Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (12 page)

They were the archangels, Mikael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Saraqael, Raguel, and Remiel. It would take an extremely serious and difficult task for these seven mightiest of heavenly warriors to meet together like this.

They walked across the large stone bridge to the peninsula.

Jesus asked Mikael, “What did you find at Sapan?” Mount Sapan, the cosmic mountain, stood some two hundred miles far north of Tyre. Generations ago, Ba’al had built his palace headquarters there with the construction help of Kothar-wa-Hasis and the political lobbying of Asherah. The archangels had journeyed to the sacred mountain, fought Ba’al, bound him into the molten liquid earth, and destroyed his palace. They had never anticipated that the earth would vomit him back out in the volcanic eruption of Thera, and launch his return to the pantheon in the days of King David.

Mikael answered Jesus, “Ba’al’s palace is still in ruins as we left it. He has never returned. And we could not find the Tablet of Destinies.”

“Then it must be here,” said Jesus. “He relocated to Tyre with Asherah and has been here ever since.”

The Tablet of Destinies had a long tortured history that led back to antediluvian days. In ancient Sumer, the Tablet contained the universal decrees of heaven and earth, including godship, kingship, war, sex, and music, as well as magic, sorceries and occultic wisdom. Guardianship of the tablets had become a mark of favor in the pantheon of gods. It represented the sovereignty of the divine council. The hands that possessed it were the hands of the patron deity of the ruling city. The ancient yearly Akitu festival would climax with the presentation of the Tablet of Destinies by the holder who would lead the gods in deciding the fates of earthly rulers for the coming year. Ba’al had been the latest in a long line of guardians to hold the Tablet in safekeeping. Jesus intended to wrest it from his grip.

“Don’t look, now,” said Uriel, “But we have a spy following us.”

The others had already spotted the dark figure hiding behind a pillar of the bridge, watching them.

“It’s Simon ben Josiah,” said Jesus. “He has been following me since I left the disciples by the northern harbor. He’s zealous. Reads too many scrolls. Unquenchable curiosity. Leave him be.”

“He could get hurt,” said Mikael.

“Not if you do your job,” said Jesus. “Uriel, why don’t you watch over him for me.”

“Jeeeesuuuus,” whined Uriel. “Why always me?”

Gabriel teased, “Because you’re small enough not to intimidate a human.”

Uriel was the smallest angel of the lot, a full foot smaller than most. But he made up for it with his wits and will power. No one could match his double swords in speed or technique or his mighty tongue. “But Gabriel, you are more homely and plain looking, so you won’t scare him either.”

Jesus said, “Uriel, stop whining. Did I not have you watch over Noah?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Was he not the first of my chosen line to protect?”

“Yes.” Uriel felt like a scolded teenager. “But he was a grump at first. You have to admit.”

Jesus said, “The greatest among you shall be your servant.”

Gabriel added, “Unless you become like a little child—with the emphasis on little—and child.”

Jesus said, “Shut up, Gabriel.”

They now stood before the temple of Ba’al. It was a huge stone architectural wonder with exquisite Phoenician craftsmanship. The entrance was flanked by two huge pillars, one of gold, the other of emerald, shining brilliantly even at night. It reminded Jesus of the two pillars of Solomon’s temple, crafted by the Phoenicians as well, and named Jachin and Boaz. These pillars should be named Resheph and Qeteb, after the demon gods of plague and pestilence.

Jesus suddenly stopped, as if aware of a presence. He looked out to sea. It was a clear night with a near full moon. Nothing approached on the horizon. Nothing visible. He said, “On second thought, I will stay with Simon.”

Uriel grinned with the hope of a hungry warrior.

“Instead, Uriel, I want you to find the Tablet of Destinies.”

Uriel gave a snide look at a pouting Gabriel. Like a couple of children these two were.

Jesus was not afraid of facing the gods. They could not touch him. But human operatives of the enemy could. Uriel wondered what portent the Son of Man foresaw. Were the priests of Ba’al and Asherah sworn to kill him?

Jesus said, “Molech is in his valley of Gehenna at Jerusalem. Ba’al and Asherah await us here.”

“Archangels,” said Mikael, their leader, “let us go bind us some gods.”

Jesus said, “Gabriel, Uriel.”

They stopped before leaving.

“Remember, you are fighting the enemy, not each other.”

He gave them a smile. They both said simultaneously with a sense of shame, “Yes, Lord.”

Jesus watched them spread out into the darkness as they approached the high place.

A strange ethereal noise, sounding like a bull in agony, rose from the Temple of Ba’al.

Jesus closed his eyes and prayed to the Father with the pain of what he knew was happening.

He wiped the tears from his cheek, turned around, and whispered up the stairs, “Simon. Come on out. I won’t hurt you.”

Simon stepped out from behind the pillar at the top of the stairs like an embarrassed urchin caught with his hand in the honey jar.

Jesus made his way back up the steps of the causeway bridge.

“I am sorry, Rabbi,” said Simon.

Jesus said to him, “I think it is time I explain to you what the Community of Qumran failed to understand.”

• • • • •

Ba’al and Asherah had indeed been awaiting the inevitable confrontation that now descended upon them. They were ready for it. They had completed a mass sacrifice of ten children in the belly of the Brazen Bull just moments before the angels had approached the temple.

The Brazen Bull was a large, cast bronze image of a life-sized bull, the symbol of the Canaanite high god El, and his calf-son, Ba’al. The device had been imported from Carthage by the Phoenicians. It had a hollow center with a hinged latch that would allow the insertion of a human locked into the belly. Fires below the bull would then roast the victim alive inside the beast. A special bronze acoustic apparatus caught the sounds of the dying victims and projected them through the throat and mouth of the brazen statue, creating the strange bull-like sounds that Jesus and the archangels had heard upon their approach.

Human sacrifice empowered the gods with the spiritual life source of their victims. Ba’al and Asherah were full of strength and ready to strike. They stood in battle stance in the large marble sanctuary surrounded by pillars. Asherah had a live python wrapped around her body armor like a living protector. She prided herself on her fusion of fashion with fury. She readied her battle shield and gripped her sword tightly. The python licked the air, smelling the presence of approaching intruders.

Ba’al needed no shield. His favorite battle dress was a mere loin cloth with leather belt. His musculature was so massive it could frighten an archangel. His preferred weapons were the mace and battle net. But this evening, he held a huge battle hammer in his hands. He had used this very one in the war with Ashtart at the Battle of Nine Kings outside Sodom in the days of Abraham. No angelic armor could withstand its crushing force.

The Brazen Bull had been removed to the back room of the holy place. The fires of a tophet were stoked high in the circular fire pit at the head of the sanctuary, before the massive bronze image of a seated humanoid Ba’al. His head was that of a bull, his arms outstretched before him. This tophet was another form of sacrifice where the victim would be placed in the arms of the image and would roll off into the flames to be consumed for atonement. Ba’al stood on one side of the image, Asherah on the other.

The temple priests and prostitutes would be useless in this supernatural battle, so the gods cleared them all out.

Ba’al and Asherah stood defiantly behind their incense censers that filled the room with a smoky haze of opiate intended to slow down their enemies and obscure their vision.

Seven determined and focused spiritual warriors entered the sanctuary like cloaked wraiths of doom. They whipped off their cloaks to reveal full battle regalia underneath. Their cloaks floated to the marble floor at their feet.

Uriel muttered, “The stench is disgusting.”

Gabriel retorted, “I think that’s the intent, Uriel.”

Uriel said, “I’m going to have to wash the smell out of my clothes after this.”

A deep voice bellowed as if from all around them, “Do not be so quick to assume victory, archangel.”

Mikael nodded to the others. They spread out before approaching the altar at the front. But before they could move forward, a large muscular being emerged from the smoke.

The archangels took defensive stances.

Ba’al raised his huge battle hammer overhead with all his might and slammed it down onto the marble floor of the temple.

An earthquake convulsed the temple and island. Pillars shook. Loose marble fell from overhead. A huge opening cracked the floor and split the temple, separating angels from gods with a chasm that now belched up churning water from the sea.

The angels fell to the floor with the impact.

Mikael was the first to figure it out. He yelled, “We have mere minutes! Archangels, attack!”

When Ba’al had used his thunder hammer to crack the earth on land near Sodom, it had the effect of inducing an earthquake of immense magnitude. Mikael realized that the use of that hammer on this island created an earthquake that displaced the ocean floor below. There was one titanic effect from such a cause: a tsunami.

The water on the shoreline of Tyre drew back out toward the sea, enlarging the shoreline by hundreds of feet. The water was being sucked away into the ocean. It would only last minutes. A mile or so off shore, all that displaced water now headed back toward the island in the form of a ten foot high tidal wave with the unstoppable speed of over a hundred miles an hour.

The angels had little time to achieve their goal, the capture of the gods. They each had an armband made of white, thread-thin indestructible Cherubim hair to be used as a binding. It was the only thing that could hold these monsters in order to capture them and imprison them in Tartarus, the lowest region of Sheol.

But the gods would not be bound easily.

Suddenly, the python flew through the air from behind the angels, thrown by Asherah hiding in the shadows of the pillars.

It hit Remiel and wrapped around him like a bolo tourniquet, squeezing the life out of him. He dropped his sword. Angels could not die, but they could be incapacitated.

The others turned to face Asherah. Two of them, Raguel and Saraqael, engaged the battle maiden. She lashed out with mad fury, throwing them off their footing. She was fighting for her eternity. Her shield stopped the strikes of her foes. She pushed them backward, toward the crevice.

Mikael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel leapt over the ten foot chasm to chase their muscle-bound quarry. Ba’al had pulled back into the murky haze. Uriel slipped away for his appointed task to steal the Tablet of Destinies.

Raguel and Saraqael pushed back at Asherah. They could not help the entwined Remiel, struggling to get his hands free from his serpent entrapment.

Uriel circled behind the back of the towering image of Ba’al. The Tablet was almost certainly hidden in a secret compartment of the idol. But where? His hunch was confirmed when a cadre of sacred priests attacked him with spears. They were pathetically easy targets to take down. He wanted to keep one alive to find out where the compartment was.

Mikael, Raphael, and Gabriel pulled down the censers. The stands crashed to the floor, extinguishing the incense and its ability to veil the movements of their enemy. They moved cautiously, in search of the hidden Ba’al.

Gabriel shouted out, “Come out, you coward, and face your destiny like a Son of God.”

Mikael looked out through the thinning haze and pillars, and saw the ten foot wall of water almost upon the island. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to wash over the entire small rock with its wave.

Raguel and Saraqael rushed Asherah and wrestled her to the ground in a grappling match of titans. Asherah was powerful, but she was not a good match for the two archangels who now dragged her to the crevice. They pulled her kicking, flailing form past the pieces of a chopped-up python. Remiel was now free. He joined them, with a line of Cherubim hair ready to bind her.

Gabriel had made an error when he called out his insult to the storm god. It gave their hidden foe a pinpoint for their location. Before they could spread out, a huge battle net burst out of the last of the smoky haze and enveloped them like a spider web.

All three angels struggled to free themselves from the tangled snare.

The gargantuan Ba’al broke through the fading mist with his battle mace. He pummeled the archangels with furious rage.

Behind the large idol, Uriel gripped the neck of a high priest in his hands.