Hazel calls Adam and Ray and expresses concern about her brother, a student at Mandrake University in Eastfield, WI. He seems to think someone's trying to kill him, he can't go to the police, and weird things are going on. Hazel talks Adam and Ray into going with her to check on her brother, and she also calls Kathy in Colorado, who comes out to Wisconsin with her brother Didier.
They find Hazel's brother, Jason, at his campus lab. He apparently hadn't been home for several days, not feeling it was safe. He said a woman had been following him, and this mark had appeared on his arm. They took him to a hotel and all got some rest (this all being late Friday night).
Preliminary research on the "goings on" in Eastfield revealed trouble between students and police, students rioting and protesting, police brutality, etc. Jason was also concerned about a "tattoo" that had recently appeared on his forearm. He said it was the same as was found on three recently dead men, all former members of a cult called the "Order of the Ebon Tower" from the 1930s. Reports on the deaths indicated all three men died of natural causes, and they were elderly. A prof at Mandrake recognized their tattoos as being the symbol for the Order of the Ebon Tower.
The university seemed to be experiencing a drug craze of epidemic proportions. Jason, a chemistry student, had been developing a compound that would block the euphoric effects of this drug, "pixie dust," in the hopes of combating people's addictions. The frats seemed especially hard hit. When Kathy, Didier went to Jason's frat house to try and retrieve his notebook, they found everyone in the house pretty much wasted on this drug. They found tabs of it freely lying around the house. They also found that Jason's room had been ransacked and his notes destroyed.
Jason was not feeling well so Ray took him and Hazel to a clinic, then went to do some research of his own, trying to find more on this "Order of the Ebon Tower." Meanwhile Kathy, Didier, and Adam located the house of the drug dealer, but no one was home. Jason turned out to have pneumonia and was taken back to the hotel to rest.
We regrouped briefly, then Hazel and Adam went to campus to talk to Prof. Wallace, who had identified the Ebon Tower tattoo. Kathy, Didier, and Ray stayed at the hotel and attempted to piece together some of Jason's notes. As Adam and Hazel were leaving the professor's office, they spotted a woman matching the description of the woman Jason said had been following him. They intercepted her and learned she was the daughter of the woman who had been "high priestess" of the Order back in the 1930s, who had subsequently been committed to an institution. They learned more about "the Queen" and "the Man of the Lake," some hint that this drug craze was connected, and after they talked to her they noticed the same marks had appeared on their arms.
Hazel and Kathy went out "to get dinner" and disappeared for a couple hours. Adam and Didier were for going back to the drug dealer's house and trying again to speak to him. Ray insisted he go along, but Adam didn't want to leave Jason alone. In the end, Adam stayed behind with Jason (who was sleeping) while Ray and Didier went to check out the house.
There was no response at either door of the two-level duplex. Finally Didier picked the lock of the upstairs door and the two entered cautiously. Inside they found seven people in the living room completely tripped out on the drug. Five, in fact, were connected intravenously to a samovar-like thing in the corner of the room, from which ran a number of tubes carrying an orange fluid. The people were alive, but completely unresponsive.
When Ray and Didier explored downstairs, they found about two dozen people likewise connected to these tubes. They also found what appeared to be the former tenants of the apartment, an elderly couple, murdered. It appeared that they had been dead for some time. The man had been stabbed multiple times, in fact still had five knives in his back, and the woman's neck appeared to have been broken. The other people who were hooked up to the tubes were alive, but barely.
While they were downstairs, they heard a car pull up outside, and a single car door slam. Ray raced upstairs and intercepted a young man as he came into the kitchen and started putting away groceries. Didier patted him down and Ray cuffed him, then they started interrogating him. He identified himself as Scott Garrick. Didier called Kathy (who had Hazel with her) and Ray called Adam, and soon they were all together again in the kitchen of this duplex.
There was much arguing over what to do. Kathy declared she was taking over, the police would NOT be called, and she was taking the suspect into "custody." Ray went ballistic until Didier and Adam wrestled him to the ground and Kathy gave him a talking-to. Ray stormed off in a huff and left Kathy to deal with things. An hour or so later they all regrouped at the hotel and Kathy shared with the others a letter on NSA letterhead declaring her in charge of things. A tentative truce was reached and the party called it a day, planning the next day to visit the Switzman estate to look for Marion Switzman's diary. As they were getting ready for bed, Ray, Kathy and Didier all discovered they now had this mark on their arms too.
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