Invoking Aziuth
I lifted my eyes for only a moment. His form was unspeakable. An insidious darkness, a void opened to reality. My body lost all its strength, I fell to the floor, loosing my bladder. “Speak, slave.” The demon’s voice was sharp, metallic.
I strained to lift my head again, to behold the horrifying shape of Aziuth. My flesh wanted flee the utter awfulness of the moment. My voice failed me. The demon made a deep, almost purring noise. Like a satisfied lion about to eviscerate his prey. “O great Aziuth, dread prince of spoiled flesh and broken slaves. Favor me now. Favor me with one request.”
“Speak.” I’ve always admired the Devil. Not so much for all the genocide and misery he’s instigated, but because Satan is the original freethinker. It says somewhere in the Bible that Lucifer was once one of God’s highest and most beautiful of angels, but one day he decided he’d had enough of serving God and was ready to start taking care of himself. I like that. I’ve tried to live out that attitude in my own life. I’ve blazed my own path and searched out my own knowledge. It’s led to some unexpected turns… Children with No Hearts In the summer of 2013 I ran across a curious news story out Rosenberg, Ohio, a small town in the southeast end of the state. In the course of 3 days, four teenage boys were found dead in two separate incidents. The first pair was found dead in a cemetery. The second in the sanctuary of a Methodist church. Both times there was no sign of struggle, distress, or cause of death. Later autopsies, however, revealed missing hearts in each victim. The story ran for about a day before disappearing. As a connoisseur of the bizarre and grotesque stories, I was intrigued, but with so little to go on, I thought little of it. When later that October, three new cases were reported, my interest was peaked. The stories were from across the country: Raleigh, North Carolina; Davenport, Arizona; and New Salem, California, totaling seven victims that Fall. In each incident, the victims were teenagers, found in cemeteries or churches, no signs of foul play, but each was missing their heart. Again, the stories ran for about a day or two before being removed. A little extra digging into the cases (side note: you’d be surprised at how little cyber security most police departments utilize), added some details to cases: First, peculiar items were found at each crime scene. At the first two candles and a broken mirror were found. The third, about a pint of spilled feline blood and rose petals. The final two: a broken mirror, five smooth black stones, and broken bird and hamster cages (respectively). Second, the teenagers had reputation for being “weird” and/or “into witchcraft.” Third, there was no sign of cutting or removal of the hearts. It was as though they simply had never been there. Fourth, police were utterly baffled as to the identity of the assailant, means, or motive. Authorities, of course, deduced the victims were doing something occult-related but were stumped otherwise. After my research, the situation became plain to me. These imbeciles had tried to invoke a spirit—and failed. Infernal Conversation They weren’t the first to have the notion. Honestly, any half-wit with a Ouija board, or even Scrabble tiles, can make contact with spirits. I’m pretty sure there’s a Wikipedia article about it. It’s not that hard.
What these morons were attempting was something much more daring and perilous: they were attempting to summon a demon for conversation. In all my years of exploring the occult, I’ve never intentionally tried to contact a demon. Why? Demons are prickly by nature (to say the least). They are pitiless, deceptive, and unwaveringly sadistic. They are almost unendingly brilliant and unfathomably powerful. They also hate being bothered or bored. As the kids with missing hearts found out, pissing off a demon can have dire consequences. That’s not to say demons don’t like to talk. That’s their weakness. Like their Father Below, dark spirits have enormous egos and they love to show off. A well-performed invocation ritual can stir a demon’s pride enough to share all sorts of chthonian secrets. Can you imagine what could be learned by speaking with a being who has existed for eons? Who watched while the Almighty Himself wove time and matter into existence with a word? What puzzles of Reality could be solved for the first time! Or the honor of standing with the great occultic masters who themselves had personal demonic encounters and lived to tell of it? As I considered these things, my chest ached. I wondered if I could succeed where others had failed. Could I stand with the masters? Could I learn the ancient and marvelous secrets others have longed for? I’ve always had an insatiable hunger for knowledge and I felt that appetite whetted. Exploring the Sulphurous Order Initiating a tête-à-tête with one of the Fallen requires intense planning, skill, and not a little luck. If I didn’t want to end up like those lackwits with the missing hearts, I’d first need to see where they’d gone wrong. It didn’t take long. The fact that seven people from across the country suddenly decided to attempt an invoking ritual with disastrous results indicated to me that they didn’t get this out of a book. They’d been on the internet. I found the link with relative ease. The ritual described was meant to call Aziuth, a demon who allegedly specialized in riddles. The ritual itself was a little awkward but essentially right, I knew. All the elements were there: an act of service to get the spirit’s attention, a gift to honor it, proper words of invitation to speak to it. The description of the encounter itself though was something else though. According to the guide, if successfully performed, the mortal interlocutor could ask one question to which the demon was bound to answer honestly. In return, the malevolent spirit was allowed to ask one riddle which must be solved. Failure to correctly solve the riddle would have devastating consequences, but these could be warded off by using a mirror to trick the demon. No wonder those kids died. For the next two weeks, I spent each night after work feverishly reading and studying late into the night. My own research into Aziuth revealed he was worshipped for a short while by the early Hittites and Chaldeans as a minor deity. He was known for exchanging knowledge and solving riddles in exchange for the hearts of slaves sacrificed to him. He remains one of the only dark spirits thought to tell the truth 100% of the time, apparently seeing lying to a human as debasing himself. Aziuth worship continued throughout history but only among obscure cults with fetishes for knowledge of the Other. According to die dunkel Metaphysik, Aziuth’s primary motivation is gaining slaves for himself in the spiritual realm, “Unlike others in the Sulphurous Order who exchange favors with mortals for the sake of influence and power in the human realm, Aziuth only wants souls.” Maleficent beings often attempt to collect followers, but in the case of Aziuth, he has no desire to gain living, human followers. Instead, he collects slaves for the spiritual realm. To what specific end, I don’t care to speculate. À travers le voile d’or confirms the same, observing, “Aziuth appears to condescend to answer human questions only in hopes of ensnaring souls. Above all, Aziuth craves more servants to absorb.” Practically, this meant that Aziuth would be one of the most dangerous spirits to try to invoke. Unlike other devils, he likely wouldn’t be looking to write a contract, answer questions for the sake of showing off, or try to convince me to assist him to more nefarious ends. Aziuth would be hungry to add me immediately to his menagerie of eternally anguished slaves. The key to escape would be the question. I needed something that would allow me to glimpse the Other without forfeiting my soul. Filling the Bucket At this point either cowardice or sanity should have broken in to give me pause. What was I doing? Risking my eternal soul to what end? What question could be worth such danger? But it never happened. In my feverish state of mind, I could only see the glory of triumphing over the demon. I set to work on my preparations which I knew would require at least another month. To begin I would need an empty paint bucket. As I mentioned before, contacting spirits is truly not difficult. Ghosts and other lesser spectral beings tend to be accessible – even chatty. This is why some have glimpsed the other side by just casually experimenting with even mere playing cards. Demons, on the other hand, have a much higher opinion of themselves, and are thus much harder to provoke to conversation. This is where the Invoking Ritual comes into play. (Granted, occasionally a person will speak with an infernal spirit through a Ouija board, but I don’t recommend it. Such spirits have a tendency to be even more unpredictably violent and compulsively cruel than even your average Fallen. These are the kinds of spirits who won’t hesitate to take that first contact as an invitation to enter your home/life and start tearing things apart just for kicks. Even Satan’s army has a few thrill-seeking psychotics.) At its heart, the Invoking Ritual is an invitation to a spirit to appear to you. Depending on the level of or specific demon you’re calling, the ritual itself can be long, complex, and costly (in more than one way). A poorly done Invocation will usually mean that nothing happens. Sometimes though, a ham-fisted attempt will be interpreted as an insult to the demon. In Aziuth’s case, he might collect my heart before I could even ask my question. First, an act of service must be performed. Usually the act of service is meant to be a sign or foretaste of later favors to be offered. Almost inevitably, the act of service involves the desecration of a holy or sacred place. This is why all of the 2013 deaths took place in graveyards and churches. The older or more significant the location, the better. Sometimes the act of desecration is not only about swimming naked in your local baptistery or Holy Font or turning all the crosses upside down. For those higher up in the Sulphurous Order, they require an act of personal desecration. I won’t get into what that means other than to say, they want to see you mar the imago Dei found in your own soul…or another person’s. For my own act of service, I chose Philip Road Baptist Church. A small, countrified house of worship with no security system beyond the deadbolt on the front door. The church has stood for almost 70 years, and if the attendance board at the front of the sanctuary is right, they boast almost 120 on Sunday morning. It took me almost two weeks to find it. I’d really have rather performed the ritual in a Catholic church, if for no other reason than the sense of tradition and ritual is stronger (have you ever been to a Catholic wedding? How about spill some of the communion wine?!) Unfortunately, Our Lady of Fatima is much more distrustful and had invested in ADT security. For the act of service itself, I was able to buy a liter of fresh pig blood from a local butcher. I told him I was making blood sausage and pudding. “You don’t look the chef-type,” said the coarse old man.
“Yeah, I’m branching out a bit. Would fifty do?”
I had to pay him a hundred bucks for it and he made me wait a week and half for it. He eyeballed me the entire time like he was memorizing my face for later, probably “just in case.” After the act of service, a gift is usually expected. This was the part I dreaded most. For my gift, I found a hyper Lab-mix awaiting execution at the pound. His name was Edgar. The worker warned me it was considered a “problem dog.” Not sure what to say, I mumbled a response and left to shop for kibble. Having all of this in place, I spent the next three days putting the final touches on my preparations. I planned my route, purchased my extra candles, and other odds and ends. I scoured the old texts for the right words of invocation. Again, invocations are more like an invitation than a summons. Summoning a spirit suggests you have a measure of control over it. When it comes to infernal powers, you have zero ability to compel or coerce. Thus, the words of the invocation are a special plea for their favor; an appeal for them to demonstrate their power. Demons aren’t looking for the poetry of Milton or Tennyson, but they do respond to a well-turned phrase. Toward the end of my preparation, I began a six day fast. Spirits are attuned to our physical states (probably as a means of better manipulating us). By fasting before the ritual, I hoped that Aziuth would see how committed and desperate to speak with him. As a further step to prove my utter meekness, I filled the paint bucket during my days of fasting, just in case Aziuth demanded a final proof my humility. A Rusted Edge The month of preparation had passed in a blur. My hunger to know had turned into an obsessive quest, especially toward the end. I stopped returning missed calls and answering emails. Unpaid bills piled up by front door. I exhausted all my sick time and started using vacation days at work. The concerned calls from friends and odd looks from neighbors didn’t faze me. When the utility company turned off the power, I simply started working by candlelight. Wednesday, the night before I planned to perform the Invoking, I had a terrifying moment of clarity. I was standing in my tool shed, looking at the various garden tools searching for my metal grinder so I could sharpen my hunting knife. Eddie was in the yard chasing his own tail. An old garden spade caught my eye for some reason. In particular the dull, rusted edge. Between all the obsessive reading and planning and thinking and the endless damn fasting, I’d forgotten to sleep. At that point, I think I’d been awake for almost 40 hours. I stood staring at that rusted edge for nearly five minutes, completely blank. That’s when finally, my moment of clear-thinking arrived to my great horror. In all the obsessive reading and planning and thinking and the damn endless fasting, I’d forgotten to come up with a question. THE QUESTION! I began to tremble. The shed blurred and spun. I heard myself laughing—or maybe sobbing. A voice spoke from the darkness of my backyard. “Paige County PD,” the voice announced, “Sir, are you all right?”
The world swam back into focus. My hand was throbbing. I cleared my throat, trying to gain composure.
“What? No. What, what’s going on?” I heard myself whine. I couldn’t control my voice. My hand throbbed insistently.
“Neighbors reported—” a beam of light, “Hey, what’s that in your hand?”
“Oh,” I looked down, saw the rusted spade fall from my hand with a gout of livid blood. The world faded again. I lay devastated in the hospital bed. My injured left hand felt heavy and numb. Gripped by both rage and despair, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to scream or throw up. My fantasies of glory lay ruined in my tool shed. How could I have been so stupid! So short-sighted! Now I waited to hear what fresh humiliation was awaiting me. Apparently in my terrible moment of lucidity, I started laughing (or crying, there are conflicting reports) so loudly I woke the neighbors and scared their kids. I had carried on like this in my dimly lit tool shed for about fifteen minutes before the responding officer arrived. During that intervening fifteen minutes I also apparently had grabbed hold of the rusty and surprisingly sharp edge of the hand spade I had earlier been studying and sliced open my hand. That’s how the officer found me, laughing (or sobbing) uncontrollably in my backyard, holding the bloody garden spade. Two hours and ten stitches later, I came around. I spent the next two hours trying to convince the cop, the ER doc, and the attending physician from the psych floor that no, I wasn’t suicidal or having psychotic thoughts, I was just overworked, over-stressed, and sleep-deprived. They each listened with a mixture of polite indulgence and skepticism; their antennae specially attuned to detect BS. While I knew I didn’t have any fear from a legal standpoint, I was afraid they would try to keep me on a 72-hour psych hold as a safety precaution. I wasn’t sure if I could suffer the indignity. I lay quietly on the bed, replaying my answers to the doctor from the psych floor over and over again, preparing myself when a pretty, auburn-haired nurse came in. “Hey there, how’re we feeling?”
“Not bad. Pride hurts a bit,” I tried to chuckle, but came up dry.
“Hm. Well, Dr. Francisco is writing your discharge papers, so you’re about go home.” She pulled the IV as she spoke. I tried not to wince as the sting as she withdrew the needle.
“Great. I’m ready to get home.”
“I bet. You need to rest. The doctor is writing you a prescription for some medicine to help you sleep. I hear you were awake for almost 40 hours? What is it that’s kept you up so long?” She asked as she busied herself preparing my departure.
“Oh, uh, I’ve just been trying to work on a problem. Kind of untangling a riddle.” I said, sitting up and swinging my legs over the bed.
“I’ve never really cared for riddles. I prefer things to just be straightforward. Be as they are,” she observed, “Well, here’s your bag of clothes if you want to change out of that gown. Someone will be back to walk you out once the papers are signed.” I stumbled into my house exhausted, aching, and defeated. The idiot dog met me at the door, wagging his tail, happy to see me. Ignoring Edgar and shedding clothes along the way, I willed myself down the hallway and to my bedroom. I fell into the crumpled sheets expecting to sleep a few hours. Edgar urged me awake Saturday morning: his cold wet nose pressing into my bare chest, his rough tongue dragging across my face. I shooed him away, but my aching bladder coaxed me out of bed. It would be another hour before I realized I had slept two whole days.
As I relieved myself I heard the pretty nurse’s voice echo in my mind. I almost pitied her. I never really cared for puzzles.
Just another person who doesn’t like to think.
I prefer things to be just straightforward.
Just another sheep.
Be as they are.
I knew the solution to my problem. Calling the Unspeakable I felt like a man resurrected. Lazarus himself probably didn’t feel as alive as I. Feeling fresh and rested, I attacked the final preparations with a near-giddiness. By the afternoon, everything was organized and ready. Each step of the ritual meticulously planned and prepared. No more delays. No mistakes. Edgar and I set out a little after midnight. I regretted losing the two previous days but hoped the demon would take special pleasure in seeing the desecrating ritual on the Sabbath. Driving the church, I remembered a passage from the Dürr-i Meknûn, a 15th century Turkish text, which warns that when mortals encounter the Other, there is inevitable metamorphosis. I wondered what my own change would be like. The dark sanctuary felt preternaturally still. A thunderous quiet. Dappled moonlight splashed across the wooden pews and glinted off the gold-leafed pages of the open Bible on the pulpit. There were no statues of saints or portraits of biblical figures in the church, but I felt the heavy gaze of many disapproving eyes. I stripped my clothes, leaving them at the threshold between the sanctuary and the foyer of the small church. Aziuth would not suffer such pride. After tying Edgar to a pew a few rows back from the front, I walked the aisle alone with my duffel bag of supplies. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to offer Edgar. My stitched hand throbbed. To begin, I used the liter of pig’s blood to christen the two symbols of renewal: the baptistery and the pulpit, smearing them both with the dark and sticky liquid. Using my finger, I drew pagan symbols in the blood. The remainder I used to draw a large pentagram on the floor in front of the altar. Next I drew out five tall, black candles and placing them on the perimeter of the pentagram. Moving counter-clockwise, I lit each candle while muttering a blasphemy. My act of desecration.
I set back on my knees, naked and smeared in gore. I whispered the words of invitation to the unhallowed silence.
The quiet persisted. I repeated the invitation, louder, begging the honor of putrid and awful presence of Aziuth.
The quiet persisted. Stretching prone on the floor, I strained my voice repeating the invocation.
The quiet persisted. Drawing myself up again, I reached for the hunting knife and let it glide in an arc across my chest. The wound wept scarlet. I screamed the words again.
Silence. In desperation, I reached for the paint bucket of excrement that I had filled during my week of fasting. Picking up the sloshing pail, about to pour it over myself as a final demonstration of humility, I heard a soft whine. I turned my head slightly, I saw Edgar at the end of his leash, backing away, whining softly. I lowered the pail carefully and scanned the darkness. Nothing. Was it – It was the odor that announced his arrival. The most awful, putrescent stink I’ve ever known. It smelled like the church was filled with thousands of bloated, sun-baked corpses. I dry-heaved at the stench, my stomach roiling and violently twisting in revolt.
The stitches of my injured hand burst. I lifted my eyes for only a moment. His form was unspeakable. An insidious darkness, a void opened to reality.
Aziuth had come! My body lost all its strength, I fell to the floor loosing my bladder.
“Speak, slave.” The demon’s voice was sharp, metallic.
I strained to lift my head again, to behold the horrifying shape of Aziuth. My flesh wanted flee the utter awfulness of the moment. My voice failed me. The demon made a deep, almost purring noise. Like a satisfied lion about to eviscerate his prey. “O great Aziuth, dread prince of spoiled flesh and broken slaves. Favor me now. Favor me with one request.”
“Speak.” He commanded, impatient.
“Show me your true form,” I managed before my forehead hit the ground again. The awful purring stopped. The air grew hot and dense. I could feel the floor vibrating beneath me. I heard a wet, choking noise. I lifted my head, my limbs suddenly feeling weightless. In front of me, I saw what looked like the moldering corpse of a malformed fetus. The torso was frightful: pale and rubbery, with a twisted and exposed spine. The limbs were shrunken, useless. The head was enormous and misshapen with an open cavity for a nose and long, jagged teeth. The Thing seemed to struggle to breathe and wallowed uselessly on the floor. I got to my feet and looked in utter shock at the creature.
“Aziuth?” I said in dumbstruck.
It coughed in response.
I stood a moment. Was this a trap? Some deception? No, I realized, Aziuth does not deceive. He only gives naked truth.
“You’re pathetic,” I approached slowly, “I crapped more frightening things than you in that bucket over there.” The monster’s pale body turned rosy, it tried to kick a withered leg. “I could crush you right now, couldn’t I?” I put my foot on its enormous and nauseating head, “That’s what a worm like you deserves, isn’t it?” Edgar suddenly appeared. Having chewed through his leash, he approached the monster, curious. He sniffed it, licked the rubbery form, and then lifted his leg. A laugh burst from my lips. The great and terrible Aziuth had just been pissed on by a dog who was going to be his sacrifice. “Are you really so pitiful, Aziuth?”
The tiny demon’s body shook with rage. The Metamorphosis I don’t remember what happened next beyond a deafening clap of thunder. When I woke, I was back in the hospital. The same pretty, auburn-haired nurse tending to me though I don’t know if she recognizes me. Aziuth aided my metamorphosis. Two things to know about demons: First, before their Fall, demons were magnificently beautiful creatures. If we could see angels in their pure form, we’d probably mistake them for gods or goddesses. Demons, however, lost that when they lost Heaven. Thus, they often change their form when appearing to humans (all the better to deceive or overwhelm us). Second, like I said before, demons have huge egos. Martin Luther once said if you can’t drive the devil away with scripture, jeer him. Satan can’t stand to be made fun of. That’s how I figured out how to defeat Aziuth. There would be no way I could outwit him on his own terms, asking and answering riddles. The only means of defeating him would be to force him to show me his true form and then humiliate him. The only thing I hadn’t taken into account was what Aziuth would do in retaliation. My once slender frame is now bloated to about four-hundred pounds. My legs and right arm have shrunken to useless appendages. My mouth is stretched into a permanent and frightening half-grin and my right eye-socket has drifted down next to my nose. Thankfully, despite all of this, I can still speak and my left hand can still write. The doctors and police are baffled. No one knows how I could have ended up in this condition, or how I ended up in a small Baptist church, covered in blood with a dog. Knowing comes with a cost. It’s steeper than I would have imagined, but I don’t regret it. I always admired the Devil, so it’s fitting that I probably look a bit like him. Credit To – Anselm Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.