Ash Return Of The Beast

Ash Return of the Beast.

Gary Tenuta.

Dedication:.

To Julie, for always being there and listening to me rant about how I was going to get over the next stumbling block in the story and for offering helpful suggestions to keep me going.

To my son, Gabriel and his wife, Mercedes, for chuckling at the right places when they read the first parts of the ma.n.u.script in its early stages.

To my Mom and Dad who would roll over in their graves if they could read this book.

Also by the author and available from amazon.com:.

THE EZEKIEL CODE - A novel in paperback and on Kindle.

A BITE OUT OF TIME Award-winning short story, Kindle only.

PREFACE: The Facts Behind The Story.

Let me make it crystal clear: reality is a blurry thing. So, before I begin to tell the strange and horrific present-day tale of death-metal musician, Rodney Duckworth, there are a few facts I should present without delay, facts that will help clarify the story that is about to unfold. To do so we must begin by going back in time to introduce an entirely different character, a man whom the British press once referred to as "The wickedest man in the world". His name was Edward Alexander Crowley.

Edward Alexander Crowley, named after his father, was born into a wealthy and fanatically religious Christian family at a place called Warwickshire, England, on October 12, 1875. When young Edward would misbehave, his mother would berate himspewing all the righteous h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation she could mustercalling him The Beast. This was, as you may have correctly surmised, a reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse a.s.sociated with the number 666 in the book of Revelation in the Holy Bible. Such a scolding was apparently the loving, Christian thing to do to the young child.

Years later, while attending Trinity College in Cambridge, Edward changed his name to Aleister. This act symbolically disengaged him from his father whom he both loved and despised (and who, by then, was long dead anyway) and, thus, the young Crowley effectively established his own unique ident.i.ty. That ident.i.ty, however, did not escape the influence of his mother. This was evidenced by the fact that, later in life, he would publicly refer to himself as The Beast, a t.i.tle seared into the consciousness of his inner child by his mother"s scorching tongue.

Crowley was highly intelligent, cynical, sarcastically witty, and completely obsessed with the occult. His adult years were spent traveling the world, meeting and befriendingas well as making enemies ofsome of the most influential literary and artistic figures of his time. During his travels he studied and learned all he could about mysticism, occultism, and ritual magick, or what some might call the Dark Arts.

For the sake of saving the reader from having to recoil in utter disgust, I shall refrain from describing some the most vile activities in which he was often engaged. Suffice to say, in his later years, he had dragged himself down into the deepest, darkest depths of depravity and would likelywith great pleasurehave plummeted even deeper, had he but discovered the means by which to do so.

Notorious for his use of narcotics, his heteros.e.xual, bis.e.xual, and h.o.m.os.e.xual escapades (quite often as part of his magickal rituals) and known for his lengthy, critical, and insightful writings on the nature of ritual magick, Aleister Crowley became arguably the most important figure in all of modern-day occultism. To this day Crowley"s influence continues to attract the attention of all who take an interest in such things.

Curiously, but perhaps not unexpectedly, many of those who adore, admireand in some cases, worshipthis master of mysticism, are musicians of the hard rock variety. Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Ozzie Osbourne, David Bowie, The Beatles, and Iron Maiden are reportedly among such luminaries. Led Zeppelin"s Jimmy Page even went so far as to purchase the home in which Crowley once lived. Not surprisingly then, we couldand we willadd the tortured soul of singer/guitarist Rodney Duckworth to the list. But not yet. We"d be getting ahead of our story. Before we leave Aleister CrowleyG.o.d rest his tattered soulthere is one more piece of information concerning him that is most essential to our tale.

Crowley died, financially broke and heroine addicted, at the age of 72 on December 1, 1947 in the comfort of a large estate called Netherwood on the southern coast of England. In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated. Now, ordinarily that would be the end of it. But nothing in the lifeor, apparently, even in the deathof Aleister Crowley was ordinary.

The cinerary urn containing Crowley"s ashes was sent to a man named Karl Germer in New Jersey. Germer was a wealthy German living in America. He and Crowley had been members of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an occult organization with links to the Order of the Rosicrucians. Germer became one of Crowley"s most dedicated followers. And since Crowley had a talent for squandering away whatever money he managed to sc.r.a.pe together, Germer helped provide him with a livable income for many years.

When Germer received Crowley"s cinerary urn he buried it on his property, in a garden, under a tall pine tree. Some time later he decided to leave his home in New Jersey and move to sunny California. He planned to take Crowley"s ashes with him and rebury them in Malibu. That plan, however, met its own strange fate and sp.a.w.ned a mystery that has remained unsolved until now. What became of Aleister Crowley"s ashes is a story so unbelievable it could only be true.

PROLOGUE - Part 1.

December 23, 1947, New Jersey, USA.

Karl Germer shivered from the bitter cold as he climbed the concrete steps to the solid oak door of his stately two-storied, brick home. He retrieved the house key from deep inside the pocket of his woolen overcoat, stomped his feet on the mat to shake the snow from his heavy boots and entered the house. He removed his coat and hung it on the rack just inside the foyer and exchanged his boots for the comfort of his old leather slippers.

He moved to the living room, put a log on the dwindling fire and was about to fix himself a brandy when there came a knock at the door. Perturbed by the interruption, he went to the door and opened it. There stood a delivery boy holding a package.

"Karl Germer?" the young man inquired.

Germer nodded.

"Package for you, sir. Christmas present, perhaps?" The young man attempted his best pleasantries in spite of his teeth chattering from the cold.

Germer grunted. Christmas was just two days away but it held no significance for him. "Doubt it," he muttered under his heavy, dark mustache.

The young man seemed not to hear the smug response. "Sign here, please."

Germer signed for the package and started to close the door but noticed the young man was still standing there as if waiting for something. Germer rolled his eyes and drew an impatient breath. He reached into his vest pocket, pulled out a silver dollar and handed it to the young man.

"Thank you, sir!" the young man chirped as he made his way down the steps. "Merry Christmas to you!"

Germer grunted again, shut the door and returned to the living room. It was only then that he noticed the return address on the package and realized instantly what had been delivered to him. He"d been expecting it, hoping it might come, but when it didn"t arrive several days earlier he wondered if perhaps it wouldn"t arrive at all. Now his whole demeanor was transformed from dour to delight, punctuated by a gleam in his eye.

He carefully peeled back the brown paper wrapping, opened the box and removed the wads of newspaper tightly packed around the cinerary urn containing the ashes of the Beast.

He removed the object from the box and held it gently, reverently, cradling it in his hands with the tenderness and care typically reserved for the handling of a newborn child. A knowing smile crept across his weathered face. "Aleister, my dear friend. You"ve arrived."

The slick black ceramic urn was simple in form with a graceful contoured curve, almost pear shaped, narrower at the base, wider toward the top. The name, Aleister Alexander Crowley, was inscribed in an elegant script followed below by Crowley"s date of birth and the date of his pa.s.sing.

There was a single adornment attached to the urn, positioned just above Crowley"s name. It was a round, ruby-like gem about the size of a half dollar. It was oddly faceted in such a manner as to produce a strange sort of geometric design the likes of which Germer had never seen. He puzzled over it momentarily, tracing the faceted pattern with his finger as if it might trigger some distant recollection, some memory of having come across such a design anywhere in his extensive experience with magickal sigils and talismans. But nothing came to mind.

With great care and a sense of excited curiosity, he lifted the lid of the urn and peered inside to see the remains of the man he"d so admired in life. But gazing down into the opening was like staring into the dark void of death itself. He could see nothing. For a moment he fantasized Crowley"s form rising, ghost-like, up and out of the container like the genie emerging from Aladdin"s lamp. I must see you one more time, Germer thought.

He tipped the urn until a few particles of ash slid toward the lip of the opening. His elation suddenly turned to melancholy as a flood of memories rose up from the depths of his past, memories of his relationship with the most unusual man he"d ever known, a man whom he was convinced could turn day into night, black into white, simply through an act of will.

Germer"s desire to touch the ash, to once again connect with the Master, was overwhelming. But dare he? A brief, intense argument ensued between his better judgment and his longing desire. Would it be sacrilege? Yes! No! He brought a finger toward the sacred dust but at the last moment he stayed his hand. No, he thought. The profane should not touch the sacred. With some reluctance, but knowing it was the right thing to do, he replaced the lid, closing up forever the remains of the Beast.

Tracing his finger over the strange jewel again, he nodded thoughtfully. Rest in peace, my friend.

He placed the urn atop the mantle above the fireplace and the glowing embers of the dying fire abruptly burst into fingers of flame reaching upward, desperately grasping to hold onto some tiny spark of life. Germer gasped and jumped back, momentarily stunned by the pyrotechnic display. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over, the flaming fingers shrinking to nothing and leaving naught but dead, gray ash at the bottom of the grate.

Germer released his breath, shook his head and grinned. Even in death Crowley could work his magick. "Tomorrow, my friend, we will give you a proper burial. I have the perfect place reserved for you."

The next day, Christmas Eve, Germer placed the urn inside an oak wood box he had constructed weeks ago in preparation for this special occasion. A biting chill was in the air and the frozen gra.s.s crunched beneath his boots as he carried the urn and a shovel across the yard toward the garden where he would bury his friend in a perfect spot beneath a tall pine tree.

Having broken through the frozen ground, Germer dug a shallow pit and lowered into it the box containing the precious urn. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small book, tattered, dog-eared and bound in dark red leather. It was his only copy of Crowley"s eminently influential work, Liber Al Vel Legis, The Book of the Law. It was a strange and prophetic, poetic work that Crowley produced in Egypt in 1904. Crowley claimed the text had literally been dictated to him by a mysterious ent.i.ty, an ethereal being, calling itself Aiwa.s.s. In effectamong other things including hints of a mysterious alphanumeric cipherthe text was an announcement of the coming of a new age beginning that year of 1904. This was to be known as the Aeon of Horusreferring to a G.o.d of the Egyptian pantheonand Crowley was to become the appointed prophet of this New Age.

This small book was the source of one of the best-known phrases among the world"s pract.i.tioners of ritual magick: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

This mantra formed the entire philosophy around which Crowley would conceive and implement his unique brand of magick and for which he became like a G.o.d to those with eyes to see and ears to hear. Germer knew the book by heart and could recite it word for word.

Words, magickal wordsbeing key elements of ritual magick were in fact the inspiration behind Germer"s choice of what would be his final words of ceremony spoken on this special occasion.

He laid the book upon the box and covered the box with the frozen dirt. Standing over the tiny grave, on what was now hallowed ground, he recited the short and final verse from The Book Of The Law: "The ending of the words is the word Abrahadabra. The Book of the Law is written and concealed. Aum. Ha."

He remained standing over his friend for a few minutes in silence, lost in a sea of memories of days gone by, good and bad, joyful and horrendous, comforting and frightening, unpredictable and completely expected, familiar and strange. These were not just descriptions of the times spent with Crowley. He realized, just then during those solemn moments, these were reflections of the man himself. Aleister Crowley was all of these things and more. But now he was gone and, for all Germer knew, perhaps the world would soon forget about the Beast altogether. He chuckled. G.o.d knows there are plenty of people who wish they could forget him.

With that final thought, Germer picked up his shovel and returned to the house for a stiff brandy and the warmth of a roaring fire.

In the Spring of the following year Germer decided it was time for a change. He"d not been particularly happy living in New Jersey and had often contemplated a move to sunny California. Now was as good a time as any to do just that. Having made preparations for the move, he certainly had not forgotten his old friend still resting peacefully beneath the pine tree.

Travel plans in place, bags packed and ready to go, he grabbed a shovel from the garage and went out to dig up the box containing Crowley"s urn. His plan was to take the urn with him on the trip to Malibu, the town he"d decided would be a good place in which to settle down. There he would rebury the urn in a new plot of ground overlooking the rolling surfs of the blue Pacific Ocean.

Within moments of the first dip of the shovel into the well-thawed ground, a confused look came over his face. Where was the box? Surely he had not mistaken the sacred spot. He knew it as well as he knew the back of his own hand. Frantic now, his brow crunched into a look of frenzied confusion. What the h.e.l.l?

Quickly, he dug into the ground a few inches to the left but found nothing. To the right. Nothing. Again and again, here, there, but still nothing.

Breathing heavily, his chest heaving from exhaustion, he stopped digging when, to his horror, he realized the futility of the search. He cursed the ground and heaved the shovel against the tree. His friend was gone. How or why, he could not comprehend.

Had Crowley, somehow in death, risen up and removed his own urn? What other explanation could there be? It was an insane idea and he knew it. But, in the weeks and months that followed, it was the only idea that brought him any peace and he carried that idea with him to his new home by the sea and eventually into his own grave.

What Germer never knew was that back on that cold, bl.u.s.tery Christmas Eve, as he was laying the urn to rest, someone had been carefully observing the entire burial proceedings from the comfort of a black Cadillac limousine parked directly across the street.

The man in the limousine was a wealthy American, an eccentric to the extreme. He had flown to New Jersey from his own home, thousands of miles away, in Seattle.

With his long, gray hair and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses he bore a striking resemblance to the visage of Benjamin Franklin on the hundred-dollar bill. The man was possessed by two things: an addiction to drugswith a special affinity for mescalineand a long-time interest in the occult. He fancied himself, in fact, as a true initiate of the Dark Arts. A self-professed 33rd degree Freemason, well into his 60s, he went by the name of Sir Michael J. Moorehouse.

Whether the t.i.tle of "Sir" had been officially bestowed upon him by the Queen of England or whether, as some surmised, it was an adornment bestowed upon him by virtue of his own imagination, was not clear. Whether or not he was a Freemason of any degree whatsoever was also not clear. What was clear to anyone who knew him was that he was totally and unblushingly obsessed with Aleister Crowley and had been so for many years.

He had, in fact, spent several years of his life tracking and stalking the Beast from New York to Paris, from Italy to England. Wherever the Beast did roam, Sir Michael J. Moorehouse tracked him down.

Once, in Paris, he even managed to have a few words with his idol. To actually converse face to face with Crowley was always the primary goal. But that singular conversation was cut short as Crowley found Moorehouse to be annoying in the extreme. Crowley quickly dismissed the man, rather rudely, as he often did to anyone with whom he did not feel an immediate kinship.

Moorehouse became increasingly obsessed with Crowley over the years and was determined to win favor with the Beast one way or another. He would send letters and telegrams to Crowley begging for an audience but, much to his frustration and dismay, none of the attempted communications were ever answered. Then, when he learned of Crowley"s death and the plan to send the urn from England to the home of Karl Germer, he knew he might have a chance to possess what he had thus far failed to acquire: a personal and permanent audience with the master of magickeven if it was only the ashes of the great man. At this point in his life, a dead idol was better than no idol at all.

Now, having observed the burial ceremony, and knowing the precise spot where the urn was resting, he ordered the limo driver to take him back to his hotel but not before dropping him off at the nearest hardware store to purchase a few items. That mission accomplished, he returned to the hotel and instructed the limo driver to pick him up again at midnight.

That night the limo arrived at the appointed hour and took Moorehouse back to Germer"s residence. This time, however, to insure privacy, Moorehouse instructed the driver to park around the corner, out of view. The driver, having been tipped handsomely, complied without question.

Moorehouse exited the limo, shovel and flashlight in hand, and made his way on foot, through the darkness, directly to Germer"s house.

Without hesitation, he quickly, stealthily, scurried onto the property and dug up the oak box containing the treasured prize. He scooped up the tattered copy of The Book of the Law and shoved it into his coat pocket. Then he filled the empty hole and brushed the dirt around, attempting to make it appear undisturbed. He stuffed the flashlight into his other coat pocket, picked up the shovel and, with the oak box cradled under his arm, his heart pounding, he departed the scene like a phantom in the night.

When he entered his hotel room he was shaking like a schoolboy who had just stolen a candy bar from under the nose of the shopkeeper and somehow got away with it. He was overwhelmed by the sheer excitement of the entire ordeal but a heavy dose of liquor soon numbed his rattled nerves and put him to sleep for the night.

The return flight to Seattle the following day seemed like it was taking forever. Sir Michael Moorehouse was laboring under an acute case of high anxiety. He had an important date with destiny and a short time to get there.

Moorehouse Manor, the large, foreboding, residence of Sir Michael Moorehouse, was situated at the far end of Millionaire"s Row atop Seattle"s old Capitol Hill. The long street, extending for several blocks, was lined with stately, well-manicured mansions.

This mansiononce among the most luxurious and elegant on the entire Rowwas now in a sorry state of neglect and disrepair and had been so for several years. A sad visage of its former self, it sat alone at the end of the street separated from the other homes by its large plot of property obscured by a jungle of meandering overgrowth.

Michael"s father, William Bentley Moorehousea widower of many years and a successful trial lawyerhad been the original owner. Every facet of the huge estate had been designed and built according to his personal specifications. Michael inherited the Manor when his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack.

Within a short period of time, following the death of the elder Moorehouse, the Manor"s beautiful gardens soon withered, its manicured lawns turned to a tangled field of dry gra.s.s and the ivy began creeping up the old brick walls, eventually surrounding the windows and winding its way into and around nearly every feature of the exterior.

Moorehouse Manor had become the bane of the neighborhood and Michael could not have cared less. He had more important things to do, like trekking across the globe, stalking the elusive Beast whom he had now finally managed to capture and with whom he was presently having a long-awaited conversation.

The conversation was entirely one-sided as Michael reclined comfortably in his father"s favorite old chair in the mansion"s private library. The mahogany-paneled librarywith its volume-filled shelves, reaching nearly to the top of the 9-foot ceilinghad the musty but oddly pleasant smell of dusty old books and worn leather furniture. Next to Michael"s chair was a small antique table upon which the polished black urn now rested peacefully.

Michael lit a cigar and casually blew a plume of smoke upward toward the lazily revolving ceiling fan. With a contemplative look on his face, he turned to the urn, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and spoke.

"So tell me, Aleister, how should I proceed with this..." he paused, gesturing with his hand, searching for the right word, "... this experiment?" Then he nodded, thoughtfully. "Well, yes, you"re right. I quite agree. Bringing a person back from the dead is not an easy feat. But" Then, abruptly, he leaned forward and shot a worried look toward the urn. "What? You do want me to bring you back, don"t you?"

A moment later he let out a sigh of relief and settled back into the chair.

"Ah, good. Very good. For a moment I thought... But it matters not. All that matters is that finally we"ll be together. You and I." He laughed. "Think of it," he said, his voice t.i.ttering with excitement, "think of what we can accomplish."

If Crowley had somehow actually been listening to this insanity he surely would have been curious to know how Michael planned to carry out such a remarkable feat. To achieve resurrection of the dead would mean Michael J. Moorehouse had discovered the Philosopher"s Stone, the Elixir of Life. Impossible! That was the goal of alchemy and only the most accomplished of Master Alchemists had ever done such a thing. Many had tried. Only a few, over thousands of years, had succeeded... that is, if one were p.r.o.ne to believe such claims. In any case, Michael Moorehouse was no master alchemist. In fact, he was no alchemist of any stripe and he certainly had not discovered the illusive Philosopher"s Stone. The only possible answer was that the man was utterly deluded. Nevertheless, deluded or not, he did have a plan. The plan had been given to him from a most unusual and unantic.i.p.ated source: The evening before his flight from Seattle to New Jersey, to steal the urn, he had intoxicated himself with a fine and highly potent variety of mescaline. The effects were swift to come and pleasurable as always. He was lost in the ecstasy of swirling colors and geometric patterns ever shifting, changing, blending in a dance of surreal beauty. But the dance was unexpectedly interrupted by the vision of an ent.i.tyvaguely human in formwhich introduced itself simply as the Messenger. The message, it turned out, was both exciting, in a perverse sort of way, and yet profoundly frightening in its implications.

The Messenger informed Michael that the Antichrist was desperately eager to enter the world in physical form. To do so, however, would require nothing less than the virtual resurrection of Mr. Aleister Crowley.

"In life," the Messenger said, "Aleister Crowley referred to himself as the Beast. Now, with your help, he can truly become the Beast he once only fancied himself to be. Normally this would require the presence of the body to be reanimated. But, since his body has been reduced to ashes, the process must be slightly altered."

The Messenger told Michael that this feat could be accomplished if, once he acquired the urn, he would be willing to ingest Crowley"s ashes in conjunction with a particular ceremony while reciting a specific incantation. The incantationshould Michael be willing to partake of this magickal workingwould be provided to him at the proper time. The end result of the entire process would be that Michael"s body would become host to the soul and spiritual essence of Aleister Crowley. All of this, the Messenger said, must be done on a night of the full moon which, as he further informed Michael, was only three weeks away.

Michael didn"t have to think twice about whether or not he would be willing to do this. Being with Crowley, side by side, as friends with common interests, had seemed all along like such a marvelous idea that he could not imagine anything more exciting. But now, he thought, to actually have the essence of the great man literally living within me? And then to have the Antichrist move in and take possession of me through him? The power I could wield. G.o.d almighty. The world would be at my feet!

Clearly, there was no doubt in Michael"s depraved mind. This is what he wanted to do. "Yes, of course," he responded to the Messenger. "I am humbled beyond words to have been chosen for this honor."

"There is one more thing," the Messenger said.

"Yes, yes, anything. Whatever I can do."

The Messenger gave an approving nod. "My master has instructed me to provide you with this puzzle, a riddle if you will, that you must solve in order to prove, beyond a doubt, that you are the one."