Black Medicine Woman
Mortal Enigma
Corporeal Forces: 3 Strength:
6 Agility: 9
Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence:
7 Precision: 8
Celestial Forces: 3 Will:
8 Perception:
7
+2 Charisma
Toughness/2
Songs: Unknown.
It is entirely possible that she does/did not know any.
Skills: Area Knowledge/3 (lots of places), Dodge/6,
Driving/3, Emote/6, Fighting/6, Knowledge (Economics/1, Literature/3,
Politics/2, Psychology/2), Languages/3 (lots), Move Silently/1, Savoir-Faire/3,
Seduction/2, Ranged Weapon (pistol/4, rifle/6), Small Weapon/6 (knife),
Tactics/3
Attunements (Conjectural): Blessed (almost
certainly), something very much like Synchronicity, something that makes/made
her selectively and effectively invisible at will to people in general, and
Hell in particular - this list is mostly based on, frankly, educated
guesses. It is definitely known
that she is/was capable of shielding herself from the use of an angelic
resonance, however: whether this would be/have been true of Superiors as well
has never been determined.
She also has/had something like Symphonic Awareness,
although apparently of a type that defies description in any mortal language
and is hard to pin down even in Angelic.
Date of Birth: September 16, 1908
Date of Disappearance: June 25, 1987
Date of Death: Unknown
"God does not play games with His loyal
servants," said the Metatron, but in a worried tone of voice.
"Whooo-eee," said Crowley. "Where have you been?"
Good
Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, page 270.
There's an entire set of file cabinets in Marc's
Cathedral on Black Medicine Woman and her history, goals, personality and
organization. The case study that they
embody is renowned for its uniqueness: Trade and Revelations have had many
cases where they knew a lot about a subject, and quite a few where they knew
almost nothing, but seldom have they been able to document so profoundly their
lack of information. Indeed, by now
they've got so much negative data on this case that they can make half-credible
guesses about the data that they don't have.
What is known: in 1908, the entity known as Black
Medicine Woman was born to Clara Susan and Joseph Edgar Keyes of Savannah,
Georgia. Given the name Amelia, her
life proceeded uneventfully until her tenth year, when her parents both died of
influenza during the post-war epidemic.
As her parents were both quite wealthy, her subsequent education and
upbringing was placed into the hands of well-trained tutors and governesses
until she came of age in 1929. Amelia
received a fairly comprehensive education for her sex and time period, with an
emphasis on literature and social graces and a certain amount of polish
gathered in carefully supervised trips to postwar Paris and Vienna. Reports indicate that she was a well-behaved
and genuinely personable person, demonstrating a reasonable level of
intelligence and self-confidence. All
in all, Amelia could be categorized as a child (and later, young woman) who was
nice but not particularly noteworthy.
This made her actions subsequent to her 21st
birthday so hard to fathom. Armed with
her birth certificate, a copy of her father's will, several testimonials to her
mental competence and (most importantly) her family's old attorney, Amelia
withdrew all funds from her accounts, insisting on hard specie. Her father's extensive stock holdings were
liquidated and likewise turned into cash; the various procedures cost her quite
a bit of paper profit, but Amelia was adamant about her accounts being settled
as swiftly as possible. Naturally, the
banks were reluctant to be dismissed so peremptorily, but Amelia had obviously
planned this action well in advance: there were no loopholes or ambiguities to
seize upon.
A dozen different banks planned a dozen quiet
inquiries... and all of them were shelved permanently when the stock market
crashed three days after Amelia had closed her last account. By the time anyone was in a position to pay
attention to former customers again (which took years), Amelia and her money had
long disappeared. She would not surface
again for over a decade: careful investigation later - much later only provided
tantalizing hints of the woman appearing in a number of quite exotic locales.
The first confirmed report of her dates from the
Russian sack of Berlin at the end of World War II. A Malakite of Stone named Kenneth encountered her while engaged
on a somewhat unofficial errand of his own (to wit, the tracking, capture and
slow strangulation by piano wire of one Martin Bormann): he had just acquired
his quarry and was trying to get the terrified Nazi to attack him when Amelia
casually walked out of a shattered doorway and put three bullets into Bormann's
brain. Naturally, the Malakite was
somewhat annoyed at this casual usurpation of his own afternoon's diversion;
his shock at discovering that he could not successfully resonate her was
profound. The conversation that
followed was unsatisfactory, on a variety of levels (the only useful piece of
data was the name - 'Black Medicine Woman' - that she gave): so was the easy
way that she broke contact with the angel and disappeared.
This pattern of events would be repeated over the
next few decades: an angel or Soldier engaged in some project or another would
encounter her, invariably while attempting to resolve the status of a particularly
troublesome problem or individual: Black Medicine Woman would provide precisely
the help needed at the best possible moment, casually greet the startled member
of the Host, exchange a pleasantry or two, then walk away. All attempts to track her failed miserably:
it soon became clear that humans and angels only perceived her when she wanted
them to (or possibly wasn't paying too close attention), and that demons could
not perceive her at all.
For a long time, the general consensus among the
Host (the Horde officially does not believe in the existence of Black Medicine
Woman, for both practical and ideological reasons) was that the entity was
merely an example of a Superior-level role; this theory was deemed false after
encounter reports of her associates began to circulate. These associates apparently shared her
selective invisibility, immunity to resonance and unique Symphonic Awareness,
but were otherwise normal 6 Force individuals: a disproportionate number of
them seemed to come from marginal backgrounds and economic status. Conversations with them generally were
maddeningly banal, but a general consensus was gathered that Black Medicine
Woman and her associates were doing something on behalf of the
Symphony. Attempts to determine
precisely what were met with polite but impenetrable stonewalling.
And then, on June 25, 1987, they all vanished.
The only reason that the Host can fit such a clear
date on this is because, apparently, Black Medicine Woman and her organization wanted
their vanishing to become clear: they had been unusually visible for the
previous month, to the point where the Host had finally gotten solid leads on
their headquarters, bank accounts and membership roster. On June 25, these
leads all suddenly terminated. In each
case, the only remaining physical evidence of any kind was a standard business
card with the phrase 'Be Seeing You' inscribed on it in an elegant feminine
hand. No verified communication with or
sighting of Black Medicine Woman and/or her associates has since occurred.
Needless
to say, the Seraphim Council is not exactly willing to let the matter just
slide like this. Ineffability doesn't
look as benign when you're on the receiving end of it, and this is ineffability
ratcheted up to the next level.
Needless to say, Archangels tend to not be particularly comfortable
about the idea that there is a next level that they don't have any real
information about, so sporadic investigations continue. No current activities have been discovered,
but the results of former interventions by Black Medicine Woman and her
organization have been unearthed from time to time. They invariably offer tantalizing but mysteriously impenetrable
glimpses of the workings of the Symphony, at a level deeper than even the most
metaphysical operations of Destiny; many of the most interesting anomalies of
the corporeal plane can be traced to Black Medicine Woman. In short, her mere existence is a
disquieting reminder that Heaven isn't quite the only group out there
with the mandate of working with and on the Symphony.
There
are not a few Soldiers and Saints who are of the opinion that this may be the
entire (amusing) point.