BENE-HA-ELOHIM (THE CHILDREN OF GOD) An Elena Duran-Corazon Negro Story 5/15 by Julio Cesar divad72@prodigy.net.mx Glenfinnan, Scotland March 21, 2013 Zarach woke suddenly. It was dark outside. Another night had begun in the world. It was time for him to put on his clothes and get moving. Though complete awake, he was still troubled by his dream. Both events had taken place thirteen millennia in the past. And his memories tortured him still. Something had happened in the sky. He could feel it around him, like a million voices screaming in the night. The Spiral had changed. And this time, it could only mean one thing: Lilitu's endgame had begun, somewhere, everywhere. And he knew it. Where was she? No one could know. No mortal or Immortal could grasp more than the barest inkling of the truth about her, about them, the Immortals or about the Ancient Gathering. But then again, this time, maybe he could. All that he needed was a small clue; anything that would help him to know where was 'Mother' right now. Slowly, he stood from his bed. Soon enough, he was dressed and ready to depart. Zarach Bal-Tagh, the Son of the Endless Night, reached the door and walked helpless into the night. ======== Four hours later, the blond-haired figure in the black velvet coat read the e-mail send to him by Methos over again from his comfortable vantage point in the far corner. His two-colored eyes were almost invisible behind his dark tinted glasses. His arms were folded over his chest as he leaned back against the high black wainscoting, one boot heel hooked on the rung of his chair. He sighed. Everything had happened really fast. It had happened in a fraction of a second. A movement in the high galaxies that should be taking millennia was produced in the blink of an eye. A catastrophe had happened in heaven; the apparent alignment of three constellations at the same time, followed by the birth of one black star. Suddenly, parts of Leo, Gemini and Pisces had gathered as one, mixing to create a new galactic body. From the interiors of the earth a sound had risen-a sound like a million voices that seemed human but weren't. Zarach Bal-Tagh had felt the event deep inside his soul. For Zarach, it was an event of cosmic significance. His gaze flew toward the printed e-mail on the small table. It was simple but straight to the point. An ancient tomb in Australia. Two renegade Watchers and one ambitious German dead. Just one survivor. A former Watcher completely out of his mind now, by the way. "Mother, you are the damnedest creature," he whispered under his breath. He gave a little private laugh. Then he scanned the large shadowy room when he felt the presence of another Immortal. Any other eternal right now was unpleasing to him. More pleasing were the inhabitants inside the pub, the scattering of figures that hovered around the candles set on small ebony tables. Some were dressed in old-fashioned colorful kilts; all were drinking their whiskeys and chattering. Far too many for any modern city, and they knew it. In a way, those Highlanders reminded Zarach of better times. He closed his eyes narrowing, feeling the Immortal's presence inside the pub. Could it be one of the McLeods? No, the Highlanders had not been back to their native land for many years. Could be Corazon Negro and Elena? He doubted it. The Aztec had left a couple of weeks before trying to find Elena, to make her understand, to make her forgive him. Methos perhaps? No, he was still in London, spying on the Watchers still in order to send him more data, like the e-mail he had just received. So, that gave him another answer to his puzzle: it was a headhunter. But to hunt tonight, this Immortal had roamed far and wide. Zarach knew young ones always had to hunt. Young ones had to kill. They were too hungry to do anything else. Zarach scanned the bar, looking for the new arrival in the multitude. Then their eyes met. The new arrival Immortal had black eyes and thin lips, white face and black hair. Zarach could read inside his kin's gaze. The same questions as always-who was he, where had he come from? Was he very old and very strong, and what would he do before he left here? Always the same doubts about him, though he tried to slip into the public gatherings like any other man, eyes averted, mind closed. Time to leave the questions unanswered. He had what he wanted. He took the e-mail and rose to go. But the other Immortal moved to intercept him at the door. A stiff silence fell between them, a silence in thoughts as well as words as he and the young one both approached the door. Only the candle flames moved, throwing their shimmer on the black tile floor as if it were water. "Where do you go, my friend?" asked the young Immortal politely. He couldn't have been more than forty when he died, and that could not have been ten years ago. A stupid, defenseless newborn in front the Son of the Endless Night. A revenant who could not even with luck survive another five years inside Lilitu's Game with that attitude. What they think in these modern days? That the young ones could survive the Gathering? That they should know the Astral Plane beyond and its etheric realms? Again the young Immortal spoke. "Let me buy you a drink." "You must forgive me. I'm going now," Zarach said smiling confidently. "But surely you'll have a drink with me," the infant pressed, slipping between Zarach and the door. Now, this was a not good attitude at all. Zarach studied this brash young male more closely. Should he do something to stir him up? To have him talking about it for centuries? Zarach couldn't repress a smile. But no. There would be enough excitement soon, thanks to Lilitu. "Let me give you a little piece of advice," Zarach said quietly to the young inquisitor. "You cannot destroy me, so I suggest you just get the fuck out of my way." The young one was caught off guard and blinked as he studied Zarach's two-colored gaze. The eyes were like charcoals shining with a strange inner fire. "Why this obsession with the old saying that there can be only one? Do you really want to believe such shit?" Zarach continued. "Have you fledglings no desire to know the truth?" The immature Immortal was confused, then gradually scornful. He could not form a clever answer. But the true reply was plain enough in his soul. Zarach laughed in the childish Immortal's face. Such an insignificant battle. He understood these faithless times so beautifully, he had to admit it. "Watch your back and beware of 'Mother'," he said to the youthful one with a last smile. "There are very few true Immortals walking this earth, child. You are lucky. You just met one and survived to spread the tale." Then Zarach lifted the Immortal off his feet with one hand and set him down out of his way. Like an ancient terror from the past, similar to a phantom, Zarach went out the door and left the tavern, entering the night. ======== It was almost dawn before he reached home. He shut the wooden door, and stood still for a moment, letting the heated inside air surround him. The blizzard through which he'd passed had lacerated his face and his ears, and the warmth felt so good. In the quiet, he listened for the familiar sound of the night around him. Slowly, he walked inside his castle and ran his hand through his long blond hair. He studied the large entrance hall and the adjacent drawing room for the slightest evidence that anyone else had been here. Of course that was almost impossible. He was miles from the nearest outpost of the modern world, on the edge of a great gray water-covered loch. But out of force of habit, he always observed everything closely. There were some who could breach this fortress, if only they knew where it was-and where he was. All was well. He stood before the giant stone fireplace, which he had carefully constructed, from the heaviest rocks. He watched the schools of flames dance past him, and then alter their direction instantly and totally in the artificial bonfire. The giant fire swayed from one side to another, a forest of combustion caught in a hypnotic rhythm as the gentle pressure of the air. It never failed to captivate him, to lock him suddenly to its spectacular monotony. The red and yellow colors of the blaze sent a tremor through him; the high slender trees of the inferno with its tapering yellow leaves thrilled home vaguely; but it was the movement, the constant movement that was the root. Finally he turned away from it, glancing back once into that pure, unconscious, and incidentally beautiful world. Yes. All was well here. For now, at least. Good to be in these warm rooms. Nothing amiss with the soft leather furnishings scattered about the thick wine-colored carpet. Fireplace piled with wood. Books lining the walls. He took off his long black coat and threw it on the chair. Why did the whole thing give him such an unexpected pleasure? Do all Immortals long to blaspheme, to shake their fits in the faces of the Gods? Perhaps so. Millennia ago, he, the hunter boy, had always laughed at the antics of bad children. He should go to his room before he did anything else, he knew that. Just for a few moments, to make certain things were as they should be. To place fresh coals in the brazier. It was so easy for him to maintain a paradise for him nowadays. After all, it had never been his goal to transcend the emotions of a thinking man, but rather to refine them, reinvent them, enjoy them with an infinitely perfectible understanding. But in truth those weren't his finer feelings. Not then, not now that the Gathering was so close. Only a temporary indulgence. Nevertheless, relax, Methos had said to him. And relax he tried; or at least, pretended. Mother was outside, playing her Game as always; she would never change. How many times over the ages had such hopes risen, only to leave him wounded, even heartbroken? Who will ever know? She had lived one thousand years before he was born. Perhaps the voices of the world roared in her brain. But he would never know about it. He entered his bedroom and turned on the light, instantly noticing that something was not quite right. Merely looking at his huge bed he sensed it. The sound was too loud, too clear. How could this be? Only he knew the location of his fortress. But there was no outsider here. No, he would have known. No one was inside his lair. His instincts told him that for certain. There was a stab of pain in his chest. He even felt warmth in his face. How remarkable. He walked through the wooden chamber and stopped at the window of the alcove. Was he dreaming? Yet he felt not fear suddenly but the raw anticipation of a young mystic on the verge of a vision, that at last he would see the true God, or in his own hands the bloody stigmata. Rapidly he stepped toward his bed. His two-colored eyes were clouded for a moment. He saw what he expected to see, the gray mist of his Dream coming at him. Then he acknowledged the fact: he was not alone inside his mind. A lonely figure danced within his psyche. Like a flustered mortal, he put his hands to his head as if to block out the apparition. But the feeling remained. Someone was coming, someone older and more powerful than he, someone who had discovered him. His knees were weak. Imagine! He had not felt such mortal weaknesses in so long that he had utterly forgotten them. Slowly he removed a linen handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped at the thin layer of sweat that covered his forehead. Search the cellar. Search the castle. But these were frantic, foolish thoughts. No one had entered his house, and he knew it. Only one creature could be doing this to him. Only one being would have known that such a thing was finally possible. He didn't move. He stared at the image inside his mind. He was gone with all that he had ever known, all that he had ever witnessed. This too was coming to an end. It seemed beyond his ability to accept it. He wasn't alone inside his thoughts, and he could feel her watching him. For one moment-one clearly irrational moment-he kept his eyes in front of him. He tried to comprehend as calmly as he could everything that was occurring inside him. The thing was moving towards him now, without a sound; it was like the formation of a graceful shadow in the corner of his eye, as it came around and stood besides him. He knew whom it was, who it had to be, and that she had approached with the natural poise of a living being. Yet, as he looked up, nothing could prepare him for the moment. Lilitu, standing inside his mind. Her skin was white and unclear as it had always been. Her cheeks shone like pearls as she smiled, her green eyes moist and enlivened as the flesh puckered ever so slightly around them. They positively glistered with vitality. Speechless, he stared. He watched as she lifted her long fingers to touch him inside his mind. He closed his eyes, and then opened them. Over thousands of years he had spoken to her in so many tongues-prayers at first, complaints, confessions, menaces, daring her to come against him-and now he said no word. He would never guess that she could interrupt his mind so easily. She never had shown that power in the past! He merely looked at her mobile lips and the cold glint of recognition in her eyes. "You've served me well, my beloved son," Lilitu said. "I thank you. You prepared Corazon Negro as the next Dreamer for me to kill him. And you reunited the Ancient Gathering once more. They too are going to die." Her voice was low, husky, and beautiful. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder. "Ah, Zarach," she continued. "You never despair, do you?" she mocked. "You are no better than me, with your foolish dreams about destroying me." Was this terror? Or was it hatred that he felt? -Hatred that had lain waiting in him for millennia, mixed with resentment and weariness, and grief for his human heart, hatred that now boiled to a heat he could never have imagined. He didn't dare move, dare speak. The hate was fresh and astonishing and it had taken full possession of him and he could do nothing to control it. All judgment had left him. And she knew it. Of course. Right now, she knew everything, every thought, word, and deed inside him-that is what she was telling him now with her visit. She had always known everything and anything that she chose to know. And she'd known that her son was unable to defend himself against her. She laughed softly as she looked at him. He could not bear the sound of it. He wanted to hurt her. He wanted to destroy her. If he could have done it, he would have destroyed her. It seemed she nodded, that she was telling him she understood. Well, he did not understand. And in another moment, he would be weeping like a child. Some ghastly error had been made, some terrible miscarriage of purpose. "My beloved son," she said, her lips lengthening in a faint bitter smile. "You have never had the power to stop me." "What do you want? What do you mean to do?" Zarach finally asked swallowing hard. "The same thing you do. I want to finish my Game. I said there could be only one. And it should be me. Now you must forgive me, my son," she said, so politely Zarach knew she was mocking at him again, just as he had said the very words to the young one in the back room of the bar. "I'm going now. But don't worry. We'll sea each other again at the final Gathering." He heard the sound inside his mind before he felt as if the floor moved, the sheik of tearing metal. He felt himself falling. He cried out, like a mortal man, and this time it was total terror. "Mother!!!" Inside his head, he felt himself drooping into a giant crevasse; he was plunging into scalding coldness within his mind. "Mother!!!" He cried again. But she was gone, and his mind was still falling. Then the blackness caught him, surrounded and buried him, as if it crushed the bones of his arms, his legs, and his face. He felt the blood now pouring out of his nose. He couldn 't breathe, and the pain was so intense that he couldn't bear it. Then it was gone, and when he cried out this time it was to the Ancient Gathering's faces in front of him, to Elena and Corazon Negro's features within his psyche. "Danger!!! Beware!!! She is back!!! We are all in danger!!!" he yelled mentally at them. Then there was only the cold and the pain, as he was losing consciousness.