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Trinity
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I could see the apprehension on the faces of the three Gods that had come to my home. They were looking at Talia with worry and fear. They were also just sitting there and not answering her after she asked them that question. Why weren't they telling her why they want to kill my family? Why was it that I had needed to call in the gods from the underworld to help us right now? And how was it that this was all falling on the shoulders of my fifteen year old daughter?
As I watched on, I saw that Talia was getting a little frustrated. I knew that it was probably just because she was tired and scared, but I didn't want her to blow up on these people. When I saw that the annoyance in her body and eyes was about to hit a breaking point, I stepped in.
“Why won't you-.” She started, but I interrupted her before she could get too loud, or too far into that question.
“I think that there is a lot that we all need to discuss.” I rose from my seat and went to stand by Talia. She needed to calm down, and hopefully having an ally close to her side would help. “There is a lot that we, super naturals, don't know about these people. And that is leaving us a little on edge and lost. However, I am sure that there is much that you three do not know. And we need to fill you in on that as well.”
.....
“Yes, I think that would be wise.” Hades nodded. “Talia, sweetheart, take a seat and let us speak with you mother for a few moments.” Lucifer offered her some time to rest. “You look tired.” She didn't say anything to them, but Talia nodded in agreement before she went back to sit down, the only problem was that she didn't know where to sit anymore. Reece beckoned her over toward him and she moved to sit in the seat next to him. He even put his arm around her to offer comfort for his daughter in this tough time.
“Thank you for offering to explain more, Trinity.” Satan was speaking seriously again, that was a little disconcerting at the moment, it truly was.
“Of course. If we are going to help each other, then we need to know what the other knows.” I explained to him. “I know that there is a lot that you all do not know about what has been happening here on earth. Hades, I know that Talia contacted you for help with the murder victims.”
“Yes. There has been quite the influx of ritualistic killings over the last few months. They were all murdered by the same group as well, so that made things a little easier for me when finding them.” He nodded as he agreed with my words.
“Well, we discovered recently that the group that has been killing those people is actually a family. The Jaegan family from Germany. Dietrich used to be friends with their patriarch a long time ago, when he wanted to team up with the super naturals and help the world.”
“Then, what happened?” Lucifer asked with a look of confusion in his eyes.
“After Alaric, the patriarch, died, the entire family changed. There were these nannies that told the descendants that Alaric hated nonhumans and wanted to kill them all. That led to the entire family becoming one giant army that was hell bent on destroying us.”
“Ha ha ha.” Satan laughed quickly and derisively. “I will never understand why people say that. Hell, which is actually just the underworld, or parts of it, is not bent on doing anything to anyone. The land itself is not capable of anything like that.”
“It's just a saying, Satan. I don't know why people use it, they just do. It means that they are recklessly determined to do whatever it is that they are referring to. In this case, it means that the Jaegan family is determined to destroy us no matter what, even if it means their destruction.”
“Understood.” The look on Satan's face told me that he was taking my little lesson to heart. He probably wouldn't be against the saying now that he knew what it meant. Anyway, I didn't care about that. I needed to keep going.
I started to explain to them all that had happened while we investigated. I told them about how the visions that Talia had affected what we did, and how it had helped us to save her friends last night. After that, I told them how we had most of the family in custody, so it shouldn't be possible for Talia to see the family winning against us. That is, unless these Ancient Ones were working with the family. Then they might pose a threat to us.
“OK, I have heard enough to understand what is going on.” Hades nodded his head. “I do believe that this family does have help from the Ancient Ones. The use of the runes, the knowledge of the various implications of them, and the story that you told me about the long lived nannies, all of that is giving me a bad feeling. However, there is an upside to this.”
“An upside?” I glared at him. “Dozens of my people are dead.” I could hear the anger in my voice and worked hard to keep myself calm. I managed it, but it took me a moment.
“Yes, Trinity, there is an upside. These Ancient Ones are not as powerful as we gods. You see, Talia was right when she said that they didn't like humans. I don't know why they are working with this family when they despise them, but that is not the point. The point that I am trying to make here is that since they were never worshiped like the Gods were, they couldn't maintain their powers.”
“What does that mean?” I needed Hades to clarify that for me. However, it was Lucifer that spoke next.
“Well, Trinity, we Gods and the Ancients came into existence around the same time. We didn't know where we came from, or why we just started to exist one day, but we did. This was eons ago though, so we have long forgotten about it. As humans started to come into existence as well, populating various parts of the earth, we learned that we were different from them. We original beings were more powerful than the humans. Granted, the original humans were so primitive that anyone was able to be more powerful than them. We largely ignored the humans for a while. We would only go to see them as they seemed to need us. The development of fire, the advancement of tools and things such as that. The Gods helped them out often. The other group, the one that was born to the dark realm, also known as the underworld, didn't help at all. They actually did all that they could to destroy life on the mortal plane. You know the dinosaurs? They predated the humans of course. Well, the Ancients were the ones that killed them. They thought that giant lizard beings were too much of a match for them.”
“That is mind blowing.” Shane obviously couldn't keep his mouth shut. I couldn't blame him though. That was news to us. It wasn't a meteor after all. It was angry ancient beings.
“Anyway.” Lucifer cleared his throat. “As the humans evolved, they began to worship and revere those that helped them. And when that happened, the worshiped beings grew in power. That led to all of us wanting to be revered, so we found our own way of helping and being worshiped. The Ancients, though, hated the humans, didn't want to be worshiped, and killed them often. We were always at odds with them since we wanted to protect our followers.”
“Tensions grew over time, and we often warred with the ancients. We also found out that they had manipulated the realm that they were living in so that all the humans' souls went there after they died. This led to them torturing the souls after they had died.” Satan's words sent a shiver through my spin.
“The first creation of hell.” I wasn't asking here, I was stating.
“Yes. And they often showed the humans what would happen to them when they died. The humans thought it was a punishment for being bad, so that fueled the good and evil afterlives part of religion.” Satan shrugged.
“Over time though, the Ancients weren't able to do this anymore. They lost their powers and they began to die because of it. We knew that there was something that we had to do, so we took over the underworld. The souls were still going there when they died. Well, we decided to make the afterlife how the humans thought that it was. Punishment for bad deeds, eternal happiness for good deeds. And that is how it has been for a long time now. We thought that all of the Ancients were dead.”
“Well, they aren't.” I shook my head. “And now they are part of this problem that we're in.”
I was reeling. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. I was lost inside of my mind as I focused on the problem in front of me. And to make matters worse, these ancient beings were a wild card that were being thrown into an already hectic and difficult situation. We needed to figure this out. And we needed to make sure that Talia's vision didn't come true at all.
