Chiron Academy

Strange Tales Issue #26: Origin of Gary Ghoul!

From the diary of the Grey Ghoul:

The car clock read 12:15 am as we slowed to at the entrance to the city park.  I could see the grey metal archway that marked the entrance through the dark tint of the car's window. The hot summer sun beat down on the people peopling its sprawling green lawn, all of them unlucky enough to be out during miserable heat. They must have agreed because today's visitors were much sparser than the usual weekday crowd. Given it's closeness to downtown, the park was usually home to a torrent of people, people looking for somewhere to spend their lunch break,  housewives bringing their children to the park to play.  Today's small crowd was barely a trickle.

I nodded to my driver, Charles, in the front seat. He was young, in his early twenties. He had been driving me for a few months and had only spoken a few times to me the entire time. It worked just fine for me. In my line of work, discretion was was one of the greatest skills one could hope to have in help. 

Stepping out of the car, I emerged out into the sweltering noonday heat. I had decided against wearing my full uniform; I found it drew more attention these days than it discouraged, especially during the day. I wore a simple white button-down shirt with a black tie and grey slacks. I was a bit worried that I might need the full uniform I had stashed in the trunk of the car, but I was in a hurry and I didn't want to spend time agonizing about bringing it or not. 

Two weeks had passed since I had finally managed to seal the Belphegor into a pocket dimension. Almost immediately afterward, portals to the different spirit planes had been opening all across the city, seemingly at random.

 Luckily, no one had been injured. Yet. But while I knew the portals were probably connected to the Belphegor somehow, I couldn't tell why or even what was causing the portals in the first place. 

I'd spent most of the last few hours meeting with different contacts from around the city's supernatural community. The last meeting had me combing through a colleague's private collection of ancient scrolls for anything that might explain what was happening.

I was trying to keep my hopes up for my next meeting: with Madame Nostra, a fellow mystician and old friend of mine, but, honestly, I didn't really expect much. She ran a storefront for supernatural items, pretty basic level stuff for the most part. Nor was she really the most knowledgeable herself, but she was well connected and might have picked some vital clue about what was going on from one of her customers. It was a bit of a long shot, but at worst, she would only tell me what I already knew: nothing.

She had insisted we meet in this park; she was worried me wandering in during business hours might scare business away. Apparently, her usual clientele might object to having the Grey Ghoul look over their purchases. Not that I would have cared today: cursed knick-knacks and used crystal balls were not exactly I high on my priority list at the moment. I could have told her as much, but I really did appreciate her making time to meet me. 

She'd been seen her exactly where she'd said she be: sitting at the cast iron picnic tables on the park's south side. There was a small smattering of people scattered throughout the 12 or so tables: a few parents with their kids, a few grandparents gathered for a chat with similar old friends. 

I only had to look for a moment to find Madame Nostra: a middle-aged woman, just passed her prime in looks maybe but still striking. You could tell just by looking at her that she'd never really the style of the '80s: long black hair in a wild storm around her head, with thick eye shadow framing the pale skin of her face. She looked like she could be Edward Scissorhands' stunt double. If Edward had had a few streaks of grey in his hair.

I approached her briskly, bemoaning inwardly the extra time this detour to the park would cost me. Portals were opening up all over the city. Having personally seen many of the other realms that they might connect to , I didn't want anyone getting caught in one.