Mistress Naamah

SIC TRANSEAT—

“At last I lifted up mine eyes, and beheld; and lo!
the flames of violet were become as tendrils of
smoke, as mist at sunset upon the marsh-lands.
“And in the midst of the moon-pool of silver was the
Lily of white and gold. In this Lily is all honey,
in this Lily that flowereth at the midnight. In
this Lily is all perfume; in this Lily is all music.
And it enfolded me.”
Thus the disciples that watched found a dead body
kneeling at the altar. Amen!

—Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

Description

Clan: Daeva
Affiliation: Byzantium Coven
Role: Nuncio

Dark and sensuous with a small, compact body, Mistress Naamah is frequently found unclothed, her skin painted with an eclectic constellation of occult symbols. When she deigns to wear clothing, she favors white laces and silks, and sometimes obscures her seductive eyes behind a bridal veil. The only jewelry she wears are tiaras and a cameo of Medusa, a gorgoneion enclosing a lock of crimson hair clipped from Venus, her goddess and Sire. Naamah rarely leaves the confines of Club Byzantium, where she occupies a sixth-floor suite with a direct connection to her Sire’s parlor above. Sexually available to all, Mistress Naamah only drinks the blood of humans rejected or discarded by Venus.

History

Born Avigail Meisel in 1948, this Daeva neonate spent her early twenties in an Israeli commune devoted to free love. An intense young woman with a relentless sex drive and little regard for the feelings of others, Avigail ultimately destabilized the commune, willfully breaking its cardinal rules and unleashing a whirlwind of suspicion, jealousy, and hostility. Accusing the others of “weakness,” Avigail emigrated to New York, where she found work as a belly dancer and conducting tantric workshops. After watching her perform at a coven-owned club, Ingo Wallrafen attended one of Avigail’s private sessions at her studio in Alphabet City, and was blown away by her erotic prowess. Ingo began photographing her, and Avigail soon became one of his most celebrated models. Gifted with a boundless libido and a sexual magnetism that could impress even a jaded Toreador elder, she was a natural recruit for the Byzantium Coven. And yet—there was something off about Avigail, some wild, religious mania that attached itself to whatever influence seemed closest in proximity. The way she abandoned belly dancing to plunge headfirst into fetish subculture felt unhealthy, like an addict swapping one drug for another; how would Avigail fare as a Daeva…? Whether Ingo was allowing Avigail a probationary period or simply just using her, or a combination of both, he was reluctant to reveal his true nature until he was certain she could handle it. Still, the sex was amazing.

In the meantime, Avigail came to her own conclusions. When she realized that Ingo was a vampire, she brought a .38 Special to their next “session.” Straddling her lover, she produced the revolver mid-coitus and pressed it to her chest, staring into his astonished eyes and saying evenly, “One of us is going to stop my heart tonight.” Laughing, Ingo flung Avigail from his hips and disarmed her. That night, he took her to meet Venus and Orchid. The Daeva’s effect on Avigail was immediate and profound. Like a wandering planet falling into place around a blazing sun, Avigail finally found her gravitational center. Venus was her Morning Star, her divine light, her goddess. Eagerly initiated into the Rites of Amizu, Avigail Meisel changed her name to Mistress Naamah and submitted to the Daeva’s Embrace on August 12, 1976.

Current Role

Today, Mistress Naamah serves as her Sire’s most faithful handmaiden. Naamah’s worship is hopelessly entangled with religious threads pulled from a variety of different skeins, including Qabbalism, Gnostic Christianity, Sabbat occultism, and even Holy Grail conspiracy theory. Naamah believes that Venus is the direct descendent of Mary Magdalene, who herself was a descendent of the mythological Lilith and bore Christ a secret daughter. Naamah believes that Sister Lilith and the Haggadic Lilith are one and the same, and represents the qlippothic inversion of Malkuth, the tenth emanation of God, also known as our material universe. Venus will one day be called upon to serve a higher destiny, and will become pregnant with a vampiric messiah, a divine hermaphrodite immaculately engendered from undying flesh. This savior will redeem the fallen world, transforming earth into heaven and reconciling the energies of male and female, sex and death, Kindred and kine. Venus herself allows this “foolishness,” as Mistress Naamah is an effective servant, carrying out her every wish without hesitation. Their bizarre relationship is perhaps best described by Malachi, although certainly not within earshot of the coven—“Every Peppermint Patty needs her Marcy.”

Strangely, Naamah’s confused theology makes her an excellent nuncio, as Sister Lilith is the only Cainite in the Sabbat who Naamah believes “outranks” her beloved Sire. The Cardinal takes advantage of this, referring to Venus as “my daughter, the Morning Star” and making oblique remarks about the “Day of Atonement” when conversing with Naamah. However, this carelessness may come back to haunt the Cardinal. Regardless of their philosophical incoherence and crackpot embrace of apophenia, Naamah’s beliefs have begun to influence other members of the coven, particular younger licks who have never beheld a Cainite as powerful as Venus. Indeed, the “Gospel of Naamah” may even be spreading beyond the walls of Byzantium—didn’t the oracle of the Bronx coven recently pay Naamah a visit? The Widow Lynch, they call her, and she seemed riveted by prophecies of a vampire messiah….

Sources & Notes

The Star tarot card in the banner was designed by Samira May. I thought it perfectly illustrated Naamah’s beliefs about Venus; you ever notice that redheads demand a bit of worship? The black and white images are historical photographs of Leila Ida Nerissa Bathurst Waddell, Aleister Crowley’s infamous “Scarlet Woman” and a powerful figure in Thelema occult circles. Waddell is both the “Laylah” and the “Lily” obsessively worshipped in The Book of Lies, and one of my inspirations for Mistress Naamah—along with Marcy, of course. The illustration between the photographs is an ink drawing by the great Virgil Finlay.

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: 31 October 2000
Last Modified: 17 August 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]