Chicago

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto a construction scene as the sun is setting. "This is Navy Pier," says Ray. "The Robert Mackenzie was supposed to come in here back when it was still a serious commercial facility. We're kind of assuming that's where it's trying to come back to."

Comments

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos dusts himself off and steps out, looking around at things. He likes to get a feel for the place before going too far in.

"Good assumption," he says quietly.

[gone_byebye]

Currently, the pier looks like a ... well, an amusement park. There's more than a few buildings all up and down its length, and plenty of shops and open space, but the major objects dominating the area are the Ferris wheel and its attendant rides and attractions. It has a feel of a cap of modern, overly-bright gaiety clapped on top of layer after layer of other things; not the sort of things that bring about doom or sorrow, just... other, older things than this.

Up ahead, on the left, there's a cordoned-off area with several men in Coast Guard uniform and three civilians. "That's our setup there," Ray says. "We've left our proton packs at home, just so you know. They won't be malfunctioning tonight."

[mago_sonriente]

That gets Ray a nod as he cracks his knuckles, rolls his neck and flexes his hand around his staff.

"Good to know. Who's the Scooby gang over there?"

And he points to the three civilians.

[gone_byebye]

"My colleagues," Ray says. "The black guy's Winston Zeddmore, the one with the glasses is Dr. Egon Spengler, and the one without the glasses is Dr. Peter Venkman. If I hadn't been able to find somebody at Milliways, Winston was going to get the Coast Guard to let him try and get out to the Mackenzie to see if he couldn't get them to steer it away from the killer shoal. He's had military experience, even if it wasn't naval, and we've had some evidence he might come from a moderately 'talented' ancestry."

[mago_sonriente]

"Got it," he replies. Then he turns to Ray.

"If Winston's wanting some testing to see if he could use with training, I could do that while I'm here. Kind of part of the job."

Then he looks out on the bay.

"We got a time frame?"

[gone_byebye]

"He's always been a little iffy on the subject," Ray says. "Mostly because we've never turned up anything ourselves with the hand-held scanners and he doesn't want us putting the EEG rig on his head. Baron Samedi said that Winston had power of his own, though, so if you pick up on anything that you can confirm..."

He sticks his hands in his pockets and looks out over the water. "The Mackenzie's been manifesting about an hour after dark," he says. "It's a few hours early compared to when it actually sank. We haven't figured out what's been causing that."

[mago_sonriente]

That brings him up a little short.

"You've been meddling with the Baron?"

His area of expertise was more santeria than vodou, but he knew enough to know to pause at that name. He wasn't a figure you played games with. No god was.

Then he shakes it off before putting his head on the mission.

"It's off schedule?"

That didn't sound right.

[gone_byebye]

"No," says Ray firmly. "Someone else has. This was back in October. A man in New York spent a good month and change raising power up and down the length of New York Harbor through offerings to the Baron and his family and used it to raise the ghosts of the men who died in the Prison Ships, back during the Revolutionary War. The Baron showed up after we'd broken the guy's shield and loosened his hold on the spell. He was pretty pissed off at the time, as I recall."

Ray's memories of the events are a little fuzzy. That happens when someone else is using your eyes and ears.

"Yeah. Mind you it's off schedule by months, too. Our only hypothesis to explain it is that most of Chicago's ley lines used to be sealed off, deliberately capped by a structure built shortly after the Great Fire. A man who was an old enemy of ours, Walter Peck, came through here a month and a half ago and tampered with some of the arrangements in the building in question. He didn't manage to completely undo the wards or even unlock the Black Door, but Chicago's been recording an amazing number of supernatural and paranormal incidents ever since. Unless I miss my guess,t here's a good chance that the Mackenzie is manifesting early because that's how long it takes for the necessary energy to accumulate in the course of a twenty-four hour day/night cycle."

[mago_sonriente]

"Makes sense," he agrees. Then he blinks.

"Wait, if the changes were made over there, then why am I here? I'd rather get a look at what this joker did before I start messing with the clean up."

[gone_byebye]

"You're here because this is the first door I got through that worked," Ray says. "It's about a mile and a half away. You want to rent a bicycle, or are you good to walk?"

Either way, they'll be ending up at the Palmer House.

[mago_sonriente]

"I'm good to walk," he says, grinning. "You gonna let the cavalry know?"

He slings a finger to the rest of the Ghostbusters.

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "Be right back," he says, and jogs off to the other part of the pier. A little while later he's back. "Peter says be back before it gets too dark and Winston says testing is fine with him. Egon's busy grilling the Coast Guard guys. Let's go."

He can fill Carlos in along the way.

[mago_sonriente]

Carlos grins and follows Ray, his gait confident and at ease. He's getting a feel for the magic in this Chicago, which is a different beast all together from the stuff that was rocketing around Chicago back home. He wondered if that was Harry, or if that was the effect caused by this building he was going to see.

"So... tell me everything. Everything you know, any information is good to have."

[gone_byebye]

"All right," says Ray. "It all begins with the fact that back in 2003, we had a quarrel with an EPA agent named Walter Peck, who was under the impression that the paranormal didn't exist and that we were a bunch of con men. I bring this up because Peck managed to nearly destroy New York City by getting a court order to shut down our containment unit and release all the spirits and ghosts we'd captured. After the mess had cleared, Peck dropped off our radar for a while and turned up again in a black ops position that got me temporarily kidnapped. Again, not all that relevant, except that this time Peck went to prison. And while he was in prison, he managed to convince the prison staff to let him order, read, and study books on ceremonial magic. Thelema, specifically. Which is how he managed to amass enough power to turn himself invisible and walk out of Fort Yankton Federal Prison Camp without being seen- the prison's within spitting distance of a major ley line nexus, and he tapped right into that. He's been wanted by the FBI since, and he's been bouncing from magically potent site to magically potent site across the country, looking for something that he doesn't seem to be having much luck at getting his hands on. Although he apparently almost got the Black Door- he just got interrupted by one of the laundry staff."

[mago_sonriente]

"Black Door... you mind explaining that one? As far as I know," as far as Harry's told him and as far as the White Council knows, "there's no Black Door in Chicago."

[gone_byebye]

"Oh. Big black iron door in the basement of the Palmer House, more locked than any normal door has any right to be," Ray says. "The door doesn't get touched except to be cleaned off once in a while. Rumor has it in the paranormal community that there's a significant dimensional rift on the other side, but I've never had the chance to examine it myself before this trip."

[mago_sonriente]

"Rumor has it? No one's investigated?"

He sighs and shakes his head.

"Okay, remind me the next time I have time that I have to look into this at home but also? See if I can contact anything like a White Council you'd have here. Because something like that? Those just aren't questions you want up in the air, you know what I mean?"

He keeps walking, though.

"You have any clue?"

[gone_byebye]

"There've been attempts at investigating, but the paranormal researcher community's been sorely handicapped by a lack of reliable equipment and capacity, not to mention that the owners of the Palmer House aren't exactly happy with the thought of a bunch of weirdoes rampaging through their hallways in search of a dimensional disruption that may or may not be there," Ray says. "Understand that I'm a scientist and have next to no contacts in whatever magical community might exist."

[mago_sonriente]

"It's all in how you present yourself," he says. "I'm from LA: image is everything. That said, I understand that kind of problem. It happens. We all have real lives."

A pause before--

"You might want to look into something like that. Usually, if you take them seriously, people are pretty willing to help. The kind you'll want helping you, anyway."

[gone_byebye]

"If I can muster up enough time, I'll try," Ray says. "Between the busts, the analysis of bust results, the overall studies I'm working on, and training my nephews, plus the sword lessons and practice, I'm kind of overbooked- but once busy season's over I should have a chance."

[mago_sonriente]

"Well, you know you've always got me, man," he points out. "And I am the best."

[gone_byebye]

"That'll go a long way," Ray says sincerely. "Thank you."

It's not much farther to the Palmer House from there. Any idiot with the least amount of magical sensitivity could tell that something is leaking here- spewing and sparking like a worn wire on an overloaded extension cord.

[mago_sonriente]

And Carlos is no idiot. He's been feeling it as they walk, not making assumptions though since Ray's an admitted mystical cheese slice when it comes to detecting thist stuff on a gut level.

Carlos points at the Palmer House.

"That it?"

[gone_byebye]

"Got it in one," Ray says, and grimaces. "The staff reported green flames coming out of the basement after Peck fled the scene. The fire department managed to put them out, but things haven't been quite right since."

[mago_sonriente]

His head tilts to the side and he holds up a hand as he puts out his feelers. No Sight here, not when there's a chance of getting psychically blinded.