APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (63 page)

“My uncle does not know me,” said the Nephilim.

“Pity,” Lucifer said and touched the edge of the blade with his fingernails, sending sparks from it as he slid them back and forth upon the steel. He removed his hand, dismissing the threat and the blade wilted then writhed as it transformed into a serpent that struck angrily at the giant’s armored gauntlet. The giant released the bone hilt from his grasp and the serpent again became steel as it stuck its point in the mud at his feet. “A Moses parlor trick,” Lucifer explained contemptuously.

“Shouldn’t you be roasting in hell, demon?” the giant asked, removing his helm.

“Not yet. For now, I have to see if my servants are about their master’s business.”

Regeliel surveyed the carnage, “I do not see any servants here, traitor; only the corpse of one Nephilim that walks beside you.”

“Everyone is my servant,” Lucifer said and plucked a blade of grass from the earth studying it.

“Not I,” argued the giant.

“Oh, but I am afraid you are. You have been doing my bidding from the start.”

“You lie!” screamed the giant, his bearded face red with righteous indignation.

“Did you not bring the humans here?” asked the devil, still studying the blade of grass.

“Aye and they helped to destroy your foul army.” He stretched his arm out and gestured around him “See how they lie in ruin? You have been defeated, demon.”

Lucifer dropped the blade of grass and watched as it spiraled to the mud. He raised first his eyes then his face to the giant, a smile gracing its youth. Regeliel saw rows of pointed teeth flashing in the morning sun.

“Imagine my sorrow at a field of dead humans. How my soul
mourns for them,” The devil parodied sincerity that made the Nephilim recoil. “Regeliel, you may believe that you brought them here to destroy my army, but really, you brought them here to bring me the crystal skulls.”

The knight laughed “And they lie in shards, as they sink into the mud. They are as powerless as the beetles that have only charred bones on which to feast tonight.”

“I have no use for those trinkets.

“Your deception is obvious, devil. If you hadn’t wanted them why would you have me bring them here?”

“Not so obvious. With the skulls destroyed the gate to all worlds are open and with that the beast that once guarded it is now free to do what he was created for.”

“Beast? I know of no such beast.”

Lucifer smiled again “The beast that bears my mark.” He snatched the spear from the boy beside him and thrust it beneath the giants chin. Regeliel saw that etched on the giant tooth were three numbers. “No one can erase this mark.”

Regeliel looked confused. “Yah will stop you even if we can’t!”

“Fool! Who do you think allowed me to do this?” screeched the devil in instantaneous rage. “Humans or Nephilim, you all do my bidding whether you realize it or not. Thinking that you were doing the will of Yah didn’t stop you from assisting me! I didn’t have to so much as dirty my hands.”

It was just this deception that Lucifer had grown to master. Lucifer’s face transformed again to a placid calm and was masked again with that blasphemous purity and innocence. “I wonder, Regeliel, what your Lady Mia would do for the promise of giving life to her husband again.”

Regeliel tensed, but was unable to move. “You cannot control the dead anymore, devil!”

Lucifer’s grin slowly widened exposing row upon row of perfectly white teeth, pointed and sharp. He nodded to
Noth who stood beside him. “
This
suit of Nephilim skin has been dead for some time now and yet he serves me.”

“He’s Nephilim
, not a Son of David,” argued the Nephilim King.

Lucifer laughed and opened his arms wide, in a facsimile of crucifixion. “Still, there is the promise, the hope, the
desire
… and what path would Mia choose to obtain her heart’s desire; true or not? It’s really all about choices and less to do with me.” Lucifer’s eyes swam with an oily blackness that covered the entire orb of his eyes. “The Gate changes everyone whether they are aware of the changes or not, remember? You told them that when you crossed over. That was your choice, Regeliel. Can you live with the consequences of
your
choices?” Regeliel could not take his gaze from the fallen angel’s ink black stare that glinted like obsidian in the morning sunlight. “She was pregnant, did you know that Nephilim? I wonder what changes occurred within that womb.” His eyes became slits like serpents, sly like someone that knows a secret and wants you to know that they know.

“Your ti
me is short, Son of the morning, know that!” roared the giant.

“Oh, I do…I do…” he bowed to Regeliel “I suppose I should get busy then, I should maybe check in on my little Mia, shouldn’t I, Your Highness? I believe she could use a shoulder to cry upon, with her in such a weakened state…her mind so fragile now…” he said with a voice that dripped with contempt and snapped his fingers. “How easily that mind can snap with just the right motivation. Should I use the guise of friend and crush her beneath the sorrow in her soul or should I assume the role of enemy and shatter her mind in unrelenting rage?”

“She walks The Path, demon; I have no fears.”

“I think your voice trembles, giant, for you know as well as I, that Yah’s Path and mine sometimes converge. I know… I know it gets confusing for those golems formed from dirt to understand.” Lucifer laughed in a musical, childlike titter that sounded like discordant bells chiming softly.

Regeliel’s face burned bright red with rage. “If you do anything to her…”

Lucifer cut him off and flew at the giant faster than the Nephilim could blink. His face was no longer that mask of innocent purity and light; instead the flesh seemed to melt away exposing a shiny blackness that matched his eyes. Snakes and worms squirmed in tangled, oily masses beneath the sloughing flesh of his face and he suddenly loomed over the giant. His fingernails extended into sharp points, as long as daggers. He held a nail at the giant’s throat and the nail pulsed, expanded as if it strained to pierce the flesh. “You will
what
? Destroy
me
?” the demon screamed in his face, and Regeliel was forced to inhale the stench of sulphuric breath and he began to choke, coughing uncontrollably. “I wonder who Mia will blame for Mickey’s death. With the Bludglutton and Baliel destroyed she will need someone to focus that hate upon. Who will she choose? Who will she hate?”

Regeliel’s eyes bulged as he strained to breathe and he knew who Mia would blame. There was only him.

“You…cannot….harm…me…” warned the Nephilim. The point of Lucifer’s nail that ached to pierce the flesh transformed into the head of a serpent that struck again and again at the giant’s throat, venom dripped from its fangs but did not pierce the skin. “Yah…will…not …allow it.”

Lucifer’s eyes shined like black diamonds and his nails retracted as he again took the
visage of innocence and the flesh knit itself together and covered the nest of vipers beneath. His voice softened to a friendly almost sweet tone. “Forgive me, my king…sometimes I forget my place.” He bowed deeply with an exaggerated flourish. There was the slightest glimmer of disgust hidden beneath his words. He backed away “Please allow me to explain my place to you…Why do you think my ultimate punishment will be so great? It is because Yah knows that humans and Nephilim serve me with more loyalty than they do Him! He is a jealous God, Regeliel, but on this He knows that I am right.” Lucifer found his volume escalating again and forced himself to calm it and took on a more docile tone. “You can serve me unwittingly and be punished by Yah or you can kneel before me, serve me willingly and be punished just the same. Choices my King, serve me openly, and I will reward you. Reward is really the only difference; it’s really not so terribly complicated.

“I will
never
serve you, demon!” Regeliel railed against the blasphemies he had just heard.

“Actions are my praise, not words, so we shall see who you serve, Regeliel.” Lucifer laughed. “We shall see who
they all
serve… Yes, Regeliel, we shall see who they serve!”

Regeliel wanted to strike the demon down, wanted to rend him limb from limb, but he was unable to move.  “Yah is all-powerful and you will fall before Him.”

Lucifer looked up at the knight, a look of innocence in his eyes. “What you say is true and more; He is all knowing, is He not?”

Regeliel grunted as he strained to move by force of will.

“Then wouldn’t that make
me
just as much a pawn as you or any other?”

The Nephilim floundered, growing angrier at his loss of words “You are trying to confuse me, deceiver.”

Lucifer smiled. “It is a conundrum, isn’t it?”

“There is no mystery devil! You may be more intelligent than I, but my heart beats stronger than yours.”

Lucifer opened his arms before him in a generous gesture. “Allow me to reward your service to me with your life, Nephilim. You have my eternal gratitude,” mockery again dripped from the words like acid from the devils lips, burning him. Just as Lucifer was not allowed to destroy Job, he was not permitted to physically kill humans or Nephilim, but he was permitted to entice them to destroy one another.

      
Chapter 76 - Mt. Alvernia

Eleven months after infection

Cat Island
, Bahamas 

             
Father Arnaud watched the storm that raged above Tortuga Island from the window of his room on Mt. Alvernia and prayed for the Anubis. He knew that the Anubis was gone now, but what of those that had already gone to the Ark? Arlington Neff had told him of his friend Nan and her sister and if they were to get back to this realm then that open gate must be the only option. It was the only one he could think of anyway.

             
Father Arnaud called two of the brothers to his chamber and they decided to take their flat bottom boat to Tortuga.

             
The sea was choppy, but despite their fears of the Triangle and being drawn through it, they managed to beach the craft safely.

             
The brothers found the dark skinned woman sitting on the beach. Mia was drenched from the rain, her long black hair hanging limp over her face and she didn’t react when they approached her.

             
“Child?” asked Father Arnaud, he knelt beside Mia in the wet sand and placed a hand on her shoulder, but she remained despondent. Arnaud nodded to his brothers and they helped her into the craft. Along the beach they looked toward a field just above the sandy strip and saw a farmer using a zombie yoked to his plow. The farmer’s daughter, who appeared to be about ten years old, walked before the dead man urging the zombie forward as it unwittingly plowed the field behind it. It seemed to be the same premise as hanging a carrot before a mule but this was a more grisly and disturbing scene. Father Arnaud decided to remember the farmer and daughter faces; he wasn’t sure how much of their produce they would trade for. Slavery was different than servitude. Service was voluntary and just because the zombie was a dead man that didn’t mean he should be used as a tool. He had once been human. Still, he could not bring himself to judge the farmer. How much had that man lost from this plague? He might actually be on to something as long as he could manage to control the dead and keep it from eating them.

             
They helped Mia on board and pushed the small boat back into the surf. Father Arnaud hoped that the woman would know how to use the phone that Neff had given him.

             
He looked at the woman, who was striking in her beauty but his heart ached when he saw the sadness in her eyes. She simply stared out at the sea with tears pooling in her eyes but never falling. Mia had not asked them who they were or what their intentions had been. They could have been pirates and slave traders and she would have had the same expression. He wondered why God allowed this; why He had allowed all of this. It didn’t seem right or
did
it?  Mankind hadn’t actually been all that compassionate to one another. Yes there were some that tried to live a life in the footsteps of Christ, but most made their own paths and if they encountered another on their path then conflict arose.
And Cain rose up …

             
The monk’s mind wandered. Able was dead, Cain had been banished, so God had given Adam and Eve another; Seth whose name meant substitution but he remembered Seth (or Set in other translations) in Egyptian mythology who was an evil god that murdered
his
brother Osiris.

             
How things become entangled. He shook the confusion from his head, knowing that it was a seed of doubt. A monk didn’t have the luxury of doubt; there was only faith and that would be enough. Wouldn’t it?