by Aiden James
“It will do you no good to wait, Jeremy,” Genovene advised, moving closer to him. “All waiting will do is make it easier for you to screw this up for you and Jack. Kill him now, and you both join our kingdom with the promise of prosperity in every way your mind can conceive. If you delay much longer, not only will my sisters and I slowly cut him to pieces, but Jack will then take his place on the altar and we’ll begin this process anew, with Jack being our next victim. So, in order to save yourself and your brother, you must kill Grandpa. It’s as simple as that!”
Jeremy looked at Jack once more and then down at their grandfather. With tears in his eyes, he grabbed Marshall’s chin and prepared to cut his throat from ear to ear. Just as he began to bring the knife down, however, he lunged at Genovene, grazing one of her breasts with the dagger as he tried to plunge it into her heart. It surprised Jack that the wound bled crimson, given what he knew of her previously.
But Jeremy’s attempt to kill her failed miserably, for she easily subdued him and reclaimed the dagger. Pinned on the platform’s marble floor, she held his arms with her knees while she brought the blade’s bloody edge up to his face.
“You stupid, stupid man!!” she shrieked. “What the hell were you thinking just now? Did you not hear my warning to you, you stubborn fuck??”
Suddenly, Genovene looked up as if she heard something. Jack took note as well, turning his head in the same direction as she, toward the ceiling.
“Muriele! Xanthelia! Come quick!!”
Her two sisters appeared on the platform, covered in blood from earlier. Gorgeous, and nearly as stunning as Genovene, they wore similar jeweled hairdressings and sheer gowns that clearly revealed their shapely nakedness underneath.
“Finish him, now!” Genovene ordered, pointing at Marshall. “When you’re done, get the altar ready for these two!”
Genovene’s sisters moved to either side of Marshall, brandishing sharp talons. Restrained by Malacai and forced to watch his brother and grandfather’s impending deaths, Jack prepared for the worst. Genovene brought the dagger dangerously close to Jeremy’s left eye as she prepared to pluck it out from its socket. While he squirmed in a futile battle to free himself, she looked over at Jack, smiling wickedly.
But before she turned her attention back to the task at hand, the ceiling high above began to shake. All eyes, that could, looked up toward the grisly mosaic. The sound of a thousand sledgehammers slammed against the ceiling from the other side, and large cracks began to spread across its surface. Rays of brilliant white light seeped through the deepening fissures, until all at once the entire ceiling exploded. A shower of sparkling dust and gem particles drifted toward the shrine.
Hundreds of angels poured into the basement. Most carried silver swords, though many others carried the large luminous spheres Jack and Jeremy had seen stored in Bolivia’s sacred caverns. As soon as the angels neared the Blood Star, Muriele and Xanthelia moved away from the altar while Genovene raised her hands above her head and shouted another incantation. Immediately, an army of demons that included Bochicha’s gruesome emissaries and others of similar appearance flew out from the fiery abyss below the structure to meet the angelic force. Each one carried a shimmering disk.
A fierce battle ensued between the angels and hideous creatures once kin to them, distracting Malacai and Sheka're enough to allow Jack to slip away. He scooped up Agent Johnson’s handgun from the platform, releasing the safety while pointing the weapon at Genovene.
She was in the process of repositioning the dagger near Jeremy’s left eyeball, telling him how delicious this organ tasted raw. While he squirmed and swore defiantly beneath her, she noticed Jack aiming the 9mm Glock at her chest.
Genovene seemed surprised, raising herself up to face him while she held the dagger precariously close to Jeremy’s eye socket.
“O-o-o-oh Jackie boy, I just love it when you’re pointing something warm and hard at me!” she taunted. “Shoot your best stuff with that wonderful aim you’ve got!”
Jack angrily fired a volley of shots at her, aiming high enough to keep Jeremy out of harm’s way. Before the first bullet left the gun’s barrel on the way to its target, Genovene’s image blurred; and each of the half-dozen shots passed through her wispy form and careened harmlessly off the altar’s base. She giggled again while her brothers moved to seize him.
“My turn!”
She drew the blade lightly against Jeremy’s cheek. He screamed and a small river of blood spilled down the side of his face.
In one last desperate act before Malacai and Sheka’re fell upon him, Jack started to throw the gun at her. Yet, within the millisecond between that moment and the one where Genovene’s brothers arrived, a wonderful idea occurred to him. He looked up at the Cristal Del Sol, remembering its strange floating characteristics when he and Jeremy experimented with it. He threw the weapon and it struck the side of the crystal sphere, which moved away from the center of the Blood Star amid a shower of sparks.
Before Genovene and her siblings could stop it, the Cristal Del Sol drifted over the marble platform’s edge. As it did, it stopped spinning and emitting plasma energy streams. Dramatically shrinking in size, its luminous colors disappeared. When the changes were complete, the transparent beach ball-sized object floated gently toward the fiery abyss. The entire Blood Star trembled.
Genovene was furious. Even before the eight essences began to murmur their displeasure as she released her hold on Jeremy and frantically tried to reclaim the crystal sphere, Jack knew he’d gained the upper hand.
Jeremy sat up, gingerly examining the wound on his face before standing again. His eye unharmed, the knife-line drawn against his cheek was mostly superficial. He took the dagger that Genovene dropped in haste and moved over to where Marshall lay, still bound to the altar. He threatened Genovene’s sisters with the knife’s blade and they backed up, though more distracted by their sister’s anguish than the antics of the agitated human before them.
Jack thought for sure this would be the last thing he ever witnessed before either Malacai or Sheka're ended his life in a rage. But the two left him unharmed to join Genovene as she lunged off the platform for the Cristal Del Sol, the only opportunity to reestablish their kingdom on earth rapidly slipping away. He ran over to his brother, presently fascinated with the dagger’s incredible sharpness that easily sliced away their grandfather’s bonds like a butter knife through whipped cream.
The rumble throughout the Blood Star steadily increased, becoming an alarming roar. The moans of displeasure from the eight deities’ essences grew even more plaintive as the battle between the demons and angels now intensified. Both sides seemed to realize that any chance to affect the final outcome diminished by the second. The angels that carried glowing spheres aligned themselves in a phalanx with other angels armed with long spears. Once the crystal sphere disappeared into the flames, the entire group descended.
“I’ll be back for all of you—I swear it!!” shrieked Genovene from below. “When I do, you and anyone you love will suffer the most excruciating deaths I can concoct!! You got that?? You’re all FUCKED when I get back!!! FU-U-U-CK-ED-D!!!”
She disappeared into the flames and smoke, along with her sisters and brothers. Jeremy couldn’t resist the opportunity to approach the edge of the platform and taunt them one last time, shouting that their present misfortune was justly deserved in light of what they did to his beloved friends, Oscar Mensch and Deshawn Wheatley. He turned back toward Jack and Marshall, who sat on the altar trying to recover from his own ordeal. Jeremy’s trademark smile in all its radiant smugness suddenly gave way to a surprised gasp. Xanthelia took offense to his words and came back for revenge, pulling him over the platform’s side.
“A-a-u-u-y-y-h-h!! Help me Jack-k-k-e-e-e!!!.... Why’d I go and say tha-a-a-t-t shi-i-i-it-tt!!!”
“Jeremy—hang on!!”
Jack ran over to the edge, but too late. All he could see beneath him amid the molten earth and leaping flames wer
e angels busy building a honeycomb blockade with their spheres. Smoke and intense heat forced him to look away. Staggering back he fought to hold his tears, knowing this wasn’t the time to mourn the loss of his brother, since the Blood Star’s rumbling had grown much more violent.
“Can you stand up and walk, Grandpa?” he asked, determined to keep his voice steady.
“Yeah...I believe I can,” Marshall responded hoarsely, still pained from having his head tilted back at an extreme angle.
Though robust and younger than his seventy-three years, Jack noticed the lines in his face stood out more and his thick gray hair seemed lighter. His pale blue eyes filled with tears, but Jack knew his years of experience in dealing with such loss gave him the strength to put off grieving for his eldest grandson until a better time for it. Barefoot and clad only in a pair of tan khakis, he let Jack help him over to Mithra’s spire. From there, the plan was to somehow reach the basement stairwell and take the long stairway back up to the main floor.
As they prepared to step onto the spire, a flock of emissaries similar to Bochicha’s servants flew up to meet them. Completely black, the only thing discernable in their faces was their glowing red eyes and sharp teeth. Mithra’s demons grinned, malicious. Drawing ever closer, they forced Jack and Marshall to find some other way to escape the Blood Star.
The other spires soon swayed under the weight of each deity’s protectors. Jehovah’s spire appeared to offer the best chance for escape, since the Hebrew god’s emissaries seemed the least malevolent of the bunch.
The platform began to give way. Jack and Marshall ran to the spire and leapt onto it, clinging desperately as it jerked and bounced. At first Jehovah’s emissaries left them alone, seeming more interested in the honeycomb network of spheres their former brethren had nearly completed. But once the Blood Star’s platform descended into the abyss, the most comely of the demons turned their attention to the pair of intruders on their spire. Yellow eyes flashed brightly within purplish faces as they snarled, their serrated teeth long.
“Watch out, Grandpa!”
Jack grabbed Marshall and pulled him down into the spire’s culvert as three disks whizzed by. The weapons exploded against the upturned portion of the spire, causing it to partially break loose. As it fell back toward the sinking platform, it broke again at a juncture just ahead of them. An iridescent face appeared within the purple-tinted essence, smiling broadly, its icy chuckle filling the air around them.
The spire crumbled into the pit, its pieces plummeting swiftly. Surrounded by suffocating heat, Jack and Marshall screamed in terror. But before the rising flames engulfed them, the sound of flapping wings drew near and a pair of powerful arms scooped them both out of danger.
“Hold on!” commanded a powerful voice.
Moving at incredible speed, they passed through the army of demons that filled the air around them, deftly avoiding a multitude of glowing disks sent their way. When they reached a place where the mosaic floor appeared again, their benefactors set them down gently. Jehovah’s face glared in irritation behind them.
***
“I see that you are all right.”
Jack turned toward the voice, his gaze pulled up to the towering figure of Ossisa, whose dark blue eyes were deeper and more intense than even Genovene’s.
“Yeah…I think I am,” he replied.
When he checked on his grandfather, he found Marshall staring up at the angel who rescued him, a beautiful warrior of Ossisa’s named Cantalaba. Ossisa drew their attention to a lone figure standing less than thirty feet away. Immediately, Jack’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh, my God—it’s Jeremy!!!”
“I was beginning to wonder what in the hell was taking you two so long!” said Jeremy as he approached them.
Most of his ‘World Express’ outfit had burned away, but other than bright redness on his skin from getting too close to the angry flames of the abyss he seemed okay. The wound he received from Genovene nearly invisible, only a faint line running from Jeremy’s left eye to his jaw line remained. Noticing Jack’s fascination with this, he told them what happened.
“I’m sure you heard me scream my fucking head off on the way down!” he said, laughing now that the event was behind him. “If it hadn’t been for Moroni separating my leg from that bitch’s claws, not only would I be burnt to a crisp, but I might be missing a few pieces to boot!”
Marshall and Jack embraced him tightly until he said he wasn’t through telling them about his experience yet, that had to be told quickly.
“After Moroni brought me here, I could see ya’ll were in an awful world of shit,” he continued. “Thank God for these guys, is all I can say, man! Otherwise, it would’ve been the cruelest twist of fate if I survived and you two perished. But, you’re wondering about the wound I received from Genovene…right Jackie? Moroni’s healing powers took care of that, although if she’d taken my eye like she threatened to do I’d probably be fucked up with no way to fix it…. He ran his finger over the wound and that’s all it took. I haven’t had a chance to see what’s left of it, but he told me it wouldn’t reappear unless I was in danger. During those times, Moroni said a scar would be discernible just below my skin, as a reminder to make me more careful in directing my anger.”
The steady rumbling suddenly intensified, violently shaking the area where they gathered. What remained of the spires split apart and tumbled into the abyss. Only the reservoirs and misty columns remained, along with the deities’ giant gemstones hovering above the edge of the pit.
Moroni, Gabriel, and Micheles now appeared before them.
“You must leave here immediately, for there is just enough time for your safe passage from this place!” Moroni warned. “Soon, the remaining vileness of the Blood Star will be no more, along with the portal used by Genovene to join your world to the prison that again shall contain Elohim’s disobedient children.”
The clamor from the eight deities grew louder, causing Moroni to look back toward the abyss. Urging Jack and Jeremy again to move quickly, Moroni and Ossisa instructed them to use the hidden tunnel to escape, still connected to the basement despite its amazing transformation. Then the archangels turned to leave. But just before the four angelic generals reached the edge of the abyss, Moroni flew back to them with one last message.
“Heed not the children of Talusha’s depiction of Elohim, for it reflects their intense hatred for Him and His cherished creatures,” he said. “The God Whom we serve is truly glorious and beautiful. The universes may be filled with other gods, but none nobler than the One Who rules this world. Remember this always, and may Elohim never cease to guide you with His unending love! Be well!!”
Moroni rejoined his comrades and they dove into the fiery pit. Heeding his warning, the brothers and their grandfather set out to where the old coal furnace still sat, roughly two hundred and fifty feet away. Before they even made it a quarter of the way there, the dissolution of the Blood Star’s remnants as foretold by Moroni happened. An intensely bright blast erupted from the abyss, causing all three to fall to the floor while everything in the immediate area of the pit was sucked down into it.
The deities’ essences stretched grotesquely, their angry grimaces even more hideous. Each god’s massive jewels exploded into thousands of much smaller bits before disappearing into the vacuum. None of their surviving emissaries were spared, plucked out of the air and thrown into the swirling sea of debris.
Only the angels were immune. Climbing from the abyss, they flew out of the hole in the basement’s ceiling as a huge mass of flapping feathered wings, brandishing swords, spears and a few shimmering disks taken from the emissaries. The large spheres formed a solid network below, designed to forever protect the earth from Genovene and her family, depraved uncles and aunts included.
Once the marble blocks from the basement’s wall began to loosen and fly across the room, along with the detached fiery vats, the three men ran toward the tunnel. As if the pit hungered for a little huma
n flesh to add to its other items, the mosaic floor behind them crumbled and fell into the chasm growing steadily wider.
“‘Better move our asses, ya’ll, or we’ll never make it!” warned Jeremy. “Jackie, help me carry Grandpa!”
Marshall’s heavy wheezing alarmed them both, and the pair lifted him onto their shoulders while the floor less than fifty feet behind them disappeared. Without looking back they raced through the growing dimness. Every source of illumination was soon sucked down into the increasing void. It seemed no matter how fast they moved the vanishing floor moved faster, made even more disconcerting once the last remaining light source floated over their heads on the way to the pit. Surrounded by thick darkness they bravely moved forward, praying there were no unseen obstacles.
The crumbling floor continued to chase them, and they couldn’t accurately gauge how far they still had to go to reach the basement’s exit. The last time they saw the furnace’s steel grill gleaming dimly before them, Jack would’ve guessed they were within a hundred and twenty feet of the object. Surely they had covered most of that distance since then. Meanwhile, the roar of the growing maw seemed on the verge of catching them.
They ran harder, but the hole behind them moved ever closer. Jeremy suddenly bumped his shin on one of the furnace’s iron legs, and nearly dropped Marshall. Cursing in the darkness, Jeremy led them quickly to the other side of the furnace. Groping along the earthen wall he threw open the tunnel’s door once he found the latch. In that very instant, the floor behind them swallowed the furnace, its heavy iron frame crashing noisily against the sides of the ever-expanding chasm.
Jeremy stepped inside the darkened tunnel, regretting that Deshawn had cut the string of lights during their earlier escape from the basement two days prior. He pulled Marshall in with Jack’s help, but the floor beneath Jack disappeared.
