Kult: Broken Walls, episode 12: The End

Some time spent reassuring Raven about the pact and I'm feeling a little better.  We've got a plan, and maybe it's not a great plan, but for once I'm feeling something like hope.  As Beatrice and Raven start bickering over cocktail recipes I step away into one of the bedrooms.  I need to get Huldra's spear back, and I'm going to dream my way to it.

It feels strange to be falling asleep without the usual sense of dread.  But when the familiar feeling of being dragged back into Paradise Gardens starts I find I can stop myself and choose my own path.  My flat.  My sanctuary.  But of course there's no spear.  DCI Hunt must have known what it was.  That won't stop me though.  I reach out for it, and find myself outside my own body, watching my eyes turn white.

And then I'm in an alleyway.  Stars are shining above me, and dark skyscrapers tower over me, which should block out the stars and yet there they are.  The spear is there, sticking out of what looks like a pile of broken meat, sticky with blood.  As I reach for the spear, I realise a few things.  The blood isn't blood but black ichor, and it isn't running out of the flesh, it's running back in.  This pile of meat is a body.  It's still alive.  And it has a face.

"Jesus Christ, Nathan!"

I have a lot of questions, all of which are going to have to wait.  I carefully pull the spear out of what remains of Nathan's body and as I do so we both hear the sound of something predatory.  We're being hunted.  I need to get us out of there.  Which means I need a happy memory, and right now I'm running on empty.  I can see Nathan has questions of his own about what I'm doing, but he comes through on the memory.  A photo of him with a woman and a child.  Based on the resemblance between them she must be family.  Maybe a sister.  Somehow I never really pictured Nathan having a family.  Although given how young he looks in this photo, this is probably from before any of us ended up at Paradise Gardens.

As Nathan's face contorts from the pain of having a memory torn out of him, I grab hold of as much of him as possible and drag him through the door I've created.  For once, everything works as intended.  We're back in the penthouse, in the bathroom.  I dump the pile of meat into the tub and go and find Mary.

"I don't go on poorly planned rescue missions to other dimensions for just anyone, you know," I tell her, and find myself breaking down into hysterical laughter when I tell her that Nathan's reassembling himself in the bath.  Then I have to convince Nathan that this blonde bombshell I've just brought into the bathroom really is Mary.  He immediately starts flirting.  At least I'm in no doubt that he really is who he says he is.

Since we're all here, time to discus the plan.  Which of them are we going to sacrifice?  Lilith is out.  I'm still bound to Abaddon.  Nathan rules out Piper, or whatever she's calling herself these days.  He thinks she's bound someone, and based on that photo he gave me I can take a guess at who.  Which leaves Behemoth.

Raven's book has the ritual to summon him by name.  We shouldn't do it here though.  We don't want to have to move him, and the ritual to summon the book has to be done in some barrow on Hampstead Heath.  How Nathan knows that I have no idea, but I'm not going to argue with the pile of ichor covered knitting flesh.  Which just leaves the question of what we're going to do with Raven and Beatrice while all this is happening.  I've dragged them both through so much already.

Not that they're giving me the choice, as a drunken Raven comes stumbling into the room, takes one look at Nathan, and turns even whiter than usual.  As he drags himself off to find an unoccupied bathroom to throw up in, Beatrice joins us.  She's got no intention of being left out of this, and my protestations that I need her to look after Raven are getting me nowhere.  Mary chimes in, explaining that the three of us are far more powerful now, and can't afford to waste effort protecting her.  And while I'm pretty sure that's the truth, at least for Mary, Beatrice is having none of it.

So it's going to be all five of us.  We need to prepare.  Nathan still isn't in a fit state to go anywhere, Raven and Beatrice are drunk, and I haven't had a coffee in several hours.  Beatrice also want some weapons, and I can see her stance periodically change to that of Manius.  I think I can help with that.

There's a fancy metal dish in a pretend fireplace that will do.  Raven pricks his finger and uses his quill to draw a gladius and spear onto some paper.  That goes into the bowl, along with some other stuff that will burn.  There's supposed to be sweet herbs to make an odour.  A pinch of Raven's skunk will have to do.  I breathe in the smoke, reach into Limbo for a dream of Romans, and when I open my eyes the weapons are lying beside me.  I hand them to Beatrice.  They won't last forever, but they'll last long enough.

I can see the envy in Raven's eyes.  I tell him that if we both get out of this OK, we need to have a very long talk.  He agrees, but for now he tells me to rest.  One last - first - good night's sleep before whatever happens, happens.

When I wake up, Raven has already ordered room service and is deep in conversation with whatever staff member delivered it.  I don't normally eat much breakfast, but the way I've been missing meals lately, the idea of a freshly made omelette is quite appealing.  But while I'm eating, I suddenly become aware of a presence in my mind.  I instinctively push it away - but then I realise it's Mary, pulling the knowledge of where to find Lily's skin out of my mind.  She doesn't want to bring up Lily in front of Nathan.  And she leaves me a memory.  A conversation with Lily in the churchyard where Mary used to sleep.  Not the spiteful ghost, or the cruel fake, but Lily as I remember her.  It's enough to move me to tears.

We have to get her skin back.  Nathan isn't happy with the idea that we've got an errand to run on this of all days, and also wants to know what's got me so emotional, so we have to tell him.  After all this time, I have to do this one last thing for Lily.  So he's coming with us.

A short ride in Mary's limo later, we're outside a Georgian terrace in Holborn.  While Nathan and Mary argue over whether to take the direct or indirect approach to getting the door open, I'm already bumping the lock, and as the door swings open I'm confronted with a stench of acrid smoke.  Something is badly wrong here.  Nathan takes the lead.  We make our way up the stairs to the top floor, and then suddenly the others turn a corner and when I follow them they're gone.

Alone.  Again.  Trying not to panic.  I can't do this.  I can't do any of this without them.  But I have to do this, for Lily.  Twenty years I've spent searching for her.  I can't stop now.  I grip tightly onto Huldra's spear and push forward.  The door to the flat swings open with the lightest touch.  And there on the floor is Raven.  Bleeding.  Imploring.  Choking to death.

No, I won't believe it.  This is another trick, using his face to hurt me again.  Then I hear a voice.  Nathan's voice, telling me to wake up, and then I'm lying on the floor, next to Mary, with Nathan's face looking down at me.

Back on our feet.  We're at the real flat this time, together.  The door opens.  It all looks pretty normal, except for the dish of keys and other pocket detritus, that contains several severed fingers.  I remember that purple nail varnish.  Poor Rachel.

I remember that the skin is in a suitcase under a bed, so I follow Mary to the bedroom.  No problem finding the suitcase, but it's empty.  It doesn't take long to find out where the skin is though, when Nathan calls us into the kitchen.  Lillian is sitting there, acting like she doesn't know us and we're just some random people who are harassing her.  I'm still angry over Raven's stolen face.  Enough.  Which one is she?  She asks if I remember that conversation on the rooftop.  Abaddon.

He gives up the pretence and starts taunting us, but one way or another we're getting that skin off him.  I remember seeing him in the room in the brothel, emerging from the mouth of Damian's skin.  I tell that to Nathan, who immediately shoves a fist into his mouth and rips the spider demon right out of there.

Mary grabs the skin.  I try to draw a portal for Nathan to drop him through, but he kicks me and the spear flies right out of my hands.  His jaws snap at Nathan, dripping venom, and Nathan's too fast for him but now he's free again and blocking the door.  But Mary's back, with the suitcase, and a sudden blue wave of force comes out of her and smashes into him.  I grab the spear again.  We can't kill him yet, not while I'm still bound to him, but we can disable him.  I drive the spear into his leg.  He starts the turning to smoke trick Mildred's so fond of, but Nathan manages to break off a couple more legs before he dissipates.  By throwing a fridge at him.  A fridge.

This is it then.  Time to pick up Beatrice and Raven and summon a demon.

Nathan leads us to the barrow on Hampstead Heath.  He says there should be a staircase, but it's being hidden.  He asks us to stab him.  I understand what he's doing.  The same thing I was doing when I decided to drop acid in Raven's flat.  But there's an easier way.  I talk him through the ritual from Raven's book.  He says the words, a cloud passes across the sun for a moment, and then we're looking at a spiral staircase leading down into the barrow.

Dirt floors.  A hanging leather hide curtain.  It's all familiar.  I've been here before - or Huldra has.  Raven starts setting the place up.  We haven't discussed this, but all the knowledge is in my head.  I know what to do.  Soon the braziers are all lit.  I take my place and speak the words to summon Behemoth.

It doesn't work.

It's the same feeling I had when I tried to open the wrong door out of Limbo.  Something's not right.  Did I get the wrong name?  Should I be calling on his human name instead of Behemoth?  Raven doesn't think so.  What if the reason it didn't work is because he's not there to call on?  We've seen the other three, but none of us have seen Behemoth.

The sinking feeling in my stomach tells me he's right.  Which means we need a replacement.  A different unwilling servant.  My mind races, debating the merits of summoning Piper and risking the wrath of Nathan, sacrificing myself alongside Abaddon or trying to find someone else.  But Raven's way ahead of me.  He's no more willing to sacrifice an innocent than I am.  And I want to reassure him that we can find another way, but it's too late.  The bastard uses his bond to summon Lilith.

For a moment the room is plunged into darkness.  And then she's there, in her twinset and perfect bobbed hair, with her black eyes and cracking makeup and longer fingers with too many joints.  Raven is obviously terrified, but he's still strong enough to make one request of her.  Our safety.

We came here to sacrifice a demon, and that's what we're going to do.  Raven's given me a gift and I have to accept it.  Even though it's going to cost me everything.  I give the signal to the others.  Nathan is on her at once.  Mary pushes the two of them into the binding circle and I close it up.  She's strong, and pulls herself free of Nathan's grip, but Raven reminds her they have a pact and she can't fight it.  As Nathan ties her down I look at Raven one last time.

"You'd better come back to haunt me," I tell him.  He nods, and hands me the ritual knife.  How else would he continue to share his poetry with me?  And I step into the circle and get to work, carving symbols into Lilith's flesh.  No words.  Because if I so much as think about what I'm doing here I won't be able to do it.  The final cut is across her throat.

I've done my job.  The book is there.  The thing that was supposed to get Raven out of this mess.  Time to take a look.  It tells me the history of the Dreori people.  What use is this?  I keep turning pages.  It tells me of a sacrifice that went wrong.  Huldra's story.  Keep turning.  Then it tells me of how the book was found by some pathetic wretch in London, who read stories of himself performing powerful magic, and went on to bring more people under his influence, including the four lieutenants, and how each of them used the book but with the fourth one it all went wrong.  Lily's story.

I turn more pages, and it tells me of a magician sitting in a barrow reading a book with her friends, and then their inevitable defeat at the hands of Saklas.  Something makes me turn back, and I read again, and the story's changed.  Now I break the binding by cutting off the hand that signed the contract, but it's no good and we're defeated by Saklas.  Again, and I sacrifice myself to save the others, but it's not enough and we're still defeated.

Again and again and every ending means our defeat.  Beatrice asks us if we're fucked, and what else can I say but yes?  She bends over Raven's lifeless body and closes his eyes.  And something inside me breaks.  A single word screams inside my head.  No.  No.  This book is just like everything else.  A trick.  A liar.  I did not sacrifice Raven for this.  There is no inevitable defeat.  The pages of the book turn blank.

As for breaking the binding, well what do I care if I have one less hand?  I take the dream gladius and bring it down on my wrist.  The pain is incredible as the blade smashes through flesh and bone, but it cauterises the wound as it goes.  And then I'm free, and somehow I can feel that it's not just me.  I've broken every chain those demons had on people.  Abaddon should have listened when I told him I wanted freedom.

Someone asks me how I feel.  With what I've lost, I don't even know.  Ask me later if it was worth it.  Right now Beatrice wants to get on with finding Saklas.  So either we go back to Paradise Gardens or I can try opening a portal here.  Beatrice is all for that, but Mary says to wait.  We need all the help we can get, which means there's one last thing to do.  She opens up the suitcase, takes off an ornate ring, and lays it down on the skin.

Initially the sight is revolting, as the skin bloats like a drowned corpse.  But then suddenly everything fills out properly, and lying on the floor is Lily-Rose, as perfect and beautiful as I remember her.

"Hey, Izz."

"It's been a while."  I can barely manage a smile.  "You took some finding."

"Yeah."

No need for me to open a portal.  Lily's got this.  A wall of heat hits us, and then we're back in Inferno, in that vast cathedral.  And there he is.  Saklas, flanked by Ajulutsikael and Abaddon, and for the first time I'm not afraid of any of them.  There is nothing left to break.  There is only determination.

Of course he wants to monologue at us as he raises up his army of flayed corpses.  I don't care.  Lily's got this.  I don't know what she does to them but every one falls to the ground.  Enough talk.  It's time to end this.  Mary unleashes her blue energy wave again and I see the three of them shaken.  Nathan hurls himself at Piper.  But I have my own methods.

I hand Huldra's spear to Beatrice.  I'm not much use with only one hand, and she knows what to do with it.  Instead I take the knife and draw blood from the stump of my wrist, saying the words to bring forth nightmares.  I remember Abaddon on that rooftop with his quid pro quo bullshit.  You want to play Hannibal Lector with me?  I'll show you fucking Hannibal Lector.  And I can feel a strength I didn't have before.  Why stop at one?  All those movies I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid, haunting people's dreams.  Freddy.  Jason.  Pinhead.  My blood calls them and my will sends them at Abaddon, and in moments he's nothing but a grease stain on the floor.

I turn my attention away from the remains.  Nathan is locked in some kind of dance with Piper.  Mary has the SMG and has closed in on Saklas but he moves like lightning and the spray of bullets goes past him.  His claws slash at her, but don't so much as leave a mark on her skin.  She laughs in his face, and he recoils.  About time she had some backup.  I send my nightmares to surround him.  He's no more impressed than he was with the spiders, but I don't care.  I tell him I've seen better demons than him.  Try living with depression.

Saklas calls for Ajulutsikael but Nathan has her in his arms, and I can hear the crack as he snaps her spine.  Then the ceiling starts to fall, obsidian stalactites plunging from above.  Is that all he's got?  I sidestep them effortlessly.  Obsidian breaks into the sharpest blades on earth.  I should know.  I bid my nightmares pick up the razor shards and drives them into him, pinning him down.

Then Beatrice is there behind him, Huldra's spear in her hand.  She grabs him by his bald head, raises the spear and drives it into his neck.  He screams at us, telling us Thaumiel will save him.  Beatrice has one question for him.  Is he sure about that?  And with that, Saklas is dead.

Time to go.  I need a happy memory.  Beatrice hands me the spear.  Yes, that'll do it.  And we're home.

The next time we're all together is Raven's funeral.  Highgate Cemetery of course, and there's a lot more people there than I was anticipating.  Then onto the Dev, where there's quite the party atmosphere.  Except at the table where the four of us are sitting, where things have descended into yet another awkward silence.  I've prepared for this.  I manoeuvre the paper into my new prosthetic hand and begin to read.  One of Raven's poems, some absolute dreck inspired by my nightmares.  It breaks the silence, and if I have to hurt like this, I want everyone else to hurt too.

So, Beatrice asks.  Did we win?  What now?

Mary still has to get her brother back from Vilde, but she's pretty confident she can handle that with one last favour from Lily.  And given that she seems to be some kind of goddess incarnate, I think she's going to be fine.  What Nathan is I still don't know, but it sounds like he's got a life to go back to with his job and his family.

Then Beatrice looks at me.  And I can see my own pain mirrored in her face.

I'm glad she's letting me stay with her.  It's not just that my own flat is a bullet-riddled ruin with a hell portal in the opposite flat and an angel sniffing around.  I can't be on my own.  I'm not OK.  I was barely holding on as it was and now I've lost the reason I was able to keep going.  Which, in the end, wasn't Lily.

Maybe Beatrice is what I need.  Maybe as we walk through dreams together we'll find some new reason to keep going - like making sure we don't turn into the thing I had to fight in the museum, and the thing that made me fight it.  But right now, my answer to her question is no.  We achieved everything we set out to do.  But it cost me everything.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 6: Closure

The tunnel was winding, with cracks in the walls, through which we could see burning ruins.  Then suddenly a group of people came through the cracks.  People who were there back in the gallery.  The crack closed up behind them, but one person didn't make it all the way and their body turned to stone right there, halfway through the wall.  One of them told us that his wife had been killed by a giant creature that was tearing people apart.  None of this was making much sense to me, but when we saw strange figures behind us and one of the gallery people tried to talk to them, Jared grabbed her arm and we all ran.  Even so, one got left behind and torn apart.

We found a window after that, that looked out on Paris from a high building.  It was the same scene we'd walked through before, but from a different angle.  I wasn't surprised when the next window showed Milan, and the one after that, Djeraba, crumbling and rebuilding itself as it led people to the mountainside.  Then the Mediterranean sea, turned red from blood, full of bodies.

Jared and me reassured each other.  Both of us clearly needed a lot of therapy, but nowhere near as much as Vaquelin did.

We saw the Mediterranean house again then, with a constant stream of people pouring into it.  An impossible number.  And Marielle was there, crying and shouting about Vaquelin leaving her.  We decided it might be best not to draw her attention at this point.

I don't know what was happening to the people from the museum, but there were only a couple of them left with us by this time.  When Jared told me to run, I did.  We came to a door that had a kind of warm glow to it, which seemed like the right way to go.  One of our remaining two companions opened the door.  Inside it had the look of an art studio, with a ring of eight easels and Vaquelin in the middle applying the final brush strokes to the triptych.  While I assured Jim that I liked his cat and possum version better, the man who opened the door went running across the room and suddenly reappeared on the opposite side to where he'd gone.

Vaquelin looked well.  There was a rattling noise coming from above, and when I looked up I saw an iron cage with a man in barrister's robes inside, screaming for help.  Vaquelin's father.  Vaquelin himself looked at us, then drove his paintbrush into his eye and collapsed to the floor.  His blood began running out towards the paintings, being drawn into them somehow, the colours becoming brighter.

We were all sure this needed to be stopped, but all we could think of to do was destroy the paintings with those black feathers we'd picked up.  I also picked up the paint brush that Vaquelin had used to kill himself.  I had a feeling it would be useful.  And suddenly the walls crumbled, and we were back in the workshop in the gallery.  It was a mess, and there was sand on the floor and the walls were still shimmering, but it felt like we were back home.

Jim asked if we were safe, but I was sure we weren't, especially with the noises from upstairs.  We had to keep going.  The thing tearing people apart had to be Vaquelin and we were going to have to stop him.  I still had Meri's door card, which got us into the security office.  Inside was a wall of CCTV showing horrors on every screen.  The creature was drawing a sumbol on the floor using blood and corpses, and the paintings were floating around it.  And there were the living dead again, maybe twenty of them dragging in fresh corpses.  A few remaining patrons were hiding in the offices.  It seemed our journey through hell had taken eighteen hours.

We pried open some locked cupboards in the office and found a couple of kevlar vests, tasers and a handgun.  As we were sharing them out I saw a shadow on one of the monitors, and then suddenly a huge weeping angel next to Vaquelin.  She looked up at the camera and it was like she was looking straight at us.  I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but Jared said to assume it was good, because the alternative was unthinkable.

We needed a plan.  The workshop had cleaning supplies that we could use to damage the symbol on the floor, which might buy us some time to deal with Vaquelin.  The living dead we hoped could be dealt with by once again relying on molotov cocktails.  But our attention was drawn by something outside the door, something squelching and scratching.

I had my suspicions about what it might be, so when I opened the door I was ready for the sight of what Meri Jansen had become, and slammed the door again immediately, trapping a few of her fingers in the door.  We didn't have bullets to spare on this.  I told Jared to get behind the door so he wouldn't have to see.  Jim and me could deal with this one.  We picked up whatever blunt objects were to hand, and when Jared opened the door, we did what we had to do.

We found what we needed in the wokshop, and then Jim headed for the far stairs and Jared and me took the near ones so we could approach from opposite sides.  Vaquelin was still painting, with a black sun fading in and out overhead.  It stank of blood and entrails, and crawling corpses were everywhere, but at least all the dead bodies were keeping them busy.

Jim began throwing things at the paintings, which drew Vaquelin's attention long enough for me to throw cleaning fluids over the Tears of Djeraba.  I don't know why that painting was the one I disliked most by then, but it seemed to begin melting, and pulled Vaquelin's attention off Jim again.  Jared unloaded the gun into him, which mostly seemed to make him angry.

Jared kept on firing as Jim set fire to the turpentine that the place was now awash with.  The paintings seemed to be oozing blood.  I pulled out Vaquelin's paintbrush and tried to tell him that everything was too late because he was already dead.  He told me how he was now eternal.  Pretentious as ever, with some kind of dark robed figure hovering over him.  I ran at him to stab him with the paintbrush, but then suddenly the vast figure of Vaquelin was gone, and it was Spencer standing in front of me.

Back at the waterfront.  Someone about that last memory had been bothering me.  It felt fake, like someone was lying to me.  That was when I realised why.  It was fake.  I was the one lying.  It was my hand on the knife all along.

I loved him so much, and I thought marrying him would solve all my problems.  I'd finally have done something my parents wanted and I'd be with someone who loved me for who I was instead of criticising me for not being what they wanted.  Except that argument on the bridge made me realise none of that was true.  Spencer was just like my father.  I killed him, and hid the body, and then went home and tried to end it all with pills and liquor, but all I did was make myself forget what I'd done.

I lost track of what was going on around me.  There were noises around me, and screams, but I was crying so hard I could barely see, let alone comprehend what was happening.  But Spencer was still there in front of me.

I still had one of the black feathers in my pocket.  Poor Marielle, manipulated into killing her husband by this monster Vaquelin.  Spencer was already dead.  I asked him how many more times he was going to make me do this, and stabbed him with the feather.

Then he wasn't Spencer any more, but the Vaquelin creature, coming apart while windows shattered and glass flew.  Vaquelin asked me why I hindered him, when he would have shown me eternal life.  After seeing what happened to Marielle, I don't want it.  But the entire building seemed to be shaking, and I had one last memory of ropes dropping to the groun and men in black bursting through doorways before everything went black.

I woke up a couple of times to a beeping sound that made me think I was in a hospital and when I woke up for real I was right, and Jared and Jim were in the neighbouring beds, about as bandaged up as I was but both awake.  Jim called for a nurse, who told us it was a couple of weeks since the terrorist attacks.  That seemed as good an explanation as anything else for what had happened, along with hallucinogens in the air conditioning, like I thought before everything literally went to hell.

Some men wanted to talk to us.  I didn't say much while the others tried to explain the non-weird bits of what happened.  The men left cards for them, then asked me what I did and had I been active in attacking one of the assailants.  I told them that I'd had a horrible nightmare, and it seemed like they were going with the hallucingen theory as well.  Although that's when I realised I was handcuffed to the bed.  They said they wanted to move me to a secure facility.

As they left, something strange happened.  For a moment their black suits vanished, and strange implants appeared all over them while ancient biomechanical gears appeared behind the walls.  The TV screen showed images of a strange dark city.

But it only lasted a moment, and then the TV was back to the news.  It said it had been four weeks since the terrorist attacks but there were still no clues.  But the Atrocity Exhibition had been relocated and would shortly afterwards be opening in Berlin.

This was all supposed to be a therapy journal to help Dr Lana figure out the best way to help me with my Spencer problem.  Somehow I don't think I'm going to be seeing him any more.  Writing all this down means I'll never forget what happened again.  But I don't know what to do for the best, now I know what I did.

I've got one last promise to keep.  Give Jared the contact details for Dr Lana.  And I'm going to tell him everything.  At least there's a chance he'll understand.

Kult: Broken Walls, episode 11: Opening Doors

OK.  Trying not to panic.  Almost succeeding.  First time using magic and it's sent me straight to hell.  The temptation is there to just sit down and give up, but I can hear voices in the distance.  Whoever it is, they know where we've been hiding at the hotel and they're coming for us.  Which means I've got to get out of here, for Raven.  Magic got me in here.  Maybe it can get me out as well.  I don't have a museum archive to work with.  Just what's in my own head.  I have to destroy something and a happy memory should do the job.  I think back to when I was eighteen, getting my A-level results.  One of the few times I can remember my parents being proud of me.  I draw a ward around myself in the black sand, and scratch a doorway with Huldra's spear.  I hold the memory in my mind and...nothing.

It didn't work.  I failed, and I'm stuck here in hell.  I'm on the point of giving up when it dawns on me that something's wrong.  It seemed hot because I expected it to be hot.  But it's not, and the light has a blue quality to it that I've seen before.  My own flat in my dreams, my sanctuary.  This isn't hell.  It's a dream, or Limbo, as the new knowledge in my head is now telling me.  That's why it didn't work.  I was trying to open the wrong door.  Try again.  There's a sudden agonising pain as the memory is ripped out of my head, but the corridor is gone.  I'm out.  Back in my own flat in Camden.

I'm not alone.  There's a little girl sitting at the table, drawing in a book.  When she looks up at me, I recognise her face.  It's me, when I was only eight years old.  She asks me who I am.  I ignore that.  She's the one who's not meant to be here.  Not that that's stopping her talking.  And she knows everything about me.  Every detail of my fucked up life, always running away, always failing.

I can't do this right now.  The bed's right there, and all I want to do is curl up on it and wait for the pain to stop, but she's not going to let me.  She wants to show me the picture she's drawn, and I know I don't want to see it, whatever it is, but I look anyway and it's Lily.  Of course it's Lily, with her throat cut and symbols carved into her flesh.

Who the hell is she?  She doesn't answer that, but talks about Lily.  How they took her away to be killed and I did nothing.  How I must have known, given what that place was like, and I did nothing.  I would have been next, if Nathan hadn't tipped me off to get out of there.  Was I really so fucking naive back then?  I left her to die, and now I've found her and I've still done nothing.

I can feel myself starting to break, as I scrabble for tissues to scrub away the tears that are blurring my vision.  She keeps going.  How I've failed my friends.  Raven dragged to hell and tortured to near madness.  Beatrice now sharing her mind with a bloodthirsty killer.  Would that ever have happened if they hadn't known me?  No.  Everything they've been through is my fault.  Pathetic little me with my excuses about my parents never loving me, hiding away in a cult and then in this bedsit asking for help from people I don't even know.

She's looking for a response, but all she's telling me is the same things I've been telling myself since this whole mess started.  It is all my fault.  So she tells me what I have to do now.  Give up.  Take the spear, and make it all stop.  Without me, my friends will be safe, and I'll be free.

Free.  She reminds me of the spider demon on that rooftop, asking me what I wanted most, and I told him I wanted to be free, but that was my stupid naive answer and I know now there's something I want far more than that.  And I am done with people wearing faces that don't belong to them.

She changes then, melting away into some kind of dripping slime until she no longer resembles a child.  I pick up Huldra's spear and drive it into what's left of the creature, and with that it's gone and I'm ready to keep going.  Just like Abaddon said, I'm fragile, but I'm determined.

Which is no help at all when I open my front door and two of the plastic soldiers are outside, lowering their sub machine guns towards me.

Slam the door.  Hit the floor to avoid the hail of lead that immediately bursts through the cheap wooden door.  Reach under the bed for my handgun.  Still there, thank fuck.  There's enough of the door gone that I can see to aim.  Weak spot in the neck.  I know that from last time when Mary ripped one's head right off.  Shame everywhere else is covered in kevlar.  The shots land but it's not enough.  One of them closes the distance and I drop the gun in favour of the spear.  I drive it up into his neck, and he's down.

The other steps over his fallen companion and turns his weapon on me, and I try to throw myself to safety but a spray of bullets rips into me.  The pain is extraordinary, but I make one last desperate attempt to fight back before losing my grip on the spear as everything fades to black.

Waking up.  Seems to be a hospital.  That's good.  Better than dead, anyway.  Not much pain.  Bandages covering my many injuries.  Also good.  Handcuffs chaining my wrist to the bed.  That's less good.

I smell the man before I see him.  A mix of brylcream and rotting meat heralds a man who looks like he walked straight out of some old TV crime drama.  He introduces himself as DCI Hunt.  As I try to think what on earth I can tell him that won't get me either jailed or sectioned, the light catches him for a moment and I get a glimpse of a vast pair of wings.  An angel.  He's an angel.  I guess it makes sense that if demons exist, so do angels, although given my current predicament I'm pretty certain he's no more on my side than they were.  And it seems I'm not the first of our little group to run into him, assuming the 'big man' refers to Nathan.

He's got an offer for me.  All the trouble goes away if I just give him what he wants.  Service, absolute obedience.  See, there's the thing.  I've historically not been very good at that.  A complete failure, in fact.  That doesn't please him, but at least he leaves me along to think about it.

And what I'm thinking is that something about this doesn't quite feel real.  He's not a real police officer.  Maybe these aren't real handcuffs.  I just have to make myself see past it, but how am I going to do that without Raven's bottle of LSD?  Then I realise Raven's still given me the answer.  It's in his book.  A string of words and symbols that will open my eyes.  I whisper the words while picturing the symbols, and then I'm somewhere else.  A cell, open on one side, looking out at a city of vast skyscrapers.  And only two ways out.  Over the edge, to plummit to my death, or through the door.  The door that DCI Hunt just walked back through.

I'm completely unarmed, and he's an angel carrying a huge spear, and for a moment I'm actually considering that drop until Huldra's memories start to guide me.  He knows spear fighting.  He knows a spear that big is unwieldy.  So gets low and get close and you take away their advantage.  There's a lot more to it than that, but that was enough to give me the chance to get past him and out of the door.

Time to get out of here.  Time to call on the magic again and pray I don't mess it up this time, even as I'm sprinting through yet another alternate dimension being hunted by a fucking angel.  Another happy memory, and I'm going to have to find a new way to do this because twenty years of depression haven't exactly given me a lot to work with here, but I remember getting paid for my first ever PI job and the realisation that I'd been successful at something, and I pick a doorway in the smooth black marble corridor I'm running down and as the memory is ripped out of my mind I throw myself through.

I'm back at the British Museum.  I sent myself back here because an injured Beatrice got herself into trouble to get me in there and I might have to get her back out of it again.  But first, there's a room full of security guards staring at me as I've suddenly run through their doorway covered in bandages and wearing a hospital gown.

"Sorry!  Wrong door!  Erm...temporal police.  Try not to think about it."

I leave the stunned looking security guards and go looking for some clothes.  A janitor's closet gets me a set of overalls.  They're made for someone several inches taller than me and I have to fold over the cuffs a few times, but at least they hide most of the bandages.  Now to find Beatrice.  Assuming she's only had to deal with mundane challenges she'll most likely be in the closest security post to where she kicked the door open.  So I should start at that door.

When I get there, there's just the one security guard, deep in conversation with Raven, who has somehow convinced the poor man to come to one of his poetry recitals.  Raven introduces me as his friend and the guard is curious why I'm wearing the overalls, so I tell him I'm temping.  He nod, the staff turnover is terrible.  I agree, pointing out they couldn't even get me a uniform in my size.  Wait...did I just come up with a convincing cover story?

As we leave him behind, promising to see him at the coffee shop for poetry, Raven tells me the bad news.  He came here with Mary, who was apparently somewhat changed after a visit to Maiden, Mother and Crone, but one of the four demons had shown up and taken her away for a meeting with the big guy.  Which meant it's time for the three of us to conduct a daring rescue attempt.

Beatrice is in an office looking bored, and it's so good to see her looking like herself instead of the monstrosity I had to fight.  But there's no time for emotional reunifications.  Mary's in trouble, and even if I didn't owe her for pulling me out of hell, or Inferno as I find myself wanting to call it now, there's no way I can take out all four demons by myself.  Especially not since DCI Hunt implied Nathan might no longer be in a position to help.  But no time to think about that.  Or explain to Raven why I suddenly know magic.  I ask if he can manage any of that healing magic he was talking about using on Beatrice, but it's going to take time, and I don't have time.  I just need a happy memory.  He offers one of his.  I wish I didn't have to take it, but the longer this takes, the more risk of losing Mary.

He hands me a photo of the three of us on a night out at the Dev.  I hold it in my hands, and try to ignore Raven's scream of pain as the memory is torn out of his mind.  The portal opens, and I realise I've fucked up yet again.  I'm there in that vast cathedral, but I'm alone.  Alone, that is except for Saklas standing over a dais, carving symbols into a young woman's flesh.

My first thought is to rush him and knock the knife out of his hands, but that's just going to be a fast way to get both of us killed.  I need backup.  And I know where to find it.  Twenty years of depression hasn't given me much to work with, but twenty years of nightmares is another matter entirely.  I've brought things back from Limbo before.  Weapons, blood, maggots.  And if I can bring back maggots, why not spiders?

I use my own blood to call them and give them form, using my fingers to trace out the symbols that pull them out of Limbo.  And then a swarm of monstrous spiders rips its way into Inferno, spindly black limbs clacking and venom hissing as it drips from their fangs onto the stone floor.

Saklas doesn't seem too impressed, but I don't need him to be impressed.  I need him to be distracted, and right now his attention is on me.  The knife goes flying from his hand, but I can see the woman on the dais isn't moving.  He's holding her there.  I can feel the spiders, each one linked to my own mind, and I drive them to attack. Not enough to kill him, but enough to release his grip on the woman even as the spiders swarm across her body.  He has tricks of his own, calling for his servants, and those dreadful flayed corpses rise up to join the fight.  My spiders can't hold out against them, and I can feel the pain of each one being snuffed out in the grip of those creatures.  But they don't have to win.  They just have to hold their attention long enough for the woman to get to me.

"You'd better be Mary," I tell her as we step back into the museum office and the portal closes behind us.  The old 'tell us something only you would know' routine is a bit of a cliche, but this blonde woman with blood red nails doesn't look much like the Mary I know.  I ask her what we ate after that last trip to Paradise Gardens.  Chinese food and terrible wine.  It's really her.  Beatrice is looking stunned.  I just feel like if I'm still alive at the end of all this, I'm going to want to get myself a robe.  And maybe a pointy hat.

Where now?  After the conversation I heard, I don't think the hotel room is safe any more, and Mary agrees.  She has an alternative though.  A limo pulls up outside and takes us to some fancy hotel, and as we're taken up to the penthouse suite I'm reminded it's not only the kind of sleazy places I'm familiar with that don't ask questions.

As Beatrice and Raven investigate the room service menu, Mary pulls me aside.  There's something Raven hasn't told me, and I immediately know that means bad news.  He told her that while Mildred was torturing him, she forced him to sign a contract.  That's no surprise, given what Abaddon did to me, but there's more.  The pact has bound him to her, and if she dies, so does he.  The same applies to Abaddon, of course, but that barely even registers.  I can't let Raven die.  We have to break the pact - both pacts - before we can kill them.

The thread of hope in all this is that I know how to break the pacts.  We need Saklas's book, and Mary knows how to get it.  But summoning it has a price, and the price is murder.  We have to sacrifice an unwilling servant, and it's one thing to kill monsters and plastic soldiers but the idea of cold blooded murder still revolts me.

But then I remember the word Saklas used in the cathedral.  Servants.  It's not just the flayed corpses.  The four demons are his servants, and I'm sure they'll be very unwilling indeed.  I don't know if I'm capable of murdering an innocent, but killing one of those four to get the book?  That I would enjoy.

Virtual Grogmeet 2022

Yet again I had to skip the Thursday night pub quiz for Virtual Grogmeet, this year because it clashed with the Kult campaign I'm playing.  Accordingly, things once again kicked off for me on Friday night.

Game 1: Reboot The Future

I hadn't actually planned on playing on Friday night, but I've been wanting to try out Reboot The Future since I've backed the kickstarter, so when I saw there was a free space in the game five minutes before the start time, I decided to give it a shot.

Reboot The Future is a cyberpunk game using the Liminal rules, and despite being a radically different genre I thought it worked pretty well.  The Magician focus is replaced by Hacker, and cyberware is handled via traits.  While it looks like details are still being worked on, it's a solid concept and I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.

The adventure we played had a certain Liminal feel to it as well, involving investigating some mysterious deaths and following leads to an extraordinary conclusion.  Having jumped in at the absolute last minute, I wasn't quite my usual sparkling self in this game.  Fortunately the rest of the players did a great job of drawing me in as I figured out what I was doing with the character I'd picked.

Game 2: Matrons of Mystery

Grogmeet says that the games that tend to go down well are older games, and British games.  With Matrons of Mystery being about as British as it gets, I thought I'd give it a shot.  Four more lovely old ladies headed for the village hall to solve a murder at the panto, finding time for plenty of tea and shortbread along the way.  Ultimately a tragic tale of jealousy and betrayal unfolded, until the culprit was brought to justice.

Game 3: Tales from the Loop

I was very happy to see The Recycled Boy on offer, as while I've played a few TftL games before, this starter adventure wasn't one of them.  I'd never played with a pre-gen character before either, with previous GMs having us create our own, either before or during the session.  What this meant was some interesting secrets the kids weren't sharing but which were definitely influencing their behaviour.  Well worth playing, with a new twist compared to previous games.

Game 4: Kult

My Kult version of Unland was a bit of a hit, apparently, to the point where I was asked to run it again.  Meaning that I was a tiny bit nervous, knowing that there were some very high expectations for this game, but ultimately I had to trust that between my pre-gens and Scott Doward's brilliant scenario, it would all work out.

One thing I particularly enjoy about the pre-gens is that I've left small gaps in the backgrounds for the players to fill in, and that means I get a slightly different group of characters each time.  That also means that I never know exactly how the climax is going to go down.  I've run this scenario four times now, and it's been a new experience each time.

Reflections

Virtual Grogmeet is a great opportunity to play with people I wouldn't otherwise see much of.  With the in-person event being geographically distant and so many other good events on the calendar, I don't know when (or if) I'll ever get to it.  So I'm very glad virtual events like this are still happening, letting us play without concerns about transport, accomodation or covid precautions.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 5: The Desert

Through the door we found ourselves in a desert, already starting to burn under the sun.  We could see a hut in the distance, which looked like our best option for some shade, but when we got there it was clearly occupied, with horses outside.  We took a look through the windows, and saw a group of people - men?  Zombies?  They were all collectively eating another person.  Vaquelin, I think, but before we could figure out what was going on, we were spotted and chased.  I was getting away, but Jared fell and I couldn't leave him behind.  I picked him up while Jim threw stones at them, but it wasn't enough.  Jim suffered a scorpion sting, and Jared got sliced by one of the men's scimitars.  Somehow he figured out that spraying his own blood on one of them would cause enough of a distraction for us to escape.

We kept running, seeing a cave up ahead.  Jim was worried about the scorpion sting, but none of us had any idea even how big a problem it was, let along how to deal with it, and getting away seemed more important right then.  Then we got to the mouth of the cave, and my head filled with voices.  Dad.  Mum.  Spencer.  All telling me the same thing.  That I'm a disappointment.

I could see from the looks on the others' faces that they were hearing something similar.  I tried to reassure them, and told them that I hear things like that all the time, but it goes away, and it was going to be OK.  That and the offered hugs seemed to help.  And at least for a moment we had some respite from our pursuers.  They looked in, sheathed their scimitars, and left.

Jim got his phone out to give us some light in the cave, and we could see that the scorpion sting was getting worse.  Black veins were appearing on his skin.  He told us he could see that robed figure again in the tunnel ahead of us, but I couldn't see it, and Jared said he couldn't either.  Jim asked if it was death, or Vaquelin, or the devil, but it seems it didn't answer.  Jared went and stood where Jim said it was standing, with no apparent effect.  There didn't seem to be anything we could do about either that or the scorpion sting though, and the cave was a dead end, so we left.

Back out in the desert there was a group of people up ahead.  A funeral procession with four pall bearers carrying a shrouded body.  As I watched them I heard Spencer's voice calling to me.  It was him in the shroud.  I ran towards them, knocking a pall bearer out of the way, but the others kept going.  I pushed a second one aside, but a new pall bearer had risen up out of the ground to take the first one's place.

I shouted to the others for help, but it was no good.  They were too strong and I couldn't stop them.  Hands were reaching out of the grave as they lowered Spencer in, grabbing him to tear him apart.  Too late.  I failed.

By the time the others caught up with me I was crying so hard I could barely speak.  I tried to explain who Spencer was while they tried to calm me down.  Not very successful on either side.  But the men, or zombies, or whatever they were had all disappeared, and ahead in the distance was a city.  Just like another of those Vaquelin paintings.  We kept walking.

The city, when we got there, seemed somehow not quite real.  It was divided up into areas that looked like they were devoted to different crafts, so Jim went looking for paintings, which he found in a wide variety of different styles.  We figured out this was another place from Vaquelin's past. Djeraba, the artists' colony in the Tunisian desert.

It looked like we were on a time limit though, with walls cracking and crumbling behind us.  By this point we knew we had to find Vaquelin.  We passed crucified figures, and heard rhythmic chanting in what sounded like Latin or French.  Jim was looking worse and worse.  We walked through caves, full of the smell of incense and rot.  My mother's death filled my mind.  It seemed like death was walking alongside us.

Then we found him.  A temple, or a cavern, with markings all over the walls, and in the centre was Vaquelin on his knees on a carpet, surrounded by twelve or so of the living dead we'd seen so many of.  In front of him were three objects.  A crown, a knife and a stick, which I later realised was a carved bone.

Somehow I was sure I had to get hold of those objects.  Jared attempted to create an opening in the ring of zombies by talking to Vaquelin, while Jim tried removing the markings from the walls.  Vaquelin didn't respond though, and the zombies started circling around Jared.

Jared must have remembered those first ones that chased him, as he re-opened his wound and smeared blood onto one of them, then punched him in the face.  I guess he must had reminded Jared of his father, as he started shouting about how of course he was a disappointment, he was his son.

There was still no opening in the ring of zombies, but at least now they were distracted.  As Jim went for Vaquelin, I pushed my way through and picked up the knife.  And then I could hear Spencer's voice in my head again, but this time he was telling me he was imprisoned inside Jim.  I could see a hand bulging out of Jim's skin where he got stung.  I didn't know what to do.

Vaquelin looked at Jim and waved that bone wand, and one of the living dead turned inside out.  He started talking to Jim, something about power and eternal life.  Jared was lecturing his father about how he'd ruined his mother's life.  But I was barely listening.  I knew in my heart that that wasn't really Spencer talking.  I told him I was sorry, but I'd already seen him die, and I reached for the crown.

Vaquelin stabbed me with his bone wand, but by that point I didn't care.  I put on the crown and stabbed him.  He grabbed my hand, and something about it felt familiar.  I felt a vibration in the crown, and suddenly I was somewhere else.  Somewhere dark and windy.

I was at the waterfront, at the Golden Gate Bridge, and I was angry.  Spencer was there, and he was angry too, shouting at me and holding a bunch of papers.  I shouted back.  And then there was a hooded figure behind him, who stabbed Spencer and demanded money.  I handed over everything he wanted, and he left, leaving me alone with Spencer.

The knife was in my hand.  I pulled it out, then pushed Spencer over the bridge and threw the knife in after him.  Then I was in my own room, waking up next to empty bottles of pills and liquor.  Wondering what had happened to Spencer.

Then I was back in hell, with Vaquelin smiling at me, enjoying my pain.  He seemed to know what I did.  I'm not sure I knew myself.  But I could see the others being attacked and I couldn't let that continue, so I stabbed him again, trying to get it right this time so I could make him stop, but his hands fastened around my throat and moments later I was blacking out from lack of air.

When I woke up I was in some kind of mediterranean villa with the smell of jasmine in the air.  I was bleeding from a wound in my chest.  A heart shaped piece of flesh seemed to be missing from over my heart, and somehow that seemed to make sense.  Jim was trying to treat the wound, and Jared came in with a first aid kit and managed to clean me up.

Compared to everywhere we'd been recently, this place was actually nice.  There were a lot of personal items around though, particularly clothes, and it didn't take long to figure out which painting this was.  The Coupling.

Jared went to the kitchen to find us some food.  I wasn't sure about eating.  My mind kept going back to that Rosetti painting of Proserpine holding the pomegranate.  But Jared suggested that I could be stuck there with him for eternity or go out and face whatever was out there in hell.  And a sandwich followed by an eternity there with Jared didn't seem too bad a prospect.

Jim still looked badly ill, but slightly better than before.  His searches had found a set of blank panels, presumably intended for the Tears of Djeraba triptych.  He decided to add his own pictures.  Something nice.  A cat and a possum.

While the place seemed comfortable enough it was hard to ignore the sounds of lovemaking coming from upstairs, and in the end the three of us went upstairs to investigate.  At this point I don't think any of us were surprised to find naked dead people having sex.  Black feathers littered the bed around them, and when Jim picked one up, we heard the sound of movement and then a huge statue of a weeping angel appeared, with talons for hands and razor sharp wings.

It spoke with the voice of Mariells Dubois.  She told us that Vaquelin has given her life eternal.  Jared didn't think it was worth it, if she had to spend it as a statue.  She told us that that was her on the bed.  We argued that that was not how it had really happened - these two dead people with their intestines spilling out.  Jared went on, suggesting that Vaquelin wasn't really into it, and that's why he'd parked her out here as a statue.  Maybe he was just using her.  She had killed her own husband for him, after all.  Sure he'd saved her from dying of pancreatic cancer, but was this existence really living?

This was a chance for me to finally find out what really happened at the exhibition.  Marielle told me that Vaquelin had needed a sacrifice to let his magic through into our world.  He'd invaded the body of the security guard, so that Marielle could be his bride.  It was to show the world the beauty of his art.

It seemed Jared's words were starting to get through to her, but she swore he was too powerful for her to stop.  We asked if she could get us home, given that none of us wanted to be here.  She couldn't, but suggested that we would find our own way, and then vanished into the bed.  The black feathers were left behind.  Each of us picked some up, very careful of their razor sharp edges.

Once again we had to get out.  It seemed too obvious, but I was sure that we could simply walk out of the front door.  So we did so, and once again found ourselves in a long corridor.

Kult: Broken Walls, episode 10: Day at the Museum

It's late.  Beatrice and Mary are both asleep, and I can't stop myself glancing at Beatrice from time to time to reassure myself she's not bleeding again.  Raven should be sleeping too but he insists on staying up to help me, and I can't stop him when he's this excited.  It's a frustrating process, full of gaps and uncertainties, but ultimately I find I'm enjoying it.  This is detective work, after all.  I wish I had my whiteboard.  Raven's notebook will have to do.  I'm glad he talked me into taking a nap earlier.  I don't want to have to stop.

I'm in a maze of corridors.  Nowhere I recognise, but they've got an institutional feel.  I'm lost, running blindly, and I can hear a sound.  The rhythmic beating of a huge black heart.  I don't know where it is, or if I should be running towards it or away.  All I know is that I have to run.

And then I'm awake, lying on the bed in the hotel room.  That wasn't too bad, compared to some of the nightmares I've had recently.  And one memory is lingering.  A sign, reading "Archive C, British Museum".

The door opens, and before I even have time to panic I see that it's Beatrice with her arms full of takeaway coffee cups.  My usual quadruple espresso.  Lattes for everyone else.  Raven's still asleep, in his chair despite my best efforts, but Mary's awake.  And I end up having to try to explain how me and Beatrice both have ancient Romans living in our heads and one of them gave me this spear.

Beatrice is feeling the need to be up and doing something instead of staying in this hotel room, and after my nightmare I'm feeling the need to visit the British Museum.  Maybe that archive will tell us something about the Romans in our heads, or the Dreori tribe that the book talks about.  She's game.  Although first we need a shopping trip.  Beatrice managed to hide the blood on her t-shirt by closing her jacket, but she really needs something clean.  Between stabbing myself at the hospital and treating Beatrice's wound, my clothes are more blood than fabric by now, and Raven's still in a hospital gown.

Beatrice gets in the shower, and I ask Mary to help me move Raven to the bed.  No need.  He's awake, and insists on moving himself.  I explain about the museum idea.  He's sceptical, given what it says in the book about evidence of the tribe being destroyed, but I'm not so sure.  Museums keep a lot of things that aren't on display to the public, and my dream told me I need to find that archive.  That's not helping my case, as he points out I'm now talking about breaking into the museum.  He has a point.  I'm not bad at lock picking, but electronic alarm systems are a whole different ball game.

Raven suggests I should go in a dream.  That idea terrifies me, but it makes sense.  My dreams are horrifying, but lucid.  I could probably find the way.  So the plan is, we'll visit the museum during the day, to get a feel for the layout of the building - to case the joint, as Raven puts it - and then come back to the hotel to do the scary part.  Maybe I can bring Beatrice with me for that part as well?  Raven thinks he might be able to help with that.

Raven notes that the guy on the desk here is rather over familiar.  On the plus side, that means Raven's managed to talk to someone other than us.  On the minus side, that's not the kind of attitude I expect from the receptionist in a place like this.  Mary mentions that he asked her for Nathan's number when she talked to him.  Ahh.  That's OK then.

After a meal and quick shopping trip, Beatrice and me set out for the museum.  We look pretty normal, so it should just be a matter of going in like any other pair of tourists.  Except when we get there there's a bunch of TSG officers hanging around outside and here we are carrying an ancient Roman spear in a sports bag.  Even if by some miracle they're here for some reason unrelated to us, that's still not going to go well for us.

We take a walk around the perimeter.  The museum is huge, with plenty of ways in and out.  Finding one that's neither guarded nor alarmed, however, proves impossible.  But there has to be a way in!  We got into hell through Raven's bathroom mirror.  We must be able to get into a museum.  Beatrice has an idea.  I'm good at being inconspicuous.  She's good at being conspicuous.  She'll play the obnoxious tourist and create a distraction while I sneak inside.

Beatrice hands me the spear, goes over to a door and kicks it open.  Immediately alarms sound, security guards descend, and while she yells at them about looking for the toilets, I find my moment to step inside.  I'm not going to have long.  This place has cameras and at some point someone's going to notice my arrival.  I pull up my hood and scarf so at least my face is covered, and start my search.  Stairs or a lift.  The archive has to be in the basement.

Of course there's a locked cover on the freight lift.  Prizing it off takes some time, time I don't have, but the call button works.  Inside I'm faced with an array of buttons for different levels, but somehow I find I've pressed the button for one of the sub basements. I don't know how I knew which one it was, but as the doors open again I know I'm in the right place.  Back in those institutional corridors.  I've already been here too long and I start to run, desperately looking for the sign I remember, but instead I hear voices.  Two people talking in strange distorted tones.

I can't let myself be found.  I duck into the nearest doorway.  And there I hear again the beating of that huge black heart, and a strangely familiar voice calling to me.  The people outside are still there and getting closer.  The voice is still calling.  I go towards it.  And then I see why the voice sounded so familiar.

It's me.  Or rather, it's me but taller and smartly dressed and without my slumped shoulders and dark circles under the eyes.  She's sitting on a throne.  Maybe this is meant to disturb me.  I ask her, is this supposed to be a vision of what I could have been if I'd made better life choices?  No, she says.  She's my future.

She tells me she has knowledge for me, but she isn't sure I'm ready for it.  I don't know what she's worried about.  Does she really think more knowledge is going to break me?  By now I'm not sure there's anything left to break.  But it seems she expects me to prove myself to her anyway, and something is coming for me from out of the shadows.  It's Beatrice, but huge, with muscles to match, and black eyes and clawed fingers.

I feel myself start to burn with rage.  How dare they keep using the faces of my friends to hurt me?  This monstrosity is not my beautiful brave Beatrice, and as she charges towards me I raise Huldra's spear to deflect her at the last moment, then drive it into her leg.  I know that would have taken down any normal human, but this thing is not human and she moves like lightning.  Her claws swipe across my neck and I feel hot blood starting to drip down, but now she's close, close enough that I can drive that spear up under her chin.  There's a moment of resistance before I feel it smash through bone, and when I pull it free it's dripping, not with blood but black ichor.

As the Beatrice creature crumples to the ground I do my best to stand nochalently, even though I'm gripping the spear so tightly my entire hands have turned white.  Whoever - whatever - this person who wears my face might be, it seems I've impressed her.  She comes towards me, reaching out her hand which is filling with smoke.  She pushes it into my head, and I feel her fingers reaching right through my skull as she does it.  And then my head starts to explode.

When I wake up, I'm alone, sitting on the throne.  I get up.  I don't like that image.  I can feel so much knowledge in my head I can barely make sense of it.  I fix on a few specific things.  Symbols.  The one I saw on my phone that made me stop breathing, and the one Raven used to bind Lily.  I know the names associated with them now.  Thaumiel.  Malkuth.

I have to get out of here.  Get Beatrice out of whatever trouble she's got herself into on my behalf, when she's still so injured she should never have left the hotel room, not that that would ever have stopped her.  But I can still hear those voices outside, and while they're no longer horribly distorted, they're still people capable of calling down a world of trouble on someone who's broken into the archives of the British Museum.

I hide behind the throne, and briefly think of trying to come up with some kind of story to explain why I'm here, but quickly dismiss that.  My head might be full of knowledge of what I'm realising must be magic, but I'm still the same old Izzy who can't come up with a cover story to save her life.  Magic then.  Can I do some magic that will make me inconspicuous while I get out of here?  I'm in a museum archive.  There must be something down here that can help me out.

What I find is a funeral shroud.  I know I can use it to shroud myself from human sight for a little while.  Unfortunately, to do that I'm going to have to destroy it.  A priceless museum artifact, that I'm going to destroy for my own benefit.  Maybe there's a better way, but I don't have one right now.  The shroud turns to dust in my hands.

It worked.  They don't see me, and even seem to step slightly out of my way as I pass.  I'm free.  But as I walk down the corridor I realised it's changed.  The ground beneath my feet turns to sharp black sand, and the air becomes oppressive with a horribly familiar heat.