Hex In The City

issue, of course. He was always the first at everything.

We all listened as the three young men talked. It seemed they were impatient, for all their good humour. Their inevitable bright future seemed unfairly far off. They were being held back, by entrenched interests and people who weren't interested in trying anything new—anything that hadn't been around for decades, and preferably centuries. Fashion was one thing, sin always thrived on the very latest fashions; but no-one at the top wanted to know about institutional change. These three young men were determined to seize power and influence, if necessary, so that they could force through necessary changes. For the greater good of all, of course. They wanted to usher in the Age of Aquarius, and the mind's true liberation. Everyone young was a dreamer and an idealist in 1967.

When they'd finished with the magazine, it was time for show-and-tell. Mark was a collector even back then, and had got his hands on something special. He took it out of his shoulder bag, looking quickly about to make sure no-one was watching, then laid his find reverentially on the table before them. Henry and Charles looked dubiously at the cardboard box full of tatty, handwritten pages.

'All right,' said Walker. 'What is it this time? And it had better not be about Roswell again. I am sick to death of Roswell. If anything had really happened there, we'd know about it by now.'

'You just wait,' Mark said darkly. 'I'll get you proof yet. I know someone who knows someone who claims one guy actually filmed the autopsy on the aliens... Of course, this is the same man who claims we'll be landing men on the moon in two years, so ...'

'What have you found, Mark?' Charles said patiently. 'And what good does it do us?'

'Is it something we can blackmail people with?' Walker said wistfully. 'I've always wanted to be able to blackmail someone.'

Mark grinned wolfishly, one hand pressed possessively on the pile of papers, as though afraid someone might sneak up and steal them. 'This, my friends, is the real thing. The mother lode. An unpublished manuscript by the one and only Aleister Crowley—the Magus, the Great Beast, the Most Evil Man in the World. If you believe the newspapers, which mostly I don't. But Crowley was the real thing, for a time at least, and there have always been those who said his best, or more properly his worst, stuff was never published. This manuscript was apparently put on the market some years back, when Crowley was desperately short of money, but no-one was interested. He was out of favour among the conjuring classes, and the papers were bored with him. Eventually a copy of this manuscript turned up at the International limes, and a sub-editor there passed it on to me, in return for a complete set of Mars Attacks! cards. Unlike most of the fools whose hands the manuscript passed through, I actually read it from end to end, and I am here to tell you, my friends ... this is the answer to all our prayers. A direct means to our much desired end.'

'God, you love the sound of your own voice, ' said Henry. 'What is it, Mark? Not just another grimoire, I hope.'

Mark was still grinning widely. 'One chapter in this manuscript describes a particularly powerful spell, or Working, that Crowley began but never dared finish. And let us not forget, Crowley dared a lot. He started the Working, to summon and bind to his will a most powerful Being, but abandoned the ritual after catching a glimpse of just what it was he was attempting to summon. Beautiful, terrible, he wrote ... and that was all. He ran away from his splendid home on the bank of a Scottish loch, and never returned.'

'Hold everything,' said Charles. 'We're supposed to attempt something that was too scary and too dangerous for Aleister Crowleyl Called by many, not least himself, the Most Evil Man in the World?'

'Ah,' Mark said smugly, 'but we will succeed where he failed, because I have knowledge that Crowley lacked. I recently acquired a sheaf of letters from an ex-friend of Kenneth Anger, in which the writer positively identifies which spirit Crowley was trying to summon, and the means whereby it can be safely controlled. My friends, we have the means to summon up and bind to our will the Transient Being known as Babalon; a physical incarnation of an abstract ideal.'

'Which ideal?' said Henry.

'All right, I'm still working on that,' Mark admitted. 'Depending on how you translate certain parts of the letters, the Being is either the personification of love, or lust, or obsession. Or perhaps even some combination of the three. Look, does it really matter? We've been searching for a power source, something we could use as a weapon to bring about change, and this is it!'

'What if it backfires?' said Charles. 'This doesn't sound like the kind of magic you can afford to make mistakes with.'

'What if we get found out?' said Henry. 'Ambition is all very well, but we do have our careers to think of.'

Mark glared at them both. 'It's not enough to talk the talk; you have to be prepared to walk the walk! Anything worth having entails risks. We're not going to overthrow the Authorities with just good intentions!'

Henry sniffed, unconvinced. 'Are you sure about the provenance of the letters, Mark? Are you sure they contain everything we're going to need?'

'Yes and yes,' said Mark. 'Now are you in, or out?'

'We'll need somewhere secure for the Working,' Henry said thoughtfully. 'I may know somewhere ... leave it with me. Charles?'

'I want to study the manuscript, and the letters, first,' said Charles. 'And I want enough time to do some research of my own. Make sure of what it is we're getting ourselves into ... But if it all checks out... Yes. We have to do this. We'd be fools not to seize an opportunity like this.'

The vision changed abruptly, now showing the three young men looking around what seemed to be an empty warehouse. Shafts of gaudy neon light streaming through boarded-up windows revealed a large open space, with bare floor-boards and walls plastered over with peeling posters for long-forgotten rock groups and political organisations, dagon shall rise again! declared a particularly faded example. The walls also featured large crude paintings of flowers and rainbows and the occasional exaggerated male and female genitalia. There were waxy candle stubs and scuffed-out chalk-markings all over the floor. Henry looked around the place with a certain pride. Mark stalked back and forth, pointing out things of interest, burning with nervous energy. Charles was leaning his back against the securely closed door, jotting things down in a thick notebook, scowling heavily.

'It's damp, it smells, and I can hear what I really hope are just rats in the walls,' he said heavily, without looking up from his notebook. 'And I have a horrible suspicion I'm standing on a used condom, but I'm afraid to raise my foot and look. Honestly, Henry, is this the best you could do? How much are we paying for this dump?'

'Practically nothing,' Henry said smoothly. 'The owner owes me a favour. It's not that bad ... All right, it is that bad, but then we're not planning to live here, are we?'

'What's the history?' said Mark. 'Anything that might interfere with what we're planning?'

'The history is dubious, bordering on squalid, but nothing that need concern us,' said Henry. 'I came here a few years ago, with a girl I knew then. Jessica something. The owner rents this place out for new groups to show off their stuff, and the occasional hippie happening. Whole room is probably permeated with drug residues. Try not to breathe too heavily, and don't lick the walls.'

'I can honestly say the thought had never occurred to me,' said Charles. 'Though I'm now having a hard time forcing it out of my mind. How long have we got the room for?'

'We'll have the whole building for ten days,' said Henry. 'More than sufficient.'

'And in a dodgy neighbourhood like this, no-one is going to stick their nose in and ask questions,' said Mark, rubbing his hands together briskly. 'Perfect!'

Henry looked at Charles. 'Are you happy about this? You've hardly left the Michael Scott Library for the past week. Did you turn up anything we ought to know about?'

Charles scowled. 'Not really. The Babalon Working is nothing new. It's been around for ages, in one form or another. There's quite a bit about it in Dr. Dee's The Sigillum Aemeth, and of course Babalon is mentioned in the Book of Revelations, and not in a good way. The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that it's a very dangerous undertaking. I can't find a single report of anyone completing the ritual successfully.'

'That's because they didn't have the information in my letters!' said Mark. 'Come on, we have to do this! We can't turn back now! Not when we're so close to everything we ever dreamed of!'