After her stirring speech, Kate Hennisson opened the floor to a question-and-answer session, providing frank information about Orpheus Group, the Board of Directors, and Orpheus Group's predecessor, Eurydice.
After the conference, Hennisson adjourned to have a private meeting with Agents MacMillian, McGee, Watts, Herschler, and Morrisson. Also attending was Senior Agent Holland Lane, a long-time employee who had found himself sidelined during Tad Eccles' era of leadership. As the first order of business, Kate promoted all of the Agents (except Lane) to Senior Agent, in recognition of their service and loyalty to her and to the company. Second, she informed them that Agent Markham had elected to leave the company, and introduced the others to Lane. Finally, she informed them that their first step in toppling the pigment trade would be to track down and apprehend the poisoner responsible for over 200 deaths at the Dockside rave two days ago.
Daniel Watts was still in custody beneath Orpheus Group Headquarters, so the Agents decided to start with him. At the entrance to the interrogation room, they found Doug Sands arguing with Walter Hanley, demanding an opportunity to question Watts. Hanley, perhaps wisely, would not let him.
Although initially reluctant to talk, Daniel Watts eventually crumbled under intense questioning from Agents Morrisson and Lane, and emanation-enhanced psychological pressure from Daniel's older brother Michael Watts. Daniel confessed that he had skimmed a small amount of pigment from a large shipment being handled by Louis Pascal, a large-scale dealer operating out of an auto repair shop in the Gardens.
The team immediately traveled to Pascal's shop. They found it ransacked, the employees gunned down in a back room. Pascal himself was in his office, slumped back in his chair, his corpse crawling with 10-inch-long centipedes. The Agents instantly recognized this as the signature of the ghost-hitman Rook.
Shortly thereafter, Hennisson arrived with a new recruit, Matthew Podlowski. Podlowski had developed a new emanation ability: pre- and postcognitive telemetry. Touching Pascal's corpse, Podlowski was able to view a moment from Pascal's past when he had written down an address for the delivery of several large shipments of pigment.
While the Agents inside were occupied, Doug Sands arrived and attempted to enter the garage. Agent McGee managed to dissuade him, and Sands, chagrined, returned home.
Research revealed that the address belonged to one Lester Freed, a recluse living in one of the poorer districts of Eastside. Agent Herschler inhabited the shabby bungalow and found Freed sitting alone in his bedroom, contentedly reading de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. The house was littered with packing materials, and the kitchen had the appearance of a ruined chemistry lab. Agent McGee approached the front door in corpus and knocked, while the others entered the house in spiritus and followed Freed closely as he went to answer.
Hoping to take Freed peacefully, McGee made up a story to try to gain access to the house. At first Freed balked, but then he glanced over McGee's shoulder and suddenly recoiled, his eyes wide with horror.
Before McGee could turn around, something huge shoved him out of the way and charged into the front hall. It was a hulking, black-skinned monster, its face consumed by a howling, toothless mouth, its arms ending in ragged stumps with chipped and rusty machete blades protruding from the torn, raw meat. Though its appearance suggested some variety of spectre, the thing was solid — it had knocked McGee aside like a toy, and seemed bent on attacking Freed.
Agent MacMillian morphosed herself into a solid barrier, interposing herself between the creature and its target. Agent Morrisson likewise transformed himself, taking a grotesque form of his own imagination and facing off against the machete-handed beast.
Agent McGee, recovering quickly, drew his pistol and unloaded several rounds of ghost-shot ammunition into the creature's back. The creature slumped and began to shrink. Its features changed — and in a few moments Doug Sands was kneeling in the front hall of the house, ectoplasm pouring from the holes in his spirit-form. Suddenly, his silver cord jerked taut and whisked him away.
Quickly the Agents bundled Freed into their van and rushed him back to Headquarters. Deep-puppeteering memory scans revealed Freed to be little more than a simple-minded sociopath who had lived most of his adult life in seclusion, satisfying his darker urges by capturing and poisoning the occasional stray dog. Several months ago he began receiving visititations from ghosts. They gave hiim instructions, told him what chemicals and equipment to order and how to assemble it. He received the pigment shipment in the mail and cut it with rat poison in his kitchen, then gave it to the young men who came to retrieve it. He never questioned his spirit visitors. He knew nothing of Bishop, or NextWorld, or Terrel & Squib Pharmaceuticals. He considered the poisoning his greatest "work," and believed that angels had inspired him to do it. He was the perfect stooge.
The only clues were found after a thorough search of Freed's house by Agents Lane and Morrisson. Lane found several wax-paper food wrappers, apparently used as packing material, bearing the logo of Farther Shores Amusement Park. Morrisson, meanwhile, discovered a pamphlet for the Church of the Children of the Embracing Mother on Freed's nightstand.
Upon learning of Doug Sands' involvement, Walter Hanley had rushed to his house and found him, unconscious and hemorrhaging badly where his spirit form had been shot. Sands was rushed back to Headquarters and put in critical care in the infirmary, under Dr. Neel Shivani's observation.
The nature and cause of Sands' transformation is not yet known.