Legacy of the Watchers Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Nancy Madore

  “What else?” asked Gordon.

  “It’s all in the book of Revelations,” said Ornias. “Nobody thought much about John’s prophesy when it was written, because it didn’t make any sense. But as time went on, we noticed that he was describing things that actually occurred much later—things that no man from that ancient world could have predicted without help. He didn’t even know how to describe what he was seeing! The problem is the way in which Revelations was written…almost as if it’s only meant to be translated after the fact. Though we don’t understand much better than you, we recognize it for what it is. It’s a prophecy from the angels. We believe that John was chosen, like Enoch.

  “But unlike Enoch’s prophecy, Revelations doesn’t predict an absolute outcome,” Ornias told them. “It doesn’t describe the end of the world, but rather, it describes a series of events that will bring about the end of the world. The keys to the prophecy are first, in the seven bowls, which detail the causes and effects that will lead to the end of the world and second, in the trumpets, which identify the critical world events that will trigger Armageddon.

  “The problem is that the signs found in the bowls and trumpets are inscrutable,” he went on. “Or so it seemed to Asmodeous, and if he couldn’t figure them out, no one can. And yet, that last time I spoke to him, he believed events from the previous century had triggered the prophecy, confirming our worst fears.”

  “What events?” asked Gordon.

  “I didn’t ask,” said Ornias. “And Asmodeous hardly had reason to confide in me. He always considered me something of a flake, with good reason, I suppose. But like I said, we had a moment…without words. I conveyed to him that I was willing to act, when needed. All he had to do was to say the word. But if he had used me at all, it would’ve been for something simple, which he could just as easily get the sons of men to do. It’s always a risk to bring in other Qliphoth, because if one is caught, others can be traced through him.”

  Gordon looked pointedly at Will.

  “Is it your belief then, that Asmodeous’ interest in world events is limited to preventing the end of the world?” asked Gordon.

  “Yes,” Ornias replied. “And you should believe it too. Asmodeous would have no other reason to risk his freedom. And no matter what secret hopes you might have about an afterlife, you can bet that your life here on earth is the best thing you’re ever going to see. Think about it. The angels coveted your lives!”

  “How can Armageddon be stopped?” asked Gordon.

  Ornias’ eyes twinkled. “The Qliphoth are the only ones who can stop it,” he replied. “I guess it comes down to who you’d rather have ruling you…the Others—or us. Because that’s what this is about, you know. It always has been and it always will be. Who gets to rule the humans? Angels have come from all over the universe to debate it, and everyone has an opinion. The Others had control over you for a while, but since the war it seems you have to self-destruct before they can take control again. We’re your only hope now. You can’t fix this by yourselves.”

  “What makes you so sure?” asked Gordon. “In fact, since you have so much at stake, why not just tell us what has to be done?”

  Ornias laughed at this. Slowly, slyly, he turned to Will. “What if I showed you clear evidence that the people you work for must be stopped today in order to save this world from a disaster in the indefinable future?” Ornias asked him. Will didn’t reply, but Nadia noticed that he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Even if you believed what I was telling you, you wouldn’t be able to put the future of the world before your own interests in the present.”

  Gordon didn’t reply to this either.

  “Asmodeous explained it to me once,” continued Ornias. “He compared the sons of men to worker bees. They aren’t concerned with much more than their individual role within their colony—their jobs, their families and so forth. They’re basically decent, hardworking individuals who are looking for someone to lead them—a queen, if you will.

  “But queens are generally mutants,” he went on. “Though they look the same, they share little in common with their species. It makes sense if you think about it. There are times when a leader has to be ruthless. She must be willing to sacrifice the individual in order to benefit the group as a whole. The problem is that the sons of men aren’t wired this way. That’s why there’s a public outcry whenever the mass becomes aware of an individual’s suffering. Human souls are full of uncertainty and guilt. Without direction, they can quickly become a confused swarm.

  “The mutants are different. They feel no uncertainty or guilt, because their souls are corrupted. They have no conscience.”

  “Are you saying that all of our leaders are mutants without souls?” asked Gordon, incredulous. “If this were the case, how would they get anyone to follow them?”

  “It’s easy for these mutant queens to convince the worker bees to follower them. All they have to do is appeal to their sense of values. It might be righteousness, freedom or even lower taxes. Though the queen’s activities will almost never coincide with her promises, the worker bees are too busy, loyal or just plain obtuse to notice. They don’t seem capable of going against their queen. In fact, worker bees actually suffer physical discomfort when confronted with a decision to go against their queen.” Ornias looked at Will. “Isn’t that right?”

  Gordon cleared his throat.

  “Your human queens are like the Emim were to us,” Ornias said. “They’re abominations. The Others are right about this one thing. You cannot rule yourselves. Just look around you. Less than eight percent of the world population lives a comfortable life—according to American standards. That leaves ninety-two percent who live with disease, hunger, war or oppression. This earth is capable of accommodating everyone, but your mutant queens are taking it all for themselves. They don’t even care if there is a world after they’re done with it. And the Others are just biding their time.”

  “Where is God in all this?” wondered Gordon.

  “I don’t know much about God,” said Ornias. “Though I think there’s a case for intelligent design. But where it all started…who can say? Was mankind created? Or did they come about like we did…in some kind of accidental breeding experiment? It seems logical that all life had to start somewhere—with a prototype that was a product of intelligent design. At least, that makes more sense to me than the idea that everything came about through a series of accidents. But it’s not that important to me. Even supposing that you have a creator, I don’t. And if you don’t mind my saying so, it appears that he’s taken a back seat on this. No one’s ever seen him that I know of. The Watchers certainly hadn’t. The Others claim to have, but I don’t trust them. And I don’t trust the claims of men, either. One minute they say no man can look upon the face of God and live, and the next they’re having tea with him! See, you have to understand, when the sons of men are talking about ‘God,’ they could be talking about anything. Every phenomenon, any single thing they can’t explain, is ‘God’ to them. Some of them believed we were gods.”

  Gordon was thoughtful. “You’ve expounded on the many problems we have governing ourselves,” he said, “but how is this different from when the Nephilim ruled?”

  “We brought people together, instead of tearing them apart,” replied Ornias.

  “Oh, come on!” exclaimed Gordon.

  “It’s true!” Ornias insisted. “It’s always been our goal to live peacefully with the sons of men. This is the trademark of our greatest leaders, like Asmodeous. The sons of men were very happy in the land of Canaan.”

  “Are you sure about that?” asked Gordon. “Are you sure it wasn’t just you who was happy?”

  “Well of course I was happy!” he cried. “Those were peaceful days. And if you want to know what ended the peace in the land of Canaan, you need look no further than the sons of men, and their fear—and jealousy—of everything different. Even to this day, it’s the atheists against the religious, the Republicans agains
t the Democrats, the whites against the blacks. It doesn’t matter what it is. You always want to separate yourselves into little colonies.”

  “You had your own little colony in Utah, if I remember correctly,” remarked Gordon.

  Ornias laughed. “Yes, but again, I was only playing on the worker bees’ need to be special…the ‘chosen’ ones. And of course, they were special. To me, at least.”

  “How’d you do it, man?” asked Clive. “Any tips?”

  “So what happened to disturb Canaan’s peaceful life?” asked Gordon, giving Clive a warning look.

  Ornias grew somber. “They came in the name of God but it was actually our land that they coveted. They appeared to be ill-equipped for battle. They seemed disorganized and without resources. And yet they were conquering other lands. Word got out that they were taking big cities—and leaving no survivors. They even massacred the children! And they were moving into the land of the giants. Most people figured they must have found the one true God. How else could they amass such power? However they acquired it, power was what they had, along with a brand new mission; to get every person on earth to support the Others’ new world order—or die.”

  “So now you’re saying the concept of ‘heaven’ originated with the Others?” asked Gordon.

  Ornias shrugged. “That’s the conclusion we drew,” he said. “It was after the covenant that this concept of heaven began.”

  “It never occurred to you that people might’ve become obsessed with the end of the world because of what just happened to them in that devastating flood?” asked Gordon.

  Ornias seemed intrigued by the question. “Yes, of course it did,” he said. “There was a lot going on. Lots of emotions. You might say, ‘you had to be there.’ And we were there. And these are the conclusions we drew.”

  It was Gordon’s turn to sigh. Nadia felt his frustration. She was beginning to think that real truth didn’t exist in this world, only a never ending stream of self-serving conclusions. “You were about to tell us what happened to Canaan,” Gordon said wryly.

  “Abraham was the first Hebrew to come to Kiriath Arba,” recalled Ornias. “We tried to make peace with him and his people. We thought for a while that we had succeeded.”

  “Abraham was in Kiriath Arba?” asked Gordon.

  “Yes,” replied Ornias. “Well—he and his entourage stayed in Gerar, which was located just outside our city. I remember because they stirred up trouble there, causing problems between the king and his people. They were troublemakers, always bringing plagues and the like to every city they entered. Always making demands in the name of their God. If you offered them an inch they would take a mile.” Ornias glanced around the room at each of them. “I know,” he said. “You probably see Abraham as one of the good guys. I’m just telling you how it was from our point of view. We were scared shitless of him.”

  “So…Abraham destroyed Kiriath Arba?” asked Gordon.

  “No,” said Ornias. “We managed to keep peace with the Hebrews that first time. Abraham actually liked our city. In fact, he buried his wife in the cemetery we reserved for royalty—which gives you an idea of how far we were willing to go to please the Hebrews.

  “It wasn’t until later…until the second time the Hebrews came around, that everything finally came to a head,” Ornias went on. “The Hebrews were basically nomads, wandering from place to place, preaching about their God and collecting followers. As odd as it seems, they kept growing in number. They were persecuted at times—the Egyptians were particularly intolerant of them—but somehow they always managed to overcome the odds, even eventually bringing the Egyptians to their knees. This time, they came looking for a ‘promised’ land.” Ornias paused here, for effect, before continuing. “And they decided it was going to come from the land of Canaan.”

  Chapter 25

  Kiriath Arba

  15th Century, BC

  They had all died and returned as ordinary men—some several times over. Their descendants, who generally became smaller with each consecutive generation, now towered over them. The giants were facing extinction. Some day they would be no more. Only their souls would live on.

  Some of them didn’t return right away. Asmodeous was one of these. He died before Ornias—an angry, bitter man. At first Ornias thought he might be having trouble getting through the barrier between the living and the dead. But then, as time went on, he began to wonder if Asmodeous really wanted to come back. He was such a proud man. Perhaps he couldn’t bring himself to exist in the inferior bodies of the sons of men. But then, one day, Ornias realized that Asmodeous had returned—just not in a body. And yet, even without the body, Ornias knew it was Asmodeous. He recognized his fury.

  A rumor had arisen of an entirely new demonic phenomenon that accosted women in their beds. It didn’t attack all women, but appeared to be singling out young virgins on the eve of their wedding. The demon would seduce the young brides-to-be in their sleep, somehow infiltrating their pure, unadulterated flesh and leaving them dazed—and deflowered—in the morning.

  Ornias paid little attention to the rumor at first, figuring it must have gotten its start in the frightened mind of a compromised young woman who couldn’t think of any other way to explain her condition. Knowing the hysterical nature of the sons of men, it wasn’t surprising that others would start making the same claim. But then one of Ornias’ wives was visited by the demon. This was a woman well past her prime, and not the kind to succumb to mass hysteria. It was, in fact, the calm, levelheaded manner in which she described the incident that convinced Ornias that she was speaking the truth. She told him everything the demon did to her during the night—and all while Ornias slept beside her! Ornias listened with interest. The demon had pleasured his wife repeatedly throughout the night—though he didn’t penetrate her, as he had the other women. It seemed almost as if it was an affront to Ornias himself, rather than an attack on his hapless wife. The message the demon whispered in his wife’s ear before it left seemed to confirm this—“Tell Ornias it’s not so bad on this side,” it said.

  Of course, it could have been any of the missing djinn from Ornias’ past. But somehow Ornias knew that it was Asmodeous. He supposed this bizarre ritual of robbing young husbands of their brides’ virginity was his way of coming to terms with the loss of his own love. Ornias realized then that Asmodeous could take a body any time he liked. For the moment, he preferred things the way they were.

  Meanwhile, others had drawn the same conclusion as Ornias. Perhaps Asmodeous was leaving little hints with his other victims as well. He was quickly earning the reputation of an angry, malevolent demon—the ‘demon of lust.’

  “Get it out of your system and return to us, old friend,” Ornias implored inwardly. “We need you here.” And it was true. The Hebrews were on the rampage again.

  But when Asmodeous finally did come back in the flesh, he was not much better than his demonic self. He seemed an entirely different man from the beloved leader the people had grown to admire. He chose the body of a handsome young sheep herder, with no apparent wish to be king—or anything else, for that matter. He ignored all responsibility, becoming what he himself would have termed a ‘lazy fool.’ His appetites seemed to have been heightened. He ate and drank to excess, and became a notorious womanizer. Strangely enough, this new Asmodeous had a much higher tolerance for Ornias than the other one had. But Asmodeous’ behavior was contemptible to most of the Nephilim, though no one said a word against him in reverence to his former self. But there was more than just his life of dissipation. Asmodeous had developed a cruel streak. He pursued and seduced the women of Kiriath Arba relentlessly, then abruptly tossed them aside. Left ruined, many of these women were forced to become prostitutes.

  Ornias was next to die. But unlike Asmodeous, he had a druj ready—a young slave boy who had welcomed this opportunity to rise up in the world. Ornias’ death was quick and unexpected. The sharp pain began in his chest and quickly spread throughout his body. Then ever
ything went black.

  When Ornias came to, it was as if he had been transported into an entirely different world. It took him a while to realize that he was actually in the same world he’d existed in before. In fact, he was lying in the very same spot where he had died. Only the world had been stripped of everything that made it recognizable. Most conspicuous was the absence of life. There was not a single living creature—not even an insect—nor was there so much as a whisper of their handiwork. There were no houses, no carts, no roads. There wasn’t so much as an anthill. There were no trees or plants. There was only sand and earth and sky. The silence was deafening. The sun shone down on this barren earth without offering warmth. Ornias looked down at himself and realized that he had no form. He was little more than a wisp of vapor. Then he looked out at the world again with a sense of real terror.

  And yet…there was something. It was something vague and indistinct, hovering somewhere just beyond what he was able to perceive—beyond reality. He was keenly aware of it, though he couldn’t catch hold of it, or even pinpoint where, exactly, it was. Yet he felt it, and recognized it for what it was. It was life. But it was just beyond his reach, on the other side of—what? Ornias didn’t know what was separating him from the life that he knew was occurring all around him. All he knew was that it was not, entirely, impenetrable.

  He had only to find his druj. Tentatively he moved, surprised to discover that it only required his will to do so. He began shifting back and forth in search of some small fissure in the invisible wall that separated him from the world of the living. Yet he was cautious. He did not want to stray too far from his village, for fear of losing it altogether. How would he find his way in this strange world? He slithered in and around the area, searching.

  It was terrible at first. All his physical sensations were gone. He would have wept if he’d possessed the ability. His soul did weep, cringing with fear and despair. Yet it kept moving and searching, for hours—and then days.