About this time, Didier comes in and says there's a detective from the San Francisco police out here who's looking into the disappearance of Kay and would we come talk to him. We joined them at the restaurant, along with Hazel. Kathy was nowhere to be found, as usual (she was looking for the guy's car, it turned out later, and didn't find it).
Detective Joseph Fowler introduced himself and showed us his badge and asked questions about Kay's disappearance. Adam, Didier, and Hazel filled him in the best they could, omitting certain details about ghosts with no faces, phantom rats, etc. Ray withdrew from the conversation and studied the man. He had a weird feeling about him, and the more time went on, the less Ray wanted to speak to him. (Ray is usually pretty good at reading people--whether they're lying, nervous, afraid, drunk or tripped out, seem to have a hidden agenda, etc.--he could get NO reading on the guy. He seemed to be a complete blank. Ray had never encountered such a thing before and it gave me the creeps. Also, he never blinked. Ray relayed this to the others after he left.)
Didier went out looking for Kathy and found a note on his windshield saying that she had not been able to find the "detective"s car (and it was a SMALL town), and that she was going up to the observatory. I (Ray) got on the phone and called San Francisco PD and asked if they had a Detective Fowler who was supposed to be here investigating. They were agitated, saying he'd been missing for three days, and if I had indeed seen him, would I please tell him to call in. I had a bad feeling about this guy.
We encountered Kathy on the path up to the observatory as she was hurrying back down. I affirmed her suspicions about Fowler and she said she'd gone up to warn Wicks (the astronomer) that he might be in danger and that he should lock himself in. We decided we'd need to intercept Fowler and "talk" to him. Hazel and Adam went back down the path to delay/distract him (or hide and watch him?) and Kathy, Didier and I hurried back up to the observatory.
Wicks let us in and we took position, expecting Fowler any minute. The plan was that when Fowler arrived, Wicks would let him in and Kathy would be just behind the door, step out and clock him and I would step in if she needed additional assistance. Well, all I can say is, don't try this on someone you think might be a demon.
Fowler came in, Kathy stepped out and hit him in the gut, HARD, with the butt of her weapon, but it seemed to have no effect. At the same time I stepped in and tried to hit him in the back of the neck, but he pushed me away, sending me flying several feet back and knocking me into a bookcase. He grabbed her rifle, in the process shooting himself in the leg (which I didn't see). Didier tried to attack him and he threw Didier back across the room; Didier hit the wall, fell to the floor, and stayed there. I collected himself enough to draw my weapon and fire it, once, twice, three times into his midsection. The blast should have knocked him over, not to mention leaving a crater in his chest. Instead, the bullets sort of disappeared into him as if he were made of jello. And then he changed. He bubbled, grew bigger, his skin dissolved, showing just muscle underneath, enormous wings expanded out of his back, and where arms had been now were tentacles. There was no face, only the memory of a face, or thought of where a face might be, but even without eyes you knew it was looking at you.
Ray crumpled on the floor, hiding his face from the horror. Kathy bolted for the open door and nearly collided with Adam and Hazel, who had been hurrying up the path, unable to find Fowler. (I'm not real clear on what happened next--I think Hazel freaked out at the sight of the thing, but Adam grabbed her ankhs (all of them, since he wasn't sure which was the right one) and as best as he could started chanting the spell that was meant to dispell demons. The demon paused, looked at him (HOW, we're not sure, since it didn't have eyes), and then beat its wings and was gone.
Catching our breath. Gradually we recovered our wits enough to all come back into the observatory kitchen and lock the doors. Didier had a concussion from being thrown against the wall, and Ray wasn't feeling too great himself. We expected further attack any second. But in a moment of quiet waiting, we thought we heard someone screaming, somewhere. Could it be Kay? The astronomer had said he'd heard what sounded like a woman screaming, but never found anything and couldn't tell where it had come from. This time we listened carefully. It almost sounded like it was coming through the solid rock of the mountain, against which the observatory was built.
We poked around the kitchen and succeeded in finding a hidden door opening on a long dark tunnel leading back into the rock. It was quiet again, but the screams had to have come from down there.
Leaving Wicks and Didier in the kitchen as rear guard, the rest of us crept down the tunnel.
At the end of a long tunnel we found a big open cave. Lying atop a big stalagmite was Kay. It looked like someone had been practicing Acupuncture from Hell on her. Her body was full of needles. There were gaping wounds in her head and back. Somehow, she was still alive. We got her down carefully and were trying to decide if she could be moved when things got really interesting.
(Forgive me, my memory on this is a little fuzzy, and Ray completely blacked out, I think). Didier and Wicks came running into the cavern from up the tunnel. Two demons showed up. A form materialized that we recognized as Kage, one of the monks from the monastery, except he sort of sloughed off his human shape and turned into something horrible. Then Fowler turned up again. Hazel commanded him to attack Kage, and he did, though it's not clear if he did so because she told him to, or of his own accord. The two demon creatures fought each other as the humans grabbed Kay and whatever gibbering members of their group were not really thinking on their own.
It seemed to end with Fowler defeating Kage, but we didn't really stick around to watch. Actually I think Kage escaped.
As we left the observatory, we saw a helicopter with "TEMCO" on its side take off from the back side of the observatory. We got Kay in someone's station wagon and started driving for the city, calling ahead for a Medivac helicopter, which met us part of the way. She was airlifted to a hospital and the rest of us got hotel rooms in San Francisco.
Previous Entry (14) Back to Journals Next Entry (16)
[Home] [Introduction] [Characters] [Scrapbook] [Rules]