“Put this on,” I said.
“What is it?”
“A hood. I hope the eyeholes are in the right place.”
He took the hood and pulled it on over his head. “Very nice,” he said.
“I made it myself.”
“Very nice. I dig silk,” he said.
I pulled the second hood over my own head, and then I knocked on the wooden door. We waited several moments. The door opened a crack.
“Yes?” a man’s voice said.
“We’re Cleopatra’s guests,” I said.
The door opened onto a small entryway constructed entirely of stone. The man who admitted us was short and squat. Like Henry and me, he was wearing a black hood over his head. He studied us through the eyeholes, and then silently indicated that we should go through the archway opposite the entrance door. There were iron hinges in the stone blocks supporting the arch, reminders of where another door once had been. We went through the archway and into a large vaulted room supported by stone pillars. The only illumination came from candles burning in sconces on the walls. An altar was at the front of the room, but if there had ever been pews, there was no evidence of them now. A large half-moon-shaped area of floor space had been left open before the altar, defined by the altar itself and the rough semicircle of folding chairs that had been arranged around it. On those chairs, at least three dozen black-hooded people were sitting. Henry and I found seats. I looked at my watch. It was five minutes to midnight. No one spoke. The windows in the room were boarded over from the outside, and the air was stale. More people came through the archway into the room. By midnight all of the seats had been filled, and several people were standing behind the circle of chairs.
To the left of the altar, black curtains parted. A hooded figure in a black robe moved swiftly to the altar. Even before she spoke, I knew from the erect carriage that this was Susanna Martin.
“Welcome,” she said. “I welcome yon in the name of Lucifer, and in the name of Beelzebub, his Prime Minister. I welcome you for Astorath, the Grand Duke, and for Lucifuge and Satanachia, Agaliarept and Flueretty, Sargatanas, Nebiros, Agares and Marbas, Bathim and Bael, Nuberus and Aamon, and all others in the infernal hierarchy. I bid you welcome for them, and I bid you, also, to reaffirm now the Satanic Oath we each have separately and in the presence of this company sworn before.”
She raised her arms like a stickup victim, bent at the elbows, the wide black sleeves of the robe falling back to reveal pale white flesh, the palms of her hands turned to the semicircle of silent, hooded people.
“We, Lucifer,” she said, “and all beforementioned and following spirits...”
“We, Lucifer,” they repeated, “and all beforementioned and following spirits ...”
“Swear to you, to almighty God through Jesus of Nazareth...”
“Swear to you, to almighty God through Jesus of Nazareth...”
“The Crucified One, our conqueror ...”
“The Crucified One, our conqueror...”
“That we will faithfully perform everything written in the Liber Spiritum...”
“That we will faithfully perform everything written in the Liber Spiritum...”
“And never do you harm, either to your body or your soul...”
“And never do you harm, either to your body or your soul...”
“And execute all things immediately and without refusing.”
“And execute all things immediately and without refusing.”
The room went utterly still.
“I will summon Satan to this company,” Susanna said.
Henry tamed his hooded head to look at me. At the altar, Susanna bent out of sight for a moment. When she stood again, she was holding in her hands a long black box, shaped somewhat like a child’s coffin. She carried this around the altar, holding it by the ornate silver handles on either end, and then stepped down onto the open floor space circumscribed by the folding chairs. She knelt swiftly and gracefully, put the box down on the floor and, still kneeling, lifted its lid. From the box she took a pair of silver candlesticks, and fitted black candles into them. She carried these to the center of the floor, lighted both candles, rose, and walked quickly back to the box. When she returned again to the burning candles, she was holding a long twig in one hand and what appeared to be a quartz crystal in the other.
“This is a bough of hazel,” she intoned.
“Cut last night,” the hooded figures responded.
“With a new knife,” she said.
“From a tree that has never borne fruit,” they said.
“As prescribed in the Great Grimoire, the book of medieval magic.”
“Summon the Devil,” they chanted.
“And this is a bloodstone, as further prescribed.”
“Summon the Devil,” they chanted.
Using the bloodstone, Susanna traced an invisible triangle around the candles on the floor, and then a large circle that encompassed candles and triangle. She stepped into the triangle and knelt to place the bloodstone between both silver candlesticks. Then, standing fully erect again, she grasped the hazel wand in both hands, left hand clutching one end of it, right hand clutching the other.
“I will repeat the Grimoire invocation twice, summoning Lucifer, Lord of the Infernal Hierarchy.”
“Lucifer, our Lord,” they chanted.
“I conjure you, Great Spirit,” she said, “to appear within a minute, by the power of Great Adonai, by Eloim, by Ariel and Johavam, Agla and Tagla, Mathon, Oarios...”
The recitation seemed endless. In order to reach Lucifer, one apparently had to call upon a battery of lesser demons. “Almouzin,” she said now, “and Mebrot,” standing in the center of her invisible triangle, “Varvis, Rabost,” the candles flickering at her feet, which I noticed were bare, “Salamandrae, Tabost,” both hands clutching the hazel wand, “Janua, Etituamus, Zariatnctmik.”
Her voice stopped abruptly. Scarcely pausing to catch her breath, she went through the ritual a second time, just as she had promised, and this time I began counting. Before she stopped again, I’d counted twenty-seven names in all.
She dropped to her knees. There was the sudden sound of chair legs scraping against the stone floor as the black-hooded assemblage, following her lead, knelt in worship to whomever she had conjured. I saw no one. Neither Lucifer nor any of his demons were visible to my eyes, but Susanna’s body stiffened, and she touched her forehead to the floor and placed her trembling hands palms-down on the stones. A single word hissed sibilantly from beneath the black hood.
“Master.”
“Master,” they whispered.
What followed was the equivalent of eavesdropping on someone making a long-distance telephone call—a very long distance, in this case. I could hear Susanna’s voice, of course, but I could not hear Lucifer responding. I had dropped to my knees the moment the assemblage had. Henry was kneeling beside me. His arm brushed mine; he was shaking.
“We are honored,” Susanna said.
(Silence)
“We summon you tonight to witness and to bless the union of a pair devoted to you and to each other.”
(Silence)
“We beg that you observe, and pray we do not suffer your wrath from grevious omission or inadvertent error. May I rise?”
(Silence)
She got to her feet.
“May we rise?” the assemblage asked.
(Silence)
They rose, the semicircle of black hoods floating upward like malevolent balloons. A pair of similarly hooded figures parted the curtains and walked hand-in-hand past the altar. They stepped down to the open floor space and knelt before the burning black candles. Susanna held out both hands and rested them on the bowed heads of the couple.