View source for 607: Astronomy Lessons

==Synopsis==

In the Tulane library, [[Tallahassee Turner|Tallahassee]] and [[Shrimp Puerto Rico|Dr. Shrimp Puerto Rico]] meet the librarian, Clara Dupree, a young woman in her late twenties who keeps lollipops for children and offers one to Shrimp. She is a great admirer of Tallahassee, and he signs her copy of "Tallahassee Turner and the Lollipop Guild." While she sets Shrimp up with a rolling ladder in the history and mythology section, Tallahassee asks about Stephen Dupree, who survived an [[The Axe Man|Axe Man]] attack in his bedroom in the first wave of killings. Clara reluctantly admits that Stephen is her cousin. When Tallahassee pushes his charm roll, she confides that Stephen made up the attack: he had been caught in an embarrassing private situation, and the masked "tall man" seen fleeing was part of it. She and Tallahassee exchange addresses to become pen pals.

Meanwhile President Crotted Costa Rica takes [[Major Bakersfield]], [[Grant Jameson]] and [[Devon Black|Devin Black]] to Professor Merriam Goodwin of the Department of Astronomy as she finishes a lecture. She says Armand seemed completely normal when she saw him and had only asked her for astronomy books about Orion. She has never heard of the Brotherhood of Orion or of Amduceus, and a psychology roll suggests she is telling the truth. She is dubious of Nathaniel Vane Orialis's title of professor. He never taught at Tulane, but was the head of the amateur astronomy society in the French Quarter, the Meridian House. She describes him as a polite older man who knew his astronomy but leaned toward the esoteric, reading meaning into the constellations. She explains the myth linking Orion and Scorpius: the scorpion was sent to put the boastful hunter in his place. Asked about unicorns, she says the constellation Monoceros is named for the unicorn. Through Orialis she met two of his associates, Dr. Auguste Duret, a medical doctor she thinks was a member of the Meridian House, and Marcel Pepin, an astronomy enthusiast. The investigators recognize both as later Axe Man victims.

Thanks to a hard success and an extreme success on library use, the group finds an excerpt from an 1892 lexicon on Amducius (one of the spelling variants). It lists him among the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, a great duke who, when compelled into human form, appears as a towering man with a voice like thunder mixed with trumpets. Music stirs where he passes though no one plays it, trees bend and sway to his rhythm, and lightning and thunder are his heralds. He governs resonance and rhythm, bending matter and will through vibration. A marginal note says that when mortal hands make living rhythm he pauses to listen. Usually he is a passive influence, basking in discord, but when threatened or defied he becomes a force of absolute wrath and precision, "stopping at nothing until the perceived source of discord is extinguished and the world once again beats in time." His seal matches the symbol drawn in Michelle Casey's blood, and an old sketch shows him as a malformed, unicorn-headed man. The book says nothing about how to banish him, but the group concludes that he is the Axe Man, that music catches his attention and that he will keep coming after them.

The group regroups and Devin recaps the case so far. They note that Orialis introduced Goodwin to Pepin and Duret, so the Meridian House and the Brotherhood of Orion are probably the same circle. They also note that Pepin was the last victim of the first wave, and they wonder why the killing stopped after him. Jameson suggests that someone closed the door in 1919 even though Orialis was already dead, so another member of the bloodline may survive, and they fear [[Mister Corbitt the Character|Corbitt]] is hunting that person. They turn over the riddle of the luminous vault, "seek not the vault, save under an open sky," and the Chamber of the Seventh Flame where the Mississippi bends to mirror Orion's belt, wondering whether the stars can guide them to it. Tallahassee wants to fetch his gear from the hotel, which includes the Deadlight. It is about three in the afternoon and will be dark in a couple of hours. Their leads are Detective Russo's house, though they don't know where he lived, the Meridian House near Lafayette Square and the cemetery where the Doucet twins died. Tallahassee quietly takes a few astronomy books from the library before they leave.

==Funny Moments==

* Clara Dupree keeps offering Shrimp lollipops "for kids."
* "Tallahassee Turner and the Lollipop Guild" is Tallahassee's least favorite of his own books.
* Shrimp rides the library's rolling ladder up and down the shelves.
* Shrimp claims he was the flower boy at the president's wedding.
* Everyone tries to avoid reading the lore aloud: "Holy lore drop."
* Monoceros is heard as "rhinoceros": "We've had it all wrong this whole time. It was a rhino, not a unicorn."
* The group decides the only real weapon against Amducius is a horn section.

==Notable Quotes==

* "Oh, Mr. Turner, I want to be your greatest adventure." —Clara Dupree
* "I'm a scientist. It's strictly hard sciences for me." —Professor Merriam Goodwin
* "So the Axe Man is definitely Amducius then." —[[Grant Jameson]]
* "He's coming after us for sure." —[[Devon Black|Devin Black]]