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"Wel-l-l-com-m-m-e!!!"
Genovene's voice surrounded them, echoing throughout the deep stairwell. Unable to see clearly behind him on account of the haze's growing thickness, Jack thought he heard one of the male agents murmur in fear. Irritated, Agent Johnson hissed over his shoulder for whomever it was to shut the hell up.
The haze became brighter and thicker as they approached the middle of the staircase. Due to their handcuffs, Jack and Jeremy had a tough time keeping their balance, and their footing grew increasingly precarious. A mere misstep was all it would take to send someone tumbling to their death.
When they finally neared the base of the stairwell, the haze thinned to where visibility was much better; and by the time they reached the basement floor, the haze cleared completely. The cement floor had also undergone an amazing transformation, and was now an immense mosaic made up of tiny jewels. The mosaic's theme was a battle scene involving insect-like creatures similar to those Jack once saw long ago in Genovene's village. Dressed in full armor, the monsters routed what appeared to be an ancient human army attired similar to the Sumerians in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.
The brothers and their captors stepped onto this mosaic floor, marveling at its unusual splendor as it glistened brilliantly around them. But the floor was not the most amazing thing awaiting them. As large as the basement was before, following the alterations by Dr. Quard-e-Lazim and his team of men, it was now several times wider, stretching some six hundred feet on either side of them and nearly twelve hundred feet in front of where the group presently stood.
The earthen walls had been replaced by the same gray marble that the stairwell was made from, and these new walls were lined with fiery large oil vats that climbed toward some unknown height far above. All of this created the perfect surreal environment for the fabulous structure that took up most of the basement interior. The fully restored Star of Karachi gleamed spectacularly before them, and was far more glorious than either Jack or Jeremy had imagined it would be.
The eight white marble spires of the Blood Star were several feet wide and each one spanned some three hundred feet in length, culminating in ten-foot wide reservoirs beneath the tip of each spire. Hovering a dozen feet in the air above each spire were immense jewels of nearly fifteen feet in height and at least three feet thick. Each one was oval in shape and multifaceted, turning slowly in unison as they floated above the shrine. The sheer enormity of the jewels made them look like glass prisms. At the end of each spire, just above the eight reservoirs, loomed enormous columns of dense mist. Each one pulsed fervently with life and was at least a hundred feet in height.
Based on what the brothers learned from Dr. Oscar Mensch's journals and other notes from his previous life as Dr. Viktor Seiverlich, each of these mists contained the essence of one of the Blood Star's deities, the Children of Elohim. Even so, now that they
stood before the actual structure of the Blood Star, the journals' descriptions and other information became much more poignant. They silently mouthed the names of each deity as they stared in awe at the shrine. The mist straight ahead of them, which was Mithra's essence, carried much of the blackness found in the enormous black onyx gemstone that hovered before it. Moving counter clockwise, the next mist was more transparent. It belonged to Di-Guan, whose fire opal gemstone shimmered magnificently above this deity's spire like a brilliant sunset, quite similar to the massive disk that had recently passed over them on their way back here.
The next mist bore a purplish tint, and in actuality would be considered the top of the star, if the assertions of Ricardo de Gallies and the diagrams found in Dr. Seiverlich's journals were accurate. A rich amethyst gemstone sparkled as it floated above this spire, which belonged to the Hebrew god Jehovah. The gemstone's shimmering magnificence made it easy to imagine why the ancient Israeli priests chose to adorn their ceremonial robes with this stone.
The mist pulsing fervently above the reservoir at the end of the very next spire carried a heavy golden tint, which surely suited the most prodigious Egyptian goddess, Sekhnet. Like the imperialistic ambitions of the ancient Egyptians who avidly worshipped the goddess, her essence seemed to extend into the giant twirling topaz crystal that hovered in the air before it.
Perhaps the most brilliant of all the gems was the next one, belonging ot the African goddess Nyame. Her gemstones was a diamond to end all other diamonds, shimmering in a perfect array of rainbow colors from any light close enough to pass through it. Even from the distance where the group stood, the stone appeared as clear and flawless as the tinier diamonds that adorned the world's finest jewelry pieces. Sparkling rays of light emitted continuously from the enormous diamond, which partially obscured the goddess's clear and soft essence looming in the air behind it.
Jack allowed his eyes to move on to the next spire and misty column looming above its reservoir. He was immediately chilled by the realization this was Talusha's essence, the entity who tried to obliterate his family's existence long ago. The enormous sapphire shimmering above the star especially affected him, and he drew the attention of Jeremy as well as Stu Johnson when he shuddered again, unable to avoid thinking of the bubbling and burning blue mass he once unwittingly stumbled upon in Genovene's village.
After Jeremy nudged him, Jack turned his attention to the second to last spire of the shrine, which belonged to Shiva. This deity's sparkling essence and the luminance radiating through the beautiful crimson ruby turning slowly above the spire were simply breathtaking, and an effective distraction from the loathing he felt a moment before. He recalled Shiva's spire was at the bottom of the Blood Star, according to Dr. Mensch's journals.
The last spire in the star belonged to Bochicha, and after the ordeals Jack and Jeremy had recently endured with this deity's emissaries, it was hard for either of them to picture such a malevolent being having such a warm and mellow gemstone to represent it. Even its green tinted essence appeared as gentle and inviting as the giant emerald that glowed softly as it rotated above the spire.
The gems and essences together created an incredible spectacle. But there was more. In the center of the star was a large platform of gleaming white marble covered with carvings similar to the basement floor's mosaic. The platform stood above the spires, and all of them were connected to a network of funnels in the platform's base.
Above this stage and in the very center of the Blood Star floated the Cristel Del Sol, only it was no longer the beach ball sized object Jack and Jeremy had carelessly played with when they first discovered it, less than forty-eight hours earlier. Its diameter had increased tenfold to where it was now nearly twelve feet in diameter. Spinning rapidly above the platform, its color was now a brilliant mixture of luminescent gold, red and orange hues. Long streams of lightning-like plasma flowed out continuously from the Cristel Del Sol across the entire perimeter of the Blood Star.
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