Az'azouzis

 It's been a wild couple of weeks here at Malevolent Maine, MMers! A lot has been happening behind the scenes, and a lot of it has to do with our encounter with the Midnight Magician, Malachai Blackstone. There's a lot of moving pieces when it comes to running an investigative blog and often times these things take some time. As you'll see, we also weren't able to talk about this until now because of police involvement. 

After our discussion with Professor Carter Derwent, a history and linguistics professor from Bowdoin College, about Az'azouzis, a word we first encountered when we investigated the six people in Crannog's Field with no memory of who they were or why they were there. We heard the word again from Malachai Blackstone when we "interviewed" him last month. Blackstone claimed the word meant, "the end is not the end." Professor Derwent discredited this and translated it instead as, "dark watcher from beyond the stars."  

Derwent did a little more digging for us, reaching out to several colleagues from different universities. He was able to piece together a pretty clear description of Az'azouzis. Here's Derwent:

Az'azouzis, the dark watcher

Az'azouzis is a creature from beyond our plane of existence. Some call him a god, others refer to him as a beyonder - a being outside the known world. He is said to be watching the world, waiting for a way into this world. Over the centuries there have been various cults and groups dedicated to finding a way to open a doorway or portal for Az'azouzis to enter the world. One group, the Order of the End, was active in Europe from 1800 until about 1840. And here's the interesting thing, one of the high ranking members emigrated to America, specifically the New England area.

We also heard from one of our contacts in the local occult scene. He didn't want us to reveal his real name, so we'll call him Desmond. He's been a practitioner of occultism for several years and has been one of our sources for all things paranormal. Here's a transcript of a voice mail call we got from Desmond:

Hey, guys. It's [Desmond]. I have to tell you about a session I just came from. There's been some talk in the past few months about that guy Blackstone, the magician. He's been coming around to different groups, mostly doing lecture stuff, but he's been leading some ceremonies too. He's deep into the occult stuff. So the other night, I catch wind about a ceremony happening on Frye Island, in the middle of Sebago Lake. I decide to go, and when I get there, it's him, Blackstone, clearly running the ceremony. There were probably twenty of us there, no names. This was a black robes and hoods kind of event. We're all standing in a circle and that's when things start to go crazy.

Blackstone starts chanting, pretty typical occult stuff at first, but then he gets going. He starts talking about how the end is not the end. "There are tremendous and treacherous things beyond." All this kind of stuff. He starts talking about Az'azouzis, and I recognize that from your blog, right? That's when we hear this great roaring sound. It sounds like the sky is splitting open and some big angry animal is coming through. You know that long rumble of thunder you hear sometimes? It was like that times a thousand. The ground starts shaking, like an earthquake. Out of the ground comes this big stone pillar, like the one from your site. 

Occult ritual

It grows out of the ground, rising up, and then the air around us goes red. Not the light, like from the fire, but the air itself. I can't really explain that, but it's what happened. Then this rip opens up, like in the air itself, this big black void, and through it walks three naked people, two men and a woman. The whole time Blackstone is chanting something, I can't make out the words, but then I realize everyone is chanting along with him. I mean everyone, me included. I don't even understand what I'm saying, but the words keep coming out as that portal opens and those three people walk out.

And then it's done. Everything goes back to normal. The air, the sound, everything. Blackstone is standing there, looking down on those three naked people and he says to us, "The end is not the end. We will bring them, one by one, then thousands by thousands. The Army of Az'azouzis, his Chosen People, the ones who will usher in his everlasting darkness. We send you, brothers and sisters out into our world, Beyonders. Tremendous beings. Treacherous beings. Go and bring about your master's will."

It was right around this time that we were contacted by the Maine State Police. It seems that Kerri Delong had gone missing. You'll recall she was in the second batch of Black Tarot cards. She was the only person we could to receive the cards who had not gone missing. That wasn't the only reason the police contacted us, however. You'll also remember we received another set of cards from a reader going by EroDemon96. It turns out EroDemon96 is a woman named Rebecca Wentworth, aged 29, from Porter, Maine. She too had gone missing. When the family went through Rebecca's emails they found her messages to us.

We went out of our way to prove to the police that we were not involved. That included turning over lots of our emails, as well as the details of our meeting with Malachai Blackstone. In the end, the police dismissed us from any suspicion.

We find it interesting though that after the disappearance of the original four recipients of the Black Tarot, four people appeared in Crannog's Field. After the disappearance of  Brenda Williams, Kerri Delong, and now Rebecca Wentworth, three more people appeared during the ritual Desmond witnessed. Could Malachai Blackstone be the heir of the Order of the End, obsessed with summoning the being Az'azouzis to our world? Could he be somehow marking people by sending them a spread of Black Tarot cards? Could he be using their lives to open a portal to... Beyond and bringing forth new people-looking things, minions of Az'azouzis? 

We told the police everything we knew about Malachai Blackstone and everything we suspected. They were skeptical, of course, but in the end they agreed to at least talk with Blackstone. At the time of this writing, we believe Malachai Blackstone is on the run. He has not performed any magic shows in several weeks, nor any occult rituals. His whereabouts, as well as the whereabouts of the three "Beyonders" who walked through the portal remain unknown, though Blackstone's picture has been distributed among law enforcement agencies. 

Desmond believes that Blackstone was harnessing the energy of the people who visited his shows. He thinks that the password system, combined with the timing of Blackstone's performances, was a ritual derived to funnel the aether from the audience to create his Black Tarot. These marked members were somehow sacrificed to power the portals beyond. Desmond believes that after a certain number of these "Beyonders" had been summoned then they would be able to open the door for Az'azouzis, himself. 

We hope that we have disrupted Blackstone's rituals. We believe that now on the run from authorities, Blackstone will not be able to perform his ceremonies. Since the police began searching for Malachai Blackstone no new sets of Black Tarot cards have arrived and no new missing persons reports have been filed. We believe it's finally over.

Stay safe out there, Maine.

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UPDATE - 10/23/20: 

Since we originally posted this on 10/21/20, we received a black envelope in the mail. There was no stamp, no return address, something that will be familiar to our readers. We were hesitant to open it at first, but after much discussion, we decided we were not going to let Malachai Blackstone control our lives, and that we would not live in fear of him.

Inside the envelope was just a single card of the deck we're calling the Black Tarot:

Sit down with the Midnight Magician

 Okay, MMers, we've got a lot going on this week, so let's dive right in.

It took us awhile but we were finally able to track down the Midnight Magician, Malachai Blackstone, or more accurately, he tracked us down. Before we get to that, however, we have to tell you how hard it was to learn anything abut this guy.

Marty's Magic Shoppe

Our research brought us into contact with one Martin Ellison, owner of Marty's Magic Shoppe in Dover, New Hampshire. Marty was an accomplished magician in his younger days, performing under the name the Magnificent Marty. After he retired from the traveling scene in 1987, he opened Marty's Magic Shoppe to service all the regional magicians. Marty's is a one stop shop for costumes and magic tricks, as well as training, books on the craft, and just a general place for magicians both up and coming and well-established, to come and share secrets. It was Marty that gave us our first real clue about contacting Malachai Black.

Marty Ellison

"He's an odd one, that guy," Marty told us, his voice still thick with a New York accent. "Yeah, I know him. Knew his parents too, God rest their souls. They said it was one last effect - a magic trick if you will - that did them in. The Blackstones were the best in their day - Prospero and Evanora. Kinda goofy names if you ask me, but what I can say, I called myself Magnificent Marty."

Marty didn't know much about Blackstone's current whereabouts, but he did tell us that from time to time Blackstone has had use of Marty's shop. He explained to us the old means of contacting a magician:

"They say in the old days if you need a witch or a warlock, you left a coin outside your house, on a fence post or windowsill, with the face side scratched with an x. After a day or two, the coin would disappear and soon after you'd be contacted by the wizard. Complete rubbish if you ask me, but Blackstone seems to use that trick. I don't know how he does it, but it's worked for me the few times I've needed him."

It seemed ridiculous (and we're guys who hunt for Bigfoot and write about ghosts for a living!) but we were desperate, so we tried. He carved an x into a quarter and left it outside our office. Sure enough, the next day, the coin was gone. Inside, on our desk, we found a black slip of paper with an address, a date,  and a time written on it in the same silver ink we had seen on the black envelopes.

We went to the location, which we're keeping secret for now, at the assigned time (11:45 at night). We knocked on the door and after a moment a mysterious figure opened it. For the first time, we were face to face with Malachai Blackstone.

Not quite Malachai Blackstone, but pretty close

He was taller than expected. Thin, but strong. He wore a black dress shirt and black pants, but honestly, he would have looked just as comfortable in a black hooded robe. There was an aura about him that was hard to explain. Icy was the best way to describe it. Or like that feeling in the air right before it snows. Except this wasn't going to be a shake of the snow globe kind of storm, this was going to be a blizzard that dumps over a foot of snow and knocks out power to half the state. There was an air of mystery about him, but a dangerous type.

He gestured for us to take a seat in a high-backed velvet chair. Two had been set up in the middle of the room, which was large and completely dark except for the small circle that illuminated the chairs. Where that light came from, we never knew; there were no visible light sources anywhere. He wouldn't allow us to record his voice, but we can tell you it was deep and yet soft at the same time. His voice was like a cobra waiting to strike.

We asked him about the Black Tarot and he scoffed. He claimed no knowledge of them despite his initials appearing on the cards, though he did admit that "the tarrocchi are often a useful tool for the true adept." We asked him about the people who received the cards. Again he maintained he knew nothing of them. This wasn't getting us anywhere, so we asked him to tell us something about himself.

"I was a practitioner of the arts before I ever knew it. My parents, as you know, were some of the finest artists the world has ever known, but from a young age, I knew I was different. I could hear it. You don't understand, but it whispered to me. This world is too confined. There are tremendous and treacherous things beyond. If we could pierce the veil, lift the shroud that covers this world, we could see it all. I'm doing that. With my rituals, I am showing the world beyond. Az'azouzis."

When asked what he meant by that word,  he explained it meant, "the end is not the end." It was a phrase he had learned from his masters. 

"I'm changing this world," Malachai Blackstone told us. "I am opening the forgotten doorways. I'm bring it through. You don't understand, but you will. I will remake this world into the infinite and we will see plain what stares at us from beyond."

Readers, we have to warn you, what we're about to describe is 100% impossible. This blog is pretty comfortable with the unexplainable, the mysterious, and whatnot. What happened next does not fall into this category. It is something else entirely. After he spoke, Malachai Blackstone turned to water. His body rippled like a current on a river, and then he simply collapsed, as if a water balloon had suddenly been popped. One minute he was whole and solid and sitting across from us, the next his entire form turned to water and washed away. There was nothing left except a now wet chair where he had once sat.

We're still processing everything we saw and heard, but we do have one small addendum. We finally heard back from a linguistics professor who claimed to have some knowledge of the strange word that had been carved into the stone monolith in Crannog's Field and that Malachai Blackstone had said to us. When we told Professor Carter Derwent what Blackstone said Az'azouzis meant, he had this to say:

"He's lying. Or he's wrong. It's an ancient word, predates the Babylonians, but it most certainly does not mean, 'the end is not the end.' It roughly translates to, 'dark watcher from beyond the stars,' but it probably means something more like Satan or the Devil. It is the name given to the great adversary of mankind."

Az'azouzis, dark watcher from beyond the stars

Stay safe out there, Maine.

Black Tarot Part III

It's been a strange morning, MMers, and things are starting to get a little freaky. Let's start with the Black Tarot cards we collected from Brenda Williams. You'll remember from Part II that Brenda received a set of creepy tarot cards in the mail. A previous recipient, Larry Gilbert (see Part I), reported that his set of cards disappeared from his home, a story corroborated by the other three original individuals. 

As you know, we kept Brenda Williams' cards in our office. Every day we check them to make sure they're still there. Well, here's where things get creepy. This morning, after our morning meeting, we went to check on the cards and they were gone! Now, to be fair, the cards weren't locked up, though they were secure in a drawer of a file cabinet. There were no signs of any forced entry into our office and a check of the security footage reveals nothing. Like Larry told us, the cards just disappeared.

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Just an hour or so later, we received an email from a reader in Lisbon, Andrew Poulin. We decided (with his permission) to reprint his entire email below. We've added links to the posts he mentions to aid our readers:

Hello MM!

I was reading your post about Flight 129 and you had an update on Larry Gilbert going missing. That led me to do a deep dive on your site and I noticed a couple of interesting things. First off, I noticed that all of the Black Tarot cards have an artist's initials in the corner. I had to zoom in, but I could make out the letters: MB. That got me thinking about that Midnight Magician, Malachai Blackstone. Could he be connected to all of this somehow? Magicians use Tarot cards, right? Well, that got me thinking about the monolith thing in the Crannog's Field. Maybe this is a stretch, but you said the stone was covered in soot, so like a "black stone." Black stone...Blackstone...what do you think? Anyways, love the blog. You guys rule!

The initials MB appear on each card. We checked.

Thanks, Andrew. We're sending you a Malevolent Maine shirt, so look for it in the mail.

We're not sure about all of the connections Andrew is making, but we're definitely going to look a little more into Malachai Blackstone and see if he could be connected to the Black Tarot.

Midnight Magic

 Abra Cadabra, MMers! Did anyone else see the ads for the midnight magic show in Topsham last night? Apparently there was one, and one of our intrepid readers actually got a ticket. Ray from Topsham shared his thoughts on Malachai Blackstone, the Midnight Magician.

Did you see these plastered around Topsham?

Hey Malevolent Maine,

Did you guys catch the magician, Malachai Blackstone, last night at the Turvy in Topsham? It was a midnight show, which I thought was pretty cool. You also needed a password just to buy a ticket. You could only get the password by following some clues around town, like a scavenger hunt. It's probably safe to tell you the word now, "hierophant." Anyways, the show was pretty good. I had never heard of Blackstone before, but I thought it would be something cool to do. The guy came out in an almost old-school look, black pants, black tie, red cape. He didn't have a top hat, but just about. His magic was insane though! It was so good. I can't figure out how he did any of his tricks. AT one point, he had four people from the audience go up and tie him all up. They each held onto one end of the rope, in each of the four corners. Then all of a sudden, the ropes started wiggling up and down, like that thing those crossfit guys do in the gym. The ropes were pulled right out of their hands and untied themselves. It was crazy. There was another one where I'm pretty sure a sword went right through his heart. It was wild! Anyways, I love your blog and thought that maybe this guy might fit the bill for the unexplained.

Well, Ray and anyone else who went to the show, we didn't make it, but it sounds pretty cool. We did some research into this Malachai Blackstone. He's apparently a traveling magician, though so far he's only down shows in New England. No one knows too much about him, but according to one interview he did for Magic Monthly, the trade magazine for magicians (who knew it even existed), he's been practicing his craft for the past twelve years and considered one of the best, if strangest, up and coming magicians.

Have you seen Malacha
i Blackstone?

Not exactly normal MM kind of stuff, but a little deeper digging revealed some interesting things. No one is quite sure who books Blackstone. No one is even really sure he's performing until the day before the show. He doesn't have an agent, and he only takes his portion of the door sales in cash. No one knows how the pamphlets for his shows get distributed, no one knows who hides the clues over town. He doesn't have a website, email address, social media, or phone number. He's completely off the grid. Oh, and he always performs at midnight. 

Strange, right? Ray had one last thing to tell us:

I have to tell you about his last trick. It was crazy. So he stood in the middle of the stage, almost all of the lights were dim, so he was just standing there. He kind of looked like a ghost in his black clothes. I'm not afraid to admit that at that moment I sort of had the feeling that I was looking at a ghost, like this whole show had been a haunting of some kind. Crazy, I know. Anyways, he looks out at the audience after standing still for a really long time. I thought for sure he was looking right at me, but the couple of people I talked to said the exact same thing. It must have been a trick of the stage or whatever. Anyways, after standing there for five minutes or so, he says something like, "This world is not enough. It is too small, too contained. There are tremendous and treacherous things beyond. The end is not the end. There is the infinite." Then, and I swear to God this is true, he like rippled. Like when you hold two corners of a piece of paper and make it bend. He distorted and stretched. I wanted to look away because I thought he would burst, but I couldn't. I couldn't even blink. His voice was all around us but he wasn't talking. He was moving through space right in front of me, but he hadn't left the stage. Then he simply vanished. Not like on TV or something, I can't really explain it. He just disappeared. Strangest thing I ever saw. I wanted to cry for some reason, but I didn't. I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about Blackstone. It was the greatest magic trick I have ever seen. 

And it was terrible.

Well, there you have it, MMers. Anyone else catch Blackstone's midnight show? Anyone know where he's performing next? Shoot us a message if you have any info!

Stay safe out there, Maine.