ENTRY 4: THE DISCOVERY
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Katya, having miraculously recovered
from her 4-story fall, joined Adrian and
Elizabeth in their tomfoolery. We
join them on the afternoon of Friday, 23
January, 1925. Jonathan (still in
pursuit of the rare yam of N'Mbwagne) and
Jim (who was quarantined) were not
able to join in.
The group decided to follow the request
of Lt. Poole and stop by some of
Beatrice's Harlem haunts, to see if
they could get any information on her
whereabouts. This required clothing
for Katya and Adrian, so tasteful outfits
were purchased, after Katya let the
seamstress get close enough to measure her.
At Shriver's, Elizabeth talked to Jessica
Shriver, the owner, and got absolutely
no information. (Adrian, however,
had a fine time dancing.)
At Under the Table, Elizabeth talked
to (and bribed) Jorgana the bartender (who
had just arrived from Africa), and
much more information was gotten. He told the
group that they needed to talk to
Mama M'gwana, who kept shop on 15th and Lenox.
When asked about the Joojoo house,
he dropped a glass and would only caution
the group to stay away, saying that
there was 'bad mojo' there.
The rest of the evening was spent drinking
and generally having fun in that rich
1920's kind of way.
Saturday, January 24, our fearless
group went to visit Mama M'gwana. They were
led by candlelight through long, dark
hallways, into a room with a round table, a *very*
old woman, and some bones on a counter
behind her. Among other amusing
but-less-essential-to-our-tale-things,
Mama M'gwana said:
- That Beatrice was at the Joojoo house,
alive but 'should be dead',
- That there was bad magic at the
Joojoo house, stronger than Mama M'gwana's,
and so we should *definitely*
stay away,
- That people like Beatrice were being
collected at the Joojoo house by the
Cult of the Bloody Tongue,
to feed 'Chicota', who is a bad spirit and very
dangerous, and we should *definitely*
stay away,
- That the Joojoo house was at 1 Ransom
court in Harlem, but was an awful place
so we should *certainly* stay
away,
- That Anastasia Bune was actually
Mouerou, the Priestess of the Cult of the
Bloody Tongue, and if we kept
asking questions like this we'd find ourselves
in deep trouble, so we should
(you guessed it) stay away from all of this,
- That the Mountain of the Black Winds
is a 'when', not a 'where', but it was
deadly so we should stay away
if we valued our lives,
- That Silas N'Kwane runs the Joojoo
house, but we should stay away,
- That the Cult of the Bloody Tongue's
agenda was to free their god, which would
be 'bad as bad', but that the
powers were strong (but not the strongest), so
we should stay away,
- That Madam M'gwana was of the Masaii
tribe, an old enemy of the Cult of the
Bloody Tongue, so if we persisted
in being suicidal, we could go and help
them fight (but we should really
stay away and live long happy lives),
and then she told Katya and Elizabeth's
fortunes. Katya will travel much, may
die, but if she lives, will meet Mama
M'gwana's teacher. Elizabeth has 'nothing
but death' in her future. On that
rosy note, Mama M'gwana warned our stalwart
adventurers once more to forget about
our friend and stay away from all of this,
then performed some magic and gave
each of them a lizard leg attached to a
leather thong, telling them to throw
if down if they felt they were in danger.
With that, she ordered the three to leave, and presumably went to sleep.
After the harrowing visit, our adventurers
decided to have the police make the
raid on the Joojoo house and rescue
their friend. They contacted Poole, caused
a domestic dispute, and eventually
set this up thus: Poole, a large squad of
officers, and Katya would go to the
Joojoo house tomorrow morning at 8am,
while Elizabeth and Adrian waited
in a squad car, to treat the wounds of anyone
who got wounded.
Sunday, 25 January dawned bright and
cold. Katya and the cops went down an
alley into a courtyard, where the
storefront was located. There are 2 doors
(including the shop door) and the
alley opening into the courtyard. The police,
not known for their subtlety, broke
down the door and ran in, guns drawn. They
brought the 4 negro gentlemen who
were there against a wall and started searching
searching them, and trashing the place.
A trap door was discovered in the floor,
and the police (followed by Katya)
went down single file. The stairs were
carved into stone, and things were
very dark. There were some visible carvings
on the walls of the stairwell, of
faces and creatures, etc. A door was broken
open at the bottom, a lamp was lit.
There was a very large, dark room at the
bottom of the stairs. Before Katya
gets all of the way down, she hears someone
scream "Mary, Mother of God!" and
then much gunfire ensues. Katya being Katya,
this makes her curious, so she goes
down the rest of the stairs. She sees that
the kerosene lamp has been dropped
and is now on fire, and that all of the
police officers are standing around
a large pit in the floor, emptying their
guns at whatever is inside. There
are larger carvings on the wall of the room,
no other doors, and drums, and poles
with leather strips hanging from them on
either end of the room. The pit is
about 8' in diameter, and carved *very*
deeply into the middle of the floor.
Katya being Katya, she decides to look
into the pit to see what everyone is
frantically shooting at. She goes
temporarily (we hope) insane and starts
emptying her gun into the pit. When
she comes to, she sees 30 heads with skin
only on their faces, and carvings
like that on Jackson's forehead on their
foreheads. Beatrice's head is there.
The cops, reasoning that since Katya
brought them there, she must be bad, attack
Katya. Katya frees herself by throwing
one of them into the pit, causing him
permanent mental damage. Katya manages
to get out of the room as some of the
cops try to do useful things like
stopping their brethren from clawing their
eyes out, and putting out the fire.
Once back upstairs, the few cops guarding
the negro gentlemen ask nervously
what all of the screaming was about.
Katya says something noncommittal, and the
cops start beating the prisoners.
They smile and say something in African,
then say 'Chicota down there'. One
of them, presumably the leader, is wearing
a key around his neck which he says
is the 'key to chicota'.
At Katya's suggestion, one of the cops
shoots the negro gentleman who has just
spoken. He says "Mugunga" before he
dies.
Poole drags Katya out of the store
by her ass, says that the heads had been
talking to him, and tells Katya he
never wants to see her again.
All of the cops are suddenly very unfriendly.
They make a crazed procession
back to the car, where Elizabeth and
Adrian's questions about their friend
Beatrice are met with Poole telling
them that he never wants to see them again,
and then the three are left in Harlem
by the friendly police officers.
They make their way back to Elizabeth's
place. That night, they all have normal
dreams filled with the rather ominous
carving that was on the foreheads of the
victims, which I can't draw here but
will show all tonight.