Day 3 of gainful employment. Suicide attempt in the mental health ward. That's not technically your business, but it puts all the doctors and psychiatrists in a bad mood, and they take it out on you and Ernesto. You keep your head down and your mop in motion.
I see if I can learn anything more about Harmonie Palys.
I track down Elton's apartment. It should be somewhere on Main Street, and Main Street isn't that big.
I go to Banicki Gunworks.
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You're a pretty good investigator, but more importantly, there just aren't too many places he can be. Assuming he's still there, of course.
A casual inquiry at the late-night pizza parlor, "hey have you seen Elton?" receives an affirmative, so he's still around. You repeat the inquiry all morning and get confused affirmations at a bubble tea shop and a used book store, but no one knows his address.
Around noon, you head into the burrito place on Main Street, mostly because you're hungry. When you sidle toward an abandoned burrito, a worker appears beside you with an annoyed and suspicious, "Can I help you?"
You blurt out, "I'm looking for Elton?" to divert her suspicion, and she says, "Yeah he's been upstairs all day," as she dumps the tray with the half-eaten burrito into the trash.
Hungry but triumphant, you step outside into the wintery sunshine and look straight up: there's an apartment on the top floor! No ground-level entrance you can find on this side, though, so you circle around, then cut through a covered alley.
"You've been looking for me, haven't you?"
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The alley is so dark that even your sensitive eyes take a moment to adjust. The man standing in front of the stained bricks is a few years older than you, with a dark, serious face and short black hair. He's dressed in tattered but elegant clothes: a black frock coat with mismatched buttons, polished black boots, and a dark, frayed v-neck sweater. Leather gloves protrude from the breast pocket of his coat; the young man has the air of a scholar, especially with the oversized leather book clutched in his hand, but his knuckles are criss-crossed with pale scars.
Though he looks dangerous, he makes no move to attack.
"My name is Elton Dey," he says. "Ms. Clear told me you had come."
I want answers, even if I have to be pushy. "I know about Broad Brook. I need to know what happened here."
I think this guy is one of us, so I should keep this formal. "I am Matulo of Clay's pack in Northern New York. A Bane attacked us and I tracked it here."
I need to focus on helping Clay. "A friend of mine has fallen ill, and I think you might be able to help."
I glance at the tome. "You're a scholar. What are you working on?"
I don't expect much from this guy, but then again, I am broke. "You got ten bucks?"
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Elton seems to reappraise you, as if surprised you can read. Black Tarn's theurgy drew from both Garou and human oral traditions, but she never wrote anything down. And that book is definitely not a day planner.
"This is a nineteenth-century translation into German of Johann Reuchlin's De Verbo Mirifico, usually rendered into English as The Wonder-Working Word," he says. "This version, published secretly in Pennsylvania, contains multiple digressions about…do you use the term 'Bane' where you're from?"
"Yeah," you say.
"This book also informs some of the faith healing and power doctor traditions in this part of the Americas," Elton continues. "So I'm comparing its text to some contemporary occult works, making sure human occultists don't do anything real, because anything they do that's real is dangerous, as it can end with them possessed by Banes." He's watching your expression as he talks; you must have reacted to the word 'possessed,' because he says, "But I'm sure that has nothing to do with why you're here. Why don't you come upstairs and get some tea."
He pushes past you to a narrow door and takes out an elaborate brass key.
"Why are you dressed like a dracula?"
"Why do you sound like the butler in that show?"
"Why do you smell like a dog that learned to smoke?"
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"Incense is part of the business," Elton says, opening the outer door. "I'm a theurge. Crescent moon. You know what an auspice is, right?"
The stairs from the street to Elton's apartment are narrow and steep—the urge to walk hand-over-foot is almost overwhelming—and though it's only late afternoon, there's no light except from a crooked witch window at your back. The stairs bow in the middle, as if a thousand years of monks have climbed these steps, though the building can't be more than two centuries old. In the darkness, Elton inserts the key again without hesitation, turns it easily, and then puts his shoulder into the warped wood of the ancient door until it pops open.
You step into a living room full of books and immediately bang your knee on a coffee table covered in heaps of printouts. Books are everywhere, at every level—noticeably at wolf level in several places. The smell is books and dust and old rugs and brass and pewter, old cigarette smoke burned into the walls, and black coffee—you see the cups left everywhere, balanced in the oddest places—and heavy dinners not always cleaned up right away. You pick your way past iron candleholders covered in melted wax, plates decorated with blue pastoral scenes stained red and black, fat leather-bound notebooks full of handwritten scrawl, and nearly bang your head on a low candelabra strung with electric lights.
"Sit wherever," Elton says, sweeping his hand across a dozen surfaces, none suitable for sitting.
"You're awfully open about what you are. You barely know me."
"So, I've never actually been to a high tea. Where do I put my doily?"
"I hate to sound all business, but I'm here because a Bane attacked my pack."
Never interrupt an enemy when he's making a mistake or a potential ally when he's making tea. I'm hungry, so I wait for crumpets.
"I think I found the remains of someone named Harmonie." I hand Elton the library card.
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