Procurement of the ritual necessities proceeds apace. The only real problem is the artist's hand. Esteban decides to look for a live artist who's a little desperate. The Strausses, meanwhile, check out the grave-robbing angle.
Grave-robbing proves to be more difficult than might be expected. While they are able to find obituaries for local artists dead long enough to be considered non-icky, they often don't mention the cemetery, only the location of the funeral. Furthermore, some people are buried out of town. The Strausses decide to go after someone they do know is an artist and whose grave will be well-known: Georgia O'Keefe. Inspecting the grave site, however, reveals that the ground is frozen and that digging will take special equipment. Alexandra begins to speculate about heated silenced jack-hammers.
Meanwhile Esteban has been going around to galleries looking for something marked down. No one marks down their art, though. He does manage to find out about "spaghetti art" that didn't do well at the LaLande gallery, and goes there and charms the owner into giving him the contact information for the artist, Edrick Konig. He fails to buy any of the current sculpture show, however, which consists of desert rocks carved to release their inner desert rock. He heads out to Konig's house and retains him for some performance art for the low price of a promised $2000 grant and a hundred dollar retainer. He also absorbs a lot of epoxy as Konig completes his latest work: "Meatball Commute". He calls the Strausses, cutting off Alexandra in mid-speculation. An actual artist is considered to be superior to a dead one that's hard to dig up.
Doctor Staadler is enlisted to come along on the ritual trip, to keep Rebecca in a drug-induced daze. Orchid will also come along. Bernard (the second TNI psychiatrist) has talked extensively with Rebecca and believes that sedated she won't be trouble. She's desperate to see her captors as legitimate authority figures because it's better than being kidnapped by madmen.
The only other significant thing that happens before the ritual is the arrival of two new people to the Ranch.
The more important new arrival is Damien LaRochelle. He ran the Miami safehouse until it was blown up, and at SILVER's urging tells them about the group believed responsible, the so-called True Order of Saint Germaine. In Damien's opinion, they are little better than mystic terrorists. After a failed attempt to get rid of them, the Inquisition is now working merely to keep an eye on them and contain them. Damien also tells them a little bit of the mythology of the eternal man, Saint Germaine, and is of the opinion that the order has nothing to do with him.
Damien will take charge of the Ranch, allowing Ryan to return to recruiting duties. He also brings with him Darwin Mooney, an organizer and assistant, who immediately takes charge of getting the ritual expedition properly ticketed and outfitted. They're going to perform the ritual in California at a beach with a campground. Orchid is insistent on using the Pacific Ocean because of the name.
Angelina is given the job of baby-sitting Edrick while the others go on ahead the night before to set up. When they arrive at the beach, they find the campground deserted except for one tent. They make camp themselves about as far from the other tent as they can, and consider what to do about it. Eventually it is decided that Thielo will sneak up on them and take their food during the night, or something, forcing them to leave.
Unfortunately when Thielo sneaks over to the tent he finds the occupant waiting for him. When the man lights a lantern, it turns out to be the same old black man that SILVER met at the auction. He's even still wearing the rose in his beat-up suit (which looks to be the same beat-up suit). He offers Thielo a beer.
Thielo tries to find out what the old man is doing here. He's waiting for something to happen. He's got a map with "something" marked on it in this location. What's Thielo doing? Performance Art. There's some silence and the old man goes down to the surf and comes back with the ugliest fish Thielo has ever seen. He claims it's from the bottom of the ocean, a mile or two down. They've been washing up all night. Something big is going to happen. By the way, the old man's name is Sam.
There follows a little more attempted evasion by Thielo before he admits that they're doing a big ritual to take an avatar out of a woman and into a statue. Which avatar? The King in Yellow. The old man nods, Thielo is surprised he's heard of the King in Yellow. The old man allows as how that would be okay as long as the statue isn't too much like a puppet. Thielo thinks about it and is a bit alarmed and takes the old man to meet everyone else, waking them up in the middle of the night.
They're a bit alarmed at suddenly consulting with this guy. He doesn't have much to add, either. Alexandra decides to refit the statue so that its arms will fall off after the ritual, leaving it with few moving parts. Everyone else goes back to sleep.
In the morning they begin to set up the ritual. Esteban also takes a moment to try to talk to the old man, but decides fairly quickly that he isn't interested in dealing with someone cryptic and wanders off again. Sam spends the morning fishing, as far as anyone can tell. Rebecca is pretty complacent this morning, drugged not quite out of her mind. Even drawing the necessary blood doesn't bother her one bit.
First off, Esteban performs the proxy ritual, which seems to work. After that is complete, Angelina arrives with Edrick. Alexandra plays the eccentric German artist and spouts a lot of symbolism that is too weird to write down here, while briefing Edrick on his role. Clouds are forming in the distance, and suddenly there is a rain of little silver fish. None of the team thinks this is more freaky than things they've seen before, Rebecca is too drugged, and Edrick thinks it's part of the art. Angelina ties a tow-line too him to facilitate retrieving him from the ocean.
The ritual begins. At about the third step, it starts to rain, though not heavily enough to prevent the ritual from continuing. The clouds are growing much more ominous as well. Still, Esteban soldiers on as the rain thickens. Finally they turn Rebecca and activate the statue, which speaks (a hidden wax cylinder) and throws the equipment and Edrick into the sea.
Lightning strikes the beach three times in quick succession. The only people not blinded are Thielo and Sam. Angelina grabs the tow line anyway, and begins to be dragged down the beach. Thielo looks and sees tentacles writhing in the water.
Thielo gets to Angelina and manages to yell loud enough to tell her about the squid. Meanwhile, Sam saws at the rope and manages to break it just as Angelina was letting go of it anyway. The rain is pouring down in buckets at this point. Some of the team runs around gathering up their equipment and other such evidence and throwing them in the vans. Others pound the hell out of the statue. Orchid performs the Conclave Tarot ritual on Rebecca (inside the van) and pronounces her to be clean. Meanwhile, Alexandra and Thielo stare at the waves, looking for Edrick, but he's nowhere to be found. Perhaps the magic demands its sacrifice?
Eventually everyone is gathered up and they return to Santa Fe.