From the Files of Dr. Fritz V. Baugh, GBI Historian
Supplement to GBI Case File GBI-2023-41/412

The black-cloaked woman next to him said nothing.

"What? No joke about wet dog smell?" the man said with a smarmy grin.

She still said nothing.

The sounds of Kid Rock's complete butchery of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" started to play from the man's jacket. He pulled out a flip phone "Yo, Igor, how's things?" He listened for a few moments. "Nope, still here. Maybe you'll get her to talk more than I can, though I doubt you'll get to see her tits like I did..."

Her cloaked head turned a sixteenth of an inch his direction.

He gulped and then laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, looking forward to it." he said to the caller before he hung up.

"That, I assume, was one of those...'guys you know'." Her quiet voice carried a slight accent; Irish, perhaps...

"Yep." The man nodded. "You'll get to meet them all soon..."

A raspy voice, sounding like John Cleese gargling razor blades, came out of the skinny man covered in bandages, wearing an incredibly clashing outfit of reds, pinks, yellows, and greens. "You're interrupting my beauty sleep, Igor. Of course, I slept for five thousand years and still look like this, but I keep thinking it should work any time now..."

"Talbot will be awaiting us, with this new....prospect he found." Igor told him.

"Well, let's see...is she a ghost or a Frankenstein Monster? We're still short of having all of the Monster Cereals!"

Igor shook his head and sighed. "Could you please at least try to listen to me with some seriousness, Quentin?"

The mummy chuckled raspily and very dryly. "Oh, lighten up, Igor. Put on a movie--have you pirated the new Paul Blart: Mall Cop remake yet? I hear it's even funnier than the original!"

Igor looked to the other part of the cabin. A tall, ashen purple-skinned creature with droopy blank eyes dressed in tattered clothes stood there; a cat carrier with heart stickers all over it was sitting next to him. The cat inside hissed when Igor looked at her.

Igor continued. "If this new ally is what Talbot is promising, the Count's agenda will be greatly moved forward." And then he looked at the mummy with a bit of a smirk. "And I would imagine our new English friend might be working on the 'Frankenstein Monster' part of the set..."

"A pleasure doing business, Monsieur." Igor nodded.

Beside him were the mummy (who's name was actually Ahagotsu--"Quentin Harley" just being an alias) and the zombie (Bombie), who was wearing a long jacket with a high collar and a hat to make him as inconspicuous as a nearly seven foot tall zombie could be. Bombie carried an enormous suitcase in one hand, the cat carrier in the other.

"Ah...Jolly Olde England, my adopted homeland!!! Home of crumpets and perpetual drizzle!!!" Ahagotsu sniffed himself. "Gotta be careful--I stay out in the rain too long, my bandages get musty. Almost as bad as Tungsten's wet dog smell."

"We must hurry, Quentin." Igor rolled his eye. "It will be dark soon. We are expected to be there at nightfall..."

At least I don't have to deal with their prattle anymore...

Ahagotsu had named her "Panther-Panther". But just a few days earlier she was given a new name: "Pippi".

She decided she liked that one a lot more.

I can't tell the Lich that though... she mused to herself. ...If he knew he'd suspect I could be taken from him.

If only...

She couldn't stop thinking about the human she'd met. Eric Hawthorne was the name he'd given her. He'd said he was a wizard, part of the same Order that her old captor Zephyranthes has been part of.

That meant that Eric Hawthorne could do what Zephyranthes could not--bind her as a familiar.

Stabilize her magical essence, to keep it from bleeding away, taking her sentience with it. Only the bits of ectoplasm the Lich fed her kept it from happening already.

She knew she'd been in this room before. There had always been a...presence, one that unnerved her. But this time, it seemed stronger. Worse.

Please hurry, Eric...before dealing with the Lich and his freak show friends drives me well and truly insane...

"Gotta apologize for all this, Babe." Tungsten said. "My friends have an overactive sense of drama."

"Call me 'Babe' again and I shall remove your brain by pulling it out of your nose."

Tungsten laughed awkwardly. "But you never gave me a name to call you."

"No. I didn't."

Tungsten grumbled as he turned a chair around and sat down in it backwards. Try that crap with the Count, bitch, and see where it gets you... he mused to himself.

"I'll keep that in mind." she said breezily.

Tungsten blanched. I forgot she really can read minds...

"Monsieur Talbot." a French accented voice came from behind them.

A hunchback in an expensive looking suit and a tall figure in brightly colored clothing were there. A large, ashen skinned creature was beside the brightly dressed man; the brightly dressed man was covered in bandages that had turned green with age.

"Hey, Igor!" Tungsten said brightly. "We gonna get some food soon?"

Igor looked at the woman. "I am Igor Gringoire, Mademoiselle." he bowed, and held out a hand for a moment. Realizing she wasn't going to take it, he withdrew it.

After a moment, she spoke. "You must be of the lineage of Baron Quasimodo."

Igor looked slightly unnerved. "Oui, Mademoiselle. You flatter me with that knowledge of my humble ancestry."

"And I'm Prince Angelino Louis Francisco Banana Fanna Fo Fesco III." the gaudily dressed figure said brightly. "But you can call me Angelino Louis Francisco Banana Fanna Fo!" He extended a hand.

"No." she said curtly.

Ahagotsu looked startled, then grinned with a mouth full of decayed teeth. "Ooooh...you're good!!!" With that, he took off the joy buzzer.

"You can see how friendly she is..." Tungsten muttered.

She paused for a moment. "For the time being, you may call me...Sharon."

Igor raised an eyebrow.

"That works!" Ahagotsu grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously. "Pleased to meet you, Sharry!!!"

She winced, and pulled away from him.

"Quentin...don't antagonize our guest." Igor shook his head.

"My deep apologies." The mummy bowed.

"Our host, the Count, will be with us shortly." Igor said quickly. He snapped his fingers. "He asked that we start without him."

Servants appeared, and silently laid food on the table in the middle of the hall.

"Now this is what I was waitin' for!" Tungsten said excitedly. "I'm so hungry I could eat an entire cow!!!"

"A mooooving experience, I'm sure..." Ahagotsu quipped.

"Sharon" regarded the room for a moment, then sat at the table, though separated from the others

Tungsten started to eat loudly, with food flying everywhere. "Sharon" noticed that even Igor winced at that.

"So anyways, Igor..." Tungsten asked, mouth still full. "I notice Discount Fronkensteen isn't here. He blow himself up again or something?"

"Dr. Vidius will not be joining us tonight." Igor said, giving Tungsten a disapproving look.

"Too bad." Tungsten guffawed, spraying more food. "I like pantsing that little nerd."

A servant began pouring wine into the goblet each guest had.

"It's from the Count's stock." Igor explained. "A special blend."

"I don't drink...anything." Ahagotsu said with apparent deadly seriousness, before taking a goblet and pouring it over his own head.

Igor winced, drawing laughter from both Ahagotsu and Tungsten.

The room suddenly darkened.

Her senses, already on alert, came to life. There is something here...I have felt this kind before...

"The lights bein' out give you any funny ideas, Sharry?" Tungsten asked hopefully.

"Absolutely not." She replied acidly.

"Damn...."

"I hope you will excuse my tardiness, my Dear..." a new voice broke in, smooth with a distinct French accent. The darkness faded away. A somewhat stocky man was now sitting at the head of the table. "...I appear to have overslept. My apologies."

The man stood up, went over to Sharon, and bowed. "Count Nicodeme Levant."

She raised an eyebrow. "Sharon Baylor." she responded, and allowed him to kiss her hand.

"Well met, Mademoiselle Baylor." Levant sat back down.

"Hey, howcum you don't let me kiss your hand or anything else?" Tungsten asked.

"Because the thought is revolting to me." she replied curtly.

"Please, Monsieur Talbot, do conduct yourself better in front of my guests." Levant said simply.

Tungsten looked like he wanted to reply, but didn't.

Levant was dressed rather oddly--a full tuxedo sans cummerbund, in a somewhat faded purple color. His dark hair was short and slicked back.

Most notably, however, was the fact that his chubby face and hands were a rather unusual pallor, looking much the same as Bombie's.

"Enjoy your dinner. Drink as much of the wine as you wish; I have plenty."

"I'm gonna get tore up!!!" Tungsten said loudly, draining a goblet in one gulp.

Sharon regarded the goblet. A slight smirk appeared briefly on her concealed mouth before she lowered her surgical mask.

"After dinner, Mademoiselle Baylor, we will need to talk."

"Yes." she replied simply.

"Excellent." Levant nodded. He gazed around the room. "Before I ask anything of you, let me tell you a little bit about those gathered here." He nodded toward Tungsten. "I understand you are already aware of Monsieur Talbot's...unusual nature."

"He's a werewolf."

"Yes. And our friend Harley Quinn, or Quentin Harley as he prefers to be called nowadays..."

"Some damn funnybook character poached the name." Ahagotsu said with mostly mock annoyance.

"...Monsieur Harley is...shall we say...quite old, and sustained by unusual magic."

She dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "And you, Count Levant, are Kindred."

Levant showed a flash of surprise and annoyance, but only for a fraction of a second. "You appear to have quite...powerful insight, Mademoiselle Baylor."

She said nothing in response.

"My own lineage she also deduced upon our meeting earlier." Igor said simply, nodding.

Levant turned to Tungsten again. "Monsieur Talbot...tell all of us how you found Mademoiselle Baylor?"

Tungsten burped loudly, and stood up. "Well, I'm what the more hoity-toity werewolves call a 'theurge'. Ghosts, spirits, they talk to me even when I wish they didn't. Anyway, a few months back, some Wyrm spirits started telling me that they'd sensed something in the Notre Dame cathedral. A powerful something they very much wanted to let out."

Sharon raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"The cathedral is surrounded by the choking aura of the Weaver, and they didn't even know anything was hidden in it until about three years ago--when the fire happened."

She spoke up. " 'Fire'?"

"There was a fire at Notre Dame de Paris on April 15, 2019. The spire and much of the roof were destroyed." Igor answered, then shook his head. "A tragedy."

"Anyway, I guess with the place damaged the Weaver-stink subsided enough that the spirits realized that someone was there. So they came to me..."

At that point, Tungsten relayed the events he'd participated in--his encounter at Notre Dame with four agents of Ghostbusters International, and the subsequent appearance of a floating mote of green-blue light that carried him away to a pond a few miles away, and emerged from the water...

"...And the best part is, she was totally butt naked! Nothing but water glistening all over her perky boobs and her unshaven red..."

Levant raised a hand. "We get the point, Monsieur Talbot." He turned to Sharon. "What do you have to say about that?"

"It does answer a question or two that Mister Talbot was too busy..." she audibly snorted with disgust "...rutting to elaborate on, yes."

Levant gestured; Tungsten sat back down. This time, Levant stood up, and approached Sharon, stopping only a few feet away.

"Tell me, Sharon Baylor...why were you trapped there? Why would the spirits of the Wyrm seek your release?"

She took a sip of her wine. "I have been the willing servant of what the Garou would indeed consider a Wyrm spirit for far longer than any of you might suspect. I led a cult devoted to that spirit...until eighteen years ago."

Levant looked a bit confused, but said "Please continue..."

"I had succeeded in reuniting my Master with his lost body. But we were opposed, by both Ghostbusters International and the Order of Hermes. I myself was battling an Archmage when the battle ended...and then..."

"Then what?" Levant asked.

"I know very little clearly other than the choking oppression of the Demiurge's aura until I detected Tungsten's presence in Notre Dame. I absorbed the Garou's gnosis, and it was enough to allow me to escape the regio I was trapped in, and restore myself to full corporeal form."

Tungsten started to Butthead laugh. "Naked!!!"

"We'd heard." Igor and Ahagotsu said in unison.

"But I know enough that my efforts failed." she finished. "My previous cult is gone, killed in the battle. And the spirit I served, if he even exists anymore at all, I no longer hear his voice."

Levant looked thoughtful. "The wizards and the technomancers...you seem to have some very auspicious enemies Mademoiselle Baylor." He went over to the window, looking out over the nighttime landscape. "You see, I know well the power of the technomancers. Do you know why I have such interest in Paris? It's because it is where I once lived...and where I died, during the French Revolution. I was indeed a Count, and sentenced to the guillotine...before my Sire found me, Embraced me, and gave me an existence the likes I never could have dreamed of!"

Levant feigned a sigh. "And then came 1889. The technomancer Eiffel created a tower, and unknown to most of the world, that cursed tower made Paris, and the area around it, completely hostile to beings like ourselves. The Weaver, as Monsieur Talbot and the Garou call it, is ascendant in the city I once called home."

"Most Kine--mortal humans--view religion and science as opposing forces. But those such as ourselves know the truth: they are both complementary in their disdain for the supernatural powers in the world, trying to drive us away or, if necessary, destroy us. The Weaver, you see, is both magic and science."

"You yourself lived it: you were opposed by the technomancers in Ghostbusters International. You were confined by the divine power of Notre Dame de Paris. That is why I have formed this gathering: Kindred, Garou, mummies, zombies, and even the less...conventional, hidebound users of technomancy or magic. All are threatened."

Sharon was quiet for a moment. "And what is your end goal, Your Lordship?"

"The servants of the Weaver must be put in their place." Levant replied. "We are Monsters--we must reclaim our rightful place: humans don't even know we exist anymore. We must remind them. Remind them of our existence." His face twisted into a grin. "And remind them to fear us."

She took another sip. "Our goals do seem to mesh well. I will consider this offer."

"That is all I can ask." Levant bowed.

"Sharon Baylor" wasn't her real name, of course. The name her mother gave her was as dead as her mother and her old life was. "Sharon" was inspired by "Charon", the ferryman of the river Styx, a servant of the dark god Pluto; it amused her to use a name the fools who claimed to be like her would say was connected to her alleged "cosmic" significance. "Baylor" was a corruption of "Balor", a monster from the mythology of the place she was born so very long ago.

She had felt a tingle at the edge of her senses during the dinner. It was not an unfamiliar sensation: another mind was trying to invade her own.

Levant is almost certainly of the Childer of Lucian; his display of darkness control hinted at that. Domination is a discipline the Lasombra frequently possess as well...I don't want to push him out too hard, but I will not allow him access either...

The wine was almost certainly...enhanced with his blood. An attempt to blood bond me? Precious. No doubt the hunchback and the Lupine are already bound; it would explain why the rutting dog stopped yapping when Levant asked it.

She sighed. Everything I'd been preparing for since the death of the fool Shandor has come to nothing. And 2134 is quite some time away. Something close to a smug smirk appeared at the corners of her mouth. I will play your game, Count Levant. You and your cohorts might prove useful in settling some scores...

Levant looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. "I gently probed her mind, but she resisted, and didn't seem to be making much effort--though nor did I pry as hard as I could have."

"The blood bond will prove useful in this case." Igor said.

"That it will." Levant nodded. "Though we must be careful--I have no doubt she knows more of my kind, and Talbot's, than she let on. The power of the blood bond is one she may be aware of, and is on alert for."

"Then why drink the wine?"

"Either she thinks she can avoid the other two drinks, or she does not fear the bond."

"Is that possible?"

"There are some Kine who can resist it. A few decades back I thought I had bound a Firemaster--and was literally burned for the mistake."

Igor looked concerned.

What Levant said next didn't comfort him much. "And I am not sure we are dealing with a mere woman with psychic powers, Igor. She is either in way over her head...or we are." He smirked. "I do look forward to finding out which."