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June 21

Last night I dreamt about the evil ceremony and woke up mumbling the words to the ritual with my mouth full of dirt. This business is affecting me badly.

There was an interesting piece in today's newspaper. Apparently some villains had tried to dig Freddie's body up but were chased away by police. This gave credence to our fear that when Freddie said he had hidden the amulet 'close', that he meant he had swallowed it.

Fearing the worst, Reggie went down to the police station and told his story to the police to convince them to have the grave exhumed. I went to the library to find more information on the cult. Madame Serpent, meanwhile, conducted a seance to contact Freddie. I felt this was in rather poor taste. I also understand that she tried to get Albert to contribute towards 'expenses'. Alfred spent much of the day in the shadier parts of town chasing down Indians.

I found out nothing interesting from my researchers. I learnt about the exhumation later. Apparently a tiny triangular amulet was found inside Freddie's stomach. The amulet went into police safekeeping.

It occurred to us that the cultist might now be watching the police station in the hope of grabbing the amulet. So Reggie and Luke scoped the police station, where they found themselves being watched by Reggie's mysterious double...

...Not wililng to take the cultists on by themselves, Reggie and Luke returned to the pub where I was waiting and having a drink with Alfred and Madame Serpent. Albert I understand was doing some research.

We devised a plan to lure the cultists out by having Reggie enter the police station secretly carrying a dummy amulet. He was then to leave the station, carrying the amulet.

We put our plan into action - and the situation quickly became complicated. It ended up with the following occurances in vaguely chronological order:

• Reggie on his bicycle being chased and shot at by cultists in a car, but managing to escape.
• Luke busting open the front door of the cultists' house and shooting two of them with a shotgun.
• Reggie's double growing four snake arms.
• Alfred losing his marbles and running away while I hid in the privy.
• The snake-armed cultist chasing Madame Serpent into the police station where a massive gun fight ensued with Madame Serpent being killed tragically, but strangely appropriately by the snake arms.
• Luke fleeing with only half his wits.
• Me grabbing some papers from the cultists house and fleeing.
• Reggie and Albert joining the gunfight in the police station, but the cultists escaping with the amulet.

Things looked rather desperate now, with our foe far more fearsome foe than we had originally realised and now in possession of the amulet.

Arriving back at the pub, I met Luke and Alfred, who were trying to recover from their shock by drinking strong whisky. I pulled out the papers I had taken from the cultists and tried to find some clues. I found amongst them a map of woodstock, with attention clearly having been paid to a park there. So we pilled into a lorry from Luke's business and drove back to the police station to pick the other up. There we were joined by a detective constable, by the name of Atkins. It was Atkins who drove us to Woodstock, after issuing us all with police firearms, making sure to take note of the serial numbers of the weapons.

At Woodstock we found the cultists performing some eldritch ceremny. We gunned them down, but not before they had imbued the amulet with some energy, making it glow and pulse. We realised we would have to perform Freddie's ceremony. Luckily, one of the cultists was still alive, so there was no need to look for a sacrifice. I took the role as high priest and performed the gruesome necessities of the ritual. As soon as I completed it, we ran away, taking care not to look back. Except Albert. Who did run, but also took the time to look back. I don't know what nameless horrors he saw, but they struck him blind.

So we had foiled whatever evil plot the Hindoos were putting into action. And at no great expense to ourselves. Sadly, Madame Serpent gave up her life - and Luke tried to end his also using a shotgun, though we were able to preventing him. It seems the stress of seeing the sacrifice performed was too much for him. I don't know why it should have affected him so strongly when he was merely a spectator. Myself, I had mentally prepared before doing the deed so - though the memory of it shall haunt me - I was able to perform it dispassionately.

Thankfully, whatever energies were released by the ritual destroyed all evidence of it and none of us were particularly keen to talk about it.

June 22