Shelton went on, ‘The admiration between Morgan and Crowley was mutual. The two had first met in Paris in the 1920s, and after discovering their shared interest in the black arts Crowley invited the younger man to become inducted into an occult secret society that he had founded himself, the Ancient Order of Thoth.’

Ben felt a prickle up and down his spine. ‘Thoth, the Egyptian bird-headed God.’

‘Whose statue I saw those sickos making their sacrifice to,’ Wolf added.

Shelton’s eyes opened wide. ‘So it’s true. You actually witnessed a human sacrifice taking place?’

‘You think I’d be involved in any of this crap if I hadn’t?’ Wolf replied.

‘I have to see this.’ Shelton grabbed the silver phone and turned it on.

‘Won’t do you any good,’ Ben said. ‘Not without the password, which you don’t get until we’re done talking. Are you saying there’s a connection between this Order of Thoth and the Pandemonium Club?’

Shelton put the phone down with a sigh, biting back his impatience to see the video footage. He replied, ‘Correct.’

And suddenly Ben and Wolf were a big step closer to their target.

Chapter 46

Shelton explained. ‘Aleister Crowley took his inspiration from the same eighteenth-century source he borrowed his motto “Do as thou wilt” from, Francis Dashwood. Just as the Hellfire Club was the outward façade of Dashwood’s occult Knights of St Francis, Crowley devised the idea of the Pandemonium Club as the front for his much more shadowy Order of Thoth. Its beginnings date back to early 1907, when Crowley and his mentor, the British chemist and black magician George Cecil Jones, decided to set up a new occult order to act as a successor to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, from which Crowley had been expelled for being too flamboyant and risqué in his behaviour. The headquarters of his new order were a stately home and large wooded estate in the south of England, donated for that purpose by a rich disciple whom Crowley had been instructing in the black arts. Its exact whereabouts have always remained something of a mystery, strictly off-limits to the uninitiated.’

Ben and Wolf exchanged glances. If Shelton didn’t know about Karswell Hall near Guildford, they’d soon be filling in that gap in his education. For the moment, they let him go on talking. This was getting interesting.

Shelton continued: ‘Within the grounds of the house Crowley was said to have built a shrine to Thoth, whom he considered the most important of the occult deities, god of magic and learning, astrology and all mystical wisdom. As a Satanic cult the aim of the Pandemonium Club and the secret order at its core was not only to practise black magic and invoke dark spirits, but to gain political and social influence and promote the interests of its initiates.’

‘What’s with the name?’ Wolf asked.