Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 27



Three Months Later…

As the week progressed, and even though Cowl was at the top of the list of suspects, the investigation turned up several more persons of interest. One by one they were eliminated, save for two. One was a 59-year old former San Francisco hippie-turned-Satanist and founder of an organization called the Brotherhood of Baphomet. Their temple was located on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the place that, coincidentally enough, was also the location of Moorehouse Manor, the home of Rye Cowl. But Capitol Hill was a community with a split personality. On the one hand it boasted some of the finest old homes, acclaimed historical landmarks, world-class public parks, and several of the most popular restaurants in the city. On the other hand, there were areas well known as havens and hangouts for body-piercing extremists, Goths, Wiccans, New Agers, would-be poets, faux vampires, grunge musicians, pill poppers, crack addicts and others representing every alternative lifestyle imaginable.

The other potential suspect was the husband of a woman with whom the now deceased St. Martin had been having an affair.

While the jilted husband certainly had a motive, not to mention a rather shaky alibi for his own whereabouts at the time of the murder, the one thing he didn’t have was any knowledge of ritual magick, much less the ability to project a doppelganger. He quickly slipped to the bottom of the list. But the aging hippie-turned-Satanist was a different matter altogether.

His name, oddly enough, was Aleister Cromwell, originally from Wolverhampton, England, sometimes abbreviated as simply “Wolves”, and where the city council’s motto was ‘Out of darkness, cometh light’. Just that information alone was a little creepy, not to mention that Wolverhampton is located in an area known as the ‘Black Country’. It all seemed like a scenario from the pages of a gothic horror novel.

Ravenwood already knew a little of Cromwell’s background as he had turned up as a suspect in a ritual murder case in Oregon a couple years earlier. But the actual killer was caught before she even had a chance to question Cromwell in person and, as it turned out, he had no association with the killer anyway. She only knew all this from reading a report from a routine preliminary investigation that was handed to her when that case first came across her desk.

Cromwell had come to the United States with his parents in 1964 and they settled in a suburb of Los Angeles. His father was a Pentecostal minister with the Assemblies of God church. Aleister Cromwell had a rebellious streak and a knack for getting into trouble and eventually served two-years on a narcotics charge at a California State Prison in 1976 and was acquitted of a sexual molestation charge two years later. He moved to Seattle in 1986 and founded his Brotherhood of Baphomet in 1991.

All of this was a matter of record, easily verified. The most disturbing aspect of his background, however, was that he claimed to have once been friends with the infamous killer and cult leader, Charlie Manson. Cromwell claimed Manson had introduced him to the dark side of the Occult in the mid-1960s. There was no way of verifying that claim but just the fact that he openly boasted about it provided some insight into the man’s psyche.

Kane had Wheeler do a little snooping around to see if anything new could be learned about Cromwell. Wheeler discovered Cromwell was also a musician and had his own Metal band back in the mid-70s. The band was called SOAP, an acronym for Son Of A Preacher. The band met its demise when Cromwell went to prison on the narcotics charge. Wheeler was not surprised to learn Cromwell was now a devoted Rye Cowl fan.

Kane found it incomprehensible that a man of Cromwell’s age could possibly be a fan of Cowl’s music or any Metal music for that matter. Kane winced at the thought. “That crap gives me a goddam headache,” he told Ravenwood.

“I know,” she said. “But this guy isn’t exactly the grandfatherly type, sipping lemonade on a front porch swing like a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. He’s the founder of an organization called The Brotherhood of Baphomet, for crying out loud. You think he’s going to be playing Barry Manilow on his stereo?”

“What’s wrong with Barry Manilow? I like Barry Manilow.”

Ravenwood tried to suppress her response but a short chuckle slipped out.

Kane looked at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“So, what is this Baphomet, anyway?”

“Is your computer fired up?”

“Yeah, why?”

Ravenwood moved around to Kane’s side of the desk and leaned over him to use the keyboard.

He tried to ignore the alluring fragrance of her perfume but the gentle touch of her breast against his shoulder, unintentional as it may have been, caused him to swallow hard. It had been a long time. Every muscle in his body tightened up. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Ravenwood’s quick Internet search for Baphomet brought up the quintessential image as depicted by the 19th century occultist, Eliphas Levi.

“There you go,” she said, still leaning over his shoulder.

He could feel the warmth of her breath on the side of his neck.

“Baphomet, the pagan god, the Sabbatic Goat, the image of Satan, take your pick. Long and interesting history that would probably bore you to death. But I think you can tell just from looking at it what kind of stuff our friend Cromwell is into.”

She straightened up and returned to her chair and the tension in Kane’s body eased out like a slow leak from a flat tire. He’d barely heard a word she’d said. “I’m sorry––what?”

“I said, you can tell just from looking at it what kind of stuff Cromwell is into. He just might have acquired some powerful skills over the years.”

“Magick, you mean.”

Ravenwood nodded.

“Powerful enough to do what we saw in that video?”

“I don’t know. But we definitely need to pay him a visit.”

Kane groaned. “Shit. I thought we had our man.”

“Yeah, so did I.”