January 23, 1987

Damn. This is turning out to be a frustrating job. It's been quieter than the first day, or it was until today, at least, when things got so weird so fast that I still have no idea what's going on.
    The killings stopped, but Lucky was still certain that we got the wrong guy. She's been spending most of her waking hours, as far as I can tell, out there trying to find the real killer. The one we caught is still comatose, and for all we can tell planning to stay that way. Phoenix and I have more or less gotten things organized at base, and thanks to the Herald we've got a name now—the Revolution. Must be a New England thing.
    Despite the lack of deaths, all has not been entirely peaceful; we've had a rash of almost-murders in the past week or so. Lucky insists it's daemons at the root of it, and someone agreed with her enough to have called in a specialist, a guy named Chandler Prentice. Most of the police seem to think he's a nut, but after what happened to New York, no one's willing to say so out loud. After what happened last night, I'm certainly not going to say anything.
    It started last night with a call on the cell phone line; it rang twice, but when I picked up the line was dead.
    About a half hour later it rang again.
    "Revolution."
    "Hello? Who—hey, it is a phone!"
    "Hello? Who is this?" I asked cautiously. The guy wasn't entirely coherent and seemed to be a little drunk. He'd found the phone in a parking lot out back of a bar in Allston. It had to be Lucky's. He agreed to wait and meet us there so we could try to find out more, but didn't have much to tell us when we got there. At something of a loss, we began canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone had witnessed whatever had happened. One nearby apartment dweller acknowledged seeing the edges of a fight, but it was too dark for any detail. There had been several assailants, and they had driven away in a light-colored van.
    Then the police called with word that a daemon had been spotted downtown, and we had to put the search for our missing teammate on hold. We found the thing atop a high-rise in the financial district. Ugly enough as it was to start out with, we quickly learned that it could change shape. That included growing nasty spikes out of its body and flinging them around like spears. Whenever we tried to strike at it, it would flow out of the way and then back again.
    I think we were taking a toll, though, until it grew wings and flew away. It was too heavy for me to restrain and too fast for me to keep up with; we quickly lost it among the buildings and split up to search. Within a short time Phoenix Talon ran across a girl, about fifteen years old and dressed like a hooker. He approached her with uncharacteristic caution—a good thing, since when she tossed the car at him he was able to get out of the way.
    "Daaeeemooon Whooooore!" he yodeled, and sprang to the attack; I pelted up as quickly as I could to assist. Last night I found myself using my power with deadly force for the first time—although being inhuman, she was only knocked unconscious. The demon, when we finished tracking it, appeared to have vanished down a sewer grating.
    "This," Phoenix pronounced, looking down at the unconscious girl, "is weird shit." I had to agree.
    We took our victim/attacker to the hospital and met Chandler. He's middle-aged, light reddish-blonde in coloring, with oddly gold-colored eyes. He explained a little bit about daemons for us (still makes no sense to me), and then made a couple of serious long-distance phone calls to two pretty strange characters.
    Yasmina Rajid is someone I'll be happy never to meet again. Even for a thousand-year-old vampire in astral form, she's creepy. Never mind that she seems to take pleasure in the fact that we're really outclassed. According to her, our nemesis is one Gretchen St. John, a former member of the Coven. She lost her daemon-based powers when the war ended and is trying to wake up an old Shandamirian god named Xyrgoth in an attempt to regain some of her status. She's got a few loose daemons tagging along with her, besides a nasty crew of cohorts: Blaise, a martial artist; Flicker, a teleport, and Silas Vandemar, another magician. Like we don't have enough to worry about.
    Yasmina seemed interested in the unconscious girl, who, we were told, has a daemon inside her. (No, I don't know what that means.) The vampire took a lock of hair from Phoenix Talon, and it turned into a silver-and-orange feather; when she laid it on the girl's body, she caught fire. (Again, I have no idea; she seems fine now, although still comatose.)
    When we were introduced, she called me "Seventh of Ten." She didn't explain herself, but I really don't like that smile, and it's been bugging me a little bit ever since.

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