The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (ebook reader with internet browser TXT) 📗

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 LoreThe 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