Cora called it the “excuse to drink” party.

Because, you know, being one of a handful of people (to use the term loosely) who have blundered into defending the very existence of reality from greebly horrible otherdimensional monsters isn't a good enough reason.

It's just that this time we had tiki torches and tiny umbrellas in our drinks.

Flamingo Straws are a horribly inefficient way of drinking beer.

Still, as parties went, things went fairly well. We had a couple of guests from afar (Mari was in town, as was Cora's Three-Quarters-Demon Boyfriend), and another trio of new recruits: a wizard-lady named Gant, a guy from Minnesota named Fletch, and one of Brayker's old buddies who I will refer to as Agent Beltbuckle. Drinks were drunk, food was eaten, and conversations were conversed. Artemis tried explaining the difference between wizard magic and vampire magic to me, but I didn't quite get it. Apparently having hypno-eyes and being able to turn into a bat doesn't count as magic? Whatever.

So yeah, we did the generally social thing- that is, until Penny caught word that Lester Rothstein (the half-vampire ghoul-bitch Servant from Wayngro's list), was classing it up down at the Houston Opera. Artemis, Ash, and Penny went and tailed him...at which point they realized it wasn't really Lester, but rather a body double who'd been hired to pretend to be Lester. I can only hope that the real half-vampire Lester was hiding in a basement somewhere, and not getting up to crazy nefarious shit.

Oh, and there was some crazy nefarious shit going on, too. Dunno if Lester had anything to do with it.

In case you missed the Saturday night news, somebody decided to blow up a CUT church on the north side of town. And before you start cheering, we weren't the ones who did it. In fact, within minutes of the bombing, the cops got an anonymous message pinning the blame on one Mr. Glass.

In case the name doesn't ring a bell, Mr. Glass is one of the stars on our Wall of the Fallen; he died back in 2009, during the Case of the Voodoo Doll of Baron S. I never knew the guy, as I was blissfully unaware of all this magic bullshit way back then. Ah, better days. The fact I can count on one hand the number of people who were around Houston at the time isn't an encouraging fact when you start thinking about turnover, though...and you wonder why I drink so much?

Just kidding. Nobody wonders. Or cares. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get another beer.

The most prominent theory on Glass' sudden appearance was the fact that the bombing was probably done by his “fetcher” clone, because all fairy Changelings have clones made out of sticks or something? Miss T may have tried to explain it to me once but I didn't listen very carefully because I was too busy being creeped the hell out. (Seriously, she looks like she's made of spiders). Stick-clone or whatever, fake-Glass' records held up from the checking I did, which either meant someone was doing a hell of a job covering their tracks, or he's been kicking around since 2009 in one way or the other.

After some magic-scrying stuff, Dr. Watts tracked fake-Glass down to a big cargo ship in the harbor. A ship registered to Diadem Logistics (a Truth-affiliated company), which word on the street says is moving assault rifles. Greeeat.

More scrying tells us that not only is Glass on the big boat, but there's also a Tear, an Abomination made of Fire and Hate, and like half a dozen dudes called 'Reapers,' which are apparently government trained commandos with explosive vests and death wishes (thanks to Cora's 75% demon boyfriend for the lowdown on those dudes, by the way). You'll understand why I decided to sit that one out.

Hell, from what I heard about it, things were even worse than it sounded. As apparently, the FireHate Abomination was tough enough that even Dr. Watts had trouble hitting it, and the Tear was bigger than any other Tear we've encountered up until this point. And, if it weren't for the efforts of Wolf (who is not a werewolf) and his healing magic, I'd probably be writing some obituaries right now. Props to him (even if he probably won't be reading this because he lives in a hole somewhere and doesn't know how computers work).

So yeah. Party's over, folks. I've got the feeling that things are gonna get worse before they get better. Or, shit, do things ever get better? After we took out Romanati and fucked the CUT's shit up back in November, I bet those squiddy bastards are bringing in the big guns (or tentacles, or whatever) to start pushing back. Lucky us.

And there's my excuse to drink, right there. 

I have a cold so that means I hate everything even more than usual right now.

“So New Guy, how was your Valentine's day?” Penny asked me, because he is an asshole.

And, you know, it was actually kind of normal. Not too different from most other years, as I spent this Valentine's day alone and kind of drunk. Except that this time I was alone and kind of drunk and armed to the goddamn teeth in case a cupid monster attacked.

This is how I live now.

Despite the Hallmark-invented holiday, there wasn't any love potion drama or any bullshit like that. Just another meeting of the Houston Cavalry. Of course, since I've been trying to throw off this cold I've gotten (more of that 'puny mortal weakness' for you), I got a little jacked up on cough syrup and took a nap and then slept a little later than I thought I would. I guess I should thank Cora and Kendrick for being somewhat concerned about my well being, though?

Since I ran late, I missed most of Cora's big miracle-berry teambuilding...thing. Basically she found these weird-ass berries (which are supposedly not magic) which make things taste sweeter after you get the juice in your mouth, which was...weird. I guess it's one thing to see weird shit (which I do all the fucking time now), and something else to taste it. Or something.

I also missed some discussion of the local vampire politics- there's a ghoul named Lester out there who's a Wayngro-confirmed Servant, so we've got to whack him. Eventually- right now by the sound of it he's laying low, so we're gonna have to get to work on that. Dude's also working with some of the Puritan werewolves, so that's gonna be something to watch out for too.

I at least got to meet some new faces that showed up- a dude named Wolf (who is not a werewolf), a woman who turns into a dog (who is also not a werewolf) and Frank (who is exactly what you think he is). Seriously, it's depressing how many weirdos we keep pulling in.

In other stuff, we've also been getting reports of a weird Chimera...thing running around. Like, it's trickled down into the pulp-tabloids that I write for, so you know it's not being very subtle. A similar snake-cat creature was also sighted in the Magic Forest, and the Shadowworld, and also the Underworld, which are all different things apparently? Artemis tried explaining all this to me but I still don't get it. I should draw a picture.

So yeah. Jacques followed the weird-ass snake-cat to some big warehouse facility, where, surprise surprise, he saw a car belonging to a CUT member. Further stuff from Artemis prompted me to look into the holding company, an environmental research company that got like 15% of its operationg funds as a donation from the CUT. Based on this, we decided to play Scooby Doo.

We split up into two teams- I took an investigation team to sniff around the company's main offices, while Brayker led another to the weird warehouse itself.

The first team had a fairly easy time of it (even if Hobo Bob's definition of 'stealthy' may leave something to be desired). Luke turned off the security systems, Hobo Bob and Penny non-lethally subdued the guards, and then the rest of us snuck in and started snooping around. We confirmed the CUT funding, as well as the delivery of some weird fancy pocketwatch, which had already been delivered to the warehouse.

Special kudos to Kendrick and Ellie the Sharkgirl for getting their science on and figuring out what the hell they were researching- it appeared to be mostly normal stuff, except for the occasional file that mentioned splicing human and lion DNA, or controlling killer bees, or...whatever. Like I said, weird shit. We copied their data, destroyed their samples, and left a virus on their computer system, just in case. Oh, and we left a bunch of Ecoterrorist graffiti around to throw the authorities off our trail. All and all, a fairly smooth operation.

Makes me glad I wasn't at the warehouse. That's where the really nasty shit went down. As apparently there were some scientists there working on the shit that we'd just read about at the office site. The big snake-cat-chimera was there. Naturally, Team Warehouse killed the shit out of it...except once they did, it started bleeding BEES, because...that's a thing?

And on top of that, there were some weird-ass invisible monsters that only Wizards could see. They're not ghosts, not spirits, just...things. Dr. Watts didn't even know what they were, and that kind of freaks me out because he's been doing his Astounding thing for like a thousand years so if he hasn't seen it, then it's really weird. I think since we got all the 'regular' monsters like werewolves and vampires and shit, the Truth is just making things up.

So yeah. Dr. Watts went into the spirit world and killed a bunch of the things, and our triumphant heroes returned to the Citadel with the evil pocketwatch and a Chimera corpse, so the more research-y amongst us should get right on that.

All and all, it looks like things went fairly smoothly. So, y'know, go us. Because if you haven't been paying attention to the National Lists (and you shouldn't, because they're terrible), it seems like The Cavalry is a model cell when it comes to Getting Shit Done. Seriously, I still don't know what the fuck is going on in Connecticut, and I don't even want to ask. So pat yourselves on your proverbial backs there, guys, because there are people out there who are even fucking crazier than you are.

(Note, this is not a challenge to be more crazy, you maniacs).

Anyway, we recapped the night, went over a couple of announcements- While the official 'Minimum Combat Competence' decree is still dragging its way through Parliament, Brayker went ahead and said that we're gonna be early adopters. The gist is pretty simple: learn how to hurt people. Guns, knives, swords, fists, whatever- you're going to learn how to fight. Quickly. Preferably, you should know how to fight without fireballs or magic bullshit or whatever, too. As terrifying as your force lightning or whatever may be, there's something to be said for the 'fundementals,' especially if you run out of magic-juice or if you get stuck in a null zone or whatever. It's worth noting Dr. Watts has offered training in killiness to anyone who's so inclined to take him up on it. 

Because seriously, you guys. I can handle myself enough to meet the proposed guidelines. Me. How embarrassing is it going to be when the puny human with a cold is better at fighting than you are?

Oh, and next month, we're having a party, because...reasons? Don't drink Kendrick's fizzy girly drinks. They're like all rum and sugar and will probably give you a horrible hangover.