I just wanted to have a bit of fun, that’s all.  I never expected it to get so far out of hand.

I never expected the humans to take it upon themselves to believe his every word and action…whether or not he truly did them.

I just like to play mind games. 

To begin, his mother was not a virgin.  Well, she was until Joseph decided he was tired of waiting for the wedding day and he took her forcefully.  Of course, what we have now didn’t exist in those days, and she became pregnant.  It was quite the scandal and many people spoke of killing her.

Then for some reason, she started talking about how she had been impregnated by God, and the child she carried was a blessing from Him.  Joseph, to save both his own face and his wife’s, bundled her up and took her away, far away, towards Bethlehem, where insane people were seen left and right. 

Like Melchior, Gaspar, and Belthazar:  Three men who had also gone out of their minds and proclaimed themselves kings and wise men.  They were present when she bore that little bastard in that farmer’s barn.  Joseph dared not run them off, for fear they would attack him and his wife, or cause the animals around to freak out and stomp the lot of them flat into the hay. 

Somewhere between telling people she was pregnant with the son of God, and actually having the child, the woman started to believe it herself.  That little child never had a chance.  From the time he could walk, his mother informed him of his ‘destiny’, that he was the savior of the world.  The words came from his mother’s mouth, and who was he to argue with her?  He began attending church and learning about the Bible, only to come home and have his mother tell him everything the priests said was wrong, and he must remember that.  Only he knew the true way to salvation.

And I thought I was good at mind games.

I came across him when he first started gathering disciples.  I was intrigued by what he had to say, even though I knew it was all complete lies.  I lived long before ‘Moses’ supposedly walked the earth, and never seen the flood that wiped the earth clean, nor have I seen most of the events in the Bible people put so much faith into.  So now this man was walking the world claiming to be the Son of God?  This I had to see.

One of the first lessons he taught had something to do with a fig tree.  He was apparently hungry, but when he went to the tree, there wasn’t anything on it to eat.  The fact that it wasn’t the season for figs apparently never crossed his mind.  He pointed at the tree and cursed at it, forbidding it to ever grow fruit again.

This was when I realized how much fun I could have with this man.  I did my best to not cackle out loud as I raised my finger under my cloak, pointed at the tree and sucked forth its life force, causing it to wither right before the eyes of all present, the leaves falling off in droves until there was nothing left but a dried-up stump and a few branches.  The crowd screamed at this, and he stood there dumbfounded, his finger drooping with his incontinent disbelief. 

Then it happened.  He started to believe it was he who had done it.  Oh, what fun!  I had not enjoyed messing with mortals this much since that whole Samson and Delilah incident. 

He continued to travel the Middle East, teaching about love and honor and the way to heaven.  On occasion he would perform ‘miracles’ for those to see. 

The blind man who suddenly gained sight at his touch?  I had a vampire friend who owed me a favor.  What a great actor.  He really impressed me there.  The man possessed by a legion of demons?  Well, maybe not so much possessed as mind controlled by one humor-seeking vampire.

One of my more interesting tricks to play on him was the raising of his friend Lazerus.  Oh, Lazzie was dead, alright.  Your body can only take in so much alcohol before it starts to shut down parts of your body, like the liver.  Let me tell you, Lazzie liked to drink.  He lived in abundance, and he died with a bottle in his hand. 

When he came to resurrect him, however, I had to pull one of my better pranks.  Raise someone from the dead?  No, no, that was -my- job.  Lucky for the both of us, Lazerous was still wrapped in his burial shroud, so the sunlight didn’t burn him too bad.  Yes, being a vampire can sometimes be a hassle, especially in the day, but as long as you dress up, you’re fine. 

After a few years of toying with him, I learned through a friend of mine that there was a plot to kill the man.  I wasn’t distraught - after all, I’ve been killing humans for years, what was the difference here?  However, this was my playtoy, and these Jews were wanting him killed?  Well, perhaps there was a way to bring this to my advantage.

Back then, the preferred method of execution was crucifixion.  I knew he wouldn’t survive it without some outside help, so I invited him and his brood of miscreant fishermen to dinner at a safe house I had procured some years back.  They went upstairs, and I stayed in the kitchen and prepared the wine.

Vampire blood can do some magical things.  It can, of course, turn you into a vampire.  It can heal wounds if applied topically.  It can coagulate into a shapeless hard lump until the vampire needs it for something.  And it can keep a human alive indefinitely, no matter what wounds are inflicted.  We call it ghouling, as most often they seem dead, but once they’ve healed sufficiently they awaken and scare the bejesus out of anyone who happens to be around.

It only lasts for a small amount of time however, then the effect is done.  I figured a few drops in the wine so close to his execution would keep him ghouled for at least five days.  Plenty of time, as he was supposed to be crucified the next morning.  I brought the wine to their table, and they all drank of it, but especially him, as he too knew of the plot against his life.

When the soldiers ambushed him in the yard, Peter did take a sword and attack a guard, slicing off his ear.  Luckily for me, I don’t feel pain anymore, and I heal almost instantly, so when the man put my ear back to my head, it was just one more miracle for the people to report on.  Oh how much fun I was having at this man’s expense! 

They brought him before Pilate, and the man released him to the Jews, which was probably the worst thing he could ever have done.  They threw a cross on him and beat him near death as he carried it to Golgotha.

So much blood.  It was all I could do to not run up and start licking him all over.  I still shudder with delight when I think about it.  Oh how I miss public beatings…

They nailed him to the timbers, then tied his arms and legs to it as well to make sure he would stay up there, as the nails tended to rip through flesh and bone if the human was too heavy.  They put two criminals up there with him, and I was posted guard beside the man himself.  I smiled behind my helmet’s mask, watching the people cry out to save him.  His followers.  Those who believed everything he said.

It was at this time I realized exactly how much of a mind game I had played.  It was not just the man I had fooled, it was an entire people.  My twisting of his actions and assistance in his ‘miracles’ had created for him a following.  I had not just played mind games with him; I had played mind games with thousands.

My smile was so wide you would have had to break it into pieces to fit through the door.

He died on those timbers.  The other guards had me stick a spear into his flank and pierce his heart to ensure he had gone.  I did this with a hidden grin, as I knew I could rip his heart from his chest and the blood I had given him in his wine would regrow the organ.  We wrapped him in a linen shroud, and placed him in that pauper’s tomb.  Unseen by any, I slipped into the tomb as the rock was slid into place.

Darkness.  My favorite type of light.

He was nearly out of blood.  The beatings, the time on the cross, and of course my cutting his side open had drained him of almost every drop.  I snickered at the body under the shroud.  I could hear his heart still trying to pump every few seconds, only to give up from the lack of liquid.  I sat beside him and caressed his face.

“You have been my favorite toy.  For this, I grant you what you wish for all to have…eternal life…”

I drew my fingernail across my wrist, and the razor there sliced open the flesh, and blood dripped from my arm onto the lips of the body through the linen.  The first drops touched flesh through the cloth, and the body shuddered, the arms and hands trying to reach through the fabric to grasp my arm and pull it towards the hungry mouth.

I pulled the linen up from his face, and his eyes met mine as I lowered my wrist to his lips, and he drank as though a newborn from his mother’s breast.  I smiled at him, then pulled my wrist away as I placed the linen back over him.

“What are you…”

“Shhh, my child; your body must finish dying.”

Watching a human become a vampire childer is amazing.  There is a glow that comes from them, they radiate almost like a star, as their body metamorphoses into something different altogether.  It is, in fact, the body purging the last vestiges of light from itself.  Yes, we can walk in the light.  That does not mean we like it.

He sat up and pulled the shroud from his face and body, then turned to me.

“You never suspected anything, did you?”

His face turned quizzical.  “What do you mean?”

I grinned, letting my teeth show a bit.  “You never thought it might not be you that was doing all of those wonderful miracles.”

His jaw fell.  “That was…that was you?”

I smiled now, revealing my pearly whites in all their glory. “Do you think a mere human could cause those events?”

“But…but I am the Son of God!”

I raced to him, and drew him up by his shirt, then slammed him against the wall behind him.  “Do you think GOD would have allowed his own son to become one of the damned?”

He clutched at my wrist, trying to free himself, but he was still weak from the childering.  “No…no, this cannot be!”

I released him, and he slid back to the stone bench he had been laying on, and curled into a ball.

“It can, and it is.  You were a mere man.”

I let him absorb this as I walked to the stone.  Three days we had been within the confines of the tomb.  That was long enough.

“And now, you have half of the world convinced you are the Son of God, and that you alone will save their wretched souls.”

“…no…no!”

I started to pull the stone aside.  “Oh yes.”  I sniffed the air.  “And it would seem that some of your…followers…are on their way to see you.  Do give them my regards.”

I pushed the stone aside and walked into the light and out of his un-life.

Since then, wars have been fought in his name.  People have been martyred in his name.  An entire religion has sprung up around his name, teachings, and the miracles he supposedly performed.

An entire world and history of people, all mindlessly following my creation to their deaths.

I guess I am pretty good at mind games.