Alexander watched Crowley and Azi disappear into the darkness with a defeated Amanadiel between them. Now that all the traitors were neatly tucked away out of sight it seemed everyone could breathe a little easier. He would wait a moment to continue his story because his two idiots because, like most, didn't know everything. Alexander, Celine, Michael and Gabriel were the only ones who really were privy to everything. His idiots as he lovingly called them had as much, if not more, right to be initiated into the whole story. He looked at Linda and said:
"Doctor Martin, directly behind me you will find a bedroom where you can put Charlie to sleep. It is provided for young children and there is even a baby monitor next to the bed that you can bring out with you."
She nodded gratefully and stood up. She had taken two steps toward the room when she suddenly turned around again and asked:
"This all happened unexpectedly tonight. You yourself said you didn't know what happened until you were informed. So why did you set up a nursery all the way up to and including a baby-monitor?"
He looked softly into her eyes and said:
"Doctor do you really think I would take even the slightest risk with someone as important to Lucifer as yourself and his nephew? As you will have noticed, it is not because I did not know what was going to take place this evening that I did not keep an eye on Lucifer and his surroundings and thus gradually took precautions and adapted to the changing situations."
With a smile, he looked at Beatrice and said with gleaming eyes:
"If you want to you can also crawl into bed, there is one waiting for you. But I think you would rather stay here and hear the rest of the story? I promise it will be much more fun because most of the bad stuff is out of the way."
Daniel looked worriedly at his daughter for a moment. She had been told quite a bit of bad news and really he would prefer that she go to bed. However, she looked at him with her puppy dog eyes and asked overly sweetly:
"Ah, please Daddy, please let me stay for the rest of Alexander's story."
Daniel cursed himself that he very often could not say no to the girl and then gave in:
"Okay, but at the first sign that you are getting too tired you go straight to bed Trixie."
"Promise Daddy!"
Alexander gave Beatrice a conspiratorial wink. To which now came a genuine laugh from the girl. About the same time as Azi and Crowley reappeared, Linda also rejoined the group. Alexander refilled his glass and spoke:
"Before I can go into the whole history with the Nefilim, I have to say something about the bloodlines. You remember I said that Godfry has blessed one bloodline over and over again?"
Seeing nodding in the group he continued:
"Well, the first of that bloodline was Abraham. And the first true Zealot in the bloodline. God instructed him to sacrifice his son Isaac, and the man intended to complete that sacrifice without blinking or hesitating. Believe me, he was by no means the only Zealot in that cursed bloodline. As you will hear, there were exceptions to the rule, but they were extremely rare. Abraham was in fact the progenitor for what would become three big movements that worship Godfry. First Judaism, then the Christians and later the Muslims. They are continually at odds with each other over their God, but the ironic thing is that all three worship the same God. Then further on there would come Moses, King David, King Solomon, among others, and this bloodline would become known as the House of David. Somewhere along the way that bloodline lost the throne but among the inhabitants of Judea that bloodline continued to be seen as the pretenders to the throne. Especially after the Romans installed a king who was not from the House of David and the Jews looked forward to finding a successor to David from his bloodline. Time after time, Godfry kept blessing one male descendant in that bloodline. Until at one point two boys would be born around the same time and who seemed destined to become prophets to his own glory. The self-centered prick that he is, he could not decide which of the two not yet born he was going to bless. Why waste the opportunity to bless two who would sing his praises? This was something that proved again that Godfry is not omniscient as he is so fond of claiming to frighten Man and Angel. The two would grow up as each other's opposites. One a true zealot who took the Bible, or better in those days the Torah, as the literal word of God. The other, a man of love, mercy and forgiveness."
He looked around to read the faces:
"Anyone have any idea who I might be talking about? Ella I see you know the answer. Why don't you tell the rest of the class?"
Ella nodded so violently that her ponytail began bobbing up and down:
"I think you're talking about Jesus and John the Baptist."
Alexander smiled warmly:
"Absolutely right. Someone give miss Lopez a cookie!"
With a wink to Ella, he continued his story:
"John was married to a girl of 16, not an unusual age in those days because then people saw you as an adult. Life expectancy was much shorter, so you grew up much faster."
He looked Trixie straight in the eye:
"You could have forgotten your sweet sixteen party, Miss Beatrice because they didn't do teenagers back then. Let alone a car. A goat or maybe a camel when your where lucky."
The girl chuckled.
"The problem was that this girl had been promised to Jesus in the first place. Today we question that kind of arranged marriage where girls have no choice. Two thousand years ago, unfortunately, this was the most normal thing in the world. Since John and Jesus were both descended from the House of David and John at that time seemed to be becoming the more prominent of the two it was decided to marry her off to John against the promise made earlier. The latter spent most of his time in the wilderness preaching and baptizing. The few times he went home was to take his wife to his bed to provide an heir. During those visits, he also took to heart the precept from the Torah that it was okay for a husband to beat his wife if she had done something wrong. Thinking she did something wrong was already enough for a serious beating. So he regularly beat her black and blue. One time it was so bad that for a moment it was feared for her life were it not for Jesus and his healing powers. The man was so full of hate toward women and held them responsible for all the sins of mankind because Eve so-called ate the apple in the garden."
Alexander shook his head and said amused:
"If he could have thought as a normal man a lot of trouble would have been avoided. And not only for his wife but for a heck of a lot of women through the ages. Come on be reasonable, Adam was hungry, his wife had food and she was naked. Does anyone really think that he thought the situation trough at that point?"
He heard the others chuckle with that statement and he continued with an expression on his face that was suddenly a lot more serious:
"Unfortunately for John, fate has a way of making what goes around comes around. This was one of the few times I kicked back, relaxed, had another goblet of wine, and watched the train wreck unfold in real-time with a lot of schadenfreude. For him, it came in the form of his wife's best friend, Salome. And Salome was more than angry that her best friend had been beaten nearly to death by her husband, who in Salome's eyes was nothing more than a half-savage religious fanatic. Salome was the king Herod's stepdaughter, and Herod was especially fond of her. She was not just a princess; she was a follower of Jesus. John picked the wrong enemy. The man had a big mouth, no filter, and felt empowered because he spoke in the name of Godfry. Herod may have been very displeased with what John had to say about him and his marriage to Salome's mother, but he left him alone. He had no desire to get himself involved with a bunch of religious zealots who did not pose a political or military threat to his Throne. Salome was another story."
He got a very broad smile on his face when he said:
"Damn, that girl was spicy!"
The rest saw a mischievous little smile and a sparkle in the eyes of the Celine. If the Demon liked the girl that much that told them all they needed to know about Salome. Alex continued:
"His wife meanwhile pregnant with a son whom Godfry of course had to bless again. It is that son's bloodline that naturally dislikes Lucifer and anything inconsistent with the morality Godfry wanted to force into man. Not much later this young widow remarried. Does anyone want to know who the lucky one was?"
When no one answered, Alexander lit a new cigarette to buy some time. With a thick smirk on his face, he said:
"With none other than Jesus of Nazareth and the young woman was Mary Magdalene, The Magdala."
"Impossible, everyone knows Jesus was unmarried!"
Said Daniel in disbelief. Ella added skeptically:
"My whole childhood I went to Catholic schools and nowhere in the Bible does it say anything about a Mrs. Jesus."
"Is that so?"
Alex asked with a mysterious smile on his lips:
"The Bible as we know it today is nothing but a book created by a committee. I'll come back to that in a moment. However, in the modern Bible you know, there are several passages that point to a marriage between Jesus and The Magdala. Note that Jesus was Jewish and so you have to see those passages through 2000-year-old Jewish glasses. Not from the standpoint of this modern-day society."
Ella had to admit that she had always read the Bible from a modern Christian point of view. Alexander began his evidence:
"I'm only going to cite the most famous examples from the Bible but also from gospels found in the dead sea scrolls that archaeologists and theologians have since recognized as authentic. Jesus was a rabbi, what we would call a theological teacher and priest in one. A rabbi about thirty years old in the Judea of 2000 years ago, who traveled around unmarried and in the company of twelve men. That would have brought a lot of suspicion and even more gossip. The chances that he could have laid the foundation for his movement with such a lifestyle are virtually nil. From a rabbi it was expected, nay it was even demanded that he would be married. The apostle Peter, seen as the first Pope, of whom Jesus is supposed to have said he was the stone on which he would build his church. Peter once asked Jesus why he held The Magdala higher than his twelve apostles and so often kissed her on the mouth in public. At that time? An unmarried man kissing a widow in public. Unthinkable because it would lead to stoning for both of them in the worst case scenario. The high priests of the temple could have eliminated Jesus in a much easier way than through Pontius Pilate. All they needed was to establish that he was an unmarried man having an unchaste relationship or doing unchaste things with any woman and the Torah would give them cover to put him to death. However, they never accused him of having an unchaste relationship when it was common knowledge and could simply be seen in public that he kissed a woman on the mouth."
He interrupted his argument for a moment to light another cigarette and take a sip before continuing:
"At the Crucifixion, who was sitting at the foot of the cross? Right The Magdala while his mother and a half-sister stood at a distance. How do we know this? The colors of their veils. The whole crucifixion is not only described in the four gospels, but many people have also written about it and described the colors of the veils of the women present. Unfortunately, all these other texts were left out when the Bible was compiled at the first Bishops' Conference in 325 at Nicea where they had to come up with a unified Bible at the request of Emperor Constantine. Of the dozens of gospels, four remained and The Magdala disappeared from the whole story as much as possible. Mary the mother of Jesus always wore blue. The Magdala always wore red. At the funeral, who washed and anointed the body? The Magdala while the other women mourned from a distance. According to tradition and certainly at that time, it is always the wife who washed her deceased husband. Had he been unmarried that task would have been performed by his mother and sisters."
Alexander got a smirk and said:
"And to digress a bit: yes, he had a number of half-brothers and half-sisters. Mary may have been a virgin when she was blessed with Jesus; let's put it this way, because there are child ears present, and I don't wish to use the idioms of Lucifer. It does not mean that Joseph and mama Jesus did not have a normal and happy marriage."
He had to laugh a little with his own joke and the rest, even Trixie who really was not a baby anymore as she always claimed steadfast when adults around her tried to adopt the use of their words. Hearing that Alexander did not do this but included her completely made her feel good, more grown-up, more like she wanted to be treated. She began to admire this man more and more because he saw her as a human being not a young child that needed to be protected from the world. A strange thought entered her mind. He was somehow more like Lucifer then any other adult she had encountered. He continued:
"A complete stranger washing an unmarried man for his funeral, impossible! All this information was removed from the Bible as much as possible but that information was never really lost. For that we should actually thank the Cathars or "the Purified. This group, an offshoot actually of Christianity, was responsible for preserving and spreading this knowledge. This group was actually closer to the teachings of Jesus than the Catholics, later Protestants, the Calvinists and even later the stricter side branches such as the Presbyterians, ever were. With the Catarians, everything was based on the love and forgiveness that Jesus preached. Unfortunately as with so much that is inconsistent with what the most powerful branch of a faith holds as an established truth, these smaller branches are razed to the ground. Judaism, Christians, Muslims, Hindu, the Maya, all have been guilty of this at one time or another. Unfortunately for the Cathars, that razing to the ground was to be taken literally. The Vatican had been trying to quell the faith in many ways for some time. Among other things, the infamous Inquisition was part of it. The bloody climax, however, was at Lyon in France in 1209. What happened there broke the backbone of the organization of that faith and it never recovered while at the same time it never really disappeared completely. A veritable Crusade against the Cathars was organized and that army arrived at Lyon. The city about 9000 inhabitants refused to hand over the Cathars to the army. There were maybe 700 or 800 Cathars in the city, not even 10%. The response of the Papal envoy Arnaud Amaury was simple. Kill them all, God does recognize His own or as in Latin Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus. As much as the Church wanted to suppress that science the Cathars had based their whole faith upon, it was never lost and can still be found today in museums worldwide. Ironically, a number of Cathars escaped the massacres and persecutions, and a few of them found refuge in Florence, Italy. That place would give the Vatican more headaches than they ever thought possible with the birth of the Renaissance. The effect they had on Florence and the arts plays a role even to this day but we will notice that later. Paintings by world-famous painters. To name a few; Raphael, Giotto, Botticelli and Michelangelo. All gave the woman with the red veil, The Magdala a more prominent place than the woman in the Blue veil Mary the mother of Jesus.
"Enough proof Daniel, dear Ella?"
Alex asked with a sigh. With an open mouth, Ella sat nodding. Her image of the Bible and Jesus had just been turned completely upside down.
"But that's not all. I have another bomb to drop in that holy house. We already know The Magdala had one child with John, a son Matz and that means gift from God. However, she had a daughter with Jesus named Sarah and at the time of the crucifixion she was pregnant with a son for which they decided they would name him David. Sarah being a girl was not blessed by Godfry just because she was a girl. David was not blessed because before he was born Godfry had unfortunately found out who or better what Jesus was. However, thanks to the fact that their father was Jesus and even more so because of what their grandfather and their great-grandfather were and pumped into the bloodline, their bloodline was also blessed in a certain way. Especially that one of Sarah because she received a special marker at birth. A marker that stayed with the female descendants of Sarah throughout her bloodline."
As Alexander topped up his glass again, he noticed that the there were four people, a Demon and an Angel, hanging on his lips, hungry for the rest of the story.
"How do I know all this? Simple, because I was there! I had promised Jesus' real father, so to be clear not Joseph, to keep an eye on him from time to time. And I can tell you here and now that I am never going to reveal who the real father of Jesus was. I am never going to corrupt the trust that this Angel has in me. As Jesus grew older it began to get harder and harder to keep him in line. The more powers he discovered the more he used. As long as it was limited to turning water into wine, multiplying some fish and bread or healing a few sick people here and there, there was no problem. By the way, he did not raise Lazarus from the dead, yes he was in bad shape but not yet dead. Unfortunately, Jesus could not be stopped. He was convinced that everything he did was for the glory of Godfry and that Godfry would reward him. Man how badly he was mistaken. At one point he realized he was in deep trouble with the high priests of the temple in Jerusalem. He knew they wanted him out of the way at all costs. Why because of his teachings that people did not need temples or priests to be with God. That statement was a direct attack on the priest and their political and economic power. If men does not need priests that would mean that priests no longer hold political power because they are the spiritual leaders of the people that can make those people go left or right with just a word. No more need for temples means no more economic power. Before Jesus if you wanted a priest to whisper a good word in the ear of God for you then that costed money. Did you wish to make a sacrifice to God? You where only allowed to sacrifice those goods that where approved by the priest and miraculous those could not be bought anywhere else then from the merchants connected to those temples. The money was pouring into the coffers of the temples and thus those of the priests. Before all that crap came to a climax he went to spend some time on a mountain and no not forty days. There he supposedly met Satan who offered him the world in exchange for his submission. That story was later made up to explain an encounter he did have. He did not meet our Lucifer there but me and I never offered him the world and I certainly did not want his submission. He knew that once back among men he would be arrested by the Romans and for enemies of Rome there was only one punishment, death. He had committed himself to be crucified and then rise from the dead. He was not sure if that one great miracle would succeed so that is why he asked me to bring his family to safety. As everyone knows, he did indeed succeed in rising from the dead. But that miracle was the equivalent to setting off so many fireworks that Godfry couldn't miss it. The story that it took a few weeks for Jesus to ascend to Heaven is again pure bullshit. It took at most two days before he was hauled into Heaven by Godfry. Instead of receiving his reward for having given his life in service to the glory of Godfry, he was upon arrival promptly simply swept out of existence. The only good point about this was that his father, the Angel, remained unscathed."
"But why?"
Asked Beatrice in a small voice:
"Why did he hate Jesus so much, he was his son and he only did good things?"
Alexander looked at her and spoke:
"Indeed, Jesus did only good things for the people. But Godfry was angry because Jesus was from the bloodline of David, the bloodline he preferred above all else. But there is more. Jesus was not the son of Godfry, as the Bible states but he was the grandson as I said. Grandchildren are something Godfry hates glowingly! Over the years, grandson turned into son. The real father of Jesus was an Angel which makes Jesus a Nefilim. And as I said before, Nefilim are the creatures Godfry hates most because he fears them."
Ella's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and she squeezed Lucifer's hand hard, who pulled her a little closer to him. Linda unaware of what was being silently communicated on the bench between the two asked:
"What happened to The Magdala and the children? And what will happen to Charlie now?"
Alexander nodded, refilled his glass to the brim and replied:
"Good question doctor. Charlie is the reason why Amanadiel is now more or less, hmmmmm, our guest. Now that Gabriel is back in the Silver City and has told Godfry all about Charlie, Amanadiel is definitely no longer his favorite Angel. Godfry is so suspicious of betrayal that he would take no chances and wipe all three of you out of existence if he had the chance."
Linda began to turn red in anger and Alexander knew what she wanted to say or shout. He raised a hand:
"Doctor whether Gabriel told or withheld this from Godfry is of no consequence. Here he is safe, hidden from the eye of Godfry. However, remember that if Godfry is not stopped everything will cease to exist. Godfry now thinks Amenadiel has never been trustworthy, or at least not for the last few thousand years. In his paranoia, it may very well be that he now suspects his so-called favorite of having committed yet other treachery. That he was the Angel who fathered Jesus, that Amenadiel is already two thousand years after his throne. The more scenarios there are that can completely kill Godfry's ultimate plan and that he must therefore consider the better it is for everyone. Now he has tunnel vision on one goal and his psychological state is accordingly. So the more that comes at him the more incoherent his thinking will be and he will need more time to do what he wants to do. Making the Universe implode in one instantaneous blow requires enormous energy and clear thinking capacity. The more we can pollute his thinking and capacities the more time we have left."
Linda thought about this for a moment and saw the logic behind Alexander's thinking. If Alexander did nothing then in a few days everything would come to an end and so would Charlie's still far too short life. After everything she had heard she recognized that Alexander was the only chance so that Charlie would live and grow up. Inwardly, she ran red hot at Amanadiel. The possible fate he had subjected her and, much more important to her, his own son, she couldn't understand how a father could do that.
It was Ella who steered the conversation back to the original topic. Daniel watched and listened to everything silently obvious in his detective mode:
"But what happened to The Magdala and the children?"
Alexander laughed:
"Miss Lopez so impatient. As I said, I had promised Jesus to secure his family far away from Judea. In those days, travel was a slow affair. Ports in Judea were out of the question, zealots of the temple had eyes everywhere and the high priests absolutely wanted to keep the Magdala and her children in their sights because they might one day pose a threat as the children of Jesus. Being rich has always had its advantages. Give the emperor in Rome a pile of gold every so often and you could even buy a governorship. Something I didn't have much use for so I stuck to the title of traveling envoy. That included the regalia of a general and a banner of the emperor. Which automatically provided security and respect for myself. No one in those days was foolish enough to attack a Roman general because Rome would descend with its full brute force and wreak true carnage. I myself had a fairly large company of hardened warriors in my service who were completely loyal to me and Celine. So I gathered the family, the apostle Filippus with whom Jesus and The Magdala had a special relationship. Jozef of Arimathea, and the spear, and we made our way out in the depths of the night on the Sabbath."
Aziraphael had shot forward on the edge of the couch and asked in bewilderment:
"You have the spear of Loginus?"
With a look as if he were the cat that had ate the canary, Alexander replied:
"Of course, I couldn't possibly leave that thing behind. And if a general tells a legionnaire to hand over his pilum then this one will not hesitate for a second to do that."
"But wasn't that a dangerous intervention for..."
Alexander cut him off clearly not yet prepared to explain that part of his story.
"No Azi, remember the history books, no one knows what happened to the spear and it had no effect. People think it just disappeared like so many things in history. If I had done nothing and just left that spear it would have disappeared into history with certainty. No one was interested in a spear that had killed an enemy of Rome; there were thousands like that in circulation. The first interest in the spear came from the mother of Emperor Constatine who supposedly found the crown of thorns and pieces of the True Cross in Jerusalem. Nonsense of course, the mother was so devout to Jesus that with a little believable story his last poop could have been sold to her. Then it was not until the early Middle Ages that interest in the spear resumed. Yes there were a few copies, not bad ones, made in the Middle Ages that even Hitler was interested in for a while but in fact everyone knew they were copies, good to stir up the masses a little. Before that no one was really interested in it."
For the first time, Daniel asked a question:
"What's with the spear and why the Sabbath?"
"Always the detective, very good Daniel to go after the who, why, where and how. The spear of Loginus is also known as the spear of Destiny. It is the spear used at the crucifixion to stab Jesus in the side. According to legend, whoever was in possession of the spear would become invincible because it was dipped in the blood of Jesus. For example, there is the story that Hitler allegedly committed suicide within hours of the spear falling into the hands of American troops. A lot of bullshit of course because it is a spear like any other. The superstition is the problem and that superstition could lead to a lot of bloodshed if that thing were just lying around on the earth for the taking. Why the Sabbath? Jews do not work on the Sabbath. According to the Torah, one could even be sentenced to death for it, and the zealots strictly adhered to these regulations and stayed inside. This allowed my company to get out unnoticed. First by land toward Egypt to board a ship in Alexandria that would take us away from the Middle East. Then across the Mediterranean towards southern France and the last bit to the Provence where I had an estate."
Alexander got a sad look and his eyes grew cloudy as if staring into the past:
"Matz who hated Jesus' bloodline thanks to his father's bloodline left a few years later once he was an adult. He settled in Rome and joined Peter who in turn had developed a hatred for The Magdala because Jesus had placed her higher than the male followers of his teacher Jesus. Thus began the smear campaign to discredit her. And turn her into a fallen woman, read prostitute, and take her more and more out of the story of Jesus. The effects of that campaign continue to this day. Women in the Catholic Church can only play a submissive role as nuns and so on. David not blessed by God had nevertheless received a share of Divine grace through the blood of both his father and mother and became the progenitor of a bloodline that went from father to son. Without exception men who stood for justice and were and are opponents of tyrants. Sarah is a different story as I said she has in her blood the essence of Jesus as a Nefilim and the blessed of The Magdala. Sarah became the progenitor of a bloodline that would produce some very special women. The characteristics of her bloodline include unbridled love, kindness to all, mercy and a cheerfulness that lit up their surroundings."
He squeezed out his cigarette and asked smiling:
"Anyone want to guess of which of the bloodlines people are attending tonight?"
Linda who had been listening to everything intently suddenly said:
"Chloe is from the bloodline of John hence she is so strict with rules and standards. That she tells other people what they should do and not do and why she was so easily persuaded to kill Lucifer. Ella on the other hand is of the bloodline of Sarah."
"Quite right doctor. Hit the nail on the head."
"I related to Jesus! Wow that's a bombshell. But how do you guys know that for sure?"
Linda replied with a warm smile:
"Because you meet all the characteristics Alexander just listed. You are always cheerful, your mercy knows no bounds, you are always there for everyone and because you have the biggest heart I have ever seen, because you are pure light. And if I'm not mistaken by a characteristic that Alexander purposely didn't list for a moment. You have a red glow in your hair. The red of Magdalena's veil."
Linda looked with satisfaction at Alexander who said:
"Well well doctor, you see if you stay tuned nothing will pass you by. Yes the red of the Magdala comes back again and again. I also know this because I have kept a close eye on the bloodlines wherever possible. Unfortunately I lost sight of the descendants of John's bloodline resulting in this shitshow. But you also forgot one more. Daniel is a descendant of David."
Daniel perked up:
"Wait a minute, if Ella and I are descendants of Jesus shouldn't we instinctively hate Lucifer. Something we clearly don't!"
"Who says Jesus hated Lucifer? Being the son of an Angel, Lucifer was his uncle and not the first best. He was the Lightbringer. And his father and I clearly told him how things were with Amanadiel."
Ella who already had a thick suspicion where this whole story was leading asked with a twinkle in her eye:
"From what I could tell from your brief conversations with Michael and Gabriel is that you are planning some kind of coup. Which is not to put Lucifer on the throne is it?"
Alexander laughed out loud:
"May Heaven have mercy on us all. Lucifer on the throne in the silver city. Within the week Heaven turns into one big Lux with an endless party. With eternal orgies where even the most sexually debauched Demons would get red ears. No miss Lopez not Lucifer."