Ash Return of the Beast

PROLOGUE – Part 2



Seattle

March, 1948

Joshua Kane had a lot on his mind. Only a week ago he’d celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday. Still, sometimes, he felt like more things had happened in just the past four years than had happened in all the previous years of his life.

Barely a year had passed since he’d been honorably discharged from the Army and only six months ago that he and his wife, Margaret, had settled into their modest 2-bedroom home across from a lumber yard and a smoke-billowing industrial plant near the edge of Seattle’s Lake Union, just a few miles north of the city’s downtown district. He was also trying to run the small antique store that he’d inherited from his father just before the War and, to top it all off, Margaret was pregnant and the baby was due any day, a week at most.

Joshua never dreamed that naming a baby could become such a contentious topic of discussion between he and Margaret. The list of names was eventually whittled down to three possibilities: Mary for a girl––they both agreed on that––and John or Peter for a boy. He favored John and she favored Peter. John was the name of Joshua’s favorite disciple in the story of Jesus.

“I know,” Margaret, said. “But Peter is the one Jesus called ‘his rock upon which his church would be built’.

In the end, unable to come to an agreement, they decided to toss a coin. It was an odd way to name a baby but, given the circumstances, it seemed to make sense at the time. Heads, it would be John. Tails, it would be Peter. It was tails.

Joshua accepted his defeat with a grin and a bit of relief. It was one less thing on his mind and he was okay with it. The only thing left to do now was wait to see if they had a Mary or a Pete. Either would be a blessing.

He put on his coat and grabbed the keys to his old pick-up.

Margaret saw him heading for the door. “Where are you going?”

“There’s an estate sale at an old mansion up on Capitol Hill. Moorehouse Manor, I think they called it. Saw the classified ad in the paper. The owner passed away some time ago.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, apparently there was no family to inherit the place. It went to the State and somebody recently purchased it and they’re selling off some of the furnishings. I thought I’d check it out. Might find a good buy on a few pieces to resell. Never know what little gems you can stumble across at those estate sales. I won’t be long. You relax.” He gently patted Margaret’s bulging belly. “And take care of our little rock.” He gave her a wink as he opened the door.

“Josh?”

He turned around. “Yes?”

“It could be a girl, you know.”

He shrugged. “Could be.”

Unfortunately, by the time Joshua arrived at the Manor, most of the good stuff had been sold. In fact there were only two items that caught his eye. One was a Tiffany lamp and the other was an ornate old trunk that looked like it had been imported from China. He was certain the lamp would be out of his price range but the trunk was probably something he could at least try to bargain down if the asking price was too high. As it turned out, the owner was anxious to sell everything as quickly as possible and he offered Joshua a package deal on the lamp and the trunk. It was too good to pass up.

“Can I check out the inside of the trunk?” Joshua asked.

The owner shrugged. “Well, yes you could but it’s locked and I haven’t been able to find the key. So whatever’s inside, it’s yours if you want it.”

“There’s something in it?”

“I think so. When we brought it down from upstairs we felt something inside slide from one end to the other.”

Joshua purchased the two items and on the way home he couldn’t help fantasizing about whatever was inside the trunk. Some valuable antique that would bring a fortune. Diamonds. Gold doubloons from a sunken ship. Why not? He’d read about people stumbling across valuable things at estate sales and flea-markets. He grinned.

That evening, after supper, he set about trying to unlock the hasp that held the secret to his fortune. After an hour of trying every ingenious idea he could think of to pick the lock, nothing worked. Finally, he couldn’t take it any more. The suspense was killing him. He grabbed a hefty 14-inch screwdriver, wedged it between the hasp and the body of the trunk and gave it a couple of good tugs. Nothing. Again and again. Still it would not budge. Then, fully determined to get the damned thing opened, come hell or high water, he put his full force behind it. Straining like a man determined not to fold under the pressure of an arm-wrestling match, he conjured up one last shot of adrenaline and let it loose. The hasp snapped with a resounding Crack! and, from another room, Margaret screamed his name.

“It’s nothing!” he called back to her. “I just––” He turned to see her standing in the hall doorway, bracing herself against the doorframe. His eyes grew wide. “What the––?”

Her dress was soaked below the waist. Water was dripping down her leg, forming a puddle at her feet. The look on her face was that of the proverbial deer caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. Joshua dropped the screwdriver. The baby was coming.

***

Margaret and the baby remained at the hospital another day following the birth. Joshua, returned home alone. It had been a long, exciting, nerve-wracking and, ultimately, joyous night with not but a few nods of the head that could hardly be called sleep.

Exhausted from the ordeal, he immediately flopped onto the couch with all the grace of a bag of rocks. His eyelids were about to close under their own weight when he noticed the old trunk still sitting on the floor across the room.

He managed a half grin. “Oh, yeah. I’d almost forgotten about you.”

He stared at the trunk for a minute, recalling his visions of diamonds and gold doubloons. He chuckled. It was silly, of course. Still, his curiosity once again got the better of him. The hard part was over. He’d already ripped the hasp nearly clean off the damned thing. All he had to do now was lift the lid.

With an exaggerated grunt, he sat up, ran his hands through his hair, and tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. He pushed himself up off the couch and sauntered over to the old trunk. “Okay, you. Let’s see what you’re hiding in there.”

He dropped to his knees, grabbed the sides of the lid and gave it a gentle tug. The hinges gave a series of tiny staccato creaks as he pushed it all the way open. His visions of priceless treasure vanished at the sight of nothing but a very plain, old cardboard box. It was sealed with cellophane tape, dried and crinkled with age. Still, he thought, you never know. Gold doubloons could be cleverly hidden inside a cardboard box. Why not?

He lifted the box from the trunk and guessed its weight to be about ten pounds. How many gold doubloons would make up ten pounds? He shook the box like a kid with a mysterious present on Christmas morning. The anticipated sound of the rattling of gold coins was not to be heard. Maybe they were tightly wrapped in multiple folds of fine Chinese silk from an ancient dynasty. Yeah. That could be. He grinned and set the box on the floor.

The crinkled tape peeled away easily and nearly crumbled in the process. He opened the top flaps and let out a sigh of disappointment when he saw his treasure: a bunch of old books. Six, to be exact. He pulled them out, one by one and read the titles: The Complete Works of Aleister Crowley; The Secrets of Alchemy; Divinatory Geomancy; and three whose titles were in Latin and completely meaningless to him. He’d never even been sure he knew the correct translation of E Pluribus Unum. He had no idea who Aleister Crowley was. The word ‘alchemy’ seemed vaguely familiar. He knew he’d heard it somewhere but he didn’t know what it meant and the title, Divinatory Geomancy, just brought a shrug.

If the books had been rare imprints of the works of Charles Dickens or Mark Twain or Tolstoy, or any of the great classics, then he would have been interested. Books like that could bring a pretty penny. Maybe even better than gold doubloons. But this stuff was probably not worth its weight in pennies, pretty or otherwise.

He put the books back into the box and was about to close it up when he noticed he’d overlooked one. It’s dark leather binding was cracked with age and was beginning to peel back at the edges. It was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand and very thin, maybe only 20 or 30 pages. He read the title: The Keys of the Gatekeeper. There was no author’s name on the cover. He flipped through the pages and had no idea what he was looking at or even what language it was written in. He sounded out a couple of the strange words. “Brishem halak malthalah Kutulu.” No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was overcome by a feeling of light-headedness. He put out a hand and braced himself against the old trunk. The strange feeling passed quickly but was enough to remind him that he was in dire need of some good sound sleep.

After returning all the larger books to the box he wedged the small book in tightly between them, closed the box up and set it next to the basement door. Tomorrow he would take it to the basement and store it away. Right now he just wanted to get some sleep and dream about his brand new baby boy.

***

January, 2000

Joshua Kane passed away at the age of 87, barely one month into the turn of the new century. His wife, Margaret, followed him into the next world a month later. The box of strange books, along with a number of other personal effects passed into the possession of their son, Peter, who had become a pastor at a local church. The items were stored in the attic of the pastor’s home where he’d been living alone since the death of his own wife from a tragic accident many years earlier.

The new millennium had not been kind to the Kane family. Only a few weeks following the death of Joshua Kane, Pastor Pete––now in his 60s––suffered a heart attack that resulted in the paralysis of his legs. He became severely depressed and quit the ministry. Hospital bills and lack of insurance forced him to sell his house and he moved into a rented single-wide mobile home at the Trail’s End, a trailer park on the edge of town.

There was not enough room in the small trailer for many of the items from his house. So, his son, Brian, reluctantly offered to store several of the items in the basement of his own house. One of those items was the box of books that had once belonged to Pastor Pete’s father. Brian had never bothered to open the box so he had no idea what it contained and, frankly, he couldn’t have cared less.