Prey For Me Ch. 05

"Jack, you and Abraham mentioned the conversation between Lilith and Dr. Masterson regarding Sasquatch and the Nephilim. Quite interesting. Not the first time I have heard it. Last February there was a program on A & E entitled The Search for the Abominable Snowman. Leonard Nimoy was the narrator and made reference to the hair covered giants of Genesis 6:4 and then in the same breath mentioned the hairy covered Esau. What do you suppose that connection is? He never explained. Leonard ends the program with 'Why does final proof seem to be beyond humanity's reach?' Perhaps because the answer is supernatural? Is there some related explanation for Neanderthal Man, Nephilim and Bigfoot? I wonder."

Jack interrupted, "Caitlin, do you have a big problem with squirrels in your part of the country? You are definitely squirrel bait. I have another question.

What do you know about a band called Fields of the Nephilim and in particular one of their songs, Watchmen?"

"Quite a bit, actually. I can sing a bit of Watchmen. Want to hear? Too bad, I'm doing it anyway. I'm in the mood. First, I want a double shot of tequila." Abraham happened to be nearby and ran and got an entire bottle and three large shot glasses. "You even got the right stuff, Abe baby, Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine. You know, the tune Jose Cuervo by Shelley West. Caitlin poured and downed a double before anyone could even propose a toast. And then she sang.

"Well it's Sunday Mornin'
And the sun is shinin'
In my eye that is open
And my head is spinnin.'
Was the life of the party
I can't stop grinnin.'
I had too much tequila last night.

Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine.
I like to drink you with a little salt and lime.
Did I kiss all the cowboys?
Did I shoot out the lights?
Did I dance on the bar?
Did I start a fight?

Now wait a minute
Things don't look too familiar.
Who is this cowboy
Who's sleepin' beside me?
He's awful cute, but how'd I get his shirt on?
I had too much tequila last night.

Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine.
I like to drink you with a little salt and lime.
Did I kiss all the cowboys?
Did I shoot out the lights.
Did I dance on the bar?
Did I start a fight?

All those little shooters
How I love to drink 'em down.
Come on bartender
Let's have another round.
Well the music is playing
And my spirits are high.
Tomorrow might be painful
But tonight we're gonna fly.

Jose Cuervo you are a friend of mine.
I like to drink you with a little salt and lime.
Every time we get together
I sure have a good time.
You're my friend
You're the best
Mi amigo."

Brett and Jack were stunned. Caitlin had a fantastic voice. All who heard her were applauding and whistling in appreciation. "What are you, the Native American version of Madonna?" Brett stammered and all three choked in mirth.

Caitlin quickly downed another double shot and said, "Listen to this one," which she sang much softer.

"My life's turning pages, I see a promised day.

Watchmen never age here, they just sleep in vain.

Drowning people stare here, they don't care to call.

So I rebury the pages, Kthulhu calls ... "

"You know what that's from. Watchmen, huh? The watchers, the fallen angels, of The Book of Enoch perhaps? There is no doubt that Carl McCoy, the leader of the band and vocalist, was very influenced by scriptural accounts of the Nephilim. The other band members followed his lead."

"I do believe the name Kthulhu with a K in the song comes from Cthulhu with a C found in the horror fiction of one H.P. Lovecraft written seventy or so years ago. Cthulhu was the leader of the Great Old Ones who now lie dormant until the stars are right when they will rise and enslave humanity."

"You may have heard of Necronomicon, also known as Kithab Al Azif or The Book of the Names of the Dead. Many claim it is the most evil book ever written. One popular theory is that this book was written in the eighth century in Damascus by Abdul Alhazred. The other popular theory is that the book was merely a creation of Lovecraft to give more substance to his stories. It is rather impossible to separate the truth from the fantasy regarding this book. What is certain is that Carl McCoy and the band Field of Nephilim were deeply influenced by the Necronomicon.

"I lugged your notebook computer along, Jack, because I just knew something would come up where I'd want to get on line. I'm going to go plug this in and find something. Be right back."

Jack told Brett some further details of the two murdered professors that he did not particularly want to share with Caitlin yet. She returned in fifteen minutes.

"Listen to this. But first Jack, who the hell is this Samantha? I couldn't help but read your e-mail. Hey, you looked through my purse. And they say phone sex is hot? Geez, mawn, that girl has a thing for you! OK, OK, this is from Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu published in 1926.

'That cult would never die until the stars came right again and the secret priest would take Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild, and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting the killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.'

"Pretty interesting, eh? And doesn't that kind of talk just sound familiar? Hey

guys, I'm tired of talking and just plain tired. Let's call it a night and start again first thing in the morning. I wake when the sun rises." They both gave her an 'Oh shit' look.

Caitlin pounded on their doors very early the next morning and wouldn't quit until they responded. "Come over to my room as soon as you are like ready to face the world. But not more than fifteen minutes. I have juice, coffee and a bite of breakfast."

Brett and Jack were sitting in Caitlin's room drinking their first cup of coffee well within the fifteen minute time limit. "Hey you guys, did you ever hear the song I Feel Like Homemade Shit by the Fugs? That's what you two look like." They both groaned.

"Start talking, Caitlin, " Jack demanded. "Obviously as you pointed out, we are in no condition yet to communicate effectively. Tell us in particular what you know about Sir Richard Francis Burton and The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nafzaoui."

"Well, I just knew you were going to ask me about that. In case you didn't notice through those bleary eyes, if you look over there on the bed you can see I also brought my notebook computer. The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nafzaoui is on line and I would like to read an excerpt. This is just one paragraph to give you the flavor of this erotic work. From Chapter 9, Sundry Names Given to the Sexual Organs of Women. Page 4, 'El tsequil, the importunate - This is the vulva which is never tired of taking in the member. This latter might pass a hundred nights with it, and walk in a hundred times ever night, still that vulva would not be sated - nay, it would still want more, and would not allow the member to come out again at all, if it was possible. With such a vulva the parts are exchanged; the vulva is the pursuer, the member the pursued. Luckily it is a rarity, and only found in a small number of women, who are wild with passion, all on fire, and in flame.' Pretty good stuff, 'eh guys?"

"Now that you guys are waking up, I'll get to what you really want to know. You want to know about Sir Richard Francis Burton and vampires and bigfoots, right? You already know he published Vikram and the Vampire or Tales of Hindu Devilry and Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo."

Caitlin continued, "Jack, you talked on the phone to my on line fellow red friend Nathaniel, or so he told me. He said he told you all about Lilith. No, not your Lilith, the murder suspect."

Jack was stunned and looked at Brett sternly. "Did you tell her? I told you not yet."

"No, he didn't tell me, Jack," Caitlin chided, "and why are you keeping secrets from me? You don't think I have my own sources? Didn't you look through my purse, Jack? Well, I looked through Brett's briefcase while he was taking a little snooze and I read the Lilith File. I know about the two guys who got offed and got their cocks sucked all the way off." She didn't let Jack and Brett recover enough to say anything. "Back to the historical Lilith, the first vampire, according to my friend Nathaniel and others. Let's see if I can tie some of this together, the vampire business and Sir Richard Francis Burton."

"I'm not going to do all the homework for you guys. Go look this stuff up yourself. I'll give you a few clues. Did you ever see the movie Mountains of the Moon with Patrick Bergin? All about Sir Richard Francis Burton and the search for the source of the Nile river. Intriguing flick. Go rent it. Bergin was in Patriot Games with Harrison Ford and also The Lost World based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book about a scientist looking for dinosaurs."

"Talking about movies, are you aware of the connection between Sir Richard Francis Burton and Dram Stoker? Stoker of course didn't just write Dracula. He wrote seventeen other novels, most of which were about supernatural phenomena. Most say Bram Stoker's Dracula was based upon Vlad Tepus, also known as Dracul, the fifteenth century Romanian prince. There is another much less known theory. Bram Stoker met Sir Richard Francis Burton on a train ride to Ireland in 1878. Stoker wrote of Burton in his book Reminiscences of Henry Irving, ' ... the man riveted my attention. He was dark and forceful, and masterful, and ruthless. I have never seen so iron a countenance.' The two met at length on several other occasions and Stoker was obsessed with, of all things, Burton's teeth. Of those he wrote, 'As he spoke the upper lip rose and his canine tooth showed its full length like the gleam of a dagger.' Stoker was obsessed with vampires, particularly the Dearg-Due, the ancient Irish female blood suckers."

"Back to Sir Richard Francis Burton," Caitlin continued, "there is great mystery surrounding the disappearance of some of his unpublished work after his death. Much of what he did publish is very controversial. What he didn't publish and what disappeared is rumored to be even more controversial."

"Burton published a work entitled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. It was a ten-volume translation of the Arabian Nights that was privately printed. There were originally only around a thousand copies and in that original offering was an essay on pederasty. That essay which dealt with such things as bordellos featuring boys and eunuchs was omitted from many subsequent editions of this work."

"Sir Richard was also an English Freemason as were some other noteworthy characters such as Sir Winston Churchill, Bishop Percy Herbert of Norwich and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Did you know that The Book of Enoch is of utmost importance to Freemasons? I read a book by Graham Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, which ties the Freemasons to Enoch quite nicely. Here in our country of course we have the Shriners, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, which only admits Freemasons who have achieved a certain status or degree."

"Jack, I recall you relating a conversation initiated by this Danel who possibly abducted Laurie Johnston, our first mysterious disappearance, about the pyramid on the back of a one dollar bill. That pyramid on the dollar and the one on the Great Seal of the United States are often claimed to be Masonic symbols."

"Many of the white eyes who are considered the founding fathers of this country were Masons. In 1776 four members made up the committee overseeing the creation of the design of a seal to represent the new American nation. They were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Pierre Du Simitiere who was responsible for artistic input. Franklin was definitely a Mason. The Masonic Order has existed in one form or another since the building of the Great Pyramid. Today's Masonic Orders are versions of ancient secret societies into things like building a deathless body called Solomon's Temple."

"The official explanation of the Great Seal is that the unfinished pyramid is the Great Pyramid at Giza. The eye was suggested by Du Simitiere and the radiant triangle by Jefferson. A mystical triangle was an Egyptian symbol representing Osiris, Isis and Orus. A mystical triangle and the eye are important symbols of Freemasonry. The Altar and the Jewels of the Royal Arch Masons are triangles as are many other symbolic images. The Masonic symbol of the Grand Architect of the Universe is a triangle and the all-seeing eye."

"Are you two guys getting bored with my mindless drivel yet?"

"No, no way," Brett assured her. "This is fascinating my dear." Jack nodded affirmatively.

"Not to worry. I will tie this all together. In Masonic ritual, we have that great allegory, the legend of the master builder, Hiram Abiff, the son of the widow. The widow is thought to be Isis, the black virgin. Masonic philosophy and others such as Quabbalistic and Rosicrucian point to the dark Shulamite maiden of the Song of Solomon as Isis. Now, Jack, didn't you say that our first mysterious disappearance, Laurie Johnston, was a Song of Solomon fan? As I recall those pages were ripped out of a bible and found in her bedroom. Now isn't this all just such a coincidence?"

"Speaking of the Song of Solomon," Caitlin rose and retrieved the King James Version of the bible from the dresser drawer, "most interpretations are absurd. The Jews consider it an allegory embracing Jehovah and Israel. The Catholics maintain it is all about the Virgin Mary. The Protestants view it as Christ and the Church. Pure rubbish. They can't even figure out how many speakers there are, seven not two. Whether you believe the Song of Solomon is divinely inspired or not, it is definitely a work of erotic love."

"Let's see, 1:5, 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.' She is black. Dark. Dusky. Just how dark is she? Kedar or the Hebrew 'qedar' means dusky or dark, of the skin or of the tents. Kedar was the second son of Ishmael. Various passages in the bible associate Kedar with Arabs. But the Shulamite maiden was not a descendent of Ishmael. Try his brother."

"The Shulamite maiden's skin was dark, dusky, obviously darker than her peers, the other daughters of Jerusalem. We know from verses like 1:8, 'O thou fairest among women that she was the most beautiful woman around. The word 'fairest' translated from the Hebrew 'yapheh' has nothing to do with skin color. It means beautiful, extraordinarily comely, very bright. The Shulamite maiden is from Shulem also known as Shunem. She is of the tribe of Issachar; a descendent of Shem, Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Issachar. But she is dark-skinned, much darker than the other daughters of Jerusalem."

"In verse 1:6, 'Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.' The Shulamite maiden is black 'because the sun hath looked upon me' you say? Her suntan right? Well, isn't that just a prosopopoeia one might ask, a figure of speech, a thing represented as a person? No, I don't think her skin is darker than her contemporaries because of a suntan. I do not think that is why the Shulamite maiden is very aware of prejudice regarding the color of one's skin. The word 'black' in this verse, what does it mean? The word 'black' is translated from the Hebrew 'shachor' derived from the root 'shachar' which means duskiness or darkness of the early dawn. The 'I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me' means she is dusky as the sun appearing above the eastern horizon, the early dawn. She is relegated to be 'keeper of the vineyards' because of prejudice."

"What are all these Black Madonnas and Black Virgins all about? Jung said she is Isis. Isis? Remember what I said about the radiant triangle? Others say the Shulamite maiden is Venus, Diana, Inanna, Lilith and others. Right, our friend, Lilith. Some say she is Mary Magdalene who some say was Jesus' lover. And then we have the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, the black Virgin Mary and we have the Vierge Noires found throughout France? And what about the dusky gypsy maidens of Saintes Maries de la Mer know her as Sara-la-Kali?"

"Since Jesus is worshipped as a chaste God by many major religions, it is provocative to fantasize an erotic life for Him. D.H. Lawrence was perhaps the first serious author to do so in The Man Who Died which he wrote in 1927. His Christian critics of course called his work the ultimate in blasphemy. Jesus became a lover of the priestess of Isis in the story."

"What's my point boys? Well, I'm not exactly sure. But I do know that the Song of Solomon is perhaps the most controversial part of the bible and for some reason our ladies who mysteriously disappeared were all of a sudden very interested in these verses, much as they were with The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nazfaoui. Why? I would look to the definite possibility of the tall strangers who apparently persuaded these women to vanish as being the ones who turned the ladies on to erotica, in the biblical sense and otherwise."

"Back to Sir Richard Francis Burton. Much of the controversy surrounding Burton revolves around what his wife Isabel did with his unpublished work after his death in 1890. One of those unpublished works was The Scented Garden, a new and improved translation of The Perfumed Garden of Sheik Nefzauoi. According to the story, Isabel burned all copies of The Scented Garden. Neither the original manuscript nor any copies have ever been found. Why did Isabel burn this book? Do any copies exist somewhere?"

"Six years after Sir Richard's death his wife Isabel died. Shortly thereafter, in London, many of his other unpublished works, journals and personal letters were also burned. A few manuscripts that did survive were later published such as Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel and Exploration and The Jew, The Gypsy, and El Islam."

"One other interesting story about Burton is that he was responsible for proliferating the use of the word assassin which is derived from the Arabic word hashishin. The hashishin were a band of killers who used cannabis extensively themselves but were more infamous for drugging others with it, particularly women they intended to seduce and potential victims they intended to assassinate. Some say the word hashishin was used first during the Crusades. In any event, it is clear Burton used the word but what is not clear is to whom he was referring. It could be he was referring to the Isma'ilianism or assassins of his time but that is not substantiated."

Just then the phone in Caitlin's room rang. The call was for Jack. It was Sam Hanson calling from Las Vegas. He was on a speaker phone with Frankie Mancuso, the security chief of the casino where the first murder occurred, and another man whose voice Jack recognized. Another Lilith murder Sam informed him. The victim had just been discovered. Hanson had made Jack aware of his suspicions several weeks ago but at that time there was no body. Jack told Sam he was on his way, and he took Brett and Caitlin with him.

To Be Continued...