Enoch Primordial (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (26 page)

The satan had been quite shaken up by the arrival of the Son of Man and of his influence on the progress of the suit, or rather, the regress. The satan decided to reframe the debate.

“If it please the court, I need to place into the public record another piece of evidence. You know, I am often slanderously called a liar. My character is defamed with the pernicious mudslinging title ‘Father of Lies.’ Well, let me tell you, it was not I who lied to Adam and Havah in the Garden, it was Elohim! ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and I quote, ‘in the day you eat of the tree you shall surely die.’ Pshaw! They did
not
die on that day! Adam and Havah lived over nine hundred years. I ask you, who is the real liar here? The covenant is invalidated because of the discredited character of the suzerain!”

Enoch only took a moment to respond
. “Your honor and esteemed members of the council, the satan seeks to deny the authorial intent of the text by reducing it to the reader’s own responsive interpretation, as if
he
defines reality. “In the day” is a colloquialism that means a general time period, and the satan knows this very well. He is redefining words to control the text for his own despotic purposes. They did not die ‘on that day,’ they died ‘in that day’ which signifies a new era of existence because of the serious consequences of their actions. Exile from the Tree of Life in the Garden meant their bodies could not be regenerated. That is when they
died
.”

The satan and Semjaza wondered how close their army was to seizing that very prize of eternal life for their minions, the Tree of Life. If they were victorious, they would make a name for themselves and nothing that they proposed to do would be impossible for them. They would be the ones kicking certain other deities out of the Garden.

The satan scrambled for more cover. “Counsel has suggested that death is the inability to regenerate the human body. But I submit that this depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

Enoch wondered to himself, W
as this solipsism even worth the dignity of a response?

• • • • •

Rahab could swim the waters above and below the firmament. It was all her territory. But her special domain was the Abyss. From there, she could access every body of water that ultimately connected to this underwater abode. Her birth waters
were Lake Urimiya, where Elohim created her and held her at bay when he established the heavens and the earth. She was in the Lake again at that moment. She had returned to this sacred ground to give birth to her own spawn.

T
he Nephilim paddled on the surface of the water. They were unaware of the nemesis below, a protective mother sea dragon and her very hungry newborn offspring,
Leviathan
.

Leviathan was every bit the armored sea serpent as its parent.
, Even newly born, it was already about half the size of Rahab. But it had something its progenitor did not: seven heads. Seven dragon heads on seven snakelike necks with seven times the predator’s snapping jaws, and seven times the rows of razor teeth. Leviathan’s strike zone was wide and it was more agile and speedier than Rahab. And it had seven times the fury.

T
he Nephilim were oblivious to the shadowy forms approaching them from the darkness below. They filled the waters with their crafts The lead skiffs were only two thirds of the way across.

The first casualties came at the front of the line
. A huge explosion of water erupted. Pontoons snapped in two, throwing Nephilim into the water.

Yahipan screamed, “RAHAB!!”
The Nephilim stopped rowing and looked about the water. The huge serpentine armor broke the surface again, crushing a slew of the flatboats and dragging Nephilim into the depths. The spiny back cut through the water and disappeared.

The Rephaim yelled orders
. The Nephilim rowed for their lives. But it was an easy feast for the monsters of the deep. Rahab simply opened her mouth and scooped up dozens of Nephilim like so many minnows
.

Leviathan came next, with
the seven dragon heads snapping up Nephilim faster than they could get out of the way. Leviathan might be a newborn and smaller than its mother, but already armor covered it. It was even able to launch small pillars of fire from its nostrils. Its youth and speed made up for its size as it darted and dodged around, all of its heads coordinated in a bloodbath of feeding.

Inanna wondered where all that food went.

Some Nephilim tried to fight back But it was futile and the smart ones made for the shoreline. They hoped they might get lucky and be overlooked by their serpentine predators.

T
hat was only the beginning. The sorry paddlers were no match for the worst of all Elohim’s creatures. Another creature came up from the depths. Its body could not be seen, only tentacles bursting from the water and crushing demigods in its grip. Yahipan and Thamaq were in the middle of the mayhem and counted eight of these snakelike appendages grabbing hapless soldiers.

On the shoreline, Inanna’s complexion went pale. It was the one thing she had not anticipated. And it was the one thing that might completely derail her strategy.

In the water, Yahipan noticed that the tentacles were not grabbing Nephilim, they were grabbing the Rephaim generals. It was as if the creature were searching only for Rephaim. Before he could move, one of the tentacles wrapped around his body and pulled him into the air. He chopped with a battle axe. But the constriction of the tentacle made him black out. His axe splashed in the water.

Bands of Nephilim closer to the launch site
tried frantically to paddle back to shore.

Numbers
, thought Inanna.
Chaos cannot possibly keep up with the numbers. Some will get through
.

She drew a bow and some arrows and started shooting the returning Nephilim. She bellowed, “DESERTION IS TREASON. FORWARD OR DIE!!” The fleeing Nephilim stopped in confusion
. They turned back around, to try their luck for the other side.

The lake became
one big cauldron of churning waters, snapping multiple dragon heads, crushing tentacles and Nephilim blood and body parts. The Nephilim forces were being decimated. But some crossed over and made it to the other side.

Inanna and Utu mounted their Anzu and flew overhead to try to
assess their losses and help the few who appeared to be close to landing
.

This sea bitch and her brood are not going to stop me,
thought Inanna.
If I have to attack it myself, I will.

• • • • •

The Karabu had
trained for this war all of their lives. They had built strength, developed technique, and placed their faith in Elohim. Thus, their casualties at the walls of Mount Sahand were a mere dozen after slaughtering three thousand giants at war. They moved like ghosts The giants considered them demons. They fought with an acrobatic technique the giants did not recognize. The Nephilim were occultic creatures that were hard to kill for normal humans. But the Karabu were occultic assassins trained by God’s archangels specifically to fight Nephilim. It was not an even fight.

Unfortunately, Inanna was right. The numbers
favored her. Even though the Karabu were able to take down astonishing numbers of giants and scatter a goodly number of them in fear, they could not win the battle in time to stop the other six thousand Nephilim already cresting the top of the Sahand ridge The climbers prepared for their sail-chute descent into the Garden.

• • • • •

Cain had heard the cries of the wolves caught in Methuselah’s trap across the Hidden Valley.
Judging by the sound of it, he reasoned that Methuselah had taken the offensive. That meant he probably had a strategy of divide and conquer, since he did not stand a chance against the pack. Cain called the others together with a whistle. He sent them out on the scent as a pack of forty. The wolves would simply hunt them down one by one. As Inanna had told him at Lake Urimiya, they could not overcome sheer numbers.

But Cain had another idea of his own.
He was willing to sacrifice his entire wolf clan to achieve it.

• • • • •

Methuselah teamed up with Betenos and Uriel with Lamech. That was one command from Elohim Uriel was grateful for
, since Methuselah did not like him much.

How could a man be so miserable?
thought Uriel.
If Methuselah continues on like this, he is going to be one crotchety old geezer when I come back to guard his grandson. I guess some people just need a little more time than others to get it right. But hundreds of years
?

They
bolted into the woods after the pit incident. They knew the other wolves would be there in no time at all.

They ran to their next location and waited for the wolves to follow. Their scent was an easy draw. This
would be more difficult. Their pursuers would be wise to them and more cautious in their approach. On the other hand, they were sure Cain did not know they had an archangel with them. They would use that to their advantage.

• • • • •

As Cain stalked his prey, he
did know that they were not alone. Only one thing could have pulled off the kind of blinding that occurred to his clan earlier in the day: they must have an angel with them. He would be ready.

The wolves tread softly through the jungle. They smelled their prey and knew they were near. Like silent ghosts, they glided through the forest, eyes ablaze like glowing coals, figures dark as the night. They came upon the
four hiding in the bush, waiting for an attack. Their backs were to the wolves that had crept up behind them. Fifteen of the monsters leapt on their quarry, fangs blazing. But the quarry was not their quarry. They were rocks dressed with the clothes of the quarry. The humans had dressed themselves in leaves and hid in the trees They rained down arrows and javelins, taking out a dozen wolves in mere moments.

T
hey swung down on vines to the ground and slashed, stabbed, and sliced their way through the wolverine forces on their way to the rock wall. The rest of the pack raced after them with snarls and howls.

Yahweh Elohim and his divine council surrounding the heavenly throne were about to
be blasted by the satan’s final complaint. He took a confident breath and embarked on his concluding accusation: blame shifting.

The satan said, “If I am to stomach this dodgy ad hoc definition of ‘death’ as eventual mortality, and the excessive punishment of this death and exile for the primal pair in the Garden, that is one thing. But to then shift that blame onto the rest of the human race, that is the most unfair, unjust, unwarranted, unreasonable, unjustifiable attribution of guilt anyone has ever seen in the history of the
heavens and earth.”

Enoch thought the satan’s rhetoric
reached its shrill climax of excess in this catalogue of allegations and complaints.

The satan continued, “What kind of a just god blames innocent people for the guilt of others? What kind of a loving god punishes the
entire rest of the human race
for what two moronic idiots did in the Garden?”

He stood there with dramatic pause.

There it was again,
thought Enoch. The endless refrain against a ‘loving god.’ But now the satan was adding a new slogan for a bit of variety with ‘what kind of a just god’ etcetera, etcetera.

The satan concluded, “The prosecution rests its case
.” He sat down by the other Watchers.

The Son of Man leaned
close, giving more counsel to Enoch It amounted to revealing the mystery of good news that would be hidden for ages until the end of days. This secret held the answer to the satan’s charge.

Enoch
then realized that the satan’s final trick was more than rhetoric, he was trying to force Yahweh Elohim’s hand to reveal the mystery.

So that is what this was all about,
he thought. The Watchers and all their principalities and powers in the heavenly places were trying to use a legal maneuver to draw out Yahweh Elohim’s secret in order to defend himself. If this secret were unveiled, they hoped to have the means by which they could defeat the Seed of the Woman. This Accuser is cunning indeed.

Enoch stood at the bar.
He knew this would require the utmost of his highest apkallu skills. How to answer the satan’s accusation without revealing the mystery of ages before its time.

He spoke with
a measured tempo, “Sin came into the world through one man. Death came through sin. So death spread to all men because all sinned. Death reigns from Adam unto this very day, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, because Adam is the federal representative head of the human race. Just as all the inhabitants of the city of Erech would suffer for the illegal actions of its representative head of state,” Enoch stared accusingly at Semjaza, “or benefit from the righteousness of that federal head. So the blessings and curses of the progenitor of the human race would be attributed to those whom he represents. It is the nature of authority and representation used even by those who seek to discredit it in this courtroom. If the satan does not like that, then he will have to file another injunction against all the blessings received by the human race as well. The defense rests its case.”

Enoch sat back down to await the summary judgment before the throne of the Almighty Judge of the universe.

• • • • •

The lake glistened blood red in the full moon. Inanna flew angrily over the
chaos and turmoil of the mass slaughter, She had to do something. She saw Rahab come up and chomp a mouthful of soldiers. She unsheathed her sword and dove from the bird down to the beast.

She landed on the back of the huge dragon with a thud. Before Rahab knew what had happened, Inanna raised her blade high, finding her mark between a couple of scales that had been torn in the battle. She plunged it
deep into soft flesh, down to the hilt.

Rahab roared and the mountainside trembled. Fire belched out of her mouth, scorching the rest of the Nephilim on the water to a charred crisp.
In a few seconds, a thousand of them were flaming flesh.

Rahab dove. Inanna held on. The dragon went deep.
The Watcher on her back could not be drowned so easily. Although Watchers became weakened in water, all Inanna had to do was hold onto the sword. That did not require fighting strength. She rode an unbreakable sea bronco. This was the most dangerous risk Inanna had taken in her existence as a Watcher. If she held on too long, it would not end well for her. Rahab would inevitably bury her in the depths under rock, where Inanna would be imprisoned until the judgment. She just had to wait for her opportunity to let go.

Rahab turned
and swam back to the surface. She broke the water and snapped her curved back in an arching leap.

Inanna
yanked the sword out. She went flying a hundred cubits, landing in the middle of her decimated, water-soaked Nephilim horde on the shore.

She rolled to her feet
. All about her she saw that two thousand out of the horde had made it across the water. They were on the frontier of Eden. A mere two thousand combatants for the invasion of an impregnable fortress. Five out of six Nephilim had perished at the mercy of Rahab and her brood of Leviathan and the tentacled one. The devastation was inestimable. It could lose her the war.

Still,
she had two thousand warriors with her. They were on the shores of the entrance to the Garden that hid the Tree of Life deep in its midst. Thanks to the Cursed One, she knew exactly where that tree was.

She looked for her Rephaim generals but could not find them. They had all been lost to the
denizens of the deep.

A
n earthquake rocked the land. It was deep, the precursor of something much bigger.

“Now what?” Inanna complained. She looked onto the horizon of her destination
. Black smoke billowing out of the mountaintops of not only Mount Sahand, but the more distant northern Mount Savalan. The earth rumbled again. She realized she did not have much time.

She signaled for her Anzu bird, and called out to Utu, flying above them at a safe height.

“SOUND THE CRY OF WAR!” she bellowed.

Utu put the trumpet to his lips and blew with all his might. The war cry of Inanna echoed throughout the land.

Her Nephilim gathered their arms and dashed toward the heart of Eden.

Inanna
mounted her thunderbird. She glanced out at the Lake. Rahab glided on the surface, its eyes watching her. It would not forget this day, nor the Watcher who dared strike out at the sea dragon of the Abyss.

• • • • •

At the top of the Mount Sahand ridge, six thousand Nephilim
prepared their sail-chutes. They waited for the call of war. When it came, they jumped off the cliff edge by the dozens. They opened up their sails to float down into the Garden. Handfuls of them failed and Nephilim plummeted to their deaths a thousand feet below. But the most of them worked. The Nephilim drifted from the heavens into the pristine paradise.

Right into the flaming whirling swords of the Cherubim.

• • • • •

The humans and Uriel ran through the foliage
, the pack of canines on their heels. Suddenly, ahead of them, they saw the other half of the wolves blocking their path by the brook. They were being hemmed in. They took a hard right.

Within moments they were up against a rock wall, the end of the valley
. Hundreds of feet of mountain rock rose above them, at their backs. Ninety ravenous wolves surrounding their front. They had nowhere to go.

They
faced the valley again and saw ninety pair of glowing orbs slouching closer toward them. They backed up against the rock. A rocky overhang with vines dangling down loomed over their heads. There was no way they could climb.

Instead, they
pulled on the vines.

The vines were attached to wedges that held back a huge pile of boulders ready to fall. Those huge
boulders came down upon the wolves in an avalanche of stone.

The humans
had not been backed in. They had led the wolves to this prepared trap. They were protected by the large overhang as a hundred tons of rock rolled down on the heads of the wolves, killing a dozen and wounding a dozen others.

When the dust settled, Methuselah and his team
leapt forward with weapons alive. Javelins, arrows, angelic sword and slashing Rahab.

The wolves
focused all their forces on the angel.

As he fought, Methuselah wondered,
Why Uriel? He could not die. Is not Lamech their prize?

They rushed
the angel in a wave of claw and tooth. Uriel’s sword slashed and cut through fur and muscle alike. He was a powerhouse, but the wolves were legion. Seventy of them piled onto Uriel and overwhelmed him with their weight. They growled and bit.

H
e was overcome. He might be an angel, but these large werewolves were no human warriors either. They were hounds of hell
.

Lamech snapped Rahab and cut off heads and legs. The wolves
could not get near to him. His flexible sword swung like a wild whip. They did not really menace Lamech. They stayed on Uriel.

Methuselah yelled a mighty war cry
. He single-handedly threw a dozen wolves off of Uriel’s prone figure. Betenos picked off others of the enemy one by one from a position on a ledge.

The way of the Karabu
awoke in Methuselah, and he began to move like a river of doom, dodging and dancing fighting that balanced the equation.

Uriel
finally got to his feet, and began again to cut down wolves like a machine. He and Methuselah were a two-man killing force. They took out fifty of the monsters in a bloody wave of fur, javelin, and blade.

W
hile everyone focused on the angel, Lamech fought wide open. Cain jumped him from behind.

The Cursed One
had stealthily moved toward his only interest: Lamech. His pack had cut off the guardian angel from the guarded, as he had planned.

Cain leapt. He
took Lamech to the ground. Rahab flew out of Lamech’s grip. Cain’s preternatural strength overcame him. Lamech blacked out.

Cain
glanced up, to check the progress of the fighting. He saw Betenos turn. Their eyes met, and he grinned. She let loose a superhuman volley of three arrows. They seemed to simultaneously hit Cain before he could move. They buried themselves deep into his heart. She would kill anyone or anything that tried to take her beloved.

But Cain was not alive to kill.

He was undead, and the arrows had no effect on him. He snapped them off, picked up Lamech and dissolved into the forest.

Betenos bounded after Cain. But she was suddenly knocked off her feet
. She fell to the ground in a tumble with the black she-wolf.

They rolled to a stop with the she-wolf on top of Betenos
, burning rage in her eyes. She bared her fangs. She was about to rip out Betenos’ throat, when her own throat was cut by a javelin thrown by Methuselah. It missed the jugular, tearing some of beast’s flesh as it passed by it. The she-wolf yelped and bounded off into the darkness after Cain.

Methuselah’s aim
had missed because his muscles were fatigued. They had just killed an overwhelming number of foes. He and Uriel stood thigh high in the bodies and blood of their enemies. Methuselah collapsed. Uriel suffered a multitude of bite and claw wounds.

Uriel lay
down on the ground, looking up at the moon. He called out for Lamech, but heard no response. He called again. “Lamech, are you all right?”

Uriel and Methuselah sat up
, concerned. They saw Betenos running into the forest. They instantly knew what had happened.

There was no time to tend their wounds. They
leapt to their feet and ran after her.