Dear Friend-

I am writing you this from a hospital room in Port Said, where our friend Bloch lies in farily serious condition. As you almost certainly know, riots have broken out in Cairo; we decided (almost too late) that it would be prudent to get out of the city. But back to the beginning-

Two days ago, we had just taken rooms in the New Victoria, and planned to lay low until the riots were over. However, the mood of the city kept getting worse, so we decided to take a short trip to Midian, where the old woman who helped Besart lived with her son. After arriving in Midian, we eventually found them1. She is... burned. Badly. Her son takes good care of her, and she is in good shape otherwise, but is missing both of her hands, most of her nose, part of her jaw. She is unable to talk clearly, though her son can understand her. I believe that she can be helped greatly by a modern hospital- prosthetics for her hands, surgery to sew together some of her digestive system- she should be able to gain the ability to feed herself, and perhaps some limited speech... but I ramble on.

Anyway, we offered to take her and her son to a modern hospital and provide them with some money to start a new life for themselves in exchange for their help. Upon our questioning, she became quite excited and started babbling- her son said she wanted us to have a basket (he seemed surprised; apparently it was her prized posession). The basket had an ankh sealed onto it; when we opened it, we found a piece of white stone, about 7 inches by 9 inches, which looks to have been broken from part of a larger stone. It was wrapped in a white cloth.

We decided to take them both to the hotel for the night, then depart for Barcelona the next day. We figured it would provide us time to regroup, and we could help someone who had been hurt for our cause in the process. It would also allow us to get out of Cairo, something we were instinctively beginning to think was a good idea.

The next morning, A. went to talk to a contact in the city, and got some more information about our enemies- I believe I have mentioned Shatki and his 'cats' before. Apparently they were formed using mortal cats, and are hence vulnerable to some of the things mortal cats are- water, for instance. We were also able to obtain another book before it was time to board our train.

We weren't quite fast enough, however. By the time we were leaving the Garden area, we could hear gunshots getting closer. We lost our police escort. We managed, thank God, to make it to the train station unscathed, but the riots broke out in the train station as we were boarding. Several of us are partially deaf from the gunfire, and Bloch took a serious wound to the stomach. I performed surgery on him in the train, and he should make it just fine, but it was a harrowing experience and his body is weakened.

We still plan on going to Barcelona- it is far from the cult and there is a sizable Arabic population there. It should take us no more than a couple of weeks, at which point we will either head back to Cairo or perhaps, I think, to Shanghai. We are still undecided, but I will try to keep you informed.

Still well,

E.