Peter Steele
Peter Steele was an extravagant professor of psychology with a passion for music, who founded a small private detective agency in Boston with his friends Karen Ballion and Frank Jones.
Following the Case of Corbitt's House and the death of Frank Jones, they were forced to flee from Boston to Arkham, which had set in motion a long chain of events, involving an encounter with the Eater of Sins, a murder mystery that revolved around the death of Peter's acquaintance, professor Charles Leiter of Miskatonic University and stolen Witch Trials Papers.
In January 1925 he was among the friends of Jackson Elias who arrived to New York on his behest and witnessed Jackson's brutal murder in room 410 of Chelsea Hotel by the Cult of the Bloody Tongue.
According to the last will of Jackson Elias, Peter, along with Karen Ballion, Ivan Zygzytsia and Shaun Lanetti was hired by Carlton Ramsey, the late Jackson's lawyer and executor of estate, to track down the Carlysle Expedition, as well as investigate the murder of Elias.
While doing that, Peter had successfully faced Mukunga M'Dari in hand-to-hand combat, fought off zombies, learned how to summon a zombie himself, and faced the many-faced horror of Chacota. Sadly, his budding relationship with a reporter Rebecca Shoshenberg had been cut short after she was kidnapped by the Bloody Tongue and made into a part of Chacota.
Peter also made a profitable acquaintance with Erica Carlisle, managing to secure a number of books from her library before traveling to London, following the trail of the Carlysle Expedition.
Soon after setting his foot in the Old Albion, he visited the Blue Pyramid club, where he first met Yaleesha Essam. That same night Peter had a risky romantic encounter with Zahra Shafiq - a captivating Egyptian spice merchant and the High Priestess of The Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh. Escaping her shop alive, but, alas, not unscathed, he met up with his fellow investigators and accompanied them on their detour to the house of Miles Shipley, a deranged painter with somewhat of an otherworldly perspective. There his dabbling knowledge of black magic served him and his companions well, as he managed to summon a zombie while being trapped in the basement, which caught Miles and his “mother” Bertha Shipley by surprise.
Along with Karen Ballion and Ivan Zygzytsia, he was captured by the The Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh and taken to Misr House to be sacrificed in their big monthly ritual. In the nick of time, he was saved from this gruesome fate by Yaleesha Essam, James Barrington and Mickey Mahoney. Despite being wounded, he took active part in killing Zahra Shafiq and escaped the claws of a Hunting Horror.
In a short period of safety after escaping the Misr House and before traveling to Derbyshire, Peter and Yaleesha developed a close (if tragically brief) and romantic relationship, fueled by passion, danger and common musical taste.
Peter suffered his demise in Henson Manufacturing factory in Derbyshire by the hand of Frank Marshall, the foreman and another high-ranking member of The Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh.
