Prologue - Dachau 1945

Dr. Abraham Friedman sat across from Commandant Helmut Strasser inside the Nazi S.S. Officer's room at the Polish death camp number seventeen. Abraham could smell the tantalizing odor of frying sausages from the kitchen and it was driving him crazy with hunger. Strasser's ten-year-old daughter, Heidi, was preparing them for the two men, and as a prisoner in Dachau, Abraham had eaten nothing but watery barley soup for over six months. Even this was more than most of his fellow inmates had received. At five foot two, and 110 pounds in his striped prison uniform, Abraham was comparably hefty.

"It is interesting to hear you have studied the Luciferians, Dr. Friedman. We have been a little-known sect for hundreds of years."

"Yes, Commandant, but before the war I was an archeologist in the Middle East. I discovered the writings of the founder of your group, and it surprised me to understand that you believe there will be a new Eden on earth in the future."

Commandant Strasser moved forward in his cushioned chair toward the short Jew and committed the unpardonable sin for a Nazi--he looked into Abraham's eyes. "Yah! Did you think the Master had nothing to offer his followers? Did you think Herr Hitler was the only one to want power on earth? Oh no, my friend. In fact, since you have studied so much about my sect, I am going to appoint you my personal researcher. I want you to bring any information you have discovered during your expeditions. I must find out if what we have been told is true!"

"True?" Abraham also leaned forward.

"Yah, we were told about the Black Wedding. Did you read anywhere in your texts about this event?"

"No, there was no mention of such ceremony in the texts we unearthed in Jerusalem. Only more sacrificial instructions for the Black Mass, and other codified rules of behavior for the Luciferians."

The tall Commandant stood up. His neatly pressed, gray officer's uniform with the bone-white death's head insignias on the cap and shoulderboards contrasted sharply with the smaller man's dingy gray prison garb. Strasser walked over to a Victrola sitting on a mahogany table near the window and turned the crank. A record began to play. It was a German waltz.

"Ach, Strauss! They will play such music at the Black Wedding. Well, my friend, since you will be going nowhere but up the chimney, I will share the secret of my Master with you. The Black Wedding will be the marriage of Lucifer to a mortal woman. This union will mark the end of the rule of Man. The birth of the Anti-Christ, and the true harmonious life under the Master's new Reich will finally show us the way. Isn't that magnificent news, my little Jew? Who knows? Perhaps there will even be room for your kind in Satan's dominion. You are the same horned rascals who mix Christian infants' blood to make your matzos for Passover, are you not?"

Heidi came into the room with the steaming platter of Berliner sausages. She wore the blue-bibbed mountain dress with the tiny embroidered edelweiss on the front, so popular with the girls of the Hitler Youth, and Abraham thought he had never seen such sparkling blue eyes. She offered them first to her father, who took two large knockwurst, and then to Abraham, who at first refused. He was still staring over at the Commandant, his mouth hanging open.

"Oh, come now, learned fellow! Eat! When the Master finally rules, the order will be reversed. The last shall finish first, and the first shall be last--just as in your evil book! But the one in control will not be your pitiful little god, that's all. Take heart, and eat!"

His hunger finally got the best of him, and Abraham took two sausages into his hands and began devouring them. The hot grease splattered inside his mouth and rolled down his chin, but he felt no pain. The intense pleasure and relief of real food overcame his inhibitions, and he knew he would survive.

Heidi watched the little Jew eat for awhile, and then she said, "Look, Daddy! The Jews do so eat pork!"

To Abraham, an Orthodox Jew, this little bit of news was too much. In a fit of nauseous heaving, he threw-up the pig onto the shiny wooden floor, with its boards imported directly from the Black Forest in the heart of the Rhineland.