It's immediately obvious that the canal quays don't match what's been seen on recent aerial photos: there are fewer barges here, and much less activity. For that matter, if soldiers were being loaded onto barges here one would expect to see a lot more soldiers in town.

Argas picks up a magical trace, which seems to be concentrated in a circular area surrounding the docks; Alexander spots a circular area of fractionally darker sky overhead, and the team reckons that this is an illusion specifically designed to work against aerial reconnaissance. It takes about two hours of random wandering before anyone challenges the team, and they're easily put off by an SS uniform and a minimal amount of bluster.

The team returns to the hotel for the night; Sarge takes a look from above, and confirms that from five hundred feet up the quays still look very active in the last of the daylight. Around dusk, Argas notices a slight fluctuation in the magic, consistent with a spell's being renewed.

Wednesday, 11 June 1941

While the team is at breakfast, a sergeant arrives with several men: apparently there's a slight problem with the team's paperwork, and he'd appreciate it if they'd accompany him to the Abbeville air base. There's a truck waiting, with the team members split up between soldiers for the short drive. At the base, it's clear that not much is happening here either - there are fewer parked aircraft than on the team's last visit, and no sound of aero engines running.

The team is ushered to the deputy commander's office, where they're met by a Luftwaffe Oberleutnant - wearing the same eye-twisting shoulder insignia that von Ettingshausen had. He introduces himself as Dopfer, and makes it clear that he knows the intruders are "special talents" of some sort - it's just a matter of which faction - and which country - they're with. Kingsthorpe says that he's been in contact with von Bocholt, clearly a name that Dopfer recognises, though as he points out not one that many people know they should drop. He gets a small electrical device out of a drawer, and turns it on; Argas notices a very slight magical effect, though it doesn't seem to impair anyone's concentration. When the team stays upright, Dopfer relaxes a little - "we can establish from this that you're not the real enemy". Alexander says that von Bocholt's message was delivered "by a mutural friend, Ilse's husband". Dopfer doesn't apparently know what this is about, but says that he'll contact von Bocholt (this should be easy since "it's only a few days past full moon"); until then, he'll unfortunately have to insist that the team remain as his guests. There's a certain amount of conversational fencing, and at one point Dopfer asks whether he's seen Alexander before somewhere; when the team tries to talk about larger-scale matters, he says that he's "merely a cog in the Great Machine". Indeed, he's ended up in effective charge of this base, being the most senior man left behind when everyone else was pulled out...

The team is shown to senior officers' quarters, where Argas confirms that there's a similar illusion over this base to that over the docks. Kingsthorpe doesn't think that the full moon is significant in "pure" Armanic rune magic, which is what these people were doing before. Sarge spies out the base; there are a few Bf110s, in various states of repair, and a single He111 transport.

Argas spots no obvious bugs in the quarters, and the team is brought lunch and supper as the day goes on. There's only one aircraft movement throughout the day; clearly this isn't at all an active base. After supper, they're called back to the office, where another Oberleutnant (Fischler) joins Dopfer. Dopfer is now convinced that the team is British, though he doesn't seem to regard this as a major problem; on the other way, he has a hard decision to make. He can't allow the team to leave at once to report on what they've seen; he'd rather not have them killed; though "you could go over with the invasion", this doesn't really appeal to anyone. Perhaps if the team would be his guests for a few more days...?

Alexander asks for, and receives, mess privileges. Nordmann arranges that some of the team can go for constitutionals, under guard. Further conversation suggests that Fischler is enthusiastic about "the invasion" that's coming soon; when Argas mentions the illusions, he says "that's nothing to what you'l see soon", before being hushed by Dopfer.

Alexander and Miss Vane spend the rest of the evening in the mess, where the former's natural prey abound: very new pilots. His experience at Hendon allows him to pick up very easily on their concerns (they're still waiting for people, and aircraft, and indeed their commander; there's about half a Gruppe here). When the talk moves to the British aces they hope to be fighting, Alexander's concerned to hear something that's definitely one of his own exploits attibuted to Douglas Bader; however, he manages to keep a straight face, and the evening comes to an end about 3am.

Thursday, 12 June 1941

During the next day's walks, the team manages to spy out the base a little more; Nordmann and Matthews both find that the plants aren't being kept under control as well as they would be on a fully active base, and Matthews reckons they've gone about two months since they were properly tended. Sarge pokes about too, and overhears Fischler arguing on the phone with someone called "Volker"; he doesn't speak enough German to work out else what was being said.

Friday, 13 June 1941

Around lunchtime, the base is buzzing with news: apparently the Soviet news agency (Tass) has released a statement denying reports of tension between Germany and the Soviet Union. The pilots regard this as a great joke, and the team starts to take seriously the Knight-Fuller document's talk of an invasion of Russia - it seems quite mad to the strategists in the group, with resources tied up in Europe, but it seems nonetheless to be going ahead.

That evening, the team is invited to dinner: Dopfer and Fischler are both present, but defer to the new man, introduced as Luitpold von Bocholt. He's in civilian dress, but clearly carries the habit of command. He confirms that it was he who sent the message via Hess, and goes into some more detail: a principal activity at Wewelsburg is prediction and prophecy, and they've got it to a reasonably accurate state (they were within 20% of the actual casualty figures of the Battle of Britain, for example). They're increasingly getting warnings that if the Russians make any territorial gains into Germany, they won't be stopped in Europe: they'll take Britain too, and whatever's behind them wants even more than that. What that something might be isn't clear, though he's not at all sure it's human; it's showing up to the soothsayers as something like a thunderstorm, rolling across the continent and setting cities alight in an instant.

von Bocholt gives away some other information: when Argas asks him about von Ettingshausen, he answers that the latter is "recovering well". It seems that the other main faction in German magic is the "new men", with their elektromagie; this sounds to the team quite a bit like the Russian machines, though von Bocholt claims never to have heard of those, and this appears genuine.

The new men are in favour at the moment, in part because of various problems that von Bocholt's men ran into last year with regard to the invasion of England; the team manages to keep straight faces.

The team agrees to set up communications channels, probably through a third party in Lisbon; first they'll work on a new system of coding, since von Bocholt at least isn't prepared to trust anyone he hasn't personally met. Broadly, both sides are loyal first to their countries, but there may well come a time when only those with specialised knowledge are able to make the necessary decisions. von Bocholt does confirm that the electrical device is a "jammer" that will confuse practitioners of elektromagie.

The team heads back to quarters with a lot to think about. Kingsthorpe considers intruding on Fischler's dreams to find out what he's planning, but Alexander regards this as a violation of hospitality - at least while the team is still held prisoner.

Sunday, 15 June 1941

A few more days pass uneventfully. Late on the Sunday evening, Fischler tells the team to pack up - "the invasion is on". He takes them to a truck with several soldiers, and they drive along the canal route to the docks at St-Valéry. There, everything is different from the lackadaisical attitude on the base; rafts of barges are tied to the quays, and minesweepers, tugs and other small ships scurry around further out. The team is chivvied aboard a barge with the soldiers; when someone asks "where are we going", the answer is "England". Argas notices that the barge itself is magical... indeed, it seems to be a magical construct, with no underlying physical structure. The general talk is of a "second battle of Hastings", though the team is concerned that this might instead be a large-scale sacrifice of Germany troops to gain magical power.

Argas steps out of sight for a moment, turns invisible, scoops up a rifle that nobody's watching very carefully, then goes ashore and heads along the quay to the centre of the magical working. Meanwhile, Nordmann turns the weather from a calm night to a pouring rainstorm, to enhance confusion. Argas locates Fischler magically, in the wardroom of a minesweeper that seems to be the flagship of this small fleet. There's a sentry guarding the door, so Argas looks through a porthole, to see Fischler concentrating on magical working. Argas aims for some time, then shoots through the glass; he's not clear just what happens next, but he's blinded by a bright flash. He drops his rifle and ducks away.

At this point most of the barges start to get distinctly "mushy" underfoot, then over the next minute or so dissolve into nothingness. Alexander gets nimbly to shore, and the others follow, though Kingsthorpe gets trampled in the general rush and ends up in the water. He starts to sink; Miss Vane looks for a rope, and Nordmann jumps in to help, though he also finds himself unable to stay afloat in the oily water. Once the rope is procured, Kingsthorpe and then Nordmann manage to grab it and get pulled out. Argas, meanwhile, turns visible and acts confused; a sailor points him at the quayside.

The team fades away in the general confusion (with the locals coming down to offer hot drinks to the soaked soldiery, charging only ten Reichsmarks per cup), slightly hampered by Kingsthorpe having picked up a party of recruits who think he looks as though he knows what he's doing; he points them at their sergeant, and departs with the others. They pause to steal some dry-ish clothing off someone's washing line (leaving Kingsthorpe's SS uniform, and a bundle of soggy Reichsmarks, as apology). Eventually, they work their way to where the locals' fishing boats have been beached, and take one; there's not enough fuel to get to England, but Kingsthorpe's able to stretch it out with a magical ritual, and the team washes up on the beach near Hastings, where they're picked up by a pair of Home Guard soldiers and (after some explanations) packed off to London to report in.

2.32. The Better Magetrap

[21 May 2011]

Monday, 7 July 1941

There's quite a bit of business at the monthly meeting. Kemmer, smelling faintly of smoke, reports that last night he persuaded one of the Russian machines to produce a wide-area effect to the limit of the power he had available - a small generator in the tunnels under Whitehall, as well as the mains feed. (Argas and Sarge both noticed this in passing, though it was quite subtle.) He's confirmed with Cambridge: while the effect was running, before the machine blew several of its valves, all their radioactive materials went inert. Kemmer wonders how big a generator could be installed in the team's Wellington... and there's some thought given to getting this combination device to Chicago in time for Fermi's experiments.

Interrogating Gerlach Essig has revealed some information about the "New Men" - most German occultists have been doing research for years and are known to each other, but these people seem to have come out of nowhere, largely out of the Nazi party structure. Unlike Essig's own group at Wewelsburg, they don't seem to be particularly associated with the SS.

Essig also knows Oberleutnant Fischler, and regards him as "worryingly enthusiastic". There's some speculation about why Fischler wanted the team along during the invasion rather than simply killing them - perhaps as a sort of pass-key to putative magical defences? Argas and Kingsthorpe realise that, in Fischler's tradition, killing them might just have set them free to pass on a warning...

It's not clear how the team was caught in Abbeville - in particular, how it was known that they were magical operators. Speculation produces a number of possibilities, but nothing definitive.

The spies caught last year in the raven-poisoning plot seem to be entirely ignorant of magical matters, as are Eric and Wolf (though it's clear from context that it was the New Men who were augmenting them). Similarly, the captured Brandenburgers are willing to admit that the people who knew the details of what their mission was about stayed back in Germany - they were just told to imitate British troops and plant the beacons.

Kingsthorpe starts to work on a ritual to reveal the engineering principles behind a device and possibly allow someone to duplicate it. This will take a great deal of time.

Adrian Fiske hasn't produced much in the way of useful predictions: he has indeed talked about "a fire sweeping across Europe", but that's fairly common imagery anyway.

Kingsthorpe spies on Little's dreams, in case the latter has found himself talking to the Russians again (particularly now that they're technically allied). But it seems that Little is more interested in building the electro-psychic City of the Future. His tuberculosis is very much improved, to the point where he'd probably be found fit for serice now. He's now formally employed by MI5.

Tuesday, 15 July 1941

The Ministry of Health has noticed a worrying trend in workers at Trafford Park: there, and nowhere else, a great many of them seem to be suffering from general lassitude and exhaustion. Trafford Park is an industrial area within Manchester, surrounded by canals; since there are many different companies established there, producing everything from Merlin engines via tank tracks to Brooke Bond tea, they haven't individually noticed the trend.

Miss Vane looks at the incidence to try to spot patterns: there's some correlation with increasing age, as one might expect, but also with where victims live: there's a heavier concentration of victims among those who live to the north and west of the Park.

The team tries to pry a security-cleared doctor loose from MI5, without immediate success, and Alexander flies them to Ringway in the Rapide. Argas and Miss Vane start interviewing victims, who have got ill at various times, but none more than a month ago: Argas confirms at once that there's a magical effect on them, something closely akin to a traditional curse that drains their vitality. Several of the victims talk about having seen the "black dog", apparently a local legend; Miss Vane looks into this, and finds that while it's generally similar to other such legends around the country ("see the dog, you're going to die"), here it's slightly associated with Sir Humphrey de Trafford, who fought for years against the canal construction on his estates. Sarge looks for other ghosts in the area, without success.

Matthews checks the companies' records for official visitors - there have been several factory inspectors and such like, but no individual has covered more than two or three of the sites on the Park.

Kingsthorpe works up a ritual to remove the curse on one randomly-chosen victim: this culminates in a modified apple, which the man eats. The curse breaks quite easily.

Argas plans to follow some of the victims who are still working, at the end of their shift, but first spends the afternoon looking for things that are out of place in general. He spots a well-dressed man with a cane and a notebook, who seems to be going into various factories; Miss Vane follows up later, and finds that he's been talking with workers during their break times.

Argas follows the fellow, and at shift change he sets up in one of the pubs near the Park. Argas goes in, detecting no magic about him, and eavesdrops - he's buying beer for people in return for small funny stories (of the "you'll never believe what happened on the shift today" variety). Argas waits for him to leave, then trails him to a cheap lodging-house.

Meanwhile, Kingsthorpe wards the Trafford Park Hotel where the team's staying (the old manor house, somewhat bomb-damaged but still just about usable).

Wednesday, 16 July 1941

Matthews and Argas inspect the back of the hotel - there's some sign of hoarding, but nothing that seems especially out of place. Kingsthorpe spends the morning lifting the curse on other victims, while Miss Vane gathers more information about sightings of the Black Dog, finding very few among people who haven't been afflicted. They also seem to be concentrated in the western half of the Park, and outside it on that side. Specifically, the people who saw it inside the Park were coming on-shift, and the people who saw it outside were going off...

Alexander and Nordmann search in the area for anything out of place. They spot a flashily-dressed man selling cigarettes out of his coat (Alexander buys some), but nothing else obvious. At lunchtime, Alexander goes to the pub to ask about the man with the cane - he's apparently a reporter, and is there most evenings.

That evening, Matthews and Nordmann cover the back of the pub, the rest of the team covers the front, and Alexander goes in to talk to the reporter. He's happy to chat, claims to be working for the Mancester Evening News, and invites Alexander to tell his story... which turns out to be "the time I arrested someone pretending to be a journalist". The man's somewhat intimidated, but is willing to exchange credentials; he's James Collins, from the propaganda department that's being set up (the Political Warfare Executive). Alexander then refuses to show his credentials, and the team takes him to the police station (he's quite surprised to arrive in one piece) and verifies this second story.

Thursday, 17 July 1941

The next day, Argas considers the dog sightings, and takes a look at the bridges over the canal to the west of the Park. In fact there's only one, carrying Ashburton Road West over the Bridgewater Canal; it's a heavy steel structure. He can immediately tell that there's something magical about it; Sarge reckons that whatever it is is concentrated on the underside of the deck.

The team descends to the canal towpath, and can just about spot a faint glyph. Argas climbs up the girderwork to get a closer look; it seems to have been lightly etched into the metal, and judging by soot patterns probably hasn't been there longer than six or eight weeks.

As he's calling down his findings, there's an explosion in a half-demolished warehouse by the bridge; the blast isn't huge, but it throws a thick shower of rubble at the bridge and towpath. Everyone who can dives for cover; Argas catches a little, but Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane get the worst of it, both being seriously wounded, though still ambulatory. Nordmann immediately starts to work on a healing ritual, but the industrial surroundings don't agree with his powers; as he's coming up empty, an ambulance pulls up to the top of the bank above the towpath. Two men get out, and haul Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane up the bank on stretchers, calling "Royal Infirmary" as the ambulance leaves.

Alexander goes at once to Ringway to get Argas' photographs of the glyph developed and analysed; he runs into Ski, who's still doing test-flying there.

Nordmann, Matthews and Argas examine the warehouse that exploded. The most obvious assumption was an unexploded bomb, but with a bit of poking around they think it much more likely that the charge was placed deliberately for the effect that it had. Argas looks for traps around the glyph, but can't find any.

(In the ambulance, Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane find themselves losing consciousness. Miss Vane is able to call out to Sarge "setup, tell the others" before sleep overtakes her.)

Nordmann, Matthews and Argas have by now got to the Royal Infirmary, only to find that their two casualties didn't arrive (though another ambulance did bring in a few other people who'd been too close to the blast). They head for Ringway to inform Alexander.

Sarge manages to get a message to Argas; the team commandeers a powerful car, with Alexander driving and Sarge giving Argas the way to go. It takes a while to catch up, however; eventually, on the Barnsley Road to the east of town, Sarge indicates a van (not the ambulance) heading up the winding road ahead of them. With a reservoir on the right and sloping moor up to the left, Alexander overtakes on the right, then cuts in to block the van's progress. The van driver tries to cut left across the grass, but the van rolls, eventually coming to rest on its left side half-crushing the car. The team jumps out as this is happening, but Matthews gets his leg trapped.

Alexander climbs to look down through the driver's door, while Argas heads invisibly to the rear of the van; the back door has burst open, and two figures are picking themselves up and reaching for guns (two more are strapped to stretchers). Argas shoots the first mobile figure, and he goes down.

Alexander spots two more people tangled in the driver's compartment; he tells them to surrender, while aiming his pistol. He's somewhat surprised to find one of them throwing a spear of fire at him, but manages to dodge and return fire, wounding the presumed magician. (The other one, probably the driver, says "I still surrender...")

Argas shoots his second foe and gets both of them out. The bodies on stretchers are indeed Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane; Alexander reckons they've been doped with something. With fuel leaking, getting everyone away from the vehicles seems like a good idea; Nordmann heals Matthews' wound, and Matthews is able to persuade the van's wooden body panels to curl away and let him loose.

Everyone is variously bandaged and healed. After a while, an Army lorry comes down the hill; it's heading to Ringway, so Alexander writes a note asking for a unit of military police and an ambulance.

Argas searches the van: there's quite a bit of currency, false papers for four indicating that they're members of skilled trades, and some runic material probably of the Neufchateau school. There's also a wireless, though no codebooks.

Alexander is intimidatingly friendly to the driver, who's happy to spill everything he knows in return for relatively good treatment.

The ambulance and military police arrive, and the team goes back to Ringway, with Kingsthorpe and Miss Vane groggy but conscious. (Alexander grudgingly signs the paperwork for the wrecked car; it turns out that its owner was hoping to replace it anyway...)

It takes some days to rig up scaffolding and wire-brush away the glyph on the bridge. The other bridges into the Park show no sign of similar tampering; indeed, the driver is prepared to admit that the primary purpose of the operation was to attract the attention of, and capture, one or more British magicians, since it's clear that something has been interfering with German occult operations in England...

(On returning to London, Kingsthorpe finds some French postcards among his luggage. He thinks he can guess who was responsible for those. But one doesn't take chances when one is both a ritual magician and an officer in Intelligence, so they get scrupulously warded, ritually cleansed, and destroyed.)

[18 June 2011]

Interrogation of the prisoners (particularly Uwe Börth, the magician) over the next few days reveals their own picture of the factions of Nazi occultists. (Since the courier run to the Wewelsburg group has now started, some of this can be confirmed, though that group isn't told anything about the recent captures.) They seem to be:

• Wewelsburg, "Wiligut's group", whom the new prisoners regard as "effete conjurers, unlike us true heirs of the Thule Gesellschaft".
• The new prisoners are from "Wüst's group", who are more thoroughly SS-Ahnenerbe than Wiligut's; they're headquartered in Berlin and seem to be the same group as those encountered at Neufchateau. The Wewelsburg group regard them as "mere summoners, unlike us true heirs of the Thule Gesellschaft".
• The "New Men", whom both of the others regard as barbarian idiots. (And when a member of the SS-Ahnenerbe calls someone a jackbooted thug...)
• There are other individual magic-workers, but not many or of any significance; most of them have been recruited to one of the groups.

Neither the prisoners nor the Wewelsburg group claims to know anything about the U-boat. Börth seems to regard spirits primarily as a way of getting useful abilities for himself, rather than beings to be negotiated with.

Kingsthorpe finds some of the names familiar from his own occult studies. Karl Maria Wiligut is an Austrian Ariosophist, enthusiastic about ideas such as ancient Germanic kingship, now in his seventies, who was somewhat active between the wars; nothing much has been heard of him lately. Walther Wüst is a bit more obscure, since he hasn't had much to do with occult work - he's an Orientalist in his thirties, president of the Ahnenerbe-SS Research Institute, which has been sponsoring a variety of expeditions that have attempted to confirm the general wonderfulness of prehistoric "Nordic" peoples.

Research into putting a generator aboard the team's Wellington suggests that, using a third Pegasus engine, it should be possible to get about 500-550 horsepower of usable electricity.

2.33. A Comedy of Lorries

Thursday, 7 August 1941

A more immediate concern, though, is a burglary in Atherstone. The householder, Graham Blackshaw, is an independent inventor, with a patchy record; his devices have a nasty habit of not working when they're demonstrated, but enough of them do that the War Office find it worth at least keeping track of him. Some notes from the front on his "VT fuze" (a radio proximity fuze for anti-aircraft gunnery) were stolen, which is why the incident has been reported to MI5; since Atherstone is just a few miles up the road from High Cross, Knight has asked for the case for this team.

Alexander flies up the team, leaving the Rapide in the corner of the field where the ritual was being conducted last November. (There are still "KEEP OUT - War Office" signs posted around it.) Blackshaw keeps a bicycle shop in Atherstone, and the team talks to his assistant - who seems a little jumpy at the sight of Kingsthorpe's uniform, though he rapidly calms down. Miss Vane thinks he might have a faint German accent, though he hides it reasonably well. He's a young man who looks reasonably fit, though of course there are plenty of illnesses that would prevent military service but aren't obvious.

The assistant shows the team through to the back of the shop, where Blackshaw is working on bicycles. He's clearly surprised and gratified to be the object of so much official attention, and brings the team through the (somewhat overgrown) garden to his "real" workshop, a substantial shed. As they follow him, they all experience a strong feeling of walking down a slope, even though the ground is level; Miss Vane stumbles, and Sarge describes it as a "pulling" feeling. Inside the shed, the environment feels much more "friendly" to magic than usual.

The shed itself is packed with tools and equipment: a decent if elderly lathe, a tractor engine mounted in gimbals, a six-foot-diameter vertical wooden tube, and many other items. Blackshaw explains that none of his tools was taken; the combat reports were lying out on a bench, since although the War Office has supplied him with a safe he can never remember the combination.

Argas reckons that the shop's padlock has been picked by someone who knew what he was doing. The police found footprints; Nordmann reckons it was three men, though the impressions aren't very clear and he can't tell much more. Miss Vane asks about the assistant, Carl Segel - Blackshaw admit that he's German, and says he's been in the country for about five years. Blackshaw has no complaints about him, and indeed very often finds his suggestions (as a non-engineer) helpful.

Argas scans for magic: there are small bits of it here and there, for example within the carburettor of the tractor engine and somewhere inside the wooden cylinder. The team asks Blackshaw about his inventions: the carburettor is an attempt to solve the problems of fuel flow in aircraft engines at odd angles and accelerations, and the cylinder is a vertical wind tunnel for his self-guiding bomb (since it uses an emitron camera it's a pretty hefty guidance mechanism, and he reckons that even if he can get it working it'll need to be attached to quite a large bomb). Many of his prototypes use precisely-machined mechanical computers (the carburettor, for example, integrates air temperature, pressure and humidity with acceleration and fuel availability to work out how much fuel and air to admit to the engine); when the team looks at one of these, Kingsthorpe looks at the pattern of grooves along which the needles run and finds it worryingly familiar-looking. (And indeed, Argas confirms that this is the magical portion of the device.) Blackshaw has been using this general design for a long time, and isn't sure where he first got the idea from, but he's been refining it over the years.

Alexander flies back to London to get another copy of the document that was stolen, so that Kingsthorpe can use it in a location ritual. Kinsgthorpe and Nordmann talk to the police; they got the call on Tuesday morning, when Blackshaw opened the shed. They reckon the burglars climbed over the hedge and weren't prepared to take away anything heavy. There have been some reports of suspicious vehicles - with petrol rationing in full force, very few people have good reason for driving at night - but nothing specific.

Meanwhile, Argas and Miss Vane talk with Carl Segel. They ask about family in Germany - since they reckon that would be an obvious source of blackmail - but he's an orphan; he was a violinist in the Hamburg Philharmonic, but left the country in 1936 when Jews were banned from all professional jobs. Argas and Miss Vane follow up Blackshaw's comment, but Segel is not aware of having any particularly beneficial effect on other people - there were a few times that a famously temperamental musician came to play with the the Philharmonic and turned out to be much less of a pain than had been expected, but he puts this down to professional rivalry. When asked, he says that he does still have his German ID card - he wants to go back to Germany one day, just not this Germany - and goes to his lodgings to get it. (Argas follows him briefly, but Segel rides away on a bicycle. He does come back, and his card appears to be genuine.)

Alexander returns with the document, and Kingsthorpe squeezes himself into the shed to perform the location ritual; the stolen papers are in a residential part of Coventry. Argas convinces the local police that they should lend him a car, and the team drives there; the Coventry City Police know the area, defniitely not a good part of town. Kingsthorpe borrows a bit of the police station to repeat the ritual, and identifies an individual house; Argas inspects it invisibly, identifying a woman shouting at children, but no sign of magic. Miss Vane checks the address: Reg Jones is the householder, with his wife Hilda and two children. Reg is certainly known to the police, for a bit of burglary and more often receiving stolen goods.

Friday, 8 August 1941

Around 2.30 in the morning, the team gets a call from the police in Atherstone: there's been another burglary, and the place has been more or less cleaned out. Argas and Alexander stay to lead the raid on Reg Jones' house, while the others head back.

In Atherstone, it transpires that the police were called around midnight, when Blackshaw saw people moving across his garden. It looks as though they used a lorry backed up to the hedge, cutting a hole through the latter. (Nordmann thinks the lorry's nearside back tyre may be going a bit bald.)

The raid in Coventry goes in mob-handed; Hilda claims that Reg isn't there, and this seems to be true. While the house is being searched. Argas spots something magical approaching, pausing near the end of the road, then departing; since nobody walks down the road, he and Alexander get a police driver to pursue quietly. Eventually they track down the lorry as it pulls in to the side of the road; the car goes past, and Argas hops out invisibly, overhearing an argument among the men in the cab. He slashes the two nearest tyres, then finds a nearby corner, turns visible, and steps out, attempting to arrest the men.

They are already fairly shaken up, which may account for this not really taking; one of them throws a crowbar at him, and two start to run. He tries to shoot one in the leg, but misses; Alexander, back from where the police car stopped, adds his own charisma to the effort, and shoots out the lorry's windscreen to emphasise the point. The men are collected and hauled off to the police station, and the lorry's driven somewhere secure.

Alexander interrogates the men, who don't know much - they think of what they're doing as a nice little earner that they were put onto through union contacts. They get their instructions from a dead-drop, a loose brick in a wall that they're only allowed to use after dark; the plan was to leave the lorry parked somewhere, and let their controller know where it was. Reg is constrined to write a note giving a location, in a bombed area that's not currently being rebuilt, and Argas and the local CID trade off watches (Argas until dawn, after which he goes to get some sleep). The rest of the team comes back from Atherstone.

By Friday evening there's been no sign of a pickup; Argas checks, and the note has been abstracted. The lorry, with a repaired windscreen and with the stolen equipment removed, is driven to the bomb site; Nordmann lurks inside, while Argas and several policement surround it at a distance. Around 10pm, one man approaches on foot; he reaches into the cab to get the keys, then opens the back door, sees Nordmann, and starts to run. Argas chases and arrests him, with Nordmann firing a rifle round to increase the intimidation factor. Alf Carter doesn't seem to lead very far up a chain, though - he gets his instructions by telephone, and "anyway aren't the Russians our friends now?". His job is to drive the lorry to Market Harborough, and then hitch-hike or take a train home; he agrees to do this with its new cargo (Nordmann and Argas), with Alexander following in a car.

Saturday, 9 August 1941

The lorry is left in a layby; Nordmann stays inside, with Argas and Alexander hidden nearby. About ten in the morning, a lorry pulls in, drops off a neatly-dressed woman carrying a satchel, and leaves again. The woman looks around, then crosses the road and tries to thumb a lift going back the way she came. Argas follows her invisibly, then appears suddenly and says "let's talk about this". She reaches into her satchel, he dodges, and she disappears; but this doesn't help her much, as Argas draws his pistol and continues to track her with magical sight. She slumps and reapppears; the satchel contains a small Russian machine, and a great many dry-cell batteries.

The team takes their prisoner, "Irene", to the nearest police station, and Alexander starts to interrogate her. She's been receiving instructions and sending reports via the Russian machine; she was meant to report in, then drive the lorry to a deserted bit of country near the Wash. She reckons that her report will have been missed by now, but Alexander persuades her to send one anyway, with appropriate excuses for lateness. He provides her with the machine and mains power; she warms it up, then with a loud "pop" all the fuses blow and she (and the machine) vanish. Alexander pokes around the room with an open razor, but reluctantly comes to the conclusion that she's gone.

Irene's handbag is still in the police station, but doesn't reveal anything terribly interesting - it does give enough for a location ritual, but the pendulum just circles, indicating that Irene is out of range or masked in some way. Irene's identity papers give her address, a rented room in town; when the team gets there, it looks quite literally as though a small bomb has gone off inside it, after which some very hasty packing was done. Most of Irene's personal effects, particularly hair-brushes and such like, are gone, though there are plenty of clothes left behind. A second attempt at the ritual, in the Market Harborough library, still gives no indication of Irene's position.

The team heads back to Blackshaw's workshop, with Argas mentioning that he might be getting a better one soon. Blackshaw says something about liking the acoustic in this one, which Miss Vane picks up on; it turns out that Segel has been in the habit of playing his violin while Blackshaw is tinkering. He's asked to do this in the team's presence, and Kingsthorpe spots that he's enhancing the local level of magical power. (But even with this benefit, there's still no trace of Irene after a third and final ritual.) Argas, with Miss Vane's help, explains the basics of magical knowledge to Blackshaw and Segel (who are profoundly unconvinced until he disappears from plain view to prove that he's not talking complete nonsense).

[6 August 2011]

2.34. Parcel of Mages

Monday, 1 September 1941

The Wewelsburg group are asked, via the pipeline, what details they have about the "fire in the east"; it's not much, just a vision of something all-devouring coming out of Russia. (Drug-induced visions tend not to be usefully reproducible...)

They also don't know a great deal about the New Men and their plans; all groups tend to keep rather to themselves, but they're definitely using machines rather than "proper" magic. Hess is also asked about the New Men, since as a senior official he had some limited contact with them; their focus seemed to be on improving the individual, and while they talked a lot about "purity of blood" this didn't seem to be reflected in their test subjects.

The Russian agents who've been captured are asked about details of communication with their controllers; they heard voices, speaking with their own native accents and vocabularies.

Not much is known about the A. G. Stoletov Electrical Institute - it's occasionally shown up as the destination for electrical equipment purchased in Britain.

All the operators of Russian machines captured so far seem to lack magical talent - but that's not unexpected even if it's uncorrelated.

Segel's magical enhancement and the Russian machines seem to have no effect on each other.

However, Little has been working on a way to make Russian machines able to detect each other when they're operating. Initial tests are promising, but there's a cluster of activity around Bart's Hospital that's swamping long-range signals.

Tuesday, 2 September 1941

The team starts by taking a trip through the Snow Hill tunnel on a goods train. Argas spies at least three distinct magical sources within Bart's, though not all active at the same time.

The City has been very heavily bombed, and most of Bart's staff and patients have been evacuated to St Alban's. The staff who are left, however, are run off their feet with the casualties from the Blitz - largely burns, though plenty of other injuries too. The place smells of carbolic and cheap tobacco. The team eventually manages to track down an admin person, who pays minimal attention to their story of checking facilities for the War Office; she explains that what they mostly need is more trained staff, particularly nurses, who are willing to work in London.

Matthews and Miss Vane look at records, particularly purchases of new equipment (thinking that perhaps an X-ray machine or similar might be registering in the same manner as a Russian device). There's no sign of anything major except some water storage tanks, brought in because the mains supply has been subject to bomb damage. There is however evidence that someone else has been looking in the records - the admin girl has a vague recollection of someone from the Ministry of Health, who wanted to know if any particular wards were showing higher than usual rates of recovery. Kingsthorpe gets a description of this "William Black", of whom the Ministry of Health has never heard.

Argas walks around looking for magical traces. He spots one just as someone starts screaming from the same direction; he gets into the ward where it's happening just as both the magic and the screaming stop. From a curtained-off bed at the end of the ward, a nurse emerges with a hypodermic, dropping it on a trolley to be sterilised. Argas surreptitiously picks it up, then looks in on the bed - the man in it is unconscious, with half of one leg missing and the other in traction; judging by the bandages covering most of his body, he's also been badly burned.

Kingsthorpe talks to the nurse - the patient is Tommy Simmons, who got pulled out from under a collapsed building a few days ago. Matthews checks with MI5 and the police to reveal that the latter think he's a second-storey man, though he's never been charged with anything - though the building he was pulled out from was a bank... (The hypodermic turns out to have contained morphine, as expected.)

Miss Vane and Sarge remain to keep an eye on Simmons, while Argas keeps searching. Kingsthorpe looks at the hospital plans, and spots more than a trace of sacred geometry in the original layout. Nordmann checks out the electrical supply, but makes a hash of getting the maintenance people to talk to him; Alexander helps salvage the situation, and they say that they haven't done anything special lately, just fix up bomb-damaged wiring.

Argas spots another magical trace from an elderly consultant who's berating a patient ("it's all in the glands, you idiot, get those right and you'll be out of here in a week") - this one seems rather more characteristic of a Russian machine, though the doctor isn't carrying anything big enough to contain one. Argas follows him when he leaves; when he speaks to another patient, the effect is repeated. A few enquiries reveal that this is Dr Rezak, the head of the endocrinology department (the rest of which has been evacuated, but he chose to stay and nobody was in a position to gainsay him).

Argas further spots a magical flare in the central courtyard, which has largely been given over to vegetable plots; one of the nurses is watering cabbages on her break, and is showing Russian-machine-like magical activity. Matthews establishes that this is Miss McTavish.

As the afternoon draws on, Argas stays at Bart's to shadow Rezak and Miss Vane continues to keep an eye on Simmons, while the others load Little's experimental detector into a van and see if there's a similar concentration of magical activity round other hospitals in London; there doesn't seem to be. Around 6pm, Simmons wakes briefly; everything around him is pushed away, with the railings and nightstand looking a little as if a small bomb had gone off on his bed. Simmons himself is not harmed, and Sarge confirms that this was magical.

Rezak finally stops terrifying the hospital staff around eight o'clock, has a meal in the canteen, and walks home to a flat off Charterhouse Square. Argas follows, and can't detect any trace of a machine being used. He returns to search Rezak's office while the others gather background information; Rezak is a naturalised British subject, having arrived in the country in 1916, and he's been at Bart's since 1924. His office contains medical books, mostly in English though a few are in Russian, and models of various glands.

Nordmann confirms that there's nothing drawn in the new water-tanks that shouldn't be there, and that there aren't any unexpected tracks in the closed areas of the hospital. Several of the team choose to sleep on-site in those same closed areas.

Wednesday, 3 September 1941

Once Rezak has gone into the hospital, around 7.30 in the morning, Argas and Matthews go to search his flat; Argas is invisible, and Matthews handles opening of doors and other things that might look suspicious. There's no machine here either, nor anything incriminating; there are several hand-written volumes in Russian, which appear to be diaries. Matthews fetches Miss Vane, who skims them (they start in 1905, so there's quite a bit of material to get through). She looks first at the beginning and end of the diaries, and at the period covering his flight to England; Rezak qualified in Moscow shortly before he started the diaries, got out via Sweden when his friends were getting involved in the Revolution, and doesn't seem to have done anything subversive recently. What is rather more surprising is an entry from June of 1908; he was working as a doctor among the Tungus tribes of Siberia, when one morning the sky caught fire: there was a wave of intense heat, then a sudden thump. Rezak lost consciousness as the ground started to shake, and when he woke up found himself somewhat battered and bruised.

The team checks back: the Tunguska Event is not unknown to the British, but it's pretty much a mystery. Best theories are a cometary or asteroidal impact, but there are simply no reliable data available. Rezak hasn't treated Simmons, it turns out - the consensus on the ward is that he hasn't been awake for long enough to be shouted at.

Miss Vane tracks down Nurse McTavish and takes her to lunch at a corner-house. Other than the overcrowding, McTavish finds the work rewarding, particularly given the new drugs and procedures that are coming in - people who would have died a few years ago are now being saved. She twitches a bit when Rezak is mentioned - he's a competent enough doctor, but she spends a lot of time calming people down after he's visited them. She doesn't think she's doing anything special in the garden, though her blush and other body language reveal that she's hiding something; after some consideration, she mentions that she's been seeing a French mesmerist who's been teaching her to focus her concentration and avoid distractions. Miss Vane gets the impression that this is more than a professional relationship, but manages to get the address of Victor Leclerc, off Gresham Street.

Kingsthorpe and Alexander in uniform, with Miss Vane as secretary, talk to Rezak, who is surprisingly pleasant to them; they get the impression that he mostly wants these annoying nuisances to go away so that he can get on with something useful. He hasn't had any contact with the Russian government since his naturalisation; there's nothing there for him (most of his family was already dead before the Revolution, and they all were afterwards). He hasn't been back; there isn't much interesting research being done there (though he has been to conferences overseas, in France and Germany). With two reasons for the Army not to take him (his naturalised status and his age), he decided to do what he could by staying where the casualties were being brought in. Kingsthorpe and Alexander warn him that the Russians may try to influence or kidnap him; he doesn't take them very seriously, and feels that his weighted stick should be enough to ward off any danger. He does agree to report any approaches.

Late in the afternoon, Argas visits Victor Leclerc as a potential customer (presenting himself as a recently-promoted soldier having trouble keeping up with paperwork); the receptionist hands him a long questionnaire, which he considers while filling it in mostly honestly. Much of it seems to be preparation for a hot reading, but mixed in are several probes to find out what sort of interesting information the subject might have access to, and what he wants out of life in general.

While Argas is working on this, he detects a Russian machine in operation upstairs. He hands in the questionnaire and is told that Professor Leclerc will be in touch next week; as he is gathering his things, a well-dressed woman comes downstairs and leaves. She appears to be a City secretary or similar; he follows her as far as the Underground.

Clearly Leclerc is working in some way for the NKVD; the team considers doubling him by presenting themselves as Free French. Kingsthorpe gets Knight's approval for this.

Thursday, 4 September 1941

Argas spends the day invisibly watching Leclerc's premises - he seems to live above the consulting-room. His receptionist arrives and does some grocery-shopping for him, but Leclerc himself doesn't emerge. Around two o'clock, clients start to arrive - one per hour, mostly attractive young women. As the afternoon goes on, Argas becomes aware that someone else is also watching the building; he's staying well into the shadows, and not magically active.

Matthews talks with Nurse McTavish, who seems genuinely unaware of just how effective her care of the plants (and patients) is being. He puts her off visiting Leclerc.

The last client leaves Leclerc at ten o'clock. Around half past, the other watcher crosses the road to Leclerc's front door; there's a brief flare of magic, and he opens it and goes in. Argas follows, seeing the receptionist unconscious on the floor and the man's legs disappearing upstairs. Sarge alerts Miss Vane, and the others start to close in on the place. Argas goes quietly up the stairs and overhears a conversation in Russian: the newcomer is confident, and the other is alarmed. The newcomer turns round, looks near to where Argas is standing, and says "hold on a minute - I want to talk to you later"; Argas doesn't take the hint, becomes visible, and tells both of them to get their hands up. The newcomer tries to persuade him to allow the two to finish their conversation first, but Argas isn't having it.

The newcomer introduces himself as Vilen Arturovich Chyornomyrdin, or "William Black"; he has diplomatic papers, but is working for the GRU. Victor, it seems, is working for the NKVD, and since Chyornomyrdin hasn't been able to double him will have to be arrested. ("His machine is in the desk. Oh, and the receptionist is in on it too.") With Victor secured, Chyornomyrdin explains that he has several reasons for being in England: his tradition of magic is an old and aristocratic one, something that's not in good odour in Stalin's Russia, but he's also been hoping to make contact with whatever part of British Intelligence deals with magic - and he rather suspects he just has.

The GRU, he claims, have been tracking NKVD operators in Britain - it's not clear what these machine-users are up to, but the NKVD always has a master plan. Victor ("who fancies himself a modern Rasputin") was gathering information from his clients - anything from economic data in the City to the effects of bombing on Londoners; originally this would have been for economic sabotage, but now it's just for general use.

Chyornomyrdin claims not to know much about how the Stoletov machines work; so does the team...

[24 September 2011]

2.35. Savage Beast

Monday, 6 October 1941

With a bit of digging, the team has found out about the theories of an asteroid or comet impact at Tunguska, suggesting that perhaps part of the impacted matter is necessary in building Stoletov machines.

Kemmer and Little's bomb-making project and other experiments are to be moved to "a secure location" - still within the UK, for ease of contact, but somewhere a bit safer than London. The bomb project is to be known as Operation Zeus.

Chyornomyrdin is willing to hand over "all of" his data on the NKVD operators in the UK, as a favour. He is fairly sure that the NKVD has been tracking GRU operators, too.

The team contacts Alexander Black, and enquires as to whether he's interested in working off some of his prison sentence by working on Stoletov machines; he's reluctant, suspecting a trap and not really enthused about helping the Imperial order, but grudgingly agrees.

Hess is asked what he knows about spirit magicians working with U-boats; nothing at all.

Mr Alexander has some hard words with Irene Andrews about just how she was getting the information she was feeding into fake seances; she seems not to believe that the team never found her radio (though it was quite well-hidden in the attic). She was being given news from Soviet contacts, though she doesn't know just what the setup may have been.

The team is reassured that Captain Knight is feeding their intelligence up the chain of command - though somewhat sanitised. "If you go to Winnie and say 'I am one of your magicians', he won't know what you're talking about."

Adrian Fiske is encouraged to try to find out more about the "fire in the east" vision - in particular, to work with Carl Segel. His best vision shows a network growing up: it starts in Moscow, then spreads west and a bit east. The manner of the spread is odd: a new flame starts in isolation, then links up to other nearby sites that were already live, such that the whole thing forms a mesh.

With Segel's help, he works out more detail: the major sites seem to be Moscow, Berlin and London. The timing of the spread is consistent with distance between sites and density of points in those sites, not with travel times. It's not at all clear whether these points may be Stoletov machines, NKVD agents, or something else entirely. It does at least seem that Argas' theory that the magic might involve spirits of the dead - perhaps the very recently and suddenly dead - is not valid.

The team considers telling the Wiligut group about the implied large number of Russian agents in Berlin, but - given which group is nominally allied with Britain at the moment, and given that the Germans can probably reach their own conclusions about Russian spies - decides not to act for now.

Tuesday, 14 October 1941

The team is called together the following week. MI5 routinely monitors German radio broadcasts, in case there should be anything useful to be pulled out of them (such as instructions to German agents). The listener last night, who happened to be magically sensitive, picked up what sounded like a Morse code transmission overlaid on a concert being broadcast from Cologne - but her (non-sensitive) supervisor couldn't hear it at all. Knight plays a recording to the team; they can all hear the signal even on the low-fidelity wax cylinder recording, and the effect persists when the recording is copied, though the recordings themselves do not seem to be magical.

The content of the Morse message, repeated several times, is "LONDON SCHOOLS ORCHESTRA". This group, drawn from the better players at public schools in London, is not currently active - but some of them were on a trip to Switzerland when the German invasion started, and have been stuck there ever since. But they haven't been writing much lately...

The British Consulate in Geneva is aware of the children - ten boys, aged from 13 to 16 last year, but hasn't heard from them for a while.

Kingsthorpe checks on Mr Haning, the teacher who was leading the group; the London occult community hasn't heard the name. Argas and Miss Vane talk to those of the parents who can be reached; they've had letters from the children from time to time, the most recent one having arrived last May. Argas makes a copy; while it doesn't make much reference to the big events of the war, there's enough there that it doesn't seem likely to have been written in advance.

MI6 is asked whether any of the agents it doesn't have in Switzerland could check up on the last known address.

Wednesday, 15 October 1941

The non-existent MI6 agents report that the children and their teacher moved out around the end of April, giving no new address.

There's a message from the Wiligut group, pointing out that they received the Morse message - and surely other German occult groups will also have done so. They're sent in a report, since it would look suspicious not to; the other groups may be sending operatives.

Knight feels that it's worth a look - even if it's a trap, there may be something useful to be learned. The team splits into two groups, with suitable paperwork - Kingsthorpe, Argas and Nordmann as an Abwehr administrator and his hangers-on, and Matthews, Miss Vane and Mr Alexander as a group of Vichy-French officials on a cultural exchange mission. They're dropped off near Paris, then make their way separately by rail to Cologne.

Thursday, 16 October 1941

Cologne is not doing well under the burdens of war - there are very few men in the streets, and it seems that most of them have been shipped off to Russia. The two groups find places to stay; Matthews obtains a local newspaper, which mentions concerts by the Gürzenich-Orchester, apparently the only orchestra still operating in Cologne. There's one that night, but it's too close to the teams' arrival to get to; they obtain tickets for the following night.

Friday, 17 October 1941

The day is spent walking around the centre of Cologne, getting a feel for the layout of the streets in case it's needed later. There are rather fewer uniformed figures than the team has seen before, for example in occupied France. Sarge spots in the distance someone surrounded by a cloud of spirits; he stays well clear. Miss Vane looks as the Gürzenich Hall where the concert is to take place; she finds no spirits, and Sarge doesn't spot anything odd inside. Matthews finds a beerhall near the stage door, where Alexander plans to lurk later. There's also a surprising lack of enthusiasm for the Glorious Nazi Cause - people are paying it lip-service, but things are altogether more lax than they have been elsewhere.

Argas tries his magic-detection, and spots a wide-area search spell; it might well find him, among other things, so he keeps his abilities shut off.

Around 3pm, a horse-drawn wagon (like much of the traffic on the streets) pulls up to the stage door; several people carrying musical instruments get out and go into the hall. While Alexander stays on watch, the rest of the team goes variously to the concert; the orchestra's looking a bit sparse, and apart from six youngsters almost all the players are female. Several of the children look as though they might well be the missing pupils, judging by the photographs (obtained from parents, not terribly up-to-date, and left behind in England for safety's sake).

There are two very noticeable SS types among the audience, very spruce, with their boots at a high polish; they don't look as though they're there to appreciate the music.

After the concert, Miss Vane sets Sarge to follow the children - they go into the wagon, then a couple of miles to a house in Lindenthal, near the university. Argas follows the two SS types - junior officers, one Obersturmfuhrer and one Untersturmfuhrer - but only as far as the car that's brought round to the front of the hall when the concert ends.

Matthews follows some of the other musicians; they don't drink in the rather expensive beerhall by the hall, but instead walk for about ten minutes to a slightly cheaper part of town. He manages to eavesdrop on their conversation; most of it's the usual vicious gossip, but there's a mention that "we're not meant to ask about the children".

Argas and Kingsthorpe, mingling with the audience as they leave and go for drinks, manage to pick up a little more; with most of the regular orchestra off on military service, anyone who's even vaguely competent has been brought in to play. The children have been around for two or three months.

Saturday, 18 October 1941

While none of the group has any particular talent in the appreciation of music, they can agree that the young female violist - one of those who left in the wagon - wasn't terribly good. They speculate that she may have been put in to keep an eye on the other children. Sarge is sent to observe the house in Lindenthal; he reports that there are fifteen people altogether, eleven children, one matron, and three guards. The children are practicing instruments or reading; one of them has a book that, to Sarge's spirit-perceiving eyes, looks distinctly odd. Kingsthorpe spots an SS-Ahnenerbe officer wreathed in a pack of bound spirits, presumably the one Sarge spotted earlier, entering the local Gestapo headquarters.

Tonight's concert is apparently scheduled to be broadcast, judging by the equipment being taken into the hall. As before, a wagon takes six of the children (and the matron and two of the guards) to the hall - though Sarge reckons the cellist is not the same one as last night.

Argas considers checking out the house invisibly, now that there are fewer people in it - but decides at the last moment that his invisibility might well be detectable. Indeed, about twenty minutes after he tries it, the two well-dressed SS officers show up in their car, talk briefly to the remaining guard, then start a cursory search of the house.

They abandon this and leave - as it turns out, at the same moment that Nordmann, in the concert audience, starts to hear the Morse signal again. At the interval, the spirit-wreathed SS officer arrests the cellist - not without some argument from the other two, whose insignia claim that they're from the RuSHA, the department that checks marriages of SS personnel on grounds of racial purity.

Alexander, who's already set up in the beerhall favoured by the orchestra, plans to get information out of them; he outdoes himself, and returns the next morning in a state of some exhaustion. He did manage to learn that the children were apparently caught crossing France...

Sunday, 19 October 1941

The general magic-detection is no longer running. While Sarge keeps a cautious eye on Gestapo headquarters, the rest of the team prepares to pull out: getting even ten children across Europe seems very unlikely to succeed, and as for pulling off a rescue from Gestapo cells...

Sarge reports that the argument between SS groups is continuing, progressing from raised voices to un-snapped holsters, and eventually telephone calls to Berlin. Over the protests of the SS-Ahnenerbe man, the two RuSHA agents take the cellist out to their car. As they get outside the building, he shouts, and as they're momentarily stunned he dives into an alley. Argas plunges into the back streets to try to catch him before the SS do; the boy cannons into him, and Argas addresses him in English to persuade him to come away quickly and quietly. His name is Arnold Merriwether, and he's very glad to see a friendly face. Argas whips up a very basic disguise to change his appearance, and Alexander goes to meet them at the cathedral. They get back to the hotel, with some difficulty from a searching patrol (Alexander persuades the leader that this can't possibly be the boy they're looking for).

Getting out without papers seems likely to be a major problem. Argas keeps an eye out and spots a house where there's a boy of the right age and general appearance; that night, he sneaks in and abstracts the identity papers.

Monday, 20 October 1941

Starting on the first train of the day before the stolen papers are missed, the team splits into three groups (Alexander and Merriwether staying separate from the others), and make their various ways back to the rendezvous in Paris, and thus home to England.

Tuesday, 21 October 1941

En route, Merriwether talks to Alexander about how Mr Haning led their attempt to escape through France, picking up the girl (Jacqueline) in Dijon - but things went wrong in Paris, they were caught, and Haning was killed. Since then, they've been passed from one internment centre to another, until the local Gestapo chief apparently decided he might as well put them to work. Merriwether also explains the "tricks" he's been doing - he got them from an old German book that was left in the house, since there was nothing else to read (he'd already been through all of Goethe). Alexander can't make much sense of it, but on discussing it with the others Kingsthorpe reckons that it sounds like a more sophisticated version of what the Wüst group does - except that this is very clearly based on the Qabala, and very probably the Wüst system is too, though Qabalistic references have been carefully removed from the latter.

The address where the other children are, or were, being held is passed on to the Red Cross, to see what can be done about getting them out - or at least getting their status made more regular.

Some other news awaits the team: in consideration of possible bomb tests, Mr Little took a Stoletov machine over to Canada. It didn't work: electrically it fired up all right, but it didn't produce any of its usual effects. A second machine failed the same way, again without any sign of damage. On the boat back, without having been repaired, they worked normally...

[15 October 2011]

2.36. The Better Mage

Monday, 3 November 1941

Major Kingsthorpe is travelling to America to find out what he can about the oddity in magic there. Before he left, he was able to cast his new ritual on the core of one of the Russian machines; the instructions for making it do indeed start "take a piece of strange rock from Siberia" (and then involve trimming it to resonate at particular frequencies). Kingsthorpe also confirms that Arnold Merriwether is indeed a specialised sort of mage, and has no lingering magical effects on him - it was [{I:just}} possible that he might be a plant of some sort. The book he was reading in Germany doesn't seem to be in British occult libraries, at least on an initial search; it's very clearly Qabbalistic in approach, and the author either was or wanted to appear to be Jewish.

There's some discussion as to whether it may be possible to save Ark Royal from being sunk later in the month. Telling her captain to have damage-control parties ready seems unlikely to be received well, but sending a foreboding message warning of heightened submarine activity in the area, and suggesting in particular that the many German claims of having sunk that particular ship may have generated a certain amount of embarrassment and a wish to get the job done, might help. The same message hints at a new and particularly damaging torpedo being used in the Mediterranean.

More urgently, there appears to be an outbreak of bubonic plague in Birmingham. The four victims have been taken to the local hospital, and this wouldn't normally have reached Knight's desk; but while their symptoms are consistent with plague, attempts to culture the bacillus have been unsuccessful.

Tuesday, 4 November 1941

The team drives to Birmingham, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital - which has clearly come under a lot of pressure, with both bombing casualties and returning wounded soldiers, and has expanded into many nearby buildings, both rooms belonging to the university and general offices. They carefully examine the patients: one civilian, two ARP wardens, and one sapper; there's definitely an ongoing magical effect working on them (and Argas spots a brief flash of magic at a distance, though it's gone before he can pin it down). Interviewing them suggests that the wardens and the sapper, at least, have been down into one particular bomb crater on Victoria Square, right in the middle of Birmingham.

Nordmann tries to heal one of the victims, Sapper Belham. With substantial effort he manages to relieve the man's symptoms a bit, but doesn't achieve a cure. While he's working at that, the team checks the debris removed from the crater for magic; it seems to be clean. They then head on to the site itself; it's roped off, particularly because of the building that's been partially undercut by blast, but Argas and Matthews can certainly detect magic down there. Matthews also spots a magical flash nearby.

Argas descends carefully into the crater, with the others waiting at the rim. He thinks that something's made a magical attempt to infect him, but it doesn't seem to take. Alexander and Miss Vane are asked to go and fetch a lead-lined box - a coffin would do nicely - and some holy water, which they do. Argas starts to dig over the magical trace he detects, and a few feet down uncovers the tail-fin of a small bomb - quite possibly still attached to the rest of it. Pouring on holy water has no visible effect.

Mr Nordmann is the team's ordnance disposal expert, and he's fetched from the hospital - though he's looking distinctly woozy when he arrives, even though there's no magic on him. Argas has paused in his digging, and reflects that this earth has been too loose - as if the bomb had been placed here, rather than dropped. He leaves the crater and searches the area invisibly; there's no long-term observation post set up, but some evidence that someone's spent at least a little time keeping an eye on the site out of abandoned buildings.

Alexander organises a party of Royal Engineers to defuse and extract the bomb, warning them that germ warfare may be involved. He, Sarge and Matthews stay to supervise, while Nordmann, Miss Vane and Argas head back to the hospital to get the now semi-conscious Nordmann into isolation - though a bit of testing reveals that he's been fed an entirely mundane drug, possibly in one of the cups of tea that seem to be a feature of life here. Keeping an eye on the patients overnight seems like a good idea, so Argas gets some sleep in the afternoon.

Back at the site, the Engineers have dug as far as the side of the casing, which looks like a standard small German bomb. The hole where the fuze should be is empty, which is at least suggestive. While Alexander and Matthews are looking down into the crater, Alexander finds himself shot in the back; he's badly wounded. Matthews thinks he heard more than one shot, and spots a disturbance in the crowd that's gathered to watch the Engineers at work. It seems as though the shooter fired over their heads. He gives chase, having some trouble pushing through the crowd, and spots someone running a corner; he follows cautiously, realising that his target may be waiting in ambush. He is; they fire simultaneously, but Matthews is more heavily injured and goes down. The Sappers just barely manage to keep him alive until an ambulance arrives, but the other man has got away in the confusion.

The team meets again at the hospital, where Matthews is in surgery for some time. Argas heads back to the city centre, where he follows the blood trail; the shooter ducked into a doorway in New Street, where he apparently managed to bind up his wounds before walking away. He gets the police to put out an alert to all nearby hospitals - they'd normally report it if anyone came in with a gunshot wound, but they'll now alert the team too.

Alexander is also patched up, and Nordmann gets both men back to something resembling good health - though Matthews at least will be staying in overnight. Nordmann, fatigued from all the healing he's been doing, sleeps; Argas takes the first watch, invisibly, planning to ask Miss Vane to cover the early morning.

Wednesday, 5 November 1941

Around 1.30am, he notices a hospital porter sneaking into Matthews' room. He moves up behind him, becomes visible, and says "a-hem", then tries to get the man to surrender. They go back and forth - Argas with his knife, the porter with whatever's in his right hand, though Argas gets him to drop it. (It turns out later to be a hypodermic containing a fatal dose of morphine.) The porter tries to get away, but Argas cuts his leg, and he goes down. Argas calls a nurse to give him some first aid; she recognises him as "that nice Mr Buckman" who's been working at the hospital for about a month and a half.

Things calm down a bit until 6am or so, when Miss Vane sees a consultant approaching with a small entourage. He claims that Matthews needs to be moved immediately, as the room's needed for casualties from the night's bombing; there certainly has been some, though it didn't sound terribly heavy. Miss Vane finds something about him unconvincing - perhaps there's an oddity in his manner, or perhaps it's the early hour. He's clearly used to getting his own way, and some of his staff start to wheel away the bed with the unconscious Matthews, over Miss Vane's protestations; Argas, woken by the commotion, calls on them to stop; he senses magic being directed at him, and shoots the consultant. There's some shock among the staff, but it turns out that nobody's known him for longer than about two months, when he came here from Bristol. Sarge also detects altogether too many spirits around him...

The sappers report that inside the bomb casing there's no explosive, just a lump of metal with odd runes on it. Two of them have come down with plague. The lump is stored in the lead-lined coffin, in the middle of the closest bomb range.

Alexander interrogates the porter, Buckman (or Bucholtz). He's worryingly resistant to conventional techniques of persuasion, though Alexander's mind control eventually overcomes his resistance. He's of the Wüst group, working for Doktor Rau (the consultant, Mr Ravenwood). There are three other agents in his action group, whom he identifies - two of them were working at the hospital in menial capacities, but aren't to be found. Their mission was to catch or kill a British magician, and get away with it; they had charms which would alert them when magic was used nearby, and then break, becoming non-magical (these seem to have been the flashes detected earlier).

Doktor Rau himself is even more strong-willed; Alexander starts off politely, and Rau tries to get away with the "all gentlemen here" approach. Alexander even finds himself feeling that Rau's handcuffs must be very uncomfortable, and are surely an unnecessary precaution. Nordmann prods Rau with one of the uranium bullets he's had manufactured, and Rau loses control of his magic; while he's still disorientated, Alexander gets a lock on his mind.

Rau confirms Buckman's story, and explains some of the politics - after the Wüst group's many failures in England, the New Men have become somewhat ascendant, and this mission was an attempt to regain some credibility. The inevitable flowering of magic must not be misdirected... The team picks up on this; Rau's belief is that, as more magicians are trained, the general magical ambience of the world will increase. He doesn't connect this to the "fire in the east" vision that his own people have had; that's coming from Russia, so it obviously has nothing to do with the racially pure magic of his school, and will be easily dealt with. The New Men and their Volksmagie have been stepping into the gap left by the disfavour of first the Wewelsburg group (relegated to building Himmler's SS temple/headquarters) and now the Wüst group; they're subject to infighting, as are the other groups, but definitely seem to be in the ascendant now. Rau gives up the rendezvous point and escape route for the remaining members of the team; Special Branch will be sent to pick them up. He also notes that the "plague" symptoms will end when the original artefact from the bomb is destroyed.

Thursday, 6 November 1941

Nordmann does so, with one of his uranium bullets.

Rau is sedated with morphine; it seems like a good idea to take him directly to Johnstone Castle, so Alexander requisitions a Dominie and the team takes off in the late morning. Just as they've got to cruising height, the port engine catches fire; Alexander cuts off the fuel and considers the situation. Argas detects something magical happening in that engine - and in the other one, so Alexander shuts that one off too and glides the plane down to the Castle Bromwich Aerodrome (the other engine catches fire on the way down, in spite of having no fuel supply).

Argas thinks that the magical trace was like that of a Stoletov machine, but perhaps it was being operated by Germans? In any case, the team gets hold of a van and some outriders, and drives to Johnstone Castle, arriving late in the evening. Before coming under the anti-magical effect, they wake Rau and question him again; Nordmann and Miss Vane manage to describe the magical signature of the Stoletov machines, and he reckons it sounds very like what the New Men do. The spirits surrounding Rau start to get away while his magical power is sapped, and when the team arrives at the castle he's unsupported.

Thursday, 13 November 1941

Ark Royal is torpedoed and heavily damaged, but saved thanks to prompt action by the damage-control parties. There's a suggestion that possible some of Captain Maund's orders may have been "interpreted" in transmission, but with the ship saved nobody's asking awkward questions.

Tuesday, 25 November 1941

When Kingsthorpe gets back, he has a shocking report: America, at least the east coast, seems to be magically null. This isn't consistent with Alexander's experience over there...

[5 November 2011]

2.37. Winter North Atlantis

Monday, 1 December 1941

A topic of some discussion is when, and how, to warn the Americans about Pearl Harbor. It's clear that some sort of warning has to be sent, because eventually someone's going to find out about the Knight-Fuller-Lethbridge document, and having not sent a warning will be a major problem.

So it's dressed up as "a usually reliable source", and Pearl Harbor, air attack and 7 December are specifically mentioned - and Knight puts in a reminder that the Japanese have a history of surprise attacks.

Sunday, 7 December 1941

The attack goes off more or less as expected; the K-F-L document doesn't go into enough detail for the team to know if their message made any difference.

Thursday, 11 December 1941

More shocking news comes from Malaya, where the British Force Z has not only failed to stop the Japanese invasion of the peninsula (and ultimately Singapore) but has taken crippling losses: Hood, Repulse, and four destroyers sunk, and Prince of Wales so badly damaged that she'll be in dry-dock for a year or more. On the other hand, they did account for a substantial fraction of the Japanese naval forces in the area, and shot down some thirty of the attacking aircraft.

Monday, 15 December 1941

With the Major's report on the American magical climate, and America's new status as an overt ally, it seems like a good idea to send the team over there to find out what's going on magically. They ship aboard HMCS Windflower, a corvette on her way to convoy escort duty - with a nasty gouge on the port side of her stern, explained by her commander RCNR Lieutenant John Price as "a close encounter with a merchant".

The trip goes reasonably well at first, though Nordmann and Miss Vane fail to cope well with North Atlantic winter seas and remain in their berths.

Wednesday, 17 December 1941

However, late on Wednesday evening the weather suddenly gets very much worse; the ship's being thrown about, and even with their lashings and safety lines sailors are being swept overboard. (Matthews and Alexander both think they spot tentacles dragging down the flailing forms, but it's dark and hard to be sure.) There's a general aura of magic about the place, though not as far as Argas and Matthews can tell aimed specifically at the ship.

Alexander asks the sick-bay attendant for something that can get the seasick team members on their feet, if at least briefly. Matthews looks more at the magic in the storm - it's transformative, he thinks, rather than summoning or something else. There's a worrying creaking from the stern - worrying to the other sailors, who so far have been taking the storm mostly in stride - and Argas gets the two sick team members from their berths to near the deck. Price gives the order to make ready the boats to abandon ship, and then memories come apart in a confusion of rending metal, sea-spray, and the howling wind.

Thursday, 18 December 1941

The team, and two other figures, are woken by the chill. They're lying half out of the water on a rocky beach, in a howling gale; they've all been battered, especially Major Kingsthorpe. The two other men are Lieutenant Price and AB McPhee, also somewhat battered. Alexander, reluctantly, acknowledges that Major Kingsthorpe is in command: they're on land, after all. The sun is probably up - there's just about enough light to see by. Miss Vane asks Sarge to take a look around, but he's severely unhappy - there's a big spirit out there, and it's not friendly.

The beach is about twenty to thirty yards wide, after which is a thick coniferous forest. The group immediately moves that way, to get out of the wind and rain; it's not perfect shelter, but much better than the beach. As the team takes stock, it seems that Argas and Miss Vane have both hung onto their pistols, and Argas has his knife; somehow Nordmann kept his rifle, too. Kingsthorpe explains to the sailors, in the vaguest possible terms, what the team does; Nordmann checks the weather, and is certain the storm was enhanced, though it's now fading back to normal weather (he tries to accelerate this, but fails). Alexander and Miss Vane strap up McPhee's broken arm and the other injuries, while Matthews and Argas build a fire from what little fallen wood is available. (Matthews finds it curiously spongy and soft.)

Once the team has dried out a bit, Nordmann leads them to look for food. He has some luck with a bird trap, and Matthews spots a few edible plants (though there are fewer species than he'd expect in a normal forest). Argas is less fortunate: he finds a wild pig, or rather it finds him. It gets a slashing cut on him; Nordmann and Miss Vane aim with their weapons, but Alexander - perhaps remembering the clawing he took back in St Mary in the Marsh - leaps onto the creature's back, cutting at its throat with his straight razor. Somehow he manages to hang on long enough to do this, then dismounts almost gracefully; between that, Argas' knife attack, the shot from Miss Vane, and (mostly, one must admit) the shot from Nordmann's rifle, the pig is killed (Alexander catches some of the shrapnel).

Miss Vane butches the pig and cooks the meat she was able to salvage. There's something odd about it, though - the bone structure is a bit off, as though it had been built from someone's idea of what a wild pig should be like. Alexander removes his uniform, since it's now both damp and blood-spattered, and Argas washes it as best he can in the sea (spotting a green flash in the distance as he's doing so; Price doesn't know of any lighthouses like that).

Water is still something of a problem - a pool with no plant life growing round it is given a wide berth by everyone - and the team continues to explore. Argas, who's trying to keep track of their position and path, is rather concerned to find that the island isn't cooperating: he can set off towards a mark, and find that the terrain en route has changed by the time he reaches it. Kingsthorpe is conscious of a strong feeling of being watched, and Sarge reckons that the big spirit is keeping an eye on them. Miss Vane tries to contact it, and thinks she succeeded, but blanks out - she can't remember whatever it was she experienced, and doesn't really want to.

Matthews finds a stream - good - but isn't entirely happy to find that it seems to be flowing very slightly uphill. The water's good, though, if cold.

As the team tops a rise, Kingsthorpe and Matthews spot a grey shape through the trees. It turns out to be a U-boat - the front half of one, at least - run up hard onto the shore. Nordmann spots the signs of many men having walked back and forth between it and an encampment nearby, which is now empty. Alexander speculates that the team may well be laboratory mice in a very large-scale experiment...

The team examines the submarine - U-95. (Argas checks for a bull symbol, but there's nothing of that sort visible - just a creature of some sort with an umbrella, sitting in a chair.) She's broken just aft of the conning-tower, but the forward portions seem pretty intact. There's a little internal damage, mostly from men and equipment being thrown around during the beaching. Most easily movable equipment has been removed, but the radio's still in place, slightly damaged; Argas manages to fix it, and tries listening in, since there's still a fair bit of power in the boat's batteries.

There's a lot of static about, but he tunes in to the sound of screaming in German, cut off by a long scraping crunch. After a bit more tuning, he gets the trembling, distant voice of an educated man, speaking in German but nearly obscured by howling winds: "Schreiber, Schreiber, do not be alarmed. It is I, Kreuzwald. I am attempting to reach you from beyond the veil. It is very hard to maintain contact, as the (static) interferes with the discs... I have put you in grave peril, and must warn you..."

Nordmann removes a tuning capacitor to disable the radio, and the team investigates the camp. It's in some disorder, but there are a few canteens about, and some of the team start collecting rainwater. There's sign of either one or several struggles, and the suggestion that at least some people have been dragged away.

There are also four Walther PPKs, presumably from the boat's arms locker; Argas checks them out (they've been sitting in the wet for a week or so, he thinks) and cleans them, then issues them to Price, Kingsthorpe, Matthews and Alexander. Argas also turns up the boat's log, which Kingsthorpe reads, and what seems to be Kptlt. Gerd Schreiber's personal diary, which Miss Vane examines.

According to the log, a day before the boat left on its latest patrol - Tuesday, 18 November - an SS man turned up at the docks in Lorient, giving the captain an item to be discharged from a torpedo tube somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. The diary goes into a bit more detail, with a sketch of the item: a metal-covered book, about two inches thick. The engraving is very distinctive, and Miss Vane recognises it as matching the description of the Modena Document, a somewhat apocryphal occult volume last reported around the end of the Hundred Years War.

There's a sound of garbled chanting, and the team moves out to investigate. Whoever was speaking has gone, but Nordmann follows their tracks, and eventually with some difficulty spots a glimpse of a form in the distance, . Argas comes forward to see what he can see: very little, but with his ability to spot invisible creatures he realises he's being surrounded. He and Nordmann get back to the group to ready a defence.

Kingsthorpe examines the figure confronting him, who seems to be curiously hard to look at - and what's visible is strange in itself, since he looks as though he's been thoroughly mangled in an accident of some sort. His head's been bisected, and the top (with hair eyes and nose) is now below the bottom (with mouth and neck). The other figures are similarly mangled, though none identically; some of them have scraps of Kriegsmarine uniform. Kingsthorpe states loudly that he wants to talk to Kptlt. Schreiber; the figure moans and then swipes at him.

The team kills two of the figures and knocks down two more, but Kingsthorpe and Matthews are both hit - the creatures don't actually make contact, but where they've swiped flesh seems to wither and die. As the fight continues, a human figure appears from further up the track, firing a pistol wildly; the attackers retreat into the woods. The newcomer is in a rather more intact Kriegsmarine uniform, though it's still pretty ragged; he looks about wildly, and Miss Vane greets him in German. He stops, sinks to his knees, and blanks out.

Nordmann heals the wounded men, and the team returns to the camp, with what is indeed Schreiber. He's not too well either mentally or physically, but tells his story, which agrees with what they read in the diary. He describes the SS officer, Kreuzwald; the team reckon that his insignia and manner may well make him one of the New Men, particularly since he was apparently part of the RuSHA. He did indeed discharge the book from a torpedo tube once U-95 reached the mid-Atlantic, on 8 December; nothing happened at first, but then a great storm blew up, shaking the boat even below the surface. She started to spring leaks, and when he spotted the island, he knew that the only way to keep his crew alive was to beach the boat there. The stern tore off in the storm, but most of the others survived... until something started taking them when they were foraging, and then from the camp itself

Schreiber willingly surrenders to Kingsthorpe - indeed, he insists on it, perhaps seeking to act in a familiar pattern among all this strangeness.

Killing the attackers, which Schreiber calls "devourers", seems like a good plan: but it's getting towards the end of daylight, and the team decides to fort up in the boat overnight, keeping short watches (since it's pretty cold without a fire) in pairs. Kingsthorpe attempts a protective ritual, but having lost his stick and without many of his usual resources is unable to succeed, even with some of the devourer-blood as a component.

Several of the team have dreams as they sleep uneasily in the U-boat. Alexander finds himself running through streets and into what seems like a newly-built German block of flats. He kicks down a door to find a room filled with electronic equipment, similar to Stoletov machines. There are six men, clearly New Men, surrounding a table on which are two forms encircled by more machinery: one is a small baby, the other the metal-covered book. He finds himself shooting down the six men, then scooping up the baby in his coat; he reaches for the book too, but wakes up before he can bring himself to touch it.

Miss Vane is running through catacombs, perhaps in Rome, with an electric torch in hand. There's a feeling that something has been broken or violated. She goes through a door into a small vault; lying on the floor is an old man in a cassock, with a knife sticking out of his chest. He looks up and addresses her in Italian: "Kreuzwald! They got the book. You must stop them, before they summon... IT."

Kingsthorpe is viewing a burning mediaeval village through his hundreds of eyes. Everyone here is dead, either freshly slaughtered or mangled, reanimated, and now stilled. He feels himself hungering, needing a new source of energy; until he finds it, he decides, he will turn himself into something these ape-creatures will treasure. He folds himself down, flattening his brain-sails, drifting into a torpor as his new form settles into shape: a metal-covered book.

Friday, 19 December 1941

In the morning, Nordmann tries the radio again. He gets the educated man's voice again: "Schreiber, Schreiber, it is Kreuzwald again.You haven't time for disbelief. I have been a fool. I thought that the book summoned a vile entity, but I was wrong. It is the book!"

Argas gathers some more knives from the submarine's surface galley, and the team gets ready to hunt down the devourers. When Kingsthorpe steps out of the submarine, he spots a new geographical feature: a black stone pylon, hundreds of feet tall, in what seems likely to be the centre of the island. The others can't see it at first, though Argas spots it with a bit of effort. Nordmann moves down the beach to strips the boat's torpedoes, getting the better part of a ton of aluminised TNT (though most of this has to be left behind) and ten detonators.

The team sets off, and Matthews soon spots four devourers lying in ambush in the trees over their path. He causes the trees to shake them out, then makes the undergrowth bind them in place; Nordmann, Argas and Miss Vane shoot them from a safe distance. The team continues towards the pylon, being careful as foliage-covered chasms appear almost underfoot. Eventually they enter a small clearing to find the pylon, and those who couldn't see it finally do so (Alexander being somewhat shaken by the experience). It's about fifty feet wide at the base, with a five-foot-wide opening in it. Miss Vane steps in, and spots the metal-covered book. She moves towards it, addressing the entity in an annoyed manner; a floating form drops out of the darkness above, an amorphous, quasi-substantial mass of steel-tipped tendrils, flapping sails of wrinkled brain tissue, and pulsing, insectoid eyes.

It lashes at her with tendrils, doing some injury; she drops flat. Kingsthorpe, who's in the doorway, manages to dodge out of the way of other tendrils. He shoots it with his PPK, hitting it; it staggers in the air. Nordmann sets up a steady fire with his rifle. Argas turns invisible, moves to the entrance, then gets inside. Miss Vane berates the creature as she starts to crawl back to the cave mouth; Alexander runs in to help as the tendrils lash at her again, opening big wounds on her back. He manages to avoid the attacks aimed at him, picks up Miss Vane, and starts to carry her out.

Kingsthorpe orders anyone listening to "get everyone out of there, then get the explosives in". Matthews carries in one of the small charges. Alexander is hit while he carries Miss Vane, and wounded. Argas, who's been taking aim, shoots the book, destroying it; the creature winks out, leaving behind a smell of methane and vinegar.

The permeating sense of magic starts to fade almost at once, and the team makes a run for the submarine - more specifically, the inflatable boat that's still lashed to her deck. Alexander and Miss Vane are both wounded badly enough to be moving slowly; the others help them along the path, while Nordmann pauses to shoot the pile of explosives at the base of the pylon from a safe distance.

By the time they get back to the shore, the water's definitely rising. Schreiber's near catatonic, but McPhee gets the boat inflated while the others scavenge the U-boat for supplies; Nordmann gets the radio out, while Argas and Price grab the discarded torpedo batteries. Everything that can be grabbed quickly is thrown into the inflatable, and the team gets in as the water rises over the beach. There's some shoreward current, but Nordmann directs the rowers and they manage to stay clear as the island sinks beneath the waves, the pylon being the last thing to vanish.

After some hours of calling on the radio, the team gets an answer from a cargo ship, running empty to Halifax to load up and join a convoy there. She's the Empire Faith, a CAM ship with plenty of space for the team and other survivors.

Tuesday, 23 December 1941

After several days of sailing, Empire Faith arrives in Halifax. Schreiber, still not talking, is turned over to a prisoner-of-war camp, while the two Canadian sailors are sworn to secrecy. The team plans to head on to America...

[17 December 2011]

(Matthews and Alexander are unwell.)

First, though, they send a telegram home to indicate that they've survived... and take stock of the magical climate. Most of the team have no access to their powers at all; the Major, with a greater understanding, gets the impression that rather than being embedded in the ground as they are in Europe, the lines of magical power are floating around randomly in the air. (None of this matches Vin's memories of operating in the Americas.)

All the team is also hearing unpleasant voices whispering at the edge of hearing, with the Major and Miss Vane being able to hear them rather more clearly.

Wednesday, 24 December 1941

The voices don't make it impossible to sleep, though dreams aren't of the best. The team takes a train to Ottawa, which consumes most of the day. Miss Vane is slightly reassured when the ashes from one of her cigarettes stir themselves up to read "SARGE", then "WINDY".

Thursday, 25 December 1941

While some shops are open on Christmas Day, there's not much scope for getting the replacement uniforms and other goods that the team wants. So this is a day of celebration (while the country has been at war for some time, rationing hasn't taken hold the way it has in England), and magical experimentation.

Kingsthorpe attempts a warding ritual: without his swagger-stick and some other paraphernalia, he's not as effective as usual, but with some gems and odd woods - and once Argas has scavenged up some cat-whiskers - he thinks it ought to work. But rather than the usual feeling of completion, there's no result at all.

Miss Vane tries to contact Sarge with her mediumistic abilities; she fails to do so, but gets the voices more strongly than ever. The voices don't respond in any way to her attempt to communicate with them. With her psychological training, she recognises their shocking suggestions as possibly amplifications and developments of her own subconscious thoughts.

Friday, 26 December 1941

Boxing Day is for shopping. Argas goes out to ordert appropriate uniform clothes for everyone; he's also searching for a replacement swagger-stick for the Major (but can't find one for even slightly the right regiment), and possibly an occult bookshop (but fails to find that either). Miss Vane, however, finds a newsletter for the local occult community in one of the libraries she visits; there's no sign that they've noticed any particular change in the magical climate lately.

Nordmann visits the zoo to commune with some caribou. Kingsthorpe uses the library to track down addresses and telephone numbers for some occultists he's heard of in New York - Michael Hudson of the ASPR (in Queens), Margaret Moran (in Brooklyn), and Thomas Houlding (in Glen Cove on Long Island). He tries to telephone Hudson, but is unable to get through - snow on the lines.

Saturday, 27 December 1941

The next day is spent shopping for other equipment - Argas manages to find a gunsmith with some of the Webleys the group favours (considered rather old-fashioned here). Miss Vane obtains a new civilian wardrobe; Nordmann looks for Norwegian contacts, but has no luck.

2.38. Manhattan Projects

Monday, 29 December 1941

The uniforms arrive, and the team heads for New York by train. Again, this takes much of the day; they check into the Hotel Chelsea (recovered from its recent bankruptcy, but without the reputation it may gain later) and call Michael Hudson, giving the explanation that they'll use again later: they're a British group studying occult practice, since the Germans are doing so and it's clearly having some influence on their activities. Although it's getting quite late, he invites them to come over to his apartment, and they go there by cab.

The reason becomes apparent when they arrive - half the furniture is in dust-sheets, and Hudson explains that he's joined the Army - "might as well do it before I get drafted" - and is shipping out for basic training tomorrow. There aren't many useful people left in the ASPR - he certainly feels that he's leaving it to the old women - but he's heard of Kingsthorpe and is as helpful as he can manage; he mentions two independents, Moran and - with a curl of the lip - "Faber" ("at least when he's sober"), who used to be associated with the OTO but doesn't seem to be any more. Most of the esoteric orders, or at least what's left of them, have moved to California - he mentions the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis and the OTO as the two examples he knows of.

He cautions the team not to let Moran's appearance put them off, and says "if I make it to England I'll look you up" - Kingsthorpe gives him his (newly-printed in Ottawa) card.

Miss Vane telephones Margaret Moran, and gives the explanation, mentioning Hudson's name; Moran quizzes her on her occult knowledge, in a friendly but determined manner, and eventually suggests that they meet for lunch the next day.

Tuesday, 30 December 1941

Before lunch, the team locates libraries, particularly those likely to have worthwhile esoteric materials. They meet Margaret Moran, who's in her fifties and looks like a plump aunt; her manner is rather more acerbic, however. She apologises for the inquisition on the telephone, explaining that she's often bothered by women who think their cats are reincarnated pharaohs and such like nuisances. She was in the Golden Dawn in its last years in the USA, and this gives her a certain cachet among those who've got into occultism more recently. She's aware that European occultic practices don't tend to work in the USA, though it appears that she doesn't have any magical talent of her own.

She mentions Thomas Houlding as someone who certainly does have power, though his tradition is something of a mishmash of European and native practice. She doesn't have a definite explanation for this difference - one theory is that the Americas haven't had permanent settlements for long enough to tie down currents of power, another is that magicians simply don't know the right language to talk to the local spirits. Miss Vane mentions the muttering, and Moran says that Faber mentioned this too - "but he was drunk, of course".

Moran mentions that she has a decent library at home, if the team wish to consult it - though she doesn't have much on Indian traditions, since there's not that much written down in the first place.

Kingsthorpe telephones Faber, who answers in a deep voice that he's been expecting this call. Kingsthorpe grits his teeth and gives the explanation; Faber invites the team over. The cab driver is dubious about the address - it's on Manhattan, but certainly not in a good neighbourhood. Faber opens the door: he's a tall and gaunt man with burning eyes, dressed in black robes. (Argas and Nordmann both reckon he's tubercular.) The interior decor is themed on black and red, and the team collectively restrains its laughter.

Faber talks dismissively of "those amateurs in California", and generally carries on as the Great I Am... until Argas casually mentions the whispering voices. "You hear them too?" He's had them for as long as he can remember, though alcohol helps drown them out - Prohibition wasn't a good time for him. He can't account for them, but they've been present everywhere he's travelled - not that that's far from the east coast. He reckons Houlding can do a few genuine things, but thinks most of his success - much like Faber's own - comes from "people wearing their souls on their sleeves", cold-reading and the will to believe.

Argas mentions that one of their party has very different memories of magic in the USA - in New York, for that matter - but Faber can't account for this at all; he's never experienced a change in the magical climate like the one Argas is positing.

It's dark, and getting on towards evening. There aren't any cabs, so the team walks out - anyone in the area who might have thought about preying on foreign soldiers isn't willing to take on a group of four of them who look as though they know how to look after themselves.

Miss Vane calls Houlding, who's very happy to hear from them, and invites them out to his home in Glen Cove - "take a cab, I'll pay". It's around half an hour's drive once they're out of the city, and Houlding's house on the shore is quite substantial - with a wall and gate round the grounds. A butler pays the cab driver and ushers them into the library, where a white-haired man rises to greet them. He's in his sixties but clearly quite hale, and engages the group in a long discussion about thaumaturgical theory and praxis.

It turns out that Houlding was in the Golden Dawn back when it was going strong in England, in the 1890s. He doesn't know why European techniques don't work here in the USA, but explains that he's studied what he can find of the Indians' approach and managed to blend together something that seems to work well. He doesn't know of any Indians who's be available to talk to now, but he can ask around. In fact he's going to be conducting a little ritual himself this evening, a general magical protection for the USA - perhaps the team's magicians would care to assist?

After a rather fine dinner, the team is ushered into Houlding's working room, which is clearly a permanent setup. Kingsthorpe, Argas and Miss Vane take the three open positions in his circle, with Nordmann watching from outside. The ritual procedures are clearly a mixture of European hermetic and other things, though it's not at all clear which of them might be Indian or taken from elsewhere and which might be invented by Houlding. The use of a spanner as a ritual implement certainly isn't something they've seen before...

Overall, things take roughly the expected form, with a sealing of the circle and an invocation of spirits... until Houlding, walking past Kingsthorpe, plunges his ritual knife into Kingsthorpe's guts. Kingsthorpe does his best to backpedal, but is still badly wounded, and falls down. Miss Vane, who's on the far side of the circle, charges directly across it, scuffing the chalk marks; Argas, who's closer, slams into Houlding, but fails to knock him over. Houlding slashes at Argas, wounding him; Miss Vane grabs Houlding, and Kingsthorpe tries to get up, but the effort is too much for him and he loses consciousness. Nordmann heads round the circle to get to the fight; Argas steps back, and Miss Vane tries to bear Houlding to the ground, unfortunately getting the leverage wrong and losing her own balance.

Nordmann, who's drawn his pistol, shoots at Houlding. The bullet strikes an invisible barrier, which shatters, raining down irregular shards of something like glass, which vanish as they hit the ground. Argas cuts at Houlding's right arm, calling on him to surrender; Houlding drops the knife as his arm is injured, then charges at Argas, grappling him. Miss Vane tries to grab his ankle from the ground; Nordmann shoots again and hits, and Argas makes another cut with his free knife-arm, at which Houlding finally falls unconscious.

There's a cautious scratching at the door, and the butler's voice calls "I know you said you didn't want us to disturb you while you're working, but...". Argas tries to imitate Houlding's voice, but doesn't do a good job of it, and the butler comes in, clutching a poker, with a woman - presumably the cook - behind him with a frying-pan. He sends her to call the police, and the team doesn't object - they spend the time patching up the wounded (including Houlding), though Kingsthorpe's injury will need more than common bandaging. There's a pair of shiny metallic spots on the floor near where he was standing - they look as though they might be electrical contacts, perhaps leading to a cellar, but there isn't an opportunity to check.

When the police arrive - this is a fairly rich area, and they don't often get calls like this, so it takes a while - they arrest both the team and Houlding, on general principles. Everyone's taken away variously in police cars and ambulances.

[14 January 2012]

Argas, Nordmann and Miss Vane use their one phone call to contact Alexander, who (after fondly dismissing the old friend with whom he's been spending time) starts things moving: he gets the hotel to procure him a fast car and driver, then contacts the British Consulate in New York to get hold of someone who can help. Matthews stays at the hotel in case of further trouble.

On the drive out to Glen Cove, Swann explains to Alexander that he has some connections with the British intelligence services and at least informally with the American ones - though they tend rather to tread on each other's toes. The two get to the police station around 9pm, and Swann easily breezes in to see the prisoners. It seems that Houlding, in his brief intervals of consciousness, is babbling about how "the voices" told him to do things, and although the team suspects this may actually be true they aren't about to interfere. Even so, Swann reckons he'll need to bring in higher powers, and leaves briefly to call a colleague at the FBI.

That man arrives later, and introduces himself as Special Agent David Holtzmann. He asks some questions about just when the prisoners spoke to "Douglas Smith", who turns out to be Faber; once he's established just when they left, which is apparently confirmed by witnesses, he reveals that Smith was found dead on the campus of Columbia University at around 8pm this evening. But the preliminary medical examination suggested he'd been dead for at least a day... and, that being a bit strange, the FBI were asked for their technical help.

Holtzmann is clearly looking for a little mutual assistance, though he doesn't spell it out: help the FBI with this case, and he'll at least get the Glen Cove matter put on hold. The team agrees, with a strong recommendation that some police force hang on to Houlding even if he should become lucid - Alexander in particular would like to sit in on his interrogation, if that should be possible.

Holtzmann and Swann take the team, including the patched-up but still wobbly Major Kingsthorpe, back to New York, and they meet Matthews at Bellevue Hospital where the autopsy is being conducted. There they meet NYPD Lieutenant Brennan, who's clearly quite annoyed at the FBI - and these foreigners! - taking over his case when he just wanted some technical advice.

Still, he's prepared to share information, if grudgingly. The body was found around 8pm, slumped on a bench in some open ground between university buildings. He appears to have suffered a massive stroke, but while body temperature would indicate a death around 7pm there's been rather more decay than that would account for. There are also two needle marks: one fairly small on the left shoulder, and one rather larger over the right femoral artery.

---

Quote: (Alexander) That doesn't match any pattern of drug use with which I'm familiar...
(Lt Brennan) (double-takes)

---

The larger mark, while it is round, doesn't look like anything therapeutic; Argas reckons it might be from an embalming needle or something of that nature. There's a blood spot on the inside of Smith's jacket, but nothing on his trousers, and no sign of blood where he was found. Toxicology will take some time, but is in progress.

Working on the basis that Houlding might have been trying to cover his tracks, Miss Vane phones Margaret Moran, who doesn't sound at all distressed. Holtzmann and the team pay her a surprise visit, around 11pm; she's surprised to see them, but invites them in, and seems further surprised when Holtzmann mentions Smith's death - and even more so when Major Kingsthorpe tells her of their experience with Houlding. She says she hasn't had any reason to worry about either of them, nor seen any recent changes in their behaviour.

Alexander takes Holtzman aside and distracts him with talk about jurisdiction and cooperation (the team will be free to travel in the USA, but checking in with local FBI offices would be considered polite), while the Major talks further with Moran about Houlding's magical techniques. She got the impression from time to time that he was hinting at blood sacrifice, but she didn't respond and he didn't take the matter further. He's reasonably wealthy, and seemed genuinely to be involved in magic for the chance to learn more about the workings of the universe - the public good wasn't exactly a top priority, though he did talk about defending the country from baleful foreign magical influence.

It's not quite clear to Moran when the New York occult community began to drift apart - the Society for Psychical Research sucks up a lot of the people who might otherwise be interested, and a lot of people seemed to start drifting away in the late 1920s, to Europe or California. She herself is thinking about moving out for a few days, maybe to take a break in a hotel.

Wednesday, 31 December 1941

It's New Year's Eve. Argas and Nordmann spend most of the morning walking around the Columbia campus, getting a feel for the lie of the land. The bench where Smith was found has clearly had a lot of policemen trampling around the area; there's no trace evidence visible. The Pupin Lab, where Fermi is thought to be working, is just barely in line of sight.

The pair call Miss Vane, and they decide to find out what they can about Fermi's work here. There are some lights on in Pupin, though clearly most people have gone home for the holidays; they descend unchallenged, ignoring locked side doors, to the radiation lab, where a stooping man in his thirties greets them with a somewhat distracted air and a slight German accent. He seems mostly to be thinking about the calculations he's making, considering whether an atomic fission process might be controllable enough to produce useful power.

There are several shielded cans labelled with radioactive hazard markings; Argas and Nordmann both reckon that if this were happening in England they'd be severely debilitated. Here, though, they feel no worse than the general disorientation and whispering that they've been suffering since they came to North America.

Nordmann surprises him by talking sense about the subject, and Dr Kusch agrees to allow them to treat him to lunch (though he's mildly disappointed when they say they were looking for Fermi, apparently treating him as second best). He's quite friendly, though, and over lunch they raise the topic of the body. Kusch says he'd seen the man around every few weeks, though he's fairly vague on times; he's much more interested in the promise of cheap power for everyone...

With a bit of prodding and back at his lab, Kusch checks his timetables and thinks he probably saw Smith on Tuesday afternoons and evenings. There are a few public lectures then, and a variety of informal study groups (mostly science, engineering and medicine - Columbia has an arts programme, but that's not its real strength). There's also the Capablanca Club, a chess and chat society.

The three feed this information back to Holtzmann at the FBI, and he arranges that some students will be checked up on to get more information about these various groups.

Meanwhile, Matthews has been out in Central Park, attempting to talk to the plants. When he opens himself to anything they might be sending, the voices get stronger.

Nordmann tries to heal Argas by drumming - he feels that he's almost there, and if he just spilled a little blood... he could always do more healing afterwards... but he resists the temptation.

Alexander rests up in the afternoon in preparation for a night of debauchery.

Thursday, 1 January 1942

Brennan calls the team to let them know that they've got some information back: Smith has been going to the Capablanca Club for about a year, and has more or less taken it over by force of personality. He's caused some ructions by stealing people's girlfriends (and occasionally boyfriends). There's another regular missing: Simon Jacobs, who hasn't been seen for a few days. The NYPD are about to go over his apartment...

Jacobs is clearly reasonably wealthy, since he has private lodgings close to the university. When the police break down the door, there's a strong smell of chloroform, and other less obvious chemicals. There's clearly been a struggle; Argas reckons it was between two people, one pretty tall (close to Smith's height) and one rather smaller (matching the clothes in Jacobs' closet). The larger man was at some point lying on the couch, and there's a small bloodstain consistent with the femoral needle; there are also around three pints of blood, stored in bottles with anticoagulant.

Argas and Miss Vane take a look at some of the notebooks scattered about the place, and works out what Jacobs has been up to - he's not entirely candid in his notes, possibly even in his mind, so while he talks about "enhanced cellular repair" they reckon he's working on immortality by modification of the blood.

There are references to "the farm", and clearly not all the experiments mentioned could have been done here. Jacobs has family in Albany, so Holtzmann takes the team up there. They haven't heard from their son since before Christmas, when he said he was too busy studying to be able to come home; but they do reveal that they used to own a farm a way out of town.

It's getting dark by the time the team arrives; the farm is now part of a larger concern, but a decaying farmhouse and barn are still present. There's a little light visible, from what appears to have been a cellar under an older building but is now an underground room on its own, with a flight of steps leading down to it.

Matthews notices that the plants here aren't doing too well - even the weeds are somewhat withered. Argas scouts ahead, confirming lantern-light in the cellar and a rhythmic scraping sound. The group moves up, with Argas and Holtzman in the lead; Holtzman reads his arrest warrant, and the scraping stops. Everyone draws guns, and the team advances - Holtzman and Alexander in the lead, then Nordmann, Matthews and Miss Vane, with the wounded Argas and Major Kingsthorpe staying up top for the moment.

Inside the cellar is a basic laboratory setup - the furniture has probably been acquired locally, but the chemical apparatus must have been brought in from elsewhere. Crouching in the middle of it is a man, or mostly a man: his features resemble those of Jacobs, but he's some eight feet tall and heavily muscled, unable to stand up straight in the cellar.

Jacobs grabs up a massive lab bench and swings it one-handed at the front rank: Alexander sweeps Holtzmann to the ground as it whistles overhead. Matthews opens fire, and the rest of the team follows suit, but while their bullets are clearly damaging Jacobs it seems as though his skin is unnaturally thickened and it'll take an awful lot to bring him down. Alexander fails to get up out of the way of the bench as it comes back, and is crushed to the ground; rather than retreat, he keeps firing, and takes a second blow, bringing him to the brink of death. Finally, as guns start to run empty, Jacobs takes a step forward with the bench, then falls over, measuring his length on the floor of the cellar; he's bleeding viscous black fluid, some of which gets put into a sample bottle before it soaks into the ground, and his body is shrinking back to its normal size. At Alexander's suggestion, Holtzman cuffs the corpse.

Miss Vane provides first aid to Alexander, though he's still not in a fit state to go anywhere under his own power. Holtzman calls the local police and ambulance, and the team spends the night in Albany rather than drive all the way back to New York in their current state. Jacobs appears to have suffered a massive heart attack.

Friday, 2 January 1942

Everyone gets back to New York; Alexander is back in Bellevue. An initial look at the notes Jacobs left behind, a diary of experimentation for the last five or so years, suggests that he's been quietly getting more mad since quite an early age.

The Major and Miss Vane pore over Houlding's notes on ritual procedure, ten years or more of unindexed rantings...

Sunday, 4 January 1942

which suggest that while his statement about power from the air rather than the earth was essentially correct, power from the air requires the cooperation of the local spirits, and they need to be paid. At first he used his own blood and pain, but that wasn't enough in the long run.

Meanwhile, the team is feeling that the Webleys they've been using aren't perhaps up to the job. Matthews locates a gun store and obtains Alexander's request of a Colt .45 Government, as well as several Browning High Power pistols for himself and the rest of the party. Nordmann looks for more rounds for his rifle: nobody's got the tooling to make new cartridges, but they're able to reload his used brass.

Argas has found in the back of someone's stock-room a proper Royal Engineers swagger-stick for the Major. Nordmann finds a recent immigrant Norwegian and arranges to hire his boat for a day. They steam offshore, and - apart from some seasickness among the group - feel a strong sense of relief once they're outside the three-mile limit. Kingsthorpe enchants the stick to replace the one he lost at sea, though it's noticeable once he gets back to land that the voices have become rather clearer than before.

Sunday, 18 January 1942

After a couple of weeks for Alexander to recover (after the first day or two he's up to his usual level of activity), the team heads west on the Twentieth Century Limited, still steam-hauled, but recently upgraded with new lightweight Pullman cars: they can get to Chicago in only fourteen hours! And the voices change as they travel, though the general tenor remains the same.

Monday, 19 January 1942

Which they do, only to discover that the good-quality trains for California only leave every three days, and they've just missed one. Kingsthorpe considers calling on the leaders of the Ascended Master movement, but feels they really wouldn't have anything to say to each other.

The team checks in with the local FBI office, and - still considering the possibility of talking with Indians - finds out about the locations of reservations. There are several large ones on their route, but none close enough to visit during the train's short stops; they plan instead to break their journey on the way back.

Wednesday, 21 January 1942

The City of San Francisco, somewhat less art deco than the trains that run from New York, pulls out on time, and the team is glad they stocked up on books in Chicago.

Friday, 23 January 1942

They roll into Los Angeles' Union Station on time, and find that Alexander has telegraphed ahead to reserve rooms at the Ambassador Hotel.