Chapter 1
Ebram Sardinius held a rapidly-dying match to the last of the black candles; thirteen brightly flickering points of hot flame that cast thirteen pools of light in the darkened room. The room had once been a living room in Ebram's hilltop home, far back in the Berkeley hills, overlooking the sparkling bed of diamonds that was the Bay Area spread below. The heavy black drapes had been drawn, shutting out even the dim light of night that filtered through the thick glass. The original owners of the home, both show business people, would scarcely have recognized their living room now; at Ebram's specific instructions, the room had been stripped bare, only the walls, floor and ceilings remaining. Gallons of glossy black paint had turned it into a perpetually-dark mirrored retreat, securely locked to all but his closest circle of friends - those who met here weekly to take part in a service thought dead for centuries. But to Ebram Sardinius and his wife Reumah, the rites of witchcraft were very much alive; as much today as in medieval Europe in the Dark Ages, when enraged townspeople, led by Bishop Trudeau, drove Maria Sardinius from her humble cottage in the Bremen province of Germany and cast her before the inquisitor Romulus, where, after only eleven hours of the most abominable tortures ever devised by mankind, she confessed her guilt to the capital crime of witchcraft, more specifically demoniality, and was promptly burned at the stake, before the eyes of the townspeople, including her sons, Demian and Hans.
This relatively unimportant event in the centuries-long history of the dreaded Inquisition lay undetected for hundreds of years, until Ebram Saunders, studiously poring over yellowed texts in the back of a bookstore in Heidelberg, stumbled on the details accounts of Maria Sardinius's trial and execution. Having long before traced his genealogical heritage to this cultural heartland of medieval Europe, Ebram recognized the original family name, unchanged for centuries until Ebram's great-grandfather, Curtis, decided Saunders was more proper for his new life in America.
Ebram knew he had discovered a fact more significant than anything in his life; far more important than those eight long years in college and seminary, more important than those seven torturous months of soul-searching agony behind the pulpit of a coastal church in the tepid swamps of eastern Alabama. For at that precise moment in time, April 17th, 1964, at eleven-twenty-seven in the morning, Ebram Saunders became, once again, Ebram Sardinius, and the answer to the maddening riddle of his soul became clear.
Ebram Sardinius owed his conscience-ravaged soul, not to a God he could neither understand nor revere, but to Satan, shrouded coryphaeus of the powers of evil.
The heat-withered match gasped its last flicker, and Ebram crumpled it into his pocket. Not even an ash could be out of place for tonight's ceremony. Two new members - coven novitiates - were to be inducted into the Sardinius coven, and all of the members were expected to be present. It was not the usual ceremony; and one that everyone felt compelled to participate in.
Sometimes Ebram hated those part-time members - those thrill-seekers that only showed up for the more erotically arousing services. But he knew their membership was essential - without their regular contributions, life as the coven chieftain would be impossible. As much as he despised it, money was a requisite that could not be taken lightly.
He surveyed the flickering candles once more, their hypnotic flashings strangely attuned to the same frequency, then quietly closed the door to the chambers, as he liked it to be called, behind him.
The rest of the house was dimly lit, with only the essential lights left burning, so as not to effect too much of a transition between the hectic, frantic world of San Francisco, and the quiet, sensual world that lay behind those heavy doors. Even a skilled eye could not have detected anything unusual about the other rooms in the nine-room ranch house. Nothing unusual, that is, for Berkeley. All the furniture was that strange amalgam of Scandinavian and American styles that never seems to capture the better qualities of either. But that never bothered Ebram; it was rented anyway, and besides, to him it was only a cover - a necessary facade to keep the neighbors from becoming too suspicious. Ebram never used the other eight rooms in the sprawling house; as far as he was concerned, the only real world existed in his perpetually sunless chambers. His only forays into the rest of the house were to fulfill his uniquely human obligations, those of filling and emptying his body.
For Ebram Sardinius considered himself, not a human, but one of far greater ethereal capacities momentarily imprisoned in his human shell. One whose spirit, whose whole existence, was dedicated to the fulfillment of the darkest erotic appetites his predecessors had taught were a part of each and every human being. And it was to this end that Ebram Sardinius had consecrated his every ability.
A late-model green station wagon turned onto the curved asphalt driveway of Ebram's small estate and pulled to a stop in front of his garage. Four men and three women climbed from the vehicle and entered the house, using the side entrance as always. Nothing in their appearance evidenced their unique motives for gathering here; they were dressed as any others out for pleasure on this cool October night. One paused to remark on the view, and the unusually clear night. The others agreed and opened the door without knocking, closing it behind them when they were all inside. They went silently to their pre-arranged destination, the hallway that led to Ebram's chambers. As one, they paused by a tiny clothes closet a few feet from the closed doors to the meeting chamber. From the locked closet, they removed their personal robes -ceremonial garb reserved for special occasions like tonight, and draped them over their regular clothes. In the pocket of every black velvet robe, neatly, was another essential for this most ritualistic of all their services, the black hood. Then, the four men retired to an adjacent bedroom and the women to the guest powder room, to complete the necessary preparations for the ceremony. The induction of new members, novitiates, was a rare and special moment for the followers of their spiritual leader Sardinius, and one looked forward to with great anticipation, especially by the men, as both the initiates for tonight's coven gathering were young women, each in her early twenties. And for the followers of Satan, devoted to the fullest pleasures of the flesh, it would prove to be a memorable evening indeed.
At precisely nine o'clock, Ebram threw open the doors to the candle-lit chambers and entered, accompanied by his closest follower, Levi Terrasa, and the two prospective new members Holly Ashton and Lisa Daniels. Levi had picked the girls up from their homes and brought them to Ebram's mountain-side home for the culmination of their two weeks of preparations. Twice weekly, four meetings in all, Ebram and his wife Reumah had met privately with each of the girls, in detailed screening sessions designed to determine their suitability for the cult. It had been unanimously agreed by the members that these young attractive women were indeed sincere in their acceptance of the fleshly rites of Ebram's teachings.
Certainly the roots of his faith were deep in the ancient worship of Satan, and the accompanying cults of witchcraft developed by his earthly followers; but Ebram Sardinius had gone beyond those anachronistic teachings and evolved a form of Satanism uniquely his own, one in which the flesh offered the Prince of Darkness was the believer's own, but in a manner more attuned to twentieth-century life. One in which one's body and its lustful desires could be wholly offered to the service of Satan.
Ebram closed the doors behind him, the two young girls standing before him, facing the hooded and shrouded members standing in a circle around a waist-high platform completely covered in red velvet. The altar-like platform seemed to glow in the eerily flickering light of the candles, strategically placed to cast a trail of yellow light that ended at the scarlet shrine. Ebram turned a hidden switch on his left beside the doorway, and a faint whirring sound could be heard at the far end of the room, hidden somewhere in the darkness. He turned a rheostat dial and a light suddenly flared from its sunken niche in the ceiling, a tight beam of intense light that cut through the darkness to outline a gleaming figure of a woman.
Both girls winced at the unexpected sight.
"Don't be afraid," assured Ebram, his hands on their shoulders, "you will see a lot of new sights tonight . . . And experience feelings you never dreamed of. . . Relax . . . you are among friends now."
Neither girl could take her eyes away from the spotlighted woman perhaps thirty feet on their left. It was Reumah - Ebram's wife - standing on an invisible platform several feet from the floor, her arms outstretched on either side of her totally naked body, her feet tightly together. The effect was startling - she appeared to be suspended in space, levitated to her astonishing station by some supernatural force. Her incredibly beautiful body seemed to glow brightly in the pencil-beam of the light, the result of hours of soothing massage in an oil specially concocted by Ebram, one compounded carefully to render her smooth, naked flesh soft and delectable, with an amazingly musky scent that was unmistakably all-woman. She was remarkably high-breasted, as firm and youthful as any girl ten years her junior, and her breasts stood proudly, her dark, jutting nipples hard and throbbing before the admiring eyes of the eleven robed followers.
Ebram nodded to Levi, and he quietly turned to the softly glowing panel directly behind him, the dials and controls of Ebram's complex stereophonic system, one whose speakers were concealed throughout the thirty foot room.
The music came up quickly, the first lilting strains of a four-hour tape Ebram had compiled over years of studying the haunting melodies of central Europe, parts of symphonies, fugues and odd pieces skillfully blended into a stirring tribute to the forces of darkness. Music had replaced words, for the most part, in the unique ceremonies of Ebram Sardinius. He believed that modern people no longer were stirred so mystically by meaningless incantations delivered by a priest; that music, with its rousing sensuality, was the Black Mass of the twentieth century.
As the music began, the robed figures encircling the bright red altar seated themselves on the floor, still retaining the perfect circle - a human Magic Circle replacing the drawn circle of earlier witchcraft.
From the outside, Levi handed the members in the circle several ivory-and-brass pipes, intricately shaped, with tiny metal bowls. Each contained a brown square of imported hashish, smuggled through customs by a seaman friend of Ebram's on his annual trip to the Middle East. The bowls were quickly lighted and passed from hand to hand around the circle. Another was produced for Ebram and the two girls, still standing outside the closed circle.
Ebram inhaled deeply from the sweet-smelling ash, and passed it to Holly. The hot smoke choked her at first, but on the second deep, burning breath, she was able to hold it far down in her lungs.
The glowing hashish lighted each hooded face as it passed from hand to hand, casting an eerie pallor over the shrouded faces, reflecting in the hidden eyes visible through the slits in their black hoods.
"Sit here," Ebram instructed the girls, "I will call for you when I am ready."
Holly and Lisa settled to the floor, tucking their robes under them to protect their naked flesh from the chilly floor. They wore nothing under their thin robes, as Ebram had instructed them, and as they sat, their firm ripe breasts were deliciously outlined in the hot glow of the candles. Levi eyed them appreciatively, Ebram had outdone himself on these two. He wondered how they had come to be introduced to this highly secret cult, but he knew that was not for him to question; strict orders had been given about discussing the personal business of others, even in the sanctity of the chambers. Members could bring prospects freely to Ebram and Reumah; in fact, they were required to do so. But they were never discussed among the others; only their first names were used in conversation.
Ebram settled back in the darkness to let the tingling warmth of the hashish take command of his body, to let it ripple through his brain until his flesh quivered with the excitement of what was to come.
As the turbulent music reached its stormy crescendo, Ebram stood up abruptly, pulling his heavy robe from his shoulders and letting it fall at his feet. He stood before his followers completely nude, his well-proportioned body taut and firm in the warm glow of the flickering candles. Ebram always enjoyed the shock of this moment - when he could first stand naked before his new converts. No matter how well they had been prepared, there was always that unconcealable mask of surprise that he found so amusing.
Lisa and Holly gaped in awe at their demonical leader's super-human genitals; his incredibly long penis already fully erect as it made contact with the chill air, shooting out from his hairy loins like a rock-hard saber, swinging menacingly from side to side as he walked through the circle of still-seated followers.
Levi stood by quietly, waiting for his next instructions. He hated that smug self-satisfied look Ebram always got when he stripped away his ceremonial robe; the way he lorded over all the other men with that enormous prick of his. Ebram always like to brag about the way he could satisfy women - "fuck them in places other men never knew existed" he often said.
"Would the novitiates enter the circle now." That was Levi's clue to bring up the spotlight positioned to illuminate the scarlet altar, and he slowly turned the dial until a second beam of light pierced the hushed darkness. Ebram turned to his naked wife, still quietly positioned in her spotlighted shrine. She smiled knowingly and stepped down from her invisible pedestal. The atmosphere seemed to suddenly tighten as she slowly made her way toward the altar where Ebram and the two girls waited.
She was even more beautiful close up, and Lisa eyed her enviously as she stepped between two seated figures, an incredible vision of mature beauty, tall and full-breasted, without a trace of age to mar her loveliness. Her huge, firm breasts bounced as she moved, the twin mounds rubbing against each other as she joined them inside the circle. Her perfectly-formed figure betrayed her origins; she was a fully-blossomed flower of a woman, with large, shapely hips and long, voluptuous legs that joined her glistening body in twin, firm thighs. She was blessed with that full, womanly body native only to Europe; that special earthy sensualness so painfully lacking in many leaner, gauntly-formed American girls.
Hidden as they were, beneath the dark robes, Lisa and Holly drew in their breaths, tightening their bellies so their firm, young breasts swelled even higher, straining to match this supreme specimen unveiled before them.
"You are here now to learn what is expected of you," said Ebram solemnly, somehow retaining his aura of austerity even in his present state. "Watch carefully ... for the exotic pleasures of the flesh come most surely to those skilled in its art."
He took one last, mind-snapping drag from his hashish pipe and handed it to the nearest one behind him. For a long few seconds, he held the potent smoke far down in his lungs, then released it in a hazy cloud that hung motionless over the altar. His eyes glazed with a far-away empty stare; he seemed eons detached from his naked, earthly form, as if his mind whirled silently light-years distant in space.
Then, moving as if in a trance, Ebram settled himself upon the altar, stretching his lithe, naked body over the crimson platform. He lay on his back, his long, rigid penis sticking straight up like a spear imbedded in his pelvis. The spotlight seemed to catch the hardened shaft perfectly, and its white, blue-veined length contrasted sharply with the gleaming red glow of the plush velvet. The bulbous tip seemed balanced like a pink ball on the end of the long throbbing stalk, soaring toward the brightness of the spotlight.
Reumah moved onto the gleaming altar beside him, then eased one bare leg over his, positioning herself over his recumbent form.
From their positions on the floor, the hooded faithful gazed intently at their spiritual leaders, staring upward at the delicious pink ridges of Reumah's quivering slit, her naked, fleshy lips parted slightly revealing the moist, hair-lined softness nestled inside.
Taking his immense cock in her hand, she studied it admiringly, her fingers probing every ridge and crevice of its long, hard length.
She stroked it tenderly, gently running her long nails along the fleshy shaft. It swelled even larger at her soft touch, the tiny blue veins now visible like wires under the pink surface.
Reumah squeezed it tightly inside her clenched fish, watching eagerly as the bulbous head filled like a balloon, bright red as the hot blood from his loins pumped into the swollen tip.
She lowered her moist, hungry lips to the throbbing knob and slowly licked a wet circle around the tiny slit there, eagerly lapping away the minute jewel of semen oozing from the smooth, rubbery tip.
Excitement crackled like a million volts of super-charged lightning through the darkened room as the hooded spectators watched expectantly, eagerly anticipating her next move - her moist, warm lips poised just a bare inch from the blood-filled, palpitating head of his long, stiff prick.
Reumah relished the lustful wantonness of this moment, especially when new members were present. Her whole naked body tingled, her flesh quivering with salacious delight, as every eye gaped anxiously at her. Nothing thrilled her more than being the undisputed center of attention. This part of the ceremony was hers; no one could take it from her. And she tauntingly stretched the suspenseful agony to the breaking point - until her audience was wrapped securely around her finger.
She pulled her gaze away from the thick, heavy spear clutched in her grip, and studied carefully her aroused congregation. Perfect, she told herself, the mood couldn't be better. Something special is in order . . . something unexpected to shock these thrill-seeking voyeurs into action . . . something they'll never forget!
Reumah pushed her golden body up from her doubled knees, towering like a naked goddess over Ebram's hair-covered body stretched beneath her. She could hear a muffled gasp go up from the others as she parted her smooth, silky thighs, and positioned her pink, moist slit directly over his stiffly-rising manhood.
She reached between her thighs from behind, and slipped the enormous pink head between the fleshy lips of her hungry pussy. Like a starved animal, the warm, pink jaws enveloped the bulbous tip and drew it ravenously into the soft, moist tunnel between her legs.
She lowered the firm, round melons of her buttocks down onto his impaling shaft, skewering herself deliciously on the long stalk. With a wet slurping sound, the fleshy stem disappeared up between her widespread thighs; and a low soulful moan slipped softly from between her parted lips as she felt the long hard spire burrow exquisitely into the raging inferno of her belly. The lust-hardened staff was like gasoline on the flames of desire that burned insatiably inside her.
With a smacking thud, she smashed her damp cuntal crevice tight down against his bushy loins, ramming the full length of his huge prick to the hilt inside her. She could feel it far up in her belly, like a hot torch burning at her insides.
Her tousled hair swirled wildly around her head, eerily aglow in the beam of light, as she tossed her head from side to side, front to back, her eyes tightly closed. Lifting herself with the taut muscles of her legs, she slithered wetly up and down the long shaft, pushing her naked torso up until only the swollen pink knob lay ensheathed in her warm wet clutches; then, with a gasping cry of abandonment, she shoved her moist slit back down onto the skewering length of his long, thick cock, hungrily gulping up every inch of the hard spear, until it lay nestled in the tight warm confines of her constrictive passage, firmly gripped between the soft, pink walls of her wet pulsating pussy.
The young Lisa gaped incredulously at the lewd spectacle, witnessing every fantastic second of Reumah's performance, but unable to register fully what her eyes were recording on the blurred surfaces of her mind. The hashish was taking control, rippling out its own instructions through her body, numbly fogging the inhibitive programming of her stunned mind, freeing her body and spirit completely, until her tender young body was nothing more than a bundled maze of sensitive nerve endings, ready and willing to sense . . . and to touch . . . and to feel . . .
Reumah was suddenly bucking violently, pumping her hungry, clasping pussy up and down frantically on the high priest's upright penis. With every powerful, grinding snap of her buttocks, she sank completely to his sweat-soaked pelvis, shoving his lust-inflated cock far inside her raging belly. Her face contorted with delicious agony, every downward thrust seemed harder and faster than the one before. Rivulets of sweat poured from her face and shoulders and trickled in sparkling streams down the long, smooth expanse of her naked back. Her firm, proud tits bumped from side to side, swaying with her savage, frenzied rhythm.
Ebram gazed upward at her passion-twisted face, framed between her large, jutting breasts, and knew that the hoped-for moment was near - that in just seconds Reumah's anxiously-awaited orgasm would burst in a shower of colors across her drugged brain. He thrust his bare loins up to meet her eager, skewering movements, ramming the swollen knob of his cock even further up into her belly. A sharp cry of pain gasped from between her dry, ovaled lips; but that modest effort seemed to be the last, final boost that shoved her over into the swirling depths of pure, satisfying ecstasy.
Her head snapped back. "Yes . . . yes . . . Oh, yes! Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhh! I'm cumming! I'M CUMMING!" Her burning loins ground tightly against his hairy pelvis, Reumah impaled herself one last time on his still-rigid pole, clasping it voraciously with a million fleshy fingers as her warm, oozing orgiastic juices trickled wetly down the length of his prick and streamed obscenely down his swollen balls, and down between his legs.
As she lifted herself weakly from his body, Lisa felt a shiver of excitement, mixed with dread, as Ebram's long cock slipped from its soft, fleshy sheath. It was still as hard as when he first stripped off his robes, drenched from base to tip with Reumah's flood of orgasmic juices. It made a loud sucking noise as the fleshy, warm lips of her cunt released the inflated bulb reluctantly, as Reumah stretched to clear herself from the lofty shaft.
Levi Terrasa had waited long and patiently for this moment, and now that it was here, his balls ached as if they had been brutally kicked and left to swell. Like two overfilled balloons, they bulged painfully between his legs.
Ebram had promised him the first initiate tonight, and he struggled to contain himself in the shroud of ceremony Ebram so determinedly insisted upon. He'd had his eyes on Lisa throughout most of the Reumah's performance; he'd long ago grown tired of Reumah anyway. Her ever-available pleasure hole interested him not at all; this new member was something else altogether, though.
He had already seen enough through the thin, filmy novitiate's robe to be certain of that. Her taut, firm breasts pushed the translucent cloth up in two tantalizing mounds, twin ripened peaks of youthful tenderness barely concealed beneath her robe. In his mind's eye, he could easily see her naked loveliness, a ripe, eager young Venus. . . awaiting his touch. Her hair tumbled loosely over her shoulders, a shimmering cascade of luxuriant blonde down that beckoned his gentle stroke.
The mind-freeing hashish pipes were moving around the room again; temporarily forgotten in the midst of Reumah's fervent ecstasy, and Lisa pulled a deep, searing drag into her lungs. This time she could feel the powerful mist heading straight for her brain, like a fireball that blasted against the top of her head.
She hesitated not even an instant when Ebram's hand gripped her shoulder, and he pointed toward the scarlet altar. His still dripping cock dangled ominously near her face, still only half-softened.
As the frantic, feverish strains of a hundred violins welled from some unseen, spectral orchestra, Lisa rose obediently and walked to the altar, her abysmal blue eyes thinly glazed from the hashish. She stopped as she reached the foot of the shrouded platform and waited silently for her next command.
Ebram produced a heavy silver chalice, polished to mirrored perfection and gulped down several mouthfuls of the black liquid inside. It streamed from his lips and dribbled down along his hairy chest, staining his flesh a sinister blood red.
At arm's length, he handed it to Lisa, and nodded affirmatively. She clasped it shakily between her opened palms and lifted it to her lips. It was bitingly bitter, but she forced down a swallow anyway, and handed the chalice back to Ebram. He then passed it off behind him in the darkness, where it was quickly taken up by a pair of unseen hands.
Ebram eyed the young girl knowingly, imagining the intricate course his potent beverage might at that moment be charting inside her beautiful body. His special wine had been known to have delightful effects on novitiates, especially the younger ones. It was his own creation - a fantastically potent combination of strong wine and absinthe, in which was introduced the key ingredient, THC, derived from marijuana. It hadn't been easy getting his hands on that; but one of his coven followers had discovered a way, and the rest was history. Developing the beverage's usefulness was his own idea - using it only for special ceremonies, to fantastically heighten the senses, to open up new territories in the mind. But most of all, to strengthen beyond belief the sensual pleasures of sex.
As the potent drug flashed its presence vividly across her brain, Lisa could feel a billion short-circuits exploding all over her body as her nerve endings tingled with newly-awakened sensitivity.
"Show yourself, Lisa, to the others," ordered Ebram, "remove the ceremonial robe. Prepare to unleash the full abandoned fury of your desires ..."