The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  "That would do you no good, Talitha," Vogel reasoned. "Clearly the future isn't set and by looking into it and seeing your death, you automatically invalidate the vision."

  "That's the fucking point!"

  The priest remained amazingly calm. "Your death is going to be a surprise no matter what you do. If you invalidate this vision, you're still going to die eventually and who knows, it could be in a much more painful manner. And for certain it will be for a far less noble cause."

  "Who gives a rat's ass about noble?" Talitha replied.

  "Talitha I want you to know that..." Will started to speak, but had to stop in midsentence. "I was going to say that if I could, I'd die in your place, however I can't say that with any honesty right now." Her brown eyes flashed dangerously, yet he continued, "Why should I? You keep telling me you're doomed to go to hell, why should I risk everything to keep you from hell for a few more years?"

  "I told you that you wouldn't understand."

  "Oh, I understand. It's because you're afraid," Will answered back in a loud voice. "Everyone else is afraid of the Void, but you're afraid of heaven. It doesn't make sense."

  "It's your fault that I'm not going!" At first she seemed all in a rage, but suddenly she looked desperate. "I can't talk about this right now, the stranger is right here with me. I can feel her, it's like she's looking over my shoulder."

  Vogel looked sidelong at Will, "Do something, tell her a story."

  "You tell her a story, I can't think of any." Will's mind had gone suddenly blank. All that occupied him was the fact that he had left a gun sitting by the bed where Lisa lay asleep and Talitha had an eight foot head start in that direction.

  Vogel nudged him and Will shrugged. The priest put on a fake smile. "Will, you should tell her why you've been lying to her all these years. You told her the story of that big dog, but you told a rather large lie in it."

  "What?" Unbeknownst to him, Will wore an embarrassed smile.

  "You're a terrible liar, Will. But please don't be offended, that's a good thing. People who are accustomed to lying, or who are morally ok with it, are the best liars. The way you lied, it seemed like a very rare thing."

  Talitha eyed the men in a strange manner and Will saw the back in forth in her eyes as the two personalities balanced each other out. He had lied, but since Talitha had never known, he didn't know if this was in fact the best way to get her on the right track.

  "What did you lie about?" Talitha asked with narrowed eyes.

  "It was nothing, really. I didn't cut my foot on glass like I said. That was it, that's all," Will answered.

  "Talitha, how did he cut his foot?" Vogel inquired.

  "Duh, he just told us this story," Talitha replied rudely. "He cut it on some glass."

  "But he also just admitted to lying," Father Vogel answered. "Think back. Do you remember the glass?" Talitha furrowed her brows trying to remember and Vogel continued, "Was it green glass, like so many bottles were made out of back then? Was it clear like the glass from a window? Did you step on any of it? He said he came up right behind you. Why weren't you cut as well?"

  "No, I don't remember the glass, but I'm sure there was some there." Talitha's eyes darted back forth scanning the table, scanning her memory. "We had just got away from Nancy when I noticed him crying and he was limping and there was all this blood. It looked like his foot had on a shiny red sock... wait, did Nancy bite you?"

  "Yeah, but I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to feel bad. I didn't want you to think it was your fault or something."

  "But it was my fault. I walked into the ring of death like an idiot and you saved me. And then when I went berserk and knocked you over, I remember you pushing me on." She began to pace, frowning as she did. "You were attacked by the dog so I wouldn't be. Is that right?" He nodded and she went on, "And you did it again with the demon. You risked your life for me. And also with the dreams. You did that for me."

  For some reason, she seemed angry over this and out of the blue, slammed her fist into the refrigerator, denting it badly, and showering the floor with pictures and magnets. "That's it, Will. No more. You can't save me anymore." When he started to protest, she held up her hand. "The other Talitha is gone for right now and I don't want her back just yet, so listen. Why I'm going to the Void when I die is my affair. You'll never know the reason, let alone understand it. That being said, no more. You were correct before, I'm a lost cause, so please don't try to save me. I am doomed."

  With her face set, Talitha stalked out of the room. "I need a drink. You guys want one?"

  "I wish, but we don't keep alcohol here," Will replied. "Remember Lisa's mom was a raging alcoholic?" He tossed the scissors down on the table, where they clanked heavily and came to rest open like a hungry alligator. Inside him, the urge to have a drink rose up demanding.

  Talitha popped her head back into the kitchen, she wore an odd expression. "I don't want to be a snitch, but Lisa has vodka here. Somewhere. Down the hall, I think."

  Why this was so important considering everything they were facing, he didn't know, yet still he got up quick. "Show me."

  Giving the air a light sniff, Talitha went to a little used closet that sat just off the den and opened the door. As she did, a red Christmas ball in a suicidal mood, leapt off a shelf and would have dashed itself to pieces on the hardwood floor below, but Talitha caught it neatly. She nestled it with a jumble of other ornaments, which sat on the tidy stacks of brown cardboard boxes that held their ever-growing number of holiday decorations.

  She fished out a bottle of Smirnoff from behind the boxes and held it out to Will. "This isn't a good sign."

  It certainly wasn't. Will took the bottle and sighed, feeling that he had let his wife down in some way. A fully formed image came to him: Lisa sitting at the kitchen table alone on a Saturday night. She poured an exact amount of the vodka into one of their kitchen glasses. He knew that amount never varied. Next, she added orange juice and then in defiance of reason, she put the ice in last. Drops of orange juice and vodka leapt over the edge of the glass and landed on the table, causing little lines to crease her forehead.

  She got up and wiped the few drops with a dishrag and then, neat as always, she rinsed out the rag and set it to dry. Only then did she start to drink.

  "This isn't like her," Will said mostly to himself.

  "And neither is this," Talitha added pointing to the closet.

  Will glanced up from the bottle and looked in. "What? That's how it always looks."

  "Actually it isn't," his sister replied picking up one of the Christmas ornaments. It was a small gold bell that tinkled in her hand. "There's not a stray mote of dust on any of these. This little pile was in a box not too long ago."

  She said it with some importance, but Will was missing what that could possibly be and she looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. "Do I need to spell it out for you? A box is missing. There is tape and scissors sitting out in the kitchen..."

  Finally, it clicked. "You think she mailed the sword somewhere?"

  "Yes, hold on." Talitha sniffed at the air, "She still uses Maybelline?" Before Will could respond, Talitha was moving down the hall toward the kitchen she went directly to the door and there next to it on a peg was his wife's purse. Talitha dug through it for a moment. "She went to UPS yesterday and spent forty-eight dollars. What's UPS?"

  "United Parcel Service," Will replied in excitement. "It's a delivery company. And the fact that she spent forty-eight dollars means that she had the sword sent over night."

  Father Vogel had trailed along after the brother and sister in silence, but now he spoke up, "Does the receipt say where she sent it?"

  "No," Talitha replied, but it didn't have too.

  Chapter 15

  Amy

  On the wall, a phone began to ring.

  "Don't answer that," Amy ordered. One of her thugs had reached his hand out for it. She couldn't remember this one's name. But to be honest, she could barely remember
any of their names except for Pedro and the one who called himself Diablo. "We'll let the answering machine get it. You do have an answering machine right?"

  The couple in front of her nodded as one. They were older than she had expected, especially the man. William Jern looked terrible, like he had a disease or something. He was dreadfully skinny and his hair which eight years ago had been blonde was now completely grey as well as sparse. His cheeks were hollow and thick dark bags sat puffy under his blue eyes.

  Gayle Jern, whom Amy couldn't help but think of as Mrs. Jern was better off. Her hair was still a thick rich brown, dappled only slightly by grey and her skin was a wonderful deep tan. Only about the eyes did her years stack up on her. They were enmeshed in wrinkles and lines that bespoke of the long burden of worry and now fear only added its weight. She looked about to cry.

  And that was too bad for her.

  Not that Amy was uncaring or unsympathetic, but if she couldn't get that gate open for Ba'al, she was looking at a long stretch, an eternity in the Void. And that scared her badly. Right there, sitting in the Jern's living room she felt her insides thrumming with nervousness. She had looked into the Void on too many occasions not to be properly afraid.

  The phone rang a second time and involuntarily she checked her watch. It was just after three. Nine hours left. Nine hours to fulfill a promise. The phone shrilled again. It made the silence on either ends of the ring uncomfortable and everyone, including the bored looking Mexican thugs wanted to answer the thing. After the fifth, the machine picked up and the room waited in mute expectation, but the caller hung up.

  "Where were we?" Amy leaned back relaxing. The phone call had bothered her. It had seemed almost too coincidental that it would start ringing so soon after she had entered the home. It had only been four minutes since her thugs had slipped into the unlocked ranch style home from three directions and found the Jerns sitting quietly in their kitchen. "Oh, yes. You were going to tell me when Katie will be coming home."

  "Actually, we weren't. That was an incorrect assumption on your part," William replied.

  He was wonderfully calm, and had steel in his eyes. Amy could appreciate this and truly wished her own father had been half the man William Jern was. And that steel should have been enough to stop her own mother from going after Talitha. That had been mistake number one. Instead, her mother should've gone after Lisa. No one would have cared, much less put their life on the line for her. Lisa's mother was a drunk and her father was always away. It would've been a snap, a piece of cake, but that was water eight years under the bridge now.

  "Mr. Jern, I only ask because I don't want her walking in here and accidentally surprising one of my men. Look at them. They appear to me a little trigger happy, don't you think?"

  They actually looked like a bunch of iguanas basking lazily in the sun. There were six men in the room lounging about the furniture or leaning against the walls and she had to fight the urge to scream at them to stand up straight. Amy hated their slovenly appearance, their poor manners, and most of all, she hated the fact that none could speak passable English. Yet for all that, they were dangerous and fulfilled a purpose.

  "She's running track. She'll be home at half past five," William stated, keeping his eyes hard on Amy's face.

  "See? That wasn't so difficult," Amy smiled, despite that William's words added to her anxiety. She had hoped the girl would be along sooner, too many things could happen in the next two and half hours. Even a simple thing like a neighbor stopping by for a visit could start a chain reaction that could unravel everything, and she was simply out of time for any new plans.

  It would have to be the sword. There was an opening on it somewhere and it was possible to expand it large enough to allow Ba'al to be set loose. Amy just wasn't sure exactly how, though she had an idea. Her mother had been killed by it and her soul sucked directly through it into the Void. Likely, the more souls that passed through the opening, the bigger it would get.

  Erosion on a metaphysical, level so to speak.

  Amy got up and paced about, trying to release some of the stress building in her. She wasn't really a killer; always, if she could, she had someone else do any actual killing that was needed. But in this case, she was pretty certain that she alone would have to do it. The thought made her neck ache and she rolled her head back and forth trying to relieve it.

  A picture on a credenza caught her attention and she walked over to it. At first, Amy thought it was a picture of her mother Henny Harris, but on closer examination, she saw that it was actually a young looking Gayle Jern. Although her mother had darker hair and more up top in the breast department, the two women could have passed as sisters. Amy laid the picture face down.

  "I like your home, Gayle." It was nice. It was styled as a sizeable 'T' shaped ranch and had long halls and tall ceilings. The main living area, the kitchen, living room, and dining room were separated by short three-foot high walls, which made the area look larger than it was. All the rooms were fashionably decorated and the floors were covered in white wall-to-wall carpeting. Too bad for the carpet, Amy thought. It was about to be ruined.

  "You have what you came for," Gayle pointed, without raising her arm, toward the brown box a few feet away. "Take that horrible thing and go," it came out as a whimper.

  Amy sauntered back toward them and tried to smile, but failed, her stress was too great. "I'll do as I please...Gayle." She had almost called her Mrs. Jern, which would've been laughable at the moment. "Have either of you touched it?"

  "Not today," William answered. "But I did eight years ago."

  Amy eyed the man closer. Was this what happened to a person who touched it? The idea made her nervous. "What about you, Gayle? Did you touch it?"

  Gayle shook her head. "No, never. Amy, please don't do this. You could tie us up and cut the phone lines and..."

  Amy rolled her eyes, interrupting, "Pedro, have your boys tie them up. Thanks Gayle. That was a good idea. Do you have any more?" When Gayle only put her head down, Amy smiled for real. "Good. Make sure those are tight," she said to one of the men who had come forward. Was it...Pablo? She couldn't remember.

  As he tied the couple up, Amy took a hold of the box. She sat herself on the glass coffee table in front of William Jern and stared at the ugly broken blade. Despite the fact that it looked like it had just been pulled from a fire, it emanated cold as if it was an open freezer door.

  "I wouldn't touch it I was you," William warned.

  Amy did anyway. "Uhg!" She had just put out a finger and barely made contact, but a ghastly sick feeling had run up her arm. "That's horrible. You killed my mother with that?"

  "I didn't, but I would have," William answered right back. "Your mom was a sadistic evil person and she deserved everything that she got."

  "Blah, blah, bah. Gag them both." Amy got up and walked away. She didn't want to see their pathetic struggles or hear any of their whining and she wished again that Katie were here. The virgin method for opening a gate was far less messy; a little blood, some hell-bred runes, a rather short incantation, and then step back.

  But she couldn't wait. Teenagers were terribly flighty and it would be just her luck that today would be the day that Katie would decide to go to the mall, or stay late and chat up some high-school boy.

  Breathing hard and with a face set in grim lines of determination, Amy came back to stand in front of the two; she would make this quick. "Close your eyes, Gayle. You don't want to see this." As she could have predicted Gayle didn't close her eyes but squirmed and wriggled ferociously. "Have it your way then."

  William didn't budge an inch, but only stared at her with his hard blue eyes. It was slightly off-putting and because of that, Amy didn't draw the moment out any longer than she had too. With a quick move, she caught up the sword and made to stab him in the chest, however she hadn't counted on the horror of the blade. The quick touch she had given it before was nothing compared to actually grabbing it. The metal was nasty and unnatural and it
was an effort to force her muscles to grip the handle and because of this, she made a weak fumbling attack.

  Still, the blade drove deep into the left part of his rib cage, but to the side of the heart and low. It went in easy. Perhaps even eagerly.

  Beneath his gag, William screamed. A second later, Amy screamed as well. She felt a sick vile suction drawing down her arm—something was pulling her in—drawing that part of her, the true essence of what it was to be Amy Harris out of her and into the blade.

  Fear and pain drove her into a frenzy and like a wild animal, she bucked and yanked at her own arm. The hilt of the blade seemed frozen to her hand and if she had an axe, she would've hacked it off at the wrist. Time meant nothing. Only the loss of her soul had meaning.

  But fortunately for her, William lost his soul first. She felt it rush down the blade, like a train on fire.

  With a shriek, she was able to pull her hand away—back she fell, tripping over the glass coffee table and the sword went flying, clanging against a far wall, but she didn't hear. Her ears were filled with the echoing screams that had come tearing up the blade. There had been millions of them, maybe even billions. Amy Harris, who was at that moment the greatest witch on the planet rolled onto her stomach and cried.

  Minutes passed this way, but at length her own sobbing and that of Gayle drowned out the fading echoes and she began to be aware of where she was. The room was cold.

  "Someone turn off the fucking air conditioning," her voice was a hoarse rasp. No one moved. Except for Gayle that is. She had somehow wriggled next her husband and cried over him. His eyes were open and his mouth hung slack. He looked as if he had aged thirty years before he died. Amy tried to stand, but was too weak and so for a few minutes she knelt on the white carpet next to a spray of red and looked about blearily.