My A! Game

Let the Jazz Age commence! Let's misbehave!

But wait--.

Did you feel that? A disturbance shudders through the restless ether.

Maybe the horrors of war have only shifted from the European battlefield to the streets of America. Maybe a new war is seething in the back alleys of the city, stretching and writhing deep into the metropolis of the Emerald City.

If that be the case....then enter the Etrurians:

Lady Daisy Olivia Octavias Merrifield
Madame Edith Violet Phinney
Dr. Wolfgang Ruthless
Dr. Jordan MacCormick
Dr. Alastair Fawkes
Raif "Lucky" Eledge
Edward Gallant III
Denny Smith
Lily Laput

A diverse group of individuals are summoned to the Metropole Building in the heart of Pioneer Square by one Joseph Poe. Though they have not meet previously, they are somewhat aware of their individual circles.

The british socialite expat, Lady Daisy Olivia Octavias Merrifield, who some say had a hand in the deaths of her previous husbands. Her superb marksmanship with most any firearm playing a hand in perpetuating the rumor. Her dashingly turbaned Arabian manservant, Abduul, drives her to the gathering.

Madame Edith (Evie) Violet Phinney, the proprietor of The China House, a high-end brothel in Chinatown and one who seems to be touched with a degree of heightened perceptions. She arrives with her brutish and silent bodyguard, Justin Case.

And Doctor Alastair Fawkes, an Egyptologist and occult expert from Oxford, who has relocated to the University of Washington in search of his lifelong colleague gone missing. He arrives alone with his omnipresent cane and cigarette.

Poe introduces his collegues. Doctor Omni, as he is know to the public at large, the scientific genius responsible for the many innovations that have allowed Seattle to become the amazing metropolis it is, the New York of the West Coast. Denny Smith, the daredevil pilot war hero with a mechanical left arm capable of left hooking a brick wall into rubble. And Yu Li Ming, the exotic Chinese martial artist femme fatale.

Poe and his friends explain that they have called the trio together to help them solve a mystery that has cropped up. They recently investigated disturbances up in the forested regions north of the city and were set upon by a pack of wolfen creatures. After forcibly subduing the beasts and realizing the pack was indeed a family of werewolves, Poe found a heavy leather bound book which he was unable to open.

Suspicious of the book's origins and implications he asked the trio to help him solve the mystery.

As Alastair handles the book, giving it a quick once over, Evie senses impending danger.

The door to Poe's office is suddenly kicked open and a man enters brandishing a tommy gun. The man begins firing into the room, focusing entirely on Yu Li Ming who tries to dodge the hail of bullets. She falls under the barrage.

The gunman rushes into the room to finish off his target, pinning down everyone else with suppressing fire. They attempt to edge toward him as his clip empties. As Lady Daisy and Poe fire back in desperation, the assassin leaps through the third story window and lands in a passing garbage truck below, disappearing into the night.

Yu Li Ming breathes her last plea to her longtime companions, her plea for them to save "the children."

The reason for Poe calling together Dr. Fawkes, Lady Daisy and Madame Evie is temporarily forgotten as he explains that the assassin may be after Yu Li Ming's young martial arts disciples at her orphanage nearby.

The new group springs into action in pursuit of the chopper wielding assassin.

-from Seattle.gov

The Metropole, previously known as the H.K. Owens Building, was owned by Henry Yesler, who had also commissioned the more well-known Pioneer Building down the street.

It is thought to have been built between 1892 and 1893. While Emil De Neuf was the architect, Jeffrey Ochsner and Dennis Andersen suggest that the design architect may have been Elmer Fisher. It has one the better designed and well proportioned exteriors from the early period of the "burnt district"'s reconstruction.

The building is a simple, but pleasing rendition of the commercial Richardsonian Romanesque style. The building itself was the original location of the G. O. Guy Pharmacy, that later produced a chain of Seattle pharmacies.

This G. O. Guy Pharmacy, until not long ago located on the northern portion of the building, is also famous as the site of the 1901 gun battle between Chief of Police William Meredith and John Considine. Considine was the owner of the People's Theater, known as a "box house," which provided both "theatrical" entertainment such as magic acts, singing, dancing, minstrel shows, as well as sexual services. In 1901, the Seattle City Council was waging a war against "vice."

As a result of this conflict, Chief of Police Meredith, carrying a sawed off shotgun, pursued John Considine and his brother Tom into the G. O. Guy Pharmacy. Meredith fired at John Considine, eventually grazing him slightly and nearly hitting G. O. Guy, the owner. In self-defense, John Considine clubbed Meredith with the shotgun, which he had managed to wrestle away from him and then shot him. Although the anti-vice forces wanted John Considine hanged for Meredith's death, at the end of a dramatic trial, he was acquitted.

The Etrurians (Alastair, Evie, Lady Daisy) accompanied by Denny and their companions Justin and Abduul rush to the Yu residence in pursuit of the unnamed assassin, whose name turns out to be Black Jack.

They arrive before him, but someone else is one step ahead. At the three story home of Yu Li Ming (also known as the School of the Crane) a number of ninja lead by one nefarious hitman, Drake, are assailing the household, attempting to kidnap the children.

The Etrurians rush into action, fisticuffs throughout the house, guns blazing. As the tumult is rising inside, Black Jack arrives presumably unseen and snatches a hostage. He flees to the nearby boathouse to escape with his trophy but is thwarted by Evie, alerted to his presence with her heightened senses.

As Evie and Jack struggle on the boat, which is zooming across Lake Union, he bests her; knocking her and, inadvertantly, his prize overboard. He flees the scene as Evie and the child swim back to shore.

Back at the Yu house, a tense standoff has come to a near fatal end as Drake is tossed over the topmost banister by Denny with the mechanical and daunting left arm. Drake falls the three stories to the bottom, landing on his back and smashing his spine. Still alive, but paralyzed. The ninja, sensing all is lost, flee.

With the day saved for now, the denouement arrives with arrangements being made for Yu Li Ming's funeral and questions left unanswered.

Why did Black Jack assassinate Yu Li Ming? How are he and Drake, seemingly common thugs, connected to a band of ninja? And what is to happen to the children that Black Jack's barrage of bullets left most definitely orphaned?

After the Etrurians have witnessed the murder of Yu Li Ming, saved over a dozen orphans from an uncertain but surely awful fate, and made a few allies as well as enemies, they begin to find their lives even more entangled with one anothers before the night is through.

Lady Daisy returns to her posh penthouse at The Roosevelt to find a visitor waiting for her. The visitor is Valentina Valisova, a Russian expatriate who has come to Seattle to stir up a ruckus of her own. She presents Daisy with a dossier on her late husband, Alastair Merryfield. A series of photos reveal Merryfield to be alive and well, living in Peru. In many of the photos Valisova herself appears wrapped in Merryfield's embrace.

Turns out Valisova is a jilted lover of Daisy's "late" husband and is offering further information on how to find him, for the right price.

Justin Case, Evie's bodyguard, attempts to comes to the rescue of one of Evie's girls, Allie. An admirer has taken offense to her refusal to run away with him to Peru and attacks her. Justin is too late to save the damsel and is himself stabbed by the culprit. Evie pursues the menace, shooting him in the back, but he tumbles only briefly before gathering himself and disappearing into the night.

As Justin is seen to by paramedics who arrive shortly after the incident, Evie quickly searches the man's apartment and finds photographs of Allie, many of her girls, photos of Evie herself and photos of several richly dressed men in an unidentified club. One of the men is a prominent police detective by the name of Jimmy Mercer. She also finds two plane tickets to Peru. Evie swipes the photos and tickets and rushes to the hospital with Justin.

Finally in the late evening, Alastair Fawkes is settling into his temporary residence at Evie's China House. He takes the moment to examine the mysterious book given to him many hours earlier by Poe.

By chance, a stray beam of light from the full moon outside his window falls on the book and the cover opens, revealing a silvered page covered in red runic characters. Alastair finds that the text is somewhat deciperable as his eyes study the lettering. Unconsciously, he begins to speak the words glistening from the page.

Meanwhile just outside the door to his room, Evie's right hand girl, Lily, is approaching with a tray of warm tea for their guest. She overhears Alastair murmuring the words through the door. A violent reaction wracks Lily's body as Alastair reads, she transforms into a great wolfen creature and attacks the first person she sees.

Alastair, taken aback by the appearance of the beast outside his door prepares to defend his life. But the beast does not attack him. Instead the creature savagely mauls a few lesser defended guests of the China House who unwisely investigate the ruckus. Lily quickly escapes into the dark of the city, leaving Alastair to ponder what to tell Evie when she arrives in the early morning hours later.

Valisova leaves Lady Daisy crushed and in tears with the news of her late husband's apparent well being in Peru. Abduul, Daisy's manservant, shakes her from her torment and insists that they follow Valisova to see where she goes.

The two of them pile into Daisy's limo just in time to see Valisova driving off in a roadster. They follow the russian to a motel on the edge of town. Satisfied she isn't going anywhere for the time being, they drive back to Daisy's penthouse to formulate a plan.

Meanwhile Evie returns to the China House from Harborview Medical after seeing that Justin will most likely pull through his ordeal. She expects to see business as usual; her bartender and business partner Henry serving drinks to patrons, her girls seeing to the needs of lonely rich men; but instead she returns to a house in bloody chaos.

Alastair tries to explain the best way he can figure as to what actually happened, though the truth is quite ridiculous to the uninitiated ear. He admits he may be responsible for turning Evie's best girl into a beast girl, a werewolf.

It turns out to be a sleepless night for all as the China House empties of patrons, many not sure exactly what has occurred. Evie and Alastair wait for Lily to return, hopeful that she will eventually do so. Alastair keeps an arms distance from the book. Evie retires to her suite to wait in seclusion.

Her reverie is broken however when she discovers a man hiding in her closet, the same man who stabbed Justin hours before. Though Evie knows her bullet struck him in the back as he fled, the man appears to carry no wound. Instead, he brandishes the same large knife he stabbed Justin with and threatens her, demanding she had over the photos and plane tickets from his apartment.

Evie's feigns ignorance of what he's raving about and grows enraged in light of all that has happened in a span of twelve hours. She attacks the man herself, managing to throw him out the window of her suite. He plummets to the street below and after a moment of stillness gathers himself and escapes. Too exhausted to pursue, Evie collapses.

Morning comes, and with it Lily returns, naked but wrapped in a stolen sheet, confused and bloodied. Evie and Alastair watch over her as she rests soundly.

Later that afternoon, Denny comes to the China House in search of Evie, Alastair and Lady Daisy. He says Poe and a reporter friend by the name of Vera Chase have run off to Zigler Field chasing a lead on Yu Li Ming's demise.

Within the hour, Denny, Lady Daisy and Abduul, Alastair, Evie and a groggy Lily are enroute via Daisy's limo to the aeroport to meet with Poe.

After parking down a service road near the aeroport, they find that Poe has been discovered and taken hostage by a group of chinese men in suits all gathered around a waiting plane and hangar.

Abduul recognizes a certain roadster parked inside while Daisy focuses her rage on Valentina Valisova, who accompanies the men in suits near the plane.

The group, save Lily who tries to gather her strength from the cover of the brush, move forward to rescue Poe and keep the plane from taking off.
A stealth attack soon falls to pieces as the group is discovered. The chinamen open fire on the heroes and an all out firefight ensues. The plane's engine is destroyed as Evie and Denny focus their fire, it's prop rumbles to a smokey halt.

More men emerge from the plane and add to the chaos, pinning down the heroes just inside the hangar. The blurry form of a large beast assails many of the gunmen as Lily joins the fray, sending many scattering in fear in all directions.

Valisova and one well dressed chinaman leap into her roadster and attempt to zoom out of the hangar door. Daisy rushes forward and with several well placed shots through vengeful, tear rimmed eyes hits Valisova with a volley of slugs from her gun. The roadster careens out of control and smashes into the hangar wall, bursting into flame. The passenger crawls from the car and is quickly subdued by Denny.

Personnel from the aeroport arrive, drawn by the violence, and put out the flames. A short while later, the authorities arrive.

Lily is no where to be seen.

The Etrurians recover a dazed Poe who has a nasty knot on the back of his head. He tells them that the chinaman who was trying to escape with Valisova is Yu Jai Wan; a mobster from Chicago, come to Seattle with the intent to kill his sister Yu Li Ming, to kidnap the orphans she had brought over from China and to steal away with a valuable cache of their family's invaluable jade statue collection.

In order to carry out these tasks Yu Jai Wan bought the services of a clan of ninja, The Spider Clan, while his hired goons, Black Jack and Drake assassinated Yu Li Ming and kidnapped the children. Drake ended up in the hospital with a shattered spine, Black Jack eluded capture and the ninja faded into the night without their booty (all from last episode).

What the russian, Valentina Valisova, had to do with Yu Jai Wan is yet to be discovered and probably will never be as her lifeless, severely burned body is loaded into an ambulance.

Poe snaps out of his recall suddenly and asks frantically, "Where is Vera?"

On the road between the aeroport and town, the Etrurians find Vera's motorcycle and sidecar flipped over in the ditch. There is evidence she was pursued and forced off the road. Further into the brush, they find her camera.

An hour or so later after developing the film within they find clues to what may have happened. There is one shot of the interior of an airplane hanger where Yu Jai Wan, Valentina Valisova, several chinamen in suits and nearly a dozen dark-clad men with masks or hoods are milling about. Many of the other photos are blurred, but they intimate a chase down a highway - a white delivery van looming ever closer. One final shot shows part of the side of the van. It's enough of a clue that Alastair Fawkes recognizes a placard that reads "Whang's Laundry,"

And so off they go.

It takes a bit of footwork but they finally track down the van in a Chinatown alleyway. The Etrurians track the kidnappers to the basement laundry room of a nearby building. They rush in and discover a trio of ninja who have taken Vera Chase hostage. Overwhelmed at the sudden surprise attack, they hastily fasten an explosive device to Vera's unconscious form and retreat into a laundry chute.
With no time to spare Denny rips the package from around Vera with his mighty mechanical arm and hurls the explosive down the chute. The resulting explosion shakes the building and the heroes retreat.

Afterwards, at the China House late that afternoon, Evie finds she has a visitor waiting. Henry, her barkeep, informs her a young lady from the outskirts of town from somewhere up north arrived practically at dawn. She said she was drawn to the place and thought there was someone there that could help her. Henry allowed her to wait in the foyer until Evie's return.

The meeting goes queerly and it soon becomes evident that it's not Evie the girl has come to see afterall. As Lily arrives at the China House, confused and naked save for the sheet wrapped around her, the girl flings herself at Lily screaming out, "It's you! Please take me! I must change again! Please!"

A brief confused struggle ensues, eventually the stranger is subdued and bound, Lily is knocked unconscious and Evie realizes that at some point during the skirmish she was bitten by one of them. Before too long at all, she becomes flushed and her arm aches.

Remaining calm as possible she calls Alastair, tells him to come back to the China house. He and Denny arrive shortly thereafter and take in the scene, Alastair begins to make some assumptions.

He has Henry gather chain from the basement to bind both Lily and the strange girl. As he binds them both, he explains to Evie what he believes may be happening.

Alastair has discovered that the book he was given by Poe is called the Book of the Vold, a "magic" book that in the basest of layman's terms gives the possessor the power to not only create lycanthropes, but to control them as well.

Denny has sense confirmed to Alastair that he, Doctor Omni, Detective Poe and Yu Li-Ming found the book at the scene of a murder in the north end of Seattle on a farm. Alastair therefore believes that the girl was somehow involved with the murder on the farm and either is or was once a werewolf.

Futhermore, when Alastair unwittingly read from the book, Lily was afflicted with lycanthrophy herself, and the girl may be drawn to the power of the book, or to Lily. In light of his discoveries, he thinks he may know a simple way to break the curse.

By this time the sun has set and both the girl and Lily come to. Eerily, moonlight spills in through the open window as they react to each other's presence. The girl implores Lily to "bite" her, to "consume" her. Lily, horrified at her predicament refuses vehemently. She struggles internally, and begins to change.

Alastair, prepared for this eventuality, retrieves the Book of the Vold from his leather satchel. Lily in full werewolf form shatters her bonds. Bits of chain fling through the room breaking glass, denting wood and drawing blood.

Evie reflexively draws her pistol from her garter and levels it at Lily. Lily knocks her aside like a discarded plaything.

Denny leaps between Lily and the farmgirl, imposing himself as a human shield. Lily however simply rams into Denny with such bone-shattering force that she crushes the farm girl between Denny and the wall behind them.

Evie rolls over onto her back from where she landed and fires a shot into Lily's neck. The blonde eight foot tall werewolf wheels around, perturbed more than wounded. Before Lily can smear Evie into the floor, Alastair draws Lily's focus by whipping out at silver bladed dagger that glints in the moonlight. With a deft motion he braces the Book of the Vold in the crook of his arm and plunges the dagger into it with all his might.

The book buckles and crackles in his arm, crumbling into a pile of ash and onto to the wooden floor.

But instead of collapsing back into her naked quivering human form as Alastair expected might happen, Lily roars in defiance and bounds through the doorway, down the hall which at this time is filling with curious patrons and prostitutes, and into the moonlit Seattle night.