Somewhere in the city a man parks a minivan. As he exits the vehicle, he reaches back and activates a timer linked to massive vats of explosives. The timer is ticking down...
Elsewhere in the city, the cabal discusses Mammon’s recent difficulties with the Jaguar Wolf spirit. Colt posits that the spirit is attracted to Mammon due to greed and his love of cars. He also brings up the idea of them keeping a car in Shadow or perhaps befriending a car spirit so that they can travel faster in Shadow. Casting about for a possible culprit they find few likely candidates. Midas is brought up but Adele says that he and she did not talk about Mammon at all. Questioning the Epicurian Grimoire about the spirit, Adele learns that the creature is called a magath, a mad mixture of spirits. It also mentions a spirit of wasps and glass shards which might still be in the city. Returning to possible culprits, one possibility is a new mage in town. Eckhart could be the culprit as he is a master of Spirit but his behavior makes this seem unlikely.
They decide to track the spirit. Heading into Shadow, Colt follows its tracks tailing it to a tangle of streets downtown. Adele asks Merlin to find them a shortcut. Heading through an alley they sneak up on the mad spirit. They find it in a courtyard driving around a starving coyote spirit and an urban feral spirit, which resembles a dog man with trashcan skin. Watching the scene, they realize the magath is keeping the other spirits captive in an attempt to form a pack.
They quickly prepare to catch it. Colt, Mammon and Adele climb up to a second story window on the edge of the courtyard, while Valkyrie sneaks up on the spirit from behind. Colt launches their attack by shooting at its tires. The creature sees them and launches itself at the building, knocking Colt loose. Valkyrie tears into it with a blazing sword, while Adele traps it in a ban. The other spirits flee. Mammon tries to read its mind but fails, thwarted by the chaos in its thoughts. He changes tactics and tries to command it into the soul jar. It resists and escapes the ban. As it tries to flee, Valkyrie again tears into it with her sword. Meanwhile Adele drops a new stronger ban on it and Mammon succeeds in commanding the spirit. They trap it in the jar and begin to question it.
As Mammon slowly drills into its fractured mind, Valkyrie reads its resonance. The creature is mad, a fusion of wolf and car essence. It was affected by some sort of Spirit Arcanum spell that erased its memory of who sent it and why. It only knows hate for Mammon, Colt and Athaliah. However it was not Eckhart who sent it and the strain of creating it left a slight Abyssal taint, implying their culprit does not have mastery of the Spirit Arcanum.
They spin the jar to keep the spirit from dying while Mammon calls Athaliah. She seems unsurprised by their information, saying that she suspected some trouble from Toronto. As she leaves her apartment to go see them, the phone call cuts off. Scrying on her apartment yields a scene of destruction, caused by a car bomb going off. They ritually construct a portal to a nearby location and see what they can do to help.
Appearing on a rooftop a block away, the devastation is terrible. The bomb has destroyed Athaliah’s home and fire has consumed much of the block. Fire spirits swarm the area in great numbers. Colt and Mammon learn that Athaliah has survived and is being taken to the hospital. As they head to the hospital to magically save her, Valkyrie and Adele investigate the destruction. Adele canvases the newly created ghosts, learning from them that there was a red minivan that was likely the source of the destruction. Valkyrie is able to read the resonance of a mage in the area who summoned fire spirits to this location, likely to expand the destruction. The mage is the same as the one who sent the magath after Mammon. They call Arachne and ask for her help in investigating what happened there earlier.
At the hospital Colt is able to pull Athaliah back from death and the two bring her to the Promethean where she will be safe. They are led in by the staff, who as always seem to know what is happening before they do. Upstairs they run into Decima, who asks what they have learned. Just then Adele calls Mammon filling him in on the details, including Arachne’s sketch-work of the mage who triggered the bomb. Decima says that she will get the information to their men in the police force. She has a favor to ask them however. Another mage tied to this is coming into town that night, Athaliah’s mentor Cocheta. She asks them to meet her at the harbor. They agree and then head out to meet up with the rest of the cabal, hoping to track the mage back to his hideout.
Valkyrie and Adele try to contact Ekhart, hoping he knows something. Unfortunately he is not at his hotel room. Adele contacts Mammon and gets word that they are on their way.
Once there Colt scans the crowd, noticing many who like him are investigating from the sidelines. He spots Eckhart and they approach him. Though hesitate to admit it, they learn that he was in town to stop this. It seems students of his are behind this, specifically Carbon Zero, an ecoterrorist. He wanted to make sure their revenge schemes did not hurt anyone else.
Together the cabal and Eckhart decide to follow the terrorist’s trail. Colt tracks it while Mammon drives. After a short while they trace Carbon Zero to a residential neighborhood. There they find the spirit of an oak tree fused with one of the houses. Unfortunately along the way they realize they have starved Jaguar Wolf to death. They also realize it is time for them to meet Cocheta at the docks.
Eckhart decides to go after his former students now and Valkyrie stays behind to back him up. Mammon, Colt, and Adele then head to the docks where Cocheta is arriving from Canada.
At the docks, the cabal finds a group of well armed men watching the incoming ship. Three of them are Sleepwalkers while the other is a very muscular Mage. Throwing up a ban against bullets, Adele and the others race to the ship while Colt begins to shoot at them. Mammon uses his magic to turn the sleepwalkers against each other, while Adele notices a young Native American woman in Shadow. She hurriedly explains that they are here to help and the woman turns herself into a bear and launches herself through Shadow at the Mage. The rebel Arrow soon finds himself wounded and alone with his mortal allies restrained, unconscious or mentally dominated. He hurriedly turns himself into a fish to escape but the strain kills him. The bear turns back into a much older woman wearing the mask of a youthful face. She introduces herself as Cocheta.
Meanwhile across town, Eckhart summons several spirits who materialize in the real world. They consist of nature spirits tainted by civilization: a eagle with aircraft features and a bear merged with a semi truck. Together they storm the building with the spirits occupying the house spirit. Valkyrie races in and engages a beast man who attacks with claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. She and Eckhart easily drive him off. They then head to the kitchen where they find Carbon Zero has cut the gas main and is threatening to the blow up the house. Eckhart tries to talk him down but Carbon Zero releases a spark and vanishes. Flames envelope Valkyrie as the she bursts out of a window just in the nick of time. She is singed but alright, alone amid the destruction.