JACK DEWITT: ISLE DE MUERTOS

Jack DeWitt in

ISLE DE MUERTOS

first draft

Los Angeles, Summer 1941

Gray sheets of rain battered the sputtering neon sign, DeWitt's Detective Service, as a silhouette paced spectrally about a cluttered office. I was still entranced and reeling from the aftermath of last month. Lately, it had been the most captivating dreams of Genevieve, wandering around in desolate dimensional voids, sobbing and clutching that stump of her arm. I was sure they were not dreams, yet I dared not attempt to voyage back into that little black book of monstrosities. Not until I could ask Mr. Marloe, which I was reluctant to do, for a way of tethering myself to this time... 

They are certain things the common populace is not aware of and it's far better this way. People crave the unknown and the profane, yet do not take the steps to seek it. Unfortunately, that's my business. 

Germany had just finished Invading Yugoslavia and Greece, and there were talks that Russia was next, so tensions and war Propaganda were already high, with the rampant communism and congress had been investigating Hollywood for possible communism, actors being ostracized, denizens were teeming with anxiety, aggressive looks, and dissapointed dreams. But that's politics, isn't it. Sweet, poisonous control. 

I dozed off whilst gazing over a particularly gruesome triple homicide when there was a faint clicking, the metallic sound of a lock being tried My lock. This roused me from my dreams, my favorite thing about this world. 

There was a violent rattle now, a shadow outlined through the stenciled glass frame. 

"Half a moment, if you please. " 

I drew my Browning automatic 1911, and unlatched the bolt. 

A woman covered in blood, organs, and debris was standing in the hallway, the overhead light down casting her face in a rather gruesome way. 

"are you Jack DeWitt?" 

" usually "

"i was told i could find you here. I need some assistance with a matter concerning dimensional recovery, and a grimoire my father was after."

I cast a wary look around. 

"Dimensional recovery. Let's talk inside" 

"I know where you've been. "

"There aren't many grimoires on that particular subject, I think the Sworne Booke of Honorius may have what you seek, but I don't have it in my possession currently. Strange 

You see my father, Alestair Crowley, sacrificed me to obtain cursed wisdom that would make the rest of his life a sort of amusement park, ethereally speaking. I can never forgive him, but i can understand why the gems of this world would make you choose them, over your own family. 

I can see that. "

"what I'm saying is i need your help. 

" You're saying it now."

" If you've never been to this earth, how did you know to find me. 

I've been here a few times.... briefly... Well, someone came into the realm i was in. She was missing a hand. 

I froze. 

"You saw Genevieve?" 

That sad distraught thing? Yes i did. 

I still have her book. 

Let me see it 

Ah yes, that's the name. You help me with my father's writings and perhaps ill help you get her out. 

" Out of where?" 

Oh, there's no English word. it's mentioned in one of my fathers book s though. 

"Do you still have her hand? I'll need it. "

I had kept it on ice since that day. curiously, it hadn't decomposed in the slightest and often I'd swear it'd move around.

Ext Marloe Estate 

Randolph C Marloe was finishing a sigil and had a plethora of artifacts, ingredients including human hair, and skin, and was about to conduct an evocation from the Sworne Booke of Honorius when a Los Angeles Police Department sheriff with a deputy, pulled up to his Estate. Mr. Wadsworth answered the massive double doors. 

Wadsworth: Good evening, how may i be of assistance to you 

Deputy: you can tell that crazy evil sadistic monolithic that

The Sheriff gives him a look. 

Sheriff: were investigating the dissapearance of one of our deputies, he was patrolling around echo Park and never checked back in. 

Wadsworth : how unfortunate. but its common for, government officials to go missing isn't it? 

Sheriff : We know of Mr. Marloes demeanor and his, uh, investigations. 

Wadsworth: Apologies, Sheriff, Mr. Marloe doesn't work for the government. But if he discovers anything we'll let you know. 

They left, as a fire tornado began to whip up in the backyard, Mr. Marloe exalting in Latin. 

Ext/Interior Marloe Estate. dusk 

the silhouette of Mr. Marloe gazed down on his tarantulus domain, and myself, as my Chevrolet Torpedo Master Deluxe purred into his crescent moon 

There is another grimoire for you to retrieve Mr. DeWitt. This one is rather dangerous. There only remains two from the original printing press, which propurtedly contained infant uvalas and eagle hearts. it gives instructions on controlling the hierarchy of hell, the path to Zerzura, amongst other things i shall not mention here.

long have I lusted after the Libro de San Cipriano, a curious volume of texts from the 17th and,18th centuries, the Spanish version you will retrieve for me claims to have been written by a Jonas Sulfurino ("Sulphury Jonas"), and is similar to (though distinct from) the Key of Solomon, and are typically a retelling of the Grand Grimoire. You shall find this Booke for me DeWitt, and I've just discovered how. 

It's in Puerto Rico, however you will need a Cypher to navigate the jungles. I don't know the location of this Cypher but i know someone who does. 

"Catalina Islands huh?

Anything else you want to warn me about?" 

"Be careful on them. He doesn't like to be disturbed. I know she walks with you now. A child born of Black Magick, can bring naught but ruin. "

I drove down LA Brea, the blue dusk glow from the west washing over the closing shops. I was getting tired, of the job, of tensions in Europe, a trip to the islands would be a welcome retreat. 

Returning to my flat, I picked out some dresses, A florance in Navy, A Polka dot Roma dress, and a black satin one for cocktails, 

Jezebel Crowley was waiting for me, looking less corpse like than usual. 

"Ahh Jack. I made us dinner" 

"Got you some clothes. "

She smiled slowly as I handed her the fabric. 

oh they are beautiful is that what women wear in this era. "

"some of them do."

I shall also need some military gear, for when we go to..... to those other places. 

I poured myself a glass of rum 

"forward, aren't you." 

"we have to be prepared." 

She made something resemv

"where did you learn to cook? 

Oh i was let out in 

Ext. Ferry To Catalina Islands 

Sea fog blanketed and beaded on her cashmere overcoat, as Jezebel poured over a leather bound book, I lit a cigarette and watched 

"I've seen that sort of leather before." 

"I'm sure you have Mr. DeWitt." 

"after my father sacrificed me, I spent time in the cosmic void watching the procession of souls. tormented. anguished. the gates were teeming with the discontented and the unloved. The world was turning worse, by and by. It's his world you know. Till the angels come again. "

yeah i know who's world it is. But there's also ones that attempt to control this one. 

We took a small roadster, Jezebel with the map, searching for Mr. Jonas Sulfurino, most unfruitfully. Every person we questioned either denied he was here or denied his existence, which was tantamount to admission. Finally, Jezebel did a scrying spell, and we located his reclusive abode, hidden on a closed road on the Northside of the island.

made in the 1800s Greecian revival, it was framed majestically by the sea, though overgrown and deteriorating, it still held a granduer. there perhaps I'd purchase something similar. one day. 

We knocked. No answer. Jezebel went around back, while I waited, peering through the dusty windows. 

"The backdoor is broken, we can enter there." 

"I have a bad feeling about this." 

It was cobwen strewn and dusty, outdated and crumbling, yet still magnificent. 

We found him in the study, dead as can be, beneath a broken shelf of books and curious tomes. 

"Let's look for anything concerning the Libro de San Cipriano. And Quickly." 

i handed her some gloves and we

scoured the study, shelves, desk drawers. Underneath a false bottom, was an ornate key, 

"He just may be that sort "

We combed the bookshelf and after a few of the classics, a small key hole was found behind Sir Alfred Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Jezebel laughed. 

Turning the key, there was a soft click, a miasmal wind struck up as we pushed, stone steps leading down into a dungeon like vault. 

It was a black magick paradise. Ingredients, human and animal were in order amongst the shelves, which contained grimoires, leather bound tomes and even stone tablets dating back to 2000 BC in long dead languages, fog in glasses, scrying dishes and miniature torture devices. 

There were things in jars squirming to get out, and some loathsome legged blur scuttled through the one light shaft, chittering reproachfully. 

"We're looking for a Cypher, from the 17 or 1800s, probably in Spanish". 

"Yeah, let's not linger." 

Every nook was searched, even the book pages combed, eyes watched us, and that little legged thing flashed its teeth, coming out of the shadows with frightening speed. Jezebel screamed, backpedaling and falling over the altar. I drew my Browning automatic and shot the thing twice, it gurgled its last breaths, legs or arms twitching, green blood oozing over the stone floor. Oozing into cracks. I helped her up as we looked at each other. Levering up a loose stone slab we uncovered a small wooden idol, Latin words had been burned into the surface and it had moving parts, some sort of mechanism. This was undoubtedly the cypher. 

Then there was a knock at the door. 

"Los Angeles Police, open up Mr. Sulfurino!" 

"Doesn't look good for you."

Then, in a stage whisper, from Mr. Sulfurino, 

"Leave the diversion to me!" 

They look on in horror as Joseph Sulfurino rises from the dead, heading for the door. 

"Do come in please, it's a bit dusty, I've just returned from the most dreadful of places, why don't put me on record but it was absolute Hell."

Mr. Joseph Sulfurino we know you have been in contact with a Mr. Marloe, who we believe is conducting illicit and illegal experiments 

" oh that's absurd, he may look imposing buf he'd not so bad, you're entire department is rather racist isn't it? perhaps you should be concerned for the real culprits 

Jack and Jezebel listen tentatively as Joseph monologs languidly on the hardships of fortune telling, the falling stock in Brazil, and his uncle in Stalingrad 

"I have been Beyond the last outer rim, the herald has anointed, but how much can 

Lyles Sinclair 

sure i know where it is 

but if you want me to tell you, I'll needa favour. 

there's a place in the Amazon, this will guide you. Don't leave the path. 

He dropped a amber amulet into Jezebel skeletal fingers. 

"Sure thing."

Plane crashes/sabatoged in Honduras, they are tailed until Panama, taking out goons. 

rest in Panama City 

have to take a bus through the haunted jungle 

jungles of the amazon

bus breaks down, driver dissapears. 

things grab them and drag Jezebel away 

tribal of cannibals, 

escape 

Mr. Marloe wanted me to run an errand for him, and I'd be crossing borders to do it. There was a volume of arcane lore he desired greatly.

And what of that Black book of Mrs. Lamont?

Don't lie to me DeWitt.

They are both trapped beneath millions of dead, the streets of Cholula. 

Somewhere near the coast of Aruba

At the isle of the dead

It was cold when we awoke. That was the first sign something was very wrong. Rolling over, the beach stretched on, then curved around, out of sight 

Massive ivory doors stood, bending into one's view, full of abominable faces in grotesque and sardonic expressions, all looking down upon you. They're were Cyprus trees blowing softly, framing the doors of bone, and behind loomed a small mountain of stone, like a natural maseoleum. But there were no animals nor birds, nor insects, and though the sun came down, it was unearthly cold. A garden in winter. A garden for the dead.

"This is it. His book of law states this is what he saw." 

She was crying, or trying not to, the mascara turning her face spectral in the infernal glow. Being sacrificed by one's own father before two years. 

A glowing burning green vortex of hells fire, spiraled up from the centre of the chasm, a flame from beyond, carrying the hopes, dreams lives of past and future, all melting together with a violent cacophony of the damned. I grasped on to one of the standing sarcophagi, bracing myself from the blasphemous inferno, while Jezebel, a silver chain tethering us, ventured out on the narrow platform, calling out to that phosphorescent abyss. 

"I never needed your love father! And I thank you for giving me the desire to explore the truths you were too cowardly to find out during this existence. Though, I'm sure you'll discover them now. Won't you, Alestair Crowley." 

The satanic face molts into something otherworldly, burning claws reaching through the pyrospheric inferno. 

" Ego mortum est, Ego meuo mortus et Familia, nunquam aurum poetestas, dolorsa etiam."

I don't regret it. But I'll have vengeance yet. 

"You tell a woman you love them, and they'll use it against you. The games of demand and respect, constantly at arms. I don't enjoy any of it." 

i don't know about that Jack 

The wind and emerald inferno 

It was a tidal wave of the dead, blotting out the sun, 

They crawl up and out of that Infernal abyss with the miasmal dead filling every void, ever chasm. The wails of the eternal damned accent there exhaustion, laying on the sands breathing heavily. Jezebel looks at Jack. 

Let's get back to Los Angeles, I don't think we're welcome here. 

Alright Jack, you're going to Stalingrad 

Oh joy. I always wanted to die in Russia. 

Jezebel: I thought it was Paris 

I'm going to come with you.