She noticed that it was first light; the birds were singing. She gasped as she recounted the night's strange events. She leaned against the inn's wall and shut her eyes. Had she taken off her shield she would've collapsed from fatigue.

She heard people screaming. "She killed him! Look!" They said. Rahab rolled her eyes. "Oh God. Whoever thought my troubles were over." "Let's go get her! That damn Jew!" people started running towards her and she took off to the street. She stopped. Another mob stood in front of her. She was cornered. "Oh. Now what." She shut her eyes and a voice inside her said: "Depend on yourself." She shrugged. She winced as a pitchfork flew across the air towards her. There was a loud thud. A hollow thud. The pitchfork clinkered on the stone street. Rahab examined herself for any wounds but couldn't find any, heck she didn't feel anything either. The people stood there, angry but confused. One man shouted and the mob started running towards her. There was a hollow thud for every man or woman that came anywhere close to the invisible three-foot circumference around her: The red shield she carried projected her instinct of self-preservation into a force field of pure energy. And as strange as it sounds, this is pure science at work: the shield was merely an energy amplifier.

Rahab looked at herself then pointed her shield at the mob, an energy wave hit the crowd and they fell on top of each other. She leapt into the air and started running. She didn't know where to run to but that was all she could do. She couldn't hide at home; what would she do in there? Wait till she's starved to death?

She could make out the galloping of a horse behind her. She turned around and saw a man riding a brown horse racing towards her. "Oh great, can this shield make me outrun the horse?" she asked herself. "Hiaa!" the man shouted as he commanded the horse with its girdle to run faster. She could now feel the ground shaking. She couldn't stop or she'd surely be trampled on! "Take my hand!" the man shouted. Rahab didn't stop. "Rahab, it's me, Rabbi Elchanan!" he shouted. She slowed down as she heard the name. "Rabbi?" She turned around and she screamed as the man grabbed her and threw her behind him. She grabbed onto his waist with her free hand. "What are you doing with that shield on? Throw it away!" She refused: "No! It's the only protection that I have. I can't explain now. Maybe later." He shrugged.

Half an hour later.

They stood by the Rhine. The horse grazed on the grass.

Rahab took a deep breath: "This is where he dumped my baby." She said. The wind rustled her hair and she wasn't surprised when she felt no veil covering her head anymore. Must've flown off while she was riding the horse. "I'm not a mother nor a father." The Rabbi said. "But I can understand the anger that you've had; I probably would've done the same." She had a tear in her eye: "You don't understand. It was an accident. It just slipped out of my hand and..." She made a cutting motion with her hand. "Cut his head off." The way she said it was more funny than scary. The rabbi held back his mirth and gently wiped her tears with his thumb. "Or maybe you just... Willed it to do what your hand couldn't." He said, and made total sense. "So let's get back to the part where you said that this shield is possessed. So you say there's a demon in there asleep. Ok, show me. Wake him up. It's not that I don't believe you. I do, but I also think you're crazy."

She sighed and looked at the shield, now lying on the grass. "I am commanding you to wake up!" she shouted. They waited. "Nothing happened?" she asked. The Rabbi frowned: "Actually I think it's doing the opposite. It's making me fall asleep." she pushed him laughing. "Quiet you. I'm serious. There's a demon in there its name is Mammon. He was the God of Wealth." The Rabbi laughed. "Worshipped by the Syrians. Isn't it written somewhere in the Pentateuch?" she asked, obviously frustrated.

He was thinking. "How did Aladdin wake the genie up in the Thousand and One Nights? You know, that old Persian Folktale." She shrugged: "I don't know." He thought. "Hmm... He rubbed it. Friction. Friction produces heat." He looked at her with his eyes squinted, as if trying to read the answer on her face. "Tell me again what happened before he woke up?" She shrugged again, "It was just there on the ground, I screamed and there was thunder and there it was." He shook his head: "No, before that." She had her fingers on her lips, deep in thought. "It cut off his head?" The rabbi rubbed his beard: "Hmmm, it couldn't have been enough friction to produce heat. Heat. Heat. Wait a minute. Body blood temperature is forty five degrees celsius. That's hot." She looked at him with her eyes wide open and looked at the shield, then looked at the Rabbi again. He shook his head: "You're not coming anywhere near me, you hear?"

She laughed and collapsed on the grass. She yawned. The rabbi shook his head and placed the shield down.

She lay there and thought. She wondered if all that happened the past two hours was just a dream. Maybe it was. Maybe she dreamt all that up because of all the stress that befell her.

"I love you Rahab." he said. She turned to look at him. Her heart beat loud. This was the first time she ever knew what it meant for someone to care about you. All she knew was what it meant to care for someone. And that someone was her son, and was now no more. Her world was changing, wasn't it? Fate is ironic in its own way. A dead son is substituted for a lover.

She was silent. He sighed. "Rahab, I have a confession to make. I hated your husband so. Not just because he used to beat you everyday and we'd see your bruises which you'd make up all these excuses for every Sabbath. But because he beat me to you." She looked up at him quizzically. "The day that I was going to propose to you, that's when I heard that Moshe beat me to it." He laughed: "I went on a fit. You know what I did? I said to God that I wasn't going to talk to him for two whole days." Rahab laughed. This man made her laugh. If it meant something, it meant to show how people can easily make mistakes that would affect their entire lives, without knowing it. "But after the second day." The Rabbi continued, this time in a more serious tone. "I asked God why he didn't want me to love you. Then..." Rahab looked at the Rabbi's face and saw it changing tones; she saw a face that reached into oblivion to find answers. Answers which he already held; but was just a matter of listening to the right voice. "And then I heard this voice." Elchanan said and Rahab rolled her eyes. "It said to me: "What do you know about destiny? Let it do its work, and you do yours." It made total sense to me." she sighed as she asked herself who had more wisdom right now. The Rabbi or herself.

The Rabbi extended his hand towards her and they stood up. They looked out towards the river and the Rabbi clasped his hands. "I call out to you Lord in all the humbleness of Rahab and myself. May you forever let this child rest in peace." "Amen" they both called out. Rahab put her head on his shoulder and sighed. The Rabbi suddenly looked at her and sighed sadly. She looked at him: "What??" He looked at her with solemn eyes: "You're not wearing your veil, now our prayer cannot be answered." She looked at him with a sad frown. He drooped his head close to hers: "Rahab. I'm joking."

She rolled her eyes and they started walking back towards the horse. 

As the last of the darkness made way to the light of day, 800 stars gathered in one of the cosmic clusters and spelt out Rahab's name in Hebrew letters with a little footnote: "Isaac."

"Let's go to Frankfurt." He said, suddenly. "What?" She asked just to make sure she heard him right. "You can't go back to town, they'll kill you. If the mob doesn't, the police will. Let's go to Frankfurt, my uncle owns the synagogue at the Judengasse in the city. It's a neighborhood just for Jews. You know how they all hate us wherever we are. Well in there, we get to live our own lives without anyone bothering us. And I'll have a job at the synagogue." He shut his eyes and prayed for a smile, and when he opened them he had his prayer answered. "Will you marry me, Rahab?" He said and held up the disc to her. "With this demon as my witness to my undying love?" she laughed. "Yes I do, David Elchanan."

One Year Later

Rahab smiled as the Jewish nurse gently passed her newborn son onto her. "Shalom Alechum, Isaac. You are so beautiful." Rahab said as she touched her baby's soft cheek. As the baby giggled she looked up and saw Elchanan walking towards her. His face was grim. "David? What's the matter? Aren't you happy? Look at Isaac!" He covered his face with his hand and dried his tears. "Rahab. You're not well." He said. She shrugged. "So? As long as the baby's fine I'm ok, don't worry about me."

He slammed his fist on the bedpost and Rahab and the baby looked at Elchanan startled. "You are dying, Rahab. You are bleeding internally and the nurses don't know how to take care of you. There's no other doctor around Judengasse. And today's Sunday, we are locked out from the other districts of the city because it's the Christian holiday today. So we can't do anything about it." Elchanan was obviously distraught, but she didn't worry. She always kept in mind the power of immortality that the shield bore. All she had to do was wear it and every wound would seal and her apparent age would be restored to around 25 years old. The day she had cut herself to show the shield's powers to David, he had fainted, so she was reluctant to use it again after that. Instead she stowed it away in case she ever needed it. This was almost never.

"David. Get me my shield from the house." She said. David frowned angrily: "This is not time for your accursed so-called possessed shield now. You are DYING don't you understand?? I'll be ALONE again to take care of the child myself." She sighed: "David, just get me the shield." He stormed out. Isaac softly snored. Rahab looked at him and smiled, then her eyes shut and she fell asleep.

"Six-fold their lifespan, their children will start gaining infinite wealth from usury. Their wealth will make them the richest people on earth." Tarot's voice echoed in her mind as she recalled Mammon's curse. Rahab woke with a start. That means 185 years from now. And every year that she lived longer, it was an additional 6 years when her ancestors would become rich. Just as soon as she came to this conclusion, David opened the door and placed the disc next to her.

"Give me your pen, David." She said. He frowned as he handed her the pen dangling on his shirt pocket. She turned the disc around and wrote on the shield-band the following brief testament: "Hurt only those who hurt you. My children, the curse that befell me you shall turn into a gift. Keep me on your door and I shall make it the lighthouse of the world. Love, Queen of Diamonds." She gave it to him. "Tell Isaac to always keep it on the door of his house, and so will his children and his children's children. Do you hear?" David sighed and nodded: "So you leave the shield for Isaac? What about me? What are you going to leave for me?" She sighed then looked at the shield again and saw the hexagram. "The shield is yours too, David. And, I leave you the six-pointed star which I name after you. The Magen David." He was unsmiling even though her light humour calmed his desparation: "And? What, is it going to replace the Menorah as the Jewish symbol?"

She shrugged "Maybe... But that's how our brothers and sisters from the holy land will recognize us when we return from Europe." He looked deep into her eyes: "Is that a prophecy that a homeland will be created for the Jews? That our dreams will be reality?" She looked at him as if she had just returned from a seance where she saw the entire future of the Jewish race. And her eyes were now ghostly. He looked at her and he shivered.

"Yes" She replied. "And my descendants will lay the cornerstone for Israel, and will trigger the beginning of Armageddon."