Paranormal stuff in New Orleans. What else is new?

Down in the deep south, in Louisiana, there had been many reports of grave robbings over the course of the last two months. It seemed somebody was taking the Halloween spirit way too seriously. After weeks of speculation, authorities had come to the conclusion that these cases were most likely linked. In each case the cemeteries had only recent additions stolen from them. Fresh corpses that were still intact. What kind of sick people were they?

In the basement of a trinket shop in New Orleans, the shopowner and some of his friends were gathered together for a night of fun. The bad part was their definition of fun in this case was attempting to reanimate corpses. The people down in that basement were not interested in the commercialization of voodoo that led to many tourist attractions in this part of the country. The owner felt a twinge of shame since he made a living due to this modern way of life. At least the money he made from it helped fund all of this. No, this wasn't a joke to them. They intended to be the real deal. To do this, they had spent the last few weeks traversing the region and ransacking graveyards to acquire dozens of fresh corpses. If this ritual they planned to perform tonight was successful, one of these corpses would return to life as a mindless puppet, or zombie as many would refer to such a thing as. They had spent years studying the religion and honoring its ways.

A shrine stood in the corner and they stood in a circle around a coffin that contained the very first body they had taken. If this ritual were successful the corpse would rise from the coffin and serve their purpose. They performed the ritual, and waited, and waited. Nothing was happening. They had done something wrong, but knew not what it was.

"Okay. Why isn't it working?" one of them, the shopowner finally spoke up after a long pause.

"It should have worked. Hang on." another said as he walked up to the coffin and opened it up to take a look at the corpse that should have been reanimated. It was as dead as ever though. How disappointing. "It's not doing anything."

"So it didn't work. Are you sure the chemicals were mixed together right?" he asked of a specific member of the group.

That particular member paused before responding. "Yeah, I'm sure. We must have done something wrong. I know someone who could help that won't ask too many questions. Perhaps we could give it a try." he suggested. After much discussion they agreed to bring in somebody who could help provided they weren't informed on their real activities.

Days later somebody flew down to New Orleans to meet with one of the members. That person was Ailill Hale. He had gotten a call from an old acquaintence of his asking for his expertise. It did nto require much persuasion to get him to come down here. That and he just wanted an excuse to get away from his family for a bit. The person who had called him down was a man by the name of Carl Remlii. The two of them had met a few years back and gotten along well and had stayed in touch. They met at the airport and talked about various things on the cab ride to their destination. Carl brought Ailill to the little trinket shop in the part of the city where even Mardi Gras partiers would avoid. They went down into the basement together where the setup for the ritual was. The bodies had been moved to various locations in the meantime to avoid suspicion.

"So, you weren't kidding. You really are practicing voodoo." Ailill said as he looked over what was assembled down here.

"Yes, well mostly. I have a reason for all of this." Carl said slowly.

"You don't have to explain. I can understand an interest or passion." Ailill stated as he gave him a slight smile.

"It's not really a passion. The thing is, I have a disease. One that modern medicine cannot cure." Carl said without an ounce of truth. This lie was what him and the others came up with to use as a cover story.

"I see. So you turned to this to cure yourself?" Ailill responded, the smile gone from his face.

"Yes. I don't have many options, and I'm not ready to die yet. So I turned to voodoo. Well, hoodoo to be more specific. It's a practice of healing, and one I think can heal me. But I've been unable to make it work. You think you can help?" Carl asked sadly. He was growing displeased with this lie he was telling, but his desire to complete the ritual kept it going.

"I'll see what I can do." Ailill said before getting to work.

As this was going on, some of the rest of the voodoo cult continued their grave robbing excursions. Only this time, the local police were prepared enough to notice them. They stuffed the coffin into the back of the van and took off. The police were not far behind. They drove around in circles for the longest time until they were sure they had lost the pursuing cops. Once they were sure that they had lost them, they decided to head back towards their hiding place. Suddenly a noise was heard in the back of their van. Next thing they knew, the coffin was opened from the inside and the person inside was crawling out of it. They weren't the only one doing so. All of those stolen bodies had been reanimated and had been unleashed on the city.

The Blue Phantom was beginning to get tired of the screaming. After a long night of trying to build a promethean-style monster he just didn't want to lose out on his eight hours. But at six in the morning it was all help me this or more commonly zombie that. These people were so selfish here he was trying to sleep and everyone was hollering the night away without a care in the world. Did they not realise that if they could see a properly reanimated corpse that they would be dead anyway. They should know that(ooc is my OCC stat high enough) the only way to kill a zombie is by dousing it in salt. It was their fault for not reading up these idiots were still trying to shoot at the head how daft can they be that only works for the brain virus kind and these were so obviously not. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered.

But enough of getting sidetracked he thought it's time I got some........ dammit. He frantically searched around the small flat he was staying but he couldn't find it. Where was his money?

What's the point of coming to louisana if you're not gonna steal some money. Well you might come for some food or maybe the Occult ingredients but that was besides the point he was going to have to go out in this shitstorm and try and get his money back and without any minions either this was going to be a long day.
Note to self stop drinking so much at Jacks.

Louisiana wasn't the most common place for him to be, but for this week he could make an exception. It wasn't a secret, why he came to this place. He could think of fewer places to read up and become more enlightened to the aspects of that good old fashioned "Louisiana Voodoo" and it's heritage than in the very place in which it was established. Though established seemed like an improper words, as Hoodoo and Voodoo had both been around since longer than the united States has been a country. But it was indeed a fascinating religion, and an even more astounding practice. But moreover it held secrets, answers probably. Inevitable it held even more questions which is perhaps what he looked forward too most of all. There was a sweet sense of satisfaction when you though of a new question, when you desired more knowledge. but that probably best describes the kind of life he's led for the past eight months.

  Sitting in his hotel room at the desk he was surrounded by text and writings on the religions and the practices of the so called magics. Perhaps the one answer he desired above all others was in here, hidden and buried beneath the ruins and scorn of time. Perhaps he could unearth it. Perhaps not. But he did know that he would get nowhere if his ever annoying companion didn't stop bouncing that ball off of the wall.

"Cas, enough." He commanded without taking his gaze from the book. The noise of the ball on the wall had ceased and he could feel the gaze of his loyal "bodyguard" upon him. He wasn't sure why they took these ridiculous names. For Silus him assuming the name "Lucifer" only made sense. Actually it didn't because it had something to do with the meaning of his name in their language being a direct translation to "Light Bringer" but it sounded like the human name Silus. Yancey on the other hand was just a body guard with an angelic like theme so he picked the name "Castiel" like he were some form of Misha Collins wannabe.

"Hey Si. I got a question." The familiar voice came in reply. He could only place his hands down upon the book and look to his companion as he gave no indication of his annoyance. When he looked up he took note that "Cas" was no longer on his own bed, but rather looking out the window. "Uhm... how do you kill a Zombie?" Silus could faintly hear screams as his brow furrowed. Had he been so lost in thought and engrossed in this magic that he was missing the screams of the innocent? Not that he felt bad, there wasn't much he could really do for them given his current condition. Silus stood up and walked over to the window and sighed as he saw people running from a deranged corpse gimping through the parking lot.

 "Lots of lore. Many people say you need salt, many people say you need to burn it. There are a few that say you need to feed it to wild dogs, and fewer say you need to pin it back into it's own grave." Silus explained as he listed off a few of the "methods" believed to deal with a zombie. Cas looked to him with wide, unremarkable hazel eyes. "I say blast it with holy light and see what happens." he ordered before pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, grabbing his leather jacket off the chair, grabbing the car keys and heading towards the door.

 "Wait where are you going!?" Cas called out, almost as if he were protesting Silus' departure. Not that Silus cared.

  "Looking for answers." He called behind him as he made his way to the elevator, then to the parking lot, then into their rental car. Turning the key over the car grumbles as he put it in reverse and drove off. His destination wasn't too far. His first thought was to go to the nearest cemetery.

"I think I did that right. No, I know I did. I hope. Are you feeling any different?" Ailill asked of Carl after completing the ritual that he believed to have been an attempt to cure him of the disease that he was inflicted with. Oh, if only he knew. Things would get so bad.

"I think I do." Carl answered without being sure. He needed to get in touch with one of the others to find out if it had actually worked. He just didn't know how without making Ailill suspicious. They hadn't discussed what to do about their expert once the ritual was complete. A mistake on their part. They had been so impatient that they left holes in their plan. "I suppose I." he stopped talking to think some more.

"Hmm? Look, if it didn't work, we could try something else. I could fly you up to Chicago where I have a bunch of research books to go through that should lead to something. Are you interested?" he asked thinking that that ritual had not done a thing. Before Carl had a chance to even consider it, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked to see who it was. The caller ID told him it was one of his fellow members of their voodoo cult. This had to be good news. They wouldn't call him unless it wasn't.

"Hang on. I have to take this." Carl said before walking to the other side of the room to take the call. "Hello. What is it?"

"It worked. All the bodies we grabbed have been reawakened. Now we just need to gain control over them. We're ready to come back. Is your expert still there?"

Carl looked over his shoulder back at Ailill. Ailill was busy examining the stand and wasn't paying him any attention. "Yeah, he's still here. I don't know how I'm going to get rid of him so quickly though. I'll see what I can do though." he hung up and stood there for a moment to think. A thought came to him. Thank him and offer to drive him to a hotel so he could stay there for the night and return home tomorrow. He felt that would work. Carl walked back over to Ailill to tell him that. "I'm feeling better actually. I think it worked. How about I take you to a hotel. I'll pay if you need me to."

Ailill didn't respond, but continued to peruse through the stuff gathered down in that basement. Carl was concerned about this. "Is something wrong?" he asked feeling as if he already knew the answer. Was he suspicious? Did he know?

"This here. This isn't for healing somebody. It's for something else. What is that something else?" he asked sounding a bit aggravated.

"I don't know what you mean. I assure you it's mean't for hoodoo practices." Carl said. Dammit, now what? How long could he lie?

The sound of screaming could be heard from above as the front door was burst through. Ailill looked at Carl suspiciously before making his way up the stairs. Carl followed him and when they reached the shop they saw one of the other voodoo cult members attempting to fend off a reanimated corpse. A few more could be seen out in the street chasing after people.

While reanimated corpses were fun, especially as close to Halloween as this, he wasn't sure that he would care enough to call himself amused. It actually just brought more questions to his mind to be honest. The car let out a nice purr as he pulled in between yellow lines and turned the headlights off before looking about. There was nothing in his immediate vicinity that posed any true threat, so now he could collect his thoughts and take a moment to process the information he had gathered.

   Spirits of the dead returning to their corporeal and forms perhaps. Typical zombies of souls returned into the decomposed bodies through a catalyst of sorts. Though the catalyst was the something that was in question. Was it the night? Halloween seemed to be oh so fitting. Was it simply because the veil between this world and the next was so thin? Was that possible? He wouldn't rule out anything until he was absolutely certain of the facts and information on hand. First things first though: how to kill the things.

  Entering back into his rented vehicle he put the phone to his ear and drove as streetlight after streetlight flashed up his spectacles. The phone rang and rang for a bit, nothing really to worry about. But the ringing just kept going, and going. If he actually had a personality left he'd be racked with worry and guilt. Fortunately at this time he had more pressing matters on hand than worrying over Castiel.

"Just a second Luc." Cas said over the phone, the word "Luc" coming off rather similarly to "loose". He waited a moment as he heard a gut twisting scream that caused the hair on his neck to stand on end. Finally there was the slightly labored breathing on the other side of the line. "Alright, that makes five. What'd ya find Luci?"

"I didn't even look yet. Tell me, the the light working?" He inquired with a sense of haste, though to his own irritation his ever oblivious companion seemed to miss the cue.

"It works yeah. Why? I AM supposed to be using it right?" Cas asked, worry and hesitation heavy within his tone.

"Because I have an idea of what to do about these Zombies. Cas, you're new orders are to round up any of them that you can. If you need to destroy them then make sure you obliterate the entire body. Zombie's about to grab you." He concluded the little command with the fair warning that he had anticipated. To be honest he had no form of superpower available to hium to anticipate it... other than the fact he knew his companion better than anyone else, and a Zombie to be alive after part of it's body was destroyed was bound to happen as surely as his next breath.

"Wait wh-aaaah Jesus!" Was all that could be heard as Silus pressed the red button to end the call. Silus then turned back to his phone and began pressing the buttons with small clicks. He found this to be simple, perhaps too simple, but simple enough that he had expected some form of "lead" of sorts.

 "Sadrith. Locate the nearest place I might fin information on Hoodoo or Voodoo" Silus requested before looking for a library of sorts.

In the trinket shop, in New Orleans, on Halloween night, two young men stood there witnessing something one expected and had hoped for, and the other was curious and rather aggravated about. Before them and elsewhere, some stolen corpses had been brought back to life, and now they were rampaging through the streets. Ailill Hale saw the reanimated corpses and the answer as to why this was happening came to him near instantly. He had been tricked, tricked into bringing these things into being by somebody he thought he considered a friend. Guess he wasn't one after all. How unfortunate.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you?" Ailill said to Carl accostingly as he turned towards him. He saw him take a step back as he looked taken back like what Ailill said had been some unfounded accusation.

"I don't know what you mean. I don't even know what's going on." Carl responded with a shaking voice. He had lost the ability to smoothly lie. Were their plans ruined? No, they could recover from this minor setback.

"You studied voodoo and you don't know what's going on? I doubt that. That spell was for resurrecting the dead. These things are what you called me down here for. Thing is, you can't control them, so they're going to just run around attacking people." He stated somewhat spitefully, somewhat mockingly. Ailill was not pleased with this turn of events. He went back to the stairs and down to the basement. Carl followed calling after him. "What are you doing? Why are you going back down there?"

Ailill pulled out a dagger and put it up to Carl's chest. "Don't move. Now tell me where the book you used to find out what you know is." he told him with not an ounce of patience in his voice. Carl stayed quiet as he looked at the dagger being held an inch from his chest. "I said tell me." Ailill shouted at him. Carl slowly pointed to a book lying on a desk across the room.

Ailill slowly backed away from Carl and walked over towards the desk to grab the book. As soon as he had the chance, Carl ran back up the stairs to alert the others. Ailill wanted to go after him, but had more pressing matters to deal with. He needed to figure out how to get rid of these zombies that were now running around. After all, he had kind of helped cause this all to happen. Ailill perused through the book, searching for anything on how to get rid of them. Another spell to negate the effects of the first would help. He was down there reading for a good ten minutes before finding something. A spell that would undo the resurrection spell he had cast earlier. He could tell it was one he could perform. The problem was that some materials were required, and the corpses had to be within a specific range in order to be affected by it. Ailill tagged the page and looked around the basement to see what was down there. After a few more minutes of searching he had most of the things he'd need. A couple of things were missing though. He knew not where he'd find those things, and what was worse was that he could hear activity upstairs. Sounds like Carl had called in for help. Ailill readied his weapon as he ran back upstairs. The door to the basement opened and a few cloaked men were standing there. Ailill fired a blast of magical energy to clear them out of the way and ran past them out into the streets. He kept moving until he got some distance from them. He found himself standing outside of a library with one of the corpses walking towards two people a bit down the road.

Silus found himself ever curious as he turned to the Library, finding nothing around nor near him that looked overly dead. He stepped out and turned to look for anyone or anything of note. Finding none he sighed, his breath faintly visible in the crisp October air. He quickly turned and smashed right into someone. He stepped back with eyes forced shut and his lips pressed into an unamused line as they opened and his dopey companion stood there smiling. Silus sighed as he shook his head and tried to step around.

  "Zombie apocalypse and you go to the library? Pffft. Nerd." Cas teased. For all intensive purposes he was joking, but Silus didn't seem to care much. Probably because he was so hell-bent on getting to the library to figure out what this all means. Though there was a small matter of a reanimated corpse trailing him. Cas flourished his wrist and a streetlight's beams turned laser as they bent to cut the things legs. With that done he would run and quite easily catch up to Silus before stepping a bit in front of him. Apparently someone had already beat them there. To the library, that is. Cas held his hand up and light began to glow off of it, as if perhaps a warning to the man. "Don't move! Are yo-OW!" He yelped, being interrupted in mid sentence by Silus swatting him on the back of his head with a book.

 "Castiel! Don't be foolish. Light will attract them and I rather like living." Silus said, volume of his voice increasing slightly as he walked away towards the front door of the library. He glanced at Ailill as he past, just long enough to say "Excuse him."

 "I-I just wanted to know if he was infected." Cas whined a little, as he looked to Ailill with a wary gaze.

  "What did I just say about being foolish? It's not an infection. It's half of a person soul brought back to a degenerated body. That's not exactly infectious. This is magic, likely ritualistic in nature." He said as he opened the book he brought with him and sighed as he opened the book, a gentle silk ribbon as a place holder. "Cas, open this place for me, we need to hurry." He said as he sighed, worry ever so faintly in his voice as he looked to the picture within the book while Castiel seemed to move towards the library door.

Ailill stood outside a library trying to think of a way to find the items he would need to perform the spell that would reverse the one he had unknowingly cast to bring about this zombie apocalypse. The problem was that he did not know the area well enough. Oh New Orleans, however would you be navigated. Hopefully the stuff was at least nearby. Maybe the library would have a directory on local businesses. This was the kind of area that would have a place with those things available. Ailill attempted to open the door to the library, but found it was locked. Why wouldn't it be at this time of night? Looks like he was going to have to break in to the place. Ailill put his hand against the glass as he prepared to blast straight through it in order to enter the place when something hit him. He turned to see that those two guys he had just seen attempting to fend off some of the corpses had come towards him. Perhaps they thought they needed to rescue him or were just trying to use the library as a shelter. He was prepared to just ignore them before he heard what they were saying.

Hearing these random two individuals talking about the corpses in a fashion that suggested they at least knew some of what they were doing gave him an idea. Perhaps he could use their assistance in getting rid of these things. He was about to address them to make a suggestion to them somehow when one of them apparently decided to consider him a threat and pointed a glowing hand at him. Ailill sighed briefly as he reached for a weapon. He grabbed his dagger as the one person hit glowy hands in the back of the head with a book to stop him. Ailill kept hold of the dagger as he finally said something to them. "It's a ritual alright. I would know. I'm the one who cast it." he told them and let it sink in briefly before getting the library door open. "Get inside, now." he said to them both as he walked in.

Ailill looked around the library as he ventured forth trying to get an idea of where anything of use might be. "Where could a directory be?" he said aloud as he turned back to the door to see if they followed him in. "Are you two from around here by any chance? If you are, where might I find an ample amount of charcoal and anti-venom?"

They were commanded to get in the library. While Silus would have been offended, he truly didn't care. He followed the command because it was a rational one, and one that actually furthered his own goal at the moment. Of course Cas looked to him to make sure they were still going along with the plan on hand. Silus was most interested in the reasoning for this man having brought back the dead. But the origins of the problems were not anywhere near as important as dealing with the problem on hand. The man seemed to ask about the library directory. Silus couldn't help but wonder what exactly he would need that for, though it wasn't really his place to question or really even care why someone needed it. He had been here before and the directory was something he had taken advantage of before hand, thus he had all those books in his hotel room. Silus went over to a nearby desk and pulled out four drawers packed with indexing and inventory cards that would reveal the location of any book needed. Of course there were listings of nearby organizations and phone books as well.

"Directory over here." Silus said in reply, unsure the man was even asking or musing aloud. "We got a couple of the books of Voodoo and Hoodoo in the car. Castiel, fetch them please." Silus called out as he made his way back towards the door. The man had some interesting ingredients in request, though one Silus was unsure of to be honest. That one of course being the anti-venom.

"We aren't from around here. I'm not sure how much you need of either of those things but I tend to dabble in a bit of elixirs and things of that nature. As far as Charcoal goes I'd say have someone burn down a tree, and anti-venom I tend to carry some around, though I doubt it will be enough. The Hospital may have some though. When Cas comes back I'll have him fetch the trunk and then you can have him gather whatever you need." Silus said to Ailill, initially answering his question before hoping the individual had enough patience to hear the remainder of the comment out.

"Got 'em Luci." Cas said as he held several books in arm as he set them down on the receptionist counter.

"Thanks, now do me a favor and bring in my alchemy trunk. There's anti-venom in there." He replied before looking to Ailill. "What kind of anti-venom do you need. Black widow, copperhead? Silus asked to Ailill before he continued to make his way towards the location where he found the books when he fist began his research.

"You're welcome to help yourself to the contents of my alchemy trunk. The only charcoal I have is from a Sacred Sylvan Elder. I regret to say I am using said piece of charcoal as soon as he brings the trunk in." Silus said as he returned from his little area of books and made his way to the front door. Castiel grunted as he let the large trunk down to the ground, the weight of it proving to be substantial for him.

"Okay, what now?" He asked, willing to help. Silus looked to him then he motioned to Ailill with his head.

"You get him whatever he needs, if he sends you to burn down trees for charcoal, you go do it. If he sends you to the hospital for more anti-venom, you go. Make yourself useful and for the love of God don't instigate anything." He said with a rather plain tone as he pressed his signet ring into the center of the trunk, the sound of the locking mechanisms unhinging and unlatching as Yancey looked to Ailill with a semi-smile before looking away awkwardly.

"U-uhm. Okay. What do I do?" Castiel asked Ailill as he finally came to terms with what was expected of him. Meanwhile Silus was using the rather large piece of sacred sylvan elder charcoal to draw something upon the beige painted wall. It began to appear like a large circle, the beginnings of a ritual mark, or perhaps a ward.

The trunk was left unlocked for Ailill to make good on his offer and take the anti-venom he needed, providing it was there of course. Unfortunately the anti-venom was rather limited to Black Widow, Black Mamba, Copperhead, and Inland Taipan anti-venom. While the anti-venom wasn't in copious amounts the senior-magi had Castiel to do his bidding now, and Silus was now seemingly engrossed with the rather complex marking he was making upon the wall.

Ailill Hale started walking around inside in search of a city directory so that he could go looking for something. Searching for one thing to help find another. How fun. All he was finding was one shelf full of books after another, after another. This was definitely a library alright. Normally Ailill wouldn't mind having plenty of books available to him. He was an avid reader after all. The type to spend hours reading through fictional stories without a care in the world. Oh how he wished he could do that right now instead of this. Just lie in bed comfortably with a cup of tea on hand and something interesting to read that would keep his attention for as long as it took to finish. Unfortunately, he was here, in New Orleans, and had been deceived into resurrecting corpses using voodoo magic. Ailill started to think of how this could be any worse when he heard a voice.

For a second there he had completely forgotten about those two guys he had brought in here with him because he thought they could help him. One of them said that they had found a directory. Exactly what he was looking for. They were already being helpful. How fortunate. "Okay. I'll be over in a moment." He said taking a moment to ponder what he would do once the zombies were destroyed. Carl had not been alone. They would probably attempt to pull something like this again. Since he was a Hale, it was his duty to prevent that. Something would have to be done about them, but what? He would figure that out when the time came. For now, undoing the resurrection spell was his top priority.

Ailill walked over to the desk where one of them stood and immediately started viewing the directory. He read through it as the guy spoke not even noticing the other one had disappeared. He heard of how they were into things like elixirs and such. How nice. What intrigued him was mention of the fact that they had anti-venoms on them. Perhaps the kind he needed was more readily available than he could have hoped. "Alright." he muttered before going back to reading through the directory just in case it wasn't available to him via these two individuals. He stopped reading when their trunk full of alchemical equipment was brought in. He looked through it as they continued to ask him about things. Ailill ignored most of the things said to him as he searched through the contents of the trunk. He saw a few different types of anti-venom present, but none were the one he needed.

"No. None of these. It's not snake venom that needs curing. None of these zombies have to worry about snakebites after all. No, I'm forgetting something. Hang on." Ailill stood up and stepped away for a moment to think. After a pause he started muttering aloud. "It's from a fish. The venom can damage the brain. Pufferfish venom. That's it." he then turned towards them and spoke aloud. "Tetrodotoxin. There was some in the basement of that shop where I performed the spell to complete the resurrection ritual. There's no anti-venom developed for it. I remember that now. I forgot to grab it. We'll need some for the spell to undo the resurrections. The charcoal can dilute the venom. It's a complicated spell to prepare, but fairly simple to execute. The thing is, we'll have to do it at the exact place where the resurrection spell was originally cast. We'll probably have a fight on our hands." Ailill concluded wondering if these two would still be interested in helping him after hearing all of that.

"Pufferfish? Peculiar. I've never known anything to take that for a reagent. Of course it only makes sense when you think about it." Silus said, though only catching that one part of what the man said. Attention to detail and simply not caring to listen gave off the premise that he was ignoring the man mostly. As he finished his drawing upon the wall one could see it was a rather interesting design, one not typically seen, though that was because it was a hybrid of different things. It was an assortment that was drawn perfectly out before he sighed and looked to the small remainder of charcoal he hadn't used.

"There." Silus said as he returned to his alchemical trunk before placing the remnants of the charcoal back in their assigned space. Cas tilted his head and squinted rather seriously as he pondered what he was beholding in his eyes.

"Luci, what is that?" He asked. Silus didn't even look up form his trunk, rather he stood up and removed his glasses before looking to Ailill with his strangely colored eyes.

"It's a ward that's supposed to cover this entire side of the city. If this is hoodoo or voodoo then the last thing we want is a pissed off Psychopomp Loa coming after us for screwing with things." He informed his companion, still trying to take in and make a decision about this strange fellow that suddenly appeared.

"So, enacting this ritual and now you're trying to undo it... The Serpent and the Rainbow style." Silus reviewed this. He had no reason to trust this person, and the beauty of it was that neither him nor this person seemed to care nor want trust. But their goals were aligned. It's highly possible this man wants to take them to the ritual area and then dispatch of them and turn them into more walking corpses, but it was also easily as possible that he'd not succeed.

"It's against my better judgement... but I suppose we'll tag along." Silus said before pulling out a glove and fitting it over his hand. He quickly began to bring his fingers across the surface of the table, leaving a paint-like substance behind. He drew a rather simplistic looking revolver with great haste. Being as artistic as he was it didn't take long, and once he had the concept out he simply reached with his ungloved hand and quite literally pulled a revolver off the table, as if it had been three dimensional this entire time. With a flick of the wrist the gun opened and revealed six bullets loaded. Closing the gun, removing the glove from his hand, and placing his glasses back on his face he looked to Ailill. "Whenever you're ready."

"Yes, pufferfish." Ailill stated to the sense of disbelief he was getting from this guy. Perhaps this one did not know as much about voodoo as he was leading on. This was apart of the basics after all. "Pufferfish venom, otherwise known as Tetrodotoxin, has debilitating effects on the body, especially the organs. One of these organs that can be affected is the brain. Tetrodotoxin has been used in Voodoo since it can leave a person in a near-death state that leaves their brain vulnerable. It's been used as an ingredient in voodoo practices." Ailill concluded his lecture for a moment. He wasn't a fan of having to explain all of this. It felt like a waste of time. Time that could be spent taking action when it came to undoing that spell he had cast that caused all of this. It's not like he needed either of these guys for anything other than muscle for what was upcoming.

Ailill opened up his bag and started searching through it for some stuff that could be of use. He already had his dagger out. He doubted he would need much in terms of weapons. As he searched through the contents of his magical storage space, he listened in on what those two guys were talking about. What he heard led him to believe that he may have been lied to in regards to them claiming to know about voodoo magic. "You guys are idiots." he stated aloud and waited for them to respond for a moment before continuing on before they could say anything. "Hoodoo is healing magic. It's not something you attempt to ward off. We got zombies roaming around and you're worried about soul collectors. Those things don't have souls. You just wasted that charcoal I could have used. Think you can get me some more now?" he asked impatiently of the guy he was told would do whatever he asked in order to bring about the end of this zombie activity.

"Anyways." he said as he tried to calm himself. "I did cast the spell. I was tricked by someone I believed to be a friend. I'm not too happy about that to be perfectly honest." he said as he closed up the bag. He had his dagger in one hand, and a small box in the other. "Now I'm going to undo the damage I've done, and while I'm at it, deal with my old friend." he walked towards the door. "We need to get those two ingredients, then head towards the place where I cast that spell."

"I'm not trying to ward off magic, that's just plain moronic. I'm warding off the Loa, Baron Samedi. If you truly knew anything of Hoodoo, Voodoo or their origins you'd know this Loa is responsible for Death, Healing and the decay of corpses so that they are unable to become zombies. Hoodoo invokes his powers and when there are Zombies he becomes quite wrathful. Tends to seek retribution from the fool who can't seem to tell the differences between a reanimation ritual and a simple healing ritual." Silus said. There was no contest that this man were more foolish than he was. He could claim they were both "idiots", but he was the fool in this, not they. He was the one who reanimated the dead under the assumption that it was some from of healing ritual. "While it may simply be superstition, when dabbling in the occult one can never be too sure." Silus added as he trailed behind Ailill.

"So fixing the damage you've done is going to solve one problem, but how do you intend on accounting for your supposed-friend? " Silus asked plain as day. His soullessness having benefited him at the current time, being able to quickly move on and deal with the facts. He would follow Ailill, as would Castiel as they were apparently on their way to an impending trap that would try to keep them from correcting the ritual. Of course Silus wasn't about to let any cultists or magi get the better of him, and so he began formulating a little "insurance" plan as to how this ritual could indeed be counter-acted even if they should fail to acquire the unique neuro-toxin.

All he could think was 'kids these days.' Ailill wasn't sure why that was his main thought. He wasn't even that old at 26, but was thinking something like 'kids these days.' Was he getting old? Humph, it was just one of those nights. Ailill was busy trying to deal with the threat at hand, and these guys were doing, whatever it is they were doing that wasn't helpful. When he had to work with others, he preferred working with people whom knew absolutely nothing about magic than those that knew little, but thought they knew a lot. Oh whatever. It wasn't even worth arguing. Enough time had been wasted as is.

Ailill had found some possible locations in the directory that might have the tetrodotoxin he needed. Charcoal would be easy to acquire. They could just burn some wood after all. He grabbed a marker and marked the locations where he could potentially find the venom he needed and then picked up the directory and stowed it in one of his pockets. Ailill walked over to the door and stood by it as he looked outside to see if they could get out. No zombies in the immediate vicinity, but a few were across the street just lumbering about. "Okay, you two can stay here and burn something to make more charcoal since you decided to use what you already had. I'll go get the tetrodotoxin." he told them as he opened the door to leave. "Oh and in case I forgot to mention, I didn't bother to pay attention because I thought I was saving the life of somebody I believed to be a friend. Didn't feel like openly distrusting a dying man. But, now I know the truth, and I'll deal with it. If I have to fix this problem all by myself, then I will." he walked outside without waiting to hear a response. The zombies saw him and started heading towards him. A few moved towards the library door, perhaps going inside.

Ailill moved towards the nearest location on the map. It was a sushi joint a few blocks away. He knocked on the door and waited briefly for a response. Nothing. Ailill went ahead and broke in to check for the stuff he needed. He was doing that a lot tonight. A zombie resurrection was turning him into a common criminal. Ailill searched the sushi joint up and down, breaking into more rooms inside, and eventually found it. Some pufferfish kept in a freezer. They were frozen though. This made it difficult to get the venom from it. He would have to thaw it out carefully. Ailill grabbed a couple and placed them in his bag and left the place to head back to the library. He wondered if they were even still there by this point. He got back to the library after having been gone for nearly half an hour.

"Douchebag"Castiel said, though thinly veiling it behind a cough. Lucifer looked up and then shot him a glare.

  "Far be it for me to pass judgement, but as far as I'm concerned I'm not the moron here." He said with a shrug and his typical soulless tone. Castiel rolled his eyes as he collected books and a bookshelf. His plan was to essentially concentrate his light into a heavily condensed laser and perhaps char the books. Lucifer wasn't paying much attention to his compatriot at the moment, having begun working on his own separate project towards laying the dead back to rest.

  "That's not going to work. Light up one of the trees outside, or a book case. Charcoal is created by the slow burning. Too quickly and it won't yield anything." Luci said, still oh so bland in tone and presentation. Castiel nodded before leaning back against the counter.

Spoiler:

    Couple zombies found their way back. Castiel dispatched of them as Silus remained inside and collected a good amount of charcoal from the combusted wooden bookshelves. Castiel on the other hand kept an eye out for their supreme overlord that guy who left and took himself to the air. Once over the roof he lowered himself and proceeded to use his manipulation of light in order to ignite a nearby tree. It took quite a bit more effort as light was more limited in night time. After that it was easy going. Castiel assumed that the fire would attract zombies, so he just slowly began leeching light from street-lights and light produced by the fire to store up a little energy. When he saw a zombie, that way he'd have the energy to blast it and fry it before it could enter the library.

    After about twenty minutes of burning tree time, Cas smiled when seeing the stranger return, waving. "Ho!" he called out. Unfortunately all of California asked "what?" he didn't think of normal social ramifications and was simply greeting someone. After seeing this guy he conjured up a light barrier around the parking lot and the building. Castiel's breathing became shaky, exerting himself to cover the space with minimal light.