Blood Ties

Part 4: Another Digression Starts

Charlie goes back to the Walker house and subsequently vanishes. Gerti collapses, bleeding from eyes, ears, and nose, and is hospitalized. She recovers a bit after a while, and Roderick thinks a voodoo doll is being used. The general defense against this is to destroy the doll.

While people are visiting Gerti in the hospital, there's an outcry when a patient in a nearby room catches fire and burns to death. He was apparently Arnold Peterson, under guard by police because he beat his wife to death, and in the hospital because he was shot by police in his subsequent arrest. Roderick identifies the burning as spontaneous human combustion (the bedclothes are relatively unscathed, for example), and uses psychometry to see some sort of floating flaming skeleton which reaches out to him - Roderick starts to smolder, and is shaken out of it by Eddie and Tommy.

The surgeon on call, Dr. Anderson, has heard of the Valiants, and would like them to look into the problem.

April 28, 1937
The next day, Dr. Schreber gets a report that three patients at Arkham have also burnt up.

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