The Manifest

(Bound folder, cover letter found in the front pocket):

Dearest Inari,

The last auction is keeping me behind to tie up a few minor loose ends, the inventory in our eastern warehouse is being faxed in to me and I, in turn, am faxing this to you. The young gentleman at the front desk is unfortunately fit to be tied as I am using up an inordinate amount of paper. I am entrusting you to handle the next auction. I've been suspecting for a while now that you are up to the task, and the needs must when the Devil drives.

I am hearing from "Giacomo" that he has a new consignment of articles for perusal, and while in the city you'll want to make contact with fences "J” and "G". Also, I've taken the idea of a sort of "Occult Village Road show" under advisement, and if you want to experiment with such a thing during your stay, you are welcome to do so, but I would take great care with articles that aren't easily demonstrable. Assume every single seller is lying. If the idea has legs, we'll detail one or more of the sensitives to accompany you on the next sales trip.

Love always, 

-Desmond Goodlow

Ps: If "Vendredi" attempts to make contact again trying to fob off his "Merchandise", you tell that enormous wanker I’ll see to it that I will personally speak to every demon and damned soul I know, telling them of his whereabouts. His merchandise is utterly useless and I won't have our fine reputation sullied by it. If he gives you any trouble at all, you know what to do.

***Article Description: Six sets of white leather baby shoes, each bound together with a pink ribbon. The shoes appear to have been manufactured in Belgium during the turn of 18th century.

Provenance: Estate Sale (Borland)

Analysis of Research Team: According to the seller, the shoes have the ability to prevent a pregnancy that would ordinarily derive from a sex act as long the shoes are within the domicile where the sex act takes place. The research team is reluctant to test this hypothesis, most of them being very uptight about that sort of thing, but Carstairs says that the resonances for that sort of abjuration ARE present, and the seller has a good reputation, so there's no reason to doubt this one. One does have to wonder why he has SIX pairs. In any event, I am told by Carstairs that the ribbon must never be untied. It will undo the magick. He was unclear as to whether it would cause a spontaneous pregnancy or whether the magick would simply stop working. I'm not sure he knows.

Disposition: While a curiosity at auction, these items might move best if simply sold to private entities. I trust you'll have a nose for the sort of person who might have an interest.

*** Article Description: "The Sforza Manuscript", a journal of an Italian architect with an interest in sacred geometry and their applications to practical problems in sacred architecture.

Provenance: Book Dealer "N"

Analysis of Research Team: No magick on the book itself, Pentonvale says that the math is solid. The text of the book is as dull as dog shit. But, it seems a useful text for the maximization of the efficacy of hallowed spaces. The original author is said to have lived to be 106.

One has to wonder if he built his own palazzo using his methods.

Disposition: Just unusual enough to be sold in its own right instead of as part of the crates of fairly generic occult books we acquire every quarter.

*** Article Description: Burundi Wand.

Provenance: Pesky little git in Sheffield who would not stop talking about it. I only bought the bloody thing to be shut of him.

Analysis of Research Team: Typical, Bog standard. I'm starting to believe that there is a bloody factory in South Africa turning these out.

Disposition: If you can interest someone in the bloody thing, then do by all means sell it with the usual caveats and whatnot. But if you cannot, don't kill yourself trying. I shan't think less of you. I think everyone who WANTS one of the damn things has one already.

*** Description: Fire engine red Stratocaster with a whammy bar. Yellow maple neck, Mother of Pearl inlay on the back of the Guitar that reads "J. Butler"

Provenance: Estate Sale (Lafayette)

Analysis of Research Team: What is it about musical instruments that make the resonances so unbelievably nasty? At least three of the sensitives on the research team say that this one has been completely hell-touched. Nasty piece of work, but at least with these sorts of things we know generally what to expect, and so do most of the buyers. I had the team ask around, J. Butler won't be coming anytime soon to reclaim it. It's too bad really. It had good action and was, in my humble estimation, a "Sweet Axe".

Disposition: Sell it with all the caveats and etcetera.

*** Description: Various Mayan styled bowls, the largest being 13 inches across.

Provenance: Direct acquisition in Coahuila. Thankfully, we arrived before Nielsen and his Warehouse goons.

Analysis of Research Team: Each night of the new moon, these bowls fill full of blood. Ms. Brenner seemed to think that the bowls were for making offerings to Camazotz and there is a noticeable bat motif in the ornamentation of the bowls. We bought the set of six from a group of Monks who had kept them secluded for many years. Testing has revealed that the blood appears to be human blood, but any further determination of a hematological nature is rendered impossible. The genetic markers are unreadable. This would seem to indicate a form of

sophisticated apport or perhaps a full-blown manifestation. I think that we can rule out the idea of a "Faerie Gold" type of manifestation. I would think that would anger the Bat God.

Disposition: Every vampire too lazy or squeamish to do his own hunting will want one. The jungle drums will likely be beating before you arrive in town. Ask one of the other factions to drive up the price in return for some consideration down the road.

*** Description: Angel Semen (4 vials)

Provenance: Fence "L" (Remind me to ask him how he gets such a regular supply)

Analysis of Research Team: The usual properties.

Disposition: The usual price. Although PLEASE, do not forget to mention the extreme flammability of these items. I don't want a repeat of that mishap in Bern. My eyebrows still haven't grown back completely.

*** Description: Large carved wooden Owl Totem (Probably the one stolen from Wickliffe, Kentucky in the 1980's)

Provenance: Fence "T" (He seemed extremely nervous on the phone)

Analysis of Research Team: Morrison sensed an extremely old and powerful intelligence connected to the Totem, but for the most part, according to Morrison, it seemed asleep. The sensitives sense powerful knowledge but also a powerful death resonance. This is not unusual as it spent at least a century as part of a burial mound on the site of an Indian village that spontaneously failed. The area in and around parts of western Kentucky has an unfortunately pervasive resonance that is inimical to life. Not enough to kill outright mind you, but arguments end in violence more often and more people fail to thrive. I'll bet that crib death numbers in that part of the world are slightly higher than anywhere else.

Disposition: This is one for Magi to untangle. If a Native American medicine man should turn up at auction, buttonhole him ahead of time and offer to sell to him outright. Don't dicker. I want this one out of the house.

*** Description: The Book of Red Circles (A leather bound volume written in gutter

Latin, the inside covers appears to have multiple marks of old dried blood in circular patterns. Cute.)

Provenance: Direct sale (Belasco)

Analysis of Research Team: A comprehensive study of basic demonology, with most of the usual safeguards for relatively safe praxis. A few names of note, bindings, wardings, decent chapter on abjurations, an amusing chapter on what to do when you fuck something up. A good chapter on the proper cleansing of ritual tools and ritual space afterward, (Often neglected). The translation work is inelegant but otherwise solid. The only difficulties for a potential buyer were some incorrect Hebrew in the section on binding Efreeti and Djinn, and a diagram on page 47 that was upside down. Easily fixed with a post-it note.

Disposition: I know you and I differ on practice here, Inari, but I guarantee that there will always be those either foolish enough, desperate enough, or arrogant enough to truck with Demonic powers. Best WE relieve them of their money before they are horribly killed and eaten. What is it that Barnum says? "It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money?" So get what you can for it, and as much as you can. A man dumb enough to sell his soul will buy anything.

*** Description: A large granite rock with 3 iron rods protruding from its base creating a sort of stool. The upper face of the stone is in mathematical symbols forming a mathematical proof, part of which is broken off.

Provenance: Estate Sale (Roedecker. Yes, THAT Roedecker.)

Analysis of Research Team: This is the one that forced us to commit Mr. Halliday. After the initial testing was done, they discovered that the carbon dating on the rock put it several centuries before the invention of a number of the symbols carved into it. That should have tipped us off right there. But unwisely, during the testing phase, Mr. Halliday touched the rock and started shaking and bleeding from his eyes. Perhaps a trained sensitive might have done better, but Halliday was part of the physical research team. When he awoke it became apparent that his language centers in his brain had been overwritten. Josh Halliday was from Staten Island and yet, he is now only capable of communicating in fluent and idiomatic Sumerian. There may be other lingering effects. He's also succumbed to some low-grade form of graphomania filling page after page with dense mathematical calculations.

Disposition: Put it up for auction. Any person who wins the auction will be offered the return of half of his bidding price if he can reverse the effect on Mr. Halliday.

*** Description: 5 pieces of clear glass of various shapes and sizes, each wrapped in purple silk

Provenance: Baroness De Villanche (According to her, won in a high stakes game of poker off of Ambrose Stern)

Analysis of the Research team: According to the Baroness, and confirmed by the research team, the pieces of glass were formerly part of a powerful binding spell. They have a strong Oneiromantic resonance, and when laid by the bedside of a sleeping person, causes the sleeper's REM cycles to quadruple in length. Most restful sleep I have ever had. (I confess I kept one for my private collection.) Additionally, it may have other Oneiromantic properties. The resonances are quite literally off the scale. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what was bound by this glass.

Disposition: Sell one at auction; hint that we have more of them, or that we have some in the pipeline. This is kind of a specialty item, but the clients that would be interested will come to us.

*** Description: The Book of Rooms (A small brown book with the title on the spine in blue ink. Published originally by Bastion Press, a small northeastern vanity press. There may be additional copies and each of them may have similar properties.)

Provenance: Estate Sale (Navidson)

Analysis of the Research team: Each two pages of the book possess a line drawing of a room and a description of a sort of room that might be found in an extremely large mansion. If a person happens to read aloud from the book while within a domicile, the room depicted forms within the domicile regardless of whether or not there is actual room for it. There seems to be a form of spatial distortion going on. (By the by, the lab now has a new breakfast nook and a large walk-in closet.) Unfortunately, the spatial distortion seems to have an unpleasant effect on sensitives and at least two of the staff have had to take a few mental health days. It does not appear at present that the effect is cumulative, but apparently unpleasant dreams of being trapped in an endless house are a common theme.

Disposition: This one doesn't seem actively dangerous and so I am recommending it for sale, but I suggest that anyone who purchases it is told that they might want to shore up their mental defenses.

*** Description: Wayguides (small glass globes with a light yellow oil in them and an iron nail floating inside).

Provenance: Delia Witherspoon

Analysis of the Research team: Don't know whether I told you about these or not, they have a very simple magick on them, which causes the nail to point to the nearest concentration of magickal activity. The Magus in question has finally learned how to make them in bulk.

Disposition: Give one of these away with any purchase of 500$ or more. Or sold flat for 200$.

*** Description: A yellow child size coffin made of wood.

Provenance: Fence "H"

Analysis of the Research team: When opened, a wave of emotional energy pours out that is cripplingly depressing. The lab team has taken to referring to this as the Gloom Bomb. As you can well imagine, it has an extreme effect on ongoing magickal effort. Might be good in a pinch, but hard to muster up the energy to shut the damn thing.

Disposition: Not our usual line, but worth offering. Some goth with too much money or too little sense will pick it up for his collection. Might be useful for leavening manic behavior or even certain types of lycanthropy.

*** Description: Set of four large grey clay pots with a strong metallic smell. Ancient galvanic energy cells.

Provenance: Farouk (Who seems to have a source in Northern Iraq)

Analysis of the Research team: Works like a battery, probably built by some ancient Mesopotamian Nikola Tesla type as part of a much larger mechanism, which may or may not be lost forever. This is one of those that seems like we have only half the puzzle, and some buyer probably has the other half. Such things make me nervous on occasion. Like those round crystal lenses we sold last year, we knew that it worked in conjunction with some specific light source...If only we'd known. However, at least, whatever these things powered has to be huge in size. I admit my nerves are trumped by curiosity. As near as I can tell these articles aren't mystical in any way, but I do have an interest in things like this, mundane articles that seem out of place or out of time. I came within a hairs- breath of having the Antikythera machine stolen for my own collection. I also had to have that electric hair dryer that was found within a Vatican City foundation stone. Still works too. Maybe it's just me, but I think twonkys are FUN.

Disposition: Sell them, but make certain to mention they aren't actually magickal. I remember that mess in Toronto where we sold those crystals that were resonating at infrasonic frequencies. The crystals tended to have a deleterious effect on personal inhibitions. Great for parties, but not good for long term exposure. Somewhere in the shuffle, those buyers became convinced that we'd shafted them. Their mental shields weren't able to keep the infrasonics out and things just got progressively worse. Thankfully, that was years ago and most of the people who were maddest aren't on the scene any longer. Still, make sure they know.

*** Description: Monkey (Spider or Capuchin, not really sure. I am not up on monkeys.)

Provenance: Estate sale (Lord Alfred Whitestone.)

Analysis of the Research team: Undead monkey. Completely indestructible as near as the tests can tell.

Disposition: Look, I know the research team has become somewhat attached, but I am putting my foot down. Last time it was the hyper-intelligent Chihuahua. And, while Maurice IS a cute little doggy, and HAS proven to be a valued member of the research team, I am not willing to have another pet in the testing lab. 
Besides, he's a biter. He bit me. Make certain the furry little shit becomes someone else's problem. I'm bloody serious.

*** Description: Elbow high steel reinforced gun safe with keypad lock and proper wardings, bindings, and abjurations.

Provenance: Tegyrius (A cagey sort, I only know him by his craft name.)

Analysis of the Research Team: He only makes three of these per year, but they are worth it. They'll channel and earth the power of anything placed inside short of a demigod class in power. I swear by mine.

Disposition: Offer this one near to last.