In the present day, the Orpheus team (consisting of Agents Watts, MacMillian, McGee, Lane, Herschler, and Morrisson, as well as Angela Delafont, Walter Hanley, Jen Li, and Doug Sands were recuperating at the tiny convent of Sister Magrathea. Although most of the team had only minor cuts and bruises, Delafont had seriously injured her neck in the ambush on Yungas Road, and it was decided that she would stay behind at the convent while the rest went ahead to the Terrel & Squib laboratory.
Sister Magrathea explained that she and most of the other women in the convent were members — perhaps the very last — of an ancient cult known as the Benandanti, able to see ghosts and, to a limited extent, project due to having been born with a caul. They had been keeping tabs on the spectres that occasionally escaped from the ruins nearby for years now, and were aware of the laboratory facility there. Although they could not help directly, they could show the Agents a secret approach to the ruins and give them some information about what they would encounter there.
"Beware of their leader, a man named Takeichi," warned Sister Magrathea. "He is no longer human." When the Agents asked her to explain further, she said only, that the being calling itself Takeishi was something to which ordinary spectres were "merely fingers."
Before the Agents left the convent, MacMillian had a private word with her former mentor. "Am I doing the right thing?"
"My child," said the old woman, "Do you feel strong and brave? Do you feel righteous and sure of yourself? Are you happy with the lot life has dealt you thus far?"
Emma shook her head. "No."
Sister Magrathea smiled and patted her shoulder. "Then you are probably doing the right thing."
Taking the path indicated on Sister Magrathea's map, the Agent team soon found themselves at the edge of a wide clearing at the base of some cliffs. Directly ahead of them was a large, tilled field of something that looked like coca plants, bordered on four sides by rough dirt roads. Some distance away, nestled under the cliffs, was a complex of ancient, indiginous ruins, a labyrinth of crumbling stone walls open to the sky.
About a dozen men armed with submachine guns and shotguns surrounded the field. Most of them were standing near several large metal cages on wheeled platforms, positioned at regular intervals around the field's perimeter. The cages were open an empty, but those Agents who were projected or wearing kirlian imaging goggles could see a strange shimmering on the surface of the metal, and hear an unearthly moaning coming from the bars.
Also visible to those able to see into the ghostly realm were roughly twenty spectres milling about in the middle of the field. To the onlooking Agents' amazement, the spectres were attacking each other viciously, tearing into each other with talons and fangs in a huge, bloody free-for-all. As they fought, black ichor spurted from their wounds and splashed onto the plants surrounding them. The substance soaked in through the leaves and the soil, slowly turning the plants pitch black. With a shock, the Agents realized that they were watching the making of pigment; the elusive "secret ingredient" that Orpheus' science department had never been able to isolate.
Without warning, Doug Sands transformed into his monstrous form and sprinted straight for the field, into the middle of the spectre melee.
A pitched, chaotic battle immediately ensued. Agent Li followed Sands and used her Conflagration ability to set fire to the pigment crop, simultaneously in the spirit world and physically. Black smoke began billowing out over the field. Agents Herschler, Watts, and MacMillian ran to take care of the guards surrounding the field. Agents Lane and Morrisson went for the ruins complex, followed closely by Agent McGee and Walter Hanley, who had both elected to remain physically in body.
Herschler puppeteered one of the guards and used him to shoot down two more, then ran into the smoke cloud to locate Li. MacMillian used Beckon to disable several guards on the opposite side of the field, then Intimate to cause them to throw their guns down. Meanwhile, Sands continued to butcher spectre after spectre in the center of the field. He was soaked with spectral ichor, and the ground at his feet was swampy with it. Agents near the field began to notice a strange phenomenon: although the ground was clearly level, it began to feel like it was sloped down towards the center of the field, and a strange optical illusion around the crowd of spectres made it look as though the fight were taking place in the bottom of a shallow but quickly deepening depression.
Lane and Morrisson encountered several more guards running out from a central courtyard. Morrisson morphosed himself into a horrific monster, manifested physically, and mauled one guard to death; Agent McGee shot the other one as he cowered in fear. In the center of the courtyard was a stairway leading underground. The Agents came to a wide chamber supported by several carved pillars. Four projecting spirits carrying enshrouded firearms immediately moved to intercept, but between Morrisson's Dirge ability and McGee's submachine gun loaded with ghost-shot ammo, the Orpheus team made short work of the opposition. At one point, Agent Lane targeted one of the enemy projectors with a Pandemonium effect, tapping into his spite to provide the necessary energy. Instead of the ordinary time-dilation he expected, the spite-fueled power created a devastating spatial warping that crippled the projector.
With the last of the guards defeated, the team focused their attention on the heavy steel doors installed at the far end of the chamber. McGee began hotwiring the electronic lock, while Lane phased through the door to reconnoiter.
What he found beyond the doors was a charnel house. The entire staff of the laboratory complex had been slaughtered, their abdomens and skulls burst open, the hallways flooded inch-deep in blood and viscera. At the far end of the main hallway was a glass-paneled lab door still lit from the inside. The Agents could see the shadow of a person moving inside.
McGee got the main door open and the team crept quietly down the hall. Inside the lab, a short, dark-haired man stood with his back to the door, quietly mixing some chemicals. Assuming this was Takeichi and not wanting to take any chances with a direct confrontation, McGee fired a short burst of black bullets directly into the scientist's back.
The man did not so much as flinch. "If you'll just be patient," he sighed, "I'm nearly finished here."
McGee immediately rushed him. Takeichi turned, casually grabbed McGee by the throat, and lifted him from the ground. Watts (who had flickered in from outside) attempted to grasp and enshroud the flask he was holding, but a thick tentacle of black ectoplasm slid from Takeichi's stomach and impaled McGee like a bug on a pin.
"I'll admit, you got hear sooner than I thought you would, even taking into account the bit of mopping up I did for you," said Takeichi. "But as always, it's done you no good. Once again, you've spent so much time focused on the threat immediately before you, you've neglected to see the big picture."
Takeichi then hurled McGee and Watts across the room and poured the chemical he was holding into a large Erlenmeyer flask full of pigment. It immediately began to bubble and crystallize. "You might want to stand back, by the way," he said. "This body has had terminal throat cancer for the last ten years; I've been the only thing holding the tumors back." With that, an enormous cloud of black ectoplasm poured out of Takeichi's body, coalesced in the center of the room, and then drained out through a dark crack in reality. Takeichi swayed on his feet, looking dazed. He croaked, "How many years has it been?"
And then a multitude of black, pus-filled tumors swelled up inside the flesh of his throat and burst. Takeichi collapsed, choking to death on his own bile and lymph.
The Agents quickly recovered themselves and searched the lab. The pigment that Takeichi — or the thing possessing Takeichi's body — had poured chemicals into was destroyed, rendered down to a hard, white residue. All the other pigment samples were similarly contaminated. All the notes and equipment had been destroyed. The entire lab had been scuttled.
On Takeichi's desk they found one item of interest. It was an old photograph taken in the early 90s, of several men wearing lab coats over business suits posing together at a ground-breaking ceremony. One of the men was Takeichi. Another was recognizable as Holwood Angler. A billboard behind them advertised the future site of Eurydice Corporation.
When they returned to the field outside, Doug Sands stood alone. He had single-handedly slaughtered almost twenty spectres. He had returned to his human form, although elements of his monstrous form continued to flicker in and out of visibility, as though he was having difficulty controlling his appearance. He stood at the center of the field, at the edge of a black, swirling hole that had opened up in the ground.
"I'm so tired," Doug cried. The others tried to call him back from the edge, but he shook his head. "I hear them whispering to me all the time, now," he said. "They tell me that they're like me. That they know how I feel. And it would feel so good to just go down there and join them."
Doug started to step out over the void. Watts flickered in and tried to grab him. Doug twisted in his grip, and suddenly Watts found himself impaled on a rusty machete blade.
"I'm sorry man," whispered Doug, shifting finally into the shape of the monster. He lifted Watts high on his blade-ended arm, and then flung him away, several yards from the hole. Then he spread his arms wide and jumped in.
The hole started to collapse. The loose soil and plants were being dragged into it as space-time in the spirit realm attempted to seal itself over the abominable wound. Agent Lane grabbed Watt's limp and near-empty corpus and dragged him to safety as the entire field was drawn into nothingness and pinched closed.
In the real world, the field of pigment plants was now nothing but smoldering ashes.
They made their way back to the convent. The nuns had covered Doug's body with a sheet.
The plane ride home was quiet and uneventful. Most of the Agents sat by themselves, staring out the windows, contemplating their latest victory and what it had cost them.
In a back row, Agent Herschler checked his voicemail.
"Hi Bob, this is Phil," came the voice of Phillip Nash. "I guess I'm glad you finally decided to come play ball with us. I'm just disappointed you had to be such an asshole about it. I don't know how you figured out who my boss is, but going over my head straight to him sure did the trick. Now he's happy and I look like a chump. I'd guess you put my next promotion back by about a year. My favorite part was how you let me believe you were going to Bolivia with the rest of your crew, but the whole time you were staying back here. That was pretty slick. Well, the boys upstairs say they have everything they need now to move ahead, so I don't need to bother you anymore. Believe me, no one's happier about that than I am. Good-bye, Bob. Don't call me."
Then a click as he hung up. There were no more messages.