Nobody bothered us as we gathered supplies and planned our attack on the location Yalesha told us about, the Brotherhood's hide-out we later learned was named "Misr House". Clayton knows Arabic, so he's helpfully informed me that "Misr" is Arabic for "Egypt". So then, Egypt House. Lovely. We were headed into a cobra's nest of Brotherhood cultists. Would have been nice to know that beforehand, wouldn't it?
Geared up and ready for a fight if one happened, we arrived at the Blue Pyramid and parked in an alley across the street. It took a couple of hours of waiting, but sure enough Yalesha's tip proved true - as the sun set low below the horizon, a grey van pulled up to the building, and we watched as around 6 or 7 Egyptian-looking men piled into the back, laughing and speaking in rapid Arabic. Clayton's translation of their discussion, something about a ritual occurring that night, proved our suspicions. These were definitely the madmen we were looking for. Stealthily, carefully Bridget drove after the van, following them over the marshy country roads and through the dark hillside thickets out of London.
After an hour-long drive, we found ourselves watching as they drove over a turn-style bridge to a small island out in the moors, the grey sea surrounding it and the twinkling of stars overhead it. Such stars and clarity! It was dark enough, with the new moon, to see the hazy milky way, the constellations above, the very grandeur and vastness of the cosmos spilled out like so much paint on black canvas... it was almost unnerving, as if a thousand tiny eyes watched us with malicious intent, and we all shuddered a bit, recalling our earlier experiences with things that surely came from the stars.
It quickly became apparent that this was a well-fortified fort of a place. We could tell they had a bonfire lit; we all saw the orange glow in the island's thickets - and the place was guarded. There was a metal fence all around, and four burly-looking men at the gate in. To one side, a small dock jutted into the icy bay. The place seemed impenetrable, and we bickered amongst ourselves the best way to get to the island. Obviously, swimming was out of the question, and driving over the bridge would just be putting us right in the lion's maw. We needed a distraction for the guards, but we all needed to get over there. Just then, Sarah's keen eyes noticed a rowboat moored on the sandy shore not far from where we were, and a plan quickly began to form in her head.
"Hey guys, you see that boat?" She pointed, a small smile on her face. "We can use that. Meanwhile... I think I might be able to try using the knife again."
"Yer gonna summon another cockroach-man?" Ewan replied, eyebrow cocked dubiously. "Do ye really be thinkin' it's smart enough to follow yer orders then, lass?"
"I know it is," Sarah said with conviction, and we all believed her. It was worth a shot, and if this inexperienced little fledgling had an idea for a problem the experts couldn't solve... well, maybe we'd better let her prove herself.
And so, the plan was launched. Sarah summoned the bug-thing (I don't think I will ever get used to a giant insect-beast climbing out of a gash in reality) and asked it to make a distraction after we were about halfway into the bay. Meanwhile, we all climbed into the rowboat, and started heading to the island. It went off perfectly - the guards didn't even notice us, and by the time they headed over the bridge to investigate and found the bug creature there, it was too late for them. Do you know what the sound of several terrified men being ripped apart by a bug creature from beyond sounds like? It's not pleasant. We all shuddered even on the shore of the island, and almost forgot to turn the bridge so the guards couldn't come back... not that they needed to.
"Just in case," Clayton murmured, and we all agreed, pushing the lever to swing the bridge around. We didn't need these lunatics sending for more backup, and besides, if we needed the police, Sarah had a flare gun and they surely had a tugboat. In through the gates we crept, listening to the growing sounds of chanting and murmuring in an odd mix of Arabic and what sounded almost like it might have passed for Ancient Egyptian. And nobody's voice was clearer than that of one of the two priests', his black mask a contrast to his followers' golden ones, and his voice unmistakably that of Edward Gavigan's. We didn't have time to grasp the realization of this, however, as we peered through the foliage and observed the horror beyond.
They had six or so semi-beaten, bloodied captives shackled to a massive stone obelisk, a great bonfire raging and glinting off the glimmering spiked clubs the cultists had as they mercilessly beat their victims. They all were masked, all robed, all wearing that perverse inverted ankh we'd come to associate with their vile cult, and in the distance, the shadow of something large and croaking perched, six glowing eyes glimmering evilly. Then two more of the giant beasts swooped from the skies above, and we saw what these colossal horrors were - gigantic reptilian birds as big as the mansion nearby, onyx talons as thick around as a man's thigh and great scabrous wings beating huge gusts of wind that whipped the flames before them into a frenzy of mad shapes.
"We gotta get into the house," Clayton whispered, eyes darting nervously to the things and hoping they wouldn't hear. "There's probably a phone there, we need to get the police involved."
"He's right," Ted replied, already edging away. "We ain't shit compared to this... they'll massacre us. Clayton, you get in there, look for a phone. I'll watch yer back. Ewan, Sarah, and Bridget, you keep watch out here, and stick to the shadows."
Sarah went to protest, but was quickly silenced by the sound of some poor victim being eaten alive. She pretty quickly agreed then, offering to send up a flare from her flare gun for help. We agreed this was a good plan, and let her send the flare as Clayton made his way through the shadows to climb inside through a cracked-open window. I followed suit, and we wound up in the main hall with a fireplace and everything. It was a swank, if somewhat empty, manor filled with Egyptian decor, and no doubt crawling with guards. Arms ready, we crept through the hall, into the kitchen, and soon found our phone. Unfortunately... the wire was cut.
Even more unfortunately, we heard the door to the nearby bathroom open, and out stepped a cultist who was apparently guarding the inside, his mask askew. Yeah, he pretty clearly saw us, and it was awkward as hell as we stared each other down gormlessly for about five seconds. Then he yelled something in Arabic, which not even Clayton had time to translate, and ran at us, club ready to smash heads. I barely managed to get out of the way in time as the club whizzed over my head and nearly into Clayton's, but he dodged and fired at the attacker. Thank god the shot was clean, though the resulting spatter of cultist blood and brain wasn't. Poor Clayton, he'd never had to kill a man before, and the shock unnerved him. Thankfully, he pulled himself together and managed to rationalize it.
Not that his adrenaline or mine had time to react, because we heard the footsteps and yelling of another two cultists come running from the other room. Fortunately, everyone else also heard the gunshot and quickly came running. Unfortunately, so did the cultists, causing one hell of a bottleneck in the hallway. If I said all hell broke loose, it wouldn't quite convey just what went on. One of the fuckers had magic, and it slammed into Ewan's shoulder, scalding a huge chunk out of it, bone showing. Another walloped Ted upside the head, the man is lucky he still has a skull or a brain inside it. A third slammed her club into Clayton's chest, breaking ribs - I saw his chest inflate as he exhaled and vice versa, it was a seriously nasty injury. Fortunately, battered and bruised though we were, guns are still much more effective than clubs in close quarters, and within seconds there was a pile of dead cultists on the floor... and a very concerned-looking Sarah, her straight razor dripping with blood from one of the fallen attackers.
"I-I..." she stammered, swallowing hard as her sweet, innocent face went pale. "I killed him... I can't... I had to... didn't I?"
"Aye, lass, ye had to do it," Ewan reassured as Bridget came to her aid. Poor girl... she never asked for this. I only hope she's tough enough to continue, because she's part of the team now, whether she likes it or not.
After consoling Sarah, Ted thought he might be able to repair the cut phone line, and he took to it. Meanwhile, the rest of us noticed the stairs to a basement area, and headed down. It was mostly storage, but Bridget caught sight of something glinting in one of the boxes, and pulled the lid aside to reveal a large number of Brotherhood robes and masks. Jackpot! Of course, we wasted no time disguising ourselves so we wouldn't have another battle with even more cultists in the hallway, and we brought up another for Ted as well. Just in time, too, because we all started to hear the footsteps of more cultists outside as they realized something was wrong inside Misr House. Ted didn't even have time to call 999 before they arrived in the kitchen, realizing the extent of the damage... with Gavigan in tow.
"You absolute bloody idiots!" He cried in rage, tearing his black pharaoh-like mask off. "How did you not see them? Where in the hell were all of you, drinking in the basement again?!"
"U-Uh, no sir!" Ewan replied, spooked. "Absolutely not, sir! We were looking for them around here and we found the bodies, sir!"
Gavigan blinked, and for a second, we all thought our gooses were cooked. Thankfully, he'd never met Ewan, and the look on his face went from confusion to a self-dismissive head shake.
"Never you mind that," Gavigan murmured. "You lot and Amar can go make sure the prisoners aren't being let out of their cages by those sniveling American rats and my... traitorous former employees. The rest of you, fan out and find them! As for me, I've a ritual to finish. You know our Master hates interruptions..."
One of the cultists stepped forth then, and we assumed this must have been Amar. He spoke in rapid Arabic as Gavigan's cronies, none the wiser, left to check upstairs. As soon as the madman left, Clayton took over. Now, I have no idea what they were talking about, but he got the cultist to lead us over to the fireplace, where as it turns out... there was a secret hidden. Isn't there always? Through the secret door in the side of the fireplace we crept, down into a hidden basement... and into a room of holding cells, rows against the walls of half-mad captives and one particularly skinny, disheveled man murmuring the name "Yalesha"... Well, of course we all recognized that name, and realized it was her boyfriend. Hard to believe it, but he was still alive! He was not only alive, but as soon as Sarah edged her mask aside, he quickly came up with a plan - if one of us could pick the lock while the cultist was distracted, he could escape and then we'd be able to knock the cultist out in the confusion. It was a crackerjack plan, and we went for it. Ewan picked the lock, and after a confirmatory three-count, the prisoner made a break for it.
"Fuck the Brotherhood!" He screamed, running at the now open door as we pretended to struggle with him. "May Allah decimate you heathen dogs!"
It worked a charm. The cultist didn't even suspect Ewan had his blackjack on him, and with one cosh to the head, he was down for the count. We quickly bundled our freed prisoner in the cult trappings, and sent him to wait outside as we continued our search. He'd be safe hiding as a cultist - and besides, we heard the sound of a police firefight just upstairs. The cavalry had seen our flare and arrived! Now all we needed was a little evidence, and our story would be solid.
We found the evidence we needed in the next room - a whole cache of it. Occult material, grimoires in every conceivable language, a horde of Black Pharaoh related treasures that could easily be worth millions... and in a place of pride on the workbench, a sculpted onyx bust, carved in such detail it seemed to be flesh and not stone. The face was that of an antique pharaoh of earlier eras, eyes seeming to scrutinize the core of our beings. His face was strikingly handsome, high cheek bones betraying his royal lineage and mouth vaguely poised in a cryptic smirk of a smile. The whole thing seemed as if a real person were before us... no, not a person, a god. This, then, was the face of Gavigan's master. This was the face of the Black Pharaoh, a mockingly human figure that seemed as privy to our very minds and souls as we were... and perhaps even more so than ourselves.
We all shuddered, realizing just how much was in here, and how deeply powerful Gavigan must really be. He was clearly no mere priest of a cult - he was a warlock in his own right, a manipulator of both information and magic. And we'd crossed him often enough to enrage the entire cult. If he had this sort of power, then what if he had told other agents around the world about us? Had he been the one to sound the alarm? Had we stirred up the cultist hornet's nest so much that now everything would be substantially harder?
These questions and more flicked through our minds as we surveyed and examined his workshop. Clayton found several books we could read, one in Latin and the other in French. He deciphered the Latin one as yet another copy of the Book of Eibon, similar to the one Carlyle had previously. The French one turned out to be a book Sarah recognized with her readings into occult studies - The G'harne Fragments, supposedly translated from findings somewhere in Australia. What Clayton and Sarah translated from them spooked us, and told us more about the connections the Black Pharaoh and the God of the Bloody Tongue had to this Nyarlathotep character we'd read about previously. How widespread was this god, that so many cultures knew of him in so many forms? Ewan and Clayton also found some small trinkets to pawn, while Bridget and Ted discovered a ledger with recent shipments marked as being from or to Shanghai, Australia, and Cairo. Why those three places? What was going on that was so important? There seemed to be a thousand more questions for every answer we got, and all of them wove together in a strange and terrible web. It became gravely clear to us all that Cairo would be our next port of call after we got everyone healed up here in London - and none of us liked the idea of having to head into the Brotherhood's, and the Black Pharaoh's, home turf. No rest for the wicked, is there?
No rest indeed, because as soon as we got upstairs, we heard the fighting outside and realized we still weren't out of the woods. Well, we had all just about had enough of Gavigan and his lackeys, and he'd caused us enough trouble. No, we wanted revenge. He killed a friend, drove two others mad, and caused enough misery here in London using his prestige and power. He'd tricked Bridget and Sarah into working for him, furthering his sick aims. He'd destroyed Hugh Tylesman's life, and murdered Charley Nodd's family. He'd tried to murder us at every turn, and misled us with his charming lies. Enough was enough - the man had to die, for the safety of ourselves, of London, and of the world. And none was more adamant than Ted, who led the cause - he took up his gun, headed upstairs, and aimed out the window into the chaotic crowd below. It took him several shots, his head still ringing from the blow earlier, but it was Ewan's gun that finally dropped the bastard. A perfect sniper's shot through the head.
That's about the time the other priest, Tewfik, noticed, and turned to deal with us. He geared up for a massive magical attack, and it was only Sarah's quick-thinking that saved us from certain death. Her first shot of the flare gun was sent into the trees, but her second shot aimed true and lit Tewfik ablaze. The now en flambe spice shop owner shrieked in pain as his spell missed and he ran for the nearby bay, but Ewan was quicker on the draw than him and ended his misery with another head shot. Ewan's magical injury from before caught up with him, though, and he slumped onto the floor by the window, shaking and in pain.
That was how Inspector Barrington and a crew of about six of his men found us, shaken, half-dressed in cultist trappings, and injured. He barely asked questions except for the obvious ("Why did you have to shoot him, we were going to bring him in alive!"), and quickly got his bobbies to rush us to the E-unit, which is where I'm writing this from. The doctors say Ted has a nasty skull fracture and a concussion, but should live if he's given time to rest and avoids any more bumps on the noggin. As for Clayton, his lung apparently collapsed. He's okay now, the doctors reinflated it and his ribs will heal, but breathing will be painful for him for a bit until he's fully okay. That could take a couple of weeks, so it looks like we'll be in London a bit longer. But on the bright side, we're finally getting a bit of a vacation in, right?