What is man, that Thou art mindful of him
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?– Psalm 8, v 4
While waiting for a strike squad of Sword Servitors to arrive, Helophel realises that she forgot something when requesting aid from the Tether of War. She phones the Cenotaph offices and is lucky enough to catch the War party before it sets off. This allows her to suggest that they bring ranged weapons (most already were), and fire extinguishers. She is quizzed a little at this strange request, but her logic seems sound — when dealing with fire, it's as well to have means of putting it out. At least they'll be able to deal with secondary effects if they can't directly douse the flaming men.
Ten minutes or so later, the Laurencians turn up and are flagged down. Atoziel, who hasn't seen any activity at the manholes he was watching, bounces over to fill them in. Since he does this in fluent Ineffable, this is less than helpful. Helophel reports, which is more useful.
Having finished in Beverley Road, Blakely travels back to Ravenscourt Park and takes the opportunity to change into something less distinctive than his normal garb. Meeting up with the others, he reminds them of the party's fears that Wells may be a Djinn of the Game. Helophel points out that they may have been wrong; Herald could have been the celestial (a Shedite, perhaps?) rather than Wells.
Eventually the Michealites arrive, with fire extinguishers. The angels head down the sewers again, with a cloud of scouts out in front of them, hoping to surprise the enemy.
Boriel, meanwhile, obeys orders and drives himself to the Science Museum. He is run through a series of tests concerning the configuration of his forces and any side-effects of prophecy by the Seneschal, while an Elohite medical expert examines his leg wound. Nothing comes of the first tests, to everyone's considerably annoyance, but Aesclepius the Elohite is quite fascinated by Boriel's burns. These are quite serious plasma burns, and Boriel only got clipped. Aesclepius advises that he should avoid being hit full on. You don't say.
Excel phones a report in to the Science Museum at this point, having got at least temporarily free of the McKenzies and the rugby players. He reports that Wells has been taken to Hammersmith General Hospital, but his prognosis is not good. Excel, although no medical expert, does not believe that his chances of survival are at all good. He was however very concerned to have seen a sort of gold tracery on Wells unburnt skin while they were down in the sewers, which seemed to have faded by the time that they reached the surface and examined him properly. Aesclepius is fascinated but unable to shed any further light on the subject, and nor does Boriel's medical knowledge offer any clues.
There is some discussion of the force-field boxes that Dr McKenzie produced. Excel had not been aware that Andrew was working on them, but it would be a not inconsistent application of an effect that he is aware McKenzie has observed and been attempting to theorise over. It is possible that McKenzie reached an essentially correct theory and built the devices as test pieces while Excel was away from the lab. Excel, however, is very suspicious that Shelly may be involved in the breakthrough, and notes that he still hasn't had a useful Resonance on her. It is distinctly possible that she is a demon of Technology, though her behaviour is rather odd.
Boriel then phones Magariel, to update her on the situation and enlist her help. Maggie is in fact about to go clubbing with an eye to regenerating some Essence. [In fact, Magariel's player was away for this session, leaving the referee to use his own notes for once in this write-up!] She does agree to go and help out (Boriel is not very specific as to how) at Hammersmith General after she gets some Essence back, provided that Boriel brings a portable computer and internet connection with him. Boriel finds this trivially obtainable from the Seneschal, along with an Essence refill. He then tries to phone Blakely and Atoziel, unsuccessfully since both are down the sewers. He leaves messages on their answering services, blathering about Wells in Blakely's case and asking Atoziel to please crack Shelly's role.
The strike team meanwhile has reached the place where the angels encountered the flaming figures, and easily tracks their burnt footprints back to a wider area where evidence of food wrappers suggests that they had stayed for a while. Atoziel stays behind with a Michaelite bodyguard while he sings the Song of Memory. He notes that the most recent Disturbance is something to do with the white fire. He doesn't know what, though, the phenomenon is new to him.
The rest of the group meanwhile find that after a short distance the tunnel has been collapsed. It looks like considerable heat has been applied to cause this to happen. They go back for their native guide, Atoziel, who takes them up to the surface and back down a different way to get to the other side. They continue to track (by ordinary footprints, it seems no one is flaming here) along to the main sewer tunnel for the area, where the metal catwalk makes tracking nigh-on impossible. Two trackers are sent to the surface at this point, while the rest cast around for likely hiding places. In relatively short order, thanks mostly to the obviously broken ice, the surface trackers find a disturbed manhole cover just off Hammersmith Broadway, and call the rest up.
Hammersmith Broadway still has some traffic at this time of night, since the clubs are nowhere near shut yet. This means the angels stand little or no chance of tracking the South Americans quickly enough to catch up with them. Noting that the Broadway is under CCTV surveillance, plans are made to break into the control room in the council offices nearby. At this point various phones go off with recorded messages. Atoziel ignores Boriel's request for now, figuring that the info on the South Americans is more important. Blakely gets messages from both Boriel and DS Winters telling him that Wells has been found and is now at Hammersmith General. Winters hints at the general peculiarity of the situation, so Blakely decides to head to the hospital and phones Boriel to exchange information. Boriel himself is also heading towards the hospital in the company of Aesclepius, as the Lightning Servitors want to find out more about Wells' injuries and that peculiar tracery.
Helophel meanwhile takes two other Michaelites and does a very thorough search of the area that the angels believe the South Americans lived in. They find nothing much more than the food wrappers that first alerted them to the area, except for a scrap of police uniform. It appears that all identifying traces of the occupants of that area have been carefully removed. The angels give up and head back to the surface, where the other Michaelites rejoin Atoziel and the Lawrencians. Helophel gives up on the day and phones Keel, who agrees to come and pick her up and finish off their conversation.
The plan for breaking in to the CCTV control room swings into action. Atoziel traces the council phone line that might automatically contact the police in case of emergency, determines which bundle it comes out in at the junction box that he has access to, and pulls the lot of them out. Meanwhile another Michaelite under Ethereal Form slips into the building and sets off the fire alarm. When the council camera operator leaves, Atoziel invokes his Library Card attunement and slips in through a conveniently open window. He reaches the control room easily and copies the relevant video. Then he wipes all evidence of his being there from the tapes, sets them to pause recording until he is well clear and legs it. It is then a simple matter to make stills from the tape, photos which show three South American men, one South American woman and one Caucasian woman.
Blakely arrives at the hospital, shortly before Boriel and Ascelpius. He is directed up to the Burns unit, where DS Winters is currently ensconced, and checks Wells from a forensics point of view. It's not a pretty site, and Wells' chances of survival are slim. He has burns to a large percentage of his body — arms and legs are mostly OK, but his whole front from his lower face on down is a single mass of burns. It almost looks like he's been chained to a furnace, but that doesn't quite explain it properly. He is under heavy sedation, naturally enough.
Blakely also takes the opportunity to resonate, and succeeds well again. He is able to tell that Wells is a withdrawn sort who doesn't have many relationships (which fits Blakely's personal experience of the young officer), the main exception being his working relationship with WPC Melanie Herald. This has changed recently from a mildly protective but basically comfortable relationship to one of lethal animosity.
Thoroughly confused, Blakely comes to the decision to heal Wells. With his near-mastery of the Songs of Healing and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the human body, he manages to limit his miracle to truly cleaning and disinfecting the wounds which have been suspended in an open sewer for who knows how long, ensuring that Wells will live. As a practicing Catholic, Blakely then slightly boggles DS Winters by praying over Wells. Wells is in that bad a state. Blakely then talks to the attending doctors, who share his opinion that it will take a miracle for Wells to pull through.