He sighed wearily. "I will...but tell me, is it true? Everything he said about the last demon, back in New York. Was there really some sort of witch?"
Will was too emotionally and physically spent to tell that sad story. He sat listening to Lisa tell it and hearing it again only made him more tired.
Lisa however was in full throttle in the depths of the story, adding color here and flavor there, until it sounded almost epic. Somehow, she left out the part where he had vomited right outside the house and there was no mention of him pissing himself. It didn't matter that it was only a few drops, he had still been that scared.
Watching her rambling on, with the giant hanging on her every word, made him sad for her. Lisa was basically friendless and had a need to talk and to listen like everyone else.
Bangor was an old city filled with old people and though they had tried, Will and Lisa had made no lasting friendships. When Will was away frequently, either on business or dealing with Talitha, and while he was gone Lisa was a veritable hermit and when he returned he would steel himself for the inevitable verbal avalanche.
Will was luckier with friendships; his business had him coming into Boston about once a month and he was close with many of the people he sold software to and could always count on having dinner with someone while in town.
His father and he owned a company that developed banking software. It was actually a triumvirate. William's job was to discover areas where new software was needed, or where updates on old programs could be used. He would give the ideas to Will who would then pitch them to Talitha, this usually occurred on Sunday mornings when she was in the best mood.
Talitha was a self-taught programmer, it was something she picked up with natural ease and she looked upon the challenges that Will would throw at her as if they were a great puzzle.
Will's position was the actual sale of the software. His ability to foreseen the future made his job closer to public relations than to sales. He would know even when dialing a phone number whether or not a sale was going to happen and if wasn't, he'd just hang up and go on to the next person on his list.
It was a very lucrative business and he could afford to buy Lisa the finest things. But life was funny that way; she didn't particularly care for high living and was content with building her family and her home. However, she did spend money flying out of the tiny airport in Bangor for visits, either with her brother, now living in Florida or with Will's parents in Arizona.
His parents weren't doing well; Will and Lisa would visit them at least three times a year. William was a shadow of his former self and Will had dreamed of his father's coming death many times. The death changed with every dream, but the pain never did, it only grew as his remaining days ticked away.
Early on, Will had warned his mom, who had only smiled sadly, already knowing the truth.
William had been steadily losing weight over the years, since his confrontation with the demon and now was hollowed-cheeked and rail thin. Scores of visits to a myriad of doctors ended last year when William discovered they had run out of new tests and were now just replaying his past favorites. Simply put, there was no medical explanation for what was happening to him, but his family knew the reason. He had sacrificed himself for all them, his death being only delayed.
He didn't seem to mind and despite overwhelming exhaustion, he was optimistic and happy at Will's every visit. Katie too was always happy to see them and was now practically giddy with the idea of becoming an aunt. She seemed to grow six inches with every visit and was now a long-legged beautiful freshman.
Outwardly, she seemed to be the only member of the family unaffected by the terrible night eight years prior, but Will knew better. Despite being tall, tan, and gorgeous, Katie seemed to have a deep-rooted hardness in her eyes, which could flare out if she became angry. Sometimes that hardness would be accompanied by a savage smile that reminded him of their father, back in the day.
Will smiled at the thought of his little sister and patted his wife's baby bulge gently. His own child would be blonde as well; he knew of course because he had dreamed her. When he was ever particularly down, it always helped to picture his coming child; she would be beautiful despite not having Lisa's fantastic green eyes. Hers would be a blue-green hazel that reminded him of images of earth seen from space.
Picturing his daughter's face elicited a long sigh that transitioned into a huge yawn. He felt what little energy he had depart with the yawn and knew he wouldn't be able to stay awake much longer. His eyes strayed to his sister, sleeping on the couch and a nasty thought struck him: if she were to wake up, which Talitha would it be?
Will dashed out to the garage and came back with the slimmest rope he could find. He carried Talitha upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms and tied her spread eagle to the four-poster bed there. Lisa hadn't protested this in the least and had left briefly, coming back with wind chimes that had once hung from their wraparound porch. These they secured to each of the ropes and when tested the chimes were muted but still sung loud enough to act as an alarm.
"Don't you think you're over doing it a bit?" Jim asked as they all stood staring down at the trussed up girl. "She may be insane, but she's just a girl and a small one at that."
Lisa craned her head up at him and glowered. "Just a girl? I'm just a girl, but I can still slit your throat while you sleep."
Jim blinked in surprise at this. "Look, I didn't mean to anger you, but she's awfully small, is all I am saying. I don't think she'll be able to tear apart this bed."
Will spoke up, "She's very strong, Jim. I don't know if she can..." His brain suddenly lurched gently off the course of his conversation and he felt his hands go cold...
The water was icy cold and her hands and feet pained her greatly, she wished they would go numb already. A single rock jutted from the placid river; she slapped the shirt down hard upon it, Thwack!
The water was disturbed and rippling and she looked with satisfaction at the distorted images reflected up from the river. But it wouldn't do to let those waters calm too much and so she began scrubbing at the white shirt. She scrubbed. And scrubbed. It could always be whiter and it would eventually come clean if she just worked at it long enough.
Minutes later, a panicked feeling came over her, she had forgotten about the ripples and the water. Almost too late, she saw the surface lying down upon itself, becoming smooth and the images dancing upon its surface started to form into shapes that her mind could comprehend. Thwack! Just in time she had struck the washing stone with an exaggerated motion and the ripples were big ones, good ones...
"Hey...Will? You ok?" He heard Jim's voice coming to him and he blinked at the man giving him a long practiced embarrassed smile that was designed to show that he was just daydreaming...nothing more. Will looked around and saw that he was no longer by the calm river, but in a room with an insane person tied to a bed.
"He was just having a vision, he'll be ok," Lisa said with patience but also a touch of fear. "Was it important? Do you know if Talitha will be alright?"
He hadn't known before, but her asking the question triggered it and he did know now; Talitha would recover. A part of him, a part that he hated, felt keen disappointment at the knowledge.
"I'm good...I'm good. It was only a weird picture in my mind...nothing to do with this. But Talitha will get better...eventually."
Lisa looked anxious at the statement and Will knew she must've felt the same disappointment. "She will? Do you know how long it'll take? I'm just saying, I know you, Will. You're going to want to go to Boston and save the day, but you can't leave me with her."
"Don't worry. I would never leave you with her. In fact, if she does get better and needs a place to recover, I'll want you to clear out, maybe go look for a new place for us," he responded.
Lisa's face looked pained at the thought. She had put so much time into feathering her nest here in Bangor, that it would be a great hardship for her to leave it.
Will continued, "But you're wrong about me
wanting to go to Boston...we aren't giving up the sword and it may be days before Talitha is well enough to go. It just doesn't make sense for me to go."
Jim's face grew dark at this. "Without the sword, the girl may be our only chance at saving those children."
"I know, but I can't make her get better! For all we know, it could be a week before she even wakes up and those children can only go a couple of days without water. Besides, I'm sure the real exorcist will be there soon."
"They didn't call one," Jim said matter-of-factly. At the shocked look on their faces, he explained, "You don't understand the hierarchy of the church. Since there are children involved, the first thing they would've done was call the police."
Lisa was shocked. "You haven't called the police either? They could've searched the guy's house or apartment by now."
"The police know who he is already and they've been all over the man's place and got nothing. And I can tell you, they won't get anywhere questioning the demon! As for an exorcism, the man practically took a bath in Holy water and ignored Father Alba, when he commanded the demon to leave. A real exorcist won't come with magic powers, you know. Supposedly, it's a long drawn out process and can take many days. The kids will be dead well before then."
There was silence in the room and Talitha drew their eyes to her. They stood staring at her unconscious body and Will felt his chest thicken and start to ache. He'd have to go to Boston. His visions were likely the only way those children would be saved. He looked at his wife and saw in her eyes, that she knew it too.
"Go be the hero, Will. Go save the day! I knew this would happen, but remember, you have a child too." Her eyes held accusations and angry fear.
"I don't want this, you of all people know I don't want any part of this," he said to her, avoiding looking into her eyes. Her look had hurt him.
"Maybe you don't, but you're like your dad was, heroic to a fault."
She was so wrong. The picture of his emaciated father, dying decades too soon came to him and Will knew he wasn't half the man his father was. Without his gift, his curse as he always thought of it, he would be nothing. He was no hero even with it.
His shoulders slumped as the heavy layers of exhaustion suddenly became too much. A glance at his watch showed that it was just past six pm.
"Sometimes I wish I were like him, but I'm not. I'm not what you think I am at all...right now I'm working on a dozen excuses to get out of going to Boston. I don't want those children to die; I just don't want to have to be the one that saves them. Does that sound heroic?"
She gave him a sad smile. "Are you going to Boston?"
"I have to."
"Then yeah, it does sound heroic." Another batch of tears skated effortlessly down the smoothness of her cheeks, "Go to bed. You look so tired...Jim and I will take turns watching over Talitha."
Jim nodded his large head and Will kissed his wife good night. He stumbled to his room, fighting to stay awake long enough to undress and without a single thought as to whether a girl with a head wound such as Talitha's could dream, he fell deeply asleep.
Just around 8 pm, Talitha's mind started kicking out dream after horrendous dream.
Torture befell Will, turning the night into an endless agony, and it was just as dawn broke that Will dreamt of the stream. He was being tortured by a creature that was similar to a man, however, he had too many arms. These sprouted at odd angles from his body and the creature possessed a machine that seemed designed as he was. It had too many arms as well, but these ended not with hands but with barbed hooks.
The hooks were flatter than normal, and Will guessed their wicked purpose quickly upon seeing them, therefore it was no surprise, when the man-like creature slipped them under Will's skin. The machine came alive and began twisting his flesh. It was very painful, but worse was seeing his skin looking dreadfully like spaghetti entangled around a fork. The sight was horrendous and he vomited great heaping hot chunks. However, the man-like creature was mediocre in his artistry and Will choked on the vomit as it lodged in his throat and he died right there.
Death in hell is never permanent. Will found himself walking along a riverbank. Kicking a stone into the calm waters, he knelt down hurriedly to start his laundry, it was washing day.
Chapter 9
The Virgin's Sacrifice
At first, standing guard in the dark, dank corridor beneath the church had been terrifying. Sounds seemed to creep out of the darkness suggesting activity, sly activity from every hidden corner. It was especially true of the room at the end of the hall.
From that direction, not only was the slyness more pronounced, she could also hear screams and sometimes a knocking that would go on and on, until she was just out of her mind. But worse than the sounds was the silence. It was as if someone or something was listening for her and when it became too quiet she would feel a great desire to stay absolutely still and her eyes would be wide in the weak light.
Sister Mary Agatha's first shift had come at 8am just after Jim and Father Alba had gone off to get Eric Milner. That had been almost a day ago and during those long hours, she and Sean Shay had taken turns, three hours on, three hours off, sitting alone in the corridor. And now, after so long a time, the dark and the sly sounds no longer held the same heavy fear as before and it was becoming almost routine to hear the screams.
They had been worried at first that the children of the orphanage would hear the noise, but with the walls down here being so thick and the door so heavily built, the cries were imperceptible even when standing at the top of the stairs. Moreover, the screams weren't nearly as constant or as loud as they had been and the nun had the dreadful thought that the man was dying, being eaten alive from the inside out, by the demon. The notion shivered her and she glanced at glowing face of her watch, 3:26 am.
Time was different down in the corridor. It had only been three minutes since she last checked her watch, but it felt like ten. She was starting to have to fight the urge to look at it every few seconds and she wondered if this was how addicts felt.
Her wrist and the tiny contraption on it would frequently come up to eye level unbidden and she took to holding her hand over it, just to stop herself. But sometimes, out of the blue she'd see the watch right in front of her face and would realize she had let her mind wander and her wrist, left unattended, would feel the need to do its duty and show her that time was indeed moving at a snail's pace.
She blamed Jim Anderson.
Her mind fixated on him and after every check of her now hated watch, his smiling face would float out of the darkness and gloat at her. Father Alba had returned after dinner, disappointingly without the sword and perhaps worse, without either Jim or Eric Milner. He had told them that Jim would be coming soon, and along with the sword, he was unfortunately bringing some crazy girl back with him. However, he hadn't shown up and as the night progressed, the priest was getting terribly nervous for Jim, but she wasn't.
The nun couldn't picture any girl hurting a man his size and she thought it most likely that he was set up in some nice hotel and would be back later that morning. She pictured him sitting in one of those fancy Jacuzzi bathtubs and she imagined his great size overflowing the hot water, wasting it and she ground her teeth. Sister Mary had always wanted to try out one those tubs and she now pictured herself in it instead of Jim.
"Oh my!" she said quietly. It might have been all the coffee she'd been drinking to keep herself awake or the thought of the Jacuzzi, but either way, she felt a sudden great need to use the bathroom.
"Uhhh!" she was never quiet getting up out of the folding chair. Her size and her bad hip along with her age, made getting out of any chair quietly, an impossibility. But it was worse with the uncomfortable steel thing that dug into her spine and cut the circulation off from her legs.
Once up, she pressed her knuckles into her lower back and stretched, however the nagging pain there wasn't relieved. She hadn't really expected it to be. It would likely be with her for the next couple of
days, she thought as she waddled, in a slightly more pronounced waddle due to her stiffness. Though she had to use the bathroom, she first went to the door at the far end of the hall to listen.
There were no sounds that her aging ears could detect; however there was plenty of smell. The demon had been down in that black pit of a room for just over a day and had not once asked to use the bathroom, but somehow the smell was worse than it should have been. It was the smell of a rotting corpse, not a body freshly killed but one that was wet with decomposition and its nasty aroma crept along the cracks of the heavy door and it made her wince.
But there wasn't a body in the room, there couldn't be.
When the demon had demanded this particular room, both Father John and Father Alba had accompanied the man in, while she had stood in the doorway. The room looked as it always had—dark. Even with the light bulb swinging on its chain overhead, the room was dim and the shadows were large and had a physical presence, but there were no bodies and the smell was only that of fetid mildew and deteriorating wood. However, in the late afternoon of the day before, the smell had blossomed fully formed, and had sent the nun scurrying for Father John and Sean Shay.
They had stood outside the door and the smell had walked among them and covered them with its richness and with its evil. They had called out to the possessed man but had only received screams in answer. They mutually decided, with an unspoken agreement, that it was in everyone's best interest not to open the door.
Since then, the stench hadn't abated at all and it was an effort for the nun to keep from gagging as she kept her head bent down next to the door. There seemed to be no sign of life from the other side, but she had a terrible feeling that the demon was just there, just on the other side, listening for her, even as she listened for it. Stepping back away, she moved with the greatest silence she could manage down the sixty-foot hall to the stairs.
She didn't like the idea of leaving her post with the feeling of the demon being so aware, but nature was pushing at the tired walls of her bladder and she had to go.
The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set Page 45
