Cynthia: Lacesso

The agent from Homeland Security refuses to relent, rightly suspecting me of remaining in contact with Joshua. I have yet another interview with him early tomorrow morning. The questions he is asking and the direction his interrogation is probing leads me to believe that his focus is on the elder Doctor Yoshida's research on the human Calicivirus project. I am pondering allowing him access to this archive as it clearly places the blame for the creation of the virus on three dead men: Yoshida, Leonard and my husband. If the agent believes even part of this record, he might be a very valuable ally with the potential to clear our names. It would be a considerable gamble, but the upside is too significant to ignore. At worst he will simply arrest me on the spot, and this holds no great threat to me as I am already a prisoner of my own body.

Should the agent be inclined to disagree with our assertion of innocence, the two of you should do your best to remain hidden. First thing in the morning check out of the hotel and continue traveling westward. Do not post your location, merely continue your march without leaving a paper trail. Use the identification blanks to forge a new identity for Miss Stroud and purchase a new vehicle paying cash.

I do not know how much of Leonard's post was true and how much was a fabrication of his own mind, but having experienced a good deal of doubt concerning my own mental stability of late, I am of the inclination to take most of what he wrote as at least partially credible. He believed that it was important to recover the murder weapon- the Magician's knife- and it is my opinion that that should be our paramount priority. Whether he was correct or not in his assumptions, the acquisition of evidence in the murder of Mrs. Walentowicz is still a valid goal.

I find myself struggling with placing my innermost thoughts and feelings down in this journal, but as Joshua has reminded me in the past, I cannot ask you to do something I am unwilling to do myself. I shall endeavor to rise above my reticence and communicate what are, for me, subjects I would not under normal circumstances broach in any company.

To wit: if Leonard asked my husband Scott to fund Yoshida's Calicivirus project without informing him what it was he was becoming an accessory to, I will never forgive him for it. While it seems obvious that Leonard had been driven insane in the very last moments of his life, the project went on over the course of years, and he had every chance to amend his decision. He was wise to take the coward's way out, for I would have spent the rest of my own life making every effort to punish him for the loss of my husband. I truly believe that if Scott had not been enmeshed in this filthy business via Leonard/Leopold then he would still be alive today. For this, I will always despise him.

Josh: Home Is Where The _____ Is

After sleeping all day, Mary and I decided to go out and grab some grub. It's always difficult waking up at five in the evening and knowing what to order. Breakfast? Some lunch/dinner Frankensteinian amalgam? Grain alcohol? Puzzler.

On the way out we asked the desk clerk (same one as this morning. Working a double, apparently) where a decent place to get a bite to eat was. She directed us to a local steakhouse and on my way out something my uncle wrote popped into my head about other people's comments or thoughts. Just to test a theory I asked her, "So, you really like Die Hard, huh?"

The clerk stared at me quizzically, smiled the customer service smile and gave a little shrug. I pressed. "Die Hard, remember? I'm the guy who gave you ten bucks because you knew who Alan Rickman was?"

The woman squinted at me, cocked her head like a dog being punished with a whistle and asked, "Who?"

Mary and I exchanged looks, and I muttered, "I heart getting the hell out of here."

We ate heartily (at left) or at least I did. I was going to go with the steak and shrimp but then the shrimp's legs reminded me of centipedes and I changed my order. After dinner Mary and I just sat back, digested and talked about her ex-husband; or rather I asked questions and she smiled and daintily rearranged her napkin.

It wasn't until we got back to the hotel that my uncle's suicide really hit me. I was taking a shower (my third today. Between the centipedes crawling and the bites and the heebie-jeebies I was pretty much taking them every hour on the hour) and I remembered the first time I met him when I was nineteen. He smiled at me with such total affection and warmth, and he reminded me of my Dad: so quick to smile, laugh and dream. I didn't ask where he had been up until then. He lived in Belgium so it wasn't like he could have been expected to just pop in, and besides from the moment he came through the door until the time he finally left he would just lavish us with nonstop gifts and devotion to such a degree that I think we would have felt ungrateful and shallow asking too many questions.

That said, there always was a moodiness about him. I remember more than once during his visits that I would wake up in the middle of the night to find him stalking around in the dark talking to himself and swilling wine at an astounding rate. Whenever he would notice me peering over at him his entire demeanor would change and he'd light up, assure me that everything was fine and usher me back to bed, but once back in my room I'd hear his footsteps continue to march restlessly up and down the carpet until I fell asleep.

I've been trying to remember back from the first I met him to the last time I saw him back in January, attempting to determine if he had truly appeared to age in that span. The memory plays tricks. To me was always just old- elderly but spry and never at a loss for energy.

Was he insane? Was he somehow actually King Leopold the First of Belgium? Was he both? If he actually was who he thought he was, that would have made him well over two hundred years old, something that would be absolutely impossible, just like the two or three other impossible things I've experienced over the last week or so.

Whatever happened between him and my father, I have to forgive him, even if he couldn't forgive himself. He may have placed my Dad in danger, but I have to believe he did it out of utter desperation and probably madness, not out of any maliciousness. Whether he was my uncle or he really was my great, great, great, great grandfather doesn't matter in the end. I loved him and love him still, not because of who he was or what he did but because while the rest of his life may have been a lie I know that he truly loved me unconditionally. That's enough, I suppose.

Leopold: Valediction

My thoughts grow more scattered and I do not have long. If there is such a thing as a benevolent God or Gods, my single desperate prayer is that I am allowed to stay dead. To begin:

In attempting to explain the events that led her to contact me and ask for my help, Cynthia eventually decided to allow me access to this archive, and for this I am most grateful. I write this valediction while flying on my golden, gleaming, private jet, soaring through light blue skies over dark blue, glittering seas, and while most would consider the sight beautiful or even breathtaking, I for one care not a whit for it. The world is an ancient, used-up thing, running down to its final hours and I both cannot stand to see it grow another minute older and at the same time cannot bear to watch it die. I suppose I am a coward. It is why I became who I am and why I have not the stomach to fight an unwinnable battle now.

While I can, I shall inform you of what you face, or more properly what faces you. I trust you will find my knowledge of the matter to be as pathetically limited and useless as I have, and probably even moreso as my faculties desert me.

He is old... far older than myself or Hollis or Nhlakanipho Mabuza or Taras the Mutineer or Crayton or even the Red Lady of Babil, who is so old she no longer remembers her own name. He is older than all of his creations combined, and he changes his name with every new conquest. The human soul is not meant to be trapped inside a host for longer than a few hundred years. It gets pulled taut and stretched so thin that it feels as though you can see through it, the world tinted with a filthy gray haze.

Is he even human any more? Was he ever?

My mind is going... I know that now. He is withdrawing his favour, allowing me to unravel because he knows that I have broken my oath to him. There is so much I want and need to tell you, but it is all a swirling, glittering dust in my brain.

Before I can forget or before I am forced to forget, I tell you this despite knowing that any endeavor to stop him is almost certainly doomed: he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula.

There are twenty-five million American dollars in a Swiss bank account under the name "Joshua Frederick". Falsified driver's licenses and passports under that name are being delivered to your hotel now.

Some barriers are beginning to erode in anticipation of what is to come. You will hear things... comments coming from the mouths of those who speak them but do not think them. Expect this phenomenon to increase in the days ahead and try to pay it little mind as most of the bleed-through thoughts will be gibberish.


I willingly ceded him my homeland and was then granted dominion over it in the next world when it was renewed; I swore my oath because someone else would have anyway and I thought I could use the power to make things better, but whenever I tried of course it always went wrong. Women and children... I wanted to pass laws protecting them but was defeated. He has a particular hatred for women, though I know not why and neither did Taras when I asked him in Kiev.

I feel it now, his gaze upon me... there can be no question that he knows, that he is doing this to my mind from afar. I had such vast power, such wealth and endless grinning slaves, but it was I who was the slave, though I wore a crown.

Oh, God, Scott I didn't know... I hoped he could not, would not find out. I thought that if I kept you totally in the dark and asked you to do me the favor on faith that you might be safe. I had to end this, had to break the cycle, cut short the loop and pray that either time would play out as normal or simply end. I had hoped so foolishly that if you had supported Yoshida's efforts at a last-ditch failsafe plan he wouldn't notice. Sorry, so sorry, nothing but sorrow for you and for us all. You would think after so many generations it would be easier to accept the death of your own blood. Scott, please forgive me and forget that favor I asked you- Doctor Yoshida will find funding on his own somehow. Forget the favor. Scott, do me a favor and send me photographs of that newborn son of yours. Please do. Please do not send the check. Nevermind, please. Void, void, void, void please write void on the check if you would, my second cousin my great, great, great grandson, my blood, your blood, your blood if you wouldn't mind, mind, mind my mind is going goddamn you to hell you beast I will fight for this for one more minute I will be myself and sign my name and write my will and use my will and please God let me stay dead this time I'm so sorry I'm I am I am I remain for this cycle and next and forward through all eternity, eternally, eternally yours,

Eternally Yours,


Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

Cynthia: Patruus, Pergo

I have considered the matter further, and based on Leonard's immediate and enthusiastic response to my request for aid, I am extending him an invitation to join us. Since he and Scott first connected a decade ago he has treated my family with tremendous warmth and generosity, and I am certain that he will be an extremely valuable ally. I am sending him the encryption key now, so he should be fully versed in our situation by the time his flight touches down.

Josh: You Can't Tell The Players Without A Scorecard, So I'm Making A Scorecard

Okay, time out. I feel like events are absolutely spinning out of control here and I need to get a handle on them. To recap and provide a time line (and correct me if any of this is out of whack, I may not be entirely accurate as I was just blown up last night):

-Over a decade ago, Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida and his assistant Tanaka begin experimenting with the Rabbit Calicivirus on Wardang Island, Australia, secretly releasing the infected test-subjects onto the continent and wiping out ninety-five percent of the rabbit population. He does this as a dry run to see how the virus would work if adapted for humans.

-Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida moves to Atlanta, Georgia and gains access to the Centers For Disease Control, or CDC (at right. Put up a boring, official government seal, eh, Mary? Well, two can play at that game!) This allows him to work to perfect the human Calicivirus strain with financial aid from (and I still find this just about impossible to believe) my father, Scott Howland.

-As Shigekazu and Tanaka are about to fly back to Japan with the formula that will essentially kill all human life on Earth, their car is hit by a semi truck. Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida is killed instantly while Tanaka is dragged off into the backwoods of a small town called Hollis Crossroads by The Old Man (I'm just going to go ahead and capitalize it. I thought of calling him "The Southern Gentleman" or "Colonel Sanders" or something, but frankly having dealt with him first-hand I'm way too terrified of him to get cute with a nickname). The Old Man rams a chisel into Tanaka's spine to paralyze him from the neck down, then spends the next year (!) teaching him to speak English.

-Meanwhile, six months or so later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a semi truck broadsides my parent's car, killing my father Scott and paralyzing my mother Cynthia from the neck down. This is the one that I cannot wrap my head around. The deliberate act six months before was to paralyze Tanaka... the random act six months later paralyzes my mother in precisely the same way.

-The aftermath of the attack is witnessed by Mrs. Justina Walentowicz, who just happens to be one of, if not the luckiest Bingo player in the state (B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O. and B.I.N.G.O. was his name-O. Good, hopefully now it's stuck in your head, too).

-My mom and I start investigating the crash, hiring Mary Stroud, a P.I. from Madison, Wisconsin. Mrs. Walentowicz gets interviewed a couple of times, then she's horrifically murdered, her head pulled down into her abdomen and up through a hole cut in her stomach. In her smiling mouth is a photograph of the semi truck she thought she saw drive away from the crash. Pushed up and into her brain is a freshly amputated rabbit's foot infected with the Calicivirus.

-In researching the rabbit's foot and trying to narrow down where it came from, we contact Wardang island and acquire the number for Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's son, Kisho. In addition to having a charming, bubbly personality, Kisho is set to identify the virus of that particular rabbit's foot and determine which continent it came from (and by the way, I'm ready to just call that one over and say it came from Wardang Island. Test away, but I have no doubt). In conversation with Kisho, we find out about his father and the semi truck attack.

-I fly down to Atlanta to get Shigekazu's notes on what we think are the rabbit Calicivirus and also to poke around a bit and get more information on his murder. Mary stays in Milwaukee to keep in touch with Detective Ward, the officer in charge of the Walentowicz case, and also secretly to investigate my family, her own employers (sneaky monkey).

-While recovering Shigekazu's research, a man with an Australian accent leaves me a note giving an address in a small town called Hollis Crossroads and a reference to Tanaka. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that my father wrote Shigekazu a check for three million dollars.

-Sh*t gets weird in Hollis Crossroads to say the very least. What up until this point I considered to be a murder investigation turned into an absolute horror show. So much happened out at that damn house I think I'm going to spend years unraveling it and undoubtedly trying to suppress it. The Old Man killed my bodyguard and essentially framed me for it, Tanaka was unknowingly covered with centipedes (and was there special meaning behind that? I mean, it was beyond creepy and gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it, but did they have some significance beyond that?) and The Old Man's assistants killed Tanaka and themselves all while wearing the same smile Mrs. Walentowicz had (I believe I called it one part amused, one part amazed and one part batsh*t crazy. I'm standing by that description). Finally, we learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that I way-overuse parentheses (true).

-Finally, The Old Man was humming the bingo song (was his name-O) which, along with the matching smiles reminded us of poor Mrs. Walentowicz. Mary called her daughter, found out just how awesome a bingo player she really was and learned that she had been given a special offer to join a retirement community for great bingo players only: a rest home that just happened to be located in Hollis Crossroads. Mary and I are going to go and check it out tonight under the pretense of a married couple considering putting her mother in the home.


The thing I can't stop thinking about is the fact that the murderer driving the semi (Let's just call him The Driver from now on, k?) who killed both my and Kisho's father probably saved the world by doing so. Whoever he is, he and The Old Man are cold-blooded murderers and utter monsters... but are they really the good guys here? I'm going to do my best to bring them to justice, but is that even really the right thing to do?

Also, things happened at that house that I cannot begin to explain. Was most of it a trick somehow? A carefully crafted illusion? Or was it something more? If it was... if it was really what I think it was, then what chance do we have?

Okay, I feel more up to speed. Not better, particularly, but more up to speed. Time in.

Cynthia: Pecunia

As I had commented in one of my previous missives, my husband and I entered into our union each with considerable wealth. As such, we collectively made the decision early on to maintain our finances separately as it was simply not necessary to pool them for the sake of our lifestyle. Therefore, at no point was I privy to Scott's expenditures nor was he to mine.

Locating my husband's bank-book took some doing on Jeffrey's part as I had neglected to have Scott's possessions properly organized since his passing, but after a somewhat arduous search the item was discovered.

The check you mentioned is made out to Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida for the amount of three million dollars. There is no further notation.