MAG 67: Burning Desire

Statement of Jack Barnabas regarding a short-lived courtship with Agnes Montague in the Autumn of 2006.
==Statement==
Jack Barnabas was romantically involved with Agnes Montague, after a fashion. Deliah Aconjo has worked for the Canyon Cafe since 1991 when it opened, and she warned Jack about Agnes saying there was something not right about her: she had been coming to the café since it was opened.
She always ordered a large black coffee with enough room for milk, although she never drank it, as she would take it to the window and stare out of it for hours. The coffee would still be scalding when Jack went to clear it away, on one occasion she scared a man approaching her away and Jack started to notice scorch marks on the chairs she used.
Near the end of October 2006 Jack saw a short, muscular Asian woman with a tattoo of a man wreathed in the fires of Hell talking to Agnes. She talked about a job that Agnes had to do and that Agnes may be released which made the smaller woman sad. As the Asian woman left, she gave Agnes a packet for 'a collection'.
The next day, Jack approached Agnes for the first time and asked her out on a date. She agreed, but left before he could organise anything concrete. The following day at 3pm Agnes knocked on Jack's door despite him not having told her where he lived, asking if he was ready to leave. As he quickly got ready, he smelt something like burning dust and saw a wisp of smoke where a spider's web used to be previously.
They went for a walk around Bolehill Park in Sheffield. Afterwards, they sat on a bench and Agnes asked if he thought he had a destiny. He said no, and she replied "that must be nice".
They met up a few more times, with Agnes appearing at Jack's house unannounced and informing him of what they were going to do: walks around the park, a meal in an Italian restaurant and to the cinema to see The Prestige. Each time, Agnes seemed aloof.
Their last date was November 23rd 2006, in which they walked around the park. During the walk, she gasped in pain. She staggered to a phone box, saying something about a tree falling and that 'they' had to finish something. They returned to her flat, down a corridor with burn marks to find a group of people outside her flat, including the short Asian woman from the café. A tall, bald man held an unlit lantern and spoke to everyone else in Spanish or Portuguese. One of the group had a bag of candles and another had a box filled with hundreds of spiders.
Agnes thanked Jack and said a very final goodbye. Against his better judgement, he asked if he could kiss her. She placed her hands either side of his head and kissed him. Wherever she touched him burned with an intense flame, boiling even the fat in his cheeks. He fell to the floor, and remembers a single tear dropping onto his hand and sizzling.
When he awoke, Agnes was dead and he was horrifically scarred. He lost everything and went back to live with his father.
==Post-Statement Follow-Up==
Jonathan expects that Diego Molina is the bald man in the group, and suspects Arthur Nolan, Jane Prentiss' landlord, was among them. In his notes, John has started to refer to them as 'The Cult of the Lightless Flame', and suspects they were connected to the circle in Scotland found by Jason North.
Martin got in contact with Jack, who has had plastic surgery. He confirmed that Agnes had mentioned she was adopted.
Tim spoke to Deliah Aconjo, who confirmed that Agnes had visited the cafe for a decade and a half without ageing.
==Supplemental==
John asks Elias for a key to the hatch below the Archives. 
==Continuity==
*Agnes died on the same date that the events of MAG 8 took place and the falling tree she mentions is the one Ivo Lensik uproots on Hill Top Road.
*Related Entity: The Desolation
Category:The Magnus Archives Episodes