Silver Nitrate(51)

I stood in disbelief looking at the brown-skinned man and realized I was feeling magic. This man was performing an actual spell.

My studies of von List, as well as knowledge acquired from my father and other learned men, had taught me that magic was the divine right of my kind. Here, however, was this leathery little man stirring pebbles and telling fortunes.

This marked the third crucial point of change in my life. I began to prod for answers, intent on understanding what I had witnessed. I thought back to Ernst Sch?fer and Hans F. K. Günther, both of whom had theorized that Nordic tribes had at one point escaped into Asia after a great catastrophe. Walther Wüst spoke of an empire of Aryans that had declined due to miscegenation, giving birth to the high castes of ancient India and Persia. Eventually, my thoughts solidified. Had Edmund Kiss not told my own father that after the fall of Atlantis the ancient Aryans had fled to the Andes? Had I not heard chatter about geomantic lines across continents? I had derided those around me as untermenschen capable of only inspiring pity, yet I began to rethink my ideas.

I had, in many ways, stumbled in the dark, ignoring the ultimate truth of my abilities. For I had tapped into a web of power birthed by the ancient magic of my Aryan ancestors. There was no doubt that these ancestors, who had once ruled over mankind, had left their marks on the world and on certain people. I therefore determined to meet with as many priests, shamans, and sorcerers as I could throughout South America, attempting to seize the remnants of knowledge they preserved from the ancient times.



Montserrat checked another note that she’d pinned to her corkboard. Walther Wüst had been a high-ranking official in the Ahnenerbe, and Edmund Kiss believed the ruins of Tiwanaku were built by an ancient Nordic race who had migrated from the Lost City of Atlantis. Ewers had apparently been familiar with a large body of Nazi pseudo-scientific theories and racist rants. He’d held on tightly to them, so that by 1961 he was probably muttering many of the things he’d babbled in 1941.

    My progress was at first slow, but my natural ease with languages and my determination allowed me mastery not only of Spanish, but an understanding of Quechua and Aymara. Thus, I met with and acquired the knowledge of many talented soothsayers and sorcerers.

Some of these people turned me away, but this did not deter me. Yet there was one encounter that affected me. I had sought audience with an old woman who practiced a certain type of magic I was interested in, but the woman refused to converse with me, saying that she did not trade in blood magic. When I asked for clarification, she said that I carried two deaths and again reiterated that, although powerful, blood magic was not something she would abide, nor would she abide me.

That meeting rattled me. I realized that the woman was referring to my father’s death and L’s death, indicating that these deaths had been used as an ingredient in my spell casting, all of which at first disturbed me. But then, it made sense. My powers with the pendulum had only manifested after I had left my father behind; presumably he had been killed due to my actions, or perhaps the blow I had given him had felled the old man. And it was after I disposed of L and went to South America that my powers seemed to increase even more. Of course, I had done plenty of learning in that time, but now I considered that perhaps it had been these deaths in combination with my rudimentary magic knowledge that had kindled my latent abilities.

The thought of blood magic, of sacrifices and perhaps greater powers, drew me to Central America, where I explored ancient Mayan ruins, felt the dim magic left in old stones, and spoke to elders who had safeguarded bits of knowledge from the Spanish conquistadores. In Mexico, I hoped to find traces of the mighty Aztec people, but Mexico City proved to be a disappointment. The inhabitants of the metropolis were mixed to a great extreme. While the purest form of magic is Aryan, and Indigenous magic is diluted and deformed, the mestizo possess no great reservoirs of knowledge. I had nothing to gain from these people. I was amongst untermenschen, once more.

Having exhausted most of my funds, I had to survive by writing horoscopes or performing parlor tricks. In my spare time, I tried to perfect my spells, drawing runes and scrying. By chance I met a few people in the film business and was invited to the screening of an old silent film, which I did reluctantly, hoping merely to drum business for myself at the party after the show.

I did not realize that this screening would mark the fourth and most important moment of my life. As I sat in the third row of a small theater, bored and brooding, I felt once again that electric tug that heralded magic. I gazed in wonder at Alma Montero, whose shimmering image upon the darkened screen oozed a power unlike my own and yet of a similar nature.

I became obsessed with meeting Alma, and although it was no easy feat, I managed to become well acquainted with her. Yet these meetings only led to disappointment, for in person Alma did not exude anything but a vague power. I had thought her a sorceress and found a woman.

I was baffled when, at another screening, I once again felt that same elusive power but in person could only discern an ordinary actress and retired performer. One evening, I was at Alma’s house idly listening to a few people chatter, and one of them made a quip about celluloid goddesses and their acolytes. This random uttering was the key to the puzzle. I understood that Alma’s power derived from the medium. It was the film itself that seemed to amplify whatever latent abilities she possessed. And it was not only the film, but the act of watching the film with an audience that granted it its might.