The Sixth Key (42 page)

‘The hour before midnight is used for good,
the half-hour after is reserved for evil,’ Eva said, cutting through his
thoughts.

‘How do you know these things?’ Rahn asked
her, amazed.

‘I’m the personification of wisdom.’ She
smiled sadly. ‘So few men are truly wise.’

‘But the Cathars were
perfect,’ he gave back.

‘Ah, but who in this
world can truly say they are perfect?’

He sat stock-still. Where
had he heard this before?

‘When is midnight?’ he
asked.

‘Soon,’ she said. ‘We
have to go.’

‘I won’t go with you,’
Deodat said, with disappointment in his voice. ‘I’m not feeling myself. It’s my
heart, I think. Madame Sabine may have been right after all – I’m just an
old fool trying to relive my youth.’

‘You just need some rest, Deodat.’ Rahn
soothed.

‘We won’t be long. Lock the doors and stay out
of sight,’ Eva said, perfectly in control.

‘Have you thought about what you’re going to
do, both of you?’ He asked.

Rahn chewed on the inside of his mouth. He couldn’t
think. ‘I don’t know, we’ll improvise.’

‘Listen,’ Deodat said. ‘You’re not on a movie
set now. This is real. When evil wills are brought into communion in a circle,
such a circle can be made stronger than the world. Don’t let them use the key.
Whatever you do, don’t let them use it!’

‘We have to hurry, it’s nearly time!’ Eva
said.

Rahn had an idea; he reached into the back of
the Peugeot looking for his bag. It was still there. He took out the Countess
P’s grotesque clock and put it under his arm.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ Deodat
said.

‘It’s the only weapon we’ve got and it’s heavy
enough to hurt. After all, I don’t have a candlestick,’ he said, looking at
Eva.

Her smile in return was wry.

They got out of the car and Rahn braced
himself against the squall’s cold teeth. ‘So what do you propose, Dorothy?
Should we trespass on the party, click our ruby shoes, demand the manuscript
from the Wizard of Oz and then make our merry way back to Kansas before
supper?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, flatly.

‘Haven’t you heard of the Wizard of Oz? Louise
Brooks was from Kansas, you see . . .’

‘Who is Louise Brooks?’

He sighed, feeling ridiculous. ‘Never mind . .
.’

‘Shall we get started then?’ she said, and
with the philosophical mien of a captain about to enter the field of battle,
added, ‘Let’s go!’

Rahn followed Eva feeling
inept and clumsy, an emasculated hero. Trees hung across their path and their
bare limbs stood out against the inky blackness, like bony fingers pointing to
a half-worn moon obscured by drifting clouds. The wind carried the sound of an
owl and a creature scurried in the undergrowth. That feeling came again, the
feeling of peril ahead, and not just that: a pure form of terror began to seize
him, not that same panic he felt going into churches but a calm terror that was
visceral. No, there was no turning back.

Not far ahead he could see the outline of the
hermitage set high over the gorge and the sound of water tumbling and foaming
below was louder now. When they came upon firebrands lighting the way he knew they
were expecting company. He had a sense for where they would be; Grassaud had
mentioned an abbé who had entered the underground tunnels some years before and
returned incoherent and lethargic. He had died soon afterwards, without
elucidating what had happened.

Rahn’s instincts were proved right when they
reached the forbidden grotto of Mary Magdalene. Here a grilled door lay open
with firebrands on either side, and beyond it there was a tunnel illuminated by
torches. Rahn entered first with Eva following close behind. Soon there were
stone steps and a steep descent; after that more steps, followed by more
descending. It was cold and damp and easy to lose one’s bearings. Strata and
substrata passed by until they began to hear the low snarling and growling of
dogs intermixed with chanting. They moved now with stealth until they reached
the mouth of a great open gallery.

Eva signalled to a spot behind a high rock and
he followed her to a position in the shadows from which they could see into the
gallery below.

The gallery was wide and domed and lit by a
large fire and black candles. Rahn saw the dogs now, three Dobermans tethered
to a rock. A number of people were gathered in the cave, all of them dressed in
black cloaks and facing a circle that had been drawn on the ground. Written
around the circle at the four cardinal points Rahn could make out the letters
ROTA. Inside this circle a pentagram had been drawn and in the middle of that,
before an altar, stood a woman dressed in a black cloak, wearing a sword in a
red girdle around her waist. When she turned around, Rahn gasped. It was Madame
Dénarnaud!

The madame now addressed the group in a solemn
voice: ‘Aeons ago the great general council of all the masters was called.
Fearing that the Church would destroy their work, the masters who came out of
Naples, Athens and Toledo chose from one of them, a man whose name was
Honorius, the son of Euclid, master of the Thebans. They gave the Theban
Honorius the task of creating an illustrious compendium of magic, a work never
seen before by human eyes. Upon its creation, copies were made for safekeeping,
and these were given to men who swore an oath to pass them down only to those
who had merit. One copy fell into the hands of a man destined to become a pope
and so was born Le Serpent Rouge, the Grimoire of Pope Honorius III, the finest
distillation of our art – the most infernal grimoire ever written.

‘But now, the time has come for priest to give
way to priestess, pope to popess! You are all acquainted with the tarot card le
papesse. That is how you must think of me. For I will take the title of
Pontifex Maximus and I alone will hold the missing key that opens the way to
Hell. This Night of the Dead, I will place that key into the sacred lock and
call forth the master of all demons.’ She looked around. ‘Who brings me the
blood of le sacrifice humain?’

A cowled man placed a large bowl on the altar.

‘The blood of the English Freemason who used
Gaston De Mengel as a puppet will serve us well this night!’

‘Where are the cakes of light?’

Another man brought forth a bowl and Rahn knew
this must be the desecrated sacrament.

She looked about again. ‘Who brings the
Apocalypse of Saint John?’

A tall, cowled figure came forth and offered
her the blue manuscript from Bugarach. The madame took it and placed it on the
altar.

‘And finally, who is the guardian of Le
Serpent Rouge?’

A rather portly figure shuffled forward,
holding a red manuscript. When he removed his cowl a hush fell.

‘I give you Aleister Crowley!’ Madame
Dénarnaud said with ebullience.

There was the tremulous sound of murmuring
voices and muted applause.

Crowley had bushy eyebrows, a balding head and
a bloated face. The geriatric Satanist looked happy with himself, as if he had
just managed to escape from a hospital for the aged and mentally ill and was
now going to have the time of his life. He placed the red book on the altar
alongside the blue book and stood in the pentagram beside the madame –
the witch and her warlock were perfectly matched.

He raised a hand and perused the crowd with a
modicum of drama. A signal that he was about to speak. ‘There is an inviolable
occult law: just as Lucifer, the king of light, was incarnated six centuries
before Christ in China, so shall Satanas the Prince of Darkness be given his chance
to incarnate in a human vessel, Adolf Hitler.

The conventicle repeated, ‘Adolf Hitler.’

‘This glorious event has been in preparation
for eons!’ Crowley said. He took up the manuscript and began to read from it:
‘In the beginning was the sign, and the sign was with Sorat and Sorat was the
sign! And he was with the sign and nothing was made without the sign. And the
sign is the sign of death, for he is the king of death and he is the darkness
of all men – but men understood him not! A whore was set apart by Sorat
to unite with him and give testament to the darkness so that all might become
sons of Sorat.’ He intoned: ‘We believe in the mother, the womb, the
prostitute, and her name is the Whore of Babylon.’

The congregation replied, ‘The Whore is the
wife, the sister and the mother.’

‘We believe in the serpent, and his name is
Sorat!’

‘Sorat is the law, Sorat in our will!’ the
conventicle answered.

‘Excitacio ventorum est principium operandi in
illa hora diei operis sacri et debet fieri extra domum longe a circulo ad duo
stadia vel tria . . .’

‘Ad duo stadia vel tria.’

The tethered Dobermans were straining at their
chains, snarling, barking and growling.

‘The vessel of Satan,’ Madame Dénarnaud took
over, ‘awaits his unification with a mighty spirit from the depths of dark
space! The serpent that lives in the bowels of the earth runs from France to
Germany over the spines of the mountains. Let it do so this night, from my
soul’s womb to his mind’s genius! For I am the harlot that shaketh death and my
whoredom is a sweet scent. I am like a seven-stringed instrument played by
Satan, the invisible, the all-ruler. Let it begin!’

Aleister Crowley kissed Le Serpent Rouge and
simultaneously the old woman kissed the Apocalypse of Saint John. Then she
turned to a page in the manuscript and looked up, a maddened smile on her
features.

She seemed puzzled, fascinated. ‘Men have died
and killed to know this key! It is a sign. And it could not be simpler. Like
the philosopher stone, it is contained in nature. In every twig and tree does
live the shape of the two-horned beast.’

‘My God, we have to stop her!’ Rahn whispered
to Eva.

‘I command you,’ said Aleister Crowley,
reading from Le Serpent Rouge, ‘oh all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in
what part of the world soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been
given you by God and our holy angels over this place, and by the powerful
principality of the infernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both
general and special demons, whether dwelling in the east, west, south, or
north, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner . . .’

The crowd swayed and buzzed, trance-like,
mesmerised.

‘Et debet prius,’ said Madame Dénarnaud, ‘esse
bene pre-paratus de necessariis suis, de optimo vino de seven ensibus, de sibilo,
de virgula coruli, de sigillis, de signo dei, de thure, de thuribulo, de
candela virginea et sic de aliis ut prius patet . . .’

The conventicle intoned, ‘Ut prius patet . .
.’

Aleister Crowley read: ‘I command all ye
demons, by the power of the holy trinity of Hell, by the merits of the most
holy and blessed Lilith and of all the dark saints! Sorat, Arepo, Tenet, Opera,
Rotas! Rotas, Opera, Tenet, Arepo, Sorat!’

The madame took the bowl of congealed blood
and drank from it. Aleister Crowley did the same and after that, the bowl was
passed around the congregation.

‘We offer you, Sorat,’ Crowley said, ‘this
bloody sacrifice, and we ask, pray and entreat you, to send down your spirit
into the whore here offered!”

‘STOP! What are you doing?’

It was old Grassaud pushing through the crowd,
gesticulating.

Aleister Crowley’s face reddened with anger
and he thrust out his hand to stop the abbé. ‘Do not enter the circle!’

‘I will do as I please. You do not frighten
me, you old goat!’ Grassaud wheezed. ‘You are not authorised to conduct this
ritual. The pope alone may do so!’

The old madame said coolly, ‘Go back to Rome.
Tell the pope and his mafia AGLA that they have been surpassed. Tell him the
key to the gates of Hell has been snatched away from his gnarly grasp. Tell him
that this night it has revealed the presence of the Prince of Evil, the origin
of all darkness!’

Grassaud yelled at the top of his voice: ‘Atah
Gibbor Le’olam Adonnai!’

‘Yes, yes, yes . . . thou art mighty forever,
oh Lucifer! But you’re forgetting that Sorat is more mighty than Lucifer and
AGLA means nothing here,’ she said, ‘so shut up, old man, and go back to your
bed. Leave me to my work.’

‘Your ritual will not succeed, woman,’ he said
with authority. ‘There is no priest to direct the power of the spirit into your
soul. This man isn’t a priest – he’s a necromantic pretender, a pompous
fool!’

The madame laughed. ‘What do I need a priest
for when I am a priestess?’

‘When AA hears of this, you will have no
tongue with which to swallow those words!’ Grassaud cried.

‘I have long since broken away with that
association of fake angels. Their only desire is to lock Le Serpent Rouge away
along with the key because they fear it. I do not fear it!’

The old man shouted, ‘In that case, I will
conjure Sorat myself, in the name of Jesus Christ to thwart you!’

She was aghast. ‘What? No! You will not!’

‘I will bind him to keep him from your
clutches!’

‘Get him out!’

But Grassaud had already begun. ‘I conjure
thee, Evil and Accursed Serpent, to appear at my will and pleasure, in this
place, before this circle, without tarrying—’

‘Stop him, you fool!’ the madame shrieked at
Aleister Crowley, who hesitated.

‘Come without companions, without grievance,
without noise, deformity, or murmuring. I exorcise thee by the ineffable names
of God, which I am unworthy to pronounce: come hither, come hither, come
hither! Accomplish my will and desire, without wiles or falsehood. Otherwise
Saint Michael, the invisible Archangel shall presently blast thee to the utmost
depths of Hell. Come then, do my will!’

‘Swine! Pig!’ Madame Dénarnaud flew into a
rage, gesturing wildly. ‘Remove him!’

But all were afraid and hung back.

‘Why tarriest thou, and why delayest? What
doest thou?’ Grassaud continued to spit out with vehemence. ‘Make ready, obey
your master, in the name of the Lord, Bathat, Rachat, Abracm, Ens, Alchor,
Aberer!’

There came now a scream from Madame Dénarnaud,
loud enough to curdle the blood, and she put her hands over her ears. ‘No! No!
No! I alone will now call forth the divine master of the Dark Sun, and to the
Devil with you! I will call the demon of aeons past! Come to me!’ She closed
her eyes and swayed from side to side and moaned and groaned and turned her
face to the vaulted rock ceiling. ‘Come to me here – from the bowels of
the Earth! I command thee, come to your saint, impregnate your prostitute! Ecce
formacionem seculi spiritus autem spiritum vocat!’

‘Ecce formacionem seculi spiritus autem
spiritum vocat!’ The crowd repeated.

‘Behold the Pentacle of Solomon!’ the old man
countered, bringing forth a pentacle from around his neck, which he pointed at
the madame. ‘I have brought it into thy presence! Oh despicable spirit! I
command thee by order of the great God, Adonay, Tetragrammaton, and Jesus!’ he
bellowed.

‘The bowl!’ she cried, signalling to Crowley.
‘I will make the sign!’

Crowley hurriedly brought the bloody bowl to
her and old Grassaud rushed forward, grasping for it, and in the struggle the
altar toppled, the bowl was catapulted to the ground and the books fell at the
edge of the great fire. A scuffle broke out between the two old men; Crowley
took hold of the old man’s ears while Grassaud scratched at his eyes.