Incident Report
Investigative Branch, Office of Special Services
Section XIII

I am writing to you on behalf of Sister Magdalene. Yes, again. I understand that several members of the Council have expressed concern over her and her rather unorthodox methods of going about the Lord’s work. I agree that she is strong willed, hot-tempered, too quick to speak her mind and not at all a model of pious humility. Yes, she has much to learn, but she has made much progress. These are perilous times that we live in, and we can no longer idly stand by while evil abounds in the world.

Please allow me to impress on you once more why our Order needs someone like Magdalene. As you know, with the opening of the West and the coming of the industrial boom, there has sprung up a crop of wealthy individuals. They trust in their money and have become morally bankrupt because of it. With idle time on their hands, many of them have begun to engage in dangerous practices. Sometimes it is nothing more than attempting to communicate with the spirit of a departed loved one. But others have gone much, much further than that. In their ignorance, they do not know they power of the things that they dabble in. We have found proof of black masses and the summoning of demons. They bring forth creatures from the Abyss and set them loose to wreak havoc upon innocents. You cannot deny the existence of evil in this world. We must not retreat behind our cloistered walls and pray. No, we must go out and fight for the souls and the lives of the people we profess to serve.

And that is why those like Sister Magdalene are so valuable to the Church. You can hardly fault her for her diction, for she is not a gently bred lady. She was born into the cesspool of crime and corruption that is the notorious Barbary Coast of San Francisco. She grew up on the streets, living from hand to mouth. It pains me to think of all the horrors that child endured. I feel she would have been bound for a wretched existence in the cribs had she not been taken in by a troop of circus performers. She had been caught trying to steal their cashbox. She expected to be turned over to the authorities straightaway, but instead they took her in and taught her the value of forgiveness. She learned what it was like to have a family, and to be loved and cared for. For the first time in her life, she told me, she was actually happy.

That all changed when she was sixteen. One night, something bad came…it came and destroyed the people she loved before her very eyes. I shall never forget the sight of that girl, broken and bleeding on the doorstep of my church, looking up at me with haunted eyes. “If I live through this day, swear to me that you will teach me, Father,” she said to me. “Teach me how to kill the evil that killed my family.” Ever since that day, she has been relentless in her determination.

Since she has taken the veil, she has assisted the Church in many special matters, which were quite beyond the scope of an ordinary exorcism. The skills she learned with her surrogate family have been invaluable. I understand your concern over her partner, but he provides valuable assistance to her with his many remarkable machines. He may not be perfectly sane, but I do believe he means well, and is most sincere in his desire to do the Lord’s work.

You speak of her audacity, and I agree, she is far more forward than a sister of our Order should be. But let us take a moment to remember the audacity of her namesake, Saint Mary Magdalene. Did not she endure the scorn of men to anoint our Lord’s feet with precious oils, wash them with her own tears and wipe them dry with her hair? And our own Sister Magdalene is no less audacious! She is, you will pardon the phrase, a holy terror amongst the purveyors of prostitution in our city. She thinks nothing of storming into all manner of unsavory places, that would give even a battle hardened soldier pause, to rescue girls being held there. Many of them are Chinese girls no older than eight or nine. They call her “Lo Ma”, which I am told means “Beloved Mother” in their tongue. What the men who sell them call her I shall not write down.

Right now, she has recently completed a mission in Prussia. Before she returns to us, I have arranged for her to stay in England for a time. There is a peculiar little village in the Cotswold Hills that has, of all things, an Abbey of our Order. I want her to investigate several disappearances that I believe are connected to preternatural activities.

I will close this letter by saying that I staunchly stand behind Sister Magdalene and I will support her in any way that I can. I urge the Council to do the same. And, yes, I will pay for the repairs to the dockside warehouse that was damaged during one of her missions. Really, I am sure she had no idea that fermented fish sauce was so flammable.

Yours In Service to the Lord,
Father Dominic, OSB
New York

Sister Magdalene