“Come back, Fido!”

— Nigel



 

Ravenscraig, Scotland

A call for help from the police is never good. This one came from Scotland. Something terrible was taking place in the town of Ravenscraig. People had been turning up comatose, in a state unlike any coma the doctors have ever seen. The case report said seven so far, and medics could find no cause for it. None of the victims showed any sign of injury or disease. All appeared in perfect health but utterly unresponsive. Nothing identifiable connected the victims, although none was younger than the age of 40. Neither police nor medics could discern any pattern to gender, race, or other obvious categorisations. One victim was found on a park bench. One was lying next to a duck pond. One was discovered in a shopping trolley in a supermarket car park. The police searched CCTV after the last victim was found slumped next to a bus stop and saw what appeared to be some kind of animal leaving the victim there, before it disappeared into shadow.

 

An ape=like shape obscured by shadow near a bus stop at night

 

Keira, Ana, and Thomson were joined by the Rt. Hon. Nigel Fotherington Molesworth-Thomas III, who had seen what looked like the shadow of an animal he hadn’t yet bagged on some of the grainy CCTV footage. On arrival in Ravenscraig, the team went to the hospital to find out what they could from the existing patients. This involved Keira… distracting handsome Dr Ben Kidd in the supplies cupboard while the others checked charts. Ana sniffed some clothing and detected a strange chemical odour, a bit like death mixed in with the smell of magic plastic.

The team decided to try searching for the odour and used the locations of victims from the case file to decide on a search area. This led them to the park, where Ana had to contend with passers-by, Nigel’s comments of, “There’s a good doggy,” and having to get changed into wolf form in a bush. Not to mention the yapping little bichon that took an interest.

They lost the trail where it crossed the main road out of town, and went to the police station to have a look at their files and view the video.

Thomson, not being comfortable in the presence of authority, hung around outside, and met with Stu Collins, formerly of the police, but invalided out with PTSD after being bitten by a vampire. That was Thomson’s first mission, and Collin’s recognised them. After a detailed discussion on whether UFOs were more supernatural than vampires, Collins revealed that there had once been a tannery locally, owned by the Hartley family. They were pretty rich, he said, and kept themselves to themselves. Hartley House was out to the east side of town — in the direction the scent trail had led Ana, on the other side of the main road.

Inside, Keir was chatting up PC Amrit Khatri, who told her all about how the local crime boss, Big Tam, wouldn’t let any of his people try to rob Hartley House. Laughing, he explained that Big Tam thought it was haunted or something. Although Keira would have liked to chat to Big Tam, at the time he was serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure in Manchester, and wasn’t liable to be out for a few years.

Ana and Nigel spoke with DCI Mhari McLeod, who was in charge of the case. She gave them access to all the videos, including some CCTV footage that showed a suspicious shadow passing by the CCTV on the industrial estate on the eastern edge of town.

Reunited, the team headed out in that direction. At the gates to the Hartley estate, Keira pressed the buzzer. And kept pressing. It was eventually answered by a posh English accent that said they were not interested. Keira kept buzzing, but their ability to ignore an annoying noise outlasted her patience. Also, several large dogs came trotting over to the gate. Ana picked up the scent again, and it was clear there must be another entrance, as whoever left the trail wasn’t using the gate.

The dogs followed the team as they tracked the scent to a hole in the wall. Ana got a whiff of them, and realised that the dogs had the same chemical scent as the one they were trailing, although it wasn’t quite the same — whatever she could smell, the dogs were something else. While they were discussing how to get in, the dogs scrabbled their way through the hole in the wall, but they were reluctant to approach Ana, so wouldn’t come any closer.

Nigel phoned his batman, Jenkins, and ordered him to bring them some tranquiliser-laced sausages. These arrived only twenty minutes later, and Nigel and Keira tossed the doped meat to the dogs. Ana had to resist the temptation to eat one herself.

Once inside, the team entered the house through the French windows into a sitting room. It was old-fashioned, and chintzy, apart from the head mounted on the wall which, on closer examination, turned out to be a chimera of a deer and a bison with a human face. The face was warm, and the eyes moved. Shocked and horrified, the team levered the head off the wall, and it immediately oozed a stinking greenish ichor before dying.

Ana promptly rolled in it. Keira had to stop her.

When they opened the door into the main hallway, they were attacked by several large buck rabbits with antlers and wings. Ana let her wolf nature take over and quickly dispatched them, although she was then reluctant to leave her prey.

On the stairs, the team met Jeeves, a chimpanzee with the mannerisms, voice and dress of an aristocrat’s butler. They realised this was the animal shape they had seen in the CCTV videos, carrying the victims away. Above him, on a higher floor, they saw Cecil Hartley, the Hartley scion. Jeeves was not to be talked round, and before the team could go any further, they were attacked by several chimeras, including a lizard-headed man with the muscles of a blacksmith, a bear with a human face, several antelope with human faces, and a deer with a wolf’s teeth. Despite bringing heavy firepower in the form of Nigel, each team member was injured in the fighting, Keira seriously.

Once they had fought their way to the top floor, they found a taxidermy workshop where Hartley had clearly been making the chimeras. Hartley himself was just disappearing through a door at the far end. Jeeves tried to prevent them following, and the team killed him.

Two blue rings with eerie strands of light stretched between themThrough the door, they found stairs leading to an attic, where they found what appeared to be a dozen crow heads braided together on a fleshy stalk. The heads spoke in a language none of them could understand. Hartley was using a crystal lens to focus energy onto humself from a huge, shimmering orb. Without waiting to see anymore, Nigel shot the orb. Hartley withered before their eyes, and the orb began to give off a painful, high-pitched whine.

The team made a hasty exit, although Keira took the opportunity to grab the crow heads on her way out. When they reached the garden, the entire top floor of the house exploded in blue light that seemed to warp reality for a split second.

Next stop: the nearest place to give Ana a B A T H.

 

 

“I don’t think letting Merlin have this would be entirely sensible.”

— C



 

C’s Office, Camelot (Covenant main HQ), France.

C has hung the painting the team recovered from Wormsley Church on a wall in her office. She leans back in her office chair, head tilted to one side, staring at it.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not keeping it there,” she says. “A couple of our more robust R&D — that’s Recovery & Deposition, not Merlin’s mob, I don’t think letting Merlin have this would be entirely sensible — will be up presently to take it somewhere safe.” She glances at Keira. “Belial, Hyacinth said? Interesting. I thought we’d recovered all of his infernal artefacts when we disbanded that cult in the 80s. They were all big hair, bad attitude, and body odour. Nothing to give us any serious problems, but what they lacked in common sense and competency they made up for in funding. Quite the collection, they acquired. Belial isn’t very hands on, as arcane beings go, but I can’t say I like the idea of associated artefacts being in general circulation.”
A small light flashes on C’s console and she presses a button to open the door to her office. Two people enter, both illegally tall and made entirely of muscle. They wear gear that might have been designed by Rob Liefeld, considering the number of pockets, and shades so dark the lenses look opaque.
“The artefact, ma’am?”
“Over there, thank you.”
“Precautions?”
“None necessary. Magical containment with minimum Epsilon level clearance. Keep the graduate recruits out, will you?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
They present a PDA and C scribbles a sigil with many flourishes. Only then does the pair lift the painting off the wall, slide it into a protective case, then head to the door.
“One more thing,” C calls after them.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“The associated case is not entirely closed. Should it become necessary to dispose of the artefact, Robin here is to be given the opportunity to carry out that task.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Once the Cleaners have left, C picks up the painting that had been there previously. It appears to be the Gustav Klimt painting “Medicine”, which was supposedly lost in WWII. She rehangs it, then sits back down at her desk.
“Assuming Agnes is now at rest, I think we can call this case closed. At least unless Black’s predicament becomes a problem for people other than Black. But let’s keep an eye out for any other artefacts that might belong to Belial regardless. Anything you wish to add?”
Nobody replies, apart from Robin, who mutters something about saving the day and wanting his picture on the wall as Hunter of the month this time.

 

 

“Something given after death is still a gift.”

— Hyacinth



 

Professor Fantastic Has A Very Bad Day

Case file: Darren Black, stage name “Professor Fantastic”, is a street magician, illusionist and arch-debunker of those who claim to have supernatural powers. Famously ill-tempered, he delights in the misfortunes of his rivals, and loves to stick a metaphorical knife in when someone is already on the ground. He has a prize on offer to anyone who can demonstrate anything resembling magic abilities, but somehow nobody has ever won it. That means he’s cheating. According to the report, he recently investigated the most haunted church in England, the infamous Wormsley Parish Church. Now, the oddest, most inexplicable things are happening, and they are driving him mad. Probably couldn’t happen to a more deserving chap, but I suppose we should look into it.

 

Team:

Ana: a solitary member of one of the allied werewolf packs.

Hyacinth: powerful frost witch masquerading as a sweet old lady.

Robin: chronologically challenged Neanderthal

Keira Sayles: Bad girl, crook, mistress of sacrcasm.

 

After turning up at Black’s house, the team met Geoffrey Collins, Black’s PA. Black himself was not at home. Collins explained that, ever since the church, Black had been having problems. Wishes were coming true in the worst possible way. Pressed for more information, Collins tried to give examples: he’d wish for a parking space, and a truck would crash through the car park, shoving cars out of the way. He’d express the desire to have cheese after his evening meal, and a lorryload would be dumped on the drive in the middle of the night. He could no longer so much as think about getting a hair cut, for fear of what might happen, and have you ever tried NOT thinking about something? He was becoming paralyzed.

Both Keira and Hyacinth immediately recognised this as a curse and asked if they had stolen anything from the church. The answer was no. Did they talk to anyone? No. Was he sure? Yes. Well, other than the sweet little girl who appeared in the graveyard…

Black came home while they were discussing what the little girl had said, and he was furious. He tried to make the team leave, but when he opened his mouth to tell them to get out, no words would come. A chair slid through from an adjoining room and knocked his feet out from under him, so that he was sitting facing them all.

Keira tortured him a little by repeatedly demanding he tell them he did not want help. Either the curse prevented him from speaking, or he was paralyzed with fear of what might happen if he expressed even a negative desire.

The Hunters established from Collins that the little girl had told them there was a cursed painting in the church, and the cantrip associated with it. Black, of course, in his role of arch-debunker, had chosen to go into the church and recite the cantrip in front of the painting.

Belial once and Belial twice /  Where flames once were / You now find ice / Grant me a demon to do my will / Should I ask for good, it shall do ill.

After that, the team headed to the church. They found the painting, but it seemed to be stuck to the wall and there was no way to remove it. Outside in the churchyard, nosing around, they realised they were being watched by a fox with piercing blue eyes. Ana gave chase, and finally caught up with the fox in the woods. The fox transformed into a feisty redhead with a predatory grin and a strong line in flirting, to which Ana was entirely oblivious. She called herself Red.

A fox sitting in a cemetery

After some pressure from the team, which she seemed to enjoy hugely, Red explained that she was pissed off at Black because she’d tried to win the £1million prize, and he’d refused to acknowledge her power. She’s a god! How very dare he! All of this was her revenge. Said revenge wasn’t just getting him to activate the curse in the painting (which, by the way, she put there — it does not belong to the church), but also to set Black Agnes on him.

Black Agnes was a witch who was hanged in 1587. She escaped being burned only because she supplied fertility potions to the local Duchess, Eleanor of Lembury. She was accused of witchcraft by a local man who fell off a cart after he had been drinking and hurt his back, and could therefore no longer work. He accused her of cursing him, because she had been passing on her way to help deliver a baby. Eleanor and some of Agnes’s other clients arranged secretly for her to be buried in the cemetery. Her bones were dug up during some archaeological work and put on display in a local museum. Some years later, a local coven stole her skeleton and reburied it in a secret place within the church grounds. Red had taken the metal wire that had been used to articulate her skeleton and hidden it on Black. Now Agnes was on her way to hunt him down and get it back, because she considered it hers.

“Of course,” Hyacinth said. “Something given after death is still a gift.”

The team started tracking Black’s route back from the church, having got the details of where they had stopped from Collins. At the big Tesco on the outskirts of Eastbourne, where they had stopped for Collins to buy a cheese and onion pasty, they were met by DC Mark Rintoul and DCI Jane Reid. DCI Reid worked with Unit 13 on the Wendigo case in Scotland, and was more than happy to offer their co-operation. They were there because one of the security guards had attacked a colleague before walking out of the store. He seemed to be in some kind of fugue state or mental crisis, like several other people they had picked up that day already, and was currently still walking about 6 miles away while they waited for mental health support to come in and pick him up.

Keira said they would take care of it, then they drove as fast as they could to find the security guard. He was, as described, walking along the road, followed by a police escort.

Keira waved the police away and Hyacinth established that the guard had been possessed by Black Agnes. They persuaded her to get into their car on the basis that they could get Agnes to where she was going faster.

The drove where Agnes directed. Her host sat in the back and pointed with one arm straight out, occasionally demanding that they stop. Whenever they stopped, she would take her current host and find  new one — all people with whom Black had interacted.

Back at Black’s house, the team rescued Black’s driver from the shades Agnes summoned, then searched everywhere for the pieces of metal, but couldn’t find them. They called Collins and found out that Black was visiting his creative consultant — the man who designed his magic tricks for him.

Arriving at the warehouse containing the magical workshop, Keira shoved her way inside and yelled, “Oi! Dickhead! Bits of metal!”

Black had no idea what they were talking about. After a few minutes of arguing, Black’s booking agent, Cassie Foyle, revealed herself to be none other than Red the Fox. She said she might have hidden the articulation wire in Black’s jacket lining. With that information, they quickly found the wire.

Agnes still needed to go back to her resting place but needed a host to do it. Red eventually agreed to help, and turned up with a singularly intelligent looking cat. As for breaking the curse… All Black had to do was apologise and pay up, and then she would sort that out. As far as the team was concerned, this was between Black and Red, and so they left Black to stew in his own misogynistic, entitled bullshit.

Back at Wormsley, the cat led them to Agnes’s grave. The team buried the articulation wire, reuniting it with its owner, and so bringing to an end the haunting of Wormsley Church. They took the cat inside the church and had the bright idea of asking him how to get the painting off the wall. The cat extending one claw, inserted it into a very narrow slot on the side of the painting, at which point there was a click and the painting came free.

The team returned to base with the painting, with the exception of Hyacinth, who took the cat — now called Marcus Oliver Graves — home.

 

 

The Covenant's HQ: a castle on a wooded hillside.

“I DID GOOD OK?”

— Keira



 

C’s Office, Covenant HQ

“Well. You will be delighted to hear that Queen Maedhbh has agreed her current décor would not, in fact, be enhanced by the presence of your decapitated heads. Leaf green and blood red are not a good combination unless it is a battlefield, apparently, and she fears it might give some of her younger, more impressionable courtiers the wrong idea about the future she sees for her race.” C glares at them. She is not often visibly angry. She is so now. “I gave you very strict orders, yes? Can everyone agree that I gave very strict, very precise orders? Can we have that on the record? And I understand that it was Elres who made the initial decision to investigate further rather than returning as instructed? Yes? And by the time you made the decision to return as per orders and hand over the evidence you had collected, you were no longer able to leave?”

Everybody shuffles their feet and makes affirmative noises.

“Excellent. We have had suspicions about certain unsavoury practices on the part of our — ahem — esteemed allies for some time. You may consider, Mr Novac, that your team was an ill fit for this mission. I can assure you, it was carefully considered and absolutely fit for the job. Ms Sayles has the mindset to do unsavoury things where necessary. Robin comes from a time when the Sìth still lived in this Realm. Hyacinth — yes, I know she is not here — is an accomplished witch and as sharp as a tack. Elres is… Elres has a particular background that made her well suited to this mission. Mr Novac, you have the stopping power of an ill-tempered rhinoceros and little compunction about using it. Would you have suggested I send our intern? No. I thought not.

“There are only a few things I need to know at this point. The Sìth would have us believe that the Pritani — yes, Ms Sayles, those are what you would call the Picts — are a dangerous race. They say the tribes they have imprisoned were those who refused to give up their culture and integrate with changing society. They insisted on keeping their language, their customs, their martial practices, their pride. Their magic, ladies and gentlemen. Did they seem dangerous to you? What were your impressions?” Before anyone can answer, she continues. “And Windsor. Was there anything that might help us to ascertain how he found out about Abersky and its unique arrangements? Was he an opportunist, or do you think he had any additional agenda? Ideally we would have him in custody. As you know, we have agents who are very skilled at extracting information from even the most unwilling subject. Still. No matter, Needs must.”

Robin holds up one hairy hand. “Robin no do an investigate, me only throw rock.”

C sighs. “If you say so, Robin. I am sure you were more helpful than that. Or perhaps I should be speaking to your previous incarnation.”

“Keira no let Robin help. Robin want drive, Robin want rock go bang, Keira say no. Me only throw rock, sing song of Robin’s people… and me maybe mumble mumble mumble.”

Robin shuffles back behind Karl.

“All I wanted to do was have Keira get some pictures of the stone circle. Seemed like an important place to photograph. Not her fault that things went sour so quickly,” Elres says.

“This is not about fault,” C says sharply. “It is a record of fact. No one is being thrown to the wolves, or should I say Cù Sìth. I am establishing, for the record, what happened in what order. That is all. Anything more than that will come from your own people. At least as far as you are concerned.”

Karl grunts. “I’ve shared my opinions on the suitability of the team on a mission that wasn’t meant to go sideways; you didn’t throw us under the bus, and that’s really all I was worried about. As regards the Pritani, between them and the Sìth, they were the ones who didn’t attack us and in fact protected us while we were undoing the nutty professor’s work. They also aided us in keeping the villagers from getting fitted for body bags, and, excepting pointy-ears over there, I think we’ve made some tenuous inroads toward a functional working relationship. And they don’t seem to be shrieking assholes, which is more than I can say for our current Sìth allies. Ma’am.”

C almost manages to hide her smile. “Thank you for that carefully expressed assessment, Mr Novac. I am pleased you were less informative, not to mention expressive, when you approached me earlier. Elres, perhaps you can keep the ‘shrieking assholes’ part of Mr Novac’s assessment from official dispatches? Thank you so much. In your opinion, Mr Novac, is there likely to be anything left on site that makes it worth sending some forensic techs to run clean-up?”

“No worry, Karl leave plenty needing clean. He make big mess,” Robin cackles.

“Might be reasonable to gather up any equipment Dr. Wonko left, just in case any of it is potentially operational or instructive to like-minded dumbasses,” Karl says. “We were mostly concerned with shutting it down at the time; he might have more equipment tucked away under his bed or something. My sister-in-law is tenured faculty, and given what she makes, I have to assume these machines aren’t terribly expensive to make, if he had 8 or 9 of them. Might be an even ten, and again, see previous, re: like-minded dumbasses. And,” he says, jabbing Robin in the ribs. “as messes go, one sluagh tartare isn’t that bad.”

“I doubt anyone will replicate the work. It seems” — C pinches the bridge of her nose as if cutting off thoughts of even more complications — “Dr Windsor was born in 1843 and has been working on this problem for quite some time, aided by canny investments of an inheritance. Nevertheless, I shall send in the Cleaners. A sensible idea.”

“That’s a genuine relief, ma’am,” Karl says.

Robin leans out from behind Karl and holds up his hand. “Ok. Robin help, me go do clean.”

“No, Robin, we need someone sensible. As much as I appreciate your willingness, I am sure we can find something more suited to your talents.”

“C just like Keira and say no Robin,” Robin says, miming his idea of Keira telling him ‘no’ for the umpteenth time. “C Just like Keira, but old. Me bet second best stick C say no to Robin want rock go bang just like Keira.” He goes back behind Karl, muttering loudly. “Robin go Merlin and me get magic rock go bang. magic rock go bang better than just rock go bank, must have better name… hmmmm… Thunder rock! Yes. Thunder rock good name. Me get thunder rock from Merlin. If Merlin in good mood Robin get rock not only go bang, but when rock make thunder all who hear go surprise poop!”

Keira steps forward, obviously annoyed. “I took a LOT of pictures and distinctly a) reminded people we should not investigate; and b) prevented at least one Covenant Asset from jumping through a hole in the world; and c) managed to convince a local to talk to a relative to prevent an entire village being stuck in a fae prison. I DID GOOD OK?”

“Thank you, Ms Sayles. Your photographic evidence has already been passed to the Research and Archive Division,” C says, checking her computer screen. “We have a physiotherapist ready to assess your injury for any lasting damage, should you consent to medical support. Your intervention in the case of the villagers is duly noted and most appreciated, even though I understand Hyacinth mediated on the more technical aspects? A pity about Dr Windsor. I am sure we would have found placing him in one of our interrogation units most… edifying.”

“Dr Windsor’s demise was an unfortunate case of a ricochet warning shot. Won’t happen again.”

“Is that a euphemism for…” C checks her notes again. “Shot him in the talisman?” She offers a wink so subtle it might not even be a wink. “I cannot say I would have acted differently. A passing observation, no more.”

“All I can decisively say is a warning shot was definitely issued, and his talisman was hit by a bullet. Ma’am.”

Karl’s face is so impassive, the inside of his cheek must be a raw mess from being bitten to keep himself from laughing. His eyes have not so much as moved in Keira’s direction since she began talking, but after that last “ma’am” he was vibrating so hard that C’s tea resembles a water glass in Jurassic Park, and right now it’s 50:50 whether he’ll make it through the rest of the debrief without laughing or exploding.

Robin stops muttering for a moment. “Keira make bad promise. Man no here. Man already dead.. Hard to kill man already dead. Very hard if dead man no here,” he exclaims.

C fails to hide a chuckle by clearing her throat. “Very well. You are all dismissed. Thank you. Should there be anything else, I am sure I will be able to find you.”

 

A stone carved with Pictish symbols

“Keira’s Very Fairy Bad Day.”

— Hyacinth



Somewhere in the wild and desolate far north of Scotland…

Hyacinth Battle-proven frost witch with an irresistable old granny act.
Elres On secondment to the Covenant from… Well. That’s Need To Know, and so far nobody has needed to know.
Robin A Neanderthal who accidentally travelled from “long time back ago” after touching a magic obelisk.
Keira Sayles Nickname “The Smile”. Ended up working for the Covenant after charging them for her assistance on a mission. It’s cheaper to have her on the payroll than accept her freelance rates.
Karl Novac The Novac family has been providing private protection against supernatural creatures for generations. For a price. Karl works for the Covenant because he’s more interested in monster hunting than diplomacy.

 

Mission summary:

C sent the team to the tiny hamlet of Abersky in the far north-west of Scotland. One of the Covenant’s allies had claimed a Fringe Physicist was in the area, up to no good.  The mission parameters were quite simple: check it out. See if there is anything unusual. If there is, report back. DO NOTHING. It was not supposed to be an investigation. the only job was to verify that something needed investigating. Should an investigation be needed, the allies in question would take that on themselves.

C was very clear about this. Everyone said they understood.

Everyone.

On arrival, the team repaired to the village pub, where Robin explained to Karl that a “pint” meant a beer and Keira took some photos of the wall of fog about a mile offshore. The landlady, Mary Urqhuart, mentioned when questioned that there had indeed been someone odd in town — an English lad, she said, was renting the old McPhail farmhouse. “He doesn’t really talk to anyone,” she said. “He does a lot of hiking up the back hill, near the stone circle.”

Elres insisted that they investigate further, despite Keira’s objections. On leaving the pub to investigate the farmhouse, the team discovered the mist had come all the way into the village. As Keira drove the Covenant Range Rover slowly out of the village to the McPhail farm, the mists grew thicker until she could barely see a thing. Within the mists, shadows moved.

In the farmhouse, the team found various papers covered in calculations, maps, a few photographs, and some strange pieces of apparatus that looked like old valve radios hooked up to crystals by means of wire resembling flexible haematite. Despite their orders to leave well alone, they decided to go looking in the woods for the stone circle.

In the woods, they came across a reality tear — a blue, shimmering fracture that appeared two-dimensional from any viewpoint.

A blue, glowing object hangs in front of a background of misty trees

Robin, surprised, through his rock at it, and his rock vanished through the tear. It was his favourite rock. He was distraught. He immediately tried to go into the tear to find his rock, but Keira held him back on the basis this was A Very Bad Idea.

Hyacinth and Elres decided they would go through instead.

On the Other Side, Hyacinth and Elres became separated. Elres recognised the place as the Betwixt, the world that exists in the gap between the Land of the Fae and the Land of the Humans — between the Underworld of the Sìth and the Overworld of Earth. She called for Hyacinth, knowing how easy it would be for a human to become lost there, even a human as magically powerful as Hyacinth. When she did so, Hyacinth called back from somewhere in the misty gloom.

A giant black dog with red, glowing eyes against a dark, smoky background.But so did something else. A deep, throaty bark shattered the eerie stillness. Then another. Both Hyacinth and Elres could feel the burgeoning fear as the Cù-Sìth approached. Elres drew her flaming sword, seeing red eyes, twin points of flame in the twilight. She called again for Hyacinth, knowing that if she ventured so far into the Betwixt she lost sight of the portal back to Earth, neither of them would make it back.

Hyacinth found her, but the black dog was between both of them and the portal, and it seemed it would be impossible for them to pass. Although she had drawn her sword, Elres had a power that none of the team knew: she banished the Cù-Sìth, sending it far away. Ears flat, tail between its legs, whimpering, the great dog slunk away into the darkness like it had been scolded by its master.

Hyacinth and Elres made it back through the portal, Hyacinth now very suspicious of her team-mate.

The others had already gone.

~⊕~

Tired of waiting for Elres and Hyacinth, and with more and more shadows appearing in the mists, the other three had headed towards the circle. As they proceeded, they were stalked from above by a small, implike creature that fluttered through the trees above them, watching their every move.A small creature with bat wings and pointy ears.

On reaching the circle, they decided not to go inside the perimeter of stones. “That’s magic stuff,” Keira declared (not for the first or the last time). “Magic stuff is not my job. Where did Hyacinth get to? She does magic stuff.”

At that moment, a loud, deep bark echoed through the trees. The stone circle began to glow with a blue shimmer resembling the one they had seen in the forest.

The team made to scarper before being swallowed by some sort of proto-dimension. Behind them, figures appeared in the circle: a man and a woman, surrounded by a pack of lithe, restless hounds with white fur and red ears. The man was large and swarthy, carrying a short sword. The woman was tall and red-haired. Both were painted in complex designs of bright blue. They spoke in a language the team didn’t understand, but which sounded a little like Welsh. Their hounds began to pour from the circle in an undulating wave of shining teeth and panting tongues.

The team ran, almost colliding with Elres and Hyacinth, who had finally caught up. All of them headed back through the trees, only pausing long enough for Keira to shoot the bat-winged creature tracking them from above. The white and red hounds gave chase.

As they approached the outer edge of the forest, the shadows in the mist grew more numerous, more substantial. Finally, they caught sight of one — a terrible, cadaverous form with dead-fish eyes and the thin, greasy hair of a corpse. it screeched, running towards them, only for two of the white hounds to set upon it like lions on a gazelle. The white hounds continued to protect them as they made their way out of the mist-dense forest.

Upon reaching the farmhouse, they discovered it was occupied. A man was there, wearing a tweed suit and packing equipment into a bag. This man turned out to be Dr Gerald Windsor, who was unexpectedly co-operative when it came to explaining what he was doing, although his confident assertion that he was making a perpetual motion power generator from an astronomical conjunction didn’t make a lot of sense. Keira was finally reduced to shooting him, although this did no damage until Hyacinth’s magical senses determined he was protected by an amulet.

Amongst his papers, they found a diagram showing how his devices were connected to the stone circle, and decided to end this.

Outside, the cadaverous creatures were everywhere, and both Keira and Hyacinth found themselves overcome with terror at the sound of their terrible screeching, so both of them were unable to stop themselves fleeing. Elres, Karl and Robin were not affected. Karl laid into the nearest pair, aided by Robin. Karl’s serious firepower made short of work of his opponent, but Robin was bitten and was being drained of life until Elres stepped in with her flaming sword and stabbed the creature attacking him. She then banished them all, clearing the way for the team to regroup and head back to the circle.

Up at the circle, the entire population of the village had gathered and was heading towards the great rip at the centre of the circle. Local PC Kenneth McLeod was desperately trying to get them to stop. He and Keira recognised each other.

“It’s the wrong time!” he yelled.

With some effort, Keira was able to find out from McLeod that the circle was a gateway to the village’s ancestors, imprisoned by the Sìth in a kind of temporal limbo. Once a generation, circumstances arose that blinded their Sìth prison guards and allowed people from the village to meet with their Pecht ancestors — frequently becoming inhabited by more recent ancestors while this happened. Windsor had somehow found out about this and thought he could tap the energy created by tearing the village free from its temporal moorings. The problem was, doing it at the wrong time meant the Sìth guards could see it happening, which was why the area was swarming with Sluagh and Cù-Sìth.

Keira relayed all of this to Hyacinth, who managed to explain to one of the villagers, at that moment possessed by the spirit of her Great Great Great Great etc Grandmother, who could speak the language of the Pechts. She in turn explained it to the Queen, who ordered all of the villagers to leave the circle while the Covenant team found all of Windsor’s devices and smashed them, anchoring the circle back in the present where it should have been, and bringing the village back to the present.

 

MISSION REPORT

An image of a wooden walkway approaching an old castle

“Hey asshole!” — Keira Sayles

“I’m busy!” —Karl Novac

Mission Briefing:

Our Intelligence desk received an anonymous report:

You need to look at Corvinus Castle. It’s in Transylvania. People go in. They don’t come out. No one ever comes out. We don’t know how many. No one will talk about it.

The Covenant has been unable to trace the castle’s current owners. We dispatched a Hunter Squad to look into it, reasoning that it is better to check and find nothing than not to identify a potential source of concern.

 

Location:

Corvinus Castle is a 15th century fortress in the deep forests of the Carpathians, long abandoned. It suffered from extensive fire damage in the 17th century, and  some attempt to repair it was made in the mid 19th century, but this was never completed. The Covenant holds scant information about the Corvinus family, who had the castle built while their patriarch was a Prince of Transylvania, but the site has not given rise to any previous reports, nor is there any reason to believe the Corvinus family was particularly supernaturally active.

 

Squad:

Keira Sayles: One-time criminal, now working for the Covenant because the alternative is likely to be hazardous to her health.

Karl Novac: A scion of a long line of supernatural bodyguards and personal protection specialists. Notable for his custom chainsaw. Just don’t ask to see what he has in his case.

Rikka-chan: This Japanese, second year middle-school pupil transforms into the muscle-bound beefcake Subaru-kun.

Sally B.: An intern. An orphan of some means, she has demonstrated her persistence by convincing the Covenant to give her a chance to train as a Hunter. This is her first mission.


REPORT COMPILED FROM TEAM DEBRIEF

Note: interjections from Mission Debriefing officer labelled MD. Most of this interview was with Keira Sayles and Karl Novac. This has been abbreviated and redacted for clarity.

On arrival at the site, the weather turned rapidly from overcast to heavy rain of the kind that hurts when it hits you. It was cold, and we could hear howling in the trees. We collected our gear and proceeded at pace to the castle entrance. 

Immediately we entered the premises, the door shut behind us. There was a moment of disorientation. When we recovered ourselves, the door would not open. Some of our kit was scattered on the floor beside us. Karl’s weapons, Rikka-chan’s phone —anything that had been held in our hands or on our persons was on the ground, including the map provided in our briefing pack.

Rikka-chan attempted to pick up their phone, but their hand passed through it. Keira tried to retrieve her weapons, but again was incapable of going so. We spent approximately twenty minutes trying various ways to interact with our gear, but it was impossible.

At this point Karl and Keira decided the team should move on into the castle and try to find out what had happened. When we reached the chapel, we met a female human entity.

An image of a woman in black clothes with a pale face and dark make-up

MD: Sayles and Novacs both described this entity as “dead goth girl” — further analysis suggests the identity of this entity to be a member of one of the various Endless Dreamer cults, possibly Gitta Schulte, one of five self-described tourists reported missing by the owner of a self-catering lodge in nearby Deva in 1987.

She explained we were — not to put too fine a point on it — dead. It took some persuasion, but eventually Subaru-kun charmed this ghost into explaining how we might be reunited with our bodies. We were lucky, apparently, as it had not been long since we were relieved of them. We needed to find our bodies, and use some blood from the creature living in the tunnels below the castle dungeons.

MD: At this point I asked if the entity was more specific.

No, we don’t recall her being any more specific than that. Just find the bodies and use the blood. Anyway. We went back to where we’d left our kit, because that was where the map was. We could, if we concentrated hard, interact with physical objects with as much strength as a moderate breeze, so we sort of… Well. Wafted the map towards the Knights Hall and the Tower of Lament, because that seemed a reasonable option.

MD: Is this when you met Kel Lupu?

No, not yet. We heard the front door slam, though, and almost immediately  there was a shotgun blast and one of the ghosts we’d been seeing — the place was heaving with them, some of them degraded to the point where you could hardly tell they’d ever been human — exploded into shreds.

KS: I said it was a salt-loaded shotgun.

KN: You did. You totally nailed that.

We headed down the stairs and were attacked almost immediately by Mr. Tentacles—

MD: You mean Azazoth the Endless Dreamer?

KS: I mean Mr. Tentacles.

KN: You called it bloody Cthulhu.

KS: Same thing, isn’t it?

KN: You said, “It’s Tuesday, must be Cthulhu.” But it wasn’t Tuesday. It was Monday.

KS: It was the start of the week! I had a hangover! It might as well have been Tuesday! It’s not important!

Anyway. Karl said he’d go and sort out Shotgun Sam, or whatever. Sally B. said she’d stay with him, because he was her supervisory officer, but she came back pretty quickly saying there was a werewolf upstairs shooting at Karl. We carried on down and found our bodies. Which is when we were attacked — by the way, it’s really weird seeing yourself from the outside like that. Subaru-kun grabbed one of the tentacles and, while it was draining energy out of them, mashed it against the old castle wall. Bit of a wrestling match, and then Subaru-kun had to have a nap. Keira smeared her hands in the blood on the wall, then touched her body with it, and that seemed to put herself back in her body. She sent Sally B. back upstairs to tell Karl to get his ass down there and sort himself out. Meanwhile—

MD: was that before or after Sally B had resurrected herself?

KS: You know, I really can’t remember. Must have been after, because we’d worked out that you couldn’t do it for someone else.

Meanwhile, Keira grabbed part of Subaru-kun that was skin but not… Grabbed their leg well away from the tutu and got blood on it, then poked the ghost version, and that seemed to work.

MD: What was Karl doing while this was happening?

KN: I was playing space invaders with some hairy motherfucker. Just yelling at him every time he looked like losing interest, dodging behind pillars and whatnot. I sent Sally B. back down to the others because it wasn’t safe. This was supposed to be a cake walk, and here we were already dead and being shot by a werewolf with a salt gun. Nobody mentioned that in the briefing pack.

MD: And this would be the Covenant Hunter Kel Lupu?

KN: I mean, I didn’t know that at the time. It was just some hairy dude trying to shoot me in a way that I did not find endearing.

Once Keira was back in her body, she recovered her weapons and went to support Karl. He was back towards the chapel, and she could see another combatant, so attracted the opponent’s attention.

KN: You yelled, “Hey asshole!”

KS: And you replied, “I’m busy!”

MD: Note, at this point both KS and KN are laughing.

Kel Lupu recognised Keira and ceased fire. Karl went to get his body back.

KN: And my gear.

And his gear. Then Kel told us that we’d been disappeared for about three weeks. Which was a surprise. It had only been, what, an hour at most? He also confirmed that he had been unable to get out through the castle gate. We figured him being a werewolf made him less tasty to Mr Tentacles or something? He also seemed to know quite a bit about the cult. Called them a bunch of incompetents. Gave us some of the information that the Maze monkeys—

MD: You mean the Research and Archive Division, RAAD.

Whatever. You guys had been so busy while were were vanished! So sweet. We looked at all the stuff, worked out that Mr Tentacles lived underneath the castle, and that we had to do a ritual to send him back where he came from. That was pretty much all there was to it, bar the fighting.

KN: There was quite a lot of fighting. Those tentacles were bastards. It would have gone a lot better if Subaru-kun had actually used all 300lbs of muscle instead of waving that stupid damn wand every time anything needed doing. And taking naps all the damn time.

KS: Huh. Did you go in the bear pit in the end?

KN: Did I… Why the fuck would I have gone in the bear pit? We killed one of those fuckers and it blocked the door. We just hung on there to keep the rest of them from getting in while you and Sally B did the finding of the graffiti and the yelling of the magic spells.

KS: Yeah. There was a magical symbol on the wall under each of the towers, and we had to say some words while destroying the symbols, but do it in the right order yada yada. And you’re never in the right place to start with. It’s always the same. This is why you need magic type people along on these things. That’s what I say. If it’s a magic thing, leave it to the people who know what they’re doing.

MD: And how did Kel Lupu actually die?

KN: Cthulhu ate him.

KS: Well, Mr Tentacles got him, anyway. Shame. He was kind of nice, once he stopped shooting.

 

MD Conclusion

It seems obvious that Kel Lupu’s death in the field was as a result of an encounter with Azazoth, rather than by any act or omission by the assigned Hunter squad. Some materials, notably an image of the  page of the spellbook and Kel Lupu’s notes, as well as a map and scan of the castle and photographs of the symbols in situ, have been lodged in Archives. Subsequent inspections of the site have not resulted in any phenomena of the sort described here. The castle remains under Covenant scrutiny.

Recommendation: All Hunters who participated in this mission to be given a full physical and psych evaluation before being allowed back on operational duties.

A faded magical symbol on sandstone