The House of Rumour A Novel - By Jake Arnott Page 0,62

Doctor John Dee, Elizabeth I’s court magician, who had used arcane language to communicate with the unseen. Jack now sought divine wisdom through angelic conversation.

Astrid knew all about Doctor Dee.

‘He was the most brilliant man of his generation. A Renaissance magician with deep knowledge of astrology and mathematics. I suppose if he lived in these days he would have been a scientist. But he wanted to know too much. Like Faust he went too far. He fell under the influence of a charlatan named Kelley. Well, they practised magic together but in the end Kelley conned Dee out of everything – his wife, his fortune, even his knowledge.’

This should have been a warning for Jack but he embraced its dread premonition. He started to enact magic rituals with Hubbard. Ron had made many explorations into the unseen in his writing. He had known H.P. Lovecraft when they had both sold stories to Weird Tales magazine and had learnt that faked occult wisdom was far more plausible than any actual arcane knowledge that might exist. With a demon of an imagination, he was now ready to use his fictional prowess to influence reality. He had enchanted Jack and there was nothing I could do to break the spell. And Hubbard seemed all the more convincing now that he had so forcefully demonstrated his dominance over Jack by seducing Betty. They formed the passionate connection some men can achieve only when they have a woman in common to safely mediate it. Jack needed desperately to break through what he saw as his human weaknesses. And Hubbard preyed on him, willing to steal everything from the other man.

Jack had looked for the darkness and found it in L. Ron Hubbard, a man possessed with all the cunning and ruthlessness that he yearned for. They began to enact absurd rites, meaningless liturgies that seemed merely to solemnise Jack’s degradation. The house became possessed with a grim and sickly atmosphere. Strange noises by day, hellish screams that pierced the night, the stench of incense and sulphur. They constantly played a record of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto at full volume as prelude to their ceremony. Ritualism became contagious, as members of the Order would themselves enact banishing ceremonies to ward off ugly spirits.

It became clear that most of the senior members of the OTO were appalled by Jack’s sinister workings with Hubbard. Crowley himself wrote a letter denouncing them both. Astrid was quietly furious.

‘When I think of how we have been persecuted down the ages,’ she said, ‘just so that these men can behave so foolishly.’ She told me that she herself had been a victim of a Gestapo clampdown on astrologers and occultists in 1941 and had spent two months in a concentration camp.

After two weeks of tension and near madness at number 1003, Jack announced that he and Ron were heading off to the Mojave Desert together.

‘We are going to attempt the Babalon Working,’ he told me.

I nodded absently. I had long since lost touch with what any of this really meant. I just hoped that he would find some sort of catharsis.

‘I love you,’ I said.

‘Love is the law,’ he replied with a crazed smile. He hadn’t slept properly for days. I kissed him gently on the lips and said:

‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

‘I want to summon an elemental.’

I know now that I should have paid more attention at this point, but I was tired too. So I kissed him again and said:

‘I’ll be waiting for you.’

And so I waited. And like a fool I imagined that my patience would be rewarded. But somebody else got there before me.

No one seemed quite sure where Candy came from. She was an artist or something. So many people drifted in and out of number 1003, it was impossible to keep track of them all. Maybe Jack really did conjure her up through the spirit world as he would later claim. All that is really certain is that there she was, standing on the front porch when he got back from the desert. And she was perfect. His ‘elemental’, the Scarlet Woman par excellence. Candy had a shock of flame-red hair, bright-blue eyes and a broad-lipped snarl of a mouth. I didn’t stand a chance. I watched as Jack slapped the dust from his jacket and walked right past me, transfixed by this vision of his delirium.

They fell in love with each other right there and then. Right in front of my eyes.