Case File 00120070601

Nightside was contacted by a party which Mr. Prophet deemed necessary to keep confidential. We were hired to investigate the death of Agent Scott, an investigator for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Agent Scott was, at the time of his death, investigating Kaplan Communications, which had been suspected of rather shady business practices and perhaps more. Agent Scott's death suggested that the suspicions may have been accurate.

Izzy, Simon and Jeremy, along with Mr. Roadman (who the contracted at Mr. Prophet's request) arrived at the Kaplan Communications building at just after 9am. Local and Federal investigators were already on the scene and Mr. Black was required to use a local police contact to assist him in gaining entrance to the crime scene. The team discovered that the circumstances surrounding Agent Scott's murder ere quite mysterious. He had been working alone, later the night before, he, for reasons unknown, left the office he was working in and went to an abandoned executive office a few doors down, the only obvious physical injuries were a few shallow scratches that appeared to have been made with fingernails. Additionally, Mr. Scott seemed to have acquired a most unusual tattoo on his face, an odd circular pattern with many intersecting lines.

From the police, the team learned that there was only one witness, who did not speak English or any language that the police had been able to determine at that time. With some fast talking, Jeremy was able to secure an interview with the witness, a janitor who was mopping the hallway when Agent Scott was murdered. Using her specialized understanding of languages, Izzy was able to decipher enough of what the janitor was saying to gain some clues. The janitor claimed he was mopping the hall when he heard a cry or groan. When he looked down the hall from which it came, he saw an exceptionally attractive woman leaving an abandoned office, who winked at him as she passed. When he looked in the office, he saw agent Scott sitting in the desk chair, facing the window. He went in to congratulate Agent Scott on his taste in women & discovered him dead. He had never seen the woman before & had no idea when she came onto the floor or building.

From the federal investigators, the team learned that the security monitoring system of the building had been mysteriously bypassed. No recordings of the building existed for a four hour time surrounding Agent Scott's death. The feds were at a loss to explain the reasons, other than unlikely equipment malfunction. They also learned that no significant fingerprint findings had been discovered and the forensic teams had found no perfume traces or hairs from the mysterious attacker.

At Mr. Black's suggestion, the team next questioned Mr. Kaplan himself. When, after a significant drive, the team arrived at Mr. Kaplan's rather modest home (though the very expensive cars in the driveway were noted), they met a great deal of resistance from Mrs. Kaplan. After some disagreement, Mr. Kaplan finally stepped in and allowed the team to question him, against Mrs. Kaplan's wishes. Once inside, the team also noted the modest exterior concealed the opulence inside. Filled with very old and expensive antiques, vases and sculptures, the Kaplans were obviously not in too dire need of money.

Kaplan explained that he wanted someone to get to the bottom of this murder. He denied responsibility & suggested the team investigate his recently fired CFO, John Epner. Mr. Kaplan explained that Epner had been fired once the SEC began questioning Kaplan about mysterious funds that Epner had "found in the books" and used to keep the company afloat for the past ten years, while other communications conglomerates were struggling and folding. Mr. Kaplan expressed remorse for not asking Epner more questions about the money's origins but he was simply too happy to be able to keep the company going when Epner made his "discovery". Kaplan claimed to have urged Epner to come clean to the SEC but he refused so Kaplan fired him. Kaplan speculated that the murder of Agent Scott may have been an attempt by Epner to save him self from prison at all costs. Kaplan agreed to cooperate fully with the team and provide them any access they needed. The team left (much to the delight of Mrs. Kaplan and, apparently, their angry teenaged son) and returned to Nightside to consult with Mr. Prophet.

Mr. Prophet instructed the team to meet with Norman Welch, a consultant on the occult that MR Prophet conferred with in the past, and see what he could tell them about the symbol. Mr. Welch was intrigued by the symbol and could only tell the team that it was very old and was not used to bind or contain anything, as the team suspected but instead it was likely used to channel "mystical power". Mr. Welch promised to research it further and contact the team again.

At Jeremy's suggestion the team decided to return to Kaplan communications around the time of the murder to "see what the killer saw. Upon arrival, the team met Yuki, another interested party, who seemed to have some insight into the events occurring here. The team quickly decided that Yuki's knack for blending in would be quite useful in this investigation and recruited his aid after determining his motives. After convincing a rather unpleasant guard (who speculated that the murder was an inside job) that they had permission to be here and he finally gave them the key required to get to the upper floors, the team arrived in the nearly abandoned offices of the building. Hours of search provided no additional clues, though Izzy did have a moment of unusual insight, which led her to believe that people close to Kaplan were responsible and that there may be many of them.

As the team was preparing to leave, they heard the sound of a stairway door closing. Racing to the roof, they discovered a very attractive young woman standing alone on the roof. As they approached her, several unusual female attackers assaulted the team. The attackers, who made it appear that they were in flames, seemed to easily overcome the team and the young woman seen standing on the roof seemed poised to kill Simon and Yuki. The unexpected arrival of Jake, who used knowledge gained from one of his unique contacts to stun the attackers, helped free Simon and Yuki. The team fought the attackers with some success and, once they determined that they would not cease their assault and speak with the team, Simon was forced to fatally wound the young woman that seemed to be the leader. Once she was down, the others fled the scene.

Jake explained to the team that the murders were just the beginning of something larger that threatened the entire city and would result in the deaths of many. He offered to aid the team in any way that he could, though he quickly became violently ill and the team was forced to take him back to Nightside with them.

The next morning, the team went to the coroner’s office to learn the details of Agent Scott's death. After infiltrating the office, thanks to Yuki, they were able to look at the report and Agent Scott's body. According to the report, Agent Scott's insides were crushed as if he had fallen from a great height or had been run over by a large vehicle, though the outside of his body showed no signs of this. The coroner was at a loss to explain this deterioration of his bone and tissue mass. The coroner was also at a loss to explain the odd tattoo that was on Agent Scott's face, which seemed to be made shortly before death but the skin showed no signs of being freshly tattooed. The finally mysterious finding, a strange gold coin minted with the same symbol that was tattooed on Agent Scott's face, was found in his stomach.

Deciding that Epner could be the key to the investigation, the team took the long journey to his palatial estate home. Upon arrival, Izzy decided to sneak in and look around before the team announced themselves. She found John Epner & his wife watching a tabloid show about the Kaplan Communications scandal. From their private discussion, Izzy began to suspect that Epner was not responsible for the murder. The moment Izzy returned to the team to explain what she found, they heard a scream from within the house. The team rushed in & found Epner dead, with the same tattoo on his face. Yuki posed as a policeman & questioned Mrs. Epner but she saw nothing and only heard the scream.
The team left before the police arrived and returned to Nightside. Upon returning, the team was met by Norman Welch, who had uncovered more information, based on the knowledge of the coin. The symbol was used by a group of Kabalistic sorcerers that originated from the time of King Solomon. It was minted in Solomon's kingdom and used by his wizards to channel mystic power. Through Prophet's informants, the team learned that a group of Solites were active in Eden City & were having a "recruitment party" the next evening. Prophet acquired the team an invitation & they each made preparations to attend.

Upon arrival at the party, the team mingled with the guests, meeting a few of the representatives of the Solites, including Jessie Dillenger, Stewart Marks and another gentleman who's name they failed to acquire. The team noticed that those in attendance seemed to be the wealthy elite of the city and that the Solites had in their possession a number of very ancient artifacts of King Solomon's rule. The spoke for a while with the unnamed gentleman of the merits of joining the Solites and tried to ascertain the nature of the "quest for what they desire" they all spoke of but the man was very indirect with his answers. Simon looked around the building and discovered an area that he thought contained a hidden chamber but could not find. Norman noticed the symbol from the coin & the tattoo, painted on the ceiling of the main room and, after pointing it out to others he sat to watch the behavior of those in the room. Yuki noticed a young teenaged boy, watching Norman, and to his shock, saw Norman leaving with a woman that appeared to be the same one that led the attackers on the roof of Kaplan Communication.

Jeremy, Yuki & Troy followed them outside and saw the girl standing over Norman. They drew guns and yelled for her to stop & she seemed quite frightened of them. Norman said he was simply retrieving her lighter & that she worked for the Solites as an administrative assistant. When Yuki apologized, stating that their eyes must have been playing trick on them, she agreed as the streets themselves seemed to come alive and attack the team. Norman ran the girl, Mandy, to safety while the others attempted to fight the tendrils of concrete that were rising up around them. Simon and Izzy came out at the sounds of a struggle & jumped into a parked SUV. Hot wiring it, they rushed to get the others as Troy was overcome by a wave of concrete debris, despite his valiant efforts to fight the tendrils hand-to-hand. Yuki noticed that the attack seemed to be focused on Mandy and Norman and the team got them into the SUV & attempted to get them away. They were forced to stop when the buildings in front of them collapsed and a "tidal wave" of debris surged toward them.

The team sped back and, as Jeremy and Jake attempted to free Troy, the SUV was crushed by the wave, just as the rest of the team escaped the vehicle. The debris rose up and attempted to crush Yuki & Norman, narrowly missing. Yuki noted that it seemed to be actually attempting attack Norman, not Mandy, who had fled to hide in a door way. As the debris rose again, this time taking on a vague humanoid form, Simon’s sharp senses noticed a shadow behind a car & heard what seemed to be chanting. Leaping behind the car, he found the teenaged boy holding another coin & focusing on it as he chanted in another language. Simon knocked the boy out & the streets returned to normal, revealing it to all have been a hallucination.

Hearing the approach of the police, the team returned to Nightside. When they attempted to question the boy, they discovered him to be speaking a language that they did not understand. Izzy attempted to use a "truth serum" of sorts on him but it did not keep him from speaking in another tongue. As they questioned him, the boy’s eyes seemed to roll back in his head for a moment but Simon slapped him and stopped it. More questioning could only determine that "Agraht Bat Malaht" gave the boy the coin. "Consulting one of his unique contacts", Jake revealed the boy to be speaking ancient Hebrew & "Agraht Bat Malaht" was roughly the "Daughter of Satan". Norman felt that the boy was speaking of the Succubus they encountered the night before. Further questioning revealed that the boy had a crush on Mandy and they believed that that was why the succubus took that form.

The team questioned Mandy & she revealed that she was a secretary of sorts for the Solites & planned gatherings and fundraisers. She said she had no sister or twin, when asked, & that se didn’t know who the boy was, though she admitted to seeing him around the Solites. She did admit to knowing who the Kaplans were, as they were big supporters of the Solites, especially Mrs. Kaplan (whom she had a very low opinion of). They had donated such large sums that she was asked to pick them up in person from their home & she had scheduled several meetings with them and the "leaders" of the Solites; Carl, Jessie & Stewart. Once Norman felt certain that she was not in any immediate danger, the team sent her home, after she thanked them & Troy followed her to keep an eye on her.

Before they could learn more from the boy, police arrived and all but Izzy & Jeremy took the boy through the trap door to the store room of "The Velvet Lady" jazz club, above the office. The police entered and informed Jeremy & Izzy that they had witnesses that stated they abducted a boy from the Solite meeting. They denied it but the police began searching the offices and threatening to tear it apart. Izzy knew that could be very bad so she told them that the others just left with the boy but they did not kidnap him, they were trying to keep him from hurting anyone. The detective, Brian Carpenter, told them that there was no way they could have "just left", they would have seen them and he assumed that there was a back exit from the office. He instructed an officer to get sledge hammers so that they could knock through walls to find where the boy was hidden or taken, as the men searched around the club above. Yuki & Simon saw the boy's father through the window of the club above, frantically begging the police to find his son & they put the boy out the back door so that the police could find him.

Once they had the boy, the detective began to take Izzy & Jeremy away as Simon called Mr. Prophet, who was at a mysterious meeting. Prophet told them he was on they way and to stop the police from searching the office at all costs. Yuki called Mandy and asked if she would come back & help clear this up. Mandy agreed and they stalled until she and then Prophet arrived. Mandy was able to calm the father, Jessie Dillinger and she spoke to the boy. Saul. He was so enamored by Mandy, who agreed to talk to him about all this sometime, that he agreed that the team had not tried to hurt him. Prophet explained that the team was investigating the murder of Agent Scott & John Epner and that they had simply thought the boy had seen something & was potentially in danger. Mr. Dillinger, one of the ten richest men in Eden City, agreed not to press charges but threatened legal action if they came near his son again.

The police left and Prophet debriefed them as they cleaned up the offices. Discussing the comments Mandy made about Mrs. Kaplan and their own experiences with her, the team decided that they needed to meet with her again & question her further. Simon was interested in continuing his search the Solite meeting place, in an attempt to locate the hidden chamber or passage that he was certain was there. The team decided to go back to the Kaplans together and question Mrs. Kaplan, before returning to the Solite meeting hall.

Upon arriving at the Kaplans' home, the investigators questioned Mrs. Kaplan (Mr. Kaplan was out of the house at that time). After some convincing, the investigators were able to defuse Mrs. Kaplan's hostility and she confessed that she was simply stressed and worried about her son, who had been acting odd since he joined the Solites youth program. As Izzy questioned Mrs. Kaplan further, the others searched her son's room. Inside, they were surprised to find pictures of Mandy in compromising and overtly sexual situations. There were two memory sticks and two CD's worth of nude images and more, of the seemingly innocent girl, mostly taken in the boy’s room. They also found discarded lingerie and a diamond necklace that the investigators suspected was valued in the six-digit range. Finally, they discovered, hidden in the back of a closet, a shrine to Mandy, with hundreds of photos, seemingly taken from a distance (as if she were unaware of the photographer) and discarded notes and even some of her hair.

After finishing their questioning of Mrs. Kaplan, the investigators decided that the Solites meeting hall was their next stop. Taking a suggestion from Jake, they acquired the necessary uniforms and vehicle to pose as County Electric Cooperation inspectors. Under the pretense that faulty wiring had been discovered in other buildings constructed by the contractors that built the meeting hall, the investigators were able to snoop around the facility. They discovered a room, filled with seemingly priceless archeological artifacts from the time of King Solomon. Four of the pedestals that the artifacts were displayed upon were empty, causing the investigators to suspect that they were hidden elsewhere. Jake kept the top ranking Solites busy while the others continued their search. After a brief period, Simon discovered a secret door, hidden behind racks of chairs, which led to a basement. The basement, decorated to look like an ancient temple, was filled with several boys in their early teens and a veritable harem of scantily clad young women, who were talking, feeding and "entertaining" the boys.

As the investigators spied on the room, the stairs behind them seemed to burst into flames and the doors that they were peeking through, opened. Revealed to the youths, their "leader", Carl, made himself known and debated the "wisdom" of what he was doing. As he lectured the investigators on the benefits he and the boys were gaining from the "fruits of Solomon's wisdom", they noticed four artifacts sitting upon an alter. The artifacts, an ancient tome, a collection of familiar gold coins a statue of h hideous, flaming woman in a seductive pose and a statue of a beautiful woman in the same seductive pose, seemed to give off a light of their own. Once Carl realized that he could not bring the investigators to his way of thinking. he revealed the young women to be the same type of "flaming women" that attacked the investigators a day before. Carl also called forth Mrs. Kaplan's son, whom he instructed to reveal his natural gift. The boy concentrated and invoked the "daughter of satan" and Mandy’s "double" appeared.

In a rush, the flaming women and the “Mandy" attacked the investigators. As the succubi seemed to be poised to defeat them, the investigators used their talents and weaponry to attack the artifacts, which seemed to pulse with more power as the "Lower Spirits" attacked. Once the artifacts were destroyed, the succubae, including "Mandy" seemed to weaken. The timely arrival of Jake and Troy, assisted in destroying all of the succubae. When the Solite leaders finally made it to the basement, the women were gone but the evidence was not. As the leaders began to argue with Carl and the accusations flew, the investigators called the police. It was then that they realized that the Kaplan boy was missing.

The investigators ran to the Kaplan home and, after being let in by Mr. Kaplan, they were able to get to the boy's room in time to overhear Mrs. Kaplan reveal that SHE was the mastermind behind the murders of the federal agents and the source of the mysterious money that had kept Kaplan Communications afloat. All of this was possible, due to the Kaplan boy's natural talent for summoning and controlling the succubus that took the form of Mandy, whom the Kaplan boy lust after. The investigators ensured that Mr. Kaplan overheard as they accused Mrs. Kaplan and she admitted her involvement & her reasons for supporting the Solites: in order to train her son to utilize his natural talents to get the Kaplans' all that they desired.

The investigators contacted the police and Mrs. Kaplan was arrested. The Kaplan's son was committed to a juvenile correctional asylum. Mr. Kaplan was found to be ignorant of the crimes and was not charged. The anonymous client, who hired Nightside, was satisfied with the results and the investigators were cleared of all kidnapping charges.

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