412: My Enemy

Synopsis

The episode picks up the morning after 411: Higher Devotion. To follow up on the late-night phone call, the group drives in two cars to the Arkham Sanatorium on East Derby Street at first light. The Major stayed up all night keeping watch over everyone at Dr. Simeon's house, so the Keeper introduces house rules for exhaustion: until he sleeps, most of his rolls need a CON roll first or take a penalty die, and he can spend a point of sanity to cancel the penalty. Captain Runch has gone back to his day job on the river. Dom regains one hit point from the night's rest, and Tallahassee's diamond skin will last until about five in the afternoon.

At the front desk they meet John, who remembers the Major from his earlier visit. The visitor ledger lists them as Corbitt's "legal representation", with "Doctor" in air quotes for Dr. Simeon. Tallahassee tries to talk his way into an interview with the Miskatonic Mangler, Randolph Tomaszewski, who is also held in the maximum security wing, and spends luck for an extreme success; John says he might risk his job for Tallahassee if he gets a big part in Tallahassee's next book, but not for the rest of them. The group is disarmed and led into a visiting room with a table, a plant, a shelf of books and a radio.

John wheels in Bernard Corbitt strapped to an upright dolly and wearing a mask, then cuffs him to the table. Corbitt looks gaunt, and there is a cold hardness in his eyes that they never saw before. He asks "Tell me, have The Smoothies stopped screaming?", has John turn the radio on to a low jazz station "to soothe my nerves," and sends him out. Corbitt says they share a problem and that he has been hearing things on the radio too. He has also been seeing a shadow man, which the group believes is Fairbairn. Corbitt says the shadow has visited him in the sanatorium itself and has been telling him things, and he names it: Randolph Tomaszewski, who sees Corbitt as "a kind of mentor" and always thought they were allies. Corbitt says that when Tomaszewski was arrested whatever was left of his mind broke, and that this, the drugs Corbitt had been giving him and his isolation in the hospital created "some kind of perfect storm" that let him find a way through the cracks in his mind and in reality and travel outside his body. He adds that the Major's late wife was in contact with him. He believes Tomaszewski stumbled by accident and through insanity onto a way to travel that sorcerers have failed to find, and he warns that killing Tomaszewski's body would only free him for good. Instead, his soul must first be sealed into his body.

Corbitt knows a spell to make a medallion that will do this. His spell book is hidden in a cache in the back room of his basement, where his creature was kept, and he tells them to dig in the dirt in the corner; the cache also holds two more vials of the "soy sauce." The group asks whether he is in on the killings, and Dr. Simeon's psychology rolls suggest he is telling the truth. Corbitt says he can make the medallion in a night if they bring him the book and supplies, including a small jeweler's kit, but they will have to put it on Tomaszewski themselves while he speaks the words. Once on, it cannot be removed by its wearer, and the spell stays even if the medallion comes off.

Asked about Goodman Gray, the mayor and the dog tags, Corbitt says that the mayor and most of the important people in town belong to an organization that hunts otherworldly things for power and control, that they watched him and wanted his creatures for themselves, and that it calls itself the Invisible College, which he believes extends far beyond Arkham. He says he is not even sure who Goodman Gray is. He also says that the boaters the group has heard about are Tomaszewski's doing and that he may be forming his own cult, with himself at its center.

The group leaves. The Major and Dr. Simeon head to Guns, Chicks and Ammo for supplies and a jeweler's kit, while Tallahassee, Billy and Dom drive to Corbitt's house to dig up the book, as the sleet starts falling again over Arkham.

Funny Moments

• Told that Runch had gone back to the river, the Major asks who he was talking to in the car, and is told "It was the ethereal Runch that's been talking to you in your mind."
• The ledger says "Doctor" in air quotes, and the table debates whether the clerk wrote the words "air quotes."
• John says "You all look like a goon squad in the Keystone cops at a baby," and Tallahassee takes it as his next book title.
• Asked about Simeon's brick, John says "whoa doctor. Is that a brick in your pants or you, you just happen to see me", and Simeon answers "Why can't it be both?"
• Simeon offers John "three free sessions of psychology."
• Tallahassee teaches John the high five: "It's called a high five."
• Asked what a jeweler's kit is called, the Major says "You know what they call me in the war? Mr. Jeweler kits."
• The whole table asks Corbitt at once, "How do we know you're not in on it?"
• Corbitt hates the group's name for his creature and tells the Major "I hate you even more for it Because it was my beautiful, beautiful child".

Notable Quotes

• "Tell me, have The Smoothies stopped screaming?" —Corbitt
• "It helps serve soothe my nerves" —Corbitt, asking for the radio
• "You guessed right, you're here because we have a bit of a mutual problem" —Corbitt
• "He's the one who's been telling me things." —Corbitt, on the shadow man
• "Oh, and I do want to kill you Bakersfield You are right about that But just not yet" —Corbitt
• "They call themselves the Invisible College" —Corbitt
• "This medallion will seal his soul into his body." —Corbitt
• "Yeah well you belong in here Corbett And I'll make sure you stay here Book or no book" —The Major