Game session: 7/19/2011 ¹⁾

Peter sleeps in once he gets home from Forest Park. He gets up late in the day, and heads out to buy supplies and books for his vodka distillery. Although his license application is in bureaucratic limbo in the West Springfield Town Hall, he's confident the paperwork will be approved and he wants to get a head start. The following day he measures his apartment, which is one big open space, and he sets up his distillery equipment next to his workbench. Once that's done he settles in and reads the books he bought, to teach himself brewing.

Peter sleeps in again, as he doesn't have to return to work until Labor Day. He gets up late and putters around his apartment until his cell phone rings – it's his crazy ex-girlfriend and baby-momma Susie Fox. Susie makes it clear she wants nothing to do with Peter today, but their son Morgan heard Peter had been injured and wants to see his daddy. Peter retorts that he'd love to see his son – without Susie present – and claims he's not home. Susie snarls that she's outside his apartment and can see his car, so Peter sighs and tells her to come up. Susie pounds on his door a few minutes later and Peter lets her in. His son Morgan – an insufferably adorable toddler – immediately clamps on to his father as if his life depended on it, and Peter can feel Fallen Snow shift slightly inside his soul. Peter slips some candy into Morgan's jumper without Susie noticing.

Peter sits down on his couch with Morgan clinging to him, and lets his son babble for over an hour. Morgan tells him everything on his mind with the serious intensity of a three-year-old, and Peter focuses on his son and ignores Susie completely. After an hour Susie gets frustrated and snaps, "Alright fuckhead, give him back and we're out of here." Peter rockets to his feet and screams, "Do not use profanity in front of the child!" with a deep Russian accent, and Susie steps back, startled. Morgan starts to whimper, and Peter swiftly apologizes and holds his son for a few minutes until Morgan calms down. Peter hands Morgan back to Susie and can feel Fallen Snow's icy rage threatening to take hold again, so he shoos them out. A few seconds later his fist slams into the doorjamb in frustration, but Fallen Snow grunts an apology. Peter idly comments, "Family man?" and gets fleeting images of looking down at a male infant and then a female infant in a crib, and then an overwhelming sense of loss and heartbreak. Peter notices his sweat has frozen to his body and brushes it off quickly. He can sense Fallen Snow's seething rage, so he decides to head to the Springfield police gun range to vent tension.

Peter feeds Dee-Oh-Gee first and then drivers his white Min-Cooper S into Springfield. He walks into the police station and gets a few waves before heading to the range. He spends over an hour in his usual shooting routine, and gets the first grudging bit of admiration from his geist in the form of, "Cute kid." Peter nods and continues shooting until he is interrupted by a visit from his partner, Officer Douglas MacLean. Doug welcomes him back and tries to tempt Peter into coming back to active duty a week early, but Peter smirks and reminds Doug that he did in fact get hit by a car. He compromises and helps Doug with some paperwork and says he'll come in Friday if he's feeling up to it. As they file paperwork they talk, and Doug tells Peter that someone in SWAT is protecting the girl that hit him from getting the "unpleasant treatment" from the rest of the SPD. Peter makes it clear he doesn't hold anything against Adela Perez-Montoya, and admits he received a visit from his son and baby momma. He talks about his son for a while before heading home.

Early this morning all five Sin-Eaters have similar, terrible dreams. David and Erika wake up drenched in sweat around 4:30 AM with dim recollections of falling walls, while Isobel and Anita wake up with a bit more details: both dreamed of a city of impossible angles and architecture collapsing, buildings falling and highways disintegrating. Anita's dream saw the impossible city burning to the ground, while Isobel's dream of the same city saw it choking with clouds of poison gas and being flattened by artillery. Peter wakes up with the most recall: he saw the impossible city collapsing from below, but it was choked with piles of snow and ash and he could smell the lightning in the air. He knows somehow that this city existed in the deep Underworld, and that it was just destroyed. His sweat froze him to his mattress, so he carefully extricates himself. Fallen Snow remains silent, but it clearly agitated.

Sleep remains elusive and not restful for the rest of the night, but luckily only Anita has any obligation that day: Peter is still out on disability, Erika and David are still on summer vacation, and Isobel took some time off to adjust her sleep schedule to her new job. Anita shuffles into the Botanica and opens on time, but she crafts a hand-lettered sign indicating the shop is out of several protective items. She tapes the sign to the door and wrinkles her nose as she can still smell The Grubby Man's stink despite the multiple fans, so she runs down to the closest convenience store and buys Febreeze and some Pepsi. She comes back to the store and mercilessly sprays Febreeze all over the place. She then settles in and re-orders her depleted stock; she reluctantly decides to put a rush order on several popular items although that will dent her bottom line a bit. She checks the news but finds nothing unusual being reported besides the normal urban blight of Springfield. She then checks some local paranormal blogs and finds several people had disturbing dreams and ominous Tarot readings and other omens.

Peter sends out a group text declaring that he will be bringing pizza to the Botanica at 12:30pm and all are welcome. Erika texts back that she will be late due to working on lesson plans, but the others accept. Peter arrives promptly at 12:30 with two pizzas in tow; Anita is half-dead at the register and the store has been empty all morning, so by way of greeting she starts shoveling food into her mouth and grunting at Peter. Isobel arrives a few minutes later but starts swearing as a black Ford F-150 pickup drives past her.

Meanwhile, David departs his home and is driving down Roosevelt Ave when he spots a black 1973 Chevy Impala following him. His little Honda Civic is definitely underpowered in this contest, so he tries to shake the Impala by carefully running yellow lights and the like and getting on State Street. Unfortunately, the Impala doesn't care about traffic safety and keeps up with him, and David spots the ganger who stabbed him – Luis – behind the wheel. David bypasses Walnut Street and heads into Metro Center, but the Impala keeps up with him effortlessly. David pulls over in Metro Center, in clear view of people, and gets out of the car.

The Impala slows and David spots two others in the car with Luis – someone stuffed in the back and the ganger who fled in terror when David got back to his feet after being stabbed. The ganger in the passenger seat stuffs a gun into his pants to conceal it, but makes a throat-slitting gesture to David. David replies by flashing his gun, and the ganger panics and scrambles for his piece. Unfortunately the ganger isn't the most agile, and his gun goes off in his pants! There is a loud bang and a scream as the Impala speeds away. The natives don't react in the slightest, so David gets back into his car and heads back out to State Street. He gets on Walnut Street and arrives at the Botanica a few minutes late, in time to see Isobel glaring at a departing black pickup truck.

When Isobel and David enter the Botanica, they find Anita still stuffing her face and Peter calmly remarks, "She's gone feral." Anita flips him off as she grabs another slice, and Isobel and David each grab some food as well. Peter makes Anita choke on her pizza when he comments, "So, I had a dream about a city in the Underworld being destroyed from below," and she goes to get some water from the back. The Sin-Eaters discuss the weird dream that they all seemingly shared, and then Peter idly asks, "So, have any of you had any instances of your geists suddenly taking over?" Anita chokes on her water this time, and glares at Peter. Peter smirks and openly discusses his son, his crazy baby-mamma, and Fallen Snow's paternal instincts.

The doorbell rings and Anita looks up – and her heart sinks when her grandmother walks in! Abuela stops and stares at the three gringos in the store, but takes a piece of pizza when Peter offers. Abuela demands, "What are your intentions towards my granddaughter?" and Anita sputters. Peter calmly states that he has none; he has a son already and a crazy ex to deal with. That seems to mollify Abuela for a bit, until she recognizes David as the gringo who broke into the Kennedy Fried Chicken after 9/11. Abuela eyes David and Anita demands to know what's going on in Spanish. Abuela tells Anita about David's break-in in Spanish, and is startled when Isobel and Peter turn to David – the only one in the store who doesn't speak Spanish – and Peter crows, "I didn't think you were that edgy to break into a restaurant!"

Clearly embarrassed about the incident, David insists that the incident took place years ago, before he joined the military. Abuela seems mollified by that, and then she turns to Isobel and asks why she's in the store. Isobel retorts, "I like candles," and grabs one at random; Anita snorts with amusement. Isobel adds that several people at the hospital, "Keep giving me the evil eye," and Abuela connects the dots with the gossip she's heard and realizes Isobel is the doctor who nearly broke her neck in the ER a few months ago. Isobel smiles coldly and rolls her neck to emphasize the point. To forestall any more pestering, Anita tells her abuela that, "These people have all seen some really weird shit, like the bloody-eyed ghosts." Peter and David joke that together, they form Captain Planet, which causes Isobel to roll her eyes, Anita to groan, and Abuela to eye Peter and proclaim, "You're sweet, but not all that bright."

Anita realizes she forgot that her grandmother was coming over to help ward the store against malevolent spirits, but the other Sin-Eaters volunteer to help. Isobel takes the lead with Peter as back-up; David obligingly lays out salt lines and the like; Abuela's haughty smirk collapses as the three gringos grab the correct materials, light the right candles, and perform the Santeria ceremonies flawlessly. Abuela is soon reduced to indignant sputtering, much to Anita's barely-concealed bemusement. She grabs her grandmother a beer and watches as her new friends work. The warding takes half an hour, and in the interim Anita asks her abuela about the tote with the three old books she found over the weekend. Abuela admits the books were her grandfather's; he purchased them sometime after World War I but died soon thereafter. The books got packed up and forgotten about, but Abuela says she has some of her abuelo's papers somewhere, and his name was Salvador.

The three Sin-Eaters finish the warding, and wonder what the funky smell is. Anita mentions the Grubby Man and his strange purchases. Abuela realizes David is one of the gringos who chased the ghost at Central High, and David nods in confusion. Abuela speculates about the woman and her face falls when Anita smugly tells her, "Oh, she's not here yet." Peter openly admits to being able to see ghosts, much to Abuela's consternation, although the other Sin-Eaters wince at the brazen declaration.

Recap originally published on Livejournal.