GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Raymond Kessler’s father was, quite literally, a trust fund. Groomed into a vapid vessel devoid of empathy, Raymond pissed away his inheritance on the finest drugs, the loudest cars, and the trendiest clothes. He replenished his fortune by gutting pensions through the family business and selling conspiracy supplements to men who hated their wives. He believed aliens were real, we live in a simulation, and women were mostly decorative buckets for his sperm.

So when a shadow dealer in Morocco offered him a strange object—carved from jet-black meteorite, with spindled horns and a vaguely feminine shape—he wired $4.5 million instantly.