Events of Sept. 12-13
Dear Mr. Diary,
Where was I? Oh, yeah. That fight I was asleep through most of. It's a good thing my father will never hear about it. After all the trouble he went to teaching me how to shoot, I get caught in a firefight while my gun is safely locked away in my back bedroom. And I've even got a concealed weapons permit, for all the good it did me. Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got back to my apartment was to go get my gun and put it on, along with a sweater to hide it.
Anyway, after the fight we all finally held introductions all around. I started paying attention to them right after I picked up a sample of that white goo that the men in black left behind. I looked at it but all I could tell was that it was dead, and it had been for a long time. A lot longer than the few minutes since the man in black had dissolved into goo. (Later I looked at it under my microscope, but it just looked like magnified goo.)
Okay, introductions. It was really nice to have names to attach to people rather than descriptions like 'the tall guy with long hair,' or 'the one who teleported onto the porch.' Well I did have that one's name already: Daedalus. Obviously a pseudonym, but that's okay; they don't know my full name either. Okay the guy who got shot along with me is named Rueben. He's got some knowledge of life magic; not enough to heal himself, but he got the same reading on the white goo that I did. Nathaniel is the name of the guy who kept saying the doorbell was broken. He's a bit strange. He channels his magic through weird looking machines with names like 'Etheric Energy Detector.' (I assume he's one of the Sons of Ether.) Eric is the name of the quiet guy who'd been hiding by the car. Quiet is a good word; I still don't know much about him. I also met KC. She was understandably scared, and she kept talking about a fairy she'd seen in the woods who'd been in the form of a wolf and had licked her.
We were all a bit in shock, I guess, from being shot at, because we were leaving (heading to my apartment, for lack of a better place) when Nathaniel, of all people, suddenly pointed out that someone was missing. Two someone, actually: the tall blond guy (I didn't know yet that he was a werewolf), and the little girl who'd come to Mr. Forteau's with him. She had been supposed to be waiting in the car.
After staring around in confusion for a while without anyone saying anything, Rueben announced that he thought he knew where they were. He then proceeded to turn himself into a statue. Well, sort of. He could move, he just couldn't go anywhere or touch anything. Our hands went right through him, except for KC. She could sort of touch him, but not firmly. I just couldn't see how this was going to help find our two missing part members. (I know now that he was trying to pass across into the spirit world, but I still don't understand how he managed to get himself stuck partway there.) Anyway, we were still trying to figure out what we could do when Rueben suddenly vanished.
Then, a few minutes later, all three of them reappeared, running at us from the woods, saying something to the effect of, "Let's go, NOW." So we did. They never really explained why, though.
We all went over to my apartment. KC rode with Daedalus on his motorcycle. Poor kid, she was hurt and scared, and worried about her Aunt and her cat, not necessarily in that order. She also kept saying that the tall guy was a fairy, and that he'd licked her while wearing the form of a wolf. Well, I knew there was something strange about him, but fairies?
Eventually we got back to introductions and he said to call him John and the girl Crystal. I got the impression that this wasn't her real name, and that John didn't know what her real name was. I was starting to be a little concerned about who this guy was. The rest of the people invading my living room seemed to be ordinary mages (if there is such a thing), but this one was different. He kept disappearing and reportedly changing shape, and KC was convinced he wasn't human. I wanted to know who or what he was, so I asked.
Luck took pity on my exhaustion, and allowed me to phrase the question in such a way that he actually answered. (He'd just finished sidestepping KC's questions.) I asked him who he was from my position as the one whose home was being used, and since he was in my territory,I guess he felt obliged to answer.
So that's how I learned about the Garou, werewolves. I had a reticent werewolf willing to answer my questions, and I blew it. I was so tired, I couldn't think of anything to ask. I don't deal very well with confusion when I'm exhausted. I was awake enough to be suspicious that KC may have been eavesdropping on our conversation. I know she followed when John and I took a walk around the apartment complex, but that time we caught her and sent her back inside.
While we were taking that walk, everyone else was crashing in my living room, or so I thought. Actually, Nathaniel was driving Eric back to his hotel, and getting lost in the process. Neither of them live in the Triangle; they should at least have asked me for a map. We found out later that they got lost all the way to the Virginia border. Personally, I'm amazed they found their way back.
Anyway, I was getting a lesson in the wild , the weaver, and the wyrm from John. Now that's a philosophy I understand. The ideas behind it aren't really that different from my own religion, Gaia is the Goddess, really. Or maybe that should be the other way around. Whatever. If you don't understand, Mr. Diary, I'm not going to try to explain it.
That was pretty much it for the night. I slept in my sanctum (a.k.a. the back bedroom), and Daedalus used my bedroom. Rueben had been collapsed on the couch pretty much since we arrived, and Crystal had attached herself to him. I was asleep when Nathaniel returned at some ungodly (is ungoddessly a word?) hour. I woke up when my alarm went off. In the other bedroom. (Poor Daedalus.)
I made breakfast. John at mast of the bacon. Our moving around woke up Nathainel. He said that he and Eric had been attacked by a werewolf at a rest stop. Suddenly I could think of lots of questions I needed to ask John.