The Void Hunters (Realmwalker Book 2)

by Jonathan Franks

  “Who are you?” Gen asked.

  “We're pixies. We live here, in The Void. We came to welcome you and to escort you to the settlement, and we have a proposal for you.”

  “A proposal?” Herron asked. “What sort of proposal?”

  “Let's not discuss business on empty stomachs,” Slynn said. “You will be our guests for dinner at the settlement.” Another dozen pixies stepped out of the forest behind them. They were surrounded. “I insist.”

  -

  Slynn led them into the settlement, which was made up of several dozen long wooden buildings. There were several fenced-off plots of land where crops of some sort grew. Pixies paused in whatever business they were engaged in to gape at the fairies being past them.

  They walked to one of the buildings and one of the pixies opened the door for them. Slynn ushered them inside. It was lit by a pair of fireplaces, one on each end of the room. A long, formal dining table with seating for at least a dozen stood in the center of the room and lit candelabras hung over the table. After the fairies stepped into the building, Slynn closed the door behind them.

  “Please,” he gestured to the table. “Sit.”

  Herron and Shae sat in the two nearest seats. Gen and Hope walked around to the far side of the table and sat next to each other. Slynn sat at the head of the table.

  “What's this about?” Herron asked. “Why did you bring us here?”

  “Patience, Realmwalker. You're out of your element here. Your title means nothing here and you haven't earned any honor or prestige in The Void. In fact, you should feel fortunate that you're being treated with such respect, having stolen something that belonged to us.”

  “Stolen?” Herron asked. “We stole nothing.”

  “You took The Marsh out of The Void,” Slynn explained. “That was ours.”

  Gen smacked her hand on the table. “We restored The Marsh back to the Realms where it belongs!”

  “A deal was made with some fairies that the three Realms whose Hearts were taken would be a gift to us in exchange for our—”

  “That deal died with the fairy who made it,” Hope sneered.

  Slynn continued, “Non-interference with the Realms. We were handed three convenient gateways into the Realms, and a deal was struck between the Void Master and the Reaper. Now,” Slynn titled his head in thought, “if you're telling me the Reaper is dead and you're trying to take back the Realms, then it sounds like our deal doesn't hold any longer.”

  Gen crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “What you're saying, then, is that if we continue on our way to bring The Caverns and The Meadows back to the Realms, that… What? The pixies will invade the Realms?”

  “That is a distinct possibility.”

  “And if we leave,” Gen continued, “if we leave the other two Realms here, then what? Everything's all fine?”

  “You did take one of the three. The agreement has already been breached.”

  Herron stood up. “So you invited us to dinner to warn us that you're going to invade?”

  “Sit down, Realmwalker,” Slynn commanded.

  Herron put his hands on the table and remained standing.

  Slynn raised an eyebrow at Herron and shrugged. “Very well, then. Stand.” He turned to Gen. “I have been authorized to make a new agreement.”

  “Why'd your boss send you to do this?” Hope asked. “Why didn't he come to see us himself?”

  “I'm afraid,” Slynn said, “that you simply aren't worth much of his time.”

  Hope narrowed her eyes at Slynn. “Aren't we, now?”

  Slynn shook his head. “No need to get testy.”

  “What is your offer?” Gen asked.

  “You keep your Marsh. We keep The Meadows and The Cavern. We pixies stay here, in The Void. You fairies stay there, in Realms.”

  Gen and Herron locked eyes. Gen very slightly raised her eyebrows, questioning. Just as subtly, Herron shook his head.

  “We'll stop you,” Herron snarled.

  “Will you?” Slynn asked. His voice was calm and steady and he sounded slightly amused. “You fairies, you Realmsfolk, you have armies now? Soldiers? Warriors?”

  “The Walkers are—”

  “The Walkers,” Slynn interrupted, “are such a small force that you'd never even slow us down before we had cut down every one of them. The Walkers are your best fighters, the fairies best equipped to defend themselves, and they sit, aloof, in their castles in The Sky. They won't be enough and you know it.”

  Herron looked at Shae.

  “He's right,” she said. “But that's not the entire offer.”

  Gen's eyes darted back to Slynn. “No?”

  Slynn smiled and shook his head. “No. Your seer is right. The final condition, Genevieve, is that you return home.”

  The color drained from Gen's face. Her mouth dropped open. Herron yanked back on the chair he had been sitting on and threw it to the ground. Hope gripped Gen's knee under the table. Shae looked intently at Gen, looking like she was about to cry.

  Gen took a deep breath and straightened in her seat. “Glest Slynn,” she began, “when do you require our answer?”

  Slynn smiled broadly and spread has hands wide. “Take your time. Each of you is our guest.”

  “And while we're here,” Gen said, “you know neither of the other two Realms are in danger of being returned.”

  Slynn nodded.

  “My aid will show you to your rooms. You must be tired. We'll be having dinner here in a few hours. I'll send for you.” He stood and walked toward the door, then stopped and turned around. “Oh, and Genevieve?”

  Gen looked at him.

  “I'm terribly sorry for all of your loss.”

  “Oh?”

  “Your brother is dead.” He glanced at Hope, then at Shae, then returned his gaze to Gen. “Your boyfriend is with another girl. Your parents have separated. Things in your world aren't going at all the way they should.”

  Gen's throat was tight. “My parents…?”

  “Your mother left your father for the arms of another.”

  “What? How do you know this?”

  “Geoff and Gabby aren't together anymore,” Slynn said.

  “Enough of this!” Herron shouted.

  A tear rolled down Gen's cheek. Her hands were shaking. “And Jim?”

  “Can you really blame him, Genevieve? After all, you sought refuge in the arms of another woman. Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn’t your mother?” He looked at Hope. “Have you been irritated with your love at any time lately? Felt a little snappy and couldn't explain why? It's because your human hates this one with ferocity since she abandoned him.”

  “Don't you dare—” Hope began, but Slynn cut her off.

  “If you were still there, at home,” Slynn said to Gen, “maybe your brother wouldn't have been there. Maybe he wouldn't have been killed. Maybe your parents would still love each other. But you were here.” He glanced up at the ceiling, “Well, up there. You were busy meddling in the fairy Realms, not in your world where you belong.”

  More tears spilled out of Gen's eyes. She was furious and afraid. If Slynn was telling the truth, the lives of everyone close to her were falling apart.

  “Oh,” Slynn cooed. He handed Gen a white handkerchief and returned to the door. He opened it and before he stepped outside, he said, “Genevieve, you know I'll always hold you when you cry.”

  Gen's eyes widened and she couldn't breathe. She dropped the handkerchief.

  Slynn closed the door behind him after he left.

  Gen stared at the door. Her hands shook. Tears continued to fall from her eyes. She shook her head slowly. Hope picked up the handkerchief and stood up. She stood next to Gen and held her head close to her stomach and pet Gen's hair.

  “Don't listen to him,” Hope whispered. Her voice was thick with emotion. “He's just trying to psyche you out. Here,” she handed the handkerchief back to Gen. “What does that mean? I'll always hold you when you cry?”

&
nbsp; “It's something my mom says when I'm upset.” Gen dabbed her eyes and wiped her nose. “He's full of it. I mean, really, how can he know all of that stuff? There's no way, right?”

  Shae looked very concerned and shook her head. “I'm so sorry, Gen.” She looked pointedly at the handkerchief clutched in Gen's hand.

  Gen looked down and unfolded the handkerchief. It was monogrammed, “G.S.”

  chapter 27

  “So,” Portia handed a bottle of Pepsi to Jim, “that was weird, right?”

  “What?” Jim twisted the cap off but didn't drink any.

  “Meeting your ex-girlfriend's parents.”

  “I don't know. I don't think it was weird. They're my neighbors and I've known them my whole life. I was friends with both of her brothers, too,” Jim said. “Why? Was it weird?”

  “A little.” She guzzled half of her soda and then burped. She giggled and covered her mouth. “Excuse me!”

  “Excuse you!” Jim laughed. “I'm not a loud burper.”

  “No? No volume? How about your stamina? Can you get through the entire alphabet?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “Pussy.” Portia elbowed him in the ribs.

  Jim shrugged and took a small sip.

  “Well, you'll never be able to really burp if you drink like a delicate little flower. You gotta chug it!”

  Jim shrugged. “I don't really chug.”

  “Maybe you should start. It's good for you.” She lowered her voice, doing a poor caricature of a masculine voice. “It'll put hair on your chest.” She puffed her chest out and smacked Jim hard on the back of his shoulder.

  “What in the world? You're violent today! Poking me, smacking me. What's the deal?”

  “Mmm,” she replaced her jock voice with a sultry tone, “you don't want me to be rough with you?”

  “Not like that!”

  She leaned behind him and kissed his shoulder. “Is that better?”

  Jim thought for a moment. “Half better.”

  He lifted his arm and Portia bent forward and kissed the side of his chest.

  “Is that better?”

  Jim shook his head. “Nope. I hurt my lips, see...”

  Portia raised her eyebrows in amused surprise. “Oh, did you, now?” She screwed the top back on her bottle and put it next to her on the bench, then she turned Jim's face toward her and kissed him. She licked his upper lip when she finally pulled away.

  “Mmm,” she smiled, “you taste like Pepsi.”

  “So do you.”

  She tipped her chin down to her chest, adjusted her shoulders, then looked up, away from Jim, and belched again. She started laughing. Jim just looked at her and she laughed harder. She was trying to say something, but she was laughing so hard, Jim couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

  “What?” He caught her laughter and started laughing, too.

  Portia wheezed, trying to get herself under control. Tears moistened the corners of her eyes. “I said...” She laughed again and waved her hand. “Now... I said now... I must taste like... pizza... Oh, my sides hurt!” She snorted and then laughed even harder. She pointed at her face and said, “I'm hysterical!”

  Jim laughed, too. He was feeling pretty good. He tried to remember whether he could laugh just from hearing Gen laugh. He couldn't think of any time when that had happened, and decided that maybe he was happier now after all. He decided that today, he wasn't going to chicken out. He was going to say it.

  She was still laughing and she snorted again.

  “Portia?”

  She sat up straight and tried to catch her breath. She made panting noises. “Oh, phew. I'm okay!” She tried to calm herself down.

  “Portia?”

  She wiped her eyes and looked at Jim. “Yeah?” She sniffled and shook her head clear.

  “I love you.”

  She tilted her head to the side and her expression softened. “Oh, Jim...” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

  Jim hugged her back, but he figured she probably wasn't going to say it back to him. Now he knew how Gen must have felt when she would tell him but he couldn't say it back. Was that even love, then? Was that the same thing? It doesn't feel the same as this, he thought.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered in his ear.

  Jim's eyes closed and he sighed in relief, loving that when he inhaled with her hair in his face, he could smell Portia's shampoo. She smelled like strawberries.

  -

  George picked up the breakfast dishes. Laura's first class started earlier than George's on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he usually did the dishes before he had to leave. Today, he didn't wash them. He simply stacked them in the sink.

  It was getting cold in the mornings now, so he put on his boots and his jacket, then slung his book bag over his shoulder. He locked the door behind him and walked down the stairs. A line of empty beer cans hugged the wall from the top of the stairs all the way down each flight, around each landing, all the way to the first floor. George guessed it must have been over a hundred empty cans. He shook his head and went outside.

  He could see his breath in the cool air. As he walked past his car, he saw that there was a smiley face and a heart traced in the frost on the window. Inside the heart was a fancy letter L. He frowned at it and walked to class.

  He had a hard time concentrating. His mother had called him a couple days ago to let him know that she was back home and everything was pretty much okay between her and his dad. Laura seemed just as relieved as he did.

  Now that his parents were back together and doing okay, she wanted to know when their parents could meet. He said that they should probably give them a little more time and she said that they shouldn't wait forever. The semester was going to be over in a month and a half and then she was going to be done with school and they were running out of time and she didn't want them to meet for the first time at the actual wedding.

  Somehow, George was trying to remember but couldn't figure out exactly how, that escalated into George saying she was silly and impatient, and then Laura said he was being selfish and insensitive. “You can't just sit there and grieve your life away. You're missing everything else,” she said when she was leaving, then she slammed the door behind her.

  This was their first big fight and he didn't know what to do. Normally, he'd call his dad for advice, but his dad had pissed his mom off enough that she left him for a while, plus the fight was about his parents in the first place. He wasn't sure where else to turn. None of his school friends had serious girlfriends and their opinions were not remotely helpful in situations that involved women.

  He decided to write Laura a note and he zoned out for the rest of his class. He figured that if he was mad and she was mad, they might say more things they didn't really mean, but he could get all of his thoughts out at once and edit them before she heard them. He composed several outlines, had a handful of false starts, but, finally, he was happy with his eleventh draft of the letter.

  “Laura,

  You're right and I'm sorry.

  Love,

  George”

  Perfect, he thought.

  -

  Molly burst into Portia's room, flinging the door open. A poster unstuck from Portia's wall. Portia had her big, soundproof headphones on. She was doing homework and she didn't even notice Molly's dramatic entrance.

  Molly ran up to her sister and pulled her arm.

  Portia slipped her headphones off, then saw that only half of the Talking Heads were now visible on her wall. She snapped at Molly, “What?”

  “Shae says that Gen might be coming back home soon!”

  “Shae? You're talking to Shae again? I thought Shae was gone on an adventure!”

  “She is on an adventure! But something went really wrong and now she says that Gen might be coming home and it was super important for me to tell you!”

  Portia dropped her headphones on her desk. “And who the hell – who the heck is this Gen she
wants to warn me about?”

  “You know,” Molly said urgently, “Gen!”

  Portia narrowed her eyes. “Wait. You mean stupid Jennifer Summers? Jim's ex? Who went to boarding school in Nova Scotia or wherever? That Gen?”

  Molly's eyes were wide with worry. She nodded. “Uh huh.”

  Portia smirked. “And how, precisely, does Shae know about this chick?”

  “They're friends! She's on the adventure, too!”

  “Are you trying to tell me that my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend is on an adventure with your imaginary fairy friend?”

  Molly pouted. “She's not imaginary! She's real! And she's not my fairy friend! She's your fairy friend! And she's trying to tell you something and you aren't listening to her! Don't be the s-word, you p-word!”

  Molly whirled around and ran out of Portia's room. Three or four times, Portia opened and closed her mouth, trying to think of some good parting words that would work on a six year old. She couldn't come up with any. What was the p-word again? Portia wondered.

  Portia spun her chair around. My fairy friend? What does she mean Gen is coming home? And who cares, anyway? He wouldn't go back to her. He couldn't. He loves me and I love him, too. She shook her head, slowly, then shook it rapidly to try to clear her mind. No, he definitely loves me, she told herself.

  She tried to finish her homework, but she couldn't focus on it. She kept looking out the window, watching the sky get darker. She sighed and picked up her cordless phone. She called Jim.

  He answered. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Portia said. “Miss me?”

  “Yeah.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I missed you, too. Can I ask you something weird and pathetic?”

  “Of course,” he said. “You're not weird or pathetic. I think I'm the one holding the title on both of those and I can't quite manage to give either of them away.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Portia laughed. “You aren't any weirder or patheticker than anyone we know.”

  “Oh. Thank you. What did you want to ask me?”

  “If Gen were to come home now, today, would you still love me?”

  Jim was quiet for a moment. The moment stretched long enough that Portia started to panic. She took a breath to start talking so that she could end the silence when Jim said, “Yeah. I would.”