The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  "I can see that in our world, but what about hell? Why does God send people there?" Brian asked thoughtfully.

  "You have it wrong. God doesn't judge and throw people into hell," Adrina explained patiently. "Even the greatest sinners are welcome into His presence. When you die, you won't have any of this," she gripped the Commander's bull-like shoulders. "You'll be stripped down to your purest essence, your thoughts, your experiences, your memories, your love, this is what you take with you to share. However, the light of the lord is revealing and everything is open to Him, and there are those whose transgressions are too great. Free will exists even after death and instead of facing their actions, these sinners hide in shame at their own atrocities and they flee from the light of the Lord. They dwell in the void, hating God and hating what they were and what they did, until they are found by a darkness greater than themselves."

  "The demon? Why doesn't God destroy the thing?" Brian asked, his eyes smoldering with anger. "He could, but he doesn't! He should go and free all the souls it has collected."

  "Maybe he does, Brian, but would that change anything? God will never force you to love him and he could destroy every demon in the void but as long as there are souls denying him, new demons would come into existence."

  William considered this logical, but wondered if he would have been swayed by the arguments for the existence of God, if it hadn't been for the demon. It had been so impossibly evil that no amount of Darwinism or evolutionary theory would ever be able to explain it away. Moreover, there had been that moment when he had died, clutching his useless play sword, when he had felt what the demon had been craving. Below all of William's shallow emotions and insignificant thoughts, ran something elemental, something that was simultaneously a part of him as well as connected with something far, far greater. It was nearly impossible to wrap his mind around the concept, except to visualize it as the opposite of the demon. It was pure and true, and his heart rejoiced at the awareness of it. It was God. God had been in him.

  His son disturbed his thinking with a painful question: "Mrs. Fortini, the demon is feeding off of Talitha, will she be normal when we get her back?"

  "Honestly, I don't know. A lot will depend on her."

  This was followed by a moment of silence in the old apartment and then Father Alba spoke in a forceful voice, having clearly come to some conclusion. "I feel the need to confront the demon...directly during the exorcism."

  William nodded in agreement and was glad for the courage the priest was showing. His earlier emotional state had been annoying but at the same time understandable. The man was definitely not a heroic figure; he was more like the Ichabod Crane of the priesthood.

  Adrina gave the priest an odd look. "Please wait until the moment of truth, before you make that decision. Now we must be going very soon. I feel it, the urgency to hurry. But the subject was changed and I need to know something. Commander you must tell me right now, are you willing to do anything...even imperil your immortal soul to save your daughter?"

  "Yes," he answered gravely, looking her in the eye. It wasn't an easy answer after what he knew was now in him. Yet it was the only answer.

  "Anything," she repeated the word ominously.

  "Yes."

  3

  "Good! I will go the bathroom and then we go." Adrina pushed herself up from the table and William could see how her joints had stiffened in the short time they had been talking. Her knees and elbows snapped like dried twigs. At the sound she stopped for a moment and her lips came together to form a thin pink line on her wrinkled face. The sound seemed to remind her of something unpleasant, but she gave a little shake of her head and slowly made her way to the bathroom.

  William slouched in his chair, and thought about what had been said. He was amazed when he found himself being shaken by the elbow. He had fallen asleep! The clock on the wall showed him it had just been for a few minutes. How strange. Adrina stood in a very heavy coat before him. She carried a large brown leather purse which was as wrinkled as its owner, and about her neck was a great black scarf that looked to have been made for someone much bigger. William's mind was playing catch up from his little nap and he looked about for his own coat.

  "Oh, right," he mumbled, remembering it was June and that his coat was packed away with his winter clothes.

  "It is draining to be so near the demon," Adrina commiserated. She looked around the worn down little apartment with a sadness aging her face, even more that the weight of her years. "Now we go."

  His son wheeled William down the hall, while Mrs. Fortini explained that since time was short, they would have to confess their sins to the priest on the way back to the Island.

  "I'm not sure what my sins are," Brian said and William thought the boy had never looked so nervous. "I know lying and stealing and thou shall not kill, but I don't really know what else there is."

  They had reached the stairs and Adrina paused looking down at them as if they were a great obstacle. "You need to know that the actual commandment is Thou shall not commit murder. There is an important difference between killing and murdering." She started down the stairs with a wheezy little groan. "Your best bet during your confession, Brian is to keep the Ten Commandments in the front of your mind as a guide."

  Will waited at the top of the stairs to give Adrina time to go down a bit and he spoke to her loudly, "Mrs. Fortini, I've only been to church a few times and Brian has never gone."

  Brian, who was holding Adrina's arm and guiding her down the stairs, appearing like a larger than usual Boy Scout in search of a badge, nodded in agreement with Will's statement but Adrina had begun coughing that nasty wet cough of hers and missed it.

  Father Alba, seeing the old lady struggling, went down the list of commandments slowly. William saw his son's brow furl at, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife."

  "Father, isn't covet synonymous with desire?" he asked. "That's another thing I always wondered about. Why would God put in to me desires and then punish me..." he paused as Adrina gave a loud purposeful cough. "Oh, right he doesn't punish. Let's say I see a pretty woman and desire her, but I don't act on the desire, how's that a sin?"

  "It's not. Covetousness is far more than just desiring." The priest explained and seemed to be his usual self, now that he was on familiar ground. "It's the precursor to many sins. If you see a pretty girl and all you say is wow, Va-Va-Voom, then that..." He stopped as Brian looked back in comical disbelief and shared a look with Will. "What? They don't say that anymore?"

  Will turned a little pink in the cheeks. "No, not really but it's just... it sounds extra weird coming from a priest."

  At this, perhaps to hide his embarrassment, Will started down the stairs and William leaned back in the wheel chair so that he was looking at the peeling paint of the stairwell ceiling. It made him the slightest bit nauseous and he tried to concentrate on the priests words as they went down, to keep from getting sick.

  "I suppose it does," Father Alba said and smiled for the first time that day. "But coveting is a state past just desiring. You see a pretty girl and you desire her, right there you're not sinning. Coveting is when you let that desire grow and it starts to dictate your actions. Do you then lie to your wife, so you can be with the other girl? Do you bear false witness concerning a friend so that she looks to you for help? It's that point when you start to lie to yourself— when the self-deception begins. That is coveting. Do you understand?"

  William did...to a point. "But again these are just thoughts. If I covet without any other sin, where's the wrong in that? It seems Heaven would be an empty place, if thoughts counted as sin."

  "Hold on," Adina wheezed, "You're missing the purpose to the Ten Commandments. Remember God doesn't care if you missed church a few times, or if you sassed your parents. That's completely beneath him. What he does care about is your happiness. He has given you life and free will, but also a small instruction book on how to be happy on earth and in the Afterlife. Follow the Ten Commandments, love
thy neighbor, do unto others, love God and yours will be a joyful life."

  "What about God being a jealous God, that doesn't sound as if everything is beneath him," William said, and almost immediately felt he had blasphemed.

  Adrina stopped at the second floor and her breathing was harsh. She leaned over and coughed something grey into the corner of the stairwell. "The passage shows that the Lord knows of the false gods, such as Ba'al Zebul that I mentioned; the demon posing as a god. There's a very great danger in worshipping these false gods as the Gypsies found out. The term jealous should be interpreted as protective, though possessive would not be unfair either. God wants you to worship him for your good, not his."

  "What about not going to church on Sundays?" Will asked this between heavy exhalations, the strain of his father’s weight was turning him red from the neck up.

  "Keep holy the Sabbath, is what you mean…don’t let go of him! You will crush me if you do!" The chair had slipped, with Will grunting loudly. She had to scurry out of his direct path. "You be more careful with your Father! Where was I…ah, the Sabbath. Once again, the Sabbath is for men, not for God. The Sabbath is to remind man of his place in the universe. We are so insignificant, yet there are those foolish enough to think they can replace God with science or machines, or their own great egos. When we go to church we learn humility—we learn our place. A humble man is not a sinner, he knows the greatness of God, and he knows his own failings."

  Brian relieved Will for the final set of stairs and though William remained outwardly calm, he couldn't help picturing himself and the chair bouncing down the stairs like a pair of large dice in a Las Vegas casino. But despite his size, Brian was very strong, a pint sized Hercules, and he brought William the rest of the way down without mishap. At the bottom of the stairs, even though her cough continued, Adrina refused to take a break and she pressed on to the subway.

  Almost as soon as they made the sidewalk in front of the apartment building, Brian asked to be relieved, "Will, can you push your dad? I want to go first with the confessing." It was clear Will had wanted to go first but he agreed and took over.

  Adrina warned them all: "Make no excuses. Own your sins and do not try to hide anything. You must confront your past now or the demon will do it for you later." Brian looked slightly nauseous as he dropped back to talk to the priest. William could hear them muttering to each other the entire way back, and as they neared the subway, he wondered how many sins such a young boy could have. Brian finished his confession just before the train arrived and came over as they boarded, looking immensely relieved.

  "I feel good, you know at peace. It wasn't that bad," he said cheerfully, but his voice changed to concern as he caught a sight of Will. "Are you ok? You look like you are ready to hurl."

  It was true; his son looked very close to being sick, his throat kept working up and down, and William asked him, "Do you want to go next?"

  "Yeah I think so...I don't know." He rubbed his stomach with a pained expression on his face. "This is so weird. It's not as if I've done a lot wrong, you know. I don't know why I feel so scared..." He stopped talking and stood with that sick expression on his face, turning greener by the second.

  "It does seem rather invasive," William agreed with his son, trying to hit a tone of understanding.

  "Invasive..." Will said oddly, and then gave a short nervous laugh. "Invasive is right. That's what Talitha would've called it. You know she made me..." he paused for a moment shaking his head. "I was going to say she made me look it up once, the word you know, but in truth she never made me do anything. It’s just that I wanted her to think I was smarter than I really am. I always tried to be a better person when she was around." He smiled a quirky, uneasy smile and went to the priest. His confession took the entire subway ride back to the tip of Manhattan, and he too seemed to have had a burden lifted off his shoulders, when he finished.

  William was left very little time to confess to Father Alba, just the short ferry ride across the junction of the Hudson and East river. However, it was all he'd need. His sins were not many and they were fresh in his mind. When the demon had looked on him, it had rifled through his memories like an overeager reporter looking for juicy gossip, relishing each one of his sins. These he rattled off to the priest with ease, since he had long ago come to terms with his rather dull transgressions. It was the implanted memories that gave him the most trouble.

  "Father, last night when I first confronted the demon, it planted thoughts and memories into me. I'm not making excuses…but it made me feel, uh, covetous in a sexual way, towards Talitha." This was terribly painful to say aloud but he wasn't going to hide from it. "I have never had sexual thoughts about my daughter before, and now suddenly I have this great guilt!"

  Father Alba stared out over the waters, looking slightly perplexed. "I don’t think you should ask forgiveness for actions that aren't your own. But please know, I'm not here to judge, I'm only a conduit, so if there was any part of the thoughts that were yours, you'll have to confess and repent."

  "They weren't my thoughts."

  "Then go in peace and sin no more." The priest had barely finished his sentence when the ferry rammed hard into the side of the slip. It was sloppy work on such a calm night, but William had seen worse, and the jarring sensation was familiar and comforting. They'd be docked on the Island in just over a minute and Adrina was tense, giving orders like the world’s smallest drill sergeant.

  "Brian and you…the big one, get over here! We're getting close to being too late…you boys; you get your father to the hospital as quick as you can. Get the maiden and we meet at the house. Father, go to the church, you'll need to baptize these three, get everything you'll need and don't forget the Eucharist! They'll need to take Communion you know." She shooed them on, as the gates opened. "Hurry…do not dawdle!"

  Will took the first leg of their race to the hospital.

  It wasn't far, just about three quarters of a mile and the two boys took turns and pumped their legs furiously. During the trip, William had little to do besides worry. He wished he could do something besides sit in the chair, but his exhaustion weighed on him like an anchor, and he wondered briefly where the demon would be in the house and hoped that it'd be in the kitchen, or maybe the dining room. With all the stairs he didn't think he could handle the attic, but it was a better alternative to the basement. Knowing that a girl had been roasted down there made his skin crawl, and he shivered briefly despite the warmth of the night. He decided to concentrate on something productive instead: how to kidnap your own daughter from a military hospital.

  4

  At that time of night the corridors of the building were empty and William saw that getting her out of the hospital would be easy, compared to getting her out of her room. Talitha lay hooked up to a machine that assisted her to breathe, which they would have to keep going somehow. Not only that, she had at least three electrical leads running from her body and removing any one of them would set off beeping alarms which would alert the nurse on duty.

  The boys had moved so quickly that he hadn't thought of a single way to move her, before they were pulling into the vacant parking lot. He directed them to use the service elevator at the near end of the hospital since it was the least used. As it was, the place was so deserted that they could have used the main elevators. The building seemed asleep and a few minutes later, they slipped noiselessly into Talitha’s room.

  Save for the breathing of four sleeping girls, the room was silent. All but Talitha, came awake slowly and Gayle who may've been the bleariest asked, "Was it her? Was it the right lady?"

  Her voice seemed loud to William and he whispered in an exaggerated fashion, "Yes, she's on the Island with Father Alba, He's going to do an exorcism, not on Talitha but on Henny Harris." He explained quickly the odd story and events surrounding Adrina.

  "Wow!" Lisa exclaimed quietly. "She has psychic powers. This is great! We have a chance now."

  William answered Lisa but did so
while looking at Gayle determinedly, "There's no 'we', Lisa. Only the three of us, Will, Brian, and I are going. I wish Will didn’t have to go, but the lady insisted. She believed it's important."

  Gayle appeared in a state of shock at the idea of sending her son back into the house. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she whispered, "My boy…not my boy."

  William went to her and slipping from the wheel chair, knelt down in front of her. "Honey, he's not a boy anymore. He's a man, a valiant man and I need him by my side." He said this, not only to reassure Gayle but also to bolster Will, who periodically let his fear out to stampede across his face, and was currently looking slightly pale.

  Gayle nodded through her tears and rubbed her eyes hard with the palms of her hand. "Ok…ok! But you listen to me." She suddenly tossed aside her fear and despair and looked at him fiercely. "You ALL come back! None of this Blue Book crap! You all come back. I don’t care what you have to do, but you will all come back."

  "We will. Whatever it takes. I promise." William would've assured her to a greater degree but his body felt limp, like a slowly deflating balloon, and he struggled to get back to his chair. He sagged into it and tried to concentrate on his wife’s face to keep his head from spinning. Please be in the kitchen, he thought to himself. If the demon was in the attic…he refused to think on it anymore and was grateful when Brian came in to the room. Grateful but also puzzled. "Where were you?"

  "Just doing a little recon. There's a single orderly at the station. If we can get him to move, we'll be able to get Talitha out. The main problem is that there are only two other patients and they're both on this end."

  Will went to the door, peeked out, and then looked to his little sister. "Katie, do you think you can sneak past that big desk and go all the way to that last room on the right?"

  She poked her head out and took her bearings. "Yes, that'll be easy," she said without a trace of fear. "But which way is right again?"