The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  Talitha tried a good-natured smile, not realizing how fiendish she appeared layered in blood as she was. "Perhaps we got lucky and that's the address she's going to. Try another, if you can see that one then we'll know."

  He tried the next address, but it was as black as his mood. "Nothing. I don't know if I'm being blocked or if I just can't look to a place I really know nothing about. I mean these are just words to me."

  "Then what do we do?" Gayle chimed in. "Can the Church do anything?"

  Vogel's calm became strained with embarrassment. "Very little just yet, but by tomorrow or maybe the following day we might be able to narrow down where Amy has gone. I know that won't do that much for your daughter now, but..."

  But nothing. The priest could only do so much and everyone knew it. A heavy sigh escaped Will. He didn't blame the priest, and he tried not to blame God, he just wished for a break.

  His sister sighed as well. "Tomorrow will be too late. According to a vision Will had yesterday, Amy will move the body. I mean Katie, she'll move Katie and hide her. We might still be able to find the gate, but without Katie and Amy present it would be a waste."

  "So what do we do? My baby and my husband, how do we save them? Just tell me and I'll do it, I'll do anything," Gayle turned her pleas to each of them. They all looked away. "Could we find another gypsy? One that could find Katie with magic or something?"

  Talitha answered, "No, it would have to be a witch who is stronger than Amy. We would never be able to find one before..."

  Will cut across her, "There's a gypsy who may help us...Adrina. Maybe the dead have the answers. I heard that was a thing, communing with the dead."

  Talitha's eyes narrowed. "It is, but she's in the Void. How do you plan on speaking to her, Will? You won't be able to look into the future to do this. There is no future in the Void, time is meaningless."

  "I'll do it the same way you split your soul in half."

  Vogel was all interest. "How did you do that?" he asked Talitha.

  "I just did." There could be no explanation for such a thing, beyond the one she had given. Now, there was real concern in her eyes. "If you do this, you might not make it back; in fact it might be impossible to make it back."

  "You told me hell is voluntary."

  "Not if you're being held against your will! Adrina challenged Ba'al Zubel, it's not something he will likely ever forget and that means she's in the Pits at Rek." Her body flared with goose bumps at the name and a shiver went down her back. "There is no escape from those foul dungeons."

  She didn't need to tell him about the Pits. The cold black holes where torture and pain had been first conceived were well known to Will Jern and were such a terror that they couldn't be risked. She was right about that.

  "What about Henny Harris?" he asked. "We know Amy has been using her mother for information. Henny wouldn't be in the Pits, would she?" There was a lot of hope in his question.

  Talitha was slow to respond, but finally declared, "Maybe not...maybe not. In fact, probably not. Souls are traded for all the time. In your dream, Will, were you sure that the demon that was trying to come through the portal was indeed Ba'al?"

  "No I guess not, but it was very big."

  "The size of it in your dream is irrelevant since clearly whichever demon it was had been feeding on the light of the world directly through the gate. In fact, just like the thrust to weight ratio limitations placed on engines in space travel, where the point of diminishing returns is..."

  "Talitha!"

  "Sorry," she replied sheepishly. "What I mean is that the demon sucking on that gate grows constantly, making it just that much harder for it to fit through. With that said, the demon could be any of the many thousands and not necessarily Ba'al Zubel."

  "Then I'm doing it."

  Gayle looked confused. "You're doing what exactly? Going to hell? No, I forbid it. You'll just have to find another way. I... I might have lost two members of my family tonight, I'm not going to watch you die simply on a hunch."

  Will tried to explain, "I'm not going to die, ok? It'll look just like I'm asleep..."

  "Like your father?"

  "No, nothing like that. I'm going to slip down there on the sly, find Henny and...and I don't know what, but I'll think of something. And then." Will snapped his fingers. "I'll pop right back."

  "And you two think this is a good idea?" she asked looking from her daughter to the priest. Talitha averted her eyes, but nodded.

  Vogel clasped his hands beneath his chin and gave the impression of pondering on the idea in depth. "I can't say if it's a good idea or not, however I don't have another and time is getting very short." Silence greeted the truth of this until Gayle started nodding with great reluctance.

  "Ok. Do it but please be careful." She put her arms over the seat for a hug and though it hurt to oblige her, he did and happily so. Hugs may not be so frequent in his future.

  "Alright then, I suppose I'm going to do it...Father, head north. Most of the addresses on that list were in Phoenix and if I know Amy, she'd rather open a gate where there's at least the possibility of good dining nearby rather than in one of the dusty little towns around here."

  Talitha looked grave. "You make too many assumptions. Amy may not have access to this list. She may know of only a single place and for all we know that could be in Alaska. While you're in the Void, make no assumptions, question all that you see or feel. And...and..." Tears sprang up with a surprising suddenness. "Come back to me, please. I won't last a day without you. Please say that you will?"

  She was again that small little girl, his sister from a long time ago and despite his monster headache, he felt tears brewing as well. "I will, Tal. I promise. I promise to come back, heck you know that I don't even want to go. Now... how long should I stay under?"

  "Thirty minutes?" Talitha replied.

  The answer was like a kick in the stomach; he had been considering half that. "Thirty minutes is a long time in the Void."

  "It is, but if you're not done and I try to pull you out, are you likely to go back?" Her logic as always was unassailable, there would be no going back for seconds.

  He breathed out loudly and tried not to appear as terrified as he really was, for his mother's sake. "Fine, a half hour then." The brother and sister looked at each other and both knew that thirty minutes could not only feel like an eternity, but might become one as well. His insides began to quiver in fear. "Ok, I better start... or I might, you know, not start." He gave his sister a quick kiss on the cheek and then did the same for his mother all the while diverting his eyes and holding the fake smile of a seasoned politician on his lips. "Love you two." He swallowed and every one could hear.

  "I love you, hon," his mom replied through a strained smile of her own. "Be careful, and if you find your father..." The smile slipped away from her face and was replaced by pain. "Set him free. I don't think he can come back here, not after all this."

  Will nodded, blinking rapidly, fighting tears. He turned to his sister and watched as Talitha took command of her own features, which had been starting to warp from her fear for her brother. "Love you, Will. Remember that and remember as well, hide your light. It's all an illusion down there, become a part of it, at least outwardly."

  He nodded to her, though he was unsure of exactly what she meant. After giving his wife a quick kiss and touching his father on his skinny arm, Will leaned back against the door of the Jimmy and prepared to head into the very worst place imaginable, but he couldn't, not with his mom, sister and a priest staring at him.

  "Do you mind? This is kind of a private thing."

  They each looked away and he settled in more deeply and closed his eyes. Unlike the house on Valencia that he had tried and failed to see, he knew the Void well. Countless times he had stumbled through it during his dreams, walking with trembling legs to his next torture. That was a torture in itself and the demons knew it and enjoyed the spectacle. He had also seen the Void in person, standing high above it on the
great blade. So it was that as he closed his eyes, his mind was easily able to reach out and feel the dire cold of its boundaries. Yes, entering the Void wasn't the problem.

  Chapter 24

  Katie

  The little sparkling light stayed with Katie, dancing, glowing first brighter here and then running brighter there, changing colors in the most delightful manner; it was all that she cared about. Distantly she was aware of other things about her. For instance, she knew she'd been carried down from the rock and then lugged across the desert by a scary, dangerous looking man with thick eyelids which covered pitiless eyes.

  She knew as well that the jeep they were bouncing around in was her father's. Amy had need of a four by four to track her down out in the desert and had stolen it without a second thought. And Katie knew that Amy still had in her hands the small, but deadly looking gun, and it had been pointed at her ever since the big Mexican had dumped her into the back seat of the jeep. But none of this mattered to Katie as long as she had her sparkly light.

  The light was like an intriguing maze or a puzzle that compelled her to find its hidden origin and she chased its many dazzling tangents only to be led astray and forced to start again. At length, it seemed to her that she had been down every streak and had hunted down every waltzing mote. After this, the patterns began to repeat and she became bored and instead of studying the light, she looked to the negative image that surrounded it.

  Initially this consisted of only a tiny black margin, a bare outline only and then as she investigated it further, the margin grew until the light shrunk smaller and smaller, and seemed but a dot. And then she blinked and was aware again.

  She found her face pressed up against the window of the jeep, it was very cold and soon annoyingly so. Yet Katie refused to budge. She tried her best to remain still and take in everything around her with just her periphery, only there wasn't much to see. The desert at night was empty and one cactus looked very much like another. Minutes passed and they zipped by a road sign that proclaimed Tucson in eight miles. Her neck stuck at an angle for so long, began to hurt. Still she refused to budge, but then the jeep struck a good-sized pothole or perhaps an armadillo and bounced enough for her to shift her head as if by accident.

  "Katie?" Amy leaned in closer and gave the young lady a keen eye, before sitting back. "You can stop your playacting. I can tell the spell fizzled."

  Katie's head had fallen at an odd angle and since she was getting quickly car sick, she straightened and glared over at her abductor. Her urge to be sick grew worse, and Amy noticed.

  "You look a little green in the gills."

  "Yeah well, you look a little stupid," Katie wasn't proud of the remark, but she was very afraid and it was the best she could do.

  It made Amy smile though. "You don't have to be that way. This is going to happen. No one can stop it, not Will, not Talitha...you know, you never did finish telling me about your sister. About how she got all strong."

  "She's just PMS-ing. You know with the cramps and the bloating, she can be real bitchy. I'm sure you understand that."

  Amy's smile drooped. "Fine. Be a pain in the ass." She turned to the window and stared out for a few moments. It was just long enough for Katie to drop her hand down to the side of her leg, but not long enough for the girl to grab the knife hidden in her sock. Amy was nervous and talkative. "I could make this much harder on you. You know that, right? I could have Pedro come back here and bash your face in. He'd do it in a heartbeat and probably smile the whole time."

  "Then do it." Katie was determined to be obstinate. Her reasoning was that any action that diverted her fate in even the slightest way had to be good, and that included a beating by Pedro. Perhaps a police officer would happen by, or a concerned motorist would stop to help and she could escape out into the desert. "I dare you. Hey Pedro, why don't you show me how tough you are? Come beat up a little girl."

  Pedro only drove, silent and watchful, flicking his hooded eyes to the rear view mirror every few seconds. He would be a hard one and Katie worried that her knife wouldn't be near enough to kill him.

  Amy only shook her head in disbelief at her little outburst. "I think it's about time I gag you."

  "I think it's about time you try. I'm not afraid."

  This brought another derisive laugh from Amy. "Oh yeah you are. You're sweating, your voice is pitched way up high, and your eyes are all crazy. But that's ok, that's normal. I'd be afraid too."

  "You are afraid," Katie shot back. "All that you just said sounds like you described yourself." She glared hard at her captor for a moment and then dropped her eyes, her determination was granite-like, but it was built on a foundation of fear and was even then being undermined. "What...what's going to happen?"

  "Well, physically you won't be hurt at all," Amy replied, trying to put the best possible spin on the horror that Katie would face. "The spell itself is very quick, a couple of minutes only. Setting up is the longest part."

  "I meant what happens when the spell starts."

  Amy tried to mask the truth in her eyes with a big fake smile. "Oh, right. Well...a demon will come. Wait, I'm getting this backwards. The spell is two parts, one part opens a gate, and the second summons the demon. Your part is actually very important. Your soul is what maintains the gate, so that means you won't be hurt, but at the same time you won't be let go either, sorry." Her condescension was nearly as poorly done as her lying. Clearly, there would be lots of pain.

  "And me being a virgin? Does that really matter? Wouldn't the demon want someone more like you? Someone skanky?" Katie actually wanted to know, but the dig just came to her and she didn't really try to stop it from coming out. In the front seat, Pedro's shoulders twitched.

  The witch glowered looking ready for a nasty catfight, but after a moment she forced the sham smile back on to her face. "Look, I don't make the rules and believe me, I wish it could be just anyone. This would have all been so much easier if I could just pick up any old girl, but that's not the way it is. It has to be a virgin."

  "Oh," Katie looked out the window, poorly lit suburbs whizzed by but went unnoticed. Depression had slipped over her in so stealthy a manner that she didn't realize it until her shoulders had slumped and her forehead had thumped against the cold window. But it didn't last more than a few minutes and her fear returned at Amy's next few words.

  "Pedro, your exit is coming up. We're almost there and soon this will be all over," Amy said in a soothing tone, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself rather than Katie. It would have been near impossible to sooth the young girl just then. Perhaps the only thing that could was if her brother was to show up, riding a white horse.

  "When my brother comes to rescue me? Will the demon still... arrive?" she asked.

  Before answering, Amy took a nervous glance out the back window, there were no headlights to be seen, not even tiny distant ones. "He's not coming and if he were, he'd be way too late to do anything."

  "But if he..."

  "He won't!" Amy barked and the gun in her hand gave a little twitch. "I'm sorry but Willy J isn't coming to save you. Even if the Draugr hasn't killed him, he has no way of knowing where we are and even if he knew, he won't be able to catch up in time."

  "Could you just humor me?" Katie pleaded. Pedro had just turned off the highway and her fear had escalated. It thrummed in her chest and without realizing what she was doing, she began cracking her knuckles, one after another.

  "If you stop doing that, I will," Amy said, indicating the finger popping. Looking sheepish, Katie stopped immediately. "That's so freaking annoying."

  "I stopped."

  "At the light turn right," Amy ordered and then looked over at Katie. "Really, I don't know what would happen. It won't be good for any of us, that's for certain."

  "But..."

  "Look, I don't know," Amy snapped. "Let's just see what happens. Now if you don't mind please shut the hell up. I have to concentrate." Yet she didn't concentrate, she fretted. Ov
er the next ten minutes, Amy checked her watch a hundred times, looked back to the streets behind them on a dozen or more occasions and jounced her knee up and down nervously in rhythm to an unheard jackhammer. She even took to checking the pistol in her hands, pulling out the clip and eyeing the bullets lying snugged up close to each other.

  All of this did nothing to help poor Katie's own growing fear. By degrees, it increased, until she was sure that her heart would straight up burst. Only Pedro seemed calm, taking turn after turn until Katie had no clue in what direction the highway lay. Eventually they pulled up in front of what looked like an abandoned ranch. There were a few dilapidated and dusty outbuildings that sagged or leaned waiting only on the right gust of wind to send them toppling.

  At Amy's direction, Pedro pulled the jeep up to what appeared to have been a barn at some time, the boards that remained to the structure had long before turned an ugly grey. Its windows were broken and jagged and behind these the dark was an impenetrable black, the overall impression was that the barn had many gaping hungry mouths. Even Amy paused at the sight, her eyes very wide.

  "Keep her here, keep her quiet. I've got to consult with the spirits and make sure this is the right place," Amy commanded.

  Pedro and Katie watched the woman walk to the building, in silence. But silence was not what the young girl needed. "You should get a better name. Pedro is kinda...stupid. It's not tough sounding at all. You could be Diablo." As she spoke her hand slid down her sweats in the most casual fashion she could affect, her knife was inches away.

  Pedro turned to her, freezing her questing hand. "That won't work. I have a friend named Diablo."

  Katie knew this of course. "Yeah, but he's dead now. Didn't you know? Amy turned him into some sort of zombie thing. It was real gross and I'm sure my sister has shredded him up by now."

  The man's hooded eyes narrowed even more. There was danger behind those implacable eyes, but not berserk mindless danger. Pedro was clearly a killer, but didn't seem to be a pure psychopath. "You seem very brave," he said. "You know she's going to sacrifice you? That you're going to die? Perhaps you should be praying," he advised.