by Donovan Neal
Governor Wang spoke in Mandarin and the translators implanted near the base to each Governors neck translated his words.
“We are ready for any incursion into our sphere. We are also ready at your command to send over a million fighting men to any part of the world. Per your orders we have completed construction of the dimensional gate based on the plans provided by your Father. Once we have the power source, we will have the means to instantly move our troops. The Ophanim that has been captured has had its physiology extensively studied. Simulations show the gate mimics the creature’s sonic cry to summon a quantum wave field allowing for dimensional transport. We believe that with further study we can incorporate this technology into our ships making even quantum travel possible. When you give command Emperor, we will be ready. We will find our people and hunt these creatures down.”
“And what is the status of the rest of your population?” said Leto.
“Unlike the Americans, we applied the Mark to our citizenry as soon as it was understood. Our population is united in making whatever sacrifices are necessary for planetary survival.”
Governor Wang then looked at Governor Consuela and spoke. “We do not whine over the state of affairs such as property disposition when planetary security is at stake.” Wang then nodded towards Leto and ended his report.
“You see Governor Consuela? You can learn something from the Chinese. Immensely efficient and they understand priorities that the government is father. The government is mother.”
Consuela interjected. “I thought your father was Lucifer and not the government?”
Leto cocked his head to the side and laughed, “Ah dear Consuela, I do enjoy you. Your remarks though defiant humor me. My father is the government my dear, and my government rests upon his shoulders. You would do well to remember that.”
Ashtaroth suddenly materialized next to Leto and startled those in the room who unlike the Beast could not see him. He lowered himself to speak into his master’s ear “There is report from Jerusalem.”
Leto nodded then spoke to his cabinet. “We are dismissed for now. All of you leave me. Wait… Governor Abadi. This will concern you. You may stay.”
The governor of the Middle Eastern pact nodded his head in acknowledgment and stayed in his seat. He glared disapprovingly at the angel standing next to Leto and Ashtaroth noted the human's gaze and spoke to him.
“You are Mendel Abadi of the tribe of Levi. I know your family. I have lived thousands of your years Human before your species were taught to put pen to paper. And I was there when Nadab and Abihu of house Levi took either of them his censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, fire which he commanded them not. But who do you think spoke into their ears murmur, curiosity and discontentment and awakened pride to walk in an office that was not theirs? Who do you think whispered into their ears how they might through alchemy summon a Virtue that they might peer into the very Heavens? Both received their just reward… Death. Be wary how you glare at me human or you will join them in the realm of the dead.”
Governor Abadi quickly averted his eyes and gritted his teeth.
Leto chuckled “Ashtaroth be nice.”
The Anti-Christ then turned his executives chair and pressed a button to lower a view screen from the ceiling and an image of men in construction hats, and the sounds of hammers clanging and jack hammers could be heard in the background.
“Foreman report. How long will it be before we reach the crystal and we can counterattack?”
“It’s hard to say exactly sir… but the analysis of the wave pattern on our quantum detectors makes it clear we are close. I’d say three days at most.”
Leto looked at Ashtaroth who stood outside the view-screens field of vision and shook his head.
Leto slammed his fist into the armrest. “Move faster!” he yelled.
“If we move faster my Emperor we risk destroying the antiquities found at the site. I remind my Emperor you gave your word you would allow the Jews to rebuild their temple of worship.”
Governor Abadi interjected. “I would remind my Emperor that our seven-year pact: a pact we and the Arab league have complied with; states that antiquities found at the site would be used to rebuild the temple as promised.”
Leto breathed hard then growled his displeasure and replied, “You think I care for trinkets? For Jewish baubles? For two long years I have exhibited patience, for two years I have waited as you have meticulously moved earth and stone. And for two years I have watched humanity languish and be devastated by alien attack, plague and famine. I am tired of waiting and I will wait no longer. Get your people ready Foreman Higgins I will come to oversee final completion and restoration of the temple personally. My source tells me the actual temple itself is ready: is it not?”
The construction foreman of the project bowed his head and replied. “Yes, sir.” Leto turned the view screen off, swiveled around in his chair and stood in buoyant glee clapping his hands together.
“Good, then it is time I dedicate this place that the earth might pay homage. I know of no one who can offer salvation from this alien threat but by my father? Come Abadi. We shall go and you may enjoy the privilege of helping me to dedicate this temple.”
Governor Abadi looked at Ashtaroth then at Leto pleadingly and in horror. “But, but sir… you cannot dedicate the temple. You are NOT a Jew. Nor a believer of our God. The temple is the central point of worship to Yahweh God of the Jews.”
“Exactly,” said Leto.
And it came to pass, when the time was come that the Anti-Christ, Leto Alexander should defile the temple; he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.
As each man rose from their seats and moved to exit the room. Ashtaroth allowed his master to go before him and stopped in front of Governor Abadi and looked at him menacingly. His lips curled upward with a fiendish grin and he said, “Smile son of Levi. Strange fire is coming.”
✽✽✽
Michael watched as Argoth was placed as a living volume upon a risen dais. His body no longer the floating transparent wisp of an angel with glowing eyes. But now fully transformed into the Sephiroth: The Book of Life. Michael now fully understood Argoth’s existence. His was to keep the secrets of the Almighty. To record the history of all things. To journal the mind of God, and to lock within himself every jot and tittle of El. This duty was his alone to bear, and when El finished, he wrapped upon the stone of the angel’s heart a seal. Seven total. Each a mighty inscription upon the Head of all Grigori. Inscriptions that the Lamb of God now began to systematically break. Each sending a wave of the Lord’s judgment on mankind. For three transgressions and for four had Yeshua unleashed the beasts of a man, war, famine, and Death upon the Earth. But there were seven seals and Michael watched as the Lord God Yeshua approached Argoth and then broke the fifth seal.
Wails and cries of anguish filled the air of heaven. Howls of those who were slain for the word of God and for the testimony with which they held. Michael turned his head and underneath the altar the spirits of men not avenged clawed their way from underneath the altar. Sprites that were ever in front of the Lord God. Spirits invisible to all but now. And they were an army of men and women who cried with a loud voice saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
Michael realized that from the cry of Abel who died at that hands of his own brother to men chained in prisons of men. God had kept every soul before him. Invisible to all but himself that these were those that sacrificed all who they were to uphold His word. And now before the eyes of Heaven; multitudes of the spirits were released from underneath the altar to see themselves avenged. And the spirits cried again.
“How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
And the Lord God Yeshua said unto them, “Rest yet for a little season, until your fellow servants also and thy brethren, shou
ld be killed as thou were, when this is fulfilled vengeance shall begin.” The Lord God then turned to Michael and commanded his servant.
“Give to each of these white robes.”
Michael then looked to Gabriel and his people who could move virtually instantly and watched as the Malakim retrieved robes from the storehouses of heaven and clothed each human by the command of the Lord.
And when the last of the robes were given, the Lord God Yeshua noted that Argoth had once more turned into the book of seals. The Lord eyed and noted a sixth seal on the Book of Life. He approached his servant who was the living journal of the Father. The Lord’s face was grim and his eyes narrowed in anger and he placed his hands firmly upon the indigo clay seal that surrounded the book and snapped it in two.
✽✽✽
Leto Alexander was before a crowd of French supporters. Each crying his name in praise. Women and men blew him kisses. He waved to the adoring throng of men and women. For he was the bringer of both war and peace. An astute leader that brought solutions to the world’s problems. A man who towered over other men. Waving and returning kisses to the crowed he stood in his Mercedes Benz waving to the thousands that filled the streets to welcome his arrival. His Imperial motorcade heavily armed while helicopter gunships flew nearby ready to cut down any resistance from the air. He loved the French people, and they loved that the world’s leader was of Europa. Leto Alexander looked triumphantly as he motorcade through the Arc de Triomphe.
Then the ground shook.
The tremor was first only a minor jarring barely noticeable. But soon it sounded like a tornado, followed by a bomb dropping. Then the noise under the ground started, and the earth heaved and buckled and cars were jettisoned into the air from rising earthen pillars over turning the occupants within. And instantly the cheers of a jubilant crowed turned into blood-curdling screams as the streets of Paris heaved and rolled and fissured; causing men, women, and children to fall into gaping multiple sinkholes of the Earth. Buildings collapsed and the twelve radiating avenues that converged towards the Arc de Triomphe merely became lanes of death. Onlookers foolish enough to record the carnage watched as the great monument dedicated to the warriors of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars collapsed like children’s Lego’s upon the caravan of the Beast. And everywhere the eye saw people falling and crying and clouds of smoke lifted into the air. For twenty seconds the floor of the Earth gave way to collapse into her basement, for twenty seconds men experienced the terror of the planet they thought they ruled, turn against them. The ground upon which they stood was now a thing to hide from. And with a cataclysm never seen: villages were buried under mountain slides. While explosions from gas lines echoed across metropolises worldwide.
For throughout the planet one lived, and another died, mothers huddled their children to shield them from debris and alas both were lost. Heroic efforts to salvage loved one's saw whole families decimated, and as the east is from the west: there no where on Earth that the carnage could not be felt. From the Amazon forests to the outback of Australia. All of humankind would share in their collective memory the day the earth shook for twenty seconds.
For alas twenty seconds later when it was over: all that remained was rubble, dirt and a morass of broken and bloodied bodies.
And Leto Alexander, shielded by his angelic guards looked over the city of Paris and all of her fallen and cursed the God of Heaven, raised his fist and spoke blasphemies into the air. And in his act of defiance the Lord saw it and when the Anti-Christ did this thing the sun itself became black as night. A black that penetrated the soul. A black that cloaked death. And the moon was also turned to her side and when men looked into the sky, they beheld the phenomenon as she was dressed in blood. Her surface of pot-marked craters crying tears of red.
But alas, the end was not yet. For the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when shaken by a mighty wind. And asteroids battered the world as hail. Striking deep into the whole of the planet's face. And when men looked up, they saw the sky roll back as if the sun had now chosen to reveal its brutal heat and mountains and islands across the oceans moved from their place.
And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; hoping against hope that this day would not be their last.
And the carnage was such that Ashtaroth watched as men cried out to the very mountains and rocks. And a collective cry of mourning rang into the ears of Leto and his father Lucifer from afar. Men who had been told that alien incursion and or attack was imminent. Men who cried out for succor.
Cried out in despair.
“Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on this throne, and from the wrath of this Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
For far away the Great Instigator Lucifer: watched the celestial bombardment from atop the remains of the battered One Trade Center in New York and grinned in infernal satisfaction of man’s newfound misery. Satisfied that his manipulation of man and his creation of Leto provoked the Almighty as in the days of Balaam to force his hand: to bring judgment to his creation. For now, it was confirmed that the endgame was afoot. That El’s wrath was now fully incensed. Now Lucifer could move his final piece into play.
The death and resurrection of his son.
✽✽✽
Yeshua stood watching over the destruction and chaos that reigned over the earth. His face holding back tears. But Michael noted the eyes of his God. Eyes that were determined to complete what lay ahead. The prince of angels then turned his face to El.
El’s face was stoic, even expressionless Michael noted. El then for a moment wept and spoke to the blue orb planet aloud that all might here. “Have I any pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live. LIVE!” he cried.
Michael held back tears… knowing that El was hurting. To punish his wayward children tasked even the compassion of the Almighty. So Michael turned his eyes to the planet. Lifted his ears to hear if men would reply and turn from his wicked way. If chastisement would bring correction. And he looked upon the sons of men amazed that men did naught but curse God. Leaders of nations and tribes hunted and killed those who even during the tribulation turned their hearts of God. Men who debased themselves. Men who raised their fists to God in defiance.
And it was clear to Michael as he fully saw with the peeling back of each seal that there was none righteous, no, not one. There was none that understood, none that sought after God. They had all gone out of the way and together had become unprofitable; none that did good. Their throats were open sepulchers; their tongues used for deceit; like asps poison dripped from their lips: their mouths were full of cursing and bitterness: their feet swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery were in their ways. And the way of peace they knew not: and Michael’s heart was heavy for there was no fear of God before their eyes.
The Lord placed his hand over his head and it was clear He took no glee, or pleasured in the judgment that was now being meted out. No. For the cries that emanated from the Earth were the wails of rebellious children who were now under the rod of judgment. A rod the Lord would not spare for the weeping that rose from below.
El Pneuma stood over Argoth. His body now twisted and turned. His insides spasmed as if something was ready to burst and he whimpered aloud looking for solace.
“It hurts Lord… it hurts so much.”
Argoth gritted his teeth in attempts to mask the convulsions that erupted over his frame. Michael, Gabriel, Jerahmeel and the rest of the Host could now clearly see his body now. It was no longer cloaked. No longer hidden under his robes. For with the release of the sixth seal his robes fell to the floor and naught but his undergarments could be seen. But strapped around his torso was something akin to a leather belt. But the thing was made of blood
and it seeped into his skin and left marks that burned. And Michael in that instant knew that Argoth since he assumed the role of Sephiroth: had taken unto himself to serve as the journal of the Almighty. And that even as Yeshua carried the weight of the sins of the world upon his frame upon a cross. Argoth carried within his flesh the pent up manifested rage of God towards sin. His angst, his frustrations, his judgment. Each jot and title now slowly being released into the Creation. Each broken seal collapsing the barriers El had erected to prevent Creation’s destruction from His wrath. Barriers created to hold the contents written within the Book of Life.
The book that was Argoth.
Argoth was the Book of Life and only God and he knew the secrets contained therein. A book the Son of God second person of the Godhead was now opening.
A book, Michael wondered: if Creation would survive the reading.
“Arrrgghhh!!!!” screamed the Grigori.
Michael and his brethren stepped back as they watched their friend's chest heave as if he would bust from within. Argoth’s and Jerahmeel’s eyes connected. And Jerahmeel now understood the chronic pain that Argoth endured. What he kept locked away daily for millennia. The loss of his eyes to see what the Almighty saw, to project into all Creation through the Grigori. To see everything at once. To record all thought. All action. To journal the omniscience of God. To keep the secrets of the God of Universe. To be the living papyrus upon whom God recorded his emotions about his struggle with mankind.
Jerahmeel’s emotions for a moment overcame him and in pity he reached out with his hand as if he would go to touch him to succor him and Gabriel grabbed him.
“No, stay back. Do it not. This thing must be played out. He pulses with the anger of El. Mayhap you yourself would be consumed. This is something only the Godhead can relieve. It is not for us to interfere.”
El Pneuma then was moved with compassion. Realizing that Creation had never seen the full outrage of the Almighty. Never beheld his wrath on this wise and He covered his body over Argoth’s and the angel’s pain eased. And he spoke to his son. “Be strong my son. For there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed nor covered, that shall not be known. Soon the fullness of rage shall be spent.”