Nomadic:Sessions:20151219
During the previous three months, Valerie had been working on a movie shoot in California, and Vicente had spent much of his time in New Orleans. At some point they each received an email from Rick notifying them that Enigma required them to leave on a mission on a specific date. JT and Max had already gone on a different mission.
Three newcomers arrived at the Lazy 8 Ranch: Marcus Johnson, a federal agent; Jack Craggs, special ops; and Father Martin O'Sullivan, a Catholic priest. Rick showed them around and answered what questions he could.
Vicente showed up the morning of departure and got acquainted with Jack, Marcus, and Father Martin over breakfast. Valerie made her entrance via parasail. She'd had a job on a movie starring some older guy named Schwarzenegger, and she's a bit perturbed that "the director" is jacking around with her schedule yet again.
Rick has been given very specific driving directions to a city called Gateway, Georgia [in our world, it corresponds to Atlanta]. When we arrive, it will be August, 2014. We're to make contact with Lori Griffin at a Motel 6. Vicente drives the Winnebago (towing a sports car) and Jack drives the Land Rover (towing two motorcycles). The journey takes a couple of days.
Lori Griffin is a strawberry blonde who is in her 20s but looks much younger. She is obviously terrified of something, and Father Martin works to calm her down enough that she can talk coherently. In the room behind her Vicente sees the ghost of a human male clad in bloody robes.
Outside across the street from the Motel 6, Valerie sees a van and a large sedan, both with dark tinted windows. A man (M1) is leaning against the front of the van and staring at the motel. She can tell there's at least one other person in the car and a few more in the van. Valerie murmurs this information into her headset, and Jack, Marcus, and Vicente start running in her direction. Father Marcus stays with Lori, begins preparing a ritual, and encourages Lori to pray with him.
Unnoticed, Valerie climbs to the roof of the van, pulls out her shotgun, and announces loudly, "YOU'RE SURROUNDED! Drop your weapons! Hands in the air!" M1 turns around, gun drawn, and stares up at her for a few seconds. Valerie repeats her warnings, raising her shotgun and aiming at M1's groin. Vehicle doors open, and several armed men emerge.
Jack fires his AR15, killing M2. As soon as M1 aims at Valerie, she fires and he collapses. Vicente, who had teleported behind M3 (informally nicknamed Gymnast), orders the man to drop his weapon. M3 suddenly spins around, intending to cripple Vicente with a hard kick, but Vicente blinks away. M3's momentum causes him to tumble to the ground, but he immediately rolls to his knees; Vicente fires his Glock three times, hitting M3 twice. The ghost moves behind the wheel of the sedan and starts the engine.
M4 drops his gun and flees. M3 sees Marcus approaching and curses; shouting "I surrender!" he drops his shotgun and kisses the ground. Vicente reaches for the handle of the rear driver's side door of the sedan. Marcus jogs over to M3 and offers him the choice, "Easy or hard?" "Easy," replies M3, and Marcus zip-ties him.
The ghost shifts the car into drive and a man in the back seat (M5) slams down the lock on the door Vicente is trying to open. Vicente opens the driver's door and slides behind the wheel. M5's jaw drops, the ghost seems "shaken up," and Vicente stops the car and puts the gear in park.
Jack, aiming at M4, calls out "I got sights on the runner." "Put him down," Vicente tells Jack, who fires once and kills M4.
Vicente says to M5, "Get out. If you try to run, I'll kill you. And whose ghost am I sitting in?" The ghost leaves the car and walks away, darkness swirling about him. Vicente tells M5, "You're going to tell me about him." Valerie checks on M1, but his wounds were fatal; she searches him quickly and takes his wallet which contains his ID.
Knowing the police will be arriving in response to shots fired, the group quickly gets away. Lori identifies one of their captives as Mr. Everett. "He runs a news B-log." (She also uses the term 'blog' but apparently there is a difference between the two.)
Lori stumbles over her words as she tries to explain her situation. She is hiding from a cult of which she had found traces on the Web. The cult appears to have connections with numerous politicians. She got scared when 'something' scrambled her computer, then she was unable to get a cellphone signal. "Maybe there's something I don't know? Have I stumbled into the occult?" She believes the leader of the cult is Aaron Charles Golden, manager of a band called Howling Coyotes. The ghost, called The Wolf, had directed Joyner's crew to hunt Lori down.
The group stashes most of their vehicles at an abandoned warehouse and gets a hotel room. Valerie stays to protect Lori while the others take Everett in the Winnebago to see Mr Golden, who is staying in an expensive hotel suite downtown. Vicente, Father Martin, and Everett are met by a goon with a .45. Vicente murmurs to his companions, "Get behind me."
Marcus and Jack take the freight elevator, but as they reach the third floor the doors are locked and a voice orders them to put down their guns. Jack asks, "Is this the restaurant?"
The goon fires twice at Vicente (attempting a double-tap), but to his surprise the bullets embed themselves in the far wall. Vicente fires and kills the goon, and Father Martin pulls out his pistol.
Jack and Marcus force the elevator door open and disable the camera. Rick reports over the headsets that he had failed to block an outgoing 911 call.
At the suite they come face-to-face with Golden and three bodyguards. Father Martin, persuasively: "We don't want to kill anyone; we want to talk." Vicente, forcefully: "Come with us." Golden, flatly: "No." Vicente kills B1, and Father Martin shoots B2 in the knee. B3 says, "Mr Golden, I'm sorry." Father Martin pleas eloquently, "Mr Golden, make a good choice. There's a lot of darkness around you. For the sake of your soul, Mr Golden."
"We've got visitors," warns Jack. Rick locks down the elevators. Vicente herds everyone to the roof, then down to the parking garage where Rick pulls up in the Winnebago. Vicente takes the wheel and drives away. Six or seven patrol cars are responding to the emergency call; one of them decides to tail the Winnebago. Vicente continues driving casually until he pulls onto a residential street and stops in front of a "Winnebago-looking house." Vicente steps out of the RV and one of the policemen approaches. "There was a shooting at a hotel." "I wasn't *at* the hotel, I was just driving by." Eventually the policeman returns to the patrol car; they sit there until Vicente lets himself into the house before they finally drive away.
Marcus takes off his own necktie and gags Golden, then removes $50 from Golden's money clip to pay for the tie. He pistol-whips Golden, telling him "No more jokes." Vicente: "Who is The Wolf?" Golden: "Benjamin Jeremiah Wolf." Father Martin feels evil pressing against him. The Wolf had been a ghost for awhile, but Golden couldn't see him until last year. Golden can hear ghosts but can only see a few.
Father Martin: "Do you fear judgement?" Golden: "I'm not Catholic." Father Martin: "Are you ready to feel the burn of the Light?" Golden: "This should be an interesting contest." As Father Martin blesses some water, Golden says that Lori is "bad for business" but their organization is not a cult; "I make money for Heinrich Kimmler."
Father Martin pours the holy water down Golden's throat. Golden immediately goes into convulsions. Father Martin performs his ritual; an evil presence departs from Golden, who falls unconscious. "The darkness has faded from his soul."
Later on Father Martin meditates, and it is revealed to him a "great physical danger for a crowd of people."
Sunday morning, Golden is still in a coma. Jack recalls experiments in the 1950s with LSD; he starts to search through data on the USB drive he'd picked up from Enigma's Junkpile, but soon enlists Rick to do the research -- "I hate computers." There is information about the city of Gateway, Mr Golden, and the members of Howling Coyotes. One of the Howling Coyotes, Kell O'Hearn, attends spiritualist events.
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