1. The Moloch Manoeuvres: "Witches of Weir"

There's a vampire loose in Rome in January 1938. Or is there? And, even if there is, a vampire is probably the least thing anyone has to worry about. World War is looming and the Alliance of Man is doing its best to prevent it. If that can't be done then it intends to make sure it is between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Europe, and/or Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union in Asia.

There's another problem on the Alliance's plate however. Dozens of them. And they're all just turned or just turning seventeen. These are the Summoning Children, born in late December 1920 or early January 1921. All were conceived around Easter 1920 and a number of them were born to former members of the Godling Guild lost in the Himalayan Valley of the Visionaries at the beginning of Lent that year.

What were they doing there? The short answer, and perhaps the only answer, is that they were summoned.

The mothers of a few of the girls born as a result of the Summoning died in the process. It is at least one of these girls that the Blood Beast Prime is after. Why? No one is really certain. What is certain is that the Alliance of Man has gathered in Rome to determine what to do with the Summoning Children.

Loxus Ryne, who founded the Alliance to replace the Godling Guild and is also the patriarch of the Illuminated Faith of Xuthros Hor, wants them all to be educated at the Academy of Man he is building in Amsterdam. But some of the German members of the Alliance, predominantly Baron Tyrtod von Alptraum and his mother-in-law, Hulga Faust always Volsung, would prefer them educated in Berlin.

The Soviets are against Berlin and the Japanese are boycotting the conference altogether. As for the Americans, well, they are still pretending that whatever happens in the rest of the world will not affect them.

What is the big deal about these Summoning Children? The answer is that, to a one, they are extraordinary, pure and simple. A number were not allowed to participate in the Berlin Olympics because they were just too damn good. Others are budding scientific or artistic geniuses. One of them, Jesus Mandam, Ryne's nephew, once coined a term for the bunch of them: supranormals!

And just how supra are they? Ryne has a theory about that. He thinks they are the reincarnations of the Gods and Goddesses, the Demons and Monsters, of Ancient Mythology.

Then there are the Twin Tantaluses, a couple of transparent display cases containing, well, there is some debate about that too. Supposedly the two that have recently turned up were part of a number of treasuries taken from the Cave Temple of Varuna Mithras on Vatican Hill in 376 AD by Roman Legionnaires, most of whom worshipped Mithras before Christianity became a force in the old Empire.

One of the Tantaluses is in the hands of a band of Etocretan Extremists, anarchists to a man, woman, other of them, led by Agenor Heliopolis. The other is being held by a certain Etzel Sangati, an itinerant magician whose stage name is Count Molech. He just happens to be Heliopolis' blood brother and his manservant, whose name is Djinn, may well be a legitimate genie.

Count Molech though is tired of his gypsy life and wants to sell his Tantalus to the German contingent led by Baron von Alptraum and Hulga Faust. Heliopolis, who hates all Germans because of what Nazi 'advisers' were in the process of doing to his Internationalist cause in Spain, is against his blood brother's efforts.

Hel knows what his Tantalus contained, the paraphernalia of the Olympian Gods, and suspects the other one holds much the same thing: namely, the goods and glories of the Aesgardian Gods. If the German Summoning Children get hold of it then the likes of Odin, Thor, Valfreja, and Balder might be out and about again, -- just like, in Heliopolis and his loose-knit band of freedom fanatics, Zeus, Athene, Ares, and so on, potentially already are!

While vampires may be the least of anyone's concerns, Hulga Volsung is approaching her sixtieth birthday and hates the prospect of growing any older more than she fears death itself. She claims her Summoning-Aged daughter, Freya, was adopted; that her actual mother died giving her birth; and that therefore the golden-blonde, but deathly ill, beauty is an ideal mate for a Vampire Maker. He can have her if he promises to turn Hulga into an unaging, nocturnal blood-sucker.

The Blood Beast Prime is not interested in Freya but his half-sister, Medea Annulis, -- whose husband, Jason, is a highly skilled surgeon --, wants her for their son, Apsyrtus. They will have glorious children, Medea tells Hulga, real gods and goddesses, not phony Olympians or Aegardians. As an enticement Medea offers Hulga 'Aeson's Bath' exactly as it was detailed in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Trouble is Hulga has read the same book and knows what Medea of Colchis did to Aeson's rival for the throne of Corinth in Minoan times. She politely refuses the modern day Medea's generosity.

So who is the vampire? Actually, as Hulga, Medea, and a number of bona fide witches gathering in Rome know, there is no vampire as such. There is however a potential vampire maker. Except he will only be fertile for one night, tomorrow, the Thirteenth, the night of the full moon. After that he can turn himself any time he pleases. Then there will be a real vampire on the prowl.

Of course Count Molech has to last that long first!

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3. The Moloch Manoeuvres: "Devil-Doings"

Young Life and Young Death don't like each other. This might seem odd given that, as Pandora Mannering and Augustus Nauroz, they were once married and had two children together. But that was seventeen years ago and, thanks to two devils, they had been apparent seven year olds since that time.

Or had they? Might they not be feeorins, faerie children? What is certain is that they are both tricksters and could get about between-space on witches' stepping stones. Young Death has another way to get about though, a rather unsavoury one, -- he kills himself!It is January 13, 1938. The night before, a Taurobolium initiation ceremony had been performed in the Tomb of Cecilia Metella, just up the hill from the original catacombs, the death-place of Saints Peter and Paul. Because of who this Cecilia was, who her father had been more precisely, this provokes a lengthy discussion of comparative mythology amongst the ancients, with special emphasis on Mithraism.

Participating in this discussion are Loxus Abraham Ryne, Eden Nightingale, Angus and Gilda Dre'Ath, Raphael D'Angelo, and his sister, Dolores now Rivera.The six of them are at the D'Angelo Family Villa, not far from the Vatican. Papa Rafe is acting as the host of the Alliance's gathering in Rome to decide the educational future of the Summoning Children. Dolores, also known as Sister Sorrow, is the youngish Superior of the Antediluvian Sisterhood of Anthea, the legendary wife of Xuthros Hor, -- the Biblical Noah.

Gilda is sort of Superior Sorrow's mentor, an Althean Healer. Husband Angus, the eldest there, was an old friend of the late Charon Ryne and acts as his son's chief adviser. Abe Ryne is of course the Patriarch of the Illuminated Faith of Xuthros Hor but, somewhat oddly, his wife, the youngest of them all, may be the most knowledgeable of the six gathered there.Not all that far away, at the Alliance's hotel, the site of its final scheduled meeting that afternoon, another brunch gathering is taking place.

Some of those staying at the D'Angelos' villa are there. They include Sean Dre'Ath, the eldest son of Angus and Gilda, his slightly younger brother, Nathan, and the Summoning Child of the Dre'Aths, Maxwell. Also from the D'Angelos' villa are Sorrow's husband, Diego Rivera, his foster daughter, Virginia Mannering, and the Terrible Twins, Aires and Thalassa D'Angelo. Ginny is with Brunhild von Alptraum while the latter's identically-aged cousins, Tanith von Blut and Valfreja Faust-Volsung, are fawning over Aires.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the Hotel, Jesus Mandam, yet another Summoning Child, is being held by Donar Lancz, an out-and-out Nazi who once challenged Abe Ryne for the Xuthrodites' Patriarchy and is now a major player in the Teutonic Order, and Hulga Volsung, Freya's mother of record. Mandam, who is also the patriarch's nephew, had been captured by Lancz and his men, his universally blond-haired and blue-eyed Hermiones, the night before, -- just before he had a chance to kill Hulga. Because of his relationship to Ryne, Lancz has decided to keep Jess alive and, hopefully, turn him to the German cause.

Besides, in Count Molech, Etzel Sangati, they have a mutual enemy. Jesse wants him dead because he's after a Summoning Child to bear his son. And anyone foolish enough to become pregnant by the Moloch will die giving birth. Lancz wants him dead too, though not immediately. First he wants to get the Northern Treasury from him, -- the Mithraic Tantalus containing the goods and glories of the Aesgardian Pantheon. In particular, Donar wants Mjolnir, the Hammer of Thor!

All Hell breaks loose in the hotel dining room once Lancz, Mandam, and Hulga finally make their appearance. Gas and smoke grenades go off. In the mayhem that follows, two notable, though possibly unrelated, events take place. The first is someone wrestling Donar to the ground and gouging into his chest the emblem of a single-headed hammer similar to the letter P with an X crossed through its handle. The second is someone shooting, and killing, Stephen von Blut, Tanith's uncle and an associate of Mata Avar, one of Etzel Sangati's half-sisters. Two others, Count Zygion Avar, Mata's husband, and Tyrtod von Blut, Tanith's father, have been shot with some kind of poisoned dart. Turns out the sleep-inducing darts are shaped like silver arrowheads, -- an age-old symbol of Cretan Freedom Fighters!

As the hotel is evacuated a little girl, Jolene Callion, latches onto Virginia. She speaks with a French accent but it's North American French, Quebecois or, more likely, Louisiana Cajun. She's blond and cute, hence her nickname, Joli Blon, but she is much more than that. Though she knows it's impossible, -- the child could not be more than seven years old --, Ginny thinks she recognizes her. Maybe she should. Maybe this little one is Ginny's half-sister. Or maybe, just maybe, she's her mother!

The cast of major players in this saga has now been assembled. Everyone but one, that is. And, although she won't make her official appearance for a few subsections still to come, she's been around throughout the Moloch Manoeuvres. In fact, while her name comes up frequently in this instalment, Manoeuvres began with her murdering Azrael Sangati, the current Moloch's vampiric uncle!

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5. The Moloch Manoeuvres: "Devic Undoings"

Donar Lancz is no trickster. Nor does he know anything about tricksters. He does believe in the supernatural, though, and actually thinks that Baphomet, the bejewelled head he stole from Baron Tyrtod von Alptraum during his takeover of the Teutonic Order, speaks to him. What he doesn't know is who does Baphomet's speaking. Then again, he doesn't know anything about Wayfarers in the Weird either.

What he does know, is informed of more like, -- by Vele Schuler, his right hand man --, is who branded him with the Mithraic Labarum, the single-headed hammer with an 'X' crossed over its shaft. Actually know might be too strong a word. What Schuler found in the hotel that morning after the assault on his boss and the execution of Stephen von Blut were some anaesthetic darts shaped like silver arrows. And Silver Arrowheads were the calling cards of Sagittarius and Sagitta, Nester and Artemis nee Zeross Hyperenor. The very people Lancz wanted Schuler to hire to assassinate Loxus Ryne and the Baron had been the ones who branded him and killed Stephen!

It isn't young Hiliarti Schroff who Virginia Mannering brought with her to the D'Angelo Villa. It's a face dancer, an illusionist, a Mariamnic, a feeorin, a trickster. It's Pandora Mannering, Jolene Callion, Joli Blon, -- only she prefers to call herself Hush. Memory knows her right away.

When she was looking after Ginny from 1923 until 1928 or so, Hush took her place for a while. Did the same thing to Joanie and Gillian Galvin, Gilda's nieces by Sister Bunnie and Jimbo Galvin, in the early thirties. Seems that was one of her jobs, to take the place of seven year olds while the Sisterhood tested to see if they were Great Goddesses.

One who definitely isn't a Great Goddess is Mata nee Sangati Avar, one of the modern-day Moloch's two surviving half-sisters. Though she had been affected by the gas and smoke bombs that masked the Etocretans assault on the hotel this morning, she had not been one of those hit with a sleep dart; a dart that could just as easily have been a bullet.

She hadn't been forewarned but she didn't need to see any silver arrowheads to figure out who was responsible for the assault. What she couldn't figure was why they had branded Donar Lancz yet murdered Stephen von Blut. They hadn't, explained her brother, Etzel Sangati, Count Molech. Oh, he had gouged the Mithraic Labarum into Lancz's chest but the Silver Arrows hadn't killed anyone. They'd just come along to act as support if needed.

So who did kill Stephen? Was it Agenor Heliopolis, Sangati's blood brother? Was it one of his former comrades in the International Brigade taking revenge for von Blut's actions in Spain the year before. Stephen's colleagues there had been dropping like flies ever since Guernica.

Etzel either didn't know or wouldn't say. He was looking for their other half-sister, Medea Annulis. Where was she? Mata speculated maybe she finally got enough nerve up to kill Mnemosyne D'Angelo, the person who killed their mother, Rhea Ararat, in 1923. Sangati wasn't buying it. He'd told Medea to stay away from Memory of the Angels.

His blood brother needed the goodwill of Raphael and his Sicilian cohorts, the ones who were supplying the Black Rose with weapons for the Great Greek Revolution Heliopolis was plotting. And, as for Agenor slaying Stephen, -- no way! Mithrants didn't kill fellow Mithrants.

After revealing her identity, Hush Mannering sits down with Eden Nightingale, Memory and Dolores nee D'Angelo, and Gilda Dre'Ath. The five of them analyze what's been going on in Rome and try to figure out what makes Count Molech tick.

They conclude that, for some reason, he's fertile, a rare event, and that he wants to pass on his genes, have a son, before he turns himself into an actual vampire. They also figure he has to have a particular mate, a virgin Summoning Child whose mother died giving her birth.

While there are a few dozen Summoning Children in Rome, there aren't very many whose mothers died giving them birth. One that comes to mind is Roxanne nee Heliopolis Kinesis but she's no virgin; in fact, she already has a child, a one year old by the name of Romaine.

Another is Argiope 'Bright Face' Zeross but she's engaged to be married to Agenor Heliopolis, Hot Rox's twenty years older sibling and Etzel's blood brother, which probably disqualified her. Gypsies like Sangati were as big on blood-bonds as Etocretans.

Another who would not qualify would be Valfreja Volsung, Horrid Hulga's daughter. Unless Hulga wasn't her mother. And therein lay the problem. Could anyone be sure who was who's mother with all the witches that were abroad nine months after the Summoning seventeen years earlier?

Think of the three Summoning Aged girls in the villa, -- Virginia Mannering, whose parentage was unknown, Thalassa, who was adopted, and even Anita D'Angelo. Using that logic, any one of them might be his target.

And, as he told his half-sister just before he left her, Etzel Sangati was on his way to the D'Angelos' villa. Besides Mata and Djinn, the Moloch's manservant, only one other might be aware of that. That one other was a Wayfarer in the Weird, -- the very one who spoke through Baphomet.

His name was Sedon St. Synne and he didn't have to be in Rome for his spirit to be there. Sangati and Lancz via Baphomet were hardly the only ones he could connect with long distance either. One of the many others was Jesus Mandam!

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