The Godsend Backfire: The Beginning by Harold Straugh (best e reader for academics TXT) 📗

“Well you never swing by to just see how I am doing, you want something.”

He looked puzzled at first, then smiled, “You know me all too well.”

“Whatever it is, I’m not doing it, I just found out that I’m going to be a father, so I’d rather not risk anything.”

“I can understand that, really though, I just wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Jesus….”

“It’s done and over with,” I said, not really wanting to talk about the past anymore.

“You heard he came back.”

“I heard through my travels from time to time. I don’t really care what happened. I do feel bad for Jesus, the way he died wasn’t right, but it was a mess Jehovah created.  Did he actually think he could put a child in someone and expect everyone to believe it?”

“It wasn’t well thought out was it? The odd thing, the one thing that bothers me the most, is Pontius is still alive. I’m sure you thought about killing him…haven’t you?” he asked, he was feeding from my thoughts and at the time I felt is if he had some kind of hold over me.

“Yes, I did. I thought about it plenty, but I’m want to move forward, I don’t ever want to go back to that land or be associated with anyone or anything from that time,” I gave Lucifer a stern look.

“Oh, you won’t be going back to Judea, if you go, if you really want to kill Pontius and not have anything left over from that time in your life, you’ll be going to a place called Rome.”

I remember briefly passing through Rome in my travels with Noemi. I heard a lot about it over the years, all the wars the Roman soldiers were fighting, I stayed away honestly, I should have fought against them, but just about every army that faced them were struck down at the time.

I went to say, “I’d rather not,” but instead I said, “I will do it,” I still swear to this day, it was a hold Lucifer had over me and I didn’t even say it.

“Just kill him, don’t care how, when or where, he’s in the outskirts of Rome in a little run-down hut, nothing like he had before. If you ask around once there, I’m sure people will tell you where exactly.”

I’ll give Lucifer credit, he had a way of getting what he wanted, it was then I posed a question, “Why don’t you just do it?”

“Because I know you enjoy the hunt, it’s something I’ve passed down to all my children,” he said and he was right.

“How many more are there like us?”

“There aren’t many, most don’t survive the birth to be honest.  You, Derium and Mylicious were the first three to survive, then Jehovah had to go get involved and punish me for having children.”

“He is an odd fellow, isn’t he?”

“If I could place a curse on him, I would but unlike me or you, he isn’t susceptible to curses, just lack of faith.”

I was enjoying the little bits of insight he was giving me. I thought there would have been more Nephilim out there, but apparently, they don’t survive birth too often. I don’t if I was relieved or disappointed at the thought.

“If I do this, I don’t want to see you again, you understand,” I said suddenly.

Lucifer looked hurt, then smirked, “Fair enough,” he said.

I went to say something else to him, but when I looked up, he was gone.  I shook my head, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I did want to close out the past and for some reason, killing Pontius, I believed, was going to do it.

I waited until later that day to announce to Yura that I was going on a trip, right away she told me I wasn’t by myself, she was going with me, she wanted to see this place called Rome.

“What about our children?” I asked.

“My kind stay pregnant a better part of three seasons, I’m going to be this way until after the cold passes.”

I was reluctant to let her go, but she started asking questions. I was constantly saying I was just worried about her and our offspring, but once her demeanor changed and she took on an attitude with me, I started to back off. Once she pointed out that after the offspring were here, we’d be stuck, so to speak.

The next morning we headed out, taking the horses and dragging our boat to the furthest shoreline from our hut. I didn’t want her rowing any more than what she had to, in fact, I didn’t even let her row.  It only took an hour to get to France with just me paddling.  From there, it was a seventeen-day travel, would have been less, but we had to spend a whole day, trying to find us some horses to ride on.  The vampires left us alone at night and I left them alone during the day.

I remember riding around Rome, Yura was wore out and wanted to rest. I could see Rome, there were a lot of flashes here and there, but I didn’t get too thrilled about entering there, I was worried about Yura.  I helped her down off her horse and carefully placed her feet on the ground.  She smiled at me, “You’re being highly protective.”

“We’ve tried too hard to have offspring, I don’t want to risk anything,” I said.

She smiled at me softly, she was appreciative, but you could tell she was getting annoyed that I was around her so much.  After I helped her down, I left her alone, I let her walk with some distance between us, she seemed happy with me not being so close.

I took notice of some of the massive structures of Rome