February 28, 1989

Nic, Gordon and Choopy are assigned to investigate eyewitness reports of albino alligators in the Underground of Seattle, Washington.  

"What if they are ghost alligators?" asked Gordon.

"We'd better go to Chinatown, I know what we need," answered Nic.

Nic, Gordon and Choopy went to the back alleys and occult shops of Chinatown.  They bought a lot of ghost charms, hell money, and most importantly fulu and lingfu (the paper talismans seen prominently in Mr. Vampire).

A long drive to Seattle gave them a chance to get more acquainted, familiarize themselves with the RV, and make note of roadside tourist attractions to visit on the way back South.

The team took a tour of the Underground with Bill Speidel's Underground Tours.  They heard about the few tourists who thought they saw the albino alligator, and chose a manhole as a place to start.  

In the early AM, they set up some orange cones, opened the manhole, and descended into the depths.  Gordon meditated, and contacted the spirit of Badger, very knowledgeable about things below the earth.  They soon found traces of blood and signs of a fight.  They followed the trail and found a family of giant white slightly luminous giant slugs.  They were living in the basement lab of a mad scientist.  Two big ones and four small ones, three broken tanks, an operating theater, and a pile of bodies.  The battle was fierce, and by the purest coincidence each time Nic stuck a Lingfu to one of the slugs, it was killed in the very next second.  One of the slugs got a lucky shot and broke Nic's arm.  Choopy leaped from vat-top to vat-top, spraying salt as he went.  Gordon managed to shoot a tranq dart all the way through one of the smaller slugs, slaying it.  Soon, the slugs were destroyed.

Examination of the lab revealed that two of the bodies had extensive surgery, with four arms, four legs, modified hips and shoulders, and extra vertebrae in their necks.  It looks like the same sort of process that Karla Kolchak was rescued from.  Dr. Wahnhosen was here!  They called the BPRD for more people to secure the scene and investigate further.  It seems that the lab's power was shut off for non-payment four weeks previously, after having been paid up three years in advance.  That led the slugs to awaken, break out of their vat, break into the other two, reproduce, eat all the nutrients available in the lab, and break down one of the walls, giving them access to the Underground.  The building was purchased under the name "Kirk Redheart".  

Nic had his arm set in a cast, and got to fly back to San Francisco on a charter jet.  His first flight, luxurious!  Gordon had the joy of driving back with Choopy, stopping at many tourist traps along the way.

Nic and Gordon had 12 weeks of downtime and training, while Nic's arm healed back to full strength.  Choopy had other adventures (we're still in Choopy's backtime).