Devil's Canyon

A few weeks after their return to Boston the Investigators were invited to another dinner by DR Call. He told them he had received a telegram from a Mr Grant Winwood, a friend of Jacob Hancock's. At Hancock's recommendation, Winwood was requesting the Investigators to investigate the death of Eric von Varnstein, the noted film director, which he believed was due to "supernatural agency".

The Investigators agreed and four days later they found themselves ensconced in the comfortable library in Winwood's mansion in LA. Winwood told them that von Varnstein had been shooting a new movie Prince of Babylon on location in the Mojave Desert. The director had  actually committed suicide, speculation in Hollywod being due to horrendous cost overruns on the shooting. However WInwood tells them he believes it was because of a malign presence infesting Devil’s Canyon and that that many other members of the film company left before even shooting any footage. Recognising Devil's Canyon as the location referred to in the extract from In Old California they had found in the Order's possession in New York, the Investigator's found Winwood's fears to be all too credible.This presence manifested itself as an intangible but powerful aura of doom and foreboding that lingered about the set. No outré physical manifestations occurred, though some equipment was destroyed under fairly mysterious circumstances. The only surviving members of the production whom Winwood is aware of are the leading man, James Raven, and the head cameraman, Pierre Baptiste. Monica Anikova, the female lead, recently died, perhaps by suicide.

Next morning after breakfast the Investigator's first port of call was the studio where, with Winwoods assistance they were granted access to von Varnstein's office. The office itself was a room as bare as a closet, containing a desk, a wastebasket, and a few files in a wooden cabinet. The papers in the cabinet and on the desk were requisitions for oceans of paint, forests of lumber, and truckloads of canvas for sets. Matthew spent time studying these sheets and got a good understanding that Prince of Babylon was entirely within budget, for all the hype about its reported expense. Dan found some notes scrawled  in German that had fallen under the desk, and in a locked drawer Virgil discovered a charred and melted reel of film labelled "Outtakes Prince of Babylon reel 2".

While the others headed back to the hotel, after arranging to take a tour of the studio next morning, Virgil wandered round the back lots for a while and had an unfortunate encounter with James Raven who, apparently deranged, attempted to stab him with a rapier and mutter constantly talking to people who weren't there, before disappearing into the shadows! After this unnerving encounter Virgil reported back to his friends at the hotel.

Next morning, while  Matthew, Vincente and Dan went on the studio tour, Virgil went to the Library to see what else he might find out about the Hotethk and Devils Canyon. There wasn't much, but apart from report of several disappearances, attacks by mountain lions and unfortunate fatalities from landslides in the area over the years, he discovered a monograph titled Kinship Inheritance And Worship In the Mojave Desert, 1804-1900 which had some interesting information. The study states that the Hotethk were outcasts banished by the Hopi.Other tribes hated the Hotethk because they also worshipped a corn/fertility god called the “Black Beast” who required cannibalism as part of its rites. They also worshipped Yig, Father of Serpents. In the mid-nineteenth century the Hotethks had extended contact with a missionary named Oliver Whateley. Whateley belonged to an organization called the Lords of the Silver Twilight, about which the author can only provide the name. Instead of turning the Hotethk from their cruel religion, however, Whateley perversely encouraged the Hotethks and provided artifacts and knowledge that strengthened their connection with the Black Beast and with Yig. The Hotethk vanished in 1843. The author conjectures that they died of smallpox, but neighboring tribes believed that the Hotethk had found a way to live on in ghostly form. In this form they could be destroyed only by “burning their souls” while reciting an ancient chant “that came from those who live under the world”. The report offers a transliterated version of the chant but does not discuss its use or otherwise define how to give the chant. 

After lunch, they all paid a visit to Pierre Baptiste, which proved an equally unnerving event. The Investigators discovered that von Varnstein was certain that the same evil presence troubling the production company manifested itself somehow in the completed takes of the movie. He spent hundreds of hours on the set trying different combinations of lenses and filters in an effort to capture whatever strange force was invading the film. In the last few days of his life,Varnstein seemed to have hit upon the right approach,and spent hours wandering through the desert night with a camera, a flash light, and a weird optical device. A week later, he was found dead in the canteen. He had stabbed out his eyes with a pair of forks and then shot himself in the eyes. When pressed about his own experiences on the set however,  Pierre broke down and confessed that he was still tormented by awful dreams about Prince of Babylon. During these dreams, Baptiste sees nothing but the walls and rooms of the Babylon set, and yet this sight filled him with unbearable fear.

Next day the Investigators decided it was time to visit the set, and after breakfast they waited outside the hotel for the  cars Winwood had offered to supply for the trip into the Mojave.

Canyon Of Devils

Several hours later the Investigators departed LA in  brand new Packard Touring cars, that James had signed for. Virgil was at the wheel of the first vehicle while Sebastian took the wheel of the second. The roads were of good quality all the way to San Bernardino, where they decided to shop for  camping equipment, food and other supplies. By the time they finished shopping it was late, so they decided to stay overnight and set off early next morning.

When they set off, bot cars were heavily laden, and started to struggle as the quality of the roads deteriorated severely and the incline increased. Eventually, by the time they reached their destination, after not a few difficulties with one of the cars overheating,  the road had deteriorated to little more than a dirt track.The land suddenly opened before. The road narrowed yet again, as it wound down the side of cliffs perhaps two hundred feet high. Dull brown, spiny, narrow canyons and ravines breached the cliffs. The broad, level valley below was framed by the opposing cliffs, swept with sand dunes like a miniature Sahara. In the centre, rising up like a mirage, thrust walls and battlements, domed mosques and soaring towers. Not far away they could also see more prosaic slope-roofed shacks — once quarters for cast and crew.

As they descended into Devil's Canyon they all began to feel the sense of foreboding and disorientation Baptiste had spoken off as if the cliffs themselves and the oppressive heat was bearing down on them. As they parked near one of the shacks it was clear that the Prince of Babylon sets had fallen into considerable decay in the months since they were last used. Most of the valuable decorations departed with the film company, leaving hundreds of yards of tattered and flapping walls, and bare interior rooms without ceilings. The largest complete structure (that is, a full building rather than false-fronts and propped-up was a fantasy palace.

As they searched the deserted sets and shacks, the ominous foreboding grew stronger and several times they though they saw movement in the shadows or heard strange, threatening, guttural voices speaking an unknown language. Eventually, they set up tents in the courtyard of the palace set and settled down to an uneasy nights rest.

Next morning to their horror they discovered that both the cars had been vandalised in the night, with engine components scattered around the area. As the Investigators continued their search of the set area, Virgil found a create in one of the tin storage sheds which contained three of von Varnstein’s strange lenses, an unloaded .22 rifle, and two functioning flashlights. Suddenly the silence of the deserted set was broken by a scream of agony from Matthew as someone unseen stabbed him in the back!

As Dan and the others rushed to give aid Sebastian hung back and spotted what looked like footprints in the sand moving away from the area, though there was nobody there! he leaped forward fists swinging ... through empty air. He paused for a second, then fell back in agony as two blows from nowhere ripped gouts of flesh from his chest!

Once Dan had patched the wounded up as best he could, Mathews stubbornly continued the search resolving to head up the canyon trail to where presumably the abandoned Hotethk village lay. Somewhat reluctantly Vincente, Dan and James accompanied him. It was fortunate they had, as when Matthew, James immediately behind him,  headed down the narrowest part of the canyon, it seemed like half the hillside fell upon them! Once they had dug the unfortunate pastor out, they carried him back to the movie set, where Dan once again patched him up.

They spent the afternoon resting and pondering their next move against seemingly invisible assailants. Looking through the strange lenses Virgil had found did little other that cast everything in a distorted blue haze, until they suddenly remembered what Baptiste had told them - " In the last few days of his life,Varnstein seemed to have hit upon the right approach,and spent hours wandering through the desert night with a camera, a flash light, and a weird optical device."

As the sun set, they fastened flashlights to the rear of the lenses. It was a somewhat unwieldy arrangement, but produced a strange and somehow disconcerting beam of blue light. They set out up the canyon. While Sebastian, Vincente and Matthew covered them, Dan, Virgil and James led the way carrying the lenses. They  swept the area before them continuously like searchlights. Eventually they reached ancient village of the Hotethk,  situated in a narrow canyon about a quarter of a mile from the Babylon set.

Their blue light sweeping constantly the Investigators quickly discovered what von Varnstein had! The blue light revealed their invisible assailants -  are large, hideous bipeds six or seven feet in height. Rubbery, jet-black skin covered their bodies.Their eyes were large and red, and their mouths were wide and filled with rows of shark-like teeth. Their long, tapering noses matched their general appearance — horribly thin and reedy with the exception of a distended abdomen. Their limbs terminate in gross appendages. While their feet resemble those of men, their hands are huge, crab-like pincers.

Gunfire erupted in the night as they Investigate cleared the ruins of the now-visible monstrosities that haunted them, making their way to the ruins of a large lodge. There behind a weathered serpentine statue they found a shaft leading down to a cave with pictogram covered walls. The cave was guarded by a large snake which struck at Virgil before being hit, and blown apart by a fusillade of shots. Fortunately Dan had come to the desert supplied with anti-venom! An attack by a final invisible monstrosity resulted in the near-death of Matthew, but Dan once more was able to staunch his wounds.]

Searching through the ashes of the fire-pit the Investigators discovered a large stone slab, covered in pictograms that were reminiscent of those on the R'lyheh Disk. Lifting the stone slab, they discovered six Kachina dolls beneath. Recalling the details about the Hotethk practices recorded in In Old California and the monograph  Virgil had found in the library in LA,  James lit a fire and burned the dolls, reciting the chant.