Thursday, 30 November 2000
Another version of Elijah Stone arrives in Wichita. He tells Jane
that he has just come from Puerto Rico and denies ever asking for
Black to travel to Hawaii. Jane is confused until Artemis phones
and explains everything that has happened, including the multiple
Stones, death of Elise Steiger and incarceration of Wendell Wells.
Jane agrees to leave a message for Josh for when he comes out of
reconstructive bowel surgery and head for Hawaii.
Senior Special Agent Benedict Roberto Oaxaca then arrives at HQ.
He is Elise Steiger's replacement and was apparently mad enough
to volunteer for evidence response. The three head to the airport
and fly to Hawaii. Jane tries to apprise Benedict of what has been
happening on the latest case (leaving out the references to the
supernatural).
Back on Big Island Wendell is interviewed by a local psychiatrist
who does not hesitate in labelling him as completely insane. Wendell
tries to escape the hospital but is restrained by four orderlies,
placed in a straight jacket and locked in a rubber room. He is also
heavily sedated.
Jane, Benedict and Stone arrive in Honolulu at 18:00 local time
and wait for their connecting flight. At the airport they have an
encounter with a different Stone. For the first time two Stones
meet. The Stones draw guns on one another. Jane and Benedict manage
to calm the situation down when a third Stone arrives, then a fourth,
then a fifth. Jane phones Artemis who is dealing with three Elijah
Stones himself!
During the evening Jane and Artemis are bombarded by phone calls
from, or on behalf of, various Elijah Stones from around the globe.
There is a Stone with Eisenstein, a Stone with Senior Special Agent
Phil Anderson in New Orleans, a Stone with Special Agent Woodridge
in Birmingham, a Stone in Wichita, a Stone working with Paul Raymond
of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco in Texas, a Stone in Winterset,
a Stone staking out Josh's degree ceremony in Dallas, a Stone in
North Dakota, a Stone with Mountie Niles Eliot (Jane mentions Elise's
death), a Stone in Wyoming, a Stone in Hotchkiss, a Stone in Tulsa,
a Stone in New York…. there is even a Stone in Alaska looking
for Agent Walter Crondheim. All the Stones (with the exception of
the Alaska one) are ordered to rendezvous at Black's hotel in Hawaii.
Black books out a floor of the hotel for them.
By the evening Artemis, Jane, Benedict and twenty-nine Elijah Stones
are sitting in a conference room watching Artemis's PowerPoint presentation
on why they shouldn't panic. If the Stones arouse suspicion they
are instructed to say they are attending a science fiction convention
for little-known 1990s TV series, Dark Files. Oddly, Benedict seems
to be taking all this in his stride which is rather alarming. Every
Stone claims that he is the original and that every other Stone
is an impostor. It takes all the agent's powers of diplomacy to
keep them in check.
One Stone is selected in a raffle to be hypnotised by Artemis Black,
the rest are sent to bed. Jane and Benedict go with them and defuse
a scuffle in the car park as all the Stones are trying to use one
car to escape the hotel.
Black hypnotises the other Stone (Stone #4) and takes him back
to the meeting with the Cahuna, Lehoaoha on the island of Kahoolawe.
Stone walked across the circle, the witch doctor pointed at him,
ranted and babbled curses in his general direction and began to
froth at the mouth. Stone was forced to restrain him. A few days
later Stone was given photos he never took, and then several other
weird things started happening to him. He contacted Eisenstein who
said not to worry. Evidently it was another Stone who went to Washington
to see Eisenstein.
Friday, 1 December 2000
Jane babysits the Stones at the hotel while Artemis and Benedict
go to look for the Cahuna. They speak to the Lehoaoha's grandson,
Lex, in poor housing just outside Waiakoa in Maui. Lex blames the
FBI for his grandfather's current condition. Black promises financial
reparations if Lex will aid them, and so Lex takes the agents to
a hospital in Waiakoa to see Lehoaoha. The old cahuna is suffering
from severe dehydration, mental fatigue and malnutrition. He is
very week and is in a very deep coma. He cannot help the agents.
With Lex's help, however, the pair manage to track down another
cahuna who might help.
The other cahuna is called Huanoah, aka Sharkbait, a much younger
drug-addicted fellow. He tells the agents how angry Lehoaoha was
with the squatters who were spoiling his island and that he wanted
to get rid of them. That's probably what the summoning circle was
for. He says it is a lesser summoning and binding circle. The idea
being that the cahuna summons a spirit and then convinces it to
take the same outlook as him - i.e. hatred against the squatters.
Sharkbait hasn't got a clue how to solve the Stone problem. He does,
however, agree to accompany the agents and all the Stones back to
Kahoolawe tomorrow.
At the hotel, Jane has done a marvellous job keeping the Stones
contained although she did have to resort to Harlow's pornography
collection. The thirtieth Stone arrives from Alaska. Jane thought
he wasn't the best person to talk to Crondheim in the circumstances,
and recalled him.
Saturday, 2 December 2000
At 05:00 thirty Elijah Stones are secretly bussed to the airport
and into a Chinook helicopter. Soon the Stones, Jane, Artemis Benedict
the stoned Cahuna, Sharkbait are on the island and standing outside
the old Cahuna's shack. They have been supplied with vulcanologist's
outfits and copious amounts of fire extinguishers.
The truth of the matter now seems to come out. Sharkbait believes
that the circle was designed to summon Fire Sparks from inside the
volcano. These sparks are not true spirits. Their form and their
motivation is determined by the Cahuna who summoned them. Stone
must have broke the circle at the moment the fire sparks were summoned
to the circle. They all rushed toward him, probably giving him severe
pyrophobia (which is why he didn't want to climb the volcano). They
then entered Stone. Unfortunately they did not simply take the form
of Stone, they became Stone. Lehoaoha was weakened by this ritual.
He will either recover in time or his body will be left a hollow
shell, ripe for possession by another spirit (such as Harlow!)
Sharkbait says that there is no way to reverse the process that
created all these Stones, nor is there any way to tell which of
the Stones is the original. The fire sparks are spirits no longer.
They are Stone. Evidence response is left with thirty Elijah Stones
and no idea what to do with them.
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