The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  48. The inscribed flint from a flintlock, with the message ‘WE CAME’, found in the roots of the upturned tree in Danbury churchyard. Below these words were four symbols in a line, beginning with the much used ‘CH’ monogram and ending with a Greek epsilon ( ). Underneath was a roughly drawn picture of a sword with a flash effect above its hilt. This I took to be a symbol representing fire of some sort, echoing what Bernard had picked up the previous night: ‘Sword of Dardanus’, ‘engrave … on stone’, ‘Burn Psyche’, ‘Tie to tree and burn’.

  Flints were employed in flintlocks to ignite gunpowder. So, since the ritual at the tree seemed to revolve around the element of Fire, it made sense that the Black Alchemist should have chosen an object like this to use as a fixing marker, for it had the power to create fire.

  Passing our latest find between us, we wondered what was going on. One of the Black Alchemist’s colleagues—apparently a girl—had visited the tree stump and left this inscribed flint, despite Bernard failing to pick up on any concealed artefacts the previous night. It almost seemed as if we weren’t meant to have found it, especially as it was placed so deep underground.

  So the Black Alchemist had finally chosen to target Danbury. But what was he up to now?

  At my suggestion, we retired to the church to see what else he might pick up.

  A short while passed before he spoke. ‘Well, whoever it was, they made notes as they walked around,’ he began, in a low voice. ‘There were three people in all … two in a car … only the girl got out … she has shoulder-length dark hair and is wearing a fulllength black coat and boots … she has a long face with sharp features … and not tall. Medium height, I should think.’

  Could he see the car? And was BA one of the two remaining occupants?

  ‘No, I don’t see a car, only the churchyard. And no, I have no idea if BA was in the car. I get no feelings in this respect.’

  He paused for a moment. ‘She seems to be carrying a peculiar type of cross … quite big … I’ll draw it.’

  He did, in my notebook. It looked like a Calvary Cross with a labyrs, or double axe design, terminating its two horizontal arms.

  What else did she do here?

  ‘She just walked around the church, stopping at each corner, and feeling at different heights,’ he continued, as darkness slowly befell the stillness of the church.

  Another pause followed. ‘She didn’t go anywhere else, only to the tree ... I can see her using a little bottle of something … she’s putting drops around the stump, at the four quarters … it’s like water, a clear liquid. This, I think, was after the flint was left.’

  Suddenly, the prolonged silence was broken by the sound of someone slamming shut the west door. Since it was so near to sunset, I had deliberately left it ajar in order not to be locked inside by the key-holder. Jumping up, we hastily gathered together our belongings and headed towards the exit. Thankfully, the door was still unlocked.

  Outside, we began to retrace the girl’s path around the church, as I tried to question Bernard more about her. For instance, how old did she look?

  ‘She looks as if she’s in her mid twenties,’ he offered. ‘However, I get the impression she’s a little older. Maybe early thirties.’

  So not really a girl. More a woman.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  Was she attractive?

  He laughed. ‘Yes, I think she is. Is that all you can think

  about?’ He shook his head in dismay.

  It was just a question!

  She was obviously casing the joint for a return visit. That

  seemed certain. If so, then we could expect trouble the following weekend. Perhaps during the evening of Saturday, 7th November. As a kind of last word on the subject, I reminded Bernard that if we were not able to curtail the Black Alchemist’s activities here, at Danbury, then next stop would be his home.

  I was sure his wife and daughter would not be too amused if they looked out of the window one day and saw a group of black cowled figures conducting a ritual in his back garden!

  He grinned at the thought. ‘No, I don’t think so, either!’ We had to catch him this time.

  He smiled at my concern. ‘I don’t think I’m taking this

  seriously enough. Am I?’

  No, he wasn’t. However, we had one possible advantage. ‘And that is?’

  There was now a new slant to the man we had come to know

  as the Black Alchemist. He was allowing minions to carry out ritual work on his behalf, and this could turn out to be his biggest mistake. For although he was careful, well calculated, shrewd and extremely psychic, minions have a tendency to make errors.

  Bernard was pressing to leave, but before he went I had one last question: how could the Black Alchemist have known that the fallen tree was special to us? It had not been mentioned in my book The Knights of Danbury, and I could not recall telling any of my questing associates about its existence. So how had he known?

  ‘He didn’t need to know, did he?’ Bernard responded. ‘Like us, he was intuitively drawn to the site’s psychic epicentre. The tree controlled the entire energy field within the circular earthwork and therefore had to be captured and used to his advantage.’

  His answer also implied that BA had probably picked up on the existence of the tree, either directly from the site, or from our own minds.

  If that really was the case, it meant our very thoughts were being intercepted and used against us. We would have to be on our guard.

  ‘Indeed, we will,’ he said. ‘Indeed, we will.’

  Sitting at home that evening, I studied Bernard’s psychic material from the previous night and looked intriguingly at our latest retrieved artefact.

  Starting with his vision of the snake-headed goddess, going by the name of ‘Urtheku’, I searched for any references to her existence. ‘Urtheku’, usually written Urt-hekau, is a title composed of two Egyptian words: urt, meaning ‘great’ or ‘eldest one’—in a feminine context—and hekau, meaning ‘magical speech’, used in the context of curses and spells. So together, the name Urt-hekau has connotations of ‘Great or Eldest Lady of Magic and Spells’. As Bernard had suggested, she was a primeval force of immense psychic potency invoked and wielded for the success of spells and enchantments.

  Urt-hekau was also associated with the Egyptian snake or serpent symbol known as the Uraeus, worn as part of the royal headdress by kings and queens.

  Some scholars of classical and ancient Egyptian mythology have considered that Hekate was worshipped in Egypt as a protector of women in childbirth. In this manner she most likely derived her name from a primeval magical force called hek, or heq, the root of hekau. That Urt-hekau was the original form of Hekate is supported by the fact that the Greek goddess of the night was known as Mistress of Magic Spells, the same title as Egypt’s snake-headed deity.

  From Urt-Hekau, I moved onto the ‘Sword of Dardanus’, skipping over the message about Moses rubbing a plant root on a bush to create instant fire. This, I felt, was unconnected with the rest of the psychic material.

  Dardanus I discovered had been the founder of the Greek kingdom of Dardania, and was possibly even the founder of the legendary kingdom of Troy. His birthplace was the Aegean island of Samothrace, where the worship of Hekate had been particularly strong. Yet no reference to him possessing a sword of renown was found, and I could see no reason why he should have been seen as a rival of King Solomon. The two were not even contemporaries.27

  I carried on.

  Seven vowels. Harmony of the seven tones. What did this mean? I soon found that in Graeco-Egyptian magic great importance is attached to the use of the ‘seven vowels’ or ‘seven tones’ of the Greek alphabet when chanting goetic barbarous names. Each invokes one of seven different aspects of cosmic energy.

  Next up in Bernard’s psychic material were the three nonsensical words:

  Saraphara, Araphaira, Bramarapha. Were these further examples of goetic barbarous names? I suspected as
much. They almost had a Hindu flavour about them, especially ‘Bramarapha’.

  After this Bernard had noted ‘tones were not sung, but made with a hissing sound.’

  Snake-like, I suggested to myself. Back to Urt-hekau.

  Then he had written:

  The sword [of Dardanus] will bend souls as is wished. It will torture. Engrave ACHMAGER-ARPEPSEI on stone. Burn Psyche. ACHAPA ADONAIE BASMA CHARAKO IAKOB IAO E PHARPHAREI. Tie to tree and burn.

  All this had come to Bernard as the Black Alchemist’s female accomplice was in the churchyard. They looked to be words she might have said as the ritual was conducted around the upturned tree stump, for they seemed to correspond with what was on the flint calling card left in the crevice, especially the words ‘TO TIE’.

  The statement ‘ WE CAME’ on the flint indicated the presence of the woman and her two associates, I was sure of it, whilst the use of the familiar Monas symbol was, I felt, implying some sort of affiliation with the Black Alchemist’s activities.

  Sitting back, I poured a glass of red wine and pondered over the situation. The Black Alchemist had struck again. The flint calling card appeared to confirm this beyond any shadow of a doubt. So what was he up to this time? It was obvious he intended moving again pretty soon. Unfortunately, Bernard was a sensitive and very vulnerable psychic who could easily be affected by occult forces on both a physiological and psychological level. The killing bone would have great difficulty affecting my thick skull, but it could kill him—and that was no joke.

  Yet the approach was changing. For the first time, the Black Alchemist had allowed one of his cronies, a woman in her thirties, to conduct a simple ritual on his behalf. She was obviously trusted by him and enthusiastically accepting of his warped attitude to magic and alchemy.

  What’s more, she shared his distaste for us.

  I thought carefully about this woman. She had to be more than just a minion to the Black Alchemist. Maybe she was his new girlfriend, or a female accomplice.

  Perhaps she had even influenced him to invoke Hekate, Mistress of Magic Spells, during the hurricane. I couldn’t be sure. Whatever the case, I had the uncanny feeling this was not the last we’d seen of her.

  32 Maria’s Calling

  Wednesday, 4th November, 1987. Bernard was on the move, walking mindlessly through a dense, foreboding wood in pitch darkness. He was not sure how he had got there, or where he was, so he just kept going.

  Gradually the trees parted to reveal a large clearing. Smoke from an unseen fire drifted up and filled the air.

  Through the thick, curling cloud of greyness he beheld the form of a woman clothed in a black cowled robe—its floppy hood leaving her with only a shadow for a face.

  She stood before the open mouth of a deep cave amid a moving carpet of black eel-like snakes.

  Looking in his direction, she slowly slid her hands over a swollen belly to emphasise that she was pregnant. ‘Soon he comes,’ she rasped, with a self-gratifying sense of pleasure.

  Bernard did not reply. He merely stood there dumbstruck at the unpleasant sight, inquisitively scanning her image for an identity. Was it Paphotia? Theosebeia? Who was she?

  ‘Maria the Jewess,’ she proudly announced, as if he should know that name.

  But it meant nothing to him.

  Turning around, she entered into the uninviting cave, as if expecting him to follow.

  Bernard did so, not because he wanted to, but because he could not stop himself.

  The darkness began to engulf him and gradually he lost consciousness.

  When his eyes re-opened, a horrifying experience possessed him. He was slowly choking to death, hanging by his neck from a noose tied to a gnarled old tree.

  Violent gale-force winds hissed incessantly through its branches, swinging his tormented body back and forth in the terrifying darkness.

  Momentarily his eyes glimpsed a fiercely burning bonfire in front of a group of orange-tinged, silhouetted trees—their branches twisted nearly sideways by the sheer force of the intense winds gusting across the bleak hilltop, which he now recognised as Danbury churchyard.

  Little by little he was losing the will to live as the welcoming calmness that precedes death began to envelop him. Not, that was, before the tightening noose had twisted sufficiently for him to make out two characters—men, he felt—staring up at the silhouetted church with its tall conical-shaped spire.

  The scene blurred and, once again, he lost consciousness.

  A sudden bang awoke Bernard and brought an abrupt halt to the sickening nightmare. His head throbbed, his neck burned with pain and he knew he must not return to sleep, lest he relive the horrifying experience and face death itself.

  Climbing out of bed, he moved downstairs and switched on the kitchen light. It was too bright for his eyes, but at least he was in familiar surroundings. He noted the time—it was 3.30 am.

  Lighting a cigarette, he filled the kettle and then felt his neck. It was sore, as if the sensation of the life being choked out of him had been real. But who had forced him to experience such a thing?

  The woman in black—someone called ‘Maria the Jewess’— appeared to be yet another form of Paphotia, the foul virgin, as well as an antithesis of the Mother of God. It was not natural. Moreover, she had emphasised that she was pregnant with the words ‘soon he comes.’

  Soon who comes?

  Bernard frowned as he stood over the kettle waiting for it to boil. The cave symbolised a womb, he decided. So he had entered a womb—her womb—and re-emerged in Danbury churchyard hanging by a noose from a tree positioned at the same spot as the fallen horse chestnut tree. It therefore implied that someone now saw this area of the churchyard as the entrance to a womb, somewhere to bring forth something into life.

  At the same time it was also where someone wanted him dead.

  So a death for a life?

  Not his, he decided.

  He let the matter go in favour of coffee and cigarettes.

  At work that day the vivid memory of the macabre nightmare kept returning to Bernard, like something distasteful he had eaten. Its disturbing implications were clear enough, but he had to know more. Yet the only way to do that was tempt fate and recall the dream to mind. He knew it had not originated from a friendly source, so this would be dangerous. But he decided to take the chance. He needed to understand what was happening to him.

  Back home, as Bernard waited for the right opportunity to retire quietly into the solitude of the dining room, the telephone rang. It was Andy wanting to make sure everything was okay.

  He needed to tell him about the dream, but his wife and daughter were in the vicinity.

  So he spoke to his friend in a low voice.

  ‘I’ve had a D-R-E-A-M,’ he whispered. ‘Can’t say much, but it was very symbolic, although it doesn’t make much sense. It might do to you.’

  Andy understood his predicament.

  ‘I’m going to have a little delve later, when I’m on my own. If anything happens, I’ll ring you.’

  It was not until 10.30 pm that Bernard found himself on his own with time enough to recall the vivid memory of the nightmare. Slipping into the dining room, he readied himself with pen and paper on the table. Following a simple protection ritual, he allowed the image of the dense wood to return.

  Once again, he found himself moving swiftly out of the darkness and into the smoke-filled clearing.

  Looking about, he realised this time he was alone. The foul crone who gave her name as Maria the Jewess was nowhere to be seen.

  So, with some slight hesitation, he moved into the cave without any resistance.

  Once more, an overwhelming darkness obscured his vision, leaving his psychic eyes without any images at all.

  Then a familiar sensation began to pulse through his body, like a shot of adrenalin—an impulse to put pen to paper.

  But who was overshadowing his senses now?

  He could not be sure.

  As the urge increased, he s
cribbled down his feelings.

  ‘I could stop now,’ he wrote.

  ‘Maybe I should. Writing becoming scrappy which usually means something is coming.’

  He waited a moment before recording further impressions:

  Black forms. Human. Number not known.

  Then he lost control of the situation as, involuntarily, his hand scrawled strange words: The waters visit the corpse lying in death and darkness, and the waters will rouse from sleep and they rise anew. Where you take the stones and relics from their resting place they are not mature until the fire has tested them. They are nourished in the fire and the embryo grows nourished in its mother’s womb.

  At the appointed time the new child will come. The spirit of the blackness appears and rises up and encircles the child. A cry of awaken from Hades will be heard.

  Arise from your tomb and the pit. Clothe yourself, the voice of resurrection has sounded and life has entered you. The soul will cling to the body. Darkness will become your triumph and your dominion and they will suffer for an eternity. The body and soul united become one. The union of the mystery is complete. Its dwelling place is sealed. Fire has changed them from the womb. They have gone forth. Fire brought them from darkness, from death into life.

  The pen stopped and Bernard felt sick. He could no longer hold back his physical revulsion of what he had just written. Getting up, he stumbled into the kitchen and vomited in the sink.

  When was this ever going to stop?

  Washing away the unsightly mess, he tried to regain his composure. Lighting a cigarette to take away the foul taste, he switched on the kettle before walking into the warm lounge to pour himself a necessary glass of whisky. He needed to ease his nerves.

  Where was this stuff coming from? It was not from any of the dark females who had been around in recent weeks. No, it was from a male. His voice was clear and a vague impression told him it was from an ‘ancient priest’ of some sort. That was all he knew.

  As the kettle boiled and clicked off, Bernard downed the glass of whisky. He felt unsteady, but not because of the alcohol. And he still felt sick. He needed advice. Should he ring Andy? No, it was 11.15 pm, and what would he say? An ancient priest had just made him write a disgusting automatic script? Bernard threw out the idea. It would have to wait.