Black Books
The PCs followed up the lead of "Rebecca." In his mumblings while being beaten by them, Seaton had mentioned her. After leaving Seaton in the alley (and being photographed by mobile camera by the two waitresses), they took his mobile, found a "Rebecca BB" in it, and sent her an SMS on it, "meet me at old power station 1000 urgent - Ed". They went there and hid for a bit, expecting to ambush a witch. At 1010 there came a message back, "just come to the shop." "Which shop?" they wondered, then remembered there was a "Black Books" 2nd hand bookstore near the uni and Seaton's house. They went there, and found Rebecca, a Wiccan woman of about 40 with lots of cats. They questioned her and her story was that all she'd done was to sell Seaton books, she pointed them to copies. Signficant were books containing the Ritual of Bonding (in game terms, Proxy), and the Ritual of Obscurity - this is one that makes everyone think you're dead, and subtly changes their memory of you and your appearance so that they won't recognise you even if they see you again. Raimundo was interested in that one! Rebecca opined that whatever ill Seaton had done, it would come back to him threefold; this was her Wiccan belief.

The Little Man
They decided that adding a B&E charge to the rest was no big deal, and went to Seaton's place to snoop around. Gentle/Edward wandered around the house talking to flatmates, claiming to be from Student Accomodation, and discovered that Seaton had as excursions out of the house with people only Lucinda, his parent's for dinner every Sunday, and Harry at the pub who sold him weed. They rummaged in his room. Under his bed they found dust bunnies, an abserciser, a bag of weed, and some BDSM magazines. In his desk they found lots of letters from the university, indicating that about the middle of last uni year he'd stopped going to classes and so on. This was about the time he took up his "magickal" obsession. They also found books like the ones Rebecca had told them she'd given to Seaton. They found polaroids of BDSM sex between Seaton and Lucinda - he was the "top." But a third person seemed to have taken the pictures. Who? To their surprise, they also found a Glock pistol. Yep, a second pistol. So what was the one at the crime scene? And if this was the pistol Seaton had stolen from his father, then what was the pistol that had killed Lucinda?

Then apearing from behind the desk was a small figure, they couldn't make it out too well - Seaton had a red light in his room, remember. Erica shone a torch, and saw,

It let out a horrible high-pitched scream. All couldn't stand it, and closed their eyes in pain, covered their ears and fled from the room into the corridor, except Erica who toughed it out. "Eww!" she said, flinging the bedcover over the little man and stomping on him most viciously. Soon he was crushed to a mashed pulp and stopped screaming.

Now the three in the corridor heard a key in the front door, and turned to see Seaton coming home. He had bandages on his forearms, but appeared otherwise quite well for someone who only two hours ago was beaten, broken and bleeding in a skip bin in a muddy alley. "What? Hey!" he cried, as the screaming of the little man died away. He ran down the corridor, pushing past Edward and Cadel and Raimundo, and into his bedroom. Erica was peeling back the bloodied covers to look at the remains of the little man. "No! My little guy! You bitch!" he cried. He placed a hand on her back and a ripple of something like static electricity went through her. She turned to swipe him one, and missed. Now he touched her again, and this time the touch on her arm turned into what felt like a sledgehammer blow in her side, she felt bones crunch. She started pounding on him, knocking him back onto his bed. He was crying at her, wailing about his "little guy!" and "what did I ever do to you?!" Cadel came in with the telephone, an old rotary dial one, gving Seaton a good whack with it. Seaton warned Erica to back off, but she kept at him. Now he touched her again, and she felt a twisting pain in her right hand, and saw that all her fingers and thumb had melded together, her hand become like a flipper. "Back off! Or next time it'll be your mouth and nose!" he cried.

By this time the others were back in the room, closing the door behind them, and they pulled Erica off Seaton. There was a pounding on the door, it was Connie, the small Chinese girl they'd spoken to earlier and the day before. "What's going on in there? Are you alright, Ed?" "No!" he cried. She tried to open the door, but Gentle/Edward held it closed. She stopped calling, and they questioned Edward. He was weeing for his "little guy." The questions came thick and fast, and they didn't learn much. Erica soon pounded him into unconsciousness again. Gentle/Edward looked out into the corridor - the front door was open, the corridor was empty. "Shit," said Gentle/Edward, "she's called the cops. Let's get out of here."

Into the Drains
Cadel tied the semi-conscious Seaton's hands behind his back, and Erica rolled him in a sheet and slung him over her shoulder. They went out the back into the alley, lifted up a grate and went down a drain. Wandering along through the dirty stormwater for a while, they came across a raised and dry room - an old disused electricity exchange. There they unrolled Seaton to talk to him.

A long talk, and Seaton told them the following: Rebecca of Black Books had only given him books; he scorned any "magickal" knowledge she claimed to have. The "little guy" was a homunculus, and his servant, and it was he who'd taken the sex polaroids. Lucinda and he had been bonded together, as she cut ehrself giving him "magickal" power, he'd got a thrill and urged her to keep going, it was too much for her, she produced a pistol and threatened him, "take me to a doctor!" as he turned to run away she shot him in the back. Using their bond, he turned his death into hers - the wounds went to her, and she got up, stumbled away and then died. He picked up the pistol automatically, but as he fled the scene dropped it. And Erica's hand was permanently melded, either they could cut the fingers apart on the spot and Seaton could heal them (but with scars), or some surgeon could do it.

The party was now in something of a quandry. They felt that Seaton was, if not evil, at least dangerous, but that he hadn't murdered Lucinda - that he might be lying to them didn't seem to occur to them, despite his ridiculous story! But what to do with him? His hands still tied behind his back, he begged them to let him go. Erica was in favour of killing him, the others not so much. This just increased his frenzied begging, alternating between pathetic declarations of his love for Lucinda and offers to help Raimundo, and threats that his father would track them down and kill them. "You hurt two cops, Raimundo. I know cop killers are never caught alive - what about people who kill cops' sons?" Rocking back and forth, mumbling, theatening and pleading.

Raimundo asked how Seaton could help him. "I can change your face, man. And I know a guy, I can get you a new identity, new papers. But I gotta rest, gotta get my mojo back, it's all drained, and it's a big thing. And we gotta be bonded." Raimundo glanced over the Ritual of Bonding in the book, and said, "hey, it says here that to bond we have to have sex. Is that really necessary?" "Yeah man, it's either that or masturbate into each-other's faeces. I prefer the sex, don't you?" Looking at the pale-skinned, skinny, sickly and beaten goth with his straggly greasy hair, Raimundo said it was a difficult choice. "Plus," said Seaton, "that takes a lot of mojo, man. You gotta cut off a finger or a nut, something like that. I'm not gonna do that! You want the change, you cut your own finger off, I'm not giving up a finger for you." Raimundo said the Ritual of Obscurity was looking much better.

Edward and Erica decided to go visit Rebecca at Black Books again. When they got there, they just asked her more questions about "magick" and rituals. She told them that a ritual anyone could do, it just had to be the right ritual, but other "magick" required that it be your whole way of life. Erica asked if Rebecca could fix her hand; Rebecca was alarmed and horrified at its sight, and said that she could heal, but that this wasn't a wound - so Erica would need a surgeon. Erica went off to find one.

Edward returned to the alley and along the way saw two police cars in front of Seaton's place, along with Det Martin. He snuck past and into the alley, and got a phone call from Martin. "Edward," Martin said, "it's time to come in, mate. Come in, let's talk, before you get yourselves into any more trouble." Edward thought about it as he walked down the alley towards the drain.

Meanwhile down in the tunnels, Seaton had tried to flee Cadel and Raimundo. They followed him calmly and slowly, sure that he'd trip and fall in the old drains, and he did. Cadel walked up behind him, cursing him, and put his face in the drain water, half-drowning him to subdue him. Now Seaton seemed to have some kind of breakdown, and started screaming. [At this point, there was the soundtrack to "Heat" playing in the background, and there's a track where there's a horrible inhuman scream which goes on and on. This sent a visible chill through the group, I could see they wanted to get up and forward the track but no-one moved. It was beautiful timing!]

"What's that screaming?" said Martin on the phone to Edward. "Oh, er, someone next door," said Edward, walking away from the drain. "Well anyway," said Martin, "call me when you're ready to come in."

Edward now joined them in the tunnels, and together they dragged the unconscious Seaton back to the old electrical exchange room. Edward went off to meet with Martin at the same old coffee shop they'd met at before.

Second Interview with Martin

Martin explained that the police had gone to Seaton's place that morning to take him in and question him about the murder of Lucinda James; forensics had placed him at the murder scene, that plus the journal was enough. "Seaton's DNA was on the Glock you sent us," he said, "as well as that of three other people - probably his father, and a couple of you. It was indeed his father's Glock, same serial number, but the ballistics doesn't match the rounds which struck Lucinda James. Some other weapon shot her. Still, we can question him. So - where have you got him?" Edward claimed he had knowledge of where Seaton was, and Martin went on, "Look mate, I've suspected Seaton was up to something for a while. Him and a few others. But it's something strange, and something that seems... "magickal." And that won't hold up in a court of law. So we had to wait for him to do something natural and wrong, instead of just unnatural and wrong. I can help you, and get charges to disappear. Raimundo I'm not sure about, he put two cops in hospital. But the rest of you I can help - but you have to tell us where you've got Seaton. He was in hospital this morning, covered in garbage, and the doctors suspected an assault and photographed his injuries before treating him. When questioned, he said four people had jumped him, but he wouldn't say who. Then we put that together with a call from a couple of witnesses who sent us pictures they'd taken of you four coming out of an alley this morning, they were the witnesses who'd called the ambulance for Seaton. Seaton checked himself out of hospital, we went to his home, and what do we find? His flatmates tell us you were there, that they heard screaming, Seaton crying for help, heard beatings, and next thing we know Seaton's disappeared again, and here you and I are, talking. So we know you have him. Is he still alive?"

Back in the tunnels, Cadel went to get some food, leaving Raimundo with the unconscious Seaton. Raimundo untied him, and sat there with darkness around him, lit only by the fading light of the torch. As he rested, drained by the events of the last few days, he saw a sudden movement and a glint of steel - Seaton was up, and slashing at him with a blade - they hadn't thought to search him. Seaton's slash went wide, and he dropped the blade. Raimundo picked it up and advanced on Seaton, who backed to the wall and edged along, trying to get away. Exhausted, without the heart to kill Seaton, Raimundo turned his back saying, "Go. Just go." Seaton fled.

Soon Cadel returned, and they sat eating pizza. Now Edward and Martin came tramping down the drain, making a lot of noise, and Raimundo took his turn to flee. Martin peered in, "Where's Seaton?"