Report 22: The Morning After

Sir,

As you could no doubt tell, it was a bad time in Pannawau last night. A lot happened, and I’m not sure my Osceola-fueled mind-hopping exploits entirely captured the scope of it. So I thought I’d codify things with a slightly more formal report than is my norm.

SECTION A: The Events of the Evening

• First, and most obviously, the Black Mirror Brute came out. I discovered that the Sad Man was not, in fact, summoning the Brute, but trying to distract it from leaving the Mountain and wreaking worse havoc. See Section B below for more details on the Sad Man’s plan.
• Alexandra Melmoth was on the loose, as well, in a Yig-Form transfiguration seemingly triggered by the presence of the Brute in the Gray World. She changed back in the early morning hours, and is currently in custody on the Alo Reservation. Her family is demanding her release, but the Alo are thus far holding firm. I’ll be heading out to speak with her again later.

30: Hearts Full of Fire

***CLEARING STATIC…OPENING CHANNEL***

***BEGIN TRANSMISSION***

My eyes are open now. They’re open, and flooded with light. They’re open, and lost in the dark. I’m lying in bed. Denise is beside me. Asleep. Or…

No, she’s asleep. She has to be. She’s just so still. I thought– No. She’s asleep. We must be– Are we in our room at the Fat Beaver? Is that bacon I hear frying? Or…

This isn’t the Fat Beaver Inn. This is the Opa Lodge. Except… Why is it so dark? What’s this pressure I feel? On my chest, my arms, in my ears. My forehead. Why can’t I move? Am I dreaming? Or…

The Door. The Door is open in the Mountain. It’s open, and the light’s pouring out. So bright and so wrong. So exposed. That’s why it’s so dark. All the light’s pouring out, and there’s none left here. Wait. No. That’s not right. I’m outside the Door and I hear bacon and

*************

28: Night on Mount Pannawau

***BEGIN TRANSMISSION***

There is a man standing over my bed. A man with beautiful breasts, and the head of an owl. I can see him through my eyelids. He’s just standing there. Staring with unblinking owl eyes, his face illuminated by the light of the Door. The Door in the Mountain.

That light shines out bright as ever, cascading down the Mountain in an endless torrent. Abundant. Obscene. Inviting. Yes, inviting. It calls out to something in my blood, in my gut, something thick and black and hot, enticing me to…

My forehead throbs, painfully, and the owl-headed man snaps back into focus. He has something in his hand. A bottle. A bottle of something black. Something alive. It twists and writhes in its glass prison, trying to get out. To join with the blackness in me. I feel rather than see the owl-headed man’s intention to let it do just that. Slowly, so slowly, he raises the bottle, pulls loose the stopper, bends over my head, tips the bottle, grabs my chin, forces open my mouth…

The thing in the bottle, so anxious to be loose, now seems in no great hurry. It’s taken the form of a thick black liquid, pouring slowly from the mouth of the bottle. A single quivering drop forms on the bottle’s lip, a dollop of hanging black. Anticipation.

One hand shoots up, grabs the owl’s wrist. The drop shakes, lengthens, swings. Heavy. Black. Pendulous. The strand breaks. The drop falls, and

*************

Report 11: Confronter of Enemies

Sir,

I’m glad to see that the Somnambulists have transmitted my dowsing experience on the mountain. It saves me some time, and I fear that I’ve fallen too far behind on my reporting.

I must express some disappointment that you felt the need to hide things from me, however. Because, yes, I can see the report on Denise’s “mission,” and your response. I’ve been through some things in the last few days that have apparently put me a bit beyond Somnambulist manipulation. I don’t begrudge them trying, understand. It’s their job, just as it’s your job to ensure that your agents are not overwhelmed by the forces they deal with in the field. But I can assure you that’s not the case here. Not anymore. So please, Chief. Trust in my ability to assess the case properly, and just tell me what happened at HQ.

Alright. Enough of that. It’s very early morning, Denise is still asleep, and I’m awaiting the arrival of Tom and Gladys and the spectacular breakfast I hear they serve here at the Fat Beaver Inn. So I think it’s time to tell you how I earned my Mountain Name. That story starts with the dowsing incident.

(Speaking of which… I think I may know how the memory was made psychically invisible, but that will have to wait until I return to my experiences in the hospital the night Possum Reynolds was possessed).

Reading the account the Somnambulists found was interesting, but it’s not accurate. The bulk of it is fine, exactly as I remember the experience. The description of the Black Mirror Brute is especially detailed, including things I might not have brought out of the dowser’s trance with me.

But the ending is not at all correct. I did not witness the slow demise of the Tahki boy. I did, however, see the arrival of Ruth Omusa’s corpse at the crime scene. She was borne between two Nukpana, accompanied by a very thin, very bent old man in a shimmering silver robe. At his direction, the Nukpana placed Omusa carefully next to her boyfriend and arranged her body in the posture I described to you yesterday. The old man made some gestures over both the victims. He seemed very sad. I’ll be meeting with John Cheveyo later today to give my description of him. Normally, I’d have done that immediately after coming out of the trance. But events conspired against that.

Because just after Omusa was laid to rest, something happened. The dowsing wand jerked suddenly in my hands, and the old man disappeared. But the two Nukpana remained, still looking down at the bodies, as if in mourning. Slowly, ever so slowly, they swiveled their heads up and backwards, until their faces were turned downhill, looking directly at me. My eyes locked with the taller of the two, and it let out a mouthless shriek. The other pounced.

Somnambulist Transmission 2: The Black Mirror Brute

—Transcript of Agent X-23’s Dowsing Experience on Mount Pannawau—

Three men are approaching. They have the heads of owls, and magnificent breasts. With them is a teenage boy, shirtless. He seems calm, and is carrying a small parcel in his hand.

But it’s difficult to concentrate on that because someone has left the door open again, and its light streams out behind the group as they make their way down the slope. It’s blinding, shining into me, through me, finding all my secrets, my dark desires, whispering to them, touching them, caressing them, coaxing them into life. I feel a swelling at my middle, in my head, in my heart. Skin pulls taut and hard, and a ringing starts in my ears, fit to split my head open. I want to run, whether toward the door or away from it I cannot say, but my feet refuse to move. I tug and I heave and I beg them to move, but they will not, and then I know why. The roots. The roots that have grown out of the wand in my hands, up my arms, past my heart and into my groin, down my legs to the feet and onward, ever onward, down down into the mountain itself.

And somewhere, deep down in the bedrock, a calmness. A reassurance that I cannot be touched here. Not now. Later, the light whispers, and I shudder as it caresses me one last time, and then retreats. It still shines down the mountain, illuminating the scene before me with an eerie glow. But it leaves me, moves around me, and once again I can see.