Wednesday 18 September 2019
Natasha finds a note in her mailbox: “Check out Saint Vincent’s”, i.e. the biggest hospital in town. Looking back, she sees a shadowy (deliberately cloaked) figure dropping it off at night, and gets an impression of a bright orange car or SUV.
Jesus looks at public and non-public records; there doesn’t seem to be any sudden spike in deaths or other adverse outcomes. He also gets into the security camera network.
Natasha, Juan and Jade drive downtown, supposedly to buy teaching materials from a supply house nearby (the place is quite large, and surrounded by ancillary medical-related businesses). Natasha gets a feeling of a black stain leaking from the hospital; it’s quite fuzzy, but the centre seems to be at one corner of one of the large buildings; checking the map suggests that depending on which floor it might be maternity, medical imaging, or out-patient geriatrics.
Juan looks into the cleaners; the public areas are handled by the usual contract staff, while specifically medical-related cleaning uses a different company.
(29 January 2020)
Juan and Jade get themselves onto an evening cleaning shift. Natasha enchants a metal key which will get warm when near magic. They get some odd looks from their fellow cleaners, who probably assume they’re casing the place for a possible robbery.
The key indicates that medical imaging is where the magic is. They note a couple of names of radiologists for possible use later; then Jade hands Juan her badge, so that it can be tapped against the checkpoint sensors, and sneaks into the medical imaging suite, which isn’t part of their cleaning route.
She has to blandish her way past a guard, but the magic is definitely getting stronger as she approaches a particular corridor. There’s a hissing sound and a humanoid figure slides out of a crack in the wall behind her; another one comes out in front. They’re dark red, and horned; it’s not clear whether they’re clothed, but they’re definitely hostile.
She shifts to tiger form, and they attack; one of them breathes fire, and they both try to gore her, but Jade’s natural toughness prevents most of the damage. They’re pretty tough too, but she’s eventually able to take them down with claws and bites; they rapidly melt into oily puddles on the floor which then disperse.
The key’s still very warm, and she makes a note of the number on the otherwise unlabelled door. She rejoins Juan, who patches up the wound, and they finish off their shift.