The Trilogy of the Void: The Complete Boxed Set

by Peter Meredith

  "Pedro! Get your ass in here," she demanded in a harsh voice that carried throughout the house. It was loud enough to wake the dead, but the blonde girl stretched out on the floor didn't stir. Perhaps it was because she wasn't quite dead, yet.

  Pedro was there in seconds, huffing as quietly as he could and Amy smirked at the sight.

  Only two people ever called him Pedro, his grandmother, and Amy Harris. Anyone else who dared would have been bleeding in seconds. Amy knew this about the big man and more. Early on she had decided that she wouldn't make the same mistake as she did with Luke and extensively explored his background. Using the dead, and there were many, many dead souls who had known Pedro, the witch discovered far more about the Mexican than he would've ever dreamt about.

  She knew that Pedro was not a man to take lightly. At six foot three inches and two-hundred and forty pounds, he was big for a Mexican and he enjoyed the intimidation factor that his size allowed. He enjoyed doling out pain as well and had no qualms about killing in any manner. These attributes were highly sought after and not just by her and it was during his first stay as a guest of the California Department of Corrections that he'd been recruited into Emeros.

  Emeros was a Mexican prison gang and though they liked to throw around the term Mafia in relation to the name, they were really nothing of the sort, and did little besides use drugs, sell drugs, and kill people over drugs. Since he was exceptional at all three, Pedro quickly progressed to the level of lieutenant in the hierarchy of the gang.

  However, the White Witch as he called Amy Harris behind her back, with a small show of her power had ended his connection to the gang in a single afternoon. This was the only thing that could've won him over, since power was the single authority he respected. Amy had great power.

  "Yes, Ms Harris?" he asked, keeping his eyes low, but all the same not looking at the blonde girl splayed on the floor. He seemed nervous at her unnatural sleep.

  "How many of your boys do we have in Boston? And how many still in L.A?" the witch asked, running her hands through her thick black hair. As a habit, she would tease her hair or stretch provocatively and Pedro as always, forced his yearning eyes from her stunning figure. He'd been trained well; to ogle her was to invite trouble.

  "Six in Boston and och..." Amy's eyes narrowed and Pedro quickly bit his tongue. She always demanded that he speak only English. "I mean eight in L.A."

  "Have the boys in Boston get to Logan airport and make sure they're ready to fly," Amy ordered and then began pacing, her mind whirling. "Who do you trust down stairs? As soon as I'm done with her," she nodded to the blonde. "We're out of here, but I need to leave a few men behind. Later today I'm expecting two people a man and a woman. Now the girl is nothing special, but the man, may be tough..." she left off thinking.

  Will was far tougher than she had first realized. Three times he'd been in the presence of the demon, Ba'al Zubel back on Governor's Island, yet he lived. And last night, she knew that he had taken on Ba'al again, as well as Luke, something that should've been far beyond him. Somehow he came out of it alive. And so did Talitha. That was an even bigger surprise.

  Yet, did it really matter?

  Amy was there for the sword, not some petty revenge. That she could indulge in at any time once her obligations were fulfilled that is. She hadn't been lying, when she told Will she was on a time crunch. Promises had been made in blood and she had received much for them, but the time of her payment was coming fast upon her.

  "Ramon is good," Pedro answered the earlier question. "I'd leave him and Tre."

  "No, make it four men." Amy nodded her head as she spoke. Will's ability to see the future would be quite easy to overcome. A simple charm would do the trick; something Luke had disregarded when he had made off with half her incantations. And without the capacity to see the future, Will was as good as dead...but she was done taking chances. There was Talitha to consider after all. The only thing Amy really knew about her was that she had gone insane the night Amy's mother had died.

  Was there more to her than just brains? The insane were notoriously unpredictable after all, capable of anything. The witch began to pace, thinking, worrying, biting her lip, but after a minute she realized she was wasting her time. Worrying about Talitha would have to wait, since if she didn't find the sword nothing else mattered.

  "I have some work to do in here and while I'm at it I'm going to need absolute silence. Set men around the house. No one comes in, no matter what. No mailman, no police, no nothing. You got it?"

  "Yes, Ms Harris," Pedro backed away in haste, shutting the door behind him.

  Amy looked down at Lisa once more and shook her head. The girl was so plain. Where was the attraction? She gave the body a quick shrug, not really caring much anymore.

  Three years ago she'd cared a great deal. Her hate had been burning like a fire in her belly since her mother's disappearance. Then by accident she'd stumbled across some of her mother's belongings including a diary that at first made no sense. In fact, it seemed to purposely not make sense, as if an imbecile had written it. 3 days running out plays sometimes, off for picnic, including grapes. Bugs, little owls, otters, dams. It turned out to be a code and a very simple one at that, however, Amy wasn't a genius. Fortunately for her, Henny Harris was even less of one and as Amy read the diary it became increasingly clear that the first letter of each word had been stressed slightly.

  Once Amy saw this, the code became easy to read- 3 drops of pig blood. It was so obvious that Amy became embarrassed for her mother, but that embarrassment became worse as she realized what her mother was up to.

  Spells? Incantations? It seemed her mother had been into all sorts of foolish things...rites, virgin sacrifices, Ouija boards. Wondering if this had anything to do with her disappearance, Amy delved into the diary and in four very long days had written out the entire thing in English. There was some scary stuff there, but nothing personal that gave a hint to where she'd gone.

  Late on the fourth night, when she had finished with the diary, Amy took up her mother's Ouija board and thinking that it worked more like a Magic Eight Ball, asked, "Where's my mother?" She then spun the little wooden heart that came with it. The arrow pointed squarely at the "W." Another spin had it pointing at the "G."

  "Wug... wig... wag?" Amy said, turning her head this way and that. "This fuckin thing's broken."

  Tired and stressed she went to sleep. In the morning the little wooden heart shaped planchette pointed squarely at one of the four words on the board, hello. For a very long time Amy had sat on her bed with her feet drawn up off the floor as if she thought that something could be laying in wait under it. The pointer had moved, there was no doubt in her mind that it had, but how?

  Eventually, she came to terms that the Ouija board was the real deal and from then on, she was hooked, far deeper than her mother ever was. Amy delved into the underworld with a passion, but also with care.

  Her caution was fully justified, since it wasn't long before she came to discover what a tremendous fool her mother had been. Henny had been timid at first, afraid to use even a single spell. But then, as if rolling the dice at Vegas, she turned full bore in the opposite direction by trying to open a Gate to a hell dimension. No simple love potion for her. She went for the big money and paid for it with her life.

  Learning from her mother's mistake, Amy started small and it was weeks before she attempted even the simplest things. And for a time, she also steered clear of the Ouija board since she had no clue, who or even what would be answering her questions. However, eventually she made the attempt and one thing became crystal-clear to her. The creatures that were out there trying to communicate with her were desperate; they needed her far more than she needed them. They were utterly powerless on earth and craved even the smallest touch of life. More and more she saw this and soon she began forcing heavily favored bargains upon them.

  Yet despite the lopsided arrangements they were eager for more.

  At length with
the help of the board, she discovered a spell that would allow her to commune with the dead. It was a massive break through. The dead were a vault of information and demanded nothing in return but to be listened to. When at last Amy discovered her mother's soul, the truth of her disappearance came out.

  At that point, Amy's hate for Will became a current of fire that had her raging for days. In due course, as she kept learning and growing as a witch, and as time stretched out, the hate faded. It never left, but she had more important things to consider.

  Demons for instance.

  Dealing with the demons and fiends of the Void was the most fearfully difficult thing to master. Always they were trying to trip her up, to gain control of her soul and she was perpetually on guard against their schemes and plots. She traded with them, blood and souls were her currency, and power was their commodity and always in these dealings her soul was put up as bond. Yet not once did she make a deal where she couldn't hold up her end of the bargain and continuously she prevailed and as she did her capabilities increased.

  Her ego grew in proportion to her power, so that she was blind to the smallest thing that lay at her feet: Luke Sheldon.

  During those early days he worked in a very curious curio shop in New York City. It sold the most outlandish items legally and illegally available. Amy Harris frequented it so much that Luke quickly figured out what she was up to. He worshipped her. He went out of his way for anything that she needed and became almost a slave to her. She allowed this and slowly he wormed and groveled his way into her confidence.

  It turned out that he was a liar and a conniver of great ability. He was not a gypsy nor any sort of witch, but nonetheless he learned things and became powerful in his own right. But Amy was oblivious to what her underling was up to and remained that way until she woke three months ago to find most of her spells missing and all four of the virgins she had planned on sacrificing, dead. Dead virgins were useless virgins.

  Luke had left her with almost nothing but the Ouija board, yet despite that she'd worked around the clock to re-build her spell list, taking chances that previously she would've scoffed at. So that now she was almost as strong as she had been. Along with her strength she built up a thirst for vengeance. Even as she attempted to regain what she'd lost, she searched for Luke with a fiery determination, and had been getting steadily closer.

  He knew she was closing in on him and this was probably why he'd gone for the sword, prematurely. It was premature since clearly he had not yet discovered Will's talent and had botched the attempt to lay hands on the blade, as a consequence. Stupid mistake. But for Amy, a timely one.

  She'd known about the sword, her mother had mentioned it in passing long before, but unfortunately Henny had groused and complained so much over her body being burned by the priest that Amy had missed the supernatural aspects concerning the artifact. To her it had only been the weapon that had killed her mother.

  But as a result of Luke staking everything on acquiring it, Amy had become intrigued by the idea that there was more to the blade than she knew. A quick investigation conducted only the night before, possibly at the very moment that Luke was opening his gate, revealed the wonderful secret that the sword possessed. And the knowledge couldn't have come at a more opportune moment.

  To get her power back in so short a time, she had gambled and very nearly lost. All of her excessively imbalanced bargains came back to haunt her and she began to mortgage her soul six ways from Sunday. Still, she knew that once she recovered all of her spells, she'd be able to turn the tides back again. But then children began to disappear in Boston.

  This struck a cold fear into her. The children were being used as a conduit to gain knowledge. A knowledge of powerful evils and she feared what Luke was up to and she feared also what he would do to her when he was done. She was his only real rival and had the tables been turned, she would've destroyed him in a second. And so feeling terribly vulnerable, she had gone to Ba'al Zubel.

  Ba'al was the ultimate power broker in the Void. It had been the first time she was forced to commune with that awful entity and worse, she went hat in hand, in the weakest of positions. The demon gave her the power that she wished for, putting her on par with Luke, and in return Amy was to open a gate just as her mother had done. She was given a month to accomplish this and the days had ticked by with an amazing alacrity.

  Her problem was in finding a virgin. Virginity was a difficult thing.

  It was all a matter of perfection. A physical lack of penetration wasn't even all that important; what mattered was the purity of the soul and the rightness of one's mind.

  Her first attempt had been so dismal that she disliked to even think she'd been a part of it. The girl had been a fraud and had been no more a virgin than Amy was at her age and it was only just in time did she figure it out. Had Amy tried to open a gate with an impure soul, her own would've been forfeit, and whenever she thought about it, shivers ran across her back. People were just such liars these days.

  Amy smiled at this.

  The Jerns weren't liars. And Lisa Jern especially wasn't going to lie in the state she was in. It would be an impossibility. Though impossible or not, it was going to take time. Memories were like that. Amy would have to start at the point under which Lisa had been ensorcelled and work her way backwards. She was going to find out what Lisa had for breakfast, whether she did the laundry that morning and if her favorite squirrel had come out to beg for a piece of bread. Tedium. Suburban tedium at its worst.

  Amy got comfortable and worked herself into a positive mindset. Perhaps Lisa had hidden the sword moments before they arrived, somewhere around the home, or maybe out in the forest under a rock or a log or some such. Either way she would have the sword soon.

  Despite her attempt at positivity, that last thought dampened her spirits somewhat. She needed the sword, but in her heart, she was afraid of it as well. Who knew precisely what happen when it was used?

  Chapter 3

  Will

  Talitha stood in the dim hotel room; her eyes cast down to the carpet and Will waited for her to speak, knowing that his little sister would know what to do. She always knew what to do. She was a hundred times smarter than he was, so he sat on the bed waiting, purposefully not thinking.

  To think would only bring about pain. Mental pain. Physical pain he already had by the truckloads. Almost every part of his body nagged in a dull aching way, but not his mind. He had left off the conversation with Amy, dropping a foolish sounding good-bye, and as he did, terrible thoughts of the frightful misery his wife was going through came to him. Therefore he immediately switched off his brain.

  With near religious faith, he sat looking at Talitha and minutes snuck by unnoticed by either of them.

  Finally she spoke, "What're we going to do?"

  It was then Will noticed that she seemed bewildered or perhaps overcome with everything that had happened to them in the last few days. The look wasn't acceptable. And neither was her question; she was the super smart one.

  "What do you mean?" he asked feeling a flush of anger. "I'm counting on you here. Lisa's counting on you."

  "I guess we go get the incantations then?"

  "Tal, what's wrong?" Her eyes were brimming with tears and when he tugged her down beside him on the bed, they began to spill over.

  "We're going to have to do it all over again," she said in a staccato, the syllables bouncing up and down to the rhythmic hitching of her chest. "I thought...I thought that after last night, I could just go home. Back to the cabin. But now, if I stay or go, it doesn't matter. It'll mean more death and blood and it just never ends. How much killing can I be a part of...before I'm...I'm..." Her tears came heavier and for a few moments, she sat mute with the force of her emotion.

  "Before what?" Despite the renewed pounding in his head and his growing sense of desperation, he kept his tone calm.

  "Before I'm like her, the other Talitha."

  "Listen Tal, there is no other Talitha. Tha
t girl is gone. She's a demon now and whatever she did, it has nothing to do with you. Her evil is not your evil."

  "I created her!" she cried out unexpectedly in vicious anger. The change from the fearful sadness was so abrupt that Will leaned back, startled. Talitha seemed not to notice. "I'm responsible for everything she did. All those people she killed, their blood is on my hands, both literally and figuratively." With that she brought her blackened fingers to her face. Sniffing at them she cringed in disgust. "I need a shower."

  Ignoring her brother, she was up, heading for the shower in the trashed out room, but suddenly she thought better of it. The night before she'd sat in that shower after being raped. Her shoulders slumped at the sight of the door and she turned to the adjoining room.

  "Tal?" Will called out. She turned her face, beautiful despite the soot and the emotion clouding it, toward him and he asked her, "You're coming to Maine with me right?" He knew that she would, but on a gut level he had to hear it.

  "I have to. I'd never let anything happen to Lisa...or the baby," she replied, and barely looked back before she slipped through the doorway. In that instant, he saw there was a hardness to her face, a nastiness that would've given her demon twin a shock to see.

  Talitha knew that more death was coming and the look suggested she was steeling herself against it. He would have to as well. In eight years he'd barely ever thought of Amy Harris. Her mother yes. You don't kill a person and then go about your life without reflecting on it frequently. Clearly, Amy had given Will a lot of thought and sadly, her thoughts had now turned to vengeance. He should've seen this coming.

  Really, he should have, since he had the power to see into the future. Regrettably, that power wasn't always exact, nor was it timely; the visions came and went, almost unpredictably. Almost, since if he wished he could purposefully look into the future for something specific, but even that was fraught with danger and uncertainty.