Case 31: Entry 2

Today I started my work in the archives. It took a few minutes to suit up properly with all the little charms and the amulets that work like a faraday cage for magical energy. Once those were taken care of I put on the gloves that prevented me from damaging the books with my oils or however hands are supposed to damage old books--coincidentally, they also prevented the books from damaging me--and grabbed a sort of club for beating off imps and the like, plus a vial of something to take in case anything in there decided to play games with my sanity. The place spent about an hour pushing back at my intrusion, but once I'd used the club a bit and found my way out of a few spatial distortions it seemed to ease up a bit. At that point, it took me a couple more hours before I found something worthwhile in the last journal of Markus Dufresne.

Back when the current incarnation of the Agency (or at least that division of it in the good old US of A) was founded, there was a heated debate on the subject of slavery. Since slaves were easy meals for many of the creatures that prey upon humanity, many felt that the institution was an excellent way of keeping the things that go bump in the night relatively sated and easier to keep track of. For obvious reasons, the other faction held that this tactic was repulsive, horrifying, and downright evil. Thus, one experienced agent in favor of abolition came to buy Markus and his family. His grandfather had come from a long tradition of monster hunters back in Africa, and the skills of the trade had been passed down even in slavery. The Agency became aware of these skills after an encounter with some kind of therianthrope (there are hints that it was a bear while in its animal form) and made the decision to make him a deal. After buying him and his family, they promised him that for every fiend he slew they would give one of his loved ones their freedom and the financial means by which to start a new life. The pro-slavery faction didn't like it, but he was clearly a skilled huntsman and there was no rational argument against the deal. By the time he died, Markus Dufresne had accumulated enough respect and influence within the Agency to bring it and its policies firmly under the control of the abolitionist faction. What follows is all that I can gather from the final written accounts of his exploits.

The hunt began in Ohio in 1849. There had been a string of violent deaths in a small town called Martins Ferry. Most of the murders were committed by townspeople, except for three particularly nasty affairs which seemed to have been committed by a stranger. In several cases, the murders had reported seeing a letter written in green ink or some object which had been painted green before they made the decision to kill. In each instance, the letter or item was never found and was presumed to be either a lie or a hallucination. There was also a flu that passed through the town at about the same time, and one witness claimed that she saw the eyes of a murder--who had at the time been sick--turn bright green as he went about his bloody work. Markus Dufresne and his assistant (he found that his investigations were easier when he had a white compatriot to make arrangements and ask questions) didn't arrive until about a month after the murders ended, but it was still clear how completely shaken the entire community was. A few weeks after they arrived, they received word that a similar pattern had begun in another town seventy miles or so away.

Markus visited four different towns, sometimes getting there just in time to cut the pattern short but never in time to get the jump on the culprit, before the trail went cold. He spent the next several years doing hunts in the general region and chasing down any leads he got about the possible resurfacing of his prey. There were several times when the pattern would seem to start again, but the fiend always slipped through his grasp. Until, that is, the year of 1856 when Markus Dufresne went to the aid of his friend and ally, John Brown. The violence of Bleeding Kansas had become particularly fierce at the time, and Brown claimed he had seen a pro-slavery fighter's eyes turn a bright green and he came him.

This is the end of Dufresne's own account, however, who put the book down here added in those of others who had known him or had witnessed him. They said he rode like a devil as he pursued the unknown fiend once more. He barely stopped to rest, except when the trail grew faint. One asset spoke of how Dufresne had visited him for supplies. He said that the huntsman was sure he was closing in on the prey, and that night the asset heard mad shouting and even laughter as Markus Dufresne rode through the night. The huntsman returned four nights later, his body scarred with deep cuts and a grim satisfaction gleaming from his face. He never wrote nor spoke of what had transpired when he had finally caught up with his prey, except to say that it had been bested. I think he knew better than to say that it was dead.

There are notes in this journal leading to other documents. I will seek them out tomorrow.

Case 31: Entry 1

Well, it's been about a month and a half since my last case--seeing as I purposefully antagonized a demon of Hell, I figured it might be best to lie low for a while--but I had to get out of the heavily fortified house at some point. Granted, I'm heading to the Agency for this one, so the only time I'll actually be out in the open is while I'm on the road. I got a call from Shauna Freeman and Gilbert Flamel a few nights ago requesting my help with a freak they've been tracking. Mind you, tracking down hostiles isn't part of either of their jobs. Shauna is a cryptobiologist who is mostly responsible for analyzing the biological strengths and weaknesses of different supernatural species, and Gilbert is an alchemist whose main job is to develop and upgrade the equipment agents use out in the field. They're both absolute geniuses, but neither one is usually involved in an active hunt. But they both stumbled on something. Something that makes their sleep uneasy.

They didn't give me much information over the phone. All I was told was that they believed the creature was something like a homunculus or a chimera, that is to say a creature created with alchemy. Or perhaps something bound up with the principles of the craft. Well, I was told that and precisely how serious they were about getting my help. It was a little embarrassing to have Shauna pleading with me, which is probably why she did it. She made me promise I would take the case, and she made me promise not to tell anyone else what I was really investigating. As far as anyone at the Agency knows, I just volunteered to spend a bit of this sabbatical I'm taking to go in to their Lower Archives and do some cataloguing. I doubt the director buys that, but he's mentioned before that he feels what I do on my own tends to make his job just a little easier. Besides, hardly anyone else is qualified to go into the Lower Vault for an extended period of time. There are certain pests that only really thrive in basements and similar rooms crammed full of magical texts and artifacts. One or two of those pests are almost as dangerous as the books themselves.

Anyway, I finally left today because the letter finally arrived. It was sealed against any kind of supernatural means of spying, and the fact that it was a letter made it a bit harder for someone else to read it by more mundane means. It included a list of names which they believe their enemy has been known by. Right at the top was a Romanian name that read "Moarte Verde."