Esoteric Crimes

«How can we prepare to face it? Do we have enough strength to do it?»

«My dear Larìs, you and I will have to face a long and perilous journey to the temple where the Grand Patriarch lives, who will offer us access to universal knowledge, of which he is the custodian. We will be given the necessary strength and wisdom.»

Step by step, holding on to the side ropes, they had reached about halfway across the bridge which oscillated with each movement, when a gust of stronger wind made Larìs’s heart freeze, who again sought Aurora’s eyes to feel reassured. Cautiously, the two pulled from the backpacks on their shoulders their windbreakers and put them on and continued until they reached the grassy clearing beyond the bridge. From there at least five paths began, which headed in different directions. Which could be the right one to follow? Aurora saw two branches crossed with loose earth around, looked for a long branch and, being careful not to step on the loose earth, destroyed the cross then, with the same branch, drew a circle on the ground, reciting words that Larìs recognized like those of a counterspell. Someone had put in place a spell, to put them in difficulty on the way forward. But Aurora had a lot of experience. Once the circle was completed and the words turned towards the sky, it was evident that only one path began from the clearing, which was the one to follow. After crossing the tongue of a glacier, the path turned downhill, until the highland meadows gave way to a forest, denser and denser as you descended. At each crossroads, at each fork of the path, the two, instinctively, always knew which direction to follow.

The forest offered fruit and berry eats and now and then a source of fresh water was found so, even if the supplies were beginning to be scarce, there was no way to suffer hunger or thirst. Even the temperatures had become more pleasant and there was no longer any need to wear windbreakers. On the fifth day of the walk, coming out of the dense forest, they found themselves in a pleasant valley, at the bottom of which they saw their destination.

The temple was an ancient construction that had remained intact over the centuries and millennia, built as it was on solid rock in a place not accessible to ordinary mortals. What aroused the two women was the hydroelectric power plant that could be seen on the back of the temple. A waterfall, with the force of a jump of a few hundred meters, powered the turbines that supplied electricity to the ancient building. Next to the turbines, a series of solar panels provided hot water and also helped to generate electricity. A forerunner photovoltaic system, not yet in operation, completed the control unit, which made that oasis completely autonomous from an energy point of view.

At the entrance of the temple, they were greeted by two statuesque-looking men.

«Welcome to the temple of Knowledge and Regeneration. The Grand Patriarch is waiting for you and will receive you as soon as possible. In the meantime we will be your guides, we will take you to your accommodations and we will make your visit to this enchanting place pleasant. Whatever you need, ask and we will try to accommodate you. I am Ero and my partner is Dusai.»

The two men, dressed only in short colored tunics, were tall and powerful, the evident muscles seemed sculpted, recalling ancient Greek statues. Ero had blond, curly, rather long hair, fair complexion, albeit slightly tanned, and blue eyes the color of the sky, Dusai had black and short hair, dark eyes, and complexion the color of ebony. While Dusai was taking care of Aurora, Ero bowed to Laris and took her baggage. The four crossed a squared courtyard, entered the building, and walked along decorated corridors. The frescoes alternated hunting scenes with war scenes and mating between animals. Finally, they arrived in a cloister, in the center of which there was a swimming pool. Under the arcades opened the doors of the guest rooms. Here the decorations represented couplings between men and women, in all possible and imaginable positions taken from the most unthinkable manuals of Kamasutra. The two women were invited by their ciceroni to enter each room, where they were helped to undress and relax with a long and accurate toning massage. After a couple of hours, the two women and the two men found themselves together inside the pool to enjoy the pleasures of a good bath in the warm water of the tub, and the sex offered spontaneously and sensually by Ero and Dusai. Exhausted by the days of walking, but regenerated in the spirit, Aurora and Larìs were refreshed. The laid table offered roasted mutton with side dishes of tasty vegetables and an incredible variety of succulent fruits. At the end of the banquet, they retired to their rooms to sink into a well-deserved restful sleep.

Early the next morning, the ciceroni brought each of the two women a fragrant cup of tea, accompanied by sweets made with sultanas and must, telling them to prepare to be received by the Grand Patriarch. Their companions from the previous day accompanied them to the foot of a staircase, which led to the upper floors. From that moment they would have been accompanied by a much older and much less attractive guide, as Ero and Dusai were not allowed to go up to the Patriarch. Hiamalè, the new guide was called, was a person who was at least eighty years old, but was said to be much older. A long grey beard adorned his face and the long silvery hair was gathered behind the nape in a long braid. He greeted the women in the ancient language and invited them to come up. Despite his age, the elderly faced the staircase with agility, branch after branch, until he reached the fifth level. Aurora and Larì realized they were on a kind of tower that overlooked the temple and that, from the windows, you could admire the building in all its magnificence. Elder Hiamalè knelt before a wooden door, decorated with beautiful inlays, and invited the two women to do the same. As if someone had sensed their presence, even if not announced, the door swung open and the two women found themselves in front of the Grand Patriarch.

«There is no need for you to bow down to me,» he said, dismissing the old man and inviting the two women to enter his room. «You are welcome here. I have been waiting for you for a long time, the perception of your arrival was strong inside me. I present myself to you, faithful followers, who aspire to universal knowledge. Since I am in this place I call myself Roboamo, although this is not my real name, in honor of the son of King Solomon who was so-called. Tradition has it that this temple was built by the wise King in these inaccessible places, among these which are the highest mountains on Earth, to act as a treasure chest and as a protection for the oldest and most exact book of magic, written by his fist, “The key of Solomon”. Legends tell that this book was found, after a few centuries from the death of the famous King, inside his tomb, preserved in an ivory container together with a ring bearing his seal. Many tried to translate the one written first into Latin, then into French, but no one succeeded fully in the intent, as that was only a fake and King Solomon had made sure to make it incomprehensible. The original “Key of Solomon” is instead preserved in the Sancta Sanctorum of this temple and only a few wise people, over the millennia, have been able to access it. Maybe you, Aurora, will be able to become part of those chosen few, but we are not ahead of the times. You are here to access the knowledge preserved in this place just as, before you, people wishing to consult important texts have arrived, which have been collected here since time immemorial. Priests of any type of religion have arrived, but also important men of science, thanks to whom this building has been equipped with modern comforts. You have seen the power plant yourself. It is not easy to get raw materials for the construction of these plants here. The last scientist who visited us was an Italian, whose idea was to transform the energy of the sun’s rays, but also that inherent in the light itself, into electricity, by means of microcells, which he called photovoltaic cells, in honor of his countryman Alessandro Volta. But while I see positive auras within you, a dark aura tending to black hovered around him, indicating wickedness and perfidy of soul.»

«What did he call himself,» Aurora asked, curious and intimidated. «Did he have access to knowledge, even if you doubted him?»

«My dear Aurora, you have an aura of an intense blue, like the clear sky, and therefore you have a pure heart, but you are very sensitive to external influences because you trust everyone. And that’s why you are accompanied by Larìs, who has a red aura like fire and who reveals her impulsive, determined character, ready to sacrifice even her own life to help those close to her. I can’t reveal that person’s name. Anyone who arrives here has access to the texts and manuscripts that are kept there. Then it is up to him to decide how to use the acquired knowledge, whether for better or for worse. You see, every religion tends to identify ‘good’ with God and ‘evil’ with another opposing divinity. Whether God is called Javhè, Vishnu, Odin, or Allah and the devil Satan, Lucifer, Seth or Sehuet is indifferent. Good and evil are within each of us and the eternal struggle between them is consumed in our soul. In some, good prevails, in others evil.»

«Grand Patriarch, tell us the path to access Universal Knowledge,» Aurora went on, «and we will be grateful and honor you for the rest of our mortal life.»

«You see, there are two ways to reach the goal, a faster one and a slower one. Larìs, who is young, will follow this second way, will have plenty of time to consult the texts, assimilate what is contained in them, and learn to use, with the help of the Masters, her Third Eye, that of wisdom, the one with which she will be able to perceive the aura of the people around her and penetrate their thoughts, coming into contact with their mind. It is a long path that I, myself, have undertaken at the time, and which requires constancy, concentration, and application. For you, Aurora, who is instead keen to assimilate everything quickly and return to your homeland to fight against evil forces, I have a shorter way in-store.»

Clapping his hands, he called Hiamalè, who led Larìs out of the room, while from another door two young maids entered with a steaming herbal tea for the elderly patriarch. Roboamo drank carefully then, from a tray which was brought to him by one of the two maidservants, took a case and took out a syringe. «Papaverine. Inoculated into the cavernous body of the penis, it allows a lasting erection for a satisfying sexual intercourse, even for an elderly person like me. I will pass on all my knowledge and science to you by carnal conjunction, after which you will have access to the Sancta Sanctorum.»

The maids helped Aurora to undress and lie down on the cushions arranged for this purpose on the floor, then they took care of the old man, freed him of his clothes, gave him the injection, massaged him well, and when they understood that he was ready to consume the intercourse with the new arrival, they withdrew to a corner of the room. The sex with the old man gave Aurora immense pleasure. She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the thrusts of Roboamo. At the apex of her excitement, reaching an orgasm, she realized that with the flow of semen a heat was penetrating her that pervaded her from tiptoe to the last hair. She was assimilating in one fell swoop all the knowledge that the elderly had accumulated in decades of permanence in that inaccessible place. At one point, Aurora realized that Roboam was motionless above her. He still had an erect penis, as a result of papaverine, but he was no longer breathing, he had expired. With a delicate movement, she moved aside the body of Roboamo and with no small difficulty disengaged herself from him. While the handmaids took care of the deceased, Aurora got dressed and was assailed by fear: how to reach the Sancta Sanctorum without the guidance of Roboamo? But then, concentrating, she understood that, in addition to knowledge, she had assimilated everything that was kept in his memory, and therefore she already knew the way forward to reach the goal. But there was more, the sex just consumed had transformed her, she had smoother skin, firmer breasts, slimmer legs, less thin hair, in short, she felt rejuvenated. She looked for a mirror, which returned the image of a twenty-year-old, the image of herself but with forty years younger. She touched her face with her hands as if to make sure that what she saw was real and not a vision. The wrinkles were gone, her green eyes shone, there was no shadow of opacity in the lens, the hair had returned to their natural light brown color. But it was not time to dwell on futile elements. She was to reach “Solomon’s Key”.

Trying to follow the memories impressed on Roboamo’s mind, she went down the stairs to the ground floor. In a room with decorated walls, she looked for a golden statue depicting a cat. At the neck of the latter, she noticed a medallion in the shape of a pentacle. She turned it and saw a passage open in the back wall, the only one on without windows. She entered a long, half-dark corridor, occasionally illuminated by the dim light of ancient oil lamps. At the end of the corridor, a spiral staircase went down to the basement, to another richly decorated hall. She went straight to a massive golden door, enriched with pure gold bas-reliefs, depicting episodes from the life of King Solomon. There was no lock to open this door, nor any other device. To access the Sancta Sanctorum a voice command is needed, different depending on the days of the week and the hours of the day. Aurora, calculating that at that moment she should have invoked the moon, uttered in a loud voice: «Levanah!»

The massive golden door began to slide inside the double-headed wall, leaving free access to the most secret of the temple rooms. In the center of the room, above a column of about one meter and twenty meters high, an ivory casket held the book and the ring with the seal of Solomon, the most powerful talisman of all time. Not without emotion, she opened the chest. The book was in its place, but not the ring. Those who had come before her had managed to steal him, ensuring a power that was not indifferent and difficult to fight, if used for evil purposes. But now the sorceress had no time to think, she had all night to be able to assimilate what Solomon had written many centuries before, which she had not received from the memory of Rehoboam, since he, even if he had access to the Sancta Sanctorum, never had had the courage to face the sacred text. When she was sure that she had learned all the formulas and the invocations by heart, she put the Key in the box and went out, going backward on the way made to get there. When she went out into the hall, she noticed that the first light of dawn was beginning to enter the windows. She rotated the medallion on the cat statue, returning it to its initial position, and the passage from which it had just come out closed again.

It was time to go home to Liguria, and this time the trip would have been short. She would use teleportation, which was one of the new spells she had just learned. But first, she had to take her leave from Larìs. She returned to the cloister, where the guest rooms were located, she met Ero and Dusai already up and conversing on the edge of the swimming pool. They both missed an appreciation of Aurora’s new appearance.

«Damn! If she had been that way the other day!» commented Dusai.

The sorceress avoided replying and knocked on Larìs’s door, which was still immersed in the world of dreams. Sleepily, Larìs opened the door and looked questioningly at the young woman. When she realized that she was her travel companion, she rubbed her eyes thinking she was still dreaming.

«Yes, it's me.» Aurora laughed. «I’m leaving, but we’ll stay in telepathic communication. When I need you, you will know, and you will be able to reach me as soon as possible.»

Then she brought her lips close to Larìs’s and kissed her.

«See you soon.»

Aurora came out of the temple and reached an isolated clearing, where she sat on the ground, taking care not to cross her legs, concentrated on the place where she was to go and pronounced the magic formula. As if captured by a vortex, by a kind of a whirlwind, her body vanished to reappear in Triora, inside her home.

«I am home!»

Chapter 4

We headed to the crime scene, which had already been delimited by the red and white plastic strips with the words “State Police.” The place was blackened by the fire and wet due to the water used to put it out, but what stroke most was the nauseating smell that we were forced to breathe. The smell of burnt human flesh, which still hovered in the air, was truly unbearable. When I first saw the body, I could barely hold back vomiting. At first glance it looked like a mannequin, bent over itself, leaning against a metal gate that closed a kind of cave, the human form blackened by the flames. There was no trace of the hair and, in some areas, bones could be glimpsed at amid some shredded skin. The shape of the breasts allowed one to see that it was the body of a woman. At the level of the wrists and ankles, there was something that looked like melted plastic strings, meaning that something must have been used to tie the victim to the gate. The coroner was carrying out the first tests on the body, while the men of the forensic police were waiting patiently for him to finish to start their work. Telling Mauro to wait for me, I approached them passing the barrier of plastic strips. Sensing my presence, the doctor raised her head and pulled off the latex gloves, shaking her head. The person who was holding out her hand to me was a petite woman in her thirties, with short dark hair, dark eyes, and a small golden nose piercing.

«Doctor Ruggeri, I suppose! Nice to meet you, I’m doctor Ilaria Banzi, coroner.»

«What can you tell me about this poor woman?»

«Very creepy, in my career, even if is short, I have never seen anything like this. I can’t say now if she was alive or dead when she was set on fire but, since it seems clear that she was tied hands and feet to that gate with duct tape, I really think she was burnt alive. The autopsy will tell us this detail. At the moment I can say that we are in the presence of a female subject, around thirty-five years old, forty at most, judging by the teeth, but I cannot be precise about this either, as the fire has altered everything. As soon as the forensic police will make its evaluations, I will arrange the transfer of the body to the morgue and in the shortest possible time, I will send you the necropsy report. The magistrate will also be here shortly. I wish you luck, it won’t be a simple investigation!»

I took my leave and went to the men in uniform.

«Do you know anything about the victim’s identity?» I asked.

«She certainly had no papers on her!» was the sarcastic reply of a superintendent, whom I glared at. «I understand, it wasn’t a happy joke. What we do know is that the victim was tied with large adhesive tape, the one used for packages so to speak, to the metal railing and a fire was set. That sort of cave is an old woodshed. Inside, there were dry wood and other flammable material. Since there is a lot of talk about witches in this area, we thought someone wanted to simulate the execution of a witch at the stake. Maybe a sadistic game between two lovers, why not? She, consenting, gets tied up, he lights a fire to give more verve to the game, but then the situation gets out of hand, the wind rises, the fire breaks out, and for the woman, so tied up, there is no escape. We got this idea.»

«Very imaginative, I would say, and poorly supported by evidence. Do you like playing these types of games with your partner?»

Perhaps struck in his intimacy, he blushed, cleared his throat, and looked for a way out.

«The magistrate is coming. Now he will formulate the right hypotheses. Forgive me, mine was just guesswork.»

The magistrate was a man in his fifties, gray hair, almost as tall as Mauro, thin. He looked like a bird of prey, with a hooked nose, narrow lips, and reading glasses raised on his forehead. He approached Mauro, who shook his hand and introduced me.

«Doctor Leone, this is Doctor Ruggeri. My colleague has just arrived from Ancona and has found herself in full swing of the action.»

«Yes, I see! Well, I think there is little for me to do right now. Keep me updated on the investigation and try to close this case as soon as possible. We are not used to such heinous crimes in this area and I don’t want troubles with the journalists.»

I tried to speak, asking him if he wanted to interrogate with us the owner of the neighboring house, the famous Aurora, but he took his leave with a soft handshake and a “Good job!”

Who knows why I have always hated people who do not shake hands, but I tried to put on a gritted smile and replied, «Thanks.»

When he had gone away, I turned to Mauro.

«If now the police commissioner of Imperia would arrive and would be just as nice, I would risk losing the work I just got. You understand me, don’t you? Well, while the forensic does its job here, let’s get to know this witch.»

Mauro smiled and followed me gladly. All in all, I was starting to like him, and I would soon find out that, behind that air from Rambo, all muscles, he hid a strong intelligence and was a good observer, all elements that made him a good policeman and a valid collaborator.

A path crossed the vegetation, went out the dirt road from which we had come, and led to an isolated building. It was a sort of farmhouse, ancient-looking, but in excellent condition.

The owner’s car, a metallic gray Porsche Carrera, made a fine show in the front. We were greeted by a beautiful forty-year-old blonde, with eyes of a blue-green color, rare to be seen. She was taller than me, with a fair, smooth complexion, and without any wrinkles. She wore a dark kimono with strange designs, among which I recognized some esoteric symbols, closed on the front only by a belt. At each step, a long pink thigh peeked out of the dress. The décolleté gave good visibility to the prosperous breast and did not leave much room for imagination. I saw Mauro’s gaze settle with interest on the subject, perhaps with the hope that sooner or later the dull dressing gown would fall to the ground, revealing to his eye all the graces of its owner.

«Please, take a seat, I am Aurora Della Rosa, and I live in this humble home. I’m sorry, I still have to recover from the fright! I was afraid that everything could get on fire here tonight. Inside this house I have many books and manuscripts, very old ones, some even unique in the world, and in addition to my safety, I feared a lot of losing everything in the flames.»

We sat in a square room, where I noticed shelves full of books and scrolls. An entire wall was occupied by a mirror and the floor was in polished marble of various colors which, like a mosaic, represented a pentacle. I could not believe my eyes. I found summarized all that I had studied on esotericism and sects.

«Della Rosa,» I said, repeating her surname. «De La Rose was the name of a French house of famous Templars, the guardian knights of the temple and the Holy Grail.»

«It is said that they existed since before the advent of Christianity. The Templars were the custodians of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, the temple of whose ruins only the Wailing Wall remains, sacred to the Jews. Then they identified them as the custodians of the Holy Sepulcher. In the Middle Ages, in France, they were declared heretics, perhaps because it was thought that they kept the Holy Grail hidden and did not allow even the Pope to access to its hiding place, or perhaps because they were aware of important secrets that the Church did not want to be made public. They were tortured, many burned alive, but were never completely annihilated. Yes, you are right, my family is originally from France, from the Avignon area. The De La Rose, who had possessions in those places, fought against the British in the Hundred Years War, suffering many losses. At the end of the fourteenth century, some members of the family settled in this border area between Italy and France, a quiet place in the middle of the mountains. But then it seems that the Inquisition, even here, did not give respite to an ancestor of mine, who in the late sixteenth century was tried on charges of witchcraft.»