splinters inside you."
Returning to the kitchen to wash the dishes, DeClercq re-boiled the kettle to steep a pot of Earl Grey tea. He carried the tea tray along the hall and set it down by the stereo. Rummaging through the CDs, he found his favorite piece of music, the second movement of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto." As Wilhelm Kempff's piano filled the empty gloom, he and Napoleon entered the library left of the fog-shuttered windows.
A few years back, this was the spare bedroom of the house. Here he'd opened Blake's trunk to begin the Cutthroat case. Now all four walls were shelved floor to ceiling with books. Every volume he had purchased since he learned to read was either displayed here or stored downstairs. The only furniture was an Edwardian table and Marlborough chair, the surface spread with Morris's Pax Britannica trilogy-
Robert reshelved the volumes, then poured a cup of tea.
He fetched his briefcase and fanned the books on Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot around the table. '
Cracking Wilson's The Occult, he flipped to the chapter "The Beast Himself."
He read till the grandfather clock struck the witching hour.
November of 1947, a bewildered old man lay on his deathbed in Hastings, England. Reputed to be a cannibal and sacrificer of children, he'd lived a life of sex orgies, drugs, and Satanism. Known as Frater Perdurabo, Beast 666, and "the wickedest man in the world," he'd published texts designed to invoke demons and had practiced rituals that drove those around him to madness and suicide. The Beast's unholy mission was to replace the worship of God with worship of the Devil. Now his bald cranium glistened with sweat, his eyes full of tears as his face twitched spasmodically. "After all I've done!" he cried. "Is this the end?" It was (at least as far as we know) and soon the Beast was dead.
Aleister Crowley was born in 1875. His wealthy parents— Crowley's Ales—belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, one of the most repressive Calvinist sects. Rebelling against their beliefs, Crowley attacked what they worshiped and elevated what they hated. His mother thought him possessed by a monster in the Bible: the hellish Beast 666 from the Book of Revelations. "I am," he replied.
Crowley went to Oxford, where he flirted with witches' covens, and there, between episodes of chasing women and boys, immersed himself in the realm of black magic. In 1898—through alchemist George Jones—he joined MacGregor Mather's Order of the Golden Dawn, the foremost occult group in Britain. Crowley rose rapidly through its secret degrees, and when the Dawn split in 1900, sided with the more extreme Paris Lodge.
Crowley's flat in Chancery Lane had two occult rooms. The White Temple contained an altar surrounded by mirrors. One evening in 1899, Crowley and Jones returned from dinner to find its door unlocked. The altar within was overthrown and Crowley's magic symbols were strewn about the floor. Both men claimed they saw half-materialized demons marching around the room. The Black Temple was more bizarre. Its altar was supported by a handstanding negro carved from wood and a skeleton anointed with sparrows' blood. There Crowley and Jones swore they conjured Buer, a demon who commanded fifty of Hell's Legions.
Crowley traveled extensively. In Mexico, he sought to make his reflection vanish from a mirror. In Ceylon, he studied Eastern mysticism. In Egypt, using the alias Prince Chioa Khan, he undertook an invocation that changed his life. Seeking direct contact with Horus, the power behind the Dawn's Tarot ritual, Crowley mixed drugs and incantations until he summoned Aiwass, henceforth his guardian demon. Aiwass dictated the Liber Legis, which became the foundation of Crowley's Magick. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In China, Crowley smoked opium and became addicted.
Crowley was obsessed with the Tarot. He designed his own deck, which he interpreted in The Book of Thoth.
By 1908 he had his
Returning to the kitchen to wash the dishes, DeClercq re-boiled the kettle to steep a pot of Earl Grey tea. He carried the tea tray along the hall and set it down by the stereo. Rummaging through the CDs, he found his favorite piece of music, the second movement of Beethoven's "Emperor Concerto." As Wilhelm Kempff's piano filled the empty gloom, he and Napoleon entered the library left of the fog-shuttered windows.
A few years back, this was the spare bedroom of the house. Here he'd opened Blake's trunk to begin the Cutthroat case. Now all four walls were shelved floor to ceiling with books. Every volume he had purchased since he learned to read was either displayed here or stored downstairs. The only furniture was an Edwardian table and Marlborough chair, the surface spread with Morris's Pax Britannica trilogy-
Robert reshelved the volumes, then poured a cup of tea.
He fetched his briefcase and fanned the books on Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot around the table. '
Cracking Wilson's The Occult, he flipped to the chapter "The Beast Himself."
He read till the grandfather clock struck the witching hour.
November of 1947, a bewildered old man lay on his deathbed in Hastings, England. Reputed to be a cannibal and sacrificer of children, he'd lived a life of sex orgies, drugs, and Satanism. Known as Frater Perdurabo, Beast 666, and "the wickedest man in the world," he'd published texts designed to invoke demons and had practiced rituals that drove those around him to madness and suicide. The Beast's unholy mission was to replace the worship of God with worship of the Devil. Now his bald cranium glistened with sweat, his eyes full of tears as his face twitched spasmodically. "After all I've done!" he cried. "Is this the end?" It was (at least as far as we know) and soon the Beast was dead.
Aleister Crowley was born in 1875. His wealthy parents— Crowley's Ales—belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, one of the most repressive Calvinist sects. Rebelling against their beliefs, Crowley attacked what they worshiped and elevated what they hated. His mother thought him possessed by a monster in the Bible: the hellish Beast 666 from the Book of Revelations. "I am," he replied.
Crowley went to Oxford, where he flirted with witches' covens, and there, between episodes of chasing women and boys, immersed himself in the realm of black magic. In 1898—through alchemist George Jones—he joined MacGregor Mather's Order of the Golden Dawn, the foremost occult group in Britain. Crowley rose rapidly through its secret degrees, and when the Dawn split in 1900, sided with the more extreme Paris Lodge.
Crowley's flat in Chancery Lane had two occult rooms. The White Temple contained an altar surrounded by mirrors. One evening in 1899, Crowley and Jones returned from dinner to find its door unlocked. The altar within was overthrown and Crowley's magic symbols were strewn about the floor. Both men claimed they saw half-materialized demons marching around the room. The Black Temple was more bizarre. Its altar was supported by a handstanding negro carved from wood and a skeleton anointed with sparrows' blood. There Crowley and Jones swore they conjured Buer, a demon who commanded fifty of Hell's Legions.
Crowley traveled extensively. In Mexico, he sought to make his reflection vanish from a mirror. In Ceylon, he studied Eastern mysticism. In Egypt, using the alias Prince Chioa Khan, he undertook an invocation that changed his life. Seeking direct contact with Horus, the power behind the Dawn's Tarot ritual, Crowley mixed drugs and incantations until he summoned Aiwass, henceforth his guardian demon. Aiwass dictated the Liber Legis, which became the foundation of Crowley's Magick. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In China, Crowley smoked opium and became addicted.
Crowley was obsessed with the Tarot. He designed his own deck, which he interpreted in The Book of Thoth.
By 1908 he had his
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