csyphrett

I'm pulling Lancelot Strong, The Shield for my first hero pick. This is the Jack Kirby version who could fly, throw lightning, and adapt to anything outside stimuli like becoming bulletproof, warming up to disperse ice, ETC. CES

I have had a couple but they just seem to be talking dreams. I forget them before I can write them down. CES

I meant to ask Soc. Is this strictly DC/Marvel because none of the Red Circle/MLJ guys or the Public Domain guys taken for Project Super powers is on your list CES

Location: Idaville.

All right, Soc. I guess Wolverine is out right off the top CES

Mike Aventi is suing Donald Trump for defamation based on his tweets. I'm just saying it, that's all CES

It's okay Doc. The schedule is pretty fluid right now CES

As the april draft winds down, we must turn our gaze to May. Who wants to take a shot at the month with the greatest day of the year? CES

Have you started this yet, Q? What did your players think? Personally my experience with these types of games have been bad as a rule. CES

90% of this case is not about what will go back to Mueller. It appears that Mikey C is a front man for a mobster laundering money through his taxi companies so his case is being tried by the Federal Prosecutor of New York. The warrant was issued from Mueller because our buddy may have violated the campaign finance laws, fronted for some Russians, and may have laundered some money through Trump, and then the evidence was handed over for someone else to prosecute. But Cohen caught a break. At one point it looked like he would have to take the fifth in his civil trial when called to a stand which would have put a lot of this out in the open. Instead, he has 90 days to clear all this up before he has to go to LA and tell the court why he paid Stormy Daniels off. On top of all that, Cohen says he has only had three clients in the last little bit: Trump, the Trump Organization, and Sean Hannity. So there's a lot of speculation who's baby mama he paid off for Hannity. CES

5 The interior of the house had collapsed with the passing of Madrigal Maximus. So the cats either hunted on their own, or their food was now buried. We still needed to do something about things. After a brief discussion, we decided that we should just leave them on their own with some water from the well that could be pumped up in the kitchen. We found several bowls and put the water out for them. Feral cats would consider the area around the house as their territory. So they should hang around until we came up with a solution to the problem. It was the best we could do at the moment. We couldn’t take them into the city with us. I couldn’t take them in. Addison wouldn’t allow that. And Wendy had her roommates to deal with before she could take in ten to fifteen stray animals. We walked down from Edge Row until we found a Tube Station heading south to the Annex. Wendy strapped us in and we took the train down to a station close to my office. Then we walked the rest of the way. Elga had long departed. I needed to call her and let her know I had survived my adventure mostly intact. I used Wendy to press the lock’s key numbers on the door. Then we went inside. I used her hand to cut off the alarm before a blue coat arrived to ask what we were doing. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to someone about something they had no clue about after what we had just done. “Do you have anything to drink?,” Wendy asked. She put the spell book from the estate on the front desk. “We have water from the sinks,” I said. I walked around the counter and jumped up to reach the closest screen. “Stronger than that,” she said. “Weyland keeps a bottle of something in the bottom drawer of his desk,” I said. “You might need a knife to jimmy the lock.” She nodded as she went to search my colleague’s office. I turned the screen on and pressed the call button. I put in Elga’s number and waited. Her face appeared a moment later. She almost smiled when she saw who was calling. “What happened?,” she asked. “We killed an old lady that needed killing,” I said. “We’re at the office trying to figure out what to do now.” “Let me know in the morning what you decided,” Elga said. “I’m glad you’re okay.” “I will,” I said. “Right now I have to figure out how to feed fifteen of my brothers.” “Good luck with that,” Elga said. She cut the connection. I rubbed an ear and admitted that maybe I should call for some help. Maybe Omes could think of a solution where I couldn’t. “This stuff is good,” said Wendy. She had Weyland’s whiskey bottle in her hand as she came back to the waiting room. “I couldn’t afford anything like this with what I make from my university job.” “Don’t drink it all,” I said. “Weyland uses it to celebrate when he is done with his patients.” “That bad?,” Wendy said. “They’re very young children,” I said. “What do you plan to do now?” “I plan to get so hammered off this bottle that I won’t be able to walk home,” said Wendy. “You’ll have to pour me into a cab and send me back to my dorm.” “Let’s be a little more serious,” I said. I rubbed an ear. “You have a book of spirit spells, you have an old decrepit house, and you have a lot of land that will collapse back into the Wild if you let it. You also have fifteen guardians if you can train them to watch out for you out there on the land.” “On the down side, I have no way to use the spells, no way to fix up the house, and can’t talk to the cats,” said Wendy. She sipped on the bottle. “That seems to be sizeable disadvantages to me.” “I can find you an advisor,” I said. “That should help with some of this. The rest will depend on your will.” “You know someone who does spirity things?,” Wendy asked. She placed the bottle on the desk. “I know someone who knows a bunch of someones who might be able to help you over this hump,” I said. “Once you’re trained, you will be better able to fend for yourself.” “I don’t know if I want to make a decision like that right now,” said Wendy. “I just sent most of my dead family to the great beyond. I can still feel the sound and I want to go too.” I had seen some of the troopers I had worked with express those same sentiments. Their units had been attacked. They had called up fearsome powers to repel the enemy. It left them wanting to use that power on themselves. Some of them recovered and retreated from the front lines when they were no longer needed. Some of them pretended to recover and then destroyed themselves and whomever they had engaged in the most spectacular way possible. I didn’t want Wendy to do that. I had already put some work into keeping her alive and functioning. I didn’t want that thrown away because she felt guilty about people she had never met before that day. And they were dead. Nothing she could have done would have made them any less dead than what they were. I couldn’t think of an argument to show that she had done the right thing for her family, and herself. Being trapped inside a cat and kept in a half-state while your murderer avoids punishment and keeps hunting her descendants was not something I could explain to someone who hadn’t been there to see what Wendy had done. “Instead of talking about the spell work and getting an advisor,” I said. “Let’s talk about you. What would make things easier for you?” “I don’t know,” said Wendy. “Things have gotten so complicated. I was never good with responsibility. Now I have fifteen mouths to feed when I can barely feed my own.” “Take one more drink of Weyland’s whiskey and then put it away,” I said. She took a gulp that seemed to be half the bottle. She capped it and carried it back into Weyland’s office. I made a not that I would have to buy him a new bottle. I didn’t like that because Weyland preferred the expensive stuff to cheap booze. “Now what,” Wendy said after she returned. “I want you to lie down on one of the guest couches,” I said. “Make yourself as comfortable as you can.” She did as I said, turning to put her back to me. “Go to sleep,” I said. Snores escaped her as I rubbed an ear and thought about what I could do about her problem. There wasn’t much I could do. As a general practitioner, my skills went into doing things to the physical body. I didn’t have a lot of skill fixing people’s emotions and mental problems. Maybe I should call my own advisor and ask for some advice. I put in the number for Dr. Karen’s office. I wondered idly if she was still there. She was the chief doctor and summoner on an Army base in the Upper Q. They might be able to pass me through to her home if she had left for the night. “Hello, Witsend,” she said when her screen became active. Her smile turned her face into the most pleasant of raisins. “How are things going in the city?” “I need some advice,” I said. I told her everything that had happened since Wendy Maximus had come into my door and complained of seeing a giant cat. I concluded with the fact that I had no way of helping her in my mind. I just didn’t have the emotional grasp required for getting her back on her own feet. Cats either did, or did not. We didn’t worry about consequences, or regrets, or anything like that when the action was done. We moved on to the next action we had to undertake. The past was dead to us. “I see your problem,” said Dr. Karen. “I think I know someone stationed near Edge Row that can feed the cats at least. That’s only a temporary thing until Miss Maximus wants to take up the burden of her gift. A certain amount of training would have to be done so she didn’t kill herself by accident.” “I’m more worried that she will kill herself on purpose,” I said. “There’s only so much we can do to stop that,” Dr. Karen said. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you have Miss Maximus meet my friend at her estate tomorrow morning? Maybe we can get them together so they work out something so you don’t feel like you have to mother hen another lost child.” “I don’t mother anybody,” I said. “Your boy?,” she said with a smile. “I’m not his mother, I’m the other half of the rent we pay Addison to live in his body,” I said. “If he goes, I’ll have to move somewhere else.” “How many people have you put down for him?,” she asked. “They were all bad and deserved what they got,” I said. “I tell myself that too,” said Dr. Karen. “I’ll make the call. Get your patient to the meeting at say ten. That will give you a chance to massage things.” “It’ll give me a chance to clear her hangover,” I said. “Have a good night, Fluffy Wuffy,” said Dr. Karen. She cut the connection with a cheery wave. I called Omes and told him I wouldn’t be home that night, and he shouldn’t worry. He asked if I needed his help. I said no, I was dealing with a patient that was sleeping things off at the moment. He nodded and wished me a good night before he cut the connection. The next day came and Wendy woke up as the staff started coming in to open the office. I answered some questions from her and the staff before I could get things moving. Wendy used the bathroom to clean up and we headed out. We stopped to get sausages on buns on the way to her new house. I quelled her stomach so she wouldn’t throw up. We took the Tube out to the edge of Edge Row. We walked down to the walled area. It looked even worse in the daylight than it did in the early night when we had first approached it. The cats had gathered around a young man in a battered suit and boots. He smiled at them as he set out food. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Corwin. Dr. Karen said you needed help with the place here.” “This is Wendy Maximus,” I said. “I’m Dr. Witsend.” It didn’t take a life sense to see the sudden interest from my patient. “I certainly do need help,” said Wendy. “I’m afraid there’s no place for us to sit and talk about this.” “I found two chairs, ma’am,” said Corwin. “Let me get them. Dr. Karen wasn’t really that specific about what you needed.” He left us alone. “Do you want me to stick around, or can you handle this?,” I asked. “I think I can handle this,” said Wendy. She smiled down at me. “Call me if something comes up that I can help you,” I said. “I will,” Wendy said. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been a lot kinder to me than you had to be.” “Cats aren’t kind,” I said. I turned and walked away.

4 Wendy returned with the needle. She smiled as she crossed the room. The old lady smiled as she took the needle. There was too much smiling going on. “I’m going to read out some words,” said the old lady. “When I give the sign, I am going to need you to heat the end of the needle and jab me in the arm. As soon as you do that, I’ll have to say some more words, and you’ll have to do the same thing to yourself.” “That seems excessive,” said Wendy. “We used to have to cut off part of a finger,” said the old lady. “A pinprick is so much easier than that.” I sat in the window sill and watched. A summoning circle and the offer of blood was not good. What was the end game? I unhooked the lock on the window. Maybe the guardians would have to enter to do something in the next few minutes. Wendy held the candle in one hand, the needle in the other. She nodded along as the old lady started reciting words from the Maximus playbook. Neither one looked at me. I opened the window as much as an inch. A paw got under it and pushed it the rest of the way up. The ghost cat stuck its head into the room. I moved out of the way so it could have plenty of room to enter. Putting the animal part of it asleep would be easy to do when I needed to do that. Whether that would stop the spirit part was anybody’s guess. The ghost cat sat down under the window. I sat down next to it. We were like twins except one of us was big as a bear and winged. It moved when the old lady started pronouncing the words that went with the signal to be jabbed by the needle. It flung a chair at Wendy as soon as she poked the lady in the wheelchair. Wendy fell out of the summoning circle. She dropped the needle to the floor. The ghost cat stepped in the circle. It swatted the book from the old lady so that it landed in front of me. I turned the pages until found the one with the most recent trace on it. Luckily, she had marked each section as she went with a finger tip. That made it easier to continue with the spell. I started pronouncing the words that she had not touched. They were the same as the ones before that I had heard her pronounce already. When I got to the relevant section, the ghost cat stuck itself with the needle. Curse marks wrote themselves on the bodies of the old lady and the ghost cat. The old lady had more marks under those that shot to vivid life. I kicked myself for missing them in the general decay of her form. I should have seen them. The ghost cat fell where it lay. The old lady looked at her hands. Wendy looked at me. I rubbed an ear. “What did you do?,” Wendy asked. “What happened?” “Your friend saved your life, you floozy,” said the old lady. I twitched my tail as I waited for an explanation about what was really going on. “You almost became one of the spirit animals.” “I don’t understand,” said Wendy. “My relative?” “She’s been stealing bodies for a long time,” said the old lady. “Every time she gets too old to do what she wants, she sends one of us to find a relative to bring back here. She cons the descendant with a promise to magical power, then she switches bodies. She gets their body, they get a cat body.” “And the cat bodies are the real servants here on the estate,” I guessed. “Most of them anyway,” the ghost cat lady said. “There are some things here that the Army should be called to put down in my opinion.” “So all this is a ruse?,” said Wendy. “It’s just to steal my body?” “And keep control of the family magic,” said the ghost cat lady. “We Maximuses are the premiere dealers in spirit workings here in the city. There must be thousands of ghosts buried on the property. As the head of the household, she has the major part of the gift. When she died, that would pass on to her descendants and be diluted which would hurt the family fortune.” “So all of this was just a ruse?,” asked Wendy. “Madrigal’s part of it,” said the ghost cat lady. “We’ve been waiting for a chance to go home. We’ve been stuck in these bodies for a long time. It’s time we left them and go to where we need to go. We need you to release us.” “What about the buried ghosts and the vapors in the house?,” asked Wendy. “They go with us,” said the ghost cat lady. The old lady ghost cat, Madrigal, roared to her feet. She raised a paw to bat her old body to death. I told her to go to sleep with my mind. The part of her that was a possessed animal blinked out. She collapsed back to the floor. “That was close,” said the ghost cat lady. “Do you think you can run the mumbo jumbo and get us out of here?” “What happens after you’re gone?,” Wendy asked. “You get to live out the rest of your life span without worrying about if you are really someone else behind your mask of a face,” said the ghost cat lady. “What about this house?,” said Wendy. She waved her hands to indicate the manor. “This place?,” said the lady in the wheelchair. “It will be gone as soon as you’re done. Only ghost power is holding it here anyway. As soon as we’re gone, so’s the rest.” Wendy looked at the library. I could see the decision markers flaring in her brain. She wanted to keep the lot. “What if I don’t want to let go of this place?,” she said. “I can’t make you see things my way, but do you want to be in a position where you’re stealing your grandchildren’s lives and turning them into big honking cats?” The ghost cat lady made a gesture with her hand as emphasis. “Do you want to be you, or her?” I didn’t see anything wrong with being a cat, but I felt it was something you had to be born into so you knew the responsibility of being able to not care about things that were out of your interest. It wasn’t something you turned people into as a side effect of your real scheme. “When do we get started?,” Wendy asked. “Let’s do it now,” said the ghost cat lady. “Madrigal will try to stop us if she wakes up before we start.” “How do I know this isn’t some kind of trick?,” asked Wendy. “I’ve already prevented you from losing your body,” said the ghost cat lady. “I don’t know of a way that I can prove myself better than that.” “He’s not lying,” I said. “Do you need the summoning circle?” “No,” said the ghost cat lady. “Let’s go outside. We’ll have a lot more room to deal with things.” “He?,” asked Wendy. “I think so,” I said. “Out the window, please.” She climbed out the window. I jumped through and landed lightly on the grass outside the room. More of the ghost cats arrived and sat around us in a crowded circle. The ghost cat lady climbed through the window slow and easy. “It’s been a while since I had a body this broken down,” he said. “We need some leaves and some light.” Wendy reached back into the library and grabbed the lighted candle. The ghost cats spread out and returned with mouthfuls of leaves. They spit them out in a trail away from the house. “This isn’t going to be easy,” said the ghost cat lady. He handed Wendy the book. “Read this page as clearly as you can.” Wendy scanned the page. She looked up. “Are you sure?,” she asked. “Yes,” said the ghost cat lady. “We’ve been waiting for someone to set us free for a long time. You’re the only one who can do that. I believe in you. Please try.” Wendy started reading the words from the book. The leaves began to glow. A bridge built itself out of glowing starlight and shining dreams. The ghost cats broke away from their living parts. They became glowing columns floating in the air. Vapors assembled from the ground and the house. They became faces for the dead as they walked across the bridge. The ground compacted under the weight of the bridge as the dead walked to where they were supposed to be. Wendy kept reading. Tears drifted down her face. Her voice almost cracked under the strain. The ghost cat lady stepped out of the body he wore, pulling on a remembered jacket and smiling. He nodded at Wendy as he joined the end of the line. Some of the people called to him as he walked across the bridge. “What have you done?,” asked a spirit from behind us. I turned my head. Madrigal Maximus stood at the window in a form made of vapor and hate. She marched out toward us, hair loose around her head. “It’s over,” I said. I motioned for Wendy to keep reading. “I’ll say when it’s over,” Madrigal snarled the words. She tried to kick me. I stepped out of the way. Her foot came down on the bridge. She tried to pull her foot off the thing of leaves and light. She struggled but the foot remained where it was. Wendy kept reading. She walked over. She made sure to stay off the bridge. She pushed her grandmother further down the bridge without letting her grab hold and pull her along. The leaves started shifting on their own, pushing the dead old lady after her victims. The columns of light closed ranks behind Madrigal and kept her moving along the bridge until they winked out of existence. “I think you can stop now,” I said. Wendy stopped talking. She closed the book and dropped it to the ground. She rubbed her face with both hands. “I think we’re done here,” I said. “It looks like you just inherited an estate. Congratulations.” “What would I do with this?,” asked Wendy. She raised both hands to indicate the grounds and the big house that had seen better days. “I’m a doctor, not an interior decorator,” I said. I rubbed an ear. “You can live here, or sell it and let the new owners do what they want with it. No one will know about what was going on unless you tell them.” Cats arrived. They were normal furred brothers of the hunt. They made noises to indicate they wanted food and they expected Wendy to take care of the problem. “And it looks like you have a pride to take care of as the new landlord,” I said. Wendy sat down. She covered her face with both hands. The cats surrounded her. They mewled for attention. She rubbed one with a hand as she tried to force her shock down. “Let’s see if Madrigal had some cat food to feed these monsters,” I said. “Then we can go to my office and talk about things.” “All right,” Wendy said. “That sounds okay.”

I haven't given up on this. This is the timeline so far 5000 BC- The Murmur tries to summon the Destroyer and is opposed by Nobody, Cain, Memphis, Al-a-Din, and others in the Destroyer. The line of Kings is created by the Destroyer. 1670- Bill Crenshaw is killed by a pirate hunter known as El Rey (The reincarnated King) in Crenshaw. 1935- Bobby Benson takes over from Cain in the Heir. He becomes the Mark. 1938- Sir Laurence Fletcher starts the Commando X program with its first recruit, James Rafferty. 1956- Enemies of The Mark wound him and kill his friends and fellow spark bearers. He lethally retaliates against them. Will Williams and Ann Baker were killed. The Mark’s human side was wounded. Barberossa, Dr. Sybil, the Butterfly, Koal, and the Spine were all killed by The Mark in the End of the Light. 1964- The Hazard Scouts help the Park Service with an animal enrager. 1969- The Mark helps his alternate Earth counterpart, Captain Spark in Across the Divide. The Hazard Scouts are decimated by an unknown enemy in Showdown in a Small Town. Only Marty Morgan, the Animal Boy survives. 1976- Cassie Troy cements her prophetic abilities by stopping a summoned monster in a church for the life of her friend, Hector, in Cassie’s Knife. She is abetted by Nobody. 1979- Marty Morgan leads Corona, Cog, Finch and Ren against Watson Security and their superpowered minions, The Squad, and rescues Barry Nicklaus and Cortez from imprisonment in Revenge of the Scouts. 1986- The Mark meets Eleanor, Carrie, and Money. He introduces them to Spiffy, and Cassie Troy in the Sisters. Mark Hadron develops his lamp and begins to gather the original Lamplighters in Light the Lamp. 1990- Eleanor, Carrie, and Money help the Robot Rangers fight a building come to life in Tokyo in the Robot Ranger Rescue. 1992- Pablo Estevez introduces his trainee, Henry Harkness, to his mentors and Cassie Troy at the Good Eats Diner in the Four Musketeers. 1995- Shirou Morita becomes M-37 after touching an orb left over from the Apartment Man’s attack on Tokyo in M-37. 1996- Dr. Yamada tests a radioactive coat for M-37 in Testing for M-37 1997- M-37 responds to an earthquake in M-37's First Flight. 2002- Lynette Harkness is born to Henry and Martha June Harkness in Happy Birthday. 2010- Jason Parley gains the sword of the King during a bust of cultists and their summoned monster in Return of the King. Al-a-Din and his butler deal with a bombing in Master and Servant. Memphis helps Moshe and Sara Levram against the Dog Maker in Duel in the Desert. Tanner Lerner and Darla Huitt gain their powers from a meteor in Ink Buttons. 2014- The Lamplighters are decimated. Three are killed. Mark Hadron lost an eye and had a hand punctured. 2015- Jane Hillsmeirer talked to Mark Hadron about restarting the Lamplighters in The Hermit. Jason Parley, the modern King, threatened a deal of nonagression with the local mobster in A Parley. Denver McGinty picks up Kisara, Princess of the Genn, on the side of the road and drops her off in New York City in Girl on the Road. The basis for Lamplighters West is formed when four women ask Hadron for help dealing with Crenshaw the ghost pirate in Splinter Cell. Marcel Hobart is the first new recruit for the new Lamplighters in the Interview. Rangifer Tarandus, The Reindeer, evades the Black Wolves trying to save a town in Norway in Special Delivery. Patty Page, Kathy Baker, Lin Qi, Jean Lopez form the Lamplighters West and take on Crenshaw with the help of Mark Hadron in Blue Flames over San Francisco. Roland Givens is embedded with seven spirits by Amenophis and the Sons of Set despite interference from Tanner Lerner and Lynette Harkness in Button Pushing. Bobby Iger and Maria Garcia-Lopez join the Lamplighters after a talk with Harry Cho in Recruited. 2017- The Mark is killed by the Queen of Genn in Make Your Mark. Lynette Harkness helps fight the invasion in her training suit in New Girl.

3 The room was dominated by a huge bed. I needed something like this for my rooms at Twenty Two Bee. No more napping in the window with something that big. A small lamp stood on a table by the head of the bed. Pictures dominated the walls. The woman in the bed was close to death the way her heart and brain cycled so slowly. I jumped up on the bed. Anything happening to Wendy would lead to a stroke for the old woman. “Hello,” said Wendy. “Your cats asked us to visit you.” “They’re waiting for me to die,” said the old lady. “They want someone new to live with after I’m gone.” “Why would they want me?,” asked Wendy. She glanced at the ghost cat standing outside the window. She waved at it. It blinked at her. “Because you’re family, dear,” said the old lady. Vapors gathered in the room. They formed into columns. Those columns were shaped into statues of people by unseen hands. Each face turned to look at Wendy as she stepped back. “I don’t have any family,” said Wendy. “My mother and father died when I was moving to university. Neither one had family from what I was told.” “Magnus and Wanda,” said the old lady. Two of the vapors stepped forward. They held hands as they pretended to smile. “They look like my parents, but they don’t feel like them,” said Wendy. “I can’t really put much of a personality in a vapor any more,” the old lady said. One hand gestured weakly. “It requires a memory, and I don’t have many of those any more.” “So they aren’t true spirits?,” Wendy asked. She gestured at the statues. “They could be,” I said. I didn’t like being surrounded by so many symbols of dead people. If things went bad, there was nothing I could do to protect Wendy. “The cat is right,” said the old lady. “I just don’t have the strength to summon them like I used to.” And if she tried, I would stop that as neat as you please. The ghost cat glared at me. I rubbed an ear as my tail twitched. It was a good thing that Omes wasn’t there. His gauntlet might freeze the old woman in place, but it wouldn’t do anything against her guardians. And I couldn’t look after him and the woman at the same time. He knew I would sacrifice Wendy over him every time. There was no point putting my resolve to the test. “I can’t do anything for your cats,” Wendy said. “I’m barely feeding myself. They look like they could eat whole horses.” “They don’t eat normal food,” said the old lady. “And they are more than capable of feeding themselves. I need you to open your heart to them and take them in, let them live with you.” “I live with twenty five other girls in a dormitory,” said Wendy. “I would never be allowed to have pets, especially not pets like those.” “What about living here?,” I asked. “You have any objections to that, old lady?” “It would be dangerous for a novice,” said the old lady. “She would have to learn how to defend herself.” “How many other mediums are there that can teach her?,” I asked. “None, really,” said the old lady. She reached out. Vapors lifted her up so she could see us better. “I had hoped that her mother had taught her something of the family business.” “My mother never mentioned any of this,” said Wendy. “I thought she had a normal childhood until she went out on her own.” “We didn’t get along,” said the old lady. “And I didn’t approve of your father. He struck me as a gold digger.” “I can’t blame you for that,” said Wendy. “He always seemed concerned about gathering silver.” “I could gift some of the knowledge you need to take over here,” said the old lady. “Gift it?,” said Wendy. “I have some books and things in the library,” said the old lady. “I can use that to move my knowledge to you so you could live here without a problem.” “I don’t know,” said Wendy. “I think there are members of your family where you could do that. It would be a waste of your time to do that with me.” “Nonsense,” said the old lady. “You’re the last of my descendants. You’re the only one who is qualified.” I didn’t say anything. Excitement was causing the old woman’s heart to speed up. I didn’t like that at all. And her brain patterns said she wasn’t telling the whole truth. How worn were the vapors filling the room? Could she still make them solid enough to stop us? Should I put this old woman down right now before she tried whatever she was trying to do? Was I wrong about her? I rubbed an ear as I considered. The options ahead were filled with immediate danger at the start, with more to fill in when we knew what was going on. I didn’t like any of them but the one I liked the most, I couldn’t do because I didn’t want to murder someone in cold blood. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t cause bodily harm because I wasn’t entitled to such. Plenty of people have learned that mistake after I set their facial nerves on fire. “I think we should move you to a hospital,” I said. “They can keep you alive until Wendy is trained enough to do what you want.” “I don’t have that long,” she said. “No hospital can keep me alive the length of time it would take to train Wendy to handle my responsibilities.” Maybe that part of things was true. “It’ll make everything easier for everyone,” the old lady said. She smiled with a lot of missing teeth. I didn’t trust the glimmer in her eyes. Wendy firmed up her face. I knew what she was thinking. She wanted to go through with this because of her parents, and the thought that she could call on them from beyond the grave. All she saw was the reward, not the excessive risk that she might suffer foul play. I had already made up my mind that whatever else happened, the old lady would die. She was reminding me more and more of spiders. And I didn’t like the thoughts that went with the comparison. “I have a wheelchair,” the old lady said. She gestured to a corner. A few of the vapors pushed it to the side of the bed. “I’ll help you,” said Wendy. She pushed through the vapors, shuddering at their touch. She grabbed the old woman’s torso under her arms and lifted her up. She tried to put her gently in the chair. She wound up dropping the skinny medium. “Sorry,” said Wendy. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m so sorry.” “It’s alright,” said the old lady. “Hand me the blanket your cat is sitting on.” “He’s not my cat,” said Wendy. She stepped over to grab the blanket in question. I stepped out of the way so she could pull it off the bed. “He’s my doctor.” “And I am very good at it,” I said. “A doctor cat,” said the old woman. “What will they think of next?” The vapors crowded around the chair. Wendy waved them out of the way so she could push the chair out of the bedroom. I jumped down off the bed and followed at an angle. I didn’t want to have to strike through Wendy to get at her forebear. I had no doubt that something was going on that I had no clue about. What should I do? Should I put the old lady asleep until I could get Omes out to look at the situation? He knew how to dig up things hidden from plain sight. Wendy didn’t seem to think anything was wrong about her getting potential magical brain surgery. I didn’t know enough about her to explain the attitude. If I was in her shoes, I would step back and talk to a professional. My opinion was simply my opinion without evidence. Wendy rolled the old lady to the stairs. I had noted a railing put in at ground level on the way up. The old lady directed Wendy to put the back wheel of her chair in that slot so she could be pulled down the stairs. A few minutes later we were on the ground floor. Wendy huffed some after the unaccustomed exertion. She asked where to go. A vapor appeared in the shape of a butler to show us the way. I kept to the side as Wendy rolled the old lady to the door and turned the chair around so she could open the door. The butler tried to get in my way to prevent me from entering the room with the women. I gave the old lady a pull on her arthritis which caused the vapor to freeze in place at the unexpected jolt. I hurried into the room. Wendy shut the door in his face so the three of us could be alone. I sat just inside the door so I could watch whatever was going to happen. I had no doubt the butler had tried to keep me out for a reason. I looked out the window. Ghost cats sat out there, looking inside at what was going to happen. What was their place in things? What would they do if I pulled the plug on the old lady right then and there before she started her gift giving? Did I want to find out? “Wheel me over to the ring in the floor,” said the old lady. “I’ll need the big book with the Maximus symbol on it. I’ll need a needle. Light that candle. I’ll need an open flame for part of this.” Wendy carried out the instructions. She kept glancing at the ghost cats. One put a paw on the window, but it couldn’t push its way in. “Don’t worry about them,” said the old lady. “They can’t come into the house.” “Protected?,” I asked. I circled around to the window. The ghost cats watched me. I jumped up on the sill and inspected the lock. It was a simple hook on a hinge holding the window down in its frame. “That’s right,” said the old lady. She smiled. “As long as the window is closed, they can’t come in no matter how much they push on it.” I rubbed my ear as I looked at the old lady. She flipped through the pages of the book on her lap as she smiled. Wendy had left the room in search of the needle that was needed. “The Maximus family live here a long time, ma’am?,” I asked. “All my life,” said the old lady. “It was one of the first pieces to become normal as the city pushed north. We still maintain one of the lookout towers to watch for monster attacks.” “Is that how you collected all these possessed animals?,” I asked. “No,” said the old lady. “Those came about because of my father. He wanted a guardian for the property. Ghost cats were what he came up with that he thought would protect the land until the family didn’t need them anymore.” More half-truths cycled her brain as I twitched my tail.

2 I had a small chicken pie and milk while Wendy had three, or four, appetizers to make up one meal. I told the restaurant to call Elga and put it on my credit. I kept an eye on the alley across the street. I wondered if it was a real animal, or a spirit animal. That would make a difference in what I could do. A real animal, no matter how large, still had a brain and nervous system I could abuse. All I needed was a second to take control and put the animal to sleep so I could get transport to a zoo, or vet, so we could figure out what the connection to Wendy was. I might need Omes to trail the animal back to its lair if it was real and living ferally in the city. If it was a spirit animal, there was nothing I could personally do to it stop it from following Wendy around. An exorcist, or a summoner, would have to be called to handle things. It would move out of my paws into their hands. There were other things that it could be, but those two categories basically limited my options. If I had to call Dr. Karen, I knew she would recommend a top flight exorcist to help Wendy out. I noticed two firefly sparks in the alley across from the restaurant. I sensed a nervous system that was bigger than the humans, steam horses, and other living creatures moving up and down the street. “Your friend is back,” I said. “Don’t look at it.” “That is such a relief,” Wendy said. “I thought I was going crazy.” “I’m going to try to get closer so I can see what it is,” I said. “I want you to stay here. It doesn’t seem to like the people so you should be safe.” “What if it hurts you?,” she asked. “Go back to my office and tell the nurse what happened,” I said. “Ask her to call Omes and have him track it down and capture it if he can.” “Will he be able to do that?,” she asked. “I think so.” I hopped down from my seat. “Just eat and take it easy. It might spook if you stare at it too long.” “Right,” said Wendy. She looked down at her half-finished meal. “I don’t feel hungry now.” “You want to find out what’s going on, right?,” I asked. “I need you to pretend like you’re eating and going to sit there for a while. Pretend you’re dining with someone you don’t like but can’t do violence to because that would cause more problems than what it’s worth.” “That’s a lot of pretend in that sentence,” Wendy said. “Don’t move,” I said. I left the restaurant and walked down the block like I didn’t have a care in the world. Then I sprinted across the street and jogged up the next block in the hopes of getting behind our strange observer. I didn’t want it to run until I had a sample to compare it too. After that, I could track it anywhere in the city except the Industrial Quarter. Once I knew where the lair was, I could ask Omes to help me get it out of there without hurting it. Questions roamed my mind but I concentrated on what I needed to do first. Then I could think about answering the next question and then the next. Patience was a natural skill for cats. We didn’t chase things. We waited in ambush and then pounced. If I missed this time, I would get it the next time. I moved down the street the alley connected to the original street. I saw the end of the alley and paused to peek around the corner. Something bulky sat in the shadow at the other end of the alley. I crept up on it as silently as I could. I saw ears to match the big eyes. Wings seemed to be folded against the body, but the body didn’t appear to be that of a bird. It looked more like a quadruped of some kind. I raked my brain for any clue to what I was looking at and coming up empty. Did I want to try to stop it with my mind power? I knew that if I tried to put it to sleep and that didn’t work I would be a creature capable of ripping me to shreds before I got away. If it did work, I could tell Wendy her vision was accurate and now there was nothing to worry about. I realized that the thing was two things. One was a spirit of some kind. I couldn’t grasp the body with my life sense. The other was a cat. I could see the outline with my life sense. A possession was tricky to deal with from my point of view. The easiest thing was to put the host body to sleep and get a professional to pull the spirit out. Then you could deal with the effects. The thing turned on me. Huge eyes that could have been lamps glared at me. Then it leaped over where I stood and fled down the alley. I turned to track it. I had a trace from the host body. All I had to do was follow it home to its natural quarters. Maybe I could do something once I knew where it lived. Wendy bustled across the street. Her heart rate was way up. I slowed it down as I considered my next move. I didn’t want her to have a heart attack over something like this. I needed to get her out of the way so I could track down the beast. Once I had done that, I could consult with someone from the hospital about separating the two into its component parts. “You saw it?,” asked Wendy. “Yes, I did,” I said. “I think you should go back to the office and wait for me there. I need to track this animal down and figure out why it’s interested in you.” “I don’t think so,” said Wendy. “There’s something familiar about those eyes. Let’s find it. Maybe there will be an explanation at the end of this.” “It could just be a stupid ghost,” I said. “It could be anything,” she said. “I feel like I have seen those eyes before. I don’t know where. Let’s see where it went. Then we can try to talk to it.” “I don’t think it wants to talk,” I said. The words didn’t convince me. It wanted something, but it didn’t seem to have the ability to talk. Maybe Wendy was right. I hoped this wasn’t something dangerous that I should call for help to accomplish. “Come on, Doctor,” said Wendy. “This could be our chance to figure everything out without being embarrassed by whatever is causing it to watch for me.” I doubted that. I gathered up the freshest trace from the pool in the alley and followed it. I spotted the thing across the street. It moved away as I led Wendy on the trail. Every now and then, sunlight would catch a feather and light it up in a neon glow. It led us north out of the Annex toward a section of the city called the Edge Row. Beyond the land there, you started running into things you weren’t meant to know. The Army had three patrol stations for rapid response but some things were better left alone. The ghost animal leaped a crumbling wall and waited for us to do the same before heading up the long driveway to the manor in the distance. We followed at a distance. I surveyed the area. I could see more of the ghost beasts watching us. I didn’t like that at all. “If we have to move fast, stick close,” I said. “There are more of the animals around.” “I know,” said Wendy. “I can see their eyes.” I rubbed an ear. I noted the cats were closing in. If I had to start putting them to sleep, there was no guarantee that the ghost part would go to sleep with the animal part. I put aside the worry. It boiled down to we would be eaten, or not. I decided to wait until they tried to eat us before I did something. Then I would see if my talent was enough to get us out of this. “Open the door,” I said. I kept myself between the original animal and Wendy. “I think he wants us to go inside.” “I feel like I have been here before,” Wendy said. She turned in a circle. “I seem to remember that tree for some reason.” “Let’s go in and see if there’s someone we can talk to about this,” I said. The ghost cat looked ten times bigger than me now that I could see it clearly. I didn’t like that at all. Wendy pulled open the door. She looked inside before stepping inside. “There’s a lot of dust everywhere,” she said. “Go inside and I will step in right after you,” I said. “Don’t worry about the dust.” She stepped inside. I followed her. The ghost cat moved to the door. Wendy closed the door in its huge face. “Which way do we go from here?,” Wendy asked. I looked around the opened space full of old furniture. A set of stairs led the way upstairs to a set of rooms. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said. We made our way across the dusty room. I looked at a window and noted pairs of glowing eyes at the glass. I rubbed an ear at the watchful attention we were getting. “Don’t do anything that looks like a threat,” I said. “I don’t want them crashing in here.” “I know what you mean,” said Wendy. She led the way up the stairs. She paused to let a vapor push by before looking at the doors lining the hall. “Bedrooms?” I didn’t like the presence of the vapor. It meant more ghosts might be involved in all of this. And I couldn’t hurt a ghost with my life sense. “Open the second door,” I said. She did, and we stepped inside.

Just go back and reread what you wrote. Sometimes that allows you to pick a better path for the story. CES

Whomever voted for me, thank you very much. I'm afraid I already used my draft idea for my camp book. I guess my mind centered on Frankenstein and monster company too much. CES

Direct physical force is provided by Ron Swan, the Infantryman. Someone has to be able to assault a place and take things. The Infantryman, with his arsenal of weapons, is that man. CES

(All right, I admit DT jumped me. I was going to go with Quark. I guess I'll take U) Ulysses Umbridge is Universal Ubuntu. He is in a very narrow niche where anything that runs on a electronics can be mentally controlled by him, but anything outside of that realm is a very serious problem. His power allows him to support his friends as long as there is something around that he can control. CES

Yellow Eyes 1 “Dr. Witsend,” said Elga Spangler. She was my assistant and nurse in the office. She made sure the patients were seen, my schedule made money while being lax, and covered for me with my partners when I joined Murdock Omes on a case out of the city. Basically she ran everything for me with the patience of a saint, and the ruthlessness of a dictator. And that was why I had hired her in the first place. I had never regretted that decision. “Yes?,” I sat on my desk, looking at confirmation for a diagnosis I had given a patient. The prognosis was bad. “There is someone here to see you,” said Elga. “She is complaining of hallucinations.” “Hallucinations?,” I said. I looked up from the pictures. “What kind of hallucinations?” “I have her in the other room,” Elga said. “I told her you would take a look at her, and see if there was anything you could do for her.” “I’ll talk to her,” I said. “There’s not much we can do for Jamieson except a full body scrape. His pictures look like the beach after we invaded.” I shut down the screen and hopped down from the desk top. I walked over to Exam Room Two. We had fitted doors in the doors for me so I didn’t have to wait for someone to open the door for me. I stepped in and went to the desk. I used a chair to get to the desktop and sat down. The patient appeared to be in good health, dressed in clothing stolen from a charity bin, and sat on the examination table. She glared at me as I looked at her. “Nurse Spangler says you’ve been seeing things,” I said. “What kind of things?” “They were eyes,” she said. “They were yellow and looked almost like cat’s eyes.” “I don’t see what the problem is,” I said. “They were bigger than you and no one else saw them,” she said. “That could be a little bit of a problem,” I admitted. “Your brain, and chemistry look good. Why don’t you show me where you saw these cat’s eyes.” “You want to go down there?,” said the patient. Her eyes was almost as big as me now. “Why would I do that?” “As far as I can tell, you are in good shape,” I said. “The preliminary scan I have done says your brain is working just like it’s supposed to do. That leaves me with three explanations. Let me at least confirm the explanation that looks better on you.” “Which one is that?,” she said. “That you really saw what you saw,” I said. “I can look for it and prove you saw what you saw which will make your visit nothing really that serious now that we have things figured out.” “That sounds reasonable,” said the patient. “What’s your name?,” I asked. “Wendy Maximus,” she said. “Do you really want to find the huge thing I saw?” “If I can’t find it on our first look around,” I said. “My friend will definitely be able to turn something up.” “All right,” Wendy said. “We can go over and look for it, but if it’s not a hallucination, I don’t want to meet it.” “That’s understandable,” I said. Some of the things I saw I hadn’t wanted to meet before I had. I was lucky they had missed me on their first go around. I tried to make sure they didn’t get another chance if I could. I hopped down to the floor. I walked out of the room and looked around for Elga. I found her typing some of my notes up for treatments. She paused her work on the screen to look down at me. “Wendy and I are going to look for these giant cat’s eyes,” I said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” “Everything should be done,” said Elga. “We cleared the calender for the day with Mr. Jamieson.” “All right,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” “If you don’t come in, I will call Omes and have him chase you down,” she said. “That’s good,” I said. “If things go bad tonight, I will call you as soon as I can to tell you to start shuffling patients, or get me a headache powder.” “That’s fine then,” said Elga. She gave me a small wave to get moving out the door with Wendy. Wendy opened the door for us so we could find her yellow eyes. We started walking. I kept an eye on her vitals as we moved through the throngs on the street. The Annex was the center for medical offices, the giant hospitals that served the city, and the prosthetic shops everywhere. Ambulance companies vectored from the area to other parts of the city and the outlying precincts around the city to gather up the sick and injured. If she fell down and had some kind of stroke before I could do anything, help was only a few minutes away. We stopped in front of a Rancais restaurant between a clothing store and a screen seller. Wendy turned around until she was sure she was in the right place. “I saw the eyes in the window first,” said Wendy. She held up her hands to demonstrate the position she was in. “Then I turned around, and saw them over there in that alley.” I looked at the space. It serviced two other restaurants and a datajack accessary place for plugging things into your brain. I walked across the street. A lot of traces had gone into that space. I tried to separate things down into anything that had yellow eyes. I couldn’t find anything that could explain what she had seen. There was just too much DNA in that alley. Omes could track the thing down if it was material. I needed to call him and get him up to the Annex. I had no doubt he could find out what had been there. And if he couldn’t, no one could. I took one last look around the alley. It was big enough for a large cat of some kind. I just couldn’t see anything like fur laying around. “Let’s go back to my office,” I said. “I need to ask my friend to come down and look thing over.” “Is there something wrong?,” Wendy asked. She seemed on the verge of running. “No,” I said. “I found lots of traces left, but nothing that looked like what I would think of as a large cat. I’m calling my friend for help tracking your monster down. I haven’t given up.” “So I’m not going crazy?,” Wendy said. “Something like this could be anything,” I said. “I can tell you that your brain looks normal. An hallucination like what you described usually requires some kind of marking which you don’t have. You could have just been mistaken, but let’s at least try to rule out anything physical before we start thinking about calling a medium.” “Let’s do that,” said Wendy. “Shall we get started?” “Let’s get some food first,” I said. “How can you think about eating at a time like this?,” Wendy asked. “This is the best time,” I said. “We don’t know how long we’ll be searching, I don’t want to pay for Omes, and I’m hungry.” “What about the yellow eyes?,” Wendy asked. “What should we do about that?” “It’s better to chase monsters on full stomachs than emptied,” I said. “Let’s get that food before something else happens.” “All right,” Wendy said. “Let’s try the Rancaise place. We can eat and keep an eye on the alley until we have something to use.” “My thoughts exactly,” I said. I led the way back across the street and waited for a patron to open the door. Wendy stepped inside as I looked around for a table we could sit at without looking like we were nervous about chasing something. I settled on a chair where I could keep watch on the alley in case the big cat arrived while I was trying to eat. If that happened, I was ready to abandon my drink to get a better look at what we were chasing. And if we couldn’t catch it, I would ask Omes for some help.

the poll is up. pick your three favorites please CES

Pick three please. CES

Psybolt It Comes to Tombstone Location: Tombstone Cowboys 1 Mattie Ross (True Grit) 2 Tom Sawyer (Tom Sawyer) 3 Laura Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie) 4 Hawk (The Revenant) 5 Tonto (The Lone Ranger) Monster: Pennywise (It) options 1 Little Bill Dagget (Unforgiven) 2 Becky Montclief (The Six Guns) 3 The six guns Old Man Skinning the Skinwalkers Location: Devil's Tower Cowboys 1 Mani (Brotherhood of the Wolf) 2 Brisco County Jr (adventures of Brisco County Jr) 3 The Lady (Quick and the Dead) 4 Dr King Schultz (Django Unchained) 5 Hannie Caulder (Hannie Caulder) Monster The Bugs (MIB) options 1 Micheala Quinn (Medicine Woman) 2 The Predator (Predator) 3 Boba Fett (Star Wars Pattern Ghost End of the Line Location: Hell on Wheels Cowboys 1 James West (Wild Wild West) 2 Kwai Chang Caine (Kung Fu) 3 Brett Maverick (Maverick) 4 Thor Gunderson/The Swede (Hell on Wheels) 5 Captain Nemo (Mysterious Island) Monster The Thing (The Thing) options 1 Dr. Moreau 2 The Pinkertons 3 Dynamite Csyphrett Frankenstein's Gunfight Location Deadwood Cowboys 1 Rowdy Yates (Rawhide) 2 The Man with No Name (A Fistful of Dollars) 3 Preacher (Pale Rider) 4 Josey Wales (The Outlaw Josey Wales) 5 Will Munny (Unforgiven) Monster Frankenstein's Helios options 1 Jonah Hex 2 Kid Colt 3 Rawhide Kid Doc Shadow Death Stalks the Prairie Location: Abilene, Kansas Cowboys 1 G.W. McLintock (McLintock) 2 John T Chance (Rio Bravo) 3 Jake Cutter (The Comancheros) 4 Cole Thorton (El Dorado) 5 Nathan Brittles (She Wore A Yellow Ribbon) Monster: Takofanes options 1 Kirby York (Fort Apache) 2 The Ringo Kid (Stagecoach) 3 The Calvary Sociotard Reaping the Corn Location: Pueblo Village, New Mexico Cowboys 1 Liz (Brimstone) 2 Sam Jones/Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan (The Missing) 3 Josephine 'Jo' Monaghan (The Ballad of Little Jo) 4 John Brooder (Bone Tomahawk) 5 Emmett Taggart (Cowboys and Aliens) Monster :He Who Walks Behind the Rows (Children of the Corn) options 1 The Ben Wade Gang (3:10 to Yuma) 2 Reverend Kane (Poltergeist II) 3 El Topo (and son) (El Topo) Cancer "Unnatural Law West of the Pecos". Location: Fort Sumner, New Mexico Cowboys 1 Pecos Bill 2 Yosemite Sam 3 El Kabong 4 Sheriff Woody 5 Kid Shilleen Monster Judge Roy Bean options 1 Murder Steer 2 El Muerto 3 Ghost Riders in the sky as theme song Watchman Mark IV Six Guns in San Francisco Location San Francisco, 1855 Cowboys 1 Jim Duncan (High Plains Drifter) 2 The Sundance Kid (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) 3 John 'Doc' Holliday (Tombstone) 4 Fee 'the Kid'Herod (Quick and the Dead) 5 Henry McCarty/William Bonney/Billy the Kid (Young Guns) Monster Dr. Miguilito Loveless (Wild Wild West) options 1 Davy Crockett (The Alamo) 2 Seth Bullock (Deadwood) 3 Jake (Silverado) Clnicholsusa Which Witch is Wicked and Which Way is West Location Kansas City, Missouri Cowboys 1 Jess Haywood (Shakiest Gun in the West) 2 Jacob McCandles (Big Jake) 3 Thomas van Leek (El Diablo) 4 Slim Honeycutt (Cowboys) 5 Charlie Schwartz (Cowboys) Monster The Grand High Witch options 1 Deekin Scalesinger 2 Constance Clooties (Wynona Earp) 3 Theme music from ZZ top

sorry dropped the ball. been working on my nano CES

judge slams Daca freeze and tells the dhs they are to start it again with the people already in it, and accept new applicants and run them through as fast as governmentally possible. The words malicious, stupid, incompetent, and others of such nature filled out the sixty page ruling. CES