We get a phone call in the afternoon from Sergeant Mercer back in Finland. He says someone is there to tend to the mages on our behalf. Guy says his name is Castiel. I scry on the Sergeant and I don't see anybody with him. The Sergeant says there is someone standing right in front of him. Then it hits us, this is probably the Lady Abigail's guy. We must be hungover or something. I teleport over there so I can watch him work. He is an odd one. According to every other sense of mine he doesn't exist. He spends some time with each mage and then says he is done. It will take some time but they will wake up on their own and the madness will be gone. They will still be scarred mentally and it they will have to overcome the rest of their acts of hubris on their own. Much better deal then the alternative. I turn to thank the guy but he is gone. The Lady Abigail has some strange friends.
Back to Chicago. Too late to go back to bed. I'll spend some time in the cage thinking, Christmas keeps getting closer. A bit after dusk Danno rings and says he just got a phone call from an old good cop friend of his. Gave him an address to someplace in town and said we need to check this place out. I figure it is almost time for another round of dead mobsters, explosions and another stray. I missed the others so hey why not check this one out.
Danno was already out an heading to the location, the rest of us hop into the Prius and meet him there. Building is a closed down school undergoing some renovations. Seems normal until we get inside. As soon as we step in we begin to feel an almost evil like fear. Ohm immediately scans for life forms and I for thinking minds. Upstairs there is a life form that only seems to be half here and half somewhere else. Red senses the gauntlet is kinda weak here and that may explain the half here life form. Red doesn't sense any other kinds of spirit nasties and I peer through the gauntlet and don't see anything hanging around on the other side. Up on the second floor there are some spots of pure blackness that none of us can see through. We can still feel the presence of something but whatever it is it doesn't want to come out and say hi. We decide to head back out and clear of the this fear thing and see if we can find some spirits outside that might know something. As we are leaving Red catches a glimpse of an image of a young girl who appears to have a broken neck. It comes and goes with the rest of us not seeing a thing. When we get outside I also pull up all the history on this school I can find. Police records show that for at least the past 20 yrs, every year a child has gone missing. Witnesses say the missing children were seen all day then poof they just aren't anywhere to be found, no traces of anything. Records also show that Danno's father investigated a few of these missing person cases right before his "murder". I send out a general request for audience into the twilight, hoping we can get a spirit to show up who may know something. Eventually a spirit does show and I ask him about the school. It says not to go in and that whatever goes in doesn't come out. No spirits go near it. It does mention that it used to hear the children chanting some phrase that I can't seem to remember. Which is odd with the kind of memory I have but I just can't seem to remember that damn phrase. Perhaps some kind of automatic defense mechanism, who knows. Anyways, at the time I look up this phrase to see what it's meaning may be. At first I can't seem to find anything but I feel that I am close. So I tap into the universal consciousness and finally find what I am looking for. The phrase relates to some fae like creature knows as skin and bones or something like that. Apparently this thing likes to hang around mirrors and wait for children to utter the phrase and kidnap them. Apparently he works for the Lord of the Fae or some other highly placed freak. So apparently this thing is hanging out in this school and has been stealing children for forced slavery. School has been closed for a bit so he probably is having withdrawals or something. We surmise that Danno's dad probably got close to the truth and the Fae probably had some contract with the prince at the time, our dear friend Vincent, and probably had him offed. At this point we need to know more about this fae thing and if Vincent had anything to do with Danno's dad. We could probably just ask Vincent, or more like scan his memories because he really isn't in a good position for talking. We could ask Lylith though, she was around then and knew just about everything that happened in that palace. Ohm and I will go speak with Lylith while Danno and Red head down to St Louis. I traced the call for Danno and that's is where the last tower used by his friend's cell phone was. Danno has a feeling something bad is going to happen to his friend, or it may have already happened.
Lylith doesn't remember any talk of Vincent having Danno's dad killed for the Fae. She suggests that we would be better off talking to some of the Fae themselves. As much as I loath this idea, Danno has been a good friend and he has been trying to track down his father's murderer for a long time so it's the least I can do. And hell there may be a bonus killing of the fae thing that kidnaps children for fun. I can go along with that. Ohm and I figure since the winter solstice is right around the corner we should go talk with the Fae Winter Court. The winter court seems to keep normal person hours so won't be open for a while. So that gives us some time to take care of some other things. Meanwhile Danno and Red make it to St Louis and manage to find Danno's friend who appears to have been killed by many little bites. They chase down some small dog looking thing and Danno fired a shot from the his Walter into it and it makes that spark of the divine and the things poofs. Whatever it was it was evil. Thomas does some research and determines it was probably a demon called a swarmer. Danno talks to the corpse of his friend and gets a little info out. An informant to the friend had seen glances of an email send to some Capt in the CPD that Danno wasn't very fond of talking about the fae thing back in the school. Danno calls me up to see if I can find traces of this email. I couldn't find the email itself but I know it came from the computer that belonged to the assistant to the mayor. Would help to know exactly what that email said so I "hack" into this capt's head while he is sleeping and pluck out the memory of the email and read it that way. It mentions that this fae thing was the capt's idea and he needs to take care of it. This is going to be tough to track down with out going all jihad on the CPD which would probably be bad idea for the city right now. Danno and Red head back up here and soon the sun rises and Danno descends. Ohm and I go the funeral home to pay the winter court a visit.
We explain to the lord of the winter court that we are investigating some things for the Prince of the City. The lord is still new to the city but he has heard rumors of us and is quite willing to help. We ask him what he knows about skin and bones. He stops up before we could finish the name and says to never speak it again. We agree to reference it as SnB. He explains that it is a terrifying name to any changeling as they were probably stolen by it in the first place. It is usually bound to a location by someone with significant power but can only materialize when called. Destroying the location will only allow it to go somewhere else. So much for blowing the school up. We chat a bit more about changelings and the courts and learn some more about what they do. The lord mentions how they didn't really have a problem with the previous Prince because he caused alot of sorrow. We ensure them that this city is still ripe with it. We talk about the court change and he mentions the rumor that their is a true fae in the city. Red lets it slip that it's not a rumor and that the autumn court really did have one hanging about. The lord finds it perplexing that any changeling court would allow a true fae to exist within their court. Red lets it slip that this Fae lost it's power. The lord was also confused by this so we told the story of how Thomas challenged his lady and Lylith was his champion and sucked out the bitch's power. It was a good meeting, we learned some things about SnB and I at least gained some more insight into the changelings. It reminded me that fae and changelings are not the same and that the changeling's hatred of the fae mirrors my own. They may just make excellent allies in future endeavors. With that we head on back to the warehouse and get some sleep. It's been a very long night and we have to decide what we are going to do about SnB tonight.
Cygin
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After talking with the lord of the winter court and really seeing the hatred he has for any fae. I have to wonder why the autumn court agreed to let the bitch stay there. It sounds like any changeling would love to strike down a true fae if given a chance. Especially one who was drained of her powers. She really is a sitting duck. Which then makes me wonder about Thomas. What kind of power does she still have over him, there has to be something more than just the physiological effects of stockholme syndrome. She seems to have some kind of power over all of the autumn court. It is not important now. First we have to deal with SnB. And hell maybe the winter court will follow up on Red's slip of information and put an end to this madness for us.
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