XXV

March 2009

I have been asked to tell my story to those of you who will listen, and it looks to me that several of you will. Regardless, whether you do or not, you're all damned to hell anyway. If you'd do me the credit of removing these straps, it would perhaps make the story more interesting; I can hardly tell an engaging story while restrained like this.

Some ten years ago, I was a simple graduate student, majoring in philosophy with a specialty in religious thought. I'd read everything, from Plato to Socrates, from the Pope to Manson, and I thought I had a strong grasp on the human psyche in terms of beliefs on the afterlife. It was common to find me asleep in the lower levels of the library, on top of some dusty tomes of classical thought or the like. I began to write my dissertation paper, specifically on the belief in “Extra-Planar Beings.”

In this paper I sought to make plain that the belief in such beings has been around since the beginning of time in most accounts, and strangely similar in their structures. Many cultures believe in a sort of being called “demon,” or “dæmon,” or the like, and most all of them believed this sort of being to be not only evil and likely connected with the darker side of deism, but also controllable if one has a strong will and the right tools. The Lesser Key of Solomon actually has a long portion describing the sigils of each of a number of demons, their names, and how one might go about exploiting their abilities when they have been bound.

I sought to prove, however, that even though the belief in such beings has remained burned in the human psyche for aeons, the belief held no real backing in reality. Religious fanatics like the Pope were the only reason such beliefs still even existed and were not erased long ago, and these procedures to summon and bind demons were completely without base. This is what I thought.

To further prove this sort of creature a farce, I endeavoured to summon one myself, on video tape, to be used as evidence against their existence. I set up the binding circle with the chalk and the runes, just as my material described. I took all the “magickal” precautions that the books advised. I even prepared an offering to this demon, should he actually appear and I find myself wrong. I chose the demon labeled XXV, whose name I dare not utter here.

At the first light of the full moon, then, I began this ceremony. The chants, the incense, the silver symbols and everything else that was required. I was fully convinced that there would be no explosions of sulfuric stench, no flashes of light, no demons whatsoever, and was just about to give up, clean up, and stop the tape, when something actually stirred in the center of the circle, and then there was a sudden shock-wave feeling that threw me off my feet. Of course, I should have known better.

There was nothing in the circle, though there was that scent so aptly described as rotten eggs that lingered in the air. I had no explanation as to the event until some time afterwards, when I cal;med down enough to watch the tape. Just as described in the Lesser Key, for a split-second in the center of the circle I could see what appeared to be a great fanged canine, some seven feet tall at the shoulder, with great feathered wings sprouted from its back that extended to a wide wingspan that by rights could stretch from this side of the room to the other.

The mouth of this dog was opened wide, and was flecked with pieces of flesh that dripped with blood. Its eyes were like lanterns burning with copper dust in them, and its body rippled with powerful muscles that looked to be able to rend steel in two. It was only on the video for a single frame, and after that the colours on the film were distorted and washed-out. As one might expect, I was physically shaken by this occurrence, and wondered if all this time I had been wrong.

It only truly hit me later, when I went to wash my face. As I looked up into the mirror, the steam rising up around me, I saw not only my own reflection, but that of the dog-beast that I had seen on the film. It looked just like I had seen it on the screen, but to see it with my own eyes was perhaps too much for my constitution, and I fainted and hit my head on my sink.

I awoke some hours later, with a throbbing headache and my eyes seeming to deceive me. My bathroom walls were covered in sticky red, and on the mirror was scrawled, “قتلتهم كلّ .” Arabic, which, roughly translated, read “Kill them all.”

Before I knew what I was doing, I had taken up a kitchen knife and cut open my pet cat, and splayed her innards across my floor. My hands shook, my sight was tinted red, and I wanted more, I wanted to end more lives. Somehow I pulled myself back together, though, and terrified, I curled up in the corner until sleep overtook me.

The next morning I endeavoured to clean up my studio, which by that time was covered in half-dried blood and pieces of cat body. I did not know what I had done, what I had mistook, but what I did know what that I had indeed found that there was something to the belief behind these demon figures. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw this beast behind me, and every time I saw this beast I was overcome with that same rage that filled my body the first time I saw him. Those fangs, those eyes, they haunted me wherever I went. A cursory glance at a storefront's glass display, and he would be there, and someone would die, and I would flee, my hands dripping with blood.

By my hands, nearly seventy people have died on the streets of Rome. I've spoken with priests, with cardinals, with ministers, and they could do me no good. Even the Catholic Church's exorcists could not draw from me the fire that burned in my chest when I saw this beast. Finally, to make it stop, I decided that I would have to stop seeing at all, and using a screwdriver, I put out my eyes, so that I would never see his reflection again.

It's a pity that he's all I can see now, in my head, in the darkness. Thank you, by the way, for listening. I'm sure I'll make a textbook example of the “deranged serial killer.” You're only too kind to have regarded my story. Also thank you for releasing these straps; it will make my job much easier on the person I catch first.