Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (22 page)

My servant David, ask of Ephraim for a sign…

By three days, live, I Gabriel, command you, prince of princes.

“It fits together with the prophet Daniel. The breaking of evil by righteousness is Daniel’s Messiah Prince ending sin through atonement and bringing in everlasting righteousness. The shaking of the heavens and earth is the establishment of a new covenant. ‘My servant David’ is a reference to Messiah, whose sign of power is resurrection after three days. He is the Lord of lords and the Prince of princes.”

“Wait, slow down,” said Mary. “You are losing me with all your scribal talk.”

Simon stopped to catch his breath and give her a smile. “The battle of the gods of the nations with Messiah will be in Jerusalem.”

Demas and Gestas stood, sickened before the sight of the vile atrocity. One hundred of their comrades crucified, dead, and rotting in the hot afternoon sun on the pathway to the Zealot mountain hideout. The stench was unbearable. Gestas didn’t even try to shoo away vultures feeding off the flesh. There were too many of them. The victims had been there for a week by now, and were half eaten and covered with maggots and worms. Some bones had already fallen to the ground where they were picked clean by carnivores of the desert. It was such an ignoble death, deliberately calculated by the Romans to defile the religious beliefs of their enemies, who sought the honorable means of burial for their dead.

The brothers had made their way back to the caves, just southwest of Scythopolis, in search of Barabbas. They could not find him amidst the dead, so they hoped he had gotten away. Simon had told them where his monastic community was located, of which both he and Barabbas had originally been members. They suspected Barabbas would return to that hideout in safety to plan his next moves.

• • • • •

It took them several days to travel fifty miles south to the Qumran community on the northwestern edge of the Dead Sea. It rested on a broad plateau beside the body of salt water made infamous by the judgment on Sodom and the cities of the plain on the opposite southeastern edge. It was a self-reliant village protected by walls, more for privacy than security, and housed several hundred sectarians in a brotherhood that maintained their own agricultural plots and animal herds for sustenance. Their main concerns were contemplative solitude, austerity, the pursuit of holiness, and the maintenance of the wisdom of the ages. A scriptorium provided for the practice of copying manuscripts, and their scrolls were kept dry and cool in various libraries in caves of the surrounding desert bluffs.

Part of their obsession with holiness was multiple baptisms for ritual cleanness. Demas and Gestas dipped themselves into one of the many baptisteries around the village. It was a requirement in order to even enter the village and participate in any social interaction with the members.

The brothers walked naked down the steps into the small, enclosed pool and washed. When they exited, they were shaved of facial hair and given some simple tunics and cloaks more applicable to peaceful contemplation than the warrior garb they had arrived in. Their weapons were packed away for the duration of their stay.

At last, they were brought to a large meeting room, where they were greeted by Barabbas and fifty of his men, also clothed in the community’s apparel and clean shaven. Gestas thought it was a great disguise to avoid being recognized by any Romans snooping around in search of wanted Zealots to imprison.

Barabbas smiled and opened his arms wide. “Demas and Gestas Samaras. My two theatrical performers. Welcome to my new hideout. David hid in the Engedi, not too far from here, when he fled the wrath of Saul. I follow in his steps for my own strategy of victory.”

Follow in his steps?
thought Demas. Simon the Zealot had explained to the brothers that the Messiah would be a “Son of David” following in the footsteps of his forerunner, the original anointed messiah king of Israel. Was Barabbas claiming his identity as Messiah?

Barabbas said, “It has been too long, and you have much to tell me, I dare hope. Let us share a meal.”

They sat on mats around the floor with simple food for nourishment. Bread, figs and vegetables from their gardens and plots, along with olive oil and wine from their own presses.

The brothers had shared their sorrow over the loss of their comrades to the Romans.

“I was out raiding a Herodian palace over the Jordan with these fifty men, when they were ambushed.”

Barabbas put his arm around the young man next to him, a brooding intense lad, who looked always scowling and always distrusting.

“Eleazar ben Dinai here, escaped and alerted us. He has become my right hand these days.”

Barabbas took a deep drink of wine and said, “So, my brothers, what news have you for me about the missing scribe, Simon bar Josiah?”

Demas looked at Gestas. Gestas spoke first. “We will not lie to you, Barabbas. We found Simon alive on the way to Caesarea Philippi, and a follower of the Nazarene.”

Barabbas’ festive face turned suddenly dour. “Did you kill them?”

Gestas hesitated. Demas offered, “No.”

Eleazar ben Dinai nodded and six Zealots sitting beside the two brothers grabbed them. They didn’t fight back because they expected it.

They were bound tight with ropes.

Barabbas stopped eating and wiped his hands with a towel. He leaned forward and clenched his teeth in anger. “Why did you return to me with such betrayal, knowing that you will hang?”

Gestas swallowed. But Demas was not afraid. He still didn’t care whether he lived or died. But he would try to protect his brother. “Because you needed to know, and we knew you would agree with our assessment.”

Barabbas raised his brow in feigned surprise at the challenge. “And what is your assessment?”

“The Nazarene seems to have power to sway the masses with delusion, make them believe his magic tricks. He speaks of the visitation of Yahweh, the Day of the Lord and coming judgment. But he does not tolerate violence, and prepares no arms.”

“Does he claim to be Messiah?”

Demas said, “Yes and no. He gives many hints that it is so. But he will not come out and claim it in public.”

Barabbas was not comforted by the assurance. He still appeared agitated. “And what of Simon?”

“He did not speak a single ill word of you when we were with him. He does not seem to be against you.”

Gestas added, “Jesus teaches, ‘He that is not against you is for you.’ I heard him say that if anyone wanted to be his disciple, they must deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow him.”

“What are you trying to say?” said Barabbas, still bothered.

“Crucifixion is for insurrectionists. Jesus may be a secret Zealot.”

Demas added, “We do not think the Nazarene is your competitor or your enemy. And we believe he has a secret army hidden somewhere until the right moment for them to rise up against Rome.”

“Where is this army? I have heard not even a rumor of any forces other than the scattered bands of Amram, Tholomy and the sons of Judas.”

Gestas jumped in with a bit too much enthusiasm. “Some believe it is an army of angels, Yahweh’s heavenly host. To bring judgment.”

Barabbas looked at him as if he were a madman. “You believe such nonsense?”

“No,” said Demas, covering for his brother.

Eleazar jumped in, “Is that what the Nazarene claims?”

“Well, not explicitly,” said Gestas. “But the point is that whatever he means, he has the charisma to make the crowds believe him. And that is a necessary component of any good uprising. A believing mob.”

Barabbas continued to think about it. Eleazar said, “Where is the Nazarene now? What are his plans?”

Gestas said, “We believe he is on his way to Jerusalem.”

Barabbas said, “I am on my way to Jerusalem. How can you say he is not my competitor, if we both plan to deliver Zion?”

Now Demas and Gestas knew Barabbas was deluded into believing he was the Messiah. Eleazar was no doubt considered his Elijah.

Demas said, “But you only have fifty men. That is no longer a large enough force for an uprising.”

Barabbas smirked. “But it is enough for an assassination that is carefully orchestrated to cause an uprising.”

“How so?” said Demas.

“The Passover is arriving. Thousands of Jews will be filling the holy city with their devotion to Yahweh
and
their hatred for Rome. But so too will the Herods be there. If we can assassinate the high priest and Herod, we would bring enough chaos to turn the mob mad with vengeance.”

Gestas said, “But how will you gain the support of the crowds if you Jews murder your own leaders, Herodian or not?”

Eleazar answered, “We will nail it on the Romans somehow.”

Demas brightened with a plan. “That is why you don’t want the Nazarene dead. If he does have a hidden force of arms, then their uprising combined with yours will become an earthquake that begins with Jerusalem and rolls out through all of Judea and the Galilee. But if this Jesus is a fraud, then all his followers will no doubt move over to you as deliverer, and you can execute the Nazarene at your will after you take the crown from Antipas.”

Gestas was proud of how inventive his simple warrior brother had become with his impromptu acting. He had encouraged the messianic aspirations of Barabbas without the cheap tactic of flattery.

Gestas threw in, “And I know exactly how we can nail this on the Romans and get away with it.”

Barabbas smiled, looked to Eleazar for approval, and said, “Well, it looks like you two have just saved your lives from hanging.”

Barabbas thought privately that he would still have to kill this Jesus afterward, to consolidate his own power and authority as Messiah over Israel.

Molech looked up at the walls of Jerusalem from the base of his
tophet,
his burning place in the Valley of Hinnom on the western side of the holy city. He was proud of all he had accomplished in Israel over the millennia as the god of the underworld. He was sick and tired of being picked on and mocked by the other gods for his taste in little children. As if their abominations were any better. Did they not know that he was born this way from the very hand of Yahweh? He simply followed his desires as all of them did, so what right did they have to judge and condemn him? Ashtart, the goddess of sex and war, who tread through rivers of blood and bizarre sexual perversity had the gall to call him detestable. Ba’al, the most high bully and mightiest ego of the pantheon, treated him like a retarded child. Dagon, that fish of the Philistines, didn’t let him build any temples in Philistia. And that bitch Asherah ignored him, even though her Phoenician people had a distinct liking for his practices. All of these divinities scoffed, spurned and spit on him from their arrogant lofty high places of privilege and bigotry.

And yet all of them, every single one of them, were gone. Bound in their pride in Tartarus by the archangels. Molech alone was left. He had played his game with craftiness and savvy. He had survived them all. The fools.
Now, I spit on you.
He hocked with his throat to gather a clump of mucus, saliva and worms, and spit on the ground as if on their graves. He lifted his chin with pride of status and took in a deep whiff of the pleasant scent of child sacrifice now burning on his altar.

On my “low place,”
he mused to himself with a smile. The altars of the gods were usually called high places, being situated on mountains or other artificial elevations in order to connect them with the heavens. In his case, sacrifices were made in the lowest parts of valleys, in order to connect with the underworld. His servants had even placed piping from the altars that would direct the blood into the recesses of the rocks to filter down to his abode. An added benefit was that the southern portion of Gehenna opened up to meet the Valley of the Rephaim, where the last of the giants were wiped out by the messiah king, David.

It made Molech grin to think how the fate of the Rephaim connected to the fate of the gods who were bound in the deepest part of Sheol. Those pompous blowhards who bullied Molech had finally received their comeuppance.

Molech’s signature achievement was his tophet altars where worshippers “passed their children through the fire.” They were usually bronze statues of himself with a bull’s head, seated with outstretched arms to place the child over the flames. It was so bold and brilliant that Ba’al had stolen his idea and used it for his own altars. The muscle-bound brute didn’t have an original thought in his puny little skull.

Molech made himself invisible to his worshippers, as the Watcher gods typically did in these latter days. In primeval days, the days of Noah, they had walked amongst men and engaged in the open. It was almost as if the growth of knowledge and technology had the deleterious effect on humans of blinding them more and more to the spiritual world around them. It was just as well. The gods could achieve things through hiding that they could not through visible means.

Molech achieved much as the underdog among deities, which was worthy of his pride. He had managed to burrow his home into the Valley of Hinnom, called Gehenna, right under the walls of the holy city itself. What other god came as close? Asherah had seduced her way into the high places of the Israelites with her Asherim, or wooden cult objects, and teraphim, which were little statues of her depicted as the consort of Yahweh. “Yahweh and his Asherah” was the phrase. Ba’al gained much ground through the vices of the Tyrian princess Jezebel who had been married to King Ahab of Israel. She instituted Ba’al worship in Israel, with a temple and altar in the capital city of Samaria, a worship that had plagued the fanatical Jewish priesthood for generations. The northernmost tribe of Dan, near Panias, never freed themselves from the grip of Ba’al’s golden calf worship ever since the early days of the divided monarchy.

But Molech, he had wormed his way right into the heart of Israel even with his so-called detestable practice. Ha. Several kings of both Judah and Israel certainly enjoyed his “detestable practice,” without complaint. Ahaz and Manasseh were his favorites. They made their own sons to pass through the fire. Manasseh, one of the longest reigning kings of Judah, had been so effectively won over to Molech that the Jews were exiled to Babylon as a punishment for his misdeeds. Because of that exile, they had lost their Book of the Covenant that had contained the very words and instructions of Yahweh.

He was proud of that victory. What other god had such a resumé of achievement?

And they call me the “mole god.” Pftah. If it weren’t for that self-righteous godlicking prig, King Josiah, after the exile, I’d be sitting on Yahweh’s throne right now in the heights of the north, above the very stars of god
.

Josiah had found the lost Book of the Covenant and instituted massive moral, legal and cultic reforms. That evil, scheming iconoclast tore down all the high places, the statues of Ba’al, the Asherim, and idols of all the host of heaven. He defiled Molech’s own main tophet at the confluence of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys. He spread the bones of the dead over the valley to make it ritually unclean for sacrifices. It was a great setback for Molech. The prophet Jeremiah had even pronounced Gehenna as a “Valley of Slaughter” for the Day of Vengeance.

Thanks to Molech’s fires of sacrifice, combined with Josiah’s desecration, Gehenna had become known to the Jews as a metaphor for fiery judgment, a reference to the destruction of the wicked.
So be it,
he thought.
I can turn that fear and revulsion toward my benefit.

His worshippers were now few and not as bold. They hid in the crags of the rocks and engaged in their abominations in the dark, as opposed to the good old days when they did it in broad daylight. But it was still a foothold, a talon into the heart of Israel. And thanks to Belial’s Rome, the Jews were not allowed to punish “idolaters,” as they called them. They could shun them socially, but they could not harm them as they could under the Mosaic law of oppression. Those hateful, bigoted worshippers of one god, were forced to be more tolerant and inclusive in their treatment of other deities and their sincere believers. One day, they would also get back to allowing pedophilia love and the beautiful acts of passing their children through the fire.

Then Molech could breathe free and reign again.

Molech’s breathing suddenly constricted, as if a boa were tightening around his neck. He saw two figures on the walls of the city, looking back down at him. Even from this distance, he knew who they were.

Archangels.

He shivered. He looked nervously around the valley. There. Down the northern part of the Hinnom, he could see two more figures approaching on horseback.

To the south, two more. Coming his way.

The two on the walls had disappeared. They would be at the city gates in seconds.

He spun around to see a seventh wraith high above him on the ridge.

He was surrounded. Seven archangels. There was only one reason why they would be here.

But he had been preparing. He was not going to let that happen. He was going to gi --.

He was suddenly tackled to the ground by the angel from above. The attacker had moved down from the perilous height with surprising speed.

Mikael wrestled with Molech to get control. This was the strongest of the archangels. Molech would not ordinarily have much of a chance. But the god had just received sacrifice and was stronger at the moment than Mikael could be.

Molech kicked Mikael off him and launched him into the air.

The angel hit the bronze statue of Molech with a clang. The large eight foot tall metallic image fell to its side. The remains of the sacrifice scattered to the ground. Mikael shook himself out of his dizziness, to see the deity escaping into the rocky crag of a cave entrance.

He picked himself up and ran after the coward.

Mikael saw a large stone rolling across the entrance from inside some special groove. He only had a second or two before the stone completed its roll, blocking off the hunter from his prey. He dove and made it through the opening, just as the huge stone slammed shut. He was locked inside the cave with his nemesis. By the time the other angels arrived and moved the stone, Molech would be long gone. Mikael had to go it alone. He bolted off into the darkness of the underground tunnel.

Molech had the advantage. This was his turf and his dwelling. He had spent much of his time over the millennia below the surface, which made his skin pale white and his eyes unable to see well when up above on the surface. But down below, he was the god of the underworld. He could see better than even Mikael’s preternatural night vision.

Mikael didn’t know what he was running into down here.

He arrived at a fork in the small tunnel. He looked at the dirt and could see that his adversary had gone to the right. Mikael followed.

The tunnels were quite small, only big enough for the bulky eight foot deity to move, with little leeway. For Mikael, there was more room because he was smaller, but not by much.

He stopped again. Another split. But this time, three options. He took the middle way.

Mikael figured that by now, his comrade archangels would have moved the stone away and were on their way to join him.

He felt his pathway was circling back. When he saw another crossroads, he realized what he was now inside: a maze. The mole god had burrowed out a complex labyrinth of tunnels that seemed to Mikael a web of confusion. The rock was harder and the dust sparser, making it even more difficult for Mikael to follow his prey’s foot prints. About the only thing he could follow now was the creature’s stench.

He heard the sound of footsteps in the dark, not far from him. He picked up his pace, trying not to make as much noise as the clumsy brute was making.

He turned a corner and saw the deity jump down into an opening in the rocky floor. When he reached it, he saw it was an opening that led deeper still, to a lower level.

He heard the voices of his comrades in the distance, shouting for him. He decided he would take this one time to give some direction, even though it would also warn Molech. But he needed his comrades.

He shouted, “Down here, Angels! There’s an opening to a deeper level!” Then he jumped.

He landed twenty feet below. Before him, a new opening to a new maze of tunnels. He thought,
This has been one busy little mole
. He followed the smell. His opponent now knew how close he was.

Mikael turned another corner and saw the god waiting for him, before bolting down a pathway.

Mikael responded instinctively to the sight of the fleeing divinity. It wasn’t until he was almost upon the pathway that it registered in his mind that he was being led into a trap. He slid to a stop.

It was too late. He heard the sound of a release being tripped and rocks shifting.

Above him. A triggered cave-in crushed him beneath a ton of rock. He was completely immobilized. He could not get to his weapons. He could only see through a thin crevice of some rocks as Molech walked up to him, laughed and spit at him, before disappearing deeper into the network of twisting tunnels.

Within minutes, the other angels followed the sound of the collapsed tunnel and found Mikael’s location. They were able to dislodge enough of the rock and pull his broken body from the rubble.

He had been severely crushed.

Gabriel held him. “I can bring him back to the surface to heal.”

Raphael said, “That leaves five. We can split up and try to surround the mole. He can’t hide here forever.”

They heard the sound of a howl.

“Dire wolves,” said Uriel. “We can’t chase him here forever.”

Dire wolves were vicious, fanged black hounds of hell almost as tall as a man.

Raphael said, “He must have bred them down here. There could be dozens.”

“Or hundreds,” said Uriel.

The angels could kill dozens of the wolves. But hundreds was another matter altogether. Several of them had almost been overwhelmed by a hundred dire wolves in the days of the giant King Arba, while rescuing Abraham and Sarah from the clutches of the Anakim in Kiriath-arba. They were rescued by a hundred archers. But they didn’t have a hundred archers down in this dungeon of dread darkness.

“Take Mikael to safety,” said Uriel. “The rest of you draw the wolves back up to the surface.”

They looked at Uriel with fear.

Gabriel said, “No, Uriel. We can do this together.”

Uriel grasped the leather harness of the special weapon strapped to his back. “I must do this alone.”

They all knew what it meant. Uriel had the most sensitive senses. He was the best tracker of all of them.

Gabriel protested more, “I will not let you.”

“You have no choice.”

They heard the sound of wolves getting closer.

“And I have no time to quibble with you, Gabriel. Leave — all of you. Draw them after you.”