In My Time of Dying Read online

  IN MY TIME OF DYING

  #SAVANT Book One

  DAVID J. WEST

  In My Time of Dying Copyright 2019 David J. West

  Digital formatting by: Hershel Burnside

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Some names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously others are historical and used for entertainments sake. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  For Melissa

  Track Listing

  Prologue: If My Wings Should Fail Me

  1. Going to California

  2. In The Evening

  3. Night Flight

  4. The Rover

  5. Down By the Seaside

  6. In The Light

  7. For Your Life

  8. Out on the Tiles

  9. Trampled Underfoot

  10. Traveling Trainside Blues

  11. Train Kept A Rolling

  12. Ramble On

  13. Black Mountain Side

  14. Hot Dog

  15. Black Dog

  16. Heartbreaker

  17. Over the Hills and Far Away

  18. Three Hundred Years Gone

  19. Houses of the Holy

  20. Carouselambra

  21. No Quarter

  22. Bring It On Home

  23. Hammer of the Gods

  24. When The Airship Breaks

  25. Traveler of Both Space and Time

  Codetta

  Do not call up that which you cannot put down. — H.P. Lovecraft

  Prologue: If My Wings Should Fail Me

  The Northern slope of the Himalayas: 1874

  Biting cold wind held the battlements in a cruel lover’s embrace. Moonlight caught on the swirling snowflakes like jewels suspended in midair as the last few torches were snuffed out in the gathering gloom. Breathing too deep in this chill could kill a weak man; yet the armored Knights of St. Germain maintained their silent vigil. Hard men for a hard task, they stood like the Colossus of Rhodes against the gale. Ever watchful, most had been stationed here for ten years at the least. Few reached middle age. Theirs was considered a powerful and necessary duty to a higher mystic power. Only a select cadre of men knew the origin of their order and what the truth of that awesome power yet was.

  Far from the outside, yet still swaddled in a frigid cold, a single prisoner slumped, chained to a sloping cyclopean wall deep inside the fortress-like monastery, down into the very bowels of the mountain. An unusual feature for a Tibetan monastery, the dungeon had been built and gradually expanded upon by the Knights of St. Germain in ages past to specifically house and keep this single man imprisoned for all time.

  He was an immortal and an extremely dangerous one at that. There could be no execution, no death he could not come back from. There was only containment for a perceived eternity for such a being.

  Hanging upon the wall, he was but wasted flesh and bone. Gaunt as a skeleton, he bore almost no resemblance to a living human any longer. His face seemed a skull with some dim dark fire of life yet remaining in the eyes. Anyone looking upon him would have imagined a demon, a ghoul, or a devil, and none living but the highest echelon commanders of the Knights themselves knew his name any longer. Clothed in rags rotting away at his torso, he knew only pain and suffering, having been there long centuries already. Long enough to drive anyone else to madness. Tortured and drained by his captors, there was only the dream to escape. Any semblance of sanity remaining within the prisoner’s mind came from his astral projection to see the world outside and marvel at the changes of mankind down through the ages. Magical wards of protection, written in Enochian, had stayed the prisoner’s mind from truly flying free in the astral realm, but he was still able to travel through dreams. Through these means he knew all his friends and family had died generation upon generations distant and the world was a smaller place than it had been. Grim as his predicament was, there was yet hope to escape, to cheat his captors of their prize and finally meet death. But death is a fleeting phantom for those seeking it, while remaining a looming specter for those avoiding it. If he could but escape, death would come for them all.

  The creak of the door being unlocked echoed throughout the dank chamber. Torchbearers approached, beating back both the cold blackness and maddening quiet. The sound of armor clanking and even the orange flames licking at the damp air seemed thunderous to a forgotten man so accustomed to the viscous silence and dark.

  His own rusty chains clanked softly as he shielded his eye sockets from the murky glare. Before him stood a trio of men.

  Two Knights of St. Germain in their gleaming armor and crimson tunics with burnished faceplates of Damascus steel to hide their features like the masks of Greek tragedians. Indeed, they must have known they looked upon either a terrible tragedy or dark comedy. They remained silent as statues, almost afraid to breathe. They had heard horrific rumors of what the prisoner was capable of, only the presence of their commander granted them some sliver of courage.

  The Count of St. Germain, their leader, was a handsome goateed man of middle age who wore the finest of silks while priceless gems wrapped in gold rode upon his fingers. His eyes flashed with wicked humor and slyness.

  “I have a question for you,” said the Count.

  “Ask,” rasped the skeletal man.

  The Count swung a golden pendulum from his left hand. “A solar eclipse happened but a few hours ago, and my pendulum went mad. It writhed without tempo or reason. Not unlike you.” He waited a moment to see if the prisoner would give any reaction. “I thought to ask you about it, since you are usually so full of answers.”

  The prisoner’s voice croaked as it found passage through the unused throat. “Aetheric forces, the electrical energies from the sun were blocked by the moon’s trespass. The magnetic currents were in a brief flux.”

  “Of course, I should have known that.”

  “You were always deluded by your own gifts,” said the skeleton with a cackle.

  “And yet, you are the one still paying me for it,” the Count answered smugly. He dismissed his two knights with a gesture, waited for them to leave a torch in a sconce and shut the door behind them. “I have missed these visits, John. It’s been a long time since I last came to see you, not that you can tell down here. What has it been? Perhaps thirteen years. It looks like you are getting a little more color. Perhaps it is time for another extraction of your vitality.”

  “How much do you think I have left?” asked John with a wretched chuckle.

  “We both know there is no end. You are an Ouroboros who has tapped into the very wellspring of life, the umbilicus of the universe. If I were to leave you hanging there long enough, I am sure you would eventually resume your former appearance and vitality, and that is not something I will ever suffer the world to endure.”

  “How kind. Never mind you reap the benefits like a cosmic mosquito.”

  “Someone has to hold that essence in check.”

  “Do it then, Edward, you parasite,” croaked John.

  The Count frowned. “I no longer use that moniker.”


  “Which one? Edward or parasite?” his laugh was a death rattle.

  The Count threw his cloak over his shoulder in a show of frustration and wrath. He revealed a golden dagger. “I do not use the name Edward any longer. I am the Count of St. Germain, and everyone has called me such for the last two hundred years. Should I use this upon your bones and give you even more pain?” He waved the dagger in front of John.

  “If you think I’ll use your latest faux title, you are mistaken.” John shrugged in his chains.

  “It matters not. I’ll drain you just the same.” The Count put away the dagger, brought his hands together in an intricate and ritualistic finger knit clasp, and concentrated. A blue light gradually formed beside him, taking on the shape of a man, further materializing until it was a near double image of the Count. “My Tulpa shall do the work,” he said, with some satisfaction.

  An almost exact match for the Count, the Tulpa stepped toward John and put his lightly glowing left hand upon John’s skeletal brow.

  Crying aloud, John gnashed and shook as energy was withdrawn as if through a syringe. The Tulpa grew brighter. John, however, became even more thin, drained, and wretched. He sagged in his bonds. His muscles were almost non-existent, skin hung like a sheet draped over bone. No one would have thought him alive to see him.

  The Tulpa, now bright as the noon day sun, strode to its master and placed its left hand on his brow. The energy flowed like a river into him. The Count, rejuvenated, now appeared to be at least five years younger than he had been, the sparse grey hairs having vanished from his chin and temples replaced with a solid black. “You know, John; I think this is the most I have ever taken from you.”

  “No,” argued John, weakly, “you took more…once.”

  “Ah yes, dear Jane. Until next time then,” said the Count over his shoulder as he and his subdued Tulpa left the dungeon. The door clanged shut, the sound of the lock and bolt being thrown echoed in the dim recesses.

  They had forgotten a dying, flickering torch. Shadows danced on the walls in a mockery of freedom. Water droplets, warmed by the flames, condensed and rained back down on the torch. John saw it as a metaphor for himself, a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. If he could but save that light, he could hold onto hope for but a few moments longer and perceive a means of escape.

  He strained once toward the dying of the light. The flames guttered and died; like all hope had just expired, leaving him in a cold dark world. He slumped, exhausted. His bony hand nearly slid free from the manacle. What luck! A gift from the angels themselves! Could he free himself? His weak heart fluttered that could there be a chance now at freedom that had been so long denied. He had never been this emaciated before. With effort he slipped his hands free for the first time in what? Decades? Centuries? He had no sure idea. Having watched the outside world astrally, he had learned and grown in knowledge but not in the relative time.

  With a spare more effort he stole his feet free from the shackles of flaking, rusted iron. They clacked on the hard granite floor. He was more bone than flesh now.

  In the long darkness he reached the door and tore down the archaic wards of protection and binding from its secure position. Flung to the ground, it shattered into a thousand pieces. More signs and glyphs representing arcane powers meant to hinder his own talents were painted upon the stone walls or even carved on the wood of the door. These he scratched into oblivion or graffitied to destroy their meaning and thusly their inherent powers. The mental prison around him fell like the tumbling of Jericho’s walls. With each defaced ward he felt a relief flood into his mind. No longer was he shackled from extending his power outward either. The door, however, was solid as anything and still kept him trapped in this awful dungeon.

  On the dust of the prison floor, he traced lines of power, letters that the chthonic Angels had shown him centuries ago in another time and place, Enochian letters which, when combined correctly, could answer the secrets of the universe. For now, they would but help him escape this hellhole.

  He reached his senses beyond and felt for the nearest Knight standing at attention up on the closest landing almost three floors above his own deep dungeon.

  “Open,” he whispered in the awful command of the powerful Infernal voice. “Open.”

  ***

  Far above, the Knight shuffled uneasily, unsure he had actually heard anything.

  “Come. Open.”

  He cocked his head toward the stairs leading to the dungeon. Had he heard what he thought? Never before had he heard a voice calling from below.

  “Come. Open.”

  Compelled beyond reason, he shuffled down the stairs, through a wide hallway and storage pantry. Down another flight of stairs to a natural cavern antechamber.

  “Come. Open.”

  There the door to the dungeon stood leering at him.

  “Open.”

  Sure he could not have actually heard a voice, he approached the door.

  “Open.”

  His mind twisted in peril for his own safety and sanity, he knew he had not heard a voice, but was compelled to open and look upon the prisoner; the bag of bones who had been hanging on the wall since the time of his great grandfathers. Each male in his family had done their duty here; a decade of service at this task in the remotest part of the world. Surely, he could look upon that corrupt face of doom one more time and then return to his station.

  He unlocked the door and darkness met him standing there, pitch black, inky darkness yawning away into nothingness.

  “Foolishness,” he muttered to himself.

  “Thank you.”

  He started at the whispered, yet clearly audible greeting, then with a rushing corrupt wind, bony fingers scratched at his throat.

  He had no time to scream as the cold appendages wrapped tightly about his larynx, squeezing. He fought to pull his pistol. His left hand grasped against his opponent and then felt the pommel of his revolver. Drawing in a blind panic, he shot once, twice, thrice. Each shot hit his nemesis, the stinking rag-covered ghoul, square in the chest, and he could feel the ripping impact of the bullets tearing through the monster, but to no avail. The gun rattled to the ground as his life was choked from him.

  ***

  The Infernal voice was a magic John had learned of from the Angels in ages past. It was the same power and voice the Creator had used to frame the world into being and, though the human usage was but a candle compared to the sun in contrast to the creator’s power, it worked very well against those with a weaker will. Putting on the suit of armor was much more difficult than escaping the shackles, but John didn’t want to be noticed, and this was the only disguise he could abscond with.

  By the light of guttering torches, he examined himself in a convex silver tray which became a makeshift mirror. He looked at himself. The grinning death’s head looking back was so different from the self he remembered. The beard was utterly gone as was the light in his eyes. If not for the aches everywhere, he surely would have thought himself an undead revenant, worming back from the depths of hell.

  Creeping up the stairs, he walked in an unnatural gait that would betray him to anyone who looked twice. He could not manage the arrogant swagger of the Knights, the Teutonic discipline, their very strength.

  Up from the dungeon he found himself in a massive Hall. The walls were lined with gongs and drums. Fine banners hung emblazoned with the crimson cross of the Order. The lofty roof above was set with sculpted glyphs and in the center was a magnificent gold planisphere which lit the Hall with a strange light and granted artificial view of the gleaming cosmic host above. Below, the floor had multiple marble tiles arranged to give the impression of a colossal dark wheeling fixture. The Black Sun? It certainly seemed so. The Count must surely be communing with dark forces far beyond anything previously hinted.

  He wasted no more time on these esoteric furnishings and trappings and made his way to a doorway that seemed to have natural light behind it.

  Throwing it open, he awok
e the sleeping stars from their slumber. The first he had seen in centuries. He took in the frozen view and realized there was no escape this way.

  Back inside, he crossed the decadent Hall again and paused while a pair of Knights passed. They glanced at him curiously.

  “Do not see me,” he whispered. He sent the invisible power of his mind outward overpowering their own into thinking him no one—beneath notice.

  They paid him no mind and went their way to the rear.

  A horn blew from some far corner of the fortress and men spilled into the Hall. He walked cautiously now, mindful not to give himself away for the limping gait. There were far too many for him to bend to his will, that and he suspected Edward would be here, too.

  The bodies pressed in and he shuffled surreptitiously about them with some effort. He headed toward the door from whence most of them had come, eager to find the exit from this lofty pinnacle.

  Just as he reached the iron wrought doors, the Count and his bodyguard slammed them shut.

  John backed away and manifested a protection ward in front of himself that he hoped would cloud anyone to noticing him. “Do not see me,” he whispered.

  “Brothers of Agartha, and most noble Knights of St. Germain,” called the Count. He took his place at a podium on a slightly raised rostrum. A golden tripod beside the Count held a brazier from which deliciously intoxicating smells wafted. “I have called this council together. We have received word that we are needed to defend one of our most devoted allies. The NYMZA needs our agents in the retaking of Mexico. This will be a great day for all who volunteer…”

  “Do not see me.”

  The Count paused to stare curiously at John who had inched toward the closed door. “Brother Leopold. Where are you going? Shouldn’t you be on guard duty below?”

  John nodded and turned to scuttle away.

  The Count scrutinized John, peering deep into his soul and recognizing the forgery therein. “That’s not Brother Leopold! Seize him!” shouted the Count. “Tis the Abomination himself!”