She gnashed her teeth and gave her head a vicious shake. "His blood was ancient, foul, and poisonous...oh my, it was nearly as bad as the tortures. It was viscous and rancid like semi-coagulated bile, but despite my almost uncontrollable gagging, I rejoiced. I had power! I was the one causing the pain! The demon screamed high and girlish and the sound was delicious, you have no idea how good I felt."
She smiled like an old ballplayer reliving his glory days and Will began to hate his sister, or at least this terrible version of her. Hate wasn't an emotion that he had often, so it was a surprise to him to feel the acid of it burning his insides.
Talitha didn't seem to mind his hard look. In fact she gave him a small smile, and continued after a moment, "Auraghnash beat me, even as I hung onto his nose like a rat terrier. I finally took off a huge junk of that stupid beak and that moronic demon demonstrated just how overrated he was. He picked me up and dashed me down among the few remaining chunks of glass. I died right there!"
She said this triumphantly and her eyes blazed away at Will, but he was a little lost and she saw it.
With a shake of her head, she explained, "No one dies forever in the void. You're reborn fully healed but there is a lag while you are traded or whatever. To be killed is the mark of an amateur."
"What happens if you don't die during the torture? You seemed happy that the demon killed you."
"Yes, you're catching on. The best tormentors leave their victims one cut, one slice, one stab away from death. That way you crawl away in the greatest misery, hiding yourself in the void, until..."
"Until what?" Will suddenly realized he had some sort of sickness that was indefinable, to ask that question.
"Until you want more," she said quietly and the triumphant voice had become a whisper.
"That doesn't make any sense...why would anyone want more of that?"
"The alternative is far worse," her voice had become so low that Will left the rusted hood of the Ford and went to her and looked down.
"There's no alternative that..."
"Yes there is," she interrupted. "Nothingness. The void itself. The total emptiness that's out there. How long can you sit in the dark without anyone or anything? Years? Centuries? Time has no meaning in the void and eventually your desire to see or feel...something, will overcome you and you'll crawl out of the blackness. You'll crawl, begging for the smallest contact."
She paused with a sad desperation on her face that suddenly turned icy. "That's why there'll be a great retribution. You see, I was becoming! After Auraghnash, I dedicated myself to inflicting pain. At first, I had to be subtle and conniving, dreaming up ways to get back at the demons that would hurt me. But soon even the lesser creatures avoided me. I had just mastered that slimy bastard, Juloo-anh-kjji when you came."
She shook her head and Will saw blood spray from it—a fine healthy red spray. It was a vision of the future. He looked up at the church expecting gunfire, but there was nothing. His hatred for her that had been burning a hole in his stomach, quite suddenly changed to concern. She'd be shot in the head—and it would be soon—but just when, he didn't know.
In his vision part of a white wall was visible behind her. For a moment, he couldn't picture the interior of the church, but then it came to him; dark brown for the chapel, but some of the office walls were painted white.
He glanced down at Talitha again. She was just sitting there, looking just like his sister, but then she turned her dead eyes on him. They were eyes that were windows to an empty soul.
She didn't notice his look. "When you came into the void, I thought it was dad at first," Talitha said quietly. "He was always so heroic...and you were always such a pussy. With all that light around you, I honestly couldn't tell. Wow, what a fight that was..." she paused, looking again on a happy memory of death. "But then you stopped Ba'al Zubel, the tyrant and...and...you ruined me. I've become soft and slow and so, so weak! All the great pain I had caused! All the treachery...I played the game like a master..."
"But that was in hell!" Will broke in. "It's expected. No one would ever blame you for what happened there. And those men in the hospital...they were raping you, it was self-defense. You see yourself as this great evil thing, but there is good in you, despite your denials. I see it every Sunday morning."
"I don't deny there's good in me. You understand compartmentalization, correct? I have perfected that. In the void, I took your sister and I put her in box and hid her deep within me. I thought I was protecting her...myself I mean, but as time went on, she became a drag on me, a hindrance and I started to crush her little cage! The bigger I got, the smaller her cage became. Sometimes I would look down at her and wonder why I ever bothered keeping her about. But you never throw away something that might have future value, and she has come in handy with you Willy J! Every Sunday morning you're putty in her hands. She acts all sweet and innocent, knowing all the while that I'm torturing you! Do you like that sweet virginal look? Do you do her when I'm not around?"
Will's shoulders slumped. His concern for her had dried up like withered leaves and was being blown away by her constant diatribe. He felt like driving away—far away and never coming back.
"Ooh, look at your poor face!" Talitha cried in delight. "I never realized how much fun this would be. I should've told you this years ago."
"I think I'm done. I'm going home; try not to kill too many people." He walked back to the jeep, no longer worrying about the men in the church.
Still in the shade of the Honda, Talitha called out, "Did I go too far? That's the trick, right? Lead them up the edge, but don't let 'em step over."
"Sorry, but I'm stepping over." He climbed in and felt old. Far older than his twenty-five years.
"Then you don't want to know about how your sweet little Talitha, the good one...is a killer too?"
He was just shutting the door and it froze inches from closing. When he looked up, she was smiling at him. She began to hike up her flowered Little House on the Prairie dress and her tan thighs with their smooth muscles were already well in view.
He turned away. "That was you, not her."
She sing-songed, "Yes it was! Some of them at least...ask her about the bodies."
"No...I'm leaving."
She said nothing to this but still smiling she closed her blank dead eyes.
"I won't," he called to her as she opened her eyes and looked around.
"Hey what...aren't we late for church?" She checked the expensive watch on her left wrist. "What's going on? Why am I..." It was Talitha, his Talitha. She suddenly had a slight panicked look to her, and she began sniffing the air. "Will! Someone has a gun...in the church, I think."
She glanced down at her legs, which were exposed up to her pink panties and shock splashed across the troubled waters of her features. Yanking down her dress, she spun on one knee so that she could peer over the hood of the Honda.
"Did you know? Did she tell you...about the gun?" she asked.
The urge to leave his sister and never come back was a heavy weight in his chest. He stared at the steering wheel hating himself for his thoughts but also hating her more. "Sorry," he muttered to himself and put the jeep in reverse and that was when a breathless Talitha hopped in.
"Why are you stopping? We got to get out of here! Do we...uh, do you know who they are?" she asked with a wild frantic look in her eyes. He sat, wondering why he kept coming back to her every week and the feeling of apathy towards her grew stronger. "Will, come on! Move the jeep!"
"Why?"
"Why? She...I...I...we," Talitha spluttered and he could see the fear expanding in her eyes, like weeds growing and corrupting the fine rich lawn of her mind. "It's just ...we have to leave, before..."
"Before what? Before you kill them?"
She began to cry, then. Her tears were very real and they fell with abandon. She pleaded with him. "Yes, she will...I can sometimes hear echoes of her thoughts when I come back. She's being challenged, it's the gun, you see? That's why we hav
e to get out of here."
Will saw the half second of his vision again, the gun and the blood, and he shook his head to clear it. There was a chance, a good chance that he could stop the vision from coming true, but he didn't know if he wanted to. He had a child to think about now and if Talitha was killing people when he wasn't around, perhaps it was for the best if this was the end.
He had tried.
The Lord knew he had tried to help his sister. He'd actually allowed himself to hope that she was slowly getting better. But it seems it was just a ruse.
"Get out of the car," he said.
"What? Will, you can't! Please don't do this. Don't leave me here all alone. She'll kill them...maybe all of them...the whole church, Will. You don't know what she's capable of."
"No it's you...I don't know what you're capable of."
"What? I would never kill those people."
"You've killed before, why not now?" he asked, his voice loaded with accusation.
She looked as if he had just slapped her. Her eyes were wide and the tears, which had never stopped, picked up their tempo. "I...am not going to talk about that. That was different...this is worse...please drive the car, please."
His insides turned to granite at her confession and he said quietly, but with conviction, "Not with you in the car."
"Take me with you please...please, please!" She wilted in front of him and the years melted away so that she appeared to be the little girl he had played with and shared everything with. But the granite wall of his heart dismissed that girl as well, fearing it to be another fake. She reached out to touch his arm and he shrank away from her.
"Don't touch me! I'm done, Talitha. I'm done with all of this. You've been using me—just so I would dream your messed up dreams for you!" His anger was a physical thing that she shrank back from.
"You're wrong. She's the one using you..."
"You're the same person!" he shouted into her face.
"We are and we aren't...it's complicated. But Will I... I..." she blinked rapidly, looked around the inside of the jeep, and gave a quick glance at her watch.
Talitha reached up and felt her tears. She gave him a snotty look and asked, "Did you have a good cry? Was it a touching brother-sister moment?"
Will's heart sank at the sight of Talitha's dead eyes. They were so black that the pupils were nearly lost. She wiped away the wet of her face and leaned back against the jeep's door.
"Talitha and I, we never talk," she said this as if they were gal pals having a chat about their first date. "So you're going to have to tell me everything. How did she kill them? What did she do with the bodies?"
"She didn't...wouldn't talk about it. You didn't give me enough time. Maybe if you brought her back."
"Sure that sounds like a swell fucking plan. You two will have a nice heart-to-heart while you drive who-knows where." She leaned towards him and Will slid back in his chair, but she only took the keys from the ignition. He knew she would throw the keys at him then and she did a second later. He blocked it with his forearm and it hurt, but his only other option was to lose an eye.
"Nice catch shit-for-brains. Now pick 'em up and know this, if you try to leave there'll be a lot more blood on your hands."
With that, she slid smoothly from the Jeep, the stone once more bouncing up and down in her hand. "Come on!" she barked at him.
Will bent down and retrieved the keys from the floorboard as panic started to flow outwards from his chest. She was in a mood for blood and he didn't know if he'd be able to even slow her down. He knew that there were at least two men to look out for in the church. He could picture their faces with his vision and neither looked like lightweights.
Walking to the church, Will asked, "Talitha, shouldn't we at least try to talk to them before..." Before she slaughters everyone? Was that going to happen?
"Maybe, we'll see. You don't understand me very well do you? I suppose it's not your fault being as dim as you are. I don't always kill for the fun of it. Sometimes there's a reason behind it." She giggled at this, but Will, sweating through his church-going jacket and tie didn't see anything funny in it.
At the front of the church, she gave him a slow venomous smile and he felt her hand on the back of his jacket. She gripped him in such a way that he knew she was in charge. After a tiny pause, she gave him a shove, keeping her hand on his back and he opened the doors to the church.
There was an odd moment of silence broken by the sound of an organ. It was a fine, old organ, that hadn't been played well once in the four years he and Talitha had been coming to the church. Their usual seats were just to the side of it, because Talitha like to feel the vibration of it along the pew as it was played. The church laid out before them was nearly full and the singing was loudly exuberant. The organist, Mrs. Fishbon, a sweet lady with sausages for fingers, was playing a congregation favorite.
Talitha held him silhouetted in the doorway. Feeling terribly vulnerable, he looked back at his sister. Her eyes were no longer dead, but were hard and alive with the chance to kill. They flitted about the room and she took in every detail of the congregation, until she seemed satisfied and directed him to the office door to their right.
The door sat open a few inches and Will, feeling even more like a human shield than ever, was pushed through it, but held just inside. The office seemed larger than it had from the outside, mainly due to the fact that it held little besides two large leather bound chairs. Will was surprised to see his priest from his days on Governor's Island, Father Alba, seated in one of them. Flanking him a few feet on either side, were two men—one of whom was a giant of man.
The giant, wearing faded blue jeans and an enormous Boston Celtic's hoodie, stood towering over the room just to the right of the empty leather chair. Will guessed his height to be about six feet eight inches, but his weight was beyond his ability to even make a stab at. He wasn't fat, but was thick and huge with muscle. His face, sporting scars and a crooked nose, suggested that he had seen his fair share of fighting.
The other man to Will's left had an air about him that fairly screamed Cop. He wore a tired-looking suit and at six feet, he wasn't small, but appeared so when compared to the giant.
In his periphery, he could tell Talitha was taking in the scene as well and after a moment, she pushed him further into the room and shut the door behind her. With a shove Talitha moved him forward and slightly to the right so that Will ended up a few feet from the giant. The man shifted his stance, spreading his legs to just over shoulder width apart and now looked ready for action. Will swallowed hard at the sight. Generally, he thought of himself as a big man, but next to this guy he felt like a little kid.
"Father Alba, it's so good to see you." Talitha stepped out from behind Will and beamed at the priest. It had only been five years since Will had last seen Alba, but the man had aged greatly. His thin hair had become thinner still, but it was his face looking ragged and on edge that made him look like it had been closer to twenty, rather than five years.
Father Alba, sweating and failing to appear calm, smiled back nervously. "It's good to see you as well. And you Will."
Will nodded at the man, he was so keyed up that he didn't trust himself to speak.
Talitha wasn't nervous in the least. "It may be good to see you...but not to smell you, whoa! I could smell your own personal brand of cowardly stench from the parking lot. Even with these goons you brought, you're practically pissing yourself." She tossed the stone absentmindedly up and down as she spoke.
"Talitha, this is important. Forget them..." Father Alba began.
"Are you telling me what to do? Do you think that just because you're a priest, you can talk to me this way?" The cop stepped forward, looking hard at Talitha and she smiled at him. "Hello handsome," she said with a sexy purr.
The stone she had been carrying, she suddenly lobbed in a light under hand toss, high in the air to the man. It flew up lazily and floated as if it were feather light and that was when Will saw the attac
k coming. Unfortunately, his eyes were on the rock as Talitha had designed and as Will took a step forward, he suddenly found his legs kicked out from under him.
As Talitha had tossed the stone, she had dropped immediately into a spinning blur, her left leg out and extended, inches from the floor. She struck Will's lead leg with such force that it flew up and his body followed after. He was on in his back in a blink of an eye and he was able to watch as Talitha, smooth as a dancer, let the momentum of her spin carry her in a complete circle.
She rose like an ice skater in her turn, so that even as the cop foolishly reached to his right to catch the stone, she sprung at him. Her face held a startling look of happiness overlying her evil and she danced into the man lightly. Her right hand slipped under his jacket and her left, she held close to her body, but with the palm of it on the man's chest. They were nose to nose and her malicious joy was on full view as she gave him a light Eskimo kiss, before thrusting out with all the force in her left arm.
The man flew back with a stupid, startled look on his face, leaving his gun behind, looking gigantic in Talitha's right hand. His feet struck the side of one of the leather chairs and he somersaulted over it before hitting the far wall.
The giant reacted quickly, especially for a man of his size, but in this instance he was too slow. Talitha snapped her arm around at him pointing the gun into his face. He stopped in mid-stride and stared down at the girl, looking past the gun, which was flat black and impossibly large in her small hands.
The singing outside the room ended abruptly then, and there was a huge silence in which the springs of the inner workings of the gun could be heard distinctly. She was slowly drawing back the trigger as well as drawing out the last moments of the big man's life with sweet torturous ecstasy.
The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set Page 41
