Champions Game

Fri 20/12/90

8.45 - Bob's back from the embassy. He's got a passport and a fake visa for Russia.

10.08 - I handed Bob the book and he dropped it. It seemed like it scared him a bit.
He picked it up again, then waved his hand over the crucifix on the cover and it started to change shape. He said it was a jigsaw lock. He was working on it for ages, then he moved the shapes around to make a sheela na gig (ick) like the ones on the witch's cave in Gloucestershire - the hasps just fell off and book opened. The pages were sort of metallic.

Bob put the book down and said that he didn't want to look at the contents. It was in Russian, with some gruesome woodcut images.

Charles is working on the translation just now.

13.31 - Well the book turned out to be a history of the Skoptsi in three parts.

First there are the mythical roots of the cult in a section called "The Black Icons".
It tells the story of Semyon, a Christianised Russian monk who lived in the Volga area around about 1220AD. He was out preaching when a Mongol horde attacked the village he was in, burned it to the ground, killed everyone they could find and crucified Semyon when they realised he was a Christian.
He hung on the cross for two days, then a black monk visited him and engaged him in a religious debate of some kind, the basic structure of which was "Your God is no good because he allows bad stuff like this to happen to his loyal followers and other innocent people."
After a day or so of debate, Semyon agreed with the monk. He cursed Christ and spat on a bible that the monk gave him.
The black monk asked him to follow the Great Mother and taught him how to summon her to him. Then there's some really strange stuff about how the Great Mother devoured him and then he was reborn through her as a 'Blessed of the Great Mother'.
Semyon got his revenge on the Mongol horde with the help of some people or creatures called 'The Mother's Children'.

(I left the room when Charles started reading out some of the descriptions of how the Mongol horde died. Ick. Horrible.)

The Great Mother told Semyon that she wanted more people to be reborn through her so he travelled to Dagestan and made a temple in a valley by the Caspian Sea.

The second part of the book is a history of the cult. They prospered up until 1650 when an expedition of Cossack Hetman, Ottoman Visirs and Persian Mullahs (Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims) united against them.
10,000 warriors cleared the valley of every living thing, burned everything, salted the earth, diverted streams that fed into the valley... really serious destruction. They destroyed the Blessed of the Great Mother and the Children of the Great Mother. Semyon (about 450 years old by then) was captured. They hung, drew, quartered and burned him, but he continued to curse them until his head was cut off.

The third part of the book is the story of the survivors, who rescued relics called The Black Icons, including a ritual for summoning the Great Mother.
They moved to the North and pretended to be a Christian sect, the Skopets.
The book describes their activities in detail up until about 1950.

In 1929 Bogdashkovich (aged 12) became a Blessed of the Great Mother and therefore, it seems, the leader of the cult.
Then something went wrong. The Stalinist persecutions were happening, people were being killed, things destroyed, and somehow the information on the rituals was lost, so Bogdashkovich was the last person to undergo the ritual.
Oh, and there's stuff about the rituals. Anyone with a greater or lesser castration (or female equivalent - which I did not need to hear about...) is a priest of the cult.

Charles and Jane are taking photos of the book pages so we have a copy of it.

23.40 - Round about 2pm today the crucifix started glowing and changing shape. Bob yelled at us to run. Drongo was last out of the room, and he says there was a kind of break in reality, an opening into the void and something came through it.
(What Drongo actually said was "a wierd portal thing, like in thon fillum, the yin wi' thae demons frae anither di-men-shun, wi' a beastie coming through but I didnae hang aboot tae see whit it wis!")

I felt the corridor change while we were running down it. It was strange... frightening...
We ran out of the hotel, but we found ourselves in a cemetary, not in a Moscow street.
The dead man appeared and demanded his book. It flew out of Charles's hand and to him. There was another rip in reality and the dead man left through it. Bob was freaking out slightly by then, and I didn't feel to good myself.

We were starting to head back to the hotel when we heard the sound of digging, like something under the ground was trying to escape...

Then dead bodies just suddenly popped up out of the ground, really fast. Except that they weren't exactly dead, they were moving, and aiming to get to us. One of them clawed Charles in the chest. It left a big rip in his clothes and a gouge in his skin. Horrible to look at.
Drongo started pushing through the bodies, the zombies I suppose I should call them, although it's difficult to think of zombies being real. Drongo started out hitting them with an iron railing, then when that wasn't getting rid of them quickly enough, he started picking them up and throwing them. Using the zombies like bowling balls to knock the other zombies out of the way. The rest of us just kept close and followed him.
Somehow I managed to avoid being hit, but the others were all hurt. Bob's arm is still looking scarily bad. He collapsed when we finally made it back to the hotel and had to be taken to hospital.
Drongo's miraculous healing seemed to be working again. He was hit loads of times, but now, although his clothes are clearly torn by claws, he looks completely uninjured. This is only one of the strange things that keep happening.
I'm not really sure if the world has changed or if I'm just mad. And maybe I'd prefer to believe that it's just madness. That would be better than believing in this nightmare.

We told the police (who turned up after the hotel staff called an ambulance for Bob) that we'd been mugged.
Don't think they believe us. They want to talk to us again tomorrow.

Sat 21/12/90

20.19 - Just back from the police station. They kept us there all day. Obviously they don't believe us about being mugged. I just hope we all managed to stick to the same story.

Sun 22/12/90

22.59 - Another day of being interviewed by the police. Tired.

Mon 23/12/90

14.28 - Finally, the police seem to have accepted our story!
Am going shopping. I seriously need to relax.

23.10 - Ah, that's so much better.
Have found Xmas presents for everyone.
Some sort of alcohol (vodka, I guess) with gold flakes in it for Jane - it looks very Christmassy. Hope she likes it.
A leather belt for Drongo. It's good and strong. He seems to break a lot of clothing so maybe this will last better than his usual stuff
One of those classic Russian furry hats with the ear flaps for Charles. I think it'll suit him.
And cigars for Bob. They have a lovely scent to them, and are in a proper wooden box.

Quick change now, then Jane and I are going to the bar.

Tues 24/12/90

No sign of anyone round here celebrating Xmas yet. I guess they go by the Orthodox calendar so it's still two weeks away.

Bob seems to have some idea how we ended up in a graveyard full of those things... Something about dimensional rips I think he said. Like the time he appeared in my bathroom.
Charles has been saying that it was a mass hallucination and that someone has been pointing mind control rays at us, but I must say that the shape of the wounds on the others don't look like they could have been self-inflicted.

Wed 25/12/90

10.08 - Charles was pleased with his hat. He seems to be installing some sort of tinfoil and wire thing in it.
Bob grumbled about the cigars, but Jane has drunk the alcohol, even if it did taste a bit like paint stripper. Impossible to tell what Drongo thought of his present - he just grunted 'thanks' (or possibly just grunted, it's difficult to tell with Drongo, but I think there was a 'thanks' there too...)

23.45 - In spite of everything this isn't the worst Christmas Day I've ever had. That last one with Graham and his family just before we broke up still gets the prize for that one.

Susan Phillips - former fashion and beauty journalist, currently trying to move in to hard news stories (and not just as a way of annoying her ex-boyfriend).
Blonde, 6'2" tall in her stiletto heels and with a tendency to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Bob Fudge - cynical serious news reporter, unpopular with some important political figures. Interested in the occult.

Drongo, or, as he is known on more formal occasions, "The Accused", spends his time drinking; modifying, repairing and occasionally riding motorbikes; listening to loud rock music and getting in to fights. He's employed as a technician and bouncer by the news agency and various Fringe shows.
His mother calls him James Bell.

Jane Stuart - paparrazzi photographer, unpopular with many celebrities, has an alcohol problem.

John Huang (deceased) - reporter, known for his integrity, but also, unfortunately, for his belief in UFOs

Charles Reynauld - former reporter of international criminal affairs. Taking a break from chasing Columbian arms dealers in favour of a more peaceful life dealing with Glasgow gang wars.

Martin Farmer - industry and industrial relations journalist.

John Cassidy - anthropoligist, reporter and Renaissance man... Has travelled extensively in the Third World (mainly to avoid university funding authorities and his ex-wife).