by Nancy Madore
Lilith turned to Asmodeous with a look of exasperation. For Gilgamesh to hold up the battle like this just to achieve a personal victory for himself seemed the height of selfishness. While he was showing off, the Emim could be setting up traps for them in the forest. This unnecessary diversion could well cost them the battle. Gilgamesh’s inflated ego was making him incompetent as a warrior.
Asmodeous motioned for her to be still, and Lilith snorted in disgust. Obviously men were unable to think clearly while their baser instincts were engaged. She took comfort in the realization that they were all pretty much the same, making it probable that the Emim were watching the battle with just as much interest from the forest.
Lilith sighed. The fight between these two men was irrelevant. They were entering the forest whether Gilgamesh won or not. The very existence of the Nephilim race might depend on them destroying the Emim that day.
Humbaba was once again approaching Gilgamesh, swinging his long arms, one after the other, in an attempt to strike him. Gilgamesh dodged the first two blows and then took the third one in the face. The impact threw his head backward and he fell, or so it appeared until he swiped up the ax he’d dropped earlier and jumped back up in one fluid movement. Humbaba looked around. His own ax was not close enough to safely pursue. Now it was Gilgamesh who approached Humbaba, swinging his ax each time he lunged forward. But Humbaba surprised them all by catching hold of Gilgamesh’s weapon arm just as it seemed about to strike him, and holding it steady, not a foot from his face. With his other hand Humbaba grasped hold of Gilgamesh’s neck and squeezed with all his might, trembling from the effort. Gilgamesh gasped, but he brought up his free hand to Humbaba’s face, boring two of his strong fingers deep into his eyes. Humbaba let out a great yell but Gilgamesh only dug his fingers in deeper, pushing them toward the back of the creature’s head with all his might. Humbaba gradually loosened his hold on Gilgamesh’s arm, and Gilgamesh quickly moved in for the kill, jerking his ax back quickly. It was an awkward angle but Gilgamesh managed to slice open Humbaba’s jaw with that first blow. The monster retreated a step, which gave Gilgamesh the opportunity to draw back and prepare for the next blow. This time he lined up his aim perfectly, using both hands to swing the ax backwards and then striking his target with all the force he could muster. Humbaba’s head disappeared altogether for an instant, and then a few seconds later it fell to the ground with a terrible thud. Blood gushed from Humbaba’s severed neck like a geyser, slowing to a sickening gurgle in a matter of moments. Humbaba’s fingers twitched and then he dropped, first onto his knees and then collapsing forward into the dirt in a cloud of dust.
A cheer went up all along the line. Lilith was the only one who didn’t join in the applause. While Gilgamesh’s singular victory over the larger beast seemed to buoy everyone else’s spirits for the battle ahead, Lilith couldn’t help feeling resentment that he’d put them all at risk. She waited impatiently for him to join the line so they could finally attack. But Gilgamesh had other ideas, picking up the head of Humbaba by the hair and parading it up and down the line.
“Prepare for battle!” cried Lilith, unable to tolerate Gilgamesh’s prancing for another minute. Everyone instantly came to attention at the sound of her voice. Gilgamesh looked at Lilith in surprise. Her heart softened the littlest bit when she saw the boyish confusion marring his joyous expression. Have I not pleased you, he seemed to ask. Lilith was suddenly reminded of her own gloating pleasure when she sent Asmodeous the Lagash badges. Perhaps she was letting her fears get the better of her. It was just that her priorities had shifted after that disturbing talk with her father.
“That was well done Gil,” she said. “But we have more heads to collect, and I’m itching to get one of my own.” A roar of laughter went through the crowd. Lilith’s competitive nature was well known among the warriors.
Gilgamesh laughed too. He took his place back in the line and looked at Lilith with an eyebrow raised questioningly. The great and mighty Gilgamesh was deferring to her!
Lilith bowed her head to him, effectively handing him back the reigns. He was once again the leader of the Kalag-ga. No one else would have dared challenge him that way. But in spite of everything, Lilith and Gilgamesh had a deep bond that was forged in mutual admiration and respect, as well as blood. The occasional exasperation they felt for each other was never strong enough to penetrate that bond. Always Lilith’s anger dissipated quickly. Already she was beginning to feel glad that she’d had the opportunity to see one of the Emim fight after all. She’d noticed that, although they were large, strong and surprisingly quick, they were not strategic in their thinking at all. They struck with great force, true, but they acted on impulse. They did not appear to anticipate what might happen next. Lilith smiled. Strategy just happened to be her strong suit.
Gilgamesh gave the battle cry and at last the warriors moved forward, leaving the valley as they disappeared into the tall cedars of the forest.
Chapter 25
Present Day
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Clive.
“Speaking of goose bumps,” agreed Gordon.
“That is some shit!” reiterated Clive.
“Hard to believe,” Will added, but his expression indicated that he believed every word.
“You think?” Nadia threw in, raising an eyebrow. The morning sun was just beginning to brighten the sky, but for her the day felt like it should be ending.
“I can see how Gilgamesh’s turning up in the story might seem a bit suspect,” Will conceded. “Your grandmother, who you say loved reading ancient mythology as a young girl, could easily have come across him in books.”
“Exactly,” said Nadia. “And that’s why I’m still not convinced that she didn’t make them up.”
“But then again, it fits too,” argued Gordon, who had clearly made up his mind on the matter. “And in a way that your grandmother wouldn’t have been able to predict. Take the contempt Lilith and Gilgamesh felt toward the sons of men, for example. This hostility between the two races, along with the Nephilim’s desire to dominate man, cannot be found in the historic accounts but they correspond with what other djinn have told us. You can see the politics of the modern-day conflict between mankind and djinn taking form even back then.”
“Wait! Do you mean to say you’ve talked to djinn?” asked Nadia.
“Of course!” Gordon replied, clearly pleased to be able to make such a claim. “We’ve called out a number of djinn over the years. We’ve never caught a fish as big as Lilith. We don’t have any of the first generation djinn, in fact. Nothing from before the flood. Maybe it’s the ‘dark place.’ Most of them are probably trapped there forever, thank God. The djinn we’ve captured were second and third generation Nephilim. They didn’t have direct contact with the angels. Heck, they’ve never even seen an angel! And they weren’t nearly as notorious as their predecessors. They kept to themselves, most of them living in and around the area that is now Israel.”
“You know, if you think about it, you probably couldn’t talk to any djinn from that pre-flood era without Gilgamesh’s name popping up,” Will added thoughtfully. “He was a legend. Everyone would have heard of him.”
“It kind of sucks the way it turned out,” said Clive. “This would have been so much more exciting if you had been Lilith.” He seemed genuinely disappointed and Nadia couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. She shuddered.
“So the ‘politics’ of these djinn…” she began. “What do you mean by that? Are you saying that these djinn are behind present-day terrorism?”
“No,” said Clive. “And yes.”
Gordon laughed. “Terrorism is a completely separate entity, but it’s also a great place for djinn to hide.”
“Not just hide,” said Will. “They encourage it. You might say they add fuel to the fire.”
“They support terrorism, provided it focuses on their enemies,” explained Gordon. “Sometimes they use their influence to turn the focus in that direction. And,
as well, they are not above using terrorists to carry out their own attacks.”
“Sounds like terrorism,” said Nadia.
“The difference is subtle, but it’s there,” said Will. “It’s in the motives. Terrorists are generally motivated by extreme political or religious beliefs. Terrorism, for them, is a form of protest. They are confused and disorganized. Often they can’t even tell you their goal. The djinn are different. They aren’t extremists. They have a clear and logical goal in mind.”
“Which is…,” Nadia prompted.
“To live,” said Clive.
“And to rule,” added Gordon.
“And they need bodies and a corner of the earth in which to do this,” said Will. “Though they travel the world freely, they have a particular fondness for their ancient land…which encompasses everything from Tel Aviv to Saudi Arabia.”
“They consider it home,” said Gordon.
“They’re protecting their turf,” said Clive. “They see the Western influence weaseling its way in and they can’t let that happen. They think of that part of the world as theirs, right down to the last Arab. The creation of Israel kicked everything up a notch. They don’t want democracy interfering in their plans to take over that part of the world.”
“The extremists in that region play right into their hands,” said Gordon. “Since they also hate the West.”
Nadia shook her head. “This is too much to digest,” she said. She never imagined for a moment that her grandmother’s stories would have any relevance to the present day. “I find it hard to believe that the djinn would involve themselves in religious extremism,” she said doubtfully. “According to Lilith, the Nephilim had nothing but contempt for religion.”
“True,” said Will. “But that doesn’t mean they’re above using it to get humans to do what they want.”
“It’s been the case throughout history,” added Gordon. “Remember the Crusades? The djinn have tried time and again to get back control of the Middle East through religion.”
“So now you’re saying the Crusaders were djinn?” Nadia asked, incredulous.
“No,” said Clive. “We’re saying the idea to take back the Holy Land by force was masterminded by a certain group of advisers to the Church who just happened to have connections to the djinn.”
“The djinn have learned to embrace religion because it helps them manipulate people into doing what they want,” continued Will. “Conversely, they hate democracy because it interferes with their ability to influence and dominate the masses. Democracy is resistant to the kind of absolute compliance they can get in a religious society.”
“Deep down, the djinn believe that we need them as much as they need us,” Clive explained. “They're always griping about how we would destroy the world if they weren’t here to stop us.”
“Exactly,” said Will. “They’re trying to re-establish their right to be here. They play on our weaknesses. They know that extremism of any kind brings out the worst in humans. By encouraging it, they’re proving their point that man has no respect for himself or the earth.”
“And that we’re stupid,” added Clive. “All they have to do is encourage the belief that democracy is evil and they can get the extremists to do their killing for them.”
Nadia was feeling overwhelmed. A small part of her wanted to reject everything they were saying. She was no longer sure about what she was doing. Was she just telling them stories to buy time until she could escape, or was she helping them prevent a terrible disaster? Maybe they were the ones creating this entire scenario to confuse her. But if so, for what purpose? She knew that they were watching her closely, but she couldn’t hide her incredulity.
“I mean…for example…take the life spans back then,” she argued, naming the first point that came to mind. “They claim Og lived over three thousand years. How is that possible?” Her logical mind couldn’t accept it.
“The records indicate that even ordinary people lived much longer back then, some as many as eight or nine hundred years,” said Will. “And Nephilim lived even longer than them. But don’t forget, those were the first calendars in history. Their method of counting time could be vastly different from ours today. Who knows how long a year really was?”
“Also, some scientists speculate that the world’s atmosphere may have been very different before the flood,” added Gordon. “A catastrophe of that kind would have altered everything.”
“As for Og,” continued Will—“historians speculate that he had a son with the same name, which might account for his supposed longevity.”
Nadia lowered her face in her hands and began rubbing her forehead with her fingertips. The others watched her in silence.
She looked up. “All I know is that I’m not a terrorist,” she said. She looked at each of them, settling her gaze on Will in the end. “I would never—ever—hurt anyone like that.” To her dismay a tremor shook her voice but she forced herself to continue. “When I go into these places after a disaster…” she shook her head, too overwhelmed to finish her statement. She swallowed hard. “I just don’t understand how I could be connected to something like this.”
“I’m not buying it,” said Clive. Nadia looked at him in surprise but he didn’t back down. “That’s right. You heard me.”
“Clive,” warned Gordon.
“She’s a big girl,” he told Gordon before turning back to Nadia. “I mean, you might not be blowing people up, but what the hell are you doing to prevent it, huh? You prance in after the fact—making a boatload of money off these poor bastards—while convincing yourself that you’re a saint. Meanwhile, those pricks you’re hobnobbing with are playing both sides of the field.”
Nadia just glared at him. She wanted to argue but was too shaky to speak. She hated people who said things like that, because there was a grain—just a grain, mind you—of truth to what they said.
What did he expect her to do? Change the world? If you didn’t play by the rules, you didn’t play. It was as simple as that. Should everyone just throw their hands up in the air and give up?
All of these things she would have liked to say. But she was determined more than anything else not to cry.
She addressed Gordon when she finally felt strong enough to speak. “I want to know exactly how I’m connected to this attack,” she said in a commanding voice.
“You don’t…” began Clive.
“No!” she interrupted, refusing to look at him. “I want to know about the attack I’m being accused of supporting.”
Nobody spoke.
“Then I’m done,” she said. “You can either arrest me or let me go!”
Clive actually laughed.
“I mean it!” she yelled.
The three men exchanged glances. They seemed to be silently debating over how much to tell her. As usual, it fell on Will to make the final call.
“The code name for this attack is ‘Lilith’s Revenge’,” he told her. “When these code names come up, we immediately do a search in our system that links all known djinn sightings to anyone who might be affiliated with that sighting in any way. Naturally, after what happened in nineteen forty eight, your grandmother was flagged to Lilith. Your mother—you must have realized by now that we suspected she might be harboring Lilith—was being watched for years. The way she was…no disrespect, but it went along with what we knew about Lilith at the time. She had connections that were dubious, to say the least. But we could never link her to any particular incident.
“Then, when she died, we figured there was a good chance Lilith took up residence in you. It often happens that way…they’ll pass into their own offspring. It makes things easier for obvious reasons.”
“Not to mention that you just happen to be set up in the perfect business to carry out their work,” added Clive.
Nadia was really getting tired of Clive’s constant innuendos. And yet she couldn’t fault their reasoning. Her mother had been glamorous, headstrong, and willful, just like Lilith. And for
a semi-famous actress with minimal talent, she’d managed to work her way into the most powerful circles in society, both politically and otherwise. Nadia had always thought it was her father’s altruistic behavior that curried favor with everyone, but wasn’t it in fact Gisele who had all the connections?
“Tell me more about the attack,” she said, preferring to steer the subject away from her mother.