Last of the Albatwitches by Brian Keene

Author:Brian Keene [Keene, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deadite Press
Published: 2014-09-11T05:00:00+00:00

Two

Levi Stoltzfus sat at the writing desk in his study, which was a room located in the center of his small, one-story house. A lone lamp with a single, naked bulb provided the only illumination, barely beating back the shadows. The room's four walls had built-in bookshelves that spanned from floor to ceiling. They overflowed with old, unabridged occult and esoteric books---the Book of Soyga, the collected works of John Dee, Guido von List's Das Geheimnis der Runen, the original, unabridged version of Frazer's The Golden Bough, Francis Barrett's The Magus, the Cipher Manu-scripts (including the Johannes Trithemius cipher), Johann Scheible's Das Kloster, Cyril Scott's The Initiate, Parkes' Fourth Book of Agrippa, all of Aleister Crowley's occult work, and many more. Normally, Levi enjoyed spending time in the room, leisurely perusing the books (or more recently, through his eBook reader), but tonight, he barely noticed them.

Levi's brow furrowed in deep concentration as he pored over a stack of papers that had been photocopied from the archives of the Historical Society of Schuylkill County. He was reading the account of a man named Heim, who had served with Captain Morgan at Fort Lebanon and had apparently used powwow magic to defend against the native Indians of the time. That wasn't the part that kept Levi reading, even as his eyes grew itchy and tired, and fatigue set in for the night. He knew all about powwow magic, being a practitioner of it himself. It wasn't even Heim that interested Levi. He had known of the man before now. Levi's father and grandfather had recounted Heim's exploits to him when he was younger---before Levi's excommunication from their Amish community. All of this was old news, as far as Levi was concerned.

What he was really looking for was any account of Heim doing battle locally with a demon from the Judeo-Christian pantheon---a particular demon named Abalam, one of the many such creatures that made up the host collectively referred to as Legion, and a servant of the arch-demon Paimon.

A month ago, Levi had been called upon to assist a nearby local police department with a multiple murder investigation that had involved a distinctly paranormal bent. It had started with a possessed tree---one inhabited by Abalam. Levi had attempted an exorcism of the tree, but when his efforts proved fruitless, and Abalam refused to leave, Levi had been forced to quite literally make a deal with a devil. He called upon Abalam's master, the great Paimon, and asked a boon. In exchange for Abalam being sent back to Hell and bothering the people of Earth no more, Levi was indebted to Paimon. The arch-demon could call upon Levi's services.

"It would have to be at a time of my choosing," Paimon had said. "You shall not know the hour, nor the task, until it is at hand."

Out of options, Levi had reluctantly agreed to the arch-demon's terms. And now, a month later, he was troubled. His distress did not stem only from the fact that he was now essentially on call for one of the most powerful beings in Hell.

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