Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 15



Three Months Earlier…

Cowl shed the strange hooded robe and hung it back in the closet. “My initiation?” he asked, turning to the Messenger.

“We’ll begin tomorrow night. If you’re ready.”

“Ready? For what, exactly?”

“To receive the Beast, of course.”

“What?”

“Are you ready to resurrect the spirit of Aleister Crowley? To become the vessel of his spiritual essence?”

“You’re shitting me. Right?”

The Messenger laughed. “Not at all. The time has come to take the first step to exacting your revenge… to realizing your ‘Someday’. That’s what you’ve been waiting for all these years, is it not?”

The word, ‘Someday’, seared itself into Cowl’s brain and burned like hell. Every last horrifying moment of that encounter with Pastor Pete flashed through his mind in excruciating detail. He looked at the Messenger. “Hell, yes. What do I have to do?”

The Messenger pointed to the cinerary urn. “I think you know.”

“Yeah… but how?

“Tomorrow night.”

“But––”

Without another word, the Messenger was gone.

A rush of anxiety crawled over Cowl’s skin like a swarm of ants. He turned his gaze toward the desk across the room. The shiny, black urn beckoned for his attention. He started to approach it but stopped with a confused look on his face. The lid of the urn had been removed and was now sitting upon the diary. What the––?

He moved quickly to the desk and stared at the opened urn. I know I didn’t do that.

He leaned over and peered into the accursed container. A puff of ash suddenly burst up out of it, directly into his face. He gasped, sucking the sour ash into his mouth and up his nose. Choking, spitting and nearly blinded, he grabbed the lid of the urn but it slipped from his fingers, hit the floor and tumbled away into the shadows. His nostrils burned, his eyes watered, as he staggered backward into the chair.

Nauseous and groggy, he struggled to get to his feet to retrieve the lid but his quivering legs gave in and he flopped back into the chair. His eyelids fluttered, his head dropped to his chest and everything faded to black.

He awoke the next morning with a stiff neck and a foul taste in his mouth. He looked about, groaning and wiping the grit from the corners of his eyes. As the fog cleared from his brain he recalled the events of the previous night. Gotta find the damned lid. Half way out of the chair, he froze, stunned by what he saw. The urn was sealed with the lid firmly in place.