Downward to Darkness is a Cthulhu Mythos novel written by Brian McNaughton. It was originally published in 1978 as Satan's Mistress (Carlyle Books), and released under McNaughton's preferred title in 2000 by Wildside Press. It was followed by a sequel, Worse Things Waiting (aka Satan's Seductress).
Synopsis[]
When teenager Patrick McLaughlin's family moves into an old mill once owned by an ancestor in Mt. Tabor, Connecticut, he begins having vivid and powerfully erotic dreams about a mysterious red-haired woman. The dreams turn out to be part of his ancestor's plot to return to the world of the living by possessing a descendant--a plot that disrupts not only Patrick's family but the entire community of Mt. Tabor.
Characters[]
- Mordred Glendower: A Welsh wizard born in 1560 who kept himself alive by "incarnating himself in a new body each generation." He was "secretary to Dr. John Dee in the reign of Elizabeth I." He walked with a limp due to his "ineptly set leg, broken during his headlong flight from Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692." He lived as a miller in Mt. Tabor, Connecticut, until he was blamed for a series of infant disappearances in 1847 and neighbors burned him to death in his home.
- Mirdath Hodgson: Mordred's daughter, and "a partner in his deviltry." She was hanged from an oak tree after her father's killing; her son changed his name to Glenn, moved to California, and became the ancestor of Rose McLaughlin. Mirdath has "straight, long hair of a particularly dark-red shade," "her skin [is] as smooth and as white as the flesh of an egg," and her "nose was long and straight and suggestive of a classical goddess."
- Patrick McLaughlin: A 15-year-old boy who is "even more awkward and shy than most of his contemporaries; he had neither charm nor good looks."
- Frank McLaughlin: Patrick's father, a successful commercial artist. He had a "large knees," a "large face" and a "large belly." He attended Harvard, but likes to wear a Syracuse sweatshirt as a "badge of reverse snobbery."
- Rose Glenn McLaughlin: Patrick's mother and Frank's wife, she has a Ph.D. in English. Described as "handsome," she has "freckles and prominent upper teeth": "Her dark hair, pulled back from her angular face, held streaks of gray that she didn't try to conceal."
- Dr. Howard Ashcroft: The leader of an esoteric cult near Mt. Tabor. He was "written up in one of those grocery-store tabloids as a wizard who practices the Black Mass." He has a "neat, salt-and-pepper Vandyke."
- Jane Miniter: A real estate agent and a friend of Rose's; Frank refers to her as "Mrs. Minotaur." Twenty years earlier, she "had been the prettiest girl in Mt. Tabor" (according to George Spencer, who had an affair with her), but grew "coarse and mannish in middle age." She "always looked as if she'd just tramped in from a day's rough shooting on the moors."
- Amy Miniter: Jane's daughter, whom she calls "stolid."; Patrick sees her as "a plain, awkward girl, even less socially acceptable than he was." She is described as having "eyes...as pale as her skin and hair."
- Rupert Spencer: A not-very-talented writer, 15 years younger than Frank, who is in love with Rose McLaughin. He is a "tall, blond young man with regular features and an athletic build," who looks "like a handsome version of Robert Redford."
- George Spencer: Rupert's father and the McLaughlin family lawyer. He is a local historian as well as a dedicated H. P. Lovecraft fan. He is "a trim, silver-haired man of sixty or so."
- Bill Kraft: A psychologist and friend of the McLaughlin family.
- Alfred Roberts: A New York art director who often solicits work from Frank. His gayness irritates and fascinates Frank.
- Shana Jennings: A classmate, a cheerleader, that Patrick is particularly attracted to. "Her hair was blond. Her eyes were large and of a particularly light and clear shade of blue." She has a snub nose.
- Bruce Curtis: Shana's boyfriend, "a junior with a wild reputation."
- Robert Bamberger: A high school teacher who objects to Patrick's "snotty attitude."
- Justine d'Estranges: An associate of Ashcroft's; she appears to be extremely attractive at the McLaughlins' Halloween party, but this is a glamour laid on her by Ashcroft.
- Philip Marlowe: Chief of police of Mt. Tabor; Rose finds the name ironic, since he is a "Keystone Kop."
Mythos Connections[]
Mordred Glendower's attempt to possess his descendant is reminiscent of both "The Thing on the Doorstep" and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, not to mention every August Derleth plot where a protagonists inherits property and discovers ancestral evil.
The supernatural elements in Downward to Darkness are largely taken from the Mythos. A copy of John Dee's translation of the Necronomicon is encountered, which warns, "Call not upon Yog-Sothoth until ye be certaine that ye Bones be compleat." Azathoth is remarked to have created the universe "by accident." Mordred Glendower seeks to learn the complete Litany of Hastur--a series of increasingly powerful words of power--and to know " the time and place of the visitations of Shub-Niggurath."
The Irish pagan god Crom Cruach is also repeatedly invoked, as is a god of McNaughton's invention, That Which Is (Not). Worse Things Waiting would name this latter deity as "Zurvan", a Great Old One worshipped by Howard Ashcroft and his cultists.
H. P. Lovecraft exists in the reality of Downward to Darkness, tauntingly revealing the existence of eldritch horrors, whose reality was concealed by "an unlikely conspiracy of scholars, literary men, and theoretical physicists," under the guise of fiction. "When The Call of Cthulhu was first printed in 1928, Albert Einstein panicked," a character notes. "He had drafted a letter urging Farnsworth Wright, Lovecraft's editor, in the strongest possible terms, not to print any more stories on similar themes." It was decided, however, to take a subtler approach to marginalizing Lovecraft's revelations: “Someone—it may have been the CIA—paid off his posthumous publisher, August Derleth, to trivialize his concepts and make a hash of his unpublished fragments."