Etobicoke Creek
Henry Fitzroy parked on Forty Second Street and walked toward Etobicoke Creek. The frozen ground crunched underfoot, releasing an odd energy in small amounts on contact. He suspected it permeated the Creek water.
"What am I looking for?" Henry said into his cell phone.
"I don't know." Vicki described what she saw in the dream.
He reached the snow covered Trail and looked around. Nothing glowed. The closest to unusual was a group of ravens huddled under Lakeshore bridge. That brought Poe's writing to mind as he walked toward them. "Quoth the raven nevermore." He looked up at them as he passed them. The birds barely reacted. The thought of omens gave him a chill that increased as he approached the railroad bridge.
"Henry?" Vicki sounded worried.
"No symbols." Something at the water's edge caught his attention. He crouched down looking at partially submerged rocks. A scorched symbol glowed red briefly. "Astaroth," he concluded as he stood and backed away. "Someone planned this. The river, Naiad, visions." He suspected Vicki was caught in the middle with more than one entity affecting her dreams.
The question was why. Not only the conflicting motivations. What brought them to Toronto? He suspected it had something to do with him. But Christina was the only one that came to mind. As crazy as she got, there was nothing in it for her. If for some reason she tried arranging his death, it would have been a simpler ploy.
"How old is the angel story with the prediction?" Vicki asked.
Henry wondered that himself as he walked back to his car. "Check the book." It reminded him of what she said about Nicholas in the antique store.
Soft voices sounded over the phone. Then footsteps.
"Why would anyone. Anything. Do this?" Vicki sounded overwhelmed.
"I don't know." Henry wished he knew more about Greek and Incan mythology. Both seemed to be connected. Either some of the old stories were true, like Medusa, or someone believed they were. "Has Nicholas said anything?"
"No. His phone goes directly to voice mail."
They needed to know more about him. Henry couldn't remember meeting someone claiming to be a priest of Apollo. The Incan and Inquisitor came to mind. Immortality, or near immortality, came with a cost. Both targeted him to steal his. Whereas Nicholas acted like he owed Vicki a debt.
"Henry?"
"Just thinking."
The connection sounded different as it was changed to speaker phone.
"The angel book was published in the late 1800s," Coreen said.

Vicki's New Apartment
Vicki Nelson sat in bed, drinking tea because Coreen wouldn't give her coffee, wondering what they were missing. For reasons she didn't understand, she was convinced Nicholas arrived in the late 1800s and whatever was happening started then. She suspected it involved earlier dreams she couldn't remember.
"What was Etobicoke in the 1800s?"
Coreen sat next to the bed with her laptop balanced on the nightstand. "Farms. First Nation land before that."
"Greek settlements?" Vicki explained why she chose the time period.
"In Montreal mostly. They started immigrating in the early 1900s."
That was closer to the Atlantic. "Where was the ship going?" Vicki wondered aloud.
"Detroit, maybe." Coreen sounded uncertain, focused on the computer. "Chicago? It was big for Greek immigrants starting in the mid 1800s." Pause. "New York if they got lost."
Vicki shook her head. There was no way to know. Or even if it mattered. She had doubts about what Nicholas told her about himself. But somehow she knew he wasn't responsible for what was happening. The certainty worried her. She looked down at her hand on her abdomen and realized where it came from. The baby caused the visions.
"Inti, the Incan god of the sun, helped grow crops."
Maybe it did involve farm land. "Any similarities between what Apollo and Inti followers believed?"
"Nothing obvious." Coreen hesitated. "Truth and prophesy are on the list of what Apollo represented."
Vicki looked up. "What?"
"I'm seeing auras and you're having visions."
And the baby?
Coreen typed. "Apollo was associated with healing." She sounded distracted. "Lakeshore Asylum opened in 1889." Pause. "It ties in with the cemetery thefts. The psychiatrist buried in the catacombs is related to one of the original doctors and the people buried in the mausoleum." Pause. "The Necropolis mausoleum is part of old urban legends. The damage in the 1970s was caused by something escaping." She didn't sound confident of any of it.
"The cult tried to resurrect it's leader and something went wrong when they stole the wrong body." Vicki doubted the possibility was crazier than anything else. They dealt with mummies, ghosts and zombies. She realized, "Carmichael resurrected fighters using Egyptian funeral and resurrection rites. The same museum he was connected to imported an Incan mummy." That turned out to be a priest capable of attacking Henry in dreams.
Coreen paled.
"What if someone combined dark magic from different cultures? Greek, Egyptian, Incan." Others. It reminded her of the man convinced he could control the demon he summoned. "Nicholas said I was a divine conduit," for Pacha Kamaq's power, "To defeat the evil that marked me."
"The baby is capable of defeating Astaroth?"
Vicki shared the concern. "I don't know." It made her wonder if she was trading one monster for another.
Crying echoed through her thoughts making her wonder if the baby reacted to the thought.