Ada Hawthorne - One of the founders of PHI. She is a handsome woman that appears middle-aged, red hair threaded with hard, bright silver. She is not in the office often, and what she does when she's not around is also not entirely clear. Many supernatural creatures in the area seem to know who she - and her Investigators - are, and mentioning her is something that will open some doors and close others violently. Her name is the one on your paychecks.

Samuel Priest - The other founder of PHI, a man with silver hair tied in a tail and a full beard, who wears a bowler hat and the kind of vest that went out of style in the late 1800s. He is in the office more than Hawthorne, but his direct appearances are fairly rare. He will occasionally call in with jobs for the rest of the cast.

Shiloh Cooper - One of PHI's support staff, who is in charge of the company's archives. She organizes the various magical trinkets and artefacts Investigators have recovered, and files records of cases. The PHI Library is by far the largest room in the small office that PHI rents, and Shiloh is its mistress. Taking things without asking can be grounds for something far more serious than a dressing-down. She is approximately five feet tall with dark hair and bright blue eyes, and despite that gives a very strong impression that she is no-one to be trifled with.

Name: Morgan Silas Blackwood

Gender: Female (And female-presenting)

Race/Species: Succubus

Age (Real and apparent): Over 90 years old; appears early thirties

Appearance:

By any measure, Morgan is a striking woman. She is tall, though not quite approaching six feet in heels, with fair skin and a tumble of blue-black hair that falls to her shoulders, tied with a piece of leather cord into a loose tail. Large, blue-green eyes set off the wicked, elegant lines of her face, with sharp cheekbones and a strong jawline that stops just short of masculinity. Her lips, full and inviting, often tilt into an expression of playful mischief, at least when she's not concentrating on something else. She is possessed of a lean, dangerous figure, unmistakably feminine, and she works for it. Morgan moves with a long lifetime's practiced grace, a kind of lazy confidence shared with apex predators.

In her professional capacity, Morgan prefers well-tailored suits in colors that flatter her with contrasting, button-down shirts and slightly heeled boots. What jewelry she wears is typically studs in her many-times-pierced ears, and she has a pendant around her neck on a leather cord. Her shoulder holster is carefully concealed by excellent tailoring and body language, but there is only so much you can do to hide a handgun. Outside of her official capacity, Morgan prefers jeans, old band t-shirts and a battered denim jacket. For reasons that Morgan has only occasionally been truthful about, she has a rich, plummy, London-private-school accent.

Personality:

Playful, flirtatious, and apparently fearless, Morgan is a force of personality. She is gregarious without being boistrous, friendly but not overbearing, loyal, warm, and only occasionally viciously witty. She's kind of person you both love hearing stories from, and telling stories to - entirely without artifice, she is a perfect audience, gasping and all but applauding at exactly the right moments. She is, in general, collected under pressure, and responds to stress with humor and smart-assery. She is neither secretive nor open about the fact that she isn't human, but is careful with the specifics, depending on who's doing the asking. If pressed, she would probably identify as bisexual, but few enough bother to even wonder.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:

By her nature, Morgan is a manipulator, through psychic weaponry, pheromones, body language and even the timbre of her voice. However, since she believes, at her core, in the primacy of free will, there are lines she will not cross and things she will not do; active choices made consciously out of a sense of responsibility and foundational to her sense of identity. She's not above using her supernatural allure to get a guard to focus only on her if another member of the team has to sneak into a building or to get a better deal on her cell phone plan, but she will not grab someone by the psychic brainstem and dragoon them into her bidding. Though she reins in what she is consciously, it isn't something she can entirely turn off - heads turn, and other supernatural creatures know she's there, and some of them even know exactly what she is by nothing more than the way she smells.

Morgan also possesses a psychometric talent, by which she can make physical contact with an object and discern important events from its past. These do not appear in a linear, digestable narrative, but rather take the form of often-abstract, disjointed visions that express important moments in the object's past, where it received or created a psychic imprint. These images are seared indelibly into Morgan's mind, and she cannot forget them even if she wants to, rendering this a skill she uses carefully.

In the mortal world, Morgan is an FBI-trained investigator, though she no longer has any contacts with the Bureau. She has kept up on the world of modern technolgy in large degree, but she is not anything like a hacker or digital-forensics specialist. she can drive, call a Lyft, and order delivery with the best of any other mortal.

Outside of her position with Priest & Hawthorne, Morgan is a skilled belly dancer, an enthusiastic karaoke singer, and a vintage hi-fi enthusiast. She has a large collection of vinyl records (most bought at garage sales or thrift stores), and spends a lot of time on her couch, listening to music through a pair of very old, very nice headphones. She has a cat, who enjoys Morgan's music by sleeping on her stomach. She is not particularly good at Ski-Ball.

Background:

"Do you know what you are?"

Morgan lifted her head, tried to blow away the strands of hair stuck to her face. Almost every part of her hurt and the crust of dried blood above her left eye itched and her fingers were almost numb, but she managed to pull one corner of her mouth up in a wry grin.

"Special Agent Morgan Blackwood, FBI," she said, each word made sumptuous by her accent.

Another woman stood in the room, proud and glorious and terrifying. She let out a short huff, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and shook her head. Her long legs flashed, turning away from Morgan with the scrape of a polished heel on hard ceramic tile. She circled the chair Morgan was cuffed to, every movement a predatory stalk and dipped one long-nailed hand into her jacket. Though her vision was still blurry, Morgan couldn't help but appreciate the way every seam flattered the other woman, tracing and accenting her figure in smooth, dark cloth. The woman pulled something into the light, like a cigarette case. She opened it with a click, and the smell of spices filled the air.

"You're better than this, Sister," the woman said, now to Morgan's left, "We are so much greater than you know. You - we - were meant for such great things." She set something on the ground with a glassy clink, "And here you are, a pet monster. A nightmare on a leash. And happy to be there."

"And your way is better?" Morgan said, turning her head to keep her captor in view, "You're trying to sell me on Juliet's Path to Purpose and Happiness? I'll pass, thank you."

"You really don't understand, do you?" The woman, Juliet, sighed, "We looked for you for so long, Sister. You were the last piece of the puzzle, the checkmate play. But I suppose even we can't account for everything." She set something else down, a rustling noise, "I remember that night - the storms, the summoning, the ritual. But when we came to find you, there were nothing but bodies."

Morgan heard her stand, a few quick steps, and a voice by her ear, "Were those your first, Sister? Did you take them? Can you imagine that feeling, that thrill, whenever you-"

"No," Morgan interrupted, her voice ragged and hard. This close to Juliet, she could smell copper and salt.

"No? Then..." Juliet started, then walked in front of Morgan again. She considered, and then her expression broke into the kind of smile that starts religions.

"Ah...I see. The detective, the raid. It was their doing, yes? And then...of course." The expression became something that was not a smile, "She didn't complete the ritual - but that detective did. You have a conscience." She spat the words.

"They were madmen," Morgan said, her voice quiet, "Working with power they didn't understand. Connor-"

"Is that what you think?" the woman said, incredulous, "Is that what they told you? After all these long years - oh, Morgan."

Her voice softened to a purr, an inch from Morgan's ear, "I'll ask you again, and don't be cute with me. Do you know what you are?"

Morgan looked into Juliet's eyes, the same eyes she saw in the mirror every morning. She saw a certainty there, a depth of understanding, and it called to her across almost a century. There are questions you never really give up on, no matter how distant they might be or how foolish the quest to answer them, and a desire unlike any she'd ever known flared in her chest. She spat the words at the air, hurled them across decades.

"A mistake," Morgan said, "An unintended consequence. A predator."

Juliet pulled away, her expression almost triumphant.

"Oh, Sister, no," she said, chuckling, "That was no barely-literate secret society, luring members with promises of orgiastic rites. They were part of something so much grander than themsleves, a piece of a vast and intricate machine that even now coils across the world." Juliet started walking again, and enough of Morgan's vision had come back that she could see what the other woman was doing.

There were lines drawn on the floor, circles and points and arcs, careful paths of white salt forming sigils and runes. At the edge, a final line that finished the design, containing a figure of five equidistant points. Four of those points already had objects placed there, things that could only be ritual totems. Even in her battered state, Morgan could feel the power thrumming off them, her skin prickling. With a start, she snapped her head to Juliet, standing from placing the final object, and she realized what she was seeing - a Practitioner of the Art, walking deisul around their sacred circle.

"We are their weapons, Morgan," Juliet said, "Their harbingers. We prepare the way for...well. What comes after." She took a long, slow breath, her eyes closed in concentration, "The perfect point of the most subtle spear. What else motivates these mortals but their desires, their hungers, their lusts? The entire race comes with their own bridle and saddle, we need only take the reins." She looked over at Morgan, and crossed the lines of salt with care.

Juliet knelt, brought herself ot eye level with Morgan. Her eyes roved over her sister's face, and she brought one hand up to touch her cheek, cool fingers rough with dried blood. She leaned in with viper-strike speed, and Morgan felt the woman's lips against her own for a moment that lingered like a dying breath. Then she stood, turned, and took two long, delicate steps.

"But none of that is for you, I can see that now. Losing you will be hard, Sister," Juliet said, her back to Morgan, "But the arc of time is long. Another decade will mean little. And with-""

A small sound pierced every other sound in the room - a metallic click, then a rattle. The noise cut off Juliet's words like shears on thread, and time seemed to stop. Juliet spun, and her eyes met Morgan's for the length of an indrawn breath. Then Morgan exploded from the chair, her hair a dark comet trail, and she brought an arm dangling an open handcuff up, fingers clenched into a tight ball. Her fist connected with Juliet's temple, sending her sprawling to the floor with a sharp gasp, the designs beneath her spraying away in a chaos of tumbling grains.

Morgan spun, her shoes further scuffing the careful runes, turned to her left, eyes scanning in a frantic search. There, surrounded by its own tangle of magic, a dagger made of glittering black glass, the handle wound in rough twine. She lunged for it, her hand tingling where she brushed away another magical working, fingers wrapping around the handle in the skin of a second.

When she touched the weapon, Morgan felt a pressure against her mind. The dagger pulsed with history, with fable, with emotion and the weight of time. It dragged at her soul, her vision swam, and she nearly lost herself in that current. With an effort of will, she shoved the sensation away from her mind - there was no time to allow that connection now. She stood, started to turn back, then white light blossomed behind her eyes from a blow to the back of her head. It seemed her sister had recovered more quickly than Morgan had expected.

Morgan stumbled forward, her hands almost nerveless from the blow. She gritted her teeth, tried to swallow down sudden dizziness and nausea, and then she felt something else. Gasping, she managed to stand and turn back to Juliet, who stood with hand outstretched. Morgan could feel power flowing from her, something that should have been a crashing wave; a dark, vicious pull at everything primal and carnal inside her. But she felt all of it split and flow around her, something she was aware of but was not affected by. Morgan shook her head, and she met the other woman's eyes again.

"You really are one of us," Juliet said, her voice tinted with pleasant surprise.

Morgan straightened, stalked toward her, brought the glass dagger up in a hard, sharp punch at Juliet's side. She felt the woman's silk jacket part around the tip, the fibrous tearing of the blade through her skin, the scrape of glass on bone.

She watched her sister's eyes, found herself suddenly lost in those gemstone depths. She felt her lean into a sudden embrace, one arm around her shoulder, the other still wrapped around the dagger's handle. Morgan felt the power sluicing over her mind flicker and back away, but Juliet's eyes didn't waver. They were deep, intelligent, wicked, and when the other woman fell, Morgan found that try though she might, she couldn't pull her own gaze away. Only when Juliet's eyelids flickered closed did the world return, and Morgan realized she hadn't been breathing. She looked down at her hand, saw the blood dripping off her own fingers, and she swallowed against a hard lump in her throat.

A few more unsteady steps took her to the door, and she shoved it open. The hinges shrieked, the heavy metal banging against the wall. Her balance still shaky, she had to lean against the doorframe for support and she paused, her breatg ragged in her throat. She swallowed in a few gulps of air, then she heard a voice from ahead - familiar, with a deep Southern twang.

"Morgan?" Came the voice, "'Zat you?"

"Sam!" Morgan shouted, "Sam, I...give me a minute, I'm just down by the..." Her voice trailed off.

She came into Morgan's view with her pistol at the ready. Her shirt was open farther than Morgan had ever known it to be, the buttons torn, threads dangling. Her eyes were wide, her green pupils dilated, spots of color on her cheeks.

"Best get back in there, Miss Blackwood," Sam said, raising her weapon, "She's got plans for ya."

Morgan felt her shoulders slump. "Oh no, Sam. Not you, too," she managed. Then she stood, straightened, swallowed.

"I'm so sorry."

-----------

An hour later, Morgan pushed her way through another heavy steel door. She felt the oppressive humidity of a Georgian summer evening slap her in the face like a wet towel and in that moment, nothing had ever felt so wonderful. She pulled in first one breath, then another, her throat hot and sore, her body protesting from every muscle and joint. Groaning, she propelled herself away from the wall, digging in her pocket for her keys. They would know what vehicle to track, but Morgan had ben suspecting a day like this would come. She didn't have many options, but she'd made sure she had more than none.

She fell into her car with a hard puff of breath, started the engine, felt the air conditioner struggle against the boiling darkness. She had warned them. There were memos and emails and texts and lunch dates and screaming, arm-waving fights. They knew there were other things like her - myths given life, ghosts, and monsters from folktales. She'd known that eventually, those forces would come for the mortal world, for the Bureau, but they hadn't cared. And now, this.

The air conditioner finally started to catch up with the outside temperature, and Morgan felt the cool, dry kiss across her skin. It was time for something new. She had always looked for answers to other people's questions because she'd already known all her own answers. In the space of an evening, all of that had changed. She wondered if they would look for her, and decided that she didn't care.

With another groan, Morgan straightened, reached up and put the car into gear. She drove into the rising sun, and she didn't look back.

Name: Jacob Bartholomew McCalister
Gender: Male

Race/Species: Human
Age: 40

Appearance:
A middle aged man that appears perpetually tired and somewhat disheveled, Jacob stands in at 6'2", putting him typically several inches taller than many of his cohorts. Jacob has a sinewy build and broad-ish shoulders, but is neither bulky nor lanky. His wavy hair is relatively short and generally combed to the side and kept out of the way, the gray and dark brown hair somehow always manages to appear neat, yet casually unkempt at the same time; and his chin often sports a stubble that is likely several days old. His eyes are a sharp gray, and his piercing gaze is analytical and critical but belie a lurking sadness. His facial features were once strong and defined, but have grown gaunt and thin, and his mouth is often pressed into a thin line. His prominent features and build would lead one to believe that in his heyday, many would consider Jacob fairly attractive, though years of work and being a single father have clearly taken its toll.

Most of Jacob's wardrobe consists of well fitted suits, mostly black and gray often with a monochrome tie. The vast majority of Jacob's footwear are leather dress shoes, clean and professional enough to wear with his suits, but comfortable enough to walk or do activity in for days on end. Jacob wears a leather shoulder holster over his shirt, and typically makes no effort to hide it. On his left hand Jacob wears a silver wristwatch, along with a golden wedding band on his ring finger. He keeps a picture of his daughter in his wallet.

Personality:
A serious man with a strong work ethic, Jacob often has a no-nonsense demeanor and is typically impervious to the jokes and wisecracks made by his coworkers. Only rarely willing to crack a grin for his close compatriots, Jacob is for the most part incredibly blunt and to the point, though not confrontational. Strong willed, and somewhat hard-headed, Jacob is a man of conviction and his beliefs are hard to shake. Despite his callous attitude, its fairly plain to see Jacob is honest and well-meaning, but isn't afraid to get his hands a little dirty. Jaded, and somewhat cynical, despite possessing a well developed moral compass, Jacob will often ignore morality and act in what he believes are in the best interest of himself and his compatriots.

Generally slow to trust those around him that he isn't well acquainted with, Jacob is skeptical of most strangers, and is a firm believer of "If it seems to good to be true, it is". He takes almost everything with a grain of salt, and rarely accepts things at face value. Jacob is for the most part calm and patient, and requires a fair amount of goading to lose his cool. As a part of his fatherly instincts, Jacob is extremely protective of his daughter, and will often react aggressively when something involving her well-being seems to be threatened. As a result of his wife's murder, Jacob is usually distrusting of humanoid supernaturals- particularly vampires, and is quicker to aggression when one is involved.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:
Jacob possesses an innate magical talent, and has the ability to cast simple charms and telekinetically move smaller objects, such as books, pens, wallets, and coins. He has yet to bother pursuing further mastery of his magical talent, too busy with work and family to take the time to focus on practicing magic.

While by no means an Olympic athlete, Jacob is no slouch. In good shape for someone his age, Jacob possesses a mental and physical fortitude capable of taking a considerable beating and can hold his own in most situations that are physically taxing, from lifting and moving objects, to chasing down suspects and even fist fights. While not a brawler, Jacob knows his way around a street fight and can be a formidable foe when provoked. Though not a marksman, Jacob is well versed in operating firearms and firearm safety, and can be a decent shot with his sidearm or even a shotgun or rifle.

Jacob is a smoker, and smokes several cigarettes a day. Despite his good shape, and regular workout habits, its clear that the years of smoking have taken a toll on his overall stamina. Jacob has also been starting to develop a drinking habit, and has begun using cigarettes and alcohol as a vice.

Street savvy and smart, Jacob knows his way around Chicago, and does especially well at night, when most decent folk have called it a night- his stature and attitude often give the seedy types pause. As an investigator, Jacob is capable of many tasks, from surveillance, to opening doors that aren't meant to be opened, and even a bit of interrogation. As a single parent, Jacob is also fairly adept in common household skills, he knows his way around the kitchen, and can grill a mean steak.

Background:
Glazed in the golden glow of midday, the interior of the little shop was absolutely aromatic, a mixture of coffee and baked goods filled the air and almost took Jacob to days long past. Once the sparse cloud cover blocked out the golden sun, Jacob was slowly brought back to reality- a paper cup of the cheapest, strongest coffee he could buy and the loud voice of the Starbucks barista calling out to the next customer. He sat at a short, small wooden table, his knees bumping against the bottom of the wooden surface. Across from him was an empty chair nursing some sort of strange, pinkish-purple and blue concoction that was apparently a frappuccino of some sort.

Jacob took a sip of his coffee absentmindedly as he regarded the pale pink puffy jacket drapped around the back of the chair- Morgan had gotten it for Amanda a few weeks back, said something about him having a terrible taste in children and women's fashion. It wasn't designer, but it wasn't cheap, Jacob was curious how Morgan managed to afford buying gifts for his daughter so regularly- her salary couldn't have been that much higher than his after all.

Looking up as a head of dirty blonde hair skipped back to the table, he couldn't help but touch the golden band on his finger fondly. While Amanda had his eyes, nothing else about his daughter looked anything like him. She did however, take after her mother almost perfectly, the round face and soft features- Jacob liked it better that way, his wife was the pretty one in the family anyway.

"Did you wash your hands?" Jacob asked pointedly as Amanda sat down, grabbing at the drink with notably dry hands and sipping on the straw. Amanda finished a long sip of her drink before she looked away sheepishly.

"Yes..." she lied, not very well. She Also took after her mother in that regard.

"Then why are your hands so dry?" Jacob asked suspiciously, Amanda hated hand dryers, and the brown paper towels only ever got most of the moisture off.

"No they're not!" Amanda insisted, rapidly rubbing the sides of her drink, collecting the condensation onto her hands before shoving them out and showing them to her father, "See! They're still wet!"

"Amanda..." Jacob chided softly as he pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of his pocket and dropped a dollop onto his daughter's outstreched hands. "Now hurry up, we've got a lot to do today."

Half an hour later, and the two McCalisters were at the Pier Park, Jacob watching as his daughter went on a spinning ride for what must have been the fourth time. This was Jacob's first full day off in weeks, so Amanda had written out an itinerary for her self titled 'Best day off day ever, ever'. They were already done with most of the list- breakfast/brunch in bed, followed by a matinee showing of The Incredibles 2, late lunch with 'Auntie Morgan', and a trip to the arcade. After a coffee break, the two came to the Navy Pier, where they'd ride rides to their (Amanda's) content, and watch the sunset.

As Amanda got off her fifth ride on the swinger, she giddily- and dizzily made her way over to her father, giggling all the while. Hugging at her father's waist Amanda let out a tinkling little laugh. "Hey daddy, are you sure you don't want to go on? Its really really really fun!"

"Ah you know me," Jacob said with a nonchalant wave, "I'm not too fond of heights."

"But you're a detective! You're not supposed to be afraid of anything?" Amanda insisted, looking up at her father.

"Now where on earth did you get that idea?" Jacob asked, as he resisted his daughter's pull towards the large swing ride. "Besides, don't you think you've been on there enough? You can barely stand straight!"

"I can so!" Amanda replied with a huff and a stomp, not noticing as she brought her foot down onto her father's shoe. "See! Watch!" She said as she began to walk away from Jacob, standing upon a line in the cement tiles and walking foot in front of foot, her arms out to her sides to help her keep balance. Unfortunately, that type of walking made the already unsteady Amanda even move unsteady on her feet, and after a few short steps, she stumbled forward, catching herself with a few stuttering steps and a pair of hands being thrown forward.

"Well, I don't think we have enough time to go on the ride again anyway," Jacob said as he trotted over to his daughter, pointing at the sun. The sun had dipping closer to the horizon, turning the sky from a light blue into the darker prelude of evening. "If we don't get on the ferris wheel now, we'll miss the sunset.

The threat of missing the sunset must have been a strong motivator, because next thing he knew, his daughter had grabbed his hand and began dragging him towards the steadily growing line of the park's ferris wheel. Through some stroke of divine fate, or perhaps a bit of trickery on Jacob's behalf, the two McCalisters managed slip through the lines and get themselves high into the sky just as the sun began falling past the horizon, the sky now noticeably mixed with a wash of orange and purple amongst the blue.

The younger McCalister stiffled a yawn and leaned against her father. Jacob placed a hand fondly on her head and ruffled it a bit.

"Daddy," Amanda asked, stiffling another yawn, "What was mommy like?"

Jacob blinked a few times, his hand curling up and slowly retreating from his daughter's head. "Hm? Where's this coming from?"

"I've been trying really hard to remember mommy, but I cant remember a thing." Amanda muttered, pawing at her eyes with a small hand. "What was she like?"

"Your mother?" Jacob replied, absentmindedly touching his ring, "Well,"

"She was everything."

Name: Tamara Ivanivna Federova
Diminutive: To her friends and family, Tamara has always been known as Toma.
Gender: Female
Race/Species: Human, however, given her prodigious talent for shapeshifting it is likely that at least some measure of supernatural blood courses through her veins. Taste test pending.
Age: Twenty-five. Who's asking?
Appearance:

Personality:

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:

Background:

Name: Sophia De La Fuente

Gender: Female

Race/Species: Human

Age: 27

Appearance: An olive skinned Latina with short raven hair and hard eyes. Although not unattractive, her features have a slightly feral look. Tattoos cover her arms and much of her body, though her face is unmarked. Many of the tattoos appear to be related to South and Central American religions of the Pre-columbian Period, although there are a number of gang related designs. She is slender and a little on the short side.

Personality: Sophia is passionate and intense. She is easily roused to anger, especially when she is frightened or confused. She is in the process of beginning to break down the walls that her previous life required her to build but remains a trifle aloof and perhaps a little awkward.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: Sophia’s primary talent lay in the direction of ritual magic and thaumaturgy. After being extensively educated by her mother she traveled from her native El Salvador, absorbing various other traditions along the way. Years of involvement with gangs and narcotics trafficking have given her an insight into the criminal underworld, though it isn’t something she is eager to revisit. Sophia is also a naturally gifted sculptor and painter, though she lacks any kind of formal training.

Background:

The smell was the worst. Like greasy meat burned in an oven. It clung to her, coating her dark skin, sheening her black hair, an oily film at the back of her throat. Even when the flashing lights gave way to the quiet interrogation room and she was permitted a few minutes to ‘wash up’, swab her filthy body with a few wet wipes and rinse her mouth out with tepid tap water, it still clung to her. A change of clothes had been permitted her, an orange prison jumpsuit to replace the rags she had been arrested in, but the bright fabric did little but accentuate the filth that coated her. The detectives that came next wrinkled their noses, struggling to conceal their horror behind the blank face of professional detachment. They slapped a paper file down on the table between them and took their own seats.

Sophia looked up with them, her eyes dark and unreadable, the fluorescent light seemed to make tendrils of smoke dance in her irises. Neither of the detectives flinched but the younger of the pair shifted uneasily. He covered his unease by picking up the manila folder he had just slapped to the table and making a show of leafing through it.

“I’m going to be honest with you Miss De La Fuente, it doesn't look good for you. Four men burned alive… well California doesn't have a death penalty but if you don't cooperate there is no chance you will ever see the outside of a prison cell again.” It had the ring of a rehearsed statement, but that didn’t make it untrue.

“I was a prisoner there,” she said, her thick El Salvadoran accent rendering the final word as ‘dare’ rather than there. English was not her first, or even her second language but she spoke it well enough to be intelligible. The statement seemed to move the two policemen onto more familiar ground, a perp denying a crime was more intelligible than four men burned to carbonized husks. It helped that she spoke the way she did, it fit their comfortable preconceptions.

“Look girl, we got security footage of the place, no one in there but you, and you were the only one in the building,” the older, fatter one declared. Sophia spread her hands wide, the restraints that bound the ran through the eyebolt which secured her to the floor with a musical tinkle of metal on metal.

“So your theory is I overpowered four chera and set them on fire?” she asked with a skeptical quirk of her eyebrow. The younger thinner of the two gave her a malevolent grin, clearly aggravated by her apparent lack of reaction. He leaned across the table and grabbed her wrist. From arm to shoulder her skin was covered with tattoos of various kinds, curving serpents and strange sigils atop more prosaic ink.

“You think we don’t know gang ink when we see it? You think that any jury in the world won't take one look at those MS13 tats and…”

The metalized door swung open hard enough that the gasket hissed with the pressure of slowing its progress. A flustered looking junior officer slid into the room a only a footstep ahead of an elderly man dressed in a neat vest and wearing a bowler hat. The officer was trying to make a point of leading the newcomer into the room, but there was absolutely no evidence the older man would have waited for his theoretical escort. The man swept the room with his eyes and cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Uhh the chief says you are to give Mr Priest here a moment with the pris.. I mean suspect,” the escorting officer stammered. Both detectives stood up at once, their postures of angry beligerence so identical that the movement appeared rehearsed to Sophia’s eye. One of the cheap metal framed chairs toppled over with the suddenness of the movement. Priest regarded the detectives with a calm as cool and dry as the Atacama. Both men seemed to freeze for an instant in mid outburst, as though they had expected to find one more step in a long flight than was truly there. Angry words died on their lips in a moment of shock and confusion which transmuted to an anger for which their hesitation left them no outlet. Sofia saw the pulse throb in the heavier detectives neck. The moment passed and they stormed brusquely from the room but neither of them spoke.

The newcomer, Priest apparently, bent down and righted the toppled chair with quiet efficiency. This accomplished, he snapped open an antiquated looking case and withdrew a folded cloth which he unhurriedly spread on one of the recently vacated chairs. He sat down and adjusted the seat before tenting his fingers peering across at the chained, orange clad Sophia intently. There was something to his eyes, a keenness and weight to his gaze that she hadn't expected. She tossed her hair in half hearted defiance anyway, as a woman brought up in a brutal world of gangs and narcotics, it was an instinctive reaction.

“Miss De La Fuente was it?” he asked in culture Spanish. It was Castillian rather than South American in accent and idiom but perfectly understandable. It sounded exotic to her ear even elegant. She nodded her head, as powerless to prevent herself from moving as she would have been to stop a mudslide.

“That was quite an impressive piece of Thaumaturgy back there, what did you use for a flame?” The question was matter of fact and the point, the tone a man would use when asking which chisel one had selected for a particularly difficult cut. The shock moved quickly to a sense of panic. Were there police who could understand what had happened? What if she couldn’t… Priest lay a hand on hers, his hand was dry and slightly cooler than she imagined.

“No fear child, I just want to know how you did the working. Quite impressive, if a little gruesome. Now what did you use for a flame.” Sophia looked around as though afraid of hidden recording devices. Priest merely shook his head, dismissing the fear with unarguable certainty. His eyes bored into her as though trying to draw the answer from her mind with strength of will.

“The pilot light,” she said finally, “the stove had a pilot light, those cabrons were smart enough not to use it but they didn’t know about the light.” Priest sat back on his chair an appraising look in his eyes.

“It must have taken you days to gather enough power to use such a flimsy ignition source.”

“Four days,” Sophia said blankly, her eyes focusing on the near distance. By the way his gaze sharpened he clearly understood what such a task implied. The cartels knew how to hold a Brujha. An empowered circle was easy to create, even for a layman if they knew what they were doing, and even the mightiest practitioner could only do so much with what power remained within the mystical confinement. It would have been easy to waste it in useless fury, every mote of magic had been needed for what she had done, even then one of them might have lived if he hadn’t gone into shock.

“How did you create your links to them surely they were…” Priest trailed off as the answer to that particular question revealed itself in the asking, his face frowning with distaste. Sophia shrugged her shoulders as if to imply that it was nothing that concerned her. Priest withdrew his hand and sat back, his face considering.

“I will be frank Miss De La Fuente. My … firm you might call it, has an opening for someone of your particular skills. We consult on matters regarding the paranormal, take care of problems that sort of thing.” Sophia shifted against her restraints, rattling the chains.

“Senor if you can get me out of here, I don’t care if you are reanimating corpses for your friends to fuck.” Sophia’s voice was quiet and desperate, the profanity a habit rather than an effect of anger. If she were transferred to a prison, she wouldn’t last a day. Even a Brujah had to sleep sometime and the Narcocartels had a very short way with people like her, at least, once they slipped their leashes. Priest smiled as though he had expected nothing less.

“Splendid my dear, we will be happy to have you aboard.” Sophia glanced around the room, as though imagining some miraculous means of escape was about to present itself. No mystical portal opened, now transportation spell whisked her away, she merely sat, chained to the floor.

“So how are you going to get me out? Magic?” she asked Priest as he stood and began to fold his cloth, replacing it in his case with the same neat precision with which he had retrieved it. He gave her a slightly superior smile.

“Oh no my dear, a force much more powerful and diabolical than that.” As if on cue, the door opened to admit a man and a woman bedecked in sharp suits of severe and expensive cut.

“Lawyers.”

It was only after he left and the lawyers wrinkled their noses that Sophia realised that Priest had not so much as blinked at the smell of charred human corpses.

Name: Gabriel (Gabe) Boudreaux (Boo-Dro if it's down in Louisiana)

Gender: Male

Race/Species: Human, but there might be some ancient-co-mingling with spirits, fae and werewolves down the line. When your family goes back that far, it's hard to tell what the heck really happened. Also endless joke fodder.

Age (Real and apparent): Early 30's, Apparent. A little more than twice that, realistically. Born in the 1940's.

Appearance: Gabe doesn't bother to hide that he's a bit of a crunchy hippie; things happen in cycles and so does fashion, which means that long hair, beards and flannel are back in. He's got thick auburn hair and a slightly redder beard. The nose is prominent but not overlarge, though slightly upturned, and his eyes are startlingly blue. He has despair-inducing natural eyebrow game.

A life spent in the outdoors, hiking around on the job in various functions has left a large frame, six-one or so, with some muscle, especially on the shoulders and back. It's not some weight lifting bro's build, but he is solid.

What sets him apart from an urbanite imitating the look is that he doesn't have new clothing. It's all been washed and repaired many times, fading down to a comfortable second skin. It's cared for and maintained.

Personality: Gabe knows what he loves in life and devotes himself passionately to that. Other things he cares less for, but he is gregarious and surprisingly good at socialization. What he doesn't do is blend in socially but rather tries to come at people honestly. Sometimes, in the case of the small-minded folk you find in any place, that puts noses out of joint. However, and Gabe believes this, you will always find your kind of people, the intellectually curious and the interesting, by being strange but sociable and get a lot out of that. He's not afraid to try people out at a gathering until he finds what he's looking for.

So he's friendly and down to Earth.

He walks into places and buys people a beer and tries to find common ground. He makes jokes about his redneck ways. He could run for Senate on that, "I am just a country boy" bullshit he peddles but he also loves it when someone takes him at face value.

The thing is, a lifetime of investigating poachers, animal parts smugglers and other types in communities, often rural, means that he's got this act down.

Deep down, he loves the outdoors. Politically, he's a staunch conservation guy, green energy causes and so forth. He is no vegan, but feels that good stewardship in hunting is extremely important and believes in a natural balance that is not being adhered to. That is his life's lodestone.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities: He's average untrained at Ski-ball, let's get that out of the way.

Gabe grew up hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, lobstering and otherwise doing French-Canadian redneck things in a childhood in Maine. As a veteran and veteran federal agent, these skills were refined, and skillsets in investigation, courtroom demeanor, the law, surveillance, interrogation were added. Gabe also is a repository of knowledge on all kinds of creatures and their habits, both supernatural and normal.

He's not really a practitioner, but he's got enough juice to affect plant life and communicate, empathetically, with animals, including the supernatural kind. There are druidic spellcasting types that are deeply versed in the lore, ritual and prophecy, but Gabe is not really one of those. He has other talents.

He's spooky in the wild as he moves through it, light of foot, and he can shimmy up a rock face with near supernatural agility, but it's actually just a lifetime's worth of skill. He doesn't get lost on trails. He's a superb, supernaturally so, tracker in the wild, but in built up areas it gets too confusing to work the way it does out in nature, with clarity. It's suspected, but not confirmed, that he has a nose like a bloodhound, which may well be why he is known to cover it up with a bandana or surgical mask when the scents get too overpowering, particularly as involves petroleum, coal and various other contaminants. In the city, he often has to contend with a bit of a sinus problem, which means having to reduce inflammation with traditional herbal remedies. That blunts the nose.

His immune system is unbelievably hale and hearty. You can shoot Gabe, but plague and poison is not nearly as effective. There are limitations of course. That may well explain why his family weathered all those centuries fairly successfully, particularly during the Plague(s).

Speaking of that, the story is this: a long while ago in Gaul (France) there was a community of what they called druids that Caesar wrote about in less than glowing terms. Ole Julius (self-servingly) described gruesome rituals, human sacrifice, a culture of fear and rulership. When the same Caesar sacked Gaul on the pretext of civilizing it, but actually was intent on looting it and parcelling out parts of it to his army and enriching his political support base. Caesar and his successors, notably Augustus and Tiberius, supposedly eradicated the worst aspects of this culture. Again, they based some of this on the distaste for human sacrifice, but it was probably rooted more in the Julian Emperors' distaste for challenges to the Principate's authority.

Gabe's ancestors survived through many subsequent purges in the name of politics and religion and eventually emigrated to New France, thence to Maine, keeping the old ways alive, managing to preserve themselves. It wasn't ever a conspiracy, like vampires (who never liked druids much, seeing as they could be an impediment to societal control and feeding) or the fae, who maintained ancient and cordial relations with the oak-knowers.

He's also a motorcycle enthusiast, but stopped riding Harley's a while ago and went with Kawasakis. He's a surprisingly good bonsai gardener, and swears he doesn't cheat but the office doesn't believe him one damned bit.

Background: The smell of her was in his nostrils at this range, even in the city, but it wasn't remotely her fault; he could tell that she worked out this morning, caught a whiff of high end yogurt on her breath and could place the perfume, notes of pomegranate, lemon, rose and jasmine. It was good but not pricey and didn't wrinkle his nose, the way college age dudes would with their tendency to spray the shit under their arms.

"So Mr. Boudreaux, thank you for coming in to interview today. Did you want anything to drink before we started?" She got the name right, which was points in his book. The meeting room was easy to peer into, seeing as the walls were glass, the door was glass, all framed by minimal aluminum, rather than metal. Unlike a police station, it was two way glass. The table was spartan, the chairs modern. So Priest probably didn't get much input on the design of this particular space.

"No thank you, Ms. Cloverpetal, the water's fine, though I hear the coffee is great around here," He smiled at her winningly and made eye contact. His body language was kept deliberately open, perhaps from a lifetime of being a meeter and greeter, a guy that knew how to be public facing. Sure, he was an outdoors guy, but that didn't mean he couldn't provide small talk and socialize. In the supernatural community, there was a bit of a misconception about his kind as cranky recluses, which was often the case. Centuries of tradition could make some people tedious. Ada knew him and knew differently, but others might not. So he put on his best winning way. They might have expected a guy wearing a robe with birds nesting in his beard, or something out of a certain popular show where they shot every animal in sight and wore hunting camo underwear to match their bandanna.

Sure, he had that ruddy sort of look from a lifelong outdoorsman, but he came to the interview in jeans and a tan sport coat and an open collared sky blue oxford, which had a good casual, but sharp urban look for a guy with a beard and a manbun. So sue him, he was tuned into this IPA drinking culture of hipsters. He was actually approving of the water's taste. It was in a recyclable paper carton and tasted good, like the place really cared about where they sourced their water from. He didn't wear a tie, but this interview was a bit of a formality that kept in compliance with the process of hiring law, even though the company contacted him and invited him to apply.

Then again, if you were in the magic business, you had to be wary of your water supply. Any number of people with a grudge would look at that as a good way to mess around. He didn't even need to do a quick magical filtering of the water, one of his go to spells. These days, even creekwater needed filtration. He just had a leg up on it over most people.

Once he finished his sip, Ms. Cloverpetal, who had a hippie name straight out of the late 1960's and, despite the perky, dewy fresh blonde look, might have been born back then, essentially revealed intern status when she said, "So, what can you tell me about yourself?" She asked it earnestly enough, referencing a list printed in Courier on white paper.

But Gabe obliged, "I hold a bachelor's in biology from the University of Vermont and am a 26 year veteran of the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a Special Agent, enforcing laws on the books in wildlife preserves and other federal jurisdictions, as relates to hunting and the trafficking or poaching of protected species. We also did disaster relief operations, specifically relating to handling of animals, and I usually got called in when they needed to find someone in remote places. I was stationed in various parts of the country, notably Louisiana, Texas and New England, but I also covered territory in Northern California and South Florida for a few years, mostly working in conjunction with the FBI branches on smuggling ring cases."

Organized crime shit, sometimes dangerous. She was taking notes on a sheet she had printed out and he had a battered notebook and a cheap pen he was using to take down his own notes, as a way to give his hands something to do.

"Of course," Ms. Cloverpetal nodded, as she read from the script, "So can you tell me about a time when you had too much to do and not enough time and what you did in that situation?"

"Does Vietnam count?" He asked, with a trace of irony to the tone.

This is when the lady got a little flustered, perhaps as he made a cardinal mistake of traditional interviews and gave his age. There was a momentary uncomfortable silence and a mumbled, obligatory and amusing, "...thank you for your service..."

To save her a bit he added, "I went to school on the GI bill as soon as I got out in Burlington. I missed Woodstock, but we had some really good concerts out there. Then, after graduation, I got on a bike with some friends and did the Easy Rider thing. I tried to play guitar, but am not that good. That definitely felt like I was trying to get in a lot in a very limited amount of time, if that helps." He didn't tell her about the drugs. It was still a job interview, after all.

"Oh, wow, so what happened after that?" she asked, a little more naturally.

"Well," he said, warming up to storyteller mode, "I grew up in a kind of traditional household in Aroostook County, Maine, right? And my family, we had our traditions, one of them being a deeply-felt connection with and respect for the land. But not everyone thought it through; they were in a hurry to pull themselves out of a time when disease killed much of the population in childhood, and scarred the survivors. Industrialization, science and technology were used to escape these things, but society overdid it, with immense harm to nature to underwrite societal advancement. Hell, my family always felt that good stewardship was important, but in the 1970's, a lot of people were just starting to realize the cost of heedless industrialization. Acid rain, ozone holes, radical climate change, mass extinction. Have you ever see pictures of what this country used to look like, Ms. Cloverpetal?"

She shook her head, and he continued, impassioned.

"Junkyards everywhere, smog, and all kinds of stuff just floating in ponds. We definitely killed off a lot of species in the process and it was obvious that so many others were about to go. It was a total mess. In the 1960's the activism focus was on Vietnam, but I think we," he meant the generation, "all had to make decisions about what to do with our life after the road trip was over. Literally, in my case. Well, the plan was to kind of get involved in that, and a good way to do it was to join the police force that catches people who dump things on public land illegally, who poach animals without a care and who generally screw up national parks with their beer cans and dumb lighter fluid fires so that everyone else has a huge forest fire on their hands. I'm not a politician, but the one thing Nixon did right was come up with the Environmental Protection Agency. There was a lot of cleaning up and enforcement to be done with various federal agencies and a lot of that had to do with a new generation of agents pushing these laws. I mean, the job isn't all chasing around poachers and finding shipments of smuggled ivory, you got to teach kids about respecting the land too. So we were trying to change things at the grass roots and it looked swell at first, we made a lot of progress. Of course, it's never that easy," he ended with a grunt.

He wasn't sure to encapsulate years and decades of disappointment with bureaucracy, congressional oversight, media misrepresentation and supernatural manipulation for its own ends. He didn't lose the romanticism and idealism, but toward the end, he was drawing heat onto the community he was stationed in, in Louisiana, from a particular cartel of vampires. Thralls, schools, bad stuff. They'd sussed out his schedule, which changed last minute, and thought to pin him down. They shot some school resource officer in a uniform that looked vaguely coplike.

Luckily, the tracks got covered there and the school resource officer survived. But he retired soon there after. He'd started in 1976 and it was 2002. He was drawing too much heat, and he didn't like the feeling of walking away, but the truth was that the bureaucrats were demanding some sort of accountability and he was going to be forced out anyway.

"So you retired in 2002," Ms. Cloverpetal stating the obvious, "But what have you been doing since then?" Apparently, Ada had this young lady doing a very ceremonial 'we did it' screening, but he played along.

"Consulting work here and there, a fat pension and I move around a lot. Back home, they expect me to be gray and old, so I stay away because I hate dyeing my hair," he confided, "So I've been biking around the country and camping out rough in all kinds of places when I'm not raking in consulting fees, including with your agency. Heck, these days I can take a laptop and a phone just about anywhere, so my office is on my back." He sounded smugly satisfied with that pronouncement as he patted the backpack beside his chair, a high end Maxpedition model, thoroughly modern, the nylon thick, durable but well-used. You could only take retro so far.

"So Mr. Boudreaux, what did you like most about your job? What did you like least?"

Gabe cocked his head. It was a bog standard question, but he decided to answer honestly rather than play a cagey game, "What I liked least was political oversight, appointees and unknown agendas that tied our hands. What I liked most was our values and mission. Preserving wildlife, encouraging good stewardship and you got to get out in the community and really work with people. You know, teach them well," he shrugged.

"Did you ever have to deal with someone that was having a difficult day and was not in a good mood? How did you address it?"

"Ms. Cloverpetal, I was a Fish and Wildlife cop, which means that I was often dealing with poachers that did not want to be caught and sometimes had guns. So you know that if you're catching them, they might decide to take a shot. So I always tried to catch them in a friendly way in a friendly place to head off that business. But you know how it is with the bigger fish that think there is no law they're accountable to, that's when it gets hairy. But me, I like it nice and easy. No one wants a war out there," he waved a hand around, vaguely, as if to say, in civilization, with humans, "and I prefer to work it out nicely." But his smile was a bit steely, as if to say that he wasn't going to back down off a principle.

"So what would you say is your weakness?"

He almost laughed aloud, it was a stock question. He was a supervisor and he had to ask people this even back then, "I cannot pass up chocolate chip and pecan cookies or cranberry pumpkin bread. And I like action. And my life is getting too boring and patterned. The last case we worked, the Everglades case, made me feel like I could be doing more," which involved a ring of ritual spellcasters with delusions of Egyptology poaching crocodiles for their body parts, vulnerable species, "so here I am. I got a message from Ada about 'barghests' 'staff turnover' and 'we want to bring you on full time.' And I like the sound of that. Guess I never really learn, huh?"