Gloria Mundi Update
Morrigan, Ogma and Niamh took the remaining mind-controlled puppets and dumped them in the park, after Ogma confirmed that they weren't going to remember what had happened when they woke up. They then popped back to the pub where Winter and Tyrrhenus were waiting (drinking), and while Morrigan went out to purchase a leather choker (she's paranoid about going to the club, because someone mentioned vampires), they played cards a while.
Morrigan, meantime, found a store just out of Cambridge into Sommerville, went in, started browsing...and felt ghosts. She turned on Speak with the Dead and saw two of them, a man and a woman, cut up with a large blade. The male ghost was fairly self-aware and talked with Morrigan, but the woman still thought she was shopping at the store. Morrigan wasn't able to immediately glean anything specific out of them; the man knew he'd been murdered, but didn't remember where or when. Morrigan used a Command the Dead spell on the woman and she flipped out, telekinetically smashing the front door. The shopkeeper blamed Morrigan (not having seen what happened) and went to called the cops; Morrigan did the "air to knockout gas" thing and dropped him.
She stepped into Twilight and was almost immediately throw backwards against the wall. Figuring that this woman wasn't going to calm down anytime soon, she left the place and found their Anchor - a bloody machete in a garbage bin behind the store, obviously the murder weapon. She left just as the cops were pulling up.
The mages went to the Manray club and met up with SMG. They hadn't really learned anything new; they'd been questioned, but all had alibies. The two cabals talked about possibilities and the Seers, and one of the SMG (Rennard) mentioned that a Seer was here. Rather, a body-puppet of a Seer. Tyrrhenus and Morrigan talked with her, and she revealed that the Seers weren't overly concerned about this killer - he was weeding out the stupid ones, as far as they were concerned. She also mentioned something called the "Secret Concord," the agreement upon with the Boston Consilium was based. This was the first they'd heard of it.
Meanwhile, Winter went out to the parking lot and used Postcognition on the machete. She saw a hand punch through a car window and slice the young man open, but the odd thing was, his index finger looked a different skin color than the rest of his hand. Moving the image backwards a minute, she saw him walking toward the car with a look of brutal determination, but his skin was all the same color. Trick of the light, she figured.
Morrigan went back to the car and found the ghosts (have to be near their Anchor, after all) and used a Death 4 spell to make them more self-aware (I'll write that spell up next book I work on, I promise). She talked to the woman, now that she was aware what had happened, and learned that these folks had died near Christmastime. Figuring that the machete had killed other people since, she asked if the ghosts remembered being anywhere else than the leather store. They remembered an old carpet store on Winter Hill Avenue in Sommerville. Winter looked back in time again and focused on the time that Hangman was killed, and saw the machete lying on a bench next to a lot of other weapons. She heard the man on a telephone, talking in Spanish.
The mages decided that this wasn't their man; after all, he couldn't have killed Hangman. But he was still, y'know, killing people for no good reason, so Ogma pushed to check it out. They found the store and Winter used Augury to see if there was something dangerous inside (yes). Not knowing any better, she tried it again, and caused a small Paradox (just a Havoc; the spell hit Tyrrhenus instead, but it was just an Augury so no harm). Steeling themselves for the worst, they prepared to enter the Winter Hill Carpet Store.
Morrigan, meantime, found a store just out of Cambridge into Sommerville, went in, started browsing...and felt ghosts. She turned on Speak with the Dead and saw two of them, a man and a woman, cut up with a large blade. The male ghost was fairly self-aware and talked with Morrigan, but the woman still thought she was shopping at the store. Morrigan wasn't able to immediately glean anything specific out of them; the man knew he'd been murdered, but didn't remember where or when. Morrigan used a Command the Dead spell on the woman and she flipped out, telekinetically smashing the front door. The shopkeeper blamed Morrigan (not having seen what happened) and went to called the cops; Morrigan did the "air to knockout gas" thing and dropped him.
She stepped into Twilight and was almost immediately throw backwards against the wall. Figuring that this woman wasn't going to calm down anytime soon, she left the place and found their Anchor - a bloody machete in a garbage bin behind the store, obviously the murder weapon. She left just as the cops were pulling up.
The mages went to the Manray club and met up with SMG. They hadn't really learned anything new; they'd been questioned, but all had alibies. The two cabals talked about possibilities and the Seers, and one of the SMG (Rennard) mentioned that a Seer was here. Rather, a body-puppet of a Seer. Tyrrhenus and Morrigan talked with her, and she revealed that the Seers weren't overly concerned about this killer - he was weeding out the stupid ones, as far as they were concerned. She also mentioned something called the "Secret Concord," the agreement upon with the Boston Consilium was based. This was the first they'd heard of it.
Meanwhile, Winter went out to the parking lot and used Postcognition on the machete. She saw a hand punch through a car window and slice the young man open, but the odd thing was, his index finger looked a different skin color than the rest of his hand. Moving the image backwards a minute, she saw him walking toward the car with a look of brutal determination, but his skin was all the same color. Trick of the light, she figured.
Morrigan went back to the car and found the ghosts (have to be near their Anchor, after all) and used a Death 4 spell to make them more self-aware (I'll write that spell up next book I work on, I promise). She talked to the woman, now that she was aware what had happened, and learned that these folks had died near Christmastime. Figuring that the machete had killed other people since, she asked if the ghosts remembered being anywhere else than the leather store. They remembered an old carpet store on Winter Hill Avenue in Sommerville. Winter looked back in time again and focused on the time that Hangman was killed, and saw the machete lying on a bench next to a lot of other weapons. She heard the man on a telephone, talking in Spanish.
The mages decided that this wasn't their man; after all, he couldn't have killed Hangman. But he was still, y'know, killing people for no good reason, so Ogma pushed to check it out. They found the store and Winter used Augury to see if there was something dangerous inside (yes). Not knowing any better, she tried it again, and caused a small Paradox (just a Havoc; the spell hit Tyrrhenus instead, but it was just an Augury so no harm). Steeling themselves for the worst, they prepared to enter the Winter Hill Carpet Store.