The Black Tapes S01E10 - Their Satanic Monastery's Request

Alex Reagan: The Black Tapes is brought to you by Rocket Sound. Not everyone has blackmailed a structural acoustician into being a part of their podcast – we still know what you did, Dr. Pullman, and if you don’t play ball everyone else will, too – but sometimes you still need an audio engineer to rip apart the secrets in an MP3 sent from beyond the grave. In times like those, it’s essential to contact RocketSound. Creating a new video game? Authoring a new animation? Crafting a digital ritual that will open the final Gate and unleash the apocalypse? RocketSound is there for you.

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Amalia Chenkova: Hallo Alexandra! Please to be telling Nic he is still owing me money, and to please return underwear I left on bedroom floor!

So, I am to be secret on the ground spy for you in the Russians, da? Am to be investigating mysterious monk who plays symphony for devil? And boy who is in shitty band and playing apocalypse on the iTunes? Well am finding monastery, but Perceval Black has taken vow of silence and Kieth Dabic is taking vow of having been murdered by cult of demonspawn priests.

But I have been finding that Perceval Black is member of Order of the Ceonophus. These monks are wearing pale grey robes, are selling souls to devils, and had exorcism performed at temple in Glushka. Was caught on cell phone, because reasons. Am sending video now!

Clara Simone: All right, it’s seance time! Who has entered this holy place? Who has accosted these men of god? Have you lost your way? Have you unfinished business? Or are you just a soul-shredding poltergeist bent on the unending doom of everyone is this room?

Alex Reagan: At this point, a mysterious sculpture, which looked like a cross between a new age crystal and a glass pyramid, began to rattle around the table. Simone began to draw in ragged breaths, visible in the now-cold room. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she began to scrawl in a notebook with a hand that moved all on its own. The video quality is poor and the pages are hard to make out, but I can clearly see a shadowy figure with an upside down face, a series of pentagrams, and a scrawl of sigils that appear to be the unholy names of a tribe of not-gods bent upon the destruction of all mankind. On the next page, Simone scrawls “is this finally evidence enough, Richard, or do you need more proof?”

Simone then comes back to herself:

Clara Simone: Okay, so there’s very clearly an ancient, malevolent entity shacked up in your monastery. It’s free now, because of our seance, and able to walk the world, spreading its evil in the form of shadow and song. I will now perform an exorcism in order to bind it and banish it, thus foiling its evil plans.

Brother Nogoodnic: Oh no, that’s cool. We’ll take it from here. Jerry? Get the Crystal Tabernacle of the Unholy Screams, would ya?

Alex Reagan: Hey Charlie! So what exactly were you doing in the woods for those five days after your mother went missing?

Charlie Strand: Oh you know, the usual. We used a dowsing rod, attempting to locate her aura, we used a crystal pendant to try and locate her energy, we cast bones in order to summon an Oracle of the Damned, we murdered a hobo and scried his entrails in an effort to pinpoint her location … just the usual Woodland Trooper stuff.

Alex Reagan: The US Postal Service is really uptight. Do you want to ship caustic chemicals or high explosives? No go. Need to send firearms or anti-personnel weaponry? You’re out of luck. And if you want to transport a crystalline sculpture, forged as a prison for some ancient spirit and designed to harness its vile energies, transforming you into an immortal Vicar of the Most Unclean? Don’t even get me started.

With Stamps.com, those things are still super illegal, but at least you won’t have some mail clerk all up in your grill while you’re trying to buy postage for your package that, for some odd reason, won’t stop shrieking out the hidden sins of everyone nearby. Go to Stamps.com and enter “TheBlackTapes” … we don’t ask questions, okay?

Alex Reagan: So Richard, why did you start the Strand Institute for the Denial of All Things Paranormal?

Richard Strand: Well primarily as a way to honor my father’s memory; the million dollar prize is actually funded by the inheritance he left me when Corshack the Vile emerged from an antique lamp and severed his soul from his body. But it’s also a super convenient way to keep tabs on all of the mysterious organizations that I totally know about but will never admit to.

Alex Reagan: Okay, and what about Charlie? Why was she so upset when you couldn’t find Coralee?

Richard Strand: Well a lot of it stems from the fact that I’m her father, and this was the first time I truly let Charlie down. But it also involves the fact that Coralee was having an affair, a fact I disclosed to Charlie during our investigation.

Alex Reagan: Oh my god Richard! An affair! Was it with a man named Warred?

Richard Strand: No, I think it was with someone named Alister? Alister Crowley?

Alex Reagan: Okay, let’s switch gears and talk about this seance in the Glushka monastery, and the very clear evidence that a demon possessed a woman and scrawled its names in an ancient, evil alphabet using her dead hand?

Richard Strand: You mean the exorcism staged by Clara Simone, noted charlatan and stage magician, who has made a fortune traveling the world and conning innocent, gullible people into accepting her false aide?

Alex Reagan: That’s one way to put it, I guess.

Alex Reagan: Hi Clara! Were you scared when you conducted the exorcism in Glushka?

Clara Simone: Oh of course not! I have to operate on pure faith. If my faith wavers for even an instant, the ungodly hordes of Satan will rush through that crack in my will, abusing my abilities as a medium to gain access to our fragile world! Just like that time when I was ten years old and a man with flayed skin and a broken neck appeared in my room, vomiting flies and proclaiming blasphemies! Fortunately I had a copy of the trusty King James Bible sitting on my night stand, and as I declared Ezekiel 23:20 to that vile creature I felt the Power of the Lord surge through me! I became his vessel, a host of his Holy might, and was commissioned that night to do battle with the forces of evil wherever I found them, as long as the victim of demonic oppression can afford my reasonable financial fees!

Alex Reagan: Awesome! And what can you tell me about the demon in Glushka?

Clara Simone: Nothing unusual. That demon’s just building an army of damned souls, preparing for the inevitable battle between good and evil that will conveniently unfold in audio format in the very near future!

Amalia Chenkova: Hallo Alexandra! Am just calling to tell you that note was slipped under door last night, reading:

We know what you are researching. Drop investigation or will be murdering you until dead.

Alex Reagan: So … are you doing to be dropping the investigation?

Amalia Chenkova: Cannot be sure which investigation to be dropping. Am looking into Putin’s ties to Russian Mafia, rumors that JFA was being assassinated by same man who faked Elvis’ death, and a theory that after six months of Paleo diet, Biggy Smalls actually transformed into Tupac. Many people are wanting me dead, Alexandra, so is premature to be stopping looking for devil music people.

Alex Reagan: Okay, so that conversation was three weeks ago, and nobody has heard from Amalia since. Her phone goes directly to voice mail, her email auto-responds with “Am out of office searching for former KGB agent who may wish to become American spy, will answer as soon as have WiFi again,” and her mother said that as far as she knew, Amalia was in Cancun on Spring Break, taking a much-needed rest from working on her Masters in Snoopy Journalism.

Alex Reagan: Hey Tina Stevens from Tahoe! Would you mind confirming that this photo is of the person who opened the mysterious post office box in your bait and tackle gift shop?

Tina Stevens in Tahoe: Yep, that’s definitely Lisa Graves!

Alex Reagan: And what would you say if I told you that photo wasn’t of Lisa Graves, but of … Coralee Strand? PNWS Boom

Tina Stevens in Tahoe: …I’d say I don’t know who Coralee Strand is, nor do I care?

Alex Reagan: This is The Black Tapes Podcast, and I’m Alex Reagan. Join us next week as I send beloved friends into mortal danger, tear the band-aid off of Richard Strand’s whole “woe is me my wife was probably murdered by a serial killer” thing, and con Nic into paying for a first-class flight to Prague on the vague pretense of investigating old religious orders.