Chapter 3

Another month passed before Reynolds caught his first sight of Boston Harbor. He joyously disembarked the stalwart vessel that had been his home that past season and felt the rush and rekindling of the initial fire that drove him when his journey began. The contagious fervor and bustling activity driving the inhabitants smote the ardent immigrant hard. He planted his feet firmly on the cobblestone streets of Boston and gazed about in awe. Here was a land to tame. Here was a world worthy of conquest.

He quickly secured quarters suitable to his station and set about establishing his chosen livelihood. An import/export concern was the logical choice and most likely to enjoy success�" due, in no small part, to his family’s deep European connections. His venerable family had not cornered the market on trade between England and her colonial interests abroad, but their network was extensive.

As reprehensible as slavery was, it was the moneymaker�"growing unpopularity in the northern colonies notwithstanding. A transplant deep in human trafficking from ‘jolly olde’ England would do well to operate clandestinely and shun controversy and unsolicited attention.

Despite the trade’s potential drawbacks and some conscientious misgivings, Reynolds embraced the abhorrent trade as did most of his newly minted associates. There was too much money in importing slave labor to the plantations in the southern colonies and filling the demand for cotton, tobacco, turpentine, tar and seasonal agricultural crops in Europe and beyond to abstain. Surface legitimacy served as the perfect cover. In two years his shipping business thrived, due in no small part to his fervor for the more ignoble aspects of entrepreneurism.

Product shipped out regularly through Boston Harbor bound for England and the Netherlands. On the return voyage, a cargo hold crammed with terrified Africans to be auctioned off in the Dutch West Indies and subsequently delivered to the Chesapeake Bay country brought fifty times the expense of transport.

The War of Independence that exploded around him did little to squelch demand for his services. The same products that fattened the King’s coffers were still in demand. Tried and true marketing and distribution guaranteed continued commercial viability. The relevant parties divided the fruits of that commerce differently, that was all.

Reynolds Lovingdale found himself comfortably situated to enjoy the grass on both sides of the fence, and he spent equal time attending to both. However, despite his success and fortune, memories of Chance and the eerie death of Peter Blythe began to haunt him.

A recurrent dream of the death of Peter Blithe aboard the Crimson Gale often awakened Reynolds just as the clock in his bed chamber struck four. This disturbing ritual continued for months leaving him sleep deprived and addle-brained. A hunger for deliverance from the curse drove him to investigate the root cause of the unwelcome disturbance. The deeper he delved, the deeper became his obsession with ancient and forbidden knowledge. The seductive call of the occult was intoxicating and drew him relentlessly down its dark path.

The works of Franz Mesmer in Germany and Luigi Galvani of Italian fame were of particular interest to the novice devotee. He also explored the murky depths of the ultra-secretive ‘Illuminati’ Order�"placing great credit upon its founders for the orchestration of the American Revolution. The history of the Salem witch trials fascinated him and fostered enormous respect for the control that assumed authority wielded over those majorities possessing less robust faculties and resources.

Reynolds devoured every morsel of occult information he could extract from the oppressive puritanical society in which he resided. When in Rome it was good for business to do as Romans do, so he abided by that time-tested adage for the sake of maintaining positive public and professional appearances. But the night was meant for darker things, and it was during the hours from midnight to dawn that he explored the mysteries of satanic conjurations and devil worship to the level of fanaticism.

Neither demons nor gods were predictably agreeable and Reynolds soon learned that, regardless of the deity one worshipped, the mind blurred their singular attractions over time into an indistinguishable mass. Reynolds chose the Dark Lord. He might just as easily have chosen the Lord of Light, but he could not reconcile the numbers.

This was a world of avarice, corruption, famine, greed, jealousy, hatred, prejudice, injustice, poverty, natural catastrophe, genocide, torture, rape and murder on the left hand and kindness, justice and humaneness on the right. The scales seemed heavily tipped in favor of the former. Who was more powerful, more influential and more pervasive...deus aut daemon? The answer to Reynolds was obvious.

As the new decade dawned, Reynolds embarked on a radical strategy and instituted a more aggressive plan to achieve control over the elusive Powers of Darkness. Considerable research was necessary before the road to enlightenment straightened and revealed the way. He readied his materiel, transcripts, ancient tomes, offerings and ideas and set his plan in motion.

His virgin foray involved extensive preparation. Flour for the sacred circle was readily available. A sacrificial knife, never used, was at his command as were virgin goats. First, he must bless the ebony-handled knife with fire before slitting the kid’s throat and skinning it. The goat’s blood must dry and remain on the blade. He would use the same knife to cut the forked boughs of the witch hazel tree. Forked witch hazel boughs were plentiful, but required travel.

He learned that the seeker must discover and select the highest limbs on the tree the day before harvesting. At dawn of the day following selection, just as the sun rises, the branches are to be pruned and cut into seventeen-and-one-half inch lengths. The knife blade must them be melted down and forged into daggered caps for the forked ends. If forged by another, the caps were to be fitted to dummy forked branches of the same size by the non-believer and transferred to the sacred boughs by the seeker in order to avoid cross-contamination.

Consistencies of a personal nature were essential to observe, as well. Step one on the ladder to spiritual purification was to abstain from the company of the opposite sex for a period of one month. Step two was fasting for thirty-six hours with naught but spring water to drink, followed by seven days of eating two meals a day, and then only at the hours of midnight and noon. Prayers must be offered in their entirety to the entities he, or she, wished to summon before and after consuming each meal. Only after addressing the prerequisite details could the conjurations begin.

Reynolds satisfied the prerequisites with religious fervor and anal resolve. He dipped long candles of virgin wax scented with vervain, two white and two black, and bundled them away for later use. He shut himself away from all acquaintances, male and female, for thirty days, fasted the required period and zealously consumed his meals as stipulated in the inscriptions laid down in his Master Grimoire.

He donned his hooded ceremonial robe of black velvet and wore it night and day for twenty-four hours prior to the incantation. At midnight, just after consuming his final meal, Reynolds began the journey that would forever alter his perceptions and damage his psyche beyond repair.

He began by circumscribing a five-foot diameter ring of hand-milled flour surrounding himself upon the dark oak flooring in his study. Within the ring, he scribed an inverted five-pointed star using bloodstone. He removed the vervain candles from their satin coverings and placed the white ones on the tips of the star pointing north and east. These would summon Lucifer. He placed the black ones on the tips of the star pointing south and west. These would summon Leviathan.

After a minute of silent meditation, he spoke in dramatic tones suited to his purpose as he lit the candles from right to left. The powerful odor of vervain wafted into his nostrils with a gentile wave of his hands.

 

“O’ Daemon, Speaker of Immortal Fire,

Keeper of the Holy Flame,

Angel Serpent born of lightning flash and storm,

Grant my wish for power to assist Thee.

Blessed be the Knife of Re-birth.

Guide my hand and sever my soul

From the bounds of Earthly innocence.

I pray to Acubis, to Sunubai, and to Azazel,

Let Thy combined energies and wisdom fill me.

I, Thy servant, ask no less.”

From his seated posture, he repeated his earnest paean twice more, allowing several minutes between chants for the spirits to receive and acknowledge his plea. A dreadful chill overcame him and he started to shiver. His palms sweated despite the chill. His stomach grew sick and sour. He swooned for an eternity until, without warning, the candles extinguished.

He awoke in his own bed. He could not say how long he had been unconscious or how he found his way into his bedchamber. He recalled his intention to perform the ceremony, but could not remember having done so. He felt no different from usual, and a sudden debilitating depression sapped his strength and will. He was convinced of his failure and doubted his talents and worthiness. Perhaps, it had all been in vain.

Disheartened but not dissuaded, Reynolds continued his investigation into the shadowy netherworld of evil. He repeated the ritual weekly with little encouragement. But when warmth arrived on the heels of a dreadful winter colder and snowier than anyone had ever endured, his perceptions of success began to change. It became obvious that the spring equinox was not only a harbinger of reprise in the natural world, but a herald of spiritual renewal as well.

March and April were uneventful, but for several days in mid-May amber imbued the sky and blood stained the moon and stars. Silvery soot materialized in the air and fell like an ashen rain, fouling lakes and rivers. Thick fog and low-lying clouds draped the land in an ominous blanket. Then, on May 19, 1780, the sun disappeared.

At twelve o’clock noon, total darkness encompassed New England. The gloom crept in from west to east�"the same direction Reynolds consistently faced when engaged in his demonic conjurations. Chickens returned prematurely to their coops to roost and night birds called to test the blackness. Pocket watches held at arm’s length disappeared and were practically unreadable held to noses. Blackbirds dropped from the air by the hundreds and patterned the land for miles around like feathered brimstone.

Citizens filled churches to pray for repentance. Whale oil lamps burned at mid-day were mere translucent orbs along the dingy streets. Residents jealously guarded candles in the uncertainty of their dim lit rooms. Scurvied sailors, barred from the sea due to the sightless conditions, relished the darkness and reveled in the relative anonymity it provided. They spent their idleness tossing vulgar catcalls and halloos indiscriminately to females hurrying past their shadowy lairs in their wayward search for home. The abject darkness remained until dawn of the third day then vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

Reynolds Lovingdale was ecstatic. The event convinced him his connection with the underworld had unleashed the madness. Not since the dark age of unreason cloaked Salem, Massachusetts in the previous century had such terror gripped the citizenry.

According to Mather, the Devil was “the prince of the air” and commanded his minions to muster the primeval forces of lightning and thunder. Beelzebub, himself, might extinguish the moon and stars if doing so furthered his contemptuous regard for God’s creations and the souls of righteous men.

The key to immortality now in his hands could unlock the door to a wealth of knowledge, heretofore, unattainable. He stood a threshold away from the handful of mortals that blazed the way before him. Now that the seductive power was his to control, he vowed to evoke devils from every dark recess of Hell and wrench from them the secrets of life, death and the everlasting. His rotting mind, sick with success, reasoned that bypassing the profusion of lesser lords to communicate with the Supreme Lord and Master required measures he had been remiss to undertake, until now. He knew what he must do. It would be done.