Caffrey Conversation: Destination Africa

Like the first two Red Diamonds stories, Destination Africa picks up a few dangling threads. This time they include Raquel LaRoque and Sara's sister Emily.

Caffrey Conversation: A Piece of the Action

In my first Red Diamonds story, Dances with Dinosaurs, I revisited Adrian Tulane. His introduction to Caffrey Conversation was in Penna's story Caffrey Aloha where Neal used a variant of the Anastasia con to keep Tulane from carrying out a theft. The master thief was left believing that Neal was only pretending to be a Caffrey. Since that story, Tulane has been languishing on a shelf, hoping for a callback. Will he make more than a cameo appearance or is the jewel thief merely a red herring? The crystal ball remains murky. Meanwhile, in the Red Diamonds' second story, A Piece of the Action, I pick up another dangling thread—the Dentist of Detroit.

Caffrey Conversation: The Red Diamonds

Not long after Diana went to work at Winston-Winslow, she suggested a sting to Sara where they would pretend to be jewel thieves. In Scotch on the Rocks, they wanted to track down a ring of thieves who were targeting high-end jewelry stores. Diana picked the name Red Diamonds for their hypothetical crew because of the jewel's reputation for being the most expensive gemstone. Diana hoped to take advantage of Mozzie's skill with the Jewel Box darkweb to spread rumors of their exploits.

Crossed Lines: Unholy Alliance

Zachariah is an angel on a mission. He's convinced that the Apocalypse needs to take place and is growing ever more frustrated that his efforts are being thwarted. Zachariah isn't a friend of Lucifer, but he has the misguided notion that the Apocalypse was meant to be and Lucifer is just the unsavory character to bring it about. He's not alone in his beliefs. Angels who support the Apocalypse believe that Earth can only be made into a paradise after it is cleansed.

Crossed Lines: Pirates of Manhattan

Neal has visited New Orleans once before. In Voodoo Remoulade, a doubloon cursed by the pirate Jean Lafitte, along with a vampire nest, almost wrecked his plans to celebrate Mardi Gras. Sara's never been to New Orleans, and when Neal suggested taking her there to celebrate her birthday, he didn't expect lightning to strike twice. Peter probably wouldn't be so optimistic if only he knew about Neal's previous misadventure.

Arkham Files: Slimed

In my next Arkham Files story, Neal Carter, Sara, and Henry will pay a return visit to their friends in New York City. Six months have elapsed since their previous meeting. That experience was chronicled in Chaos Conundrum. Back then, only Mozzie and Diana met with Arkham Neal and Sara. The encounter was particularly life-changing for Mozzie. He accompanied Neal and Sara back to Arkham where he was recruited to be an auxiliary member of a new intergalactic league formed by Senior Librarian Coppelia. During the visit, Mozzie was injected with the rare element algolnium. He can travel through both Celaenian wormholes and the graviton tunnels created by an interdimensional library. His mission is to monitor for signs of chaos on Earth.

Arkham Files: Strange Signals

Neal Carter has now known for a year that he's an alien hybrid. After the initial shock of discovering that his mother had Celaenian DNA and his father was a shapeshifting Meropian, life hasn't been too bad. Neal looks completely human. True, he has an aura but only a few alien species can see it. His sensitivity to algolnium isn't likely to cause any issues since only a few colleagues know of the element's existence.