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I trust him, but do the others?
They remain silent.
I help him up. "Look, we'll figure this out. We just, uh, have to keep moving."
It's hard to look him in the eyes.
I walk forward and run my fingers across the clippings. There are pictures, articles, and hectic writing. Headlines like:
"U.F.O. SPOTTED ABOVE WESTLAKE CEMETERY... A DANGEROUS INCANTATION..."
There's too much here to fully digest. Heart racing, I turn and say, "Let's forget about this, for now. We have a lot of work to do. Clearly, people were here before us."
"If not Lucifer, then who? As far as we know, we're the only gods that exist in the world," Loki says.
Ash shakes his head. "How many demons exist?"
"I don't know," Loki says. "Why don't you tell us?"
"Please, stop. Now is not the time," I say.
Heimdall is reading each article intently. He holds up a hand, causing our speculation to waver. "These articles are about the statues. Apparently, there was an artist named Clyde Grimwald."
He scans the articles some more. "He disappeared over ten years ago, though. Nobody knows what happened to him. If we can find him, he might be able to help us."
Loki sighs, gruffly. "Son of a bitch..."
He marches forward, toward the back of the room. We follow, observing the tile below our feet. As we walk, we see long dark robes hung in the back. Pieces of glass are piled into a corner, somehow melted together into a carefully crafted six-pointed star. Candle wax and blood has been spilled all over it. It's somewhat like abstract art, except for the fact that it's a thousand times more horrifying.
"This wasn't made by a god," he says. "It was made by something else entirely."
Suddenly, this place seems more twisted, more wrecked and savage than ever. As it all hits me, my breath escapes my lungs. The underbelly of America seems more sinister than ever, and I'm not sure if I'm actually ready to take it all on, head first.
"Who was it made by? Lucifer?" I manage to ask.
Heimdall grabs one of the cloaks and holds it up to the flame. In the center is another six-pointed star, an insignia I instantly recognize as another sign of the beast. Other odd and ancient symbols grace the inside of the star. I try to analyze them, but they seem so dark that it makes me turn away almost immediately.
This is cult shit. This is dark sided.
This is the America I never wanted to know about. And now, everything has turned very, very real.
On the wall, I see the name: BEEZELBUB.
Heimdall clears his throat as if it is drier than the Saharan Desert. He recites a memorized line. "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you."
"What the hell is that?" Loki asks.
But I know what it is. It is a passage from the Bible - a book I regarded as a story of pure fantasy. I think I know what it means.
There is a war going on in the heavens above, as well as Hell below. It takes form here on Earth. And if we don't find a way to stop it, every single city, every single nation, and every single political ideology will divide against one another. The cracks in the pavement will spread, and factions will be made.
Who then can win?
Are the gods really all-powerful? Or are they as foolish as the mortals that allowed evil to spread in the first place?
In an instant, the lights flash on and off. Alarm systems, blaring at a volume so loud that it actually feels like it's piercing right through my eardrum.
I hear the swift pounding of footsteps above our heads, and I'm completely unsettled.
