The Graceland Cemetery Incident

=• THE GRACELAND CEMETERY INCIDENT •= Illuminati Archives file #M-I99ACPI01 Date: August 13, 1999Time: 0200 Central Location: Graceland Cemetery, Chicago IL, United States Witnesses: Iphedes "China-Shop" Burke, Jonathan Theison, Soren Riddel, Kagen "Devil's Grin" Davis, Aluisus Blake

Incident Report
On August 13, 1999 5 boys ranging ages 15-17 years broke into Graceland Cemetery in interest of performing a ritual and doing some ghost hunting. Found with them was at the site was a burned out book of spells which is believed to have been used to initiate the ritual as accounted by survivor Jonathan Theison. Knowing the potential danger of the spell their plan was to make modifications via using one of the participants who was already well shielded and extending the protection over the designated circle. Upon review of the spell by the level one mages within the investigation department the calculations made were incorrect and would have never worked properly. Its believed the performed spell went south upon an attempt to extend the shield believed to be possessed by Iphedes Burke as the portal was opened. Experts theorize this somehow managed to give the portal an alternate power source and created a dimensional rift that remained open for 6 full minutes. The portal was closed when Aluisus Blake, a now confirmed psychic, drew off the power from Iphedes and broke the link as Soren sealed the rift from the inside. The resulting spell caused power to shut down in several areas of the city. Soren Riddel remains missing and is suspected dead, Aluisus Blake has been sent to the isolation ward for mental evaluation. Jonathan Theison's file will be reviewed for training pending initiation. Request continued monitering of Kagen Davis and Iphedes Burke.

Personal Accounts
Jonathan Theison ''“Me and Soren, we were schoolmates together. His grandma had lots of old creepy stuff, books she didn’t like Soren to read but…well she said no and it was like, I dunno…forbidden treasure. A couple of the books looked like they had a big no sign on the front, bunch of stuff that looked like spells and some of the little ones  were simple enough to try. I got pretty good at it…HE got pretty good at it. Soren lived in the same building as Kagen and Iph and that’s where he met them I guess, we needed four people to try some of the bigger stuff in the books and that’s when we found out that Iph wasn’t much good for that. It all just bounced off and that kind of spoiled our plan…except it didn’t. See Kage had figured if magic existed then monsters did too. Kage and Soren did a lot of research while me and Iph messed around with his barriers, it was a lot of fun right? There was this push game like setting a supernatural land mine and iph would sta…yeah well like I said, we were just messing around. Ghosts were easy to find, it’s Chicago, they’re everywhere…not as fun but good practice. Field trips to the lake, your basic ghouls. We took out our first vampire when we were 15. Fifteen! You understand that? We were in junior high then and we were taking out nosferatu like some kind of supernatural Scooby-doo pest control.'' ...''Okay, sorry but, you have to understand Graceland Cemetary, we weren’t amateurs…not like you think we were. Iph had his weird ass supernatural tank barriers, Soren was an encyclopedia of supernatural spooks and spellwork and I was damn good at throwing them…I mean sure, it’s true Kage picked up the basics faster than I did but he never put enough power into his and he was always better with weapon construction anyway. Yeah, it’s like someone turned a light on with that guy, van hellsing meets Batman….maybe…the tools anyway. I guess I was a little jealous that everything came so easy to him. The thing with Graceland didn’t come til after we brought Al in. He was at the group home same as me and, well if you’d seen him before the kid was like a mouse…..guess that’s why I never noticed him before. Forget about us and our trip over stumble into this world, to Al everything was just natural, he hated it but the kid was psychic power up the wazoo and with him…we had four people.

It didn’t start off with the big crap, not by a longshot but we did start going deeper, one thrill after another and you just had to take on bigger and badder things because the old ones were been there done that. Okay so yeah Soren started getting worried but I think it was just cuz his grandma was getting wise and Al was always a coward….I dunno really who suggested It first…maybe Soren…I mean…it was his book right? Had to be his idea. We’d started to get a little beyond the basic spells and into theory and there was one ritual we never tried but figured…psychic, mage…3 mages maybe and tank, we could take it. It was a banishment spell cast out evil spirit type of thing but for the heavy duty stuff, demonic presence kinda thing so we had to go to the most likely place to find that sort of thing in Chicago. That’s how we decided on Graceland. The idea was to draw in the nasty and stretch out Iph’s barrier to cover us then we spring the trap and take it down. The idea was to crack the barrier by focusing on a point then just stabilize it to meld in with a compatable protection spell…sure we modified a few parts but we thought we were being safe. Trouble is when we cracked it something went wrong…best way to describe it would be like opening a door to the outside during a fire, the sudden influx of oxygen makes things combust or something….it was like a domino effect….Iphedes was screaming…I mean really screaming. I’ve never seen Al  act so fast…he had his arms around Iphedes and it looked like he was hurting. I only caught a glimpse…we had other problems, big ones. See that sudden burst of energy turned everything wrong and it was like seeing a hole to chaos that had been ripped open and Iphedes was acting like a battery for it right then. Al was working on disconnecting but we had to close it…best we were doing then though was keeping the thing from opening further…so the big stuff couldn’t get through. We started getting real tired holding it and I knew it was only a matter off time…I guess Soren knew too. Best way to close something was to try from both ends…we all knew it, but he was the first to actually do it. The last I saw of Soren was his back, jumping in with full on shields up. It was surreal, this scream sort of hanging in the air after me and Kagen managed to get it closed. The power had gone out sometime during our battle and Iphedes looked like he was near dead…but his barrier was back so I guessed Al had somehow managed to fix the damage. I knew right then though he wasn’t looking right, curled up like he was and crying like a baby. Soren? Yeah…there was no Soren…I think seeing that or not seeing that made Kagen snap. See…when someone’s upset or angry it’s usually because they lost control of the situation, something has to happen that you don’t expect or aren’t prepared to deal with. Kagen is one of those kids whose not just thinking on his feet, he’s thinking on his feet ten steps ahead of you. I’ve seen him face down a wendigo with a broken firearm and less than 2 seconds to act and he never once lost it. Anyway, that’s how I got the black eye…and the dislocated shoulder. Kagen dragged Iphedes back home so I’d bet that’s where you’d find them both. I dunno if anyone’s told Soren’s grandma yet…figure she should know.”'' Aluisus Blake  "D..dunno....was wrong wrong wrong. All wrong!....I saw it...so many, screaming hurt." "I HAD TO SAVE HIM"......"I did....I saved him" *sobbing* hurts so much....Soren...Soren is screaming now...and it hurts it hurts...everything. I see everything...*sobbing* make it stooooop....please?"