Blood Royal

by Evan Ansot

  on your pizza?” asked Eddie.

  “Pepperoni sounds good,” she replied.

  “Be right over.” Eddie slammed the phone down, and he

  was on his way.

  Usually, they’d make it half the way through a movie,

  Eddie would shut the VCR off, and they’d head to

  the bedroom.

  Eddie would never make it to Debbie’s house that night. After he stopped off at Luigi’s for the pizza and Quick

  Stop for the beer, he was on his way. He drove five miles to

  the mile-long stretch of Miller Hill, which was about two

  miles from Debbie’s place. Once he reached the top of that

  incline, he saw two deer standing in the middle of the road.

  He swerved to miss them and lost control of his 1988 Ford

  F-150 pickup truck. What happened next was a blur. A large boulder was off to the right side of the ditch

  where the truck was headed. Eddie saw the large rock and

  knew what was next, so he bailed out of the driver’s side

  door and landed headfirst on the pavement at sixty miles an

  hour. He flipped and performed what is known as a barrel

  roll, which means rolling from front to back for over two

  hundred yards where he ended up in a ravine halfway down

  the other side of Miller Hill.

  The truck smashed headfirst into the boulder and flipped

  end over end thirteen times for roughly the same amount

  of distance that Eddie had travelled. It would end up not

  fifty feet from Eddie before it was caught up in flames. Jimmy Gomes, an off-duty police officer, was traveling

  from the other direction when he saw the flames shoot up

  from Eddie’s truck. He immediately got on his radio and

  called in where he was at and what he was seeing. Officer Gomes stopped his truck near Eddie’s truck,

  grabbed his flashlight, and immediately went to the

  wreckage and noticed there was no one inside the truck

  except flames shooting out from it. He then proceeded to

  scout the surrounding area until he came upon the mangled

  body of Eddie Dudley. Jimmy Gomes, an ex-marine, and

  along with Eddie, a member of the local American Legion,

  recognized who it was immediately.

  “Oh no, Eddie,” whispered Jimmy and started

  performing first aid on his buddy.

  Fifteen minutes later as the paramedics were hauling

  Eddie’s body to the hospital in Manistee, Eddie’s heart

  stopped, he quit breathing, and flatlined. They immediately

  started performing CPR. As they were, something amazing

  happened to Eddie.

  He began floating above his lifeless body in the ambulance. Looking down, he saw two paramedics working on him, trying to revive his body. They seemed to have these gadgets in their hands, and they were pressing them on his chest, trying to shock him. He thought, If that is me, then who am I now? What the hell is going on here?

  He looked at himself and saw that it was the same Eddie— two arms, two legs, same build. It was all so confusing. How can there be two of me?

  Yet he felt very much alive. More so then he has ever felt in his life with the exception of that day the hand of God seemed to touch him more than ten years ago.

  So he looked to the north and saw a very bright light off in the distance. It looked like it was about two miles away from him and it was spiraling and getting larger. He felt a magnetic pull toward it, and he began to move toward it. Seemingly walking on air, it created another strange sensation to Eddie. Then he heard a loud noise. It sounded like one of those big guns on the ship he used to serve on. He turned toward the direction of the loud boom that was in the opposite direction of where he was headed and to the south of him. He looked to see what it was that can best be described as a black hole. A huge black circle, also spiraling, that was spinning round and round at the center of it. This too also had a magnetic pull on him. The light seemed to give him energy, and the black hole seemed to be sucking energy away from him.

  Light to the north; darkness to the south. Which way to go? he thought. He felt he was the rope in the middle of a tug-ofwar, both sides trying to tear him apart.

  He pulled away from the darkness and began moving toward the light. A feeling of extremely positive energy was beginning to envelop him. It began with his heart and moved upward and downward throughout his body. It was the same feeling he felt during that night of the hand of God incident. As this was happening he heard a voice.

  “Eddie.” Eddie frantically looked around and off to the distance he recognized an ancient, baldheaded man wearing a brown robe with a hood on it that lay on the robe’s backside. He was also wearing a white rope for a belt. He looked like one of those Franciscan friars. Eddie briefly thought back to a Robin Hood movie and remembered that Friar Tuck had dressed this way.

  The image was moving toward him, also defying the laws of physics by walking on air.

  “Eddie,” the image spoke again.

  “ Yes, what is it?”

  “Eddie, you’ve been chosen.”

  “Chosen for what, by whom?” asked Eddie.

  “Chosen by the source of all things because of an agreement made long ago,” the friar answered.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Francis. Eddie, many are called, few are chosen, you’ve been chosen.”

  Immediately Eddie was pulled back away from that and back into his old body that now lay on an operating table. He looked up and saw operating room lights above him with several doctors looking down at him.

  “Dammit,” shouted a pissed-off Eddie. “Why couldn’t you wait another minute to do that? I’m in the middle of a conversation with Saint Francis, and you guys go right on ahead and save my life! What the hell is the matter with you? Your timing sucks!”

  The physicians looked at each other wondering if they did the right thing.

  Eddie would end up fracturing his neck, his back in three places, his jaw, and have road rash up and down the sides of his body.

  He would spend the next twelve months in rehabilitation. Miraculously, despite the multiple fractures to his neck and spine, Eddie could still walk. He reckoned that his angel must have been riding shotgun with him that night.

  He never knew how close to the truth he was, and if it wasn’t for his guardian angel Samuel cushioning his fall, Eddie would have passed away that night.

  The two deer that Eddie swerved to avoid were never there at the top of Miller Hill. They were a holographic illusion put there by the goat-headed demon known as Baphomet in an attempt to kill the holder of the royal bloodline.

  After the crash, Baphomet reported to Lucifer that Eddie Dudley had been taken out of the way.

  November 21, 2004

  Florence, Italy

  This was, up until this point, the happiest day of Gabriella’s

  life. For today she would become Sister Gabriella, nun at the abbey and church of Badia Fiorentina. Ever since that day Sister Francesca found little Gabriella in June 1991, she had emulated and wanted to be like those around her. She would officially become a nun on her eighteenth birthday.

  She had been a nun in training for thirteen years now, and when it came to fulfilling the requirements to join the sisterhood, she had performed her tasks with ease. For Gabriella had never wanted to be anything else. She looked up to her now-fellow sisters and especially Mother Anastasia. Young Gabriella had been taken in as an orphan and loved by the entire community. They even made a small nun’s outfit for her so she could dress up like the rest of the sisters when she was little. There was never any doubt that this child was going to be anything other than a nun. She was their child, and they all took turns in instructing Gabriella with her education.

  A special child at that, she was very proficient in arts an
d sciences. She was extremely attracted to the works of art in Italy created by Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, and others. If one wanted to be in love with the arts, then Florence was the place to be, and Sister Gabriella took advantage of the local attractions.

  She took to art at a very young age, and by the time she was sixteen she was doing portraits of all the sisters of the parish. Her favorite though was a portrait of the Mother Mary she finished when she was fifteen. It showed a radiant light around a rosy face with blue eyes and dark hair. Mary was shown in the portrait with a happy face, one usually not seen in paintings of Mary in the Catholic faith.

  And as always at the fifteenth of each month, the nuns would gather outside the doors of the abbey and await Mary’s visit to young Gabriella. They would all kneel down and pray while Mother Mary would commune with Gabriella. She would let them all know when the time of the visitation was over, and they’d commence to breakfast with Gabriella relaying the message of the Holy Mother to the sisters during their meal. The secret of this visitation was never revealed to Rome for fear of losing Gabriella under the scrutiny of the Vatican. The nuns knew better.

  During November 15, 2004, Mary revealed to Gabriella that she was a special child with a special father. At the appearance of Mary, the nuns all kneeled down. “Gabriella, my child,” the Holy Mother spoke. “What

  do you know of your father?”

  “Blessed Mother, I don’t have a father, except my Father

  in heaven,” answered Gabriella.

  “Yes, you do have a Father in heaven, but you also have

  a father on earth,” replied Mary.

  “I do? My mother never spoke of him,” said Gabriella.

  After years of these conversations, she was used to being

  frank with the Holy Mother. The other nuns in attendance

  never saw the Holy Mother Mary but could feel her

  presence. It gave them all a gentle feeling of the Holy

  Spirit sweeping through them like the wind would on a

  nice, breezy summer day.

  “My child, she could barely remember him,”said Mother

  Mary.

  “I know my mother had her problems with things, but

  she never did speak of him to me,” said Gabriella. “Your earthly father paid a visit to your mother one

  night back in 1985. He is the apostle Philip, returned,” said

  Mary. “That is all I can tell you for now. But there is more

  to him than that.” And then she disappeared.

  Gabriella watched the Holy Mother leave and arose

  to tell the rest that the time of the visit had ended for

  that month.

  During the breakfast meal, Gabriella had revealed on

  the day of her entering the sisterhood that Mother Mary

  had told her that her father was Saint Philip the Apostle. They all knew from past experience that Sister Gabriella

  had never told a lie and would be incapable of any kind of

  deceit, so when the news of this was told, they all stared in

  wonder until Mother Anastasia said, “We must look into

  this further, my child, and find out some answers.” Mother Anastasia and the sisters would exhaust all

  efforts to find Gabriella’s natural father. Police records were

  checked on her mother, and they had found that she had

  been a prostitute in Livorno during the time period when

  Gabriella was born in 1986. The father could be anyone.

  But still, they checked further, asking those who had been

  around Livorno during that time period, and after further

  research, they all agreed that it was probably a sailor in the

  US Navy. God only knows who it could be, so they ended

  their search. This entire process was kept from the eyes and

  ears of Gabriella lest she receive any kind of injury from

  knowing too much about her mother’s past.

  Meanwhile, Sister Gabriella read everything she could

  in regard to Saint Philip. It made her proud to know that

  her father was a saint, and she wanted to know as much as

  she could about this mystery father of hers. She was never

  taught the doctrine of reincarnation, but with this new

  revelation, it slowly sunk in that it might be possible. At

  least for the important ones, like saints and prophets. There wasn’t much to read in regard to the regular

  Catholic Bible on him, but there was a mountain of

  information in the Gnostic gospels. She would sneak these

  through and have to digest them all. Whether or not the

  Pope approved of it. Her curiosity was peaked, and the

  church would just have to make exceptions.

  After reading the Acts of Philip and the Gospel of Philip,

  Sister Gabriella knew why they weren’t included into the

  regular Bible. Just too controversial, she thought. It spoke of

  a companion of the Christ known as the Magdalene. Nope,

  the church surely wouldn’t allow that kind of doctrine to seep in.

  June 21, 2005

  Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

  The most unusual set of circumstances had caused Elizabeth

  Dudley to give birth to the twins, Jessica and Joan Dudley, on June 21, 2005. Elizabeth Dudley, born January 21, 1972, in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, had always been an unusual woman with unusual gifts. An extrasensory that angels and demons plagued her for as long as she could remember.

  At four years old, she began having dreams of Baphomet. It would show up to her and tell her, “You caused this,” and then proceed to tell this wolf-headed demon to rip her family to shreds. Many nights she would wake up screaming and soaking wet from sweat. Other nights she dreamed she was being abducted and taken aboard some craft for analysis on her brain. It seems as though someone wanted to know where her gifts came from.

  The nightmares went on for years until, with the help of her Grandmother Nina, she was able to thankfully block all that out.

  Her grandmother knew what she was going through, she had went through it herself as a child many years ago, and it ripped her heart out to see her granddaughter have to go through the same thing. She often wondered why, after so many years ago when she had cast them out, they had returned.

  They would both practice a routine of closing their eyes and blocking out those images at night. They begged for light instead of darkness. They’d ask for protection from the angels to thwart this cowardly demon of the night, who liked to give little girls nightmares. They’d burn sage and candles, hang crucifixes, sprinkle holy water, anything to keep the nightmares from reoccurring.

  “Lay down, Elizabeth, and hold your right hand over your heart. Feel your heartbeat and close your eyes, child. Breathe slowly in and out. Deep breaths, my darling, in and out and in and out. Now focus on nothing, and let the cares of today slip away into nothingness. Feel your heartbeat slow down and get louder. Feel it thump-thump, thump-thump. Breathing slower in and out with nice long deep breaths.

  “Now make sure you are looking at total blackness, nothing enters into your mind. Let the angels of heaven guide and protect you in this realm. From the darkness let the light enter in. Beings of the most high setting a scene in your mind.

  “Now, place yourself, my child, in a peaceful place on a beach. You are surrounded by the heavenly host. Nothing negative can enter into this beach. Connect yourself with these angels and ask them to protect you from the dark forces that plague you.”

  These exercises between grandmother and granddaughter were the only thing Elizabeth had to hang on to. She would continually practice this exercise until the beach would show up within seconds of her closing her eyes.

  At nine years old she began noticing beings of white at the corner of her eye that would surround her. She would hear whispers of c
omfort only to turn around and see no one there. Elizabeth could feel their presence and knew that she was being watched constantly. They just seemed barely out of her reach. Yet she knew they were always around her.

  Elizabeth’s childhood bordered on insanity, mixing the physical and the spiritual with equal measures. Dark forces would try to create havoc followed by beings of light to give her the much-needed shelter she craved.

  As time went by, she noticed that she could also read minds, which was a problem when she was in a crowded place like a school or an airport. It took her years to develop the ability to block it out and use it only when it served her.

  She learned to use the gifts given to her advantage. No one could bullshit Elizabeth; her laser-beam focus could penetrate the deepest of souls. She would feel the truth of the spirit before she heard the falsehoods of others.

  At eighteen years old, she enrolled in school in Sydney where she would stay and try to forget her early childhood nightmares in Queensland. Remembering the light and trying to forget the darkness, she moved on with her life. Upon graduation with a business degree, she received a job in human resources for a major airline company.

  She climbed the corporate ladder rapidly and became quite a successful woman. It had been years since her last nightmare, and peace had finally entered into her life. She made 100,000 dollars a year, lived in a duplex, and drove a Mercedes. The only thing missing was a family.

  In 2000, she met a man named James Daniels and married him a year later. Six months into the marriage, she regretted it. Half her problem was that she could read his mind for both good and bad. He didn’t have privacy of thought, and she would use that against him to the point where he spent all his time defending himself.

  It didn’t take him long to get sick of that, and he started to verbally strike back at her. Never physically but his words would cut deep. After three years of back and forths between them, they filed for divorce.

  A year of loneliness followed in which she deemed that what she was really missing from her life was a child. She could move on without a man but not without a child. Elizabeth Dudley longed to be a mother and she would find a way.