THE HAT TRICK

 The Hat Trick

A Story and Adventure Hook for Darker, Conspiracy Files and Other Supernatural Investigation Games

By Roger C. Jones

When Ezekiel Wilson's Traveling Stage Show decided to add a magic act to its repertoire, no one could have guessed that it would lead to disaster.

Magician Felix Negron had joined their troupe when they visited St. Louis. Wilson thought the man proclaiming that he was a bonafide master of the "Dark Arts" was just part of his shtick. It was indeed a preposterous claim, as Felix had only recently stumbled upon an ancient tome hinting at powerful occult secrets. The struggling stage magician mastered a few spells to delight audiences, but craved more.

One night, at a small fairground performance outside of Abilene, Felix would attempt something on a grander scale. Using an old black hat as a focus, he attempted to pull forth something from another plane of existence. The variation on the old "rabbit out of a hat" gimmick had horrific consequences.

Drawing on the man's subconscious expectations, the demons loosed upon the world that night took the form of monstrous hares. They proceeded to kill the entire audience along with the performers. Local authorities would blame it on a particularly virulent outbreak of rabies and took measures to eradicate the local desert rabbit population.

And yet the rabbits remain, or what may only resemble ordinary rabbits.. at first..

"It's wrong, Tom. All wrong. I mean sure, these marks look like they could be made by rabbit incisors, but look at the jaw diameter this thing must have."

Sheriff Tom McGraw nodded. He knew Bill Pinder, the county's Chief Medical Examiner, could get a little overexcited by anything that seemed out of the ordinary. He didn't get what all the fuss was about. Animal Control had already confirmed cases of rabies. Hell, he had to put down a couple of dogs himself, and that wasn't his job. He sure would miss seeing that old retriever at the gas station. But Bill had interrupted Monday Night Football to get him down here. No way he was getting back to watching the game with this man's feathers all ruffled. It's not that he wasn't worried about the bodies piling up and the severity of the attacks. After all, he was up for re-election this year, and folks were already saying he should be doing more. There just wasn't a whole lot he could do except tap the county coffers for some extra pest control.

"Sooo.. What're you saying, Bill?"

The older man was about to hold a bloody scalpel up to his chin in thought, but realized what he was doing and pointed at the corpse in front of them instead.

"What if.. now hear me out.. What if.. it wasn't rabbits? Or not rabbits like the kinds we know of?"

McGraw folded his arms and sighed. "Come again?" He asked.

"Well you know, Tom. The military's always conducting experiments. You've heard the stories. Maybe.. I don't know.. Maybe something got loose, started breeding.. Hell, I don't know. Wasn't there something similar happened.. back in the forties? And during the eighties too, if I recall.."

Sheriff McGraw put a hand on Pinder's shoulder.

"Then you know what we got, Bill?"

"No. What?"

"We still got ourselves a rabbit problem."

"Yeah, but.."

Sheriff McGraw was already walking out of the examination room. "You watch too much TV, Bill.."

Bill Pinder yelled out into the hallway. "I'm tellin' ya, something's not right about this!"

"Goodbye, Bill."

Bill returned to the room where a very unfortunate young girl was now the subject of his analysis. He had a bunch more chilling in the morgue, and his only assistant had chosen this time to hop on a Harley to Daytona. Normally, it would be rare to get more than a stiff a week here. Now he was up to his armpits in animal attack fatalities. Twelve here, with plenty more at the hospital. The state was supposed to be sending help, but when that would come, who the hell knew-

"Hello, Doctor Pinder?"

Bill Pinder jumped and turned around. There was a man in his mid-thirties, with dark hair and a light complexion, dressed in a very no-nonsense suit and a younger Spanish-looking girl with dark, curly hair dressed a bit more casually in jeans and a loose-fitting blouse.

"I'm Dan Harding, this is Lydia Mendoza. We're from the Abilene Sentinel.."

"Oh. Oh, right. I spoke to the lady here on the phone. I didn't expect you 'til morning. The sheriff hasn't authorized another press release yet. Hey.. Sentinel? Don't think I know that one. You folks digital only?"

"Yeah. Pretty much," Lydia informed him.

"Huh. Well, anyway, I can't say too much except to confirm what's been said already. There's been a number of animal attacks. CDC's supposed to be getting an expert to tell us exactly which strain of rabies we're looking at."

"Just tell me," Harding prompted, "does this seem to fit with anything you've seen before? We're hearing it's related to the wild rabbit population."

"Desert hares, yeah. I mean, no, I never saw something this bad. I mean the size of these things.. I know I shouldn't be speculating but.. they'd have to be damn big rabbits to do this."

The visitors looked past the coroner  to glimpse the savaged corpse of the young woman. If she had been attacked by a bear, her body might have been a less devastating sight.

"We won't take up any more of your time," Lydia stated. "We were just hoping to get a jump on this for public safety concerns, you understand."

"Sure."

"You have our number if you can provide any additional information," Harding reminded him.

"Oh, one thing I can say.. I seem to remember similar incidents decades ago. Probably rabies then too. Sometimes, these outbreaks are cyclical. Kids today would probably go ahead and blame climate change or something."

"Right." Harding smiled. "Well, we'll let you get back to it."

The pair departed. When they were clear of the county morgue, Lydia turned to Dan.

"That wasn't done by rabbits."

Back in the morgue, Bill Pinder resumed his work of removing organs, weighing them and recording information. He muttered to himself.

"No way this was done by ordinary rabbits." He shook his head." No way."

**HOOK:** The PCs are members of the Sentinel Initiative tasked with investigating a rash of unusual animal attacks south of Abilene, Texas.

**What's really going on:** The *lepus daemonium* must sate their hunger every forty years. Once they do so, they become dormant until the next cycle. This may be due to some peculiarity caused by being in this dimension, or perhaps it allows the local population of prey to increase.

**Ending the threat:** The demon-hares can be banished or destroyed in the manner of similar creatures, but there are many of them. PCs may be able to find the original incantation used if they can locate the missing tome or find a similar record. The key to ending the dimensional incursion is in finding the magician's hat. If the.PCs learn about the roadshow that once performed here, they will discover that any property was sold off, lost or destroyed long ago. However, a small thrift shop still possesses the hat. The hat is mystically anchored to this location and the outer plane, and attempts to be rid of it always seem to fail. Ot may be used again as a focus to reverse the summoning and suck the demons into the hat, expelling them forever.

**Optional complications:**

• A sinister occultist is knowledgeable about the hat and/or the tome and seeks the tome. He/she may even seek to swing the door wide open and bring forth an army of demons. This genuine magician may even seem to work with the PCs to help locate the objects.

• Sheriff McGraw becomes suspicious of the PCs investigating, and starts to believe they may be foreign agents testing America's response to a biological attack using rabies.

• Felix Negron is still alive all these years later and impossibly old. He was spared during the first attack, being the one who initiated it. Only he can work the spell to return these creatures to their native dimension. Once doing so, he will finally redeem himself and find peace in death.

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