The Anathema Proxy Summary

August 95

COS - The Church of Satan

Satan has started operating in Long Beach under the guise of Padre Santos the head priest of the Open Doors Church. The powerful High Demon, Mothman and the Hat Man Umbra, and Umbra’s assistant, the Red Man, are with him. It’s unclear what Mothman has to gain from the partnership, but it’s evident that Umbra is hoping for a favor in return. The Red Man has to do what Umbra says, so he’s along for the ride regardless. Additionally, Satan has an “other book” unique from his primary Boogieman Book. (It’s also different than his book of 13 regents later mentioned). Mysteriously COS05, along with August 27th, 28th, 29th, and the 30th, is still missing from the Archives. To discover more about Satan’s other book, the enigmatic Shaka proposed the Cafe should seek out some of Satan’s consorts.

AAA - An Alien Autopsy

London-based entrepreneur Ray Santilli plans to release some “authentic alien autopsy” footage on Johnathan Frakes’ Fact or Fiction. One problem, that’s no alien… that’s a Douen. A small Maydaian or Amaymonian demon found in Caribbean folklore. Their feet are famously backward, and they potentially steal children from the shore. While aliens might not be a concern of the Cafe, actual demon footage airing on T.V. is. Alex takes on the task of “blurring” the footage to maintain the balance between the Flipside and Otherside. However, in the process, Alex discovers that Ray Santilli was working with Firefighter from Division Uniform of the Astoria 23rd Agency. It seems that Firefighter, Baseball Player, Milkman, and Schoolgirl created the hoax, and the most crucial part of this hoax was 5 minutes of the film that have since gone missing. What could those 5 minutes of footage hold? Mind control? Electrical magic? And will Division Uniform try and disperse it later?

TTE - The Time Traveler's Emails

The Cafe and Diner receive a strange message from a “John Doe” on their hidden message board. It bears a striking resemblance to similar messages sent by John Titor. Like John Titor, John Doe requires an original CaDCom88 to decipher a Cafe Crisis Cipher left by his cycle’s “Last Cafe,” as cracking it is vital to his cycle’s survival. However, like Titor, Doe has taken a bit of detour from his initial mission to observe and interact with the current cycle’s timeline. John Doe has noticed a very pressing anomaly that has pushed him out of the shadows seeking the Cafe’s help. John hints that he knows the owner’s real name and that the proper people to deal with this anomaly won’t be around for another few years (By the by, this is VERY meta even for John Doe). As it turns out, John Doe is worried about the temporal anomaly that John’s timeline is “crashing” into the Cafe’s timeline. While cycles sometimes naturally crash into each other, this seems strangely forced and is most likely done by John’s version of Mammon. So, the Cafe and Diner must take a trip to John Doe’s cycle to deal with this problem, and they are accompanied by Shaka of Zulu to do so. And thus, begins and ends the mysterious Indigo Wars. The Cafe Returns the next day after having spent roughly a year in 2035 fighting against the 55 Society and Mammon, though they have more significant, more Satan-y fish to fry in 1995.

DPG - Domenech's Pseudo-goat

The Cafe gets a hit on their message board, alerting them to the presence of a Pseudo-Goat somewhere around Texas A&M University. When Aelan reaches the campus, she is greeted by a swarm of Division Quebec members from the Astoria 23rd Agency, including Joliette, Rimouski, and Estire. Leading them seems to be Five from the 12th Division: Lima. Eventually, Aelan finds the Pseudo-Goat in the care of one of the college’s students, and she attempts to return it home to the Infernus; however, for whatever reason, it can’t return to the Infernus. When Aelan tries to force the Pseudo-Goat back into the Infernus, it causes a massive blackout in Texas and alerts the Astorians to its presence. Aelan manages to escape with the Pseudo-Goat and plans to lose the Astorians in Las Vegas as she heads back to the Cafe. The owner takes a liking to the Pseudo-Goat, naming him François, and lets him stay with the Cafe for the time being until a way home for it can be found.

WFS - Whispers from the Shadows

Felix notices something, or someone is watching the Cafe and Diner while attempting to mitigate a mysterious ailment in the Owner's eye. The entity lurking around the Cafe was shadow-like and roughly 6-8 feet tall with white eyes. Along with seeing this mysterious entity, the Owner heard whispers emanating from the entity's direction. Felix then waited for the Owner to inevitably fall asleep at his desk, and when he did, the entity returned, and it was none other than the Hatman, Umbra. Umbra ensnared the Owner with his signature sleep paralysis and began whispering an eerie chant of "gisgnagraphdongraph gonfam druxmed vehnavandonvehna" which triggered the CaDCom translation feature. Though the CaDCom struggled to translate it at first, the phrase was revealed to be "there is no church," as it would be spelled out in Enochian. It seems that Umbra was attempting to lead the Cafe away from the Open Doors Church. The Owner and Felix then set a trap for Umbra in the back of the Cafe keeping him in a completely pitch-black room. Without a source of light, Umbra is unable to move as a shadow cannot exist in pure darkness. However, keeping Umbra at the Cafe would prove to be too dangerous, so Felix allowed Umbra to escape. Still, Felix was able to take a sample of Umbra's "sableblood," which will protect the Cafe from Umbra for the foreseeable future. Umbra doesn't reveal much about Padre's plans, but Felix speculates that the Mothman was specifically chosen to lure out a more dangerous entity—Indrid Cold.

SKWC - Strange Kids Want Coffee

While it is true that the Cafe and Diner masquerades as a generic combination cafe and diner… they aren’t actually a cafe or diner. So, then it is quite bizarre that three teenagers, two girls and a boy, came into the Cafe to order three black coffees. Quick on his feet, the Owner served them some instant coffee he had lying around. Could they be pawns of Padre Santos? Or perhaps they are working for the Astoria 23rd Agency? Whatever the case, the teens returned the next week to rummage through the Cafe’s trash. Interestingly, one of the girls, the red-headed one, kept looking through a Ouija Board’s planchette, but why? When the teens returned a few days later, the Owner decided to confront them directly and hired them as part-time employees #35, #44, and #1313.

October 95

ASG - A Search for Gray

The Owner begins by revealing that one of the co-owners of the Cafe and Diner, Lucy Fireald (an anagram of Lady Lucifer), left the Cafe about a year ago, in September 1994. The Owner wonders if Lucy leaving the Cafe is what emboldened her brother, Padre Santos (Satan), to make a move in Long Beach. Whatever the case, they need to track down Dorian Gray, one of Satan’s Consorts, to move forward with their investigation. Consorts are the lowest tier of the House of Satan, comprised of “husbands, wives, boy-toys, friends, jesters, and muses” of Satan. Specifically, they are after Dorian Gray, a contemporary of Oscar Wilde in life and living embodiment of the fictional character in his afterlife. Satan painted a portrait of Dorian, which allows Dorian to travel between the Flipside and Otherside at will. However, the portrait requires a certain amount of “sin” to stay youthful and operational. As such, the portrait has a symbiotic relationship with Dorian Gray, and the more debaucherous Gray is in the Flipside, the more powerful he becomes in the Otherside. Additionally, any harm done to the portrait is harm done to Dorian Gray, similar to the novel.

Later in the month, Sahir receives word from one of his many contacts that Dorian Gray has been spotted hanging around “The Diamond Club” (later called The Ruby post 1995) in LA on Thursdays for their “Perversion” nights. Out of the current staff, only Alex and Nikki could reasonably fit in at Perversion, though they are both still underage, so they’ll need a fake ID. To ensure that Dorian can’t leave the club, Felix is tasked with drawing protective sigils around the area. In the meantime, Alex does some digging and discovers that Perversion is a front for demons to enter the Flipside. Felix confirms this when he is confronted by the demon Naberius while attempting to place the sigils outside of the club. Naberius and Felix have a chat, and it is revealed that Asmodeus is also making moves in LA and is setting up these clubs and events for demons to come, chat, make deals, have fun, and then return to the Otherside. Felix doesn’t buy that, but he can’t press it at the moment and instead makes a deal with Naberius to leave Asmodeus and her operations alone to help corner Dorian. On the 22nd, Nikki and Alex track down Dorian at the club, and Dorian reveals that Satan’s other notebook directly gives those who sign their names in it a fraction of Satan’s powers. In contrast, his boogieman book only gives a fraction of the Hauntaurskald’s power and with strict rules on how it is used. When Nikki and Alex ask Dorian what other names are in Satan’s notebook, Dorian claims to not know, but Tom Walker would. Alex and Nikki then let Dorian use his portrait to return to the Hauntaurskald, but they take his portrait back to the Cafe for safekeeping.

DIS - Disasters in the Skies

While Alex was out walking at night, he noticed in a car’s rear-view mirror that he was being watched by a pair of bright red glowing eyes, presumably the Mothman’s. Alex explains that one of the Mothman’s primary attacks is inducing extreme paranoia, fear, nausea, and suicidal thoughts if you look into her eyes. However, the Mothman can only use this psychic attack once before needing to return to the Otherside so it can be avoided. Although, the Mothman is still very strong, fast, and deadly even without her hypnotic eyes. This run-in with Mothman prompts Salenna to set up a series of trail cams around Santa Ana, Costa Mesa, and Newport Beach. The main concern is that the Mothman will attempt to cause one of his signature “disasters.” A few days later, Felix notes that an unusual and uneasy calm has washed over California. This is another power of the Mothman; he can spread a calm state over vast areas such as Long Beach. He does this to make it harder for normal people to see and fear him and to feel the need to actually stop what the Mothman is planning. And it isn’t clear what the plan is until late into the month on the 26th, when Felix puts the pieces together that Mothman has been creating a city-wide sigil to bring about a catastrophic disaster. Thankfully with the help of the Bird Beast of Var’s feathers, the Cafe was able to weaken Mothman’s ritual preventing a massive disaster. However, the redirected energy led to an explosion at the crux of the sigil, South Coast Plaza mall, though there were no injuries. As for why Mothman was conjuring this disaster… it’s unclear, though locationally, that the crux of the disaster aligned with a monument of some sort in the Otherside. Further investigations will be required. Though in stopping the Mothman, the Owner fears that it will put new pressure on the Cafe from the Open Doors Church, and so the Owner lays out a set of 12 esoteric rules for the Cafe to follow.

MOP - Memories of the Past

Jenni writes her first receipt for the Cafe explaining in vague terms how her unique powers work. In a sense, she can see into the Otherside from the Flipside, usually at weak points in the boundary lines but her powers also work just about anywhere when she can get them to work. Jenni was able to get a glance at the Otherside when she visited the Cafe’s “graveyard” with the others. While staring at the tombstone for the previous #35, Jenni got a flash of somewhere bright, sunny, and full of feathers in the Otherside. Jenni asks if it’d be alright to revisit the graveyard with her quartz lens planchette to get a better view of the Otherside. Nikki returned to the graveyard with Jenni later, though Jenni ended up passing out due to the intensity of her vision. From Nikki’s recollection, Jenni saw a birch tree with a snake on it. The snake in her vision jumped towards Jenni, which caused her to faint. After Jenni recovered, she clarified that the tree had golden eye patterns, similar to a birch tree with golden leaves. One of the tree branches turned into a winged snake that got longer and longer before slithering behind Jenni, and then she passed out. This prompts the rest of the Cafe, sans Owner and new employees, to discuss the meaning behind Jenni’s visions. Aelan writes a receipt mentioning how Ciel warned that while Jenni was seeing into the Morningstar, the snake was undoubtedly one of Belphegor’s children, an Ouroborian. Specifically, the snake seems to be Hermes Trismegistus, one of Belphegor’s strongest children. What Jenni perceived as Hermes looking at her turned out to be Hermes looking at Ciel though Aelan doesn’t mention what, if anything, Hermes said or did to Ciel in the Morningstar. All of this prompts Aelan to wonder if the Owner was having an affair with Belphegor and if that was the cause of Lucifer leaving the Cafe. If only because the Owner seems to know more about Belphegor than Lucifer. Later in the month, Jenni has a weird dream where a massive fog-like being known as the Sagradopto Entity spoke to her in her dream, claiming that they would be reacquainted soon. While Jenni’s description of the dream is vague, it sparks Felix’s interest, and he decides he would like to study her dreams, though to do so, he will need a psychonautic approach. However, Felix claims that psychonautics are not his forte and that perhaps the Owner would be better suited to tackling the subconscious plane of Jenni’s mind. In any case, it will take Felix time to prepare the proper “ingredients” to achieve this plan.

BBVR - Bird Beast of Var Returns

Aelan announces that the Bird Beast of Var, Ciel, has returned to the Cafe. He is a Morningstarian Demon who helped the Cafe in 1993 and then stuck around for a bit and ended up in a romantic relationship with Aelan before things ended on not the best of terms. Ciel has explicitly returned because he is worried about the Mothman. Both Ciel and the Mothman are Blooded Demons; demons are not reincarnated mortals but born in the Otherside typically as the children of the Devil and Lilith, though Ciel and Mothman are of different nobilities. Ciel's family has been feuding with Mothman's for many years. Additionally, Ciel wanted to leave the Morningstar for a bit as it turns out that Lucifer has been on a post-break-up "mania," which has caused things in the Morningstar to become too hectic. Nick writes his first receipt excited to meet with Ciel because he feels that there is something special and potentially extraterrestrial about him. Nick also mentions that his family's familiar, Norbert Langley, has said before that Ciel and Mothman are not the children of the Devil, making them exceedingly rare, even for Blooded Demons. Ciel later pays Felix a visit and realizes that Felix is under Mothman's calm, curing him by giving Felix one of his feathers. Having come out of his unnatural state of calm, Felix immediately asks Ciel where Indrid Cold is, though Ciel does not know anything about Cold's whereabouts. Ciel ends their conversation by saying he is needed in Aurora, Morningstar's capital, and has to leave again for the time being.

CIC - Cryptid in the Computer

Salenna reports a strange hit on the message board, a customer that is seemingly entirely computerized. Having little to go off of, Salenna names the customer Xulfa which is “A Flux,” backward. Xulfa seems to leave bits of code wherever he is seen, specifically the phrase “Do you see this? Can you see this? Can you enter Hell?” Things heat up in the case as their informant is presumed dead or, at the very least, missing. Worried that the Astoria 23rd Agency will be acting fast on this, Salenna and Sahir travel to Ohio to investigate the patron’s home. There were no signs of a struggle and only a printed note left behind: “Do you see this? Can you see this? Can you enter Hell?” Salenna wonders if Xulfa could be a similar pseudo-technological entity like Mr. Cold is, as it would be difficult for a fully-digital entity to outright kill someone. Sahir confirms that the Astoria 23rd Division Sierra has been alerted to the disappearance and will investigate soon. Though Sahir was able to put the pieces together in time, Sahir was needed back in LA, and this would be a case that Salenna couldn’t handle on her own. Sahir asks an associate of the Cafe and Diner, the guardian of the Hot Bed, Daniel Hamilton, if he would be willing to assist the Cafe once again. As it turns out, Xulfa is a malicious worm-virus that was created to find a host system with the proper Otherside technology to execute its creation into a self-replicating nanobot or, in simpler terms, a gray goo. Its creator, Dr. Crow, operates within a house that can disappear and reappear on Wednesdays. This forces Salenna and Hamilton into a tight window to confront Dr. Crow, destroy the goo, and return before his house vanishes again. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, and during a week trapped within Dr. Crow’s house, Hamilton was consumed by the gray goo. However, the goo also consumed Dr. Crow putting an end to his strange occultic experiments. Salenna decides to stay in the Ohio/West Virginia area to make sure that Dr. Crow’s remaining experiments don’t cause any problems and to ensure that Hamilton’s wife and son are okay. Although… a very strange message appears in the CaDCom logs.

CAN YOU SEE THIS? Yes. DO YOU SEE THIS? Yes. CAN YOU ENTER HELL? Yes. ENTER HELL? De Salomon l’honneur et glorie… It would seem that Dr. Crow has, in a way, survived in death, retaining his human memories even as a demon. Crow threatens that the “beast must feast and feast it shall.”

TCV - The Cold Visitor

Sahir has a brief encounter with Indrid Cold. Though, per usual, Indrid Cold only speaks in looped pre-recorded messages. He warns that someone needs to get out of here because their chance to escape is coming soon. Indrid’s messages also mention finding a man and that someone should rest now and return to somewhere, though the end of the message is cut off. Indrid’s messages switch towards the end, and he asks Sahir if he has seen Daniel Hamilton before wishing Sahir a pleasant Friday evening. These messages would later be reused in a 2017 conversation with Cold.