the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

with his twelve disciples. Lucifer's creation Judas as such was a part of his master and both could tap into their existence to see what they were doing.
"Who do you think I am?"
Peter thought for a moment then said: "You are the Messiah ..."
"Henceforth ..." Jesus replied "... you shall be called the rock, for upon you I shall found my church ...” Jesus spoke only of one church and not a divided one. He could have called it anything.
This was St. Peter's church ... It was the future Vatican. It was the rock whereupon God would build his church. It was glorious. To Lucifer, it was eternal suffering.

"Saviour! Saviour!"

Jesus stood on the balcony and waved to his people. He was standing over there, mighty and magnificent, spreading his arms and smiling. The moon had disappeared and instead the only thing shining on the horizon was Jesus in that light. No, not in the light. Jesus was the light. It hurt his eyes, it was so bright. The people sang HOSANNA IN EXCELSIS DEO for they had been saved.
Then he was back on the hill, moon in the sky and grass blowing in the midnight wind. The wind moaned as a lonely lynx caught in a morning storm. It was like a tree bending and creaking in the wind waiting to be released from its pain and cut down. He looked over to it. It was no tree. It was a beast. And it bore Lucifer's face. Then suddenly a loud noise hit his ears. It was as if someone had opened a door and blown it in his face. His head snapped to the left and there he saw it. It was a cross. It was shining radiantly.
No matter how strong the wind was it kept standing. Lucifer was repeatedly tossed over and flew around, feeling like a leaf being blown around in a storm, completely powerless. No matter what he did, his body felt as if warily stung by a thousand needles. He felt dizzy and numb and as if someone was holding him by the arms and shaking him. He saw the initials above the cross: I.N.R.I. –Jesus of Nazareth, Rex Judeum: King of the Jews. The initials on the stone under his own Purity over in Yambalah came to his mind and the two opponents were clearly drawn out now.
In his sleep, Lucifer took a resounding deep breath, raising his eyebrows with closed eyes looking like someone waiting for a grotesque kiss ... and ... screamed until his veins popped open and his green blood oozed out of his horns. He woke up. Startled. Every breath he took was agony. He was in his own red hell now, but through the wall images were floating through, the rainbow of them protruding through the walls. The blue night of the illusion spilling over against the red stone hell in the hole he was in, Lucifer on the flat stone rising spastically crouched together, for the first time in his life, crying. He was by a tree now. It was an old oak bent by wind, twisted by weather. A man was hanging from it. His head was hanging down from the rope and dangling like a separate and unused limb. The coins were at his feet. The blood-money. Suddenly Michael was there and he was pointing at Lucifer. He told him that he had to see he could never ever win. Lucifer screamed again but heard voices of angels. Lucifer screamed again but heard God. He was back on the hill now and Michael stood above him. Michael's white cloak was blowing in the wind and his black hair was a mass of tousled satin that uncontrollably blew in the twister that was building up around them. He raised his long right hand index finger at Lucifer and gave him a half-smile as well. Lucifer looked up with the fear of someone caught in the act of spiritual burglary. Lucifer looked up. A light protruded out of Michael's finger and that light against his white cloak was enough to make Lucifer scream. Michael's eyes widened and so did the light. It came closer and closer until Lucifer saw it was a circle, a tunnel, growing bigger and bigger. It came over him like a cloak, a wave of water. He was in the light now. And all he could see were crosses everywhere. Crucifixes. Churches. The Vatican. Saints of heaven. Saints of Earth. Saints of other planets. And always Lucifer as the foe. The cross was the beginning of it all. And he had been powerless to stop that road. He had thought his Judas would have made a difference. He thought it would bring an end to God's rule over creation. Instead he was only a tool. A tool for God's power. He managed to escape from that light and almost pulled himself out of it like a man pulled out of a shirt. But he was pulled back again, screaming even louder. This time he saw all the people he had betrayed and who suffered. They were all in joy because God had saved them. He jumped out of the light. The moon above his head and God in it. Lucifer tried to say something but all he could say was: "Why was I chosen? What is my sin?”
Michael's voice now deep and throaty answered, still pointing: "Questioning the creator.”
Lucifer's voice throaty, veins full of pain. "There is no turning back. You shall cringe ... at the sight of the cross. Your face shall be burnt by what saved creation from you! It shall be God's protection!"
In Michael's hand a cross appeared. He pushed it against Lucifer face, burning his red skin. Lucifer's head bent over to one side as if he wanted to escape the cross and Michael's gritted teeth. Lucifer was shaking, his eyes turning white, his body convulsing.
Suddenly a great white light appeared in the sky with an ear-deafening explosion. It was almost as if a door had been opened to Heaven and there was even a clear rectangular separation between it and the storm. God was there in that white light and Michael's white cloak settled and he looked up. He breathed in, pouting with his lips and his fists clenched, eyes closed. He looked down at Lucifer and released his cross, Lucifer falling down in a heap of red blackness. Michael looked back up and was drawn straight up to the gates of heaven with incredible speed that made Lucifer jump and the hairs on his back stand up. He sat crouched on the Earth like a bug. For a moment he wondered what he would have been now had he stayed humble. He shook his head and cried. "Why?" There was no answer.
Then the ground opened. Sizzling and hot it lay before him. Lucifer looked around with the scared expression of a hunted animal. His lower lip was shivering. "No!" The volcanic lava that burnt down there scared even him. "NO!" Then he looked up at his former home, the sides of his mouth turned downwards and his eyebrows raised upwards and inwards in fear. "NO!" Lucifer slowly sunk down until he only held on with one hand on the edge. "Help me!" He dropped and fell into oblivion, his scream echoing and growing fainter. The Earth closed above him and so did heaven.
For just an instance, Lucifer wished that he was part of Eden again, back on the Fields hearing Mozart sonatas yet not composed and discussing Oscar Wilde’s yet unwritten plays with the spirit of Socrates. Instead, he was in an underworld and he was alone. There was no way back home.
It was time to make new friends.

§

Lucifer ran down the tunnel and to the underground lake. The rat sat on his shoulder all the time, telling him to go faster. A canoe was there for him, waiting, dark and black and rotting. And he could feel
himself wanting to turn back the further he rowed. The tunnel seemed large and ominous and yet he had created it. He saw only shadows. When he turned and looked down he saw a large waterfall and screamed as he plunged. Lucifer had left God forever. The crowds of lost souls lead to Hell in chains, looked like a galley of slaves, head down, lead to the gallows. The steady flow of sinners making their way down to Hades never stopped and Lucifer, whose purity still laid comatose on the rock, was an evil emperor who now made it his vow to stop God in any way he could. The last time God and Lucifer met face to face was at Golgotha. What followed was "a hide and seek game through time and history“. Where ever God was doing his work Lucifer would try to destroy the result. The more his humanity grew the more angels were necessary. In the beginning, the eleven archangels were entrusted with twenty five sub-angels each making it a total of 275. After about a thousand years there were at least ten-thousand angels for a human population of a two-hundred thousand. Some extremely good humans were promoted after death into angelic status. The prowling pitfalls and sweat of creation were nothing in comparison with these dark times on Earth. Brutus was patient. Caligula and Nero were rolling their proverbial thumbs.
Among the 666 original cloned devils now in what he described as his home in hell there was a plethora of famous traitors waiting in line to incarnate as what the Devil now described as "stones dropped in God's way as he walks the path to uncertain glory". By the time Jesus was tempted, he was already planning to strike again. A visitor was on the way. Within a fall lay a rising. And so, if the rise came to fall, another fall would come to rise. The lower source was running free again and crashed through the ceiling in front of that noble crowd in 1422 in the name of a sub demon. The largest country within the empire was a land within an unofficial alliance of eleven, about to be terrorized by a creature from an empire of screaming birds. Rebecca and Joseph were about to meet again incarnated.

ALTERNATE REALITY, SAVING THE APOCALYPSE

“My friend: You hear me talk, the gift in your hand breaking in your grasp. But listen to me now. Out of the ashes a dark empire shall rise, long forgotten by the Gods. It shall be the bringer of the apocalypse.”
-Reland Mansicart

As God split the realities apart into two separate dimensions in order to save humanity from Lucifer at the end of the 4th century, there was a feeling of triumph in Eden of having conquered him at last. So, whilst Rome died in the one reality it lived on in the other. Its technique, its medicine, infrastructure and roads, sewer systems, its arts and hygienic culture were kept alive. Europe became Medatlantia and the Roman Empire was transformed into the glorious peaceful country of Prosperania with the capital of Clurafar, a large empire with ten neighbours who all lived under its benevolent rule and one common enemy.

Excerpt from the book “Travelling the Known World” by
Prosperanian author Hogiar Lindarus

The Roman Emperor Flavius Theodosius died on January 17th 395 A.D. His two sons Arcadius and Honorius did not, as originally had been decided by the very influential senate, divide Rome into the two parts East and West Rome after his death. Instead, the two sons managed to convince the very sceptical council that the empire was worth a spectacular rescue. They managed this bold move in spite of their young age. It took them