‘Fine. Though it’s a shame. My uncle and your Monsieur Garvé – even you, I’m sorry to say – you’re all missing the point. You’ve no idea what we’re really searching for.’ He opened a door leading off the corridor and ushered Essie into a wood-panelled room lined with bookshelves and leather- bound volumes she was sure were there strictly for show. Penney continued, ‘Aleister knew. The power trapped inside the Emerald Tablet is so much more than a way to transform one thing into another. It’s how we can break the bonds that enslave all forms of life. Preparing ourselves to receive that wisdom . . . readying ourselves for the new world order . . . that’s what we’re here to do. The tablet’s the most sacred of all magical objects.’
‘So tell me, Adam,’ Essie said. ‘I’m curious. Why are you insisting on coming into the desert with us? It’s going to be the most ghastly slog. Surely it would be much easier if you were to let us go and fetch it for you? We’ve got all the information we need . . . you could just stay back here in comfort and wait for us to deliver it to you.’ And she could think of nothing better.
‘And miss the chance to be one of the first people to see it in thousands of years? Not on your life. Besides, don’t take it the wrong way, but without me, none of this would be happening. Without me, you wouldn’t be getting your helicopter and military escort. So I fully intend to be there at the end. Before I give it to my uncle and it’s desecrated by his microscopes and test tubes, I will commit myself to worshiping the tablet, and through mediation, ritual and incantations, I will discover the path to eternal life. I need to be there to make sure that happens.’
Essie sighed heavily. She’d heard it all before and it never sounded like anything other than the half-baked ravings of a lunatic. ‘The thing is, Adam, I’m just here to find the tablet for your uncle. And for England, of course. What happens to it after that doesn’t concern me at all. Couldn’t care less.’
‘I’ll open your eyes to it one day, like it or not.’ He turned to a heavy floor safe sitting in the corner of the room and fiddled with the lock. ‘Just you wait.’
He reverently placed a large book bound in brittle vellum on the oak desk that dominated the room. ‘Here. The words of the Master, as dictated to me before he crossed the Abyss. As you read it, remember that Aleister was the one true prophet. Apollonius . . . Jesus . . . the Buddha . . . Mohammad . . . all false prophets. They were given small pieces of the secret. Only Aleister understood all. The Master taught us that life isn’t about a search for spiritual perfection. That’s the lie we’re told from the cradle to the grave. The truth is – we’re all born perfect. There is no judgement for wrongdoing because we can do no wrong. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law . . .”’
‘Yes, quite. You’ll recall I have seen it already.’ More times than I’d prefer, if you really want to know. ‘Thank you, Adam. Now, if you wouldn’t mind . . .?’
‘I’ll bring you round. A piece at a time.’ He smirked. ‘Drink?’
‘Certainly. Thank you.’ Anything to get you out of here.
Essie shuddered as she placed her hand on the reptilian-like casing of the book Penney had placed on the table. She knew vellum was nothing more sinister than treated calfskin, but its colour and the way it preserved the hair follicles and shadows of the network of veins that had once crisscrossed a living creature’s body were so like mummified human skin that it had always unsettled her. Her response was amplified by what she knew of the contents of the book.
Her flesh crawled as she flicked past the pages she’d been forced to plough through when Adam first showed her Aleister Crowley’s deathbed confessions. Determined not to give Adam the satisfaction of seeing her cringe, she’d attempted to hide her distaste as she trawled through page after page of vivid descriptions of the ghastliest accounts of physical and mental degradation imposed on both men and women – his ‘Scarlet Women’ and ‘Divine Whores’ – by the man who’d declared himself Baphomet – the Beast. His words had burnt themselves into her soul . . . ‘Send spouting the tide of your sizzling piss in my mouth . . . splutter out shit from the bottomless pit . . . chew it with me, whore . . . vomit it, spew it and lick it once more . . . I’ll bugger your grin into a shriek.’
Crowley offered his ‘sex magick’ as the cure-all that would liberate the spiritual being from the deception of the material world, and it demanded the rejection of all social and cultural constraints. There were no taboos. Sodomy, bestiality, pederasty, orgies, coprophilia . . . all lubricated with boundless quantities of every intoxicant known to man, and all in the name of becoming one with the higher self. Crowley’s followers saw him as a messiah. Essie just saw an odious snake-oil salesman who’d struck upon a gimmick that lured the damaged and gullible into a snare where they could become proxies for his most perverted desires.
One of those damaged souls was a man named Gerome Cushman, and in a roundabout way, it was thanks to him that Essie found herself hunched over a desk in Penney’s home. Born to a wealthy family of merchants in the port of Marseilles, Gerome had lived a childhood of pampered neglect. Knowing he’d never want for any material comforts, once Gerome reached adulthood, he’d embarked upon a lifelong search for the sense of purpose and belonging he’d never managed to find with the long line of nannies and paid carers who’d raised him.
Gerome’s quest led him to Paris where he fell under the sway of the master alchemist, Fulcanelli. The alchemist saw great potential in the young man and recruited him as his adept, schooling him in the ancient philosophy and its secrets and expecting of him resolute attention to his studies. But Gerome was unaccustomed to abstinence and restraint and chafed under Fulcanelli’s strict discipline. Curiosity drew him to the Parisian esoteric society, the Ordo Templi Orientis, to hear Aleister Crowley speak. Gerome’s conversion was immediate. He was seduced by the older man’s promise that his new world order would break the repressive bonds of Judeo-Christian society. His future was set when he heard Crowley declare before a transfixed audience: ‘the hell with Christianity, Rationalism, Buddhism, all the lumber of the centuries! I will build me a new Heaven and a new Earth. I want none of your faint approval or faint disrespect; I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything, bad or good, but strong.’
The pages that lay beneath Essie’s hands documented Gerome’s descent to the depths of debasement and eventual death while under Crowley’s sway, and the sacred secret he’d revealed to his master before he died. It had been a rapid decline. When Cushman learnt that the charismatic older man had journeyed to the island of Sicily to set up a spiritual centre, the young man abandoned his studies with Fulcanelli and joined his new master at the place that would become known as the Abbey of Thelema until Crowley was banished from Italy by no less than Benito Mussolini. When she’d first read his account, it had struck Essie as more than a little astounding that details of the goings-on in Sicily were disturbing enough that once they reached the ears of one of the most corrupt and evil men of the twentieth century he’d immediately expelled the foreigners from Italian shores.
Cushman became one of Crowley’s many sexual partners and quickly surrendered to the same crippling addiction to heroin and cocaine that plagued his master. Released from inhibitions, Cushman performed sadomasochistic sexual rituals with Crowley. Judging by the relish with which he recalled their encounters, their union brought Crowley great pleasure. ‘Even his mouth remains in a somewhat greasy condition after it has achieved the holy task, and we have no hesitation in plumping for the anus as the one vase into which the perfumed oil of manhood may best be poured. I found myself naked in his naked arms, his giant member still throbbing and beating in my flooded bowels,’ he said of one of their couplings.
From what Essie read of the months Cushman spent on Sicily, she knew the sepsis that entered his bloodstream and ended his life might have come from any one of the many unsanitary practices common to the residents of the Abbey of Thelema. Anyone who dared utter the word ‘I’ was compelled to slice th
emselves with a razor. Animals were sacrificed, and the blood of the dying creature consumed, and stinking drinking water was drawn from a creek behind the building that also served as the abbey’s sewer.
Before he died, Cushman stripped his soul bare before his master. To completely break with his former life, Gerome Cushman thought the ultimate demonstration of his slavish loyalty to Aleister Crowley would be to betray the oaths he’d made to Fulcanelli and reveal the secrets of the Emerald Tablet and its final resting place.
Crowley cared little for Cushman’s claims. He had no interest in pursuing another man’s spiritual vision. In Cairo in 1904 on a honeymoon for his short-lived marriage, Crowley had reputedly experienced his own divine revelation. An entity sent by the Egyptian god, Horus, transmitted to him the foundations of Thelema, the esoteric faith he began to preach to followers around the world. It was only later in life that he began to question whether he’d too readily dismissed the gift he’d been given by his dying disciple, but by then Crowley was a crippled man living in a hospice as war raged across Europe. He no longer had the means or the capacity to travel into the desert in pursuit of a dream. So he relayed the story to the young man who’d been appointed his personal secretary during his last days at the Netherwood boarding house in Sussex. Adam Penney had been sent to Crowley’s side by a government concerned that the dying man might have been divulging national secrets on his deathbed. At first, Essie had been horrified to learn that a man like Crowley had been recruited to spy for the British Government during both World Wars. But when she gave the matter more thought, it made sense. Given his well- documented and very public personal failings, no reasonable enemy counterintelligence agency would suspect him of being capable of, far less entrusted with, espionage duties.
Although at first Penney had given little thought to the possible importance of the Emerald Tablet, he was seduced by the dying occultist, whose magnetism had not waned, even in his last days. As Penney had described it to Essie, after he was sent to transcribe Crowley’s account so the government could ensure its secrets were safe, he had become Crowley’s last convert. It came as no surprise to her that Penney would happily throw in his lot with anyone who could justify his taste for debauchery.
She’d already spent far longer between the pages of this poisonous book than she’d have preferred. Flipping to the passages where Crowley had dictated to Penney the coded instructions for finding Balinas’ tomb, Essie compared the transcription with the notes she’d taken on her last visit. Now that she had the map from the Topkapı archives, she wanted to be sure she hadn’t misinterpreted or overlooked anything important.
As she scanned the pages, she couldn’t see anything she’d missed. She had everything she needed.
The library door groaned as it opened, and Penney stepped in holding a tray bearing two cups of what Essie assumed from the fragrance was mulled wine. ‘Sorry it took me a while . . . got held up with my guests.’ He handed her one.
‘Thank you, Adam.’ Figuring there was little chance that Penney had resisted the temptation to slip something into her drink, she feigned a stumble and spilt the wine across the floor. ‘Oh, God!’ she exclaimed, grabbing the cloth from the tray and mopping up the sticky mess. ‘How very clumsy of me. So sorry.’
‘No matter,’ he replied, handing her his cup. ‘Plenty more where that came from. Here. Have mine. I haven’t even raised it to my lips yet.’
She took it reluctantly and edged towards the door.
Adam smiled. ‘As the Master said, “Magick is the science and art of realising the divine self by changing the human self.”’
Essie had no idea what he was talking about. But with what she now knew of Aleister Crowley’s ‘Magick’, if that was what was required to realise the divine, then she was very happy to remain earth-bound.
Counting the minutes until she could escape Penney’s lair, she downed the wine in a single draught.
The cloying taste of nutmeg and orange rind stuck to the roof of her mouth as she turned into the hallway, Penney following uncomfortably close behind her. Something was wrong. A warm kernel had lodged itself deep in Essie’s belly, sending tendrils of heat through her body, seductive fronds that began to encase her brain. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it was eroding her focus in a way that sounded an alarm bell. To dissolve in a puddle of euphoria was one thing if it were to happen in a place of refuge. For it to occur here was terrifying.
She felt every beat of her heart reverberating against her ribcage as she tried to find her way to a front door that seemed to be fleeing from her. Penney had obviously put whatever narcotic he had planned to slip her in his own cup as well. She cursed herself for not second-guessing him as she fought to regain control of her limbs, if only so she could smash his solar plexus with a roundhouse kick. Her stomach clenched with impotent rage as she struggled to stay upright. Leaden feet betrayed her, sending her stumbling against the wall.
Adam caught her around her waist. ‘Essie . . . you look pale. What’s wrong?’
Even through a fast-approaching narcotic stupor, she knew it was a rhetorical question.
He guided her towards the double doors she’d seen when she arrived. ‘I think you could do with a seat.’ He pushed the doors open.
Inside was a room dimly lit by candles dripping wax in stalactites from rows of tall candelabra. Chaise longues and banquettes arranged around the walls hosted myriad couplings and groupings of naked and near-naked figures in every imaginable combination of age and gender, writhing in an obscene dance of limbs and bare flesh. The air was thick with the scent of sweat and body fluids.
Essie’s consciousness was split in two. While one part of her mind was panicking and struggling to take control of a body that no longer seemed to be hers, the other half was drawn in an almost clinical way to a tall man standing at the centre of the room, his chest bared. A naked and voluptuous woman with golden curls gyrated around him, her hair cascading over his olive skin. He’d watched as they entered the room.
‘Here . . .’ Adam guided her towards an empty settee, a hand slipping deliberately beneath her jumper to cup her breast. ‘I think we’ll forgo introductions.’ She felt only disgust towards him. The smell of stale red wine on his breath made her feel sick, and although she willed herself to fight back, her limbs were frozen.
Pulling her down to sit beside him on the velvet- upholstered seat, Adam moved his other hand to the gap between her thighs and began to slide it towards the top of her stockings. He kissed her neck, his saliva sticky on her skin, and whispered what she assumed were endearments but sounded to her ears like curses.
Despite herself, as she recoiled from Adam’s determined groping and thick-fingered fumbling, Essie was transfixed by the spectacle around her. In one corner of the room, a hirsute man seated in an ornate chair had his head thrown back in ecstasy as a youth sucked hungrily at his swollen cock and an audience of two women stood by watching them, mouths agape with fingers slipping and thrusting inside each other until their knees gave way and they fell to the floor, one woman dropping her face down to bury it between her partner’s legs. On the floor in front of a blazing fire, a buxom woman lay prone while a rotund, white-bellied man frantically stuffed his cock inside her, his cheeks purple with effort, while her face was straddled by another woman riding her tongue as a group of men stood around the group in a circle, tugging their cocks and splattering the two women with their seed.
The tall man at the centre of the room had disentangled the woman from about his limbs and was moving towards where Essie and Adam sat. His dark hair was unusually long, falling in waves to his broad shoulders. She was mesmerised. A sense of abandon took hold, and she felt herself losing her grip.
Dragging what remained of her consciousness to a needle-sharp point behind her eyes, Essie tried to ignore Adam’s probing fingers as she fought to awaken her senses. She flexed her fingers and toes, and craned her neck, shutting her eyes and focusing on her limbs as she reconnected h
er mind with her body.
Adam nibbled and licked her ears wetly, murmuring beneath his breath. ‘This is my gift, Essie. All beings contain a spark of life. The only way to liberate that spark is by setting your will free.’ His fingers found the top of her stockings and began to fiddle with the buttons that held them to her suspender belt. Feeling as if she was dragging her arm through wet concrete, Essie lifted her hand and swatted at Adam’s wrist. He caught her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
‘When two people join in fornication, it is the purest form of worship . . .’ Having managed to undo both stockings, Adam’s hand moved to the mound between her legs. Fighting back, she clamped her thighs shut while he tried to lever them apart. As she struggled, she felt her body begin to stir from its narcotic slumber. Whatever he’d given her, its effect seemed to be short-lived.
‘I’ll show you another life,’ he continued in a low-pitched voice she presumed was meant to be seductive but just turned her stomach. ‘I will carry you to the point of exhaustion – carry you to the brink . . . and when I bring you back from the abyss, the visions you’ll have –’
‘No!’ A screaming wraith from the depths of Essie’s soul broke free and drove her to her feet. She’d seized back control of her body, and now knew exactly what she wanted. She shoved Adam away and stumbled towards the tall stranger, falling into his outstretched arms and pressing her lips against his, her mouth wide and probing to find his tongue. Tearing her jumper over her head and kicking off her skirt, she felt for his cock, which was long and hard against the fabric of his pants. Fumbling with his fly, she shoved his pants down beneath his knees. As he lifted her, digging his fingers into her thighs, she wrapped her legs about his waist and impaled herself on him. Their teeth clashed together as he stumbled to the wall and she felt his broad chest heaving against hers. All eyes in the room were on them as Essie felt the cold plaster against her back and he grabbed her breasts and drove himself deep within her again and again, their groins slamming against each other. She heard someone screaming in ecstasy and barely recognised her own voice.
The Emerald Tablet Page 11
