Dangers

December 2, 2008

The group is worried about Stephen.  They hurry out of the house and try to get back to the Rayne place to do something about Stephen.  On the way, the spirit inside keeps trying to manifest itself and control Stephen.  He resists being controlled in full but his hands start trying to get loose of the restraints he insisted upon.  And the smell of blood in such small quarters is getting to Gordon.  Eventually, the spirit attempts to throw Stephen, and itself, out the door of the moving vehicle.  Again, the others stop him but it is close. 

When they get back to their house, Stephen performs a cleansing ritual to rid himself of the spirit.  As he finishes, both he and Daniel feel magic being worked.  Daniel uses his sight to see around the house and the grocery store has what looks like blood forming the words, "The blood will cotinue until the raijnes appear".  (Raijnes being the older version of Rayne.)  Daniel tells the others and Carter and Gordon go to check it out while the others gather some things before leaving.  Stephen gets a phone call from Julie that other sites have this wording with bodies there. 

Carter and Gordon see the wording on the wall and it trails to the back door of the grocery, owned by Doug Smith.  The back door is open and the screen door is off its hinges.  They go inside and start looking around.  They see the blood trail continue down the stairs.  They follow the blood as it goes to the freezer.  Gordon opens it as Carter peers in to see several vampires.  Carter yells for Gordon to shut the door.  Gordon shuts it and holds on as the door gets pounded and dented from the other side. 

Finally, Daniel, Michael and Stephen are ready to follow.  They head outside and see the words, but the back door is shut.  They go around front.  Doug greets them and starts talking to them when Stephen tells him to get upstairs and lock the doors NOW.  Doug does without any further questions.  They go into the back area trying to find the other two.  Daniel and Stephen again sense magic but it's tough to narrow it down.  They finally start downstairs and find it empty.  They don't even find Carter and Gordon. 

The pounding on the door stops and Gordon and Carter are worried about this.  Gordon stays by the door while Carter goes back up the stairs and looks around.  He doesn't see anything so goes back down.  As he gets to the bottom, there is now movement on the stairs and the vampire he saw in the freezer is coming down the stairs!  He opens fire, hitting in the knees, but nothing stops the vampire.  Gordon leaves the door and also comes over and shoots.  A vampire grabs Carter from behind and slams into the back wall.  Another vampire, again from the freezer, slams Gordon to the ground. 

Daniel and Stephen sense magic and look around, finding a scar in Space.  They grab Michael and open up the portal, stepping through to a dingy basement looking area.  There are some storage shelves and Gordon and Carter are there, just staring at each other.  It seems as if they are bruising and bleeding at times and the sense of magic about them is strong.  Daniel and Stephen manage to break them out of the spell, which Daniel recognizes as a Mind spell.  They have no damage and are fine but a bit shaken at what was happening. 

One of the group notices a figure hiding in some shadows and attacks, killing a Nosferatu in one massive blow.  They look on at the body and wonder what to do.  They find a way out and recognize that they are only a mile from their house.  They call and let Doc know and start walking back.  They talked about things they could do with the building and the vampire but end up leaving.  They do think to call Persephone but realize it is daylight. 

They get back and it's time to check on the grave of the brother.  Carter, through Hendricks, arranged to meet the sheriff, Brad Cromwell, at the cemetary to check the body.  They rush over there, get through the paperwork, and then take the casket back.  When they finally open it, they find it empty.  More calls to Hendricks and they also find out that while that morning, the brother's bank account had money in it, it's now gone.  Camera footage doesn't help as they are out.  Even several blocks worth of surveillance footage is out, hiding the car long enough for it to merge into traffic. 

For an hour, they track down every lead they can think of to no avail.  Carter calls Hendricks several times with ideas that don't go anywhere.  They are about to have Hendricks and his team pour through the footage to track the car when one of them has a great idea.  [I don't remember what it was right now.]  This gets them a hotel where they find the brother is staying.  They track the car to a hotel and go there and then find the brother has left again.  They follow him as he goes out into the suburbs and then the countryside.  When they realize he is coming back along the road, they set up an ambush.  They have one group with one vehicle pretending to change a tire and the other group, with Carter, snipes Randall's tire.  When he stops and asks for help, they pull their weapons and he turns and runs.  They catch him, and disable more tires, and he immediately starts saying that he through Correy would be safe this way, if he just disappeared.  The group realizes he was a mule and being used and they want him to tell them more. 

"Okay, I will talk." 

DM Notes

• This was a tough session on me.  I kept forgetting about Hendricks and his resources.  I didn't want them all not to work but I didn't want it to be as easy as a 24 episode.  So, it took some very good thoughts on their part before they found a lead. 
• I think I will be better prepared, now that I have an idea of what they will try.  And I think they should still try those things.  It works for me.
• I liked that I worked in two cases at once.  It allowed me to have things keep moving or something to happen if things got too slow or they didn't have an idea.  A bit dramatic but it works.