Excerpt
Now, secure and comfortable within the Inner Sanctum, the urn at his side, his diary opened to the page upon which the inscrutable riddle was written, he consumed a copious amount of the Soma and waited for it to take effect.

As he waited patiently, he chanted his own bastardized version of a line from an ancient Vedic ritual.

“Oh drop of Soma, flow for Indra, flow for me. Oh drop of Soma, flow for Indra, flow for me. Oh drop…of…Soma, flow…for Indra, flow…for me. Oh…drop…of……Soma………..Oh…….drop….…”

His eyelids grew heavy. His head fell back. The room began to spin. Round and round it went and suddenly he found himself riding on the back of a beautifully sculpted white Unicorn on a carousel at a bizarre and glorious carnival of the gods.

He was soon overtaken by the sensation of leaving his body, his consciousness drifting, floating upward into a sea of bliss.

In the midst of this reverie he noticed a white glow filling the entire room, softly at first, but slowly increasing in brilliance. He seemed to be merging with this light as he transcended all sense of physical self.

After several minutes––or was it hours?––he became aware of another consciousness in the room and he knew, instinctively, he was in the presence of the god of the Soma.

A sublime feeling of ecstasy washed over him, through him, bathing him inside and out. Time ceased. He was eternal.

Then, abruptly, the ecstasy was gone, shut off like someone had thrown a switch.

The sudden change caused his body to twitch violently in a long series of nerve-wracking convulsions. He lurched forward then backward then forward again before flopping helplessly onto the floor.

A thick drool leaked from the corners of his mouth as he coughed and sputtered, his limbs flailing wildly like a fish out of water. A surge of terror rushed through him but eventually, mercifully, the spasmodic episode ended.

Breathing heavily, he pulled his heavy body back up into the chair, wiped the drool from his chin and, in spite of his near total exhaustion, he managed a grin.

The gift he’d so urgently sought had been given to him. He knew the answer to the riddle. The game was on.

After taking a few minutes to gather his strength and calm his nerves, he rose victoriously to his feet and stretched, feeling perversely smug as if he had just battled the gods and won.

He placed the diary and the urn, side by side, atop his father’s antique mahogany desk and exited the Inner Sanctum through the secret door.

In a somewhat perverse reflection of his father before him, he strode out into the library. He was energized, confident and ready to secure his place in the great Hall of Destiny. But his reverie was cut short. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

His stomach began to churn, he became nauseous, his bowels cramped painfully. He felt disoriented. His legs quivered, barely able to sustain the weight of his body and, in a matter of moments, they gave way completely and he toppled to the floor.

Retching violently, writhing in the warm soup of his own vomit, he slithered a few feet across the dark hardwood floor, one hand gripping his stomach, the other reaching out in desperation toward the bookcase behind which the diary and the urn now sat secluded and silent, closed up within the Inner Sanctum.

“…Aleister…”

The word gurgled from his mouth, his eyes rolled back, his body twitched ever so slightly––once, twice, a third time––until finally the dark, billowing shroud of death settled over him, engulfing his beleaguered soul.

Michael J. Moorehouse, the would-be host of the infamous Beast, and the bridge across which the Antichrist would walk into this world, now lay dead on the floor of the great library within the confines of the dreary, deteriorating mansion.