@Griffyn
So.
I liked the OP a lot, especially the tracking of keywords. After a few days, here is my reaction:
Basically you make two statements:
1. There are some keywords associated to outsider-magic/infection: oily, cloying, greasy, slithering, nauseating 2. Elaine is infectedI'm only half-convinced about the first one. Firstly, greasy is linked to all vampires, so using it to identify infected characters would lead to a lot of false positive. Secondly, while I agree those keywords are linked to the Outside, I'm not sure they are linked to the infection.
Case in point : I tried to use your technic with the scene in PG where some unknown person is using magic behind the scenes.
Here is the description of the magic.
The murk:
“What the hell,” he said, and shook the light a few times. He had his hand on his gun, the restraining strap off, but he hadn’t drawn it yet. Good man. He knew as well as I did that the hotel was going to have far more panicked attendees than potential threats.
“We’ll try mine,” I said, and got the silver pentacle on its chain from around my neck. A gentle whisper and an effort of will and the amulet began to emit a pure, silver-blue light that reached into the darkness around us, burning it away as swiftly as it pressed in, until we could see for maybe fifteen feet around us. Beyond that was just a murky vagueness— not so much a cloud or a mist as a simple lack of light.
The ward:
struggled to ignore the sounds of frightened people in the dark and focused on my magical senses. I reached out to the cold and the gloom, and found it a vaguely familiar kind of spellworking, though I couldn’t remember precisely where I’d encountered it before.
I nodded once at him, turned, and plunged into the darkness, Rawlins at my back. Screams erupted around us, sometimes accompanied by the sight of stumbling, terrified people. Rawlins nudged them toward the walls, barked at them in a tone of pure paternal authority to stay near them, to move carefully for the exits. The gloom began to press in closer to me, and it became an effort of will to hold up the light in my amulet against it. A few steps more and the air grew even colder. Walking forward became an effort, like wading through waist-deep water. I had to lean against it, and I heard a grunt of effort come out of my mouth. “What’s wrong?” Rawlins asked, his voice tight.
We passed under one of the hotel’s emergency light fixtures, its floodlights only dim orange rings in the murk until my amulet’s light burned the shadows away. “Dark magic,” I growled through clenched teeth. “A kind of ward. Trying to keep me from moving ahead.”
We see some keywords, but not the ones linked to Nemesis according to the OP.
So that would mean that the caster was not infected.
The way I see it, if my theory about Maeve at Splattercon!! is true, then yours is false, as Maeve is infected. So that weakens a lot yours as mine has 35% chances of being correct.
Now let's assume that your theory is right. Then it helps us a lot to understand that scene. Who are the candidates? Maeve, Elaine, Sandra, Mavra. Maeve can't be the one. Probably not Elaine, as she's linked to the keywords. So it's Mavra and Sandra. I would say it's not Mavra as : the keyword empty is not there, she was not in Chicago, she doesn't care about the event in PG. So that leaves Sandra.
So that would mean that it's Sandra. Guess we'll have to wait for a WOJ to be sure.
Concerning Elaine, I agree that she becomes quite suspicious.
To conclude, I would guess that the keywords are linked to all outsider-based magic, but not to the infection. So I still believe that Cowl is infected, and that Maeve was at Splattercon!!!.