Out of the Devil’s Cauldron 7 page

Ritual in the Mountains

Two weeks later we met at a location in the Bronx and drove up into the hills, arriving there at five o’clock in the evening. It was already dusk when I got out of my car. We gathered together in a circle with the godfather, and I could tell by his eyes that he was already half demon-possessed. He wore the same familiar bandana I remembered from the day I first met him in Aunt Maria’s basement. No one spoke. We waited to take our cues from him.

The tata tilted his head back and half-closed his eyes. “Mi padre [my father], this is your son,” he intoned in a singsong voice. “I’m coming into the mountain, I’m coming into your house. I’m asking permission to come into your presence. I love you, I love you, I love you. This is your son . .

. receive this ceremony and the offering I bring . . .”

As he chanted, he gripped a bottle of white rum in one hand and a cigar in the other. Turning to head up the mountain, he led the way blowing cigar smoke, spraying rum, and tossing twenty-one pennies as a gesture of respect to the spirits waiting for us up in the hills—Zarabanda, Siete Rayos, and Madre Agua. We fell in line behind him, echoing his words likea chorus. A few other people lingered in the playground area and parking lot, eyeing us strangely, but we didn’t care—we were bold and fearless, and they stared wide-eyed as the high priest led the way chanting songs to the spirits. A second priest gripped a giant machete in his hand, holding it up as we climbed the mountain.

The dark evergreens and leafless oaks stood out like black silhouettes at the top of the mountain, and the bone-chilling cold cut through me. I watched as the high priest approached a specific tree in the woods. He sprayed it with rum from his mouth, then blew cigar smoke and placed the machete on the ground in front of the tree. On each side of the blade he drew a straight line with symbols of skulls and crosses. He turned his back to the tree out of respect for the spirits and lit up the machete with gunpowder. A puff of black smoke appeared. Somebody gasped at the small explosion. I fought the urge to see who it was, knowing the ritual demanded my full respect and attention.

“You two come forward, and the rest stay behind,” the tata said, his eyes boring into mine. He gestured for me andAunt Maria to go first. Two by two we came to the tree, rolled

up our pants above the knees, removed our shoes and socks, and kneeled on the frozen ground. As a male, I had to remove my shirt, and we both placed our hands up against the tree while the tata sprayed rum and blew cigar smoke on us, chanting a strange language.

We could not move or open our eyes for about fifteen minutes—an eternity of time when the temperature is near zero. It was so cold the palms of my hands stuck to the tree from the frost, and I shook like a leaf. But I wasn’t about to turn back. I was fascinated, not fearful. The tangible power in the wooded clearing was indescribable. After each of the initiates completed their ritual, we headed back down the mountain. As the godfather walked along he sang, and once again we repeated the chants. At the bottom of the mountain, the people still hanging out stared at us as if they had seen a ghost. The irony hit me and I laughed to myself. Not a ghost but something a lot more powerful. We got in our cars and left.

Losing My Soul

The final part of the priesthood ceremony took place a week later in Aunt Maria’s basement. We weren’t allowed to eat from noon onward that day, and the ceremony started at 6 p.m. Excitement pulsed in my veins. By midnight that evening I would belong to Satan, and I would bear the marks on my body to prove it. As I approached the house on foot, I could feel the rhythm of the conga drums vibrating on the night air. The

sound of chanting inside told me that those who came to watch the ceremony—seasoned priests of the religion—were beckoning the spirits, setting the spiritual atmosphere for what would take place that night.

The morning after the ceremony, I stepped quietly into the bathroom, leaned into the mirror, and looked at my reflection. My dark eyes glowed with an inner fire that spoke of the contract I had made the night before. The cross-shaped cut on my forehead still oozed, raw and bloody, and the various other cuts on my body stung the way untreated wounds always do—especially after a night of sleeping on a cold concrete floor. I changed into a clean set of clothes, all white, and put on a baseball cap to cover the wound on my forehead. Not wanting to wake the other initiates, who were still asleep on the basement floor, I slipped out the door as silent as a mouse and headed for the nearest diner.

The diner bustled with early-morning business, and as I stood in line at the counter I thought back to everything that had happened the night before.

“Next . . . can I help you?” the counter clerk said.

I turned my eyes toward the woman and she recoiled. Instantly I knew she could sense the evil in me.

“I’ll have a chocolate donut and a hot chocolate,” I said, my eyes boring into hers.

The woman’s hand trembled as she rang up my order. “Are you all right?” she asked in a timid voice.

I lifted up my hat and showed her the cross carved into my flesh. “I just sold my soul to the devil last night.”

She went pale. “Oh, my God!”

“Anything else you want to know? Just give me my donut!” I threw my money on the counter and waited for the order to come up. As I waited, I felt a presence of something else in the diner, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I turned to look down the length of booths that lined the wall of the diner. Nothing but customers—regular people out for breakfast and their daily caffeine fix. Years later I learned that a woman sitting at a back booth with a friend saw me dressed all in white and knew that I was a Palero Tata . Unbeknownst to me, she lifted her hands in prayer that day, and her prayers were for me.

Demons on Assignment

My pact with the devil only caused me to step up the clubbing scene. I stepped into bars and clubs and lounges so often they seemed more familiar than my own home. The taste of wine and the sound of jazz and salsa music blended into a never-ending haze of casting spells by day and recruiting souls by night.

There was a lounge in my neighborhood where all the pretty people loved to go, and one Tuesday night I got myself ready and headed out alone because at this point almost no one in the religion wanted to hang with me—like Joe, they thought I was too far gone. It was a world of jealousy, a love/hate religion, and people would not hang out with you if

they thought you were more powerful than they were. Even the bartenders dreaded to see me come in, knowing I would steal all the pretty women at the bar. I could read it in their eyes: We don’t have a chance now that you’re here.

A big bouncer collected admission fees at the door to the bar. When he looked at me, fear gripped him and he waved me inside. “Go away, man. Gone on . . . don’t worry about it.”

“Cool,” I said, and started to go inside.

“Wait a minute,” the bouncer said. He threw some chips in my hand to buy free drinks with. As I made my way to the bar, I said hello to a few people I knew, got a seat at the corner of the bar, and looked across to the opposite side. There sat Carlos, an NYPD officer who was also in the religion, so I went over and we started shooting the breeze.

Deep into the night a girl named Jennifer, one of my favorite young ladies, made her way from downtown to the Bronx to hang out with me. After she located me at the bar, I introduced her to Carlos and we all started talking and laughing. Jennifer was the type who liked to roam around the place to get attention. Beautiful from head to toe, with light brown eyes, she grabbed everyone’s attention as soon as she came in. As she paraded herself through the bar, tossing her long black hair, my friend and I kept talking about the religion and his police work.

“Hey, John,” Carlos said sometime later, nudging me. “Your date’s over there entertaining two guys at the bar.”

I glanced in the direction he indicated and shrugged. “Are you planning to do something about it? ’Cause if

so I’ve got your back.”

I swallowed a mouthful of wine and set the glass on the counter. “She’s nothing but a piece of furniture, Carlos. Don’t worry about it. By the end of the night I guarantee you she’ll be back by my side.”

Suddenly I had an idea. “You want to see how strong my demonic powers are?” I asked Carlos. He nodded, so I called to the bartender and told him to give me a white napkin and a pen. I drew symbols of Palo Mayombe on the napkin to call upon demonic spirits to show up at the bar and confuse the atmosphere. As that took place, Siete Rayos showed up. I could feel his presence in the bar. I knew that night the bar was never going to be the same. The place heated up like it was on fire, and people seemed very uneasy, not understanding what was going on.

As the night drew to a close, Jennifer jumped off her stool across the bar and made her way to me, wrapping her arms around my back. The two guys she’d been partying with strolled over in my direction, and I looked at them and smiled. I pointed my finger at them. “You’re police officers,” I said, and they froze in their tracks because they were undercover cops, not uniformed policemen.

“See?” I said. “She’s leaving with me, but you two will learn a lesson tonight that you will never forget, not because of her—she means nothing to me.”

The two men looked confused. “What are you talking about, man? What are you trying to say?”

I stared them down. “You know what I’m talking about .

. . you’re police officers, and I’m going to teach you a lesson about respecting people. You will know that this night you messed with the devil.” I turned around and left the bar with Jennifer.

Three weeks later I was bored at home and decided to make my way to the lounge in my neighborhood. As I took a seat at the bar, Louie the bartender approached me and said, “What’s up? How you been?”

“Nothing new,” I answered. “Just the same old, same old. I just wanted to come out and hear some jazz and have a nice chill glass of wine.”

“Anything for you, John,” he said.

As I sat at the bar, a few minutes later Lou came over and leaned down close.

“There’re two gentlemen across the bar, and they’re afraid of approaching you, but they want to know if they can buy you a drink.”

I looked across the bar and recognized the two guys I had encountered three weeks ago, the ones who had partied with Jennifer.

“Lou, they don’t have to buy me a drink,” I said. “I got my own money. Who are they to think they can buy me a drink? If they want to come over and talk to me, so be it.” As the two men came over, they wore a look of respect and fear on their faces.

“Can we talk to you for a few minutes?” they said. “My name is Rick, and this is my partner Tony.”

“What can I do for you?” I said.

The guy named Rick spoke first. “We’ve been coming here for three weeks looking for you. We wanted to tell you we’re sorry for what happened that night with the girl. We stayed away from her; we haven’t called her. We wanted you to know that something we could never imagine happened to us in our apartment. We just want to call peace with you, so whatever you sent to our apartment, you can remove it.”

I was laughing inside. I knew what had happened, but I acted like an innocent little boy, waiting to hear the full story of what took place that night.

Rick glanced at Tony and started talking first. “When we got home that evening, we decided to call it a night and headed for our rooms. Sometime that night after we fell asleep we heard noises in the living room and kitchen—like a person was walking around the apartment. It was crazy, man. We both were feeling the same thing, but we were in two different rooms. Dishes rattled, heavy steps thudded through the living room, and the apartment went ice cold. Paralyzed with fear, we finally reached for our guns and got up. As we headed to the living room, the sound got louder, and when Tony and I came into the room we heard maniacal laughter—even though we could see that nothing was there.”

Rick turned and looked at his friend Tony. “Right, Tony? Isn’t that what happened?”

“Look at my pendant of San Lazaro,” Tony said. “It got twisted like a pretzel. We wanted to run out of the house, and we stayed up all night, unable to sleep. This went on for a few

nights in a row. That’s when we decided to come to the bar and call it peace. We wanted to apologize for any misunderstanding. Are we cool?”

“The next time you disrespect me in any way, I’ll be going to your funeral,” I said, sipping my wine nonchalantly. “I will withdraw the demon that I sent over to your house, but don’t let it happen again.”

From that night on we became good friends.

Warlock for Hire

Casting spells is not just what warlocks “do”—it’s what they do for money, and if you’re good the opportunities can be lucrative. Anyone looking for a shortcut to success, or influence with the right people, or a witchcraft “hit man” to take somebody out would call on me. If the price was right and the job appealed to me, I took it. One day I ran into a friend of mine named Big John. Big asked me for help in finding him a job because he knew how strong my powers were. I was the real thing, a Palero Tata , and you couldn’t get any higher in the occult. Naturally the spell worked: Big landed the job of his dreams, but at a price—his life would be indebted to the demonic spirits that now controlled his life.

Big and I had a lot in common: fast cars, beautiful women, smooth liquor, and noisy clubs. Every once in a while when I went to the club in my neighborhood, I would run into him. The next time I saw Big he approached me about a favor

for a friend, a young girl named Courtney who was in trouble. He kept pestering me to help this girl, and each time he did I told him no. But he persisted, saying she would pay me a lot of money for my services.

I laughed at him. “Do I look like I need money?”

I managed to stay away from Big John for a while because I really didn’t want to help this Courtney girl. But two months later I ran into him again with the same request. I was sick of hearing it, so I attended a demonic feast where many mediums were possessed, and there I took the opportunity to ask for advice. I asked a demon spirit what he thought about me helping Courtney. The spirit told me not to hold back on her or anyone else who wanted help because it would make all the demons in my life happy. A few days later I caught up with Big John and told him I would help his lady friend.

He gave me Courtney’s number, so I called her up at work and arranged for her to have a reading done at my place. “Come to my house with Big John at 8 p.m.,” I said. Since I was dealing with a total stranger, I had to know first what kind of favor she wanted and why.

The night of the reading, Big showed up at my door with Courtney. I ushered them into the living room, and Courtney handed me a large paper bag. I opened it to inspect what was inside. Good. Everything I had instructed her to bring was there: the candles, the liquor, along with twenty-one dollars and twenty-one cents. I told them to sit and relax while I fetched some cold soda from the kitchen. While they waited, I went into my closet, closed the door, and chanted over the

cauldron, blowing cigar smoke into the cast-iron pot until two high-ranking demons showed up. The cauldron, or Jewel, is a cast-iron pot weighing over a hundred pounds with the devil’s face engraved on it. It is an important part of witchcraft, a place to meet with the devil and his demons, a place of pure evil that grips you with fear from head to toe. It is the devil-spot where the supernatural meets the natural to induce powers beyond human comprehension and evil that can be felt and touched. You can use it to kill, steal, and destroy those who get in your way. I was a hit man in the supernatural who could take out you and your family or anyone else I was hired to destroy. How can you stop something this evil and unseen when it is sent to attack you and destroy your life? That is the purpose of the cauldron, and I was one of the best at using this demonic tool to accomplish hell on earth.

I could feel the demons’ presence and I knew who they were. They introduced themselves in my spirit. A few minutes later I was transformed into someone other than me, possessed with one of the demons. Although possessed, I was very conscious of what needed to be accomplished. Now it was time to begin Courtney’s reading. But everything had to go right. It was a very sacred moment.

Back in the living room, Courtney sat across from me at the table. Everything was set. Now would come the interrogation.

“Whatever I ask, I want you to answer yes or no. No explanations or stories. Understand?” That was the first question I threw at her. It was a test.

“Yes,” she said.

I looked her straight in the eye and asked her the next question.

“I know that you came from a broken home, and you’ve been abused. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

So far she was telling the truth.

“You also have a boyfriend, and he’s physically abused you. And you had two abortions and one miscarriage.” Her answer had to be yes.

“Yes.”

As the reading went on, the demonic symbols I had drawn on the floor prior to the reading looked as if they were on fire.

“I know you were fired from your job.” “Yes,” she said.

“A sneaker store?” “Yes.”

“I know you stole from there.” Courtney went silent.

“No . . . no . . .”

The demons told me to stop the reading.

I banged my first on the table. “You’re a liar! Get out, and don’t you ever come back.” Courtney began crying out loud.

Big John looked shocked at what took place. I answered before he could even ask the question. “This piece of trash

was trying to deceive me.”

Courtney spoke up. “The reason I lied was because I wanted to find out if you were the real thing.”

“You want to see the real thing?” I said. “Okay, I’ll prove it. You stole $20,000 from your boss, and he’s taking you to court to put you in jail.”

Courtney started crying again. “It was my boyfriend. He said he’d leave me if I didn’t take care of him.”

“You’re supporting this low-life, aren’t you?” I asked her. She didn’t have to tell me how every man who had come into her life treated her the same way.

“I’ve been to plenty of tarot readers,” Courtney said. “All phonies. But never have I met anyone like you.”

I told Courtney to leave because I didn’t deal with liars. But she pleaded with me to help her get out of trouble. That’s when a demon whispered to me: Tell her on the next visit, she can make a contract with us.

Four nights later she came over to my place with Big John as witness to initiate the witchcraft ritual. She brought all the ingredients, a recipe from hell to destroy her enemies who were accusing her. This was to be a very serious meeting. Foolishness was punishable by death.

Courtney agreed to do whatever the demons wanted. If she was convicted in a court of law, she would face five years in prison and a $20,000 fine to make up for her employer’s losses in stolen cash and merchandise. The demons promised that if she kept her end of the contract, there was no need to

worry.

The first step to Courtney’s acquittal required a spiritual cleansing. This was not an initiation ceremony to induct her into the religion but rather a ritual used to get people out of situations they were guilty of. The atmosphere was thick. Even the roosters felt the fear of what was going to happen next—they were about to be beheaded, their feet hacked off, and their blood poured into the prepared cauldron as an offering to strengthen the agreement in Courtney’s contract for an acquittal.

As Big and Courtney were leaving the apartment, I assured her that her accusers would experience hell itself. I was going to punish them like they’d never been punished before. Three days later, Courtney went to court. That morning the judge was in a foul mood. The top prosecutor would be coming in late. Actually, he wouldn’t be coming in at all. A bad car accident had landed him in the hospital, and he was the standin for the first attorney, who had mysteriously gotten ill. Now a pair of backup lawyers would have to take the place of the one hospitalized. And as soon as they arrived, the circus began. They just couldn’t get their facts together, and because of that they disagreed with each other, and they were on the same team.

Toward the end of the grueling trial, when the frustrated judge shouted at both opposing lawyers for arguing with him and for babbling confusing nonsense, he finally summoned the jurors into the jury room to deliberate.

A short time later, everyone shuffled out of the room

and back to the jury box. They had reached a decision.

With the slam of the gavel, the judge made the announcement: The case was dropped and all charges against Courtney were dismissed. Although the defending lawyer wore a big smile, I wore a bigger one. How easily deceived they all were. That day, Courtney and I thought we were winners.

With the trial over, Courtney eventually became my goddaughter in the religion and resumed her life. But she would never get to enjoy it. Now that she had been introduced to witchcraft, there was a price to pay. Her life was no longer hers, to do with as she wanted. She belonged to the demons she had dared to seek help from. Although Courtney never spent a day in jail for what she did, her real prison sentence was just beginning. She would be a victim, owned by the spirits of espiritismo, Santeria, and Palo Mayombe for life.

Chapter 10

Rachael – The Prodigal

Encounter

I rolled over in bed and squinted at the clock on my nightstand —it was past noon. I groaned, not just at the late hour but at the throbbing in my head. The previous night of clubbing and drinking was to blame. If I didn’t take a shower now and get dressed, I would never finish all the errands I needed to take care of for that day, and it was a long ride by train to 42nd Street. How I missed my sports car.

A block later, I pushed through the turnstile of the downtown Six Train on Parkchester when all of a sudden I saw this beautiful young lady walk right past me. Dressed all in black, she had long dark hair, pale skin, and wore a pair of stiletto heels as she cat-walked by me. Suddenly I no longer wanted to do errands. I had a date. The only thing was, this young woman in the dazzling black outfit didn’t know it was her. I walked toward her—masquerading the obvious—and stood a gentleman’s distance away. A moment later, the train

pulled into the station with a rush of air and jerked to a stop. I looked at my watch with one eye, and with the other I glanced to see which compartment she went into.

On hurried steps I followed closed behind her. That was when the doors decided to close on me, but with quick hands I squeezed my way through. She took a seat and I sat facing her. What long, gorgeous black hair she had. She was my kind of girl. I wondered why she was alone—unless she was on her way to meet someone. I had to find out. I let a few train stops go by in order to practice my lines, then waited until her eyes met mine.

“By the way are you into modeling?” I asked. She smiled and looked away.

I tried again.

“Excuse me, miss. That’s a lovely dress you’re wearing. Black is my favorite color. Where are you going dressed like that?”

Finally she spoke. “School.” “Really? Where?”

“Baruch College.”

“So what are you majoring in?” “Business.”

The train was swallowed up by the long, dark tunnel, making a lot of noise.

“Mind if I sit next to you? That way I can hear you better.”

With her eyes she invited me to the empty seat beside

her, and I took it gladly.

“I don’t mean to be nosey, but do you live in the area where you boarded?”

“Yes. Lived there for nineteen years.”

“I’ve been there for fifteen. How come I’ve never seen

you?”

“Our paths have never crossed.”

When the train pulled into the 125th Street station, we switched for the waiting downtown Four Express.

The train rumbled fast into the dark tunnel, and I asked her another question.

“Where are you from?”

“I was born and raised in the Bronx,” she said.

“Yeah? Me too. Only I was born in PR, then I moved here.” I couldn’t stop talking to her. “What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a manager in a cosmetics store.” “Hip. Where?”

“Forty-ninth Street and Third Avenue.” She studied me, and I realized what she was about to ask. “So what do you do with your life?”

I couldn’t tell her I was a devil worshipper. “I freelance installing artwork in galleries and showrooms.”

With the train rushing over the tracks, bypassing local stations and waiting straphangers with a blur, the conversation turned personal. I didn’t ask her to tell me she loved traveling, Broadway shows, and dining out or that after schoolwork was

done, she enjoyed watching romantic movies and reading novels. But she did.

“So what are your interests?” she said.

I would have to give her an edited version of my life, leaving out the wild parties, the clubbing, carousing with beautiful women, and that other thing I did.

“I like the same things you do,” I told her in a nutshell. She told me she had a two-year-old daughter named

Sarah. So I told her I had a daughter too. “Her name is Amanda.”

The train pulled into Grand Central Station, but I decided not to get off at my stop. I wanted to continue on and keep her company. We both got off at Union Square, and together we walked out to the street. I thanked her for the talk and kissed her on the cheek. “Hope I run into you again.” I knew I would, because right there she gave me her phone number on a piece of paper. I read it. Her name was Rachael.

I let a few days go by without calling Rachael. What was the rush? I had more important things to take care of, like buying a new luxury car. I had to impress the other ladies I was dating, so with the money I was making at my current job, and money I made in witchcraft, I treated myself.

A week later, I called Rachael at her workplace. “How are things going?” I asked.

“Fine.”

“Listen, I have a surprise for you. How long are you going to be there?”

She told me her schedule. She would be there till 7 p.m. Since I was in the area I had plenty of time to stop by a florist and pick up a dozen white roses. When I got to 49th and Third Avenue, I parked my car, crossed the street, and entered the fancy cosmetic store. I surprised her with the flowers and she surprised me with a kiss. She seemed happy to see me.

I handed her the card that came with the roses and we talked for a few minutes. Inside the card, I had written my phone number along with a romantic message, and as soon as she opened it an uneasy feeling swept over me. That was when the voice of a demon interrupted: “You must leave right away.”

If I left as commanded, I would lose the opportunity for the moment that was building. I ignored the warning. But it hammered in my head again: “Don’t make me repeat myself. Leave now!”

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 618