The Void Hunters (Realmwalker Book 2)

by Jonathan Franks

  “You want me to keep a diary?”

  “You don't have to call it that if you don't want to, but yes. That's what I'm asking you to do. Try it for a week. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Every day, try to write down what you're feeling and something good that happened to you that day. I really think it will help.”

  “Okay. Do I have to, like, show it to you or anything?” Jim asked.

  “No. I want you to write it for you, not for anyone else.”

  “Okay, I guess I can do that.”

  “Jim,” Dr. Ramsey said, “It gets better. It really does.”

  Jim shrugged. “What if it doesn't?”

  “It will. Now, Jim,” she continued, “there's something else I want you to do this week. I want you to say something to your father.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever you want. But every day, I want you to say something. I'd like you just to try talking to him a little bit. Try it on. I think you'll find that it gets easier the more you do it.”

  “I guess.”

  “Even if it's hard at first, just say something. I think you'll see that he wants to connect with you just as much as you want to connect with him, but he's even more afraid than you are. Try it, just for a week,” she said.

  “Okay.” Jim sat back on the sofa and wiped his nose again. He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I guess I just need to figure out what I'm gonna say.”

  -

  “Molly,” mommy asked, “did you know that boy?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean maybe? How do you know him?”

  “I don't know him,” Molly said. “I just know who he is.”

  “And who is he?”

  “He's Hope, mommy.”

  “He's hope? Hope for who? Hope for what?”

  “Not all of that. Just Hope. It's okay. Shae says that he's a good person,” Molly said.

  “Oh, does she, now?” mommy smiled. “Well, we don't need to do everything Shae says, do we?”

  Molly said, “No, mommy.”

  “And if Shae ever says something scary or asks us to do anything we don't want to do...”

  “Then we come and tell somebody right away.”

  “That's my good girl,” mommy said and hugged Molly tightly.

  chapter 12

  When Hope removed Gen's bandages, her wounds were completely gone.

  “Those shouldn't have healed overnight,” Hope said. “And no scarring at all. Odd.” She examined the bandages and saw that there were only faint traces of blood on them.

  “It didn't hurt at all after it got me,” Gen said.

  “I'm not sure you can actually get hurt now,” Herron said. “Remember what happened when… Remember what happened to you. You were hurt pretty bad and then you were completely healed.”

  “Yeah,” Gen said. “I guess that's true. Let's try an experiment.” She drew her sword and dragged the blade across her forearm. She grunted from pain and blood seeped from the gash. “That really hurt.”

  For a while, nothing happened. “This might have been a mistake,” Hope said.

  “No,” Gen said. “It doesn't hurt anymore.” She looked closely at her arm and gasped.

  “What? Are you okay?” Hope asked.

  “Yeah, I'm fine. Look!”

  The cut on Gen's arm slowly closed as they watched.

  “Wow!” Gen said. “It's healing! That is amazing.” She looked eagerly at Hope. “Quick! Stab me or something!”

  “I will not!” Hope said.

  Gen looked hopefully at Herron. He simply shook his head. Then a stabbing pain shot through Gen's hip. Gen cried out. Tears came to her eyes. Shae yanked her dagger out of Gen's side, then bent to look carefully and the wound.

  “What in the world?” Gen yelled.

  “I knew you'd get to me next so I volunteered,” Shae said.

  “You don't have to sound so chipper about it!”

  “Look,” Shae said. “It's mending.”

  Gen tried to twist around but she couldn't see the wound. She poked at her hip with her fingers. It didn't hurt at all, but her fingers were sticky with blood. She looked at her bloody fingers, then sniffed them.

  “What are you doing?” Hope asked.

  “I don't know if I've ever really seen this much of my own blood before!” She stuck her tongue out and gingerly touched her bloody finger to it. She wrinkled her nose.

  Herron shook his head at her and started taking down the camp.

  “I'm not sure what this will do to your fight training,” Hope said. “I mean, your version of 'proper' defensive stance is a bit different from ours, now. If you don't care anymore about getting hit, I'm not sure how I can teach you more.”

  “I'll still try to do it right,” Gen said. “But at least the penalty for making mistakes isn't so big.”

  “Guess not,” Hope said. She handed Gen a rag and Gen wiped off her fingers, then her arm, then her hip.

  While they were traveling, Gen flew close to Herron and asked, “Herron? The sky's been like since we've been here. How are we supposed to know when it's nighttime and the new moon is out?”

  Herron didn't answer for a long moment. Gen was about the ask again when he said, “I'm not sure. I have a rough idea of the time but you're right. We have no way to know.”

  “I wish I'd worn my watch when we left,” Gen said.

  “What's that?” Shae asked.

  “It's a clock that goes on your wrist.” Shae looked puzzled and Gen held her fingers about an inch apart. She said, “It's a small clock.”

  Shae said. “We'll get there early. We'll have to wait for a while.”

  “Will it be safe?” Gen asked.

  “More or less,” Shae answered.

  “What does that mean?”

  “No monsters,” Shae said. “But there will be fairies there and they'll be upset.”

  “At us?” Gen said.

  “Not specifically.”

  As they flew over the broken and faded landscape of The Marsh, they saw several more cracks in the ground with Void roaches spewing from them.

  “Oh, god,” Gen swore.

  The Void roaches were swarming over the corpse of a fairy, rapidly stripping it of flesh. The fairies paused and hovered, watching the grotesque feeding below them. They watched, horrified but unable to leave, as the swarm of insects carpeted over the body. Wherever the rug of vermin parted, clean white bone was visible underneath. It took only minutes for the entire corpse to be stripped to the bones and the Void roaches dispersed, swarming back into the cracks in the ground.

  “Come on,” Herron said softly.

  Gen's lower lip trembled. “Shouldn't we do something for him?”

  “Nothing we can do,” Herron said. “He's gone.”

  Herron, Hope, and Shae started flying again, then paused when they realized Gen was still hovering over the skeleton.

  “I'm sorry,” Gen said to the bones, then she joined the others and they flew onward in silence.

  Hours later, Herron broke the silence. “There,” he said, pointing to a circle of tall mushrooms. The dusty, gray mushrooms were about twice as tall as any of them, with thick stalks and wide, flat caps.

  “That's a fairy ring!” Gen said.

  “Of course,” Herron said.

  “No,” Gen said, “I mean, we have those at home, too. It's when mushrooms grow in a circle like this.”

  “This is the entrance to the Chamber,” Shae said.

  “How do you get in?” Gen asked.

  “When the new moon rises, the ground in the center of the circle disappears and there's a tunnel to the Chamber,” Herron said.

  “Now,” Shae said, “we wait. More fairies will be here soon.”

  “Why?” Gen asked.

  “No idea. But they're on their way and they aren't happy.”

  “I wouldn't be, either, if my home was suddenly ripped out of the Realms and those bugs stripped the flesh from everything,” Hope s
aid. “But that's just me.”

  They landed outside the ring of mushrooms and waited. Hope and Gen sat together against one of the mushroom stalks, holding hands and talking quietly. Herron and Shae sat next to each other atop another one of the mushrooms, keeping a lookout for more creatures or the fairies Shae foresaw.

  “You have any friends in some of the Realms that vanished.” Shae said.

  Herron nodded. “I was just thinking about them. We were so concerned with stopping Pepper that I never really got to mourn them. Then as soon as we got back, we found out that Gen could restore them. That put gave me some hope that we'd save them, that I'd see them again. But sitting here, waiting… This is the first time I've really felt the loss.” He turned to Shae. “How did you know that?”

  “You were going to talk about them in a while. I was bored and I wanted to talk now.”

  “You're so hard to get used to, you know that?”

  “I knew you were going to say that!” Shae laughed.

  “No, you didn't.”

  “I did so.”

  Herron chuckled and shook his head, mostly smiling. Then he sighed. “Is this really going to work?”

  Shae nodded.

  “Are you being reassuring, or did you see it and you know for sure?” Herron asked.

  “Does it matter? You already said what you're looking for is hope.”

  “I don't want false hope,” Herron said.

  “There's no such thing,” Shae said. “Any hope is real hope. And like I said before, there are no guaranteed outcomes. Any number of things could change the things I see.”

  Shae sat upright and cocked her head to listen to something.

  Herron looked around. “Are they here? Do you hear them coming?”

  “Ssh,” Shae whispered. “No, I'm trying to hear Gen and Hope. I think they're kissing.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “What?” Shae said. “It's so exciting. They're very in love and I love to hear them together. I mean, not just like that, I mean I like the chemistry they have. I love listening to them talk to each other.”

  Shae turned around and lifted off from the mushroom cap. “Now they're coming,” she said.

  Shae and Herron flew to the ground. Shae was right - Hope and Gen were kissing. They stood then all four of them flew to the other side of the ring and saw a group of fairies approaching. There were ten or so of them approaching. Some of them looked wounded. All of them looked dirty, disheveled, and tired.

  Herron put a hand up to greet them. “Hey there!”

  The group of fairies halted. One of them turned and put his hands up to calm the rest of his companions, then flew to Hope, Gen, Herron, and Shae.

  “Hello there,” he said. He had a hatchet stuck in his belt and his hand drifted near it. “Let me see your wings.”

  “Pardon?” Herron asked.

  “Your wings,” the stranger said. “Let me see your wings. All of you.”

  Herron nodded to his companions. “Show him,” he said.

  They all flexed their wings and straightened them tall. The stranger quickly surveyed the fairies' wings and his eyes lingered on Gen. He flew back slightly, alarmed.

  “What's with those?” He asked Gen.

  “I'm… Uh…” Gen stammered. “I'm a little different, you see…”

  “I do see. Why?”

  “That's complicated,” Gen said.

  Shae blurted out, “She's from the human world!”

  “The human world?” The stranger asked, “How did you get here?”

  “We came to save this place,” Gen said, “to bring it back to the Realms.”

  “Go on,” the stranger said.

  “That's kind of all I know. The Oracle said that I'd be able to grow a new Heart of the Marsh. The Chamber should open today if it all still works the way it's supposed to. My name is Gen. This is Hope, Shae, and Herron.”

  The stranger nodded to each of them. “I'm Zim.”

  “Jim?” Gen asked, startled to hear the name.

  “Zim,” he corrected.

  “Oh, I'm sorry. I must have misheard,” Gen said.

  Hope squeezed Gen's hand.

  Zim gestured to his group and the rest of the fairies flew to them.

  Two of them gasped in recognition. “Ivy!” One of them shouted. “We hoped you'd gotten away! That you were safe!”

  Gen looked at the two fairies who approached her. She recognized both of them - at least, the Ivy part of her mind recognized them. “Rommy, right?”

  “Yes, of course!” Rommy said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have some bad news, I'm afraid. I'm… I'm not Ivy. She's… dead.”

  “What? Ridiculous. What are you…?” Rommy stopped talking, looking Gen up and down more closely. His glance kept returning to her wings. “What happened to your wings? What happened to you?”

  “I'm sorry, Rommy. She's gone. She died saving me. My name is Genevieve. I'm Ivy's human.”

  “Died? Died saving you? What do you mean? If you're her human, then you should be dead, too. Unless you…” Rommy drew his sword. “If you're a human and you killed her…”

  Gen put her hands up in front of her and shook her head. “No, it wasn't like that!”

  The other fairies gathered around Rommy in a mob.

  Rommy shouted at her, “Murderer! How dare you? She was the successor in The Meadows! Our Realm! Our home! After Nai, she was next in line. You won't get away with this.” He advanced on Gen. Herron and Hope stepped up to Gen's side to protest, but the mob of fairies shoved them back.

  “No! Don't do this!” Hope shouted. “You don't understand!”

  “I understand just fine,” Rommy said, his mouth curling into a wicked sneer. “Hold them.”

  Several fairies grabbed Herron and Hope.

  “Hey!” One of the other fairies said, “Wasn't there a fourth one?”

  Gen leveled her gaze at Rommy. “Just us,” she said. “And I didn't murder Ivy.”

  “Liar!” He charged at her. She tried to dodge out of the way but he tripped her and she fell to the ground. He jumped on top of her and plunged his sword into her chest. Gen cried out in pain and went limp.

  “No!” Hope screamed and tried to break free. Many hands pinned her wrists behind her and grabbed her wings tighter so she couldn't move.

  “Damn you!” Herron yelled, also struggling against the many fairies holding him back.

  Rommy yanked his sword from Gen's body. Her body kicked in a violent shudder as he slid his blade free. He stomped over to Herron, stopping in front of him. He put the point of his sword against Herron's throat.

  Herron held his head high, his cheeks wet from tears. “Are you going to murder me, too? Are you really prepared to murder a fairy? Is your mob here ready for you to start murdering fairies?”

  There was murmuring behind Herron. One of the fairies who held Herron said, “No, Rommy, no. You can't do this. You know what the pixies already did. We can't have more blood on our hands.”

  “Oh, yes, we can,” Rommy said. “They murdered our successor. I think we're justified.” He grabbed a handful of Herron's hand and yanked his head back to expose more of his throat.

  “You're making a big mistake!” Shae yelled from behind them. She was standing on the cap of one of the mushrooms. “Don't do it! You mustn't take any more lives!”

  “Get her!” Rommy shouted. “Bring her down here!”

  Two of the fairies broke away from holding Hope and two from Herron and flew after Shae. Shae flew quickly from the cap she was standing on and down through the ring. The four fairies chased Shae through the mushrooms. She weaved and dodged through the stalks and evaded them.

  The distraction was enough for Hope to break free. She kicked at one of the fairies holding her. Her kick landed squarely in the fairy's kneecap. He yelped in pain and crumpled to the ground. Hope threw her weight to her now free side and twirled to get low enough to tackle one of the other fairies around the waist. The
sudden motion was sufficient to pull her wings from the other fairy's grasp and she let go of the fairy she grappled and zipped into the air. As soon as she was clear, her bow was in her hands and she reached for an arrow.

  “Stop! Now!”

  All heads turned toward Gen. She stood, feet shoulder width apart, head high. Her top had a large gash in it where Rommy's sword and pierced her. It was soaked in her blood, but there was no wound underneath.

  “Enough!” She shouted, “No one else is getting hurt today.”

  “How…?” Rommy looked confused.

  “I told you. She died to save me,” Gen said. “It's true. She did die at my hand. But not by my choice. Ivy was a brave fairy, but she's gone now. Her essence lives on in me, and she gave her own life, willingly, to turn me into this,” she gestured to herself. “No one else will die today. Ivy was the successor to Nai. That means that now I am the successor. And Nai is dead. She died when The Meadows was taken by The Void. That means I am your sovereign now. Me.” She faced Rommy. “Drop your sword.”

  He stared blankly at her but didn't move.

  “Now!” She commanded.

  Rommy let go of his sword. It fell to the stiff gray grass.

  “Let them go.”

  Rommy nodded slowly, not turning away from Gen.

  “Gen?” Shae called from behind her.

  Without taking her eyes off of Rommy, Gen answered, “Yeah?”

  “The Chamber… It's open.”

  chapter 13

  Laura opened George's refrigerator and threw all of the old food away. He was only supposed to have stayed with his parents for a few days, but he had spent the entire week there. She threw away all of the fruit, which was a shame because she had bought most of it so they would have something better than Doritos and M&Ms to eat while they were here, which was fairly often. The chicken breasts had also passed the threshold she was comfortable with, so they went in the trash bag, too.

  I should have put it in the freezer as soon as I got back, she thought. Such a waste.

  She closed the refrigerator and took the garbage bag out to the dumpster. She passed George's sporty little Datsun and on the way back she stopped to look at it. When she left the Summers' house last Sunday night George had decided to stay, so she drove his car back down to school.