The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  It was as if she were being drained of energy. It was the sword. Even through the thick sweatshirt, the thing was cold and she took to switching hands every ten or fifteen seconds as they went numb. The night was cooling as well; Katie began to shiver despite her exorcise.

  Up a head, there was a sheer outcropping of rock. It was a place she'd been to many times and was about three miles as the crow flew from her house. She staggered on towards it and ten minutes later, she pitched up panting, leaning up against the rock. Eagerly she set the sword down and after a minute of rest, she climbed as high as she could to get a good lay of the land.

  Almost immediately, the young girl saw a blaze of headlights turn into her driveway. Hope that her brother had finally arrived surged in her and she turned her ear hoping to hear the crackle of gunfire that would let her know that Will was even then saving their mother. But the house was too far away and she had no way of knowing if it was him. In her heart, she didn't believe it was. There had been two cars that had pulled up and as far as she knew Will was only coming with Talitha, who couldn't drive as far as Katie understood.

  She settled in, feeling relatively safe—no one could sneak up on her. Minutes ticked away and after twenty or so, a flash of light briefly lit the desert about a mile away, it was back along the route she had taken. A few seconds later, a fine crackling report of a gunshot came to her ears. This repeated itself a few more times and then stopped.

  She hoped they were shooting at each other. That would be good. Yet she couldn't count on that fact and she decided to get moving. Climbing down the rock, she picked up her loathsome burden and began jogging more closely north. A dirt trail that ran east to west lay in that direction and she planned to take it east for a couple of miles and then strike again south where there were more houses. Her jog lasted for only a few minutes, after that the sword sapped her energy and she took to walking and then a few minutes later to stumbling. She didn't get close to the trail. A mile from it she saw headlights heading from the east and she stopped. Was it her brother, who could see the future and might have found out where she was, or was it Amy using some sort of spell to find her?

  It was fifty-fifty. Katie ran back the way she came, reeling in fatigue and soon tears started to course their way down her cheek, she couldn't go far. Even if she ditched the sword right there she was practically done in, and she was far too afraid to throw the sword away. What would happen if they found it and killed her mother with it?

  Behind her headlights grew brighter and the sound of an engine roaring came across the waste. Katie tried to hurry faster but she ended up sprawling in the dirt. Forcing herself up, she looked back in time to see the headlights click off. Where could she go? The desert was wide and empty, with nowhere to hide. The tall bare rock that she had partially climbed was the only thing in sight; it beckoned to her and she made her way back to it.

  When Katie finally arrived, she climbed with frozen hands as high as she could, but it was nowhere near as high as she had climbed before, perhaps only twenty or so feet from the ground. Sheer exhaustion stopped her and she rested on a shelf of rock. It was supposed to be only a halt of a minute or so, but when she turned to move again, her muscles cramped up in her legs and she knew there would be no going any higher.

  The sword she pushed as far from her as possible and she sat back, leaning against the rock shivering with fear and cold. The only good thing about her spot was that due to the angle of the shelf, she had protection from bullets, at least as long as the thugs stayed on the ground. However, there wasn't much chance of that and since there were a number of ways up the rock, she could be attacked from more than one direction at once, she felt painfully vulnerable.

  With a light snick, disturbing the quiet air, she brought out her jackknife. Once she had been quite proud of it and the gleaming blade professed to this, but now it seemed pathetic and practically useless. She tested it against her thumb. It was very sharp and this was no surprise, since she had honed it herself in preparation for a day very much like this one.

  She had trained to fight. She had hardened her body and her mind. She had prepared like no child her age would ever consider. Her state of readiness had been fantastic. Yet it had all been for nothing. Just then, Katie lacked the strength to run or to fight. The most that she could hope for was to have the strength to die.

  Could she do it?

  Suicide was a sin. An unforgivable sin according to the priests. It was throwing away God's greatest gift—in essence, throwing it back in his face. But the alternative! Sucked into the Void as a plaything of Ba'al. She wouldn't go that way.

  "Katie!" Amy's voice called out. She sounded very close.

  "I'm sorry, Lord." Taking the razor sharp blade in her right hand, she made to slice into her left wrist.

  A sound came from just below and Amy said, "I know you're up there, Katie."

  With her shaking hands and the suddenness of the voice, the blade slid into her wrist almost smack dab in the middle, missing her radial artery by almost an inch.

  "Uhhh!" It hurt very badly and she had to clench her teeth to keep from screaming.

  "Now what do you think you're trying to do?" Amy asked conversationally. "Are you trying to hurt yourself? Are you thinking you can get out of this by killing yourself? Don't be stupid. It'll take you too long to die. Diablo, go and fetch her."

  "Si." There was a scrambling of someone climbing up the rocks.

  "No stay back, or..." Katie didn't have anything to bargain with.

  Amy seemed to know this. "Or what?"

  Katie grabbed up the sword and shook it so that the cloth fell away from the blade. It was so cold and nasty that she had to hold it out away from her. "Or I'll use the sword on Diablo. I have it right here in my hands and I'll do it."

  The sound of climbing stopped on the rocks.

  "You should know that whatever you do, you're just plain fucked," Amy said with a hint of irritation. "If you try to kill yourself by jumping, you're going to hell. If you use that sword, guess what? That's right, you're going to hell. If Diablo fetches you down here, you're going to hell as well. Face it Katie, you are one fucked little virgin. But..."

  With each count of how she would end up in hell, Katie's spirits sank lower and lower so that when Amy said But, despite herself, Katie felt the smallest glimmer of hope. "But what?"

  "Well it's like this. I can make it real tough on your family if I want to. I can make them all suffer. I can use the sword and send them to hell, or I can I can make it quick and natural. A bullet in the back of the head."

  Katie, who had been feeling small, grew quickly angry. "That's your deal?"

  "Yeah. I'm going to get what I want one-way or the other. I'm going to open a gate and that's that. I'd just rather do it the easy way," Amy replied reasonably. "I would even let them live, if I could trust them not to interfere. Do you think I can? Do you think ole Willy J is gonna sit back and do nothing?"

  Katie was silent at this. If Will could, he would stop Amy.

  "Just what I thought. Now I'm on a time crunch. This has to be done tonight, or it's my ass heading off to hell, so what do you think? Do you want them all in hell with you or will you come along peacefully?"

  Katie knew that she was indeed fucked, still it was nearly a minute before she answered. Amy had given away too much. Time crunches were made to be exploited.

  "Yes, but..." She paused again dragging out the seconds. She had aces up her sleeves: Will's capacity to see the future, Talitha's superhuman abilities and she, little Katie, had her guile and her jackknife. This she slid down her sock. "You'll make their deaths quick? You promise?"

  "I'll have my men shoot to kill." Almost like magic, a gun fired off to their right. It was surprisingly close, perhaps only a hundred yards or so. There was a pause and then Amy, with a little tremor in her voice, called, "Get down here now, or all bets are off."

  Katie's confidence escalated. "If that's my brother then you're in more trouble than you
realize."

  "Why? Because he can see the future?" Amy laughed at Katie's silence. "He can't see my future, and if that's him, he's in for a rude surprise. Besides Diablo, there are seven other men surrounding this little outcropping and another up with the jeep."

  Now Katie was sorely vexed and her confidence sank to a new low. Without his vision, her brother was just another man. She cast a last glance at the sword and purposely left it on the rock shelf when she climbed down.

  "Where's the sword?" Amy demanded. The thought had come to the young girl that she would try to make a run for it when Diablo went for the sword, but Amy held a pistol in her hand. It was small and mean. So it was that Katie jerked her head to the shelf.

  "I didn't want to have to touch it again," she said as way of an excuse.

  Without being asked, Diablo climbed up for the sword. Amy called up to him, "Whatever you do, don't throw that thing down here. I don't want to get stabbed on accident. Just carry..." A man's scream of pain cut in on Amy. It came from around to their left, almost behind them. It rose up high and then cut off quick.

  Though Katie felt that she should've been in some way elated that a possible rescue was taking place, the scream had chilled her. She didn't think that it was her brother out there; she had a feeling that it was Talitha. And Talitha stalking human prey at night wasn't something she wanted to see.

  "What is it?" Amy hissed up at a wide-eyed Diablo.

  Diablo shrugged, which could barely be seen. Seconds later a long string of automatic rifle fire lit up the sky to their right.

  Amy spun. "What the hell! Is that guy even shooting at anything?" Who knew? Amy stood looking angry and confused in equal proportions. She gazed back to the north where the jeep sat parked. It seemed far away. "Get back up there. Go on get climbing," she ordered her hostage.

  Katie was glad to. She had seen her sister when she was in one of her moods—Talitha could be a holy terror. The climb was short and Diablo pushed her to the side of the ledge. Suddenly she felt quite exposed and the drop very steep. To keep her mind off the nearness of the edge, she looked out into the desert. At first, nothing could be seen, but then someone began firing again. Whoever it was sprayed the surrounding landscape with bullets and then in the fading light of his gun he could be seen to turn and run.

  After that, the night swallowed him up and nothing more could be seen from that direction. Amy watched nervously with eyes that couldn't get any larger. "If that's Willy J, how's he countering my spell? And if he can, what does that mean?" She gave Diablo a shrew look, but turned to her hostage and said, "Katie, skootch back from the edge a bit. You don't want to be too close."

  The girl was all too happy to get away from the edge, but she wasn't happy when Amy smashed her on the back of the head with her pistol. It sent her flopping face first on the ledge and the dark desert got darker still. However, she didn't lose consciousness. Her world spun and little came into focus and less made any sense.

  "Diablo, look at this in my hand."

  Despite the sharp pain in Katie's head, she wanted to see what was in Amy's hand. The very idea of it was strangely demanding and she rolled over slightly to see.

  "Ohh." It hurt to move and there was no question about getting up, it would be impossible to even try. So it was that Katie was disappointed and did not see what it was Amy held. Something twinkled in the witch's palm and Diablo looked quite stupid just standing there staring. He seemed frozen and moved not a muscle. Feeling let down at having missed it, Katie let her head flop to the side and groaned a second time as the darkness spun and tilted around her.

  For the next few minutes, the young girl could do little but lay there trying to right her mind. She could hear as Amy crawled about the ledge, whispering in a cruel sounding language. It was unnatural and it soured the air and brought bile rising in her throat. Fearing that she would vomit, the young girl struggled to a kneeling position and began to retch like a dog.

  "Not here you idiot! Over the side." Amy was in a fiery mood and this had Katie turning to look at her perplexed. She wished that she hadn't. In the past couple of minutes, Diablo had died, though he bore no obvious wounds. He was dead and that was a certainty. His eyes were open, but there not a flicker of life or intelligence in them. His skin had gone gray and now sagged from his bones, forming odd layers of wrinkles below his eyes. He smelled foul. How it was possible the young girl did not know, but Diablo smelled like he had been dead a week a more. Now Katie had to vomit, there was no stopping it. Like a sophomore after her first kegger, she staggered on her hands and knees to the edge and heaved up everything that was left to her stomach.

  There wasn't much.

  Amy continued through this to hiss out her venomous language, until at last the thing that had once been Diablo began to move. First, his head swung this way and that and then one by one his arms raised and lowered.

  "Good," the witch said with a great deal of satisfaction as well as relief. "Now take up the sword and kill anyone who comes near to this rock." Without a word, the bizarre creature of Diablo bent and took up the short broken sword and began to climb down. Once he was out of sight, Katie felt her nausea regress.

  "What did you do to him?"

  "Never mind that. Just be glad that it wasn't you." Amy looked to have aged ten years and sat with her back to the pinnacle of rock, her body sagged in exhaustion. There was silence between the two for a minute before a final cry went up in the desert. It was a long harsh scream and went on and on. The person died slowly. Katie felt that she wanted to be sick again and as the scream kept going Amy didn't look much better.

  "What the hell is Will doing?" the witch asked.

  "That's not Will. He'd never do that to someone, he's far too good of a person. That's Talitha."

  "What? How do you mean? Talitha is just...she's just a girl."

  The screaming ended and then there was the sound of someone begging and the word please began to be repeated with unsettling repetition. Katie realized she was now almost as afraid of her rescuer as she was of her captor.

  "No, Talitha is something a lot more. She'll tear that thing you made into shreds. Talitha's unstoppable." Katie had great confidence in her sister's ability to kill.

  "Don't be too sure about that..."

  "I'm quite sure. And then she'll come up here and do the same or perhaps worse to you." Katie's self-assured manner had Amy looking worried.

  "Oh Aaaaameee?" A girl's voice, sweet and sounding very young, called out from the night. It sent shivers down Katie's spine. That sweet girl had just killed who knows how many people, yet it sounded like she was out after dark playing hide and go seek.

  Katie leaned over the ledge and looked out, but saw nothing. "We're over here. Amy's a witch and she made some sort of thing..." she was interrupted.

  "Shut up or so help me I'll shoot you through the spine." Amy had her little gun pressed against the lower part of Katie's back.

  "Shooting someone in the spine? Nice...very nice." The voice had moved closer, but still remained unseen. "Well, look what you made, Amy. That's a Draugr. It's real cute, but really, do you think it will save you?"

  "How does she know that's a Draugr? Is she a witch?" Amy whispered to Katie.

  "I wouldn't bother whispering, Amy. I can hear you just fine. And let me tell you how I know that's a Draugr. It's because someone's dumb-ass mother was a whore-bitch and sent me to the Void. You can learn all sorts of stuff down there if you listen and watch and learn. And you can become! I've grown, bitch! Everyone else turned into the rotten filth that is trod upon and pissed upon and bled upon, but not I!" The voice was loud and triumphant. It edged nearer with each word and Amy pulled further back as it did.

  "Don't come any closer! I'll kill your sister. I'm not kidding, I'll do it." Amy's fear came out in her voice, which trembled. The gun dug into Katie's back.

  "I don't think you will. In fact, I know you won't—you need her. Don't you?" The voice of Talitha drew off to their right, b
ut because of the rock, she was still unseen. "You told Will that you were on a time crunch, but I know what that really means. Ha-Ha! You were always so stupid. You made a deal with a demon and it's looking for payment. So you can't exactly just up and kill her." Amy was quiet behind Katie, breathing heavily and thankfully, the pressure of the gun relaxed. Talitha continued, "But I have all the time in the world. I can just sit out here and wait. I bet that time crunch of yours is going to expire here pretty shortly."

  Katie cast a glance back at her captor. Beautiful raven haired Amy Harris had been transformed in the last few minutes. She had wild eyes, pale skin, and shaking hands. Her lips trembled and her whole demeanor was that of a trapped animal. Her little controlled world had turned upside down simply by the presence of someone more foul and evil than she.

  She was desperate. Katie could see her mind working, yet there were few options left for the witch. To give up her hostage would certainly mean death. To send the Draugr after Talitha was a risk as well. The girl had killed seven armed men in the dark and whatever the Draugr was, Talitha didn't seem too worried about it. And to wait meant what exactly? That a demon would come and claim her soul? It was no wonder Amy looked to be falling apart.

  If Katie had been in her shoes, she would've sent the Draugr to fight Talitha and then would have tried to make a dash for it. She dearly hoped Amy would do this since it would be her best chance at escape from both of them.

  There was another choice that Katie hadn't thought of.

  Amy leaned to the edge. "Diablo, run to the Jern's. Use the sword, kill everyone there. Go!" Like an automaton, the Draugr ran off without a word. Katie watched it go and it was with a shameful sense of relief; both it and the sword were horrors her young mind could barely cope with.

  "Bye Draugr, have fun!" Talitha called after it. "I don't know if you can be anymore stupid, Amy. You may not be able to hear the screams and gunshots, but I certainly can. Our dear Willy J is over there with some soldier boys right now. I don't think there'll be enough people left alive to come close to freeing Ba'al. Maybe a few of the smaller demons sure, but not Ba'al, that thing is huge!"