The Miss Education of Dr. Exeter

Prologue

EXCERPTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF TIM NOGGY:

28 November 1889. Phaeton Black is officially missing. He has been gone for 60 days.

2 December 1889. In the aftermath of the invasion (of Prospero’s army) of Reapers, I have managed to repair a section of the Portal Fabricator, the part Lovecraft refers to as the Inter-Dimensional Injection Portal (iDIP).

5 December 1889. Mr. Ping paid a visit today and brought with him a horde of diminutive test subjects. He calls them “flies on the wall.” I have begun limited testing of the iDIP and shall see to the dispersal of Ping’s flies. Ping would not divulge where he acquired the clever, spying insects, but they are impressive, and I am hopeful they will hasten our search to find the missing Moonstone and its keeper.

7 December 1889. It took several days, but we injected squadrons of flies into the greater Outremer. Since there are no reliable maps of the other side, we assume our local convergence of time and space is a far greater territory than London proper. I’m hoping the flies will disperse widely from here. Each spy fly is fitted with a camera and listening device.

8 December 1889. Jersey Blood and Valentine Smyth volunteered for the first mission into the Outremer since the portal connections were shut down. We anxiously await their report on the state of Prospero’s aether plant as well as his drone factory, which are located in the section of the grid marked island. (Again, I have no idea how accurate this map of Lovecraft’s is but it seems we will soon find out.) Per Gaspar’s instructions, first priority is the whereabouts of Phaeton Black. Find him, and the Moonstone cannot be far afield. Jersey and Valentine will have twenty-four hours before the machine will extract them.

9 December 1889. (2:47 a.m.) Cheers! Jersey and Valentine have returned unharmed. Since the attack, I have taken up residence behind Lovecraft’s laboratory. I had fallen asleep and awoke when the portal engine whirred to life—the auto function on the machine had begun the extraction. I was relieved to see Jersey and Valentine tumble through the portal—bedraggled and in need of rest. They left in a hurry for Half Moon Street, but promised to return in the afternoon to debrief.

I overheard a smattering of talk between the two—something about transmogrifying. The expression they used was mogging. Some people use the term shape-shifting. Call it whatever you want. I’ve been told Jersey Blood is a half-breed, part demon part human, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it. You’d think I might have caught a glimpse. A horn might have popped out of his forehead. Something. But I’ve seen nothing, not even a flash of red in the pupils of his eyes.

9 December 1889. (4:15 a.m.) A spy fly in the Outremer quadrant marked “island” picked up a conversation, one side of which appears to be Phaeton. And—I’ve got map coordinates! It seems the island on the map that we thought was London isn’t London . . .