Rise Of The Nephilim (The Tamar Black Saga)

by Nicola Rhodes

  ‘What all at once? This is getting ridiculous.’

  ‘He certainly is getting busier sir,’ agreed the operator.

  ‘Yes he is, the bastard. And don’t call me sir,’ added Denny. ‘Do I look like a sir to you? You can call me Denny. You don’t work for me.’

  ‘Another hit on the small gods, sir,’ another voice called across the room. Saturday. I’ve got the locations.’

  ‘You know, he’s got to be wondering by now, how we keep getting there before him … before his lackeys,’ said Denny, ignoring the “sir” this time.

  ‘We don’t, always,’ said Director Dawber coming into the room. ‘That’s the problem.

  ‘Often enough, though. He’s got to wonder why.’

  Dawber shrugged. ‘Any new Intel on these “warrior” freaks?’ he asked.

  ‘Nada,’ said Denny gloomily. ‘We can’t get hold of one to find out anything about them. And whatever the hell they are, there’s no data on them. As far as we know anyway.’

  ‘Got to be a record of them in the mainframe somewhere,’ said Dawber.

  ‘You’d think,’ said Denny.

  ‘We’ll keep on it,’ promised Dawber. ‘Personally, I think they came from Hell.’

  ‘Well, I never saw them when I was there,’ said Denny, causing Director Dawber’s eyebrows to shoot up into his hairline. They never stopped surprising you, these people, he thought. If anyone can crack this, it’s them.

  ‘Oh, no!’ there was a cry from across the room. Dawber looked over in surprise. These people were highly trained and, moreover, were used to this sort of work. What could have elicited such a response?

  He looked at Denny, and they raised their eyebrows at each other and shrugged. One way to find out.

  * * *

  Father Donaldson was a pretty conscientious priest. He never stole the collection money, or recorded the confessions, and he certainly did not diddle the altar boys. So all in all, he really did not deserve what was about to happen to him.

  He was sitting in the vestry, conscientiously bringing the parish records up to date on the new fangled computer thingy. If Father Donaldson had a vice it was a relatively harmless fascination for all modern technology. Was that any reason for six black masked men to burst in on his solitude, tie him up and set his church on fire?

  * * *

  ‘He’s attacking the Church? The Christian church?’ said Tamar blankly. ‘But that’s his mob, isn’t it?

  ‘He’s accusing them of the sin of “Pride”.’ said Denny.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Tamar. ‘But still … we can’t let him.’

  ‘Of course not. According to his manifesto….’

  ‘What manifesto?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s being published afterwards, if our information is correct. He’s coming out of the closet. Not that he’s leaving his stronghold personally, but … anyway, the manifesto says, among other things – it’s really just a list of the sins of mankind – anyway, it says that the churches of Rome and England have become complacent, indolent, wasteful. Spare the rod and spoil the congregation, sort of thing. I think he’s pretty appalled that we don’t all go to church every Sunday and send the kids to Sunday school and all that, like the olden days. He’s blaming the Church itself.’

  ‘So he’s wiping them out?’

  ‘A clean sweep.’

  ‘But it’s nonsense. You can’t force people to go to church. How are the Church to blame?’

  ‘Supposedly for letting us get away with it. We’re all supposed to be too terrified of Hell to even think of not going. Look, it doesn’t have to make sense – he’s off his chump, remember?’

  Well, there is that, of course … sounds like he reckons he’s got them on Sloth as well as Pride.’

  ‘He doesn’t say as much, I don’t think.’

  ‘What about Greed? The church of Rome has been accused of that for centuries.’

  ‘He could be accusing them of washing their feet in the font. It doesn’t matter. He only wants an excuse.’

  ‘What would that be then, sacrilege?’

  ‘He’s going for the big leagues now,’ said Denny, ignoring this. ‘Maybe attendance is down, but the Christian church is still a mainstay of society over a large part of the world. He’s got plans. There are several governments on the manifesto too.’

  ‘Church and government,’ said Tamar. ‘The other mainstay of society, for better or worse. All he needs is an excuse to go after the governments, and let’s face it, how hard could that be?’

  ‘He’s gone way past purging the world of evil,’ said Denny. ‘He’s moved into taking over the world mode. They always do in the end,’ he sighed.

  ‘Evil maniacs!’ she said. ‘Funny how so many of them have it in for us personally.’

  ‘It just means we’re doing something right.’

  ‘We have to find him.’

  ‘We haven’t got time to find him. He’s keeping us too busy.’

  * * *

  Despite what Denny had said about them having no time to look for Ashtoreth, they realised that finding him was the best way of stopping the slaughter. Tamar had been talking again about the historical files where belief in the gods still existed. But not with any real hope.

  Of course, if we’re speaking of the historical files,’ said Denny. There is one place we haven’t looked.’

  ‘We’ve looked from one end of time to the other,’ said Tamar dispiritedly.

  ‘No, we haven’t,’ said Denny. ‘We haven’t been to the end of time.’

  The end of time,’ echoed Tamar in a horrified tone. ‘But that’s … sorry, what is that then?’

  ‘An empty place, it’s not filed. Well, there’s nothing there. Except the beginning of time, of course.’

  ‘And that’s not filed either I suppose?’ said Tamar.

  ‘It’s a gap,’ said Denny. ‘The space of time between then and now, shorter than a click of your fingers. But there is no time there. It’s eternity too. How do you file eternity? But you could hide there forever.’

  ‘And you know how to get us there?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said smugly. ‘Dunno about getting us out again … I’m kidding,’ he added when he saw her face.

  ‘The end of time,’ said Tamar. ‘What are we waiting for then, the world to end?’

  To reach the end of time, Denny simply entered the file closest to it; the end of the year five hundred gazillion or something like it, and waited.

  It wasn’t exactly nothing, not like the void. It was a howling wilderness. Tamar pointed this out.

  ‘There’s a lot of temporal energy being funneled through here,’ said Denny.

  ‘I can’t believe Cindy ever came here.’ said Tamar. ‘It’s horrible. Like being stuck inside a blender.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Denny holding up a finger.

  ‘Wait for wha…’ silence fell; silence and absolute stillness and then a light fell.

  ‘Welcome to eternity,’ said Denny.

  ‘My God, it’s beautiful,’ said Tamar in awe.

  ‘A perfect moment,’ said Denny. ‘Everyone has this inside them. The ability to make a perfect moment last forever.’ he smiled at her.

  ‘You’ve been here before.’ It was not actually a question, it just sounded like one.

  ‘How would you have liked me to describe it?’ he said.

  ‘You couldn’t have,’ she conceded.*

  *[And I’m not even going to try – use your imagination]

  ‘Exactly,’ he said.

  ‘I feel like … like … like falling in love, like the first time I kissed you.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘A perfect moment.’

  ‘You soppy git,’ she said.

  ‘Mind you, I know what you mean,’ she added, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s the most romantic date anyone ever went on,’ she said. ‘I wish we could stay.’

  Denny would have liked very much to stay here. It was
peaceful; no nasty dreams could haunt him here. He would get no weaker. But they could not stay. It was obvious to him that Ashtoreth was not here. It would hardly have been a perfect moment if he had been. Denny, having been here before, had known that he would know immediately if he was here.

  ‘He isn’t here,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘At least it hasn’t been a waste of time,’ said Tamar. ‘And even if it had been, I wouldn’t be sorry we came.’

  * * *

  ‘The Army of Righteousness?’ Tamar was reading Ashtoreth’s “Manifesto”. ‘Is that what he’s calling it? He’s not just barmy. He’s not very imaginative either.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what he calls it,’ said Denny. ‘But it’s a pity he doesn’t give away what the army’s made up of. ‘You know, ‘my army of – insert name of species –.’

  ‘That would be helpful I suppose, but, on the other hand, it’s not as if we’re having any trouble beating them up.’

  ‘But every time we get rid of one lot …’ He left the sentence hanging. It had been said too many times before.

  ‘What does it matter?’ she said. ‘The only way to stop them for good is to stop him. And we can’t. Not until we find him.’

  ‘Or, we could assume that we’re going about this the wrong way,’ said Denny. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time. Find a way to take his army away from him, and he’s got nothing.’

  ‘But we’ve tried to find out what they are. It’s getting us nowhere.’

  ‘Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions. We need Jack … He’s better at this investigative thing than us,’ he added lamely. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought him up.’

  ‘That’s okay. Hecaté says his burns have mostly healed up. The docs are at a loss to explain it. Anyway, we’re not just going to pretend he doesn’t exist, are we? He deserves better than that.’

  ‘He always assumed that everyone was lying to him until they could prove they weren’t.’ said Denny. ‘He suspected everyone. All the time.’

  ‘Guilty until proven innocent,’ said Tamar with a reminiscent smile.

  ‘He was usually right.’

  ‘Yeah, sad isn’t it? You can’t trust anyone …’ Tamar broke off, frowning.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think Jack may have just solved our problem for us,’ she said. ‘I think we have been proceeding under a false assumption because I believed a lie.’

  ‘A lie?’

  ‘How does Jack do it?’ she said. ‘Proceed on the assumption that you already know they did it, and let them tell you all about it as they try to keep up with you?’

  ‘Who are we interrogating then? Are you sure we have time for this? The next attack is scheduled for …’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of it,’ she said. ‘Where we’re going, there is no time … No time, now there’s an idea.’

  * * *

  ‘If you expect me to apologise, you’ve got another think coming,’ said Satan. ‘My days of cowering before you are over … Okay, okay I’m sorry.’

  Tamar had hardly moved a muscle; it was just the look on her face.

  She and Denny looked at each other. She had been right. They had barrelled in here acting as if they knew for a fact that he had lied, and he had confirmed it before he had had time to think.

  ‘So, Ashtoreth’s army are Nephelim?’ said Denny. ‘You did send out fallen angels to corrupt the human race. Dawber was right. They did come from Hell – indirectly anyway.’

  ‘Who is Ashtoreth?’ said Satan.

  ‘A Nephilim.’

  ‘Not one of mine,’ said Satan firmly. ‘Never heard of him. And as for an army of Nephelim running around in these times, well, that’s ridiculous. They are long gone. Their descendants would have no power left now.’

  ‘We’ve seen them, fought them,’ Tamar told him. As if to say: “Get out of that one”.

  Satan shrugged. He simply did not believe it possible.

  ‘They are pretty weak, though,’ said Denny. ‘Just not completely powerless. Maybe the race hung on to their powers better than you would have thought.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Satan. But now he looked uncertain. ‘The Nephelim were all male. In order to breed they would have had to dilute their genetics with humans. If there are descendants, they would be almost completely human by now – no powers whatsoever.’

  ‘Almost isn’t the same as absolutely,’ said Denny. ‘They are still part Nephilim. And it all fits. The fact that they are all willing to serve Ashtoreth, the sheer numbers of them – there must be millions of them by now – and the fact that we never knew about them before this. They must have been living as ordinary humans for centuries. No wonder we couldn’t find them in the mainframe. They didn’t exist as Nephelim until Ashtoreth called them up. You say they wouldn’t have any powers left by now, but you aren’t certain – are you?’

  ‘Well … it seems unlikely,’ faltered Satan. A slow smile spread over his face as if he could no longer contain his pleasure. Tamar caught the look. ‘This is what you planned,’ she accused him.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Satan. ‘All I wanted was to corrupt the human race. The Nephelim are not intrinsically evil, but they are far more susceptible to corruption than humans. Much of the weakness in the human race comes directly from what I did. They were not originally designed that way – the first men were sickeningly strong and noble. Find an evil man, a weak and easily corrupted man and the chances are he is a descendant of the Nephilim. But, no I did not plan this.’

  ‘But you’re pleased it happened?’

  Satan shrugged as if to say: “What do you expect? – I am Satan”.

  ‘And so they sin, come to hell and get turned into demons and sent out into the world to tempt others into sin and so it goes on,’ theorised Denny.

  ‘The cycle of sin,’ said Satan. ‘It’s been working beautifully for thousands of years. And there’s no way you can stop it.’

  ‘Just give me time,’ muttered Tamar.

  This would have been the ideal note to leave on, but Denny was not about to let it go at that. A perfect dramatic exit – ruined.

  But C’est la vie, as they say.

  ‘You’re telling us that you didn’t plan all this?’ he said. ‘Just how stupid do you think we are?’

  Satan rolled his eyes at Denny but said nothing. He did not have to.

  ‘Well, after all, perhaps I’m giving you too much credit, after all,’ said Denny turning away. ‘Seems like all the evil plans you ever took credit for, turned out to mere accidents. Why should this be any different? Just because you’re denying it, doesn’t mean you don’t want us to believe it. I know that trick.’

  ‘ACCIDENTS?’ roared Satan indignantly. ‘My evil plans have the beauty of subtlety. Such subtlety that such an ignorant creature as yourself could not hope to understand. What you take for accidents … ha! My plan was to corrupt the human race and begin the cycle of sin. And I did it so well that no one has ever been able to see how I did it, let alone stop it.’ He paused. Denny continued to stare blankly at him. ‘But if you insist,’ Satan resumed resignedly. ‘I will tell you this much. What has happened was foreseen … Long ago. There was a prophecy made back in the time before the cycle of sin began. It predicts the Rise of the Nephilim to cleanse the Earth.

  ‘I have seen this prophecy. It said that one more would appear to lead the others into the light … whatever that means, lot of blah, blah, blah, I can’t remember it all. It didn’t say when, but we don’t need to wonder about that anymore do we?

  ‘Perhaps what I have done was instrumental in the fulfilment of the prophecy, but it was known long before that, that this time would come. But not by me, not until later.’

  ‘So, it was accidental – at least as far as your part in it goes?’ said Denny.

  ‘Not accidental,’ said Satan. ‘A part of the grand design. I have my place too, you know. As do you.’

  ‘The Rise of the Nephilim?’ said Tamar. ‘To clean
se the Earth? What does that mean? Cleanse it of what, and why?’

  Satan smiled. ‘I think you already know. And if you want the truth, I’m not too happy about it either. If I’d known then what my creation would lead to …’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘I’m guessing that’s not a humanitarian sentiment,’ said Tamar caustically.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Satan agreed.

  ‘You don’t still have a copy of this “prophecy” do you?’ asked Denny.

  ‘No, no, sorry. I put stuff down in this place and never see it again. You know how it is. This place is full of thieves.’

  ‘And liars,’ said Tamar.

  * * *

  Being in the underworld had triggered a random thought that had begun earlier when Denny had mentioned the hall of images. The Fates.

  Now Tamar knew that the Fates were no longer in existence; she knew it better than anyone. She had been the one to destroy them. But there was another. Now that they knew that Ashtoreth had gained access to an apparently inexhaustible supply of Nephelim, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that he intended to take over the world with them, it had become even more imperative that they find him and soon. It might also be important to discover not only where he was but where he was going and even, in light of the Nephilim army, where he had been.

  The goddess of Destiny might be able to help them with that one.

  Few people, Tamar knew, realised thatArachne, the spider goddess who guarded the Fates in the underworld, was no mean weaver of the destinies of men herself. She had been demoted for unspecified reasons to a mere guardian of the Fates until Tamar had destroyed them. Now she was back behind the spinning wheel so to speak. ActuallyArachne did not need a spinning wheel what with being part spider and a natural weaver. And best of all, Arachne was an old friend.

  ‘You never call, you never write,’ said Arachne only half jokingly as Tamar entered the cave with Denny in tow.

  She looked archly at Denny, as if she knew something he did not. Which was probably the case when you came to think about it. She knew something about everybody that they did not know themselves – such as everything that was going to happen to them. But Denny knew that she would keep it to herself.