Nadia Gage wasn't working that night. It was just Cameron, Mick and Fonz. Fonz got in an argument with a customer at the register and Mick sent the new recruit to help the excitable teenager. A fit woman in her thirties, clad in a Tom of Finland type leather jacket and peaked cap covered in buttons, stared at the menu. The raccoon on her shoulder stared at it, mimicking her. Fonz yelled at her that animals weren't allowed in the store. Cameron took over and asked her more gently to put the creature outside. It was a health code violation. She looked at him like she realized for the first time where she was. She had been somewhere else. She wasn't used to ordering food in restaurants, or hearing any voice besides her own. The buttons on her coat all read the same thing:
EXPLORERS OF THE FURTHEST REALMS
All in different colors but all with a wedjat, an eye of Horus. She picked up the racoon and put it on the floor. It obediently waddled to the exit and waited until she opened the door and allowed outside. Then she ordered a family sized bucket. Cameron gave her three of the ten "special" pieces that Nadia had told him to distribute at his discretion. The lady in the jacket paused to peer around the interior partition at the bathroom door, then left the store. She gave a drumstick to the racoon, who ate it in a circular motion like an ear of corn.
With that resolved, Mick lisped to Cameron that he had another job for him tonight. He was the only member of the away team who hadn't yet been involved in a crime. His job was to take this box of two sandwiches and a chicken fries to this address in the south side of town to meet up with Hank, who would have further orders for him.
Earlier that day, in his day job with the Church, Deacon Moses attended the groundbreaking at the Fisher Court permanent low income housing development in East Wenatchee. Edgar Vespier the car dealership owner represented the Grace Church and the consortium of local financial backers, while burger flippers Alice Alcazar and Neal Zamorro were the faces of Burger King and its parent Restaurant Brands International. The Deacon suspected that their traditional married couple act was a show to convince the socially conservative churchgoers they were on the level. Whatever. Not his problem. The dinosaur chase and associated covert operations had given him a new lease on life.
A carload of DHS goons pulled up to the scene. The three ICE officers from earlier, with backup. They heard "low income housing" and rolled up to the event assuming it was a gathering for migrants, not realizing that it was a white bread event for corporate backers and normie Evangelical Protestants. They spotted Alice and got even angrier. Ed Vespier dispersed the feds with a flick of his finger, tossing a quarter in their path. Like he cast a spell on them, the armed federal agents got back in their SUVs and drove away without further incident. Moses picked up the coin. Someone scratched devil horns and a compound eye onto George Washington's profile.
Convinced that Ed was part of the conspiracy corrupting His church and energized by his new risk-loving attitude, Moses tried to lift the petty tyrant's phone from his pocket. Ed grabbed him by the hand. Like a Bene Gesserit box test, Moses' hand exploded with pain. Whatever was in Ed's pocket must have been superheated. When he finally allowed Moses to withdraw, the Deacon found the mark of the beast burned onto the back of his hand. 6 6 6. The idiotic risk had, however, given him a significant charge for the new magick school he picked up earlier.
Still wanted by the feds but unwilling to abandon the Cadre, Hank was holed up on the south side of town. During his Army service he learned to work on cars and an elderly Mexican man with a cowboy hat and an eyepatch sheltered him in exchange for fixing up people's vehicles. The old guy trusted the Colonel's Secret Coterie and was willing to risk harboring a fugitive to help them. Cameron and Moses met him there and they went over the facts of the case.
Moses got a phone call mid-conversation from his wife. She got a phone call from the bank asking about suspected fraud involving their account. Did he know anything about that? He told her he'd handle it and he loved her, and then hung up. He thought about it for a second. He had a way to deflect further attention from the feds. He needed another charge and knew how to get it. He called his wife back and told her that actually the fraud alert was from the woman he was having an affair with, who he gave access to the account. His wife asked if it was that fat White bitch with the fucked up teeth from all the church functions. He said it was. She swore a blue streak at him and hung up the phone.
By risking the destruction of his marriage the Deacon got the mojo he needed to cast an Entropomancy spell. He rewrote an event from his recent past. At the affordable housing groundbreaking, he decided that Manny Mordigian and Sebastian Tabajaras were on the scene. The pair of detectives, in charge of the Federal investigation while Esme took a red eye cross country from Kentucky, saw Ed Vespier use magick to put the mark of the beast on the back of the Deacon's hand. They'd latch onto that and never let go, forgetting all about the KFC angle.
Hank still had the laptop stolen from the federal agent. If they could get into it, they could figure out what the feds knew and work out a longer term solution. Nobody in the group knew Maria Menchaca, but Nadia mentioned to them that she could find information that Orlock's dowsing couldn't dig up. They got in Cameron's car and went down to the waterfront market.
Maria sat in the outdoor area of the taproom and drank beer with Sauza the Bridge Troll. The monster had never met anyone in the Cadre that night, but he recognized them by smell as KFC workers slinging special orders. He made Maria pay for his beer when the Cadre took her away for an urgent meeting in the parking lot. She told them she could summon a demon that knew all kinds of secrets, but for best results they should do it at her house where she had all her gear. She was buzzed and not good to drive, so they chauffeured her.
Maria's house was in the foothills on the west side of town. The exterior was damaged like something exploded inside and the repairs weren't finished. She took the Cadre into the basement and sifted through all the bondage gear she had piled up. Her Saint Andrew's Cross was busted as though by a bomb blast. She picked out a spreader bar, cuffs and rope to achieve the same effect. Moses pulled on the pair of polyester Hawaiian print pants necessary for the ritual. Maria locked him in the restraints and arranged the summoning items: candles and a picture of Bob Hope. She told everyone to remember what they were trying to get out of this conversation and avoid being sidetracked by the demon Fancy Pants' bullshit. Then she invited the spirit to return from the death that men say never dies and tell her of the place it had been.
Moses felt the demon speak through his mouth. It was delighted that Maria still wanted to talk with it after the incident involving the Del Rubio necklace, the magick item that split her into three people when she put it on at Fancy Pants' recommendation. He was happy to torment her again, but she made a counteroffer: she'd leave him here tied up in the body of this middle aged Black preacher forever if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know. A big long Curb Your Enthusiasm style argument broke out between the demon, the Cadre and the possessed Moses, who tilted his head to the side to argue with the spirit riding him. The demon threatened to bite off his tongue. The Cadre offered it limited freedom and to help it destroy the enemies of the working man. They cajoled the spirit into giving up the password to the laptop, then it tricked Cameron into handfeeding it and bit off one of his fingers. Cameron had just smoked a blunt and scarfed a mouthful of charged chicken fries Nadia left out for him before the operation, so his finger grew back as an articulated chicken bone. The demon spat the finger out and the negotiation continued.
Fancy Pants offered information that would break up the coalition the Court of the Burger Queen had built. In exchange he wanted control of Maria's body. Maria told him to get fucked, even when he promised not to damage her. Cameron saw an angle. Maria was helping the Cadre because they helped her and because she felt guilty about all the trouble that she and the demon had caused in the past. He guilted her into allowing the demon control, on the basis that it was the same thing she'd done to all those middle aged men she picked up in bars. They all lived to tell the tale, why couldn't she take one for the team? He was high and accidentally called her mommy during the negotiation, which may have helped or made the situation worse. Who could say?
Maria touched Moses on the head. Fancy Pants sucked her finger but didn't bite. Then he left the priest's body and possessed the disgraced cop. The demon as Maria blinked, then gave up the secret: The 33rd Regiment of Foote was recruiting lots of new members to form a self defense militia for Latin day laborers, migrant farmworkers and other dispossessed elements at risk of disappearance by the DHS goons. Meanwhile Sebastian Gentry was kidnapping people from that same population and using them as fodder for his experiments at the Bible Museum, feeding them black apples to return them to a Garden of Eden state of innocence. If this information came to light the Court would have to choose which side to back, they wouldn't work together.
Possessed Maria pulled her gun and mimed killing herself. The Cadre rushed to stop her and Fancy Pants laughed. Made them look. Then he told them to untie Moses and get the fuck out, he had business with his old friend. Payback for all those years of torment. The Cadre went upstairs. Hank was concerned that the demon might inflict more mischief. He took Cameron's severed finger, pan seared it like yakitori and garnished it with pickles. He loaded a Gourmeturgy spell into it that would tell him the demon's urge and help him take control of it, if the possessed Maria ate the grotesque otsumami.
A yelp came from downstairs. Had he already got started on Maria? Was he mutilating his possessed body? Hank rushed down to the basement. Maria/Fancy Pants lay on the couch, pants discarded, violently fiddling with herself. The Cadre froze, unsure what to do. Maria shouted in her own voice, not the raspy cadence of the demon, to shut the fucking door. So they did. They took the computer, got into the car and left, borrowing a little plastic takeout container from Maria's kitchen to store the grilled finger.
The Cadre sat on a bench in a park outside a Methodist church booted up Esme's laptop without connecting it to the internet. They just wanted to see what the Special Agent in Charge stored locally, not access FBI networks and immediately give up their position. Activating the computer alone probably allowed the bureau to track its location, but that's why they picked a location where they didn't work or live. The demon's password worked and they got into Esme's files.
The basic arc was this:
The basic arc was this:
- Esme annoyed with Special Agent Manny Mordigian of the fertilizer inspection unit, ranting about demons and daycares and Satanic ritual child abuse instead of investigating domestic terrorism. Palling around with that stupid paranormal investigator Sebastian Tabajaras from the Cold Case Foundation.
- Agent Mordigian bringing her a real mad bomber's workshop with a big barrel of ANFO and a Satanic conspiracy corkboard.
- Esme's mounting excitement as she detects an honest to God occult conspiracy involving the church, fast food restaurants, secret militias, monster sightings and clumsy attempts to cover up ritual murders.
Esme was a paranoid and violent woman addicted to the thrill of the hunt. Desk work didn't suit her. Discovering magick was like a coffee drinker trying methamphetamine for the first time.
The computer had files on many members of the Colonel's Secret Coterie. None on Hank, Moses or Cameron since they joined the investigation right before or after Esme got magicked away to Kentucky. The files on the lamplighters who worked at the restaurant were light. None of them were implicated in criminal activity, which was how the system was supposed to work. They kept their noses clean while the Cadre went out and did the dirty work.
The files on the Burger King hoods in East Wenatchee were more interesting.
- Alice Alcazar, former chauffeur. Had a concealed carry permit and usually carried a pistol. Recovered from near fatal mouth cancer, treatment paid for by productivity software startup Surf.
- Neal Zamorro, former graduate student. Injured in car accident, walked with a cane. Student loans and medical bills consolidated into debt purchased by productivity software startup Surf.
- Gideon, Hosea and Lot, Fundamentalist Mormon "lost boys" expelled from a polygamous cult as teenagers. Employed at a BK in Michigan until corporate transferred them to the Wenatchee location.
Mostly personal details the Cadre already knew or didn't care about. The real treasure was the shipping schedule. They knew that the Court got shipments of Special Orders through a centralized distribution network, blocks of frozen meat blessed by the hand of the Burger Queen. They had dates, times, trucks... If they wanted to start a war by crippling the Court's operations, knocking over one of those trucks would be the way to do it.
Moses took the stolen laptop to one of Edgar Vespier's dealerships, intent on connecting to the wifi there and further implicating the man. The 6 6 6 brand on his hand glowed and burned as he approached the lot. The open carry guys from the Grace Church stood guard, like they were anticipating his arrival. Deacon Moses knew these guys by name. He knew their families. He could have talked his way past them, or they might have forced him to do something he really didn't want to do. So he went to a dumpster a block away before they spotted him and tossed the computer in a dumpster.
Hank wanted significant charges, and to do that he
had to cater some serious meals. He talked with the one eyed vaquero who
ran the impromptu garage about catering one of his grandkids'
quinceanera. The kid was a horse girl, which was normal, but the cowboy theme that predominated among the Wenatchee valley's Hispanic population wasn't to her liking. No, she wanted to try Mongol food. Dumplings, boiled lamb, butter tea, fried bread, the works. There was a Mongolian place in town but it just served the same American Chinese food you could get anywhere. Hank said he'd make some calls. Most of it he could make himself, but the alcoholic yogurt wouldn't ferment overnight.
Before he was a burger warrior, Cameron was a labor organizer. He put feelers out to all the civil society orgs and the network the Colonel's Secret Coterie spent the last week building. He laid the foundations for a massive demonstration against the ICE presence in Wenatchee. One that would coincidentally shut down the highway right as the Court's burger shipment came through.
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