cthulhia | things Tim Powers is probably writing about...

at least, I wouldn't be to surprised to see them in a future novel.

Falun Gong, and the rumor of how the Chinese Government is so threatened by the supernatural potentals of Qi that they burn the remains of its captured practitioners. (Oddly enough, dragonboat races tend to happen at Chinese festivals, and the Falun Gong folks had a booth).
The elderly twins in LA who were breeding rats. (Surely as a defense against some demon, and now that they've been stopped, suddenly some unwitting protagonist will have to rise to the occasion to protect southern california from itself all over again.)
William Ashbless, who turns out to have yet another incarnation, as Pied Piper and master of Qi.