Parata Occult Mysteries

Four occult-noir cases, 1984 onward

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Generated: 2026-04-24

A scene-by-scene chronological timeline across all four books of the Parata Occult Mysteries series, sorted by in-story date/time (not narrative order). POV is Rev (Revel) Parata throughout, except where noted (the Vietnam flashback in The Betrayed is also Rev; the Prologue of The Disturbed is third-person on the responding NOPD officers; the Epilogue of The Betrayed is third-person on Burke and on the centipede creature).

The series spans roughly twenty years of pre-history and one continuous case-arc from June 1984 to May 1985 in Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia. Each book covers a discrete case but the throughline is the Jar of Nephren-Ka, the Order of the Hidden Eye, and Rev’s slow seduction by both.

July 15, 1965 — Vietnam (deep-past flashback)

[The Betrayed, Ch. “‘Nam”] Rev — Quảng Trị Province, 23 km south of Đông Hà, Vietnam (11:22 AM, Thursday, July 15, 1965) — Memory triggered by Burke’s address. Rev as Recon SGT attached to Sgt. First-Class Mac Machado’s special-forces team; tasked to take out a 10-yr-old Vietnamese girl in olive shirt approaching ARVN officers at an open-air pho restaurant 445 yards out; Rev hesitates; the girl detonates her suicide vest; shrapnel kills Mac instantly; Rev carries Mac’s body over twenty clicks back to base on a leg shot through behind the knee (caliber unspecified in the chapter). The 20-year wound: “Mac would be alive if I had just trusted him.”

March 1983 — January 1984 (Coventry-case backstory)

John Calhoun (later “David Kinsey”), an existentially-troubled young man from Tucker, GA, meets Cornelius James Randolph at the “Beyond the Veil” conference (3/14/83). Within days he is attending Saturday rituals with Randolph’s Society for Esoteric Knowledge in South Atlanta; over the year he is groomed into believing the Jar of Nephren-Ka is an evil that must be destroyed. (From Calhoun’s leather journal, recovered by Rev at Kayrevla.)

February 5, 1984

[The Artifact (clipping)] New York Times “Lost Egyptian Relic Gifted to Big Apple Non-Profit” by Laura Wagner — The John Birch estate gifts the Jar of Nephren-Ka to Lord Donald Coventry’s Cultural Preservation Society for CT-scan research at Tulane University School of Medicine. Public-record provenance.

May 23, 1984

David Kinsey (John Calhoun) steals the Jar from the CPS New Orleans intake center on Julia Street at ~5:30 PM, takes a $17 King Cab fare from his Washington Manor apartment to Slidell to a bank ATM, then bribes driver Oleg Nikolaev $100 to drive him to the gate of an abandoned Lacombe estate, “KAYREVLA,” where Randolph has staged him to shelter. (Off-page; reconstructed from Kinsey’s journal and tradecraft.) Sometime later that night Kinsey dies in the upstairs guest-room bed, body somehow reduced to a bloodstain and mushrooms; the Jar leaves the room.

Sunday, June 3, 1984 (THE ARTIFACT begins)

[The Artifact, Ch. “Franklin Surveillance”] Rev — Calhoun County, GA (12:38 PM) — Apprehends bail-skip Lloyd “Turbo” Franklin at a liquor store after 18 hr of trailer-park surveillance.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Drive to Nola”] Rev — Calhoun County → New Orleans (1:09 PM) — Cuffed perp-march and the famous “shit in the woods” scene; Rev hauls Turbo back to the Orleans Parish Sheriff.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Back Home”] Rev — Pensacola, FL office (9:12 PM) — Cot-and-chest one-room office on Palafox; first phone call from “Mr. Coventry” requesting an appointment.

Monday, June 4, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “The Meeting”] Rev — Pensacola office (10:00 AM) — Lord Donald Coventry of the Cultural Preservation Society arrives in a black Rolls-Royce with chauffeur Barnes, presents a folder on stolen-Jar suspect “David Kinsey,” leaves a $5,000 retainer check after Rev refuses.
[The Artifact, Ch. “The Decision”] Rev — Pensacola (10:38 AM) — Domestic chores; an evening cigar at Lili Marlene’s; staring at red ink in his ledger overnight, Rev signs the check.

Tuesday, June 5, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Initial Inquiries”] Rev — CPS intake center, 920 Julia St., NOLA (1:52 PM) — Meets Coventry in his director’s office; interviews intake supervisor Hassana Sani; views surveillance video of Kinsey’s theft.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Kinsey’s Apartment”] Rev — Washington Manor, Washington Ave (3:19 PM) — Spots Coventry’s two surveillance men in a brown LTD; bumps into the apartment to find it tossed; pockets a credit card statement.
[The Artifact, Ch. “The Hunt is On”] Rev — CPS conference room / King Cab on Howard Ave (4:14 PM) — Calls Capt. Freddy Guidry of NOPD 4th District for a record search; tracks a $17 Visa charge to King Cab; meets dispatcher Hubert Frogman.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Chasing Leads”] Rev — Washington Manor / The Court motel (6:31 PM) — Canvasses neighbors at dusk; rents room 121.

Wednesday, June 6, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “On Kinsey’s Trail”] Rev — King Cab / Westwego (10:05 AM) — Bribes Hubert $40 for the fare ticket; tracks driver Oleg Nikolaev to his Westwego apartment; Oleg admits driving Kinsey to a gate off LA-434 in Lacombe.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Lacombe”] Rev (with Oleg) — Lacombe (11:51 AM) — Oleg guides Rev to the Kayrevla estate; they spot a Victorian gable but do not enter. Rev calls Searchlight Staffing — Kinsey was placed by Isabelle Randolph.

Thursday, June 7, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “KAYREVLA”] Rev — Lacombe (3:08 AM) — B&Es the Kayrevla mansion; finds bedsheets soaked in blood with mushrooms growing from the wet center, no body, Kinsey’s duffel and journal in the nightstand, an empty depression where the Jar had sat.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Kinsey’s Legacy”] Rev — The Court motel, NOLA (5:47 AM) — Sleeping pill nightmare of Kinsey liquefying under the comforter while Rev watches paralyzed; reads Kinsey’s journal — confirms grooming by Cornelius Randolph and the Society for Esoteric Knowledge.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Randolph”] Rev — CPS / Covington / Cousin Douglas Randolph’s home (12:33 PM) — Tells Coventry that Kinsey is dead; pushes Coventry on his hiring rationale; identifies Kayrevla owner as Cornelius James Randolph; first cousin Douglas in Covington warns Rev away (“Cornelius always was passing strange”).

Friday, June 8, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Georgia”] Rev — NOLA → Atlanta, GA (4:00 AM) — Drives the long haul; obtains John Calhoun’s birth certificate from the GA Dept of Public Health; meets local PI Marvin Brown of Brown and Williams; tries Isabelle Randolph repeatedly with no answer.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Tracking Cornelius”] Rev — Atlanta apartment lobby / South Atlanta (7:21 PM) — Bribes Isabelle’s doorman $5; she has not been seen in three weeks.

Saturday, June 9, 1984 (early hours of)

[The Artifact, Ch. “Tracking Cornelius” (cont)] Rev — South Atlanta SEK building (3:00 AM) — All-day surveillance of the Society for Esoteric Knowledge then 3 AM B&E; finds donations from Calhoun, a $300,000 SEK→Searchlight “Investment” check signed by Cornelius, an unfamiliar white-on-black painted glyph (a filled circle with arrows pointing outward in eight directions, like a stylized sun), a Kris knife, and Cornelius’s letterhead at 1 Old Jones Place, Quitman, GA.

Sunday, June 10, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Quitman”] Rev — Quitman, GA / Tallahassee Army surplus (1:08 PM) — Locates Cornelius’s stone-columned mansion; goes to Tallahassee for fatigues and combat boots; pushes a dead birch onto the barbed-wire fence to gain entry.
[The Artifact, Ch. “BESONWA”] Rev — Quitman (7:34 PM) — Behind the outbuildings finds an old graveyard with four recently disturbed graves; observes “Lurch” (tall acromegalic in a black suit) and a small white-haired older man; both descend and disappear into a parlor; Rev breaches the house, reads “BESONWA” carved over the front door.
[The Artifact, Ch. “What Lies Beneath”] Rev — Quitman (11:17 PM) — Twists a steel mirror with carved Ouroboros snakes to open a priest’s hole; KOs Lurch on his way up; descends a narrow spiral to a stone cellar where Cornelius Randolph stands at a chalk pentagram with the Jar at center, a young man eviscerated on a slab with his heart bitten by human teeth; Randolph’s mind-control nearly makes Rev pull the trigger on himself; his grandfather’s Sunrise Ceremony memory breaks the trance just as the gun fires; ricochet hits Randolph in the chest; Randolph dies.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Aftermath”] Rev — Quitman (11:42 PM) — Examines the chalk pentagram, finds the smudge made by Randolph’s foot just before death; takes the Jar; recovers a French book and a fragmentary “Book of Eibon.”

Monday, June 11, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Clash of the Titans”] Rev — Quitman (12:08 AM) — Lurch (~7 ft) ambushes Rev with a fireplace poker; long brutal hand-to-hand; Rev tears Lurch’s bottom lip free, then puts three rounds into him; Lurch dies face-down on the rug.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Evidence”] Rev — Quitman → Tallahassee → Pensacola (12:13 AM) — Patches his side with peroxide; pours gasoline through the parlor and over Lurch, leaves the basement scene intact for police; lights a Zippo to the trail; ER in Tallahassee for cracked ribs; in Pensacola, files the serial number off his .38.

Tuesday, June 12, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Coventry”] Rev — CPS, NOLA (9:47 AM) — En route, drops the .38 over the Twin Span and chucks the bagged fatigues into Lake Pontchartrain; delivers the Jar to Coventry, whose face takes on a feverish intensity when he touches it; Coventry pays the full $5,000.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Digging Deeper”] Rev — NOLA, The Court room 105 / NOLA library / Guidry residence (10:43 AM) — Buys replacement S&W model 60; finds the Feb 5, 1984 NYT article on the Jar; calls Freddy and accepts dinner at the Guidry home (Jambalaya/Boudin); Janet absolves Rev of guilt for the four-year-old drink-driving wreck.

Friday, June 15, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “The Hot Date”] Rev — Julia St lot / Tulane Med / Belle Chasse (8:17 AM) — Tails Coventry from CPS to Tulane for the Jar’s CT scan, then back to CPS, then to Faucheux Monuments, an isolated metal building on West W St., Belle Chasse, where a tie-dyed sculptor (“Beatnik”) receives the Jar’s crate.

Saturday, June 16, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Faucheux Monuments”] Rev — Faucheux Monuments, Belle Chasse (1:48 AM) — B&Es the shop; nearly fires on a black-stone bust of a cobra-spider-pharaoh head with seven red gem eyes; finds disturbing alien sculptures (the centipede, a tentacled tree-form, the amorphous brain); finds the empty Jar crate and an unworked block of onyx; tapes scotch tape across a man-sized safe.

Monday, June 18 → Sunday, June 24, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “The Long Watch”] Rev — Engineer Rd auto shop / Faucheux Monuments (7:34 AM Mon onward) — Pays mechanic Denis $100 for a parking spot to surveil; week-long watch as Beatnik works long hours; Rev re-enters nightly to verify the onyx is being carved into a duplicate Jar; marks the original crate with a streak of dirty mud for later identification.

Sunday, June 24, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Lafon Boys Home”] Rev — Cultural Preservation Society / Chef Menteur Hwy, East NOLA (7:48 PM) — Beatnik delivers two near-identical crates to Coventry’s Rolls; one goes back to CPS, the smear-marked original goes east; Barnes drives Coventry to the Lafon Home for Boys; Rev parks his cruiser in a swamp track and scales the wall.
[The Artifact, Ch. “The Ritual”] Rev — Lafon Home auditorium (8:22 PM) — Upstairs, five robed figures stand at a five-pointed star drawn in some black substance (charcoal or paint) chanting in the cult-language with the Jar at center; afterimages of a single three-lobed red eye behind Rev’s eyes; Rev unconsciously chants his grandfather’s words to repel the vision; Barnes ambushes him on the staircase, brawl, broken nose; Coventry takes Rev captive, Rolls trunk.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Plantation”] Rev — Vacherie plantation, off Oak Alley Lane (11:15 PM) — Greek-revival plantation; Rev tied to the westernmost marble obelisk; Barnes punches Rev’s nose repeatedly to fill a stone goblet with his blood for the ritual; Rev fakes unconsciousness, spits saliva at the blood-drawn circle (drawn from his own goblet of blood) to create a gap.
[The Artifact, Ch. “The ‘Production’”] Rev — Vacherie plantation (11:54 PM) — Coventry conducts the ritual; flings sand at Rev; Rev knocks his head against the obelisk and passes out. Wakes to a chitinous centipede creature with a single three-lobed red eye birthing itself from Coventry’s mouth; the creature curls around the Jar, then approaches Rev — a coyote (Rev’s grandfather’s spirit) draws the creature off into the swamp.

Monday, June 25, 1984

[The Artifact, Ch. “Escape”] Rev — Vacherie plantation / Oak Alley Lane (12:09 AM) — Frees himself; recovers the Jar; finds Barnes’s clothes in a heap with a ~100-lb mound of pinkish sand spilling from his slacks; recovers a silver “Barnes” pendant; dissociates; comes to on Oak Alley Lane and sees the plantation burning; rushes back through the burning hall to retrieve his weapon and the Jar.
[The Artifact, Ch. “Loose Ends”] Rev — gas station phone booth / Lafon Home / Tallahassee hospital (2:12 AM) — Calls King Cab from 7790 LA-20; Oleg drives ~2 hours to pick him up; ER in Tallahassee — broken nose, mild concussion, surgery; from his room, sees a TV story about the fire and bodies in Quitman (“Besonwa”); calls Freddy with a tip about Calhoun in the Quitman graves; lies that he hasn’t seen Coventry in two weeks. Coventry’s death is reported as unexplained.

Late June – early October 1984 (between books)

Rev returns to Pensacola; the Coventry case has paid off in cash and word-of-mouth; he places ads in the Times-Picayune and his PI business begins booming. He hides the Jar in his office storage chest. He develops a chronic dream-life of nightmares (the centipede creature, Burke’s figurines, Wax Man dreams later). Burke (unknown to Rev at this point) continues her predation on the NOLA homeless from her Chartres home.

Thursday, October 11, 1984 (THE BETRAYED begins)

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Saints”] Rev — Faubourg, NOLA (1:40 PM) — Confronted by gang while looking for Jerome (10-yr-old homeless); meets Father James Kelly at Saint Christina’s; first meeting with Sarah Burke; meets Bernie Latour (slow-witted Creole-eyed gardener, ~40); meets Valerie Grimes (Burke Foundation outreach manager).
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Candidates”] Rev — Pensacola office / Buck 49 / restaurant in Pensacola (6:25 PM) — Rejects last interview candidate (a violent ex-MP bouncer); meets Rae Gordon (Russian-Jewish, ex-actress, scarred face, LA-trained PI, Ju-Jitsu/Escrima, ~5’8”, pale-blue eyes); 60/40 partnership after expenses agreed.

Monday, October 15, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Jerome”] Rev / Rae (with Jerome) — Jackson Square / Poydras shelter / Washington Square Park / I-10 overpass tent city, NOLA (9:22 AM) — Jerome takes them through six victims’ camps; first encounter with the Elder Sign painted at Washington Square; Burke Foundation lollipop-wrapper trail begins. Meets “Jack” the graybeard who hints more drifters than reported are missing.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Fanny”] Rev / Rae — Gravier shelter / Washington Square / Dookie Chase’s (3:27 PM) — Director Theresa Collins surreptitiously gives them Fanny Gareau’s possessions (suckers, single-use syringes, medic-alert card — Fanny was diabetic). Spots a second symbol painted on the curb across from Poydras shelter.

Tuesday, October 16, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Burke Foundation”] Rev / Rae — The Court / Saint Christina’s / Burke Foundation HQ / I-10 tent city (7:45 AM) — Father Kelly’s grimoire-stocked office; Burke Foundation HQ on Perdido; meet Grimes and Bernie at the I-10 site. Rev sees a small Vietnamese girl in olive shirt at the periphery — first reappearance of his ‘65 hallucination.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Bernie”] Rev / Rae — Saint Christina’s garden / Father Kelly’s office (4:09 PM) — Bernie’s “five friends” list; his memory blanks specifically about Marcus and Alicia; Kelly admits Bernie put a man in a coma defending him.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Arúnsearc”] Rev / Rae — Fitzgerald’s pub Arúnsearc, French Quarter (5:12 PM) — First meeting with Mr. Fitzgerald; he reveals two more boys are missing — Jamie Gilroy (14) and Shane MacQuillan (13), Sept 25, biking south from McDonough Park. Dinner at Napoleon House follows.

Wednesday, October 17, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Teens”] Rev / Rae — Rae’s apartment / 4th District / McDonough Park / Brooklyn Ave/Madison St (8:18 AM) — Freddy lets them read the Gilroy/MacQuillan file; they walk Brooklyn south, find a paved bike path on the river side of the railyard; below the bridge supports they spot Jamie’s Huffy BMX dumped in the bushes.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Scene”] Rev / Rae — under the Crescent City Connection bridge (2:07 PM) — Find a long human bone in the muddy pool by a 3-ft drainage pipe; find the same Elder Sign on the bridge support. Police excavation begins; at least four skulls.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Burke’s Place”] Rev / Rae — Burke residence, Chartres St (6:19 PM) — Manservant James; parlor with porcelain figurines of small children (the small girl feeding raw meat to an infant — matches a dream Rev hasn’t had yet); painting signed with the Elder Sign. Burke serves “Le Frésinat” with “Arapawa pork”; Rev eats heartily, Rae picks at it. Burke is at least 50 but appears far younger.

Thursday, October 18, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Children”] Rev — The Court motel (7:38 AM) — Dream of a small girl in tattered rags climbing through a window with raw meat to feed an infant in a bassinet. (Matches Burke’s figurine.)
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Children” (cont)] Rev — Saint Christina’s garden (~7:30 AM) — Sees a thin, hooded figure in white speaking to a dazed Bernie; Bernie can only remember a “purty necklace”; Rev tests Bernie — Bernie knows victims without the symbol but not the ones whose camps had it.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Pipe”] Rev — 4th District / under the bridge (9:43 AM) — Freddy: Shane McQuillan IDed via dental, kerf marks show flesh removed antemortem with surgical tools, bones cracked by canine-class jaws postmortem; Rev volunteers to walk the drainage pipe; finds it leads to an abandoned holding pond and five abandoned factories; tracks an odd bare elongated-toes/clawed footprint in the sediment to a heavy rusted-shut steel door in the central factory.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Factory”] Rev — abandoned factory (10:57 AM) — Inside the factory, Rev glimpses the Vietnamese-girl figure; pries open the rear door, finds a basement with a bricked-over passage opening into a downward staircase; declines to descend alone, leaves it for Stephenson via Freddy.

Friday, October 19, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Missing”] Rev — Saint Christina’s (5:20 AM) — Frantic call from Father Kelly: Bernie is missing. In Bernie’s shed Rev finds origami folded from sucker wrappers (Marcus’s signature) and small wooden carvings replicating Burke’s porcelain figurines (including the small-girl-and-infant from the dream).
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Killer”] Rev — 4th District (6:23 AM) — Freddy: NOPD captured Bernie skulking around the dump site with a Japanese chef knife; print matches on the candy wrappers. Rev argues for Bernie’s innocence.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Interrogation”] Rev — 4th District interview room 3 (7:13 AM) — Bernie says he was led to the scene “by a dream” of a fog with a pretty light; the knife is “special,” he is not supposed to cut things with it but cannot remember who gave it to him.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Desperate Measures”] Rev / Rae — Saint Christina’s / Booker’s Bait & Tackle, Slidell area (8:09 AM) — Rae’s Pensacola surveillance case wrapped (husband repented). Rev shows Rae the rectory kitchen has only ordinary knives. Rae proposes going undercover as a homeless woman.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Monster Hunting”] Rev / Rae as “Jeanie” — Rae’s apartment / I-10 tent city / Booker’s Bait, north of NOLA (11:08 AM) — Rae goes undercover; Rev rents a fishing boat from former cop Booker (paralyzed left arm).
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Sighting”] Rev (with Booker) — Mississippi River, near bridge support (9:48 PM) — Rev spots a large grayish humanoid form (gorilla-shape, long arms, stumpy legs) emerge from the drainage pipe, dance and chant by the burial pit, throw a bone offering, then turn its red-reflecting eyes directly at Rev across hundreds of yards and flee back into the pipe at unnatural speed.

Saturday, October 20, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Suspect”] Rev — Rev’s hotel (8:19 AM) — Calls Freddy: Bernie has been formally charged. Rev confronts Kelly later: Kelly is hiding something.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Suspect” (cont) / Rae update] Rev / Rae — parking garage on Gravier (~7 PM) — Rae reports she saw a short, slender, white-skinned figure in a hooded duster spray-painting a partial new symbol on a tent-city support around 4 AM Friday; one of the men in camp suddenly retched, Rae looked back and the figure was gone.

Sunday, October 21, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Suspect” (cont)] Rev — Mississippi River bank (~midnight Oct 20–21) — Returns to the pit alone; the gray humanoid emerges, chants, bounds across the pit at Rev; Rev fires a double-tap and connects once below the left shoulder; creature retreats into the pipe leaving a blood trail.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Trail”] Rev — through the pipe / overflow pond / factory / undercity tunnels (12:19 AM) — Tracks the creature back through the pipe, the holding pond, the factory rear door, the bricked-over passage, and a long brick stairway down. Backs out, returns the next morning, decides he needs Rae to help.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Hunted”] Rev — I-10 tent city / Saint Christina’s (8:39 AM) — Rae’s spot is empty: blanket, possessions, broken silver Star of David necklace, and a freshly painted symbol on a nearby support — Burke has Rae. Calls Freddy to file missing persons; meets Father Kelly at the church just as Mass is letting out, where Kelly is talking to Fitzgerald.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Underground”] Rev — under New Orleans, then Burke’s house (10:11 AM) — Crab-walks down the brick passageway; follows the blood trail through a pipe that crosses under the Mississippi (~1,000 yds), surfaces under the French Quarter; in a Burke Foundation candy wrapper near a tunnel branch he confirms the connection. Tracks the eastern spur to a heavy iron-faced door beneath the city block bordered by Governor Nicholls / Royal / Chartres / Ursulines; hears two female voices through the door. Returns, instructs Father Kelly to call Freddy if Rev isn’t back by 2 PM.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Chartres”] Rev — Burke residence, Chartres St (1:51 PM) — Confronts Burke in her study; spots an unfinished painting marked with the Elder Sign; observes Burke’s Aphantochilus crab spider in a giant ant farm; sees a square of blood-stained gauze under Burke’s dress strap at the spot where Rev shot the gray creature; the glamour breaks for him — Burke’s true form is a hulking gray ghoul with rows of inwardly-curving teeth, blue eyes intact.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Lair”] Rev — Burke’s basement (3:47 PM) — Burke (“Pheobe Durst” she still thinks of herself, an ancient ghoul) addresses Rev by his full lineage; throws him into a bookcase, dislocating his shoulder; Rev wakes hung by his feet over a drain. Rae caged nearby, with the still-living mutilated body of Jamie Gilroy.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “‘Nam”] Rev (memory) — Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam (Thursday, July 15, 1965) — Vietnam flashback (see top of timeline).
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Showdown”] Rev (then Rae & Kelly arrive) — Burke’s basement (3:47 PM) — Father Kelly arrives uninvited and is knocked out by Burke; Rev frees himself by swinging from the meat hook to tear it from the ceiling; frees Rae from the cage; three-way fight; Rae stabs Burke in the back ~10 times, Rev shoots Burke in the left arm; Burke escapes through a hidden trapdoor.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Aftermath”] Rev — Burke’s basement (4:12 PM) — Kelly explains he is a member of the Order of the Hidden Eye and suspected a “ghoul”; pops Rev’s shoulder back into joint; will take Jamie to safety and call NOPD; Rev and Rae will follow the blood trail.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “Catacombs”] Rev / Rae — under-city tunnels (4:23 PM) — Follow the blood west and south to a small room (small bed, toy box) where Marcus has been kept as Burke’s “pet”; Burke holds Marcus with a clawed thumb at his carotid; sirens approach overhead; Burke offers Rev’s life for the others.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Decision”] Rev — under-city room (4:51 PM) — Burke chants over Marcus, slits his femoral artery with a claw, flees deeper into the tunnels; Rev belts a tourniquet, hands Marcus to Rae to carry up to the surface. Marcus tells Rev “You gonna die down here” in a flat voice as Rev departs.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Chase”] Rev — under the river / under the World’s Fair (5:19 PM) — Pursues Burke south, then east into the cross-river pipe; blood trail ends at a manhole; Rev does a one-armed muscle-up out into a maintenance corridor under the World’s Fair on the West Bank; Burke’s clawed tracks lead directly into the Mississippi.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Revelation”] Rev — Chartres St / Saint Christina’s (6:04 PM) — Lies to Freddy that Burke “drugged him.” At Saint Christina’s Father Kelly identifies Burke as a Homo anthropophagi (a ghoul); long shadow betrays them; mirrors and cameras (not paintings) show their true form; they accumulate skills/memories by eating the living.

Monday, October 22, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Charnel”] Rev — 4th District (8:12 AM) — Freddy shares the crime-scene photos: a charnel chamber with a pile of cracked human bones, a tunneled-up entrance into a city mausoleum, and walk-in coolers full of paper-wrapped human-meat cuts and aged human limbs hanging on hooks. Rev recalls he ate the “Arapawa pork” stew at Burke’s dinner.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Plan”] Rev / Rae / Kelly — Saint Christina’s office (9:24 AM) — Order of the Hidden Eye will hunt Burke. Rae buys silver Elder Sign pendants; Kelly performs the Key of Solomon protective incantation; reveals the symbol is Nyarlathotep’s; Black Pharaoh = Nyarlathotep, may be a real historical person.
[The Betrayed, Ch. “The Pact”] Rev / Rae / Kelly — Pensacola office (1:19 PM) — Rev retrieves the Jar of Nephren-Ka from his trunk-chest (he kept it from the Coventry case); experiences the visions and the call to keep it close. Hides it in a Pensacola safe-deposit box. Kelly draws Solomonic wards on Rev’s office floor; Rev formally agrees to work for the Order of the Hidden Eye; Rae remains his partner.

Monday, October 29, 1984

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Reunion”] Rev / Rae (with Marcus and social worker LeBlanc) — Poydras Street shelter, NOLA (8:07 AM) — Marcus, healed, is being returned to his parents. Jerome runs out of the shelter, hugs Marcus desperately; Marcus is strangely flat-affect, “Burke’s pet.” Jerome breaks down accusing the social worker. Marcus tells Jerome dispassionately “I want to go.” Rev notes Marcus’s eyes are dead.

Late October 1984 (Epilogue)

[The Betrayed, Ch. “Epilogue”] Omniscient (Burke / centipede creature) — NOLA alley / Louisiana bayou — Burke (Pheobe Durst), wounded but alive, lures and ambushes a 25-year-old man in an alley. Many miles away, the chitinous three-eyed centipede creature returns to its burrow under an old cypress, having killed and eaten an alligator; the shrine-mound of bones grows.

Late October 1984 – early December 1984 (between books)

Rev and Rae spend ~6 weeks chasing Burke and missing-person leads in a 100-mile radius, all dead ends. The centipede creature continues maturing in the bayou. Rev’s nightmares intensify. The Jar is in his Pensacola safe deposit box.

Monday, December 10, 1984 (COMMUNE begins)

[Commune, Ch. “Briefing”] Rev (with Rae) — packed restaurant, then Saint Christina’s, NOLA (12:42 PM) — Father Kelly briefs them on missing Father Peter Walsh; Walsh went to Psikinépikwa (deep Terrebonne Parish bayou) to study Las Tribus Olvidadas. Bernie back to normal in the garden.
[Commune, Ch. “Briefing” (cont)] Rev / Rae — NOLA library (afternoon) — No record of Psikinépikwa anywhere; they decide to drive to Baton Rouge.

Tuesday, December 11, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Dream”] Rev — NOLA hotel room (3:56 AM) — Nightmare: a swamp fisherman is dragged under the water by the centipede creature, which has clearly grown. (Chapter does not name the motel; the next dream a day later identifies it as The Court.)
[Commune, Ch. “Boarding House”] Rev — Baton Rouge boarding house (9:37 AM) — While Rae heads to the Louisiana State Archives, Rev meets Walsh’s caretaker landlady.
[Commune, Ch. “Walsh’s Rooms”] Rev — Walsh’s guest cottage (11:49 AM) — Empty chlorpromazine bottle (antipsychotic) in the bathroom trash; Walsh’s locked study walls covered in tacked-up sketches of eel/seaweed/tentacle shapes that ripple together into a single image (a five-tentacled god-thing). Rev finds Skeeter’s airboat-charter card and a Louisiana map with a single hand-drawn black dot.
[Commune, Ch. “Franciscan”] Rev / Rae — Franciscan University, Baton Rouge (12:38 PM) — Professor Emilio Diaz confirms Psikinépikwa is real; believes Las Tribus Olvidadas is a hoax (its rituals don’t match the rest of the de Pineda expedition); points to the dot on Walsh’s map.
[Commune, Ch. “Skeeter”] Rev / Rae — Skeeter’s Airboat Charters, Gibson, LA (3:11 PM) — Skeeter (Mason) confirms he’s taken Walsh several times to “Skelly’s Hole” (former “Tranquility, LA,” abandoned in the 1920s after Skelly Oil drilled into a salt dome). Trip set for first light tomorrow.

Wednesday, December 12, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Dream”] Rev — The Court (NOLA, 70s-themed disco room) (5:11 AM) — Nightmare: the centipede drags the dead fisherman to a burrow under an old cypress; sprays a greenish-gray foam from its rear that contains squirming larvae.
[Commune, Ch. “Boat Ride”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — Skeeter’s airboat (9:37 AM) — Long mosquito-plagued ride deep into the bayou.
[Commune, Ch. “Landfall”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — muddy island shore, Terrebonne Parish (12:07 PM) — Skeeter wears a S&W model 29 .44 (“for gators”); they walk an old asphalt road south.
[Commune, Ch. “Skelly’s Hole”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — sinkhole edge, Psikinépikwa (12:19 PM) — A 300-yard-wide perfectly circular sinkhole filled with impossibly clear lapis-blue water that grows pitch-black at depth; strong unseen undercurrent sucks anything in.
[Commune, Ch. “Tranquility”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — Tranquility shore (12:34 PM) — Ramshackle stilt-shacks; the Elder, ancient white-skinned Cajun, comes out belligerent; says Walsh is in the abandoned hilltop church.
[Commune, Ch. “Father Walsh”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — old hilltop church (1:08 PM) — First glimpse of “Wax Man” (Felix), a small hunched burned ragged figure with one withered arm. Walsh is alive; insists on staying through Christmas to perform the village’s annual sermon. Rev reveals he is Order; Walsh asks Rev to take a note to Diaz.
[Commune, Ch. “Baton Rouge”] Rev (with Rae) — diner / phone booth / Holiday Inn, Baton Rouge (6:14 PM) — Rev calls Kelly to update; Rae overrides Rev’s choice of motel and gets them rooms at a Holiday Inn.

Thursday, December 13, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Dream”] Rev — Baton Rouge (2:07 AM) — Nightmare: the centipede’s larvae burst from the dead fisherman’s body, blunder around the burrow, then mass-march out as one slithering pink-white carpet; a bird snatches one and dies sizzling — the larvae secrete acid; a chameleon-like tongue with branched tips erupts from a grub to constrict and burn another bird’s neck.
[Commune, Ch. “Research”] Rev (with Rae) — Franciscan library (8:11 AM) — Diaz hands Walsh’s note to Martha (research assistant, purple hair); Martha begins transcribing Las Tribus Olvidadas. Rev finds Tribes of the West Indies — Volume Three describing “Mecikenäpikwa” / the Atakapa cannibal sect / the Yalu̱s (“blood drinkers”) subgroup.
[Commune, Ch. “Message”] Rev — Franciscan hallway pay phone (11:17 AM) — Two urgent messages from First National Bank in Pensacola: an “ant problem” in his safe deposit box. The Jar is interfering with whatever container Rev keeps it in.
[Commune, Ch. “The Jar”] Rev — First National Bank, Pensacola (3:37 PM) — Recovers the Jar from a box swarming with ants; the Jar’s mental call (“possessiveness, desire to hold and protect”) is now clearly perceptible.
[Commune, Ch. “The Jar” (cont)] Rev — Saint Christina’s, NOLA (later afternoon/evening) — Lies to Father Kelly that the Jar is “my grandfather’s urn”; asks Kelly to store it in the church safe.
[Commune, Ch. “The Jar” (cont)] Rev — Pensacola drugstore (evening) — Looks up “chlorpromazine” — antipsychotic Walsh was prescribed.

Friday, December 14, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Beast”] Rev (with Rae and Skeeter) — Psikinépikwa hilltop church (10:34 AM) — Wax Man scampers at the rear of the church; Walsh bursts from the front pursued by a large alligator; Skeeter spooks the gator with his .44; the gator vanishes into the swamp.
[Commune, Ch. “Aftermath”] Rev (with Rae, Skeeter, Walsh, the Elder) — Psikinépikwa (10:52 AM) — Rev defies the Elder by insisting he will stay with Walsh.

Saturday night, December 15, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “De Pineda’s Bible”] Rev — old hilltop church, Walsh’s room (11:47 PM) — The water-stained left page of the old Spanish Bible resolves into shifting images of an immense rounded grey “pillar” (a head) rising from a sea, with two huge bulbous black eyes and five thick tentacle-roots.

Sunday, December 16, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Morning”] Rev (with Walsh) — old hilltop church (7:39 AM) — After a sleepless night Rev tells Walsh everything; Walsh is fascinated; theorizes that “items of power” attune you to the supernatural via accumulated contact. Rev nearly tells Walsh about the Jar but holds back.
[Commune, Ch. “Symbol”] Rev / Rae (with Walsh) — old hilltop church (9:27 AM) — Rae and Skeeter return; Rev confesses the visions; Rae reports Kelly’s Order identified the symbol as the Elder Sign, ward against the Great Old Ones; an Order tome on the Florida Gulf Coast must be retrieved.
[Commune, Ch. “Sermon”] Rev / Rae — old hilltop church (11:09 AM) — Walsh delivers a Job 41 / Revelation 13 fire-and-brimstone sermon stitched from the legible portions of the Spanish Bible. All ~27 villagers attend in their Sunday finest, no children, no apparent family groups; subtle fish-like deformities (bulging eyes, wide flat lips, ear-into-head molding); rapt attention.
[Commune, Ch. “Road Home”] Rev / Rae — back to NOLA (3:49 PM) — On WWL-AM, comet Tartarus is announced — closest approach December 21, last seen 40,000 years ago; Rev files this as suspicious.

Monday, December 17, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Dream”] Rev — NOLA hotel (4:27 AM) — Nightmare: an old gnarled-handed Cajun (the Elder) on a dock; an enormous gator drifts up obediently and opens its mouth; the Elder feeds it a lump of raw meat, then extracts a pink-white centipede larva from a slit behind the gator’s eye, captures the larva in a mason jar.
[Commune, Ch. “Escort”] Rev (with Rae) — NOLA → Florida Gulf Coast palatial home (8:25 AM) — Drive to a beachfront mansion (Magnum-style Ferrari and Mercedes 300 SL); a Black butler in a white tuxedo formally hands them an Order tome in a foam-lined diplomatic briefcase.
[Commune, Ch. “Kelly”] Rev (with Rae) — Saint Christina’s office (3:24 PM) — Kelly translates: the Elder Sign is a ward against the Great Old Ones (deity-class entities to whom ghouls and other monsters are minions). Rev finally tells Kelly about the Randolph killing in the Quitman cellar in self-defense (mind-control, ricochet); Kelly notes the protective power of Rev’s grandfather’s Sunrise Ceremony memory. Rev and Rae describe Walsh’s strange sermon (Job 41 and Revelation 13’s “beast from the sea”). Rev tells Kelly about the visions in the Bible; Kelly fears Walsh has been seduced by an “object of power” (does not yet know about the Jar).

Tuesday, December 18, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Return”] Rev / Rae (with Skeeter) — Psikinépikwa hilltop church (9:54 AM) — Skeeter’s airboat sputters and dies just as they make landfall; says he needs parts. Walsh’s room covered wall-to-wall in the same eel/tentacle drawings; Walsh is sweating, pale, glassy-eyed; doesn’t remember making them; Rev and Rae burn them all.
[Commune, Ch. “Return” (cont)] Rev (with Rae and Skeeter) — Psikinépikwa (~noon) — Skeeter says Franklin (a villager) is in town with the only motorboat — they’re stuck the night. Rae spots inconsistency in Skeeter’s “broken fuel pump” story.
[Commune, Ch. “Night”] Rev (with Rae) — old hilltop church (1:15 PM onward) — Bed-down rooms in the hall have outside-mounted bolt latches — they’re makeshift cells. Rev and Rae sleep in Walsh’s room. Rae confirms via her car-mechanic knowledge that the airboat’s fuel pump was clearly running when it died — Skeeter is lying. Plan: Rev will sneak to the boat in the morning to verify the pump while Rae stays with Walsh.

Wednesday, December 19, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Boat”] Rev — Skeeter’s airboat (6:11 AM) — Hot-wires the airboat by twisting the ignition wires; verifies the fuel pump works perfectly — Skeeter is lying. Skeeter ambushes him from the path with his .44 drawn.
[Commune, Ch. “Caught”] Rev — airboat → Psikinépikwa church (7:26 AM) — Skeeter zip-ties Rev’s hands and walks him back; the Elder snipes; Skeeter hands Rev’s S&W to villager Louis (bulbous eyes, scaly skin); Rev is locked in one of the church cells.
[Commune, Ch. “Captive”] Rev (with Rae through the wall) — church cells (8:09 AM) — Rev hears Rae from the next cell. Rae was put under Walsh’s gaze and “remote-controlled” into the cell; she describes the alien feeling of his consciousness rummaging through her mind. Rev guesses they’re being kept alive for the Christmas sermon.

Wednesday night → Thursday morning, December 19–20, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Escape”] Rev — church cells (7:49 PM Wed → ~2 AM Thu) — Late at night, Felix sneaks in with a sock-of-pebbles makeshift blackjack, KOs the guard, and unbolts both cells. Rev recovers his S&W; refuses to leave Walsh behind.
[Commune, Ch. “Rescue”] Rev (then Rae and Skeeter) — Walsh’s room (1:57 AM) — Walsh stands trance-state at the window. Skeeter ambushes Rev from behind; close-range knife fight; Walsh begins telekinetically hurling drawers, books, and a full dresser at Rev — one breaks Rev’s right hand and concusses him badly. Rae fires three rounds into the doorframe in defense; Skeeter outwaits her until she runs dry. Walsh glides soundlessly out of the room.
[Commune, Ch. “Resistance”] Rev — Walsh’s room → cells (2:14 AM) — Walsh’s voice from the corridor: “Do try and capture her alive… everyone must do their part for our Lord.” Rev tries to rise, projectile-vomits, blacks out. Wakes briefly being dragged by his feet down the hall; overhears Skeeter and the Elder argue: Skeeter wants to kill Rev, the Elder says “De comète only come ‘dis one time” and they need both. Rev wakes again later in his cell, head crudely bandaged, hand untreated. Rae is in the next cell, tied with zip ties (she choked Skeeter out before Walsh got back into her head).

Friday, December 21, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “The March”] Rev (with Rae and Skeeter) — church cells (8:37 PM) — Storm brewing; Rae alerts Rev that the village is preparing for the sermon. Rev can barely stand; Skeeter and two villagers march them out into the swamp at gunpoint.
[Commune, Ch. “The Hymn”] Rev (with Rae) — sinkhole clearing (9:38 PM) — The full village stands in a semicircle around Walsh on a large boulder by the lip of the hole; villagers begin a discordant alien hymn (the rhythms match the thunder); Rev’s pain dulls and he feels a sense of “oneness”; thinks of cigars/Scotch/Santiago/his mother/grandfather/Rebecca/Rae to anchor his sense of self; deflects Walsh’s mind-probe.
[Commune, Ch. “The Awakening”] Rev (witness) — sinkhole clearing (10:04 PM) — Walsh chants in the Cthulhu cult-language (“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!”); the storm clouds open into an “eye” centered on Comet Tartarus’s red smear; an enormous head the size of a boxcar breaches the sinkhole, two enormous black orbs reflecting the comet’s red, six thick tentacles (five blue-glowing tipped with triangular heads, one limp); the creature snatches villager after villager. Rev tries to shoot Walsh; Felix runs from the wood line and stabs Walsh in the back with a butcher knife; the creature snatches Felix; Walsh chants one last word and falls. Rev throws his S&W at Rae’s back to keep her from leaping into the hole as a willing offering, knocks her to the lip but doesn’t push her over; the creature submerges as the storm-eye closes over the comet; Rev passes out.

Saturday, December 22, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Awake”] Rev — Psikinépikwa, sinkhole edge (5:42 AM) — Rev comes to in the rain, mud, and gore; Walsh is crumpled on the boulder; Rae lies face-down with her head and arm dangling over the lip of the chasm. (This is the cold-open scene from the start of the book, now in its proper chronological place.)
[Commune, Ch. “Awake” (cont)] Rev — sinkhole edge → cypress at the wood line (5:42 AM) — Pulls Rae back; she revives; says she was about to leap willingly; Walsh is still alive.
[Commune, Ch. “Waking the Dead”] Rev / Rae — large boulder (6:05 AM) — Walsh comes to and grabs Rae’s head, trying to pull her into a kiss; Rae reverses into a wrestling lock. A fat ~4-inch white grub emerges from Walsh’s ear, with a tongue-like appendage that burns Walsh’s skin like wax. The instant the grub is fully out, Walsh goes limp — dead. Rev and Rae understand: the grub had been Walsh; Walsh died days ago.
[Commune, Ch. “Worm”] Rev / Rae — sinkhole clearing (6:09 AM) — Rev stomps the grub; it bursts in a black acidic puddle that melts a hole in his boot sole.
[Commune, Ch. “The Plan”] Rev / Rae — sinkhole clearing (6:15 AM) — Decide to dump Walsh’s body into Skelly’s Hole and let Kelly file him missing — telling the truth would land them in an asylum. Will keep silent about the villagers and Skeeter.
[Commune, Ch. “The Return”] Rev / Rae — sinkhole / Tranquility shore (6:27 AM) — Rev dumps Walsh’s body into the hole; eats two MREs while Rae’s shoes dry by a fire built from church boards.
[Commune, Ch. “Civilization”] Rev / Rae — Walsh’s room → Tranquility (9:41 AM) — Rev recovers his wallet, keys, S&W, Walsh’s coded diary, Walsh’s steel flask, and the old Spanish Bible from Walsh’s room. Steals Franklin’s small johnboat to leave; cuts the road and walks ~4 miles to a roadside diner.
[Commune, Ch. “Civilization” (cont)] Rev — diner / Skeeter’s place / back to diner (afternoon) — Long walk to recover his cruiser at Skeeter’s; chucks the .44 into the swamp.
[Commune, Ch. “Hospital”] Rev / Rae — NOLA hospital (9:21 PM) — Rev’s right hand dangerously swollen; doc sets the bones, fits a fiberglass cast; serious concussion; Rev refuses overnight observation. Rae drives him to her apartment.

Sunday, December 23, 1984

[Commune, Ch. “Rae’s”] Rev — Rae’s apartment (1:36 AM) — Rae lets Rev sleep on her couch; bacon, eggs, and Cuban coffee in the morning. Unspoken charge between them.
[Commune, Ch. “Debrief”] Rev / Rae / Father Kelly — Saint Christina’s office (10:08 AM) — Rev tells Kelly Walsh is dead. Rev finally tells Kelly and Rae the full truth about the Jar of Nephren-Ka — origin in the Coventry case, the centipede creature it spawned, the dreams, the calls inside his head; admits the Jar is in Kelly’s church safe.

Late December 1984 – early February 1985 (between books)

The Order’s ant-farm sized hunt for Burke continues as a distant chess game; Burke continues her infiltrations, including resurfacing as a “junkie” in a Marrero crack house; recovers Marcus from his foster-parents’ home and re-enrolls him as her own. Rev keeps the Jar in Kelly’s church safe; the wards across his apartment and office hold. Rae is fully back in the partnership.

Tuesday, February 12, 1985 (THE DISTURBED begins)

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Prologue”] Two NOPD uniformed officers (omniscient/limited) — Miller residence, NOLA (2:12 PM) — Two officers force the door of the Miller home; Ms. Miller’s nearly-decapitated body in the kitchen, Mr. Miller half in the laundry-room doorway with intestines trailing; a small Black boy covered in blood sits in the kitchen with a large gore-caked knife in his right hand.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Acquisition”] Rev (with Rae) — Antebellum Books, Covington (2:25 PM) — Pick up Whispers from the Nile: Nephren-Ka’s Legacy, a 1914 first-edition.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Delivery”] Rev (with Rae and Father Kelly) — Saint Christina’s office (3:41 PM) — Kelly identifies the four Egyptian Canopic gods; concludes Rev’s Jar (lungs, Hapi, Nephthys — goddess of darkness, ritual, magic) is the most powerful of the four.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Freddy”] Rev / Rae (then Freddy) — Saint Christina’s / 4th District (4:07 PM) — The Miller parents are murdered; Rev and Rae go to the station and find that the boy is actually Jerome, not Marcus. Jerome accuses Rev: “You did this, big man. I tol’ you, but you ain’t listen.”
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Scene”] Rev (with Rae) — Miller residence (4:28 PM) — Examines the scene; Ms. Miller killed from behind by a right-handed killer standing on the kitchen bar; Mr. Miller’s intestines pulled out and watched bleed out. In the back yard, a backyard shed with a torn-off latch — Marcus’s “bedroom,” dirt-floored, with crude blood-finger-painted carvings.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Revelation”] Rev / Rae — sidewalk (5:43 PM) — Rev concludes Jerome is left-handed (pointed at Rev with his left hand); the killer was right-handed; the killer is Burke. Burke killed the parents and freed the real Marcus — taking him back as her “pet.”
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Explanations”] Rev (with Rae and Freddy) — 4th District (6:39 PM) — Rev convinces Freddy that Jerome is innocent; Jerome will go to NOLA Mental Hospital. Rev privately tells Father Kelly that Burke is back.

Wednesday, February 13, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Kelly”] Rev / Kelly / Rae — NOLA Mental Hospital, Tchoupitoulas (9:54 AM) — Asylum tour with Dr. Augustin Terry (Jerome’s psychiatrist; tweed suit, occult books on the shelves); Rev sees a bald grinning man at a fourth-floor window in a “supposedly empty wing.”
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Jerome”] Kelly / Rev / Rae — therapy room 14, NOLA Mental (12:16 PM) — Jerome is dissociative, won’t speak; one tear when Kelly mentions Marcus. Kelly will return tomorrow.

Thursday, February 14, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Reexamination”] Rev (with Rae) — Miller residence (9:25 AM) — Returns to the murder scene; reasons Burke posed as Marcus and Jerome at the front door, dragged Jerome inside, killed the parents in front of Jerome, then exited the back door and tore the latch off the shed.

Friday, February 15, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Discovery”] Rev — abandoned industrial-park alley, McDonough neighborhood (8:07 AM) — A vivid prophetic dream of a bald straitjacketed man with Burke’s blue eyes leads Rev to an alley near the old factory complex from the Burke case; he finds a body face-down in trash.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Body”] Rev — same alley (8:23 AM) — Body of a homeless man, week-dead, severely bloated. Rev recovers a planted “New Orleans Railway Maintenance, Inc.” business card with “Richard Meyers” written on the back in cursive.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Examination”] Rev (with Rae and Freddy and CS techs) — alley (10:37 AM) — When the body is rolled, the right arm is missing entirely — torn from the socket. Rev privately concludes Burke ripped it off bare-handed.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Release”] Rev / Rae — JPSO Marrero / outside 4th District (1:29 PM) — After release Rev and Rae follow up the planted card.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Railyard”] Rev / Rae — New Orleans Railway Maintenance, Westwego (2:11 PM) — Old man “Red” identifies Richard Meyers (former employee, last seen at a crack house on Urbandale, Marrero) — but the corpse description doesn’t match.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “House”] Rev / Rae — abandoned crack house, Urbandale, Marrero (3:34 PM) — Boarded-up condemned shotgun house; back door pried open; downstairs sofa: a pale, needle-tracked junkie woman is unconscious with a syringe still in her arm.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Victim”] Rev — upstairs back bedroom (3:52 PM) — Behind a barricaded door, a male body in a recliner, both legs amputated at the knee, swarming with maggots, syringe rammed into his carotid; on the windowsill, a torn yellow-pages page with Freddy Guidry’s home address circled in red.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Realization”] Rev / Rae — crack house living room → corner phone booth (4:08 PM) — The junkie on the couch is gone; Rev sniffs the cushion (curdled-milk smell — Burke’s signature). Burke was the junkie. Calls Freddy; tells him to send units to his house.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Freddy’s”] Rev / Rae (and Freddy and family) — Guidry residence, Chippewa St (4:25 PM) — Rev makes it to Freddy’s first; family is safe. Freddy decides to take days off.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Bernie”] Rev (with Rae and Bernie) — Saint Christina’s rectory (4:51 PM) — Father Kelly is missing; an answering machine note in his office says Kelly went alone to NOLA Mental Hospital because Terry called claiming Jerome was breaking through. Kelly should have been back hours ago.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Asylum”] Rev (with Rae and Terry) — NOLA Mental Hospital (7:25 PM) — Mardi Gras parade closes streets. Asylum dark; Kelly’s VW Beetle parked, Terry’s Mercedes there. Inside the dark administration building they find Terry hiding in his office with blood on his coat, terrified; he claims escaped patient Victor Devereaux (“Bayou Butcher”) killed an orderly during a power outage. (Terry’s whole story is a setup — he is one of the eleven cultists, and lured Kelly here to be murdered by Burke.) Note: source’s body-discovery beat is in chapter “Kelly” (10:03 PM), not “Asylum”; the Encounter / Hospital / Custody / Interview / Long Night / Council / Release / Fitzgerald / The Court / Hibernia Bank / James Kelly chapters between Asylum (Fri 7:25 PM) and Saint Christina’s (Sat 5:05 PM) are not separately enumerated in this timeline. Rev finds Kelly’s body in the asylum chapel — flayed and crucified with railroad spikes — and at 10:18 PM (“Encounter”) sees Burke (in Kelly-glamour) bashing Rae’s head against the dashboard of Terry’s Mercedes; he wings Burke once before she flees through the crowd, putting Rae into a coma.

Saturday, February 16, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Saint Christina’s”] Rev — outside Saint Christina’s (5:05 PM) — After dark, breaks in via the side door.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Saint Christina’s” (cont)] Rev — Kelly’s office — Picks up the Whispers from the Nile book and Kelly’s spiral notebook off Kelly’s desk. The church safe’s combination dial unlocks at his touch alone — the Jar is “calling” to him.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Escape”] Rev — Saint Christina’s (8:43 PM) — As he leaves, hears Fitzgerald and Crew Cut (Ian) coming for the safe; escapes via the side door (which slams). They spot him in his cruiser as he drives away.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “The Call”] Rev — The Court motel (9:16 PM) — Calls Freddy’s house. Burke answers in Freddy’s voice; demands the Jar be brought to a warehouse address by sunrise in exchange for Freddy’s family’s lives.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Preparation”] Rev — The Court (9:33 PM) — Rev reads the Whispers tome and finds a binding ritual; decides he must drive to Pensacola to retrieve a Vietnam-era M67 grenade.

Sunday, February 17, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Saying Goodbye”] Rev — NOLA hospital (3:48 a.m.) — Visits Rae’s hospital room; she is comatose from a Burke beating earlier in the week; Rev kisses her bruised forehead, says goodbye.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Meeting”] Rev — old swamp warehouse, west of NOLA (4:27 a.m.) — Burke meets him; Rev presents the Jar wrapped in cloth and palms a pin-out grenade. Burke seizes the Jar; the lid pops off; a black wave of millions of small black ants swarms out of the Jar and devours Burke alive. Rev never performs the ritual; the Jar acts on its own.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Aftermath”] Rev — same warehouse (4:34 a.m.) — Burke’s gray ape-skeleton crumbles to dust on contact; Rev recovers the Jar and Burke’s blue sapphire pendant.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Abattoir”] Rev — warehouse back room (4:46 a.m.) — Old break room turned slaughterhouse: a steel morgue gurney holding a butchered white male’s body — face/heart/scrotum/liver removed. Not Freddy.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Freddy’s”] Rev — Guidry residence, Chippewa St (5:19 a.m.) — Rushes home; the unlocked front door triggers a flare-and-gasoline booby trap; a fuse-trail of flame races to three jerry cans on the kitchen table where Freddy, Janet, and Fred sit gagged and bound; the cans explode and incinerate them. Rev is blown out the door, picks himself up to find body fragments and blood. Burke kept her promise even in death.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Lies”] Rev (with detectives “Rudolph” and “Scarecrow”) — outside Guidry residence (5:42 a.m.) — Rev gives a partly-true statement; detectives accept it.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Supplies”] Rev — gun shop on outskirts, NOLA (7:27 a.m.) — Buys snub-nose S&W model 60 + Winchester double-barrel + double-aught buck and slugs. Returns to The Court room to find a typed note from Fitzgerald: “We know you have the jar. Let’s talk.”
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Threads”] Rev — Pensacola (12:15 p.m.) — Drives to Pensacola; commissions tailor Jerry Whitmer to make a custom black gabardine trench coat with concealed straps for the shotgun and the Jar.

Monday, February 18, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Threads” (cont)] Rev — Pensacola office (afternoon) — Picks up the trench coat. Saws down the Winchester to a foot-long sawed-off; loads it; fits the works inside the trench coat with the Jar in a balancing pocket.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Arúnsearc”] Rev — Fitzgerald’s pub Arúnsearc (10:41 p.m.) — Confronts Fitzgerald with the sawed-off concealed in the trench coat; nearly comes to violence; dismisses Crew Cut. (Source chapter heading is dated Sun Feb 17 10:41 p.m., but the narrative requires the trench coat picked up Mon Feb 18 afternoon — placed here on Feb 18 to preserve narrative coherence; the heading date appears to be a source error.)

Monday, February 18 – Saturday, February 23, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Friends”] Rev — Rae’s hospital room / The Court room (starts Mon Feb 18 9:43 a.m. and runs through the week) — Sits with the comatose Rae for hours every day, drinking from his flask. Each evening, plays a deepening one-round game of Russian roulette, adding one cartridge per night. On the Wednesday after the explosion (Feb 20) finds Freddy’s obituary in the Times-Picayune. (Note: timeline previously cited Ch. “Hospital” for this — that chapter actually covers the Feb 15 night Rae was admitted; the Russian-roulette / obituary content is in Ch. “Friends”.)

Sunday, February 24, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Guidrys”] Rev — Metairie Cemetery (10:17 a.m.) — Visits Freddy’s family tomb; leaves a pint of Evan Williams under Freddy’s slot, lilies tied with blue lace under Janet’s, and a brand-new pair of Air Jordans under little Fred’s.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Guidrys” (cont)] Rev — The Court room (9:21 p.m.) — All five chambers loaded.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Awakening”] Rev — The Court room (11:54 p.m.) — Sticks the loaded S&W in his mouth, fires through the cylinder — every chamber clicks. Reloads with a speed loader, fires again — five more clicks. All ten rounds are duds, blasting caps dimpled — statistically impossible. The Jar will not let him die.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Awakening” (cont)] Rev (dream) — woods clearing — A revelatory dream of Burke (months/years ago) presiding over a 12-member black-robed cult performing a flesh-eating ritual; Rev sees Dr. Terry as one of the twelve and memorizes all twelve faces.

Monday, February 25, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Purpose”] Rev — Arúnsearc (12:06 p.m.) — Confronts Fitzgerald; demonstrates the Jar’s protection by laying out a handful of impossibly-dimpled .357 cartridges; demands the Order help him hunt the eleven remaining cultists.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Progress”] Rev — Rae’s hospital → Slidell hardware/restaurant supply/department/medical supply → KAYREVLA, Lacombe (12:39 p.m. → late afternoon) — Has Fitzgerald foot Rae’s hospital bills; gets an Order sketch artist on standby. Buys cash-only supplies for an execution.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “KAYRELA”] Rev — Lacombe (3:56 p.m.) — Returns to the Victorian “Kayrevla” mansion from the Coventry case; stages an old claw-footed bathtub in a first-floor bathroom for what is to come. (Source chapter heading is misspelled “KAYRELA”; in-text it remains “KAYREVLA.”)
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Asylum”] Rev — closed NOLA Mental Hospital admin building (6:22 p.m.) — Breaks into the closed, police-taped asylum; finds and copies Terry’s home address from the personnel file.

Wednesday, March 6, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Stakeout”] Rev — Terry’s Metairie home (9:45 p.m.) — Eight days of stakeout. That night Terry’s routine breaks: he loads a bag into a Range Rover and drives west out of the city.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Isolation”] Rev — outside Boutte, LA (10:21 p.m.) — Tails Terry to an old wooden barn-or-church on an unmarked dirt road; Terry, in a black robe, performs a chant (“Goka kadishtuor l’ ymg’ nyth’drn”) at a candle-pentagram. Rev sleeperholds him unconscious, gags him, dumps him in the cruiser trunk.

Thursday, March 7, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Assembly”] Rev — Kayrevla bathroom, Lacombe (1:08 a.m.) — Carries Terry inside; cuts off his clothes; seats him in the tub, immobilizes his neck in a homemade pillory of plywood/sandbags; pours 50 gallons of corn syrup over him to his nipples; runs a plastic tube from a 5-gallon spring-water jug to his mouth; tosses Burke’s blue sapphire pendant on the platform to break Terry’s hope (“She’s dead”).
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Scaphism”] Rev — Kayrevla bathroom (1:53 a.m.) — Explains his updated Roman scaphism execution; demands the names of the other eleven cultists (“There are eleven more of you in your little cabal, right?”). Terry gives only one — David Blake — and pleads. Rev breaks his earlier promise to slit his throat and walks out.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “After”] Rev — Kayrevla → Slidell K-Mart dumpster → The Court (2:27 a.m.) — Dumps the trash bag of evidence in a Slidell K-Mart dumpster; padlocks the gate with the original old rusty padlock; back at The Court, drinks himself unconscious. Wakes hungover at 3:30 p.m. with self-disgust.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Rae”] Rev — Rae’s hospital room (5:54 p.m.) — Drunk-but-functional visit; pours out his confession of what he did to Terry; Rae briefly stirs and whispers (“Have to go back… Not you. Can’t leave him. Have to… end it”) and Rev recognizes she’s telling him not to lose his humanity.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Terry”] Rev — Kayrevla bathroom (9:09 p.m.) — Returns to find Terry alive: eyeless, noseless, lipless, savaged by a crow which still stands on his forehead. Pulls the sawed-off and fires both barrels into Terry’s head as mercy.
[The Disturbed, Ch. “Terry” (cont)] Rev — junkyard / swampy back road (next morning) — Buys a slightly larger set of used wheels and tires; swaps wheels on the cruiser; hides the original wheels in dense brush off a swamp road.

Sunday, March 10, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Questions”] Rev (with detectives “Toupee” and “Mr. Clean”) — Rae’s hospital room (1:40 p.m.) — Detectives ask if Rev has seen or harmed Terry recently; Rev coolly denies. They have no body, no case.

Wednesday, March 13, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Recovery”] Rev / Rae — Rae’s hospital room (10:36 a.m.) — Rae finally wakes after 26 days in coma. Has retrograde amnesia — last memory is being carried out to Terry’s car. Rev fills her in on Burke’s death, Kelly’s death, and the destruction of Freddy’s family. Rae signs back on as his partner.

Tuesday, May 7, 1985

[The Disturbed, Ch. “Blake”] Rev / Rae (with Fitzgerald and Crew Cut) — Arúnsearc (9:52 a.m.) — Rae is recovering — limbs functional but persistent migraines from her TBI. Fitzgerald hands over a manila envelope with photos of David Blake candidates; Rev winnows the list down to 3 likely matches. The book closes with Rev and Rae officially back on the hunt for the eleven remaining cultists.

Uncertain placement

Pre-1984 Rev biography: Rev was born to Onawa Cosay (Chiricahua Apache, anthropologist) and Rewi Parata (Maori, never met). Raised on the Chiricahua reservation in Arizona; grandfather was a healer/medicine-man called “He that communes with the Elder Ones.” Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice from Southern University at New Orleans. US Army recon specialist (~1965-1967), in-country Vietnam attached to special forces; ended his service in 1967; joined NOPD that same year; served twelve years on the force, four in homicide. Married Rebecca; she “left him with no warning”; the drink-driving wreck with Janet and Fred (Freddy’s family) in the car was four years before The Artifact; Rev pulled them from a burning car after rolling it himself. Left NOPD shortly thereafter to become a PI in Pensacola. The bum-knee that hampers him through the series is from a bullet caught behind the knee in Vietnam (caliber not specified on-page).
Burke / Phoebe Durst’s deep history: “Very, very old by human reckoning”; says she has been called many names; was called “Phoebe Durst” at some unspecified point in human history; the Burke Foundation was founded by her grandfather (her grandfather is presumably also her, in a previous identity); she has been director since “1958, I believe.” Her glamour ability appears unique to ghouls of her age and class; ordinary mirrors and cameras (not paintings) penetrate it.
Cult of Nyarlathotep: Has at least 12 members at the cell level Rev encountered in his dream; Burke was the high priestess; Terry, David Blake, and ten others remain after Burke’s death and Terry’s torture. Their internal vow of secrecy keeps them mostly anonymous to one another; Blake is identifiable to Terry only because Blake bragged about membership.
Wax Man / Felix: A horribly burned, mute (tongueless) villager of Tranquility/Psikinépikwa with one withered arm. Likely was tortured by Walsh’s parasite earlier — the Tranquility villagers’ reverence to the entity in the hole appears to have been a generations-long cult, and Felix is the only sane one left. He is the one who frees Rev and Rae from the cells, and the one who stabs the parasite-Walsh in the back during the climax. The creature snatches him for the offering. His full backstory is not on-page.
Marcus Miller (the real Marcus, post-rescue): Returned to his abusive parents at the end of The Betrayed; locked in the backyard shed by his parents; per Rev’s reconstruction, Burke (wearing Marcus’s face) led Jerome to the Miller front door and into the kitchen for the killings while the real Marcus remained locked in the shed, then Burke exited and tore the shed latch off to “free” Marcus, who vanished with her; remains “missing” at the end of The Disturbed.
The centipede creature (Coventry’s offspring): Last seen on-page in the bayou burrow at the end of The Betrayed’s Epilogue; it has been growing and reproducing — Walsh’s larva and the dream-larvae confirm its lifecycle includes a swarm-producing stage. Its current location and adult size at the end of The Disturbed is unknown.
The huge head-and-tentacles entity at Skelly’s Hole: Submerged again at the end of Commune; not slain; the Tranquility cult is wiped out so the next “awakening” will require new acolytes and a comparable cosmic event. The Order of the Hidden Eye almost certainly has it on a watchlist now.

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