Report: Bleeding Darkness Part Three

Part Three: "Pushing Up Daisies".

Part One and Part Two.

3:00 pm, March 10th 1999

Sylvia Pontecorvo, known in Delta Green as Agent Imogen, sits in the office of District Attorney Lydia Friel. Pontecorvo had crossed paths with years earlier, after Friel's own investigation into the background of Vasili Karpov was blocked by Ed Collins, an agent of the CIA, who Pontecorvo later spoke with, which is where they learned Karpov was truly Fedor Berezhkov, a SMERSH and later NKVD agent who defected to the West under protection by the CIA. The CIA were concerned Friel's investigaiton would expose Berezhkov, thereby damaging the CIA's credibility in protecting and hiding foreign defectors, which undermined Friel's case against Karpov, in conjunction with meddling in the trial by Tadjbegskaya Bratva. 

Friel explains to Pontecorvo a few of the things she was able to dig up on NYPD Homicide Detective James Olaerrva through connections in the NYPD Police union. Just as Pontecorvo imagined, Olaerrva's been a very bad boy, and has had to duck behind the resources of the police union to avoid suspension and firing a number of times. By Friel's appraisal, Olaerrva works as something like a freelance fixer for the organized crime syndicates of New York City. He's close with NYPD Narcotics Lieutenant Patrick Van Orton, who is suspected of fencing drugs seized in raids to his informants in the Hell's Angels. Pontecorvo wonders if Van Orton or Olaerrva are close with the Network, but has no way of knowing at the moment. Friel claims not to know if Olaerrva or Van Orton frequent Club Apocalypse. 

One the subway back to the safehouse in Queens from Friel's office in Manhattan, Pontecorvo's pager beeps, and she makes her way to the nearest payphone to place a call. Taras Dzubenko is on the other line, and relays much of the same information. He doesn't recognize Olaerrva's name, but recognizes Van Orton's, his story cements Friel's as true, though he has little else to add. Pontecorvo contemplates the notion of using Dzubenko to arrange for a meeting to ambush Van Orton at. 

6:00 pm

Imogen (Pontecorvo) arrives back at I-Cell's safehouse in Queens and is caught up to speed on the unpleasantness in the briefcase (see Part 2) by Irena, Isaac, and Nancy, meanwhile Indigo volunteers to drive to Philadelphia to make a dead drop to A-Cell. 

The group discuss the situation and their suspicions before eventually deciding on a course of action: Learning that Father Casimir briefly studied as an exorcist under Father Peter Rozsavolgyi, a fellow Catholic priest whose apprentice, Gustav Yohn, Casimir allegedly visited the evening before he was murdered, raises I-Cell's suspicion, so Imogen and Isaac both decide to visit a newspaper archive and begin looking for any news stories of exorcists (which normally make the news for their sensational appeal). Nancy spies on Father Gus, Father Kenneth, and Father Warren, while Irena attempts to arrange for a meeting with the gay rights activist Gabrielle Gleeson. 

Imogen and Isaac discover an article from 1980. The headline: "EXORCISM AT BROOKLYN GIRL'S HOME". The article relays that a girl, recently taken in at St. Elizabeth's Catholic Girl's Home, an orphanage in Brooklyn, was alleged to have been possessed, and was given the rite of exorcism by two men of the cloth, Father Peter Rozsavolgyi, accompanied by his mentee and apprentice in the faith, Casimir Szary, then only a deacon. The article relays strange reports of screaming, shouting, the flash of a sickly, green light, and the removal of a hysterical catholic nun by police. The article does not name the victim, but follow-ups relay that Peter Rozsavolgyi stepped down shortly thereafter as the exoricst for the Diocese of Brooklyn. His reliquishing of the position aligns with the rough period earlier findings indicated Father Szary stepped down. 

Nancy spies on the priests going about an altogether average evening before returning to the safehouse. Irena manages to arrange for a meeting with Gleeson tomorrow, but is unable to collect any meaningful information from her over the phone. The agents return to the safehouse, eat, rest, then drive to the offices of the New York Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Brooklyn to witness the reanimation of a Catholic priest. 

11:00 pm

11:00 rolls around and the agents make their way to the Chief Medical Examiner's office to meet with Dr. Monpierre and inspect the remains of Father Casimir. 

After a few moments of examining the priest's cold corpse, it animates, and begins talking to them, though extracting meaningful answers from the priest is difficult, as in his unlife, he seems to be afflicted by a severe mental fog, impairing his memory and judgement. 

Father Casimir explains that in 1980, he and Father Peter performed an exorcism on a young girl at St. Elizabeth's named Amber Gowdie, whose parents had mysteriously vanished from their apartment months before. During the exorcism, the "thing" that had been nesting inside of Gowdie revealed itself, a black, amorphous gel that was alive. After performing the rite of Exorcism without any meaningful effect, Gowdie vanished, with only a nun delivering her supper witnessing it, claiming she had vanished into the strange, green bauble the girl wore on a necklace. 

Frs. Casimir and Peter, already convinced of the supernatural, trusted their blind intuition and, once alone, attempted to "enter" the bauble. It worked, and they were confronted by a horrible "demon" that took the form of a crow which questioned the priests. Father Peter was able to bargain with it, against his and Casimir's better judgement, and was instructed on the proper ritual to banish the thing inside Gowdie for good. They returned with Gowdie to the real world and performed the ritual, then left and never spoke of it again. 

Father Casimir revealed, when asked, who he had visited the night of his murder. That evening, he paid a visit to Father Gustav Yohn, a priest who Father Peter had mentored, and inquired after Father Peter's notes on the exorcism, explaining his interest in the strangeness at Kings County Medical Centre. Father Gustav revealed he didn't know where they were, as Father Peter's notes were, at best, a totally unorganized mess, but promised to find them and forward them to Casimir at the earliest convenience. Later that night, Father Casimir arranged to meet with Amber Gowdie, though recalls little of their meeting and is becoming slowly more sure that she was responsible for his death. 

When asked, Father Casimir outright refused the notion that Father Gustav could have been responsible for his death, and actually asked the agents to bring him to Father Casimir to perform his final rites, to the agents (falsely) promised they would do. At that, Father Casimir lost his animation, and died again. The agents requested that Dr. Monpierre perform an autopsy so they can see his innards, to which she reluctantly agrees, with all agents but Nancy leaving the room. 

Within moments of the autopsy starting, shouting is heard and the agents rush in to see black tendrils bubbling out of the priests' chest, wrenching apart Monpierre's surgical tools with frightening ease. The corpse was stuffed back into the mortuary fridge, and the agents wrote off any further attempts at autopsy. 

Later that Night. 

Agent Irena stumbles to the bathroom and coughs, dislodging a piece of phlegm stuck in her throat, she looks down and sees the mucus gliding slowly to the drain, flecked with black gel.