In terms of luggage, the pair had come to the island well-prepared.
For day-to-day sustenance, their options were varied: having with them a caged egg-laying hen, stores of breads and cheeses, citruses and tubers carried together in a cloth sack. And for water, a delegate from the ship would be sent to shore every evening to replenish their pouches, as well as their food supplies or supply of feed for their chicken—or whatever else—if they so needed.
Aside from foodstuffs they each had brought with them a bag containing changes of clothes and luxury items such as books to read, and liquor bottles...as well as all the materials they would need to conduct a variety of occult rituals.
By nightfall, the proper arrangements were made to set the stage for a Crowley lure: a pentagram circle was applied via a paintbrush to the floor inside one of the hut-houses, taking from a supply of pig's blood kept in a canopic jar, and centered with a tall lit candle. A phonograph machine was installed, set to ambiently play a record of tribal-sounding music defined by strumming sitars and rolling bongo drums, and piping reed flutes.
Luella herself was to be the grand centerpiece gem of the occasion: fitted with a ceremonial purple midriff and skirt, faux jewelry, dark afro wig and heavy eyeliner—based on the so-called "alluring lady's fashion" of ancient Egypt.
"How embarrassing," she remarked of herself, while being made to perform an awkward dance: rocking and gyrating her hips, waving her arms like an infant testing its limbs for the first time and hating every moment of it. Being positioned directly above the aforementioned candle, its flickering flames expedited the accumulation of glistening warm sweat upon her delectably plump bare thighs: a factor which served as an "open invitation to any 'otherworldly bachelors, whom might be roving within the vicinity," in Crowley's own phrasing.
Rizzo was observing the spectacle from a leather chair basked in moonlight streaming in through a window, enjoying a drink from the bottle of whiskey that had been included among their things.
"Show more swagger—surely you can do better than that!" he playfully jeered, raising his glass to her.
Luella frowned, her eyebrows creasing in disappointment. "Are all magicians charlatans, sir? Because I am quite beginning to think so."
Rizzo bore for her a charming—salesman-like—smile. "Most are charlatans: but not I, my dear."
"Considering the present circumstances, forgive me for having my doubts."
"Crowley may have been a touch too focused on his own ego and perverse gratification," Rizzo outlined, in a scholarly tone: "however, he was a pioneer in the field of demon psychology."
"I just think he was a sex-crazed loon, sir!"
"Quite right!" Rizzo exclaimed with a hearty swing of his arm. "And demons—beneath all their pomp and witchcraft and well-organized society—are not, in fact, very much different from us: complete with their own virtues and vices and wants"—he lightly chuckled, waving his whiskey bottle around—"and reckless drives toward chaos and overindulgence."
"In that case, shouldn't you be put to this task?" She joked: "Perhaps the demons of Perdition have a discerning taste for girlish men."
"Heavens, no—I would never be found wearing such an atrocious thing!" Rizzo said with a rollicking laugh. "Oh, but Ms. Lafferty: you have obviously done research to know of some basic ritual summoning methods, but have you actually been to a summoning ritual—or indeed, witnessed a demon before? In person?"
"No," she tersely replied, blowing through her lips derisively. "Have you?"
"I have—once," Rizzo said in a lowered voice, his expression darkened. "It ended rather…messily."
Luella was enraptured. "What happened?"
"I think you wouldn't believe me: my tale extends far beyond ordinary imagination."
"The longer you stall, the more I'll be inclined to think it pure fiction."
"Very smart," Rizzo conceded and sucked in his lower lip,with a contemplative stare for a moment, tapping the whiskey bottle against the chair's arm, before nodding to himself conclusively. "I was only a boy, at the time: still blind to the ways of the world, in many respects. I had recently been apprenticed by a"—his face betrayed a sliver of disdain—"prominent wizard, and occultic scholar."
"Surely this wizard had a name," Luella interjected.
"That he did, but giving it would reveal too much. The story I am about to tell you, with its gorey aftermath, was printed in all the major news publications at the time; so surely, you would have read about it."
"At least give a bit about his history, then," she said, with an incredulous glare.
"No. I shall simply refer to this man as 'the wizard. Though to be sure, much more could be remarked about his character, as I was quite happy to finally be rid of him when all was said and done. But there is no denying that he was a great wizard in his time—indeed for all time—because he had discovered a secret technique for summoning demons with some measure of reliability. Whereas most of his contemporaries would fail to do so, even once, within their lifetime."
Luella, having ceased in her dance for the Crowley ritual, was now sitting cross-legged on the floor with her eyes perched on Rizzo and listening intently, as he continued to recount the events of that fateful night:
At first, everything did appear perfectly normal.
All the coven magicians, dressed in their slender purple and gold hoods, had gathered around a massive altar in a dingy dark basement lit by torches.
Rizzo had, by this point, attended many ritual summonings before—albeit only as a spectator, by the side of his mentor—so he had no reason to not feel completely safe inside one of the many guardian circles, drawn in a ring around the altar, wherein the summoners had split apart into groups and all positioned themselves with their heads bowed, unitedly whispering their conjuration chants: altogether combining into one great, ceaseless, dreadful-sounding murmur.
A cloud of otherworldly ether materialized, before long: its thick sulfuric smoke spilled endlessly from the altar, gradually flooding the basement in a gloomy, bone-chilling, fog-like green vapor.
Following this, it was only a matter of minutes until the whole entity was conceived:
First as a darkened silhouette emerging from below the ground, amid an emanating bouquet of violet and alizarin red-streaked lightning bolts, Rizzo could only vaguely render a form of a man with a head shaped like he wore an armor helmet that was dressed in a long flowing cape, and mounted atop a peculiar steed: shaped like something other than a horse, possessing an intimidatingly large set of jaws lined with sharply curved teeth.
Clutched in its right fist was a tremendous longsword, which he watched with increasing terror as it was raised above its head: in a manner he likened to a conqueror, rallying his cavalry troops' morale just before a brazen charge—
—what would prove the only warning given of the slaughter that was to ensue.
The summoners ...fared as wood to the fire, in the face of the demon's undeterrable wrath.
Armed with no means to defend themselves, their guardian circles had likewise failed to ward off the demon as its steed—revealed to be a large, black wolf—proceeded to nimbly pounce across the room, while its master laid into their helplessly fleeing ranks with a ruthless storm of sword-cleaves: detaching all manner of heads and limbs, trailing wide fountainous arcs of their spilled blood in all directions; the fading cries of the frantic and fallen resounding off the narrowly enclosed walls…of the ritual chamber turned tomb; the bodies of those who tried in vain to escape piling up at the foot of the room's only stairwell as the massacre resumed thusly, without pause…until it was only two of the coven members—Rizzo and the wizard—that remained.
The scene was tense, with neither Rizzo or the wizard daring to move an inch as the demon dismounted from its wolf-steed at the center of the room.
Its following slow footsteps, toward them, splashed ominously in the pooling puddles of blood.
By the faint light of the torches Rizzo viewed its inhuman face which showed no hint of emotion: round and tawny feathered, with a tiny curved beak and polished black eyes—that of an owl—mechanically honing onto the last of its prey while rearing back its sword again, to end its brutal extermination in one final, concise blow—
It was then that Luella, who had been growing noticeably more restless as Rizzo continued his story, finally sprang at him.
"You're making all of this up!" she said, gripping and shaking him by his dress collar.
"See? I told you it's unbelievable."
"Why didn't the guardian circles work like they're supposed to?"
"Who's to say?" Rizzo, grinning in amusement at her frazzled state, lightly shoved her away and gave a light shrug. "Perhaps they never worked to begin with."
"Fair enough," Luella huffed: "but there's still no way you could've made it out of there alive."
"I only ask because it is so queer to me, Ms. Lafferty: but if you're so doubtful of the existence of demons—why do you study the occult?"
Luella promptly adjusted her glasses and straightened herself, returning her voice to an even tone. "Purely out of curiosity, sir: I first began researching the occult while I was in seminary school, training to become a nun. And because of your reputation as a scholar in the subject, I sought you out."
Rizzo's perfectly curled and articulated lashes did a few slight fluttering flourishes, as he gave a playfully mischievous smile.
"Is it only curiosity that guides you, I wonder," he said: "or a crisis of faith?"
At this Luella smiled, in a somewhat vague, mysterious way.
"I am here because I simply want to know the truth, Mr. Rizzo; even if I am to be damned to Hell."