by Wendy Alec
Jether staggered to his feet.
‘We bid you welcome, Warlock Kings of the West!’ he cried, strangely exhilirated. ‘Dracul – Long has it been since you crossed my threshold.’
Dracul leered at him. ‘It holds a certain ... je ne sais quoi’ He shrugged. ‘My old tutor. I am deeply indebted to your instruction. It has served me well in the employ of my master, Satan.’
Jether watched Charsoc out of the corner of his eye moving towards the Codex of Fire lain on the table.
Dracul moved nearer; he raised his broomstick; instantly it became a live hissing serpent.
‘It would seem you sink to the lower boundary of harlotries since your defection.’ Jether observed. ‘I regress momentarily to your kindergarten tactics, Dracul.’
Jether raised his hand imperceptibly. The serpent metamorphosed into a hissing black cat. ‘The mislaid part of your costume, I think.’
Dracul’s serpent transformed back into his staff.
‘Before this day is out, Jether,’ he hissed, ‘you and your compatriots shall be our captives behind the magenta veil of the Unholy of Unholies.’
Jether’s expression grew stern. He lifted the Staff of the White Winds. ‘I think not, Dracul.’
Dracul was instantly thrust violently against the wall of the cavern, thrown to the ground, gasping for breath. He glared up at Jether with loathing, raising himself up from the ground with his long green hands, his eyes filled with malice.
‘Jether the Just–’ Dracul and the fast recovering Warlock Kings moved towards Jether. A ferocious evil pack.
‘No, Dracul!’ Charsoc cried. ‘We have greater fish to fry than old sorcerers long past their prime. I intend this very day to bring my master, Lucifer, the secrets that the Codex holds.’ Charsoc pushed Maheel aside and strode his way to the head of the table. He stood staring down at the Codex of Fire.
‘Secrets of the First Judgement.’
Issachar strode towards Charsoc.
‘Leave him, Issachar!’ Jether cried, watching from the corner of his eye.
‘The Codex will discern its reader. Charsoc too easily forgets the sacred mysteries of Holy Lore.’
Charsoc stared down at the Codex hungrily, then opened the cover. Jether watched him intently from the far side of the chamber. He turned the first page. It was blank. Charsoc frowned. He turned a second page, then a third. Frantically, he rifled through the Codex. Each page was empty. Blank.
He turned to Jether, vehement hatred in his eyes. Jether held his gaze. ‘You have been found wanting.’
Charsoc continued his frantic rifling of the pages, unnerved. Each was blank.
‘Yehovah knew of your intrusion,’ Jether spoke in a low voice, ‘the very second the thought was conceived inside your dark and twisted mind.’
Charsoc flung the Codex to the floor. His face dark with loathing, he strode over to the flaming indigo cloud, ‘Only the uncorrupted can touch the flame!’ Jether cried.
Charsoc turned to Jether in triumph.
‘You lose power, Jether,’ Charsoc spat, ‘Your magic grows old and weak. Mine is strong.’
Clutching the sixth stone of fire, high above his head, Charsoc stepped into the very midst of the burning indigo flames.
Jether watched as Charsoc’s face began to glow as burnished bronze, his skin burning translucent. In the very midst of the coals of fire lay the six enormous gold-bound lapis lazuli codices, their pages blazing with a fierce blue fire. Great flashes of lightning came out of the fire as two flaming living creatures became visible through the indigo flames: the mighty cherubim of Yehovah. Each living creature had four faces, the face of an angel, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. Their enormous eight golden wings were covered with eyes and outstretched. The first Cherub lifted the top codex from the midst of the burning coals, then held out his hand to Charsoc. Charsoc stretched out his right hand, his left still grasping the stone, to the flaming Cherub, then gasped. A moment later, he screamed.
A hair raising, blood-chilling scream. The skin was melting off his hand like wax, his bones visible beneath. Desperately he tried to unclasp his hand from the Cherub’s powerful grasp with his left hand.
The stone of fire fell down ... down ... into the blazing inferno.
And instantaneously Charsoc was gone. Dracul and his Warlock Kings with him. Vanished from the seventh spires.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lazarus
Jesus wiped the tears from His cheeks and moved through the garden, past the roses, closer to the rock-hewn vault where Lazarus’s body, having been anointed with myrtle, aloes and spices, now lay. He paced back and forth, deeply disturbed in His spirit, smelling the stench of the prince of demons – of the author of death himself. Oblivious to the mourners’ violent wailing, He turned to a bunch of straggling relatives standing some way off, who were staring pale and afraid.
‘Roll away the stone!’ He commanded.
Tentatively, the men in the party approached and, under Jesus’ direction, removed the great grey stone from the front of the hewn cave. Then, as one, the men fell back, shrinking in terror.
Jesus’ countenance was fierce. He walked undeterred towards the opening. Then He stopped, sensing the great impenetrable wall of death that rose up around Him as a sombre, cold barricade. His eyes narrowed. Facing Him was Moloch, Lucifer’s champion, prince of the slayers, with his rabid depraved battalion.
‘What do you want with our prize, Nazarene?’ the fallen princes of death hissed in caterwauling unison.
Moloch rose to his full eleven feet of height. A fallen angelic prince of great stature. His tangled black hair fell across his craggy, mangled features. ‘My demon slaves summoned me. The smell of strange sorceries linger on one named Lazarus. My master, Satan, king of death and hell, has command of this body,’ he growled, his voice a strange mix of dark discord. ‘The Light-Bearer now bears darkness. He has greater sway than You on this planet, Nazarene,’ he hissed. Jesus moved towards him. ‘You are too late. We have already escorted the subject Lazarus to the underworld, to join the sleeping dead,’ he laughed maniacally.
He took out a strange-looking, tarnished sceptre – his eyes glinting a demonic red gleam. ‘I, too, understand Eternal Law, for I was trained by Charsoc the Dark – you trepass, Nazarene!’ he snarled. ‘We are the kings of Earth. You have no place with us, Jesus of Nazareth ... or with our booty!’
Jesus gazed at Moloch, His countenance fierce.
‘You have nothing in Me.’
A strange blinding brilliance issued from Jesus’ form, taking the form of a hundred blazing lightnings. ‘Keeper of hell and of Death,’ Jesus cried. ‘One who holds power and sway over your kingdom speaks. Yehovah!’ He cried.
The tomb shuddered violently, illuminating the terrorized princes of darkness. Moloch fell to his knees, his arm shielding his eyes from the scorching flames.
‘You torment us before our time, Nazarene!’ Moloch shrieked.
A horde of hundreds of clawed black bat-like creatures fled from the chamber of hewn rock while the cave shuddered as if in the throes of an earthquake.
‘Lazarus!’ Jesus cried. ‘Lazarus, come forth to the land of the Race of Men!’
* * *
Lucifer stood tall in his flaming golden chariot surveying the massive iron gates of Perdition. Eighteen of his finest fire-breathing panthers ran alongside the chariot, their coats glistening black, their golden manes braided and plaited with diamonds, their heavy golden collars studded with emeralds. Marduk rode by Lucifer’s side, inspecting the throngs of listless, ashen, grey-mantled lost souls of the dead, which continually poured in unending masses through into hell and the Underworld.
One woman moved out of the rank and file of the lines; she fell to the ground, clawing at the burning dirt beneath her hands. ‘They lied!’ she stared up at Lucifer, shaking uncontrollably in horror. ‘They told me you were a fable, a fairy-tale king of the damned!’
She scrabbled up, desperately clutching at Lu
cifer’s robe. Two of Dagon’s fallen horde savagely manhandled her and kicked her to the ground, where she lay sobbing dementedly.
Lucifer wielded his cat-o’-nine panther tails, a slow, satisfied smile spread across his face. ‘This brings me joy, Marduk,’ he said, holding out his hand to his cupbearer, who passed him a goblet of black elixir that slid like treacle down Lucifer’s throat. ‘It exceeds my highest expectations. The whole of their lives on earth, they think I am a fable, a figment of their imagination.’ He stared down at the demented woman on the ground, tearing at her hair and skin. ‘They lose their minds when they arrive here and discover that I am more real than they of flesh and blood. It is great sport.’
He stopped as a horrified wailing echoed from beyond the vast iron gates. A great bellowing and roaring erupted from the demonic princes guarding the entrance, followed by agonized screaming.
Lucifer watched from a distance as a brilliant light blazed across the massive iron gates of Perdition encircling the fettered, grey-robed souls that thronged through the gates; it then engulfed one particular figure. The grey-mantled soul instantly vanished, leaving the grey shroud lying on the burning pitch.
Marduk trembled, holding his eyes, which burned strangely with a searing pain.
Lucifer pulled on the reins of his steed and galloped over to where the grey mantle lay on the ground. ‘Bring the guards responsible!’ he roared.
The great demonic princes slowly rose to their feet, trembling.
‘Where is my property?’
The sentinel princes bowed their heads as one as Lucifer got off his horse. He knelt down in the pitch next to the grey shroud, caressing it slowly between his fingers. Scorching flames engulfed his hand. He withdrew it, clutching his palm in agony. A terrible hatred twisted his features.
‘Where are his bearers?’ he spat.
The ground in front of the gates shuddered. Moloch and his battalion of slayers stood trembling at the gates.
Lucifer turned his panthers around to face Moloch. The craggy prince clutched his scorched face; his tongue was seared. ‘The Nazarene – He is to be feared...’ Moloch whimpered. ‘The Nazarene lays siege on my kingdom,’ he uttered.
Lucifer watched in disbelief as hell’s champion reeled to the ground.
‘Marduk! Summon Darsoc and the Grey Magi to the Crypts of the Shadows this dusk. I shall remove every trace of the Nazarene from my planet.’ He brought down his cat-o’-nine panther tails savagely on his winged stallions.
‘Now we strike!’he cried.
* * *
2018
JFK Airport, New York City
– Lilian –
Jason De Vere sat in the private executive lounge, scowling at the smiling attentive Vietnamese attendant holding out a plate of prepackaged snacks to him. He hated airport food almost as much as he detested the mass-manufactured in-flight dinners. Thank God for own personal Gulfstream jet.
He rose, glancing impatiently down at his Breitling. Where were his mother and Lawrence St Cartier? He paced impatiently up and down the lounge, a scowl on his face, tall and lean in his crumpled linen suit, his silvering hair severely cropped. He sighed loudly and sat back down in the hard airport lounge chair. Scowling again. No one but his mother could get him to wait two hours in an airport. The fact that he was now majority owner and CEO of the fastest-growing media conglomerate in the world was irrelevant to her. He was her eldest son, and she had been insistent that he meet her personally off today’s flight.
His expression softened. His mother. She never failed to amaze him. Since his father’s death, she had become chair of the De Vere Foundation, responsible for multi billions of dollars annually, and yet she was, without doubt, the most level-headed, down-to-earth person he had ever known.
Lilian De Vere was an indomitable force – she had to be, to survive the formidable De Vere ancestry. He loved her. Jason reddened at the very thought of it. ‘Love’ – such a strong word, but when he thought of his mother it was true. She understood him; she always had. From the moment he was born to the time he fought it out with his father about going to New York Film School, she had always understood the untamed spirit that needed to be let loose. And she had fought for him. At every turn. He would never forget it. She was no fool. Could read a person’s character at a hundred paces and yet she was genteel. Soft of spirit.
Lilian would stay in New York for the Spring, in her penthouse in the Santiago Calatrava Tower in lower Manhattan – the apartment that James De Vere had bought for her in 2017 for $45 million. She would be wined and dined by all her dead husband’s friends – ageing executive bachelors and divorcés, multibillionaires every one. She was still beautiful and enjoyed the attention, but never took their bait – there was simply no reason to. She had loved James De Vere intensely, and she was content with her memories. And she had Lawrence.
She had known Lawrence St Cartier when she was young, so young that her hair was black and her skin was dewey. And loved him. Lilian De Rothschild had met James De Vere at the same time, and he had swept her off her feet and she had chosen the wealthy, educated son of one of America’s leading banking dynasties over the brusque, penniless young priest. Lawrence was not the marrying kind, but they had remained deep friends.
Shortly after her marriage, Lawrence had joined the Jesuit order, then in his early thirties left the priesthood and joined the CIA. Lilian trusted him with her life – and her soul. As did her cynical eldest son. Although not related by blood, Lawrence and Jason had a connection that even Jason’s nearest and dearest – of which there were few – found perplexing. Only Lilian understood, for she understood them both.
Jason watched as they came through the gates, arm in arm. Lilian, in her late seventies, was slim and elegantly dressed, her silver hair rolled in an elegant chignon, her face barely lined. Accompanying her was the thin, silver-haired Englishman immaculately dressed in a pressed shirt, Savile Row trousers and grey silk cravat. He was in his eighties, with a silver moustache and his ever-present pipe jutting from between his teeth. Trailing them both, obscured from view under Cartier’s eclectic assortment of suitcases, was his fourteen-year-old Egyptian assistant, Waseem.
‘Jason!’ Lilian flung her arms around his neck, smothering him. He blushed, awkwardly kissing her in return, then turned to Lawrence, who shook his hand with vigour.
‘Jason, my boy!’
Lilian and Lawrence followed Jason and his bodyguards down the private covered walkway, towards the gleaming black Bentley waiting on the tarmac.
‘Mother...’ Jason tapped her arm as one of his four aides opened the Bentley’s door for her. Lawrence St Cartier leaned over and kissed Lilian on the cheek. The Bentley purred away.
Lawrence St Cartier disappeared behind the airport escort, back through the doors, followed closely by the heavily-laden Waseem and headed for the Egyptair desk to make the six-thirty flight to Alexandria.
Nick De Vere would be waiting for him at the Monastery of Archangels.
Chapter Thirty
Lower than the Angels
Gabriel walked steadily through the narrow pearl arbor covered with pomegranate vines laden with lush silver fruit, shielding his eyes from the intense shafts of crimson light radiating from far beyond. He walked past the heady perfume of the magnificent hanging blossoms of the Gardens of Fragrance, through the vale, until he came to an inconspicuous grotto at the very edge of the Cliffs of Eden surrounded by eight ancient olive trees.
Trembling, he pushed open the familiar wooden gate and walked over to the simple bench in the centre of the grotto, carved of olive wood, staring out towards the the colossal Rubied Door, ablaze with light, embedded into the jacinth walls of the tower. The entrance to Yehovah’s throne room.
‘You have seen His death.’ Gabriel turned. Jether stood to his right.
‘I have seen many things these past dusks.’ Gabriel shuddered.
‘Dreamings too terrible to utter.’
Jether laid his hand gen
tly on his shoulder.
‘And yet, He has to take His course. There is no other way for the Race of Men.’
They sat together in silence and gazed a long while at the shimmering rainbow that rose like an immense bow over the First Heaven’s horizons.
‘But, why–?’ Gabriel turned to Jether, his expression suddenly fierce.
‘The Race of Men do not heed Him.’
‘There are some who care, Gabriel,’ Jether said softly. ‘Those who will not follow Lucifer and his fallen. Their hearts yearn for Him, knowing not that it is He they long for. He knows these ones – past, present and future generations of the Race of Men who will follow Him, fight for His cause. These are his subjects. He will be their King.’
Jether walked to the very edge of the cliffs, gazing down at the sheer drop between the cliff face and the throne room entrance where the fountains of life flowed from Yehovah’s throne thousands of leagues downward to the Waters of Eden, then north, south, east, and west to water the First Heaven. There was no bridge across.
‘That is why Christos is, for a brief while, lower than the angels.’
Jether turned.
‘You come often,’ he smiled gently at Gabriel, ‘...to Christos’ garden?’
Gabriel nodded.
‘I feel closer to Him here. It brings back memories of different times,’ Gabriel’s voice was soft, ‘...times before the shadows fell.’
Jether sighed.
‘We have not been given the capacity to see all things as Yehovah. As Christos, Gabriel. Even as the angelic, even as seers, we see only in part.’
Gabriel closed his eyes, listening to the exquisite birdsong issuing from from the thousands of amethyst linnets perched on the branches of the Great Willows in the Gardens of Fragrance.