Jesus Triumphant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 8) (3 page)

It was Yahweh’s promise that the Messiah Seed of Abraham would bless all the nations and inherit the earth. But this is precisely why Belial’s offer was completely out of character. Why would he conquer nations and fight for eons of time to gain control of the whole world, only to hand it over to his arch nemesis? There had to be fine print in this covenant offer.

Belial continued with the sincerity of a politician. “You will have your earthly inheritance without all the death and destruction and bloodshed of the Day of the Lord.” And then he spilled the barley. “All I ask is one teeny tiny thing in return. All you have to do is fall down and worship me.”

Jesus looked Belial in his eyes, deep dark pools of malevolence. He whispered back, “Be gone, Accuser. For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

Belial sighed and said, “Fine, have it your way. But just let it be written, I gave you the chance to avoid Armageddon and you blew it.” He grabbed his cloak off of Jesus and swung it around in an arc, creating a whirlwind of snow that blinded Jesus for a moment in its swirling white coldness.

Jesus found himself in the desert again. But now he was alone. Belial was gone. But his haunting words of warning lingered longer than the cold in his extremities as the desert heat overtook him again. “Armageddon” was a word that meant a climactic battle for the “mount of assembly,” the very seat of divine power in the heavens. Hermon was the mount of assembly for the gods of the earth. Zion was the mount of assembly for Yahweh in Jerusalem. Belial had used the term to express the clash of kingdoms that was coming between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of earth. A clash of cosmic mountains. The prophet Ezekiel called it the Battle of Gog and Magog.

Jesus knew that right now, Belial was most likely already informing his divine council in Hermon of their exchange. The gods were already preparing for war. Belial’s words echoed in his memory: “The heavenly principalities and powers cannot touch you. But the earthly humans over which we rule
can
.” Though they had no authority to touch Yahweh’s anointed, they might do so through their human vessels.

Jesus trembled with the weight of responsibility that now overwhelmed him. But the pain was lessened when he heard the familiar sound of his favorite angel echo in his mind.

Jesus, be strong and courageous
.

“Jesus, be strong and courageous.” It wasn’t in his mind, it was being spoken to him from behind.

“Sound familiar?”

Jesus turned. He looked up into the smiling face of Uriel the smallest of three angels now standing before him.

Uriel finished his thought, “The words you spoke to Joshua at the threshold of the Promised Land. Funny how it all comes full circle.”

Gabriel, the second angel, and Uriel’s constant bickering companion, responded, “Uriel, I think your humor is once again in incredibly poor taste considering his suffering. Where is your compassion?”

“Nonsense,” said Uriel. “Jesus has done it. Victory is a cause for celebration, not sadness. He made it forty days without food, which is more than I can say for you, chubby.” Uriel patted Gabriel’s stomach. Gabriel moved away annoyed at the jab. Sure, he was heavier than the lightweight Uriel, but he certainly didn’t see himself as “chubby.”

Mikael, the largest and best groomed of the three, was the guardian prince of Israel, and tended to be protective of his ward. He offered a wineskin to Jesus, who took it and gulped with gratitude.

After a moment of silence, Jesus wiped his beard of the wine and said, “You need a better sense of humor, Gabriel.”

Gabriel pouted with frustration at being ganged up on. Uriel, his perpetual nemesis was one thing. But being teased by the Master was quite another.

Jesus said, “And Uriel, you had better deliver on that bread you promised.”

Uriel smiled again and held out a loaf of Mary’s best bread. “Baked two hours ago by your mother.” Jesus grabbed it.

Mikael said, “Remember, do not eat too quickly. It is bad for your digestion after fasting.”

“Thank you for your ministering spirits,” said Jesus, and took a big hungry bite out of the loaf.

Uriel muttered, “Your mother should open a bakery. Can I have a bite?”

Mikael was not so lighthearted. He knew that the challenge had been declared. The road to war had begun.

Demas stepped out into the arena. The iron barred gate clanged shut behind him. He looked up at the spectators encircling him in their amphitheater seats. The sound of their cheers shaking the stadium did nothing for him. He cared nothing for them or for their pathetic empty lives driven by bloodlust to the circus.

He was a bestiarius and he had a job to do.

At twenty six years of age, he had nothing to live for—or die for. A Hellenized Jewish citizen of Scythopolis in southern Galilee, he was a man between worlds who used both but believed in neither. Hellenism was the term for the Greco-Roman cultural influence on other nations throughout the world, something the Jews were normally hostile toward. He both detested the imperial oppression of his adopted Roman occupiers and despised the belligerent intolerance of his Jewish kinsmen. To satisfy his frustrated anger, he filled his time with what he did well: killing beasts. It kept his mind busy and his body strong. And it paid well.

While many gladiators were criminals and other enslaved fighters, bestiarii were voluntary hunters for spectacle. A good bestiarius could draw ten denarii per hunt, as much as an elite scribe might make in a week. Demas made fifteen. He was the best in the Decapolis, the ten Greek cities surrounding the Roman precinct of Galilee. But he refused to join the bestiarii guild of animal baiters, so he was shunned as an outcast.

He didn’t care about those greedy thugs either. He only cared about killing. In killing beasts, he could take out his aggression and feel alive facing his own death every time he entered the ring. His opponents were exotic predators brought in from near and distant lands: lions, bears, tigers, leopards, panthers, rhinoceroses, even hippos.

Demas was the best at what he did because he knew animals better than anyone. After his parents had died, he and his brother had been adopted by a Hellenistic couple in Scythopolis. Demas took up animal tending and eventually became a trapper. When his life bottomed out years back, his fateful anguish drove him to become a bestiarius even as he maintained his animal tending duties for the spectacles. He got to understand the animals as he took care of them and prepared them for the ring.

Animal hunts, called
venationes
, were more popular than gladiator fights. They had begun in the early days of the republic as peaceful parades of exotic animals discovered by Roman expansion. As the republic turned into an empire, the Caesars turned the parades into hunts. Victory over the exotic animals became a symbol of the emperor’s power over the newly conquered territories from which the animals came. The spectacles would vary. Sometimes it would be animal against animal, sometimes animal against hunter. Sometimes it would be multiple animals and multiple hunters or single hunters against single animals. Sometimes the animals would be used as means of executing criminals or captives tied unarmed to stakes or sewn into the skins of dead animals. The predators were starved before events to increase their aggressiveness and ensure maximum entertainment for the masses.

Today would be a fateful day in Demas’s life. He tried to forget about what he had to do later by taking on a more difficult venatio. He secretly hoped he would fail and die in the contest, which would make this a symbolic day for him indeed. But if he triumphed, at least he would make twice his normal wage. But then again, what difference did that make? He didn’t care about the money either.

He only cared about the Thessalian black bull that bore down upon him from the center of the ring.

He gripped his whip handle tightly and gathered the ten foot long thong in preparation. At the end of the thong was the cracker or popper, within which he had embedded several pieces of sharp iron for ripping flesh. He was a master with the whip. He could rip out an eyeball from a victim with precision or yank a limb out from under his prey with ease.

A charging Thessalian bull was a different matter.

He crouched in preparation as the bull was almost upon him. Its head lowered, its thick long horns pointed in his direction to gore him.

Just before contact, Demas ducked and rolled out of the way of his attacker. It took moments before the animal realized what had happened and turned for another attack. This time, it would not be fooled.

Demas got back up to face the monster. He did not wear a helmet or other traditional gladiator garb so that he could move more quickly against his animal adversaries. Dexterity was as important as weapons skill. He wore only a leather tunic with belted leather over his abdomen, a key attack area for most animals. His only armor was a segmented metal shoulder and arm guard for his left arm. In his sheath he carried the common Roman gladius straight sword, about three feet in length. He picked up a javelin at his feet and ran to the edge of the stadium.

The sound of the crowd told him the bull was chasing him and about to ram him.

He felt the hard skull make contact with his buttocks. He launched into the air and flew a good ten feet. He released the spear before he hit the dirt so he would not break it.

The crowd went wild. He did after all have to put on a good show.

But it was not without calculation. The bull’s hit had thrown him to within eight feet of the edge of the arena, where he had wanted to be.

He peered at the bull that had already turned and prepared to run him down again. It snorted and kicked the dirt with its front hoof.

As Demas stared down his adversary, he thought of the god Ba’al, so ubiquitous throughout the land of Israel. Ba’al was often symbolized by a bull. Demas hated Ba’al. He despised the gods. Killing this bull would do more for him than mere physical victory.

The bull charged again. The crowd cheered.

As it closed the gap, Demas didn’t move. He just stood still.

He started to move backwards at a slow pace calculated to match his predetermined point of impact.

The bull did not have a highly attuned depth perception. As it sprinted down upon Demas, it zeroed in on its visual target. It lost its background awareness.

It could not calculate the slow move that its quarry was engaging in.

By the time it hit its target, Demas had backed up to the wall. The two long horns were much longer than the thickness of a human body. They plunged deep into the painted wooden wall of the arena on each side of Demas. The force sent a shockwave through the body of the beast and a loud crunching snap rang through the amphitheater.

The crowd went wild again. This was good circus.

Demas didn’t even have to use his sword. The nasty brutish black monster had broken its neck and fallen dead. But Demas would have plenty of opportunity to use that blade in mere moments. This venatio was a mere warm-up, an appetizer to the full course meal of flesh and blood, tooth and sword that was about to be served up for the hungry audience.

Demas despised the masses. He saw them as a mob, carried away by their own bloodlust, and just as easily manipulated by their rulers as their entertainers. A crowd of otherwise intelligent or moderate individuals, could become a hive of unthinking insects, hornets incited by a wave of the hand or the proclamation of a meaningless slogan.

These masses were a peculiar crowd. The citizens of Scythopolis, as in much of the region of Galilee, were a mixture of Greek and Jewish heritage. This created a unique set of problems because the Greco-Roman worldview was polytheist and imperialist, while the Jewish religion was monotheist and theocratic. Jewish laws stressed the rule of God and separation from Gentiles or non-Jews. Many of them were driven by contempt for their Roman occupiers. But many of them had also been deeply compromised by the powerful influence of their captive culture of Hellenism, an assimilation of the Greco-Roman worldview.

Herod the Great, the first Jewish client king under Augustus Caesar, had been a conniving sell-out to Rome. Because of his Idumean or Edomite ancestry, he claimed Abrahamic heritage. But in truth, the Edomites were sons of Esau who were prophesied to be in perpetual hostility with the sons of Jacob, or Israel. Herod’s contempt toward the seed of Abraham was evident in his absorption of pagan Hellenistic culture. He had poured millions of shekels into Greco-Roman building projects all around Judea and Galilee. He had even put a Roman theater and Hippodrome for chariot racing and games into the holy city of Jerusalem. Though he was loathed by many Jews for his Roman sympathies, he established a Hellenist influence within the land of Israel that would no doubt last for generations. The rabbis condemned the games and circuses, but many common Jews still attended them, just as many commoners still worshipped Asherah and Ba’al, despite the pleas of their prophets and priests. Mobs were not easily swayed from their depraved appetites by the elite.

Demas picked up his spear and whip to face his next adversary—or more accurately,
adversaries
. An iron gate lifted and two huge black wolves padded their way toward him. They spotted their human prey and immediately froze low to the ground, preparing to strike.

Behind Demas, the rusty sounds of another iron gate cranking open drew his surprise. A gigantic monster lumbered out. A nine foot tall, twelve hundred pound brown bear. A very hungry bear, who now spotted its meal.

Demas panicked. He was supposed to hunt these animals one after another in sequence, not all at once. Someone must have betrayed him. Maybe one of the other jealous bestiarii. Or maybe someone who just wanted a darker thrill at seeing the animal baiting champion be taken down in a fury of fang and claw. None of that mattered now. Now, he had to think. He had to strategize.

His planning was pierced through with the sound of yet another iron gate lifting. A fourth predator? He wouldn’t stand a chance. He glanced over his left shoulder to get a glimpse of the new enemy. An African lion. The king of the arena. What was worse, he recognized the huge seven-foot-long feline from his animal keeping. He had nicknamed him Crueldis. The giant lion had killed so many bestiarii he had become a legend. Demas had gotten familiar with the creature while caring for it. He fed it and nursed its wounds from previous hunts. But now, that big pet cat was going to eat him for dinner.

Oh well, he was ready to die anyway. The crowd was already in a frenzy. The only thing that would stop this approaching violence was Demas’ death. He decided to make this the most glorious death in the arena for decades to come. He would give the mob their entertainment.

He would go down fighting.

He held his spear in his left hand and unfurled his whip to face the wolves. The bear would watch and take its time, the lion might even be next. Take out the smallest foes first.

But “small” did not capture the essence of these ferocious wolves. They were orchestrated and vicious. And they were ravenously hungry.

The thinner one snarled in front of Demas as the other one circled to his rear.

He thrust his spear out, the skinny one backed up.

He twirled his whip overhead and snapped it behind him without even looking. It was one of the tricks he had developed over the years.

The crack of the whip drew a howl and a large piece of bloody flesh from the wolf. The ragged iron cracker tips did their job.

Uh oh. The bear approached cautiously from the left.

The lion circled the battle, looking for a way in. He circled closer and closer. This would not go well.

The thinner wolf advanced to draw Demas’ attention, at the same moment that the wounded rear one launched onto his back.

Demas felt fangs dig into his whip arm shoulder. He yelped in pain and went down to the ground. He could hear his attackers’ angry growling at his ear.

The thin one attacked.

But Demas saw it and raised his spear as the thin one was upon him. It did not veer in time and the spear plunged into its chest, piercing its heart. It yelped and fell to the ground, drawing the spear out of Demas’ hand.

Demas rolled in order to pin the other animal beneath him.

But he was shocked to see the twelve-hundred pound muscle-bound bear lunging at him with its huge jaws wide open. The guttural growl echoed through the stadium and the crowd went hushed with shock at their hero’s sure demise.

Demas only had a second to respond. He did so defensively. He raised his left armored arm and the bear’s teeth bit down onto steel. If his arm had not been so protected, the creature would surely have crushed the bone, ripped through flesh, and tore his arm off. But the steel had just enough guard to stop it for the moment.

The wolf kicked its way out from under Demas. Demas knew he was himself mere moments from death.

In that moment the lion attacked from Demas’ right.

But he didn’t attack Demas. He jumped onto the back of the bear and held on with his huge claws as the bear reared back in shock and defense.

Demas could not believe his luck. The lion must have had some kind of memory, some kind of connection to the human who had fed him and cared for him in its captivity. It was rescuing him instead of attacking him.

Demas rolled to his feet, his left arm numb from the bear bite, his right shoulder stinging and bleeding from the wolf. He picked up his whip and snapped it at his growling nemesis.

Behind him, the lion had sunk its teeth into the back of the neck of the bear as the ursine beast continued to twirl around in a confused circle trying to shake the big cat off its back.