"He's referring to a garden level apartment," Talitha explained as if there could be no other answer.
Will became excited, "Yes exactly. And there was something on the peephole, a crest..." He went on to describe the vision in detail.
"You keep wanting to call this girl...Terry, you want to call her your Sister. I've heard it twice." Talitha stated. It wasn't a question, but it still seemed to demand an answer.
"When I'm in my dreams and visions, I become the person totally. So for the time I was Rick, Terry was my sister, not you."
"You have bad luck in sisters," Talitha spoke sadly.
"Not totally." He gave her a reassuring smile and when she smiled her thanks back, he added, "I still have Katie."
"Hey!" Now she smiled in fake indignation and the moment was a light one, but it didn't last and slowly all of their smiles faded into grim looks.
Jim was slightly confused about what happened and when, but was too embarrassed to say anything. Part of the reason of his confusion was that his mind kept straying to Talitha. He kept thinking about what had happened, trying to figure out at what point the other Talitha had shown up. But it was all a blur to him and it only left him with a sick guilty feeling.
"Jim? It's going to be soon," Talitha prompted him.
"Which part, the boy or wait... I'm confused," Jim finally admitted.
Talitha patted him on the arm. "Will looked into the future and saw Terry being kidnapped by Luke. Luke showed Terry a photograph of her brother, which he took earlier this evening in order to keep her quiet and that photograph triggered a second vision by Will, but this time it wasn't a vision of the future, but of the past. He saw Luke attacking Terry's brother...are you following me?"
"I think so. Will saw Luke attack Rick, take his picture, and then kill him. That happened in real life, about an hour ago. He also saw Luke attack Terry and kidnap her. That hasn't happened yet, but will in the next ten minutes or so." She nodded and Jim rubbed his head. "That's confusing."
"I agree, but our job is simple. Find the apartment, stop Luke, save the girl. Now, can't you go any faster?"
Jim shook his head. "I can't. I've had it floored this whole time." The old station wagon was dreadfully slow at top speed, but what was worse and they would find this out in a few minutes, was its acceleration rate.
"Down there, those buildings all lit up. That's the campus. I think the park is just beyond it about a mile." Jim pointed, turning off the highway. A half a mile from the park Talitha had him turn parallel to it and they began searching apartment buildings.
"Will, what about those coming up on the right?" Talitha called out as they came up on the first. A tall brick building, which seemed dark and broody, lit only sporadically on its front. "Never mind, no garden level; go Jim," she added with a little touch of anxiety.
He didn't need the encouragement, he had already floored the gas pedal, but the car was so sluggish, it barely chugged along and picked up speed slowly.
Again, it was Talitha who spotted the next apartment building, "There's another one, a block down." She seemed to see well past the range of the headlamps and even the thick misty rain didn't limit her vision noticeably.
This apartment turned out to be a bust also, as were the next three they found, not one having a garden level. However, the one after that did and they raced from the car like television cops, Will completing the image, running with the pistol in his hand. They found the doors locked and just as Talitha made to kick it in, Will told her it was the wrong place. He had been peeking through a window and saw there were no crests like the one he had seen on the any of the doors.
Without a word, they ran back.
Jim began to feel like a fading yo-yo. With every new building, his hopes would rise within him and with every bust, they would sink back down. But after fifteen minutes, the highs didn't get to high and the lows were getting lower.
"We're too late," Will spoke dejectedly. "I know...I can feel it. He's got her now."
"There's still a chance," Talitha said. "Keep going, Jim, but circle closer."
They found the right place ten minutes later—The Camelot. They hurried in, but with a lack of urgency and Will kept the gun hidden. The front doors of the building were flung wide, as was Terry's apartment door.
There was nothing to see.
Terry, despite a messy bathroom back home, was overall a neat freak and the apartment was spotless, she even had floor mats on both sides of her front door. They searched anyways.
Actually, Talitha searched, while Jim kept out of her way and Will stared, tears leaking from his eyes at the refrigerator where Terry had stuck pictures. Some were of friends, but most were of her brother and mother.
After twenty minutes of meticulous searching, Talitha gave up. She gave Jim a sad look and then they both looked at Will.
He felt their eyes on his back as stood in front of the pictures. "I can't do it. I can't look into the future anymore. This time for real, I'll go crazy, insane, cuckoo for coconuts. I feel myself slipping away even now...it was worse in the car, when it got quiet. I could hear their voices, and see their faces..."
"Will!" Talitha spoke sharply to focus him. "I don't want you to look into the future, ok? I'm sorry now that I even considered it. We'll find another way. Do you believe me?"
"Yes," he whispered and a moth had stronger voice that he did. She went to him and hugged him with a soft but fierce love and he sobbed for just a second before he fought to control himself.
"There you go, Will. Dad would be so proud if he knew what a man he had for a son," she said, still with his arm around her brother. "Now this is going to sound weird coming from me, but I'm clueless. How do we find Luke?"
"You think I'm supposed to know?" he asked in disbelief, his features rising only enough to show his surprise and then they sunk back down again.
Jim had an idea, but he was nearly too embarrassed to bring it up, "We could check into the fortune tellers around here, you know, gypsies? Lisa said gypsies were behind the last possession and you had that weird dream."
"Smart thinking, Jim." Talitha gave him one of her smiles that were so precious to him.
"We'll start there, but it may be a dead end." Will said. "He may not need a gypsy. After all, he was working some sort of incantation on his own."
"Maybe," Talitha acknowledged. "But in the dream it wasn't him, it was a lady."
"Either way, it'll be too late for Terry." Will glowered at this, showing some iron in his spine. Jim felt it too, an impotent fury, which he had a strong urge to vent.
"We'll start in the morning," Talitha said taking Will by the arm and leading him out of the apartment. "You two look like you're the walking..." she paused. "What is that?"
Talitha stopped and her eyes flew wide. Moving in a blur, she shoved Will into the hall and then spinning, she sent a back kick into Jim's stomach. The air blasted out of him and he reeled, stumbling into the apartment.
Chapter 25
Reunited
Jim had nearly forgotten the dull ache in his ribs from the blow Will had dealt him, however Talitha's spinning kick not only knocked the air from his body, but it brought that pain screaming back. It hurt so bad that he had trouble getting to his feet.
Will didn't even try to get up.
From his position on the ground, he yanked out the pistol and had it aimed straight into Talitha's butt. Jim gaped at the strangeness of her position. After kicking him, she had done the oddest thing possible in that situation; she dropped to her hands knees and bowed low to the doormat as if in prayer.
"Did either of you wipe your feet on the mat?" she asked in a voice, loud with excitement.
Jim couldn't answer, he was still struggling at finding his wind, but Will spoke and there was sudden dangerous steel in his voice, "Playtime's over Talitha. I will shoot you in this position, but it's going hurt more than I want it to. So sit up slowly and put your hands behind your head and I'll make it quick."
"What? I asked if you..." she looked back now and saw the gun. "Will, it's me, the real Talitha. I was with you when you had your vision of Rick and Terry, ok?"
"No, it's not ok. Why did you just attack us?" The gun hadn't lowered, it still aimed square into her backside.
"I'm sorry if I hurt either of you, but I was worried you would step on the mat. I think Luke wiped his feet on it."
Jim groaned in a tortured voice, "I didn't wipe my feet, at least I don't think I did."
The gun came down. "I don't remember," Will stated flatly, but his eyes were still hard. "What does it matter?"
"The mat has the same smell as the factory, but there's also the smell of burnt wood on it, like the ash from a campfire. It's very faint. It may be possible that Luke went back to the factory before coming here."
"And he may be going back as well," Will said getting to his feet and without another word, he turned and headed to the car. Jim and Talitha followed him out into the night.
It no longer rained, but there was a mist in the air and cold settled on Jim. He pulled his coat tighter about him and noticed then, that not only was Talitha not wearing a coat, her dress hung still quite damp from when she had sat in the shower.
He stripped off the coat and put it out for her to take; she refused. "I'm fine really. You need it more than me."
"Please take it," he insisted, but when she opened her mouth to refuse again, he opened the coat up and physically put her arms through the sleeves. It felt good to touch her skin, even in the innocent manner that he just had and it felt even better when she couldn't stop smiling.
"A fool and his coat are soon parted, as the saying goes." He held the car open for her and she dipped her head in thanks and climbed in. Jim jogged around the car, pretending not to see the glare that Will gave him from the back seat.
Jim set the slow station wagon on a course to the factory and turned up the heat in the car as high as it would go, it wasn't very high.
"Take the coat back, I'm fine," she said resolutely.
Will had stopped glaring and instead was actually smiling. "She is fine, Jim. She doesn't feel cold anymore."
"Well that's not entirely true. I feel cold, I just regulate my temperature so that it doesn't bother me," she responded.
"You're keeping the coat until you get dry clothes or until you point a gun at my head." Jim growled playfully. "I've wanted to ask you since I met you, how do you do all these things? You can smell as good as a dog; you stay warm when it's raining and cold out. How?"
"I'm going to assume you meant my sense of smell is equivalent to a dog's, unless you think dogs smell particularly sweet?"
"Just answer the question. You know what I meant." He wanted to give her a glare, but he felt the little flare of happiness that always accompanied his talks with her and he could only purse his lips at her.
"The human body, yours or mine is an amazing instrument, with capabilities far greater than any person, myself included, has ever discovered. When I came back from the void, I was able to enter my body as a stranger would, and explored it, not in the limited fashion of a newborn, but as a person fully formed and mature, and as a person who had not had a body in hundreds of years.
"It was this exploration, or rather experimentation, that showed me how I could control my body if I willed it. Take for instance my body temperature that you asked about. We both can raise our body temperatures, but you can only do so, involuntarily in response to certain external stimuli, such as the presence of bacterial or viral infection. In other words, when you are sick, you get a fever. I on the other hand can regulate that part of my brain, the hypothalamus to such an extent as to raise and lower my temperature at will. Now of course there are limitations, I can't walk about at the North Pole in my underwear and expect to live for more than a couple of days."
Jim nearly missed what she said next. He was picturing her walking around in her underwear.
"Regulation is also key to many other attributes of mine, which you might find extraordinary. Let's take my sense of smell, as another example. Humans have a very insignificant number of receptor cells compared to, say a dog, but that isn't their most limiting factor." She paused for a moment and then asked herself, "How can I put this...let's say you walk into a chocolate factory, what you'll smell and only smell is chocolate. The reason for this is that you cannot control your receptors, which will become quickly overloaded, while I will allow some receptors to smell the chocolate but leave some free for other purposes.
"So you and I and a dog enter the chocolate factory. You will only smell licorice, the dog will smell mostly licorice, but since it doesn't really care for licorice, it may smell body odor and a turkey sandwich if there's one lying about. It can't control its receptors either, or it's brain, so that unless it's highly trained, it will now smell that sandwich above all else. Lastly, I will smell everything, albeit without the same intensity as the dog would, but certainly with more purpose. I will keep freeing up receptors as I analyze the different smells, so in this way, Jim, you might say I smell better than a dog."
She stopped speaking for a moment and looked back at her brother and then to Jim. "Hopefully, I'm not boring you. Science is usually fun only to those who are interested in it."
"For me every subject in school was only good so long as I had a good teacher," Jim said. "You should go on, I'm learning a lot."
"Well, what else would you like to know?" she asked Jim, but Will spoke up from the back seat.
"How do you heal so fast? That's a trick I'd like to learn."
She gave Jim a look and he nodded indicating he would like to know as well. "The easy answer is that I heal the same way anyone does, but just at a faster rate. It's control again. When you scratch yourself, your body gets the signal that there is an abrasion and it sends out its little maintenance crews to fix the problem. However, your maintenance crews are busy fixing a thousand other problems you may not even be aware that you have. In addition, there are finite recourses available, such as vitamins, minerals proteins, fats etc. These are going everywhere throughout your body and may not go where you think they should.
"I heal fast merely by concentrating my bodies recourses on what I deem important and putting on hold those that I don't. For instance, because of the break in my arm and other lighter injuries, my hair and nails haven't grown at all, and my bones are about six percent behind in their reformation cycle...do you want to hear about osteoblasts?" she asked hopefully.
"Osteoblasts? Are they a kind of..." Jim started to say, but was interrupted by Will, who had a peculiar greenish tint about him.
"Excuse me? Jim? Can you pull over at that Liquormart?" Will's voice was tight with a hint of his earlier choking. Talitha looked back at him in concern.
"Have you seen something?"
"Nothing new...nothing I didn't know already...thanks Jim," he slid out of the car and hurried inside the over-bright liquor store. Talitha and Jim watched him walk up and down the aisles taking short fast steps.
"I guess we will find Luke tonight for certain," Talitha's face was tight with worry for her brother and her eyes followed him about. "Do you think it's smart to go after someone as dangerous as Luke, with Will being drunk?"
"There's no saying he'll be drunk and after his night, I don't blame him if he were. I could use a drink myself." Jim actually felt a different need, but Talitha beat him to it.
"I'm sorry I punched you in the face," she said looking at him as a little girl would, with her pointy little chin down, barely meeting his eyes. "I reacted on instinct, without thinking. And I know what happened...the thing...wasn't your fault and I'm sorry that I've been acting as if it was."
Jim felt like he had been punched a second time. He was even slightly light-headed. "You don't have anything to apologize about. Certainly not the punch. And the other thing...the r-rape." The word came out with difficulty, and in nearly a whisper. "That was my fault. I fooled myself into thinking I ever had a chance with you. I led myself
down that path and all your other self did was open the door a crack and I walked right in."
She glared at him slightly. "I'm not as superficial as you would think, Jim." His brows came together with confusion and she went on, "It means, I don't judge the book by the cover, rather I judge it by its merits. I was always this way, but the void instilled it deeper into me. Sometimes the cruelest creatures would appear to be a fine handsome man or an innocent little girl in pigtails."
"Oh, so where does that leave us?" he asked. Jim's heart was filled with such astonished hope, that it felt feather light and instead of beating with its usual steady bass drum, it fluttered like a rabbit's.
She put on a confused little smile. "I don't know. I do know that I like you more than I thought that I would have, or even more than I thought I could have. And I know you like me. I can tell by the drool. You have some right there."
Talitha pointed to the side of his mouth and with embarrassment, he brought his hand to his face, but there was nothing there.
"Just kidding, sucka!" She giggled in her carefree way and he laughed as well, unable to restrain his happiness. There was a pause then as they looked at each other and Jim's heart still fluttered like before, but now it was a fluttering bass drum. He could feel the heaviness of his pulse washing through his ears.
They were going to kiss.
If any moment was made for kissing this was it and the fact was cemented as she slid across to him, but he hesitated.
"I'm worried."
"Are you worried that my breath will smell like a dog's?" she asked giving him her most impish of looks.
"No. I'm worried that you'll remember the rape when you kiss me," Jim said, trying to be as honest as possible.
"Then maybe my confession wasn't complete enough. Part of the reason, I held onto my anger for you, was that I was also angry with myself. Not only did I kiss you...but when you were knocked out, I could still feel you in me and my muscles still thrummed with...pleasure. I tried to hate myself for my feelings because...there was another boy."
The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set Page 67
