NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 22

  • Ryce Marshall, by now tracked for the assistant chief of detectives position for Manhattan, will react with some (not-so-mild) concern regarding the body that the newly minted Detective Wakefield finds near the hospital at his crime scene. This concern leads her reach out not only to her superiors in UNSETIC and to Cassidy Beckett (a longtime friend), but also to personally reach out to Wakefield himself, which startles the detective (since it’s not typically every day that a deputy chief of detectives for Manhattan personally reaches out to you on a case).  She warns him to tread carefully.  She toys with having him pulled from the case, but settles instead for keeping a close eye on things—at least at the outset.
  • The victim Wakefield finds near the hospital is not the last that he’ll find during his investigation.

NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 21

Apparently, things like to smack me upside the head and layer more crazy into everything.  These two additions below to my notes for the story are proof of that.

  • Tobias Wakefield is initially assigned to investigate the reports of violence going on outside the hospital the night Becca escapes and Daisha disappears. A woman’s body is found not far from the hospital, drained of blood with her throat slashed.
  • Ben Miyazaki gets mixed up in helping investigate all of the crazy going on. He’s a graduate student at NYU in the anthropology department with a specialization in forensic anthropology.  By the time everything is said and done, he’ll have some nasty scars and will have unlocked latent psychic talents.

NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Day 19

  • John (and Adam and Roiya) find Spiritscrossing (just before the book begins, maybe as the prologue unless there’s a Becca/Ioan scene as the prologue)
  • Seth arrives to head up the investigation (off-camera)
  • El Stone is called in from the Boston office to assist (still under the purview of Brigid O’Connell as regional lead for the eastern seaboard)
    • Stone is one of the few supernatural experts UNSETIC has that doesn’t specialize in other things, nor is she completely embroiled in that world herself (ie, she’s not a magus, psychic, etc. – just a parapsychologist and paranormal researcher)
  • Becca has already been found by the time El arrives. Seth (an MD by this point) has determined that there doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with her.  They are in the process of confirming her ID but trying to keep the process quiet.
    • After they figure out who she probably is, the question of whether to keep her there or send her elsewhere comes up. El suggests sending her to one of the nearest offices (Vancouver or Seattle), but Seth vetoes the idea, electing instead to get his former colleague Jade involved, asking the chief medical officer for the eastern seaboard to come and pick up Becca and bring her back to NYC.  Brigid clears the request and within days of being found, Becca is brought back to New York, where things start to get really interesting.
  • In the meantime, a coven in Fredericksburg has been engaged in attempting to locate not only Becca Reid but the pack that she used to run with—specifically, her mate, the pack’s alpha, Ioan. One of them does realize that Becca’s popped back onto the map, but there’s a delay in that information getting relayed due to issues occurring in Fredericksburg at the time.
    • Information relayed to the Central Park enclave (and Daisha) instead of Beckett?
  • Brigid and AJ try to talk to the Central Park enclave but end up pretty well stonewalled. One of AJ’s students, Tyne, is part of the enclave and hustles them clear before anyone can get hurt.
  • After Brigid and AJ’s trip to the enclave, Daisha shows up and talks with Tyne, recruiting the girl’s assistance in trying to find out what UNSETIC knows about Becca and her location.
  • Daisha and Beckett have a minor confrontation at the Meeting Place, Brigid’s bar in Spanish Harlem and the front for UNSETIC’s headquarters in New York. This sets Brigid wholly on edge and sets her to wondering exactly how much backup she’s going to need to call in here—and if she’s looking down the barrel of some kind of war over one woman who’s been missing for sixteen years (sixteen years exactly).
    • Tim’s been caught up in some kind of dust-up that captures his attention for most of the early part of the story, meaning Brigid doesn’t have his expertise to lean on (which is probably a good thing given the situation at hand). Bryn has been tied up on the same issue (less helpful to Brigid).
  • Daisha infiltrates the hospital where Becca’s being monitored and returns an artifact to her friend before jumping out a window. She is attacked by something after leaving the room and Becca wakes to hearing her howls.

NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – notes for days 15-16

  • Daisha will do anything to help Becca.
  • Tyne never knew Becca before she was brought back to New York. Her uncle, Lars, used to be associated in Becca’s father in the past, which is part of what drew Tyne to New York—that and her uncle’s recent disappearance.
  • Magi in New York (or perhaps just closer to the Alberta site) feel some kind of ripple when the enchantments finally break?
  • The facility near Spiritscrossing that the Lost Pack went to investigate and shut down was linked to Bachmann-Koch, but a different division from the one that Brigid was nearly killed investigating.

NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Notes for Days 12-14

  • UNSETIC has developed an understanding of a lot of supernatural forces in their world, but it has taken time for the new regional lead to forge connections with some of the more traditionally insular groups—such as the nahuali. There were some incidents under the command of the former regional lead that have made the enclave in Central Park very gun-shy when it comes to the organization.
  • In contrast, UNSTEIC has connections to one of the more powerful vampires in New York, though they don’t have the ear of the current Primarch or most of his court. Cassidy Beckett, a largely independent but well-respected figure within the New York Brethren, has been their contact for several years, initially through then-Detectives Ryce Marshall and Jesse Stole, who later introduced her to other members of UNSETIC in the region.
  • Cassidy and Becca knew each other in college, before Cassidy was brought across by Andras Cross. Their friendship remained despite Cassidy’s transformation and Becca’s disappearance has always deeply bothered Cassidy, who long suspected foul play but had no way to prove it.

Timeline of events immediately before the beginning of the story

  • John McCullough heads out for a pre-semester camping trip with his niece, Roiya Kanton, and her partner, Adam “Decker” Ford, Jr., in Alberta, Canada. The trip is half training exercise, half vacation for the two young UNSETIC recruits, both slated to start their freshman year of college at NYU within weeks of their trip.
  • The enchantments woven over the town of Spiritscrossing finally break down.
  • Seth Montgomery is sent in to lead the investigation team. He is normally assigned to one of UNSETIC’s Washington, DC office, part of Brigid O’Connell’s region.

NaNoWriMo 2017 prep – Days 10 and 11

Notes for Day 10 and 11

Characters

Rebecca Ariel Reid (RA/Becca)

John McCullough

Seth Montgomery

Eleanor Stone (Ellie)

Jade McCullough

Brigid O’Connell

Tyne Johansen

Daisha Copeland (Rainsong)

AJ McConaway

Adam Ford, Jr. (Decker)

Roiya Kanton (Spooks)

Cassidy Beckett

Orestes St. Cyr?

 

Notes

  • The nahuali and UNSETIC are working in parallel but also at cross-purposes when it comes to Becca Reid. Both are trying to figure out what happened to her, but the nahuali don’t necessarily trust the investigation that UNSETIC is undertaking, in part because their interaction with the organization has been limited in New York up to this point.  As far as the nahuali are concerned, it is their responsibility to sort out what happened to Becca and why—and how it connects to the destruction of her pack.

Becca, once she regains consciousness, wants to know what the hell happened to her—and the people she loves.  She ends up running to Cassidy, dragging the young Tyne Johansen with her after Daisha’s apparent death outside the hospital where Becca was being monitored.