Eternal Void (Isabella Espinoza Book 2)

by K Hanson

  Above us, there was no ceiling, just a dark purple sky with no stars and the light from the crystal radiating outward. The low buzz of the wasps just on the other side of the wall was a whisper in the air. Occasionally, the insects made a soft chittering sound as they moved around inside their nests.

  Right next to the crystal, Amari was shackled upright on what seemed to be a doctor’s table that had been spun vertically. She was unconscious, with her head resting on her right shoulder. Even with her healing abilities, the wasp venom still had its effect on her.

  A man stood next to her, dressed in a black lab coat and with goggles over his eyes. He was taking Amari’s pulse as we walked in, while he also dragged the blade of a knife down the side of her cheek. A trickle of blood seeped out, trailed down her jaw, and then dripped onto her shirt.

  I drew my gun.

  “Let her go!” I commanded him.

  The scarred guy jumped in front of me, placing his hand on top of my gun.

  “Don’t do this.” He glared at me with a warning in his eyes.

  “You said they were just having a conversation. Doesn’t exactly look like a friendly chat,” I said.

  The scarred man didn’t reply.

  The man by Amari spun around, a wide smile on his weaselly looking face. He pulled his goggles up to his forehead, revealing a pair of piercing, coal-black eyes that stared at me with a kind of coldness that would make an ice cube seem warm. I’d met killers with kinder eyes than his.

  “Ah, you must be this Isabella Espinoza we’ve heard so much about. You know how to make things interesting, that’s for sure.” He stepped away from Amari, lowering the knife to his side. A drop of her blood dripped onto the floor. A moment later, the wound on her cheek closed, and the blood remained as the only reminder of the cut.

  Even unconscious, Amari shook as a shiver traveled through her body. I didn’t know if it was because of the cold air or a reaction to the venom.

  I jabbed the gun forward into the scarred man’s chest. “Get out of my way. You’ve led me here. Now it’s time for some answers.”

  “Only when you put the weapon away, I’m afraid,” the scarred man said.

  “No, no, my friend,” the Necromancer said. “She can come in. I’m not concerned about her gun. She can continue to point it at me if it makes her feel better. Step aside and let her enter.”

  The scarred man let his shoulders fall, clearly not excited about giving me a clear line at his boss, but he stepped aside nonetheless.

  “Ah, there you are,” the Necromancer said. “Now, I can see you properly. Yes, you are quite fierce-looking. I can see why you scared my companion here so much.”

  I stared at him over the barrel of my pistol, keeping it trained on him. If he stepped toward Amari again, I wouldn’t hesitate to drop him.

  “Why exactly did you need her back? What are you doing with all of this?” I nodded toward the crystal.

  “Your friend…Amari, is her name, right?” He glanced back at Amari, as if he expected a response. Of course, she didn’t say anything or move at all, but he nodded to himself. “Yes, this Amari is the key to something very important we’re working on.”

  “Yeah, your people keep suggesting you’re working on something for the good of us all. But I have a tough time seeing how killing people, experimenting on them, then sending night stalkers after a perfectly fine town can help make the world a safer place.”

  “Ah, because you haven’t seen the larger picture,” the Necromancer said. “I have. Our world is doomed, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Sure, some people are still scrambling in the dirt, cobbling together just barely enough to survive. But it won’t be enough when the monsters come knocking. We need to come up with another solution, a better solution.”

  “Let me guess,” I said, “you think you have that solution.”

  “I do have it,” he said with a short, terse tone, and then the smile returned. “But, please, you may lower your gun for now. I will not harm your friend any further. If I approach her again, you may shoot me.”

  “Then put down the knife and step away from her. When you’re done telling your little fucking story, then I’ll take Amari and leave.”

  “Maybe, but once I’ve told you about what I’ve learned, you may decide to help us instead.”

  I let out a dark huff of a laugh. “I really fucking doubt that. But, first, step away from Amari.”

  He gave a curt nod. “Very well.” He moved away from her, wiped the blade clean of blood on a towel on a workbench, and then set the knife down next to it, taking his time and lining it up in just the right position.

  A meticulous bastard, it seemed.

  If it weren’t for the evil experiments, maybe he could have been friends with David.

  “Is this acceptable?” he asked, his hands still wide, though his expression didn’t convey that he was very threatened at all.

  “Answers. Now,” I said, lowering my gun to my side, my finger resting next to the trigger guard. I’d kept the safety off.

  “You’ve certainly earned some after coming all of this way,” the Necromancer said as he leaned against his workbench and crossed his arms. “My compatriot might have shared some of this, but I don’t want you to miss anything important. This landscape is truly hellish, as I’m sure you’ve observed even in the short time you’ve been here. A world full of things that will kill you and anything they encounter without hesitation. To me, it is frankly a miracle that more of these creatures haven’t entered our world yet. The night stalkers are the best of the bunch, from everything that I’ve witnessed. And I haven’t explored everywhere. I’m sure there are horrors none of us have even imagined that lurk out there in the darkness. What do you think will happen when they find the portal and go through it?”

  “You mean if they find it?” I cocked my head. “It’s been months, and they haven’t gone through it yet. What’s taking them so long?”

  “That, I don’t know.” He uncrossed his arms and shrugged. “Maybe they just haven’t been curious enough. Maybe we were lucky, and it happened to open in the grounds of a night stalker pack, rather than something even worse. Whatever the reason, I doubt it will last.”

  “What does that have to do with what you’re doing here?”

  He slammed his fist on the workbench. “Everything. This is what I’m working on to defend ourselves. Imagine if we can cheat death and control the very monsters that are invading our world. Then we can truly fight back against whatever might come after us. But to do that, we first need some sacrifices, unfortunately.”

  “You mean like Amari? Why is she special?”

  “She’s the first one to come back to life, even after all of my experiments. After everything, she is the first true success. And while my companion delayed you, I determined that I can replicate the effects. As long as she stays here and provides us with a supply of her blood, that is. Her DNA has a unique marker that worked with the energy of this place.” He gestured toward the well of purple energy that climbed upward into the crystal.

  I narrowed my eyes to a hard glare.

  “You mean you’ll keep her here as a slave? Have you asked her about this?”

  “What does her freedom matter when she can save so many lives? Her blood, with the energy of this well, can bring an end to the death and destruction that are ravaging our world.”

  “How does Arkwright fit into all of this?” I asked.

  “Ah, I originally started talking with them about ways of preventing night stalkers from attacking or repelling them. Later, we partnered to come up with a way to control them, also using this energy.”

  “Is that what the tower in your Falls camp was for?”

  He gave a single nod. “Indeed. I was the only person willing to make my way into the Void to do these experiments. So they lent me the manpower to build this tower and haul my equipment here, and I could use the energy of this place to study these creatures, bringing them to heel. We have a couple
of them ready for our command, as you’ve already seen. When the communities around the portal submit to me, I shall provide an army of creatures.”

  “And if they don’t want to submit to you?”

  “Oh, they will when they get attacked by hordes of undying monsters.”

  “This isn’t about saving the world at all, is it?” I asked. “You just care about taking power for yourself.”

  He gave me something between a smile and a sneer. “Is it too much to ask for a bit of both?”

  I scoffed at the nauseating mixture of his bullshit and self-righteousness.

  “By the way,” he said, “I’ll have to thank Camilla for the recommendation to hire you to find Amari. She sized you up, and you didn’t even know it.”

  “You mean Camilla told you about me? She had you send that fake uncle to hire me?”

  “Oh, Camilla did more than tell me about you. She helped me build a full profile of you and how you behave. It makes you quite predictable. We just had to give you someone helpless to save. We knew that you wouldn’t turn down a job to find a missing innocent person.”

  “Why me, though?”

  “Who better to hire than one of the best detectives left in all of the Eternal Dusk? It just worked out that you made an enemy of my partner. And I knew you’d eventually find me here.”

  “So, you hired me and lured me just to kill me for Camilla? Seems awfully elaborate.”

  “Oh, I think we can dream bigger than killing you. If you force me to, of course, I’ll do that, but when she told me about your abilities and your very unique transformation, I knew that I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to lure you here.”

  “You couldn’t have planned all of this out. It’s way too elaborate.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Of course. I couldn’t have planned everything. I did guess that you would never sit by while a community was attacked by my night stalker horde, but what exact path would lead you here, I couldn’t predict that. But I knew you’d find your way here eventually.”

  “Then why set up such a big defense outside? Couldn’t you have laid out the red carpet for me and let me wander in all glamorous like? I do like beer, and even wine, if you’re feeling fancy.”

  He let out a dark chuckle that contained not a hint of real humor. “We couldn’t have made it too easy, could we? Besides, I couldn’t risk any of the rabble wandering in. But when you came in with Amari, it was too much to hope for. You actually brought both yourself and her to my doorstep.”

  Amari stirred, her head shaking.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Merely your help to fight the coming darkness. With your abilities and my control of the monsters, we can defend ourselves properly.”

  “You’re so sure that you’re on the right path, but what’s the point in defending ourselves if we just sacrifice control to someone like you? We’re just becoming monsters ourselves at that point.”

  “Well, that’s something you know quite a bit about, isn’t it?” he asked with a wry grin.

  Behind him, Amari lifted her head and met my gaze. She blinked quickly as she scanned her surroundings. Then, her eyes widened as she looked at the restraints holding her.

  I wouldn’t doom her to a life of servitude. We would find our own damn way to defend ourselves.

  It was time to get the hell out of this place. It was time to fight.

  CHAPTER 26

  I lifted my gun and aimed it toward the Necromancer. Then, I shifted it slightly, aiming at the restraint holding Amari’s left arm. I fired.

  My shot shattered the shackle that held Amari’s wrist, and her arm fell from the side of the upright table. She shook it loose.

  The scarred man jumped toward me and tried to take my gun, but I lunged forward and elbowed him across the nose. I checked him with my shoulder as I dashed forward.

  The Necromancer tried to step into my way, but I shoved him to the side.

  I got to Amari and reached up toward her right arm, where she struggled to pull herself free of the restraint. A hand grabbed my shoulder and tried to pull me back, but they weren’t strong enough to take me as I held my ground.

  I yanked the restraint free of her right wrist. She nearly fell out of the table, with her legs giving way while they were still caught in the chains. She fell onto my shoulders, grabbing me as she tried to keep from falling on her face.

  “What are you doing?” the Necromancer asked as he grabbed me and tried to pull me away from Amari. “We could have worked together.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m bringing her home,” I said.

  I shoved the top of the upright table backward so that it laid flat on its back. At least then Amari wouldn’t feel off-balance while her ankles were restrained.

  The Necromancer tugged on my shoulder.

  I whirled around to face him as I drew my knife from my belt. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Please, Isabella, let’s talk about this. I don’t want us to do anything that we can’t undo or that we might regret.”

  “You really think I’d regret not letting my friend be part of some sick experiment? Nah, my conscience will be clean. But you should stand back and let me get her out of here.”

  I yanked the restraint on her left ankle loose with a pop.

  “You want to give me the keys for the last one?” I asked. “I can just yank it free again, but I’d prefer that you just let us go and walk out of here.”

  “I’m not going to do that, detective.” He glanced at the scarred man. “Take her down for me, please.”

  The scarred man drew a long blade from his belt, something between a knife and a machete. It had a serrated edge that glinted in the purple light as it shimmered around us. He grinned like a wolf as he came toward me.

  Shit, I didn’t have time for this.

  Rather than fuck around, I just raised my pistol and planted a shot in his gut.

  As the man doubled over, blood pouring from his gut, the Necromancer lunged toward me and grappled with my gun.

  I jabbed my knife in between his ribs, and he let go of me, clutching his side.

  I rushed to the other side of Amari and pulled the last restraint free.

  She climbed off the table and leaned against me.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Getting better. That venom can really take it out of you,” she said. “I haven’t felt like this since the morning after my twenty-first birthday.”

  Still, she was already standing on her own and looking fresher. The miracles of healing quickly applied to poison hangovers, too, I suppose.

  The Necromancer straightened up, and I spun around, aiming my pistol at him. He stood between us and the exit.

  “Let us out,” I demanded, “or we’ll just go through you.”

  “You can try, but I expect it will go less well than you expect.” He pulled out some sort of device from his belt and pressed a button.

  The humming of the wasps grew louder, and a handful of them appeared over the edge of the tower. He had called for some of his nasty reinforcements.

  So, we would be facing off against two fuckers who could heal themselves and a horde of giant wasps. It was going to be one of those kinds of fights, I guess.

  The wasps swarmed in from all sides.

  We needed to just fight our way through them, then we could escape. We didn’t need to kill everything. We just had to survive and get to the door. From there, we would make the run across this wasteland to the portal, all while hoping that the Necromancer didn’t have any other creatures waiting for us. It sounded like a tall order, but it was the best we could hope to try.

  The scarred man had already healed from the bullet injury. He turned to me with a snarl.

  The Necromancer dashed toward me, too fast for me to draw my pistol again and get a good shot. I grabbed him by the throat as he reached me and threw him onto the floor. He swept my legs, knocking me down next to him.

&nbs
p; A trio of wasps swooped down, cutting me off from the Necromancer.

  The scarred man swiped at Amari with his blade. She stepped back, pressing against the wall separating the chamber and the energy well, and the blade merely cut through the air in front of her.

  Her eyes widened as she glanced back and forth. She had nowhere to go, and she wasn’t a fighter. From where I was on the ground, I couldn’t get to her in time.

  The scarred man lunged toward her, and the machete stabbed deep into her gut. Amari grabbed the blade, too late to do anything. As the man pulled the blade out of her stomach, her hand sliced open as it carved back.

  She collapsed onto her knees.

  I had to remind myself that she would resurrect. That she would recover. She had told me about the first time, and I had even witnessed her second time coming back to life. Still, it was jarring and disturbing to watch a friend die in front of my eyes. Her blood pooled out on the floor beneath her. A smug grin crossed the scarred man’s face as he turned back toward me, brandishing his blade as he approached.

  A barrier of wasps still separated me from the Necromancer as he got up and moved away. The line of wasps buzzed forward toward me.

  The Necromancer stormed over to a workbench and grabbed a couple of gauntlets, made from dark black metal, and with a smaller version of the crystal on the back of the hand.

  Some of the energy from the larger crystal pulsed and streamed out toward his gauntlets, and the smaller crystals glowed with a similar purple sheen.

  The scarred man swiped toward me with his blade, and I stepped to the side, just out of reach. He lunged toward me, and I grabbed his wrists.

  I snapped his left wrist as I pulled the sword from his hands, spun it around, and sliced it across his belly. His eyes went wide as blood and guts poured out of him.

  One opponent down. For now.

  A blast of purple energy struck me in the side, launching me across the chamber. I smashed into the far wall.

  I had what seemed like burn marks along my left side, but they kept burning and started to feel caustic as whatever energy he sent at me ate through skin and flesh.