"Quite a pity." Although a lot of it was pretty impossible to read. "Maybe we can find out more. Um - you mentioned something about The Emporium of Bangkok Antiquities? What did you say they were doing here?"

"Allegedly researching the Obelisk for a private anonymous collector."

"Allegedly."

"Actually looting it for sale to the highest bidder. I know their type."

"I see. I - believe that there may be some possibility that the Los Angeles cult we were investigating may be - connected to, or attempting some revival of, whatever they know about this Ethiopian mystery cults? And we've heard that they also have ties to some sort of criminal organization in Bangkok." She is not remotely sure whether that's a wise thing to say, but, uh, she isn't very sure how to put these pieces together, or what else might cause Hickering to give them more useful information.

"Oh! Well, probably someone ought to do something about that."

"We are hoping to."

"Don't know how they'd revive a cult no one knows anything about. I suppose the students do it all the time. Every other day I swear some students are founding a secret society. Druids. The Rosicrucians. The Knights Templar. The Esoteric Order of Dagon."

"Yes. It's possible that the connections are more imagined than real, but I do think that's their aim. If you know anything that they might be looking into for the purposes of such a project - well, we're always thankful for leads."

"Unfortunately, I do not. Ethiopian cults were never my area of research. I know a little about the legends of the obelisks but they are all contradictory." He ticks them off on his fingers. "Some claim that they were raised by the Queen of Sheba when she declared Axum to be the capital of her kingdom. They are “sinkholes of ill fortune”; like giant magnets that collect bad luck. They were the last monuments raised by the heathens before Christ came to Abyssinia. Or they were the first monuments raised by King Ezana and Saint Frumentius after they founded the truly holy church. Rubbing the afterbirth on a monument will grant totemic powers to the child. Or a child who views the obelisks before their first birthday will be granted the sixth sight and be doomed as a witch."

"My impression was that the campus branch of the esoteric order of whatever it was were just Christians who liked to feel secretive, for whatever that's worth -- do you know where we'd look into these legends?"

"The library here has some information, but I'd say the best source is the Axum Ministry of Culture."

"And that'd be in Ethiopia?"

"Yes."

Well, she'll make a note of that. "Thank you very much, Professor. There are a few other things we've run into that we don't know what to make of, do you mind if I go down a list and ask whether you've heard anything about any of them?"

"Certainly."

She flips through her notes. "Nyarlathotep. The Liar from Beyond, probably one of the titles of Nyarlathotep. The Black Man, we think the same. Nephren-Ka. Azathoth. Ahtu. The children of the night. Bal Sagoth. The Thing in the Yellow Mask. Pale Death. The Akousmatikoi Proof. The Black Wind. The Crawling Mist. The Empress in Red. I can give more details if you think something might ring a bell."

"Nyarlathotep and the Liar from Beyond are mentioned occasionally in the Necronomicon, but they were not what I focused on. Nephren Ka is a legendary pharaoh and sorcerer who allegedly ruled for two hundred years; most scholars believe he is fictional. I do not know Ahtu. The Children of the Night are a legendary ethnicity associated with the Black Stone of Hungary. Bal Sagoth is an island quite like Atlantis. I don't know any of the others."

Great, the Nyarlathotep lead is yet another book.

Furious note-taking. "In what sense are the Children of the Night associated with the Black Stone?"

"They allegedly worshiped it, or at it."

"Everything I have on the Children of the Night is about them being in Central America, though there was a connection to the Black Stone. I didn't know it was in Hungary."

Francis Hickering spreads his hands. "Perhaps there are two groups with a similar name."

"Ordinarily I think that would be a safe assumption, but the mention of - do you know where in Hungary this stone is?"

"The village of Stregoicavar in the mountains."