The Man From Taured (39 page)

"The Light does not require conversation," Ezekiel said. Then he put a hand to his head, his brows furrowed. "He does not require - anything..."

Whitten leaned back in his seat, apparently amused. "Feeling a bit strange?" he asked.

Whitten opened his right hand. Inside there was a tiny glass vial. Ezekiel stared at it and then looked down at his own hand and then at the cup of coffee.

"I tried to give you a chance, Ezekiel," Whitten said. "You have confounded me at every turn. You have tried to kill me more than once. All I have offered you and your misguided members is a chance to be immortal and to put away your needs, your cares, your desires. You had chance after chance to join us, but now this must end. There is a young man that will need my guidance and I cannot have you disrupting that. Good-bye, old friend."

Whitten stood up. He put the folded newspaper under his arm and watched Ezekiel as the old man stood up, staggered, knocked the table over and nearly fell to the ground. He attempted to say something, probably something very loud, but he only gurgled and held onto his throat. Blood burst from his mouth and over his lower lip and down onto his shirt.

"Good luck," Whitten said.

Ezekiel reached out, each movement an agony and pressed a button on a device he wore on his wrist. The old man's eyes blazed with hatred, and then there was a flash of bright light like lightning and he was gone.

He stared at the place where Ezekiel had been. He frowned. That was not something he expected. He had known Ezekiel would find him and he and the Void had concocted the poison, but it was all supposed to work faster than that. The old man was tougher than he looked.

Still, no matter where the old man teleported to, the poison would work its work. Ezekiel was as good as dead.

Whitten sighed, but then he put on a pair of sunglasses and looked around. It was a beautiful day.

He had work to do.

Noble collapsed to the floor. His head felt like it was going to explode. The range of emotions that flooded through him threatened to overwhelm him. He was furious, beyond angry, ready to kill Whitten with his bare hands. He was sick to his stomach and wanted to vomit all over the floor, but when he looked at the floor between his hands, it was appearing and disappearing. He was terrified, too, fearful of what this meant for his life.

He never had a chance. From before the time he was born, before the time his own mother was born, things had been decided for him. The Void was planning him, seeing ahead into the future, seeing the child that was to be born with the blackness inside him. It had infected his grandfather and been passed along. It was more than IDEA, it was the Void, too.

Noble opened his eyes again and stared at his hands. Then he closed his eyes again and concentrated.

Yes, he could feel it now. There it was. It had always been there, but he had spent so much time during his life fighting the darkness. When he was younger, he would feel something inside of him and knew that it was darkness. Dogs, for example, would run away from him from time to time and babies scream when he was near. There was that depression that he dealt with when he was a teenager, that blackness that was always around the edges, threatening to tear him apart at any moment. The nightmares he had had for most of his life about running down a dark hallway and the darkness reaching out to him and tearing pieces out of him.

It was the Void. Always the Void. It was part of him.

Noble reached out with his mind and felt that darkness. It reached back out to him. Yes, it was the Void, but it was separate from the formless entity. It was part of him, too. He commanded it to move and then he looked down at his hands and saw a black inky substance emerging from the tips of his fingers and reach out across the floor.

"You're a monster," Noble said quietly, meaning himself, but realizing it applied perfectly to the madman hovering around him, too.

Whitten laughed. He had moved that old mirror into the middle of the room. It had seen better days, Noble saw. It was cracked in places and coated with dirt and grime of the passing decades. The wooden frame was chipped and taped back together, held intact by the power of the Void itself. Whitten stood next to it and over his shoulder Noble could see Olivia.

She was awake.

Her eyes were wide and Noble could almost hear her voice in his head. She was telling him to get up. To move.

Noble forced himself to his feet.

"You can laugh all you want, but you're a monster," Noble said. "You're a coward. All you've wanted from the time you and the Void met was to be his chosen one and you can't be. That has made you his puppet. You've never been anything but a sad reflection of the Void itself."

Whitten's eyes flickered and the mad light there faded for a fraction of a second. First there was pain and then he reached out a hand and it flashed across Noble's face. He was nearly rocked back across the room and into the wall, but he had renewed strength. He simply turned his head with the blow then swiveled it back, smiling.

"I'm the son of the Void, Augustus," Noble said. "How dare you?"

Whitten showed a sign of fear. Behind him the mirror was changing. It was no longer showing the reflection of the room and those in it. There was just churning blackness like dark water flowing and growing and shrinking.

"You cannot harm me," Whitten said. "I have served the Void faithfully for a hundred years now."

Whitten reached out and grabbed a pair of what looked like black gloves sitting on a table. Noble saw that they had wires and electronics attached to them.

"If you come closer I will send you back to your father," Whitten said.

The entire building shook. Things fell off of the shelves and the tables around them. Something cracked somewhere and Noble heard glass breaking.

Just then someone burst into the room.

It was Orval. His head covered with blood and he looked terrified, but it was him.

"Orval!" Noble said.

"Sorry it took so long, Noble," Orval replied. "We've had to fight our way through about a thousand black-eyed beings to get here."

Orval fired the weapon in his hands. A blast of blue energy flew from the barrel and hit Whitten in the chest. The madman let out screamed and flew across the room. His body collided with the huge stack of shelves just behind him and they burst apart with a racket and collapsed backwards to the floor. The components, chemicals, electrical parts, other odds and ends fell all over the floor and covered Whitten as he fell.

"Get Olivia!" Noble said. "Get her out of here."

"No Noble!" Olivia called. "I'm staying here with you."

"I think Noble has the right idea," Orval replied. "Olivia, please let me get you to safety."

Orval ran across the room toward Olivia. He was about five feet in front of the chair when the fabric of reality opened directly underneath him.

"NO!" Noble cried.

Noble saw that Whitten was not out. He was already up and gesturing with the gloved hands. Energy crackled from both gloves and from hand to hand.

Orval froze above the open portal for a moment. Beneath him the world swirled like a black whirlpool. Then he fell. Noble saw his eyes, a look of sheer and utter terror on his face, and then he was gone. The portal closed an instant later.

"You son of a bitch!" Noble screamed and he ran toward Whitten.

Whitten laughed and got to his feet, pointing his hands toward Olivia.

"I invented these gloves just recently," Whitten said. His voice was even, almost quiet. "With the power of the particle accelerator, I can now use them. They allow me to open rifts anywhere I want. They send the person directly to the Void."

There was an explosion outside. Bright orange and yellow flames leaped high into the air and smoke followed. Amid the carnage were bodies of black-eyed children, who immediately turned into black goo as they were blown apart. Even this far up Noble could now hear people shouting. The IDEA men were still battling, still fighting out there, and they were getting closer, turning the tide. There were still limits to what the Void could do, it seemed.

"What do you want, Whitten?" Noble asked.

"You have the Void within you," Whitten said. "You can open the rift wide enough for him to come through. We have the power now. I need you to help me. I need you take your destiny in hand and allow the It into this world. Once this wall is breached and this dimension is in the Void’s control, the rest of the multi-verse will fall and peace will finally reign. We can end all of the suffering, Noble. We can do it right now"

"You're completely mad," Noble said. "It's called the Void, Augustus. It's nothing. It may have helped spawn me, but I am still me. I still believe in choice. I still believe in making your own decisions. I still believe in all of that."

Noble was trying to keep Whitten distracted. Two things were causing him to do that. First, he could see that Olivia was almost out of the bonds holding her to the chair. Second, that explosion was a grenade or some kind of bomb and that meant that IDEA was almost in the building. Orval had also shown that.

"Noble, don't make me send Olivia into the Void," Whitten said. "You are the first. The first of a dynasty that will last for all eternity. This dimension will be controlled by It because this dimension has been so favored by the Light. It will be the ultimate victory for the being that was here first, has the right to be here first."

"You're babbling, Whitten," Noble said, taking a step forward. He had no weapon, but he could feel power inside of him. The Void inside him was awake now and it wanted out. "Humanity is cruel. Humanity goes to war and destroys things, but choice is the most valuable thing in this universe and all others. If you can't see that, then you're too far gone."

"Stop moving!" Whitten screamed, his fingers twitching. "Just one more step and I send Olivia away."

"If sending her to the Void is such a punishment, then how can It be good?" Noble asked.

Whitten's right eye twitched. Noble could see the utter madness behind the man's eyes. But there was more. There was a fight between what Noble was saying and what the Void was saying inside the scientist’s mind.

That was when Noble realized how it fit together.

There was a Rift inside of Whitten himself. The Void had entered him and left an opening within the man to allow itself through to control the scientist. However, the main Rift, the Rift of all Rifts, was right inside that mirror. It was the original one that had first started the entire thing, the one that had formed, somehow, within that barn so many years ago. Perhaps the experiments that Whitten had been doing back then punched through to the Void dimension more clearly than anyone else had done before. When the Void looked back through that pinhole, it had seen someone willing and ready for it. It had been the perfect accident at the perfect time.

"Augustus, let
me
show
you
something," Noble said.

He stepped forward and plunged his hand right through Whitten's chest.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Olivia break from her bonds and run from the chair. Noble closed his eyes and let his power loose.

Whitten screamed. His gloved hands grabbed at his wrist and he screamed louder. The noise he made grew higher and louder. However, there was no removing Noble's hand.

Noble could feel the Rift right inside the man's heart, his soul. His fingers entered it and he could feel the substance of the Void beneath his fingers.

"Time for this to end," Noble said into Whitten's wide, screaming eyes.

The air behind Whitten began to shimmer. Noble ignored that and removed his hand. The Rift closed behind his fingers and his fingers emerged from the man’s chest. Whitten’s scream rose to such a pitch and volume that glass to shattered somewhere in the lab and his eyes went wide. His skin began to wrinkle, his hair turning white. He aged in seconds.

Behind him the air turned bright white and something massive stepped out.

"Kolthrax!" Noble said.

The massive creature wrapped his arms around Whitten.

"Finish this, Noble," Kolthrax said. "I'll take care of him."

Just like that the two of them were gone.

***

In the areas in between Kolthrax reappeared an instant later. He released Whitten and the now-old man staggered away, gasping, gulping for air. The look of terror on his face was almost heartbreaking.

"Take me back, you monster!" Whitten yelled at Kolthrax.

Kolthrax clutched at his heart. Breaking through had cost him gravely. He didn't think he would be able to stand much longer. Still, there was work to finish.

"No, Augustus Whitten," Kolthrax said. "There is someone here who wishes to speak to you."

"Hello, Augustus."

Whitten's eyes managed to get wider and madder. He whirled around and saw the empty suit that had belonged to Ezekiel emerge from the ether.

"No," Whitten said. "That's impossible. Ezekiel? That can't be you."

"It is, Augustus," Ezekiel said. "You don't look so good. Things a little empty now that the Rift inside of you is closed? Such a shame. Such a waste."

"No," Whitten replied. "No, no. Stay away from me. You're both monsters! Stay away!"

Ezekiel moved closer, the fabric of his long coat moving as though alive, the goggles, hovering in mid-air where his eyes had once been, glowed a bright red.

"Relax, Augustus," Ezekiel replied. "It will all be over soon."

Whitten screamed yet again, and continued to do so until his vocal cords ruptured.

***

Noble stood stunned for a moment. The world was still going crazy. He could hear gunfire and other things outside. There were footsteps in the hallway. Olivia was next to him in an instant and he nearly jumped out of his shoes.

"What the fuck is going on, Noble?" Olivia said. "There were these black-eyed kids all over the house and then there was that crazy old guy and he said he could help. They got into the house. The dogs went crazy. Then things went black and when I woke up I was here and you were here. What did he do to you?"

Noble pulled her close and then kissed her. He breathed in her scent. He already knew what was going to come next, and that this might be the last time he saw her.

"There's so much to explain, Liv," Noble said. "And it's not over. I have to go into the mirror."

Olivia looked around, as if really seeing the mirror for the first time. It was churning now with black Void substance. It was like looking through a window into a black sea during a storm. Olivia looked back into Noble's eyes and there was a look of terror there.

"No," she said. "No, let's go home."

"If I don't finish this, we won't have a home to go to," Noble said. "I have to face my father."

"I don't understand," Olivia said and tears flowed down her face.

"I know and I'm sorry I can't stand here and explain things," Noble said quietly and kissed her again. "There will be people here soon that will take care of you and provide you with some answers."