We arrived in Metz in the middle of the night.

We were greeted at the train station by a Mr Cedric Middleton, the Secretary to the Consul here. Mr Middleton is Mrs Cuthbert's son-in-law, and is posted here with his wife and children. Mr Middleton was quite surprised to see his mother-in-law rolling into town on this strange train. She was delighted at the prospect of seeing her grandchildren.

We were given quarters in the Consulate building, which is a spacious old Palace.

Mrs Middleton is the presiding hostess and had us all settled in no time. As we made our way down the corridors, following one of the resident footmen, Mrs Cuthbert was accosted by a small girl named Elinor, her granddaughter. This child seemed to spark great interest from Miss Whitnell, who gave Mrs Cuthbert a significant look. Mrs Cuthbert looked surprised at something, looking very closely at the girl, but she seemed pleased as well. I heard the two ladies exclaiming that the girl took after her Grandmama while Edward sat down with her in the hallway to play jacks.

I was just about to insist that both children be sent to bed when Mrs Middleton came down the corridor and voiced the same idea. Mrs Cuthbert took the girl off to the Nursery to tuck her in.

Miss Whitnell and Mr Ramsay walked around our wing of the house as did Mr Salmalin and Mr Frazer, checking the perimeter in various ways.

One other incident of note: when we arrived at the train station, Mr O'Flaherty was approached by an unknown manservant speaking German. This man seemed to mistake him for someone else, and deferentially conducted him to a waiting carriage. Mr O'Flaherty, for reasons of his own, played along. I caught Dr Wilson's eye and directed his attention to the action. At last another very large American man sauntered up and indicated that he was the party the German was supposed to be meeting.

As it turned out, the other man, a "Big Roy" McThorne, knows Mr O'Flaherty, at least in passing. Mr O'Flaherty treated Mr McThorne with grudging cordiality at best. Mr McThorne introduced Mr O'Flaherty to the rest of his party. Miss Chigwidgeon came over as well, since she recognised several of the party from those dime novels she is always reading, and wanted the Marquis to take a photograph of her in their company.

I don't know if there is any importance in these people, but so far all the Americans we have met (especially those known to Mr O'Flaherty) have become significant later. I will make note of them:

1) "Big Roy" McThorne–a man of similar proportion to Mr O'Flaherty, but very disheveled in appearance–a massive buffalo coat, wild hair and beard, abused slouch hat–the very picture of the untamed American West.

2) Mr Jeffers-- "the Wizard of Ballistics" This man was apparently very afraid of Dr Wilson.

3) Miss Jeffers-- the daughter of Mr Jeffers.

4) Mr John Creed-- Miss Chigwidgeon looked at him for a moment and said "weren't you a villain in...." He replied that not everything written is true. Dr Wilson replied in turn that "some of it is." Later explanation from them indicated that this man was known for inventing some sort of rapid-fire pistol and using it in unsavoury ventures. Miss Whitnell mentioned that she had seen a Freemason sigil on his watchfob, and reported that members of that order are occasionally associated with dark sorcery. A man to be wary of.

5) Gruber-- the manservant (?).

This morning, we ate a breakfast of a combined English and French cuisine. I managed to find some toast and butter, and some decent currant preserves.

Edward was rather a terror. I had to stop him from putting kippers and bacon into his pockets and soiling his suit. For some reason he took delight in examining all the corners and floorboards, crawling about on his knees. I caught him using some kind of glowing material in a phial as a lantern, and was alarmed that it might be dangerous. I showed it to Miss Whitnell and she said it was harmless. You never can tell with Edward!

Sir Cosmo is again closeted with the Consul, Sir Roger Jennings. They are arranging for Sir Cosmo to go to the Citadel, which is the old and heavily fortified area at the point where the Moselle River joins the Seille River. He is hoping to work his way up the diplomatic channels until he can reach a suitably authorised person to deliver our warning about the threat to Napoleon III. The Emperor is in residence in the Citadel himself, so his most senior protectors should be there with him.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are to tour the area of the Citadel, looking for potential vantage points for conventional assassination methods. We are supposed to act like ordinary tourists. I hope that works.

Now we are all resting, writing reports, some are exercising...I am keeping an ear on Edward, who said he was going to sleep. I am certain he is not sleeping (no snoring), but at least he is also not climbing out the window, nor creating any stenches or explosions, nor breaking anything loudly. I hear him occasionally exclaiming to himself, but that's hardly serious.

We did have one disruption-- I heard a crash from down the hall. I went to investigate, taking Edward along, As we reached Mr Frazer's room, we found Mrs Cuthbert and Mr Frazer looking at an armoire which had partly collapsed. Somehow this accident had sheared all the brass buttons off Mr Fraser's dress frock coat. The buttons had apparently bounced off somewhere because we couldn't find any of them at all. Fortunately, the ever-prepared Mr Frazer had an entire extra set. I volunteered to sew them on for him while he sorted out his furniture.

We should be leaving fairly soon for our outing to the Citadel, so I'd best go return Mr Frazer's coat, then return here to change into a suitable walking dress.

(slightly later)
There has just been a message delivered from Lt Wooster. He is apparently here in Metz, having sailed his sloop all the way here, flying the British Colours, confounding all observers.

His note indicates some difficulty with being detained by the French port officials, and something about some important people traveling with him.

Some of us are going to go sort that out, while others will commence with the plan of touring the Citadel. I am in the latter party, along with Miss Whitnell, Edward, Emily, Mr Cuthbert, Mr Deveril, Dr Wilson, Mr O'Flaherty, and Owen.

Mr Hassan will stay here to continue research and to guard the artifacts we took from the Prussians, while Miss Metzger is staying behind to rest.

All the rest are going with Sir Cosmo to meet the Important Person (the scratched-out part of the note said "Slayer") and figure how to get Lt Wooster out of trouble.

Wednesday, 21 July, 1870
(late afternoon)

As predicted, the Americans were trouble. Most of them are dead, and I hope it will be permanent now.

All of our party save Mr Deveril, Owen, and Sir Cosmo, are in the custody of the French, inside the Citadel. We are being treated fairly respectfully, but we have been here for some time, and I expect we may be here for some hours yet. I have plenty of time to relate the story as it happened...

Our "sightseeing" party split into two groups and drove around the perimeter of the Citadel, one carriage around the North side, one to the South.

Each group investigated all the structures and vantages along the route. We found nothing clear until we had nearly converged at the very point of the rivers' meeting. We saw, quite plainly, the muzzle of a rifle sticking out of the bell tower of an historic church. It was withdrawn immediately, but still we had to be very insistent with Mr Deveril to prevent him using his own weapon right out there in the street.

The Church proved to be abandoned, and in somewhat bad repair. No other tourists and no congregation or clergy were about. We saw another carriage with a coachman waiting, and guessed that it was being used by the assassins. Mr Deveril slipped up behind him and struck him on the head, then (with a little help) put him inside his own conveyance. Mr Deveril took his livery and put it on, and stationed himself atop the box, looking astonishingly innocent.

The rest of us deployed around the building stealthily. Edward and I went round to the least exposed side of the tower and began to climb up the outside, so as to peer in and spy out the situation.

Fortunately, the masonry was in need of repointing, and the many gaps in the mortar gave ample hand- and foot-holds.

Unfortunately, the gentlemen of the party found it necessary to begin up the interior stairs of the tower well before Edward or I had reached a useful position.

The racket was awful-- the sound of heavy feet on old stairs, the sound (and smell) of a rocket, a clatter of high-speed gunfire, the ringing of a fine set of large bronze bells, shouting for surrender (by voices familiar and unknown), profound thuds and crashes of splintering wood. More rockets. The thunderous crashing of huge bells falling down the center of the tower.

I had just got my head up to one of the windows in time to see Mr O'Flaherty swinging his fists at the massive McThorne. McThorne was gaining the upper hand and nearly pushed Mr O'Flaherty over the crumbling lip of the open floor.

I threw one of the rocks from my pocket in a distraction attempt, but it proved unnecessary, as Mr Cuthbert had taken aim and promptly shot the man right in the head. The huge man tumbled down the center of the tower to fall among the bells below.

I could see the inert form of Gruber with a pistol on the floor near him. I could scarcely recognise John Creed, badly mangled amid the rubble. A man I didn't recognise at all was reeling helplessly toward the hole in the floor. Edward reached out to catch him, and was dragged over the edge with him...before I could scream, Mr O'Flaherty caught him and swung them both over to the stairs.

Edward scrambled up and came back out the window. It was momentarily quieter, and I could hear... my ears ringing. Then I could just make out Emily's voice, and Miss Whitnell continuing to chant. The battle seemed to be shifting back to the bottom of the tower, though I hadn't seen any enemy reinforcements coming (I should have known...)

I moved around to see Miss Whitnell and Emily. I could hear more ringing, but now it was the fallen bells being thrown aside by McThorne as he emerged from the tower. The back of his head was entirely open, with very little brain matter remaining.

Edward had brought a rope up with us and proceeded to slide down it and retrieve his rocket gun. I followed him down.

McThorne continued his amazing demonstration of post-mortem galvanic action. He was definitely dead, and definitely throwing large objects and pieces of rubble around. He was muttering in Latin,, though it took a while for me to make it out past the ringing in my ears-- "Ex subter id consumat." This translates roughly to "It devours from beneath."

This sharpened my suspicion that this carrying-on was something in the Mystics' line. The late Mr McThorne was proving insensible and invulnerable to our attempts to slow him. He was bearing down on Miss Whitnell, who was chanting and trying to maintain her concentration.

Mr O'Flaherty attempted to divert the dead man with his fists, Emily struck at him with her knives and her sword. I used rocks (well, they could help as a distraction, anyway), but all to no avail.

Edward began to rummage in his satchel. He produced a pair of long pipes, ran up behind the foe, and wedged both pipes into the waist at the back of his trousers, one down each leg. He activated the fuses and ran for cover.

When I looked up again after the explosion, there stood McThorne, still moving about vigorously, but without the trousers. Oh Dear.

Mr Cuthbert emerged from the tower with the last assassin slung on his back. He drew his large gun and fired at McThorne, but the bullets just bounced away and fell to the ground.

Emily was staying by Miss Whitnell, obviously determined to be the last line of defence, though bemoaning the damage to the blade of her sword where it had struck the stone-like skin of McThorne.

Mr O'Flaherty was definitely the worse for wear by now--trying to use his bare hands on something even rockets couldn't slow! I admire his bravery-- he was doing his utmost to protect Miss Whitnell, even after he could see it was nearly hopeless! But he served well to distract the dead man while other steps were attempted.

Dr Wilson now took hold of a cable from his rocket-assisted climbing device (which is how he reached to top of the tower so much before the rest of us-- he could have mentioned that he had it!). He began to dart about and wrap the cable around McThorne's arms and legs--sometimes coming fearfully close to the giant's swinging fists.

Just as the cable began to impede McThorne, Dr Wilson directed the rocket skyward and fired. The remaining cable fed out, then dragged McThorne abruptly up, to a great height..
All the earlier fighting in the tower had weakened the old building, and when McThorne came falling back out of the sky, he landed on the church building, which collapsed on top of him.

Once the roar of falling masonry subsided, I approached to listen. I could still hear the muttered Latin phrase.

I began to pile additional rubble on top of the heap, hoping to slow the emergence of our foe.

Passers by had run at the previous appearance of McThorne and the subsequent gunfire. Now a crowd was beginning to gather once more.

At this point, the rest of our party arrived, including Lt Wooster, Caine, and two persons unknown to me-- a young woman and an older gentleman.

Mrs Cuthbert immediately set to work on Mr O'Flaherty, who had succumbed at last to repeated blows of the foe's hardened fists. When he showed improvement, she joined Mr Ramsay in chanting, assisting Miss Whitnell.

The revived Mr O'Flaherty climbed up onto the pile of rocks beside me and began to jump upon the stones with all his considerable weight,

Miss Chigwidgeon, instead of helping me, decided to help him, and climbed up on the pile. All my efforts to convince her that her weight would be insignificant went unheard.

I heard the rubble shifting more vigorously, and got clear just in time for the awful figure of our foe to emerge from the pile. Mr O'Flaherty, Miss Chigwidgeon, and a number of large rocks went flying in all directions.

The crowd of onlookers fled again, dragging with them the Gendarmes who had been attempting to get closer.

Mr Salmalin entered the fray, striking the giant man with blinding speed. He was joined, I was surprised to note, by the young woman who had come with Lt Wooster and his party. She was remarkably strong and agile. Mr O'Flaherty joined in as well. All of us from strongest to least were ranged between the foe and the small knot of our Mystics, screening them from the creature until their work could take effect.

Miss Chigwidgeon ran up behind the enemy and wedged her rocket parasol directly into the hole at the back of his head. He swung about before she even let go of it, swinging her around off the ground. She depressed the firing switch an instant before she was thrown clear of him. The power of the rocket pushed McThorne face-first to the ground and held him there flailing his arms and legs like a pinned beetle.

At this very moment, the chanting of the Mystics reached a crescendo and the writhing figure stilled. The rocket detonated. It was very unpleasant.

We stayed to help the Gendarmes and the fire brigade put out the various small fires started by stray rockets. Then the Gendarmes so ungrateful as to arrest us. We tried to explain that the whole mess was surely the effect of some ruptured gas pipe, but they did not believe us.

Mr Deveril is still at large, because he had the good sense to retain the cover of being a coachman, and not one of our party. I hope he will be able to find Sir Cosmo or at least to alert the Consulate as to our whereabouts.

Our party has been split up into male and female groups and put into separate rooms. Our more obvious weapons were confiscated, but we were not thoroughly searched, so of course we still have a number of items at our disposal.

The one remaining assassin, whom Mr Cuthbert brought out of the tower, is still unconscious, and is in the other room with the men.

I have been introduced to the young woman, whose name is Magda. She is said to be "the Slayer" which is the title of a particular agent of the Order of St Jerome, trained and dedicated to the removal of Vampires and similar creatures. I have learned that she and her guardian met Lt Wooster when the train he had captured (with the Prussians' large cannon) was attacked by the last special Vampire and also an additional Werewolf officer.

Miss Magda is pacing. Emily is pacing. Mrs Cuthbert is meditating. Miss Whitnell has just set aside her writing and has begun to meditate as well, but she doesn't look very relaxed as yet. I can hear the Gentlemen conversing in the room across the hall. I wonder how much longer we will be here?

(Later)
We have at last returned to the consulate.

Sir Cosmo arrived a little after I completed the previous entry.
We spoke with one of the higher ranking Mystics here in France (though not the "Lord High Warlock" here, for that is Adm LeCoq, and he is busy elsewhere). Sir Cosmo and our Mystics convinced him of the danger to Napoleon III.

They have taken custody of our prisoner, after our Mystics assisted with reviving him and questioning him about the plot he was involved in. He was attempting to use some ritual magic to become invulnerable when he was struck by Mr O'Flaherty, which caused the whole thing to go awry and created the difficulty with late Mr McThorne.

He was terrified and incoherent, and kept babbling about something devouring from below, similar to what McThorne had been saying.

He also disclosed some information about a particularly dangerous book of magic. Mr Ramsay learned that this book had apparently driven him mad. I rather doubt his sanity to begin with, myself.

We are still uncertain about the whereabouts of Mr Jeffers and Miss Jeffers, who were not among the persons in the tower. Their involvement with this plot has yet to be determined.

Thursday 22 July, 1870
(afternoon)

I must report an anomalous occurrence. The events of this morning have deviated from the usual pattern. I have been seeing ghosts and hearing faeries.

This morning, Edward and I went out into the garden to do some drawings of the flowers there. This was just fine, as the day was pleasantly warm, and there were several birds and even some small quadrupeds about to observe and draw. I was delighted to see a lovely specimen of Merops apiaster, the European bee-eater, which I have only seen once heretofore.

I looked over at what Edward was drawing and he had drawn precisely the same branch as I had, but where I had rendered the bird perched there, he had drawn a small person with a set of damselfly wings. The drawing was very pretty, and I praised Edward for a his delicacy and noted that it was fanciful.

An unfamiliar man's voice from behind me said, "At least he's drawing what he's seeing." I jumped up and whirled around, entirely alarmed at being approached so closely by a stranger without any warning at all.

Standing before me was a man in an English Constable's uniform, appearing about 50 or 60 years. In his voice, features and bearing I thought I detected some resemblance to my friend Mr Frazer, and I wondered that he had not mentioned any uncles or cousins in the constabulary.

I attempted to recover from my initial startlement and introduced myself (since no one was there to introduce us-- I hardly had a choice). He introduced himself as Sergeant Robert Frazer. When he reached out to take my offered hand, his hand passed right through mine like nothing. I struggled with this, remembering that this was the name of Mr Frazer's late Father.

He calmly said, "Oh, I always forget about that, my apologies."
I stammered, "Are you related to Mr Benton Frazer?"
He replied, "Yes, I'm his Father."
"I had understood that you were...."(as I tried to find a polite phrase and failed) "...Dead."
"Yes."
"Well. What brings you to France?"
"I'm following my son."
"Oh. Is there anything I can do to help you?"
"No, It's quite all right. I'm just out here in the garden taking the air."

Meanwhile, Edward was continuing his drawing. He looked up briefly, looked at me, looked toward the late Mr Frazer, but couldn't seem to focus on him, looked back to me, then back to his drawing as if nothing untoward was afoot.

I felt terribly unnerved, my head spinning, my ears ringing, my breathing shallow. My corset felt much too tight. I had the awful realisation that I was about to faint. I sat down upon the bench.

The late Sgt Frazer said, "Are you alright? I will go get someone to help." He walked off toward the house.

I think I asked Edward if he had seen that, and Edward indicated that he hadn't...He offered me a kipper from his pocket, and I nearly disgorged my breakfast.

Mrs Cuthbert and Miss Chigwidgeon came out to the garden. Mrs Cuthbert said something like, "You look pale dear," and sent Miss Chigwidgeon back into the house to get a glass of water.

I think I said that I was glad to see her, and that I had just met Mr Frazer's father. She seemed unsurprised, and said that he had sent her to find me.

She spoke with me at some length, indicating that Sgt Robert Frazer seems to have been about for some few days, that he was following Mr Benton Frazer for some unknown reason. She said that Inspector MacGregor's late father seems to also be about for some related reason, and that the Inspector had approached her about removing him. Mr Frazer, when she asked him, had not indicated any problem.

I asked Mrs Cuthbert if there was anything I could do to keep the late Mr Frazer away from me, and she said not. She tried to reassure me that he was harmless, and it wasn't his fault that he has returned as a ghost.

That wasn't my point, I'm not sure what my point was. I am simply horrified at the idea that someone can sneak up on me, watch me with out my knowing, drift about...it makes me feel very anxious and awkward.

I don't know why I should suddenly be able to see him, when according to Mrs Cuthbert, he's been hanging about us for days. I've seemed to be immune to most of these phenomena, they are Miss Whitnell's and Mrs Cuthbert's area...

Before I had even recovered from that shock, I looked over to see that Edward was in a corner of the garden speaking with a red fox. I was surprised to see it...I hadn't heard that there were any captive quadrupeds in this garden, and I hadn't noticed enough sign of fox presence (scent, tracks or spoor) to suggest a resident animal. Yet, I couldn't imagine a wild fox roaming this far into a large town, much less sitting still while an inquisitive child addressed it. But here it was, a male Vulpes vulpes, plain to see and smell.

I warned Edward not to touch it-- the last thing we need is a bite.
Mrs Cuthbert and Miss Chigwidgeon went over to him. They started talking to this fox as well. They addressed it as "Foxglove." Then we all went into the house to find Miss Whitnell (even the fox!). We came back out into the garden after a time, bringing Miss Whitnell with us.

They all spoke to the fox and also to the bee-eater I had been drawing earlier, making formal introductions all around. The bird was called Peony. The others were plainly having a conversation with these animals, I could hear the humans speaking coherently and responding to what I heard as growls and twittering.

They told me that these animals were Garden Faeries. I could only invent two possible hypotheses to account for all this:

1) my colleagues had concocted some elaborate hoax and were having me on,
2) these creatures were conversing with my friends in a language that I could not understand.

The former option might seem the most logical, and yet I knew that all my friends had been far too busy to bother with such an amusement even had they wished to twit me in this way.

Since I have had evidence, through various direct experiences, that some of my friends are capable of perceiving things that I cannot, I had to accept that hypothesis 2 was possible. Yet, how could I test it?

I closed my eyes and attempted to relax. I listened to my friends talking, and heard twittering replies. I tried to distance myself from prejudicial reasoning. As I listened, I eventually heard, in place of bird chirping, a high-pitched voice saying the words, "tweet, tweet, tweet." This then resolved itself into a narrative, in French, about some kind of creature attempting to enter the house during the night.

I was so surprised that I opened my eyes, in spite of myself. I saw the bird and the fox again, and heard growling and twittering as before. I closed my eyes and eventually I could hear words again.

I then heard most of the remaining discussion (some of the details had to be filled in for me by my colleagues later).

These small creatures have the charge of protecting the garden and the children of the house. I heard several introduced, and heard several voices that did not think could be produced by any of my friends.

I learned that these creatures have been responsible for the disappearance of various small objects around the house, including some liquor, the kippers that Edward had been setting out for them, and Mr Frazer's brass buttons.

They told us about a very angry, very powerful, dark entity trying to get in through the protective magic that the mystics had set around the house. It had tried especially to reach Miss Whitnell, but was not successful. It had managed to send some intent through the barrier and insert a nightmare into inspector MacGregor's dreams. This was evidently calculated to sow distrust among us, but the wise Inspector recognised it for what it was.

After weighing various possibilities, the prevailing opinion has been that the intruder was Herr Schmidt. The evidence that Schmidt has a particular mania about Miss Whitnell disturbed her greatly.

We are all concerned about the safety of the Consular staff, and especially of the children of the Middleton family. Schmidt would have no hesitation to harm them, indeed to take them as hostages.

At present the Mystics' barrier seems to be holding against him, but we all seem to agree that the danger to innocents would be less if we leave this house, with protections in place, and draw our enemies after us.

Mr Ramsay has sent a message via one of the Garden Faeries, to the local Chapterhouse of St Jerome. He is requesting advice as to a suitable location for us to entrench ourselves, and any other assistance they might be willing to offer.

The rest of us are repacking our trunks (though they had scarcely been unpacked), so as to be ready to depart on short notice if needed.
I have completed my packing and Edward is nearly finished with his. I am sitting in my room mulling over the disturbing events of the day.

I am wondering if I now will be able to perceive these sorts of things all the time, as if some barrier to perception has been breached. Would that be a good thing?

I am concerned that today's...encounters might not be an isolated occurrence because, as we returned into the garden with Miss Whitnell, I saw yet another phantasm. This one was an older woman with spectacles, bending over my sketchbook as if to examine my drawings. Who could it have been? No one else seems to have seen her before she faded away, so perhaps this vision was just the figment of my thoroughly exercised imagination.

Proceed to A brazen challenge

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