this_fire_burns:

Matt Walker's office is in the upstairs portion of a two-story building near Chicago's South Side, which isn't in the best repair. Still, he calls this place his home away from home and the place where the work he does to finance his /real/ job is done.

He gets inside and takes off his duster, draping it over the back of the chair before sitting down heavily. Still no word on Austin Caine, still no leads, and Matt was reasonably sure that whatever those cultist had summoned was going to make its move soon. He considered calling Ian for advice, or Doctor Strange, but decided he wouldn't. He had to help put this together and then stop it.

He picked up the phone and called the rest of the team, asking them to come to his office.
 

nextgen_holiday:

"A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be." -- Unknown

nextgen_misc:

Fifteen hours after the Chicago PD responded to an incident at a warehouse on the pier, Detective Lynch is contacted by Seargeant Griswold, who ended up working overtime and was the first to respond when the call came in.

( Read more... )

small_but_tough:

It had been a long day at work and Karen was ready to do a bit of relaxation. She put on some Jack Johnson and grabbed some old police reports that she was looking over to see if she could find out more about the ghost she saw, Resurrection Mary.

There were so many reports to go through but she thought she was narrowing down the range to look through to figure out who Mary was and why she was still hanging around. But even she had to admit that she found these accident reports to be a bit tedious.

After about an hour of reading into the night the music and the lights in her living room started flickering on and off.

“What the hell,” Karen says looking around.

Then the lights complete went out for several moments and when they turned back on Mary was there standing in the middle of her living room.

“Please you need to stop,” Mary says.

“What are you doing here and what do you mean by that,” Karen asked.

“Please you need to stop,” Mary repeated sadly

“I just want to help you,” Karen says.

But the lights flicker off again and when they turn back on she was gone and the music started playing again. Karen didn’t know what to make of this but she wasn’t quitting.

nextgen_misc:

 

( Read if you dare )

nextgen_holiday:

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

small_but_tough:

It had been a few weeks since her strange encounter and it was still bothering Karen. She really didn't know what to make of it.

So she called a few people who might know to see if they had time to talk.

small_but_tough:


Oh Lynch so wanted to kill Walker for this. He had called her up and told her it would be great if she could check out a site for him just outside of the city pasted Archer Ave.

Apparently there had been some type of creature sighting going on in the area and he had been getting a lot of doors slammed in his face when he had started asking questions about it. She had had slightly better luck in that department though the downpour outside had not been so lucky.

She had found out the general area where most people had seen the creature in the woods and spent an hour traipsing around in the freezing rain and mud finding nothing useful. After making a couple of colorful exclamations up to the sky she made her way back to her car.

Taking advantage of no one being around she quickly got changed out of her wet clothes and into some dry ones so that she would be a bit less angry as she drove her was back down Archer Ave and back into the city.( Read more... )

nextgen_holiday:

There's a piece of paper and a pen attached to a bulletin board. Across the top is written:

New Year's Resolutions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
+

Anonymous entries accepted.

nextgen_holiday:

Christmas. Yule. Saturnalia. Dies Natalis Solis Invicti. Many cultures have celebrated and still celebrate a winter festival. There have been many names for it over the millennia. No matter the name it is a time to come together and celebrate with feasts and gifts with friends and loved ones.

Each culture has a legendary figure who would deliver gifts to children during this time. In Russia and some Slavic cultures he is known as Ded Moroz, Grandfather Frost, and comes not on Christmas but on New Year’s along with his granddaughter Snegurochka, or ‘”Snow Maiden”. In the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe he is known as Father Christmas. In the Netherlands and Belgium he is known as Saint Nicholas or “Sinterklaas” and in France he is known as Père Noël. In the United States we know him as Santa Claus.

No matter the name or who is delivering gifts, it is the season of peace, joy and togetherness. It is the season for thinking about loved ones, friends and those less fortunate. It is a time to witness the goodness and generosity the human race is capable of. It is a time for peace on Earth and goodwill toward man.

nextgen_baddie:

When you lived for centuries, patience and waiting came easy. He had waited and watched the Price boys for awhile before making his move. The Price boys were unique, even for werewolves, and the situation had to be handed delicately.

The Price boys were predictable and it made planning easier for Dracula.

The time to make the first move came when the boys had just returned to Gregory's apartment. Dracula let himself in and surprised the two. They shifted into werewolf form of course, but Dracula used his hypnotic powers on them. Within a few moments the Price boys were under Dracula's control.

Now it was time to use them against these foolish mortals who had dared to interrupt his plans.

"It is time to go," he told the two werewolves.

They both howled.

Dracula would lead them into the streets and to a popular night club. There he unleashed the two werewolves upon the club-goers.

Sirens blared in the night as police responded to the disturbance.

blackmagicwoman:

Shelly was curious by nature.  It had gotten her into a ton of trouble as a kid especially when she turned her curiosity on her little brother, Dante.  Jericho had sent them both to pocket dimensions for time out and that should have broken her of her curiousness, but it hadn't.  Instead it taught her to be more stealthy about it which was why when she unleashed the ritual to sniff out Matt's birthday she expected a nice quiet result that she could then take to do gleefully naughty things with.  What she got was far different.

"You have got to be kidding me."  The ritual results ended up telling her the birthdays of everyone she'd been in close proximity to (save for her patients, she had a ward for that.)  Greg, Michelle, and Matt were all Halloween babies.  She actually facepalmed.

"Okay.  Fine.  Three birthdays.  Three cakes.  Then we all go to Mac's."  She'd have to find a more appropriate costume for this since it was going to be more than just Matt, but she could do that.  She could pull it all off.

***

Three hours later, there were three cakes, an assortment of beers, and some light snacks (and some special things for Michelle if she needed them) spread out in the expansive dining area of Shelly's penthouse.  Simultaneously, magical invitations alerted the members of the team to a pre-party at Shelly's.  Now all she had to do was sit back and wait.

blackmagicwoman:

Portals, teleportation spells and ways are useful but when it comes to getting down to a suspicious club in the darker neighborhoods of Chicago, SUV was more efficient.  It would also trigger fewer magical sensors so if Vitae was tuned to such things, arriving by car would give them a few moments advantage over the shadowy figures suspected to be murderers for Dracula.

Shelly couldn't help but think of Charlie Manson as she turned the last corner and parked her SUV in the darkness down the street from the club.  A maniacal leader, brainwashed followers carrying out horrific deeds for master. 

"Okay.  Yeah.  This place gives me the creeps.  Let's go see if we can get in.  The website said it was a private club, right?  Most of those are pretty strict.  There's this place, The Mercury in Seattle...definitely not stranger friendly.  Grab your equipment folks."

Shelly herself took a deep breath and said a few quick prayers to the loa before getting out of the car and heading up to the door.  There was a guard there, pale and creepy looking as all of the rest of the cultists they'd encountered had been but instead of stopping them, the man smiled darkly and opened the door without a word.  In fact no words were exchanged at all, just that creepy smile.

Shelly's blood ran cold.  This...wasn't good.

living_mummy:

Egypt is not all uninhabited desert. Along the Nile, the land is lush. There are large cities, such as Cairo and Alexandria. There is much more to the land than simply yellow sand and pyramids.

This is not one of those places.

The sun is blisteringly hot, pounding down on the sandy earth. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, this pyramid is easy to overlook. It is not especially pursued by archeologists. It is not easily accessible to tourists. It is, in short, an excellent place for someone to hide out. One would practically need the coordinates of the site just to locate it.

Coordinates which are now in the hands of a small group of people investigating an evil cult...

nextgen_holiday:

What Makes a Dad

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so,

He called it ... Dad

notquiteright:

In a darker area of Chicago, there's an apartment building that has seen better days. It's still livable but doesn't look nice at all. And it has one resident, the man that owns it. Gene Kalso, aka The Breaker. To the untrained eye the building is normal. But to those with the right abilities, the building has some pretty good mystic defenses. There are some security cameras cleverly hidden outside too.

He's in the lobby tonight, watching a TV and eating some pizza. The lobby is pretty nice and fixed up and the casually dressed Gene's got his feet propped up on the desk. A security camera overhead watches the door but Gene knows some of his contacts are coming and bringing him something interesting. Something about a body and a laptop. Gene wasn't paying attention to the phone call. But he's still waiting.

"Man, these Mythbusters losers are just jokes," Gene laughs as he takes a swig of the beer he's got with him.

small_but_tough:

Lynch was celebrating her birthday the same way she usually did, she was going out to a bar to do some drinking. She was going to a local bar within walking distance of where she was living that she had been to a couple times before. It was nice and could get a little bit busy which she liked.

When she got to the bar she order herself a beer and sat down at the bar.

nextgen_holiday:

Mothers are the place that we call home.
On them we rest our heads and close our eyes.
There's no one else who grants the same soft peace,
Happiness, contentment, sweet release,
Erasing nighttime tears with lullabies,
Restoring the bright sun that makes us bloom. - Anonymous

nextgen_misc:

( Cut for occult violence )

small_but_tough:

Karen never was a big fan of office politics which in retrospect was probably not a good thing for her career. While she never mentioned it to anyone and no one else had to her she knew she had been black listed for getting any more promotions. Despite being second in command of the division for 3 years she had been pasted up on the promotion to head 5 times and her chance of getting it in the future were not very likely. Lynch had the respect of all the other officers under her but the higher ups hated her just because she would not bad down about what really goes bump in the night.

After her latest adventure with Spider-Girl and that crazy but epic fight she had gotten into she had attracted some welcome attention from the Chicago Police department. Apparently they wanted to set up a Special Investigations Unit like New York has and wanted someone with experience to lead it and set it up. For Lynch this was the job of a life time. She told them yes she would be there as soon as she could but she just had to wrap up some important business to take care of.

First she made sure that her guys in the SI were taken care of and as prepared as she could make them and that they would still hire Walker if they ran into anything really strange. Second she made arrangement so that if anyone call saying she was her heroic friend that the call would get transferred to her young brother Thom. Third she had to let her family know what was going on which included talking to her Mother so that she could get the nice house in Chicago that her late Aunt had but no one in the family could figure out what to do with, but also letting Thom know that he might be getting an unusual call from a friend of hers.  Fourth she left a note for Walker letting him know what was going on since he was out of town currently. Finally she got herself packed up and left to start over in Chicago, with a new house, new job, and hopeful lack of troubles.

webslingergirl:

Spider-Girl swung her way over the rooftops of New York. She was on the tale of Thadeus Oliver, a former history professor at ESU that went nuts after being exposed to some mystical ancient Mayan artifact that made him want to take over the world. Or something like that. They were all the same, these possesed psychopaths.

Right now, her guy was headed to the Museum of Natural History, on hot on the trail of some other artifact that would supposedly give him even more power.

By the time she got the museum, Thadeus was gone...along with the artifact. Spider-Girl cursed under her breath. God Damnit. Though she was no detective, she should have been fast enough to catch him. Spider-Girl lowered the string of webbing that she was currently hanging down off low enough so that she could get a good glance at the now smashed case in front of her.

She could do this. Thadeus Oliver wasn't a hard man to figure out. She could find out what his next move would be and stop him.

A tingling feeling shot down Spider-Girl's spine, as her Spider Sense kicked into overdrive. Shit. Thadeus must've tripped the silent alarm when he was breaking and entering. Someone was coming...someone who would likely point the finger at her for making off with the artifact.

Spider-Girl sprung up to the ceiling, clinging to it as to avoid being seen.