Mike Hamblin - Journal entry - Saturday December 13^th 2008, 2212hrs

Well, we're back at the Lodge now.  It took me a while to make the place safe and there were no flies caught up in the web.  I knew letting Cecile come here would let the past catch up with me but I am done hiding out and living a half life where every shadow and stray sound evokes dark memories; the stench of fear and wet jungle, slick hands holding a battle rifle in a rictus like grip.

The new SOG team is much like the old one I used to lead, except they're a younger, sleeker and slightly less jaded bunch.  They still retain that shiny earnestness, typical of those that enter federal law enforcement; an optimism borne of belief in the mission to uphold truth, to be justice personified.  That's how we all start out before the deals, buy offs and the grim taste of ashes prove Lady Justice to be a fickle whore.

Pierce is their leader - walking a fine line fuelled by anger.  It sustains him, keeps the motor ticking over.  Then there's Chief - a big man with a permanent furrow in his brow and eyes that pierce the soul.  The young corps consists of two ex-Marines that haven't been out of the service long enough to lose that military stiffness and eagerness to follow orders.  Wilmot is polite, almost painfully so.  Then there's Sommers who is a ball of nervous energy wrapped in a friendly shell - kind of like an enthusiastic spaniel. Frost is the intense guy always looking at the floor - I detect a hard determination hiding behind those hooded, elusive eyes.

Last, the sole standing survivor of the team I once led.  Cecile.  My Cecile.  There are times in life for us all where we want to be a child again, safely cocooned in the family hearth, a time without cares and there are some of us who are fortunate to have that opportunity.  Not Cecile.  Estranged from a father who she unsuccessfully testified against in the suspicious death of her mother, the rescued daughter of a Mob hooker, her life has been running away and leaving the past behind.  There are, as I have learned to my cost, however, some things that won't leave you alone, no matter how far you go.  In Cecile's case, I think the die was cast even before she was born, when Shelby Devereux got a Cajun witch with child and decided to do the right thing.  Only pictures of Rachelle Devereux remain and her daughter is her spitting image.  There's a lot of hoodoo round these parts, belief in things that never were and some that should not be.  Rachelle knew and used them all and perhaps paid for it with her own life.  No wonder her daughter would rather be elsewhere - there's a dread certainty in Cecile's assertion all this can only end badly, but I know I'll stand by her until the end, whatever that is.

I think the same is true of the team of Agents around her.  They sure came through some shit today to find us.  I don't know what, but something happened over in Jeanerette today when they went to see Mama Marie.  I only heard some of it - something about a dead man walking, quarters placed on his mouth and eyes.  I suspect Wilmot had a lucky escape, the only time I have heard him swear.  This followed by Zobop gunmen that gave Pierce a scrape along the ribs, punching through light Kevlar.  Looks like Stenneau unleashed Django's goon squad.

Stenneau - Ghost of the Bayous and avatar of an alien God.  Mama says he lives in 3 worlds at once and that to destroy him completely he must die in all those worlds before he is crowned King in Carcosa.  I've heard this before, except now we have a date - January 15^th, Stenneau will be weak in this world as his God drains him before bestowing all his power.

Maybe the loas know how to stop him in the lands beyond sleep.  That's where the team are heading next - back to Mama Marie to find out more.  If she fails, perhaps we can get Clete Purcel - King of Fuck Ups to work his mojo - the fact he knew exactly where I was suggests he's got more than enough to go around...