In which our heroes face a plague of the undead as they tangle with a tricky sorceress in the Big Easy.
Act 1: Stonefield
Act 2: George McGinty's Gold
Act 3: The Cunning Trap
Act 4: Erzulie
Act 5: Lair of the Witch- Queen
Original Game Notes (Zipped Word document)
Our heroes are taking a well-earned break and enjoying dinner on a quiet spring evening when their butler, Manners, enters and tells them that a man named Jean Maybury - an old school friend of William's; a decent fellow but not the most practical or sensible of men - is here to see William. Maybury stumbles in, scratched and bloodied, and begs William for help, pleading that "they're after me!"
CRASH!
At that moment, a figure bursts through the dining room window. He has sallow skin, and a formaldehyde stench about him. He is a zombie!
Two more zombies burst in. Zachariah tells them off for interrupting dinner, but they don't seem too bothered. Nevertheless, one of them comes after him, while the other two close on Jean Maybury, and a fourth follows the first through the window.
Our adventurers spring into action. Li Mi kicks out at one of the zombies attacking Maybury, but finds it nigh impossible to unbalance. Then she springs back and lands a solid blow to the shoulder of the zombie attacking Zachariah, and manages to keep her cool despite the unpleasant sensation of its flesh sliding off its body under her foot. Unperturbed, the zombie flails wildly at Zachariah, who ducks under its windmilling arms and seizes the carving knife from the table. William meanwhile drags Maybury behind him, out of immediate harm's way.
William then scoops up a chair, and uses it to fend off one zombie, while evading a wild blow from the other and scooping up a steak knife. Li Mi grabbed the zombie attacking Zachariah by the hair, yanked its head back and drove a foot into the base of its spine, snapping its back. In a macabre fashion, the creature continued to flail at Zachariah until a slash from the carving knife opened it up, spilling nasty, embalmed innards across the floor. He too keeps his cool in the face of this heinousness. Li Mi ducks a blow from the fourth zombie as it rushes at her, limbs flailing.
His opponent fallen in a twitching heap, Zachariah slides across the table to land a solid - but not hugely effective - kick to the shoulder of the beast pinned by the chair, while William drives the steak knife into the eye of his other opponent. A windmilling arm swishes past his face, but aside from a brief flash of nausea, he resists the urge to puke. The pinned zombie shoves free and zombie bitch-slaps Maybury to the ground. Li Mi back kicks her assailant, tearing its head from its shoulders, leaving it to dangle hideously as the spinal column tears out of its back, but remains unbroken.
Zachariah slashes at the zombie who struck Maybury, while William grabs a plate and smashes it onto the handle of the knife jutting from the zombie's eye. The force drives the blade down through the soft flesh, and the beast falls in a twitching heap as the shock starts the stitching of its y-incision unravelling. Li Mi leaps across the table and boots the last zombie, and Zachariah finishes it off with the knife.
Leaving Manners to see to the mustering of whatever servants they retain for sweeping up zombies, the Adventurers carry the battered and disoriented Maybury to the infirmary, to be tended to by the idealistic young Glaswegian staff physician, Dr Iain Crabtree, who pronounces him to have 'just a few little scratches'. Zachariah has a stiff drink; Li Mi goes back and finishes her dinner; and William tried to find out what brought Jean here in the first place.
Once able to talk, Maybury is only able to repeat the words: "Stone Field. Home. Help." and appears to bee in deep shock. Crabtree recommends plenty of rest in familiar surroundings. By skimming his mind, Zachariah learns that 'Stonefield' is his home, a big house somewhere, and that there is a girl involved in all this somehow. From his old college year book, William learns that Stonefield is the Maybury family home in New Orleans.
The next morning, unable to get anything more coherent from Maybury, the Adventurers fuel up the zeppelin, and fly to New Orleans.
Stonefield proves to be a large, American Gothic manor house, set in a large and overgrown garden. The exterior of the house is a little run-down and sinister, but the door is freshly painted, and inside the place is well-tended. They are greeted at the door by a large and well-dressed elderly black servant, who expresses great concern at the sight of 'Master Jean'. He shows them through to the sitting room, and goes off to fetch Madame Maybury.
A silver-haired lady arrives, and sits by Jean. She is followed by a young woman - the girl Maybury was worried about - who also expresses her concern. An old and motherly servant enters with a hot posset for Maybury, and for a while all attention focuses on him. After that, the lady of the house apologises for neglecting her guests, and introduces herself as Jean's mother, Arabella Maybury. The girl is her niece, Amelia. she offers drinks, and send Jobe to organise it.
Jobe takes Li Mi aside, and confides that Master Jean was concerned that someone might try to attack or break into the house while he was gone.
Arabella, Jobe and the housekeeper, Mrs Bea, take Jean upstairs to bed, leaving Amelia to look after their guests. She tells them that she and Jean's mother - whom she repeatedly refers to as 'Mama' - did not know that Jean was planning on leaving, even for a few days. He had been gone for about ten days, and for a few weeks before that seemed increasingly on edge. William tells her that the doctor prescribed rest in a place where he would feel comfortable, and Amelia says perhaps home is not the best place. She confides that she often feels ill-at-ease her, and fears that the house may be haunted. She also tells them that the name of the house means a cemetery, and the manor was built some fifty years ago on top of a disused slave cemetery.
William and Zachariah offer their help - Li mi still playing the quiet servant - and Amelia thanks them profusely, expresses the hope that this is not putting them out, and offers them rooms at the house for as long as they need - adding that this will of course need to be confirmed with Mama. Then she goes to see about room for them, and leaves them to talk.
Thinking back, they become aware that the zombies were of various races.
They go to their rooms - finding unexpectedly that a guest room has been prepared for Li Mi as well. Amelia tells them that some of the maids have told her they thought that they saw people watching the house in the period when Jean was growing more and more nervy. She also adds that Jean kept a diary, but that she doesn't know where. As Jean is not in his own room - which his mother deemed to stifling for his current condition - they go to search it.
The room is indeed stifling. Humid, close and dark, with heavy velvet hangings and curtains. They search, and despite total bafflement on Zachariah's part, they learn that Jean was well-turned-out - vain even - and kept his diary under the head of his mattress.
From the diary they learn that Jean was an inveterate, and probably very bad, gambler. He managed to lose Amelia's treasured necklace one time, and is heavily in debt to a black criminal named Dupres, who runs a House (in New Orleans) that they call the Rising Sun. They also find that Dupres had been threatening Maybury, and that he wanted the young man to grant him his cousin's hand in marriage. Whether this disgusted Maybury more because the man was a gangster or because he was black was open to interpretation.
Swiftly, a plan is laid. To make contact with Dupres, Zachariah will go to the Rising Sun with Li Mi as his servant, and use his telepathic ability to win big. In case that doesn't work, William will enter as a man of lesser status but some mysterious means - flashing a lot of big bills around - lose big and run up a debt to the house if possible.
William enters first, joining the game dealt by Minnesota Jack Slim. He has to bribe his way past the bouncers, but gets attention, tips generously, and appears to get very drunk. Zachariah enters pretty much as himself, and joins the game dealt by Mississippi Pete. Thus both characters break one of the cardinal rules of poker - never play against a person with a city, state or river in their name - but they wisely avoid Alabama Delaney, who not only has a state name, but is also a woman with a tattoo - of a snake no less.
William loses; it's fairly easy to do. Zachariah has to work harder, but his psychic edge allows him to win big and lose small.
Finally, William is offered a loan from the house; $800 to call with a good, solid hand. His three kings fall before a royal flush, and he's in business. Michel - the house representative - takes him aside to arrange a 'credit option'. The credit option is a big man named Pierre, who will escort him for his own safety until he can pay the house back. He has one week.
Zachariah meanwhile, stares down a bluff and beats three aces with four twos. This is enough to attract the manager, M. Anton Dupres. Dupres swaggers up with two dissolute looking white girls on his arms, and challenges Zachariah to a game, with a thousand dollar ante. Alabama Delaney is brought over to deal, and it's game on.
William is still pretending to be drunk. He fakes falling and banging his head and in 'confusion' spins a line for Pierre about having lots of money, and more 'once we see the guy and sell the gold'. Pierre takes him for another drink, and tries to find out about the gold. William tells him they stole it from a decaying mansion, from a trunk covered in blood with a skull on top, the goon freaks, assuming he stole it from his boss' organisation. Pierre tells Zachariah he made a big mistake, and goes for him.
Zachariah bluffs well, and just about breaks even, but becomes aware that Dupres is actively blocking his attempts to skim his mind. At about the same time, Dupres realises he's being skimmed. He leaps up, slams his brass-topped, rams-head cane down on the table, derides Zachariah for trying to use magic on a bokor, and tells his cut-throat clientele that he will cancel the debts of the man who kills Zachariah.
All our heroes are embroiled in battle; Zachariah and Li Mi against a mob in the Rising Sun, William against Pierre the bruiser in a little cafe-bar.
Zachariah leaps onto a table to get clear of most of the cut-throat clientele of the Rising Sun, and draws the shiny new sonic concussion pistol William designed for him. Li Mi follows him onto the table, and launches a spinning kick that sends a whole pack of toughs flying. In return, the mob lands a number of heavy punches on Zachariah, and a guy with a knife scores a nasty cut along Li Mi's arm.
A poor start for William sees Pierre score a nasty blow. A heavy punch in the side of his head sends William reeling.
In the Rising Sun, Zachariah gives fire, blasting off several of William's patent pending concussion rounds into the body of the crowd, sending goons and villains falling like nine-pins. Li Mi attempts another spinning kick, with less spectacular results than last time, but the two of them suffer less injury in return. Zachariah ducks a punch, and his hair ruffles dramatically.
William recovers himself, and clouts Pierre around the head with his tankard, opening a nasty gash in the side of his head and causing one eye to bruise and swell half shut. Pierre's return swing is understandably rather wild. William's hair - being rather more sensible than Zachariah's - does not ruffle dramatically.
Deciding to cut to the heart of the matter, Li Mi leaps across the crowd to launch a flying kick at Dupres' face. Unfortunately, the gambler is too canny, and pulls one of his drugged up trollops in front of him as a human shield. The unfortunate girl takes a foot to the face, and falls in a sobbing heap. Zachariah's firing begins to be a little erratic, but he still drops a few more of the goons. Then one of them brings something down on his foot, badly knackering his toe.
William dodges another blow from Pierre, who is convinced that William is drunk, and that the tankard to the face was a lucky break.
Zachariah drops low to fire on the attackers climbing on to the table, but much of his fire goes wild, and a knee catches him in the face. Li Mi finds Dupres' second floozy trying to scratch her eyes out. Unable to move around the girl, she snaps off a secret Chinese nerve strike that drops her stunned to the floor. Dupres beats the retreat.
Another blow with the tankard lays Pierre out. in fact it all but kills him, and would have done had William not managed to pull the blow. He steals Pierre's wallet - having need of money - and tells the waitress to call an ambulance.
Zachariah is in real trouble, leaving Li Mi little option but to return to the fray. Fortunately for both their sakes, the crowd falters and breaks, and they are left alone with the unconscious.
William heads to the flophouse where he told Pierre he was staying and rents a room - hence the need for Pierre's money.
At the Rising Sun, the police arrive and tell Zachariah and Li Mi to put their hands on their heads. Li Mi feigns to know no English, and refuses to comply, even when ordered to do so by Zachariah. She is therefore cuffed to a chair, and a charge of resisting arrest is added to assault and immorality.
A detective named Morley arrives, and smooths things over. As Zachariah is plainly a gentleman who was acting in self-defence, he is released and his concussion pistol returned. He has to grease the palms of the uniforms to get Li Mi released - a transaction which the detective wants no part of - but eventually they get out of the Rising Sun.
They talk to the detective, who insist on the truth, and in return tells them that Dupres is the most powerful nigger - his word - in New Orleans' underworld, and works for a kingpin called le Chef. Then they head back to the house, where Mrs Bea, the housekeeper, bandages their wounds, and William calls them to compare notes and make plans.
Pierre recovers nicely, and returns to tell his employers what he heard from William - or, as he was calling himself, George McGinty. Dupres assumes the stolen loot to belong to le Chef, and given the wards that McGinty described, he takes it to be something of singular importance to his boss.
William tells Zachariah and Li Mi to get a room in the flophouse opposite his, so they can watch him. They are also to acquire a certain amount of 'treasure', to use as bait. This will be hidden in an old house, which William will rig with cunning traps. He will offer to take the bad guys to the treasure, they will be trapped, and this will get them a handle on the information that they want.
Early the next morning, 'McGinty's' landlady disapprovingly admits a visitor; a richly-dressed woman, of mixed race and stunning beauty. The woman makes McGinty an offer: His life and $5,000, in exchange for the treasure, and the name of the man who organised the job. Although she seems calm, William detects a hint of fear in the girl. He tells her that he does not know the guy's real name, but to set up a back-up ambush, tells her that he does know when and where the man has arranged to meet the guy who is buying the loot.
The woman says she will tell her employers this.
The three adventurers seek and find a house that suits their purposes. Then Zachariah and Li Mi go to a nearby town to acquire some 'treasure', while William devises and constructs - using only a few basic materials - the most devious collection of non-lethal traps ever built into a creepy old house by the hand of man.
When William returns to the flophouse, he receives two messages. The first tells him that the young lady will call again tomorrow morning, while the second is from Amelia, to say that Job has seen people watching the house.
William takes a winding route to Stonefield, loses a shadow, and scouts out the ground. He finds two tough looking mulatto bruisers watching the house, and takes them out with two shots from his concussion cane - one well-placed, the other just potent. Job sends the gardener with a wheelbarrow to collect the goons. Amelia is dead impressed.
William contacts Inspector Sullivan - a friend of Jean's - who gives him some of the same information that Zachariah and Li Mi got from Morley. He agrees to put some men on guarding the house, and William heads back to the flophouse.
Zachariah and Li Mi return to the house with the treasure. They turn in early, but are woken by a scream and find that Arabella Maybury has fainted. Amelia and Job are tending to her, and Zachariah sees that what scared her was a brick, thrown through the window with a note attached. The note says 'Go Home' and has a voodoo doll with a pin through the heart attached. Li Mi sees a figure leap over the high fence around the house, but is too far away to follow. Job tells them that the doll is a cheap tourist knock off, and directs them to a fellow named Dessier, who knows his stuff in the voodoo world.
Next morning, the woman arrives, and tells William to be outside the Rising Sun at six o'clock. She assures him there will be no police, and somewhat disconsolately tells him that the place will be open again in a week.
Zachariah and Li Mi go to see Dessier, who lives in a surprisingly pleasant street in the poorest part of the French Quarter. He tells them that the doll was made by a woman named Sandrine Voisier, who once showed great potential, but now mostly sells tat to tourists. He seems distressed by this decline. He also tells them that Dupres is a black bokor, and that he does not know who trained him, which is unusual in the world of New Orleans voodoo, because he knows pretty much everyone.
With six hours left until the rendezvous, Zachariah and Li Mi go back to the flophouse to wait.
To start with, a private detective named David Lock turned up at Stonefield looking for Zachariah - having been hired by Jeremiah van Oort to find out what his son is up to, and why he is suddenly billing the company for the legal defence of inveterate Chinese-American career criminals. A message was sent to Zachariah, who in turn let William know what was happening by writing a message on a paper dart and throwing it across between the two flophouses.
It dropped into the foyer of William's lodgings, and the disapproving landlady brought it up to him.
Zachariah brought Lock into the plan, as he is much better at following people in a car and not looking suspect than Zachariah or Li Mi. William meets up with them and shows them the traps he has arranged, so that they don't end up getting nailed. The system is set up so that nothing will happen until everyone is inside the house.
Zachariah and Li Mi conceal themselves: Li Mi in the room with the 'treasure', and Zachariah upstairs, because he is crap at hiding. David goes to a bar near the Rising Sun to keep watch, and looks like a surveillance cop. He tries not to meet too much the gaze of the actual surveillance cop also watching the Resin Sun.
At 6pm, William - aka George McGinty - goes to the Rising Sun, and is picked up by the mystery woman, four zombies and a couple of thugs. The woman seems different; incredibly creepy and scary, where before she was touchingly nervous. The zombies don't help. They sit squashed onto the back-facing seat of her towncar while she and McGinty face forward.
David follows, and spots another car behind him, also tailing the towncar. The driver in the front car realises he's being tailed, but the one behind David fails to note him as anything but another road user. Knowing where they are headed, David lets the front car lose him, and decides to try and stop the back car.
He pulls across the road, and blocks it. Four _enormous_ guys get out, and when he claims he had a blow-out, help him out by half-lifting, half-pushing his car - a big 20s American thing - out of the road.
The lead car loops to let their friends catch up, and William takes them to the house by a circuitous route. David takes the straight road and hides in the treasure room.
The bad guys arrive, letting a fifth zombie out of the towncar's boot. There are four big guys, three regular thugs, and five zombies, plus the scary woman.
William leads the bad guys down into the treasure room, and opens the hatch wherein is the dummy treasure, his concussion cane, and the trigger for the primary trap. The thugs lean forward, greedily, and are thus swiped by the swinging beam and all knocked cold.
Li Mi and David leap from hiding, while the zombies are ordered to kill William and the big goons all draw massive four-chambered shot- revolvers. Zachariah hastens downstairs, while two of the goon escort the woman out of the room.
The goons react with unseemly haste for such big guys, and shave the draw on both David and Li Mi, who both opt for the better part of valour and dodge like mad things. A mass of buckshot rips into the wall just behind David, and Li Mi is less fortunate: With uncharacteristic awkwardness, she fails to evade the shot, and takes a 12-gauge load to the shoulder.
William steps to the end of the line of attacking zombies, blasting the first to bits, and knocking him back into his cohorts, leaving only one in any state to attack this round. It fails to harm him at all.
Angry now, David throws down, and plugs the goon attacking him cold with his .45s. Li Mi holds herself conscious through sheer force of will, but luckily her assailant shifts his attention to William, thinking her out for the count. William hooks his zombie attacker with the cane and swings him around, intercepting the shot. The zombie is pissed, and turns on the goon. The others struggle to their feet.
Zachariah stands atop the (trapped) stairs, and with his command voice, tells the goons approaching to drop their guns. They do so.
The zombie slugs the goon, and is blasted for its trouble - leaving Li Mi, who had opted to go for the zombie once it had finished the goon off - standing flat. William beats off three zombie attacks, while David goes out the door. The other two goons are advancing on Zachariah - and getting clobbered by William's traps as they go, but he and David take them out with some handy gunplay.
Li Mi attacks the goon, David runs back in and shoots the guy in the back, dropping him. William jams his cane through a zombie's gut and blows it apart from the inside out. He was hoping to shoot the guy behind it, but takes what he can get.
And this - gentle reader - is where it all falls down.
Outside, Zachariah is hit with an almighty psychic whammy, and sent fleeing before the woman, fortunately maintaining the presence of mind to avoid the traps. The woman takes it on the lam.
William raps a zombie upside the head for little effect, while David grabs a plank of wood to lay in - so as not to risk hitting William by firing into a melee - and hits William by mistake. Li Mi heads for the door to check on Zachariah.
Zachariah continues running away and the woman makes for the door, while David beats at his zombie, and William fails to make much impression on his, and takes a beating in return.
As David and William struggle, and William takes even more licks, Zachariah recovers enough to join Li Mi in pursuing the woman. Li Mi uses a spring-loaded trap to launch her through a glass-less window, and runs around to the front of the house.
Zachariah chases, gets a shot and plugs the woman with his shock pistol, sending her reeling, then shoots her down with his .45.
William clobbers the last zombie with a mighty swing that redeems his earlier suckage, and then collapses. Outside, Li Mi keels over.
David administers what first aid he can to the woman - who is bleeding to death - and Li Mi - who is just bleeding. William cuffs the thugs who were knocked out, and they drag their sorry carcasses back to Stonefield.
Amelia is horrified by the state of them, brings them in, puts Li mi and the woman - whom she mistakes for an innocent victim - o the couches in the living room and sends Job for a doctor. Job goes out, and returns with M. Dessier, the houngan, who tends to the gunshot wounds - with much chanting and singing, and to great effect - while Amelia fusses over William.
William is - by this time - pretty much livid. Although a confirmed pacifist, he accepts that the shooting of large, unnaturally strong men who are waving shot pistols at you is a regrettable necessity. He is in no way so sanguine about shooting a fleeing woman in the back with a .45, _especially_ since he made the shock pistol for Zachariah so that he would have a means of incapacitating instead of killing. He is unsympathetic to Zachariah's protests, not so much because he disbelieves him as because whatever her powers, she was clearly _fleeing_, and he had the means to put her down non-lethally. In fact he used it, and _then_ shot her almost to death.
Amelia is appalled that he would do such a thing, especially since it is clearly _all_ he did in the fight. He is physically unharmed after all, and not even caked in zombie like the rest of them.
Zachariah shows no contrition. William makes him hand over his .45 and dismantles it.
Dessier puts the woman to bed and tells them that a mighty spirit was riding her, but is gone now. The wound was mortal, but with his care she will recover, and suffer little lasting harm, as the bullet passed mainly through meat, and missed the bone. In a day or so, she may be in a fit state to talk to them, but for now she needs rest.
Amelia tells Li Mi and William that they should rest as well, and has Job make up a room for David. Job also locks the thugs in the woodshed.
Our Adventurers are still a little out of sorts, with William refusing to let up on Zachariah over the 'shooting a fleeing girl in the back' incident, and Li Mi nursing a shotgun wound to the shoulder.
With their only real lead currently unconscious, they make enquiries with Job and Dessier, but neither is exactly up on the local underworld scene, although they do learn that Dupres henches for the Big Easy's kingpin; a man known only as 'Le Chef'. (That's with an acute on the 'e', so it's 'the chief', rather than 'the chef').
They also question Dessier about zombies. He tells them that zombies come in two kinds: people dosed with a drug which renders them cataleptic, and on recovery highly-susceptible to suggestion; and corpses animated by summoning their spirit - not their soul, but their spirit - back into the flesh. These zombies seem to be of the second type, but are unusually aggressive. To create such a creature requires some inducement to the spirit, usually in the form of tobacco or alcohol. That these can be made to attack, instead of simply performing menial labour, suggests a very strong inducement: possibly a threat to a loved one, or desire for revenge.
Dessier also explains that for those not skilled in magic, the things most likely to be effective against such creatures are salt and silver, both of which have purifying properties, and are thus effective against the impure, including creatures such as zombies and werewolves.
William buys and saws off a shotgun, and switches the buckshot in the cartridges for a mixture of silver fragments and rock salt.
At about 6 o'clock, the girl wakes up, and Dessier says that they may be able to speak with her. He is surprised by the speed of her recovery.
William goes in to talk to the girl, whose name is Erzulie. She does not seem to know where she is, or who he is, and is surprised to find herself injured. William tells her something of what has happened, and she is shocked and alarmed. She remembers meeting McGinty - although she does not recognise William as the same person - and getting ready for something, and then waking up here.
She tells him that she has to leave; that if she stays, they will come for her. She is however reticent to say who will come for her. She warns that they will harm those around her if they come, and that she might harm them also. She tells him that she can not trust her own mind, and that they must not trust her here, even as their prisoner.
She explains that she has woken up in worse conditions than the one she is in now - although she is much improved by Dessier's treatment - and knows that she does things of which she would not ordinarily be physically capable while her mind is not her own.
William tells Erzulie that if she goes back, the she will never escape her life. She replies that if she does not, they will come for her, and it will be worse. He assures her that they have helped women in similar situations, and proceeds to recount their last adventure. She seems particularly to find thematic resonance in Lin Po's case, and begins to open up to him.
She warns him that Dupres is not the one they should fear, and tells him that Le Chef is a small-spirited man. The one who is to be feared is Dupres' mistress, Marie-Claire; the one who is able to take over her mind and body.
William asks Dessier about Marie-Claire, and the old man recalls a girl, known as the Witch Queen of Bourbon Street for the power she wielded through her beauty and charm, who was around when he was young, but who has long been thought dead. One of her lovers beat her and left her to expire in a fit of jealousy.
William also asks about possession by another human spirit, and he explains that to do such a thing would require extraordinary will and power, and also incredible coldness of spirit. The girl - he notes - is strong, but not that strong. He can prepare wards to protect her against attempted invasion in the future.
Privately, William confides in his friends that of course there is no such thing as possession, but that the girl will be more able to resist the enforced psychotic state into which she is plunged by some dastardly art if she has the shield of faith to protect her.
Zachariah has an idea, and suggests that he could attempt to draw from Erzulie hidden memories which might help them defeat Marie-Claire. Erzulie is reluctant to remember any more than she does; already the things that Marie-Claire has done with her body haunt her dreams. She does however agree to think about it.
Over dinner, William and Li Mi try to persuade Zachariah to apologise to Erzulie for shooting her. Her insists that this would just lead to her learning what she had done to earn such treatment, which she does not want. William insists that he is asking her to let him into her mind, and this can not be done on the basis of deceit. Li Mi feels that the guilt will poison Zachariah's karma if he does not do the right thing. Zachariah becomes stubborn and refuses, insulting Li Mi somewhat by ordering her to shut up about the subject, as though she actually were his servant.
Zachariah states that he is who he is, and that won't chance. Amelia chips in that surely it's never too late to change how you live your life. William explains that he was once a spy and a saboteur before he found his way, and that if he could, he would apologise to those he had harmed.
Li Mi goes and apologises on Zachariah's behalf. Erzulie is baffled that he did not say this herself, but is not offended by the action itself, somewhat bitterly concluding that she probably deserved it. Li Mi tells her that no other can judge her; only she can judge herself.
Erzulie agrees to let Zachariah do his thing - although any bonus he might have gained for trusting him is lost by the fact that she believes he sent a servant to do something he found difficult or inconvenient - and adds that she feels that maybe she should know all that has been done with her body, so that she can be her own judge. She feels that she does not deserve the comfort of forgetfulness.
Before they begin, she tells him that when Marie-Claire uses her, she will either come to Erzulie's rooms, or have Dupres bring the girl to her temple. She is a half-caste woman with a bent back and crippled limbs. Her face is unmarked, but fixed in a horrible snarl, and one side does not move at all. In her presence, all that Erzulie can really look at are her eyes, but she does not know what they look like, because the moment she meets that gaze, she falls, and wakes up somewhere else, injured, or with blood on her hands, or otherwise hurt.
She does not know the way to Marie-Claire's temple, because she is always blindfolded.
Zachariah prepares to try and unlock her mind.
Zachariah places Erzulie in a trance-state, and helps her to recover her memories of leaving the temple under Marie-Claire's control. She tells him that it is in an old theatre in the French Quarter, about five blocks to the South of the Club Obeah, where she dances. She also begins to remember what Marie-Claire did with her; the blood she spilt and the pain she inflicted, and the...other things she did with access to a flexible young body.
Erzulie begins to panic, so Zachariah puts the memories away again, pats her on the shoulder and says 'there, there', and goes off to tell the others what he learned, leaving Erzulie sobbing like a baby (bad Rapport rolls; there was a thing).
David telephones his police contacts, and uses his influence to request that no response be made to trouble at the theatre. Meanwhile, William, Zachariah and Li Mi are all filled with righteous anger at the thought of some terrible old crone manipulating poor, sweet Erzulie; because she has that effect on people.
Our bold heroes head to the French Quarter, where they case the old theatre. William blends at the front, while Li Mi sneaky-sneakys around the back. William's superb senses note that there is activity within, while Li Mi finds the backstage entrance, a rusty fire escape and boarded up windows.
A plan is laid, with Zachariah and David going in the back, and William and David taking the front. On their way, William and David see that there is now a car parked outside: The Maybury's car!
And there is blood by the passenger door.
Really feeling the righteous wrath now, our heroes boot in the doors, and proceed to lay the smackdown.
Immediately faced with two goons and two gunmen, William snaps off a shot with his concussion cane to lay out the first goon, resting the barrel across the arm holding his zombie gun, with which he blasts a zombie to smithereens (it is immediately plain that M. Dessier's advice was sound). David is just a fraction of a second behind him in laying down his goon with a short, controlled burst of fire from his Tommy Gun.
Zachariah and Li Mi become aware as they burst in of goons to either side of the doors, and slam them back into the poor sods, who see what hit them, but not who.
As William's zombie gun takes down the second of the walking dead, David dashes form the foyer to the auditorium, in time to see two more goons enter the far side of the foyer. Meanwhile, hearing approaching footsteps, Zachariah and Li Mi duck back at a corner to wait. As the first man round the bend, Li Mi sweep kicks him down, and his friend stops short of the edge.
The new goons fire on William, who dodges like a bastard and is unharmed. Not having time to run back in, David fires _through_ the door, hosing the goons with lead as he empties the fifty-round drum. Fortuitously, he finds a spare Thompson clip (30-round straight, alas) on one of the downed goons.
Li Mi swings around the corner and boots the second man in the face, and she and Zachariah rush onto the stage as William joins David in the auditorium.
From beneath the stage, all can hear Erzulie, defiantly standing up to Dupres as he accuses her of betraying them and bringing the adventurers hear before the ritual is complete. Their righteous rage burns hotter as they hear the sound of a slap, and then Erzulie's terrified scream cuts off in a choke.
Then, a cold, harsh voice orders whoever is down there to 'kill them', and Zachariah and Li Mi are dodging for all they are worth as submachine gun fire rips the stage to pieces.
Unscathed, Zachariah fires his shot pistol into the gods, hitting a sandbag. Relieved of this weight, a heavy backdrop crashes down through the stage. Li Mi leaps through the stage trap, and lands in front of a curtained area, and behind an altar, to which Amelia Maybury has been tied. Also there are four goons reloading their SMGs, two zombies, and four of the really big mooks, each waving a massive cleaver.
Erzulie is struggling with Dupres, and cries out for help, ordering someone to kill Dupres. The zombies respond, even as Dupres viciously strikes Erzulie to the ground.
David charges in, leaping down into the orchestra pit. Taking in the scene, he hoses one side of the altar with the Tommy Gun. Two big mooks and one goon go down, and one of the zombies don't look happy.
Mesdames et messieurs; le Trench Broom in action.
David throws his empty gun at the mooks and draws his pistols. William jumps down into the orchestra pit.
There are now two mooks and three goons, and the goons have all reloaded. Dupres clearly has the upper hand with Erzulie, but although one of the mooks is busy with a turncoat zombie, the other is heading for David with a cleaver. Two goons are also drawing down on David, the other on Li Mi, and the zombies are still heading for Dupres.
David opts to evade, but unfortunately takes a few round from the submachine guns. Luckily for him, this knocks him backwards, taking him out of the range of the mook with the knife.
Zachariah smashes through the splintered stage, smacking a falling plank into one of the goons and knocking him out. Li Mi springs forward, kicks Dupres away from Erzulie and sends him stumbling into his goons...well, one goon and Zachariah, who's standing where the goon is. As goon three has his boss knock into him however, he manages to get off a shot at Li Mi, a bullet punching nastily through her abdomen.
William shoots Dupres, and hits him square in the face with a concussion shot, sending him and the goon down.
Erzulie thrashes as though having a seizure, and the second mook hacks his zombie to bits.
Injured, Li Mi tries to help Erzulie, but the girl leaps up with a knife in her hand, and a mook attacks Li Mi from behind with a cleaver covered in zombie goo. The remaining zombie meanwhile turns on William.
David plugs his mook, and William drops the last goon. The mook misses Li Mi by a mile, even before she dodges. Zachariah attempts to focus the force of his mind to eject the possessing presence from Erzulie, and succeeds in driving her back. Somewhat released, Erzulie gestures wildly at the curtain with her knife.
David finds no one left to shoot, and holds off, while Li Mi kicks the knife out of Erzulie's hand, but fails to do the same to the mook. A surge of psychic force smacks Zachariah back, and Erzulie turns on him, unarmed, bleeding, but angry. He grapples her, and barely evades a kick to the face as she snaps her foot up over the back of her shoulder.
The mook swings at Li Mi, and would have sliced her head _clean off_ had he not smashed through a beam in the low space, dropping a substantial chunk of stage on his head.
William pulls the curtain aside, to see a crippled old woman sitting by a burner and manipulating a puppet of Erzulie. He shoots the burner away with his concussion cane, sending it spinning across the floor and into the back curtain, which lights up like tinder.
The old woman howls in hatred, and outside, Erzulie collapses. David and Li Mi move to tend her wounds, while Zachariah frees Amelia from the altar. William throws a length of curtain over Marie-Claire like a net. Just as he does so, she unleashes a horrifying psychic blast at him...and it smacks into his mental fortitude like water on a dam.
William moves in, and delivers a quick punch to the head to silence the shrieking Marie-Claire. Then everyone leaves the theatre as it goes up in flames.
Amelia is all concerned about William - somewhat to the chagrin of those who actually got seriously wounded in this fight - who in his noble way insists on rescuing the unconscious villains (all but the big mook, whom none of them could carry).
The fire brigade show up later, explaining that they were told to ignore calls to this address, and David clears things up with the police.
Policeman: What happened here?
David: We beat up a bunch of nigres officer.
Policeman: We don't stand for that kind of behaviour any more.
David: They were criminals. Policeman: Well. Fair enough, then.
Jean Maybury recovers from his coma, but is weakened, and more pathetic than ever. The Adventurers assure Erzulie that it was not her fault that she was controlled by Marie-Claire and forced to abduct Amelia, and that the old witch will never do anything to hurt anyone again.
Fin.