Saint Harley Davidson Hear My Prayer

Matthew is at a local Harley Davidson “mecca” (shop, sales, and gathering place), one of several in the Metroplex getting his bike serviced.

He goes outside to go across the street to an IHOP and as he does so, hears a familiar voice. Seated on a bike he recognizes, praying of all things, is Dan “VP” Mayne. He’s grown out a beard, is wearing a doo-rag… basically he looks like he escaped from an episode of Duck Dynasty.

Dan looks sick, really, really sick. Apparently whatever happened last year didn’t completely go away and Dan’s worried. According to the VA doctor’s opinions… he’ll be dead by Christmas. Matthew and Dan head over to the IHOP to talk…

Biker Problems… Biker’s Problem… where to put the ‘S’

Matthew calls Conor and by fortunate circumstance, Erica & Ren are currently being house guests, enjoying Conor’s new Demesne (it’s in the upper 80s and humid outside… wouldn’t you go to a Nevernever reflection of Ireland that never gets higher than 68 degrees if you could?). Erica is using a room in Conor’s castle to conduct magical training and experimentation, Ren is just enjoying hanging out with Midori and Claret who also invited themselves along to drink Conor’s beer and eat his food…. in HIS CASTLE.

Leaving his guests in Sir Trouble Hammer’s capable hands to ensure they don’t tear things up too badly, Roxie, Conor, Ren, and Erica pile into the ‘58 Bell Air and head over to the IHOP. Elena is also called in to hear what’s going on, as she was directly involved with the events the first time they met Dan.

Apparently Dan contracted cancer recently, a really, really nasty brand of it. Other members of the Silver Knights Motorcycle Club (now, apparently disbanded) have also come down with cancer. Dan is now a member of Dallas’s own Scorpions MC.

After asking a bunch of questions and discussing the past year, several things are clear. First, Dan is aware of supernatural world in a way he never was before… he can’t really go back to being one of mortality’s “not clued in” populace. Second, he was in a very hispanic part of Los Angeles when the Red Court … uh … ‘left the earth’ which required a bit further explanation of the supernatural. Thirdly, they need to get some insight into what’s going on with Dan.

They leave IHOP and head to Matthew’s downtown Dallas loft and, as soon as they enter his Demesne, they see he’s surrounded by red hot lines of power that look like copper wire that’s conducting electricity.

So they decide to amend the third thing they needed… it’s not just insight they need, they need The Sight.

I Spy With My Third Eye

Jamie Harper is in Scotland, seeing to finalizing his son and newly adopted daughter attending school there at a secure facility (a school for family of Wardens). They really need “The Sight” to check out Dan a little bit better and Erica has been unable to access “The Sight” since she got back her eyes.

Conor offhand recalls that Miranda is a wizard in all by actual membership with the White Council… though she’s been fairly scarce in Dallas’s supernatural community in recent months.

After calling, and talking with Juno, they pile into their vehicles (Elena’s current throwaway and Conor’s Bell Air) and head for Highland Park. Juno answers the door, inviting none inside, and after a brief discussion is able to convince/cajole/chew out Miranda into seeing to the request of the people at her front doorway.

She arrives at the door in a nightgown and underwear, looking like she hasn’t really be taking care of herself in several days. It’s fairly clear she’s having a pity party for one (or maybe two, but Juno looks fine/great all things considered).

Miranda opens her sight on Dan and, after getting control of herself again, indicates that he’s bound and surrounded with Greek themed fire magic and maybe they should contact Jamie. She then slams the door.

The group is fairly sure Raven Harper (who initially learned magic with Jamie and her fire magic is indeed Greek themed) is the cause of the cancer in some way. They start to ask Dan questions about all that and around Thanksgiving last year he hooked up with a smoking hot redhead that rode a beautiful red Fatboy Harley. Uh oh.

Dan calls up the rest of his Silver Knights boys and they also confirm a wild party and hooking up with a smokin’ hot redhead that wore red biker leathers, rode a 2004 customized red Fatboy Harley Davidson, and had dragon wing tattoos and a red dragon “tramp stamp.”

Walking In The Spider Web… Leave A Message and I’ll Kill You

Juno reopens the door to conclude with social niceties and afterwards the group adjourns to Matthew’s loft to try and figure out what’s really going on.

Erica and Matthew start working up a huge spell to backtrack the spiritual “wire” and figure out where it’s coming from. Everyone gets involved, calling in contacts, gathering elements and components, and actually working up the ritual circle … it takes all afternoon and into early evening.

When they finally unleash the spell’s energy, it takes them to Pleasant Grove, in the heart of MS-13 turf. In fact, more specifically, to a city block comprised of four houses all communally linked together to form the HQ Compound of The Mayas Motorcycle Club. Yep, them again.

Except this time… something’s wrong. No, really wrong, even more than usual.

They adjourn for a few minutes to a nearby Taco Stand to discuss what to do. Eventually it’s decided that Conor and Elena will do some recon. Conor via the Nevernever, Elena in the physical world.

According to Conor, in the Nevernever the place looks like a Mayan temple built on a foundation of bloody human skulls and bones. In the physical world, there’s nobody alive around there. Elena’s recon turns up that the place smells like death, but there’s nothing living.

Matthew puts on his gauntlet that allows him to commune with the dead and sees dozens of “husks” semi-wraiths nearly drained of all their memories. He doesn’t really get to talk to them, however, because he sees a much larger and much more malevolent Spectre nearby.

The Spectre of Eric McCulloch in fact, except hugely fat and grossly and comically engorged.

The Re-dead-ication of Eric

Conversation was basically symbolic, even as they were chatting Eric (now that the sun had just gone down) was manifesting into they physical world and getting ready to attack.

Elena makes the offhand comic, “Be alert for zombies” which proves to be prophetic.

“I hate it when you’re right,” says Erica and Eric summons nearly a dozen animated corpses from the cemetery that forms the “Mayan HQ” backyard. As he does so he seems to lose weight.

Erica does some rudimentary sonar magic and determines that there’s only one “living” body in the compound, up on the second floor of the “main house.”

The “Main House” is not, in fact, the 2 story house which is the largest on the block. Rather, the scary looking suburban house painted over nearly every square inch with Mayan symbols (including the Mayan Calendar on the front door). Ironically, this is the same house that Jamie had been contracted to ward some years ago.

Conor goes to investigate the Mayan House while the rest (and Dan) deal with Eric and his animated groupies.

Huge destructive magics destroy swaths of the animated “zombies.” … but Eric performs powerful necromancy effects that “re-reanimate” the dead (and also seem to make him skinnier in the process). Matthew and Elena blow huge chunks of Ectoplasmic meat and fat off Eric’s massive blob-body.

Each time the zombies are dropped, they “reform” by borrowing intact parts from other nearby corpses, creating “amalgam” piles of dead flesh, rotten meat, and bone. These “meat balls” finally cross the street and engage the group in hand-to-severed-hand.

As if fighting walking piles of human meat… Eric, clearly still a master of Psychomancy… possesses Erica temporarily (causing him to grow skinnier again). Unable to do magic she doesn’t “believe in” she is able to exert enough control to pull a knife and try and stab Elena. Matthew calls upon his magic to “Counterspell” Eric’s mind-whammy and Erica snaps out of it. Meanwhile and and Elena continue to put bullets into zombie skulls.

Refusing to go down without a fight, Eric calls up more zombie “reserves” and mind-whammies Ren. Matthew is able to call upon more holy power to incinerate the zombie reserves and Erica levitates Ren into the air, rendering her unable to act.

Conor’s battle in the house comes back to the forefront when a humanoid shape is thrown from the second story building into the backyard. The human host is unrecognizable beneath all the copper wire, but the face that has taken over is … Malzen – the Nevernever Demon of Cancer from a year or more ago, apparently has returned.

Using up nearly the last of his magical reserves (and tapping into his angelic magical reserves as well), Matthew is able to roast a now “normal sized” Eric with an attack spell infused with the classics of fire as brimstone. Dan and Elena deal with the last two “meatballs” with blessed ammunition (“two” meaning, two gigantic zombie piles, formed from the corpse parts of five or so human bodies… each).

Then, they turn to deal with Malzen.

Luckily, Malzen is not yet fully into the world, the spell was incomplete. Conor and Ren the two Changelings (with an inhumanly good ability to recover from injury…) hold down the possessed host, and Matthew exorcises Malzen.

Raven’s Nest

There are no living bodies anywhere in the Mayan HQ, lots of corpses though of bikers and their women. The heroes don’t examine those too closely.

In the upstairs room, they encounter some serious Black Magic Thaumaturgy. Attached at strategic points around the room by copper wire and nails are various biohazard grade materials taken from various men (undoubtedly Raven’s various lovers… likely bikers themselves).

They study the symbols and equations used and are able to figure out what was going on… Raven was trying to replicate the effect of the Shadesphere. Each line of copper was spiritually draining the life force (and inflicting with cancer as a side effect) dozens and dozens of men and channeling that energy directly to the host body for Malzen.

Fire Works

It’s July 3, and people start shooting off fireworks early (several of the smaller neighborhoods and cities in North Texas fire off displays on the 3rd, leaving the big cities and big budget neighborhoods to shoot theirs off on the 4th) and so the group adds their own fireworks to the night… they set the Mayan compound on fire.