The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  Katie felt her soul rebelling against the sound. It grated horribly against nature and she wanted to scream and drown them out. This went on for the longest few minutes of her short life, but then abruptly, Amy stopped and as she did, she laid aside the gun. For just a fraction of a second Katie saw an opening to make a grab for it but just then, in Amy's hand, as if by magic, a silver knife materialized. It was a long curved dagger and when the witch brought it up, Katie felt her breath stop in her throat, but Amy only slashed her own palm open.

  "Give me your hand." Amy commanded.

  This was it.

  Katie believed in heaven as fervently as she believed in hell, but all her young life, she had refused to put her faith totally in God's hands. God helps those who help themselves, her father was fond of saying, but just then his adage was no longer applicable. She had done everything she could think of to keep this exact moment from happening and still it had occurred. Now she would to turn to God in prayer and supplication. She would beg him for all the help he could give.

  That was her intention anyway, but when Amy slit open her palm and grasped her hand so that their blood co-mingled and a connection was made, it was too late for prayer. The pain was so intense all thoughts of God or anything else for that matter flew from her mind.

  Katie screamed as if her soul was being ripped from her body. It was a throat-tearing scream, but no human besides the witch was anywhere near enough to hear. And it was drowned out a moment later when the sound of a tremendous collision of metal boomed throughout the ancient barn; windows shattered and boards dropped from the ceiling. The ringing crash drove down deep into both Katie and Amy, like a summons.

  Even as the last of the echoes drifted out into the barren desert, a new sound fell upon the stunned girl's ears. It was the sound of a great wind, and a rush of air swept the barn, causing it to sway alarmingly. More boards shook themselves free and more windows came crashing down. Above Katie's head, a cloud of black appeared and became the focal point of the wind; from all points the wind raced to it and the cloud sucked it in and grew at a greedy pace. Now Katie felt the avaricious pull of the wind come even into her own lungs, where there started a furious tugging at something that physically she had never felt before, but knew all the same.

  Her soul began to draw from the shell of her body.

  The pull was undeniable but so too was her valiant resistance, she fought with frantic desperation to hold on, yet still her soul drew out of her body, stretching out of her like diaphanous taffy. That gossamer part of her true self, governed by the hell words, began to form the gate. She became structure, warping nature to fit the needs of a command.

  And the beast that dictated that command, lurked just beyond, its eagerness insuppressible, its hunger insatiable, its malice unbearable. The closeness of the fiend drove the girl near to madness and she tried to scream, but her hold on her body had become too tenuous to command. She could look down and see only the faintest sheer strands of her soul still clinging desperately, but one by one, they tore away.

  Beyond, the portal was near complete.

  "Yes! I have opened the gate, great Ba'al!" Amy Harris, witch of Ba'al Fie-ere screeched her victory and raised her arms in triumph, the shining metal of the knife still clutched in her hand. Her malevolent felicity ran through Katie, and became knowledge in the demon's wicked mind. Ba'al gloated in fiendish jubilation and its joy was a sickening horror. The young girl knew the feelings of both witch and demon—she had become part of a connection. She was linked to them and could sense their delight at the prospect of the gate being completed.

  Their goal was seconds away from happening and Katie's mind was irresistibly drawn to watch as her soul was spun and woven into a bizarre kaleidoscope of repeating patterns centered around a circular area of utter blackness. On the whole, the construct had the semblance of a fantastically intricate spider's web. It was a wonder to behold, but all the same, it lacked perfection. Infinitesimal elements of the structure began to change, turning from a glowing milky white to a dull grey, and these would then crumble away to nothing.

  When she saw that happening, it was Katie's turn to gloat.

  Only the purest souls can withstand the unrelenting decay of sin to form a permanent bridge between the world and the Void. The truth of the matter was that Katie's soul was not exactly pure. She had feared the coming of a day such as the one that she had just lived through, for eight long years. And she had prepared.

  Katie was only fourteen years old, but she was no virgin.

  Purposely she had sought out a boy from her neighborhood and with grim determination, rather than anything resembling romance, had compelled him to make love to her. It had not been difficult.

  From that point on her soul had been just the slightest bit tainted—but it was enough. The Void was the ultimate corruptor and where there was a microscopic imperfection, it gnawed until the flaw grew. All along the edges where the gate came in contact with the Void, segments turned grey. This happened time and again, until larger sections detached and drifted into the ether before disappearing altogether. The gate was crumbling away.

  The demon, sensing that its triumph was collapsing along with the gate made a wild rush to force itself through, but this only exacerbated the deterioration and sped its destruction. The gate could last only seconds longer.

  Katie felt the onrushing demon and in a panic, realized that her body was exposed and empty, a perfect receptacle for the beast. If the demon beat her to it, not only would her body be possessed, her soul would be stranded in the Void. Terror filled desperation lent strength to a frenzy of clawing and scrambling and she forced her way back into her body. It was like being reborn. Katie came alive with a tingling sensation running along her skin and laid there among the blood runes and breathed the cold air and looked up through the gaping holes of the roof and saw the stars, and she rejoiced. If nothing else, she had denied the demon its gate and what's more, she had denied it her body.

  "You bitch! Whore! Slut! Skank!"

  Katie jumped in shock and also in fright. The voice was not that of Amy Harris. Rather it was very deep and horribly throaty, so that Katie feared that when she turned her head she would see some sort giant demonic toad.

  But it was Amy, only not how she had been. It was Amy, possessed. The demon had Amy's body and wore her skin like an ill-fitting suit. Cracks and fissures, bubbling and oozing blood ran helter-skelter along her face and neck and all her exposed flesh. Her eyes had changed as well. They had gone almost completely white as if the sclera had absorbed all the color of the iris, and the pupils had transformed from their normal circular shape. They were now tall and slim and looked for all the world like a cat's eyes.

  "You did this to me!" The demon croaked. The noise made Katie's throat tighten and she swallowed involuntarily. "You set me up! You knew this would happen, but did you think I would sit by and let you get away with it?" The possessed woman raised the knife with a smile. It was the most horrific smile ever. As the corner of her lips went up, her eyes seemed to roll on their sides and they went from looking like cat's eyes to like those of a goat. The effect was wholly unnatural and Katie began to back away, barely holding in a scream.

  The movement made the nasty goat eyes come alive and the demon charged with inhuman speed. Katie leapt up to run, but just then, her eyes fell on the pistol that Amy had laid aside and in a flash she had it and spun, bringing it to bear.

  The demon was right on top of her and before she could pull the trigger, the fiend slashed down with the knife, laying open her face in a long diagonal that went from her temple to her chin. With the demon's momentum unchecked, their bodies clashed together sending them into a mish mash of arms and legs. Pain screamed from her wound, but Katie gritted her teeth against it, fighting to clear the gun to get a shot in that would count, at the same time desperately holding back the knife. However, she was too weak and the demon sent a knee onto the arm that held the gun and pinned it to the cement. Aft
er this, it was nothing for the demon to tear its knife hand free and stab at Katie's face, looking to run the blade through the blue of her eye.

  The girl twisted away and the cold edge of death sheared through hair and skin driving a long line of across the side of her head. It hurt terribly, but Katie, who had prepared for this moment for so long, ignored the pain and she ignored the fact that she was about to die and she ignored the knife as well. Her right hand held the gun and the wrist of that hand was still slightly mobile. She gave it an easy flick and the gun arced gently over her budding chest and landed neatly in her left hand. Just as the demon struck again, she fired the gun. And despite the fresh pain from cruel sharpness of the knife's edge, she fired again. And fired. And fired. And fired. And in her mind, she knew she was in race to see if she would run out of blood before she ran out of bullets.

  Chapter 30

  Will

  A leaden depression settled over the little group.

  Each was mentally exhausted and physically they exhibited the wounds and scars of their ordeal, yet bore them in silence. That is, save for the occasional groan or accidental gasp from Father Vogel.

  His wounds weren't life threatening, but were egregiously painful and it was decided their first stop would be to the nearest emergency room to drop him off. Their next stop...unknown.

  No one had any idea what to do or which way to turn and none could think beyond the necessity of helping the priest. Spiritually, Gayle was shattered. Her family, the most important thing to her had been destroyed over the last eight hours. Her husband was dead. Both of her daughters consigned to an eternity of hell, her daughter-in-law comatose and the fate of her only grandchild unknown.

  Yet despite all of this, she was literally the only one capable of driving. Father Vogel seeped blood from every pore, and after four days of torture and hellish stress, Will staggered under the weight of an intense fatigue. He had barely the strength to lift the slim form of Talitha into the Jimmy and within minutes, as Gayle took a series of wrong turns, he slumped over onto the still breathing corpse of his sister and fell deep into a slumber.

  Dreams came quick.

  Most were black and cold and he knew that he was in the Void. The images there pained him physically and to escape them, he fled to the river. He knew the way and quickly the sand filled the spaces in between his toes and crunched softly as he walked. The river hadn't changed; it was placid and serene, edging by almost imperceptibly. Even the people seemed the same.

  He saw the dishwashers and the ladies doing their laundry, and he even saw the fisherman casting his flies with an expert snap of his wrist. However, of Adrina, there was no sign and he didn't know whether to be glad for her or afraid. Still, he searched, going along the river for a long while, but of the gypsy there was no mention, no whisper, no knowledge.

  Will did find a newcomer. She was the saddest thing and by the looks of it, she had only just discovered the horrors of the river. The girl stood with her toes in the water, staring and crying as the images unfolded before her. There seemed to be a great many.

  He decided it would be best not to get too close and skirted wide around her, figuring that anyone with that much sin could only be trouble. However, her sadness was of such intensity that it was apparent even from behind; this was unusual for the river. The multitude of others along its banks only rarely saw their most horrible sins and so only rarely grew this sad. They, as a group, tried to reconcile their sins slowly, incrementally. This girl looked to be punishing herself with them.

  This intrigued him and he cast a look back, not realizing what horror he would see accidentally in the river before her. It stopped him in his place. The water showed a young man, tall, muscular, and handsome with straight features and a strong jaw, he was being burned by a torch until his skin grew black and fell away.

  The man screamed and then begged, crying pitifully and then screamed more. It was an obscenity, painful and terrible to see, especially for Will because he was watching his own torture. That was his face twisted ugly by pain and those were his fingers, burned down to nubs. A scream rose in his throat and he nearly turned away to run as far away as he could, but then he took in his torturer. Talitha Jern's image was plain on the water.

  If anything, her misery was greater than his. Her tears were nonstop. Every scream of his, she matched and if he begged for her to stop, she begged louder for forgiveness. At intervals, she would have to stop, the torture being too much for her, but when she did, the demon, Ba'al Zubel would whip her or beat her until bloody and she would be forced to take up the torch once more.

  Watching the beating she took, stayed the horror that Will felt and he was moved to pity. It broke his heart to see his sister, a girl he loved, being warped into something she wasn't. Painfully, Will realized he had a duty to perform, so he did not interfere with Talitha and stood behind and to the side and watched as torture after torture befell the illusion of himself. It was a horrid sick task and he stayed with it until the images began to repeat.

  Only then did he step forward, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about and looked into her red and puffy eyes, "Talitha, I forgive you." She could say nothing at first. Her eyes were wide in shock, aghast that he had seen her most vile sins, nothing had been held back. Talitha tried to turn away, but by this river he was far stronger and easily and gently turned her face to his. "My darling sister, you cannot deny my forgiveness. I have seen it all and hold you blameless."

  "No...these are just pictures on the water, they mean nothing. It was worse...far worse...and...and." She looked around as if she wished to run far away and there was deepest misery in her wild eyes. "And you begged me. You begged me and I wouldn't stop."

  "I know, I saw and that's how you should've know that it wasn't actually me you were torturing. I would've begged you to keep going," Will replied, remembering how his own father had been angered over Will's refusal to whip him. "Every time you stopped and Ba'al hurt you...that was the only thing that truly hurt me."

  Talitha listened for a moment frozen with her mouth open, but then began shaking her head. "No! I can't accept your forgiveness. I am beyond evil. I am nothing."

  "I'm sorry, Tal, but you don't make the rules here. You can't deny my forgiveness."

  A small flare of hope came into her eyes. It didn't last, she dashed it with painful reasoning. "Perhaps not, but there were others that I hurt, you weren't the only one."

  "Yes and they were illusions as well. You tortured illusions only. Remember that."

  "But it was all so real."

  "I'm sure at the time it felt that way and even now it might, but you of all people know that the Void is all about deception. Look at the water now. Don't be afraid." He turned her around and faced her at the water, which had grown more still than ever and the images on it could have been real people. The water showed two people and one was easily recognizable as Will Jern, however the second person had no face. Her features were smoothed away, blank.

  "My face?" Talitha reached up and touched her slim nose and traced her strong jaw and high cheekbones. Her reflection only ran its hand over the nothingness.

  "That's you, Tal. You haven't forgiven yourself. You are denying your true self."

  "But..."

  Will became stern and rather fatherly. "No buts! The water shows that I've forgiven you. Now you have to accept it. See yourself the way I see you. Talitha Jern is a lovely, sweet, smart woman, who is beautiful, and not just on the outside, but on the inside too."

  Now, her face materialized in the reflection and she gasped before falling to her knees crying and staring at herself in wonder. "Oh my Lord. Thank you, Will." He refused to reply to that, instead he smiled and watched his sister continue to touch the fine features of her face, eventually she shook her head as if seeing something new and laughed and cried at the same time. "I'm pretty."

  "Finally you can admit the truth!" he said with a laugh of his own. Coming down to her level, he thought about
squatting next to her, but changed his mind and plopped down letting his long legs stretch out. "After twenty-four years, finally. What's with pretty girls? I've never met one who will come right out and admit that they're pretty?"

  She laughed at this and shrugged, but then a tinge of pink hit her cheeks. "Is mom angry? That I wouldn't come back with her?"

  "Yeah, but I don't think it was so unexpected," Will's eyes narrowed. "Though it is a little unexpected to see you here. I thought you were supposed to be in the Void in the guise of your other self? I thought you would be all bad-ass, rampaging through hell looking to be named."

  The pink of her cheeks blossomed into apple red, and she turned away. "That was the plan. I never thought that I could be forgiven for my sins so I decided to come into the Void as a conqueror, and not as a victim, but that didn't work out so well. Father Vogel was right. Without the demon in me, that evil personality which kept coming out was only fading synaptic paths, which, I'm sorry to say, I nursed and kept alive. But that wasn't the real me and when I came to the Void, I found I couldn't hurt anyone, which is very un-demon like behavior. So, I came here and tried to cross the river. Didn't get so far, did I?"

  "You could go further now, there's nothing stopping you," Will suggested. In his heart, he selfishly wished that she'd not go. "Or... you could come back with me, it would make mom so happy."

  Talitha sighed and shook her head. "As much as I want to, I can't go back. My body is dying. That hell blade was like pure venom, or poison. I could hold on for weeks or maybe a couple of months at the most, but eventually it'll kill me."

  Will crinkled up his face into a semblance of a smile, but his eyes were wet. "Oh, well there you go. Your choice is all set for you then. I know you'll be happy, I mean it is heaven. Who couldn't be happy there?"

  "Maybe me. I don't want to go yet. I never really got a chance to live." She pulled herself up and walking away from the water, stared up into the hills. "You know what I really want? I want a do over. I want to be able to go back and do it right and have fun. I want to be... me. I never really finished finding out who I could be and what I could do."