23/10/2022 – Gavigan Defeated (20)

Cultists!

With the creature retreating, Zalkador and Alex leave the dining room and head over to the motor car where Jeziah is. When they see the cultists, Zalkador runs away to the hallway, where Cassandra is and Alex follows him. This leaves Jeziah alone in the motor car with six approaching Egyptians. He opens fire with his shot gun, but misses when the cultist ducks. Tiger reaches the top of the tower and obtains his weapons, including his elephant gun. He begins to look around for targets.

The Hunting Horror has been retreating out of the house, but it reacts to the presence of Zalkador in the entrance hallway and turns towards him. It hisses and whispers a strange name, “Nee-yar-lat-hotep”. Zalkador retreats back out into the hallway and tries to make it back to the dining room, but is blocked by two cultists. He takes out his knives and prepares throw them. Cassandra now heads out into the yard and shoots her pistol for the first time, missing one of the cultists but scaring him.

Fire Fight

Looking down from the tower, Tiger can see the cultists approaching and fires his elephant gun at one of them, hitting and blowing a huge hole in one of them, killing him instantly. One of the other cultists begins to back away after this, but the rest continue to close in on Jeziah and Zalkador. One of them tries to attack Jeziah in the motor car, but he catches the body of the car and his machete flies out of his hand. Jeziah reloads the shotgun. As the two cultists closing in on him, Zalkador throws his knives at them but misses completely. The cultists swing their machetes but Zalkador dodges.

Tiger picks up his rifle and shoots another cultist down, but only manages to wound him. Jeziah shoots the cultist trying to attack him, but lost his machete, in the arm. Cassandra shoots again at one of the cultist and hits, wounding him and knocking him down. Alex opens fire on the same one at the same time, but as he is knocked down, he missed.

Zalkador Has a Narrow Escape

Zalkador is cornered by the two cultists, who realise they have him at bay. The fortune teller cowers in fear and begs for mercy. The Hunting Horror has moved through the hallway and is trying to get into the yard to attack Zalkador, but is again delayed by the narrow doorway.

The cultist by Jeziah recovers his machete and gets a lucky hit on the butler’s leg, badly wounding him and he collapses. Alex climbs out of the window and heads into the yard. He shoots an already wounded cultist and incapacitates him, while Cassandra heads over to help Jeziah.

Tiger shoots at one of the cultists attacking Zalkador, hitting him, but the angle is poor and he only catches him on the arm. This does confuse and distract the cultist though, leaving one left to try to kill Zalkador, but the fortune teller dodges out of the way and runs for the dining room.

The Hunting Horror Breaks Through

Just at that point, the Hunting Horror bursts through the doorway into the yard, turning towards Zalkador. Alex shoots at one of the cultists attacking Zalkador, causing him to abandon the attack and try to escape. The other cultist though chases after Zalkador.

The cultist who wounded Jeziah tries to finish him off, but Jeziah desperately fends him off, using the structure of the car to protect himself. Cassandra and Tiger then shoot the cultist dead, then Cassandra gets into the automobile and starts to turn its headlights towards the Hunting Horror, but the monster swings and smashes into the front of the car with its body. It then tries to crush the rest of the car, which will kill Jeziah.

Alex and Tiger turn their guns on the monster, with Tiger catches it in the back of the head, which hurts it and it turns in anger, rising up to attach Tiger in the tower. Tiger decides to reload the elephant gun, as the creature will struggle to get through the windows. It also swings one of its big wings at Alex as well, but he retreats back towards the garage.

The Horror Retreats

The Hunting Horror bashes into the wall of the house, trying to get through the narrow window to attack Tiger, but Tiger shoots it at point blank range with the elephant gun. This rips a terrible wound in the creatures face. At the same time, Cassandra has started another car from the garage and drives it towards the creature with headlights on full. The creature shrieks in a terrible rage and it suddenly flies up into the sky, flying away over the house and back towards where it emerged.

The cultist in the yard is dismayed at the withdrawal of the creature and Alex takes the opportunity to shoot him dead. The last cultist is chasing Zalkador in the dining room, who is hiding behind the furniture but is now exhausted and gives up. As the Egyptian is about to kill Zalkador, Alex enters the room just in time and shoots him dead too.

Gavigan is Eaten

A sudden quiet falls across the house. Cassandra begins to help Jeziah with some basic first aid. Then she decides to drive him to hospital immediately, so she drives out of the yard and heads round the house towards the entrance gates. As she does, she sees the Hunting Horror hovering over two figures standing on the driveway.

It suddenly swoops down and consumes one of them, who Cassandra is able to see is Edward Gavigan dressed in Black Brotherhood priest robes. The creature eats him up in one bite then vanishes into smoke when the headlights of the car catch it.

The other figure is Zahra Shafik carrying two Egyptian style sceptres, one crook and one ankh, dressed in Black Brotherhood priest robes. Cassandra jams her foot on the accelerator and attempts to run her over. The woman crosses the sceptres as the car hits her, knocking her back. The front of the car is quite damaged by the impact and she is not as wounded as Cassandra hoped, suggesting the sceptres gave her some sort of protection. Cassandra decides to leave her and continue to the hospital.

Pursuing Shafik

Alex looks after the wounded Zalkador. Tiger gathers some weapons and heads out the front of the house to hunt down any other cultists. He comes across the body of the ground keeper, who has been killed my machetes. He then sees the woman priest in robes heading out of the grounds and chases after her. She heads out of the grounds, gets into a car and drives away. There is another car though and Tiger runs over to that and chases after her.

There is a mad dash chase through country lanes back into London and Tiger begins to close in on her, but when they get to London he takes a wrong turn and she gets away.

End of Episode Twenty