by D. Levesque
“What would that gain them?” my mother asks?
“Well honestly, I am not sure,” I tell her, shaking my head.
“Oh, by the Gods!” Sylvana says in horror.
We all look over in surprise at her outburst. My mother asks her quickly, “What?”
“What makes the Void stronger?” she asks, instead of answering.
“What? The Void? Well it’s-” my mother starts to speak but then stops suddenly, and her eyes open wide in horror as understanding blooms in her mind. “The more people they infect, the stronger the Void gets!”
“What if while we are going after stronger targets, or the targets we assumed were stronger, it’s infecting the average person in large numbers?” Sylvana says.
“Oh, fuckity fuck,” I say. For once, my mother doesn’t give me crap about my use of language. “It’s infecting people so that the Void gets stronger, so they can break through the barrier that you all erected eons ago!”
“So how do we even fight that!” my mother says. We all go quiet as we try to figure this out. What would kill them? I mean, shit, I don’t want to kill thousands and thousands of people. We need to kill the Void, not the people. If only there were a way to kill only the Void. Wait! Is there a way? Walking over to the table, I sit down and think it over.
“Roger, dagger please,” I ask him quietly. I reach out and grab the dagger he throws my way. Holding up the blade, I think about this. When we were killing the security personnel at the home of Melissa Newborn, once we stabbed the silver daggers into the dead bodies, a purple flame emerged that told us, or showed us, that they had been infected. Is there a way to make that happen without killing the hosts?
“What’s on your mind, Brandon? I know that look of yours,” my mother says.
Jerking at her words, I look around and see that everyone is gazing at me. I share my thoughts with the group. “When we were killing those guards, we stabbed them with our silver daggers and we knew we had killed the Void in them because of the purple flame that shot out of the blade’s entry hole. What if there was a way to kill just the Void in the hosts?”
“How?” my mother asks so intently that it almost comes out as the Voice. Glad I’m immune to it.
“Not sure. I mean, it’s not like I can go around stabbing everyone to see if they have the Void in them now, can I?” I tell her with a chuckle.
“What if,” Johanne says, “the Void is like us? Or how we were before you shared power with us, Brandon. What if they are hurt by silver and even die from it?”
“Well, as I said, we can’t go around stabbing everyone,” I tell her.
“No, but what if we have needles of silver made? Once we find a target,we stab them with a needle in the arm. If they don’t have the Void in them, nothing more will happen. But if they do, stabbing them with silver will be a death sentence to the Void inside them,” she says with a wicked grin.
“Oh, fuck me,” my mother says, and then quickly puts a hand over her mouth and blushes. We all laugh at her reaction.
“That might work,” my mother continues, thinking it over. “But we need to test it. And how do we do that? We haven’t found the other Infected.”
“Oh, are we calling them the Infected now?” I ask my mother. “As for a target to test it on, we have one.”
“Who?”
“Sir Stewart,” I tell her with a grin.
“Brandon, we already said that he would be difficult to get to,” she says, shaking her head.
“Yes, but I don’t need to get close to him to stab him with a needle,” I tell her.
“And how are you going to stab him without getting close to himt?” she asks me.
“Roger, of course,” I say, pointing to Roger.
“What? Me?” Roger says, surprised at being part of the plan.
“Sure! Roger, you can become invisible so no one can see you, and you can shoot things out of your sphere like you do with my dagger. Why can’t you shoot a simple silver needle?” I say.
“Holy fuck,” Roger says excitedly. “I can do that!”
“Will you all stop swearing around me!” my mother yells, throwing up her hands in frustration.
So that was the plan we had come up with, which is why we are now in Florida. We need to see if our plan to use the silver needles works. What took the longest was getting those silver needles made. Trent contacted a human artisan and had him make up a set of 100 silver needles that are the size of a small sewing needle, but much thinner.
It was Roger’s suggestion to make it small and slim so that he can shoot it hard and have it go through someone extremely fast. We weren’t sure if that would work, so what we did was get two versions made. The super thin ones we would test first, and the normal sized needles we would have as back up, in case going through someone that fast wouldn’t allow the silver to have enough contact with them to kill them.
Lina is the only one with me on this trip. Along with Roger. Sylvana and Johanne stayed back in New York. Sylvana was going to be teaching magic to my mother and Johanne. Lina was fine not learning right away since she had her Shadow Walker ability.
We were outside the compound where Sir Stewart was staying. And when I say compound, I mean heavily fortified and guarded expensive home. This place must have been worth millions. It was about a two-hour drive outside of Miami. Looking at the fence, I see guards and electronic surveillance. I am sure there are many more of both hidden inside.
“Are you going to be all right to get in there, Roger?” I ask him.
“Yup, they won’t even see me coming. Though, I have one concern,” he says.
“What’s that?” I ask him, worried now.
“It will be boring,” he says.
I look over at him quickly. “Seriously?”
“What?” he says, offended. “I mean, I rarely come out of the pod, and I like to do things that make me want to stay out!”
“What, being with me has been boring already?”
“Actually,” he says with a laugh, “being with you has been the most fun I have had in a long time. I think the last time I had this much fun was when I was with King Arthur in Atlantis.”
“What?” I blurt out in surprise.
“What?” he says innocently.
“You can’t just mention King Arthur and not say anything else! I always thought he and Atlantis were just a made-up story!” I tell him forcefully.
“Oh no, he is real. I mean, going by the stories I just got from your internet, what you people think you know about him isn’t even close to the truth. As for Atlantis, it didn’t sink, it was more blown up,”
“We need to sit down after, you and I, and have a long discussion about that. I am sure there is an amazing story to be told there,” I tell Roger, shaking my head in wonder.
“Can we focus, the both of you?” Lina says, slapping me on the side of the ribs.
“Sorry,” I tell her. I hadn’t even seen her come back. She had gone to scout. “What did you find out?”
“That this place is tighter than Fort Knox. I mean seriously, what does he have so much security for?”
“Good question,” I tell Lina, looking back at the complex. I mean, this place had more security than even some of the places that the President stayed at, I am sure. “I know that he is a rich man, but even Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos don’t have security this tight. I mean, if the Void wants us to go after him as a target to ignore the real targets, why make it so hard?”
“Maybe it’s meant to be hard so that many of us will be taken out trying to get to him?” Lina suggests.
“Could be. I would love to know what Sir Stewart is thinking or what he knows about the Void,” I tell her in irritation. I wish I could go in there and grab him and use the Voice on him, but that wasn’t our objective right now. Our aim was to test the silver needles. Sighing, I look over at Roger.
“Ready to go in?” I ask him.
“Yes. Ready as I can be. I have the needles. You want
me to try the slim ones first, and if those don’t work, you want me to use the regular ones, right?” Roger asks, confirming with me.
“Yes. I am hoping the thin ones work, since otherwise we will have people walking around with needles embedded in them.”
“Right. I will be back. I can communicate with you through your implants. I will let you know which one works,” Roger says.
“Good idea. Good luck,” I tell him. With that, he disappears, and I assume he is off to the target.
I turn to Lina to ask her how she is, and she is gone. Damn girl needs to wear a bell, I think to myself. She is way too quiet. Then again, since she started training me as a Shadow Walker, I am learning to be the same. I am quieter than I was before I met her and my coordination has improved, and although some of that was from becoming an Incubus, not all of it was .
In my right ear, Roger says, “We have a situation.”
“Crap, what’s up?” I ask him.
“Well, I am looking at the target, but he is looking right back at me. He can see me,” he says.
“All right then, shoot him!” I tell him.
“I did! And I saw purple smoke and fire. The thin needles worked, by the way. But now there is a bigger problem, since he can still see me,” Roger says.
“Can you smash his head in like you tried to with me?”
“I didn’t try to smash your head in,” he says indignantly.
“Whatever. You did, but that’s not important right now. What’s the problem? Why can he see you?”
“One second,” he says distractedly. “Oh fuck, he is asking for protection.”
“What do you mean he is asking for protection! From what?” I am practically yelling in bewilderment at this point.
“From what he calls, ‘A monster who tried to take him over,’ he says. And he says since we killed the one that was inside him, he wants protection since it’s still in the others at the compound,” Roger says.
“Shit, this wasn’t part of our plan!” I say in frustration. “Besides, what’s the point of protecting him? We just wanted to test the needles, and now we know they work. I see no reason to keep him,” I tell Roger.
A couple of seconds later, Roger comes back with, “I just told him that he is free and he can do whatever he wants. We don’t have a need for him. Oh shit. He says he has a book with the names and locations of over a thousand Infected members,” Roger says quickly, “and that if we protect him, he will tell us where it is.”
“Shit! Crap!” I cry out.
“What’s the matter?” Lina asks me worriedly. She just suddenly appeared next to me, making me almost jump out of my skin since I was so distracted.
I tell her what Roger just said, and she says, “Shit, Crap! Brandon, we need that book!”
“Fair, but how the hell are we supposed to get Sir Stewart out of there?” I ask her, pointing to the heavily fortified and protected compound.
Gazing at the place, a look of concentration crosses her face as she bites her lower lip. One thing I have found with Lina is that she doesn’t just bite me. She even bites herself. She is a biting creature, I think with an internal chuckle.
Finally, she turns back to me. “There is a way, but you might not like it, Brandon,” she says hesitantly.
“What’s that?” I ask her.
“Your Incubus form. When you were in that form, we, the girls and I, literally wanted to jump you. I assume that is the magic of being an Incubus?” she asks me.
“It’s not so much magic, it’s more that I can throw off pheromones that will make someone do what I want them to.”
“So it’s like you have a switch that you can turn on or off?” she asks me, with interest in her voice.
“Pretty much. It’s something I can control. However, it’s still a new thing for me. But what does that have to do with getting Sir Stewart out?” I ask her.
“Simple. Go in there, with Roger following you, and charm everyone as he sticks needles into them,” she says with a smug look.
“Shit, that might work!” Roger says in my ear. “One thing that the Elveesians could do was charm the panties off anything.”
“They did that?” I blurt out to him.
“Well, I am not one hundred percent sure about the panties thing, but they had the Voice too. So if you use the Voice, and those pheromones as you call them, I am sure you can take over this place peacefully, or with little violence.”
“So just walk in there, pew pew needles, and take over?” I say with a raised eyebrow.
“If anyone can, it’s you,” she says, with full confidence in her voice.
“We need more people,” I tell her.
“No time,” Roger says. “Sir Stewart says that he can only keep them out for the next hour. After that, they will come back to check on him.”
“Who will come back to check on him?” I ask him, baffled.
“It seems we might have been right, in that he isn’t a big fish in the Void circles. He has watchers who come to make sure he is still being a good boy. It seems that our man here has been able to do things that the Void didn’t want him doing.”
“Wait, how is that possible? I thought if the Void took you over, that was it.”
“It seems our target isn’t human,” Roger says smugly.
“What is he then?” I ask, surprised.
“I just scanned him, and he is what you would call a Demon,” Roger says, some surprise evident in his voice.
13
“So, how do we go about this?” I ask Lina, unsure.
I told her what Roger said about people coming back to check on Sir Stewart . I hadn’t mentioned to her that Sir Stewart was genuinely a Demon, or what I think of as a Demon. So he is like me then, an Incubus? I still have no clue what a Demon really is, except for what I’d read in stories, but as Roger once told me, they don’t call themselves Demons.
“Well, now would be a good chance to see if that training as a Shadow Walker worked,” Lina says with a big grin.
“True,” I tell her.
The Vampires had magic in them to ensnare people using their Threads of Faith, and some, who were special or had more magic in them, had the ability to use the shadows as doorways. They traveled through the shadows to move. I didn’t believe it was possible until I did myself for the first time.
Grabbing the surrounding shadows, I look at the location I want to enter and the location I want to exit, and I push a little magic into the connection. Once the shadows appear in front of me, almost like a mist, I enter what seems like a dark tunnel. It’s a short tunnel, and looking at the walls, I see they are transparent and I can see lights moving around in the distance. Lina couldn’t tell me what the lights were or where they were coming from, but she did tell me if we looked at them and stayed in the tunnels too long, we would die. So I shake off the feeling of wanting to stay in the tunnel, which according to Lina is a real thing designed to ensnare me and I head to the exit. Once I’m out, I look around and see I’ve made it to the other side of the security fence. That’s one way to get past the electrified fence and all its alarms, I think.
Suddenly, Lina appears next to me out of thin air. Now that I know what she does and how it works, she can’t surprise me anymore, since I can see the clouds appear next to me. I can even feel the tunnel opening, so I know when she tries to open it behind me.
“We need to do it slowly. You command them if you can; I will stab the humans with a silver needle,” she whispers to me.
Nodding, I whisper, “Good idea, I can smell a couple of them near us.”. I had changed into my Incubus form to push out the pheromones. Not sure how I was doing it, but I was pushing a calming effect out. Lina said even she could feel it, although I hope it’s more effective on others than it is on her. I’m assuming the lack of reaction from her is because she has my blood in her.
Moving so quietly that I can’t even hear my own steps, I head towards the first guard, whose back is to me. Grabbing some shadows, I appear
behind him, as Lina would always do to me, and in his ear, I use the Voice and say, “Don’t move or scream.”
I am glad I added the screaming part, as his shout cuts off in his throat. Then Lina appears next to him and stabs a needle into his leg. He doesn’t scream as I told him not to, but I watch as purple smoke and flame come out of his wound. Unexpectedly, the guard slumps over in exhaustion.
“Where am I?” he says, looking up at me in confusion.
“Sleep,” I tell him quietly using the Voice, and the guard passes out.
Looking at Lina, we both nod. “So it’s confirmed. The Void takes over completely so that the Infected don’t remember anything. Maybe this Sir Steward is different? This changes things. We cannot kill them all afterward,” Lina says.
“Yeah, guess my mother had that one right,” I tell her. Yeah and you can say that Sir Steward was different. My mother figured that whoever the Void had taken over would have no clue what was going on since they might have been trapped in their minds. This might have just confirmed it. But I want to make sure before I pass judgment.
We leave the guard on the ground and move forward. Within a minute, we come upon another guard, but he is facing slightly towards us. So I look into his eyes and even though he cannot see me, I use the Voice, throwing some magic into my voice this time to carry it across the distance. The Guard starts to turn, but then jerks to a stop after I say, “Don’t move or scream.”
Once we get to him, Lina does her needle jabbing, and again we see purple flames. Damn, so it might be that everyone here is Infected. Once the flames sputter out, the guard looks at me in confusion and says,. “Where am I?”, just like the other guard did.
“Sleep,” I tell him quietly with the Voice and catch him as he falls to the ground.
“So, how many more do you think we will find here that are Infected?” Lina whispers next to me.
“Something tells me all of them,” I whisper just as quietly.
“Shit, this is going to make our job harder, isn’t it?” she tells me.
