Ash: Return of the Beast

by Gary Tenuta

  “These,” the Messenger said, “belonged to William, your great-great grandfather. He had become an adept of the highest order, a master of the magickal arts. The Inner Sanctum was built to serve as a secret room for the rituals he performed, sometimes alone and sometimes with the members of his branch of the Order of the Old Ones. That was the reason for the tunnel. The tunnel was how the members of his group could come and go in the middle of the night without being observed by the neighbors. William’s remarkable success as a trial lawyer was due as much to his use of magickal workings as it was to his innate abilities and knowledge of the law––perhaps even more so.”

  “No shit? Did his son, Michael, know about any of this?”

  “Only toward the end of his father’s life. William didn’t trust his own son. In fact, he blackmailed Michael into silence once Michael became aware of his father’s secret. He told Michael he would not bequeath to him the house or even a penny of his fortune unless he swore to keep the secret. Michael did keep the secret, of course––not so much for the house, obviously, but mostly for the money.”

  “And Mrs. Moorehouse, Michael’s mother. What happened to her?”

  “Ah, yes, Mrs. Moorehouse. Poor thing. She died a year before her husband, William, passed away.”

  “Died? How?”

  “She knew what her husband was into and she didn’t like it. Loathed it, actually. She threatened to expose him. But of course that couldn’t be allowed to happen.”

  “So what did happen?”

  “Mrs. Moorehouse had an unfortunate accident. Tumbled down the stairs right here in her own home. Broke her neck. Very sad.”

  “Pretty convenient accident.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Hmm… So, all this stuff… It’s all mine now, is that right?”

  “It belongs to you now, yes.”

  Cowl brushed his hands across the row of hooded robes. He grinned and reached for the black one. “Well, then, let’s see how this baby fits, shall we?”

  He slipped into the robe and turned to the Messenger. “So, how do I look?”

  “Like it was meant to be, of course.”

  Cowl laughed and brought the hood up over his head. Instantly, his body convulsed with a spasmodic shudder as if he’d stuck his finger into a high voltage socket. Mercifully, it was over in a split second. He ripped the hood off his head and stumbled backward, his eyes wild with terror. Spittle was dripping from his lips and drizzling down his chin. He wiped his face with his sleeve and cursed. “Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?”

  An amused chuckle issued from the Messenger. “Call it a confirmation.”

  “A confirmation! Of what, for Christ’s sake?”

  “The Old Ones are pleased. Your initiation has begun.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Three Months Later…

  Before Kane even had a chance to finish his first cup of morning coffee, Ravenwood flew into his office unannounced and flung herself into the chair in front of his desk. From the look on her face he could tell she was all jacked up about something.

  “Oh, God,” he grumbled. “Whatever it is, it better be good.”

  Ravenwood opened her briefcase and pulled out some papers. “Oh, it’s good all right. Wait’ll you see this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Last night I had a hell of a nightmare.”

  “I’m having one right now.”

  “No, seriously.”

  “I am serious.”

  Ignoring him, she laid the papers on his desk and gave a brief synopsis of the bizarre dream.

  Kane looked at her. “Fallen angels, spooky labyrinths and glowing symbols that turn into little creepy crawlers?” He shook his head. “I know a good psychiatrist if you––”

  Ravenwood snapped at him. “Look. I’ve been up all night. You want to know what I figured out or don’t you?”

  Kane backed off but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Yeah, sure. What is it?”

  She shuffled through the papers and pulled one to the front. “See anything familiar?”

  Kane studied the strange images. “Yeah. The first five are the same weird squiggles that were burned into the chests of the dead preachers. What are the others? What are these words?”

  “Ever hear of the Necronomicon?”

  “The Neker…what?”

  “You’ll probably want to brew another pot of coffee. If you thought what we’ve been dealing with up to this point has been hard to wrap your mind around, this is really going to strain your brain.”

  Ravenwood gave Kane the Cliff Notes version of the Necronomicon and the murky, often confusing, history of its origins. She explained that it was often thought to be a work of fiction attributed to H. P. Lovecraft, the early 20th century author of bizarre horror stories. Others, she told him, claim to have traced its origins back into the mists of time and linked it to the gods and goddesses of the ancient Sumerians.

  Kane was lost, already. “Sumerians?”

  “Pre-biblical. We’re talking really old. Even the origin of their culture is a bit of a mystery. It seems some of the Old Testament stories in the Bible were even borrowed from the earlier Sumerian tales. So, right away we’re into controversial territory here. But that’s nothing compared to this book.”

  “The Necker…Necker…”

  “Necronomicon. Literally translated, the book of dead names.”

  “Dead names.”

  “Or names of the dead, if you prefer.”

  “Names of what dead? What dead people are we talking about here?”

  “Not people, exactly. Gods. Or demons. Both, actually. And not dead exactly, either. More like… sleeping.”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Yes. Waiting to be awakened.”

  Kane shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The details of this case were beginning to stir his own sleeping demons… memories… his dad… I should tell her. No you shouldn’t. Not now.

  Ravenwood studied his face for a moment. “Are you still with me?”

  “What?”

  “Looked like I lost you for a minute.”

  Kane straightened himself in the chair and loosened his tie. “Yeah. I’m with you. Sleeping demons…yada, yada….”

  “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Okay. Well, look, I won’t bore you with all the details. But, whether you believe any of this or not, we’re talking about some seriously strange and potentially dangerous stuff here.”

  “Dangerous? C’mon.”

  “Uh… five dead preachers?”

  Kane pursed his lips and conceded her point with a reluctant nod.

  Ravenwood sucked up her exasperation and continued. “Remember what I said about the sleeping demons? Well, the Necronomicon is––among other things––a book of calls.”

  “Calls.”

  “Right. Calls. In ritual magick, calls are incantations to be recited in a particular sequence. These calls are intended to awaken the sleeping demons and raise them up from the Underworld, the dark Abyss, to do the bidding of the magician.”

  Kane chuckled. “And you’re telling me this is actually supposed to work.”

  “Well, here’s the thing. There are two versions of the Necronomicon.” She paused, pulled a paperback book from her briefcase and handed it to Kane. “One of them looks like this. You can buy it at just about any good metaphysical bookstore.”

  Kane took the book and examined it. The cover was black with a strange symbol printed in red in the center. The word Necronomicon was printed in bold white letters above the symbol in a font that had an intentionally sinister look about it. He flipped through the pages as Ravenwood continued to talk.

  “Open it to the page with the bookmark. Look at the illustrations.”

  Kane turned to the marked page and recognized the illustrations as the same symbols Ravenwood had sketched on the sheet of paper.

  “Look closely at those symbols,” she said. “You were
only partly right about the first five symbols being the same ones that are on the bodies of the victims. Symbols one, two, four and five were used but symbol number three didn’t appear on any of them. Symbol number nine was used in place of number three.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Oh, it matters all right. It means our perp is no ordinary, run-of-the-mill, self-proclaimed black arts magician.”

  “And you know this, how?”

  “Those symbols are the signs or seals representing each of the nine offspring of the group of gods or entities known throughout the ages as the Ancient Ones or the Great Old Ones. These Old Ones and their offspring have one goal: to somehow, by any means, find a way through the gate of the Abyss and enter into the land of the living. If they can accomplish that then they will destroy every last remnant of the human race and take possession of the world that they claim was theirs in the first place.”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. There was a war between the good gods and the bad gods. The bad gods lost and they’re just waiting to get their revenge.”

  Ravenwood’s eyes lit up. “Very impressive, Lieutenant! How did––”

  Kane chuckled. “Well, I mean come on. It’s the old story. Standard mythological fare. Good versus evil. Skywalker versus Darth Vader.”

  “Exactly. But all myths have some factual beginning, some actual event from which the eventual mythological tales are created. And this––this story of the evil Old Ones and the good guys known as the Elder Gods––is where it all started.”

  “You sound like you believe that.”

  “Doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. What matters is that some people not only believe it but they believe it with a fervor that rivals that of any radical religious fundamentalist on the planet. Fortunately, most of them are relatively harmless because they don’t have the necessary tools to do much damage. But if you put something like the real Necronomicon into the hands of one of these people… well, let’s just say the term weapon-of-mass-destruction comes to mind.”

  Kane scoffed. “Aren’t we exaggerating just a little here? I mean, come on.”

  “Like I said, you don’t have to believe it. You just need to know there are those who do. And that makes them potentially very dangerous.”

  Kane studied her face. “Do you believe it?”

  “I believe––no, I know they believe the knowledge contained in the Necronomicon gives them the potential to become as powerful and evil as the dark gods they believe in. And I think whoever our perp is, he’s someone to be reckoned with. The sequence in which he’s using the symbols is the tip-off.”

  “How so? Tip-off to what?”

  “Like I told you, there are two versions of the Necronomicon. There’s the one you’re holding in your hand. You can buy it at any metaphysical bookstore. Hell, you can probably order it on line from Amazon.”

  “And the other one?”

  “The other one you can’t order from anywhere. You won’t find it in any bookstore. And there are only two copies known to exist. One is rumored to be buried, along with other powerful books, in a chamber called the Hall of Records located deep beneath the sands of the Great Sphinx in Egypt. The other, some are convinced, was once in the possession of none other than Aleister Crowley. What happened to it after Crowley died, no one knows. My guess is that now it has somehow ended up in the possession of our mystery killer. Otherwise he wouldn’t know about the correct sequence of the symbols.”

  “Or maybe he just made a mistake. I mean, we’re assuming he’s bent on killing nine preachers, right? And you’re assuming the ninth one will be decorated with the symbol that the so-called real Necronomicon has in the ninth position––the one that’s listed as number three in these drawings. What’s it called?” He glanced at the drawings. “This Kutulu symbol, right? But so far our perp has only killed five people. For all we know this Kutulu symbol will turn up on the sixth victim. Or the seventh, or whatever. See what I mean? Maybe he doesn’t have a clue. Maybe he doesn’t know what you think he knows. Maybe he’s just some deluded asshole messing around with this shit. Or how about this? Maybe he does know about the proper sequence but that doesn’t mean he actually has the real Necker…”

  “Necronomicon.”

  “Right. You see what I’m saying? I mean, look at you. You know about the sequence and you don’t have a copy of the real Necker…whatever.” He paused for a moment and considered his last statement. “At least I’m guessing you don’t. Right?”

  As much as it pained her, Ravenwood had to admit that his logic made sense. “No, you’re right. I don’t have a copy of it. But so few people even know the thing exists, let alone that there’s a difference in the sequential arrangement of the symbols. We have to assume he has the real thing in his possession. And don’t forget, this guy somehow managed to brand an accurate, although elaborately modified, depiction of the Lucifer Seal on the foreheads of the victims.

  “Remember I told you the Lucifer Seal is probably the most obscure symbol in the entire realm of the occult. That, alone, told me from the start that this guy is deeper into this stuff than anyone I’ve ever come across. And, believe me, I’ve been involved in some of the darkest, weirdest phenomena you can imagine. And don’t forget the video. How many people do you know who can appear out of nowhere and then vanish into thin air? Trust me, Lieutenant. We’re dealing with something far beyond any kind of weirdness that I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve seen stuff you wouldn’t believe.” Then she remembered who she was talking to. “Of course, for you, I guess that wouldn’t take much.”

  Ravenwood’s verbal jab pretty much sucked the air out of the room and the whole conversation had drained the energy out of Kane.

  Ravenwood, on the other hand, was even more charged up than when she came in. She was in her element. In her ten years of involvement with the FBI’s Anomalous Phenomena Unit this was the most intriguing case that had ever come her way. The alien abduction case she investigated last year had, until now, been at the top of her list of favorite cases. But this case of the preacher killer moved her in a more personal way. It brought back memories of the stories her mother––a full-blooded Mesoamerican Indian––had told her when she was a young girl growing up in New Mexico. Ravenwood was fascinated by tales about the shamans with their ability to disappear from one place and magically appear in another place instantaneously. The idea that they could transform themselves into Jaguars, and cross over into the spirit world and back again, gripped her imagination. Her father, whose Celtic roots could be traced back to the Middle Ages, had his own stories to tell as he was the son of an Elder of the Craft. The tales of the rituals, the invocation of spirits, and being brought up in the middle of two magickal traditions from opposite sides of the world, it was all incredibly exciting to the young girl who would one day win a college scholarship for her essays on shamanism and who somehow, through an odd series of circumstances, would end up working for the FBI.

  “Well, okay,” Kane said with a quick drum roll of the fingers on the top of his desk. He pushed his chair back, loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his wrinkled white shirt.

  “Okay? Okay, what?”

  “Okay, you’re the expert on this stuff.” He made a courtly gesture with his hand. “I defer to your expertise on the matter, madame.” He got up and moved to the coffee maker. “Coffee?”

  Ravenwood gave him a skeptical look.

  “No, really, I mean it,” he said, pouring himself a cup. “It’s pretty clear I don’t know jack about this shit and you do. You want coffee or not?”

  I don’t believe it. The Teddy Bear is back. “Thank you, yes. Black.”

  Kane returned to his chair. “It’s just so damn frustrating,” he said. He set Ravenwood’s coffee on the desk and pushed it across to her. Then, reaching into a side drawer, he pulled out the case file and flipped it onto the desk. He tapped it with his finger. “As you know, the investigation hasn’t turned up a single thing pointing t
o any sort of a connection between our five dead preachers. We’ve interviewed their wives, their closest relatives, their friends and nothing makes any sense. Hell, it turns out these five guys didn’t even know each other. So we have no clue as to how our perp is choosing his victims and we have no idea why he’s choosing them. What’s the motivation? What the hell possesses someone to do something like this?”

  Ravenwood nodded. “I’m thinking revenge.”

  Kane’s gut tightened. The word triggered a disturbing childhood memory and he shut it out as quickly as it had come in. He looked at Ravenwood and wondered if she’d noticed his reaction. “Revenge? For what, for god’s sake?”

  Ravenwood shrugged. “Just a hunch. But not only revenge. I think there’s something more to it. It gets back to the fact that he’s using these symbols and he’s using them in the proper sequence. Or at least I think we have to presume he’s using the proper sequence. In any case, as far as the motivation question is concerned––besides whatever personal revenge factor might be in play here––I believe he’s attempting to awaken the offspring of the Old Ones. To resurrect them from the Underworld and bring them through the Gates of the Abyss into our world. That’s the best explanation for why he’s using these symbols.”

  The look on Kane’s face told Ravenwood he was about to spout off with more objections to any more of this nonsense. He opened his mouth and managed to get out a single “But…” before she cut him off.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “You deferred to my expertise here, remember?”

  He closed his eyes and let out a sigh, almost sorry now that he ever made such a concession. “Yeah, yeah. Go on.”