Xavier and Maritza. The Soldadera he first met do recon on the town with. Dorotea is with them but her haunted eyes are downcast and suffering some introspective torment. Looking for any thing unusual in the town, signs of distress or any thing to show them a direction to begin looking. They hear singing of an old dusty Borracho, drinking wine and laying on the ground against a tree. His sombrero is dirty and bent and his eyes are yellow from the drink, his mustache and goatee slimy from sneezing. When they try to ask him about the sisters he yells,‘¡Cállate Güey!’ and begins singing again.
Not to be discouraged Xavier rolls up his sleeves and seizes the Borracho by his shirt and pulls him to his feet. The Mexican Wino throws a couple drunken punches and falls on his butt laughing. Xavier infuriated charges to beat the Borracho senseless but the Soldadera, Maritza stops him. Instead trying a kinder approach. She says, “¿Pardon Patron. Estamos buscando a unas chicas que estan desaparecidas, viste algo?” He brightens up and tells them he did see girls being dragged into a boat by suspicious looking men in Clown paint.
Dorotea asks why he didn’t help them. The Borracho says in broken English, “Because I am a coward. But if you will allow me, I will bring some of ‘Mi Amigos de las Calles’ to help.” He points them down river to the east and assures he will come with all his wino buddies from the river. Maritza says, “Follow your sisters, I will raise an army of the Soldaderas in the Villages we can trust.” Parting ways Xavier and Dorotea move East along the River. They often duck to avoid US Army patrols.
They hope they find the Circus before they get to “Bagdad Beach” because a large force of Mexican Government Counter-Revolutionaries is camped there, and he will absolutely be shot of deserting if captured and turned over to Pershing’s forces.
Sure enough, the Barstowe European Carnival is camped near the crumbling onion domes and minarets of Playa Bagdad, Tamaulipas State of Mexico. Bagdad Beach, a Middle Eastern fantasy themed ghost town on the flood plane where the Rio Grande flows out to the Gulf. It was abandoned after being torn apart by severe storms in the 1890’s. Once a major port of Confederate smuggling weapons and exports via Mexico, now it lies submerged and forgotten except by bandits and starving dogs.
Xavier doesn’t see any Military, US or Mexican but that doesn’t mean there aren’t scouts or snipers waiting in the darkness. He considers his uniform and Red Sash of the Villaistas, he doesn’t see any good reason to give the game away. He feels unsettled in this place, it has long had a reputation for missing persons, wild animals and a great multitude of exposed bones among the gnarled trees. Blackened stone, crumbling pillars of leaning towers and faded tile mosaics are all thats left of this lost kingdom straight out of 1001 Arabian Nights.
He will knock out one of he Carnies and take their clothes to give an air of neutrality if things go bad. Xavier uses a pair of binoculars to spy the lay out of the Carnival. He doesn’t see any obvious location where his Sisters would be held captive. He hands the binoculars to Dorotea. She looks at groups of Carnies, Freaks and Clowns sitting beside fires. She sees the Medium beside her Gypsy Wagon. That is where they will start.
Esma, the Gypsy Woman sits beside her own fire, cooking soup. She has a distaste for Circus acts since her Daughter was killed. She has tried to flee several times but Barstowe or his Henchmen seem to have a precognition for finding her so she eventually stopped trying. Once she had boarded a ferry from near Niagara Falls and they came and took her from her Hotel across the border in Canada. Another time she had tried to flee in the middle of a snowstorm in Denver, didn’t make it more than a few hundred feet before Barstowe’s Middle Eastern henchmen appeared like apparitions to carry her away.
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These are spiritual forces of great evil she is up against and despite her years of studying magic, she has never been a match for the Occultist Barstowe who consorts with Demons and raises Spirits at will. Her divination is more of a parlor trick. Barstowe has studied with the Great Occult Schools in the Orient. She shudders at the things he has done for power. Dorotea approaches her quietly. The Gypsy Esma pulls Dorotea into the Wagon to talk away from prying eyes.
Safely inside the Gypsy Wagon they embrace. The Gypsy says, “Im glad you are safe but you shouldn’t have come here. You have no idea how dangerous this place is.” Dorotea says, “I understand exactly what this place is, I had to come for my sisters. They were kidnapped yesterday. Do you know where they would be?”
Esma, the Gypsy Woman pauses, not sure she should send Dorotea to a place where she is likely to be killed but feeling a duty to fix horrors she was a part of by inaction she tells her. “There are ruins here, beneath the Tents there are foundations of a Spanish fortress, Crypts and older Aztec tunnels bellow leading to the Ocean. That is where Barstowe keeps his Victims.”
Dorotea wonders if she really wants to know the gravity of it. She does. She asks, “What does Barstowe want them for? Is it to sell their bodies?” The Gypsy Woman breaks down in tears, “No, its worse than that. He does sell girls to sadists and perverts who like torture and cruelty, but there is something far worse here. Barstowe is a Sorcerer, one of the greatest in the world. But he is also an ancient killer. The Spirit that inhabits his body alive in the Crusades, alive in the Old Testament. He faced Elijah as a rival Prophet, High Priest of Aries-Baal. What no one realizes Yahova, “Yaldabaoth” is the Devil. History is distorted to profit the ghouls and bottom feeders who enslave the masses with perverted Gospels and intentionally obscure translations to hide the true face of the Devil. Every Church and Synagogue is devoted to is the vengeful god of sacrifice, slavery, theft and genocide. Barstowe serves the fallen King, possessed for millennia by morbid angels, Sorsos. A manifestation of an Order of Angels that feed on suffering and terror. He survives centuries on consuming not just blood but the spirit, the soul. He uses human sacrifice as a way to gain power. Not just money, but power over souls. His weakness is he has no memory of many of his lives, he must delve into tombs and warrens for traces of his former power. He discovered fragments of the Magic of King Solomon in the Holy Land, power to raise the dead and perverts the knowledge of the Universe to enrich a baleful mafia of corrupt priests and political leaders turned to the Secret Oath of Zion. He is one of many hidden followers of an ancient cult of butchers. He worships a false God that mirrors the creator but is like a ravenous wolf who hunts the blind and lost. His inner circle are ancient Vampires, Serpents, Changelings, Hungry Ghosts and Spiritual Parasites.”
Xavier stalks the edges of the camp. He sees carts that look like Military issue. Opening a canvas tarp he sees what he is looking for, weapons. He is able to liberate several boxes of ammunition, a Helmet and a belt fed Machine Gun. Lighting the rest of the ammo on fire he circles around to the other side of the camp looking for Barstowe or his Henchmen.
As the boxes of bullets and mortars begin exploding he waits, watches who reacts, and who doesn’t. He sees Barstowe stick his head out of the door of a Train he hadn’t noticed before. Its a black boiler fueled locomotive. Barstowe does not leave, instead sending out a group of well armed men.
Xavier opens fire, punching holes in these Gentlemen’s formal dinner wear. Clearly not Carnies or regular Circus folk, these are the type who come here for expensive delights not on the regular menu of Circus acts. Xavier turns the machine gun to another group of rough characters who come running out of the temporary camp beside the Big Top tents.
Mowing down a dozen Thugs with axe handles and pry bars. Just as a sinister group of Freaks and Clowns comes running from the Tents the Machine Gun jams. Xavier runs off between crates and carriages, scrambling under horses and hopping over passed out drunks. Trying to get back to the Ammo cart he runs right into a pack of stray dogs eating trash.