The Interrogation

Thaddeus is gone, James is unconscious and likely dying, Miss Waterman has vanished, Phillip is injured, Aqualung has reappeared and taken more of my memory, and I have no idea where we are. According to my computer, it has been several days since I last visited this site.

Overall, I believe that our little interrogation session might have gone better.

Once again, I am left without any idea as to how much memory I have lost. I can only tell you what I still remember, and hope that it is enough. Fortunately, it seems that Aqualung failed to erase my transcript of the interrogation itself (though it is, of course, possible that it claimed pieces of it and has left me only with those pieces that survived), so I can still give you that, at least.

I still remember the drive to Miss Waterman's promised safe house. Or, at the very least, pieces of it. Miss Waterman acted even more tense than usual following her announcement of her intention to escort us there. Phillip and James did not seem to have so much as an inkling as to why this might be the case. They did, however, join me in questioning Miss Waterman as to why she had failed to reveal the existence of such safe houses on any prior occasion.

The only answer that she was willing to give was "There wasn't any reason to tell you, and if you knew about them someone else could have gotten it out of you." Which is fair enough, I suppose, though none of us could come up with any reason for her to be so apprehensive at the prospect of putting her safe house to use.

The house itself was run-down and, by all appearances, had lain abandoned for some time. You will have to forgive me for omitting details as to its precise location, as I am not entirely sure whether or not those same details would give away our position; I have no idea where we are presently located, or whether or not we are anywhere near the house.

In any case, the house was empty when we approached, and well off the beaten path. Despite the decrepit countenance which the old building sported, its locks were still fully-functional. Fortunately, Miss Waterman knew where the key could be found, and we were able to enter without any trouble, save that Thaddeus struggled in Phillip's grip somewhat as he was being escorted from the rear of our vehicle to the house. Phillip is several inches taller than our former prisoner, however, and a great deal heavier. And, to add to that, Phillip did not have both arms secured behind his back and had not spent the past day or so bound and gagged in the back of a van.

The inside of the house was as decayed and crumbling as its outer facade. Miss Waterman explained that she had been preparing for just such a contingency, in which we were required to extract some information from a less-than-willing subject. Unsavory, I suppose, but I can hardly blame her for thinking of it after all the time that she has spent living like this.

Still, actually seeing the lengths to which she had gone to prepare was unsettling, to say the least. The basement of the house was protected by a heavy wooden door which had been outfitted with several large, heavy padlocks and chains, and was at least partially soundproofed by merit of having a mattress essentially nailed over its opposite side. The basement itself was largely empty, save for a chair which was bolted to the floor, which we secured Thaddeus to.

The following is the transcript of our interrogation session. James typed it out, having woken up after being wounded in our efforts to apprehend the very man that we now were holding prisoner. He did not feel up to much else.

Notes on Thaddeus

Yes, hands up, all those of you who actually believed that I had given out the date for the execution of our plan. If the initial phase of this journal failed to demonstrate to you that I am perfectly willing to lie or conceal the truth in order to smooth the way for us, nothing will.

I had hoped that Thaddeus might be tricked into letting down his guard upon reading the previous entry. No such luck, I am afraid; he was ready for us. Insane he might be, but he is far from stupid.

And he is farther still from helpless. We have captured him, but James has been seriously wounded in the attempt. Phillip is attempting medical treatment, but James is the closest thing that we have to a doctor in our group, and I am sure that I do not need to remind you that it is notoriously difficult for a physician to heal themselves.

In any case, James is injured and unconscious, but, to the best of Phillip's knowledge, stable. We have restrained Thaddeus and placed him in the rear of the vehicle, behind the final row of seats. His current position could hardly be considered comfortable, but I consider it more important to keep him from getting loose and attracting attention by waving through the rear window, or simply attempting to strangle one of us, than to ensure that his restraints are not cutting off blood flow or that his position is not going to give him leg cramps.

I suppose that I should give a little background as to who Thaddeus River actually is, for those of you who care. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, I know very little about him. I cannot imagine that he led a particularly pleasant life, for it to have produced a man so unhinged (though that may be a product of his claimed exposure to eldritch knowledge rather than his upbringing).

I do, however, know a few things about him, mostly regarding his physical attributes. Thaddeus River is of average height, hovering somewhere near the six-foot mark, and I suspect that, if he were rather more well-fed than he actually is, he would be of average build to match. Currently, however, he is little more than skin and long, lank hair stretched over a skeleton. With his tattered, stained clothing, sallow skin tone, and untrimmed facial hair, he actually bears an uncanny resemblance to Aqualung, save that he actually has a mouth and eyes.

As has already been mentioned in the comments section of an earlier post, he bears the mark of the Archangel. Specifically, the icon of the double triangles has been tattooed on each of his palms. From this, we deduce that he is a member - or, at the very least, a former member - of the Archangel's cult.

His weapon of choice is the balisong, otherwise known as the butterfly knife, and, according to Miss Waterman, he has demonstrated almost supernal skill with the weapon. He was following her for years before he arrived on my doorstep, and she bears several rather intimidating scars from near-miss battles against him. We removed no less that four knives from his person upon his capture.

There will be more to come soon. Miss Waterman is taking us to one of her safe-houses. We shall interrogate him there.

Making Plans

You will have to pardon the lack of updates regarding our plans to deal with Thaddeus. He reads this online journal as well, after all, and we are not so foolish as to ignore the words of Machiavelli: “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”

I am still somewhat hesitant to follow the instructions of a being like the Epping Aqua-Tarkus. To be perfectly honest, I would much rather be following the orders of any other “Fear”, if I must follow orders at all. Scylla is one of those entities that I find especially distasteful, for reasons that I am sure you can deduce on your own. And yet I see no other recourse. It is rare that any such entity takes the time to speak at all, and offering actual advice is so rare as to be practically unheard of. Besides, it was made perfectly clear that there is something more happening here, and, as Miss Waterman was quick to point out, confronting Thaddeus is likely the only way that we might discover a little more about the straits through which we are, metaphorically, attempting to sail through.

We have checked, as a group, the mirrors and reflective surfaces in the motel room. The same message is carved into them in the same manner. “AND IN THE GARDEN THE ARCHANGEL SWORD ABOVE HIS HEAD”. Even the television screen has had this etched into it. And yet my dream regarding the (lack of a) mirror has failed to repeat itself. In keeping watch over the rest, I have not noticed any particularly uneasy sleep among my compatriots (save Phillip, who, according to the others, has always suffered from these), so, for the moment, I am forced to assume that the dream that I had is to be the only one on the matter. I do not consider any of my fellow Runners to be foolish enough to withhold the news that they are having the same nightmare I myself suffered through so recently, particularly in light of our current circumstances.

According to Miss Waterman, we should be ready to move in to capture Thaddeus this Saturday evening. Hopefully we will be able to subdue him without attracting undue attention, or allowing him the opportunity to make use of his knives. Until then, I will resume my efforts to transplant the records from their paper forms to electronic ones.

Wish us luck.