The Sixth Key(139)

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!’