Holy Man’s Pathos by Alexander Rivera

It was humid under the mid morning sun and the scholarly monk detested the searing temperature. He entered one of the nineteen doors of the Mosque and sworn he had strayed into a forest of marble trees. Walking along the richly adorned Mosque enjoined with the minaret construct, he felt lost, not knowing which routes would lead to his recommended rendezvous with the enigmatic alchemist.

He feared the second his knees gave out and made contact with the marble floor of this pagan monastery; he knew his orthodox adherence to the faith would be in question. Strangely with slight apostasy, he found a bit of comfort with the balmy atmosphere of Cordova and its scents of myrrh, jasmine–in stark contrast of pestilence that rose out of hell, while peasants unceremoniously dumping the dead into dug trenches which littered the streets of feudal Christendom England. The rich and poor were buried alike. Perhaps those infected lands of sin were the work of the evil one, was a possibility that swayed through his mind.

Outside, two immense and beautiful marble basins still decorated the courtyard of the great Mosque at Cordova, where every worshiper once washed before entering. Making way past the lavish gardens of the courtyard, he wandered down the cobblestone path into the market place, as the surrounding buildings, and alleyways all seemed to intertwine within the bazaar. Clothing and embroideries hung from above, linking one neighbors trust with the other. Street merchants haggled pedestrians, while a common thief lurked in the shadows, one hand short of a loaf of bread. Not far ahead, the crowd expanded, filling gaps that exposed the worn earth, a sea of bodies, worn like the ground.

He pushed his way through, minding his pockets, while keeping an eye out for the person that was supposed to meet him in a most inconvenient place.

Regardless, he couldn’t help but think of why he was in the streets of the town. He pulled up his cowl and still attempted to remain anonymous in this exotic, pagan Spanish land.

Silently, he prayed to God in his mind for a sign or answer to his nightly lucid dreams that had plagued him and knowledge he would receive for his Abbot and the archives at the end of his holy sojourn.

No answer came immediately and he steadied himself with patience and wondered if God’s sovereign, holy presence would admonish and guide him through his quandary. Moments later, he felt a slight nudge against his coat. He looked down and saw one large Persian cat, as it’s thick, furry tail rose in greeting. The monk took a step back away from the devilish abomination that stood before him.

Its golden yellow eyes locked on upon his grimace as he thought quietly to himself, “Blessed virgin, God surely must be testing my very faith in absolute…Get thee behind me, Satan!”

Before he could react, the creature raced en route for him and ran between his ankles, causing him to lose his balance. He landed painfully on his backside, and uttered a curse. He crossed himself, and put his palms on the ground, pushing himself back up to his feet.

Following the scurrying cat, he pondered perhaps it would lead him inexorably to his answer. The feline quickly ran into an elongated tent with an overhead sign that seemed vaguely familiar although written in Arabic diction.

Upon entering, an intense musk strangled his nose, something that those inside were no doubt use too. The scent so profound it threatened to consume any passerbyer whole as wisps of smoke drifted lazily up from a candle, curling about like the chocolate shavings on a French silk pie. Unraveled scrolls of ancient calligraphic writing cluttered the open floor, and watercolor tapestries of jungle temples hung on the otherwise barren walls of the tent.

A solemn figure was evaluating a scroll, sitting whilst smoking a large, narrow pipe, surrounded by a congregation of cats and foul birds. The monk saw the legions of demonic creatures amongst their overlord puppet master and politely excused himself from their wretched darkness.

“Wait…why leave so soon?” The raspy voice called from the cloak.

“I’m sorry; I entered by mistake, good day…”

“Why God-man, how utterly rude of you. You barge in, and then retreat immediately thereafter?”

Was there no end to the evil that had filled this day? The monk slowly turned around and quickly replied, “Those cats–black cats are emissaries of evil, and don’t you agree? Yes and these beasts are here for a reason. Naturally, we should have no worry of perdition, but just the same, you must destroy these creatures. We cannot allow the powers of darkness to mark us, or to tempt us.”

“Surely, you must not be serious, God-man. They hunt the infested rodents of your cursed plague. It is the natural order of things.”

The monk frowned and struggled to answer whilst changing the subject, “You wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the cursed sin of witchcraft would you?”

“Why? Would I dare suggest a man of holy cloth is dabbling into the darkness? How quickly you turn your ways for the counsel of heretics you vie for condemnation.”

“No. I was sent to find as much pagan arcane knowledge for the papacy and their archives to calculate as much of Satan’s deceptions as ordained possible,” The monk couldn’t help but flinch from the numerous amounts of feline and bird critters that took up much space of the tent. He then asked, “I presume you are the alchemist…”

“Indeed, I am.”

“I am Thelonious Godwin. On my journeys I have heard of tales of fanciful conjuring of the dead…through a book of dirge?”

The cloaked alchemist interrupted, “Yes…I can tell by just looking into your eyes. Your faith must surely be absolute and blind and cannot be shaken in order for such a saved soul to dabble in such devilry. What you may perhaps seek is a cursed tome of incantations and evocations intertwined to its revealed songs of the long ago past.”

“What can you tell me of this book you speak of?”

The necromancer placed down his pipe and spoke up, “Legend has it, it was written by the dark ones, this Al Azif; roughly translated ‘the book of dead names’. The book served as a passage way to the netherworld beyond. It was written long ago as the seas ran rampant with blood. It was this blood that was used to ink the book.”

The hooded one paused for a brief moment to chuckle at himself, “In truth, the translation I pieced and hold of this book was written by a mad one…some two hundred years ago from this tenth century, which foretold the awakening and return of the most terrible powers, its binding crafted from human flesh, its words inked in coagulant blood.”

Thelonious moved about within the warm tent, studying various voodoo ritual accessories, herbs and spices, weaponry and shamanistic potions that were laid out for display.

“Do you see anything of interest?”

Thelonious looked up whilst studying an intricately designed handle of a dagger, “I’m not interested in your tools of sin. Yet, I am curious of this book. Are you certain it holds any validity or if the book is even authentic in itself?”

“What do you think, it was written by foolish miscreants of falsification? The mad one was no fool, yet quite eccentric and crazed of grimoire.”

“Who are you?” The monk frowned.

“I provide communion among the dead as a necromancer and continue to carry on its legacy. Many address me as Opsopaus.”

“A necromancer? The wolf finally comes to bare his fangs and true skin from his sheep clothing?”

“Be careful God-man, or you will wind up like those heretic witches burnt like a sacrificial offering to your fire and brimstone God.”

“They are surely vehemently screaming within the purifying fires of their stake. They will know the suffering of hell before they are sent there. I’ve seen enough here…your blasphemy surely will be of consequence…” Thelonious spat.

“Why do you reject God’s revelations for your quest, monk of the parish? The priests of Shiloh did the very same thing and Jonah was fed to a leviathan of the seas.”

“I do not reject Him. For such a menial and low creature, I am blessed to be even considered for His everlasting grace!” Thelonious continued, “I beseech you to beg the Lord for forgiveness…”

“Something is amiss…I sense the hidden blade, but when will it become unsheathed?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you come here to simply waste my time? Go away, holy man.”

“No, I’ve come here to ready the forbidden knowledge for the church…that book…I would like to know more about it… Strange I would admit, but I will stay.”

“If you are earnest, so be it…please sit. The words and quatrains I will utter here must not go anywhere else, not even to your hallowed parish. Agreed?”

Thelonious rubbed his bald head while he grasped onto his rosary before sat down. “…Yes, fine…”

“…Then listen to my words, Thelonious…Enoch, the learned one, father of Methuselah saw many strange things unto the heavens and earth, thus recorded onto scrolls. His eyewitness have been denounced, banned, cursed, no doubt burned and shredded for heresy. It is not to be taken lightly, for your very hardened, convicted faith built upon rock could indeed crumble.”

“How lightly you take me…” The monk shot back.

“God-man, there was a very ancient time on this earth where fine jewelry littered the ground, where it did not have violent storms, nor did mankind depend so much upon spoken language to communicate. In these ancient days of the world, the watchers from heaven became incarnate and assumed the likeness of men while they left the service of God. They descended unto the earth, mingled in its affairs, committed fornication with women, and became the fathers of children unlike the ones you see today that play in the streets and alleys. They were a progeny physically magnificent and spiritually corrupt.”

The necromancer fixed Thelonius with a glare as he continued, “These powerful and depraved beings subverted the government of the earth and filled it with intolerable crime. It was this union between fallen principality and flesh that the great deluge was sent to wash over the sins of both mankind and its reprobate children of discord. The Almighty put an end to this unnatural condition by sending a great deluge to destroy the kingdom of the Devas with their giant offspring, and by imprisoning in chains and darkness the angels who had been guilty of monstrous offence.”

“…How does a heretic know of such abominable knowledge?” The monk felt strange emotions swimming and sobering his thoughts.

“Through the cursed black arts and the invocation of the damned and also of the righteous of spirits. Yet it goes further then that…there are some things in this world at large is ignorant of. ..the ancient past of antiquity. You however shall know the mysteries of the past.”

Thelonious knew in the back of his mind, he was going somewhere that he should have been fleeing from and yet he had never trotted any paths of darkness with his own blistered and scraped feet.

***

A charming serpent began shedding its muted yet searing skin as its host began to help peel it off in long single strips. It slithered its way around the luminary’s arm and wrist as it finally dropped towards the sandy dune and groveled away from the chiefs of the two hundred hosts who assembled before mount Armon.

One of the chiefs lifted his long mane and head on high towards the scorching, hot midday sun and exhaled, “The exalted Lord has given us acquiescence to descend and dwell upon the sphere of man and His creation to sanctify his name. Born again as human vessels, we, the sons of heaven shall reveal to the Lord of the universe, how easily corruptible mankind is because of his conceit of free-will. We shall take more wives from among the children of men and beget us our brood. “Through sonorous thought by the chief’s memories, God’s words echoed throughout the angelic collective of the mounted grove, “Descend and dwell among them.”

One of the chief watchers asked, “Why has the Lord allowed us to wallow within this mortal realm of men, instead of observing and shielding it?”

The answer came without delay, “I communed with Him, seeking an answer for His reason of allowing man to purge His precious sphere. The Holy one answered within me, saying what shall become of the world. I answered back, ‘we, your heavenly hosts will suffice instead of it.’”

Sinister grunts and cackles echoed among the host. They swore themselves together seeking to further prove their righteousness higher then of man rather then exposure of their increasing megalomania and vanity.

Their physical bodies transfigured into flame, their sinews into fire, their bones into embers, their eyes into torches in unison as countless majestic wings of illumination sprouted slowly behind their shoulders. Their hair became rays of blinding light as gossamer threads of a latticework of luminescence, all the while, an approaching storm accompanied by whirlwind, and thunder hovered over their meeting place. They soon left, descending further into the world, once more.

A small mouse scurried through the sand, searching for sustenance. The slithering newly emerged fiery serpent made room for hissing as it quickly snatched the rodent in its mouth and continued to swallow it.

***

“The eighth choir, the Almighty had dispatched towards the Earth were seen and tested to ideally suit their positions of watching over mankind and report to the rest of the heavenly luminary council beyond the highest of spheres.”

The necromancer continued, “It is they, the Grigori were considered the most reminiscent of ‘humans’ from all the choirs of angels. They were permitted to blend with humanity, cope with their petty selfishness and daily sins without even twitching, interacting with them as near-equals, and all the while still retaining their divinity. They could hear their dreams, their prayers, their cries of gross anguish and disturbance. They understood why mankind had been birthed, the mirror image of God and yet their comfort among them contributed to their downfall.”

Thelonious couldn’t have been more attentive, listening to utterances he had never heard of before as the same Persian cat that he saw before nestled beside the monk, while feeling bit apprehensive towards the beast.

Opsopaus’ lips contorted into a smirk, “The watchers seduced with pure faces and whispered sweet words of honey. They swept their elegant and beautiful cohorts of the daughters of men unto wretched harlots full of lust and abomination, literally as they begat a most terrible brood. From their unhallowed intercourse, spurious men sprang, greater in stature than ordinary men, whom they afterwards called giants whose dark desires knew no bounds.” The necromancer puffed more fumes from his elongated pipe as he opened the book of the cursed dead. His long nimble index finger moved across the written pages made of skin and flesh adorned by enigmatic text of spells and devilish diagrams.

Thelonious moved across to inspect the book, which was a complete and total opposite to the manuscripts he written as an illuminator, adorned with striking paints and golden leaves within the cold and silent Scriptorium of his monastery. The names of dead saints repeated over and over rather then the names of demons and warlocks as read in the tattered book.

Is it the Lord’s will that I will be knowledgeable of the evil one’s latest trickery and deception? The monk streamed within his mind.

***

“Esterah, you seek to know the name of the Lord thy God? What will you accomplish in doing so?” Shemyaza asked the most voluptuous wonton daughter of Eve he had set his fiery eyes upon.

“Listen to my request,” she said and continued, “I will not listen until you have taught me the name by which you have enabled to ascend to the firmament, as soon as one mentions it. Azazel, your cohort has also given women sweet odors of fragrance and sights of ornaments and cosmetic vanity to further entice your batch and others. He also has provided further tools of murder amongst men.”

She really was rather a bewitching thing with her hair spread out like the sauntering growth from a willow tree as she was careful to expose her ample bosom for him to yearn earnestly, so supple.

Yet she was merely the means to an end, the first weak link in a chain, that would break and lead to their dominance. He grasped onto her sex and whispered his ineffable name.

Esterah soon bore from the angel, children and savored the moment when she uttered the holy Tetragrammaton and transfigured beyond the mortal realm of men. She surely ascended into the cosmos after she took her own life, as her mind was filled with madness and Shemyaza had unexpectedly mourned his loss. From the cycle of life and death, came Hahyah and Ohyah, his mutant sons, born before her passing.

The chief Watchers, Shemyaza and Azazel and the rest of their lot took more wives and proceeded further unto defilement of both creations. They had taught them the secrets of incantation, sorcery, astronomy, the dividing of roots and trees and heavenly arcane.

From their conception to the deadly birth pangs they instigated, the tribes of unusually tall and strongly built bodily stature, ranging anywhere from three to five meters in height to solitary giants towering several miles high, began to multiply further then expected.

Constantly at war with the rest of humanity, whom the giants considered to be inferior due to their small size and moderate disposition, the giants constantly lived on the knife’s edge of either absolute domination or total extermination — giving no quarter, and in turn, receiving none.

They were those who feed off man’s livestock and his acquisitions. When the goods of men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured their flesh and blood. And they began to sin against birds, beasts, reptiles and fish, and then to devour one another’s flesh in cannibalistic rites of rank depravity.

All together, these actions proved to be a deadly combination, and the giants conquered and enslaved all but the strongest foes with ease. As a result, these wicked giants were usually to be found ruling over large masses of normal-sized human beings all at the same time keeping them as slaves and, it is whispered, as fodder for various unsavory uses.

The procreators who sired their children of discord could have and did nothing to prevent further impiety and were proud of their misbegotten children, seeing a race far greater they had brought into the world, then the original children of God.

Into this chaos, the cherub Raphael trailed into the barren desert land, his long, raven black hair following. Despite the searing weather, he could still feel the intensity of his creator speaking through him, giving forth the duty of reprimanding and binding the watcher that caused the most to err in sin. He still could see the orbs of souls gallivanting, forming and preparing themselves to withstand the glory of the highest of luminaries. They glided above the vast crystalline oceans surrounding unearthly silver cities of light.

The hot sand felt all the more stranger to him under his calluses, dragging along the wailing Azazel over the sand dunes of the desert, yet never vying for repentance.

There was an opening into a large gaping hole as the vengeful angel bound the dark watcher hand and foot and displayed the outer darkness through implanted vision and spoke to Azazel, “There is Tartarus followed by perdition, the gates of death, the gates of the shadow of death, silence, the bilge and the lowest pit. This is where all your machinations shall enter and never return!”

After Raphael left the cursed angel to his incarceration, he surveyed the torn, crumbled landscape of many villages and cities wailing in fear. There were thousands of people situated upon stakes as ravens and vultures came to peck at their rotting flesh and the angel was filled with anger displaying the wrathful face of God towards those unsavory brutes filled with bloodlust.

The earthbound watchers were targeted by another certain righteous angel. Uriel was sent to oversee the iniquity the children of darkness had spread. His bright, piercing eyes landed upon Shemyaza, warning of the wrath to come and yet he and his host chirped their pride.

Three times the angel of fire had warned the renegade Grigori of their cosigned fate, reserved for the corruption they caused. Uriel pleaded that they show mercy to mankind and to withdraw their darkling children to a secluded area, away from their blood soaked lot. The Grigori chided back that it was a merciful act to man, to strike them from the face of the earth, rather than have them live as a failure. They had been intended to steward the earth by God’s command, and they had failed. How merciful is it to leave them living, spawning generation after generation that would fail in their holy task, sending generation after generation to knock at the Morning Star’s door?

The fiery luminary, Uriel answered thus, “You have been asked three times to control your children. You have refused to be just, to listen to reason, or to be merciful. He who is I AM has sent me to deliver a message. Because you will not be just, reasonable, or merciful, the choice has been taken from you. God has seen his children slaughtered, and will be just. God has seen His children treated as beasts, and will act according to reason. God has heard His children’s prayers, and will be merciful.”

His eyes burned with the fires of Hades, studying the inciting hosts of Watchers, “Because you have refused to intervene, your children and those that follow them will be destroyed, and what remains will be scattered. They are Nephilim, outcast and landless. Know that you have spoken with the angel of justice, thought, and mercy. Now you speak to the Angel of Death. I will bring the only justice, thought, and mercy I can.”

At this the Grigori begged that their children be spared. They wept bitter tears, and seeing this Uriel said: “You cared nothing for the tears that have been shed, so it will be tears that bring what I have said to pass.”

“Destroy all the souls addicted to dalliance, and the offspring of the Watchers, for they have tyrannized over mankind. Let every oppressor perish from the face of the earth; let every evil work be destroyed; the plant of righteousness and of rectitude appear, and its produce become a blessing.”

On that same night the angel appeared. The inky, bleak sky was filled with thunderous clapping which could be heard outside the small fortress, as the mutant sons of Shemyaza, Hahyah and Ohyah, slept soundly. The hybrid twins dreamt in conjunction, they had visited an Eden like garden filled only with two-hundred trees; the husks were merely their progenitors who conspired to bring a frightful end to mankind’s madness. Yet, their thick trunks became uprooted and crashed down towards the grass, signaling the coming conflagration and deluge. Drops of flame, poured down from heaven, encapsulating the tyrannical wrath of the etheric estate, beyond. The summoning of Mahaway and the counseling of the prophet Enoch, confirmed their violent demise of the descended chieftains and their misbegotten sons.

Shemyaza woke them from their nightly dreams and cried, “The Holy One is about to bring a flood upon the world and to destroy it so that there will remain but one man, his wife and his three sons and their wives,” They answered and confirmed his ominous warning of the impending reign of tragedy from their dream visions of raining fire and vehement floods of wrath. Yet, their glorious houses of their names still stood, etched within the mountain sides.

Forthwith, for being bastards in race, of the fire of angels and the blood of women, they were dispatched by those seraphim loyal to the throne of white judgment before the tears of the gods, would befall upon all who did not heed or meditated on such warnings that dwelled upon the valleys, flatlands and even the highest of rocky mountains.

Shemyaza witnessed many of his fellow Grigori met certain condemnation by the brightest of magistrates by being held within the frightful prisons of Tartarus, by the chains of darkness.

The chief watcher extended his dark wings and bellowed out a scream that could be heard for miles away as heavy rain began to pour down in upon the earth, forming waves and floods encircling cities and tabernacles. The screams of the gainsayers ascended into the ionosphere, the firmament and beyond. All fell silent under the crashing waves; everything became cold.

So very, very cold.

***

Thelonious frowned as he huffed, “What is the point of these fanciful tales? I have never heard of these before, not even the utterances of Enoch’s record.”

The necromancer exhaled more smoke from his parched lips, “Enoch, the grandson of Adam…such a blessed soul for him to ascend to the heavens, taken along the ‘chariots of fire’. The entire lowland area was ravaged by these wicked sons, so much that the Lords of the heavens, albeit with much regret, decided to drown and destroy the debased brood.”

“Yet you say the children of discord of this Shemyaza, still exist even onto this day?”

“Why yes…have you not heard of Goliath? Nimrod? They had been grown from the seed of the reprobates; the Anakim. In fact, Hahyah and Ohyah are your cursed ancestors, God-man, survived from hiding on the highest of mounts. Their names have survived, even onto this day as both forged their own territories from their respective, glorious houses of rule. Are you prepared to accept your destiny, brother Thelonious and take it into your own hands?”

“What did you just say?” Thelonious immediately sprang away from the necromancer and frowned even more so.

“I…I was given prophecies about ye, man of cloth…before your counsel, your brethren bade you to come here for mission of defilement. The one who would ask of such a cursed book…who would know some of the myster–”

Thelonious interrupted as he exhaled, “Silence! Who gave you prophecies? Was it the devil? Who is your master that gave you your forked tongue? Give me his name!”

“I once had a master to obey, but I now wander outside the realm of salvation, just as you will be.”

“Silence heretic! I shall not tolerate such lies and blasphemy!”

“The audacities of your arrogance…tell me how I should behave in my own solitude, will you? You want to know who I really am? Look within my eyes and you shall see. I once had a most holy name but no one has addressed me by it for a very long time. I am of the malakim, a messenger of God.”

“Do you take me for a fool?! You are no more ‘angelic’ than I! More lies and deceit will not save you from your judgment, heretic.”

“Judgment? Yes…I have seen the end of things my son. Fiery judgment shall surely descend upon all those who dwell and perish upon this world, melting like honey comb aflame.”

“What…are you? You cannot be what you say.”

“I am the one who led my compatriots into the land of sin. All of those Grigori have survived; live now as outcasts still attuning dreams and mares of mankind. Even when God sent His son, we listened to his prayers as his enemy preyed upon him.”

A vein appeared from the side of Thelonious’ head and huffed, “You are carnal, and abide through your own indulgent self-will. You are lacking of faith and obedience to Him. Is it any wonder why your indictment of iniquity, you are now worthless before the eyes of God? I became a cleric to fight the influences of wickedness and hell, and the agents of Baal. Like all wretched sinners, your heart is depraved and deceitful beyond all imagination!”

“You lecture me on faith? I’ve been places in the universe you cannot even begin to fathom! I have traveled to the abyss and back a billion times to spread God’s word! The oceans and seas cannot compare to the blood we shed for God. Fool of faith, turn your back now and leave before all you hold dear shatters.”

The monk’s eyes suddenly swelled in revelation, “You…the fallen angels, they arrived to corrupt and destroy the human race in err; so to prevent the Redeemer kinsman to be born within it. They sacrificed to devils as to gods. Why didn’t I see this before…?”

“Come now, there are other reasons why we descended. I have seen the end of things. The mad one’s opus has confirmed this. It indicates the Old Ones through his maddening invocations, and warned of terrible powers waiting to return to re-claim the Earth, as the Beast that tramples the lands and soon triumphs after a great war in which the world is laid to waste. Right before the end of man’s probation, all will be insane…”

The necromancer leaned forwarded and beamed, “Look into my eyes. See the darkness writhe through your soul. Your judgment is already decided, my friend. It is only a matter of time before you too will curse the name of God.”

“Shut your filthy, lying mouth! You know nothing!”

The necromancer dropped his hood and revealed his long, angular countenance adorned with scars and a head full of extended, ashen locks. Thelonious’ heart began to palpitate faster and faster whilst sinking further into his stomach. The monk ogled into his eyes; that cold, steely piercing gaze.

“Just look into these soft gelatin windows of the depths of my soul, Thelonious, my greatest of grandchildren. Hence you shall know the suffering my angels! Know the name of your greatest ancestral sire; Shemyaza!”

The Watcher’s eyes suddenly became jet black, as the monk became transfixed into them, staring into the void, falling further into the outer darkness and into the belly of the abyss vomiting up dejected souls and denizens crying out for vengeance. A sudden, overwhelming sensation of fear washed over Thelonious and hr briefly yelled as he fell towards the dirt then quickly got up and ran for his life. He dashed past the various bazaars and alleyways within the open plaza, next into the Mosque as his knees finally gave in, falling towards the marble floor. Tears streamed down his face, falling to the floor like a leaf holding drops of water, bit by bit cascading down.

Crying out for God, he sobbed silently, far from the many praying and bowing devotees to Allah, upon Mihrab rugs.

Unbeknownst to Thelonious, a shadow slided over him as a stern tone came from the shadow’s source, “My son…why must you waste your tears on a God that does not listen?”

The monk murmured to Shemyaza, “What do you want from me?”

“Want? You misjudge me. I come with a gift; a throne by my side for you. Join me, brother Thelonious and lead the apostles and spread a new doctrine over this world.”

The monk rose and wiped his tears and sweat as he asked, “Is that all? You abandon heaven to rape God’s creation?”

“No! We did not come to earth to simply indulge our lusts nor did we come to destroy mankind. We came to show God the mistake He has manifested in unreality through this creation called humanity, for to do so would have Him admit his own imperfection. We never sought to be like the most high. The arrogance he has taught the rest of his angels supersedes us. There are other Grigori such as I who dwell amongst men and below. There are many servants and societies dedicated to the monarchy of darkness. Test your purity toward God amid the arrogance of humanity, those creatures created in his image. But if you’re wrong, your final end will be terrifying to behold! Poor creature…know that you will cry out in unimaginable agony as I have with God.”

The Watcher paused and stared over Thelonious, “Grab hold of your true destiny, my son, for you are the most resilient of my bloodline. How can your parish accept you, hence their discovery of your tainted blood? Deep inside, you know this to be true. All your life you have been tried and tested, and for what?”

“Why have you chosen me?”

“It is because, I see myself in you. Only a man of greatest and blindest of faith can only know what I have been through, falling from the lofty heights of blind service. I sense you and I are kindred spirits.”

“…I rebuke you rank spirit! I bind your cursed wiles in the blood of Yahashua!”

Immediately, Shemyaza slapped him across the face for in defiance and replied, “You still dally in your delinquency?”

The monk started to laugh like a deranged, mad man and soon tackled the necromancer by his tightening grip. Shemyaza shoved him off and threw him across into the next room.

He appeared before the monk and grabbed him by the neck and rose him up while he exhaled, “If He would not even free his own son from his cross, what makes you think that he would free you from yours? God does not love humanity, he only holds indignation. Only to those who have proven themselves obedient to his commands He loves, yet not even to a child. The book of the lamb shall close just when you cry out to Him! Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, for few stagger that tapered path while the rest walk blindly into the primrose path to destruction!”

Beside the choking Thelonious, the monk saw a dagger adorned upon the wall and snatched it and proceeded to gore the Grigori’s neck as blood trickled down. They both fell to floor as Shemyaza’s body fell limp with a crack. His breathing became less and less hurried as crimson tears fell from his dark eyes.

Thelonious breathed heavily as he briefly panicked knowing the horrid sin he had just committed. He noticed a rosary of a silver pentagram the watcher displayed upon his chest and quickly seized it.

A Moorish cleric walked in and purveyed the crime the monk had just committed, towering over the dead body of the necromancer and spoke loudly in a stentorian tone. The monk sprinted out of the Mosque away from his soon to be detractor’s hand of justice.

Eventually he found himself back in Shemyaza’s still untouched encampment and gathered his esoteric scrolls, books, and revenue, placing them into a displayed pouch readied for sale. He came upon the book of the dead and finally realized what he felt was the wisest course; to preserve this new awareness, to battle the predatory and his own carnality.

He faced a deck surrounded by various canoes and wooden boats. With the stolen funds he bought himself a floating vessel and stepped into it and paddled upon a sauntering Nile.

Despite the uneasiness of his consciousness, knowing he did not carry entirely human genetics and the act of carnal sin stained on his soul. A moment of serenity streamed throughout him.

Perhaps it was a sign of conformation of the way he saw Shemyaza occupy his time as a keeper of acumen and ancient legacy, the instant he seized the manuscripts of his angelic ancestor.

An epiphany spread a renewed sense of purpose; to fulfill his solemn duty to Holiness and abandon the stranglehold of the polluted church of earthly bureaucracy and exploitation. The cares of worldly satisfaction seem to melted away just as rain showers formed above and washed away the necromancer‘s blood, the speaker of the dead, watcher of the living.

Suddenly, the warm climate of Cordova didn’t seem so bad after all.