brit_sorcerer:

Quinn walked around the ruins of Braddock Manor. He had been out at the ruins every day sine they returned from Avalon looking for more clues to who was responsible for this. They now knew it wasn't Morgan. It only took a trip to Avalon and a fight with Morgan to learn that.

The rest of the group that had gone to Avalon were in London at what seemed to be Excalibur's new headquarters. It was kind of strange. The destruction of Braddock Manor brought around the formation of a new team. Quinn wasn't complaining, but he knew he wasn't exactly a team player. It was something he'd have to get used to and learn how to do.

He levitated some of the rubble and looked around under it. He had to have missed something the last time. There had to be some clue to the identity of the person responsible.

sandcastlegod:

Corey stepped off at the bus stop a short walk from the streetcar he'd take back to the Room. But he didn't go straight to the streetcar stop this time. One of the Jazz students at the creative arts center had been talking about the house band at Papa Gumbo's. The word 'virtuoso' had been used regarding the resident pianist, and the phrase 'timelessly classic but fluid style' as well.

As an artiste, Corey's interest was piqued. Fortunately it was one of the sort of places that usually only carded you if you tried to order a drink. So he just slipped in and sat in the late-afternoon crowd, which hardly counted as a crowd because the late afternoon was far too early.

temperence:

If there was anything Alisa knew about Argo, it was that he was a loyal, trustworthy friend... and he had an incredible with chocolate ice cream. She needed someone to talk to, and he was there. With a charming smile, Alisa had managed to get Argo to come with her to an ice cream parlor in the French Quarter... one that did not have a bunch of kids running about to drive them nuts. She ordered him his favorite chocolate ice cream, and she got herself a cup of vanilla ice cream with sprinkles.

Alisa was still dressed in her work clothes, a pair of black army boots, blue, baggy cargo pants, and a black tank top with a bra underneath. She seemed to have a variation of the same outfit, so she would never get bored. It was a whole new thing to have a wardrobe of her own, and she planned on taking advantage of that! She just hoped Nick did not mind that she took an early break, but she needed someone to talk to... other than him.

"T'anks for comin' wit' me, Argo. Ah jus'... well... ah sorta needed a good friend to talk to." Alisa smiled, putting her spoon into her ice cream and then taking a bit of it. She never really had ice cream until she and Ennie lived on their own. It was a big treat for her, though she was not much of a sweet tooth. "Dis place 'as some o' de best ice cream in de quarter! T'ink you'll like it!"

this_fire_burns:

Matt's most recent case was, on the surface, a simple one. A middle-age father of four skips out on his family to join some kind of New-Age Spiritual Club (read: cult) that offered to eternal peace and tranquility. The wife was understandably distraught, as her husband left in the company of a beautiful, young twenty-something who was saying all the things Victor Pabst wasn't hearing elsewhere.

Matt almost considered it an open-and-shut case until Mrs. Pabst showed him pictures of the symbols that her husband started drawing on the basement walls four months ago. Pentagrams, mostly in animal blood,  adorned the walls of their Queens home. Matt had already decided to take the case on that alone, as the symbols were the kind used to summon demons and other baddies from the Otherside.

But when the wife indicated that Pabst had been using their children's blood to make the symbols, something inside Matt snapped a little bit, and he'd offered her a reduced rate. He hoped that Pabst was really just a guy who was being manipulated by some rogue sorcerer and that he hadn't actually become one; otherwise, this would get ugly in a hurry. He should have gone to Lynch with this, but knowing her, she'd bring the cops into it and if he was dealing with a summoner, this would get a lot of unprepared cops killed.

So he made his way to Los Angeles himself, leaving Whisper in the company of Mrs. Emberstein.

Two days after his arrival, Matt finds himself inside a warehouse not far from the Staples Center, looking at the same symbols from the pictures on these walls. If these people are summoning a demon, he doesn't have a lot of time to find them and stop it.

Just about every summoning ritual he's ever heard of requires a sacrifice, and someone will die if he can't connect the dots.