The Ladies of the Secret Circus Read online

  Althacazur factors prominently in the book Damsel and the Demon, the 1884 novel by Andrew Wainwright Collier, where, in love with a mortal woman, Aerin, Althacazur plots and kills all of the maiden’s intended husbands, causing the ultimate ruination of her as a marriageable lady. As a result, Aerin drinks poison and kills herself. In the underworld, she is given in marriage to Althacazur as a gift from Lucifer. Althacazur is then tormented by Aerin, who now resents him and can never love him. That the maiden retains her human memories is meant to be a punishment from the other demons who resent Althacazur for his growing power. Lucifer banishes the maiden to the angels, for she is too pure of heart for Hell, in an effort to rescue his favorite. In the novel, Althacazur is a tragic figure, torn apart by his own lust and the envy of the other demons of Hell.

  It is interesting to note that Andrew Wainwright Collier’s second wife was the actress Juno Wagner, who portrayed the maiden Aerin in the London stage adaptation in 1902. On October 9, 1904, Wagner died during childbirth. Collier went to his death destroying every copy of Damsel and the Demon that existed, claiming the demon, Althacazur, was responsible for her death. Collier never spoke of what had happened to the baby Wagner was carrying, but it is assumed the child died as well. After Wagner’s death, Collier himself was not well, and many assume his assertions were not of Althacazur being responsible, but actually of the play being responsible for his wife’s death—because the pregnant actress, against the advice of doctors, had traveled to Paris to see a performance of the play and had fallen ill. Collier died on December 23, 1905. Collier’s friend Pearce Buckley said that “Collier was not in his right mind at the end of this life and anything regarding Juno was, unfortunately, the ravings of a madman.”

  In the foreword to The Selected Works of Andrew Wainwright Collier, Jacques Mourier, the journalist at Le Figaro who had been an assistant to Collier, claimed that Collier went to his death claiming that Wagner had been seduced by a devil. “He came to see her one night after a performance—a dashing man in a black waistcoat and flowing brown hair. Collier suspected that his wife had begun an affair with the man and likened the cur to a vampire, who drained the life out of her.” Many scholars of demonology suspect the “flowing hair” trait is a reference to Althacazur and that Collier’s assertions were correct that his wife had been seduced by one of the most powerful demons of the underworld.

  In The Demonic Encyclopedia of 1888, the entry on him reads: While often written as a handsome and witty character, Althacazure often falls prey to his own lust and its consequences. His temper, which is considered the most volatile of the princes of Hell, is another one of his follies. Given his charm, he is often mistaken as a lighter demon, which is a grave mistake, for he is the most vain and unforgiving of all Hell’s generals. He is considered Lucifer’s favorite and a frequent foil of the angel Raphael.

  In Modern Lore

  The Dinner Guests

  Althacazur was a demon who factored heavily in stage magician Philippe Angier’s occult show. Angier’s show always had whispers of demonic leanings, especially after the occultist’s hair was rumored to have transformed from black to flame red overnight. Angier was famously killed in a duel in 1898 in the Bois de Boulogne. While at a private dinner in Paris, Angier is said to have predicted the fates of all of his dinner companions—all well-known Parisian literati. The rumored fates were grim—imprisonment, poison, and suicide. In the following years, the predictions were rumored to have come true, resulting in the last living dinner guest, journalist Gerard Caron, charging Angier in the paper Le Parisian as a Satanist and challenging him to a duel. In one of the flats of the Bois de Boulogne, Angier’s pistol failed to fire and he was mortally wounded, yet lingered for days until dying. Caron, overcome with guilt, took his own life, shooting himself with Angier’s pistol—which “fired brilliantly,” according to witnesses. After his death, multiple reports claimed that Angier had impregnated several of his stage assistants and sacrificed his own newborn children to appease the demon Althacazur. This story was the inspiration for the musical The Dinner Guests.

  Association with Robert Johnson

  While Lucifer is often cited as meeting guitar blues legend Robert Johnson at the “crossroads” in Clarksdale, Mississippi, some have suggested that it was actually the demon Althacazur who sealed the fateful deal in the legend. The guitar legend died on August 16, 1938, in Greenwood, Mississippi.

  Demon Days

  Althacazur factored prominently in the sitcom Demon Days as the foil to angels Gabriel and Raphael, who are roommates living in modern-day San Francisco. He was portrayed by actor Jacob Broody for Seasons 1–2 and then Elijah Hunt for Seasons 3–5.

  Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

  June 21, 2005

  Why hadn’t she ever thought to look him up on the internet before? Hell, she’d researched enough dead musicians; the deaths of Mama Cass and Keith Moon at the age of thirty-two in the same London apartment was a favorite search. Yet it had taken Caren to remind her of his name. Althacazur.

  She stared at the entry in disbelief, then hit PRINT. Was the man who’d visited her in the field a major daemon—or “Hell’s king,” as he was also known? Lara tried to recall if he’d ever introduced himself to her. It had been Cecile who had first pronounced a name that sounded like a children’s cartoon villain, akin to Gargamel.

  Surely Cecile had been mistaken. It had just sounded like this name. She’d been a kid. Maybe she’d misheard the woman. But then there was the spelling on the Ouija board. It matched this. The magic her family used—locks, dresses—that was innocent magic. This Althacazur was a different type of creature altogether.

  As she gathered her purse and searched for her lipstick, she kept picking up the printout to read over and over, looking for any similarity between the description and the man she’d known. Vain? Absolutely. Flowing hair? Check. But it was the line… amber eyes that he often covers with sunglasses when walking among mortals due to the permanent state of his horizontal pupils—an underworld trait that cannot be masked that left her cold.

  Of everything she’d read, this line felt like a concrete detail describing him. This begged the question: If a major daemon was visiting her, what did he want? At some point, he’d said, he would call on her. She took a seat and found her legs were trembling. Was this the source of her magic? Was he the reason Audrey insisted they hide their abilities?

  After opening locks and emptying her grandfather’s candy jars, Lara had graduated to copying her mother’s signature and enchanting the phone to sound like anyone she wanted. As she got older, those skills were helpful when she wanted to get permission to go on a field trip. As she got better at it, she could match her friends’ mothers’ voices easily and so stay out later while Audrey thought she was safely tucked at home with Caren.

  It was Caren’s mom who inadvertently busted her. Caren and Lara were both allergy sufferers requiring weekly shots. At the doctor’s office one spring, Mrs. Jackson, in passing, thanked Audrey for allowing Caren to stay over so much. In actuality, the two girls had sneaked out and gone to all-night bowling. Lara had always been careful to never let Caren hear her make the phone calls, not wanting her friend to have culpability. As Mrs. Jackson presented a thorough accounting of Audrey’s generosity in lodging her daughter, Lara closed her eyes with dread.

  It was the firm tug on the checkbook from Audrey’s hand that served as the tell as Dr. Mulligan’s check for $3 was ripped free.

  “You have no idea what it is like to grow up without a mother because she went crazy from magic.” Audrey had been silent until they’d turned into their winding drive. “I’ve spared you that knowledge. Sure, it’s fun to have old equipment in your backyard, but you’ve never been taunted by your friends that you’re a freak because you work at the circus. I have. You think it’s cute and it’s fun, but drawing attention to yourself is dangerous.”

  When Lara returned home, the punishment had been swift yet quiet. Since the phone had been
the source of the problem, Audrey enchanted it so Lara couldn’t call anyone for a week. Interestingly, her mother never mentioned to Jason what Lara had done, nor the punishment she’d doled out. Only then did Lara understand that Audrey had kept both of their abilities from her father. Magic was a shameful secret.

  Shutting down her computer, she looked at her watch. It was almost time for Audrey to pick her up for the circus. Folding up the paper with Althacazur’s entry, she placed it deep in her handbag.

  For two weeks each June, the Rivoli Circus from Montreal settled in one of the open fields near the highway, the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains peering over the big top at sunset. The stop at Kerrigan Falls was an act of respect for Le Cirque Margot, many of the performers having sought jobs with the Canadian troupe when the circus closed. Loyalties ran deep with these families, and even the children of many members who had died still recalled the stories. The Montreal troupe had picked up most of Le Cirque Margot’s old stops, so the two companies’ histories were richly entwined.

  After kicking off the season, the Rivoli Circus would perform in twelve towns in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi before heading to the Southwest for the winter and then retooling the show back in Canada for the following year’s performances.

  Tickets were hard to come by, but Audrey always managed to get premium seats from the Rivoli family. The legacy between the families was something that her mother endured more than celebrated, but the horses were some of the most stunning animals in the ring. For that reason, Audrey always made sure they were front and center.

  The trademark moss-green-and-blue-striped tents were strung together into a connected bazaar. As Lara and Audrey walked through the grand entrance, food stands and other carnival attractions like fortune-tellers, T-shirt sellers, and arcade games lined the avenue to the entrance to the big top.

  Inside the main tent, the night air was cool. Above them an elaborate green-and-blue chandelier, resembling a Chihuly creation, dangled heavily from the center. From the props to the sound and concessions, Lara admired their attention to detail. The performance was always elegant and sophisticated, unlike some two-bit carnival that made its way through each fall, giving kids rides on rusted Ferris wheels and serving watered-down Coca-Colas.

  On cue, the tent went dark and the light show flashed blue and green, like something out of Las Vegas. This was one of the rare circuses that still traveled with a full orchestra. There was a dark, dramatic pause. Somewhere in the audience a man coughed, then a child wailed. A small spotlight appeared at the top of the tent—where the form of a blond girl dressed in a chartreuse sequined leotard descended, lowering herself smoothly on a fabric rope, coiling then uncoiling herself down its length. As she moved, the fabrics twisted with and then against her body, giving her the illusion of winding and then letting go of the line before catching herself in a dramatically staged free fall. From the orchestra below, a lone singer crooned a melody in French, a set of electric strings accompanying her.

  That a performer would fall was not out of consideration at the circus. Ropes ripped, hands slipped, but precision and practice as well as luck and talent stacked the odds in favor of tonight’s seasoned performer, now twirling from a rope gripped in her teeth. While there was slim chance of disaster, with every spin and twist of the aerialist’s back and each pump of her biceps, the audience was rapt and on the edge of their seats. This act was the perfect combination of spectacle and tension; beauty entwined with danger.

  And then there were two of her. A twin second performer in a royal-blue leotard joined. They twisted and spun in unison, some silent count driving the precision with which they intertwined and switched their ropes in an elaborate aerial scheme. After they established their rhythm, a third acrobat appeared.

  Lara craned her neck and noticed there was no net under them, only a soft padded floor resembling a gymnasium wrestling mat that wouldn’t stop a leg from breaking or a body from being crushed if the timing was off. And that chance created such a marvelous spectacle that Lara found her heart racing. She was someone who cried at Broadway shows, caught up in the art and emotion of a live performance, yet even as a child, she couldn’t recall ever watching an act with such wonder as she did now. The motions were fluid, like she was seeing dance in the air—what birds might do if they sprouted limbs. The three acrobats slid down into a dramatic finale, and the crowd went wild.

  Another act followed, this one a more traditional trapeze act with the swinging poles that Lara was used to seeing. The four performers looked weightless, twisting then tossing their bodies, lightly handing off to one another as though connecting weren’t really necessary. As they juggled themselves high above the crowd, grabbing the bar and twisting onto the platform where they were caught by sure hands until the next performer replaced them, Lara could feel the counts between them, hands reaching, bodies corkscrewing then landing softly, only to turn and repeat the performance with the ease of shuffling a deck. It was as though they were objects being juggled across the stage, not people, so when Lara felt a missed count, she inhaled sharply. Noticing a slight twitch, she could see the performer lose her grip on the catcher’s hand.

  Instinctively, Lara recalled the child’s game she’d played where forced perspective made the person tiny, allowing you to “squish” them with your fingers. Using the same technique, Lara said “no” aloud as she slid her hand under the falling aerialist, holding her up with her palm, as if she were a tiny marionette. “Up, up,” whispered Lara, lifting the performer. To anyone watching, she would have looked like she was holding an imaginary teacup. At that same moment, the acrobat would have felt she was now standing firmly on an invisible glass platform. Instinct kicked in, and the girl wiggled toward the catcher’s awaiting grip.

  “What are you doing?” Audrey whispered under her breath, her eyes wide. “Stop it.”

  The words interrupted Lara’s concentration, and she could feel the spell break for a moment. The aerialist stumbled again. “Up,” said Lara, ignoring her mother and refocusing on the performer. “Up, up.” Lara began to sweat, recalling what he had said to her in the tent: Keep your eyes on the flower. It was like turning a lock. I can do this, she thought.

  Closing her eyes, she rotated the performer with her finger the necessary quarter turn to reach the outstretched hands of her catcher. What must have felt like an eternity for both Lara and the performer was measured in mere seconds. The missed handoff was probably unnoticeable to everyone else.

  Sure she’d done the task correctly, Lara opened her eyes and stretched her neck to get a different view. The aerialist was floating, her arms and legs almost in a swimming motion while Lara turned her finger. The girl stretched so the catcher could meet her and take another attempt. This one was successful, and he gripped her tightly. Regaining their rhythm, the team finished. Only at the end of the act, after they’d descended the ropes, could Lara visibly see the young girl’s legs shaking. Lara glanced over to find Audrey watching her intently, an eyebrow raised.

  She had made a correction in full view of everyone. This was forbidden. While she felt guilty defying Audrey, this wasn’t refashioning a wedding dress. In a second, with a focused command, she’d saved a woman’s life. Surely a little public magic was worth it to avert a disaster. While it had only been a few seconds, Lara knew the amount of skill that had been required to hold the woman in midair for even that small length of time, especially in a panic. Her abilities were increasing. She had little doubt that she could go back to the field now and pull the carousel through—and even re-create the tent—with little effort.

  The performance continued with clowns, another trapeze act, three elephants, and finally the trick rider, Audrey’s favorite. The white steed came charging out outfitted with an elaborate headdress, the horse’s long, flowing mane whipping furiously as it rounded the arena. While Audrey had been an experienced horsewoman, Lara had never been encouraged to ride. As she’d gotten older, she’d learned it wa
s because a fall could rupture the one remaining kidney she had.

  Standing on the horse’s back, anticipating the rhythm of the animal’s gallop, was the equestrian, a red-haired girl dressed in a green leotard with spangles and fringe. She took in the audience with two full rotations around the tent before contorting herself into a backbend as the horse went around in a smaller circle. Then she performed a forward flip and launched herself from the animal’s back, landing in perfect unison as they traveled. Then, in one swift movement, she slid down and hung with one leg as the pony kept a sure and steady gallop. And then, as if it couldn’t get more daring, a second horse entered the ring and she flipped from one horse to the other, finally riding them out as though she were a gladiator heading home from victory in the ring—and that’s essentially what she was.

  While her mother should have been exhilarated from the act, as the lights came up, Audrey appeared distracted. “What you did back there. It was risky.”

  “I couldn’t let her die.”

  Audrey didn’t answer.

  “Mother?”

  “I know,” said Audrey, finally, her voice tense. Lara saw her jaw tighten. “What you did took skill. You just reacted. It’s not like taking twenty minutes to pick a lock.”

  Lara gave her a quizzical look.