‘History is always written by the victors,’ Nina pointed out. ‘In this case, the Veteres.’

‘The Shangdi, as we call them,’ said Cheng.

His mother nodded. ‘Shangdi in ancient Chinese theology is the primal deity, the creator of all things. We named the progenitor race mentioned in the Nephilim records after him.’

Macy gave her a curious look. ‘What did the Nephilim call them?’

‘They didn’t give them a name,’ Cheng explained. ‘At least, not in the records we found. They only ever referred to them as “the pursuers” and “the persecutors”.’

‘Not best mates, then,’ Eddie noted.

‘That’s interesting, though,’ said Nina. ‘The Nephilim obviously saw themselves as victims, the oppressed – but the Veteres had a completely different view. Their side of the story is the one passed down to us through the Book of Genesis and the other early books of the Old Testament – including ones that didn’t make the final cut, like Enoch. The Nephilim were bad guys, abominations, who were eventually cast out and imprisoned for all eternity.’ She regarded the figure on the screen. ‘Two very different stories. But now we get to hear his side of it – first-hand.’

‘Why were they cast out?’ asked Macy, intrigued.

Hui brought up more records, switching the wall screen to display them. All were written in Mandarin, but they included photographs of the artefacts discovered by Chinese archaeologists. ‘The Nephilim say the Shangdi accused them of great crimes – the crime of being children of the Shangdi who were born to humans.’

‘Hybrids,’ said Nina in understanding. ‘The Nephilim are a product of both races. In the Bible, they were the offspring of angels and humans – ancient humans saw the Veteres, the Shangdi, as angels. Or at least that’s how the Veteres wanted to be seen.’

‘So some of the Veteres couldn’t keep it in their pants around human women – and then the rest took it out on the kids when they were born?’ Eddie said.

His wife nodded. ‘The mindset of the slave-owner throughout history. The Veteres may have claimed to have lofty ideals about uplifting and educating humans, but they still used them as slaves. In a society like that, punishing the individual slave-owner for those kinds of transgressions is a bit close to the bone; it’s almost a criticism of the society itself for allowing it to happen. So the victims take the brunt of it instead.’

‘Scumbags,’ he growled, disgusted.

‘I guess it at least proves hypocrisy isn’t a human invention.’ Nina turned back to Hui. ‘So the Veteres were hunting down their own forbidden offspring?’